[10] 1/10 “And what about today?” asks Jo across this morning’s jam and toast. Stan smiles at her: “You never know. Later perhaps. An hour at most.” “Don’t you have work?” “One job. It’s small. Soon there’ll be nothing left at all.” Joanna frowns. “What will you do?” “I thought I’d sleep the morning through. At lunchtime there’s TV to watch....” Jo shakes her head and backs away, but not before she hears him say, “...This afternoon I’ll drink some scotch.” She tells herself it’s just a phase, but it’s been going on for days. [11] 2/10 Riding the emerald waves to Manly, working the good ship Collaroy, she can’t distract her thoughts from Stanley. Her father, as a handyboy, was (she’s been told) both proud and mulish, and, stubborn to the point of foolish, refused to work for other men. Not very much has changed since then. A small-time handyman out West, intransigently self-employed, he’s lately growing paranoid that his kind may have obsolesced— and Jo’s afraid that fortune might be labouring to prove him right. [12] 3/10 But Sunday on the harbour leaves no room for these mundane concerns. The Friendship sparkles as she weaves from shore to shore; the Fishburn churns the water into mist. When Charlotte cries, “Lady Herron is a harlot!” Supply is shocked, but Alexander is quite delighted with her candour. The clear spring sky, the sun, the flurries of spinnakers towards the sea, the Bridge and Opera House and Quay revive Joanna as she hurries from Watson’s Bay to Sydney Cove, a deckhand on the Golden Grove. [13] 4/10 She pulls the gangplank from the wharf
and, some time later, Stanley’s here. [32] 23/10 Next morning he explains: “I thought that if I’m going to be a loser— there’s no point arguing—I ought to spend some more time down the boozer. And if I’m going to do it right I should be down there every night.” Jo’s flabbergasted. “Dad, you can’t—” “You’re sounding like my sainted aunt. This is the perfect thing for me. I’ve met some great new mates. Time passes more speedily between the glasses. and every seventh drink is free!” He takes his hat and wallet, then walks out the door: it’s half-past ten. [33] 24/10 Jo doesn’t have to work today, but, disappointed and distracted, she rides the ferries anyway. The nervous shimmer of refracted sunlight reflects her state of mind. The other deckhands, long resigned to dealing with Joanna’s moods, indulge her silent interludes. They’ve seen her sigh and drift and moon, a melancholy figurehead draping the prow with thoughts unsaid, and know that she’ll be talking soon. They leave to wave and wind and water the worries of her father’s daughter. [34] 25/10 And, sure enough, the wheelhouse deck provides a confidant tonight. “O Captain—help me. I’m a wreck,” she says, proceeding to recite her wretchedness to Captain Steele, who creases brow and clutches wheel and says, “Despite all vitriol, the careful use of alcohol combined with nurture and support is not condemned by current thinking. How long since Stanley started drinking?” “Three or four days.” “That’s only short. He’ll be all right. There’s nothing to it. Just stick around and see him through it.”
