A Lovely and Terrible Thing Read online

  ‘What would you do?’ he asked Warren.

  It was a good question, perhaps the very best question of all. What would you do? Indeed, he had wondered how he might behave if ever caught up in revolution or war: could he maintain his moral compass if faced with arrest? Was he a resistance fighter or a collaborator? Before he could assemble any sort of coherent response, however, Leon raised his index finger with something like triumph and pointed to the ceiling or, rather, to the sky beyond. ‘Was simple,’ he said. ‘I went in there to the prison and I prayed.’ He whacked his chest several times with a closed fist. ‘It is what my soul needed. It was a . . . test. And eventually God took me away from there.’

  At first Warren was frustrated by Amelia’s parents’ lack of English; he suspected they had incredible stories to tell about life in the USSR before the fall of the Wall. As a teenager he’d been mildly obsessed with the 1915 revolution and had spent hours reading about it and studying the photographs of Tsar Nicholas and his doomed family. Poor Anastasia, Olga, and sickly Alexei in his sailor suit: confined to Ipatiev House, known as the House of Special Purpose, prior to their brutal basement-room execution. Despite anti-royalist convictions, Warren had always felt sorry for the Romanovs, overwhelmed as they were by history’s fast-rising tide. Right until the end, they had no idea what was coming. Perhaps it was always that way for those who considered themselves above the law.

  Over time, he came to see that their inability to converse was a blessing. Despite Amelia’s reassurances, his suspicion that they hated him only hardened. Sometimes, when Amelia was in the bathroom or was otherwise engaged, he was sure Marta and Leon talked disdainfully about him in Russian, and more than once he glanced away from the TV to find Marta studying him intently, her lips moving as if mouthing a curse. There were spiteful glares and conspiratorial chuckles. Warren was certain his avowed lack of religious faith – coupled with leftist sympathies – generated in them a puzzled scorn.

  Nonsense, Amelia would say later if he told her about it. Stop being so bloody self-obsessed. As if they would be talking about you.

  There were complications with Amelia’s pregnancy that were not especially dangerous but would confine her to hospital for the next few weeks until their child (fingers crossed) would be safely born. Then, surely, her parents would warm to him. Their blood would be forever mingled: when they looked adoringly at the features of their first grandson or granddaughter, they would, of course, find themselves gazing into Warren’s features and those of all the family members who had preceded him. Blood and water. It was the way it worked. And, indeed, when Leon asked in his rusty English if Warren could help him build a fence around the vegetable patch at their coastal shack, he was overjoyed. Perhaps, at last, a thawing in this Cold War!

  The house was in a wild and secluded part of the Victorian coast, not far from Walkerville. He could hear the boom of waves when they pulled up in Leon’s ancient Peugeot. The old man had been friendlier than usual on the drive down and, although the language difference was a perennial problem, Warren was encouraged by the odd smile tossed his way. Even Marta, sitting in the back seat, seemed cheerier. She and Leon bantered in Russian, but mostly they travelled in companionable silence, exclaiming occasionally at the sight of a charming old farmhouse or a dead wombat by the road.

  As they stepped from the car after the three-hour drive, Marta placed a hand on Warren’s forearm. That she should solicit any assistance from him was a rare enough sign of trust, but he sensed this was of a different intent. He felt her strong, Slavic grip and turned to her. Marta was stocky and much shorter than him. She gazed up; in her green eyes lurked an unidentifiable emotion, like the imp in the bottle. As always, a dark scarf was wrapped around her head and knotted beneath her chin.

  ‘Know that you can bear anything with God’s help,’ she said. Her enunciation was clear and considered, almost accentless. Obviously it was a phrase she had practised (that bear) and although her words were vague, the meaning was clear: be stoic, endure, overcome. So Russian! Warren blushed. Clearly he hadn’t disguised his anxiety over impending fatherhood as well as he’d thought. Immensely touched by this display of affection, he tried to pat her hand, but she withdrew it quickly, Marta-style, and bustled indoors without another word.

