Treading Air (16 page)

She's been leaving her hair everywhere, can't help but think it's a bad sign. Joe complains about it in their house, and now she's noticing it at Heurand Street. Sex shakes it from her. It slithers on her pillowslips. Eyelashes too.

Joe finds her under the house having dropped a sheet on the ground and holding a bleeding toe, weeping. He convinces her she has to cut down on the number of men she takes of a night. ‘We're doing alright now,' he says, while she sits cradling her toe. ‘I'll get work soon, and then you can stop.'

‘But I want to save while I can.' A bud of blood blossoms under the toenail.

‘What's the point of saving if you're like this?'

Lizzie wishes he could understand her plans for them. A house. She, queen-like, with her queenly tattoo, sitting on the verandah and greeting the neighbours.

Joe takes to openly hanging around Heurand Street. He arrives around midnight, asks how many she's seen and turns away extras. She hears him through the door saying, ‘She's full.' Like she's a container that couldn't hold any more.

One night, Lizzie, Thelma and Joe talk on the verandah, Thelma with her arms crossed and resting on the railing, Joe standing away from her, shifting on his feet, Lizzie beside him. Thelma asks where he used to work, and when he tells her, she laughs. ‘One factory to another.' He looks puzzled. ‘The sausage factory,' she says, and jerks her thumb to a man sidling out of the Causeway. ‘Squeeze 'em in, push 'em out.'

‘That's disgusting,' says Joe.

For once, Lizzie wishes Thelma would shut the hell up.

Lizzie hates only one man, Colin, because he isn't pleased with her. After he's been with her, he goes up to the fan-tan parlour and complains to Bea. ‘Not up to scratch tonight.'

Bea gives him a free drink and tells Lizzie afterwards. ‘Said you were tired, love. Are you?'

‘That's bullshit.'

‘Had a waspy look about him,' Bea says and leaves it at that, but Lizzie feels bad. She likes to think all her men walk away happy.

Thelma's had him before. She's sympathetic. ‘What an arse.'

‘Didn't say a thing to me. Went straight to Bea.'

‘No bloody manners.'

‘Reckon he held off coming so he could get his money's worth. None of my other men take so long.'

‘He told me,' Thelma says, ‘that he grew up in Ingham, where his father farmed sugar cane, worked the Kanakas hard. He had this weird story about how he found a brown snake in the backyard and was playing with it, poking a stick at it so it'd rear up and strike the ground. His mother saw him, grabbed a shotgun and blew the snake's head off. He cried and cried. “I was playing with him!” he told me. And he really sounded like he's still upset with her for shooting that snake. Doesn't like women 'cause they take his toys away, I reckon.'

A few nights later, Lizzie hears someone ask Joe if she's free. He grunts a yes. She sticks her head out the door and sees Colin sliming up the stairs, so she ducks back inside, goes to her room. She hates his eyelashes, too long and spaced apart like the painted lashes of dollies. Why's he back?

He stands in the lounge with his arms tucked in at his sides and his wrists limp.

‘Drink?' Lizzie asks, offering the bottle up to him.

‘No, thank you.'

She pours herself a quarter of one – Bea doesn't notice if you don't have too much – and leads him to the bedroom. He takes the drink out of her hands after she's had the first sip.

‘Undress me,' he says. He has lots of freckles across his nose and the backs of his hands, pale, almost red. They cover his chest, cluster around his groin. He sways on his feet while she's undressing him.

She often washes the men, makes it a game for the ones who like to be touched with the water. ‘Cools you down,' she tells him.

‘Has that water been used?' He glares at the bowl in her hands.

‘No, I got it from the tank just before.'

‘It's dirty.'

‘That's the colour it came out the tank.'

She ends up throwing it away and asking Joe to get her some fresh stuff from the other tank, which is smaller and overflowed in the last storm. ‘Picky bugger,' he sniffs, and from the verandah she watches him go, leaving Colin inside for a moment with a drink he doesn't want. In the mango tree behind them, she smells the fruit bats – they stink as though they've been fried and left out in the sun.

Colin is sitting crossed-legged on the armchair, his cock and balls hanging limp across his thigh, visible under his leg that stretches at right-angles over his knee.

