The Place on Dalhousie Read online

  ‘No dogs allowed, love,’ she says.

  Rosie can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘I’m not leaving him outside.’

  ‘I’ll take him someplace safe,’ Jim says.

  But Rosie’s shaking her head. ‘I’ll keep him in a corner and he won’t move.’

  The midwife holds up a finger of warning at Rosie. ‘No dogs allowed,’ she repeats before leading Miss Fricker away. Rosie feels tears threatening, but she refuses to cry in front of Jim for a second time. The butcher’s honking the horn and Jim holds out a hand to her. She lets him take the leash and he walks away.

  Inside the cottage there are three large living spaces, all packed with people, most sleeping on solid-looking mattresses. Rosie notices a couple of the older evacuees are lying on comfy armchairs. She checks on Miss Fricker before searching out the midwife who she finds in the CWA kitchen, boiling water on a portable stove.

  ‘We need one of those armchairs,’ Rosie says.

  ‘Be patient,’ the other woman says without looking up. ‘Everyone’s gone through a lot, okay. You’re not the only one.’

  ‘Miss Fricker’s had a hip replacement,’ Rosie insists. ‘She needs to be comfortable.’

  ‘Sorry, love, none left for the time being.’

  ‘Don’t fucking “sorry love” me again,’ Rosie says.

  The midwife looks up. Rosie flinches because the woman reminds her too much of her mum. They would have been the same age, both with long black wavy hair and fierce dark eyes, except the midwife’s an Islander. And the owner of the mothership of dirty looks.

  ‘You need to change your attitude.’

  ‘I’ll change it when you get Miss Fricker onto something comfortable.’

  Soon after, two teenagers carry an armchair to where Miss Fricker is sitting on a fold-up seat beside Maeve from the newsagency, who hasn’t stopped speaking since they arrived. Rosie’s heard Miss Fricker say, ‘Shut up, Maeve,’ more than once.

  ‘Aunty Min says it’s from the office so you better take care of it,’ the older of the boys says.

  Later, Rosie finds Min the midwife watching them from the door. Regrets not looking away before she’s beckoned over by an aggressive hand.

  ‘What?’ Rosie says.

  Another scathing look.

  ‘Don’t you “what” me, you little bitch. Come and help me with morning tea.’

  Handing out tea and biscuits means that people want to talk. Most are worried about their homes. Their pets. Their photos. Their insurance documents. Maeve is in tears.

  ‘Everything in the shop’s gone,’ she tells Rosie. ‘Everything. What if they won’t cover me?’

  Rosie’s grateful that she has nothing to lose.

  ‘It could be worse, Maeve,’ a woman with a couple of kids hanging off her says from across the room. One of her girls has been crying for their dog all morning because they had to leave him behind.

  Later that day, it does get worse. SES Kev and a couple of young guys come in, looking gutted. After that, it’s like the power company’s come in and turned off everyone’s voices. Because down by one of the properties backing onto the river, a baby’s been swept from his father’s arms, and out by the old mill road, two people are missing. Their car went over the embankment.

  Min hands Rosie a folder. Tells her to tick off the names from the electoral roll. They need to start working out where everyone is. Most have gone to family and friends on higher ground. Some stayed in their homes and have ended up here. Rosie can’t help thinking that she’s not on the town electoral roll. If she’d got swept away from the Hills hoist yesterday, she wouldn’t have even been considered missing.

  Jim comes looking for her later and they just stand around for a while until he says, ‘You want to go somewhere?’

  And in his room upstairs at the pub, her legs are wrapped around his hips and there isn’t really that much time for pleasantries or catch-up, but she doesn’t care; for most of it, she’s in her world and he’s in his and it’s fast and she likes the fact that she doesn’t have to pretend with this guy.

  Later, she asks where he’s from.

  ‘Sydney. You?’

  She can’t believe it. ‘Same.’

  No more questions, she tells herself.

  But can’t resist.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Grew up in Waterloo but mainly hang out in the inner west when I’m home. Close to you?’

