Words in Deep Blue(37)

‘We don’t stand under a pole,’ I confirm.

It feels good to be weightless and moving. I count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and tell Henry the charge is at least six kilometres away from us. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ he says. ‘But I’m making a run for it.’ He sprints the last stretch to the bookstore, and leans so I can open the door with my keys.

He puts me on the floor, and goes upstairs to find some towels. While he’s gone I text Rose to let her know I’ll stay the night at Henry’s. I don’t want to go home. I want to lie on the floor on the same quilt bed like Henry made when we were kids, and talk until I fall asleep.

I say this to Henry when he comes downstairs, and he looks relieved that there’s something practical he can do. He makes a three-quilt bed on the floor – three on the floor and one to pull over us. But because it’s a warm night we don’t really need a top quilt, so we lie on the four, and it’s as comfortable as a mattress.

We lie listening to the creak of the shop – someone’s footsteps across the ceiling, walking to the bathroom and back in the flat above. I look at the water that’s falling outside the window, lit up by the streetlights so every separate line of water is visible.

‘I had a dream where Cal told me he could see the world from above,’ I tell Henry. ‘He said the seconds were pouring off people, tiny glowing dots pouring from their skins, only no one could see them.’

‘Beautiful dream,’ Henry says.

‘Is it? Wouldn’t it be better if the seconds were adding up? Do we have a set amount of seconds to live when we’re born or an unknowable number?’

‘An unknowable number,’ Henry says.

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t. I believe.’ He rolls over and looks at me. ‘I believe I am adding up to something.’

‘I don’t want to cry anymore,’ I tell him. ‘I think I’m at the end but then I realise there’s more to go. Tonight there was more to go.’

‘Have you gone to the top of that cliff in Sea Ridge and just screamed your lungs out?’ he asks.

‘Done it.’

‘Did you swim till you’re exhausted?’ he asks.

I look right at him because I don’t care if he sees how sad I am. ‘I hate the water now.’ I tell him I can look at it, but I can’t stand the thought of diving under. ‘It took him,’ I say. ‘I went in once and all I could feel was that day – the water in my mouth and the weight of him. I pulled him back to shore and all the time I knew he was dead.’

‘What can I do to help?’ he asks.

‘Distract me,’ I say, because he can’t do anything.

‘I can do that. I’m very distracting.’

‘What’s your plan?’ I ask. ‘The life plan for after you sell the bookstore?’

‘There are several. I could go to university. Become a lawyer. Maybe a literature professor.’

‘You’ve never wanted to be a literature professor. You’ve always wanted to work in the bookstore.’

‘I’ll be poor, like Dad.’

‘Your dad’s got two great kids and a bookstore. He might not be rich, but he’s not poor.’

‘Mum left him. He’s working all day every day, trying to hunt down first editions so we can stay afloat. It just seems like a hard life.’ He shifts around. ‘Books can’t buy your girlfriend a good night out.’

They can’t buy Amy a good night out. ‘You know the best night out I’ve ever had? Hands down the best night? The time you read me “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.’

‘I seem to remember you saying you hated poetry,’ he says. ‘I distinctly remember you saying something along the lines of “poetry is pointless”. That we could lose all the poets from the world and no one would care. In fact, thousands of people would be very happy.’

‘You’re twisting what I said.’

‘What did you say then? I can’t remember.’

‘I said poems don’t make a difference to the real things.’

‘The real things?’

‘They can’t save people from cancer or bring people back from the dead. Novels can’t either. They don’t have a practical use, that’s what I meant. I loved that you read the poem to me that night, but the world remained unchanged.’

‘And yet you don’t think I should sell the bookshop.’

‘My theory isn’t perfect,’ I say, already in the blue before sleep.




I wake in the early morning, with Henry’s arm slung around me, and Lola tapping on the shop window. I open the door and see she’s still in the clothes she was wearing last night. She’s here for Henry, but when she sees me she looks excited. ‘I sense there’s gossip to be had.’

‘No gossip,’ I tell her after we’re sitting at Frank’s. It’s seven. I haven’t been up this early for the longest time. It’s cool, but the light promises heat. We order coffee and toast and a large orange juice to share.

‘Big night?’ I ask, and point at her clothes.

She tips a heap of sugar in her coffee and stirs. ‘We played till three. Then Hiroko and I went out to eat. Two gigs to go till we’re gone.’