The Sunlit Zone
Page 6
We haul it down the stairs
and glide off in a hiss of steam
that smells faintly of coffee beans.
We’ve planned a dive for this evening
to investigate a school of rays
that drifted into Angler’s Bay
and multiplied at a disturbing rate.
Diving comes appallingly easy to me
if I approach it scientifically.
But if Weeping Girl’s not up for this,
I’d just as soon give it a miss.
—How’re you doing? I ask her
as we turn into The Boulevard.
The sea behind the dunes shows
grey with the winter sun of August.
—Yeah, fine, she says.
—You sure, mate?
—Yep.
7
The sea’s not much to look at here
until you get beneath. Most city beaches
glisten now with artificial sand, white
as the sails that bob across the bay.
Up north the coasts are pebbled pink
and green, lilac, gold. But here the sand’s
still sand, dark white and strewn with kelp,
crabs, urchin shells; the usual stuff the waves
bring in. We swam here years ago with Dad,
who’d make-believe he was a monster come
up from the hidden world where shipwrecked
kings and giants dwelt. With seaweed draped
about his head he chased us up the shore.
We ran towards our mother who sat calm,
benign and sketching, in her straw sun hat.
I have few memories of my mother happy,
but she was happy then.
8
We swim off past the new pier curving
out across the sea, translucent and pristine.
And gradually we descend. The old pier’s
pylons squat, wreathed by shell and weed.
Meadows of sea grass wave and furrow
the way wheat moves in subtle wind.
In ocean valleys the sun’s rays weaken,
water deepens into twilight.
Then we’re in the deep.
Feeling a vertiginous tug, I force
a grin and push off from the shelf’s
hard rim into mute blackness,
where the current’s muscular arms
will drag you down indifferently,
if you don’t know what you’re doing.
We adjust our thermal skins
to suit the drop in temperature.
Add nitrogen patches to our wrists.
Set torches on high beam.
Proceed.
9
As always, I feel a seed of grief unfurl
but that’s just how it is. Finn’s fish
shuffle never really leaves. The water
is sister-coloured, if I let it be. But enough
of this. We’re diving here. Waverley points
to manta rays, a giant storm cloud moving
east, flapping black wings noiselessly.
We take a density reading, enter species,
height, weight, breadth. It confirms
there’s about five thousand of them.
—Shit! mouths Waverley. We watch
the rays till she starts shivering,
then retreat back to the shallows.
10
And walk, heavy with gravity,
up a blanket of darkening sand.
Long rays of sun fan out in clouds
of smog, majestic as cathedrals;
neon, pink. Against this backdrop,
sky ads for the footy and Choc Coke.
Waverley stumbles in front of me.
—Are you okay? I say.
—Just a bit dizzy.
—When did you last eat?
—Dunno.
—You twit, I say. You’re coming home
with me. I wrap heat sheets around
her unprotesting shoulders.
Grab her gear.
11
—Okay, I say. What’s happening?
as we sit in the Pedal Flute. Water
drifts from the estuary to the open sea.
Silence until at last Waverley speaks.
—Jill broke it off. The rhombic hardness
of her jaw prohibits anything more
than the arm I sling around her.
—Oh shit. I’m sorry, mate, I sigh,
not knowing what else to do or say
that will not make her clamp shut
what the sea has just prised open.
So I say nothing yet, just let
the waves’ faint roar offer up
their consolation.
12
Waverley comes from Inland
where the seas are artificial ones
for millionaires to trawl exotic
quick-growth species; giant clown,
trumpet fish, seahorses, nautilus.
One day across a casual drink
I asked her why she’d left the place
but she just gulped her beer down
fast. I never asked again. We reach
my place. Bear muscles through
the flexi screen as we open it and,
with his tail, knocks a lamp flying.
13
Pizza is a temporary balm. We flick
on the web and eat. I open a bottle
of Toxic City. Waverley takes a reefer
stick, gives it a long luxurious lick
and contemplates my ceiling screen:
green cows grazing on a lilac beach.
