The War of Immensities (8 page)

“There will be
nightmares, there will be unexpected behaviour, there will be a
certain listlessness, a lack of concern for important issues.
Often, they have a lot of trouble getting their priorities
right.”

Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder, they called it, at least on the forms for Accident
Compensation and Sickness Benefits that he had to fill in. In fact
the government had been very good about it although now their
patience was beginning to wear thin. They had paid the return trip
to Wellington for Judy and the kids, the hospital costs there, and
the expenses involved in bringing him home. They put him in Monash
Hospital until they sorted out that difficulty with his skin, and
he seemed fine, keen to get back to work, back into his life. But
nothing like that happened.

“He will be
very nervous. He may be troubled by claustrophobia. He will sweat a
great deal, especially in confined spaces. Loud noises will be a
great trouble to him.”

He talked to
the counsellor about it. Mary Ashwood was a young middle-class girl
with a degree and a theory to go with it. “Maybe it isn’t because
of what you saw but what you didn’t. There you were in the middle
of a massive disaster, and you were in a cellar and then
unconscious. You didn’t experience any of it. Maybe that’s what’s
troubling you.”

So fucking
what?

Onward he had
thundered into the evening, leaving the freeways and sprawling
suburbs of Melbourne far behind, up the Hume and onto the Northern
Highway that would take him eventually to Bendigo and he had some
friends there—maybe it was their company he was seeking? But once
he got beyond Kilmore, the highway began to swing slowly north-west
and he grew increasingly agitated. Yes, it was all coming back to
him now, constructed from vague flashes and faint impressions, but
definitely assembling itself in his mind. He had pressed on, for
the roadmap in his brain told him there was no road that went the
way he wanted until he reached Heathcote.

There the
highway divided, left to Bendigo, right to Echuca and he chose the
latter option and immediately grew more at ease. There was no doubt
that it was somehow more correct, and so no choice but to drive on.
Eventually, he arrived at an insignificant place called Corop and
the road divided—left to Rochester, right to Stanhope and nothing
much else. But that was the way to go, no doubt about it.

In Stanhope he
stopped and found only a milk bar open but he was able to get a
hamburger and coffee, trying to force himself to take an hour. It
wasn’t much of a town, and noted only for a recent outbreak of
anthrax. He regarded the hamburger ruefully but such dangers
weren’t what bothered him. His system hated the lack of motion. On
the one hand he was almost falling asleep, on the other he was
frantic to get back on the road. After just twenty minutes he was
back behind the wheel and moving on, following the road toward
Shepparton, which lay east, but he didn’t get far before he knew he
must turn north again. The new road led toward Kyabram and he
sensed that the corridor of contentment that guided him was growing
narrower.

And then he was
slowing down and stopped. He was ten kilometres beyond Stanhope and
about eight short of Kyabram and had been on the road five hours.
At first he thought it was exhaustion and he contemplated taking a
non-doze but then he realised he had passed the spot. He turned
back, drove three kilometres and then pulled off the road. There
was a track of sorts and the gate through the barbed wire was not
locked. In the half-moonlight, he could see only that there was
nothing to see. He bounced along the track for about a kilometre
then swung off onto grassland and ploughed through. The terrain was
flat as a dinner table and there were only a few clumps of trees in
the distance here and there. He stopped and stepped down from the
truck, walking a few yards wide. He was way out in the middle of a
completely empty field—not even a sheep to be seen. He had arrived.
This was the place. But where was it?

Right in the
bloody middle of nowhere.

Andromeda awoke
with Jim Morrison pounding in her brain—it was the worst kind of
hangover.

We gotta get
outa this place.

If it’s the
last thing I ever do;

Girl there’s a
better life for me and you.

Yo! what a
shocker, and all the worse because it was entirely inside her
head—out there in the real world, insects hummed and only birds
sang. And there was sunlight—wicked and mean and incinerating her
eyeballs right out of their sockets. Her nose was hurting
unmercifully and had spotted blood on the pillow, she saw. That
last line she snorted near blew the sinuses right out the back of
her head and there was nothing after that. Wow, what a way to
go!

