Beyond Carousel (26 page)

She waited, head down against the hammering wind.

There was no reply.

I looked at the rope. It skittered loosely along the rocks. Lizzy turned to me and radioed again.

‘Hello?'

She listened for a long and horrible moment.

‘We got blown around the rocks,' the reply finally came. ‘We're on the other side. Throw the buoy on the other side!'

‘Shit,' mouthed Lizzy.

I left Georgia and clambered over to help Lizzy pull in the rope. It was heavy and awkward. Our radios crackled again.

‘Throw the … on … side!'

Sophie was on the road behind us now. Finally the buoy scraped up over the rocks. We tossed it down to Sophie and she raced it across to the other side of the groyne. Lizzy and I followed while Georgia and the others stood, stunned and horrified.

‘I can't see them!' yelled Sophie.

She was atop of the rocks, ready to throw. Lizzy and I shone our torches out into the abyss.

‘There!' said Lizzy.

I followed her light and found a silhouette of black to our right. It was already so small. Sophie shifted and hurled the buoy towards them. It caught in the wind and knifed out dramatically into the distance. Rope slithered and slithered beside me. Then stopped. The buoy crashed down into the water.

It was halfway short of the boat.

Lizzy and I stared at each other. There was nothing we could do. Our radios crackled with something we couldn't make out.

The boat was already too far gone.

We could only rest the surviving Artists for a day.

Things were getting tight. Just seven sleeps remained until the Artist portals would open. Georgia and Claudia (the short girl from the boat and Georgia's long-lost collaborator from WAAPA) had to get all the way to Mount Lawley. The older guy Henry's Residency was also north of the city. Jake's was closer, just south of Fremantle in the coastal suburb of Coogee, but he was more sickly than anyone and would need time to travel even a short distance. And for us, Carousel was still a long way east. There would be a river and a freeway to cross. And who knows what else we would stumble into on the way.

The four survivors were starving and badly dehydrated. They had drifted out of the port almost four days ago on a harebrained whim. They took fishing rods, oars and some snack food. After a fruitless few hours they realised how hard it was to row the boat against any breeze. When the offshore wind picked up it simply
turned them around and blew them out to sea. They had bobbed out there, eating the occasional raw fish and drinking from a tub of stale water until the howling nor'-wester blew them back to shore.

The same shrieking wind that had saved them may have also doomed their friends.

We had discussed heading south to try and find the remaining three. But there was no basis to the plan. The next major port was thirty ks south and there was no guarantee they would land there, or anywhere else for that matter. We hadn't told Georgia and the others, but the wind had shifted back offshore in the morning. Given what we now knew of their supplies, the odds of survival weren't good.

The fishing trip had been a stupid idea. But fuelled with time, hunger and naivety, we couldn't guarantee that we wouldn't have done something similar. This world was asking questions of everybody now and the repercussions were immense. So we comforted them the best we could, then shifted their focus to the road ahead. Georgia and Claudia were on board, Henry too from what we could gather. He didn't talk much and seemed preoccupied, if that were even possible. Jake wasn't convinced by Ed's theory. He was the type of whip-smart hipster kid I had sold sketchpads to a hundred times over in the store. There wasn't time to sway him. In the end everyone had to make their own decision anyway.

Our plan was to leave in the morning and head inland together until we hit the freeway. From there Georgia, Claudia and Henry would take it north, past the city and back to their Residencies. The rest of us would continue along the highway until we hit the river and Sophie's Residency, then make our way further east until we got to Carousel. Jake's plans were vague and shifted by the hour.

We needed some extra bikes and more food, so Sophie and the Finns were out getting this organised. I was in the kitchen making the others eat and drink as much as their bodies would take without hurling. Georgia and I had spoken a little, but mostly she had been sleeping.

As the others lay motionless in post-lunch comas, I watched her jolt awake, then pad over to the kitchen. She was still wearing my jacket from the night before.

We smiled a brief hello. She stood beside me at the counter and looked on as I gathered a pile of cans to take with us in the morning. Her gaze was vacant and I had no idea what to say.

