Jalan Jalan (35 page)

‘My demons?'

‘You know who I mean.'

—Is he talking about me?

—He's just playing with my mind, that's all. Relax.

—I can't. He's freaking me. I'm going for a walk.

I watch as she walks along the beach towards the trees that line it. There are no footprints in the sand behind her.

He looks at me, eyes study my head. ‘No, no. Your brain will shrivel in this heat.' He pulls a square of coloured old batik cloth out from where it is tucked into his woven belt, shakes it out and puts it over my head.

I offer the joint back to him. He shakes his head. Fair enough. I carry on with it.

Laura is studying the leaves and trees. She looks like she's spotted something in them and leans in. Then she parts a big fern, looks back towards us, and steps into the forest.

Something moves in my chest.

‘When you get in car, or on bus, or plane, you travel away from some place. You think that place has gone? You think you can't get back there?' He pokes me in the side. ‘Eh? You think it is “poof ”?' Now he opens his hands in the air like a magician. ‘Gone?'

‘Er.' Fuck. Both his eyes have clouded up. Ganja. Strong ganja is all it is.

‘Tell me? Is it gone?'

I look to the forest to see if Laura has come back out. She hasn't.

I open my mouth but he cuts me off.

‘No. It is still there. You can take another bus, plane or drive car back there. No problem. Maybe the ticket costs more, or there is diversion on road. Maybe how you get there has changed, but the place has not.' He nods his head and is silent again. ‘Like time, my friend. Like time.'

I look at the potion steaming in the fire. This mad old walnut must have gone to the same school as Laura. I picture them sitting at desks next to each other, studying quantum physics.

Walnut in school uniform. I giggle.

‘Mmm. Get high. Good. Time for drink.' He puts his hands into the smouldering fire and lifts his dish up with bare hands. He puts it quickly down on the sand and blows his fingers.

‘Shit. Is hot.'

‘Of course it is. It's a fire.' I giggle more.

He stirs the potion with a stick and mutters some words I don't understand, then he scoops up some sand and throws it in my face.

‘Ow. Fuck.' I shake my head and blink my eyes. For the first time I notice my headache has gone.

‘Shh. Drink.' He pulls the cloth off my head and uses it to pick up the soup.

‘No thanks.'

‘Drink. It is sweet. Drink slowly. But leave a little.' His eyes narrow and he stares out to sea, as if trying to find something under its surface. ‘While you drink, listen to the great water, watch the waves. Rolling. Breaking. Rolling.'

I sniff the liquid. It smells of sweet berries and cardamom and something musky, like the weed I'm smoking. Oh, the weed I'm smoking. I look at its black-brown and glowing end and take a long last drag on it. I push it into the sand and take a sip of the soup, or whatever it is. It is sweet, slightly sickly, but I like it.

‘Rolling. Breaking. Rolling. Look.' His scrawny dirty finger points out to the sea. ‘The waves.'

Is this going to be the trip? Is he going to mind-fuck me? Oh well. I sip more and more, watching the rolling, breaking, rolling waves. White foam spilling. Blue. Emerald green. Azure. The colours of the unseen world beneath.

‘Rolling. Breaking. Rolling. The wave, she comes in, she goes out, hiding under the next wave as she comes in. All of them rolling, breaking, rolling, over each other, then back out to great ocean. But they will return again in another time, or on another shore.'

My eyes are becoming heavy. My fingers and toes tingle and quiver where stress is leaving me. Down my arms and legs and out of my fingers and toes.

‘Rolling. Breaking. Rolling.'

If only Laura were here. If only she…

‘Forward and backward. Rolling. Breaking. Rolling. Retreating under the next.'

If only she what?

‘The places we have come from are still there. They are still there. We just have to find them.'

Laura. She is still where? Where is she? Why have I come here, without her?

I can't remember. But it's alright. I'm not scared. My Laura. Somewhere. Still somewhere. In some moment.

‘Rolling. Breaking…'

My eyes are drooping. The warm dish is still in my hand, nearly empty.

Relaxed. I am so relax—

‘Buuuuuurrrrrrrrppppppp.' The sound is deep and guttural and comes from the depths of Teddy.

I jump.

‘Bloody hell, Teddy.'

He is up on his bent old legs.

‘It is nearly finished, now give me the dish before you drink it all. You greedy Westerners always drink up all that is offered to you. And sometimes all that isn't.'

I hand it up to him and he carries it into the sea. He wades in up to his thighs. I watch as the waves smash down in front of him. I'm amazed his flamingo legs can handle the force. I stand unsteady but ready to rescue him. I can tell he is saying something to the sea, but I can't hear over the crashing of the waves, which have become bigger, more violent.

Teddy throws the metal dish into a collapsing wave. It swallows it whole. He rubs his hands then holds them open-palmed up to the sky and says more words, unheard in the roar of the sea. He turns and starts to wade back. Suddenly he loses his footing and falls over in the shallower water. I splash out to him, but he holds up a hand.

‘I am good. No what what.'

Dripping, he stands next to me, and we stare at the sea together. I admire its strength, but don't quite understand its power.

‘It is done. Go home, my friend. Go and return to the old places. See what is still there. Waiting for you.' He looks sideways at me and winks with his one cloudy eye. ‘Good luck.'

He squeezes my shoulder and walks back to the fire, kicks sand over it, picks up his bag and wanders along the beach towards the hill and trees at the far end. Bent legs and scrawny arms hanging out of colourful clothes. I watch until he clambers into the foliage, like an orang-utan, and disappears.

