Hitch

  Leanne and Fi were smiling widely and knew the dance routine well. It was like they knew they were lucky to be there, bouncing their shoulders, pointing into the air, going for all of the notes.

  It was mid-afternoon when a sign pointed them off the highway towards Tailem Bend. Amelia longed to stay in the car with Leanne and Fi, feeling her mother draw closer there, as if she might arrive only when Amelia was gone.

  ‘You gonna come into town and have a look then?’ Leanne said. Fi stuck her hand out the window, curved it up and down over the waves of air.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll check it out,’ Amelia said.

  They took the exit off the highway and Lucy stood, bending her back in a stretch.

  ‘How ’bout I drop you at the tourist office?’ Leanne said. ‘Seems like as good a place to start as any, don’t you think?’

  ‘Sure, that’d be great,’ Amelia said.

  Fi whispered something to her mother.

  ‘No,’ Leanne said, refusing to lower her voice to the same conspiring level. ‘Fi wants me to invite you over for tea,’ Leanne said, and the back of Fi’s neck flushed red.

  ‘Mum!’ Fi said, and she crossed her arms over her chest with a thump, then shifted as far to the window side of her seat as possible.

  ‘I’m exhausted … just can’t do it tonight, ya know?’ Leanne said.

  Amelia nodded through the rejection. Leanne pulled up in a circular driveway. When Amelia got out of the car, Fi had wound her window up and wouldn’t make eye contact. Amelia rapped her knuckles on the window and Fi gave in, holding her hand against the glass. The scars up her wrists were there again; they had the same silver shine as the tracks of snails. Fi’s hand squeaked as she let it slide down the window, and Amelia lost the scars.

  Leanne got out of the car and slammed the door. Amelia gently fought her off as she tried to heft her pack out of the boot.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Amelia said. ‘Thanks.’

  When it was time to go, Leanne insisted on wrapping her arms around Amelia, grasping her in a sticky hold. She pressed Amelia’s head into a nook below her chin, just above her breast, and attempted to stroke her hair. Her fingers got caught up in the knots, so she held her hand over the clumps for a moment before pushing Amelia back out to arm’s length.

  ‘I’m a hugger, you see.’ Leanne let her arms drop to her sides. ‘Hugs can do all sorts of healing, and that’s coming from a nurse.’

  Amelia adjusted her pack, tucked her hair behind her ears. She met Leanne’s eyes. There was something exact in there that she recognised; the sense of the familiar was warm, a trickle down her spine. She realised that it was Fi’s eyes she was seeing in Leanne. They were piercing, fixed on something in Amelia that she could only guess at. Leanne took hold of Amelia. She gripped each of her wrists, rubber bands catching on the hairs of Amelia’s forearm as she did so. Lucy raised her head, looked between the two of them.

  ‘I can see you in there, girly,’ Leanne said, moving Amelia’s arms up and down as if they were the reins of a horse. ‘I know what pain looks like. Maybe your parents disowned you, maybe your heart’s broken … maybe you’ve been assaulted, violated, and you’re piecing yourself back together …’

  Amelia flinched, only slightly, and lost eye contact but quickly regained it.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it,’ Leanne said. Her voice was soft, old coffee heavy on her breath. ‘You’re a survivor.’

  Leanne squeezed Amelia’s wrists, scooped her head down to meet Amelia’s eyeline, which had dropped again. Amelia let herself be found.

  ‘Is that it?’ Leanne said.

  Amelia was shaking but her hands were stilled as Leanne tightened her grasp. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘You know what I mean, right? That you’ve survived an attack, a sexual assault. That you’re a survivor.’

  Amelia looked just above Leanne’s eyebrows, at the lines there that were now deeper. The blood in her wrists pulsed beneath Leanne’s grip.

  ‘Okay, hun, okay. Whatever your story is, I wish you all the best,’ Leanne said. ‘Be a survivor. Things can get better, but you gotta fight. Don’t let him decide what you’re worth. You’ll waste years doing that, believe you me. You hear?’

  Amelia nodded, but Leanne did not remove her hot hands until Amelia looked directly at her. Leanne nodded in return and released her.

