The wide Cairns streets close to the sea were buffeted by salty wind. Palm trees, tall and top-heavy, bent back and forth, back and forth, as though mimicking the waves. On the corner the salmon pink of the apartment block stuck out against the whites and bricks and blues, a square-edged slice of sunset sky, the ripples and foamy breaks of the waves reflected in the aluminum-edged glass of the windows. Alison counted them—three up, two across; there it was. Her bedroom, or what was once her bedroom. Their bedroom. She scanned the lower floors, wondered which window Simone’s things were behind. Did he live there too? Or had he, before Simone disappeared?
She sunk a little lower in her seat, checked the doors were locked, tried to shake the ludicrous feeling that he was here. But maybe he was. The rental car smelled of carpet shampoo and the residual grease of the cheeseburger she’d eaten on the way in from the airport. Her car was left behind in Sydney. The plane ticket cost too much, but the drive would have cost her more. She didn’t want to be on the road anymore. She didn’t want to find traces of him wherever she was.
In the late afternoon the sun sunk into the deep blue out behind the breakers and the windows turned from cool azure to fierce ochre and blazed like flames in squares against the fish-belly-pink concrete. Alison cracked the door, let the soup of the tropical summer hit her full on, air so damp it clung to her skin and snuck up her nose and stuck in the back of her throat. Hair flat on her already moistened forehead, eyes squinting into the sunset, she walked away from the apartment block, headed instead for the shop on the other corner, the corner store with Streets ice cream signs plastered over the front windows, a long-busted fluorescent street sign hand painted with the words “Millie’s Milk Bar.”
She pushed open the door, heard the familiar jangle of the bell, saw the rows of fridges to the left, the dusty shelves of potato chips and Jatz crackers and Old El Paso dips and Tim Tams and butternuts and ginger nuts and Pizza Shapes and every other thing you could imagine wanting at two in the morning, or when you were ten years old. Even as the bell continued to twitch in the doorframe, no one emerged from behind the streamers that separated the shop from the home behind it.
Alison heard the rustle of the streamers, the shuffle of tennis shoes on the floor, and looked up. She didn’t know this person.
“What do you need, love?” It was an older woman with a shock of rust-dyed hair, a navy blouse, and white pants, all the brighter against the dullness of the store’s insides. Alison was surprised. She’d been expecting Mr. Huang.
“I’m Chris Waters; I’m a journalist. I’m writing a story about the girl from up here that died in the fires down in Victoria last week. I know she lived in that block across the road.” It just came out. Chris didn’t have to be a man’s name. This lie was better than the truth would be.
The woman stood a little taller. “I’m gonna be in the paper, then?”
“Well, that depends on if you knew her. Simone Arnold. Blond woman, early thirties. Lived in that salmon-colored block across the street. Had a boyfriend called Gil.” Alison caught her mistake. “Michael. Big guy, tall.”
“Oh sure, yeah, I knew Simone. She’d be in here mostly for eggs or bread. Lovely girl. Really pretty that one, when she wasn’t wearing sunglasses covering half her face.” The woman squinted at Alison, eyes creeping over every millimeter of her. “You know, she looked a bit like you actually. ’Bout the same height. Same look in her eyes, when I could see ’em.”
“Sunglasses? In here?”
The silence filled the dusty room right up. “Helps prevent questions when a pretty face ain’t so pretty, doesn’t it?”
So it was obvious to everyone. Gil had gotten worse. “She was being hit?”
“I’m not accusing anyone. I’m saying sometimes she’d come in here and it’s dark as night or storming something fierce and she’s wearing those sunnies. Sometimes, she’d come in on a blinder, sun so hot it’d melt ya, and she’s not even wearing a hat. I’m no fool.”
“Did you ever see her with the boyfriend?” Alison could feel the flush rising in her face as she tried to stay calm, tried to be someone else, even if just for a few minutes.
“Sure, but they usually came in separate. He’d come in for ciggies, sometimes he’d come in real late, buy some Coke, although you could already smell the Bundy on him, didn’t need the mixer. Never said two words together to me, just whacked the money down, waited for his change, counted out the coins to make sure every last cent was there.”
“You didn’t like him much, then?”
“Didn’t have an opinion past those sunglasses she wore. Says a lot about a bloke, doesn’t it? He didn’t say boo to me, but when Katie was working I’d hear him, all honey.”
“Katie?”
“My daughter. She’s at university in Brisbane but comes home for the summers, helps me in the shop.”
“I see. Have you seen him lately?” Alison thought she probably should be pretending to take notes or something.
“You want to know about the one who died? Why you askin’ about her boyfriend?” The woman leaned her heavy elbows on the counter, squinted across the distance straight into Alison’s skull.
“Police in Melbourne say he’s of interest.”
“What does that mean? He set the bloody fire?”
“They don’t know for sure how most of the fires started.”
