Clade Read online

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Maddie asks.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Is your mum still asleep?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Summer says.

  Maddie gestures to the deck beside Summer. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

  A shake of her head. ‘Of course not.’

  Seating herself Maddie arranges her robe around her legs, looks out over the lawn into the trees.

  ‘How’re things with you?’

  Summer too stares out over the grass. ‘Okay, I suppose.’

  ‘But?’

  She shrugs. ‘Mum’s so full of shit.’

  Maddie hesitates, suddenly wary of intruding. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. She wanted us to come here so we could have time together, but then she just ignores me.’

  ‘Go easy on her, she’s had a difficult time. Losing Tom.’

  ‘You lost him too.’

  Maddie leans across and pushes a lock of hair off Summer’s face. ‘He was my husband, not my father. My ex-husband.’

  When Summer doesn’t reply she says, ‘I remember the first time you came here. You played out here for hours. I don’t suppose you remember that, do you?’

  There is silence, then Summer says, ‘No.’

  ‘You were so sweet that day.’

  Summer flicks an insect off her leg. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me.’

  ‘What?’ Maddie asks. ‘Why not?’

  Summer glances at Maddie and then away again. ‘Because I thought I’d remind you of him.’

  Maddie puts her arm around Summer’s shoulder. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s not like that, not ever.’

  Even before Declan died they both knew it was over, but in the empty days after his funeral neither seemed able to acknowledge it. Although they shared the same house they moved through it separately, barely noticing each other’s presence. Weeks before, when they were doing shifts at the hospital, Tom had begun sleeping in the spare room; with Declan gone he showed no sign of coming back.

  She knew Tom was suffering as well but she didn’t care. She could not imagine his hands on her, could hardly bear the thought of having him near her. She had heard people talk about grief in terms of confusion, but that was not what it was like for her; instead she felt as if she were disappearing, as if everything had been stripped away and all that was left was a space where she had been.

  One night a week after Declan’s death, Tom came to her bed, appearing in the doorway in the small hours of the morning. She did not speak as he crossed the room and lay beside her, but neither did she resist when he drew her close. In the darkness his body could have been anybody’s, and as they moved together she felt as if she might erase herself in the act. Afterwards she knew he was waiting for her to speak, to offer him some sign that they might find their way back to each other, but she said nothing.

  He kept the house in Bondi, she took this one. Money too, though not much. For a time she thought she would try to go back to work. But in the end she found it easier to just retreat here, to hide.

  It is almost eight before they head down to the bay, the morning air already thick with the scent of approaching heat. The beach is quiet, and save for a small group on the far side they have the sand to themselves.

  They choose a spot in the middle of the bay, wading out until the water is up to their knees. Taking the urn from beneath her arm Ellie turns to Maddie and Summer.

  ‘Shall we begin?’ she asks.

  Maddie looks to Summer for her approval, then nods.

  Without speaking Ellie unscrews the urn and shakes a handful of the contents into Maddie’s and Summer’s hands, careful to avoid spilling any. The ash is so fine, so light it seems barely heavier than air, and as Maddie lifts her hand it seems impossible that this could be all that is left of Tom, that the familiar weight of his body, his presence, should have disappeared so completely. How can that be? she wonders. How can we just pass away, all that we are lost to the air? And then it isn’t Tom she is thinking of, but Declan, and that other morning five years ago when she and Tom brought his ashes here and spread them. It had been hot that morning as well, the air shimmering with UV, and Tom had wept but she had barely registered it.

  Next to her, Ellie and Summer are crying, tears streaming down their faces, and although she knows she should be as well, she cannot, is held back by the knowledge that if she lets go she will never be able to stop. Ellie turns, a look of reproach on her face, and before Maddie can explain that Ellie has misunderstood, that it is not a lack of love that keeps her from crying but a surfeit of it, her stepdaughter has turned away, one arm extended to draw Summer close, the two of them standing staring out to sea.

  As Ellie loads the car Maddie watches, aware that this is the moment she should speak out, stop her going. And yet she does not. This is how it will be now, she sees that; with Tom gone, whatever tenuous bond there was between them is also gone. Only after they have driven off does she know what she should have said.

  Back inside she tidies the last of the lunch things, aware of the movement of the light through the trees outside. The last time Tom came up here he stood on the deck and watched the birds. He looked old, his face haggard.

  ‘They’re dying, you know,’ he said, glancing at her as he spoke.

  He waited for her to answer and when she did not he said, ‘Not just here but all over the world.’

  ‘They look fine to me,’ she said, irritated.

  ‘They might look fine but they’ve stopped breeding, or if they’re still breeding their eggs aren’t hatching, or the heat is killing the chicks. The ones you can see here are adults because they’re all that’s left, and when they’re gone that will be the end of them. They’re a ghost species.’

  ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you here.’

  Remembering that day, she wonders whether it might have been different if she’d tried harder. Perhaps there was some affection left, a tenderness the two of them could have saved. Perhaps if they had, Tom might not have gotten sick.