‘I'm really sorry about your friends,' I said, careful not to wake the others.

‘They weren't really my friends. We were just living together,' she replied.

Georgia seemed detached. Or hardened, maybe. It was happening to everybody.

‘Will you come next door while I take a bath?' she asked.

‘Sure,' I replied.

There was a warehouse apartment next door that Georgia and the others used for the bathroom sometimes. I followed her up an exterior staircase at the back of the building, then in through a broken window. The bathroom was dusty and cold, but had a large triangular spa bath in the corner. A garden hose snaked through a window into a stock pot atop of a gas burner. Georgia released a clamp at the end of the hose and water began trickling into the pot.

‘There is a rainwater tank on the roof,' she said.

I nodded.

She lit the gas and we stood back and waited for the water to warm.

‘Your hair looks cool,' said Georgia, suddenly brighter.

‘Thanks. Taylor cut it last week,' I replied.

‘Those two are super nice,' she said.

‘Which two?' I asked.

‘Taylor and Lizzy,' said Georgia.

‘Oh. Yeah, I guess so,' I replied.

Georgia eyed me curiously.

‘No, I mean, they totally are. It's just weird when you hang out with people all the time, I guess you kind of forget,' I replied.

Georgia checked on the water.

‘How long did it take before they came back to the casino?' she asked.

‘They didn't, actually. I went looking for them after I met Ed,' I replied.

‘Oh. Right,' said Georgia.

It was awkward. I wanted her to see that I was okay about them never coming back for me. But in reality I probably wasn't.

‘Lizzy came back. But Rachel lied and said I wasn't around,' I added.

Georgia shook her head.

‘They left the Collective like everybody else?' she asked.

‘Yeah,' I replied.

‘You know, I used to get the worst headaches in that place, but I always just figured they were from drinking,' said Georgia.

I smiled and nodded.

‘So where did you find them?' asked Georgia.

‘Lizzy was at the airport. After I found her we came down the coast looking for Taylor and Sophie. They had a beach house in Cottesloe,' I replied.

Georgia shook her head at the scope of the story.

‘We're so lucky you guys were in Fremantle when you were,' she said.

I looked at her and felt embarrassed.

‘We actually came here to find you,' I said.

Georgia looked at me for a moment, then turned away and welled up.

‘Sorry. I'm such a wreck these days. I get so emotional when I'm not doing any acting,' she said.

‘It's fine,' I said.

She was sitting on the edge of the empty bath and crying. I sat down beside her.

‘It's not fair, what happened to those Artists in the boat,' she said.

I exhaled and stared at the floor.

‘Everything in the world is so fragile now. We're all like fine china or something,' said Georgia.

I passed her some tissues from the basin.

‘My mum has these china teacups,' I said. ‘She bought them ages ago when she was studying in London. They were always locked away in a cabinet by the hall. But I remember when my grandad started getting really sick, we came home from school one day and suddenly Mum was using one. Not even for anything fancy. Just a cup of water or whatever. So, Danni being Danni, she asked Mum if she could have her orange juice in one. Danni is clumsy as all hell, but I remember Mum just looked at her and said, “Danni, if you or any of your friends ever want to use the china, you just go right ahead.”'

Georgia smiled and calmed a little.

‘Maybe they're still in your house,' she said, hopefully.

‘Maybe,' I replied.

‘I wish there was more time so we could go up there together,' said Georgia.

I was suddenly on the edge of bawling myself. Georgia leaned over and kissed me on the temple.

‘Thank you for looking for me, Nox,' she said.

I took a breath and squeezed her hand. We sat there together as the water slowly simmered.

‘Whoa. What is that?' said Lizzy.

‘Henry's sculpture,' replied Taylor.

‘Wait. Not
the
sculpture?' said Lizzy.

‘Yep,' said Taylor.

Lizzy groaned.

