‘What, from Sydney?’
‘No, Byron Bay. I was going to meet you all there as a surprise, but I spoke to Greg and he told me Jim phoned earlier to say he had lost you and Scotty or something, and wouldn’t be there, so I drove down. I went to the caravan park and Andrea told me that you were all at the hospital because you and Scotty had been in some accident. I’ve just been there now and spoken to Karin and Jim.’
‘Where’s Greg?’ I asked, mesmerised by her smoking; she was a beautiful smoker. I just wanted to watch her now that she was here, and listen to the music.
She finished her drink, ordered another, and put her foot up on the rail that ran round the bottom of the bar. ‘Greg’s not here, Kerry.’ She sucked on her cigarette. I didn’t say anything, just watched her through my puffed-up eyes. She was such an actress.
‘I’m on my own,’ she said, blowing out again.
I was dead beat, but still nervous and uncomfortable in her presence, now more than ever. I had no energy any more for games and flirting, or word play. That left me feeling raw and in touch with all that really mattered, which at that moment was the desire to lie down next to her and sleep.
‘That’s some face you have now.’ She moved some strands of hair back from my face and ran her fingers round my jaw on the outskirts of my swelling. I didn’t move.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘No, not just now.’ I drank some more from my glass.
‘OK,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘You can tell me later.’
My third and final choice came on the jukebox and nothing could be more perfect.
She pulled up a stool next to me and got on it, her body mostly turned towards me. Rod Stewart’s ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams’ began, that song that I’d always loved so much. I loved the way it came back, again and again, when you think it’s gone, each verse better and bigger than the one before; a long, winding life-pain song. She knew that song; of course she knew the song. She moved her head to the guitar break in the middle. I shut my eyes and felt her near me. I opened them again, half expecting her not to be there, like I’d just drunk her into existence. We looked at each other each time it slowed down and went back to a verse. The song faded out on a crescendo of electric guitar. She leant in before the fade, her hand on my leg to steady her as she bent as far forward as she possibly could, to get right next to my ear.
‘I’ve told Jim that I’ll look after you tonight. We will stay at the caravan park beside the others.’
I couldn’t speak, I was so nervous. I had fantasised about being alone with her from the first day of meeting her. I had planned so many moments and showdowns in my head, but none of them were like this. In the scenes I invented, I was on ‘top form’ and in control, the drinks just arriving. Not cut, mashed and stinking from a two-day bender that nearly killed someone. This seemed, however, to be my night with Anaya, and now that she was here with me for possibly its entirety, I was terrified, and she knew it. She moved nearer to my face, narrowing her eyes as she examined my injuries. I could smell her, she was so close. I could smell her shampoo, her beer, and traces of gum, and freshly applied lip-gloss that smelt of sweet fruit. When she’d finished scrutinising me, she stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the bar.
‘Let’s go,’ she said. Then she grabbed her keys and the bottle she was drinking from, and we both left before the next song finished.
We drove past the hospital. In the wing mirror I saw an ambulance arrive and thought about poor old Scotty, holed up in there with all the injured and crazies and vomiters.
I watched Anaya’s legs move back and forth on the pedals; she wore a denim skirt. She was a one-handed driver, smoking with the other one, her arm leaning out of the window, and every so often she would cock her head to the right and let her hair blow around outside. She was such a cliché, and I loved her for it. She looked at me a couple of times, but we didn’t speak once on the way to the caravan park. I loved Anaya for her lack of small talk and her ease with silence.
Just as the tyres rolled onto the gravel at the entrance to the site, huge spots of rain dropped on the windscreen. She drove slowly along the track until we saw the Kingswood next to a van with the curtains pulled, but lights on. I saw three heads silhouetted inside. Anaya parked her car beside the van next to it, which was dark. As we backed in, Karin’s face appeared from behind the curtain and gave us a quick wave. I lazily raised my hand, knowing that Anaya wouldn’t bother. I wondered what she was thinking and feeling, and if it was anywhere near matching the intensity of longing that I was feeling for her.
