Limestone Man

by Robert Minhinnick

  No, I say. You’re confusing me with…

  The girl tries to specify each item. Then has to wait for an older woman to come. Then wait for the man who had smiled at me on Monday. Ages ago. Eons…

  I paid for the malbec at the bar, I say. On Monday. Paid with cash.

  But the Tuesday malbec, sir?

  Tuesday?

  Also on Tuesday sir, the peanuts? The crisps? Please look at the details, sir. Then the malbec on the Wednesday, sir? Both miniatures of the scotch on Wednesday, sir. Wednesday supper brought to your room. Both miniatures again, sir. You ordered the minibar replenished every day. I spoke to you myself on Thursday, sir. That was yesterday.

  Replenished? I asked. What a word that is. A terrible word. A word from a different world.

  I was trying to make a joke of it, I said.

  A joke, sir. Yes, I understand, sir. And the telephone account is such as it is because you regularly called the same number.

  Goolwa, I say. I rang a shop. Goolwa’s sixty miles away. Sweet sixty.

  I know, sir. You often called at night, sir. Or very early in the morning.

  Just checking, I said. I had to check up. But it was always answerphone. Except the day that…

  Some of these calls were made at unusual hours, sir. And you must have left long messages on the answerphone, sir. Do you remember, sir? One of these calls lasted ninety-three minutes.

  Ninety-three…?

  Ninety-three minutes and fifty-seven seconds. A call made at 2.30 in the morning.

  It’s a big responsibility, I tell him. When I’m away.

  And this call? It’s longer. One hundred and twenty-seven minutes.

  One hundred…?

  Of course, sir, I can itemise the charges for you once again. If it will help. Of course, we already have your credit card details.

  And the man smiles at me. For the last time, I am sure. There he stands, dark shoulders, no dandruff. Perfect Windsor knot. Today he is wearing a name badge. Perhaps he had worn it on Monday.

  Stephen Wright, it says.

  Woah! I say. Woah!

  Pardon, sir?

  Hold up, Stevie! I say. Hold up, Little Stevie Wright. Woah, boy.

  Pardon, sir?

  Stephen Wright, I repeat. Wow, it’s Stevie Wright.

  And the man does smile again. A face I expected to be full of loathing lights with long-suffering good humour.

  My parents were fans, sir. I live with it.

  And do you sing, Stephen? I ask.

  Regrettably not, sir. My mother was the driving force. More so than my father. In fact she attended Stevie Wright’s, what shall we say, his comeback concert. The Legends of Rock, sir. Held up in Byron Bay? Oh yes, sir, I know all about Little Stevie Wright.

  Hard to credit, I say. That he’s still alive. After everything he’s been through. And, did you, did you ever…

  Sing, sir? Lots of people have asked me, though less often now of course. But no, never, I never sang. I used to be asked all the time, sir, but I never wanted it. My career took a different direction.

  And I look at Stephen Wright behind The Sebel Hotel’s polished counter. Stephen Wright with his fat silver tie. His brushed shoulders.

  Well, Stephen, I say, ‘It’s gonna happen… It’s gonna happen…

  …In the city, sir? Where I’ll be with my girl, sir? She’s so pretty, sir.

  Yes, perhaps it’s going to happen, sir, You see, I used to listen to that song, when I was much younger. In fact, I bought a copy. The first record I ever bought.

  She looks fine tonight, I say.

  And she is out of sight, returns Stephen Wright. To me.

  It’s gonna happen, I say. It’s gonna happen,it’s gonna happen…

  In the city, sir? Oh yes, sir. Where everything happens. After all. Please sign here and thank you for staying at The Sebel.

  I collect my car and drive through the Adelaide traffic down the peninsula. I wait above some of the beaches we’d visited. Everything is a dream.

  In Victor Harbour it is easy to park. Then I hop on to the horse tram setting out for Granite Island. There are only two other passengers.

  Yes, I ask them whether they’d seen Lulu. And they quiz one another. Taking it seriously.

  Have we, Daddy? Have we?

  I think so, says the man.

  I think so, says the woman.

  Oh boy. They are doing their best.

