Into Bones like Oil

by Kaaron Warren

  “All sleepy?” Roy said, nodding at Julia.

  “Nice and sleepy. She’ll be out for a day,” the doctor said. “You next,” he whispered to Dora.

  She and Roy continued up the stairs. “Only if you want it,” Roy said. “It’s good, though. People come out feeling brand new.”

  She knew that wasn’t true. She’d seen Julia after her big sleep, spoken to her; the woman had been drained.

  Freesia’s room wasn’t much larger than Dora’s, but it was light and the ceiling higher. As Freesia had mentioned, the ceiling was made of glass. At first Dora thought it was brilliantly painted but saw that the stars, the deep dark sky, were the real thing.

  “Gorgeous room,” she whispered.

  Roy nodded. “When she goes you can have it,” he said. A sick part of Dora enjoyed this favoritism.

  Freesia lay on top of the covers. She was wearing baby doll pajamas, pink and frilly. The panties were slightly shifted to one side and Dora readjusted them.

  There was one chair in the room and Roy took that. “I need to take notes,” he said. He laid a tape recorder on the bed and settled with a large notebook and pen. Dora knelt beside the bed as if she were praying.

  It was silent for a while, then Freesia began to speak.

  “Aw. Aw. That’s mine, that’s yours, that’s mine. That’s mine. That suit of clothing, that bolt of material. Mine.”

  “One of the looters,” Roy whispered.

  Dora shook her head. It was Freesia, talking in her sleep. But she could hear a tick tick tick in her ears, her blood beating, and she could smell a saltiness in the air, she was sure, and if she looked hard, tilted her head, he was there.

  He was there.

  Half-naked, his hair knotted with seaweed and rotted matter, he bent over Freesia and whispered to her. His fingers were half bitten off, half broken. Dora fell backwards, banged her head and thought: not a nightmare. I’m awake.

  The ghost hadn’t paused; didn’t see her. For that she was grateful.

  “Those sheets, those blankets, the barrels of apples. That beer. Oh, those suits of clothing. The napkin rings. The rings. I bit her finger off to get this one,” and Dora could see him lift his hand. He looked at it quizzically, as if lost.

  “That bolt of material,” he said.

  Then he vanished.

  “He’ll be back. As long as she’s asleep, he’ll be back. This is good stuff.”

  Dora’s mouth was numb. She felt as if she were in another body, looking down.

  “It’s a bit scary the first time. But they’re just like you and me. They all want their last words to be heard. Until those words are heard, they can’t be free.”

  “This can’t be.”

  “Oh, but it is. I’ve heard confessions. I’ve had ‘tell her I love her.’ I have clues to where money is buried because they don’t want it to rot away, but it is long gone. One of these days I’ll strike it big, though, just you watch.”

  “How are you not scared?”

  “Oh, I am. I am, I guess. But they don’t seem to notice me. The day one of them does, turns and curses me, that’s when I’ll stop.”

  Freesia started to talk again but Dora couldn’t bear to listen. She stood up, pushed the door open. Freesia said, “Can I go now?”

  “‘Thanks for sharing, Roy,’” Roy said sarcastically, smiling at her as if he really had given her a gift.

  She went downstairs to her room (past the breakfast room with the clock ticking so loud it almost hurt her ears) and sat on her bed. She looked at her phone, wanting to call someone, but who?

  There was no one.

  It was quiet upstairs. The neighbor hadn’t been replaced yet.

  When she lay down, though, she felt her ears buzz as if there was conversation going on right under her nose but she couldn’t hear it. The room felt busy, buzzy, and she pulled her pillow over her head to try to make a cocoon for herself.

  THIRD DAY

  THURSDAY

  NIGHT

  Her painful bladder told her she need to go to the toilet, so she did. Almost went barefoot but the cold lino felt slimy underfoot so she slipped shoes on.

