Limestone Man (18 page)

Yes, Mina added, I had a den in the kidney beans. Could squeeze right in. Because it was the sand I loved. When it was still hot. Hot sand's the best feeling in the world.

You're right, laughed Parry. I used to cycle down to the gardens through the fairground. Watch Hal and the others outside The Cat, if it was a warm night. Just smoking, chewing the fat. With the last of the gamblers having a final try.

And, you know, I'd wish my father would go out for a drink. To break the mould. Give my mother a break. Like other men. Stop … hanging around. He could be a teensy bit tragic, could my dad. But he never tried it.

And then I'd move on to the allotment. Sometimes it would be gone midnight when I was watering. Couldn't see, but I knew the water was rolling like mercury over that hot sand.

Yeah, that water in lines of mercury. Silver in the dark. Just the sound of the crickets and the water on the bean leaves. Then the water on the rough old corn.

And I'd have this other den, said Mina. A den amongst those red flowers. Big red plumes, they were.

Amaranths.

Whatever.

Yes. Amaranths.
Immortal amaranths
. Ever read
Paradise Lost?
I never did. Beautiful they were. My mother won a prize, once, for amaranths. Boring vegetable, though. Bit like spinach.

And I had dens too, Parry added. Yeah, tried in the sweet corn. But those leaves were rougher than sunflowers. Like sandpaper. Brutal.

But I remember the hot evenings when the bats were out. And those great green crickets. Four inches long, those crickets were. You must have seen the crickets if you lived by the allotments. Famous for crickets, those gardens.

Can't remember, said Mina. But you seemed a happy family. With your dad on the road selling paper knickers.

Well, she added, we had to laugh. And God knows what else. Your dad once sold coffee to my mother, by the way. It was horrible. Packets and packets of the muck. Still got it, I think. And that special dried milk. Which was worse. But what about you? Why have you turned out so well?

Have I? smiled Parry.

No, love. Just joking. You're a fucking disaster. But hopelessness doesn't come into it. And it never did.

Then why…?

Are they killing themselves? Well, Professor, remember what you said. It's all a failure of imagination.

How?

Because they can't imagine what it means not to exist. To be extinct. Look, you said that. These kids think they're going to wake up from a hangover. But they're not. Death's not being drunk. Death ain't no dream.

My daughter used to have a Greenpeace sticker on her window, Mina smiled. Took ages to scrape it off.
Extinction is forever
, it said. And all of us have to learn that. Not easy. But we have to do it.

X

Look, said Parry. My dad…

What?

My dad never sold paper knickers. Admittedly, he tried. It was a possibility. But it didn't work out.

Your dad earned his crust. He made us laugh. And you're seeing him soon, aren't you? Season of good will and all?

Yeah. I have to. Have to.

Then Parry kissed Mina on the brow and poured her the dregs of the Paradise red.

To sleep, he toasted. Maybe tonight.

And maybe not, said Mina.

How are you?

Not great. Didn't sleep at all, last night, Or was it the night before. Nights tend to blend into one. I think I dozed about dawn. You know, I've regularly had this trouble. But maybe it's something else.

Parry looked at her. Yes? he asked.

Well what's happening to you? Soon?

Death?

No. Sooner.

Enfeeblement?
laughed Parry. What a great word that is.

Jesus, never heard it used before, said Mina. What about
decrepitude?
There's another beauty. No, something sooner. Happening to you. That you can't escape.

Don't know. But go on. Sicken me.

Mina finished her wine.

You're going to be sixty, lover. Sweet sixty.

Oh, so…

So this might be what's keeping me awake. Because…

Because you are too. You're sixty, Mina. But I knew that. Everybody knows that. Mina's going to hit the big six. Congratulations. When's it happening?

Two months. February 24.

Oh, another one soon. Fflint is too. He's sixty in March. And Gil coming up. They detest the idea. Say so on Facebook. Then there's…

Who?

Never mind.

No, who?

Dizzy. That's Lizzy. She would have been sixty on April 10th.

Yeah, well I'm another, the woman shrugged.

It's not so bad. Can it be that terrible? You're not seventy.

Sixty's old.

And you never thought at twenty it could happen to you?

Sort of.

Then don't worry. You look great. No, I'm serious…

Mina raised her eyes. Forget how I fucking look. Christ, men… No, it's, it's …
Alys
. Listen, I just know she's going to ignore it. The whole event. So the next two months is a kind of counting down…

Will she remember, you mean? said Parry. Will she care?

Yes. And here I am. Ticking off the days till Basement Booze shuts up shop. Ticking off the days till my birthday, the days till the next quarter for the rent is due. And sometimes I wonder, what kind of life is this?

Parry looked around. What about Alys' father?

That's the problem. Alys sees more of him these days. I know she stays over there sometimes. Look, she's met his new partner. And she's younger, she's…

It's up to Alys, said Parry firmly. To do the decent thing.

But how would you know that?

How would I know when I've never had children, you mean? Look, anyone would think that. Anyone. Kids or not. Alys has to do what she has to do. Like the rest of us. Simple as that.

XI

Parry stood on the corner of Nuestra Senhora del Carmen Street. He thought the cold was in his veins. In his marrow. In his pocket the tips of his fingers felt dead. The air was as cloudy as the seabed.

