Deeper Water (14 page)

‘Look who I found,’ he said, stepping aside. Anja stood behind him. She looked at me but she didn’t smile. ‘She was hitching. Frank and I picked her up.’

I stared up at them from the front seat. Anja tossed her hair and put her hands in her pockets and I knew straight away she was up to no good. Hamish bent down, peering closer in the window.

‘You right, Mema?’

I felt my lips tilt as though I was smiling, but no words came out of my mouth.

‘We’ve just eaten,’ Hamish said, watching my face. ‘Pity we missed you.’

I thought of them sitting there at the Savoy, laughing together about the banana splits. With Old Dog in the back it was too much. I knew I was going to cry. I covered my face with my hands, wishing they’d both disappear.

‘What’s wrong?’ I heard him as though from afar. And then—‘Anja, she’s crying.’

There was a shuffle outside, them changing places. I felt Anja’s hand grab mine through the window, pulling it away from my face.

‘If he’s only a bloke, why are you crying?’ she growled at me, out of his earshot, her face looming, tough-eyed. I tried to loosen my fingers from hers, but she wouldn’t let go.

‘It’s Old Dog,’ I choked out, my voice muffled. ‘She’s in the back. She died.’

Anja’s face changed then, something about it stilled, like she was folding herself away. She stared at me through the window, releasing my hand from her grip. ‘Well, she
was
old,’ she said then, as if I wouldn’t know.

‘But she’d always been old,’ I whispered back.

Stepping away, she turned around, muttering something to Hamish, and he crossed over in front of her, his hand on the door frame.

‘The old dog? The big brown one?’ he asked. ‘It died?’

I nodded, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. He glanced from me to the rear of the car.

‘Shit, Mema,’ he said, face solemn. ‘That’s bad news.’ His fingers tapped against the window, softly, marking time. He peered in at the clock on the dashboard.

‘I have to go and meet some people for work,’ he said finally. ‘I only wanted to come say hi.’ He put a hand up to rub across his hair. ‘I would have let you be if I’d known about your dog.’

I looked down at my lap.

‘I’m really sorry, Mema.’ He reached in, placing his fingers on my shoulder, the briefest touch.

I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to.

‘I’ll see you soon, hey,’ he said, straightening up. ‘I’ll be here for another week or so.’

I nodded, waiting for him to leave. He waved goodbye to Anja and then he was off. Anja stood on the kerb, staring down the street, not talking, and in a minute my mum was back in a flurry of skirts, carrying some shopping.

‘Anja,’ she said. ‘What are you doing in town?’ Anja hardly ever came in without me. ‘You want a lift back?’

Anja shrugged, but she opened the door and got in. Mum put the bags in beside her, away from the dead dog, and then heaved her big body into the driver’s seat.

‘I got some ice-cream.’ She looked sideways at me. ‘Thought it might cheer you up.’

Mum never bought us sweets. It was her only rule. I leaned over then and put my head on her shoulder, and she wrapped an arm around me like I was just a kid.

‘It’ll be alright,’ she murmured, hugging me close. ‘Tomorrow—it’ll be alright. It will all be better in the morning.’

We buried Old Dog out near Isis. They’d never been pals in real life, not like her and Thor, but it seemed right that their bones might rest together, two skeletons beneath the earth, stretching out towards each other. Who knew what happened after you died? Maybe there was a communion in it, even if it was just in the slow movement of soil over time, a subtle blending of remains.

Anja took off as quick as she could, gulping down her ice-cream so fast I could see it was giving her brain freeze. She barely said two words to me. When she was gone Mum asked me straight out. ‘What’s going on with Anja?’

Words sat heavily on my chest. I didn’t know how to dislodge them. My mouth was full of pebbles. ‘Nothing,’ was all I could manage.

Mum had a way of looking at me, as though she could see into my brain.

‘You be careful of her, Mema,’ she said, picking up our empty ice-cream bowls and putting them in the sink. ‘You know how she is. When she cracks, she tears everything down.’

