Treading Air (10 page)

The man catches sight of Joe and nods.

‘Know him?' Lizzie asks.

Joe swivels around. ‘Hello!' he calls.

The man changes direction and upsets the beer. He walks faster; Lizzie isn't sure why men do this, think speed will minimise the spillage, as though if they move quick enough they'll get the drinks to the table before any drips have fallen. He rests the beers to the table, their outsides slick with liquid.

Joe holds his hand out, and the man wipes beer off onto his trousers before shaking it. ‘Glad you're here, McWilliams. Wanted to introduce you to me missus.'

‘G'day, missus,' McWilliams says, straight-faced, and Lizzie laughs at him. Up close, she can see his response to her, the curve of his cheek over his eyes when he grins. He looks her full in the face.

Joe says, ‘This is the fella that got me the job.'

‘Ah.' Lizzie scans his pale blue eyes, the hollow of his cheekbones.

‘Knew each other down south,' says McWilliams. ‘In the cutting gang at Dorrigo.' He shakes Lizzie's hand. His hair sticks up above the shaved sides of his head, and his forehead is creased, giving him an expression of slight concern. He seems to care about her, about Joe. He sits down and takes a flat cap out from under his arm, puts it on his head, glances around and takes it off again. He runs his hand through his hair.

‘Want to thank you for getting Joe the work,' Lizzie says.

McWilliams shrugs it off, ducks his head.

‘Got a first name?' Lizzie asks.

‘Can't remember it,' he says and grins again. She likes that smile, the slightly receded upper incisor. Wishes he wouldn't turn it on her so hard.

‘Lizzie,' she says. ‘Who's the other one for?' She points to his drinks.

‘Me.' He sucks at his drink, puts the glass down and launches into a speech to Joe about the boss man having a go at him.

‘The man's a coot,' Joe says.

McWilliams shouts them a round. When he sits down again, Lizzie glimpses metal at his ankle. He catches her staring and pulls his trouser leg over it.

The room grows orange with the sunset, as if Lizzie's inside one of the beer glasses, Joe and McWilliams sliding away from her like bubbles. The men move away to the bar, disappear from her vision. When they come back, they're red-eyed and sniffing. McWilliams takes her hand under the table, and it's a thrill to have him touch her. The possibilities of the gesture. He presses a twist of snow into her palm and says, ‘Don't tell,' nodding at Joe where he stands at the bar. ‘Your hubby didn't want to share.'

‘Greedy bugger,' Lizzie says.

She slips into the bathroom to inhale and returns to find a black woman at their table, leering over McWilliams while Joe sizes up her backside. Lizzie clips Joe on the ear. He turns his attention to her, cups his hand over the top of her thigh.

‘Caught you,' she says, and Joe shrugs.

‘You're better,' he says.

McWilliams stands at the bar and downs his fifth. Joe orders them sandwiches. The bread is still warm from the oven, and Lizzie holds it in her mouth. A treat to have lettuce this time of year; when she asked for it at the store, the owner told her that floods cut off the farms further south. ‘Can't get it to grow up here,' he said, rolling his eyes to the sun.

Joe has a crumb on his cheek, and Lizzie puts her hand up to brush it off. Goosebumps prickle her arms when she touches him. She holds and repeats his words from earlier in her head:
you're better, you're better
. Joe catches her look and puts his hand up to hers on his cheek.

The man behind the bar shouts, ‘Five minutes 'fore closing,' and Joe slides his hand out from under Lizzie's.

‘Get myself one last. You want another?' he asks McWilliams, who nods.

Joe joins the line of men getting their last before closing, and McWilliams leans over and whispers in Lizzie's ear, ‘Any snow left?' His breath, heavy with yeast, touches her cheek. She lingers, his lips close to her face, shaking her head. His skin is almost hairless, and fine wrinkles curve out from under his eyes. She wonders how old he is. Doesn't like his effect on her body and clamps down on it.

Joe comes back with the drinks on a tray. The two men suck theirs down. Lizzie slows up, remembering she had those whiskies earlier in the afternoon, although she can't feel their effects anymore. The pub is emptying out. The man turns off the lights glowing behind the bar. McWilliams says, ‘It's too early to go home.'

‘Let's try this new place I found,' Lizzie says. ‘It's really close by.' She wants to show the fan-tan parlour off to the blokes, even though part of her enjoyed the gambling men's eyes on her and the possibility that Chris would appear again.

