by Joy Dettman
Tried and failed.
Pretend he is Matt, she thought, and her hand traced his face. Big. Fleshy. She reached for Matt’s thick black hair, but found Ross’s spikes. Bristly. And she sighed. He deserved better than playing surrogate for another man anyway, so she gave up and returned to her mathematical equation.
Fifty weeks in a year, so say I average sex out at four nights a week. That’s 200, and if I say ten years? That’s easy. Two thousand?
‘It can’t be,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Nothing. That’s what she was feeling. Nothing. Her mind wandered away from the bed, wandered off to the schoolroom.
‘Criminal negligence,’ one of her teachers had said when she told him she was leaving school to work at the supermarket. She could have gone on at school. She’d been as good as Deb at maths – which wasn’t saying much, but she’d always had a thing about numbers. Always could hold figures on her mental whiteboard, do additions in her head. Should have stayed at school. Should have done a lot of things. Not done a few.
And he was done with her body and she was free to move away from him physically. He didn’t know she hadn’t been with him mentally.
‘It’s been a while, eh love,’ he said.
‘A while.’ Dishonest bitch.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he said, on his back beside her, her hand held captive on his chest.
‘That it must be at least 2010 times.’
‘What?’
‘Sex. Us.’
‘Christ! I’m a marathon man,’ he said.
The Casino
October 1999
Lights and noise all around him. People everywhere, like a river of humanity, and he was being washed along by the current, just flowing, his eyes searching. And fate was kind, because he sighted her beside a roulette table. Edging in, he watched the short blond bob, waited for her to turn and face him.
And she did. But she was the wrong one. Same hair, different face.
Too big, this place, too easy to lose yourself, and anyone else. He shouldn’t have been here, but he’d followed her from her office half an hour ago, kept his eye on her for a while, then he’d turned, just to glance at one of the blackjack tables, and when he’d looked back, she’d gone.
The roulette wheel spun, and he made a mental bet with himself. Thirteen. The ball was going to land on thirteen.
It didn’t. And there was a winner up one end who was pleased it didn’t. He took his chips and left. Smart man. Walter watched an old Asian bloke place his bets, or damn near scatter them, damn near cover the table with his chips. Too much money, he had to get rid of it fast. That sort of disrespect for the green stuff tightened Walter’s lungs.
He drew a breath and coughed, wondering how the bloke running the table knew which chip belonged to who. The wheel blurred, then slowed, and the ball landed on seven. Everybody lost. Not one chip sitting on seven so no-one needed to know who owned what chip. The house got the lot and a loser moved away. Walter took his place against the table, his eyes avid as the chips were tossed around again – even after the wheel started to turn they were adding chips.
Just a little wheel. He’d remembered them as being bigger.
‘No more bets,’ the young bloke behind the table said, looking at Walter.
‘Just browsing,’ Walter replied.
Thirteen was going to come up this time and he knew it. Should have put something on it. He hunched his shoulders, trying to ease the itch in the middle of his back; his right hand reached over, couldn’t reach low enough. His left hand had a go, under his jacket, and up. Couldn’t reach high enough. Scratch it like a cow against a post, that’s what he needed to do. No cow posts in this place.
‘Black.’ Someone was betting on black.
Black and red. Maybe that was the way to play this game. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and carefully wiped his hands as again his eyes followed the spin. The young bloke was looking at him now, wanting him to play or stop taking up the space, but it was a free country, supposedly, and thirteen was going to come up this time.
It didn’t. Which just went to prove the odds against winning in this place.
He should have been at his hotel packing, doing what he was told like a good boy. He’d been down here for a week this time, and when he’d called home last night his eldest boy had told him to get on the bus and get his arse back home. Only one problem with that; he wasn’t ready to face that bus. If they ever found out how he was financing his week in Melbourne, Lord help him.
‘Oh,’ he said. Thirteen had paid up. If he’d put twenty dollars on it, he would have been raking in the chips now – trouble was, he’d been thinking thirteen for a while, so if he’d followed his hunch, he would have lost his money before he won it, so to speak.
