Quicksand (28 page)

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I'm Saffron.”

“Liam. We met at Aldo's trial.”

“Which one?”

“I'm Stella. What've you got there?”

Saffron too has an Esky in her hand.

“Is that . . . ?”

“Aldo asked me to bring supplies.”

I laugh, “What a cock.”

“I guess he was covering his bets.”

“Wow, so that's where he is? On that?”

There is abrupt silence as the three of us contemplate the rock: No longer a piece of sea-worn granite off the eastern seaboard, it is a solid abyss on which our broken mutual friend is miserably camped in the open air alone. We all stand absurdly, like pod people.

“So, Liam,” says Stella. “What are you waiting for?”

“No time like the present,” Saffron says.

I turn and make my plea to the large waves collapsing on the shore. “Just dash out, make a whirlwind visit to the rock, and whip back? Is that what you mean?”

“We'll hold your spot for you,” Stella says.

The waves, the waves. The kind that frequently swallow rock anglers and their children. Even if I was a regular surfer, I wouldn't voluntarily go out in surf this big, but with Stella frowning and Saffron jubilant behind me, I feel an indispensable part of an ongoing drama.

A flash of lightning; the sky's in a mood.

I strap both Eskies to the nose of my surfboard and push out, battling the frightening waves. A gray bank of cloud hangs ominously above and it feels as if a storm is raging on the sea floor. It's slow-going, and I'm sloshed around like a shrunken head in a barrel. I get over the peaks and consider my approach. The ocean swells up over the island, leaving a short interval to swim onto the rocky base before the water rushes back out, creating a dangerous vacuum effect. This is going to be tricky.

“Careful, Liam!” Aldo shouts.

There he is, looking wolfish, atavistic, perched on a ledge without a wetsuit and propped up on the rock, belly spilling over tight black board shorts. I spot his surfboard wedged up between a couple of dark boulders. “Did you sleep?” I ask, trying to stay afloat.

“Got an hour here or there. The place is crawling with crabs!”

“What?”

“Crabs! One of the bastards nipped my toes.”

“Come back in!”

“Just leave the Eskies.”

“Fuck that. Those women are killers. I'm coming up.”

“Not there!”

Relentless waves make access unsafe, and the rocks are too steep to climb on to. He gestures to a spot on the northern point of the island, so I paddle around. Here the waves are downright barbarous, but there is a jagged ledge that seems plausible. Aldo laboriously shuffles down to the water's edge and grabs the nose of the board.

“Untie your ankle.”

I take the leash off my ankle and toss it to him. He wraps it around a crag and it goes immediately taut. Whatever the ocean is doing to me, it is nonconsensual. Aldo asks if I know any sea shanties.

“Just help me up!”

Between thrashing breakers, he pulls the Eskies onto the rock, then takes my hand and steadies me as I cautiously slide onto the ledge and scramble up. The water is billowing dangerously. Aldo drags my board up after me.

Happy to be safe from the clamor of the waves, I make a quick perusal of the terrain. It's craggy and uneven and mossy with unexpected shelves and rock pools; water foams in the crevices, sick with seagulls and their feathers. Vistas front and back. The waves are deafening here. I can see a couple of crabs with reddish-brown bodies and bright, red-tipped claws, no better than spiders in my estimation, and also Aldo's handiwork: a jellyfish with a stick through it. The island is treacherously rugged, even for the sure-footed and nimble. It's like some new planet you'd take a quick look around—then fuck off out of.

He tongues a cavity and gives me a look, as if he'll turn a blind eye to trespassing just this once, and sifts through Saffron's Esky, tossing aside a bottle of Stolichnaya, grapes, cigarettes, ibuprofen, soap, sterile gauze bandages, disposable medical gloves, sunscreen, toilet paper, raincoat, vinegar, lemon juice, antiseptic cream, hydrogen peroxide, and burn ointment. He drags out the binoculars and gazes at the women on the shore and nods a thank-you that they couldn't possibly see, and throws a wild wave to Clive. Then he slips on the medical gloves and holds up a pair of tweezers.

