Limestone Man

by Robert Minhinnick

  Yes, said Parry. He saw it was 3.12 and felt exhausted.

  Good idea of yours. It can be seen from as far off as Cato Street. Almost the only light, Christmas or not. A red star like Arcturus.

  Like what?

  I knew somebody once, murmured Parry, who understood stars.

  You see, smiled the girl, my star shows there’s someone alive. In this house.

  She was wearing one of Parry’s purple shirts and two of his thickest jerseys. On the couch behind, Glan was covered by a duvet.

  Shows there’s somebody who wants to be alive, Serene added. Someone who’s celebrating being alive.

  Quietest Christmas I can remember, said Parry.

  But next year will be great, insisted the girl. I can feel it. Things can’t stay like this. It’s…

  What?

  Impossible. It’s just … impossible.

  You weren’t around in the seventies.

  My dad’s told me about Thatcher, the girl hissed. But yes it can get better.

  I admire your optimism. But life will be tougher before that. No one knows how tough. Get ready for it.

  Serene hugged her purple knees.

  You know there’s been another one? she asked.

  No, I hadn’t heard. But I’m not surprised. This weather can’t be helping. We’re living inside a cloud. Bloody fog. Feels like we’re all suffocating.

  Glan says…

  Yes?

  Oh. Nothing.

  Glan shouldn’t smoke that stuff if it’s going to do things to him, said Parry,

  Well, who gave it to him?

  I just happened to share what Dai had offered me. Bit like the old days in the Paradise Club. Not that we were regular users. Course not. Hasn’t harmed you, has it?

  Glan always sparks out, said the girl, kissing her right kneecap through her tights. I knew he would.

  Predictable, is he?

  She considered this.

  Maybe. But men are…

  Boring?

  Glan’s not boring, Serene smiled grimly. I wouldn’t stay with him if he was boring.

  Parry hugged his own knees. A car passed in the street. The headlights shone through the curtains. He ground out the butt in a saucer.

  I don’t do this often, he said. Smoke, that is. But thanks.

  For?

  For checking up on me. Seeing if I was alive.

  Well, we are living together, said Serene. And thank you for the wine. Yes, quite a night. Red wine and more red wine. Then a little drop of whisky and the last of the peppermint schnapps and Dai’s draw and cheese on toast with that mad paprika stuff. And more toast. And all were most … the girl paused. Most welcome.

  My pleasure, said Parry. But it wasn’t the cheese on toast that knocked out Glan.

  Did we drink so much?

  Er … yes. But don’t tell me that’s all he’s had.

  S’all I know about, breathed Serene. Honestly. Glan and me can’t afford to drink. You know that. But Mina’s good. Passes on what she calls discontinued lines.

  Yeah, bless those redundant Riojas, smiled Parry. So Mina’s more than useful to know. But I saw Glan’s eyes. He must have taken something else. He was tranked up like a first timer. Now the kid’s out cold.

  All right, she said. I do know about something else. These ones are white.

  What are white?

  Serene again kissed her kneecap through the purple tights.

  The pills Glan takes. He had one this morning. I said not to. I said don’t. Not today. Because of how they make you behave, I told him. But he only laughed.

  And then I said we used to share everything. Once. But not these. Not these white ones. I can’t do the white ones. I can’t share the white ones. Tried a white one once. Never again.

  Parry thought about his own tablets. They were white ones. Big ones white, little ones white. Big pills, little pills. The rest of his life on pills.

  He looked at his wrist in the red light. 3.23.

  What was it now? Six months since he had last taken his medicines? No, maybe ten. Perhaps a year. He hadn’t ordered any for ages. No one had checked.

  Parry considered how he felt. Every morning at the time to take his tablets he conducted an investigation. Surely, there was no change. At least, nothing to speak of. Nothing important. But then he had not felt unwell in the first place. At the beginning of all his trouble. But now, it was hard to care.

  How do the pills make Glan feel?

  Serene coughed. He says they make him come alive.

  Parry waited. The girl continued.

  Not so…

  Parry still waited. Both he and Serene were bathed in the star’s red glow.

