Beyond Carousel

by Ritchie, Brendan

  ‘Does anyone honestly think these guys have any chance of hauling this thing all the way to the city?’ I asked.

  ‘Past the city,’ added Sophie.

  ‘Where is Henry’s Residency?’ asked Taylor.

  ‘It’s a technical school in Leederville,’ replied Sophie. ‘Maybe five kilometres north of the city.’

  ‘They’re screwed,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘And they are so exposed if they keep moving at that pace. Pit bulls or Loots could circle them before they could do anything about it,’ said Sophie.

  Taylor was getting anxious about where the discussion was leading.

  ‘I don’t see what more any of us can do for him,’ she said.

  Somehow I knew this moment had been coming. It felt inevitable. Like I’d seen it in a dream.

  ‘Carousel is only a day or so from here on normal bikes,’ I said. ‘You guys should keep going east and wait for me there. I’ll ride with these guys to Leederville, then WAAPA. By that stage I will be east of the city again. On a good bike I can ride south from there to Carousel within a day.’

  Taylor looked away. Lizzy took a breath. Chess peered up at us anxiously.

  ‘Okay. But if you run out of time you gotta leave him, Nox. It’s no good none of you guys making it back to your Residencies,’ said Lizzy.

  Taylor stared at her sister in disbelief.

  ‘You think we should split up again?’ she asked Lizzy.

  ‘As opposed to all of us hauling that thing to the city? Yeah, I do, Taylor. I’m going home on the second. I can’t do any more time in this place,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘This is such a shit idea,’ said Taylor.

  ‘Yeah well, sometimes shit ideas are all there is,’ said Lizzy. ‘Actually, most times, in this place.’

  ‘That’s a cop-out and you know it, Lizzy,’ said Taylor.

  ‘So what do you want to do, huh?’ asked Lizzy. ‘He has to go with her.’ She gestured towards the house.

  Sophie and I hovered awkwardly beside them. I glanced at her and she gave me a small, reassuring smile. I liked Sophie. She was wise beyond her years and didn’t need to say much to prove it. I realised then that I would probably never see her again after tomorrow.

  I edged forward towards Taylor.

  ‘It’s cool, Taylor. I’ve been on the road heaps since the casino. The freeway will take us right alongside the tech school, then it’s just another suburb over to WAAPA and I’m on my way,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t miss being back there with you guys and Rocky for anything.’

  Taylor held firm for a long moment, then turned and put a hand on my shoulder. Her gaze was sharp and defiant in the dusky grey light.

  ‘Don’t screw around once you get them back there, Nox. Say your goodbyes and get your ass back to Carousel. We’ll be waiting for you at that door,’ she said.

  I nodded and she left for the house without another word to Lizzy.

  ‘I’ll pack you up some batteries and torches to take,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied.

  ‘Keep your radio on, too. You will be out of our range for most of the way, but sometimes those things pick up a signal from miles away. You never know your luck,’ said Sophie.

  We hugged briefly and she followed Taylor inside.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said to Lizzy once we were alone.

  ‘Don’t think that I’m not freaking out about this, yeah,’ said Lizzy.

  She caught my gaze and held it until I nodded.

  ‘I just figured that you would be going with Georgia no matter what we said. I think I knew as soon as we dragged her out of that boat. Henry’s god-awful sculpture is kind of irrelevant.’

  I smiled and looked at the ground. She was probably right.

  ‘You don’t think it’s kinda cool?’ I asked.

  ‘The sculpture? I don’t even know anymore,’ said Lizzy.

  We stood out there for a few moments longer.

  ‘I’m sorry that aurora wasn’t for you,’ I said.

  Lizzy shrugged and tried a smile. ‘Maybe soon I won’t need one so bad.’

  40

  Lizzy and I returned to the house for some food cooked in pots on the family barbeque. Taylor had told the others of our revised plan and a tangible air of anxiety hovered over the evening. I’m sure the northern Artists were relieved to hear of the help, but it also confirmed that there were real doubts about their ability to get back to their Residencies in time. A single day’s riding had illustrated just how much their bodies had suffered on that fishing boat. I got the sense they were also still reeling from the rocket-like transformation in their world. Their situation had shifted from aimless to frantic in a matter of hours. Jake hadn’t been able to make this transition. Now the others also seemed caught out by its magnitude.

