by William Lane
Bruno brought the boat gently ashore, and led her into the trees. In a clearing – obviously he had been here before – he indicated she wait while he collected sticks and bark and lit a fire, using paper and matches fetched from the boat. They watched the flames awhile before he left her and walked along a thin spit of land, out onto a jumble of rocks. Sometimes she glimpsed the silver of his fishing line as it revolved over the water. Soon enough he returned and placed a gutted fish in the coals. While it cooked, he helped her to her feet, and pulled down the straps of her top to free her nipples. She ran fingertips over his scar tissue. Clouds were coming up, and the cicadas ceased singing. Then only the wind in the leaves, and the consciousness of a hinterland, and the two of them stretching into space and silence.
Tessa had invited Tess and Kenric to drinks that afternoon. When Tess came to the Pittwater house to collect Kenric she found him alone on the verandah, watching the beach below. Kenric pointed out to Tess the bare-chested Bruno, talking to Judith on the swimming pool jetty. ‘They’ve just been for a long row together,’ said Kenric. Further along the shore, outside the corner shop by the sand, they could see Krystal eating chips from a white paper wrapper, the gulls collecting around her. Teddy and Barnabus were audible downstairs, playing guitars and singing; the unlikely pair had been swapping songs – Teddy’s now nearly forgotten protest numbers, and Barnabus’s country and western standards. They had even written a song or two together since moving to Pittwater – melodies came easily enough, although the lyrics they struggled with.
Robert sat in the kitchen, drinking. Maria was still away.
‘They’re all lazing around having the time of their lives,’ said Tess, gesturing dismissively from the verandah, ‘enjoying a never-ending holiday. They’re not doing anything. They’re not learning anything. Maria goes away, everything falls in a heap, and the acolytes run amok.’
‘Let them.’ Kenric shrugged. ‘They’re grown-ups.’
‘Let them? What’s wrong with you? The kitchen’s a complete mess. Connie says she’s not going to cook here again unless she finds the kitchen spotless this evening.’
Tess began giving Kenric a final brush-down before they drove to Tessa’s party.
‘Maria rang,’ Robert called from his spot in the kitchen as Tess and Kenric headed out the door.
Kenric had been waiting for her call – she had not phoned once in the ten days she had been away.
‘You can’t call her back now,’ Tess said to Kenric, ‘we’re already late for Tessa’s party. You’ll have to phone her later.’
The house remained empty that afternoon, apart from Robert; those on the beach enjoyed the fine weather outdoors, while Krystal and Teddy went to visit Quick’s The Message, which they had learned about from Tessa. It was a study tour, they explained, as they took money from the kitty to pay for their petrol.
Krystal and Teddy arrived back that evening at the same moment Kenric and Tess returned from Tessa’s, the four of them joining Robert, unmoved, at the kitchen table, still drinking. Connie was cooking furiously, clattering pots and pans – dinner was late, since she had had to clean up yet again. She gave Judith loud, curt instructions, and corrected her helper whenever she tried to peel or cut or toss anything. Enticed by the aromas Connie was creating, Bruno, Barnabus and Justin drifted upstairs. The three men had set up an old ping-pong table, and the last hour or so they had spent uproariously spanking a little pale orange ball back and forth, while drinking beer and listening to their favourite bands. An old darts board had also been exhumed.
Krystal could not stop praising Quick’s The Message to everyone assembled. ‘But what we found best of all,’ she enthused, passing her glass of wine for Teddy to taste, ‘is they hold meditation sessions daily. The energy generated is amazing, you notice it the moment you walk into their beautiful space. It’s such a good idea, isn’t it, Teddy?’
‘It w-w-w-works.’
‘You should see the building. But the meditation is the thing – I haven’t felt so uplifted, so enlightened in ages, in years. And guess what they meditate on at The Message? Words! And we were so good at it, Teddy, weren’t we?’ Teddy nodded sagely. ‘I’m surprised we don’t do meditation here, Kenric. Who can meditate? I’m sure most of us can. Teddy has a best friend who is an expert – what’s his name again, Teddy? He keeps changing his name. He could lead the classes, couldn’t he, Teddy? He’s in Byron Bay at the moment; he’s a breatharian, the last I heard. But we could all learn from The Message.’
