Baby Page 16

  ‘Exhausted,’ Anahera says.

  Cynthia nods, and looks at Gordon.

  ‘Whatever, white girl.’

  After lunch the dishes sit by the sink. Eventually Anahera and Gordon go do stuff, and Cynthia makes the bed from the table and lies down on it. She relaxes her eyelids, and her eyes under them, then her toes. The two of them come back in, occasionally, and move around her. She twitches her knees, and her glutes too. Anahera’s going to speak to Gordon; she’s probably speaking to him right now, telling him what Cynthia says is what.

  Anahera taps Cynthia’s forehead with two slim fingers, and Cynthia opens her eyes happily.

  ‘What is it you think you do, Cynthia?’ Anahera asks, peering down.

  She looks up, dazed.

  ‘You can actually be a very difficult person to get along with.’

  ‘What did I do?’ she asks, astonished.

  ‘Firstly, I’ve washed the dishes once today. Gordon’s been fishing since this morning, and the least you could do—’

  ‘Is wash the dishes?’

  ‘And flush the toilet,’ Anahera says.

  ‘What? I always flush the toilet. When have I ever not flushed the toilet?’

  ‘But properly, Cynthia. So the bowl’s full of entirely new water. You have to fill the bucket up, then tip the whole lot down. I don’t think you’ve ever done the pump more than twice.’

  She hardly opens her mouth, and Anahera says, ‘Don’t try to blame Gordon.’

  Cynthia’s shocked. This has never been a problem before. She turns over and pushes her face into the pillow. The boat shakes gently as Anahera walks away.

  What’s wrong with this picture—the answer is oafish and obvious—Cynthia, Anahera and Gordon? The weight distribution is terrible. Someone sits alone and two people share a seat. It won’t float.

  Cynthia doesn’t open her eyes for practically the whole afternoon. There’s nothing she wants to see. You can’t move the seats around, they’re fixed on the boat.

  She shifts onto her back and presses her palms against her eyeballs till the blackness hurts. After a while of this, Anahera’s fingers tap her again, this time on the shoulder. Cynthia doesn’t move. More tapping. ‘What?’ she groans.

  ‘Look, I am sorry.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, what’s said is said.’ But Cynthia removes one hand from over her eyes. Anahera laughs a bit, and Cynthia covers it again. She’s ashamed of the voice she uses, it’s moany, but still she speaks. ‘You think I’m just silly and white and too much mess.’ Anahera will say, No, of course not, but Cynthia’s prepared to listen through to the truth.

  ‘Well,’ Anahera says, as if the whole thing is a joke.

  ‘But—you know—you don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘What don’t I know?’ Anahera says, like she’s being really patient. It’s confirmed; the worst. Cynthia removes her hand, briefly, and sees Anahera’s kind face looking down. She slaps her eye covered again. Anahera sees her only as what she is, as if that’s all she is.

  ‘I’m really complicated,’ Cynthia mumbles, almost gurgling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said,’ she says clearly, and louder, ‘that I’m really complicated.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Of course you are,’ Anahera tells her.

  Cynthia’s not going to speak for the rest of the day. Enough’s been said, more than. She clamps her lips together and closes her eyes. Anahera rubs her shoulders a bit, then goes away.

  Gordon’s captivated her. There must be something in the way his muscles tense when he hauls fish in from the sea; he must have a proud, boyish smile when he turns to her, with them still flapping on the end of his line. His lips peel back in Cynthia’s mind now, and the teeth behind them are big and white.

  That night she and Anahera share the bed, but it means nothing. Cynthia’s body is weighty with new fat, and it pushes her down.

  45.

  She wakes at her usual time; something like eight. She’s in bed alone, which is typical, and the sun shines on the boat, coming strong through the windows like always. But, there’s no noise at all. Gordon’s gone too. She fills a cup with Coco Pops and eats them un-milked. They make a good noise between her teeth. She fills it twice more. When she’s done she doesn’t wash it, but bangs it on the floor twice so the leftovers fall out, and puts it back in the cupboard. She feels weird and jumpy, and gets up to pee. The boat doesn’t move, even when she does.

