Clancy of the Undertow (14 page)

Another death, I think, another day. Tomorrow we'll all try again.

27

We're in the car by 10 am, and Mum's still dirty with me. I remain as calm as possible. This, I tell myself, is the least of my worries. This morning is a drop in the shitty ocean that is my life. I ignore Mum's constant stink-eye, and don't say a thing when she puts the radio on Classic Hits and cranks it up. As Elton John craps on about some bland collection of emotions, I stay as silent as I can. Mum's drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, trying her best to get me to tell her to stop, but I've been around too long to fall for that old trick. I pull up my hoodie—she hates that—and sink as low as I can into the seat.

It's only as we're driving through town that I start to wonder where Nancy actually lives. I'd assumed she'd be in a brand new house, one of those estates where the streets are named after wines and native flowers. But instead we're heading out of town, turning right on the so-called Tourist Trail, named this because it leads away from Barwen and on to towns that people might want to visit. I want to ask Mum where we're going, but that would require me speaking to her.

Soon, the car slows down and I can see Mum scanning either side of the road, her head rotating slowly like a sideshow clown. Then she stops the car and says, suddenly, ‘Oh.'

We're right outside a motel, according to the sign. Actually the
Westside Motel
, one of the long, nondescript brick accommodations that line the road out of town. A big Foxtel logo and an unlit neon sign saying
Danny's Ristorant
are both attached to the reception building.

‘They live in a motel?' I say.

Mum goes, ‘I guess so.' She takes a scrap of paper from her pocket and examines it, like maybe she's written the number upside down. ‘I guess so.'

Then we see Carla waiting by the entrance, wearing one of those puffy mountaineering jackets, even though it's not very cold. She give us a quick wave, and Mum drives through into the carpark.

‘Good morning,' says Carla when we get out of the car. She doesn't seem angry with me, but she also doesn't seem particularly happy to see us. ‘It's the best they could do for now,' she says, gesturing around her. ‘There was supposed to be temporary accommodation at St Stephen's, but,' she waves her hands, ‘budgets, cutbacks, shortages. The usual stuff.'

‘Doesn't surprise me,' says Mum, in a weird, light voice. ‘I know the world well.' She seems to have been blindsided by the location. I was sure she was going to be in teacher-voice mode all day.

‘Hello, Clancy,' Carla says. ‘Nancy is inside. We'll be just on the other side.' She points to a brown door—one in a line of many—that's slightly ajar.

‘Oh,' I say. ‘Okay.' I walk over to it, waiting for a moment to see if the two mums are going to follow me, but they're not moving. All right, I say to myself. This is one of those
you've got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it
kind of situations.

I push open the door, and the sanitised smell of commercial cleaner hits me. It's exactly what you'd expect a motel room on the outskirts of a shithole country town to look like. A double and single bed, two Steve Parish photos framed on the walls, everything washed in weak, lace-curtained light. How long have they had to live here? A large suitcase is open against the opposite wall. Nancy's sitting at the end of the double bed, in tracksuit pants and a woollen jumper.

‘So, hi,' I say, realising I haven't actually prepared myself for this. ‘This is, um…they're nice photos.'

Nancy lifts her head to take in the framed view of Uluru she's probably only stared at a thousand times already. ‘Hi,' she says. Her hands are twisted up in the ends of her jumper. I can't read her. She's not hostile, but maybe just unsure, like she hasn't yet decided how to react to me.

‘So listen, about the other day…' This seems as good a place as any to start. I feel sick, stomach sick. ‘I really was a massive dick.'

‘No, it's okay.' Her voice is hardly audible. A fan rattles from what I imagine is the bathroom around the corner.

‘No,' I say, and I realise this is actually what I think. ‘It's not okay. I shouldn't have had a go at you. You were just trying to be nice.'

Nancy rubs her eyes and I see she's crying. ‘It's me,' she says. ‘I never pick the right moments. I shouldn't even have said anything to Mum.'

I feel the glare of both mothers on the back of my neck so I step inside and close the door. ‘No, you really should have. I was a real jerk. I want to apologise.'

