Desert Fish (8 page)

‘Yes,' I agreed, calm now. There was no evidence of Yvonne Martin anywhere, and I wondered if she had been there at all. Perhaps I had imagined the whole thing? ‘Yes,' I repeated, thinking
he is right
.

But then he said, ‘I won't mention this to your mother, Missy,' rubbing at his chin and checking his reflection in the window. ‘I won't mention it, if you don't.'

I looked down at the table. The green swirls in the formica blurred a little.

‘Okay, Daddy.'

‘We don't want her upset, do we?'

I shook my head and leaned in to my drink. My hair fell forward and I caught a whiff of that fake banana. It was so strong I felt it in my throat and I thought again of the yellow milk, melted and sticking to my fingers and my lips. I was greedy. I wanted too much. I put my fingers into the glass and wet them. I dampened the hair that smelled and tucked it safely behind my ear. Then I drank the rest of the water quickly.

Janice doesn't come out of her motel room all afternoon. Her husband doesn't reappear either. His car remains parked outside and after they grow silent on the other side of the wall, I crawl into bed and fall asleep. I dream that I'm walking across a sandy plain. There's someone with me, I'm certain it's Pete. The sand slips between my toes and I wonder how it's got into my shoes. But when I stop to empty them I discover I'm barefoot after all. And it's not sand beneath me now, but water, bubbling up and spreading thinly around my feet, tinted a reddish brown and threaded with silver lights. I crouch to examine these lights and find they're fish, minnow-like and swift, like the ones that crawled up the bulkhead of the weir, wriggling against the downward pull of the water. They're so small, they don't need much water, just enough to cover them. After a while I notice that squatting is painful and when I wake, I find I've curled into a foetal position and the part where I've been stitched together is agony.

Beside me the bed is empty. I can feel my heart in my chest when I realise Pete's not back. I put my hand down and touch where the stitches are, then gently shift my legs over the edge of the bed. The room is dark and stale. I open the venetians to let the night in. Outside, the sky is a fat slick of black with holes punched through. Fingers of streetlight reach blindly towards it. The highway pulses irregularly, the cars sounding as if they're being flung from somewhere far away.

Pete's bags are still in the corner. There are two and I unzip them, to reassure myself again, and yes, his clothes are there. There is nothing to suggest that he won't return.

What would I do if something had happened to him? How would I know where to look for him? And who would come to tell me? There is nothing to link me to him except that baby and I can't go back to her now.

I pull on my shoes. Closing the door behind me I creep along to Janice's door. It must be late but I haven't thought to look at the time. The night has a particular feel – of closed doors and dimmed lights, of sound turned down beneath long slow breathing. There is the glow of soft light behind the curtain of Janice's room and while I can't hear anything properly there is low wakeful murmuring.

I knock. ‘Janice,' I call, softly.

The voices inside die away and at first nothing happens. But then Janice opens the door, tentatively, holding a satiny robe across her.

‘Oh,' she says. ‘It's you.' Her voice fades a little and
straightaway I feel dismayed at my bad judgement, my hasty decision.

‘I'm sorry,' I apologise. ‘I shouldn't have –'

‘Is something the matter?' she asks, gently adding, ‘It's kind of late.'

‘I … It's just …'

‘Are you okay?'

‘Oh, yes, I guess. It's just Pete. He's not back. I was frightened. I didn't know what to do.'

‘Oh.' Poor Janice. She's trying, but I'm just a girl she met by the pool. ‘Do you know where he's gone?'

I fold my arms across my front. ‘Well. Sort of.'

‘Well, have you called? They have a public phone over at reception.' She's running her questions together, not waiting for me to answer, which is lucky for me, I guess, because I don't know where I'd begin to explain. ‘Do you have money? I'll get you some change.' She disappears into the room, pushing the door to. She pulls it open again in a moment and drops some coins into my hand. ‘The phone is right inside the main door. It's open all night there. They have a list of emergency numbers if he's not where he's supposed to be,' she says. ‘But I'm sure you'll find he's just been held up.' She smiles. She reaches out and squeezes my hand. ‘I'll come and check in the morning.'

