by Joy Dettman
‘Sleep is beautiful,’ Mummy had said on that last day.
Sleep, beautiful or not, Sally could not find – not without her don’t-care pills. She felt tired enough, but her bones kept wanting to jump up and do something. Catch a tram. Drive out to Sue’s. Jog around the block. Drive out to the hills. Do. Do. Do something, anything, just as long as she was out of the flat. Mental exhaustion, reaction to the pills, or common imagination, but she was hearing Mummy’s voice in her head when she was alone in the flat.
Ghosts were only supposed to hang around their old haunts; still, Mummy had moved around so much, she wouldn’t have had any special old haunt, so she’d probably got herself a special haunt dispensation to come and visit me, Sally decided.
This place stinks of smoke, my precious girl.
The words so clear, so Mummy – apart from the precious girl bit, but God or the other guy was probably listening in.
‘Which is a sweeter scent than mouse pee, Mummy. You must admit that.’
They had some interesting conversations. The day she took out the old photographs found in her mother’s bag, her resident ghost really wound up. Not much to see, though. Old negatives, ancient individual black things, but they made her remember an old camera. Like a black box. Big. Always aimed at something.
Not Daddy’s camera. Not her grandmother’s either. Perhaps it had belonged to her grandfather.
The death certificates had filled in a few gaps. She’d been closer to four than three when her grandmother had died. Couldn’t remember that funeral. Couldn’t really remember her grandmother, except the shape of her, and that day in Geelong when they’d had a party with a red checked tablecloth on the grass, cakes in a white bag.
Only Shane then. Shane and Sally.
There were a few condolence cards she had to reply to. She filled an hour writing thank-you cards. It was a Bertram thing, so she did it well and posted them, then met a new tenant on the way back.
Lyn. Tall, thirty-odd and married. They had coffee, and were enjoying themselves until the husband came home. Sally didn’t want to go home to her ghost, so she went jogging the darkening streets. What was there to be scared of in a century only days old?
Scared of running until she dropped. Scared her legs would take off and try to leave her head behind. Scared of a future without Matt.
He’d phoned on Monday night. She’d told him she had visitors. ‘I’ll meet you in town? We’ll go to a pub for a drink,’ she’d said.
‘How long will they be there?’
‘I want to go out. I want to sit in a pub with you, Matt.’ He hadn’t wanted to sit in a pub so she’d hung up the phone.
She didn’t want to sleep with him anyway. Didn’t want to have him at the flat, not while Mummy was hanging around. Couldn’t let her see the things they did, make her comments while she watched them play their games.
Not where you’re going to eat, you little slut.
‘I didn’t get into the habit of eating regularly. At least I got some use out of the table.’
Rosebuds and Fairyfloss
Day was breaking outside the casino; he’d been there all night, and he was no longer certain if he had been there, or if he’d dreamed he’d been there. His head light, his lungs labouring for air, he knew he had to be dreaming, because if he wasn’t, Satan had come to collect his eternal soul, got him a taxi to speed him on his way, and sent one of his angels to make sure he got in it. They’d damn near called an ambulance, but he’d refused that.
Heat was in his chest, in his head, his lungs were barely sipping on air. Always, when he was awake, he carried an inhaler. He never moved without it. Five years now since he’d swapped his smokes for that inhaler and he always kept one in his pocket, but he didn’t have one now. He had money in his pocket instead.
‘Richmond. Swan Street.’ He got the words out, but when he got there, he couldn’t get out of the taxi. Got a green note out, though, and handed it to the driver.
‘A moment. Just . . . one moment.’
Asthma and gambling. They went together. That’s why he didn’t do it any more. Not often. Not as much as he used to. There was a spare inhaler in the zip compartment of his old case. He could remember packing it in with his pills and the photograph. Had to get into that hotel and up those stairs and get it.
Slow movements now. Concentrated effort now. He got his legs out, his feet on the kerb, then he stood, one hand on the taxi.
‘Sure you don’t want to go to a hospital, mate?’
