Rose by Any Other Name

by Maureen McCarthy

  I know I should smile and joke back, but I feel too jumpy.

  ‘It’s for my nephews,’ I mumble, feeling the heat rush to my face.

  ‘Gunna put ’em down, are ya?’ he jokes again, and I don’t even smile. ‘Well, looks like I’d better go,’ he shrugs. ‘If you want to catch up some time, Rose, you know where I am.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say gruffly, ‘thanks.’ I turn on my heel and make my way home feeling weirdly pumped, as though I’ve won some kind of victory. Of course, once I’m in the door all that just seeps away, like air from a faulty balloon. I’m left feeling spent and saggy, as though I’ve just banged the last nail into my own coffin. Confused, too. What the hell was that little episode all about?

  Road Trip

  We are coming into Anglesea now and a rush of elation washes through me, followed quickly by apprehension when I remember Apollo Bay is only an hour away. How am I meant to pass the road that leads up to the house in the hills? The house where that sweet nightmare began?

  It’s at this point I see the hitchhiker. A sloppily dressed guy in thongs, dirty jeans and T-shirt, with long dark hair falling in his face and a full backpack at his feet. I hesitate and then slam on the brakes. When she realises that I’m stopping for him, Mum goes into panic mode.

  ‘Don’t Rose! Please.’ She reaches out for my arm. ‘It’s not safe.’

  I shrug her off impatiently, thinking that I’m going to have to do it now. This is my van. My trip. I’m the one making decisions. I pull the van over onto the gravel.

  ‘He’s got a bag!’ she hisses.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Could be carrying a knife or . . .’ she hisses, ‘a gun.’

  ‘As if!’

  But watching the guy approach in the rear vision mirror, I become nervous myself. The closer he gets, the more he looks like Charles Manson. He’s about thirty, short and dark, and surly, like he’s got some secret agenda that’s making him shitty with the world.

  ‘You hitched when you were young,’ I mutter under my breath to Mum.

  ‘It was different then.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I snap. ‘How?’

  ‘Lots of people did it then. It was a more accepted way to get about.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ I rest my case.

  Shit, I hate it. Fact is, I’m just jealous. Everything I hear about the sixties and seventies makes me wish to hell those times could come around again. Imagine being there when The Doors were a hot new band. Or when Hendrix and Janis Joplin were playing little clubs. Or when a song like ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ was in the charts! Then there were local bands like Skyhooks and Daddy Cool, The Easybeats, Billy Thorpe . . . Dad still has all those old albums. That stuff was good! So simple and witty and new. It was okay, then, for a couple of girls to hitch up to Queensland for a holiday – Mum did that when she was nineteen! No computers or mobile phones to tie you down or keep you in your place. And on top of all that, the feeling that you were part of a new, special generation that was going to change the world.

  Not that they did, of course, but believing that it was possible, even for a year or two, would be so very cool. I don’t know anyone now who wants to change the world, much less anyone who believes they can.

  The hitchhiker slides open the door and mumbles something that sounds like thanks, before hurling his bag onto the back seat. Then he climbs in himself, eyes downcast. A distinct whiff of beer hits my nostrils, mixed with sweat and cigarettes. I immediately feel like telling him to get out again.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I ask, sharply, looking at him in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Apollo Bay.’ He meets my eyes. ‘You going that far?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘but we’re going to stop for a swim at Lorne first.’

  ‘Surf or swim?’

  ‘Swim,’ I say. If it’s any of your business.

  ‘Lorne’s a shit-hole now,’ he says, in this cool, matter-of-fact way, like he knows everything and I know nothing. ‘You won’t get a good swim there. Should go on to Apollo Bay.’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I want to stop at Lorne,’ I snap right back at him as I pull out onto the road. He shrugs as though he couldn’t care less and then starts rummaging around in his backpack. Mum stiffens and looks nervously at me. I risk a quick glance around. He has pulled out a packet of tobacco and is rolling a cigarette. It takes him about three seconds with one hand.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he mumbles, putting it in his mouth and pulling a lighter from his pocket, not waiting for a reply. Audacious prick!

  ‘Yeah, I do, actually,’ I say quickly, before he can light it. Mum is looking visibly relieved, presumably because it’s not a gun. ‘My mother gets sick on cigarette smoke.’

