The Ottoman Motel (3 page)

‘Ned Gale?'

‘Good bloke. Owns a bed and breakfast. Nice place. She stays there.'

‘Sounds right,' said Simon's father. ‘Rings a bell.' He brought out his phone again, held it up. ‘Still nothing.'

‘Won't have much luck with a mobile,' said Tarden. ‘Whole town's a black spot as far as that goes.'

‘The whole town?'

‘Yep. Council kept saying they'd do something about it, but then they got eaten up by amalgamations, so—'

Simon's father nodded.

‘Anyway,' said Tarden. ‘I'll let you finish your meal. Just give us a yell if you need anything else.' He turned to leave.

Simon's mother spoke. ‘Where is…where's the bed and breakfast?'

‘What's that?'

‘The B&B. Where Iris—where my mother is staying. How do we get there?'

‘Oh,' said Tarden. ‘Right. You just follow this road and there'll be a turnoff on your right. There's signs. Can't miss it.'

‘Not far, then?'

‘Nah, not even five minutes in a car.'

‘Oh, right.' Simon's mother rubbed her hands against her legs.

‘Staying long?' said Tarden.

‘Ah, we're not quite sure,' said Simon's father. ‘It'll depend. Won't it sweetie?' He tried a smile.

‘Is there—' Simon's mother let her voice trail off. She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Is there anywhere we can go? Beforehand?' She inhaled quickly, as if about to sneeze.

‘Um.' Tarden looked at Simon's father, at Simon.

‘I mean is there somewhere nice we can go for a while? After we check in. Before—'

Simon's father cottoned on. ‘Any local attractions?' he said. ‘Sightseeing spots? It'd be a shame to come to this part of the country without seeing what it had to offer.'

‘Well, there's the beach, but at this time of the year it's not much to look at.' Tarden rubbed his chin. ‘There's the Magpie, though. Lovely in the evening. Couldn't really let you leave town without seeing
that
.'

Simon immediately pictured a giant bird, sitting atop a building in the main street. Brown eyes, wings clenched.

‘Right,' said Simon's father. ‘The Magpie.'

Tarden bunched up a smile. ‘Magpie Lake. Lovely this time of year, specially since winter's slipped in early.'

Specially, thought Simon. Specially since.

‘Magpie Lake,' said Simon's mother. ‘Okay.'

‘Go down there myself of a morning,' said Tarden. ‘Set some traps. Clear water, yabbies, beautiful. Bit later you get the sunset, too. Pretty spectacular. Be some rain coming in later, maybe, but it should be beautiful about now.'

‘Sounds lovely,' said Simon's father, his teeth appearing white from behind his beard. Tarden's hands disappeared behind his overalls.

‘How do we get there?' said Simon's mother.

‘Well,' said Tarden, ‘I usually take a shortcut from my place. It's not far as the crow flies, but it's only a dirt road. Pretty rough
going.'

‘We've got all-wheel-drive,' said Simon's father. ‘They take it over boulders in the ads. Right up the side of a mountain.'

‘Well that's the ads,' said Simon's mother. ‘Is there another way?'

Tarden nodded. ‘Just keep to the main road, like before, but turn left at the servo.' He pulled a hand free, swiped it through the air with his pink palm. ‘You'll see a line of trees. Just follow them along. Easy.'

‘Thank you,' she said.

‘We'd better get settled into our room, then,' said Simon's father.

‘They'll sort you out when you pay for lunch,' said Tarden. ‘They'll give you a key, then you just head around the corner, where the motel entrance is.'

While his parents said their goodbyes and thank-yous, Simon hung in the periphery. The day—the week, the weeks to come—pushed up against him with an enveloping, empty pressure.

The sun crackled low off the windows of the parked cars outside, casting strange reflections on the wall. The light broke through the lace curtains; the shapes moved and grew, like embers from a broken fire.

Simon was in charge of the room keys. His father had presented them as they got back into the car, like some sort of apology. It was always something like this. A dollar coin here, an extended bedtime there. Little gestures that meant nothing to Simon, but a lot, apparently, to his parents. He examined the keys. Two of them, identical, hung off a carved wooden keyring shaped like a turtle. The turtle was surprisingly lifelike. Even the eyes seemed real.

