A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists Read online

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  www.transitlounge.com.au

  Copyright ©Jane Rawson 2013

  First Published 2013

  Transit Lounge Publishing

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover and book design: Peter Lo

  Front cover image: Tess Rice

  Back cover image: Kip Scott

  Printed in China by Everbest

  Cataloguing-in-publication entry is available from the

  National Library of Australia: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  978-1-921924-53-8 (e-book)

  For Dumpling, who is now imaginary, and Andy, who is real

  PART

  ONE

  Harry was Caddy’s settling down. She settled into him like a pillow on the couch, a blanket pulled over her, and footy on the TV, falling asleep by three-quarter time on a Friday night. He was knowing that everything would be OK; he was kissing goodbye for a little too long before heading out to work; he was waking up on Sunday morning with plans for each day-by-day, for the little things that build a wall around two people and keep them safe.

  Every day Harry was the same and every day Caddy grinned to see him. She loved to feel his tummy under her fingertips while he stood at the sink washing dishes, her arms wrapped around him from behind. She bought him a hammock where he could drink beer and listen to the cricket on the radio. He wrote songs about her and let her sleep in.

  Eventually, Caddy and Harry got a cat called Skerrick and got married. They knew marriage was silly, but somehow, after it had happened Caddy woke up every day to a Harry a little more solid. Every day, Caddy was a little more sure. They moved to a house down by the dirty river, their neighbours a cluster of gigantic, carefully-lettered oil holding tanks, lit orange by the setting sun and looming into every horizon. Skerrick settled down too, started sleeping through the days and laying on fat.

  Then one day when Caddy had ridden her bike into town, searching out something special for dinner, a hot north wind sprang up and the scrub along the dirty river caught fire. The tanks were well protected, a barrage of water cannons surrounding their perimeter. But on that day, as on many summer days, the city’s power supply was overwhelmed, the pumps failed and no water got to the cannons.

  She felt the whole earth shake when the tanks went up. She thought it was a terrorist bomb down at the train station, though there’d been nothing like that since 2014. She pushed through the cram of people at the Docklands market and craned her neck down to the Cross, but everyone was looking the other way, to the south-west, towards her home. The whole sky burned and only the strong north wind stopped the black cloud engulfing them, even there. Five kilometres away.

  She unchained her bike and started to ride. She knew Harry would need her, that he’d want to know she was alright. The trees were on fire along the edge of Footscray Road, and by the time she had reached within a kilometre of home there was nothing but black.

  That was two years ago. Well, two years, three months and three days ago. Wait. Four days.

  THE LAST RACES OF BRAZIL

  The foot traffic past the bar was getting heavier. She looked at her phone: seven o’clock, the offices downtown clearing out their second shift, the men in pressed shorts, nearly-clean brown shirts, sandals and sun hats or vast umbrellas, walking past on their way home, the UN guys spreading themselves out along the street trying to look like they weren’t there, watching for trouble.

  Caddy had grit in her eye again. Stupid missing sunglasses. She pulled her lower lid down with her finger and poked about, but it didn’t help.

  ‘Jason,’ she called one of the bigger boys over from the street. He’d been trying to rent his mobile phone battery to a passerby, but it wasn’t going well. He ditched the sale and stepped up to her table.

  She pulled five dollars from her wallet. ‘Can you go get me the Herald? This thing is crap.’ As she waved her hand at the free paper she’d been flicking through, she noticed her fingers were blackened from its low-grade ink. ‘If you bring me back enough for another drink you can keep the rest.’

  ‘You want anything else, Cad? Gum? Pigeon?’

  ‘No. I want my drink money though, OK?’

  ‘K.’

  He walked off. As usual, the younger kids followed him, flip-flops and bare feet stirring up the dust. Caddy closed her eyes until it settled, then wiped her fingers on the damp napkin that had insulated her drink from the heat. The ink smeared, and mostly stayed.

