The Blind Eye (19 page)

Lachesis. – –
. . . The Surukuku Snake of South America . . .
Characteristics. – –
To the genius and heroism of Hering the world owes this remedy and many another of which this has been the forerunner. When Hering’s first experiments were made he was botanising and zoologising on the Upper Amazon for the German Government. Except his wife, all those about him were natives, who told him so much about the dreaded Surukuku that he offered a good reward for a live specimen. At last one was brought in a bamboo box, and those who brought it immediately fled, and all his native servants with them. Hering stunned the snake with a blow on the head as the box opened, then, holding its head in a forked stick, he pressed the venom out of the poison bag upon sugar of milk. The effect of handling the virus and preparing the lower attenuations was to throw Hering into a fever with tossing delirium and mania – much to his wife’s dismay. Towards morning he slept, and on waking his mind was clear. He drank a little water to moisten his throat and the first question this indomitable prover asked was: ‘What did I do and say?’ His wife remembered vividly enough. The symptoms were written down, and this was the first instalment of the proving of
Lachesis
.

John Henry Clarke,
A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica

1

The tide turns at Port Tremaine more quickly than one would ever expect. In the long, lazy heat of the day, the water might just reach the middle of the jetty, licking the bottom of the fourth set of stairs from the shoreline, leaving a wide stretch of weed-littered sand between the road that runs along the beach and the stillness of the gulf waters. Under the harshness of that sun, the air is thick with the rich, salty smell of rotting weeds as the brown and green clumps curl up, dry and brittle, and it seems impossible that there could ever be no beach, that the road could become the only border between town and sea.

Then the tide turns, swiftly, stealthily. The soft ripple of the water as it flows in leaves tiny fish flicking in a desperate attempt to fight against the pull of the current. Parched dry weeds flatten out into crescent strips of brown, black and glossy green as the ocean licks them, submerges them, swiftly creeping towards the third set of stairs and then the second and first, until it is soon covering a beach that once
seemed too wide, too impossible a distance to traverse in order to reach the cool, cool sea.

That is when you get caught, if you aren’t a local, if you aren’t in the know. Visitors who come to fish drive their cars with boats in tow all the way to where the sea reaches the land, not realising how quickly it can turn, leaving them bogged or, if they are even more unlucky, submerged.

When the tide was right, Mick would close the garage early and take a few beers, plus the previous night’s chops for bait, and spend the last hours of the day with Jason or Steve. They would sit on the bench that formed a barricade at the end of the jetty, the remaining few metres having washed away years earlier, and cast their lines out to where the pylons rear haphazardly out of the clear depth of the sea.

They were usually the first to see the few outsiders that ever came to this place. They would watch them pull up in their cars, look out across the gulf and then decide to drive their boats across the expanse of sand to where the ocean finally meets the land. With their lines dangling, Mick and Jason would wait, knowing how easily someone could find themselves trapped, caught, by the rapid turning of those tides.

As he swam in from the warm, still water to the shore, Silas, too, saw the station wagon parked out where the beach ended. He had been floating on his back, washing away the dust and grit that had clung to his skin, coating him
as he had made the long walk back from Rudi’s, disappointed that he had not seen Constance at all that morning. He had spent four hours trapped in the stuffiness of that shack, without once catching sight of her, listening to Rudi’s enthusiastic descriptions of the latest project he had embarked upon.

It is a proving
, he had explained,
a testing. The therapeutic effects of the common brown snake
, and he had shown Silas the copious notes, scrawled across scraps of paper, that he had begun to take.

You drink the venom?
Silas had asked, amazed, because he had never really listened to any of Rudi’s explanations; he had not even begun to understand the first elements of the process.

It is Constance who does this for me
, and Rudi had spread his papers across the table.
Ideally we should have many more provers, but what can you do?
He had shrugged his shoulders.

He had wanted Silas to read his notes. He had cleared a chair for him, eagerly moving books to the floor, asking him if he was comfortable, if there was anything he could get him.

And, please, any questions, I am happy to answer
.

