Voices mutter. A man from the bar comes up to them. ‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘Customers are complaining.’
They ignore him.
‘You’ll have to leave.’
Joe eyeballs the man. Lizzie’s already getting up, glancing at the ground, the sticky carpet, her once-beautiful shoes – how could she think they suited her? She comes out into the foyer where a man is selling tickets and the jazz is dim. She can see the light of the street outside, climbs up the stairs, Joe’s hand on her wrist. ‘You alright?’ he asks.
‘Yeah. Embarrassed.’
He holds her elbow. ‘Don’t be.’ He seems unmoved, pleased almost. It’s different for men. Lizzie’s not used to doing things in the open – she thought because he was doing it, it must be alright.
‘I know a place we can go,’ he says.
They hold hands in the street because she doesn’t know how to say no. She wants to touch Joe anyway, but she spends most of the time looking at the faces of other people to see if she can tell what they’re thinking. When she and Joe cross the road, she allows her hand to slip out of his, walks slightly ahead.
He pulls her into a side road and pushes her against the blank backend of the pub. He bends down, and their teeth hit. His tongue, his hands. She’s uncoiling. Her neck hurts from craning her face to him. He slides her up the wall, curls his hand around her hip. His cock against her inner thigh. She grins when she finds his wallet tucked into his coat pocket. Kisses him harder and lifts it, a trick Grace taught her.
‘Want to feel your skin,’ he says, rolling up his shirt, untucking hers from the waistband of her skirt and pressing himself into her, kissing her, their bare bellies sliding together. He says, ‘Think you’re clever, peach?’ and takes his wallet from her stocking.
She laughs in the darkness.
‘Come back with me,’ he says.
This panics her. She should say no, walk away, but she makes eye contact and feels the pull. The best she can do is stand away from him with her back against the wall. ‘Have to get home to Dad.’
‘Your old man don’t care.’ Joe keeps his eyes on her.
She speaks without meaning a word of it. ‘Does when I’m not there to cook him breakfast.’
Joe leans forward so his hips brush hers. She sucks the breath through her teeth. He’s close enough that she can feel him looking down at her. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you.’
She laughs again. Doesn’t believe him, and there’s danger, pain in putting herself at risk. She looks down. Joe’s boot tucked in between her feet. ‘You mightn’t mean to,’ she says to the ground.
‘Here,’ he says, and she looks back at him, into his face, shadowed in the streetlight except for the crest of his cheekbones, the narrow, pale lips. ‘Promise you, I’ll look after you. You’re not like any girl I’ve met. Don’t want to let you go.’
She knows that this is how she feels already, that there’s not much point fighting against it. Knew soon as she saw him at the races. She’s surprised he feels the same so quick. Wants to believe it badly. He leans into her, his breath against her mouth and his tongue between her lips, sliding behind her teeth. The breath goes out of her.
They climb up to St Pauls Terrace, where an omnibus turns the corner with them. A car slows down so its passenger can call out to them, his words jumbled and lost as the car moves on. The man’s white face – black spots for eyes – leaves a luminous trail through the dark. They stop on the bridge, and a car slides underneath, its motor echoing at their feet. Joe kisses her with her back to the railing, and it dips a little. The space of air between her and the road, the breeze on her back. Joe’s body all along hers. She tucks herself into him, frightened of falling. He kisses her harder and puts his hands around her back, exactly what she wanted him to do. ‘I can feel your heart beating,’ he says.
She can’t seem to stop laughing, all nerves.
They leave the roadway. He takes her down a path flattened out of the grass. The silence rings in her ears, the traffic noises gone. They hit a gravel path, and a dog barks from the verandah of a cottage squatting on wooden haunches. Joe leads them to a gate, pausing while he fumbles with the latch, breathing hard. Out the back, a frangipani tree is outlined in the glow of a streetlight. Grass tangles at her knees, already wet with dew. She wades through it. The stalks spring back in her wake, brushing her calves.
He gets the door unlocked, and it creaks open. She follows him down a hallway where a dark cavity in the wall indicates another room. The flare of a match illuminates his face. He holds it to the wick of a gas lamp. The faint smell of paraffin. A tangled cotton sheet wedged into his cast-iron bed end. The linen pillow, the thought of him flinging the sheet off his body that morning, makes her knees tremble. She leans on the bed.
