The Sunlit Zone

by Lisa Jacobson

  12

  We chat about Cello’s floral fish,

  designed to match her couch fabric.

  About Amy Hilton’s streak, Gold Leaf

  induced, at a Buzz Club in Los Angeles.

  I take another slice of cake, a little stale

  but sweet, the icing thick against my teeth.

  Feel sugary and well fed so I’m off-guard

  when Cello says

  —I don’t know how to say this North, but…

  —What?

  —I think…

  —Shit, Cello, what is it?

  Cello hedges sometimes for effect.

  —I saw a bloke.

  —A bloke? That’s it?

  But my stomach does a flip.

  My blood begins to tick.

  The muscles in my heart tighten.

  —Well, rather, I saw Jack. I’m sure of it.

  —Cello, it’s been years.

  —I know. Weird, isn’t it?

  13

  At the mention of Jack’s name again

  (two times now, in less than a week)

  it’s like a blade flicks between my ribs.

  I can hardly talk, much less breathe.

  —I shouldn’t have told you, Cello says.

  Now you’ve gone all funny. Talk to me.

  —Where did you see him? I say, faintly.

  —In a Ute Flute, driving down Main Street.

  I grind my cake into bits and drop them

  at Big Cat’s giant feet.

  —Hey! says Cello. You’ll make him sick!

  But by then her voice is far from me,

  drowned out by a cargo ship of tears;

  a weight I’ve harboured all these years.

  I grab my things. Tell Cello that I have

  to leave.

  14

  At home the past floods me too fast

  to combat it. What the sea takes out

  it washes in; mottled, gaping, fish-like

  things that fall apart as I grasp at them.

  Like the creatures Bear brings in half

  dead; fluoro foxes and mini-pigs,

  the bounty of his hunting trips

  that twitch a shuddering leg or wing.

  The garden below my flat is filled

  with mangled, Bear-caught things

  buried beneath rocks and weed.

  15

  I have jam on toast for tea,

  thick slices I eat miserably in bed

  and take a dose of Flight Tabs.

  Four will send me whizzing

  through the galaxy or so the packet

  guarantees. But this is a generic brand

  bought cheap so all I get is a fuzz

  of stars I try to reach by flapping

  on small stumps of wings. I wake

  with Bear’s nose in my ear. I fone

  Waverley and tell her I’ll be late in.

  —Okay, she says in a clipped off voice

  like someone biting quick through thread.

  Something I’ve done? Too bad, I think,

  and sink back into sleep.

  16

  And dream of swimming with Jack

  in a leaf-green sea. Beneath us

  drift the somnolent beasts

  and trees with unfamiliar fruit

  like peaches, but that’s not quite it.

  Jack looks no more than fifteen

  but the hands he runs all over me

  are man’s hands. There’s a clay-like

  moistness to our skins so it’s hard

  to say where I finish and he begins.

  I try to swim to the sea’s surface

  but can’t and wake, struggling

  for breath. I grab Bear’s lead.

  Jog fast along the beach.

  A good fast run will fix all this.

  Part 6: Hair

  Angler’s Bay, 2032

  Lightly, as after death, I imagine myself in skies past this one,

  For there’s no one anyplace who isn’t secretly going away.

  Carol Frost

  1

  Cello got curves early in places

  where the rest of us were flat

  or just lumpy. A rash of boys

  pocked, lanky and raucous

  with uncertainty would follow

  where she went. For Cello

  was languid, arched and sleek,

  her legs poured into skins

  of gold and blue, the colours

  of Angler’s Bay Primary School.

  And where her thighs almost

  but not quite met, they left

  a little sunlit gap boys longed

  to poke their fingers in.

  And she knew it.

  2

  There were others like Cello

  with enhanced attributes: Dream

  Genes children who never seemed

  to quite fit in with the local stock

  of mongrel kids. The Toby twins

  who spent their lunch hours intent

  on maths, their heads bent low,

  and Casey Jones, whose mastery

  of the flute made the world contract

  into a ball of sweet and shining notes.

  Designer kids clung to their own kind,

  except for Cello who drifted, finding

  best friends who never lasted.

  She still came over most weekends

  but we barely talked at school,

  as if adhering to an unspoken rule.

  3

  I too kept precarious company

  with girls whose bland aura

  afforded me a sense of safety.