  ‘Bye then,’ Leanne said. ‘Hope the town treats you well. If not, we’ll be headin’ back the same way tomorrow. If you need to get back where you came from.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Amelia said, but Leanne continued to stand there, head to the side, lips pursed, so it was Amelia who left, clicking Lucy to her heels.

  The car rolled away, spitting chunks of gravel. Leanne gave a double-hoot of the horn and when Amelia turned, Leanne had her arm out the window. Amelia lifted a hand. Her knees were wobbly and she didn’t trust them, tried to lock them into place; she concentrated on her feet, on the part of her that met the ground. The car seemed unreal, driving impossibly away in a scene that was spinning faster and faster.

  She needed to sit down. She had a strong desire then to close a door on herself, to be surrounded by four close, still walls. Lucy pursued a scent through squat, round bushes that lined a pathway to glass doors. Amelia followed the footpath, her hand clammy as she gripped a chrome railing for support.

  The tourist office was closed. Rows of brochures were unlit along a wall inside. She lowered to a squat then fell onto her tailbone, her pack scraping against the bricks behind her. It was cool and shady in the entrance and she placed her hands flat on terracotta tiles beside her, leaned against the wall.

  Survivor.

  She slipped the straps of her pack off, pulled the thing around to her front. Her mother’s shopping list was in its special pocket and she closed her eyes, dipped her hand in and felt the imprint of the penned words on the back of the notepaper. She licked her lips, breathed deeply, swallowed the rising acid in her throat.

  Survivor.

  Lucy sniffed at her face, then nudged her snout under Amelia’s hand.

  ‘You lost or somethin’?’

  Amelia opened her eyes, jumped to her feet.

  Two girls were stopped on the path a few metres away. One peeled off and walked towards Amelia while the other pulled a trucker cap lower on her head, kept watch through thin hair. Amelia inspected her own fingernails, snatching glances at the approaching girl. The girl’s tank top dipped low at the underarm, showing off a red bra and sections of dark skin over her rib cage. ‘You lost?’

  ‘No,’ Amelia said. Lucy watched the girl, still except for her twitching nose.

  The girl in the cap sniggered. ‘You’re so weird, Cassie,’ she said. She turned and walked the opposite way down the path.

  Cassie rolled her eyes and stepped up to Amelia. ‘Sorry ’bout her,’ Cassie said. ‘Just wanted to check you were all right.’ Cassie pointed at the doors to the tourist office. ‘That place is closed.’ She blinked, dark eyes shrouded in long, fake eyelashes.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Cass, c’mon. Let’s go,’ the other girl said, turning towards them. She pulled a phone out of her pocket and held it up as if it were a mirror, narrowed her eyes, adjusted her cap.

  ‘You all right?’ Cassie said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Amelia said. ‘Thanks.’ She lifted her pack to her knee then swung it round onto her shoulders, her lower back burning.

  ‘Hey,’ Cassie said. ‘Do you want a banana?’

  ‘What?’ Amelia said.

  ‘I have a banana … I’m not gonna eat it.’ The girl slung a purple bag off her shoulders, dumped it at her feet.

  ‘I’m okay, thanks,’ Amelia said, but the girl searched the bag, pulling out a change of clothes and a notebook covered in scribbles and pictures from magazines.

  Lucy had her snout in the bag and it made the girl chuckle, a raspy thing. She continued to sift around, lifting Lucy’s face out of the way, and Lucy’s tai
l wagged as she turned it into a game, burying her nose as quickly as possible into the canvas.

  ‘Here it is,’ Cassie said, revealing the banana. She stepped forward, holding the blackened fruit in front of her. One end was turned to mush, the skin split and oozing.

  ‘Thanks,’ Amelia said, taking the offering.

  Cassie shoved her things back in her bag as if in a hurry. ‘See ya,’ she said, scampering off towards her friend, her bag bouncing where it dangled off her shoulder. The friend exclaimed something at her then grabbed her hand and pulled her down the path.

