Elemental by Amanda Curtin

Author:Amanda Curtin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC041000, FIC014000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2016-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

I had seen cornflowers and the North Sea and every kind of sky. I had seen Magnus Tulloch’s eyes. I thought I knew blue. And then I saw Fremantle.

Of all the memories I have of arriving, finally, in this stranger-place, the furthest place on earth from the cold north, it is this one, lambsie, this memory that is the strongest, the brightest, the one to catch my breath even now when I think of it. Wasn’t just that the sky was blue but that there was so much of it. A blue that began at the horizon and went on forever, deeper here, brighter there, but all blue, unbroken. I did not think of the word relentless then. Later, when I knew what blue could be, when I’d felt its heat, the jangle and glare of it—aye, then I did. But we arrived when summer had passed, and it was a while before I met this other blue.

On the weekends, Magnus Tulloch and I would walk from our hostel in Fremantle to the edge of the Indian Ocean, just to look, to exclaim to each other: Was there ever sand so fine, so white? Water so pure? Black an’ blue with fish, I’ll wager, Magnus Tulloch said, and I wondered what manner of fish they would be. I knew they would not be herring. No drifters here, no farlins, no gutting girls. It made me think of Clementina, her big laugh, the way she used to scowl … Clementina, my sister now. And I’d wipe the sun from my streaming eyes.

Magnus Tulloch liked to peel off his shoes and socks and let the bubbles left behind by waves foam over his toes, and he would pick up slippery ropes of brown weed and pop the berries between his fingers, a smile on his face. But not me, no. I did not want to look at seaweed swilling in the shallows. Look up, I told myself, look up and learn to unremember.

Magnus Tulloch would grab me by the hand and we’d run along the shore with the clean wind in our faces. Often there’d be no-one else there, it was like we’d the new world to ourselves. The wind would never leave my hair alone, no mind how well I tied or pinned it, and Magnus Tulloch would kiss me, gathering up the wildness in his hands. He’d pretend his palms were burning to the touch of it—ee, ach!—but it was gentle teasing, sweet and gentle. Promise me, Meggie, he’d say, promise ye’ll never cut it. And I did promise, aye. I’d have promised anything when the wide sky was in Magnus Tulloch’s eyes.

As we walked back through the dunes, Magnus Tulloch would stop and look at every plant—the spiky, the tough and weathered, the ones with furry leaves and clear green sap. He’d pick away at mussels on limestone rocks that crumbled easily into fine sand, and I would wonder could they last, how long could they last, the buildings

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