Limestone Man (11 page)

My mum…

Don't wear no jamrags, laughed Sev.

'Nother Durex.

Yip.

'Nother Durex.

Some fucker got lucky.

'Nother dead fish.

Yeah. 'Nother dogfish.

Seaweed?

Dead man's rope.

What's that there?

Sinker, said Sev. Line still attached. You see sinkers on The Horns. Look, spider crab. The French eat spider crabs.

Gives me the creeps, said Parry. They're like…

Massive fucking spiders, said Sev.

And what's that? asked Parry.

Some kind of fucking abortion come down the sewer, said Severin.

Both boys spat.

What's that, then?

Sun tan lotion.
Ambre Solaire.
What's written on that box?

It's a sea chest, said Parry. No, it's an icebox. Says ‘Fulton Street Fish Market'. Where's Fulton Street?

New York, said Sev. Seen one before. Currents, see.

Oh yeah?

Might take years, nodded Sev.

Tin of paint, said Parry.

Tributyl chloride. They paint hulls with that. Goes on silver. Seen my dad.

Got a boat, has he?

Loves it. Your dad?

Nah, said Parry. Not his thing, boats. Can't even swim, my dad. Hopeless, my dad. 'Nother fish.

Yeah, sunfish, said Sev. Little one, considering. They're rare. Looks deformed, that fucker. Like that thalidomide kid. Fucking mong of a fish.
Mola mola
they call them.

And what's that?

'Nother Durex.

No. That?

Oh yeah. Dunno. It's weird.

Jellyfish, said Sev. Big bastard.

Biggest I ever saw, said Parry.

Know another word for jellyfish? asked Severin.

Parry considered. No, he said, finally.

Sea cunt.

No.

S'true.

Ya lying jellyfish.

God's honour. Sea cunt.

Why?

You'll find out. Maybe. And maybe not.

Aerosol, said Parry.

That could be Japanese writing on it, said Sev.

'Nother fish.

Mullet, said Sev.

Sure, are you?

Yeah, sure. Ever seen a goat?

Course.

Mullets are like goats. Eat anything. Eat thorns, goats will. Eat stones, do goats.

What's that then? Pollution?

Mullet shit, said Sev. When there's a big shoal of mullet you get mullet shit. Stands to reason.

Durex. And another. Christ, there's hundreds.

From the outfall, said Sev.

How d'you know all this stuff? asked Parry.

How don't you know all this stuff?

Sev spat again into the water. It might have been the very moment that the tide remained constant. And then began to turn.

I was up The Tramlines last week, he said. Had a fire going. Good driftwood.

On your own?

Yeah. On my own. Maybe it was eight by then. And this bloke appears. Really quiet, he was. Wearing green, like a uniform.

One of those wardens?

Yeah. Careful, he says. Gotta be careful with fires, he says.

I know, I say. Why?

Beetles, he says. There's a rare species of beetle around here. It lives in the driftwood.

Oh, I said.

Yeah, he says. And that's the beetle's habitat you're burning.

Habitat? asked Parry.

Habitat, yeah. Straight after that, he was gone. Sloped off up the sand.

What you do?

What I did was chuck another log on the fucking fire. Burnt every fucking piece of driftwood around there.

Yeah?

Yeah. But beetles. What can you do?

V

Long ago, Parry had dreamed a plan. Yes, he would photograph each boulder. Show each rock as separate. Not a mass of stone, no, he would picture every boulder distinctly. Because The Gods of The Horns were unique.

He remembered his excitement. But for all the planning he had lavished on the idea, he had not taken the photographs.

What he recalled was the confusion of shapes at that cliff base. Yes, it was dangerous there, especially with the tide racing in, the spume flying. Each boulder possessed, it seemed to him, its own personality. Parry had always remembered that. And smiled to think of it, forty years later. The souls of stones, he said to himself. And such grotesque creations.

Yes, he should go back, take a camera and agonise over the shots. And, why not, display them in
Badfinger?
Local art? He owed it to himself. Show the features of the landscape here. The power of limestone…

Yes, something like bones, he thought now, those boulders. Impossible vertebrae, crudely hexagonal. Peculiar as people, The Gods of The Horns. Barnacled gods, veined with paler zigzag minerals. Inset with shells.

Because everywhere ran quartz in its seams. Quartz and calcite in mauve veins, in white capillaries. Yes, quartz, as white as milk. Quartz milk. Those were the stones he had once supposed might make his name.

VI

Perhaps Serene had been in the front room with him. But when he awoke, Parry was alone.

What a night. He had slept and dreamed, dreamed and slept. This happened frequently now. It wasn't that he felt tired. But he certainly yawned more often. Yeah, yawned, farted, belched.

But it was better since he'd stopped taking his tablets. And his body was changing naturally, he reckoned. Getting tired. Getting on. Remember, sport, I've never been this old before. The blessings of middle age.

But of course it was the fucking drugs, he next reasoned. I'm surprised I didn't rattle. All that muck I had to pour into myself. Twice a day. Somehow, it felt shameful. As if he should apologise. For being ill.

He had also been losing weight. This had become noticeable in Goolwa, and the loss had continued. Until Parry had decided to stop the medication.

Whatever you're taking, Mina had told him, I want some of it.

They seem to have found the right pills for me, he said. Takes time. At the start it's hit and miss.