‘Oh, is someone jealous?’ said Justin, looking down the table at Kenric.
Kenric was indeed glum, but that was because he had not been able to get through to Maria.
‘I do think we need to ask Quick to give us lessons of some sort, he does visit organisations and run seminars, for a small fee –’
Justin pushed up his hand under a paper serviette: ‘I do believe we meditate better,’ he said in a voice parodying Kenric’s, ‘I do believe we speak better.’
Barnabus began to laugh from across the table, and pushed his hand up under the tablecloth, making a little animal-like movement with his fingers, and saying in a squeaky voice, ‘No, we meditate better!’
Justin poked his other hand up under the tablecloth, and said in an opposing voice, ‘I do believe we are more pure in heart!’ Justin’s serviette hand puppet spoke back, ‘Well, we wash up!’
‘We clean the table!’ retorted Barnabus’s hand puppet.
‘We run a tight ship!’ Justin pointed his serviette puppet towards Connie, and said in the voice of his puppet, ‘Look at her go, mashing that potato! Look at that flesh shaking on the bone!’ He winked at Robert, who quickly shook his head.
‘You’re disgusting,’ said Tess.
‘It’s not me, it’s my little six-inch puppet.’
‘Shut up,’ said Tess. ‘She’s cooking for us.’
‘That’s her job – at least we give her work.’
Connie had begun on a second pot of potatoes, and she jumped up and down as she mashed furiously, her back turned to them.
‘She’s probably going to be hard-pressed to find employment anywhere else, isn’t she, my little puppet? Even built like she is. Eh, Connie?’ said the puppet. ‘All Connie wants to do is raid the fridge –’
Tess began to pour a bottle of wine over Justin’s head. Justin did not move until the glugging bottle was empty, then, gasping for breath, he staggered to his feet and took off his glasses, which he began to wipe on his shirt, although it was drenched. Tess lifted her arm higher to shake out the last drops.
Judith flung a fork across the table at the sodden Justin.
‘That could have hurt me, Judith!’ cried Justin.
Krystal went up to him. ‘Now get out! We’ve had enough of you talking that rubbish about Connie.’
‘She can’t hear, she’s not even looking, Krystal, she’s got no idea –’
Connie was searching for something towards the back of the fridge.
‘We can hear,’ snapped Krystal. ‘We don’t want to live with you anymore. The difference between this place and The Message is appalling!’
Justin began to edge around the table. Judith followed him, and began to flick his ears. ‘Judith, Judith, what are you doing? Stop! Help me, guys!’ said Justin, appealing first to Robert and Kenric, then to the other men, but they looked away – even Barnabus, who appeared crestfallen. The women marched Justin out onto the verandah, pummelled him towards the spiral staircase leading downstairs, and heckled him as he disappeared from view.
The house itself seemed to listen to Justin’s descent, its structure shuddering a little less at each step.
Krystal and Teddy fought loudly that night, spectacularly flaring up every hour or so. Everyone in the house had no choice but to hear.
Teddy wanted to leave – The Word was on the verge of collapse, he yelled, as the Justin episode indicated. Every organisation had a life of its own, Teddy declared, and that included a use-by dat
e: ‘And The Word’s use-by date is u-u- u-up! It’s up!’ He wanted to join The Message – Quick was far savvier than Kenric, Quick was onto something new. And hadn’t Teddy’s stutter inexplicably returned and only grown worse this last month or so at The Word – who could explain that? Wasn’t it a sign?
Krystal shrieked that she wanted to remain at The Word; she taunted Teddy with his history of chopping and changing between organisations. Had he not vowed to her to stick to one thing, just one thing – one place, one group, one idea – for twelve months? They were almost there with The Word; was he now going to break his word to her? Other issues from their past cropped up – Krystal had put them into debt to buy her drums, and Teddy had concealed the full cost of the credit card repayments for his last trip to India – before Krystal ran out of the house and drove off with a screech in the Kombi van, without telling anyone where she was going.
