What the Light Reveals

by Mick McCoy

  ‘I heard he went to Sydney,’ Conrad said.

  ‘There are a dozen Johnsons in the Warrnambool phone book, none of them E,’ Ruby said. ‘And if we find Sheila, she might know.’

  Alex drained his champagne and refilled his glass. Ruby held hers out for a top-up, but Conrad placed his palm over the mouth of his.

  ‘We can go down there if we need to,’ Conrad said, ‘but let’s wait and see.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you both.’

  Ruby kissed Alex’s forehead while he gazed at the floor. She was thinking how easily the talk was flowing when he looked up at her. ‘Why didn’t you write, Mum? Why didn’t you send me any letters?’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you get them?’

  ‘She did,’ Conrad said. ‘More than me.’

  Alex was silent for a while. ‘They must’ve been stopped. I got four from Dad, but none from you.’

  ‘Stopped? Why on earth …’ she began, but trailed off. If I was Alex, she thought, alone in that hateful city for almost a year without word from my mother, how would I feel? After everything that had happened in those last months we were together, how would I feel?

  ‘Oh Mum, the KGB. They came to the flat, three times that I know of, once while I was in it.’

  ‘What?’ Conrad said.

  ‘Vashka Börteki’s father cornered me in the stairwell and threatened me with all sorts of information he had on me. And he was opening my mail, reading it, so maybe he took your letters?’

  Ruby glanced at Conrad. ‘I knew I was right about him. But why would he take my letters and not yours?’

  ‘And they tailed me, the KBG,’ Alex said. ‘Followed me, most of the way to Odessa. Interrogated me after midnight in a hotel room in Kiev. They thought I killed a homeless guy.’

  ‘They thought you killed someone?’ Ruby said. ‘Why?’

  Alex told them about Gregory and Joseph, about finally recovering Peter’s ashes and then coming upon the crowd around the old man’s body.

  ‘But you still got to Odessa?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘I ran out of time and money,’ he said, leaning back in the chair. ‘And nerve. I was scared.’ He paused every few words, cautious and afraid, it seemed, of what he had to tell them.

  ‘I can imagine,’ Conrad said. He reached over and grabbed Alex’s hand. ‘Anyone would have been scared with that kind of attention.’

  ‘I thought everyone was lying to me, reporting on me,’ he said. ‘Thank God Valentin was there.’

  A glance passed between Alex and Conrad, but she was distracted by her own impatience. ‘What happened to the ashes?’

  Backed in against the refrigerator door, Alex stared at her, lips tight. ‘Is that more important than what happened to me?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. She pressed herself away from the sink and stood close behind Conrad. ‘Alex, so many bad things have happened to you and I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I caused all this, Alex,’ Conrad said. ‘Not your mother. None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t kept us there so long.’

  ‘Alex, please,’ she said, ‘what happened to Peter’s ashes?’

  ‘You …’ he began, before catching himself. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ He sighed deeply. ‘The ashes are on the dresser.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I brought them back. They’re in a fancy urn I bought before I left.’ He laughed at his parent’s wide-mouthed silence. ‘Peter’s in the next room.’

  ALEX

  They stood at the mouth of St Kilda pier. Seagulls flew up from the beach to investigate whether they’d brought anything to eat, but once they sensed the urn and its contents were not for them they were unusually docile, only a few crying out instead of the usual chorus of squawks and caws. Further along the beach, families picnicked. Well-fed, towelling-hatted men sat in a wide circle of eskies and canvas deckchairs, while their wives and sisters and mothers took shade under tasselled umbrellas, lying on beach towels. The younger ones played a game of beach cricket closer to the water’s edge, joined by those adults not too heavily weighed down by food and alcohol.

  Alex stared down the length of the pier. ‘I don’t remember any of this. I thought I might.’

  ‘Wrong pier,’ Conrad said, pointing north along the bay. ‘Station Pier in Port Melbourne. A couple of miles that way.’

  ‘Do you remember the day we set sail?’ Ruby said.

  Alex shook his head. ‘Not a thing. Or the boat trip.’

  ‘Really?’ Ruby said. ‘There were twenty-three passengers. Two families heading for Hong Kong, two more for Taiwan. And us, bound for Vladivostok.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Alex asked.

  ‘It was a cargo ship,’ Ruby said. ‘We were just added ballast.’

  They continued down the pier in silence, Conrad needing constant help with his frame on the uneven boards, until they reached a spot two-thirds of the way down. Alex placed the urn on the boardwalk. Made of plain white ceramic, its sides flared slightly from a broad base, rising to rounded shoulders and a wide, squat neck. He gazed back to where the pier left the land and began its passage over the water. The only other souls out walking it were a middle-aged couple, but they appeared so frail the wind coming off the bay might blow them back to land. They could be my parents, he thought, Sheila Cain and Eric Johnson. Never before had he imagined such a thing.

  ‘You’ve got to remember that back then, going overseas meant going by sea for most people,’ Ruby said. ‘No aeroplanes for the likes of us.’

