Floundering Read online

  I open Bert and step out into the sun. It’s still hot, but a different type of afternoon bright. My legs wobble. My shirt is damp with sweat. I wipe my face on my sleeve.

  Loretta walks back out through those flappy, coloured fly strips. She looks beautiful again. She smiles at me and I can’t help but smile back. She gets back in the front.

  In ya pop, she says. And I get back in.

  Here, she says and throws a giant bottle of lemonade back at me. I squeal with the cold of it on my legs. Jordy sniggers. I hold it between my knees and open the top. Lemonade spurts everywhere. I close the lid quick. It dribbles down the sides of the bottle onto my legs.

  Loretta looks back at me. I look out the window. A rusted white truck drives past. The street is empty again. Loretta pulls the bottle from me, and opens it hanging her arms out the car window. She waits until it stops foaming before passing it in to Jordy.

  The lemonade dries and sticks my legs together and to the seat. Then dirt sticks to the lemonade. I try and shuffle out of the lemonade patch, but my skin’s already sticky and there’s no shuffling out of my skin. I sigh.

  Can I have a sip? I say.

  Jordy gives me a look, You forfeited your go, he says.

  Loretta.

  Give your brother a sip, Jesus, she says.

  He hands me the giant bottle, letting go too soon so I almost drop it. I take a huge swig. It’s cold and bubbly down my throat. I feel it try to bubble up my nose.

  Can I’ve a sip? Loretta says to me. I pass it back to her with a grin. See, she says, we’re almost there.

  We cross a big bridge that looks like it’s made for flood, but there’s no water at all, just the silky sand of the riverbed exposed for anyone to have a look. I see the glitter of smashed beer bottles down there. We pass empty paddocks and a big roadhouse. We keep driving. There’s a turnoff to a gravel road with a faded sign. Loretta passes it, then brakes hard, pulls onto the side of the road. Bert hums and ticks.

  This is it, I reckon, and gives us a wink, but I can hear a tremble in her voice.

  Really? says Jordy, quietly, looking out the window.

  We have to be quick, the light’s going, she says and does a u-turn. Drives back to the sign and turns onto the gravel road.

  Out the window is red dirt and low silvery bushes. Here there are no real trees. We race the sun to the horizon. Everything rattles on the corrugated road. The back end of Bert swings out and Loretta has to spin the wheel hard back the other way.

  Loretta, I feel sick, I say.

  A kangaroo bounds out of the scrub. It stops and stands on the road. We are driving straight for it. I think it looks me in the eye. It’s as big as a man. I can see the muscles under kangaroo skin. Loretta brakes and my seatbelt catches me. Somehow Bert spins right the way around and we’re left facing the way we came, half off the road. I turn around and look out the back window. I see the kangaroo bound away through the dust. I can see kangaroos everywhere now, their heads taller than the scrub. The wind blows fumes from the car back at us.

  Loretta is laughing maniacally, then she stops. If we hit one, she says, one of you has to go check its pouch.

  What? says Jordy. No way.

  One of you has got to, she says and squares me in her gaze. I can’t do it, she says.

  I don’t want to, I say.

  Do you wanna save a life?

  Yes.

  Well, you gotta check its pouch.

  Why can’t you do it? says Jordy.

  I can’t do it. You two are the men. You got to do it. She lifts her hand from the wheel and tucks her hair behind her ears.

  Jordy pops the door open and tries to step out onto the road. The seatbelt pulls him back. He grabs for the buckle and unclicks it. His hand is shaking.

  We didn’t hit that one, Jordy, he got away, I say.

  He just sits there on the edge of the seat with his feet outside the car. Leaning out of my window I see his feet placed neatly in a corrugation, his hands are crossed over his knees and his too-long hair covers his face.

  Jordy, I say, Jordy – real quiet like, so Loretta can’t hear. I’m tired, I say. I wanna get there. I lean and tap him on the shoulder. He swings his legs back into the car and slams the door shut.

  Loretta reverses and swings the car around, turning the steering wheel with her bony elbows in the air until we’re facing the right way again. With the last light shining right at us I can see fine hair on Loretta’s face. It’s lit up and golden.