A cat crossed the road in front of him. A black cat with fog in its mouth.

He looked closer. No, a white bird. A white bird still alive. The cat ran into a gwli.

XII

He rubbed the mist on his brow. Then tried to shrug the black frost from his shoulders. He'd been talking to Mina in Basement Booze, but was now back at
Badfinger.

He looked around.

He had unpacked the photo of The Easybeats, but knew he couldn't use it. Too obscure. Not even the singer, Stevie Wright, could expect to be famous now.

But, so what? he asked himself. Maybe he was tired. Repeating himself. Maybe
Hey Bulldog
had been a success because no one recognised the bands, no matter who it was Parry decided deserved attention.

It wasn't the scene itself. No, the idea of that scene. That's what Parry needed to sell.

Yes, market
Badfinger
in the right ways, and people would start to call in. As surely some already had. And maybe Glan and Serene could help it become what was needed.

The rent required was affordable. At least for the next coming year. Parry had signed a year's contract on the lease of the shop and was told he was lucky to get that.

Originally, the tenancy had to last five years. He knew the owners didn't want short
-
term usage. But he imagined any client was better than none.

Because The Caib now seemed inert. Both Caib and Cato streets were full of empty premises. It seemed unlikely the fairground could reopen.

In the fog it was impossible to imagine crowds on the sand. Or the fragments of funfair music that had once blown across town.

Parry always remembered Jean Michel Jarre's
Oxygene
as a segment of that soundtrack. Its first five notes were seared into his history.

Hard to think, Parry thought, that The Ziggurat might reopen. Even when he was a child it used to rattle like scrap iron. Perhaps there was more hope for The Kingdom of Evil.

But Parry knew he should never write off The Caib. The fair had flourished since the war. Its absence come next summer would be unthinkable.

Despite the weather, there were still drinkers at The Cat. Today he knew there would be smokers outside the pub, hunched against the saline dew, sharing rollies. Their silhouettes would be grey within the pollen of the fret.

Yes, their sandy footprints should still be numerous enough. The Salamander and The Ritzy had closed, people said.
Pozzo's
was surely on the way out. But it didn't take much to reopen a club. The Caib still lived.

Come February, the Irish and the travellers who had haunted the town would make their reappearance. The Poles and Lithuanians had vanished, but there would always be replacements. Yes, carpenters and mechanics, painters and decorators.

What was that boy's name? Parry asked himself. Yes,
Wat
. And Parry smiled as the theme of
Oxygene
played once again in his mind.

Used to sleep under the rides, didn't he? Real dark gippo. Dangerous and beautiful Wat. Girls used to love him. He'd coax anyone to buy him chips with gravy. And when things were really tight, Wat lived on
White Lightning
and garlic bread scrounged from bins in The Backs.

Because where else was there for people like that? Where other than The Caib? They had nowhere to go. Did they make the fairground. Or did the fair create the people?

And where else for Glan and Serene? The couple had started to help in
Badfinger
. That routine would begin again after the holiday.

It was important to make them earn their keep. Parry had noted Glan's broken shoes, Serene's lack of a decent coat. Which was strange when he considered the charity shops in the town. The weekly carboot sales.

Maybe secondhand clothes were too much of a giveaway. But the pair needed to look better than they did. Flashier, more outrageous. With no money spent. Yes, shabby chic, they used to call it. The pair somehow lacked essential style.

But Parry could change that. Glan's hair was now mauve. When he'd first arrived in town, it had been a different purple. Yes, the kid had pretensions. Glan and Serene must be part of
Badfinger
.

At the end, in Goolwa, Lulu had dressed to impress. She made her own poverty a fashion statement. Parry bought the girl presents from the market: plastic beads, ridiculous polka dot dresses.

He asked her to walk and throw back her dark shoulders. To hold in the tiny jewelled plate of her belly. Anything, he said, to show you're still alive. That you're thinking about being alive.

That was how you talked to young women, Parry reasoned. They would always respond.

Once he had bargained for a tie
-
dyed top for Libby. Green and mauve, it was like the quartz colours he remembered from The Horns.

Yes, she had smiled. But just remember I'm a mother. Of sons. I'm not one of those schoolkids you like too much. And sons can be clever about things like that.

THIRTEEN

I

I could play, said Glan. Or sing.

I'd like to hear you play, said Parry. In fact, I'd love to hear you play. Or sing.

Yeah. Course I could play.

You can play, said Serene. I've heard you.

Just pick up the axe, said Parry. Try it now.

Axe? laughed Serene.

Yes, I could play.

Lots of times, said Serene. I've heard you.

Go on.

Later.

Why later?

Why not later?

Yeah, why not later? asked Serene.

Maybe I will.

And maybe you…

Give it a go, said Parry. Don't be like me.

Oh no, said Glan. Not like you.

No, never like you, echoed Serene.

Don't wait too long, is what I mean.

You're some kind of a writer, aren't you? asked Glan.

No. But I like the idea of writing. There's a difference. I was going to write a novel in Adelaide. Had everything worked out. I was also determined to be an artist. But teaching is hard graft. Believe me, it is. So all I mean is, take your opportunities.

Glan finished his wine and reached across Parry for the bottle.

What opportunity is this, then?

Badfinger
! said Parry. It's staring you in the face.