Desert Fish (6 page)

Pete stubbed his rollie out and rose.

‘Just another minute,' my mother said, ‘and I'll come and fix you some lunch.'

‘No hurry,' he said. ‘I've got an hour today.'

When he was gone, she said, ‘You like Pete, don't you?' Her voice was thin and hesitant. ‘I think you enjoy him being here.'

‘He's nice,' I told her, pushing the end of my rollie into the dirt beside the camellia. I put my hand to my nose and breathed the loamy smell and the smoke that overlaid it.

‘I like having him around. I think he'll be a good influence on your dad.' She said the words directly, drawing me in to their meaning. Perspiration beaded her forehead and the front of her shirt was damp. ‘I'm glad you like him,' she added.

I felt a little shaky. I could never have imagined reaching a place where my mother and I could both have what we wanted, but I wondered now if Pete might offer that possibility.

‘You'll have to get changed,' I said. ‘Look at the state of your shirt.'

‘We both will.'

‘You can go first in the bathroom,' I said, ‘since you've got to make his lunch.'

‘Okay, Missy. Thanks.' She surveyed the garden we had begun. ‘This will be lovely when it's all up,' she said. ‘A proper garden. We'll make sure it works this time.'

My dad came in at dinnertime. He'd been going out every day since Pete got his job at McGill's. He said he was looking for work, even though we had Pete's rent money now.

Mum was frying steaks. Pete was sitting at the kitchen table with a beer.

‘Where have you been?' she demanded.

‘Bernie's,' Dad said. ‘He's got us a job.'

‘Really?' my mother said, doubt lacing her tone, because Bernie, my dad's mate, had not held down any sort of job for a while. ‘Doing what?'

‘Painting. A house. A friend of Bernie's aunt. She wants the exterior done. Showed us the quotes she had. We said we could do it cheaper for cash.'

‘Hmmm.' My mother turned the meat. Fat spat and stuck to the wall above the stove. She would wipe it away with a soapy cloth before she served the steaks. She couldn't bear the thought of the beads of it congealing there. ‘So you and Bernie will do it together?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Do you reckon that'll work out?'

‘Yeah. It'll be good. It's just the one job. But we might start something up together. There's money in it. Unbelievable, those quotes she showed us. We'll undercut them easy.' He opened the fridge and peeled the top off a can, sucked at the cold beer. ‘Hot work, though. Is that dinner there? I'm hungry as hell.'

There was a loaf of uncut bread on the table and my dad tore at the end of it and washed it down with more of the beer.

Pete upturned the remains of his own can into his mouth and then leaned over and dropped the empty into the bin.

‘Want another one, Pete?' my dad said.

‘Yeah, I will,' Pete answered.

Dad opened it for him. ‘Ever had your own business?' he asked, handing it to him. He dropped into the chair opposite Pete, rested his forearms on the table and leaned in. His pose seemed casual but there was something intimate about it too.

Pete sat back and shrugged. ‘I prefer to work for other people,' he said. ‘I don't like to take a job home at the end of the day. Leave that to someone else.'

Dad nodded thoughtfully. ‘That's one way of looking at it. But I'd rather be my own boss. You don't seem the sort to be ordered about.'

Pete drank from his can and set it down again. ‘It's not always that cut and dry though,' he said.

‘No. I suppose not,' Dad said quickly, and I saw how he wanted Pete to like him. How he didn't want to offend him. ‘How's it going at McGill's?' he asked.

‘Alright. Good money doing the stock. Better than the forklifts.'

‘They like you then? Must do if they've moved you off the forklifts.'

Pete shrugged. ‘Guess so. I do the job.'

‘I did the forklifts for a while,' Dad said.

‘Did you?'

‘While ago now.' He was trying to establish common ground. Trying to find something to offer Pete. Something he knew, that Pete might value. ‘Laurie Burns was foreman then. I couldn't get on with him. I tried. Couldn't get anywhere with them because of that.' My dad fidgeted. I could still remember clearly when he got the sack from McGill's. He never liked being told what to do.

‘It happens,' Pete said, noncommittal.

My mother ran the hot water. She squeezed detergent onto a cloth and ran it under the tap. The water slapped against the bottom of the sink, loud and reassuring, and my dad went quiet. She pushed the cloth against the wall and rubbed it furiously back and forth. The fat thinned and spread out in a creamy fan.

‘Look at that,' she said. ‘Now it's gone everywhere.' She ran the hot water again and rinsed out the cloth and after she rubbed it over the wall a second time the fat dissolved and the smear disappeared.