  ‘Peira?’ She called out to the back of the bar, dim and shady. There wasn’t an answer, so she turned around, squinted out of the sunshine that washed the street in front of her to a harsh white.

  ‘Peira? You in there?’

  ‘What is it, Caddy? I’m busy.’

  ‘Can we have the fan on out here?’ She tugged at the fan’s cord, demonstrating what she wanted, showing how easy it could be.

  ‘No power. Been out for half an hour or so. You want another drink while we’ve still got cool tonic?’

  ‘I’m OK. It’ll be back on soon, I’ll wait.’ She’d given Jason her last five dollars. He’d probably come back – he liked her business – but there were no guarantees. She probably shouldn’t have wasted her last five dollars on a Herald and a couple of vodka and tonics, but she was pretty sure there’d be more money soon.

  She wiped the sweat off her warming glass, used the moisture to get a little of the ink off her fingers, spread the last traces of cool water across her forehead and the back of her neck to bring her body temperature down just a little. She pulled a couple of curls down on her neck, leaned forward a little to suck on her straw and widened her eyes to watch the passersby.

  ‘Caddy, you can’t do that here.’ Peira’s voice from the back of the bar again.

  ‘Do what? I’m not doing anything. I’m just drinking.’

  ‘Just don’t, OK? I don’t want to kick you out before you’ve even paid for your drink.’ Peira stepped far enough out of the shadows for Caddy to see she was serious.

  ‘OK. But I’m going to have to get some more money if I’m going to come back and buy more drinks. And you know you want me to buy more drinks.’

  Peira didn’t bother answering, but Caddy knew she was right. There were only two other people in the bar apart from Caddy, and they looked like tourists down from the hillside, drinking multi-coloured cocktails with garnishes and sharing a bowl of something tiny and fried. They probably wouldn’t make a second visit.

  ‘Why don’t you come and sit back here?’ Peira called. ‘It’s cooler.’

  ‘It’s stuffy back there. I need to see the street.’

  ‘What for, Cad? It’s so damn hot, I don’t know how you can even look at your notebook with the sun glaring off it like that.’

  ‘I can’t think back there. There’s no breeze.’

  There’s no breeze anywhere, but she does need to keep her eye on the street.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got to stay out here and wait for Jason to bring my paper back. You know you won’t let him in the back of the bar.’

  ‘He steals the ice.’

  Caddy had stolen ice a few times herself, but Peira didn’t know that. ‘He’s OK, Peir, he’s a good kid.’

  ‘Even good kids steal ice.’ Which was true. Not that Caddy was calling herself a good kid.

  She turned back to her drink, sizing up the street and squeezing her elbows into her sides a little to make a bit of cleavage. Almost
immediately the dust between her breasts turned to red, sticky mud from the sweat, so she let her arms relax.

  ‘Can I have another napkin, Peir?’

  ‘You can have another napkin when you buy another drink. We’re not made of napkins.’

  She fished in her pocket for a handkerchief. It was a little damp and sticky, but the moisture picked the dust up nicely. She finished dabbing, pushed her hair out of her eyes and tried to smile and drink at the same time. But the traffic was already drying up, people peeling off to roadside bars or ducking into the cool cavities of massage shops and beauty parlours. She prodded her straw into the last piece of ice, melting into water. She’d missed her chance.

  ‘Ah, cocks.’

  She went back to reading the paper.

  ‘Miss?’ A girl she didn’t know was standing on the street, perched on the edge of the gutter, thrusting a vinyl case forward like it was a game-show prize. ‘Miss?’

  ‘I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Miss, it’s only 50 cents for a manicure.’ Her voice rose up like a question as she unzipped the case and presented three dried up bottles of nail polish and a metal file. ‘50 cents for a manicure, or I do your pedicure too for just 80 cents all together. If you want a head massage, it’s only 90 cents, or all three for two dollars.’

  ‘Just two dollars, eh?’ Caddy smiled at the girl.

  ‘Yes miss.’

  ‘I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Only 50 cents miss!’

  ‘That’s 50 cents more than I have.’