He puts the light down, runs his hand along her arm. Kisses the corner of her mouth. A current moves through her. She shifts her face so she can kiss him straight on, presses herself into him, runs her hands over him, bites his lip.
He shoves her off. ‘Take it easy, peach.’
She doesn’t know how to respond, feels awkward, too hot. Sweat at her armpits. When she steps away from him, her body is still humming, but the movement runs itself in loops. Paralyses her.
He pulls a longneck out of his bedside table. Picks up the lamp. ‘Back in a minute.’ He leaves her in darkness, sweat cooling at her back. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. She puts her hand out, meets cast iron, holds on.
Joe’s light doubles back at her from a frameless mirror leant up against a wall, and herself in the silvered surface, her eyes black, dilated in the darkness, her bun unrolled and low at the neck, her skirt twisted. Joe puts the lamp down and pours beer into the glasses he’s brought with him. He hands one to her. It fizzes in her hand before she takes a slug. She gulps the drink, holds her glass out for more. Joe fills her up. She swallows another half-glass.
Joe loops one hand around her waist and pulls her to him. He swivels her body so that the light falls on her. He pulls down the shoulder of her silk blouse. The heat of his body is against her, chest to shoulders, groin to arse. She tips her head back, takes in more beer. Joe pulls her arm out of the sleeve, the top draping across her like a toga. He rolls her brassiere off. She hates the look of her nipple unaroused, its fringe of lumps, flattened, inverted. She slides her hand over her nipple, checks between her fingers that the centre is raised, before she reveals it to Joe. He dips his finger in the last of her beer, traces the outline of the areola, presses the tip. Brings his head down and drinks the beer he’s put there. His tongue is on her breast, and the feeling repeats between her legs as though there’s a direct line between the two points.
He pushes her onto the bed, his cold fingers on her warm knees. He slides his hands up, taking her skirt with him. Her thighs, the tops of her stockings, all exposed to him. His body bears down over her. The breath moves out of her. She wants to be crushed. He puts his hand on her thigh and exhales. She hears the edge of his voice. Her cunt throbs. She shifts her hips into his and feels the fabric of his trousers, the heat coming off his chest.
He kneels, his knees either side of her hips and his legs against her upper thighs. He pulls off his shirt. She puts her hands on his chest, the globe of his ribcage. She claws him. All animal. His hand on her cunt, her own heat and wetness. He slips his finger between the curled hair and touches the walls of her cunt. She’s pinned by his one finger, the alien sensation of it sliding inside her.
He grunts and stands up abruptly to unbuckle his belt and pull off his trousers. The sound of the buckle makes her shiver. A dark wedge of pubic hair and his cock rising out from it, the upward movement of a pale shaft. Its head exposed and pink. She’s only seen a few other cocks hard like this, and only when men and boys have brought them out to excite themselves. Each time she was revolted and confused by the shudder that ran through her at the sight. Now she longs to reach for it, roll it between her fingers, feel its heat. She puts her hand out. Joe grabs
it and wraps her fingers around his cock. She weighs it in her palm and hears the shallowness in his breath. ‘Like it?’ he asks.
‘Yeah.’ What else to say? The thing fascinates her.
He breathes through his nose. She wants his hands all over her, but she doesn’t know how to direct her desire – it sits on her and makes her heavy with guilt. The fear that he might find her ugly. She responds best when he encourages her, makes noises. She listens to his breath and tries to take the pulse of his cock, blood running through the veins under her fingers.
He puts himself back down over her. His mouth all over her lips. His tongue in her mouth forces her head back. ‘Jesus, I want you.’ She’s surprised by his focus as he parts her legs and fits his cock inside her. He fumbles, butting the head into the crease between her cunt and thigh, then closer, against the folds of her cunt, then he slides inside her. His movement between her legs. He fits his head into her shoulder and makes breathy animal noises against her ear. His hips press into her.
She’s still wearing her shoes when he fucks her this first time.
