The Ottoman Motel Read online

  Tarden took a bottle of lemon cordial and sloshed some into a glass. Once he would have drunk it with white spirits. Today, he simply mixed it with cold water from the fridge. He downed it in two gulps. It was then he caught a subtle shift in the whine of silence.

  He took his empty glass down the hall. Robbie’s bed was behind the open door, up against the wall, so all Tarden could see were his brown legs, crossed at the ankles. The ridge of Robbie’s foot had a deep purple bruise across it where he’d kicked the towbar of the car that morning. The small black-and-white TV he kept on his desk was showing a game show. On the screen a contestant sat behind a panel with a question superimposed below her. The static made it too hard to read.

  ‘What’s the question?’ Tarden said, stepping into the room. Robbie, he saw, wasn’t looking at the television: his eyes were fixed on the book lying flat in his lap. It was one of the classics he got sometimes in the mail, tightly bound in fake leather, titles stamped in gold down the spines. He wore his jeans rolled up but had taken off his shirt.

  ‘What question?’ Kuiper spoke without looking up.

  ‘On your quiz show there.’

  Kuiper raised his head to the television, folding his arms across his chest. ‘That’s a news report,’ he said. ‘Nations warring, people starving. Et cetera.’ He snorted a humourless laugh. He shifted his legs up under his body to let Tarden sit down. Tarden felt his warmth still present on the sheets. The room smelled of whatever sweet state came before decay.

  ‘Shouldn’t we think about getting back to the Magpie?’ Tarden said.

  Kuiper stretched, yawning a dead man’s yawn. His muscles shivered. ‘Reckon we’ll head out in twenty,’ he said.

  ‘What about the car?’

  Kuiper gritted his teeth. ‘It’ll be safe for a day.’

  ‘You sure? What about tyre tracks?’

  ‘Relax. It pissed down last night. The road’s mud. If it blows over, we get a car, or we sell it. If not, we dump it, make a nice bonfire.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘All we’ve got to do is keep it local,’ said Kuiper. ‘Keep it all in town, everything’ll be fine.’

  Tarden put his glass down on the floor. ‘I just think—’

  ‘Bit on edge, Jacky?’ His demon grin. ‘Want to take the edge off?’

  ‘Nah. You know I don’t…Fuck, especially not today. We gotta be careful. You said so this morning.’ The TV’s reception went completely, the picture dissolving to a froth of ants.

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ said Kuiper. ‘I know you’re Healthy Harold now.’ He shifted his weight to move his legs out from under him. Lay back, placing his calves on Tarden’s lap. ‘I’m saying we can find a way to relax.’

  Gin met them halfway down the stairs. He came running, making sputtering noises with his mouth like a failing fighter plane. He was covered in dirt and soaked through. ‘Madaline’s here, Dad,’ he shouted, running at Ned full pelt. ‘She’s a policeman again.’

  ‘Don’t!’ said Ned, holding out his arms to stop Gin cannoning into him. ‘Have you been under the sprinkler?’

  Gin looked up to the ceiling. ‘No.’

  ‘Shower,’ said Ned. ‘Now.’

  ‘But I’m a crime-fighter.’

  ‘A crime-fighter who’s been told many times about playing under the sprinkler.’ Ned ushered his son down the stairs.

  As they reached the bottom, Simon noticed Madaline standing in the doorway. She had on a proper police uniform, which made Simon feel safer. She held a black backpack in one hand.

  ‘Hi Simon,’ she said. ‘How’re you feeling?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  Madaline came into the house and took off her hat. Its brim reminded Simon of a platypus’s bill.

  ‘You can use the dining room,’ said Ned. ‘First door on the right.’

  ‘All right,’ said Madaline. ‘Shall we?’

  Simon followed her down the corridor, past the kitchen and through a panelled wooden door. The first thing he noticed was the thick spread of dark green carpet. It seemed to suck the light from the room, made the air a weighty curtain draping

  the cavernous fireplace on the main wall, sagging solemnly from the gold frames of the paintings. It was nothing like the rest

  of the house, Simon thought, it was older. Stuck in a different part of history.

