Into Bones like Oil

by Kaaron Warren

  “Our guests all head to church on Sundays. Down the hill. Then I drag ’em back up again, or they come of their own accord,” Roy said as if this was something to be proud of.

  For some of these church-goers, Sunday was their only day of communicating with others.

  “They look kind,” Dora said, but she’d known people like this.

  “Remember when that guy from the third floor fell over out there? Literally on the road? They ignored him.”

  “They fucken didn’t,” Larry said. “One of them came over to tell us. How do you think he got inside? I carried him once they told me.”

  “You notice they assumed he was one of ours. Typical.”

  “He was, wasn’t he? So they were right.”

  Dora felt the atmosphere pressing down on her. It was like being in a sauna, the air hot and thick and hard to breathe.

  She went back to her room, thinking how lucky she was that she could go back to sleep now. No one wanted anything from her. No one cared if she slept or not.

  •••

  Dora heard a voice that sounded like her mother’s, and she couldn’t breathe, the tears came so hard and fast. She listened at the window, it wasn’t her mother but a lady like her, arguing with a man who must be her husband, no we can’t park behind, that’s not the entrance I told you, their voices fading.

  They made such a fuss arriving half the rooming house were there to watch them walk through the gate, a middle-aged couple, well-dressed, loud.

  “I’m Trevor. Gray nomad at large.” One of those funny men, Dora thought.

  “Never shuts up,” his wife said. “Even talks in his sleep.”

  “Good sleeper, is he?” Roy asked

  “You must be the team. The gang. The Mob. Oops!” Trevor said, this last as he noticed Mr. Cox. “Sorry, mate. No mob here, only us whiteys—oops, there I go again,” he said. “This is my wife, Val.”

  Trevor was handsome in an immature way. Quite short, bouncy so he seemed like a little dog. Silver hair, few wrinkles, smooth skin. Blue eyes. He was too kind for them to be piercing, but they were very clear.

  The woman had high heels and deep rich red hair.

  “Costs me a fortune,” she confided to Dora later. “But I hate the color from a box. Looks so tacky.”

  “I can tell you use a good brand,” Dora said. That was not a salon color, no way.

  Roy invited them to have a seat on the veranda. “Freesia will make us all a cuppa, won’t you, Freesia? You’ll like her. She’s very helpful,” he said. “We get a lot of gray nomads stopping on their journeys around the country.”

  Val said, “I used to be gray. My late husband said I should age gracefully. I say bugger that.”

  “Late husband?”

  “Trevor’s my new one!”

  “She traded up,” Trevor said.

  Roy said, “It’s not unheard of for an old bastard to die suddenly.”

  “He was sixty-seven! Left me with a fair bit in the bank at least. His retirement fund. Some life insurance. And the safe. This bloody safe I didn’t even know we had, hidden in the boot of the car.”

  “What was in it?” As annoying as Dora found the woman, she told a good story.

  “I don’t know, do I? Can’t get the bloody thing open. Took it to a locksmith and he said we’d have to blow it open. But we don’t want to blow up the contents is the problem.”

  “Problem all right,” Roy said. “What do you keep with you in a life on the road? What is precious?”

  “Memories. But they are so untrustworthy. That’s why we need items, to help keep the stories straight. I want to know what he kept.”

  “We could just not,” Trevor said.

  Freesia arrived with a tray of old mugs and teabags. She wasn’t pleased, but Roy gave her a wink. Dora wondered if this meant she wouldn’t have to sleep with the ghosts that night.

  “We’re here because we met someone who told us you can talk to ghosts. This friend of mine told me about this weird thing, how he came here with his boyfriend and caught him talking in his sleep. But it wasn’t him. It was the cabin boy from that shipwreck. Coming through.”

  Trevor shook his head. “She’s always on about it.” He kissed her cheek. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?”

  Dora thought: never before married, he can’t believe his luck now. He’s not lonely anymore. But he’s cute and seems reasonably intelligent. So what? Why?

