Night Swimming

by Steph Bowe

  ‘Stanley!’ I bark. ‘Get a hold of yourself!’ I sound like Mum. I’ve forgotten Stanley is a goat and doesn’t get that he’s about to jump to his death. I pull on his lead, winding it around my wrist. This only makes Stanley strain against the lead even more. He’s not a big goat, but he’s strong when he’s in a panic.

  Clancy goes to grab Stanley, half-slipping as he scrabbles against the tiles. I can barely see. For a split-second I think they have both slipped down the awning into the water. Lightning flashes again. I pull on Stanley’s lead and lean forward to grab Clancy by the arm and drag them back towards me.

  Stanley calms down, eventually. Maybe the suicidal urge in him subsides. Maybe he thinks of his father, dying before his time. Probably not. The water continues to cascade down.

  We go back to sitting as near to the middle of the roof as possible, Stanley wedged between us. I try to catch my breath, stop my teeth from chattering. Clancy reverts to his previous sullen mood.

  ‘Let’s have the conversation,’ I say, holding Stanley firmly in place. ‘Because if the water level rises any more and we get swept off, we’ll just have to deal with it in the next life, won’t we?’

  Clancy sighs, barely audible over the rain.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘This is the perfect time for catharsis. And I need something to distract me from freezing to death. You owe me. I’d be at home right now, warm and dry, up in my room, if I hadn’t come to get you.’

  Another dramatic sigh. ‘Fine. Okay. Here it is: you have always fitted in. You always belonged here. This was always your place, even though I was born here and live here, same as you. You can go anywhere you want, you’re so bloody smart, and yet you want to stay here. Since I was five, I have wanted nothing more than to leave and be someplace else, where things actually happen. But my parents will never let me go. And about Iris. The thing is, I’m not even upset that you and her are a thing, even though I like her, because how I feel doesn’t really matter if she likes you and not me.’

  ‘That’s not true. Of course it matters. And of course she likes you, just in another way.’ I know it sounds lame as soon as I’ve said it.

  ‘Whatever. There’s a point, right, somewhere in my future, where I am going to be loved and respected and accepted.’ He pushes his sodden hair back from his face, blinking through the raindrops.

  ‘We love you,’ I say. ‘Everyone accepts you here.’

  ‘People tolerate me.’

  ‘But…How much of that is just your perception, your paranoia? Like, maybe it’s all in your head?’

  Clancy laughs an unfunny laugh. ‘Could you be more dismissive?’

  ‘I’m just trying to help. What if leaving Alberton isn’t this magical solution for you?’ I realise that I am saying out loud the thing I fear, the thing that has kept me up at night. ‘What if you leave and it’s all a massive failure? How do you know whether you’ll be accepted there?’

  ‘What I do know is that I need to at least try. I need to find my people, okay?’

  ‘Aren’t I your people?’ I ask. Even I know that sounds ridiculous.

  ‘You’re only one person. I need community. I need culture. I’d like to occasionally go to a metropolis—you know, a place where there are more than two restaurants, one of them owned by my parents.’

  I nod. ‘Yeah, even I would like some more varied takeaway. Maybe a pizza occasionally.’

  ‘In Sydney, I’ll actually meet Asian-Australians I’m not related to. It’s not something you even have to think about because everyone looks like you and has the same traditions as you. You just take it for granted. We might be Catholic, but no one else here celebrates Chinese New Year.’ His voice is so quiet I barely hear it. ‘Are you ever going to get it?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m sorry. I do get it, Clance. I get it for you. It’s just hard to work out what the right thing for me to do is. And I want us to stay together, do you see? And I’m afraid that if I leave, I won’t be happy somewhere else. And I’m afraid of staying and things changing here. I’m just afraid across the board. You’re braver than me.’

  ‘Hey, no, we’re talking about my feelings here, don’t go crying,’ he says, half-joking. He reaches past Stanley and puts his sodden arm around me. ‘My natural charisma has fooled you into thinking I am fearless, and that is not the case. Right now, for instance, I am terrified your goat is going to drag me into the river formerly known as Main Street.’

  ‘Clance, if we go to Sydney and it turns out the exciting city life was all an illusion, can we come back?’ I say. ‘Return to the last save point?’

