The Windy Season (17 page)

Michael had once described working the deck during a swell as like working in a zoo, with the sea calling and howling, and the groans and chattering of the pots. Paul decided that it was more like a jungle, how each individual noise spoke of its own threat. The shriek of the wind in his ears. The whine of the rope, almost in frustration, desperate to pull you into the sea.

Paul's nostrils were hot with the smell of bourbon, rising like fumes from his gut, and the relentless energy on deck made him feel a sort of mania. The white glare of marine paint. The hard edges and hard sounds of the deck. The German's whistling. It all made him want to yell out, to scream like a mental case. All morning he had seen himself slipping and smashing teeth out on a railing or on the glistening rungs of the bridge ladder, the thought repeating in his head like it was on a loop. He cursed himself for having again let Michael keep him out late. He spoke to his stomach out loud, warning off sickness. It had been weeks since he'd last vomited at sea. But even the dinghy ride in the inlet had made him want to spew.

Michael pointed out two or three four-wheel drives huddled together on the shore. They were difficult to make out, tucked up at the base of the ridge, the white paint grey under the shadow of the dunes. It was an unremarkable place they had found themselves, the ridgeline above them prickled with brownish vegetation. Fishers or surfers, Paul guessed. They were too far
to tell for certain. Then Jake powered the boat towards another bombie and they lost sight of them.

For the next hour Paul saw his brother's Pajero tucked into a corner of every bay they passed. He imagined him waking in the driver's seat, wondered what he would be thinking.

Michael leant against the wall of the cabin and looked into his sandwich, lifting the top layer of white bread with care as if the whole thing could detonate. He spoke under his breath in German and returned the sandwich to the baking paper.

You did not have a girl back home?

Nah, Paul replied.

Really? Why then do I never see a girl in your bedroom? You are a free man.

Paul shrugged.

I am getting concerned, Michael said. You do know this? I am genuinely worried about you. No wonder you are so bottled up, always looking like you are trying not to explode into a million little pieces. You have this look on your face. Michael tensed his entire face like someone holding their breath, squinted his eyes. Paul scoffed but Michael fixed on him an expression of sincere urgency. My friend, he said, gripping Paul's shoulders with his greasy gloves, that is your cock saying to you,
Dear God, let me out
.

You are such a tosser, Paul said. He shrugged off Michael's hands.

Now tossing is a very good idea, Michael said. But tossing is only a temporary fix. It is not a long-term solution. Eventually your cock is going to be like,
This is fun and everything, but I want to meet new people
.

You're messed up.

When did you last make love?

Paul considered the truth while Michael looked at him, and then thought of a lie.

Has it been months? Michael asked, impatient. What are we talking? Six months?

Paul could only shake his head in protest.

Oh God, Michael gasped, studying Paul's face with a look of horror. How have you been holding it together?

There was a long pause. The rattle of the breeze against the cabin door.

Jesus, Michael muttered eventually. People have killed for less. Michael looked at him suspiciously, as if Paul was a hazard, opened the cabin door and stepped inside.

Talk

AT THE TAVERN THE TALK WAS ALL
about the shark seen at the point that morning. It had appeared in the middle of a thick weekend crowd of surfers, teeth bared like a jack-in-the-box, and with a hellish hole on the side of its head that looked like a giant bullet wound. The huge animal swam dumbly about as the pack made for the ledge. It bumped underneath their surfboards and had knocked an older man off his longboard with an erratic tail. No one was bitten. The surfers stood hyperventilating and laughing on the point as they watched the shark swim where they had just been, circling in irregular arcs.

The local surfers had recognised the shark, a large white pointer, five metres or more in length with a gaping cavity where its right eye should have been. Circus. In the tavern that evening some men talked of that hole in the shark as though it were a doorway to the underworld. There were theories that the wound
had caused significant brain injury and nearly all of the crews spoke of Circus in that way, as a joke, the brain-damaged fish, mouthing outboard motors and cray pots, slack-jawed. Paul had heard that the shark would sometimes headbutt stationary boats as if by mistake. Michael said he thought it wasn't a brain injury but that the shark was unable to judge distance with its one remaining eye.

You know what I worked out? Michael said. What makes this place so different is everyone is in a dream.

Paul rested his head against the cool timber of the bar. He could still smell the sharpness of bile on his breath. They had spent the afternoon thirty miles from shore, the water wild with the sea breeze, the white glare of the sun in their eyes. He had never been so sick. There at the bar, with the drumming chatter of the crews in his ears, he felt sleep begin to take its merciful hold on him, and it stilled the vertigo.

Everyone likes to think Stark is so far from everywhere else, the German continued, like it is a different planet. That is all of us, I think, including me. Another Euro boy, on his adventure. Michael chuckled. I come here. All the people from the city. We come because we want to think it is the edge of the world. And we know it is not, but that does not matter. We choose to see it that way. We book our flights to come and see it that way. And maybe we need to see it like that, have some place in the world that is separate. Away from all the shit. A place we can go and dream.

Paul summoned the image of Kasia, imagining her hands in his hair. He could hear Michael sawing at his steak.

But it is mad, Michael went on. Totally deranged, you know? It is like wanting to believe you are the only one in a crowded room because you have turned the lights off. But the room is
full and we sit with the lights off, in the dark, pretending we are by ourselves. Pretending we are separate from everything. That is what it is like. It is not real. Nowhere is away from the shit. Not here, not anywhere. And the people in Stark, they have not worked that out yet. The locals, they worry about the world coming and messing things up for them, complicating things. But nothing was ever easy, I guarantee you that. He paused to chew on his steak. Look at Roo Dog. Tell me he did not have a fucked-up childhood. And he was born here. I mean, how does a paradise produce such a person?