‘Tablets. In the room.’ The driver was offering him change. ‘Keep it. Can you . . . get me . . . inside?’
He sipped on air. Had to hold down panic, control the mind and it would control the lungs. But it had been a mindless ten hours. He’d gone to the casino with forty-odd dollars in his wallet and been assisted out to the taxi with enough green stuff in his pocket to choke a horse.
The taxi driver earned his money. Walter had never had much time for Melbourne taxi drivers but he was changing his mind tonight. The driver, a big bloke, damn near carried him up those stairs. He found the inhaler and Walter snatched it and, like a baby given his bottle at bedtime, put it to his mouth and sucked. The driver found the pills too, fished one out and placed it in the open mouth, fetched a glass of water from the bathroom. He earned his money and closed the door behind him when he left.
The glass of water lifted with a shaking hand, Walter sipped. It made him cough, but he was getting enough air in to cough out; he sucked again on his inhaler, and sat on, shoulders hunched forward, head down, thinking of those last hours, those last weeks.
He hadn’t intended coming back until April. He’d had no choice. No choice of a room when he’d arrived either. He’d had to take one of the west rooms on the second floor. Didn’t like the stairs, or the bathroom, a long hall away. He liked the ground floor rooms.
Walter turned to the window; not a lot to see out there. A pigeon perched on a cement wall; a high-flying blowfly trying to find a way through the flyscreen.
‘I’m not dead yet,’ he told the fly. ‘Thought I might have been for a while there.’
His tongue did a search of his lips as his fingers combed his silver curls. He needed a haircut. Meant to get one while he was home. Meant to do a lot of things.
Hadn’t meant to go to the casino last night. He’d only gone there to get out of this room. Depression had descended on him weeks ago, and every day the room had grown smaller, so he’d hopped a tram and headed for the roulette wheel – and dropped twenty dollars in two spins. It was when he was trying to find his way to the exit that he’d stopped at the blackjack table, just to have a look.
There was a time when he’d bet his shirt on the fall of the cards. Poker, euchre, five hundred. Loved the games. Learnt them as a tot. Always loved handling the colourful cards when his old Dada had let him play. Crisp, cool cards in his sweating little hand. He stayed away from cards now, but old Satan had got to him, sort of whispering in his ear.
Hasn’t a lifetime of playing cards been an apprenticeship for this night, Wally?
That’s what he said. Clear as a bell. And there was an empty chair, right in front of him. Twenty dollars a game.
He’d have one hand. All he could afford. Just touch the cards, watch their fall.
The only problem with that was he’d won the first hand. It was over and done before he could say hit me. He’d got the ace and a ten dealt to him! So he played a second hand, and he’d got an eight and a nine. Anyone with half a brain would have sat on those cards, but he’d had a feeling in his gut that he’d get a four. The dark-faced lad dealt him an ace, and that was two aces down. His head had started keeping track of the fallen cards, not consciously, he didn’t do it consciously, just one of his bad habits.
‘Give me a three,’ he’d said, and the lad had looked at him as if he was senile.
‘Not the way it works here.’ He’d dealt the card, and his big brown eyes had damn near popped out of his head. He’d de
alt a three.
That’s when Walter had forgotten time. That’s when his asthma had started getting bad.
He sat immobile on his bed, inhaler in hand, his mind replaying his night of triumph. He could see it in detail, see the faces of the other players, see the dealer’s smile, hear the fall of the cards. He’d waited for the itch of enlightenment, for that card marked as his. He’d lost a few hands, but won a lot more.
A yawn. Wide. It lifted his head and he caught his reflection in the mirror, saw his old Dada staring back at him – that silver-grey hair, and too much of it. He smiled at his old Dada, remembering the kitchen table and the deck of cards, the slap-slapping of cards being dealt. And his mother. ‘Ah, the women in my life.’
The angels made little girls, from rosebuds and from candy-floss and –
That song. It was driving him mad. It might have been all right if he could have remembered all the words, but he couldn’t. Just that line kept coming at him.
