The Best Australian Stories 2014 (13 page)

Without a word, Luke returns to the ute. When she opens her eyes he is standing above her with an esky and two tumblers. ‘In times like these,' he announces, ‘there's nothing for it but Veuve Clicquot.' He prises open a carton of duty-free and twists the foil on the bottleneck. They clink glasses and she takes her first chilled sip, although it is hard not to gulp that lovely dry fragrance. It's eleven in the morning, and gale-force winds are threatening to consume the village; they don't even know if they still have a home, yet here they are quaffing champagne.

Now at last she is lulled. A grey shrike thrush lets out a shrill, insistent note and wind shadows slant across the ridges of the steep white dunes. And they lie, side by side without speaking, until late afternoon.

‘Maybe we should head back?' Luke whispers at last. ‘See what's left.'

She forces herself to her feet, picks up the esky and follows him towards the ute. What will they do, she wonders, if they discover their property laid waste, a blackened char? Will they start again? She imagines herself in their former life in Sydney, the glorious harbour of jacarandas scattering deep-blue metallic pools across the pavements; the squawk and antics of sulphur-crested cockatoos and at twilight the huge purposeful formations of bats massing from the Botanical Gardens. High-rise city of endless activity, women and lipstick and chatter and cigarette smoke and cafes in the shade of sycamores and bookshops and cinemas and the Opera House illuminated behind the Bridge. Erotic, exotic city. Could she go back?

As they approach their driveway, she shudders, fearful of what is to come. A sudden squall pelts the bitumen, a brief drumbeat of hail which turns to steady rain. Luke accelerates around the turning circle into the clearing, and there are the cabins unscathed. And off to the right in the far corner, the house still standing with a light left on in the bedroom upstairs. Luke opens the back door and she follows him into the kitchen. The phone rings and he picks it up, and even from a distance she recognises the voice of his brother. Ann died peacefully in her sleep at dawn.

She walks out onto the deck. She is so tired she can barely stand. The downpour has ceased and the peacock is displaying in a patch of sunlight. He stamps his feet, ruffles and lifts his train. He is unmarked, not one of those fanned feathers singed. Soon he will seek one of the indifferent hens and capture her beneath his jewelled lapis-lazuli cage.

What I Didn't Put in My Speech

Claire Aman

After my speech at Davey's wedding, I head for the drinks table in a way that could only be described as agricultural. Davey's backyard is steep. I've got my elbows out and my legs are like cranks. Heavy-duty, that's me these days. I think everyone liked the speech. They're smiling and clapping, anyway. Davey and his bride are perfect on the verandah, like on a wedding cake. Nothing could be finer.

Up at the drinks table it's help yourself. I pull a beer out of the bathtub ice. Davey's old friend Leo Addicoat takes the bottle from my fingers, twists off the top and hands it back to me. A pink hibiscus flops to and fro in his hatband as he moves his head. He looks like Leonard Cohen in that hat. I bet he's going bald. I haven't seen him for years. Davey and Leo used to share a house in the early eighties, when Davey first moved here to Sydney.

There's a woman next to him. She's fluttering a Chinese fan in tight little movements. He introduces me. ‘This is Davey's cousin, Judith,' he tells her. ‘Stunning speech, Judith,' she says to me, and her lips form a red smile. She tells me she didn't know Davey used to be reckless. ‘I never knew he had that terrible fall,' she says.

Other people are touching my shoulder now. ‘From Plumbago,' I tell them. ‘On the north coast.'

‘Is that anywhere near Byron?' someone asks. I suck on the bottle and the beer comes fizzing out in a rush, all over my dress.

‘Steady,' says Leo. He takes a handful of purple serviettes from the table and dabs at me.

‘Life's reckless,' I say. But the woman with the Chinese fan has forgotten me. She's turned to face the verandah. Now the bride's father is talking. It's starting to get dark and he's holding his speech up close to his face. He talks on and on about his daughter.

I decide to share a secret with Leo Addicoat.

‘I saved his life,' I whisper, looking straight ahead.

‘Who?' says Leo.

‘Me and Jim Morrison,' I say, but Leo has pushed his hands into the bathtub and is fishing around for bottles. He opens a dark ale and puts his cold fingertips on my neck. ‘Will you sing for us tonight, Jude?'

‘No way,' I tell him. Haven't sung for years.

I'm in a sweat from toiling up the garden so I wipe some ice over my cheeks. This dress is too tight around my armpits. There's a can of bourbon and Coke winking at me from the bathtub and I can't resist it. What the hell. My duties are done.