There was a
dream too, a nightmare, stuck in the mire of her brain somewhere.
She had been standing naked, surrounded by a sea of little boys all
of whom were no taller than her mid-thighs. They were reaching with
their hands to touch her as high on her body as they could, and
although they could reach no higher than her buttocks and abdomen,
every one of the thousands of them seemed able to touch her with
grubby, pawing hands. There was nothing erotic in it—it was
menacing, those little boys were all evil gnomes…. What would the
shrinks make of that! Guilt, maybe, for cradle-snatching all those
young musicians… She squeezed her eyes closed, to try and force the
memory of the dream out of her brain.

Have a damned
look at yourself, woman. Just have a goddamned look. Go on, turn
the light on and show yourself, you mantis. The fluorescent
flickered macabrely and she looked dead! Holy Shit. Only
thirty-seven and decomposing already. Sure, the body was in good
shape—the work-outs and diets took care of that—but the face! It
gave the game away completely.

She dragged her
fingers on her cheeks, to make the wrinkles smooth, like Joan
Collins. Still looked god-damned awful. Those eyes, so hideously
bloodshot. Bags under that you could pack your entire wardrobe in
and go down home.

Yeah, sure.
Home. But where’s home? For sure not hot and dusty barefoot days in
Trinidad—Ma and Pa were long since dead and no one was left to
remember her. Nor the even worse poverty of Soho and all those
fog-bound years of trying to break into musicals. Not plastic
Hollywood with plastic throw-away careers in television and the
movies that never happened anyway. Not sleazy King’s Cross
nightclubs where all the best looking girls were guys. She didn’t
have a home to go to. No place to go. But she knew she had to go
there anyway, and right now!

Get dressed.
She hauled her drooping ass into jeans, dragged a shirt over her
sagging tits, stuffed a handful of tabs in her pocket—didn’t matter
which. Forget the rest. Go, go, go.

The heat
outside made her reel back against the door-jamb. The god-damned
sun was in her eyes no matter which way she turned. Where the hell
am I anyway? Whitsunday? Oh yeah. Whitsunday Passage, wherever that
was. Go. Hitch a ride and get moving. But where?

Thataway. That
was it. South, to judge from the sun. Down Dixie? No, wrong
country. So what’s south? Not silly-bloody Sinny—hate the god-awful
place. Tasmania? Antarctica? Can’t go south. Can’t go any where
because you’re on an island, silly bitch. Gotta get out of the sun
at least. Coffee. Go to the cafe and get coffee.

When she
glanced around, she saw there were some small boys—real ones—over
there, in the bushes, watching her. Shit! And all around, the
tourists stopped to stare at her and whisper to each other. Okay,
so now she was completely paranoid. No reason to be surprised about
that.

She struck out
across the nicely manicured lawns with tables under the palms, the
suburban folks’ idea of paradise. People were everywhere, and all
gaping at her. Well, look on it as good publicity for her act. The
club, The Golden Dolphin—her present four week gig—was in the
lounge bar of the pub and she went that way, although only because
the coffee shop was in the same tourist complex. She marched up the
steps into the lobby, and there stood a life-size cardboard cutout
of Andromeda Starlight, Superstarlight, in glittering gown and full
song. Andromeda Fuck-anything-in-sight Starlight, star of the show,
hot from Hollywood and London and Sydney, the Windies Revenge.

No one would
have recognised the sorry shabby individual who gave the effigy the
finger as she stalked by.

Joel Tierney,
her agent, was there, sucking coffee. “Ho, there Andy. Back in the
land of the living.”

“I gotta get
out of this place.”

In reply, Joel
snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey, come on Babe, wake
up!”

“I’m
awake.”

“You sure? I
just come from explaining to the resort management how you been
under a lot of pressure and it won’t happen again.”

“I never … What
won’t happen again?”

“Don’t
remember, huh?”

“Remember?
What?”

“You were
sleepwalking…”

“I never
sleepwalk…”

“You did this
afternoon. There you were, bollock naked, marching down to the
beach. You did it twice. I had to grab you and drag you back to the
room both times. Caused a huge sensation.”

