The Vanishing Moment Read online

  For days she has been sketching, making notes, and listing words; words with resonances and associations: echo, shadow, deathblow, speechless, cheerless, follow, hollow, sorrow, morrow, banish, vanish, anguish, maid, fade, unmade, afraid.

  She makes coffee – black, strong, bitter – and sits quietly, contemplatively, in the armchair, imagining what it must be like to be Echo. Condemned to only repeat the words of others. Trailing after Narcissus – so self-obsessed and vain – despairingly repeating the ends of his phrases, until she fades away with sorrow, reduced to an echo.

  How do you sculpt a vanishing, a voice?

  She picks up her notebook and reads the words she has jotted down, then leafs through her sketchbook, staring intently at the drawings. The one she thinks works best is of a woman: headless, limbless, just the torso arched – in agony, in grief? The sculpture needs to be as fine as is technically possible, merely a skin of clay stretched over hollowness. Hollow, but not empty, because inside is the voice, eternally trapped to revoice, revoice, revoice.

  She gets up, stares at her workboots waiting near the door. They are stout, scuffed, speckled with clay and plaster. She longs to put them on, longs to start making small maquettes to test her ideas. But it’s nearly seven-thirty. Just time for a bowl of muesli and a slice of toast before she has to get her little half-brother, Jasper, dressed and fed. It’s her babysitting day. A chore, but better money than working in some lousy café.

  Jasper. She loves him, of course she does. But if she is honest with herself, right now she loves Echo more.

  After their mother has left for work, Jasper runs naked around the house, his underpants on his head. He’s delighted when Marika bursts into laughter. He hides behind the sofa, he winds himself in the curtains, he dives under the bed.

  When Marika pulls him out, she pretends to smack his bottom. As he’s never been smacked in his life, he thinks it’s a great game.

  ‘Do it again,’ he says. ‘Again, again!’

  She loves dressing him, loves his silky body. The limbs so firm and rounded, the plump belly, the soft, tender skin.

  ‘I’m going to eat you up!’ she says, smothering him with kisses.

  He squeals, wriggles, snapping tiny white teeth.

  Two hours later, they’re at Taronga Zoo. It’s hellish hot. Marika peels her jeans off the back of her legs and wriggles her toes. Her sandals are slippery with sweat, her sunglasses keep sliding off her nose. She wishes she’d remembered to bring a hat. There’s not even a breeze off the harbour, just a pervasive whiff of dung.

  Not surprisingly, the animals are lethargic.

  She and Jasper see koalas tucked fast asleep in the forks of trees, and chimpanzees dozing, uncannily human with one leg drawn up and heads resting on their arms.

  Jasper shouts, ‘Look at me, Chimpanzee!’ but they ignore him.

  Only a glimpse of a red, rude monkey-bottom stops him from flinging himself to the ground in a rage of tears.

  So, they see crocodiles sleeping, snow leopards, lions, tigers, all frustratingly somnolent. Even the pygmy hippo is sleeping, eyes closed, standing motionless, dreamily, under water.

  ‘Wake up, Hippo! Wake up!’ Jasper is three years old, and not at all sleepy.

  Help, whimpers Marika. She’d kill for an ice-cold soft drink, but Jasper wouldn’t last two seconds in the queue.

  Luckily, the elephants are awake, if barely moving, and Jasper is briefly entertained by their big, baggy bottoms. And the giraffes are awake – not that they do much except munch leaves.

  Marika is entranced by their stateliness, their necks as long as the masts of ships. Jasper is not entranced. He runs off. Hampered by the stroller and the heavy baby bag, Marika stumbles after him, fearing he’ll hurl off a path, or stick his head between railings.

  When she catches him, she grips his hand tightly, though he squirms and wails.

  ‘Home-time,’ she says brightly, trying to make it sound like a treat.

  ‘Bears!’ screams Jasper. ‘I want bears!’ He’s rolling on the ground now, arms flailing, feet drumming.

  Marika droops. She digs in her bag for the map. The bears are on the way to the exit and the ferry. ‘All right, we’ll see the bears, but then we’re going home. And you’ve got to hold my hand and behave. Okay?’