She yanked up the handbrake. ‘Hang on, I just need to get the keys.’
I nodded. She reached behind the seat for her bag. I watched her twist round, and then watched her get out and walk over to the van with Karin in it and knock on the door. As I watched her talk to Karin and then Jim at their van door, and take some keys from them, I wondered why she was here, and what she truly wanted from me. She scared me, and always had, and tonight I had no strength to deal with it.
Inside our caravan, Anaya drew the curtains and put on a small lamp by the window. I slumped onto the seating beside it, still watching every single thing she did. She checked out the toilet and the two bedrooms, and then sat down opposite me, with the table between us. The rain began hammering down on the roof. I loved the rain beyond all other weather conditions, the way it shut you in and gave you the right to be indoors, with no one questioning your lack of go-out-and-getit drive. Everything felt ridiculously perfect.
She rolled a grass joint, taking her time inserting the roach, carefully easing it in with a match, stopping every so often to look up at me, half smiling. When she finished, she offered it to me, but I declined in this instance, because I wanted her to have it all. That way we might be more level with one another’s head states.
‘I know you’ll think I’m fucked for saying this.’ She dragged on her joint. ‘But I kind of like the way you look right now.’ She spoke softly.
‘Yeah, you are fucked.’ I said, not knowing what else to say, yet understanding what she meant by it. Anaya was a strange person with her reactions; nothing seemed to shock her, move her or anger her. With so little going on, she should be boring, yet I found her utterly absorbing.
She came over and sat next to me, lighting up, and then ran her fingers over my mouth.
‘Is it sore?’
‘Getting sorer,’ I said quietly. I felt calmer than before, partly due to overwhelming exhaustion.
‘You know, in the morning it will hurt more than now.’
I nodded. She’d only made a single skin joint, so she soon finished it. She put it out in the ashtray slowly and gently. I could see her now, more than before, I told her.
‘And I can see you,’ she said dreamily.
‘What will happen now?’ I asked, wanting her to take control.
‘Forget everything tonight, it’s too much. Let’s just get some rest, tomorrow we can sort things out, and you can tell me everything if you want to.’
I didn’t know what there was to sort out. I had fucked the others off, and would be asked to leave by Jim in the sobering conversation that no doubt he’d want to have with me when I got up. And although I wanted to apologise to everyone and see Scotty again, I had already decided that I would say my goodbyes in a note, before boarding a bus to Brisbane.
‘Come on.’ She got up, took the hairband out of her hair and walked into the bedroom at the back of the van. I followed. We both took our things off and left them on the floor and got into the bed. I was exhausted beyond all other times of exhaustion and was dying to lie down. We lay on our sides facing each other. We lay for the longest time. The rain eased off a little, just enough to hear our breathing.
‘You need to sleep all this off, don’t you?’ she whispered.
‘Is this the end of something, or the beginning?’ I asked, not caring what I said any more.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she
circled the bruising on my cheekbone. I felt attractive behind my swollen eye, with my boxer cut.
I could have asked her a million things, I was dying to. I wanted to know about Greg, and what kept her with him, why she was here with me, why she had come to Australia, how and where she grew up, what she liked about me, and what she was going to do next. I tried to say something more but she wouldn’t let me speak. She covered my mouth with her mouth, and kept it there for what felt like ages. My heart pounded, and she slowly took her lips off mine, and held the side of my face in her hand. I ached for her and tried to fight the tiredness, but my eyes were closing. I didn’t want the night to end, but I was starting to see shapes in the room that I knew didn’t exist, through needing sleep so badly.
‘OK, now sleep, ssleep,’ she hissed slowly, like a hypnotist.
‘What if when I wake up you’re not here?’ I said, already drifting in and out of consciousness.
‘Ssh,’ she said, ‘ssh.’ Then she moved her hand down to cover mine, and I went home for the very first time.
CHAPTER THIRTY
* * *
I HAD BEEN scared to fall into sleep with Anaya next to me, scared of what the day would bring, and scared that she would not even be there. But at some point I did.