She leads Joe and McWilliams out the back of the hotel to number fifty-one.

Bea greets her cheerfully at the door. ‘Here again so soon?'

‘Brought some fellas with me.'

Bea hooks her fingers around Joe's right arm, McWilliams' left. ‘Welcome,' she says and pulls them both inside. More people are at the table now. Still more have spilled into the lounge room, where they sit on the chairs, drinking. Another table, lined with bottles and stacked glasses, has been set up in the corner.

At that distance, Lizzie doesn't recognise faces. She hopes Chris isn't there – might get awkward with Joe. Now she's not even sure if this is a real possibility, or if she was just getting her hopes up in her boredom. She reckons she's safe to lead the men to the fan-tan table, where Bea stands with her hands on either side of the bag of coins.

Lizzie takes a moment to recognise Dolly next to her because she's changed her clothes. She wears a silk dress, buttoned to the neck and then fanned out in a wide collar of a contrasting colour. The skirt is pleated tightly and ends with a zigzag hem, its shape echoed in the white zigzags that cascade down the skirt. Lizzie longs for a dress like that.

Bea doesn't bother with introductions this time – too many people are pressed around the table, waiting for the game to continue. Joe and Lizzie buy in together. She catches Dolly eyeing Joe off, and she wraps her arm around his elbow. He's hers.

Dolly moves away from Bea and takes her place behind the table bar. McWilliams follows her and orders another round of drinks for them. Dolly pours out the whisky with easy gestures, and McWilliams struggles to get his hands around the three glasses. Dolly says something to him and picks one up. He takes the other two and leads her over to Joe and Lizzie.

Dolly comes straight to Joe and gives him the glass, smiling at him. He wraps his fingers around it. ‘Cheers, love.' He winks at her. Lizzie could throttle her for the glance she gives him in return, the curl of her mouth genuine this time.

McWilliams hands Lizzie's drink to her. ‘Hussy,' she hisses near his ear.

‘I'd say so,' he says.

Joe has turned back to the game, Zhang counting out the coins. They lose, take another bet, win, lose, then win again. Dolly watches them from the bar, and Lizzie's chest tightens. She wishes she'd kept this place to herself. Bringing Joe here was a mistake.

Next to her, McWilliams slumps in his chair, half-asleep – the excuse she's been looking for. ‘Time to go,' she says to Joe. ‘Your mate's had enough.'

Joe looks down at McWilliams in mild disgust, shakes him a bit. ‘Here, get up.'

McWilliams springs alert and totters with the suddenness of the movement. He looks so lost that Lizzie laughs. ‘How're you getting home?' she asks.

He gestures vaguely towards the Causeway. ‘Bike.'

Joe and Lizzie share a glance.

‘Nah, mate,' Joe says. ‘You'll end up in a ditch. Get run over.'

‘Be fine.' McWilliams concentrates on taking a step, stops and steadies himself against the fan-tan table, takes another, his balance wildly off.

Joe grabs his arm. ‘Mate, stay with us. We live around the corner.'

‘No, no,' he says. He looks at Lizzie. ‘Would put your missus out.'

‘Don't worry,' she says. ‘Come on. I'll be offended if you turn me down.' She feels generous towards Joe's friend, who's helped them so much already and is now offering her a way to escape from this place, from Dolly's gaze all over Joe.

‘No, no,' McWilliams says again, and Lizzie truly is offended. But he refused Joe too, so she decides not to take it personally.

She nods goodbye to Bea, and they take McWilliams back to the Causeway. The black woman they met earlier at the pub is standing where all the bikes are lined up. She's leaning against the building and smoking, as though she's waiting for something.

‘Hello, love,' McWilliams greets her. ‘What's your name?'

‘Thelma.'

‘Pleased to meet you.' He turns to the bikes, puts his flat cap on and scratches his hair underneath it.

‘What're you doing?' Thelma asks.

Seems right enough for a gin, Lizzie thinks. Not that she's spoken to many. In Brisbane you never see them.

‘I reckon he's forgotten which one's his,' Joe says to Lizzie.

Thelma contemplates the bikes propped against the wall. ‘All look the same to me.'

‘You should come home with us,' Lizzie tells McWilliams again. She puts her hand on his arm, feels odd doing it, looks at Joe, who isn't paying attention, decides it's alright and tugs on McWilliams a bit. His skin beneath her fingers. He lets himself be touched but doesn't budge.