‘How you been?' she asks. She'll wait for the water before she starts undressing. She doesn't want to think he can get away with not cleaning up first.

‘I'm sick of being poor,' he says. ‘I could be back in Brisbane making money. But Mother, she's sick.'

‘You must be a good son,' she says, and he seems pleased.

‘She gets upset easily, Mother.' He shuffles his legs around so his cock flops to the other side.

‘Must be hard.'

He looks at his nails. His eyelashes cast a shadow on his face.

Joe knocks, and she goes to the front door to take the water from him. When she comes back, she sees Colin's covered himself with a pillow. ‘I thought he was going to come inside,' he says. ‘He shouldn't disturb us like that.'

‘He's my husband, doesn't bite,' Lizzie says.

‘Why did you tell me that? I don't want to know you have a husband.'

‘Thought it might calm you.' She's really done it now, but can't bring herself to apologise. She puts the bowl down on the side of the chair, squeezes out the sponge. Colin doesn't move. She asks, ‘May I?'

He sighs and stands up, spreading his legs out as if he's on parade. His cock's still limp. They're in for a long night. But he perks up a little when she's washing his thighs, and sighs when she puts the sponge against his cock. ‘Take it in your mouth,' he says.

‘I don't do that.'

He sighs again. ‘Always out for more. I'll pay you, of course.'

‘How much?'

‘Twelve shillings.'

It's enough to mean she only needs to take one other man in tonight, and she and Joe can go home early. And it might hurry Colin along; his cock's still limp. She squints up her eyes and takes the whole tip of it in her mouth, and he gasps. ‘Ah, ah, no teeth.'

She pulls her teeth away, and his hand rests on her head. He thrusts his hips forward. She has to take him all in and sucks air through her nose, fears she'll run out of breath when he won't let her up. She shifts her head so she doesn't gag, reaches back and moves his hand from her hair. His head is hanging backwards, and she feels a bit sick looking up at his neck, which seems headless. She slides her mouth off him gently, kneads his groin, slicks her hand and rubs his cock. ‘Want to go to bed now?' she asks.

‘No, I want you to fuck me here.'

‘What'll me boss say when she sees the stains on the chair?'

‘I'm sure men ask for it here all the time.'

‘I always take them to bed.'

Bea's given her strict instructions about the furniture: ‘If they must have it, they can lean you over the back and drip on the floor.'

Colin stands there, his arms folded. She slips off to the linen cupboard in the hall and the lounge room, comes back with a towel and a wooden chair. She lays the towel over the chair. ‘Come and sit over here,' she says.

‘I'm staying on the soft chair.'

‘Bea'll charge you if it's damaged.' Lizzie doesn't fancy dealing with him later, trying to pin him down and squeeze the cash out of him.

‘Stop worrying.' He sits on the armchair, his legs apart. ‘Come here.'

She shakes her head.

‘I want my money's worth. I can't believe you. You've forced me to wash like a child, made me sit here naked, and now that I'm comfortable, you want me to move. I've never met such a fucking squeamish slut.'

‘Look, mate, I've got nothing against fucking on an armchair, if it was mine. But, I'm telling you –'

He stands, walks over to her, picks up the chair with the towel and smashes it to the ground. The wood at the top splits against the floorboards. Lizzie grabs his arm. He shakes her off.

‘Here, leave that alone,' she yells. ‘Joe!'

Colin screams in her face, ‘You have no fucking idea what I've been through today.' He scoops the wash bowl off the sideboard as though he's paddling through water, shatters it on the ground. Lizzie brings her fist down on his back. He says, ‘I just want to fucking
fuck
.'

Joe flings open the door and strides in, pinches Colin at the shoulders. ‘Hell you doing?'

‘Get off me, I've paid.' Colin struggles against Joe, thrashing his arms.

Lizzie is shouting, over and over, ‘Get him out, get him out!'

He slides from Joe's grip, spins around, delivers a punch in the gut that makes Joe wince. ‘Take orders from a fucking whore?' he screams.

