Desert Fish (9 page)

The room is hot and still. Late morning light gouges out the shadows and dust motes shift before my half-open eyes. There is the smell of tobacco and the sun-hot carpet and the drifting scent of coffee. Pete is slouched in a chair beneath the open blinds with a rollie between his fingers. ‘I wondered when you'd wake,' he says, when I shift beneath the covers.

‘Is it late?'

‘It is for me.'

‘You could have woken me. I wouldn't have minded.'

‘I thought you needed the sleep. Looked like you did.'

‘Yeah. I s'pose you're right.' Without even moving I can sense all the new places where I hurt. My eyes feel puffy, how they get when you cry in bed. I rub into them with my knuckles.

‘And anyway, we've got a couple more days if we need it.' Pete folds his newspaper away. ‘Hungry?' he asks.

‘Kind of.'

‘Got these yesterday,' he says, holding up a box of cornflakes. ‘They're keeping some milk cold for us in the fridge.'

‘I might have a bath first. To wake me up.'

‘Go on then. I'll go over and get the milk. Make you a coffee if you like.'

‘Yeah. That'd be nice.'

When he's gone I hobble to the bathroom. The muscles in my calves are tight, the pinching between my legs is almost unbearable. The warm water will make it better, I promise myself. And whatever I'm feeling, it's nothing compared to that other pain. How brutally it balled itself inside me. It began hot and liquid somewhere beneath that round sea of skin that I had become. Then it plunged downwards so that I couldn't move. When it lifted, rhythmically, briefly, I kept myself perfectly still. I tried not to put weight on my legs, to grasp the sides of the bench I was sitting on, or even to curl my fingers in to my palms. But it came again anyway, no matter how still I was.

A nurse tried to make me get up.
You need to walk around
, she said.
It'll get things moving
. But I was stuck. I thought I was going to die and I knew I would do whatever I could to prevent it. Perhaps I said that to her. But she wasn't listening. Nothing I said was to be taken seriously.

My coffee is made by the time I emerge from the bathroom but I've no appetite for anything.

‘Cereal?' Pete puts the packet of cornflakes beside my dish.

‘Actually, I'm not hungry yet.'

‘You should eat,' he says.

‘I will,' I say. ‘I'm working up to it.' I try and put the mug to my lips but the smell makes my stomach lurch. I carry it as far as the bedside table and put it down. ‘I think I need to lie down a bit longer.'

‘Y'okay, Gilly?' Pete's brow creases and he seems genuinely concerned.

‘Of course,' I say, encouraged. ‘There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just a bit sore. I slept in a funny position, I think.' Even talking is a strain I have to conceal. Easing myself against the pillow I throw him a practised smile. Pete puts his hand on my forehead and smoothes my hair back and this tender gesture fills me with reckless hope. ‘Really, I'll be fine after a rest,' I promise him. ‘Now that I'm here with you everything will be okay.' I reach up and take his hand, still resting in my damp hair, and place it on my lips. Then, clumsily I lower it to the skin just above my bra, craving something to connect me to all those other things that have happened between us. But how hard and strange my breasts must feel beneath Pete's fingers. He pulls his hand away.

‘I love you, Pete,' I tell him. The words fall away, quick and desperate.

He puts his hand in my hair again, briefly, and then stands up, steps back.

‘I won't leave you, Gilly,' he says.

He rises and moves about the room.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Can't sit about here all day,' he says. ‘And you need to rest.'

‘Are you going out?'

‘For a while. Yes.'

‘Where?' My face burns. It's hard to get the words out. I whisper. ‘Where are you going?'

‘I won't be long,' he says. ‘Just picking up a few things. We might head off tomorrow or the day after. Soon as you're up to it. We've got a long journey ahead of us, Gilly.'

‘Come back soon, won't you?' I murmur.

He closes the door behind him.

‘He's so happy, just now.' My mother was moving about the back verandah, positioning cushions and tucking throws around the sofa and the easy chairs. It was mid-March now and we were preparing the room for a party. My dad's friends Bernie and Bol were coming over. I had asked Lexie. My mother wanted everything just right. ‘Your dad knows what he wants and he's excited,' she said. ‘He really wants this thing to work.'

