The Windy Season

by Carmody, Sam

  Paul, he said gently.

  What is going on with you and Mum?

  His father sighed. Please Paul, he said again. This is not easy, mate. We’re doing our best.

  You shouldn’t be alone.

  I’m okay. Don’t you worry about me.

  Elliot wouldn’t want this, whatever this is with you and Mum, Paul said. He wouldn’t want Mum up at Grandma’s. It’s crazy.

  Paul, his father said, sterner. We’re doing our best, he repeated.

  Yeah, Paul said. Alright.

  Atomos

  PAUL STOOD WITH HIS FACE TURNED INTO the stream of the shower. The cold water found the cracks in his lips, like water to scorched earth. He gazed down at Shivani’s bathers looped around the shower handle. It was enough to make him feel like he was losing his mind, the urge just to touch them. He turned his back on them and scrubbed hard at his fingers with the pumice stone, digging the sharper edge into his palm until it hurt, as if he might also scrape away the thought of Shivani scrunching her bathers in her hand and standing free-breasted and bare-arsed right where he was. But it was hopeless on both counts. His fingers reeked proudly of fish guts and his cock had become as hard as the shower rock. He muttered to himself and cut the shower.

  At the bathroom sink he noticed the reflection of flesh in the mirror wedged behind the taps. The frame was only the size of the rear-vision mirror in a car but he saw the line across his lower abdomen, a ridge of muscle that began at the point of his hip, on both sides, and ran towards his groin. He stared at it. He heard Michael and Shivani laughing at the TV, looked back instinctively to check no one could see him. He shuffled backwards some more and saw his chest. Then he dropped the towel and moved further back until he was standing on the low wall of the shower. He crouched down, abdomen tensed, curled like a Greek statue. In the small frame of the mirror it was all new visual information. Ropes of muscle ran across the back of his arms and along his shoulders. He didn’t yet have the bulk of Elliot’s body but at least now there was some definition. He squared himself to the sink and studied his cock.

  He stepped down from the wall and leant towards the mirror to stare at his face. His eyes peered back at him, alert but steely, like a man’s eyes. And for the first time he saw Elliot in the mirror. He and Elliot had always been so different, as close to opposites as family could get. But there he was, his brother, looking back at him. Not anywhere near a replication, of course. But in that odd, passing moment he knew he saw Elliot. There was no doubting it.

  Outpost

  JAKE LOOKED AT NEITHER OF THEM as they skipped along the windy inlet. His right cheek was marbled purple and his eye was blood red, and there was a graze down his right forearm, as if he had fallen somewhere. Even with the stink of the river around them Paul could smell the alcohol on the skipper’s breath, the sweat in his clothes. There was a persistent turmoil in Jake’s face even then, tranquilised as he was underneath a hangover, his face slackened by what Paul guessed was nausea. Something like anger drifted just below the surface of any expression, never leaving.

  That look always reminded him of a dog that stalked the front yard of a dilapidated house down the street when he was little. Paul had seen the men who lived there kick and hit the dog, and whenever the dog saw Paul and Elliot walk by its teeth were bared. It growled at any sound, at any stimulus at all, always feeling itself under threat. Even if the boys spoke softly to it, it would rage at them through the gate, ears flat, spitting with an anger that was hard to comprehend.

  Aside from Richard’s busted boat, Hell Cat, which had a broken steering cable, Arcadia was again the last to leave the inlet. An hour south, the sea was a dull green. Sediment rippled the water and surf bristled and growled on the bomboras.

  Michael had once described working the deck during a swell as like working in a zoo, with the sea calling and howling, and the groans and chattering of the pots. Paul decided that it was more like a jungle, how each individual noise spoke of its own threat. The shriek of the wind in his ears. The whine of the rope, almost in frustration, desperate to pull you into the sea.

