Tremble (22 page)

He opened his eyes underwater: a dull greenish light filtered in from above—the canopy of a forest. A dark figure stared down at him from beneath matted hair. Terrified, Gavin sat up bolt upright, water streaming down his face and chest. The bathroom was quiet, pristine, completely normal. Gavin got out, his heart racing, and pulled the plug violently. As the bathwater drained away it left behind a sheen of green algae.

He’d had the smoke detectors turned off. The last thing he needed after being booked for speeding was the police turning up to find a well-known property developer striding around his own apartment minus body hair stark naked and clutching a bush of burning sage. Jesus Christ, he thought, what was he becoming?

Shivering slightly, he bound the branches of the sage tightly with wire, then held the bundle over the gas flame of the stove. They flared instantly. Gavin pulled them away and blew the flame out. Sure enough the bush began to smoke as the embers ate their way down the stems.

Holding the bush high he went to the main fuse box and switched off all the lights. Now the apartment was illuminated only by the amber glow of the smoldering plants and the city lights outside. Gavin walked
slowly around, waving the bush carefully to make sure the billowing smoke filled all corners of the apartment.

In the office block opposite the cleaner switched off her vacuum cleaner and watched in amazement as the man she had taken to fantasizing about walked gracefully through the flat opposite, his skin illuminated a soft pink from the burning torch he held above him. He was naked and, oddly, seemed to have lost his body hair. Was he a member of one of those newfangled religions, she wondered. There was something sacred about the way he was moving. A practicing Catholic, she thought it might be a sin to watch the pagan rites of another even if she
had
appropriated him for her own erotic life. Switching the vacuum cleaner back on, she stoically turned her back.

The sage gave off a sickly sweet smell. The whitish fog sank to the ground, curling along the carpets, then rose steadily as Gavin walked backward and forward. He wondered if he should be chanting. The only thing that came to mind was the anthem of the Broncos. Determined, he sang it over and over like a hymn.

Reaching the bedroom he inched along the bed, making sure he didn’t catch sight of himself in the mirror opposite. The smoke spilled languidly from the stems and across the bed, covering the shiny sheets with a pale mist.

Turning to go into the living room he caught a glimpse of his reflected feet at the edge of his gaze. They appeared to be covered with long matted fur and caked in a brownish sludge. Stunned, Gavin immediately blotted the image from his mind. “Go away, begone,” he muttered over and over—a line he remembered from a horror film he’d seen as a child. “Go, go, begone.”

An old man’s head suddenly manifested out of the smoke, leering up at him and mouthing the words
flitter, flitter
, his face a translucent death mask. The tramp again.

Shrieking, Gavin dropped the smoldering sage and ran full pelt into the balcony door. His body hit the glass like a bullet. The door shattered into a thousand glittering pieces that rained down with a tinkling sound. The property developer fell through onto the balcony, cracking his head on the floor. He lay curled like a fetus. Tiny glass splinters ran down one side of his body; catching the city lights they shimmered like miniature daggers. Beads of blood pooled at each tip.

Rain began to fall in heavy tropical droplets—a hot summer shower
that increased in tempo until it drummed against the glass and concrete. Still Gavin lay motionless, his unconscious mind tumbling like an injured hawk.

Scarlet began to thread itself through a viscous mass of gray; sensation ran like trickling sand across his wakening nerves. The gray shifted to a copper haze with a lip of sunlight. Gavin blinked and his eyes cleared. Groaning, he flexed as feeling flooded back into his bruised limbs. He opened his eyes and found that he was staring at the sunrise framed by the steel balcony wall and the edge of the concrete floor.

The sun rose, a lazy orb that disappeared behind the frosted glass. Somewhere someone coughed. Shocked, Gavin sat up, then realized it had been himself. There were pinpricks of heat down his chest and left arm. Dispassionately he pulled out one of the splinters and watched the blood roll down his shaven arm, now prickling in an angry rash.

He stood and hobbled back into the flat. The phone rang. Ignoring it he went straight to the bed and lying carefully on his intact side fell asleep.

“
Gavin, this is your irate lawyer speaking. Where are you? You were due in court this morning—your failure to appear has meant an automatic transfer of ownership of Bridgeport to Cathy. Sorry, mate, there was nothing I could do. We can contest but you have to ring me. I’m beginning to get worried.
”

“
Boss, this is Shortstuff here. You haven’t turned up to work for over a week now. I’ve been covering for you but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. There are papers to be signed, and I need your permission for some new orders. Ring me, boss
….”