  She can tell he’s torn between a desire to kick her in the shins and a desire to see the bears. The bears win.

  ‘Okay.’ He beams. He really is a beautiful child.

  ‘Good boy,’ she says, and they stroll in harmony down the hill.

  Of course, the bears are sleeping. Well, one is awake, but it just trudges along a concrete path, six steps forward, six steps back, over and over again. It is hunched with misery, rejecting all the fine things on offer – shady trees, rocks, grass, a comfy-looking cave, and a small boy eager for conversation.

  Jasper glares at the bear.

  ‘Fuck!’ he shouts.

  The bear stops pacing. Raises its shaggy head. Visitors clustered around the enclosure fall silent.

  Marika’s face burns. People are glancing at them with shock and disapproval. Children stare open-mouthed. One little girl titters. ‘Fuck,’ she says experimentally, before her mother wallops her and drags her away. The woman gives Marika a filthy look. ‘You have to wonder about the parents!’ she screeches.

  Marika knows she is meant to hear and suffer. She manages to say firmly and calmly, ‘Nice little boys don’t say that word, Jasper.’ But he isn’t at all abashed, just flutters his eyelashes: a flirtatious trick that often makes adults laugh.

  She grabs him, stuffs him into the stroller, and sets off at a gallop down the path. She doesn’t care how furiously he bellows.

  While they wait for the ferry, he falls asleep, head lolling, cheeks tear-stained.

  He doesn’t even wake as she wheels him off the ferry and onto the train. Perhaps there is a god, after all.

  I’m too young to be doing this, she sniffles, laughing at herself. She’s a university student, not a mum. She should have kept her mouth shut instead of offering to look after Jasper one day a week. But she’d felt so sorry for him that evening when Mum and her stepfather, Steve, were running late, and she’d picked him up at Long Day Care instead.

  He was scrunched up on a Bananas in Pyjamas sofa, all alone, so tiny and miserable. ‘Jasper,’ she’d said, and he’d looked up at her, his face flooding with relief, holding out his arms.

  His grandmother, Steve’s mother, happily babysits him most of the time, so he only has to endure two days a week at Long Day Care. He’s made a couple of friends, picked up nits twice, and now surprising language. Fuck? she thinks. Shit!

  An elderly woman in the seat opposite catches Marika’s eye. She inclines her frizzy, pink scalp at Jasper, and whispers, ‘Gorgeous when they’re sleeping, aren’t they?’

  ‘Gorgeous,’ agrees Marika.

  Jasper wakes cross and bleary. He spies a bald old lady gazing fondly at him.

  ‘Wee, poo, bum,’ he says.

  4. BOB

  This he remembers:

  At the beginning of the swimming lesson, the indoor pool was an enchanted cave with starburst water and purple dolphins leaping across the domed ceiling. He was thrilled with his new yellow goggles. They fogged up, making him squint, but they kept his eyes safe from the harsh chlorine.

  He was six years old and today he’d make his mother and Dean proud. His mother would watch him, admire him. And Dean would grin encouragement, wink, give him a manly thumbs up. So he blew bubbles, kicked his legs, flapped his arms. His teacher smiled, praised.

  But when he glanced around, he saw that his mother was playing with Ellie in the babies’ pool, and Dean was angry, shouting, ‘Curve your hands, straighten your legs, kick properly!’

  At the end of the lesson, the other children clambered out of the pool towards hugs and warm towels.

  He stayed in the water. He stared up at those silly foam dolphins cobbled together with wire. He pulled off hi
s goggles. Eyes open wide, he submerged his face in the burning chemicals, and held it there, unblinking.

  5. ARROW

  When Arrow was a child, she lived in a rambling weatherboard house at Shelley Beach on the south coast. Only a sandbank away was the ocean. Fergus Jackson and his little sisters, Rose and Daisy, lived a few houses down in a damp little cottage that sulked with its back to the water, as if the builder hadn’t considered that anyone might want to look at the view.

  Fergus was in her class at school and had been her best friend since her first day at kindy. She’d been feeling shy and alone, in a blue-and-white checked dress that drooped below her knees; her face barely visible under the shady navy-blue hat everyone had to wear. Fergus had come straight up to her, taken her to her classroom, shown her where to leave her bag.

