“He advised me to make a clean breast of it with you and to seek counseling. He said maybe there was still hope for me.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I doubted it.”
“Anything else?”
She shrugs. “He said he wanted to be alone. He said not to try to follow him. And he ran off.” She waves the script. “By the way, have you got any more of these? They’re great.”
I take a deep breath. I can’t quite seem to fill my lungs. “Which way did he run?” She points over her shoulder with her thumb. A little farther down the beach there’s a little sign on a wooden post: THIS WAY TO THE VOLCANO.
“This one is brilliant.” She’s holding up Gerard’s script.
“That one? You like that?”
“It’s hilarious. I was splitting my sides all the way through. I think Sean and Seamus would love it. They’re looking for a black comedy. Mind if I show it to them?”
“Be my guest. But don’t mention my name. I want nothing to do with it.”
I’m following a little winding path beaten into the coral substrate. Looks like they must have got an impacter up here. In no time at all I’m deep in the bush. Looking ahead I see nothing but tangled branches, broad green leaves, shiny and thick, hanging bougainvillea, purple and pink. Birds call, lizards scuttle. It’s stiflingly hot, so hot I feel almost desperate. Sweat is pouring down into my eyes, down my sides, down the back of my neck, my knees, my ankles. My shirt is simply sopping. I take it off and hang it on a nearby branch. I’ll collect it on the way down.
Suddenly the coral path ends, and the trail gets abruptly steeper. It’s beaten reddish dirt, now, almost steep enough to be a climb, polished roots jutting from the ground. People must come up here quite a lot. Maybe people from the village. The path climbs steeply for what seems like forever. At last I grab a root and swing myself up a particularly steep section of track. I fling myself on the ground and lie there, gasping. I’ve broken free of the bush. Before me is a steeply sloping desolate land of scattered rock, mottled earth, scabrous brown, yellow, green, orange, black. Blasted earth. No life, perhaps the odd scurrying ant. The very odd lizard. The sun beats down on the back of my neck and I wish I’d brought my shirt as I begin to climb, following that same faint beaten track that winds and zigzags in front of me between sharp jagged lumps of scoria. Above the column of smoke, rising, rising, spreading.
I stop and look behind me. The entire island is laid out below me. Then across the water I can see Pakulalanana and the dotted white buildings of the village close by the shore. Beyond that the curving arms of the reef, the colors of the sea graduating from deep blue to copper sulfate. It’s hotter still, and stiller still. The haze on the horizon is thickening, gathering, rising. I turn and plod on toward the summit. I’ve been plodding like this for more than half an hour when at last the track eases off again and begins to curve around. One more steep section and I’m skirting the lip of the crater. There’s nothing there. No handrails or signs. Just a steep cornice of earth and then it drops away, steeply, then steeper and steeper, until you can’t see any farther. All you can see is the steam and the smoke rising, fast, into the sky. There’s a strong smell of sulfur, and a surprising amount of noise. It sounds like a rushing train. One slip and—forget it.
That’s when I see him. He’s standing on a little rocky outcropping that juts out over the crater. He’s right on the edge. He’s craning slightly forward, as if he’s trying to get a view right down inside. His back is to me and he can’t hear my approach because of the noise. I walk right up to him. I’m only ten feet away. Still he hasn’t noticed me. He’s staring transfixed into the crater.
There’s that feeling you get, when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and you look down and it seems like such a short step from here to there. Just one short step, and the temptation to take it is so strong you turn away. It’s like that. A genre-defining moment, no doubt about it. All it would take is one short sharp push. He’d hardly hit the sides.
“Hey, Matt.”
He doesn’t turn. Now that I look, in fact, there’s something about the way he’s standing. Something in the immobility of his neck. Something tense, something anticipatory.
“Matt?”
Still he doesn’t turn. He doesn’t move a muscle. He’s carved from stone. But he speaks. “Pretty impressive, huh?”
“Aren’t you standing a little close to the edge, there?”
“I’m on the edge all right, Frederick.”
