The Miranda Contract (20 page)

“I’ll be back,” he whispered to Miranda as he lifted the window. The breeze pushed inside and brought with it the smell of salt and ocean.

The water was freezing, like it always was along the south-west coast of Victoria. Locals laughed at the tourists who stood along the bluff, shivering in their beanies and fleece. They laughed and then swept into the dark water like seals, wetsuits or rash vests depending on how much they had to prove. Even with a full steamer, the water was usually too cold for most.

Dan sat on his board beyond the break, alone in his boxer shorts; bare legs either side of the board. He watched the silver line of the beach, waves crashing in white bursts, while the currents gently tugged at his legs, pulling him out further. It wasn’t much of a current but a part of him wanted to lie back and let the ocean drag him away from the land, away from Miranda and the mess of his life.

He rubbed his wrist where the restraining band had been. There was a tingling sensation there still, but otherwise he was unfettered, his body free to draw upon the electricity around him. And that was the reason he had taken up his board and stalked down to the beach. Well, it had been one of the reasons. Miranda’s words, her presence, the crazy possibility of actually kissing her had also driven him out into the night. But the main reason, he kept telling himself, was to shake off any lasting effects of his grandfather’s dampening field, to hit the reset button so he wouldn’t be ambushed again.

He slipped off the board, sinking silently beneath the surface, dropping away from the stars and from the sky.

Ever since he was thirteen, Dan had used the ocean to cleanse his system and even though it was painful and probably dangerous, he always returned to it. When his body slipped under the breakers, kicking forward into the sea, it discharged its reserves of electricity in bursts of iridescent fireworks. Underwater the discharges were incredible and Dan sometimes sat on the ocean floor and watched his body force out the electricity. It hurt, but with his body enveloped in water everything seemed muted – cut off from everything.

He sank now, his hands gently pushing his way into the darkness. And then the bright bubbles began to burst out from his skin, blistering and bursting all along his arms and then his chest and neck. Dan blew out some of the air from his lungs and it came out in bubbles, entwined with blue electricity. He blew again and watched the energy twirling like half-formed smoke rings.

Looking beyond the lights, he began to see images from the past. It had happened before, in the sea or in dreams. The visions always started with swirling shadows, but most of the time they coalesced into faces. Sometimes they were his own face, as a child, perhaps, or more recent; but often they were of his father. Nico.

Dan only had a handful of memories. The photographs were destroyed before he’d grown old enough to understand he even had a father, and neither his mother or grandfather mentioned him in any real way. They spat upon his name, cursed his stupidity. Dan grew up embarrassed by the man he never really knew.

For a short time, Nico returned. Dan remembered him as a startled man, eyes almost too wide for his face, perpetually surprised by the world around him. He drank. A lot. And he couldn’t seem to find the words for his estranged wife who had grown frail and shattered while he was in prison. Without words, they turned their backs on each other. Theresa holed herself up in her room while he was in the house, so eventually he found reasons to leave.

And there was no time for Dan. His father would find excuses to leave whenever his son appeared, hurriedly climbing into the attic at the back of the house like a possum. Dan’s grandfather soothed him with attention and after his powers manifested, Dan found himself easily distracted with new ways of imposing his will on the world around him. Nico would hide away, and so would Theresa; but Dan and his grandfather would take over the living room and use it as a base for exploring the wider world through electrical wiring and, later, through television.

The sea pressed against his chest and Dan knew it was time to kick back to the surface. He lifted upward, slowly, turning in the water like a seal, the lingering trail of energy spiraling behind him.

When his head burst from the surface he shook himself clear and looked to the dawning sun coming up from the east. He treaded water and noticed his board rising over the waves closer to shore. And there on the beach were two figures, standing where he’d dropped his clothes and shoes.

He could tell one was Miranda.

He dipped his head under the water and glided towards the breaking waves. The other was his mother. He surfaced and then dived again, coasting along with the waves, anticipating the bodysurfing to come.

Theresa was waiting.

When he stumbled through the choppy waves at the beach, Dan found himself without a plan. There was a genuine sense that things would change, somehow, but the expunging of energy hadn’t brought with it a revelation on how to face down and destroy his grandfather.

He stopped at the thought, the water still running upward passed his ankles before pulling back to the ocean again.

He hadn’t thought of destroying the Mad Russian. He couldn’t do it. Not back at the bridge and not in the future. He knew there had to be a different way.

Miranda’s arms were wrapped around her body but she was looking at him, and he could tell she wanted to come down and meet him. Her life was in danger. She was a pawn and the longer they played the game, the more likely she’d become a victim.

He half-raised his arm and walked out, his toes feeling the hardness of the sand make way as he moved up the beach. He stopped at the pile of clothes he’d dropped and scooped up his shirt, wiping his face in it.

“Hello,” Theresa said, eyes averted.

He smiled. The wind picked up and blew his hair forward.

Theresa looked old. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, too, the elbows jutting against the white t-shirt which served as a nightie. Her legs were bowed and blue, her bare feet calloused but now comforted by the sand. Seeing her there, out in the open, her hair whipping about, Dan felt like shouting. He had no idea what he would shout, but he just felt the need to exhale loudly, to get rid of something. His mother hadn’t been to the beach, as far as he knew, for nearly ten years. But here she was.

