An Open Swimmer (14 page)

‘What?'

‘Money for the Cokes.' He dropped it, swaggeringly, near the head on the floor, hand trembling. ‘His is on me.'

‘Hey,' called Al. He looked nervous. ‘What about him? You can't just leave him there!'

‘Your fuckin' customer,' he cried, eyes full, ashamed. ‘Serve him.'

Al threw something on the floor. Rosa was sneering.

‘Bastard! What am I gonna do with him now, eh?'

‘Lock 'im in . . . in —'

Out the door. The stench forced fingers up his nostrils. He leant against the bricks. He wanted to vomit, but there was nothing.

‘Crazy bastard!' From inside again. ‘Thinks he's tough shit now.'

He pulled jerkily into the driveway. The man next door was harvesting dog turds. Jerra went upstairs, smelling cold pies and roos and puke, thinking of all the caustic one-liners now it was too late. And there was tonight.

‘How can they see what they're eating?' she murmured. She seemed happy.

‘Yeah.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothin'.'

Picking her way, the waitress came with the wine, reds jiggling thickly in the bottles. The little gas lantern on the table glimmered on the glass. He couldn't read the label, though he didn't try hard.

‘Hope you like Shiraz.'

‘Mm.'

‘You don't?'

‘Eh?'

‘The wine.'

‘Yeah, fine.'

She pulled back her hair.

‘Not the full biscuit tonight, are you?'

He put an elbow on the tablecloth.

‘Gimme some plonk. I'll cheer up.'

At other tables, leaning into the yellow gravy light, people tilted glasses, pausing with the glint of cutlery in their hands. The music was thin. Jerra filled his barren throat with wine, watching her neck as she drank. She wore a thin, brown shawl of coarse wool, an open shirt and boots. He felt the hard toes against his jeans. Her eyes were different. Make-up, perhaps, he guessed. Freckles, dusty and fine, glowed on her forehead. No, it wasn't make-up; he had seen those shadows in eyes before; he ignored it.

The waitress returned.

‘What are you going to order?' Judy asked, touching his cold fingers.

The waitress held a torch to the menu. It was all a bit silly, and they must have made a mistake with the prices. Whatever happened to the Chinese joints with tile floors and sweet and sour pork for $3.50?

‘I dunno,' he said. ‘What about you?'

‘Umm. Veal Whateveritis. Sounds good.'

‘Yeah, but how does it taste?'

‘Very good,' said the waitress.

He nodded politely, wondering what the hell about the veal.

‘Rack of Lamb. That sounds gruesome enough.' He wasn't hungry.

The waitress snapped her little notebook shut and went off into the darkness.

‘Should've had cray, I suppose.'

‘Know anything about crayfish dishes?'

‘Not much. Only cray a la boil-bust-and-bog-in.'

‘Awful things. To look at, I mean. Tell me about your friend.'

‘Sean?'

‘Yes.'

‘Nothing to say, really. Fathers close friends. Grew up together. Best mates. Us the same. You have many friends at school?'

‘Not really. Girls aren't really friends at school – just bitches waiting to get you back for this or that. Girls don't make friends; doesn't do much for our image.'

‘S'pose you'd know.'

‘Yes. I would.' She eased her head back, showing the soft white beneath her chin that ran in a parting curve between the buttons shining like teeth. Her breasts quivered. ‘Bet you spent your childhood in the pinball shops on the beachfront.'

‘Oh, off and on. Surfing was big, then.'

‘Peroxide your hair?'

‘I tried lemons every summer, but it didn't work. Walking round, smelling like Air-O-Zone. Doesn't get a bloke anywhere, somehow.'

‘Not much school, eh?'

‘Why? Do I seem stupid?'

She put her glass down.

‘I was joking,' he said weakly.

‘Oh.'

‘Tell you something about crayfish seeing's you're so fascinated by them.'

‘Okay.'

‘You can float along in a boat some days – a calm day – and sometimes, if you lift a big piece of floating weed, there'll be a cray underneath, using it for shelter. They migrate during the growth season or something, under bits and pieces that give them shelter. If you keep a shadow over it, the cray won't notice the difference, and you can just scoop him up into the boat. No one seems to know much about those buggers. Reckon they travel hundreds of miles. Like pilgrims, or sumpin'.'

She was watching his hands move, he noticed.

‘Ever been crabbing?' he asked, brightening, suddenly self-conscious.

‘Oh, God, yeah.'

‘Get bitten, eh?'

‘No, but I dreamt it a million times.'

‘Great fun, though.'

‘Marvellous.' She didn't appear convinced.

‘Really hot nights, the mud stinking like an excavated graveyard, the lights on the beach, people laughing and talking. Great.'

‘Sometimes, even crabs.'

‘Boilin' 'em up in big drums on the beach. Cookin' spuds on the fire. Beer. A girlfriend from school.'

‘With braces.'

‘Him or her?'

‘Both, no doubt.'

‘Her Dad and others out with the nets. A quick grope on the beach with the Tilley down low. Mud squelching under the tarpaulin.'

‘Mm.'

The imprint showing perfectly when packing up to go. Parents' eyebrows. Drop the tarp back down for a sec – shoelaces, yeah, just do the old shoelaces up. Looking down at thongs. The girl giggling nervously.

‘Bet she was a younger girl.'

‘They.'

‘Oh, they? All crawling after you, eh?'

