Deeper Water (8 page)

‘Yeah, I guess.’

I banged the clay down onto the plate, giving it a couple of thumps to make sure it was solid.

‘You have to centre it,’ I said, looking across at Hamish, just out of the rim of light. ‘You feel with your thumb until you find the exact place where there’s no friction. That’s the centre.’

It was interesting to think about what exactly the sensation of discovering the centre was. That lack of push or pull. I was seeking that small nub around which everything turned, measuring it with the waxy pad of my thumb. When I had the centre, I pressed down quickly, almost to the bottom, and that was the inside of the pot.

‘It doesn’t look too hard.’

I could sense him shift as though adjusting his view. ‘You can have a go in a sec.’ I wanted to get out of the light, but I kept on dipping my hands into the water bowl and wetting the clay as it turned, the wheel still bumping along gently beneath me.

After all the pots I’d made, it still felt a little magical how quickly the forms emerged. I held my hands like a clamp around the spinning lump, fingers on the inside, heels of my palms against the outer surface—moving them only the tiniest bit—and it all turned beneath my touch, taking shape. I didn’t try anything fancy, just a simple round pot.

‘That was … fast,’ Hamish said, standing back up.

I smiled and ran the string beneath the clay, so it wouldn’t stick to the base, then stood and lifted it onto the drying shelf. All the unwanted clattering that had been going on inside me had settled with the making of the pot. It had ironed out my creases and I remained there—in the centre of everything—calmed and peaceful.

‘Okay, your go.’ I turned and sliced off some clay for him from the slab on the shelf. He sat down on the stool, getting his bearings and I banged the clay down on the top plate, shaping it into a circle, ready for him to begin.

‘So, I get it started with my foot, and then it should run by itself for a little bit?’

‘That’s right. And when it loses momentum you start it again.’

He looked uncertain but he gave it a go. The wheel began its gentle clanking, the clay spinning unevenly on the plate. Hamish put his hands down gently.

‘Feel for the centre,’ I told him, nodding my head.

‘The place with no friction?’

‘Feel with your thumb.’

‘I don’t feel anything. It all feels the same.’

‘There’s no rush, just keep searching.’

This time Hamish was inside the circle of light and I was on the perimeter. I liked it much better that way. I could watch him without him watching me. He touched the clay lightly with the tips of his fingers, moving his hands carefully out to the edge. Pottery is something you do with your hands, you can’t think about it too much. Hamish was concentrating so hard I could see he was struggling.

‘Close your eyes,’ I said, and then I walked around to stand behind him. ‘Feel the clay moving against your fingers. That’s it.’

The wheel was slowing so I reached around him with my foot and pushed against it a few times, getting the momentum going again. He sat still on the stool, eyes closed, fingers poised on the top of the spinning mound, as though waiting for some inexplicable revelation. Leaning down, I put my hand over his. His skin felt warm against my fingertips.

‘Okay, here on the outside you can feel the push-pull.’

He nodded slowly, his head tilted slightly to the side. I moved his hand across the clay towards the centre. ‘And feel, it gets less and less?’

He shifted a little on the stool and my breasts swayed against his back.

‘Yes, I feel that.’ His voice was low.

‘When you feel nothing, press in.’ I was whispering, my mouth close to his ear, the feel of his back against me.

‘Now?’ He sounded confused.

‘Go! Press!’

Hamish hesitated, so I pushed his thumb down with my own, and just like that the clay gave way. A bit wobbly, but okay for a first try. He froze then, like he didn’t know what to do next, but if he didn’t start working it he’d lose the momentum. I reached my other hand around to steer him, pushing on the top of his fingers. The clay spun beneath our hands, the mud pushing up between his fingers and through mine. We were only throwing a pot but in those few seconds it seemed like something larger. It was an odd feeling, like we were merging into one. The clay was taking shape and I felt strangely triumphant.

‘Good, you’ve got it,’ I whispered. ‘You’ve just got to mould it into something more elegant.’

Slowly, I straightened up, moving my hands away.

‘Better open your eyes now,’ I said, and I don’t know why but I laughed a little. He turned to me and under the bright light I could see the colour on his neck was high. I stood still, mud sticky between my fingers, pinned beneath his gaze.

‘Mema,’ he said softly, ‘that was a little bit
Ghost
-esque.’

There was a fierceness about his gaze. I felt he was calling me on something but I didn’t know quite what.

‘Ghost-esque?’ I looked at the clay. It was sagging slightly sideways, and I restrained myself from rescuing it. ‘Don’t stop now,’ I said, ‘you’ve almost got it.’