He stepped back. The odds were too great. It was like backing a horse in a big field; too many to choose from. But if you bet black or red, surely you’d have the same chance as you had with two-up. Heads or tails. He’d played a bit of two-up in his time. Turned twenty pounds into five hundred one night, just tossing the pennies and letting his money ride. Elaine had given him the rounds of the kitchen when he’d got home, but she hadn’t refused the ring he’d bought her with part of his win. Must have been a good diamond in it too, because he’d sold it last week for six hundred dollars, and hired himself a nice little car for two days. Still had almost a hundred in his wallet. He could afford to play with twenty of it, couldn’t he? Poor Elaine – she’d roll over in her grave.
He licked his lips as the Asian handed over a wad of hundred-dollar notes. They disappeared down a slit in the table, like lettuce going down a waste disposal. The Asian got a pile of chips in exchange and Walter stood on, taking up space as that pile went the same way as the last lot, reclaimed by the house.
Money to burn. Money to waste. If he’d had a bit more of it, life might have turned out different. His eyes on the blur of the wheel, his mind wandered away to the little one he’d followed from her Collins Street office. Stalking, they called it these days – an old habit, a bad habit, one of his many, and it had given him the nose of a bloodhound and the tenacity of a bulldog. He coughed, a chesty grumble, and he drew back from that thought, forcing his mind to vanilla slices in Dubbo. Yes. Get on that bus in the morning and get your arse back home before you get yourself into trouble.
A step back, a step closer to vanilla slices.
Then he saw her. She was still with the big, buxom one in red. Red and black. Opposing personalities, he thought, staring at the petite figure. Black slacks, tight black top, clean blond hair swinging – a little girl all dressed up in her mother’s high heels.
The angels made little girls –
The song whispering in his mind, he watched her wander into the crowd again, disappearing once more, his heart now beating like a tom-tom.
Black and red. Red and black.
Slowly he turned back to the table, in time to see the Asian hand over another bunch of lettuce. One gulp and it went down the sink.
‘What’s your minimum bet?’ Walter asked the young bloke in charge of the waste disposal.
‘Five dollars.’
‘Highway robbery,’ Walter said, grudgingly handing over a twenty. ‘Put it on black?’
Some you win and some you lose, and what the hell did it matter when the world wouldn’t give you what you wanted and tomorrow you had to sit on a bus for twenty-four hours? What did it matter?
He watched the young bloke place his chips down. All four of them. Gone. Not much you could buy with twenty dollars anyway. He’d go back to Richmond, pack up his room and get his arse back home. He sure as hell wasn’t doing anyone any good down here – his youngest boy had refused to see him today. I won’t be coming back in a hurry either, he thought.
Little ball twirling, around and around; it was making him dizzy. He sighed in a breath and wheezed it out, his eyes not leaving the wheel. He watched it b
lur, lose all colour, watched the colours re-emerge, watched the ball dance and land on a number, but the number was . . . no, never mind.
‘Black.’
‘Lordy, Lordy, Lordy me,’ he whispered, his pink tongue licking, his hands dripping, saturating the handkerchief. He took another from his trouser pocket and grasped it tight.
‘Leave them on black,’ he said. That was the way he used to play two-up. All or nothing. These days he was into all or nothing, and usually got the latter.
‘Black.’
‘Let them ride,’ he said.
His chips rode well for a few spins, until the old Asian bloke decided to play black, and he wasn’t having any luck tonight, and bad luck was catching. Walter moved his plastic to red.
He was hot, and in more ways than one. His soul was on fire and his lungs were burning, but his back wasn’t itching any more. Old Satan had his hand up his singlet, scratching it with his red-hot fingernails. ‘Red.’
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Walter said.
An hour passed or a day. He couldn’t breathe. No air left in the world. All soaked up by the crowd surging around him. He wanted to get out, breathe. Couldn’t. Couldn’t relax either; had to keep one step ahead of that Asian.