The car rounded the corner, going all the way around the large building that housed the Ottoman. At the other side, it turned into a pub, with a locked double-door, long glass windows, a small verandah. A thin driveway ran up beside it, with a
Vacancy
sign beckoning them in. The motel was a horseshoe of repeated doorways surrounding an empty, pot-holed bitumen carpark.

Simon's mother sighed. ‘This is—'

‘This is why they don't have a website,' said Simon's father. ‘Looks like we've got the place to ourselves, though.' He parked the car and they got out.

Simon stared at all the identical windows. The sky reflected back at him in repeated blushes of pink and orange.

‘Still in charge of that key, Simon?'

Simon said nothing. He held up the key between thumb and forefinger, letting the turtle swing in the air.

‘Room eight. You can open the door if you like.'

Simon slumped up onto the concrete landing. It was lit feebly by a stripe of naked bulbs: one bulb, Simon worked out, for every four doors. He found their room and slid the key into the lock. The door opened easily, and the room let out a smell a bit like lavender. It reminded him immediately of the sachets of dried flowers his grandma used to keep in every drawer in her house. Potpourri. Nothing had its real smell, even there.

Simon heard his parents rolling their cases across the concrete. He glanced back at them and his heart stuttered. For a second, something was very wrong. He knew it was just the strange light playing tricks, but for one moment his parents became different people. The shadows on their faces inverted; the familiar shapes of their expressions disappeared. It echoed a deep fear that played on him in silent moments, in dreams: that his parents were strangers, that nothing was real.

‘Flick the light on can you, Simon?' His mother waved her hand at him.

Simon shook out the mirage from his head, felt inside the door for the light switch. He found it, and the room lit up in banana yellow. Like any hotel room he could have imagined: a double
and a single bed, a desk, a small TV. The forgettable painting on the wall. Simon went in and sat on the single bed, a crumbly feeling. His parents brought their bags in, took inventory of the room.

‘Okay,' said his mother. ‘Okay.'

‘Bit Norman Bates,' said his father, nodding at the painting. Simon didn't know what this meant, probably some artist who liked to paint landscapes with cows.

‘How long are we staying here?' he said.

‘Don't know,' said Simon's father. ‘As long as we need to.'

‘Not long,' said his mother. ‘Hopefully not too long.'

Simon nodded. He had guessed his grandma was sick, but his parents wouldn't tell him anything else. Something serious, to make them come down here. After not mentioning her for nearly five years. Sometimes he forgot he had a grandma.

His mother lay out on the double bed, her long hair bunching up behind her head, her shoes already slipped from her feet. ‘God,' she said quietly. ‘This is all—' She said nothing else, just held the back of her wrists up to her eyes.

Simon's father left the bags by the door and sat down on the bed. ‘We don't have to see her until tomorrow,' he said. ‘We can have a rest, go for a walk. Something.'

Simon's mother held uneven breaths. ‘I'm already—this room—' She shook her fingers at the ceiling.

Simon looked up, saw nothing but the sharp spikes of knobbly paint. One of their old houses had the same paintwork. Stalactites or stalagmites, Simon couldn't remember which. He knew his mother didn't like closed-in spaces. She was worse when she was working too much, worse still if she didn't get to the gym. She'd push furniture to the edges of the room. As far as Simon knew, she'd never lived anywhere but big cities.

‘What about that lake?' said Simon's father. ‘The Magpie? We could go and see the sunset.'

Simon's mother nodded. ‘The sunset.'

Simon watched the closed curtains. The sun was an orange presence behind them.

‘Okay,' said his father. ‘Let's go and have a look at this lake. I can take the camera. If it's as nice as Jack said it was, we can get some pics for the calendar.'

Simon grimaced. The Christmas Calendar. Every year, his parents would put one together as a gift to send to friends and clients. A series of sentimental family portraits taken with a self-timer, the three of them rushing together in front of random backdrops. Simon always imagined his family as a set of opposing magnets: you had to throw them together quickly before they repelled apart.

His father opened a bag to search for the camera.

