‘It’s really lovely,’ said Frances.
‘Oh my God, could we leave the poetry and the football and maybe just focus on getting out of here?’ said Lars, as he picked up an empty water bottle, aimed it like a javelin and threw it up towards the ceiling. It hit the rafter and bounced back again.
‘I’ll get that parcel,’ said Tony, and his chest swelled and his shoulders went back like a superhero emerging from a telephone box.
chapter fifty-six Yao
‘What are they doing?’ asked Masha.
‘I think Tony is going to try to launch off their backs like he’s in a game of football,’ said Yao worriedly.
‘That’s crazy,’ said Masha. ‘He’s too heavy! He will hurt them!’
‘They’re hungry and tired,’ said Yao. ‘They’re not thinking straight.’
‘It’s so obvious what they should do,’ said Masha.
‘Yes,’ said Yao. Lars had the right idea.
‘Why are they not building a simple human pyramid?’ said Masha.
Yao looked at her to see if she was serious.
‘They are just not that smart,’ said Masha. ‘This is the problem we face, Yao. They are not smart people.’
chapter fifty-seven Frances
Napoleon and Ben had positioned themselves beneath the rafter, their heads lowered, their bodies tensed.
‘Should we jump at the same time?’ suggested Napoleon. ‘Give you more height?’
‘No,’ said Tony. ‘Just stand still.’
‘I don’t think this is such a good idea,’ said Carmel.
‘It’s a ludicrous idea,’ said Lars.
‘Now that you mention it . . .’ began Heather, but it was too late.
Tony ran from the doorway at full pace.
He leaped up vertically, one knee dug into Napoleon’s back, the other into Ben’s shoulder. For a fraction of a second, Frances saw the young man within the old. The athlete he’d once been was there in the length of his body and the resolve in his eyes.
He got up there! Impossibly high! He was going to do it! What a hero! One hand slapped the rafter, but then he crashed to the floor on his side with an almighty thud. Napoleon and Ben staggered in opposite directions, muffling curses.
‘That wasn’t at all predictable,’ sighed Lars.
Tony sat up cradling one elbow, his face as white as toothpaste.
Frances got onto her knees next to him, to be supportive, even though her knees crunched. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I think I just dislocated my shoulder.’
Frances’s stomach turned at the sight of his shoulder protruding at a strange, distressing angle.
‘Don’t move it,’ said Heather.
‘No,’ said Tony. ‘I need to move it. It’s going to pop back in when I move it.’
He moved his arm. There was an audible pop.
Frances toppled in a dead faint straight into his lap.
chapter fifty-eight
Zoe
Zoe’s poor dad clutched his back where he’d just borne the entire weight of one Smiley Hogburn. She was kind of surprised that her mother had allowed that little exercise to go ahead. Maybe it was the drugs, or her crazy fury over the drugs, or maybe it was just that she and her dad were starstruck by meeting an AFL legend.
‘Sorry, everyone,’ said Tony. ‘Last night I dreamed I was playing again. This felt . . . this felt like it would be easy.’ He gently patted poor Frances on the cheek. ‘Wake up, lady writer.’
Frances sat up self-consciously from Tony’s lap and pressed a single fingertip to the centre of her forehead. She looked around her. ‘Did we get the package down?’
‘Not quite,’ said Zoe’s dad, who never wanted anyone to feel like a failure. ‘Very close!’
Zoe looked around for something to throw up at the rafter. She picked up a three-quarters-full bottle of water, held it in the palm of her hand and took aim.
She hit the package straight on. It fell into Ben’s hands.
‘Nice shot.’ He handed it to her.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Open it,’ instructed Jessica, as if Zoe had been intending to just look at it for a while.
The package had that firm, soft consistency of something encased in bubble wrap. She fumbled with the masking tape and tore at the brown paper.
‘Careful,’ said her mother. ‘It might be breakable.’
Zoe pulled at the tape on the bubble wrap and was reminded of opening a birthday gift, surrounded by people at a party, all eyes on her and Zach. Tomorrow was their twenty-first birthday. It might be time to reclaim it. She thought that maybe, once they got back to Melbourne, she would tell her parents that she wanted to go to La Fattoria for pizza to celebrate her twenty-first. It felt suddenly as if it might be possible to do some of the things they’d stopped doing after Zach died. It wouldn’t be the same without him, it would never be the same, but it felt possible. She would still take off the olives and leave them along the edge of her plate for Zach.
And now she really, really felt like pizza. Her mouth watered at the thought of pepperoni. She would never take pepperoni for granted again.
She unrolled the bubble wrap. Inside was a small hand-painted wooden doll of a little girl wearing a scarf around her head and an apron around her waist. She had red circles on her cheeks and quizzically angled eyebrows. She seemed to be saying to Zoe, ‘Uh, hello?’
Zoe turned it around and held it upside down.
‘It’s a Russian doll,’ said her mother.
‘Oh, right.’ Zoe twisted the top and bottom halves of the doll in opposite directions to reveal the smaller doll inside.
She handed the halves to her mother, and opened the next doll.
Within moments there was a row of five dolls of increasingly smaller sizes on the floor between them.
‘Wait, is that the last one?’ said Carmel. ‘It’s empty. Normally there is a tiny final doll that you can’t open.’
‘No message?’ said Frances. ‘I thought the security code would be inside the last one!’
‘So what the hell does that mean then?’ said Ben.
‘I don’t know.’ Zoe tried to suppress a yawn. She was all at once exhausted. She longed for her own bed, for her phone, for pizza, for all this to be over.
‘Okay, this is really starting to piss me off now,’ said Lars.
chapter fifty-nine
Masha
Masha saw Yao’s smile of relief fade from his face as he watched the screen.
‘But wait, why isn’t the code in the doll?’ He turned to Masha. ‘The plan was to put the security code in the doll!’
Masha lifted up the last tiny doll from where it sat on her keyboard and held it between her fingertips. ‘Yes, you’re right, that was the original plan.’
‘So . . . but why isn’t it there?’ Yao’s eyebrows were drawn together just like those of the doll.
‘I had an epiphany,’ said Masha. ‘While I was meditating. Suddenly I knew what needed to be done in order for them to achieve true transformation after their psychedelic experiences. This – what is happening to these nine people right now – is quite literally a koan. It is a koan in practice.’ He must surely see the brilliance of it.
Yao stared at her without comprehension.
‘A koan is a paradox that leads to enlightenment!’ said Masha. ‘A koan demonstrates the inadequacy of their logical thinking!’
‘I know what a koan is,’ said Yao slowly.
‘Once they surrender and accept that there is no solution, well then, they will be free. That is the central paradox of this koan,’ said Masha. ‘The solution is no solution.’
‘The solution is no solution,’ repeated Yao.
‘Exactly. Do you remember this koan? A master who lived as a hermit on a mountain was asked by a man, “What is the way?” and the master said, “What a fine mountain this is.” The man felt frustrated. He said, “I am not asking you about the mountain, but about the way!” The master said, “So long as you cannot go beyond the mountain, my son, you cannot reach the way.”’
‘So in this case the mountain is . . . the security door?’
‘Take detailed notes,’ said Masha impatiently. She pointed at the screen and at his notepad. ‘Don’t forget. This is very important for the book we will write.’