It was mounting up now, but he couldn’t look on it as money. It was just a pile of plastic, bought with his twenty dollars. That was the only way to look on your winnings when you gambled. Start trying to count it up, turn it into dollars, and it hurt too much when you lost it.
‘Place your bets.’
His hands dripped salt tears onto the table, a neon sign in his head started flashing seventeen, and he didn’t know why, except that seventeen had been a very good year. It was the year before his old mother had died, and the year before he’d met Elaine; he wouldn’t give twopence for his eighteenth year. But at seventeen – he’d gone to the Melbourne Cup and put two pound on Rimfire’s nose. And won.
He pushed a minor mountain onto seventeen and noticed that his hands were shaking. His mind wasn’t too steady either. If seventeen won, and he’d held back half of his chips, it would be losing. He’d kick himself for not putting the lot down, wouldn’t he? He pushed a few more onto seventeen, and he sweated.
‘Seventeen.’
He was the legendary Walter J O’Leary. He was the king and he wasn’t getting on that bloody bus in the morning. He was never getting on that bus again. He pushed a pile to black, got them on just as the young bloke said, ‘No more bets.’
And the old Asian bloke didn’t.
Black.
‘Lordy, Lordy, Lordy me,’ he said. ‘My little girl luck.’
The angels made little girls, from rosebuds and from fairy floss and dreams.
Green Clay
Matt came to the flat, his tie off, his shirtsleeves rolled up, and Sally loved him anew, loved the shape of his arms, and his shoulders. Loved him. Mondays and Wednesdays were their days, and she lived for them, and each week that passed they grew closer. So much to learn about each other.
She’d made Chinese noodles with oyster sauce. Ross liked it. Matt didn’t. He wasn’t into eating.
‘You don’t like my cooking?’ she said.
He lifted a long noodle to his lips, sucking it up like a kid. ‘Worms,’ he said. ‘I’d prefer to eat Sally De Rooze.’ He pushed the plate away and kneeled before her, his fingers walking her calf, her knee, her thigh. Creeping higher.
‘Well, I like noodles, and I want to eat. Sit down and tell me about yourself. How long have you been working on the fourth floor?’
‘Floor. Did you say floor, Sall?’
‘Talk sense for a minute, Matt. There’s more to life than sex.’ Or was there?
Her feet captured beneath his arms, his mouth crept. ‘Still want to eat noodles, Sall? Still want to talk?’ Beautiful, laughing Matt. Beautiful, laughing eyes.
‘Yes.’ They were both laughing; he’d won her pantihose and he swung them overhead, aimed them at the sink. ‘Have you got an uncle, an aunty? How old is your grandfather?’
But he was pushing the plates back, lifting her to the table, trapping her there. Fast breathing now. Words hard to make now.
‘You are my family, Sall. You’re my mother, feed me. You’re my sister, play with me.’ Heat meeting heat, burning. The tiny table, rocking, sighing. ‘What am I to you, Sall? Tell me. Tell me, Sall. Talk to me now, Sall.’
Plates falling. Forks rattling to the floor.
‘God,’ she said. ‘God. You are my god and I’m your slave girl.’
She stepped on the scales before she went to bed that night, a mug of coffee in her hand. And the scales lied. Forty-two kilograms? She stepped off, placing her mug on the vanity unit, then she checked her weight again. Forty-two kilograms. Almost.
There was not enough of her to go around. Too many people taking too many bites of an undergrown apple. Too many demands to still. Ratsus demanded, and Mummy waited, and Matt fed. God, how he fed on her.
‘I have to eat,’ she told her reflection.
On Wednesday she left work early and hit a supermarket, bought butter, cheese, sour cream and potatoes, bought vegemite instead of plastic peanut butter, bought two frozen meals and two pieces of scotch fillet. By six the steak was bleeding onto a plate and the frying pan was waiting, the potatoes, boiled in their jackets, keeping warm in the oven. She set the table, then stood at the window, watching for the blue station wagon.
As it pulled into the kerb, she placed the steaks in the hot pan and opened her door.
