The Bat (28 page)

“So you’re out celebrating Australia Day as well, are you?” said another voice, a man’s this time, in a familiar language.

Harry turned. A couple were smiling encouragement. He ordered his mouth to maintain the smile, hoping the order would be obeyed. A certain facial tension suggested he still had control over this bodily function. Others he had had to give up on. His subconscious had rebelled and at this very moment there was a battle for his sight and hearing. His brain was working at full capacity to find out what was happening, but it wasn’t easy, because it was being bombarded all the time by distorted and sometimes absurd information.

“We’re Danish, by the way. My name’s Poul and this is my wife, Gina.”

“Why do you think I’m Swedish?” Harry heard himself say. The Danish couple looked at each other.

“You were talking to yourself. Weren’t you aware of that? You were watching TV and wondering whether Alice would fall right the way through the earth. And she did, didn’t she? Ha ha!”

“Oh yes, she did,” Harry said, completely baffled.

“It’s not like a Scandinavian midsummer’s night, is it. This is just laughable. You can hear rockets going off, but
you can’t see a thing because of the mist. For all we know, the rockets might have set fire to some of the skyscrapers. Ha ha! Can you smell the powder? It’s the dampness that causes it to settle on the ground. Are you a tourist here as well?”

Harry had a think. It must have been a really good think, because when he was ready to answer the Danes had gone.

He redirected his attention to the TV screens. Burning trees on one screen and tennis on another. In a news program they were showing pictures of windsurfers, a woman weeping and parts of a yellow wetsuit with massive bite marks. On the adjacent TV set blue-and-white police tape fluttered in the wind at the edge of the forest as uniformed officers went back and forth with bags. Then a large, pale face filled the screen. It was a bad photo of an unattractive, young blonde girl. There was a sad expression in her eyes as though she were upset she wasn’t more attractive.

“Attractive,” Harry said. “Strange business. Did you know that …?”

Lebie passed behind a police officer who was being interviewed on camera.

“Shit,” Harry shouted. “Bloody hell!” He banged his palm on the shop window. “Turn up the sound! Turn up the volume in there! Someone …”

The picture had changed to a weather map of the east coast of Australia. Harry pressed his nose against the glass until it was squashed, and in the reflection of one unused screen he saw the face of John Belushi.

“Was that something I was imagining, John? Remember I’m under the influence of a very strong hallucinogenic drug right now.”

“Let me in! I have to talk to her.”

“Go home and sleep it off. We don’t let drunks … Hey!”

“Let me in! I’m telling you I’m a friend of Birgitta’s. She works at the bar.”

“We know that, but our job is to keep people like you out, do you understand, blondie?”

“Ow!”

“Go quietly now, or I’ll be forced to break your arm, you … Ow! Bob! Bob!”

“Sorry, but I’m sick of being manhandled. Have a nice evening.”

“What is it, Nicky? Is it him over there?”

“Let him go. Shit! He just wriggled out of my hold and punched me in the guts. Give me a hand, will you?”

“This town’s falling apart at the seams. Think I’m gonna move back to bloody Melbourne. Did you see the news? Another girl raped and strangled. They found her this afternoon in Centennial Park.”

Harry woke with a splitting headache. The light hurt his eyes, and no sooner had he registered that he was lying under a blanket than he had to throw himself to the side. The vomit came in quick spurts and the contents of his stomach splashed on the stone floor. He fell back on the bench and felt the gall sting his nose as he asked himself the classic question: where on earth am I?

The last thing he could remember was that he had gone into Green Park, and the stork had looked accusingly at him. Now he seemed to be in a circular room with some benches and a couple of big wooden tables. Along the walls hung tools, spades, rakes and a garden hose, and in the middle of the floor there was a drain.

“Good morning, white brother,” said a deep voice he recognized. “
Very
white brother,” he said as he approached. “Stay where you are.”

It was Joseph, the gray Aboriginal man from the Crow people.

He turned on a tap by the wall, took the hose and sprayed the vomit down the drain.

“Where am I?” Harry asked, to start somewhere.

“In Green Park.”

“But …”

“Relax. I’ve got the keys here. This is my second home.” He peered through a window. “It’s a nice day outside. What’s left of it.”

Harry looked up at Joseph. He seemed to be in a sensationally good mood for a bum.

