Passacaglia (nearing the end)

Chapter 37

I arise from siesta to the gentle sound of the sea and my phone vibrating on the glass table. I try to ignore it, but it goes off again, a persistent buzz buzz buzz that gets under my skin, so I throw it inside. It bounces off the sofa and falls to the parquet floor. C-B-F. I lie back down in the sun lounger, noting the tan I've acquired in my sleep. The sky is purples and oranges now, and the inexorable tide has swallowed up most of the beach.

Even with my gold Ray-Bans on, this is a poor substitute for shimmering Halicarnassus. And yet I always find peace of mind in Phillip Island, its salty breeze redolent of fond summertime memories. I spent most of the last one in this chalet, writing down my pompous ramblings in relative solitude, and occasionally leaving its confines to buy cheese and wine at the farmer's market. The water's too cold to swim in at this time of year though, so most of the other houses are empty. Apart from the old La Mer record I'm playing for the third time today, all is blissfully quiet.

One cannot profess to understand La Mer until one has stood before the Mediterranean Sea and beheld its glories. Beyond shimmering azure, majestic mountains, and ancient ruins, there is an inexplicable sensation one experiences whilst baking in that jovial sun, imbibing sweet local aperitif, and gorging on the wonders of the gods' own cuisine. Only then can one hear what a miracle Debussy has fashioned, a symphony in all but name, far removed from cheap aural gimmickry.

The scratchy Desormie recording that I'm playing is Grandma Genevieve's. Our formidable matriarch softened in the twilight of her life, and citing the restorative properties of sea air, she moved here. On many a balmy summer evening, she'd pour a drink, put a La Mer record on - merlot meant Trenet's, brandy Debussy's - and then lie in this very deckchair with her gouty feet perched on a tatty silk cushion. We would sit out here for hours, but she only spoke when her cup needed freshening or the record turning over. One evening, she finally asked why I looked so glum whenever we sat together, and I explained how I'd rather be sipping Frappuccinos downtown with my friends. She glowered at me with those sharp grey eyes - my eyes - and said, "Rappelles-toi toujours, mon fils, que tu n'es pas comme des autres."

A week later, she fell down the stairs whilst watering the ferns on the front porch, and became permanently bedridden. Within days, the grand old dame was a shadow of her former self; she didn't speak, she wouldn't eat nor comb her hair, and the fearsome gaze was supplanted with this hollow stare. A lifetime of love and loss, words uttered and gestures made, people, places, and things, but it in the end it all boiled down to a feeble corpse struggling to breathe between spoons of lukewarm soup. At summer's end, just short of her eighty-eighth birthday, Genevieve finally popped her clogs. Uncle Luc told us he'd found the eternally unsmiling woman in bed with a satisfied grin on her face. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was probably rigor mortis. The family stopped coming to the beach house altogether. Everything sits as she left it: the china cat figurines, the record player, the lavender potpourri, even the prune jar, bless.

I hear the front door slam shut and the sound of keys dropped on the counter.

"Fucking townies!" he shrieks, and I smell the Acqua di Gio even before he's stamped onto the deck. Malcolm flings himself onto the deckchair next to mine. "Why don't you ever answer your goddamn phone?" he asks, setting a heavy paper bag at his feet.

"Bonsoir to you too, mon cher," I say, peering beneath my sunglasses to see what he's brought.

"Don't you dare start with that plummy shite, don't even!" He's dying for me to ask him what happened. I'm not going to.

"Did you bring the provisions?" I ask, eyeing the paper bag.

"Do you have to talk like Jane-fucking-Eyre all the time?" he spits.

"Fine. What crawl up arse and die, fancy man?"

It's lost on him. "Here, take it." He produces a bottle of something from the bag and shoves it in my face.

"Tawny? Really though?"

"It was all I could get, okay? I drove all the way into that shithole they call a town, paid for bloody parking, got lost in the ghost market, which by the by, had closed at like four. Fucking four! So I asked some of the butt-fuck locals where I could find a bottle shop, I asked like five of them, and all they did was stare at me. That's all any of them did, chew baccy and fucking stare with their dead eyes."

I ponder whether to tell him that his choice of wardrobe - an obscenely low-cut Biggie Smalls singlet hanging over tatty, torn denim short shorts - coupled with that outrhaircut might explain their behaviour, but keep it to myself when I note his chest puffing up again

"And for fuck's sake, why do they have so many kids?"

"The great coat hanger shortage of '08?" I suggest.

Still not amused. "I ended up buying everything at the petrol station, so it was either this or the white stuff that makes you fart!"

I unscrew the bottle, take a swig, and try not to cringe at the cloying sweetness. "Thank you, Malcolm, for thinking of my blustery bowels. It was awfully prescient of you."

He finally cracks a smile now and pushes my face playfully with his hand. "Shove over," he says standing over me. He squeezes in next to me, drinks from the bottle and sighs, "You were right though, Spaz, it's gorgeous out here." He puts his arm around me and kisses my forehead. He hasn't done that before. It's strange, affectionate, what's his angle here?

"Your fat arse is going to break the chair," I say.

"Cheeky slapper! Take that back!"

"It's the truth," I smirk.

"Take it back, Spaz!" He puts me in a headlock and I bite my way out of it. "Bitch!" he laughs, snatching the bottle from me. "Take it back or I pour this down the drain."

"I take it back, I take it back," I say, raising my arms in surrender, and he passes back the bottle.

"I was thinking on the drive back..."

"Call the press!"

"Shut up! You know, you should try channelling all that fancy talk into lyrics. Imagine it, little me and little you, sharing song credits. We'd have the college crowd eating out of our palms," he says, leaning on my shoulder. A lazy breeze ruffles his hair and a fragrant lock tickles my cheek.

"I met a lad with chestnut hair... Of noble bearing... Debonair?"

"See? You're good!"

"Where are the shrooms?" I ask.

"In the car where you left them. Why?"

"No reason." I hear a phone buzzing, and for a second I think I'm going mad. Didn't I throw the blasted thing inside?

"Oh, it's Henry again," he says, reading a text on his phone. I sense the guilt in his tone. "He's asking when I'll be back from my mum's."

"You're still boning that oaf?"

"Yes, I'm still b... With that oaf. And don't call him that, he pays the rent and puts food on the table, which is more than I can say for..." His attention's back on the phone again. "Fuck, what do I say, Serge?"

Oh, now it's Serge. "Don't answer."

"I have to."

The sex was good, the conversation diverting, but it's time to wake up and smell the shit-stained roses. He's ruined it. "Tomorrow then."

"What? No, I want to stay," he whines, setting the phone aside and facing me. I avoid his gaze.

"I don't. Tell him you'll be back tomorrow."

"Come on, Spaz, don't be like that," he says, stroking my hair.

"Don't call me that, it's infantile." I push his arm away. I can't bear to look at him. I pick up the bottle, hop off the deck, and head for the shore.

"I love you!" he cries.

Oh, dear God, the schmaltz! The words pierce, and fill me with such dread that I'm fit to explode. I drink deep, strip down, and lie in the sand, seek ablutions and hope relief will visit my aching head. The tide washes over me and retreats, but I find no clarity. Again, it comes in and goes back out. Nothing. I wish it would take me with it, someplace far from this massive clichthat my life has become.