2. Shark Attack … in which Sean learns that he is visible.

Monday. In a narrow street in inner-suburban Melbourne, friends are busy. Sean, Liz and Charles are packing for their annual camping holiday.

They’ve known each other for a long time. They bought into the same street in the early 80s – pokey Victorian cottages with outside toilets. Cheap at the price. They renovated together, had their kids together - sort of. (Liz and Charles were a bit slow out of the stalls.) And they holiday together. For almost twenty years, neighbours and friends have packed their wagons at Christmas time and headed up the Princes Highway in convoy, for a two-week holiday, at the Mallacoota Foreshore Caravan Park.

6.30 am sharp. They gun their engines and with Sean leading the way, as he does every year, they snake their way through the city. But it doesn’t feel the same this year. Liz, Charles and Olivia look at the back of Sean’s head. It’s the only head in the car and it looks lonely.

Beth left him six months ago. Just up and left and took the kids with her. She moved to Daylesford, is studying Tarot and collecting rocks. It took Sean completely by surprise. Although why it should have, was a puzzle for some. After all, she’d been dabbling with alternative ideas for a while. She’d walked on hot coals and said she could work out how many past lives a person had had by doing things with numbers. Six months ago, she did his numbers. She said, ‘Sean you are not as evolved as I am. It’s not your fault but I need to go so you can work on your life.’ So she packed up her things, took the kids and left him to ‘work on his life’.

And now his head looks so lonely. Just one head where there use to be four.

And as if Beth leaving wasn’t bad enough – a few days after she went, he developed really bad breath. His teenage daughter consoled him. ‘It’ll pass Dad. You’re breathing out the unresolved crap between you and Mum.’ And she gave him a pair of black socks and matching underpants. ‘You’re ego has been shattered. You need to wear some black – not too much. Black helps to concretise the ego.’

Sean smiled. He didn’t know what to say. For fifteen years, he’s gone to work, dressed in black from, head to foot. He travels to schools and kindergartens with a one-man puppet show. He believes he’s invisible when he wears black.

But for a while, he’s been suspecting that his invisibility has become a problem outside of work. Recently he was standing at an ATM machine when a woman pushed in front of him. She turned and said, ‘Sorry I didn’t see you there.’ That same afternoon he’d had to resort to excessive throat clearing to attract Marlene’s attention at the pharmacy counter. She said, ‘Sorry Sean, I didn’t think there were any customers.’ And then his daughter gives him black socks and underpants and tells him he should wear a little black! That confirmed it. He has a visibility problem.

Liz and Charles drive in silence. Then Liz says, ‘I don’t think the issue of Sean not having as many past lives as Beth is the real issue behind Beth leaving.’

Charles stiffens. He hates they way Liz calls everything ‘an issue’ – so yesterday.

‘No the real issue is the unresolved issue of her fundamentalist Christian upbringing in Adelaide.’

‘I think growing up in Adelaide would be a big enough issue for anyone,’ he says.

Liz’s eye’s narrow - so shallow.

Charles senses combat. ‘Have a look in the glove box. I think there’s a tin of Kool Mints.’

Liz loves Kool Mints. She can fit five in her mouth at a time. Charles never leaves for a long car trip without loading the glove box with Kool Mints.

Liz and Charles have only the one child – Olivia. They didn’t have children for years because they didn’t think they could. Didn’t bother them. Life was full and interesting. Liz especially, had always been a bit suspicious of motherhood. Once, she’d watched Beth going through the vacuum dust, with her bare hands, for a piece of Lego and thought that very odd. Then suddenly, at thirty-eight, she fell pregnant. She miscarried at three months and she and Charles thought the grief would drown them. Then they were to discover something about grief – it can make people very randy. It’s not something talked about but it’s true. Within a few weeks, Liz was pregnant again and just before her 40^th birthday she gave birth to Olivia.

For the first two years, things were great. Liz enjoyed her new role but eventually she got itchy to go back to teaching. The street was so empty. It was around this time she started calling things ‘issues’.

Afternoon. They’ve made the distance without a hitch. Olivia is catatonic with boredom. She’s been promised an ice cream at Genoa, just before the Mallacoota turn off.

The wagons pull up outside ‘Queenie’s Palace’. Queenie has been at the turn off for as long as anyone can remember. She has a couple of bowsers, sells newspapers, Strasbourg, bread, milk and ice creams. Olivia knows Queenie is a witch. Her spine is bent and her fingernails are long and curved and always painted black and white - Collingwood colours. And when she speaks, she sounds like she swallowed her ash tray.

‘Yes?’ she bends over Olivia and wheezes.

‘Can I have a Shark Attack please?’

‘A Shark Attack.’ Queenie’s mouth tightens and the lines deepen around her lips. She dives into the ice cream fridge and rummages; the item clearly offends her. She finds the object and handing it to Olivia she hisses. ‘I think its disgusting. An ice cream called Shark Attack. My best friend was taken by a shark in Coolangatta in 1937 and when they fished the bits out of the water, her own mother didn’t recognise her.’

‘Could I have a spoon?’

Queenie rattles around in a box and produces a little blue plastic spoon with a chomp out of it. She holds it aloft for all to see and wails, ‘Her own Mother didn’t recognise her.’

Charles nods and hands over the money. ‘Yes, well you wouldn’t call an ice cream ‘Road Kill’ and expect people to buy it would you?’

Half an hour later, the convoy pulls into the Mallacoota Foreshore Caravan Park. Sean is feeling uncomfortable. He’s remembered something he forgot to do. He forgot to confirm the booking. He remembered when they had a break back in Lakes Entrance. Liz said weeks ago, ‘Will you confirm the booking or shall I?’