‘Okay. Thanks.' I close my hand around the coins as she pushes the door shut. The glow behind the curtain is gone before I've even reached the stairs.

I don't use the phone. Who would I call? I sit by the
pool instead, trying not to watch the entrance to the motel, trying not to listen to the road. I'm oddly hungry, despite my fear, and for ten minutes or so I sit there, comforted by the gnawing pangs because nothing could be more ordinary than an empty stomach. Then I eat Janice's chocolate bar, soft and sticky from the heat of the day, still lying on the table where she left it with the bottles of nail varnish.

 

It must be past midnight by the time I set out. I recall the drive to the Chinese restaurant. The way the road crawled along by the sea on the way into town. The smelters. Even in the darkness I won't get lost in such a small place. And now with everything so quiet, it will be easy to see the things that move while the rest of the world sleeps. Further along the road will be the sea. There might be a pier, or a quay with some boats rocking alongside. And out near the horizon, ships will slip by.

Before I get to the road I stop for a minute. I put my arms out and spread my fingers, sensing each bit of me as though I've been sketched into the night. The air rests still between my fingers and under my arms. It doesn't press or stir. Calm now, I decide that I will look ahead, not down or around me. I will look at the night as I walk into it. It will be easy to find Pete out there in all that silence.

While I'm still near the motel, cars and trucks pass occasionally, throwing their lights at the road and then
gathering them in as they vanish into the distance. I am invisible, I tell myself, walking slowly so as not to aggravate the bits of me that hurt. In my head, I draw a picture of a safety zone – it's a narrow circle surrounding me and I'll be fine so long as I tread only within its perimeter.

I turn off the highway onto a side street and the night grows quieter.

After a while I come to some shops and a pub. The pub has a terrace with a sloping roof. It's closed and silent except for a drunk man lying outside. Beside him are a hat and a foil bag that looks to contain a rotisserie chicken. He's singing but not moving any other part of his body, as if his lungs are doing the work for everything else. He seems too drunk to pose any kind of threat. Nonetheless I shift into the shadows and watch him for a minute, to be sure.

When he's finished singing he flops back exhausted, hooking the foil bag into the bend of his arm and jabbing his other hand uselessly. Eventually he rolls over and pulls himself up to his knees, grabs at the hat, jams it down on his head. As he rises, he sees me there. I can't be much more than a shadow, but he scoops up the foil bag and calls,
I got it, love. I got your dinner. Look
. Clutching it, and finding that he is on his feet he sways and the bag, held only precariously, upturns. A large oily chicken falls from it.
S'alright, I got it
, he says, getting carefully down and using both hands to retrieve it from the gutter and return it to its bag. He drops it again when he gets to the curb and falls to his hands and knees once more.
Just give
me a minute
, he slurs, but not to me or whoever he was taking the chicken to. It's as if he's remembered he's on his own. And I'm already crossing the road, slipping into the night.

Soon I can smell the sea and I walk more quickly. There are streets that turn off and run away downhill. They seem promising but it's so dark and there's no sound of water lapping or any such thing to give life to the hint of the ocean scent. I turn off at about the third street I come to and cross my fingers for good luck. Everything will be okay once I get to the water, I tell myself. I will find him near the water like I found him at the river. But after another ten minutes there is only a T-junction with no sign and no sea. There are no cars, no Pete. The shops are long gone. I turn right because a cloud moves in that direction and reveals a star and it feels like a sign, only by the time I reach the end of the street a dog is barking and rushing at the fence that separates us and I know I've made a mistake. I take a turn that's just before a dead end, to put some distance between myself and the dog, but instead of emerging at the row of shops I left earlier the street curves away to I-don't-know-where and I can't see where I'll come out. Hauling myself up the hill has made my stitches pull like they want to tear apart. I'm about to retrace my steps, despite that dog, when I realise I'm back on the highway.

