Sixty Seconds

by Jesse Blackadder

  ‘Beer?’ you ask, as Finn lowers himself to the couch.

  He takes a deep breath. ‘Yes.’ Looks up at you with the trace of a smile. ‘And bring one for Jarrah too, eh?’

  You look at Jarrah with an eyebrow raised and he gives a sheepish half-grin and your protest about the effects of alcohol on a young brain die away, and you want it too, the three of you sharing this moment almost like equals, together, and drinking the same thing symbolises it.

  You take three Coronas from the fridge, pop the lids, slice a fresh lime and crush the slices into the long necks. Before heading back outside you look around the kitchen. It’s not that Chen would have left evidence, and anyway, what if he had? But you sense something changing. Something’s shifted between you and Finn; something new is about to start. You don’t know what it is. You don’t know if you’re terrified or relieved at the idea. You feel shaken and too light, blown about, unsettled. You have made some kind of choice and you don’t know any more how to make such choices, or how to know if any choice is right or wrong.

  The kitchen is still and bright, the afternoon sun slanting into the rear window and pooling on the floor. That’s the last time you saw him alive, sitting in that very spot, his whole being focused on the book lying spread open on the floor in front of him. The story of a boy who wouldn’t be contained and his journey to a wild and distant land.

  The feeling threatens to rise and take you by the throat and you swallow hard and clasp the cold necks of the beers and turn away. You won’t give in to it. After dark you’ll take Finn to the pool and you’ll bring him into Toby’s world and find, for those moments, comfort.

  FINN

  It was a night to get drunk. He’d only done it once since Toby had died. Afraid that drinking too much would take him beyond the comfort of alcohol and into the dark. But now he and Bridget were both on their fourth beer, finished off over home-delivered Japanese as dusk fell around them and the mosquitoes whined and the crickets chirped and the bats squealed high overhead. Bridget put on music, something soft and easy, for perhaps the first time, or at least the first time Finn could remember, since Toby’s death. She’d chosen well: music you could lean into and feel safe with.

  ‘I’m gonna watch some telly,’ Jarrah said after dinner.

  Back when, Bridget would have asked him to clear the table and stack the dishwasher. But back then he hadn’t sounded so adult, so much like he understood both their need to be alone together and their fear of it. Like he knew that sitting not too far off he’d be a comfort to them, while the television and the wall in between would give them privacy too.

  She stood and came around beside his chair. He felt the warmth of her body alongside his, and with it a wave of longing that hurt his throat, ran down and hurt his chest and his gut and his bowel. No difference between longing and pain. All the same.

  ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she whispered. ‘Come?’

  She took his hand. The comfort of that was almost as deep as the pain. The comfort of her touch and the feeling that she was there behind it, present, with him for the first time since Toby died.

  He would have followed her anywhere, but when she led him to the pool gate and reached up with her left hand to unlatch it he recoiled instinctively.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  The clutch of her hand said he would be safe, but he didn’t want to go in there and his body pulled back of its own accord.

  ‘Trust me,’ she said.

  I never stopped trusting you, he wanted to say, but instead gripped her hand harder, steeled himself, followed. Then stopped dead. The water was pale translucent green, full of moving shapes. He pulled back, horrified. What was in there?

  ‘It’s plants,’ she said, anchoring him with her hand. ‘Fish. It’s alive now.’

  ‘What?’ He couldn’t understand.

  ‘The pumps are gone. The chemicals are gone. It’s a living pond.’

  His breath shuddered in his chest. ‘Christ.’ He wanted to run from the water and its awful, flickering life.

  ‘Come closer.’ She drew him forwards, led him to the edge, shifted his body so that he lowered himself to sitting. He gasped when the water first touched his feet and wanted to fight her, but she held him there and slowly, slowly lowered his feet to the first step, and the water came around his ankles and up his shins and he hated it.

  She sat next to him, lowered her own feet until they were next to his on the step, white in the green flickering, the shadows of the plants playing across their skin.

  ‘He’s here,’ she said.

  Finn’s chest tightened. That day in court he thought she’d come to some place he could understand, some place he recognised. Had he been wrong?

  She put a finger on his lips. ‘Shh. I want you to feel it.’

  She shrugged off her shirt and bra. Stood on the step and pulled off her shorts and underpants. Stepped down to the next step, the water coming midway up her thighs. Held out her hand to him. She meant to immerse herself, he saw. Had she forgotten their son drowned in that water?

  ‘Trust me, remember?’ She extended her hand further. Took his.

  There was no choice. Not if he wanted to keep her. He stood. Let go of her hand and began to unbutton his shirt. Felt his body shaking.

  JARRAH

  Didn’t look straight away when the phone pinged. Gave it five minutes. A little window when I could hope. When I could imagine it was him and everything was OK. Imagine I’d never done such a stupid, stupid thing.

  And then it was him.

 

  In spite of myself I smiled.

 

  He must be out the front. If he wasn’t kidding around. That wiped the smile off my face. How was I going to play this? And how was he? Did the text have another message? Let’s go on like it never happened?

  Well, I could do that. He was probably going off to uni. God knew where we were going. If he could forget it, so could I. Or act like I could.

