GSOH

On the Friday morning, Caddy woke up on the bank of the river, the sun shining full in her face.

‘What the fuck?’ she said, trying to shake her headache loose.

‘Hey Cad,’ Lanh was sprawled out next to her. Neither of them seemed to be naked.

As she sat up, Caddy’s temporary amnesia cleared.

‘Hey. How’re you feeling this morning, Lanh? How’s your head?’

‘Oh yeah, a bit sore.’

Lanh had brought the Cruiser, like he’d promised, and they’d drunk that. But he’d also brought a bottle of Passion Pop, creamed off the top of another delivery he’d been charged with. Caddy had warned him that business wouldn’t last at that rate, but he didn’t seem to care. Caddy knew how he felt; you take what you can when you can, cause whatever you do it won’t last. Though considering the state of things this morning, it seemed like she hadn’t taken Lanh when she had the chance.

‘That Passion Pop was pretty great stuff,’ she said. ‘I’ve never had champagne before. It’s sweet!’

‘Sure gets you drunk, eh?’

‘Yep.’ The evening was falling back into place. As far as she could figure out, the last thing she could remember was lying on the ground looking up at Lanh, while he told her about this incredible sauce his grandmother used to make for fish. Yep, that was pretty much it. She guessed she must have fallen asleep. ‘Did I fall asleep while you were talking, man?’

‘I dunno,’ Lanh stared into the middle distance. ‘Yeah, maybe. Not sure. I think I fell asleep while I was talking.’

‘We should get out of the sun,’ she said. ‘You want to wash up? I’ve got some soap. Or something for breakfast?’

‘Nah man, I’m cool, I should get up to Sunny, open the place up. How about you, what’re you doing?’

‘Ah, maybe I should tidy up around here a bit.’ She put her hand in her pocket, pulled out a five dollar bill. ‘Oh! Hey, actually, can I come up to Sunny with you? I need to use the web.’

He gave her a bit of a look.

‘Don’t worry, I can pay this time!’

‘Cool, OK, thanks. I’m all out of deliveries for now!’ he smiled.

She nudged him a bit with her elbow.

‘I’m just going to grab a drink of water,’ she said. ‘You want something?’

‘Yeah, water would be great.’

‘It’s just river water, boiled. That OK?’

‘It’s all I ever drink,’ he said.

‘Apart from Cruisers and Passion Pop, of course.’

‘Of course! I’m a regular James Bond.’

She went to her humpy while Lanh found a spot in the shade, and filled a plastic cup of water from her jerry can. ‘Only got one mug,’ she said when she got back, ‘is it fine to share?’

‘No worries.’

Once she’d packed her humpy away for the day, they headed up Racecourse. Lanh had brought the two empties with him; he was pretty sure he could get something for them in the Newmarket. If not, Caddy said, she’d try to move them through Jason or Ray.

‘That guy Ray never seems to be around anymore,’ Lanh said.

‘Did he come see you the other day, after I was there?’

‘Nuh uh. It’s kind of good for me though, you know, him not being around so much? Some of the business that he passed on to me before, those guys are now coming straight to me cause they can’t find Ray.’

‘Hey Lanh,’ she asked him, after they’d been walking a while, ‘how’d you get into the internet business?’

‘You thinking of opening up? I don’t need the competition, you know!’

‘Nah. Just making conversation.’

‘I picked Sunny up off my older brother. He’s gone to Tassie now. Once he had kids, he kind of wanted something better for them, you know? Some trees and stuff, fresh water. A bit less traffic fumes.’

‘Yeah, sounds alright.’

‘You ever think of moving?’

‘Not really. It’s too much work to pick up and shift. No idea where I’d get the money. No point even thinking about it really.’

‘You sure? Or you got something keeping you here?’

‘Me? No. Nothing here.’

‘You’re not from here? No family or nothing?’

‘My parents were born in Canberra, but they moved down here before I was born. We lived down in Altona for a while when I was little. You know it? Where the beach was?’

Lanh nodded. ‘Yeah, we used to go down a bit when I was a kid too.’

‘Yeah. So when that all went they lost their place. We moved around in rentals for a while, a few share houses and stuff.’ Caddy thought about the places they’d lived, three families in a house, lots of kids. It had been fun. ‘Later I lived with friends, moved out of my parents’ place just before that summer we had the heatwave, you know, the one in ’22?’

Lanh nodded.

‘Yeah, well, mum didn’t make it through that. Dad died about six months later from malaria; probably got it around the same time as mum died.’

‘Hey, sorry,’ Lanh said.

‘Yeah, well. I mean, I’m not the only one. I guess a few thousand mums and dads tossed it in that summer.’

‘Yeah, my aunty passed then.’

‘You see? So.’

They walked a while longer. When they stopped at the corner across from Sunny to wait for traffic, she felt Lanh take her hand. She looked over at him, but he was looking, very hard, for a spot where they could cross. She squeezed his hand, then disengaged herself.

Inside, she helped him open up, putting the sandwich board out on the footpath and starting up the wireless hub. He cruised around for a while till he found someone who hadn’t password protected their account, and broke in.

