Angler’s Bay, 2050
Every single angel is terrible!
And since that’s the case
I choke back my own dark birdcall
my sobbing.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Cello carries sadness like a small
black stone that’s lodged inside her,
prophesying doom. It’s Friday.
I’m tired. I’ve worked hard all week.
I just want to veg in front of Web City
with Bear’s big head resting on my knee.
I’m almost home when she fones. Again.
—North, she says. I’m rotting inside.
I’m a shitty mother. Ambré’s freaking me.
He’s got these demon eyes, all glittery.
Please, please come over. I’m losing it.
The baby’s wail starts up again.
—Shut up! she says. Just shut the fuck up!
And subsides into gulping sobs. Oh God,
she says. I haven’t slept, and now it’s time
for his fucking feed.
On the way to Cello’s I leave
messages for Raoul and Cello’s
mum. Jo travels a lot. She’ll be off
off on a garden tour somewhere.
Raoul’s at the restaurant. I crunch
across Cello’s Krystal Grass, leaving
baby-pink footprints. No one answers
the flexi screen. I thought-code it
and enter in the darkened hall.
Big Cat pads ahead of me. I follow
him to the nursery where Ambré’s cries have peaked. I pick him up
from the bassinet. He reeks of nappy
plugs and piss. He burps and yerk!
brings up sour milk.
—Cello? The living zone is dark
except for the eye table’s blue gaze.
Cello’s set the mood walls to blockout
mode. I can’t change this. They’re voice
sensitive. I bump into furniture and curse.
The eye table bats a quixotic lid. I swear
that thing likes to flirt with me.
—Cello? A shaky sob, expelled slowly,
tells me she’s there. Cello has the eyesight
of a cat. Jo ticked the box that took care
of that. My own eyes adjust and there
she is on the couch with knees drawn
in, her face inclined away from me.
Ambré cries and butts my neck,
frantic for his mother’s milk.
—He’s hungry, Cello, and wet.
—I can’t, she says and turns away.
—Well, I bloody can’t, I say above
the baby’s wails that pierce
like needles pushed through skin.
Cello grabs him and dips her head
to inhale the stench.
—Bloody hell. Not again, she says.
She scrapes off tears, lights up the zone.
The sun unit assumes a pinkish glow.
Web City resumes its usual drone.
I watch it absently, thinking,
who else is there that I can fone?
Waverley knows less about babies
than me. Maybe my mum…
Cello removes Ambré’s nappy plug.
Shit spurts across the room.
Cello cleans up Ambré’s arse,
inserts another plug. The skin
contracts in pleats. His testicles
are an angry red. She lifts her T.
A goose-fleshed breast spills out.
—Come on! she says, and rams
the baby’s mouth onto her nipple
where his cries slam shut on urgent
gulps of milk.
But not for long. Ambré screws up
his tiny face and, wailing, turns away
again from Cello’s dun-brown teat.
—It’s my own bloody fault, says Cello.
See? I’ve spoilt my milk, getting so upset.
That’s what Raoul always says.
—Where is Raoul? I ask. I tried to fone
the restaurant…
—They won’t pick up. Friday nights are hell.
Look at that! she accuses the screen.
Some kid’s been detained for L-Kida links
and he’s only ten. Bloody terrorists.
She shoves her breast in Ambré’s face
but no matter how hungry, he refuses it.
—I can’t stand this. She’s in tears again.
With all of this crying I just can’t think,
as if transfixed by a wheel spinning too
fast for me to get a grip. I’m dizzy
with the effort of it.
But then a single thought arrives,
as if a director prompts me
from backstage in some black
comedy. I run lukewarm water
in Cello’s sink and lower Ambré
into it. My arms, unbidden, begin
to rock. He settles in my elbow’s
crook and quietly I begin to sing
a song my mum once sang to me.
What I can’t remember, I just
make up.
—I thought I lacked the mother gene
but maybe not, I say, as Ambré sleeps.
My arms ache with his infant weight,
wrapped up now in a blue blanket.