  And at recess when she was marooned in a sea of shouting, pushing children, he offered her some grapes and talked to her until the bell rang. With astonishment, she thinks now, he was the same age as me, yet he was so kind and thoughtful. Mature, is the word she would use now.

  Over the following years, they each made other friends, of course, but Fergus was the person she liked the best and spent the most time with. Fergus and his sisters.

  The children’s father drove a gigantic red truck that had a radio and a fridge, even a bed. He was often away for weeks at a time. The children’s mother was a nurse who slept during the day and worked nights at the hospital in Nowra.

  Arrow’s parents presumed the children had a babysitter, but Fergus told her he was in charge.

  She chewed her nails with envy. ‘I bet you watch TV till midnight!’

  Fergus shook his head. ‘We do our homework, eat dinner, wash the dishes, go to bed.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  Was that all?

  She likes to think now that they belted out songs, screamed like banshees, bounced on the beds, shrieked with laughter louder than any kookaburra, and fell asleep, tired out and smiling.

  At the time of the tragedy, Rose was only five, still babyish, with plum-soft cheeks, chubby legs, a little potbelly and two pink bunny ears permanently attached to her head by a plastic headband. Fergus said she even wore them to bed.

  Arrow’s mother was always scooping Rose up for a cuddle and a story, but no one scooped Daisy up. At seven she was cross and unpredictable, like a sapling that springs back, snapping you in the face.

  Fergus was ten, the same age as Arrow. He was pudgy and enigmatic, his deep silences full of possibilities. He made Arrow think of the anemones in the rock pools – out of water, they were just brownish blobs; under water, they were rich red, tentacled, capable of surprises.

  The children only asked her over to their house to play when their father was around. His name was Mike, but Rose called him Darling because that’s what their mother always called him, Fergus said.

  He was a big, moon-faced man whose jokes and teasing put everyone in high spirits. He called Arrow ‘Snow White’ because of her hair, and prophesied that she’d grow up to be a beautiful princess pursued by hordes of lovesick suitors.

  ‘You’re silly,’ Arrow said, blushing, but she liked him enormously. It was a pity that his wife was so cold and sharp. Even her nose was beaky, the skin stretched so thinly you could almost see white bone. Arrow found out later that her name, Maureen, meant ‘bitter’. It suited her.

  When Darling was home, the place was transformed: windows and curtains flung open, bikes and toys scattered around the yard. Mrs Jackson (who usually stayed indoors) appeared outside, looking sleepy but happy, as she drifted about the garden in her dressing-gown, a mug of tea in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

  Once, Arrow saw her grab Fergus, hug him, shower him with kisses.

  ‘My lovely boy.’

  He pulled a face and struggled in her arms, but only a little.

  Daisy watched on, furious.

  Dashing away angry tears, she complained to Arrow.

  ‘She never calls me her lovely girl!’

  Arrow didn’t know what to say. Fergus was lovely, whereas Daisy was as cuddly as a blackberry bush.

  One afternoon, Rose said, ‘Darling’s taking us fishing. Want to come?’

  Arrow grimaced. ‘I don’t like putting worms on hooks.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Darling. ‘We’ll do that for you, won’t we, kids?’

  Arrow still remembers that afternoon. They had such a good time fishing off the pier, paddling in the water, poking holes in the sand, which was as crusty as a freshly baked cake, and calling to the pelicans that sat on posts like sentinels, or sailed serenely past.

  They didn’t catch any fish, not even Mrs Jackson who handled a rod and reel like an expert. But no one cared, and Darling treated them to fish and chips at the café.

  On the way home, Darling hoisted Rose onto his shoulders. She looked so proud, her rabbit ears bobbing, her fat little hands clutching his hair as if she never wanted to let go.

  But when the children’s father was away on one of his trips, Arrow wasn’t allowed to go to their house.

  When she asked them why, they regarded her silently.

  Eventually Fergus said, ‘The smallest noise wakes Mum up.’

  ‘That’s why Fergus made up The Quiet Game,’ said Rose. ‘We pretend to be little white mice. We talk in teeny-tiny voices and our feet go pitter-patter.’

  Daisy scowled. ‘Shut up, Rose.’

