by Sean Rabin
He stood in Lucian’s bedroom doorway holding his novel against his chest. It’s finished, he said. The first draft at least. The body in the bed remained silent. Asleep. Its expression fixed. A chest barely rising with each intake of breath. Michael placed his manuscript on the reading chair so he could moisten a cloth and press it inside Lucian’s mouth. Previously the body had made an instinctual sucking response, but this time there was none. Today, thought Michael. Maybe tomorrow. All excitement at reaching the end of his book evaporated in a desire for things to be as they once were. Michael knocking on the front door at 1pm. Lucian stirring risotto while extolling the virtues of Christina Stead or John Hawkes. A night spent sitting on the couches, immersed in pot, conversation and music.
Michael searched the shelves of vinyl for Roland Kirk’s The Inflated Tear. Lucian had been right of course. What was the use of choosing music you were never going to hear? He turned up the volume so every detail would reach the bedroom at the front of the house, and by the time the first side was complete he was weeping. As side two began he returned down the hall and found Lucian awake. For an instant his heart filled with excitement at the prospect of sharing another moment together. But then he realised Lucian’s eyes were no longer blinking.
103.
Michael removed the towel from the bathroom mirror and saw Lucian staring back. The shock and surprise that should have accompanied such a moment however did not materialise. Instead fascination triumphed as Michael calmly examined the details of his transformation. He winked. Poked out his tongue. Turned sideways to inspect his new profile. Every feature he remembered from Lucian’s face appeared to be the same. He stepped back and took off his shirt. Found new freckles. A reconfiguration of chest hair. There were the scars from the knife wounds he had suffered in Italy. Michael opened his mouth. Two molars had disappeared from the back of his jaw. Had he swallowed them in his sleep? His neck seemed longer. His nose thinner. Michael unbuckled his belt. Just as he had thought. Circumcised. He leaned towards the mirror. Even the colour of his eyes had changed from brown to grey.
With a knapsack on his back Michael stood at Lucian’s bedside and decided it was only right to include the old dressing gown. He pulled the covers away, gently sat the body up, and threaded Lucian’s arms through the garment’s sleeves. The author seemed smaller, stiffer, as Michael laid him back down and shimmied the dressing gown behind his legs. He then wrapped Lucian tightly in a sheet and found him light enough to lift off the bed with just one arm. As the body settled on his shoulder it made a crackling sound like a cicada husk. He carried Lucian to the backyard and grabbed the rusted shovel from the side of the house. The morning was cold and clear, and still so new that sunlight was yet to make its way to the forest floor.
Five hours later Michael reached the clearing where he and Lucian had first taken mushrooms together. He was exhausted, damp with perspiration, and an ache was throbbing in his shoulder where Lucian had grown steadily heavier. The shrouded body lay on the ground, in the shade, as Michael drank water, munched a handful of nuts, then slept with his face in a splinter of midday sun. He woke after an hour and began his search for a place to dig. The centre of the clearing was not an option in case someone stumbled upon the site by accident. Nor did Michael wish to accidentally disturb the graves of the two other Lucians whom he suspected were decomposing somewhere in the same location. He wondered if the mushrooms he had eaten had grown on top of a grave that had been dug twenty years before. It certainly seemed like the type of thing that Lucian would do. So he searched for a comparable site – out of the sun, near a fallen tree, with earth that was moist and soft, yet free from any fungi growing nearby.
The sun was almost behind Mount Wellington by the time Michael carried Lucian to the edge of the hole. As delicately as possible he slid the body down into the six-foot grave. The white sheet looked stark against the black soil, and while Michael tried to catch his breath he searched for a prayer or sentiment to encapsulate all he felt. Except it was difficult to accept that Lucian was truly dead, as he had seen him earlier that day staring back in the bathroom mirror. The person he felt he was really burying was Michael. Along with all his fears. Lack of purpose. Guilt. The persistent sensation of never knowing who he was and where he stood within the world. He began to methodically shovel soil back into the hole, and after an hour all that remained was a short mound camouflaged with leaves and twigs and any other forest litter that had been close to hand.
With aching arms and legs Michael stumbled down a swiftly darkening mountainside. The sky was clear so the temperature plunged, chilling his face and lungs as he hurried towards the boundary of Wood Green. A rising moon outlined the trees and their branches and eventually the back of the house. Michael returned the shovel to its former position, kicked off his muddied boots, poured dried food into Sadie’s bowl, drank a glass of water, then dropped onto a couch in the sunroom. His clothes were filthy and he needed a bath, but first he wanted to sit and wait for his heart to stop pounding, and acclimatise to the recognition that what he had just done was conceal the evidence.
104.
Michael felt Sadie lick his face, and opened an eye to see that it was morning. Sounds of popping and unsticking then erupted into the room as he pried his muddy clothes off the black leather cushions. Eyes bleary, he shuffled into the bathroom to set a bath running, relieve his bladder, and discard every item of clothing. While the water ran Michael raided the refrigerator for milk and cheese and breathed heavily though his nose as he masticated great mouthfuls of food. When the bath was ready he selected Arthur Verocai, for no other reason than it was a reliable record for every mood. Though after he had lowered his body into the hot water he questioned how he knew such a thing. He had never heard Arthur Verocai before. With Sadie’s chin resting on the side of the tub, Michael lay still and listened to himself think. Was he losing his mind, or did his internal voice sound different? Breathier. Slower. And could he feel it reaching conclusions with greater speed and precision? As if skipping two or three steps in each deliberation? He also realised he was aware of more details in everything he saw. From the long whiskers extending from Sadie’s eyebrows, to the bathroom tiles turning a different shade of green under the glare of the ceiling light. Michael felt a rush of horror. He had not expected the transformation to penetrate that deep, and frantically tried to hold on to ideas about himself that he had always known. But like the bathwater he sat in, each characteristic slipped through his fingers, until eventually he could not even remember what type of information he was trying to retain.
