“Don’t look so sullen,” said Yvette. “I kill fish for a living. And whatever bait I’m using. Which is, essentially, two deaths for the price of one.” She had managed to untangle the fishing line; she looped it around her hand and placed it, in a neat circular coil, back in her lap.
I was shocked and yet calmed by her matter-of-factness. “I killed someone yesterday,” I said.
“Really.” Yvette’s face didn’t move an inch.
“Well, I didn’t kill them. They got killed because of me.”
“Why was he killed?”
I thought about this. “I had to send a rather important message. And that’s about the best way to get noticed.
“So what are you searching for that’s so important people get killed for it?”
I looked at her. “It’s not a what, it’s a whom. I’m trying to find someone very elusive.”
“Are they good at hiding?”
“Better than that,” I said, “they’re dead.”
Yvette smiled, her sunshine smile. She said, “You don’t do things by half, do you.”
That’s when I felt it, not the rosy head-wound of love—as my fizzing brain first computed— but a real warty whack on the back of my head that stunned me for a moment before pain screamed in and my indignation was replaced by a death-drop of memory and a frictionless struggle through air. Too late, cried my head, too late. The expert noises of fear were next: icicles grew shrieking in my chest and before I knew it my lungs had filled with freezing water that filled me completely until I was a shimmering aqueous thing, a deep-sea creature glimpsed in obscured camera stock in some long-forgotten documentary only shown to school children who just didn’t care because they were only waiting for the lunch bell.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
NEVER A FRONTWARD STEP, PART FOURTEEN
“Nice night for it,” I said out into the air, hoping secretly my words might be carried away by the wind.
“Typical,” said Yvette’s voice from the end of the pier. “The one night I dress up, and here’s everyone dressing down.”
I looked down at my T-shirt and boardshorts: my Brisbane summer specials. “I don’t always wear a suit,” I said.
“Struck me,” said Yvette, “that you’re the type of person who always wears a suit.”
“Only since I was nine,” I said, “Unless sailor suits count, in which case since eighteen months.”
Yvette laughed. I squeezed my eyes. It seemed I had become a wielder of punchlines.
“So why no tuxedo tonight?” she asked.
“I didn’t have to go out to dinner with people who liked them.”
Yvette turned around. Her eyes hit me between mine, the quick cobra-strike of intensity. “It was him up on the hill,” she said, “that you were having dinner with.”
I peered back instinctively over my shoulder, looking up at the businessman’s awfully gaudy home. “Yes,” I said. “I was having dinner with him.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Not really.”
“So why where you there?”
“Call it professional courtesy.”
“And what profession is that?”
I sighed, and sat down next to her. “If you really want to know,” I said, “you’ve got far too much time on your hands.”
“Don’t know about having too much of that,” said Yvette, “but I’m curious to know, anyway. Call it professional courtesy.”
I smiled. This was what I needed to hear, more than anything else in the world. After a deep breath, I said, cautiously, “I suppose you could say I fix things.”
Yvette looked at me quizzically. “Fixing in a home handyman sort of way, or in a Godfather sort of way?”
“Okay, scratch the fixing. I’m an investigator, really.”
“An investigator. Like a detective?”
“Yes. You could say that.”
“And what are you investigating at the moment?”
I looked out over the river, where some sort of light was travelling through the darkness. A ghostly, unattached light, the prow of a boat or an unmoored buoy. I weighed up words in my head. They were all too heavy. “Yvette, I just hope you understand I do what I do as a job, and it doesn’t reflect any great personal values on my behalf. I just happen to be very good at it.”
Yvette picked up a length of tangled fishing line from her lap and began to pick at it with her fingers. “I don’t get the preoccupation with occupations,” she said. “The way we give so much weight to what people do, as if this is the only way of working out what sort of person they are. So don’t think I’m going to judge you, Julian, for whatever it is you do to earn a living.”
“I often end up hurting people, in order to get what my employers want.”
“You kill people.”
I swallowed hard. My throat felt like a razor-wire fence. “Yes," I said.
“Typical,” said Yvette’s voice from the end of the pier. “The one night I dress up, and here’s everyone dressing down.”
I looked down at my T-shirt and boardshorts: my Brisbane summer specials. “I don’t always wear a suit,” I said.
“Struck me,” said Yvette, “that you’re the type of person who always wears a suit.”
“Only since I was nine,” I said, “Unless sailor suits count, in which case since eighteen months.”
Yvette laughed. I squeezed my eyes. It seemed I had become a wielder of punchlines.
“So why no tuxedo tonight?” she asked.
“I didn’t have to go out to dinner with people who liked them.”
Yvette turned around. Her eyes hit me between mine, the quick cobra-strike of intensity. “It was him up on the hill,” she said, “that you were having dinner with.”
I peered back instinctively over my shoulder, looking up at the businessman’s awfully gaudy home. “Yes,” I said. “I was having dinner with him.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Not really.”
“So why where you there?”
“Call it professional courtesy.”
“And what profession is that?”
I sighed, and sat down next to her. “If you really want to know,” I said, “you’ve got far too much time on your hands.”
“Don’t know about having too much of that,” said Yvette, “but I’m curious to know, anyway. Call it professional courtesy.”
I smiled. This was what I needed to hear, more than anything else in the world. After a deep breath, I said, cautiously, “I suppose you could say I fix things.”
Yvette looked at me quizzically. “Fixing in a home handyman sort of way, or in a Godfather sort of way?”
“Okay, scratch the fixing. I’m an investigator, really.”
“An investigator. Like a detective?”
“Yes. You could say that.”
“And what are you investigating at the moment?”
I looked out over the river, where some sort of light was travelling through the darkness. A ghostly, unattached light, the prow of a boat or an unmoored buoy. I weighed up words in my head. They were all too heavy. “Yvette, I just hope you understand I do what I do as a job, and it doesn’t reflect any great personal values on my behalf. I just happen to be very good at it.”
Yvette picked up a length of tangled fishing line from her lap and began to pick at it with her fingers. “I don’t get the preoccupation with occupations,” she said. “The way we give so much weight to what people do, as if this is the only way of working out what sort of person they are. So don’t think I’m going to judge you, Julian, for whatever it is you do to earn a living.”
“I often end up hurting people, in order to get what my employers want.”
“You kill people.”
I swallowed hard. My throat felt like a razor-wire fence. “Yes," I said.
Monday, December 29, 2008
NEVER A FRONTWARD STEP, PART THIRTEEN
As I approached the wharf, I noticed that the flowers had been changed since the previous night. Instead of yellow flowers they were a deep purple, and instead of picking one I left them where they were. I had the absurd notion that to pick one would be to ruin the effect they had on the wharf. As I walked down the pier my eyes became accustomed to the light. I scanned nervously. I couldn’t see Yvette’s telltale hat. Then I noticed her, without the hat, sitting at the edge of the pier, with a fishing rod in hand and a purple shawl around her shoulders. She had pulled her hair back and tied it into a bun, so only a few strands scribbled their way down her neck. I became too aware of my steps creaking across the wooden planks.
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