  “Word is getting out, I guess. That we talk to the ghosts of the shipwreck. This place is like a wine bar for ghosts. A place for conversation. Ghosts are like the homeless and the lonely. I like the homeless. They’ll talk to anyone. And they sleep easy. The lonely? Depends on how long they’ve been lonely for. If it’s been too long, they’ve forgotten how to speak.”

  “I wondered if you’d had luck talking to anyone who wasn’t in the shipwreck?”

  “They didn’t all drown. Some bled to death, some starved or died of thirst. You can tell by the state they’re in.”

  “It’s the safe, see. My husband’s safe.” She didn’t seem to mind showing off her cleavage, which was tanned. She caught Dora staring at it. “Don’t mind the topless sunbathing. I know they say it’ll give me cancer, but I don’t know about that. When you’ve seen your husband drop dead like mine did, you learn to live a little. One minute he’s reaching up above the sink into his booze cupboard, next minute he’s flat out. Took me a while to realize what was up. And we were miles from anywhere. So far away. I had to drive the bloody caravan . . .”

  “She hates driving the caravan,” Trevor said.

  “. . . I had to drive for about two hours before I saw a single person. Phones didn’t work out there and I wasn’t going to get on the radio and let every pervert in the vicinity know I was a woman on my own.”

  Roy stood beside her, rubbing his hands together. He said, “You’d be surprised at the secrets old people bring along. I can tell you some stories, for sure.”

  He did, too, gossiping and making them all laugh. This was Roy at his best. Holding the interest of the room with good material. Some of them were stories Dora had heard before, others were new ones. She wondered what stories he’d tell about her once she left.

  Trevor stepped up to compete with his own stories of outrageous behavior. Dora liked the way he told a story and the stories he chose. Unlike Roy, who splattergunned stories until one stuck, Trevor seemed to be more selective. She liked the rise and fall of his voice and his chest and the way his hair sat on his head. She wondered if Luke would be jealous of the attention she was giving Trevor, but Luke was asleep, out of her vision.

  Eventually, the topic returned to the dead first husband. “He actually died in the caravan?” Roy asked.

  “Yes, he did. I would have sold it and got a new one but never got around to it. And the car, too. I didn’t want to sell it without opening the safe. You’d think he had the crown jewels in there. But part of me doesn’t want to know what’s in there. You know?”

  “How bad could it be?” someone said.

  “Pretty fucking bad,” Larry said.

  “We could see if your husband will come talk to you, give you the combination. You know that combination lock test, where they ask a ghost for the combination to a safe? No one’s done it yet. It’d be real proof, right? For the doubters. I don’t need it. I know they’re here,” Roy said.

  “Do they ever answer? The ghosts.”

  “They sometimes answer. It’s often not very nice, though. Ghosts who are anchored here can be bitter, vindictive. They are bloody nasty, mostly. You’ll have to be ready for that.”

  “I’ll give you quarter of whatever’s in the safe,” she said.

  “You don’t know what’s in there!” Roy seemed to find this amusing. “It could be nothing but sentimental crap.”

  “I’ll give you actual money. A
grand,” Trevor said, and the deal was made.

  “If we manage to call him in, do you want to be the sleeping one? Or Trevor? Or one of mine?” Roy said.

  “Maybe one of yours? It’ll be too odd to have my husbands merged together.”

  “It might work better if Trevor does it.”

  Val looked at Trevor, then turned to Roy and nodded.

  Trevor looked slightly bewildered, as if he’d thought this was a joke. Val scrabbled in her bag and gave him a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. “Not inside,” she said.

  Roy said, “Do you have anything of your late husband’s? Anything bodily, I mean.”

  “I’ve got his ashes.”

  “Perfect.”

  They went to the caravan. Trevor was nervous, darting back and forth, reminding Dora again of a little dog.

  “He bounces around like this then he’s flat-out. Seriously, he’s like a puppy,” Val said.

