The Naked Drinking Club (35 page)

‘Why did you leave it so long before you came here?’ asked Jim, who hadn’t moved for the duration of my story.

‘I don’t know.’ I splashed water on my face. ‘It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. You just try to get on with things the way they are, I suppose. Then every so often a bad thing happens, and I think, I’m like this because I need to see who she is, I need to meet her, and learn how I was made, where I come from.’

Jim looked at me, shaking his head, then throwing water up over himself. The rain was even heavier now.

‘Come here,’ Jim said, but I didn’t want to. I was too wired with my story and telling it out loud for the first time in that detail. It made me more sure than ever that I had something to complete before I could get on with my life. I went on to tell him about Hank and Joyce Cane, although he kind of laughed at the part about her going on about tattoos and fate. I’d let him have that though, I thought. It’s something you either believe in entirely like me, or like him, think is a pile of shit. I told him Hank had a radio show, which was bizarre, because it meant the person I had chosen to speak to on the phone could reach thousands of people across the airwaves. This still didn’t convince him about fate, but he did think it was an amazing story. I reached the end of it and punched the water.

‘Listen, you.’ He moved towards me for a second time. ‘I’m shit at things like this, I know I am, but have you thought about what your mother might say? I mean, I don’t want to sound harsh but she might not want to meet you. Have you thought of that?’

The truth was, I had never given that possibility one thought, and wasn’t about to. I had presumed she was waiting for me all this time, unable to contact me. This was what I held on to.

Jim touched my shoulder, laying his hand flat on it. ‘I don’t want you to get—’

‘What, hurt?’ I said it for him.

‘Yeah. I don’t.’

‘I’m already hurt,’ I said. ‘I have to find her now, I think it will take some of it away, you know?’

Jim hugged me tight, my head pressing into his chest; I felt his heart pumping away as fast as the rain. I was scared to put my arms round him, for I didn’t want to fall apart completely in the state I was in. I knew he wasn’t a hugger and neither was I, and that this gesture had taken a huge effort, so I hugged him back, and we swayed a little as the waves built at his back and splashed onto him, my jaw locked together fighting the sadness.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the caravan and be with Anaya. I felt much better for talking to Jim, and my hangover was shifting. I had decided that things were looking up again, and
that
I had a chance of a new start. I had been wrong not to trust Anaya – she was a little aloof, but from how she’d been since she’d arrived in Coffs Harbour I was quickly learning that she had a big heart.

I planned my conversation with her out loud, as I walked off the beach to the caravan park. Jim had said we could all eat together later that night if Anaya and I felt like it, which I thought would be nice and civilised. But first, I needed to tell her about my search for my mother, and explain why I had fallen apart earlier. Then perhaps she would come with me to Brisbane and help me find her. I was still mumbling to myself when the van came into view, without Anaya’s car next to it.

At first I thought she’d gone into town again to get some stuff, but as I got nearer, I started to feel my heart sinking. The curtains were drawn. I let myself in slowly. The van smelt stuffy, but also of her perfume. There was nothing to tell me she was gone in the front of the van, but in the bedroom, on what had been her side of the bed, was a piece of paper folded over.

I sat down beside it, and sighed wearily. I dropped my head down, looking at the ground. Something stuck out from under the bed. I bent down further. It was her hairband. I rubbed it between my fingers, smelling it. I opened up the curtains in the small window next to the bed. I held the piece of paper in my other hand, slowly unfolding it. It read:

If I don’t go now, I’ll never go. And for other reasons I have to. I’ll be in Byron Bay, then Cairns for a while. If you believe in fate or want it enough, then maybe you’ll find me. Whatever you do, I wish you well, and I hope you find what you’re looking for. Stay out of trouble meantime.

Cheers, Anaya xxx

I lay down on my side, clutching her hairband and staring out through the window at the sun appearing slightly in the distance for the first time that day.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE

THE HUMIDITY IN
the phone box was intense. Sweat poured down my face. Outside the beautiful rain continued, although the clouds had lifted slightly. Hank’s voice answered the phone after one ring.