  With this in play it was difficult to gauge Georgia’s reaction to the plan. As the others fanned out across the house to sleep, we drifted upstairs together and had quiet sex in one of the bedrooms. It went by quickly, but was also affectionate and felt like it was about more than just our bodies. Afterwards we lay up there in the dark, not saying too much. Georgia had an iPhone half full with precious charge and we listened to a couple of her favourite Death Cab for Cutie songs and nestled down beneath the covers.

  Later I thought she was asleep when she rolled over to face me in the dark.

  ‘Hey what did you mean by that note you wrote for me?’ she asked.

  ‘What note?’ I asked.

  ‘The one I found in your jacket. I assume you were going to leave it for me if you didn’t find us,’ said Georgia.

  Amid the drama of the boat and the rescue I had forgotten all about it.

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry. Which part?’ I asked.

  ‘It said that you might not be around after September second,’ she said.

  I took a breath and wondered where to start.

  ‘I’m just not sure if the whole Prix de Rome thing will apply to me,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ asked Georgia.

  ‘Because I’m not really an Artist like everybody else here,’ I said.

  ‘Nox. You’re fine. That’s how heaps of us feel. How do you think it was for me and Claudia when we arrived at the Collective? You know Cara Winters was totally living there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, not wanting to go into it.

  ‘You just need to believe in yourself. God. All of us do,’ said Georgia.

  ‘Okay,’ I replied.

  She kissed me lightly and brushed back the front of my hair.

  ‘Sorry I bailed on you at the casino,’ said Georgia.

  I looked at her, surprised.

  ‘Things were moving pretty quickly there. Sometimes that stuff kinda freaks me out,’ she said.

  ‘You’re fine,’ I replied.

  Georgia laughed for just a moment, then closed her eyes.

  ‘Thanks for coming with us,’ she whispered.

  I held her and this time she did fall asleep. I lay beside her and wondered whether there was any chance she could be right.

  In the morning we said our goodbyes on the freeway overpass. Our hugs were brief and void of heavy emotion. In this way we convinced ourselves that our plans were solid and that worry was unwarranted. It felt cold and unnatural, but was probably still the best option. Before we rounded the corner I turned back for a final look at the Finns. They were steadfast and silhouetted on the elevated bitumen. Hands on their hips. Hair kicked up and full of attitude. In another life it could have been a page out of Rolling Stone.

  Henry had perked up in the morning and seemed to be pedalling okay behind me as we set off. He was a quiet old guy with crazy Einstein hair and skin that had gone past tanned to a deep and oaky brown. Georgia had told us Henry called himself an inventor rather than an artist – if the two things were separable. It felt like a good thing to be helping him and he seemed genuinely grateful. I looked over at our co-riders. Georgia and Claudia were thin and pale, but looked focused on the tasks ahead. First gettin
g Henry and his sculpture back home, then returning to WAAPA to perform the one-woman play that had freed them from their Residency. The giant sculpture glinted and shimmered behind us. From a distance we must have looked like a Christmas sled merged with something out of Mad Max. It was hard not to laugh at how ridiculous things had become.

  Before long we boarded the first of two bridges and found the lanes mostly clear. There was just the occasional sideways car, but plenty of room to go around them. From here the freeway hugged the river all the way to the city. This was a good thing for us as it meant the road would stay flat until the final bridge. So long as we kept our momentum we should be close to Leederville by the end of the day.

  We quickly realised we weren’t alone in our quest. Twice we saw the tops of riders hammering down the freeway in the opposite direction. I caught a glimpse of the second one with enough time to see a giant poster tube strapped to her back. At midmorning a lone sailboat cut dramatically across the river back towards Fremantle. Then, as Henry’s cramping stopped us to rest beneath an overpass, Claudia spotted the letters P d P freshly tagged in a beautiful, exaggerated fashion on the concrete.

