The Ottoman Motel Read online

  She reached into her pocket and took out a leather wallet. She flipped it open, showing Simon her ID card, a tiny picture of her on it, and smiled at Simon, her mouth lopsided but warm.

  ‘She’s the local police officer,’ said Tarden.

  ‘But not in official clothes.’ Madaline tugged at the sleeve of her overcoat. ‘Afraid you caught me just going to bed.’ She smiled again, quickly, before her face fell into seriousness. ‘Now, Simon. Are you all right?’

  Simon nodded, not really hearing.

  ‘I bet things aren’t quite right, though, are they.’ She held out her hand. ‘We’ll go back to my house for a little bit, and we’ll get this sorted out. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Simon took Madaline’s hand. She put her arm around him. Simon smelled wood-smoke.

  ‘Thanks, Jack,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you get on with your night.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Tarden. ‘Hope it all sorts out.’ He sat back down at the table. ‘I’ll see ya real soon, Simon. We can maybe go fishing some time. Get some of those yabbies.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Simon. ‘Some time.’

  Madaline ushered Simon out of the pub. The cold air hit them, and Madaline drew Simon in beside her. ‘You’re staying in one of the motel rooms, aren’t you. Have you got some warm clothes in there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Simon. ‘I’ve got a jumper and stuff.’

  ‘All right, well let’s walk around there, get some clothes, and we’ll leave your folks a note as well in case they come back.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They went back to the room and Simon put on a jumper. Madaline scribbled a note on a pad she had in another pocket. She ripped it off and placed it on the bed. ‘They might have just lost track of time,’ she said. ‘I’ve given them my number on here, and the number for the pub. They’ll call if they come back. They went off in the car, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll go back to my place and wait there. It’s not far. It’ll be safer there, seeing as your parents have the keys.’ Madaline glanced around the room with a sour look on her face. ‘It’ll be warmer too.’

  Simon let Madaline close the door behind them, let her walk him to her car, let her buckle him into the passenger seat. He tried his best to stay numb, to not let his thoughts overtake him.

  ‘It’s not a police car,’ he said.

  ‘You mean, no flashing lights?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve got one of those, too,’ she said. ‘Well, my sergeant does. This is still a police car. I know it just looks like a Corolla with pretty bad paint, but don’t let that fool you.’

  As they drove—slowly, carefully—Simon scanned the road ahead, lit up in grey, running away beneath the car. He felt empty and cold. Grass and bushes crept past on either side of the road, offering only their ghostly edges.

  Madaline’s fingers were ice-white on the steering wheel. Simon didn’t think she seemed as calm as before. She brushed some hair behind her ear. ‘Simon,’ she said. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Our new house is on the Gold Coast.’

  ‘Oh yeah, which part?’

  ‘The main part, I think.’ Simon didn’t really know where he lived. It was the third house they’d lived in at the Coast, and the ninth in his life. When they moved in, only a few weeks before, Simon had got out his father’s street directory to try and find their address. His eyes were always drawn to a large blue inlet. Lake Wonderland.

  ‘Must be nice up there,’ said Madaline. ‘Warm.’

  The rattle of the suspension was all that broke the silence. The first unfocused smudges of light rain appeared on the windscreen.

  ‘I’m from up north myself,’ said Madaline eventually. ‘Used to live out on a property. Can you imagine?’ She laughed, an odd, fast laugh, as if at the strangeness of what she’d said. Simon bunched his fists into the sleeves of his jumper. He didn’t see what was so funny about living on a farm.

  The car crawled on. The regularity of smaller side streets soon ended and they reached a dark stretch of road flanked on either side by thick coastal scrub. Madaline swung the steering wheel suddenly and Simon thought they would crash into the trees. Instead the car divided a bowing salute of ferns and ascended a steep driveway. The arms of rainforest plants slapped at the windscreen.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Madaline. Two wooden lamps lit a porch. A house sat on tall stilts, wide stairs leading from the driveway up to a generous verandah. A man sat beside the door on a bench seat wearing a pea-green coat splattered with a dark pattern of raindrops. He had shoulder-length blonde hair, curled at the ends where it was obviously wet. He stood up as the car arrived.

