Words in Deep Blue(36)

Cal told me the book was about an expedition to the Gulf of California that Steinbeck had made with his closest friend, Ed Ricketts. They went to collect and observe marine life on the coast, and although I never got around to reading the book, and I’ve forgotten most of what he told me, I haven’t forgotten the part about the friendship between a writer and a scientist. It felt right, the balance between those two things. I don’t know much about Steinbeck or Ricketts, but I could imagine a scientist and a poet collecting specimens, drawing them, observing them from two different poles of life. I imagined one sparking the thoughts of the other.

I imagined them sitting on the boat at dusk, sunburnt, going over their thoughts from the day. Talking late into the night, and really understanding something about the world with the help of science and literature. Like maybe they were half of each other and they were always destined to be friends.

It seems stupid to tell Rachel about one small conversation between Cal and me, when she had millions of them that really meant something, but I tell her anyway, because what else is there?

Rachel swallows, and wipes her eyes, and says, ‘Thank you,’ like somehow it helped, which I can’t imagine it did.

I’ve read about death, obviously, but I’ve never known anyone who’s died. I feel like an idiot now for complaining about Amy breaking my heart. If I lost George, nothing would matter; I can’t imagine not having her. I don’t know how to imagine it.

Rachel’s crying more now, and looking embarrassed. ‘I’m not depressed,’ she says, like it’s the worst thing in the world. And then she says, ‘No, I take it back. I am. I’m so depressed, Henry. I’m so depressed. I’m so depressed my friends at the beach started avoiding me. I broke up with Joel; I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I see a therapist. I saw him today. God, Henry, I failed Year 12. Everything’s a mess.’

I offer her my sleeve so she can wipe her eyes and her nose, but she’s already using her own. She laughs, and sniffs and blinks and tries to mop up the mascara. ‘Did I get it all?’

‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘You look fine. You look good. Anyway,’ I continue, ‘for the record I think you should be depressed. I think depression is completely fair enough. Depression is the absolute appropriate response here.’

‘It’s been nearly a year,’ she says, but that doesn’t seem like a very long time. If George died, I’d miss her forever.

‘Why didn’t you call me? I would have come. I would have come to the funeral.’

She shakes her head, as though she doesn’t quite understand it herself.

We get to the end of the block and decide without speaking, to walk around again. Rachel tells me a whole lot of things as we walk. How her mum sort of collapsed on the inside after the funeral and hasn’t been herself since. She tells me that she collapsed too. How Christmas was this awful meal where they cooked Cal’s favourite foods but no one ate anything. How there’s a box of Cal’s things locked in the boot of her car.

A summer storm starts. Rachel looks up and then over at me. ‘I haven’t told anyone in Gracetown. Please don’t tell anyone either. I came back here to forget about it for a while.’

I wonder how she could forget about it, a thing like that. And I wonder how she can go on living if she doesn’t.





Rachel




this I love

It’s a relief to tell Henry, to let everything out – losing Cal, how I failed, how it’s all ruined now. It’s a relief to cry and have Henry tell me this is the correct response and to hold out his sleeve.

I feel exhausted afterwards. I feel almost as tired as I did in those days after I dragged Cal out of the ocean and tried to force him back to life on the beach. I sit on a bench and I tell Henry I’m not sure I can get up. Sometimes I feel like running and sometimes I want to swim, and sometimes I just want to sit in the same place forever because I don’t have the energy for another day without Cal in it.

The story he told me about The Log from the Sea of Cortez is perfect. I can see Cal near the register, taking mints from the free bowl and rolling them up and down the counter while he and Henry spoke. Cal loved Henry. He loved telling him strange scientific facts when he came to our place for Sunday-night pizzas.

It starts to rain softly. There are sparks in the humid sky. ‘We need to go,’ Henry says. He’s not a fan of thunderstorms.

‘Maybe I’ll just sit here,’ I say. ‘It’ll stop raining soon.’

‘No,’ he says, and kneels down with his back to me so I can climb on.

He stands and I wrap my legs around his waist and tuck my chin into his neck, like I did as a kid when we were running races in primary school.

‘This is much better,’ I say as we start walking.

‘I’m sure it is,’ he says. ‘If you’re the one on the back.’

‘I did save you the other night,’ I say. ‘So it’s payback.’

‘I’m very happy to carry you as long as you need it. Payback or not.’

The rain starts to soak us.

‘I forget. Do you stand under a pole in a lightning storm?’ Henry asks, moving faster up High Street.

‘Sure, and it helps if you can find a puddle too,’ I tell him.

‘We don’t stand under a pole,’ he says.