He levers himself up and says, ‘Need to be careful.’ He pulls out and takes his cock in his hand. She doesn’t know what he’s doing and wonders if she’s upset him, then she flinches at the liquid that pours onto her stomach, its heat and pale viscosity. Her cunt tingles richly where he’s just been. At that moment he could do anything to her, but he doesn’t, just rolls off her and onto his back. She lies still until he puts a hand on her thigh. The other hand lies curled against his chest. He coughs. She rolls towards him, but he stops her. ‘Careful, don’t want that stuff on me.’
‘Should’ve thought of that before,’ she says, and she doesn’t cuddle up to him like she meant to, but lies with her belly drying in the night air.
In the morning, he notices her tattoo and admires her for taking the pain. She walks home across the city with the sun at her back. A jacaranda offers its purple flowers to her head and feet. The traffic rolls past her like the ocean, and she’s buoyed up. Joe’s hands on her, his words, which she holds to herself like gifts. At last, she thinks. At last.
Lizzie expects Joe to come over in a day or so, but a week later he still hasn’t shown. Maybe she read him wrong. He got what he wanted and fucked off. Life with her dad stretches out in front of her, making her cross-eyed with anxiety.
Grace comes to see her, and they go shopping. Lizzie looks out for Joe in the city, dawdling at the top of Brunswick Street. Grace pulls her away to look at shoes. In the shop, Grace tries to pocket some boot polish, not because she wants it much but because it’s there. The shop woman catches her with her hand halfway to her pocket and asks them both to leave. Lizzie has no patience for Grace’s tricks, but she says nothing and lets the silence build up. They lean on a wall under the awning at Waltons and watch the tram shuttle by. Grace hands her the cigarette they’re sharing, its tip rimmed with lipstick. Lizzie takes a drag and squints against the smoke. Her tolerance for pain is down – the smoke stings her eyes, and her legs ache from standing.
A man in a suit passes them, and Grace stands with her foot out and watches him. He looks them both up and down as he walks. Grace puts the cigarette in her mouth and crosses her arms. Lizzie knows she plays out these gestures in her mind as though she’s being filmed. ‘He’s gonna look back. Is he looking back?’ she asks.
Lizzie takes a peek around Grace’s shoulder. ‘Yep. Don’t look, but. He’s turning around.’ She watches him. ‘And another, under the brim of his hat.’ With a thrill, Lizzie mimics the upturned brim, the bend of his neck.
Grace nods, the cigarette still in her hand. ‘Knew it.’ They laugh. Lizzie feels better, like she might recover from Joe. She needed to be reminded that there are other men.
A group of young blokes turns the corner: Johnno and Hanrahan, and a few others.
Lizzie looks at Grace. ‘Get me away from these larrikins.’
‘They’re alright, Liz. Don’t let ’em bother you.’ Grace holds on to her wrist.
One boy jumps on the back of a blinkered horse bound to a wagon, clips his heels against its sides and pretends to ride it. The horse blows air between its lips, shakes its head so the harness rattles. Another boy yells at the rider. He slides off the back just as a man comes out of the barbers, the cut bits of hair still snowing from his head, and gets into the buggy.
The boys move up to Grace and Lizzie. ‘Oi, chromo,’ says Johnno, as Grace squints at him through her smoke.
‘Fuck you, Hanrahan,’ Lizzie says, even though she knows swearing at him is pointless – he’s a thick-skinned bugger.
Sure enough, Hanrahan flashes her a grin, shows his missing incisor. ‘Got something for you girls.’ He looks over at Johnno, and they both grin.
Grace and Lizzie exchange glances too.
‘Not in the mood,’ says Lizzie.
‘What is it?’ Grace asks.
Johnno moves in closer, looks behind him, angles his body to block the view of the street. He pulls something from his pocket. A bottle of beer?
‘The fuck?’ Grace goes to take it off him. Johnno holds it away from her.
Lizzie comes up behind him and snatches the bottle. ‘What’s this? Supposed to impress us?’
Lizzie lifts her arm to throw it away, but Johnno grabs it. He puts his mouth up close to her ear and, despite herself, she listens. ‘Ether. Sniff it, and the world becomes beautiful.’ He shivers his fingers, mimicking the swirl of magic that the vapours produce. Lizzie tugs free, but she already knows she’ll take the bottle. This is exactly what she needs.
