Peter Carey - Amnesia

Next he listened irritably to Gaby’s detailed explication of “Frederic’s mental processes.” She thought this should be the basis of his book. The style should be “experimental.” He fast-forwarded, paused, rewound. It was “important” that he understood. “Truly remarkable Frederic” had a continual silent conversation in his head, in words and symbols, not only when seated at his Mac IIx—which was both his true and his secret life—but even walking along the streets of Carlton where his compass-point orientation and the actions of his limbs were expressed, by him to him, in Zork Implementation Language, aka ZIL, a computer language related to LISP, now obsolete. Felix Moore MUST take notes, he was instructed. Frederic was not autistic. His skin smelled of coriander. This was said, unprompted, three times. But whether going to school or delivering “seriously discounted” electronics for his father, he was secretly a machine, conversing privately like this:

>go north.

>go east.

When Frederic picked up Gaby’s soccer ball he allegedly thought >Pick up soccer ball. Then he held it in front of him, his burnt-sienna nail polish hidden in the dark. He carried the soccer ball as an act of love, under sodium streetlights and into the seaweed shadow of the park, coming down the central axis of Macarthur Square he would make the world he entered “SUBTITLE GABY’S HOUSE.” Stuff like that:

And also:

In there is a small window which is

[“SMALL” “TRANSPARENT”] ;adjectives for window

< + OVISON, OPENBIT, BREAKBIT> ;things you can do with object

[ODESC1 “There is a small window with 4 panes”]

[ODESC0 “A window is here”]

BILLS-OBJECT ()>

<>) ;“Prints sarcasm but doesn’t handle the command

(

; does not allow eating window

>>

Who talks like this?

Machine. Plus, also, Frederic Matovic stood outside the railings of what would soon be the lost house in Macarthur Place. He looked in through the dark front room into the kitchen where he could see the three of them at table. He remembered, he would tell Gaby often, a scene of mythic beauty, golden, the father wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped like a surfer, you could almost see the sand, his short tousled hair, the mother sexy like an actress which of course she was and Gaby, ethereal with dirty nails he would bring home to touch his keyboard.

He thought in many languages but ZIL was from the world of Zork. >Put soccer ball on doormat. He placed the soccer ball on the mat, knocked on the door and ran away, into the park, “raindrops glued onto his shiny back,” wrote Felix Moore-or-less-correct, slamming the keyboard of the Olivetti.

King parrots feasted, dropping seed-casings on the noisy roof.

Felix Moore rewound, played, rocked the tape back and forth across magnetic heads. He finished one A4 sheet and placed it beneath a rock. He wound in a new sheet, already swollen by the damp.

Coo-ee.

It was a human voice, and it caused the great journalist to tug shoes onto his bunioned feet. With laces still untied, he fled up the dangerous back stairs pushing through the wild lantana where a lorikeet, as pretty as a Persian miniature, was moulding itself into the flowers, and then he was above the roof of his hut looking out across the empty river and down at a rainwater tank half covered in dry leaves. He could see nothing near the shore but mangrove leaves.

Coo-ee.

His eyes were dark and hollowed.

Coo-ee.

What would happen to him now? He climbed back down the stairs, walked through the hut then down towards the water.

Hello? he inquired. An outboard sprang to dirty life.

Coo-ee, he bawled. His knees hurt and he was an arthritic dog jumping through swordgrass, arriving at the shore, out of breath, one shoe in his hand. The visitor had departed, was beyond the mangroves now, and the throttle of the outboard opened wide. He was slow to see what had been left behind, there, on the edge of the mudflat, two gleaming gutted fish and three bottles of clear rum.

His creased eyes filled and he smiled and stamped his foot and if he was laughing with relief, or disappointment, he did not know himself. Must go on, can’t go on, he uncorked the rum, drank, and coughed. To be continued.

FREDERIC MATOVIC HAD LEFT Gaby’s ball outside her door, thus removing any excuse for her to ever visit him at home. When he passed her in the hallway at school he would not even look at her. It was rainy and windy all that week, and on Tuesday his vintage brothel creepers got soaked which meant she could always hear him, even when she didn’t see him, squelching, please shut up. She wished she had rabies. She would go mad and bite them all. On Wednesday he charged out of Miss Hanson’s special maths class and shoved his pointy books into her chest. She chose this moment to insist: her ball had been left at his place by total accident.

All right, he said, not listening.

I don’t play those games, she said.

OK, he said, and ducked away, leaving her breasts bruised and angry.

Gaby was unhappy, irritated with everybody, even Bree, whose birthday it was this coming Sunday and for whom she had decided to make a pair of happy pants. Celine had a treadle Singer and Frederic’s mum had some ’50s fabric, the planets Saturn and Jupiter on a black background, ten metres of it displayed in her Faraday Street shop. Gaby had walked to this window every day after school, always in the rain, her ankles sprayed by passing cars. “Back Later” the sign said. Gaby huddled against the door and the sign was still in place two hours later, and again on Thursday when she returned. It was early, before school, but there was a light inside. She knocked, without hope, but without relent, and finally there was Meg Matovic and a bald man in a dirty singlet.

Yes.

I’m sorry. I’ve got the money. I know what I want. She could hear Meg’s visitor peeing out the back, it was awful, on and on, he sounded like a horse.

Mrs. Matovic had not priced her fabric yet and did not want to sell a short length but finally she gave her two metres, and pushed the girl out into the rain.

At home that night her father was forced to light a fire although it was so warm they had to keep the windows open. The problem was the rising damp so the rain snuck up the walls like sap from the foundations. It bloomed in white and furry mounds on the painted hallway and, more seriously, in Celine’s built-in wardrobe. Sando was a “bush carpenter.” He had strung cords beneath the high ceiling of the little living room and all Celine’s clothes hung safe and dry, like sails above their heads.

Gaby’s bedroom wall was damp as well, but she had happy pants to make. By the time she was threading elastic she was called to set the table and found Celine removing the skin from chicken thighs which meant, twenty minutes later, short-cut coq au vin. She lit the candles.

Celine was in a good mood, translate as maybe stoned. She had actually AGREED to inspect a house in Coburg on the following weekend. All this was on her tape. She and Sando drank wine from long-stemmed glasses. They were “loose as gooses.” Sando got himself all folded in his chair. He had news but he held onto it, that was his way, to have treasures hoarded for a rainy day: he had got the funding for the day care centre for the migrant workers. You could see he was in love with them. His eyes caught the reflection of the candles. His mouth stretched along the coastline of his wobbly smile.

Celine was not competitive but she had good news as well. The Footlights Collective had been given a “development grant.”