by Carmody, Sam
What does that mean? he said, touching the tattoo on her hip bone. Is it Polish?
Ah, my tattoo, she said. You have seen it.
I don’t know what it means.
Have you always been so nosy? She laughed.
Sorry, I was just curious.
I know that, she said. For a boy who never tells very much of himself, you are very curious. She ran her finger along the words. It says: Im yesh l’adam menora, eyno pohed m’hosheh.
What does it mean?
It is Hebrew. It says that if you carry your own lantern you will endure the dark. It was something my grandmother used to tell me, like a saying.
She was Jewish, your grandmother?
Yes. Like me. Kasia pointed to the last word inscribed. Katarzyna. That is my grandmother. I got my name from her. She is no longer with us though.
Katarzyna, he repeated. Did you ever meet her?
Only when I was very little. But I remember her. And I can remember her saying that. She used to tell me that I have to always be positive, no matter how terrible things can be.
I like it, he said.
She would say it when I was sad about something. My father said she would always say it to him, too. It was like the thing she lived by; it was what got her through so much pain.
What kind of pain? Did something happen to her?
Yes, Kasia said, a melancholy smile on her lips. A war happened.
Mid-morning we pull into a farmhouse. It’s still some distance from the coast but I see the ocean west of us, big and dark blue, and it makes me feel uneasy, like I’m looking at something I shouldn’t be.
The farmhouse belongs to an old lobster-boat skipper. We sit out on the veranda and I listen to them all talk.
The President says his bit about cleaning things up. If something went wrong out there he says we are all in the ground. The old skipper promised there was no trouble out at sea. The President leans back in his chair and watches the old skipper. The old man looks in his hands like he is looking for a ditch to jump in and finally says that there were some things in town to clean up. A fella who knew things he shouldn’t know.
Not a gang fella. Lovesick. Soft. Protecting his girl who owed money. The skipper says this city fella had walked right up the jetty to their boat in the inlet, told them that he knew about the ships and told them he would tip off the coppers if they didn’t leave his girl alone. It was almost sweet the skipper says. The President doesn’t find anything sweet about it and tells the old boy as much. The skipper goes looking for his ditch to jump into again and then the President turns to me. He doesn’t say it but I know in the way the President looks at me that this city fella is now my business.
I wonder about this fella, if he knew he’d signed his own death warrant then and there when he walked up that jetty and spoke to these men. Got his name on a list that there is no getting off without ending up in the ground.
Wake
IN THE DAYS AFTER THE CYCLONE PASSED the sea was as flat and still as Paul had seen it. The surface was strewn with junk that the storm had ingested from the beaches and drawn up from the sea floor. But the swell had disappeared and there seemed to be no movement in the ocean, not the slightest current. Things just sat in the sea where the storm had left them, inert on the surface, suspended like space junk. Michael and Paul were amazed at the things they saw floating in between runs, and Jake slowed the boat alongside any sizeable object so they could get a good look at what it was. They found a couch, possibly from a roadside collection. Michael’s highlight was the kangaroo they came across eighteen miles from shore. The carcass was dark and swollen. Michael posed with the marsupial, leaning back over the water as Paul took a photo of it with the German’s phone. After lunch they came across an upturned catamaran. Jake had circled it, sounding his horn in case there were people clinging to it. Then he called the Maritime Safety Authority and reported it. That was as much as they could do. They were too far out to try to tow it; it would be too much for Arcadia. A hundred-thousand-dollar boat and they had to leave it behind.
As he worked, Paul found himself smiling, just like the German. The memory of Kasia relaxed him. It didn’t stop him feeling sick, but it took the dread and melancholy out of the seasickness. He was vomiting and feeling incredible happiness. He even thought of Elliot less, he realised guiltily. When he did think of his brother, he found himself resisting the thought. It was almost as if he was back under the bedsheets again, pretending not to hear Elliot calling his name. But then Kasia would come back to him and Elliot would disappear, and he had to admit to himself that there was a relief in that, in forgetting it all, at least for a little while.