  ‘It will make you pretty miss. For the business men.’

  The girl had a point.

  ‘OK: one manicure, but that’s all.’

  ‘Thank you miss!’ The girl sat down. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Caddy. How about you?’

  ‘Xotchel.’

  ‘Zotshell? Nice! Where’s it from? Sounds like the seaside.’

  ‘From South America. My mother said she saw it in a film about the last races of Brazil. What colour do you want? I think pink is best for you.’

  Caddy was pretty sure she had 50 cents in small change somewhere in her pack, but she was relieved when Jason came around the corner, her paper tucked under his arm and his cohorts following behind. She thought that she’d never seen so much snot in one place in her life. They certainly weren’t made of napkins.

  ‘Here you go, Cad.’ He dropped the paper on the table and pulled a handful of coins from his pocket. He put three dollars of it on the table.

  ‘Jase, I know I said you could keep the change, but could you spare me another 50 cents?’ Caddy whined just a little, gesturing with her head at the girl scrubbing her fingertips with a scrap of rag.

  ‘That’d only leave me 70 cents. That’s not really worth it for me, Cad.’

  ‘Go on! Please?’

  ‘What if you give me the sports section back? I can probably sell that down at the UN bar for 50 cents. I’ll front you the cash, but if it doesn’t sell, you owe me, K?’

  ‘Thanks, Jason.’

  Caddy retrieved her hands from Xotchel and filleted the paper, handing the sports section back to Jason.

  ‘Mind if I sit down for a minute?’ he asked. ‘It’s hot out there.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ She gave her hands back to the girl, rag poised.

  ‘Don’t you touch my ice, young man!’ Peira stepped up to the table, her duct-taped Maseur sandals thwacking on the tiles. ‘You want another drink now, Cad?’

  ‘Is there any cold tonic left?’

  ‘A little.’ She looked around at the now-empty bar, wiping her hands on the ‘Love means … never having to say you’re sorry’ apron she always wore. ‘Do you want it?’

  The edges of the newspaper rustled, lifted and the paper glided off the table and onto the floor.

  ‘Power’s back!’ Caddy turned her face up toward the fan. ‘Can I have my hands for a sec?’ She pulled her top down a little and let the breeze dry the last of the cleavage mud. ‘Awesome! Um, yeah. A vodka and tonic please.’

  ‘Can I have a VB please, Peira?’ Jason asked. ‘Do you want anything?’ he asked the girl, now trimming Caddy’s nails with a pair of hefty sewing scissors.

  She smiled up at him. ‘I haven’t any money,’ she said.

  ‘It’s my shout.’ Jason jangled his seventy cents. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘I’ll have a glass of water, please,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have enough for water, Jason. You want another beer?’ Peira asked.

  ‘Is that OK?’ Jason asked Xotchel. She nodded.

  ‘Two beers, with an ice in each,’ he said.

  ‘Big spender.’ Peira disappeared back into the shadows.

  Jason reached across the table and turned Caddy’s open notebook to face him. ‘What’re you writing, Cad?’

  ‘Read it yourself if you want.’ She was wincing as Xotchel dug around under her fingernails with the metal file, scraping out red grime.

  Xotchel put the file down and picked at Caddy’s cuticles with her fingernails, then started shaking the bottle of polish, topping it up with a little of the remover to turn it slightly liquid.

  Their drinks arrived. She looked over at Jason, running his finger along the words in her notebook. ‘It’s just a little story I’m writing. A thing about a girl who’s trying to measure off America into squares, trying to see everything. All the forests and stuff, the lakes. It’s set in the past; you know, 1997 or something. It’s silly.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it.’ She took a slug of her vodka. ‘Like I said, it’s silly.’

  Jason poured his beer into a glass. He turned his chair towards the street and tipped it back, leaning an elbow on the table. ‘How good is this? Beer. Ice. Pretty girls.’

  ‘It could stand to be a bit cooler,’ Caddy said.

  ‘Well yeah.’

