Floundering Read online

  Uhuh, I say and step outside too, look up at the sky that’s big.

  This is like them shantytowns they have for abos, he says.

  How would you know? I say.

  From before you was born.

  As if, I say. He thinks he’s seen everything before I was born.

  I’m gunna go check it out.

  Can I come? I say, trying hard to keep the whine out of my voice.

  He looks me over.

  Okay, he says. But you’re only allowed to talk when I say so.

  Jordy walks to the centre of the road. He walks down beside the old man’s caravan and I follow him. Behind the caravan there’s lines of painted white rocks marking the edges of the yard. There’s junk everywhere, but it’s neat. Piles of things collected from the beach: planks of wood, rusted metal, driftwood that’s twisted muscle. Old glass buoys hang from the back awning, dusty but like whole swirling worlds.

  We step over the white rock border and into the yard, past the piles of wood. Under the awning is a little table and a chair with the memory of a bum still in it. A freezer hugs close to the caravan in the shade. Jordy lifts the lid on the freezer and looks in. I lean under his arm. Cool air makes my face tingle. Inside is a huge fish chopped into pieces. I see the frosty pink of the severed flesh. Its eye looks straight up at me – big as a fifty-cent piece.

  They call a fish that big a metrey, the old man says.

  Jordy drops the freezer lid onto the back of my head. I get a lungful of frozen air. Pull out of there. The old man is standing right there, close to us, as if we’d been discussing something important. I can see all the wrinkles on his face and that he’s angry. Jordy turns and hisses, Run.

  I run. I don’t think where we’re going, just follow the shape of Jordy’s back. I keep him in sight and when he tires I run beside him. We both stumble and laugh. Jordy stops, puffed. I look around. We’re at a cleared bit in the scrub. It’s tucked into the side of a dune, and the sand is littered with pieces of hose and dirty water bottles and there’s a pair of rusty scissors hanging on a stick. There’s ants all around our feet. Jordy is laughing.

  I’ve got desert mouth. I need a cordial, I say. At Gran’s there was always cordial in a blue plastic jug in the fridge. I never knew what colour it was going to be inside the jug. She had three lots of cordial in the cupboard, orange, green and red – like traffic lights. She never made it strong enough, but it was always cold and a surprise. When Jordy poured it he would measure each cup of cordial with a ruler so it was exactly equal. He’s taking great big breaths and my breaths are big too.

  Did I say you could talk? he says.

  No.

  Did I say you could talk then?

  No.

  What about then?

  I just look at him with my mouth open, full of my tongue wanting to make a word.

  Okay, okay, you can talk.

  I don’t even want to talk to you.

  Well, you’re talking now.

  I kick a bit of hose. It’s weird here, I say.

  It’s alright, he says.

  We can make a cubby in the dune.

  Loretta said not to dig in ‘em.

  I imagine getting a face full of sand, and the thought of it crunching in my mouth against my teeth makes my whole body shudder. Jordy goes to a tall bit of the dune and kicks it. Kicks it again until the sand falls over his feet. I make sure to stand a good way away so that if it all collapses I’ll be there to pull him out by the edge of his shirt, or his foot.

  Let’s go find a drink, he says.

  We walk through scrub for a while before we get to the tents. I hadn’t realised how far we’d run. The tents have their ropes out really far to trip us. There’s a mum out the front of one and she smiles and says, Merry Christmas. I just look at her, keep walking and don’t say anything back.

  I think I’ve got sunstroke, I say to Jordy.

  You have not.

  I have, I feel dizzy and I’m going to vomit.

  How would you even know?

  They’re the symptoms.

  As if.

  Eventually you get so thirsty you go crazy.

  Whatever.

  Both of us stop when our caravan comes into sight. Bert still isn’t here. Just the caravan screen door banging open and shut.

  Come on, says Jordy and we walk up to it. I click the screen door shut and sit on the step in the sun. Jordy looks under the caravan.

