Limestone Man

by Robert Minhinnick

  Parry looked round and smiled.

  Hey, he asked, you ever drank in The Cat?

  Took Serene in there once, said Glan. On her birthday. Some old bloke bought her a sherry. And she’d never had sherry in her life.

  What you drinking? this old bloke says.

  Sherry, Serene says. And I swear it was the first word that came into her head. Surprised us both.

  Then a sherry for my friend here, said the old bloke. And I had one too. Why not, this old geezer’s buying. It tasted hot. Sweet and hot.

  Yes, home on The Caib, said Parry. And here’s me still sucking on its icy tit. Stone milk. Stone blood. And all around us, stone pollen. The Caib’s wild spoor.

  Welcome home, the salt is saying. Welcome home, the sand is saying.

  You know, eventually, there are some things you have to accept. Like where you come from. And you realise it will do. Yes, it will do. That you don’t need to apologise any more. That the truth is good enough.

  Parry paused. We used to come this way to the fair. Me and Sev. They call these lanes ‘The Backs’. Godawful place, it’s always been. The backs of beyond. You come out by The Ziggurat.

  Yeah, past the burned-out caravans, added Glan. Quickest way into the fair. If you’re not squeamish, that is. Around here is where they found two of the boys. Hanging. In these stone shelters.

  It’s a maze, always was, said Parry. That’s why it took months to find them.

  People knew the boys were here, says Glan. It was the obvious place. Only those people didn’t want to report it. Because what’s it matter when they were found? And they were dead, weren’t they? Dead, dead, dead.

  Parry smiled at his companion.

  Ever wondered why these deaths are happening? he asked. I have. Seems a peculiar way of making yourself famous.

  Maybe they didn’t mean to kill themselves.

  Maybe, said Parry.

  Could have been?

  What?

  A mistake?

  I’ll say, said Parry, considering. The biggest mistake possible. But read your history, it’s always happened. Years ago they found a girl buried in the sand. Dug her out of some type of tomb. She’d been burned. Sort of sacrificed. To the fire.

  That must have been three thousand years ago. There’s a report on it in the museum in Cato Street.

  That doesn’t mean she did it herself, said Glan. No young person really wants to die.

  Parry looked at the bedraggled boy, damp from the salt mist. The salt was quicksilver on Glan’s eyebrows. Every eyelash distinct. Around both men it was if a cloud had descended, heavy with unfallen rain.

  Parry kept his hand against the limestone, feeling its chill. Even at the height of summer this rock would be cold.

  In The Backs there was little direct light. Instead, there were endless passages here, some blocked by broken doors, old crates.

  Ivy had pushed into the crevices. Someone must have tried to clear it, years earlier. The rock was a network of white scars.

  In fact, there had always been attempts to deny access to this maze. If he was not mistaken, close by was an entrance to one of The Catriona’s cellars.

  Under Parry’s hands the bevels of quartz lay like ridges of frost. White capillaries ran through the stone.

  Like I said, it’s the weeping rock. Or that’s what we called it in the past. There’s probably a legend about it. This place is full of legends.

  Sand lay underfoot, a gauze of mist in the air. Parry realised that they were now below the fairground. Maybe directly above were the rooms where broken carriages from the Kingdom of Evil were stored. But it was difficult to be precise. Such were the complications of The Backs.

  Christ, it’s cold down here, said Parry. The damp gets right inside you.

  He licked the salt from his lips.

  Deep down inside. And to think this is the weather I wanted when the drought was on. Down under.

  I could picture myself, sipping the seamist. Yeah, I dreamed about this mist. A cocktail of seamist, barman! No, never satisfied, are we? But I’m missing that electric fire.

  Parry glanced round at the streaming walls.

  Hey, Glan, fancy a drink? We’re just feet from the back door of The Cat. At least I think we are. I’ll get Mina over.

  II

  They had to leave the passages by the way they’d entered.

  Parry first wondered whether the pub was open. But remembered The Cat never closed. Only the unfinished section was off limits.

  Fancy a sherry?

  Nah.

