The Best Australian Stories (20 page)

‘No, you tell, you tell.'

‘Well, there was a blinding light all about my grandmama, like to the radiance of the Lord God of Hosts. Her skin was on fire. The crust of salt on her arms was thicker than grits.'

‘And hard as a shell.'

‘Harder than crabshell.'

‘And shone like diamonds,' Steven says.

‘And shone like phosphorus on the sea.'

‘She thought she was a fish,' Steven prompts.

‘She thought God had caught her on his line. She thought she had swum to the end of days and the pearly gates.'

‘And then, and then?'

‘She saw an angel come stepping across the waves.'

Steven claps his hands. ‘And the angel came on board her pine tree and said unto her:
I will guide you home
.'

‘Amen,' Marsyas says. ‘And she came to safe harbour in the old Slave Market itself, washed clean. And the waters receded and the islands rose back out of the sea as it was in the beginning. Now and ever shall be. And we better get you back inside the house or your grandmama's going to have a fit.'

3. Point of No Return

‘Marsyas, for God's sake, get home while you can. Steven, your mother's on the phone. She wants to talk to you.'

‘And who is going to board up your windows, Miz Leah, if I don't do it?' Marsyas wants to know.

‘It might have been more sensible', Leah points out, ‘to have spent less time on the damned crepe myrtles. And who's going to board your own windows?'

‘Grandsons, Miz Leah. Teenagers now. You are forgetting. Those boys already bought enough sheets of ply—'

‘It's getting too dark now anyway. If we don't get evacuation orders by morning, you can do it then, but for heaven's sake, go. Just help me get this door closed first. You push from outside.'

She feels the heft of Marsyas against the wood. She slides the bolt home. Francesca hurls imprecations, flaunting herself on the screen porch. In the hush that follows the closing of the door, Leah hears Steven say: ‘But I don't want to. I want to stay with Grandma.'

Leah watches the way her grandson concentrates, frowning, his whole body engaged in the listening. She would like to bolt plywood sheets around the delicate outer edges of his days. She would like to wrap him in silk.

‘But it won't,' he says. ‘Marsyas told me. And they'll vacuate us if it gets … But
Mommy
…!'

There is a longish silence. Steven is pouting, biting his lip.

‘Hi, Daddy,' he says, his voice flat. There is another silence. ‘Yes,' Steven says, dully. ‘Yes, I am a little bit scared, but Daddy …' How can he explain? He almost says:
but I like it.
He ponders this, concentrating.
When I'm with Grandma and Marsyas,
he thinks of saying,
I'm not frightened
when I'm frightened. It's something else and I like it.

‘It's like … it's like …' he says, groping for words that the wind keeps snatching, ‘it's like going very high on the swing—

‘Yes, but—

‘Yes, Grandma's here, but Daddy—

‘Yes.

‘Daddy wants to talk to you,' he says, extending the receiver.

Leah watches her grandson press his face against the windowpane. She watches the way his arms lift and sway. Sign language, she thinks. He believes he can talk to the trees.

Steven shivers and hugs himself.

‘I'm sorry, what …? Oh. Yes,' Leah says, contrite. ‘Of course, if that's what you think is best. It just didn't occur to me you'd be so worried.

‘Yes, but you see—

‘So many of them miss us, you know,' she explains. ‘They swing south at the eleventh hour, or they swing north-east and never make landfall at all.

‘No, no, it's just … there's been no evacuation order yet, but of course I'll … Oh, she's already—? That settles it then. Steven, can you hand me a pen?'

His grandmother copies down a number. ‘We can make it, I think,' she says. ‘I'll just grab an overnight bag for him and send the rest of his stuff up later.'

She hangs up. She shows Steven the scrap of paper. ‘Your mother's booked your flight home. This is the reservation number for your ticket,' she tells him. ‘We've got to be at the airport in an hour.'

‘But I don't want to go,' Steven says.

‘Your parents are worried sick. They've been watching the weather reports. Run and get some clothes. I'll call the air port to find out if your flight is on time.'

