Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 6, Issue 6

by Frank Moorhouse

  The night is a balm for listlessness, restless thoughts; craving. The man in the shadows. A gun for hire. No more than that. He clouds her dreams like blood in water. She’s the siren at the side of the ship. Though sometimes she dances, with herself, as she moves around her apartment, till she sweats, indulges the smoking gun. No more than that. She can’t discern his features; it’s better that way. Radio’s grain seeping through the colour of the night. In her bedroom, watching herself in the mirror, the conjured figure behind her, taking in her face, her hair, her clothes. Each article a kindling. Stoking him.

  X marks the spot.

  The beauty of growing older, by the cover of the night, she knows to take charge, knows her own methods of reaction, the way to slip the world so lightly off the shoulders, like the straps of her dress. A delicate unfurling of a soft skin, like diving beneath the waves. Deep sea diving. She’s off the street; the pressure to tame the flesh, starve it, deceased. The music, like sunlight, glinting off the face of the ocean.

  Cracked hearts a wet, dreary day; to care is raw skin licked clean of defence. Tonight she’ll start a fire and leave the light on.

  Because the Night

  When I knew for certain I wouldn’t see you again I spent every night for weeks in my room in the dark listening to that song. The one I’d heard in the supermarket, taking it as a sign that our lives sparkled a bit above the banal. We were like no one else. I’d let the tune bleed into my days. Speaking of desire as a place, enveloped in night, where no one could touch us, because we were always brightest when together in isolation. No discord, no one else to catch your eye, no small-town jam of thoughts to overcrowd my mind. I’d fall so deep for that you when we were apart, and slyly try to coax him out when you were with me in the flesh.

  Every night in the dark with that song. The way music demands to be heard, eyes closed, body melting away into black and whatever’s left vibrating, humming, taken by the sound, effortlessly. I took up residence inside that song.

  When the music stopped it was like my mind had been taken off pause, picking up exactly where it had left off. My anger at you being able to see what I couldn’t, still learning that some things, clashes, discord, just can’t be fixed, they have no ending; they must be abandoned. Like art, like songs. We had spent the evening together. We lay on my bed, on top of my books, my nest of notes, pens, weighing down a disordered world. In red felt-tip pen I drew a heart on your hipbone.

  I drove you to the train station. You’d wound the window down as soon as you got in my car, as was your habit. Your body turned away from me, your head followed the vanishing sights for the whole drive. I sensed a farewell in your gestures. When I parked, you turned and kissed me, caught me off guard. ‘That’s for all those years,’ you said, winding up the window, and then you were gone.

  You hadn’t closed the window properly. The wind whistled as I drove, for a long time afterwards, and I just let it. I wondered about the heart, whether you scrubbed it off in the shower that same night, the next morning. Or if you forgot all about it, not missing a beat, and it faded away, slowly over time.

  Anatomy of a Springsteen song

  Escape, driving, racing, riding. Dreams.

  Red, blood. Love. Heart, desire.

  Night, dark, darkness. Fire. Soul.

  Hope. A small town. Water, flow.

  Push, move, overcome, rise…

  Illusion, secrets, mystery. Touch.

  Redemption. Dancing, movement, grind.

  Reincarnation, metamorphosis. Waiting. Stories...

  Singing Lessons

  Mine is an almost silent art: the dull, monotonous tapping of computer keys. You work on your moves as you invent invisible sonic worlds, watching yourself in the mirror. You make shapes with your calloused left, strum and pick with your right. Ducking and weaving. Then the story; your new planet is populated. Verse, chorus, verse. My fingertips, soft, struggle to keep up with my thoughts when the going is good. The places and the people in my stories are born from an alphabet stew; and if they’re strong, their stuffing will start to sing, mute. You become untouchable when you nail the song, the deity strumming aural honey. The grander the world I build with my words, the more invisible I become. You are in the air, I am on the page.

  >>>>interlude

  A little discovery—a pressed rose in your record collection, between the sleeves of ‘Tunnel of Love’. You couldn’t recall how it got there.

