The Windy Season (21 page)

Angela

PAUL SAT HUNCHED OVER A TABLE IN
the beer garden, watching Kasia through the window while Michael smoked, standing square to the sea, considering the windblown inlet and the starless sky above them. In the beer garden the sea air around them was dense and warm, the atmosphere carrying the weight of the storm behind it. Thick raindrops tapped intermittently on the wooden table and beaded their pint glasses.

It is not all that nice out here, Michael said, grimacing as a swollen droplet struck his face.

I don't know what to say to her, Paul said.

She kissed you, my friend. What are you so worried about?

Paul glanced at the window, saw Kasia looking out at him.

Shit, he muttered, dropping his eyes to his feet.

A beautiful girl is a good problem to have, Michael said. He looked up at the sky, peering into the blackness. I think
there is a dog up there, a big dog in a hot-air balloon, and he is holding his dick over the edge of the basket and he is pissing on my face.

I've made a mistake, Paul said. She's too beautiful for me.

Michael blew smoke and turned towards the tavern. He nodded in agreement. I can assure you, he said, if anyone has made the mistake it is her.

Paul gave him a sick look.

You know, Michael said, looking back out to sea, I have a feeling we will not be going back out for a few days. Cyclone
An-ge-la
. He drew out the name, mimicking the whined vowels they had heard on the TV. She feels like she is still coming south.

Paul shuddered, despite the sweating heat.

Michael fingered the stubble on his chin.
An-ge-la
, he moaned again. Coming to visit Stark. Now, that is a very strange thing. Strange world we are in now.

Paul gazed hopelessly through the window.

Oh, come on, Michael said. You look like a man watching his house go up in flames.

Paul grimaced.

Or are you worried about that evil, skinny fucker?

Roo Dog? Paul said. He shook his head.

You probably should be.

They're not in town. Think they're still at sea.

Michael cursed. You shouldn't be going up there, he said. I told you not to go upriver looking for them.

Yeah, Paul said. I know.

There was a pause. Okay, Michael said, that's enough. The German held a palm out to the rain. Squinted skyward. Go in there, he instructed. Smile. Stop looking like you need to shit.

And then what? Paul said.

The way I see it, the thing you have got going for you is that she is human. You are human. It is a handy thing.

Paul tried to imagine himself in conversation with her, tried to picture her laughing at something he would say. He couldn't.

You have a mouth, Michael continued. She has got ears. You say things, she will understand them. It is not so difficult.

Paul groaned and took a large scull of his beer.

This is crazy, Michael said. The tavern has a roof. Why are you allowing the horrible dog to piss on my face?

And then Kasia was coming through the door.

Paul sat straight-backed at the table. Michael rushed his cigarette to his mouth as though plugging a hole.

You are hiding from me? she said to Paul, less a question than a statement.

Michael gave her a sympathetic look and examined his diminished cigarette with deliberate care. My bedtime, he said, and stepped by her and into the tavern. Kasia didn't take her eyes off Paul.

Why are you out here? she asked. Is it raining?

Yeah, he admitted.

Her eyebrows were raised, commanding an explanation from him. It was a look his mother had given him before.

I'm sorry, he got out, and failed to put more words together. His throat strained, reaching for words that weren't there.

It is okay, she said, and produced a forgiving smile that Paul knew was the death blow. Do not worry so much. It is cool.

Kasia began to collect the empty glasses from the table.

No, it's not like that, he said.

I hope your head feels better, she said, her back turned to him, wiping down the benchtops. I am so sorry that happened to your face. The punch, you know.

I think about it, he said.

Kasia paused near the doors. She stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He didn't.

She sighed and cocked her head. What is it that you think about, Paul? she asked.

What happened. You and me. I think about that all the time.

She gave him a puzzled look and gestured for his empty pint glass. Paul gave it to her.

I think about you, he said weakly. I always have.

When? she asked, as if trying to disprove the point. You never speak to me.

Paul rummaged for words, looked towards the inlet.

Kasia followed his eyes and peered into the dark, puzzled. You think about me while you are lobster fishing? she said, frowning in mock dismay. You see a crayfish and you think of me?