  Closer than she’d care to admit. She doesn’t answer. Rosie doesn’t want to think of Dalhousie Street and who lives there now.

  ‘What are the chances?’ he says. ‘You and me from the same place.’

  Rosie’s dad believed in chances and fate. He believed in signs. Rosie doesn’t believe in anything hopeful.

  ‘What’s your story?’ he asks.

  She shrugs. ‘No story.’ Because exchanging misery isn’t her style, and at the moment even her misery can’t top a baby being swept away.

  They talk about Bruno.

  ‘He’s out on a property off the highway,’ Jim tells her. ‘You know, near the goods-train track. The family’s looking after a few other animals. I don’t think he likes goats.’

  He glances at her.

  ‘History of goat trouble in his past?’

  She laughs for the second time in days.

  It’s under a dirty hungover sky that the rest of the world arrives a couple of days later. The insurance companies are there first, pitching their tents on the property beside the CWA, along with the Red Cross, RACQ, recovery hubs and state police. The premier visits because she’s been up north and the roads there are open. The CWA and St Vinnies people are sorting through the donations that have arrived from the surrounding towns and Min is in charge of feeding whoever turns up. Rosie gets delegated to chopping onions for the sausage sizzle. It all seems productive and warm-hearted, but beneath the surface it’s anything but. Some have it in for the cops and the mayor because the evacuation plans came too late. Others complain they were stranded for more than two days without food drops and blame the SES. One woman comes up and gets in Min’s face.

  ‘Your husband’s useless!’

  ‘You were told to evacuate,’ Min says, calmly. ‘And you were told to have a flood plan.’ Rosie’s discovered that Min’s husband is the pot-bellied chief of the SES, so Min’s pretty particular about how much criticism he gets.

  Rosie keeps to herself. She doesn’t belong to these people, so the anger and grief isn’t hers to own. It stops people talking to her. Confiding. Crying. She sees Jim once that day. Maybe because it’s hard to avoid someone you’re looking for. He knows how to charm the old CWA women; one hands him a plate of food that he wolfs down. And then he’s gone again.

  The Red Cross start working out temporary accommodation and Rosie has to tell Miss Fricker that she’ll be staying at the nursing home wing of the hospital from tomorrow onwards.

  ‘That’s what you think,’ Miss Fricker mutters.

  ‘Well, you can’t stay here and you can’t go back to your place until the clean-up’s over.’

  ‘My nephews are behind this, aren’t they? Them and those wives of theirs.’

  ‘They have nothing to do with this, Joy.’

  Miss Fricker mutters something under her breath.

  ‘Do you want me to set your hair?’ Rosie asks. ‘They’ve switched the water back on.’

  ‘What would you know about setting hair?’

  ‘I’m only offering once, so it’s a yes or a no.’

  Rosie had spied a set of curlers and styling stuff in the St Vinnies donations and ends up setting the hair of at least half a dozen pensioners in the CWA laundry.

  Even Min wants a wash and blow-dry. Rosie combs the woman’s hair over and over again, because it’s what she used to do for her mum before the chemo got to it.

  ‘Are you staying?’ Min asks, eyeing her through the mirror.

  ‘No. So if you know anyone heading south …’

  ‘Have you got famil
y down there?’

  ‘I’ve got a house,’ Rosie says, briskly.

  Min is still studying her. ‘What are you going to do with your life, Rosie? Start thinking of that now or you’ll waste good opportunities.’

  ‘Do you like your job?’ Rosie asks.

  Min nods. ‘It means I know every baby and kid in this town.’

  Rosie’s eyes meet hers in the mirror. Thinks of that lost baby.

  ‘Did you deliver –’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  Rosie sees a glimpse of tears, but before she can say anything else Min stands up, already composed.

  ‘There’s something about getting your hair done that makes you feel half decent, doll.’

  She’s lying on top of Jim and he pushes her hair off her face. They’re all sweaty skin on skin. She can feel the trickle of sweat between her breasts. Feels his tongue there. She sits up, straddling him, studying his strange face. Not good-looking but behind the beard there’s a kind face. Sad crazy eyes.

