On River Road

by Chris Else

  She was halfway towards the top of the stairs, walking, body upright, shoulders back, a stride full of purpose. Then, turning aside, opening a door, entering, without looking back at him. Knowing he would follow. Of course he would follow. With his tongue hanging out.

  A room done in blue and white, with frills and flounces. Blue and white curtains held back with ties at the window. A brass bed with a blue-and-white quilt trimmed with ruffles, lace trim on the matching pillows. A white dressing table with a triple mirror. She was standing there in front of it.

  ‘Lie down,’ she told him, and he did so, on his back, on the quilt.

  ‘Do you know who this room belongs to?’ she asked, looming suddenly above him, lifting one knee on to the bed. ‘Monty’s daughter. Monty’s little girl. She never stays here. She hates it here. Weird, don’t you think? To keep a room for a child who hates you.’

  Her gaze travelled down his body. He couldn’t move. He was helpless.

  ‘You’re a hairy man, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve ever had such a hairy man before.’

  ‘How many men have you had before?’

  She laughed. She wasn’t going to answer that. ‘Men count, don’t they? They tell me men count. It’s a trophy thing.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do you count?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I counted I’d have to remember. Even the ones I’d prefer to forget.’ Her fingers trailed against his thigh. Then she gripped his cock and squeezed it. ‘What do we do with this?’

  So he gave her his wallet, watched as she opened it and took out a condom. Then he lay back, with his hands behind his head.

  ‘There we are,’ she said. ‘All dressed up and no place to go.’

  He reached out, gripped her upper arm.

  ‘It’s all right.’ She was laughing. ‘I’ll give you what you want. What you seem to want.’

  Climbing on to the bed. She straddled him, knees either side of his hips, and then rocked forward, reaching down with her left hand, manipulating, rocking back, sliding down on him, smooth and warm. He lifted his palms to her breast but she pulled away, pressing with her clenched right fist on his chest. Rocking back, looking down, a smile, a girlish kind of smile. He humped his hips, pressing into her.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘you’re fucking me. Your heart’s desire. And it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing at all. You fuck me and you come. Maybe I come too. But then what? It’s a pointless, pointless exercise. We might not even remember it tomorrow. Will you remember? Do you want to remember? I bet I can make you.’

  And suddenly her arm was swinging, her right arm, up and down, a small bright flash, and thumping with the side of her fist on the top of his shoulder. Stab. He yelled out. Her arm again upward, but he stopped her this time, caught her round the wrist. Protruding from her clenched hand was a little metal spike about two centimetres long. A pair of pointed scissors.

  Looking down at him, grinning, little flick of her tongue against her top lip. She reached out with her free hand, and he felt the rub of her fingers there where she’d stabbed him, lifted them to her mouth. There was blood on them. Licking. It was his anger she had there, his hatred, seeping out of the hole in his shoulder. Hurting? Yes, it was coming now, a rush of pain, right there where Lisa had bitten him that evening. When? How long ago?

  ‘Do you want some?’ Offering, reaching, touching him on the lips, rocking back again. Smiling down at him with blood on her mouth, her chin. And the eyes were cold, blue eyes, nothing. No one. Flick of her tongue, a snake-flick. And the wound began to throb with the pulse of his hatred, beating hard. She was his. He had her. Wrist in his grip. She couldn’t get away. And he loathed her.

  Slowly, her hand opened and the scissors fell, a small prick on his bicep.

  ‘I’m defenceless now,’ she said, reaching out again for the blood, fingers rubbing. She showed him her palm, red with it, and then she began to smear it on her breast. ‘You want to kill me, don’t you?’

  He couldn’t speak. He was choked, dammed up, the pressure building. And she was a vile thing, looking down and smiling with her bloody mouth like a bright good morning, eyes like blue stones, opal glitter.

  She pouted. ‘Ooo,’ she said. ‘Poor diddums. Go on, kill me. Try.’

  And it was coming, the rage. It would consume them both. Except a voice was calling him from far away, a clear voice in the mountain air. His name. I have a name. They gave me a name.

