Limestone Man (33 page)

But what were we doing? Celebrating, that's all it was. That's all. Look, everybody else was celebrating. Weren't we allowed?

V

The clouds were black in the south. Those rainclouds still massing as they had for weeks. Those clouds like cancer cells.

Okay, the music must have been my choice. Lulu would have wanted Kylie. But we just couldn't have her in the shop. That day.

I only know what happened from then on by asking questions. Trying to piece the jigsaw together. And I'm still trying.

VI

I'd had a poor night previously, as I've said. And I think those pills I'd been taking were still having an effect. Sometimes they make me drowsy. Yes, I think I was taking the pills then. But I'm not sure. Sometimes it's noticeable. I might have nodded off.

No, it's time to own up. I slept. I went back to bed. I went to sleep and I remember Lulu shaking me, shaking me, saying she was getting her own back, ha, ha. And the next thing I remember she was cuddling up and she was as hot as when she had that fever.

But Lulu always felt like that. A scalding little radiator I used to call her. Hot as the earth in summer. Under those quondong trees.

Yeah, that's what colour Lulu was, the Goolwa earth. And drowsiness is the poet's condition. Isn't it? Keats was always drowsy. John Lennon's usually tired. Lulu says she shook me but I pushed her away.

But how could Lulu tell me that? I haven't spoken to Lulu since. Since that man said we played our music too loud. Not since she disappeared.

VII

No I've not spoken a word to her I'm sure I haven't but I can imagine how she felt because she must have been hungry and we never even had breakfast I hadn't thought of that hadn't thought of anything just passed her a vest in case she was cold and all I cared about was getting out to celebrate the rain and yes we were dancing this wild dancing but surely everyone was dancing to celebrate and when The Easies came on they were the loudest yes louder than the Goldberg and that man who came in should blame The Easies but what did he know yes what did he know
coz
it's gonna happen gonna happen
over and over in my head yes all the time
it's gonna happen
in my head
gonna happen.
And that gold dust on her.

Oh I know what you've been doing, I said. I know it all.

VIII

Then I woke up. And I remembered.

Everything.

Nothing.

I was lying on top of the bed. The Elvis duvet was half on. Half off. I was cold. I was hungry. My throat was lined with dust.

But my first thought was Lulu. I swear Lulu was my only thought.

I could tell in seconds she wasn't in
Hey Bulldog.
I searched all her sleeping places, the nests I'd seen her use, the trunk, the recycling box, the shop window. Behind the green screens. Not there, not there. But I wasn't worried.

And when no, she wasn't in the motel either I still wasn't worried. They gave me my green tea. But I wasn't worried. I sat in the window looking at the rain. And I wasn't worried.

Because Lulu knew everyone… Look, Lulu was mixed race but she was attached to some of the Coorong people. And those people were as local to Goolwa as you could get for blacks. For native people.

Yeah, she'd come and she'd go. Come and… But everybody knew Lulu. That's why I wasn't surprised. When I woke up.

Because in a way, Lulu was always missing. That's right, Lulu was always missing. She'd please herself.

IX

She'd come and she'd… But after a while I decided to go down to the Murray and look for her. Futile, I knew. Because she always took her own time about things. Yet some kind of action was required.

And no, she wasn't in the brewpub. Yes, of course they remembered us being there. First customers of the day. Weren't we? I'd bought that bottle of cabernet. Hadn't I?

We must have drunk it together. Celebrating the rain, I explained.

Yes, they said. They could see that.
Impressive,
they said. That's the word they used. Impressive. But they didn't look at me twice. Didn't presume.

Okay, sometimes you can tell. When people don't approve. Of a white man. With a black girl. But not there. We'd never have tried the brewpub if that had been a possibility.

But I couldn't believe it was the same day. Those pills can really send you off when you're tired. I must have been taking the pills then, I was blurred with sleep. But no, it didn't seem like the same day… And God, I used to be able… To remember everything.

X

I moved on through the dunes. Then climbed to the highest crest and looked round.

White sand. White sand whiter than sand on The Caib. I had taken binoculars and looked at the few people walking in the dunes. I could tell none of them was Lulu.

Because nobody moved like Lulu. Her easy lope, her …
grace…
Though she was changing. Putting on weight. Only natural. At her age. All those wedges. Not that she was…

We'd been to the high dune before, the pair of us. The Dutchies had organised a picnic on one of the hottest days. We brought sandwiches from the motel because Lulu didn't like the look of the food I'd made.

Yeah, cheese sandwiches and bottles of beer. Very Caib. The world was trembling in the heat haze. The sky was blue and the river was …
tangerine.

Soon
the Dutchies lit up. Toon passed it round and I lay back and thought, it's not so bad here, is it? Not so bad.

When I opened my eyes I could see the stream pattern. Where water drained into the Murray. Scores and scores of lines. Like silver fingerprints. Yes, that was the best of times.

XI

As to
Storm Boy
, I found out what happened to the hero, Greg Rowe. I think he was twelve when he made that film. Dropped out of the business soon afterwards. Or it dropped him. The usual thing.

But at least he's alive. So he must have coped with being a child star. I've got a DVD and I play the film. To bring it back. How the sand moved. How the surf tasted.

And yes, to remind me of Lulu. The sand child, storm girl. I can show
Storm Boy
to you any time. I promise if you see that film you'll smell the southern ocean. You'll hear those combers rolling all the way up from the Antarctic to the Hindmarsh Bridge. And maybe then you'll have an idea of everything I've had to do.

