Handpicked
Page 25
The waiters greet him in the cheery way they always do. He takes his favourite spot at a table by the window overlooking the river, and orders a T-bone steak and a beer. The meal has never tasted better. Every mouthful eases the soreness in his back. When his meal is finished he downs the last mouthful of beer. The waiter immediately approaches him.
‘Another drink, sir?’
Jim looks at his glass, swivels it around in his hands. ‘Yes, sure.’
When the waiter brings him his drink, he waits a few minutes before taking a sip. Thinking back on the day he ran his ute into the tree at Truro Hill, he shudders. He isn’t going to risk losing his licence again. Pain in the backside having to depend on others for transport. Begging like a dog.
Two is the most he’ll allow himself on any day and tonight is no different. A good meal, a long day behind him. In the end he downs a whole glass of water as well, and leans back, lifts his arms above his head and stretches them. He thinks of his new electric blanket, and feels like curling up like a python after its feed and drifting off to sleep.
Having paid for his meal, he gets into the car. As he turns the key in the ignition, the only thought in his mind is of throwing off his clothes, lifting the covers and sliding into the soft warm bed.
Jim angles into the 45-degree parking lot outside Woolworths, kills the engine and climbs out of his ute. He rubs the back of his neck and stretches his arms. Tequila Sunrise was exceptionally filthy. The occupants must have had an orgy. Thirty-eight empty schooners and twelve empty wine bottles in the recycling crate. And in July, the thick of winter. Imagine anyone partying like that on a riverboat, even in the height of summer! He’d counted them just for the record. The bin was spilling over, carpet littered with food crumbs, sheets looking like they’d not been changed for months. Oh well. Good on them. At least they had fun. It’d taken him only an extra half-hour to get the place back in order.
He pulls his shopping list out of his pocket and heads towards the shops. He’ll need to get some cash, as he’s planning to get some Vienna loaves from the deli after Woolworths and they don’t take EFTPOS.
He likes his Vienna bread, a taste he’s acquired in the last year. He loves the crust, the softness of the insides, the way it soaks up soup. Last week, he cooked shepherd’s pie. He made it from what he recalled of his mother’s recipe, and was rapt with the way it turned out. Soaked with the sauces, the crusty bread melted in his mouth. Next week, he’ll try tuna mornay. Couldn’t be too hard, if his memory of how Mum used to make it doesn’t fail him.
He crosses the road and ambles to the autobank. He inserts his card, enters his pin number, clicks on cash withdrawal. When the machine prompts him about a balance enquiry, he pauses. The last time he checked his balance was about nine days ago. Might as well. He clicks yes.
The machine issues his money. He takes the cash, slides it into his wallet. Then he takes the receipt. He peers at the digits at the bottom—$3,072.00. His heart lifts. Amazing. A few hundred here, a couple of hundred there. It’s added up so quickly in the last eight months. David has had nearly ninety per cent occupancy of his houseboats in the whole time Jim’s been cleaning for him. Sure he’s dug his fingers into it a few times, like when the cavities in his teeth needed filling, but his account’s nowhere near how it was in the past.
He folds the piece of paper and puts it in the zip compartment of his wallet. Before heading for Woolworths, he stops at the real estate office. He scans the ads, as he usually does when he gets a chance. A few leap out at him. He picks up a brochure from the rack. He’ll browse through it over a cup of coffee at home. He heads back to Woolworths with a lift to his stride.
41
A BREEZE STARTS TO BLOW, giving way to chilly winter winds. It is August and she’s hanging out for spring to arrive. Laila shifts on the bench, pulls her cardigan tight around her. The park is her regular haunt. Straight after work, instead of going home, she takes a walk and heads for her favourite spot near the little stream, or creek, as Australians call it. It’s nothing like the Murray or the Rejang but there’s some water running through and it’s enough for her. These days she still enters new words into her Australian Words notebook. Yesterday’s entry was work your butt off. It came from her friend Mary.
Mary and she have been meeting for lunch nearly every day since she started work six months ago. Sometimes they even swap their packed lunches. Laila likes Mary. Mary was the one who told her on her first day to watch out for Pamela, the supervisor at Quick Fix who gives everyone a hard time.
‘Depends,’ Mary had said, ‘if she’s had luck with the guys. You can tell because she’ll wear that extra red lipstick the next day. Otherwise, whoosh, duck for cover.’
Mary made a swishing sound and ducked her head as if avoiding a torpedo. Laila laughed.