“The parkie and I have known each other a while, and we have a kind of special arrangement,” Joseph explained. “Sometimes he pulls a sickie and I take care of what has to be done—pick up litter, empty bins, cut the grass, that sort of thing. In return I can kip here now and again. Sometimes he leaves me some tucker as well, but not today, I’m afraid.”

Harry tried to think of something other than “but” to say, but gave up. Joseph, on the other hand, was in a talkative mood.

“If I’m honest, what I like best about this deal is that it gives me something to do. It fills the day and makes me think about other things, kind of. Sometimes I even think I’m making myself useful.”

Joseph beamed and waggled his head. Harry couldn’t comprehend that this was the same person who’d been sitting in a comatose state on the bench just a short time ago and with whom he had been vainly trying to communicate.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you yesterday,” Joseph said. “That you were the same person who’d been sitting so sober and upright and I had bummed ciggies off a few days before. And yesterday it was bloody impossible to talk to you. Ha ha!”

“Touché,” Harry said.

Joseph left and returned with a bag of hot chips and a cup of Coke. He watched Harry gingerly consuming the simple but astonishingly effective meal.

“The precursor to Coca-Cola was discovered by an
American chemist who wanted to concoct a remedy for hangovers,” Joseph said. “But he reckoned he’d failed and sold the recipe on for eight dollars. If you ask me no one has found anything better.”

“Jim Beam,” Harry answered between mouthfuls.

“Yes, apart from Jim. And Jack and Johnnie and a couple of other blokes. Ha ha. How do you feel?”

“Better.”

Joseph put two bottles on the table. “Hunter Valley’s cheapest red wine,” he said. “Will you have a glass with me, whitie?”

“Thanks, Joseph, but red wine’s not my … Have you got anything else? A brown something, for example?”

“Think I keep a stock, do you?”

Joseph seemed a bit affronted that Harry had refused his generous offer.

Harry got up with difficulty. He attempted to reconstruct the gap in his memory between pointing his gun at Rod Stewart and their literally falling around each other’s necks and sharing some acid. He was unable to pinpoint what had led to such utter bliss and mutual attraction, except the self-explanatory—Jim Beam. However, he was able to remember that he had punched the bouncer at the Albury.

“Harry Hole, you are a pathetic piss-artist,” he muttered.

They went outside and flopped down on the grass. The sun stung his eyes and the alcohol from the previous day stung in the pores of his skin, but otherwise it was in fact not bad at all. A light breeze was blowing, and they lay on their backs gazing at the white puffs of cloud drifting across the sky.

“It’s jumping weather today,” Joseph said.

“I have no intention of jumping,” Harry said. “I’m going to lie perfectly still or tiptoe around at the very worst.”

Joseph squinted into the light. “I wasn’t thinking of that kind of jumping, I was thinking of sky-jumping, skydiving.”

“Wow, are you a skydiver?”

Joseph nodded.

Harry shielded his eyes and looked up at the sky. “What about the clouds? Aren’t they a problem?”

“Not at all. They’re cirrus clouds, feather clouds, about fifteen thousand feet up.”

“You surprise me, Joseph. Not that I know what a skydiver should look like, but I wouldn’t have imagined that he’s …”

“A drunk?”

“For example.”

“Ha ha. That’s two sides of the same coin.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Have you ever been alone in the air, Harry? Have you flown? Have you jumped from a great height and felt the air trying to hold you up, to catch you and caress your body?”

Joseph was already well on his way down the first bottle, and his voice had assumed a warmer tone. His eyes gleamed as he described the beauty of free fall to Harry.

“It opens all your senses. Your whole body screams that you can fly. ‘And I haven’t got any wings,’ it shouts to you, trying to drown the wind whistling past your ears. Your body is convinced it’s going to die and goes into full-alarm mode—opens all its senses to the max to see if any of them can find a way out. Your brain is the world’s biggest computer, it registers everything: your skin feels the temperature rising as you fall, your ears notice the increase in pressure and you become aware of every furrow and hue in the map below. You can even
smell
the planet as it comes nearer. And if you can push mortal fear to the back of your mind, Harry, for an instant you’re an angel. You’re living a life in forty seconds.”

“And if you can’t?”

