‘Sounds nice,’ I said. I took up a gardening fork and began turning the soil.
‘Put your gloves on, Gilly,’ my mother said. She had hers on already. ‘You’ll get a callus.’
‘… and dirt under my nails,’ I finished for her. ‘I don’t care about dirt and calluses. And anyway, look.’ I held my hands out. The nails were bitten right down. The tips of my fingers had grown hard and insensitive, I’d been biting them for so long. The skin met the nails almost seamlessly so the soil only made the thinnest muddy line. It would dissolve with soap and water. It would not have to be scraped away.
My mother pressed her lips together. She hated me biting my nails. My fingers were long and thin. My hands were finely boned. They did not match the rest of me. By biting my nails I made them mine.
‘In any case,’ I added, ‘I like the feel of the dirt.’ It was cool and damp once I’d got my hands down into it.
‘Waste of money, those gloves,’ she said.
‘You can wear them,’ I said, ‘when you’ve worn yours out.’ I looked down at the dirt, so she wouldn’t see I was giving cheek. She’d had the same gloves since I was small. They were made of nubuck and she dusted them down carefully after each use. Then she’d hang them on a hook in the laundry. She didn’t use them enough to wear them out.
‘Here.’ She handed me a packet of seeds. ‘Put those in for me.’
I upturned the packet and let the seeds roll onto my palm.
‘One seed at a time, Gilly,’ my mother harped. ‘You’ll drop them.’ She spoke to me as though I was still a child. It was the heat. It made me sluggish. There was a strip of shade along the length of the garden but where my mother and I crouched was in full sun. It pressed at my neck through the straw of my hat.
‘You should wear a hat,’ I said to her. ‘You’ll burn.’
She threw me a look. ‘Don’t be silly. When have I ever worn a hat?’ She hated the ring of sweat it gave her beneath the band, and how it made a flat kink in her tidy cropped hair. ‘A bit of sun never hurt anyone.’
I had my dad’s fair skin and my mother believed if I let it burn at the beginning of the summer it would toughen it up, make it resistant to the sun. I had a picture of me as a baby and you could see I’d been left out too long. My skin was red and flaking across my cheeks and nose. Even now, I couldn’t bear the sting of the burn and how the layers of skin peeled off after all the other signs of the burn had vanished. It was a nasty trick. I always wore a hat and kept to the shade where there was any.
I pushed my finger into the dirt and dropped a seed in. My mother took the packet away from me and read it before she checked the depth of the insertion I’d made.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘All along the front there. At equal distances. I want a border, see? I’ll do the gerberas.’
She went to the end of the patch and reached over to the middle, working her way along and spacing the gerbera seeds with care. I tried to place the pansies neatly to match. I could sense her wanting something from me, the weight of it was there in the space between us, and I felt responsible. The ground was hard beneath my knees. There were seams of clay in the soil and without any rain they baked solid, squeezing the colour from the grass.
Pete came up the path then. He had on his work blues. The collar of his shirt was undone and there was a fine covering of grain dust on his boots and clinging to the hairs on his legs above his socks.
‘You’re back early, Pete,’ my mother said.
‘Late lunch,’ he replied. ‘Thought I’d come home for it.’ He caught my eye and I blushed.
‘I’ll make it for you,’ my mother said. ‘Give me a minute.’
‘Thanks.’
He sat down on the steps. I had to look away. I focused on the dirt, the holes I was making with my fingers.
‘Stop now, Gilly,’ my mother said. ‘That’s enough. Why don’t you put that camellia in?’
Leaning back, I brushed the dirt off my fingers. I could feel the colour rising in my face.
Pete rolled a cigarette. The Rizla crackled as he pressed tobacco into it. I breathed the rich waxy scent and began to loosen the dirt with a fork.
‘Can I make you one, Maureen?’ Pete asked.
‘No thanks,’ my mother said. ‘Not right now.’ She only liked tailor-mades.
‘Gilly? Can I roll you a smoke?’
