North of Nowhere, South of Loss Read Free Page A

underwater.”
    Between us and the river, the traffic rushed by in beetling lines but the noise was muffled, a droning damped-down buzz. Everything was fluid at the edges. Cars seemed to float slightly above the road and to move the way they do in old silent movies. Even the surface of Coronation Drive was unfixed, a band of shimmer. A drunk man was shambling along the bike path giving off mirages; I could see three of him. I could see the gigantic bamboo canes at the water’s edge doubling, tripling, tippling themselves into the haze. I could see wavy curtains of air flapping lazily, easily, settling on us with sleep in their folds. “The only reason I don’t come back to stay,” I said drowsily, “is that if I did, I would never do another blessed thing for the rest of my life. I’d turn into a blissed-out vegetable.”
    â€œIt makes me panic, being back,” Brian said. “I feel as though I’m suffocating, drowning. I can’t breathe. I can’t get away fast enough. I get terrified I’ll never get out again.”
    â€œGo back to Bleak City then,” I said. “Stop whingeing. You sound like a prissy Melburnian.”
    â€œI am a Melburnian.”
    â€œBullshit. You’ll be buried here.”
    â€œOver my dead body. I can never quite believe I got out,” he said. “I’ve forgotten the trick. How did I manage it?”
    I shrugged, giving up on him, and let my eyes swim in Coronation Drive with the cars. An amazing old dorsal-finned shark of a Thunderbird, early sixties vintage, hove into view and I followed it with wonder. “Who was that friend of your brother’s? The one with the Alfa Romeo. Remember that time we came burning out here and the cops –”
    â€œYou’ve got a mind like the bottom of a birdcage, Philippa,” Brian said irritably. “All over the shop.”
    â€œPolyphasic,” I offered primly. “Highly valued by some people in your field. I read an essay on it by Stephen Jay Gould. Or maybe it was Lewis Thomas. Multi-track minds, all tracks playing simultaneously. Whatever happened to him, I wonder?”
    â€œTo Stephen Jay Gould or Lewis Thomas?”
    â€œNeither, dummy. To that friend of your brother’s. How’s your brother, by the way?”
    â€œHe’s fine.”
    â€œStill in Adelaide?”
    â€œMm.”
    â€œDid he stay married?”
    â€œKnock it off, Philippa.”
    â€œYou stay in touch with her?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Brian. I’m really sorry about all that. Are you, you know, okay ?”
    â€œYeah, well.” Brian shrugged. “It’s easier this way. No high drama, no interruptions. I practically live at the lab.”
    â€œI read a glowing article about you in Scientific American. It was an old one, I picked it up in the waiting room at my dentist’s.”
    Brian laughed. “There’s achievement for you.”
    We lapsed into silence and drank another round of beer and stared at the river.
    â€œYour mother said she ran into Richard’s mum.”
    â€œDon’t get started, Philippa,” Brian warned.
    â€œI miss them, I miss them. I miss our old gang. Don’t you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLiar.”
    â€œI never miss anyone ,” he said vehemently.
    â€œYour mother said –”
    â€œOkay, get it over with.”
    â€œGet what over with?”
    â€œThe lecture on how I treat Dorrie.”
    â€œI wasn’t going to say a word,” I protested. “But since you mention it, I don’t understand why you feel embarrassed. You were actually blushing, for God’s sake. As though anyone minds”
    â€œYou think I’m ashamed of her.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œIt’s not that. I’m not. I’m protecting her. I can’t bear it when other kids smirk at her. At them. I can’t bear it.”
    â€œOther kids?