“I have a tick.”

“Out here?”

“Must have picked it up yesterday when we came through the bush. You get one?”

“Nope.”

We both thought:
Typical.

He burrows into his skin and yanks the sucker out.

“Fuck!”

“What's wrong?”

“I think I left the head inside.”

He tosses the tick's body angrily into the sea and washes the wound with
bottled water from Stella's bounty. With a sulky expression he rubs the antiseptic cream on his hands and dons the gardener's gloves. He slips on the shades and pockets a sheathed knife and lifts himself up on his arms and strenuously crisscrosses the rock face, reminding me of those quadrupeds in Turkey. He is going after crabs and other living things that hiss and roil in their shells.

“This guy's been bugging me all night.”

He presses his face to the wet, scaly rock. This position seems to cause him agony, but it's like he's come to realize his capacity to endure pain is elastic and he still hasn't seen how far it'll stretch. He returns from his hunt without success, bringing his portable carnage to a rest beside me. Blood trickles out from under his eye. When did that happen? He must've fallen soundlessly when I wasn't looking. He looks like a fish unhooked too late.

Rain falls meekly now. Aldo throws on the raincoat, then grabs the binoculars again and stares out through the vapory haze at the women on the shore. We sit in silence for maybe an hour with the glare of cloud-filtered sun on our faces. Aldo resembles a well-preserved corpse in some grand open-air tomb. Gulls hang as if suspended midair. A layer of moisture, either ocean spray or cold sweat, slicks his face.

I say, “So this is where the industrious robbed of industry go.”

I realize he is dead asleep. The drizzle continues and I can't tell the rain from the ocean spray. I think: What is this incoherent camping trip about anyway? Is he enacting a dream he had in prison? On his unfeeling legs, I notice what looks like a bluebottle sting. I think: I would totally cast him to play the wretched of the earth in a movie. An hour later, he wakes with a clouded expression.

I say, “It's an atrocity.”

“What is?”

“Your life.”

“Not as bad as some, which in a way makes it worse, because I have to feel guilty for not being grateful for
my
atrocity.”

The thing is, he's right. He grows sullen and unreachable, and in an audible whimper he says, “Tell me more about this book.”

“A whole chapter will be your testimony in court at Mimi's murder trial.”

“But that's in the public domain.”

“That's what's so good about it. It's a cut-and-paste job.”

“Jesus, Liam. You're as corrupt a novelist as you are a policeman!”

I sneer but I know he's right. My arm slides around his shoulder. “Let's go back.”

“You go.”

“Oh fuck it.”

Let him rot. I trudge down to where my surfboard is and pretend I'm not daunted in the least as I slide back into the undulating sea. The waves are monstrous but it's warmer in the water than out of it. I paddle quickly to distance my body from the rock. I think: I'd like to see Jesus walk on this water. Aldo maneuvers down to see me off.

I say, “Don't get your dick stuck in a conch shell.”

“I won't.”

“I'm serious.”

“Just go.”

As I paddle back in, I see Stella and Clive are alone on the beach; Saffron's gone. They look pocket-sized in the cloudy light. The violence of the waves rises under me and I hold on tight, afraid and sick of it, the fear. I close my eyes, but it is Mimi's dead face I see. That forces memories to the fore: Aldo handcuffed to his chair, wailing hysterically; a mosquito straining its wings in a pool of Mimi's blood; the artists, the artists.

I think I might as well catch one in. I slide down the empty wall of water and see it break in front of me; I tilt into it and turn off the wave just in time to avoid a dumping. When I get back to shore I stagger and collapse exhausted on the hard sand, next to Stella who's crouched in a ball with Clive huddled under her knees, and all I can think of is how she plucked every strand of happiness from the heart of my tragic friend and yet it wasn't her fault. Her sad eyes shift across the rock island. The rain comes down heavy now, and we can only just sit there and get soaked.

