Drowned Sprat and Other Stories
Page 9
I’m not talking about my garden, not in front of Fran. It’s pathetic. Is that all I have to talk about? That and my part-time job in Lloyd’s brother’s video shop.
‘It’s winter,’ I offered. ‘The garden’s a sea of mud.’
‘Melissa has huge respect for you as a gardener,’ Lloyd said magnanimously. ‘She’s learnt a lot from you.’
The day I first met Melissa I gave her a whole lot of baby plants from my succulents bed.
It’s famous, in a small way, among our friends, my succulent garden. I’ve been collecting them for years. I love them: their thick, juicy protuberances, tender, tough and vulnerable. Some of them grow spikes for protection. Some of them, like the aloe, have medicinal properties. Melissa is more into that side of them than I am. She’s forever dabbing their juices onto the cuts and sores of Lloyd’s boys, the children from his first marriage.
‘I s’pose Melissa would like a girl.’
‘Doesn’t care, I don’t think. I would, though, I’d like a daughter.’ Lloyd’s voice was soft, his eyes shone.
Fran’s black voile arm lurched around the table, sloshing wine into our glasses.
‘Bridget Frances, or Frances Bridget?’ she shouted. ‘Which will it be?’
‘Neither, I shouldn’t think,’ said Lloyd, guarded now, his famous cool.
‘Shall we have coffee here, or go elsewhere?’
We went to Fran’s. Her flatmate was away and, judging by his half-packed boxes, he was intending to go away forever immediately after he returned. Fran’s two cats lay entwined by the heater. In the kitchen their mistress banged about with cups and coffee pot. Lloyd was leaning on the mantelpiece above the cats, staring at a photograph in a heavy, hand-wrought silver frame. He looked quizzical, worried even.
‘I haven’t seen that before,’ I said. ‘Is it a recent acquisition?’
I moved in front of him and took it down. It was a beach scene, the sea and sky tropical, the couple centre frame tanned and happy, he with his arm across her shoulders. It was Lloyd and Fran, fifteen years younger, some time in the late eighties.
‘Where was that taken?’ I asked Lloyd’s back as he retreated to a sofa.
‘When Fran and I … you remember … or perhaps you don’t … when we went —’
Fran appeared, bearing coffee and Scotch. She thumped the tray down on a table, startling the cats.
‘Let’s get some of this fucking hard stuff inside us,’ her voice boomed. ‘With coffee. Yum, yum, fucking yum!’
My fingers felt sweaty on the silver suddenly, as if they were about to dismantle a bomb, or pick a shard of glass from a child’s foot, or handle a deadly poison. I moved behind Fran’s bent-over bottom as she poured out, to replace it.
‘You like that picture, Lloydie?’ she asked as I passed. ‘That was such a happy time. Probably the best time of my —’ She stopped. ‘Oh no! Jesus! I’m not going to fucking say that. Then you’d know how really fucking tragic my life is!’
The frame wobbled, found its balance and I turned back to the room. Lloyd took a Scotch from Fran but put it down beside him. He was pacing himself, I noted, and realised he hadn’t had a cigarette all night.
‘You given up smoking, Lloyd?’ I asked, in my undertone.
Fran knocked back her shot and poured herself another.
‘But no — bugger it. I should be able to say that, even in front of Bitchie Bridgie. It was fucking wonderful, even the fucking was fucking wonderful!’ Fran shouted. She flopped down beside Lloyd. ‘In Bali. You were in Wanganui — it was when your mother died. After Liz left Lloyd. We went to Bali, eh, Lloydie? We had a fucking fantastic time.’ Fran was making strange little gastric noises, somewhere between a burp and a hiccup. I’d seen her inebriated enough times to know a vomit was imminent.
Fran Vomit Stories. Everybody’s got one.
Lloyd stared at the cats. ‘As I recall,’ he said slowly, deliberately, ‘we attempted sex only once, against my better judgement, and we failed because I was too drunk.’
Fran caressing him, holding him, kissing him? Lloyd’s warm hands around her waist, his sweet mouth nuzzling her enormous tits? Fran’s hand cupping his balls, stroking his bum? They’d had breakfast in bed together. He’d been tender … with Fran?
