With the girlfriend gone, I can’t afford this place, so
it’s downsizing time.
Going through box after box in the attic, I come across my
old camera. There’s an unfinished film inside. With the camera pensioned off
when I got my first smart phone, the film must be all of ten years old.
In town the next day I find a feller down in the arcade who
still does developing. The age of the film shouldn’t be a problem. But it turns
out the price tag includes having to listen to an endless story about his dog.
When I collect the prints the following day, I’m suddenly
quite excited. No idea what they’ll show. I escape the storyteller and grab a
coffee. Most of the snaps are either under or over-exposed. There’s one or two
where I’ve tried and failed to be arty. But the final one stuns me.
I’ve no memory of it being taken. Perhaps the barman took
the shot.
Four of us, arms over shoulders, like first row forwards,
grinning like idiots. Me and my old school pal Jonno and two Aussie’s we’d just
met in a club.
A down-at-heel place, above one or other of the rivers, on
the edge of the old town. I can still hear the deafening music, taste the
cheap, greasy pizza and feel the stifling heat – and my thumping head. We’d all
had more than a few.
A summer night, warm as hell, t-shirts, shorts and
flip-flops. We walked along the bank to where the two rivers joined. Right at
the end of the spit, there was a grassy patch and two ancient tram rails
leading nowhere, apart from into the river.
We lay on our backs star-gazing. Jonno and Luc fell asleep.
Their snoring set me and Mads off giggling. When she kissed me – well I
couldn’t believe it.
The next moment, she was up and away, standing on the edge
of the water, waking Luc with a shout and telling him to follow her. They waded
out between the rails.
Then in a flash they disappeared.
I thought they’d resurface further downstream, laughing
their heads off. But they didn’t.
Jonno was still out of it. Besides he couldn’t swim, so it
was all down to me.
The water wasn’t as cold as I’d feared, but just as murky
as I’d imagined. Submerged, I had to feel around for any sign of them. But there
was only water and mud – and those rails, sloping away.
Coming up for air, I called to Jonno. Had he seen anything?
No reply.
My search continued, but as exhaustion set in, it dawned on
me that I had to save myself. With no chance of getting back to the spit,
against the current, my only option was to drift further downstream and hope.
A few metres to the left and the boat would have hit me.
But I was in luck. It saved me. Breathless, I managed a few garbled sentences
and listened as they put out a search and rescue message. The incoming was an
incomprehensible squawk.
No trace was found of Luc and Mads.
Jonno refused to believe they’d perished. Hard to
understand, but he felt sort of responsible for their disappearance, the way
he’d been out of it that night. Over the years he’s made enquiries, but with so
little to go on – no surnames, no addresses and only our own hazy descriptions
– he’s got nowhere.
But now we have a snapshot. They’ll have changed after all
this time, but still, there’s a chance someone will recognise them.
I scan and email the pic to Jonno. Message back – he’ll be
on to it straight away. ‘Mr Social Media’, him – a foreign language to me.
Nothing, until two months later, an email from ‘Melbourne
Mads’.
How did you get that photo?
I reply, explaining about the long-undeveloped film, asking
what had happened after she and Luc disappeared into the darkness of the river,
telling her of my rescue attempt.
She phones me.
The two of them had just drifted off downstream, too high
to be worried, never a thought that I’d try and follow them. I’d seemed far too
sensible for that. And where is Luc now, I ask. She doesn’t know. They’d
drifted apart. And that kiss. Does she remember. Sure, she does! How about a
repeat performance, she asks?
That would be great, I tell her, but it would take a while
to save up the air fare to Oz.
No need, she says.
She’s in London and has been for nearly ten years.