  Blessed relief of pissing. Then pleasure of washing hands in warm water. She noticed that the bathroom mirror was made out of a porthole. How had she not noticed that before? She wondered if it was from the wreck and if Roy had stolen it or someone else had stolen it for him.

  The hallway was dark (it was always dark, even on days that were sunny and bright) except for the glow that came from the small lounge room on the other side of the foyer. She’d never been in there but the glow, the sense of warmth, drew her there now. Someone must have left the light on. What she’d seen upstairs in Freesia’s room was still with her (that’s mine) but it was fading, like the memory of pain. The faint memory of childbirth.

  The house was quiet. Everyone was out or asleep. It was different at night. The atmosphere changed. All she heard was snoring, if she stuck her head in the stairwell. And, she thought, Roy’s voice, asking questions.

  She walked to the lounge room thinking she’d sit for a while then turn off the light.

  Inside was a man she hadn’t seen before. He was white haired, very solid, dressed in an old knitted cardigan that made her think of a fisherman. He sat on a high stool and worked at a huge painting, the canvas running the length of the room and reaching halfway to the ceiling, where a bare bulb gave out bright but sometimes flickering light.

  He was painting the wreck of The Anglesea.

  “Oh,” she said, because it was magnificent. It was full of ghosts and shadows and smudges that, even at a glance, she saw were deliberate.

  “Oh, yourself. Pass me the turps.”

  A jar of the spirit sat on a table nearby and she passed it to him.

  “There’s a ghosty I need to move. You see him? He needs to come forward. He’s too far back.”

  As she watched, he painted the character larger, reaching forward. It looked like the ghostly looter she’d seen talking through Freesia, she thought, but then she wondered if everything she saw would look like the looter now.

  “Adding in, taking away. You have to keep at it.” He rubbed at a dark gray patch with his thumb, wiped his thumb on his pants. “I thought you were a ghost at first. I can hear them coming. I know when they’re about. I wasn’t sure if you were real or one of them.”

  “I’m real and they don’t exist,” she said, thinking that saying it aloud might convince her.

  There was a clock in this room as well, ticking gently. There were ancient paperbacks (To Sail the Sea, The Wreck of the Tosca, My Life on the Waves), as well as a battered Bible and Confessions of the Dead and incomplete boardgames and packs of cards.

  There was a small step ladder to reach the high bits.

  “When will you be finished?” Dora asked

  “Never,” he said. “There’ll always be more to add. The story keeps changing. The more we hear the more we know. The more we see. You see this fella,” he said, pointing at man hanging from a tree in the background. “They reckon he warned of disaster but the captain wasn’t having any. Had him hanged! That there’s the captain who stripped off naked and jumped overboard when the wreck happened. Here he is. I’m waiting for more on him. More information. Roy is working on it. But you know the patch down by the shore? Where no grass will grow? They say that’s where he’s buried. That’s what they reckon. Parts of him, anyway. Bits were missing when he was found. I can’t paint him till I have the story. Roy is finding out for me. Anything for art, ay? Suffering and all that. Anything for the art.”

  The captain was painted with a clock on his shoulder. Dora leaned close, reached a finger to it.

  “Don’t touch,” he said. Then, “You’ve got a keen eye. That is our clock indeed. Indeed. Can you imagine the secrets this man must know? Can you
picture the stories about him? Tough man. He hanged a lot of men. He used to call it the Dancing Legs Puppet Show. That’s what we’ve been told.”

  “People love watching that stuff.”

  “Oh, they do. They love to watch a wreck of any kind. Human as well.”

  The painting was mostly beach, littered with flotsam and jetsam. A bolt of glorious purple material sat at the front, so realistic she thought she could touch it.

  “Roy is a good man, you know. I wouldn’t be anywhere without him. We go way back. Way back. We were in a cycling club at fifteen. Seems like an eternity ago. You couldn’t get me on a bike now. I’d fall off, wouldn’t I? Size of me. Roy is still a skinny bastard apart from that gut of his. He coulda been an Olympian, we used to say, if he wasn’t such a fuck-up.”