  Go slower, I say, or we’ll hit one.

  I hang out the window of the car and watch the road get swallowed. There are so many kangaroos. Loretta drives slow for a while, but gets faster and faster until we’re swerving all over the road again. Under my breath I’m saying, Please don’t hit one, please don’t hit one, please don’t hit one, please don’t hit one, please don’t hit one. All the kangaroos turn their heads to look.

  The ocean appears, the sun dipping into it. We’re high up on top of red cliffs. Loretta slows down heaps and I see a huge kangaroo with its chest puffed right out scratching its belly at us. Stay there, I say to it as the road turns along the edge of the cliff. Below us there is a bay and a beach with tents at one end, then caravans. From up above, the tents and caravans look like rubbish washed in with the tide. Further than that is the white lick of a dry river. A jetty sticks into the sea. Loretta accelerates and I lose my stomach as we drive down to the beach.

  The road levels out again, and goes right through the middle of the tents. They are set up along the dunes, next to the beach, four-wheel drives nudged in beside them and there are tents on the desert side of the road too. A little boy with a round face waves at us as we pass. His whole family is there, out the front of a giant tent. For a second, I can see all the way into the tent, with each of their beds made up neatly, neater than a bedroom. Some camps have their lanterns on already, casting circles of warm light swarming with bugs. There are people sitting in folding chairs, sipping wine out of plastic cups, or beer out of cans. The smell of sausages cooking. I can hear kids playing, it’s the sounds of screaming and laughing together. Guy ropes crisscrossing each other with towels and clothes hanging from them so they look like banners or flags.

  Why is everyone staring at us? says Jordy.

  They’re not, says Loretta.

  Yes, they are.

  It’s just because we’re new.

  So they are staring at us? he says.

  Yeah, ‘cos we’re new.

  I’m staring at them, I say.

  All the people look golden in the last afternoon light. As we drive further along the road the tents stop. There are caravans then. They’ve got iron sheds built around them and television antennas sticking way up high into the air, trying to catch something. They’re all rusted and falling down and look like they’ve been here forever, like they’ve grown from the ground and then died of thirst. Husks of them.

  Some of the caravans are nestled in the dunes, with space between each one. Further down there are two caravans facing away from each other as if they’ve had an argument. And here I can’t see any people. They look lived in, though. There are towels hanging on washing lines, and light at the windows. But they’re closed off to the road, not like the tents with their doors like open mouths and everyone sitting outside in the open. Between each caravan I can see the beach and the choppy ocean.

  Loretta stops beside a rusty white caravan with a blue stripe. It’s tucked in right behind the dune.

  This it? she says and answers herself, Yep.

  A cloud of dust floats from behind us and settles on Bert. None of us make any move to get out of the car.

  Well, here we go, Loretta says and all three of us get out. Empty bottles tumble out around my feet. The air smells of seaweed and barbeque. I can still hear the tent kids squealing but I can’t see them. I stick close to Loretta, and when she stops at the door of the caravan I bump into her.

  Hey, she says, jangling her keys in her hand.
/>   This caravan doesn’t look lived in like the others do. There are thick cobwebs around the windows and doorframe, and beach grass has grown up around the step. The lock and handle are rusty. Loretta searches through the keys on her key ring, finds the one she’s looking for and tries it in the lock.

  You have a key? Jordy says.

  Yeah, says Loretta.

  How do you have a key?

  What does it matter, sweetie. I swiped it from Gran ages ago. They don’t come here anymore.

  Loretta jiggles the key but the door stays shut. She jiggles it again and the handle makes a horrible scraping sound. Jordy and I are standing right behind her.

  Shoo, she says, just shoo for a second. I look at Bert and three of his doors are wide-open. Loretta steps back, lights a cigarette and blows smoke at the door, with her back to us.

  An old man walks up from a path through the dunes to the beach. He has a big fish on his fingertips and a bucket in his other hand. He smells of rotten guts. He stops when he sees us there. He has wiry arms with old-man skin hanging off them.

  Who are you? he says. I see Loretta jump and she turns, her cigarette burning close to her hand.

