At home, my best friend was called Lexie. We had known each other only a little when we were at school, but since we’d both left early we spent a lot more time together. She’d come over with a magazine and we’d flick through it together. Or she’d bring something she’d bought, a dress or some make-up, for me to approve of. I called her my best friend because we saw each other regularly. But it was not a close friendship. Lexie was bold and had strong opinions. She liked to talk and I was flattered that she considered me a companion. Even when I was at school I’d had no real friends who called on me. I did not form friendships like other girls. My school report cards had said this. Gilly is a pleasant girl but does not make friends easily. Gilly is not without ability but lacks social confidence. And once, optimistically, Gilly is a thoughtful girl who enjoys spending time on her own.
Lexie worked on the till at Alderson’s Pharmacy. She knew how to forge her own contraceptive pill prescriptions. Since she wasn’t quite sixteen when she began doing this, she told them at the pharmacy that her doctor had prescribed it for her acne, and true, her spots cleared right up. Her breasts swelled too and she’d had three boyfriends in quick succession. Lexie’s legs were long and skinny and she walked on the insides of her feet so her knees looked as if they were going to knock against each other. She compensated for this by swaying her hips and keeping her thighs close together. It got her a lot of attention.
After Pete started working at McGill’s she came over to get a closer look at him.
‘Your dad told me you got someone into that room,’ she said. ‘And I saw him at McGill’s.’ Lexie had come straight from work. She’d taken off her rubber-soled lace-ups and pushed her feet into a pair of flip-flops. We were eating potato chip sandwiches, even though it was thirty-five degrees. Lexie ate like a cat. She leaned over her sandwich and gritted her teeth to grind it, as if it was meat. She took tiny bites and didn’t sit back until after she’d swallowed.
‘Why are you so interested?’ I asked. ‘I thought you were taken.’ She’d been going out with a boy called Mick Flaherty who worked at the drive-through liquor store.
‘Might be,’ she said. ‘But Mick hasn’t made it official.’ She leaned her head to the side and looked at me. ‘Do you like him?’
‘Who? Mick?’
‘No, idiot. Your lodger. Pete.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘He’s older than us.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Well, I just don’t think of him that way.’
‘Calm down, Gilly,’ Lexie said, in her quiet superior voice. ‘You’re giving yourself away.’
I blushed, even though I was annoyed.
She bent over her sandwich and lifted the top slice of bread, picking chips out and eating them. ‘Had enough of the bread now,’ she said. ‘Got any more chips?’ Lexie never worried about manners. It didn’t make her uncomfortable to have people run around after her.
‘No.’
She licked the salt off her fingers.
‘Never mind.’ Reaching over, she removed a lipstick from her bag. ‘Look at this.’ She wound a coral pink colour out of the tube and applied it without a mirror. I could see grains of salt from the chips beneath the colour. ‘It’s a tester,’ she said. ‘I’m allowed to have them when the new ones come in.’ She pressed her lips together and then pouted to spread the colour. ‘Is it even?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where’s your dad then?’ She sat forward and jiggled her breasts into place inside her shirt.
‘Here.’ Dad stepped in out of the dark hallway and I felt a prickling sensation across the back of my neck, wondering how long he’d been standing there.
‘Hey, Cray,’ Lexie said. That was what she called him. She’d been stopping by for a while now, and she and my father were increasingly on familiar terms.
‘How’s my little lady?’ Dad asked.
‘Good. I’m always good.’ Lexie gave my dad a wink. I thought it looked awkward, as though she was trying too hard to act older than she was. I twisted in my chair and looked at my feet.
Dad didn’t notice. ‘What’ve you been up to then, girlie?’
‘Working,’ Lexie said. ‘Unlike some.’ She got up off the floor, sat on the sofa and crossed one bare leg over the other. Her flip-flop fell off and she wriggled her toes.
‘Life’s too short,’ Dad said. ‘That’s why we’ve got Pete in. Paying our way.’
‘Yeah, I heard,’ Lexie smiled.
