The Body in the Clouds (35 page)

The harbour's foreshore bustled around him, and he swung between the sense that he'd been gone an irreparably long time, and that he might have been here yesterday. It was good to be home at last. Walking around the city's streets, trying to remember its geography, he'd felt like an observer walking in an unfamiliar land, as though the space he knew best was playing tricks on him, keeping him at bay. But he'd taken care to keep out of the way of the bridge until this morning, trawled through his mind for all the corners and crests that might reveal it unexpectedly, and stayed away, his head down as an extra precaution. He'd imagined coming up the rise to find her sitting there—even earlier than him and filling in time herself.

But the little park was empty and he sat there, looking at the birds, the water, the headland out to the east, alone.

He thought about Kelly's flight, about the softness of Jacko's fur, about running into Joe here in the fading light of that long-ago evening, about all the stories in the backyard, and walking out to look for comets, for shooting stars. He thought about his smaller self, sitting here while his mother cried, thought back further to Joe's astronomer.

All the watching and waiting that had been done here.

A dog barked, and the round sound of a couple of boats' horns cut across the top of it. The watch in Ted's pocket lay heavily against his leg and he took it out and wound it automatically, shining its silver edges on the cuff of his shirt. Another quarter of an hour. He lit another smoke and walked back towards the wharves, his breath quickening as the ferry emptied and Joy didn't come.

‘Joe Brown?'

There was a man standing behind him, a smooth suit, a hat; he had a satchel of some kind in one hand and a little girl, pretty blue frock, held fast to the other.

‘I'm . . . I don't . . .'

‘You're Joe Brown? Your wife said you'd be here. Well, I'm sorry, we tried to get in touch. Mrs Brown, she's been fighting this terrible pneumonia— she's over in the Mater—and they've been passing little Grace around us neighbours. My name's Caldwell, three down; we moved in after you went away last time. Must have been just before Gracie was born—four years ago now? Coming on for five?'

‘I think there's . . .' Ted was peering at the man's face, the man's mouth, as he spoke, trying to make sense of the words—or trying to make them say something else. From the corner of his eye, he saw the sun catch the little girl's hair so that it shone gold, and as he looked down towards its brightness, she looked up, quickly, shyly, and she smiled.

‘This must all feel awfully strange, but the doctors . . . they say Mrs Brown . . . well, you wouldn't have met little Grace before, would you? But it's good to have you home, Mr Brown. And I'm sure it'll give Joy the boost she needs.' He touched the brim of his hat in a fake salute. ‘You're a man with some gift for living, Mr Brown. Your wife told us about your fall up there—' his hand vaguely raised towards the famous bridge ‘—and anyone who could get through years of flying for the Poms, well . . .' He nudged the little girl forward towards Ted. ‘She's a good girl, this one, and glad her daddy's home.' A too-hearty smile. ‘Get everything back to normal now.' And he tipped his hat again.

All the sound had been sucked out of the world—or out of Ted's head at least. He heard himself saying small things about the capabilities of doctors, about the prettiness of the little girl's smile; heard the man saying small things about getting to work and having them all over for a cuppa when Joy was better, was home. Then he saw the man walk away, saw the little girl's face looking up at him, saw a bird curl and dive again out over the water. It must be some trick, some surprise—the little girl was fussing with the ribbon in her hair. And what had Joy told this bloke, that Ted was Joe, that Joe was the man, the one man, who'd dived and survived? That Joe had spent his war flying, not just filling and fixing planes? That Joe had come home?

The morning sun disappeared behind a cloud, illuminating its edges: Ted could see a ship in its big white shape—wondered if the little girl might see it too. ‘So, Grace.' Grace. The little girl smiled, sat down, and he sat down next to her.

He could feel the watch ticking in his pocket, tapping at his flesh. Say something; say something. The man in the suit had reached the road—turned back and waved. Grace, polite, waved back, then turned and took Ted's hand. ‘Mum says you know how to fly,' she said, looking up, and he saw she had blue eyes, wide, clear, blue.

