Treading Air (24 page)

Townsville, 1923

T
helma's had a bad time of it lately. She comes to Lizzie's house in the afternoon, just as Lizzie climbs out of bed. She's red-faced, really in a state. Lizzie recognises the emotion straight away, she's been carrying it around that long – everything comes at you through a haze that clouds your mind; things seem at once distant and deeply offensive.

‘Me money's gone,' Thelma tells her.

‘What?' She didn't know Thelma had any. She thinks of her own tin, still only half-full. Useless coins, mostly.

‘What's the point of putting up with everything if I don't have the money no more?' Thelma works herself up, making a lot of noise, her voice broken. The words are just to make herself feel better. Lizzie stops listening and watches Thelma's mouth move as she speaks, her tongue coming out, her teeth forward, the curl of her lips pulled down. Lately there have been more nights when Thelma's withdrawn, refused to see anyone but Old Bill. Lizzie has rescued her more than once the past couple of months. One time, Bea came and found Lizzie waiting for business, and told her to get Thelma out of the bedroom. Thelma was drunk, taking up space, Bea said. Lizzie knew Bea would call Dolly in to replace her. Lizzie could barely look at Bea.

Since the business in Ingham – the expansion, Bea calls it – she's been coming down harder on the girls, getting them to drum up business at the Causeway, stand out in the streets. The Black Hand doesn't take kindly to debts unpaid. This makes Thelma worse, Lizzie too. They feel as though they're in a factory line; the fun gone out of it, the sense of men coming to them.

The night that Dolly was called in, Lizzie rolled Thelma off the bed, ended up going down on her knees to try and get her on her back so she could move her, all the time muttering under her breath, ‘Fuck you, fuck you,' and Thelma not even stirring. There was a screen in Thelma's room, and Lizzie knew she wouldn't get her any further, that Bea would have expected them to be gone by then. Lizzie half-rolled, half-dragged Thelma behind the screen. Voices in the corridor, footsteps into the room, a man and Dolly. Lizzie sat with her back to the wall and her legs out, Thelma sprawled on top of her, listening to the man grunting away with Dolly. Lizzie felt sick. The bristling legs of some insect brushed across her skin. Finally, Thelma came round. They snuck out between fucks, Dolly lying on the bed, her eyes shut, not moving.

Lizzie feels the loss of Thelma's money personally; she hefted the flesh that was exchanged for it. ‘How much?' she asks Thelma.

‘Nineteen pounds.'

‘Hell you doing with that much?' The jealousy snaps at Lizzie. She should have more than that by now, with both her and Joe working. She's been distracted, caught up in the pleasure of owning beautiful things, rewards she gives herself.

Thelma puts her face in her hands. ‘I had this idea –' She flaps her palms across her cheeks. ‘Useless now. Bloody hell.' She kneads her eyes.

Something dawns on Lizzie. ‘Dolly took it?'

‘Reckon. That new girl Bea put on came to my place last night, all kind. I was bored just talking to my boy – only so much you can say to a little kid, isn't there? So I had a drink or two with her. Then I saw her and Dolly talking out back, and I got this feeling in me gut. Went and checked the stash. Gone.'

‘How d'you know they had something to do with it?'

‘I told that girl about it, didn't I? She told Dolly.' Thelma sighs. ‘I might've had more than a couple of drinks. It's years' worth, Betty. Years and years.' She slams the kitchen door with the flat of her palm, so hard it shivers in its hinges.

‘Here!' yells Lizzie, in her dad's voice, meant for the horses.

Thelma turns in on herself.

‘Here,' says Lizzie again, softer. She's never seen Thelma this rough. She puts her arm around her, then pours her a drink. ‘Here.'

Thelma gulps it down standing with her hand on her hip, staring out into the street. Lizzie's restless, her legs trembling. She feels the heat from Thelma, coming off her in waves. She asks Thelma where her boy is. He's with the neighbour, who's not expecting Thelma for a while. Lizzie fills up her glass again, pours herself one too.

It's Thelma who brings out the gun, but Lizzie takes it off her in the end; she's in no state to handle it. Lizzie waves the gun around, limp-wristed. Somehow it lightens the weight that's been pressing on her since Dolly saw her and the shadow of McWilliams. Her mind, flurried with booze, plays out Dolly telling Joe about her sweetheart. She curls her fingers around the gun.

