Gravity's Chain

by Alan Goodwin

  ‘Have you ever been to the Hilton?’

  ‘No, but I very much hope I’m about to.’

  ‘You are.’

  She paused before speaking. I wondered if she might now change her mind. ‘I thought I might lose out to her ladyship.’ She nodded toward Mary who was still talking to Mike.

  ‘Well, nothing to fear, it’s all in the past. It’s all history.’

  Mission Bay was bustling with people when we left the restaurant. We said no goodbyes and acknowledged no one as we left in a fluid movement, the security guards closing in like a phalanx on the stairs. Fierce comments would be exchanged the length of the table, but the only one I cared about was Mary. Had I done this to stir a reaction in her? Oh well, another story to add to the pantheon. ‘Do you remember the anniversary dinner when Jack left with Jo without so much as a goodbye?’

  Trees lining the beach shimmered in a soft breeze. The tender green underbellies of the leaves looked silver in the moonlight. Cars thundered along the waterfront, squatting low to the road, their drivers barely able to see over the steering wheel. They bobbed to music that thumped through open windows. The street was busy with the young, their droopy trousers revealing underpants and bare stomachs (better than the dancer, I have to admit).

  ‘Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?’ Jo linked arms and I stiffened. I only wanted sex, not a bloody relationship.

  ‘Yeah, but we can feel young again. I’ve got some good stuff.’

  Bebe had the car waiting when we were ready to go. He sat in the front seat and greeted us both from the open window. Jo got in and as I waited I felt that eerie sense of someone near me again, someone stalking my movements. I turned, but there was no one there I knew. Jo grabbed my arm and pulled me into the car where she pushed her tongue deep into my mouth. That was more like it.

  The diary of Mary Roberts

  Aged 18

  December 9th

  It looks like Jack’s dad has said yes for the crew to go up to his bach for the week before Xmas. This will be a fantastic way to celebrate the end of exams and leaving school, at long bloody last (free, free, free). REALLY looking forward to this. So far it’s Jack (swoon, swoon), Mike—oh no, hope he hasn’t remembered the school dance and THAT snog—Helen, Duncan and moi. Jo has been sniffing around. Hope Jack tells her to FO. She is definitely not welcome. Well not by me anyway.

  December 12th

  Shit! Jack is such a soft touch (or do I mean sweetie), it looks as though Jo has wormed her way in and has got an invite to the holiday. Bad news!!! Helen says Jo keeps talking about Jack and how they groped at some party and that they have unfinished business that will be finished that week. Yeah? Well have I got news for her!

  December 13th

  Caroline is being a bitch again—some things never change. I really don’t know what’s up with her, but she’s got all high and mighty at Dad. Don’t even know what it was about, but they were going at it tonight. Dad got really mad. Mum just sat and tried to ignore it all and that got Caroline even madder. Anyway, when it was over I tried to talk to Caroline, she just told me to FO and mind my business. Then she said that I wouldn’t understand because all I wanted was everyone to be happy and play happy families and that our family was just full of shit and Mum and Dad were just hypocrites. Christ, I only went to see if she was OK. Polly came in and said to ignore her. Caroline was really getting on her nerves as well. I don’t know what I’ve done to make Caroline dislike me so much. She doesn’t feel like a sister any more.

  December 14th

  OH NOOOO. Jack says his dad isn’t sure about the week any more and thinks he should be there. Helen says that the trip will be off if he goes. I mean, he’s OK, but he’s such a miserable old bugger. There’s no point in going if he’s there. Oh well, I suppose it might keep Jo away from Jack. Still, it’s really disappointing.—Caroline ignored me today. No apology, just a sour look whenever she saw me. Thanks for nothing.

  December 16th

  It’s all ON!!!!!! Fantastic. Daddy Mitchell (God bless him, always said he was wonderful—he, he, he) says he’s sure everything will be fine and he doesn’t want to go up there anyway. We leave in two days, and then back on Xmas eve. It has come around so quick—I don’t feel ready at all. There is so much to do. Mum got a bit funny about it all today, now she knows it’s all definite, then she started asking questions about Jack and Mike, even though she knows them (left out Duncan though—does she know something I don’t??). Polly was totally cool. She reminded Mum that she’d gone to Rotorua with her mates. Mum tried to say that was different because Polly was older. Poll put her right and said she was the same age. A bit of a lie I think. Polly just gave me that smile. Caroline grunted. She’s still not talking to me. One of the many good things about this trip will be getting away from her. SO—here we come Ohawini Bay.