His mother rolled over on the bed. She stretched out her arms. ‘Simon,' she said, ‘are you coming to the lake?'

Simon shook his head. He knew his mother had already guessed he didn't want to go.

‘Of course you're coming, Simon,' said his father. ‘Remember what we talked about?'

He shook his head again. His father had attempted a conversation that morning while his mother was upstairs getting ready. It had still been dark outside, somehow making the new house even more huge. Words like
support
and
difficult
and
complicated
. His father's cheeks had been so red. Each morning, scrubbed almost raw above the line of his beard.

‘Leave him,' said Simon's mother. ‘We won't be too long.'

‘By himself?'

‘He'll be fine. Won't you, Simon.'

Simon nodded. ‘I'll watch TV,' he said.

His father shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, but you could be missing something wonderful.'

Simon's mother got up from the bed. ‘He's fine,' she said. ‘He's old enough.' She leaned in and kissed Simon's forehead, leaving a cold moist place in the shape of her lips.

‘See you soon, champ.' Simon's father held his camera aloft by its strap, like a fisherman with his catch.

‘We'll take the key,' said his mother. ‘Don't answer if anyone knocks.'

‘Okay,' said Simon. ‘Enjoy the water.' He heard the lock snib. He walked over to one of the bags and found a book he'd been reading. Then, instead of going back to the bed, he pulled open the curtains. He watched his parents walk to their car, hand in hand, watched them get in, drive away. He switched off the lights
and stood there for a while, trying to catch the day losing
light. Knowing it wouldn't get dark until he stopped watching.

Simon's dream slid into wakefulness so seamlessly, like a boat through calm water, that it was impossible to tell one moment from another: the tide of the unconscious, the shore of the real. It was dark; eyes closed and open were so much the same that Simon had to shake his head to remember which was which. When he realised he was awake, he found himself immediately unsettled. At first he put it down to simple disorientation, but there was something more. A forceful thought that had remained an echo in his head.

He was lying on his side, curled up on the very edge of an unfamiliar bed. The scars on his legs itched. He sat up quickly, and the air was suddenly colder. The motel room. He remembered. What time was it? He couldn't focus his eyes, couldn't process the patterns of yellow on the opposite wall. The light bulbs, he told himself. The window. A faint panic began to ripple at his ribs. He got up from the bed. He felt by the doorway for the light switch, and when he flicked it on the hotel room was unchanged. The beds, the TV, the painting. His parents' bags, right where they'd left them. The green glow of the alarm clock by the double bed said
10.02
.

He wrenched open the front door, feeling the sensation of the lock popping open. In his mind, he saw his parents sitting outside the door, waiting for him to wake up. All he found was an empty landing. All the other windows in all the other rooms were dark. The carpark was still empty. He stared back into the doorway, registering suddenly his bare feet burning on the cold concrete.

His parents had left him home alone before and come back later than they were supposed to. Working late, dealing with deadlines—but they
always
let him know where they were. They were casual, negligent in their own way, but they
never
left him alone like this, not knowing. His mother especially. In his head he heard her voice, the panicked tone she swooped into sometimes, ever since the last time he'd seen his grandma. Maybe they had gone to visit her. But why wouldn't they have said?

It had to be a dream. That was what he told himself. It was like dreams he'd had before: places of no definition, edges of objects ghosting, two or three versions of everything, nothing right. The air scratched at his throat, raking it, leaving a thick, metallic taste. Simon heard his own breathing, became too aware of his lungs filling and emptying. His cheeks burned, his heart pulsed out in corrugated shivers. Something had happened. Simon saw news footage of a car crash, saw a funeral in a large church, saw himself, alone.

He walked quickly into the carpark, to the place he had seen his parents last. His eyes were growing accustomed to the moonless night. He searched the ground, stupidly, for footprints, for some clue. But everything was empty. No sights, no sounds, no feelings he knew. He shouted out, his voice nothing inside the cauldron sky. His mouth ached, with the cold, with words he never used.

‘MUM!

‘DAD!'

