The Ottoman Motel (9 page)

The sand was winter tight, so dry it nearly crackled. Tarden turned his boot to an angle and scraped across it, watching the grains crumble like stale breadcrumbs. He sometimes thought he was building his own desert island here, behind the house, the crabs bringing with them their part of the sea. He wedged the plastic tub between his stomach and the old freezer. A familiar pain shot across his gut as he tugged at the freezer lid, but this was as much a part of his routine as anything else. He knocked away the padlock with his free hand. The freezer lid refused to open, its rubber seal stuck fast. As he tried to wrench it the tub slipped and he cringed at the sharp crack as it hit the side of the freezer. He felt water spurting against his arm and knew the side had split.

He put the tub on the ground; the sand beneath leached quickly dark. He took off the lid and the crabs were tumble-turning, colliding. One had its claws free, holding fast to the legs of another. Tarden swore at himself for trying to take a shortcut: they deserved better than this. They deserved to have their final moments cloaked in calm, even if not comfort. He used both hands to prise open the freezer, shielding his face from the inevitable briny stench. He bent down over the tub, reaching in with a wide grip and hoisting the unbound crab from the water. It came out with two legs seized in each claw, a limb thief. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Three more legs floated in the tub, along with a twisted gnarl of twine. A stupid mistake. He'd let his focus slip. Let those other thoughts cloud his mind.

He slammed down the freezer lid and the sound echoed, a deep metallic chime, recalling the mellow ring of steel drums. The only music he'd heard for years, the Jamaican who they'd let work in the kitchen who'd hammered tiny dints into metal bowls. He'd been allowed to keep the bowls, to everyone's surprise, and would play them some nights when curfew lapsed. The sounds would sweeten the stale air trapped between the walls, replacing that voice of despair that sometimes overtook you. He wondered how many lives the sound had saved.

Tarden inhaled the ocean air deeply; he still remembered to count his blessings. A pair of butcher birds chortled together down at the fence line. The breeze had picked up again. The mistletoe—like waterfalls high in the weeping gums—whistled and rushed. He stood for a moment, letting every one of his senses take its
fill: a practice he had promised himself, once a day for the rest of his life.

There was a sudden sickly humming. The freezer's motor struggling. Tarden drew his hands down over his face. It was all too much sometimes, these little details, all adding up. Every week he promised himself he'd talk to Robbie about buying a new freezer and new equipment. It wasn't much to ask. But every last dollar had to go into the shed, with the promise of so many more dollars to come. He threw up his hands, appealing to no one but himself. He started to walk back to the house, defeated already by the day. He stared back at his abandoned crab tub. He knew he'd caught by far the best haul of the morning. It was a daily ritual, the fishers meeting at the Ottoman to compare hauls. Even the blokes from the trawlers sometimes turned up in their shiny utes and monogrammed polo shirts. He'd told them all that morning about his catch, his crabs as big as dinner plates, heavy with good meat. It was a pissing contest, really, but Tarden was still proud of the envy on the other fishers' faces. He didn't have to go on about what price he'd get. For him, it was the satisfaction of hard work rewarded.

In a daze, Tarden swung open the back door with his foot,
then cursed himself. Even though the flyscreen hung three-quarters open no matter how hard you kicked it, Tarden hated to take his home for granted. In the kitchen, the fridge buzzed like a blizzard. On its last legs as well. He swung it open, the bottles in the door rattling, the buzzing growing louder. One day it would just conk out, and then what would they do? All that technology sitting across the yard while the house and cars slowly fell apart. They hadn't taken a holiday in over two years. But there was always something new to buy: better storage, better transportation. Always problems to anticipate, always complications to rectify. It was never easy. And now another headache: the car Robbie had brought home last night. A huge, stupid, fuck-off complication.

Tarden took a bottle of lemon cordial and sloshed some into a glass. Once he would have drunk it with white spirits. Today, he simply mixed it with cold water from the fridge. He downed it in two gulps. It was then he caught a subtle shift in the whine of silence.

He took his empty glass down the hall. Robbie's bed was behind the open door, up against the wall, so all Tarden could see were his brown legs, crossed at the ankles. The ridge of Robbie's foot had a deep purple bruise across it where he'd kicked the towbar of the car that morning. The small black-and-white TV he kept on his desk was showing a game show. On the screen a contestant sat behind a panel with a question superimposed below her. The static made it too hard to read.

‘What's the question?' Tarden said, stepping into the room. Robbie, he saw, wasn't looking at the television: his eyes were fixed on the book lying flat in his lap. It was one of the classics he got sometimes in the mail, tightly bound in fake leather, titles stamped in gold down the spines. He wore his jeans rolled up but had taken off his shirt.