Paul shook his head miserably. The girl laughed. She put the tray on a table and sat down next to him.

A crayfish isn't such an ugly thing, Paul said.

Kasia gave him a bemused look.

To another crayfish, he said, finishing one of Michael's lines.

Kasia laughed. That is a terrible joke, she said. Tell me another.

I don't think I've got one.

Come on, Paul. She took his face in her hands. Her fingers were cool on his cheeks. When she looked him in the eye like that he wondered if she knew the power she had over him.

Tell me a funny lobster joke, she said, and I will forgive you for hiding from me in the rain.

Okay, he said. I have one. Not a crayfish joke but Michael told me a fish joke. I don't know if you will like it.

If that is all you have got.

I'm not even sure I can remember it.

Kasia groaned and rolled her eyes.

There are these two fish, Paul said. I think they're in a fishbowl.

Does not sound like a promising start, said the girl, shaking her head.

Wait a sec, Paul said. Give me a chance. So, there's two fish in this fishbowl. One says,
Wow, it's a little bit wet in here
.

Oh my god, she gasped. You lose. That was very shit, Paul.

Wait for it, Paul said. That's not it. So one fish goes,
It's a little wet in here
, and the other one says,
Holy shit, a talking fish!

The girl left a pause and then laughed hard. Paul soaked up the sound of it.

That was bad, Paul. I am sorry, I cannot forgive you.

Fair enough, he replied.

Kasia smiled. I better go; I need to get some sleep.

I meant it, Paul said. What I told you.

You think about me? That is nice. She ruffled his hair like a mother and he shrugged her off. While you are out catching your lobster. She smiled.

I hate it on the boat, Paul said, looking back to the dark of the inlet. So much. You'd think I might be used to it by now, the seasickness. But I don't think I ever will be. And then there's Jake losing his mind. I sometimes think he's trying to sink us. It's like he forgets Michael and I are there too. He sits up there and you can feel it, you can honestly sense it in the deck, just how angry he is, as if he wants to bury the boat.

I would not like that very much, Kasia said.

I always think about being elsewhere, Paul continued. Think about so much different stuff. It's all you do. Just think, and pull pots, and think some more. That's probably the problem—with Jake, I mean. Too much thinking. It's not a good job if you've got issues.

Issues? she said.

Paul thought of telling her about Jake and the accident, remembering the way Elmo and Noddy had told it, how the broken, bloated body of the boy had drifted to the surface days after it had happened. He decided not to.

Kasia was watching him. What else do you think? she said. What else do you think about me?

He looked at her, noticed the change in her face. I think about things I want. Things I want to do.

What things?

He laughed.

Kasia held the dishcloth in her hands. What do you want to do, Paul?

Jesus, he said. He looked at her pleadingly. I can't just say it.

I am not asking you to say it.

He shifted towards her, and when his lips met hers he could almost sense the eyes at the windows, the men at the bar watching them. Without seeing them he knew the looks on their faces, some blend between disbelief and disgust, and then resignation, and even something like respect. And whatever they thought of him, he couldn't have cared less.

In her room, Kasia pulled off her black cotton shorts and her work singlet. Flicked on the ceiling fan. She put a hand under his t-shirt, cold against his chest, and pushed him to her bed with an ironic grin, conscious of the cliché. But to him all of it was perilous and new. He felt an urge to tell her he had never slept with a girl before, wanted to be truthful about all that. But speech was beyond him, and he knew she would find out, if she didn't already suspect. She straddled him, her blue underwear puckered and faded almost white. She pulled his hands to her
thighs, looked at him seriously. He saw her skin prickle under his fingers, goosebumps scattering across her body and he thought of wind over water. She pulled up his t-shirt and lightly scratched his abdomen with her fingernails, down towards the elastic of his boxers, then back up again. He worried she might feel the drumming beneath his chest, his ribs shuddering like the deck of a boat. Kasia undid the buttons of his jeans and lifted herself up so he could pull them from his waist, squirming to kick them off his legs. She leant forward with an elbow on the bed to kiss his lips, her hair in his face, pulled down his boxers with one hand. Just the air on his naked body made him shudder. He reached for her underwear, soft and threadbare under his fingers, and she lifted her hips so he could pull them over her buttocks to above her knees and she hooked them with her toes and cast them from the bed to the floor, and he could faintly smell her then, could feel the warmth of her crotch against his. When she sat up he held his breath, braved a look down to where their bodies met. Skin pale and bristling under the fan. The shine of her wetness on him.