Paul opened his eyes enough for the bar lights to flood in. He groaned and closed them again.

Exactly, my friend. Michael laughed. Well said. The German paused to think. Dreaming, he said. It is all in a dream. And no one questions it. It is its own religion.

Paul imagined kissing the girl, what that might be like.

Something wrong with you? He heard her voice, sharp, the words clear and real. He lifted his head to see her standing in front of him at the bar.

You never eat, Kasia said.

He saw the plate in her hand and the burger with the serviette wedged into the single bite mark. She waited for him to say something.

I feel sick, he got out.

The girl gave him a concerned look.

I mean, I get seasick, Paul said, during the day. I don't feel like eating.

You are a lobster fisherman and you get seasick?

I don't really like fishing either, he said, despite himself, hearing the words spill out of him like a confession. Or fish.

The girl laughed. Paul felt a sort of relief at the sound of it.

You are not from here, are you? she said.

He shook his head.

I could tell, she said.

Paul glanced at Michael. The German had a mouthful of mash but he was listening in.

I guess you're not from Stark either, Paul said.

She smiled. You guess right. I am from a long way away. You would not know of my town.

I want to go there, Paul said, again hearing the words before he had any real control over them.

Kasia raised her eyebrows. Michael shifted beside him. Paul couldn't believe he had said such a stupid thing. He felt like driving his forehead into the bar.

Poland, she said to him. I am from a small place in Poland. She turned to Michael. Chelm.

The German nodded. Paul looked to him as if for help.

Near Lublin, she said, turning again to Paul. Have you been to Europe?

No.

You have never been? she repeated. And you want to go to Chelm?

He nodded.

She made a puzzled face as she walked along the bar collecting plates.

Well, you should visit, Kasia said. It's very pretty.

Jules walked out from the kitchen into the bar and whispered something to her. Kasia nodded and turned for the kitchen doors but spun around before entering.

Nice to talk to you, fisherman. She grinned. And Merry Christmas.

She disappeared before he could respond.

Paul sat in silence, aware of the stagger of his heartbeat. He could sense Michael watching him but avoided meeting his eye.

I might head home, Michael said eventually. You coming?

Nah, he said.

Paul stepped out into the beer garden. The lights under the veranda were off, or broken, and the tables outside were in darkness.

Paul, eh? someone said, the voice coming from the blackness in front of him.

Yeah, Paul said. Who's that?

Noddy, mate.

Oh. Hey.

You're the brother, Noddy said. Elliot's brother, right?

Yeah, Paul replied.

This town might not be the same anymore but some things never change. Everyone here is in everyone else's pockets. You want to keep a secret, don't live in Stark. Unless you want to punish yourself.

Paul heard laughter. He recognised it as Elmo's.

Where is he? Elmo asked. Your brother? Where has he run off to?

Why would he run anywhere?

The shadows didn't respond.

You're on Jake's boat, yeah? said Noddy. Good luck to you.

Elmo laughed again. The Grim Reaper, he offered.

Paul was unsure what they meant by it. He said nothing.

You don't know about him? said Noddy.

Know what? Paul replied.

Jake, your skipper—he's a murderer. Paul could hear the
pleasure in the deckhand's voice as he said the words. He could sense both of them smiling.

Surely you knew that, Elmo said. He's your cousin, isn't he?

I don't really know him . . . Paul began. What do you mean? Who did he murder?

I think the technical term was manslaughter, hey, Elmo? Otherwise he wouldn't have ever come out of that lock-up.

He comes in one night on
Arcadia
, stupid drunk, Noddy said, and Paul could tell he'd recounted this story before in something like the same words. It was near midnight when he comes roaring through. Cleans up two boys who were having a fish in the inlet. And then . . . The deckhand hit the table hard. The two men laughed.

Young kids, mate, Noddy continued. Your age. Bit younger, maybe.

Yeah, said Elmo. Would have been about that.

And he runs straight over the top of them, Noddy said. He paused and Paul smelt the marijuana smoke breathed out towards him.

One of them survived, you know, Noddy said. Don't fucking ask me how.

Got messed up, of course, Elmo said. Don't have a boat go over your head and do okay.

Noddy cleared his throat. They got him out. Rushed him to the city. In hospital for a year, he was. That's what I heard. Learning to walk.

What about the other one? Paul said.

There was a silence. Boat just broke him, Noddy said eventually, voice deep and deliberate. Took three days before he came up, all twisted and bloated.

They waited for Paul to respond but he couldn't.

Anyway, Noddy said, I've got no idea why Jake came back here. I mean, shit—this place? I would have run off somewhere if I was him. Just taken off.

No idea, Elmo echoed.

I wake to gunfire and the sky pink above me and think I'm dreaming. The President and the generals' sleeping bags are empty. I crawl through the cold dirt until I see those two generals. One is lying flat out on his back. Blood in the sand underneath him so that it looks like he is lying on a blanket. The other is curled up on himself. I come up on another man and see the light-blue uniform. Face down. Somewhere off in the scrub I hear someone moaning and crawl towards the sound of it through dew-beaded spinifex. In a small clearing I see a woman leaning against the rock. Legs shot up. Seen her before. The federal police and the roadblock back near Yulara. And I see the President stand above her with the rifle. His long white hair in the desert wind like he's some sort of spirit. The police officer rolls and turns her head to the ground. Puts her arm up as he fires.