‘OK Cad,’ he said, ‘you’re ready to go.’

While she was firing up the computer she watched Lanh. He was kneeling in front of his armchair, poking his hand underneath. Eventually he pulled out his Demons cap, then he settled into the armchair, tipped the brim of the cap over his eyes and opened his novel.

‘Ready for a hard day’s work?’ she asked him.

‘You bet.’

She was going to ask him where he’d gotten the cap – the Dees hadn’t been around for about ten years, she reckoned – but that might have led into a conversation about football, and then she would have felt compelled to mention the game she was going to tonight, and that’d mean not only pointing out that she had access to Ray, even though Ray was ignoring Lanh, but also that she was a part-time hooker. It didn’t seem worth it.

Instead, she did a search for ‘Tarkin Collins’. Google brought up a bunch of ads for some gin based drink, so she tried www.spock.com.

-	Tarkin Collins, Gemini, 58, Vancouver (www.facespace.com). Nope, that wasn’t him.
-	Tarkin Collins, 45, online community manager, web manager (www.linkedin.com). Might be.
-	Tarkin Collins, 12, Norway (www.penguin.com). Unlikely.
-	Tarkin Collins, 36, account manager, Melbourne, tall, dark hair, GSOH (www.lavalife.com).

Bingo. And the good news was, if he was on lavalife he probably didn’t have a family that’d be looking for his five dollars (or, more likely, his body). She clicked in to see his profile. It definitely looked kind of like him, but not quite. She couldn’t really explain what the difference was. Maybe it was that he was less dead, she figured.

There was an email address. Should she use it? She should use it. She certainly wasn’t going to look all day for the mysterious Mr Collins, so emailing his address was as good a bet as any.

What to say? She thought a while, then typed: ‘Hi. If you’re checking this address because you’re a friend or family member of Mr Collins, I want you to know that I have news of him. If you’re looking for him, please email me back. Cheers, Caroline.’ Cheers? Maybe not. She went back. ‘Regards, Caroline.’ It was maybe a bit too mysterious, but she didn’t just want to blurt out, on email, ‘Hey, your husband is dead, and what’s more he was looking for sex on lavalife.’

She read through her other emails, nothing much interesting. News from Harry’s sister about the nephews; she sent her usual polite reply and binned the photos without looking at them. Thank god they were all in New Zealand. Back in her inbox, she already had a reply from tarksternator@gmail.com.

I know this is probably some scam email I shouldn’t be answering, but you have piqued my interest. Why would I want news of myself? Are you suggesting I should be trying harder to ‘find myself’? Are you, perhaps, some mystical guru who can help me discover the inner Tarkin? If this is the case, I’m not interested. If you want me to buy some documents or suchlike about myself, I am also not interested: I know my family history already, thank you very much. And of course, if you’re offering to tell my future, that doesn’t interest me either. If you have something unique to tell me, then go ahead. I assume you found me via lavalife. Are you interested in meeting for a drink?

GSOH my arse, she thought.

Seemed like this wasn’t the right Mr Collins then. She checked the LinkedIn Tarkin Collins, but he lived somewhere in Hungary, so it was pretty unlikely he’d be lying dead in a Melbourne gutter. It was weird though – the Lavalife Collins certainly looked like her friend the corpse. Maybe she should go on a date with him – the Lavalife one, not the corpse – and check him out in the flesh, so to speak. But not now; she had enough dates to deal with for now. She delicious’d Tarkin’s profile and shut the computer down.

‘Thanks Lanh, what do I owe you?’

‘Call it two bucks.’

‘I call you two bucks!’ she announced.

‘Ha ha.’ He pushed his cap back on his head and made to get up.

‘Don’t get up, I have it right here.’ She passed him the two dollars. He started getting up again.

‘No really, don’t get up. I’ve gotta run.’

‘So, do you want to hang out again some time?’

‘Sure, that’d be great. But not unless you have primo booze, OK?’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m joking, fool. Let’s do something soon. Maybe we could get my bike started and go for a ride out to the country or something.’ God, that was a big commitment; what was she thinking? Not much risk of ever getting the bike started though …

‘That sounds great. Give me a call.’

‘No phone.’ She looked apologetic. ‘I’ll come by some time next week, though.’

‘Cool, see you then.’

‘Hey, and thanks for the drinks. It was fun.’

‘No worries.’

Caddy stepped out onto the street. It was hot. Damn it was hot. She was really sick of it being so hot. It was hurting her eyes and hurting her head and it even seemed to be getting into the joints of her legs. She stepped back into the shade and slumped against the wall.

Ray wanted her clean for tonight. What should she do? She should probably go home, have a wash in the river, clean some clothes and lie around in the shade all day to keep the sweat down. Perhaps she could do a bit more writing. With a bit of luck, Mukhtar would take a dollar to drive her into town on his bike later this evening, and she could avoid a long and sweaty walk. It was a good plan, and she liked it. If she could just make it home in this goddamn stinking heat.