Lizzie and Thelma walk in silence, the gravelled road rolling under their feet, their steps ringing out around the neighbourhood, over the rooves of houses each with a warm huddle of bodies inside.

Dolly is in number fifty-three. Lizzie walks right up the back stairs and bangs on the door, the sound echoing through the house. She yells out to make the bitch take notice. Thelma has a rock in her hand and lobs it at the window. It hits the glass strangely, lacking force. Bounces off the pane and lands at their feet.

‘Jesus,' says Lizzie.

‘See if you can do a better job.'

A door shuts. Footsteps, round the front of the house.

‘Shit,' says Lizzie, and they're after Dolly, chasing her down the road. She's on Heurand Street, illuminated by a square of light from the window before she slips back into shadow. Heading towards the shelter of the Causeway.

‘I see you,' says Thelma.

Lizzie, still running, holds up the gun and lets it off without knowing what she's doing. Dolly's feet still. The shot was wild. Thelma's breath goes ragged. She folds over herself, her head facing the ground. Lizzie knows it's up to her, that Thelma won't make it any further. The street stretches out on either side of them, the road dipping back into the creek. Lizzie keeps running. Behind her, Thelma falls and calls out, ‘Get her, Betty!'

The air around Lizzie is heavy with water. She ploughs through it. Imagines herself in the river mud, dragged down. She slows her breathing, paces herself. Hears the pub, men's voices raised. Two kids stare out at her from the back. ‘Got any food, Missus?' the boy asks.

Lizzie shakes her head and strides on. Their dad will be somewhere.

The dirt is cakey from the rains, a layer of mud and dry underneath, churned up by the men who stand outside, holding pints and deciding whether they can afford to fuck a girl that night. Their voices bounce off the creek and back to Lizzie, distorted. Her legs are shaking. Dolly is silhouetted in the light from the hotel. Lizzie aims, lets the gun off, hears Dolly's voice call out. She thinks: no one will steal from Thelma or me again.

A copper's in front of her. No mistaking his black uniform, the flat cap. She doesn't know how he got there so fast. All she can think to do is to slide the gun into her pocket and keep her hands behind her back. Dolly's saying, ‘Take her, she's shot me.' She feels sick that Dolly's still speaking; she'd like to shoot her tongue off. But the copper's standing in front of her now, his hands spread out.

Dolly calls, ‘Watch her, she's got the revolver!'

Lizzie yells at her to shut the fuck up. She puts her hand to the gun in her pocket – she's about to be taken in, may as well finish the job. The copper lunges at her, wrapping his arms around her. The breath's knocked out of her. She struggles against him, and he wrenches her arm up behind her back. She cries out. The metal from the handcuffs is warm where they've been pressed against his body. It feels too intimate, as though he's one of her men, his body heat on her.

Another copper appears. She recognises O'Sullivan, who talked to Joe after the meatworks accident. He says, ‘I'll take her.' Puts his hand on her elbow as if he owns her. She tries to shrug out of it. He tightens his grip. ‘Check her,' he says. The other shoves his hand, square and hard as a wooden block, into Lizzie's front pocket and pulls out the gun. He holds it up to the light.

They put Lizzie in the back seat of their car – third time in her life she's been in one. O'Sullivan talks to the group of men who've gathered around Dolly. The other copper sits up front, his hand loose on the bottom of the wheel. O'Sullivan climbs in and the suspension lowers. They drive her to the station, the lights of the town spooling out in her wake, leaving her suspended, slipping on the leather seat. She's been abandoned. They've all left her: Thelma, Joe, McWilliams. These cops treat her like dirt. She wishes her head would stop spinning so she could see clearly. Tries not to vomit with the motion of the car.

At the station, O'Sullivan takes her name. He already knows it from his visit to Joe, so there's no use trying to give him ‘Betty Knight'. The bench is too high for her; she has to put her elbows on top.

‘Occupation?' he asks.

‘Housewife.'

‘Age?'

‘Twenty-seven,' she lies. No one will bother to check, and maybe it will help keep this from her dad.

‘Height?'

‘Five foot.' This she can't hide.

O'Sullivan glances up at her, his eyes popping. ‘Eyes blue, hair brown.'

