Floundering

by Romy Ash

  What are you looking at, dipshit? says Jordy, slapping me on the back of the head.

  None of your beeswax, I say and go stand near the front passenger door of the car. I can see the blonde of Loretta’s head through the dusty windows of the servo. There’s tinsel strung on the inside, hanging in arches. Gran had put up a plastic Christmas tree in the corner of the lounge room. She hung it with silver snowflakes and fairy lights that flickered on and off. The cards from all her friends, hung on a string across the front window, blew off every afternoon when the wind turned onshore.

  Shotgun, I say and look triumphantly over at Jordy.

  Nah, he says, you’ve got to call it in the morning. I’ve got shotgun for the rest of the day.

  I called it, Jordy, I say.

  Nah, you’ve got to call it in the morning.

  That’s not fair. You said if I call it I can have it.

  Yeah, if you call it in the morning, you can have it. It’s totally fair.

  I look around for Loretta. She’s walking fast towards the car.

  Get in the car, she says from still far away.

  But Mum, Jordy won’t let me have a go. The mum slips out of me, strange in my mouth.

  Get in the car.

  She’s wrenching on her door and then she is in the front seat. Jordy pushes me out of the way and gets shotgun fast. Loretta starts the engine.

  Get in.

  I open the back door and have to jump in as she accelerates. I close the door, watching the tar blurring in the open bit before I can get it shut. I fumble for my seatbelt and click it in. Safe.

  Loretta pulls two pies in plastic sachets from inside her hoodie. Breakfast, she says and chucks one back to me. The pie lands on my leg, burns my bare skin. I pick it up by a plastic corner. It hangs inside it, steam coming out the little plastic holes.

  Thanks, I say.

  Don’t be rude, she goes.

  You burned my leg.

  What’d I say? Don’t be rude. Looking at me in the rearview. Yesterday she looked neat but today her eyes are all smudged black. She looks away from me, and I look out the window. The paddocks go past, the same as before. I put the pie down on the seat beside me and wait for it to cool. Little flakes of pastry inside the bag look as thin and gross as flakes of skin. I start kicking the back of Jordy’s seat.

  Hot, isn’t it, says Loretta.

  She tries to get her hoodie off. She is holding the steering wheel with one hand and trying to inch the jumper off with the other. I’m so sweaty my legs are sticking to the seat. I move around to try and unpeel them.

  Jordy, can you hold this for a sec?

  He looks at her, Really?

  Just hold it steady, hey.

  Jordy leans over the gearstick and grabs hold of the wheel with two hands, his pie, half eaten, like a big brown smile, resting on the dash. Loretta has her left arm out and is wriggling her right when I look up and notice we’re on the wrong side of the road.

  I see the sun reflecting off the windscreen of a car driving straight for us, a bright star of light. I think of the star of Bethlehem, ‘cos I was learning the Christmas carol about it for the end-of-year school performance. I see Loretta look up and take her foot off the accelerator. Jordy takes his hands off the wheel and no one’s holding it for a second. The car beeps a long beep at us and Loretta grabs the wheel and swerves at the last second. Her hoodie hangs off the end of her arm, forgotten.

  I look over at the car as it passes and I can see the woman driving. Her face is a cartoon drawing of frightened.

  Shit, says Loretta. We almost come to a stop. There is nothing now, no cars behind us or in front of us. Are you stupid? Do you want to get us killed?

  He just looks at her, not saying nothing.

  So fuck–ing stupid, she says and shakes her head so that for a moment her hair goes everywhere. She bangs the steering wheel. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Jordy looks away and I touch the back of his shoulder. He shrugs my hand off. His pie has fallen into his lap.

  Loretta looks up and I see the fan of freckles across her nose and cheeks. And all over her skin tiny drops of sweat. She accelerates until we’re going fast again. Jordy scoops the pie out of his lap and flings it out the window. I stick my head out, and have a look and there’s a brown streak of meat down the side of Bert. Out at the edges of the paddock I see a dead eagle slung on a wire fence. No one says anything. I savour my pie, eating it so slowly that by the time I’m done it’s cold.

  Hey, look, says Loretta.

