Below Deck, page 5
‘A very good one,’ Mac adds.
She tells me how when Robynne disappeared, she flew to New Zealand to get Mac and bring him back to London with her.
‘She saved my life,’ Mac says.
‘And then he saved mine,’ says Maggie, describing the deep depression she’d fallen into when she started to lose her sight. Mac, by then living back in Australia and building the Sea Rose, had gone to London for Maggie, eventually bringing her out here to live with him. In their own way, they guided each other through grief, through the dark, back into colour.
Mac makes pasta while Maggie and I drink tea in the living room. Wafts of hot garlic fill the room. On the shelf behind Maggie are more books than I’ve ever seen in a home. Cascading over them are vines that hang from the ceiling. It’s a library of words and flowers. And all along the windowsills are glass jars with succulents, their roots like tentacles in water flowerbeds.
Maggie says, ‘Mac tells me you’re an artist.’
I laugh. ‘Kind of. I mean, I liked painting in school. And drawing. I wanted to study art, but I haven’t painted myself in ages.’
‘Do you know what makes an artist?’ she asks. ‘Or a work of art?’
I shrug, then realise she can’t see me shrug. ‘Not really.’
‘An artist is a person who can see the world from a different angle,’ she says. ‘So I think a piece of art is an object as complex and as multifaceted as reality.’ She takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are milky sky. ‘Oli, tell me: which is your favourite?’
I look around the room, my eyes settling on a framed Yves Klein print. ‘The blue monochrome,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s … I don’t know. Because it’s everything and nothing.’
She laughs. ‘It’s my favourite too.’
‘Why?’
‘Like you said, it’s everything and nothing. Because no matter how brilliant and bold and present the blue is, it is always about absence, always about something unknown, something beyond you.’
‘Exactly!’ I say.
Mac calls out from the kitchen, ‘Glad that made sense to you, Oli, because I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about.’
Maggie chuckles, shakes her head.
‘You know, I think being blind is a little like the monochrome. The absence of detail. People fear it. They fear going blind. But when you’ve lived with blindness for as long as I have, you realise there is still seeing, it’s just seeing differently. In that way, being blind is an art.’
‘You see the world from a different angle.’
Mac sticks his head out of the kitchen, and says, ‘All I see when I look at it is the ocean.’
‘I’ve never seen the ocean that blue before,’ I say.
Maggie smiles. ‘You haven’t been to the Coral Sea then.’
I shake my head. ‘Where’s that?’
‘Queensland,’ she says. ‘Mac takes Sea Rose up every winter. We do Hamilton Island and Magnetic Island race weeks. Though we’re not really racing; we always come last.’
Mac interrupts to insist, ‘This year will be different!’
‘He says that every year. Really, we just go because we’re old and, well, why the hell not?’
I stare into the monochrome and imagine diving into that blue. Being in it. ‘I’d love to go one day.’
‘Why don’t you come with us?’ says Maggie.
I open my mouth to speak. Hesitate.
‘When are you leaving?’ I ask.
‘At the end of next week.’
‘How long does it take to get there?’
‘It’s possible to do it in a week, but at the pace we go it tends to be more like three.’
‘I start my internship in two weeks.’
Maggie frowns. ‘I thought you weren’t going to do it?’
Mac comes into the living room with two plates of pasta, hands one to each of us. ‘I said she was considering not doing it.’
‘Well,’ Maggie says, ‘the offer stands.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I tell her.
‘I hope you do. The Coral Sea is magic in winter.’
sea poppy
I turn up at Adam’s house on Friday afternoon in loose trousers and a baggy jumper. I’ve got my period and my breasts are sore, so I’m wearing a sports bra for comfort.
The sun is setting over the harbour. The water is rippled orange. Adam is on his balcony with an open beer can on the table. When he sees me walk through the side gate onto the balcony, he says, ‘The boys are all going to the pub.’
‘I thought we were just going to chill and watch a movie.’
‘Well, that was before I knew they were going to the pub.’