My phone rings. It's Aldo, and I answer saying, “Hey, Aldo, remember that first afternoon on the toilet block roof you told me all you wanted was a lifestyle indistinguishable from that of a highly successful drug baron or sex trafficker, that is, a magnificent house with water views, top-shelf escorts, and suitcases stuffed with cash?”

“I'm going to stay here.”

I strain to see through the mist and rain and there he is, so much water pouring down on that rock ledge he looks like a drowning ladybug in a bathtub.

“For how long?”

“Forever,” he says,
laughing, then hangs up. I watch him shuffle back farther under the overhang for shelter, and Stella grabs my hand, which is totally unexpected, and I think how the only people worth watching are those who have reached rock bottom and bounced off it, because they always bounce off into very strange orbits.

It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way

—Rollo May

Y
OUR HONOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
of the jury, members of the press, madame court stenographer, random citizens who have nothing better to do on a Tuesday morning, Uncle Howard, bailiffs, live-streaming folks on the internet, I had woken early that overcast morning, in the weird limbo between Christmas and New Year's Eve, in order to remove the last remaining advertisements I had foolishly stapled to every telephone pole and tree trunk from the city to the sea—advertisements that my well-meaning friend Liam had made me compose in a misguided attempt to give my dumb life purpose, and which had caused me nothing but literal agony. I enter the sign as exhibit A:

H
ANDYMAN
. C
AN DO ALMOST ANYTHING
—
WITHIN REASON
. H
OUSE PAINTER
. W
INDOW WASHING
. L
ANGUAGE TEACHER
—E
NGLISH ONLY
. M
OW LAWNS
. P
UNISH YOUR CHILDREN
. W
HATEVER
. $25
AN HOUR
. A
LDO
B
ENJAMIN
. 063 621 4137. N
O JOB TOO DISTASTEFUL
.

It was ten a.m. and I had paused under some tree shade at a busy outdoor café to pat the head of a golden retriever whose bark, it seemed to me, was incoherent to the other dogs present. Right beside me, a middle-aged woman with a pale face dwarfed by an incredible head of frizzy black and silver hair—more a
helmet than a head—was perusing my sign on a dry-cleaner's window. She was nearly beautiful in the same way that I am practically handsome—think perfect physical beauty, then go down six notches. That was us; we were on the exact same notch. She scrutinized the sign before appearing to dial my number. My phone rang. I thought: Oh my God. How fantastic. She heard
The Godfather
ringtone and turned to face me.

—Hello? she said.

—Hello?

—How are you?

—Don't get me started on babies who suffer brain damage during home water births.

—Are you Aldo Benjamin?

—None other.

—Is this sign a joke?

—Why? Is it funny?

—Could I possibly borrow you for a couple of hours?

—As long as you promise to return me in mint condition.

Now, this was banter, Your Honor—and who doesn't love to banter?—but I was running out of banter, and as she moved closer I kept my eyes on hers, inexpert as I am in the art of appraising a woman's body when she's looking right at me. She had dark pockets under her eyes as if having just woken from a long night's madness. I marveled at the audacity of her frizzy Afro.

—Do you think your hair might be a fire hazard? I asked, smiling brightly.

She frowned, as if smiling was as tacky as a department store Santa. The lengthy silence that followed was so dispiriting I removed a bottle of pills from my inside pocket and summoned my saliva to swallow one.

—You know what it says on the list of side effects of these antidepressants?
May cause depression
. Kind of makes you want to throw in the towel.

The woman's hardened face remained implacable.

—So what kind of tasks are you generally asked to perform?

—Just the usual unpleasant and often dangerous jobs that the people of greater Sydney need doing.

—Such as?

—Mostly a punishing amount of heavy lifting and unmasking of unfaithful spouses.

She clicked her tongue, a gesture I took as my cue to elaborate.

—In the last month alone, I've been contracted to move a father into a nursing home while he was asleep, to search sandstone caves for a schizophrenic brother, to drag what is referred to in certain circles as a “human urinal” home to a jealous boyfriend, and to nail a cow's heart to a pedophile's mailbox. You want references?