[35] 26/10 The night before her late-shift start, Jo takes Stan drinking in the city. Emotion weighs upon her heart: not disapproval, much less pity, but some concern at Stanley’s thirst, his joy as he becomes immersed in alcohol. They both get drunk. Stan tells a joke about a monk ordering at a hotdog stand, laughing the whole way through. He’s happy. Their conversation’s fast and snappy. The evening goes just as she’d planned, but Jo’s alert, and counts her beers should happiness give way to tears. [36] 27/10 Tonight they’ve chosen Taylor Square, but Stan’s half pickled when they meet. “Jo, there you are. I thought we’d share some cocktails as a special treat. I worked this morning, so I’m flush.” “Dad, let’s go home.” “Why? What’s the rush?” “It’s all this drink—can we afford it?” “Why, this is no time for an audit! What do you want? I’ll have another!” Joanna’s resolution teeters between two lemon margaritas (“I used to drink these with your mother!”) and though her faith in Stan is stronger, she hopes that this won’t last much longer. [37] 28/10 Natasha spends her time observing the spectrum of relationships among the customers she’s serving: the couple welded at the lips, the models with the same fake tan, the blonde girl with the older man who drank expensive drinks till closing, the losers who end up proposing marriage to her. She likes these least because she has to get involved: she’s seen too much; she’s long resolved never to let herself be fleeced by letting anyone’s persuasion anywhere near her life’s equation. [38] 29/10 Instead, she watches from a distance,
bundle themselves in overcoats, whistle a few dejected notes and fortify themselves with scotch, thinking that it’s romantic here, but glad it’s only once a year. [101] 31/12 By noon, the harbour’s getting packed. Farm Cove is filled with tilting masts; from shore to shore, a cataract of colour flows. The warning blasts of signal flare anoint the dusk as drinkers drink and buskers busk. The first explosions fill the night with fiery blooms of coloured light, soon put to shame by each successive barrage of blue and rush of red. But Arthur doesn’t raise his head, finding the water more impressive: its blood, its green and purple dyes; it shifts and burns before his eyes. [102] 1/1 At twelve o’clock, the Bridge explodes and floods of fiery colour douse the faces crowding parks and roads. Natasha’s at the Opera House. She holds her crown and waves her sceptre, the decorations that have swept her into this dazzling New Year’s ball. The other guests are drunk, and maul her body with their clumsy grabs more seriously than before until she can’t take any more, propelling slaps and elbow-jabs at legislators, actors, dames— and even her reporter, James. [103] 2/1 She’s woken early in the morning; the telephone arrests her slumber. She staggers up and answers, yawning. “It’s James.” “How did you get my number?” “I called to give you some advice.” “I don’t want—” “Shut up. Just be nice. That’s all.” “Get lost.” “That’s not polite, and nor were you the other night. I made you everything you are, and I can easily undo you with one more story.” “I can sue you
the combination to a safe? More like the password to a danger, the number of a skilful stranger. He stares into the looming portal but can’t perceive what it portends: farewell to family and friends, or ticket to become immortal, stepping beyond the world he’s known? He reaches for the telephone. [120] 19/1 Tonight, the gardens are translated. Each simple stem or shock of shoots seems suddenly sophisticated, sprouting selected attributes at Arthur as he wanders past. How tall they grow, how long they last, what species they are, and what genus. The transits of the planet Venus could not have been observed more closely. But Arthur’s nervous and uncertain: he can’t see past the night’s dark curtain and so walks slowly and morosely, as tangled shadows lunge and loom and every nameplate spells his doom. [121] 20/1 The ranger meets him in the morning. Art’s bleary from a sleepless night and scratches at the stubble dawning across his cheeks. His throat is tight, catching the corners of his Latin; his eyes confuse and blur the pattern of veins and limbs he knows he knows. The ranger wrinkles up his nose: a garden smell, but Arthur panics, and blinding paranoia thwarts the struggle to control his thoughts. He stutters through the bare mechanics. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ve not been well.” The ranger nods: “No, I can tell.” [122] 21/1 “Forget about it. So you froze,” says Murray: “Happens all the time.” “That doesn’t help,” says Art. “Suppose it’s just the same on Monday. I’m so nervous that I can’t rehearse; I’m bound to make it ten times worse.” “You will, if that’s you’re attitude,”
hemming the city, and the gilding’s vanished from wrought-iron and dull bronze. This winter city’s cold and bleak, shrouded in more mist than mystique; facades come falling fast, and swans, caught in the year’s relentless flux, reveal themselves as ugly ducks. [148] 16/2 In this cold city, shoulders turn and everybody begs for change and office-workers stand and yearn through tinted high-rise windows. Strange, inconstant, schizophrenic town— content to let your children drown in loneliness, then celebrate the perfect love of mate for mate! Now chill winds buffet through the streets, and Stanley, hat in hand, explores a labyrinth of closing doors, a path that circles and repeats while Jo looks on, convinced they’re all beating their heads against a wall. [149] 17/2 Now Arthur’s head is also hurting as he endeavours to undo the ranger’s strange and disconcerting departure—or at least review the reasons for his change of heart. “You’re knowledgeable, keen, and smart,” the ranger says. “I’d love to hire you. But we’re the State, and we require you to have at least a bank account. We turn a blind eye to your staying, but if it looked like we were playing along with this—it’s tantamount to taking on a welfare role. It’s really out of our control.” [150] 18/2 The ranger now refers to taxes, the impact of the GST, theories of social prophylaxis and models of philanthropy. Art finds this talk at first frustrating then gradually infuriating, distracting from the bottom line, filling the air with asinine, ever more tenuous excuses.