With Miranda.

“You said you’d watch me,” Miranda said softly. It wasn’t a reprimand. She pushed back the hair which escaped from her pony tail and sank her hands into his jeans. They looked good on her.

“I had to … the waves were calling,” he said, hooking his thumb back towards the water. Miranda smiled and looked down at the white sand, leaving Dan to look at his mother. “What are you doing here?”

Theresa was watching him, her eyebrows turned up in confusion like they always were. Her thin lips were guarded but she was looking at him, really looking at him.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked, stepping towards her, shaking sand off his towel and opening it for her. She stepped back a little, her arms still wrapped tightly around her frail body, but Dan slung the towel around her shoulders and settled it there. They were close now, his chin level with the top of her head. As he pulled the towel around her he caught the smell of his mother’s hair. And then he felt her arms shifting beneath. He stepped back but her arms shrugged their way out and her hands reached out to take his hand between them.

“Mum.”

Theresa lifted his hand and placed it against her cheek. He could feel the coolness of her skin, windblown as she stood on the beach. He could feel the scratchy dryness too, something which had plagued her for years.

“We’ve made breakfast,” Miranda said. “Back at the house.”

Dan turned into the offshore breeze and saw Miranda smiling at him, like she’d just orchestrated some kind of miracle. He couldn’t stop smiling back even though he didn’t want to concede anything to her just yet, and he felt his eyes strain against the wind and tears.

“Come on,” she said.

Back at house the three of them ate in silence. Theresa kept her eyes down and ate like a bird, bony fingers playing with toast, tearing it apart slowly, methodically. She’d drop a crumb into her mouth as she listened to Dan talk about the ocean and answer Miranda’s questions.

“You’ll have to come back another day,” Theresa said softly, and she stopped moving her hands, as if surprised to hear her own voice.

“That’d be great,” Miranda said, and reached under the table to take Dan’s hand in hers. He nodded, eyes on Miranda’s, his fingers entwined with hers. She said it would be great, he thought, over and over in his head.

Theresa smiled a little and then stood, supporting herself on her chair.

“I shall go and …” her voice trailed off and she shuffled out of the kitchen.

When she was gone, Miranda dropped Dan’s hand and lifted her handbag onto the table. Her eyes were bright, filled with something Dan thought might have been excitement or fear. He’d seen both so often in the past day.

“I got a call,” she said, and pulled out a phone.

“Okay,” Dan said. He looked at the phone, but he was more worried about Miranda pulling her hand away from his.

“It’s not my phone,” she said. “It was in my bag.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It rang twice. I ignored it the first time. I was kind of wondering where you were, so when it rang again I picked it up. Thought you might have left it for me to make sure I wasn’t worried when you left.”

Dan shrugged and felt his cheeks burn.

“It was your friend,” she said.

“Who?” Dan wondered if he had any friends left. “You mean Halo?” he asked.

“The same.”

Dan picked up the phone. He could sense the power in it but it was just a normal, throw-away phone. He focused and the phone turned on. The call history had already registered in his mind but he scrolled through the recent calls list anyway.

“He wants you to call him,” Miranda said.

“He’s an idiot.”

“I don’t think so.”

Dan looked at her suddenly, the memories of his jealousy uneasily fresh in his mind. She took the phone back from him, and as her fingers touched his he forgot it.

“What did he say, what else?”

“Nothing,” she said. Her fingers pressed at the keys and with each impression Dan received the number. “Just to call him.”

“So you’re calling him? Are you nuts?”

“Probably,” she smiled. “But you’re stubborn and we don’t have time. He got you your mojo back and he didn’t have to. We don’t have back-up, not anymore.”

“I’m sorry about Sully,” Dan said.

She passed him the phone.

“Hey Dan,” the voice of Halo came through clearly. “Enjoy the surf?”

Dan stood up and cupped the phone to his other ear, his eyes out to the front yard, bordered with gums and hidden from the road. The highway was beyond and the ocean beyond that.

“What do you want?” Dan asked.

“You need to finish this. There’re a lot of us who need closure, Dan, not least of all, you and the lovely Miss Brody.”

“I thought you and the Russian were doing well enough,” Dan said.

“I was doing fine when he was dead, actually. The old guard are past their relevance and you know it. They’re still dangerous; your grandfather probably more than the others.”

“Is he there with you?” Dan pushed his senses outward even as his eyes scanned the trees again. He picked up the other outlying houses in the area and a few cars on the highway.

“He’s flipped again. Thing is, he doesn’t want you back anymore, Dan. He wants to consume you, make you part of him, rub you out entirely.”

Halo laughed again.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” Dan said.

“No kidding, but he’s losing it here. If he can’t get you face to face he’s going to rip Melbourne apart.”

“He won’t get far,” Dan said. “The Knights will be back soon and the army would’ve been mobilized after last night. Like you said, he’s an old man now.”

“But crazy-old. He’s not going to let this go, Dan. You have to come back. You have to face him and stop it from spreading.”

“Why don’t you do it?” More laughter. “It’s not funny, Halo. Why the hell don’t you do something about it?”