A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists

by Jane Rawson

  So she didn’t take the footbridge. She started walking along the river, heading south-west. The slick, green slide of the Maribyrnong, punctured every now and again by a popping jellyfish against the surface, cormorants still hanging their wings out to dry on rotting jetty posts, rabbits skittering in the weeds under the road bridge.

  Half an hour of walking and the path faded out by the old cotton mill, her way blocked by tumbled fencing and rusted out shipping containers. She headed away from the river, towards where the park used to be. The south sides of buildings were soot blackened, windows cracked or smashed out, boarded up, progressively blacker and blacker until, around where the Commercial Hotel once was, everything was crumpled burned brick and weatherboard, piles of broken buildings. Flattened.

  Was there really any point looking? What would there be to see? Just more of this, only worse. Why would she want to see that?

  What else was she going to do? Go live in fake San Francisco? It was more than two years and this was the closest she’d been. She should at least go look.

  Two years, and no one had even bothered clearing the road. They’d just written it all off, this part of town, assumed everyone was dead or would fend for themselves. Which they had – anything useful and moveable had been scrounged and sold, or used to rebuild. But that still left an awful lot of stuff to pick her way over and around.

  There was a crater where the tanks had been and – she skirted round the edge of it, looking for signs of her street – where her house had been. A crater. That’s what there was there. Not even the burned-out shell of her home. She’d picked a bit of gum blossom on her way along the river, trying not to think too hard about what she was doing, and now she threw it into the oily sludge that oozed in the bottom of the hole.

  ‘There you go, Harry. I brought you flowers.’

  She’d been thinking about living in her ruined house. She’d had some idea in her head, hadn’t she, that she could just stay there and perhaps slowly die. No one would notice. She’d be in her home, with her Harry. She could forget all this crap, all this looking for somewhere to sleep, for something to drink and eat, a way to make some money, a place to get out of the sun, a wash. Just forget it. Lie here till some mutant fox or feral cat came and ate her face. That’s what she’d hoped for. And she couldn’t even do that.

  Fucking oil company.

  At the edge of the crater she sat and stared up at the corpse of the Westgate Bridge, its pylons dangerously crumbled by the explosion, the mouth of the river choked up with chunks of fallen concrete and rusting cars. They’d blocked the bridge off afterwards, talked about repairing it, but no one had gotten around to doing anything about it. No one much wanted to come to the west anymore anyway. Still, the bridge looked good, the setting sun pulling silver gleams from its slumped suspension wires, casting the whole thing soft orange. It was almost pretty.

  She needed a place to sleep. She couldn’t sleep here, no matter how much she wanted to, so she pulled her bag back onto her shoulders and headed down towards Stony Creek. She walked west until the black took on a thin green and red sheen, the eucalypts sprouting regrowth and a trickle of water down the creek bed. It didn’t feel safe: any people camped here would have to be insane and desperate, and there were the foxes of course. But considering she’d been planning to die half an hour ago, it would probably do. She found a small copse of trees where she’d be relatively hidden, took her bottle of water and an oat bar from her pack and lay on the ground to watch the stars come out. Down here, by the creek, not so many camps around, and the sky looked almost dark. She could swear she saw three separate stars. Three. Knowing that was about as good as it was going to get, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  She had expected to dream of Harry; maybe the fire, but hopefully something nostalgic like the two of them on the front step, drinking beer from the same longneck, watching the sun set over the bridge. Instead she dreamed of people pulling themselves from the oily crater, their shadows stuck in the slick mud, shadows tangled around their feet and pulling them back down into the ooze. She stood on the edge of the crater, distributing scissors, and as the people cut themselves free she collected their shadows and boxed them up. Somewhere behind her, Ray was writing numbers on each box with a thick pen, stopping every few minutes to make out with the girl with the pillbox hat. The people kept coming and she couldn’t find any more scissors. The people kept coming and their shadows were dragging them down.

