The Riders

  Billie listened to Scully’s stomach. It was like a factory in there. She thought about Paris. The apartment they borrowed all that time while Scully fixed it up. Nights at Marianne’s or Dominique’s. The ten times they saw ‘Peter Pan’ in French. The way the French called him Peter Pong. That cracked her up. Rubbish trucks in the street. Sirens. Black men sweeping dog poop off the cobbles.

  ‘Does this go to Paris?’ she murmured.

  ‘Brindisi,’ he said. ‘Italy.’

  But Billie had seen him staring at Alex’s picture. He was thinking of Paris for sure. Poor Alex. His eyebrows always looked like they were slipping off his face. There was a cloud in Billie’s head – she would think along so far and there it would be, cutting her off, blocking her way. Right at the very thought of . . . well, Her.

  ‘Gran Scully says you’re not teaching me about Jesus.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She thought of the picture of him on Gran’s mantelpiece. His old face, before the bung eye.

  ‘Tell me about Australia,’ he said, a bit excited. ‘How does it look now? Tell me about the Indian Ocean. Could you see Rottnest? Was it hot? Did you hear the sound of people’s voices? Did you forget much? Tell me about Gran.’

  She knew the story about his eye. How the skipper Ivan Dimic made him kill every octopus that came aboard because they ate lobsters and cost him money. How they sucked the guts out of lobsters and left the shells. Even octopuses big as your thumbnail he had to kill and he hated it. Scully pretended to kill them. He whacked the deck and slipped them back over the side alive, but the skipper saw it. One day, out over the Shelf, Ivan Dimic came down off the flying bridge with an iron bar big as a horse’s dick. Got him across the arm. There was a fight, just like TV. Sharks in the water. All this time the winch was going, pulling a pot up from the very deep. It was deep as the Eiffel Tower out there. The deck going up and down. The rope winding and tangling with no one to coil it. Ivan Dimic cracked him one across the face with the bar, right across the eye. Nearly popped it out of his head. Imagine. And right then the pot comes up, hits the tipper, and Dimic is right in the way. Steel and wood, heavy as a man. Knocked him flat. Scully brought the boat in himself. His last day fishing. It was before she was born. Billie missed all the good stuff. Look at this eye, he used to say. For an octopus? So look at this face, she thought, feeling the shrinking tightness of her own skin. For a dog?

  ‘Billie?’

  He was like the Hunchback, Scully. Not very pretty. Sometimes he wasn’t very smart. But his heart was good. She pressed against him, hearing that pure heart lunking along like a ship’s engine, and felt sleep coming again.

  The deck vibrated beneath them. The lights of Greece faded to pinpricks and then oblivion. In sleeping bags all around, the murmurs trailed off into silence. Scully nursed his disappointment and hugged Billie to him as she slept. He thought of the woman she might make if this whole business didn’t bugger her up forever. She would be strong, funny, confident, wry, and yes, smart as all get-out. Just as she was now. People would be forced to take notice of her the way they always had. Now that he thought of it she was probably everything her mother dreamt of being. Was that it, then? Would that cause you to bolt? Jealousy, discouragement, some meanness of spirit? ‘People like you,’ she used to tell him. ‘You don’t get it, do you? You like your life just fine, you take whatever comes with a sick kind of gratitude. That’s where we’re different.’ He had to agree. He just didn’t get it.

  It was plain cold out now, and Scully began to shudder. Without blankets it was hopeless out here. Time to find some corner below. He threaded the pack onto Billie as she slept, and he hefted her and the suitcase to pick his way across to the companionway. It was precarious going, but he came down into a coffee-smelling lounge where Germans and Italians chattered and smoked blearily. It was bright here, too bright for sleeping, so he looked for a nook somewhere along the maze of corridors, but down there it was only toilets and first-class cabins. He returned to the lounge and found an upholstered booth back by the stairs where a bit of fresh air blew in but where it was still warm. He was about to lay Billie down when he saw the watermelon dress.

