Inbetween Days (4 page)

I set up Astrid's till because she was always late. By the time she strolled in I'd wiped, swept and counted, checked, stocked and ticked off everything on the morning to-do list, all with my hands and mind on autopilot.

‘Oh,' Astrid said, and threw her bag under the counter. ‘What happened?'

Ma called her ‘that one with legs up to her armpits'. Trudy rarely mentioned her, though they were the same age. She thought Astrid was a bad influence—getting me into bars, introducing me to the wrong people.

Astrid was the kind of pretty that rubbed people up the wrong way: flicky blonde hair, heavy make-up, miles of skin showing below her neck and above her cowboy boots. Around her I stood taller, spoke louder, acted wilder, just to make space for myself.

The locals called her Wrong Turn Astrid—but never to her face—because if you gave her time to draw breath she would launch into her story about being on her way to Tamworth with a guitar and a dream, taking a wrong turn onto Mercy Loop and getting stuck in Mobius. She had a habit of raising her chin after speaking, as if she was used to people finding her disagreeable, a laugh like an automatic weapon and a five-year-old son called Adam. The way she spoke about Adam you'd think she'd found him by the side of the road, never a hint about where he came from or who else loved him but her. She'd been working at the roadhouse for a year—almost as long as I had—and spent more time picking her perfect teeth with a plectrum than doing any work. Astrid knew everything about me because I had no one else to tell; she had a knack for divining truth without making it feel like confession. We had nothing in common and I liked her. I liked her a lot. Astrid had arrived at around the same time it hit me that the Trudy who'd come back wasn't exactly what I'd wished for.

‘What do you mean, what happened?'

Astrid took a banana from the pile I'd just restocked. She hoisted herself onto the counter, tuned her banana and strummed an imaginary chord. ‘There's a heart-shaped hole right here.' She put her hand on my chest.

‘You've got to stop talking in song lyrics.' I slapped her hand away. ‘My heart is fine.'

‘Can you do my shift on Friday?'

‘No.'

‘Thanks. I've got something on.' She winked.

‘I said no. Where's Adam?' Astrid often brought Adam to work with her.

She peeled the banana and took a bite. ‘Transition day,' she said around a stuffed cheek. ‘He starts school in the new year.'

‘Oh. It'll be quiet around here.'

Astrid looked past me, through the front windows. ‘Uh-oh. Houdini's out.'

Across the street, I caught a glimpse of a chequered terry-towelling robe. ‘It's your turn,' I said.

‘He likes you better.'

I sighed and let myself out through the shop door.

It was true, I was less likely to be bitten or scratched. The trick was to let Mr Broadbent know you were coming—keep talking, sweet and low, until you could convince him to turn around and go home, up the steps to the flat above the roadhouse.

Somehow, he'd made it across Main Street.

Alby stuck his head out of the flat window and yelled, ‘You got him, Jack?'

‘I've got him,' I shouted back, but I wasn't even close.

Mr Broadbent heard me coming. He took off in his strange smooth run—like he had a unicycle under his bathrobe—always in the same direction, east. His robe fell open.

I crossed Main Street. Ahead, Mrs Gates came out of her salon and held her broom across the walkway like a boom gate. This week her hair was so black there would be no going back, with a perfect zigzag of white scalp, as if she'd been struck by lightning.

Roland Bone pulled up in his old brown ute, parking diagonally in a parallel space. He laughed, pointed, and boosted the air horn.

Mr Broadbent stopped dead and started spinning.

‘Shut
up
!' I screeched. ‘You're scaring him.' I caught him and tried to still his flapping hands. ‘Where are you going, Mr Broadbent? Where are you headed this time? Look, Alby's up there. The kettle's on. You've got no clothes. Let's get your shoes and you can go wherever you're going. C'mon, I'll take you. This way, that's right…'

‘Stopped him, didn't I?' Roly leaned out of the window and grinned. He always looked like an animated scarecrow, pieces of him sticking out everywhere: his shirt collar, cowlick, one front tooth and a creased ear. ‘He belongs in an institution.'

‘Mind your manners,' said Mrs Gates, lowering her broom. ‘The man
is
a goddamned institution.'

