Deeper Water

by Jessie Cole

  ‘Maybe I better have a shower.’ I leaned down and kissed Lila’s plump little cheek, and she smiled all gummy mouthed.

  ‘I’m coming!’ Rory cried out, jumping on the spot. It was one of his favourite things, to watch me in the shower.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Sophie asked, studying my face. ‘You can say no if you do.’

  I’d never minded before so I couldn’t see how this time was different.

  ‘It’s fine.’ I handed Lila back to Sophie. ‘Come on boy-o.’

  There was a small stool in the bathroom, just the right size for Rory, and he rushed inside, snatched up a couple of his toy dinosaurs from the edge of the bathtub, then perched himself on the stool, ready to go. I’d never really thought much before about Rory seeing me naked—it had never felt strange. Just a natural progression from him being the baby I took into the shower with me, to him being a toddler who scrambled about in the bathroom, watching the whole affair. Part of the fabric of things as they were. But suddenly I felt self-conscious. I turned on the water, letting it heat up before I took my clothes off.

  Rory chatted away to himself, doing the voices of the dinosaurs. I stripped down quickly and climbed under the spray. The cane toads were back, squatting in the corner. They made me think of Hamish. I wondered where he was, if he was still in town. I wondered if he’d leave without saying goodbye. I wondered if Anja was still stalking him, like some kind of starved dingo. And deep down I wondered what he thought of her, whether he’d be able to resist. It was bad enough imagining him and all those invisible girls, but thinking of him with Anja was unbearable. It made that place between my breasts start hurting, and I pressed it hard, pushing against the bone.

  ‘Mema?’ Rory called out then, still sitting on the stool. ‘Can’t see you.’

  I guess I’d pulled the shower curtain too tight. Usually I left it open a little and we chatted. I turned around and smiled but I wasn’t feeling much like playing.

  ‘You sad?’ His little voice was croaky, his fingers clutching at the dinosaurs, turning white.

  I shook my head but it was a lie. Standing there, exposed before him, I could have dissolved into tears.

  ‘You’re a flower, Mema!’ His eyes were big and black, widening as he watched me under the spray. ‘Mummy said.’

  I nodded as I soaped up my hair. I could feel the bits of pebble there, gritty against my fingers. I thought of the weight of Billy against me, his fingers pressed inside, and my nipples tightened there under the shower spray. It felt wrong then that Rory should be watching, but I didn’t know how to get him out. I turned my back, washing away the soap and fumbling with the conditioner. Glancing around, I saw Rory had taken up his game with the dinosaurs, distracted for a few seconds at least. I finished up as quickly as I could, wrapping myself in a towel.

  ‘You ready?’ I said to Rory and he looked up at me in surprise.

  ‘Finished?’ He didn’t much like a break in routine. ‘You didn’t do the swirly bit.’

  ‘What swirly bit?’ I asked, but I knew what he meant.

  ‘The swirly.’ He dropped the dinosaurs on the ground and smoothed his hands across his little body, demonstrating. ‘That bit.’

  ‘You missed it. You were too busy playing.’

  He looked forlorn. ‘That’s the goodest bit.’

  I held out my hand. Reluctantly, he took it.

  ‘Next time,’ I coaxed. ‘I’ll do the swirly bit next time.’ I said it, even though I didn’t know if I should.

  When I came out, Sophie was standing at the window, baby on one hip and a steaming cup of tea in her opposite hand. She was watching something, staring.

  ‘Mum told me she’d been walking down the driveway every day. Trying to get her knees working properly, but I wasn’t sure I believed her.’ She motioned out the window. ‘But there she is, heading down. Mum. Doing exercise. I never thought I’d see the day.’

  I walked over and stood beside her, still wrapped in my big old towel. Rory let go of my hand and attached himself to Sophie’s leg.

  ‘I missed the swirly bit,’ he said, and burst out crying.

  ‘Aw, baby,’ she murmured, hiding a smile. I reached out and took Lila from her so she could give him a hug. ‘Did Mema go too quick for you?’

  I guess it was a bit comical. Lila was smiling too.

  ‘She’s happy today,’ I said, bouncing her on my hip, hoping I wouldn’t lose my towel.