  There’s chairs, he says and pulls out two canvas chairs with cobwebs all over them. Jordy opens one of them and sits down in it. It looks broken but he doesn’t fall. I swipe a fly from my face. He gets up. His chair buckles.

  It’s hot, I say.

  Did I say you could talk yet? Look, an awning, he says.

  He taps at a metal lever sticking out the side of the caravan, then pulls. The metal screams, and flakes of rust and dirt fall all over me.

  Hey, I say. I jump up and out of there. I try shake the dirt off me. Be careful, I say.

  Jordy pulls it all the way out. It’s wobbly, but it stays there, and it makes a small square of shade out the front of the caravan. The edge of the canvas is black with dirt and disintegrating, but the bit that was rolled up inside the metal is brown-and-orange striped and looks new.

  Cool, says Jordy. He sits back in his tumbled-down chair, righting it first so he can get in it. I sit back on the step. In the shade the rest of the world looks hotter. We sit there for a while not saying anything, then Jordy gets up.

  I’m going to the beach, he says, without looking back at me. I want to follow him, but I leave it too long and then I’m just sitting there alone. I scratch a bite on my leg. I scratch it until it bleeds, then a fly lands on the wound. My stomach grumbles. I hear a car on the gravel. I see the dust before the car and I stand up, ready to run to Bert, but it’s not Bert, it’s an old white ute. It stops across from me, pulls up beside the old man’s caravan.

  He gets out of the ute and looks over at me. I don’t wave at him, or say hello. He pretends he hasn’t seen me. Walks to the back of the ute. He tries to lift a crate from the tray. He scrapes it along the metal and up to the side, drops it. He tries to lift it again. It falls back into the tray with a shudder. He gives up and carries the two-litre Coke bottles inside two by two, then the crate. In the caravan he would have to put them all back in the crate. I hear a generator jump to life with a loud hum.

  He comes back out with a glass of Coke with ice and sits down in his chair that’s sagging out the front, ready for him. He looks happy taking the first sip, but then he’s staring right at me and he doesn’t look happy anymore. I walk over the gravel road.

  Get, he says, get out of here.

  I stand just at the edge of what looks like his area and say, I’m not near you, I’m just standing over here.

  Standing there’s too near, little matey. I told ya, piss off.

  How about here? I say and take two steps back, so I’m kind of standing in the middle of the road.

  Too close, he says and takes a long sip of his drink.

  I take a couple more steps back so that I’m right in the middle of the road. Here?

  Too close.

  I take another step back, Here?

  Nup.

  Until I’m right the way back under my awning and I yell, Here?

  I guess that’s as good as it’s going to get, he says. I see him smile. I smile.

  Can I’ve a Coke?

  You want a Coke?

  Yeah.

  He sighs, gets up and goes inside. When he comes back outside he has a glass. I go to walk over there.

  Stop.

  He walks out onto the road and gives me the glass.

  Thanks. I take a sip.

  He walks back to the shade.

  Loretta hasn’t come back from getting the water.

  Who’s Loretta?

  My mum.

  What do you want me to do about it?

  Nothing, I guess. I take another sip of the Coke. It’s
bubbly and warm. Tastes a bit like sick. I kick my feet in the dirt. We might need to go and look for her, I say.

  What do you mean we?

  I walk over there and cross the invisible line into his yard. There is a mean curl at the edge of his lip.

  We have to go get her, I say.

  He says quietly but with force, Get back over your side. And give me that. He takes the Coke from my hand. Get, he says.

  I run back to our caravan and sit on the step watching him. He finishes his Coke and gets another. He rolls a cigarette, smokes it. He rolls and smokes three cigarettes with me sitting there watching him. I make patterns in the sand at the step of the caravan. The shade from the awning travels. I wipe sweat from my face and feel my bum fall asleep. He gets up, goes inside his caravan for a while and when he comes out the front again I’m still there, sitting on the step. I see him swear under his breath, turn around. When I see him next, he’s got his fishing rod, a floppy hat hangs over his eyes. He walks past me, like I’m not there, and heads down the path to the beach. I brush the flies away from my face, look at the dirt between my feet. I can taste the Coke a little still. Brush the flies away again. Jordy’s still gone.

