Swimming on Dry Land (20 page)

A narrow path veers left towards the tank. It's not a path so much as a trampled-down section of scrub grass. In any case, I shout, ‘Eddie!' There is no response, but if he's round the back, he might not hear. Sound gets swallowed up in all this open space, or else it carries for miles. Probably something to do with the temperature.

When I get nearer the tank, I notice that the ground is wet. A small pool of water sits on the impervious surface. The tank plug is loose; a continual thin stream of water leaks out. Someone must have unscrewed the plug. I find a good-sized stone and bang on the side of the tank, which rings hollow. At least the pump still works. I screw the plug back in.

‘Eddie!' I walk right round. Who would have deliberately sabotaged the water system? I step back to take a look at the top of the tank and find that the ceiling cap is off.

I start to climb the ladder. The iron rungs are red hot. At the top, I try dragging the cap back on. It's heavy and scorches my hands. I have to haul myself up to the top rung to get more leverage. I peer down to see how much water is left inside. It's so black in there; I can't see a thing, only white lights bouncing off the surface. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust. Gradually the specks of white light disappear and I can see a shape, a body, a man's body. Eddie is curled up like a baby on the bottom of the tank.

I freeze. Can't think. I hang onto the edge of the opening to stop myself from falling in. My hands burn, my hat slips off and drops down into the water. An inch or two of water, not enough to drown a man. Not enough… Eddie? What's going on? What are you doing down there? ‘Eddie!' His name bounces back at me. A searing pain in my gut. I forget to breathe. What have you done? And then I roar, as loud as I can, to wake him up, to make him look at me: ‘Eddie!' In the silence that follows, a horsefly lands on my arm and bites.

Eddie couldn't swim, never learnt. Water terrified him. I stare down that hole until my mind goes blank. My brother's shape appears and disappears as the sun slips in and out of the morning sky. And I am suddenly cut free. The air seems to dance around me.

I climb down the ladder with no sense of how far I've gone or when I will reach the bottom. The rungs don't burn anymore; I have no sensation left in my fingers. When I finally stand on the ground, it feels hollow. Clouds multiply, and a wedge-tailed eagle makes that hawking guttural cry.

Why? Why?

After a while, I lose all sense of myself, feeling light and let go of. We didn't talk about Father. If we'd have talked… It was Eddie who found him, the year of the big snow. We'd gone to visit after Mother phoned. She said: ‘Your father's gone.' No explanation. Father was slumped on a deckchair in the greenhouse, which was empty, being winter, and spotless. Every seed tray wiped clean. I didn't notice the blood and the cuts so much as his moustache: frozen solid. There was a bottle of gin knocked over at his feet. The autopsy said he had large amounts of medication in his system and had probably contracted hypothermia. When the police emptied his jacket pockets later on, they found a queen of hearts playing card folded over. On the back was scribbled ‘Please forgive me, Margaret. Give my love to the boys.' Eddie and I made our final pact that day, not to talk about it to anyone, not even to each other. As far as I know, Eddie kept his word.

Retracing my footsteps back through the scrub to the main track, I sense God, not some religious God, but that tidal force that moves through us, destroying and creating simultaneously. I feel it, almost see it – a blade of grass cutting through stone – overwhelming and impossible. Why did he unscrew the plug, just enough so he had time to drown? To let us know? Was this his way of saying goodbye? Did he know that I would find him?

When I get to the street, the bald man's car has gone and so have the last two houses. It's like a pseudo town, phantom houses with invisible walls. Was it because he couldn't bear to lose his town? When we were young he had this dream, this belief that anything was possible. We both did, for a while, like all kids. But then Eddie went ahead alone. He did it; he made the dream. A boy with a balloon who kept hanging on, rising higher and higher, never thinking of what might happen when the balloon finally bursts.