  Lager then? I see they’ve that new German stuff. Strong.

  Fair enough.

  Parry recognised one or two of the drinkers by sight. Davy Dumma, the treasure-hunter, was in. But he would speak to no one.

  In a far corner was a man some people called Cranc. Once he’d been arrested for cutting up jellyfish.

  The bodies and tentacles had been sliced on the sands. The police let him go with a warning. There had been debate about whether jellyfish feel pain.

  In summer, some of the jellies that washed on to The Horns and Caib Caves were enormous. Parry remembered them as molten glass. Creatures almost transparent, scarcely visible. On the sands they looked as if they had melted. Pools of vaseline. A strange afterbirth. That was why some of the girls didn’t like swimming after dark.

  Just imagine, he could recall Lizzy saying, reaching out and touching that. I’d die, I swear I’d die.

  What if it put its arms around you? And what’s it made of anyway? And what’s inside it?

  He remembered his carbon paper job in the sheds. There had been jellyfish on that beach also, gritty from the sinter-covered sands.

  What a summer that had been. The best summer of all. When everybody had a job. At least everybody who wanted one.

  Even Jack Parry had boasted of a miraculous period. Money coming in before the lay offs. Before the season of discontent. Jack Parry selling his coffee and his paperbacks and his typewriter courses. And making a tidy profit.

  Like father, like … thought Parry, taking in the room. Good old Jack, doing it his way. Dad, getting his own scene together.

  III

  Parry was surprised when Mina walked in, looking around.

  Hey, you’re awake, he greeted her.

  Mina ignored him.

  Been years, she confessed.

  We bet. Didn’t we? That you wouldn’t come.

  Glan didn’t speak.

  The woman shook out her umbrella but her red hair was still sparkling with salt.

  And it’s not raining, she complained. What weather. Mad isn’t it?

  More than mad, said Parry. It’s suicide weather.

  Christ, the woman said. Don’t you know you never use that word. You never, ever use that word.

  True though, laughed Parry.

  Well, I suppose you’re allowed as you’ve been away. You’ve sort of arrived in the middle of it. Just make sure you never say that word again.

  Very superstitious, aren’t you, said Parry. By the way, I always wondered about the line in that song, ‘The writing’s on the wall’. What’s it mean?

  Some things shouldn’t be written down, said Mina, out of the corner of her mouth.

  But you know what that boy had written? she continued. It was in biro on a strip of white cement. On the wall. In that disgusting room. The room where he was found.

  I think about him writing that. Then doing it. A kid all alone. In that room. Makes me cringe.

  Parry was going to ask what the boy had written. But a young woman appeared from behind the bar and inquired about their order.

  Mina looked around more carefully.

  Yes, ten years, I’d say. No danger. But yes, is my motto. Saying yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes. So white wine with soda, please. Large one. Enormous one. That’ll teach yah.

  Parry noted rime on the blonde hairs above Mina’s lip, cruel in the striplight. The weather had marked them all. Redheaded woman, ivory boy.<
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  Affects everyone, this weather, said Mina. Even him. And she gestured towards Cranc who had not bothered to remove his wet jacket.

  The man was staring into the fret. As if trying to detect something rubbing itself against the glass.

  You know what I remember? she asked. That bench. The bench with the pink sea-serpent frame. I’ll never forget that bench.

  After everything that’s been destroyed, I can’t believe it’s still here. Considering the price of scrap, I can’t.

  But last time I was down here, there it was. Yes, the iron sea serpent, we always called it. Painted pink. Or red. Like something that might have crawled out of the waves. Or something heading back that way.

  We played here too, said Parry. Pretending it was a monster.

  I’d have thought everything would have vanished down here, said Mina. But since plans for The Mall were shelved…

  Too bad, said Parry.

  Hey, Peter Lorre was in that film, wasn’t he, asked the woman.

  What film?

  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Talking about sea monsters made me think. It was on telly last week.

  But it’s one Sunday when I was ten or twelve, I remember best. My dad said, watch him, he’s good. Watch him. That’s Peter Lorre.