I stay close to the road now and take small steps again trying not to feel anxious about Pete. Almost right away a fat ring of light hurtles up from behind and a truck
roars in to the side of the road, stopping just ahead of me. The engine is still running and a man is leaning out the window of his cab yelling something. He opens his door.

I run. I cross the road without looking and my heart feels as though it has shrunk, my blood pulses with fear. Behind me the engine of the truck revs and its lights chase me. He presses the horn and shouts as he overtakes me and then, out of nowhere, I see the motel.

The sides of my underwear are wet and there's a burning feeling when I walk as if I've torn something. In the bathroom I peel off my clothes and find I've wet myself. In the shower my breasts leak milk and I weep quietly, thinking of my body that pees without me knowing, that bleeds constantly and hurts just walking. Thinking of the drunk man with his cold dirty dinner and someone at home waiting for it. Recalling the empty night with me in it, frightened, and finding nothing. It's only when I emerge from the bathroom that I see that Pete is there, asleep in the bed – Pete, who appears not to be bothered that I was gone, who hasn't noticed my return. Who does not recognise me in this skin.

When I'm calm again I simply get into the bed. There are still tears and I lie back and let them slide into my ears where they pool and drain away to somewhere deep inside my head, fizzing as they do.

By the time the last month of summer drained away the heat had barely shifted. My mother's cottage garden drank up the water she carried to it – each drop seemed to sizzle as it landed. Sometimes she got down and used her hands to help it break into the baked earth. Despite the heat her pansies and forget-me-nots unfurled their pale new shoots and the leaves of the camellia kept their waxy sheen. The jasmine cuttings had been planted at the back of the patch. Now they leaned against the prefab wall of our house, arched and heavy, waiting for my dad to stake a trellis that they could climb.

One afternoon at the beginning of March my dad came in and pulled an envelope from his pocket. He had stripped down to shorts and a singlet and his skin was flecked with paint. He tore open the envelope and unfolded the notes from inside. The bottom was weighted with coins and he spread them out on the table.

‘Look at this, Maureen,' he announced.

My mother was washing dishes. She was wearing yellow gloves and she peeled them off and shook them before she laid them out on the windowsill where she kept all of her things for cleaning the kitchen.

‘Not bad for a few days' work, eh?' my father boasted.

My mother turned and rubbed at her hands. They were pink and flushed from the heat of the water. ‘That's good money, Creighton,' she agreed.

‘Cash in hand, too,' my dad said. ‘Honestly love, I couldn't believe it was that easy. Few days. Lick of paint.' He grinned to himself.

My mother started to speak but behind her a song began on the radio and my dad put his finger to his lips. ‘Ssh,' he said, ‘Ssh, Maur,' before he turned the volume up. It was Hank Williams. There was a country music festival on at a town upriver. It had been country and western classics all week on the radio. Track after track.

‘You hear that?' he said to my mum, grabbing her hand.

My dad loved this sort of music. My mum did too. Sometimes they'd go to hear the same songs covered by local musicians in pubs or on hay-strewn stages in barns.

‘You hear that, Maur, it's Hank. I love this song. It's a sign.' He grabbed her. ‘C'mon love. Dance with me.' My mum laughed and wrapped her arms around him. My dad crooned along with the radio and moved her about the room.

When Pete came in they were still dancing.

‘Look at that, Pete,' my dad called over the music, gesturing at the table, proud. ‘Good money, eh?'

‘That for your house painting?'

‘Yeah.' He released my mother. She smoothed her dress down across her stomach and tidied her hair, smiling. ‘Cash in hand,' my dad bragged, turning down the radio and drawing up a chair across from Pete.

‘Yeah, that's a nice little pay packet,' Pete said. ‘What was it? Just the exterior?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Few days?'

‘Three.'

Pete approved.

