How it feels to float, p.18
How It Feels to Float, page 18
‘NEXT STOP, HELENSBURGH! (WAKE UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!)’
The conductor shouts over the intercom and I slap back into myself, re-enter my body with a snap.
I feel the photo in my hands shaking as the sun laughs.
I’ve been travelling for forty minutes and I’m already hungry.
I check my supplies: four vegan muffins (baked yesterday as part of my goodbye offering to the twins), a container of roasted almonds, two bread rolls, three carrots, and a small tub of hummus. This is meant to last me to Temora, maybe even beyond, because who knows what people eat in Temora? Maybe just the hearts of small ravens and the bleeding stumps of lambs. I’ve never been to the outback. What do they live on? What do they do with vegans?
I suddenly feel ravenous, like if I put my head into my backpack I might just inhale everything—chew through the bags and containers and swallow all the food in a couple of bites like a monster lizard.
My throat clangs. My skin itches. My bones hurt. Is this how it feels to leave everything you know and reject your mother’s care and do something no one will understand? It feels like the flu.
We rumble through the writhing bush. We’ve left the sea behind. I look at my phone; I want to text Jasper, or Mum, or write an email to Grace, message anyone about anything, but there’s no signal here in the middle of the jungle, only snakes and sharp-beaked birds and shrivelled trees for company.
Do I even want to leave? Should I get off at the next station and go home? Crawl into bed before Mum finds out I’ve gone and stay there forever, with her bringing me tea and the doctor tut-tutting over my body like I’m no longer a human but some kind of moss?
It would be so easy.
‘NEXT STOP, SUTHERLAND! DISEMBARK HERE FOR TRAINS TO BONDI JUNCTION, JANNALI AND LIVERPOOL. (OR, IF YOUR NAME IS BIZ, GET OFF HERE TO GO THE FUCK HOME!)’
That conductor. She’s like some kind of archangel, omnisciently riding in the back carriage, sending messages to all the runaways.
Do I want to go home?
I have four minutes to decide. Pass through Sutherland and I’ll be too far gone to get back before Mum wakes up.
Four minutes.
I rummage through my notebook, where I’ve written my entire plan. It’s itemised down to the dates, costs, accommodation and places Dad might have gone, based on information I’ve gleaned from asking Mum questions and a childhood spent poring over the photo albums on the shelf.
The list is meticulous. I am good with lists. Good with bullet points and subsets. That is, I was good, and then the fog came. So this list must be emblematic of a fundamental change in my system, right? A ‘have you tried turning off the computer and turning it back on?’ reboot. This must mean I’m basically, definitely better. Right?
Three minutes.
Do I get off the train? Do I turn around?
Do I stay or do I go now?
Look at you, Biz, having doubts, says the sun. It’s perfectly normal, but listen, friend: you’ve got your lists and that must mean something. I mean, I know I’m the sun, but it’s terrifying up here sometimes. I’ve so much energy in me I think I might explode and where would that leave us? Seriously in the dark, hahaha. But I persevere, Biz, that’s what I do, so, whatever you do, don’t get off that train, or you’ll regret it. And let me tell you: regret’s a bitch.
Two minutes.
The train slows.
I shove a muffin into my mouth; it’s raspberry and choc chip—Sylvia has taught me well—and chew. It takes me a minute to get down the first bite, then the second. It takes another minute to get through the third and fourth bites—as the train slides into the station and the door opens on the platform—as people leave and people stay, and people keep reading their phones like nothing out of the ordinary is happening and there isn’t a girl having a crisis while making her way through a muffin with raspberry and chocolate pieces—as the train slowly pulls out of the station and the sun chants, Yeah! Biz! Staying on the train! Yeah! outside the right window, light spilling over our laps like wild honey.
° ° ° ° °
We arrive in Central station at 7:21 a.m.
I’m on the train for Cootamundra at 7:33, after a long wee in the toilets.
The train trundles out of Platform 15 at 7:42.
I’m really, really, really going. Where’s the sun?
At the window. Beaming in.
My phone goes PING! just as I’m tucking into my next muffin, half an hour out of Central.