‘I’m really tired,’ I say.
‘Liv, all my friends are going.’
And I want to say, My grandpa just died. It’s been a hell of a week. I’m fucking exhausted. But I don’t, because he’s getting up from his chair, walking over to me. And kissing me. Kissing me. Kissing me. Kissing me. And then he’s asking, ‘Are you gonna wear that?’
I walk into the pub behind Adam. It smells of beer-sodden coasters and worn carpet. He orders me a glass of wine, even though I tell him I don’t feel like drinking, then we carry our drinks over to a table where five guys in suits are sitting. Jake, a new friend of the group whom I’ve met at least three times, introduces himself to me.
‘Nice to meet you,’ he says.
‘Yup,’ I say, as Adam pulls out a seat for me. I sit down beside him, take a sip of wine.
Henry, the only one in the group who doesn’t drink, says, ‘Hey, Olivia. How are you?’
And when I say, ‘Pretty tired, actually,’ the conversation falls dead, so I perk up. ‘But other than that, I’m good! How are you?’
‘Yeah, great. Just started at Deutsche Bank. Tiring, but a lot of fun. Adam said you’ve got an internship at Lazard? That’s unreal.’
‘Yeah, thanks. I start next week.’
‘Exciting.’ He raises his soda. ‘Cheers.’ We clink glasses. I pretend to take a sip. And then Henry turns to Jake and they start talking about the shares Jake has just invested in. A big risk. Willing to lose. The pay-off would be huge.
After a while, my back starts to hurt. These stools are awfully uncomfortable.
‘Don’t you like the wine?’ Adam says, slurring a little. The whisky on his breath is enough to make your eyes sting.
I shrug. And then I see Jake pass Adam something under the table.
And it’s not like this is new—but I’m tired. That whole body tired you get after spending too much time in the sun. And I just don’t want to deal with a coked-up Adam telling me the same story again and again and again.
I’m sweaty, now. God, I’m sweaty. I’m burning up. Wearing this stupid jumper that I can’t take off because all I’ve got on underneath is a fucking sports bra.
I get out my phone and text him. I swear to god, if that’s what I think it is, I’m leaving.
His phone pings in his pocket. He whips it out. ‘Oh look, I’ve got a text from Olivia. That’s funny considering she’s sitting right beside me.’
Jake laughs. ‘Read it out!’
I hunch over, duck my head. Surely he won’t.
He absolutely will.
‘I swear to god, if that’s what I think it is, I’m leaving,’ Adam reads.
I raise my eyes, look at him.
He meets my gaze. ‘Alright—piss off then.’
It’s raining when I get out of the cab. Tears and sky mixing together on my cheeks. I get inside and find a notice taped to the door of the lift. Out of service. Management apologises for the inconvenience.
By the time I reach my apartment on the seventh floor, my thighs are burning. I unlock the door, walk in and lie down on the living room floor. Rolling onto my back, I wipe my eyes and then blow my nose on my jacket sleeve. Staring at the ceiling, I notice watermarks, like blooms of algae. I remember Maggie’s words. The Coral Sea is magic in winter. I think of the ceiling becoming water. Raining down. Becoming a night sky, flecked with stars. How wide and open it must all feel. Up there, in a sea of coral flowers. How magic.
I get out my phone.
Mac picks up on the second ring.
‘It’s Oli,’ I say. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Can I still come with you to the Coral Sea?’
‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’
sea dandelion
I’m on the balcony nursing a cup of green tea when I hear a knock at my front door. I take a sip, but the tea is still burning hot. I wince. Swallow. It scalds my throat. My chest hurts.
There’s another knock. ‘Liv!’ I hear him call through the door.
I get up; my legs are shaky. I walk through the apartment with soft, careful steps, unsure yet if I’m going to open the door. There’ve been two days of silence, but it’s Sunday afternoon now, and the party’s over; his friends have all gone home and he’s starting to miss me. This understanding is at once familiar and shocking. It’s like looking down and seeing a wound: that moment in which the mind wakes up to the body, and you suddenly feel the pain.
