The Windy Season (26 page)

A sun that never comes up

THE GERMAN LEANT AGAINST THE CABIN
wall, his jumper pulled up around his chin, the breeze sweeping the smoke from his smiling mouth. The south in the wind had blown the sea a greenish-brown. Paul shivered at the gunwale, drenched t-shirt stuck to his abdomen. He hadn't seen Fred for four days. Her boat wasn't at the station or harbour. He puzzled over where she could have gone. The thought of Kasia lingered with him, too. When he brought his face to his shoulder to wipe the sea spray from his nose he could smell her, her perfume on his collar, and it didn't comfort him. Instead, it took to his mind like a toxin. His thoughts became necrotic, blackening, each thought feeding on the one before it.

Michael gaffed the floats and Paul took the line around the winch. He could feel the chill of the rope under his gloves, cold from the deep water current. It ran through his body. The
German emptied the pots and Paul rebaited them, pushing the traps back into the sea.

That morning the rope menaced his legs, uncoiling in strange, reaching arcs, twisting and snapping across the deck, angry with the immense weight at its end. At times Paul had to jump to avoid it. Every time he sent a pot into the water the German turned his whole body to watch on, take it all in, entertained by Paul's efforts to keep from being ripped overboard.

At mid-morning Jake turned the boat to sea. Paul picked at the feathered crust of a bread roll, tearing slivers of ham from its sides. The German emerged from the cabin with a coffee, tranquil. He had the unhurried tread of a holy man.

How many girls you reckon you've been with? Paul asked him.

Fucked? Michael clarified.

Paul shrugged.

Not enough. The German smiled, shaking his head. Never enough.

What number? Ten? Twenty?

No, no. Michael squinted. He scratched his beard. More. Have to be more than that.

Same for Kasia, I bet.

Good for her, Michael said.

Paul didn't meet the German's eyes but he could feel them. He put his face down into his roll and took a reluctant bite. Michael sipped his coffee and continued to the bow, kicking clumps of seaweed through the drain gaps as he went.

You are a ray of sunshine today, are you not? Michael said, turning towards Paul.

Get fucked.

The German made a sound, as though he was considering the words seriously. She is a beautiful one, Kasia, he said. You cannot keep that to yourself. You cannot have her history, her future. You do not own her.

Paul didn't look at him.

She must have had dick after her all the time, Michael said. He left a philosophical pause. Of course she has had some fun. It would be very sad if not. Like a bird not in the air. Terrible, sad thing for that not to happen.

You're a tosser.

Like a sun that never comes up, Michael continued. Sad thing.

With a grunt Paul threw his roll high into the air. The German stood straight-backed to watch it break up mid-air, tomato slices and cold meat scattering into the sea. He scratched at his chin again but didn't look back towards the cabin. Instead he returned to cleaning the deck.

On the next run, the deckhands didn't talk. The German whistled, mimicking the dissonant call of the winch, trying to follow its wavering melody. He whistled a more jaunty melody as he emptied the traps of lobster, and a happier one still as he watched the departing line stalk Paul's feet. Paul shuffled away from it. He kicked at the coil with his shin. Then the rope pinched the front of his boot, closing over the toe like a noose. Paul yelped and swore, lifting his leg high until the rope slipped away, buzzing and grunting over the gunwale as it ran into the sea. Paul kicked the wall hard, swearing again.

Lord of the dance, Michael said, nodding.

Paul glared at him, shaken and pale.

It is very pretty. The way you move, very pretty.

Before midday the wind swung, gusting in from the west.

His mind felt slippery, as if each track of thought was in a constant descent. The crash of a cray pot against the tipper became the blast of Roo Dog's rifle. And he saw
Deadman
in the shifting distance, in the shadow of every swell. Saw his brother's bloodless face in the gloom of the trench below them, read blame and fear in it.

And when he reached for an image of Kasia, something to soothe it all, the vision would plunge into a perverse, vivid spectacle that he was unsure if he could stop, unsure if he was even trying to. He imagined other men, their hands rough over her thighs, kisses blunt and thoughtless but somehow enough to please her. He saw their bodies smother her, faces stern with pleasure. Blank.