There was an awful howl, and it took a moment for me to realise it was coming from myself. The cats fled. Lloyd shot to his feet, spilling coffee on Fran, who yowled and retched in the same instant.
‘Bridgie, don’t!’ Lloyd’s appalled face swam towards me, Fran behind him with her head between her knees.
I followed the cats. I was in the hall, through the front door, on the street, in my car, gone. Lloyd didn’t follow me.
Maybe he stayed behind to clean up Fran’s sick.
Maybe he gave it five minutes, then left himself.
It’s Sunday today and I am weeding my succulents. Every now and then one of them gets a spike through the hole in my gloves. I’ve gone over and over that evening in as much detail as I possibly can. Nearly a whole week has passed and neither of them has rung me. You’d think Lloyd would. He must see that he has betrayed me and in no small way. I thought we had a contract, a kind of unspoken agreement, he and Fran and I: that he was to share his heart and mind with us, his body reserved for his wives and a few in between who didn’t matter.
When I came home on Monday night, pissed and tearful, I went though my shoeboxes of photographs and there wasn’t a single shot of Lloyd and me alone. Sure, lots of photos of us, but always in a crowd, different crowds, right back to 1972. I felt despairing then, all the photos spread around me.
Now I’m plugging tulip bulbs into the soil, even though it’s too late. They’ll rot. I should plant some sweet basil, too, because it would inevitably curl up with frostbite and die, which would be right and true and proper because I fail at everything …
And then suddenly, without warning, I have an unbidden hallucination, the sort usually reserved for dreams in the dark. Here he is as Fran never had him: his brown arms around me, our bodies spooning together, making love. His narrow, warm chest is against my back, the rough hair of his flanks against the underside of my thighs, his breath like kisses on the back of my neck, his wonderful dick moving inside me, his beautiful fingers between my legs … and it’s never happened. It never will. Our impossible love is perfect, glistening, unrealised: my private joy and comfort.
I stand up and brush down my knees. Yes! It’s true — and wonderful! I am Lloyd’s only true platonic friend! There is a definite line and Fran stepped over it. For Lloyd there will always be the spectre of their flailing, sweating, non-consummating bodies — or maybe only in Fran’s mind. I feel like dancing, right here in the mud, spinning like a kid. For Lloyd I am unique.
My love for him sparkles and flares like a jewel, precious beyond belief, and I hold it dear all the way inside to ring him up.
Menschenfresser
In two days she had to leave Litia’s hotel and catch the bus back to her village. Well, they were expecting her. If she didn’t show up, what then? One of her brothers would be sent to fetch her, or more likely her father. He would combine the trip with church business and sit silently retributive beside her in his dark clothes, all the way back to Londoni. If he found her as she was now, he would tell her she’d disgraced not only him, but her matagali, her village and the AOG (Assembly of God) as well.
Werner looked at her and wondered what she was thinking. He’d noticed that she was often pensive, the smooth field of her brow furrowed. He extended a fat, puce finger and ran an imaginary plough between her eyes. As he’d expected, she brushed him away like a fly. He sighed. A hard nut to crack, this one. He’d had more success with the local girls on his previous holiday in Fiji, but that was years ago and he was slimmer then. And wealthier.
The noodles hissed out of the pot into the colander. Margaret turned from the sink to the gas ring. A thin, golden beam of oil dribbled into the pot, the blue flames leaping like dogs.
>
‘What are you doing now?’ asked Werner.
‘Cooking your lunch,’ said Margaret.
‘Not like that.’
‘Yes, like this.’ She dropped a handful of chopped onion and carrot into the oil and stirred it. ‘You open this.’
Werner had a tin of tuna pressed into his hand.
When she said she’d cook his meal he’d got his hopes up for some island delicacy. The primitive kitchen shouldn’t have hindered her. They didn’t need much, these Fijian girls — a fish, some coconut milk, some dalo leaves.
Margaret used her teeth to open a packet of instant noodle mix. She sprinkled the powder over the vegetables and tossed in half a cup of water.
‘Not like that!’ Werner was almost shouting. Margaret flinched.