‘And anyway, I am working as of next week,’ my dad said. ‘Going to start up a little business. Make some serious cash. Will you go out with me then, Lex?’
She laughed.
‘Or have you got your eye on Pete? He’s alright, Pete. I’ll bet he’d like the look of you.’
Lexie smiled, pleased.
Dad walked through to the kitchen and I heard the fridge open. He brought his can back and sat down beside her, snapped it open.
‘Here, give us a swig,’ she said, snatching the can.
‘You’re under-age,’ Dad replied, but he didn’t take it from her. He waited until she gave it back, her lips wet with beer. He took a drink then and I noticed the transfer of coral pink from the can to his lower lip.
She smiled at it. ‘You’ve got my lipstick on you.’ She reached to wipe it away but my dad caught her wrist.
‘Leave it there,’ he said, stroking her forearm with his thumb before he let go.
She slapped his hand away but I could tell she didn’t mind. She hadn’t come to see me. Not this time. She’d come to be entertained. To check out Pete. To flirt with my dad. To be flattered.
She stood up. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘Fun’s fun, but I’ve got to go.’
‘You don’t want to finish this with me?’ Dad said, holding up the can.
‘Maybe next time,’ Lexie teased. ‘I’m going out tonight.’
‘Hot date?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ She poked her foot back into the flip-flop.
Dad smiled.
‘See you later,’ she said to me. ‘Come in and see me at work if you like.’
‘Okay.’
The back door banged shut and she was gone.
There was silence for a moment, apart from the creak of the sofa as Dad leaned back into it, and the sound he made drinking from the can.
‘She’s growing up nice, that Lexie,’ Dad said. He wouldn’t look at me when he said it, so I guess he knew what he was doing. He wanted to keep on sharing his thoughts with me. ‘She’s quite a woman now, isn’t she?’
‘I s’pose,’ I huffed. I got up and moved to the chair on the other side of the room. I felt him watching me. I was not a young girl anymore. I had breasts and hips and I guess he looked at me in a different way now. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing. My legs were not long like Lexie’s, and although my skin was smooth, I was fleshy and pale. I couldn’t work out if he measured me in the same way he did her.
I deposited myself in the chair and then folded my arms.
‘You should wipe your lip,’ I said.
‘Spoilsport,’ he replied, including me again in that way that I hated. But he dragged his thumb across his mouth and cleaned it on his shorts. Then he licked the can where the rest of Lexie’s colour was smeared, upturned it and finished his drink.
Beside the pool the light lies in solid yellow blocks. The sun is high; the heat is the still, breathless kind. I can tell straightaway that the suntanned woman is nothing like Lexie. For a start, she meets my eye as she greets me, not looking beyond to see if there’s anyone more interesting to chat to. ‘Hi,’ she says as I approach the deckchairs. ‘Glad you’re still here. Thought I’d be on my own today.’ Her lashes are thick with mascara. She smiles into my face and then says, ‘I hoped you’d come out. I brought my kit with me.’
She turns and opens a round pink case. It has a quilted lining, packed with manicure instruments and bottles of nail varnish. As she organises her things I notice that
even the back of her neck is brown. She selects two bottles of nail polish and places them on the slatted table. Then she takes some varnish remover and a bag of cotton wool balls. She orders them, putting the remover at the front, the bottles behind, taking a handful of cotton wool balls from their wrapping and sitting them to the side. Everything about her seems measured and arranged in a way that stirs caution in me. My wrong body, my temporary shape and my uncertain story will be transparent to someone so precise. But when she has finished sorting out her cosmetics she reaches for her case again and takes a chocolate bar, putting it at the back of the table, behind all of the other things. Chomp, it says, in fat crass letters, red with an exclamation mark. It’s out of place beside the varnish. It doesn’t belong with feathery blonde hair and a cultivated tan and the way she has placed it neatly behind everything else makes me laugh out loud.
‘What’s funny?’ she asks.
‘Oh, it’s just that.’ I point at the chocolate. ‘It looks kind of, I don’t know, odd, with all the other things. And everything so neat, too.’