My dad picked at the dried bits of paint on his arms. There were crumbs of it caught in the hairs there and he pulled at them, loosening and rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Listen, Bernie and I are definitely going to start something up,' he said. ‘Bernie's had a little bit of experience. He thinks we can undercut the competition. He says there'll be plenty more where this came from.' My dad gathered his cash up and put it back in the envelope. He sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out casually enough, but he kept his hands on his knees and he seemed to angle his body towards Pete like a ship headed for a safe, deep harbour. ‘You don't think you'll change your mind?' he asked.

Pete sat with one leg crossed over the other, relaxed. His arms were folded and although his pose was relaxed, no part of him appeared to fall into the space
between him and my father. He was never impolite but he knew how to keep himself separate. ‘Thing is, I'm doing pretty well where I am, Creighton,' he said.

‘What? A bit of easy money not your thing?'

‘How do you know it'll be easy money?' Pete asked.

My dad spoke quickly. ‘What we're going to do is, we're going to post some leaflets about,' my dad said. ‘Gilly could do that for us. Will you do that for us, Missy?'

I shrugged and tried to appear noncommittal. ‘I suppose so.'

My mother pulled on her washing-up gloves again. ‘Ugh,' she said, too loudly. ‘There's water inside these.' She pulled them off and turned them inside out. ‘I could do your leaflets,' she offered, ‘if Gilly doesn't want to. Creighton, she really should be looking for a job of her own.' My mother laid the gloves out on the sill to dry.

‘All she has to do is put 'em through the letterboxes,' my dad said. ‘You don't mind, do you, Gilly?'

‘Guess not.' I had to make myself sound as if I didn't care. My mother wanted to keep me separate from my father, and I wanted this too. But she didn't want to discourage him either.

‘Alright,' my mother conceded. ‘If she's happy doing it.'

‘Okay, then Gilly'll put some leaflets about and if we get some interest, I'll ask you again. So what do you say?'

I folded my arms and tried not to look at Pete. I didn't want him to feel obliged now that I was involved, but it
would feel personal if he said no. He rubbed his hand through his hair.

‘Look, Pete,' my dad said, ‘if it's Bernie you're thinking about, I'll get him over and you can meet him. We'll celebrate this, eh, Maureen.' He patted the envelope. ‘It's the start of something, I tell you. We'll get Bernie over for a few beers. You can invite Lexie too, Gilly? Few friends, few drinks.' He sniffed and scratched at the side of his nose deliberately. Then he folded his arms. He was pleased with himself, with this plan he had made. He liked people to get the measure of him against a background of friends, in the middle of some sort of gathering. He continued. ‘If you like Bernie, and if we get any calls after Gilly does the walkabout, then I'll ask you again. How about it?'

Pete shrugged. ‘If you like. But I'm not promising anything, you know.'

My dad looked pleased as could be. My mum did too. Her knuckles whitened as she clenched them in silent anticipation. She was determined to believe that everything would be okay.

 

Once, right before the business with Yvonne Martin, my dad went with a woman who worked in the public library. She was called Lenora and she had pale green eyes and fair skin with no tan marks. He told me that sort of skin made a woman look more naked, even with clothes on. Lenora wore button-down frocks with
the fabric pulling across her substantial bosom and my dad insisted that I return my library books every week while he was seeing her. I knew that he'd taken her dancing at the RSL club on at least two Friday nights because I heard them making arrangements as she stamped my books. They did it in an underhand way, not actually making plans, but checking what the other was doing.

‘Do you get out on a Friday night, Creighton?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘I like to have a drink at the Imperial. I nearly always go to the RSL after.'

‘Not upstairs?'

‘Of course.'

‘Bit young for me.'

‘You don't look too old for it, Creighton.'

‘I don't really like the live music.'

‘But after the bands finish there's a DJ. And there's a cocktail bar. Do you like cocktails, Creighton?'

‘Depends on who I'm drinking them with.'