  Not so … anxious, I suppose, she said at last. Not so … scared.

  She stretched out her purple legs towards him then.

  3.27.

  I’m cold, she whispered.

  Time for sleep, said Parry.

  You know, breathed Serene, I knew one of those boys. Those boys who did it. I remember him from school. And you’d never think. You’d never think he was that type. But the last time we met, he talked to me. Honest to God, he talked to me.

  Parry took her hand in the electric starlight.

  You are cold, he said.

  He talked about dreams. The fact that he never dreamed. But why did he tell me that? We weren’t friends. Don’t you think that’s a strange thing to tell anyone? The fact that you never dream?

  Yeah, you’re cold. Cold as the fog.

  And I thought, that was the reason. For what he did. The reason why he … ended up like that.

  You know, said Parry, I think I like you in my clothes.

  Serene shifted on the rug. I never dream, the boy told me. He just came out with it. Said it like that. As if he was confessing to something. As if he was apologising. I never dream, he said. I never dream.

  Serene hugged her knees again.

  You know, I love to see that star in the fog, she whispered. That’s why I love the fog. The star is blurry and kind of soft. As if it’s melting, turning pink. Like pink icing.

  When I see the star at the end of Amazon Street, I know I’m coming home. To our star. And Glan too. Glan feels the same. I know he does.

  3.37.

  Parry licked the wine crust round his mouth.

  Too cold to get into bed, he said. I can’t stand the idea of those clammy sheets. Like they were woven from the mist.

  He laughed again. Yeah, they feel like fog.

  You see, we say it’s our star, said Serene softly. Me and Glan. Our star.

  The girl seemed beyond the borders of sleep. And when we see the star, she added, we know the ghosts can’t find us.

  Ghosts?

  This town’s full of ghosts. Didn’t you know?

  Parry blinked in the red light.

  Everybody, whispered Serene, knows there are ghosts on The Caib. Always have been. But since the fog started, I’ve thought lots about ghosts. And Glan believes too.

  Yes, Glan believes in ghosts. He’s seen them. He’s seen children like … they were made from the fog. Children glittering in the fog. Under the streetlights. In silver rags.

  But it’s creepy now the council’s turned the lamps off. It’s dark all the time. Don’t you think it’s creepy?

  Every other light, said Parry. To save money.

  But it’s so dark now. When Glan got up yesterday it was dark in the afternoon.

  Wake him up earlier, then.

  I try. I really try. But it’s hardly ever light these days. Look, will you keep it?

  Keep what? asked Parry. 4.01. He was exhausted.

  The star! Promise to keep the star and see that it’s lit. So I can find you.

  And always be the man who lives under a weird red star? smiled Parry.

  Promise me.

  Yeah, I promise.

  Truly?

  Truly. I promise. But Serene? Can … can I…?

  Parry looked at the girl. At last she might have
been sleeping.

  IV

  7.10am. When Parry walked down Caib Street the air was still wet. The fret sparkled in the single street light outside the supermarket. The first sketch of dawn was yet to appear behind him.

  How had he arrived there? He couldn’t remember leaving the shop.

  Parry licked the salt on his lips. As he used to when crossing the beach at low tide to The Works.

  Dora Parry complained the saltwater ruined his shoes. Parry would counter by saying he wore only his oldest footwear to the carbon-paper job. Suppurating daps, heel-less Clarks.

  It’s not that kind of place, Mum. Ask Dad.

  At the end of the gwli before the shop entrance, Parry paused. He wasn’t sure what was happening. Three men were struggling on the wet pavement, under the light.

  He looked harder. Then had to stand back as they fell towards him.

  Three men fighting. And in silence. That’s what Parry noted. The three men were completely silent.

  It seemed to be two against one. A security guard from the supermarket now gripped the arm of an older man in a black jacket. A third man held his other arm in what looked a judo grip. Now they were rolling around in broken glass.

  The third man seemed more than capable. He had forced the second man’s face into the pavement and was crushing it against the stone. There was blood on the victim’s skin.

