Red Dirt

by E. M. Reapy

  And you hated yourself ever since for making him hate you.

  Tears itch at the corner of your eyes so you try to be present. You take a deep breath.

  You focus on Mel.

  She has an angular way with her body, though it isn’t curvy or proportionate, she juts it out well and holds herself confidently. She wears good-fitting clothes and has a quirky style. Her eyes suggest things that you can’t decipher. She has sex appeal and she knows it.

  ‘Does it not get complicated?’ you ask.

  You couldn’t juggle three men.

  A flurry goes through your gut – there were three Fletchers back in that farm.

  ‘Nope. It’s as complicated as you make it,’ Mel says and licks her bottom lip.

  ‘You’re a slut, Mel,’ Gráinne says and the guilty sensation goes through you again.

  ★

  The girls insisted you weren’t going to drink the goon and go wild. You’d sip bottled wine and be civilised. But at this stage you’re at least four bottles in and it’s all getting mouldy. You try your best not to talk, you know you’ll only dredge him up, or worse, confess about the Fletchers.

  ‘Fuck Ireland,’ says Gráinne. ‘Listen, I tell ye a story, the reason why no one wants to give out about the Celtic Tiger going to shit, is because we were the reason. You, me, you.’ She points at Mel, ‘Not you.’

  ‘It’s true, so true,’ Louise says. ‘Lads, don’t think I’m loaded now or anything ’cause, I’m not, at all, but I bought a fucking house back in the Boom. 100 per cent loan. I was twenty-two.’

  ‘What’s happened to it?’ you ask.

  One of Louise’s eyes is going to sleep. ‘Nothing happened it. A Latvian family live there now. The rent covers the interest on the mortgage. It’s not even paying itself off. Just paying more into the bank. I pretend it doesn’t exist to be honest. I don’t see it or any money from it. Probably never will.’

  You know from your old job at home that about a quarter of a million Irish people have Louise’s problem, more even. Imagine if you’d bought a house you couldn’t pay back with Malley? Fuck.

  Mel tuts and says, ‘Man, this is crazy.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you a crazier one,’ Gráinne slurs. ‘It goes back to it. How we were all involved. My mother got really into it with her business partner, they bought and sold restaurants. But it went tits-up, like it did for everyone. Anyway, Mother got wind of NAMA. Of debt collectors. She’d properly gone bankrupt. Them fuckers, they take everything. But she was a woman with incredible tastes and had the most beautiful pieces. She’d only wear them to balls or formals or fundraisers or launches. Antique jade and emeralds. Yellow diamonds. Black opals. And so, when she heard they were coming she hid the jewellery behind a tile in our shower.’

  ‘What happened?’ you ask.

  ‘They came and took everything. Except the jewels. And my estranged father helped her to hold on to the house with the bank, it being a family home not completely in her name. Legalities. It’s grand now. Mother is back in the restaurant industry. I think she’ll start a new business. Not to the insane levels she had it at before, but just enough to stay comfortable.’

  ‘That’s all you need,’ you say and Gráinne refills your glasses. ‘Just enough to stay comfortable. Enough so you don’t agree to anything foolish. By accident. Sort of.’ You stop yourself and check you haven’t said too much but they aren’t paying attention to you. They are eyeing Gráinne’s pour.

  ★

  The alcohol makes your brain and body disorientated from one another. Time is blotchy. You look in the mirror at your face, try to put on eye shadow. You have to lean in closer and step back again in order to judge where your eyelid is, where the colour is going.

  ‘I’m locked,’ you say. The girls laugh.

  Mel zips her dress. It’s vintage, stripy and she matches it with brown cowboy boots.

  Louise is beside you putting her hair in a high spiky ponytail, spraying it and adding pins.

  ‘The last time I dressed up,’ you say and your brain goes in spots trying to think, ‘It was so long ago. Really want to save some money, pay my parents back. Going out was how I spent it all the first time, I never thought. You know what I mean, Louise?’

  You turn to face her, your arms are flailing a bit. ‘You know how you just don’t think? You don’t think about consequences. That when the money goes, it’s gone. That’s it. And you can only borrow so much from people but when that’s gone. That’s it. Again. You didn’t learn. Thick. I didn’t anyway. I never think anything through properly. There’s something wrong with me like that.’

