The Ottoman Motel

by Christopher Currie

  He followed Iris down the hall. From below the saloon doors, he could see Pony’s legs tangled under one of the chairs. Iris pushed open the doors and ushered Simon in.

  Pony looked up briefly; he was running a spoon distractedly around the rim of a cereal bowl—whatever had been in it was long gone.

  ‘Simon Sawyer,’ he said, as if reciting Simon’s name off a list. Simon felt the weight of stones in his pockets and a shiver went through him.

  ‘Sit down.’ Iris busied herself at the counter. The folds of her orange sheet made wispy sounds as she moved. She put a kettle on the stove and lit the gas with a whoosh.

  Simon sat down opposite Pony. ‘Are you having more breakfast?’

  Pony shrugged. ‘I like cereal.’

  ‘Do you have sugar, Simon?’ said Iris.

  ‘Two please.’

  ‘Sugar’s bad for you,’ said Pony.

  ‘Everything’s fine in moderation,’ said Iris.

  Pony made a face. ‘What are you doing today, Simon Sawyer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Simon. ‘Staying here I guess.’ He dreaded the moment when Audrey, Gin and Ned came back. Or maybe Ned wouldn’t come back.

  ‘I’m going into town,’ said Pony. ‘I fixed up my bike so it only takes me a few minutes.’

  Simon looked out the window above the kitchen bench. Above the plumes of herbs, the sky had darkened. ‘It’s going to rain again.’

  ‘I don’t care about rain,’ said Pony, staring into his empty bowl, as if it might magically refill itself. ‘I’ve ridden my bike in floods before. In monsoons.’

  The kettle squealed and Iris turned off the heat. ‘I doubt that very much,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen army tanks washed away in monsoon floods. I don’t think a young man on his bike would stand much of a chance.’

  For a moment, Pony seemed genuinely chastened—not a state Simon had thought possible—but then he shoved himself angrily from the table.

  ‘You haven’t even seen my bike now I’ve fixed it,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’

  Iris poured hot water from the kettle into two mugs. ‘That’s true, Miles, but I can’t imagine it’s any heavier than a tank.’

  Simon was confused. What were true miles? Was that how you were supposed to measure a bike ride?

  ‘I don’t want to know what you imagine!’ Pony shouted. ‘You’re just dirty and everybody knows it!’

  He grabbed the spoon from his bowl and bunched it into his fist like a dagger. He opened his mouth, about to say something more, but instead plunged the spoon into his pocket and stalked out of the kitchen.

  ‘Miles,’ Iris called after him. ‘Don’t be like that.’

  She meant the name Miles, Simon realised. Was that Pony?

  ‘He’s a strange boy,’ said Iris. ‘But then you would be, I suppose.’ She looked at Simon, conspiratorial, as if they’d talked this way together every morning for years. ‘Hasn’t had an easy time.’

  Simon stared at his hands.

  ‘Simon?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Iris. ‘What happened was an accident. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.’

  ‘But what if he—’ Simon again saw Ned’s body, crumpled. ‘What if he—’

  Iris put her arm around Simon. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘He’ll just be in shock. Trust me. People have survived much worse.’

  Simon burrowed his head into the soft fabric of her clothes. ‘I feel so bad.’

  ‘They’ll all be okay. Ned, and Audrey, and Gin. Everything will be okay. Once your mum and dad turn up, everything will be fine.’

  ‘My mum and dad—’

  ‘They’ll turn up,’ said Iris. ‘They have to.’

  Tarden screwed up his eyes, banishing a repeated memory. He shook his head and he was back where he was supposed to be. Chipped sideboard, zigzag carpet, grandfather clock. His sister’s painting looking down at him from the opposite wall: still the same mournful mountain, a sky clenched with Newcastle blue. He heard his voice, shimmering into clarity, saying, ‘It wasn’t an easy time.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Madaline McKinley sat under the painting, in the uniform she had started wearing again. Tarden wasn’t quite sure how he had got here. It was his house, he knew that. But what was she doing here, a copper, for crying out loud. Something else tugged at his mind.

  ‘There’s no—’ Madaline was talking again. ‘I mean, it’s never going to be easy, is it.’