‘What question?' Kuiper spoke without looking up.

‘On your quiz show there.'

Kuiper raised his head to the television, folding his arms across his chest. ‘That's a news report,' he said. ‘Nations warring, people starving. Et cetera.' He snorted a humourless laugh. He shifted his legs up under his body to let Tarden sit down. Tarden felt his warmth still present on the sheets. The room smelled of whatever sweet state came before decay.

‘Shouldn't we think about getting back to the Magpie?' Tarden said.

Kuiper stretched, yawning a dead man's yawn. His muscles shivered. ‘Reckon we'll head out in twenty,' he said.

‘What about the car?'

Kuiper gritted his teeth. ‘It'll be safe for a day.'

‘You sure? What about tyre tracks?'

‘Relax. It pissed down last night. The road's mud. If it blows over, we get a car, or we sell it. If not, we dump it, make a nice bonfire.'

‘I guess.'

‘All we've got to do is keep it local,' said Kuiper. ‘Keep it all in town, everything'll be fine.'

Tarden put his glass down on the floor. ‘I just think—'

‘Bit on edge, Jacky?' His demon grin. ‘Want to take the edge off?'

‘Nah. You know I don't…Fuck, especially not today. We gotta be careful. You said so this morning.' The TV's reception went completely, the picture dissolving to a froth of ants.

‘I don't mean that,' said Kuiper. ‘I know you're Healthy Harold now.' He shifted his weight to move his legs out from under him. Lay back, placing his calves on Tarden's lap. ‘I'm saying we can find a way to relax.'

Gin met them halfway down the stairs. He came running, making sputtering noises with his mouth like a failing fighter plane. He was covered in dirt and soaked through. ‘Madaline's here, Dad,' he shouted, running at Ned full pelt. ‘She's a policeman again.'

‘Don't!' said Ned, holding out his arms to stop Gin cannoning into him. ‘Have you been under the sprinkler?'

Gin looked up to the ceiling. ‘No.'

‘Shower,' said Ned. ‘Now.'

‘But I'm a crime-fighter.'

‘A crime-fighter who's been told many times about playing under the sprinkler.' Ned ushered his son down the stairs.

As they reached the bottom, Simon noticed Madaline standing in the doorway. She had on a proper police uniform, which made Simon feel safer. She held a black backpack in one hand.

‘Hi Simon,' she said. ‘How're you feeling?'

‘I'm okay.'

Madaline came into the house and took off her hat. Its brim reminded Simon of a platypus's bill.

‘You can use the dining room,' said Ned. ‘First door on the right.'

‘All right,' said Madaline. ‘Shall we?'

Simon followed her down the corridor, past the kitchen and through a panelled wooden door. The first thing he noticed was the thick spread of dark green carpet. It seemed to suck the light from the room, made the air a weighty curtain draping
the cavernous fireplace on the main wall, sagging solemnly from the gold frames of the paintings. It was nothing like the rest
of the house, Simon thought, it was older. Stuck in a different part of history.

In the middle of the room was a large wooden table just as big as the one in the kitchen but perfectly square. The wood was the same gloomy ruby as Iris's bed, its surface so deep and polished that Simon imagined the same hand rubbing it with a soft cloth for centuries.

Madaline stood at the window staring through the gauzy curtain. ‘We'd better start,' she said. She put the backpack down. ‘Do you want a seat, Simon?'

Simon took the chair next to hers.

Madaline opened the backpack and placed a battered blue exercise book, a pencil case and a tiny tape recorder on the shiny table; it seemed wrong to Simon to give such ordinary objects a place on the pristine surface.

‘Myself and Senior Sergeant Parker—that's my boss—went to the Ottoman Motel this morning. We went to the room you and your parents were staying in.'

A flash of fear. Simon remembered the moment his parents' faces shifted under the motel lights and they became other people.

‘They don't seem to have gone back there,' said Madaline. ‘Everything was the same as when we left it. We have to keep—just for now—we have to keep everything there the way it was, for evidence. But I did bring you some clothes, and a book.' Madaline reached into the backpack and pulled out a large see-through plastic bag. A couple of Simon's T-shirts were in there, some underwear, a pair of trousers. ‘I didn't know which…how many—' Madaline fluttered her fingers. ‘There was a book as well.' She placed Simon's book on the table. He had chosen it for their destination.
The Reader's Dictionary of the Sea
. He had bought it in an op-shop, intrigued by the cover, a picture of a huge wave with a ship stuck at the bottom of it, its nose upturned. Simon had always imagined the wave a giant mouth, ready to swallow whatever was foolish enough to drift inside it.

