I wanted to escape. I knew that I had to get away from the city, from its sharp corners and hard surfaces. I phoned a friend who said that she could let me have her house on the island for a week. I didn’t know what to do about Sykes. I was afraid to take him with me and I was afraid not to. He was still asleep. lost in the bedclothes, his hand restless on the pillow. If I left him behind I would lose him, maybe for good. Maybe I should lose him, I thought, he’s nothing but bad luck. But then, I concluded, he’s the only luck I’ve got.
I packed enough clothes for both me and Sykes. They would be a bit big for him but it wouldn’t matter on the island. Not many people went there at this time of year, we would probably have the bay to ourselves. Then I phoned the office were I worked to say that I would be on bereavement leave for a week.
‘Who died?’ the receptionist asked. She said that she had to fill out a form.
‘My aunt,’ I said. ‘Auntie Fabulina.’
I tried to rouse Sykes. He kept slipping back into a deep torpor, burying himself in the bed, muttering, ‘Let me sleep. I want to be asleep.’ Finally I ripped open the duvet and dragged him off the bed. I could hear him stumbling around in the bathroom while I phoned for a taxi to take us to the ferry.
I had been coming to the island since I was sixteen. I had walked its length and breadth, visited every bay and cove, swum from every beach. I had fallen in and out of love there; been fucked for the first time on a narrow ledge of rock by an unremitting Dutchman while the waves crashed all around. The whole island was saturated in nostalgia. As the boat neared the rickety old jetty, my stomach contracted at the thought of including Sykes in my past. I hoped that the benign autumn sun and the sea breeze would be anodyne to his flagging health and his wounded spirit. I imagined him sitting outside at the table by the beach-house under the tree ferns, his pale skin dappled with light. He would be smiling and smoking a cigarette. He wouldn’t mention the twins.
The beach-house was dilapidated. I found the key where Lizzie said it would be, hanging from one of the beams inside the porch, and let myself in. The foundations had subsided, giving the rooms an odd perspective and when I turned on the tap over the sink, the pipes retched and groaned. I drew back the curtains and opened all the windows. Motes rose in the greenish light like little flakes of memory. Sykes was sitting outside under the tree ferns. He had taken off his shirt. The light dappled his shoulders and chest. He was smoking, drumming his fingers on the table. He had removed his earrings; the heavy silver loops glinted in the sun. As I watched from the window, he stubbed the cigarette out, scooped them up and hurled them out over the bush. Then he caught my eye and gave a sheepish sort of half smile, like a little boy who has been discovered doing something naughty. At that moment I felt flushed with love for Sykes.
That night I took him down to the jetty. The last time I had been to the island, the sea had been alight with phosphorescence. I wanted to show it to Sykes. The sky was black and huge, pricked with a few stars. A gibbous moon cast our shadows from the wharf down onto the pale sand.
‘Look,’ said Sykes. ‘Moonshadows. I haven’t seen them for ages. Not since I was down south. A million years ago.’ And he did a little dance to make his shadow dance on the sand. We made our way to the end of the jetty, stepping over the gaps in the planks.
‘See, there it is,’ I pointed to where the waves eddied against the piles, igniting a flotilla of tiny explosions. ‘They’re organisms that light up when they touch each other.’
‘A bit like us,’ said Sykes. He was laying on his stomach, hanging over the edge. He looked up at me. His face was wonder-struck in the moonlight. Then he leapt to his feet, threw off his clothes and scrambled down the wooden steps into the icy sea. He splashed and dived, plunging up out of the glittering water, raising up his arms, freckled with light whipping out sparks from his hair.
Then he hoisted himself up, came over to where I stood on the jetty and tenderly removed my shirt. He hugged me and embraced me and kissed me until we were both sequined with stars.
The next day we were woken by the sound of a wood-pigeon, heaving itself through the air. It swooped into a karaka tree and we could see it through the window from the bed, silhouetted against the ineffable blue of the morning sky. Its suave plumage bloomed in the sunlight, oiled emerald and indigo.
The stately bird sat motionless for a long time, the swaying bough creaking under its weight. Then it launched itself up and the sound of its wing beats receded back into the bush. I started to say something but Sykes put his hand over my mouth. Then he rolled me onto my side and gently pushed his dick into me and we lay there without moving, without speaking, just breathing; absorbing the essence of each other.
That first day we did nothing but doze and snack and make love. We wandered around naked and in the afternoon when the sun gained strength, we dragged the mattress out onto the grass. Sykes’s white skin seemed to suck up the light. I was afraid that he would burn, but at sunset there was just a slight blush on him. I cooked some of the food we had bought. Sykes opened a bottle of wine. We ate outside, watching the sun disappear behind the promontory. Then we sat in the dark, sipping the wine and listening to the sounds of the bush packing up for the night.
‘Reminds me of the holidays we had when I was a kid,’ Sykes said. ‘We used to go to a place up north by the beach. My uncle’s place. It was run down like this. But nice. The same smells.’
‘Have you ever been back to see your family?’ I asked.
‘Nah. That’s a closed book. Well, actually I did go back once. One Sunday afternoon. It was all exactly the same. Except for a new car in the driveway and maybe a new coat of paint. Everything was immaculate in that house. My mother made a vocation out of housekeeping. The same constipated little garden. Everything in rows, you know, measured out. The same old seal balancing a fucking birdbath on its nose. I was just about to press the bell — those chimes used to drive me crazy. Big Ben. Then I heard them arguing. You know, shouting at each other. My mother and father. And I was not feeling the best, if you know what I mean, and it was like being sucked back into my childhood. I thought, I don’t need this and I turned around and walked away and I’ve never been back.
‘I saw my brother once though, outside some club. It was just after I came back to the city. He was fat and pissed and him and his mates were giving this old queen a hard time. For some reason I was feeling, you know, protective. So I just fronted up to him and showed him my knife and I said, “I think you better fuck off or I might have to tell your mates about you and your uncle up at the beach”. He just about shit himself. Said something to the cowboys he was with. I don’t know what he said but they disappeared pretty bloody quick. So then I took that queen by the arm and we went back to her place for a cup of tea. The next day I moved in. It was Fabulina. That’s how I met her.’
I woke in the middle of the night to find Sykes gone. I got up and, wrapping myself in a blanket, went outside. It was almost a full moon and everything was sharp. The leaves of the karaka tree looked metallic and artificial. The sea breeze was soughing up through the bush and something coughed in the undergrowth. From the landing in front of the house I could see Sykes sitting on the end of the jetty. I went back in and poured the last of the wine into two glasses and then I made my way down the path through the flax and agapanthus.
Sykes was dropping pebbles into the phosphorescence. Each splash detonated a blossom of light in the water. Tears were running down his face.
‘Its so beautiful,’ he said, without looking up. ‘It’s so fucking beautiful.’ We drank the wine and then sat there in silence, wrapped in the blanket, watching the last lambent ripple echo beneath the surface.