The Naked Drinking Club (38 page)

I turned my attention to the desk. There were many folders
on
a shelf above but none of them orange. I tried the drawers of a filing cabinet behind the door but it was locked. The bell hadn’t chimed in the last few seconds; I put out the light and snuck back through to the kitchen as quickly as I could without creaking. I switched the kettle back on and waited as Hank made his way down stairs.

He was wearing a white medical top buttoned up the side of the neck, white trousers and slip-on white sandals, his hair held back in a ponytail.

‘So it’s all black and white with you, Hank, isn’t it? No in between.’

‘Good morning, love, I like your style. You’re a smart little thing, aren’t you?’ He laughed heartily.

‘Oh, you know.’ I made myself some tea and sat down. Hank joined me, opening up his mail with a letter opener. He had his glasses down on his nose again, peering over them. He looked much bigger than the day before; I could see his build more in his white tunic, and he was well built and muscularlooking. As he stretched forward to pick up some more mail from the table I could see the bottom of a tattoo under the white of his sleeves, which stopped at his elbow.

‘Oh my God! Have you got a tattoo?’

‘I’m afraid so. Got it done when I was a kid in the Navy.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘If you like.’ He put down the mail and the opener and rolled up his sleeve. ‘Got it done in Thailand, we all got them done, it was the thing to do at the time.’

I sat speechless, looking at the faded mini-sunrise, which began at his shoulder and spilled out over most of his upper arm.

‘You all right?’

‘Where do I begin? This is getting more and more bizarre.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, love, you might have to hold that thought until later. I’ve got to get to work.’

I realised that, with me being so preoccupied with the other stuff, I didn’t know much else about Hank, apart from his radio show once a week.

‘Why don’t you come with me into town? I’ll drop you off and you can see the clinic, then have a wander round town if you like. I could meet you at lunchtime, if you fancy?’

I really wanted to stay at home and root around but I didn’t want to be impolite, so I quickly got dressed and jumped in the car. It was, after all, right to stick with Hank; he wore the eagle and would therefore lead me to my mother.

Good old don’t-have-to-do-much fate plan, I thought, as he put on another dreadful country tape.

Hank was a physiotherapist and sports injury masseur, while Pattana ran the office, booking appointments, answering the phone and doing the books. Their premises were a run-down, cramped little place between two shops somewhere in town. It was called ‘Healing Centre’ and advertised physiotherapy and reflexology on handwritten signs stuck on the window, with rainbows drawn on the top in coloured pencils.

Inside it was hard to move around with three people. Pattana sat behind a tiny desk with barely any surface space left, an enormous old-fashioned till taking up most of it. There were shelves selling crystals and incense. Hank showed me around, proud of his empire.

‘Took me years to build this up,’ he said, leading me into the treatment room. It was cold in the room and badly in need of a paint job. On the wall were charts of the body with lines directed into various points, and pictures of feet divided into areas in different colours, with names of organs written in them. In the middle of the room was the massage bench, next to it a table of clean towels. The room had a bluish light to it, from a half-torn piece of blue plastic cellophane taped on the striplight above.

‘This is great,’ I said politely, feeling like a child going to her father’s work for the day.

‘You like it?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ It was nice being with Hank and Pattana, they were very warm and generous, but I couldn’t afford to play visitor for much longer. I would have to move things along. I had no idea what Hank wanted with me if he couldn’t help with the search, but I had an increasing sense that he knew more than he was letting on.

‘Hank, can I talk to you?’

‘Hang on.’ He popped his head next door and asked Pattana what time his first client was.

‘Not until ten.’

‘OK, thanks, love.’ He closed the door of the treatment room and gestured for me to sit up on the massage table. He moved some things from a small stool in the corner and sat down, arms folded, all ears.

‘Hank, I told you last night, my friends with the paintings are arriving in Brisbane in the next few days and I have to join them, and they’re only here for a short while after that. So I really have to find my mother. I don’t want to stay here when they’re gone if she’s not here. I told you my visa is running out, and I would have to find someone to marry if I want to stay in the country, so I need to know everything you can tell me. Please, Hank.’