  December 17th

  Off tomorrow. No time to chat—too busy. Went shopping for supplies and some Xmas pressies. Jack is in good form, Jo is a bitch. I’ve decided to sign off whilst away. So goodbye for a week, I’ll tell you all the goss when I get back. And boy—do I hope to have some goss!!!

  FIVE

  There’s something almost magical about the first taste of adult freedom. It’s an experience we wait years to enjoy and edge toward bit by painful bit. How we yearn for the moment we break free, when the world is suddenly there for the taking because we enter as a fully paid up member. Whatever our upbringing, we’re rarely prepared for this sudden jolt and often spend years coming to terms with what happened. I wasn’t ready for this onslaught and, boy, have I paid the price, but I do know when I entered the grown-ups’ club. It was during the four-hour drive from Auckland to the bach, twelve years ago with my friends Mike, Helen, Duncan, Mary and Jo.

  Duncan’s father lent us his old blue Falcon. It was a tight squeeze for the six of us together with our gear and food for a week, but we rotated the passenger seat to bring some relief to the four in the back. The sky was clear when we left Auckland early in the morning and by the time we approached the sea, the sun was ferocious. At midday, I got the passenger seat so that I could direct Duncan to the bach. Finally I had the cold air blower.

  We drove through Oakura Bay, the glistening sea to our right, and then along the single-file track through the rocks that divided the two bays. Across the beach was the tiny encampment of baches. Jo and Helen sat at the rear windows, let their hair blow in the wind and squealed with delight. Duncan, who until then had shown admirable restraint in his driving, slammed the accelerator and executed some well-timed handbrake turns, spewing plumes of sand off the rear wheels. He was much more careful in negotiating the concrete ramp from the beach to the houses. Once at the bach we all escaped the car as though it was a burning wagon and sprawled across the grass. Mike cracked some jokes and everyone laughed.

  Mike was the closest thing I had to a best friend. I say closest because he was a friend to everyone, but seldom gave himself exclusively to one person. There were always different facets of his personality he tailored for the person and their circumstances. I suspect there were many people throughout his life who thought Mike might be their best friend but were unsure. We had become closer only in the last couple of years and we were too old to stand in the playground and announce ourselves as best friends as children do.

  However, for me the uncertainty of our status was more about me than him. I never felt able to give myself to someone, never felt able to surrender. I always thought I should hold something back and keep some of myself in reserve. After all, look at what happened to Dad: he gave himself completely and then Mum left without ever contacting him again. Her betrayal left him defiled and spent. Why should I let that happen to me? So there was always this reticence with my classmates. They saw my behaviour as aloofness, even arrogance born of my gifts. A small group rejected that easy conclusion. Those at the bach at least accepted me, but the price was all of us being treated as a clique by the others in our school. I bore considerable g
uilt for this, but it wasn’t enough to break my fear of getting too close to them. There was just this fucking wall and I thought it would always stand. But walls have weaknesses and forces were gathering.

  Duncan was more Mike’s friend than mine, but I liked him and we always got on well. Helen was destined to be Mike’s girl, we all knew that; Mary had been Helen’s best friend since primary school. As for Jo, I don’t really know how she ended up with us, although I had some history with her. So we were all friends in varying degrees and I enjoyed being with them as we laughed about the oven that had brought us to the bach.

  The car took just five minutes to unpack. Once finished we headed, not for the sensible reassembly of our belongings in the house, but to the sea. This was a holiday after all. There’s nothing quite like the first sting of the sea: all those echoes of holidays past fill the ears along with the water, along with screaming children, cries of parents, salt on the lips and eyes blinking against the sharp reflection of sun from the water. We splashed and played like kids, throwing each other in the water, spraying water and running to the beach for brief rests before returning with a run and a dive. There were only a handful of people spread out on the kilometre-long strip of sand. They watched us suspiciously as we finally dawdled back to the task of setting up home for the week.

