Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [30]
We fell laughing into a dip and rolled upright with sand pouring from our hair. We turned over and over again until she lay on top. She lifted her head and listened. ‘No wind here,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all.’
And she bent to me like a woman from the sky. She bit my lip and gripped the hair at the back of my head. She sat upright and reached around and into my trousers.
‘Here,’ she said. She worked her hand up and down. She told me to lift up her skirt, and I did.
She lay with her mouth wet upon my neck. I looked to the fluffs of cloud that raced on the wind. I thought of sails blown free from wooden ships. And I thought of him, Billy K, adrift on the breeze.
It was cold when the sun dipped below the rim of the dune. Anna had fallen asleep. When she finally opened her eyes and saw that the day was fading she said, ‘We should go.’
But this wasn’t how it had happened last night. If the dream had been faithful to memory, we’d have opened a bottle of wine and eaten cheese and bread, watched children fly kites above the surf. But this dream was the cut of a cruel director.
Instead we stood and climbed, into the brunt of the wind. Sand whipped up and stung our eyes. Our shadows walked ahead, elongated on the beach. We saw a white yacht on the horizon.
‘See,’ said Anna. ‘Sailing into the sunset, not on the sun.’ And suddenly she was crying, pointing. ‘Look.’
The sail was torn from the mast, snatched into the sky. I turned to comfort her, but she was gone. And so was my shadow, striding over the dunes. I was utterly alone.
Then I saw her. A woman, facing out to sea. Standing in the surf. Her favourite dress fluttering in the wind. My mother. I called out but she didn’t hear. I shouted, screamed. She didn’t hear because she was speaking to the little girl at her side, the granddaughter she never met. Gemma.
I tried to run, but the hard sand softened, clogged my steps. I tripped and fell. I could only watch as my mother lifted Gemma into her arms and waded into the sea, engulfed by the foaming surf.
I’d woken lying halfway out of the tent door, clutching fists of red sand.
Only when I pick up the fresh ruts of another 4WD does the dream end. To think of something else, to think of something different from loss, I imagine finding Billy K sitting on a rock and strumming his guitar. In an act of benevolence I’d allow him to finish the song before snapping on the cuffs. Even though I have no cuffs, or the authority to put them on him.
After this little fantasy, when I get to the ruin at dusk and there’s another jeep already pulled over, my heart races.
But no Billy K. Yet. Just Albert and Edith from Melbourne, a retired couple touring out their twilight years. I introduce myself as Dr Adams, and apart from dodging a few awkward questions on South Pacific history, it’s good to sit and feel normal.
Too dark to see the tumbledown building properly, I happily accept the offer of a couple – and only a couple – of Albert’s beers. We sit and talk, watching the moonrise and Edith grill chicken. Beyond the chatter of complimenting the chef, the subject turns to family. They have grandchildren, happy families with houses and pools. Then I’m asked if I’m married, whether I have kids. And though I dread the question, I find myself opening up about the divorce, Anna and Gemma. Edith offers comfort, that a loving father is a loving father, separated or not. Then Albert ventures I’ll be home soon enough, that before I know it I’ll be back in London, girlfriend and daughter waiting.
Alone in my tent, no return flight booked, I wonder when that day might be.
I bid them farewell in the morning, with an excuse about checking oil and tyre pressure delaying our travelling together. Once the dust cloud of their SUV settles, I investigate the ruin, crude and broken bricks, splinters of beams. Historians say there’s no evidence of a church, only that it was a store for stockmen driving cattle, with lead shot ammunition and a candlestick