  Paul’s nostrils were hot with the smell of bourbon, rising like fumes from his gut, and the relentless energy on deck made him feel a sort of mania. The white glare of marine paint. The hard edges and hard sounds of the deck. The German’s whistling. It all made him want to yell out, to scream like a mental case. All morning he had seen himself slipping and smashing teeth out on a railing or on the glistening rungs of the bridge ladder, the thought repeating in his head like it was on a loop. He cursed himself for having again let Michael keep him out late. He spoke to his stomach out loud, warning off sickness. It had been weeks since he’d last vomited at sea. But even the dinghy ride in the inlet had made him want to spew.

  Michael pointed out two or three four-wheel drives huddled together on the shore. They were difficult to make out, tucked up at the base of the ridge, the white paint grey under the shadow of the dunes. It was an unremarkable place they had found themselves, the ridgeline above them prickled with brownish vegetation. Fishers or surfers, Paul guessed. They were too far to tell for certain. Then Jake powered the boat towards another bombie and they lost sight of them.

  For the next hour Paul saw his brother’s Pajero tucked into a corner of every bay they passed. He imagined him waking in the driver’s seat, wondered what he would be thinking.

  Michael leant against the wall of the cabin and looked into his sandwich, lifting the top layer of white bread with care as if the whole thing could detonate. He spoke under his breath in German and returned the sandwich to the baking paper.

  You did not have a girl back home?

  Nah, Paul replied.

  Really? Why then do I never see a girl in your bedroom? You are a free man.

  Paul shrugged.

  I am getting concerned, Michael said. You do know this? I am genuinely worried about you. No wonder you are so bottled up, always looking like you are trying not to explode into a million little pieces. You have this look on your face. Michael tensed his entire face like someone holding their breath, squinted his eyes. Paul scoffed but Michael fixed on him an expression of sincere urgency. My friend, he said, gripping Paul’s shoulders with his greasy gloves, that is your cock saying to you, Dear God, let me out.

  You are such a tosser, Paul said. He shrugged off Michael’s hands.

  Now tossing is a very good idea, Michael said. But tossing is only a temporary fix. It is not a long-term solution. Eventually your cock is going to be like, This is fun and everything, but I want to meet new people.

  You’re messed up.

  When did you last make love?

  Paul considered the truth while Michael looked at him, and then thought of a lie.

  Has it been months? Michael asked, impatient. What are we talking? Six months?

  Paul could only shake his head in protest.

  Oh God, Michael gasped, studying Paul’s face with a look of horror. How have you been holding it together?

  There was a long pause. The rattle of the breeze against the cabin door.

  Jesus, Michael muttered eventually. People have killed for less. Michael looked at him suspiciously, as if Paul was a hazard, opened the cabin door and stepped inside.

  Talk

  AT THE TAVERN THE TALK WAS ALL about the shark seen at the point that morning. It had appeared in the middle of a thick weekend crowd of surfers, teeth bared like a jack-in-the-box, and with a hellish hole on the side of its head that looked like a giant bullet wound. The huge animal swam dumbly about as the pack made for the ledge. It bumped underneath their surfboards and had knocked an older man off his longboard with an erratic tail. No one was bitten. The surfers stood hyperventilating and laughing on the point as they watched the shark swim where they had just been, circling in irregular arcs.

  The local surfers had recognised the shark, a large white pointer, five metres or more in length with a gaping cavity where its right eye should have been. Circus. In the tav
ern that evening some men talked of that hole in the shark as though it were a doorway to the underworld. There were theories that the wound had caused significant brain injury and nearly all of the crews spoke of Circus in that way, as a joke, the brain-damaged fish, mouthing outboard motors and cray pots, slack-jawed. Paul had heard that the shark would sometimes headbutt stationary boats as if by mistake. Michael said he thought it wasn’t a brain injury but that the shark was unable to judge distance with its one remaining eye.

  You know what I worked out? Michael said. What makes this place so different is everyone is in a dream.

  Paul rested his head against the cool timber of the bar. He could still smell the sharpness of bile on his breath. They had spent the afternoon thirty miles from shore, the water wild with the sea breeze, the white glare of the sun in their eyes. He had never been so sick. There at the bar, with the drumming chatter of the crews in his ears, he felt sleep begin to take its merciful hold on him, and it stilled the vertigo.