  Through the window she can see the sky, the haze of red already visible. On the outside table a currawong moves, black and fast as a blade. As if sensing her it turns, and its great yellow eye momentarily meets hers, filling her with a sense of its presence, its perturbation of the universe. Tom never liked the currawongs: they were killers, he said, things that preyed on the eggs of other birds. And yet she does not see a killer, she sees something that is simply itself, a logic translated through space. In a moment it will be gone, rising into the sky on stealthy wing beats. And she will be here, alone.

  In the evenings, when the bars are closing and there seems to be nowhere else to go, Summer and Meera and Dan slip out into the streets and lanes in search of apartments or houses left vacant for a night or a week or a month. Sometimes they buzz the neighbours, apologising for the hour as they tell them they’re from next door and they’ve forgotten their key, sometimes they just linger near the entrance, emerging at the last moment to slip through the door behind homecoming couples. If anybody asks questions Meera smiles and looks into their eyes and says, ‘We just moved in last weekend,’ or, ‘Didn’t you know? We’re minding the place for my parents,’ and usually they smile back because she’s beautiful and they want her. Other times they clamber over fences, or dodge along car-park ramps as the gates roll down, laughing and shouting, their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls.

  There are cameras, of course, but there are cameras everywhere, and the danger is part of why they do it. Sometimes as they’re stumbling into a lift or racing through a car park she will catch a glimpse of Dan’s face, see the way he is riding the thrill of it, his eyes alight, and the knowledge she is here with him will make her feel giddy, electric, the feeling so intense she can barely speak.

  The first time, it almost seemed to happen by accident. It was November, the weekend after exams ended, and they had been out celebrating, first at a party in Newtown and then a s
eries of bars in Redfern. But when the last bar closed and none of them could decide what to do they ended up out in the street, running and laughing, their senses alive in the warm embrace of the night. Eventually she stopped and asked where they should go next.

  ‘There has to be somewhere,’ Dan said, and turned expectantly to Meera, who was staring back up the street as if searching for something in the distance. She seemed to shine, her dark eyes liquid.

  ‘We could go to Anouk’s house,’ she said.

  ‘Anouk’s away,’ Summer said.

  ‘So?’ Meera said. ‘I know her parents’ security code, she told me last time I was there.’

  Next to her Dan was grinning. ‘Anouk’s got a pool,’ he said, and Summer shivered, feeling as if the two of them were leaving her behind.

  Anouk’s father was some sort of banker, and although he’d lost a lot in the crash the house had been bought before things really went bad. Once they were through the gates they stripped off and jumped into the pool, its blue-lit water warm and salty as blood.

  They had pills with them that night but didn’t take them. Instead they floated, staring up at the night sky and talking, listening to the chitter of the bats and the distant rumble of the traffic, then wandered through the darkened house, exploring the rooms one by one. At one point Summer found Meera in the master bedroom going through Anouk’s mother’s clothes. They were beautiful, expensive, flowing things, in silky fabrics and elegant cuts. Seeing Summer standing in the doorway, Meera threw her a dress and stood waiting, her chin lifted in silent challenge, until Summer reached down and peeled off her top to try it on.

  A week later they broke into the house of a friend of Dan’s whose parents were in Bali. There was no pool this time so they danced and drank and rifled through the house, until finally the sky grew pale and they went out into the grey of the dawn and dove into the waves at Bondi. The next time it was the house of a friend of Meera’s father, the time after that an apartment left empty when its new owners’ finance fell through, which Dan had heard about through a friend of his uncle’s.

  Sometimes when she is alone she tries to understand why they keep doing it. There is the excitement, of course, the fear of getting caught, the elation when they are not. Yet there is something in the way Meera takes possession of the houses, the casual manner in which she rips and destroys and invades privacies, that suggests it is about more than that, at least for her – it’s as if their intrusions are less about the risk than about transgression, power.

  One night, high on ecstasy, Meera kisses her, open-mouthed, and closing her eyes Summer dissolves into the moment, the embrace, the cool presence of Meera’s flesh.

  She is not certain now whether this is how she wanted it to be. Her and Meera and Dan, her and Dan and Meera, Meera and Dan and her. A year ago they barely knew each other, were just faces across the yard at school, then one day she turned around to find Meera standing beside her.

  ‘Are you coming on Saturday night?’ she asked.

  Summer was so surprised it took her a few seconds to reply.

  ‘You mean to Scarlett’s?’

  Meera looked at her as if the question were ridiculous.

  ‘Sure,’ Summer said. ‘I suppose,’ aware as she spoke of the way Meera held her gaze a fraction too long, the casual way she nodded and turned away.

  She hadn’t really been planning to go. She’d been asked, they all had, but most of her friends had already agreed the party wasn’t for them. But when Sophie came over a moment later and asked what Meera had wanted Summer just shrugged and said it was nothing.

  Meera didn’t speak to her again that week, and when Saturday night arrived Summer zipped herself into the dress she’d bought to wear to Sophie’s birthday. She was at her dad’s, which was good, since he asked fewer questions.

  ‘You’re going out?’ he said when she appeared in the living room at nine o’clock.

  ‘Just for a while,’ she said.

