Loving, Faithful Animal (17 page)

Now falling—help me down!

Now rising—help me up!

They can make a game out of anything, these three, Lani whispers, reaching for you across the hardwood floor. And I was so bloody afraid …

Falling slowly—help me fall slow!

Now rising!

Feel her hand close lightly around yours. Rising. Okay, yes. By some latent grace. The heart unclenching at the memory, at the echoed sensation of stepping into the stirrup made by someone's (
his
?
) interlaced fingers and having them
hup-hup-hup!
you weightless into the stinging, silvering air. Hanging there for a moment, suspended, caught like a star between the grainy sky and sea. When was that? And if you could press that moment flush to this, what might slip between? What might fall away, be lost?

You think, Here. Please. Let her find us just like this.

But the remembering is spooled away, the thread snapped. The girls fall once more into their father's arms as the broadcast turns to headlines—West Africa is falling, crude oil and the ruble are falling. Greece is still falling. Only sea levels and the US dollar are rising—and the man whose shoulders you flew above vanishes, now as always. Here again is the hardwood floor, like smacking back breathless to the glassy surface of the ocean. Dried blue husks of jacaranda blooms swept in under tables, behind chairs, caught amidst the household's dust. Your sister letting go your hand and getting up in time to see her, out there, making her way across the soaked lawn. Stepping ginger-footed through the confetti of blossoms crushed into the grass and stone, as if a parade has only just passed by.

Acknowledgements

Several organisations have contributed invaluably to the development of this book, and to my practice as a writer. I gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Yaddo Artists Colony, Arts Victoria, The Australia Council, Omi International Arts Centre, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University.

*

Wholehearted thanks to my editor, Ian See, for his patience, intuition and acuity; I could not have hoped for a sounder compass. Thank you Madonna Duffy, and all at UQP.

Thank you Tobias Wolff for your guidance and generosity, and for encouraging a longer endeavour. Thanks to Elizabeth Tallent, Adam Johnson and Daniel Mason for their care and counsel, and to my fellow Stegners over 2014 and 2015.

Thanks to Ocean Vuong, whose superb lines form the epigraph to this book. Thanks David Astle, for the cryptic wordsmithery that appears in ‘Breakwall'.

Thanks to Lang, Ash, Krien and McKay, for early insights. Thank you Jason Montano, for all the highway, silver halide, kindness. Thank you Chris Flynn and Angela Meyer, for being so sturdy and transpacific in your friendship. Thank you Judith Hamann.

Thank you, always, Patrick Pittman.

References

‘Breakwall' includes excerpts from the following texts:

Harold Holt, Vietnam Ministerial Statement, 17 October 1967.

Robert Menzies, Vietnam Ministerial Statement, 29 April 1965.

National Service Registration Office, conscription letter, Department of Labour and National Service, Sydney, 1967.

Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam,
Final Report, July 1985
, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1985.

United States Department of the Army,
Soldier's Handbook for Defense against Chemical and Biological Operations and Nuclear Warfare,
US Government Publishing Office, Washington, DC, 1967.

First published 2016 by University of Queensland Press

PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

www.uqp.com.au

[email protected]

© Josephine Rowe 2016

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research,

criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act,

no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior

written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cover design by Natalie Winter

Typeset in 12/16.5 pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

Author photograph by Jason Montano

Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Epigraph taken from ‘Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong' by Ocean Vuong,
published in
The New Yorker
, 4 May 2015. Reproduced with kind permission
of the author. Quote on page 48 taken from ‘Come-By-Chance' by
Banjo Paterson, published in
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses
,
Angus & Robertson, 1895. Quote on page 170 taken from ‘Dockery and Son'
by Philip Larkin, published in
The Whitsun Weddings
, Faber & Faber, London, 1964.
Reproduced with kind permission of Faber & Faber.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

This project is supported by the
Victorian Government through
Creative Victoria.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available at
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

ISBN

978 0 7022 5396 6 (pbk)

978 0 7022 5699 8 (ePDF)

978 0 7022 5700 1 (ePub)

978 0 7022 5701 8 (Kindle)

University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.