SIXTEEN

More dead people wash in on the fresh tide. I watch from the grassy verge down to where the whales breach the bay.

Now it

is home we can spend

some

time together.

I’m cold with rushing water, breathing through my ears. Hold them shut, but it doesn’t do much to block out the songs of the giant watery hosts to the worst Christmas ever.

It came

back.

Welcome home.

An engine starts out on the bay — police finally getting their shit together to get a boat out there. At the sound of it, the whales splinter like someone has thrown a rock at a song,

Was that the

window. Why

is the bed

unmade.

Where

has my life

gone.

Their giant confusion sends shock waves over the bay that has people crawling out of the water. Gasping up the bank.

Where. Are

you there.

Calling, not for us now, but for each other. A breach further out. The phone ringing and ringing. News you never want to hear. Then just the slosh slosh of the waves.

Drunken laughter from the pub on the corner. They’re celebrating the whole world up there. And here I’ve lost my babies, with no one to say don’t shoot yourself, Jeanie. Don’t chuck yourself back in the ocean. Don’t take a drill to your skull and forget to stop. The only other person who was at the funeral sidles up the bank.

‘Drink?’ He’s not a trepan zombie, and no church that was worried about their donation box would have him, so I find myself following his skinny arse further up the bank to where people spew out of the pub and onto the pavement. Quieter inside. The guy pulls up a seat for me at the bar.

‘I buried my brother today,’ he tells me.

Can’t find it in myself to care about his brother. The bartender has pink lipstick the exact colour of her eyes. Pours me a shot of vodka for free because my wallet seems to have gone the way of everything else. I take the shot. Wipe my mouth. My blood buzzes.

‘Have you seen my son?’ I ask the bartender. ‘Lovely looking. He was here. Now he’s gone.’ I almost expect Lee to walk through the door there.

‘How about your old man?’ the guy suggests.

I take him in. He’s either in his forties or hard living has sent him there. That washed-out face. I know this guy. Met him a million times before. ‘Old man’s long gone too.’

He takes this as an invitation to sit. ‘The zooflu is nuts. Supposed to be finding a cure but where is it? I’m from out west. Thought I’d seen everything. Why aren’t you in there, anyway?’ His head flicks toward the bay.

‘Why aren’t you?’

We fiddle with our empty shot glasses. My bloody heart washed clean, resting on a bed promised by whales.

‘It’s the fish.’

Feel for my face. It’s there. Sticking out like normal. I’m alive.

‘The fish,’ he goes on. ‘The internet reckons they were poisoned, way back, from that nuclear stuff over in Fuck You Sumo or whatever.’

‘Fukushima.’ The bartender’s eyes glint. Pours me another. The man holds up a finger. She rolls her eyes but pours him one too.

‘Yeah, maybe they got poisoned and then the cows ate them, and then we ate them —’

‘Cows don’t eat fish,’ the bartender tells him. ‘Cats do. My old cat. Tizzy Puss. She was a nice cat. Now she says fucked-up shit.’ The tender leans on the bar. Some spilt drink bleeds up her singlet. She whispers, ‘You know how they bring chewed-up mice and birds? Everyone always said it’s a gift or they’re trying to feed us. It’s bullshit.’ That cat back at the house. Her invisible kittens.

‘What is it, then?’

‘They’re catching time.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Some fucked-up clock. Like, if they stop the mouse they control time.’

I lean away from the bar. ‘Animals don’t have time.’

‘You come over to my place and wait a couple of days until Tizzy Puss kills something and knocks it around the house. All she talks about is the passing and the movement and on and on. If I lock her out, she screams at the window until I go fucking nuts. Wanted to drill my skull, but I chickened out.’ She pours me another shot. Points with a pink polished nail at my ranger shirt, the bit that Sue ripped out of it.

‘Dog. In the water. If it wasn’t for her, my son would still be —’

‘I had a dog who would always try to save me too,’ the fella chimes in. ‘Yeah. “Rio”. Lovely boy. But he never let me swim. If I could talk to him now.’

The bartender sets the bottle behind the bar and goes off to serve a couple of girls who look like they should be in after-school care.

‘Doesn’t make any difference,’ I say to myself. The guy’s right there. His eyes shine red. He reaches an impossibly long arm over the bar and nabs the vodka bottle, tucks it between his knees before that bartender can even turn around.

‘How about you help me with this?’

We take off down to the bay, but there’s still people climbing over police tape to peer at the empty water — no songs, nothing homely about it now. Lee buried with the others on the rise. Behind the sailing-club sheds is the line of Norfolk pines and beyond that, the oval with a cricket pitch. It’s cold and dark. The vodka warms me. Night birds over in the trees won’t go to sleep, voices float over the oval,

Fold it.

Tuck it back like that.

I’ll eat your face. I’ll tie

it together, stranger.

