Free Treading Air by Ariella Van Luyn Page A

talking to another man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, his fingers loosely curved around a briefcase. A woman holds a girl in a white dress and hat by the hand, pushing a low pram with the other, a linen sheet draped over the baby. The buildings turn down flat faces of brick and curved balustrade and lattice. Bikes lean against the gutters, a car butted up against one’s tyre. Joe slows down, and Lizzie stops to look at the window of a jeweller’s shop. Nothing takes her fancy. She’s surprised at the progress of the place. She’d imagined some backwater, but there’s people out, ten or more on the street around her. Maybe Joe was right to bring them here. Unburdened by the bags, she feels lighter, more capable.
    â€˜Where are we going?’ she asks.
    Joe doesn’t answer, squints against the glare. He speeds up, drags them to a fruit stall, decked out with a striped awning and bright with swollen watermelons and mangoes. A sign above it, written in capital letters with elaborate flourishes: ‘The Fruit Orchard’. Joe says something to the man behind the counter that she doesn’t catch. The man nods, ducks underneath the lip of the counter and comes out with a paper bag rolled at the top. Joe passes over money. The man pockets it. Joe hands her the bag.
    She takes it between thumb and finger, and screws up her nose. ‘Hell’s this?’
    Joe grins at her.
    She feels like slapping him. ‘Got me hopes up, you bastard.’
    â€˜Wait, wait.’ He brings her round the corner, and the beach comes on them unexpectedly, the waves small and quiet.
    â€˜Water’s brown,’ she says. The bite of disappointment.
    He leads her down to the beach, a fringe of palm trees at their backs. Lizzie sits with the bag on her lap and waits for him to settle himself. She unrolls the top of the paper. A red apple nestles in the bag’s creased bottom. She pulls it up by its stalk and makes to throw it at Joe, but he grabs it from her hand. She sits with her arms crossed, staring out to sea and the blue-purple outline of Magnetic Island hovering on the horizon.
    Joe pierces the apple’s dotted skin with his pocketknife, cuts it in half. One side falls open, exposes the flesh, curved and pale like skin left too long in the dark. The star of seeds on the inside is missing. Instead, a paper twist of white powder.
    â€˜For my snow queen,’ Joe says, presenting it to her.
    â€˜Golly! That’s not –?’
    He grins at her again. ‘’Tis.’
    â€˜Where’d you find it?’
    He shrugs. ‘Man on the train told me. Put your hand out.’
    She obeys, palm down, and Joe turns it up to him. He taps the snow onto her wrist. She hesitates. Doesn’t want to make a fool of herself. The powder stirs in the wind.
    â€˜Don’t let it blow away.’ He cups his hand over her wrist. ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ He blocks off one nostril, put his nose to her wrist and snorts. She giggles at his cold inhalation on her skin. He taps more snow out for her and lifts her wrist to her nose. ‘Sniff.’
    She sucks it up, laughing, thinking that there will be no one to stop her, to make her feel small. She’s free with Joe up here, where nobody knows them.
    Joe and Lizzie scramble up the side of Castle Hill, their feet skittering over loose stones. Her dress tangles in brittle shrubs, and she stoops to unhook herself. He charges ahead. She heaves forward, feels the material of her skirt rip, grabs on to a clump of grass to pull herself away, and she is after him.
    A tree trunk materialises from the darkness. She brakes hard. Joe crashes up ahead, takes hold of the rough bark and launches off the trunk. She has her hand out now, searching for him. The moon above them. Her body heavy. She can’t see Joe. She stops, and the space around her hums with crickets. A weight on her shoulder. She shudders, raises her hand to brush the thing away, but