Diamonds in the Mud and Other Stories (13 page)

She flushes. They won't wash away. Again she flushes, and again.

 

She is cowering from the hands she'd craved, cringing, her own hands, his ring, held before her face.

His face is ugly as his open palm slaps rocking her head from side to side. ‘You lied to me you little slut. You told me you were on the pill.'

‘I am,' she whines, but he has emptied her bag onto the table, emptied her drawers onto the bed, tossed the contents of her bathroom cabinet onto the floor.

Then he punches her, low in the stomach. Twice more, but she feels no more. When her mind swims back to consciousness, he is raping her. No more the black swan. Tonight Sally knows she has brought a black wolf home, and oh, what big teeth he has.

The moon is behind his shoulder, a bloodied moon, a taste of blood in her mouth, but he is determined to draw richer blood. Consciousness slides away again, Sally clinging to its rim – and to his wolf cub.

Mummy gone. Daddy gone. Everything gone. Ross. Dear Ross, with his country eyes and his slow clumsy love, his safer love, all gone. She ran from the safety of him to Melbourne. She ran from his love into lies.

Moon over Matt's shoulder, flying free. Stars in the heavens, calling, calling.

‘Get rid of it,' he says when he leaves.

‘I need . . . need something that's mine.'

‘Get rid of it.' He steps back, tosses two hundred-dollar notes at her. Springs the trap. Gets free to roam the hills, find another bitch on heat. A new rut.

 

Sally's make-up is thick this morning and her stomach is cramping. She's late for work, but she has to go to work to make the money to pay the bills that never stop coming, that will never stop coming. She rides the lift to her floor and stands looking at the noticeboard: ‘Wanted, non smoker to share second floor flat in Coburg.' ‘Good home wanted for ginger cat. Flat trained.'

Perhaps a cat, or the second floor flat. Instant companionship. Constant companionship. Sally nods, takes down the phone number. She'll get a new job. Make a new start – a new mother and baby start.

Then she feels the rush of blood and she runs to the toilets down the hall. Doesn't make it into the cubicle. Red pearls leave their trail on the white tiled floor.

And later, she stands empty, emptied, stands looking at the hand wearing his fake ring. Slips it from her finger. Its mark remains. Light against the dark. Banded. Branded. Immobile for minutes, she stares at the golden heart, stone cold in the palm of her hand. Cold as her own heart.

 

Twelfth floor office, top floor, concrete staircase leading up to the roof where the smoking pack cleave, and leave their butts. Concrete stairs also lead down to the ground.

Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. Which way will poor Sally go?

‘Good home wanted for ginger cat.'

‘Lost: black woollen jacket.'

‘Ring: Heart. Found on toilet floor.'

I can't say if it's green or just gone mouldy, but it looks alive – sort of like some poisonous mushroom that's taken root on his head. Its brim comes down to his nose where his chin sort of juts up to meet it; but there's got to be a mouth under it somewhere I'm thinkin', 'cause the hat talks to me.

‘How far are ya goin', mate?' it says.

‘Balranald,' I say.

Its crown is level with the window of a vehicle of sorts. A ute, it's been. Rust red. Mud red. I'm starin' and I'm thinkin', probably only the bloody mud holdin' the rust together, and I'm thinkin' of the storm what's threatenin', and maybe of me own mortality.

I'm standin' there and I'm starin' at the hat 'cause there's no eyes for me to stare at, like, and I'm thinkin' hard and rubbin' me jaw. He's the only wheels that's answered me thumb in the hour since the cop dropped me ten miles outside of Kerang, and I'm thinkin' how I wouldn't've been ten bloody miles out of Kerang if we'd've left Melbourne yesterday like we were supposed to.

‘Take ya as far as Swan 'ill,' the hat says.

‘Righto. Ta,' I say, and I yank the door wide, step up and in, feelin' for a foothold between coats and papers, toolbox, dog chains, yesterday's stubbies and last month's butts.

‘Watch me floor, mate.'