  Jordy is leaning against his door, his back to Loretta, chin resting near the open window.

  Look, she says and slows the car down a little. Salt lakes.

  What? I say. Loretta catches my eye in the rearview and gives me a smile. She pulls off the road going too fast still, and rocks ping off Bert’s belly. Jordy starts and sits up, gives Loretta a look that makes me shrink down in my seat. She stops the car and I jolt into the seatbelt.

  Through my open window and past a wire fence the air looks liquid. I push the door, popping it open with my shoulder. The sun gets me like the worst kind of hug. Tiny flowers squeeze out from a crack in the dirt and I can see a long line of ants heading to the salt. A little bird is holding like crazy to a stalk of grass. I turn back and look at Loretta, and she’s picking at a pimple on her arm, still in Bert. Jordy’s sitting there, eyes to the front.

  I’m going to look, I say and scuff my school shoes in the dirt. She stares up at me, and through the window I see that her arms are covered in tiny scabs. She puts her hand in the bit between the seats, finds a pair of sunnies from the servo. She chucks them in Jordy’s lap, and gets out of the car. Hers wrap right around her face. I finger mine in my pocket – shiny, smooth – and put them on.

  Let’s look, she says.

  I climb down into the ditch beside the road. It’s filled with rubbish, broken bottles. Hot grass scratches my calves. I slip through the barbed wire fence. I walk towards the edge of the lake, but it’s not as close as it looks from the car and halfway out there it’s too hot and I want to turn around.

  When I look back Loretta is caught on the wire. Her arms are outstretched and struggling. Jordy climbs through and doesn’t help her. His eyes are black with the sunglasses, and after this I don’t see him take them off for what seems like forever. He walks out towards me.

  When we get to the salt it’s dirty pink and crusty under my feet. Jordy crunches onto it beside me. He picks at the meat pie on his school shorts.

  I lean over, crack a piece of the salt with my fingers and put it in my mouth. It tastes like potato chips.

  Jordy copies me: picks at a bit of salt, puts it in his mouth. He looks at me, spits it out. It tastes like dirt, he says.

  Loretta comes over. She has a long scratch on her thigh. It’s nasty red. She touches it absently.

  How hot is it? she says.

  Jordy turns to Loretta, the salt cracking around his feet. Why’d we have to run anyway?

  Run where, hon? she says.

  From the servo.

  We didn’t run, honey, she says and goes to tousle his hair. He pulls away from her and she’s left with just one strand. It shines for a moment in the sun.

  Whatever, he says and stalks back to the car. I rub the toe of my shoe in the salt.

  I’m hot, I say to Loretta and look up at her.

  Come on, she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. She gives me a little squeeze. We walk back to Bert. Jordy is in the front, staring straight ahead again. I yank the door open and crawl into the back seat. My mouth is dry and my legs are scratched and stinging. There’s the end of a bottle of Coke on the floor. I sip it and it’s as hot as tea.

  2

  This’ll do, eh? says Loretta.

  Are we going in there? says Jordy.

  The town is dark, except for squares of blue television light in house windows. Only the pub is open and a Chinese restaurant that has lace curtains and a red dragon painted across the glass. Lorett
a parks in front of the pub.

  Yeah, says Loretta, you hungry? Jordy doesn’t say anything. Are you hungry? she says to me in the rearview.

  Yeah, I say, I want to go to the Chinese. But then I want to bite my words back into my mouth because Jordy looks at me and his face makes me feel sick.

  Yeah, she says, that’s where we’re going.

  Stepping out of the hot stink of Bert, my skin goose pimples. The night’s not cold, but it’s dark and the darkness makes it feel cold. Jordy’s still got his sunnies on, he pushes them to the top of his head. They hold his fringe back and his face looks foreign and exposed, his forehead too white. Loretta has the boot open and is rifling through a suitcase. She pulls her singlet off, leaning half into the boot. I see a sunburn-edged white cross on her back from the straps. X marks the spot. She slips a jumper over it.

  You cold? she says.

  I shake my head, looking at a red dress that’s fallen out of the suitcase and onto the dusty bumper. There’s cowboy boots in there and a paperback with its cover ripped off.