Paul knew by the way she kissed and the way she touched him that Kasia was experienced. He presumed his inexperience was equally apparent, but she seemed to tolerate his efforts. Mostly he simply watched and she guided him along. He observed the change in her face as he entered her, how her eyes closed and forehead creased. Her groans resembled both pain and relief. He would look down and watch the pattern of his body disappearing and reappearing, at one moment visible and then hidden. The simple visual subtraction, his cock erased from view, concealed inside her, was almost too much to take. After a moment watching he would close his eyes and grit his teeth and try to withdraw his thoughts before he lost his grasp on them. And he never did in time. Orgasm would sweep heavily over his body, a crushing, plunging feeling, like being driven deep down into the sea. Kasia would kiss him hard, and then she would watch him as he drifted slowly back to her from the depths, as though he was swimming up to the surface.
Big room
AT THE BEACH PAUL KISSED HER SHOULDER. Kasia’s skin was hot against his lips. She lay face down on the towel, head turned away from him.
Have you seen the shark with the eye missing? Kasia asked, voice muffled by the towel.
Circus? No one has for a while. He’s probably washed up somewhere.
The easterly was strong and desert-warm. He watched gusts run out across the sea in individual lines, prickling the surface, and he imagined the downdraught of invisible flocks of birds.
Maybe we could do it, you know, in there. Paul nodded towards the ocean.
Fuck?
He shrugged, tried to not look injured by the sharpness of the word and how she delivered it.
Ha, she said. No thanks.
Paul said nothing.
Kasia sighed. It is one of those things that are better in the mind than it is in life, she said. Would you like me to flush the ocean up your pee-hole?
Paul shook his head.
Exactly.
He watched the fine silver hairs of her back. He imagined her in the sea with her hands linked around the shoulders of someone else.
You know, Paul said, Michael says we are all doomed.
Michael says a lot of stuff.
He says we are designed to fail. People. All of us. It is in our design.
That’s honestly what you guys talk about?
He reckons we are a faulty product.
We are not so bad. We went to the moon, didn’t we?
A long time ago.
She shrugged. But we still did it. How can anything be impossible after that?
What do you think? Paul asked.
What do I think is the point of it all? she said, amused.
Paul shrugged.
Kasia rubbed her nose on her towel and looked back at him. Love, maybe, she said. Trying to be good. I believe that the future can have good things in it. Is that enough?
Paul rolled back over and sat up. For a moment his eyes were overwhelmed with light.
What is it with boys and questions like this? she said. Get them alone and it is always these big questions, like children thinking about dinosaurs or aliens or monsters under the bed.
Women, she said, they worry about the world they live in but men are always worrying about some different one that does not exist. They are incapable of talking about anything real.
Th
at’s not true.
It is, she said. Does Michael ever talk about his father, or why he is here?
All the time.
How does his father make him feel? Why is Michael hiding on the other side of the world, on a fucking lobster boat? I mean, you said he was studying at Oxford?
Paul laughed her questions off. I don’t know, he said.
Kasia turned onto her back and exhaled, as if the weight of the sun had pushed the air from her lungs.
Paul watched her.
Why here? he said. Why did you come to Stark?
I saw it in a travel shop.
You saw Stark in a travel agency? He laughed.
No, she said. There was a shitty little travel shop next to the restaurant where I worked when I was in London. I walked in there on my break, crying like a loser. The man even made me tea because I was crying so much.
Why were you crying?
A boy. It was dumb. Just some boy who turned out to be an arsehole. And I was telling this old man all about it. He was as old as my grandfather, in his stupid little shop. I mean, who even goes into a travel agency anymore? And I told him about this arsehole, the full story. He sat down with me and we started going through all the places I could go, what I might find there. I do not even know if there was a computer in his shop. She laughed. But he was helping me to plan my escape from London.