  Such a sweet-looking child, the woman says. Is she your… I mean, is she your…?

  No. No, she’s not.

  Eventually, they decided. No, they hadn’t. No, they were sure.

  The woman put the photograph back into my hand. Her mouth tight.

  Thank you, I say. And wander off uphill.

  But how might anyone be sure? Even I who had looked one hundred times at that photograph, could now remember none of the details. Could recall nothing.

  Lulu is vanishing. A mirage above the Murray. A wisp from the ashen hills.

  There are penguins on the island. They make the island famous. Everything is done to preserve those penguins.

  You know, I say to a man on the granite track. They don’t deserve it, do they? They bloody don’t deserve it.

  Who doesn’t deserve what? he asks.

  All this, I gestured. The whole island. Those stupid bloody…

  But he shrugs and pushes on. So I am able to have the bald rock of the granite headland to myself.

  Penguins.

  At the lookout, I am alone. I think a few people pass. Then I head down to the restaurant at the bottom. Where I sit and stare. Contemplating the ocean.

  That sea is like old silver paper. Crushed and crinkled. Like the silver paper I used day after day at The Works. Its silver darkening, getting dirtier…

  I remember my mother with tins of Silvo. That filthy stuff. Just a gritty paste. But she’d rub it in and gradually all the tarnishing of anything silver, her best cutlery, a few vases, would vanish.

  A miracle, for a while. I used to watch her polishing. And wondered why she bothered. Why she would make that effort. Now I understand.

  It was the same silver as the beach when the tide was going out. The same silver as the smoke that poured out of The Works. I used to walk west and see that silver beach spread out. The mosques and minarets of industry. All silvered in the dawn.

  And I thought, up on the Granite Island lookout, there’s nothing now. No, nothing between me and the icefields. Nothing between me and Mount Erebus, that volcano at the start, at the end of the world. Nothing between me and Wilkes Land, that desert at the start, at the end of the world.

  No, there’s nothing. And I asked myself, how did I get here? To Granite Island? With all these, all these … penguins.

  Yeah. How did I…? How…

  And I thought, no, not how? Why? Why is the question.

  I looked at the sea. There were cloud shadows on the waves. As if the water was deeper there. As if the sea was tarnishing. That water was a different colour, like ice I’d see in rain barrels on the allotment. Silver skins around black embryos, that ice.

  Yes, that ice was like drowned babies. It’s what I always thought. Cycling down Amazon Street, going past The Lily, then The Cat, going through The Ghetto and under The Ziggurat, that’s what I thought.

  Because I saw one once. Or thought I saw. A drowned baby in our rain barrel.

  Can’t remember if it was a joke Dad made. Or something my mother said. Or maybe a dead cat, or a bat.

  Yes, I found a drowned bat once in the rain butt. And that’s when the idea came to me. From then on I always looked specially.

  And I came to expect it. But then, when there was no drowned baby, I’d be, I’d be … disappointed. How strange is that?

  So, I used to push the ice down. Into the barrel. Or sometimes I broke that ice, sometimes smashed it to splinters, scarring it white. And I scratched my name on that ice a few times. Yes, RIP, scratched it with a pen or an old fork we kept in the toolbox. The
only writing I’ve ever managed.

  Then I would look into the water of the rain barrel. Water too cold to touch. Too cold to bear. Water as cold as the seawater around Granite Island.

  There were hundreds of miles of water until the next land. And the next land was the dead land where no one had ever lived. Only marooned sailors, or fur trappers who might have survived mutiny or shipwreck.

  Because there are more islands than you’d think off that coast. Islands all the way to Antarctica. I used to know their names. Islands like splinters of ice.

  You see, that’s how I passed my interview for Adelaide. By my diligence. I prepared for days. No, for weeks. Yes, I even researched those barren islands. Where no one has ever existed and never will live.

  Imagine that, no history, no culture. Nothing to inherit. Only thousands of years of birdshit whitening the cliffs. And bird song. That insane racket no one will ever hear.

  But I fooled them, didn’t I? Those worthies on the interview panel. Yes, they told me they would be taking a risk. Told me on the video link. Told me it was a very long way, a very long way from…Where is it you come from, Mr Parry? How close is that to…? How far from…?

