by Sofie Laguna
I kept my eyes on the ocean as the bus followed the narrow road down the mountain. The mother was asleep, her blanket around her shoulders, her jacket beneath her head. The old woman had taken off her dark glasses and her eyes were closed. The man only opened his eyes to take sips from his beer can. Eric and me were wide awake.
The road kept going down. The sea shone as the moon rose. I could only see the things in front of me. There was no history. The round moon over the sea and the cold glass, and Eric, and the warm rumble of the engine was all there was.
Soon I saw lights and a sign too small to read, and Eric drove the bus off the road. He kept the motor running and called to me, ‘Hey, kid! Your stop. Point Paradise.’
I got to my feet and walked down the bus between the seats. ‘Where is the caravan park, Eric? Do you know? Do you know, Eric?’ My voice sounded like it belonged to somebody small without powers or a map or lines to join him.
‘It’s the only thing in Point Paradise, mate.’ Eric spoke as if his answer was a joke. ‘See the sign?’
I did see the sign but there wasn’t enough light to read it.
‘Anyone coming to meet you?’ Eric asked me.
I shook my head. ‘No, Eric, no. No.’
Eric frowned. ‘Just follow the path into the park.’ He pointed at a narrow road leading into the darkness on the side of the highway.
‘Yes, okay, Eric. Okay, Eric.’ I looked down at the other passengers and I saw the mother wake up. She opened her eyes and blinked at me. There were no messages to decode. There was nothing left in her, it was all in the baby. The old woman woke too, and nodded and smiled as if to say, Go on, go on. Go on, Jimmy Flick.
Eric opened the bus doors and cool air rushed at me as I stepped out of the bus. Thousands of road particles that didn’t know my foot was coming were forced into a different position. Eric closed the doors and the bus drove out onto the road. I stood and watched as it disappeared down the mountain.
After the bus had gone it was very quiet. There was only the sound of the night, a hushing, like a blanket coming softly down. I went close to the sign. Point Paradise Caravan Park, I read in letters bleached by the sun. Underneath the words was an arrow pointing the way. I looked up at the sky and saw the first stars.
I followed the arrow down the dirt road that ran off the highway. The cool wind that blew over me was the same wind that blew in over the water and across the cliff and over my mum and my dad in the picture. Time didn’t change it; the currents moved around planet Earth, cleaned by the rainbows after the rain, passing over the same places, new and ancient. I heard the music of the sea as water rose and fell, changing the shapes of rocks, pounding at the cliffs, wearing away the sea floor. I kept walking forward.
Soon I saw rows of caravans with yards and chairs, satellite dishes and flowers in pots, and through every window I saw the blue glow of the television. Every caravan leaned towards the sea, as if they were straining to hear its music. They all had names – Traveller, No Looking Back and Freedom – but the caravans couldn’t move. Their wheels were dug deep into the ground so you could only see the very tops of the tyres. Electrical cords were tied around their bases and the cords went right into the ground, and though I couldn’t see it, I could hear the central network at the core, supplying electricity to the televisions, powering the voices inside, giving them news and things to sell on the ads. I didn’t see anybody outside. The salty coolness of the sea entered my sensories as I walked past the rows of trapped caravans.
I came to a brick house with a light at the front, and a small black square beside the door that said Office. I walked inside and on the desk there was a bell to ring so I rang it and I rang it and I rang it until I heard someone say, ‘Alright, alright! Calm down!’
A woman came through a door behind the desk with her hair in a high ball. Pieces hung down at the sides like Deirdre’s princess doll and she wore bright pink lipstick. Her eyebrows were pencil lines and over her eyes there were blue clouds. Everything was pulled down, as if there were hairs attached to every pore and somebody was tugging on them.
‘You’re not on your own, are you?’ the woman asked.
I nodded yes.
She frowned. ‘What do you want here?’
‘My dad,’ I said.
‘Your dad?’
I nodded again.
‘Your father is here?’
I nodded.
‘You sure about that?’