  We were small fish in a dangerous

  sea less lonely than the library.

  At lunch, my sister paced the yard

  or trailing after, called

  —Northy, come on! Play with me!

  I tried hard not to hear until

  the invisible cord that stretched

  between us grew too taut and thin.

  I agreed then to inspect whatever

  she held out to me, returning

  way too late to mend the fracture

  in the bone of schoolgirl chatter

  Finn had made, unwittingly.

  4

  That was the year when Devil Flu

  struck Tasmania, killing wombats

  and wallabies too. No animals live

  there now unless they’re immune.

  Meanwhile we were almost teens,

  too big for primary but stuck with it.

  That winter at our swimming comp

  we shivered in our thermal treads,

  goose-bumped in the hectic din.

  Finn won her heats but I never did.

  The start gun held an unspecified dread.

  I’d just as soon watch from the bench.

  5

  Finn was against Cello in the final race

  and a lap ahead, piercing the water

  like a laser needle. Cello was fast

  but beside my sister she was slow,

  as if held back by the undertow.

  Finn reached the pool’s far end

  and fish-slick she was off again,

  winning her race too easily.

  Cello sat down, sleek and wet.

  She glanced at no one, right nor left,

  just dried her long and supple legs.

  But casually, as if she didn’t care.
>
  6

  In the change rooms Finn wore

  a gap-toothed grin as she sat naked

  on the bench, untangling knickers,

  socks and skins. Most of us were caught

  up by then with dressing behind towels

  or in cubicles, to conceal the fuzz of hair

  we liked to pretend just was not there.

  Then Cello stepped out of the shower

  to reveal the pelt between her legs;

  soft and black, luxuriant. Someone

  giggled. All of us stared. Monstrous,

  she was, as she stood there,

  this perfect girl with too much hair.

  7

  Finn needed water like the rest of us

  need air. Without it her skin tore easily.

  At dinner she drained the jug empty.

  Our mum despaired.

  —You can’t live on water!

  —But Finny can! my sister said.

  Neighbours found her in their pools,

  this white-haired girl who brokeall the rules our parents set.

  Dad built higher fences, installed

  locked gates so even our dog Rosie

  couldn’t escape to pilfer the Shale Road

  rubbish bins.

  —Wherever you go, North, Finn goes too,

  my mother said to me regularly.

  —Bullshit! said Cello when I told her this.

  —Bullshit, I said, but silently.

  I wished Finn could be made ordinary

  or didn’t exist, then felt the guilt of it

  tumbling in.

  8

  Cello, Finn and me: a triangle taut,

  tight-seamed, with Finn at the apex

  tugging me. That summer the siren

  went off heaps. The UV index hit

  twenty and the beach was closed.

  Our mother had banned us from

  using screens until Finn stopped

  talking with an American accent.

  So we had to seek other pursuits:

  chalked worlds of flying, skimming,

  whizzing things in the veranda’s

  concrete shade. But when Finn

  broke our chalk into little bits,

  Cello and I left her to it.

  —Finny play too, my sister said,

  one hand on the door knob, rattling.

  —Don’t! I hissed. Stop it! Mum! Finn’s

  wrecking everything!

  —I’m going home, said Cello bluntly.

  —Take me! Take me! my sister said,

  and grabbed her wrist with a limpet

  clamp that Cello peeled off artlessly.

  9

  —North, said our mother, I know it’s hard…

  —But Mum, she’s always following me!

  That night I waited up, angry,

  until the rest of the family was in bed

  and stole my mother’s sewing scissors.

  My sister’s braids between the blades

  crunched sweetly. She murmured,

  stirred, but kept sleeping, her pale

  eyelids fish-flickering. I whispered

  a prayer of thanksgiving and then

  I stuffed her plaits in the kitchen bin.

  10

  In the morning Finn woke early.

  —Look Northy, lookit! I got new hair!

  The stubble on her head was white

  as frost on a paddock in the spring.

  —Your hair! said Mum, slow with sleep.

  Oh no…Richard! Look what Finn’s done!

  —I didn’t do it, but Northy did.

  Dad raised his ginger head, rubbed his eyes

  with a freckled hand and, frowning, said

  —North! Something to do with Cello, yes?