  Tarden tried to regain his composure. He wasn’t drunk, or high. He just got this way sometimes: unsure, disorientated. He wondered at Madaline, if she knew more than she was letting on. He had never known her to lock anyone up, but the amount of paperwork cluttering up her house—she’d have something on nearly everyone in the town.

  She looked at him, smiling. That left eye that wasn’t quite straight, it bothered him. The cops he’d known were all symmetrical. Not good looking, but always in tedious proportion. Madaline was attractive enough, but she had this accumulation of imperfections. She didn’t look entirely regular. So far, she hadn’t touched the busted-up exercise book in her lap.

  ‘It’s only that you know the lake, Jack. Better than most. And we just need to keep at it.’ She stressed her words with the tap of a pen.

  He wondered if she already knew about the inlet. ‘I thought we’d take a break,’ said Tarden. ‘After—’

  ‘Ned’s fine,’ she said. ‘Concussion, a deep cut—a few stitches and some Panadol.’

  Tarden bent his jaw. ‘Not as bad as it looked.’

  ‘Exactly. And it shouldn’t mean we give up on the Sawyers. Imagine how that poor kid’s feeling now.’

  Tarden tried not to think about Simon. Just wasn’t worth it. ‘Way I see it, if they haven’t turned up by now I reckon they must have done a runner.’

  Madaline shifted in her seat. ‘And nothing turned up after I left with Ned?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tarden said. ‘We kept up for another hour or so. No sign. Who gets lost out there, anyway? There’s a giant landmark right in front of you.’

  ‘That’s just it, Jack. They didn’t know the area at all. Might seem strange to you, but these people don’t have any sense of the place.’

  Tarden thought of train tracks, burning tyres.

  Madaline said, ‘Was it you who suggested they visit the lake, Jack?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘But you did tell them about the Magpie, when they arrived in town?’

  ‘I talked with them, yeah, but you can ask anyone at the Ottoman—I was only there a few minutes.’

  ‘Simon seemed to think you gave his parents directions to Magpie Lake.’

  ‘Well I did, but I—’ Tarden knew he had lost his touch. Used to be he could run rings around these people. ‘I was the one raised the alarm,’ he said. ‘You saying it’s our fault they got lost?’

  ‘Our fault?’ Madaline pulled the cap off her pen.

  Tarden’s mouth was dry. ‘My fault. ’Cause I told them where Magpie was.’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ said Madaline. ‘It’s just that you were the last person to talk to the Sawyers. Means I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Then why’re you asking me about all this other stuff? The old stuff…doesn’t even—you can’t think I’m still like that?’

  Madaline drew her notepad up in front of her to screen her moving pen.

  Tarden knew he was fucking things up. He’d answered the door to Madaline only twenty minutes before, and his head had been perfectly clear. When did Robbie get back? Where was Robbie?

  ‘This is all just normal procedure,’ she said. ‘I just want to get the facts right in my mind.’

  Tarden watched her eyes move around the room. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He cursed himself for letting Madaline in so easily, so amiably. She’d become such a part of the landscape, he’d almost forgotten what her job was. Stupid. There was
a way of dealing with cops—giving them what they wanted without telling them anything at all—but that skill had left him, it seemed.

  She looked at him. ‘You go out to Magpie Lake quite often, don’t you.’

  ‘I’m there sometimes,’ he said, wary. ‘Got some yabby traps there.’

  Madaline nodded, without any noise of agreement. ‘And Kuiper—Robert—does he ever go out there with you?’

  ‘Sometimes. Depends on how busy he is.’

  ‘Sometimes? Meaning…a couple of days a week? Every second day?’

  ‘I don’t know—couple of days each week I guess. When he feels like it.’

  ‘Did you both go out there yesterday? Did you go out there last night?’

  Tarden reached his hand down to the floor and felt around for his cup of tea. He leaned his head over the armrest: the mug wasn’t there.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘What?’ He was sure he’d made tea.

  ‘Did you go out to Magpie Lake last night?’

  Tarden felt the rising sting of bile in his throat. ‘He just—I don’t—’

  A throat cleared. ‘Jack was at the pub. Anyone’ll tell you. I was at home.’ Kuiper stood in the doorway, half hidden by the darkness of the unlit hall. He lit a cigarette with a snap of his hands. He smiled at Madaline then looked over at Tarden. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d woken me up. I didn’t realise we had a guest. Could have saved us all some time and bother.’ He turned, blew smoke into the shadows.

