White Light Page 11

  ‘Careful, the plates are hot.’

  Russell chews every mouthful diligently, thoughtfully. I see that candles wouldn’t have been amiss. Something I could look at while he is finishing each mouthful. Shona tries to tell him about a holiday we had last Christmas down at Bateman’s Bay, but there is not much to tell. Grace stubbed her toe so badly the nail turned black and fell off. Framed photos of the happy, sunburnt children gaze down from the walls. Russell reports that he was stung by a stingray in waters off the coast of Luzon and spent two weeks in a Philippines hospital with the lepers. He offers to show us the scar but Shona declines. She is still eating.

  I say, ‘I guess you won’t have heard about Steve Irwin, then?’

  ‘No,’ says Russell. ‘Do I know him?’

  When he was discharged, Russell continues, he was ordered to rest and recuperate, so he laid up in a beach resort near Tuguegarao. He tells us how the ash from a volcano simmering nearby kept falling into his orange juice and the waiter took twenty minutes to bring a fresh one, even though there was no one else staying at the resort. When it arrived it was brought personally by the manager, who said that all the waiters had evacuated and perhaps sir might like to consider evacuating too. But Russell had already paid up front and was determined to get his money’s worth, so he said he would stay put until the volcano erupted if he had to, only it didn’t erupt.

  Shona says: ‘Wow.’

  Over dessert, peaches and cream, Russell asks about a mutual school friend of his and Shona’s. Shona is sorry to report that the last she had heard, their friend, whose name I forget, broke his ankle falling off a ladder and was on crutches. Russell tells how, while riding a motorbike near Cuzco in the Andes, he hit a condor that hadn’t seen him coming and nearly fell into a ravine.

  ‘Didn’t it knock you off your bike?’ I ask.

  ‘Nearly. It broke the mirror and I lost my deposit. I had bruises the size of dinner plates.’

  I clear away the dinner plates and, for the moment, am happy to potter about in the kitchen. I put on the kettle and stack up the dishes. We have a dishwasher, but I am thinking perhaps tonight I will do them by hand. I can hear the music perfectly. When I return with the coffee Russell is telling Shona a story about how he spent six days in a police lock-up in Lushnje in Albania.

  ‘What did you do to deserve that?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing. It was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing very exciting about our lives,’ says Shona.

  ‘Least of all the coffee,’ I add, placing the tray on the table.

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Russell tells us how, when in Mohitjo, a gypsy touter sold him a quarter ounce of Lebanese hashish. Why? Because it was a good price, and the Australian dollar was so much better than the escudo. It wasn’t until he reached the Spanish border a few days later that he remembered it was in his pocket and, as the guards were checking passports, he sat quietly in his train carriage and ate it. What seemed like an hour later, when the guards opened the carriage door, he vomited a foul smelling goop into a plastic bag, which was enough to make the guards, after a cursory glance at his documents, move quickly on. Russell spent the rest of the journey studying the luggage rack overhead, sitting very, very still.

  More music.

  After coffee, Russell has another. He has several chocolates and several biscuits. I see that I have finished the wine. I think, may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so I open another, even though I will suffer for it tomorrow. I return to the dishes in the kitchen, again leaving the school chums alone to catch up on old times, only I suspect that there are not too many old times being chewed over. There seems to be a big loud silence coming from the dining room. Like flat champagne. I clean everything in the kitchen. In fact, I give it a thorough scrubbing. I sweep the floor. I clean the oven. I change the music a few times. I overhear Russell say, in response to Shona’s question, that one of the things he has learnt in his travels is that the native Inuits from Inuvik in Canada always take a long time over their meals so as to strengthen the social and familial bonds. They have a word: sunasorpok, which means to clean up the food left unfinished by others. I am glad I have removed the plates—there was only fat left on mine. A part of me wonders if Russell is making this up, if he has, in fact, been lying. I have never really swallowed the Stanley-Livingstone story. So I sneak into the study and quickly Google Canadian Inuit eating rituals. This search yields zero results: Did you mean Canadian Restaurants? Such a dead end proves nothing, which merely reinforces my more general suspicion that Google is a great way to prove nothing. I’ll have to take Russell’s word for it.

