Islands in the Stream

I have to keep a journal. I have to tell the truth. I have a hand in it. I have to keep my hand in. I have to hand it in.

*​

'Okay, I admit, it's easy to think too much of things, to see huge portent in every single sign and symbol. I get that. But it's not like I end here and you start there and that Nature or Time is some other thing, elsewhere, outside ... giants coming down from the hills.'
'It's called the pathetic fallacy, Ivan - "the violent sky", "the weeping clouds".'

'No, wait. That's not it. That's not what I mean. I mean, how could it not be pathetic? The sky. How is it pathetic to say the sky is violent? I mean, you've seen how it is. How it can be. It really is violent.'

'It doesn't mean pathetic like how you mean pathetic.'

'But what's the difference? What is the 'pathetic' part? What makes people think the land or the sky is somehow a thing separate from us, cut away? How could there even be a 'non-pathetic' way to see things? A non-human way? Is that what's being proposed? I don't want the sky to be violent. I want a non-violent sky. I don't want to feel this way. I want the light version, the low-calorie option. But I don't get a choice. I'm stuck in a desert. So yes, what? Of course. Yes, I want an oasis.'

'Oases can be delusions, Ivan. And you're exaggerating for effect. I think...'
Careful.

'I think you don't want to admit you're hurt, that you feel incomplete. People, confined spaces - that could all be a trigger. You want to tell me you can't go. Just say what you want to say.'

Liar.

'Look. I don't care if I'm the problem here. I know I'm the problem. I'm not looking for a solution. I just want to know if you'll let me fly. To get home. Okay? I just need to get home, okay?'
'Okay.'

*​

Mum always says two things: everything is down to 'hormones', and if you sent everyone a message saying all is discovered, leave now most people would up and leave. She also says everything happens for a reason. She also says ... maybe. My mum says four things.

She says when she met Dad he was a livewire. 'Typical Kiwi!' she says, 'restless, unpredictable. A real entrepreneur.' Something else.
In the wedding photos she looks surprised. She'd make fun of him when he came into the kitchen, opening drawers, always looking for his keys.

But, you could tell, she never really knew what he'd do next.

'He had a way with people.'

He had his way with you.

Sorry.

Eating at a restaurant, you'd think he'd left the table to use the bathroom and then you'd see him coming out of the kitchen with a plate of something that wasn't on the menu. Something he'd convinced the chef to make, something the chef only cooked at home. We'd lose him in a crowd - going sideways as he did, drifting from person to person. He'd squeeze hands, nod, and look you in the eye. He'd put his hand on your shoulder. You felt like you'd brushed up against something big, something wild, something unexpected.

Once, in a movie theatre, we thought we'd lost him. But I could hear his voice in the darkness, joking with people he only half-knew. He seemed to be corralling them, ushering them through the gloom, reassuring them they were on the right track. Then when the lights went down, he slipped in besides Mum and me so quietly - like a bird into its nest at nightfall.

But that kind of personality, it takes a toll. Maybe that's why it took Mum time to tell me he'd started disappearing; taking long walks at night, coming home with street signs, bits of neighbour's garden furniture, bits of neighbour's garden. He'd started making out some code I couldn't even begin to imagine. He'd hum tunes we'd never heard, drum his fingers in odd syncopated rhythms on the tabletop.

He'd stop halfway through a melody, as if catching himself doing something he didn't understand. He'd look up at us then, worried.

Mum said people had seen him out in the early morning. He'd mistake strangers for friends and look flustered.

He'd be away for days. If someone stopped him, he knew he had a family.

He knew he had a home. He made no excuses for his appearance.

He's losing it. He's losing it.

'But if he doesn't go when his feet start taking him,' she said, 'he complains the soles of his feet start to ache. He can't stand still. He'll pace the house down.'
Anyway, it doesn't matter if he's crazy.

He's dead now.

I think...

Careful.

I think I just have to go home one more time.

*​

Dear Sir,

The Taíno were the peoples indigenous to the Caribbean islands. They left at least five excellent words to the English language: barbecue, hammock, tobacco, canoe and hurricane. Exercise One. The Taino lay in his hammock, smoking tobacco and occasionally flipping the cassava fritters grilling on his barbecue. When
the hurricane eventually took him, it left nothing behind except one solitary canoe.The pirate-slash-botanist William Dampier captured English ships. He ransomed them back to the English for a pardon. He invented verbs. He categorised flowers. He invented 'to ramble' and 'to caress'. Before him, no one rambled, no one was caressed.

My parents live in Paraparaumu, at the bottom of the North Island. That's in New Zealand. You can't escape where you're from. You can't escape who you are, Dad said. Whom, Dad. You can't get away from it son. You can only go further up the coast.

*​

In the waiting room outside my doctor's office is a poster that says Life is just a dream.

Ew, someone's written underneath it.

You're just a dream.

*​

'I'm going to die, aren't I?'