  A chemical vanilla sweetness lingered once they’d walked out of view, their laughter echoing back to where Amelia stood. Slowly, she returned to herself: the creak of her pack as she shifted her feet, the weight of her arms hanging at her hips, the hot breeze drying her lips even as she licked them. The kindness of the banana was heavy, somehow hard to take. She blinked back wetness in her eyes, fought the urge to melt into the ground again.

  A poster with a photograph was taped to the door of the tourist office. The green eyes of a lost cat stared at the camera, a child’s face squashed into its white fur. Amelia stepped up to it, traced the crinkled paper with her fingertips. She’d printed hundreds of things like these with her mother’s picture on the front: the order of service for her funeral. On the day, she’d found a typo on the second page, though she’d read the draft over and over. She sat beside Sid and he linked his arm with hers so tight it was a tourniquet. At the end she stepped outside the crematorium, bewildered by sunlight; she let people shake her hand, pins and needles in her fingertips.

  She took her hand away from the poster, from the child’s desperate little arms, clutching the indifferent creature.

  Survivor.

  Just inside the door, a postcard was tacked among advertisements; it pictured a map that gave directions to a ‘must-see sculpture’: The Big Olive. She set out on her mission, and even though the air didn’t have the sticky kiss of the ocean, Tailem Bend welcomed her with purpose: find an olive, find a cat, find a room.

  Amelia walked, holding the squishy top of the banana between her thumb and index finger. The sun was a white light behind the clouds. The wind picked up, pushing her forward; sharp debris whipped past her legs. She followed the pavement, avoiding the cracks, and was led beyond houses and into an industrial area of superstores and warehouses. A lighting-shop window was packed with lamps, all of them switched on, alive, trapped in their glass cage.

  Amelia unwrapped the banana; she wasn’t hungry but was unable to put it to waste. The top of it was beyond saving and she threw it near an anthill for the ants to enjoy. She ate the rest of the banana in three bites, holding the sludge of it in her mouth. She forced herself to swallow, tried not to chew.

  A wheelie bin perched on the kerb ahead. She lifted the lid, disturbing flies that sucked at brown juice around the opening; the air inside was hot and smelled of sun-baked rubbish. Her mother was there, then, wearing the pair of yellow washing-up gloves she used for the job of disinfecting the bin at home. Amelia was laughing at her, teasing her for the detailed and regular cleaning of the thing, a perfect waste of time. Her mother wiped hair off her face with her upper arm, tried to conceal her smile.

  Amelia tossed the banana skin into the bin and let go of the lid. Her mother was gone.

  Across the road, children’s screams carried across the sprawl of a car park. A home-improvement store was playing host to a jumping castle. Lucy raised her nose and sniffed as the smell of a sausage sizzle caught on the wind. Amelia stepped away from the bin, crossed the road towards the buzz of people. She stopped as she got nearer, took in the colours of summer clothes, the slamming of car doors, a muffled message from a loudspeaker. Her feet itched to walk the other way, but she forced herself towards the people, her new community. As she walked among parked cars, negotiating her pack through gaps between side mirrors, she saw a brown station wagon identical to Leanne’s.

  Survivor.

  She got up closer, a few rows of cars away, but the Kingswood was empty. People lined up at a marquee for their serve of the barbecue; blood pounded at her temples as she approached. She commanded Lucy close to her and worked her way through the crowd, head down. They reached the side of the store, a huge grey-bricked wall. Amelia took her pack off very slowly, staying with the task well beyond necessity. Once it was off, she fiddled with straps that didn’t need altering. Lucy’s head flicked around, following the paths of people holding sausages in white napkins. Amelia looked up, scanned the crowd for Leanne, listened for the sureness of her voice. She caught a few people’s eyes and quickly averted her gaze. People moved past her, so close she could smell them, hear their thongs flipping up against their heels. She lowered herself to a crouch but it was worse there, the people blocking out most of the sky. An announcement blared out of the megaphone and she flinched, stood up.

  The sausage queue had dwindled and she dug out her donation, left Lucy with her pack.

  ‘Hello there, traveller, onions for you?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Sauce?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Too easy.’