‘Thanks for nothing, Roly,' I muttered.

I ran my palm over the stalks of hair on Mr Broadbent's head. Alby had shaved him again because his father had a habit of plucking when he was upset. Alby should have let him pull them out—it kept him busy for hours. I closed Mr Broadbent's gaping robe and tied a bow, trying not to look. He seemed calm but you could never really tell. His eyes were a milky blue, like the dead carp's, and they only ever seemed to focus on something far away. To me, Alby was already an old, old man at fifty. Mr Broadbent was a child—a wrinkled, naughty, insane child who belonged to our whole town.

‘You're a good girl, Jack,' said Mrs Gates, nodding. ‘Trudy says you saw a car go up.'

‘Probably just tourists,' I said carefully. Mrs Gates had a big mouth and reserved seating in the saloon bar. ‘I'll take him home now.'

Mr Broadbent came quietly. I led him across the street.

Roly reversed his ute and did a U-turn—it was only then that I noticed Jeremiah Jolley in the passenger seat.

I steered Mr Broadbent up the steps.

Alby met me at the door with more lines on his face than he'd had the week before. ‘You're an angel, Jack.'

I nodded and went downstairs to open the shop.

‘Who was the hulk with Funnybone?' Astrid asked.

‘The prodigy son, returned.'

‘You mean prodigal.'

‘I know what I mean. It was before you came.' I didn't tell her that I used to catch Jeremiah Jolley looking at our bricks with a magnifying glass, or that he would taste everything, including our bricks. I just couldn't warm to a kid who licked things. ‘He lived two houses down when I lived with Ma and Dad. Then he went away.'

Astrid started checking for cracked eggs in some cartons on consignment. She would find an even dozen every time and take them home since we couldn't sell them. ‘Quality control' she called it. I could never see the cracks but she swore they were there.

‘Now, how are we going to fix this?' Astrid placed her hand over my heart again.

‘Oh, please,' I said, and shrugged her off.

Across the street, Mrs Gates had hailed somebody passing the salon. She gestured at the oil stain Roly's ute had left behind and pointed down the street. The ones who had stayed were always curious about the ones who came back.

That night I paced from room to room and counted the knots in the oak-coloured floorboards. They looked real enough until you matched identical knots in every fourth board. It appealed to my sense of order but made the counting far too predictable.

Outside, the trees rubbed and squeaked.

Gypsy's breathing seemed too slow and I found myself tallying her human years. If I ever got to a hundred, I decided, I would not sleep. I'd keep my eyes open until the moment my heart stopped. Dying in your sleep didn't sound peaceful, it sounded lonely. I'd want someone to know the exact moment I went.

At seven, I put another can of tuna on the spare-room windowsill and threw the empty one out. At eight, I opened a packet of cashews, ate them all and drank half a glass of wine. By nine, Trudy still wasn't home.

That afternoon, Ma had strolled past the roadhouse without a glance. Her hair, once pale blonde like Trudy's, was darker and threaded with grey. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her wear it down. I stared at her through the window, willing her to turn around, but she kept walking.

Astrid had been talking all day about how there was nothing for her and Adam in Mobius and she didn't know why they stayed. When I added that to Ma's snub and Luke's distance, I found myself touching wood to ward off a bad omen. Any change in routine made me feel as if the ground had moved beneath my feet. If Astrid left Mobius the sun might as well not rise the next day.

I washed, dried and put the wine glass away. I couldn't stand it anymore, being too close to the person up in the forest and whatever awful thoughts they were thinking or whatever terrible thing they'd already done. I picked up the wall-phone receiver and listened to the dead connection. Trudy hadn't paid the bill even though I'd given her the money for half of it.

I rode out to the nearest telephone box, a kilometre away on the outskirts of town, itching to climb out of my own skin.

The phone box seemed like the only lighted window in town. Moths circled above, some fluttering and dying on the ground.

I couldn't decide who to call. Astrid would be furious if I woke Adam. Off in one direction, Trudy might have been wiping beer circles off the tables in the pub; maybe Ma was asleep almost exactly the same distance in the other direction. Dad would be in a different room from Ma. That was the only thing I could be sure of.

