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.’ He tried to smile, surprised by how much he already wished she was with him.‘And then I spoke to you, about Gramps.And then the next morning I was standing opposite a poster at the tube station and I realised it had one of your photos on it.Gramps and Mum’d think it was a sign.’ He shrugged; she mirrored his movement.‘One of those photos where you were trying to flatten the bridge out, shoot straight along the front so you lost the arch altogether.You still shooting it, Charlie? You ever find a way to get up there?’She glanced at her watch.‘We could walk down now, if you want.Easy there and back before your mum gets here.I’ve tried to walk down most days since Gramps stopped.’ Glancing at her watch again.‘I just need to call a couple of people, if you want to.’ She waved towards the sofas, her other hand already reaching for the phone.Dan stood, took a couple of steps towards the window, his eyes watching the changing size of his reflection rather than anything on the other side of the glass.The morning sun, risen directly behind the building, was igniting the glass in the windows in front of him; he could almost feel the movement of the earth as it turned towards the huge warm ball and piece after piece of the city lit up.Below, people were moving into their days—some jogging, some walking, some with their arms raised for taxis.At the west-facing wall, Dan pressed his toes against the glass and worked his gaze down.Someone was crossing against the lights, too slowly for the traffic, although Dan realised after a moment he was only imagining the honking and the yelling from this entirely silent and sealed room.All he could hear was the hum of an air-conditioner and the low mutter of Charlie’s voice.Poor old Gramps; poor Charlie, obviously struggling, the way she skirted around it, away from it.He wished he’d had something better to say.Tipping his forehead to touch the window, keeping his breathing slow, he watched as a man at the lights hit the pedestrian button again and again, so impatient that he finally looked up, way up, in exasperation.Dan was sure their eyes met.He took half a step back again, lowered himself down to sit, trying to pick out buildings where he’d worked years before, buildings where friends had lived, probably didn’t anymore.He leaned forward and looked north along the street.But there was no trace of the bridge, obscured as it was by a nest of skyscrapers, metal and shiny reflective glass.It seemed wrong that the city’s panorama could be missing its most identifiable piece.No matter how far he moved, he couldn’t bring it into view, and he straightened at last, staring at all the windows and walls in front of him, wondering if this was Sydney at all—it could be anywhere.He lay down, his fingers patting the carpet’s pile, and he wondered what Charlie meant exactly about his mum not being as young as she was, and his eyes closed, heavy.‘Dan?’Sitting up too fast, his feet jerked against something hard—a table, the frame of a chair—and his hands pushed him up out of sleep.Brown carpet.Cream sofas.The huge thick window next to him.A complex light shade hanging from the ceiling above.For a moment—a breath, maybe long enough to count to three—he had no idea where he was.‘Dan?’ A hand on his shoulder and he turned to see Charlie there as the world slithered back into place, back into time.He squeezed her fingers, felt the pressure of the warmth they returned.‘Where’d you go?’ The ice had gone out of her voice, and she kept hold of his hand, smiling.‘I’ve got so many things to tell you.’‘About Gramps?’‘Kind of.Come on—let’s get out before you fall asleep again.’ And as she pulled him up, he steadied himself against her, gave her the hug he’d missed on the way in.‘I’m glad I came,’ he said.Going down in the lift, he tried again, and failed, to piece together the shapes and turns of the streets that would connect where they were to where they were going.Dear Caro, he thought, imagining a postcard, an email, a text, You’ll be pleased to know that Sydney’s streets have rearranged themselves while I’ve been away so it’s not just London that I can’t pin down.I’m walking with Charlie; I came too late; I wish you were here.The higher sun shut his eyes into a squint as soon as he stepped outside, narrowing the tunnel of space he could see, and he strode out fast to keep up with Charlie’s pace.When they were little, when they came into the city, sometimes by ferry down the river, or by a train that clattered across the famous bridge, Dan and Charlie played a game, imagining everything disappearing, winding back to a Sydney that was only dirt tracks and rough tents and penned pigs and cows, not roads and pavements and smelly exhaust fumes.Gramps started them on it, telling them what the space had looked like around the bridge’s big footprints—all through the industry of its creation, and then back further, back to tents, and trees, to British men in red coats, some with guns, some with compasses and telescopes, and then back before that again.Then Charlie began reading about remnant places, like the sand dunes below Kings Cross that people remembered from four or five decades earlier, when work on the bridge began [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]