I didn’t like it when my mum criticised Anja. It didn’t seem worth it to pick holes in the only friend you had. Mum had high standards when it came to friendship, so high she didn’t have friends. It wasn’t something I wanted for myself, though truth be told, I wasn’t far behind. ‘She’s been through a lot.’

‘I know she has.’ Mum ran the water over the bowls, staring out the window. ‘But we all have, Mema. It’s what you do with it that counts.’

Even though Old Dog never did that much except move from sleeping spot to sleeping spot, her absence filled the house. After dinner, as the evening light faded into darkness, I knew I wouldn’t sleep for hours, so I hobbled out to Mum’s shed, thinking I’d make some mugs.

My whole body ached from scrabbling around trying to hold the dog, so it was hard to isolate the pain in my foot. I knew it must be hurting ’cause I was limping pretty bad. Once I was in the shed I turned on the lamp and sat down under the spotlight. Putting your hands in clay is always soothing, and for a while I just squashed it about with my fingers, enjoying the squeeze and suck. By the time I got the wheel moving, a lightness had entered me. The pebbles in my mouth had dissolved and I hummed a little under my breath. I got the first two mugs out pretty quick, just going with the shape of the clay. But on the third one I started to wonder about the similarities between clay and flesh. I found myself imagining my fingers were curving around the rim of a shoulder, or the swell of a breast.

If I closed my eyes I could see the hard line of Hamish’s jaw and feel the sweep of my fingers along it. I breathed out in a sigh, and in the next breath the curve of Anja’s hip appeared in my mind’s eye, and the slide of my hand against it. I didn’t try to quell my thoughts like I had before. I didn’t try to brush the images away, but let them drift, eyes still closed, fingers bending and shaping the clay beneath my hands in whatever way seemed best. Before long I imagined other people I knew—Billy—the brown hardness of his forearms, sprinkled with dark hair. But in the end it all came back to him—Hamish, with his pale skin and luminous eyes. I got to imagining what his hands might feel like on me if I was the clay, if he could mould me with his touch. I felt a shuddering within, dark and liquid, and it made me want to switch off the light. It was as though I’d happened upon a secret, ripe for the telling, but precious too, and I didn’t want anyone else to see. I thought of all the secret places I knew—Anja’s hut, the hollowed-out tree, and the abandoned shack way out in the paddocks.

The memory of that shack began to swell in my mind. Tumbledown walls, rusted roof. All alone in the middle of nowhere. A furtive place, where all my secret thoughts could be housed. Somewhere inside myself I opened a door and stepped into a new place. Where clay could become skin, and skin become clay. I turned off the light and crept into bed, careful not to wake my mother. Once I was there, tucked up in my covers, I conjured the shack and let my thoughts roam.

When I awoke it was with a dull headache, as though all those secret thoughts had pressed heavily against my skull while I slept. It was cool in the early morning, the thick weight of the summer humidity not yet hanging in the air. I slid on a skirt and a floppy jumper and went to watch the sun rise. The grass was damp beneath my feet, the dew quickly soaking my bandage. Though the skin felt stretched tight across my forehead, my foot was stronger, my limp less pronounced. I always marvelled at my body’s capacity to right itself. It was as my mum had said—
It will all be better in the morning.

Far off in the distance, the rim of the sun was just showing above the mountains, and where I was standing was gradually bathed in light. I could see Bessie a little way off, munching the grass. The calf tottered nearby, stumbling against its mother’s legs. It seemed a long time since Hamish had washed off the bridge, but when I looked at the calf, still all wobbly and new, I realised it had been less than a week. I looked across the hillsides rising in front of me, wondering where he was right at that minute. I couldn’t see Frank’s house from mine, but I knew, as the crow flies, it was just over the way. Cross a couple of creeks, head through some camphors, and in no time at all I could be there.

I let the chickens out and gathered the eggs, scooping up the bottom of my jumper and holding them gently in the pocket of fabric. They were warm, only just laid. I took one and rolled it against my closed eyes.