I look down then to the bit of floor space I've reclaimed, and there's daylight underneath me bloody shoe. Quick as a flash I kick his coat over a hole as I see a fossilised sock disappearin' back to the earth from where it came.

His gears mash and grind, his wheels buck and squeal as a tail-shaft tries to whip those bastards into a team. He kicks the clutch, stomps on the accelerator and somehow gets the crate movin'. She's doin' all right too, once she's in top gear, so I let go of the door handle, sit back and try to wriggle me bum in between the springs and the kapok while propping me heels on a toolbox.

The air is weighty with the stink of live dog, dead socks and buried butts. I've lived with the stink of dog and dead socks before but those butts sort of awaken in me memories of that last sweet fag three months ago. We gave it up.
We
. Not all I've given up, neither. Sometimes I think I sold me soul to become half of that We.

Me and me girlfriend are payin' off a house, and smokes are too bloody expensive, she says – not that she says bloody expensive, just plain expensive, but I can read the bloody all over her face. She's sort of different to the usual type of chick I've mucked round with, sort of talks a bit posh, always coming out with stuff like, ‘The female genitalia should not be used as a curse word, Norman.'

‘Help yourself, mate,' the hat says, tossing me the pack as he pushes a smoke under his brim. He must've found a gap there, 'cause the fag stays where it's put.

‘Given 'em up,' I say, handlin' the weight of the pack, smellin' it before tossin' it on the springs between us.

‘I gotta give 'em up too,' the hat says. ‘Ruinin' me health. Gettin' to the stage where I'm coughin' out lumps of me lungs when I roll out of the sack in the mornin'.

Just so I don't think he's talkin' no lie, he coughs up another lump, hawks it out of the window, and the wind catches it, blows it back and sticks it to the side window. I watch it slide down like a great grey slug down the mud, leavin' a shiny trail behind it. I watch it until we're drivin' into Swan 'ill, which is better for the nervous system than watchin' the road ahead and watching him trying to stay on it.

He hits the brakes outside Swan 'ill. Nothin' much happens for a tick, then a back wheel sort of makes a half-hearted grab, and as it grabs he rams the clutch down and grinds her into first.

‘Gotta do a bit of business,' he says. ‘Least I got ya part of yer ways there.'

‘Yeah. Ta,' I say.

He drops me in the main street of Swan 'ill where I buy a pie and a Coke before headin' out on the highway.

Nothin' is stoppin' this arvo. A navy Commodore tootles past with a snooty nosed pair of wealthy pensioners in the front. Their back seat's empty. I'm wearin' me bike gear, due to the weather, right, but it's not like I'm one of the Hells Brigade or nuthin', which don't stop the old dame from givin' me a look saved for cockroaches and lice.

The rain is pourin' down. I stop under a tree and start thinkin' this trip is sort of turnin' into a bloody nightmare. Maybe somethin' doesn't want me in Balranald, I'm thinkin', maybe fate, like me best mate, is tryin' to turn me head for home. I mean, who needs a weddin' and a house half a city away from ya job? Who needs a bloody job? I didn't used to – or not till she started talkin' houses, I didn't. As me mate said when the cops dragged him off to the lockup, ‘There's got to be more to life than pussyfootin' around a sheila who had to go and get herself born in bloody Balranald.'

I'm standin', thinkin', water drippin' down me neck, thinkin' of his words and his bike which the cops confiscated, and I'm sort of lookin' back at Swan 'ill, when what comes rattlin' down the road but the hat and his rust bucket.

‘How far are you goin', mate?' he says.

‘Still Balranald,' I say, lookin' at the mouldy hat and searchin' for the eyes I know he must've had underneath it someplace.

‘You're the second bloke I picked up what's goin' to Balranald today. What's the bloody drawcard in bloody Balranald?'

‘Me weddin'.'

‘Can take ya as far as Tooleybuc.'

I never heard of Tooleybuc. ‘Is it on me way?' I ask.

‘Only way to go, mate,' he says.