  ‘This is my house,’ said Madaline. ‘Let’s go inside and get you something to eat.’

  Simon realised he was starving. He wondered what time it was. The clock on Madaline’s dashboard had lost its hands.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Madaline tapped Simon on the knee and got out of the car.

  Simon opened his door just as the man in the green coat made his way down the stairs to meet them. He let his left hand slide all the way down the railing.

  Madaline put her fingers on Simon’s shoulders. ‘Hi Ned,’ she said. ‘Thanks for coming out.’

  ‘I parked on the road,’ said the man. ‘Didn’t know how much room you were going to need.’ For some reason, he looked at Simon as he spoke.

  ‘Simon, this is Ned,’ said Madaline. ‘He’s a friend of mine. He’s going to help us out.’

  ‘Hi Simon,’ said Ned. ‘Why don’t you come inside. I’ve made us something to eat.’

  ‘Isn’t this your house?’ said Simon to Madaline.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said, again with her strange smile. ‘Ned’s just been doing some supper for us.’

  ‘Let’s get inside, anyway,’ said Ned, peering up at the sky. Thick spats of rain had begun to fall. He led them up the stairs, into the house, to the living room.

  Four mismatched lamps lit the space: the light they cast joined in strange planes, patchworking the walls into random gradations of shadow. There was paper everywhere: manila folders and ring binders stacked in towers on the floor, on a rickety cane hutch, crammed into two giant bookshelves. Even normal-looking books had incongruous pages poking out, swollen with words that were clearly not their own.

  ‘This is where I get my work done,’ said Madaline apolo-

  getically. ‘Messy, but cosy.’ She gestured to the couch, and Simon sat down. She sat opposite in a recliner. Its chocolate-coloured leather had broken into small scales where her arms rested, and where she leaned her head.

  Ned cleared his throat. ‘I’ll rustle up some food,’ he said, disappearing into another room.

  Madaline leaned forward in her seat, her dark hair reaching down to shadow her cheeks, her fingers pressed together in a steeple. She had a small trail of pink dots up the inside of her arm. Insect bites. She stared right into Simon’s eyes, trying to see inside him. He shifted on the lumpy cushion.

  She said, ‘I want you to understand, Simon, that we’ll all be doing our best to find your parents. I want you to know that.’ She leaned over and pressed her palm to his knee. She held it there, and kept looking at him.

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Simon.

  Madaline bit her lip and let out a quick breath from between her teeth. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  Simon realised no one had told him it was going to be

  okay. If it was a movie, they would have. They would make

  promises. We’ll find your parents if it’s the last thing we do. Everything’s going to be fine.

  Ned came back into the room, holding a large tray. Simon smelled toast and his stomach growled. ‘Brought us some sustenance,’ said Ned, sitting down beside Simon on the couch. The tray had a blue plate in the middle of it, and on the plate was a pile of toasted sandwiches, golden with butter, molten cheese leaking from the edges. An enormous glass sat beside the plate, filled nearly to the top
with milk and Milo. ‘Toasted cheese and mustard,’ said Ned. ‘Perfect midnight snack.’ He took a red napkin from under the plate and handed it to Simon.

  ‘Is it midnight?’ asked Simon. He felt a tiredness lurching inside him.

  ‘Maybe close.’ Ned glanced at his wrist, even though he wasn’t wearing a watch.

  ‘Eat up,’ said Madaline. ‘You must be hungry.’

  Simon picked up a sandwich, and it was perfectly warm. He bit into it, a small bite. The butter melted gently against the roof of his mouth—he felt it, he could almost see it. The cheese was creamy and the mustard was sharp. It was the best thing he had ever tasted. He smelled the flavours as he ate them and felt a shudder across his shoulders: his senses beginning to return. The rain had come up; now it was hammering a loud pattern on the roof.

  Madaline cleared her throat. ‘There’s not much we can do tonight. I’m sure your parents are safe wherever they are. I’ll drive out to the dam tonight, and if I don’t see anything we’ll start a proper search at first light.’

  ‘You might find them tonight though?’

  ‘I may do. The car might have broken down out at the lake, or something. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’

  Simon pictured his parents, huddled together inside the car. Light, in streaks, appearing at the windows: the safety of sunlight, the reassurance of police blue and ambulance reds.