A peace settles around my heart,
even if it is a bit fraudulent.
—Cello, I say, can I get you something?
A cup of tea? How about we let some
more light in or else I’m going to crash.
I yawn. Work’s been a shit. I could sleep
for a week.
I cup one hand beneath Cello’s chin
and turn her head but she won’t look up.
Just locks her jaw and when she speaks
her voice shudders on a deadly brink.
—I’ve had, she said, let’s see, maybe one
hour’s sleep. At the most, say, three.
—Cello, I say. I didn’t mean…
—North, she says, you have no idea.
I caress the baby’s fontanelle,
which makes his head so vulnerable,
as if to find some answer there.
—Okay, she says. Let me take him.
I relinquish Ambré, reluctantly.
He takes Cello’s nipple and sucks at it. Milk runs down his chin
in rivulets. Milkful and sated now,
he abandons limbs to the rhythms
of untold reveries, one fist unfurled
upon the shore of Cello’s breast.
At rest mother and child are a rough
hewn dyad, milk-languid and backlit.
In Ambré’s face I glimpse his mother’s
intensity, some pattern or imprint
that repeats.
I wait with Cello as the sky deepens
with the pensive mood of late evening.
I watch the two of them as they sleep.
Beneath the curve of Cello’s eyelids
the skin looks brown and exhausted,
like the bruises we used to get on fruit
before Eden Corp put an end to that.
My skinfone bleeps. I answer it.
Raoul at last. He’s heading home.
—So sorry, he says. A disaster with
the cheese soufflé. So I did not get
your message, please.
It’s almost midnight. I’m fighting sleep
and think maybe it would be okay
to leave when Cello murmurs
—Sometimes, North, I’m afraid to breathe.
I brew some coffee at Cello’s
bare-skinned bench, a creepy
thing but fashionable. This one
looks like a woman’s back,
tanned and fleshy. I keep vigil
until I hear Raoul’s footsteps,
the security code released. —Thank you. Now go, he says,
and find some sleep. You lovely
lady. You’re good, you know,
to stay. She’s difficult, no?
I linger in the hall just long
enough to catch the threads
of Raoul’s French and Cello’s
sobs unspooling into darkness,
then I slip away. That’s quite
enough drama for today.
I’m home. It’s late. Sheep flicker
on the ceiling screen. I drift away.
The fabric of my dreams unfolds;
hessian, loose-knit and dreary.
Then my skinfone rings.
—Cello, I groan and answer it
through a fog of sleep. Silence, except
for the exhalation of someone’s breath.
—Hello? I say, and check the fone’s
vid screen. Pic blocked by caller.
Not good, I think. Suspect fone junkies,
God’s Police. I punch chat over, hear
the fone’s efficient click. The screen
fades out from blue to pink beneath
the skin of my inner wrist.
I sink into my pillow, pull
the heat wrap to my chin,
fall back asleep. But the fone
vibrates on my wrist again.
I break the surface of a dream,
a swarm of bees fast-tracking me,
and wake just as they’re closing in.
No vid pic on the fone’s grey screen.
Just a man’s voice with a subtle lisp.
Boyish. Sweet. What time is it?
The screen blinks four a.m.
—Look, I say, Who is this?
Silence. I sit up, wriggle toes and feet.
The stars outside refuse to suspend
my disbelief. The moon confirms
the night’s solidity.
—Piss off, I say. Whoever you are.
I’m trying to sleep.
—Don’t sign off, please!
—What a good idea. My finger
hovers above ‘delete’.
—No look, it’s Jack.
—Oh please. Did Waverley put you
up to it? Is this one of her all-night
party tricks?
—North, it’s me. Really…
—Prove it.
The blood ticks in my ears.
—Okay, he says. Let’s meet.
Coffee at Pixie’s today at three.
Just you and me. For old time’s sake.
It’s five a.m. I’m still awake.
Bear’s legs twitch beside my bed
as he chases after phantom beasts.
The moon glows wanly through trees;
gap-toothed, spectral and lime green
in the de-sal plant’s hard light.