She put our meals out then. The steaks, chips that
she'd cut and corn that she'd got fresh on the cob from Charlie's Market. She shook salt onto the greasy surface of my dad's steak and dropped a knob of butter onto the corn. Then she did the same with Pete's.

My dad pulled his plate close in. For a while he ate in silence. Then he said to Pete, ‘He's not there anymore, is he? Laurie Burns?'

‘Don't think so,' Pete said. ‘Haven't heard of him.'

‘Yeah. You'll be fine, then.' I heard the note of false authority in his tone. In the space between my mother and me was an undercurrent: the silent tug of the things we both knew. My dad still maintained that a refrigerated van would have saved his fruit-selling business.

‘But you know, if it doesn't work out, you might want to consider a bit of painting with us.'

Pete shrugged. ‘Maybe,' he said.

My dad grinned. ‘Yeah, brilliant.' He sat back and lay his fork down, picked up a chip with his fingers. ‘This is excellent, Maur,' he said.

My mother smiled. ‘Did you see the garden, Creighton?' she asked. ‘I planted a flowerbed today.'

‘Yeah, where?'

‘Out the front.'

‘That what it is?' my dad asked. ‘Just looked like a square of dirt to me,' he said, glancing at Pete.

‘Creighton,' my mother chided. ‘You'll see. It's going to be beautiful,' she promised.

It's late morning when I wake. I sense the emptiness of the room before my eyes are properly open. The blinds are closed and the darkness is strange with the day outlined so brightly around the sides of the curtains. My breath rushes out of me and along the dull surfaces, the blank hard edges of the room. The shape of Pete is still there beside me, a soft channel of creases in the bedding and I shift myself into it for comfort. He must have left early, the sheets are cool. His bags are still in the corner of the room and he's put the chair beside the bed and sat an orange and some crackers on it. The crackers are stale but I eat them, dwelling on his simple gesture. I peel the orange carefully and separate it into pieces, like a mandarin. The smell of it stays on my hands after I wash them, sharp and oily and reassuring. But I still lift Pete's bags to check they're not empty. Then I laugh out loud at myself. The sound rattles about the hollow room. Out the window cars hurl past to an irregular beat.

I think of the woman by the pool yesterday. Would she ever wake in an empty room? And how long would it take to learn to wait patiently, confidently, as she does, for someone to return?

I choose a soft loose dress to wear, with no waist to remind me of my wrong body.
He won't be bored of me
, I say to the quiet room, putting my hand on my hip and pushing the other through my hair and trying to sound as though I believe it. I say it again, aiming for more conviction, for a sassy and easy tone, like she had.
He won't be bored of me, I can tell you that. And my husband is a red-blooded male, you can take it from me
. But my voice is thin, the words are fake and even beneath the shapeless cotton my breasts, prickly and hard and hot, betray me.

Easing myself back into bed I lie against the pillows, half sitting, half lying. But as I shift my legs to find a comfortable position, a memory opens up from somewhere unexpected. It's not a vision, but rather something remembered inside my body, like a shape that I have momentarily reinhabited. I recall myself in this same position, my legs drawn up, my body bearing down, and with the subsidence of that surging pain, a shaking that began and made my legs heave about as if I were running.
Hold her legs, keep her still
, someone shouted. They were at the other end of me looking in, and I remember how I thought that if they could see inside me they would know everything. They put a mask on my face and I breathed quickly and deeply. I felt the bubble of a laugh escape, but it was just air and the sound inside it seemed to belong to
someone else. I tore the mask away.
Look at me
, I hissed.
I'm running already.
I put it back on my face, sucking at the antiseptic air and then I cried out because the pain was on me again. Someone put a cloth on my forehead and another voice, a woman, said,
She doesn't mean it, they all say things like that.
But she wasn't speaking to me, and I had made up my mind by then anyway.

I sit up again, hastily, to shake free of the memory. My mouth is watering and my hands are clammy. Through the window that overlooks the pool someone has sat down in the deck chairs: the suntanned woman from yesterday. Today her hair is twisted and clasped so that bits fall loose at the front and flick back from her face. Her sandals are bright pink with kitten heels. The car park is empty. The doors to all the rooms are closed and it makes me sad to see her all dressed up with no-one to appreciate the trouble she's gone to. Without even thinking I grab my bag, throw in sunscreen and a hat, feeling a delirious rush of relief because she's there and it feels dangerous to be alone. I just want to pretend to be friends with her for a while.