  The couple crossed the pier no more quickly than the tide ebbed from the shore. The man had long, thin hair that flapped about in the stiffening breeze. He wore a jacket of brown tweed on a day when, despite the wind, the temperature didn’t warrant it. Underneath the jacket was a plain white shirt and dark brown slacks, clothes his father might’ve worn. But Alex doubted his companion’s outfit would be found in his mother’s new wardrobe. If what she was wearing that Christmas Day was any indication, his mother’s taste in clothes had changed significantly from Moscow drab to embrace as many colours as possible, seemingly in each individual piece.

  ‘Have you seen these two?’ Alex said to his mother. ‘If she wasn’t so plain they could be you and Dad.’

  Ruby glanced only briefly at the couple walking towards them. ‘I have a story to tell you, if you think I’m so dowdy.’

  ‘Dad’s the plain one,’ Alex said, ‘not you.’

  But Ruby wanted to tell the story anyway. ‘I got chatted up by a bagpipe player this morning.’

  ‘Ah, the new boyfriend?’ Conrad said. ‘I’ve been waiting for this one.’

  ‘Every Tuesday at quarter to ten,’ she said, ‘this fellow comes slow-marching down the middle of the street. Kilt on, long white socks, sporran, jaunty cap, the works. And playing the bagpipes.’

  How long would this take? They were at a pier. Not Peter’s pier, but a pier, and Alex wanted to spread the ashes. He was impatient to get it done.

  ‘I have no idea why he chooses our street, why he walks directly down the middle, where he goes next. And why there is never a car in sight.’

  ‘Maybe the noise scares them off?’ Conrad said.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ignoring him, ‘I decided I’d wish him a merry Christmas if he came by this morning.’

  The couple came past. ‘Good afternoon,’ Ruby said, earning a smile as they continued on their way. But she wasn’t going to stop. ‘So this morning I waited at the front gate and around the corner he came, slow-stepping along the middle of the road.’

  ‘“Excuse me,” I said, but he couldn’t hear me over the noise of his own lungs and his bag and pipes. So I stepped out through the gate and said it again, “Excuse me.” The sight of a middle-aged lady in her dressing gown and slippers, holding two empty glasses and a bottle of Scotch whisky on a Christmas morning would make most pipers pause, I imagine.’ Alex didn’t look up from his examination of the pier’s boards, so she contin
ued. ‘“Please forgive me for interrupting your beautiful playing,” I said to him, “but I wonder if you might share a little Christmas cheer?”’

  ‘The fellow took the instrument from his lips and folded it away under his arm, without saying a word. “I do love your piping,” I said, “and I thought we might sit a while and share a glass of whisky, to show my appreciation.” I held out the bottle for the piper to examine. “Tea seems a bit lacking.” “My dear lady,” the piper said, in a beautiful Scottish brogue I’ve no doubt was put on for me, “I would be delighted.” Well, he bowed, I poured the drinks and we sat on the fence, toasted each other and drank.’

  ‘You drank Scotch whisky?’ Alex asked. ‘Sitting on your front fence with a stranger at breakfast time on Christmas morning? In your dressing gown!’

  His father’s only response was a slow, rhythmic rocking back and forth on his heels, leaning heavily on his frame.

  ‘Rory McManus, he said his name was, after I’d introduced myself. “Truly?” I asked him. “Is that your real name?” “Is Ruby Murphy yours?” he said. I asked him if he had family here – he did, he wasn’t alone – and I asked him why he walked the streets and piped. “Like a dog pissing on the lamp posts.” That’s what he said. “Makes me feel at home. Like I belong.” So I told him about us living in Moscow and how no amount of pissing on lamp posts would’ve helped us belong.’ Alex remained silent. ‘And I told him about you, coming home for Christmas. But little did I know you were bringing Peter with you.’ Ruby reached out and rubbed her son’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said, rousing himself. ‘It’s a beautiful story.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s keep walking.’ As she started towards the end of the pier, a boy and his father came bounding across the boards, heading back to shore. The boy was sprinting while his father, not so enthusiastic, did enough to keep up.

  ‘Mind out, Mum,’ Alex said.

  They stepped back, their attention following the two runners as they sped past. Alex felt the contact of his heel with the urn. As it somersaulted off the pier, the lid flew loose and flipped through the air like a coin in a game of two-up. Peter’s ashes began to spill from the urn’s open mouth, blown by the wind in a graceful trailing arc like spray from the lip of a breaking wave. Alex leapt from the pier as the urn broke the water with a heavy, hollow plop.

  ‘Alex!’ he heard his mother shout as he dropped towards the sea, his brother’s ashes fizzing in the water below him, as if they still bore the heat of the furnace that had burned his body a year ago.