  You sigh and rub your face, undoing your efforts at the make-up. Louise comes over to you and stands you in front of her. She lifts your chin and examines you.

  ‘Here, pet. Jesus, the wine’s hitting you hard. Give me your eyeliner,’ she says. You hand it to her and she presses her lips while she concentrates on applying it. You see how green her eyes are as she looks at yours. You try not to wobble.

  ‘I don’t remember the last time, Louise,’ you say. The thought won’t go away. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve gone out. I was a bit of an alco when I came to Australia. Before that even. I was using the drink to dull the way I felt. But I stopped. I did stop. I had to. I’m – I’m afraid.’

  Gráinne laughs. She sprays a mist of perfume in front of her and walks into it. ‘What are you on about, girl?’

  The room clogs with that awful chemical rose scent, it makes your eye water.

  ‘I’m not sure what to do on a night out anymore. Because before here, I didn’t go out proper for a long time. A really long time.’

  Louise inspects your face. She picks up a tissue, licks the corner of it and wipes the edge of your eye.

  ‘Mascara,’ she says and you pass it to her. She pumps the wand before telling you to open your eyes wide.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gráinne asks.

  ‘What’ll I do if a lad starts chatting to me? Don’t leave me on my own, will ye?’

  ‘Sure, what harm if you get chatted up?’

  ‘But Gráinne, I don’t want to,’ you say. ‘I don’t want to.’

  Louise steps away and turns you to the mirror to examine your reflection. It looks grand but you’re not too sure because of your tipsy vision.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gráinne asks again and pauses. ‘You’re not a lesbian, are you? Or a frigid?’

  ‘No,’ you say and laugh. ‘I fucking wish. I wish I was either. Wouldn’t things be easier then?’

  Gráinne gives you a funny look and raises her chin in the air.

  ‘Nevermind,’ you say to her and smile. She doesn’t smile back.

  Louise smears her lips with shiny sticky looking gloss and says, ‘Okay ladies, we’re going. Finish this conversation in the taxi.’

  She rushes you out of the room, jokily whacking Mel across the arse on her way out. She turns off the light and locks the door. You stumble down the stairs to the reception, your shoes clopping on the tiles.

  ★

  The hotel nightclub is dingy. A dirty mop smell on the sticky floor. Some of the stools and tables are unbalanced leading to more drink falling on the ground. The toilets are slightly flooded, door locks on the cubicles are uneven and so you have to lean over to hold it shut or get someone to block the cubicle from outside for any privacy.

  Louise puts you on water.

  ‘Here, drink this for a while,’ she says handing a pint glass to you. She adds a straw to it. ‘You’re going to have two of these and if you feel like more alcohol, get it after.’

  She puts her arm around your shoulder. Two guys come to the bar, one of them has a goatee, tanned skin, a plain blue t-shirt. He smiles at Louise. She smiles at him. They get talking and you stand watching them, slurping ice-water, trying not to get brain freeze or trip over. His friend tries to make eye contact with you but you turn away from him and look at the dance floor.

  The club is filled with backpackers fro
m the different hostels in the town, everyone is drinking, dancing and flirting. Some townsfolk are there too, young ones and older men who lean on the rail at the dance floor, watching and pointing.

  ‘This place is creepy,’ you say to Gráinne when she comes back to where you are near the bar. You can feel the drunkenness from earlier wearing off.

  ‘It’s brilliant craic though. Let your hair down, girl,’ Gráinne shouts over the music.

  You do some laps of the club and talk to some random people. Louise scores the Goatee who speaks with a heavy and charming French accent. Mel meets with one of her Irish boys. She abandoned you when you entered the club but returns later with him in tow. He’s called David P and straight away when he introduces himself, you know you don’t like him. He wears a gold bracelet and his pupils are black full moons.

  ‘How ye ladies getting on?’ he asks but puts loads of emphasis on the ‘on.’

  He bites his lip as he talks to you, asking where in Ireland you’re from, pouting and feigning interest when you tell him.

  ‘You looking for anything tonight?’ he asks. His aftershave is spicy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You looking for any–’ He mimes snorting. ‘Or a cap? Got these super strength ones up from Adelaide a while back. A half would be the same as three or four pills back home. No shit. Great great buzz. You’ll feel invincible.’