  ‘Now you’re making sense. Of course. We’ll always have each other, won’t we? God, I sound like I’m in a play. I ought to break into song.’

  I laugh. ‘You always sound like you’re in a play. And I’m not crying. It’s the rain.’ It isn’t the rain. ‘I thought you were upset about Iris.’

  ‘I’m not upset about Iris. I like Iris more as a friend than anything. We will sing duets one day to audiences who are there to see us, not for a parma. I’m just upset because it feels she’s replacing me. Where does Clancy fit in? Sorry, I didn’t mean to refer to myself in the third person. You can talk to her about your family and your life, and she’s nice and funny and beautiful, and, and, and there’s no point to me at all.’

  ‘You’re my best friend. When you decided you were going to marry Iris, did you think there wasn’t going to be any room for me?’

  ‘I was sort of joking about that. And I didn’t think about it. You’re like a constant in my life and in this town. Like gravity in the universe. You were always going to be there. God, the more I think about it the stupider jealousy seems. We should have had this conversation sooner.’

  ‘And not during a natural disaster.’

  Clancy laughs. ‘With a suicidal goat. We’re going to get through this, right?’ He looks at me as if he genuinely believes that I’d know about the future. Is he talking about the flood or our friendship?

  ‘Of course. Of course.’

  To pass the time, Clancy tries to teach me phrases in Cantonese, as he has since we were five, but I’ve always been useless at distinguishing between the tones, especially when I’m sitting on a roof in the rain. Then we sing all the songs from the Disney movies we watched together as kids, like ‘Under the Sea’ from The Little Mermaid. ‘A Tale as Old as Time’ from Beauty and the Beast. Once we’ve exhausted those, we start on Grease. We skip the slow, sad ones (‘Beauty School Dropout’, and the one where Danny Zuko’s sooking at the drive-in theatre) and keep it upbeat.

  ‘This is not what I had in mind when I was planning my party,’ says Clancy.

  ‘Being trapped on a roof at night, surrounded by floodwaters, isn’t your idea of a good time?’

  ‘When I said I liked excitement, I didn’t mean life-threatening, property-destroying excitement. And I imagined Iris would be with us, rather than Stanley.’

  I cover Stanley’s ears. ‘He’s right here, Clance. Besides, he’s the life of the party. You know how he was at Nathan’s twenty-first. He’s a real social butterfly.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re right. He’s an outstanding goat.’ He turns to Stanley. ‘Please accept my sincerest apologies, kind sir.’

  Stanley does not acknowledge him.

  ‘This is going to sound ridiculous,’ Clancy says. ‘But I wish I could study right now. I have less than two months until exams.’

  ‘Not ridiculous at all. I wish I had a book.’

  He reaches over and pushes my wet hair out of my face. ‘Might get a little damp, don’t you reckon? Maybe an e-reader and a ziploc bag?’

  I shake my head. ‘Never. I am a paper devotee.’

  He coughs. ‘Tree-killer.’ We grin. Even Stanley seems far less maudlin.

  ‘You know what’d be really great?’ says Clancy. ‘If all those crop circles that I apparently made really were created by alien spacecraft. They could fly over and abduct us right now and we could be in a nice, warm, dry UFO.�
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  I laugh. ‘I didn’t want her to get in trouble, so I didn’t tell you…and I figured you could handle rumours better than she would, so I’m sorry but Iris was the alien. I discovered her. We were the targets Mrs Worthington shot at.’

  Clancy takes a moment to absorb this information. Then he laughs, too. ‘That makes perfect sense. I still cannot believe Mrs Worthington shot at you. What is this, Wolf Creek?’

  Then we’re quiet. We can’t fall asleep, for fear of slipping off the roof. Even when the rain eases, it’s still a dark, cold night. I’ve never been this cut off from the rest of the world. Just me and Clancy and Stanley.

  I try my hardest not to think about Grandad, Mum, Nathan, Claire, Iris…The more I think of the people I’m trying not to think of, the more I realise how many people I care about in this town.

  When the water recedes, we come down off the roof.

  Everything is surreal. There is debris everywhere. It feels post-apocalyptic. A real alternate reality. Everything is topsy-turvy, nothing in its place. There is garden furniture strewn all down Main Street, like sculptures in a modern art museum. Everything is saturated in mud, and water is still pooling along the gutters, murky with filth.

