Dead in the Water

by Tania Chandler

  She hesitated, looked at Ella again. ‘Coffee shop couple of doors down.’

  He nodded. Ella ran over and cuddled Brigitte’s leg. Matt smiled and handed her a Dr Seuss bookmark.

  Brigitte paid for Dead in the Water, and the new Mem Fox book for Ella, with cash so Aidan wouldn’t see the transaction on their credit-card statement. She looked over her shoulder as they left. Matt was smiling and nodding at a woman who appeared to be telling him some long-winded story, her arms waving about in the air. He glanced across, caught Brigitte’s gaze, and she bumped into a blond guy coming through the door. She dropped her book; the blond guy picked it up and apologised even though it was her fault.

  4

  The coffee shop was done out in red and black and tin. It was lit with unflattering fluorescent — the kind of lighting that made you look jaundiced. Brigitte smoothed the skin beneath her eyes with her middle fingers, as if that might rub away the fine lines, the years.

  She sipped her skinny flat white; her hand shook, and the cup rattled as she placed it in the milky spill on the saucer.

  Ella looked up from Good Night, Sleep Tight — babycino moustache on her top lip. Brigitte smiled, and then lowered her head when she saw Kumiko rush past the café towards the bookshop.

  ‘That man in the bookshop from your work?’

  Brigitte blinked.

  ‘Can I have a cookie?’ Ella had a sly look on her little face. ‘With smarties on top.’ She turned her dark, inquiring eyes — Aidan’s eyes — back to her book, and Brigitte went up to the counter to buy a cookie.

  They sat in silence for an unusually long time — maybe a whole minute. Brigitte heard the wall-clock ticking as the song on the sound system faded out. When that bloody Gotye track — ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ — started, she picked up her bag and stood. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘It’s meant to be a Mummy-and-Ella day, so I think we might go. I don’t really need to see that man.’

  ‘Won’t he be cross?’

  ‘No.’

  Ella whined about not finishing her babycino. Brigitte took her hand firmly, in a hurry now. She turned in the doorway and saw herself in the mirror at the back of the café. A mother, old, boring. The dark patches under her eyes were visible from there — she’d tossed and turned all night, weighing up whether or not to come. She corrected her posture, and smoothed her skirt; it was too short for somebody her age. What the fuck was she thinking?

  Gotye launched into the annoying chorus. She looked at their half-empty cups — Harmony lipstick mark on hers — abandoned on the red-lacquered table. Would they still be there when Matt walked in?

  The primary-coloured shade sails cast triangular shadows on the playground sand. Brigitte sat at the picnic table staring, from behind her sunglasses, at Lake Victoria beyond the retaining wall. Buoys bobbed on the green-grey chop; a fishing boat rocked in the distance.

  She rubbed at the goosebumps on her arms as she remembered the first time Matt had kissed her. God, almost twenty years ago. They’re drinking at Young and Jackson’s, around the corner from his work. It has been raining but the sun is out now, and a rainbow shimmers over Flinders Street Station.

  She has to leave for some reason. She stumbles off the bar stool and stands on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but he turns his face so it’s on his lips. She couldn’t remember what that kiss felt like, but she remembered the red-and-gold carpet, the heat from his body, the smell of — what was it on his skin? Spice? Citrus? — cinnamon and bergamot. Trams rattle past, and across the street, above the shop next to the station, a red neon sign blinks: City Hatters. That shop was still there — she’d driven past it the last time she was in the city.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy.’

  She blinked and looked across at Ella sitting on the swing, feet dangling, sun glinting golden streaks on her long dark hair.

  ‘Can you please push me?’

  She smiled, rubbed her face — rubbed away her thoughts — and walked towards Ella. She hurt her arm as she swung around the fireman’s pole on the way. Hard to believe she once did that eight hours a night for a living.

  ***

  The weather had deteriorated; it was grey and drizzling when they reached The Esplanade on the way home after school pick-up. A police car was blocking the road. Constable Brandon Williams was directing traffic to detour around Wellington Street. Brigitte stopped the X-Trail, wound down her window, and asked him what had happened.