  Tarden wondered how much Robbie had heard. How long he’d been waiting to make an entrance.

  ‘Hi Robert,’ said Madaline, not looking at all surprised to see him. ‘I was just finishing up with Jack here. Just having a chat to tie up some details.’ She tapped the pen: de-tails.

  ‘So I see,’ Kuiper said. ‘I’m just glad we’re all here to help out the young lad.’ He smiled.

  Madaline closed her notebook. ‘As I say, just finishing up.’

  She stood abruptly, compelling Tarden to do the same. ‘Thanks for your hospitality, Jack.’ She handed him an empty mug. Tarden eyed it suspiciously, as if she’d conjured it from thin air. ‘Anyway,’ she set it down on the arm of the chair, ‘I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Have a nice day, both of you.’ She pushed past Kuiper, who made no effort to move. The front door opened

  and closed.

  Kuiper curled smoke from his nostrils. ‘So nice to have guests, isn’t it?’

  Tarden sat back down. ‘She just…came in. I didn’t think it was anything serious, but she kept at me. Like an interview.’

  Kuiper reached out and rested a palm on one side of his face. ‘Jack,’ he said softly, ‘it’s one thing to let a copper into your house—but to start blabbing about your bloody murder trial?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Tarden. Had he? Robbie must have been listening the whole time. ‘I just…I forgot who I was talking to.’

  Kuiper stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the sideboard. ‘Didn’t the fucking uniform give it away?’ He clamped his hands down on the chair Madaline had been using. ‘Didn’t that give you a fucking clue?’

  Tarden felt a headache pressing at his skull. He wished he was out in the boat, not stuck in this airless house. A thorn of annoyance suddenly jagged. ‘You could have come in earlier,’ he said, ‘instead of just waiting out in the hall. I mean if we’re in this together, we’re—’

  Kuiper narrowed his eyes. His hair had fallen down over one eye: the other, Tarden noticed, was ringed red. He said, ‘I get the impression, Jack, that you don’t understand quite what’s at stake.’ He sighed, pushing his breath out too quickly. ‘I chose this place because it’s quiet. Because nothing ever happens.’ He took a step closer. ‘This isn’t just another dumb-fuck small town joke, something that’ll blow over in the morning—’

  Tarden realised too late. Robbie wasn’t just bent; he was at that stage where your mind teetered on a cliff of reality, desperately trying to claw its way back from the horrifying edge. Tarden remembered what it felt like, what it made you do. The rush from dead calm to crashing rage. ‘Robbie, I know.’ He kept his voice low. ‘We just have to—’

  ‘You think it’ll be o-fucking-kay if we just give it time, Jack? Well, that’s not how it is. There’s just so much money…it’s not going to just…this is so serious, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’

  Kuiper’s fist hit the painting but the noise seemed to trail far behind, cracking out eventually in a splinter-sound too sharp to be real. A thick rag of glass hung, pinned under Kuiper’s knuckles, blood leaching into the cracks. The rest of the sheet sprawled in awkward shards on the sideboard. The painting remained steady in its frame. Above the brush-stroke of the mountains, the sky stung with a new blue. It appeared to Tarden more real than ever: a sky he’d first looked on, decades before, with guiltless, childhood eyes.

  Simon had spent all afternoon at the window, huddled up on the seat by the ledge. He found the view soothing; the sharp pain that had stabbed his mind like a pulse had now been worn down to a dull hum. He’d stirred once, half an hour ago, with literally no idea why he was feeling so sad. Then, the image, dusk-muted, of his parents walking away from him floated back, and he hated himself for forgetting it. He couldn’t even picture their faces now. They must have been so familiar to him he had no need to

  keep them.

  There was a gentle knock. ‘Simon?’ Ned’s voice came through the bedroom door. Simon’s legs flexed, ready to run, but he had nowhere to run to. Panicking, he looked for somewhere to hide.