  A yell. A roar. He swung his arm, dragging her, hurling her away from him so that she sprawled across the bed and tumbled off the other side. A scream, as her hand clutched, useless, at the quilt and waved for a moment, like the last grasp of a person drowning.

  Tom!

  53.

  NOT THE WHITE CAR going south. That was Ward. It was a yellow car and it was heading north. Martin Wraggles didn’t see it because it was in front of him. A yellow car, smashed up, with a broken headlight. It might have had blood on it. It must have been noticeable. Someone else must have seen it, then. Unless it turned off. Into Ridge Road or Pigskill. Ridge Road led to the motorway. Lots of traffic there. Lots of cars. Past Riley’s Service Station, past the Sundrift Motel, and on up to the top of the range. Rangi’s Farm and Paragon Road. Somebody would have seen it there. So it turned down Pigskill, then. Pigskill Road led nowhere.

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Syl.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Caddis Park Drive.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Well, actually, I’m going to interview an old man who wants to make a donation to the local school because some of the pupils helped him after he was robbed.’

  Something in her tone. Sarcasm, almost.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Tom’s left me. No, that’s wrong. I kicked him out. No, that’s wrong too. We agreed not to be together and he left. In deference to my feelings. I would have killed him otherwise.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He told me he’d been fucking some woman in River Road.’

  ‘This is all Maddy’s fault.’

  ‘No, it is not Maddy’s fault! It’s Tom’s! Why can’t you people get the responsibilities right?’

  A pause. Shock. Sadness.

  ‘I don’t want to be “you people”, Lisa. I never was before.’

  ‘Oh, God, Syl. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would you and Imogen like to come over? This evening, for some company.’

  ‘Just so long as Ward and Maddy aren’t there.’

  ‘They won’t be. Neither will Larry. He’s staying over in town.’

  ‘Yes, then. I really would like that. I really think I need that.’

  ‘Lots of love, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Damage. Ward knew there was damage. The only question was how much and how permanent. It was hard to think about it right now, hard to get a perspective because of all the things that were happening. Panic in the partnership, for one thing. All Colin’s clients wanting to know what was going on. Who was looking after their interests? Audits? Tax payments? Profit and loss? Yes, yes. But Ward found it difficult to sympathise. Of course it was a problem, but couldn’t they see how much worse it was for Col? Compared to what he had to deal with, their concerns were pathetic, weren’t they? Couldn’t say that, though. Just had to get on with it, try to sort it out.

  So he went down to Winston to talk to Colin. Well, not just for the business, obviously. As a friend. Poor bugger. Sitting in that room with the cream-coloured walls and the brown lino on the floor and you knew there were cameras going, watching your every move. Ward couldn’t say Colin was all that focused on what was happening with the Balder Trust. Couldn’t say he was all that focused on anything, to be honest. Staring straight ahead. Looking at something that Ward couldn’t see. A ghost maybe? Ward didn’t like that thought.

  — You’re all right,
mate?

  — Yes, Colin said. I’m all right.

  — You missing anything?

  — Missing?

  — Do you need anything?

  — No.

  — Best to try and come to terms with it, you know. Somehow.

  — Oh, yes.

  — Anything we can do … Just you let me know.

  — You know what? I haven’t had a drop since I’ve been in here. And I don’t miss it. I really don’t miss it one little bit.

  —That’s good.

  — Oh, yes. I can be good. When I want to be.

  Poor old Col. Not much for it but to soldier on, eh? All he could do, as he said to Maddy, was to get in some help. A contract accountant. Some young gun who was fresh out of university. The sooner the better. Because a quick look had told him there were some funny bits and pieces in Colin’s way of doing things. Perhaps not the best. Perhaps some corners cut here and there. Nothing untoward, of course. He hoped not. He fervently hoped not.

  ‘I don’t like this, Maddy.’ He liked it so little that the wine had lost its taste. A good bottle of Trelissic 2000.

  ‘It’s all right, Pookey.’

  ‘Did you talk to anyone today?’

  ‘Alistair Oxeley. And Trevor Steely.’

  ‘No, I mean like Sylvia.’ Or Lisa. But he didn’t want to say that. He didn’t want to bring that up directly.

  ‘No. Not today.’