Steven stops at the turning of the stair. Through the small casement window on the landing – the sill is higher than the top of his head – he can see the furious sky and the tossing crowns of the pines. He wants to ride them. He can feel the rush of the branches lifting. He imagines riding the storm surge with dolphins. He imagines his thighs brushing the moon.

He believes he could fly.

‘Steven!' his grandmother calls. ‘Listen to this! They've closed the airport. I'll have to break the news to your parents.'

Steven feels his heart shoot upwards the way the hessian sacking was lifted from Marsyas's hands. Laughter inhabits him. He swings one leg over the banister and careens down, bumping over the corner-post moulding. He lands with a thump at his grandmother's feet.

‘I'm afraid the phone lines are down already,' she sighs. ‘I can't call them back. We're cut off.'

Steven's eyes glitter.

His grandmother smiles and puts a finger to her lips.

4. Evacuation Advisory

‘It now seems certain'
,
the man on Storm Track says, ‘that Francesca will make landfall within twenty-four hours. Coastal airports have been closed and evacuation will become mandatory as of seven o'clock tomorrow morning. Evacuation routes and reverse-lane changes are being posted …'

‘Will Marsyas drive us?' Steven asks.

‘No. I'll drive. Marsyas never leaves. Even for Hugo, he wouldn't leave. Your parents will be watching this on the Weather Channel, though. They'll be so relieved.'

‘The man said we
have
to.'

‘Yes, it's the law. The National Guard will come knocking, door-to-door.'

‘So how come Marsyas—?'

‘Oh, he'll hide somewhere. There are always people who won't leave. They feel just as safe here. They feel safe wherever they are.'

‘The governor has announced that one eastbound lane will be kept open for emergency vehicles,' the Storm Track man says. ‘All other lanes on the Interstate are for inland-bound traffic.'

‘Marsyas thinks he's got a special arrangement with hurricanes,' Leah says. ‘He believes he can talk to them.'

‘He can,' Steven says. ‘Like his grandma.'

‘According to Marsyas, hurricanes speak
Gullah,
' Leah raises her eyebrows and cusps a hand behind one ear, listening to the noisy patois of the wind. ‘Like the island people.'

‘I can speak some
Gullah.
Marsyas taught me.'

‘Did he indeed?'

‘There has been much criticism of the governor,' the Storm Track man says. ‘Charges are flying … several state senators claim that the order to evacuate has been left too late.'

‘Grandma?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Couldn't we stay here with Marsyas?'

His grandmother folds him in her arms. She smiles and puts a finger on his lips. ‘And just what would your parents say to that?'

‘How will they know?' he whispers.

‘We interrupt this announcement', the Storm Track man says, ‘to warn that the Carolinas have now been placed on Hurricane Watch, the highest state of alert. Many think this is far too late, given what happened with Dana last year. Impossible congestion on the Interstate, gridlock from Hilton Head to the Georgia border. A highway patrolman, on condition of anonymity, said angrily: “You can't move several hundred thousand people at a moment's—”'

A soft popping sound floats from the mouth of the Storm Track man. For a moment, he glows like phosphorus and then the television screen goes dark. Every light in the house blinks off. The air-conditioner groans and shudders and dwindles into a trembling that Steven can feel in the floorboards before it goes silent and still.

‘Well,' Leah says, reaching for Steven's hand. ‘I've got the candles in a drawer right here. Don't be frightened.'

‘I'm not frightened.'

5. Hurricane Watch

Face to face, the woman and child float inside a bubble of light. Elbows on the warm oak table, chins in cupped hands, eyes gleaming, they have the air of conspirators very pleased with themselves. Shadowy gold from the candle moves like water on their skin.

‘Isn't this exciting?' Leah whispers.

‘Yes,' he whispers back.

‘And what do you think I've got hidden under the table?'

‘The photograph box!'

‘How did you guess?'

Steven laughs, leaning across a large carton that is crammed with portraits in fading sepia tones, black-and-white snapshots with deckle edges, bright Kodacolor prints in postcard size. ‘My pick, my pick. I pick first.'

Steven squeezes his eyes shut and reaches in, his hand delving deep. He pulls out a photograph and holds it against his chest like a poker card.

‘Black and white,' he says, pleased, sneaking a look. ‘Guess who?'

