Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  Amalthea’s poem was a thing about getting older and being chained by Time. I really only took in bits of it. ‘Young and easy,’ I heard, and ‘happy as the grass was green.’ ‘Prince of the apple towns.’ Prince of the sugar towns would have made more sense to me. At one point, though, I heard, ‘It was all . . . . . . .’

  The pause was so long that Asa’s eyes popped open. It was all . . . what? We both looked at Amalthea and I realised she was, at last, crying. It was her first real show of grief, and Rosemary stepped through the candles to put her chin on Amalthea’s shoulder.

  “It was all . . . shining!” she eventually finished. Then she repeated.

  “It was all shining!”

  Asael shifted and his hand came up to stroke the air in front of her; like, for one crazy moment, he thought he might actually touch her! Which, for Asael, reaching out to touch anyone other than me or Bridie would have been like a palm tree reaching out to touch a passing bird! Or Bridie, reaching up to touch the Moth! He was becoming, it occurred to me, like some kind of doppelganger copy of my brother, but with strange new qualities! In the event, of course, his hand settled, unused, back into his lap and she, oblivious to him, turned her attention to Rosemary.

  “Oh Rosemary. We’re going to miss him, aren’t we?”

  Right, so that was where the discomfort began to kick in. I started to shuffle my feet under me, catching As’s attention and gesturing with my eyes at the door. He didn’t budge.

  “I’ve lived lives, you know!” she said.

  She might have been talking to herself, her voice was that soft, but her eyes had swivelled to Asa’ and me. Asa’s mouth fell open and I subsided back into my place.

  “I mean, we all have! We’ve all known so many endings and beginnings. But knowing doesn’t mean you won’t miss someone, does it? Or that you shouldn’t treasure memories of who they were. Not that I have to tell you two what it feels like to miss someone.”

  She sniffled, picked up her hairbrush and began raking out its load of goat hair with her fingers. Then, maybe because she’d noticed my let’s-get-going signals, she turned the conversation onto us. Or more accurately, onto Asael.

  “What do you remember most, Asael?” she asked very softly.

  “Uh!” He looked at me, looked at her, looked at Rosemary. All eyes were on him and there was no way I could help. “About what?”

  “Oh . . . about people who are gone.”

  “Uuuhh.” He narrowed his eyes and grimaced, trying his best to find a memory. Poor little dope! He so wanted to please and impress. “Skeleton feet, I guess?”

  I jumped in then. I had no idea where it would lead but, knowing Asael, crazy seemed inevitable.

  “Asael wasn’t born when Gramma Grace died. And was only a baby when Rita died. So he doesn’t remember them – just from what he dreams. I was older but even I don’t remember very much.”

  “I remember she gave me my name!” Asa’ blurted. “It means ‘God strengthens’!”

  “Really? Asael means ‘God strengthens’?”

  “Yep! Ruthie says it’s to remind me to try not to be frightened.”

  “Ah! And does it? Remind you?”

  “I’m working on it. But not usually. Not unless Ruthie helps.”

  “No?” She palmed away her tears, pulled a tissue from between her breasts and wiped her nose, suddenly thoughtful. “Not to be frightened! Well . . . there are two treasures there, aren’t there! A lesson for the future and Ruthie’s loving help! You’re a lucky boy!”

  There was a long moment of silence during which we watched Asael’s lips shuffle through some story he was organising to tell.

  “Our father’s a missionary in New Guinea!” he finally squeaked. “He’s got a very important purpose in God’s scheme! That’s what Bridie says. He writes to us!”

  His simple nature saddens me sometimes, it really does! I hoped Amalthea wouldn’t follow up with mention of the Agnes letter, but even if she did, I was fairly certain that Asael wouldn’t see the truth, lying there like a three-D photo between the lines. He’d take it at face value.

  “Hmm!” Amalthea answered thoughtfully. “Well, it’s a fortunate person who knows his purpose in God’s scheme.” She nuzzled Rosemary and added softly, “In any scheme at all, for that matter!”

  The moment seemed to have passed and I said a silent thank you for letting us through it with a minimum of embarrassment. Asa’, though, having found his tongue, was determined to give it a good workout.

