Treading Air (20 page)

A man calls from out the front, and she runs back in too quickly, feeling bad for leaving Joe in the dark with a stiff cock and for the customer who's had to yell for sex. In bed she's too willing to please this fella, too exposed, and he pulls her hair suddenly. She wants to ask him to do it again, but he's already coming. She'd like to ask Joe to pull her hair like that – she's just frightened he'll ask her how she knows she likes it. Or he'll think she's strange. He always wants to be in the same position, with him on top, so when a man first asked her to ride him, she didn't know what to do. Lucky she has a vivid imagination.

She never talks to Joe about what happens in the bedroom with the men.

The first six months of their marriage, she imagined that she and Joe were becoming the same person, so many times they agreed on the same thing. But now it occurs to her, as the man she's with shudders, quivers his thighs, that Joe isn't the same as her, he thinks differently. She doesn't know his mind. Withdrawing from the man, she pulls her hips away, but he doesn't notice, flopping over on his back. She's surprised that she can go on like this, fundamentally changed, absent, and no one notices. Her attention is spread too wide.

She holds the man's hand, an empty movement. He doesn't respond.

She learnt a long time ago to keep her thoughts to herself. Her dad told her no one likes smart girls, and Joe never responds to her invitations for discussion. He's silent, or worse, teases her: ‘No one told me I was marrying a teacher.' She wonders if this man will talk about her afterwards with his mates. They speak about her differently from the way they treat her. She's seen Joe, drunk, tell the men about the whores he's seen loitering on Flinders Street, ‘blouses undone almost to the nipple', and later fall upon her and kiss her desperately. She can't unpick his contradictions.

The man tucks his penis into his trousers, as though he's wrapping a parcel, and leaves her.

Still lying on her bed, Lizzie hears Bea's voice and Joe's answer. She sits up and pulls the covers around her, expecting Bea to come inside soon, but she never does. Later, when Lizzie asks him what Bea wanted, Joe says she asked him to travel to Ingham. ‘What for?' Lizzie asks. They're walking back home along Roberts Street, the sky grey with the sun not yet risen.

He tells her that Bea wants to set up another place like Heurand Street in the town. Knocking shops and fan-tan, that kind of thing. ‘Enough cane farmers and Kanakas to keep it going, she reckons. But the place's crawling with dagos, so she wants me to come with her and guard her.'

‘She handing out extra beans?'

‘Sure. Wants to bring another fella along too. Said I could choose whoever I wanted. I said McWilliams.'

‘McWilliams?' Lizzie tries to keep her voice calm. ‘With his gammy leg, what good is he to you?'

‘He's always had me back, looks after himself. You seen him whip off that metal thing from his leg?'

Lizzie nods. She doesn't want to talk about the time he showed her that.

Joe tells her that they'll be gone for a few weeks. She'll have to wait for dawn and walk herself home in the daylight. ‘Ah, Christ,' she says, ‘what am I going to do without you?' He laughs, and she's glad that she's pleased him, turned the attention away from talk of McWilliams.

Without Joe around, Lizzie spends more time drinking and snorting snow with Thelma. ‘I don't understand the men,' Lizzie says, her feet on the table. Thelma has already polished off a bottle and sits with her legs tucked up under her, while Lizzie waves her bottle around. ‘They want me to convince them I love them, then once they're happy I do, they leave. But I can't just pretend. Only way I can make it convincing is to believe it.'

‘You don't have to do that to yourself,' says Thelma. ‘You don't have to believe in anything. 'Specially not your own bullshit.'

‘Can't help it.'

‘Bullshit too good, eh?'

Lizzie backwashes into the beer, wipes her mouth.

‘You won't survive if you keep going like that,' Thelma tells her.

Voices come to them from the fan-tan parlour. A man's barking laugh.

Thelma says, ‘Other day, bloke turned up asking when you were on shift.'

‘Which bloke?'

‘Not a regular. Thought I saw him with Joe the other day. Fella was with you and Joe, first night we met. He has it bad for you.'

Lizzie shrugs, pretends not to care. Her heart's pounding.

Thelma's unconvinced. ‘Be careful, Betty. Don't think he was looking for a regular fuck. Reckon he wants to take you away from all this, my dear.'

