How it feels (38 page)

‘Did Tommy say
any
of the things you told me?'

I shook my head.

‘Did he say those things about Gordon?'

I shook it more.

‘Did he speak through Stuart at all?'

I paused, looking down at my purple, shaking hands.

‘I felt him there, I swear I did…'

She started crying; shaking her white and purple face at me. And then a wave pushed her down onto her front and her hands both split open on the barnacles, drawing out fast blood and one primal scream from deep down within the girl. I crept over to her, lifting off my hooded jumper and wrapping her hands in it, folding and rolling it over. Waves rolled past and through us. She lifted her face and stared at me.

‘Come away with me,' she said. ‘Let's run. Let's do everything we talked about when we were kids, let's just fuck off out of here and go, the two of us, seriously, let's go now, let's get the bus to anywhere!' She took my neck and gripped it hard. She would go too; I could feel it in the pulsing of her thumb.

‘No,' I said, ‘I can't do that to G .'

‘You can lie to
me
though,' she said, ‘about my
brother
.'

‘I can't take you away, we're not kids anymore.'

‘You are,' she said, ‘the same gutless child.'

‘Maybe,' I said, and she discarded my hand.

The night enclosed us, the seagulls squawked their discontent. Just let me die here on this beach and you can all eat me alive – Mum and Dad, the birds the teachers the waves the wedding party.

‘I can't be here with you anymore,' I said. ‘I have to go.'

‘You
should
go,' she said, facing the sea again. ‘After the wedding you should go away forever, and leave us all alone, don't call, don't write, and just disappear into thin air, please.'

I nodded at the holes in the rocks, then walked on up to Cronulla Street and took a cab to Bundeena. It would cost at least sixty bucks but I did not care about the money, I couldn't go back to Gordon's place, she was written all over me.

There was a wedding on and it was my duty to distract the bride. I walked back inside the surf club leaving Kirkwood to fix herself up. The walls were dressed with wooden plaques announcing the loyalty of club members, and framed black and white photographs of lifesavers lined up and reeling rope out to a buoy through their bare hands, chests puffed out, dressed in identical one-piece swimmers, a giant flag waving away in the wind beside – those halcyon days.

As I entered the hall heads turned towards me like clowns at the Easter Show and I wondered where my speech was, I could not feel it in my pocket anymore. Fuck, I'd just wing it: ‘They're a beautiful couple, really complement each other, fire and rain, joy to be around, health and happiness, babies and Rottweilers.'

With this in mind I angled towards the drinks table to see my best friend vodka but Courtney was upon me, her hand in my armpit, her face red and flustered, she was in a flap but still, always, delightful.

‘Gordon, I mean, Neil, where have you been?'

‘Hey?'

‘Where is Gordon? They're about to resume speeches and no one has seen him. He hasn't left, has he?'

I wished he had and I could take her away now.

‘He wouldn't do a runner would he? We're already married! What's there to be afraid of?'

‘Shhh, Courtney.'

‘There's only one more song to dance to then the speeches!'

I took her hands in my hands and moved my lips near her ear. ‘Well if there's only more song to dance to we better dance to it,' I said, and led her onto the floor without even waiting for her answer. I winked at the DJ who then pressed play on that Green Day song about having the time of your life, and our bodies were against each other, drifting clockwise to the melancholy riff. Her hair smelt like Wella Balsam and modesty as it flicked and feathered my nose and eyelashes. We were dancing now, and there was no one else in the room, it was true.

‘Where is he?' she asked me, so quiet but somehow more harsh.

‘He's not far,' I said, ‘he'll never be too far.'

I prayed this song would never end, though I feared it was less than three minutes.

‘And you?' she asked me, calmer now, her body dropping into mine for the purpose of this dance, this stalling waltz.

My eyes were closed and I was listening to her body move within this realm of ours; every shift in hand, every glance of breast on shoulder, every tilt of neck or spill of breath was mine and I would feel it all, as we both did on those glorious walks and wanders of our collapsed youth.