  What occurred to Parry was an old phrase: rub his nose in it. He remembered his grandmother rubbing a cat’s face into its own shit.

  A bottle had been smashed to tiny pieces. Only the red and silver label, Krazy Kremlin, remained whole.

  All of a sudden the three were on their feet. How quickly this resurrection had occurred. The guard and the third man, holding an arm each, rushed the second man up the vegetable aisle. They disappeared behind the delicatessen meats.

  Parry moved slowly to the kiosk. There were several shoppers present but he was able to pick up a newspaper and ask the assistant what had happened.

  It’s his first day, she said, clearly stunned. His first morning. Only started at six. We don’t even know his name.

  When Parry turned, he found the third man behind him.

  What was all that about? he asked.

  Oh, the security bloke was having problems. So I helped out.

  Who was the…

  Thief? We got him. Red-handed. Someone who thought vodka is free.

  You might have been killed.

  So might the toe rag. But no, I’m all right. No problem. Though it’s typical, isn’t it? These days.

  When the man turned, Parry was able to appraise him. Tall, muscular. Despite the weather he wore only cut-off jeans and a yellow tee shirt with smiley face design.

  His physique was such Parry first thought of steroids. He was clearly a bodybuilder, biceps enormous. Parry noted his shoulder had been cut by the smashed bottle.

  SEVENTEEN

  I

  It was low tide. Parry decided to walk.

  Exercise, he decided, must be good. And at that moment anything was better than worrying about stock for Badfinger, sorting what could be kept from his own collections.

  His books were in good condition and might be of interest. Rock and jazz biographies, poetry. The stacks of review copies he had picked up in job lots.

  Books must still mean something, he told himself. Okay, they weren’t to Glan’s taste. But the boy didn’t read. Well, his loss. Blame the schools. Blame the teachers.

  He thought of his classes in Adelaide. Young people, taller, leaner, brighter than him. And now they’d never grow old.

  But who read today? At least Serene had thumbed through a David Bowie bio that didn’t seem too dependent on cut and paste. And Bowie was literate. More than might be said of his contemporaries.

  Maybe Bowie lacked the tragic dimension that was necessary for artists, Parry thought, setting off in the fret.

  Yes, maybe Bowie’s middle age had proved strangely anonymous. Above him in the window the star was still lit. At the junction he turned and it gleamed pink.

  Maybe the fog’s here forever, he had joked. But no one survived middle age, he reasoned. Not even David Bowie.

  Perhaps he’d been hasty about quitting Adelaide. There wasn’t pressure from the school. Compared with now, the money had been wonderful.

  He might have sat back. Enjoyed all that Oz offered. Gone exploring the desert. Hunted the oldest stones in the world. Found some space.

  But here he was. Sand on his boots, mist in his mouth. The jewelled air wet on his face. He’d limped home to what was familiar.

  Basement Booze wasn’t open yet. He smiled at Mina’s handwritten sign that said no money was kept in the shop overnight. Arrows were inked towards the empty drawers of the till.

  He pictured the woman in her armchair, asleep after wakeful hours.

  Yes, there’d be a BBC voice low in the background, darkness softened by a halogen glow.

  Parry resolved to call round later with a choice of music. ‘Nature Boy’, he decided, Nat King Cole’s version. Mina would love that.

  II

  He walked past the Clwb. Maybe Nia was already clearing up from last night. There was a glow in one of the top windows, but Parry wanted to press on.

  Yes, he thought. Here I am. A dog returning to its vomit. Back again. To the familiar griefs.

  At the end of the street he met Fflint beside his front door.

  Bloody fog, said Fflint as way of greeting. He was holding an enormous bottle of milk and a copy of the Daily Telegraph. He brandished the plastic under Parry’s nose.

  Last us a week, this will. And the paper’s for Mum. Old habits, eh? Still loves the crossword.

  Mum? Of course, Parry thought. He still lives with his mother. He’d known Fflint for fifty years but couldn’t remember ever being invited into the house.