They learned the next morning she had gone no further than the Whale Beach house, where the women there had made her most welcome. Krystal had decided to base herself at Whale Beach, she told those at Pittwater; she now lived with Tess and Connie – it had all been settled.
Hearing this, Teddy immediately declared there was no point him remaining with The Word; after eating a good lunch, he cleaned up the bedroom and left, announcing his intention to join Quick’s The Message.
Maria returned that afternoon. ‘Teddy will be back, I expect,’ she sighed, resting at the kitchen table while Kenric told her of the latest developments. He was making her a cup of tea. ‘And Justin? Robert told me what happened last night.’
‘He hasn’t come out of his room since the fracas, as far as I know,’ said Kenric. ‘You can hear him now, downstairs – that’s his death metal playing.’
‘It’ll just have to sort itself out,’ said Maria, sighing more heavily. ‘Things like this used to happen in Lionel’s time, I seem to remember.’
‘Justin’s is not a sustainable situation.’
‘We have to keep the bigger picture in mind. When did we last have a truth-telling session? Maybe we’ve let some things go unsaid for too long.’
‘It’s harder now,’ said Kenric, ‘because we live in two places.’
‘And that’s a pity,’ said Maria, ‘because while I was away, Kenric, I could not help thinking that what we have here has value. We could be better organised, and we’ve had some bad luck – but our idea is still a good one. At least we have an idea, and it’s lasted longer than I ever would have thought. I was talking to an uncle at the funeral, and he reminded me his father was born in a time when a person’s word meant everything; they simply did not break it. Isn’t that the sort of thing we are working back towards? His father did not see his first white person until he was a grown man, and he never could understand the way the white world treats words. At that moment I thought: I want to go home to The Word. What used to exist can’t be impossible, can it?’
‘That applies to us too, I hope,’ said Kenric, placing Maria’s tea before her.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I wasn’t sure you were coming back, Maria.’
Maria stirred sugar into her cup.
‘And you’ve spent a lot of time talking to Robert since we’ve moved back into his house,’ added Kenric.
‘At least he talks to me,’ muttered Maria.
She did not want to say any more about it, Maria told Kenric, not at the moment; she got up to telephone the Whale Beach house, to make sure the three women there were coming to dinner that night. Over the phone she assured Connie the kitchen was ready to use, and let Krystal know Teddy would not be present.
Krystal swept back in to the Pittwater house that evening as if she had never left, and announced to Maria and Robert, who sat in the kitchen drinking, that she thought it high time they wrote their book, The Word’s book. ‘That would help us to be – well, more cohesive,’ argued Krystal, ‘now that we live in two places. If each of us could remember our favourite, most meaningful utterances from our time together, and compile them –’
‘It would need some kind of story or structure,’ said Tess, following Krystal and Connie into the kitchen, ‘otherwise it would just become another Little Red Book, or something like that.’
‘I haven’t thought about the size or colour of the book yet,’ said Krystal. ‘I thought we could do it as a dialogue – you know, write down just a normal conversation we have at The Word every other night. Or used to have.’
‘A kind of “table talk”?’ asked Tess.
‘Well, wherever the talk may happen, not necessarily at the table.’
Bruno and Judith came in together, gritty from the beach, followed by Barnabus, then Kenric; with almost everyone assembled, Connie began serving up the pre-cooked dinner. Justin’s stampeding metal could still be heard coming from his room below; occasionally the volume crept up and the walls began to throb. No one expected Justin to appear.
‘I was reminded of something this afternoon,’ said Kenric as they ate, ‘reminded there was a time when a person’s word was unbreakable. Think of the truth in that. Can anyone imagine that?’
‘No, because in our society, words serve as a means, not an end,’ said Robert. ‘And to tell the truth, Barnabus, Bruno and Justin need to do some housework – they get their rooms very cheaply.’