Catching only the distant silhouettes out in the water. Hearing her talk, back on her elbows, brushing mosquitoes, hair lapping back over her shoulders near his feet. Wishing, wishing. Watching all the way up from those little feet, brown thighs shining in the lamplight, to the snug, white shorts. Wishing. And hating that glint on her hand. Imagining the broader mould they would leave, wider scoops in the mud from her buttocks. Sand forced under his toenails. Seeing hers, white shells in a neat row. Wishing
she
had braces. That she wasn't Sean's mum.

‘Did you ever have braces?' What was he saying?

‘No.'

‘Perfect teeth all your life, eh?'

‘Yeah.'

Jerra sliced down the bone, stripping away the soft brown meat. He still wasn't hungry, but the wine had hollowed him out, reminding him of how little he had eaten. And the vomiting.

‘So where did you go to school?' he asked.

‘Methodist Ladies'.'

‘Wonder your oldies didn't give you braces, just to show they could afford it.'

‘Aren't we the righteous one!'

‘Sorry. Was it a girls' school?'

‘Girls only at a Ladies' College. You are bright tonight.'

‘Like it?'

‘You don't like it; you afford it.' She smiled.

‘And what did your parents do to get you into a private school?'

‘How, not what. They're both doctors with separate practices. Probably didn't know what else to do with their money. Got sick of buying and collecting, and decided to put a few shares into me.'

‘Just like that.'

She speared the veal.

‘You bet.'

‘Did you pay off?'

‘Oh, I topped classes and everything, but I think they were expecting something else.'

‘Like what?'

‘Love. Respect.'

‘No chance?'

‘I remembered their birthdays and things, but they're hard to love.'

Jerra continued to slice and eat. He was feeling a little better now, stronger, the wine burning in his stomach.

‘Are they still together?'

‘They go by clauses.' She pressed a fingertip against the bottle. ‘Still, there's always a way round what's on paper.' She drank more wine.

Their faces rippled and wavered. Jerra picked at the label on the second bottle and noticed his nails, white in the blue tips of his fingers.

‘Be running dry, the way we're going.' He was feeling sad, a little sorry for her, a little sorry for himself.

‘Plenty at my place.'

‘Yeah.'

‘So. You had a friend. Be good to spend a childhood with a special friend.'

‘Sometimes it's like putting all your eggs in one basket.'

Outside it had begun to drizzle, slow, floating wisps of moisture settling in the fibres of hair and wool. The VW was only a block away. She kissed him on the neck as he unlocked the door. He could feel the steamy heat beneath the buttons; the shawl was rough on his neck.

‘Taking me up on the coffee?'

It was an old, solid house with white stone walls and a large open veranda, like many of the old Cottesloe-Swanbourne fortresses of the forties. The veranda was cluttered with hanging pots, ferns, picture-frames, a rusty tricycle, and a six-foot oak table, buckling in the centre. The outside light was on.

He followed her inside. A long carpeted hallway. On the left, with a lamp in the corner, was the living-room, strewn with mats and cushions. Other doors along the hall were closed. Jerra watched the swing of her hair. The kitchen was long and wide. There was a big combustion stove with swing doors, and a long window near the sink which must have overlooked a garden. Twigs and small boughs clawed the glass.

She went to the sink and filled the kettle, dropped wood into the slow-burning fire that murmured when she opened the door, then took off her shawl and threw it over a high-chair.

‘Come into the living-room. We can light the fire.'

In the living-room there was a large red-brick fireplace, with pine kindling and large pieces of split jarrah on the hearth. Over the fireplace was a mounted rifle, a weathered Lee-Enfield. Judy knelt at the hearth, sprinkling the wood. Jerra heard the pfff of the wood igniting as he ran a hand over the calloused stock.

‘That's better,' she sighed, rubbing her hands. ‘Pooh, this kero stinks. Just go and wash my hands.'

When she came back, a glass in each hand, she noticed him running a finger along the rusted sight.

‘Like it?' She gave him a glass.

‘Hmm?'

‘The rifle.'

He sat by the fire.

‘Nice 'ol thing. Can't get ammo for them any more.'

‘My father gave it to me with the place. Used to take me shooting, sometimes. Took us to the Territory once, shooting buffalo. Shot donkeys once.'

‘Shooting as well, eh?'

‘When Dad was charitable with his time he used to do lots of things with us.'

‘Hunting. Like it?'

Flames lapped round the base of the chimney.

‘Better than fishing,' she said. ‘Nothing much that beats stalking something big, waiting till you're close, sight him, then bang. He's yours for good. That's real stuff.'

He looked into the fumy reflections of the tumbler.

‘Done much hunting?' she asked, poking something further into the flames.

‘Only small stuff. Never real game,' he murmured, remembering those quiet drives along country roads with his father, waiting for a rabbit to show.

Ears like two fingers in the air, then the full silhouette as they round the bend. His father murmurs and switches off the engine. Jerra hears the gravel moving as he opens the door, wheels of the ute still rolling. Wedges the barrel in the V-space between the door and the car. Silhouette twitches, tiny head wavering, then settling again. Dirt up behind just before the crack of the .22. His father whispers, ‘High and to the left', and he pokes another round in, shaking, expecting the head to bob down any second.

A hit was little different. The head bobbed down anyway. And backwards a bit.

‘You don't think hunting's all that good,' she asked idly.

‘No. You're not talking about hunting.'

She moved over and sat next to him near the hearth. Her glass was empty on the bricks, blazing with firelight.

‘Time for
your
theory, sonny-boy.'