4

A PRIME NUMBER is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that has other divisors is not a prime number but a composite number. The number 5 is prime because only 1 and 5 evenly divide it. The property of being prime is called primality. The smallest prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 97, 101 …

Prime numbers have influenced many artists and writers. NASA scientist and author Carl Sagan suggested that prime numbers could be used as a means of communication with aliens.

After the storm came fine autumn days, so clear, so warm, they seemed like compensation for the weather’s bad behaviour. Eddie the gardener had cleaned the pool and put out the recliners with cushions, making the yard look like a scene from a travel brochure. One of those Mediterranean places, thought Jeff: swimming pool, tubs of flowers, a little concrete apron out front and, below it, the sea sparkling with light. Even the saw-cut on the eucalyptus tree by the gate had sealed over as though in apology for failure.

Winston had come around to accepting that an elderly dementia patient had wandered in that night, before the gates closed after Helen and Andrea arrived home. There was no other explanation. It was what it had to be. Then the incident was totally eclipsed by the good fortune from across the Tasman. “Water under the bridge,” Winston said, patting Helen on the shoulder. “I overreacted about that woman. It was one helluva storm.”

Jeff inspected the bus shelter when he biked past, but there had been no sign of the old lady. He told Andrea about Saturday afternoon. She didn’t see anything odd in the encounter. “I’m glad she wasn’t seriously hurt,” she said.

“She knew our names,” he insisted.

“Probably. When people are unconscious they hear things. We were standing around her talking to each other – and to the police. Names went back and forth.”

He considered that. His sister was so practical that sometimes she could flatten the structures of his thinking with a single sentence. Then he remembered something else. “Beckett! She said his name. We didn’t talk to each other about Beckett.”

“Oh yes, we did. I was bending right over her when I told you I’d had a letter from Beck.”

She was right. She was always right. He folded his arms and was silent. Then he looked sideways at his sister. “Are you thinking of leaving school before the end of the year?”

“I said, are you going to leave school –”

“I heard you! What made you ask such a thing?”

He couldn’t say it was the old woman. After all, his ears had felt thick, so he might have misheard her. “I don’t know. I just wondered.”

“Squidge, you are one strange child! Why on earth would I leave school? It’s my scholarship year, right?” She put her hands on his shoulders. “Are you hungry? I am. Get in the car and I’ll drive us down for a Chinese meal. It won’t take long. We’ll be home before the zoo-keepers get back.”

He had to laugh. If their parents ever decided they wanted to live in Sydney, then he would stay here with Andrea and life would be good.

He fished with his chopsticks for the wontons in his bowl of soup, aware of the way some men in the restaurant were staring at his sister. That made him both pleased and uncomfortable. She was eating chicken and cashew nuts, picking the nuts up neatly and popping them in her lipsticked mouth. “Did they tell you about Beck coming back?” she asked.

“Mum told me. I think she’s nervous about him returning to New Zealand.”

“Publicity, of course. It’ll be in the news, maybe on TV. She and Dad are so phobic.” She lifted a piece of chicken and waved it. “They won’t stop me from seeing him.”

He tried to get the chopsticks around a slippery wonton. “They’ll stop me,” he murmured.

“We’ll work something out. Do you miss him, Squidge?”

“So do I. Remember his jacket pocket? That old khaki jacket and the presents he used to bring home for us? Interesting things like a piece of quartz or obsidian, a green pine cone, a shark’s tooth. I’ve still got the George the Sixth penny.”

Jeff dropped a wonton back in the bowl. “The dead spider in the matchbox freaked me out.”

“You remember that? You screamed your little head off. Poor Squidgy! Oh, I remember so much about those days! I thought Beck was the most important person in the world.”

There was a silence and when Jeff looked up, he saw that her eyes were glassy with tears. He leaned towards her. “Mum and Dad will get over it, Andy. They’re really happy about Sydney. They’ll stop being so hard on Beck.”