  ‘There’s nowhere for her to sleep?’

  Scully cursed to himself, smiled and shook his head. The woman from the kastro. She wore a denim jacket over her thin dress and held a bottle of Heineken in one hand.

  ‘Too cold up on deck,’ he said.

  ‘I knew you would be on this boat.’

  Scully moved to lay the child across the seat, but the woman put a hand on his arm. He flinched and felt his face burn.

  ‘Please. I have a cabin. Let her sleep in there.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, but –’

  ‘Really, she’s tired and it’s so awful out here. It’s no trouble.’

  ‘She’ll sleep anywhere. She’s a robust kid.’

  The woman in the watermelon dress looked at Billie and he followed her gaze. The child didn’t look so robust tonight. Her face was swollen and creased where her cheek had pressed into his jacket. Sleeping children, they have a hold on you.

  ‘Please.’ The woman was anxious, earnest. Her eyes were sad, pleading. She was somehow alarming to him, but it was true, the kid was stuffed.

  ‘Alright, thanks. That’d be great for her.’

  ‘Beautiful, beautiful. Here, this way. Let me take your case. You don’t bring much.’

  Scully followed her down the first-class corridor. At her door he smelt smoke on her and some scent. She opened the door and cleared the bottom bunk of bra and panties and a crumpled Herald Tribune.

  ‘Here.’

  Scully hesitated a moment before edging inside and laying Billie along the bunk. She opened her eyes a moment and looked at him wordlessly, and he simply smiled and she went back to sleep. Reaching for a blanket, the woman brushed hips with him, and he flinched again at the closeness of another body. She tucked the blanket around Billie and smiled. The air was cool in here and the ship’s movement reassuring.

  ‘Can I use your toilet a moment?’ he whispered.

  ‘Of course.’

  He stood inside the neat little cubicle that smelled of antiseptic and corrosion. He took a leak and looked at himself in the mirror. Wild Man of Borneo. What was it he saw there – fatigue, disappointment, desperation? His face was harder than he remembered, more set, like those farmers he knew as a boy, the ones on a long losing streak, whose jaws never deviated into a smile. Men past caring, immovable, expecting the worst, ready to endure. No, he didn’t like that look.

  The door opened.

  ‘Are you seasick?’

  Scully shook his head.

  ‘Let’s get coffee.’

  • • •

  OUT IN THE LOUNGE a few of the Germans were drunk, some asleep, the Italians murmuring in a cluster and crackling Hallwag maps. Scully sat at the bar with a Turkish coffee and a shot of Metaxa.

  ‘It’s very nice of you,’ he said to the woman on the stool beside him.

  ‘It’s good to be nice sometimes.’

  ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘Oh, home. Berlin.’

  ‘I can’t place your accent.’

  ‘Liverpool.’

  ‘You must have been in Berlin a good while then.’

  ‘No. Five years. I studied for an accent.’

  ‘Well. Ringo meets Sergeant Schultz.’

  ‘I didn’t like how I sounded before.’

  Scully shrugged. ‘You been on holiday?’

  ‘Oh, it began as one.’

  ‘Why come this way? You could have gone right up through northern Greece, Austria.’

  ‘Yugoslavia. I hate it. I’d rather go the long way.’

  ‘It is a bit like going through a sheep dip, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re Australian.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And where is home?’

  Scully shrugged. ‘Ireland, maybe.’

  ‘Australians are sentimental about Ireland.’
br />   ‘Not this one.’

  ‘You’re married.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said after an unpleasant pause. The ring flashed on his hand. ‘My wife’s . . . gone on ahead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at the woman and saw her smile. There was something knowing in it, not quite a smirk.

  The barman, a heavy Greek with a birthmark down his arm like an acid burn, called for last drinks before the bar closed, and Scully ordered another brandy.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m organized already,’ she said.

  ‘If she wakes in the night I’ll be out here with all the barfing Germans. Just send her out here.’