  ‘I don’t want it to make a difference, Maddy. I don’t want it to spoil things.’

  ‘What’s going to spoil things?’ She looked at him with a little smile, her special little smile, all innocence. He knew it well. It was the smile she gave him when she was absolutely determined to get her own way.

  ‘You know. All this.’ Waving his hand to indicate the plague of viciousness, the difficulties, the humiliations, the grudges and offences that might sap the health of their shared existence.

  ‘I will not have Tom Marino talking at the funeral, that’s all.’

  Was that what she cared about? Why?

  ‘Oh, Maddy. Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it matters to me. I will not have you humiliated by someone who is far, far worse than you are.’

  ‘I don’t care. Truly, I don’t. I just don’t want us to lose everything. Everyone.’

  ‘Really? Good God, Pookey, I have a feeling it’s too late for that.’

  The end then. Sour wine.

  54.

  CRISIS BRINGS OUT THE worst in people. And the best. Thus it is with Josie Hannerby, who had always despised Imogen Wyte, taking her to be the worst kind of mincing young female: a spoilt brat, for ever shamed into insignificance by her elder, more forthright step-sister, Carla Marino, now deceased. On this day, in these circumstances, whether through pity or common decency, Josie took Imogen under her wing and invited her to her room to view the menagerie, and Imogen, who had little interest in animals that were not horses and certainly did not like to be closer than one metre to any arthropod larger than a housefly, went. And after a brief inspection of the funnel-web spiders and the ant farm and the terrarium with the wetas in it, a conversation was struck up concerning a pop band called Screaming Fragrance in which Imogen discovered that Josie was not the stuck-up know-it-all she had always assumed and Josie found that Imogen had a great deal more wit and critical intelligence than most fifteen-year-olds of her acquaintance. In such moments are friendships forged. Indeed, it was during just such a seemingly random encounter twenty-seven years previously — in a fifth-form common-room during a wet lunch-hour — that Josie’s mother, Sylvia, and Imogen’s mother, Lisa, found a common, if fleeting, interest in a punk rock band called Stinking Lips; an interest that sparked a feeling that became a mutual fascination that grew into a commitment that had lasted ever since. Thus, the two girls, upstairs, sat cross-legged on Josie’s bed and chatted about school and music and boys and the meaning of life, while their mothers, downstairs, side by side on one of the fat leather sofas, drank wine and contemplated the possibilities of a failed relationship, another failed relationship.

  Men. They’re bloody idiots.

  Lisa, tight-jawed, white-knuckled when she stopped to dwell too closely on it, spoke with the hard edge of suppressed fury, laughed with the harshness of bitter truth. She hadn’t cried yet and Sylvia thought it might be a good thing if she did, except, of course, that Lisa didn’t cry any more than Sylvia did herself, at least not as a result of her own misfortune. She got angry, and anger did not always help in getting a clear picture of what was wrong or of what one ought to do about it.

  ‘So, where’s Tom now?’ Sylvia asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Some motel, I suppose. Or maybe he’s run off to her.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  No answer and then a realisation, a look of surprise and puzzlement.

  ‘You mean you know her name?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sylvia said. ‘She’s the tenant of a friend of Maddy’s.’

  ‘Bloody Maddy! She knew?’

  ‘She only found out yesterday. By chance.’

  ‘Oh, God. I hate it! I hate this creeping around. This gossiping behind people’s backs!’

  ‘Yes.’ Sylvia might have pointed out that gossiping behind people’s backs helped you learn the truth, but it was not the sort of judgement that came readily to her.

  ‘Her name’s Astra Bridge,’ she went on.

  ‘Sounds like a fortune teller. What do they do? Sit around and read tarot cards? When they’re not fucking, that is.’

  ‘She’s a solo mother. She’s got two kids.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Lisa sighed, a tired, angry, teeth-gritting sigh. ‘I don’t want to know, Syl. I really don’t want to know that she’s a real person, with struggles and problems.’

  ‘I just wondered, you know. If that wasn’t part of the attraction. I mean, he’s lost Carla.’

  ‘Instant family?’

  ‘Could be. It mightn’t mean anything, really. He’s been under a lot of stress since Carla died. It’s obvious to anyone. This thing, this relationship. It might just be a result of the state he’s in.’