I was still in the middle, holding two sweaty coins in my palm. I slid down, my back pressed against the dirty glass.

I don't know what I expected from leaving home, living with Trudy, loving Luke. I'd slipped out of my old life and into a new one. I had memories—some so hazy they could have been second-hand—of sitting on the school steps, listening to the other girls sharing plans for the future, imagining my own. Mine seemed reasonable and uncomplicated: freedom, money in my pocket, my own space, love. Once, when I was a kid, I climbed huge humps of seaweed at the beach, kicked them, felt their solid promise of something underneath—a creature, a treasure, even a dead body—when in reality there was just more seaweed. I had expected my world to open up, but somehow it was only smaller.

I flipped one coin. Tails. I flipped the other. Heads. I still didn't have an answer. I picked up both coins and did what I'd sworn never to do again.

A woman answered. She sounded sleepy. ‘Hello?'

‘Could I please speak to Luke?'

‘He isn't home. Look, it's very late. Who did you say you were?'

‘I didn't. It's Jack.'

‘You really shouldn't be calling at this hour. Why don't you try again tomorrow?'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Well, I'll tell him you called.'

‘No, please…' I started, but she'd already hung up.

I'd crossed a line. Luke would be furious with me; I was furious with
him
for not being there and for leaving me to imagine a thousand places he shouldn't be. Was this love I felt? I still didn't know. I had nothing to compare with it. If being in love meant being obsessed and irresponsible and desperate and ridiculous all at the same time, then it was love.

I rode back on the road. It was safer, quicker, and I was past caring about being caught. You couldn't even scream in Mobius—the bugs would fly into your mouth.

Trudy was home, wiping dishes that had been air-drying on the rack for days. Her expression was so carefully blank she must have been practising.

‘Where've you been?'

‘Phone box. You haven't paid the bill.
Again
.' I wanted a fight.

But all she said was, ‘I was worried about you.'

‘You don't need to be.' I stomped off to my room.

I was lying on my side with my eyes squeezed shut. I sensed she was there, standing in the doorway.

‘Jack, I want to tell you…'

‘Go away,' I hissed, but I didn't mean it.

‘You know when I left? Do you remember the fight I had with Ma?'

I opened my eyes and shook my head. ‘I only remember you driving away.'

‘I kept looking in my rear-view mirror and waiting for one of you to come after me.'

‘I didn't know you weren't coming back. Not right away.'

‘When did you realise?' she asked.

I tried to remember. ‘A few days, I think. Nobody said it out loud. I was standing in the hallway and I just knew. It seemed like every time there was a fight, Ma took another picture down.'

Trudy sighed. She looked around my spartan room. ‘You need something on the walls in here.'

I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest. ‘I'm starting over. You know what Ma's like. I wasn't allowed to change anything…'

‘…couldn't pick your own colours…'

‘…leave the furniture where it is…'

‘…Blu-Tack marks the walls!'

We laughed.

Trudy picked at her fingernail. ‘So. What's happening with…him?'

‘I don't want to talk about it if you're going to tell me I'm stupid.'

‘I won't. I won't say that.'

‘You don't know him.'

She folded her arms. ‘Jack, it took me a long time to figure this out and I'm giving it to you for free: it never works if you love him more. It just won't. And if it happens that you do love him more, and he knows it, it's over. The beginning is as good as it will ever be. The rest is trying to avoid the end.'

I smiled but I wanted to burst into tears. ‘That's some speech, Gertrude,' I said. ‘So, what do I do now?'

‘If it doesn't make you feel good, don't do it. It's as simple as that.'

‘It all feels good, even the stuff that hurts.'

‘Yeah,' she snorted. ‘That's one of life's great mysteries. 'Night.' She turned to leave.

‘Trudy?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I missed you. I'm glad you came back.' I turned on my side again and rested my head on my hand. ‘You've never told me much about your trip. Tell me the best thing and the worst thing.' It was the question Ma used to ask us both after school. She didn't allow shortcuts or general answers, like ‘Good' or ‘Terrible'. She always wanted to know why and she never gave up until we told her everything.