Deeper Water (11 page)

Hamish’s eyes narrowed. ‘They couldn’t come because the water was too high. I’ve been stuck out at Mema’s place for three days.’ He gestured in my direction without looking. ‘I rang them and they said they’d come when the water went down. That should be on record.’

The bank man nodded, taking it all in.

‘This doesn’t happen very often, but it’s not without precedent.’

Hamish’s fingers relaxed a fraction.

‘Look, you’ll need to get someone back home to send us through some documents, a copy of your passport would be ideal. Scan it in and send it by email. It wouldn’t usually be enough without a JP’s signature, but in these circumstances it might suffice.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Hamish leaned forward. ‘I don’t even have the change to make a phone call. How can I get that information through to you?’

The man looked from Hamish to me and back. ‘Sir, if you’d like to step into our client room, you can use our phone to make the call.’

Hamish clenched his fists. ‘Alright,’ he nodded, and I stepped aside.

I glanced at the window as Hamish followed the bank man. The toddlers were gone. I didn’t fancy staring at the date on the wall any longer than I already had, so wandered towards the exit, wanting some fresh air. Taking a breath I pushed the doors open, steadying myself a second on the threshold, but there was no one left outside. It was getting into afternoon. The sun going down on my town can be spectacular, all oranges and pinks. We don’t get to see that at our place, so far into the hills. But it was summer and the sun wouldn’t set for hours.

I looked down the rows of shops. None of them attracted me. I could think of nothing that I needed. Mum would be in soon, getting groceries, stocking up—moving from one shop to the next, checking for specials. Stretching our money as far as it could go. Sometimes it was a long wait between markets. At the end of the month it was all brown rice and potatoes. Anja would come down the mountain and we’d sprinkle the rice with soy sauce and fill our empty bellies, waiting for market day to roll around. Anja had a sweet tooth and she’d always have squirrelled away some chocolate then pull it from somewhere like a magic trick. Chocolate had a way of making us feel wayward. We’d both been banned from eating it when we were small and health food reigned. I wondered where Anja had been. She didn’t have a phone—it was impossible to ring her. If she didn’t come down tomorrow I would trek up the mountain to find her. I moved towards Frank’s truck, still parked where we left it, and leaned my back against the door. It was comforting to have something to gravitate towards, to not be stranded there alone.

In a few minutes the bank doors opened and Hamish stepped down onto the street. Even from where I was standing I could see the verve had gone out of him—all the vitality the ride in the back of Frank’s truck had somehow restored. Deep in thought, he shook his head, as though in answer to a question no one was asking. He looked around and I waved to him, but he couldn’t even smile.

‘They won’t give me any cash until they see a copy of my passport.’

The bank man had explained that while I was standing there, so I was hardly surprised.

‘Can you believe it?’

‘Could you get someone to email a copy?’

‘I tracked down a friend but she couldn’t do it till after work.’ He looked forlorn, lost. ‘The bank will be closed.’

I wanted to reach out and touch him. ‘You can get it tomorrow.’

‘Fuck, Mema, how can they leave me with no money?’ he said. ‘I mean it’s mine and it’s all sitting there. I just can’t access it.’

‘You’ll be okay. It’s only one night.’

I know I should have been thinking of his predicament but I wasn’t. I was wondering about the girl. His friend. A new feeling opened up inside me, a savage kind of ache.

‘They gave me the number for Salvation Army emergency relief.’ He looked up and down the street and I knew he was seeing it with different eyes, seeing its failings. He dug a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. I unfolded it, glancing down at the details but I already knew them.

‘That only operates once a week.’ Anja sometimes had to ask them for help, when her dad drank all his disability payment. ‘Not today.’

‘What should I do?’

‘You can come back to our place.’

‘Mema, I don’t think I can do that. I need to be in town for work tomorrow.’ He sighed, stepping down beside me and leaning against the truck, pressing his fingers against his eyes. ‘You guys won’t be coming in again for a while.’ He said this sideways, tilting his face towards me. It was true enough, though if he was desperate he could always ride.

‘How often does Frank come in?’ Hamish asked, dropping his hands. He stood up straighter and peered down the street, as though searching for Frank’s form.

‘He’s out and about plenty. I don’t know what he does.’

I always saw Frank’s truck on the road. I’d never really thought about where he was going.

‘I’ll ask him.’

It was a neat solution.

‘I’ve got to meet the head of the company tomorrow to discuss operations. I thought I’d have the cash to buy myself some new clothes.’ He looked down at himself, standing there in the afternoon shade. ‘Fuck. There’s no way I can wear this.’

‘They’ll understand what’s happened,’ I said. ‘You’ve already spoken to them on the phone.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But it’s more about how I’ll feel.’

Hamish had never spoken a word about feelings.