I sat back on my heels. Pete was looking at me and I wondered what he saw. I had never smoked in front of my parents. I was not the sort of girl who did things to rebel. There had been the odd occasion to experiment before. Once when I was fourteen I attached myself to a group of girls at a school dance. They were in my year but I didn’t know them well. They were drinking a cocktail of vodka in fruit juice outside the hall. They didn’t seem to mind me being there. Someone passed me a cigarette and I dutifully put it to my lips and pulled the smoke into my mouth. It tasted bitter and I blew it out right away and thought how false I must appear. The drink was better, the fruit juice was sweet and the vodka had no taste. It made me feel warm and loose, helped me smile at the banter of the girls I was with. But later, when they wanted to go on to a party, I felt nervous. I thought my mother might worry if she was home on her own. Also, I was anxious that these girls might sober up and notice that I didn’t belong with them. Or worse, they might try too hard to include me. I would have to acknowledge my decision to be there and I knew it was a lie. I snuck away home without saying goodbye.
Pete was already loosening another Rizla, his lips were pressed into a smile and the way he leaned forward seemed to direct the moment towards me.
My mother said nothing. She’d not even stopped what she was doing and though I was taken aback at her indifference, I did not want to appear so.
I was not at school anymore, I reminded myself. I was free to earn my own money and make my own decisions. Perhaps this was what my mother was demonstrating, that I no longer belonged to her and my father in the way I had, that I was free to be a different sort of girl now.
I thought about the way Pete had come to us. How I had seen him by the river, and then found him in our house. About how my mother seemed soothed by his presence. I wondered what she wanted from him, and what she wanted for me.
I smiled up at Pete. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A smoke’d be nice.’
I brushed my hands together and got up. He shifted over so I could sit down, and rolled a cigarette for me. I sat on the step just below him, his legs stretched alongside me and I was aware of the fuzzy nearness of his skin.
‘Look at me,’ I said, turning my arm a little and examining my hands. ‘I’m covered in dust and soil.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Pete murmured. ‘You look nice.’ He lit his own cigarette with a match and held mine to its end, then handed it to me when it was aglow. I drew back the sharp thick smoke, pulled it right into my lungs. My head spun, my chest hurt in a not-unpleasant way. The sensation lifted my lips into a smile. There was a goldish stain where the cigarette rested between Pete’s fingers and I saw the soaked-in brown of his skin and the islands of paleness on the undersides of his arms. The nicotine made things appear far away and closely outlined at the same time. Pete shifted position. He leaned his forearms on his knees so that the sleeves of his shirt gaped, revealing the insides of his arms and the damp hair in his armpits. I smiled to myself. He did sweat after all.
My mother’s garden seemed distant now. She had pushed her geranium cuttings into the ground and moved up to dig in the camellia that I’d abandoned.
‘This’ll want a good drink when I get it in,’ she said. She smoothed the soil around the base of the plant and then looked up. I kept the rollie respectfully out of sight but she only pursed her lips softly and I thought she was seeing Pete and me as though we were in a frame.
‘I could attach the hose for you,’ Pete said.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘There’s a ban on the hose. At least until it rains again. I’ll use the grey water,’ she said. My mother had grown up in a
dry inland town. For most of her childhood she’d been able to walk along the sandy bottom of the riverbed behind her house. You had to buy water when your tank went dry. She always used our household water frugally. It was ingrained in her. When she’d washed the lunch dishes she would bring the old water out and pour it around the camellia. A bit of soap would do it no harm.
Pete stubbed his rollie out and rose.
‘Just another minute,’ my mother said, ‘and I’ll come and fix you some lunch.’
‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an hour today.’
When he was gone, she said, ‘You like Pete, don’t you?’ Her voice was thin and hesitant. ‘I think you enjoy him being here.’
‘He’s nice,’ I told her, pushing the end of my rollie into the dirt beside the camellia. I put my hand to my nose and breathed the loamy smell and the smoke that overlaid it.
‘I like having him around. I think he’ll be a good influence on your dad.’ She said the words directly, drawing me in to their meaning. Perspiration beaded her forehead and the front of her shirt was damp. ‘I’m glad you like him,’ she added.
I felt a little shaky. I could never have imagined reaching a place where my mother and I could both have what we wanted, but I wondered now if Pete might offer that possibility.