  ‘No, you’re grand,’ you say.

  Gráinne is keen for something.

  ‘I’m going to head off, I think. I’m too drunk,’ you say but Gráinne doesn’t hear you. You don’t want to get any messier. You don’t want to lose control.

  ★

  When you get back to the dorm room, you take your make-up off with a wipe, the mascara leaves you with panda eyes. You get into bed and turn into the wall. The room is silent except for your breathing. You can hear some drunk hostel people outside downstairs and on the halls. Your head is banging and your stomach is uneasy. You check your phone for messages. None. You think about ringing some of the girls back home. They’d probably be getting ready for a night in Westport, deciding on who’d drive, what they’d wear, where they’d go, who they’d pull. You haven’t talked to them in so long though. You don’t really know what you’d say.

  Don’t fit in there. Don’t fit in here.

  You battle another wave of nausea.

  Everyone’s life just goes on.

  You curl into a ball, hug yourself.

  ‘It’s just the drink, Fiona,’ you say. ‘It’s just the drink.’

  ★

  Sunday morning, you wake with the sun. You look around the room and see that Louise has the Frenchman in beside her, she’s wearing the same clothes from the night before and he’s spooning her, his arm heavily flung over her waist, his jaw wide open but somehow he’s still graceful. No sign of Mel or Gráinne. You go down the ladder and the bunk bed squeaks a bit, waking Louise.

  ‘Howya,’ she says.

  You smile at her.

  ‘Thierry’s a nice lad, a good lad,’ she whispers and wipes the corners of her mouth.

  ‘The others aren’t here. I’ll head out for a walk, leave ye alone. Be back in two hours or so.’

  She winks at you. ‘Thanks, pet.’

  You like walking around the town while it’s quiet. It has everything you’d need, chain supermarkets, small takeaways, boutiques, offices. It even has a newspaper. There’s a hall for veterans and monuments to ANZACs who died in the First and Second World Wars and tiny parks with benches dedicated to principals and priests. The garlic factory is on the outskirts, near an industrial estate but not part of it.

  You go for a coffee and croissant and read more of Dorothy’s book.

  Early European explorers were curious about all the unusual wildlife they saw and used to ask the native people, who are called Aborigines, what the hopping creature was. One Aborigine replied ‘kangaru’ which in his language meant ‘I don’t understand.’ The explorer thought this was the name of the animal. This version of how a kangaroo got its name has become an Australian legend but isn’t, in fact, true.

  ★

  You open the dorm door to drama.

  Gráinne is in front of Louise’s bed. ‘Who the fuck did you say it to?’ She’s shouting.

  Louise is pleading and stays in her bunk. Her French lad is bewildered behind her. ‘I said it to no one, what the hell, like. Would you calm down?’

  ‘Calm down? Calm down? I trusted ye,’ Gráinne says and turns her attention to you. ‘Or maybe it was you?’

  You put your hands up. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Do you not, Fiona?’

  ‘No,’ you say and shut the door behind you.

  ‘Well let me tell you. Around three hours ago, half-ten at night back home, my mother’s house was robbed. They broke down the front door, while one of them kept a car running. They took my little eleven-year-old brother hostage. Put a fucking gun to his back. A gun, Fiona,’ she pauses, squints and changes her tone, ‘and this is the funny part, they went straight for, and I mean straight, for the bathroom and started cracking tiles. Does it make sense now?’ She flips her attention between you and Louise. ‘Well, does it?’

  ‘Shit, Gráinne, that’s mad,’ you say.

  ‘Do you think?’ she says in mock horror.

  ‘Yeah, that’s mad,’ you repeat.

  ‘Yeah, mad. I’m the mad one,’ she says. ‘Mad to think ye were my friends. Who did you say it to? Huh? Who?’

  Louise shakes her head, ‘No one, Gráinne. I was hammered yeah but I didn’t say it to anyone.’

  ‘Me neither.’ You put your hands up again.

  ‘Fuck ye,’ Gráinne says. ‘Fucking liars.’