  ‘You’re welcome to sleep with her. There’s still room on that bunk.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll leave you alone. It’s cramped in there already with all our stuff. I’ll just slip in there in a minute, take her shoes off.’

  ‘She’s a nice kid.’

  ‘Yes. She is.’

  ‘My name’s Irma.’

  ‘Irma.’

  ‘It’s Billie and . . .?’

  ‘Scully. Everyone just calls me Scully. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  ‘Scully?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The key.’

  He took the key and went back to check on Billie. She slept with her head back and her mouth open. He bent over her in the dimness and eased off her shoes, smelling the bready scent of her breath.

  ‘Sleep with her.’

  It was Irma, standing behind him in the doorway. He could smell her. The ship’s engines stroked away beneath them.

  ‘I have a bottle of Jack Daniels.’

  ‘Listen, I –’

  ‘Have a drink and go to sleep. She’ll be afraid if she wakes and you’re gone. She doesn’t know me.’

  Scully straightened. She was right. He’d already frightened the kid once, and he’d promised never again. He wanted to be alone, to avoid complication, conversation, to just organize himself tonight and make a plan. He hated sharing space with strangers, but it was safer this way. He just didn’t like this woman. The memory of her bruises and that proud smile back in the kastro made his bowels contract.

  ‘Okay,’ he murmured. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Scully adjusted the porthole a little for some air and saw the black ellipse of sea and night. He pulled off his shoes and shucked his jeans and climbed in beside Billie, pulling the blanket up to his chest. Should have forked out the extra for a cabin, he thought; the money I’ve been blowing, it wouldn’t have been so dumb. I’ll offer her some money. Should have thought. Should have.

  • • •

  SCULLY WOKE SOMETIME IN THE night and saw Irma crouched on the floor in the yellow light of the toilet. She had his case open and was holding a bent candle and his wallet. He saw the whiteness of her panties, the tongue concentrated in the corner of her mouth, and the half-empty bottle of bourbon on the floor beside her.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he murmured, ‘you’ve lost a contact lens.’

  She started, but then smiled. ‘Lost more than that in my time.’

  ‘There’s nothing worth stealing.’

  ‘I can see that. You’re broke, Scully, unless you’ve still got credit.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘Drinking. Watching you two snuggled up there like two bugs.’

  ‘You’re easy to entertain.’

  ‘People say that.’ Irma held the wallet open. ‘This is her, then.’

  Scully felt pins and needles rush to his right arm as he shifted his weight.

  ‘Beautiful black hair. Nice face. Good legs. They say good legs mean a good fuck.’

  He grimaced. ‘Who says?’

  ‘Not true, huh? Well, someone must believe it. How long’s she been gone?’

  Scully held his hand out for the wallet.

  ‘You’re abandoned, Scully, I can see it. You’re a sad sight, the two of you. And she wasn’t even good in bed. Must be love.’

  ‘Gimme the bloody wallet.’

  ‘And what are these?’ She held up a lint-furred candle.

  ‘The wallet.’

  ‘Three of them.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Show more guts, Scully. Less pride and a bit more guts.’

  Scully slid off the bunk and Irma gasped, cowering almost.

  ‘We’re just gonna go. Pass me those jeans.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look, I just wanna get dressed. I’m not gonna hurt you or report this.’

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘It was nice of you to offer us a bed, but I’m not used to strangers going through my stuff.’

  ‘I’m not a stranger.’

  ‘Look, you’ve had a lot to drink and –’

  ‘Don’t wake her up, let her sleep.’

  ‘She’ll sleep out in the lounge.’

  ‘You’ve got another thirteen hours, Scully. I’m sorry about your things. I wasn’t stealing, I was curious. Truth is, I need the company. Stay for me.’

  ‘I want to sleep.’

  ‘Sleep then. We’re in the same boat, you know.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘I mean our situation. I’m abandoned too.’

  ‘I need to sleep.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later. Get back into bed. Here, your wallet.’

