Limestone Man (29 page)

Yes, I knew she was a smart girl. But there was never any hope of that. No hope at all.

And you know what happened to Lizzy, Dad. And even if she'd been fine, if it hadn't happened, people drift apart. It's natural, Dad.

Yes, all of us used to sleep out at The Horns. Or up at the Caves. Only no one ever got any sleep. We talked and kept talking. Drank a bit, too, I suppose. No, can't deny that, can I?

And remember that geography teacher who used to camp in the dunes? Lol, mad old Lol they called him, but that's kids for you. Lived in that villa,
Mattancheri,
on the front. The roof tiles are coming off now, it's a real state. But everyone still loves it.

Well, most summers Lol slept out in some hideaway hidden in the sand. Built a bivouac and lived off the land. Whinberries and blackberries and mushrooms. Dogfish if he could catch them. And samphire that the French call ‘babies' fingers'.

Yeah, lived off the dunes. Or by raiding bins on the caravan site, other people said. Interesting life, though I don't know how he'd have coped in all this fog. Probably fine because he always talked about ghosts. Because we're all like ghosts out here, Dad. It's weather for ghosts.

VII

So in Goolwa, me and this friend, we lay down. And counted the stars. Some silver, some yellow. And a few stars red. And we looked at the summer lightning, Dad, and I thought of those seams of quartz you find all over The Caib.

Purple, green and white, Dad. Make a great flag, those colours would, I've always thought. For when we announce the republic, Dad. The republic of The Caib. But skydust was what we called those stars. Yeah, our heads were full of skydust.

And we listened, Dad, because it was impossible not to listen. Impossible not to overhear the night unwrapping itself around us.

Just the two of us and that Australian night unwrapping itself like a huge birthday present. Moans and groans and murmurings, Dad. All manner of muttering. Even the grass was muttering, Dad. Even the reeds and the wind in the reeds.

There were sploshing and swimming sounds. And once an explosion of water as if something big had fallen in. Something as big as a man. I asked Lulu if it was an alligator and she laughed.

And always the sound of the earth breathing, Dad. The earth under us, breathing out, breathing in. And the river sand beneath us, still warm from the afternoon. And the earth ticking as it cooled. Like an engine, Dad.

Remember how I used to go out to listen to the engine on the old green Austin? As it cooled after you came home from work.

I'd sit outside and breathe in the petrol smell. Counting the ticks the engine made. You know, like a cockroach clicks or a cockchafer crackles when it lifts its wings. Or one of those Australian waterbugs that look like they're wearing armour.

And I used to think, one day, one day… And Mam would come out and say don't sit in the oil, don't…

And there we were, Dad. Looking into the skydust. Meteors going over us, white and gone. Satellites shooting over us like chalk marks on a blackboard. Hey, once a teacher… But gone for a million years, Dad. Gone a billion years. But not gone forever. Can you imagine a billion years, Dad?

And maybe I can blame that old Austin for my life. Remember, you used to keep stuff in the boot? All the things you sold, the packets of coffee, the dried milk?

VIII

Parry looked out into the mist.

But best were the books, Dad. I loved the books you drove round and tried to sell. Scores and scores of paperbacks. All thick and glossy. Books about murderers and serial killers. Yeah, shock and horror stories. Or ghost stories, or real life stories like the siege of Stalingrad.

The worst histories in the world, Dad. And the worst books. But at one time I used to love those books. And that's what I'm still doing, I suppose.

Finding books. Finding records and CDs, putting them all together and trying to make sense of it. Some sort of scene.

Even when the kids don't want a scene, Dad. But trying to enthuse them, Dad. Trying to make them enjoy what I enjoy.

And cannibals! That book was about cannibals. The one about the siege of Stalingrad. Why do people like cannibals, Dad? I just had to read that book. Every word of it. So I blame you, Dad. Blame you for everything.

And when we were tired and it was dawn and the stars were printed on our eyeballs, all we did was scoop sand away to fit our hips. And I suppose we fell asleep. With that skydust in our eyes.

IX

Parry continued to stare into the fret. It was the colour of a bale of barbed wire. There might have been pinpoints of ice in the air. Bright as mica.

Not sure of the forecast, Dad. But it has to change. The Caib's getting strange.

The horses were still nose to nose, their breath the same cloud. Once again he listened to the foghorn's bass.

They'll be coming round with the medicine trolley, I expect, he said. They never let you forget those pills, do they? Measuring our lives with what the doctors prescribe. Getting desperate if we miss a dose.

No, don't listen to me, Dad. I'm a bad influence and I know it. But the doctors even want me to take tablets now, Dad. To accept my medicine. Like a good boy. Forever.

Well, don't tell anybody, Dad, but I haven't been co
-
operating. I'm experimenting with myself, see. A big, scary experiment. And I think in the year since I took the last tablet, I've been better.

Yeah, God's truth, I've stopped yawning, Dad. Stopped these enormous yawns. I'm just generally fresher and lighter, Dad. More optimistic. Like I used to be.

No, it doesn't mean I'm not going to die. Does it? But I think refreshed is the right word. Or maybe restored. In the way I feel. Yeah, maybe it's a year. I'm not sure now.

So I was able to walk over here, Dad. Through the foggy foggy dew. Like I did going to The Works, burning the carbon paper, Dad. Remember that?

But this fog, it's like The Works is pumping it out. Manufacturing fog, Dad. Now there's a thought for us both. All part of the great conspiracy, Dad. It would explain a lot.

And yes, remember you drove right into the site, once, Dad. And they let you through. Couldn't believe it, could you?

Looking for Richard Parry, you said. Took a long time to find me, my duty being stuck out in The Sheds. No one had a clue who or where I was.