Joe bundles him up close to his body, wraps his arms around his shoulders so he's got him tight, then drops him like a ball and boots him through the bedroom doorway. Colin half crawls, half slides along the floor, gets to his hands and knees. He's heaving but no sound comes out. Lizzie brings her bare foot up and under his gut. He groans. Joe grabs his arm and drags him, doubled over, towards the front door. Lizzie fumbles with the handle, fingers sweaty, yanks it open. Joe flings Colin out. He hits the verandah with his chest, his chin. Does a strange little bounce. Lizzie feels it in her own body, the scrape of the floorboards on skin. She bundles up his clothes and throws them after him.

Colin lets out a breath, lifts his head. His face is dark with blood. He grabs his trousers and hauls them on, and jabs his arms in his shirtsleeves. Then he sits on the step with his head in his hands, mutters into his palms, ‘I'll fucking get you both.' He stands up, stumbles, puts his hand out, grabs nothing, falls on his knees again. From the ground he yells, ‘I'll fucking get you, slut,' spreads his arms like a bird's wings, curved, and clambers to his feet. He walks into the dark with both hands out.

Lizzie pulls Joe back inside. He looks as though he's going to deliver another kick to the back of Colin's head, and she wants him to do it so badly that she scares herself. She's filled with nervous energy, dull-witted and super-charged, a wind-up toy twisted tight and then released. ‘What if he gets us, Joe?' She's breathless.

‘We'll tell Bea he's a troublemaker. She won't let him back in.'

‘He'll be going back to Bea's, telling all those men, bad-mouthing me.'

‘Bullshit. He'll be limping off home with his tail between his legs.'

‘How'd you know?'

‘Liz –'

She puts her back to him. Can't he see how bad this could be for her? She goes back to her room, and he follows. They stare at the wooden chair tumbled over and splintered as if in a gust of wind, the wash bowl in shards. ‘He smashed Bea's things,' she says, ‘and he'll be in fifty-one now telling everyone I'm shit. No one will see me again. What if she kicks me out?'

‘She won't. Don't cry. I'll bloody go and see what he's doing.'

‘Go on then.' But Joe just stands there. She strides out, flings open the screen door, hears it slam behind her, hopes it hits him in the face.

Colin hasn't gone very far. He's out the front of Bea's talking to Old Bill, who has his arms crossed, leaning against one of the old cement poles that used to hold a tank before the cyclone knocked it off. Lizzie walks right between the men, grabs hold of Colin and knees him in the groin. Old Bill says, ‘The fuck?' and steps back. Lizzie stares up at him, and he moves further away.

‘This cunt bad-mouthing me?' she asks, as Colin curls into himself.

‘Started on about you, darling, but I wasn't payin' much attention,' Old Bill says. ‘Should've kicked him myself.'

‘You're a gem, Bill. Tell the others, will you? Not to listen.'

She catches Joe walking over to them from the corner of her eye, but she keeps her back to him. Bea comes out and looks the three of them up and down. Eyes Colin lying on the grass. ‘Hell's going on?' she demands.

Lizzie tells the story, her voice wild and angry, and Bill backs her up.

Bea prods Colin with the toe of her moleskin heel. ‘You alive, mate?' He's groaning and carrying on. She crouches next to him and rests her forearms on her bent thighs. Puts her head down so it's level with his ear and says, ‘Don't you ever fucking come here again. Breaking my fucking furniture. Next time I'll break your fucking legs.' She pushes herself upright as Colin scrambles off through the dry grass. They watch him hobble towards the Causeway, his movements exaggerated in silhouette against the hotel lights.

Bea puts her hand on Old Bill's shoulder. ‘Why don't you go up and tell Murray I said you could have a free drink?'

Bill rubs his hands together and makes his way inside fifty-one.

Turning to Joe and Lizzie, Bea asks, ‘This your hubby, the one who's out of work, isn't it?'

‘Won't let me forget it,' Lizzie says.

Bea eyes him. She comes closer, has to tilt her neck to see into his face. Joe stands with his hands on his hips. Lizzie can tell he doesn't like the inspection, but he takes it.

‘He's got a punch, alright,' says Bea. ‘Knows how to handle the men. Can take a beatin' too and recover, seems like.' She turns back to Lizzie, who thinks it's strange she's not talking to Joe. He's staring into the mangroves. A bat flaps overhead, looks like it's struggling to stay in the air. ‘He be interested in working for all the girls?' Bea asks Lizzie. ‘Murray's bloody useless. I'm thinking I'll leave him on bar, get your hubby in.'