There had been no escape. Nor had there been any possibility of just skimming the pages; Rudi had wanted to discuss it all, each point, explaining that this was only the beginning of his most important project to date. It was the
differences he was looking for, the subtle differences between each of the most venomous snakes of the region, and he was relying on Constance to help him build up a picture of each potential remedy.

As Silas dried himself under the shade of a scragply white gum, the gravel sharp beneath his feet, his whole body stiff from the hours he had spent pinned to that hard wooden chair, he wondered at how the venom had failed to harm her.

Knotting his sarong around his waist, Silas looked out to the jetty. He could see Mick waving at someone in the distance, calling out with one hand cupped around his mouth, and he turned as Steve came into view, his thick body tensed with an expectation of something about to happen as he hurried along the road towards him.

Tide’s turned
. He was rubbing his hands together, barely glancing in Silas’s direction, as he held one thumb up, signalling to Mick that he knew, he understood and was on his way.

Out in the glaring heat of the afternoon, they gathered next to the white clock-faced tide gauge: Mick, Jason, Steve and the owner of the stranded station wagon, eager to strike a deal.

It was Steve who laid down the rules.
Beers all round, and we’re talking a slab. Each
.

The owner didn’t argue.

Not sure what was about to happen but curious, Silas followed, out to where the tide had risen past his calves, almost to his knees, and to where the car was rapidly sinking into the soft wet sand. This was a ritual he had not yet witnessed, and he grinned to himself as he felt the water dragging on the edge of his sarong, the weight of it, and somewhere, caught in the folds, tiny fish nibbling at the backs of his knees.

Steve told them all where to stand and Silas, who had not been given a position, took the only space available, at the driver’s wheel, next to Mick.

One, two, three, easy boys
. The veins stood out on Steve’s face, the grunt was animal as he gave his instructions.

With both hands under the car, Silas could feel his sarong slipping away, pulled down by the water, and he wondered, for a moment, whether he should try to hold it. As he tripped on the loose cloth, he heard someone shout out, his voice a howl of pain, and then he realised he had lost it; the cloth was floating around him and he was standing there, naked to all.

It was Steve who asked him what the fuck he thought he had been doing.

It was Jason who helped Mick up to the shore.

Jesus
, and as Steve lifted his sunglasses, Silas realised it was the first time he had seen him without them.

It was an accident
, he protested.

Steve’s spit was thick and yellow and it floated, bobbing
close to his calves as they made their way back to the others, the water churning around them, neither of them saying a word.

Jason already had the car, the engine at full throttle, and as Silas apologised, offering to help ease Mick into the back seat, Mick just stared at him.

It was an accident
, Silas said again, and then, slightly angry now, he shook his head.
For godsakes, you don’t think I did it on purpose?

Mick just kept his eyes fixed on Silas, his gaze unwavering, as Jason slammed the door shut and Steve gunned the engine, and Silas was left standing alone, his attempt at a final protestation heard by no one but himself, the thick dust coating him as the car disappeared up the main street and headed out towards the highway.

He did not go back to Thai’s until the last of the crimson in the sky had purpled and the ocean glittered black beneath the single light at the end of the jetty. He just sat there on that bench, and wondered what he was doing in this place, until finally he pulled himself up and made his way along the deserted road past the boarded-up houses and across the dirt yard.

She was on the verandah alone. The light was on in the house behind her and Silas could see Matt, back for one of his rare visits, asleep in the armchair in front of the television, the kids lying on the floor around him.

Thai just looked at him, taking a long swig of the beer by her side and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Hear you pissed a few people off today
, and the clink of the bottle was loud as she knocked it over, the beer spilling out in a sticky stream near her feet.

They’ll get over it
, Silas told her, tired now.

She stood up slowly, unsteady on her legs as she leant against the door frame, closing her eyes momentarily to stop the sickening spin in her head. She had her tobacco clutched in one hand, the dope in the other, the bottle she had just left lying in the pool of beer.

Mick reckons you’ve got it in for him
, and she lurched slightly.

What?
Silas didn’t understand. He didn’t even know Mick.

That’s what he reckons, mate
, and she coughed, trying to clear the huskiness in her throat.

Did he say why?

She just shook her head,
that’s what he reckons
, the repeated words a faint mumble as she pushed the flyscreen door open and stumbled inside.

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