Singularity

by Charlotte Grimshaw

  He paused, stood up and walked over to the waitress. She regarded him silently. ‘Excuse me. I think they pay you for waitressing don’t they? So could we have a bit of service?’

  The girl brought the coffee pot. Terry rubbed his hands over his face. There were heavy bags under his eyes. He looked sallow, unhealthy. He muttered, ‘Bit of a headache this morning.’

  ‘I think we’re supposed to get the bus now,’ Emily said.

  Andrew pushed back his chair awkwardly, and upended Terry’s cup. Coffee splashed over Terry’s arm. He grabbed his napkin, mopping his sleeve, exclaiming irritably.

  Andrew apologised.

  Terry looked at Emily, nervously shaking the wet napkin. ‘The thing is, Emily, people think the story’s over. Andrew’s free, our battles are won. Interest fades. But it’s an ongoing process. It doesn’t stop. I mentioned ups and downs. Take relationships. Take my partner, Renell. She’s a lovely lady. I’d really thought she’d be a rock in all of this. But as soon as Andrew comes out of prison to live with us, well. She’s ‘not comfortable’. She’s ‘having issues’. She’s not coming to Port Douglas or anywhere. She’s ‘visiting her mother’. Then she’s on the phone trying to tell me some crazy nonsense …’

  Andrew said, ‘Terry.’

  Terry stood up, sighing. ‘Yes, okay. The bus.’

  Andrew watched as his friend signed for the breakfast.

  On the way to the bus Terry leaned on Andrew’s shoulder. ‘Ah, it’s a drag growing old,’ he sighed.

  There was a large group waiting in the foyer. They boarded the bus, and drove away into the countryside. Travis’s gravelly voice crackled over the intercom. Soon Uluru appeared ahead of them, and for the first time they could take in its size. They drove alongside it, looking up at the great cliffs of red rock that formed its sheer sides, the strange hollows, shadows, the eerie distances. There were swirling patterns on the surface. It looked as if it had landed on the surface of the earth, a huge piece of debris flung out of the universe. Above it the sky was hard, bright, clear. They drove into a large, dusty open space and Emily saw the track and a row of posts leading up the side of the rock — this was the path that they were to take to reach the top. It looked impossibly dangerous, precarious, minimal. Her feet tingled at the sight of it.

  But there was a chain across the gate, and a sign with a large cross on it. Emily stood looking along the vast curve of the rock. The cliffs cast dark shadows and above them the sky glowed, ferocious blue. Around the base the land was covered with tussocky grass. Green foliage grew in the shade under the cliff s. The wind screamed around the bus, blowing dust and tussock into the air. And Travis, his hair blowing wild in the gale, consulted a guide, gathered the group and shouted, ‘There’s a high wind warning. It’s Plan B, folks. The Rock climb’s closed. If we took you up there in this, you’d be blown straight off. Trust me, it’s happened before.’

  They opted for the walk round the base. It was nine kilometres all the way round, Travis said. Emily went to take a closer look at the tortuous little path up to the summit, and found the sign with its list of those who had died climbing the rock. She sent a prayer of thanks to the wind.

  But when she got back to the bus, the group had set off without her. She followed the nearest path, a track that wound close in to the rock. It was shadowy under the cliff. She walked along the sandy red track, under the feathery trees. The wind, rushing over the stone face, made a hollow, moaning sound. Above her the cliff face was twisted into odd shapes, cones and knobs and caves, and there were spaces of deep shadow, sudden blackness, in the holes and hollows. The surface was scored with rippling troughs, running up towards the blue sky. She was alone in the vast landscape, and even the sound of the wind was strange, with a ringing note in it as it buffeted the trees and raced up the giant red cliffs. Where the path was exposed the wind was so strong she could lean against it. It tore her clothes, blew stinging dust into her face. She came to an open stretch of tussock and made out the group ahead in the distance. But the track she was on was turning in the wrong direction. She was on a different path.