‘Me?' I asked her. ‘Where will I be?'

‘Will you be far?'

‘Last night on the beach you made it clear to me…'

‘I always want you near me,' she said. ‘That's what I hate about you.'

‘I always want you near me too; even in London I missed you.'

‘I missed you every day,' she said, and I believed her, though I could not see her face. I moved my hand up her back and circled her fine spine.

‘What is it?' I said. ‘What is this thing of ours?'

‘Gordon worries about us, you know? He worries I will run away with you one day. That I will just wander off – even with children I'll run to you.'

‘Can you see that?' I asked her, and in the perfect dark we spun.

‘I love Gordon,' she said to me, in earnest.

‘Why?'

‘Because he will never break my heart,' she said, and it landed like a seaplane on a millpond, it just slid on in and rested there as truth.

‘But is that love?' I said and there was no response, we just danced, spinning and prancing one step two step and back one two.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘After Tommy I don't know what anything is.'

‘Is Tommy with you now?' I asked her, and her breath faltered.

‘How dare you ask me that?'

‘Sorry,' I said.

‘He is but he isn't, I don't feel him so much anymore, I don't feel
anything
.'

‘But love? You said you feel love?'

‘I feel disconnected to everything; it's all away from me.'

‘Courtney, so do I. I feel completely disconnected from everything, I feel numb, nothing moves me, nothing reacts, nothing's there.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘I know you do. So do I.'

‘Then what are you doing here?' I gripped her to know.

‘Neil, don't,' she said, dipping her head.

‘Fuck, Courtney!' I said, too loud, and the end of the track was near enough. I pushed her out in front of me and with the light ravaging my eyes I pleaded with her to make one true thing of all of this, one true thing and now.

‘How?' I said. ‘How can you feel that way and be here now?'

‘I think,' she said, with a tear in one eye and a smile in the other, ‘I think because I
am
disconnected, I
can
love someone, and
properly
,' she said to me. ‘Because I can see them for who they are. We were
too
in love, you and I. Neil, it cannot work for any length of time. It's too much with you.'

‘I'm too much?'

‘For me, you are, yes, and I am ashamed to say it.'

‘So you choose this instead?' I gestured to her dress.

‘No,' she said, placing my hand on her stomach. ‘I choose this.'

There was a child beneath my hand, and that was why she spoke of it last night by the sea, her fear of ‘the kid' becoming like the rest of us failed fellows who were brought up on manicured lawns by idyllic beaches beneath the orb which draped us in golden sunlight – the blessed fellows who chose their own exit before it came to them, the lemming boys who wandered up the cliff and dropped away without a change of expression, blindly fading out in perfect unison, un-keen on what might come to bear on this land, in the mall, in the marriage, in the marketplace. She'd said she'd run away with me too, fucking fickle – you're fickle, you said, ‘Let's go away from here,' and I should have done – I saw this now so clearly, I should have taken her hand, her new foetus, her big green eyes, and shown them somewhere else, but I only ever jumped when there was no netting, and I only ever stayed when the parade was on down the road, all I did was wrong here, and that was why I had to go, like how she said last night, ‘away from here forever'.

I met her stunned and stunning face with mine and yes, I kissed her full on the mouth. There would be no speech, there would only be what was necessary, and in this world it was ‘hello' and ‘goodbye'. Her mouth opened up and I pressed into its wetness, my thumbs coasted over those cheekbones for the last time, and the disconnected were connected.

And then the sound of trampling feet emerged from the distance, mixed with the sound of old vinyl, scratchy and suggestive. I raised my head from the shelf of her lacy shoulder to see Gordon, dressed in a bright white Elvis outfit flickering with glitter and mad purple flares, skid out of the corridor and into the main hall. He wore a big black wig and his face was red with performance anxiety as he screeched to a halt a few metres before us and hit the first, ravaging line of the 1956 remake hit ‘Hound Dog'.