  When I eventually return, Russell is sitting with his hands around his coffee mug, as if it is still warm. The school chums have run out of conversation. The old flame is flickering. Shona is looking decidedly weary and Russell looks as though he does not want to leave, ever. I see he has kicked his boots off. The couch is looking far too comfortable. Thank goodness he hasn’t been drinking. I sit down beside Shona and give an enormous, prefabricated yawn. Russell tells us how he was robbed at gunpoint in Rybinsk but only had about thirty roubles in his pocket at the time, so everything worked out for the best. I realise, with the aid of my peripheral vision, something Russell has not—that Shona has fallen asleep. She gives a little, soft snore.

  ‘My God, you’ve had some adventures, Russell,’ I eventually say. ‘In these exotic places. I don’t know where half of them are.’

  ‘Not really,’ he replies. ‘It was all pretty boring.’

  The sound of my laughter wakes Shona with a start. The dream-word she drags out of her snooze is: Curriculum.

  She’s clearly got other things on her mind.

  ‘Oh Russell, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go to bed.’

  ‘Me too,’ I add. ‘We’ve both got work tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Russell. ‘Bummer.’

  Shona clambers to her feet and shows him to the door. He does not look at the photos on the walls.

  ‘Don’t forget your coat.’

  ‘Did I tell you about the time I forgot my coat in Keflavik in Iceland? It’s the most expensive place I’ve ever—’

  ‘Perhaps next time.’

  ‘Oh… okay… when?’

  ‘I’ll give you a ring.’

  Russell puts on his coat and, reluctantly, leaves. We listen to his footsteps, but there is no sound of an engine from out on the quiet street. I wonder if he is out there, waiting for us to change our minds and invite him back in. I clear away the coffee mugs. The kitchen is sparkling. I am so good. I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I do it with my left hand so as to stimulate alternative neural pathways and thus avert the potential onset of dementia. While I do this I stand on one foot, like a stork, for thirty seconds at a time so that my body will retain its physical memory of balance and not leave me bereft when I am older. I am thinking ahead. Shona comes in behind me. Like the children, she no longer asks what I am doing. She already has on her nightie. She hoists it and sits on the toilet unselfconsciously.

  ‘You cooked a lovely meal,’ she says, ‘my dear, sweet adventurer.’

  ‘Me? It’s all I can do to get the car started in the morning.’

  She must have looked adorable with braces. After she washes her hands, she gives me a sleepy hug, her mouth humming against my neck, which I take to be a manifestation of her love, love that is not humming against the neck of her old school flame.

  ‘Did you enjoy seeing your pal?’

  ‘What a dreary man,’ she says, yawning again, as content as I’ve seen her.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  These stories have previously appeared, sometimes in slightly different forms, in the following journals and magazines. My thanks to their editors. ‘Red Shoes’ co-winner, Patricia Hackett Prize, 2008 and ‘Tales of Action an
d Adventure’ highly commended, Shoalhaven Short Story Award, 2009.

  ‘Bulldozer’, Muse, Oct, 1996

  ‘Loaded Dice’, Siglo #6, 1996

  ‘Drip, Drip, Drip’ Australian Short Stories #64, 1998

  ‘Banjo’ Southerly Vol 60 #2, 2000

  ‘A Good Break’, Overland #171, 2003

  ‘Lovely Outing’, Meanjin Vol 64 #3, 2005

  ‘Bridie’, Wet Ink #6, 2006

  ‘The Ingot’, Island #109, 2007

  ‘Stealth’, The Big Issue #269, 2007

  ‘White Light’, Heat #13, 2007

  ‘Red Shoes’,Westerly Vol 53, 2008

  ‘Iago’ New Australian Stories 1, 2009

  ‘Tales of Action and Adventure’ New Australian Stories 2, 2010

  ‘Beneath the Figs’ Going Down Swinging #30, 2010 and also in The Best Australian Stories, 2011

