Desert Fish (20 page)

You cling to those few tender moments and hope that they're real. How he fixed the seat for you, the way he tasted your tears as if they might give him something more. You hold each one so close, digging in your fingers to keep from slipping, because something is pulling you away. You can feel it, but you're strong enough, you tell yourself. And when everything else around you has washed away, still you say,
He came back. He didn't leave me behind.
You want it to be enough. But then when you look a little closer, you realise you don't need to cling because you're on solid ground. Surely you can get up and go? Only now you're so tired, and when you look you see you've no legs to walk with, like that eel beside the river, with the water gone and nothing to carry you away.

 

Pete's rubbing at his eyes. Without looking at me he reaches for the water bottle and takes a drink, then re-caps
it and replaces it. He doesn't offer me a sip, and I suppose I had it coming after what I wasted when I dropped the bottle. I don't mention it, even though I want to say it's okay and I know I deserve it.

‘I wanted to come here with you,' I tell Pete, ‘because of the emptiness. There's no clutter. Look out there. You can see everything. It's like someone outlined it and coloured it in. Don't you think?'

‘Yeah, I suppose,' Pete says.

He's not looking at the rear-view mirror anymore, or the wing mirror. He's staring at the bottle, the final dregs of the water there.

‘I thought that once we were alone together, everything'd be okay. Because there'd be just us. Like that night at the river. Not my mother or my father, or Lexie or Nora. Nobody else.'

Pete doesn't lift his head and for a moment I wonder whether he's just switched off to me. Decided to focus instead on that water and how it's going to get us to the end of the day and through the night.

‘And here, in the desert, well, you're never more alone than when you're out here, are you?'

Pete laughs bitterly. ‘You could say that, Gilly.'

‘My mum says that love knows where it belongs. And I thought my love would belong here. I thought it was where I was supposed to be. With you.'

Pete stares down at his hands.

‘Can I show you something?' I reach over and touch his arm and he doesn't flinch. He leans back and with his
right hand he pulls a lever so his seat shifts back, then he stretches his legs out.

‘Yeah,' he says. ‘Go on, Gilly.'

My blue suitcase is on the back seat and I lean over and retrieve the cloth bag I packed with my treasures. I've kept it close all this time.

‘Look at these,' I say to Pete. ‘I want you to see them.' I prop the bag on my knees and loosen the drawstring. ‘I kept this from when I first saw you.' I take the key and rest it on my knee. ‘You were eating from a tin, down by the river. I was in the water, behind the reeds. I'd never seen you before and I kept the key to see if anything would happen. Then when I got home you were there in the kitchen with my dad. It was like you'd been sent.'

Pete takes the key and turns it over, then replaces it on my knee.

‘And these …' I continue. From the bag I take the toothbrush, the disposable razor, the shaving cream, the notebook. ‘I found these when you went away from our house,' I say. ‘I was certain when you left them that you wanted me to come to you. When someone really wants to disappear, Pete, they don't leave any traces, do you understand? If you do something and you don't want to be found out, there are ways to do it.'

Pete stares at the items strewn across my lap. He's silent.

‘If you meant to disappear,' I continue, ‘you'd have left nothing. My mother told me that and I believed her. And then there was the money too.' I take the creased filthy
envelope, the last thing, from the bag. ‘She told me you left it. I was certain you wanted me to find you. You left too much, see?'

Pete's looking over the things I've laid out in my lap. After the key, he takes the toothbrush and the razor. Then he picks at a bit of dried shaving cream on the outside of the tube. After he's held each thing, turned it over and examined it, he takes the bag from me and replaces them, one by one.

When he looks at me again, it's like he's seeing someone else. Someone he doesn't recognise. ‘Geez, Gilly. I don't know,' he says. ‘I don't know what to make of this. All these things.'

He gives the bag back to me and then passes his hand across the side of his head. The gesture seems awkward. He does it several times, palms down, so you can't really see whether or not he touches his hair. He sighs.

‘What about you, Gilly? What did you leave?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘When you left the hospital, what did you leave?'

