by Lee Murray
He poked at it with a spoon, sniffing back tears.
‘Eat,’ I replied, gentle but firm. My eyes strayed to the curtain rope – was it strong enough to hold his arms if I had to force-feed him?
He swallowed a mouthful without needing to be coerced.
‘Uh, it’s very sweet,’ he mumbled. Clearly, he felt guilty about the dog. He was using his make-up voice.
‘Have some more. You’ve had a nasty shock. Need your strength.’
I circled him and put my arms around his neck, kissed his shoulder through his shirt.
‘Sylvia’s body is still on Manly Street. The car didn’t even stop.’ His voice was thin, powerless. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
‘We’ll go get her.’ I stroked his neck. ‘We’ll bury her on the beach.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll go get her,’ I repeated.
*
Sylvia looked hollowed out when we found her. Her fur was stretched taut over her ribs, her stomach sunken. It didn’t look like she’d been hit by a car – she looked deflated. I felt a tingling in my bones as I stood over her. I heard the worms call.
Pete kicked at the gravel at the road’s edge and apologised. ‘Never should have taken her out,’ he mumbled.
I bent and patted her side, felt the squirming shapes beneath her skin, searching for new flesh. Something inside my arm wriggled in response, sharing their anticipation. I smiled.
‘Help me carry her, Pete. She loved the beach. Let’s take her there one last time.’
I slipped my hands under her small body and lifted her into my arms. She hardly weighed anything. Pete was talking as I walked across the road and headed for the dunes. I couldn’t make out what he was saying – the tide in my skull pulling me toward the ocean was too strong. I smiled and felt the worms writhing in Sylvia’s body and saw in my mind’s eye the dark form at the ocean’s floor, the army of worms swimming back to it from coasts around the world, their bodies bloated with the flesh of land creatures, their minds touched by the creatures they had devoured. Soon I would be there too, mind and body below the waves.
‘What?’
Pete had grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into the flesh as he forced me to stop. I realised that I was speaking to him, words tumbling out of my mouth unbidden. I listened.
‘From the deeps, they are legion. We will be devoured and exalted, the world will be covered in a hood of bone…’
We were standing on a path atop a dune. I could see the sea. Every fibre of my being and the beings within me yearned for it. Pete looked worried, frantic. I struggled to regain control of my tongue.
‘It’s okay, honey. Here. Take the dog. We can go back.’
I handed him Sylvia’s body, sensing the hunger of the worms within as they neared an uninfected host. He cringed as he took the small form into his arms, a look of disgust plain on his face.
‘Let’s go home,’ I said, squinting against the harshening morning light.
He eyed me suspiciously but turned to leave.
It only took me a moment to find a heavy enough chunk of driftwood. He turned to see if I was keeping up when I swung the branch. It caught him in the side of the head and he staggered forward. I hit him again before he dropped Sylvia’s body. Once he was on the ground, I hit him again, just to make sure he was out. The branch came away bloody and Pete lay still. I bent and stroked his cheek, then dragged Sylvia’s corpse to lie across his face.
A warm wind swept in from the sea. I felt weightless, free. I almost floated to the water’s edge. I stood a long time, watching the waves wash in. The skin of my ankles ruptured and a series of small forms slithered from the bleeding holes, into the waves. I watched them go, proud and hopeful. More of me would be carried off soon. All of me.
I waded deeper into the water, slipping away from the world of glaring light. My vision was growing cloudy but I had no fear. So much awaited me below the waves, below the surface.
Soon I would join them. Soon I would rise and take my place in the hood of bone.
Crossing
Anthony Panegyres
‘Jane! Jane Self !’
I stand and the secretary points to a door. Nicholas gives my fingers a here-for-you squeeze and whispers some supportive cliché. He’s like a buttery pastry – nice in a doughy babushka-doll way. That sounds harsh, but I like babushkas and have a soft spot for pastries. Nicholas and I are close, we hug now and then, even though he’s never braved a kiss. I have hinted at that (and more). He always says something about getting to know him better and how time will help me decide.
‘Wait for the unveiling,’ he says.
