The Naked Drinking Club

by Rhona Cameron

  ‘Tut, tut.’ Pattana hung the dishcloth on the cooker.

  ‘So that was it, you just said sorry for freaking them out, and then they left or what?’

  ‘Not before threatening me.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘They told me I’d caused enough trouble and if I didn’t watch it, I’d be sorry.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Yes, Jesus indeed.’

  ‘That’s it, then?’ I wasn’t sure how to play things next, but I felt Hank was being overcautious and that there may be more to this case than met the eye.

  ‘Well, I don’t know but they were so resistant, I can’t imagine them coming round.’ Hank shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘What will I do?’ I was concerned but not panicked, for every day was a step nearer to meeting my mother and I wouldn’t be deterred now by anything or anyone.

  ‘I’m going to run you a nice hot bath. You need to soak your body, it will help it feel better,’ smiled Pattana.

  ‘That would be nice,’ I said, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. A bath would be nice and would give me some time to think.

  ‘Let’s take our drinks to the porch and talk a little, then I think you should get some sleep. You look like you’ve been through the wars.’

  ‘I have. I can’t imagine sleeping tonight, though.’

  Hank offered me a refill but I declined for what felt like the first time ever. I didn’t need more wine. I felt high with excitement and hope.

  ‘Relax, no hurry,’ said Pattana, putting her hands on my shoulders, still warm from the dishes.

  We chatted for a while, Hank being very patient and telling the story over and over until my bath was ready. I agreed with what he said in the truck on the way from the station. He did feel familiar, and we already felt like old friends.

  I lay in the water looking up at the ceiling; I felt euphoric yet strangely calm. Nice classical piano music, maybe Chopin, drifted through from the lounge. I played at holding my breath under the water for as long as I could: if I held it for a minute then I would meet my mother. I hadn’t played this game since I was a child. The bathroom was nicely tiled, all clean and white, with little pieces of driftwood and shells lining the edge of the bath. I imagined my mother to be somewhere near, in the same city as me, the closest we had been for many years. Perhaps she was in her bath right now. I felt round my face and cheekbone, checking the swelling, and wondering what my real mum would make of the state of me, if we met before my wounds healed.

  My mind drifted back to Anaya, whom I had temporarily forgotten. I started to miss her, and longed to have a new, improved night together. Maybe after my search was complete and I’d changed, I could meet up with her. I thought about her sliding around on top of me.

  After my bath Pattana showed me to my room.

  ‘Hank asleep,’ she said, blowing out the candle on an oil burner next to where I was sleeping, which was a fold-down sofabed at the side porch extension, with bamboo blinds all around to keep out the daylight.

  ‘You like the smell?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, very much, thank you.’ I stood in my bath towel, waiting for her to go so I could get into bed.

  ‘Geranium and lavender help you sleep and feel calm.’

  I smiled.

  ‘Goodnight, Kerry, I hope you feel peace.’

  ‘I’m all right, really, but thanks for tonight, it was lovely.’

  She smiled and left.

  It was cosy in the room, which was full of books and an old card table. A strange item hung from the roof above me, made up of feathers and string and glistening wire stuff. I sat looking up at a gap in the blinds through the glass, hoping that the room wasn’t sun-facing in the morning. I pulled out my notebook that I’d hardly written in, and scribbled away all the information I could remember from Hank’s findings. I filled an entire page with Marys and question marks. I was not convinced that revealing only a Christian name would make her untraceable. I had ideas about what to do with that. I switched off the lamp on the card table beside me and lay back. A mild breeze blew the wind chimes outside; the clanking felt comforting. I got Anaya’s hairband from my bag and put it around my wrist. I would get some sleep now, then in a few hours, when I could be sure that Hank and Pat were sound asleep, I would creep round the house and find Hank’s folder and look at it for myself. Despite his kindness, I felt there was something in it he was hiding from me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  * * *

  ‘HELLO, KERRY, GOOD morning,’ a voice sang above me.