The shirt he wears gives his head the appearance of an egg in a cup. If he walked into number fifty-three, she'd know to be gentle with him, to ease him out of his clothes.

The booze is wearing off. The light in the station hits her. Her own breathing rattles around her brain.

When he's done, O'Sullivan throws the pen down as though he's disgusted. He's bunging it on, enjoying the performance – if only he knew she was a second behind in processing, he'd slow down, give her time to make sense of it.

‘You girls come up north, and it does something to you,' he says. ‘Hell, does something to me. I tried, you know, I really tried. But when it's just me, only so much one man can do. So you want to fight, fight, but do it properly next time.' He holds up the gun. ‘This? Looks impressive, but you'd have a hard time killing a pigeon with it.' He flips it around on the bench and turns to lock it in the safe behind him.

The cell is hot with another girl's body. She puts her head up. A dago, Lizzie thinks. Big breasts and skinny legs. ‘Be nice to her, will you?' O'Sullivan asks.

‘What for?' Lizzie's not in the mood.

‘'Cause I say so.' He locks the door on them.

He's set her bail at eighty pounds. No way Joe or anyone can afford that.

The rain from last night pools in the dips of the cement floor. The heat evaporates it slowly, leaving tidemarks. Water hangs in the air. On the bench, the girl holds one hand in the other.

A reporter comes, and Lizzie hears them talking about her. She scratches her names in the wall: ‘Betty Knight' and then, below it, ‘Lizzie O'Dea'.

McWilliams visits her the next morning. She takes the only chair, a wooden thing with no arms and two turned pieces that hold the seat up like a tea tray. McWilliams crouches so he can be closer to her. She wants to kiss him, hard on the mouth, but O'Sullivan watches them from between the bars.

McWilliams has brought in the newspaper. He shows her the capitalised headline: ‘SHOOTING AFFRAY'. He reads, ‘
As a result of a shooting incident
at the rear of the Causeway Hotel this morning, a young woman, Elizabeth
O'Dea, has been
arrested, while another young woman,
Dolly Franks, is in hospital suffering from bullet wounds in the right
thumb and breast. The wounds are
not considered dangerous
.'

The words sit painfully with Lizzie's headache, rest in her clavicle, stop the air getting to her lungs. ‘She'll live then.' Lizzie wonders what the point of it all was. That bitch has brought her low, trapped her in this humid cell. ‘Wish I'd killed her.'

McWilliams picks her hand up by the thumb, presses his nail into the first joint. ‘That's about as much damage as you did to her.' Like O'Sullivan said, not enough power to kill a pigeon.

Lizzie feels helpless. ‘You have to do something. Dolly saw us together out back. She'll tell Joe.'

‘He won't make much of that.'

‘You don't know him, you think that.'

‘I'll protect you.'

‘How? I'm stuck here for a while at least.' She wants to fuck McWilliams and slap him, he's so disconnected from the truth of matters. He puts his hand on her arm and brings his face close to hers. O'Sullivan steps forward at this. ‘Mind your own,' Lizzie hisses at him.

‘I am,' the copper says, but he doesn't come any closer. He walks over to a chair against the far wall, picks up his newspaper and the chipped teacup without a saucer. It looks small in his hands.

‘I don't understand you,' McWilliams whispers. ‘Why'd you have to go and do this bloody thing? Hurts me that I can't kiss you.'

A scar runs underneath his chin. She can't answer him, feels the walls heavy around her, the presence of the girl, silent in the corner. ‘There's something wrong with that dago over there. Hasn't said a word. Driving me barmy.'

McWilliams looks around Lizzie to the girl. ‘Hello,' he says to her. She glances up for a second, and Lizzie watches her – she doesn't know why McWilliams wants to talk to her. The girl wears a cotton dress with a tea stain down the front and stockings with the bottom blackened in the shape of her footprint. ‘I seen her yesterday,' McWilliams says, in a murmur right against Lizzie's ear, even though O'Sullivan's hidden behind his paper. ‘At the Criterion. She was with a bunch of her people but didn't look too happy about it. They were feeding her toffee apples, and she was eating them ten to the dozen. I recognised one of those dagos from Ingham. So this might be the safest place for her.'

He sneaks a kiss on Lizzie's lips and then leaves her, the cell cooling down from his presence.

O'Sullivan comes back over and says, ‘Thought your husband was a big man.'