 

At home, my best friend was called Lexie. We had known each other only a little when we were at school, but since we'd both left early we spent a lot more time together. She'd come over with a magazine and we'd flick through it together. Or she'd bring something she'd bought, a dress or some make-up, for me to approve of. I called her my
best friend because we saw each other regularly. But it was not a close friendship. Lexie was bold and had strong opinions. She liked to talk and I was flattered that she considered me a companion. Even when I was at school I'd had no real friends who called on me. I did not form friendships like other girls. My school report cards had said this.
Gilly is a pleasant girl but does not make friends easily. Gilly is not without ability but lacks social confidence.
And once, optimistically,
Gilly is a thoughtful girl who enjoys spending time on her own.

Lexie worked on the till at Alderson's Pharmacy. She knew how to forge her own contraceptive pill prescriptions. Since she wasn't quite sixteen when she began doing this, she told them at the pharmacy that her doctor had prescribed it for her acne, and true, her spots cleared right up. Her breasts swelled too and she'd had three boyfriends in quick succession. Lexie's legs were long and skinny and she walked on the insides of her feet so her knees looked as if they were going to knock against each other. She compensated for this by swaying her hips and keeping her thighs close together. It got her a lot of attention.

After Pete started working at McGill's she came over to get a closer look at him.

‘Your dad told me you got someone into that room,' she said. ‘And I saw him at McGill's.' Lexie had come straight from work. She'd taken off her rubber-soled lace-ups and pushed her feet into a pair of flip-flops. We were eating potato chip sandwiches, even though it was thirty-five degrees. Lexie ate like a cat. She leaned over
her sandwich and gritted her teeth to grind it, as if it was meat. She took tiny bites and didn't sit back until after she'd swallowed.

‘Why are you so interested?' I asked. ‘I thought you were taken.' She'd been going out with a boy called Mick Flaherty who worked at the drive-through liquor store.

‘Might be,' she said. ‘But Mick hasn't made it official.' She leaned her head to the side and looked at me. ‘Do you like him?'

‘Who? Mick?'

‘No, idiot. Your lodger. Pete.'

‘Of course not,' I said. ‘He's older than us.'

‘What's that got to do with anything?'

‘Well, I just don't think of him that way.'

‘Calm down, Gilly,' Lexie said, in her quiet superior voice. ‘You're giving yourself away.'

I blushed, even though I was annoyed.

She bent over her sandwich and lifted the top slice of bread, picking chips out and eating them. ‘Had enough of the bread now,' she said. ‘Got any more chips?' Lexie never worried about manners. It didn't make her uncomfortable to have people run around after her.

‘No.'

She licked the salt off her fingers.

‘Never mind.' Reaching over, she removed a lipstick from her bag. ‘Look at this.' She wound a coral pink colour out of the tube and applied it without a mirror. I could see grains of salt from the chips beneath the colour. ‘It's a tester,' she said. ‘I'm allowed to have them when the
new ones come in.' She pressed her lips together and then pouted to spread the colour. ‘Is it even?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Where's your dad then?' She sat forward and jiggled her breasts into place inside her shirt.

‘Here.' Dad stepped in out of the dark hallway and I felt a prickling sensation across the back of my neck, wondering how long he'd been standing there.

‘Hey, Cray,' Lexie said. That was what she called him. She'd been stopping by for a while now, and she and my father were increasingly on familiar terms.

‘How's my little lady?' Dad asked.

‘Good. I'm always good.' Lexie gave my dad a wink. I thought it looked awkward, as though she was trying too hard to act older than she was. I twisted in my chair and looked at my feet.

Dad didn't notice. ‘What've you been up to then, girlie?'

‘Working,' Lexie said. ‘Unlike some.' She got up off the floor, sat on the sofa and crossed one bare leg over the other. Her flip-flop fell off and she wriggled her toes.

‘Life's too short,' Dad said. ‘That's why we've got Pete in. Paying our way.'

‘Yeah, I heard,' Lexie smiled.

‘And anyway, I am working as of next week,' my dad said. ‘Going to start up a little business. Make some serious cash. Will you go out with me then, Lex?'

She laughed.

‘Or have you got your eye on Pete? He's alright, Pete. I'll bet he'd like the look of you.'

Lexie smiled, pleased.

Dad walked through to the kitchen and I heard the fridge open. He brought his can back and sat down beside her, snapped it open.

‘Here, give us a swig,' she said, snatching the can.

‘You're under-age,' Dad replied, but he didn't take it from her. He waited until she gave it back, her lips wet with beer. He took a drink then and I noticed the transfer of coral pink from the can to his lower lip.