  ★

  Gráinne leaves shortly after her outburst. The French lad stays on, curious. Mel comes in wearing dark, oversized shades. Her hair is fuzzy and she groans as she shuffles towards her bed. ‘Sleep times,’ she mumbles.

  ‘Mel,’ Louise says in a sweet voice. ‘Did you talk to anyone about what we were talking about last night?’

  Mel groans again and flops into her bed. ‘I drank a bottle of wine, I did some lines, I did some Jaegarbombs, I did some Irish. I’d say I talked about anything to anyone who’d listen.’

  A silence weighs.

  Mel props herself on her elbows. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason,’ Louise says.

  ★

  The atmosphere in the room sours. Gráinne asks to be moved but the hostel is full so she has to stay put for another week. In the canteen at work, her and Louise stand as separate as possible. You check the computer for details on the burglary but nothing is in the news. Gráinne stops speaking to you completely and avoids the dorm unless she has to sleep or grab something. She takes her clothes from the wardrobe and packs her bag, waiting for a transfer.

  You meet her in the common room after work Monday.

  ‘Gráinne, I don’t know what happened or how it happened. Don’t be angry with us.’

  She rolls her eyes and looks beyond you to the TV.

  ‘Don’t be like this. We’re your friends.’

  ‘Are ye my friends?’ she asks and stares into your eyes. ‘I don’t know fuck all about you. How you got here. What you did before here. You’ve said very little about yourself, Fiona.’

  Your heart rate picks up.

  ‘You’re anyone to me. No one to me. Same as ye all. We’re not proper friends. We’re just using each other for company. To look popular. To not be alone. Get real, will you?’

  ‘I don’t think that way – I like ye, genuinely.’

  ‘You’re ridiculously naïve. Look, I just want to watch telly and not be disturbed.’

  She sniffs and moves her head like you’re blocking her view.

  You walk back to the bedroom. Mel is trying on dresses for a date.

  ‘This one?’ she asks pointing at her navy polka-dotted sun dress. You nod without caring.

  You think of things you
should have said back to Gráinne, different ways you could have made your point, instead of just walking away. Things like you were glad you wouldn’t taste her awful perfume anymore in the room. You were glad you didn’t have to hear her put Louise down for being good-looking or Mel for being promiscuous. Mostly, you’re glad that she’s leaving because you don’t want any more suspicious questions about your past.

  ★

  Mel makes enough carbonara for you all after work on Tuesday but Gráinne doesn’t show. As Mel brings the pots to the table to serve the dinner, you and Louise get cutlery by the sinks in the common area kitchen.

  ‘It wasn’t me, you know,’ Louise says in a low voice. ‘I didn’t say it to anyone back home and I didn’t say it to anyone here. I was with that Frenchie. I didn’t have the chance to blab. It was Mel and her scumbag boyfriend. You met him, didn’t you? That sleeveen from the criminal hostel out of town near the woods. The place where the dregs live and kicked the shite out of the owner. I bet she told him and he told his friends in Ireland. You know how quick information like that would go through the underworld?’

  You shrug. You did suspect Mel let it slip and someone ran with it.

  Mel gives you your pasta on scorching plates. Louise burns her hand on hers. She holds it for a second before flapping it about.

  ‘Fuck sake, Melanie,’ Louise says.

  ‘Excuse me, I warned you that they were hot, babes,’ Mel says. ‘So, I was thinking about going to Perth soon,’ she starts.

  ‘Yeah, you give warnings, don’t you,’ Louise says as she pokes at her food.

  ★

  Gráinne quits her job and leaves the following day while the rest of you are at work preparing the factory for the buyers’ visit. She says nothing to anyone and unfriends everyone from the hostel on Facebook. She just leaves. You think about the Asian girls you stole money and bits from when you were completely penniless. You wonder if they hate you.

  Was there a difference between you robbing them and Gráinne’s mother hiding those jewels, or the masked men robbing her? Weren’t you all the same – thieves?

  Later, after you shower, you lie on your bunk and read.

  Cassowaries are brightly coloured flightless birds with a large, spongy crest that protrudes from the top of their head. Cassowaries are very shy, but when provoked they are capable of inflicting fatal injuries. The second of their three toes has a long, dagger-like claw which could easily dismember a human. All cassowary species are at risk in the wild and are classified as vulnerable animals.