Floundering Read online

  Romy Ash lives in Melbourne. Floundering is her first novel.

  www.romyash.com

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Romy Ash 2012

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published in 2012 by The Text Publishing Company

  Page design by Susan Miller

  Cover design by W.H. Chong.

  Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by J & M Typesetting

  Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an Accredited ISO AS/NZS

  14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer

  ISBN 9781921922084

  Ebook ISBN 9781921834776

  The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council® Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.

  For my family.

  Table of Contents

  Cover page

  About the author

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part one

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Part two

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Acknowledgements

  part one

  1

  I have that itchy skin feeling that someone is watching us. I turn around and it’s Loretta. She is in a car following us slowly, like a pervert would. I’m counting letterboxes and Jordy is walking ahead ‘cos he likes to pretend I’m not his brother.

  Loretta waves at us to get in.

  Hi, she says. Hi.

  Jordy and I stand like statues. Her hair is a different colour. She looks wonky. But after a bit all her features come together and she is Loretta again. I get in the car. I don’t like how Gran makes the beds. She pulls the sheet so tight that every night you got to kick and kick and kick to get it free. Jordy doesn’t get in the car. I already have my seatbelt on.

  He says, Where’ve you been?

  I’ve come to get you, she says.

  But where’ve you been?

  I’ve been everywhere, man – come on, get in. I’ve missed you.

  But you can’t – and he shakes the words from his head and starts walking away.

  Matey, she says, come on. She is driving really slow along side him. He shrugs his schoolbag further up on his shoulder and stops.

  She smiles the kind of smile that is so good it feels like a punch in the stomach. Jordy looks up and down the street, but there is nothing to hold on to, just letterboxes, fences and scraggly trees. He gets in.

  She drums her fingers on the steering wheel, looking back at me in the rearview mirror. Man, I’ve been so excited to see you.

  Driving too fast. She has silver bangles that sparkle.

  I was driving here, I was thinking all like, will they have grown? she says. She looks at me. You look big, she says with a wink, and laughs. I look away. On the seat there’s a brush with strands of her blonde hair in it, and a discarded grey hoodie.

  I got some chips. She rustles around under Jordy’s legs.

  He says, Hey!

  She brings out a packet of Twisties. You gotta share, though, okay? She throws them on Jordy’s lap.

  Jordy opens them and grabs the bright yellow curls.

  Can I’ve some? I say.

  Course you can, sweet pea, she says.

  Jordy takes another handful then leans over the seat with the packet. I reach my hand in deep, trying to get as many as possible in one go. When I pull my hand out Twisties go everywhere.

  We’re going to have so much fun. She squeals a little squeal and jiggles around in her seat. It’s going to be great.

  Jordy, can I’ve some more? I say.

  He pretends like he hasn’t heard me and eats a handful so big it makes his cheeks fat. Jordy, I say. He turns round and shows me the shiny inside of the empty packet. His grin is yellow. I hate you, I say.

  One by one, I eat the Twisties I spilt before, picking up the yellow curls from the cracks in the seat and from the floor. I try wipe the powdery crumbs off my school shorts, but my fingers are covered in colouring and it makes it worse. I lick my fingers until they are clean, wipe my shorts again.

  You guys have grown heaps, she says.

  You don’t have to pretend, Jesus, says Jordy. He hides behind his fringe that hangs across his face. He won’t let Gran cut it, and it’s straight and slick. Even if Gran let me keep my hair long too, it wouldn’t hang like that. Mine always looks messy, no matter what, even after Gran has combed it and wet it down. It springs back up, like static. But he has grown, I reckon, his school shorts are too short now, even when he wears them so low I see his underpants above the band. I don’t think I’ve grown. Gran says not to worry. She reckons I’ll catch up, it’s just the way it is with boys.

  So why are you here anyway? Jordy says. He’s looking at Loretta. His profile is sharp.

  What do you mean, honey? she says and takes her eyes from the road.

  How come you left us?

  Hon, I never left you. I was always coming to get you.

  Things just got complicated, is all.

  But it’s been, like, a year.

  I know honey and I missed you two so much I thought I might die. You hear me? So much. Now, are you good? You good? She turns around and gives me a quick, concerned look before turning back to the road.

  Yeah, I say. Jordy doesn’t say anything, just turns away, looks out his window at the road. I wind my window down and half close my eyes – make the little white posts, the grass and the trees all blur. I do this for a long time.

  Loretta doesn’t ring Gran until we are right across the border into the next state.

  They’re with me, Mum. It’s fine.

  I’ve got a hold of Loretta’s hand, and she’s keeping the glass door of the phone booth open with her sneaker. I can feel Loretta’s painted fingernails, two of them broken and sharp against my palm.

  No, Mum, they’re my boys. I’m not having this conversation with you again. They’re my boys. I’ve got a place ready and everything. Please, Mum, she says. Don’t say that. I told you already. That’s why I’m ringing you now, Mum.

  She’s leaning her head against the glass with the orange phone curled around her face.