  ‘Where are you off to next?’ he asks.

  She shrugs. Hopes he won’t ask to tag along, because right now she’d say yes and there’s something about this guy that would break her if he ends up being a disappointment.

  ‘You?’

  He shrugs. ‘Can’t go home yet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m on a good behaviour bond so I can’t leave the state for another eighteen months.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Drugs.’

  ‘Dealing?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Possession.’

  She feels his stare.

  ‘Min says you keep to yourself.’

  Rosie lies back down beside him, unimpressed. ‘I don’t like people and I don’t appreciate being spoken about.’

  His tongue is at work again. Apart from his annoying habit of talking while she’s having an orgasm, he’s pretty generous in the sex department. Makes it last, unlike Roger next door.

  ‘What’s your favourite thing to do, Rosie?’ he asks when they’re still awake in the early hours of the morning watching the shadows playing on the wall.

  ‘Going on road trips. With the right person, that is. Can’t stand getting stuck with someone who talks about nothing. Or who doesn’t talk at all. The best is when you’re with someone who’s comfortable with silence, but doesn’t make you feel lonely.’

  ‘You feel lonely sometimes?’

  Always, she wants to say. Worse is when she feels lonely in the company of others. The ache of it makes her feel weary. Like she isn’t nineteen. More like a hundred. SES Jesus must see something in her eyes, because he leans over her, a hand on her cheek.

  ‘The trick is don’t give into it, mate.’

  ‘It’s a trick, is it?’ she asks.

  There’s nothing held back about him. No cruel games. The yearning in his eyes makes her want to look away but, regardless of the fact that he never shuts up, she feels less alone when she hears his voice so she asks him more.

  ‘My mum … she was always a bit crazy,’ he says. ‘The type to turn up to my primary school off her nut, you know. I was a bit like that. The Ritalin kid. And then one day when I’m ten she goes to Woolies to buy bread and milk and doesn’t come back.’

  ‘Ever?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘It got to me a couple of years ago when my grandpop died and I had to get out of our flat because it was housing commission and someone else was waiting in line for it. And I realised I didn’t have a home, so I disappeared for about a year. My friends aren’t the type to let go, which is a good thing, so I ended up back in Sydney, couch surfing. A couple of months ago, I’m living with my best mate’s family and she convinces me to track down my mum.’

  ‘Your best mate’s a girl?’

  ‘Italian, like you.’

  Rosie feels herself bristling. ‘Did you pick me up because you’ve got a thing for your best friend?’

  ‘No, I picked you up because you were the hottest girl in the pub and I wanted to have sex with you.’

  ‘Using a very unoriginal line.’

  ‘Can I get back to my story?’ he says.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Anyway, her boyfriend and I are looking online for a car and we come across some guy who’s fixed up a Monaro. You know what a Monaro is?’

  ‘Course I do.’

  ‘Course you do.’

  ‘So where’s your Monaro?’

  ‘Mate, let me finish the story. We get to this guy’s garage and he takes one look at me and that’s it. He has a feeling in his bones. I was meant to own this car. And the more he says it, the more I believe it because he doesn’t seem like a fake. But my mate, Will, is cautious. Needs to check it out. Rings his brothers who are car experts. That sort of thing. All the while, this guy is staring at me. “Why do you want this car?” he asks, which I thought was a strange question, but I tell him the truth. “Because I’m looking for family.” And he just smiles at me. “Buy the car and you’ll find your family.”’

  ‘That’s pretty freaky.’

  ‘He had an accent. Even freakier.’

  ‘Did you find your mum?’

  He nods. ‘In Lismore.’ His voice softens. Rosie likes a guy whose voice softens at the mention of his mother. ‘You know how they say people can’t turn their lives around? Well, my mother did. Hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol in eleven years. Married a born-again Christian. Bawled her eyes out when she saw me. Said she loved me, but made me promise to stay away. She’s got a ten-year-old boy and eight-year-old twin girls and she hadn’t told them about me.’