  ‘An incident in the water near the Bateau House restaurant.’

  She caught Brandon’s glance at the kids in the back and didn’t ask what kind of incident. Her stomach turned like a giant slug.

  Brandon read her thoughts. ‘Aidan’s down there.’

  She took the detour, parked in the ferry waiting-bay beside the road, and told the kids to stay where they were. Finn stepped out to follow her. She yelled at him to get back in the car as she walked in the direction of the blue-and-white weatherboard restaurant.

  The uniformed officer at the Victoria Street end was dealing with a group of youths, arguing about entering the street. He didn’t notice Brigitte slip past the roadblock, buttoning her cream trench coat, drizzle in her face.

  She pulled her hood on and hugged herself as she watched from the embankment a scene, similar to the one described in Matt’s book blurb, unfolding below. The waterfront had been cordoned off with police tape from the Bateau House to the ferry shelter. Forensic crime-scene officers were taking photos and notes. Bag-and-taggers, Aidan called them. There were a few plainclothes guys that Brigitte didn’t recognise. Melbourne Homicide? One waded in the shallow water; his suit trousers rolled up above his knees. Aidan stood on the wharf, jacket off, hi-vis vest on, shirt sleeves pushed up. He was saying something to the wading guy. The wading guy tripped, fell forward to his knees, splashed in the water, swore.

  Brigitte put her hands over her mouth and sucked in her breath as a team of police divers lifted a body onto the wharf near the post to which an orange lifebuoy was attached. The sign above the lifebuoy said: Lifebuoy is for saving lives. She looked away as they placed the body in a bag. The ferry’s flashing red light reflected on the Bateau House’s glass doors.

  ‘Stand back!’ The new detective, Senior Constable Carla Flanagan, strode over. Brigitte had no intention of going any closer. Flanagan — tall, late twenties, pretty with curly blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail — ducked under the tape, gripped Brigitte’s shoulder, and used physical force to bustle her back. Flanagan looked as though she trained hard at the gym and could break your arm with little effort.

  Aidan saw and walked up to the edge of the tape. Flanagan took a step back. Aidan nodded and told Brigitte it was OK; deep, calm voice. There were raindrops on his long eyelashes. ‘Go home. No — go to Harry’s.’

  She wanted to know what was going on, what had happened, did they know who was in the water, but she nodded, her legs shaking, the back of her throat tight.

  ‘Be there as soon as I can,’ Aidan said. His top button was hanging by its last thread.

  There was a sandwich board outside the ferry shelter: IMPORTANT. YOU MUST BE AT THE NEXT COUNCIL MEETING TO VOTE AGAINST THE NEW FERRY FEES.

  Brigitte drove on and parked at the front of lane three. The ‘new bloke’ was operating the ferry. He was wearing red sunglasses in the rain. He pushed the reddish-brown hair off his face and rested freckled hands on her window frame. She recognised him from the gym: fortyish, big muscles, spent a lot of time looking in the mirrors.

  ‘Fisherman spotted the body in the water just after lunchtime,’ he said.

  Brigitte tilted her head towards the kids.

  He grinned at them. ‘Good day at school, guys?’

  Brigitte hadn’t seen him around school, but he looked like one of the sporty dads who coached the soccer team, chaired the parents’ association, and helped out in the canteen in h
is spare time.

  He lowered his voice and turned back to her. ‘Been crazy with coppers all afternoon.’ His eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses, but his downturned smile was reassuring. ‘I’m Jeremy Williams.’ He held out a hand to her.

  She returned his smile, and lifted her right hand off the steering wheel. It was cold and clammy like a fish, but Jeremy shook it with just the right amount of firmness. ‘Not related to Brandon?’

  ‘Nah. Williams is the third most common surname in Australia.’

  ‘Brigitte Serra.’

  A group of Japanese tourists in bright raincoats stepped out from the passenger saloon and called to Jeremy. Funny how the narrow, enclosed shelter on the south side was called a ‘saloon’. No Wyatt Earp, whisky, or wild-west cowboys.

