I saw my chance, grabbed my spare key and made a break for it. My heart was pounding. Halfway down the corridor I turned, sure she was behind me, reaching out to grab me, drag me back and lock me in.
The pool was a slender, utilitarian rectangle intended for executive lap-swimmers. I got in their way.
‘This isn’t a kiddy pool,’ a red-faced man growled at me when I was turning somersaults in his lane. Kiddy. There was some malevolence in that word and the way he said it. I retreated to the edge and hung there for a while. He kept glaring at me and shaking his head.
I was always looking for new ways to be transformed by water. I wanted, so desperately, to be a water-dwelling creature, for this to be my natural habitat. I wanted to be able to breathe under the surface, to see down there as clearly as I could on land. I wanted to live a weightless life, always floating. This is the magic of swimming: it relieved me of the weight of my own flesh. In water I was something else.
I figured out that if you exhale all of the air from your lungs and hold it out, you just sink. Right to the bottom, like a stone. I did this, over and over. I wanted to see how long I could stay down there. Resting on my back, looking up at the lap swimmers as they pounded along the surface. Or creeping along the edges like a salamander.
I must have stayed in the water for three hours. The sun went down outside. The trees that crowded outside the long window gradually lost their texture. Faded to black. Until all I could see was a pane of glass with nothing but night behind it, and my own reflection, floating in the empty pool.
When I got back to the room there was a note scrawled in my father’s handwriting. They expected to be back late. I should order dinner from room service.
It was almost ten o’clock before my chicken schnitzel and chips turned up at my door. I was watching a late movie. It was about a small town in Vermont or Maine or one of those picturesque and leafy American states where horror movies always seem to happen. This small town had been plagued by a series of mysterious deaths. Massacred bodies had been found in the surrounding woods. It turned out that it was the trees that were responsible. The woods were cursed, the trees came alive at night and killed anyone who happened to be wandering through them. I remember one scene: the policeman’s daughter has strayed from the school dance. Some strange compulsion draws her into the woods. She goes deeper and deeper; suddenly a storm strikes out of nowhere. Her diaphanous party frock is drenched, clinging to her like a membrane. She snaps out of her trance and realises she’s in a place where she doesn’t belong. She panics. Runs. Can’t find the path. The trees stir. Stretch out their papier-mâché limbs. Grab at her. One tears off her dress. She’s screaming, running, wriggling out of their grasp. Then one long arm scoops down and lifts her off the ground. She’s screaming, kicking her legs, there’s mud all over her. There’s a close up: the tree that’s holding her extends one pointed finger. Slowly, with relish and precision, it drives this finger through the girl’s torso, exits through her flat teenage navel, the music reaches a crescendo, blood spurts everywhere. She screams one more time, her body shakes, and she finally falls limp and silent.
At this point my schnitzel knocked on the door and I went to claim it. I sat cross-legged in a hotel dressing-gown, my hair still wet and smelling of chlorine, and ate, relishing every mouthful of insipid, ketchup-drenched meat. I watched the movie to the end. There were a few more deaths. There was no way of breaking the curse, which had been made by a witch who had been hanged there in the Olden Days. So they burned the forest down. But the last frame showed a tiny sapling, breaking the blackened crust of the earth, its little branches twitching.
After that came infomercials and relentless ads for phone sex. It was after midnight. I rummaged for things to amuse myself with. I got my postcards from the gallery out and looked at them. I opened the minibar a couple of times just to rest my tormented gaze on the Snickers I was not allowed to eat.
I’d noticed her toiletries bag earlier on. She’d left it gaping on the dresser. I had glimpsed into it briefly, but didn’t have the courage to stick my hand in. It had sat there all night in my peripheral vision, daring me to upend its contents. In the end I couldn’t resist. I pried apart its zippered maw and looked inside.
There was a bottle of Madame Rochas. I sniffed at the tip of the atomiser. That smell was her presence distilled. Suddenly she felt nearby. My stomach contracted.