Because I don't know most of the guests, I've spent the afternoon standing around with Leo. Davey and his new bride certainly have a lot of friends. Davey's lived in Sydney for thirty years now. He hasn't been back to Plumbago since his dad, my uncle Frank, died. Because us Hartigans are chronically prone to death and feuds, it turned out that I was the one and only family member coming to the wedding. That's why I got to make the speech.

I thought Leo would have made the speech. He and Davey go back a long way. I used to catch the train down from Plumbago to Sydney and stay at their place. They rented an old house in Ashfield, in a street called Palace Street. It was all sofas and bongs and flagons and the stereo full blast. Or we'd get stoned and drive to Stanwell Park in Davey's Torana and listen to Pink Floyd or The Doors while we waited for the sun to come up. We liked our music. I knew how to belt out a song when I was young. And Leo thought he could play guitar.

Leo used to be a sweetheart. You could trust him. One night I got into his bed. He'd gone out with a girl and Davey thought he wouldn't come home. I pretended to be asleep when he came in. I remember how he lay down with his head at the other end of the bed. Top to tail like children.

Now I ask him if he remembers Davey's Torana.

He remembers. ‘Apache red. Globe mags, triple side-draft Stromberg carbies, extractors and a two-inch exhaust. God, that thing was a hottie. Davey used to tell everyone Torana was Aboriginal for flying.'

‘I'm the only person I know who learned to drive in a V8 Holden piranha,' I say. Leo's still got that cackling laugh.

‘We were off our heads back then,' he says. ‘Lucky no one got killed.'

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘Lucky.'

Back then Leo had been saving up to go to Europe. He was in Paris when Davey fell. By the time he came back three years later, everything had been put right. I haven't seen him since Palace Street. He was Davey's friend.

Yes, but there are things Leo doesn't know.

I tell him he looks like Leonard Cohen. He takes the hat off. Yep, he's got a bald patch. I knew it.

Then I ask him. ‘Remember the stereo in that car?'

‘I'll never forget that stereo,' says Leo. ‘Remember the graphic equaliser? All those knobs?'

It's cooling down. The weather has been unstable all day. We've had two squalls that sent us all running to the gazebos, followed by dazzling sunshine. ‘It's more like Melbourne than Sydney,' says Leo, and he goes to put his jacket on. When he misses the armhole and catches his arm, he gives me a comical, helpless look. He hasn't changed. I would have pretended it wasn't happening. I help him with the sleeve.

The lipstick one's wandered off. I ask him who she was. From Davey's work, he says. Nice, I say. He says yeah, no, sort of, and he scans the crowd. I think he could be lonely with his bald patch, so I haven't asked him if he has anyone.

‘I hope it works out for Davey this time,' I say. This is Davey's third wedding. He and Christine have stepped off the verandah into a sea of wedding guests. Everyone wants to hug them. Davey's so tall his head rises above everyone else's. Christine's white dress appears and disappears as the crowd tosses this way and that. I've hardly had a chance to talk to Davey all afternoon.

I only arrived last night. Davey paid for my ticket. I practised my speech to myself on the plane, looking out of the window. Down below was tufty with puckers and folds; gold, chocolate and watermelon green with twisty rivers. But as we neared Sydney it all disappeared and there was only cloud. We went bumping through the big white nothing towards the ground, and I thought the plane would shake itself apart and I would die by falling.

Later in the cab I remembered that when a person falls, they can appear – from above – like a leaf dropping. I've pictured it thousands of times. On a humid Sunday in 1983 I watched Davey fall backwards off a rock face in Sherwood National Park. He lay slow in the air with his arms and legs spread out, looking up at the sky. He did a sort of double-take when he landed, like a bounce. Then he lay frozen in the same position, arms and legs out, face up. Don't move, I yelled. I didn't mean for Davey not to move. The truth is I was yelling at the universe to stop. Like that poem at school about pulling the sun in. Turn out the stars, take everything down. Davey's gone.

‘Hope he gets it together this time,' I say to Leo, and we clink our drinks together.

Men fall. They think they're invincible. They get this mad gleam and next thing they're balancing on the very edge of a cliff, pissing themselves laughing. Then we have to look after them when they land on their heads. But even though I'm a female, I know what that crazy light feels like. I had it after Davey fell. The difference is, I used it to save his life.

This is what Leo Addicoat doesn't know: Davey wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for me.

Davey and Christine are dancing. It's meant to be romantic but the ground is so steep, and he's pumping her arm up and down and they're laughing. It's been a long afternoon and I've eaten too many smoked oysters. Times like this I feel like a cigarette but I can't see any smokers. Everyone's given up. A girl tugs her boyfriend to his feet for a dance, so we nab their chairs. He gives us a dirty look over her shoulder as they shamble past. I tip the last of my bourbon down my throat.