“Are you
serious?”

“Great
publicity. The bookings have doubled since….”

At the window
of the café, young boys were staring in at her in wonder.

“Sleepwalking.
In the buff…?”

“Extraordinary
sight, Andy.”

“Holy
shit.”

“That’s what
most people that saw you said.”

She was shaking
her head in utter disbelief, but then the new sensation flooded her
body again. “Joel, I gotta get out of here.”

“Don’t worry
about it. Everyone’s hoping you’ll do it again…”

“I’m serious. I
want to go. Right now.”

“Can’t. Booked
for a month. Got ‘em queuing out to the reef.”

The radiantly
smiling waitress hovered.

“Gimme
coffee.”

“Certainly,
Miss Starlight. Black or white?”

“I don’t give a
fuck. Just give me coffee.”

“She takes it
black with cream, sweetheart,” Tierney sleazed at the waitress.
Next victim of his despicable charm.

“Will there be
anything else, Miss Starlight?”

“Yeah. How the
hell do I get out of here?”

“There’s flight
schedules on the rack by the counter...”

“Just get the
coffee, sweetie,” Tierney smiled. “She ain’t going no place.”

“Joel, please!
I gotta go.”

“Why? Come on,
you’re big here. Biggest you’ve ever been.”

“I don’t know.
But I got this big urge to go. Thataway. Outa here.”

“Thataway?”

“Yes. That way.
I want to go there, now.”

“Why?”

“I gotta.”

“Here, take
this and forget it.”

He stuffed a
tab straight in her open mouth and she nearly choked on it. But
then the waitress brought the coffee and she gulped it down,
heedless of burnt lips. It’s tentacles immediately began to move
through her intestines and into the blood stream.

“Better?”

“I guess.”

“This is an
island, Andy. There’s no place to go.”

“Jesus, Joel.
You don’t know how I feel.”

“Get this in
yer. Then tell me how you feel.”

“I dunno. I
just got this wicked urge to move, to go. I feel like I’ll die if I
don’t.”

“But go
where?”

“That way.”

“But there’s
nothing there except miles of reef.”

“That’s where
I’ve gotta go.”

“Just take it
easy. The tab will help calm you. Sleep. Get ready for the show.
It’ll be all right.”

“Yeah, Joel,
sure.”

Remember
Xanadu. Harley Thyssen got up with slow arthritic movements and
went to the door. Coleridge had begun the epic poem, then someone
knocked at the door and by the time he returned to the task, all
but the first hundred lines already written had gone right out of
his head. Not much chance of that in this case, but still Thyssen
approached the door with irritation.

“Are you all
right, Harley?” Joanie, his neighbour, asked nervously.

No, he was not
alright. “Of course. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, nothing.
Albert saw the lights on. We thought we should check...”

Nosy bitch. And
she knew it too, as her sentence ran out of words.

“Just had some
work to do and wanted to go where I wouldn’t be disturbed,” Thyssen
said heartlessly. The truth was always cruel.

“Oh, I see. I’m
sorry. It’s just that it was so unusual...”

Joanie, like
many gossips, had a habit of embarking upon statements that they
didn’t know how to finish. He ought to invite her in, ravage her on
the couch while her husband stood on the porch across the road,
meditating on the Ancient Mariner and not at all wondering why his
wife was taking so long. That would give them something to talk
about, except of course they never talked about themselves.

She was a
sturdy, good-looking woman and heaven knows what was left of his
libido needed it. But he didn’t have the energy, the risk to his
health would be excessive, and anyway, what he had told her was
true. He had work to do and did not want to be disturbed. For the
first time in about a decade.

“Yes, Joanie. I
realise it is quite out of the ordinary for me to be at home at
this hour of the evening. Here, smell my breath. Not a trace of
alcohol will you find. Do you want to come in and verify that there
are no young women hiding under the bed?”

“Oh, Harley,
really,” Joanie laughed—you could never insult people like her—and
then she glanced back toward her own house as if she just
remembered she had left something on the stove. “Well, you get back
to work, Harley. And remember, we are still here for you if you
want anything.”