Love is important. The small things are important. Whether Henry is in love with me or not, he loves me. Whether Cal and George are together or not, he loved her and she loved him back.
This is where I start.
‘It was Cal,’ I tell her. We’re outside the store so we can have privacy. As gently as I can, I tell her that he died.
She stares up at a sky that actually looks starless tonight. A sky can’t be starless. But the lights of the city are doing their best to drown them out.
‘He died almost a year ago now.’
I expected her to be angry, but she’s completely still, except for the pressure she puts on my hand.
‘What happened?’ she asks, and I start anywhere. I don’t know where the beginning is really.
I describe him on the beach, in Mum’s floppy hat and huge sunglasses, writing in his journal. ‘I think he was writing his last letter to you.’ I’m going to find that letter for her. I’ll start with the box, and if it’s not there I’ll go home and search every inch of the house for it.
‘Mum and I were talking about the future. My future. We were planning what university I’d go to, talking about the best ones for marine biology.
‘He put down his pen, took off his hat and glasses, and ran towards the water, calling for me to follow him, but I stayed on the beach talking with Mum.’
I can see Cal running into the water under this thin and yellow light, while Mum and I sat on the beach and talked about tomorrow.
The thing that most people don’t realise about drowning is that it’s quiet. Cal was such a good swimmer, the possibility of him dying that way didn’t occur to us. He and I had been much further out on other days. We’d swum at night, in dangerous places, and we were fine. It makes no sense that he died that day, at that time, when the water looked so still.
He drowned while I asked Mum if I could have a bellybutton ring, and she said yes, and asked me how they did it. He drowned while I waved away a fly. While I looked at the buckled trees, while I imagined sex with Joel, while I excavated sand with my toes.
‘We tried to save him,’ I say. ‘We got him to the beach.’
I don’t tell her about Mum standing quickly and looking into the water. How I started laughing, and said, ‘What?’ because I thought Cal was doing something funny.
‘I can’t see him,’ she said, taking off her dress before she ran to the water. These are the lost seconds that bother Mum. ‘Why did I bother taking off my fucking dress?’ I’ve heard her say to Gran. ‘Why?’
‘Because you did,’ Gran said. ‘And it wouldn’t have mattered. He was gone.’
I tell George instead that Cal died in the place he loved the most. I tell her it was quick – which I know, outside of nightmares, it would have been. I tell her that the last thing he did was write her the letter.
I tell her how far he’d thought himself far into the future, to when he would dive off the Gulf of Mexico, in the Green Canyon. I tell her about that canyon; about the animals he imagined seeing, deep below the surface, where the sunlight can’t reach. I tell her about the light down there, light from billions of micro-organisms that glow in the dark. Spots of light – like drifting snow.
She and I walk to my car. I take out the box and we sit on the curb to look through it. There are journals and comics and a small world globe that I gave Cal once for Christmas. There are keys to his bike lock, some coins, his swimming goggles and a penknife. We find his library card, a CD. Maybe it seems strange to George that this is the box of things that Gran gave to me. But everything in here is important to me. It’s his life. I’ll never throw these small things away. There will never be a time when I don’t want them, all the tiny parts of Cal that made a life.
In the journal, just as I expected, there’s a letter for George. I hand it over without looking at it, and she reads it aloud. Cal loved George and she loved him back, and that’s no small thing. I look up at the light-drowned sky. I locate a star.
The letter is beautiful and brave and hearing it I know for certain that Henry was right. I’ve had the world the wrong way around. It’s life that’s important.
‘Can I get Martin for you?’ I ask George, after she’s finished reading.
‘Actually, I’d like that,’ she says. ‘He’s in the reading garden.’
I go inside, and bring him back to her.
Dear George
It’s the start of March; the end of summer, but it’s still warm. Not a lot of time left to swim.
I’m on the beach with my mum and my sister. My sister is Rachel Sweetie. I’m Cal Sweetie. Yep. The tall, skinny, goofy guy you’ve known pretty much all your life. Are you disappointed? I understand if you’re disappointed. I really hope you’re not disappointed.
I think we should go out on a date. One date. That way, you can see if you like me in person.
I’m about to go for a swim. And then I’m going to mail this letter to Howling Books. My friend Tim was putting the letters in the books for me, but he’s moved interstate.
So if you want to write back, send the letter to 11 Marine Parade, Sea Ridge 9873.
Love
Cal
Henry
life doesn’t always happen in the order that we want I keep calling Rachel on the way to her place. I call again and again but she doesn’t pick up. I leave message after message. ‘I messed up. I just didn’t know what I know now. It’s you and the bookshop that I want. I don’t need loads of money. I can live without a definite future as long as you’re in that indefinite future with me.’
I’m in what I’d describe as a love fever. I ask the taxi driver if he can go any faster. He points out that we’re not going at all, since we’re stuck in a traffic jam. ‘Someone’s broken down up ahead,’ he says.
‘Of course they have,’ I say, and put my head out of the window to see what’s going on. There’s something close to a four-car pile-up, so we’re not going anywhere fast. I pay the fare, get out, and start running. The rain that Rachel predicted earlier starts to fall.
It’s one of those summer thunderstorms that really hammer the ground. The thunder rolls but I keep running, splashing water as I go.
By the time I reach Rachel’s place, I’m soaked. I bang on the door and yell Rachel’s name. Her aunt opens it and frowns. ‘I know I fucked up,’ I tell her, trying to speak through heaving breaths. ‘But I can fix it if I can just talk to her.’
‘She’s not here,’ she says. ‘How did you fuck up?’
‘She didn’t say?’
‘I haven’t seen her.’
‘Fuck,’ I say, looking up at the rain and knowing I just spent my last bit of money on the taxi. ‘Fuck.’ I look at her. ‘I don’t have any money.’
‘Wait a minute,’ she says. ‘I’ll drive you.’
I’m out of the car as soon as it stops, running straight to the bookshop, dripping water all over the floor. I can’t see Rachel; I’m calling out her name as I search for Never Let Me Go. Nothing gets removed from the Library, so it must be here. ‘Rachel!’ I yell again, as I pull out the book, and flick through it to find the thin sheet of paper with Rachel’s handwriting on it.
12 December 2012
Dear Henry
I’m leaving this letter on the same page as ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ because you love the poem and I love you. I know you’re out with Amy, but fuck it – she doesn’t love you, Henry. She loves herself, quite a bit in fact. I love that you read. I love that you love second-hand books. I love pretty much everything about you, and I’ve known you for ten years, so that’s saying something. I leave tomorrow. Please call me when you get this, no matter how late.
Rachel
I have this feeling as I hold it that even though the bookshop is sold, all is not lost. We lose things, but sometimes we get them back. Life doesn’t always happen in the order that we want. ‘Rachel!’ I yell again.
‘You called?’ she says, and I turn around and she’s there. ‘You’re here.’
‘I was here all along,’ she says. ‘I spoke to George, and then I was sitting in the reading garden. Everyone’s out there – having a drink to say goodbye to the shop.’
‘I love you,’ I say.