  Sophie picked up Rory and he wrapped his arms around her neck, snuffling.

  ‘I know.’ Sophie looked at me over Rory’s head. ‘What a little trooper she is. This one’s been all over the place.’ She kissed Rory on the head. ‘Guess he’s missing you know who.’

  The mongrel. ‘You heard anything?’

  Sophie looked at the floor, shaking her head. ‘Guess I could have held it together better,’ she said quietly. ‘Probably made it worse for him.’ She squeezed Rory tighter. ‘I just didn’t see it coming. I mean, he only went to the shops.’

  I nodded, bending my head to give Lila an Eskimo kiss, rubbing my nose against her nose. The baby swiped out at my wet hair with her dimpled fingers. I thought of my sister’s bruised forehead, the night I first brought Hamish home.

  ‘Rory’s alright.’ I didn’t see that Sophie beating herself up over things would make them any better.

  I glanced out the window then, still snuggling Lila, and suddenly there were two figures walking back up the hill—Mum and Frank Brown.

  ‘What do you know,’ Sophie said with a sideways smile at me. ‘He’s come back for another try. He’s keen, this one.’

  As they got closer I could see Mum was holding a bunch of crucifix orchids. It was my guess she’d busted him trying to leave the flowers down the bottom, like he had the time before. In the spot he always used to leave the bags of avocados, near the letterbox.

  Frank was clutching his hat in his hands, and even from this far away he looked a little nervous.

  ‘Poor guy,’ Sophie said, but she was grinning now. She gave Rory one more squeeze and then slid him back down to his feet. ‘You had brekky yet, Mema?’ she asked me. ‘I might make Rory some toast. Bit of distraction. You want some too?’

  I nodded, but I was still watching Mum. There was something about her I couldn’t quite place, some kind of agitation. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think Frank could be the cause of it. When they stepped up onto the veranda and through the door, I saw she had something else besides the flowers in her hands. There was a card, a postcard, and she passed it to me without saying a word. On it was a beach scene, some far-away town. Still jiggling Lila on my hip I flipped it over, scanning the handwriting quickly. It was from Max. My oldest brother. And there was a return address. None of them had ever sent us something in the post.

  ‘He’s up in North Queensland,’ I said and Mum nodded, holding that big feeling tightly inside her.

  ‘He says we should come and visit.’ We hadn’t heard from him in years. I was having trouble believing my eyes.

  Mum turned then and started fussing with the flowers at the sink. I was worried she might break down and start sobbing.

  ‘Who?’ Sophie was preoccupied, looking in the fridge. ‘Hi, Frank,’ she added as a kind of afterthought. ‘You want some toast?’

  Frank stood awkwardly in the kitchen, like he didn’t know where to be. I realised I hadn’t even said hello, but I was thinking of my brother and that card, and what it all meant.

  ‘Max,’ I replied to Sophie, grasping the postcard hard between my fingers. ‘Max sent us a card.’

  Sophie stood up straight then and looked at me, forgetting the fridge and the toast.

  ‘Max?’

  He was the brother closest to her in age. They had the same dad. There must have been a time when it was only those two.

  ‘Yeah.’

  My sister stepped over and took the card from me, quickly scanning the back. We both looked across at Mum, still tussling with the flowers.

  Frank
stepped towards Mum then, taking them from her hands. He pulled down a vase from the top shelf, and standing there beside her, filled it up with water and carefully placed the flowers inside. He did it real slow and then he put the vase on the kitchen bench, just out of Mum’s reach.

  ‘Naomi,’ he said, steadily enough. It was the strangest thing to hear my mother’s name. She still didn’t turn around, but stood, back to us all, clutching the sink.

  ‘Mum?’ Sophie’s voice was high, worried. ‘It’s good, isn’t it? We know where he is. He probably knows where the rest of them are. Maybe they’re all there?’

  ‘He says we should come and visit.’ I heard myself saying again. I’d forgotten about Rory but he was there, pulling on my leg.

  ‘Toast, Mema!’ He looked up at me with pleading eyes.

  I handed the baby back to Sophie, and holding my towel in place, I leaned down and looked in the open fridge. All the jars of things right where they always were—Vegemite, peanut butter, honey, jam, but I couldn’t seem to make sense of them. I kept thinking of the white sands on the postcard and Max’s scrawled words. His address. I don’t know why something so small should seem so important but it did.