  This is true. Mum has never been able to bear being in confined spaces with people smoking. But, to my surprise, she immediately turns to him with an apologetic smile.

  ‘That’s okay,’ she says, nervously. ‘I don’t mind. As long as we have the windows open. Blow the smoke out if you can.’

  What? I look at her furiously to see if I’ve heard right. ‘But you get sick. It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘Thanks, lady.’ The guy lights up without looking at me, then mutters under his breath, ‘Some people are cool and some people aren’t.’ He turns to stare distractedly out the window and blow his smoke out.

  Shit. I can’t believe I heard him say that! What a rude pig! I look over at Mum but I’m unable to tell whether she heard him or not. I’m on the point of telling him to butt the bloody thing out – I don’t like smoking in confined spaces either – but somehow the moment passes. I’m not scared of him. More like I just don’t feel like making a scene. Gutless, I know. Why not make a scene? I stare ahead and try to concentrate on the driving. So, I think angrily, nothing for it but to put up with this stranger’s nauseating stink wafting through my cabin. After a few minutes he turns away from the window and settles himself into the corner. I notice only half the smoke is going out the window now.

  ‘Bit different seeing chicks in one of these shit-heaps,’ he says in this lazy, confidential tone. ‘So where youse headed?’

  I pretend I don’t hear. What a dickhead. He’s getting a ride for nothing. So how come he thinks he can insult my van?

  ‘Oh, we’re on our way to Port Fairy to see an old lady,’ Mum gushes. ‘My husband’s mother, actually.’ Ex-husband, Mum, I’m on the point of reminding her. Your husband pissed off with another woman! Remember?

  ‘I’m Patsy, by the way, and this is my daughter, Rose.’ Mum goes on, and then she turns around and holds out her hand! I cringe inside when I see the look of surprise on the guy’s face before he leans across and takes her hand in his own grimy one.

  ‘Yeah, well . . .’ he says, giving Mum a bemused smile, ‘I’m Travis.’

  ‘So, is Apollo Bay home for you, Travis?’ Mum asks sweetly after an uncomfortable pause. This is just like her. Dippy. Having decided he’s not going to kill her it’s now time to turn on the let’s-be-friendly–to-strangers number.

  ‘Nah. I come from Sydney. Apollo Bay is where my old lady lives.’

  ‘So you grew up there?’ Mum asks.

  He laughs sourly.

  ‘My old lady being my ex-missus.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Mum backs off, tentatively.

  ‘She’s sick, and I’ve got to do something with the kid.’

  ‘Your child?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the guy sighs. ‘A boy. He’s nine now . . . I think. I don’t know whether to take him back with me or try and find somewhere for him to live around there. Not much for him in Sydney.’

  ‘She must be very sick?’ Mum asks quietly.

  ‘Yeah. She hasn’t got long. Only thirty-one. Cancer, you know.’

  Mum is turning right around now, an open study of sympathy. He’s blowing the smoke straight into her face, more or less. This is making me so pissed off that if I wasn’t driving I’d turn aroun
d and smack the thing right out of his hand.

  ‘You see much of your boy?’ Mum wants to know.

  ‘Nah,’ he shakes his head, ‘I’ve been in Sydney for a long time.

  ‘How will you get him back to Sydney?’

  I can tell she’s already picturing this guy standing on the road on a dark stormy night with a badly dressed, cold, under-nourished nine-year-old, both with their thumbs out.

  ‘You wouldn’t hitchhike with him, would you?’ she asks breathlessly, as though this is the biggest concern of her life.

  ‘Look, I don’t know.’ He gestures impatiently with both hands, as though it’s all too much for him. ‘I mightn’t have much choice.’ Then he slumps dramatically, groans and shuts his eyes. ‘I had my fuckin’ car pinched in Goulburn,’ he grumbles. ‘It was a bomb, but it went, ya know?’

  Mum nods vigorously as though she knows all about crappy cars, when in fact she’s never driven anything but a prestigious European model.

  ‘And I had everything in the glove box,’ Travis continues. ‘Wallet. Licence. Money. They got the lot.’

  ‘Would you mind blowing that smoke out the window?’ I cut in. He sits up a bit and nods suspiciously, like I’m the freak. I hate this guy now. How dare he swear like that in front of my mother. She’s an older woman. He should have some respect. Doesn’t seem to have affected her though.

