Stop Looking

by A C Praat

  He kicked off the bedcovers with legs as responsive as concrete piles. There were grazes on his shins, on the top of his feet and toes, as well as scratches on his arms.

  He began to shake. Think, Philip.

  Ka-thump … ka-thump … ka-thump.

  Each heartbeat was a rebuke. Lord he needed a drink and painkillers.

  Swinging his legs off the bed, he paused to let the pounding in his head subside. His shorts were hanging over the back of an old classroom chair which was pulled up to a table, equally old and battered. It was as if he’d fallen into a high-school anxiety dream.

  He looked around. Apart from the chair, the table, and the bunk he was sitting on, the square room’s only furniture was a kitchen bench in the corner by the door. On top of the bench sat a primus and a plastic bag of bread. Food – the thought sickened him. Some plates, a mug, a pot and tins of food rested on the open shelf beneath the bench. A potbelly, black and smoky, crackled in the corner opposite, warming a saucepan that sent steam coiling into the air. Light fell through a single window divided into eight grimy squares. This was a bushman’s hut. It didn’t belong in the middle of the city.

  Philip screwed his eyes shut.

  Wake up. Wake up.

  His nose and ears and the rasping in his lungs told him that he hadn’t moved. Opening his eyes, he reached for his shorts then attempted to stand. The world tilted beneath his feet, and he clutched at the top bunk. This was bad. Clearly he was ill, maybe delusional.

  Dropping onto the chair, he tried to assess the situation methodically.

  He was alive – yes – and conscious. Peering under the table, he bent then flexed his feet, wincing as the skin pulled tight over his grazes. What had caused those injuries? His gaze flicked around the hut. And he wasn’t in his apartment in Adelaide – how could he explain his absence to his boss?

  Assessment abandoned, thoughts jammed together, nose to tail. It was only a couple of months since he started at the institute. Stuffing up this programming job wasn’t an option. His father would kill him.

  He spread his hands on the tabletop and pressed hard. Slow down.

  Where was that man? The cigarette and coffee man? He’d called him Damon or Damian. Not his name. He was Philip Templeton, a programmer at the Institute of Synthetic Technologies in Adelaide, a Bristol lad, 25 years old … no, wait. It was September - 26 then. He owned a border-collie cross called Tess. Philip paused and frowned. Who would be feeding her?

  The factual litany slowed his thoughts but apprehension corroded every cell. He was reminded of the terror in the rolled-back eyes of an injured deer, right before his father had pulled the trigger to finish it off. The noise, the feral scent … he’d never been hunting again. Hunted – that’s how he felt now. But why? And who on earth was Damon?

  He needed to pee. Bolstering his balance with the table and then the walls, Philip stumbled to the door and down a step into a wall of foliage. Perhaps he was still drunk. Fronds and stems stabbed at his bare skin as he leaned against a tree and relieved himself.

  The sun stung his eyes while the dead seaweed smell of the ocean turned his stomach. Bush sloped away to the water where a pale beach blinked between the trees. It wasn’t like the bush in Australia or at home. The trees looked as if thousands of green dragonflies had alighted on the hillside and spread their wings. Across a channel the coastline shouldered its way left and right, disappearing into sea haze in both directions. There was no sign of the cigarette man. No sign of anyone.

  Good. Nothing made sense. But a certainty that he needed to hide until he worked out what the hell had happened anchored him in this swept-away world. He swayed back up the step and into the hut, bracing himself in the doorway to let his eyes adjust. Something was stashed beneath the bunk.

  He clambered back along the wall and dropped to the lower mattress, bending over onto his knees to reach for the bag under the bed. It was a drybag – a long tube with a folded over top that people used on boats. He’d never owned one. Something jabbed at his memory and at his gut. He pushed the unpleasant sensations away.

  The drybag wasn’t fastened.

  It must belong to Cigarette-Man.

  Philip glanced toward the door. What if he came back and found Philip poking through his stuff? Had he said anything about coming back? Apart from the food there were no signs that the hut was inhabited permanently. No blinds. No running water. He scanned the ceiling; bare rafters were trailed with cobwebs. No lights either. What were his choices? Wait until Cigarette-Man came back, or riffle through the bag to work out where he was and how he’d got here? It was a no-brainer. Philip unfolded the top of the bag and pulled it open.