‘Must be your grandfather. Or me.'

‘Both,' Steven says. ‘Ten points. See?'

‘Hold it closer to the candle.'

‘Is it very, very old?'

‘Ah, that one,' she says fondly.

‘Is it older than Hugo?'

‘Much older. That was a very long time ago, before we were married. I remember that day. We'd been beachcombing for shells and starfish and I was covered in sand-fly bites. Your grandfather kept offering to scratch them. It was really very wicked of him.'

‘Did he like me?'

‘He adored you. Can't you remember that?'

Steven shakes his head.

‘You used to ride on his shoulders through the salt marsh. Somewhere in the box, there's a photo of you both on the boardwalk.'

‘Was I three?'

‘No, just a baby almost. But you used to clap your hands whenever you saw a white egret.'

A shadow of a memory brushes Steven, but he cannot hold on to it.

‘It's your turn, Grandma.'

Leah slides her hand into the box and fumbles with the past. ‘Ah,' she says. ‘Look what I found. It's Steven with no clothes on!'

Steven wrinkles up his nose. The baby in the photograph is lying on a blue bath towel. He has a cloth toy in one hand. ‘That's Humpty Dumpty!' Steven says, startled. Puzzled, he thinks about Humpty Dumpty. ‘We lost him,' he muses. ‘Where did he go?'

‘Probably off to one of your baby cousins. Your turn.'

‘Abracadabra,' Steven says. He pulls out a colour photograph and studies it. ‘It's you and Grandpa again,' he decides.

Leah holds the image close to the candle. ‘Oh my!' she says, startled. ‘How did that get into the box?'

‘You put all of them there, Grandma.'

‘No,' she says. ‘Not that one.'

‘Grandma?'

‘A street photographer took it. We didn't know until he tried to sell it to us.'

Steven can see a white line around the edge of his grandmother's fingers where they are pressed into her cheek. With her other hand, she turns the photograph over. ‘He kept it,' she says. ‘But I wrote on the back of it first.'

Steven leans in to the candle. There is no writing on the back of the photograph. His grandmother presses her lips against the back of her right hand.

‘What were you and Grandpa doing?'

‘Do you think that looks like your grandfather?'

Steven studies the photograph. All grown-ups look much the same to him. ‘I don't know,' he says. ‘What were you doing?'

‘We were riding out a hurricane,' Leah says.

6. The Eye of the Storm

Sleep approaches like a dangerous calm. Leah blows out the candle. Steven is curled up on the sofa, his head in her lap, and she strokes his hair. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder. In the flares of lightning, she watches the flutter of his lashes against his cheek.

Francesca is throwing a tantrum beyond the screen-porch and Leah hears the crash of a tree going over but this is happening like a movie in slow motion with the sound turned off. Steven stirs and moans a little but does not wake. Another sound appears like a cascade of whites and blues, very close, and Leah knows that if she did not have the mute button on for this show, the colours would cut her. Windows come and go, she thinks tranquilly. They blow in, they blow out. Not this room, she thinks. Bedroom perhaps. She should have let Marsyas board them up.

She can feel the sofa tilting slightly, sliding, and perhaps the house? Perhaps the foundations are going? Leah tries to resist, but the house is slipping its moorings, listing into the salt marsh. Soon a man from the National Guard will knock at the door and she will have to climb back up the floorboards, she will have to carry Steven on her shoulder. ‘Your son and your daughter-in-law have laid charges,' the National Guardsman will say. ‘Reckless negligence. Failure to evacuate in time.'

‘But the airport was closed,' Leah pleads. ‘There was nothing I could do.'

‘Just answer the phone,' the Guardsman orders.

‘Phone?' Leah says. ‘Phone lines are down. It's my alarm.'

She gropes for it, knocking candles and photographs, dislodging the past from its box.

Steven sits bolt upright, wide-eyed. ‘It's mommy,' he says, then his head sinks back onto Leah's lap. His eyes are closed.

‘Answer it,' orders the man from the National Guard.

Leah fumbles for the receiver in the dark. ‘We're all right,' she says. ‘The National Guard are here to get us out. I tried to call before but the lines were down.