A possibility opens up: life without Joe. But that future is blank, spots in front of her eyes. ‘I don't think so,' she says.

Thelma takes a sip of her beer and stares out to the back of the hotel. ‘You better tell this McWilliams bloke to go away then.'

Lizzie runs her hands through her hair. She's thought this herself often enough and doesn't know why she just can't do it. ‘I will. He's off with Joe now. When they come back, I will.'

Thelma reaches over to rub the top of Lizzie's foot, but she leans too far and topples forward. She slips off the chair gently, sprawls on the floor and laughs at Lizzie, who comes down onto the floor with her. They lie on their backs and drink so that they can feel the fizz of beer up their noses. Thelma falls asleep with her arm stretched above her head and her underarm hair exposed, a sea anemone in a rock pool. Lizzie resists the urge to touch the hair, so much darker than hers. She has a feeling that the hair would react, curl in on itself.

When she wakes, she's still on the ground. Thelma must have got up in the night and thrown a blanket over her. She sweats under it, kicks it off. Her neck stiffens. When she's on her feet, the pain tightens across her shoulderblades. She walks home in a fugue, the bag under her arm too light. She knows she's forgotten something but can't remember what. Kicks her toe on a stone, anger flaring up. She swears in the early morning light, and a dog barks. Swears at it too.

Next night, she feels as if the world is against her, and is deeply offended when a man chooses Thelma when they're both on the verandah, open to the breeze. She's so tired that she doesn't really want another client, but this almost makes it worse, because Thelma not only has the man but also the stamina. Lizzie can't tell the difference between herself and Thelma; her judgement must be off somewhere. This frightens her – maybe she's wrong about her attractiveness to men. What if Joe doesn't find her beautiful but stays out of pity? She wants to cling to him for the first time in ages.

Their house seems empty, the dust gathered on the skirting board and piled in the corners, tracked in from the dry yard and road that cuts across the front of their house, the grass brittle and unable to hold the dirt.

Bored, Lizzie finds herself in the fan-tan parlour. Lee has a key in his hand. He's spent all his money and tells her that the place the key opens is worth something, so he'd like to buy in with it. The place is in Brisbane, and Lizzie imagines herself back there and seizes on the idea, allowing Lee to make the bet.

She pictures the house that the key opens – somewhere, Lee said, near the wharves. Where she grew up, her old stomping ground. A window with a view to a twist in the river. In their own house, she and Joe could start afresh. A pang at the thought she might leave McWilliams, which she pushes away. And the idea of an escape route, held right there in Lee's hand, his square fingers curled around the key, makes her realise how trapped she feels. She pictures the mangroves along Ross River, their roots thrust up and sucking air, like the mud breathing, a creature sucking her in too – pulling her into the ground. She wanted to save most of her earnings, but the tin isn't filling quickly enough. She hasn't been keeping track, often finds herself at the end of the week with nothing to show for it. Can't work out where it goes.

Next to Lee, another Chinese bloke plays banker in Bea's absence. He wears a cap embroidered with flowers, like nothing Lizzie's ever seen on a man, but it takes on a masculine presence above his high cheekbones and strong features. Lee is outlined against the fringe of the lampshade, which thrusts the light to the table, leaving the ceiling in blackness. The darkness above their heads holds them down, bowing them to the game where the tiles click.

Half-drunk, Lee gazes at her longingly, and she knows that the key, that place, is meant to be hers. Her lucky tile warms in her palm. This is what she wanted from Joe that he couldn't give her. Still, even after he proved he can't look after her, and she has to look after herself, she's held out hope for him. What a mistake that's been – where she's been going wrong.

Lee slides his fingers over a cut in the table. She notices the length of his nails, white moons rising from the cuticle. He doesn't glance at her again. She doesn't want to think why not. He joined the game of his own free will. Not her fault he's lost all his money. He puts the key down. She's so focused on it, she doesn't see Dolly until the woman's settled in the chair next to her. Lizzie has to stop herself from pulling her chair away. She doesn't want to fight now; she has better things to hold her attention. Dolly's body is close to hers, so she tucks her elbows in, not wanting to touch her skin. Dolly's lipstick is faded in the centre, leaving only the outline of true colour at the edges. Lizzie brushes her hand over her own face, and it comes away charcoaled, the stamp of her eyelashes barring her finger. ‘We've already started,' she says.