  Everyone likes to think Stark is so far from everywhere else, the German continued, like it is a different planet. That is all of us, I think, including me. Another Euro boy, on his adventure. Michael chuckled. I come here. All the people from the city. We come because we want to think it is the edge of the world. And we know it is not, but that does not matter. We choose to see it that way. We book our flights to come and see it that way. And maybe we need to see it like that, have some place in the world that is separate. Away from all the shit. A place we can go and dream.

  Paul summoned the image of Kasia, imagining her hands in his hair. He could hear Michael sawing at his steak.

  But it is mad, Michael went on. Totally deranged, you know? It is like wanting to believe you are the only one in a crowded room because you have turned the lights off. But the room is full and we sit with the lights off, in the dark, pretending we are by ourselves. Pretending we are separate from everything. That is what it is like. It is not real. Nowhere is away from the shit. Not here, not anywhere. And the people in Stark, they have not worked that out yet. The locals, they worry about the world coming and messing things up for them, complicating things. But nothing was ever easy, I guarantee you that. He paused to chew on his steak. Look at Roo Dog. Tell me he did not have a fucked-up childhood. And he was born here. I mean, how does a paradise produce such a person?

  Paul opened his eyes enough for the bar lights to flood in. He groaned and closed them again.

  Exactly, my friend. Michael laughed. Well said. The German paused to think. Dreaming, he said. It is all in a dream. And no one questions it. It is its own religion.

  Paul imagined kissing the girl, what that might be like.

  Something wrong with you? He heard her voice, sharp, the words clear and real. He lifted his head to see her standing in front of him at the bar.

  You never eat, Kasia said.

  He saw the plate in her hand and the burger with the serviette wedged into the single bite mark. She waited for him to say something.

  I feel sick, he got out.

  The girl gave him a concerned look.

  I mean, I get seasick, Paul said, during the day. I don’t feel like eating.

  You are a lobster fisherman and you get seasick?

  I don’t really like fishing either, he said, despite himself, hearing the words spill out of him like a confession. Or fish.

  The girl laughed. Paul felt a sort of relief at the sound of it.

  You are not from here, are you? she said.

  He shook his head.

  I could tell, she said.

  Paul glanced at Michael. The German had a mouthful of mash but he was listening in.

  I guess you’re not from Stark either, Paul said.

  She smiled. You guess right. I am from a long way away. You would not know of my town.

  I want to go there, Paul said, again hearing the words before he had any real control over them.

  Kasia raised her eyebrows. Michael shifted beside him. Paul couldn’t believe he had said such a stupid thing. He felt like driving his forehead into the bar.

  Poland, she said to him. I am from a small place in Poland. She turned to Michael. Chelm.

  The German nodded. Paul looked to him as if for help.

  Near Lublin, she said, turning again to Paul. Have you been to Europe?

  No.

  You have never been? she repeated. And you want to go to Chelm?

  He nodded.

  She made a puzzled face as she walked along the bar collecting plates.

  Well, you should visit, Kasia said. It’s very pretty.

  Jules walked out from the kitchen into the bar and whispered something to her. Kasia nodded and turned for the kitchen doors but spun around before entering.

  Nice to talk to you, fisherman. She grinned. And Merry Christmas.

  She disappeared before he could respond.

  Paul sat in silence, aware of the stagger of his heartbeat. He could sense Michael watching him but avoided meeting his eye.

  I might head home, Michael said eventually. You coming?

  Nah, he said.

  Paul stepped out into the beer garden. The lights under the veranda were off, or broken, and the tables outside were in darkness.

  Paul, eh? someone said, the voice coming from the blackness in front of him.

  Yeah, Paul said. Who’s that?

  Noddy, mate.

  Oh. Hey.

  You’re the brother, Noddy said. Elliot’s brother, right?

  Yeah, Paul replied.

  This town might not be the same anymore but some things never change. Everyone here is in everyone else’s pockets. You want to keep a secret, don’t live in Stark. Unless you want to punish yourself.