  Even Stanley can sense it, how changed everything is. He keeps quiet, takes it all in.

  Mrs Hunter is already cleaning up, sweeping with an enormous broom out the front of the pub. ‘You right?’ she calls out to us. I nod. She doesn’t look as if she slept, either.

  Clancy is staring in the front window of Purple Emperor. I don’t think he wants to go in. I can see the line on the wall from here, where the water got up to. Above our heads. I can tell he’s panicking about the damage bill, worrying his parents will be upset that he didn’t do enough. I can’t quite bring myself to speak, even though I want to comfort him, let him know that everything will be fine. At least we know where his parents are. I try to call Mum again but can’t get through; the towers must be damaged, or jammed from too many calls.

  Iris’s parents are opening up Saffron Gate. It doesn’t look as damaged as Purple Emperor, probably because that side of the street is higher. Her mum smiles at me, a wan little smile. ‘Is your family all right?’ she calls out.

  I blink back tears. ‘I think so. Not sure where they are.’

  She strides over, wraps me in a hug. I feel sweaty and gross, so I hate to think how I look. And smell. But I’m glad of the hug.

  ‘Do you want me to help find them?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I’m sure they’re fine. Thank you, though. Are you guys okay?’

  ‘Iris is at home.’ I don’t realise I’ve been waiting to hear that until she says it. ‘The restaurant is insured. Our house is up on the rise, so it was safe. You sure you’re okay?’

  I nod. She doesn’t seem happy to be leaving me, but I can tell that Iris’s dad can’t deal with the mess in their restaurant on his own.

  Everybody is emerging, like vampires at sundown, assessing the damage. Judy from the bakery drives slowly down Main Street in her ute, and gives us a nod. Judy at a loss for words is something I have never seen. I wave back, an attempt at cheerfulness. Clancy stops fretting outside Purple Emperor and walks with me along Main Street.

  Mr Down is cleaning up outside the newsagent’s, picking up assorted bits of junk and piling them beside the road. ‘Your mum’ll be glad to see you, Kirby,’ he says, when he sees us watching. ‘Nathan and Claire are up at our place.’ Mr Down is mud-streaked and his eyes are bloodshot. He gives my shoulder a squeeze, but he’s looking past me while we’re talking. He nods at Clancy. ‘Have your folks been in touch?’

  Clancy shakes his head. ‘Signal’s been down. Do you want a hand?’

  I eye the debris: tree branches, signage and an umbrella.

  ‘Worry about it later,’ Mr Down says. From the way he says it I know there’s going to be a lot of help needed later. ‘If you need anything before your parents come back, you tell me.’

  Clancy nods.

  ‘You happen to know where my grandad is?’ I ask, as casually as possible.

  ‘Don’t know where Cyril’s at, actually. You’d have to ask your mum.’

  I nod. I feel like I’m going to cry, which is stupid, because Grandad is no doubt fine, now that all the scary stuff is behind us. The remaining water is rapidly draining away and it’s overcast, but it’s no longer raining. Flood’s over. Grandad’s fine. Just need to find Mum.

  ‘Mind if we go past my place?’ I ask Clancy.

  ‘Sure.’ Clancy is worried, I can tell. Not his usual, melodramatic, over-the-top worried. Now it is trying-to-hide-it worried. He bites his bottom lip. We set off together. He takes Stanley’s lead from me, tries to stop him wading through puddles. Not much point, really.

  Even though this is a town I know better than any other place on earth, even though I have walked these streets hundreds of times, at all hours of the day and night, even though I could draw you a map of every road and intersection and shop and house, close my eyes and tell you what I would see on any given corner in any given season, the town has become entirely foreign overnight. We have to hold on to one another to avoid slipping in the mud, which covers everything, staining the world the wrong colour. The birds I would normally hear this time of the morning aren’t singing. Banks of trees and shrubs have vanished. Fence palings are strewn down the street. There are a few ruined cars, water still gushing from them, but it seems most people moved their cars to higher ground.

  We move everything off the road that we can, unless it looks in any way treacherous. Clancy and I are silent as we walk along. Stanley is still unnaturally pensive. Irini and Nick drive down the road beside us, back towards their house. We wave, but they don’t stop. I’m reacting slowly, as if in a dream.