  The old man takes a long time to come back. It’s late afternoon. My bum has moulded to the shape of the step. He sees me still sitting there. Stops in the middle of the dusty road. He doesn’t look like he’s caught nothing. It’s just us, but he looks behind him like he’s checking if there’s someone else there, then he looks to the blue sky as if he’s praying for rain – or something. He disappears around the side of his caravan.

  I stand up, stumble. My legs don’t work anymore. I run as well as I can, away from him. I run down to the beach, my feet sinking into the sand. The spinifex grass swishes in the wind I make as I pass. The sun is in my eyes and I don’t see Jordy there at the bottom of the path. I run smack into him. I hit my head so hard against his elbow that I see black, and cartoon stars. We tumble down the dune together and I get sand in my pants and my mouth, ears. The beach is inside me. We’re down there in the sand and I feel a sharp punch in my leg.

  Get off me, he says.

  I spit the sand out of my mouth. I try disentangling myself from him but he kicks my legs until we are both sitting in the sand across from each other, finally out of reach and sore. I rub sand in my eye, out of my eye.

  You are so annoying, he says from across the sand.

  Loretta’s not back still, I say. I see him take a big breath. I think we need to go and get her, I say.

  How?

  We can ask the old man to drive us?

  Nah.

  But there’s no one else. I’ve already asked him.

  What did he say?

  No.

  He rolls his eyes at me and pulls his long limbs together to stand up. He shakes sand all over me. You shouldn’t do stuff without asking me first.

  You’re not the boss.

  I’m older.

  Not by enough.

  There’s no enough. I’m still older.

  I sit there in the sand as he walks away. I watch the sun and it burns my eyeballs, but I look at it just to see if I can see it falling.

  At the caravan Jordy’s having a drink of water. The bottle is nearly empty.

  Can I’ve a sip? I say. He pegs the bottle at me and I drop it. The water pools in the sand, not soaking in. I stoop down to rescue the bottle and save the last mouthfuls. I try to get the sand out of my mouth, swirl the water around, but sand still crunches in between my teeth.

  Be careful, he says like it was me who chucked the water in the sand.

  It’s going to be dark soon, I say. We stand across from each other under the awning.

  Fine. Wait here, he says.

  He walks across the road and knocks on the old man’s door. The old man doesn’t answer the door, though, he looms around the side of the caravan. I try to yell to Jordy to warn him, but it comes out of my mouth a whisper. I see Jordy jump when he notices him there in the shadows but then they’re talking. The old man disappears again and when he returns he’s swinging his keys in his hands, he grabs them, swings them, grabs them, swings them. The sound of the jingling carries over to me. I think of Santa’s sleigh bells.

  Jordy motions for me to come over and we go and stand near the ute.

  Get in, Jordy says quietly, like if he said it loudly the old man would change his mind.

  Jordy climbs in after me. The old man stuffs around with the radio. Can only get one station all the way out here, he says. Scraps of voices come clear, then it’s fuzz. What’s ya names then, eh? I look over at him and there’s a drip of sweat running from his temple down the side of his face. He clicks the radio off. Damn it.

  Tom, I say, and that’s Jordy. Jordy’s hanging his arm out the window ignoring us.

  I’m Nev, he says.

  I’m squashed in the middle. I try not to touch him. The ute kicks into life after a couple of rattles. I scratch gently around my sandfly bites, bite by bite. I’m careful not to break the skin again. We drive slowly on the road between the caravans. A cloud of dust hangs behind us. Nev drives out of the camp. Driving away from the falling sun, into the electric blue of the late afternoon. The corrugations rattle my teeth ‘til they ache.

  Did you get anything for Christmas? I say.

  No. Santa stopped coming my way a long time ago.

  Were you naughty?

  He laughs.

  I didn’t get anything either.

  He laughs again, but it’s a different kind of laugh to the first one.

  How many k’s to the highway? says Jordy.

  Forty.

