of the boy remain but really
Jack’s all man, his chest much
broader than it used to be.
A silver cross hangs around his neck.
—It’s good to see you, North, he says,
and swipes my cheek with his big
knuckles. The old electricity runs
through me.
21
I sit on my hands and compress,
firmly, all the questions uncoiling
inside my head. I ask instead:
—So, where’ve you been? Ten words
or less. I don’t want to hear the whole
sorry mess. And hold up my hand
like a traffic cop. Playing the smart
arse settles me.
—Well, says Jack. I got married
and divorced. I have a daughter
but she lives in Christchurch.
—That’s fifteen words. I said just ten.
Now my mouth’s working, I’m enjoying
this. And there is Jack the boy again,
despite the hair and sun creases.
—And you? he says. What’s happening?
I try to find the right place to begin
but it’s like pulling at threads that have
no end and might just keep unravelling.
—Not much, I say, has changed around here.
22
Jack raises his mug up to his lips
and lifts one eyebrow quizzically,
a gesture from his younger years.
I recall the warmth of his mouth,
the coffee-flavoured taste of it.
—But you’re a scientist, eh? he says.
I know that much. A degree in genetics
and biology. And you work with a chick
called Waverley.
My nostalgia falls in a heap.
—You’re stalking me?
—It was a free country, North,
last time I checked. Hey, I looked
you up but that was it.
He rubs a hand across his chin;
unshaven, crumpled like the rest
of him. The gloss has gone
now that I’m angry.
23
I stare at my hands, blink back
the tears. Note a split nail, pick
at it. There’s way too much time
between Jack and me that can’t be
rewound or retrieved. He puts
his hand on mine, too late. I fight
the softness that I feel.
—North, he says. You were the first
one that I wanted to see. If only out
of courtesy.
—Courtesy, Jack? Fuck you! I say
and scrape back my chair with
a majestic screech.
—North, wait. I didn’t mean…
—Sorry, Jack. I can’t do this.
I grab my bag and walk out quick,
leave him at the table with a spilt coffee.
Don’t look back, I think.
Part 12: Ash
Angler’s Bay, 2036
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
Mary Oliver
1
Christmas came and went again
but we were still pale-faced and lost
in the wake of Finn, the house a cave
we drifted through and meals empty
of all ritual. We just sat mute, moving
the food around our plates for a decent
interval before resuming a slow retreat,
each towing the weight of separate griefs;
our gestures slow and deliberate
like boats overloaded with disbelief.
2
For days, how many I can’t say,
I curled up in my sister’s bed,
my face turned to the wall.
I felt, if anything, shell-peeled,
snail-raw; antennae retracted inside
my head to avoid the sea’s dark flow
and ebb. And no one could reach me;
not my mother whose words betrayed
the thick furred tail of a valium sleep.
Not Dad, whose hands shook terribly
(he could scarcely hold a mug of tea).
His heart had been beating too rapidly.
A weak ventricle, the doctors claimed.
Sometimes he stood outside my door
and said flat-voiced
—North, let me in.
3
But I wouldn’t let anyone in
except Rosie, who curled up
on my bed and slept. The gulls’
injurious squawks and the waves’
harsh music on the shore formed
a dull rendition of a musical score
I tried hard to erase. Only thrash
bands infiltrated. The Plastic Dead,
Synthetic Poodles; rebel groups
with guttural chic. Their discordant
noise subdued my grief so I couldn’t
hear it scratch and paw at the doors
and windows anymore.
4
Drugs were an efficient anaesthetic
to numb the sharp incisions of mourning,
which sank its fangs in without warning.
Cello smuggled Pipe Dreams in.
My folks encouraged her to visit
in the hope that she just might elicit
some sort of response from me, I think.
Cello, who knew nothing at all about grief.
This girl who had never lost anything more
than a bangle from the Surf Chick store.
Sometimes we watched a 3DV. I slept
through quite a few of these. Anything
to distract me from the ghost of Finn,
the amphibian trace of this absent twin
who would not die, despite drowning.
5
Perhaps it was Cello’s designer genes
or a natural capacity to shrug things
off. But after the shock of losing Finn,
Cello seemed to recover too quickly.
—Oh my God, Mrs. Croft. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t met Jack, Finn would still be here.
I’m really, really so sorry.
—It’s okay, Cello, my mother said,
a mechanical hand patting Cello’s head,
her voice as grey as wet cement.
It’s no one’s fault. It just happened.
But Cello’s shoulders had a gorgeous slope.
Pain touched them lightly, then slid off.
6
Celebrity pole dancing was hot that year,
with daily comps on iTV that Cello
followed religiously.
—So, North, who do you think will win?
The Gyro Girls or The Sugar Twins?
She paraded her latest lingerie,
coral pink with a silver trim.
Exotic as a hybrid bird, she twirled
around my unmade bed. I exhaled
smoke from my last joint, watched it
curl and wreath beneath the door.
Before Cello left I asked for more.
7
—Cello, said my father, no more weed!
—Sorry, said Cello, just trying to help.
—Well, think, Cello! Just use your h
ead!
In the hall outside my small refuge,
I heard Cello sigh and scuff the boards,
heard her footsteps clatter, then recede.
I shook my empty Pipe Dream packet,
feeling invisible as a ghost half-glimpsed.
I’d been thinking a lot about death lately
in clinical detail, like a science project.
But something always prevented me,
some angel guide who barred the way.
I raged against it the way a horse resists
the bit that restrains it from the cliff.
Cello came empty-handed next day.
—No, she said. Don’t ask me again.
8
Without drugs, the pain of grief
broke through like a battering ram
and trampled me. The air was sharp.