Sometimes when I woke with a throbbing head I wandered to the creek and tried to wash all the heaviness away. It wasn’t a sure-fire cure, but from time to time it worked. That morning, the warm egg pressed against my eye, it seemed worth a try. I set off carefully, mindful of my foot, but once I’d meandered down the paddocks, across those open spaces, I was feeling pretty sure. The stretch of creek I’d chosen was a little way down from the secret tree. A deep spot, just before a bend and some rapids. The water had cleared, but the shadows of dawn made it seem dark and bottomless. I sat on the grass on the bank, arranging the eggs in a neat pile then taking off my jumper and nestling it around them. A Mema nest. It made me smile. Unwinding my bandage, I bent my ankle from side to side, testing it. It was still a little sore, but no longer swollen. I held my bung foot in my hand, looking it over. Sophie’s Band-Aids were still stuck on and I didn’t touch them. I’d be lucky if they stayed on in the water.

My foot was a deformity, I suppose, but I was used to it. It didn’t seem like anything other than another part of me. No different from my knobbly little elbows, or the deep recess of my belly button. A feature on the landscape of my body. I knew that in other places things like that—misshapen feet, or any other slight deviation from the norm—could leave you marked. But my mother had always told me I was blessed, and I had the gap between my teeth to prove it. Sitting there, I wondered how it might be to have been born in a different place. It was hard to imagine being somewhere without this sky and these hills and this flowing body of water. Without my house and family, without Bessie, her baby, the chickens and Thor. Even Isis and Old Dog stayed with us, buried beneath the soil. I lay back against the grass, looking at the morning sky. I didn’t know if I’d exist without all these things around me. And if I did, who would I be?

Standing back up, I stripped off and slipped into the creek, plunging down deep. The water was cold and fresh against my skin, jolting me out of my thoughts. I lingered there a while, floating, until my skin began to tingle and prick, and it seemed as good a time as ever to go and face the day. Clambering onto the bank, I wrung the water from my hair, drying off in the soft morning sun. I shivered a little, but already the heat was rising. I liked watching the goosebumps that spread across my arms and legs dissolve into the day. When I was dry enough I stepped back into my clothes, clean and revived, my headache banished.

Staring across the hills, I saw a figure walking. It was him, Hamish, striding towards the bridge. I blinked, not trusting my eyes. I know at times I’m a whimsical girl, dreaming about odd things until to me they seem real. I’d longed to see him, imagining myself crossing those same hills towards Frank Brown’s old farmstead, but I hadn’t moved an inch. I hadn’t let myself. And now there he was, walking right towards me. My breath held in my chest, wedged there, until he was close enough that I knew it wasn’t just my fancy. I couldn’t help but take it as a sign. I had yearned and he had come. Wasn’t there some meaning in that?

Hamish had something in his arms, something big and black. He stopped on the other side of the bridge and I could sense his hesitation. We’d ridden across it in a flash on our bikes a few days before, not stopping to inspect the broken, teetering railing, not reflecting on what Hamish had nearly lost in that wild rush of water. I imagined he was seeing it all again. He lifted his gaze and I knew he had felt me there watching.

He didn’t hesitate then, but strode across. My breath rushed from my lungs, and I sucked in another, holding it firmly. Stepping forward, I moved through the air towards him, forgetting my eggs all wrapped in their jumper-nest, forgetting my rolled-up bandage. Forgetting everything. My head was buzzing with a strange noise, my heart thudding in my chest. I felt a stranger to myself, a ghost-walker.

As I got closer, I saw he held a dog. A gangly half-grown pup.

‘Morning swim?’ he called out, taking in my dripping hair.

I nodded, focusing on the puppy. When he got near, I saw it was squirming, wanting to get down.

‘You got a dog?’ I asked, surprised by the evenness of my voice. I reached out a hand to pat the dog’s head. The pup had big floppy ears, fleshy and soft as velvet. ‘He’s lovely.’

‘It’s a she,’ Hamish said, wrestling with her wriggling form. ‘If I put her down she’ll run away. I don’t have a lead.’ He crouched down and put the puppy on the grass, holding onto her back. I squatted down too, my ankle protesting beneath me. After yesterday—losing Old Dog—it was startling to see a puppy so full of life. Vital, its coat black and shimmery.