  So I spent the whole film watching my dad watching Peter Lorre. At the start, I didn’t understand what Dad meant. But I kept watching.

  By the end, it was obvious. Maybe Peter Lorre looked peculiar, with those insect eyes of his. Like a grasshopper. But mesmerised, that was Dad.

  Yeah, there’s an Al Stewart song mentions Peter Lorre, said Parry. Which reminds me. Let’s get some Al Stewart on offer in Badfinger. He used to sell OK in Oz. Well, no worse than any other British folkie in a woolly jumper. Let’s honour those who deserve honouring.

  And when we went to Disneyland in Paris, said Mina, what did we find? One of their rides was based on Twenty Thousand Leagues.

  Made me think about The Caib again. The sand blowing around the caravans in those little tornados. And a pink sea serpent used as a bench.

  They used to show films upstairs, said Parry. A club called the Black Lite. And there’d be acts down here, singers, bands, over in that corner. Where Cranc is.

  It’s dead now, said Glan.

  It’s quiet, said Parry. I’ll give you that.

  Feels dead to me, the boy said. The whole town.

  Then Badfinger’s the first sign of life, said Parry. Cheer up, people. If we could make it work in a one-horse town in Australia, in the middle of the worst drought for a century, we can do it here.

  When Serene walked in, looking nervous, Parry held his arms open.

  Like a family reunion, he shouted. My children!

  Saw her in the shop, practising, said Mina, giving Parry a knowing glance. I said, you look great, love. Everything’ll work out. So, relax.

  Listen, I said, we’re in The Cat. Don’t know why. Come along. Just keep your clothes on this time, lady.

  Glan was now distracted. Mina leaned close to Parry.

  And stop giving them money. They’ll have to cope on their own.

  It was just a few quid, said Parry.

  Happening a lot, isn’t it?

  They’ll be working for me soon. Real jobs.

  They have to be able to talk about the stock. Remember, everything on sale in Badfinger comes with a story. A unique history. It’s not just product, so they’re more than sales assistants. They have to learn. Like Lulu learned.

  But no sales experience, Mina said.

  They learn on the job. You know that.

  Get a grip on yourself, man. You’re besotted.

  Nonsense.

  But I don’t know with which one.

  Don’t talk mad. Everything’s under control, I promise you.

  Parry was now beaming at the room. Cranc had slipped away into the mist.

  Sherry? he asked Serene, who was wearing her violet blouse. Oh yes, we know all about you and sherry.

  SIXTEEN

  I

  At the top of Nuestra Senhora del Carmen Street a pale sun, a sun greyly glittering. A sun of deadwhite coral. Around that sun a smoky aurora.

  II

  Above The Chasm was a drift of pebbles. All were white or grey as gull feathers. Each was unmoveable.

  Round as owl eggs, thought Parry, pleased with himself, as he awoke from an Australian dream.

  Above his bed he could see the moon, fat and silver. But for Lulu’s catlike snores, Hey Bulldog was silent.

  Outside, a bat had touched the window, a creature black as charcoal, a ghost sketched even darker than the night. A silhouette in charred paper.

  The moon was so close it seemed all he needed to do was open his mouth to suck its pale pumice.

  Bitter as quartz, he whispered. Stone milk from a stone breast. Acid leaking from a wound. No man alive, no man alive will…

  I’m still dreaming, he realised.

  Still dreaming.

  Or maybe he was singing.

  Yes, here I am, he had murmured to no one. Child of the moon? Another song with Brian Jones, footling away. Poor Brian. Under his cap of silver wire. His aragonite hair. Sad and just as barren. As desperate.

  Parry had thought then of his music collection. He would have scrabbled for a CD, any CD that might take away the silence.

  He longed for a Kerala raga he had once heard, based on a drone, the endless syllable of ‘Om’. Music for the hour before dawn. When life seemed stunned. Yet all was possible.

  But there had been nothing to hand. He could hear his own breathing. The whisper of his breath. The whimper of it. Which was all he had ever owned.

  So Parry had lain in his moon-coloured sweat. Yes, a man woken in a strange country, he had thought then. On an alien continent. Even the birds are foreign for me in this place. It will always be the same.

