Over by the register a fat golden cat sat winking. One beckoning paw swung back and forth in a small robotic motion. It was inched up to the very edge of the countertop alongside a large bowl of complimentary fortune cookies, each wrapped in glittering plastic. Its painted face smiled. Smiled and winked and waved. Sam wondered if it was supposed to be waving goodbye. Back turned to the customers who came in from the street, it instead looked into the restaurant, peering out, one-eyed, over the room, taking in the red decor and the golden trim, the line drawings of mountain villages and yellowed photographs of koi fish. Looking in at the families gathered in circles around their steaming plates, watching over it all. Winking and waving.
Somewhere near the door to the kitchen a tape of Chinese pop songs was playing. The sound was cheery and bright, even if Sam couldn’t make out what any of it meant, and every time the waiter entered with new dishes to deliver it was muffled, until the door swung shut.
‘Sammy, you’ve barely touched your dinner there.’ Dettie gestured with her knife.
He poked his fork back into his plate of oyster beef, weighing up which bit of curled onion or withered green leaf to try next. He’d actually wanted honey chicken, but Dettie had misinterpreted what he was pointing at on the menu, and he hadn’t realised until the meals were delivered and it was too late to correct. Katie had ordered sweet and sour pork, and was now chasing bright pink pieces of carrot around on her plate with a spoon.
Dettie, who seemed wary of anything too unusual, had ordered an omelette, and spent much of her time slicing out anything suspicious before lifting each bite to her mouth.
‘Eat up. We’ve had a long day, but it’s going to be even longer tomorrow.’
She sipped from her cup of black tea.
‘In fact, that’s what I want to talk to you children about,’ she said. ‘We need to get straight what’s going to happen. Okay? Because it’s a long way to Perth. A very, very long way. Days even.’
‘Days?’ Katie set down her spoon. Her jaw hung open, her lips stained red.
‘Yes. Days, Katie. It’s going to be very tiring for us all. So we’ll all have to be on our best behaviour. We don’t want any attitude. No complaining. No getting upset. It’s just the three of us, travelling together for days, and if we don’t help each other out it’s not going to be much fun at all.’
Katie harrumphed and sagged in her chair.
‘I’m going to need all your help. But at the end of it we’ll be back with your daddy again. Won’t that be nice?’
‘When’s Daddy going to meet us?’
‘At Perth, silly. He’s got a whole house set up for us. Bedrooms for both you kids. A big backyard. Bigger than your little place in Sydney. My goodness. Houses in Perth? You’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Is that why he moved there?’
Dettie prodded a piece of grey meat off her fork and into a pile on her serviette. She was shaking her head.
‘Well, he got his job, didn’t he, sweetie? So he could take care of you. It just took your mummy a little while to see that, that’s all.’
‘See what?’
‘Katie, this really isn’t our business. That’s Mummy and Daddy’s concern. All we need to know is that they’ve sorted it out—thank goodness. And now it’s just like the old days.’
While Dettie was talking it struck Sam, all at once, that his father hadn’t seen him since he lost his voice. When they met again, he wouldn’t even be able to say hello.
At the next table, a pretty girl, around twelve, in a green tartan dress, sat eating dinner with her family. She and her family were Chinese, and Sam was struck by her beautiful thick black hair, cut straight and framing her face; she was like something from a magazine. She was partly the reason Sam hadn’t corrected the mistake with his order. Although her family were all sharing their dishes, the girl had given herself a large portion of something that looked very similar to what he was eating, and she seemed to be enjoying it. He watched her from the corner of his eye, blushing.
She was quiet too, but unlike Sam, who felt like he was twisting inside, she appeared to be very relaxed. She took small portions of food and chewed them up, wiping her lips neatly. When her parents and grandparents spoke to her she smiled, but rarely replied. He was nervous about his stoma, and tried to hide the vent with his napkin. But when she finally looked over and noticed him, she smiled.
It felt wonderful. Even in his dorky singlet. Even with the faint aroma of vomit still in his nostrils. She smiled at him and he felt his cheeks glow.
Katie was asking about Roger—what was going to happen with him and their mother?
Dettie reacted as though she had swallowed something vile. ‘That was nothing,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about all that. Roger and your mother were just friends. I’m sure he’s happy for them both.’
Katie was turning the lazy Susan, watching the soy sauce bottle spin in place. ‘Mummy said she liked him.’
Dettie waved the comment away with her knife. ‘I’m sure they got on very well,’ she said. ‘He seemed like a nice fellow. But these sorts of relationships don’t work out.’
‘What sorts?’
Dettie swallowed her mouthful of omelette. ‘You’ll realise this when you’re older, kids, but people are attracted to what’s familiar. Roger might have been lovely—who knows?—but he comes from a very different background. Different from us. Now I’m not saying bad—but different. Different values.’
Sam remembered overhearing what his mother had said to that. The disgust in her voice. He was sure it wasn’t true. His mother had broken up with Roger because of their father—not because he was Aboriginal. People could be attracted to things that were different.