“Don’t count on it,” she said.

A waitress asked if they would like more jasmine tea. When she saw a trail of tears on Andrea’s face, she looked awkward, lost for words, and turned away. Jeff gave his sister his spare paper serviette. She spread it across her face and blew her nose.

He looked away from the table to the window and the after-work crowd that flowed in two directions along the pavement. Only one person outside wasn’t moving. He spotted her at once. The old woman again! Standing against a verandah post, and looking into the restaurant! The clothes were different, no hat this time, but it was impossible to mistake that face.

Jeff grabbed his sister’s arm. “Over there!”

Andrea saw her too, but only for a second. More people blocked their view and when they had passed, the woman was gone. Jeff stood up to peer over the heads. “That was her, wasn’t it? The old woman?”

Andrea didn’t answer. She looked as though she couldn’t believe what her eyes had taken in. Her face was as pale as the paper serviette in her hand, and Jeff knew that behind her stillness, her thoughts were screaming.

While Andrea microwaved the food, Jeff started to set the table.

Winston and Helen were arguing about a packet of documents that were coming by courier. At least, that was how the row started.

“Why the hell didn’t you have them sent to your office?” Helen snapped.

“I told them! Of course, I did! But Warren could have given him our home address. His lawyer hasn’t been here. He wouldn’t know a courier doesn’t have access to this property. I needed you at home to release the gate –”

“If a courier had come, there’d be a notice in the mailbox.” She turned her chair slightly to focus on the TV news, some big bomb blast in Afghanistan.

“You should be here!” He hit the table with his fist. “In this house! Isn’t it good enough for you?”

“Oh, shut it, Wins.” She grabbed the remote and turned up the sound.

He talked louder. “I come home at night, the kids are here, no mother, no dinner, packets of noodles and pizzas out of the freezer. Where are you? Selling tours in a travel agency!”

“Sometimes,” she said, “I have to work late.”

“You don’t have to work at all!”

“So you keep saying, and I keep telling you: I – want – to – work!”

Winston grabbed the remote from her and switched off the kitchen TV. His voice was loud in the silence. “Work here – in your own home. I will pay you executive wages, twice your salary – three times –”

She took a deep breath. “I work to get away from this place!”

“If that’s the problem, you can play golf. I’ll get you a new set of clubs.” He ran his hand over his head and became calmer. “I know a good coach. Helen, you’d enjoy getting involved. You already know at least half a dozen women who play down there.”

“How many times must I tell you!” Helen yelled. “I like my job!”

It was Andrea who interrupted. She thrust a bowl of toasted cashew nuts between them and said, “If you two don’t stop, Jeff and I are running away from home.”

Neither parent thought that funny, but they stopped arguing. Winston stood up and tucked in his shirt as though he were getting himself together, while Helen grabbed a handful of cashews with one hand and the TV remote in the other, and went back to watching the evening news.

Winston said to Jeff, “Did you see a courier notice in the mailbox or under the gate?”

“No.” Jeff laid the red chopsticks neatly next to the two place mats. “Something might come tomorrow.”

Andrea placed two dishes of chicken rice on the table. “Jeff and I had ours in town. We brought this back for you.”

“You went to town after school?” said Winston.

“That Chinese place near the library,” said Jeff.

Winston turned to Helen. “You see? This is what I mean when I say this household is totally out of control. The children come home hungry and have to go out to get a meal.”

“Fantastic, Dad,” said Andrea. “What about – thank you for thinking of us, Andrea. That’s very kind of you, Andrea.”

“I’m on your side, here, girl,” he said.

Helen stood up, switched off the TV, picked up her plate from the table and took it into her office.

Winston pulled a chair out from under the table and raised his eyebrows at Andrea and Jeff. “Your mother’s having a bad day,” he explained.