‘Yes, like this,’ she said, fetching the drained noodles and adding them too. Werner stood with the tin of fish still in his hand.
‘Come on,’ said Margaret, ‘open it up.’
‘What?’ gaped Werner.
‘The ika,’ said Margaret. ‘Open it up.’
She took the pot from the heat while Werner struggled with an antique tin-opener. Despite his flab, his buttocks stiffened with the effort of forcing the rusty tooth into the top of the can. Margaret laughed at him, her voice hurling against the stained walls of the hotel kitchen.
‘Shut up,’ said Werner.
‘Shut up yourself,’ said Margaret.
There were little pools of sweat in the dimples of Werner’s shoulders, the odd hair standing up in them like burnt mangroves in a fleshy swamp. His faded orange singlet had dark patches of moisture on it that weren’t drying in the steamy kitchen, dark patches that, when he turned around, interfered with the design on the front. It was of two pigs rutting and the words ‘Makin’ Bacon’. It made Margaret embarrassed, that shirt.
Werner shoved the tin at her and some of the oil slopped onto her wrist. She shook it off into the pot with the tuna, stirred it all and held the empty tin out to him.
‘Ekelhaft,’ said Werner, staring into the pot. It looked revolting. As he took the jagged tin he flicked it up hard. Blood welled from her soft palm.
‘Aaeee!’ She dropped the pot handle to cradle her hand. ‘Look what you’ve done!’
It was only a superficial cut, Werner was sure. He took her hand tenderly and kissed the back of it before turning it around to inspect the damage. There was a gossamer flap of skin and a lot of blood, as red as his. He put his mouth to the cut and licked at it. An expression of disgust crossed Margaret’s face and she pulled away. She turned on the cold tap. The water ran pink into the stone sink.
Werner served the meal. It didn’t look too bad, slopped out onto the plates. Sort of Chinese and anyway, he admitted to himself, he’d eaten worse. He carried the plates out to the verandah and put them on a shady table.
‘Bring the forks!’ he shouted to Margaret from the corridor.
The tap was still running and he could hear Margaret speaking Fijian with an answering woman. Litia had gone to the supermarket. Who else could it be? he wondered. Another cousin?
He sat down heavily on the most reliable-looking chair. Its torn vinyl spiked his thighs, even through his blue cotton shorts. Werner grimaced, his fleshy upper lip forcing his moustache hairs into his nostrils. He sneezed hugely.
‘Margaret!’
The tap was still running faintly. A mynah landed on the verandah rail and eyed the lunch.
‘Verschwinde!’ Werner flicked his hand at the bird. ‘Margaret!’ The bird flapped its wings but remained perched. Werner ate some of the noodles with his fingers. In Indian style, he told himself.
Litia came up the long steps from the road, burdened with plastic bags of fruit and vegetables. As she bowed her head with the weight, a single grey hair sparkled in the sunlight. She didn’t recognise him from last time, Werner was sure. He remembered her, though. The single grey hair seemed the only indication that the thirteen years since he was last here had passed for her, just as they had for him. She looked up and smiled.
‘Bula!’
‘Bula,’ he said, and sighed.
‘You are having some lunch?’ asked Litia.
‘No forks!’ said Werner, shrugging and turning out his hands. Litia laughed. He looked like an enormous reef fish, pink and orange and blue. She waved and went inside. The hotel had been quiet these last few days — just a few locals and not many backpackers. It gave her some time for herself, today maybe even some time with her feet up.
Margaret was coming down the corridor with two forks in one hand, the other with a rag wound around it.
‘Bula,’ said Margaret. She rattled the forks at Litia. ‘He will be getting mad!’
But Werner wasn’t mad at all. His plate was empty and Margaret’s food had been carefully rearranged so that she wouldn’t notice any missing.
She didn’t. It was so lovely out on the verandah, the gentle, creamy breeze, the birds, the click-clack of the palm leaves, the blue of Suva Harbour through the mango leaves. Werner looked contented, leaning back, lighting a cigarette with greasy fingers. Margaret settled down at her plate and began her lunch.
‘Who were you talking to in the kitchen?’ asked Werner.