  She thought of turning back, but the track under the cliff seemed forbidding, too lonely and strange. She turned off the path, climbed a wire fence and hurried, stumbling, across open fields of tussock. The land was difficult to cross, there were bluff s and holes, and places where she sank so deep into grass and sand that it was hard to go forward. She reached another fence and climbed over it.

  On the other side of the fence was a large sign. It said that the land Emily had just crossed was of deep spiritual significance to the local Aboriginal people. Since ancient times, important cultural rituals had been carried out there. It was absolutely prohibited to walk on it. There was a five thousand dollar fine for anyone who did.

  Emily stood in front of the sign. She looked at the zigzag tracks of her footprints on the forbidden ground. There was no one around except her group in the distance, disappearing along the path into the haze of bright light.

  She hurried after them.

  When she caught up Travis was showing them another sacred site. It was a shallow cave at the base of the rock. Signs warned them from walking on it. It was a place where rites of manhood were customarily performed. Cameras clicked. People asked solemn, respectful questions. Emily looked into the shadowed place. She imagined a face appearing out of the dark recess. Many black faces, watching her — reproachfully. She remembered the children’s book Walkabout. Its cover, with a picture of two white children and an Aborginal youth, a tall, thin black figure standing above them on a red dune. The youth had died in the end, of a mysterious spiritual ailment, something to do with the pointing of the bone.

  The path had brought them around into the lee of the wind. The sun was higher in the sky and it was starting to get hot. The red cliff rose above them, crossed with patterns. Here the rock looked as if it had been sliced through with a giant knife, revealing cross sections, layers, segments of geological time. Ancient time, dream time. In that landscape they were tiny creatures, crawling across the giant plate of the earth. Here, Emily thought, it was possible to conceive of yourself as standing on a planet.

  She thought, the didgeridoo makes the sound of the wind in the rock.

  She heard Travis say, ‘Yeah, well. The blacks’ll tell ya, it’s a no-no, mate.’

  Terry had got hold of a stick, and had tied a handkerchief around his head. His face was sunburned and sweaty. Andrew strode along, much the fitter of the two. The group had spread out, walking in twos and threes.

  Emily wanted company. She fell in beside Terry and Andrew.

  ‘I walked on a sacred site,’ she said quietly.

  Terry pretended to reel back. ‘Jesus. You’d better not walk next to us.’ He laughed. ‘Only joking.’

  He held out a bag of mints.

  ‘I went on the wrong path then cut across. I was scared of being left behind. Will I be cursed?’ she asked, wanting to be charming.

  Terry talked through a mouthful of mint. ‘Look, Emily, put it this way. When you go to a Maori graveyard, do you wash the tapu off afterwards?’

  She smiled. ‘Um, I think I do. Just in case.’

  He said, ‘You’re only fucked if you believe in it.’ He pointed his stick. ‘Point the bone at an Abo, he dies, because he thinks he’s going to. If you don’t believe it, nothing can touch you. Goes for everything. Shut it out of your mind. Doubts are poison. If you’ve got the right mindset, you’re armour-plated.’

  Andrew walked alongside, listening. He looked at Emily.

  ‘Terry’s right,’ he said.

  They came to a place where the path led close in to the rock. They walked in shade, under the trees. They crossed a small wooden bridge. Terry limped, complaining of blisters. There was a big patch of sweat on the back of his shirt. Andrew took photos and talked to Travis in his deep, polite voice. Emily listened.

  Travis said, ‘The Abos say, if someone points the bone at you, if he sings you, you
’ll die.’

  Andrew said, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that, yes.’

  ‘Mind you, mate, some Abos pointed the bone at John Howard, cursed him, and he’s still alive.’

  Andrew said, ‘A failed assassination.’

  ‘Mate, I’ve lived here for all my life …’

  ‘You must know the place very well.’

  Emily tried to pin down Andrew’s tone. Talking to Travis he sounded automatic, distracted, saccharin, like a parent closing the book at the end of a bedtime story: What fun! Now it’s time for a lovely sleep …

  ‘Speaking of the … “Abos”,’ Emily said to Travis, ‘Where are they?’

