Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven Page A

into me.
    Julie has already ordered my regular, the lasagne and chips. She’s gotten herself a salad. She’s on a diet. ‘Not going too well,’ she says about it. ‘The other day I picked up a donut. I wish I had the energy I used to. I want to play tennis again.’
    ‘You’re looking healthy to me.’ I look at her clear olive skin, her white teeth. Electric blue eyes: contacts.
    She reaches for the dressing. I don’t tell her about Larapinta. I don’t know how she’d react about me getting along with a plantperson. Julie already thinks I’m anti-social.
    A band plays in the corner. There are two young fellas playing together. One main singer with a sweet voice, tall and wearing a grey beanie. The other man sits on a drum and plays it; he’s a shorter, older fella. He sings in some songs, a quick, direct style, almost like a rap. Julie says the second singer is awful. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been hanging out too much with Larapinta, but I don’t have a taste filter. I think they’re both good at what they do. If you want to do a five-minute solo imitating the sound of a train in a tunnel, that’s okay.
    Because of the music, Julie makes us move to the back. She talks a bit more about Sparkle. When she was in Sydney, Julie was heavily involved in the art scene, and also campaigning for our people. What my mum says about Julie when she’s tired is that Julie uses her looks to get what she wants. Julie did have a flash job down in Sydney, but she worked hard for it, I know she did.
    Sometime during the night Julie talks about the heavy pay cut she took for her new job in Brisbane. She’s losing money as she still hasn’t yet found a buyer for her place in Sydney. ‘I should get into painting,’ Julie jokes. ‘All I have to do is a few brown dots and our totem.’
    ‘What’s our totem?’ I ask her.
    ‘Oh, come on, you know that,’ Julie says. She takes a sip. ‘It’s a dugong.’
    It is instinctive; I’ve had too much to drink. I get off the ferry in the middle of the night and go to the beach and lie down. When I wake up I feel the hot sand press against my cheek and my thoughts immediately go to Larapinta. I find myself imagining the tart taste of her mouth. She comes up too often, in my dreams and in waking, on my afternoon walks and in the cold morning air. She is deliberate in the way she talks to me. I am a curiosity she wants to explore. I’m sure if it was someone else it would be the same to her. I just happen to be here, in a boat with her seven hours a day.
    In the afternoon, Larapinta takes me to the place she saw the dugong, past the second sandy embankment where she helped me when I got stung by the bluebottle, and up an incline. We stand there stiffly. I see boats on the clear water. I see the lazy shape of turtles. I don’t see a dugong.
    ‘Maybe she has gone home,’ she says. What a strange statement to come from something like her.
    For a tiny moment when we are standing there and the breeze is lifting, it rains lightly. Just a thin veil over the view. I can hardly even feel the raindrops.
    Soon it is dark and she pulls on my arm and asks if she can follow me home. I ask for a reason and she answers: ‘I want to be with you so we can do what is private.’ Then she leans close to my ear and utters ‘ private ’ again. My blush stops me from saying anything at all and I just walk numbly to my street and open both doors of my house.
    We step inside and turn to each other and I realise she is the same height and it would not be difficult to kiss her.
    I let her in my mouth. What will this experiment hold for her – what will she find in the flesh of my tongue, the crest of my lips? What will I discover in this uncharted experience? How much of what it means to be human will sway deep in my mind like a ship. I see her eyes are open, those green unhuman eyes, watching, looking at me, but not. Her mouth is alive. I suck on her bottom lip, surrender my teeth. She makes a noise