  ‘Won’t.’

  Rose tucked her hand into Arrow’s. ‘If you like, we can play The Quiet Game at your house.’ She shone with generosity.

  Arrow grinned. ‘You know I can’t keep quiet and still for one second.’ She sprang up, did a forward roll, a handspring and six cartwheels, one after the other. Rose’s bunny ears waggled, awestruck.

  Pleased, Arrow plonked herself back on the grass. ‘So what happens if you wake your mother?’

  Daisy and Fergus stared at her.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Rose put her mouth against Arrow’s ear. Her breath was soft and warm. It smelled of orange juice and apples.

  ‘She growls.’

  ‘Growls?’ Arrow curled her hands into claws. ‘You mean like a big, hairy bear?’

  Rose squealed with delighted terror, but Fergus turned away.

  ‘No, not like that.’

  Later, at the beach, Rose sat in a puddle of water, and Daisy stalked along the sand, greedy as a seagull, snatching up shells that shimmered iridescent, some as thin as fingernails.

  Arrow was leaping from rock to rock, Fergus puffing behind. When at last he caught up, she was perched on the edge of a cliff, her hands outspread, her face upturned, welcoming seaspray falling like rain. Below her waves rose like great green walls, their undersides white with foam, veined like marble.

  Fergus crouched next to her, one sneaker sodden.

  ‘She growls like a sick dog.’

  Now, years later, Arrow thinks, I should have told someone, should have done something. By admitting that about his mother, Fergus was asking for help. I let him down. I let them all down.

  I forgot that when you’re on rocky shores, you never turn your back to the sea. You watch out for that freak wave to rear, swipe, smash.

  6. MARIKA

  Marika slips out of bed, dresses, has a quick wash. Echo is waiting. Summoning her.

  In the shed, she picks up the small maquette she’s made to establish proportion and gesture.

  The torso is distorted, a technique she’s often used, most notably in The Little Mermaid. The best of her art school pieces, it shows the fish-girl at the moment of transformation. She’s larger than life, a distortion that creates a feeling of unease in the viewer. Curled in a foetal position, she is about to be reborn. Her brilliant, muscular tail is split, one leg budding, the foot narrow, the toes as long as fingers.

  But it is the girl’s face that most disturbs. Whereas the eyes, nose and brow are as subtle and delicate as a Brâncusi Sleeping Mu
se, the mouth is wide, thick-lipped as the blue groper – a hardy, tough fish that dives under rocks and ledges, snapping the fisherman’s rod. The girl’s lips are compressed, as if she is trying to hide the missing tongue, or suppress a scream at the trauma of transformation.

  Echo, with her contorted back and bony spine, is going to confront people even more.

  But she has to put Echo out of her mind for the moment. It’s time for Jasper.

  They do a couple of jigsaw puzzles together, she makes some paper aeroplanes, she reads him some books, they play with Lego.

  ‘Park,’ he demands, so she hunts for shoes and hat.

  They dig for a while in the sandpit, using the mini excavators that are every child’s dream, then he wants to go on the big slippery-dip.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asks. ‘The little one’s better.’

  But he clambers up the steps, with her following right behind him.

  When he gets to the top, he freezes.

  She looks down, sees it through his eyes: a brutal expanse of shining steel, steep as a waterfall. For him, it must look a terrifying descent. He clings to the railing. Nothing is going to shift him. Behind them is a queue of children, jiggling impatiently.

  ‘Jasper,’ she says, ‘I’ll hold onto you. I won’t let go of you. I promise.’

  He believes her, trusts her. He allows her to tuck him in between her legs, to hold him tight and safe.

  They whiz down. Jasper is tense and stiff.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ she asks when they hop off. His legs are as shaky as a newborn foal’s.

  ‘No,’ he says, and they go back to the diggers, which suits Marika very well. While Jasper huffs and puffs, trying to scoop up sand and make a big hole, she’s free to think about Echo. It has to be as vulnerable, perhaps more so, than the one she did of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. She’d tried to capture the arching moment before he plunged into the sea, his body singed and blackened. She’d caught the awkwardness of adolescence, but the sculpture wasn’t wholly convincing. She hopes she can do better with Echo.