‘I got her for you, Mema.’

I suppose I should have known it was a gift, soon as I saw it in his arms, but I hadn’t. I didn’t say anything, no words would come. Reaching out, I rubbed the puppy’s ears. She turned her nose towards my hand, licking my fingers. It made me think of Old Dog’s scrappy fur, coarse and a little matted.

‘To replace the old dog.’

I exhaled then, thinking of her buried under the dirt. Dying was natural, but that didn’t make it easier to bear.

Hamish looked stricken. ‘I guess that’s a bad way of putting it.’ I could see him striving to choose the right words, struggling through sentences in his head. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I know you can’t replace something like a dog. I just …’

I smiled across at him ’cause I knew what he was trying for. I wasn’t so daft that I couldn’t recognise a heartfelt gift. He pushed the dog’s bottom down and she sat, head tilted sideways, looking up at me with her soulful puppy gaze. And behind her, he looked at me too, eyes clear and blue.

‘What do you think?’ He sounded uncertain. ‘Is she alright?’

Even though we’d always had animals dumped at our door, I couldn’t help feeling that this was different. That it mattered to Hamish in some particular way. My mind was ricocheting with thoughts, still buzzing with that sound. I was searching for the meaning. A life for a life?

‘Do you want her?’ he asked. ‘’Cause Frank said he’ll take her if you don’t.’

I looked at him then. ‘I want her.’ My words rushed out, low and slippery.

The pup wasn’t going to sit still for much longer. She was twitching all over, ready to take flight.

‘I think she’ll stick near us, if you let her go,’ I said, stroking her fur. Puppies were scatty, but there was no traffic here to run her over, no holes for her to slip into.

Hamish lifted his hands off the pup’s back and she bolted off, sniffing around us and then snuffling along the creek bank.

‘She’s part beagle.’ He was watching the pup. ‘They’re sniffer dogs.’

The dog was exploring, but she was keeping an eye on us, not going too far.

‘Frank gave me a list of all the local breeders,’ he said. ‘I rang around until I found her. We picked her up this morning. She’s house-trained, you know. She’s already a few months old.’ He wiped his doggy hands on the grass.

‘Did you buy her?’

I don’t know why it mattered but it did.

He smiled. ‘Finally got into my bank account.’ It felt odd to think of him forking out the cash. ‘She’s part golden retriever too. Though you can’t really see that.’

I shook my head—there was nothing golden about her. ‘I’ve only ever had mongrels. You have to guess what they are.’

‘You like her?’ They were simple words, but they seemed to hold so much.

Within me was all confusion. I nodded, but just having Hamish close made my insides raucous. All the words in my head tumbled together, coherence lost in a pulsing chaos. I felt my stomach turn, my fingers tremble.

‘I can’t stay,’ he said then, standing up. I stood up too. ‘I’ve got to get into work. Meeting with some guys from the council.’

‘How’s it been going in the truck?’ My words sounded clunky. Since he’d been gone I’d worried about the driving.

Hamish glanced across at me, shaking his head. ‘That first afternoon in town I just got in the back. Frank must have thought I was a freak, but he didn’t say a word.’ Hamish could smile at himself. I liked that about him. ‘The next morning I got into the cab. It was the same, couldn’t breathe, sweating like a pig, but I held on tight and eventually it passed. When we picked up Anja it was better, bit more of a distraction.’

I felt myself stiffen at the mention of her name. An image of them at the Savoy flashed through my mind. At the back of my neck I felt hackles rise. I was an animal, caught in some uncontrolled biological response. Though I tried to stay still, my shoulders shuddered.

‘She’s an odd one.’ He looked at the ground. It was hard to know exactly what he meant. I imagined all Anja’s tricks—the ways she played at being a woman. The bright stripe of her lipstick, the long sweep of her bare legs. I wanted to tell him to be careful of her, but I didn’t know how.