The Beginner's Guide to Living (9 page)

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

“About how we are constantly losing our skin, our hair, our blood. I mean, in forty years from now I won't even be the same person, at least on a molecular level.”

“Yeah, but that's not all we are, is it?”

“No, not only.”

“Well, what else then?”

“I was thinking that even our minds change constantly. The way I think has changed since…”

“Since you met me?”

“Yeah,” I say, although I was thinking
since Mom died.
“I mean, it's weird. Why are we so afraid of dying, when we're losing bits of ourselves all the time?”

“Maybe it's because it's only when we lose something suddenly that we notice,” she says. “We don't see the small deaths. Though, I believe some part of you never dies.”

Moon behind her head, she smiles at me with the kind of certainty that eclipses all doubt. I slide my hands under her dress and roll her over onto her back as our mouths converge.

*   *   *

When I get home, I find one of Taryn's hairs, long and golden and straight, caught under my arm. I wind it into a spiral, put it in a piece of folded paper, and stow it in the box under my bed. A small piece of her.

*   *   *

In
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
, Rinpoche says that there are two layers to the mind—the first is like a candle by an open door and every time a breeze blows in, the flame moves, in the same way our thoughts are affected by what's happening around us, someone pissing you off, falling in love. But deep down is our other mind, something far more constant, though we hardly ever notice that it exists. There are times when we get a glimpse of it, an inkling of how we could be.

I remember sitting at the edge of a huge rock face up in the mountains, the day in the photos Mom took. I could see for miles, the wind fanning smells from below—eucalyptus, a distant bushfire—and I had this feeling, like belonging to everything, like truly seeing myself, and at that very moment, I swear, I felt happy to die. Not some wrist-slashing thing, more an intense longing to leap. And then it was gone, and I recoiled from the edge, my whole body caught in this kind of vertigo, except I've never been afraid of heights. Adam came up behind me as I staggered:
You were a little close to the edge there, buddy. Thought for a minute you were going to jump. Lucky Mom didn't see you, she would've freaked.

Mom was there, somewhere farther back along the track. She looked like she'd live forever as she unpacked the ham sandwiches onto the picnic table, white bread for Dad and Adam, whole wheat for us. But she only had half a year to live.

Two seasons.

She would never see autumn again.

And what would I have said to her that afternoon, if I'd known that she'd soon be dead? Something about love? I like to think I would have made sure that every moment counted, because it was bringing us closer to our last.

I reach over and pull a book out from the pile beside my lamp. It's a collection of poems by William Blake we've been studying in Lit and there's one I have a sudden need to read. I flick through the pages, past the “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience,” until I find what I'm looking for. I go into the study and send Taryn this:

Hey beautiful,

 

He who binds himself a Joy,

Does the winged life destroy;

He who kisses the Joy as it flies,

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

 

William Blake

 

♥ Will

Let's be like that, Will. Let's kiss the joy as it flies.

♥ T

BY THE WORLD FORGOT

A
WOMAN'S LAUGHTER WAKES ME.
And there's music. My legs take a while to obey me. It's cold out of bed. There's a sapphire light coming from the living room, like some alien invasion, but no laughter anymore. Adam's sitting on the couch, his face blue.

“Hey. What're you watching?”

“
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
”

He hands me the cover. On the front, there's a man lying next to a woman with blue hair, on cracked ice. I collapse on the couch next to Adam. He's wearing pajama pants, his face transfixed, the sinews on his arms defined by the blue light. The guy in the movie has just discovered that targeted memory erasure is possible, at least in his world. Adam shifts his eyes to me. “Mom lost a baby.”

“What?”

“Between you and me. That's why there's such a big gap between us.”

His face returns to the screen. The guy's collecting up all the mementos that might remind him of the woman with the blue hair, the memory he wants to erase. He's filled two green garbage bags. The doctor in the movie's saying that
there's an emotional core to each of our memories
. That the erasure will feel like
a dream upon waking
.

“How come you know this and I don't?”

“I remember it. Dad took care of me for weeks. I think she was pretty sick.”

Adam hugs his knees into himself, and reaches for the blanket at the end of the couch. The guy's wearing some bizarre kind of memory recording device, like an old-fashioned hair dryer. It's meant to make a map of his brain so that they find the right memories to erase. The guy is focused on the woman, remembering her, in all her beauty and her fury, in order to forget.

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“Don't know.”

Adam tucks the blanket under his feet, the light flickering on his face. Mom always wanted a girl. If she'd had one, I might never have been born. Even conceived. Would they have called it Will if it was a boy?

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

—
A
LEXANDER
P
OPE

The shopping mall's out of control, too many kids throwing tantrums, women asserting themselves with strollers. Dad's given me money to get new jeans. I buy some sushi, chicken teriyaki, and at one of the long, slatted tables I mix plenty of wasabi into the soy. A woman storms past with three kids. One, a small boy in an Incredible Hulk T-shirt, trails behind, then halts in front of a baby shop. A huge blue teddy is on display, guarding a stroller that looks like it could take you to the moon. I had a brother or sister who died two years before I was born. Adam remembers Mom being pregnant, the swelling of her stomach, his own ambivalent thoughts. The void when Mom was gone.

“Aidan. Hurry up!”