‘What thing?'

‘You know what I mean, Gilly,' she said. ‘Don't be difficult.'

I dropped into one of the chairs.

‘I've just done that one, Gilly. You'll spoil it.' I stood again and she leaned in and smoothed the throw, tucked it in again beneath the cushion. ‘I want this room to look perfect.' She took a cloth and ran it along the length of the windowsill. ‘It's important to encourage him, Gilly,' she said. ‘This friendship with Pete will do him a world
of good. He'll be a good influence.' She spoke as if my father was a child.

‘Do you think Pete will want to work with Dad?'

My mother paused. ‘Why wouldn't he?' she said. ‘You don't realise what your father is capable of. The way he is … He just needs the right people around him. But in any case, I don't think that's what this is about.' She folded the cloth so that the dirt was on the inside and wiped it along the sill again, pushing it into the corners. ‘I think it's enough that he wants Pete to be involved,' she said. ‘Pete's so different to his other friends.'

‘Pete's very different to Dad too,' I said. She looked up when I said that, but she didn't reply. She brushed past me and went into the kitchen to rinse out the cloth. After that we got the coffee table from the living room and together carried it through, lifting it high so it didn't scratch the scrubbed wooden floor. We sat it down in front of the sofa and my mother brought in three glass ashtrays that she positioned in the middle and at both ends of the table.

When she had finished, she stood up straight and turned to me. ‘You don't mind, do you, Gilly?' she said. ‘I hope you don't mind what I've done?' She fidgeted, rubbing her fingers where the table had hurt her. ‘I did it for you, you know?' She'd dropped her hands to her sides and was looking at a place above my eyes, the top of my head perhaps. Or maybe it was my hair, limp and straggling beneath the weight of the warm afternoon. Out the window the grass in the back garden was a uniform straw
colour. The louvres were open as wide as they would go, but there was no breeze. The air wobbled above each panel of glass, as though the surface was too hot for it to rest on.

I knew what my mother was asking and I knew also what she would not say. A part of me wanted to make her. But I would never push her. I couldn't bear to see her struggle.

‘No, of course not, Mum,' I lied. ‘I don't mind.'

 

My mother thought if everything looked just right then things would work out how she'd planned. When Bernie and Bol turned up, right away she disappeared into the kitchen and got them drinks, pouring beer into tall tumblers. She carried them in on a tray. There was a fan on the windowsill, turning from left to right, stirring up the heavy air, and each time it moved in my mother's direction the chiffon tie on her blouse rippled and lifted, reaching out to the artificial breeze.

Bernie deposited himself in the middle of the sofa. When my mother put the drinks down he leaned over and took a glass, lifted it. ‘Geez,' he said. ‘This is a bit high class.' He laughed and my mother patted her hair and looked at the floor. She didn't want him to draw attention to the effort she had made.

I had never liked Bernie. He'd been my dad's friend for nearly two years and I still couldn't relax when he was around. He made me uncomfortable, with his high
sniggering laugh and his way of talking that felt like there was something he could get from you if he spoke to you long enough. His eyes shifted about, quick as his words, and if he lowered his voice, I instinctively folded my arms. He was slightly younger than my dad, and like Bol, he wasn't married, but he had wavy blond hair and a clean-shaven face that women seemed to like. He nearly always had a girlfriend.

‘Can I have mine in a can?' Bernie asked.

‘Can you get Bernie a can, Maureen?' my father echoed.

My mother reached over and took the glass from Bernie. She was annoyed though I knew she wouldn't say. ‘Would you like yours in a can too, Bol?' she asked, pronouncing his name uncertainly, as though searching for something else to call him, something mature and professional that ‘Bol' might have been derived from, like Robert, or Roland, or Bolton. I wasn't sure how he got his name, but I had always thought he had the look of a bollard, his head smooth and domed, the hair around the sides drifting out and down to his shoulders. Everything about him seemed to hang a little. He shrugged. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘I'll have a can. But I'll finish this first.' He upturned his glass and poured the contents into his mouth.