Laila is amazed at the number of ‘errata’ jobs that come through Quick Fix. Spelling errors for minister names, wrong amounts of money for annual reports. There is always some mistake or another that needs fixing. Peel stick, peel stick. Occasionally, if the item is a T-shirt or some attire, it’s peel stick iron, peel stick iron.
Mind-numbing work, but it pays the rent and bills. Getting the job was a pure stroke of luck. The advertisement at Centrelink, the interview, starting work a week later. Her flat was also a godsend—$75 a week rent, no references—although she had to visit a few places and applied for three before she was finally accepted. It is a simple one-bedroom unit on the top floor of a block of cream-brick units, nothing pretty, bathroom in need of some repair, but it’s her own. A few days ago she found out that her neighbour, an Australian girl who’s about her age and lives on the ground floor, is paying $90 a week for hers. She’d made a silent prayer of thanks.
Last weekend she checked out the video store near her place, where you can rent five weekly videos for seven dollars, something she’s not contemplated before, thinking she couldn’t afford it. After making a quick calculation, she worked out that it wouldn’t drain her budget. Mary has a player and has been suggesting that they get together at her place to watch movies. Shared, it would cost them only three-fifty each. And last week she came across the Salvos Community Store three blocks away from work, where she’d spotted some tops and skirts she liked. They were about three dollars each. When she gets her next pay, she’ll go pick them up.
Laila thinks back on her time in Australia, punctured with peaks and troughs, emotional roller-coaster rides. The last six months plateau off. There’s a small pleasure in waking up in the morning and being able to count on her day panning out in a predictable way.
Ducks are washing themselves in the creek. They flap their wings, duck their heads in the water then lift them and shake off the water. The ducks on the Murray River seemed larger than these. Or is it her imagination? Images of the river meander through her mind. She sees Jim locking the ute, pulling up his trousers, which have slid down his belly, and hears his feet scuffing the gravel. His bulky form moves about in the caravan, each step he takes making the caravan wobble. She smells his cigarette smoke wafting in through the flyscreen as she does the dishes, his voice thundering through the doorway, ‘Come have a look at the sunset, honey. Just beautiful.’
She remembers the way Jim would produce a present for her from behind his back, wanting to surprise her but his clumsy gestures giving him away. And his awkward manner when he said, ‘A little something for you, babe,’ the corner of his mouth twitching slightly from nervousness. Even when things started to go bad in their marriage he never stopped giving her little gifts.
One time, in winter, Jim had dropped her off on a Saturday for her appointment with the hairdresser. He offered to pick her up. There were four people waiting in line, sitting side by side on the couch. I’ll come back in an hour, Jim said. Laila looked at the queue and said she’d walk home instead, unsure how long it was going to take. When the hairdresser was drying her freshly cut hair, it started to rain. Her first thought was of her hair getting soaked on the w
ay home. Paying at the counter, she resigned herself to the idea of wrecked hair. But when she opened the door, she saw Jim, sitting in the ute across the road. He’d waved to her through the window, signalling.
The wind makes a whirring in her ears, the kind that sounds as if someone is whispering something to you. Laila looks at the leaves of the gum trees nearby. They rustle and move like little fairies. The familiarity enwraps her like a warm glove. She walks towards the tree, picks a leaf, and returns to the creek. She looks at her arms and legs, takes a deep breath. The gift of sight, smell and hearing. She’s found a job, a place to live. She brings the leaf to her nose and sniffs it. The smell of Australia. Gratitude wells up in her.
42
THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER. Spring, finally. Hints of blue creep into the sky, promising a bright, crisp day.
Laila clicks the door shut. The morning air is chilly but she knows by midday it’ll warm up a little. After two and a half years she’s finally got the hang of the idiosyncrasies of Australian weather. She gives the door a shake to be sure it’s secure. She’s not left her flat vacant overnight since she started renting it.
Laila checks her watch. Seven-thirty. She’s catching the seven-forty into town. From there she’ll walk to the Greyhound bus terminus. She’s only packed an overnight bag, unsure how long she’s going to stay.
Last night Mary had asked her to come for Friday night drinks after work, but Laila had said no. She wanted an early night.
The sound of air brakes, followed by the rumble of a huge vehicle. The bus approaches. Laila waves her hand, the bus pulls up and she hops into it.
Glimpses of the Murray. Laila peers out the window, cranes her neck. She’s not seen the river in eighteen months. Snatches of blue, water perfectly still, hues echoing the sky. She looks at the riverbank, the red earth and swaying reeds exactly as she remembers them.