I'm silent.

‘Did you tell them where you were going?'

‘No.'

‘And do you think they knew?'

‘No.' I begin to shake.

‘Could they have found out?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Were you worried they might come for you?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Gilly, look at me,' Pete says. ‘Please look at me.'

I want to, but I can't.

He continues anyway. ‘Why, Gilly? Why might they come for you? What did you do?'

A strange shapeless thought swells. My mouth waters a little and then goes dry and the thought evaporates.

‘You can tell me, Gilly,' Pete says. ‘We're here now, in all your emptiness. It's not like I can take you back.'

He's got my face right in his line of vision and I meet his gaze now. I can see it all – everything that happened – I can see it with my eyes open and with my eyes closed. I could say it and he would listen.

‘Tell me, Gilly,' he says.

But I can't.

 

Nora waited three days before she came to see me.

‘Someone here for you.' The nurse flashed me a bright smile and my heart leapt thinking it might be Pete, before Nora slouched into the doorway. She looked profoundly uncomfortable. A paper bag rested in one hand, grapes spilled over the top of it and rested against her dark blue shirt. Over her shoulder was the bag I had riffled through.

‘Had to buy 'em. They're not ready on the trellis yet,' Nora said, depositing the grapes on the bedside table. She'd not brought anything for the baby and I was relieved. ‘You alright?' she asked. ‘Recovering?'

‘Yeah. I'm fine.' I felt myself blushing. It was perhaps the most intimate thing Nora had ever said to me.

She poured us both some water from the jug beside my bed and sat in the chair for visitors, which nobody had yet sat in.

She sighed. ‘You're going to have to make some decisions, Gilly,' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘I don't know what it is you want, but Pete, he's not easy to …' she paused and I could tell she was searching, uncharacteristically, for a sensitive way to say it. ‘He's not easy to pin down.'

I picked at a rag of skin near my thumbnail, like I always did when I didn't know what to say.

‘He hasn't called, Gilly.'

‘How do I know you're telling the truth?' I blurted, childishly adding, ‘You don't even like me.'

‘Doesn't matter what I think,' Nora said. ‘Pete's a grown man. He doesn't need anyone to help him decide what to do.' She leaned over and picked a grape off the bunch, rubbed her finger over its skin, polishing it. ‘But you might.'

‘Might what?'

‘Might need someone to help you.'

‘I don't need anyone,' I said, ‘except Pete.'

Nora put the grape in her mouth and leaned back in her seat. ‘But Gilly,' she said, ‘it's not just you and Pete anymore.'

There was a gaping silence and I began to worry that Nora might ask to see the baby, but after a while she spoke again.

‘Anyway,' she said, ‘I didn't come here to talk in circles.' She leaned forward. ‘Like I said, I haven't heard anything from Pete.'

I looked down, thinking of how I went through her bag with my stomach contracting and that baby already trying to fight her way out of me. My face felt hot.

‘How long will you be in here, Gilly?' Nora asked.

‘I think they keep us a week or so. Maybe longer.'

‘Is there anyone else you can talk to?'

‘About what?'

Nora pulled a face. ‘Do you always make people say it, Gilly? Your situation. Is there anyone you can ask, you know, for help? Friends? Family?'

‘What? Like my parents? My mother?'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.'

‘My mother wanted me to find Pete.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know.' I scratched at my arm. ‘Did you want to make Pete leave me, Nora? Did you want it to be just you and him?'

Nora was shaking her head. ‘You have a funny way of seeing the world, Gilly,' she said. She continued. ‘Look, it's none of my business what's happened with you and Pete, and to be honest with you, I'd rather keep well out of it. But Gilly, I can't promise that he'll be able to give you what you …' She paused, searching. ‘What you need.'

‘I already told you, I only need Pete.' I wanted to make her understand but I only sounded petulant.

Nora was patient though and pretended not to have
heard me. ‘Not a lot of girls, even in your situation, would wait about like you have, Gilly,' Nora said. ‘Most girls would be thinking of what else to do.'

