North of Nowhere, South of Loss. Janette Turner Hospital
palms. She takes the pay envelope out of her bag and opens it. Four crisp fifty-dollar bills, brand new, straight from the bank every time, a miracle that makes her hands shake. She puts them back in the envelope, back in her bag, and takes her bank book out. Its balances, marching forward line by line, entry by entry, shimmer. Already she can see the way the page will look tomorrow morning at the teller’s window. She kisses the open book, slips it back in her bag, and hugs the bag to her chest. She can feel a warm buzz against her ribcage.
On Thursday evenings, she feels as though she could walk across the water to the marina. She feels as though she would only need to lift her arms and she would rise, float, up to the decks of the big catamaran, the one that goes to the Outer Reef. And out there on Michaelmas Cay where the seabirds are, where they rise in vast snowy clouds, she would feel the lift of the slipstream, the cushion of air beneath, the upward swoop of it, climbing, climbing, We are climbing Jacob’s ladder …
She is singing the old hymn triumphantly inside her head, or maybe belting it out loud — why not? — because here she is, Sunday night in Mossman again, after the minister and his wife have taken her in. Here’s the small Sunday night congregation, the ceiling fans turning sluggishly, moths thick around the altar lights, everyone fanning themselves with hymnbooks, singing their hearts out, Every rung goes higher, higher, her mother loving every minute of it, one of her mother’s favourite hymns, her mother turning and smiling … Oh no, wait, this isn’t right, she’s mixing things up, she shouldn’t have thought of this. Wrong track.
She swings her legs over the sea wall and crosses the road and runs all the way to the bus stop, her feet thud thud thudding on the pavement, too noisy for thought. Three people waiting, that’s good, and she recognises the woman in the pink cotton dress who always catches her bus. She throws herself into bright conversation. “Thought I’d missed it,” she says. “We had this little kid this afternoon, an extraction, and it turned out he was a bleeder, you have no idea what a—”
“You would’ve missed it, love,” the woman says, “except it’s running late. I think I see it coming now.”
“You should’ve heard this kid’s mother,” Beth babbles. “Poor Dr Foley, I thought she was going to—”
“G’day, Beth.” She hears the voice behind her and comes to a dead stop. She hears the voice but she doesn’t believe it. Old hymns, her mum, now this. Someone taps her on the shoulder. “G’day, Beth.” If I don’t turn, she thinks, he’ll go away. He isn’t really there, he’s inside my head.
The bus is pulling into the curb, and she stares straight forward and gets on. She pays, walks halfway back, and sits down. Someone is following her down the aisle, someone sits down beside her, someone in jeans and white T-shirt and denim jacket, but she won’t look, she stares out the window. Her own reflection stares back at her, resigned.
“G’day, Beth. I reckon you’re pretty mad with me, hey?”
She sighs heavily. “How’d you find me, Gideon?”
“Well, you know, I went to Mossman first, natch. And that’s how I found out about Mum. Geez, Beth. You should’ve let me know.”
“And how was I supposed to do that, Giddie?” — given that she hasn’t seen him for about two years — “How was I supposed to know where you were?”
“I dunno,” he says irritably. “There’s ways. For one, you could’ve told Johnny Coke. It would’ve got to me. There’s links all the way from here to Melbourne, you know. I mean, this is where they bring half the stuff in, for Chrissake, it stands to reason. And the rest of it grows up the Daintree. Think about it, Beth. You’ve always got your head in the bloody clouds.”
She stares out the window, appalled at her own ignorance. She thinks of all these people, hundreds of them, thousands of them maybe, all hooked, all hooked up to each other, a vast network of arteries and veins and capillaries all bleeding each into each.
“Anyway, the minister says he got you fixed up in this hostel in Cairns, and at the hostel this arvo some grouchy old biddy tells me where you work. So. I plan to be waiting for ya when ya knock off, hugs and kisses, surprise surprise, only nobody’s there. Then wham-bam you come racing past me out of nowhere. ‘You mad at me, Beth?”
“Yeah,” she says. “No. I don’t know.” She punches the seat in front of her. “You stole the money out of Mum’s biscuit tin. How could you do that to her, Giddie?”
“I didn’t steal it,” he says, offended. “Geez, Beth! I would’ve paid her back. Geez!” He swivels to look at her better. “You look pretty good. I hardly recognised you, lipstick and all, and your hair like that. Aren’t you gonna give me a hug? Yeah … Hey, that’s more like it.”
She’s smiling in spite of herself. “Mum always said you could wrap the devil round your little finger, Giddie.”
“Yeah,” he grins. “She did, didn’t she? I went to her grave, Beth, the minister told me where it was. Picked some flowers, an’ that.”
She can’t speak, and puts her head fleetingly on his shoulder, then straightens up and looks out the window again. There’s nothing to see but herself, and beyond that the curl of a breaker coming in, a great fizz of crest turning into foam, a monster wave. She has to get home first, she has to get to the hostel before the wave breaks, she has to lock herself into the loo. “Hey,” she says brightly, turning. “So where’ve you been all this time?”
“Oh, up and down the coast, you know. Brisbane mostly, but.”
“Brisbane. ‘You visit Dad?”
“You gotta be kidding,” he says. “Anyway, I think he’s out again. One of me mates got a few weeks in Boggo Road for possession, and he heard Dad got out on good behaviour. That’s a laugh, eh? Went out west, Charleville or somewhere, shearing is what I heard, can you believe? Dad?” He laughs.
“Remember that time he took us fishing on the Daintree?” Beth asks. “You were ten, I think, and I was seven, yes, that’s right. I remember because I had Mrs Kennedy that year, Grade 3, and I wrote a story about it and she read it out to the class and kids told you and you were mad as hell with me. You’d had something on your line and it was pulling like crazy and you wouldn’t let go and you went right over the boat. I was screaming because I thought the crocs would get you.”
Gideon frowns. “I don’t remember that,” he says. “You made that up, Beth. You’re always making stuff up.”
She’s incensed. “Dad yanked you back in the boat and walloped you. And you were so mad, you sneaked out that night and stayed at Wally Rover’s place just to give Dad a scare. So he’d think you’d run away.”
But it’s no use. He can’t remember a thing. Gideon’s memory is like a little heap of expensive white powder. He bends over it and breathes, and pouff, there’s nothing but fog.
She stares at her face in the black window. I remember enough for both of us, she thinks.
“I’ll tell you something I do remember,” he says suddenly. “Remember that time Mum made us matching shorts out of curtains and we had to wear them to school?”
“Yeah, I remember. We wanted to die.” She smiles and slides her arm through his. “I miss you, Giddie.”
“Yeah, me too. Listen, Beth, it’s great that you’ve got this job. You couldn’t lend me a bit of dosh, could ya? Just enough to get me back to Brissy on the train. I’ll pay you back.”
She holds herself very still, then she withdraws her arm. “Sure,” she says. “I suppose. How much?”
“Well, I dunno. Fifty should do it.”
She opens her bag and takes out the envelope. “I’m saving up, Giddie,” she says. “I’m going to go to Brisbane, go to uni and stuff, and be a teacher.”
“Wow,”