Down in the shallows pelicans fed on the fish bait, Barry said, or ghost shrimp perhaps, John added. Later John spotted an egret sunning itself on the spit of land opposite and we came around to the corner of the clubhouse to see it. The egret held symbolic importance in Zen, Barry said, something concerning rebirth it may have been. A day or two before Barry had seen one fly over his car and perch on a branch near the creek where we had planned to sprinkle the ashes; a little augury it could have been taken.
There were more pelicans than gulls on the water; a couple of swans came over later when they thought there was some feed being offered.
Barry knew the area from the time of the old racecourse grandstand further around; a palm that had been planted at the time of the racing remained as the sole remnant now. Further around again on the point the pines that European newcomers had planted stood along the water’s edge.
A hundred metres off the road looking across the bay the sky stretched wide, the water below and the body of space between more vast still. Two container ships sat far out toward the horizon. John knew not to attempt any photographs of the scene, it was impossible. In the streets of the suburbs behind the visual field was always sharply narrowed.
From the corner of the clubhouse where we watched the egret John and Barry pointed out the joyrider out on the water speeding between the ships. The white caps they indicated were difficult to sight so far off and so low on the water. It took some while. The waves of sound carrying across the distance seemed to bear no relation to the cutting of the surface out there. It was likely a jet-ski, John thought. During the war the British had erected some kind of large artificial ears on their shores attempting to pick up any approaching German ships. (The Anglophile John again,)
A couple of chaps later told of the imminent demolition of what was the Deaf Angling Club on the right. There had been a long, unsuccessful campaign trying to save the building and on the Monday the bulldozers were due. The older clubhouse adjacent John knew from a previous investigation. With its simple fireplace and rough seating it had remained unaltered from the time of its construction fifty or sixty years before.
Prior to the sprinkling of the ashes Barry read out a couple of Bible verses he had prepared, something from Johnabout the light after the dark passage. Baz like his cousin had read the various spiritual texts over the years. The sljivovicbrought along was relished by Barry in particular and enjoyed later by the other couple of chaps concerned about the demolition.
A simple ceremony like this was fitting, for someone like Al in particular, who had never had anything to do with formalities. Expelled from the local Tech in the first form, hard drinking so many years, improvised Blues and the dope—it was difficult to think of anyone in the acquaintance so far removed. The depth of Al’s private grief over the English girl Nora in youth was only properly suggested by Baz later in the afternoon, after the ceremony at the creek. There were hidden letters Barry had found up in Alan’s flat. A voluble man like that—we had called him Yell at one point—keeping the hurt so close.
A couple of generations ago up in the ancestral village the improvised arrangements for death might have been something similar—without any officialdom of any kind, religious or other; simple words and straightforward dealing.
The weight of the plastic cylinder was unexpected; five kilograms John estimated. Pepper-like carbonised traces dotted the white and grey grain and dust.
Barry took the first turn and we two followed, the wind blowing some of the lighter granules back over the little dock and onto our shoes.
Against the dock in the shallows of the creek the bulk of the fragments made a little billowing cloud, before slowly sinking into the water. Barry had brought some flowers that he had picked somewhere, the magenta being the colour worn by the highest rank of Buddhist devotees, he said.
There had been six or seven visits to the hospitals and the home over Al’s decline. Barry had managed more and for his part John hadn’t been able to bring himself to it.
Words like images on a photographic roll were impossible. On this particular western edge of the city where only the smallest sliver of the built environment intruded the breadth of space seemed to funnel down onto the little dock and the tin clubhouse behind. No graveyard within the urban limits could have offered anything like it. The system of water, sky and air, with the birds and the sand bed of the estuary, served the purpose very well. Smoke or feathered ash might possibly have been the most appropriate release into that space, but that was a poetic nicety.
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