Read Online Desert Fish by Cherise Saywell - Free Book Online

the fat dissolved and the smear disappeared.
    She put our meals out then. The steaks, chips thatshe’d cut and corn that she’d got fresh on the cob from Charlie’s Market. She shook salt onto the greasy surface of my dad’s steak and dropped a knob of butter onto the corn. Then she did the same with Pete’s.
    My dad pulled his plate close in. For a while he ate in silence. Then he said to Pete, ‘He’s not there anymore, is he? Laurie Burns?’
    â€˜Don’t think so,’ Pete said. ‘Haven’t heard of him.’
    â€˜Yeah. You’ll be fine, then.’ I heard the note of false authority in his tone. In the space between my mother and me was an undercurrent: the silent tug of the things we both knew. My dad still maintained that a refrigerated van would have saved his fruit-selling business.
    â€˜But you know, if it doesn’t work out, you might want to consider a bit of painting with us.’
    Pete shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
    My dad grinned. ‘Yeah, brilliant.’ He sat back and lay his fork down, picked up a chip with his fingers. ‘This is excellent, Maur,’ he said.
    My mother smiled. ‘Did you see the garden, Creighton?’ she asked. ‘I planted a flowerbed today.’
    â€˜Yeah, where?’
    â€˜Out the front.’
    â€˜That what it is?’ my dad asked. ‘Just looked like a square of dirt to me,’ he said, glancing at Pete.
    â€˜Creighton,’ my mother chided. ‘You’ll see. It’s going to be beautiful,’ she promised.

nine
    It’s late morning when I wake. I sense the emptiness of the room before my eyes are properly open. The blinds are closed and the darkness is strange with the day outlined so brightly around the sides of the curtains. My breath rushes out of me and along the dull surfaces, the blank hard edges of the room. The shape of Pete is still there beside me, a soft channel of creases in the bedding and I shift myself into it for comfort. He must have left early, the sheets are cool. His bags are still in the corner of the room and he’s put the chair beside the bed and sat an orange and some crackers on it. The crackers are stale but I eat them, dwelling on his simple gesture. I peel the orange carefully and separate it into pieces, like a mandarin. The smell of it stays on my hands after I wash them, sharp and oily and reassuring. But I still lift Pete’s bags to check they’re not empty. Then I laugh out loud at myself. The sound rattles about the hollow room. Out the window cars hurl past to an irregular beat.
    I think of the woman by the pool yesterday. Would she ever wake in an empty room? And how long would it take to learn to wait patiently, confidently, as she does, for someone to return?
    I choose a soft loose dress to wear, with no waist to remind me of my wrong body. He won’t be bored of me , I say to the quiet room, putting my hand on my hip and pushing the other through my hair and trying to sound as though I believe it. I say it again, aiming for more conviction, for a sassy and easy tone, like she had. He won’t be bored of me, I can tell you that. And my husband is a red-blooded male, you can take it from me . But my voice is thin, the words are fake and even beneath the shapeless cotton my breasts, prickly and hard and hot, betray me.
    Easing myself back into bed I lie against the pillows, half sitting, half lying. But as I shift my legs to find a comfortable position, a memory opens up from somewhere unexpected. It’s not a vision, but rather something remembered inside my body, like a shape that I have momentarily reinhabited. I recall myself in this same position, my legs drawn up, my body bearing down, and with the subsidence of that surging pain, a shaking that began and made my legs heave about as if I were running. Hold her legs, keep her still , someone shouted. They were at the other end of me looking in, and I remember