“I tell you, it’s a bloody farce. It isn’t like I’ve asked for much, but never have I heard of such a bunch of pitiful excuses. It’s been three months. It’s just not on. If they’re not careful, I’ll be gone....” Natasha listen as he looses volley on volley of invective and feels his pain, and feels protective. [170] 9/3 Stan’s building up a head of steam and building to a mighty bender. Enlarging on Joanna’s theme, the only points on his agenda are recompense and retribution. She’s startled by his resolution and worried by his sudden rage. It’s always difficult to gauge the depth and tenure of his moods, especially those fuelled by drink, but Stan seems like he’s on the brink, and violent, clashing attitudes are thunderstorms across his brain, lashing a cracked and soaked terrain. [171] 10/3 After each shift he comes home reeling, straight from the pub, or with a bottle. Before, she cursed him for freewheeling: now, as he opens up the throttle, she sees him running off the rails. She watches through his gusts and gales, trying to somehow calm him down, seeing him sputter, spit and drown in alcohol and rising bile: “It’s fine. We’re fine. We’ve got it made. Look at how much you’re getting paid. The house was just a juvenile infatuation. It’s too old, run down....” But Stan won’t be consoled. [172] 11/3 “House or no house, I’m being shafted,” he says. “And that’s what I can’t stand. They said they had the contract drafted. I work hard, and they’re undermanned. They can’t just go and change their minds.” He takes a belt of whisky, grinds his teeth, and glares with reddened eyes.
[285] 2/7 She sees that Stanley’s convalescence is hampered by this painful issue. It’s flattening his effervescence and tearing at his very tissue and drowning him in discontent; it bends him as his back is bent. She thinks about him as she twists a rope around a bollard, fists feeling the heat beneath her gloves. She concentrates on her belaying as if it were a way of saying that she believes in Stanley, loves him foremost in her heart and mind with knots that stay and ties that bind. [286] 3/7 Across the city, Glenn unravels as if he were a silver thread. His conscience has been casting cavils around his unresponsive head, reverberating longer, louder, fighting to penetrate the chowder that passes for his addled brains. His swollen cerebrum contains surging electric storms, a torrent of signals darting right and left, a tapestry, a warp and weft, some welcome, some absurd, abhorrent, a costume for a masquerade caught on a nail, unwoven, frayed. [287] 4/7 He leaves her in the morning, vowing through wreaths of morning mist and guilt that there’s no chance of his allowing this to continue, that he’ll jilt her finally before the dusk. He’s sickened by the clinging musk that cloys his fingers and his nose. He’s sticky with her, feels her close around his body, feels imprisoned. He thinks he’s been entangled, fooled. If he’s not careful, he’ll be ruled until he’s old and grey and wizened with priests and mourners in attendance; he clamours for his independence. [288] 5/7 But by the afternoon he’s struggling.