The girl with the lush hair scooped more white rice onto her plate. He watched Dettie eating the rest of her omelette, dissected until it was just boring old eggs, then looked down at his own meal. The meat and vegetables were a mural of colour and texture beneath the brown sauce. Carrots cut into little stars. Red and green strips of capsicum. And even though his meal had cooled, he relished loading up his fork and filling his mouth. For his mother, for the way the pretty girl at the next table made him feel in his belly, he savoured its salty tang.
‘Your mother and father have a history. That’s what it is.’ Dettie adjusted herself in her chair. ‘Did I mention she told me on the phone that it was just like old times? Her and your father. Just like old times, she said.’
The black-haired girl’s family rose from their table and gathered their things. They made their way to the door, her father speaking warmly with the restaurant staff as he settled the bill. When the woman at the cash register offered, the girl reached up to take a fortune cookie from jar. Her shoes, a black patent leather, glistened as she stretched. She unwrapped her cookie and snapped it open, unfolding the slip of paper. As she read her future she moved her hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear and revealing the cream plastic of a large hearing aid. It was so thick that it actually pushed her ear forward slightly as it wrapped around the lobe.
Was that why she was so friendly towards him? Had she only smiled because she saw that he had a handicap too? Was Dettie right? Were people only attracted to what was familiar?
He heard his aunt scratching through her purse beside him, preparing to pay for the meal, and was vaguely surprised by the wad of cash she withdrew from a zipped compartment. It was more money than Sam had ever seen in one place before, but he didn’t think much of it; instead he watched the girl’s family file out into the street, each squinting at the last of the sunset bathing the footpath a ruddy orange. As the girl left, she smiled at him one final time—perfect teeth, straight and white—and stepped beyond the glass. He waved, but she was already gone.
Only the fat golden cat remained, waving back at him. Silent and winking.
■
It was almost midnight when they pulled into a rest stop off the highway. When he opened his eyes, Sam was surprised by the darkness. His arm felt fuzzy where it had been pressed against the doorhandle. His mouth was dry and he still felt the heat of the day on his skin. Katie had curled her legs up and squashed the side of her face into the back of her seat. Hair stuck to her lips. She’d drooled all down her seatbelt.
The car drifted to a stop beneath a tree, its engine rattling slightly before it sighed into silence. Dettie pulled on the parking brake and flicked off the headlights. Sam heard her scratching in the glove box before the ceiling light came on. Dettie’s face was lit orange as she leant over her seat, stretching, to tug the cushions out from under the back window.
‘Oh, are you awake, Sammy?’ she whispered. She passed him a pillow and hunted beneath Katie’s seat for a blanket.
Sam nodded and closed his eyes. The pillow cooled his cheek. He heard the sound of material being tugged free, and Dettie’s grunting. Dust tickled his tongue as he felt the blanket fall across his body, up over his shoulders.
Another car hummed by on the highway. Through the glass Sam heard leaves being stirred by the wind. They seemed papery and distant in the back of his ears, hushing him back to sleep.
■
Still night. Breeze. Smoke. Feet stretched against the door. A buckle digging into his back. Sam opened his eyes. The ceiling light was off and a strand from the blanket tickled the inside of his ear. Dettie’s door was open. She sat with her legs out of the car, thumbing a cigarette. There was moonlight tangled in her hair. She was whispering something—a prayer? a song?—her mouth barely moving as she stared into the dark and let the smoke peel from her lips. A whistle started in Katie’s nose. It sounded far away to Sam, echoing, like a squeal coming over the hills.
All afternoon he had been reading about zombies. Every time he finished his comic book, he would immediately turn back to the first page to start over. Even though reading it in the car had made him feel nauseous again, he would drink in a few panels of each page before looking up at the scenery until the queasiness passed. And now, in the middle of the night, Katie’s nose shrieking softly, zombies were all he could think about. Brightly coloured zombies that crawled out from the bushes and ripped apart cars. He could still picture each image of the undead, now stretching their rotting fingers towards him. Breaking through glass, through upholstery. Punching metal. Snarling. Tearing skin from silky white bone and snapping at his throat. He could almost feel his old stitches—long healed now—pulling against his flesh.
Sam tucked his feet under the blanket and wondered when the sun was going to come up. The darkness made it hard to read his watch. He held it to his eyes and strained to make out the digits. The clock face had been scratched the week before he’d gone to hospital. Carrying a bowl of tomato soup out onto the veranda, Sam had tripped on one of Katie’s shoes and it had scraped on the concrete. Dettie and his mother had been outside talking, and when he fell they hurried over to gather him up. The bowl was smashed, and at first he hadn’t noticed his watch for the pain in his knees. He remembered his mother later spraying the soup away with a hose.
He tilted his watch towards the window. The scratch across its face glistened in the light, but beneath it the numbers were an indistinguishable black.
Sam closed his eyes, nuzzled down on the seat. No more cars passed on the highway. It was still and quiet. A strange, familiar quiet. The scent of cigarette smoke crept in through the window. Dettie went on puffing quietly, muttering into her hands. Trying to banish the ravenous zombie hordes from his mind, Sam thought about his mother and couldn’t sleep. How far behind them was she? And what had his father said to convince her to come back?