  I got up quietly. Left the television on. Manoeuvred through the screen door. Mum and Dad must have been in the pool area. I could see the light flickering between the bars of the fence, but couldn’t hear anything. Felt like none of my business, whatever was going on over there. I levered myself down the steps and across the damp grass. Fumbled with the garden gate, opened it, went through. Looked around. If he’d been kidding, I was going to feel so stupid.

  ‘Need to warm up?’

  He was there, under the tree, in his running gear. As I went closer I could smell his sweat, mixed in with the smell of gum leaves. It reminded me of that night.

  It might have reminded him too, because he said, ‘Can you walk? I need to warm down; I’ll go slow.’

  I was glad to get away from the tree. I was pretty fast on the crutches now and I swung along the road and Tom jogged on the grass verge. Paced from one streetlight to the next, pools of light in the dark. It was hot. I started sweating.

  At the end of our street was a small park with an exercise point. We stopped and Tom started doing back presses. I positioned myself under the bar, dropped my crutches and reached up. It was too high. I wasn’t going to ask him to lift me up for chin-ups. I bent down and got my crutches again, leaned on them.

  ‘Good to have your dad home?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Real good.’

  The fact of his dad’s absence sat between us, but I didn’t know what to say about it.

  ‘Did you get back with Laura?’ he asked.

  I nearly said yes. I nearly said no. I opened my mouth not quite knowing what answer I’d give, then closed it again. Took a breath. Sitting there with Tom in the night, I knew what the real answer was.

  Toby would have given it. Toby wouldn’t have cared what someone else thought.

  ‘I won’t get back with her,’ I said. And then I tried it out. ‘I reckon maybe girls aren’t for me.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while. Did anoth
er round of press-ups. ‘So you’re gay,’ he said finally. Not quite a question.

  I remembered how Toby had lunged for everything he wanted, and how I’d felt when I’d done that with Tom. For one single second it was more right than anything in my life before. Nothing that happened with Laura even came close. Toby, I reckoned, would have loved me anyway, knowing this about me. It wouldn’t have frightened him.

  ‘Guess I won’t know for sure until it happens.’

  I could feel Tom’s fear, rippling the air. Strangely, mine was gone. I didn’t care now that he knew. I’d lost his friendship already. Anything now was a bonus.

  ‘Look, if you’re thinking I—’

  I interrupted him. ‘Don’t worry. That was a mistake. I don’t think—’

  ‘Because I’m not.’

  ‘I know. And anyhow, you’re not that hot.’

  He snorted. ‘Thanks.’

  I nearly grinned, in the dark. I could make a joke. That was something.

  ‘I won’t be a dickhead about it,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Look,’ he said. Stopped. ‘Thought it was better if I stayed away. Last thing you needed in the middle of everything.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Thanks.’

  ‘Your parents trusted me. You’re under age, Jarrah! What if someone found out – with all this other stuff going on?’

  ‘I’m eight weeks under age. Guess you just didn’t want to get into trouble?’

  ‘Fuck it! That wasn’t it!’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He started on another round of press-ups and I looked out across the park. I could feel it coming, big and fast and unstoppable, one of those moments where I missed Toby so bad that it was like being torn apart.

  I was always going to be alone. Even when I’d been kissing Laura, even when we’d nearly been having sex, I’d felt alone. Now I even felt alone with Tom. Maybe we could be friends, but I didn’t know if I’d ever have that feeling back, the one I used to have when we ran together. The two of us, side by side, step by step, everything OK.

  All of a sudden I’d had enough. I didn’t want the feeling to hit when I was still sitting there with Tom.

  ‘I’d better get back. Didn’t tell Mum and Dad I was coming out. I’ll see you round.’

  He started to say something but I was turning away, not wanting to hear it, wanting to get away from him, and it was dark and the stupid crutch slipped and I stumbled. Couldn’t save myself, not with the leg in plaster. Went down. Not hard.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d tumbled. It was no big deal. I could get myself up, though it would take a bit. But I’d dropped the crutch and it was out of reach.

  ‘Hey.’ He reached his hand down and without thinking, I reached up and took it.

  He hauled me to my feet, dropped my hand like it was hot, reached down for the crutch, passed it to me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, tucking it under my arm.

  He didn’t move. We were close together and there was something about his stillness that wasn’t still at all. I could feel the movement of his breath, stirring the air around me.

  ‘Oh Christ, Jarrah,’ he said, close to my ear.

  And the world changed.

  BRIDGET

  When Finn is naked you take both his hands in yours. You can feel him shaking, a deep shudder as you draw him down to the next step and the water rises to his thighs, and then to the next, and it rises to his waist and he moans.

  The hot night air presses down and the pool – the pond, you remind yourself – is deliciously cool, and you long to sink into it and find Toby. Alone, you’d let your body go limp and drop into it, but you have to bring Finn with you, step by step, you have to introduce him to this world and let him know it’s safe. You can’t let go of him or he’ll fall into horror.

  ‘I’ve felt him here,’ you whisper, stepping onto the bottom of the pool and gently pulling him with you. You can feel the unaccustomed brush of trailing plants, the scatter of leaves under your feet. Finn twitches and startles at every touch and you bring him close so your skins are touching.