  Jeremy scratched his neck as he turned and strode across to the tourists, glancing back over his shoulder. Blue jeans a tad too short, red Doc Martens. In the rear-view mirror, his image appeared distorted — the top half of his body smaller than the bottom — as he pointed at the crime scene, telling the tourists, with animated arms, the story he must have told a hundred times already that afternoon.

  She saw in her peripheral vision that the strait was very choppy. Don’t look at the water, don’t look at the water. If you don’t see it, it’s not there. She looked instead up at the red flashing light on the Raymond Island end of the ferry, indicating its direction of travel.

  A crackled message from the Coast Guard came over the radio in the control stand. Breathe. She did the wrong kind of breathing — gulped deep breaths, but couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. The houses and eucalypt trees on the island receded to outlines. She clamped her hands on the wheel and closed her eyes as Jeremy climbed the steel stairs, two at a time.

  5

  ‘Last one,’ Harry said as he opened a third bottle of wine. ‘Have to go across to the pub and get some more.’

  Brigitte looked at the bakelite clock on the wall: midnight. ‘Can’t.’ She tilted her head towards the cranking sound. ‘That’s the last ferry.’

  ‘Wish they’d build a Dan Murphy on the island.’

  ‘Even a shop’d be good.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the charm of the place.’

  ‘Charm!’ She snorted. ‘Maybe somebody’ll build a bridge if the council put up the ferry fees.’

  Harry laughed. ‘Not unless they wanna be lynched.’

  The ferry groaned and wailed as it made its final dock for the night. ‘Hope Aid’s on it.’

  Aidan walked into Harry’s kitchen ten minutes later. The button had fallen off his shirt. ‘Where’re the kids?’

  Brigitte tilted her head towards the lounge room where they were sleeping, TV still going with the sound down.

  ‘Drink?’ Harry held up the wine bottle.

  ‘Got any whisky?’ Aidan slumped in the vinyl chair next to Brigitte’s and blew the hair off his forehead.

  Brigitte hugged him; he smelled of sweat and the remnants of citrus cologne. She felt the hard muscles of his back through his shirt.

  Harry staggered, knocked his hip on the corner of the laminex table, steadied himself, and went to get a drink. Aidan untangled himself from Brigitte’s arms and gently pushed her away.

  ‘Don’t s’pose it ever gets easier.’ Harry handed Aidan a tumbler of whisky.

  ‘Seen worse, mate,’ Aidan said, and downed his drink in one swig.

  ‘Not a local?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Has to be formally identified, but doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Woman?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Brigitte looked down; Aidan was jiggling his leg unconsciously. She put a hand on his knee and the jiggling stopped.

  ‘Been there long?’

  ‘Pathologist reckons since yesterday.’

  ‘What happens to her — to the body — now?’

  Brigitte didn’t want to hear any more; she glanced at the clock again: 12.25. Harry poured Aidan another drink.

  ‘Funeral home arranges transport to forensics in Melbourne.’

  ‘For a post-mortem?’

  Shut up, Harry. She held Aidan’s hand.

  ‘Yeah.’ Aidan pulled his hand away and sipped his drink.

  ‘Daddy!’ Ella stumbled in, hugging her Mem Fox book and rubbing sleep from her eyes. Aidan smiled half a tired smile, and lifted Ella onto his lap. ‘Mummy buyed me a book today.’

  He looked at her book.

  Brigitte held her breath when she saw the Lakes Books sticker on the back cover.

  6

  I’m not a very good swimmer, she said as she undressed in a dream, lacy white underwear glowing silver in the moonlight. She sat on the first jetty and dangled her feet in the water.

  If you love me, you’ll come in, Matt said. He pulled at her legs and she told him to stop. He didn’t stop. She kicked him, too hard, split his lip. He touched a hand to his mouth and came away with blood.

  He grabbed at her legs again; she slipped and splashed into his arms. Royal-blue eyes. She tasted blood in his kiss, leaned back and looked at the sky. There were two moons, side by side, spinning. She pulled at his shorts, wanted him, needed him. Ached for him. Ached as you can only ache in a dream — for the lost or the dead or for something that can never be. He pushed her hands away and told her they had to swim to the other side first.