He turned back around, touching the sides of the half-made pot with careful fingers but the wheel was slowing again.

‘Give the wheel another push.’ He looked like he’d had enough but I didn’t want him to give up yet. ‘Come on, you may as well finish it.’

I moved to the side so I could see him properly, but whatever impetus he’d had with the pot was gone.

‘Have you even seen the movie
Ghost
, Mema?’ he asked, and the clay sagged and collapsed in his hands. ‘Demi Moore? Patrick Swayze?’

‘Nope.’ I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. We’ve never really had a working TV.

He shook his head. ‘I guess it figures.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s got this opening scene. A sex scene. Involving clay.’ He said this like an accusation.

‘A sex scene?’

He was silent, watching me. I couldn’t help remembering the feel of my breasts pressed up against his back, his fingers in mine. My skin tingled just thinking about it. I was in over my head.

‘Were they ghosts—I mean—in the sex scene?’ I spluttered out.

‘No … that came later.’ Hamish sighed then, turning away, his shoulders sagging a little. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s a shithouse movie.’

He’d stared at me so hard. I couldn’t help wondering what he saw.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’ My voice trembled.

‘No, neither do I.’

Hamish sat on the stool for a second staring at the squashed pile of clay. ‘Things are not always how they seem,’ he said quietly, almost to himself.

I didn’t need convincing. I watched Hamish under the spotlight in the shed, his face illuminated and stark, his body still. And in that moment he was more of a stranger than he had ever been.

That night, after I’d turned off all the lights and gone to bed, I lay awake thinking about the clattering of my heartbeat in Hamish’s presence, and as soon as I remembered it, it started up again. It was a sensation I was unfamiliar with. I could hear the throb of my pulse in my ears and felt sure if I wasn’t holed up in the dark I’d have been able to see the rhythm of my heart’s quick beat through the skin of my chest. I held my fingers between my breasts, pressing against that pounding place, but it didn’t slow. A sort of tightness built around my heart that seemed to rise up and squeeze at my throat. The feeling was alarming and exhilarating at the same time.

I suppose I knew deep down that it was some kind of desire, but it was disconcerting that it should rise in me then. And how to ignore something that took such a physical hold? In bed, my fingers pressed hard against my racing heart, I wondered what could be done. If my body was wanting, I knew I could soothe it. I had touched myself that way since I was small. But I’d always concentrated on the swelling feel of it. My own body and how it responded. In my mind, I’d never needed the intrusion of another person. I didn’t want to think of Hamish. I didn’t want to feed that hungry thing inside me. I didn’t want it to grow.

I thought of diving into the cool waters of the creek, of its icy softness engulfing me, of being enveloped in its velvet touch. I imagined the creek as endless, shimmering, the water stretching out before me like a silver ribbon. I could drift without air forever, sliding with the current. Beneath the surface, I was free.

Eventually my body softened and I got to thinking about my mum, and Sophie, and all that had happened before me. It was troubling to come at the end of a family. All the life and colour and drama that had gone before me could only be passed to me in stories, and what if no one was talking? I imagined them instead—the fathers before mine, how one replaced another. All the babies growing like weeds, wild and untended. My mum moving from man to man, like they were ice-cream flavours, and Sophie—older and wiser—tending us all as best as she could. Or that’s how it sat in my head. From the snippets of things said, and unsaid, I had constructed a picture of my family before me and then I’d run with it, wherever the fancy took me.

Sometimes I liked to imagine my mum, crazy in love with babies, unable to stop having them. Lost in that world of gurgles and half-smiles, wind and burping, feeding from the breast. Freshly washed white nappies flapping on the line, luminous and clean. Caught in a cycle of renewal, as though every time she gave birth she could start over. As though every child was a clean slate, perfect and unsullied. And each time she was new too. I imagined her tucking us into the folds of her, keeping us close, until we were so big we toddled right off, and then she’d start again. And all the while, the community she’d helped to build dissolving around her, disenchantment seeping in. I wondered when she noticed almost everyone had gone.

But when I thought of the fathers, it was a whole different story. I imagined them washed up like survivors of a shipwreck, lost and beaten by the waves, my mother some kind of beacon, a lighthouse. And for a while they’d circle her, filled with wanting. And there was something she gave them, some indefinable need fulfilled in her embrace. It would be peaceful for a while. The lull of a pregnancy. But gradually the fathers healed and heard the calling of the world. That tantalising hum of possibility that there was something else out there, something they were missing. At first they ignored it, staring into their new baby’s mysterious eyes, watching the infant breaths rise and fall, but eventually the hum got louder and louder until they could not shut it out, and before long, like the rest, they would be gone. I imagined them one by one—big bodied and strong—awkward in our small house surrounded by babies.