a feather-footed, frenzied flight, carnival canons from a Moog, a symphony of coloured light. Now, suddenly, the party’s over, and samba, tango, bossa nova pause in a thunderous mid-step, and scaredy-cats no longer hep have lost their rhythm, and are tripping and crashing into broken piles, rocking and rolling in the aisles, and someone’s hands are redly dripping and horrified, and everyone wonders what he or she has done. [314] 31/7 Rebecca’s visit was a puncture in the dream-world that he’d created, the flimsy film that, till that juncture, had stretched its soapy hues and waited for its inevitable breach. It only took Rebecca’s reach, an introduction of the actual, to compromise his counterfactual and send it into scattered scraps, the rubber of a burst balloon, leaving him howling at the moon, cursing the heavens for his lapse, denouncing gods of every name, looking for someone else to blame. [315] 1/8 Pyrrha’s an obvious contender, ideal as far as scapegoats go. Her plan to resolutely render him powerless to answer no has been a runaway success. Though he’s the one who answered yes— he knows it, and he can’t deny it— she’ll cause him nothing but disquiet as long as he’s compelled to live with his regrets. She’s a reminder of days when he was dumber, blinder: until he’s able to forgive himself, he won’t forgive her either. He calls to say he needs a breather. [316] 2/8 He calls to see if Bec is calmer. She is. “You didn’t have to call. There’s no room here for melodrama,
“Not if it’s plainly self-destructive,” Jo argues, but to no avail. Stanley’s weighed anchor and set sail. [329] 15/8 She keeps an eye out on the water, amazed at just how far he’s getting: the city’s heart, and each aorta, each leaking vein in its bloodletting. The Hawkesbury, the Parramatta, the finish line of a regatta, Rushcutters, Rose and Double Bays where toddlers and romantics graze, Woolloomooloo and Garden Island and Neutral Bay and Kirribilli. His journey’s random, willy-nilly; she’ll spot him now and then, and smile, and watching his hobbled, doubled gait hope that he won’t be out too late. [330] 16/8 The working stiffs unfold their papers with swift and synchronised precision between apartments and skyscrapers, spreading before Jo in a vision of strange, identical broadsheets, as if they’d taken to the streets in polite protest, waving placards promoting Packers, Hewlett Packards, switching with almost perfect timing to hold up soap stars and stock sages. The choral whispering of pages, regular as the town hall’s chiming, can almost make her tap her feet along the ferries’ business beat. [331] 17/8 Freeway apartments hurtle by, providing interrupted views of lives lived low and hearts held high. As they flick on the evening news the same moon-faces peer at Glenn— the same austere and balding men, the same enunciating girls— connected like a string of pearls, bathing a thousand meals and cuddles with one blue light, one urgent tune, kaleidoscopic like the moon reflected in a thousand puddles. Great blocks of life on either side,
Waters recede; the floodplain dries, and new life springs and takes firm root. Bomb craters create verdant valleys. And even now, Natasha rallies, emerging tired but resolute: her muscles mend, her memories blur until they don’t belong to her. [348] 3/9 Her local’s naturally delighted to have her as its newest barmaid. She loves its darkness, never blighted by bland blond wood or lame and laméd halters and boob tubes for the staff. She wears her street clothes, and spends half the night in tangled anecdotes: “Of course, back then we had no boats; the Navy was a bunch of swimmers....” The ribbing and the ribald wits, the jukebox’s nostalgic hits, the dusty bulbs, the blackout dimmers, the counter meals, the drinkers’ hall of fame—the Landfall has it all. [349] 4/9 At first she’s shy, and simply smiles and pulls beer while her patrons ramble: “The butterfly’s the best: freestyle’s for wimps. I’ve always liked to gamble, but pokies?” She remains elusive, afraid that they’ll become intrusive, reveal what she’d prefer was hidden. But they’ve not heard of her bedridden adventures, nor her former fame, and everybody has a story from his or her long life more gory than hers—so ever since she came, she’s shuffling out of her shocked shell with battle-scars and tales to tell. [350] 5/9 Joanna’s staggered by the tale she’s being told. The man in rags, and Stan no better, saying they’ll be rich soon, better pack her bags, this bum’s some kind of panacea, so Ave Mary, Hail Maria, they’ve found the witness they’ve been seeking, and here he is, barefoot and reeking, searching the house for something edible.
