The Butcherbird Stories Page 17

  When Charles got back into the taxi after pulling out the two heavy suitcases, Thomas Avon paid him with a credit card. Closed the door with a hard push. Waved instead of saying goodbye. Pulled his two suitcases along behind him to a bench and sat down as though to take in the view. Avon looked robust enough for his age but hopefully his friend would show up soon.

  Koschade drove back up Jetty Road and turned left onto Beach Road. He would have to stop to eat lunch. It was a long drive to the Royal Women’s Hospital. The traffic getting into the city would be bad—it would be absolutely dire getting out of the city to Flemington Road. He used to like a burger joint in St Kilda on the corner of Carlisle and Barkly. He hadn’t had much of an appetite for the last few weeks.

  The wet umbrella sat on his passenger seat, dripping water. He knocked it down to the cabin floor. It popped open with a spray of rainwater. It was old and cheap and the latch on the thing was difficult to engage at the best of times.

  His phone pinged. A text. He ignored it when he saw it wasn’t from Areti. For now they were safe. There was no bad news until he got to her ward. And maybe there would be no bad news for the entire evening and he would be able to take her home. They’d sit on the couch like she said. Watch another episode of Atlanta. He would lock the doors and keep the curtains closed, and he would feed her in bed, give her anything she needed to be comfortable. And the bad news might not come at all if they breathed and moved carefully.

  He’d been thinking of the Little Match Girl again recently because of Areti. When each one of those matches was lit a whole world was illuminated, but the darkness that followed felt all the more dismally cold. Each match she struck brought her closer to the edge of her life. He didn’t know how to pray. All he could do was close his eyes and hope that this match might stay lit.

  Koschade was annoyed by the wet umbrella. It continued to drip rainwater. He pulled over to the kerb so he could get out, close and return it to the boot. He thought about Avon. The back seat would still be wet from the rainwater he’d brought in with him on Union Street.

  Was he an old fool going to the beach in this horrendous weather to reminisce about his wife and son in summers past? Just a fucking idiot with no sense whatsoever? And since he hadn’t seemed to know where he wanted to go when he got into the taxi, how likely was it that the old man would be meeting someone at Sandringham beach soon? Or at any time, on a day like today? Koschade really was no better than an automaton if he believed any of those things. He threw the umbrella back into the boot and got into his vehicle again.

  The beach was empty. No cars in the car park. Heavy clouds were rolling in, black with more rain, allowing little sunlight through. No locals strolled the beach. Koschade found the two suitcases near the bench. One was closed and the other open. He saw what he initially thought were the parts of a machine. Found that it was mostly large pieces of metal, wrist-thick bolts and fist-sized nuts. None of the steel had the grime of having been used before in any kind of apparatus.

  When Koschade looked around he couldn’t see where Avon might have gone. The beach was ragged with seaweed and the flotsam of a turbulent ocean so it didn’t reveal any footprints. Koschade went back to the taxi, unsure what he should do.

  He couldn’t drive away. All he could do was move around the car park. He got out again and went down the wooden stairs descending to the beach. He waded across the wet sand and over to the water’s surging edge. He saw the top of Avon’s head disappearing below the black expanse.

  Avon was not bobbing up and down in the water, the way a person normally would when hit by waves. His arms rose at each swell but his body moved forward without buoyancy. The waves swept right over him. They hit him, and repulsed his forward movement. He wasn’t swept back to the beach. He had brought his own ballast— weighed himself down with the pieces of metal from his luggage. All those industrial nuts and bolts. Three jackets with many pockets. In the pockets of his pants as well.

  Koschade fell when he walked into the first heavy wave, taking sea water into his lungs. He’d never gone into the ocean fully clothed before. The weight of his clothes and the way they wrapped around his limbs and clung to his flesh made moving difficult. The wintery salt water sprayed up into the air by the surf became serrated on the wind, razoring any exposed skin. He was blinded for seconds. Stunned by the agony and overwhelmed by the thought that Thomas Avon had willingly walked into this. That he had sought out this pain—that he had wanted to move deeper into it. After a few steps Charles fell again, got up coughing. Took in so much sea water this time he thought he was going to choke.

  He turned. There was no-one out on the beach. The car park up on the bluff was still empty but for his own vehicle. Koschade bobbed in the water. His taxi was up there with its lights on. Avon might have seen it and gone out deeper until he couldn’t continue walking. Until he ran out of breath.

  Koschade turned again. He’d lost track of him. Avon had gone under. Charles stood there blinking and trying to clear his vision—watching the waves come in with such a roaring force of pain that it bleached his mind. He lifted his palms to his eyes. The corrosive pain in Avon that found itself resolved only in this flood of agony. All the pieces of metal, as nothing compared to the broken pieces of his love. So Charles moved further out to where the sea water broke over his shoulders in wave after wave. He didn’t know how tall Avon was; they had never stood face to face. Perhaps he was taller than Koschade. Charles knew a brain began to die after two minutes without air.