She laughs with me. ‘I love them,’ she says. ‘Trev brings them for me.’ Leaning forward, she looks into my face. ‘What a funny thing to notice. It’s like you know me already.’
I really want to be her friend when she says that. Something opens up inside me and I know I ought to go back to my room. ‘Not much to do indoors,’ I comment.
‘No. You don’t get much duller than a motel room, I can tell you that from experience. Not when you’re on your own.’ She sits in the chair next to mine. ‘How long are you here?’
‘Just a day or two more, I think. It depends on my husband.’ I love the way that sounds. My husband.
‘Oh. We’ll be around for a week or so,’ she says. ‘I wish I could drive. I’d spend a day in the city, shopping. That’d take the edge off being stuck here.’ She gets up and moves her deckchair so the awning’s not covering her legs. Then she lies back again and pushes her sunglasses up on her head. ‘There. I’m working on my legs today,’ she says. ‘They’ll be out the most when I get home so I want to get a good tan on them.’ She runs her fingers lightly over the side of her thigh. ‘Where are you going from here?’ she asks.
A blush creeps up from my neck. ‘You know, I’ve forgotten the name of the place. But it’s in the desert. My husband’s got a job there.’
‘It’ll be one of the mines up north,’ she says. ‘Trev knows all of the mines. Or maybe it’s a station?’
‘It’s a station, I think.’ I bite at my forefinger nail. Even light conversation is hard work, giving my lies legs to walk on, filling in the gaps and covering my tracks as I go. ‘You know, I don’t know your name.’ I sit up and lean over to her.
‘Oh.’ She puts out her hand. ‘Janice,’ she says.
‘Missy,’ I say, without hesitating. I point to the pale bottle of varnish. ‘That’s a nice colour.’
‘Pink Chiffon,’ she says. ‘And this one’s Cherry Viola.’
I laugh. ‘Don’t they have silly names?’ It reminds me of Lexie, with her testers of lipstick in coral and pink and plum, but I push her out of my head, not wanting thoughts of her to poison my enjoyment of this new friend.
‘Glamour is a very serious business,’ Janice says. ‘Why don’t I paint your nails?’
‘Oh, but look.’ I hold up one hand, the nails still bitten close to the quick. ‘I never paint them. I can’t stop biting them.’
‘A lick of varnish might help,’ Janice says. ‘The colour will remind you to keep them away from your mouth.’
‘Maybe, but … It’s just … I don’t have any remover.’
‘I’ll do a pale colour. The Chiffon. Try it for a day. And if you don’t like it, I’ll take it off tomorrow. You’ll still be here tomorrow, won’t you?’ She smiles, encouraging. ‘Go on. Treat yourself.’ She’s unscrewing the lid, and holding the brush up, examining the colour. I like her tone, her light laugh and the way she can make talk out of nothing. ‘I’ll pamper you a little,’ she adds. ‘It’s so nice to have some company. It’ll be fun.’
‘Oh, okay,’ I agree, pleased. I sit forward carefully so as not to show how sore I am and I lay my hands flat on the table. ‘Like this?’ I ask.
‘Perfect,’ she says, and stroking the colour on to my forefinger she murmurs, ‘Look, that’s just lovely.’
While the first coat dries Janice lies back, stretching her legs out and turning her arms over. It’s strange, the sensation of something coating my fingernails. My instinct is to wipe it away. The nails themselves feel porous, as though the paint is soaking through to the skin. But I want to try being like her, breezy and light, with that wash-and-wear sort of honesty. She has nothing to hide. She can unpack her bag onto the table and reveal herself to a stranger like a friend. She can paint her nails and talk about her life as easily as the weather. I fight the urge to press at the wet nails, to clench my fingers into a fist and rub everything clean with a tissue.
‘Do you do this when you’re at home?’ I ask. ‘Paint your nails and sunbathe?’
Janice turns towards me, sleepy-eyed with sun.