His voice left him painfully, a sob, a bandage ripped too early. He screamed the names again, but nothing came back. No
familiar voices echoing out from the darkness. It was fear now, it was panic. Kids weren't supposed to be lost like this, left like this. He crouched down. The world was ragged, diagonal, spinning and splintering. He pressed his knuckles into the bitumen until he felt a familiar charge of pain. Anything, he thought. Anything real.

He stopped for a moment, still stung with a slim small hope: the voices of his parents returning to him through the dark. There was nothing. No noise. A curious silence he'd not thought a seaside town could have. Simon tried not to imagine he was truly alone, but no other idea would replace it. It settled in his head, heavy and still. The cold began to take him over. He pictured himself the next morning, frozen like a caveman, trapped in the middle of the carpark, his frosted face staring, twisted, from within a block of ice.

He knew he had to move. He had to get help. He stood up, shivering, taking in nothing but the pale dots of light outside each motel room. The Ottoman, he thought. The smoky warmth of the cafe. Someone would be there. Surely someone had to keep watch over the motel. Maybe his parents were there, eating a late dinner. That was it. They'd come back and parked outside the cafe. His mother had come to check on him, but found him sleeping. They were just eating dinner, not even that far away.

Simon made his way out of the carpark, the soles of his sandals crunching on patches of loosened bitumen. Out on the street, it was easier to see. A high streetlight cast down easy light and as he passed under it, he felt a knot of worry loosen and release a tinge of embarrassment. He had panicked for nothing. A bad thought made worse by the dark, by a place he didn't know. That was all. Only a few steps up the road, he saw the double-doors, the long windows, and remembered what Tarden had said. The cafe was closed at night. His parents would be in the pub.

Light spilled out from the open doors and as Simon got closer, he heard voices. He stepped up onto the small verandah. That strange, warm smell was in his nose. Something that had got wet and then dried. A pub smell. He stepped inside.

The space was at least twice as large as the cafe, but had the same arrangement: a bar down one side, booths set back into
the walls. He scanned each seat in turn for the familiar forms
of his parents but these shapes were all strangers. Mostly men. Simon thought he recognised some of the faces from the cafe earlier in the day, fishers changed out of their overalls and into jeans and shirts. A collection of features: one with a clumpy haircut, another a potato-shaped nose. The waitress from the
cafe was there, behind the bar, talking to a younger guy who had his foot propped up on a low rail that ran the length of the counter.

His parents weren't here. He checked every table again. Every face. A few looked back, their expressions blank. Simon's pulse thumped. His scars stabbed with heat.

‘Jeez,' said a voice. ‘It's the explorer.'

Simon's gut gave a sharp twist. Tarden had appeared behind him, in the doorway.

‘Now I know it's not
Samuel
'. Tarden had replaced his overalls with a denim jacket and jeans. His face was flushed a deeper red by the cold, his eyes watering at their edges. His smile shrank away as he stepped inside. ‘You right, mate?'

Simon felt the beginning of tears. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop them.

‘Simon?' he heard Tarden say. Simon opened his eyes. He didn't want to say anything—he couldn't—but then the words escaped unwillingly, like the first squirts of air after a held breath. ‘My parents,' he said. ‘My mum and dad.'

Tarden said, ‘Are they here? Where are they?' He squatted down on his haunches, hands resting on his knees.

Up close, Simon saw Tarden's skin was covered in shallow craters. Simon's body shook before he even felt the tears, little wet strokes at the sides of his mouth.

‘Mate,' said Tarden. ‘Are your parents not here?'

Simon shook his head.

‘Do you know where they might be?'

‘They're not here!' shouted Simon. He had finally let out his breath, and now he couldn't control it. Tarden didn't understand. It wasn't that Simon couldn't
find
his parents—they weren't hiding somewhere where he couldn't see them—they were
missing
.

‘Do you know where they went?'

‘They left,' said Simon. ‘I didn't want to go. I stayed in the room. They've gone.' Simon kept crying.

‘They left you in the motel room?'

‘They went to that lake. I didn't want to go.'

Tarden put his hand around Simon's arm. ‘It's okay,' he said. ‘We'll find them. We'll do our best. Don't worry.'

