River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  And wow, it felt good.

  She had barely time to breathe when he was back at it again. She had not planned any French kissing on this date. Not that she’d ever done any before except practising with her friends. Her heart was pounding and things were happening all through her body, weird sensations, all of them good. Eventually Todd broke it off. She was half-relieved and half-disappointed.

  ‘You’re a fast worker,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘Me?’

  It was funny. Todd was amazing. Handsome and funny. They watched the movie for a while but her mind wasn’t on it at all. Then Todd swung to her again and she put her arms around him and pulled him into the kiss. After that, the script got thrown away. At some point Todd started nibbling her ear, nuzzling her neck. Her body felt like a volcano, the car a steamy jungle. And then his hand was on her breast. No, no, no! She tried to pull away but the way he was kissing her made that almost impossible. Desire was bullying reason. With a determined effort she managed to break off.

  One day, out at the clothesline beneath Jenny’s mother’s and father’s damp underwear, Jenny’s older sister Leonie had prepped them for this situation.

  ‘If you’re with a boy and he starts groping your tits, you grab his hand and firmly push it away and say “I’m not ready for that yet.” The “yet” is important if you like him because you’re not saying “never”, you’re establishing a few rules.’

  Tossing her hair around to show she was now back in control of emotions that may have temporarily gone AWOL, Kitty delivered her line just the way she been told: with a certain haughtiness.

  ‘I’m not ready for that yet.’

  Todd said with determination, ‘But I am.’

  Oh shoot, shoot, shoot! That wasn’t supposed to happen, he was supposed to …

  He was grabbing her again now, kissing her aggressively, his fingers of one hand fiddling with the zip at the back of her dress, while the other had started probing her thighs.

  This time she pulled away and actually slid back a fraction to her side.

  ‘Todd, please. I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why not? I thought we were having fun.’

  ‘I was but … but I don’t want to do those things … yet.’

  She still had enough control to remember to emphasise the ‘yet’.

  ‘Life is moving fast, Kitty. Soon we’ll be old.’

  ‘Todd, I’m a virgin.’

  She hadn’t expected to have to own up to this. Not so soon anyway.

  ‘I can help you with that.’ He nodded solemnly. ‘No one needs to know, believe me. I will never tell.’

  She was speechless. Her alarm grew when he pulled something out of his pocket.

  ‘And don’t worry about getting pregnant. I have these condoms: the best.’

  ‘We’re not doing that.’

  She tried sliding back to the passenger door but he had her tight and she was going nowhere.

  ‘Kitty, I’ve bought the tickets. I’ve dumped Brenda. You kissed me, we’ve gone halfway. We are going to do it.’

  In his eyes was a crazed determination that drilled into Kitty’s bones. This was real. She couldn’t reach for the door, her wrists were totally in his control.

  ‘Come on, I’ll be gentle. You know you want it.’

  Bang.

  Something slammed into the window, a crazed face, distorted: Brenda. She was battering something into the glass … her shoe, screaming.

  ‘Shit.’ Todd flew out of the driver side. ‘Leave the car alone, you crazy bitch.’

  Kitty didn’t think about it. She opened the passenger door, it swung back in — the speaker cord pulling it, she shoved again, heard the loudspeaker thump into the window beneath Brenda’s angry wail, jumped out and ran and didn’t look back.

  Crane stood in front of the mike, boogie-woogied his shoulders. Panza and Duck were chewing through some avant-garde jazz stuff Doreen didn’t get at all, the brushes slapping the snare and cymbals with no rhythm, the bass like a drunk falling. The crowd was off tonight by about a quarter. Having the two detectives moving among the audience wouldn’t help bury the fear. Blake was shadowing them, keeping a wary eye from a distance. Most of those here were busy smoking, talking, tracking the cops with their eyes but some had seen Crane before and were waiting for what crazy shit he’d deal tonight. He did an Elvis hip-swivel, pretty damn well actually, pointed to nowhere.

  Hey man, welcome to Never Never Land. Dig it.

  Hubcaps spin, and the grins of cool cats form

  One long piano all the way to Melbourne.