MUM: Hey. Where r u?
Shit.
Do I answer? I’ve already lied on paper. Can I lie twice? She wasn’t supposed to text. In the perfect scenario in my head, she was supposed to nod at my note, say, ‘Fine’, go off to work, spend the day looking inside mouths, and have a whole day before she came home and I didn’t and she freaked out.
We are ahead of schedule.
Shit.
I eat the whole muffin without answering.
PING!
MUM: I didn’t say it was ok to go anywhere with Jasper. Where r u? Come home now pls.
Skin pricking, sweat on brow, pins and needles in extremities. I could be having a heart attack—maybe this is the one time I’m not panicking and actually dying? Can seventeen-year-olds have heart attacks?
I don’t text back.
The phone rings now, buzzing on my lap—the phone is silent because I’m in a carriage with what looks like Zen priests and novelists who might shout at me if I so much as blink.
Mum’s profile pic shows up on the screen. I turn it over so she can’t see me.
The phone buzzes out.
MUM (on voicemail): Biz. Is everything okay? Please answer your phone.
MUM (via text): Biz?
MUM (calling again): Biz. I’m getting worried. Please could you pick up?
This goes for about an hour. Mum’s voice rises and rises on the voicemail, until it becomes this high-pitched noise only dogs can hear.
I turn off my phone. When in doubt, ignore the problem. It’s worked for centuries. This is how we humans have ended up in such a shit puddle. Fires, floods, storms, plastic islands in the ocean; how else do you get here if not for shoving your head under dirt until the problem goes away or you die? I mean, and you die?
At which point, I don’t know if I’m Biz anymore—I feel so pulled out of my normal self it seems ludicrous I was ever me. Only a different Biz would make the woman who birthed her, fed her, watered her, and held her after her father died, cry and swear over a phone on a Wednesday morning, when the only thing that woman should be doing is driving to work with peace in her heart and a daughter at school.
My body is not even slightly the same body I had when I was born. We alter completely, constantly—our cells die and are replaced, every day, week, decade—our organs, our skin, our bones. Which means the Biz who popped out seventeen years ago ceased to exist hundreds of times since birth. All except the lenses in my eyes and my cerebral cortex, which I guess are the lone keepers of the keys to me.
The city unspools, and there’s a kind of heady freedom in realising I’ve shucked myself off, and I don’t have to miss the me I’m leaving behind.
I open my notebook and write that pithy realisation down.
Ratio of old Biz to new:
17 : 0.0000001
17 : 0.0000002
17 : 0.0000003
Here I am. Here I am. Here I am.
I’m regenerating with every single click and clack of the wheels on the rail.
I’m reborn, I’m reborn, I’m reborn.
It’s beautiful.
It’s so beautiful, I barely recognise Jasper when he shows up in front of me at Moss Vale station, at 9:22. I hardly understand it’s him, I’m so infinitely renewed.
‘Ha!’ Jasper stands in the aisle, pointing at me. ‘Found you!’
How? What?
‘Jasper?’
Jasper grins. ‘I knew I’d find you! I’m a fucking genius!’
For that he gets a frown from a crotchety across the aisle and a solid, ‘Excuse me!’ from the crotchety in the seat behind.
Jasper puts his backpack on the shelf above, flops down on the seat beside me.
‘Uh. Jasper? What are you doing here?’
‘I got your message this morning. Couldn’t get to Central in time. So I rode my mighty steed and met you at the pass.’ Jasper looks wildly pleased with himself. I haven’t seen him beam like this since, well, never.
‘Message?’ I never sent that message.
‘The one that said, “I’m leaving. Going to Temora. Etcetera-etcetera.”’ Jasper waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the message he received this morning, the one I didn’t send.
‘I didn’t send that message.’
‘Beg to differ,’ says Jasper. He pulls out his phone, flicks Messenger on, and there, like a beacon, is the message I deleted.
I shake my head. How?
Sliding doors open, close, open, close. Somewhere, in some alternate universe, there’s a Biz riding a train alone, message deleted. Somewhere, there’s a Biz who got off the train and went home before her mother woke. Somewhere, there’s a Biz who didn’t, wasn’t, hadn’t, isn’t.