He turned towards the window. The pigeon had flown away. The blowfly was still buzzing. A breath sighed in and Walter reached with effort into his pocket, removing a damp and crumpled handkerchief, then another from his trouser pockets. He tossed them onto the bedside table and took two clean handkerchiefs from the case, took out his vinyl toilet bag, then stood, stripped to the waist.
He had a container of towelettes on his dressing table. He rose now with effort and removed a wad, using them to wash his face and underarms. He needed a shower, but he was too damn tired to get himself down to the bathroom. Deodorant used liberally, he struggled into a worn white singlet, then reached into the breast pocket of his old suit jacket, removing his bundle of notes.
It didn’t look much all bunched up together like that, but it looked a healthy green. A smile crept from his lips to his eyes as he sat again on the bed, spreading the notes, dealing them into groups of one thousand. He’d served eleven players, licking his thumb from time to time, savouring the flavour of money.
Have to ring up Greyhound and get them to alter the ticket. Hire myself a little car again and go out and see my boy. Should have been out there before this. Oh, well, now I can take him something nice. Might buy myself a new suit too. His fingers continued playing with the green, dealing more thousand-dollar piles.
‘You’re thinking too small, Walter,’ he said, and he glanced at his watch. Almost eight o’clock.
Too much green to count, and he knew how much he had. The notes gathered, he folded and pushed the lot into the zip compartment of his case. Not a good idea to stay on in this place. The taxi driver had seemed a decent bloke, but you never could tell who you were dealing with in Melbourne. People looked innocent enough.
He did a quick pack-up of his room; not a lot to pack. He picked up a framed photograph from the windowsill, allowing himself a moment of exquisite pain and pleasure, then he tried to slip it into the zip compartment where it usually rode. Not today. No room in there. He placed it safe between his pyjamas and underwear and, by nine, the old Richmond Hotel had a vacant room – on the west side, half a mile from the bathroom – and Walter was at a used car yard. He wasn’t looking at their bombs either. In his youth he’d dreamed of driving a sporty little job, and from the minute he’d walked into this yard, his eyes had been drawn to a low-slung Honda. He’d tried to fight it, but not too hard.
The salesman thought he was being had. They took it for a test drive and for the fourth time in his life, Walter fell in love. Back in the yard, Walter and his little brown case led the way to the office, then, the case lifted to a chair, he babied the worn metal zips open and started counting lettuce onto the desk.
There were three salesmen watching him, looking a bit suspicious, but he told them of his win, and he sent one over the road for a bottle of champagne, which they drank in the office, toasting him and their sale. He had a sip.
You’ve got champagne tastes on a beer wage, Walter O’Leary. That’s what Elaine used to say. He couldn’t deny it. Nothing wrong with champagne tastes when you could afford them, though he didn’t much like the taste. Nothing wrong with the sporty little Honda Prelude either. It was black and it had darkened windows and air conditioning, a sunroof, seats that cushioned your bones and a motor that started first pop, then purred like a kitten. It set him back almost thirty thousand, but he had plenty left over.
Phonepross
February 2000
Summer had saved its heat for February. The bedsitter was a sweatbox, heated daily by its flat tin roof and still haunted occasionally. Sally spent little time there, working late when asked, then walking into work late the following morning, yawning, but selling hard.
Matt had called two dozen times through January, and he’d caught her in the lift one night, but Sue had been with her, and Sue had a nice turn of phrase. She got rid of him.
Nine days now since he’d called and life was carefree. She had her don’t-care pills to turn off care. Good little pills, a new pack supplied on demand by the clinic around the corner.
In and out of the surgery in two minutes, at thirty-six dollars a visit; that doctor could earn more in half an hour than she could make in a week of phone calls. But she made her phone calls. She paid her bills.
New groups had wandered into the tearoom through January. They’d segmented. The tearoom table gained a few faces, others joined the green bunch while the lost drifted up, up to the roof, security pack in one hand, lighter in the other. No introductions necessary on the roof; lepers recognised lepers.