But why here?
There was a poster of people swimming with a huge shark. It was as big as my apartment. Bigger even. A big shark with white spots.
A whale shark.
Yes. I did not know there could be such a thing. But it was so peaceful. Even in the picture I could see that it meant no harm, and I decided I wanted to do that. I did not have the money, but I needed to come here. I needed to swim with that big shark. We worked out where it was, me and the old man, we worked out that it was in the west of Australia, all the way up where the continent bulges into the sea. Right at the tip of the bulge.
Ningaloo Reef, he said.
The plan was to work my way up the coast, try to earn some money until I got to Exmouth and the reef and the shark.
And you got stuck here.
I got stuck. I ran out of money. This place, where I thought everything would be easier. A simple time. That is how I imagined it would be. And then I find this. Stark. At the end of the rainbow. And it is as fucked as anywhere I have ever been.
Paul snorted.
It really is. That tavern, it is like a black hole. Everything tumbles towards it, all these angry men and their problems. The pressure is so intense. That woke me up. I realised that everywhere is just the same. You do not find peace, you know, like it is some kind of destination. It is not something that you can search for and visit. It is not in London. And it is not at the edge of the earth. My grandmother said it: you carry your own light with you. She was smart, my grandmother. Again, she was right.
So much for the whale shark then, he said.
No, she said. I just need more money and I will be out of here.
Paul pulled a face at this, felt like a child for doing so. Kasia stood up and raced barefoot across the hot sand, swearing loudly. A mother pulled her toddler towards her legs and glared at Paul as he got up to follow.
Come on, fisherman, Kasia yelled.
Before he had really had time to think about it they were out beyond the bank. He dived down towards the seabed. Sunlight crisscrossed the sand. He looked up and saw Kasia’s legs dangling, the sun blazing above her, could tell by the way her arms circled close and quick by her side that she was unsure what he was doing, awaiting the moment he might grab her leg to spook her. Paul let himself drift, totally numb to any thought of a stalking white shark, staring off into the decline of the sand into the sea and uncaring about what might be gliding at the limit of his vision.
Off-the-boat
AT THE TAVERN THAT NIGHT MICHAEL was drunk. Even at his most intoxicated he always maintained a remarkable level of outward composure. His skin didn’t blot or become flushed like Elmo or Jungle, or like Paul, too. Michael didn’t sweat, and his eyes never became bloodshot. It was his choice of discussion topics that gave him away, the lines of argument becoming more and more obtuse and hard to follow.
It was Richard’s birthday. The cook, Jolix, had prepared him crayfish as a special gesture, against the man’s wishes. Richard was predictably disgusted by the fuss made over him. Paul had been surprised to discover the skipper was only fifty. He looked at least two decades older. He sat at the bar, hunched over his food, looking every bit the old dog guarding its bowl. Despite himself he had drawn the amused attention of the intoxicated German, and therefore every other deckhand at the bar. Michael leant over Richard’s shoulder and peered at the birthday meal.
I feel uncomfortable eating a crayfish or a crab or anything like that, Michael told his audience gravely. In front of people, I mean. Some people do not seem to mind putting their face into a crab. Sucking the meat out of its legs. They will even do it in public. Does that not strike you as an intimate thing to do to an animal?
Shivani giggled. The men at the bar were stumped by the question.
Michael turned to the unmoving Richard. Richard stared at the crayfish, its two halves lying upturned on the plate, the white flesh shining under the counter lights. Richard never took much notice of Michael’s talk, and seemed too tired now to utter a word anyway. But for a moment he let the lobster sit there, cutlery bound in a serviette next to it.
Ignore them, Jules said. Happy birthday, you grumpy old shit.
Happy birthday, alright, Richard muttered. Fucking fishing net took out three of my pots this afternoon. Cut right through the lines. Now I’ve got a thousand dollars of pots sitting on the bank in one hundred metres of water. Fuck’s sake.