Margaret’s eyes widened, as if startled by his question, and then narrowed. She looked shifty. Werner hadn’t seen her look shifty before. It was interesting. He hadn’t thought her capable of it.
‘Who?’ Werner repeated.
‘No one.’ Margaret filled her mouth with noodles and brushed an ant off her plate. ‘You shut up and smoke.’
Werner smiled, in spite of himself. She could be cheeky, this one. He wondered how old she was. Eighteen? It was difficult to tell. They didn’t wrinkle up the same as white women.
‘Are you going to come out with me tonight?’ he asked.
Margaret spoke with her mouth full. ‘Where to?’
‘The Townhouse Hotel. That bar on the roof. I saw it from the street this morning.’
Margaret laid a noodle on the verandah rail for the mynah. It picked it up and flicked it around its beak.
‘Well?’
There was a rustle of dry leaves as a mongoose streaked out from a stand of bamboo.
‘Well?’ he said again.
‘All right,’ said Margaret. ‘Vinaka.’
She smiled broadly at him. He wondered if his luck was about to change. After all, he was different from a lot of white men you see in the tropics. Scrawny, pathetic specimens most of them, wasted by the heat and prematurely withered. There was one in this hotel, a skinny, bearded New Zealander carrying on a clandestine affair with a young Indian woman from Sigatoka. Werner had noticed them together, cooking in the kitchen, doing their washing in the laundry. Alone, the woman was nervous, always looking over her shoulder, waiting to be discovered. When her lover was near she nestled into him, her face blissful.
Margaret had scarcely touched Werner. He’d felt her eyes on him though, like before, in the kitchen, when he was opening the tin. She began gathering up the dishes.
‘How’s your hand?’ he asked.
Margaret shrugged and a rueful laugh escaped her. ‘Okay.’ She carried the plates down the corridor to the kitchen. Her dry feet rasped on the wooden floor.
Werner would try to remember this heat during his next German winter. There was a time when he thought he’d never experience one of those again. He was sitting pretty in Auckland, landlord of two substantial blocks of flats in Papatoetoe. The money was falling into his lap. Although Margaret didn’t realise it, he’d had plenty of experience with people like her — coconuts — though most of them, as he recalled, didn’t have such frizzy hair. Then his wife had started kicking up, his beautiful blonde Kiwi wife whom he’d met at Oktoberfest, and he’d lost everything in the settlement. Dale had had a better lawyer, that’s all it came down to.
Where was Margaret now? Possibly making coffee — and properly, he hoped, in the way he’d taught her the day before yesterday.
Margaret closed her eyes, her stomach aching and bloated with beer. In a flash she saw Werner’s mouth bending to her bleeding palm, his pale tongue licking. There was a story, a story she remembered an old auntie telling her at home in the village. It was about a German, a German like Werner, fat and white, who’d found himself washed ashore near Londoni. Margaret’s auntie had heard the story from her auntie.
Herr Beilman had become, a hundred and forty years ago, a man of hideous appetites, joining in the feasts of bakalo and kurilagi. He would go to the temple and wait among the people for the first head to loll on the killing stone. As the story had it, he preferred children and had once dined with Tanoa on his return to Bau, the mast of Tanoa’s canoe festooned with the corpses of infants. A cannibal, in his own tongue a Menschenfresser … But after only a few months he had offended his chief host and filled an oven himself. Margaret’s auntie had always allowed herself a chuckle at this point in the story.
On the steps, Werner’s arm tightened. Margaret wanted to sleep. She flopped over his arm like a doll, barking her shins on the concrete.
‘Eins, zwei, drei, vier …’ Werner counted the steps for her, ‘Funf, sechs, sieben …’
The hotel foyer was dark. Margaret wondered how Werner could have remained so sober — he’d drunk more than she had. He was guiding her down the dim corridor to her room. Behind Litia’s door a radio tinkled.
‘Liti —’ began Margaret.
Werner put his hand over her mouth.
‘Shshsh — she’s tired. She’s had a long day. We won’t disturb her,’ he whispered. ‘Where’s your key?’
Margaret gestured weakly at her handbag, which still clung, miraculously, to her shoulder. There was a jumbling and a jangling as Werner’s fingers raked through it.