The Bat(112)

‘So what do we do now?’ Harry asked.

‘Get out of his boat quick,’ Watkins said. ‘He can see us from the road if he drives this way.’

They got up, locked the hatches and Watkins took a high step over the anchor rope so as not to trip again.

Lebie stood still.

‘What is it?’ Harry asked.

‘Well,’ Lebie said, ‘I’m no expert on boats, but is this normal?’

‘What?’

‘Dropping the anchor when you’re moored fore and aft?’

They exchanged glances.

‘Help me to pull it up,’ Harry said.





53


The Lizards Are Singing


THREE O’CLOCK.

They raced down the road. The clouds raced across the sky. The trees beside the road swayed and waved them on. The grass lay flat at the roadside and the radio crackled. The sun had paled and fleeting shadows rushed across the sea.

Harry was sitting at the back, but saw nothing of the storm blowing up around them. He saw only the slimy green rope they had dragged from the sea in spasmodic jerks. The drops of water had fallen into the sea like glistening crystals, and deep below they had glimpsed a white outline slowly rising towards them.

One summer holiday his father had taken him out in a rowing boat and they had caught a halibut. It had been white and unimaginably large and even then Harry’s mouth had gone dry and his hands had begun to tremble. His mother and grandmother had clapped their hands with excitement as they entered the kitchen with their catch and straight away began to cut up the cold, bleeding fish with big, shiny knives. For the rest of the summer Harry had dreamed about the huge halibut in the boat with its protruding eyes and expression frozen with shock, as though it could not believe it was actually dying. The following Christmas Harry had been given some jelly-like pieces on his plate, and his father had proudly told everyone how he and Harry had been fishing for halibut in Isfjorden. ‘We thought we would try something new this Christmas,’ his mother had said. It had tasted of death and depravity, and Harry had left the table with tears in his eyes, furious with indignation.

And now Harry was sitting in the back of a car as it sped along; he closed his eyes and saw himself staring down into the water where something resembling a sea nettle jellyfish gathered its red tentacles alongside at every heave of the rope, stopped and spread them out into a new swimming stroke. As it approached the surface it spread them into a fan shape trying to conceal the naked white body beneath. The rope was wound around her neck, and the lifeless corpse seemed strangely alien and extraneous to Harry.

But when they turned her onto her back, Harry felt it again. It was the expression from that summer. Dimmed eyes with a surprised, accusatory final question: Is this all there is? Is the purpose really that it should all end like this? Is life, and death, really so banal?

‘Is that her?’ Watkins had asked, and Harry had answered in the negative.

When he repeated the question Harry spotted her shoulder blades sticking out, showing red skin next to a white strip where her bikini top had been.

‘She was sunburnt,’ he answered in astonishment. ‘She asked me to put sun cream on her back. She said she trusted me. But she was burnt.’

Watkins stood in front of him and placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders. ‘It’s not your fault, Harry. Do you hear me? It would have happened anyway. It’s not your fault.’

It had become noticeably darker now, and gusts of wind tore in with such force that the eucalyptus trees shook and waved their branches, seemingly intending to detach themselves from the ground and lumber around like John Wyndham’s triffids, brought to life by the storm that was on its way.

‘The lizards are singing,’ Harry said suddenly from the back seat. They were the first words that had been spoken since they’d got into the car. Watkins turned and Lebie watched him in the mirror. Harry coughed.

‘Andrew said that once. That lizards and humans from the lizard family had the power to create rain and storms by singing. He told me the Great Flood was created by the lizard family singing and cutting themselves with flint knives to drown the platypus.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Almost all the platypuses died. But a few survived. Do you know what they did? They taught themselves to breathe underwater.’

The first large drops of rain landed with a shiver on the windscreen.

‘We haven’t got much time,’ Harry said. ‘Toowoomba will soon realise we’re after him, and then he’ll disappear like a rat into the ground. I’m the only link we have with him, and now you’re wondering whether I can handle it. Well, what can I say? I think I loved the girl.’