“He wasn’t someone I’d want to see Katie go round with, but I don’t think he’d be that stupid. Too charming to be thick.”
They stared at each other. Alison felt like this was a wrestling match and she was losing. “So, you think he’s still up here, then?”
“Haven’t seen him for months. Can’t say I’ve missed him.”
“Is there anything else about him or about Simone you remember?” What a waste of time this was. Alison felt so bloody stupid. There was probably nothing in Cairns that she couldn’t have learned talking to Simone’s parents in Lake Bend.
“Simone had a new friend. Came in with her a coupla times last month. Good-looking fella he was, always smiling.”
“A new boyfriend?”
“I dunno. Coulda been. Never saw her touch him, or the other way. He was just always with her. She’s in here, so’s he.” Alison suddenly felt panicked. What had she missed? Who was he?
“All right, thanks a lot. I think that’s all we need for now.” She nodded at the woman, went to leave.
“Hang on. Don’t you want my name for the paper?” Alison didn’t have a pen or paper. She didn’t have anything to make her look legitimate. She thought about the real Chris Waters. How mad would he be when he found out what she’d been doing up here?
“Yes, sorry, it’s been a long day and I forgot to ask.”
“Not much chop, then, are ya?” The woman screwed up her nose.
“What’s your name, then?” Alison took out her phone, pretended to get it ready to take the note.
“Something not quite right here.” She reached over to the phone by the cash register. “Don’t have to give you it, do I?”
“Well, no, but if you don’t, how will I put your name in the paper?” The woman stared at Alison for a long time. A fly buzzed in the light overhead, amplified on the worn countertop between them. She didn’t reply, so Alison shrugged, began backing out of the shop. “No worries, I can put it on background.”
“What’s that?” The woman was punching numbers on the keypad of the phone.
“Don’t put you in the story, just use the information to help me pull it together. So nice to meet you.” Alison raised her hand to wave good-bye, used the other one to back all the way out of the store and into the street. What a disaster. She looked across the street to the fish-and-chip place. Her stomach rumbled. Still nestled in her hand, her phone began to vibrate. The number was Billy’s. She ignored the call. Crossed the busy Esplanade and pushed through the slick of plastic ribbons that buffeted the front door of Frankie’s Fish Spot.
She ordered the flake and minimum chips, extra lemon and tartar sauce, plenty of chicken salt. The man behind the counter barely spoke to her, just took the money, gave her a number, pointed to the back when Alison asked if there was a bathroom. Alison took the plastic square with 43 scrawled on it in black felt pen, shoved it in her pocket, and headed for the toilet.
In the scruffy light of the windowless room, she pulled her damp hair off her forehead, rinsed her shiny face in the sink, and pissed as fast as she could, butt smacked on the cold plastic toilet seat. She hated women who hovered, like their arses were some kind of holy ground, dribbling piss everywhere for the next woman to avoid. Alison thumbed around in her phone while she went, trying not to think too much about the sunglasses Simone had walked around this neighborhood wearing like a disguise.
After that first time, Gil never hit Alison’s face. He knew better, or he didn’t want the looks from people like that woman at Millie’s. Why had that changed? Maybe it hadn’t; maybe he didn’t share a workplace with Simone, so he didn’t have to worry too hard about his chickens coming home to roost. Alison’s head throbbed. Her skin crawled, itching from the inside out as her location sunk right back in. Cairns had never felt right. Gil had just made it hard for her to move on, until he hadn’t anymore.
At the pass Alison scrutinized the dockets. “Where’s the pork chop for table six?” She squinted through the steam and rush of chefs in whites, tried to catch the new guy’s eye. He was calling it tonight, and he’d already stuffed up two of her tables.
“Six? I’ve got two steak, one prawn linguine, one pork chop, right?” He connected, locked into her stare, met it with an overly familiar smile.
“Sure, but there’s no pork chop here and the linguine is getting cold.”
“So take it and the steaks. By the time you’re back the pork’ll be up. You can’t carry it all anyway.”
Alison sighed. Loaded the plates onto her arm, and with her free hand pushed through the doors. “I could carry four, you know,” she called back.
As the doors closed behind her she heard him say, “What would you open the door with then?” She rolled her eyes, took the plates to the table, smiled as she put them down, turned to hustle back to the kitchen for the pork. He was right behind her, plate in hand, but it was too late, the momentum too great, and even as she tried to stop it she felt her chest upend the plate, the heat of it shocking as the pork chop flew up and hit her in the chin and mashed potatoes squelched into her. The shock of it made her scream, and if she’d been paying better attention maybe she’d have noticed the flash of pleasure that passed across his face before his eyes widened in apparent horror.
“Fuck me!” Alison had yelled, unable to help herself. Gasps and muffled laughter echoed around the dining room as the pork chop bounced onto the carpet and she whipped the potatoes from her bust with her fingers, shaking them off her hand onto the floor. They scalded where she touched them, where she left them, where they’d landed in the first place. The little blobs fell in a splatter pattern around her.