The bass and drums followed in as the night turned slow before me. Gordon, my best friend, my pathologically shy friend, who had a conniption every time the teacher asked him to come up to the board, who never even sang the anthem out loud in assembly, who would rather fork his eye out than make a speech – was performing ‘Hound Dog' in front of a two hundred strong crowd, and I couldn't help but feel it was for me, or against me. His voice was low and I guess it vaguely resembled the man, but still it was a struggle for me to watch him forcing out the rockabilly number with exaggerated choreography and iconic Presley affectations. It was gratuitous – for there was no need to be Elvis tonight, no need to impress her at all with this fat dead guy; you have won her already, my friend, with sheer perseverance and nobility, why the flamboyance? That's the way I tear things down, not you. And my heart sank further to my belly when halfway through the number he noticed the loaded, ripe expressions on my face and Courtney's, our hands still in each other's grasp, and the crowd that circled round us were not laughing, nor were they smiling, but staring open-mouthed at this repulsive controversy that took place when there was love in a triangle.

Gordon stopped and dropped his fake microphone before the guitar solo even took place. He gestured to the DJ to kill the track and there was silence in the room, but for the scraping of a couple of chairs on wood and a run of high coughs. Gordon's shoulders fell down in misery; he shook his head at the floor and I knew it well. Courtney dropped my hands and just stood there next to me, remembering her vows, and the dress she was wearing. He was smiling insanely at me but there was no surprise in his eyes. This was what he had expected. Then he cast his eyes over to Courtney, who whispered, ‘Gordy, we were just waiting for you,' but he wouldn't be having this, the King would not fall tonight, or any night, so he hopped up onto the podium and grabbed the authentic microphone, which screamed and squealed in his sweating hands.

‘Where do you think you're going?' he asked her and she stopped, turning round to face him. ‘Everyone take their seats, please, it's time for part two of the wedding speeches.'

Courtney didn't move.

‘Darling, take your seat. Now.'

She looked to me for direction but I looked away, crossing the floor to the drinks table which was crowded with people I knew, may know, didn't know, should have known or never knew I did know – but I would penetrate the forest of all, my need for vodka was beyond human understanding, I would eat their legs to get to it.

‘Unchained Melody' came on as Gordon ordered us to find our seats. Kirkwood was with her baby on table 12 by the window but I did not honour her with any brand of look or wave. Was it true I had nearly choked her to death?

‘Double vodka please,' I said to the pimply teenage girl behind the drinks table, my head between two women. One of them was Nina, and she turned to me.

‘Nelly,' she said. ‘Follow
me
.'

I took my drink from the girl and followed Nina into the corner with big reluctance in my steps. I could not take another berating, another moral judgment from the Bible-belted beach believers, and if she offered one I'd show my teeth.

‘It's not your fault,' she said to me, ‘don't go that way.'

And I was calm and I remembered her, she always looked betwee n things, like a Buddhist she saw the pain behind the anger behind the action.

‘What just happened?' I asked her, pulling on clear liquid as if for air.

‘You lost,' she said to me, her compassion turning to scorn. ‘Most of my girl's heart is made up of you, but you lost…'

‘What?' I asked. ‘How did I lose?'

‘Like all men, you show no courage when it counts. you can cry at the football but you cannot handle us.'

‘But Nina I'm no good for her – I'm a fucking wreck!'

‘And there you go again – you
want
to be a wreck. God has given you the choices and you have thrown them all to the floor because it makes you feel
fucked up
and important, but you're not, Neil, you're just like the rest of us, but weaker.'

I was too hurt to speak. Where had all this come from? I was wearing my groomsman's outfit, I had my best-man speech somewhere, I just wanted to do what was right then go home and drink myself to death, like Jack Kerouac did, except my mother would not be joining me, she didn't believe in the practising dark. I hunkered down into my chest and closed my eyes and immediately the whole world spun in the blackness – all I could make out were these sparkling red lights, which were trying to form a shape, a face – in my head. Whose face was this? Stuart, is that you shaping up in my mind's eye?