‘I should be apologising.' Nancy rubs her eyes with her sleeve.

I go, ‘We're quite bad at this, aren't we?' and Nancy nods. I sit down on the end of the single bed. ‘Look,' I say, ‘I'm really sorry. Please accept my apology, sincerely, even if only for the two mums waiting outside in a motel carpark, thinking they're parenting.'

Nancy smiles. ‘They'll be in the next room.' She drums the wall behind her with her fingers. ‘They're joined. This is my wing of the mansion.'

‘Oh, right. Could we break a vase, just to give them something to think about? Would you have to pay for it?'

‘No, I think St Stephen's could come up with the twelve bucks.'

I laugh. ‘How long do you have to stay here for?' I go to bounce on the bed, but it's so soft I just sink into it. ‘Jesus.'

‘I know. It's like sleeping in a marshmallow.' She falls back on the double bed. ‘This one is just as bad. Feel it.'

I get up and flop down next to her. Something deep in the frame creaks worryingly. ‘Man,' I say. ‘Authentic country charm.'

‘We were only supposed to be here for a few nights, but it's already been two weeks.'

‘I feel like your human rights are being impinged upon. And I say that without really knowing what
impinged
means.'

‘Next week, apparently. They've got a place for us. A real house.'

‘Bet you're counting down the days.' I turn over so we're both on our backs. ‘Oh, I'd hoped there would be a mirror on the ceiling.'

‘Can't even get
that
right.'

We lie there for a while and I hear a clock ticking. I turn my head to face her. ‘I really am sorry,' I say.

‘Shut up about it, then.' Nancy grins.

I sit up. ‘Should we let our mothers in? Tell them we're BFFs forever?'

‘Nah,' Nancy says. ‘I need every moment away from that woman I can get. She's fine, but…you know.'

‘I do know.'

Nancy yawns. ‘It's not easy for her, the move, but at least she's got work to keep her occupied. I'm just here. We haven't even got all our stuff yet. They can't send it down until we have somewhere to send it. I've got a couple of suitcases, and that's about it.'

I feel extra bad for Nancy, then. At least I have my own room, my own refuge from all the crap that goes on outside your bedroom door. ‘So will you get to go back to Brisbane in the meantime? Or call your friends or whatever?'

Nancy sort of grimaces. ‘Not really an option.'

‘Oh. Why's that?'

‘There's sort of…complications there.'

‘In Brisbane?'

‘At my old school. There was some stuff. Some crap. That happened.' Nancy's voice sounds like she's reciting a poem from memory. ‘Bullying. Was what it was.'

‘Shit. Sorry.'

Nancy shrugs. ‘It happens. It happened.' She smiles at me, a really unconvincing smile. ‘Private school. All girls. Actual hell on earth.'

I try to think of a joke to lighten the mood, but nothing really fits. I give her time instead.

Nancy's mouth is the sketch of a straight line. She says, ‘I'm the reason we're here. We moved because of me, because I couldn't hack it. Mum's uprooted her life and her job and…everything, all because of me.' She starts to cry, and I take her hand and squeeze it. Her cheeks are shining. ‘I can't complain. I can't
ever
complain. Because it's my fault.'

I go, ‘Don't say that.' That's how people on TV respond at times like this.

‘I've got this
procedure
,' she says, finger-quoting. ‘I have to go through it whenever I feel threatened. I have to tell Mum. That's part of our
emotional contract
. That's why I told her about you. I had to. It's so stupid.'

‘No, it's not.'

‘Well, anyway, it's part of this manual this psychologist gave Mum. Like I'm a car and he's a mechanic.'

‘Charming.'

‘Yeah. I mean, it's fine I guess. It sort of works. I still have to see a counsellor. Except now we have to do it over Skype. So modern.' She laughs again, humourlessly.

‘e-Shrink,' I say, without thinking.

‘Exactly.'

‘Jesus. All that bullshit I said to you.'

‘I've heard worse.' She laughs, humourlessly.