I arrive at the service station and walk between the pumps. Caroline waves a spade in the air, calling me over: ‘We've been waiting for you. Where've you been?' She's kneeling on the ground at the foot of Red Rock Mountain, a few yards from the caravan. Moni is knelt down beside her. In a flash it dawns on me that someone could have done that to Eddie. Someone could have murdered him.

‘Just a minute,' I shout, running for the shop. With my back pressed up against the door, I face the shelves of food and car supplies, almost deafened by the pounding of my own heart beat. What now? I can see him so clearly, curled up on the bottom of that tank. Of course Eddie wasn't murdered. Suicide makes too much sense.

I call Susan. The buttons on the office phone are stiff; it takes two attempts before I get through. She recognises my voice immediately. ‘Mr Markarrwala's condition has stabilised in the last hour. All the signs are good. You got back ok?'

I make some kind of croaking sound as I try to speak.

‘Is Monica alright? Did they find…?'

‘It's Eddie.' I can hear her holding her breath, but I don't know how to continue. And then the door opens and Caroline is standing there. Seeing her somehow releases me; I just say it. ‘I found him in the water tank.'

Whatever Susan says in reply gets washed up in Caroline's face, leaving a wreckage of disbelieving lines. Caroline gravitates towards me without seeming to move, and takes the phone from my hand. She tells Susan we will contact her as soon as we reach Adelaide. The receiver gets dropped and bangs against the cupboard; there is a constant drone. Caroline holds onto me. We stay caught up in each other for a long time. I don't have the strength to push her away.

Caroline takes my hands, turning them palm up. They're covered in blisters – a few have burst.

‘It's not as bad as it looks,' I tell her. ‘Did he say anything to you?'

She shakes her head, guiding me through to the bathroom, and dresses my hands with antiseptic bandages.

‘Where's Moni?' I ask, as she secures the pins.

‘I told her to wait in the caravan. We should go.'

She doesn't seem shocked or sad, just empty.

‘We'll tell her later,' I say, unable to face the idea right now.

We head across the tarmac.

Moni spots us through the window. ‘We're going to bury the bird,' she says, jumping up from the table and racing out to meet us. ‘What's wrong with your hands?'

‘I burnt them,' I say.

She leads me around the caravan to the spot where she was kneeling earlier on. There is a mound of earth and small stones. ‘Mum said you'd say a prayer.'

Caroline and I crouch on either side of Moni as she says: ‘Do you think she'll be able to fly when she wakes up? If I was a bird, I'd just fly straight to heaven. I wouldn't wait until I died.'

I study the small grave, trying to find a response. ‘I used to think heaven didn't exist, for anyone. Now I'm not so sure. Who's to say there isn't somewhere for birds to go to when they die.' I draw Moni towards me. ‘Nothing is impossible, when you think about it.'

‘Will you say the prayer now?' she asks, drawing back from me in anticipation.

‘A prayer. Right. Close your eyes.' As Moni closes her eyes, I look across at Caroline. The muscles in her face falter as she tries not to cry.

‘For the bird that got shot down, we pray that it may find its way to heaven or the place where birds go to when they stop breathing.'

‘How will it find its way?' Moni asks, her eyes now wide with concern.

‘Birds are clever creatures. Remember the swallows, all the way from Africa. They always found our shed, didn't they?'

‘But Georgie's not a swallow.'

‘Heaven will find her.'

Moni's face lights up for a second. ‘We should make a cross.'

She starts poking around the tyres and sparse scrub at the back of the caravan, looking for sticks. I search with her. Neither of us notices Caroline leaving. Moni chooses two sticks from the pile we collect. I do the best I can, tying the sticks together with a piece of scrub grass – not an easy feat with bandaged hands. We lay the cross on the mound; the earth is too dry to hold it upright.

‘That's fine,' Moni says, tugging my shirt sleeve as we head back across the tarmac.