I nodded again. There was no other choice.
‘Who is he?’
‘Gavin Flick. Flick, Gavin. My dad.’
The woman shook her head slowly and the blue clouds over her eyes came down low. A smile played on her mouth, not sure whether it was safe to stay. ‘Is that right? Gavin Flick is your father?’
I nodded.
‘You’d better follow me.’ She came out from behind the desk. ‘Derek!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Start without me – I’ll be back in a minute.’
We walked out of the office and onto the path that ran between the rows of caravans. As the woman walked I could see every part of her flesh through her pants from behind. There were little stories hidden in the dips.
Soon she left the main path and took a track that was narrow and bumpy away from the lights. The park had almost run out of caravans. I could only see two, both small and white; one was close and the other one was further. I followed the woman past the one that was close until we came to the last one. Happy Times was written across the side. It had a small window and its wheels were dug the deepest. Beyond Happy Times I could see the same cliff that stood behind my mum and dad in the picture. Beyond the edge of the cliff the moon rose over the sea, full and shining white, indentations in its surface, giving it shadow. I saw steps on it leading underground. Every moon has a core with a network in the centre.
The woman pointed to Happy Times. ‘This is Gavin’s,’ she said. ‘Ha!’
There was a small light in the caravan’s window – somebody was home.
I took a deep breath.
‘Come on,’ said the woman. She walked just ahead of me along the three squares of cement up the steps to the door of the caravan, her vapours blown back into my face as she guided me: perfume, cooking meat and cigarettes. She knocked on the door of Happy Times.
Nothing happened.
I looked up and I saw that the sky was the sea upside down. They reflected each other; but which one was the mirror?
The woman knocked again. ‘Gavin,’ she said, her mouth close to the door. ‘Someone here to see you.’
There was a muffled answer from inside.
‘Gavin!’ she sounded cross. ‘Open the door, will you? There’s someone here to see you.’
I stood at the bottom of the three steps. He was here; I heard him moving. All points came together in me, forming one single beat. Dad Dad Dad Dad.
‘What is it, Denise?’ Dad opened the door.
‘Look who’s here,’ said Denise, as though she knew a funny trick was about to be played on my dad. She held out her arm to me. I was the trick.
Dad looked at me and his mouth fell open.
‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’ said Denise.
Dad stood swaying in the doorway.
‘I don’t want any dramas, Gavin,’ Denise said. ‘Sort this out in a hurry, will you?’ She turned and walked back down the path.
‘Where’s his mother?’ Dad called to her.
She didn’t stop.
He called again. ‘Denise? Where’s his mother?’
‘No mother, Gavin. He’s here on his own,’ she called back. ‘Sort it out.’ And then she was gone and it was just Dad and me.
Dad shook his head as if something was too big to believe. There was my dad’s mouth, his eyes, his arms, his legs, chest and shoulders, but there was no life in them, as if they were powered by yesterday’s resources. Like the lawnmower blades still swinging after the engine has been turned off – it’s only a matter of time. I smelled Cutty
Sark mixed with the same medicine they used in Emergency.
‘Jimmy,’ Dad said, still shaking his head. His mouth hung open. His face was made of rags. His eyes floated in Blended Scotch; the Cutty Sark had dimmed the light. He held out his arm.
I took another deep breath, climbed the steps and went through the door.
Happy Times was a land of bottles, some brown for beer, some see-through and others green. They stood in the corners and they filled the sink and they stacked up against the walls. There were bottles on the television and there was a chair with a bottle on it next to an ashtray, and there was a bed not made and there was a towel and soap, and everything, including my dad, was shrunken to make room for the bottles. Merle sang ‘I’d Trade All of My Tomorrows’ as the Cutty Sark sailed the currents.
‘Wh . . . wh . . . where’s your mother?’ he asked me. ‘Where’s Paula?’
‘She couldn’t . . . she couldn’t . . .’ I told him.
He frowned. ‘What?’