‘You need to make an impression?’ I suppose even I knew what he meant.

‘Not so much that. I just need to be able to hold my own.’

I thought of the way the bank manager looked down his nose at Hamish. I knew what that was like.

‘I’ve got thirty bucks,’ I said, feeling for the pocket in my skirt. ‘We could go to Vinnies.’

Hamish looked down at my hand. ‘But that’s your money. I don’t want to take your money, Mema.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’ll have your cash tomorrow. You can pay me back.’

Mum and I always sewed secret pockets into our clothes. There was nothing more useful. I carefully undid the zipper and pulled out my money. One blue and one orange. ‘Come on. We’ll leave Frank a note so he knows where to find us.’

Hamish stared at me for a few seconds, weighing it up. It was a dilemma.

‘You’re serious,’ he said at last. ‘You’d lend me thirty bucks. How many mugs is that?’

Maybe I should have been insulted, but I wasn’t.

‘A few.’

‘Okay. It’s a deal.’ He reached out and we shook hands. ‘Thanks, Mema.’

‘If we don’t hurry up, Vinnies might shut. Sometimes it closes early.’ The skin on my hands tingled where his fingers had been and I felt like laughing. ‘You’ve got to go back into the bank and write Frank a note. Tell him we’ll be at Vinnies or the Savoy.’ I handed him the scrap of paper he had handed me. ‘I don’t have a pen.’

‘Nothing else tucked away in those little pockets?’

I shook my head and he turned around and jogged up the bank steps. He was back in a few moments, paper in hand.

‘The Savoy? Don’t tell me. It can be a surprise.’ Hamish’s voice was lighter than I’d heard it. We popped the note under one of Frank’s windscreen wipers and headed down the street.

Second-hand clothes always harbour a smell. Something fusty and stale, even though I know they’ve all been cleaned. When Hamish and I walked in, the old woman at the counter looked up and smiled, then went back to what she was doing. The racks were all arranged according to size, men and women’s clothes on opposite sides of the room. I could see from Hamish’s face that he didn’t know where to start. Everything looked unsightly and wrong, thrown in together, but I was confident we could find something passable. Sophie was always looking in Vinnies for things—it was one of her pleasures. Her little cabin was full of funny trinkets and treasures. Usually I didn’t have the patience for op-shopping, but that day was different. We were on a mission.

The men’s pants were jammed on one rack. I flicked through the obligatory pairs of brown old-man slacks and then I got to some jeans.

‘What would you normally wear to work?’ I asked Hamish, who was standing behind me, looking a bit at sea.

‘Jeans would be okay, or some dark pants.’ He pulled out a pair of jeans. ‘Anything would be better than old ratty board shorts, I guess.’

‘Pick a few and try them on,’ I said, grabbing some that looked about right.

‘You reckon?’

‘Yep.’ I handed the jeans over. ‘I’ll look at the shirts while you’re in there.’

Hamish headed towards the fitting room while I perused the shirts. I didn’t know him well enough to have much idea of what he liked, so it was a bit tricky. There were a couple of work shirts, pale and nondescript, and I pulled out the freshest one of those, wondering about the sizing. It was a farming town, so there were heaps of flannelettes and a bunch of plaid, checked things. I chose one, but secretly I hoped he wouldn’t like it. Those kinds of clothes made me think of everything that was ordinary about the world, and I didn’t want Hamish to fall into that category. At least, not yet. There was a plain dark-blue button-up shirt, fine and cottony. If it was me, that’s the one I’d choose. I moved across to the fitting room, the shirts I’d picked hanging over my arm.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked from outside. Hamish grunted in response.

‘That good.’ I laughed.

‘They all come up so high. I look like a primary-school teacher.’

I knew what he meant, even though I’d never been to school. But it was a step up from a madman, I guess.

‘Let me see.’

There was a shuffling around and then Hamish opened the curtain. He was standing there in jeans, no shirt, and even though I’d seen him less clothed than that, it made me suck in a breath.

‘They fit, you know, they’re not too small or anything,’ he said, looking down and bending a little at the knees. He seemed comfortable enough, but even in the dim light I could see a hint of red rising up his neck. I wondered if it was my looking at him that made him blush.

‘Once you’ve got a shirt on, you won’t see they’re high-waisted,’ I said, looking at the jeans with a seamstress’s eye. I could adjust the waistband—it’d take twenty minutes max. ‘Wouldn’t be too hard to change with the sewing machine, but probably not before tomorrow. If you’re going to stay with Frank.’

‘Really?’

I nodded, holding up the shirts. ‘I didn’t know what kind of thing you were going for.’

He gazed at the shirts carefully. ‘I guess I want to look like I’ve got it together.’

‘Like you haven’t just escaped death and lost all your worldly possessions?’

