who, as a result, is safely asleep upstairs, her golden hair covering her pillow like fleece.
Exley’s bulging bladder brings him back to reality and he hits the pause bar on the keyboard and stands, his legs uncertain as he leaves the studio and crosses the living room, opens the sliding door onto the deck and walks down to the sand, cool and powdery beneath his bare feet, a Turner landscape of soft blues, reds and yellows lying before him.
The ocean is flat and motionless, with barely a lick of a wave.
Avoiding the spot where Sunny’s body lay, he crosses to the hump-backed boulders, fissured and veined, indigenous bush growing like scraggly beard in the folds of the granite, digging his penis—uncomfortably stiff from the weight of his bladder—free of the boardshorts. Exley pisses away his hard-on and stows himself, wondering what to do next.
The enormity of his grief takes his legs from under him and he sinks down onto the sand and dry-heaves, producing nothing but the taste of bitter bile in his mouth. He sits again, his back to the small wooden rowboat that lies against the rocks, oars neatly shipped, watching the gulls squabble on the huge, flat rock near the mouth of the inlet, its slopes alpine with bird shit.
On calm days like these, before the sun got too high and too hot, he’d rowed Sunny out past the bird rock, laughing as she pinched her nose at the stink of the guano.
The memory of her, dwarfed by the orange life jacket, her curls electric in the sunlight, burns his retinas when he closes his eyes, and he finds himself nostril-breathing, inflating and releasing his diaphragm as he was taught to years ago in the yoga classes on the ashram. It helps to calm him a little and the sun on his face is soothing and maybe if he just sits here and doesn’t move, the sorrow will drain from him, drop by drop.
Exley feels the chill of the waves on his feet, then something more solid nudges his toes and he opens his eyes to see Sunny’s toy sailing ship bobbing in the shallows, returned on the tide.
He grabs the thing and stands, lifts it over his head and smashes it down on the rocks and doesn’t stop until the boat is string and match-sticks. Tears blur his eyes and his face is a macramé of snot.
He drops the splintered toy and looks up to see big, black Gladys, the cleaning woman, standing on the deck, watching him. She doesn’t usually work on a Sunday, but last week Caroline asked her to come up from her shack in Mandela Park, to help clean up the mess after the party, and nobody thought to phone her.
As Gladys approaches him, her shiny, low-heeled shoes sinking into the sand, Exley sees that she is crying. Caroline must have told her what happened, when she buzzed her in.
“Mr. Nick,” Gladys says, “Sunny, she is…?”
Exley wipes a gout of snot from his face with the back of his hand, nodding, and this woman to whom he has said maybe ten words in the months she has cleaned their house enfolds him to her massive bosom, the scent of cheap soap and talcum powder rising from her warm flesh.
It is comforting, being held like this, and he wishes he could stay here forever.
She releases him and walks to the water’s edge, staring down at the sand, scuffed by the feet of the paramedics, a single latex glove—muddied and obscene—lying just beyond the reach of the surf. Gladys points out at the water in the cove.
“Is it there that she died?”
Exley sees Sunny floating down near the kelp, her hair trailing, the last few bubbles of air escaping her mouth, and he’s sure now that she died underwater, and that the rent-a-cop—despite his heroic efforts—did nothing but fill her dead lungs with his breath.
“Yes,” Exley says. “Did Caroline tell you what happened?”
The big woman shakes her head. “No, I don’t see Miss Caroline. She is only buzzing me in. Sunny tell me, in a dream.” Gladys steps close to Exley, who says nothing, staring at her. “Last night, I dream about water.
Exley’s bulging bladder brings him back to reality and he hits the pause bar on the keyboard and stands, his legs uncertain as he leaves the studio and crosses the living room, opens the sliding door onto the deck and walks down to the sand, cool and powdery beneath his bare feet, a Turner landscape of soft blues, reds and yellows lying before him.
The ocean is flat and motionless, with barely a lick of a wave.
Avoiding the spot where Sunny’s body lay, he crosses to the hump-backed boulders, fissured and veined, indigenous bush growing like scraggly beard in the folds of the granite, digging his penis—uncomfortably stiff from the weight of his bladder—free of the boardshorts. Exley pisses away his hard-on and stows himself, wondering what to do next.
The enormity of his grief takes his legs from under him and he sinks down onto the sand and dry-heaves, producing nothing but the taste of bitter bile in his mouth. He sits again, his back to the small wooden rowboat that lies against the rocks, oars neatly shipped, watching the gulls squabble on the huge, flat rock near the mouth of the inlet, its slopes alpine with bird shit.
On calm days like these, before the sun got too high and too hot, he’d rowed Sunny out past the bird rock, laughing as she pinched her nose at the stink of the guano.
The memory of her, dwarfed by the orange life jacket, her curls electric in the sunlight, burns his retinas when he closes his eyes, and he finds himself nostril-breathing, inflating and releasing his diaphragm as he was taught to years ago in the yoga classes on the ashram. It helps to calm him a little and the sun on his face is soothing and maybe if he just sits here and doesn’t move, the sorrow will drain from him, drop by drop.
Exley feels the chill of the waves on his feet, then something more solid nudges his toes and he opens his eyes to see Sunny’s toy sailing ship bobbing in the shallows, returned on the tide.
He grabs the thing and stands, lifts it over his head and smashes it down on the rocks and doesn’t stop until the boat is string and match-sticks. Tears blur his eyes and his face is a macramé of snot.
He drops the splintered toy and looks up to see big, black Gladys, the cleaning woman, standing on the deck, watching him. She doesn’t usually work on a Sunday, but last week Caroline asked her to come up from her shack in Mandela Park, to help clean up the mess after the party, and nobody thought to phone her.
As Gladys approaches him, her shiny, low-heeled shoes sinking into the sand, Exley sees that she is crying. Caroline must have told her what happened, when she buzzed her in.
“Mr. Nick,” Gladys says, “Sunny, she is…?”
Exley wipes a gout of snot from his face with the back of his hand, nodding, and this woman to whom he has said maybe ten words in the months she has cleaned their house enfolds him to her massive bosom, the scent of cheap soap and talcum powder rising from her warm flesh.
It is comforting, being held like this, and he wishes he could stay here forever.
She releases him and walks to the water’s edge, staring down at the sand, scuffed by the feet of the paramedics, a single latex glove—muddied and obscene—lying just beyond the reach of the surf. Gladys points out at the water in the cove.
“Is it there that she died?”
Exley sees Sunny floating down near the kelp, her hair trailing, the last few bubbles of air escaping her mouth, and he’s sure now that she died underwater, and that the rent-a-cop—despite his heroic efforts—did nothing but fill her dead lungs with his breath.
“Yes,” Exley says. “Did Caroline tell you what happened?”
The big woman shakes her head. “No, I don’t see Miss Caroline. She is only buzzing me in. Sunny tell me, in a dream.” Gladys steps close to Exley, who says nothing, staring at her. “Last night, I dream about water.
Similar Books