  Nobody. Who are you? she says, not waiting for the answer. She turns her back on him with a flick of her hair. She bumps her shoulder on the door to open it. It makes the worst kind of noise. I see a flap of lino scraping up behind the door. She turns back to us. Triumph makes her face shine.

  He says, You got water?

  No, says Loretta.

  You need water – there ain’t no water out here.

  He shakes his head at us and walks to the caravan opposite. He goes around the side of it. When he comes back he has swapped the dead fish for a two-litre container of water, which he dumps in front of Loretta.

  You’re going to have to drive back out in the morning and get water from the roadhouse. Then he says over the top of Jordy’s and my heads, I don’t like kids. Best if they stay away.

  I stare up at him – he’s tall and skinny as a straw. His eyes are watery blue and fearful. I look at Jordy. The breeze blows his fringe away from his face and for a second he looks like someone else again. When I look back at the old man he’s looking at Jordy too. Jordy wraps his arms around himself. The old man shakes his head, shaking a thought, and turns his back on us.

  O-kay, thanks, see ya, says Loretta and rolls her eyes. I find myself waving to his back – even though he’s only walking to the other side of the road. Stoopid old coot, she says and steps into the dark caravan. The sun has gone. The old man must light a lantern ‘cos his windows are bright and I see him in there, his white face through the rounded windows of his caravan. He’s looking out at us.

  Come give me a hand, Loretta says from the dark. Jordy clumps in, banging on the metal step. I feel salt on my skin. The wind is cool. It tugs at my shirt. I go back to Bert and close two of his doors, sit half in him with my legs hanging out.

  Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose – like a light bulb, I sing quietly under my breath, mumbling the words I can’t remember.

  Loretta sticks her head out of the caravan. Tom, she says, don’t you wanna come in?

  I scrunch my hands into Bert’s seats. Yeah, I say.

  Well, come on, she says and smiles really big.

  I close Bert’s door and it slams accidentally. Sorry, I hiss at him and walk away.

  I pull on the caravan screen door. The step is tinny under my feet. My eyes adjust to the darkness inside. Loretta and Jordy are sitting at a tiny table with a candle between them. The candle wavers. Loretta scrapes the water bottle across the sandy tabletop and it makes my skin crawl.

  Well, that looks like a bed, says Loretta. I can see one end of the caravan taken up by the square of a mattress. And I reckon you two could sleep here, she says and pats the seat she’s sitting on.

  What about sheets? I say.

  We’ll find them in the mornin’, sport.

  She gets up and starts opening cupboards one by one, looking inside them. She leaves them all open.

  Here we go, she says. She gets three cans out of the cupboard, and dumps them on the table. One of them has no label, on the other ones the labels are faded and disintegrating.

  That one’s a surprise, she laughs.

  She opens a drawer. The cutlery rattles. She gets out three spoons and a can opener. She sits back down and opens each can.

  Sweet, she says, creamed corn, and laughs again.

  I’m not hungry, says Jordy.

  More for us, she smiles at me.

  I rub my feet under the table. She flicks a spoon at me and it slides on the gritty sand.

  I get up and close each of the cupboards, clicking them back into place. Loretta rolls her eyes. I sit back down and she dumps the can in front of me.

  You little weirdo, says Loretta and she reaches over the table to ruffle my hair. I swoop from under her hand. Go on, she says.

  The corn is swimming in a milky liquid. I stir it with my spoon and try to get a spoonful that’s got less liquid. It drips all over the tabletop. The corn kernels burst in my mouth. They’re sweet, but I gag.

  I can hear us all breathing.

  I can’t sleep, I say.

  Shut up, says Jordy.

  There are strange shadows on the ceiling of the caravan. I feel under the table and there’s gum there. Jordy’s feet hang out over the edge. Gran read me books before bed. They were all girl’s books. Jordy always hid his head under the covers so he didn’t have to listen.

  I can hear the ocean whisper and growl. Grrrrrrr, shhhhhh, grrrrrrr, shhhhhhhhh, grrrrrrr, shhhhhhhhh, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, shhhhhhh. All night it growls at me. I’m terrified a wave’s going to come right up and wash us away.