  Clothes – and they were all his: jeans, T-shirts, his canvas jacket, a sweatshirt, shorts, his cap, underwear and his running shoes. How did they get into this bag? Next a phone, a cheap one he didn’t recognise. He turned it on. The battery lasted long enough to show him the home screen – the time and date – before it died. Damn it.

  But that wasn’t right. The date had said November. Goosebumps prickled his shoulder blades and reached into his scalp. It was the beginning of September. Next week his team were meeting to address the military’s request for changes to their robotic bees. No one was happy about being diverted from the pollination objective but they didn’t have a choice – the project needed funding. Somehow he had to get back for that. Scraping the bottom of the bag, he turned up a black leather wallet – not his – and a capped USB stick. It looked familiar – but then USB sticks were ubiquitous. He scanned the cabin again. Two laptops in his apartment at home and not even an electric socket here.

  Glancing toward the doorway, Philip opened the wallet. The pocket at the back was bloated with notes in a currency he didn’t recognise. Green twenty-dollar bills, purple fifties and red hundreds. He counted the notes: a thousand New Zealand dollars. New Zealand? No. The wallet definitely was not his. He couldn’t be in New Zealand.

  Two cards were jammed into the inside pockets. With trembling fingers he wrenched the first one free: a Visa debit card belonging to a Damon Hunter. Damon – that was what Cigarette-Man had called him.

  The other card was a New Zealand driver’s license, also belonging to Damon Hunter. The birthdate indicated an age a couple of months younger than Philip, and the photo showed someone with blond, curly hair and blue eyes. He had blond, curly hair and blue eyes.

  Philip sighed. The features in the photo – hair, eyes, brow, face shape and mouth – were clear, but he couldn’t pull the features together in a way that said ‘Philip’ or anyone else. Facial agnosia, the doctors had told his mum. Usually he recognised people by using location, voices and fragrances, and people’s dress habits. Like he always wore the silver Celtic cross given to him by his father. The guy in the photo wore a silver chain but the photo was cut off at the shoulders. Philip patted his chest where his pendant usually hung, then scraped around his neck with his hand. The pendant and the chain were missing. ‘What the – ?’

  Had Cigarette-Man taken it? But why take the pendant and leave a wallet full of cash? He must have been through the wallet because he’d called him Damon. This wasn’t helping.

  If someone was playing a prank on him it was a very bad one. Who would do that?

  Brett?

  Brett, his annoying flight lieutenant flatmate. Apart from his work colleagues, Philip hadn’t met many people since arriving in Adelaide. Brett and his Airforce mates – short-haired, overly-muscled, uniformed clones – mostly stayed out of his way, but he could tell when they’d been in the apartment. The whiff of cologne, the flattened cushions tossed every which way, the dregs of alcohol in the sink or in the bottles in the recycling gave them away. Sometimes Philip thought they were mocking him. He didn’t like to drink and he wasn’t interested in their conversations – boisterous banter more like – that made one or other of them a butt of a joke that he didn’t always understand.

  Could they have staged this?

  The though
t relieved his anxiety a little. It was a simpler explanation than … than what? That he’d planned this trip himself and then forgotten he’d done it? Someone had abducted him and stolen his identity?

  Renewed anxiety rocked him forward then back, forward then back, and pain hammered his head. His search of the drybag hadn’t turned up any painkillers. Perhaps there were some among the tins on the shelf.

  Wallet still in hand, he stood up and reached for the back of the chair. Prepared for the nausea and dizziness this time, he waited, then crept along the wall, trailing a hand across the boards for balance.

  An enamel mug with a teabag in it was set beside the saucepan of water on the potbelly stove. Leaning against the wall, he removed the teabag and dunked the cup into the water. The hot liquid refreshed his mouth and throat. It was the best drink he’d ever had. After a second cup hunger pinched his stomach. The white bread on the benchtop was stale but edible. Plain was good. He’d just taken a second slice when he heard a scuffling outside, then a whine, and the door was flung open.