I yank the door open and climb in – don't make the mistake of lookin' for no floor space this time. I gotta admit, I'm sorta pleased to be out of the rain. It's pourin' down – washing his windscreen – which I can do without, so I sit back and close me eyes, sniffing at the odour of me leathers, now addin' a sort a familiar wet cow stink to the dog, the dead socks, and the sweet stale scent of the fags.

He lights up a smoke a 'course. Offers me the pack.

‘Gave it up three months back,' I say.

‘I'm off 'em after today. Bloody things are killin' me,' he says.

He has three cigarettes before we get to the Tooleybuc turn-off.

‘Do you live in Tooleybuc, mate?' I ask.

‘Me? Na. I knew a bloke once what did,' he says.

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah. Bastard married me sister, then pissed off with the sheila what worked at the Tooleybuc pub.'

‘Yeah?'

I take a long hard look at the hat. Say what you like, there's no denyin' family – not that I can see his face, but I'm thinkin', I couldn't rightly blame any poor bastard married to his sister for pissin' off with a barmaid.

‘I'm pickin' up a new dog in Tooleybuc. S'posed to meet him there at twelve.'

‘Ya runnin' late,' I say, checkin' me watch me girlfriend gave me for Christmas. I used to own a good one – one of them novelty ones with a naked chick on the face. Amazin' what the hands could make her do. Me girlfriend didn't like it, said it was sexist. I'm thinkin' of it now and I'm smilin', not listenin' to the hat.

We drive across a bridge. Welcome to New South Wales, it says. Christ, I'm finally interstate, I'm thinkin'.

‘We're here,' he says. ‘Gotta pick up me dog.'

‘Where's here?'

‘Tooleybuc. Nice little town. They got the pokies now. Place has gone ahead since they got the pokies.'

‘Yeah?' I say, lookin' for Tooleybuc and wonderin' where it's gone ahead to, and where it was before the pokies arrived, then he sort of does his no-synchro change-down and we slide to a halt in the gutter out the front of the pub.

‘Havin' a beer, mate?'

I rub me jaw and think long on that one. I need one real bad, I'm dehydrating fast due to the do me mates flung for me – which lasted twenty-four hours longer than it should've done – but I'm thinkin' of me girlfriend who'll be starting to panic, and of the cop who only let me go on account of me weddin'.

I shake me head. ‘I better keep goin'. Gotta be in Balranald by six or me girlfriend's gunna be sending out the cavalry.'

‘Ya got another thirty-odd miles.'

‘What's that in kilometres?'

‘Christ knows.'

‘Righto,' I say. ‘Thanks for the lift.'

‘See ya, mate,' the hat says.

‘Yeah,' I say, but I'm thinkin', not if I see you first, mate.

Rain's pourin'. Every time I step off the bitumen I sink down to the top of me boots. Hardly a decent tree to shelter under so it's not much use shelterin'. I keep walkin'.

I'm gettin' cold feet in more ways than one. Me boots are leakin'; they weren't never made for walkin', and I'm thinkin' of the bike I used to ride, which I sort of inherited from one of me mother's old boyfriends. He left it with her to look after when they locked him up a few years back. He gets out soon. That's why I let me girlfriend talk me into buyin' a house out past Dandenong – which is a hundred light years away from West Melbourne.

I kept his bike boots. Mum reckons he paid a fortune for 'em. He got took. The bastards have rubbed both me heels so raw. I don't know which foot to limp on, but I keep limpin', sort of lookin' back over me shoulder more frequent, and thinkin' of how I shouldn't've sold his bike. It was her fault, her naggin' that made me sell it. They can wear ya down with their naggin'.

‘I can't wear me nice clothes on the bike, Norman. Cars are more comfortable, Norman.'

More comfortable for her! We bought an old Falcon on Saturday and she took it on Sunday and drove it up to bloody Balranald to help her mother organise the weddin'!

I start thinkin' of the head of hair I used to have, before I let her cut it off – after she'd tossed me mother's old boyfriend's snake-skin headband in the Salvo bin.