  ‘The Isthmus’, Southerly Vol 71 #3, 2011

  ‘Ping-Pong Principle’, Review of Australian Fiction Vol 3 # 3, 2012

  on both sides they advanced against each other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Melbourne, Mark O’Flynn now lives in the Blue Mountains. His first novel, Grassdogs, was published in 2006 after winning the Harper Collins/Varuna manuscript prize. False Start, A Memoir of things Best Forgotten was published by Finch Publishing (2013) and his latest novel, The Forgotten World, by Fourth Estate/HarperCollins Australia (2013). His short stories, articles, reviews and poems have appeared in a wide range of journals and magazines both here and overseas including Australian Book Review, The Bulletin, The Good Weekend (Sydney Morning Herald), Heat, Westerly, Meanjin, Southerly, Island, Overland, New Australian Stories (Scribe) and Best Australian Stories (Black Inc). Mark works as a teacher of English and ESL in a NSW prison.

  PRAISE FOR MARK O’FLYNN

  Short stories

  Iago ‘It is feisty, edgy and challenging writing that works superbly.’

  —Helen Elliot, The Age

  The Ping-Pong Principle‘A perfect exemplar of the short story form… By the end… this frame is itself blended with the story and transfigured into a principle, a code to live by. Brilliant.’—Matthew Lamb, Review of Australian Fiction

  Beneath the Figs ‘Subtle layering of detail that seems casually incidental… Mark O’Flynn’s skilful use of tone has you smiling right up until the story reveals its poignant underside.’

  —Cate Kennedy, The Best Australian Stories 2011

  Grassdogs

  ‘Mark O’Flynn paints Edgar with such sure and savage strokes that he is the novel, and the novel is him.’

  —Barry Oakley, The Bulletin

  ‘The enduring image of Grassdogs comes with the title: a tidal wave of dogs–mutts of all breeds and conditions –surging through the grassland like fleas through fur, just below the undulating blades… a lyrical literary novel…’

  —Katharine England, The Adelaide Advertiser Review

  ‘His writing is more than accomplished and there are moments when it sings with the confidence of a writer in complete control of his craft.’

  —Liam Davison, The Age

  ‘There is precision and muscularity in his writing; an admirable tendency towards understatement; a pleasing musicality; a sense of narrative shape. O’Flynn can conjure up scenes that are almost magic-realist in their melodrama, off-beat humour and casual grotesqueness… The closing chapter is a minor masterpiece…’

  —Chris Boyd, Australian Book Review

  ‘Mark O’Flynn’s novel crackles with a desperate energy...Grassdogs is full of arresting imagery and unusual turns of phrase.’

  —Cameron Woodhead, The Age, Pick of the Week

  False Start

  A Memoir of Things Best Forgotten

  ‘… as this unreliable memoir of many things best forgotten gathers pace, Mark O’Flynn’s laconic Australian comedy exhibits a voice and a compelling timbre of its own... The last fifty pages of False Start, set in Sydney, Portugal and Ireland, are deeply touching and utterly hilarious.’—Ross Fitzgerald, The Australian

  ‘Spiked with humour and fine observation…’ —Ross Southernwood, Sunday Herald

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  Spineless Wonders

  ABN98156041888

  PO Box 220 STRAWBERRY HILLS

  New South Wales, Australia, 2012

  www.shortaustralianstories.com.au

  First published by Spineless Wonders 2013

  Text copyright © Mark O’Flynn

  Edited by Annie Parkinson. Layout by Bronwyn Mehan

  Cover image with permission from unrestrictedstock.com

  Cover design by Bettina Kaiser

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be produced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval sysem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this boo

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry White Light/Mark O’Flynn 1st ed.978-0-9872546-2-7 (pbk.)A823.4

  978-0-9872546-4-1 (ebook)