“You don’t push it away, just to the back of your mind. Because it has to be there, like a clear, strident note, like cold water on your skin. It’s not the fall but the mortal fear
that opens your senses. It starts as a shock, an adrenaline rush through your veins as you leave the plane. Like an injection. Then it mingles with your blood and makes you feel happy and strong. If you close your eyes you can see it as a wonderful poisonous snake lying there and watching you with its snake eyes.”

“You’re making it sound like dope, Joseph.”

“It
is
dope!” Joseph was gesticulating wildly now. “That’s just what it is. You want the fall to last forever, and if you’ve been skydiving for a while, you notice that pulling the rip-cord becomes harder and harder. In the end you’re scared that one day you’ll overdose, that you won’t pull it, and so you stop jumping. And that’s when you know you’re hooked. Abstinence eats away at you, life appears meaningless, trivial, and in the end you find yourself squeezed behind the pilot of a small, ancient Cessna, taking an eternity to climb to ten thousand feet and consuming all your savings.”

Joseph took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“In a nutshell, Harry, they’re two sides of the same coin. Life becomes a living hell, but the alternative is even worse. Ha ha.”

Joseph raised himself on his elbows and took a slug of wine.

“I’m a flightless bird. Do you know what an emu is, Harry?”

“An Australian ostrich.”

“Clever boy.”

When Harry closed his eyes he heard Andrew’s voice. Because, of course, it was Andrew lying next to him on the grass and sermonizing about what was important and what was less important.

“Have you heard the story about why the emu can’t fly?”

Harry shook his head.

“OK, stick with me, Harry. In the Dreamtime the emu had wings and could fly. He and his wife lived by a lake
where their daughter had married Jabiru, a stork. One day Jabiru and his wife had been out fishing and brought home a wonderfully big catch; they ate almost everything and in their haste forgot to leave the best bits for her parents, as they usually did. When the daughter took the remains of the fish to her father, Emu, he was furious. ‘Don’t I always give you the best bits when I’ve been hunting?’ he said. He grabbed his club and a spear, and flew to Jabiru to give him a sound beating.

“Jabiru, however, was not of a mind to let himself be beaten without offering any resistance, so he took a huge branch and knocked the club away. Then he hit his father-in-law first on the left and then on the right, breaking both wings. Emu crawled to his feet and slung the spear at his daughter’s husband. It pierced his back and exited through his mouth. Beside himself with pain, the stork flew to the marshes where it transpired the spear was useful for catching fish. Emu went to the dry plains, where you can see it running around with the stumps of broken wings, unable to fly.”

Joseph put the bottle to his lips, but there were only a few drops left. He eyed the bottle with an aggrieved expression and replaced the cork. Then he opened the second.

“Is that more or less the same as your story, Joseph?”

“Well, er …”

The bottle gurgled, and he was ready.

“I worked as a parachute instructor up in Cessnok for eight years. We were a great bunch, excellent working atmosphere. No one got rich, neither us nor the owners; the club was driven by sheer enthusiasm. Most of the money we earned as instructors was spent on our own jumps. I was a good instructor. Some thought I was the best. Nonetheless they stripped me of my license because of one unfortunate incident. They maintained I was drunk during one skydive with a course participant. As though I would have spoiled a jump by drinking!”

“What happened?”

“What do you mean? Do you want the details?”

“You a bit busy?”

“Ha ha. OK, I’ll tell you.”

The bottle glistened in the sun.

“OK, this is how it was. It was an improbable convergence of ill-starred circumstances that did it, not a stiffener or two. First of all, there was the weather. As we took off there was a layer of cloud at about eight thousand feet. That’s no problem if the clouds are so high because you mustn’t pull the rip cord before four thousand feet. The important thing is that students see the ground after the parachute has been released, so they don’t go crazy and head for Newcastle. They have to be able to see the ground signals to know where they should steer according to wind and terrain to land safely in the drop zone, right? When we took off it was true there were a few clouds coming in, but they still seemed some way off. The problem was that the club used an ancient Cessna held together with gaffer tape, prayers and goodwill. It took more than twenty minutes to reach ten thousand feet, the height at which we would jump. After takeoff the wind picked up, and when we passed the clouds at eight thousand feet, it blew a second layer of cloud in beneath us, which we didn’t see. Understand?”