Desert Fish

by Cherise Saywell

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘You tell her I said that you are not to be sent outside. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her voice grew softer now. ‘And Gilly?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She looked past me, through the window. ‘You should say it when your daddy is in the room with you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She sat on my bed then and took my hands in hers. ‘Your daddy, Gilly, the things he does … it’s not always what it seems,’ she said. ‘Love knows where it belongs,’ she added. ‘Love knows when it’s at home. Do you understand, Gilly?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Well, I think I do.’

  ‘What I mean is, he never really goes away,’ she continued. ‘I only have to say and he’ll come back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I only have to say.’

  She let go of my hands and I waited until she had gone before I lay down.

  Later I heard her in her room and I thought she might have been weeping.

  Now I thought of what she had said to me in front of the flowerbed. I can’t make you do anything. She wanted to know what had happened with Pete. She wanted me to confide in her as though we were sisters so she could tell me what to do. But I didn’t want to share it.

  ‘Let’s just keep it between ourselves for now,’ Pete had said. We were standing in the cool dark hallway just a couple of weeks ago, soon after that night at the river.

  My mother was in the kitchen and I sensed his wariness.

  ‘Okay?’ I breathed, but I stepped towards him and put my hand on his chest. He took it away, smiling gently as he did so. I was happy that there was something that existed only between us. I loved the secrecy.

  Since that night at the river, whenever my mother and father were out of the house I went into his room. If he’d been at work he’d shower and walk in from the bathroom wearing only his shorts. There’d be water sprinkled across his back where he hadn’t towelled himself dry. He didn’t wear deodorant. He showered every morning before work, and again when he came in, quick efficient showers. In the hall, I listened to the water running over him and slapping onto the bottom of the bath. The brush moving over his teeth. Once, when I couldn’t bear not to, I stood and pressed myself against his skin and put my face to his shoulder, breathing him in, the soap and steam and beneath that, the damp spicy smell of his skin. He waited a moment then stepped away from me, rubbing the towel over the back of his neck. ‘Give it some time, Gilly,’ he said.

  So instead of touching him, I sat in the chair where he had been and soaked up the warmth of him. In my room at night, I listened for the rustle of garments being shed and the dull low creak of the bed when he lay down on it. I waited. For weeks after our night at the river, whenever I moved I thought I could feel inside me where he had been. I rubbed at my knees, where the imprint of the sand had marked me, as if the texture, the very map that the grains had made, was somehow still there, beneath the skin.

  Love knows where it belongs. The words were in my head all the time. Love knows when it’s at home.

  But surely, I thought, sometimes Love might come and find you. It might crouch on a rock and see you treading water there, behind the reeds. It might sit on the dusty front step and smile down at you. It might catch up with you on a warm night.

  I carried the key from the tin in my pocket wherever I went.

  During those weeks after the party Lexie didn’t stop by at all. Nothing much was said about this, and all talk of the painting business went quiet too. I thought that maybe my dad had realised his error in both things and was letting things lie. Or perhaps he’d just lost interest.

  But one night at dinner, forking the corn my mother had warmed from a tin, he asked, ‘Where’s your mate?’ There was steak and kidney too, cooked in a sauce and spooned over mash.

  ‘Lexie?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been to the pharmacy.’

  ‘She hasn’t been over?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wonder what’s got into her?’

  Pete shifted in his chair.

  ‘Probably met someone,’ my dad said. ‘Ah well, Pete, there goes your chance. For now.’

  Pete laughed.

  My dad laughed too. ‘She’ll be back.’

  My mother leaned over and put her hand on mine. ‘She’s Gilly’s friend, Creighton. Watch how you talk.’ She gave me a soft smile.

  I pulled my hand away. ‘Nothing’s wrong. She’s probably just busy.’

  My dad snorted.

  I didn’t feel hungry. The sauce on my plate had congealed. I pushed it away.

  ‘How’s your house-painting getting on?’ Pete asked my dad.