My mother took the glasses from Bernie and Bol and went to the kitchen, reappearing with a can in each hand.

‘There,' she said, handing them out, and they took the
cans as if they were children and she was their mother.

‘Thanks,' Bernie said. He leaned back and rolled his can across his forehead before he peeled the ring off its top and dropped it into an ashtray.

My mother positioned herself on the arm of my father's chair and leaned gently into him. She wanted him to talk about the house painting now, before they got too drunk. She wanted it to be real.

‘Hot in here, Maureen,' Bernie said.

‘Why don't you sit closer to the fan, Bernie?' my mother replied, speaking through her teeth and looking at the floor.

‘Or we could go outside?' Bernie said. ‘What do you think, Creighton?'

‘Good idea,' my dad said.

‘Got any chairs, Maureen?'

‘You could take a blanket,' I suggested.

‘Rather have a chair,' Bernie said.

My mother was flustered, embarrassed by their lack of manners. Pete stood. ‘I'll get some chairs from the kitchen,' he said.

‘Give him a hand, Creighton,' my mother snapped, and then, perhaps dismayed at this loss of control, she pressed the backs of her fingers against his cheek and smiled thinly.

 

By the time Lexie turned up it was nearly ten o'clock. She wore a tight white skirt and a pale clingy top with
her nipples standing out. Her face was set in a mask of practised boredom.

‘Geez,' Bernie breathed.

Dad looked around at Bernie and Bol and Pete, and grinned. ‘Lexie!' he announced.

‘Aren't you going to get me a chair?' Lexie said.

My dad laughed and patted his knees. ‘You could sit here, if you wanted.' Bernie did his high snigger and I wished I could disappear.

My mum pursed her lips and drew in her breath.

‘Sorry, love,' Dad said to her. ‘Just joking.'

Lexie riffled in her bag and retrieved a packet of tailor-mades. She looked around the circle of men. ‘Anyone got a light?'

Pete rose from his chair. He looked so clean and solid in the soft light. Lexie watched him with her barely clad body turned carefully in his direction and I had to concentrate on not feeling sick. ‘Here. You can sit here,' Pete said. He lifted his chair back a little, expanding the circle.

Lexie fluttered a look at Pete. ‘Or I could sit on your lap?' she said.

Bernie and Bol guffawed and I heard Pete laugh softly but he didn't take Lexie up on her suggestion. He shifted the handle of the esky and sat down on the lid. Lexie dropped into the vacant chair, crossing her legs so her skirt rode right up her thigh. Bol drooped a little further forward in his seat. Bernie just stared.

Dad struck a match and lit Lexie's cigarette and she
drew back on it. ‘Where's the music, then?' she asked. She cast her eye around the circle. ‘Well, it's not a party without music.'

Bernie leapt to his feet.

‘The record player's on the verandah,' my mum said.

He trotted towards the back stairs.

‘And who's going to get me a drink?' Lexie said.

Pete rose and lifted the lid of the cool-box. He got her a beer, hooking the top off with the bottle opener. I watched her carefully brush her fingers against his as she took it. He didn't sit on the esky again. He knelt down in the space he'd made in the circle and I was grateful he hadn't taken the empty chair because I was certain Lexie would make straight for his lap.

‘He won't forget to put some music on, will he?' Lexie cooed. ‘Something nice. I'd like to dance.'

She took a drink, then put it down and got up from her chair, moving into the centre of the circle. She was already dancing, her heels chopping into the crisp grass. She put her arms into the air and waved them about, swivelling her hips, humming in a sultry way. Her eyes were closed, but you could tell she knew she had everyone's attention. Even Pete was looking, his arms folded, face relaxed.

 

Bernie put on Johnny Cash. I wished we had some better music to play – something that had been on Countdown, like Starland Vocal Band, or Fleetwood Mac. Lexie didn't
seem to care. She kept up her dancing, moving languidly around the inside of the circle, occasionally bending down and scooping up her bottle of beer. She kept her legs and hips moving while she drank, looking out into the darkness as if unaware of the eyes on her.