I had strange dreams about small rodents that grew into birds, attaching themselves to the sleeves of a jumper I was wearing. I was trying to shake off the creatures that bit at my arm and held me back, while being chased by an angry mob with guns. I’d been shot a couple of times, with large rubber bullets that the birds had produced like eggs. As I ran, the eggs dropped from the rodents-cum-birds and filled the path behind me, supplying the mob pursuing me with more ammunition. I ran into a house where my grandparents used to live. I could hear them talking, but the house was empty. Anaya arrived in an ice-cream van, which I jumped into, trying to get away from my chasers, except the van was slow, and Anaya didn’t seem to notice. There was no blood from my wounds, only pain. Just as the mob caught the van, I woke up.
I was lying on my side, clutching my ribs in agony. What I had thought was the thumping of rubber bullets hitting the ice-cream van turned out to be rain again, heavy rain on the roof. I didn’t move, I didn’t want to feel any emptiness in the bed, any lightness on the mattress from a space where she had lain. I moved my foot, feeling behind me at the bottom of the bed, worrying that there would be no Anaya’s feet. I turned round. She was gone.
An intense depression set in immediately, and I was also disorientated to the point of panic. My hand throbbed and my head was splitting. There was a sharp pain running from the top of my head, through my eye and down into my cheekbone. There was blood on the pillow from my mouth. I didn’t feel anywhere near as attractive as the night before, instead I felt puffy and bloated, with slits for eyes.
I hated the fact that I’d woken up, but I was way too anxious to sleep any more. I was more sober than I had been, but the drink was still hanging around me, and my mouth tasted foul.
I studied the contours of the other pillow, running my hand over the indentation her head had left. I moved over to her side and lay on the spot where she had slept. There was sand in the bed, and some of her hair just below the pillow – her hair was a lighter brown than mine. I moved on to my stomach, smelling the bed for traces of her.
I realised I had lost my watch, so had no idea of what time it was. I staggered through to the living room of the van and sat at the table, picking up the hairband that Anaya had left there, placing it on my wrist. I pulled back the curtain to find Anaya’s car had gone, as had the Kingswood from next door, and all the curtains were open in their caravan. They had left me.
I thought about what I would do next. I picked up the radio, moving the dial back and forth until I hit something newsy. After an item there was a jingle, then a voice saying it was nine o’clock. I had no money, no watch, no portfolio, no car, no clothes other than the ones lying on the floor in the bedroom, no phone numbers, and no friends. I knew I was in Port Macquarie, and regretted not paying attention at any time to maps and geography. I was surprised that Jim of all people would leave me out here, but when I traced back the events of the last forty-eight hours I couldn’t blame him.
I would wait in the van until I was thrown off the site – by that time I would be in less pain; then I would go to the hospital and find out what was happening with Scotty. Maybe the others were there. If not, then I’d hitch to Brisbane and track down Hank White, easily traceable through his country and western radio show. If the worst came to the worst, I would do several Tampax machines and take a bus, or phone Joyce Cane, and tell her she was right. I had found the tattoo she had predicted and it had left me in a tricky situation, and I could see no alternative but to beg for her help. So I had my back-up plans, but first I’d lie down until the pain subsided slightly.
A car pulled up outside between the two vans. I lay out horizontal on the sofa seats round the dining table, rubbing Anaya’s hairband between my fingers. I didn’t hear the meatiness in the exhaust you got from the Kingswood. The handle on the front door turned up, then down, and Anaya walked in.
‘I got us something to drink,’ she said, offloading a carrier bag with a 7/11 logo onto the table. She brought out two bottles of spring water, unscrewed the top, passed one to me and sat down. I hid my delight at her return, and appeared as casual as I could be in the circumstances.
‘You thought I’d gone maybe, uh?’ she said, smiling. Was this kindness, or was she playing with me? Was this how our great love affair would be?
‘I thought everybody had gone.’ I gulped the first water I had drunk in days.