  ‘Oh Travis, that’s just what you didn’t need!’ Mum gives the guy a sigh of pure sympathy, tinged with exasperation, as though the whole sorry tale has just happened to her. The guy nods, clears his throat and looks out the window, not at all embarrassed to have revealed so much. ‘It hasn’t been your week, has it?’ Mum sighs coaxingly, turning around to share another isn’t-life-damned-hard smile.

  ‘You could say that,’ he mutters.

  ‘No wonder you’re feeling low,’ Mum declares after some thought. ‘You’ve had an absolutely terrible time! How did the car get stolen?’

  ‘I parked it at a service station. Needed to make a phone call. When I came out again, it had gone.’

  I find myself wanting to caution her, which is ironic, seeing she was the one who didn’t want me to pick this guy up in the first place. My mother has always been like this. Once she gets talking, one to one, her inbuilt bullshit detector switches off. She gets involved way too quickly. I’ve seen it happen too many times. Dad used to be the one to haul her back to reality. Then it was my turn for a while. These days, it’s usually my sisters playing that role.

  How is Mum today? Did she eat? Did she have a shower? Then, when she picked up a bit, maybe three months after Dad left, Let’s encourage her to go out with her girlfriends this Friday. Will she cope with this? Is that going to upset her? How is she today?

  I don’t want to look after her . . . or anyone else for that matter. I can’t. I’ve got too much of my own shit to work out. The guy is drumming his dirty fingers on the back seat now, eyes closed as though he’s listening to some song inside his head. And I wonder, Why the hell did I pick up this . . . piece of human garbage?

  ‘Did you report it to police?’ Mum asks, and, in spite of myself, I crane my neck to hear.

  ‘Nah,’ he snarls, ‘it wasn’t registered.’ I almost hoot out loud. That would be right. Not registered. I’d like to point out at this juncture that since leaving home I take no money from my parents. I work as a waitress for fifteen dollars an hour and for that pissant music paper. And I am able to register my van with my own money. This jerk probably stole the car in the first place.

  ‘So what are you doing for money now?’ Mum wants to know. Good on you, Mum! Give him an opening to hit on you. The guy shrugs and looks out the window. Mum glances at me. We’re coming into Lorne now and all I want to do is get rid of him.

  ‘So, Travis,’ I say, ‘where do you want to be dropped?’

  ‘You’re still going to stop here?’ he asks, a note of incredulity in his voice, as though he’d expected that I would have come to my senses and taken his advice.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say through gritted teeth. We’re still going to stop here, dickhead.

  ‘Well,’ he says, shaking his head as though it is the weirdest thing he’s heard in all his life, ‘it’s up to you.’ Yeah that’s right, buddy! It is up to me. I don’t say anything. I just pull the van in the end park in front of the toilet block.

  ‘I’ll just sit on the beach,’ he says, ‘and wait.’

  ‘Wait?’ I croak. ‘For what?’

  ‘Till you’ve finished swimming,’ he replies curtly. He’s meeting my eyes now. Challenging me to tell him he can’t. I am momentarily stuck for words because . . . the proposal is appalling. I don’t want him hanging around waiting for us!

  ‘I think you should get out on the road again,’ I say, cool as as I can make it. ‘Apollo Bay is only an hour away.’

  ‘But I won’t get a ride,’ he whines. This type of guy is expert at playing victim. ‘I was waiting for about three hours before you picked me up. I could be waiting till night-time for another lift.’

  ‘Then staying with us sounds like a very good idea,’ Mum cuts in firmly. ‘The sooner Travis sees his little boy, the better.’

  ‘Oh, Jeez,’ I mutter. For God’s sake, Mum. Get a fucking brain!

  I get out and go to the back of the van, open it and get out my bag, which is packed with bathers, towel and sunblock. When the other two have climbed out, I make damned sure I lock up the van properly before heading over to the toilet block to change. Only an hour or two, I tell myself, then it will be over. Come on, Rose. Think positive. Dropping him off will give me something to think about when I hit Apollo Bay. It will divert me. Keep me in the NOW. That’s what that self-help book is always banging on about. Stay in the NOW. So this is it. I’m here. Right in the fucking NOW and hating it. So deal with it, Rose . . . just move on to the next NOW.