With her there, my dad was infused with a new confidence. He began to talk about his plans as though Pete was already committed.

‘Bernie and me'll get it up and running,' he said. ‘It'll only take a few weeks. You can come on board after that. We'll be in the money by then.'

Pete got his makings out and began to roll a cigarette. ‘Creighton,' he said, ‘I've already got a job and I make good money. I never said I'd do this.'

‘But you said you'd consider,' my dad said.

‘And I am considering,' Pete confirmed.

‘Yeah?'

‘Considering.'

‘Be patient, Creighton,' my mother said, placing her hand on his arm.

Lexie moved slowly around the centre of the circle, blowing her cigarette smoke over her shoulder and watching the conversation through mascaraed lashes.

‘Is it the money?' Dad said.

‘It's not as simple as that,' Pete said.

‘Why don't you want to work with him, Pete?' Lexie teased. ‘Go on, just say it.'

‘Lexie,' my mother said, sharply. ‘It's not really your business.'

But Pete wasn't annoyed by Lexie. He was amused. ‘It's alright, Maureen,' he said. ‘She's just having a laugh.'

‘Yeah,' my dad said. ‘Lighten up, Maureen.' My mother tried to smile, and I felt sorry for her.

‘What, then?' Lexie asked, smiling, encouraged by my dad's and Pete's support. She rocked her hips gently to the beat. The smoke from her cigarette made soft dissolving arcs in the air.

‘I already have a job.'

‘But you're not your own boss,' my dad said. ‘And you don't seem the sort to want to be owned by anyone? You'd be your own man if you had the chance.'

‘I already am my own man, Creighton. No two ways about that. I just like to leave the work at work.'

‘But you like the money, yeah?'

‘Course I do. But I already earn good money.'

My dad wasn't about to give up. ‘Tell you what,' he said. ‘How about this, then? When I can offer you what you're making, I'll ask again.'

Pete laughed. That was what my dad could do. He could wear people down with his sheer persistence. ‘Alright,' he said, and shook his head. ‘If you can match what I already earn, we'll talk.'

My mum leaned over and draped her arm around my dad, pleased.

Pete stood then. He put away his tobacco pouch and picked up his glass. Holding up his cigarette he said, ‘I might smoke this inside. It's getting cooler now.'

‘Good idea,' my mother said. Bernie and Bol followed
them in and I began to gather up the empty bottles and the debris they'd left behind. I felt as if I should stay outside. I was worried about what might happen.

As soon as they were gone, Lexie slumped into the chair my mother had vacated. ‘He hasn't even touched me,' she complained to my father. ‘Look at where I was, dancing, right up close to him and he didn't even notice me.'

‘Aw, love,' my dad said. ‘I'm sure he likes you. Didn't you see him smiling at you?'

I put the glasses down on the lid of the esky. They clinked loudly and the noise made me feel conspicuous. In the normal scheme of things, my dad would want me to leave him alone with Lexie now. I squatted beside the esky.

‘He paid more attention to you than me,' Lexie sulked to my dad. ‘And all that boring talk about your business while I was dancing.'

‘Yeah,' my dad said. ‘Lexie, that dancing was a bit distracting. Did you see him trying not to look?'

‘Why did you have to carry on with all your shop talk? Why did you get me over if it was just for that?'

‘Well it's finished with now,' my dad placated. ‘It didn't take that long. It's a party now, yeah? You can have a little drink and a dance and we'll all have some fun. Look at you. You're lovely.'

‘Do you think so? Do you think Pete thinks so?'

‘They all do. Didn't you see? Bernie? And Bol?'

Lexie sniffed and smiled with pleasure. She pushed her
shoulders back and poked her chest out. ‘And Pete too?' she pressed.

‘Of course, Pete too,' my dad said.

He shifted his position. I knew then what was going to happen and I wanted to be somewhere else. The way my dad moved, the opportunity already there in his mind, the moment paved. Briefly, I wondered if I should say something, if my words might change what was coming. But I held my tongue. I thought of my mother, and then I thought of Pete and what had passed between my father and me before he'd come to live in our house.