The way their voices tickle my skin, I half think it’s Kimberly calling.

Like that.

‘You hear them?’ I ask the guy. He sits so close to me his leg touches mine. Can’t remember if his name’s Shane or Shawn. Leans in for a kiss. I pull back. ‘What’s your name again?’

‘Shay,’ he says and tries to stick his hand down the front of my pants.

I lie back on the spongy grass to help him. ‘I thought that was a girl’s name.’

He’s wriggling around down there, but he doesn’t know his business. I point him in the right direction. Think of that bartender from the pub. She probably knows her way around a vagina. Shove him off me and grab the vodka bottle for a swig. He looks so sad there on the ground. Fingers splayed like he’s touched something yucky. I yank his pants down to show him how it’s done. His ding-a-ling white and floppy in the moonlight. Pop it in my mouth, cold and soft on my tongue. A dead slug. Doesn’t come to life no matter how hard I try. I sit back.

‘Of all the luck.’

He looks like he’s about to cry. ‘I drank too much.’

I pat his bare leg. ‘Don’t worry about it, mate. I need a good sleep anyway. Taking my family up north in the morning.’ I blink. Let out a sound.

‘We could have a cuddle,’ he suggests. ‘We could just, you know, go back to your place.’

Something moves through the shadows under the pines.

Yesterday.

‘What happened to that dog?’

Shay looks around. ‘What dog?’

‘Wouldn’t let you swim.’

‘Oh, Rio.’ He lies back, hands behind his head. ‘I stopped taking him to the reservoir because he wouldn’t let me go out like I wanted to. Kept trying to save me. Grabbing at my shirt or my hand. I yelled at him until he stayed at home. I guess he wandered off to do something else and the neighbour got him. Ran him over.’

Look for the shape under the pines, but it’s gone.

‘I’ve got to —’

‘Okay.’

He walks with me back over the oval and gives me a peck on the cheek at the pines. Sweet, like I’m his auntie.

All around this town, people are pulling doors shut and turning keys. Locking themselves in for the night. In the pub, in the grave. Sue and her cages — home and prison all at once. Well, I’ve got a van, and Sue’s beside it: body quiet. Lee would be as real to me.

‘I see what you were trying to do out there with those whales, Sue,’ I call out. She watches me stagger down the road until I reach her. ‘You were really trying to save me. I wish you’d gone for Lee, but, anyway, I understand. I forgive you.’ Stretch out my bad hand. She bites it. Sinks a tooth right into the rotting cut. I feel the pain in my own teeth. The world stiffens, goes soft, and a vomitus tide of colour sweeps over my face. Sue says something. I buckle down and cover my ear with my good hand. Sue, sick of waiting, nips my fingers, my hair.

Get up, Bad

Dog.

Sit

up. Now.

I don’t. She bites my ear so hard I feel for blood.

Get up, Little

Bitch.

There’s half a packet of bread on the ground by the car. Tooth marks in the plastic and crusts. I didn’t think I’d ever want to eat again, but I go for it.

Lickspittle, get

back.

I stare at Sue. ‘I said I forgive you.’

She puts one paw on the packet and starts ripping into it. Jaws singing,

I’m the

Queen Mum. It eats

later.

‘I don’t think so.’ Thunder from her wolf throat that rumbles my bones.

It eats after

me.

Sue’s yellow teeth glow when she slashes through the bread. I tuck my hand under my breast to keep it warm. Wait. After a while, Sue jumps into the camper and curls up on the bed. I can make out the white tip of her tail.

Go on then

arse

sniffer.

I should kick her again. Refuse to eat the food and starve to death here. The thought that she might eat my remains forces me to move. Hunched over like the old woman I’m going to be, not the underling she keeps calling me. Grab the crusts and chew them down, slumped over the little table by the carpeted couch.

Bad Dog

who eats.

‘You can stop calling me a Bad Dog for starters.’

I’m the

Queen. It’s

the baby.

‘No.’

The plan is to

follow.

Watch. Eat what I give it. Lower

than me.

Fight when I

bite. (Get

started. Be fresh.)

‘Why are you being like this? We need to go back to the way we —’

It’s not here, it’s

gone.

It was here.

Now it’s gone.

I swallow. ‘Gone?’

It’s gone.

‘Sue —’

Stop barking.

‘S—’

Shut

it. Listen.

I listen. To dogs and cats muttering at each other in the dark. To the rain scattering over the campervan roof like sand. Once I’ve listened for what seems like forever — time doesn’t know me anymore — Sue gets closer. Jumps up on the couch seat beside me. I cringe from her mouth but inside it is a tender tongue. Nuzzles into my bad hand and begins to lick. It hurts. I start to blubber. She’s more gentle, licking the green pus. When she finishes, it’s cleaner. Even feels a bit better. Put my face in her furry side, which smells like grime and warmth and beach, and cry my guts out.