Donald Tomlinson was twenty-four and it was 1973 when, grog-addled, he lost control on the Hume and skidded into a tree. His bike and his bones broke into jagged pieces. One of those pieces drove into his brain.
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Donald Tomlinson was twenty-three when he walked home through the bones of Altona after impregnating Suzie MacNabb. The world was making those hollow morning sounds, was breathing quietly and rhythmically, a pale blue break in the fever of summer. His elation was curdling into a hangover. He was munching on a couple of pellets of P.K. chewing gum. His balls felt sweaty and monstrous in his jeans.
A ute trundled past. He put his hand on a brick wall for a moment, just for a moment.
He thought of Suzie MacNabb squeezing out of her jeans and undies. He thought of her mouth and her high cheekbones and the backs of her knees. He thought Mick MacNabb would kill him.
Over the wall, a conveyer belt grunted and thunked and joined the morning chorus. Cranes and scaffolds peered down on Donald Tomlinson. A tattered blue BLF flag whipped on a cable high above. He looked up at it. Suzie's tits, he thought, and grinned. He leaned over the gutter and gently spat out his gum.
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Suzie MacNabb was nineteen and new to vodka on the night she was picked by fate for motherhood. Inexpertly she splashed it into cups of Passiona and marvelled at how little it changed the taste. Den Carmichael had waved the bottle at her, here you go love. She'd come to his party with her brother. She had been keener on the idea than Mick.
Tucking her limbs into the couch on the patio, watching across the road as the ocean sloshed in. Sipping at her straw, pushing flyaway hair out of her face. She listened to Mick berating Den with his opinions about minimum wages, the same ones he forever rehearsed on Dad. She laughed at Donald's jokes. She was small, she made herself small, her forehead high and sweet and underlined by dark brows, and beneath, her brown eyes were bright and big as bottle caps. And Donald Tomlinson was thinking, I'm half a chance here.
At two in the morning, at four-fifths of the bottle, as the music and the bullshit only grew louder, she made his half-chance a sure thing, taking his hand as he whispered her over the road to walk on the beach.
At eight in the morning, stepping gingerly over her brother passed out on the carpet, feeling the sand in her jeans and in her bra, wondering where Donald was and half-afraid of finding him, Suzie MacNabb pushed open Den's front door to look out at the ocean.
The surf kept folding over itself, genuflecting on a strip of sand the color of haybales, and meekly slipping away.
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Tristan MacNabb was nine and it was 1983 when the wall of Mallee dust blew in. He was chasing down the Mr Whippy van. He could hear its jangly beckoning song somewhere in the backstreets of Altona. Heading for the beach, Tristan thought.
It was hot, early February and forty-three degrees in the shade. Tristan was not in any shade. He felt combustible. This is what a chicken feels like in the oven, he thought. I need an ice-cream or I'll die, he thought.
The road shimmered and the wind gusted hot and angry. The world appeared to be melting. The dollar in his fist was drenched and beginning to come apart. Tristan heard Greensleeves warble around a corner, nearer, and he stepped off the footpath. In the gutter a blackened wad of gum caught his thong. His foot came out, and when his flesh met the asphalt, it burst into flames. Invisible flames. He hopped around on one leg, cradling his foot in his hands, screaming bloody bloody shit.
Dying, he limped on, his thong sucking at the road with every other step.
Around a corner, on the esplanade, he found Mr Whippy and the apocalypse. From the west came a great churning cloud, higher than anything he had ever seen, reaching down, he thought, from space. It roiled like a tidal wave of tomato soup with cream stirred through. It grew larger and closer with every second.
"Hey kid!" bellowed Mr Whippy.
Tristan MacNabb gaped at the dust cloud and thought of death. He thought of sudden death. He thought of the last moments of his father's life. He'd never met him but he knew the story from Uncle Mick, who had been graphic and cruel in recounting it. Wheeling madly all over the road until his brain exploded.
"Jesus, kid! It's not safe!"
There was a roar, darkness and the blast of red farm soil. It sought his eyes and nose and throat. Tristan squinted and shielded his face with his forearm. He blew out his cheeks and ran for it, the remnant gum on his sole catching and pulling at the road like mozzarella, the king's love song tinkling in the artificial night, regaling the end of the world.
This is a way we've never met. It joins other ways, like in the park, by picnic spots, and face down in the mud, by testicles.