I sit on a rounded piece of baked earth. “Oh well, as they say, if you aren’t living life on the edge you’re taking up too much room.” I feel as if I’ve been punched in the stomach and I’m so tired I can hardly hold my head up.
Matt snorts. “I guess you spoke to Melissa, huh?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“She tell you what happened this afternoon?”
“She did.”
“Don’t blame her. She really cares about you, man. Please, man, don’t blame her. It’s not her fault. You two, you were made to be together. I swear, women, they lose their heads around me. They can’t help themselves. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. I’m a curse, man. A curse.”
“Hey, it’s not important, really. Forget it.” The funny tooth is still playing up. It appears to have gone completely numb. I run a finger around the inside of my mouth. He doesn’t move.
“No, it is important.”
“Whatever, come down off that rock before you fall off.”
Still, he doesn’t move. “You know, I’m really asking myself some questions right now.”
“You and me both.”
“And I tell ya, I don’t like the answers I’m getting.”
“Maybe you need to try different questions.”
“I thought I could beat this thing.”
“What thing?”
“Back in LA, I . . . I was in this program.” He pauses. He hangs his head. “Sexual addiction.”
“I imagine in your line of work it must be an occupational hazard.”
“It is if you’re a dingbat. Like I am.”
“Oh, I think dingbat is a little harsh.”
“I came here to this island, I told myself I could do it. I knew there’d be . . . opportunities. There always are. Wherever I go. Always. Always, opportunities. Women just can’t resist me, Frederick. It’s the truth. They throw themselves at me. It’s always been like that. No matter what I do, they find me irresistible. Whether it’s my personality or my appearance, I don’t know. It just seems to be some sort of aura I carry with me.” He turns his head just a little. “Can you imagine how that must feel? Always, always, to be hunted, like a . . .”
“Trophy?”
“Yeah. Exactly. But I said to myself, this time, it’ll be different. I mean, Sophie, she’s just so great, and . . . and she’s so great, but this afternoon, I . . . I knew. When Melissa took me to that beach, I knew. Oh yes, I knew and yet still, I went.” His voice sinks to a harsh but carrying whisper. “Yet still, I went.”
“But you didn’t go through with it, did you? You pulled out.” As it were.
“I sinned in my thoughts, man. I sinned in my thoughts.”
“Well, what better place? The no-mess, no-fuss way to sin. I’m all in favor.”
“But don’t you see? It’s what I realized. I was standing there, looking down, and . . . it all seemed so familiar. The beach, the sun, the sea, the . . . Melissa, and I realized, I’ve been here before, so many times, it’s like . . . I mean I don’t even enjoy it anymore. It’s more like, I just can’t say no. I just—I can’t do it. I’m not even a human being anymore.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“I’ve let everybody down. Everybody who ever believed in me, who ever trusted me, who ever told me they believed in me. I’ve failed them all.” He begins to sob wildly. “Man, it’s like there’s something dying inside me. I have no self-control, and I disgust myself.”
“Isn
’t that a little melodramatic?”
“I can’t do it. I just can’t do it! I can’t even look at myself in the mirror!”
“Look at the bright side.”
“What bright side? There is no bright side.”
“Sure there is. Okay, you stumbled. But you realized what was truly important, and that’s why you’re standing here today. You had a moment of decision. Of clarity. You should treasure such moments. They don’t come along very often.”
“No. I’ve failed. Failed!” He tenses himself. He bends his knees. He draws back his arms. He’s going to jump. He’s actually going to jump.
“Edmund Hillary!”
He pauses. I think it’s the element of surprise that got him there.
“Sam Neill! Jane Campion! Lucy Lawless! Russell Crowe, Peter Jackson. What do all these wonderful people have in common?”
He looks at me, puzzled.
“Tell me. Look me in the eye, and tell me!”
“They’re, all . . . uh, gee, I dunno.”
“New Zealanders. They’re all New Zealanders. Every last one of them. Do you think these people ever had moments of doubt or uncertainty in their lives? Do you think they ever felt like flinging themselves into a volcano?”
“Well, I imagine.”
