by Kathryn Hind
‘Here,’ he said, offering her the bottle.
‘You gotta tell me what it is,’ she said. ‘It’s a weird colour.’
‘Whisky.’
‘What?’ She looked across at him and he was biting back a grin.
‘Just kidding. It’s pub squash with orange cordial. The drink of champions,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘Dunno if I believe you.’
‘Righto, your loss. It’s bloody delicious. Liquid gold.’
Lucy had sensed the excitement and stood, wondering what the commotion was, looking back and forth between them. Amelia held out her hand and he passed her the bottle. ‘Prepare your tastebuds,’ he said.
She took a swig. ‘Oh my gosh,’ she said, wiping a dribble that escaped down her chin.
He laughed as she took another sip. This time she savoured it, allowing the bubbles to pop around her tongue. It was warm, but the combination of two familiar flavours offered a level of refreshment she hadn’t felt in weeks.
‘It’s good, huh?’ he said.
‘It’s a wizard’s drink.’ She pressed the bottle to her lips for one last taste. Lucy curled up on the seat between them, and they settled into silence.
Will turned the tuner on the radio, catching a crackly Bon Jovi song. He sang shamelessly; at first she hid her smile by looking out the window, but then she wasn’t smiling, she was sitting on Zach’s bed with Sid, years ago, and Zach was in his rapper phase, learning songs by heart. He performed for them, using his silver spray can of deodorant as a microphone, his face moving so close to hers that spit landed on her cheeks. She didn’t move. She waited for the song to end, for the bulging veins in his neck to sink back into his skin. Then she and Sid clapped, the adoring audience.
The Bon Jovi song cut out but Will continued singing, belting out one last chorus. Amelia plucked the rubber bands around her wrist; there was the snap, then the sting, then the next one. It wasn’t enough. Zach was there, standing on the front porch of her mother’s house only two months ago, just after the funeral; until that moment, she hadn’t seen him in ten years, not since he’d turned nineteen and skipped town. He had a plastic bag of takeaway food. There was a whiteness at the edge of her vision as he was saying, ‘I hope you still like Vietnamese,’ and she was letting him hug her, listening to him say nice things about her mother, her ear crushed against his chest.
Will hit a lofty note and demanded a high five; she stuck her hand up, then looked out at the desert with narrowed eyes, tried to fill her mind with the deep red of endless sand.
It was difficult to account for the passing hours. At one point Will pulled the ute over to mix another bottle of the drink and she couldn’t bring herself to refuse his offer of more, though she was nauseated from the initial swigs of sugar on her empty stomach. She filled her Mount Franklin bottle with water from Will’s jerry can and held it close, taking regular drinks or sometimes just resting her mouth on the bottle. They played ‘I Spy’, and she eventually gave up on his word beginning with a C: cumulus cloud, for double points – a rule she’d never heard before. She wasn’t even sure if the clouds above them were of the cumulus variety, but she couldn’t bear to argue.
It was getting dark, and in the growing night it was strange to be next to Will; she couldn’t quite work out how to be.
‘Gonna stop in Glendambo for the night,’ he said. When she didn’t reply, he added, ‘It’s not far.’
‘Oh, okay.’ She hadn’t considered what to do next. She thought they might drive through the night to Port Augusta, or at least had expected Will to inform her of his plans in time for her to decide her own. A road sign indicated Glendambo was now only five kilometres away.
‘So what do you wanna do?’ he said.
‘Just drop me in town if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll work something out.’ If she’d had a choice, she would have kept driving, maintained the movement, the bumps of the road, the wind, the road posts flicking past.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s this little … um …’ He seemed uncomfortable for the first time that day. ‘There’s a little house I stay at here … It’s basic but … well, anyway, feel free to stay if you want.’ His left knee bounced up and down and his fingers tapped the steering wheel. ‘You can have your own room and everything.’ He looked straight ahead at the road, and she examined the side of his face, wishing she could see the look in his eyes. She turned to the sky instead, watching the first stars that had broken through the blackness, and tossed around yet another decision to be made in no time. ‘Sounds great,’ she said, and the bluffed assurance sounded too keen. ‘Thanks.’