  ‘P d P?’ I asked, as we sat beside it.

  ‘I think it might stand for Prix de Perth,’ said Claudia.

  Ed’s message was out. It had been passed on, absorbed, and now lay woven into the fabric of this new world. All around us the Artists of Perth were mobilising. We felt excited and anxious in equal measure.

  By late afternoon we were moving at a crawl, but had finally reached the long second bridge that joined South Perth to the city and beyond. It rose up, stark and grey like the back of a whale against the late winter sun. Again we stopped to rest. This time all of us were cramping. Henry’s sculpture seemed to have retained its strange relationship with the wind. Sometimes it felt as though the sheaths were funnelling each passing gust and propelling us forward faster than we could ever have cycled. Other times it was as if the whole sculpture was designed to catch wind and trap it somewhere inside. The drag on our bikes was intense.

  I stretched my shoulder and looked out at the windswept bridge with apprehension. If we couldn’t get up the incline, Henry was screwed.

  Georgia and Claudia looked wrecked but I was starting to freak out about the daylight remaining.

  ‘Should we have a go at it?’ I asked them.

  They took a breath and nodded. I looked back at Henry. Slowly and gingerly he climbed back aboard.

  We edged painfully away from the wall and started our ascent. The wind was really hammering across the bridge from the west. The sculpture caught a waft of it and kicked us forward enough to gain a bit of momentum with our legs. Steadily we rose away from the shoreline. It was hard not to stop and look around. To our right ferries drifted loose like ice cubes in the fat of the river. Cars banked at distant city exits like faded and forgotten Lego. Beyond them the city bristled with static grey towers, brazen birds circling the buildings like tenants. And, to our left, Kings Park towered over everything. Old World and steadfast in its grandeur.

  The next gust caught in the sculpture and hemmed us down against the road. We all but stopped.

  I looked across at Georgia and Claudia. They were pedalling the best that they could. We edged forward another metre or so, then were set back again. The majority of the incline still lay ahead of us, yet we couldn’t gain even a metre in that wind.

  Henry yelled something from behind me. I turned to see him pointing to the left. There was nothing there but empty lanes. I looked at him again. He kept on with the frantic pointing. Georgia and I guided us diagonally to the left and we tried again with the pedalling. It was suddenly easier. Henry’s sculpture was back on our side.

  We reached the edge of the left lane and came to a stop, having gained ten or so metres forward. Henry pointed back in the other direction. We turned the bikes to face the diagonal and tried again.

  It worked. Henry’s weirdo sculpture was tacking us across the bridge.

  Suddenly we were halfway up. Then three quarters. Then the road flattened beneath us and we realised we were cresting. I looked over at Georgia and she smiled back with relief. The freeway dropped away and swung past the city in front of us. We sat back on our bikes and steered our way past the exits and overpasses. The road banked left and dipped again. I scanned the exit signs. Ahead of us in the swampy daylight was the exit ramp into Leederville.

  41

  We stayed the night in Leederville with Henry and his sculpture, then left the following morning. Henry was shattered from the journey. We had hauled his sculpture into the lobby of the tech school and set him down on a couch with a pile of sports drinks and trail mix. He stayed there through the night, and rose only slightly to thank us and wave us off in the morning. The guy wasn’t in good shape, but he just had to get through the week. Four more nights and his portal would open.

  It took us until midday to find new bikes at a store in North Perth. Our legs were sore and crampy and we would have preferred to walk the short distance from Leederville to WAAPA, but a bike was essential for my journey to Carousel, both for speed and safety. Time was short. I would need to rest at WAAPA overnight before tracking south to Carousel. I planned to ride fast through the chequered eastern suburbs. Reach Carousel in a day. There were things I needed to say to Taylor and Lizzy before the portals opened. If I was going to be stuck in some Patron wormhole forever I wanted to be baggage-free.

  Claudia led us through the leafy suburban streets. This had been her neighbourhood for a while before the Disappearance. First during her bachelor degree studying film at the adjoining university. Then during her year and a half at WAAPA, immersing herself in the world of theatre. Georgia had told me of Claudia’s growing reputation as a blunt and demanding director. How she clashed with the ego-driven acting kids from Sydney and Melbourne who would resist her and resent her, before skulking back when teachers and peers heralded their understated performances. Georgia told me she had been trying to collaborate with Claudia for a whole year before the Disappearance had made it happen.