Old Samson lost his strength with his hair, but my best mate reckons I lost me bloody brains with mine, 'cause the next thing I do, I go out and get a job, see, get the first one I go for too – which only proved me girlfriend right again.

‘No one's goin' to employ you with that hair, Norman,' she'd say.

So she's got me workin', bringin' in nearly as much dough as her, and it gets so I can afford a packet of fags whenever I want one, so she makes me give 'em up and start payin' off a three bedroom house that I can't bloody afford and don't want neither. Who needs more than one bedroom at a time, any rate.

I'm mud in her hands, I'm thinkin'. She's got me on the potter's wheel. She's reformin' me into some bloody sensitive new age guy. She's hired me a grey suit and a frilly pink shirt that will match her ugly bridesmaids. I'm a snag for a Balranald bag, and I can't even have a drag on a bloody fag.

Oh shit, I'm thinkin', what am I gunna do? Oh Christ, I'm thinkin', what I wouldn't give for a drag on a fag right now. A whole packet of fags. I'd chain-smoke me way to Balranald. A packet of fifty. I'd smoke one a kilometre. A good smoke can last ten minutes. I reckon if them runners can do a mile under four minutes then I can limp a kilometre in ten. I start doin' some multiplyin' and subtractin' as I limp on.

The light is fadin' real fast. The sky's lookin' like someone's took to it with a greasy mop, formerly used for cow-yard duty. It looks sort of green, sort of eerie. I feel like I'm the last poor bastard left on the earth. Maybe I am. Maybe the world ended and I'm the lone survivor. I look round me, wonderin' if they've got dingoes out this way, and wonderin' if dingoes hunt in the rain, and how hungry they might be. I look at me watch, change me rucksack to the other shoulder, take a match from me pocket and start chewin' on it, pretendin' it's a fag.

It's gettin' close to five o'clock. I reckon I can pulp this match, usin' no hands, in ten minutes. I start steppin' it out, gnawin' on me match and spittin' out the splinters, but there's no joy in eatin' bloody matches.

I haven't seen a car since I left Tooleybuc. There's no signs nowhere. I'm limpin' down the middle of the bitumen, thinkin' I'm gunna be late. I'm gunna be late for a very important bloody date.

Then I hear him coming up behind me. He's weavin' all over the road, and if he's got any headlights, they must be covered in mud. Then he brakes. The wheels swerve at me and I'm a goner. I jump back off the bitumen and the mud comes up to me knees.

‘How far you goin', mate?' the hat says.

‘Bloody Balranald, you crazy bastard,' I yell, sinkin' down deeper.

‘Every bastard on the road's goin' to Balranald today.'

‘You goin' there this bloody time?' I yell.

‘Just picked up me new dog. Goin' piggin' with Groover Powers and Murph Lawton. Ya know 'em?'

‘I don't bloody know no one. Me bloody girlfriend comes from bloody Balranald.'

‘Got a girlfriend, eh? What's her name?'

‘Mary bloody Lamb.'

Shit! That name sends shudders through me frame. What sane parents with the name of Lamb would call a daughter Mary? Me best mate, who at six thirty this bloody evenin' was supposed to be me best man in a hired grey suit and pink frilly shirt but who is now languishing in the bloody Kerang lock-up sleeping it off in bloody comfort while I stand here knee deep in mud, always calls her Hadda Little. And Jesus does it nark her.

‘Are you gettin in, mate, or lookin' for pneumonia?'

‘Might as well. Only one better way to commit bloody suicide.'

‘Watch me floor,' he warns.

‘What bloody floor?' I say as I crank the door open and look at a dog big enough to make two of me. I'm no giant, but I don't communicate with kneecaps neither. Any rate, I'm aware by now that it's no use goin' in feet first on account of no floor. It takes me two attempts to get half me bum on the seat on account of the dog's pushin' harder than me. I make it on the second try, and sort of lift up, drag the door shut and sidle up to the dog.