  ‘Who with?’

  She wasn’t sure why she was uncomfortable with the question. ‘Just Sophie and some of the others,’ she said, the lie coming with surprising fluidity.

  He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You be careful.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  Scarlett lived in Glebe, in a big house near the water. By the time Summer arrived the place was already full, people crammed into the rooms and hall. There were faces she knew here and there but many more she didn’t, and as she made her way through the crowd she willed herself to be cool, not to smile too hard or panic.

  She found Meera dancing with a group of guys in the backyard. Unwilling to interrupt, reluctant to head back inside, she hovered on the edge of the dance floor, until finally Meera noticed her and dived across to draw her close.

  ‘Are you having fun?’ she shouted over the music, her mouth pressed to Summer’s ear. Summer laughed and began to say she’d only just got there, but Meera was already pulling her on, towards the back fence where Dan was talking to a couple of guys Summer knew from school.

  As they drew level with him Dan turned and smiled. Later she would realise he was already high, but that night all she felt was the force of his attention.

  ‘This is Summer,’ Meera said, and he grinned again, pushing his hair out of his eyes with one hand.

  ‘From school, right?’ he asked.

  Summer nodded, but before Dan could say anything else the music changed and Meera took their arms and dragged them onto the dance floor, saying, ‘I love this song, come dance with me.’

  Her dad was still up when she got home.

  ‘You’re late,’ he said when she appeared flushed and sweaty at the door, but she just shrugged and told him she couldn’t find a cab.

  Later she wondered why Meera had wanted her there, what she wanted from her, but that night, sprawled on her bed alone in her room, she seemed to float, eyes closed, skin damp and thrillingly alive.

  Summer is thinking about that night when Meera pings her and says she and Dan are at Interstice, in Redfern. It embarrasses her, the way she feels herself start into life when she reads the message. Excited and nervous, her legs trembling beneath her, she stands to dress.

  The band are called The Mirrors. Two men and three women with matching platinum-blond hair dressed in tight, shiny silver suits that make them look like creatures from a planet where the New Wave never ended. Their music is sexy and infectious, little compressions of sweetness and purity about love and desire played fast and hard.

  Meera knows the guy on keyboards and afterwards they go backstage. When they played the band had seemed ice-cool and aloof, faces unreadable behind dark glasses, but in the green room they joke and laugh, high on the thrill of the show.

  And then it is happening. One minute they are drinking and laughing and then all of a sudden the place is closing and they are outside. It is two am, too early to go home, so when Meera says she knows a place in Darling Point nobody disagrees.

  The band have a van, so they bundle in the back with the gear from the show, the electric engine straining as they speed away through the streets. In the darkness Meera slips a pill into Summer’s mouth, and she throws her head back and swallows. The air is warm, heavy with the smell of smoke from the fires that have been burning on the city’s fringes for the past week.

  Outside the building Meera tells the others to wait, then borrowing the band’s blond wigs, the three of them bundle in through the lobby and into the lifts, moving fast to avoid the cameras. Meera instructs the lights to come on and a warm glow fills the space while Dan looks for the sound system. A moment later music is playing, a song Summer recognises at once, and loves. Catching her delight, Dan smiles back and she feels like she will burst.

  Then the others are there, not just the band but a collection of people they seem to have picked up along the way, faces Summer doesn’t know. Some dance, others hunt through the kitchen in search of alcohol. Buoyed, Summer stumbles out onto the balcony.

  S
he feels weightless, suspended in the timelessness of the darkness. On the other side of the harbour lights are visible, the sky is purple. Closing her eyes she grips the rail tighter, feeling the chemicals course through her blood.

  And then a voice, a body, next to her. Dan’s.

  ‘Hey,’ she says.

  ‘You good?’ he asks.

  ‘Great,’ she says.

  ‘You can see the fires,’ Dan says, pointing at the glow along the horizon.

  ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’

  She wants to touch him. ‘Dan?’ she asks, and he looks at her.

  ‘Summer?’ he says, his voice teasing but friendly.

  ‘Have you and Meera ever . . .?’

  He grins. ‘Ever what?’

  ‘You know.’

  He looks away again, his eyes focusing on the far side of the harbour. ‘No.’

  ‘Not ever?’

  He laughs. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  Looking back on that moment in the days and weeks to come she will wonder whether Dan just didn’t understand the question or whether he chose to ignore it. Perhaps he was lying, perhaps he was stoned, perhaps both of them were in love with Meera. For now, though, she simply goes back inside.

  The music has grown louder but Meera isn’t in the living room. Summer finds her seated on the bed in the master bedroom, a pair of lenses in her hand.

  ‘Look at the playlist,’ Meera says, beckoning her across and slipping the lenses over her eyes.

  The lenses are new, expensive, but the system is easy enough to navigate. Flicking through the menu Summer calls up the playlist, discovers an inventory of what looks like porn. As always when confronted with these sorts of images in company she feels disquiet, a charged field of uncertainty about how to react.

  ‘Notice anything?’ Meera asks.

  Summer is about to say no when she catches her breath. ‘It’s all gay.’