By the time they began the twenty-mile journey back to Stark, the sun low and wastefully beautiful over an ugly sea, he had pictured the German sliding his cock into her. He imagined Jake, too, the skipper masturbating feverishly over her cooperative, unclothed body. Each thought gathered heavy in Paul's veins, setting like concrete in his limbs. With every image came the very real feeling of weight in his gut. He imagined it might drive him through the boards of the deck, down into the hot atmosphere of the engine cavity and then straight through the hull, bolting towards the seabed.

And he longed for her, then. He had never wanted anything so much.

Stripped

WHEN
ARCADIA
REACHED THE INLET
Paul saw the messages on his phone. It was his mother. He let Jake and Michael head off without him. He watched them go, and when the car park was empty and he was alone, he called her.

Paul, she said. Where have you been? You are worrying your father. He keeps calling Ruth.

Yeah, sorry. It's just that we're out of range on the boat.

You've got to call us. You and your brother, you never talked to me. Why doesn't anyone talk in this family?

I hear you and Dad aren't talking.

You have no idea what it's like, she said.

Elliot is my family too, Mum. He's my brother.

There was silence on the line. Just answer your phone, she said finally. Talk to us. She paused.

What is it, Mum?

The police came. A detective. He said they had searched a house here in Perth. They found more cash. A few hundred thousand dollars.

What's that got to do with Elliot? Paul demanded.

They also found two loaded pistols, his mother continued, and a silencer. He came here and told me that, Paul.

Paul watched the shadows of the boats in the inlet, like a silent crowd, listening in.

They're certain there's a link, his mother continued. The police took some more things from his room.

What did they take?

I don't know. I haven't been back to the house. Not that your brother had much left in that room. They said they're trying to put together a picture or something.

They're not going to find anything, said Paul. What do they think he is? A junkie? A fucking mule?

Don't talk like that.

Elliot didn't know drug dealers, Paul said forcefully.

Maybe not, his mother said. But Tess did. I'll bet she knows what happened to him.

Paul took a big, shuddering breath. The thought of people in Elliot's room, strangers going through his things, took the air out of him. Elliot would hate anyone in there.

I almost wish they
would
find something, Paul heard his mother say. I'm so tired of guessing. She sighed.

They're not going to find anything, Paul said again.

From the farmhouse we drive south to the town of Notting. On the way the President talks a lot. He says that we are the same me and him. We both have lost everything. And he reckons that a
fella is smarter not being tied to things. He says life is like that sea near the farmhouse. That most people don't have the imagination for just how rough it can get. How deep and dark and full of nightmares, worse than any the mind can summon. And when it comes in and the water bloats you don't want to be anchored to anything or you will sink. Boats that are tied down will sink on their ropes, he says. The world is far too fucked to have ties to anything or anyone in it.

But him and me we are free he says. Set to do the best out of this business. Fellas with things they love don't do well. Love isn't a clean thing, he says. And I wonder if he is still talking about St Pietro in Vincoli and the boy on the school oval. Or whether he is talking about other people. Other places. And then I think that maybe it doesn't matter.

At Notting we stop on the thin dark road where the city fella and the girl with the debt lives, a small white cottage that is the only house for miles. Park on the verge in the cover of trees. We find a line of sight to the front door and windows.

This is where we'll find the city fella, the President says. The President says he will make a good start for me.

Like letting a glass fall from a counter

IN HIS BEDROOM THEY KISSED AND SHE
told him to let himself go. He imagined her kissing other men in that way. He tried to rid the image from his mind but couldn't. There was a weight to those thoughts that he struggled to resist. When they poured in they stayed there, setting hard around his brain like tar, gripping every thought, weighing down each sensation. When that heaviness got hold of him it almost felt like he was only a spectator, watching himself and Kasia from afar. He could see her touch on him, the tenderness in it, hear their murmured sounds of pleasure, but he was disconnected from the scene. It all seemed so temporary, fleeting, when set against the images of the men she had loved before and done those things with. Even at the moment she came, and when she dropped her head to his ear and gathered her breath enough to tell him she loved him, her affection seemed pointless. Even worse. It felt fraudulent.

You are nice, Kasia said, wedging herself up against him.

Why do you say that? he said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice. He had wondered briefly if she'd sensed what he was thinking.

You are gentle. Good to me.

Paul lay on his back and thought of another man lying on his back. He tried to discard the thought as much as he indulged in it. He had noticed he did that. As much as he hated to imagine Kasia with someone else, he was drawn to each terrible visual his mind conjured, almost mesmerised by the violence that took place inside of him when he thought those things, the terror and anger and sadness.