‘You’ll have to get changed,’ I said. ‘Look at the state of your shirt.’
‘We both will.’
‘You can go first in the bathroom,’ I said, ‘since you’ve got to make his lunch.’
‘Okay, Missy. Thanks.’ She surveyed the garden we had begun. ‘This will be lovely when it’s all up,’ she said. ‘A proper garden. We’ll make sure it works this time.’
eight
My dad came in at dinnertime. He’d been going out every day since Pete got his job at McGill’s. He said he was looking for work, even though we had Pete’s rent money now.
Mum was frying steaks. Pete was sitting at the kitchen table with a beer.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.
‘Bernie’s,’ Dad said. ‘He’s got us a job.’
‘Really?’ my mother said, doubt lacing her tone, because Bernie, my dad’s mate, had not held down any sort of job for a while. ‘Doing what?’
‘Painting. A house. A friend of Bernie’s aunt. She wants the exterior done. Showed us the quotes she had. We said we could do it cheaper for cash.’
‘Hmmm.’ My mother turned the meat. Fat spat and stuck to the wall above the stove. She would wipe it away with a soapy cloth before she served the steaks. She couldn’t bear the thought of the beads of it congealing there. ‘So you and Bernie will do it together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you reckon that’ll work out?’
‘Yeah. It’ll be good. It’s just the one job. But we might start something up together. There’s money in it. Unbelievable, those quotes she showed us. We’ll undercut them easy.’ He opened the fridge and peeled the top off a can, sucked at the cold beer. ‘Hot work, though. Is that dinner there? I’m hungry as hell.’
There was a loaf of uncut bread on the table and my dad tore at the end of it and washed it down with more of the beer.
Pete upturned the remains of his own can into his mouth and then leaned over and dropped the empty into the bin.
‘Want another one, Pete?’ my dad said.
‘Yeah, I will,’ Pete answered.
Dad opened it for him. ‘Ever had your own business?’ he asked, handing it to him. He dropped into the chair opposite Pete, rested his forearms on the table and leaned in. His pose seemed casual but there was something intimate about it too.
Pete sat back and shrugged. ‘I prefer to work for other people,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to take a job home at the end of the day. Leave that to someone else.’
Dad nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s one way of looking at it. But I’d rather be my own boss. You don’t seem the sort to be ordered about.’
Pete drank from his can and set it down again. ‘It’s not always that cut and dry though,’ he said.
‘No. I suppose not,’ Dad said quickly, and I saw how he wanted Pete to like him. How he didn’t want to offend him. ‘How’s it going at McGill’s?’ he asked.
‘Alright. Good money doing the stock. Better than the forklifts.’
‘They like you then? Must do if they’ve moved you off the forklifts.’
Pete shrugged. ‘Guess so. I do the job.’
‘I did the forklifts for a while,’ Dad said.
‘Did you?’
‘While ago now.’ He was trying to establish common ground. Trying to find something to offer Pete. Something he knew, that Pete might value. ‘Laurie Burns was foreman then. I couldn’t get on with him. I tried. Couldn’t get anywhere with them because of that.’ My dad fidgeted. I could still remember clearly when he got the sack from McGill’s. He never liked being told what to do.
‘It happens,’ Pete said, noncommittal.
My mother ran the hot water. She squeezed detergent onto a cloth and ran it under the tap. The water slapped against the bottom of the sink, loud and reassuring, and my dad went quiet. She pushed the cloth against the wall and rubbed it furiously back and forth. The fat thinned and spread out in a creamy fan.
‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Now it’s gone everywhere.’ She ran the hot water again and rinsed out the cloth and after she rubbed it over the wall a second time the fat dissolved and the smear disappeared.
She put our meals out then. The steaks, chips that she’d cut and corn that she’d got fresh on the cob from Charlie’s Market. She shook salt onto the greasy surface of my dad’s steak and dropped a knob of butter onto the corn. Then she did the same with Pete’s.
My dad pulled his plate close in. For a while he ate in silence. Then he said to Pete, ‘He’s not there anymore, is he? Laurie Burns?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Pete said. ‘Haven’t heard of him.’