  Loretta don’t let us call her mum, says the only mum in her life is Gran and she don’t want to be like Gran. I can picture Gran at the kitchen table on the new portable phone that makes it sound like you’re speaking into a cave. Sometimes Loretta used to call. Sitting at the table, Jordy and I passed the phone between us. Her real voice sounds so different to the one that spoke on the phone. It’s warm. I hold her hand tight. She squeezes back.

  I look up at Loretta, but her face is hidden behind her streaky blonde hair. Jordy’s still in the car. I can see him through the phone booth door. He’s in the front seat hunched over, staring at his bellybutton. The car is yellow and rusted. I name it Bert in my head.

  No, it won’t happen again, not like last time. I’m good, Mum.
I’m so good right now.

  I can’t hear what Gran is saying but Loretta’s voice gets loud and high. No, I’m not telling you where. I know you won’t do it. Don’t bring police into this, Mum, they’re my boys. They can’t do nothing. Don’t threaten me. Mum. They’re my boys. No, Mum, I’m not speaking to Dad. Mum. Mum.

  Loretta clangs the phone down hard. Fuck, she says, fuck. She tugs my hand, wipes her face on the shoulder of her hoodie and pulls me outside. She’s breathing deep breaths and it’s like she’s forgotten I’m standing there. But she’s got my hand gripped so tight it hurts.

  Loretta?

  What? she says angrily. When she looks down at me, she forces a smile and once it’s been there for a while it settles and looks like a real one. What? she says, nicer this time – her skinny, plucked eyebrows up in the air.

  You’re hurting my hand.

  Ha. Sorry, she says. But she doesn’t let go, just loosens her grip. She makes me so mad, Tommo, she says.

  Loretta swings my hand. The sun is setting over the service station.

  She makes me crazy even, she says and laughs. But it’s okay because I got you, don’t I.

  She swings my arm high, pulls me towards the servo doors. They open automatic, like a welcome.

  Let’s get some chips, eh.

  Can I’ve salt and vinegar?

  Sure you can, honey, she says. It’s like she never swore or was angry, it’s erased already.

  Standing in the line behind a big man whose gut hangs all the way over his pants, Loretta’s turning the sunglasses rack. Her hoodie slung off one bony shoulder. She picks out two wrap around pairs and squats down in front of me.

  Put these on, she says. The servo goes dark. Perfect, she says. You’re going to need these, she says and pulls them off my face. She tickles me and I squeal and try to escape. It’s not until we’re outside that I realise there’s a pair of sunnies in each of my pockets. As we walk towards the car the top of the phone booth lights up. It’s bright and orange and shining like a beacon.

  Jordy says to us from out of the dark, What took you so long?

  How’s this look? Loretta says and pulls into a rest stop, parking behind some trees. There’s a sign in the headlights that says Survive The Drive. Jordy, half asleep on a pillow against the window, looks up and says, Whatever.

  I say, Loretta, I’m hungry.

  She turns around to look at me, We’ll get some brekkie in the morning. Let’s just have some kips now, hey.

  Are we going to sleep here?

  Yep. It’s a rest stop, you know, for rest.

  She turns the headlights off and the world goes dark. She gets out. I hear the boot open and close, then she opens my side door and chucks a blanket on me.

  There you go, poppet, she says and walks off into the darkness. My heart beats fast as she’s walking away. I want to call out to her, but I know it’s stupid, so I just hold my breath. I start counting in my head, think if she gets back by one hundred it’ll be okay. A semi-trailer passes and it lights her up: squatting down, arms resting on her knees, bum bare, pissing. Next to her is a bin overflowing with rubbish. The rumble of the truck shakes the car and then it’s gone. I stop counting, but lock the doors.

  The day Loretta left us with Gran and Pa she just dropped us on their front doorstep in our board shorts, with beach towels around our shoulders. We dripped two pools of brown water from the coca-cola lake, where Loretta had taken us swimming. She waved goodbye like we was just going for a visit and she’d be back in a couple of hours to pick us up. They lived on the coast, way south of the city. The glass in the front door had frosted seagulls flying across it. I had a Bubble O’ Bill in my hand and it melted pink and blue. I couldn’t picture what Gran looked like because we hadn’t seen her since we were littler. Since the last time Loretta had left us at Gran’s and then come back. That time Loretta had met us at the river and we ate fish and chips on a wooden table. The chips fat and thick as men’s fingers. Gran and Loretta had argued and Loretta pulled us into the car – a different one to Bert – before I had time to eat my potato scallop.

  When Gran opened the door she looked like any old lady.

  Gran? Jordy said.

  Jordy, she said and sighed.

  Before I went in I made sure I could see some mixed-up bits of Loretta in her, ‘cos what if Loretta had put us on the wrong doorstep? Gran sat us at the kitchen table, pulled the ice-cream from my hand and dumped it in the sink. Wiped my hand roughly with a chequered tea towel. She got us both a plastic cup of green cordial. She looked at Jordy. Jordy looked at me and I looked at the tablecloth. It was plastic with a rose pattern.