I take the reefer she offers me,
my lips numbed by its chemical fizz.
—You know, she says, the worst of it?
Jill never really left Christine. That’s where
she was last Monday evening.
The tears are running fat and thick.
She hugs a cushion to her flat chest.
I wipe the wetness from her face
as she leans her thin frame into me.
—God, she says. I’m a stupid bitch.
14
I stroke her hair, the rebel frizz of it
like fine-spun wire on my finger tips
till her breathing slows and she’s asleep.
That reefer’s done the trick. I lift
her head, slide a pillow underneath.
She flops an arm down off the couch.
I read her skinfone: ten p.m.
Outside the street is full of kids
on Motes and Beetle Boards
that spin and hover in mid-air.
Children today need far less sleep.
Time’s become an elastic thing
they bend and stretch to suit them.
My Pedal Flute beeps when I get in:
Your narcotic score is 1.6.
—Fuck you, I say and override it.
15
And drive west along The Boulevard,
winding between blank-faced boutiques
and sea before I peel back from the coast
towards dead slopes, once farmland.
At Potter’s Hill I slow down, hesitate.
Consider driving past. Too late.
My thought tags, overloaded by a rush
of feeling, won’t transmit, as if they’re
mere flesh transplants not data chips.
—Left turn. Uph
ill, I say despite myself.
The Flute swings left and up a dusty road
that winds about the Ridge where flanks
of ghost gums stand; synthetic, rigid,
unwavering.
16
I rarely have cause to drive up here.
Just the odd BBQ at the dried-up weir.
The road gets serpentine and narrow,
becomes a path, a trail, a half-arsed track
till it peters out in a scrap of grass.
This must be it: an old shack on a slab
of land, all yellow grass and weeds.
There are no lights on, no Flute. I park
the Flute beside the shack that’s held
together by not much more than ivy.
My head lamps reveal this furtive scene.
Pine trees flag the periphery. Real ones.
This land must be worth a packet,
just for these.
17
The shed door swings open easily,
as if it’s been waiting just for me.
Inside, I can just discern a heat sleep
bag, hard-copy books, a pile of clothes.
Are they Jack’s? Probably. But the place
feels rumpled, transitory, like a squat
where hippy nomads live. Outside
the wind picks up. A tree scrapes
on the iron roof. Something skitters
and the door blows shut on darkness.
Is that breath I feel upon my neck,
lukewarm and faint as a ghost’s imprint?
I feel my way through the inky black,
stumbling across invisible objects
till I find the entrance with groping hands
and jam it open with a fallen branch.
18
Beyond Jack’s stuff is a bulk,
boat-shaped, something half built,
whose fretwork in the weak light
seems to rock as if on waves.
The hull, if that is what it is,
inclines into a curve of ribs. I rest
my hand on its wooden flank, breathe in the real tree heart of it that smells
of pine, fresh cut. Most builders use
synthetic stuff. It’s cheap and far more
flexible. But this wood has a strong
bush scent, like the wood garnered
from dying forests investors purchase
for a mint. Where on earth did Jack
get hold of this? I scoop a handful
of sawdust up and cup it in my hands
as if it’s water gleaming there, not
tight-packed molecules of wood.
19
A kookaburra’s serrated laugh
breaks whatever mesmeric spell
was cast and tugs me back
outside to the Pedal Flute,
whose slender chassis trembles
in the gale. I incline an ear towards
the road but only hear the far-off hiss
of Hydros and the storm, gathering.
I reverse out quick. Scrape my door
against a gatepost. Shit! The Flute
complains through sand. I tilt
its silver body up a handspan
and descend down Potter’s Hill,
coasting around the curves too fast.
I swerve into The Boulevard
where a sulphurous wind tears up
the sea beside the road into rough pieces
and pelts the Flute with rain and leaves,
tree branches, hailstones, love, mud, grief.
20
Jack, Jack, Jack, like a fractured rib
that can never mend or be appeased.
