‘I just don’t understand how you managed thirty years. Have you been moving around?’
‘Was in Sydney for thirteen years but been in Byron seventeen. Travelled the coast a little. Went up the Blue Mountains. Mainly, though, I’ve been in the same house.’
‘And no one’s been suspicious?’
He stares at me. I can see his nostrils expand and contract with the intensity of his breath.
‘People generally see what they want to see.’
‘But you’re on the internet, the waitress has even seen it. Someone filmed you. You’re attracting too much interest.’
‘You. You still think you have the fire in your hand. I am still the “Other” you want to steer to your will. Well, you can take that fire and put it in the ocean.’
Steady thyself.
‘Jesus, Omai. I’m trying to help you. This isn’t me. I’m just the middle man here. It’s Hendrich. He knows things. He can stop terrible things from happening, but he can also’ – the terrible truth of it occurs to me – ‘he can also make very terrible things happen.’
‘Do you know what?’ He pulls out his wallet and delves insideand places some notes on the table and stands up. ‘If it’s not really you I’m talking to, this won’t be rude, will it?’
And I just sit there after he has walked away. The food comes and I tell the waitress I think he is coming back. But, of course, he doesn’t.
In honesty, I thought it was going to go differently. I thought we were going to catch up on old times and talk about all the good and horrifying things that had happened that we could once never have imagined. I thought we were going to talk about bicycles or cars or aeroplanes. Trains, telephones, photographs, electric lightbulbs, TV shows, computers, rockets to the moon. Skyscrapers. Einstein. Gandhi. Napoleon. Hitler. Civil rights. Tchaikovsky. Rock. Jazz.Kind of Blue.Revolver.Does he like ‘The Boys of Summer’? Hip-hop. Sushi bars. Picasso. Frida Kahlo. Climate change. Climate denial.Star Wars. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Beyoncé. Twitter. Emojis. Reality TV. Fake news. Donald Trump. The continual rise and fall of empathy. What we did in the wars. Our reasons to carry on.
But, no, we talked about none of that.
I had blown it.
I was, in short, a fucking idiot. And a friendless one.
People you love never die.
That is what Omai had said, all those years ago.
And he was right. They don’t die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters. If you stop mourning them, and start listening to them, they still have the power to change your life. They can, in short, be salvation.
Omai lives on the edge of town, at 352 Broken Head Road. A one-storey clapboard house.
You can see the sea from here. Of course you can. Omai would have livedinthe sea if he could have done.
I wait a couple of minutes after knocking. My head is a dull ache. I hear soft noises from inside the house. The door opens a little. An old woman with short white hair peers out from behind the latch chain. Late eighties, I would have said. Face as lined as a map. Standing asymmetrically from arthritis and osteoporosis. Worried, cataract-infested eyes. Luminous yellow cardigan. She is holding an electric tin opener.
‘Yes?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think I might have the wrong address. Sorry for bothering you so late.’
‘Don’t worry. I never sleep these days.’
She is closing the door. Hastily I say it: ‘I’m looking for Sol. Sol Davis. Is this the right address? I’m an old friend. I was having a meal with him tonight and I’m worried I’ve upset him.’
She hesitates a moment.
‘Tom. My name is Tom.’
She nods. She has heard of me. ‘He’s gone surfing.’
‘In the dark?’
‘It’s his favourite time to do it. The ocean never goes home. That’s what he always says.’