  —I guess, I said and braced myself

  for some dark punishment. But somehow

  the punishment never came. Only a sharp

  edged silence like the kind my mother made

  when she sliced a loaf into neat squares

  to make our lunch for school.

  —New hair, said Finn, on my fancy head.

  11

  In September, along with other sales

  and deals, Star Jet raffled off flights

  in space that cost no more than a trip

  to Perth. On iTV we watched, transfixed,

  as Sharon from Epping and Bindy’s kids

  floated at zero gravity in silver suits.

  And in the hubbub of that afternoon,

  Cello got hold of a few Skin Tabs

  we took at my place with orange juice.

  Cello chose purple. I chose green.

  Finn took the half I offered her,

  and swallowed it without question.

  Cello rolled her eyes.

  —You idiot, she said. You’re wasting it.

  But I was getting tired of this.

  12

  By evening, Cello’s skin was purple,

  ours were green. Finn, transfixed

  by Quad Squad on 3DV, said nothing

  until her show finished and then

  she only said one thing.

  —Northy, North! We’re jumping beans!

  When Mum called us for dinner,

  she let out a shriek.

  Relax, I said to her. It’s only skin.

  —Relax? North, you’re emerald green!

  Cello, go home please. I’m calling your

  mother right this minute.

  —It’ll fade, said Cello, nonchalant.

  And so it did, to the palest sheen;

  colour of frogs and corpses, retro

  décor, lettuce leaves.

  Part 7: Boat

  Angler’s Bay, 2050

  You, sent out beyond your recall,

  go to the limits of your longing.

  Embody me.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  1

  The seaside jog stirs my endorphins

  from a slovenly sleep. A mild gratitude

  settles in for dogs, sand, surf and sea.

  I drive to work about ten-thirty

  – we’re diving later, I’ll need the Flute.

  I’m wondering what’s up with Waverley.

  When I foned her earlier, she was clipped

  and curt. At the lab she’s looking delicate,

  in an old brown jumper with holes in it.

  Her scarlet hair’s in a scrappy knot.

  When I come in she doesn’t look up,

  just keeps an eye on the hydroscope.

  I watch her fingers swivel the lens.

  Waverley has beautiful hands; slender,

  bone-white, except for the spots

  that Gallopers leave. Beside them,

  mine look like lumps of meat. I place

  a hand across her own but she just

  keeps on working.

  2

  It’s weird in the lab without Waverley’s

  dingbat chatter. We locate a few tomato

  genes in a flounder sprouting a leaf-like fin.

  There’s been lots of weird fish in the last

  five years since a tsunami hit Gen Corp’s

  laboratories and washed its experiments

  into the Tasman Sea. Midday, my skinfone

  zings. The scan reads: no number/no ID.

  I thump my wrist on the lab’s hard bench

  to get more detail. Sometimes this works,

  but n
ot today.

  3

  Mid-arvo, my skinfone transmits

  just as I’m finishing an autopsy

  on another flounder clogged

  with seeds. The fone chirrups.

  I sync it quick, absorbed by work

  and not thinking. This time it reads:

  — north, fone me please.

  I request the caller’s origin.

  Melways map 2567.

  Potter’s Hill. Refer 8X.

  4

  Just then, there’s a thump at the door

  downstairs. I stiffen. Waverley checks

  the flexi screen and swipes at tears.

  —The blokes from the footy team, she says,

  bleakly. Come to collect a star fish kit.

  I almost hug her with relief.

  Two big blokes clomp in.

  But something about the youngest

  unnerves me. The way his nose inclines,

  the ash-blonde hair, the goatee beard.

  I shrug off the thought like a half-formed

  track. Today every dickhead looks just

  like Jack.

  5

  —The Little Green Star Fish, says Waverley

  and doles out a spiel about cloned starfish.

  Waverley, I think. Put some life into it!

  We’re trying to sell these things.

  I steer her to the store room, tenderly.

  —Stars have to be monitored and fed, I say.

  But they heal wounds quicker than anything.

  I peel a star from the tank’s glass wall,

  fluorescent green with pink tendrils,

  extract fluid from the clone’s five points,

  make an incision in a sea slug’s skin

  and insert the fluid into it. The slug’s

  wound vanishes.

  —Spooky! says the guy with flaxen hair.

  The boys at the club will just love this!

  6

  At five p.m. I flick off the screens.

  Waverley packs the diving gear.