  Leon was proud of the place as he showed Warren around. The house was simple and old-fashioned, situated on a small, rather isolated block. The uneven backyard had been levelled off near a clump of ti-trees and this was the site for the vegetable patch. It was a good position, protected from the elements. Leon stamped the ground with his shoes, picking out clumps of grass and flinging them away. He and Marta planned to move here when he retired from the Ford factory in the next few years and it wasn’t hard to imagine them growing their own vegetables or gazing from a cliff-top into the winds roaring across Bass Strait.

  It was late in the day and an onshore breeze had impregnated the air with salt. Warren wondered about Amelia in hospital, all alone, and was overcome with emotion. Longing, fear, excitement, love. He hadn’t wanted to leave her in Melbourne but she had insisted, saying it would be good for him to spend time with her parents. It was only for a day or two. Their baby wasn’t actually due for another three weeks and, besides, if anything happened, he would only be a few hours away. Go, she had urged. Don’t fret so much about everything. I’ll be fine. Just go. And so he had agreed.

  Later, he ate dinner with Marta and Leon at the wooden kitchen table. As usual, his hosts said a prayer in Russian prior to eating. As usual, Warren declined to participate, preferring to maintain a tight-lipped silence he intended as generous but was interpreted, perhaps more correctly, as conceited. The meal was beef stew accompanied by peas. Marta was not a good cook. The meal tasted metallic. The relative friendliness of the drive down had been displaced by their customary reserve. There was no TV. He was lonely and felt far away from everything he knew and loved. After eating he phoned Amelia, but the reception was weak and he had to walk around outside with the phone held up over his head to snag a signal. She said she was well and not to worry, but she sounded more distant than ever. The last thing he heard of her before the call dropped out was a television in the background and some laughter, probably from nurses in the hospital corridor.

  That night he slept in the spare room, its only decoration a wooden cross nailed to the grey fibro wall. The room smelled of Ratsak and damp. A huntsman lurked in the wardrobe’s shadow. Leon and Marta murmured in their bedroom next door. Marta laughed, the sound as strange and unexpected as a gunshot. She and Leon were a mysterious, secretive couple. They had had no children after Amelia. Complications, Marta had said once with a dismissive wave. You know.

  One day in the life of Warren Dibkin, he thought grimly, as he tossed about on the flabby single bed and listened to the sea’s distant hiss.

  The following day he and Leon worked on the vegetable patch. Warren was hardly gifted at this kind of thing but it was pleasing to work with his hands for a change and he thought he’d made a respectable showing. Leon’s general contempt for office workers was deep and abiding, but Warren’s ability to hammer a nail and operate the drill without mishap earned him, he felt, some grudging admiration. Together they unrolled sheets of chicken wire and fixed them to timber posts already sunk deep into the soil. It was tricky work, but not especially difficult. The site for the vegetable patch adjoined a small but very solid shed packed almost to the ceiling with tinned meats, bottles of water, batteries and other supplies. There was also a low camp bed and a pile of blankets. Probably stockpiling for the nuclear winter. A cultural thing. He smiled. Cute.

  Who knew what Marta got up to while the men worked? Occasionally she appeared with lemonade or sandwiches, whereupon they would pause in their labours to eat and rest while she and Leon consulted over the enclosure’s design. Marta inspected all the joins, shaking the wire, apparently suggesting improvements here and there. The enclosure seemed extreme
ly secure to Warren, considering the only animals they needed to worry about were rabbits and birds and perhaps the occasional wallaby or fox. He was proud of their work and stood up to shake one of the timber struts. Like all the supports, it was extraordinarily well sunk and didn’t budge a centimetre. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Lukins. Nothing’s going to be able to break through this when we’re done.’

  To which she actually smiled.

  After two days the vegetable enclosure was complete and Warren was relieved at the prospect of returning home to Amelia. He had been unable to call her the previous night as his phone was out of power and he had neglected to bring – or had somehow misplaced – his charger.