  I tell you, that interview is the most coherent I’ve ever been. I knew when it was over I had the job. I couldn’t imagine not getting that job. No snuffling, no coughing. No bloody stammering.

  All those speech therapy lessons worked out. Didn’t they? Richard Ieuan Parry, stone cold cert.

  Yes, all that speaking with a limestone pebble in my mouth. Thank you, limestone. I remember how you tasted. Yes, the salt of you. The dangerous limestone taste of the sea.

  I could swallow this, I always thought. Break my teeth on this pebble. And ruin my smile, ha ha.

  But don’t tell me they didn’t get their money’s worth. I slaved for that school. Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. And then Hey Bulldog, as if school wasn’t enough. On top of it all I ran the Bulldog.

  When I put my hands in the water in the barrel I would hold them there. As long as it was bearable. Then I’d examine my skin. The white, the mottled, the purple skin.

  And I’d think, this must be what it’s like when you’re dead.

  I sat on that lookout rock until I realised I was aching. The lights were on in Vincent Harbour by then. The horse ferry long gone. I had to walk back along the causeway.

  Before that I returned to the restaurant. It was deserted. But I stepped over the chain and sat at the table Lulu and I had first chosen.

  That afternoon I had ordered a bottle of sauvignon. Yes, like they say, it reminded me of gooseberries.

  That’s the cliché, isn’t it? And that’s what I told my best kids. Between twelve and twenty, it didn’t matter.

  Don’t use clichés, I’d say. Try and discover what no one else has ever said.

  You know, all my classes ended with ‘P’. Started out with 12P. Moved on to older kids. By the end it was 17P. Bigger than me, the boys in 17P. And in 16P they were bigger too. And 15P.

  And don’t mention the girls. Just don’t…

  But every year, they’d call me the same name. Ripper. Sometimes Jack, but generally Ripper. Or Mr Parry to be formal.

  Talking of 16P, who became 17Z by the way, under the care of Mrs Zacharias, I once told them about the corals of The Caib.

  You what, sir? they all asked. Show us on the map where you come from. Show us again.

  So I’d point out The Caib and they’d laugh and ask if I’d ever been to the Great Barrier Reef. That’s where the coral is, Ripper, they said. The GBR.

  Caib coral is fossilised, I’d say. It’s the ghosts of corals that lived millions of years ago. Some of it’s white or bleached. Generally, it’s no colour at all.

  Ghost coral sounds dead, sir, the clever ones would say.

  But there are real corals, still corals around where…

  And I’d lose them in the reaction. As I was howled down.

  Seems I wasn’t allowed to trespass on Aussie territory. All I was doing was telling them about what I’d dig up in the sand at home. Coral the colour of pearls of arsenic. Coral like droplets of fog.

  So much we used to uncover. In the limestone earth. Thousands of pieces of china, most with a pattern of blue flowers. Unrecognisable bits of iron. Old iron.

  I never said to those kids they might find nothing in Adelaide. Course I didn’t. But so little of the land had been settled. Not that it would have been an insult. Not at all. But you know what I mean.

  You see, I was going to make an installation of everything I’d dug up. I thought of it years before I met Libby.

  I kept all those bits in glass jars. The corals, the pottery. Kept them ready. I wanted to exhibit my own archaeology.

  Then, one night, I threw them away. Went over to the allotment and dug them back in. Where they belonged.

  But gooseberries were my favourite fruit at the allotment. My mother learned not to pick those gooseberries too soon. She allowed the fruits to darken. Until the skins were the colour of iron, she always said. The flesh softening.

  Listen to me, she’d say. Wait a day. And a day would become a week and then she’d say again, wait a day. Listen to me. Wait a day. Are the skins bursting?

  But no, they could never be sweet. Even then, after a day and another day, after weeks, they set my teeth on edge. Those iron-coloured goosegogs.

  So on Granite Island I sat in the darkness and looked at the harbour lights. The penguins were snuffling and coughing in their burrows.

