Tide (3 page)

And then she was gone. He was always vanishing. He was always wandering down to the beach. He wasn't allowed to swim on his own, but he was allowed to pick up shells and make sandcastles and wander the shore. He liked that. They weren't too far away. And he'd learnt to swim early. He was the best swimmer in the world for his age. He could swim the entire Indian Ocean if he needed to. He could rescue a full-grown man from the breakers which smashed incessantly on the beach, filling his ears and his bedroom endlessly. He looked forward to the silence of space. The vacuum. His mother had been a swimming teacher and though she lived by the sea she was always saying to his dad, I wish we had a pool, I could give lessons. Don't be daft, woman, he'd say, we've got half the world's water on our doorstep. You can't teach lessons in surf, she'd say.

The ocean was central to his plan. After re-entering the earth's atmosphere, he'd splash down just beyond the breakers and surf his way in. The beach was deserted at this time of year so he wouldn't get busted or land on anyone. True, there'd be no witnesses, other than the gulls and the dolphins, but
he'd
know, and his mother would believe him. She always believed him. And she'd tell Dad, and if he didn't believe, Mum would insist and he'd either believe or leave again. How many times had he left? This time, though, he said, I'll be fucked if I'm coming back! Don't swear in front of the boy, she'd cried. But the boy knew every swearword. The boy knew every word that'd ever been written or said. He knew why he was on earth. He had a purpose. He had a mission.

Helmet back on, he continued the check. T minus two and counting. The engines were hotting up and the whole launch vehicle began shaking. Just for a second, he wondered if it'd hold together, if he hadn't been a little hasty joining the two stages. He was briefly concerned for the
integrity of the vehicle.
But it was too late for doubts.

FLIGHT

We met him under the wharf. We were drinking Brandivino, and he asked for a swig. We didn't mind because he was about ten years older than us, and we figured we could make use of him for a bottle-shop run. I was the eldest of our trio, about three months short of my eighteenth birthday. He also cadged a couple of cigarettes off us, smoking them cupped in his hand because the draught swirls down there, coming in between the ships and the pylons.

He crouched on the narrow gangway and rocked back and forth. If it'd been night we probably would have been a little scared of him: filthy, in an army surplus greatcoat, matted hair becoming dreadlocks, a crazed beard, and eyes that burnt somewhere between brown and grey. He didn't speak much but when he did it was kind of forceful – emphatic. And then he almost knocked us from our tenuous perches over the surging green water. He said, I can fly.

It was the way he said it. We knew straight away that he didn't mean he could fly in a plane, or even fly a plane, or hang-glide or paraglide or perform any other assisted method of flight. In his eyes he said it as well: he could fly!

We believed him the moment we perceived what he was saying. Immediately. We saw it simultaneously in our slightly buzzed collective mind's eye. Under that greatcoat we knew he had the wings of an angel or a devil, or both.

We asked if he could fly for us. For us to see – to witness.

He was a funny bugger. Not under here, he said, I am not as small as those swallows darting in and out of the pylons.

We all laughed, and took deep swigs, and thought about the bottle ending soon. We handed him the last drop as a gesture of solidarity and goodwill.

If we give you the money, will you pick up another couple of bottles from the pub down the road? Sure, he said. Not a problem. And we all hauled ourselves from the watery underworld of below-wharf, and climbed the steel ladder facing the sea, up into the above-wharf light. It was actually a warm day, though you wouldn't have known it below-wharf. The sun had a pleasant heat to it. Gulls and terns wheeled overhead, and a sailor on the stern of a ship moored alongside the wharf watched a large gob of his spittle fall far down to the sea. You could imagine small fish rising to the bait. I've seen that happen before. Maybe that's what the sailor was doing – amusing himself in a time-honoured way.

Will you fly after we've got more grog? we asked.

I will, he said, though after I fly I will have to leave town. No community tolerates me being among them once they've seen me fly. Once airborne I soar high and always attract attention.

I first thought I could fly when I was six. Not in that run-of-the-mill Superman-ofF-the-shed-roof way, but literally. It started in my dreams – I would fall off a mountain and be crashing to earth, and then I'd pull up just before impact and find myself soaring towards treetops and clouds. Then a few years later I was standing on the beach and saw what I thought was a shark fin, and my sisters were swimming and not looking. I called to them and they couldn't hear, and the fin was getting closer. I just crouched and leapt into the air, and then I was flying over the waters and plunged down at the fin and splashed the water and the shark snapped at the air, missing me, and I drove it out to sea and then flew back to the shore. My sisters said nothing. No-one said anything and the day at the beach went on as before.

Last week I had sex with a girl I've been lusting after for a year. I think I really like her. We went to the Year 12 ball together but nothing happened. Most of our classmates went down to the city for university but we both stayed on here, planning to head down in a year or two. My close mates had all left school at fifteen and got work on the cray boats or on farms, and I wanted to be around them, drinking and partying. We kind of had a band going as well, so maybe that was it. Anyway, I've been in town and still drinking with my mates on weekends. They wanted every gory detail of what went on with Alice, and I told them. Our new below-wharf friend looked uncomfortable and kind of lagged behind as we made a beeline for the pub. But I could tell he was still listening.

An orgasm isn't flying.

Okay, he said, give me your money and wait down the street. He went in and came straight out with two bottles. He gave us the change. He knew how to win trust. Or maybe he was just trustworthy. Let's go and drink in the park by the Moreton Bay fig, one of my mates suggested. Yes, good launching spaces there, we laughed. Our new friend followed.

Under the Moreton Bay fig is an old roundabout – a merry-go-round you push yourself. When our friend plonked himself on the boards, two little children leapt off and ran away to their mothers on the thin harbour beach. He laughed uncomfortably, Kids do that. Must be the hair, he said. We laughed again. We were laughing a lot and looking to each other, excluding him more by doing so. We climbed onto the merry-go-round and propelled it with our feet, swigging and getting giddy, and risking losing the bottles which went from hand to hand. Drinking fast, we got pissed quick. The children came back with their mothers, who told us to get off and act our age. Especially you, mate, they said to our friend. One mother said to the other, Christ, he stinks to high heaven.

We laughed again – even our friend laughed – and we found a patch of grass bordering the beach, where we smoked and finished the grog. Now, will you fly? we asked. Give the kids and their old dears a treat!

Flying is intuitive, but to make good use of it takes time and craft. It's an art form, a skill. We can all fly. Yet we not only don't choose to – we rarely, if ever, attempt it. The risks of crashing, of losing control, are so great. But falling is the most important part of flying – its heart, and very likely its soul.

Do you need a run-up? someone joked.

No, it's from a standing start.

You're a helicopter!

Or one of those VTO military aircraft – a vertical take-off jet. A jump jet!

We cacked ourselves, but he didn't seem fazed. He just said, I don't like the military. It is an abuse of flying to use it to hurt people.

We weren't sure what to say, but offered him another cigarette, which he took.