  ‘Slow,’ he replied. ‘For now. Bernie’s taking a while to get back to me. He said he’d get us a truck. Made up my leaflets though,’ he said. ‘Gilly’ll take ’em around for me, won’t you, Gilly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Okay.’ I picked up my knife and pushed it into the food on my plate, even though it made me feel ill. I pressed bits of corn into the mash, cut away pieces of the hardened sauce.

  My dad adjusted himself in his chair and stretched his legs out beneath the table.

  ‘Say, Pete,’ he said. ‘If Bernie’s gone slack on me, are you still interested?’

  Pete sighed. ‘I haven’t changed my mind, Creighton,’ he said.

  ‘But, I mean, there’ll be fewer of us to spread the cash around,’ my dad insisted.

  ‘But there isn’t any cash yet, is there?’ Pete put his knife and fork down. His voice had the tone a weary parent might have, speaking to a child. I had always sensed the distance he kept between himself and my parents, but it was carefully managed. They were drawn to him, each in their own way. And even while he kept himself separate, he never pushed them away. But his distance had a different quality now. He was irritated, and I sensed a barrier that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Look, Creighton,’ Pete said. ‘If I ask you about your business, it doesn’t mean I want in. I’m just asking. If I want in, I’ll tell you. How about that? We’ll assume I’m happy with where I’m at unless I tell you otherwise.’

  My dad shrugged. He wasn’t going to be offended. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. But I knew he’d soon forget about what Pete had said. He’d ask again.

  A sudden panic rose in me. Pete had said we needed time. If my dad kept on at him he’d go as quickly and unexpectedly as he’d arrived. What had happened between us was real but I knew I was not yet a reason to keep him here.

  I thought of Lexie then, and I wanted to see her. If I could undo what had happened, if I could make it into something else, then things might be okay, everything else might come good too. Lexie would like it if I asked her advice, I thought. She would like it if I confided in her. She might know what to do.

  I picked up my plate and carried it to the sink.

  ‘Not hungry?’ my mum said.

  ‘Not really.’ I tried to smile. ‘I might have something later.’

  There were fifty leaflets, written in my father’s awkward capitals with a crude picture of a paintbrush on one side. My mother had stencilled them on the Rhoneo in the municipal library. The smell of the ink still hung thick about them. I put them straight into my bag so Pete wouldn’t see them.

  I could feel the heat of the paving stones through my sandals. I made my way along four streets without depositing a single one. I had not yet decided what to do.

  When I got to the main street Lexie was standing outside Alderson’s Pharmacy, smoking.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Just out,’ I said. ‘Are you allowed to do that?’ I pointed at the cigarette.

  ‘I’m on my break,’ she said. ‘And I’m outside the shop, so I can do what I like.’ She fiddled with her hair and stared across the street as if I wasn’t there.

&n
bsp; I looked at the ground. In my sandals, my toes were shaded with dust. You could see the grimy outline that I’d sweated into the soles.

  ‘How are things with your dad’s business?’ Lexie asked. She looked at me very deliberately as she said it, drawing back on her cigarette.

  ‘Fine, I s’pose,’ I said. ‘Why are you so interested?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Lexie said. ‘Calm down. I was only asking.’ She knew something I didn’t and she was pleased with herself. I decided to ignore this. I thought I might put things right if I could manage it.

  ‘You haven’t been around,’ I said. ‘I wondered what you’d been up to?’

  ‘Not much point. I don’t fancy Pete anymore,’ Lexie said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ I said, forgetting to be hurt or insulted, because I was so relieved. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why is it good?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ I heard my voice fade away. I stepped closer. ‘Give me that,’ I said, taking Lexie’s ciggie and sucking on it.

  She watched me. ‘What’s with you?’

  ‘Lexie, something happened. With me and Pete.’

  She snorted. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘No, it did. So I’m glad you don’t like him. Because I really like him.’