  A few claps and a couple of whoops from the aficionados. A rat-tat-tat snare from Duck.

  Steel and rubber, gasoline screams,

  The blood of dinosaurs, mainlined courtesy JP Getty. Dig it.

  Young souls juiced on Walt Malt, Disney jism, here in Fantasyland,

  Sliced and diced and laid upon the altar of cheap motel floors. Dig it.

  Doreen watched the cop, Vernon, straighten, turn around and face the stage, noticing Crane properly for the first time. Which was what Crane was probably after. Jesus, what did Crane think he was doing? She’d heard women gossiping in the ladies, as much scared as excited now by the murder, the reality sinking in. She felt the same thing herself, arriving for work tonight: some maniac was roaming around out there having stabbed a woman to death. He might have been in this very room. Might be here now. This shit from Crane was going to sabotage business. Blake was going to have to rein him in.

  ‘Psst.’

  Doreen looked to the back door, Andy was motioning her. She walked over.

  ‘Got someone who needs you.’

  ‘I couldn’t think of where else to go.’ Kitty was dabbing uselessly at her tears with the man’s hanky Doreen always kept in her glovebox. Her own dainty one and Doreen’s were already sodden. They were in Doreen’s car. She didn’t dare take Kitty into the club with cops around. Kitty had already gushed everything out, the words garbled like debris swept up in a flood, but Doreen had got the sense of it all. It was an old story and one Doreen and every woman she knew was too familiar with: Prince Charming turns out to be an ogre. The only twist was the evil witch as surprise saviour.

  ‘You ran all the way here?’ It was a good three miles.

  Kitty managed to nod. Her mascara had run. She looked like an urchin from Oliver!. Kitty tempered her breathing, was able to half-gasp, ‘About halfway I remembered about the dead girl. A car slowed for me but when I heard a man’s voice asking if I was okay, I just kept running. What am I going to do?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be alright. When you settle down, I can drive you home.’

  ‘Really? Oh, thank you, sooooo much. I feel so stupid.’

  ‘You’re not stupid.’

  ‘You warned me.’

  Doreen wasn’t taking credit for being jaded and cynical. There were good men out there. Just not the ones she’d picked. Kitty took a deep breath and blew her nose.

  ‘You going to tell your parents?’

  Kitty let out a long deflating groan. ‘They mustn’t know.’

  This is how our secrets start, thought Doreen. She wasn’t going to bully the kid, hell, she’d do the same … had done the same.

  ‘Mum will be looking out for a car. Only, it’s still too early.’

  They calculated what time the drive-ins finished, a while yet.

  ‘I should be going back inside.’

  ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  ‘I can lock the car.’

  Kitty nodded, grateful. A yellow wedge cut into the night at the back door of the Surf Shack. Crane shuffled out and lit up a roll-your-own. He was sucking deep on it when she saw Vernon and Apollonia emerge and start questioning him.

  ‘I’ll come back and check on you. You get scared, honk the horn. I’ll tell Andy our yardman.’

  ‘Thanks for everything.’

  The poor kid looked pale. Doreen climbed out of the car and watched Kitty lock the d
oor behind her.

  She passed close enough to the cops to hear them with Crane.

  ‘Currently unemployed. Except for my occasional gig here.’

  ‘Were you here Thursday?’ It was Apollonia.

  Crane saw Doreen approaching. ‘Remind me, Doreen, was I here Thursday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vernon tipped his hat and smiled flirtatiously. ‘Evening, Miss Norris.’

  ‘Evening, detectives.’

  ‘Did you see this girl?’ Apollonia shoved the photo at Crane.

  Doreen slid inside. Blake was on stage firing his guitar. The dance floor was pretty full but at the bar women were sticking close to their men. Thursday night everything had been fun, the dance comp raging, Kitty full of dreams about her and that shit, Todd. Forty-eight hours on, that had all gone. You can only keep the wolf away for so long, thought Doreen. You can play piano, sing, be merry but sooner than you think the lights will be extinguished, the guests gone, the party as cold as lamb in the fridge. Then you’ll be curled up in bed, face near the wall, listening to the howl just the other side of your window.