Leo sits with his knees together and his feet apart, toes turned in. He leans forwards and studies me.

‘You and Davey are getting more alike,' he says. ‘Except for your eyes.'

It's hard to know in a small family like ours. Davey's eyes are dark and abrupt. I don't know where he got them.

I wonder if I can trust Leo not to laugh at me. I test him out. ‘Did Davey ever tell you we had three great-uncles in Scotland who got killed on their way home from a wedding?'

I've seen a photo taken at the wedding: doomed and bright, they raise their glasses and grin.

‘No,' says Leo.

‘They drove off a bridge,' I say. ‘When we were kids.'

They drowned before I ever got to meet them, those old men with their plaid waistcoats and shining bald heads.

I tell him about my family's pig theory. ‘My grandmother said it was bad luck if you saw a pig on your way to a wedding. They must have seen a pig.'

I check if he's trying not to laugh, but he just leans on his elbow and rests his chin on his thumb, curling his forefinger around his nose.

‘Lucky you came by plane, Jude,' he says.

I never talk about it, but I changed after Davey fell. I became like the great-uncles with those superstitious grins splitting their faces. Ever since he fell I've been kind of in midair myself. Relationships blow up, jobs fall through, nothing holds.

I maintain my direction. ‘It was weird when Davey fell.'

‘Shock to the system,' he says. ‘How old would you have been then?'

‘Twenty-two. The rock ledge broke off.'

I sprinted all the way through the bush to the car park. I never knew I could run so fast. I thought Davey was dead. I had to show the rescue team where he was. The ambulance took him to Plumbago Hospital but the doctors took one look and flew him to Sydney.

‘Horrific,' says Leo. He looks into my eyes.

I tell him I still hate the sound of bellbirds. He hands me another bourbon.

‘It was weird when he was in hospital,' I say. ‘You're not supposed to be full of beans when your cousin's in a coma.'

‘What do you mean full of beans?' he says.

‘I don't know.' A girl offers us a platter of potato chips. We grab up big handfuls.

‘I drove Davey's Torana down to Sydney,' I say. ‘I couldn't leave it up at Sherwood, he would have murdered me. I got his car keys out of his backpack.'

‘Where did you stay?'

‘Palace Street, in your old room. My uncle and aunt stayed at the house too. They drove down from Plumbago. They sat in the kitchen crying. I didn't know what to do.'

‘I wish I'd been around to help,' he says.

‘I held out my stupid hand to stop him.' Couldn't catch him.

‘Nothing you could do,' says Leo.

‘Everything went out of balance. I lost my job but I didn't care. I just wanted him to wake up. I went to the hospital every night. My uncle and aunt spent every day there with him and I did the night shift. All the nurses knew me. I sat at the window; I didn't want him to think I was staring at him while he was in bed. All his tubes. Yeah, and I was worried about tripping over some piece of medical shit and the whole thing going defunct.'

‘Look at him now though,' says Leo. ‘You'd never know. He was lucky, no damage.'

I didn't put this in my speech, but I'm the reason Davey survived. Me and Jim Morrison. Every night while he was in the coma, I drove his Torana really fast to his favourite song.

Davey was on the seventh floor of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, in room five. The song ‘Roadhouse Blues' goes for four minutes and four seconds. The fastest I drove Davey's Torana was a hundred and eighty kilometres an hour. Someone had to do it.

I put it like this to Leo, and as I career through, I'm sleek and shiny and the wild uncle grin is spreading over my face. See, I got this idea that if I went fast enough, Davey would wake up. Every night when I left the hospital I'd get on the expressway in that red car of his. Do you remember how ‘Roadhouse Blues' starts?
Thunka-thunka-thunka-diggerdy, thunka-thunka-thunka-diggerdy,
then Morrison gives a shout. Remember? I'd get a bit of speed up, then I'd peg it back a couple of gears and plant my foot. That thing was a rocket. If this, then that. One night I did a hundred and fifty. Next day his toe twitched. I raced for him. He moved a finger. I kept it up. Faster every night. One time I switched the headlights off. Talk about sick joy. The next day Davey had a little smile. I did it every night until he woke up. The night he opened his eyes I stopped fanging his car. Gravity, velocity, stability. ‘Look at him now,' I say. ‘Jim Morrison's been dead for forty-two years. You work it out, Leo.'

The first star has come out. Everyone is dancing now, with Davey and Christine in the middle. Leo Addicoat puts his arms around me.

‘Don't ever say anything to Davey,' I tell him. Leo shakes his head. ‘Love ya, Judy Blue-Eyes,' he says. I smile up at him, and in a way that I, at any rate, would describe as poetry in motion, we dance.

Spineless Wonders