“Do you?”
“Frederick, I’m suicidal over here. Could you get to the point please?”
“In those moments of bleak despair, do you think those people gave up? Do you think that’s how they got where they got? Because they gave up? What do you think people said the first time A. J. Hackett ever suggested it might be a good idea to jump off a . . . ah, what do you think people said when Marconi said he was going to invent the radio? Or Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round? Or Edison when he recorded sound? Or Wilbur and his brother, when he said that man could fly?”
He keeps his knees bent, but finally he turns his tear-stained face to look at me. “You’re like Buddha, or Jesus or something.”
“Oh, not really. Not once you get to know me.”
“You give and you give. And then you give some more.”
“Well . . . that’s probably an overstatement.”
“Me, all I can do is take. I take your wife, then I take your fiancée . . .”
“Ah, but you gave her back.”
“I treat you like dirt. Like dirt, and you, you turn the other cheek. You’re the one I envy.”
“Oh, you don’t envy me. I promise you.”
“You’ve got the only thing that really matters.”
“My teeth?”
“Your integrity.” He falls to his knees on the outcrop. Small stones tumble into the abyss. “Help me, please, man, help me. I don’t know where to turn.”
“You want my advice, turn around. And get off that rock.”
“But if I get off the rock, what will I do next? Where will I go?”
“Let’s just take it one step at a time.”
He hesitates.
“You know, I saw Anne-Marie in LA.”
“You did?”
“She said to say hi. She said to say the children were missing you.”
He shakes his head. “Sometimes, it’s almost scary. It’s like you can look straight into my soul, man.”
“Talking about scary, why don’t you hop down off that rock?”
“But don’t you see? I’m responsible. I’m responsible to Sophie now. I’m torn, right down the middle.”
“I think there’s something you should probably know about Sophie.”
“What?”
“Get off the rock and I’ll tell you.”
Matt gets off the rock.
“Now sit down.”
He sits beside me.
“Listen carefully. I’m going to tell you this, and I’m going to tell you once.” I look around me. Matt is listening. The parched, baked earth, the blazing sun, the distant deep blue sea. They’re all listening.
Chapter 17
FIRST WE HEAR IT: a distant lazy blowfly drone. Then we see it: a tiny black dot in the sky.
“Ah,” says someone, “that’ll be the croissants.”
We all watch, salivating lightly, as the seaplane comes closer. Soon we can make it out clearly, the ungainly floats each almost as big as the fuselage itself. The plane drops lower, flashes of sunlight running along the wings as it turns and makes its landing approach. The note of the engine changes as the props feather and the floats hit the sea, once, twice, thrice, then settle. The plane turns and taxis in across the bay right up to the sand. The pilot kills the engine, jumps out and chucks a small anchor onto the sand. He returns to the plane, reaches into the cabin and comes out with a large basket covered with a blue-checked cloth. He lugs the basket across the beach to the kitchen tent.
There’s a general movement toward Central Square. People are moving slowly this morning. It was a rough night, and the morning has dawned heavy and hot, though the haze is strong, a gauze veil across the sun. Clouds are beginning to bank in the west. As we take our seats, a figure comes out of one of the tents and crosses the beach, lugging a heavy-looking bag. Tall, lithe, with a strong jaw and little round wire-rimmed sunglasses perched on an aquiline nose. He throws his bag into the plane, climbs in after it.
The pilot returns, climbs aboard and closes the door. The plane engine fires, starts immediately, and the plane slowly taxis out across the bay, the arrow of its wake pointing to the west. The engine roars, louder and louder, and the plane picks up speed, skips once, twice, thrice, hesitates, torn between sky and sea, then begins to climb. A black silhouette, then a dot, it disappears over the shoulder of the island.
It is afternoon. I’m wading. The water is so warm I can’t really feel it on my legs, apart from the hydrodynamic resistance. The reef is visible on the horizon as a slowly changing line of white. I round a small point and abruptly the water becomes shallower, changing color to the most exquisite copper-sulfate blue. About a half mile distant, across the shallows, is a tiny island, absurdly small, an upside-down hairbrush, araucaria pines jutting out at crazy angles. The whole thing looks like it could fall over and sink.