  She watches a video on her phone. It’s of a woman in front of a blackboard in a pencil skirt. She writes ‘Penny Lee, substitute teacher’ on the board, and giggles. Beside the blackboard there’s a poster with an apple on it. After Penny Lee flicks her hair—which is a very good part—Cynthia skips forward.

  ‘It’s your what?’ Penny Lee’s mouth drops. ‘Your big cock?’ She puts a lot of emphasis on some words and looks offended, but also aroused. In the moment before this, Cynthia remembers, Penny’s just asked why all the girls want to sleep with the student, who’s in detention for sleeping with all the girls.

  Penny Lee touches her top, then flicks her hair again. There’s no one else in detention. They’re away. She’s on the boat alone. She doesn’t know where they are or what they’re doing, but she knows exactly what Penny’s about to say. She never leaves the guy time to reply, or even for Cynthia to think what he’d say if he did. It’s big, anyway.

  Penny strips unhurriedly, while keeping Cynthia abreast with the situation. The guy’s wanking his big cock, and Penny admits it’s only fair that she should get completely naked. She’s got a British accent, she says completely naked. Then there’s a good bit where she shows her bum, and Cynthia pauses it there.

  She looks at it for a long time, and slowly it begins not to look like a bum at all. It becomes two lumps of flesh, and then a mass of beige like an old pudding. Cynthia looks out the window at the water—still barely moving—then back at Penny’s bottom, and she cries a bit. She gets up for more Coco Pops, but sits again. She’s crying a lot. Penny’s bum’s blurry through her tears, and liquidy. The water outside stays silent and static, ignoring the small heaves of Cynthia’s body.

  She gets the whole bag, even though they’re stale and dry. Then, back in bed, she pours them in her hand carefully. It’s full of them, but—they’ll never fill her up; they’re hollow, milkless. She shoves the fist of them against her mouth, but it can’t open wide enough to receive them all. About a third are crushed against her face, and fall down her shirt, onto her legs and the bed. She fills another hand with them, then swallows what she’s got in her mouth. After putting the second load against her face and in her mouth, she shakes her top out, so the crumbs fall onto her belly and stick there.

  What are they doing? Talking about? Cynthia doesn’t know anything at all. When Anahera goes to the toilet, or swimming, or even just looks at Cynthia, Cynthia forgets that their love isn’t a mutual love. When Anahera does anything at all Cynthia forgets. It’s only Gordon that reminds her, and with each remembering she finds herself newly abandoned, floating alone on the vast loneliness of the sea. It swells and settles, and once it’s settled she forgets again that it’s right there beneath her.

  Cynthia hears the splashing and laughter of their return, brushes most of the Coco Pops from her face, and settles in sombrely to wait for them. Anahera takes a hand off his arm before coming through the door, but Cynthia saw it. They stand together above her, dewy, salty and fresh with the calm morning.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ Anahera asks.

  ‘No.’

  Anahera begins making porridge.

  ‘Do you think you might get up? I will make this table,’ Gordon says, scratching his head. He sits at the foot of the bed, and Cynthia pulls her legs quickly up and away from him. ‘Okay,’ he says, and shuffles away too.

  ‘What does she see in you, do you think?’ she asks him, quite loudly.

  He recommences scratching, now at his ear, and looks at the wall. Anahera turns and says, ‘I thought w
e might all have breakfast, Cynthia. At the table. Gordon has something he’d like to tell you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Cynthia says, wriggling her feet so they take up more space, and glaring at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Cynthia, get out of the bed. Gordon’s going to make the table. We’re having a meal,’ Anahera says, scooping porridge into three bowls.

  Cynthia giggles and says in a husky, kinky voice, ‘Yes Ma’am,’ but really she’s annoyed. She stands back and watches Coco Pops fall everywhere while Gordon pulls the bedding off.

  They all sit down, with a bowl of porridge each. Behind the window the yellow boat that pulled them off the beach only three days ago sits gently on lilting water. Cynthia moves her finger towards the glass. Anahera and Gordon eat, and watch her. When she hits it, he says, ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘What?’ she doesn’t turn, but pushes harder. The finger bends at the first joint, and goes white at the tip. Further down it’s red. Interesting, she thinks, but it isn’t.