  Don’tcha just hate it . . . when some stranger decides you’re it for the day, the hour, or even the next ten minutes. Worse. Maybe it’s some guy you met once three years ago and he insists on walking your way when you want to be by yourself. Someone you ended up hooking up with one night because there was nothing better on offer and now you can’t even remember his name. He decides you are the one he’s been thinking about all these years. You’re the one who will take away his pain and make everything right. You’re the one who can help. They cling like bloody suckers to your life . . .

  My plan is to walk along the shoreline, put my feet in the water and feel the sand under my feet, maybe lie in the sun a bit. Look at the ocean rolling in. Re-familiarise myself with the beach. Get back in the groove, so to speak. It’s been . . . a long time. I am aware of a kind of nervous buzz happening in my guts, like when you have too much coffee on an empty stomach. When I come out of the change rooms, bathers underneath my jeans and T-shirt and towel over my shoulder, I see that Mum is sitting on a small wooden railing next to the van. She is looking up at the hitchhiker who is leaning against the door, arms crossed and smoking another cigarette, no doubt holding her in thrall about all the hard times he’s endured. They’re so deep in conversation that they don’t immediately notice me.

  ‘So Mum,’ I say, ignoring the guy, ‘coming for a swim?’

  ‘Yes, I might,’ she says, and then turns back to the guy, ‘Why didn’t she want you to see the child?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t much of a . . . dad,’ he sighs in this disconcertingly confidential way, and squats down. ‘You know how it is, Patsy. You get lost in your own trip and forget about . . .’

  ‘Listen, Mum.’ I cut across him sharply. ‘I’ll be an hour at the most so I’ll see you back here then, okay?’

  ‘Okay, Rose,’ she says distractedly. ‘In an hour. Back here.’

  ‘And I’ll just be on the beach down there,’ I add, pointing at the expanse of white sand, the blue rippling sea with its lazy white swell. I notice about four surfers a long way out. Their black insect-like figures are cartoon cut-outs against the brightness of the bl
ue and I am suddenly weak with longing, while at the same time reluctant to leave my mother with this guy. What’s the policy now? I find myself wondering. Should I ring the sisters? Oh shit. No. Not all that crap again. She’s fifty-two. It’s broad daylight and I’m only going to be an hour!

  ‘I’ll be near the flags, Mum. I’ll be easy enough to find when you come.’

  ‘Okay, love.’ She waves me off and turns back to the hitchhiker.

  In spite of the heat the beach isn’t too crowded because it’s a weekday. I forget about Mum and the hitchhiker when my feet touch sand. Oh. My toes squirm with pleasure in the warm, loose grains. This is so fantastic! I head for the flags and about midway down the beach I select a spot, kneel and spread out my towel, and then take off my shirt and jeans. It’s been a while since my skin was exposed like this. I’m thin and white, and my knees and elbows and hands and feet are knobbly – like a boy’s. My old spotted bikini is baggy, but I don’t care. I look around. No one is looking at me. They are all intent on their own lives: bending over kids, bouncing balls on the hard sand, squinting over newspapers and magazines, dreaming their own dreams as they lie flat out on their bellies or backs in the sun. I get up, walk tentatively down to the water and gasp at the first delicious touch. The waves lap my ankles and the sun burns into my back and shoulders like a blowtorch. I forgot to put on the sunblock. Better go back. Go back. Go back, Rose. Go back to the van and get the sunblock. But I don’t go back. I’m moving forward. It’s as though an invisible system of pulleys is tugging me along. One leg moves and then the other. My arms push forward. I just keep moving into the surf. My heart beats hard and my mouth goes dry. I am fearful at the same time as being full of excitement. Afraid, too, that this spell will break and I’ll lose my nerve. The bubbles of fear rise up from below, but they disappear as soon as they hit the surface. This is so . . . fine.

  I gasp again as a wave pushes against my hips. This beautiful southern ocean! So clear and freezing. Now that I’m almost there, I turn back to see if I can catch Mum’s eye. Part of me is the little kid again. Look Mum! See me. Look what I can do. But she is out of sight. Back up there in the ordinary world that I’ve just come from. I smile as I dive head-first into a wave. This is . . . the best. This is bliss.