Peripheral Vision by Paddy O'Reilly Read Free Book Online Page B

Why did you bring me here?’ The love seat vibrated to the Eurythmics singing ‘Sweet Dreams’. Every time I heard that song I’d think of my mum, stubby in one hand, spliff in the other, swaying on the grass on summer nights, slapping at mozzies and trying to make my little brother dance with her.
    â€˜I was lonely, Merry Merry. And this is my big trip. You have to do Cairns and Cape Trib on the big round-Australia trip.’
    â€˜Couldn’t you have waited till you got somewhere with a proper beach?’
    â€˜No. Hey, listen to this.’ She waved a brochure at me. ‘ If you happen to encounter a cassowary do not run from it. Face the bird and back away slowly until you can hide behind a tree or bush. Cassowaries live in rainforest remnants to the north of Cairns. The cassowary grows to two metres, as tall as a man. These giant blue and black flightless birds sport a large brown casque, or helmet, on their heads. Each muscular leg has three toes: the inside toe bears a long claw that resembles a dagger. While normally peaceful and shy, the birds will attack during mating season. The male cassowary is responsible for incubating the eggs and teaching the chicks how to forage. ’
    I nipped the brochure from her hand and opened it.
    â€˜It looks like the bird that time forgot. Let’s go on a tour, Jose. Let’s get on a cassowary bus with fifty other tourists and go discover ancient history.’
    Josie said nothing. She’d been on the road for four months before she sent me the ticket. When I met her at the airport, I was shocked to see her lank hair and flat face. Her facial expressions were all wrong – it was as though her skin had thickened and couldn’t fold and crease properly anymore. She’d eased up a bit now. She was laughing again. But she still wasn’t the old Josie.
    I finished my beer and set the sweating glass on the table. ‘I’m going to do it, Josie. A touristy tour. You coming?’
    â€˜Nope.’ She gestured to the waiter to bring another beer.
    â€˜What the fuck is going on with you?’
    She fish-eyed me. The dead stare. ‘I’m thirsty for beer,’ she said.
    â€˜Shut up. Shut up with the bullshit and tell me what’s going on.’
    She closed her eyes. The thin skin of her eyelids was a dull mauve. I waited but she didn’t open her eyes. Didn’t speak. Her silence eddied around me. I felt the pull on my skin. I wanted to speak to fill the space of what she couldn’t tell me. I wanted to ask about the boyfriend whose pictures had appeared then disappeared from Facebook. I wanted to say that her father called me every day for a month after she left and her mother had followed each call with a text of apology for bothering me.
    â€˜Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it on my own.’
    Instead of taking a touristy tour, I asked at the hostel if anyone was going to the Cassowary Lodge, which is how I ended up the next day in a beige Camry Rent-a-Wreck with a Christian couple from Canada and a Taiwanese girl. They’d met at a postgraduate conference on world literature. This was their last day in Cairns. I was paying a quarter of the rental and petrol.
    â€˜So are you, like, a student?’ The driver spoke without turning his head but I could hear him perfectly, his voice ringing through the car like the speech of a reverend or a salesman.
    â€˜No.’ I didn’t want to go on, but that would have been rude. ‘I do contract work in the public service. The government.’
    â€˜Hey, that’s great!’ The girl twisted in her seat and pushed her left hand toward me as if we were about to do a high five. My hand was still sweaty, as was the rest of my body, moist and sticky from waiting in the heat to be picked up. I waved my hand vaguely in the direction of hers and mumbled, ‘High five.’
    â€˜So, like, policy?’
    â€˜No, like, photocopying.’