Andrea’s bedroom was bigger than Jeff’s, with space for two fat armchairs shaped like pouty lips. Bright red, too. They were cushy comfortable, although Jeff sometimes had nightmares about being eaten by a greedy chair. Tonight they sat in the chairs with their homework, Andrea making notes for her sociology essay, Jeff using her iPad to research current environmental issues that influenced politics. Neither of them could concentrate.

Eventually, Andrea looked up. “Don’t let them get to you.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You are turning in on yourself like an ingrown toenail.”

He had to laugh, because he had one of those, a nail shaped like half a barrel, sides digging into the skin of his big toe.

“Beck couldn’t stand it,” she said. “I remember the rows. It’s not just Dad. They are both heavily into control.”

He was still smiling. “Remote control.”

“You said it.” She looked at him. “Hey! When you asked me if I was going to leave school, did you think I might go off somewhere and desert you?

He didn’t answer.

“I would never do that,” she said.

“People change,” he said. “People always change.”

“You are my squidgy little brother. I used to feed you in your high chair. I taught you to float and do belly flops. You used to say to me, ‘I love you this much.’” She held out her arms.

He remembered them both doing belly flops at the city pool and how she stopped because she was getting lady bumps on her chest and they hurt when she hit the water face down.

“We still love each other this much.” Her arms stayed stretched out. “And we love Beckett this much. We have to stick together, you, me, Beck. We just have to!”

There grew a warmth in him that melted the tension in his stomach. He nodded again and scrolled down to an article on the impact of mining on native fauna. After a while, he said, “Andy, that was her, wasn’t it? Today? Outside the restaurant?”

Her hands became still on her keyboard, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Could have been,” she said. “It did look a bit like her.”

Her voice was too light. That was how he knew that she, too, thought the old woman was more than strange.

Mrs Wilson gave him eight out of ten for his project on New Zealand native snails threatened by a mining company. He would have preferred nine out of ten, but Paul got a nine – so that was the next best thing.

“Generally, there was some interesting creative spelling,” said Mrs Wilson. “Gentlemen, this was not meant to be your sloppy copy. In fact, if it were a job application, I’m afraid you’d all be unemployed and in the dole queue. Remember, we have the spelling competition next week, so I’m giving you a little extra homework this weekend.”

There were groans around the room.

“I promise it won’t kill you. You might even enjoy it.” She looked around the room. “Where’s Ludwig?”

Someone knew. “Fell off his bike and broke a bone.”

“Oh. Poor Ludwig.” Her face creased with sympathy. “Where is the fracture?”

They all looked to someone else, but no one had that information.

“If you fell off your bike and incurred a fracture, where would that be likely?” She ignored a few sniggers. “Come on boys, what do you remember about bones?”

“I might break a leg,” volunteered Salosa.

“Your leg has three bones. Your foot has fifty-two bones. Where is the break? Anyone, tell me! Jeffrey?”

Jeff didn’t want to answer. He would have said tibia or fibula but this was way off track, Mrs Wilson getting lost again, like a dog chasing a rabbit. She was supposed to be handing out the spelling sheets.

Paul said, “We don’t know where Ludwig had the fracture.”

“It’s a hypothetical question, Paul. The human body has two hundred and sixty bones. Maybe you can name one.”

Jeff raised his hand to shoulder height. “Mrs Wilson, a baby is born with two hundred and seventy bones.”

She looked at him.

“It’s true,” he said. “Afterwards some of the bones fuse together, but, actually, babies are born perfect.”

“That’s an interesting statement,” she said. “Tell us more, Jeffrey.”

He couldn’t. His face was hot and he clicked his ballpoint pen, in, out, in, out. Two and seven. In his numbers game, the skeleton of a newborn baby was a nine. How could he explain that?

When he arrived home, there was no one there but big Eddie, who had been planting spring bulbs along one wall and was now scooping some stray leaves out of the swimming pool. The sun was still high and Eddie’s forehead had beads of sweat like transparent pimples. Jeff wondered why Eddie only did gardening when he was good at so many things, like making furniture and fixing cars.