  You sure?

  I nod.

  She slams the boot shut. Come on then, she says and walks across the wide, empty street to the light. She opens the restaurant door. A bell tinkles.

  The three of us stand there for a moment. It feels weird to see them in the bright fluoros of the restaurant. Loretta and Jordy’s faces are sunburnt. We all look dirty. Loretta rakes her hands through her hair. It looks greasy and lank around her face. I don’t know what I look like, but my school shoes are dusty. I try to wipe one with the top of the other but it makes it worse.

  Good evening, a boy says. He’s in his school uniform too – and for a second I don’t feel so bad. Take a seat, he says. The restaurant is empty. He gestures to all the tables. He’s slim, with bowl-cut hair.

  Loretta sits at the big table with the lazy Susan on the top.

  I love these, she says with a smile that makes her face look different. She looks like the only picture Gran and Pa have of her on their mantle. It’s a picture of her in a school sports uniform. She’s got a second-place ribbon pinned to her chest and her hair in the highest ponytail on her head, she’s smiling and her freckles stand out. She looks like that. We sit down. The boy brings us menus, setting them neatly in front of us. Jordy and Loretta are far away across the white paper tablecloth.

  Get whatever you want, Loretta says. Jordy looks across at me, and I refuse to look back. I’m rubbing my feet together under the table. The menu is divided into types of meat. I look at everything and try to find the cheapest thing.

  Anything? I say.

  Yeah, says Loretta, why not. I see Jordy roll his eyes at her. Loretta notices, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead she puts her hand out and spins the lazy Susan and laughs. The soy sauce bottle slides a little and I put my hand out to slow the spin.

  The boy comes back with a white pad.

  Can I get you any drinks? he says.

  You guys want a Coke? Three Cokes, she says, not waiting for our answer.

  The boy carries the wine glasses away from the table two by two. I guess he’d be Jordy’s age, the boy. A Chinese man with an apron on comes out to have a look at us. Wipes his hands on his front, then disappears.

  So what do you reckon? she says, and winks. This winking is a new thing, she never winked before.

  I dunno, I say. Is that your dad? I ask the boy.

  Yeah, he says.

  Stop being a weirdo, Jordy hisses across the table at me.

  I’m not being a weirdo.

  I want Mongolian lamb, says Jordy to the boy and closes his menu with a snap. I look anywhere but the menu. The fairy lights on the Christmas tree in the corner choose this moment to come on. They flash slow, then too fast.

  Tom? she says. Pick a meal.

  I dunno, I say and shake my head quickly, close my menu too. Where’s the toilet?

  Out back, says the boy.

  I scrape my chair.

  Loretta screws her nose up, then smiles, We’ll have the Mongolian lamb, the lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork.

  Fried rice? says the boy.

  For sure.

  Yes, Miss.

  I walk away. Inside the bathroom it’s pink as a mouth and holding the heat of the day. There are dusty plastic flowers in a little vase beside the sink – red and white roses. I don’t really need to wee but I concentrate and dribble into the pink toilet bowl. I press flush, then wash my hands. I use the squeezy soap. I smell them and they still smell of meat pie beneath the metallic flower scent. I wash them again and splash my face. Wipe it on a paper towel. The towel gets a smudge of my face on it. I scrunch it up and throw it in the bin. I look at myself in the mirror and try see which bits of me look like Loretta, but the only bits that do are the freckles that look like dirt.

  I sit back down at the table. Jordy and Loretta aren’t talking. Jordy has torn the edge of the paper tablecloth into little pieces and the bits are all around him.

  So you two got girlfriends? Loretta says.

  No, I say.

  Jordy says, What do you reckon?

  Only asking, she says.

  I start tearing little pieces off the tablecloth too.

  Do you have a boyfriend? Jordy says.

  Don’t be cheeky.

  Only asking.

  What about Dad? I say.

  Hey, what is this? Twenty questions?

  The boy comes back to the table carrying a sizzling plate and the lemon chicken. He puts them down and goes back for more. The sauce on the lemon chicken is as yellow as a kid’s drawing of the sun.