It's the kid's older sister, hands on hips. Next to the baby shop, a guy wearing a baseball cap shoves money into a drinks machine, but it goes straight through. He keeps collecting the rejected coins, thrusting them in the slot, over and over. He should be careful—more people get killed by vending machines falling on them than are eaten by sharks. And that kid, Aidan. What's going to happen to him—will he drown in their pool one day when his big sister isn't watching, or make it to ninety-five and croak in his sleep? All these people, every one of them, will one day no longer exist.

The roof in this place is high, like a cathedral, but the whole feel is artificial. It's easy to imagine it empty, filled only with the ghosts of things—naked mannequins, empty hangers, vacant tills—and, hovering somewhere up near the ceiling, the memory of all these people that in one hundred years from now will be gone.

I separate my chopsticks with a snap, dip the sushi into the sauce, shove it whole into my mouth, my nostrils flaring, the wasabi's so hot. I love when that happens, it makes me feel clean, like all the crap's been seared out of my brain. It allows room for clear thought, a whole new range of questions.

12. How will I die?

Memory.

My pop's dead. He had bowel cancer. I'm six. I think about how he always slipped me an extra scoop of ice cream when Nan wasn't looking, and how his arms looked like lizard skin. I thought he was some kind of reptile till Mom said he wasn't—I remember she didn't laugh when she explained this to me.

I find my mother crying in different parts of the house. She keeps a hanky in her pocket and, when I draw it out and hand it to her, she asks me if there's anything I want to say. I think for a minute before I answer, “Don't worry, Mommy, he'll be back for Christmas. Who else will hand out the presents?” My mother absorbs her tears and stows her hanky away.

Christmas comes, but no Pop. Nobody mentions him; Dad hands out the presents instead. I get a huge truck from my nan but, when nobody's looking, I take it outside and bury it in the sandpit. Nan gives me an extra scoop of ice cream, even though I don't finish my lunch.

CELEBRATION

TOMORROW WOULD HAVE BEEN
my mother's fifty-second birthday. It is five weeks since she died.

Over noodles, which Adam cooked, which aren't half bad, I make a suggestion. “I think we should celebrate Mom's birthday. Go out for a meal.”

Dad: “Adam, what do you think?”

Adam, chopsticks poised, takes a sip of his beer. I get ready for him to shred my idea. “Sure. What about that Thai place in the shopping strip. I'll call and book if you like.”

So, maybe I do believe in miracles.

“Thai. Sounds good. All right with you, Will?”

“All right with me, Dad.”

The two of them go back to their noodles. The only sound, the click of chopsticks as they tap the insides of their bowls.

*   *   *

There are heaps of kids at the restaurant so it's raucous, but the smell wafting from the kitchen reminds me how much I love Thai. A woman the size of a child shows us to our seats.

“Looks good,” says Adam, checking out the menu. “Been a while since I had a good pad thai. Got sick of the stuff in Bangkok, but now I kind of miss it.” He's being so cheerful I wonder what he's saving up.

“I don't want anything too hot,” says Dad. “I think I'll go for the tom yum soup. Nice place, Adam.”

The waitress yanks the cork out of our bottle of wine; it takes most of her strength.

“Guess it won't hurt,” says Dad as she fills my glass, “you're almost eighteen. Here's to…” He pauses, like he's forgotten something.

“Here's to Mom,” I say.

“To Anna.”

“To Mom,” says Adam under his breath.

Dad smiles, runs his finger around the base of his wineglass. “This guy at work, John Braithewaite … Will, I think you met him at the staff picnic.”

“The short guy who kept making jokes about penguins?” I grin.

“Yes, that's him. He's just found out he's got cancer. They've given him three months to live, poor guy. He's only forty-two.”

Adam's been making some sort of origami with his napkin, but he looks up now. “This was meant to be a celebration. Can't we talk about something else?”

“Adam's afraid that if we mention death we'll bring it on.”

“That's not funny.”

“Wasn't meant to be.”

Dad: “Keep your voice down, Adam.”

I take a deep breath. “So, why did you decide to move back after Mom died?”

“You looking for a confession?”

“No. Just a little truth.”

“We don't all have to be like you, Will, analyzing everything to crap.”

Dad cuts in: “Adam, that's enough.”

“I'm just sick of him…”

“I said that's enough! Whether you like it or not, this is Will's way of dealing with what happened to your mom.”

Adam's frown morphs into a smile as he turns to me. “And don't think you'll find the meaning of life in some book Samara gave you. She's such a bloody cliché, with her Indian clothes. The only place you'll find truth in that house is between Taryn's legs.”

“You asshole,” I spit. I want to crush him, splinter that grin on his face.

“Either you apologize, Adam, or you leave,” says Dad, a fist tightening around his napkin.

“It's about time somebody told him a few home truths,” Adam sneers and stands up. I stand too, taller than him, feeling the flow of anger course down the back of my hands.

“Is everything okay?” It's the miniature waitress standing between us with the bottle of wine.

“Fantastic,” glares Adam as he leaves, knocking his napkin to the floor.

Dad bends down to pick it up but the waitress beats him to it. She pats it as she lays it on the table in front of Dad.

“It's not easy for him, but there's no excuse for acting that way. You okay, Will?”

“I could kill him…”

“Yeah, well, let's not ruin a good evening,” he says, folding Adam's napkin, following the original creases, a man trying to make order of things, and I feel something slipping away from us so I grab at it before it's too late. “Dad?”