  ‘I came out every night and swam with him,’ you whisper. ‘But the pumps and the chemicals were destroying him. So I got rid of them and made a place where he could be.’

  You can see Finn’s face in the light coming up from the pool and you know he’s thinking you have finally lost your grip. He’s afraid of you, but you’re so sick of being alone now. You don’t want to lose him again.

  ‘Come under,’ you whisper.

  You both inhale deeply, you lock gazes with him, pull his hand down and let yourself drop below the surface.

  The water closes over your head and you open your eyes. Toby? You send the thought out. I’m here!

  Finn is on the other end of your hand, big and warm and alive even in the cool water; perhaps that’s why you can’t feel Toby. Finn goes up for air but you wait until your lungs start to burn before you surface. You still can’t feel him.

  ‘I’m letting you go, just for a minute,’ you whisper. ‘I’ll find him. You’ll be OK.’

  You start to see pity on his face and you inhale and lower yourself before the hint of it can solidify, and you propel your body, reaching out with both hands, stretching for him.

  Toby?

  All around you the pool throbs with life. You can sense the fish darting and gliding around the stems of the plants. You can sense the slow, soft scrape of the snails. The water smells of leaves and fish and frogs instead of chlorine.

  But no Toby.

  You surface, breathe, dive again. Propel yourself to the deep end of the pool, twisting between the plants, sending the fish into a scatter. Nothing.

  Your head breaks the surface again.

  ‘Bridget,’ Finn says softly, from the shallow end.

  ‘He was here!’ you cry. ‘He was!’

  He glides through the water towards you and reaches to slide a hand down your body, leaving it on your haunch. You can see on his face what it’s cost him to swim just that far in this water.

  You twist away from him, submerge, breaststroke your way back towards the steps, reaching, reaching. You heard Toby’s laugh here. You didn’t dream it. Where is he? The whole pool is alive now, just for him.

  And he is dead.

  You know it, suddenly, deep in your cells. Like you have never known it since the day he drowned.

  Finn comes beside you, standing neck-deep in the water, reaches his arms out and wraps them around you, lifting you so you wrap your arms and legs around him, and you wail into his ear, a wail that should terrify any human being, but he’s not terrified. His arms tighten as if he would squeeze you into him.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘I know,’ Finn murmurs, his voice deep and alive.

  The pond is not your healing, you realise, as Finn rocks you in the water and the ripples lap at your neck. It’s the beginning of your grief breaking upon you. You thought you were ready to climb from the hole, but you haven’t even been into the hole yet. Not until today, not until you allowed Finn to be not guilty.

  ‘I’m with you,’ he whispers. ‘As long as it takes. We just have to forgive ourselves.’

  ‘Never,’ you say.

  ‘One day. One day you will.’

  You don’t believe him. You can’t lose something as wondrous as Toby and go on. You must live with being unforgiven as long as you have breath in your body.

  ‘I forgive us,’ Finn says.

  He gathers you up all over again, as if there were any more of you to gather, and in that living, breathing water that Toby has left forever, melded to Finn, you begin to weep, and of all the weeping this is the first that’s reached down into the pain of it, and the first time you’ve let him come with you. You can feel in his body that he’s not afraid, not of this, that he’s speaking the truth and he will stay, and in the midst of it you remember Chen, remember the night you put your hand on his chest, and knowing that you took your hand away again makes th
is somehow more bearable.

  You can leave here, you realise.

  Finn’s body is stirring under yours, your legs are already gripped around his waist and it’s simply another wave washing into you when he slides inside and you open yourself and take him in.

  EPILOGUE

  The boy comes into the night like he owns it, like he is, in fact, God, and has conjured this up: this crescent moon cutting the sky, this bat tonguing the nectar from the eucalyptus blossom, cocking its head to watch with dark eyes and wrapping a leathery wing around its body. This cool slap of water on skin, this warm scent of dew and grass, this scuttle and creep and pursuit of creatures, the shiver that turns the school of fish in a new direction.

  He remembers this place. He remembers stepping out into a morning after night rain, and from everywhere rising the scent of soil opening, of grass reaching down to its roots.

  He remembers that morning, when he considered his kingdom. Today, where and what? He remembers placing a bare foot down and, beneath his sole, the ground damp and alive. He remembers the water calling him, and wanting with his whole being to answer that call. He remembers the fence rearing up in front of him and the invitation and reach of its cool bars in his hands, as he shook and pulled.

  He remembers the exhilaration of discovering the grip of fingers and leverage of foot and swing of weight that let him, for the first time, hoist himself up and up and up, let him climb out of his world and over those bars, fly over the top of the fence, king of his world.

  This time nothing slows him. He moves from air to water without effort, expanding to lap at the edges, becoming liquid, becoming container and contained, containing everything, the fish, the plants, the skating insects, the leaves beginning to rot, the algae, the two human bodies, the ripples around them, the salty taste of their faces, the arch of a neck, the grip of fingers, the breath. He knows these bodies. He remembers them. He remembers the accident of cells colliding, the moments in which everything changes, the instant in which life divides into before and after.