  <<<<

  Anticlimax

  ‘So what kind of music do you like?’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit of a Springsteen tragic.’

  ‘Ah, “The Boss”, he’s great isn’t he. “Born In The USA”, man, what an anthem, such patriotism. You really feel his love for his country with how he screams those lyrics out. Straight from the heart.’

  Got in a little hometown jam so they put a rifle in my hand

  Sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill...

  A long-stemmed rose sliding slowly down the barrel of his gun.

  The River, One Step Up, Tempo Rubato

  A Californian summer sojourn. I wonder who else has breathed this air, those that live lives bigger than mine, amplified by sound, magnified by screen. We drive and you take over the airwaves. You’re new at my side but there’s a sense of an ending right from the start. I keep my headphones on, creating my own soundtrack. I can hear the heat, taste the colours, blue, white, red, undulating through the air, coming in thick through the window. Tremolo.

  In the hotel, putting the bottle of champagne in the fridge, I find a bride and groom figurine on the bottom shelf. Displaced from atop a wedding cake, traces of white frosting in clumps on their plastic feet. I show you their badly painted faces. It’s symbolic, you say, sighing, the little details are irrelevant. I continue to study them, their moulded union. Dark suit, light gown. Chiaroscuro, an illusion of depth.

  The dread of an acappella heart waking up in an empty bed. The slow, heavy moments of remembering where you are—ah, yes, the romantic holiday with a new lover. Sex on every surface; heads thrown back in perpetual laughter; incandescent bodies, awash in the thick spill of intimacy. Convincing yourself you are truly awake while in the bathroom, the surfaces you touch are solid, you’re not peeing in the bed.

  Massaging liquid foundation into my skin, the smell reminds me of your breath when you’ve been drinking; sweet, syrupy—cloying. A smell I associate with first kisses, the taste of watery courage. I notice a tiny white paper heart on the tiled floor. A relic of a good time. I pick it up, press it onto my cheek.

  A sheer white cotton sundress. White cotton underwear (your favourite). Black sunglasses. A little android in a diaphanous frock. I see you through the glass sliding doors, sitting by the pool. I drift out, sit on the ledge, dangle my feet into the water. I watch the bruised red flowers jostle at the mouth of the drain, a fight to the death.

  You make no movement from the deckchair. A naked sculpted torso, arousing more caution than lust. No sound. I hear the steady lo-fi thrum of distant cars; the smell of bitter orange in the air. I can’t decide whether it’s from a tree or a pungent cleaning product. My legs drained of colour under the water, I move them in a slow cycle, making little waves. I see you growing tan in the sun, your bronzed revelry, custom built for the languor of the poolside holiday. I feel the itch, the need to keep moving.

  In one agile movement you’re up and you push me into the pool. Face down into the water, I flail around, trying to right myself as my dress grows heavy. Heaving my body out, we’re face to face, your eyes drifting from my feet up over my transparent clothes.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  You smile. ‘You had something on your cheek.’

  I move. Past you, through the room, stopping to collect the chilled champagne, out, taking the elevator to the lobby. A dripping wet girl in a see-through dress. My sunglasses still on, my brilliant disguise, I feel invincible, that nothing beyond the dark lenses is real. I hit the streets, barefoot, and I kee
p walking, through the smog-capped carnival of cars, concrete, bitumen, beautiful bodies draped in colour and afternoon light. I can be anyone I want, do what I like, and I think to drink. Intoxicated by all that isn’t me, I want to wipe it all out, smother it. My feet meet sand and I walk down the beach, to the water, pulled, to where it isn’t dry. I sit, watch the waves, sparkles on my tongue. My body secure, cupped in the damp sand; nothing can break this way. Tremolo, the sound of piano like chimes tinkling in the wind, glass ready to shatter.

  I watch the dusk come over the sky. My skin stained sunburnt pink; my dress, filthy, has taken in all the colours of the day. Other beachgoers have given me a wide berth; now a bearded man sits down nearby, heralded by sand-scuffing footsteps. Strumming his guitar, he softly serenades the new night.