  After a gulag-style breakfast of oats, they prepared to return to Melbourne. Warren cleaned his teeth, washed his face and packed his bag. His upper arms hurt a little from his exertions and his hands were scratched by wire ends, but he felt good. The enclosure was well built, strong, and although he hadn’t made as much progress with Leon and Marta as he would have liked, he must have earned some respect.

  Marta had been fiddling around at the sides of the enclosure since dawn and now stood expectantly beside it with Warren’s puffer coat folded over one arm. When he approached she pressed the coat upon him and directed him towards the shed at the end of the enclosure. Then she handed him a can opener. Obviously, she wanted him to put it with the other supplies. Fair enough. No point having all those tins of food if you couldn’t open them.

  He was halfway to the shed when he heard the heavy gate slam behind him. By the time he turned around, Marta had padlocked it and was waddling back across the yard like an echidna as Leon emerged from the house, his overnight bag in one hand. Warren stood there for a moment. Then he laughed nervously and approached the fence. He called out but Leon merely thumped his chest several times and pointed to the sky. Marta didn’t even turn around. Then they stepped inside the house and closed the door. Warren grabbed the wire but was jolted backwards. Fuck! He lost his balance and fell onto his back. The damn fence was electrified. Dimly, as he lay on the hard ground and tried to understand what was happening, he heard the Peugeot rumble to life and drive away.

  The Possibility of Water

  I don’t even really know where I first met Eli. She was just one of those people I saw at parties and gigs and bars. I liked her and I didn’t care that she was a junkie; most people I knew at that time were junkies or at least partway there, myself included. Besides, I’d always had a soft spot for that kind of woman.

  I was living pretty close to the bone that summer, more or less at the start of a losing streak that would go on to last another decade. I lived behind a shop in Brunswick Street and washed dishes in a Greek restaurant. I stayed up late, drank all the time and used dope when I could. At night I crouched in my windy room and carved hieroglyphs into my arms with broken glass, messages to myself, reminders of something or other – my own fucking stupidity, perhaps. It wasn’t the worst of times for me; they were yet to come.

  It was a searing summer, worse in Fitzroy, where concrete streets exhaled the heat of the day back into the night long after sunset. Couples slept on rugs in Exhibition Gardens and news bulletins warned people to ensure their pets had enough to drink. Old people up and died from the heat. At night I dreamed of luxuriant bodies of water. People talked about the heat all the time, giving it a noise it wouldn’t otherwise have. It made neighbours of everyone. On the streets, at bus stops, in taxis. ‘How about this heat?’ ‘Hot enough for you?’ Drove me mad.

  Eli and I were drinking one night at Punters Club, sort of flirting and carrying on. The music was loud and men were yelling and spilling beer over themselves. The summer excitement was fraying at the edges. The bar was packed with people, with their sweaty faces and their moist, lingering handshakes. But there was Eli, the collar of her man’s shirt slightly upturned, like a wink, displaying a shiny ridge of clavicle. Somehow we ended up on the step, trying to catch a breeze. She rolled the most perfect cigarettes I had ever seen, applying herself to the momentary task with girlish concentration. When she complained for the hundredth time about the heat, I took her by the hand and dragged her down the street. It was instinctive, spur of the moment. I didn’t even really know her that well, but she laughed and went along with it. ‘Crazy fucker.’ She tossed her wine glass into the air and watched it smash against the road. ‘Where are you taking me, you cad?’

  Fitzroy Pool was only a few blocks from the pub but I took her along darkened streets and beneath the graveyard shade of elm trees, just so I could hold her hand. Rose Street. George Street. Gore Street. Neither of us spoke. It was 2 am, moonlit, an enormous night full of murmur and heat. Cars tooted as they passed. People sat on their porches fanning themselves.

  We climbed over the wire fence and plopped down on the scrappy lawns of the pool. We held our breaths. I was aware of Eli beside me, the very heat of her. Nothing happened, no alarms or guards or anything. We looked at each other and shrugged. It seemed too easy, but we were in. ‘Wow,’ she said against my ear. ‘This is amazing.’