  I felt strange entering the bach, even uncomfortable. Apart from Dad, and in the early days, Mum, I’d never stayed there with anyone else. Seeing all the new faces of my friends made the place different, made me feel that outsiders were in the sanctuary. Familiar routines and age-old arrangements had to be explained rather than performed by instinct. I felt out of the group: they all shared a common bond of newness. So as we set about the day I felt unattached to both the bach and my friends. This wasn’t the first time I’d experienced such discomfort and it wasn’t the last. Over the years it became a common occurrence as my science and then fame took me further from reality and the people who inhabit it. Although I reconciled myself to the bach arrangements in the days that followed, I carried a ghost of the weirdness all week.

  The girls settled down for some serious tanning and the boys for some casual appraising. Jo knew she looked good. There was something in the way she tensed her legs and lay with one angled up, the knee jutting toward the sky. She was the only one of the three without sunglasses and whenever I walked past she’d look at me, one eye closed against the glare of the sun. Did she still like me? I was afraid to find out for fear of rejection. Helen was squatter and chunkier and already her thighs were heavy, like those of a middle-aged woman with dimples of cellulite. Then there was Mary. I’d never noticed her grace before, never seen the length of her limbs and her subtle movements. There on the beach, Mary Roberts strolled out of the shadows like a panther emerging from a dark forest.

  We had talked about the first evening for weeks and in the days before we had all endlessly run through in our minds just what it would be like. We ate fish and chips, we drank beer and then wine, and we smoked dope. Once the sunset came, Mary lit candles that she’d brought with her in an old cardboard box and placed all around the front room. She had saved them for years. The evening settled down after the initial burst of excitement. The jokes faded and the drink and drugs bit.

  ‘How do you feel about Cambridge, Jack?’ Helen sat on the floor, like a sleeping cat at my feet. She sipped from a beer can without looking up.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Mike snorted as he came from the downstairs bedroom where he and I were sleeping carrying his guitar, ‘you’re going to one of the greatest universities in the world where they think you’re a bloody paid-up member of the genius club and all you can say is fine?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Do you think you’ll miss home?’ Mary sat furthest from me, her face hidden in shadows, her voice soft and comforting.

  ‘I guess so, yes.’

  Mike plucked a spliff from Jo’s hand, took a deep puff and passed it to me before picking up his guitar and sliding it on his lap. ‘Two weeks there and you won’t even remember New Zealand, and you won’t fucking remember us either. You’ll have a bloody amazing time.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ll miss you lot.’

  There was a moment’s silence before a chorus of catcalls and raspberries filled the room. Mike strummed the first four chords of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and then suddenly stopped as a wide grin crossed his face. ‘Tell me, Jack,’ he said as he twanged three notes, one for every word, ‘what is 321,640 divided by 618?’ He barked the numbers like a sergeant major on the training ground. Everyone turned to me. This was a favourite party piece.

  ‘Easy, 520.453.’

  ‘My God, how do you do that,’ squealed Jo, who hadn’t seen this before. ‘Can you do it again?’

  There was silence. ‘You have to give me some numbers,’ I said to her, half laughing.

  ‘Oh yeah, right…62,220 times 115.’

  ‘7,155,300.’ Mike strummed his guitar in time with my rhythmic answer.

  ‘Square root of 426,000?’

  ‘652.687.’

  They all cheered and laughed. Mike broke the silence with ‘She Loves You’, which we all sang at the top of our voices, shaking our heads wildly at the ‘ooohhh’.

  We sang for an hour. At the end Mary gave me the sunniest smile of the evening: her face opened up and the joy poured out like a torrent and I knew it was just for me. It churned my guts, that bloody smile, like the sweetest dose of food poisoning any man could have. When she turned away, the smile vanished and her face closed down, but I’d glimpsed her inner happiness for one brief searing moment and it was beautiful. She was beautiful. I’d never seen that in a human before, so I knew I was privileged, and I yearned for it again the moment it was gone.