  He turns to her, a flash of vulnerability in his eyes. ‘But she did give me the name of my father. Thinks he lives in Bundaberg. So I took off and ended up in this vicinity. Problem is that last week my car got stolen just outside town at a servo while I was in the dunny.’

  ‘You lost a Monaro?’

  ‘No, it was stolen,’ he laughed. ‘It’s how I met Kev. He was filling up his tank and I hitched a ride into town with him. By that stage it was raining hard up north and I knew I was stuck here for a while, and that’s how I ended up volunteering for emergency services.’

  ‘When are you leaving?’ she asks.

  ‘When I get myself a cheap car.’

  Rosie is worried for him. Doesn’t know him from a bar of soap, but knows this guy’s heading for disappointment.

  ‘Just say … just say your father doesn’t want to be found?’ she asks.

  Jim thinks about it for a moment. ‘The man’s got a right to know his son. Anyway, I’m one of those crossing-that-bridge-when-I-come-to-it people.’

  He leans on his elbow looking down at her, a ghost of a smile on his face.

  ‘You listen too much for someone who doesn’t like people.’

  ‘You talk too much for someone who’s just interested in sex.’

  By the end of the week, the old Simpson Road is reopened. Rosie takes Bruno back to Miss Fricker’s place by the gully to check out the damage. The chooks and ducks, and a couple of kittens that had taken refuge in the shed, are all dead, and Rosie finds herself gagging. But the goat comes back. Peeks its head through the door to irritate Bruno.

  The backbreaking part of the clean-up is the downstairs area of the house, covered in silt. She works the next couple of days hosing down and scrubbing every wall. The mud has crept into every crevice, but she keeps at it. She knows the drill because she’s heard it over and over again this week. Anything made of plastic or wood gets chucked. Disinfect everything. Watch out for snakes. In the kitchen and dining room she pulls up the lino and carpet and drags it out back where the roses are gone and the spotted gum tree has cracked in two and smashed the fence and the henhouse. Working this hard reminds Rosie of being with her parents when she was a kid. Of stripping paint and trawling junkyards with her dad for anything of worth. She remembers the derelict building on Lilyfield Road where they found the old floorboards that ended up on the lounge room floor in the
place on Dalhousie Street. Suddenly she’s crying. Even after five years without her mother and a year without her dad, the thought of never seeing them again robs her of breath. She’s relieved to be on her own because here she can scream with rage, with grief, until her throat feels shredded.

  And the only thing that gets her through the depression of her days is the thought of lying next to SES Jesus, listening to the rumble of his voice as she tries to sleep. One night he cries and she doesn’t know whether it’s because of the bodies they found in a paddock two k’s out of town, or because his car got him as far as a town that’s soaked with despair. She holds him in her arms and feels the shudders.

  ‘Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.’

  He clings to her and being this needed feels better than sex. It’s when Rosie knows she has to leave this place. Because she could easily love this guy. It’s what Rosie does best. She loves broken people who damage her in return.

  ‘I just want to warn you that I’m leaving any day now. Min’s helping me find someone who’s heading south.’

  It’s the right thing to say to someone whose mum went to Woolies and didn’t come back.

  It’s only a couple of days later when Min lets Rosie know about one of the SES volunteers from Newcastle who’s heading home. Two hours from Sydney.

  ‘Come by the CWA and I’ll pack you a lunch, doll,’ Min says.

  Rosie and Bruno track Jim down to the property he’s been helping out on, by the creek. A couple of the younger kids have taken it upon themselves to look after the domestic animals that haven’t been claimed. Jim’s helping them with an inventory, labelling cages and jotting things down. He lets a galah nip at his finger, right opposite a Persian cat that eyes the bird with disdain and a promise of violence.

  ‘What are you writing?’ she asks.

  ‘Just where we found them and if they have a name on a collar. I’ll put the details up on the noticeboard in the pub.’

  He catches her eye. ‘You’re leaving.’ Not a question.

  She nods. ‘Can you make sure Miss Fricker gets home sooner rather than later?’