As last hopes go, he’s fairly crude, and what if he were interviewed, or called to court? Would he be credible? She’s glad that Stanley’s home and cheerful, but doesn’t trust this earnest earful. [351] 6/9 “I scrub up well,” he volunteers. “I’ll shave, and borrow Stanley’s tie.” “We’ll say he lives here, has for years,” says Stanley. “It’ll never fly,” Jo says. “I’m sure you’re very nice, and I’d believe you in a trice, but even if you wore a tux, they’d think we’d paid you twenty bucks—” Arthur’s indignant. “That’s a scandal! I saw him fall. My vision’s fine, and that should be the bottom line, whether I’m vigneron or vandal.” She says, “I know that’s what you saw, but would you recognise him?” “Sure.” [352] 7/9 They take their convoy to the dockside and wait for Art to find his mark. It isn’t hard. He’s blond—peroxide— with tattoos like a blue Rorschach. He blisters underneath their grill. “Sure, everybody takes a spill now and again,” he says. “I lost some wind, and had to go defrost, but in five minutes I was sorted, and wharfies are a smart-arsed lot, and it’s embarrassing, and not the kind of thing you want reported. You came in after me, did you? Well, thanks, but no-one asked you to.” [353] 8/9 Like Bremen’s wandering musicians, Stanley’s expanding band proceeds with each one of its late additions to see the foreman. Norman needs to hear their stories only once: “All right,” he says. “The waterfront’s no place for perfidy or fraud. We want to have you back on board, we’ll find a job that you can do, give you a salary, a bonus; you’ve been a hero, and the onus
[360] 15/9 Norman’s come through, and Stan’s receiving the finest care the private system can offer. “There are forces weaving throughout our lives. We can’t resist ’em. One day you’re thinking life is sweet, the next you’re living on the street, the next you’re back. Some call it karma, the different acts in any drama, or is it luck?” Jo lets him babble, just happy that he’s getting better. She brings him eggs, buys him a sweater, and lets him win at travel Scrabble. “Tell me, is grandpa’s house still there?” “Dad, it’s not going anywhere.” [361] 16/9 On the last ferry, drunken members of some acoustic band or choir sing on the prow as neon embers cascade into the harbour’s fire. One plucks a periodic chord as passengers lean overboard and listen to the windswept ballad. The bright night leaves their voices pallid and tentative; the churning motors drown half of every phrase or word, but no-one’s singing to be heard, and silent and attentive boaters find that these soothing scraps suffice to carry them away. It’s nice. [362] 17/9 Now everything that daylight throws at Glenn can have no ill effect, and everything Natasha knows about herself and self-respect suddenly seems to have no bearing on anything. They’re both past caring. Looking beyond their daily slog, their evening is an epilogue that takes up where the story ends. She says, “I think we’re both survivors.” “I think so too.” “Like deep-sea divers....” “...Who’ve managed to avoid the bends.” A glass of scotch, and life preserved again, and no-one else gets served. [363] 18/9 They know that one night, maybe soon,
they’ll find that Glenn’s still there at closing. A starry night, or a full moon above the empty street, imposing its influence on tides and lovers. That night, they’ll slip beneath the covers of green-leafed Glebe or blue Balmain and find a full-stop for their pain reflected in the satellite, and take the future facing forward like battered clippers heading shoreward at long, long last. Until that night they’ll teach each other to forget. It’ll be soon, but not just yet. [364] 19/9 They stroll the waterfront to check that they’re still suited in the daylight. She thinks of James; he thinks of Bec, but ripples of reflected bay-light remind them of each other shortly, returning to a love as courtly as any. As they crest a hill they see umbrellas spinning still. Natasha says, “I thought that guy—” “Yeah. Maybe that’s a friend of his. I think I might know who it is.” In fact, he’s sure. He can’t say why, but this is what he understands as they walk onward, holding hands. [365] 20/9 The planet’s memory is short, especially here, where seasons pass as quickly as the speed of thought, and tragedy moves into farce or romance without intermission. The first state’s always been transition: from colony to would-be player it’s nothing but the thinnest layer above the rising, falling land, the reconfigured bays and rivers, the sleeping planet’s quakes and quivers, high and low tide marks in the sand, the cosmic pendulum that swings through summers, autumns, winters, springs. [366] 21/9 As equilibrium approaches, some things are lost and others found. An early summer sun encroaches