  The evening grew colder and we dispersed for jumpers and sweatshirts. On the way past Jo’s room, she called me in. ‘Hi Jack, how’s it going?’

  ‘Getting pretty hammered actually.’

  ‘I never realised just how fucking brilliant you were. I mean you hear about it and everyone says it, but to see that, wow.’

  ‘It’s no more than a trick really.’

  ‘No it’s not—you wouldn’t be going to Cambridge if it was just a trick. Is it right you were chosen from hundreds around the world for this scholarship?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Never seen anything like it. Physics at Cambridge, that’s something else.’ She was sitting on the end of her bed and she bent down to tie a shoelace that looked tied. The loose shirt she was wearing fell open. She wore no bra and I could see her breasts: how funny, I thought, that I’d felt but never seen them. When she stood up she smiled, though it was a poor imitation of Mary’s earlier brilliance; however, there were those breasts.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ Duncan came to the doorway, ‘it’s drinking game time.’

  ‘Be there in a sec,’ Jo replied and bent again, this time to collect her jumper from the floor. With Duncan at the door she was careful to hold her top tight to her body, thus preventing any sight of her breasts and to make clear the earlier view was for my benefit only.

  I don’t know who invented the form of alcoholic torture known as drinking games, but Mike must have read the book because he seemed to know them all and he unleashed a whole assortment of them. He won every game. He was a master and when finished he surveyed the drunken human wreckage with a quiet satisfaction. In the early morning I found myself sprawled on the grass bank that led to the beach, completely ignorant of how I got there. I lay back and let the wind cool my face. The sound of the surf in the distance was a welcome reminder that somewhere beyond my assaulted senses was the real world and that if I hung on long enough I might just make it back there. Stars spun in and out of sight like a kaleidoscope and the earth rotated ten times faster than I remembered. I gripped tufts of grass so I wouldn’t whirl off into space. I have no idea how long this state lasted—it could have been five minutes, or maybe two hours—but the next tim
e my senses reconnected with my surroundings there was some improvement in that the world had slowed down and I no longer felt in danger of falling off. My stomach and head ached, but I was confident of seeing another morning.

  My new reality was filled with the unmistakable sound of puking—and it was bad. This was no delicate vomit but a huge, gut-wrenching evacuation. It just went on and on, seemingly with no end, and so guttural were the noises there was no way of telling the gender of the victim. With some effort I hauled myself to unsteady feet and eventually found Mary on the other side of the house, leaning against a wall with one arm at an extraordinary angle. She retched as I approached, but clearly her stomach was empty and nothing came up except the smallest dribble. I went inside. Jo and Duncan had passed out on the floor, Helen was half on the sofa and Mike was presumably safely tucked up in bed. With a glass of water that I managed to half empty on the steps I returned to the hapless Mary who stood in the exact same pose except her body had slumped further, forcing her arm out at an even more acute angle.

  ‘Here, have some of this.’ I held the glass in front of her, but she ignored the invitation and just swayed. ‘Drink,’ I commanded as I put the glass to her lips and tipped it back. Automatically she drank, although most of the water dribbled down her front. Gently I pulled her arm from the wall. She stumbled as the weight balance changed and I held on to her as she shuffled her feet to avoid the inevitable fall. Again I held the glass to her lips and this time she drained what remained as though she’d been stranded in the desert for days. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I urged and, holding her hand, guided Mary down the bank and onto the beach.

  ‘I’ll get sand in my shoes,’ she barked, her words slurring.

  ‘It’s all right, Mary.’ I bent down to remove her shoes. In the dark I didn’t realise she wore none until I was on my knees and had one foot in my hands. There was something about the touch of her skin that electrified me and I stroked the soft warm bridge of her foot. Mary took no notice of this small devotion; she just swayed while holding my head with both hands for safety. Once I realised she wore no shoes there was really no need to take the other foot, but I did. It was all I could do to stop myself from bending over that little bit further to kiss her toes. Somehow I resisted. I took her hand and we walked toward the softly splashing water and then along the beach, paddling in the gentle surf.