She sat opposite. This was strange new territory with Anaya. In fact, with anyone. I had rarely stayed the night with anybody, certainly never spoke with them the next day, in daylight, without any of the devices that had got us there in the first place. She looked different to me now. She looked real. It had nothing to do with make-up, for she only wore a bit of lip-gloss and mascara in the evenings if we all went out to the pub. It was something else, I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was I wanted to say things to her, like: ‘I love your face, it’s the sexiest face I’ve seen in my life. I love your cheekbones, and your perfect olive skin and your blue-green eyes.’ But I daren’t say those things, not quite yet.
‘Where are the others? How’s Scotty, do you know?’
‘Did you really think that we had all just run away?’ She laughed.
‘Well, you know, I mean after yesterday.’
‘Is that what people do in your life, Kerry? Run away?’ She held my gaze.
‘Maybe,’ I said, trying to play down my elation at her return.
‘I’ve bought some tea and milk. I’ll make some.’
I nodded.
‘I’ve just spoken to Jim and Karin.’
‘Yeah? What’s happening with Scotty?’
‘Jim wants to have a break today, just to be alone. They are at the hospital just now. Scotty is doing OK, but they’re not sure if he will go back with them or stay in hospital for a bit, then go back in an ambulance. He won’t know until tomorrow.’
‘What about the trip, what does Greg think?’
She filled the kettle as she spoke. ‘I’ve spoken to Greg, don’t worry. He wants you to rest today and start again tomorrow. He wants everybody to do that.’
‘Do you love Greg?’ I asked cautiously.
She turned round, looking right at me. ‘I don’t expect anybody to understand me and Greg. I’m OK with that.’
‘Why were you going to Byron Bay, Anaya? What was the real reason?’ I wanted to hear the truth from her, whatever it was.
‘Like I said, a trip up north’ she lit a match to the stove ‘a surprise.’
‘Well, it certainly is a surprise,’ I said, smiling out of the less swollen side of my mouth.
‘So today’s a kinda limbo, yeah? We can start again tomorrow.’ She put teabags in two cups she found in the cupboard, while I wallowed in her
use of ‘we’.
After drinking tea and staring out at the bad weather, we both took showers and went back into the bedroom. I showered first, and washed my hair with my OK hand. Afterwards, I lay in bed waiting for Anaya. I felt awkward without the bar, the drink and our soundtrack. Instead we had only rain, washing over us in the van.
She came into the room naked, towel-drying her hair. Then she sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me, running her comb through her hair. That’s when I noticed that at the base of her spine she had a tattoo.
‘What is it?’ I said, reaching over and touching it, my heart thumping again.
She bent over so I could get a proper look at it. ‘It’s a swallow. You like it? I got it done when I was sixteen.’
‘Do you believe in fate, Anaya?’ I asked, tracing it with my finger.
‘I believe that we can all have whatever we want, if we want it bad enough.’ She got into bed beside me. My mind raced. It was all leading to this, all of the time, everything that had happened so far. This is what Joyce saw; this had to be my fate. She would become my life now. Maybe she would come with me to find my mother. Maybe I could stay in Australia with her, and we could run the selling together. Or we could live like this, moving around caravans until we ran out of options. But what would a life with Anaya be like? How could I live with the all-consuming desire that I finally had to admit to myself I’d felt for her from the second I saw her face in the bar?
We both lay down facing each other again.
‘Forget what’s in here,’ she said, touching my head lightly.
‘There’s so many weird coincidences going on I need to tell you about, Anaya,’ I said, my eyes darting anxiously over her face.
‘It can wait,’ she said, pulling me towards her. We started kissing but my mind was racing and worrying about other things. I felt sobering, terrible remorse over Scotty’s beating, and my general body state was causing my heart to pound. I hadn’t eaten since our arrival in Port Macquarie a couple of days ago, and although I was exhausted, I resisted closing my eyes as it caused me to see lots of tiny spiders climbing down from long fine pieces of web, then multiplying and scattering as they landed.
The Naked Drinking Club Page 26