  A sweaty man handed her a sausage in white bread, held out a greasy hand and took her money. Lucy stood as Amelia approached, tail wagging. She jumped up, rested her paws on Amelia’s waist, sniffing at the sausage.

  ‘Down girl,’ Amelia said. ‘Down.’

  She put the sausage sandwich on the ground and Lucy got to work on it, starting with the meat. Groups of people mingled nearby and Amelia racked her brain for something to say, a reason to approach, but found nothing. She left Lucy to eat, did a round of the crowd, forcing herself to meet people’s eyes, to stretch the tight skin of her cheeks into a smile. A few people returned the smile, and though others seemed to look away, she grew more brave.

  ‘Hi,’ she managed to say to an older couple. They were eating sausages in front of a trolley full of potted plants. ‘Doing some gardening?’

  The man looked at her, then looked away; the woman investigated a splatter of tomato sauce she’d dripped on her sneaker. Amelia’s face flushed and she put her head down, made her way back to Lucy, mumbling ‘Sorry’ as she stepped in people’s paths.

  She let minutes pass, tried to relax into the crowd, fidgeted again with her pack. She stood on tiptoe, looked to the car park. The station wagon was gone.

  ‘Oh well, Luce,’ she said. ‘We tried.’ She put her pack on and walked fast, walked against the sinking feeling in her stomach.

  She worked her way out of the last of the people and cars. There was relief in finding her step on the pavement, in the wind at her back. Lucy walked beside Amelia, her nose low to the ground, tail swinging from side to side with her gait.

  Amelia assumed the must-see olive would take her into town, but the road stretched long, wide and bare before her. She heaved her pack higher. Reaching round to her shoulderblade, she pressed hard into the knots that were nestled near the bone. She kicked a rock, caught up to it, kicked it again.

  Once the jumping-castle screeches had died down, it was strangely quiet: the fall of Amelia’s own footsteps on the path, the rock rattling along the pavement, the buzz of each individual fly that moved around her head and the bites on her arms, the swish of Lucy’s legs through the grass. These separate sounds became a rhythm: her footsteps the beat; the rattling rock, the buzzing flies and the swish of grass the melody. There were lyrics to go with the tune, looping in her head: It has come to this, it has come to this, it has come … to … this.

  The footpath stopped abruptly, ending the song. Amelia walked on the road, steering the stone along with her; she concentrated on the collision of it against her toes, the rattle of it against the bitumen. Lucy’s nails scratched along the ground; she was uninterested in sniffing or marking her territory as they passed through the outskirts of town. Amelia reached for her bottle of Mount Franklin, felt the familiar collapse of the plastic. She drank. Lucy refused Ame
lia’s palm of water, stared ahead.

  When Amelia next kicked the stone she caught it at an angle; it skittered off course and fell down a drain. She approached the point of its disappearance, knelt down on all fours and peered into the darkness. The weight of her mistake, her betrayal, was instant. Take more care, her mother would have said. Take more care. Amelia heard the mew of a cat, squinted her eyes to try to see down the drain, to find the white fluff belonging to the lost animal.

  ‘Meow,’ Amelia said. She waited, meowed again, but there was no response.

  As they approached, The Big Olive didn’t look very big. It was an advertisement at the entrance to a business, a device intended to attract people to the shop behind it. She stood in front of it for a few minutes, then circled the olive, checking it out from every angle. It had the same blackish purple shine all around, though an assortment of chips were visible in the paint. Someone had scrawled angular words on its base: I HATE OLIVES. Lucy sat a few feet away, her eyes half-shut, tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Amelia sat on a short wall that surrounded the olive, stared at the sculpture as the sun broke through clouds and created a glare on the shiny surface.

  A couple approached from the car park, didn’t look at the sculpture, asked her to take a photo of them. They posed in front of the olive, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, her making a peace sign. Through their smiles, they continued to bicker about who would drive next. They left, happy with their snapshot.

  ‘Let’s just go, Luce,’ Amelia said. One of Lucy’s ears faced forward, the other twitching towards the car park. ‘Let’s just go.’