  “Kevin,” he blathered, ignoring my warning frown, “says Garlic’s special purpose was to carry his sign – ‘The Force is Gathering’.” He indicated the banner, now folded beside the corpse. “He says Garlic knew his purpose! I don’t think that could be right though, could it? That goats would have a purpose . . . and know stuff? I mean . . . could they?”

  Amalthea smiled, put her knuckles between Rosemary’s eyes and rubbed lightly.

  “Oh yes!” she said affectionately. “They have a purpose. And they know stuff!!” Then she winked mysteriously at As’ and added, “They can see the wind! Did you know that? Yes they can! And what else they can see . . .,” she leaned forward conspiratorially, “. . . it would scare the bejabbers out of us to think about!” Her eyes were wide, more serious than mocking, the tears all gone. Asael gaped, as though she’d conjured a monkey out of the air.

  “I see stuff too!” he whispered. “Not the wind, but! And I hear stuff too! I take medication.”

  Both Amalthea and Rosemary stared at him, as though hoping to share a vision with him. Then she tapped his leg with the hairbrush and leaned even closer to him. The candlelight whisked across her face.

  “I know you do! And I bet . . . I bet some of those things stay with you, don’t they! Because when they’re with you, you make them real!”

  It suddenly felt unusually cold for an October night! Or maybe it was the thought of Asael’s imaginary Rita becoming real, with her skeleton feet, that had given me the shivers!

  “Oh my God!” I cried, intentionally overloud. “Look at the time! Bridie’ll be having a kitten!”

  * * *

  It seemed timely; to get us up and moving before things got any more out-of-hand strange. But the candles had fooled me, making me think the night was still anchored in normality; unaware that the freakiness had been cozying up outside. As if our talking about it had drawn it in! As if our preparing to leave had invited it to pounce. We could leave, it turned out; but only with conditions.

  The first hint came when Amalthea went from light switch to light switch, finding them all useless! No inside lights, no carport lights, no outside lights. Mildly frustrated, we edged out into the yard, aiming to get our bearings from the glow of the sugar mill. No sugar mill! Nothing! Darker than dark! The whole town, in fact, was gone!

  “Bloody possums!” I croaked, thinking how they sometimes got inside a big transformer, frying themselves and all other connections in the process. “The electrical guys’ll be onto it. Have it back in a flash!”

  “Mmm,” Amalthea hummed doubtfully. “Possums usually short out the stars in sugar Town?”

  I looked up, swivelling my head from side to side; watching them disappear. They were there, but fading quickly to black.

  “They’re switching off!” Asael croaked and, “Mmm,” Amalthea answered agreeably, “certainly looks that way!”

  There were probable explanations, of course. Fast moving clouds was the obvious one. Weird that they’d cover the whole sky so quickly but, nonetheless! I spun in a circle, just to be sure, and found myself looking back at the doorway, softly framed by candlelight. It was unexpectedly comforting in the pitch black; familiar and inviting. ‘You’d best come back!’ it seemed to be saying. ‘It’s safe in here!’

  But the other voice, the one behind me, in the dark – Amalthea’s voice – spoke much more clearly.

  “Aaah! That’s lovely!” I heard her long, deep inhalation. “What is that?” r />
  Asa’, Rosemary and I, all joining her, sucked in the faintest, miles-away scent. A rare current wending its way up the river.

  “Mangroves!” I said. “The mangroves are flowering!”

  And inescapably, as I always did when I thought of those ageless trees, standing tiptoe above the rottenness of the mud, I thought of Rita, who’d gone there to die.

  “Mangroves!” Amalthea carried on, her enthusiasm growing crazier by the minute. “Beautiful! And listen! You can almost hear the tides rolling beneath them!”

  You couldn’t, of course, but I knew what she was talking about. Only half an hour earlier the sounds of the Harvest Festival had been shaking the dust out of the air. Now the sounds were so muffled, they were barely audible. As though a great quilt had been thrown over the showground. Or over us.

  “Everything’s going away!” Asael quivered. “Why’s everything going away?”

  The question, as we all seemed to be doing, sank like a stone. I found myself straining for sounds but my ears were full of sand. I put fingers in to jiggle it loose and pulled them out just in time to feel Amalthea’s hand light on my arm, gentle as a ladybug.