Later, when Moni is in bed, I phone the police, who tell me to leave Eddie where he is until the morning. And then I call Susan again. After that, I sort through Eddie's things. The piles of paper are easily packed. It's the plans, his precious plans for Akarula that I don't know what to do with. I peel them off the wall. Every building is mapped out in minute detail. A railway line, for goodness sake. The whole idea was ridiculous, impossible, yet somehow he managed to pull off … if not most of it, the important part. He made a town. Which is a damn sight more than I can boast about.

Caroline raps on the window. The outside light gives her a ghostly appearance. She's holding one of the boxes that were stacked behind the shed ready for moving. If the rain comes before we're finished, they'll be ruined.

When I open the window, she thrusts the box towards me. ‘Take it,' she says, wearing a determined expression that hides everything else.

Then she passes me another one.

‘Is Moni asleep?' she asks.

‘Think so.'

The last box gets stuck at an awkward angle and is now rammed in too far to be pushed back. Caroline tugs from her side, and I pull from mine. Eventually the box breaks. I don't know what to do with my half.

‘Give it to me,' she says, reaching through the window. But I don't give it to her. I clamp the rotten dusty scrap of cardboard to my chest. Whatever she is standing on – most likely a beer crate – makes her able to lean right in, while she holds onto the frame for support. ‘Give it to me,' she repeats. She is half-in, half-out of the window. Her fingers grip the ledge. I study the tiny flecks of varnish clinging to her nails without attempting a reply, but she's insistent. ‘Michael, for God's sake, we're going to have to talk about it some time.'

‘Talk about what?'

‘You're right.' She stops, and when she starts again, her voice is softer. ‘If it will make things easier, I can stay. At least I won't be in your way. Moni doesn't want me either; I know she doesn't. And now Eddie.'

‘What about Eddie?'

‘Do you think it's my fault?'

I pause, trying to register what she means, and then say: ‘What you do is up to you.'

The remains of the box slip through my hands. I turn away from the window and go back to the desk. Each drawer contains another pile of notices. My eyes catch words and phrases, but not enough to make sense: red statements at the bottom of a page. Eddie is home and dry. We're the ones left picking up the pieces. Yet again, he has walked away scot-free. Caroline has gone when I look back. A stream of insects flies in through the open window. England has never felt so far away.

Eddie's filing cabinet is stuffed with notebooks full of sketches, two-line ideas, doodles; where is the evidence of a businessman? He wasn't the wheeler-dealer people thought him; just played the role, wore the cap – managed to convince everyone because he had convinced himself. He wanted to be the Prime Minister at one stage. Maybe he would have made a better job of that, surrounded by advisors; he had no one to advise him, no one to rein in his wild fantasies and lay out the actual facts.

High-pitched voices start up in the sitting room. When I open the door, I find Moni and Caroline flinging words at each other like snowballs packed tight to give a punch. Both of them spin round when they see me.

Caroline gets in first. ‘She did it again. Tell her she can't do that.'

‘Do what?' It's not unusual for me to act as umpire. Two headstrong women – well, Moni is still a girl, but sometimes, when she flashes that temper, I can see clearly the woman she will become. She has fallen silent, staring into me with her glistening eyes: the picture of sadness in her orange cardigan. She sleeps in that cardigan now.

Caroline is sharp on the defence. ‘Talking as if Georgie is in the room. What is she trying to do? Torture us all?' She swivels back round to Moni. ‘Do you think it's funny?'

Moni settles her gaze on the wooden floor.

‘It's just too hard when you do that,' Caroline says, relenting a little. ‘Can you try not to do it? Please try.'

I step between them. ‘Your mum's tired. We're all tired. Why don't you get back into bed? We've got a busy day tomorrow.' I help her onto the camp bed and kiss her cheek, pushing her hair back off her face. She has no idea how precious she is.

I draw Caroline into the office and close the door. ‘Why did you shout at her?'

Caroline stays resolute, her arms folded across her chest. ‘It's Georgie's voice. She uses Georgie's voice. How does she do that?'