  In the middle of the room was a large wooden table just as big as the one in the kitchen but perfectly square. The wood was the same gloomy ruby as Iris’s bed, its surface so deep and polished that Simon imagined the same hand rubbing it with a soft cloth for centuries.

  Madaline stood at the window staring through the gauzy curtain. ‘We’d better start,’ she said. She put the backpack down. ‘Do you want a seat, Simon?’

  Simon took the chair next to hers.

  Madaline opened the backpack and placed a battered blue exercise book, a pencil case and a tiny tape recorder on the shiny table; it seemed wrong to Simon to give such ordinary objects a place on the pristine surface.

  ‘Myself and Senior Sergeant Parker—that’s my boss—went to the Ottoman Motel this morning. We went to the room you and your parents were staying in.’

  A flash of fear. Simon remembered the moment his parents’ faces shifted under the motel lights and they became other people.

  ‘They don’t seem to have gone back there,’ said Madaline. ‘Everything was the same as when we left it. We have to keep—just for now—we have to keep everything there the way it was, for evidence. But I did bring you some clothes, and a book.’ Madaline reached into the backpack and pulled out a large see-through plastic bag. A couple of Simon’s T-shirts were in there, some underwear, a pair of trousers. ‘I didn’t know which…how many—’ Madaline fluttered her fingers. ‘There was a book as well.’ She placed Simon’s book on the table. He had chosen it for their destination. The Reader’s Dictionary of the Sea. He had bought it in an op-shop, intrigued by the cover, a picture of a huge wave with a ship stuck at the bottom of it, its nose upturned. Simon had always imagined the wave a giant mouth, ready to swallow whatever was foolish enough to drift inside it.

  ‘Now, Simon,’ said Madaline. ‘I need to ask you a couple of questions now. This isn’t an official interview, which means that nothing you say will leave this room unless you tell me it can. Do you understand?’

  Simon nodded.

  ‘Good. There’s nothing to worry about here. If you don’t want to answer any questions, or you don’t know how to answer them, you don’t have to. All this is about is you telling me as much about yesterday as you can. Anything at all, even if it seems unimportant. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Simon knew he had to pay attention. But as his eyes relaxed, staring into the table’s surface, dark lines started to crawl into his sight, stealing in from outward angles. Tiny spidery figures and shapes seemed to follow each other in constant motion, only stopping when Simon moved his eyes just to either side of them. He slowed his eyes, trying to catch them, but the figures would not come into focus. He moved his finger slowly above the polished surface, and they fell away, shrinking into shadow.

  Simon felt a pressure on his arm. He looked over. Madaline’s fingers were pressing gently on his skin. Her fingernails had flecks of white, little ships in a ridged pink sea.

  ‘Simon,’ she said. ‘When you’re ready.’

  He looked over at the tape recorder. Through a translucent window on its cover, he saw two wheels of a tape turning.

  ‘I don’t have to use the tape if you don’t want me to,’ said Madaline. ‘It’s only so I don’t forget anything.’

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘All right.’ She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘What time did you and your family arrive in Reception, Simon?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The sun was still up, but it was low.’

  Madaline scribbled something in her worn exercise book. Simon thought the police were supposed to write in black

 
notebooks that flipped over at the top. ‘How long had you been travelling for?’

  ‘We left after breakfast. Maybe eight o’clock?’

  Madaline nodded. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her book. It was a map, dotted with place names, criss-crossed in red and black lines like a medical diagram. The top of it was the tall triangle Simon knew was Queensland. He also knew Reception was somewhere below the border, the wormy black line in the middle of the page that traced its way towards the coast, turning into a frantic squirm when it saw the egg-blue sea. ‘Reception is here,’ Madaline said, pointing to a small bubble of coastline.

  ‘It’s not on the map.’ Simon looked closer.

  ‘Well the name’s not. But it’s there.’ Madaline put her finger on the map above the border. ‘This is the Gold Coast. Do you recognise any of the towns between here and Reception?’