  ‘Naomi?’ Frank said again behind me, and I could hear Lila start up grizzling.

  ‘Jam, Mema, jam!’ Rory insisted, standing close and pulling a little on the corner of my towel.

  ‘Okay.’ I nodded down at him, getting out the jam and butter and moving across to the toaster.

  And then it happened, that thing I thought I’d never see. My mum turned and Frank opened his arms and she leaned into him, and he hugged her there in the kitchen, everyone standing around. He held her and she cried a little, her big body soft in his arms. There must have been something between them already, some progression of events I’d been too distracted to perceive.

  I didn’t know where to look so I concentrated on the toast. Sophie had sat down at the table to feed the baby and we were all quiet, even Rory, while Frank whispered to my mum in his soothing way, slow and gentle.

  I buttered the toast and smothered it in jam, then cut it into triangles, the way Rory liked. And when I was done I put it on a kiddy’s plate we’d picked up from the markets and set it on the table, delaying the moment when I’d have to look up and see her, my mum, held like that in such a loving embrace. There was something Frank knew about my mum, something vital and deep. It seemed like the most private of moments, and it made all that I’d done with Billy feel pale. Suddenly I felt cold and exposed just wrapped in that towel, and leaving them all there I took off to my bedroom to get dressed.

  When I came back out, the bright beach postcard was stuck up on the fridge with a magnet and Mum was off in the garden showing Frank Brown our attempts at growing vegies. I peered out the window to see Rory bouncing along beside them, pulling out the odd weed, chattering away. I figured I’d best ask Sophie about a lift into town.

  She took one look at me and sighed, swapping Lila from one hip to the other. ‘Mema, what’s going on with you?’

  I stood there in the kitchen looking from Lila’s bright little face to hers, trying to figure out how to begin.

  ‘Something happened with Anja and now she’s not coming around.’ I didn’t know where to start but Anja seemed as good a place as any.

  ‘What happened?’

  I told my sister about the kiss, my cheeks getting hot even saying the words. I thought Sophie might laugh but she didn’t. She didn’t even smile.

  ‘And now she’s out stalking what’s-his-face, right?’

  I nodded. That was about the size of it.

  Down on the floor beside me, Thor had climbed into an empty cardboard box just a tad too small for him. He was always squeezing himself into places he didn’t quite fit, and usually this sort of display had me grinning, but not today. He looked up at me, yellow eyes defiant, and then sank his teeth into the cardboard ripping off a piece and coughing it onto the floor.

  ‘He thinks he’s a dog,’ Sophie said, looking down. ‘What a duffer.’

  He kept on tearing away, till the floor was littered with scraps of cardboard.

  ‘He likes that box,’ I said, watching him. ‘Why would he destroy it?’ It made me think of Anja, of how Mum said she’d tear everything down.

  ‘But she’s barking up the wrong tree, isn’t she, Mema?’ Sophie asked, like she could read my thoughts. ‘Anja? You haven’t seen the flood guy for days.’

  I nodded, but I didn’t want to talk about Billy. I didn’t have words to describe what we’d done. ‘She kissed me, Soph.’

  Stepping up closer, I smoothed my hand across Lila’s downy head. The baby flapped her arms out towards me. She’d never done that before. She’d never had the coordination. It was plain remarkable how much babies changed every single day.

  ‘I don’t really understand.’ I took Lila from her, snuggling her into my shoulder.

  ‘I dunno, Mema.’ She was considering it. ‘You and her were always so close. Like an odd pair of twins. Maybe she’s just being possessive. I mean, she is possessive. You know she is. Half the time she doesn’t even like me hanging about.’

  ‘But did you … ever think she liked me like that?’

  ‘Nup.’ Sophie didn’t even hesitate. ‘Never crossed my mind.’

  Leaning my cheek towards Lila’s head, I breathed in her scent, and she burrowed in towards my neck. I swayed then, moving my weight from foot to foot, thinking she might sleep.

  ‘Did you … like it?’ Sophie looked down at Thor in the box. ‘The kiss, I mean.’

