UNDER AND AWAY

It was the softest bed Caddy had ever slept in, and she slept and slept and slept. The rain turned into hail, a storm pelted against the window. Caddy dreamed.

She was with Harry. They were in the backyard of their house. It was early evening, the sun about to set and the air still sweetly warm. She was in shorts, weeding around the tomatoes and the basil plants. Harry was lying back in the hammock, playing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ on the mouth organ. Just one phrase. He played it over and over and over and over. Three notes, over and over and over. She was digging into a weed with her trowel and her hand got tangled in the roots. She tried to pull them off, and her other hand got tangled too. The harmonica was like a dog, howling. A small dog. She looked over at the hammock and Harry was lying there, poking a dachshund with a knitting needle, making it howl a tune. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. He smiled at her and asked, ‘Do you want custard?’ She tried to pick up the bowl but her arms were gone, turned into straggly dry roots. ‘You’re no good to me like that,’ Harry said. He was lying back in the hammock, the dachshund in his arms grown sleek and long, almost human sized, its snout shrunk to a perky nose. It was nuzzling the side of his neck. ‘Go sleep in the dog house,’ Harry said to Caddy. ‘Go on.’ He and the dachshund were walking into the house, and he was locking the door behind him. He dismissed her with a wave and pulled the curtains closed.

Caddy woke crying, her hair sticking sweaty to her face, blood from her nose caked dry, and pulling at the skin on her upper lip. She wanted cold water. She rolled herself out of bed and crawled to the fridge, opened a bottle of icy Salveation water from the minibar and drank the whole thing in one go. Then she crawled into the bathroom, turned on the bath taps and lay back on the cool tiles to rest.

She dreamed that she saw the table from her humpy floating away down the river. She tried to run after it, but she was up to her hips in water. Her pillow floated past, and the photo of Harry she kept in her wallet. Harry was in a boat, pulling things from the river, saving her table and her pillow as the water swept her under and away. He watched her go.

She remembered the bath and pulled herself awake, but it was only one third full. She must have been asleep for about thirty seconds. She pulled her singlet and underpants off and hauled herself over the edge of the bath and into the water. When the water was up to her chin she turned off the taps and listened to the wind shake the glass in the windows, the water pound the roof above her head. She slid down, let her head sink under the water and wondered how hard it would be to get back into that dream.