  Lexie rested an elbow in the palm of her other hand. Her cigarette jutted into the air. She crossed one foot in front of the other in a sculpted sort of pose and I felt a little intimidated.

  ‘What happened, then?’ she asked.

  I paused and wondered how to say it. ‘Everything,’ I whispered, blushing furiously.

  ‘Really. At your house?’

  ‘No. At the river.’

  ‘The river.’

  ‘The night of the party,’ I said. ‘After you went.’ I looked down and concentrated on the grey dust and the walked-in pats of old chewing gum dotting the concrete. ‘But Lexie,’ I said. ‘I wondered. It only happened once and nothing since. And I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You want him to do it to you again?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, quietly.

  Lexie flicked some cigarette ash at the ground. ‘Well, geez, Gilly. I’m not your love coach.’

  ‘I was only asking. Because I thought you might know.’

  ‘Why would I know?’

  ‘Because you’ve had … boyfriends, you know … experience.’ I looked at my sandals.

  ‘Experience.’ She snorted. ‘The way you see things, Gilly, sometimes I wonder.’ She folded her arms now and squinted to look into my face. The sun was in her eyes but she must have wanted me to feel the full force of her meaning. ‘It’s the sort of thing I’d expect your dad to say,’ she said.

  I stared down at my feet. When I could look at her again I saw that Lexie was smiling to herself. ‘Bernie came in here,’ she said. ‘After your party.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yeah. He looked pretty pleased to see me. He’s nice, isn’t he?’

  I shrugged. ‘He’s alright.’

  ‘He asked me out.’

  ‘Are you going to go?’

  ‘I already did. And he’s asked me again. He’s dead funny, isn’t he?’

  ‘You reckon?’ I tried not to sound surprised.

  ‘Yeah. And he knows how to behave. If you know what I mean?’

  I turned around when Lexie said that, so that the sun would be in my eyes too. I said nothing for a moment. I let the light blind me and then put a hand to my brow to screen it. When I turned back to Lexie everything was a little hazy like I wanted. I had a feel of what was coming and I wanted to soften the moment and make it less real.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘are you going to tell me if your dad’s doing his painting business, then?’

  ‘S’pose he is.’

  ‘Not with Bernie though.’

  ‘Dunno. Bernie’s not been around.’

  Lexie smirked. ‘Is Pete still thinking of joining in?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Lexie dropped her cigarette butt to the ground and covered it with her sandal.

  ‘Why do you want to know anyway?’ I didn’t mean it to sound aggressive but that was how it came out.

  ‘I reckon he’s a bit of a creep, eh Gilly, your dad? Trying to feel me up all the time.’ Lexie folded her arms and I knew I had to meet her eye. ‘Is he like that with all the girls?’ she said. ‘Bernie says he is.’

  Shame crept in a bright warm blush from my neck and into my face.

  She continued. ‘And your mother, fawning over him all the time as if nothing’s going on. It makes me sick. She treats me like some sort of low-life, sticks her nose up at my clothes all the time and not a word to your dad about his sleazy carry-on.’

  I had to say something because I couldn’t bear her having this moment at my expense. It wasn’t fair.

  I backed away from her and the words peeled away as if they’d been mine in the first place. ‘It’s because you’re a tease,’ I said. My voice was hard, my tone was deliberate and I knew Lexie would be no friend of mine now. ‘You’re a tease,’ I repeated. ‘Pete reckons you are. And I think he’s right.’

  I turned then, and I ran. I ran for four blocks until I was too hot to go any further. My underarms were slippery and crescents of damp ringed the sides of my top. My fingers were swollen. I walked along the length of Lennox Avenue that did not have a single tree to shade me, but only a path of parched yellow grass, until I reached our town’s only industrial estate. There was a shed at the end of the block, clad in corrugated iron. JW Albright, its sign said. Painting and Decorating, Interiors and Exteriors.

  I was never going to be able to put things right now, and I was tired of being carried along with it all – my dad and his whims and my mum doing nothing about it.