  I thought it was the ice-cream-van man in my dream; he looked like Hank. His van was covered in blue paintings of dragons. I was standing in line, my grandfather was there, but everyone else was a zombie slowly moving to the van. I was trying to get the attention of the old man serving before the zombies reached the line. The van was pulled by a unicorn; I tried to get on but kept sliding off, my flip-flops not helping.

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘Kerry.’ It was Pattana giggling.

  ‘Oh my God, what time is it?’ I sat up, and felt the bruising around my face immediately.

  ‘You slept well, it’s almost nine o’clock, and how you feel? How is your face?’ She placed a reddish drink next to my bed.

  ‘The best I’ve slept in ages, feel stiff but much better, thanks.’ I pulled myself up. I felt good if a little disappointed at myself for not finding the folder.

  ‘I bring watermelon juice, very good for you.’

  I gulped it down in one go. ‘Mmmm, that’s fantastic.’

  ‘You dream?’ Pattana smiled away.

  ‘Yeah, loads of dreams.’

  ‘The dream-catcher, that’s why.’ She pointed to the weird feather-wire thing above me.

  ‘Oh, right.’ I didn’t want to dismiss her thing by telling her I dreamt all the time, even when I was awake.

  I heard a faint bell every few seconds coming from another part of the house. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s Hank, he’s chanting. We are Buddhists, we chant every day.’

  ‘Right, I see.’ I smiled and nodded. I hadn’t met any Buddhists before and didn’t know much about it, except that it involved lengthy solitary praying of some sort.

  ‘I gotta go out now, you take your time. Hank will show you around, OK?’

  ‘Thank you so much, Pattana, you’re very kind.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ She left, taking the empty glass with her. I lay thinking about what to do. I didn’t really have very much to go on, and only had three days at the most until the others got here, when I’d have to move to group accommodation and spend my time selling with them. So I would have to maximise my time at Hank and Pat’s and do as much groundwork as possible, while enjoying the comforts on offer, which were the best I’d ever experienced.

  I put on some clothes and went through to the house. I boiled the kettle and went in search of Hank. The bell clanging was louder as I crept up the stairs; I snuck up gently, not wanting to step onto a creaky floorboard and disturb him. I could hear him speaking in a different language, saying the same thing over and over, half singing it, with the bell that sounded like the old-fashioned kind someone rings by hand. The sounds were coming from the third room at the end, where the door was slightly ajar.

  I went back down the stairs to the room before the kitchen, which was closed. As long as I could hear the bell, I knew I was safe to look around. I slowly pushed open the door and felt for a light switch as the curtains were still drawn. As I had thought, it turned out to be a study. There were certificates for physiotherapy and massage on the wall with the name Frank White on them, mostly dated from the early eighties to eighty-seven. There was a map of China in a frame, and a picture of an old lady in a garden surrounded by bright flowers, whom I took to be Hank’s mother. The bell stopped and my heart thumped, but then it started up again, with Hank repeating something starting with ‘nam’ and ending in ‘kyo’.

  I turned my attention to the desk. There
were many folders on a shelf above but none of them orange. I tried the drawers of a filing cabinet behind the door but it was locked. The bell hadn’t chimed in the last few seconds; I put out the light and snuck back through to the kitchen as quickly as I could without creaking. I switched the kettle back on and waited as Hank made his way down stairs.

  He was wearing a white medical top buttoned up the side of the neck, white trousers and slip-on white sandals, his hair held back in a ponytail.

  ‘So it’s all black and white with you, Hank, isn’t it? No in between.’

  ‘Good morning, love, I like your style. You’re a smart little thing, aren’t you?’ He laughed heartily.

  ‘Oh, you know.’ I made myself some tea and sat down. Hank joined me, opening up his mail with a letter opener. He had his glasses down on his nose again, peering over them. He looked much bigger than the day before; I could see his build more in his white tunic, and he was well built and muscularlooking. As he stretched forward to pick up some more mail from the table I could see the bottom of a tattoo under the white of his sleeves, which stopped at his elbow.