In mid-February Sue removed her nose ring and dyed her longer hair fire-engine red. She and Sally were discussing dripping taps one day when a long-nosed pipsqueak of a kid somehow managed to filter into the small space between them. He must have cut himself shaving – if he shaved; he had sticking plaster on his jaw.
He knew it all. ‘I spent twelve months making cupboards for a kitchen manufacturer that went bust. I worked for a while with a plumber. I sold whitegoods at my last job. I can turn my hand to anything.’
‘So what are you bloody doing here?’ old coot Ron asked. A man of many talents, Ron was not into kidding himself. He was licking up the dregs in the barrel and he knew it, but he could barely get his words in edgeways. You name it, the pipsqueak knew how to do it. Hang curtains, deliver pizzas, sing in a band. It was worth sitting in the tearoom just to watch the play of the young bantam and the old rooster going at it, feathers flying.
Ron spilled more beetroot than usual. A purple circle hit his blue shirt, bounced to his open fly, balanced a while, considering an infiltration into the dark place, but it changed its mind and hit the floor. Sally laughed and Ron scowled at her, lost a lump of tomato then almost dropped his teeth chasing it.
She giggled as she watched him suck his teeth back. Clackety-clack. Munch. Crunch.
Varicose crunched quietly, crumbs from her diet biscuits falling to her breasts, clothed in black. Cracker dandruff. Pimples watched her breasts transfixed, but Sally caught him watching and his eyes swivelled to Ron, to Pipsqueak, while his jackhammer finger picked.
‘Leave your bloody face alone,’ Ron snarled, spat beetroot. ‘You put a man off his bloody dinner, you do.’
‘Speaking of being put off his bloody dinner . . . ’ a new face commented. It walked, headed for the roof to bot a smoke. He’d have his own pack tomorrow.
This was better than a television sitcom, Sally and Sue supplying the canned laughter. If some producer set up a hidden camera in this tearoom, he could flog his tape for a fortune, give the world some new millennium reality to laugh about.
Pipsqueak closed his mouth long enough to stare at the disappearing back, then opened it again to take a bite of tuna and onions.
The producer would require smellevision.
‘He looks fishy,’ Sue hissed, and they collapsed with laughter while Ron eyed them from beneath a thatched verandah brow. But they were old hands and Pipsqueak new, so he turned his ire and his beetroot on the new.
They sparred again
. Old Ron might be battle-scarred, but he was cagey. He started digging in his spurs and the pipsqueak backed off, his eyes settling on Sally, who was also backing off. Toward the door, cigarette packet and lighter at the ready. Not a lot of talent in this place. He followed her up to the roof and offered her a smoke.
Nobody, but nobody, offered smokes in this place. They might give them grudgingly when asked, but it was a mistake to offer smokes. She took one, let him light it, then stood smoking at his side, allowing him one smoke’s worth of earbash time. When he took a breath, she slotted thirteen words in. Fast.
‘Do you know how to put a new washer in a dripping tap?’
‘I’ll give you a practical demonstration, babe. Nothing to it. Any fool can put a new washer in a tap.’
She invited him and his toolbox around for a drink and he wasn’t all mouth either, because the tap actually stopped dripping and Mummy hadn’t said one word.
‘I don’t suppose you know how to fix a light fitting.’
‘Nothing to it – but it’s illegal to muck around with electricity these days.’
‘Is it illegal for you drink?’ she asked before pouring him a glass of Jim Beam and Coke.
‘I’m twenty-two. Almost. How old are you, babe?’
‘Twenty-five. Almost,’ she lied.
‘You don’t look it, but I usually go for older women.’ He finished his drink, and looked hopefully at her bed. She started washing dishes, clattering cutlery, splashing water.
‘You haven’t got much space, babe. I’ve got a balcony, and a good-sized kitchen.’
‘All the more to clean,’ she said, and she started washing the floor. She washed around his feet, trying to wash him out. But he lifted his feet. ‘Well, thanks again for the washer.’ His tools in her hand, she offered them, but from a distance. He’d have to stand to get them and finally she’d got him off her chair and on his feet.