Chapter 19
The frantic assault along the beach failed to exorcise the tension from his mood. For hours Max had kept to the beach. He ignored the occasional hello from a friend and well-wisher. An ache of death stayed with him as he strayed about the dunes. His daughter had become a hacked cadaver on a stainless steel table while necroscopic instruments prodded and probed for clues. The albatross of media and police attention hung about his neck. He bore on, following his own footsteps in the sand, retracing a never-ending surge of rage.
His boy continued to lie dormant in the sterility of a hospital. The young body that had romped on beaches and barged on football fields was withering slowly. Instead of a sinewy body a pale and flaccid imitation lay lifeless on the sheet. The tubes had been replaced by an intravenous drip stuck conveniently in his arm. Max suddenly stopped and looked out to sea. A ship was there and it hadn’t been there a minute ago. Closer to shore than usual, too.
The day had reached the point when the heat was intense. His body hair, though drenched with perspiration, stood stiff above flesh that had goosed into thousands of little bumps. Out there, from the ship’s deck, Tseridis waved. The noise of eyeballs popping closed in his ears and a seagull landed nearby and complained loudly. It was time to go.
He was relieved to be going home. He preferred the familiar zone of his wooden house with its memories and heartache to the insanity of infinity. When he reached his black and grey van he had again descended to a desperate desolate mood. He drove across the peninsular to prepare for the agony of his daughter’s funeral.
*
The two families stood stoically at the grave as her coffin was lowered. Decks of flowers coloured her departure into the ground. They had walked the bush that morning, before breakfast when the dew was about, picking the wildflowers she loved so much. Max gave her no religious send-off; a verse of Cheng The-hui was inscribed on the marble block at the head of her grave. It read:
Since we clasped hands and said farewell,
I am left languishing, and all in vain.
Surely the bitterest thing in life is parting.
When I speak I have little strength,
When I lie down I cannot sleep;
Of food and drink I cannot tell the taste,
No use of medicines I take,
There is no cure.
One moment I am floating,
Bereft of my soul,
The next all is clear,
And I am myself ...
Then all is confusion again,
And I cannot tell Heaven from Earth.
Love you.
Max McLuhan Rane and friends.
They waited for the earth to be tossed and the thud on the lid and the flowers. They then drove home without her for the first time.