  He dived under. But didn’t come up. She rolled her body around in the water and couldn’t tell which was the island and which was the mainland. She felt something touch her leg. A log or something floating in the water. Where was he? Matt! She twisted to kick the floating thing away. Her head went under. She came up coughing and called him again.

  She heard a splash. It sounded like he was swimming back. But it was too late — she was drowning.

  I came back for you, he said. The floating thing was beside him. It wasn’t a log. It was a corpse: flesh like a plucked chicken’s, dusky-pink and cyanotic. Red light on glass. Lifebuoy is for saving lives. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. And she couldn’t make her body swim. Couldn’t move at all — as if her limbs were filled with cement, paralysed. Salty water rushed into her mouth, her nose, down her throat, burnt her lungs.

  Somebody was crying, whimpering. She pushed up through the blackness, the bubbles, towards the sounds of sorrow, gulping the air at the surface.

  She opened her eyes. Above her heartbeat, she could still hear the whimpering. She pushed down the doona and rolled over.

  ‘Aid.’ She touched his shoulder; it was damp, sweaty. He was curled in a foetal position, his body twitching through his own nightmare. ‘Aidan.’ She shook him gently. She thought — had hoped — his bad dreams were over; he hadn’t had one since they’d moved to the island six months ago. She folded her arms around him, patted his back the way she’d done to soothe the kids when they were babies. ‘Shh, it’s OK. Just a dream.’

  As the tension started to leave his muscles, she held him tighter, lips to his salty eyelids, his mouth. More kisses, deeper, tongues together. She felt his erection against her thigh, took it in her hand, milked it gently.

  ‘I’m too tired, Brig.’

  She pushed him onto his back and climbed on top, held his hands, kissed them, sucked his fingers. A low moan resonated deep in her throat as she slid all the way down. She closed her eyes and saw the start of her dream, remembered the ache. No. She forced the thought under and opened her eyes. As they adjusted to the dark, she watched Aidan’s face — mouth open slightly — as she rocked her hips slowly.

  The timber bedhead beat time against the wall as she moved faster, curled her toes, tensed her muscles. Almost. Almost. She felt him go soft and pull out.

  She sighed and slumped forward, ear to his chest, heard his heartbeat.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. It sounded as though his voice was coming from somewhere other t
han his throat, echoing in a cave.

  She ran her fingers through his chest hair. Their skin was glued together with sweat, and made a suction sound as he rolled from underneath.

  The first birds were starting up. Brigitte had thought it would be peaceful on the island, but sometimes the birds drove her crazy. They didn’t just twitter: they squawked and screeched and warbled and laughed. Cockatoos, magpies, kookaburras, and whatever those multicoloured birds were called.

  Aidan whispered, ‘Brig, what’s your greatest fear?’

  She thought for a moment. There were a few. Hospitals. Death. The alternative — growing old. All equally weighted fears. But it was the water, drowning. She couldn’t tell him that, because he’d want to know why. He thought she just didn’t like the slimy algae in the lakes down here.

  ‘Don’t really have one,’ she lied. She started to feel her hangover, thirsty, and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table. ‘Do you?’ She took a long drink.

  ‘No.’

  She didn’t believe him. He’d brought back dark things from the shooting at Laurie Hunt’s. He’d gone in all swagger and bravado, and come out with his life — just — and something else that never left him. She’d seen glimpses of it in his eyes, but it always slithered away before she could catch its tail.

  ‘The woman in the water,’ he whispered. ‘I …’

  ‘What?’ She replaced the glass.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Tell me, Aid.’

  ‘Nothing. Sorry.’ He turned his back to her.

  She reached out to touch him. It was ever so slight, but she felt it, saw it in the half-dark — a flinch. Her eyes prickled.

  She rolled onto her back, traced a hand down her body, over the scars on her chest, her stomach. Some parts were numb: she could touch but not feel.

  The smoke detector started to beep for a new battery — it took her a while to realise it wasn’t one of the birds. Aidan swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.