As they approached the town, Will slowed the ute to a crawl. The engine quietened; after the hours spent thundering down the highway with wind beating through the windows, the silence was heavy.
Glendambo was a service station, a motel, a pub, a row of prefab houses and a postbox. Will pulled into the car park, which seemed to facilitate all three of the businesses; the ute’s headlights lit a row of campervans and four-wheel drives, all covered in a layer of red dust.
‘You hungry? I’m starvin’,’ he said.
She had nibbled on a couple of rice cakes throughout the day because she thought it would be strange not to while he downed a bag of chips and two meat pies. The desert had shrivelled her hunger, but now, at the mention of food, her stomach rumbled. She shrugged. ‘I’ve got some stuff in my bag.’
‘Come on, my shout,’ he said. He got out of the ute and shut his door, then headed across the car park. He didn’t look back. Amelia grabbed her yellow envelope of money and flicked through the contents; she had about one hundred dollars left. She shoved the envelope into her back pocket. Digging through her bag, past the bottle of sunscreen at the top, she retrieved Lucy’s bowl and a can of food. She turned to go then changed her mind, instead unzipping a hidden pocket of her pack; she gently pulled out the list, touching each of the softened corners with her fingertip before unfolding the pale blue paper. Her mother’s scrawl was still there, listing items inside a printed border of brightly coloured vegetables.
Milk
Cornflour
Muesli bars …
She folded it and pushed it into her pocket.
As she walked towards the bar she told herself not to accept Will’s hospitality, to buy her own side salad for dinner and be done with it. She took bigger strides than usual, stepping into footprints he’d made in sand, where the car park bitumen now showed through.
Amelia walked up the steps to the pub’s verandah. In the glass door of the entrance, she could roughly make out her own reflection: her gangly frame, the mess of dreadlocked curls. The dark grey of her favourite Rage Against the Machine T-shirt had faded. It was a men’s large size, and she liked the way she could hide within the generous cotton, how it didn’t hug any part of her. It used to be soft, too, but she’d been wearing it since she left the white room and a hardness had set in to the material. She washed the shirt by rinsing it under taps, using public bathroom soap to clean the armpits. Then she wore it wet to help cool herself down.
Lucy sat at her feet, looking up, her tail thumping on the wooden decking. A battered old couch overlooked the highway; Amelia flopped down into it and began to work the can open. Lucy stood, then sat, then stood again, sniffing the air for what she knew was coming. Amelia slid beef and liver into the bowl.
‘Good girl. Don’t go too far, please.’ Lucy chased the food around with her tongue; the bowl crept away from her so she pinned it down with a front paw. Amelia scratched the bristly fur on the back of Lucy’s neck, then pushed open the door to the pub.
An electric fly killer emitting blue light hung over the bar; it announced a death with a zap as she wiped her feet on the welcome mat. A few heads turned slowly towards her as she walked in. The place was dimly lit. She scanned the faces for Will and thought she saw him, but couldn’t be sure. She’d only really looked at him in profile, learned his cheek and the smooth ramp of his nose, how it ended in a pi
nkened, peeling tip.
Rows of red diamonds on olive-coloured carpet made her dizzy as she crossed the pub. It was him, sitting in a booth in the corner, and he smiled, half got out of his seat then sat back down.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Hey,’ she said, moving into the booth across from him, her thighs making tacky sounds as they stuck and unstuck to spilt drink on the vinyl. An oblong lampshade hung long and low above the table. She reached up and touched its beige tassels, stirring a soft shower of dust.
‘Thought you might have run off,’ he said.
‘Nah, still here.’ A schooner of beer sat on a coaster in front of her, its head diminished so it was now like spit floating on top.