  Paul heard laughter. He recognised it as Elmo’s.

  Where is he? Elmo asked. Your brother? Where has he run off to?

  Why would he run anywhere?

  The shadows didn’t respond.

  You’re on Jake’s boat, yeah? said Noddy. Good luck to you.

  Elmo laughed again. The Grim Reaper, he offered.

  Paul was unsure what they meant by it. He said nothing.

  You don’t know about him? said Noddy.

  Know what? Paul replied.

  Jake, your skipper—he’s a murderer. Paul could hear the pleasure in the deckhand’s voice as he said the words. He could sense both of them smiling.

  Surely you knew that, Elmo said. He’s your cousin, isn’t he?

  I don’t really know him . . . Paul began. What do you mean? Who did he murder?

  I think the technical term was manslaughter, hey, Elmo? Otherwise he wouldn’t have ever come out of that lock-up.

  He comes in one night on Arcadia, stupid drunk, Noddy said, and Paul could tell he’d recounted this story before in something like the same words. It was near midnight when he comes roaring through. Cleans up two boys who were having a fish in the inlet. And then . . . The deckhand hit the table hard. The two men laughed.

  Young kids, mate, Noddy continued. Your age. Bit younger, maybe.

  Yeah, said Elmo. Would have been about that.

  And he runs straight over the top of them, Noddy said. He paused and Paul smelt the marijuana smoke breathed out towards him.

  One of them survived, you know, Noddy said. Don’t fucking ask me how.

  Got messed up, of course, Elmo said. Don’t have a boat go over your head and do okay.

  Noddy cleared his throat. They got him out. Rushed him to the city. In hospital for a year, he was. That’s what I heard. Learning to walk.

  What about the other one? Paul said.

  There was a silence. Boat just broke him, Noddy said eventually, voice deep and deliberate. Took three days before he came up, all twisted and bloated.

  They waited for Paul to respond but he couldn’t.

  Anyway, Noddy said, I’ve got no idea why Jake came back here. I mean, shit—this place? I would have run off somewhere if I was him. Just taken off.

  No idea, Elmo ech
oed.

  I wake to gunfire and the sky pink above me and think I’m dreaming. The President and the generals’ sleeping bags are empty. I crawl through the cold dirt until I see those two generals. One is lying flat out on his back. Blood in the sand underneath him so that it looks like he is lying on a blanket. The other is curled up on himself. I come up on another man and see the light-blue uniform. Face down. Somewhere off in the scrub I hear someone moaning and crawl towards the sound of it through dew-beaded spinifex. In a small clearing I see a woman leaning against the rock. Legs shot up. Seen her before. The federal police and the roadblock back near Yulara. And I see the President stand above her with the rifle. His long white hair in the desert wind like he’s some sort of spirit. The police officer rolls and turns her head to the ground. Puts her arm up as he fires.

  We ride hard out through the sand country. Just the President and me. Ride all day until the sun is low enough. In the dark we hear a plane. Maybe more than one. Later a helicopter. All night I listen to the sky and to the President whimpering in his sleep and try to get my head around all this business. The gunfire and the dead generals and the President standing over that woman.

  The windy season

  BY NINE O’CLOCK ON NEW YEAR’S EVE the tavern was full and hot and loud and there was mayhem at the bar. Roo Dog had tried to piss in someone’s handbag. Through the crowd, from the tavern restaurant, Paul witnessed the entire ghoulish event. There was Roo Dog, perched on his toes. Skeletal arms crooked into his jeans. And the other deckies, like statues behind him, frozen in anticipation. Faces green under the lights of the bar. When the girl shrieked, the pack imploded, howling and screeching, breathless in their delight. Roo Dog had fired short, managing only to urinate on the girl’s white dress and down the back of her legs. The girl spun around and saw the large tumbling bodies and purple necks, the frenzied laughter. Her pretty face creased in horror and confusion. She began to cry. Paul watched her push through the crowd, away from the bar. Roo Dog was buckled in amusement, overwhelmed, his spidery hands on his knees.