  When she woke, her face was still intact. There was a hot wind coming from the north and she could smell bushfires on it, the sun burning red through the first traces of smoke. She rolled onto her stomach, dislodging a cluster of flies, and looked at the poking struts of blackened building, nudging up over the horizon. The shadows were still clogging her thoughts. Was Harry somewhere in Suspended Imaginums? What had happened to his shadow, to Skerrick’s shadow? He probably hadn’t left one. Everything was too black for shadows. She rested her head on her forearms for a minute, allowed herself seven tears. When they were done, she sat up, shook her head and wiped her hands across her face.

  ‘OK Caroline. What are you going to do?’

  Farren. She should get Ray to rustle up Farren. Seriously, that was the way to go. She needed some steady cash. Maybe he’d set her up in an apartment with water, take her out for dinner a few times a week. Maybe they could stay at The Grand again. She took a drink from her water bottle, pulled on her pack and started walking back towards the city, trying to beat the heat and the thickening smoke.

  ALL OF SPACE HAD GOT CAUGHT IN OUR KITCHEN

  By the time Caddy got back to Lanh’s, the smoke was making her eyes water and her nose run.

  ‘Some guy came by for you.’ Lanh pushed his cap back and put the bookmark in his four-fifths-read book.

  ‘Some guy?’

  ‘Older guy.’

  ‘Older?’

  ‘Yeah, older.’ He pulled his cap back down, then changed his mind and pushed it back up. ‘Customer?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is he a customer of yours?’

  ‘Lanh!’ she fidgeted a bit. ‘Well, yeah! Probably! I mean …’

  He cut her off. ‘Don’t worry about it. I mean, sorry. I’m sorry I said it. It doesn’t matter. We all got to make money, hey?’ He gave her a half smile.

  ‘Yeah.’ She scratched behind her ear. ‘How’s business, anyway?’

  ‘Good! Great. Almost no time to read.’ A full smile this time.

  ‘Is it weird for you. You know. Me here. And, you know, customers?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah. I mean, well, it would be. You know, if you, um, entertained here.’

  ‘Entertained?’

  ‘You know what I mean! Don’t make me say it!’

  ‘I know what you mean. I wouldn’t do that. Not on your chair, anyway. If you’d let me have the bed now and then …’

  ‘No way!’

  She stuck her tongue out at him. ‘You’re right though, it is kind of weird. I should find somewhere to live. Besides, sleeping in your chair is massively uncomfortable.’

  ‘Well, you could sleep in the bed with me you know.’

  ‘You say that, but I don’t really believe you mean it.’

  ‘Whatever. Offer’s there.’ He picked the book up.

  ‘Are you going to tell me about this guy?’

  ‘He said his name was Fisk.’

  ‘Fisk?’

  ‘Lord in heaven, woman, have you gone deaf? I said Fisk!’

  Lanh opened the book and pulled his cap way down.

  ‘Sorry. Ha ha. Is he coming back?’ Caddy asked. ‘Did he leave a message?’

  ‘Just to say he came by,’ Lanh muttered.

  ‘Nothing else?’

  Lanh kept reading. She stood for a while, watching him.

  ‘What’re you doing today?’

  Lanh didn’t look up: ‘This.’

  ‘No shipments?’

  ‘Nope. Ray’s back in town.’

  She
sat on the floor, cross-legged. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Why don’t you go find this Fisk bloke? Or look for somewhere to live or something, if you’re really moving out.’

  ‘It’s too hot.’

  ‘It’s always too hot, Cad. You waiting for the cool change?’

  ‘Kinda.’

  ‘It’s not coming.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ She slumped backwards on to the floor, threw her arms out like a crucifix. ‘I’m so fucking bored!’

  ‘You want a book?’

  ‘No, I don’t want a book! I want a job and an air conditioner! I want a rich husband!’

  ‘That Fisk bloke’s UN.’

  ‘Yeah. Lanh, looking for a rich husband is gross. I don’t want to be the kind of woman who’s looking for a rich husband.’

  ‘You want to be the kind of girl who shacks up with me?’

  ‘That’s exactly the kind of girl I want to be. But goddamit, Lanh,’ she sat up again, ‘you know I can’t be. I don’t want to die of dehydration when I’m 62 years old cause it’s so fricking hot and I’m too sick to go out and look for water.’

