Limestone Man (23 page)

Go into the dunes. The highest crest. Break open one of the grey stones on top. Then breathe it in. Yes, breathe in the stone. It'll smell, all right. A sulphur smell.

Some stones are full of ghosts. Because fossils are ghosts. And then look into that stone. That stone will be packed with corals. With minute creatures. From the seabed.

Yeah, stones are full of ghosts. Like echoes in the earth. Or that's what I think.

Parry stood on tiptoe and placed his tongue against the quartz. It could have been a glass nipple within his mouth.

And this stone tastes, too, he said.

Of what?

Salt, Parry said immediately, licking the white eye. A beadlet white as a dog's wall eye.

Yes, salt of course. But also wet sand. A dead seagull. That horrible cider they sell in The Cat. The outfall. It's however The Caib smells. Because it smells like home.

Great.

You know, I used to dream about that smell when I was over in Oz. Salt forever in the air. Because we're drenched in salt here. Overwhelmed by salt. There are currents of salt flowing through this place.

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.

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.