  Now those memories come back to haunt me

  They haunt me like a curse

  Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true

  Or is it something worse?

  B.S. Anecdote #47

  You told me once that when you switch on your computer it sounds like the synthesiser at the beginning of ‘Streets of Philadelphia’.

  Springsteen Sighting

  On a toilet wall:

  For a good time Google ‘Bruce Springsteen Hot’.

  Genesis of a Springsteen Song

  Bruce said it was Elvis Presley, who started it all; put the key in the ignition, set him softly, slowly, aflame (raw sex).

  Doo-wop (silk stockings rustling on backseat upholstery).

  Then Roy Orbison (the sound of bras unsnapping across the USA).

  The one song he’s been singing his whole career: We Gotta Get Outta This Place The

  Animals (lies whispered into taboo-perfumed ears).

  And Bob Dylan (smeared lipstick).

  James Brown (untucked shirts).

  Woody Guthrie (running mascara).

  Soul music (tears on your pillow).

  A siren call, in the mix, shadowing him: behind the bleachers; in the dark of the YMCA canteen; on a walk home from a high school dance (secrets whispered in the still of the night).

  Springsteen Recurring Feverdream

  Being the girl picked out of the audience in the Dancing in the Dark video.

  TRACK #6 THUNDER ROAD

  There were ghosts in the eyes

  Of all the boys you sent away

  They haunt this dusty beach road

  In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

  He sits on her porch, one booted foot on the railing, letting the swing seat rock, letting his eyes traverse the world beyond, the empty road unfurling into the night. Hand crunching the car keys in his pocket. The musty perfume of the vase of wilted yellow roses, next to the radio; Roy Orbison crooning to the lonely. If he were tuned in at home, the words would cut deeper; here they are softened by her movements inside the house. Her face, her body, beautiful to him only. A secret just for him. The magic of the night thick on their skins as she paces, oscillates; the screen door slams, her grand return, lemon dress floating, following her body faithfully; the tease of a glimpsed silhouette of leg. His proposition needling her demeanour. He reaches for her hand and she halts; their eyes meet.

  If he can hold the image in his mind, overblown sensations replete, maybe he can transmit the frequency, make her see it as big and bright in her own mind. A transmission through the wires, the conduit of their touch. There’s electricity there. Spark to flame, light up the dirty hood, redemption quivering underneath. Windows rolled down, wind in her hair, the night burst open like smashed fruit, the wings of two wheels and two lanes. Undercover, Thunder Road, until the morning comes. One hand on the wheel, the other round her shoulders. The sound of a saxophone coming through the radio; an elegy built of steel sound.

  Heaven just past the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets, the screaming ghosts of the boys she sent away, the siren song of their engines, their hot milk pleas; leave them gasping in the ash of your graduation gown, under your covers. Her summer prayers, old-flame crucifixes, roses thrown in the rain; he didn’t look like this man, the saviour she sculpted, but he’s white knight enough with his talking guitar, his set of car keys. No ghost in his eyes, she can hear the blood in his veins, pulling out to win from the longest walk, from porch to front row seat. The smell of burning rubber, confetti of rose petals scattering in the wind.

  >>>>interlude ... An Echo of High School

  Sitting on the auditorium steps, gaggle of teenage girls. Gasping of their crushes: selfsame boys with selfsame faces. Awkward, narrow-shouldered, thin-limbed youth. The edginess of teenage boys, fidgety, always on fire. No smoke, no flame.

  I’m not their moth, nor their flame—how can I tell these girls, I have a secret crush; I dance with him in my bedroom in the dark; the sound of his voice. A real man, a real car, a real promise. A sweet escape. A pretty piece of information, a stowaway, carried as clandestine cargo of the heart.

  <<<<

  Haunting

  Perched on the edge of the bathtub, painting my toenails blue. Sunday midnight hush. Window facing the south—the distant highway. Fade in—the sound of an engine; a glimmer of Springsteen—fade out. A little miracle.

  BloodBrotherBobbyJean

  A lozenge of nostalgia.