She was standing in the doorway of a warehouse opposite to the Humanities building. Taylor, Sophie and I were already inside looking at the mammoth steel sculpture that Henry had created back in his Residency. It was essentially a series of steel sheaths protruding out from a small central sphere. The interesting thing, or one of the interesting things, was that each sheath was completely unique in its shape, width, direction, lustre – everything – despite originating from identical pieces of steel. Rather than a structured process, Henry had ensured this was random by heating them to bending point then letting them fly like kites from a third-storey window during the biggest storm of winter. Each one was shaped by the shifting wind and air pressure as it dried and hardened. He then attached the sheaths to the
central sphere in a complicated and alluring pattern. Taylor said it looked like a hostile zorb ball.

‘How did he even get it here?' asked Lizzy.

‘I guess that's the good news,' replied Sophie.

‘Oh yeah?' said Lizzy.

‘Back at his Residency he also built a way of transporting it,' said Sophie.

‘Wait till you get a look at this,' said Taylor.

We led Lizzy down to the back of the warehouse where Taylor dramatically opened a roller door. Daylight spilled in over a pair of tandem mountain bikes. They sat a few metres apart from each other and had been connected by welded steel rods, kind of like a catamaran. Similar rods trailed from the rear of each bike to a long wooden platform on wheels. The platform had a special grid of cut-outs to match the shape of Henry's sculpture.

Taylor climbed aboard one of the bikes and looked up at her twin.

‘Isn't it the dorkiest thing you have ever seen?' she asked.

‘Pretty much,' replied Lizzy. ‘Four riders isn't ideal.'

This was what I had been pondering with Taylor and Sophie. There would only be three riders going north once we reached the freeway.

‘Apparently it can be ridden with less. Henry says even two people, if the road is good,' replied Sophie.

‘Unlikely, given what we've seen so far,' said Taylor.

‘The freeway might be okay still,' I said.

Lizzy glanced at me, then back at the giant sculpture behind us.

‘Dare I ask what kind of Artist Claudia is?' asked Lizzy.

‘She's a director. Theatre mostly,' I replied.

Lizzy thanked the heavens and we turned our attention to loading the platform.

We farewelled Jake and left early the next morning. The roads out of Fremantle were steeper than I remembered. We quickly discovered that, even with four riders, it was basically impossible to ride Henry's sculpture up any significant incline. His spindly old body was frail and still recovering from the boat ordeal, while Georgia and Claudia had lost their fitness while hibernating through the winter. Aside from my shoulder, I was feeling reasonably fit, as were the Finns and Sophie, but even our legs couldn't deal with the volume of steel on that platform.

So we were forced to push it most of the way. This often took five of us, leaving the remaining two Artists to pull the other four bikes. Needless to say, it was slow going. It took us all morning just to get out of the city centre and onto the flat of the highway where the bizzaro catamaran could be ridden again.

The passing suburbs were largely desolate. Neat coastal houses had morphed into tiny urban jungles.
Lawns powering upward like hedges. Trees and shrubs crowding over windows, doors and walls. For a while we rode alongside a golf course where the abandoned buggies of early-morning members still dotted the greens and fairways. There was the sprawling Fremantle cemetery, famous as the resting place of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott. Taylor and Lizzy eyed it regretfully as we cycled past without time to stop. Visiting Bon's headstone had been next on their list after shopping on the morning of the Disappearance.

After an afternoon of steering the awkward structure through an ugly mess of banged-up freight trucks we emerged at a bridge overlooking the freeway. To the south lay grey skies and barren lanes. To the north was the distant and pensive cityscape of Perth. Exhausted, we backtracked and found the closest house that was big enough to shelter us for the night.

Georgia and Claudia collapsed onto a couple of couches. Henry wasn't even able to get that far. He had sat down in a patio to take off his shoes and remained there, gingerly sipping on warm Gatorade as the rest of us unpacked around him. When we were done I convened in the front garden with Sophie and the Finns to figure out what the hell we were going to do.

‘Does anyone honestly think these guys have any chance of hauling this thing all the way to the city?' I asked.