‘Now, Simon,' said Madaline. ‘I need to ask you a couple of questions now. This isn't an official interview, which means that nothing you say will leave this room unless you tell me it can. Do you understand?'

Simon nodded.

‘Good. There's nothing to worry about here. If you don't want to answer any questions, or you don't know
how
to answer them, you don't have to. All this is about is you telling me as much about yesterday as you can. Anything at all, even if it seems unimportant. Okay?'

‘Okay.' Simon knew he had to pay attention. But as his eyes relaxed, staring into the table's surface, dark lines started to crawl into his sight, stealing in from outward angles. Tiny spidery figures and shapes seemed to follow each other in constant motion, only stopping when Simon moved his eyes just to either side of them. He slowed his eyes, trying to catch them, but the figures would not come into focus. He moved his finger slowly above the polished surface, and they fell away, shrinking into shadow.

Simon felt a pressure on his arm. He looked over. Madaline's fingers were pressing gently on his skin. Her fingernails had flecks of white, little ships in a ridged pink sea.

‘Simon,' she said. ‘When you're ready.'

He looked over at the tape recorder. Through a translucent window on its cover, he saw two wheels of a tape turning.

‘I don't have to use the tape if you don't want me to,' said Madaline. ‘It's only so I don't forget anything.'

‘No,' said Simon. ‘It's fine.'

‘All right.' She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘What time did you and your family arrive in Reception, Simon?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘The sun was still up, but it was low.'

Madaline scribbled something in her worn exercise book. Simon thought the police were supposed to write in black
notebooks that flipped over at the top. ‘How long had you been travelling for?'

‘We left after breakfast. Maybe eight o'clock?'

Madaline nodded. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her book. It was a map, dotted with place names, criss-crossed in red and black lines like a medical diagram. The top of it was the tall triangle Simon knew was Queensland. He also knew Reception was somewhere below the border, the wormy black line in the middle of the page that traced its way towards the coast, turning into a frantic squirm when it saw the egg-blue sea. ‘Reception is here,' Madaline said, pointing to a small bubble of coastline.

‘It's not on the map.' Simon looked closer.

‘Well the name's not. But it's there.' Madaline put her finger on the map above the border. ‘This is the Gold Coast. Do you recognise any of the towns between here and Reception?'

Simon scanned his eyes down the map as Madaline traced the highway. He tried to match a town's name to his memory of the road signs he'd seen. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I don't know.'

‘That's okay.'

Simon's head felt suddenly empty, as if the previous day was a dream he'd had and already forgotten. He gave Madaline descriptions of his parents, the car, the town where they'd stopped for morning tea, but the details had disappeared.

Madaline leaned back in her chair. She stretched her neck and Simon heard tiny clicks. ‘Maybe we can talk a bit about when you got here. You visited the pub, didn't you, the Ottoman?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did anything unusual happen while you were there?'

‘We had lunch, even though it was too late to have it.'

Madaline smiled. ‘But nothing strange or scary happened while you were there? Your parents didn't do anything, or say anything that might have worried you?'

‘No,' said Simon. ‘I don't think so.'

Madaline smoothed her hands across the paper of her book. ‘Some…people I've spoken to who were at the Ottoman yesterday afternoon said your parents had an argument.'

Simon's scars burned. Was this the reason they didn't come back? Because they disagreed?

‘Do your parents often have arguments?'

‘Not really. Maybe.'

‘Do you know what they were arguing about?'

Simon sighed. He thought about his grandma, huddled under her sheets. The fear in her voice. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I was sitting at the counter I think.' He felt his cheeks getting hot. ‘Why are you asking me about this? They haven't disappeared just because they had an argument. That doesn't make sense.'

‘It's all right, Simon.' Madaline put her hand back on his arm. ‘We can stop this any time you want. You just tell me.'

Simon felt the sting of tears. ‘Why does everyone talk so much? Why doesn't anyone want to just find my mum and dad?' He felt the world stretching away from him again, an empty world that went on forever. There was no safe place to return to once the interview had finished. No normality. This was the way it was now.

It should have been his mother's hand on his arm. His parents should be home, should be
here
, but they weren't. Not anymore. Simon's shoulders shook, the bottom falling from the earth, and him falling through it.

He felt Madaline's arm close around his shoulders and watched his tears drop to the table's surface. Against the endless depth of the polished wood, the tension of each tear wavered, unbroken for an instant, then scattered absently like so many stars: seeds strewn by God against a darkened sky.