  I don’t remember much about our dad. Jordy remembers but he won’t tell me anything – like Dad is a secret he gets to keep. I know he smelt of surfboard wax and then cigarettes and poo – ‘cos he smoked on the toilet. Sometimes when I smell them things I get this vision of his bare arms and the feel of stubble on my cheek. But I can’t picture his face.

  Loretta pushes the Susan and the dishes swing around too quickly.

  Give us your bowls then, she says and we pass them to her. She gives each bowl a spoonful of rice. It covers the dragon that’s biting its own tail at the bottom of my bowl. I swing the Susan so that the chicken is near me and get a big spoon of it, dripping a glob of yellow on the tablecloth.

  Is everything alright? The man comes and stands tall and slim next to us.

  Yeah, mate, says Loretta, no problem. She doesn’t look at his face, stares at the table.

  I watch him walk back to the kitchen. The boy is sitting behind the counter. He looks at me and we both look away at the same time.

  What’s his problem? Loretta hisses at us from her side of the table, spooning chunks of meat and pineapple into her bowl. I pick the tiny prawns from my rice and leave them on the edge, little pink c’s.

  Hey, Loretta says, snapping her fingers at the boy. I changed my mind, she says, I’ll have a beer. Okay?

  The boy brings a beer, drops of water on it, and places it carefully on a napkin. I look at her as she takes a sip and she says, What?

  Nothing.

  I don’t like it when she drinks because it makes her heavy, and when she says my name it comes out slurred. I look away and I eat until I can see the dragon again, then I white him out with rice. Loretta gets up and goes and leans over the counter to talk to the boy. She comes back and scrapes the last of the rice and Mongolian lamb into her bowl. I feel sick.

  This is nice, she says.

  The boy comes and piles our plates and bowls on top of one another and takes them away. There is a perfect white circle of tablecloth where my bowl was.

  Thanks, I say to the boy.

  The lights dim, so the flash of the Christmas tree lights goes light, dark, light, dark. The carols are stopped and the boy walks out carrying a plate with a banana fritter and ice-cream with a single candle in it. The man follows him out and they sing, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you – Loretta joins in, but Jordy just looks at me – Happy birthday
, dear Tom, happy birthday to you. Hip, hip hoorah, hip, hip hoorah. Loretta is giggling and clapping.

  The boy puts the plate in front of me and retreats.

  Blow it out, says Loretta. Make a wish.

  I don’t blow it out.

  Make a wish, make a wish, make a wish.

  I blow and wish for a new bike, ‘cos we left our ones at Gran’s. The lights come back on.

  It’s not my birthday, though.

  Well, I missed ya last one, didn’t I?

  It looks like a dick and balls, says Jordy.

  For my eleventh birthday I had a UFO birthday cake with green icing and the shining alien lights on the cake were different-coloured lollies – so cool. Gran made it. This year, when Jordy turned thirteen he was all, I don’t want a cake. But even old people in old people’s homes have birthday cakes.

  Well, if you’re not going to eat it, says Jordy.

  I’m eating it, I say and crack the fried banana’s batter. Loretta leans right the way across the table and steals a bite. I swing my legs under the table – the banana is hot in my mouth, and the ice-cream cold.

  Can I’ve a bite?

  Give your brother a bite.

  But he didn’t give me any Twisties.

  I did give you some, dipshit.

  But you didn’t give me an equal amount.

  Are you retarded?

  It is his birthday, Jordy. She licks icing sugar off her lips.

  We’ll do your birthday another night.

  Jordy stands up and stalks to the bathroom. I eat it all, even though I’m so full I want to vomit.

  The boy brings the bill and Loretta stares at it a long time. My heart starts beating too fast, and I look around for Jordy, hoping he gets back real quick. I push my chair out, so I’ll be ready.

  You going too? says Loretta.

  No. I grab on to the edge of the chair.

  She gets up and takes her card to the counter. I can see the boy doing his homework. I’ve lost count of the days, but it has to almost be school holidays. Jordy comes back and when the boy stands up to serve Loretta I see that Jordy and him are exactly the same height. They look eye to eye. Jordy walks past and out the door. It chimes cheerfully.