‘Come
on
, mate.' Joe's starting to lose his temper.

‘I have to get home,' McWilliams says.

‘Go home with the white girl,' Thelma says to him. ‘Looks like she could make you happy. These white girls.' She stares Lizzie up and down. ‘You can't trust 'em, mate. One minute they'll be butter wouldn't melt, the next they're takin' your clothes off.'

‘Here,' Joe growls, ‘don't you say things like that about me wife.'

Thelma holds her hands up. ‘Just trying to help. Didn't realise she was your missus.' She throws her cigarette on the ground, stamps it out, wanders off round the back of the pub.

‘Bloody well should apologise,' Joe yells at her back.

‘Don't worry about it, Joe.' Lizzie's tired. All the excitement's gone out of the night.

‘Bloody gins,' he says. ‘Better when they were chased from the city at sunset.'

‘Thought she was funny,' says Lizzie, and he gives her a look.

McWilliams finally selects a bike from the line-up.

‘That yours?' Lizzie asks. ‘It's a ribbon on it.'

He shrugs, goes to swing his leg over and topples against the wall with the bike on top of him. Lizzie laughs. Joe pulls him upright by his shirt collar, but he shakes Joe off, begins to walk up the road following an imaginary line, his arms out to steady himself. He executes a shaky pirouette, then heads back towards them. He's strangely elegant, loose-limbed, his limp less obvious in his drunken state. Joe grabs his shoulder, and he wraps his other arm around one of the new electric light poles, holding out against Joe's pulling.

‘Stop playing silly buggers,' Lizzie says.

‘I can't,' McWilliams whispers to her, though Joe is right next to him, prising open his fingers. ‘Me mum'll wallop me if I'm home late. She gets the slipper out.'

‘You're inked.' Lizzie pictures the mother as iron-armed, bringing down her woollen-throated slipper on the grown man's head. She giggles.

Joe knocks McWilliams off the pole like an oyster unglued from a rock, and he staggers back. Joe and Lizzie get on either side of him, and they walk past fifty-one, close enough for Lizzie to see Dolly leaning on the railing with a cigarette. Her blonde hair halos in the light. She raises her hand when she sees them, smoke between her fingers. Lizzie gets the impression of a magician performing a trick, distracting them with a puff of smoke in one hand, while the other is off in the darkness, doing the real magic.

Brisbane, 1945

T
he coathanger woman moans, and Lizzie wakes up. Her head aches with the suddenness of it. Her eyes gum, and the shuttered light above her head penetrates the lids. When she unglues her eyes, she sees the dark shape of the woman's body shifting, snake-bellied. Her voice is drawn out,
ohh, ohh
, and at first Lizzie opens her mouth to tell her to shut up, she's so pissed off to be woken. Then she hears the pain in the sound.

The nurse at the end of the ward pricks up her ears but takes her time getting over. Their policy is to not give the girls too much attention, to show them that their illness doesn't mean they're special. ‘What is it?' the nurse asks, and the woman doesn't answer. The nurse turns back her covers and exposes her white hospital gown rolled up above the knees. She tugs on the gown, pulling it to the woman's ankles. Lizzie can't fathom how obsessed these nurses are with ensuring the women stay decent, when it's too late for all of them. Lizzie's most comfortable in stockings, garters and not much else.

The woman touches her stomach. ‘I hurt.'

‘In what way? Belly ache? Diarrhoea?'

She shakes her head.

‘What then?'

The woman groans, brings her lips over her teeth.

‘Can't help you if you don't speak to me.'

The woman turns on her side, away from the nurse. Whimpers into her pillow. The nurse calls the other matron on duty. They speak easily, the nurse's voice losing the strained tone she used with the woman.

‘What's wrong with her?'

‘Hard to tell. Something she's eaten? Periods? Though surely she's too old for that.'

‘In a fair bit of pain, by the look of it.'

‘Not much we can do without more symptoms. Keep an eye on her.' The woman keeps moaning,
oohs
that hover on the edge of Lizzie's conscious mind, keep her dizzy with sleeplessness. Marge rolls over and finally speaks to her, telling her to shut the fuck up, but she moans even louder, neck extended, mouth open and dark. The nurse comes by again and says, ‘Better be quiet. You're disturbing the others.' She injects something to shush her. Even with the morphine, the coathanger woman hums with pain, her lips vibrating. The noise scratches at Lizzie's head, claws on her nerves.