  Travis waved his hand. ‘They’re over the back. They’re happier in their own place.’ He laughed harshly. ‘It’s always Happy Hour over there.’

  There was a ranger’s truck approaching across the sand. Travis went to meet it and stood talking through the window.

  Emily said to Andrew, ‘I was reading something this morning, a Chekhov story.’ She wanted to get a reaction.

  Andrew listened.

  ‘It was about a man who starts seeing a black figure, a monk, who appears out of the air — a hallucination. After the monk’s appeared to him a few times the man realises he’s going mad.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Terry and I’ve been trying to get some reading done. It’s so nice to have some time to relax.’

  ‘This monk’s a completely black figure, black robes. Black hands.’

  Andrew looked at her with his calm eyes.

  She went on, ‘A composer, Shostakovich, thought the story was written like a piece of music, that it echoed one of his symphonies. I thought of you. You were talking about the universe being made of sound. And you said you sometimes felt you were drawing music from the air; that it came from outside yourself.’

  Andrew said sensibly, ‘I did say that, didn’t I? I’d had a bit of beer.’

  Emily said, ‘When the man’s seeing the vision of the monk he’s insane, but happy. When he stops seeing the monk he’s sane, but miserable.’

  ‘Well, what could that mean?’ Andrew said pleasantly.

  ‘I suppose it means he needs his madness. It’s the only thing that keeps him sane.’

  Andrew laughed. She looked at his face. His eyes were very dark, the pupils large.

  He waved Terry over.

  ‘Hello kids,’ Terry said. ‘I think I need a beer.’

  Andrew said, ‘Emily’s been telling me about a book.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Terry said. ‘I’m writing another book myself, Emily. Following the success of my first two, which were bestsellers. This one’s about Andrew’s retrial, and other issues.’ He looked around unhappily. ‘Think it’s much further? It’s fucking hot.’

  ‘People are always recommending books to me,’ Andrew said. ‘Over the years, I’ve had a lot given to me. By people, wonderful friends.’

  ‘You’ve had a lot of help in that way,’ Terry said in a soulful voice.

  ‘Oh, wonderful help,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ll see if I can get hold of the book you’ve mentioned, Emily. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said.

  Andrew looked at her. She thought, his voice is a wall. He is somewhere behind it. She sensed a power in him that was not out of place in this strange ancient landscape. It was being made known to her that she had breached some deep rule of decorum; she had been exposed, warned, and forgiven — for now, only for now.

  The bus was waiting. They were driven to a tourist centre decorated with Aboriginal art. In a row of wooden toilets set back from the road there was a yellow bin for needle disposal, and beside it a litter of syringes. Somewhere out there, the unseen locals had graduated from booze to drugs.

  But there was a pretty, dark-skinned girl at the counter in the café; hers the first set of Aboriginal features they’d seen, and from the kitchen another dark-skinned girl and boy exchanged cheerful banter and insults.

  They ate lunch in a faux-rustic shack, surrounded by Dreamtime tea towels, ornaments, mouse pads and coffee mugs.

  Andrew said, ‘I think it’s a bit early for a beer, Terry. Why don’t you have a lie-down when we get back, and then we could go for a swim in the pool.’

  Terry sighed, ‘Okay mate. Maybe you’re right.’

  Andrew looked at Emily. He said, ‘And after that, a bit of reading and then dinner. We’ll have to pick which hotel we eat in, won’t we.’

  Emily said, ‘Are you sorry we didn’t climb the rock?’

  He smiled, although his eyes didn’t change. ‘No, not at all. The walk, the scenery. It’s been wonderful. Don’t you think. Terry?’

  ‘Magic, mate,’ Terry said. ‘Out of this world.’ He rubbed his red, pouchy cheeks. His fingers trembled.

  ‘We’ve got some great things lined up, haven’t we, Terry,’ Andrew said. ‘All sorts of things to look forward to.’ He sat very straight, and didn’t take his eyes from Emily’s face.

  ‘Yes, Andrew,’ Terry said.