‘Hank, it’s Kerry, I’m sorry I lost touch with you. I’ve been travelling around a bit and missed your calls.’

‘Heeyy, Kerry. Where are you now?’

‘Coffs Harbour. Listen, do you know anything?’

He paused.

‘Hank?’

‘I do have some information for you, Kerry, love.’ He was really dragging this out, which made me suspicious of him. He was enjoying withholding stuff from me; ever since I’d first spoken to him, I’d sensed he was full of himself. He’d have to do, though – right now he was the only lead I had.

‘OK, Kerry. I have had some contact with some of your family, all right?’

‘NO FUCKING WAY! WHAT? WHAT?’

‘But—’

‘But what? WHAT!’

‘Listen, I knew when we first spoke about this that you were looking for someone much bigger in your life than you were making out to me. I mean, I thought all along that you were adopted.’

‘Hank, please, for fuck’s sake, tell me everything. It doesn’t matter now, I’ll tell you everything.’

‘OK. I think the sister of this Madeline Thomson came to see me after I put out the call on air. I know one of them was anyway – and your mother is alive.’

‘Wow, FUCK! Go on.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘I got a call a few days ago from someone in response to my mentioning it on the radio. I’ve done it a few times, you see.’

‘Uh-huh, go on.’ I bit on the nails of my less swollen hand.

‘The next day they showed up where I live and they were well, pretty pissed off, to put it mildly.’

‘And.’

‘Look, Kerry, this Joanna Thomson you told me to mention, it’s you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And Madeline is your mother, right?’

‘Yes. Why? Have you found her, Hank?’

‘They didn’t tell me an awful lot, but I have every reason to believe that your mother and her family are living somewhere here in Brisbane.’

I leant my head against the booth, and slammed the wall. ‘Hank, listen, please, I need to come and stay with you for a while, is that all right?’

‘Sure it is.’

‘I’m getting on a bus, Hank, as soon as I can. OK?’

‘I understand, kid.’

‘I’ll let you know what bus I’m on. Did they give you an address?’

‘No, nothing. Listen, kid, they were very protective of her – put it that way – and not open to discussing much.’

‘I’ll call you later, really soon, tonight, tomorrow, when I know the buses, yes?’

‘Gotcha.’

I hung up, and gripped my hair in disbelief that I was, at the moment, the nearest I had ever been to meeting the person who made me.

I stood in line to buy my ticket at the bus station in Grafton, the nearest major town to Coffs Harbour. The rain was still lashing it, causing melancholy to ooze from everywhere. Jim had driven me there, on a journey that took around half an hour from the caravan site. The plan was that Jim would go back to Coffs Harbour and see how things were at the
hospital,
then he and the Danes would drive up towards the Gold Coast and work the tourist strip there for a few days. They would decide how long they’d stay once there. Then we would all meet up in Brisbane in around four days’ time, and I would start selling again. I insisted that I take a folder with me, just in case I saw an opportunity, but, as Jim pointed out, no one would want to buy anything on their doorstep from someone with a face like mine at the moment. I said that there was a way round everything, so he dragged one out of the car for me, with the bestselling paintings doubled up, in case things really kicked off. I had known all along, from the second I got this job, that if I did find out where my mother lived, it would be an ingenious way of getting into her or her family’s houses, without arousing any suspicion.

We all acknowledged that, because of the amount of time off we’d had, we would have to work hard from now on, until our return to Sydney. I was confident that, although I was lying low for a few more days, I would sell double what anyone else sold when I started again. Jim agreed, which made me feel less guilty.

We didn’t speak much in the car on the way to Grafton; we had said all the major stuff in the sea, and were both too worn out for small talk. Instead we listened to the radio, lost in our own thoughts. I leant against the passenger-seat window, fiddling with Anaya’s hairband, holding onto the belief that she wanted me to go after her.

The bus driver took my portfolio and put it in the luggage hold of the coach, along with my rucksack.

‘Got everything?’ Jim stood with his hands in his trouser pockets. Despite the humidity he wasn’t a shorts man, which I quite liked about him.

‘Yeah, don’t have much stuff, but it’s in there.’