‘No worries. I’ll do it’ he’d said, and then clean forgot all about it, until a couple of hours ago in Lakes Entrance, as he sank his teeth into a scallop pie. In the interim, he’s convinced himself that it’ll be all right - Pat knows we come every year. She’ll have saved our spots.

But Pat looks at him blankly and shakes her head. She says, ‘I’ve rented out your usual sites. When you didn’t confirm. I assumed you weren’t coming.’ She slaps a brochure on the counter and highlights a spot on some squiggles that represent a map. ‘I suggest you drive on down to the National Park. There should be some sites down there. Not a bad spot. Amenities a bit rustic.’

Tempers are a tad frayed. Sean’s face is wet and shiny as he explains, ‘Been a bit of a mix up … jolly nuisance … Pat could have rung me.’

Liz ignores him and that exacerbates his visibility anxiety but he isn’t going to let that cat out of the bag. Finally he says, ‘Well let’s go to the National Park before it gets dark.’

Still refusing to acknowledge his presence, Liz turns to Charles and says, ‘Well lets go to the National Park before it gets dark.’ And Charles agrees.

It’s another hour before they drive into the Park. They circle the occupied sites until they find two vacant and adjacent. There’s no ablution block; there are pit toilets; the sites are un-powered and they’re in the bush. Olivia is happy. She stamps her bare feet in the sand, chases a Wonga pigeon and climbs a tree.

Two silver dome tents are erected in record time. What minutes before had looked like a patch of Australian bush, now looks like the set of ‘Lost in Space’. Sean volunteers to search for firewood. And by nightfall the company are speaking civilly to one another.

They don’t know it, but a fire in the bush is a good thing for people.

In the silence of the Park, they sleep and they dream. Sean dreams that he can’t see himself. He knows he exists but he can no longer feel his own body or see his reflection. He has no shadow. He wakes in a sweat, groping at his hand but he can’t feel it. Then he realises, its numb from the way he’s been sleeping on it.

In the morning, things aren’t so bad. The pit toilets are tolerable. Liz talks about the smell of eucalypt smoke in her hair, and the men fuss about. They’re planning a few hours of snorkelling and body surfing. Olivia is in her underpants and singlet. She’s a fairy and she’s found something amazing. Hidden in the undergrowth is a delicate structure of twigs and grass and around it are all sorts of small bits of blue things. She holds her breath as the bowerbird returns with a blue piece of string. She hugs her knees with the excitement. What gifts of blue will she bring this magical creature?

The beach is curved in a half moon and apart from two oystercatchers, picking their way along the shoreline, uninhabited. The good waves are near the middle and at the southern end, the sand peters out into rock, here the water is calmer. Sean is keen to surf but Charles is curious to see what lives in the water around the rocks. Liz and Olivia find a place of their own, dump a basket of snacks and spread out their towels. Every one is content.

Sean sits on a dune in the sun. He reads the waves and thinks about Beth and the kids. Then in a moment of decisiveness, he strips off his shirt, and canters down and into the water. He breaks into a knock-kneed run, and leaps into the foam. With even, steady strokes, he’s soon in the green water and waiting for a set. He lies on his back enjoying his buoyancy then takes a deep breath and dives into the silence.

He sees it the moment he dives – a huge dark shape. There is no doubt; it’s a shark, a very big shark. He surfaces for air and dives again. What’s it doing? Has it seen him? His mind races but each thought is distinct and clear. He even finds a milli second to ponder his visibility, though any doubt he might have had about that vanishes when he sees the animal shooting towards him. Instinctively, he draws in his arms and legs and when it’s close, he throws them wide and makes himself big. The shark veers. Again he surfaces for air and he sees a set of waves building. He launches himself on the first wave. The ride feels like the slowest he’s ever had, and all the time he expects to fell those jaws chomp off his legs. The moment his feet touch the sand, he’s running, the knock kneed run. To hell with that – he flies! And in that first line of sea- weed, on the dry sand, he collapses.

He may have lost consciousness for a few minutes. He’s never sure about this bit, when in the future, he tells the story. But he starts to shiver and finding the strength to stand he makes the move up to the dune where he’s left his things. He’s about to throw himself onto his towel when he thinks of Charles still in the water snorkelling around the rocks. He must warn him. He lunges for his towel – he’ll use it as a flag. But as he makes a grab for it, something rears up at him. It’s a Brown snake! A one and a half metre long Brown snake! And it’s angry, very angry. It was enjoying a siesta under that towel. Now it’s in striking pose, neck and body high in the shape of an S.

Sean’s throat opens and a sound escapes from deep inside his chest – a clear primeval scream and he turns and runs down the dunes towards where Charles is snorkelling.

Charles is safe. He’s out of the water, standing beside Liz and Olivia on the rocks looking for dolphins. They saw them a moment ago – there were two, their fins sharp as knives slicing through the water. They turn when they hear the scream. Sean is running towards them, and is unaware, that at some point, he’s lost his board shorts. He draws alongside them, breathless and points to the fins. Four sets of eyes see clearly the same thing – an almighty shark, four metres in length. A dorsal fin and tail above the water line. There were no dolphins. Liz gently extracts the towel from his grip and wraps around his waist. Then they clamber higher up the rocks for a better view. They’re speechless. It’s a magnificent sight – awesome. Sean sits between Liz and Olivia. Olivia holds his hand. Charles’ arm is draped around his wife’s shoulders. Sean no longer looks lonely. He breathes deep and can taste his breath is sweet, and he is in no doubt that he is visible.

Later that night Liz is frustrated; she can’t find the blue top for the toothpaste. Olivia is curled in her sleeping bag. Her gift has been accepted into the bower.