  ‘Simon,’ said Madaline, ‘you’re going to need somewhere to stay tonight.’ She leaned forward in her chair. ‘I don’t want you staying by yourself in that motel room.’

  Simon took a sip of his Milo. He crunched the undissolved malt with his back teeth. He imagined a brontosaurus, grinding branches and leaves.

  ‘I’ve asked Ned if he can look after you,’ said Madaline. ‘He’s got a bigger house than mine. It’s sort of a hotel, but his family lives there too.’

  ‘The Gales’ place,’ said Simon. He remembered the name, the image of a strong wind blowing.

  ‘That’s right.’ Ned cocked his head. ‘You know my last name.’

  ‘Tarden told us,’ said Simon. ‘At the cafe.’

  Madaline put down a corner of a sandwich. ‘You spoke to Jack before your parents went missing?’

  ‘Yes. At the cafe.’ Simon suddenly remembered the connection. ‘My grandma is staying there,’ he said.

  ‘Your grandma?’ said Madaline. ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Gales’ house. That’s why we were coming here.’

  ‘Who’s your grandma?’ said Ned.

  Simon thought this a very strange question. He heard her voice again, in his head, echoing through an empty house. ‘My grandma,’ he said. ‘Iris.’

  Ned’s mouth stood open. ‘She’s never mentioned—’

  ‘We were coming to visit her,’ said Simon. ‘My mum and her haven’t spoken in a long time. But she called us…and she’s sick. All Mum wanted was—’ Simon felt a fire flick yellow in his stomach: not pale like lamplight, but sharp like a flashing sword. He saw a dizzy wide sky, streaked with clouds, and knew his parents were not under it. The world spun. He smelled dust and hand cream. A spider-spout of vomit scuttled at his throat, a warm jumble that fell from his mouth and wet his chest in mustard-coloured clumps.

  Madaline jumped from her seat and put a napkin to his lips. ‘Poor thing,’ she said kindly. ‘You poor bugger.’ She put a hand to Simon’s brow.

  ‘I’ll get a towel,’ said Ned quietly. He got up, and as his arm brushed past, Simon could not ever remember his parents doing this. Tending to him. Simon’s breath was sour and hot when he finally breathed in. His tears, when they came, were cooling.

  The rain had set in steadily, dropping down layer after layer, cloaking everything, in the dark, but the basic shape of the house, its two wide-set storeys. Ned drove up as close to his front

  door as the driveway would allow. ‘We’ll have to make a run for it,’ he said.

  Simon took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ Another step away from the familiar: beyond Ned’s car, beyond the next open door. His jumper was stale with vomit. His panic had abated, his tears had dried, but something blanket-like had settled on his mind. The tug of dead-tiredness dragged at his eyes.

  They sprinted from the car. Simon felt the rain in the small of his back, then streaming down his legs and arms. In a few blind moments he was standing on a porch, shocked to be in a dry place, the rain still falling inches from his face.

  ‘Quite a downpour,’ said Ned. His long hair, warped by the moisture, sketched out at strange angles like loosened hay. He shook one arm of his giant green coat and reached down to a

  flowerpot on the ground, into the soil, to dig out a key. ‘People usually put the front door key underneath the potplant,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d outsmart them.’ He tapped the side of his head, leaving a tiny clump of soil.

  He ushered Simon inside and closed the heavy door behind them. The clatter of rain disappeared as if shut inside a suitcase.

  ‘Welcome,’ said Ned.

  They stood in a large alcove. The floor was patterned with tiny tiles, spread in a blue and white seashell spiral. The effect was whirling water, glittering back an imaginary sun. Beyond the tiles was a hall with a polished wood floor and a straight staircase. Red-wine dark, impossibly old. Water dripped from Simon’s elbows.

  ‘We’ll get you settled,’ said Ned. ‘I’ll show you around properly tomorrow.’

  Simon followed Ned out to the hall and the house opened over him. He peered up through the staircase, at the roof, dim and shadowy. He imagined thick spider webs lacing the ceiling, the patient lure of some ancient, awful creature. He spun his head at a silhouette arcing across the floor, at a girl standing underneath an archway. Her hair was dark and uneven, and her dress—Simon recognised the layer-dress of the girl from the cafe. She looked

  at him with suspicious, sleep-muzzled eyes. She said, ‘What’s going on?’