I start to shake.
Jasper puts his hand on my leg.
‘Hey. Hey. Biz, breathe.’
I have closed my eyes—panic rising—but Jasper puts his arm around me. He says, ‘Biz, Biz. S’okay. Everything’s okay.’
I’m trembling. Jasper’s patting my shoulders. He’s saying, ‘It’s okay. Biz. No biggie. We’re just going to Temora. Just a little road trip! Train trip, I mean! This is so much better than maths.’
Jasper rubs my shoulder with one hand. Taps my knee with the other. He says, ‘Whoa! You brought muffins! Great. I’m starving.’
I feel his hands leave. I hear the sound of a container, unclicking.
I open my eyes.
Jasper’s got both my muffins and is holding them up like trophies. He’s grinning at me and if I took a photograph of him right now I’m certain light would beam from every opening, maybe even his belly button.
‘We’re going the fuck to Temora!’ he says. He takes a massive bite of muffin.
All the crotcheties turn their heads, their reveries a mess.
‘Shush!’ they shout in unison.
‘Shush!’ says Jasper back, spraying crumbs, laughing.
He’s so happy.
I breathe. I stop shaking.
Huh.
Here we are. Here we are. Here we are.
We’ve gone west and west and west and now we’re a half hour out of Cootamundra, which is handy because I’m ravenous. Somehow we’ve eaten everything, including the snack Jasper brought along—a muddle of cracked corn chips in a rumpled bag, slightly stale.
I think it’s the stress. Whenever I’m nervous I either eat food or gnaw my fingernails down to the nub. By lunchtime, I’m out of both.
Jasper has settled into the ride and is no longer saying ‘Fuck yeah!’ every thirty seconds.
He’s spent the last three hours staring out at the unfolding everything: the train cutting through open fields, in and out of bushland, past little towns, bigger towns, graffiti blipping past on the backs of buildings, a swirling cone of birds, the sun sailing higher, the light slapping his face. It’s been three hours of Jasper saying ‘Hey, look at that. Hey, look at that.’
Who knew he had the capacity for this much joy? It’s like watching a man-shaped kitten playing with tinsel. He says, ‘It’s the freedom, Biz. I haven’t run away before.’
But of course, he hasn’t run away. When pressed an hour ago, he admitted, ‘Okay, I told Mum I was going with you. I told her Gran said it was urgent I accompany you so you didn’t get murdered in the countryside.’
‘Hmm.’ I considered this. ‘Both of us could get murdered, Jasper. Murderers kill multiple people all the time.’
‘Well, regardless,’ Jasper said, ‘Mum agreed. She’s easy that way. She said as long as I get my schoolwork done, I’m good. I can study anywhere, remember?’ Jasper gestured up to his backpack. ‘Laptop, check! Avant-garde poetry, check! Clean underwear, check!’ He grinned.
I wish it were that easy for me. When the fight with Mum happened, I told Jasper about it, messaging at 1 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep. But I didn’t—I couldn’t—tell him the depth and breadth of our fight, the sting and sadness of it. I told him some of the words Mum had said, but very few of the words I had said. Isn’t that convenient? All he knows is Mum drove off in her car; he doesn’t know I’m the terrible person who made her do it.
So when I told him an hour ago I wasn’t just playing at being a runaway but was legitimately and in fact precisely a runaway, his face was a mixture of pity and awe.
How about that? I was capable of being an actual delinquent. Was he sure he wanted to be on a train with someone like me?
‘So she really doesn’t know?’ he said.
‘She thinks we’re out for the day on your bike.’
‘Ah. Is she okay with that?’
‘Not exactly. No.’
Jasper shook his head. ‘Huh. So I’m the co-villain in this story.’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
Jasper was quiet for a while after that, processing.
He’ll probably get off at the next station, I thought. He’ll turn around and go home. I would. Would I? It would be the most logical option—a) do you want to go down Biz’s path of delinquency or b) do you not? The answer is b. Every time, it should be b.
