drives back up the coast, she searches for the familiar stone face in the distance, rising momentarily above the sprawl of bushland. The six-metre-high King Neptune was once the guardian of Atlantis, staring cheerfully over the marine park towards his ocean dominion. When the attraction had been closed, the swimming pools filled in and the buildings pulled down, he had been left there, alone. He still gazes out towards home, but vandals have painted his teeth lurid colours, coloured his eyes in red, and his expression has grown increasingly manic. Nowadays he no longer appears entirely happy – he looks as though he is gritting his teeth.
A small shopping centre sits nearby, one of the high limestone walls bearing a faded blue sign that was once the Atlantis insignia – two dolphins leaping together through a circle. Desi leaves Chug in the car park there, and walks towards the site of the old marine park. The wire fencing has been cut away and peeled back, and she glances around to see if anyone is watching her trespass, but the place is quiet.
She ducks behind a wall and follows a rough, broken trail, having to skirt and weave around thick bushes that have grown across it. After only a few metres, she comes across the winding path that leads to the statue. She makes her way up, treading carefully to avoid the scattered glass of broken beer bottles.
At the top, she climbs a small set of wooden steps to sit in Neptune’s hand, her legs dangling over his outstretched fingers, just as they did when she came here for the first time. She had been with Rebecca then; they were ten years old, laughing as they climbed, carefree in the joy of discovery. They had waved at Hester and Marie, who’d taken photographs that Desi hadn’t seen for a long time. It had been a few years before Desi had swum with the dolphin. A few years before the cracks began to show.
She studies the park site, trying to understand how the memory can remain so close and vivid when the intervening years have wrought so many changes in her life. Atlantis is now a monument to the tenacity of nature. The bush has leapt enthusiastically to reclaim the land for itself. One vision has replaced another.
There are still a few big clues to what it once was, like King Neptune and the water tank that bears scratched and faded emblems of Atlantis and Coca-Cola. But there are plentiful other smaller remnants to be found, too, if you took the time to look: a flight of stone steps; a broken pipe; a retaining wall. For the park’s opening, a local sculptor had carved statues of celebrities that had stood at the twelve points of a clock face so large you could walk around it. As each hour struck, the voice or song of the corresponding artist had come booming from a speaker. When the park closed, the statues were pulled down. Some of the giant heads had been transplanted only a few hundred metres away, and lined the children’s play area nextto the shops. Others had made it a kilometre or two down the road to a campsite and were rounded up on a small green there. Most had been creatively defaced. New generations of children clambered over them, unaware of their original context. The heads had given Maya nightmares when she was little.
As Desi wanders down the path again, away from Neptune, she glances across to where the clock was sited. In the distance, Charlie Chaplin’s body remains on its own, his head gone elsewhere like the rest. Someone has attached one of the
Scream
masks to his neck instead.
At the bottom of the path, she stops and listens, but hears only a graveyard of stillness. Thirty years ago, when the park was in its heyday, each morning had brought a rumbling of coaches and the hissing of brakes and doors. Ribbons of visitors had streamed out, all chatting and laughing as they wound around the park. A day at Atlantis was a day away from reality, and the relief of that – the joy of that – was infectious.
Desi has an overwhelming desire to find
A small shopping centre sits nearby, one of the high limestone walls bearing a faded blue sign that was once the Atlantis insignia – two dolphins leaping together through a circle. Desi leaves Chug in the car park there, and walks towards the site of the old marine park. The wire fencing has been cut away and peeled back, and she glances around to see if anyone is watching her trespass, but the place is quiet.
She ducks behind a wall and follows a rough, broken trail, having to skirt and weave around thick bushes that have grown across it. After only a few metres, she comes across the winding path that leads to the statue. She makes her way up, treading carefully to avoid the scattered glass of broken beer bottles.
At the top, she climbs a small set of wooden steps to sit in Neptune’s hand, her legs dangling over his outstretched fingers, just as they did when she came here for the first time. She had been with Rebecca then; they were ten years old, laughing as they climbed, carefree in the joy of discovery. They had waved at Hester and Marie, who’d taken photographs that Desi hadn’t seen for a long time. It had been a few years before Desi had swum with the dolphin. A few years before the cracks began to show.
She studies the park site, trying to understand how the memory can remain so close and vivid when the intervening years have wrought so many changes in her life. Atlantis is now a monument to the tenacity of nature. The bush has leapt enthusiastically to reclaim the land for itself. One vision has replaced another.
There are still a few big clues to what it once was, like King Neptune and the water tank that bears scratched and faded emblems of Atlantis and Coca-Cola. But there are plentiful other smaller remnants to be found, too, if you took the time to look: a flight of stone steps; a broken pipe; a retaining wall. For the park’s opening, a local sculptor had carved statues of celebrities that had stood at the twelve points of a clock face so large you could walk around it. As each hour struck, the voice or song of the corresponding artist had come booming from a speaker. When the park closed, the statues were pulled down. Some of the giant heads had been transplanted only a few hundred metres away, and lined the children’s play area nextto the shops. Others had made it a kilometre or two down the road to a campsite and were rounded up on a small green there. Most had been creatively defaced. New generations of children clambered over them, unaware of their original context. The heads had given Maya nightmares when she was little.
As Desi wanders down the path again, away from Neptune, she glances across to where the clock was sited. In the distance, Charlie Chaplin’s body remains on its own, his head gone elsewhere like the rest. Someone has attached one of the
Scream
masks to his neck instead.
At the bottom of the path, she stops and listens, but hears only a graveyard of stillness. Thirty years ago, when the park was in its heyday, each morning had brought a rumbling of coaches and the hissing of brakes and doors. Ribbons of visitors had streamed out, all chatting and laughing as they wound around the park. A day at Atlantis was a day away from reality, and the relief of that – the joy of that – was infectious.
Desi has an overwhelming desire to find
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