  He and Gil and Lizzy always waited outside when they called round. They’d all found refuge in the back room of The Lily in those days. Making their plans. Outlining the future.

  Fflint’s father was long dead. But Mrs Fflint was occasionally glimpsed in a downstairs window. In his twenties, Fflint himself had occupied the top storey of 1, Senhora Street. It was his studio.

  Lizzy and Branwen had been intrigued, plotting an invitation, suggesting parties.

  Did you ever think you’d end up like this? asked Fflint.

  End?

  Well…

  And like what?

  As a shopkeeper.

  Oh. As in a nation of. No, I never thought. I’d do this. Keeping shop. But you have to. Do something. Don’t you?

  Yeah. Like I take photographs. Or try to.

  Because, said Parry slowly, you run out of options. When you’re young, all things are possible. Then the possibilities become…

  Unlikely, laughed Fflint. Then impossibilities.

  Poker becomes pontoon, said Parry, shaking his head. Then you realise the dealer’s stopped giving out cards. You’re stuck with the same old hand.

  Could be worse.

  Much worse. I saw the other shops on Goolwa high street, remember. Tried to do my shopping local. Close by was this haberdashery, the whole place permeated by a camphorated calm. Like they were still selling wimples.

  Caib Street used to be busier, said Fflint.

  True. But around here were some hopeless shops. Grocers with dusty tins of peas on empty shelves. Delis that had never heard of olives.

  Oh yes. I remember those.

  Jones’, nodded Parry.

  Fflint grimaced in agreement. Old Jones did his best, I suppose, he said.

  Hopeless, said Parry. Think the last mall I saw was Rundle Street in Adelaide. Now the girls who worked there had to be smart. It was obligatory. And the blokes. One was the only male parfumier I’ve ever seen. Yeah, I thought, why not? Immaculate’s not the word.

  Parry paused. Have you actually … rehearsed anything? he asked.

  Course not, said Fflint. Everything’s shambolic. As it a
lways was. No, nothing changes.

  Gil all right? asked Parry.

  Same old Gil. No, not the same. Looks a bit older. Maybe a lot. Says he can cope with keyboard fillers and laying down some form of a bass line. Like Ray Manzarek used to, he said. But we were pretty ragged.

  You’ll be great.

  Look, said Fflint, it’s three numbers and then just jamming half an hour of Dipsomaniac’s Blues. Till we get sick of it. With Maestro Gil directing us.

  And Glan?

  Looks the part, said Fflint slowly. I’ll give him that. Which is all that counts. These days. So he shows the old men up a bit. But his voice is really weak. Maybe we can bury him.

  As to his guitar playing, forget it. Just repeat A, I told him. Vamp it, boy, vamp that A. Maybe we won’t turn his amp on. There are always ways…

  Now Parry looked at the front door. He noted a bell and a silver knocker shaped like a dragonfly. On a plaque brass letters spelled out Caib Villa.

  Where you off, then? asked Fflint. I’d have thought you’d be tucking into breakfast made by those kids. What’s the girl’s name? The one with purple hair?

  Serene.

  Parry dug his hands into his coat pockets and laughed.

  Breakfast? Fat chance. They sleep in, kids today.

  Yeah, typical, said Fflint. I saw the girl yesterday. She’s working in your shop now?

  That’s the idea.

  And staying…

  With me. She and Glan are in the spare room. I’m trying to introduce them to some decent sounds. They know nothing.

  Like I said. Typical. But don’t scare them off with bloody John Cage. Remember you played that silent thing?

  That was Gil. He couldn’t believe someone had thought of it before him. But, yes, I’m being gentle with Glan. With Serene.

  Parry was pleased Fflint hadn’t disappeared through his front door.

  Look, sure you’re OK for this event? he asked. Gil’s all set.

  When Fflint smiled, Parry knew.

  Won’t be any worse than some of our other disasters, will it? Two run throughs is more than we used to manage…

  Course. It can’t work without you.

  Well, it’s something to do, isn’t it, said Fflint. I was on Gil’s website this week. Bloody incredible. He’s got lists of all the gigs we did. Boy, the stuff we played.