  TRIAL

  About six-foot-two, thick-set, strong arms, big head, big hands, freckly skin, sandy-brown hair, direct blue eyes. Nervous.

  Emily sat in the press seats and wrote this on her notepad. But this was not the man she had come here to describe.

  Ford fidgeted and sweated and looked around for a better seat. He had a pillar in front of him. The place was full; there were no other seats free. There was a low, expectant murmur. The front was packed with journalists. There were rows of the complainant’s family and supporters, police, further back were the curious, some students.

  The side door opened and Reid Harris entered, flanked by two security guards. He glanced behind, his eyes darting across the rows. Ford found that he was pinching the skin on the back of his hand, hard. He had an odd sense, what was it? A powerful sense of memory where none actually existed, an emotion like yearning, or pity, that seemed to roam over a blankness, seeking somewhere to fix. He looked at the back of Reid Harris’s head. Reid leaned and listened to his whispering lawyer, and Ford saw he had a whorl of hair at his crown. His neck was powerful; he was a big, fit man. Ford was close enough to see the blue of a large tattoo through the thin white cotton of Reid’s shirt.

  The registrar swept in, gathering her robe around herself. At her command all rose and the judge bustled in, making, it seemed to Ford, an excessive effort to appear ingratiating, not ‘above himself’ — that fussy smile, the fiddling with glasses. He was a swarthy little man with bright eyes and a smooth little helmet of black hair. He sipped some water, nodded in sprightly fashion at the stenographer.

  The lawyer was whispering intensely. Reid nodded, casting his eyes behind at the public gallery. There was a blonde woman wearing a gold cross sitting next to Ford; Reid’s eyes rested on her for a moment and flicked away. Listen to your brief, Ford wanted to say. Concentrate. But when Reid nodded and sat back there was something assured in his manner, a toughness. He was no novice. He was a senior policeman, had been in court many times before. His big hands were clenched on the table in front of him. Ford wiped his brow with a handkerchief and caught sight of a stain on the front of his shirt. He felt exposed, and was glad of the pillar in front of his seat. He had not expected to feel like this when he had decided, after a night of thinking about it, to head down to the court. It was more difficult than he had envisaged.

  In the press seats, a woman journalist was looking at him and writing something in her notebook. She seemed to be paying him close attention. Could she see that he was nervous?

  Reid’s lawyer rose and began to speak. There were issues he needed to raise, matters of evidence, hearsay and so on. The judge smiled, twinkled, ‘Indeed, it seems we’ll have to discuss this in chambers.’ The registrar rose, there was a collective moan of disappointment. The court would have to be cleared. The jury filed out, the crowd stood, the doors were opened. Ford made for the doors resolving that he would not take this intermission as a chance to escape.

  In the café
he stood in a long queue. The dusty morning light filtered down. The tables were full, but he found one out in the foyer and sat down. The journalist who had been staring at him from the press seats came out carrying a coffee. She walked towards him.

  ‘There’s no seats. Do you mind if I …?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She began scrabbling in her bag, took out a phone and sent a rapid text.

  ‘I’m covering the Reid Harris trial.’ She named her paper. ‘Did I see you in there, or …?’

  She had pale-blue eyes, strong features, tangled hair.

  There was a silence. Her question struck Ford as disingenuous: she had been staring at him in there. Voices echoed up to the high ceiling; there was a harsh laugh, the sound of a slamming door.

  ‘You in the police?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’m a lecturer. University.’

  ‘Sort of academic interest?’ Her phone beeped and she glanced at it, business-like.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said. She snapped the phone shut.

  Ford sipped his coffee and was glad that his hand was steady. He saw himself at four that morning, in a state of agitation, sitting out on the deck with the cat, Ticket, on his lap. He had resolved to come here, today, to see Reid Harris in court. Why had he come? Because I have lost so many connections. Because I am alone.

  ‘Yes, academic interest,’ he said.

  ‘What’s your field?’

  ‘History. You’re a journalist,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to …’ He was making a mistake. Her face had sharpened, now she looked interested.

  ‘I’m a relative,’ Ford said.

  ‘Of the complainant?’