Title: The Surveyors

Author: Susan Pearce

In: Sport 27: Spring 2001

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, October 2001

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Prose Literature

Conditions of use

Share:

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Sport 27: Spring 2001

Susan Pearce — The Surveyors

page 115

Susan Pearce

The Surveyors

If we take a particular moment on a particular landscape, we see a group of surveyors. No one was there when they arrived, and they don't know when or how they came, so all we can say is that they stand with their backs to a hill, clutching compasses and dials, levels stakes and clipboards.

They look blankly at the flat land and the gleam of sea to their right. Practised at estimating distance, they gauge the beach is four hundred metres away, but can't tell that it runs perpendicular to their line of sight before curving approximately sixty degrees northeast.

In silence they note the steep hill over their right shoulders. There are more hills behind them, and across the flat. ‘I don't even want to start on those,’ a voice says.

The land's surface is unfamiliar, a greyish-brown packed so densely its original texture is impossible to determine. We might expect the past weights of buildings and objections to have left imprints, but apparently the land has remembered nothing. Only a few unhealthy trees and shrubs remain. There are gardens on the slopes, although they're missing their retaining walls, footpaths and fences.

A surveyor traces an invisible rectangle, as if working with a large stencil. A post-box appears. ‘I hope that letter arrived,’ he says, not knowing why. He is confused. He wants to remember the letter's destination and contents, or if it even was his letter. Instead, he kicks the ground several times.

A line of sycamores stretches away to their left. ‘A road here.’

‘Yes, the trees the same height and chosen for their untroublesome seed pods, too small to clog the gutters.’ The group vibrates briefly with the satisfaction of shared professional knowledge.

‘We should make a start.’

They begin to move, turning every few metres simultaneously page 116 and without purpose. Each expects to remember, but tastes of words disappear in regions of the tongue before they can be identified.

Then the surveyors rapidly outline several constructions: the Alhambra Cinema, Alfredo's Pizza Palace, the TAB. ‘What would have happened at Alfredo's?’ one asks.

‘All that garlic and red wine, and the waiters singing on your birthday.’ They are heartened by the detail. Yes, the waiters had sung. With growing confidence they mark out a couple of brothels, a nightclub and a rugby ground. A very small theatre also reappears.

‘Is that enough?’ they ask each other.

We might know what's missing. We could start with that failed bar at the intersection, and the statue of Queen Victoria, moving on to random bus-shelters and streetlights. We could cheer them like a game-show audience that knows the answers.

Two or three want to shape a canal they recall running along a line others believe is a road. There is controversy. ‘With the outlines you're proposing, you have the sycamores and statue in the canal, and sycamores don't root in swamps, let alone flowing water.’ They have the statue now, but there is no agreement and the group disperses.

Several enter Alfredo's. They're not hungry and they're after pizza, but the kitchen is empty. It doesn't occur to them to cook and they slouch around a table fiddling with serviettes and an outsize pepper grinder. A few go to the theatre and sit in the stalls all afternoon, occasionally clapping at the empty stage. Others curse and cheer at blank screens in the TAB.

One surveyor is confused and goes looking for the swamp. He finds it towards the beach. It's a small stinky swamp, circumscribed by cabbage trees and flax. A young woman is prone on a lilo an arm's length from the edge, one limp hand holding a cocktail glass filled with slime, which leaves murky tides as the lilo rocks.

He clears his throat. ‘Good afternoon.’ She doesn't reply. Is she alive? ‘I thought we were alone here,’ he continues.

‘You are alone.’

‘No, I mean— There are more of us. What are you doing here?’

‘I am testing the lilo.’

‘Are you a scientist? I have studied the science of measurement page 117 and positioning.’ He is driven by his earlier failures of memory. ‘What have you discovered?’

‘A lilo floats,’ she begins. Her head hangs over the side and her nose almost trails the sludge. She hasn't looked at him yet. ‘Floating is a useful characteristic for manoeuvring pyroclastic flows. The lilo is conditional on water, however, and doesn't transfer into a lava or hot ash environment.’

She pauses. This is not what he has come to hear. It won't help to put the city back, but he's not sure he cares. He sits on a rotting log.

‘In addition, the lilo cannot withstand millions of years in a swamp, rocking over waters that soak through ash carrying molecules of silica and quartz. We feel betrayed by objects that fail to float us. As a child, I believed I should be able to surf on my camping mattress. However, a camping mattress is not adequately reinforced to take the disloyalties of water.’

The flax waves its scythes.

‘I think you are the only other person here,’ he says.