After making a selection from Lucian’s wardrobe, Michael noticed his manuscript sitting on the reading chair; its cover page still awaiting a title. One would come he told himself as he gathered together the cups and plates in the room and carried them back into the kitchen. He then pulled off all the bedclothes, flipped the mattress, shook the pillows, and threw open the window to let in fresh air. He swept the floor, wiped the bedside table, put on Lucian’s wristwatch, and remade the bed with fresh sheets and blankets. Next he went through the office, put the old typewriter back in the closet, unplugged the lamp, gathered together the various papers scattered around the room, and haphazardly piled them into boxes that he then kicked into a corner. Anything he did not recognise as belonging to Lucian – satchel, suitcase, mobile phone, laptop – he carried to the garbage bin at the side of the house. He put on another album – Exuma – then set to work tidying the sunroom. A hearty stew was defrosting in the kitchen sink, and he found a small crystal vase for a bunch of wildflowers picked from the backyard. Michael hung out washing, put on a second load, cleaned the mud off the couch, then passed through the house looking for his next job to do. Sadie followed him into Lucian’s room, where he stood in front of the wall covered with photographs and identified the people within them. There was Tom Andrews in New York. Celia Porter from the weekend they had stolen together in Edinburgh. Raymond Cass from London. And Phillip Unsworth puffing out h
is chest on Kingston Beach. Remembering such old friends transported him through space and time, and only when he returned to the present did he finally notice the manuscript on Lucian’s desk. It was thinner than he had expected, but a clear-sighted novella of heartbreaking beauty was not a bad way to end a career. He sat down and began to read, except the words on the page appeared out of focus. Michael tried on Lucian’s reading glasses and his eyes grew wide with disbelief. He started to scan the pages; check for details; jump ahead; hold his breath. The story was almost exactly the same as his own novel, except Lucian’s version seemed to be more of an outline. Descriptions to raise the work into a piece of crafted writing had not been included. And there were connections in the story that appeared to have missed. Dramatic opportunities not fully exploited. Michael could see the point at which Lucian’s mind had begun to fragment, and wondered if it had occurred before his plane had landed in Tasmania, or some time after. For a moment he considered mining the pages for ideas or phrases that might improve his own version of the novel, yet with his next breath he decided against it. He opened the front door, lifted the lid to the wood box, and piled half a dozen logs into the crook of his arm. He waited for the fire in the sitting room to establish itself, then fed the pages of Lucian’s manuscript into the flames. Like the body, there could be no evidence. As he watched the papers burn he decided that the only thing he would take from Lucian’s version was its title. As a parting gift, and a way of saying thank you for everything he had been given. He returned to the bedroom, lifted his manuscript off the reading chair, and sat at Lucian’s desk to write The Hollow Tree on the cover page. Underneath he signed Lucian Clarke. At first it shocked him to see his hand automatically create the name in the unfamiliar cursive. But a voice inside his head reassured him that there was nothing unusual about it. It was all perfectly natural.
Lucian fanned the pages of his manuscript and basked in the delight of having completed another book. Tomorrow he would begin revising, then maybe reward himself with a good dinner in Hobart. He set about tidying his desk. Replaced the ribbon in his typewriter; replenished his stock of blank paper, and gathered together the notes he had scribbled during the process of composition. As was his custom, he poured them into a yellow envelope, sealed it shut, and threw it into a box of unrelated materials somewhere in the junk room. On his way back across the hall a knock sounded at the front door. A final flicker of fear passed through Lucian’s mind, but what was there to be scared of? He opened the door and saw Maureen standing on the verandah. Her hair tied loosely, and her cheeks bright with the effort of walking up the road from Wood Green.
It appears I can’t stay away, she said with a tentative smile.
Good, said Lucian as he reached for her hand. Because I don’t want you to any more.
Acknowledgements
Michelle Richardson, for generously sharing her house and enabling me to feel like Hobart is still my home. Also for her local knowledge, which was invaluable when I began writing this book.
Julie-Anne Ford, for expanding my knowledge of literature immeasurably, and knowing this would one day happen. Miss you.
John Tydeman, for persistent encouragement and calling me a writer from the very beginning.
Catherine Simpson, for asking (twice) to read my book, and actually reading it.
Alice Grundy and Ivor Indyk, for inviting Wood Green to be a part of Giramondo. I am more than proud to be in such company, and forever grateful for their intelligent, sensitive editing.
Jessica Craig, whose fierce loyalty is all I could want in an agent. Her role in getting Wood Green published has been pivotal, and I feel like the luckiest writer to have such a dignified agent in my corner. Endless thanks to you, and everyone at Pontas Agency.
Francesca Ford, who has read everything I have written and always believed and backed and offered advice and argued and spoken the truth whether I liked it or not. Epic is the only way to describe her help in getting me to this point. Rare and precious is such a wife.
An early version of Chapter 1, under the title ‘Landing’, was first published on Eyeshot.net, November 11, 2013.
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