I pat my skirt down and enter the room. A man wearing a pinstripe suit and a sharp black tie sits at an iron-red timber desk. Behind him is a regiment of lime-green, tinny filing cabinets. I thought here at the agency they’d have computers.
I scan his desk as he motions for me to sit. He is not entirely anal: a fedora, a few files, a hip flask, a cigar reclining on an ashtray. He has, I imagine, the shiniest of black shoes.
‘So ya wanna cross over?’
‘Yes, that’s why I’m here.’
‘Jane, right?’ He has that old New York or Chicago twang – I can never tell the difference.
‘Yes,’ I say, holding out my hand. He reaches across the desk and shakes it.
‘Al Farrone. Just a tick while I find your file.’
Get with the times.
He moves over to one of the filing cabinets and flicks through file after file, mumbling my name all along. ‘Jane Self, Jane Self, Jane Self. Ah, Jane Self!’ He brings it over and brushes through. ‘Why, ain’t you the new-age dame? Impressive.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Crossin’ over will take some trainin’.’
‘I realise that, Mr Farrone, and I believe I am as capable as they come.’
He asks me the standard ‘What would you do?’ and ‘Where do you see yourself?’ questions. I’d prepared for the like earlier, and I think I’ve nailed it by the end. So does Farrone.
‘Atta-girl. You’re in for the trainin’. I gotta feelin’ you’ll do fine. Jus’ remember, one sector only. Your choice, but we ain’t gonna just let you cruise into others. You got that?’
‘NP6000.’
‘Chosen already – I like it. I’ll cross with ya the first time. Golden rule is no touchin’. It’s more than dangerous.’
‘Yes, Mr Farrone.’
‘You ain’t some whacko tryin’ to bring back a loved one?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry for askin’, Jane … it’s a precaution.’
The truth is, I yearn to see Mark. After five years of marriage, I just need to know that he’s doing fine – to see if he needs me. Who would have thought Mark would go before me? I was the asthmatic who spent hours line-gazing in the pool. He was the specimen of health. Or so I thought.
*
After the interview I tell Nicholas the good news. ‘That’s fantastic,’ he says, while his tell-tale eyes glass over in betrayal.
Still, it’s kind of him to say it.
We head out into the parking lot, where the latest floating cars hover alongside a ’60s Mustang. The relic of a car next to the Mustang is Nicholas’. My ‘boyfriend’ has a fetish for vintage automobiles. I’d be happier if he drove a Mazda or a nippy Peugeot, but Nicholas is not keen on those ‘new fandangled machines’. He swings my door open and I sit in the front seat and wait as he winds up the motor from the outside.
He turns to me once seated. ‘Let’s go out and celebrate.’
‘Do we have to?’
‘On me.’
Floating vehicles make traffic disturbing at times.
We crawl down Church Street, my least favourite place. The zeal freaks me out. The street holds throngs o
f people from all walks of religious life. Some patrol the roadside with pamphlets; others stand at stalls. Their eager voices seem magnified as they call out, attempting to proselytise: Salvific Action – Adeville’s SA. They are the city’s Storm Troopers, enforcing the afterlife.
Ein Heaven! Ein Heaven! Ein Heaven!
We pass the Byzantine domes of a Greek church, a similarly domed mosque opposite, the arches of an Anglican cathedral, the obsequious grandeur of a Seventh Day Adventist church and a tiny Nestorian chapel. And so it goes as we chug along with the windows open, Bach choirs resounding from the Lutheran chapel, baritone intonations from the Russian, and frankincense burning so heavily I can smell it from the car. Smoke plumes ascend from Buddhist temples.
Nick is the sole Adevillian I’ve dated who hasn’t laughed or giggled at my pained face as we travel along Church Street, Adeville’s chief connecting road, the Holy Path, so to speak. Shops, bars, almost every suburb; all seem to branch out from it.
Nicholas Lamb is an agnostic-Christian – I understand his doubt. Losing Mark four years ago hasn’t made me buy into the afterlife either.
We pass a columned Hindu temple as we finally turn off.
