Into Bones like Oil

by Kaaron Warren

  “Roy!” she called out. She didn’t like to go into his office. “Someone’s been at my room.”

  He came and looked in. “There are always thefts. We all learn to keep little of value in our rooms. Most people here, all we own are memories. No one can steal those. They are ours and we’re the ones in control of them. Anything missing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re lucky, then. The probably just wanted to sniff your bedsheets.” He was so matter of fact about this she was sure it was him.

  “Can I have clean sheets then?”

  “On Monday.”

  “Please.” She thought she’d cry. Stupidly, she thought she’d cry if she didn’t have clean sheets.

  “All right. But you owe me.”

  •••

  The new sheets smelled musty but at least she knew she was the first to sleep in them. She curled up in bed and thought of how he would ask her to repay this debt.

  She felt them walking over her in the dark, those old ghosts marching to a place that no longer existed.

  FIFTH DAY

  SATURDAY

  NIGHT

  Dora knew she should get ready. She knew they were gathering for the Ship Wreck party Luke had told her about. She wished he’d said he’d go with her, knock on her door, and they’d arrive together. But he didn’t.

  She had nothing to wear. She had no idea what the others would wear, although Freesia was always Freesia and would dress in layers.

  She looked at her clothing hanging on the hooks on the old front door as if something would magically appear there. But it didn’t. A pair of old jeans, a pale blue T-shirt with nothing on it, a thin gray cardigan. She didn’t want to be that person. She wanted to be THIS Dora, the one who lived in the front room and who fitted in.

  She curled up in her bed until past the time they were gathering.

  A knock at her door gave her hope, but it wasn’t Luke. It was Roy. He had washed his hair and slicked it back, and he smiled with his mouth closed so she couldn’t see his bad teeth.

  “Coming along? The others are having a get-together. All welcome. All welcome in this place.”

  “I haven’t got anything to wear,” Dora said.

  She knew it sounded ridiculous but he said, “I can help you there! Come on.”

  He led her to his office. She hadn’t seen inside before. It was larger than she’d expected, neat, but crammed full of nautical things. Ships in bottles, wheels, pictures of shipwrecks, thick rope.

  He moved a pile of brass fittings off a large trunk, Property of S. Fisher, and opened it.

  Inside were clothes and shoes. “People always leave stuff behind,” he said. “What’s mine is yours, yours mine, ours theirs . . .” he stopped, as if realizing he was babbling, and wiped a streak of saliva from his chin.

  Dora picked out a pair of white pants, a red-striped shirt, some shoes that looked like waves.

  “Little Cabin Boy,” Roy said.

  •••

  They all sat drinking together on the front veranda. Dora pretended she was someone else, the sort of person who hung out at parties. She’d always hidden behind other people. Parents, friends, husband, kids. It was never her being presented but the daughter, friend, wife, mother.

  Even here, really, she was Front Room Dora. Not herself, not by a long shot.

  She had little to say but it didn’t matter. People had brought bottles. She had very little with her in the car but she had taken two cases of wine that had been delivered. Her ex-husband had signed up for the service years earlier and she kept accepting the wine he continued to pay for, automatic payment. He didn’t really have access to banks where he was.

  She arrived with two bottles and they cheered her. “Welcome to the Ship Wreck!” She felt important for a moment.

  She drank more wine than she usually did. She felt lighter as her brain numbed; there were moments when she actually laughed. Freesia sat at Luke’s feet, leaning up against him rubbing his shins. He didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he thought she was a cat or a dog sitting there loyally. Dora expected him to pat Freesia on the head.

  Larry showed off, lifting furniture like the massive table that had come off the ship. She felt as if they were on a ship. Roy had built furniture out of the wreckage and you could almost imagine you were out at sea.

  Dora laughed. Felt Larry’s muscles. “You are all class,” he said. Up close he smelled of beer, of old man. His hair unwashed. He was what she deserved. Nothing more.