  “But I’m very mature in other ways, right?” Trevor said. Dora knew she’d never get a sweet man like him. An innocent.

  Roy and Val went into the caravan alone. “Have you lived here long?” Trevor said, making conversation. Dora had to count on her fingers.

  “Five days!” she said, which astonished her. She’d gone into Roy’s trunk and borrowed some more clothes, so she was wearing a bright wraparound dress that clung to her. Her feet were bare but she didn’t mind that look. She hoped Trevor had noticed her, but she thought he hadn’t. He had little interest in someone like her. She still liked him, though. He was kind, thoughtful. She’d try a different dress in the evening, especially if Luke still failed to appear.

  Roy came out carrying a cigar box. “Here he is! You can all wait outside if you like. Dora, we’re going to use your room. You can attend or not. It’s up to you.”

  He led them to Dora’s room. She wished she’d put her dirty underwear in the suitcase and tried to clean up ahead of them, blushing at the smell in there because there was no good air, just the smell of her. She hated the smell of herself.

  Roy tucked the box of ashes under Dora’s pillow. She wished there weren’t dirty tissues under there.

  “Who is going to be the sleeper? Dora? I’m not sure you’ve really made much of a contribution yet, although I know you’ve tried. Or Trevor? It will be an experience for you. To speak another man’s words.”

  “Trevor,” Val said, her voice thick.

  Roy had called the doctor, who came dressed only in a pair of skimpy shorts. His chest hair was gray and stringy, not matching his head hair. He looked out of sorts, beside himself, as if his ghost rested just out of place.

  “I was dreaming about my sister,” he said.

  Trevor lay down on Dora’s bed. His feet stretched almost to the end and he looked good there. She wondered what it would be like to wake up next to him.

  Only Trevor and the doctor were actually in the room, with Roy, Val, and Dora crowded outside.

  “Your room is smaller than my caravan bedroom,” Val said. “You’re nuts to stay here.”

  Dora felt tears prick her eyes. She didn’t think she should have to justify herself to this stranger.

  “All settled?” Roy said. The doctor folded up Trevor’s sleeve and injected him.

  “Isn’t he a good doggie?” Val said. “Good little doggie.”

  Roy had slipped away. Dora followed him, not wanting to be left alone with Val, nor watching Trevor falling into the unwitting sleep they fell into with the doctor’s help.

  Roy strode across the yard with a long hook. She’d seen him carry this down to the coast and back up before. He walked to the caravan and seemed to tilt almost backwards, as if praying to both heaven and hell at the same time, heaven with his eyes, hell with the back of his head.

  She saw nothing, but he seemed to. He shuddered, stretched up, lifted his hook and swung it quickly. He caught something, because he tugged and pulled, walking backwards as if dragging a large animal.

  “Got him,” he said to Dora, his eyes gleaming, his teeth yellow and sharp.

  He’d caught a ghost with his hook. She’d not been so close to them before, but this one was almost discernible as a person. She could see features: a large nose, long hair. Long arms that seemed to stretch and stretch, but he was holding on to a tree stump, trying to stop himself from being dragged.

  With a proficient flick, Roy lifted him and moved forward, into the house, along the dark hallway, towards Dora’s room.

  The ghost grew less resistant as they moved along. In fact he seemed to crawl quickly, helping the forward motion, and by the time they reached Dora’s room, he leapt forward, landing face down on Trevor.

  Val screamed, but then it was quiet; she was so terrified now, so stunned, that her voice box froze.

  “Dora’s doorway,” Roy said. “This is a good room. The ghosts are here. If you can shift the way you see, you’ll see them. The hook is a trick. Like I was saying. You can con a ghost as easily as you can con a person.”

  Trevor began to mumble. The doctor had left and Val sat in the room, bending forward.

  “See? Even talks when he’s going to sleep,” she said.

  Dora wasn’t sure why she was allowed to stay, but she had mastered the art of invisibility.