All right
, he thought. He pulled the watch out again, its flat silver back glinting in the sun—just on midday. ‘Would you like to walk across the bridge, Grace?' he asked, squeezing her hand and feeling it squeeze back, warm. He had no idea where his words were coming from, or what he might—or should—properly say next. ‘Walk over and see your mum? I could tell you a story while we went—tell you a story about making this bridge. What do you reckon? Want to hear it?'

She squeezed again, and smiled. ‘I've never walked up in the air there before. Mum always said we'd do it when you came home and you'd show me where you flew. But is it high? Will I be scared?'

‘Come on, then,' he said. ‘It's great being up in the air, on top of the world. Don't you want to see what happens?'

Dan

‘T
hey walked along Cumberland Street and up the stairs onto the bridge,' said Charlie. ‘Ted Parker made it look like he was tap-dancing up the stairs, and my mum showed off the way she could twirl so her dress flared out. He told me he wasn't really sure what he should do, just knew that he should get to the hospital and see Joy. So they started to walk and he told her about building the bridge—about men hanging on with their toes while they climbed up, about cooking sausages on a shovel for lunch, going to the loo in a paper bag and watching it sail through the air and just miss a ferry. He said he just wanted to make her laugh; said she had a laugh somewhere between Joy's and Joe's. Halfway across he started the story of flying off the bridge, and she knew it better than he did, correcting his details and telling him he'd somersaulted at the top; down for three seconds; into the water; and then surfaced again . . .'

‘And how bright the daylight seemed when he came up,' said Dan. ‘That's the bit I always loved. So much glare he had to squint to stop the rest of the city disappearing.' All the places he'd seen this happen—birds, sails, even figures could disappear on widely lit plains. Every time, he'd thought of Gramps. Every time, he'd thought it was magic: with enough light at the right angle, you could make a whole city disappear. Now, sitting in this first morning of being home, looking around at the harbour's edge, so clear, so familiar, it occurred to him that the opposite might also be true, that every so often the light would touch something the right way—a slightly brighter beam, a slightly different angle—and you'd not only get some unexpected glimpse of it, you'd feel like you were seeing it anew.

They sat there, eyes crinkled against the glare, imagining the little girl who was Charlie's mother, the man who would become her grandfather, dancing across the grass, on their way up to the bridge.

Ted Parker held the girl's hand tight. He'd always been slightly scared of children, but the look on her face, he thought,
half Joe, half Joy
, and shining with the moment: that she'd known her father was coming home. And that she'd known her father was the man who could fly. She was smiling, skipping, taking a look at him every so often as if she wanted to make sure he was real. He caught her eye in one of the smiles, and watched it expand into laughter.
Anything
, he thought in that instant,
I will do anything to keep you safe and smiling
.

He'd never felt so sure of a thing before.

Their feet followed the line of the bridge, began to take the ups and downs of the hills on the other side. Ted wondered if he'd remember the way to the hospital, but the streets unfolded in front of him like a marked map. He hated hospitals, hated their sharp smell—more since he'd sat through the end with Joe—but when he felt Grace pull back as they neared the building he knew somehow that it was his job to make this easier for her.
Light and easy
.

In the door, up the stairs. ‘Don't worry,' he said quietly. ‘Everything's fine—I'm here.' Saying it for himself as much as for her. He'd never held a child's hand before—there was such trust, such confidence in it. Like holding Joy's hand to the top of the bridge—and as he remembered this, they reached her bed. She looked diminished, sleeping under the taut white covers, and he began to sing, just gently, just quietly. ‘I'm sitting on top of the world, just dancing on air, just dancing on air.' Grace was in his arms, her head snuggled against his shoulder.
This is what I came home for
, he thought distinctly.
This is what I will do now
. He settled himself in a chair, settled himself to wait as the sunlight danced around the room's walls and the world and the day turned.

‘Sometimes, when I was away,' he whispered to Grace, ‘I thought I'd forgotten what your mother looked like.'

And the little girl smiled and said, ‘But she's beautiful, isn't she?' And Ted nodded.

‘Sometimes, when I was away,' he whispered, ‘I thought I was forgetting all my stories.'