Hamish laughed. ‘Yeah, that about sums it up.’

‘Well,’ I said, holding out the pale work shirt, ‘there’s this.’

He took the shirt and held it up against his body.

‘Do you think this colour makes me look washed-out?’ he asked, straight-faced. It was a funny comment, coming from him. I didn’t know whether to laugh, but when he glanced down at the shirt he was grinning.

‘No, seriously. It’s a bit pale. What’d you reckon?’

‘It’s not my type of thing.’ I shrugged, looking down at my outfit. I liked my colours bold.

‘What else?’

I held the plaid shirt in one hand and the blue in the other. He reached out and touched the checked sleeve. ‘This one reminds me of my dad. On a bad day.’

I let out the breath I was holding.

‘The blue one is okay.’ He took it from me. ‘I’ll try it on.’

He did up the buttons and turned to look in the mirror. The fit was alright.

‘It covers the school-teacher jeans,’ he said, looking back at me.

‘It’s good.’

It was odd how much clothes could change you. Hamish looked completely different. Older, more capable. I felt like a child in dress-ups beside him.

‘How much are they?’ he asked.

We searched around for the tags. The jeans were eight dollars, the shirt was five.

‘Thirteen dollars all up!’ Hamish said. ‘That’s a steal.’

We approached the counter and the old lady spoke to us softly. She was watching my lips as I talked and I wondered if she might be going deaf—if she talked so quietly because she was afraid of speaking too loud. I handed over the money and she fished me out some change. I smiled and she leaned across and took a plastic rose from a vase on the counter, handing it to me.

‘Thanks,’ I said in surprise.

‘It’s charming to see a young couple in love,’ she said, her words tumbling out unsteadily. Grasping the rose, I saw her fingers trembling in that old-lady way against the counter.

Hamish made a choking sound beside me.

‘That’s sweet of you,’ I stuttered, ‘but …’ I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

‘We’re not a couple,’ Hamish piped up. ‘Just friends.’

The old woman seemed to take this in gradually, her face blank for a few seconds before registering.

‘Oh, I am sorry, dear. You look so … well matched.’

I tried to hand her back the rose but she wouldn’t take it. ‘No, it’s yours now, dear.’

We put the new clothes straight into the backpack and nodded our goodbyes. At the last minute the old lady stopped us and threw in a couple of doilies for nothing. Sophie would be pleased.

Out on the street we were quiet.

‘That was awkward,’ Hamish said, looking anywhere but at me.

‘Let’s get some food.’ I couldn’t help it, I was hurt.

‘You lead the way,’ he said, glancing up and down the street.

I strode off and he followed. It was rare for me to get angry. I guess I didn’t know where to put my feelings.

When we reached the teashop I walked straight in but Hamish stood on the street for a second looking at the display in the front window. The Savoy was this funny old place full of meringues and vanilla slices, run by the same people for years. Old-style wooden booths along the walls, not a piece of wholemeal banana cake in sight. My mum hated it with a passion. I suppose that’s why I found it appealing. All their cakes and things sat behind curved glass in the front window. The display was meant to entice you indoors, but usually the food looked like it might have been there for days. The Savoy didn’t have to work too hard when there was nowhere else to go.

I headed straight towards the back, past the other patrons, out of sight of the street. Sitting down, I glanced up at the menu. There was never anything new chalked up on the big blackboard, so I don’t know exactly what I was looking for. Hamish stepped inside and the other customers all stopped still and watched him. He walked towards me in the booth and sat down, ignoring the scrutiny, his eyes on the blackboard.

‘Wow, this place is totally old school,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They even have banana splits.’

‘Yep.’ Sometimes Anja and I shared one. Ice-cream and that cream that came out of a canister. Chocolate sauce. All in a long glass-cut oval bowl. We always giggled ’cause it came out looking like a dick and balls, though no one else seemed to appreciate that.

‘What are you getting?’ Hamish asked, pulling out a table menu to double check.

I didn’t know what I felt like eating. I was still rattled by the old lady and the rose.

‘I’m thinking, a milkshake and a banana split, just to try the house special.’

The waitress came over. She was a little older than me, hair bleached to a dead white, but she had a pretty kind of face. Big warm brown eyes. I’d seen her in here before but I didn’t know her name. The bones were showing through her cheeks in a way they hadn’t last time I came in. I looked at her closely wondering if she was okay. There was that line that skinny girls crossed where suddenly they looked as though they could be dying. We’d had a girl in town a few years back so thin she looked like a walking skeleton. Sophie told me they sent her off to some special clinic in the city, but I hadn’t heard how she was going. I hoped the waitress wasn’t starving herself too.