  I didn’t go inside Albright’s. I stood at the mailbox and pushed a leaflet inside, being careful not to burn my fingers on the bright metal lid. One would have been enough, but I let another go and I was sure I felt a weight lift as I did so. Then the door opened and a man in overalls came out. He walked towards the mailbox, lifting his arm in what might have been a gesture of greeting, or he might have been shooing me away. I didn’t wait to find out. I dropped the rest of my father’s leaflets into the letterbox and darted away before he could call out.

  I went home the way I had come, and all the way I felt like I was made of something flimsy and complicated, knotted around pockets of air.

  seventeen

  The feeling did not last. When I got home I felt ill in my stomach. I decided to stay outdoors until I had absorbed my lie and could face my parents without giving myself away.

  I walked the perimeter of our yard. Despite my mother’s efforts, her cottage garden was struggling. The sun squeezed living things from the soil like splinters from flesh. The marigold was dying. The tops of its roots were exposed where the soil had cracked with thirst. Now the plant perched at an angle, desolate.

  In the backyard the grass under the mango tree was patchy and colourless, blending with the dirt. But even away from the tree where there was nothing else to compete for the goodness in the soil, the lawn did not thrive. At the back near the fence was a wooden plinth with my mother’s rain gauge on it, and at the bottom of that were the faint traces of minerals, the crystals forming a rough pattern where the last beads of moisture had been drawn away by the sun.

  I flopped down near the mango tree and dropped my face into my hands.

  I stayed there in the grainy shade for nearly an hour. I watched my mother carry a tub of dishwater out the back door and around to her cottage garden. When she brought it back empty a moment later, she stopped and looked my way. I’d curled up and now lay on my side in the dirt beneath the tree. I heard her put the tub down and then she was there beside me.

  ‘What are you doing, Gilly?’

  I didn’t answer her.

  ‘What on earth are you doing? He’ll be home any minute.’ She whispe
red but anger and urgency made her words too loud for discretion. ‘Don’t let him see you like this. Gilly?’ She prodded me. ‘Oh, Gilly! Don’t be such an idiot.’ She prodded me again but I made myself go floppy. ‘God, I can’t bear to watch this.’ She left me and I heard the screen door bang shut behind her.

  When I knew she was gone I opened my eyes and shifted my feet and watched the small puffs of dust rise around them.

  By the time Pete came outside I’d sat up.

  ‘What’s the matter, Gilly?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Is it me?’

  ‘No. Did my mother say something to you?’

  ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘No.’

  He sat down. ‘Is it something I’ve done, Gilly?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’ I thought of the empty weeks since I’d lain with him by the river and I wondered how I should say it. ‘Maybe it’s something you haven’t done.’

  He swallowed. The muscles of his throat tightened, and when they relaxed I saw the faint pulsing, the movement of the things inside that I could not reach. ‘Gilly,’ he said, ‘I don’t know if it’s such a good idea.’

  ‘If what’s such a good idea?’

  Gently he put his hand on mine. ‘I can’t let it happen again, Gilly. Not under your parents’ roof.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, but in my head I was only hearing, Not under your parents’ roof.

  ‘I hope you can understand, Gilly.’

  ‘I just saw Lexie, you know.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘She told me something that was true.’

  ‘Gilly, I don’t want to hurt you.’

  I lay back. A rosella landed noisily on the waratah bush across the fence in Mrs Delaney’s garden. ‘Listen to that racket,’ I said.

  Three more birds joined it.

  Pete turned and watched them clinging to the flowers. ‘I used to work on farms,’ he said, ‘where birds like that came in clouds to the trees beside the fields.’

  I watched his mouth forming the words. I remembered the feel of his lips moving over mine.

  ‘After the hailstorms,’ he continued, ‘you could pick up birds, cockatoos and cockatiels. They got knocked out by the ice. It was as if stones had been thrown at them. You wouldn’t think a bit of water could knock out a bird like that.’