  Caddy stared out at the street again, wishing that she hadn’t lost her last pair of sunglasses. Sooner or later she’d see one of the street kids wearing them and she could buy them back, but she was getting tired of squinting.

  ‘Jase, have you seen anyone with my sunglasses?’

  ‘What’re they like?’

  ‘White frames, pink glass. Pink plastic, really. One arm’s broken. It’s taped back on with electrical tape.’

  He tipped the chair a few more times. ‘Nope, haven’t seen em.’ He took a sip of the beer and Caddy could hear him clicking the ice around between his teeth. He spat it back into the glass. ‘You want me to look out for them?’

  ‘Please. Tell the guys I want them back, if you like.’

  ‘You won’t get a good price that way, Cad.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Finished, miss.’ Xotchel was screwing the lid back on the polish.

  ‘Hey, nice work!’ Caddy held her fingers up and admired them. ‘You were right, I feel like a lady. Give her the 50 cents, will you?’

  Jason slid the coin, the beer and the glass across the table to Xotchel. ‘Here you go, pretty lady.’

  ‘I’m the lady around here,’ Caddy said. No one listened. ‘OK you two, drink up and get out of here. People’ll think I’m your mother.’

  Jason polished off the last of his beer. Xotchel tipped what was left of the melting ice cube into her can and packed away her manicure kit. ‘You want to share?’ She waved the can at Jason.

  ‘Hey sure. Let’s go down to the water. See you, Cad. I’ll bring you back this sports section if it doesn’t sell.’

  She watched them leave, a three-year-old tugging on Xotchel’s arm, asking for a sip of beer.

  ‘Should you really be selling beer to eleven-year-olds, Peira?’ Caddy called to the back of the bar. But Peira was either ignoring her or had gone upstairs for a sleep. She flipped through a few pages of her notebook. It was kind of a crap story. She didn’t know why she was wasting time writing it. She should be looking for work. At least writing didn’t cost anything, not
like watching YouTubes or drinking. Though she couldn’t really write without drinking. She reached for her bag, thinking if she scraped around the bottom of it she might find a few extra dollars. Then she remembered her nails and sighed. They’d take forever to dry. And anyway, there was no money in her pack. If there was, she’d have spent it long ago.

  She stared at the street again, willing the sun to go down, and opened her Herald. It was pretty much solid crap. After five minutes reading she called to one of the kids outside. ‘Hey! Want to buy this paper for a dollar? You could get $1.50 for it, it’s today’s.’ She remembered it was missing the sports section and felt a bit bad, but what the hell: the little jerk probably had her sunnies.

  ‘I’ll give you 50 cents for it.’

  ‘A dollar.’

  ‘60 cents.’

  ‘90 cents.’

  ‘I’ll give you 75, that’s all. I saw Jason take the sports section.’

  Damn.

  ‘OK, 75 cents.’

  ‘Done.’ He stepped up to the table and counted the money out in grimy tens and fives, tucked the paper under his arm and crossed the street to hassle a UN soldier. She could hear him calling, ‘Mister, hey mister! Today’s Herald, cheap! Only two dollars, mister!’

  The soldier pulled a five from his pocket and handed it over.

  ‘I’ve got no change, mister.’

  She couldn’t hear, but could see him gesturing across the street at her. The kid came back. ‘Miss, can you change this five dollars?’

  ‘No I can’t change it: do I look like I’m made out of napkins?’

  He just stared at her.

  ‘Peira, can you change this kid’s five dollars? Peira!’ No reply. ‘Sorry, kid.’

  ‘Can you look in the till for me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Dude, you are five years old, don’t swear like that.’

  He stormed back across the street.

  She watched as the kid gestured back at her. The soldier waved his hand dismissively, and took the paper. He was paying five dollars for a paper? Without a sports section? Where did these guys get their money? She poked her straw around in the bottom of her glass, took what she estimated was her second-last sip and returned to her notebook, hoping to while away a little more time, maybe till the sun went down.