‘So, what’ll it be?’ she asked Hamish with an easy smile. A dimple flashed in her cheek, and I could see him staring at the place where it appeared. Dimples are a bit mesmerising, springing out of nowhere like they do. Even so, his interest in it made something dip inside me. Hamish ordered and then they both turned towards me.

‘I’ll have the fruit salad.’

Most of the time the fruit here was out of a can, but that in itself was a novelty. I watched the waitress jot my order down on her little pad.

‘You don’t want a drink?’ Hamish asked, but the thought of a giant milkshake made me feel a little ill.

‘I’ll just have some water.’ I nodded at the dimpled girl and then looked around the room.

I was used to being watched when I came into town, especially with Anja. Anja alone was quite a sight, all long legs and swishing hair, lips as bright as berries, and whenever I was with her people really stared. She was funny about it. A mixture of self-conscious and defiant—daring people to say something. They hardly ever did. I knew most of the gawking was in her direction, and that was fine with me. But the way people stared at Hamish was different. Anja and me, we were known entities, we’d always hung about on the periphery of town, but Hamish was fresh and people couldn’t keep their eyes off him. I could see the ladies in the booth opposite whispering—the speculation had begun.

‘They’re an inquisitive bunch,’ Hamish said quietly, trying to hide his smile.

‘You mean nosey.’

‘Half of them will already know I’m the stupid tourist who washed off the bridge, right?’

‘Frank Brown knows everything. Not everyone’s like him. Well, there’s Rosie at the post office, she knows everyone’s business. But she’s the postmistress, has been forever, so that makes sense.’

‘That’ll change soon. No one sends mail anymore.’

I shrugged my shoulders. Mum still paid all the bills with her cheque book.

‘It’s alright, I’m used to being the foreigner. It’s worse in countries where you actually look different—you know—distinctly.’

‘You travel a lot?’

‘Yeah, for my job. It’s here, there and everywhere.’

It was strange thinking maybe this town was just another one of Hamish’s exotic adventures. He hadn’t said anything about the places he’d been, but I was already imagining.

‘You like it—the travel?’ I asked. Now we were talking, the rose incident was fading from my mind.

‘The thing is, whatever you do, you’re missing out on doing something else,’ he said. ‘That’s just the way life is.’

I’d never really considered that. What I did with myself always felt like the only thing I could do. ‘Give me an example.’

‘Well, when you travel a lot you don’t really put down roots in the way that other people do.’ He paused for a minute, studying my face. ‘I like the variety of it, though. I hardly ever go to the same place twice.’

It felt like a warning, like he was letting me know that he wouldn’t be back. I shrugged, twirling the rose around in my fingers.

‘What do you think you’re missing out on?’

‘All that settling-down stuff. Wife, kids, house.’

‘You’re not that old. You could still do all of it if you wanted to.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But most of my friends are already there. I’m not even close.’

I didn’t even know anyone who was married.

‘You don’t want any of it,’ I said quietly. I didn’t know much, but I knew how to read a face. ‘You don’t think you’re missing anything.’

It was odd, but I felt my stomach lurch.

He shook his head but the movement was half-hearted. ‘I used to get depressed when I was younger … I really struggled.’ He sounded hesitant. ‘And now all I know is … I seem to function better with exposure to an array of new things.’ He looked around the room. ‘I feel stimulated that way, and happier. It’s taken me a while to realise it’s how I work. Travel is good for that.’

I stared down at the plastic flower in my fingers, then sat it against the wall. I didn’t think I wanted to keep it.

‘My mum did some travelling when she was young, after she finished uni,’ I said. ‘She talks about it sometimes.’

‘You never thought to go? Just head off?’

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be like my brothers.

‘You should come to the city, Mema,’ he said. ‘Come and see how the other half lives.’

‘What do you do for fun?’

He thought for a few seconds. ‘Well, you know, I go out. Pubs and stuff.’

‘Drinking?’ I didn’t much like alcohol. My brothers had given it a good go before they’d run off, and as far as I could see it only made people more stupid. We’d tried it a few times, Anja and me, but it just made us sick.

‘Yeah. I kinda thought I might have grown out of it by now. The other day I caught myself thinking maybe there’s just people who like to get drunk, and maybe I’m one of them.’

It didn’t sound too inspiring. I wondered what else there was. ‘What do you like best about living there? What’s your favourite thing?’

Hamish was checking out the décor, as though storing up all the particulars to tell someone later. I wondered who he’d tell.

‘There’s heaps of stuff, Mema. Cafés and restaurants, galleries and music, all that jazz, but it’s mostly the feel of it, you know, that buzzing feel of so many people doing so much stuff … I like it.’ He paused, glancing back at my face. I wasn’t really convinced.

‘I just like to go out at night and walk, all those strangers bustling around me. I don’t know … I guess I like the anonymity. Something about it is … invigorating.’