‘Hope that guy’s not some kind of nutcase.’

‘He is, but he’s all right, don’t worry.’

Jim laughed. The last in the line boarded the coach, leaving only me. ‘I’ll call you when I get to Brisbane, on his number, and if you need to leave a message for me, leave it with Greg in Sydney, yeah?’

‘Sure, no worries.’

‘Good luck, and don’t do anything too stupid.’

‘Promise. And, Jim, thank you.’

He nodded, and I moved towards the automatic doors. I was hoping he would leave the moment I boarded the bus, but he waited until it pulled out, waving me off, which gave me a lump in my throat.

On the bus, I went over everything, especially my time with Anaya: how she threw her keys on the bar, how she smoked, how she leant her head out of the car window during her one-handed driving. How she cared for me, and held my hand until I slept. How she looked sitting on top of me, moving back and forth. Her telling me to ‘let go’. How she had impressed me with her intuition, not to forget her knowledge of the lyrics to most of the songs I loved. I wished I could relive that night again – next time I would be more awake and less mashed up. I hoped there would be a next time, but with Anaya, you just didn’t know. In a way it helped that I was too taken up with my plans to get to Hank’s and meeting my mother to dwell on the wrench and initial shock I had felt at her leaving.

I thought about my real mother, Madeline. It was impossible to process how I thought she might look; it was something I had never dwelled on until now. The thought alone of two people, maybe more, on this planet bearing some actual resemblance to me was unimaginable. For me, being brought up in a world where you shared your looks with no one was normal. I was certain that meeting her would make me feel filled up with some kind of love, or the sense of wholeness that other people seem to feel, or have felt at least for a time in their lives. I felt a strange sense of hope and optimism on the bus. My journey had a purpose, a definite direction and a happy ending, I was sure.

My most recent bender was spoiling how I usually preferred to travel, which was with a pack of beers, striking up conversation with other transients. This time, as part of my new start, I had promised myself a complete rest from drink for the next three days, at least. I would drink soft drinks for a while, like lemonade, as a tribute to Joyce Cane’s advice.

I looked around the coach; it was half empty. I thought
about
the half-empty glass, half-full glass shit that people go on about when you end up having a conversation about how shit life is, and began putting everyone I’d befriended since landing in Sydney into each category. I mistrusted half-fullers, yet I immediately put Jim in this group, because of his endless resourcefulness, and constant energy reserve. I also put the Danish and Joyce Cane in with him. I put Scotty, Mac and me in the half-empties, but couldn’t place Greg and Anaya, because they disclosed nothing, and displayed nothing of their views or feelings on life. By our first pick-up point, I’d decided Greg was half full. He had to be: he was optimistic in his work, he had a relationship, even if it was with Anaya, and he seemed pretty happy-go-lucky. Anaya had an impenetrable confidence, which I think also made her half full. Now, Fritz was a difficult one, for he was surely looking at a half-empty one, yet Joyce’s positive upbeat approach ran both their lives, so did that mean she carried him over to half full? I decided if I got him on his own for long enough, without his rock, he would join me and the other half-empties. My group, I realised, was full of people who were hopeless, and glaringly unhappy. They all had the irreversible-lives syndrome that Jim had warned me about today. I didn’t want to play things like that. Not any more.

I checked out the kilometres to Brisbane on the next sign, which said two hundred. Then I curled up on the double seat, happy at the swishing sound coming from the tyres hitting the wet highway, and got my head down, confident that meeting my mother would make my future glasses half full, rather than half empty.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

I WAS SOUND
asleep when the bus pulled into the station in Brisbane. I got myself together and checked out the people awaiting our arrival. I picked out Hank White straight away. He was perhaps in his early fifties, and dressed like Roy Orbison in all-black clothes, but had a look of General Custer about him, with a huge white moustache and a narrow pointy beard. His hair was wild and swept back, and he wore enormous sunglasses even though it was dark and dusky. I was worried from the moment I saw him. I’d always hated beards and completely distrusted men who wore them; it felt as though they were hiding behind them. It was hard to hide Hank though.