'One day, Ivan. Yes.'

'I won't be conscious when it happens, though.'

'Perhaps not.'

'Because consciousness is harnessed to flesh.'

'That's a strange way to put it, but yes.'

'And I probably won't be conscious when it happens.'

'Maybe not.'

Maybe.

*​​

Ecuador. The Aegean. Crete. The Otago Peninsula. I don't think I know what an isthmus is ... a chain of islands? An island connected to the mainland? No man is an island. Except my father. He was a kind of island. A paradox. AWOL. An anagram. An inheritance. A palindrome; a man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Half an idea. An idea of halves. I need to get home. To connect to the mainland. I need to know it's all real. I need a funeral, an answer, an archenemy, an archdiocese. An arpeggio. I am. An archipelago.

I was fourteen when the spirit of a river possessed me. A brain fever, a psychic break. The bends. A psychic says he can bend spoons on TV. But we all know better. He got me at an estuary. He was homesick and running for the sea. They can swell your veins, coursing through every artery, rushing towards sunlight. They can burst you like a wet balloon. Oh, it's a terrible to thing to see. There's a lot of skin on the human body, as the actress said to the coroner. If you take the time, if you really spread it all out.

Well, this river was young - he'd lift me off my feet, chest first, as if to bear witness. When the moon was full he'd pull me towards the sky. He'd make me run at the mouth, rant and rave at every inopportune moment. At dinner parties, of course, he was an embarrassment.

Any chance he had he'd swell me forward like a waterfall. Out would come this language of ice cubes, lakes, steam, mists and hot water. Every chance he had he'd pull me towards puddles and creeks. Sometimes we'd dive deep. That winter we fished glassy depths and mossy shallows. We'd visit high and rare backwaters that only he knew.

'Look,' he'd say. 'I've never been to this place you call "a rotunda".

'I didn't want this to happen,' he'd say, his voice full of gravel. 'It's the isolation, you see.'

'I know nothing of "he night garden"', he'd say. 'Or "the gazebo".'

Each fish we pulled up was fat and happy to see us. Each one grinned and leapt about in our fingers. Maybe this day will be our last together, I thought, my feet tired, my knees always going sideways.

'Look at the evening falling,' he said.

'Look at the lights of the village.'

'Look,' he'd say. 'Look. Look.'

*​​

'That's not true, Ivan. I need you to be level with me. If you won't talk about how you're feeling then there's no point you being here. And I can't say that going home is going to help that. Not if you can't be serious.'

'Okay. I'm Tom then. Tom and Jerry.'

'What about them?'

'Adults like Tom. Kids like Jerry.'

'Sorry, but I think you're still avoiding Ivan. I need facts, please, not fiction.'

Liar. Dummy.

'It's a pack of hounds.'

'What is?'

'Fiction. It's a pack of hounds in the forest, isn't it? Chasing out the truth.'

'Fine. Give me a story then.'

*​

Once upon a time a brave and beautiful princess chooses to live with her significant other - a Department of Conservation Ranger called Ivan - in a recently mortgaged flat share arrangement. Their love was sincere and their attitude compatible. Ivan knew a good thing when he saw it and the princess had always wanted a place outside the castle.

However their wooden house was cold in winter and it was the custom in their village to keep a large fire during the worst nights. Rocks by the fireplace caught embers each time a log was added. Kindling and old newspapers lay next to the firewood. It was always best if you'd got your wood dropped off before winter, and that it was dry and of premium quality while still at a reasonable price.

Such a fire was brought into existence one Saturday night in June when, instead of doing the recycling and watching a DVD like usual, the two sat in earnest conversation inside their little wooden house.

'My dearest, so close do I feel we've grown! Tonight I'm so glad I can finally share with you a secret I've long laboured over,' the princess said. 'It is the only thing to keep us apart. It's been such terror in my heart; a burden to carry alone!'

'My sweet and lovely princess,' her strong yet gentle partner replied, moving closer and unbuttoning his flannelette shirt. 'Please, do share this thing that makes you tremble so. Of all the fellows who entered the Conservation Service this year I am the truly the most lucky.'

(The flickering firelight highlighted Ivan's dark, rugged stubble and made his overflowing curly chest-hair appear to twinkle and dance.)

'It is my deepest wish that nothing come between us. It is you for whom my heart leaps. It is you who makes me happiest in the entire world.'
His princess beamed at him, and, with great timidity but a glowing heart, began her story.

*​

'It's not that you're not telling a truth, Ivan. Or that that story seems a bit ... odd. It's that you exaggerate to create meaning. Do you see? I'm being serious with you. Not every little thing has significance. You need to prioritise. You need to slow down. Medication will help but you need to see that chaos isn't a kind of meaning itself. It's just a kind of undertow, you know, towards ... oblivion. You're a smart kid. You understand. You need to swim against the current. You need to tell the difference.'