  7

  She’s flung out on the mattress like a splattered bug on the windscreen. I creep up and take a good look at her feet. They aren’t cracked like Gran’s feet. They’re smooth and small as mine.

  She opens her eyes and I step back, heart racing at being caught.

  I think it’s Christmas, Loretta, I say.

  She curls over on her side and puts her head under the pillow mumbling something. The pillow has no cover on it, and it’s marked with brown stains.

  I bump against Jordy’s feet trying to get past, and even though he looks like he’s asleep he kicks me before pulling his legs up into a ball. There’s thick dust on everything, and the windows are so caked with salt I can’t see through them. The caravan has a force field of salt in the exact shape of a caravan. A blowfly is awake, battering against the window, trying for the light. I open the screen door and a whole lot of other little flies get in. They aim for my face, stick to my sweat. I step outside just in my school shorts, and the screen door screeches closed behind me.

  A girl rides past on a shiny new bicycle, streamers flying from the handlebars. She stares at me like I can’t see her looking. I glance down at my chest and it’s pale, I have a tan only on my arms, with a sharp line where my shirtsleeves hang. It’s as if I’m still wearing the shirt.

  Merry Christmas, she says.

  I look away, mumble Hi into my pale chest. She pedals away towards the tents. When I look up the old man is there watching me from beneath the awning of his caravan. He sees me seeing him. His legs are knobbly sticks out of his shorts. He walks around the side like he’s remembered something he has to do. I go back inside our caravan and put my shirt on. Loretta and Jordy are still curled in their balls. I take a long swig of water and go back outside, saying loudly, It’s Christmas. Slam the door shut.

  I walk around the back of the caravan to where there is a path to the beach. Beside the path is a rusted, corrugated iron shed and inside there’s a drop toilet with an old paint tin beside it, full of sawdust to cover the poos. I do a long wee down into the drop. Sprinkle some sawdust in there. Outside the toilet I follow the path to the top of the dune. It only takes a second to reach the top.

  The bay is shaped in a long curl, like a hook. T
he river mouth breaks the beach in two. Near the river there’s a jetty. I run down the dune, letting out a little whoop, and then look around to make sure no one has seen me. Laugh at myself. There’s ghost crabs at my feet. Their shells are see-through. The sound of crabs scuttling into the cracks when you walk close gives me shivers, but these sand crabs are nice, they seem soft. Looking back to the caravans I can only see wonky TV aerials sticking up above the dunes. At the edge of the water I let the waves foam over my feet. I make my way across the hard sand to the jetty.

  Carved into the wooden steps and railing are names, ‘I was ere’, and other things that read like the cryptic crossword questions that Gran used to do sitting in the dining room, calling out the questions to Pa – waiting for his answer. I run my hands over the names. Further out I look down into the water. Feel the wood, smooth under my fingertips from all the leaning. It smells of fish guts. The water swirls little fish and weeds around the pylons. Way out, off the side of the jetty, there’s a big wire cage, for swimming maybe, or sharks.

  The sound of an unfurling rope makes me jump. There’s a man further up the jetty surrounded by small cages. Each cage at the end of a rope. He looks like a dad, like he could pick you up and swing you above his head. He’s leaning over the side of the jetty lowering one of the cages into the shallows. He looks up, sees me there.

  Crabs, they just walk on in there. Don’t even have to do nothing. He laughs. Shakes his head. It’s bloody paradise.

  Yeah. It comes out of my mouth as a squeak. I brush the hair from my face and look at my feet. See the water rushing under me through the gaps in the planks. I turn quickly, walk back to the caravan. My feet burn on the hot, soft sand.

  Bert is gone. I slow run, trying to stop myself from sprinting to the door of the caravan. Loretta, Loretta, Jordy, Jordy, I say. I open the door, look in and it’s empty with just the flies buzzing around. The candle is a melted stump with a black, twisted wick and there is candle wax all over the tabletop.

  What? says Jordy from outside.

  Nothing, I say. I jump. I try to remove the panic from my words. Where’s Loretta? I say.

  Loretta said to be careful out in the dunes, that when she was a kid a girl suffocated digging holes in the side of ‘em. She said she’d be back in a bit, she’s gone to get the water.