“Shit, I’m so sorry!” He was trying to help, using the tea towel tucked into his waist band to wipe potatoes from her chest. Alison grabbed it, pushed his hand away.
“Don’t touch me. What are you doing out here?”
“It was ready right as you left, so I figured I’d save you the trip.” He shrugged his shoulders, smiled.
She heard her mother’s voice in her head. Butter wouldn’t melt. Alison pushed past him, saying it under her breath.
“Wait, what did you say?” He stopped to apologize to the table—who were now down a pork chop—pick up what he could of the mess, and head back to the kitchen. Alison didn’t wait for him. She didn’t wait to yell at him in the kitchen either. She went straight to the staff break room, locked the door, pulled off her starch-covered shirt, and leaned over the sink. The water was so cold, it raised bumps all over, but it felt good on her pinked skin. Alison had to take off her bra; it was soaked. She put the soiled clothes in a plastic bag and found her plain-clothes shirt in her bag. Pulled it on. There’d been knocking on the door for quite some time, but she’d ignored it. Now, clean and dressed, she pulled it open, expecting the new guy from behind the pass. It was her floor manager.
“You all right?” She was brusque, like Alison had caused the problem.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’ll be any lasting damage.”
“Good. You should go home. You can’t work like that anyway.” The woman’s mouth was pressed firmly in a line.
“Are you pissed at me?” Alison tried to stay calm. “I didn’t do anything wrong. That new chef followed me out on the floor and stood right behind me with a hot plate of food.”
“Well, he’s not my responsibility. But when we have to comp a meal on the floor, that’s my responsibility.” She wouldn’t look Alison in the eye.
“Fuck, Rebecca, I didn’t drop anything, I didn’t do anything.” That fucking guy.
In the bathroom, caught up in the memory of how it all started, Alison had lost track of time. Outside she heard her number being called. Forty-three? Forty-three? Where’s forty-three? She pulled her pants up, flushed the loo, washed her hands and shook them dry, and popped out into the fluorescent incubator.
“That’s me!” She waved the plastic ticket in the air, having fished it from her pocket as she scrambled between the tables to the counter. The man rolled his eyes, pressed a piping-hot roll of butcher’s paper into her soggy hands. “Thanks so much,” she said, ripping an air hole in the paper so the chips would stay crisp and heading back out into the muggy twilight. Her phone trilled in her hand, and she looked at it. Chris Waters. She rolled her eyes. This guy. Leaning on the hood of her rental, the paper-wrapped fish-and-chips spread out before her, she answered, shoveling a too-hot chip into her mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Hello to you too, Alison.”
“I’m eating dinner—what do you want?”
A pause. Chris Waters cleared his throat. “I would like to know why I am in Cairns asking questions about Simone in local milk bars, apparently now a woman.”
Alison had been shoving a greasy hunk of crumbed flake into her mouth as he spoke. She choked it down too fast, the crumbs catching in her windpipe as she breathed. She coughed.
“Alison?”
“Yeah, sorry.” She was still coughing. She reached through the open window of the rental and pulled the water bottle from the console, chugged down enough to stop the coughing. “You’re obviously not, so I wouldn’t worry.”
He laughed. “That’s all you’re going to say? What are you doing in Cairns, Alison? You’re not the cops. You’re not even a bloody journalist. If this Michael Watson is as dangerous as you seem to think, what on earth are you doing?”
“I just . . . He’s not up here.” Alison was already kicking herself for saying this. Chris wouldn’t miss the implication.
“You’ve talked to him?”
“I haven’t seen him, no.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing here. She was coming to me. She wanted to see me. So I thought, I dunno, maybe if I came here, I would be able to figure out why. Ask some questions.” It sounded so stupid when she said it. She didn’t know how to say she was running away, and running toward answers at the same time. She didn’t want him to comprehend her fear.
“This isn’t a bloody Jack Irish novel. You’re not an investigator. And you have to stop pretending to be me.”
“All right, I hear you, geez.”
“I’m serious, Alison. Get out of there. It’s not smart or safe for you to be up there if he’s around.”
“I promise, he’s not. And you know what else isn’t in Cairns? A fucking tinderbox waiting to burn at the first spark. I feel like I can fucking breathe up here. Maybe it’s that simple.”
“We both know you aren’t running away from the fires. This is about Simone.”
Alison squeezed the sides of the tartar sauce packet together, eking out the tangy cream onto the greased paper. “Why can’t it be both? I gotta go.” Before he had a chance to say anything else, she hung up.
Across the Esplanade, the sea brooded, calm but dark in the dusky light. She lifted the warmed lemon wedge and squashed it over the fish. Broke the flake apart with her fingers and smeared it in the tartar. She couldn’t answer Chris Waters’s questions because she didn’t really know herself.