But I never knew if it was true.

And sometimes I’d think of Sophie, the only girl for so long. Pretty with her curls and pink cheeks, done up like a doll in Mum’s wild homemade dresses, unaware that she was to be overrun by the rest of us, her childhood swallowed by a flood of brothers and then me. It was hard to imagine Sophie as a baby. I’d always known her as defiantly grown-up. But when I really tried, when I focused my mind, I could see her—gentle and open, tiny and beloved, the first one to suckle at my mother’s breast.

My brothers were becoming like shadows. Figures that clung on the fringes of my mind—there, but always slightly out of view. I pictured Sunny’s face, trying to recollect the details. The way his front teeth overlapped, just slightly, and how his eyes squeezed shut to almost nothing when he smiled. The last time he’d come home, he’d only stayed for a day, and most of that he’d spent out hunting for his friends. I thought, and not for the first time, about how my brothers so easily abandoned me. Took off without a thought. About how little they held me in their minds. And my heart tightened in a different way, sad and pained, and I pressed my fingers hard between my ribs, hard enough to hurt. There was a soft spot there, a hollow, ever so slight, and when I pushed it I could feel all my hurts rising. In a strange way, it soothed me. Lying there in the dark, pressing into my pain, I wondered about the hum of the world outside and why it didn’t seem to call out to me.

I thought again of Mum and Sophie and how they’d stayed, and it struck me then that Sophie might have taken up with her fella as a kind of escape, and perhaps that’s what all the different fathers were about too.

And maybe I was just like Mum and Sophie—looking for escape in a shipwrecked man, my body flinging me in its own clumsy way towards him. And secretly, right down in the depths of me, I wondered whether that would really be so bad.

I’d already let out the chickens, fed the cat and Old Dog, been out to check on Bessie and the calf, and had a quiet cup of tea before Hamish began to rouse himself on the couch. Mum had headed out to the shed early, before the heat set in.

He woke gradually, opening his eyes and gazing at the ceiling for a bit, unaware of me watching him from where I sat at the kitchen table. I stayed as still as possible, prolonging those undisturbed moments, wondering about his morning thoughts. The thoughts I had on waking were often the most peculiar I had all day. When Anja slept over, sometimes we’d lie in bed in the mornings and whisper our waking thoughts across the pillows. We were both early risers, and in the half-light this seemed a natural thing to do. And even if you shared the weirdest thought you could possibly imagine with Anja, she’d come up with something weirder. It was a comforting quality in a friend. Anja hadn’t been back since the rain-running. I wondered if she was staying away on purpose.

Hamish turned towards me, still looking sleepy. There were crease marks from where the couch pressed into his face. He rubbed his hand across his eyes and mumbled, ‘You’re already up.’

He was right. I’d been up for ages.

‘You want a tea?’ I asked, tapping my fingers against my cup. I felt suddenly impatient but I wasn’t sure why.

He looked around the room before answering me, as though it was taking him a while to remember where he was.

‘Sure,’ he said, and I could feel an awareness of his leaving, tumbling into the space around us.

‘Where’s your mum?’

‘She went out to the shed to do some work before she takes you into town.’

I stood up and lit the stove for the kettle. There were only a couple of black teabags left, but I knew we’d get some more in town later so I didn’t feel bad using them.

‘You’re not going to take me?’

‘I don’t drive,’ I said, turning back to study his face. ‘I never learned.’

He looked at me then, like he was finally taking in my whole form. ‘It’s not your foot?’

‘What?’ It was the furthest thing from my mind.

‘Your foot doesn’t stop you from driving?’

‘No.’ I reached out and grabbed some teacups. ‘Just, there was no point, I guess. Nowhere I needed to go.’

Hamish shook his head at that, like he had some thought that he wasn’t willing to share. He sat up on the couch. ‘But you’re going to come, right?’ His voice was morning-rough. ‘You’ll come into town with me.’

I smiled then ’cause he looked forlorn. ‘Sure,’ I said, echoing him, waiting for the water to boil.

Usually I got up in the morning and made my way steadily through the day. Especially when it was sunny, not a rain cloud in sight. But that morning every second felt weighed down and ponderous. Even though I didn’t want Hamish to leave, I was restless for things to begin.

‘When do you think your mum will want to go?’

‘I don’t know. I guess it depends on how she does in the shed.’

‘The artist at work.’

‘Yep.’

The kettle finally boiled and I poured the water into the cups, leaning over them to get a whiff of the scent. The feel of the steam on my face was soothing—an instant warmth.