‘Thanks for this,’ she said, lifting the beer towards him.
‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking his glass with hers. They drank in unison, holding eye contact for a moment above their beers. His ears stuck out enough to make her wonder if he was ever self-conscious about them.
He slid a maroon menu across the table towards her and opened up the one in front of him.
‘Get whatever you want, honestly,’ he said.
It had been so long since she’d sat face to face with someone that she couldn’t remember how to do it. Her body tensed at the delicate way his lips rested together, at her proximity to them as he read. She opened her menu and turned the laminated pages. A fly was squashed between the starters and mains.
‘Right, what’ll it be?’ he said.
‘I’ll just get myself a salad, thanks.’
‘No way, you gotta eat something proper. Schnitty? With chips? And veggies?’
‘I’m fine actually.’
‘Schnitty it is, then.’
‘Really, I don’t need …’
‘Gravy?’
She paused before returning his smile. ‘Sure. Thanks.’
He slapped his menu shut and bopped along the seat until he was out of the booth.
The food arrived too fast for it to be fresh. Will got a burger, which was both wide and high, stacked with the lot. He held it with two hands, and with each big mouthful something slapped to the plate – beetroot, pineapple, tomato – and juice ran down his fingers and wrists. She ate slowly, tasting each component of her meal separately: one chip, a piece of carrot, a squared bite of schnitzel.
‘So, what do your folks think about you getting around the country like this?’ he said.
Unprepared for the question, she swallowed a half-chewed chip and felt a sharp edge slide painfully down her throat. She drank some beer.
‘Well, it was always just Mum and me. And then she – well, she died, so …’ She trailed off, dabbing her fingertip at a little pool of liquid on the table.
‘God, I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a couple of months ago. She was sick for a long time.’
‘I didn’t think …’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sorry.’
She shrugged and hated the way she smiled, but she had to do something. She couldn’t stand watching him struggle as he tried to think of something to say. He made a fist and punched it gently into the palm of his other hand. He gave a slight nod, and his look pinned her back against the seat.
‘What about you then?’ she said. ‘What’s your deal?’
For a moment it was like she could see the flicker of something behind his eyes, and though she recognised it, she didn’t know its name. Then it was gone.
‘Time for another round, don’t you reckon?’ he said.
He slapped his hands on the table, rattling cutlery. She shifted in her seat to cover her jump at the sudden gesture. He moved sideways out of the booth and she sipped the last of her drink, her confession hovering above the table, unreciprocated.
She watched him make his way through stools and tables. As he walked, the grey waistband of his underwear sat above his shorts. Zach used to wear his jeans slung low like that. He would reach up, the private frame of his pelvis on show – the way it had made her blood throb was private, anyway. She hadn’t known what that feeling was. Her blood throbbed now, beginning at the base of her spine, and she was glad when Will finally hitched his shorts up at the bar. Sinking deeper into her seat, she snapped the bands around her wrist one by one, waiting for the sting to dissipate each time before moving on to the next.
Will returned and placed a beer in front of her.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘No worries.’
A whirlpool spun in the glass. The froth stuck to her upper lip as she took a sip, and she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. He watched her, then took a big gulp from his own glass. She had nothing to say.
‘You gonna eat that?’ he said, pointing at the leftovers of her meal.
‘Nah, I’m full,’ she said, resting her hands on her belly. His fork was already poised, and he began stabbing at pieces of carrot, then balanced a forkful of peas all the way across the table to his mouth. She pushed the plate towards him. She was quiet while he ate and tried to look around the bar and not at the cartilage in his neck that went taut and relaxed as he chewed.
His mouth was full with the last of her schnitzel, and he held a fist to his lips while he spoke. ‘Game of pool?’
‘Sure,’ Amelia said.
‘You might show me up,’ he said, wiping his mouth with a serviette.
‘We’ll see, I guess.’
‘Righto, let’s do it.’ He winked, then drummed the table.