  “I think it’s the Void!” she whispered.

  “The wha . . .?”

  “Between the worlds! Nudging everything else aside! Making way for Garlic to pass over! I think that might be it!”

  “Oh-waa!” Asa piped, his voice brittle with what I took to be near panic. And I realised that, whatever slightly unusual thing actually was going on, it was up to me declare a limit to spooky interpretations!

  “It’s alright, As’! Nothing to worry about! We don’t believe in voids, do we!”

  Except for the familiar little closet-sized ones that he and I shared with Bridie, at home! Ones I’d hated that morning but was suddenly becoming very nostalgic for!

  “And anyhow, we have to go! Asael? You hear me? Come on! Dark or no dark, we . . .!”

  I tried to move away from Amalthea but the hand resting on my arm went suddenly rigid.

  “Look! There it is!”

  A flicker at the edge of my vision! Something distant and reddish. Something glowing and growing! The hairs on my neck slammed upright and I turned away, refusing to see more! Seeking again the momentary refuge of candlelight in the house. She couldn’t possibly be right! For a Void between the worlds – some hellish firey emptiness – to open up in the middle of Alf Caletti’s cane paddock? Come to capture a goat-ghost? No way!

  I shook myself free of her and groped for Asael, feeling my ribs shudder against the pressure of my heart. I found I could see him, there to the side, dark against the darker wall of cane. He and Rosemary both, gazing off at the dim rose of Amalthea’s Void. Off toward the river.

  “It’s a farm house,” I choked out, knowing that my chance to claim some control was fast slipping away. “A farm house! Someone with a generator!”

  “No. There’s no house there!”

  “I don’t know! Maybe there is! Maybe we got turned around by the darkness! Confused!”

  “Rosemary and Garlic and I – we walk along those headlands every day, Ruth! Every day! There’s no house!”

  “Well,” I ventured, desperate for any option other than ‘the Void’; “it’s a fire then! Someone’s set the cane alight!” I thought of Dale Sutton and his mates, setting fire to the Moth.

  “Yeah, that’s it! Some boys set fire to the Tiger Moth when I was getting the flowers! They’re out there now! We should call the fire brigade! Or the police!” Remembering as I said it that, with my phone dead, we had no capacity for calling anyone!

  And even so, I already knew I was wrong. Sounds were muffled, but the sound of a cane fire is like a train driving through a tunnel in your head. Nothing could muffle that. And there was no smoke. And in fact, rather than flaring up as a cane fire would, the light had begun to fade; like the last flame on a wick that’s sinking into the wax.

  Something about Asa’! If you think you know what’s going on in his head, you almost certainly don’t! And if there’s something you’d rather he didn’t say, he almost certainly will say it. He said it now.

  “It’s The Thing!”

  “Thing?” said Amalthea. “What Thing?”

  I could have slugged him. I would have if I hadn’t been so terrified. I’d have to settle for slugging him later. “It is not The Thing!” I cried, ramping up my volume as much as I dared in that haunted night. “That landed way off somewhere else! Across the river! It’s not The Thing! And it’s not a Void!”

  He wasn’t listening. “The Thing that fell from the sky in the night! The meteor! That’s what it is, all right!”

  Rosemary bleated her recollection while I continued to bleat scorn. “Stop being stupid, Asael! I’m warning you! That was hours ago! It wouldn’t just be coming to life now, would it! And anyhow, look! It’s gone out!”

  “No it hasn’t!” He’s incredibly frustrating sometimes. Especially when he’s right. The light had almost gone out, dimming to hardly more than the distant strike of a match. But then it held; and reversed. It began to swell again, growing slowly to, and even beyond, its former size, to a small, glowing dome. We watched in silence as it reached a peak and then, with barely a pause, began again to shrink.

  “A Thing!” Amalthea whispered, as though it was the rarest, most wonderful animal in the zoo.

  I felt my mouth levering itself open for one more try at distracting them, but my throat tightened and nothing came out. White patches moved in front of me and I realised it was Rosemary, rearing onto her hind legs for a better look. We stood in silence through several repeats of the light’s cycle, Rosemary dropping to all fours, rising again and dropping again. The refuge of the candlelight might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  Surprisingly though, as we watched, my terror began to give way to a little blossom of ‘told-you-so’. Could something so gentle and so locked in place be related to Voids? Or meteors? I didn’t think so! Something ordinary, surely! And Rosemary, the first to break our silence, seemed clearly to be on my side.