Johnno leads them to a side alley lined with rubbish. A cook from a hotel’s kitchen throws a pot of prawn heads into a metal bin. A head stares at Lizzie with a globed black eye, its feelers waving from its spiked nose.
‘Who’s gonna volunteer?’ says Johnno, waving the bottle around.
Hanrahan takes the bottle and uncorks it. He holds the bottle up to his nose, cups his hands over it, inhales deeply, and passes it to Johnno.
‘I’m not putting that shit anywhere near me,’ Grace says. ‘Give it to your mates.’ She gestures to the boys kicking a rotten apple core around. They glance up with surprised expressions, then go back to the apple core. One of them laughs when it splatters against the wall, leaving a star of brown flesh.
‘What about you, Elizabeth?’ Hanrahan is behind her. He has her wrist in his hand.
Lizzie takes the bottle off him, cups her hands around it like Hanrahan did. Inhales. It doesn’t do much. He grabs it, sniffs it again and hands it back. The second time the wall in front of her skitters.
‘You’re crazy,’ Grace tells her. ‘You don’t have to do what they say.’
Lizzie shrugs and sniffs it a third time.
Hanrahan says, ‘Go easy.’
‘It’s weak.’ Lizzie gives it back to him. She tries not to think of him with her mother. She leans against the wall, closes her eyes and works on forgetting Joe. A body next to her, a hand on her knee. Hanrahan’s face, blackheads on his nose.
The last time Lizzie saw her mum she was living off the back of a house where she scrubbed the floors and spat in the soup pot. Lizzie sat on the step and peered in at the clothes draped around, her mum’s dyed black hairs stretched across the pillows, the ground. The place smelt rotten. Lizzie sniffed the air, went in and searched the room, and found a rubbish pile mounting up around a wastepaper basket. She tossed it outside the door, into a drain where the family in the big house threw their litter too.
But the smell was still there. She tracked its strength, and worked out it was coming from under the bed. She lay down with her head on the side, lifted the quilt up. A dead animal smell. She raised the hem of the bedspread and saw a pile of cast-off rags, bloodied with use. Lizzie didn’t like to think her mum was still bleeding like her. Meant it never stops, all the pain and lying in bed with a hot water bottle, the swollen abdomen, the smell of dried blood.
Lizzie scrambled up, flung herself out the doo
r and retched. Her mum came around the side of the house. Lizzie couldn’t find a way of saying what she’d seen, so she didn’t say anything. Her mum kissed her on the cheek with her body pulled away. Made them tea with a bitter aftertaste.
Soon after, her mum lost her job and went to ground. Lizzie doesn’t know where she’s gone. When Lizzie came to ask, the woman who owns the house hid upstairs. Lizzie heard her talking to the maid. ‘The daughter of that disgusting woman? She left all her droppings.’ The maid came out and put a glass of water on the bench. She said Missus would be down soon, but two hours later no one had come. Lizzie left.
That morning, on the way to the house, she’d noticed Hanrahan and Johnno hanging around the main street in the city, and jumping on and off trams. As she walked home, Johnno caught one right up to her, leapt off and said, ‘Your mum’s a good root, I reckon. We came round to her place the other day. Hanrahan was out in the garden with her. All you could see was his bare arse going up and down.’ Lizzie screwed up her face, striding quickly away from them, aware of her visibility in the street.
Now, with Hanrahan hemming her against the building, she wants to spit in his face. She steps away from him. ‘Don’t lay a flamin’ finger on me.’
Hanrahan holds up both hands. ‘Wasn’t gonna.’
‘Bullshit. Johnno, tell Hanrahan to get out of my face.’
Johnno shrugs, won’t look at her, holding the ether from the waist like a glass of beer. Hanrahan grins. The gap of his incisor appears. She knows why her mum chose him: he’s good-looking, from Welsh stock, with wide, thick eyebrows. She doesn’t know the tricks to make him stare at her like he must have done to her mum. He’s never tried to touch her, which makes her hate him even more. Is it worse if they fuck you or if they don’t?
Treading Air Page 4