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People say that the best time of day is in the morning before the world has really woken up and I have to agree. I am glad William has given me the digital watch because I can set it to 5 am every Tuesday morning and make our sandwiches fresh. One time I made us banana and peanut butter and then another time grated carrot and cream cheese but we did not like that. It tasted too raw. Once I even took some chicken drumsticks left over from dinner the night before. William worried he was getting geriatric, thinking food was there when it wasn’t.
‘Sometimes I have a snack at night,’ I said, just to throw him off.
We’ve been lucky with the weather, real lucky. Hot but not harsh with a breeze to take the edge off while we paint. I can hum Joni’s little melody off by heart now. And once in a while I catch him whispering to Augie Belle like he is keeping him up to date on our progress.
On our lunchbreaks we throw the crusts into the trees because our hair is already curly. We sit with our feet over the edge of the boat, looking at the speckled sun that peeks through the mangrove branches. Hear the waves tumble in and out with the tide, far down out of sight. Augie Belle propped up on the tip of the boat keeping watch for us.
Once when we were coming back I found a really long brown and white feather stuck in a tree branch. I wondered if the hoatzin was leaving his own trail for me to find. Then again, I’m no ornithologist. Even though I did know there was a James Bond born in 1900 who knew all about birds from the Caribbean, and that the spy man in the movies was named after him. I learnt that from Sale of the Century. I wonder if the hoatzin is on strike, because I haven’t seen him in my dreams for a long time. He helped bring me to the boat and I should’ve listened to what else he had to say. Maybe he figures I’m not black enough to know all the stories that lie under my skin.
I still fear someone will come and collect what’s theirs. It definitely could happen ’cause as I said before surprises are mostly not nice. And what about Mum—now I’d found the boat (or at least a boat), where was she? I don’t know enough to understand what the spirit world is like. Maybe there’s a lot of traffic or paperwork so you can’t always be with your loved ones on Earth. But a sign would be nice.
Couple of days later Pat sends me a photo of Mum’s gravestone. Got a good deal on the granite from Dave, the letter says, but I don’t think talking about money and dead people is right. The engraving says: ‘Juliet Lanfore. A wonderful mother to Dylan.’ I stare at my name for the longest time. Some person must have sat in a workshop and carved it into that stone. You can’t rub carvings out so my name will keep me there forever with Mum’s name in a long row of other headstones. Where are all those dead people now? Are they all going back to their fatherlands and motherlands across the sea?
‘I’m your real girl,’ I tell Joni and he nods that little head of his for so long I have to tell him to stop.
But one week later a cloud floats into the sky and hovers over my head. For so long I’d waited for that blackness in William and Aunty Cecilia to spill out of them, maybe seep out from my own skin too. I’d been waiting for the next volcano to erupt, screaming and shouting and smashing of things that were precious and could not be replaced. But it hasn’t come. Sure, William and Aunty Cecilia argued, teased, rubbed each other the wrong way, but it turns out their skin is just a colour, not a feeling. Not a bad one at least.
Now I am the one who feels bad, untruthful with them all especially Joni, ’cause he can’t come with me when I leave.
I am doing the same cowardly thing Pat has done to me. Leave someone behind. But until I get in that boat and take Mum back I will feel half-finished and undone with no marrow in my bones or spine in my back. Can’t stand straight like that.
28 The night sea with its black heart
Everything you’re too scared to ask for ends up swirling around in your dreams. Then you see just how strong those invisible ties to other people are. That hoatzin bird finally returns one night, picks those ties up in his claws and tugs so hard I am lifted into the sky. Then I’m looking down at the ground, following his shadow as he flies over the earth. We travel so fast I can hardly breathe; the cold air hurts my lungs. But then I see the hand of Beyen welcoming me home once more. ‘Come closer,’ it beckons. Sit inside and feel the warm, hard metal against your back.
Everything feels strange and distant now. Those ties around my legs and arms are hurting so he lets me go. ‘See for yourself,’ he says. As I fall, the ground comes up towards me until everything goes black. The hoatzin’s taken me inside Pat’s memory bank. I see his hand sweep across a desk, sends his boss’s papers flying into the air, before he storms out. I see Pat grab money from a kid busking on Watson Street, right out of his violin case. Just to feed those stupid machines ’cause his wallet is lined with onionskin. Not a single cent within. No fridge anymore, just an esky holding a sixpack of Coopers pale ale. His head pounds, thinking, ‘What have I got left to sell? What can go?’ Keeps drinking until the numbness takes hold. Before I can see anything else I’m wrenched up into the air by the hoatzin. I watch those ties leading back to Pat rip away from his ankles, arms and neck. They leave burn marks dark like red wine. He looks up at me.
‘Wait!’ we both cry, but I am travelling again through the night sky.
When I wake, my pillow is wet with tears. I’ve thought about the hoatzin enough for him to come back to me to see that I’m sorry for doubting him. But, oh, what sorrow! I’ve never heard Pat wail so loud, all alone and empty the way he was. Now the tears falling are mine because I cut those ties, deleted all his messages trying to tell me how sad he was. I run into William’s room and my words are all covered in snot but I have to let him know.
‘He’s not safe, he’s not safe!’ is all I can say. I get William to phone Pat but a lady’s voice says the number has been disconnected. DISCONNECTED! From what, to where? He needs a divine water intervention. I told William, but he didn’t understand why Pat couldn’t just turn on his own tap and pour himself a glass. People who are down and out don’t know what they need. That’s the whole point of intervening.
‘We’re here, and he’s there.’ William points to the map on the wall, demonstrating how inconvenient the whole situation is. Time and geography are not on our side, so William starts walking his own thoughts around the room, scratching his head. Makes a phone call and another, writes a name down and calls another number twice before someone called Sean picks up. A lot of shoulder shrugging and head shaking later, William says it’s all happening. Sean’s sister-in-law’s brother is a taxi driver in Wilcott, which is the nearest town to Beyen. He’ll drive over to Pat’s house with four glasses and a bottle of water from the IGA on the corner of Bray and Kiness Street. He’ll put those glasses down on the doorstep and fill them all with water while I pray the magic into each and every glass.
I squish my eyes so tightly I think they might pop out the back of my head. We’re not home and hosed yet. What if Pat knocks the glasses over when he gets back from the pub, one too many beers in his belly and not enough sense in his head? Then all those ties that had let me see the state he was in would be severed for good. I wait that night, watch William’s old videos of Magnum PI and Knightrider that are in the cupboard under the TV. At 10.29 pm the phone rings. I roll myself out of the beanbag and run down the hallway. In my head I play a worse-case scenario: ‘This is the police. Do you know a Pat O’Brien?’