I come to the rocky outcrop that hides the secret cove and I begin to climb.
That’s when I hear it.
Sobbing. Someone is sobbing, just over behind the rocks. Sobs are as unique as snowflakes and fingerprints, and I know this sob. It has particularly baroque complications on the in breath. Ugh, ugh, uh-uh, ugh. Unmistakable. I even remember the last time I heard it. It was in a tapas bar just behind Piccadilly Circus and it was ten past five and the place was pretty much closed only they hadn’t got around to chucking us out. You can hear it yourself in the third-act climax of Bonza, Mate. The on-screen sob is exactly the same as the offscreen. A sob is a sob. A laugh is a laugh. These things don’t change. There’s really no such thing as acting. The ability to act is really the ability to be real when all else around you isn’t.
I climb the rocks, coughing as I climb. She’ll know that cough. The sobbing stops. I stride over the crest. Sophie is alone. She’s sitting, knees drawn up, on a beach towel, wearing a bathing suit, sunglasses and a hat. I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel at moments like this. It’s an unhealthy but invigorating cocktail of triumph, sorrow, pity, forgiveness, vindication, concern, nostalgia, nosiness, disappointment, relief and guilt. I scramble down the rocks. Sophie has composed herself by the time I get there. I stand in front of her. She compresses her lips and squints up at me.
Her belly is enormous and the most wondrous thing I have ever seen. It is gigantic, it is an entire planet. Her breasts seem to have tripled in size. Her entire body, what I can see of it, is crisscrossed with a venous network like a freeway system. She has veins in her thighs, her ankles and her calves. Veins in her neck, her arms, her temples, even in her eyelids—big fat blue ones, full of blood.
“Everyone’s wondering where you’ve got to.” She doesn’t answer. I kneel before her. There’s one thing I really,
really want to do. “I saw Matt get on the plane this morning.”
She closes her eyes.
I can’t help myself. “Can I touch it?”
Her eyes remain closed. She doesn’t say no. I lay my fingers on her belly, then my whole palm, resting lightly. It’s cannonball hard. It’s ripe to bursting. Sophie gives a little involuntary cry. I snatch my hand away. “What? What is it?”
“Baby kicked.”
“Are you okay?”
“It turned over last night. Every time it kicks it gets me right in the spine.”
“Ouch.”
“Makes it hard to breathe.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Oh, I’m great. I’m just fine.”
“And the baby?”
“The baby is fine.” She jerks away from me, suddenly, rolls onto her side and levers herself slowly to her feet. “You told him.”
“I had to.”
She wheels ponderously.
“I’m going for a swim.”
“Watch out for snakes.”
She starts for the water, waddling, buttocks clenched, shoulders thrown back to compensate for the enormous weight of her belly. She walks like a truck driver. I follow her. At first, the water is too warm to be refreshing, but by the time we’re chest deep we hit a cool layer, and it’s heaven. Sophie wades farther until she’s up to her neck, then leans back and floats, her stomach breaking the surface. “This is the only place I can get comfortable.”
“I guess it must be pretty much like this for the baby, right now.”
“What was that?” She cocks an ear out of the water.
“I said, it must be like this for the baby. Floating.”
She says nothing. I lie back again. I’m happy. Absurd but true. This is the thing. I’m happy. If I could just stay like this, floating, with Sophie, I’d be happy. It doesn’t make sense. But who wants to make sense?
“I don’t understand you, Frederick. What do you want?”
“I want you.” I feel good. I feel light. I feel like I can’t lose. How can I lose? I’ve got nothing to lose. Sophie is looking at me. Her face is appalled and enthralled. She’s on a knife-edge. We all find ourselves there, at one time or another. She is looking at me, now, and she’s taking me in. I don’t mind. I let her look. I submit to her scrutiny. I look around me. The sky, the sea, the sun, beating down, so glorious, thick as metal.
The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life Page 27