A fishing net? Elmo asked. How big? Must have been a smoker to cut lines like that.
Should have seen the fucker, Jungle said. Size of a football oval. Even bigger.
Three times that, Richard said. Six hundred metres long, I reckon. Easy.
Get fucked, Noddy said.
Super trawler, Richard said. Sure it was. Nothing else drags something that big. They would have cut their net loose in the cyclone.
I thought it was a spill at first, Jungle said. This giant shadow. Black as night. But there were birds going fucking mad above it all. More birds than I ever seen in one place in my whole life. Then we went closer.
What did you see? Paul asked.
This net, Jungle began, it moved liked it was alive. Turning big and slow, shimmering with fish of all sorts. Think I saw a hundred sharks around it. Maybe more. Reefies and tigers and god knows what else. And all this life and death and pot floats and coral like the whole ocean was being sucked into this thing. Honestly sent chills right through me fucking soul.
Jesus Christ, Elmo said.
It gave me the creeps, Richard grumbled. It was as bad as that bloody mutant fish.
Circus, Michael said. So, you’ve got the shark with its eye, this portal into the underworld. Now there is a black hole coming to visit us. You know what this probably means?
What? Jungle asked.
I think all evidence suggests that Stark might actually be the centre of the cosmos.
Jungle scoffed. Fuck me.
Scary, isn’t it? Michael said. The universe spinning on an axis of cigarette butts and crackheads.
Michael elbowed Richard, who managed a rare smirk, and the men laughed. But Paul saw Arthur and his crew skulk through the front doors, looking tired and mangier than ever. Roo Dog, Anvil and Arthur took stools at the adjoining bar, eyes so dark and bloodshot there was no white in them. It was too late to get up and leave. Tea Cup walked over.
What are you fuckers on about? Tea Cup said, approaching from behind them. He slapped Elmo on the shoulder with a fat palm.
The German figures that we’re the centre of all things earthly and intergalactic, Elmo said. They all laughed again.
Tea Cup gave a tense smile a
nd raised his arm to Jules.
You hear that news about Carnarvon? Tea Cup said, looking at Elmo but with his voice raised to ensure everyone heard him. Boat rocked up on the town beach, he said, just today. All the way from Indo, packed full of Afghans.
No shit, said Elmo. I can’t believe they got so far south. From Indonesia?
Yep. Java.
That’s incredible, Elmo said.
No it’s not, Tea Cup spat. It’s a fucking disgrace.
The group went quiet again, as if already bored with where Tea Cup was headed.
Paul glanced at Shivani, who was peering unconvincingly at her phone. Michael stared at the counter. He was smiling.
We are being invaded, Tea Cup said. He placed his pile of coins on the bar and took up his pint of beer like a weapon. I told you. The dam is busted. Mark my words.
What would you do if you saw one of those boats? Elmo asked Tea Cup, throwing the scenario to him like a clay disc to a shooter. You know, out there?
Sink it, Tea Cup shot. No joke. Fucking tear a hole in it and watch the fucker sink.
Some of the men laughed in agreement. Tea Cup looked around at them, drinking in their approval. His eyes settled on Shivani.
Boat full of gooks, he muttered, like the words were bitter in his mouth. Sink them and then use them for cray bait. Off-the-boat pieces of trash.
Paul watched the faces of the men in the bar mirror, their awkward reflections, how they both avoided each other’s eyes and tried to find them, each individual attempting to detect the mood of the whole. He saw Michael, noticed that punchline grin on him. He could sense something was coming and he had to stop it.
You still talking? Paul said.
The men at the bar turned at the sound of his voice. Paul thought he might have heard a gasp. He wondered if it had been his own.
What? Tea Cup grunted.
Are you still talking? Paul repeated.
Tea Cup looked around at the other deckhands as if in bemusement. Would you listen here? I think he is trying to tell me something. What are you trying to tell me?
Just saying I heard you, Paul said. I heard you the first time.