  “Baaaah!”

  Amalthea’s response was immediate and scornful. “Nonsense, Rosemary! Why should we?”

  “What?” Asael demanded. “Why should we what? What’s she saying?”

  At that particular moment, I was agog at how many ways he could be stupid. How, for instance, had he failed to learn that you never, ever encourage people who talk to animals!

  “It’s nothing. Ignore her,” Amalthea answered shortly. “She’s such a ‘fraidy-goat. Come on.”

  She began to move, apparently expecting us to sweep along in her wake, into whatever fantasy was occupying her mind. I held my ground.

  “No,” I said firmly. “We’re not ‘coming on’ anywhere! We’re going home!”

  “Right! I’ll get a torch. You two get the wheelbarrow.”

  “No. You’re not listening! We’re . . . !”

  I was louder, I know, but it was Asael’s voice she heard.

  “Why do we want the wheelbarrow?”

  Her voice came out of the darkness, moving away. “I don’t know! Who knows? How big is a ‘Thing’?”

  I grabbed at him and barked his name as sternly as I could but, like her, he ignored me, moving off blindly to fetch that barrow. That left Rosemary and me alone, together. The distant light was once again reaching the height of its cycle and she nudged at my leg in what I fancied might be consolation. I squatted beside her, putting my hands either side of her snout. A skerrick of candlelight from Garlic’s bier found its way into her eye and was reflected back at me. She gave a patient sigh and I could feel the encouraging wag of her head against my hands.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “You can tell me. Are we about to see the wind?”

  People who talk to animals.

  * * *

  All the long day Isak lies, face down where he’s fallen. For the first part of it, his heart sputters erratically and his mind is m
ostly an absence – a patch of emptiness beneath the sun. But at a point, the spark plug darkness begins to recede and a clouded type of awareness enters his mind, like light filtering through to a pip in the heart of an orange.

  He tastes earth on his tongue and senses that the sun has him. Like a cat playing with a mouse, it holds him down with unsheathed claws. He suggests to himself that he should move but his muscles won’t respond. Unmeasurable time passes – quickly, slowly, indifferently. At one point, he senses that something . . . something near his face . . . is moving. He commands his eye to open and it does. It’s like looking through water, with all the outlines dancing and shimmering together. But there is definitely light and colour – and movement. He blinks and blinks again. What boils into view is the lipless, tongue-flicking, black-eyed smile of a taipan.

  The snake’s head looks vaguely like the head of a ball peen hammer, its body, as thick and sinuous as a dropped hawser. It seems to be waiting for him to wake. When Isak’s eye flickers, the hammerhead rises into the air above him. Isak’s mind forms a lazy question about death.

  “Well,” the snake seems to say, “this is about as convenient a time and place as any, I guess! Right here where Les finished up! Dribbling tears and snot and blood, the way he did! Was it about here, old man? What do you think? What do you think?”

  The voice, Isak thinks, is strangely like that of Lyle Hoggitt in his light and enthusiastic announcer’s role. Only far, far away. The snake’s tongue moves like a dry leaf in wind. Isak’s tongue moves like a fat worm on hot bricks.

  “Lyle? ‘Sthat you?” he tries to ask. “What ye doin’ in that get-up?”

  “What, this old thing?” the Lyle-snake sniffs. “Surely you’ve seen me in my suit before, Isak? In your dreams? Or maybe . . . in your nightmares?”

  Dreams, Isak thinks. Is that what this is? How would you tell? He tries to shake his head, but the movement is minute – almost non-existent. “Never seen that suit before, mate,” he wants to say. “It’s pretty slick, though!”

  “It is, isn’t it! Doesn’t come out of the closet often enough for my liking. But it’s kind of you to notice!” The Lyle-snake seems to have a bit of a lisp – the sibilance is so strong. “It’s my ‘making deliveries’ suit, ye know!”

  “Yeah? What’re ye deliverin’, Lyle?”