But when we pulled into a station, Jasper didn’t move. He looked out the window and said, ‘Hey! Look, Biz.’ There on the platform stood a blank-faced woman in a Pokémon hat checking her phone.
‘Nice,’ I said.
‘I forgot my Pokémon hat,’ said Jasper. He looked over at me. ‘What about you? Remembered or forgot?’
Palms out, I shrugged. ‘Forgot.’
‘Sad.’
The train slid out of the station. ‘No matter, Biz,’ he said. ‘We can wear them next time.’ Then Jasper saw two Chihuahuas running in circles in a yard.
‘Look!’ he said. He turned to me. ‘Did you see those dogs? I could fit them in my shoes.’
Then he pointed out a house with a rose-tangled fence. He pointed out an ancient 1970s station wagon. We rolled into farmland and Jasper took a photo of the horizon with his phone. And we two villains tumbled towards Cootamundra together.
Cootamundra glides into place beside our train, right at 12:44 p.m. as scheduled. We grab our stuff, step onto the platform, and are hit by a blast of air so scorching Jasper spins around, like his body is trying to get away but can’t, so it just turns like a sad chicken on a rotisserie.
‘Whoa,’ says Jasper, blinking. ‘Hello, fifth circle of hell.’
‘I heard the outback was hot, but Jesus—’ I say, peeling off my hoodie.
‘Dude, if we were in the outback,’ says Jasper, yanking off his jacket, ‘we would have already turned crispy and died.’
I stare at Jasper. ‘Dude, are we not in the outback?’
‘We are in Cootamundra, Biz. The outback is not here.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do you not know?’ Jasper smirks. He’s annoying. Holy shit, it’s hot.
‘Fine. Doesn’t matter. Fuck. My lungs are frying.’
‘We should seek air-conditioning.’
‘Agreed.’
We head out to the street, and in that instant all thought of shelter is swallowed by the sky.
It’s gigantic.
There’s so much sky it’s hard to believe it’s not falling on us. There’s no escarpment here—just low hills and cars and houses and us. We’re baby ants squatting under an impossible blue.
I stop in the street to look up.
I would take a picture, but there’s no room on any square for space like this.
I open my arms. I try to take it in, but I’m too small. I put my head back. Maybe I look like Jesus, arms out, when he was on his mountaintop telling everyone to be kind, though maybe he was secretly saying to God, ‘Beam me up, Dad, these humans are ridiculous.’
The honk blats into my brain the same time as Jasper shoves me, and it turns out the sky is a trickster—trying to hold me still so a delivery van can mash me flat on a Cootamundra street.
Not cool, sky. Fuck you.
I stumble onto the pavement and Jasper says, ‘What was that, Biz?’
‘Just looking up, Jasper,’ I say, but I know he knows better. Poor Jasper—he’s got to watch out for murderers and sky? He shakes his head.
I pull out my phone, ignore the million messages from Mum, open Google, and type ‘vegan cootamundra’. The phone has a little think. A moment later it says: Go to the Khaya, Biz. Inside you will find tantalising delectables and a delightfully quaint ambience.
It offers me a map.
‘Come on,’ I say to Jasper, and four minutes later, past a pub and a smudge-brown Centre for the Arts, we’re standing in front of a building so red it looks painted with fake blood.
‘Pretty,’ says Jasper.
Arts! Crafts! Gallery! Café! shout the awnings.
We push open the door. Step in.
Cold! shouts the café.
Whoa. It’s freezing in here. It feels like we’ve stepped into the negative of a second ago, the arctic inverse of outside. The air conditioner clatters on the wall, going full speed.
We might get hypothermia in a minute, but on the plus side, the place smells delicious.
Tucked behind shelves of knickknacks and whatsits, a bunch of old people sit at tables with toasted sandwiches and cappuccinos and slabs of devil’s food cake. They’re all chit-chatty and cozy and they look up at us like we’re almost friends, like maybe we remind them of their beloved grandkids, and maybe they’ll invite us over for a bite of whatever it is they’re having, and I have a moment—a pang—where I wish we’d done this trip with Sylvia. She’d be best friends with everyone in five minutes. Why didn’t we bring Sylvia?