And I felt bad about you seeing me at the incinerator. With all that filthy ash, floating about. And no mask. Of course, I never wore a mask.

So this is it, you said. This is it. When you looked around I didn't want you to feel disappointed. For me. No, I didn't want you to feel that.

But what a place, Dad. The benches with the rusted vices? All those mountains of scrap metal that were stored in the sheds, spilling everywhere?

And all the computer paper that we'd salvaged from the print
-
outs? The tons of paper we'd saved. Waiting to be collected.

There was even that bulldozer that had seized up. It hadn't moved in ten years, they said. With all that white bindweed tangled in the tracks. When we pulled the flowers out they went on for miles. On those long green vines, Dad. With the sap that stained our skins brown.

I was ashamed of that place. Even though you were bringing the letter that told me I had another job. More money. Real prospects.

And then we walked into the shed and you asked me where I actually worked. I wasn't sure what to say. Everything was obviously derelict.

The sheds had been abandoned years earlier. But we didn't know what The Works' long
-
term plans were. There were holes in the roof where we could see the sky. Even in the heat, there were pools of oily water everywhere.

And all that bindweed. Its bitter white rosettes. Growing out of the bulldozer. Like an enormous wreath, it was, Dad. Yeah, that bindweed. Flowers the same colour as lightbulbs, I always thought. Same colour as this fog.

And when you walked into my shed and looked around you saw my bag on one of the benches. And you know what you said, Dad? You looked at where I worked and said ‘so this is it. This is the magician's table.'

I've always remembered that, Dad. And I still wonder what you meant. Whether you were being your sarcastic self. Or if it was a compliment.

Because I'd had that birthday present once. A real magician's table. All the props for magic tricks, the bunches of plastic flowers, the handkerchiefs.

And yeah, you recognised my bag, full of the books on painting I was reading. And
Melody Maker
, of course. I was addicted to that. Every Thursday. Boy, Thursdays were special because of
Melody Maker.

And all around us were the tools and cables, thick with rust. The carburettor I thought was a metal heart? All those valves and tubes, Dad. What a place, eh? There was ivy coming through the broken windows. Over the pin
-
ups of girls that had hung there for years. For a forgotten shift, Dad. From another time.

And I opened the letter right there but I knew what it would say. That I'd found a better job. But still in The Works, Dad. It was months before that teaching appointment came up and I moved on.

I'd been having my lunch, Dad. Sitting out in the sun with the boys who worked with me on the carbon. Daf and Bran in his big steelies, and Mazza. Remember them? Not sure if you ever met them now. No, I'm not sure.

Bran never spoke much. You know how I try to make up what people say, Dad? Suppose I'm a ventriloquist, really. But seeing that Bran never spoke, that was difficult. Next to impossible. Because Bran never spoke I started to make things up in my head for him. Yeah, a ventriloquist. That's my art.

And Daf, Dad. I think about Daf sometimes. What happened to Daf? I wonder. What happens to people? Do they just disintegrate? Like pixels on a screen, Dad? Pointillism, you know. Maybe I could have painted that way. Dot after dot. And that's how people disappear, isn't it? Dot by dot by dot.

I remember that acid Daf showed me. Why no vats for the vitriol? Why those vials? I picked one up once and disturbed the sediment. Like a glass of brown fog.

Well, me and Daf and Bran were sitting on a heap of sinter, passing round a bottle of water. Warmer than piss, the stuff we drank there. Yeah, the three of us coughing the carbon smoke out of our guts, our clothes stiff with carbon dust. Used to drive Mum mad, didn't it. She always asked why I didn't have overalls.

Then you came out of the shed, and said, well congratulations. At last you can move on from here.

And I felt ashamed, Dad. I saw what you must have seen that afternoon, as you drove out through those pools, Mazza doing his impression of a chimpanzee. Everything you'd warned me about, Dad. The terrible life of work.

Because you were right, Dad. I'd say you were spot on. The less we did, the less we wanted to do.

So in the end we couldn't be bothered with anything. Because by then everything was too much trouble.

I used to burn that carbon paper. And watch as it became nothing. Just an oily scum at the end of the shift. All that work, reduced to dust. With the smokestink in my clothes and in my hair…

You were right. I used to bath all the time. Scrub myself raw. With that piece of pumice, Dad.

With the black stone. So, yes, I should have listened. To you, Dad. Should have listened to you.

I suppose that's all I wanted to say. But no, I'm not going to take my pills again. I want to see what happens. In my experiment.

X

Parry examined his father. The old man was paler than he could recall. Jack looked away but then he turned his face back into the room. An alarm was ringing down the corridor. It had been ringing a long time.

Parry looked outside once again. Into the limestone fog. The silver air.

There was a silence. Then Jack Parry spoke.

Gramps and Nana, said the old man.

Parry immediately turned round.

You what, Dad?

Gramps and Nana. Nana and Gramps.

Who, Dad? Who?

Jack Parry sighed. Then, slowly, he spoke again. Sighed and spoke.

The horses. The blind horses. They're taking them away.

NINETEEN

I

Parry stood in the shop, talking to Serene. Glan was upstairs, sleeping.

At the drought's height, he explained, Lulu became ill. She was working in the shop every day. As school was off, I was in Goolwa most of the time. We'd organised a rock group for local children. The idea occurred they might busk in the main street.

The kids seemed to love it, their parents supported us. We were building up to a festival. At last it seemed
Hey Bulldog
was capturing local imagination. Writers, musicians, even a ukulele band, had promised to perform.

Lulu had designed a poster, black and red. She'd painted a red
-
tailed black cockatoo. Just a few daubs. But an evil
-
looking creature. Something devilish about it. Not a local bird, but no rarity either. Lulu could mimic its cry.