“How are you, kid? How was the day at school?”

“Okay, I suppose.” He needed to say something more. “The pool looks nice. I mean, you keep it nice and clean.”

“It’s a waste. No one ever uses it.”

“We use it. Sometimes. I had a swim two days before the storm.”

Eddie shrugged and went down a step to pick something out of the water, a dark green beetle. He put it carefully on a stone in the cactus garden, then took up his net to scoop another leaf. “It’s all a bit of a waste. Four families could live in this house, you know. Twenty kids could swim in the pool. Don’t you ever feel it’s a bit big for four people?”

Eddie nodded as though the answer needed a lot of thought, and Jeff immediately went into his room and changed into his bathing shorts. He came out, ran across the concrete and did a spectacular plunge into the pool.

Oh, it was cold. It was really cold. He stood gasping, and then did two vigorous lengths of crawl with Eddie watching.

“That’s pretty good, man,” said Eddie. “You got your arms and legs going fine in synch, but try not to bring your shoulders out of the water when you breathe.”

Jeff wiped his face. “What do you mean?”

“Resistance. You lose speed. Keep your body straight and roll on the downstroke so your mouth is out. Look. Like this.” He lay on the concrete at the edge of the pool, like a huge sea lion. “Roll like this. See? You keep your shoulders straight and you don’t lose speed. Try it.”

Jeff would have tried it, but at that moment Winston appeared through the glass doors, dark suit, briefcase in hand. “What’s going on?”

Eddie got to his feet. “Afternoon, Mr Lorimer.”

“He was showing me how to breathe.” Jeff climbed out of the pool, hugging himself. “I lift my shoulders out of the water and it slows me down.”

Winston walked up to Eddie, really close. “I don’t pay you to be my son’s swim coach. Jeff, go inside at once!”

Jeff ran past them, into the house, dripping on the cold marble floor. He turned on the shower and stood shivering under the hot water, his arms still clenched around his chest. What is a number? A multitude composed of units. What is a line? A length without a breadth. What is a square? A quadrilateral which is both equilateral and right-angled. He stopped shivering and rested his head against the shower wall. “I hate him,” he said. “I hate him, I hate him.”

The next morning, Saturday, he biked to the library to return some books. The place was crowded, elderly people fumbling with their cards and big print novels, mothers trying to stop toddlers from pulling books out of shelves, a man reading the newspapers, several people at the computers, a woman complaining about the price of coffee and another yelling at a child who was standing on a table. Jeff guessed there were as many words hanging in the air as there were trapped in pages. He handed in the books and was wondering if he should take more out, when he got that familiar sensation under his ears. Pressure. He turned quickly. Yes, she was standing in the narrow aisle between Philosophy and Psychology, in that dark padded jacket with the pink scarf and knitted hat, leaning forward, her hand folded over a wooden walking stick. She watched him with something like a smile. Her eyes were dark and unblinking.

His instinct told him to bolt out the door and not look back, but his feet did not move. His mind of its own accord started counting seconds. One, two, three, four …

She waited. He guessed she knew he wouldn’t run away. He walked slowly towards her, weaving around people until he was close enough to see the thin cracks around her mouth.

“How are you, Jeff?” she said.

“Okay. How are you?”

“You want the truthful answer or a polite one?” She thrust her head forward, her gaze full of mischief.

“Truth,” he said.

“I wish I wasn’t here. I hate this prison you call a body. The real Maisie was glad to be leaving it. You don’t often see them so excited. Going home, she was, like a child running down a hill. She said I could use her body, only it was no gift, believe me. I had to take it. It’s my job. Do you mind if I sit down?”

“No, no.” He remembered his manners and pulled out a library chair with a padded seat. She sank down with a sigh, the stick between her knees, her hands folded over the top. Her hair was fluffy at the edges of the hat, floating against the purple wool, like cobweb. He dared to say, “What is your job?”