‘Yeah. You’ll be fine, then.’ I heard the note of false authority in his tone. In the space between my mother and me was an undercurrent: the silent tug of the things we both knew. My dad still maintained that a refrigerated van would have saved his fruit-selling business.
‘But you know, if it doesn’t work out, you might want to consider a bit of painting with us.’
Pete shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
My dad grinned. ‘Yeah, brilliant.’ He sat back and lay his fork down, picked up a chip with his fingers. ‘This is excellent, Maur,’ he said.
My mother smiled. ‘Did you see the garden, Creighton?’ she asked. ‘I planted a flowerbed today.’
‘Yeah, where?’
‘Out the front.’
‘That what it is?’ my dad asked. ‘Just looked like a square of dirt to me,’ he said, glancing at Pete.
‘Creighton,’ my mother chided. ‘You’ll see. It’s going to be beautiful,’ she promised.
nine
It’s late morning when I wake. I sense the emptiness of the room before my eyes are properly open. The blinds are closed and the darkness is strange with the day outlined so brightly around the sides of the curtains. My breath rushes out of me and along the dull surfaces, the blank hard edges of the room. The shape of Pete is still there beside me, a soft channel of creases in the bedding and I shift myself into it for comfort. He must have left early, the sheets are cool. His bags are still in the corner of the room and he’s put the chair beside the bed and sat an orange and some crackers on it. The crackers are stale but I eat them, dwelling on his simple gesture. I peel the orange carefully and separate it into pieces, like a mandarin. The smell of it stays on my hands after I wash them, sharp and oily and reassuring. But I still lift Pete’s bags to check they’re not empty. Then I laugh out loud at myself. The sound rattles about the hollow room. Out the window cars hurl past to an irregular beat.
I think of the woman by the pool yesterday. Would she ever wake in an empty room? And how long would it take to learn to wait patiently, confidently, as she
does, for someone to return?
I choose a soft loose dress to wear, with no waist to remind me of my wrong body. He won’t be bored of me, I say to the quiet room, putting my hand on my hip and pushing the other through my hair and trying to sound as though I believe it. I say it again, aiming for more conviction, for a sassy and easy tone, like she had. He won’t be bored of me, I can tell you that. And my husband is a red-blooded male, you can take it from me. But my voice is thin, the words are fake and even beneath the shapeless cotton my breasts, prickly and hard and hot, betray me.
Easing myself back into bed I lie against the pillows, half sitting, half lying. But as I shift my legs to find a comfortable position, a memory opens up from somewhere unexpected. It’s not a vision, but rather something remembered inside my body, like a shape that I have momentarily reinhabited. I recall myself in this same position, my legs drawn up, my body bearing down, and with the subsidence of that surging pain, a shaking that began and made my legs heave about as if I were running. Hold her legs, keep her still, someone shouted. They were at the other end of me looking in, and I remember how I thought that if they could see inside me they would know everything. They put a mask on my face and I breathed quickly and deeply. I felt the bubble of a laugh escape, but it was just air and the sound inside it seemed to belong to someone else. I tore the mask away. Look at me, I hissed. I’m running already. I put it back on my face, sucking at the antiseptic air and then I cried out because the pain was on me again. Someone put a cloth on my forehead and another voice, a woman, said, She doesn’t mean it, they all say things like that. But she wasn’t speaking to me, and I had made up my mind by then anyway.
I sit up again, hastily, to shake free of the memory. My mouth is watering and my hands are clammy. Through the window that overlooks the pool someone has sat down in the deck chairs: the suntanned woman from yesterday. Today her hair is twisted and clasped so that bits fall loose at the front and flick back from her face. Her sandals are bright pink with kitten heels. The car park is empty. The doors to all the rooms are closed and it makes me sad to see her all dressed up with no-one to appreciate the trouble she’s gone to. Without even thinking I grab my bag, throw in sunscreen and a hat, feeling a delirious rush of relief because she’s there and it feels dangerous to be alone. I just want to pretend to be friends with her for a while.
Desert Fish Page 5