‘OK, OK. Listen, I know you’re anxious, anybody in your shoes would be, and I want to do everything I can to help, honest I do. But I don’t know any more. I think you should stay for as long as you can and get some rest, and I’ll tell you another thing, I’m going to work on those shoulders of yours. They’ve taken some impact with your accident.’

‘Why wouldn’t you let me see the folder, Hank? What are you hiding?’

‘I like to keep track of things, so I wrote it all down. I don’t want there being any complications and me not being able to be clear about things, that’s all.’

‘Do you believe in fate, Hank?’

‘I believe a great many things and fate is definitely one of them.’

I grew excited, having hardly met anybody who agreed with me on this subject. I thought Hank and Joyce Cane would make a great couple, better than Fritz, but that would leave Pattana. I couldn’t see Pattana and Fritz together.

‘Sixty-five, when you were born, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

‘Year of the snake.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, the snake is very cunning, very sneaky, slithering around into people’s lives trying to find out stuff.’ He laughed
again,
taking the subject away from the folder, no doubt. I recalled my snake behaviour on the beach in Port Macquarie when I drunkenly mistrusted the others, and crawled round the sand on my belly trying to hide from them. Perhaps I had snake leanings. But all this new Chinese stuff was confusing me and interfering with my search. I didn’t need symbols at this point, I needed a phone number or an address.

But Hank had the eagle, so I was obliged to stay for the time being.

He said, ‘We’ll think of a plan tonight, I promise. Meanwhile, why don’t you wander around, buy a map and meet us back here at five? It’s a short day today. Bank holiday.’

‘OK.’ I swung my legs like a ten-year-old.

‘You’ll find plenty to do, it’s a wonderful city, Brisbane. And the snake is very resourceful.’ He hissed and wiggled his arm, laughing.

‘Great,’ I said, jumping down.

I wandered around the centre, which was different from Sydney, in that it looked newer, and hillier, until I found a café I liked the look of. I sat outside and ordered poached eggs on toast, a pineapple smoothie and tea. I was feeling half recovered from the Scotty’s Head incident, and my system felt rested from the bender. I wanted to be fully OK by the time I met up with the group, so that I could have a few beers and a laugh with them. The swelling had gone down considerably on my face, but the bruising and cuts were still bad, leaving me no choice but to stick to my white-water rafting excuse when I took up selling again.

I brought out my notebook and drew up a plan. I counted my money; I had one hundred and fifty dollars in cash that Jim had advanced me, and some loose change. I had no idea how much the company owed me, as I’d stopped keeping a record of it in my notebook of late, but it couldn’t be more than another hundred bucks. I wrote two lists, one practical and one emotional. The practical one read:

Do washing.

Buy mouth-ulcer gel.

Send airmail to granddad.

Buy phone card.

Buy maps. Learn local area for good places to sell.

Don’t drink before food. Must keep head clear to think.

My emotional list only consisted of:

Find mother, follow all leads.

Keep spirits up.

I paid for my breakfast and left to find a chemist. I had a sore mouth, as some of the cuts from the fight had ulcerated. I paid for some mouth gel while worrying about the possibility that my mother might be in a state other than Queensland or even New South Wales. I lingered at the counter of the chemist wondering whether to buy some Remegel or not, because my stomach was burning since I’d had the chillies with the red wine the night before.

I couldn’t deal with having to find out about all the other states in Australia. I didn’t know how many there were, but decided if it came down to it, Jim would help by looking it up or I would go to a library or something. The phone rang behind the counter. A staff member shouted to the pharmacist about a delivery, the pharmacist shouted back to get where he was calling from and I began thinking about Hank, and how he was contacted by this Mary woman at the radio station, wondering whether the calls went through some kind of switchboard that might have logged area codes. I jotted down in my notebook to follow that line of enquiry when I got back to Hank’s later.

