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                 Here is

                 the unfinished map of the world,
                 the mists of slow mountains,
                 the ache of the whale,
                 the blue water crescent,
                 the sulphur-yellow caking
                 around the volcano,
                 the wind’s wild whisper.

                 Take it all and go further.

                      – Penny 

Prologue

In the early years when we were kissing, Penny and I would sometimes share the same breath, one lungful flowing between us as long as the oxygen lasted. I would come as close to her in that warm blind join of air as later in the joining of our bodies, dreams, and journeys. But once, on a night in Bombay, when our journey to India had taken me too far, Penny kissed me that way to try to bring me back.

Late that night I’d found myself running through the blue-black streets of the Colaba district. Something was happening to me – I’d been pounding through these streets for hours. A few blocks back I’d given a white-haired old woman nearly all our remaining rupees. When she’d taken them I’d been flooded with relief, but now as I raced towards the hotel the fear was again at my heels.

Rounding a corner, unable to stop in time, I jumped over a body. Ahead hundreds more lay sprawled, Bombay’s homeless sleeping on the pavement. In panic I swerved away from the sleepers and ran down the middle of the empty road. I didn’t understand what was happening to me but I knew I had to avoid getting caught again. I tried to think only about getting back to Penny and the hotel room, and this time staying there. All night as I’d headed back I’d kept seeing more crippled women, blind men or deformed children and kept getting urges; and though I’d resisted them, in the room they’d become so painful I’d had to run out to those people too. And each time that happened the most frightening urge intensified – the pressure in my chest that wanted me not to leave India in the morning, to let Penny fly home without me, and to make these streets my life.

Chest burning, I stopped at a corner lit in hazy yellow light and looked up and down the intersecting roads. A quiet voice made me turn. By a shop window a bone-thin, shawled woman stood cradling a baby. Without thinking I met her gaze – and looked away too late. I’d seen the two bloody crescents of infection, crawling up the whites of her eyes. My mind stilled, then hazed. The new urge landed like a punch.

Come out again to her with your Australian dollars. Or she’ll go blind – left like this by you.

My palms flew to my temples, I turned, and I sprinted.

Ten minutes later I’d reached the hotel and was hurrying past the night watchman, leaping up the staircase, jogging along the passage. At last; in the room again. I slumped back against the door. Penny was sitting on the bed in her T-shirt and undies, face strained and disapproving.

‘Penny, there’s another one.’

‘Joel! You said that—’

‘Will you stop me if I try to go out again? Physically, if you have to?’

For a moment Penny stared. Then her expression softened, and she got up and came over to me.

‘I will.’ She nodded. ‘I’ll stop you.’ Taking my arm, she tugged on it gently. ‘So, now, come to bed.’

The relief her promise brought and the compassion spreading over her face drew out the tears that had been welling in me for the five days since this had started.

***

Exhausted, Penny fell asleep quickly. Within minutes the urge to go back out to the bloody-eyed woman began to whisper. One last run, quickly, while she’s still there. Save her sight . . .

Sweating, stomach knotting, I tossed and huffed, until Penny moaned and pulled herself to me, draping a warm arm around my shoulder.

‘Sleep, now,’ she murmured. ‘If there’s anything to do, we’ll see in the morning. Now, only sleep, okay?’

With a great effort I managed to lie still.

Two hours later, she woke again. ‘No good?’ She drew herself up to rest on an elbow. In the darkness I felt her hand exploring my face like a blind person’s.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Give me your mouth.’

Leaning down, she kissed me, then breathed gently into my mouth. I took her breath and returned it, and as we breathed like that I felt a caress of calmness for the first time since morning. She air-kissed me again; I felt calmer still. She did it a third time and finally, in that surging warmth, I felt the first gentle tugs of sleep, pulling me somewhere safe.

Praise for Exposure

‘An extraordinary story . . . wry, honest, amusing and evocative.’ Eva Hornung

‘A striking and substantial book, at once compelling, scary, delightfully comic and moving.’ Tom Shapcott

Last week, I interviewed Craig Silvey, and this week, I thought, to keep the momentum going, I’d treat you all to an excerpt from Craig’s latest, Jasper Jones. To me, books (and films and TV programmes) fall into two distinct categories. Some, I merely consume. In other words: they’re not all that amazing. But others… when I put them down, I’m inspired. It’s like they’ve lit a spark in me and I’m compelled to write something fantastic. Their brilliance is almost contagious. I mean, sure, I’m a creative type, and someone may be affected by the same book in a different way, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are affecting.

Jasper Jones is one of those books. Powerful, well-written, engrossing. Here’s a sample taken from the book’s opening:

Jasper Jones has come to my window.
I don’t know why, but he has. Maybe he’s in trouble. Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
Either way, he’s just frightened the living shit out of me.
This is the hottest summer I can remember, and the thick heat seems to seep in and keep in my sleepout. It’s like the earth’s core in here. The only relief comes from the cooler air that creeps in between the slim slats of my single window. It’s near impossible to sleep, so I’ve spent most of my nights reading by the light of my kerosene lamp.
Tonight was no different. And when Jasper Jones rapped my louvres abruptly with his knuckle and hissed my name, I leapt from my bed, spilling my copy of Pudd’nhead Wilson.
‘Charlie! Charlie!’
I knelt like a sprinter, alert and fearful.
‘Who is it?’
‘Charlie! Come out here!’
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Jasper!’
‘What? Who?’
‘Jasper. Jasper!’ and he pressed his face right up into the light.
His eyes green and wild. I squinted.
‘What? Really? What is it?’
‘I need your help. Just come out here and I’ll explain,’ he whispered.
‘What? Why?’
‘Jesus Christ, Charlie! Just hurry up! Get out here.’
And so, he’s here.
Jasper Jones is at my window.
Shaken, I clamber onto the bed and remove the dusty slats of glass, piling them on my pillow. I quickly kick into a pair of jeans and blow out my lamp. As I squeeze headfirst out of the sleepout, something invisible tugs at my legs. This is the first time I’ve ever dared to sneak away from home. The thrill of this, coupled with the fact that Jasper Jones needs my help, already fills the moment with something portentous.
My exit from the window is a little like a foal being born. It’s a graceless and gangly drop, directly onto my mother’s gerbera bed. I emerge quickly and pretend it didn’t hurt.
It’s a full moon tonight, and very quiet. Neighbourhood dogs are probably too hot to bark their alarm. Jasper Jones is standing in the middle of our backyard. He shifts his feet from right to left as though the ground were smouldering.
Jasper is tall. He’s only a year older than me, but looks a lot more. He has a wiry body, but it’s defined. His shape and his muscles have already sorted themselves out. His hair is a scruff of rough tufts. It’s pretty clear he hacks at it himself.
Jasper Jones has outgrown his clothes. His button-up shirt is dirty and fit to burst, and his short pants are cut just past the knee. He wears no shoes. He looks like an island castaway.
He takes a step towards me. I take one back.
‘Okay. Are you ready?’
‘What? Ready for what?’
‘I tole you. I need your help, Charlie. Come on.’ His eyes are darting, his weight presses back.
I’m excited but afraid. I long to turn and wedge myself through the horse’s arse from which I’ve just fallen, to sit safe in the hot womb of my room. But this is Jasper Jones, and he has come to me.