  When we turn down my street, I become very aware of the weight of my head on my neck. I feel unbalanced, as if I will tip and my head will collide with what is left of the road and crack open.

  Our house is gone. Clean swept away. Even the granny flat. Mud and debris are all that remains. The shed is gone, which means the milking equipment is gone and a whole lot of soap, which means we have no income. Why am I thinking about soap? Who cares about soap?

  Next thing, I am gasping, sobbing in the mud in front of where our house should be. There is nothing but random bits of shrapnel that might not be from our house at all.

  Clancy pulls me up and holds me. I am making a keening sound, because I am trying not to scream. I allow myself only one note to wail in, as if this will keep me from collapsing completely. As if screeching like a cat is somehow remaining more in control. I have lost control.

  ‘Your family will be fine,’ says Clancy, into my left ear. He knows what I’m afraid of. But he doesn’t sound as certain as he usually is about things.

  Then our car comes round the bend, sloshing through what’s left of the water, avoiding a fallen tree. Mum is at the wheel. She pulls to the side of the road and gets out of the car. Never have I felt so glad to see her, her plaid shirt and her jeans and her boots, more familiar than air. She surveys the empty block. Nods, serious. Like she’s just assessing the damage, an impartial observer. She’s biting her lip. Hard. Then her face crumples. She crosses one arm and puts the other hand to her face and collapses against the car, weeping.

  ‘Oh, Mum!’

  I hear Clancy swallow. He releases me, and I run over to her. I sit half in the muddy, ankle-deep water and squeeze her a bit too intensely.

  ‘Can’t breathe, Kirby,’ she murmurs, hoarse.

  ‘Where’s Grandad?’

  She is the tiredest I’ve ever seen her, and she’s permanently tired, so that’s saying something. ‘Went for a walk. Mr Pool invited him in for a cup of tea, seeing as the flood was imminent. The two of them are fine. His house and his equipment will be water damaged, but everything’s in one piece. And everybody. Took the goats up to the netball courts, Logans are looking after them, since they’ve got the ponies up there, too. Whole
lot of people are up at the school. Nathan and Claire are at Claire’s parents, with Maude and Marianne, since they’ve got the second storey. And a solid house.’

  She’s still crying, even though she’s speaking normally. My mum can compartmentalise better than anybody. It’s still horrible seeing her cry.

  ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I say, and I know that I sound like a five-year-old, that it all means nothing coming from me. ‘We’re all okay. We’ve got us. We might need to get new birth certificates issued so we can prove we exist, though.’

  She almost laughs, and drags her sleeve across her face. ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ve got them.’

  Losing the house is colossal. It is everything. I’m not in mourning for anything I owned personally—my clothes and books can be replaced—just for the memories that the house held, for everything it represented about our family sticking together and looking out for each other: Grandad, Mum and me. But Grandad is here. I’d rather have Grandad than a box of old photos.

  Clancy comes over. Stanley starts to gnaw at his soaked Converse. ‘Everyone’s okay?’ he asks. We nod.

  ‘Your house is fine, by the way. You’re up high,’ says Mum. ‘I’ll give your mum a call later.’ She turns to me. ‘Your grandfather built the shoddiest house in the most illogical place, and that’s the truth.’ She shakes her head. I could almost laugh.

  ‘Ms Arrow, I know we’re not group-hug people,’ says Clancy. ‘But Kirby and I had a pretty rubbish night on the roof, and almost lost Stanley, and I thought I was going to die, along with your daughter. So do you reckon we could make an exception?’

  ‘Provided Stanley’s not involved in the group hug,’ says Mum. ‘He stinks.’

  We group-hug, which is very definitely out of character for my mum, but it’s an out-of-character sort of morning. Then I slip in the mud and Stanley tries to eat my hair, and even though I know we’re all okay now, I think about the months of cleaning up ahead of us.

  I’m going to start with giving Stanley a bath.

  It’s a Friday night in the middle of September, and Clancy is six hours into a nine-hour marathon performance of a medley of songs from musicals. This is a practice run for his attempt to beat the Guinness World Record for longest continuous performance of a musical medley by a single person. I’m not sure there is such a record, but he’s also got people in Alberton to sponsor him and he’s donating the money to our house-rebuilding fund, so I’m not criticising the venture.