A girl lay sprawled upon her bed,
hot pink ear pods screwed in her head.
—Hey babe, she said to Leo more than me,
and stretched her honeyed limbs, yawning.
Trudy, I later learned, was flunking badly.
But she was beautiful in that big-boned
American way, with straw-blonde hair
and cat-eye lenses, the pupils expanded
to let light in.
8
I didn’t mix much but attended lectures
dutifully. In tutorials I never said a word
and avoided the herd of students who
drank beer or coffee until all hours.
—North darling, you’re boring me, said Trudy
one evening when her plans to go out
fell through. I watched her cup four
Twitchers in her hand and swallow
them with Choc Coke. Through
her chatter, I kept reading.
9
—North! Dad yelled when he phoned,
as if I couldn’t hear him so far away.
—Are you okay? And your room?
What’s that? The weather’s gone crazy.
Hail storms, hurricanes. Nothing here yet.
It’s all up your way. I’ll get your mother. She’s worried sick.
I stretched out on my mattress, took
out a Pipe Dream and sucked on it
till their voices became a faint litany
of tinny complaints, my home a dot
on a painted bay.
10
The anniversary of Finn’s death came
and went. Dad’s heart problems were
always there. And whatever I said
or didn’t say, calls to my mother
always seemed to end with one of us
throwing the phone away. Queensland
weather was turbulent: beautiful one day,
tsunamis the next. Seasons out of sync
and petulant, though nothing touched
the University precinct. South bound,
the weather drifted. That year it even
snowed in Melbourne.
—Crap, man, said Trudy. How obscene!
Who the hell would want to live there?
We watched it on the wall screen,
Melbourne laced with white-lashed
waves snap-frozen on the point
of breaking.
11
The campus buzzed on weekends.
I declined all invites, buried myself
in work, drew up a reading list
and would have stuck to this, but
Trudy’s Disney Gang distracted me.
Every weekend she and her friends
crammed in our room. Like Trudy,
the girls were beautiful, supple
as young trees newly planted.
The boys wore trilby hats and faded coats from op-shop racks.
Beside them, I felt plain and bland
as the reproduction pine cabinet
where my clothes were stacked.
Trudy drew me in, the way
a lamp draws moths into the light
despite the risk of incinerating.
12
—North, darlin’, this is Sue, said Trudy,
sitting languid, bronze legs parted
beneath her dress.
And Katie. Leo, babe, say hi to North.
—Hello again. Leo offered me
a thick-lipped smile, revealing
those baby teeth once more.
I determined not to look at them
but Trudy flung her bangled arms
around us both and, laughing,
fell back on the bed.
—Drink up, sweetie, drawled Leo,
raising the glass towards my lips.
I drank and felt the Heaven surge,
pale blue and sweet through heart
and lungs, bones, blood, kidneys.
My skin a lake whose surface
when touched, rippled as if blown
by wind.
13
We burst through the gates
of Disneyland like an explosion
of over-ripe fruit; moist and fleshy,
oozing juice, which Leo licked off
from my mouth. I licked him back,
my tongue trawling from chin to brow.
—Grrrrrrr! he said and slung one arm
around my neck. We stumbled along
Main Street with its diminutive shops
for little kids, and hassled a mob
of fellow students paid to dress
in Mickey Mouse suits.
—It’s a fucking plague! roared Leo
above the marching band
and tweaked the arse of Alice
in Wonderland.
14
We were off our tits on Heaven;
planetary, endless and tumbling
as if through infinite space. Whirling,
crazy, fast as the spinning world itself.
Raucous and amuck. If the queues
were long we jumped the ropes, rode
Space Mountain a dozen times, piffed
lollies at kids in the carriages.
—Drink up, you guys! said Trudy. Drink!
—Yes, Mother Trudy, Leo said, bowing
his head, mock-reverent, while Trudy
poured the Heaven’s dregs into our
plastic Mickey cups.
15
By three p.m. the drug began to thin.
We lay in a clump on plastic grass
beside the Haunted Mansion gates
and looked at white clouds gambolling
across the sky like sheep.