  ‘You’re up.’ The man waited for his dog – a squat, short-haired breed Philip couldn’t identify – to clamber over the doorstep before he entered. ‘That’s good.’

  Philip pushed the wallet under the bread bag and leaned against the bench, wishing he was closer to the chair as anxiety stole the strength from his legs.

  Cigarette-Man – it must be him: who else had been in the hut? – dropped into the chair, letting his backpack slide to the floor, and folded his arms across his chest. His pushed-up sleeves revealed wiry brown arms, one with a black tattoo of a skull, and his ebony hair waved over his collar. A thick beard obscured his mouth but his dark gaze was direct, though not unfriendly as far as Philip could tell.

  Philip focused on the man’s dog which had curled up beneath the table. The man dropped his hand to scratch the dog between its ears. Anyone who loved a dog couldn’t be all bad.

  ‘Your mates are looking for you.’

  The deer in his imagination raised its head, eyes rolling back.

  ‘Running away, eh?’ Cigarette-Man nodded as if he knew what Philip was thinking. ‘Pulled you out of the water a couple of nights ago. Must be crazy trying to swim for it at this time of year. Or desperate.’

  Philip slid to the floor and stared at the boards between his bent knees. He’d been in the water. That made sense of the drybag and the burgeoning sense of panic he experienced when looking at the sea. But it didn’t explain anything else.

  ‘You Damon?’ From the pocket of his jacket Cigarette-Man produced a slim notebook. It had silver lettering on the front but Philip couldn’t make out what it said. ‘The passport photo looks like you.’

  No point in looking at the photo. If Cigarette-Man said it looked like him it probably did. But he wasn’t Damon. He opened his mouth to correct Cigarette-Man then closed it again as two pieces of information slotted together: the bone-deep certainty that he was being hunted and that these were false documents. Maybe he was on the run and Damon was an assumed alias? In which case he should play along. If he talked he could destroy his security.

  Philip swallowed away the dryness in his mouth and pushed his hand into his chest to alleviate the burning sensation. ‘I don’t know.’ His throat felt as if it had been scrubbed with a metal pad.

  ‘You don’t know what?’

  ‘My name. How I got here.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know who you are.’

  Cigarette-Man chuckled. ‘I’m Rex.’

  That name wasn’t familiar either.

  ‘I figure you weren’t trying to drown.’ Rex tossed his head in the direction of the drybag, still propped against the bunk. ‘Wouldn’t have taken all your gear.’

  ‘Taken it from …?’

  ‘Flash yacht in the bay. Only place you could have come from. They were out on their runabout, searching the beaches. Blond fella – looked like a surfer. And a woman – red hair, long legs. Asked what they were looking for; never seen two people look so confused about such an easy question. Until now.’ The corner of Rex’s mouth curled into a smile as he raised his eyebrows at Philip.

  What did he expect Philip to say? ‘Did they have names?’

  ‘Raffe and Lexi.’

  Raffe? He didn’t know anyone called Raffe. But Lexi was Brett’s girlfriend. She had red hair – more auburn than red. And Brett had black hair. What would Lexi be doing here with a guy who wasn’t Brett? The name could be a coincidence. Or maybe it was part of an elaborate prank.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Rat Island, Northland.’

  ‘Northland?’

  ‘New Zealand.’

  Philip breathed through a wave of nausea that prompted a spasm of coughing. ‘This makes no sense. I work in Ad –’ He still didn’t know if he could trust Rex; better not to tell him too much. ‘In Australia.’

  ‘You don’t sound like an Aussie. You sound like a Pom.’

  What was a Pom? ‘Did you tell them?’

  ‘Tell them what?’

  ‘Tell them you’d found me.’

  ‘Nah.’ Rex stood up and his dog followed suit. ‘Thought you might have a reason for jumping off that boat.’

  If only he could remember what it was.

  ‘I can run you back to the mainland. Should see a doctor. I thought you were a goner for a while last night.’