There were powders, lipsticks, and frosted eyeshadows that glimmered like fish scales. The chalky, sweet smell of cosmetics. Different creams, all for specialised areas. Hand cream, foot cream, face cream, body lotion, eye cream, day cream, night cream. Ear buds and razor blades. A packet of menstrual pads.
Periods had been thoroughly explained to me but I was still mystified by the finer mechanics. Exactly how much blood were we talking about? Did it pour out like piss or was it more of a drip? How many of these things were you meant to go through in a day? I pulled one out and unfolded it. It was like a big, puffy cotton tongue. I wanted to know what it felt like to wear. Would she notice if one went missing? No, I decided. I retreated into my own room for a private experiment, making sure to leave everything exactly as I had found it.
I peeled the backing off the adhesive strip and slipped it into the gusset of my knickers. I looked in the mirror. Under the mauve cotton, there was suddenly an unnaturally large mound. I squeezed the soft bulk between my thighs. The sensation of an unfamiliar object in contact with my crotch was unexpected and compelling.
I had been acquainted with the joys of masturbation for some years by this point. As I got older my skills in this area were becoming more refined and experimental. I crawled under the covers and lay on my stomach, squeezed and contracted my legs rhythmically until I felt that release, like a rush of warmth. Every tiny muscle in the core of my body relaxed, I fell asleep.
Through the darkness, I could hear voices. On the other side of the thick wall. There was violence in their voices. Were they fighting or fucking? It was difficult to tell.
My eyes flickered open, just long enough to see the time on the clock radio. It was after four am.
The noises continued for a while. It could have been an hour or it could have been five minutes. They reached a peak and then, abruptly, fell away into silence.
I didn’t hear the door open. But I remember, all of a sudden, being aware of another person in the room.
They sat down on the empty single bed next to mine. I heard the springs creak, heard the rasp of their hands on the starchy fabric of the quilt. Smells. Not the smells of my world, but of another: the hot breath of whisky and nicotine. Sweat, damp and Madame Rochas.
I could feel her presence in the room like a sudden drop in pressure. She was watching me. Willing me to open my eyes and look back at her. Perhaps she wanted someone to bear witness to the state she was in. I opened my eyes just a fraction. Through the slits I could see her dark outline. The smudged hollows of her eyes. Her lips still caught in half a snarl, her teeth underneath, her breath sifting through them. Slowly, like black silt. Her hair was wet, it hung off her scalp, clung to her neck and shoulders. That was the other smell. Rain. I could smell water and mud on her, like she’d been dredged up from the bottom of the lake.
I fastened my eyes shut and lay perfectly still, hunched in a foetal apostrophe. She kept her eyes on me. I could feel them. I even thought, at one stage, that I felt her hand reach out for me. Not touching, just hovering above the crook of my torso. As though touch were not necessary for her to draw me into the field of her body. Something moved up the length of my spine. The static charge of her presence, her slow breathing in the dark, slowly engulfed me.
I lay there, frozen in sub-wakeful awareness, for a timeless stretch. I finally heard the rasp of sheets and the creak of her body shifting on the mattress. I opened my eyes a crack and saw her dark outline in the bed next to mine.
When I woke up there was sharp wi
nter sunlight pouring through the blinds. I looked to the bed beside me to find it empty. Perfectly made-up, as if it had never been touched.
My father was pounding on the door. ‘Check-out time!’ He was hollering from the adjoining room. ‘Get up, lazybones.’
I shuffled past him on the way to the bathroom. He had folded everything back into his navy overnight bag. He put on his cap and his windbreaker. He looked tired.
The benches in the bathroom were totally clear. Nothing of hers or his remained. There was just my toothbrush, waiting where I’d left it. When I went to the toilet I realised I was still wearing the menstrual pad. It emerged from between my legs unmarked, the only evidence of wear being the crease that had formed down the middle, where its shape had moulded to mine. I ripped it out and threw it away. Wrapping it feverishly in tissue first.
The dresser had been cleared too. Her toiletries bag was gone. There was just my father. His overnight bag at his feet, his hands in his lap, sitting by the window.
I asked him, ‘Where is she?’