  I imagine it was penguins making those sounds. I never saw any penguins on that visit to the island. I simply accepted what I was told. That this was where the penguins lived. But, when I think about it, perhaps there were no penguins.

  Yes I waited at that table behind the chain in the dark. And I thought about my mother’s plans to make an astronomical garden.

  It was going to be in the back at our house. Under the apple tree. Well after we’d given up the allotment.

  She had decided to plant red sunflowers that would be the same colour as Arcturus. Next she would grow a bed of blue flowers like forget-me-nots beside a bed of orange flowers. Maybe marigolds, in honour of Albireo. This was supposed to be the most spectacular double star in the sky.

  I’d looked at that star with Lulu during the drought. I can remember the night we searched for it, the Murray slummocking past, snuffling and coughing like those bloody penguins, the reek of mud and wet sand, Jupiter so fat it was reflected off the sea. The riverbanks were silvered the same as that solder they’d spilled at The Works.

  I thought about that a long time. That memory of home. Then, slowly, slowly, I started to laugh.

  You what? I asked myself. You what?

  Because I had never talked to my mother about Arcturus. And certainly not Albireo. Everything I knew about stars I had learned from Lulu. I‘d never discussed the subject with Mum.

  No, I had dreamed about the astronomical garden. It was all in my head.

  It was all in my head.

  The restaurant was full that afternoon when I was there with Lulu. There was a crowd on Granite Island, too many to be comfortable, too many on the horse ferry. And too many jumping off the jetty as we used to do on The Caib, jumping off the breakwater or a boulder at The Horns.

  Jumping like that was dangerous at home. I recall a boy breaking his back and killing himself. His friend brought the body to shore. Limp as a rag doll. I watched him carry it in, the dead boy’s head thrown back, his throat blue, his hair like seaweed. And his neck so white, so white…

  David, the dead boy was called. Older than us. For years his parents used to leave bouquets on the nearest bench. They still do.

  I’d think, I still think, when I look at those flowers, his mother’s not even taken the cellophane off.

  But I know I bought the sauvignon. I can remember the taste and the green colour of the wine. And the price. That bottle was ridiculously expensive.

  I remember thinking maybe I
shouldn’t pay that much. But then Lulu called me stingy after I hesitated.

  Yes, it was the best. Then I recall Lulu ordering wedges and me telling her, hey, I think you’re putting on weight. And her answering, that’s all right then boss, I’m allowed aren’t I? I’m allowed.

  I think I remember that. I think it happened. But look, if it didn’t, if it didn’t actually … happen like that, or if it happened like something else, does it … Does it even matter?

  As far as I’m concerned, the astronomy garden is real. Yes, it was a dream. Of course it was a dream. But if I say it’s real, then…

  THREE

  I

  At the top of Amazon Street a pale sun, a sun greyly glittering. A sun of deadwhite coral. Around that sun a smoky aurora.

  II

  A man passed Parry in the fog, a man with a backpack. He was walking slowly and seemed to be searching for something.

  These days, there were many such. Some with suitcases, some with black bags. Men usually. But Parry noted there were now women.

  These people looked bewildered, almost lost. They stood on street corners, sometimes outside Badfinger, unsure of themselves. Some turned towards the sea. Some walked away from the sea.

  These were people who had never visited The Caib before. All eventually disappeared into the fog.

  III

  Ghosts? asked Parry of Serene. Maybe. But every town is full of ghosts.

  There was a man, he remembered, who collected cuttlefish bones. Sometimes they would find his stooks on the sand. Those cuttle pyramids yellow-white as bonfire smoke.

  It was said he sold the cuttle in the local pet shop. Parry doubted it, no matter how abundant the harvest. Sometimes he had seen the man sitting on the stones of The Horns, whittling cuttlebone.

  A sculptor, Parry had thought. An artist whose shavings lay like foam.

  It took him years to realise the man had disappeared. He never heard what happened to him.

  IV

  Possibly the pink, suggested Serene. But you look good in pink, too. Well, sort of. And all the others are … black? Or grey.

  I dress for the fog, said Parry. So I can blend in. But aren’t we all creatures of the fog these days?

  But why all the black?