The sea has calmed again. And so have I. I'm not high, either. I'm not anything. I'm not Old Me
.
I'm not New Me,
I'm just me, and relaxed and happy about it. Calm and happy. I try to think about why I would be any other way and I'm not sure.

And why isn't Laura here?

Because she's dead. Isn't she? She was on a bus and she…

She what?

What?

She is dead. By a car. But she arrived, too. Didn't she? I remember her calling me from Prague. To say she arrived.

No, her mother's phone call. She is dead. Dead. Of course she is.

She is dead. I know she is dead.

What has that old fool of a walnut done to me? I must be high. I must be. But I feel so alive. I'm so vivid and clear. I am here.

Mad fool. Mad drugs.

But there is something else. Itching up the notches of my spine and in the curls of my stomach. And I think, but I'm not sure, that it is hope.

TYING THINGS UP

‘I
finish
today.'
     Pak Andy nods.

‘You're going to pay me everything I'm owed.'

‘Yes.' Something on his desk seems to have his attention. I see more of his bald patch than his face. ‘I will also pay exit tax.'

‘Thank you, Andy. I'll pick the cash up at the end of class today.' I stand up and with my hand on the door handle I say, ‘You will treat the other teachers with respect, Andy. Yes?'

‘Yes.'

‘And also Iqpal. He is a good man.'

‘Yes.'

‘Because they are my friends. And you know who my other friend is?'

‘Yes.'

‘Take care, Andy. Thanks for the job.'

I close the door on his bald head and feel a little sad for him. He's going to be Charles' bitch for a long time.

I enter a full staffroom.

‘Hey. Newbie returns.' Kim gets up and smacks me on the back. ‘Thought you'd been eaten by the drug monster somewhere. Last seen leaving Memphis with a beautiful Indian girl and off your face, I heard.'

‘That was five days ago,' says Julie. She hugs me. ‘That
obat
was strong shit. We've been worried.'

‘I'm OK. Just had to shoot off for a couple of days.'

‘Up to your nuts in curry sauce?' Jussy sniggers at his own filth.

‘Justin, you get worse,' says Marty.

‘All I'll tell you lot is, Mei's for a farewell drink on Friday.'

‘Whoa. What?' Kim's mouth shows how wide it can go.

‘Yep. Bye-byes all round. In the meantime I'm off to class. See you later.' I laugh and trot up the stairs to my room, leaving a room full of ‘no ways' and ‘fucks' behind.

I enter the class and put my irrelevant lesson plan on the desk.

‘There you all are.' I scan the room with a wide smile across my face. Johnny is in his usual seat, looking embarrassed and awkward, leaning forward over his desk, Jimmy Dean hair swinging in front of his eyes.

‘Sorry I missed you on Monday. Who was your teacher?'

‘Mr Geoff. He did good lesson about past tenses.' My archenemy, the serious Ferdi.

‘It was boring,' says Johnny. ‘Finished time, blah blah, unfinished time, blah blah.'

‘Got to agree with you, Johnny. Especially as there's no such thing as finished time.'

‘Of course there is,' says Ferdi, ‘I ate my dinner yesterday, it is finished.'

‘No it's not. It's still waiting for you to eat it.' Sod it. I'm going to mess with minds; it's my last day with them.

‘What? You are crazy.' Ferdi shifts about in his seat and shakes his head.

‘What did you have, Ferdi?'

‘Nasi goreng.'

‘Was it good?'

‘It was OK.'

‘What's your favourite food?'

‘Martabak.'

‘Oh yeah. I love
martabak
too. Well you could have that yesterday if you want.'

‘What?'

There is laughter from around the class and a couple of ‘crazy sir' comments.

‘The past is still there. And you can live it any way you want. You just have to get there, and when you do, you can eat something different.'

Johnny sits back in his chair and whistles.

‘Eh, teacher. I said some crazy stuff in the past. You say I can change that?' He studies his fingers, but sneaks a look from under his eyebrows.

‘If you can find that moment, then yes. But perhaps you don't have to change anything you said.'

There is a pause from Johnny.

‘Whatever you said, Johnny. It was you that said it, and it was probably true, but maybe you just said it to the wrong person. So don't change it. Just accept it and don't worry. Make sure if you say it again, it's to the right person.'
Dukun
seems to have worked some wise magic shit on me too. ‘You are you, Johnny, and everyone likes you for that. Perhaps the person you said these things to feels bad for running off and not saying anything when he could.'

There is silence in the class while they try to work out what the hell we are talking about.

Johnny's finger trails an invisible pattern around the desktop; he nods and says, ‘So you mean what I said is no problem?'

‘I can't imagine anything you say being a problem. You're a good guy, Johnny, and one day someone, the right person, will see that.'

‘Thanks, boss.' Awkward silence scratches around the walls of the room.

Change-the-subject time.

‘So what does anyone want to discuss today, for this, our last lesson together?'

I wait while the noise dies down. My eyes water at the response.

‘What do you mean last lesson?' demands Johnny.

‘You cannot go,' says Jenny. ‘No other teacher talks to us like you.'

‘That's probably because they want to teach you what they're supposed to be teaching. Not how evil and corrupt and immoral my world is.'

‘And sexy.' Johnny is being Johnny, and his audience applaud with laughter.

‘Sexy maybe. But sometimes subtle sexy is better.'

‘Subtle?' asks another student.

‘Not here,' I hold my hand in front of my face, ‘not in your face like this, too close, but maybe over here,' I move my hand behind my ear, ‘where no one can see, or maybe just a little glimpse. Subtle.'