Simon sniffed back tears, nodded, tried to ignore the wetness in his throat and nose. The overwhelming need not to cry in front of people he didn't know.

‘Come and sit down,' said Tarden. He guided Simon over to a nearby table. ‘I'm just going to talk to someone, okay? I'll get us some help. I'll be back in a sec.'

Simon sat down. He had gone numb. It still felt like he was waking up. Tarden went up to the bar and talked to a large, dark-skinned man behind it. They kept looking over at him. Simon could feel other eyes on him, too. All those people he didn't know. The large man nodded, disappeared through a door behind the bar.

Tarden came back over. ‘We're getting the police,' he said. ‘Okay? Nat's going to call the police.'

Simon nodded.

‘You want anything to drink?' said Tarden. ‘A Coke? A cordial?'

‘No.' He didn't want anything. He didn't want the police. He just wanted his parents. He wanted them to come and take him away from Reception.

‘Okay.' Tarden drummed his fingers on the tabletop. ‘What time did your mum and dad leave?'

‘I don't know,' said Simon. ‘Afternoon. A little bit after we left the cafe.'

‘I'm sure they're okay,' said Tarden. He started biting his fingernails. ‘Bugger of a night to be stuck out in, though.'

Simon said nothing.

‘What did your dad say he did again?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘What's his job?'

‘They sell things. Both of them.'

‘Your mum and dad do? What sort of things?'

‘Product.'

‘Product?'

‘Perfume, lotions and creams,' Simon recited from memory. ‘They get other people to sell it for them, really. They just run the company. They've got separate offices.'

Tarden pulled his lips back so his gums showed out. ‘Hmm. Couldn't work indoors, myself. Worked outside all my life.' He traced a pattern on his palm. He smiled. ‘It's the
only
life. Fishing. There's yabbies out at Magpie Lake, you know. Seen some the size of a baby.'

Simon wasn't sure he knew what a yabby was; instead he imagined a lake full of babies, paddling slowly underwater with bright blue eyes, bubbles at the corners of their mouths. Infants asleep at night, on the lake's floor. Curled up in hollow mud shells. ‘Don't you get bored?' Simon asked. ‘If all you do is fish?'

‘That's a serious question,' said Tarden. ‘Suppose some people would. Depends on your personality, doesn't it? Me, I like time to think things over.'

Simon felt an uncomfortable pressure in his stomach. He hadn't been to the toilet all day, but he stayed quiet.

‘So,' said Tarden after a while. ‘Your…grandma. You're visiting her?'

‘Yes.'

‘She…I never heard about her having grandkids. Or kids. Or anything, much.'

‘We didn't talk to her for a while,' said Simon. ‘My mother. We all didn't.'

‘Why not?'

Simon twisted his hands in his lap. ‘We just didn't.' He stared at the ceiling, watched a group of moths swing manic loops in the lights.

‘So why now?'

‘What?'

‘Why did your parents decide to visit Iris all of a sudden?'

Simon rubbed at his legs. ‘She's not well.'

‘Oh.' Tarden pulled his seat forward. ‘I'm sorry to hear that.'

‘I can't really remember what she looks like,' said Simon, surprising himself with how loud his voice was. ‘I can't. She's really not well. I really want to see her.' Simon felt a new sting of tears.

‘What's the matter with her?' Tarden put the side of his pinkie finger in his mouth, his wrist bent at an awkward angle. Simon could hear the sound of Tarden's teeth against his fingernail.

‘I think,' said Simon, ‘she's going to die.'

‘Ow—shit!' Tarden's hand shot back from his face. He shook it vigorously. ‘Bloody thing,' he said, holding up his finger. The tip was red. A trickle of blood worked its way down the side of Tarden's wrist. ‘Always happens,' he said. ‘It's this bloody weather.'

‘What?'

‘Just bit my finger, that's all. Always happens, doesn't it.'

Simon nodded, although he couldn't imagine someone biting their own finger. He thought he saw something else in Tarden's eyes. A faint shadow of fear. He suddenly saw his parents, lying at the bottom of the lake, nestled amongst the babies and the formless yabbies and the mud. Bodies slumped still. Fingers chewed down to the bone.