  ‘You think I should try to understand?’

  ‘Well, perhaps.’

  ‘Forgive and forget?’ A look. Lisa’s dark eyes. Was it a real question or just her sarcasm, the cold edge of fury?

  ‘Maybe it would help to talk to him. That’s all.’

  ‘Swallow my pride, eh? Don’t you see, Syl. I can’t do that. It hurts too much. Oh, God!’ And suddenly she folded over, arms clutching her stomach, face twisted, lifted, agonised, as if the pain were physical and there now, tearing at her.

  Sylvia moved closer to her, reached out, laid her arm across the rigid back, gripped her, held her. She leaned forward herself until their heads were touching, hard press of bone on bone. Then Lisa began to shake, a steady tremble, a quiver through her frame, the little rasp of hair on Sylvia’s temple. There, there, Sylvia wanted to say. Tut, tut. The kind of words she might make if Josie were upset, or James.

  ‘Bastard! Fucking bastard!’ A throat-stripping curse. And then it fell apart. Lisa, turning, clutching at her, sobbing, clinging, face pressed into the angle of her shoulder, arms about her, hugging tight.

  ‘Oh, oh, oh,’ Sylvia murmured. ‘Oh, my love, oh, dear, my love.’ While Lisa shook and cried for who or what or how much hurt you couldn’t guess. Sylvia held her, just held her, feeling only the need, the yearning of a giver. Pain ebbing, breath drawn in a long, shuddering intake, Lisa drew back a little. Her eyes, wide, helpless, hopeless, wanting, cheeks wet, nose run, lips. That mouth, wide lips, that laughed and spoke and flicked out wit and indignation, bruised now, swollen by the pain. Its hurt and its need so undemanding. Sylvia reached out with her hand to the back of her friend’s neck and drew their heads together, mouth to mouth, the warmth and snot and tenderness, the sweet pain of loving that had been there, bedrock under all these years.
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  Lisa moved after a moment, pulled away, sniffed loudly. Gave a laugh, a kind of laugh, and wiped her nose on the side of her hand.

  ‘I need a tissue.’ Bending for her bag and burrowing in it.

  Sylvia, her mouth so suddenly bereft, looked at her as she leaned forward, went to touch her, hand lift reaching out towards the arch of spine, but then withdrew. The feeling, the need in her, so simple, so daring, settled back into secrecy. She picked up her wine from the table, lifted it, pressed her lips to the hard glass rim.

  55.

  SO HERE’S HOW IT might have gone. Carla goes down to the river to see what’s happening to Merry Gibbitson. She leaves her bike at the top of the little track with the helmet resting on the bag of library books. A mistake. There’s not much room there and the rear wheel sticks out into the roadway. Ward, driving Maddy’s white Toyota, comes along from town, from the north. He’s going too fast. He clips the bike. The blow knocks it aside and sends the bag of books and the helmet flying partway down the bank. Ward checks that no one has been hurt and drives on. Meanwhile, Carla has heard the noise and comes back up, or perhaps she has already discovered there is no one there, down by the big rock. She finds the books beside the road, and the bike damaged and unrideable. She wonders what to do. Then she notices her helmet is missing. She begins to hunt for it. It starts to rain. Should she leave the helmet and come back later? She hunts some more. She’s a rational person. It makes more sense to find the helmet now if she can. It doesn’t seem to be on the river side of the road, though. She turns and looks over towards the other side. Something there, perhaps, buried in the bushes? Has the helmet flown all that way? She begins to cross the road to investigate further. What with the rain and her urge to hurry, she doesn’t pay enough attention to what might be coming. The yellow car, travelling north, much too fast. Around the bend and it hits her. Throws her flailing over the bonnet and away. Does the driver stop? Perhaps, as Ward did. Does he see her lying there or dragging herself, in a last half-conscious effort, to the side of the road? He sees there’s damage to the car, at least. Obvious damage. A broken headlight. Go on into town? Turn back? Ridge Road? Pigskill? Perhaps the driver lives in Pigskill. Almost home, if he does. Another fifty metres. Turn left. Out of sight. Almost.