  ‘Oh my God! Have you got a tattoo?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Got it done when I was a kid in the Navy.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘If you like.’ He put down the mail and the opener and rolled up his sleeve. ‘Got it done in Thailand, we all got them done, it was the thing to do at the time.’

  I sat speechless, looking at the faded mini-sunrise, which began at his shoulder and spilled out over most of his upper arm.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Where do I begin? This is getting more and more bizarre.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, love, you might have to hold that thought until later. I’ve got to get to work.’

  I realised that, with me being so preoccupied with the other stuff, I didn’t know much else about Hank, apart from his radio show once a week.

  ‘Why don’t you come with me into town? I’ll drop you off and you can see the clinic, then have a wander round town if you like. I could meet you at lunchtime, if you fancy?’

  I really wanted to stay at home and root around but I didn’t want to be impolite, so I quickly got dressed and jumped in the car. It was, after all, right to stick with Hank; he wore the eagle and would therefore lead me to my mother.

  Good old don’t-have-to-do-much fate plan, I thought, as he put on another dreadful country tape.

  Hank was a physiotherapist and sports injury masseur, while Pattana ran the office, booking appointments, answering the phone and doing the books. Their premises were a run-down, cramped little place between two shops somewhere in town. It was called ‘Healing Centre’ and advertised physiotherapy and reflexology on handwritten signs stuck on the window, with rainbows drawn on the top in coloured pencils.

  Inside it was hard to move around with three people. Pattana sat behind a tiny desk with barely any surface space left, an enormous old-fashioned till taking up most of it. There were shelves selling crystals and incense. Hank showed me around, proud of his empire.

  ‘Took me years to build this up,’ he said, leading me into the treatment room. It was cold in the room and badly in need of a paint job. On the wall were charts of the body with lines directed into various points, and pictures of feet divided into areas in different colours, with names of organs written in them. In the middle of the room was the massage bench, next to it a table of clean towels. The room had a bluish light to it, from a half-torn piece of blue plastic cellophane taped on the striplight above.

  ‘This is great,’ I said politely, feeling like a child going to her father’s work for the day.

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ It was nice being with Hank and Pattana, they were very warm and generous, but I couldn’t afford to play visitor for much longer. I would have to move things along. I had no idea what Hank wanted with me if he couldn’t help with the search, but I had an increasing sense that he knew more than he was letting on.

  ‘Hank, can I talk to you?’

  ‘Hang on.’ He popped his head next door and asked Pattana what time his first client was.

  ‘Not until ten.’

  ‘OK, thanks, love.’ He closed the door of the treatment room and gestured for me to sit up on the massage table. He moved some things from a small stool in the corner and sat down, arms folded, all ears.

  ‘Hank, I told you last night, my friends with the paintings are arriving in Brisbane in the next few days and I have to join them, and they’re only here for a short while after that. So I really have to find my mother. I don’t want to stay here when they’re gone if she’s not here. I told you my visa is running out, and I would have to find someone to marry if I want to stay in the country, so I need to know everything you can tell me. Please, Hank.’

  ‘OK, OK. Listen, I know you’re anxious, anybody in your shoes would be, and I want to do everything I can to help, honest I do. But I don’t know any more. I think you should stay for as long as you can and get some rest, and I’ll tell you another thing, I’m going to work on those shoulders of yours. They’ve taken some impact with your accident.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you let me see the folder, Hank? What are you hiding?’

  ‘I like to keep track of things, so I wrote it all down. I don’t want there being any complications and me not being able to be clear about things, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you believe in fate, Hank?’

  ‘I believe a great many things and fate is definitely one of them.’

  I grew excited, having hardly met anybody who agreed with me on this subject. I thought Hank and Joyce Cane would make a great couple, better than Fritz, but that would leave Pattana. I couldn’t see Pattana and Fritz together.