  We waited a minute or two before walking around, but gently, unwilling to touch anything, as if in a church or museum. We didn’t speak. Crouched here and there on the lawn and concreted areas were pieces of white plastic outdoor furniture. A pair of goggles was slung over the back of one of the chairs. A towel curled like a fat snake around an umbrella pole. The pool itself was covered by a large plastic tarpaulin suspended above the water and which was retracted by a wheel system at the deep end. This would make it impossible to swim, after all. The tarpaulin shrugged against its tethers in the warm breeze. I hadn’t taken this into consideration but it didn’t seem to matter; it was enough to be inside the grounds.

  Eli wrestled off her shoes and stood silently on the concrete, staring down at her feet. Her hair covered her pale face, a momentary vanishing. I sat smoking on one of the sweaty, plastic chairs. Even through my shoes, I could feel the dull warmth of the concrete, as if the great engine of summer idled below the surface. The entire city had fallen silent, aside from the thick rustle of the tarpaulin and occasional swish of wind through the trees that bordered the grassy area.

  Now we were inside, we weren’t really sure what to do. I felt even more foolish than usual. Finally Eli padded over to me, cupped my face in her hands and kissed me softly on the mouth with her winey lips. ‘You’re a genius.’ It was easily the nicest anyone had been to me in months. I thought I might cry. She squatted in front of me with her chin on my knees and stared at me for a long time, as if trying to remember who I was, which might well have been the case. Even in the half-light I could see she was stoned. Her skin and hair were silvery. It occurred to me that she had been crying. ‘You know . . .?’ she began, before looking away over at the shuttered kiosk.

  ‘What?’

  She turned back to me, shrugged. ‘I was thinking. You remember that smell when you were a kid and you’d been swimming on a really hot day and you lie down on the scorching concrete? That smell of, I don’t know, chlorine and . . . summer?’

  ‘Yes, and coconut oil.’

  She smacked my thigh. ‘Yes! And icy poles.’ She made pincers of her thumb and forefinger and held them in front of her face. ‘Peeling sunburn off your nose.’

  ‘Bombs when the lifeguard wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Backflips.’

  ‘You could do backflips? God, I can barely swim.’

  ‘Sure. Brisbane girl, mate. Spent my teenage years at the beach or in a pool. Under-fifteen freestyle district champ. I’ll give you a few lessons, if you like.’

  The fact that she had told me this made me bolder than usual. I leaned down, making a face, hoping for another kiss. ‘What kind of lessons, exactly?’

  She fell backwards onto the grass, laughing, and stayed there, staring up at the sky. Someone passing in the street called out and laughed. Then silence again. I tossed my cigarette away and
the orange tip shattered against the high brick wall, on which were painted the pool rules: No running. No bombing.

  ‘It’s a shame it all has to come to an end, isn’t it?’ she said at last. ‘All that . . . you know. All that.’

  I didn’t know what to say. It was true, I guess, about it all coming to an end and it being a shame. I followed her gaze up to the stars and wondered what sort of sound they made up there, supposing they made any sound at all. Perhaps a low whistle, like a faraway train. ‘You know the light from some of those stars has taken millions of years to reach us?’ I said. ‘Might be light from stars that don’t even exist anymore, that have exploded or died or whatever the fuck it is they do.’

  She didn’t say anything, but moved her foot against my calf in a gesture of reassurance. After a few minutes, she stood up in front of me and ran a hand through her dirty blonde hair. ‘Come on, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We going to fucking swim or what?’ She pointed with one arm outstretched. ‘Retract that tarp, my good man.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just roll it back or something. Can’t be too hard. I really need to swim. I feel like shit.’ And she wandered away.

  I struggled with the retracting mechanism for several minutes, but it seemed to be locked by a metal ratchet. It was difficult to see. I felt mildly ill and there was the tart flavour of bile in my mouth. Perhaps I’d eaten some dodgy takeaway food, but I couldn’t remember eating anything at all that day. Maybe some toast for breakfast. Perhaps that was it. I stood and kicked at the wheel thing to try to dislodge the ratchet, but to no avail. I was rapidly sobering up and tried, with rising panic, to remember whether I had any alcohol at home.