I put my tea down on the table but, distracted, I sit it too close to the edge and it falls off. The ceramic mug cracks on the floor.
‘Liv!’ he yells. ‘I know you’re in there!’
I grab a tea towel to mop up the spilt tea.
‘Please!’ he begs. ‘Just open the door.’
I put the pieces of broken cup in the bin and walk to the door. Looking through the peephole, I see his eyelids are puffy, his face flushed pink. There are marks beneath his eyes, making the blue of them stand out like a lit flare.
I open the door and ease myself out, closing the door behind me, so that we’re on the landing.
He pulls me into a hug. And then he kisses me. It’s sour. My nose is blocked from all the crying, but I can still smell cigarette smoke on his clothes. I push his face away. ‘Get off me.’
‘Liv …’ he whispers, shrinking back, hurt. He takes hold of my hand, squeezes it gently. He sighs. His breath stinks. I need air.
‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go for a walk.’
I begin to descend the stairs, but he doesn’t follow. I pause on the lower landing and turn to look up at him, a flight of stairs above me now.
‘Can’t we stay here?’
‘No,’ I say adamantly, in a voice I hardly recognise.
‘You don’t even have shoes on.’
‘I don’t care,’ I retort and continue down the stairs.
He hurries after me, catching up to me in the foyer, where I charge through the front door of the building without waiting for him.
On the street, I march down the hill into the heart of town, Adam half a step behind. We walk in silence all the way to the beach, where I sink my feet into the cold sand and sit down, wrapping my arms around my torso. Holding myself together.
Adam sits down beside me. ‘I honestly didn’t think you’d be this upset.’
‘I’m not upset,’ I snap.
‘Okay, well, what was that all about then?’ He touches a hand to my shoulder and I edge away. This time his shock transforms into anger. ‘You know, you’re just as much in the wrong as I am,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘You embarrassed me in front of my friends.’
And I want to say, Adam, you humiliated me, but I can’t bring myself to speak. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Being humiliated does that to people: it silences them.
‘I just don’t know why you had a problem with a tiny bit of coke.’
‘I wasn’t in the mood.’
‘What, so I can’t have fun because you’re in a mood?’
I hate how he says it: mood—like it’s something non-human.
‘I just think you could have shown a little more empathy.’
‘You want me to have more feelings?’
As he says that I blink and my tears run free.
‘Should I start crying now, too?’
‘Fuck you.’
That makes him laugh. ‘Come on …’ He slips an arm around my waist, drawing me in close. ‘This is us, Liv! We fight. And then we make up. And then we fight. And then we make up.’
‘Well, maybe I don’t like us,’ I say.
He loosens his grip. I can feel him staring at me. I shiver.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
I shrug. I’m sobbing now.
‘Look, if you don’t want to be with me,’ he says, in a very faraway voice, ‘just say.’
I mumble, ‘I don’t want to be with you.’ It’s barely audible.
‘What?’
‘I said, I don’t want to be with you anymore.’
At that moment, a crowd starts to cheer further down the beach. I look up to see a man down on one knee by the shoreline, a woman standing ankle deep in the water, laughing.
Adam has seen it too. He looks back to me and says, ‘Well, that’s fucking ironic, isn’t it?’
I don’t say anything. I just put my face in my hands, closing my eyes. The sand shifts beside me. When I finally look up, Adam is gone.
Back at the apartment, I punch in the code to let myself into the building, then ascend the stairs. When I get to the front door, I realise I’d gone out without my keys. I knock on Annie’s door and Will opens it. He takes one look at me and says, ‘Shit. Are you okay?’
‘I need the spare key.’
He fetches it for me then says, ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
I say, ‘I think I just broke up with Adam.’
‘Oh. Like, proper?’
I nod.
‘Want me to come over?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m alright. I just need to be alone.’
He gives me a hug and tells me, ‘Well, I’m here if you need anything.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, and let myself in.