  He crossed from one sandbar to another—he felt them below his feet—and then swam across another trench. He moved out into deeper water, waves crashing over his head, one after another. Below the water he found brief moments of relief from the roar of the wind. He had to come up again. Took another gulp of sea water. Hacked it out. Gasped for air. He wasn’t a great swimmer—only used to the slow-flowing Murray and the public swimming pools in Mildura. He wasn’t sure what he would do with the body. He didn’t know how to give mouth-to-mouth. Charles would try to breathe into Avon if he found him. Sea water would fill the man’s stomach and his lungs.

  He saw the top of Avon’s grey head, just above the water. Palms out. Not too far away. He’d crossed over another sandbank; would soon be out in the water that would drown him. He’d chosen a difficult death. Wanted it to come in waves, to slowly bleed him of all his strength. To tear the sunlight from his mind one memory at a time. Koschade knew there was no point in shouting out to him. If Charles called out, Avon would step right into the swell and be gone.

  Koschade swam and walked as best he could, reaching Thomas Avon in his last moments, grabbing him by the collar. He pulled him back towards the shore. As soon as he had a good hold he felt a surge of fury. He was brutal as he dragged the man behind him, swearing at him as he went. As soon as the water was waist-height, Avon found his strength and balance again. He had talked about the Pathfinder being naked and fragile—and had then covered himself in layers of fabric and metal. He used the weight he’d brought with him into the ocean to stand his ground.

  Thomas Avon began to throw punches. Battering Charles with everything he had left. Both of them were wordless in the roar of the ocean. Koschade tried to grab him but Avon’s limbs were wet with sea water. He stepped back, fell when a wave came and knocked him over. Stood again when Avon attempted to move back into deeper water. He took Avon’s punches as best he could. The man would wear himself out. He had already used most of his strength fighting through the waves. When Avon couldn’t raise his arms anymore, Koschade moved towards him and held him as boxers did in the middle of a round.

  He could hear Avon’s hoarse breath wheezing out of his exhausted lungs. The wind scoured their faces. For all the struggle, neither of them had any more body heat. Flesh felt as cold-blooded as fish. It was easier for the two men to stand in this odd embrace, continuing to be hit by wave after wave. Koschade only loosened his hold when he felt the man wobbling, about to drop. He hauled him again by a
flap of the mackintosh and got him back to the sand.

  Avon stumbled. Picked himself up, coughing out water. They collapsed on the beach together. Turned to sit when they could, watching the sea water washing over their shoes. Charles no longer heard the noise of the wind or the waves. He was so numb he couldn’t feel the cold. Around him he saw the static of a midwinter’s day. He heard a double-time heartbeat. He closed his eyes to listen to it. Thomas Avon leaned forward to vomit out salt water.

  “Where do you want me to take you now?” Koschade asked him. He could barely talk, his teeth were chattering so violently.

  Koschade slapped the man’s back to help him empty his stomach.

  “The meter’s still running so you’d better make up your mind soon,” he told him.

  “The meter is still running?” Avon asked as he looked at Koschade. He was having just as much difficulty talking. The man nodded with the grimace of a smile to indicate he knew it was a joke. “We should get moving then.”

  Avon couldn’t stand. Koschade had to pull him to his feet. The old man took the pieces of metal out of all his pockets. Nuts and bolts from some massive machine he didn’t need anymore. The last thing he threw away was the note he’d placed in a ziplock envelope. Avon removed the letter from the protection of the plastic and let it drop into a surge of water that swept passed their feet.

  Charles was trembling, only saved from dropping by the need to keep moving and get back to the heat of the taxi. Tremors ran through his body. He couldn’t keep his head steady on his shoulders.

  Soon they’d be warm again. They would both sit inside, dripping on the seats. There would be that moment Avon had mentioned before—of feeling like a child finding unexpected safety. They might listen to Maria Callas sing again.

  He thought of the Little Match Girl as he and Avon trudged through seaweed across the corrugated beach back to the taxi. The headlights of the vehicle were on, its doors open, and the interior illuminated as well. The engine was running and the heater was on uselessly. Might have been stolen—not likely on a day such as this one, when anyone with any sense was inside.

  They walked up the wooden stairs up the bluff to the car park with difficulty, one step after another. Thomas Avon thanked him for the help.

  It occurred to Charles Koschade that Andersen didn’t need satellites in the sky to see the Earth when he wrote that story about a poor girl freezing in the winter streets of Copenhagen. Those shooting stars, each one a soul, aren’t what we see at night. We don’t see anything anymore— living in cities that obscure the stars with light pollution. He was looking further out at the play of light showing through a black dancing ribbon.