‘A tough day, kiddo,’ he said and he kissed her, his hands beneath her sweater, cool on warm flesh. ‘Make love to me.’
‘There’s seven dollars’ worth of steak almost ready. We are going to eat it.’
‘Is that so?’
He didn’t care about money. He took what he wanted, the way that he wanted it, doing what he would with her forty-two kilos. The table on Monday, on Wednesday the fridge was good enough. Her back against its door, the steaks burning in the pan, the smoke alarm began beeping while he hammered her into the fridge.
She was a throbbing sex machine, he the pounding motor. Her shoulder bag fell on her head, then to the floor, spilling its contents.
‘Say you love me, Sall. Say it. Say it.’
And gasping. ‘Love you. Love you.’ Screaming. ‘Love you.’
‘All day I thought of you, of this place. Don’t ever spoil what we’ve got, Sall.’
‘I live for you.’
Fast. Furious. And finished.
Matt silenced the smoke detector with the broom handle, then he laughed at the burned steaks. They’d been plump, though. She sawed the charred sides away, and they were fine, but he asked for a sharper knife. She told him she had a thing about sharp knives, that when she was fourteen she’d thrown away every sharp knife in the house.
He didn’t ask why, but he told her he preferred his steak rare.
‘And whose fault is it that they’re not rare?’
‘Not mine,’ he said, and they laughed, and she almost choked on lettuce, laughing at his antics as he played chain saw with the knife on burnt steak.
‘Brrrooooom,’ he said. ‘Brrrooo – um – brrrum.’
Too much laughter, her stomach cramped with it, and her back ached with it, or from its contact with the handle of the fridge.
‘I’m going to be a bridesmaid on Sunday,’ she said later. ‘My girlfriend, Deb, is getting married.’
‘Lakeside?’
‘She’s been sleeping with Greg since she was sixteen. Never used a contraceptive because her mother owns the town pharmacy. They’re over the moon about the baby, though. I’ve never wanted kids. Maybe when I’m old. I can see Deb as a mother but not me.’ She did most of the talking. He rarely offered information – not even his phone number, but that was her fault. She’d babbled on one night about hating telephones and the voices on telephones.
‘I’ll make certain that you never hate me, then, Sall,’ he’d said, and he’d ref
used to give her his number. They’d laughed that night, but the joke had grown stale.
She spread butter on a crusty roll and bit into it. ‘I thought I was going to be late tonight. I got stuck in the supermarket and I couldn’t contact you. Give me your mobile number, Matt? I promise I won’t ever hate your voice.’
His hand reached out, brushed her face, her throat. ‘We don’t need telephones. We’ve got mental telepathy.’
‘I’m serious, Matt.’
He took her hand, kissed it, and she claimed his hand, opening it, studying his palm, his lifeline. He’d told her his family was into longevity, that he lived in Hallam. She’d built a mental image of his home, his parents, and his ninety-year-old grandfather, his sister Chari, and she wanted to meet them.
‘Does your grandfather live with you?’
‘He’s in a nursing home in Daylesford, Sall.’ He reclaimed his hand and chain-sawed off a piece of steak, chewed. ‘Voooooom. Brum-brum, Brrrru –’
‘That’s a long way for your parents to drive. Why Daylesford?’
‘They live there too.’
‘You said Hallam.’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Did not.’
‘So where do you live?’
He was slow to reply. ‘In Hallam,’ he said, then he looked at her uncomprehending face and he shook his head, took her face between his hands and kissed her. ‘I’ve got a wife, Sall.’
Blood roared in her ears. She barely heard his next words. She was staring at his mouth. She watched it making words she could not hear, her own mouth open, her head denying, refusing to believe, but knowing it was true. When he left her at night he drove home to his wife in Hallam.
‘Why do you think I leave you at night, leave this at night?’ His hands were spread, palms up. ‘I should have told you before, but you must have known, kiddo.’
Should have known. Didn’t know. But where did she think he was going? Home at 10.30 to his mother, to sleep in a narrow childhood bed?