When I close the door behind me, everything becomes deathly silent. I feel naked. Like a dandelion flower when all its seeds have been blown away. And so I pile on layers of clothes and blankets, building a protective shell around myself. But it’s no use. I feel impossibly exposed.
Eventually, I fall asleep.
sea orchid
The night before we set sail, I stay at Maggie and Mac’s and help them prepare the food for our voyage. We pre-cook meals to eat over the first week. ‘After that,’ Mac says, ‘we get crafty with non-perishables.’
By midnight, the kitchen bench is stacked with Tupperware containers: vegetarian casseroles, an eggplant curry, spicy pumpkin soup.
Mac puts the last container in the fridge, then asks me if I’ve told my parents that I’m leaving.
‘I sent them an email this morning telling them I turned down the internship.’
‘What do you reckon they’ll say?’
‘Who knows?’ I say. ‘My dad already pretends I don’t exist.’
Maggie, standing beside me in the kitchen, hugs me, holding my body against hers. ‘Nope,’ she says. ‘I can feel you. You definitely exist.’
When I wake on the couch, sunlight is yellow yolk, flooding the room. Maggie emerges from her bedroom with Coco. The light catches Maggie’s hair. It glints rose gold.
In her nightdress, she drifts through the yellow like she’s underwater.
She stops in front of the bookshelf. Coco sits at her feet, waiting. ‘Oli,’ says Maggie, ‘we need to choose which books to take with us.’
‘Sure thing,’ I say, getting up off the couch. Mac appears from his room, rubbing sleep from his eyes, as I scan the bookshelf. There are books on history and philosophy, adventure novels, and as many art catalogues as you’d find in a gallery bookshop. ‘It’s an impressive collection,’ I say.
‘Thank you. There wasn’t a single book in this house before I got here.’ Maggie laughs. ‘I swear he’d never read a book in his life.’
‘I’m a simple man.’
‘Now he reads to me.’
‘She opened my eyes,’ Mac says, warm as the morning sun.
‘Can you please find The Lost Lunar Baedeker by Mina Loy, and Selected Poems by H.D.?’ Maggie asks. ‘Poetry books are on the top shelf.’
I point them out and Mac pulls them down.
‘Also, A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit.’
I find it on the shelf. The book is so worn the blue mountains on the cover are as thin and watery as sky. I open it. There are coffee stains on the title page.
Maggie says, ‘My favourite book of all time. I think you’ll feel the same. There’s an excellent essay about Yves Klein. I’d love for you to read it to me.’
I put the book with the poetry collections, then Maggie invites me to choose a few for myself. I find Tim Winton’s Island Home and Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. I tell Maggie my choices, admitting I haven’t read either. ‘They have beautiful covers,’ I say.
‘Describe them to me,’ she says, and so I do.
‘Island Home has a photo of a beach. Bird’s-eye view. Sand becoming ocean. And there’s a tiny person walking with a tiny dog. It could be you and Coco!’ I say. ‘The Waves has a photo of the sea—taken from the beach, I think, looking out. It’s all silver and blue. You can’t see the sun itself, but here and there you can see its light reflected on the waves.’
‘Beautiful,’ says Maggie. ‘Mac, what are you bringing?’
‘One of my favourites,’ he says, pulling a novel from the shelf.
‘I bet it’s Lost and Found,’ she whispers to me.
‘Lost and Found, by Brooke Davis,’ he says. ‘It’s about a young girl who goes on an adventure with a couple of old farts. They’re mad!’
Maggie laughs. ‘Sounds just like us!’
We pass through the heads, tack the Sea Rose, angle north. The sea is corrugated iron. Maggie is at the helm, steering us up the coast. Sailing is about listening.
Mac comes on deck with two bottles of nail polish. He calls me over. ‘Port,’ he says, holding up the red bottle. ‘And starboard.’ He waves the green bottle. ‘It’ll help you remember.’
‘Why don’t you just say left and right, and then I won’t need to remember,’ I say.