Good riddance, my dear Pantheon.
A few minutes later and I moan loudly as Nicholas parks by the milk bar. He always takes me to the milk bar. It’s a permanent fixation.
‘C’mon, Nicholas! Can’t we go somewhere else? Anywhere else? I’m not asking to go to some anti-gravitational restaurant or anything. Just a decent lounge bar.’
‘A bar is no place for a respectable woman.’
The modern part of me is divided by this. His out-dated chivalry limits some fun a girl might have, but at almost thirty, the part of me that’s over those younger and wilder twenty-year-old lads finds his old-school values a refreshing change. Nick always opens doors for me, always gives way to me first, always holds the umbrella over my side, while he gets wet. There’s never a rude word, and on those nights when I sleep over, no kissing again of course, he even leaves for the bathroom rather than let me hear any bodily sounds.
‘A café then?’ I ask. ‘A plain old café? How ’bout the French one round the corner? The one with the Victorian wallpaper.’
Even a French café is too new for my anachronistic man.
He strides ahead, entering the dated building, surely a remnant from the 1930s. Men on the footpath remind me that I could do far worse than Nicholas. Macho types swaggering in Stetsons, geeks in bowler hats, grave men in homburgs, and even nutso military sorts strutting around in Balmoral berets. So I head inside. The décor is a beatnik red, old bus-like-leather lounge chairs hug the walls, and stools line the counter bench where a few kids sit slurping loudly on their spiders and milkshakes. Jars full of candy fill the shelves behind the cashier. One breath and I am glucose-struck with aromas: malt, sugar and of course the ever-present sherbet.
We approach the man at the counter. White apron, snow-white moustache and cheeks sculpted for a warm smile.
‘Hello, Nicholas, and hello to you, Miss Self. What can I do for you?’
‘Caramel thickshake please,’ says Nicholas. ‘And a honey’n’malt for the lady here.’
We move over to a booth. The whole joint feels like one of those tacky retro places you find at a mega-cinema complex. But it’s the real thing, not some poor mimic. Thoughts sputter around in my mind, popping, fizzing and whirring like an insane kitchen appliance. I turn my head to the side for a minute – it’s my venting signal. As I turn back, I’m glad to see serviettes lining the middle of the table. My battle line is drawn.
‘Why do you insist on taking me here?’
‘Here we go again.’
‘It’s not the celebration I was hoping for. A malt milkshake for Chrissakes? What’s next? Some rock candy for the ride home?’
‘Jane, these are the best shakes in town.’
‘I want to go.’
‘I feel comfortable here. Out there, your kind of places. I don’t feel quite right.’
‘Now. I want to go now.’
I know Nicholas well enough. Beneath the table, my babushka’s leg is beginning to spasm. I lock my eyes onto the serviette barricade and hold firm.
‘Okay. You do deserve better.’ He stands but his leg convulsions have crept along, his arm jerks and then his left eye starts twitching away like a dying fluorescent globe.
‘It’s all right, Nicholas,’ I say in submission to his body’s panic. I take his hand and he sits back down. ‘Thanks for taking me out. It’s really very sweet of you.’
The shakes arrive, foamy and thick. We slurp together for a while, listening to the sandy-haired kids discussing the fundamentals of childhood economics.
‘A normal tom isn’t worth a jack spider,’ says one, displaying his marble.
‘But it’s worth a blue-eye jack,’ says the other, producing a marble from his pocket and rolling it along the bench.
Nearing the end of his shake, Nicholas sucks up bubbles of air and liquid. He glances at me, wanting to say something, then he looks back down.
‘I won’t bite.’
He pauses. ‘I don’t have a degree like yours. You didn’t need one working in a fruit‘n’veg shop in Kalgoorlie.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I get people, Jane. I’m a little sharper than I let on.’
‘Is this about me crossing over?’
He nods.
‘We’ve been through this, Nick. I need closure.’
He reaches out and holds my hand, ‘Just know that I’m here for you. I know what you had with Mark was real. And I’ll help you all the way, no matter how it ends. I can be your rock. You were married – I understand how hard it must be.’