He said nothing. He didn’t look at me.
Wait for Me
Jasmin McGaughey
Jasmin McGaughey is a Torres Strait Islander from the Kulkalgal Nation, and African American. She currently works at black&write! as a junior editor at the State Library of Queensland while completing a Master of Philosophy in creative writing. Her story ‘Wait for Me’ was highly commended in the 2020 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize.
Swimwear can be painful. It’s all tight straps, heavy tits, and red marks on your skin. My sister used to tease me by pulling the back strap of my first-ever bikini and it would spring back into my skin with a painful slap. That set didn’t fit me right. And it’s painful when they don’t fit you right. People without boobs don’t get the burden the fatty things can cause. Especially when it comes to swimwear.
The man standing in front of me is one of them people. He’s leaning on one leg, the other is kicking mindlessly at the low-hanging rack of espadrilles. The toe of his shoe hits them and I hope he is not scuffing them up.
‘She needs smaller ones,’ he says, pressing his index finger towards his thumb to show he means impossibly small. His eyes flick down to my breasts. ‘She’s about your size, yeah? All your people have golden bits, aye?’ He laughs at his joke, a big-bellied chuckle. ‘Stuff to fill out, here and here.’ His hands mime squeezing breasts and then squeezing butts.
I shrug and grimace, because he is a customer, and the customer is always right – and also because I’m not too sure what to say and I want to avoid, avoid and move on. I do wonder what he means by your people. I don’t know the woman’s background. His missus is dark skinned like me. So, does he mean black? Is she a Torres Strait Islander too? Cos if so, that’s a stereotype I didn’t realise we had.
‘Smaller pieces look better, yeah?’ Although his words are inflected with a questioning tone, I take them more as statements and it seems he wants me to. He’s gruff. Got a three-day growth, and at the same time a stick shoved so far up his arse that it straightens his spine and pulls back his shoulders. His puppy-dog eyes are black and sweet-looking. They lower on me and his smile is reflected in them without really seeing me.
I go grab his wife – his pretty, fuckin lady, as he called her when they arrived – the smallest bikini we have even though the poor thing is way beyond a proper F cup. I slink the material over the door to the change room.
‘Um,’ she says and her voice cracks. ‘Cool, thanks.’
‘It won’t fit right,’ I say. And because I feel guilty about selling her something that will pull on her neck, ignite tension headaches, and eventually cause back problems, I give her the spiel that she can exchange it for something else later.
I also try one more time to pass her a beautiful structured top with an underwire and a thicker, softer strap, but he catches me on the way to the change rooms and nicks it from my hands.
He laughs at me and waggles his finger. ‘Nope.’
Twenty bucks says she comes back tomorrow.
When they leave, his arm is slung around her shoulders and he holds the tiny pink bag with the tiny piece of material like it’s his. I try not to vomit in the till.
The store sits on a narrow street – I think it’s narrowed to persuade cars not to park in an area so exclusive and expensive, so only rich people with personal drivers will come. Not that I’ve ever gotten a rich person with a driver as a customer. The store is in line with a Hamptons kind of theme: white panelling and blue decorations. There is a lifesaver, striped white and navy, above the counter. Plenty of rope and blue glass bottles with seashells inside. There’s even a diffuser with Seaside oil pumping silently into our air. I don’t know what oils are actually mixed together to create the salty scent, but it reeks of shit if you stand too close.
Overall, the store is all very elegant, and I love being in the aircon all day, every day. I spend my time fitting people into swimsuits for their body types: pear-shaped, hourglass, square. You name it, I’ve been taught how to do it. Mum tsks when I talk about the shop too much. When I go on and on about the seamless Brazilian bottoms, or the new strapless sweetheart top. It’s boring to her.
To me, it’s become a sort of everything world. Do you know what I mean? It’s more than just work. It’s all I do, so I treat it like art, and then the world and the pain around me disappears. I love everything about that type of peace.