  Just as she had done Thursday night, Kitty lay in bed unable to sleep. Only everything was different now. Despite the stickiness of the night she had pulled her sheet up to her chin. She thought she had carried it off okay. Her mum and dad had both been in the lounge room, waiting for news of the big date, although her dad had nodded off in the armchair. Scratches the Pekingese who had been banished to the back porch earlier because he stank, had wormed his way back in and was lying on the newspaper her father had dropped on the floor. Kitty smelled fresh baking, knew her mother had a sponge ready in case Todd had come in. Hoping to pump him, no doubt. Kitty had thwarted that, got Doreen to drop her at the end of the driveway. If her mother was watching she wouldn’t be able to see if Todd had climbed out of the car to open the door for Kitty. She had asked though.

  ‘Did he open the door for you at the end of the date?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That’s what I said: a gentleman.’

  Her father had roused himself. Her mum had not let him put on his slippers.

  ‘How was the film?’ She could tell he was uncomfortable about asking anything intimate.

  ‘You would have liked it, a western.’

  ‘She wasn’t worried about the film.’ Her mum smirked. ‘You want some sponge?’

  ‘No. It’s been a big day. I think I’ll go to bed.’

  ‘Did you make plans with Todd for another occasion?’

  Yes, a nutcracker applied where it hurt.

  ‘No, Mum. I’m not sure we’re all that suited, you know?’

  She sensed the disappointment in her mum. It quickly turned to puzzlement tinged with annoyance.

  ‘He’s good-looking, good family, smart: plenty of girls would be suited to that.’

  She was not going to engage. ‘Good night.’

  God, how stupid she had been. As if play-acting dates with her equally ignorant girlfriends had given her grounding and experience. She had been way out of her depth. ‘Boys only want one thing’: you heard it all the time and dismissed it — maybe they only want one thing from you because you are dumb and boring — that’s what she’d thought in her arrogance. Doreen had told her not to think all men were the same but advised her to be careful and go easy on the dating front till she was a little more experienced. Well, there wouldn’t be any of that. She would likely now die a shrivelled old maid. Her eyes played across the room: the hockey stick against the wall, the stuffed Goofy, the Barbies-in-waiting. Suddenly she longed for the security of what they had brought her and wished they could spark in her the same excitement they once had. They were impotent but she wouldn’t throw them away, she wouldn’t cut that line, not now. Life was scary out there and it dealt out a certain justice that your parents’ house kept you from. Out there, nobody thought you precious: you transgressed, you were punished. She’d been only too happy to try and lure Todd from Brenda. Maybe Brenda didn’t deserve sympathy but perhaps she did deserve Todd. Kitty had meddled with a certain natural order and it had reared up and bitten her. She wondered about the dead girl in the motel. Had she also transgressed?

  She realised she was trembling under the sheet. She fought it, finding words in her head:

  When the skies are bright canary yellow,

  I forget every cloud I’ve ever seen,

  So they call me a cockeyed optimist,

  Immature and incurably green …

  6. Aquarium

  Carol’s car was gone. Blake had not expected her to be out so early on a Sunday because Saturdays she was on her legs all day. It was near eleven a.m. He’d fallen asleep on the couch about two a.m., listening to Charles Mingus. Thunder had woken him around an hour later, the long-threatened storm finally arriving. Some of the fat leaves of Carol’s front garden were still beaded with rain but the sun was already on low bake and the air was steamy. Perhaps she’d gone to the shop to pick up a few picnic supplies. Blake got out of the car and sauntered over to the little house. Down the street somewhere a kid was hitting a tennis ball against a wall. On his way over he had passed station wagons of families coming back from church. The heathens were easy to spot, polishing their cars on front lawns. He thought he might make himself an instant coffee, tried the front door just in case. It was locked. Sensible with all that was going on. He wondered though if she had been as careful with the back door. He walked up the side of the little weatherboard, feeling good with life. A macadamia tree hid a fair part of the wall. Through a lopsided wooden gate he entered the dense back garden and followed a narrow path to the back door. He tried the loose brass knob on the door with its blistered paint but like the front door it was locked. Unusually, the louvre windows were closed. Maybe the murder had got through to Carol. He walked back to the car and waited half an hour. When she didn’t turn up, he decided to cruise town but even though the Sunday streets were pretty deserted he could not see her VW Beetle anywhere. One last time he drove back to the house but the car was still not there. Only then did it occur to him that she may be working. The Sunday shift paid more but the longer-serving workers made sure they had that nailed down. Every now and again, however, somebody was off sick or had a wedding or christening to go to, and Carol got a call up. She probably didn’t phone him, knowing he’d had a long night. Or she had phoned when he was out surfing. He decided he would go to the Surf Shack and help Andy tidy up. There was always something to do.