  Simon scanned his eyes down the map as Madaline traced the highway. He tried to match a town’s name to his memory of the road signs he’d seen. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  Simon’s head felt suddenly empty, as if the previous day was a dream he’d had and already forgotten. He gave Madaline descriptions of his parents, the car, the town where they’d stopped for morning tea, but the details had disappeared.

  Madaline leaned back in her chair. She stretched her neck and Simon heard tiny clicks. ‘Maybe we can talk a bit about when you got here. You visited the pub, didn’t you, the Ottoman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did anything unusual happen while you were there?’

  ‘We had lunch, even though it was too late to have it.’

  Madaline smiled. ‘But nothing strange or scary happened while you were there? Your parents didn’t do anything, or say anything that might have worried you?’

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Madaline smoothed her hands across the paper of her book. ‘Some…people I’ve spoken to who were at the Ottoman yesterday afternoon said your parents had an argument.’

  Simon’s scars burned. Was this the reason they didn’t come back? Because they disagreed?

  ‘Do your parents often have arguments?’

  ‘Not really. Maybe.’

  ‘Do you know what they were arguing about?’

  Simon sighed. He thought about his grandma, huddled under her sheets. The fear in her voice. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was sitting at the counter I think.’ He felt his cheeks getting hot. ‘Why are you asking me about this? They haven’t disappeared just because they had an argument. That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’s all right, Simon.’ Madaline put her hand back on his arm. ‘We can stop this any time you want. You just tell me.’

  Simon felt the sting of tears. ‘Why does everyone talk so much? Why doesn’t anyone want to just find my mum and dad?’ He felt the world stretching away from him again, an empty world that went on forever. There was no safe place to return to once the interview had finished. No normality. This was the way it was now.

  It should have been his mother’s hand on his arm. His parents should be home, should be here, but they weren’t. Not anymore. Simon’s shoulders shook, the bottom falling from the earth, and him falling through it.

  He felt Madaline’s arm close around his shoulders and watched his tears drop to the table’s surface. Against the endless depth of the polished wood, the tension of each tear wavered, unbroken for an instant, then scattered absently like so many stars: seeds strewn by God against a darkened sky.

  Tarden let his hand ride the air current that flashed past the

  driver’s window. It surfed the wind for a beautiful moment before a rogue gust pushed it back to the edge of the sill. His other hand rested lightly on the steering wheel, two fingers to keep the car on the bitumen. They’d had to take the long way to the lake; the dirt track that ran from the back of the house was slush after the rain.

  The familiar beauty of the landscape never failed to captivate Tarden. His childhood, those days when memories first formed, had been framed by steel, by the static shadow-shapes of the urban fringe. Coloured in rail-yard greys, hemmed by highways in every direction and reminded of his boundaries by the burnt-out cars that never made it out. The bush, that mythical quarry for terms like scrub and sea and outback was nothing but an abstraction then.

  And yet, here he was, twenty, thirty years later, truly knowing what the country was, his discovery all the sweeter for the extra freedoms it contained. And Robert Kuiper, a man he could have never imagined, here with him.

  Robbie, Tarden had to admit, had chosen a rural life for business, not pleasure. He was a man whose veins pumped harder with more bodies around him, with less space to live in. Although Robbie spoke little of his early life, Tarden had pieced together snatches of speech and intimate, near-sleep whispers. He had a blurred image of a large family, a childhood fortressed by money, an unimpeded view of opportunity in a country of skewed privilege. Robbie’s upbringing went some way to explaining his almost ravenous sense of entitlement; he and his family had suffered much, Tarden gathered, since apartheid’s demise.

  He knew Robbie had once been a confident, bulletproof spirit. The head of his own company, a shining light of commerce. It saddened him deeply, this listless, apathetic, shadow of the man Tarden imagined he once was. Even when they first met, in the grey-washed light of prison—where every spirit was inevitably dampened—Robbie was a rare point of brilliance. Sharp where other minds were blunt, alert where others slumped; attractive in a way no one else had ever been.

  Tarden glanced over. ‘You right there?’

  Kuiper shrugged, staring into his lap. He was wearing the same black shirt he’d been wearing for the past three days. ‘Hungry.’