“
Gavin, this is Amanda here, I miss you. Ring me, I love you. You can come out of the cave now, truly. Ring me. Big kiss, your baby.
”

“
Dad, it was my birthday on Tuesday and you didn’t ring. Mum says it’s because you forgot and now that you have your own life you don’t care, but I don’t believe her. Ring me, it’s Irene and I’m ten now in case you did forget.
”

Flitter, flitter
. He thought it was the ocean. Or maybe the sound of a ceiling fan sinking lower and lower until it felt close enough to cut off his head. Then he realized it was his phone. There was blinding pain,
the light was dazzling, but he was awake. He reached over and knocked the phone off the hook. A female voice sounded out, tinny in the mute room, then came the bleep bleep of the dial tone. Gavin lay still for a second, gathering his strength. Apart from an itchiness that ran across his body like an infrared map joining heat point to heat point, he felt good, strong. He now knew what to do.

He stepped out of the car. He was naked beneath the polyester shirt and trousers and the shaving rashes smoldered on his skin like bubbling tar. Determined not to scratch, he clutched at the digital camera slung around his neck; he usually used it to photograph his properties but now he was going to use it like a gun. Like a fucking gun.

It was hot. Summer had blossomed without him noticing. The thick air pressed against his temples and the wind-borne pollen irritated his sinuses. He walked across the road toward the vacant lot. Shortstuff had been busy—the area had been cleared except for a pile of rubble and bush at the very back. Gavin unlocked the gate. It was Sunday and the place was silent except for a flock of parakeets who chirped and squabbled in a line of trees across the road and the 5:17 Qantas flight to Sydney roaring overhead. In front of him stretched a sea of concrete.

Gavin kneeled, pressing down with his thumb. The cement was slightly soft. Poured about a week ago, he thought. He stood; there was no sign of
him
. No abandoned medicine bag, no tattered coat.

“Where are you?” Gavin bellowed. The parakeets scattered like confetti as his voice bounced back. “Hello!”

Nothing but silence and the distant sound of a lawn mower. What if he’d gone? What if he couldn’t find him? What then?

The heat rose from the concrete, rippling the air. Normally Gavin relished moments like this, the smell of hot tar, wet concrete, and newly welded girders filling him with exhilaration at being the conqueror, the emperor of steel. Today he was just panicked.

A hot breeze blew a dried palm leaf across the bare ground. The movement caught his eye and suddenly he saw a footprint set distinctly into the concrete. He recognized the three clawed toes immediately. Above that print another one, then another, a whole string of them winding their way toward the back of the lot.

It is a definitive moment in a man’s life when his conscious will is jettisoned for something more primal, more instinctive, when the prehistoric brain hijacks civilized thought. Such a moment can change a man’s life, although at the time it may feel as arbitrary as a missed phone call or an accidentally deleted e-mail. Caught in one of these moments Gavin slipped off a shoe and sock and pressed his bare foot down hard beside one of the footprints. The imprint he left was identical. At last something real; evidence.

Carefully he took a photo, squinting into the viewfinder, one shoe off, one shoe on. Image captured forever, he slipped his shoe back on and followed the track of footprints. It arced in a semicircle, as if the creature had paused midflight then decided to change direction, as if being chased. The trail ended at the pile of rubbish at the back of the lot. Gavin stared at the mountain of trash in front of him, his protective layers shearing away one by one until it felt like the back of his head had been peeled off and he could sense every trembling leaf, the shiver of every blade of grass, the humming vibration of communication wires buried in pipes six feet under his feet. The tramp was very close. Gavin could swear he heard breathing, heard him whispering
Flitter, flitter
so softly it was barely a tickle against his eardrums.

He examined the pile—broken beer bottles, plastic concrete bags, wattle branches with dying blossoms, the rusty wheel of an ancient bicycle, and something else…something staring up at him through the spokes. What was it? A lump of moss? A decayed tree stump? As he stared harder the object’s features swam free-form to compose themselves into an image too shocking for his mind immediately to assimilate. But as he blinked again, Gavin could see exactly what it was: the head of the tramp coated in a strange lichen, the eyes two blackened lumps of jelly hooded by wings of green moss, the mouth open in screaming accusation, vegetation fringing the withered meat of the lips.

It was a face Gavin had seen before—on the stone statue in Saturday’s garden, the Green Man from Bamberg Cathedral. The two heads were identical, except this rendition of the demented knave of Nature had once been alive.