Yes, he had shed a stone, maybe more. Say twenty pounds since the first trauma. This weight had fallen away without Parry trying to lose it. Not that he had ever been heavy. Also, his skin felt smoother.

Maybe the drugs can work, he murmured to no one. Putting endless tablets into yourself must mean something. But look at the possible side effects. Heart failure, kidney failure, epilepsy, impotence, death. No joke, they were all written down.

Nine months, it had been, he calculated. Without his tablets. Maybe a year. The weight loss had stopped. There was no other sign he was missing the drugs.

Parry found himself on the rug in front of his electric fire. His shins were raw. Yes, he had dreamed. He remembered waves booming at the mouths of caves. As if boulders were moving over the seabed.

He realised the sound was thunder and recalled the storms when the Australian drought had finally broken.

In this dream he had looked into the west and seen the first lightning. A vein bright as solder against a darkening sky. When the rain fell the first drops were hot. Then, immediately, he was drenched.

There was a pool near The Horns that locals called The Chasm. Edged with weed, its mouth was a green gouge. Parry knew some of the gang had explored it, but he had never dared.

He wasn't the best swimmer and the idea of The Chasm gave him claustrophobia. His friends said all he had to do was duck under the limestone lintel. Then he'd sense the pool widen.

It's wonderful, they teased. You can look up to the surface. The pool's a jagged green star. Like the entry point of a missile that exploded there.

But once was enough for Parry. The only time he had attempted to enter The Chasm, he had panicked and cut his brow on the overhang.

He felt his blood mix with the brine. Then seen its drops in the water. A dirty citrine, their dark infusion. He had lain with his head in Lizzy's crotch, as his friends attempted to staunch the flow.

But when he dreamed again he found he could descend effortlessly into the pool. Either he was smaller in this dream or somehow the entry was enlarged.

Above his head was the roof of water with its same spangled light. And there was Mina, sorting postcards. Glan too, with a glass of red wine, Glan with a bloodied head, Glan naked and white, a pulse beating in his neck as he and Parry danced over the pool's sandy floor.

Yes, the sand was red. And the water filled with creatures that Parry had glimpsed in the swollen Murray: snakes that could not flee the flood, parakeets that could. And there was Mina, calling Parry across the sand, to look at this bloody postcard.

Yes, Parry had told her. That tells the whole story. We have to send it quickly. Post the card before the last collection.

He knew his mother had looked for the postman in those days when he lived in Adelaide. Jack Parry had described his wife listening for the rattle of the letter box, the slither of letters across polished linoleum. In those days, not so long ago, the postman always arrived at the same time.

That postman had walked their part of The Caib for years. Parry himself knew the different walks by heart. He had been a volunteer postman when not serving shifts at The Works.

The toughest delivery started in George Street, then Mary Street, moved to Amazon Street, on to Nuestra Senhora del Carmen Street, and finished at the Gouger Street market. But how good of that postman to collect letters from The Chasm, where Parry now danced with Glan, his hands cupping the boy's hips.

Above their heads he noticed again the cave's entrance. Too narrow to permit their return to that other world. But why should they try to go back? Everything they needed was here in this water, with its slow, rusty seepage of blood.

VII

Hey, said Mina.

Hey, said Parry.

Who catches a falling knife?

They both seemed to be speaking underwater.

The woman's voice disturbed Parry. But, awaking in front of the fire, he found he was alone.

Who catches…?

Who…?

He remembered standing on the cliff, looking down on The Horns.

But that had been years ago.

He had been eighteen years of age.

A lifetime past.

Parry's wine glass stood before him, its violet grains of malbec dried by the fire. It might have been there years.

The room was dark. The only light came from the two
-
bar electric fire.

Hey, look at this, Mina had called.

Hey, look at this.

There might have been someone else in the room with Parry. Whoever it was had left only seconds previously. That someone had surely been whispering to him.

Yes, someone had kissed him. Someone had pushed their tongue into his ear.

Who catches…? he heard again.

Who catches…?

He could smell wet sand. Or the sea mist that hung in the streetlight outside
Badfinger
. Yes, he could smell the fret. Smell The Caib's lagoons. But something else. Something familiar.

Yes, I know how Amazon Street smells tonight, he told himself. And the gutters of The Ghetto. All the way to the Senhora Street garages. Where that boy was found after he'd hung for six months. Gnawed white. A rat's nest under his heart.

Parry inhaled. Maybe he smelled the mist in his own clothes. The black saturation of the night.

Some things could never make sense, he said to himself. His legs were hot, his shoulders cold.

A falling knife, he whispered to the empty room.

VIII

Whenever Parry recalled Lulu speaking, he knew her words were his words. Lulu spoke as Parry spoke. As did everyone he remembered. Libby, even his father, spoke as Parry did.

Quite the ventriloquist, aren't you? he accused himself. Such a clever bastard.

He heard Lulu's voice again and saw the girl in the green gloom of
Hey Bulldog
, blinking under the sunscreen. She was sorting postcards, hundreds of them, that Parry had once liberated in a job lot from Gouger Street market.

Might be something rare, he had promised.

She grimaced, but while she worked, Lulu talked about what made life worthwhile. One of the things was walking.

Don't laugh, she said. Walking builds your soul. Breath by breath. Everybody should know that.

She also mentioned the Pistol Star. Parry had to ask her what she meant.