“I already I told you. I’m one of the dream-keepers.”

He wondered if a dream-keeper was like a dream-catcher, a Native American weaving, round, with beads and feathers, an object that people hung above their beds so they would have pleasant dreams. Andy had a dream-catcher from a friend in America.

He smiled politely. “I don’t dream a lot,” he said.

“Number Nine, you live in a dream. You all do. What you call life is a dream and you don’t wake up until you die. I’m in the dream now too, and I’d much rather be awake because this old body is more a nightmare, if you don’t mind me saying so. I got stuck in the bath, this morning. The arms and legs wouldn’t work to get me out.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“What an old body has to do is turn over. You get on hands and knees and then stand, holding on to the edge of the bath so you don’t slip. But I suppose by the time you’re old, you’ll have forgotten that bit of wisdom.”

“I’m sorry. I mean I don’t understand about living in a dream.”

She tapped her stick on the carpet. “That’s because you’re too young to know where you are going, too old to remember where you came from. How can I make it clear? When your spirit inhabits a body, it goes into the dream you call life. Then all you know is the information that comes to you through the body’s five senses, what you see, hear, taste, smell, touch. The rest is a forgetting.”

“Forgetting?” He was puzzled.

“None of this will make much sense to you now, but try to remember my words. They’ll mean survival when you need it. They’re about something unchanging.”

“You mean mathematics?” he said. “That’s unchanging.”

“Ah!” Her eyes glinted. “We’ll get to numbers in a moment. This is the bit to remember. Your little dream of life exists between the sleep you call birth and the waking you call death. The bigger reality is all around you right now, but you are shut off from it by those limited senses.”

“What bigger reality?” He glanced away and saw that people were watching. “Are you talking about the universe?”

“You’re supposed to be smart! Not the universe as you know it. That’s a product of your senses. The big reality! How do I explain it? I’m talking about the realm of spirit! A word that might have meaning for you is Light.”

“Yes, Light.” She smiled showing her broken teeth. “Look inside yourself, Jeff. You come from the Light and you still have a memory of the Light in you. Go deep and find it. Hold on to it. Sure as gravity, you’ll need it in the changes. It will tell you what to do.”

Changes. The word made his breath catch and he felt fear. He already knew there was going to be big change. He saw it coming like the great black cloud that marched before last week’s storm.

She read his feelings. “Don’t fuss, Number Nine. It’s part of the paths you and your family have chosen and it’s meant to be. The outcome will be right for all of you.”

He stared at her. “You know about us. I don’t even know your real name.”

“Maisie will have to do,” she said.

“Miss – Maisie, you were going to say something about mathematics.”

“Yes, you said –”

“Then I’ve forgotten.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “It’s an old brain. There are gaps between the synapses.”

“The brain has one hundred billion cells,” he reminded her.

“Not all of mine are in working order,” she snapped. “One hundred thousand, one hundred billion – who cares? Numbers cross over into the larger reality, the same here as there. Now I’m tired. You’d better go.” She shut her eyes in dismissal.

He stood for a few seconds but she didn’t look at him again, so he took three steps backwards and left the library.

Walking up the hill towards home, Jeff paused to look down at the harbour. It was a great pond of light, water dancing with sun dazzle. Was that the kind of Light she meant? If it was, there was certainly no sparkle inside him. It was puzzling when you felt something had meaning but didn’t know what that meaning was.

He arrived at the top of the hill and saw a man standing at the intercom by their locked gate. He had grey hair, a grey moustache and he wore blue overalls, paint-stained, ragged at the knees.

“Who are you looking for?” Jeff asked.

“Mr or Mrs Lorimer,” the man replied.

“There’s no one home,” Jeff said.

“That explains it then,” the man said. “I’ve been pressing the bell for a good five minutes. Do you belong here?”

He nodded. “I’m their son, Jeff Lorimer.”

The man held out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, Jeff. I’m Henry Sorensen, the replacement gardener.”