  ‘Sixty-five, when you were born, isn’t it?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Year of the snake.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, the snake is very cunning, very sneaky, slithering around into people’s lives trying to find out stuff.’ He laughed again, taking the subject away from the folder, no doubt. I recalled my snake behaviour on the beach in Port Macquarie when I drunkenly mistrusted the others, and crawled round the sand on my belly trying to hide from them. Perhaps I had snake leanings. But all this new Chinese stuff was confusing me and interfering with my search. I didn’t need symbols at this point, I needed a phone number or an address.

  But Hank had the eagle, so I was obliged to stay for the time being.

  He said, ‘We’ll think of a plan tonight, I promise. Meanwhile, why don’t you wander around, buy a map and meet us back here at five? It’s a short day today. Bank holiday.’

  ‘OK.’ I swung my legs like a ten-year-old.

  ‘You’ll find plenty to do, it’s a wonderful city, Brisbane. And the snake is very resourceful.’ He hissed and wiggled his arm, laughing.

  ‘Great,’ I said, jumping down.

  I wandered around the centre, which was different from Sydney, in that it looked newer, and hillier, until I found a café I liked the look of. I sat outside and ordered poached eggs on toast, a pineapple smoothie and tea. I was feeling half recovered from the Scotty’s Head incident, and my system felt rested from the bender. I wanted to be fully OK by the time I met up with the group, so that I could have a few beers and a laugh with them. The swelling had gone down considerably on my face, but the bruising and cuts were still bad, leaving me no choice but to stick to my white-water rafting excuse when I took up selling again.

  I brought out my notebook and drew up a plan. I counted my money; I had one hundred and fifty dollars in cash that Jim had advanced me, and some loose change. I had no idea how much the company owed me, as I’d stopped keeping a record of it in my notebook of late, but it couldn’t be more than another hundred bucks. I wrote two lists, one practical and one emotional. The practical one read:

  Do washing.

  Buy mouth-ulcer gel.

  Send airmail to granddad.


  Buy phone card.

  Buy maps. Learn local area for good places to sell.

  Don’t drink before food. Must keep head clear to think.

  My emotional list only consisted of:

  Find mother, follow all leads.

  Keep spirits up.

  I paid for my breakfast and left to find a chemist. I had a sore mouth, as some of the cuts from the fight had ulcerated. I paid for some mouth gel while worrying about the possibility that my mother might be in a state other than Queensland or even New South Wales. I lingered at the counter of the chemist wondering whether to buy some Remegel or not, because my stomach was burning since I’d had the chillies with the red wine the night before.

  I couldn’t deal with having to find out about all the other states in Australia. I didn’t know how many there were, but decided if it came down to it, Jim would help by looking it up or I would go to a library or something. The phone rang behind the counter. A staff member shouted to the pharmacist about a delivery, the pharmacist shouted back to get where he was calling from and I began thinking about Hank, and how he was contacted by this Mary woman at the radio station, wondering whether the calls went through some kind of switchboard that might have logged area codes. I jotted down in my notebook to follow that line of enquiry when I got back to Hank’s later.

  The day dragged. I bought a map and lay under a tree in a park, examining the areas with the widest roads, which I took to represent comfortable suburban areas, and good places to sell. It was hard to concentrate on anything, knowing that there were officially alive and breathing family members out there somewhere, perhaps nearby, and I couldn’t do anything about it right now.

  I wandered around some record stores, bought an airmail letter and went to a bar for strictly lemonade only, while I wrote to my grandfather. I told him I was bored with the hot weather, and found people to be friendly but that I was starting to miss him too much, and that I was trying to find what I was looking for and couldn’t come back until I did, but wished that he was with me, and how the warmth here would be good for his arthritis. I imagined a nurse sitting on his bed reading my words aloud to him, and hoped it would be her and not my other mother who would do it, as I wanted to hide my search from her. Despite how badly we had fought over the years, I didn’t want to hurt her. I would protect her from my quest to find my birth mother, until the time was right for me to tell her. I thought about all the protecting going on from everyone around me, including myself now, and wondered if it really was protection. Or just fear of the truth.