‘I could tell you, if you do,' whispered Grace. ‘I know them all.'

Ted laughed. ‘I'm sure you do.'

Joy stirred a little, her eyes still closed. He'd never seen her sleep before, Ted realised, and now she was down so deep that for an instant—now— and now—he thought she might have stopped breathing and he had to lean closer, closer, to pick up any slight movement she might make. Was she dreaming? Did she know they were there? He held Grace and felt her breath against his hand: she was sleeping now too. He didn't dare move. Through the window, he could see the crest of the bridge's curve, and he sat, and waited, and wondered what might happen next.

It was afternoon when he woke, startled by a sound, a movement, so sudden that he thought for a moment he'd stepped from one dream into another. Grace fiddled with some pencils at his feet, and Joy's eyes were opening slowly, and looking a little, and closing again. He saw their blink, their gaze, before he was awake enough to remember where he was, what was happening.

‘Joe?' she said at last, and Ted felt himself shudder back into his own time and place.

‘I'm here,' he said, reaching out to smooth the sheet across her shoulders. ‘It's all right, I'm here.'

‘I knew you'd come,' she said, eyes closed again, smile soft. ‘I wrote to Ted to bring you home, and I knew he would.'

‘Ted would do anything for you, Joy,' said Ted. From the other beds came sounds and movements, but Ted was sure there were only three people in the room, possibly in the world—himself, Joy and Grace. He watched as the little girl crawled up onto the bed, snuggled herself in between her mother's arm and body.

‘She likes this,' said Joy, kissing her fast on the top of her head as Grace giggled and beamed.

‘Good,' said Ted. ‘I can do that.'

‘And she likes tomato on her toast in the mornings.'

Ted nodded.

‘And she likes stories, so you'll have no problem with—' The end of the sentence disappeared into a hacking cough that sounded as if it might turn her inside out. But she pushed away the water Ted held out. ‘Think it's too late for that,' she said, and he was sure, from the look, the smile she gave him, that she knew exactly who he was. ‘It's all right,' she said then, patting his hand. ‘I knew you'd come—you're the man who can fly.'

And Ted smiled, held her hand, and watched as she slid back into sleep.
All right
, he thought.
Well, all right. I'd better get Grace home
. And as they turned to leave, he leaned forward and kissed Joy's forehead—perhaps he'd always wanted to.

‘It will be lovely falling in love with you again,' he whispered. ‘She only lived a few weeks,' said Charlie now to Dan, ‘and then, said Gramps—said Ted Parker—who was going to take care of my mum after that? So he took her on, still answered to his own name but also answered to Joe's if people used it instead. He was pretty defensive about that, said that half the blokes who worked here had been working under two or three names, said that he'd been reading about soldiers who ended up having three names and four lives, said that even Mr Kelly had been Vic and Vince and Roy. Didn't seem like such a big thing, he said.

‘And he kept going back over the story of your dad walking into the west, making his name up as he went, on a letter here, a document there, and that was all there was to Kopek, he said, and none of us had ever minded.'

Ted Parker, buying a bunch of white roses in the supermarket, had turned to Charlie and said out of nowhere: ‘I did love your grandmother— she and Joe, they were my family too. And I did mean it when I said it'd be something to fall in love with her again. I thought I might have had that chance. But still, but still . . .' Handing over the money for the flowers, taking a gulp of the air around them and shaking his head at their want of perfume. ‘Your mother and I, we didn't do too badly together; she never knew, if that's what you're wondering, and it meant the world to me that she told me, before she got sick, what a good father I'd been.'

The main thing, her grandfather had said, was that it had never occurred to him that he wasn't Grace's dad, or Charlie's grandfather, and that they weren't a family. ‘And he did make a joke about it one day,' said Charlie. ‘Said he'd always wondered if I'd rather have been a jazz player than a cartoon character.'

‘Charlie Parker, Charlie Brown,' said Dan. ‘I suppose that would've been all right either way.' He squeezed her shoulder with a hug. They were walking back from the bridge, down towards the quay, the rows of wharves, and the pavement was thick with tourists.