‘I’ve got a truth for everyone,’ said Judith, ‘something that should make you all angry, and not just me. Bruno …’ She hesitated, glancing at Bruno, who slowly lifted his head from eating. ‘Bruno has asked me, as the group’s accountant, to direct funds into a bank account of his under another name.’
Bruno fled the top storey. A door – two doors – slammed below.
‘I’m frightened of him,’ said Judith, looking around the table, ‘that’th why I told you all together.’
Bruno’s ute revved loudly in the garage.
The death metal galloped on.
‘Hi, everyone,’ said Teddy, appearing in the doorway, playing air guitar to the subfloor music. ‘What’s up with Bruno? He literally pushed me off the path.’
‘I think we’ve seen the last of him,’ said Maria.
‘Whoever he was,’ added Robert.
‘I thought you’d left us as well,’ said Krystal dryly.
Teddy ceased playing along to the music. ‘No, I’m back, back for good.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry about that little hissy fit I had earlier today, everyone – and last night too. It turns out they’re pretty weird over at The Message – pretty fussy. A bit goal-oriented or something. Not really my thing. I didn’t get past filling out the forms.’
Connie cleared away Bruno’s half-finished helping, and placed a full plate before Teddy.
The group agreed something had to be done about Justin. Kenric went downstairs and knocked on Justin’s door but received no answer. The music was loud and Kenric rapped louder, but still no answer. Kenric then wrote Justin a letter, telling him he must leave by the morning, and listing the reasons why. He slipped the note under the door.
Justin still inhabited the room the next morning, however, a morning on which everyone knew to be silent – except Justin, whose music, if less loud, still could be heard. Tess, Krystal and Connie arrived around noon, perhaps to farewell Justin – or rather, to ensure he departed, for everyone had discovered they disliked or even loathed him. As they gathered in the kitchen, it became obvious in the silent house that Justin still lingered downstairs. Tess, Connie, Krystal, and finally Judith, Kenric and Maria filed down the stairwell to confront him. They congregated before Justin’s door.
After a minute the music was turned off inside the room. After another minute the door slowly opened – although none of them had made a sound – and Justin, unshaven, only partly dressed, faced them. He did not have his glasses on; he squinted, trying to focus. Tess pointed to the outside door. ‘What?’ Justin asked meekly, looking from face to face. He found his glasses in a pocket of his shorts, and became aghast at what appeared before him.
Justin’s glasses began to fog.
Judith made the motions of washing up at an imaginary sink, the other women shaking their heads.
Justin turned, put on a shirt, roughly gathered a few items from his bed and his desk, stuffed them in a knapsack, and, under their collective watch, hurried from the house. Those left began to laugh and, as they returned upstairs, to speak.
5
The women were taking great strides at Whale Beach. The only real problem with the house – they all agreed it was only a trivial thing – was that it only had a single bathroom. Between them, Tess, Connie and Krystal learned to share it, however, although things were tested when Judith asked if she, too, could move to Whale Beach – she no longer felt comfortable at Pittwater, she told the other women. That meant four women had to share one bathroom. But they insisted it could be done, and that Judith must be accommodated.
‘It’s getting too weird over there at Pittwater,’ Judith told them. ‘Maria kept asking me about you, Tess, about you and Kenric. I was getting drawn in to things. And I actually ended up feeling sorry for Justin and Bruno, about the way they left – that’s how distorted my way of seeing the world has become.’
‘You’re out now,’ said Tess, comforting her. ‘In this house we want to preserve the best of what Kenric and The Word once had – but we can ditch the rest. No men here – it’s simpler that way – or only if we invite them, and then not overnight.’
‘Teddy keeps knocking on the door,’ said Connie, ‘but we won’t let him in. And he was serenading Krystal outside the house the other night. But he had the wrong window – he was singing outside my room. I only noticed when the blind snapped up suddenly, and there he was, holding a guitar. I had just got out of the shower and had nothing on. I got quite a shock. I think he did too – he stopped strumming and his jaw dropped.’