When she pulled him into her he made a short whimpering sound that he could not control, curled up as if wounded. Kasia pushed him by his shoulders back into the bed. She held his face to look at him, frowning with an expression like agony or worry, her mouth open and he thought she might say something. But she just exhaled, rolled back and forth at her hips, pushing her body against him, eyes always on his, never leaving them, like she was holding him to account.

You are perfect, he said later as they lay together in the yellowed haze of the bedside light.

She scoffed.

You have hands of an old man, she said, tiredly, running the pads of her fingers across his palm. I wonder what the hands on the old fishermen are like. I feel sorry for Richard's wife. It must be like being felt up by a tree.

Paul laughed.

And your eyes, she said.

They remind you of Richard, too.

She sighed at his joke. That look scares me sometimes when I am working, she said. These big eyes at the bar. I wonder what they see.

Like a train's coming?

Yes. Exactly. She gave him a suspicious look. What are they seeing?

They like what they are seeing now.

Oh, Paul. She grimaced. I am serious. What are these bad things you think about?

Paul shook his head. You'll think I'm a weirdo.

I already think you are a
weirdo
, she said, voice lilting as she said the word for the first time.

He considered telling her—telling her all the mad shit. How he hated the sensation of his heartbeat, or how the patter of water sometimes became loud and dark in his ears, or the terrible ways he would see Elliot. He cursed himself, under his breath. Freed himself from the thoughts, with effort. Turned again to Kasia. Saw she was asleep.

Deluge

THE CYCLONE PUSHED ITS WAY DOWN
the coast. An order came through from the city that no boats were to go out. And none would have. The sea was wild in a way that made fishers look at the ocean as though seeing it for the first time.

Paul and Kasia walked up to the sandbar where a large crowd had grown to watch the sea, locals and tourists. It had become an event. 100-
YEAR STORM
the headline in the local paper had read the day before, which seemed overblown. But in truth there had never been any record of a tropical storm system tracking so far south. The jetty had become fully submerged overnight and a yacht was sunk, drowned on its mooring. The power was out everywhere in town.

The sea was brown and the wind hot and damp against their skin, like the warm-blooded breath of an animal, alive. Lightning forked at the horizon line, maybe twenty kilometres out. It was
hard to distinguish the sound of thunder from the noise of the wind and tremor of the ocean in the dunes. The crowd stood there, mostly not saying anything, just watching. The low light around them had the milkiness of late evening even though it was midday. Jungle's boy Zach and some other kids ran about on the lawn above the inlet, excited by the way the breeze wrestled with their limbs and resisted their movements. Paul looked across to see Richard and his wife, the old man scowling at the ocean suspiciously. The power in the storm system was unmistakable, and unfamiliar.

Kasia leant in next to Paul and he smelt her hair. She whispered something in his ear about the darkness of the clouds. He closed his eyes and tasted the sweetness of her breath as she spoke to him. He felt the surge of want for her.

The rain came in a sudden, extraordinary downpour that had people squealing in fear and laughing nervously as they ran for their cars or fled across the park to the toilet blocks or towards the town.

Kasia and Paul ran down the main street, in the middle of the road, the weather having cleared the town of traffic. For a second the abandoned street lit up as if under giant stage lights then returned to darkness. Kasia grabbed his hand and hooted. They ran even harder. Paul looked across at her, saw the whites of her eyes, her smile almost glowing in the low light. Then the thunder exploded above them and they both ducked instinctively. Paul roared and the girl laughed as they cut onto the front lawns of his street. By the time they reached the front door their clothes were wet through and their shoes squelched in the tiled hallway. Their laughter echoed through the house; they were breathless from the sprint, nerves firing.