  Ned took a moment to answer, as if equally confused by the girl’s presence. ‘Audrey,’ he said, ‘this is Simon. He’ll be staying with us for a little while. Simon, this is Audrey, my daughter.’

  The girl rubbed her eyes. ‘I know you,’ she said to Simon. ‘You were at the Ottoman.’

  Simon nodded. ‘You were sitting at the counter. With your brother.’

  ‘How do you know he’s my brother?’ Audrey took a few steps forward. She had strips of fabric tied to her wrists where the sweatbands had been.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Simon. ‘It just looked like he was.’

  ‘He is,’ said Ned. ‘That would have been Julian. My son.’

  ‘We call him Gin,’ said Audrey, ‘like the drink. It’s quicker to say. He won’t mind if you call him that.’

  ‘We can all meet each other in the morning,’ said Ned, ‘but I think Simon should get to bed now. We all should.’

  ‘The boys have been watching TV with the lights off.’ Audrey did a little dance on her left foot. A toe showed through her sock.

  ‘Well that’s all right for tonight,’ said Ned, ‘but can you get them to go to bed now?’

  Audrey stuck out both her hands. ‘Simon, are you left or right handed?’

  Simon stared at her.

  She insisted. ‘Which hand do you prefer?’

  ‘I’m left handed,’ he said.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘I’d better show Simon to a room,’ said Ned. ‘You can meet properly in the morning.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Audrey. ‘Goodnight, Simon.’ She fluttered her fingers at him like a hummingbird’s wing.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Simon.

  Audrey disappeared under the archway. Ned began to climb the stairs. ‘Your grandma’s on the second floor,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some extra blankets so you can sleep in her room.’

  Simon didn’t move. ‘I don’t…won’t she be asleep? I mean she’s—’ He didn’t want to say sick.

  ‘Probably.’ Ned paused. ‘You want to see her, don’t you?’

  Simon s
cuffed a foot against the carpet. ‘I don’t know.’ He ached for something familiar; he could hardly remember his grandma’s face. He wanted to see her with his parents. He wanted them all to be together.

  Ned came back down the stairs. ‘There’s another room on the same floor,’ he said, ‘if you’d rather wait until tomorrow. If you’d rather have your own room.’

  Simon nodded, the prospect of a bed almost a sweet taste on his tongue. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like my own room.’

  At the top of the stairs, the rain smacked a windowpane like an angry hand. A glass cabinet displayed painted plates, teapots and a large open book with black-and-white drawings. Down the hall were definite signs of life. A trail of odd shoes littered one side, gumboots and thongs and sneakers. A large piece of red material lay scrunched up in the middle of the hall, with some metal jacks and a ball sitting on it.

  ‘As you can see,’ Ned bent down and rolled it all into a bundle, ‘Gin’s been this way recently.’

  Simon thought suddenly of his parents. He wondered if they had left a trail behind them. Like Hansel and Gretel: breadcrumbs, being washed away by the rain.

  Further down the hall, Ned opened another door. He flicked a switch and a dim light spilled out across him onto the landing. ‘This can be your room,’ he said. ‘It’s all made up.’

  Simon peered in. A giant freestanding wardrobe filled up most of one wall. In the centre of the room, occupying one half of a huge bay window, was a queen-sized bed covered with a thick patchwork quilt. A seat was cut into the other half of the window, a crescent moon shape covered with a light, fuzzy fabric. On the other side of the room was a small dressing table and chair. The whole space had an ancient, unused feel. Simon saw himself: a reflection in the window. He was surprised at how small he seemed.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Ned, ‘it should be comfortable enough. He ran his hands along one of the walls, slowly, as if waiting for it to change temperature. He turned to Simon. ‘How about I get you some clean clothes? We can wash those other ones for you. I’ll be back in a tick.’

  Ned left and Simon wandered around the room. Everything felt too large, too adult. He sat down on the bed. Instead of springing beneath him, the mattress collapsed silently like a giant pillow.