—Baa-aa, said Trudy, as she passed
the Pipe Dream down the line. I took
a lazy toke, felt scarce awake
when something gushed between
my thighs. I sat up quick.
—North, said Leo, your arse is wet.
—Don’t worry, drawled Trudy. It’s a side
effect. It’s just that you’re not used to it.
—Oh sweetie, said Leo and cuffed
my head.
16
Leo took me to my room and waited
while I showered and dressed, lying
casually on my bed. I kind of hoped
that he might have left. But despite
the ghost of an argument about essays
due and stuff to be read, my head gave
in though my heart played dead.
So I let him fumble with my breasts
and push his tongue between my lips.
—You Melbourne girls kiss good, he said.
17
At first it hurt, and then not much.
He grunted and withdrew his cock
then fell asleep, leaving a tree-shaped
stain on sheets I’d brought from home.
Finn’s sheets; star-spangled, sugar-pink.
—Did you come? he’d said.
I told him yes, not knowing exactly
what he meant. Jack was the only boy
I’d been with, and we hadn’t had sex.
Well, not really.
—Good girl, said Leo and kissed
my cheek.
18
Spring loosed the waves
on the frozen coast of Angler’s Bay,
Dad told me when he pho
ned one day.
His voice sounded weak and grey.
Our campus bloomed with fruit salad
trees, plump with iridescent blossom.
Cloned ducklings bobbed upon the lake, courtesy of our postgrad students.
And every Thursday afternoon,
straight after my Bioethics tute,
I let Leo insert his small hard cock,
unsure of what I was meant to feel.
Often I didn’t feel anything, just
a mild tingling, which had me
wondering if that was it.
Part 15: Soil
Angler’s Bay, 2050
Therefore there is now no condemnation.
Romans 8:1
1
Next morning I get up for work
before the sun has slid its arse
above the sea’s far brink, wash
my hair and slip on heat jeans.
It’s spring but the mornings
are chilly. The day is still,
the bay an inhaled breath.
Bear is snoring on my bed.
I drag him out for a piss
on the limp geraniums.
He crawls back in. I drop
a Clone Bone in his bowl,
and walk into the dawn,
through sleep-dazed streets.
I’m going to finish that report,
set up our next experiment,
and try not to think about Jack
and me, about what happened
between us at his place
last week.
2
By the time I reach the esplanade
the sun has travelled in corridors
of light towards the shore. The sea
splinters as the sun’s rays hit, the sand
blue-tinged with dye brought in on waves
from a new resort. Ridges of quick growth
pines soar, bottle-green, above the coast.
A cop chop drones. But when it stops
the world’s engorged with silence.
3
By six a.m. I’m in the lab and working.
Waverley slinks in about nine-thirty
and grunts something that sounds most
like hello, I think. She makes herself
a strong coffee. I don’t even try to talk
to her until she’s had three cups of it.
Despite her born-again health routine
she’s yet to give up on caffeine.
My skinfone rings. It’s Mum.
I punch voice cue, keep working.
—L-Kida airlines. We come to you, I say,
head down, intent on DNA the Little
Green Star Fish spawned yesterday.
—North, Mum says. I don’t…I can’t…
I check the fone’s vid screen on the skin
of my inner wrist: Mum’s half-dressed
in flannels with cats and dogs on them,
her uncombed hair backlit by halogen.
Cut to a close-up of Jo Green’s lips.
4
I can see the mole on Jo Green’s chin,
transported by pixels. The diamond
studs in her front teeth.
—North dear, it’s Richard, say the lips.
A heart attack. Can you get here quick?
The ground shifts underneath my feet.
Off frame my mother makes a sound
I’m slow to recognise as sobbing.
The screen jumps all about, shows
door frame, walls, the kitchen bench.
A voice, Jo’s probably, says
—Flora-something, something-tea.
Everything’s Dad-shaped.
—You’re going home, says Waverley.
She grabs my gear.
5
Waverley parks her Hydro
outside my parents’ house.
—Want me to come in?