His lines are old and used but bona fide – or ‘dinkum’ as Nicholas occasionally says. My throat chokes up a bit. I don’t let any tears escape. It’s one of those moments that could open up the falls. An instant in which I realise just how much Nicholas actually loves me.
*
I breathe easier in Adeville. My asthma hasn’t played up for a while. Things sometimes feel foggy though. Nicholas assures me that the mist clears over time. I remember things: Nicholas, Church Street, the milk bar, neighbourhoods, my deceased husband, but there are memories that blur at the edges, ungraspable, obscure, vague bits of knowledge I must have known and forgotten in some recurring cycle. Hopefully, seeing Mark will help.
A week of training at the agency passes. I learn with Buddhist-like ease to zone out and empty my consciousness, focus on the region, street or even the house I need to see, then colour it in with textures guided by my senses: the brick paving, the sweet smell of Moreton Bay figs and other berries being mashed on the paths and roads, the varying light – the shifting greys and blues.
‘Focus on your neighbourhood, perhaps the street first,’ Al says. ‘Never a person.’ But I recall Mark: permanent two-day growth, lean figure, sweet aftershave mixed with saline sweat, his slightly coarse voice, his quick considerate eyes.
Despite my obsession, I pass every test, every examination. I am ready to cross over well before most other trainees.
*
We stand in a bare hall. Agents in surrounding halls aid others who cross over.
I’m Al’s fifth for today. The old floorboards groan as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. Al Farrone tips his fedora.
‘NP6000. In and out, five minutes max. No touchin’! We’re the ghosts in their world.’ He points his lit cigar in my direction. ‘Remember to follow me, I’m the big cheese. And if you lose me,’ another tip of the fedora, ‘look for the hat.’
I wrap my brown and white scarf a little tighter. I’ve made an effort. Boots, a splash of colour on my face, a little winter cap on my head (the one Mark found spunky) and a jacket that accentuates my small waist – it could be cold
on the other side. Maybe I’ll see him, even on my first visit. I do as taught and concentrate on the place as a picture and slowly add other senses. I taste the air of the strip, the cosy inviting smell of coffee.
And I appear, there on the other side. Al is beside me. ‘Atta-girl.’
We are on the main strip: cafés, restaurants, a bookstore, bars. People sauntering, striding, riding, pramming, gathering, browsing, holding, sitting, chatting, reading – all there, all present. It must be cold – the sky is hazy and there is a breeze, and I remember how the breeze here cuts to the bone.
‘I can’t feel the cold.’
‘Can you believe their clothes?’ Al says, looking around.
They all seem pretty normal to me. ‘You cold?’ I repeat.
‘Cold? We can’t feel the cold here, we just taste things as they pass through.’
We stroll along the path. My feet are balancing on the pavement. I can’t really feel it beneath me. There’s an alfresco café with the words ‘Uncle Tom’s Café ’ written in a faded white along the window.
‘See, no touchin’.’ Al puts his arm straight through the pane; the glass remains untouched, his hand waves back at me from the other side. ‘Passin’ through is fine, even with folk, though I wouldn’t recommend it. But don’t touch.’
I follow suit, all the while searching peripherally for Mark. I feel the glass, or rather taste the sharpness of it on my arm. I then put my arm through other surfaces. The wooden door at the entry feels dry and dead; red bricks sandy and stagnant. People around us are oblivious, sipping their coffees, reading their papers or just chatting away.
I approach a young couple, clearly attracted to one another – a lady, her bobbed hair full of split ends, sitting with an urban Asian man who boasts a fringe of a moustache. I try to let their eyes take me in. I sit, or rather pretend to (I’m squatting) on the spare seat next to them and stare – they blink me out. I reach out and pass my hand through the dead couple. They feel warm, somehow heated, and there is an indefinable feel of flowing.
And then Al signals to leave and we’re back in the hall. I’m dizzy about the trip, seeing the dead and my old suburb. I’m also literally dizzy. The room spins like a carousel on fast forward. My guts lurch, and twice I dry retch.