  ‘Jeez, Cad, way to look on the bright side. Maybe we could figure something out. I mean, this contraband thing is going good, yeah? I’m doing OK.’

  Caddy rolled over on her stomach and rested her head on her arms.

  ‘What? Are you going to sleep now?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Fine.’ Lanh picked his book up again.

  ‘OK.’ Caddy stood up and brushed herself off. ‘I’m going to look for Sergeant Fisk.’

  He didn’t look up.

  ‘Look. I mean, if things weren’t like this, we could …’

  ‘If things weren’t like this, you’d still be married and have a nice little house and cat. Don’t worry about it. You’re right. It’s fine. Pick me up a UN cutie while you’re out, will you?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.’

  Out on the street, Caddy thought she’d probably made the wrong decision, if she’d even made a decision. Seriously, she hadn’t thought at all about listening to what Lanh was suggesting. It wasn’t right. She just knew it wasn’t right. For a minute she thought about shaking her fist at the sky and proclaiming ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!’ Instead, she started walking towards the river.

  ‘Hey,’ she called out to a soldier dismantling one of the riverside tents. ‘Do you know a guy called Fisk?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You guys leaving?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Yeah great. Thanks.’

  She headed to where the cluster of tents was thickest and kept walking until someone stopped her.

  ‘Sorry miss, you can’t be in here.’

  ‘Do you know a Sergeant Fisk?’

  ‘Yes ma’am. But you can’t be in here.’

  ‘Yeah, right oh. Look, I’ll go be over there instead, but could you tell Sergeant Fisk I’m looking for him? He’s expecting me. Caddy.’

  Caddy perched herself on a low retaining wall the UN soldiers had thrown up. What Lanh has said was still nagging at her, but she was here now. She might as well at least find out this guy’s first name. She wondered what Ray was up to. Maybe he was already back in San Francisco, drinking a big delicious beer.

  ‘Caddy?’

  Dammit, he’d snuck up behind her.

  ‘Oh, hey!’ She exclaimed brightly, wondering if she’d been doing something ugly with her face.

  ‘Hi. Thanks for coming down here.’

  ‘Oh, hectic schedule and all, but I thought you were probably worth making time for ….’ she trailed off. That joke hadn’t worked out at all like she’d hoped. ‘Um. Yeah.’

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere cooler and have a drink?’

  ‘Can you do that?’ she asked. ‘Just skive off?’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Wag. You know.’ Fisk stared vacantly. ‘Oh yeah: play hookey.’

  ‘Oh! Yeah. Yeah. Nothing much going on around here; we’ll probably ship out in a few days.’

  ‘Oh. Oh really?’ She was about to say that was a pity, but then she realized she didn’t know if it was a pity. There was every chance this old UN guy would turn out to be a complete waste of her time.

  Man, when did she get so mercenary?

  ‘So do you?’

  ‘Oh! Oh yes. Please. That would be great.’

  ‘There’s a place just up on Epsom.’

  ‘The Rose?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Caddy had never been in the Rose. They didn’t let people like her in places like that.

  ‘Um, will I be OK? I mean,’ she gestured feebly at her clothes. ‘It’s not the kind of place I’d usually go to. I don’t really have the outfits.’

  ‘Really? It’s seems perfect for you. Come on, if they give you any trouble I’ll show them my gun.’

  Caddy wasn’t sure whether he was joking, so she started walking.

  ‘So Caddy, you from around here?’

  ‘Born and bred. I lived down in Altona for a while when I was little. You know Altona?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Out west a bit, on the bay. My parents moved down here from Canberra in the 90s, bought a house in Altona. There was an industrial accident down there ten years or so ago though, and they lost the place. So yeah, y’know, I’ve lived in the west most of my life. You?’

  ‘First time here.’ He opened the door of the bar for her, but she gestured for him to go in first. She didn’t want to get kicked out before he’d even stepped inside. Cold air spilled out onto the footpath and she shivered a little.