  ‘No.’ The deer reared its head. ‘No.’

  Rex peered at him. ‘This place isn’t set up for long stays, just for emergencies. And I don’t need to come back for a while. I’ve set the traps. Got other places to be.’

  Philip struggled to his feet and removed the wallet from beneath the bread bag. ‘Here.’

  Rex shook his head at the bills Philip offered him.

  ‘Take it.’

  ‘What kind of a fella takes money for saving someone’s life?’

  ‘I’m staying in your hut and eating your food. It’s fair.’ Philip’s head started to spin. He needed to lie down.

  ‘Not my hut. It’s an old Department of Conservation hut. They’re planning to remove it.’

  ‘Just a couple of days.’ Philip staggered around Rex and flopped onto the bunk. ‘I need to sort my head out.’

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow – bring you some more food. No promises after that.’ Rex unzipped his backpack and placed an apple and a box of muesli bars on the table. ‘There’s a stream out the back. Long drop on the other side of the hut. And here’s some aspirin. All I had on me.’ He was staring at Philip. ‘You should come back with me. You ain’t looking that flash.’

  It was hard to focus on what Rex was saying. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘No, the date.’

  ‘Second of November.’

  A fresh blade of pain skewered Philip’s head.

  What had happened to September and October?

  EIGHT

  Ra’s place turned out to be an old wooden bungalow at the edge of paradise. Ra had punched the code into a keypad at the farm gate and rumbled across a cattle-stop. Playing hide and seek with sea views, they drove over the graveled road, dipping down and up through hills alive with spring growth. Mishra wound her window open and inhaled the briny air, catching a whiff of sheep poo every now and then. After descending the escarpment they trailed through stands of native bush. The road melded into tar-seal as they edged along a beach front, which was strung with modest, weathered beach houses. Where the road petered out at a turning bay, they stopped.

  Mishra swung down from the cab and waded through the marram grass onto the beach. She stooped to pick up a handful of sand and let it run through her fingers. What seemed white at first was, in fact, a mixture of broken shells, pink and cream, and grains of rock, yellow and grey. Further along the bay the sea swept into an estuary, and beyond that the coast swelled into a low hill jutting into the water, with a scramble of golden rocks at its base. Blinking in the late afternoon glare thrown off the water, Mishra noticed an island off the coast, followe
d by a crocodile tail of smaller rocks descending into the bay. If Philip was lucky he might have washed up on one of the beaches. If not … she didn’t want to think about that.

  Raffe joined her on the beach, rubbing his eyes, then stretching his arms above his head. He looked down at Mishra before his gaze flitted along the beach, right and left. Was he thinking about Philip too?

  ‘Takes half an hour to walk to the end of the beach.’ Raffe pointed to the estuary. ‘It’s a bit less than three kilometers. There are more than two hundred kilometers between here and Cape Reinga.’

  Mishra glanced up at him, then back out to the bay. What was his point?

  ‘The prevailing current sweeps south from the top of the North Island.’

  ‘That’s two hundred kilometers of coastline to catch him,’ she said.

  Raffe nodded. ‘That’s not counting all the little islands.’ He rolled his shoulders and addressed the sea. ‘Though they’re not all as friendly as this bay.’

  What had happened to Raffe? Of all of them he was the most optimistic, the most likely to see a way through.

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Ra from the truck. ‘These fellas aren’t going to carry themselves.’ She raised the picnic basket in one hand and Mishra’s shoulder bag in the other, then strode into the trees. Raffe and Mishra followed, with Mishra bumping her suitcase along the path, then dragging it through hollows of sand, until the way underfoot became strewn with leaves and the sand gathered substance again. It was cool under the trees and fragrant. Tiny white and pink flowers clustered over thin branches that were spiked with miniature leaves.

  ‘Manuka,’ Ra said from the veranda, watching Mishra approach. ‘Best honey in the world, they reckon. So good your lot are trying to steal the name,’ she said to Raffe.

  Raffe didn’t take the bait. ‘I could live here.’

  ‘Nah, not flash enough for you!’ Ra poked a toe through a hole in the boards on the veranda.