  Jordy sighs.

  Nev puts the radio back on and a country song warbles out at us. Some guy with gravel in his mouth. I put my fingers in my ears.

  Take them fingers out of your ears, he goes.

  What? I say.

  Take them fingers out of your ears. I pull them out and look up at him.

  In my car you listen to this, and you app-re-ci-ate it. Alright?

  I stare up at him, not knowing what to say.

  Alright?

  Okay, I say and he looks away first. I pick at my sandfly bites and creep up against Jordy.

  Piss off, Jordy hisses and tries to push me back. You’re making me hot, he says.

  Nev starts tapping his hand in time. He opens his mouth and it’s the smell of old man.

  As we drive into the roadhouse I can see Loretta standing, leaning against Bert. In the carpark there are bugs swarming around her, like she’s the light. She’s smoking a cigarette and the ground around her is covered in butts. She’s staring at barrels full of water next to the tap. There’s a road train parked opposite. Nev drives up to her and stops the ute. She looks at us like she’s looking at strangers.

  Hey, says Jordy.

  Hey, she says. She grinds her half-smoked cigarette out.

  Nev sighs and turns the engine off, pulls the handbrake on. Are you kidding me? What are you doing out here? he says.

  Nothing.

  How long have you been standing here?

  I don’t know, a while.

  Her face looks like she’s just woken up from a dream. She jiggles her leg, winds her hair around her finger how little girls do.

  She says, He asked me if I wanted a hand, and I was like, nah, mate, I can lift them myself, but then I tried to lift them, and they were too heavy and then I’ve been waiting for him to leave so I can drag them to the car without him watching, but he’s still in there, he won’t leave me alone, she says all in one long breath. All around her the bugs are going crazy. It’s like it’s got properly dark since she started talking and now the bugs are all around the truck too. They smack into the windscreen and fly off.

  Who? he says.

  The guy in the truck, she says.

  Are you serious?

  Yeah.

  From the ute I can see a dent in Bert’s door in the exact shape of Loretta’s hip. I’ve never noticed it before.


  Can I get out? I say. Jordy opens his door and jumps. I tumble out after him. The ground is further away than I remember and I fall. Jordy stands there. I go lean near Loretta and touch my hand to the back of her leg. She ruffles my hair and puts her hand under my chin to have a good look at me.

  You’re burnt to a crisp, she says.

  Her saying that makes my face feel tight as drum skin.

  I hear the ute door slam. Nev is standing there. I shrink up against Loretta’s legs. He looks too tall and I get a weird vision of him in the light, what he would have looked like young, and strong, and mean. Before the wind and the sun got to him. I turn my face away.

  I drove all the fucking way out here, he says. And the guy in the truck is probably asleep in the fucking cab.

  I feel Loretta shrug. It’s like he’s the crazy one. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or why he’s angry. She laughs. Whatever. She says it just like Jordy would.

  Jesus, he says and walks off towards the roadhouse. Walking, he’s old again. His wrinkly arms hang out of his blue singlet.

  Loretta shrugs again and we all follow Nev. Loretta doesn’t even look at the road train again. She lets the heavy roadhouse door swing shut. A man with tatts poured over his arms stares at her. She tugs her short skirt down.

  Nev’s at the red plastic counter waiting. A girl with long golden hair wound up in buns over her ears asks him, Can I take your order? She has an accent that makes her words round and honey but at the same time she sounds a bit retarded. She’s wearing a Santa hat and flashing earrings.

  Nev orders us all a meal without asking what we want.

  The girl puts a number on the counter and turns away to plunge frozen chips into bubbling oil. I wonder what the girl thinks of us.

  Sit down, boys, says Nev.

  They’re my boys, says Loretta.

  Hey lady, I don’t give a shit, okay.

  My name’s Loretta.

  Through the window I can see the water barrels still out there next to the tap. There is a cow standing out by the highway. Just one lonely cow. We all sit down at a plastic tabletop shiny with grease.

  Loretta pours salt onto the table and makes patterns in it with her long fingernails.