‘I know he'll come back,' I said. ‘I know he won't leave me.'

‘Is that all there is, Gilly?'

‘How can you say that? He's made sure I'm looked after, hasn't he?'

‘Has he?' Nora asked. ‘Do you feel like you've been looked after?'

I swung my legs over the bed. I wanted to leave the room. Nora was asking the wrong questions and I wanted her to stop. But when I stood up I felt as though my feet were sinking and my body was floating at the same time. I sat down again, thinking of how he let me stay in his house. How he didn't send me away. Then I pictured the warped glass in the front window, the little bed and the empty days, and the baby growing in me all those long weeks.

‘Don't you want something more than that, Gilly? I think I would.'

‘But I'm not you,' I said. ‘And anyway, you don't know anything about me,' I countered.

Nora didn't even blink. ‘No,' she said, ‘but I could guess at a few things. Did you find what you wanted, Gilly. In my bag? I'll hazard you found nothing at all. But you're determined, aren't you? To make it happen the way you want.'

I couldn't think of what to say. I blushed furiously and wondered how she knew.

Nora continued. ‘Well, it might not work out the way you're hoping,' she said. ‘But you better decide what you're doing with that baby because it won't sit around waiting for you to make up your mind.'

Tears clouded my eyes and I blinked them back.

She kept on. ‘Look Gilly, all I'm trying to do is –'

But I wouldn't let her finish. ‘You can't say that,' I said. ‘You can't say those things. Pete would've come if he could have,' I said. ‘When I tell him, I'm sure he will.'

‘When you tell him what?'

I was silent and Nora sighed. ‘Well, we'll see. And if he doesn't, you'll have to make up your mind on your own.' She scribbled down her number. ‘Call me at home if you need to, Gilly. I'll come and get you when it's time to leave.' Then she got up and put her address book in her bag. ‘See you soon, Gilly,' she said.

And away she slouched.

 

After Nora left, a nurse came to show me how to fold the nappy, making a diamond shape with the terry cloth, pulling the fabric out to pin it so I wouldn't pierce the baby's skin. Then she brought the baby to me with a bottle and a nappy.

‘You really should do this,' she said. ‘You're okay on your feet now. And we don't want you to go home without knowing what to do.' She smiled but she spoke briskly. She leaned in but I couldn't make myself take the baby from her. I jerked my body back. ‘No,' I said. ‘Not now. I can't.'

When she stood back, still holding the bundle that was my baby, I found that I had put my arms up, as if defending myself.

I leaned forward again, but was careful not to turn my body towards her. I looked at the bedcover as I spoke. ‘I can't hold her today,' I said. From somewhere inside an explanation emerged. I wanted to stop speaking, but I couldn't. ‘Just now,' I said, ‘when Nora was here, I stood up and I felt like the floor was disappearing. Like it was dropping away and there was nothing at all under my feet.'

The nurse looked at me. I'd said too much.

‘Maybe I'll be able to hold the baby tomorrow,' I said.

But she was already turning and walking away.

 

No-one came to bother me after that. I lay in bed and watched the sky out the window, clear as a blue tiled pool. My mother loved the public baths, the luxury of all that chlorinated water. ‘It smells so clean,' she'd say. She really believed it. She loved the bleachy whiff and how you could see right down through it to the blue, blue bottom of the pool. She loved that there could be all that water when there'd been no rain for months.

But I never liked the blood-and-bone smell the chlorine left on your skin when it dried. I'd have to shower right away and soap it off. It seemed like a lie, being so clear and smelling so strong. And whatever my mother said about
that pool, water will drag you under if it can, whether it's in a bath or a pond or a lake.

The river water was silty and dark with no pretence of transparency. In parts, it met the sandy bank so gradually it seemed layered against it, like the folded lip of an envelope. Occasionally it retreated, curling back a little and then stretching forward, so you couldn't tell where it ended and the riverbank began. I always felt it waited for me. Even when I was very young. It beckoned with all that curling and stretching. It said,
Come and I will show you. This time I will show you
.