I know.

I can. I will.

*​

I have one week.

'You know better than I do, Alice. I trust you.'

'Okay, describe it to me in three words.'

'Green ... umm ... pure. And ... umm. ... easy.'

'Aha. Done. I'm there! J kkkk. Hey ... but seriously. It sounds like paradise, what's the catch?'

'Volcanic. It's a bit ... volcanic.'

*

I can feel my hair falling out. It tingles.
Like growing a moustache in reverse. I look like a super villain. I've got a widows peak. I like to peek at widows.
I want to get out of the rat race. I want to race rats. I should eat all the fruit in the fruit bowl. I've had too much coffee. After last night Alice is still with me. She's putting her pants on. I want to race rats. I want to get out of the rat race. The service is on Tuesday. It will take us two days to get there.
My landing card said list your occupation. Don't tell them you're crazy. Tell them you're an ornithologist. Don't tell them you're crazy. Tell them you're an ornithologist.
Dance Instructor, I write carefully.

*​

This bird is not a bellbird. It is a kind of bellbird. Each note it sings, it hits like a bell. They go right through me. Each one clarifies the air. This bird is the colour of butter and as soft as summer. A cat is on the part of the roof that I can see from our bed. He is singing back at this kind of bellbird.

I can't believe him. He's really turning it out. He croons his love letter at her. He clicks his innocent clicks. He pauses. He turns his head downwards, as if it wasn't him.

Predator.

Without a lick of shame he eyes his prey again, and fixes his sonata on the wind. He angles for her. He tweets a syrupy tweet. Who am I to argue?
I'm struggling to get over this. I wake in your tangled hair, sensing rain.

*​

As you drive south from Dannevirke a short turn right by the bridge brings you out onto the riverbank. I see the gravel tracks and turn off. I drive out over the river stones, past the shingle heaps, tiny stones pinging off the underside of the car. I drive on, not knowing what I'm looking for. Alice is quiet in the passenger seat. I love her. I'm on the edge of something. I can feel it. A precipice. A cliff face. No ... wait, slow down. I double back. I can't remember.
This whole place is a car park now. There are walks marked out, rubbish bins, freshly painted macrocarpa stiles. There are signposts showing distances for people walking, a new cycle path with hikers already on it.

'The council are turning this place into a holiday park,' I grumble.

The river's changed. It's further away from the main road now. The track ends in two heaps of shingle. I see a burnt-out car, brown and black, sitting squarely between two willows. A bulldozer sits back there too. Grass has been planted. Gullies flattened out. I get out and walk.

The sun is high and bright. The river is further off than I thought. It glimmers dark under the tree line, flat and fast moving. The slime on the rocks is baked to a shocked white and the hard light makes the place look lunar, unending. I wander forward, shading my eyes from the sun. Again. Towards the river.

I remember one winter the river was so swollen it covered the car park completely. It looked like a swamp; trees and tall grasses stuck out in a shock of angles. Their trunks were bare or peeling. Their leaves rattled like dice.
Cars rumble on the highway above me. We head back out onto the main road, and keep on, south towards Wellington.

*​

We've got a rental. We're organised. We're forward-thinkers. We've got time to visit Kapiti Island today. There are birds everywhere like some feathered dinner party. The talk to us, about us and at us and sometimes I chase them. This one, the King of Quails, I chase just for you. But he wobbles and zips under scrub and bush and is gone. And these ones, black and green and full of consonants, pluck and tear at everything we have! Have they not seen us coming? Can't they see we're modern? We have torches and blankets, Snickers bars, magazines, and two kinds of thermos.
They bob their big heads, as if to say Yes! Yes! Of course! What of it?

*​

Hi Mum. I'm on a boat.
Hi Mum. I'm a boat on an ocean.
All is discovered.
Hi Mum. I'll see you soon.

*​

It's the night before the funeral. We'll be there soon. I'm nervous. I feel spare. I feel Spartan. Is this Sparta? I am legion. In the break in the weather we make a run to the pub for beer. We're on the home stretch. Towns are all the same here, two-storey, wooden, wide streets with pub-goers and tourists in tow. Each place has in it the seeds of another place. Everyone has one foot on the ground and another in somewhere else.

I think I can hear glasses clinking. I admire the tone of a guitar. My head hurts. Is it a radio, maybe? 'He went down to dinner in his Sunday best / and he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest / He's an Excitable boy they all said. / He's just an Excitable boy.'
With all my bills paid I would be drunk ceaselessly. We have a room for the night. There's no need to drive on black, glassy roads. No need to put my faith in metal and petrol, in other people's assessments. I'm alone. I'm scared. I wonder about the bang in that car's engine. I wonder how many thumps are left in that old ticker.

*​

'We should go,' Alice said. 'I know it's a funeral, but it's your country, your home. You might even like it.'

'It's a waste of time,' I said. 'Nothing ever happens there.'