Later, I took
him down the coast. I picked him up after work, and he ducked into my car,
holding a pizza laden with artichokes. Every stop light turned yellow as we
tore out of the city in my tin can car and he sat beside me in the dark. He
pulled Coopers from a six-pack in the back, passing the full, cold bottles to
me as I drove and once we could smell the fields, and the highway was just a
road, he threw the bottles out the window.
‘What the hell
did you do that for?’ Briefly I was horrified.
‘What does it
matter in the country? In the city it’s litter and here - it just is. It’s just
sand. Sand baby, back to sand.‘ And it didn’t matter just then, I saw but
the care had left me, and I was driving the engine through the night, and there
was beer from the backseat, and I wouldn’t have held him to it.
We wrestled in
the kitchen, at the end of the counter, our bones hitting the shiny wooden
floor, and he said, ‘People always want to fight me’. And I did, I wanted it. I
hit, arm over arm, pushing myself but feeling no pain. My tongue flicked along
his row of teeth. Outside he bit and chewed his pizza, while I held my beer and
carefully rolled a cigarette, I was so careful then, and later we sat on the
edge of the verandah, suspended over the trees, my body folded into his, the
garden deep and dark beneath us.
I woke on the edge of the bed, with his arm thrown over my shoulder, and
his leg over mine. I shook him off and left him sleeping in the long room at
the end of the house. I went out the side door, and stopped to lie, just there,
outside the door, on the rough grass. It was early and still. I pulled up my
t-shirt and let the sun shine on my belly, and shut my eyes. The grass
scratched my back, and I threw one arm over my head, and slept. In a while I
got up and walked across the field to where my grandparent’s house had been.
The field ended on a narrow ribbon of unpaved road, and I walked up the hill,
above the sea, to the top, where it all became darker and the ground was
littered with pine needles and the wind blew through the heavy trees there, and
I could see the bay stretched out, the pier in the distance and the tide going
out. I stood there in the windiest place, between the pines, and felt it blow
all through me.
As I walked
back down a girl came out of one of the houses hanging off the cliff, and I
realised it was someone who had known me for a long time.
‘Maryanne!’
‘Alex, hi.’ We
were both blown about by the wind a little, her hair and mine in the air.
Her smile was
bright, genuine. ‘Wow, we are actually here at the same time. How long are you
up here for?’
‘Oh, just one
more night.’
‘You should
come over tonight.’
I hesitated, I
don’t know why, I knew her. I thought of his loose limbs left on the bed, and
our night together, surrounding me, crowding me, even when unconscious..
‘Aaahh, I’m
with someone...’ I gestured back down towards the house. She could assume
whatever she wanted.
‘So bring
him’.
I shook my end.
Her face was curious now against the blue of the sea. The road began to slope
down then, and my boots with it.
‘No’. But I was wrong to protect him from them.
Of course he
was no different, no more elevated. That day on the windy road above the sea, I
couldn’t see that, I saw him as indomitable and mine so I cut her off.
‘No Alex, I’ll
see you soon.’
I crossed back
over the field and stopped at a blackberry bush and picked until my hands were
full. I could see him outside the house, his white shirt undone,
flapping. He was looking for me.
For the first
time I saw a childish look of uncertainty play over his face. He had fallen
asleep with a full bed and woken with it empty. He smiled at my figure coming
up close to him now, his face creased with relief.
‘I was looking
for you, why did you leave?’
‘I went for a walk.’ And I passed
the berries, squashed now, into his hands.