  ‘Really? We only had breakfast a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’ Kuiper brought his hands up to his face.

  Tarden stared straight ahead at the road. Without realising it, his fingers had hardened to the steering wheel. The thing he was most worried about was how much Robbie was using. Since the kid’s parents had arrived—and the complications that came with them—Robbie had been on edge. More on edge.

  Kuiper reached into the backseat and came back with a sun-melted chocolate bar. ‘Want one?’

  ‘What sort is it?’

  ‘I dunno. Something.’ The wrapper had faded to a light brown.

  Kuiper tore off the top with his teeth and spat it out. ‘Mars Bar,’ he said with a mouth full of caramel.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Tarden.

  ‘Come on,’ Kuiper said. ‘Helps you work, rest and play.’ He waggled the moist end of the bar at the corner of Tarden’s mouth.

  ‘I said I’m fine.’ Tarden brushed away Kuiper’s hand.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Kuiper went for another mouthful. ‘Ah, fucking hell.’ He put the half-finished bar on the dashboard to peer at his shirt. He found the dropped chocolate and tried to rub it off. White, chalky stains began to appear.

  ‘Fucking thing,’ he said. ‘How am I supposed to eat one of these fucking things without it dropping all over my fucking shirt? Piece of shit!’ He spat on his fingers and rubbed them against the cotton, then picked up the Mars Bar and threw it out the window. ‘This wouldn’t have happened if I could’ve fucking eaten at home.’

  Tarden had been following Kuiper’s snack food tragedy with some amusement. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s only a bit of chocolate.’

  Kuiper sneered at the dashboard. He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m not worried,’ he said. ‘Only a bit of chocolate.’

  Tarden looked back at the road.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t like being dragged out on a perfectly good—’ Kuiper’s hands flailed, ‘whatever the hell day it is. Couldn’t even have a shower. I mean, why are we even bothering to go out there? It’s not as if anyone’s going to—’

  ‘You told Madaline we would. Besides, everyone else is going out
to help.’

  ‘I say a lot of things, Jack. It might surprise you to know I don’t follow up on all of them.’

  Tarden took a hand off the wheel and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I just think it’s a nice thing to do for the kid, if no one else.’

  Kuiper slid back in his seat. ‘Nothing nice about it. We’re only doing it to make sure this thing doesn’t get any more complicated than it has to.’

  ‘You’ve got to feel for him, though, don’t you? And Ned…it can’t be that easy.’

  Kuiper wheezed out a laugh. ‘Well I guess I’m what they call objective. I don’t spend as much time fraternising at Ned’s house as some others.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Before the words left his mouth, Tarden regretted rising to the bait. He hadn’t told Robbie about Iris being related to the Sawyers. He shrugged. ‘I help out where I can. Ned’s a good man.’

  ‘Surely they don’t need that much help. What is it you’re really after, Jack-me-lad?’

  Tarden breathed out heavily. ‘I’m not going to continue this conversation.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Firstly, Robbie, because it’s a stupid question, and secondly, because I know your brain’s halfway up in the ether.’

  Kuiper spat out the window. He bit his lip, then laughed and leaned back against the headrest. ‘The funny thing,’ he said, ‘is that some people can’t see what’s right in front of them.’

  Tarden returned his eyes to the road, silent.

  The water from the lake gleamed like metal, glittering through the trees, reflecting back what little sunlight there was into focused, knife-sharp flashes. Simon sat in the back of Ned’s blue station wagon. Gin was in the front passenger seat and Audrey sat next to Simon in the back. Pony had disappeared when Ned went looking for him, and Simon was somehow disappointed not to have him here as well.

  They followed the faint dust-spray of Madaline’s Corolla as it threaded its way carefully along the rain-pocked road. Audrey’s hand brushed his as they drove over a pothole. She seemed to have forgiven him for his words about her mother, about not believing in ghosts. Gin had changed into a new outfit. Red T-shirt and shorts, with Flash Gordon written in comic book writing on both. Ned’s hair made its way through the gap in the driver’s headrest, blonde strands ruffling in the wind.