—I’m fine, I say. Thanks, mate.
—Fone me. She taps her wrist.
I walk towards the house, feeling
bruised and ghosted like I always
do whenever I approach it. Before
I can scan security, Jo Green spills
out through the flexi screen.
—North, she says. Oh, North.
She tries to hug me but I’m stiff
with what’s not there: my dad,
his absence solid as Jo’s firm hands,
which steer me down the hall.
I hear sobbing, a quiet wood-chock
of someone swallowing hard on tears.
The kitchen smells of toast and grief.
Mum’s hands look fragile as two
bird wings cupped around her tea.
For the first time ever I see her cry.
I don’t need to ask.
I know already.
6
—North! says Mum, clutching my wrist.
Her chair protests with the force of this.
A saucer rattles. She spills hot tea.
—Shhh, says Jo Green, shhh,
and eases Mum back in the chair.
She meekly sits in her dressing gown.
Get out, I want to shout at Jo,
who has somehow assumed a proprietal
tone. Piss off, I think. Leave us alone.
Mum’s hands are cold, like lumps of clay.
I chafe them with my own.
—He went…he was… she says.
—Oh Mum, Mum, Mum.
I press my face into her chest,
surprised by the softness
I find there.
7
And from this mother place,
newfound, of warmth-wool-skin,
I raise my head. Dad’s bonsais
sprout apples on the window ledge.
To me he’s not yet dead.
Any minute now he’ll just walk in.
—Where is he? I say.
—In there, Mum says and points
at the bedroom that they shared.
I asked them to put him on the bed.
—Oh North, says Jo, I wouldn’t, no.
I don’t think it’s a good idea.
—Oh shut up, Jo, I say and grab
the whisky Dad keeps in the cabinet
with Mum’s china. I add a dash
to her cup of tea, lift the bottle up
and gulp at it.
8
There’s my dad lying on the bed
with that floral doona I never liked,
his face pale as the flowers on it.
His feet overhang the mattress end.
I’d forgotten how tall my father is,
the way he stoops to duck light fittings.
He wears corduroys and a blue-flecked
shirt, odd socks: one black, one red.
I sit on the chair beside the bed
and hold Dad’s still-warm hand.
He looks asleep, not dead.
9
Dad’s fingernails have dirt in them
from the garden that he loved to tend.
His left thumb nail has a crack in it
where he banged it with an iron mallet.
His eyelids are thin as crepe and closed
but his mouth, curved in the faintest
smile, reveals a line of crooked teeth.
He could be just about to wake and
say my name!
—Dad, I say. Dad, Dad, Dad, Da
d.
Jo stands in the doorway, hovering.
She wants me back in the kitchen
where the living sit with endless
cups of tea. But Mum says
—Jo, just let her be.
10
I stay the night in Mum’s spare
room but cannot sleep, just stare
into the dark until it lightens
into dawn. I should hang around
for a bit, I think. But the air in here
feels used and worn. My lungs
work hard. My breath is torn.
I grab my jeans, steal out the door.
I’m hit with a fist of icy wind.
Spring’s over, it seems. It’s winter
again. I blame global warming.
That much is the same. I trudge
beneath a sky whose grey clouds
guard rain jealously. 4º Celsius,
my skinfone reads.
11
Bear greets me with a half-starved
frantic look when I get in. I grab
his lead and hit the beach, let the dog
run free as cold waves numb my feet,
wading until they reach my hips.
I could just keep going, I think.
No one to stop me except Bear,
who waves an anxious tail. I turn
towards the shore and break
into a sobbing, bare foot sprint
that takes me back to the grainy
past, a photograph. I’m five again,
the shore a vast white page where
sea foam scribbles. My hand curled
up in Dad’s big palm as a mollusc
curls in folds of rock.
—Hold my hand very tight! I’d say, as if,
had he let go, the wind might lift me,
hollow-boned, into the unblinking sky.
12
It was always Dad; I named him first.
—Dad-dad-dad-dad! in the early years
when the world still glistened
with nameless things that I could own
The Sunlit Zone Page 12