‘She couldn’t, she couldn’t . . .’ My words were jamming at the toll gates. ‘She couldn’t, she couldn’t . . .’
‘Jimmy, what? She couldn’t what?’
‘She couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t . . .’
‘For Christ’s sake, Jimmy! What? What?’
‘She couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t breathe!’ The words pushed past the gates, their message on repeat.
Dad stood looking at me, too soaked to absorb me, or the words I was saying.
‘She couldn’t get it in,’ I said again. ‘She couldn’t, Dad! She couldn’t! She couldn’t!’
His mouth kept opening and closing. He was older than when he left. All the waves of Broken Island were gone from him. The crude oil was clogged, unrefined in his network. The only thing to flow was whisky. It rushed thinly through him, faster than blood, more effective. He shook his head as if he was trying to clear something from it, to make space for what I told him.
‘She couldn’t get it in,’ I said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Dad slurred.
‘The air, Dad. The air! The air! She couldn’t breathe.’
‘What the hell are you saying?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Dad, Dad. Mum was in the bed and she couldn’t get the air in and the puffers were empty, Dad. All of them in the house empty and there was no Robby and no you. There was only me, and I left her when she sent me to the shops. I went to the shops, Dad, and I got lost. The streets all changed their order and the houses changed their places and when I got home she couldn’t breathe. I was with her and she went back, Dad, ahahahaaaaaa!’ I made the sound of my mother pleading with the air, begging for it to save her. ‘Aaaaaaahhhhhhaaaa aaaahhhhhhaaaa!’
Dad fell down into his chair. Whisky came out of his pipes and dripped down his face.
‘She couldn’t get the air in,’ I said from a quiet and faraway place.
Merle sang ‘If I Had Left it Up to You’ as Dad got up, staggering towards the sink. The glass tinkled. I looked around Happy Times and nothing was connected to anything else or to me. What was the reason for it all? I looked at the bottles and in some there were cigarettes sitting in the dregs. There was a newspaper, there were thongs and socks and a cap and a fishing rod and little lead weights still in their plastic, but I couldn’t see the reason.
This man standing at the sink, his back to me, was the man in the photograph. Those were his hands gripping the metal edge – the same hands that had first held me, connected to the same arms – but there was no line from those hands to me.
Dad turned to face me. ‘How did you get here?’ His lips struggled to loop themselves around each word. They didn’t meet at the ends, so that the sounds fell out the sides.
‘Bus,’ I answered. ‘With Eric.’
I looked at the walls and saw there was a hole beside the bed where the wall was crushed in, as though someone had hit it with a fist.
I wanted to put my hand in it to see how it fit.
‘Where are you staying? Who are you . . . who are you with? Robby? Where’s Robby?’ It was as if each of my dad’s questions was a journey he wasn’t equipped to make.
‘No Robby,’ I said.
‘Just you?’
‘Just me,’ I said. ‘Just me, Dad.’
‘What are you here for?’
‘For you, Dad,’ I said. ‘For you.’
‘Jesus,’ said Dad, as if I had spoken the worst words of all. He picked a bottle up from the floor and turned it in his hands, looking deep into the glass, then he smashed the bottle against the sink. He picked up another and smashed it against the cupboard. He picked up bottle after bottle, smashing them against every surface. Merle kept singing ‘If I Had Left it Up to You’ as the glass rained down on us, shining and glittering. Pieces of glass fell into my hair, into my pockets and socks, and into the cuffs of my trousers. Down it fell, down down down, burying me.
At last, like a storm that was finished, Dad stood panting, against the wall. He said, ‘You better go back where you came from.’
I climbed out from under the glass, shards still trapped in my ears and my armpits and under the lids of my eyes, and I said, ‘Okay, Dad, okay,’ and I walked out of Happy Times.
I pushed through bushes and trees until the moon showed me a small path that I followed until I reached the cliff. I stood close to the edge, looking out at the endless sea, silver and rippling in the light of the moon. I felt myself drawn as if the sea had a magnetic force and wanted to absorb me. I heard the waves crashing against the rocks down below, disintegrating into white foam and spray.