  And the dread stole up on him. Colder than his perspiration. At that moment the night sounds were terrifying, the inexplicable night with the Murray passing out of the dead heart. Flowing past the room where he lay.

  Where a girl child moaned in her sleep, a bat-thing of a girl, a black spirit who had brushed against his window, begging to be allowed in. An urchin, a refugee, a wisp of burnt paper. Blown against the glass.

  What had he expected to find? he had asked himself then.

  Here?

  In such a place?

  Where the next country is an ice desert.

  Parry lay upon the silver sheet. He thought of a woman he had seen rescued from the sea. Maybe she was part of the dream. It was Sev who had pointed to the group of people. Yes, Sev who noticed the drama.

  The woman had been wrapped in aluminium foil to prevent hypothermia. She had glimmered like some medieval Madonna.

  The rescuing hands upon her were black, brutal. Colder than seawater, thought Parry then. As they bore the silver woman to her bier, carrying her along the beach. Silent in procession.

  But the dream was not about Sev or the woman. Parry’s dream had been full of fog. Yes, that was it. And he remembered the dream again. The dream with the moonlight upon him, the moon’s white sweat on his belly. That pouch of moonsilver had gilded his balls and sheathed his cock. Parry groaned beneath his silver erection.

  But yes, he had heard something. The sound of the fog. The call of the foghorn.

  Maybe he hadn’t heard the foghorn for years. Or had he? As a boy, how he had thrilled in his bed in the darkness, when the fog’s music had blown over The Caib.

  Yes, he thought. The foghorn was louder than the sirens at The Works. More unexpected than May’s fairground anthems, suddenly audible in the back garden.

  Because whenever the foghorn had sounded in Amazon Street or the Cato Street slipway, his life had become different.

  When the fog had come to brush itself against his own window, it had tasted of sand and salt. Acid and milk. And in the fog everything was changed.

  Parry shivered, thinking about the dream
. And he tried once again to remember it. Maybe in the dream the fog was made of white stones. White, hollow stones, light enough to float away.

  Yes, the fog was stones. Limestones, pale as gas from The Works. Stones bitter as the sulphur his father hated.

  Dad, Dad, he thought. Jack Parry rubbing against the grain. Jack getting it wrong, consistently wrong. His own father pissing into the wind. Dad who liked music that made his son cringe. Dad who chose unsuitable jobs. Jack Parry who planted potatoes upside down.

  But they still grow, he could hear his father’s voice once more, accusing Parry and his mother of ganging up on him.

  Up or down, those potatoes are fine. You stick them in the ground and rose end up or rose end down they grow. So relax.

  The fog was white stones. The fog was snow smeared with mercury.

  The foghorn was located in a lighthouse to the east of The Caib. It was a monstrous white instrument that Parry and Gil had once thought could be used on a recording.

  In fact, Gil had done something with a tape he had made. An impossible bass chord.

  A holy throb, Gil had called the sound. Religious, even. Last stop on a church organ but far deeper yet.

  Yes, stones, Parry thought. Those stones above The Chasm. Impossible to lift. Like snowballs children have rolled up huge. Yes, that’s fog. Or a pillow over the face.

  In the dream, wheels of thistledown floated past.

  Yes, hollow stones. Hollow in Parry’s head. No man alive will… No man alive…

  Someone had drowned. The woman had drowned. But they were keeping her warm. Upon a bed of thistledown.

  Parry lay in his silver bed. He raised his mouth to the moon’s breast.

  No man alive… he whispered again.

  No man…

  Then perhaps he slept.

  III

  Quietly the Arvo Part music came to an end. Ominous and eerie, it was a mistake. But it had been played so softly neither Glan nor Serene had commented. And Parry had been talking but not listening.

  Through the streetlight the fret hung in pearls. 3.09am. he noted. In the dark flat a nightlight like a red star cast a glow. Serene had taken it from the Christmas decorations in the shop.

  It warms your freezing room, she had insisted. This way, people on the street can see it. And you get the benefit. We all do.