  He sat her down at a table near the bar. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Oh, um, just a Coke I guess.’

  ‘No seriously. It’s my, uh, whaddya say? It’s my shout.’

  ‘I could murder a gin and tonic, if you really want to know.’

  ‘I really want to know. Back in a minute.’

  It was so dark and cool in here. Their power bill would have to be out of control. Maybe they had their own panels or something. Man, it made her want to just curl up and sleep. Or put on a jumper, one or the other.

  Oh, that was a big glass of gin and tonic. Oh, Caddy felt happy right now. She gave Sergeant Fisk her prettiest smile, and wished she knew what to call him.

  ‘So do I just call you Fisk? Like, “thank you so much for the drink, Fisk”?’

  ‘How about, “Thank you so much for the drink, Simon”?’

  ‘Sounds good. Thank you so much for the drink, Simon.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure, Caddy.’

  Caddy suddenly had an urge to freak out, run out of there and go back to Lanh’s place. This was all a bit too surreal. Instead, she asked, ‘So. Simon. Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?’

  ‘Uh, well, not that much to tell, I’m afraid. I was born in Tulsa, in Oklahoma. Kind of a weird childhood, dad dragged me round the country for most of it. He died while I was still pretty young.’ Caddy made an appropriately sympathetic face ‘And I was kind of wild for a while. I pretty much just traveled for a few years until I was about seventeen. Wound up in Oakland, California and settled down there for a while, got a job. It didn’t really take. I ended up back in Tulsa, wanted to see if I could find a few old friends, family, y’know. But there wasn’t much going on and the place was starting to fall apart, running out of water and power and so on. City Hall was even starting to give up on us, telling people to move out if they had somewhere else to go. I figured I’d sign up for the UN, see the world.’

  ‘And how is it?’

  ‘Sort of like this. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. Wherever we go, though, there’s always somewhere’ll make us a cool drink and turn the A/C up. So it has its benefits.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s pretty sweet, I guess. Especially if you’re spending your days pulling bodies out of flooded rivers.’

  ‘Yes. That and a million other things.’ He did a wry smile, showed
off his dimples for a second or two. ‘So how about you?’

  ‘Oh, you know most of it already. I mean, you must have seen some changes, right? You’re like … how old are you?’

  ‘Fifty three.’

  ‘Serious? You don’t look it.’

  ‘Serious. Thanks.’

  ‘Anyway, so yeah. You must have seen some changes. I mean, when you were a kid, like in the nineties and stuff, things were going along OK, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, it wasn’t so bad. But y’know, I didn’t really notice. I was kind of all caught up in my own stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. Some day someone will be telling me, “Oh, 2030, that was a high old time!” and I’ll be all, “Yeah, I don’t know. I was kind of hot and thirsty for a lot of it, didn’t really notice”. So, yeah … What was my point again? Oh yeah. Things have been kind of like this for me most of the time. There was a pretty good patch for a bit, I had some work, got married and got a house and stuff. But then he died and the house went and so mostly it’s kind of like this. Just getting by, y’know? Hanging around Melbourne, doing a bit of this and that to make money. Oh, I do do some writing sometimes! I’m not totally boring. Except it’s not that good.’

  I’m really selling myself here, she thought.

  ‘You write?’ he asked her. ‘Well, that’s interesting. What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Fiction mostly. Short stories. Nothing ever published or anything. It’s just a little something to pass the time.’

  Simon picked up a straw and tapped its end against the table, staring at the bubbles it left behind.

  Caddy could feel goosebumps pricking up on her forearms. A narrow, angular African woman came past the table and cleared her glass away. Simon’s was still half full, she noticed. ‘You want another?’ he asked, and for a second she was about to laugh knowingly and say something like, I don’t want you taking advantage of me, but then she grossed herself out. She just wasn’t feeling like flirting. She was sick of the whole thing.

  ‘I’d love one. If you’re sure you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all. Another gin and tonic, miss, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘So you’re leaving tomorrow?’ Caddy tried to look him in the eye as she asked, nothing suggestive or coy about the question.