  I thought of those ants swarming from Anja’s face to mine. I still didn’t really know if I liked it. Sophie looked back up and I shrugged. ‘It was okay. I’d just … never thought about it.’

  Sophie nodded, watching my face. ‘’Cause if you did like it, that’d be alright, you know, Mema.’

  I guess I realised that. In these parts, falling in love with a woman might be considered the pragmatic choice. Especially in my family.

  ‘Her dad busted us.’

  ‘Jim?’ Sophie’s body shifted, she was listening in a different way. ‘Fuck, that’s not good.’

  ‘I’m worried about her, Soph.’ My eyes filled up. ‘You know how it is for her. He’s unpredictable. When I went up there to check on her, there was no one around. I think she’d been sleeping in the hut. Who knows what Jim’s been doing?’

  ‘Oh, Mema, you know you can’t go up there.’ Sophie put a hand on my arm, just for a second, her grip tight. ‘I mean it. Don’t go up there. Jim’s a nutter.’

  ‘But she lives up there. I’m not supposed to go up there ’cause it’s too dangerous, but she hasn’t got anywhere else. That’s her life.’

  ‘Does Mum know what’s going on?’

  I shook my head. ‘Anja asked me not to tell her. I wouldn’t anyway, though.’

  ‘I can’t take you into town today, Mema. I don’t have enough petrol to get back. But it’s payday tomorrow, so we can go in then and look for her. Okay?’

  Sophie got a parenting payment so at least there was that.

  ‘Maybe I should ask Frank?’

  ‘He would have come out here on his way back from town already. You know how he is, always heads out early. Probably dropping the flood guy in town.’

  I nodded, knowing she was right. We all knew Frank’s movements, in a roundabout way. Same as he would know ours. Mum’s little walk down to the bridge must have really thrown him. I imagined him then, standing there self-consciously with his flowers, not expecting to have to face her.

  ‘You could ask Mum,’ Sophie said, looking across to the postcard on the fridge.

  I thought of my brother Max, of what he might be like now, of how it would feel to see him. Lila’s body was going limp against mine, sleep seeping in. I shook my head, kissing the skin just above her ears. I didn’t want to tell my mum anything. Not today.

  ‘Look at you, the baby whisperer,’ Sophie said gently, glancing back at me. ‘It’l
l be alright, Baby-girl. Anja will be okay for one more day.’ Sophie sounded far away—she wasn’t thinking of my predicament anymore.

  I nodded, wandering towards the couch.

  ‘You sit there with her for a bit while I do the washing up. She sleeps better if someone’s holding her.’ Sophie stepped up to the fridge and slipped the postcard out from beneath the magnet, peering into the glossy photograph as though it might reveal something more than glaring sands and rolling waves.

  I sat down with the baby’s soft weight against my shoulder, Sophie and the postcard at my back, and I wondered then if we all slept better—like Lila—tucked up in some other person’s arms.

  24.

  I guess I could have hitched into town, or ridden the bike even, but I didn’t. I wanted to find Anja, but there was another part of me that was scared. She’d never stayed away so long, and every minute that passed I imagined her anger growing, until somehow it was swelling, taking up all the room in my mind.

  That night I waited for Billy outside on the sweep of the hill below our yard. Mum had gone to bed early and I was so itching with thoughts I fled outside. I saw the faint glow of Billy’s torchlight flickering across the paddocks below me, but once in range of the yard he switched it off. The stars were bright and my eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. The silhouette of him stepped from a pocket of trees.

  I liked the way Billy stood so straight. He had a quiet kind of grace, and it was easier to observe from a distance. He didn’t see me at first, so I got to watch his steady stride towards me, taking all of him in. Well, all that I could see. There was nothing so appealing as a man, in the right sort of light. For a second I thought of Hamish, walking across the paddocks with the pup, but I banished the image of him from my mind.

  When Billy got close I called his name. His whole body shifted at the sound, aware of my night-time gaze. When he was right in front of me, I held out my hand and he took it, sitting down beside me on the grass.

  ‘You right?’ He was like that, straight into it, as though there’d been no time between then and when he saw me last.

  I nodded, but I was concentrating on the feel of his rough fingers in mine. It got me thinking of the clay.