But you won't see Lulu. So I should have made my own film, shouldn't I? Just as I should film The Caib now.

That's why from spring,
Badfinger
will show the work of local directors and photographers. Music's had its era. Wonderful and now finished.

If there are any artists at all out there they'll be editing their own films. Let
Badfinger
discover them.

You know, I've thought of giving prize money to the most promising… Just a small amount…

XII

That afternoon I was searching for someone I knew I wouldn't find. Not until she was ready. I scanned the world, but Lulu was stubborn, I always knew that. And so time drew on.

The evening was when I cried. For the first time. Because the land was impossible. The whole country was impossible.

No, it wasn't the wind making me cry. You think the wind on The Caib is hard to bear? It's nothing to The Coorong. All that spindrift flying. All that space.

It was raining steadily now. I knew it would be raining for weeks. Understood that the drought had broken and the waters would be coming downstream. Immense waters, miles of floodwater, planes of water gliding by. Coming from upcountry. Down to the sea.

And it was all too much. The Dreaming was too much, all the dreams. The sandbars and the reefs were too much.

On the Murray there are hundreds of rivermouths.

It's vast there. The Murray mouth is bewildering. It's so easy to get lost. Or to hide anything.

It's a series of freshwater lakes and saltwater lagoons. How the freshwater mixes with the salt is crucial to the balance. It's never the same, from one day to the next. From one hour to the next, it's never the same. That's why the drought had been so serious.

As I looked down from the crest, scanning the dunes and the river, I knew I didn't have the words. For Australia. My other world.

It's baffling enough on The Caib when the sand blows away like smoke and the map of what you think you know dissolves. Then remakes itself.

Yet in Goolwa, scale is immense. Change is constant. Salt swamps one day are dry crust the next. And the dunes grow and retreat, as they do here. Like lungs shrinking, lungs expanding.

Yeah, the sand's alive on The Caib. But differently alive in Goolwa. Seems I'm cursed by sand. I can't escape it.

XIII

The blacks understood the Murray country. But that had taken them thousands of years. And then we wiped the blacks out and destroyed their knowledge. And no, we can't catch up. We can never catch up now.

As to Lulu, she was a native kid. But she wasn't instinctive. No inherited wisdom. Look, she was raised on the streets of Adelaide. Her grandma taught her to smile at men on Hanson Road.

The Lulu I knew liked wedges and peanut butter sandwiches and astronomy books. She was just teaching herself, about stars, about life. If she'd kept off the skunk she might have gone to college. Maybe. But college costs a fortune these days. And yes, perhaps, I might have paid. For her future.

If I had.

If she had.

If we had stayed…

TWENTY-ONE

I

Lulu didn't have a mother. But there was a friend. That was Kath, and she might have been thirty. Maybe less. Hard to tell because Kath was fond of her grog. That booze had had its effect.

I liked Kath. Her health was going downhill but so was mine. At that time at least. So we always had that in common.

Kath was …
wry
. Know what I mean? Yeah,
wry.
I love that word. Makes me laugh. Made Lulu have fits, Kath was so bloody wry.

This Kath was friendly with some of the Coorong people. It was all fluid, a big extended family. Impossible to say who was related and who not. She was mixed race too. I'd say she had Greek hair. Or Lebanese. Maybe like Lulu.

Kath would hang around for a while. Then she'd disappear to Addy or get work in the vineyards at Maclaren Vale. Came into
Hey Bulldog
a few times, slept there occasionally. Those nights were great, Lulu getting all domestic. Even cooking for us.

What was it once? Poached eggs. Disaster. Then wedges, first time came out raw, second black. Lulu burned the fat and all we had was this mountain of bread and butter I'd prepared. And three pints of ruined sunflower oil.

Think we ended up in the motel. One drink led to another, with Kath telling stories of life at the Adelaide racetracks. You know, being a bookie's runner. Seemed believable.

But Kath also loved the market. She remembered how it was to work in the Gouger cafés, peeling spuds, washing pak choi. And maybe I liked Kath because she had no kids of her own.

Look, I never used to think about not having children. Now in a way it's crucial. The not having, that is. I believe both of us adopted Lulu because Lulu made sense.

At times we were competitive in the way that barren people sometimes are. Yes, barren. It's not a dirty word, believe me. Maybe a mild obscenity. If you don't like it try
incomplete.

You know, if you can't bring up your own kids, you're going to help with somebody else's. That's a role you drift into. It's inescapable. Look at all those wildlife films.

And soon, it becomes natural. And, yes it's honourable. Because there's no shame in it. Oh no, there's no shame at all. It's simply a reason to carry on.

One day we piled into the car and off we went. Kath, Lulu, me. It was hot, worst of the drought. Kath told us she wanted to take me somewhere.

I was driving but Lulu was keen to learn. As ever. Well, fat chance. We were playing CDs, that Dylan track ‘When I paint my Masterpiece', Lulu repeating it over and over. Not a great song. Far from it, but…

When you gonna paint your masterpiece, boss, Lulu asked, her gappy smile flashing.

Maybe I have, I said.

Then when was it? she asked.

Maybe I have and nobody noticed.

When?

Yesterday, I said. Or last year.

Wasn't yesterday, said Lulu.

Maybe tomorrow, then. Yes, it's always tomorrow. Can't be another day. Can't be in the past either. Or how do we look forward?

Yes, that's what that terrible song is about. Because how could you live? If you knew you'd already done your best?