She smiled at it. ‘You've got my lipstick on you.' She reached to wipe it away but my dad caught her wrist.

‘Leave it there,' he said, stroking her forearm with his thumb before he let go.

She slapped his hand away but I could tell she didn't mind. She hadn't come to see me. Not this time. She'd come to be entertained. To check out Pete. To flirt with my dad. To be flattered.

She stood up. ‘Anyway,' she said, ‘Fun's fun, but I've got to go.'

‘You don't want to finish this with me?' Dad said, holding up the can.

‘Maybe next time,' Lexie teased. ‘I'm going out tonight.'

‘Hot date?'

‘Wouldn't you like to know?' She poked her foot back into the flip-flop.

Dad smiled.

‘See you later,' she said to me. ‘Come in and see me at work if you like.'

‘Okay.'

The back door banged shut and she was gone.

There was silence for a moment, apart from the creak of the sofa as Dad leaned back into it, and the sound he made drinking from the can.

‘She's growing up nice, that Lexie,' Dad said. He wouldn't look at me when he said it, so I guess he knew what he was doing. He wanted to keep on sharing his thoughts with me. ‘She's quite a woman now, isn't she?'

‘I s'pose,' I huffed. I got up and moved to the chair on the other side of the room. I felt him watching me. I was not a young girl anymore. I had breasts and hips and I guess he looked at me in a different way now. I wasn't sure what he was seeing. My legs were not long like Lexie's, and although my skin was smooth, I was fleshy and pale. I couldn't work out if he measured me in the same way he did her.

I deposited myself in the chair and then folded my arms.

‘You should wipe your lip,' I said.

‘Spoilsport,' he replied, including me again in that way that I hated. But he dragged his thumb across his mouth and cleaned it on his shorts. Then he licked the can where the rest of Lexie's colour was smeared, upturned it and finished his drink.

 

Beside the pool the light lies in solid yellow blocks. The sun is high; the heat is the still, breathless kind. I can tell straightaway that the suntanned woman is nothing like
Lexie. For a start, she meets my eye as she greets me, not looking beyond to see if there's anyone more interesting to chat to. ‘Hi,' she says as I approach the deckchairs. ‘Glad you're still here. Thought I'd be on my own today.' Her lashes are thick with mascara. She smiles into my face and then says, ‘I hoped you'd come out. I brought my kit with me.'

She turns and opens a round pink case. It has a quilted lining, packed with manicure instruments and bottles of nail varnish. As she organises her things I notice that even the back of her neck is brown. She selects two bottles of nail polish and places them on the slatted table. Then she takes some varnish remover and a bag of cotton wool balls. She orders them, putting the remover at the front, the bottles behind, taking a handful of cotton wool balls from their wrapping and sitting them to the side. Everything about her seems measured and arranged in a way that stirs caution in me. My wrong body, my temporary shape and my uncertain story will be transparent to someone so precise. But when she has finished sorting out her cosmetics she reaches for her case again and takes a chocolate bar, putting it at the back of the table, behind all of the other things.
Chomp
, it says, in fat crass letters, red with an exclamation mark. It's out of place beside the varnish. It doesn't belong with feathery blonde hair and a cultivated tan and the way she has placed it neatly behind everything else makes me laugh out loud.

‘What's funny?' she asks.

‘Oh, it's just that.' I point at the chocolate. ‘It looks
kind of, I don't know, odd, with all the other things. And everything so neat, too.'

She laughs with me. ‘I love them,' she says. ‘Trev brings them for me.' Leaning forward, she looks into my face. ‘What a funny thing to notice. It's like you know me already.'

I really want to be her friend when she says that. Something opens up inside me and I know I ought to go back to my room. ‘Not much to do indoors,' I comment.

‘No. You don't get much duller than a motel room, I can tell you that from experience. Not when you're on your own.' She sits in the chair next to mine. ‘How long are you here?'

‘Just a day or two more, I think. It depends on my husband.' I love the way that sounds.
My husband
.

‘Oh. We'll be around for a week or so,' she says. ‘I wish I could drive. I'd spend a day in the city, shopping. That'd take the edge off being stuck here.' She gets up and moves her deckchair so the awning's not covering her legs. Then she lies back again and pushes her sunglasses up on her head. ‘There. I'm working on my legs today,' she says. ‘They'll be out the most when I get home so I want to get a good tan on them.' She runs her fingers lightly over the side of her thigh. ‘Where are you going from here?' she asks.