I drag the Flute to a screeching halt
outside the Salvo’s retro shopand ask for – what? A release,
I guess, from the ghost trapped
in my head. The storm abates.
The wind ceases. Stars twitter in
the rain-washed eaves. But apart
from that, nothing. God is sleeping,
apparently. All day I’d let Jack’s
message blink upon my wrist.
Now finally I press delete.
21
When I get home, Waverley
is fast asleep. She doesn’t even
stir or wake when Bear clomps
across her face to greet me.
Red hair tendrils across her cheek.
Her fingers trail as if through reeds.
I lie in bed and watch the sky,
green-lit by the de-sal plant.
Lamps of memory glint.
I let one in: Jack’s hands,
the way they rested gently
by his side as if he were about
to bend and scratch the head
of someone’s dog for no reason
other than kindness.
Part 8: Pier
Angler’s Bay, 2035
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits.
Matthew Arnold
1
High school was a foreign land
whose shores we swam from when
the bell rang. Angler’s Bay had two
high schools now. Our parents taught
in the other one. After school we ran
to Pixie’s Café, which filled the space
between school and tea. Pixie Chang
was a giant of a woman whose face,
said Dad, sank a thousand ships.
—Richard, said Mum, she can’t help it.
But I liked Pixie with her painted
toenails and short pink dresses,
the way she slapped food down
on our tables, half-sighing.
From school we raced to grab
the glass-topped table before
the boys or the younger kids:
red-blue neon fish darting
beneath our coke and chips.
Some days they got it, some days
we did.
2
Cello had a crush on Jack that year;
a lanky, loose-limbed boy too big
for his mother’s kitchen like most boys
his age. He was seventeen, but with
a quiet gait I mistook at first for a lack
of something other boys had, despite
their broken-voiced bullshit. Jack was in his final year, with a maturity
that drew us in, as he served up
Snow Cones, Choc Coke, chips.
And Cello did what Cello did best:
giggled behind her charcoal curls
while boys gawked at the breasts
that pressed against her uniform,
ripe as fruit and ready to eat.
Jack was pensive, not Cello’s type,
in his faded jeans and well-cut hair.
She usually went for cyber punks
with mirror tats and techno gear.
3
Finn took her cues from Cello
and more than a bit obsessed,
she flared her nostrils, cheeks
flushed pink, tugging the corner
of my school jacket.
—Northy, she said. Look, look!
There’s Jack! She could scream
like the girl on that L-Kida ad.
But Jack was fond of Finn.
He made her boats and party hats
from neatly folded serviettes.
Already Cello was on to it.
—Make me one, Jack?
But he just smiled.
And she smiled back.
—What time do you finish up, hey Jack?
4
Cello and my other friends
had liberties not permitted me.
I had Finn and Finn had me
every afternoon except Friday
when she did ballet in the city.
Then I was free till Dad brought pizza home for tea. Most Fridays
I lay in a delicious icloud of music,
Kindles and android apps with Rosie
the dog, just hanging around home.
And there I would have stayed
had Cello, on a hot November day,
not prised me from my cocoon.
—I’ll give you any lipstick you want,
and that pink bangle you like, she said.
Come on, North, please. Just to the beach.
If Mum finds out I’ve gone alone, I’m dead.
5
I plodded along the tensile wall
and down the steps onto the beach
with Cello tripping ahead of me.
And on I trudged until we reached
the pier where Finn and I were
once conceived. There we just sat
and mucked about. Maybe Cello
was lonely, I thought. After all,
she wasn’t bad company. I took
the cigarette she lit and choked
on smoke till footsteps swung
me round. And there was Jack
with two Choc Cokes and a bag
of donuts in his hand.
6
—Hey North, said Jack. I didn’t think…
and gestured vaguely with his hands
at gifts not meant for me. But Cello
was quick.
—That’s cool, she said. North’s gonna
wait here, aren’t you North? She’s got
homework, some beach project.
—You sure? said Jack.
—Uh-huh, I said. You go ahead.—Okay, he said.