It hurt to inhale. I surveyed my room
in the light of day: Pipe Dream packs,
soiled clothes and ash. If I opened
a window the sea rushed in. If I kept
it closed I couldn’t breathe. My tears
fell at last with a rancid scent, as if
held too long in the bowels of me.
But some glitch overrode Cello’s
chemistry that day.
—North, she said. God, I’m so sorry.
She put down her zine and she just
held me.
9
Returning to school was like drowning
again. Pain in my sternum as I entered
it, a numbness in my extremities
as if gliding through virtual reality
or the terrain of a new country.
The bell remote, voices off pitch
and too raucous. I clutched my bag
close to my chest, a teen girl from
a teen movie. Friends were attentive
but inept at grief. We were just fifteen.
10
Angler’s Bay gave Finn a memorial.
On the town hall steps were flowers
and cards from families I had never met.
I took the long way around. The stench
of chrysanthemums made me retch.
My parents were too landlocked in grief
to consider Finn might have chosen this.
No rationale for her vanishing was ever
offered except common sense. Everyone
assumed her dead. While I was the one
who had turned my head, no blame
was assigned, though I carried it.
Sometimes I wished they’d just say it.
Perhaps a wave swept her off that ledge.
Maybe she jumped. It scarce mattered.
So I strove for closure like the final note
of a requiem but somehow closure
never came. Just the brutal assault
of the sun each day.
11
Perhaps if the sea had washed her up
or the waves had brought her body in.
But the sea refused to yield anything.
My left arm ached with Finn’s phantom
weight. The bruise she left on my wrist
remained. Small wounds clamoured
through stiff red lips but no one heard
them except for me. On moonlit nights
she called to me; rotten, putrescent.
I’d run to the beach and scan the sea
till someone came and brought me in.
Often I woke in a great panic, gasping
for air as if still drowning.
12
And what of Jack? Elusive
as a fox and as hard to track.
He wouldn’t answer my calls
or just hung up. And he left
town not long after that.
His mother phoned mine
and Mum told me. —Jack’s enrolled in the Academy
of Boat Building. In Tassie,
said Mum. It’s for the best…
A bit of a break won’t hurt anyone.
The wounds reopened,
dark and wet.
Part 13: Breath
Angler’s Bay, 2050
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
William Wordsworth
1
Despite the pain of seeing Jack
I agree to meet him once a week
for nothing more than a quick coffee.
—That’s all I’m up for, I say.
—Okay, he says, those green eyes
pondering me the way a farmer
might assess the day to see
if it will bring sun or rain.
I take Waverley along as chaperone
but she’s just chatty.
—I’m a clone baby, actually, she says
and spoons up froth from her decaf.
There are nine more of me in the world
somewhere. Shit happens, she mumbles
through a mouthful of cake.
2
Pixie’s fills with high school kids.
Nostalgia nicks me in the ribs.
Time to leave. I get up quick.
—Don’t go, says Jack. You just got here.
He grabs my arm but I shake it off.
—Sorry, I say. I have stuff to do.
—North, says Waverley, I’m a lesbian.
You think I’m cracking on to him?
—It’s not about that.
—Well, what is it?
But I’m too tired, suddenly, to explain.
I go to the counter, pay my bill,
walk out the door and keep walking
till Jack grabs hold of my arm again.
—Get off me, Jack! But the grip remains
like a stray that follows you home,
unfazed when you yell at it
to go away.
3
—Ow! I say. You’re hurting me.
We walk past the shops,
along the main street,
with Jack’s grip tight
around my wrist.
I feel a bit ridiculous.
But his grip is preferable
to its release. I don’t stop
walking till we hit the beach.
4
And only when we reach the old dune
track meandering down through sand,
only then do I slow my pace, feeling
half spent like a horse that’s reached,
at last, the home paddock. Jack’s hand
releases its tight-reined clasp, his fingers
slide down from my forearm to wrist.
I let them rest as we stare seaward,
the wind blowing cold across waves:
chameleon, cobalt, green and grey.
—Do you miss her, Jack?
—Always, he says.
He drops his hand in mine, loosely,
the way he did in earlier days.
5
Cello’s got a mood enhancer chip
inserted in her thyroid gland.
And it seems to be working, Raoul
says. Sunday, I pay a dutiful visit
but enjoy her company more than
expected. She’s shed her skins
and plasma jeans, gets around in 2K
retro gear like the frock she wears today;
a loose, white elegy to what’
s been lost.
Already she’s flowing back into herself
the way a river flows to fill a creek bed.
But some hard layer has washed away
and left her softer, more interested.
6
Blossom from the apple tree
lands on the deck in a pink flurry
as we sit drinking the French coffee
that Raoul’s Parisian rellies send.
Cello’s work plans sit on her desk:
home décor for the nouveau riche.
—I haven’t got to that lot yet but I will,
she says, when I get a minute.
Ambré wakes up from his sleep
with a febrile wail that once cast
Cello into the depths. But now
she simply rises from her chair
to fetch him from the nursery.
The scene smells of normality.
I watch him suckle at her breast.
A light breeze ruffles the hem
of her dress.
7
—How’s work? asks Cello.
I’m not used to this. Cello as a rule
lacks the empathy gene. I eat a biscuit,
delay the moment, savour it.
—Okay, I say. Got a stack of it.
Gen Corp’s in court about another leak. Our report’s due in by the end of the week.
Cello strokes the back of Ambré’s neck.
—How’s Jack? she says.
—Dunno, I say.
—Does he ask after me, or anything?
—Cello, you were hard to forget.
—Yeah, well I was a bit out there, I guess.
—A bit! Cello, that’s understating it.
We’re laughing now; full-bellied, deep.
We’ve had laughs before but not like this,
the kind that flows up mineral-rich.
—Bring him over? she says, and rests
her lips on Ambré’s sleeping head.
—Soon, I say. Not yet.
8
The Sunlit Zone Page 10