  Nowhere. The bed was too high off the ground. The cupboard was too full. Without really thinking he prised the edge of the seat and to his joy it rose up. The top was hinged, the seat was hollow. He climbed into it.

  ‘Hello?’ Ned knocked again.

  Simon’s heart thumped as he eased the lid of the chair down. He expected to be cloaked in darkness, but instead the light remained. He twisted his body around and realised the seat had no back: its edge jutted up right against the window pane; the glass went straight down into the floorboards. He crawled right to the edge of the glass, and suddenly he was hanging in mid-air, suspended out over the thin strip of garden below, the tufty expanse of sand beyond. For a beautiful and terrifying moment, Simon thought he was floating.

  Then his stomach rose in his throat, the familiar horror-flash of crawling to the top of his grandmother’s roll-top desk where the beckon-curl of smoke rose from far-flung chimneys. A pink hand fat with world-trust, an explosion of paper-thin glass, a suffocating spin through all of innocence. And all the air there ever was not able to fill his lungs as he fell.

  Simon realised he had stopped breathing, and sucked in a sudden chestful of dust-laden air. He coughed violently, tears surging to his eyes.

  ‘Simon?’ Ned’s voice was right above him. Simon heard his weight creaking the floorboards. ‘Are you…under the seat?’

  Simon coughed again, the dust was everywhere. But then, fresh air.

  Ned peered down at him. ‘What are you doing down there?’

  Simon could see the crude hint of stitches at Ned’s forehead. A yellowing bruise covered one cheek. ‘Um,’ said Simon, ‘just looking…out.’

  Ned stuck out his hand. ‘Why don’t you come out,’ he said. ‘I wanted to have a little talk with you.’

  Simon took Ned’s hand and unfolded himself from the

  space under the seat. ‘Okay.’ He stepped out and brushed the dust off his knees and arms. It was dark grey, thick, curled like fancy butter.

  ‘Guess we never clean under there,’ said Ned.

  Simon stepped awkwardly out of the seat. It felt like he’d been caught doing something illegal. ‘Are you…okay?’ he said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Ned. ‘Don’t worry about it. Shock, mostly.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Simon brushed down his trousers, a tiny charge of panic going through him as he felt a stone still in his pocket. ‘Can I…is there…?’

  ‘Do you want to sit down
?’ Ned motioned to the bed, and Simon sat down on it. Ned sat down next to him. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘Simon. Don’t feel bad about what happened at the lake. It was an accident, and they happen, and I’m fine.’

  Simon twisted his hands in his lap. ‘I really didn’t mean to.’ He desperately wanted to explain to Ned about his mother’s voice, how it appeared in his head just as he was about to throw. But it sounded so stupid.

  ‘I know you didn’t mean to,’ said Ned. ‘But Audrey and Gin—especially Audrey—are still a bit upset about it. They’re just being protective. I mean, you’d be the same if your—’

  Simon gulped down a swallow, as if eating the air might make the silence go by faster.

  Ned rubbed his head where the stitches were. ‘Anyway it wasn’t really the rock that did this to me, I hit my head on the ground when I fell. If I’d put my arms out to break my fall it would have been a different story.’ Ned snuffed out a laugh. ‘Just the old waiter coming out in me,’ he said. ‘Save the food and drink at all costs.’

  ‘Were you a waiter?’

  Ned nodded. ‘That’s how I started out, then I moved into the kitchen. Worked my way up to owning my own business. It was great fun, really.’

  ‘How big was your business?’ said Simon. He shuffled his body further back on the bed. It was nice to hear an adult who sounded excited about what they did.

  ‘Fairly big,’ said Ned. ‘I ended up doing events all over town. Brisbane, mainly. Gold Coast. Big dinners: launches, receptions, celebrations. Once I cooked breakfast for Neil Armstrong. You know, the first man on the moon?’

  ‘Really? What did he eat?’ Simon thought of the packets of Space Food he’d seen in the supermarket—sticks that were supposed to taste like whole meals. Roast dinner, pumpkin soup, Neapolitan ice cream.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Ned. ‘It was a business lunch he was speaking at. He had the same as everyone else.’

  Simon looked down at the carpet. He had never met anyone famous, let alone made something for them. ‘Why did you stop your job?’ he said. ‘Why did you come here?’