I felt like something was crawling inside me, listening to them. So when my mother commented on how late he'd been coming home, I told her. ‘It's because he's off with that library woman.' I thought I was demonstrating my loyalty to my mother.

She was ironing when I said it. Ironing sheets. I remember because she slammed the iron down onto the cotton and a thick cloud of steam formed, hot and angry, around her hands. ‘Why did you have to go and say that,
Gilly?' she said. Her voice was shrill with panic. I was too young, and I did not understand.

Your father will always come back to me. What he has with me he can't get from anyone else. One day you'll understand.

My mother knew what she wanted. I should not get in the way of it.

 

She smiled now. Her lips curled in a way that was smooth, anodised, so I would know. I did not have to worry about anything. She would hide it all behind that smile and her tight and careful words.

‘I'm going to put this over those thirsty plants,' my mother said. She picked up the tub with the murky dishwater in it and stepped carefully out into the hall. ‘Can you come with me, Creighton? You could start putting in that trellis for me before dinner.'

There was just Pete and me then. He didn't shift, didn't move to get a drink or roll a cigarette. He just sighed deeply.

I felt brash. Perhaps it was the syrupy heat. It made your thoughts well up and then they were on your tongue and in front of you before you realised. It made you careless.

‘He won't put that trellis in, you know.'

‘Won't he?'

‘No. She'll pour the water over the plants and he'll stand behind her and smoke. Or lie down in the grass
and watch her. That jasmine will have to be half dead before he gets the wood from the shed and nails the trellis together.'

Pete leaned back in his chair. He looked amused. ‘You've got him all worked out, haven't you?'

I thought I might be coming across like a schoolgirl, that he might be humouring me. I tried not to sound sulky.

‘I've seen it too many times.' I opened the fridge and took a couple of cans. ‘Do you want a drink, Pete?'

‘Yeah. Thanks.'

The rings cracked as I pulled them away. I'd placed one can upside down and it frothed from being upturned. I put my dampened fingers in my mouth. I was not used to drinking beer and the taste always surprised me, yeasty and sour. On the occasions I had an alcoholic drink I still preferred them sweet: spirits diluted in Coca Cola, creamy liqueurs mixed with cold milk. I could feel Pete's eyes on me. I put the cans on the table and sat down opposite him. ‘I can't say I blame you for not wanting to work with my dad,' I said.

‘I never said I didn't want to work with him.'

‘You didn't have to.'

Pete drank from his can and when he put it down he leaned forward, towards me, and I felt a rush of pleasure because I was used to seeing him turned away from people.

‘I didn't realise I was so easy to read,' he said. His lips were wet and his breath was fresh with beer. I wanted
to press myself against that freshness. There was froth around the lip of my can and I put my tongue to it, for the sharpness of the flavour to distract me. I had drunk very little but I felt light-headed and weighed down at the same time.

‘I didn't say it was easy,' I said.

Pete smiled. ‘You've been watching me carefully, then,' he said.

I had to focus on my drink to keep myself steady. I gulped and tried not to screw up my face like a child at the taste of it. When I was able to look at Pete again, I said, ‘I don't think you should work with him.'

‘Why not, Gilly?'

A deep flush spread up from my neck: the way that he said my name, the intimacy of it. ‘I don't really know. I just don't want you to.'

‘You don't need to worry about that,' he said. He reached out and put his hand on mine, only briefly. When he took it away, he said, ‘I'm quite happy with how things are right now.'

My mother came in then. Perhaps she saw something in the way we faced each other with those cans on the table between us. We had opened something up and she had walked in and sensed it. My cheeks were burning and I thought Pete was sitting noticeably still. My mother smiled, then patted her hair and opened the fridge. ‘It's too hot to make the trellis just now,' she said. ‘I'm just going to get your father a drink and then I'll make dinner.'

Pete's breath whistled out and he laughed softly.

‘What are you laughing at?' my mother asked.

‘Oh, it's nothing really,' Pete replied. ‘Just something Gilly said.'