  Scully took it and slipped back in beside Billie. He watched Irma pack things neatly back into his case and stow it under the bunk beneath him. For a moment, shoving it under with both arms, she lifted her head and met his gaze, her face so close he could smell the Jack Daniels on her breath.

  ‘Sleep, Scully.’

  He lay back as she climbed the bunk. He saw that watermelon dress floating, saw insect bites or cigarette burns on her legs. Her toenails were silver blue, her heels dirty. The ship moved languorously, as if asleep itself, and he felt Billie’s breath against his neck and slipped back into the long blank of sleep, knowing even as he did that he’d regret this, that he was too tired and weak to change his mind.

  Twenty-nine

  WHEN SCULLY WOKE the pair of them were playing Uno in the light of the portal. There was a clanging somewhere below.

  ‘Sleepyhead still in bed,’ said Irma, smiling.

  ‘You snored,’ said Billie.

  Scully lay still. Billie’s hair was brushed and she wore a clean shirt. A pair of her knickers hung damp and wrung out from the knob of the toilet door.

  ‘Morning,’ he murmured uncertainly.

  ‘Irma’s a loser at Uno.’

  ‘She’s probably letting you win. Some people are like that.’

  ‘No. I can tell.’

  ‘She’s like you, Scully.’

  ‘No, she’s her own girl.’

  ‘You want to go to breakfast?’

  ‘Gimme a minute.’

  Scully nursed his morning hard-on till the card game reached a big enough peak of concentration to allow him to slip out of bed and crib across to the toilet.

  ‘Morning glory, my favourite flower,’ said Irma.

  ‘Uno!’ said Billie.

  Irma winked and Billie saw how rosy and soft her lips were. She kind of liked Irma. She could reach her own nose with the tip of her tongue and do rolls with it and fifty funny faces. All the time Scully slept there all twisted on the bunk, Irma and her whispered and giggled. Billie remembered her from the taverna, remembered the dress and those mirror sunglasses. Without the sunnies she didn’t look so grown up, and now that she thought of it, listening to Scully trying to pee quietly down the side of the toilet bowl in there, Irma wasn’t really grown up at all. The way she played cards in her greedy way. She never gave you breaks like an old person. Her tongue stuck out and her giggle was a naughty girl’s giggle. And she asked questions, so many questions – why, why, why – like a kid, so many you did
n’t bother to answer. She was fun, Billie could see, but you couldn’t tell about her heart.

  Billie asked some questions of her own, to see if Irma knew the planets of the solar system and the names of the main dinosaurs (just the basic ones) and who Bob Hawke was. She didn’t have a clue, as if she never went to school or read books at all. She didn’t know about convicts or fish or knots, and she laughed in an embarrassed way, as if she’d been caught out.

  ‘I don’t know much,’ said Irma. ‘I guess I feel things.’

  Billie thought about this. ‘Do you think someone can love too much?’

  Irma just went back to her cards with a sad little smile and said nothing.

  • • •

  SCULLY FLUSHED THE TOILET, pulled the lid down and sat on it. Six hours till Brindisi. Out there he could hear them tittering. Jennifer would never let herself get into a corner like this. She crossed all her T’s and dotted all her I’s. She was organized and he was a fool. Last night this woman had his wallet open and this morning she was dressing his kid. She’s moving in on you, mate, and you’re like a stunned mullet. What is she, a travelling hooker, a rich adventurer, a dipso nutcase? She murdered half a bottle of Jack Daniels last night and this morning she’s giggling, for Chrissake. Still, you had to admit she’s better sober. In the light of day she’s human. But it ate at him, the sound of his daughter chirruping away all of a sudden. After all the sullen quiet. The ache of waiting. Gabbing to a fucking stranger. This Irma. Scully put his elbows on his knees and realized that he was afraid of her and didn’t know why.

  • • •

  OUT ON THE DECK after their pre-digested breakfast, as Billie ran up and down between hungover Germans, Scully let Irma talk. The woman was bursting with a need to share information he didn’t want to hear.