The day dragged. I bought a map and lay under a tree in a park, examining the areas with the widest roads, which I took to represent comfortable suburban areas, and good places to sell. It was hard to concentrate on anything, knowing that there were officially alive and breathing family members out there somewhere, perhaps nearby, and I couldn’t do anything about it right now.

I wandered around some record stores, bought an airmail letter and went to a bar for strictly lemonade only, while I wrote to my grandfather. I told him I was bored with the hot weather,
and
found people to be friendly but that I was starting to miss him too much, and that I was trying to find what I was looking for and couldn’t come back until I did, but wished that he was with me, and how the warmth here would be good for his arthritis. I imagined a nurse sitting on his bed reading my words aloud to him, and hoped it would be her and not my other mother who would do it, as I wanted to hide my search from her. Despite how badly we had fought over the years, I didn’t want to hurt her. I would protect her from my quest to find my birth mother, until the time was right for me to tell her. I thought about all the protecting going on from everyone around me, including myself now, and wondered if it really was protection. Or just fear of the truth.

I posted the letter, feeling like a new improved person, being so in control that I could make use of the postal service for a change. On the way back to Hank’s, I stopped off at a grocery store and bought the ingredients for one of the only two meals I knew how to cook, deciding that cooking for Hank and Pattana would be the right thing for me to do, and also a way of feeling able to ask Hank for the use of his phone, if I left him money.

I arrived back at the clinic too early for going home, as Hank was still with a client. I helped Pattana stick stamps on envelopes until the groans and cries of pain from the room ceased, and a big rugby-playing type came out of the room, paid and limped off.

Hank was a little more downbeat on the journey back; I put it down to the end of a hard day at work. Pattana chatted away, oblivious to his fatigue. I asked him if I could have a look at his phone book when we got home, as he’d offered the night before. But he suddenly seemed unsure whether he had thrown it out or not. As we pulled into the drive I felt part of their domestic routine already, and wondered how it happened that I ended up in short-burst situations of speeded-up familiarity with people I’d only just met.

I told them I was cooking pasta and ratatouille. They seemed concerned, and I felt the need to reassure them that although my repertoire was limited, it did, however, taste very good. I helped them unload some stuff from the back of the car and carried it into the house. I was starting to feel the need for a
‘Why
are you helping me?’ conversation, and so planned to have it later, once we’d eaten. All I had, as always, was my instinct, and so far that was telling me that something was not quite right here.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR

‘THAT BONE JUST
under the eye, part of cheekbone.’ I winced with pain as Hank prodded around as gently as he could. He insisted that he take a look at it after dinner, as he felt it was looking worse today. ‘Ugh.’

‘It’s broken.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Nothing, it’s too delicate, you just have to let it heal itself.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Your ribs aren’t broken or cracked, just badly bruised. The rest looks nasty but you’ll live.’

I sat at the table after dinner, drinking some wine with Hank and Pattana. Hank stood over me, holding my face in his hands in the direction of the light.

‘Such a shame to do such a thing to your face, it’s so pretty.’ Pattana contorted her face while Hank prodded.

‘Yes, it was stupid.’ I was starting to believe the white-water rafting story myself, and even pictured Jim at the front of the boat with the man from the rafting centre, all of us screaming madly as it bounced down mini falls. I said, ‘Hank, could I please look at your phone book?’

Pattana began tidying around us.

‘Sure. Might have to have a good dig around first. Would you mind if we sat outside for a bit and let your lovely cooking digest?’

‘Sure,’ I said, going along with it, fascinated to see what he’d do next. He opened a cupboard, brought out a wooden box and took a cigar from it, running it under his nose, savouring the smell.

Hank and I sat on deckchairs out on the back porch. It was getting dusky and Hank put on some lights that were strung through the trees.

‘This is my little haven,’ he said, putting his feet up on a sawn-off tree-stump stool and lighting up. ‘Everybody needs a sanctuary, you know?’

‘I guess so,’ I said, longing for the day I would have one.

‘What’s it like back home?’