I pack up the store once it hits five o’clock. I’m not alone either. Sis stands there, like always – in between the rack of peach-coloured one-pieces and the straw sunhat shelf. Riley’s in my mind’s eye, see. Actually, she’s on a completely different plane. The only way I get my sister in the flesh is if I conjure her.
She looks totally real. Like I could reach out and grab her hand. Almost as if I could hold her face and press it into my shoulder.
Riley walks with me as I close up the store. Like a second shadow, she follows me to where I locked up my bike, and she sort of hovers around me when I jump on and pedal down the narrow road. I bought my bike from the university second-hand store, where the student discount is almost fifty percent off. Well, I got my friend who is an actual enrolled student there to buy it for me. My own deferred degree doesn’t give me them perks yet.
The city is alive around us; fairy lights twinkle in the city trees, and cars beep and growl on the street as the orange sunlight fades. The world hums with energy, but the people occupying it don’t feel very animated. Drawn faces, cold hearts, grey auras.
I look into their cars, to glimpse their lives, but don’t look too long cos I don’t want to make eye contact.
Bits of green flash by me, the few trees planted in our city. When I pass them, it feels like a shot of oxygen.
Riley and I arrive home by the time the sun has really started to say goodbye. I leave my bike on our tiny lawn, and huff and puff my way up our veranda steps. God, I’m unfit.
Our house isn’t very grand, but it is sweet and full of warm energy. We have a small veranda that joins on to rickety steps that lead to our lawn, where the grass struggles to grow. We’ve got bits of everything lying around too: two broken lawnmowers, rusted toys, bikes, my aunty’s car that broke down and we still haven’t called the wreckers for. Next to the front door there is a pile of my aka’s old magazines. Ridge, from Bold and the Beautiful, stares up at me when I put the key in the lock. I don’t really like him. Me and Aka preferred the old fella who used to play the character, once upon a time.
Other people call my home a mess, a bloody tip even. But to me it’s usually a cocoon of safety. Nobody can get me in here.
Inside, the house smells of frying onion, ginger and garlic. And it is warm against the encroaching winter of the outside, the glow of our lights a soft yellow. It’s going to be cool over the next few months, not cold cos we live north. But, still, cold enough that it’ll get into Aka’s bones. Cli
mate change and all that shit.
Mum’s standing with her hip leaning against the kitchen counter. Her curls are bound up and she has a wooden spoon in her hands. Despite everything we don’t say, she smiles real wide when she sees me. Like her face makes creases and everything. I bend down when I pass her, and she kisses my forehead hello and her love seeps into my being. She also leaves a wet patch on my skin, but I don’t wipe it away cos she’s generous with her heart and I don’t want to break it any more.
Home is usually where the real fun happens. My family use my house as a hub of sorts, probably cos Aka lives here. People come over all the time and, underneath the house, in a storage room, there is a collection of foam mattresses. We hoard Lipton Tea by the box, cos anyone who comes over is coming for a cuppa. Aka usually makes a syrup damper every few days too. Plenty food and plenty tea. The perfect entertaining set up. Usually there’s a few more cousins or aunties and uncles living with us. But at the moment, it’s just me, Mum and Aka. And even we don’t feel like being here without Riley.
My bedroom door closes with a bang behind me and I flip the light on. The walls shine white, spotted with pictures, printed at Kmart. Me and Riley smiling under Cowboys white, blue and yellow football caps, our teeth too big for our brown faces. Mum in bed with Riley snuggled into the curve of her body, small head against a safe chest. A real old one with Aka Lainey on the beach, young and pulling a muscle pose while her two daughters watch. The corners of that one are fractured and faded.
My family, we have children in twos and they are always girls. Blessed with plenty women, we are, Dad always used to say before he fucked off somewhere after not really feeling all that blessed anymore. Now my mind’s-eye Riley looks at the pictures with me. The one with her, me, Mum and Aka was always our favourite when we were kids. Our four heads take up the whole frame and, in it, you can see the threads of resemblance in our high noses, deeply black eyes and crooked smiles. On that day we had just landed on Horn Island. About to take the ferry over to TI. That memory is fresh in my mind, but really every memory of up there stands out to me.
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