  Alex split the water headfirst, entering into the midst of a strangely glittering cloud. All around him the summer sun’s rays pierced the water and made Peter’s ashes sparkle and dance. Without pausing for breath he piked his body, spearing down after the sinking urn. He’d once swum like this on holidays at Odessa, diving off the pier and cutting through the water, eyes wide open as he sought out the murky bottom. Peter had been a much better swimmer, though. Alex’s arms pulled against the water again and again as the floor of the bay loomed closer. He reached for the urn just as it bumped against the sand. How deep am I? he wondered. Twenty feet? Thirty? It didn’t matter, he wasn’t struggling for air and his ears didn’t ache with the pressure. He felt like he could stay down there at the bottom of the bay for ever.

  With the urn tucked under one arm, his eyes darted around, seeking out the lid. Grabbing at sparse clumps of seaweed on the sandy floor, he pulled himself along, scuttling about like a crab. More than once he saw a glint from the thin gold line that circled the lid’s rim, but was conned each time by a shard of glass or the lustrous belly of a shell. He glanced down at the urn to see his brother’s ashes seeping from its open mouth like smoke rising from a smouldering fire. He tried to seal the opening with his palm and felt heat from the flames inside. He gave up his search for the lid.

  Gazing towards the surface, he allowed his body to rise, carried up by the remaining air in his lungs. From that depth, the sun’s rays frayed into a cloudy white light, seeded by Peter’s glittering ashes. It seemed there were thousands of them. Tens of thousands. And they were joined in their shimmering dance by the tiny bubbles of air that escaped his open mouth. His year of guilt tumbled from him wrapped inside those bubbles, to spread and mingle with Peter’s ashes as they sparkled in the sun’s tempered light.

  At his back he could feel a solid roadway, with the night closing in and raindrops falling thickly all around. Instead of the bubbles of his life and the ashes of his brother’s death rising up through the water, raindrops came sinking down through the night sky to splash onto the black tar about his head. He saw the headlights of his father’s car, bright in the darkness. The world was so still that the rain surrounded him more loudly, popping and cracking in his ears.

  On the road beside him, Peter’s broken body stirred, his lungs hissing, making the words he spoke sound hollow. Alex bent nearer. ‘Ty moy brat,’ Peter said, speaking Russian. ‘You are my brother.’

  He stared at Peter’s face, his forehead sunken and blood smeared. ‘Ty moy brat,’ Peter repeated. And then he was quiet.

  Alex slumped down, the hard road beneath him melting away, replaced by the briny sea. He watched the raindrops reverse their descent and begin to rise up like bubbles of life, drifting and shimmering away from him. He let the current wash him where it would, enveloped in Peter.

  He was calm.

  A cloud of turbulence erupted from the water’s surface and boiled downwards. Ruby’s head and shoulders appeared as she plunged deeper, her eyes darting left and right. Or was she sinking? She couldn’t swim. Her clothes washed around her, her skirt wafting up about her arms. She couldn’t see him even though by then he was just ten feet below. She couldn’t swim.

  Alex held the urn in both hands. It was extinguished of its contents. Peter was gone.

  He let the urn drop free and drift towards the sandy bed, reached out for his mother and took a firm grip of her hand.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I have borrowed from the lives of my uncle and aunt, Dave and Bernice Morris, and their two adopted sons, Paul and Len. It can be challenging to have friends and family read a story in which you seem to be a character, with them wondering what is real and what is not. So, to be clear, I made up a lot of stuff. If reality didn’t suit me, I faked it.

  Dave Morris appeared before the Royal Commission on Espionage on 10th November, 1954 and 30th March, 1955. The Official Transcript of Proceedings, published by the Commonwealth of Australia, includes his testimony. Bernice Morris wrote of her family’s extraordinary lives in Between the Lines (Sybylla Co-Operative Press & Publications Ltd, 1988). Paul Morris generously shared memories of his life in Moscow, reading and giving feedback on the manuscript. A great many additional references, print and electronic, were used in imagining daily life for an Australian family in 1970s Moscow.

  Antoni Jach has been a supporter and mentor for almost my entire writing life. I cannot thank him enough. This story was workshopped through his Masterclass VI, with generous and valuable feedback from Lyndel Caffrey, Moreno Giovannoni, Jenny Green, Jacinta Halloran, Rosalie Ham, Yvette Harvey, Lawrence McMahon, Leigh Redhead and Sarah Schmidt.

  Maria Hyland and Trevor Byrne, of The Editing Firm, delivered insightful and detailed edits over two drafts. I doubt this story would have interested my publisher without them. Maria and Trev taught me much about novel writing craft; the guano and top dressing for my words.

  Barry Scott at Transit Lounge said yes. Thank you, Barry. The joy and relief and sense of validation is something I will never forget. Thanks also to Penelope Goodes for her prepublication editing and to everyone at Transit Lounge who helped with this book.

  Jane, Phoebe and Ella are my precious and powerful family. Thank you for loving me and putting up with my moods over so many years. Thank you to Jane and to Sally Richards for reading early drafts. Thanks to the whole extended mob of family and friends for being there.<
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  Book group reading notes for What the Light Reveals are available from www.transitlounge.com.au

  Mick McCoy is the author of Burning Sunday, short-listed for the 1999 Age Fiction Prize, and Cutting Through Skin. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

  More at https://mickmccoy.com/