I lower the metaphoric gun that’s angled
at my head and think, what the heck.
A little caffeine won’t hurt, will it?
At six a.m. I get to sleep.
And wake at midday, Saturday,
with Bear’s snout in my face.
I throw him last night’s leftovers.
He guzzles them. On his cobalt
nose, rice clings. I wash my hair
and act like I don’t care what clothes
I wear. Pull on Lite Jeans finally
and a long sleeved T.
—C’mon Bear. I jingle his lead.
He lumbers off ahead of me.
I follow him, feeling frog-naked;
the sky a petri dish with scud
clouds, chemical-dipped, reeking
like a bad science experiment.
No show at Pixie’s of course.
I wait for twenty minutes,
my stomach doing acrobatics
that would qualify for the next
Olympics. I order another Mars
Latte, extra sweet. The place
is almost empty. Just a couple
of kids playing MaddAddam
and a fisherman scoffing eggs
and chips. The nerves inside
my gut subside into a dull
and tangled skein of wires.
I pay the waitress. Rani, I think.
I forget their names now Pixie’s
left, or fled.
And turn to go but there he is
outside the café and looking in.
I grab a chair, my bones chalk weak.
My heart starts pumping a wild deerbeat. Hunted or haunted? Both, I think.
And I can hardly see through a rush
of tears as the past swings open
and Jack walks in. Tall and rangy
in faded skins. Hair to his shoulders,
a dark-blonde beard. The weight
of his hug. It’s been fifteen years.
It’s weird sitting in this café
where we both hung out as teens.
I’m caught in a warp of memory
and hurtle back despite everything.
Time’s aged Jack well, I think,
though the lines on his face form
a topography of the years
he’s spent not knowing me.
I’m surprised by how relieved
I feel now that he’s sitting
next to me. I try to speak
but nothing comes except tears,
damn it.
Through these, I look at him.
His legs sprawl out the way
they always did and he still
has that lopsided grin. Traces
of the boy remain but really
Jack’s all man, his chest much
broader than it used to be.
A silver cross hangs around his neck.
—It’s good to see you, North, he says,
and swipes my cheek with his big
knuckles. The old electricity runs
through me.
I sit on my hands and compress,
firmly, all the questions uncoiling
inside my head. I ask instead:
—So, where’ve you been? Ten words
or less. I don’t want to hear the whole
sorry mess. And hold up my hand
like a traffic cop. Playing the smart
arse settles me.
—Well, says Jack. I got married
and divorced. I have a daughter
but she lives in Christchurch.
—That’s fifteen words. I said just ten.
Now my mouth’s working, I’m enjoying
this. And there is Jack the boy again,
despite the hair and sun creases.
—And you? he says. What’s happening?
I try to find the right place to begin
but it’s like pulling at threads that have
no end and might just keep unravelling.
—Not much, I say, has changed around here.
Jack raises his mug up to his lips
and lifts one eyebrow quizzically,
a gesture from his younger years.
I recall the warmth of his mouth,
the coffee-flavoured taste of it.
—But you’re a scientist, eh? he says.
I know that much. A degree in genetics
and biology. And you work with a chick
called Waverley.
My nostalgia falls in a heap.
—You’re stalking me?
—It was a free country, North,
last time I checked. Hey, I looked
you up but that was it.
He rubs a hand across his chin;
unshaven, crumpled like the rest
of him. The gloss has gone
now that I’m angry.
I stare at my hands, blink back
the tears. Note a split nail, pick
at it. There’s way too much time
between Jack and me that can’t be
rewound or retrieved. He puts
his hand on mine, too late. I fight
the softness that I feel.
—North, he says. You were the first
one that I wanted to see. If only out
of courtesy.
—Courtesy, Jack? Fuck you! I say
and scrape back my chair with
a majestic screech.
—North, wait. I didn’t mean…
—Sorry, Jack. I can’t do this.
I grab my bag and walk out quick,
leave him at the table with a spilt coffee.
Don’t look back, I think.