  Andy’s bike was propped against the back door as usual. Blake parked and climbed out. There was no sign of Andy in the yard.

  ‘Andy!’ he called out as he swung into the Surf Shack via the unlocked back door. He was half expecting the noise of the vacuum cleaner — that was what Andy usually started with. A strong smell assailed him. Pond water. Until then he hadn’t realised the aquarium was no longer there. Now he saw the steel stand, a frame without a window, glass littering the carpet like snow, the bodies of tiny fish. He ran towards the dark centre of the room, was about to call out again, caught sight of something white near the gents — Andy’s sandshoes. Blake’s eyes focused. Andy crumpled into a ball, a crimson halo, head caved. His fingers drove through blood. He checked Andy’s neck: a pulse. First thought, call an ambulance. Second, it would be too slow. A trolley stacked with Cokes waited at the bar, probably Andy restocking. He pushed the trolley up, dumping the crates, more shattered glass. He jammed a foot against the back of the now free trolley, rolled Andy onto it. The kid weighed no more than his clothes. Blake ran back the way he came, through the rear door, up a short ramp, yanked open the passenger door of his ute, poured Andy into the seat. Now he was covered in blood himself. He jumped in, fired up the engine, stamped on the pedal. The closest hospital was thirty miles south and inland.

  Don’t die on me, Andy.

  When Doreen came through the ward door, it was like somebody had stuffed all his organs back inside and he was half real again.

  ‘How i
s he?’ She was carrying a shopping bag, breathless.

  ‘They’re still not telling me anything more: broken ribs, probably a broken arm, bruising on his legs. The main worry is his head. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet. He’d lost a fair bit of blood.’

  She bit her lower lip, trying to stay strong. ‘I called Nalder at home after I locked up and cleaned up the fish tank. I couldn’t see anything stolen.’

  Blake hadn’t expected there to be.

  ‘Who would do this?

  Blake looked straight at her. She read his eyes. ‘Those guys you had me follow?’

  ‘That’d be my guess. I’ve seen injuries like this from a baseball bat.’ ‘Those bastards. Andy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ She handed him the bag. ‘I stopped off at your place. After I saw the blood, I thought you might need a shirt.’

  ‘How’d you get in?’

  ‘You don’t lock the downstairs door in your garage.’

  She knew things about him even he didn’t know.

  By the time he’d changed into the clean polo shirt she’d brought, Nalder had arrived. He was in civvies. Blake asked Doreen to wait while he and Nalder went outside. They found a quiet position screened by a hedge.

  Nalder said, ‘He see who did it?’

  ‘He wasn’t conscious when I found him.’

  ‘Doreen says nothing seems to have been taken.’

  ‘They smashed the fish tank, beat up on Andy. I don’t think robbery was a motive, though I won’t be surprised if there’s a bottle of scotch or two missing.’

  Nalder rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘Those protection low-lifes sending a message?’

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking.’

  Nalder scratched the dirt with the toe of his shoe. ‘Officially there is not much I can do unless Andy can identify them or some other witness comes forward.’

  ‘I think they’ll have made sure there were no witnesses around.’

  Nalder nodded. ‘Also, I don’t need to tell you it’s not a good time … with the homicide and all.’