  Luke stood up then, and Freesia fell forward dramatically. No one noticed. He said, “She is class, all right. Way out of yours, mate,” and he put his arm around Dora, kissed her cheek, got her another wine.

  Dora gave Larry a look, an “oh well” kind of look she hoped would keep him interested.

  Someone called for pizza, the cheap and nasty kind they could all afford. Pizza was usually on her no go list. Anything the girls used to eat was on that list. She’d cook three meals sometimes, adult and two different ones for the children.

  She didn’t like eating with others. So many foods gave her pause, made her think. The foods the girls had loved, the foods they’d hated.

  “I’m not hungry,” Julia said, and Larry snorted.

  “She’s probably eaten two pizzas before she even got here,” he said.

  “Eat something then you can sleep again,” the doctor said. “When you sleep, you have an appetite. It’s one of those things.”

  “I’d like to sleep,” Dora said. “For days.”

  Someone had brought some custard tarts he’d bought from the bakery, days old, cheap. The girls had never had a custard tart so Dora took one but they were very well past safe eating. It tasted moldy, like off milk, and the filling was curdled.

  Not even people as desperate as they were could eat them.

  Mr. Cox was there but no one spoke to him. It was the first time Dora had seen him in the flesh. He was a very old man. Ninety or more, she thought. He sat straight in the swing chair and quietly drank a soft drink from a glass. He looked out to the water. Back and forth, back and forth, swinging gently.

  “Looking for a dolphin?” Freesia asked him.

  “Always keep an eye out. Lifesaver family, mine; never drink. You never know when you’ll be called to rescue and you couldn’t live with yourself if someone died because you’d had a drink.”

  He said that if you feel guilt about someone and they die, you want your grief to be over. For it to go away. But if you loved them and you don’t feel guilt, the grief is important to you.

  “Turn a blind eye. Best way to get through life is to turn a blind eye,” he said.

  Dora wondered if this was part of his family history. If he was speaking family guilt, if he’d lost someone. He was once a hero although he wouldn’t admit it. His country was close to the water and some of his people still lived there, although the land was long ago taken from them. He told Dora he remembered stories of rescue, but his name wasn’t in the history books, nor those of his brothers who gave their lives saving people. “It’s always the other fella,” he said. “Doesn’t bother me. I didn’t do it for the thanks,” but this life meant he didn’t really prepare for anything else. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “We go way back, Mr. Cox, don’t we? Me and you and our artist friend,” Roy said.

  “You were a good boy then.”

  “I’m good now!” Roy said. “Can’t say otherwise.”

  Dora wondered why a man like Mr. Cox, who really did seem to be a good man, would have anything to do with Roy.

  Soon, there was a moment’s silence. Three minutes, when the clock through the window, sitting in the breakfast room, ticked loudly, and that was all they could hear. Dora checked her phone: three minutes to midnight.

  When they started speaking again, Larry said, “Who
’s missing? Who’s asleep?”

  Dora realized that Roy wasn’t with them. “Roy?” she said, and the looks they gave her made her realize she’d misunderstood something.

  “It’s Mrs. Reddy again. She’s good. She’s one of his best girls,” Larry said. He stood looking down over the veranda. Most of the view was blocked by bushes and trees but there was a small part of the path to the coast visible in the moonlight. He pointed. “They’re trekking up tonight.”

  Dora stood beside him. She could see them too, ghostly figures trudging up the hill.

  “Who wants a drink?” Luke said. “Who wants a fucking drink?”

  They all did.

  Dora sat beside him. The music strumming gently, beautiful songs, and when she leaned close to Luke she thought she heard a voice, a murmuring, coming from him but his lips weren’t moving. She smelled salt, like over-salted fish and chips or pasta water when she remembered to put the salt in.

  “Is that Roy pumping smells at us again?” she said.

  “You’re sniffing a ghost,” Larry said. “That’s what you can smell.”