  Where’s your mother? she said.

  Pa came in the back door. He had two fish, his fingers hooked up through their slashed throats and into their mouths. His fingertips resting on sharp, little teeth. He raised his eyebrows at the lot of us.

  When did they turn up? Gran didn’t answer. Loretta?

  Gran shook her head, No, love.

  Pa breathed a big breath inside himself then let it out. They better be on their best behaviour, he said.

  Hush, they’re good kids.

  He gutted them fish in the sink with my ice-cream. The warm insides of the fish melted the ice-cream until there was only the bubblegum nose left. The guts went into two plastic bags and then into the freezer. He washed his hands with hard soap from a little dish above the sink then sat down across from us. He had blue eyes, same as Loretta. It felt weird to have them looking at us from his old man leathery face. Gran had a ham and chutney sandwich ready for him. It was cut into two triangles. She set it in front of him. I like them cut like that. He bit into the soft white bread and it made such a clean round bite I could see the marks from each tooth. I started to cry. Gran went to the fridge, got out a Tupperware container, a jar of yellow homemade chutney and bread from the breadbox. She made us a sandwich each. Cut it into triangles. When they weren’t looking I got the bubblegum ball from the sink. Later when we was in bed, I wiped the fish blood off and chomped through the hard shell. Blew skin-pink bubbles that burst all over my face. I blew them bubbles right through the night ‘cos Loretta didn’t come back to pick us up.

  I hear Jordy’s breathing change. I lean over the seat and look down at him. His legs are curled up. He’s a ball of arms and legs. I stretch out my blanket and it’s big enough to push a corner between the front seats and over Jordy.

  Loretta looms at Bert’s driver-side window, face white and round as a full moon. She tries to open the door and taps on the window for me to let her in. I pull the lock up. She slips in the car.

  You locking me out, are you? she says.

  No, I say and look out at the trees that light up tall and white in the headlights of another truck.

  She locks her door again and winks at me. Just in case, she says. She’s in the front seat with her hoodie for a blanket. I open the window a slit to let the stink of us out. I’m busting to do a wee, but I can hear the rustling of monsters out there.

  I can’t sleep, Loretta.

  Whatcha talking about?

  I can’t sleep.

  Shut up, Jordy hisses from the front seat.

  I can’t sleep, I whisper. Pulling the blanket right up to my chin and feeling the scratchy wool against my lips. The blanket smells of dog. Jordy tugs on the other end of it.

  When’d you have a dog? I go.

  I didn’t have a dog, she says. Shhh.

  But I can smell a dog.

  Just where I was staying, sweets, it wasn’t my dog.

  At your house?

  Yeah, at my house.

  Can we get a dog?

  Just go to sleep, okay.

  But I can’t sleep, Loretta.

  Tom.

  I grip the corner of the blanket tight. And it’s only in the morning, with the windows steamed up, and wee cramping my stomach that I realise I’ve fallen asleep.

  Shotgun, says Jordy. He’s leaning against the passenger side door.


  What? I go. You had shotgun all yesterday. It’s my turn.

  I called it.

  But it’s my turn.

  There’s no turns, I called it. If you wanna sit shotgun, you gotta call it. He’s sniggering at me from behind his fringe. He flicks it off his face and gives me a slippery smile. If you call it, I’ll let you have a go.

  I look around for Loretta but she’s over near a slack wire fence that’s supposed to keep us from a dusty paddock. There’s brown sheep out there looking weighed down by their woolly coats. She’s blowing smoke out into nothing. I turn back to Jordy – we’re still in our school uniforms, he’s crumpled, his blue school shorts hanging above his knobbly knees. I put my arms out in front of me and make two fists and start whirling them around like windmills.

  Jordy, I’m just going to walk forward, and if you happen to get in the way, then it’s not my fault, I’m just walking, minding me own business.

  I walk towards him. He rolls his eyes at me. I clench my hands as hard as I can and aim for his face. I get one in before he has two of my wrists in one of his hands. I start kicking him, aiming for his balls. But he has me on the ground, with my face in the dirt, and his knee digging deep in my back before I can get him in the nuts. I can’t see his face, only the rubbish blowing from the overflowing bin. He gets off me. I feel weightless.

  If you call it, you can have it, you just got to call it, he says.

  I sit up and try brush the dirt off my school uniform. Jordy’s leaning against the passenger door.

  It’s totally fair, he says.

  Loretta’s walking back. I hear her silver bangles before I see her. She drops her cigarette butt.

  Loretta, can I’ve shotgun?

  Loretta looks at us both. Who called it?

  Jordy just laughs and gets in the front seat. Loretta shrugs and I’m still there kneeling in the dirt. The wind blows the smell from the bin.

  My stomach grumbles so loud it’s definitely talking to me. We pull up at a servo. I put my scuffed black school shoes on with no socks, because the asphalt is already too hot to walk on with bare feet. They feel too small, my toes push against the leather. I shake the stiffness out of my legs. I look up at the Shell sign, poking into a sky so blue I can imagine it’s the ocean.