  She’d seen Roy on his bike. He did seem different. More agile. Less repulsive.

  The painter put down his brush and settled into an armchair. Without a word, he began to nod off, so she left. She’d seen enough sleeping people for one day.

  •••

  Dora thought she’d go for another walk. She might buy some chips to bring home, or a loaf of bread. She almost felt hungry but she shouldn’t, how could she be hungry with the children gone, did they die hungry? Was there anything they liked to eat? She couldn’t bear that. She walked quickly (although she felt tired, a distinct lack of strength in her legs) and she walked far, trying not to think but failing.

  She did buy hot chips and ate them on a park bench, looking out to sea. She felt anonymous, unknown. It was good.

  •••

  On return, a rich, good smell filled the house. It was food cooking. Onions, curry, she thought, and she couldn’t help but look into the shared kitchen which she had not used, not even for coffee.

  Mrs. Reddy, another guest, was there, along with three large pots on the massive stove. Dora had met her briefly, passing each other in the hallway.

  “You’re the girl in the front room, aren’t you,” Mrs. Reddy said. “Where all the ghosts walk. They still think that is the way into the house, foolish ghosts.” She and her husband and three children had one of the bigger rooms but still Dora couldn’t imagine how they all fitted in. She’d never seen husband or children and had an image of them stuffed and still, sitting up in positions Mrs. Reddy placed them in. But sometimes she couldn’t imagine anyone with a living husband and children.

  “I am making aloo curry and saag gosht and there is plenty. You are welcome to share. There will be daal as well.”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay.”

  “Everybody else is,” Larry said. He carried a massive bag of rice on his shoulder. His voice was baritone and filled the room. “I got this on special. Should last a while.”

  “Julia gave me lentils, so there is plenty for all.”

  Mrs. Reddy cooked every night for her family, simple dishes that filled the house with ordinary smells. Others burned cheese on toast, cooked two-minute noodles, opened cans of tuna. Most nights Mrs. Reddy left bowls of leftovers out, which were always gone by morning.

  “Need any heavy lifting, I’m your man,” Larry said to Dora. “I could lift you with one finger. Your friend Julia might be a different story. That’s one hefty girl. But you? You’re all class. Look at you.”

  Dora hated herself for not standing up for Julia. For allowing herself to be called the pretty one, to be compared.

  He winked at her. He had to be in his sixties; white hair on his head and exposed on his chest, with wrinkles on his face and spots on his hands. But he still thought he had it, that he barely had to try to score with someone like Dora.

  Mrs. Reddy said, “Come back in forty minutes, fifty minutes. It’ll be just right then.”

  Roy rushed in, excited, his cheeks flushed, his step sprightly. He pulled Dora aside and whispered, “I’ve got a good one. He’s a bloody beauty. Take a look at him,” Roy said, as if he’d caught a beautiful fish. “Look at this ring.” He opened his palm to show Dora, glancing around to make sure no one was looking.

  It was a golden ring set with red stones.

  “Gold and rubies,” he said. “Only a rich man would have owned this ring. He’ll have all sorts of secrets. He’ll tell me where his treasure is buried. Or where the bodies are. It might be the captain’s ring. He’ll know some stuff. At least he’ll tell me how to catch the captain. You can watch if you like.”

  “Why are you letting me see? Do you let anyone else?”

  “Sometimes. But you’re a better class of woman than we usually get in here. You actually read, for one thing.”

  She didn’t. The book in her room was hollowed out, and she kept her money in it, and her wedding ring and her mother’s diamond earrings. How could he know, though, what was in her room? And the fact he and Larry used the same term all “class” made her think they’d been talking about her.

  “So, Mrs. Reddy,” he said. “Rent’s due.”

  “I’m feeding your tenants, Mr. Roy,” she said, a crawling, begging tone in her voice. “You see? I’m saving you from feeding them.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Reddy. You just need a good sleep. That’s all. Then we won’t worry about the rent.”

  She shook her head.