‘I like your hair, Mema,’ Hamish said, out of the blue. ‘It’s really …’ he lifted his hand up, smoothing it through the air, ‘… shiny.’

This took me by surprise and I tucked some loose strands behind my ears.

‘It kind of … flops,’ he added.

‘Thanks,’ I said, peering intently into the depths of the brewing teas.

Hamish stood up and walked across to the fridge to get the milk. Mum and I were pretty good at being flooded in by now and we usually kept a few cartons of that UHT stuff stashed away in the cupboard. It didn’t taste as nice as fresh milk, but after days of flooding rain no one complained. Hamish got it out and peered at the label.

‘I wonder what they do to this stuff to make it keep.’

Obviously he wasn’t feeling as uncomfortable as I was about the hair compliments.

‘Mum probably knows. Ask her when she comes in.’

Hamish shook his head and handed me the carton. ‘I’ll be able to google it this afternoon.’

I wondered how easy it would be for Hamish to find a computer in town, but he looked so cheerful I didn’t want to bring it up. I poured the milk into the teas and handed him a cup.

‘It’s a nice day today,’ I said, glancing out the window. ‘Pure sun, like yesterday.’

He sipped his tea, eyes focused on his cup, thoughts hidden.

‘We could go for one last swim, get cool for the trip into town.’

Our car didn’t have air-conditioning, and on summer days it was stinking hot. Made it feel like your blood might boil. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

‘Cool.’ Hamish glanced at his reflection in the window. ‘Maybe I can even out my weird-arse tan.’

It was true. In the morning light I could see the faint difference between where he’d had the ochre paint and where he hadn’t. White stripes on his face where yesterday they’d been brown. I guess he looked pretty funny, standing there holding his steaming teacup—the beginnings of a beard, old tattered, mismatched clothes, odd markings on his face. He looked like he’d been
through
something. I wondered what they’d make of him in town, especially driving in with me and Mum. I’d be surprised if tongues didn’t wag.

We went down to the creek for a swim but we didn’t speak much. Hamish’s leaving was a load inside me and I kept thinking of that shimmering ribbon of water from the night before. Things were always different in the daylight. There was less room for the fanciful, the wayward. The creek seemed ordinary in the brightness of the sun. The water level was still high, though it no longer covered the bridge. All the surrounding banks had been washed clear and clean, like there was no mystery in them at all. I felt exposed just looking at them.

‘You going in?’ Hamish asked, pulling off his shirt.

The sight of his chest unnerved me.

‘You go,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ll come in a second.’

Hamish was different from the day before, more purposeful, less cautious. He strode forward, pushing through the flow and diving quickly beneath the water. My heartbeat started up its clattering, and I pushed that hollow place between my breasts, hoping against hope for it to stop. I watched him under the water, swimming like I had imagined myself, him the one who was free, not me. It made my eyes sting and I wondered suddenly if I might cry.

Hamish resurfaced, shaking his head like a puppy, droplets springing from him into the air, scattering onto the surface of the creek, a myriad of glassy spots.

‘Come on, Mema,’ he called out, smiling.

‘Okay,’ I said, my body loosening at the sound of his voice, hesitation slipping away.

Once in I felt better. Enlivened, less stuck. Even the bottom of the creek was clean, no sticks or leaves, no slippery moss, only flood-roughened rocks. It never stayed clean like that for long. Two or three days max. Sometimes the entire layout of the creek would change in a flood. Where it used to be deep it would be shallow. Stretches that were narrow would widen. Nothing as it used to be. I swam about, putting my feet down to test the different depths. Relearning the terrain, making it mine.

Hamish floated on his back, staring at the sky. I did my best to ignore him.

In a while he righted himself and swam towards me. I stood on my toes in a deep section, stretching out my neck to keep my head above the surface. If I moved forward an inch my mouth would go under. He hovered in front of me, treading water and watching my face. My submerged body quivered.

‘You’re quiet this morning, Mema,’ he said. ‘You alright?’

What could I possibly say? I stood there a minute, my heart pulsing. In my mind I could see the vibrations of it moving outwards from me like rings on top of water. I wondered if Hamish could feel it somewhere deep inside. In the end I just nodded my head, taking in a mouthful and spitting it back out slowly in a fountain. Anja and I were good at this trick, having practised it over the years. We could propel the water quite far with very little effort.

‘Impressive,’ Hamish said, taking in his own mouthful and giving it his best shot.

To my surprise he was actually pretty skilled. I must have looked piqued ’cause he seemed inordinately pleased.

‘You don’t have to live next to a creek to be good at spitting water, Mema.’