She peeled the backs of her thighs off the seat, and when she was out of the booth, his hand awaited her. It rested for a moment on the small of her back, guiding her in front of him, then it was gone. The hairs on her arm bristled. She led the way across the pub.
‘Wanna break?’ he said, chalking the top of a cue.
‘Nah, you go ahead.’
There was something extra in the way he looked at her during the game, and she knew she was giving the same look back – they exchanged it each time the cue was passed between them, and neither of them opted to choose a second cue from the rack. His hand touched her back again, lingering. He took fancy shots and she laughed for his benefit. She watched him for longer than before, studied the way his tongue went to the corner of his mouth while lining up a shot. Following several failed attempts, she managed to touch his forearm, the skin there much softer than she had imagined. After that, they traded touches after each shot: his hand on her waist, her fingers brushing his. She surprised herself with her bravery as she placed her hand at the point where muscle rose above his elbow. He looked down at her, pulled her into him.
‘I’ll get us a round,’ she said, pushing back from him, hotness rising in her as she walked away.
She went outside for air. The verandah had a view of the highway and the sky, stars stretched out in a huge dome. Insects tapped at a lone orange light in the car park. Lucy walked over, paws clicking on the deck, and Amelia stooped to give her ears a scratch. Her hands were trembling. She stood and leaned forward onto the verandah railing, holding her hands in front of her. She traced over the pale clusters of scars where Zach had first burned her when she was a kid, heating up the top of a lighter then pressing it onto her skin to make little blisters in the shape of a smiley face. When he showed up uninvited at her mother’s house just after the funeral, he seemed unchanged from the teenage boy she had known. He acted as if the ten years that had gone by meant nothing. He talked a lot and when he stopped he pressed into her so hard that the bricks behind her scraped off her skin. It was familiar, the rough way he moved his tongue inside her mouth, the shock that ran cold through her and froze her for a moment before she ducked out of his hold. Then she was leaving, backpack on, Lucy at her side; she was walking beneath the streetlights of the suburb as they flickered on above, through the sounds of her neighbours’ dinner dishes clattering, taps running, and to the highway.
The pub door slammed behind her as a couple walked out. A man had his arm slung around a woman’s neck, and she laughed as she stum
bled, grabbing the railing for balance. They wobbled across the car park to the motel. She could be like those people: unified, intimate, easygoing. They made it look so simple. No harm done. She could do this, with Will; she would prove it. She pushed herself off the railing, ran her hand down Lucy’s back, then walked back into the pub.
She ordered two beers and carried them to the pool table, spilling the drinks despite her careful steps. Will leaned against the wall, holding the cue between his legs, resting his hands over the chalky end. She smiled and it felt too big so she bit down hard on her bottom lip.
‘Took your bloody time,’ he said. ‘I’m thirsty.’ She handed him the beer and he raised it in the air. ‘Well, cheers again, to a fun night and to … I dunno … how about to chance encounters in the desert?’ He was smiling, his eyes all lit up.
‘Cheers.’ She thought of the couple outside, raised her glass, and held her nerve.
Lucy stood up and stretched as they stepped out of the pub. She’d befriended a little tan mongrel, and it lifted its head but didn’t get up. They crossed the car park to the ute and Amelia opened the passenger door.
‘Whatcha doin’?’ he said.
‘Um – getting in the car?’
‘No need – it’s just over there.’ He pointed towards the row of houses about a hundred metres away, the moon reflecting off the ridged metal roofs.
‘Oh, okay.’ In the quiet of the desert, he was a stranger again.
She heaved her bag out of the tray and onto her back, refusing his offer of help.
‘All set?’ he said. A sports bag swung from his shoulder. He shut the door and took off towards the houses.
‘So do you own this place?’ she said, jogging to catch up with him.
‘Nah, not really.’
‘Whose is it then?’
‘Me and some of the boys just use it as a kind of halfway house, you know, when we’re out on the road,’ he said. Then added, ‘But none of them are there right now.’