  Sugar high headspins slouched down in cinema seats; Disney invasion on summer holidays. Swings in the park; feeding the ducks. Bicycle rides down to the gleaming creek, looking over my shoulder, your face striped through my hair, stuck to my lips, in my mouth. I used to think of the creek lying awake in bed at night; I bet it gleamed prettier by moonlight. I never saw it. You did, boasting that you snuck out of the house frequently, indulged in night swims. I was well conditioned to fear the dark. I learnt from the movies: boys had adventures, girls stuffed their bras and left dolly-pink kisses on bedroom mirrors. The small pains foreign to you—hair stuck to lip-gloss, knees pressed together when sitting. The imperative of pretty.

  The overgrown path down to the creek, the way out.

  Gradually, then all of a sudden, years pass, we don’t stay in the same places. I construct an elaborate life for you, etch in all the details of your confessed puerile plans. I wonder how you look now, how you treat your women, if you’re tender. What music you listen to, what you eat for breakfast. What you smell like. I’ve let you grow in my mind, fascinating, the boy with the initials B.S.

  Maybe somewhere down the road.

  Then there you are, without ceremony, filling a bag of oranges in a supermarket. Blue-collared yellow fluorescent shirt, steel cap boots. One of the glowing herd of men who use their bodies for work. You’re still here, still moving around the same town you grew up in. Our small lives lived in tandem: perhaps we’ve passed each other in our cars on the road, left a bar five minutes before the other entered. A long history of near misses. I ask if anyone has told you that you look like Bruce Springsteen. Who’s that? you say. You ask me out to dinner. So grownup; a lamb in wolf’s clothing.

  It’s an awkward reunion; we’ve both made an effort with our appearances; our speech is measured. A pair of loose ends. You’re a party on a school night. And I can’t tell if I’m really so attracted or whether I’m bored, my body hungry all summer and I’ve read your return as some kind of divine sign. Three months of no words, of aching procrastination. The lack of sublimation has segued into a new hunger. I’m ravenous. I tell you I write poetry. You blink and tell me about your work, your travel plans. You talk fast, and I’m exhausted trying to keep up; emboldened I lean over and kiss you. Back at your house we have nothing more to say so we undress.

  I’m a little dizzy and it could be from the wine, or from the aftershock, who I’ve become in a night. There’s a guitar in your room: a portent, fate’s nod of approval. I pick up your work shirt lying folded on a chair, slide it over my head; it reaches my knees. Lace up your steep-capped boots. Moving across your room feels like walking underwater. So this is what it feels like to be you.

  ‘Sometimes I don�
��t know if I can see the future, or if I make things happen. I conjured you,’ I tell him, watching for his reaction, wondering if we are on the same page, the same planet.

  He rubs his hand slowly across his stomach, eyes downcast. Never imagining the naked boy I saw as a child would one day be in front of me, looking like this.

  ‘I feel like I’m just an escape for you.’

  He tells me I don’t have to go. It doesn’t seem the same as asking me to stay.

  The same night, yet years later, a woman now, I drive past boys riding their skateboards through the dark, deserted streets. Maybe that’s the taste I wanted from your lips, hungry for that freedom, that looseness of flesh I’ll never know. A life I never lived.

  >>>>interlude

  Consoling a stricken friend:

  ‘You should listen to Springsteen—if you’ve felt it, he’s written a song about it.’

  <<<<

  TRACK #7 I’M ON FIRE

  I got a bad desire

  Oh, oh, oh, I’m on fire

  Love is a ring—the telephone. The siren call of the night. She finds herself in the kitchen, waiting; up in the hills, gazing out the window to the stars in the sky, reflected in reverse way down below in the dense city lights. A princess in an ivory tower. A full red moon painted so by the summer fires raging in the forests of the valleys across the landscape. The beguiling earthy musk scent of smoke, pluming into the sky; the tail of a phoenix. Far away enough to be thrilling, romantic. She can fan the flames from a safe distance, coy, tempting them. Masking her twin crave.