  She pushed at Luke, trying to rouse him, but Larry pulled her to her feet and had her dance with him, slow dancing to the music. He was so big, so tall, she felt enclosed by him, comforted. He was her father in that moment, and she was five or six, dancing at someone’s wedding, and she’d never felt safer.

  Julia tugged her arm. “He’s a sleaze, Dora. Just . . . look at him. He’s ancient.”

  “Fuck off you fat cunt,” Larry said.

  “I know I’m fat.”

  “You’re not,” Dora said.

  “I am. When you say I’m not you’re lying. Everyone does it.” She sank into an armchair that was cat-damaged, water-damaged, very soft. She seemed to sink farther and farther into it as if it was swallowing her.

  “You’re like a fucken whale,” Larry said.

  “Larry,” Dora said, but so quiet no one heard.

  Julia said, “Did you ever think we might be living in the belly of a whale? All forgotten. And the whale keeps us drugged and pain-free while he digests us one by one.”

  “Is that why I’ve got a pain in my gut?” Larry said.

  “Is that why everything tastes of fish?” Freesia said.

  “Is that why you’ve all got salt for blood?” the doctor said, all of them joking.

  Dora touched the walls near her, and they felt soft. The boards of the veranda, too, felt soft, and there was a strong smell of fish in the air.

  “Do you think?” she said Larry. “Do you really think?”

  “Stop freaking me out!” Julia said. “It’s too creepy to think about.”

  Larry started moving the heavy furniture about again. His strength was the last thing he had left. He drank four bottles of beer in an hour, then went inside to watch a rugby game on the TV in the common room, and came back drunker. He was aggressive, ready to be dismissed, ignored. He must have always had people avoiding him. He was inappropriate when talking about women. Had he always been this way or had he lost his inner voice?

  He came back argumentative, so when he saw Luke talking to Dora he started a fight about where the table should sit.

  Dora had noticed that arguments happen to scale. It all means a lot to the people involved, regardless of monetary value. In prison it’s cigarettes, juice, drugs. For the wealthy, its actual properties. In this place, it was personal time, and it was the good chair, and maybe the best room. In a wealthy neighborhood the stakes appeared to be higher but really the fury/envy/greed was the same.

  Luke wasn’t interested in the argument. He staggered inside and some of the others started to disperse, too.

  Julia slumped in her chair. Very drunk. Dora and Larry and the doctor helped her to her bed.

  Larry groped at her, copping a feel.

  At her door, Larry said, “I got it from here.”

  Dora said, “No, don’t worry. I’ll sit with her. I’ll be with her.” She knew what he had in mind and she wasn’t letting that happen.

  He snarled at her; there was no other description for it.

  Julia’s room was larger than hers and had a window. The bed was sunken, as if broken, but it looked as if it had an extra mattress. There was one chair in the room, laden down with clothes, and there was a smell of fake cheese, like Cheetos or Cheezels. She had a shelf of books: Roy’s books and a lot of true crime.

  Dora sat with her. The doctor said, “We’ll have to watch she doesn’t vomit. She’ll choke on it.”

  So they propped her on her side.

  Before long she started to talk. “Should I call Roy?” Dora said.

  “Fuck Roy. He doesn’t have to listen to everything. You stay with her, listen if you want. I’m going to bed. She’s not going to cark it tonight.”

  Julia made choking noises, raised her hands to her neck. “Can’t breathe, can’t breathe,” the voice said. Squatting on the bed beside Julia, then straddling her, was a young man. Handsome, almost, if something she could barely see could be handsome. He leant over Julia, pressed his lips to her ear.

  “You’d call it murderous rage, wouldn’t you? If it was one of us done it. If it’s him he says ‘justified.’ Me arse is still sore, I swear and as for me neck.”

  “Is it the captain?” Dora asked. “Where is he?”

  “Saved himself, didn’t he. That’s him. If I saw him now he’d be sorry. And his daughter.”