I saw the pathway across the surface of the sea that led to the moon. It had a silent voice that communicated to me through airs. Hello Jimmy, this way, this way. I wanted to cross it, more than I’d wanted to find the hole eleven years ago to push myself through, her second miracle.
‘Jimmy, come back into the caravan.’ It was Dad. I hadn’t heard him coming up behind me.
‘Come on, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘Come back from there.’
I stayed where I was, the moon’s pathway stretching out before me, waiting.
‘Jimmy.’ Dad put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, come with me.’
I didn’t move.
‘Jimmy.’
He pulled me back. ‘Come on.’
I let him lead me along the track back to his caravan, as if I had no powers of refusal, no remaining will. Merle was quiet when we went inside. The glass was swept away. Dad’s eyes were red and he moved slowly. He said, ‘You can stay here for the night then in the morning you have to go.’ He showed me the bed. ‘There, you sleep there.’ He sat in the chair and turned off the light.
I climbed on the bed and turned to the wall and I fit my hand in the hole and I kept it that way until morning.
When I next opened my eyes I saw Dad standing over me and it was as if his blood had stopped. He swallowed but there was no liquid. He was shaking: his head, his nose, his legs, his neck, his hands, all trembling. It was the last of his motor. ‘Get up, Jim,’ he said.
We walked to the office. When Dad opened the door Denise came out. She wore shorts that were more like underpants, and thongs, and each toenail was orange. She smiled and she said, ‘Surprise, surprise.’
‘Good morning, Denise.’ Dad looked down at me. ‘Where you staying, Jimmy?’
‘Anne White’s,’ I answered.
‘Do you have a number?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ I pulled the piece of paper that Deirdre had given me from my pocket.
‘Who’s Anne White?’ Dad asked.
‘My foster mother.’
‘Christ,’ he said, looking at the ground.
‘Is there a problem?’ Denise put her hands on her hips.
‘Can I use the telephone?’
‘Long distance?’ Denise asked, raising the pencil lines on her forehead.
‘Yeah, long distance.’
‘Haven’t you got better things to do?’ said Dad, picking up the telephone. His hands were shaking so much he kept hitting the wrong numbers. ‘Oh fuck,’ he mumbled.
‘You want me to dial it?’ Denise said.
‘I got it, Denise,’ said Dad. Then slowly and one at a time, using all his mind powers, my dad pressed the numbers. He passed the telephone to me. ‘Tell them to come and get you,’ he said to me while it rang. ‘Tell them you’ll be at the Point Paradise service station on the highway. Don’t say anything about me.’
Denise frowned at him and he shook his head at her.
Anne White answered the telephone. ‘Hello? Anne speaking.’
‘Anne White,’ I said. ‘Anne White.’
‘Yes, this is Anne speaking. Who is this?’
‘Anne White, it’s Jim. Jim Flick. Jim Flick.’
‘Jim! Is that you?’
‘Yes, Anne White. Yes, Anne White, it’s me.’
‘Oh, Jim! Jim! Where are you? Are you alright?’ Anne White started crying.
‘Point Paradise service station on the freeway.’
‘Point Paradise! Jake! Jake!’ she called.
Jake got on the phone. ‘Point Paradise, Jim? On the Eastern Freeway?’
‘Yes, Jake, yes.’
‘On the Eastern Freeway? Just near the border?’
‘Yes, Jake, yes.’
‘We’ll be there in . . . five hours, Jim. Don’t move. Don’t speak with anyone. Sit tight and we’ll be there soon.’
‘Are you okay, Jim? You’re not hurt?’ It was Anne White again.
‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I’m okay, Anne White.’ I heard her sniff, then I hung up the telephone.
I looked across at my dad. He was standing in the office doorway, like a dead silhouette. Streams of light came off his black shadow.
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘You heading out already, Gavin? They won’t be here for hours. Aren’t they coming from the city?’