Dolly turns to the banker and puts some coins in front of him. ‘Me money's good, you know that.'

The banker hooks her coins with a bamboo rod and drops a tile for her.

‘Here, we've already started,' Lizzie insists.

He shrugs and looks away.

‘You speak English? You can't let her in.'

‘I'm in charge now,' he says. ‘My rules.'

Lizzie thinks about going then, throwing down her tile dramatically, but she can't bear missing out on the chance of winning the key. Still, Dolly's presence disrupts her confidence. She loses concentration on the lucky tile, which she felt almost might speak to her. Her anger rises.

Dolly asks the banker the odds. When he tells her, she picks up her tile, turning it over in between her thumb and forefinger.

Lizzie asks Lee, pointing to the tile, ‘What's hers mean?'

‘Dragon,' he says, and Lizzie's confidence returns. She's the one who has luck. Dolly's just there to test her resolve. She can't fail, won't let that silly cow distract her. She puts her tile on the number three square.

Dolly looks at her, then lowers her eyes and spins the tile. ‘What's that key open?' she asks Lee.

‘Two rooms in Brisbane on Petrie Terrace. At the back of a florist. My sister lives there. Grows orchids inside, where it's not cold. They grow well in the damp from the river that runs to the back of the place. The florist gives her a good price.'

Dolly nods, breathes loudly through her nose, and in the same movement puts the tile on number two. The banker clicks his bamboo rod against the table. Lee throws his tile onto the squares, and it skids over the painted line. He has to push it back into number one. The banker coughs, and the table rattles. He pulls out handfuls of coins from a chamois bag and covers them with a brass bowl, then lifts the cover as though presenting the three of them with a restaurant meal. He takes the rod delicately between his fingers and counts.

Dolly pulls out a pouch and rolls a cigarette. The sound of the coins sliding like waves. The pile's small enough now that Lizzie can just about guess. Three. She's sure of it. Dolly purses her lips to the side, blowing the smoke away from them. Lee moves his fingers over his wrist. Lizzie wishes she didn't have to see what her winning has cost him. But she knows it'll be worth it, if it gets her and Joe out of here. She'll look after Lee and his sister, once she's got the place up and running, a nice set-up like Bea has here. She'll send Lee money when Joe's not watching.

The banker taps the rod against the table again, at the pile that's left. It's a kick in her chest. Two. Fucking hell. Two. She pushes her hand against the table, harder than she meant. It tips sideways. Seems as though it'll go over, but it teeters, shifts backwards, settles. Dolly hisses between her teeth and the cigarette, grins. Lizzie can't stand her look. She shouldn't take things so seriously, she only lost a couple of beans, but she hates that Dolly has the rooms now, something so solid as a piece of property.

Lee has his head in his hands, fingers furrowing his hair, and Lizzie wants to scratch him. What a stupid coot to gamble something like that, to give Dolly so much power over her. Dolly will use it against her.

Lizzie gets up, shaking, anger clouding her passage down the hallway. On the verandah she hits her head against a hurricane lamp hanging too low from the beam over the doorway. She swears and picks it up in both hands. Brings it down onto the wooden boards. It smashes, and the light dies. She stands with glass around her and tries to calm her rough breathing. She'll have to pay for it.

She hears a sound, turns to see Lee looking at the smashed-up lamp. He tells her, ‘You have no bloody idea.' His voice cracks. ‘My sister, what's she going to do? What if the bitch throws her out?'

Lizzie's anger drains away. Her own place, her business in Brisbane, was all a fantasy. She hasn't lost anything. Not like this bloke. And it was the banker's fault that Dolly joined their game, not Lee's.

‘Dunno, mate,' Lizzie says to him. ‘Dolly's a bitch, that's true enough.'

They stare at the shards at their feet. Lizzie wonders how she'll move past without getting hurt, but Lee just walks across, not looking. She can see he doesn't care; it crunches beneath his heels. He heads out to Charters Towers Road, back to his shop. His body has the look of a man crushed.