  “Here are my words,” Trevor said, but it wasn’t him. The voice was deeper, more confident.

  She paced the hallway. In the breakfast room the clock ticked and she saw that it was three minutes to noon. She paused, absorbing the silence that seemed to always come. She thought she could hear two voices coming from her room, two young voices.

  Her daughters. Her daughters calling.

  She raced down the corridor, but there were no young voices at all, just the dead husband, moaning on about an unfair life.

  Trevor was older than her, but handsome and filled with life. She looked at the old woman, Val, and thought she saw drool on the woman’s chin.

  “She’s not long for here, stupid bitch. She’ll be rotted from the outside in and deserve every painful second of it.”

  Seemed even more awful to hear these words from kind Trevor’s mouth. More and more spewed out, hurtful words that made sense to Val but not to the rest of them; before long she was curled over in her chair, her hands over her ears.

  “You can wait outside, Val. We’ll hear him out. I’ll ask him for the combination,” Roy said. Val nodded and stumbled from the room.

  You can con a ghost as easily as you can con a live person, Roy had said. He said to Trevor, “Prove to me you’re who you say you are. Tell me something only you know. Tell me a number. Tell me the combination to your safe. I’ll keep it to myself.”

  “My wife is an idiot with numbers.”

  “I hate numbers,” Val whispered to Dora in the hall. Her voice quavered more than it should in a woman her age.

  Trevor gave the combination over and spoke some more and then mumbled himself into silence.

  Dora found Val standing on the front veranda.

  “Garden could do with some work.” Val said, as if nothing had happened. “I’ve been having a nice chat with this gentleman.

  Mr. Cox hummed and smiled. He spent most of his time swinging in the swing chair, reading and napping. He could only sleep when there was movement. He said he hoped to die in his sleep. He said that powerful stuff happened if you died in your sleep. If you died while subconscious was in the forefront.

  Roy had written down the number. “Do you want to wait for Trevor to wake up?” he said, and Val shrugged.

  “I’m not even sure I’m awake. Or dreaming. What is this, anyway? Pretty sure I’m asleep. Down on the beach. On the sand. It’s so warm I’m going to get burned, aren’t I? Skin cancer. And every one of you will say I told you so.”

  “We won’t say I told you so,” Dora said. “Because we couldn’t give a shit.” />
  “Let’s get this safe open. Let’s see if it works,” Roy said. His voice was uneven, as if he was terrified of what they were about to confirm.

  Val wouldn’t go with them. Only Roy and Dora, two observers.

  “I feel as if we should be recording this or something,” Roy said. “Because no one will believe us.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Dora said.

  But it did. He dialed the numbers Trevor had spoken, and the safe opened.

  “Jesus fucken Christ,” Roy said. “It fucken worked.”

  “You’ve had proof before, Roy. The message on the beach that told you where the deeds were, and there were others.”

  “Yeah, that was bullshit. I found the deeds under one of the mattresses. This is real.”

  Inside were a few piles of money, two small boxes filled with jewelry that looked like gold, and some photos. The first one showed Val’s first husband, naked and proud, his hand protectively resting on the head of a young man. Dora didn’t want to look at the rest of the photos.

  They would burn them, not show them to Val. She didn’t need to see them; Roy and Dora agreed this without saying.

  Roy pocketed one of the jewelry boxes (“These bastards won’t pay me, you watch.”) and they went out to give the rest to Val.

  He handed her the items and she stared at them, disbelieving. She sat on the front veranda, unmoving, until Trevor woke up and came to join her. Then Roy showed them to their room.

  •••

  Dora curled up in the big armchair in the lounge room. The painter was there, humming to himself, creating, and she loved spending this quiet time there. This empty, thoughtless time, this interim, this hiatus, before she had to face what she now knew.

  If there was an afterlife, she would have to atone.

  If there was an afterlife, her girls could still hate her. Or perhaps they loved her. Forgave her. Understood her.

  If she could bring them here, she’d know