‘Oh yes. Trev thinks I look like a doll when I’m all made up. I used to be a nurse, you know. Before I met him. We had to wear a uniform. A hat. Proper shoes. No nail varnish. We weren’t supposed to wear make-up either but you could get away with a bit of lippy.’ She leans back and rubs her toes together so her calf muscles grow taut. ‘It was like being in school again.’ Lying her arms flat on the arms of the deckchair, she turns them so that the insides of her wrists will colour. ‘Do you travel with your husband?’ she asks.
‘This is the first time we’ve been away together.’
‘Really?’
I hesitate but then the words run away from me. ‘He went away once before, but I had to wait with his sister.’
‘What’s she like?’ Janice asks.
‘She’s nice enough,’ I say.
‘Really?’ Janice drags out this word dramatically and gives me a low look from under her lashes.
‘Well … I’d rather have been with him.’
‘Naturally.’ She smiles. ‘So why didn’t you insist?’
I swallow. I can’t think of what to say, but she’s very kind, Janice. I can tell. She fills the silence before it grows awkward. ‘Not all of these places have decent married quarters. When Trev worked in the mines he used to go on ahead and make sure he could get us a decent place, though they were all pretty nasty. Still, I didn’t care, so long as I was with him.’
‘I think I’m like you, I want to travel with him. Honestly, when he was gone I thought of him every day. I missed him so much I couldn’t sleep some nights.’
‘Oh, pet,’ she says, the endearment making me flush with pleasure.
I hold my hand up and look at the pink glistening with the sun on it. How easy it is, talking this way. ‘Actually, I didn’t like his sister all that much.’
‘I could tell straightaway,’ Janice says. ‘You sounded very uncertain. That would have been horrible, being newly married and then marooned with someone you didn’t really like. You must have missed your husband. Is she much older than you, his sister?’
I look into her face, carefully. It is open and curious, not critical.
‘Just that your husband looked a bit older than you,’ she adds. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I just wondered.’
‘Yeah, she is a bit older than me. Older than him, too. And not very friendly.’
Janice is sympathetic. ‘You poor thing,’ she says. ‘How did you meet your husband?’
I don’t even hesitate now. I tell myself this story all the time and I’ve never had a chance to tell anyone else. ‘I saw him by a river,’ I say. ‘I was swimming and I saw him there on the bank. I’d never seen him before and I could tell he was from out of town and I just knew he was the one.’
Janice smiles. ‘So young,’ she murmurs, ‘to know that.’ But she doesn’t disapprove. She’s so different from Lexie.
She takes my hands and examines the varnish. ‘Let’s put another coat on.’ She dips the brush delicately and draws it over the first layer of colour, from the base to the rough ends of my nails. ‘Look, they’re so much nicer like that. It’ll encourage you not to bite them. Just think how pretty your hands would look if your nails could grow a bit. Your husband would love it.’
‘Yes,’ I say. I imagine Pete taking my hands and kissing the glimmery tips of them. Noticing the smooth ends that I’ve grown out and filed neatly. ‘You’re right. I’ll have to try.’
While the second coat dries, Janice cools herself in the pool. She takes a great deal of care with this – lowering herself into the shallow end and turning slowly. My mother was the same in the water. She didn’t like her head to go under, even in the pool. It’s dark with your eyes shut, and blurry with them open. Ugh.
But I don’t want to think about my mother. I don’t want to think of her or Lexie because they will ruin the picture I am making of Janice and me as friends. Real friends. With me phoning her when Pete is at work and I’m bored at home. And Pete and I stopping off to visit her and Trev whenever we travel back through to the city. I try to imagine her house.
‘The water’s lovely,’ Janice calls to me. ‘Perfect temperature.’ Crouching, she allows it to reach her chest. Then she stands with her arms held across her breasts. Carefully, carefully, she glides from one end of the pool and back. Her head bobs above its surface, chin jutting upwards. The water moves around her, but she doesn’t allow it to reach her neck or her hair. Beneath the surface her form undulates, her outline shifting but unbroken.
Desert Fish Page 6