  We arrived at WAAPA by three as the sky clouded over and winter threatened a final stand. I followed Georgia and Claudia inside and watched as they reacquainted themselves with their former home. They moved through a foyer decorated to promote an upcoming production. Down hallways lined with workshop areas and framed headshots of alumni. Past a box office where they had plundered the snacks and drinks more than a year ago now. And finally into a backstage area with change rooms, a shower and, amid the shelves of garish props, a cluster of couches and blankets that had been their home.

  Claudia tried out a couple of the hanging lights. They worked first time. She shrugged as if to say, of course they do.

  ‘Are you guys cool if I take the first shower?’ asked Georgia.

  ‘Yeah, George. Enjoy,’ said Claudia.

  I gave her a smile and she trudged off into the bathroom. Claudia sat on a couch while I tried to stretch out the rocks in my calves.

  ‘Do you know if we are meant to be performing the play at the time the portals open?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Sorry. I’m not sure,’ I replied.

  Claudia sat there seriously. Perfect posture in spite of her exhaustion.

  ‘Do you believe it?’ I asked.

  She shrugged, honestly.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. Definitely,’ I replied.

  ‘Because of the Curator?’ she asked.

  I thought about it and shook my head.

  ‘I mean, I don’t think Ed would make it all up. But he never said to me that the portals would definitely happen,’ I said.

  Claudia waited for me to continue.

  ‘He just said that the art world was at a crossroad. That artists needed a new kind of residency to produce the art of the future,’ I said.

  ‘You believe it because of the art you have seen here?’ she asked.

  I thought about all of the art I had experienced. The
darkness and pop of Taylor & Lizzy’s new album. The haunting charcoals of Peter Mistry. Kink & Kink and all of their weirdness. Photos Kirk had taken of the memories of jet planes. The hulking windblown sculpture we had hauled all the way from Fremantle.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘That’s exactly why.’

  Claudia considered this for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘Will you watch us rehearse the play tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be awesome,’ I replied.

  I had showered and changed and now sat nervous in a theatre of empty chairs. Georgia was onstage already. I could just make her out in the darkness. Claudia was somewhere offstage beside her. The set dressing was stark. Just a writing desk and a beaten-up couch. I held my breath and waited. Long and important seconds ticked by.

  Claudia struck a light and Georgia’s head snapped upright.

  ‘What good is the wind if it does not bring her smell?’ she boomed.

  My skin rippled. It was electric.

  The whole play was, really. A biting, witty exploration of a famous writer beset by insecurity and expectation. Claudia ran it at a dazzling pace and, despite not having rehearsed it for months, Georgia’s delivery was fantastic. With her bouncy hair and accent she came off a bit like a young Laura Linney. When Claudia eventually faded the lights I had completely forgotten that the theatre was empty.

  Afterward I found the pair of them hugging and beaming backstage. The bubble I had seen around Taylor and Lizzy with their music now surrounded Georgia and Claudia too. It struck me then that theatre existed for the moment even more so than music. Sure there was writing and rehearsing, and sets and costumes, but in the end it was an hour or two on a stage somewhere, before it disappeared into oblivion. Even for prolific actors or directors, these hours were tiny blips in a lifetime of hustle. For Georgia and Claudia I think that rehearsal had been like waking from a long and fitful slumber.

  I congratulated and complimented them both, then drifted away to let them debrief and bask in the moment.

  It was quiet and still amid the concrete of the props warehouse. I packed a bag ready for the morning, then lay awake thinking about home. The tiny dot on the ground that I had searched for all those years ago. It was all we had then. And it was all I had now. I realised that I had to go back there after the others had gone. It wouldn’t be easy, but I felt like I was ready to deal with whatever it threw up. And I finally felt like I would be ready to write then too. Not for status or acceptance, or to buy my way home. But because it felt like something I could do.