The Bat(84)

‘Better.’

Joseph put two bottles on the table. ‘Hunter Valley’s cheapest red wine,’ he said. ‘Will you have a glass with me, whitie?’

‘Thanks, Joseph, but red wine’s not my . . . Have you got anything else? A brown something, for example?’

‘Think I keep a stock, do you?’

Joseph seemed a bit affronted that Harry had refused his generous offer.

Harry got up with difficulty. He attempted to reconstruct the gap in his memory between pointing his gun at Rod Stewart and their literally falling around each other’s necks and sharing some acid. He was unable to pinpoint what had led to such utter bliss and mutual attraction, except the self-explanatory – Jim Beam. However, he was able to remember that he had punched the bouncer at the Albury.

‘Harry Hole, you are a pathetic piss-artist,’ he muttered.

They went outside and flopped down on the grass. The sun stung his eyes and the alcohol from the previous day stung in the pores of his skin, but otherwise it was in fact not bad at all. A light breeze was blowing, and they lay on their backs gazing at the white puffs of cloud drifting across the sky.

‘It’s jumping weather today,’ Joseph said.

‘I have no intention of jumping,’ Harry said. ‘I’m going to lie perfectly still or tiptoe around at the very worst.’

Joseph squinted into the light. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that kind of jumping, I was thinking of sky-jumping, skydiving.’

‘Wow, are you a skydiver?’

Joseph nodded.

Harry shielded his eyes and looked up at the sky. ‘What about the clouds? Aren’t they a problem?’

‘Not at all. They’re cirrus clouds, feather clouds, about fifteen thousand feet up.’

‘You surprise me, Joseph. Not that I know what a skydiver should look like, but I wouldn’t have imagined that he’s . . .’

‘A drunk?’

‘For example.’

‘Ha ha. That’s two sides of the same coin.’

‘Do you mean that?’

‘Have you ever been alone in the air, Harry? Have you flown? Have you jumped from a great height and felt the air trying to hold you up, to catch you and caress your body?’

Joseph was already well on his way down the first bottle, and his voice had assumed a warmer tone. His eyes gleamed as he described the beauty of free fall to Harry.

‘It opens all your senses. Your whole body screams that you can fly. “And I haven’t got any wings,” it shouts to you, trying to drown the wind whistling past your ears. Your body is convinced it’s going to die and goes into full-alarm mode – opens all its senses to the max to see if any of them can find a way out. Your brain is the world’s biggest computer, it registers everything: your skin feels the temperature rising as you fall, your ears notice the increase in pressure and you become aware of every furrow and hue in the map below. You can even smell the planet as it comes nearer. And if you can push mortal fear to the back of your mind, Harry, for an instant you’re an angel. You’re living a life in forty seconds.’

‘And if you can’t?’

‘You don’t push it away, just to the back of your mind. Because it has to be there, like a clear, strident note, like cold water on your skin. It’s not the fall but the mortal fear that opens your senses. It starts as a shock, an adrenalin rush through your veins as you leave the plane. Like an injection. Then it mingles with your blood and makes you feel happy and strong. If you close your eyes you can see it as a wonderful poisonous snake lying there and watching you with its snake eyes.’

‘You’re making it sound like dope, Joseph.’

‘It is dope!’ Joseph was gesticulating wildly now. ‘That’s just what it is. You want the fall to last for ever, and if you’ve been skydiving for a while, you notice that pulling the ripcord becomes harder and harder. In the end you’re scared that one day you’ll overdose, that you won’t pull it, and so you stop jumping. And that’s when you know you’re hooked. Abstinence eats away at you, life appears meaningless, trivial, and in the end you find yourself squeezed behind the pilot of a small, ancient Cessna, taking an eternity to climb to ten thousand feet and consuming all your savings.’

Joseph took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

‘In a nutshell, Harry, they’re two sides of the same coin. Life becomes a living hell, but the alternative is even worse. Ha ha.’

Joseph raised himself on his elbows and took a slug of wine.

‘I’m a flightless bird. Do you know what an emu is, Harry?’

‘An Australian ostrich.’

‘Clever boy.’