  His voice was bitter, vindictive, helpless.

  Then he said, “Tell my Linda Jane I love her.”

  “Why do you keep coming? Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

  “We were told to go up the hill. Make it up the hill, to the light on the hill, and everything will be all right.”

  They were still trying to make it up the hill, to the false lights Roy had hanging on the front veranda.

  She didn’t tell him his loved one was long dead.

  The ghost stretched his hands out, broken fingers bent sideways. He said, “It’s cold. This water. Wouldn’t my mum be proud, here I am staying afloat. Let her know. Look at me, Mum, I’m swimming. I’m one of those types now. Tell her not to look at my back but if she does tell her it wasn’t my fault, I really didn’t do the thing he said I did. Fifty lashes I took. You’d be proud, Mum, I took them like a man. I cried the other time, though, when he made me the lady. He said the dress was nice but it felt like wearing a dead woman's skin. We cursed him, that captain, to be at the end of his line.”

  He said, “Can I go now?”

  SIXTH DAY

  SUNDAY

  BREAKFAST

  Sleep was supposed to be restorative but Dora woke feeling worse. Exhausted, her throat sore as if she’s been talking all night.

  Her jaw ached from laughing the night before.

  She felt a deep sense of despair, as if in her dreams she lived out a different life, one even darker and sadder.

  Luke had left a note under her door so she went upstairs and knocked on his door. There was no answer.

  The burned woman’s door was open. It was always open. Peering in, Dora saw her skirt was raised up again, exposing her bush, her scarred legs. She was in a deep sleep, lips murmuring. Dora heard “Is there any parsley for the sauce? Cook sent me. Cook did. Cook’s long gone now. I know that, here’s me looking for parsley. I can’t see what’s next. I keep looking and looking but there’s nothing there.”

  Dora laughed.

  “Shh,” she heard and she spun to see Roy in the corner, crouched down, with a microphone in his hands. He put his fingers to his lips, but he whispered “You can play with yourself if you like. Some people can’t help it,” and she was ashamed to realize that she did feel aroused. That was more thinking about Luke, though.

  Not this.

  Not this woman talking in the voice of someone long dead
.

  “Who are you?” Dora asked her, but there was no answer.

  The woman stopped talking soon after and Roy nodded. He jerked his head to indicate they should leave. In the hallway he said, “You were a very good conduit last night.”

  This would account for her sore throat, and she felt a blank space in her head as if she’d had a big night and was suffering an alcohol blackout. Certainly she’d had enough to drink to make that possible.

  “Who was it?” she asked. “What did they say?”

  “A little girl. She mostly spoke about trying to find her mother, but there was mention of the captain, too. I need the captain. He’s the last bit of the puzzle. I need him to fill in the blanks. Finish the story. Your little girl said he had very pink skin so how would she know that? That’s what I want to know. She said he was pink like a little piggy.”

  Dora smelled salt, felt a warmth pass her by.

  “What happens to the ghosts once their secret is told? Can they leave?”

  Roy said, “Except no one’s story’s ever finished. It’s like his painting. It changes, is added to. The more we know, the more it changes. That’s why some of them keep coming back. Come on, now. Breakfast.”

  As they walked Dora thought, we should stop this. If I can stop Larry from raping Julia, I can stop this.

  •••

  The thing with this place was that no one missed breakfast no matter how they felt. Unless they were in deep sleep. Because for a lot of them it was the only meal for the day.

  So most of them were there. The room felt full, overfull, as if there were people there she couldn’t see. But they were there; hungover, feeling unwell, but it was more than that. They’d all slept, deep, deep sleeps.

  Larry was dressed in a suit. “He always wears it on Sundays,” Roy said. “Sometimes he even goes to church.”

  They could see the congregation gathering at the Anglican church across the road. They watched and laughed at the people arriving in their neat clothes with their stitched up lives.