The bus lurches over a stretch of bumpy road then makes a slow meander into Renmark. The river view slips away as the bus pulls into the bus terminus. It is around one in the afternoon. Except for a new shop called ‘Big River Furniture’ and a new hairdressers, the place looks the same. Rows of motorcycles, as she remembers them, are parked outside Paul Dempsey Motorcycles.
Laila gets down from the bus and takes in the look of the place. She breathes in the country air, pulls her cardigan tight over her chest. The wind whips her hair. Crazy spring winds in the Riverland, she remembers them from the year before last. Images shower on her like confetti—the lull of lapping water, the changing colours of the seasons at her doorstep, the wind rattling against the windows of the caravan.
The humming of the bus lingers in her head. She goes into the deli, buys a ham sandwich and eats it while walking. The route is exactly as she remembers it, white house with the brown- and cream-striped awning, green wrought-iron table setting at the house with the big palm tree, the dip of the road near the row of pencil pines.
At the boom gate of the caravan park, she stops. She looks around her, gazes at the scenery fanning out ahead, picks up the scent of the gum trees. A few feet away, there is a rustling, then the sound of a tiny creature scampering under the bushes. She arranges her hair and squeezes past the gap at the side. The bag is starting to feel heavy. She changes it to her other hand and walks on.
The caravan comes into view, located next to the riverfront cabins. She remembers the height and shape of every single gum tree near the caravan. From this direction, she can’t see if his ute is parked out the front. She drops her bag on the ground and, with slow careful steps, she approaches the caravan. The Murray on her left. She turns to steal a quick glance at it, keeping the caravan in sight. Flashes of blue, red and green blaze into her vision.
There are shuffling sounds, the scraping of metal, a cough. She sees the vehicle first, then she sees him. He stands, bending over the engine of his ute, spanner in hand, tinkering with something.
She edges closer. Her feet scuff the gravel. Jim looks up. His eyes widen. The spanner slips from his fingers. It hits the steps of the front door and bounces to the gravel. Clink clank.
‘Blimey, look who’s here.’
His face breaks into a smile, his eyes light up. He opens his arms.
Acknowledgements
MY DEEPEST THANKS GO to Peter Bishop, creative director of Varuna, The Writers’ House, for his belief in me; Linda Funnell, HarperCollins Publishers, for selecting my work; Andrea Rankin for her critique and support; Colin and Margot Roy whose orchards in Renmark and help with research provided the setting for my novel; Judith Lukin-Amundsen, my editor, who made my work shine; Jamie Langley, Subhadra Devan, Diane Beer and Rob Bruin for their assistance and support; Rosaliah Clements, Adam Barclay and Doreen Salon for help with research on things Filipino; Lydia Papandrea and the team at HarperCollins for turning the book into a reality; and lastly, Varuna, The Writers’ House, Macquarie Group Foundation, SA Writers’ Centre and SA Arts Council for their sponsorship.
About the Author
SIEW SIANG TAY was born in Malacca, Malaysia, to second-generation Chinese parents. After working for eleven years in the petroleum industry in Malaysia, she left the corporate world and emigrated to Australia in 1992 with her daughter. She currently works at the University of South Australia. Her short stories have been published in literary magazines worldwide, including Meanjin and Dimsum. In 2007 she was one of the winners of the HarperCollins Varuna Awards for Manuscript Development, which led to the publication of Handpicked, her first novel. She lives in Adelaide.
Visit Siew Siang Tay’s website:
www.siewsiangtay.com
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Celebrating New Writing
The HarperCollins Varuna Awards for
Manuscript Development
These unique awards are for new or emerging writers of prose fiction or narrative non-fiction.
Each year the HarperCollins Varuna Awards offer five writers the opportunity to develop their work with a HarperCollins senior editor at Varuna—the Writers’ House in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The awards aim to give practical assistance to new writers to bring their work to publication.
Applications close at the end of October each year, and the residential intensive takes place the following April.
For more information visit:
www.varuna.com.au/harpercollinspathways.html
Past winners include:
Katherine Johnson Pescador’s Wake
Kim Huynh Where the Sea Takes Us
Pip Newling Knockabout Girl
Ian Townsend Affection
Mark O’Flynn Grassdogs
Denise Young The Last Ride
Rebecca Burton Leaving Jetty Road
Robbi Neal Sunday Best
Penelope Sell A Secret Burial
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2009
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
A member of the HarperCollinsPublishers (Australia) Pty Limited Group
www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Siew Siang Tay 2009
The right of Siew Siang Tay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Tay, Siew Siang.
Handpicked / Siew Siang Tay.
ISBN 978 0 7322 8792 4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978 0 7304 0013 4 (ePub)
A823.4
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