‘What did…did someone hurt you, or…' I feel like a creep. ‘Don't answer that. You don't have to—'

‘Not, like
sticks and stones
. I just wasn't into all the social bullshit. All the groups and cliques. The clichéd shit. I just became the go-to girl. Whenever people felt angry or frustrated or wanted to let off some steam, they knew they could take it out on me. And yeah, not just calling names. Sly, horrible shit.'

‘God. That's awful.'

‘That's the real version anyway. Clinically speaking I was
the vessel for other people's unhappiness with their own lives
. Which is a great and clever thing to say to someone who's being…tormented.
It's their problem, not yours
.'

‘Jeez.'

‘It might be their problem, but I was the one who couldn't leave the house or even go
online
. This counsellor is useless. He thinks I'm a logic puzzle or something. It's like he can't see me as a human.'

‘That's awful.' I want so badly to tell her about Raylene McCarthy and Buggs and how I feel every time someone shouts
faggot
from a passing car. I want her to know some of us know what she's going through. Except I don't know how.

Then Nancy goes, ‘Let's actually be friends. You and me.' Her expression opens up and I see the Nancy who greets me happily every time at Nature Club. She is hopelessly innocent, I realise. She is a relentless optimist in a world that crushes earnestness and trust into small cubes of fear.

‘I know it's like something you say in grade three,' she says, ‘but let's actually be friends.'

‘I'm in,' I say, without a second's hesitation.

‘Awesome!' Her face drops for a moment. ‘Let's just make an agreement,' she says, ‘to not have any other bullshit. Let's just say
let's be friends
and tell each other stuff and hang out because I think you're very cool and I think I'm very cool and so that should work out well, right?'

It's a rare type of thrill I'm feeling now. A calming, soothing thing. Maybe it's happiness. ‘I don't have a phone,' I say.

‘So?'

‘I'm just getting all the bad things about me out of the way.'

‘Okay. Well, I'm emotionally damaged, obviously.'

‘I'm emotionally stunted.'

‘I have to write letters to my own feelings. Every week.'

‘I hang out at a skate park, and I don't even like skating.'

‘I spend all my time with my mother.'

‘My family don't talk to each other.'

‘My dad lives in another country.'

‘My dad—' And I stop. I can feel my body physically rejecting emotional openness. I can work up to it. ‘The whole town thinks my dad's done something horrible. They…think my entire family are criminals.'

Nancy hardly even reacts. ‘I have to eat cereal out of one of those little mini boxes every morning.'

‘Like, a travel pack?'

She nods.

‘Do you at least get Coco Pops?'

‘It's only ever Special K or cornflakes.'

‘That's some stone cold shit.'

She laughs.

I smile too. It's fine, I think, that I'm not telling her my one, actual secret. It's fine.

28

And then suddenly it's mums and daughters at twenty paces. And by this I mean side-by-side in a booth in
Danny's Ristorant
, which I can safely say is the saddest place I have ever been. Even though the sun's blazing outside, even though it's a bright shiny spring day, inside the cafe it's drab and dark green and I get the feeling everything in this place once got very wet and has never had a chance to dry.

Mum's sitting next to me and her voice is light and fluffy and she's laughing and acting like a normal person and I can't make fun of her because we're in company. She and Carla, it seems, have been bonding over teaching stories in the other room while Nancy and I talked. Everyone has made friends and it is really, really, weird.

The owner of the cafe, who is possibly the Patient Zero of the rising damp smell, serves us what he no doubt considers coffee.

‘Thanks, Danny,' says Carla.

‘Great customers, these two,' says Danny. ‘Wish there were more like them.'

Nancy gives me wide eyes across the table.

‘Are you joining us here as well?' he says to Mum.

‘No,' she says, ‘but it's a lovely place you've made here.'

I snort a laugh and quickly turn it into a cough. Nancy keeps her face stony solid, but raises a single eyebrow. I have to look away.

‘I'll be sorry to see you both go,' Danny says. ‘Usually only get people here for a night or two. Always passing through.' He wipes his hands on the front of the apron he's wearing. ‘You need anything else, you give me a yell.'

‘Shall do,' says Carla. ‘Thanks.'

When he's safely beyond earshot, I'm forced into another coughing fit and Nancy kicks my foot. Our mothers remain oblivious.