  “One of the kids, then? Your son is ten, isn’t he? He could do with a good sleep.”

  “No, no. I need the sleep. I do.”

  “After dinner, ay? Can’t let all this good food go to waste.”

  •••

  Dinner was delicious. Dora didn’t think she’d eaten a better meal but then no one had cooked for her for a very long time.

  Mrs. Reddy’s room was filled with her family so, after she’d finished her meal, Roy led her to one of the vacant rooms. It was near the top of the house and at the front, so it was warmer and lighter than some of the others. There were signs that someone had cared at this stage of the house, because the wallpaper was brocade and well-placed and the light fittings not cheap and nasty.

  This room smelled very strongly of cheap lilac air freshener. Dora smelled this each morning on awakening.

  The doctor came in. “How’d you sleep, Dora?” he said. His smile was too friendly, too knowing, from a man she’d barely spoken too. “Hello, Mrs. Reddy. Let’s get you settled, ay?”

  He pushed up the sleeve of her shirt and injected something into her arm. “Sleep easy, dear lady.”

  She whimpered once then fell asleep.

  “I’m hoping it’s the captain. I’ll ask him where he’s hid the gold.”

  It took a while this time. Dora was comfortable in an armchair and dozing off when she heard “Tell her I love her. Tell her I care. Tell her I didn’t do it not at sea nor on ground. Tell her I love her.” She saw the shadow, the ghost, of a tall man, his hair a wild mop on his head.

  “I hate these fucken ones,” Roy said. “Are you the captain?”

  “I’m not the captain. I’m the man he wished he was. More man than he’d ever be.”

  “Still,” Roy said. “You’ve got a love story to tell. Let me hear it.”

  And the ghost told a broken-hearted love story that made Dora cry. “When you first fall in love you imagine it will stay that way forever. Every breath she exhales you want to inhale. Every step she takes you want to cup her heel to protect it from the hard earth. You embark on a journey together, seeking your fortune, knowing that simply being together is fortune enough. But then her head is turned by the powerful man. Her head is turned by wealth and charm and all you are is the man downstairs, without skill. All you are is strong and kind and loving and all she wants is a better name. She calls your name at the last, though. As she drowns at sea. As you reach for her to draw her to safety you see his ring on her finger and so you just let . . .

  her . . .

  sink.”

  “This’ll sell well,” Roy said. “Especially as this wa
s the room where our very own Romeo and Juliet died a few years back. Romance abounds!”

  Dora was so affected by the story she didn’t respond.

  Roy said, “I”m not kidding. They were only kids. Thirteen and fourteen. Tragic, ay? She had a single mum, he was living with his ‘uncle.’ This is no place for kids. Anyone’ll tell you that.”

  “Can I go now?” the ghost said.

  “No, you bloody can’t. These kids; no one knows who gave them the drugs, but I do. I’m not telling.” Roy tapped the side of his nose. “Terrible story. Sad.”

  “Can’t I go?” the ghost said.

  As if they were co-conspirators, Roy said to Dora, “These bloody ghosts love it, really. Some of them never shut up. Mr. Cox . . . you haven’t met him yet. But he was on the verge of death when he came to us. Literally on his last legs, last breath, ready to pop the mortal coil. But then our good doctor helped him sleep, and we heard him talk, and there you go.”

  “So he’s still alive?”

  “Mr. Cox? Lives on the third floor. Comes down for Sunday dinner, six p.m. on the dot if you want to take a look at him. He’s pretty quiet. Don’t get much out of him unless he’s asleep. Then he’s very chatty.”

  Dora left them after a while. The painter was at work downstairs and he asked her what had happened and he painted as she spoke, adding details she’d heard Freesia speak.

  FOURTH DAY

  FRIDAY

  BREAKFAST

  There were dreams of strangers. Things long past. She woke with a sore throat, as if she’d been talking all night.

  •••

  “How’d you sleep?” Roy asked. The day always started with that question. Sometimes she answered it three or four times.