  ‘Oh, nothing anyway,’ he says.

  She shrugs, removes her finger, and slams it forward again as suddenly and hard as she can.

  ‘Yes,’ Anahera says, putting her spoon down. ‘Something.’

  Cynthia’s listening now, but she doesn’t shift or lessen the pressure of her finger on the glass.

  ‘Ah,’ Gordon says. ‘Yes, it is that. I am to tell you. My game I have been playing is irresponsible. Ah, cruel. I am to stop immediately.’

  Cynthia sucks her finger, it hurts now. She doesn’t look at him, but at Anahera, who looks back and fills her mouth with more porridge. Gordon makes a noise as if to say more, but Anahera turns—suddenly—and says, ‘Nothing else. That’s it.’

  ‘Should he apologise?’ Cynthia asks.

  Anahera nods, and says, ‘He will apologise.’

  Gordon is red. Little veins are visible in his cheeks. ‘I will apologise,’ he says.

  They both look at him, with eyebrows raised, waiting.

  ‘I will say—’ he begins.

  ‘No,’ Cynthia says. ‘Say it.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ He looks down into his porridge, and scrunches his face up as if very confused.

  ‘Good,’ Anahera tells them both, looking from one to the other.

  46.

  Right after dinner, Gordon tugs Anahera outside by the arm, to watch the sunset. Cynthia makes the bed and gets in. She stretches her four limbs out tight so they hurt. There’ll be no space for him. They stay out there for minutes, and Cynthia’s thigh cramps. When Anahera does finally come back in she appears shocked at seeing Cynthia so aggressively star-fished.

  ‘Oh!’ Cynthia says. ‘There’s room for you.’

  She shuffles over quickly, but Anahera says, ‘It’s only eight?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Cynthia says, shifting her arm and leg back, lest he attempt to slip in.

  He strolls back in and stands beside Anahera, looking down and yawning, ‘Gosh,’ he says. ‘Do you want to play cards?’ he asks Anahera.

  She looks again at the bed, there’s no table.

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Want to go for a paddle about?’

  Anahera nods, goes out, and he follows her. Cynthia lies, waiting. If she goes to pee, even with him in the dinghy, even as quickly as she can, he’ll attempt to claim it. He knows how much it means now. She lies there for at least an hour, then sleeps.

  Her hand touches a leg, rough and hairy: his. It moves.

  ‘Gordon!’ she hisses.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes—she said, she will take a turn in the cabin.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  He repeats himself.

  She logs in to Facebook. There’s no chance of sleep now.

  ‘Are you scrolling through a wall?’ he asks, immediately.

  She’s turned away from him, blocking the screen with her body. He’ll only see the light. She moves down the page silently, and thinks she can feel his eyes blinking behind her back in their slow, dumb way. ‘You all just post pictures of things,’ he says. His lips are as wet as a baby’s, she can hear it in his voice when they separate. ‘Things you think are pretty.’ His mouth is a pond of spit.

  Cynthia raises her eyebrows in the dark, and likes someone’s link to an article about sugar taxes. If she leaned over with a knife right now, and stabbed his throat, would he gurgle? She scrolls. He would.

  ‘Are you afraid of drowning?’ he asks. ‘Or have you already drowned in your social media device?’ The blankets shift down low, near his muscled toes. He’s wriggling them.

  She could conk him on the head with something. ‘How would I drown in my phone, Gordon?’

  Anahera shouts at them from the cabin. ‘Little bit quieter, guys.’

  ‘Righto!’ he yells back. Then he whispers to Cynthia, ‘Ah, I mean, metaphorically. In the feed. Are you hungry, Cynthia, or are you fed?’

  She hears his age. When they first met and he seemed wild, he seemed young too. As young as Anahera. That was a long time ago now. He’s acquired a decade from nowhere, and he’s weak.

  He very diligently ignores her lack of response. ‘You don’t believe in reality,’ he whispers. ‘You believe in reality TV.’

  He’s naïve. Cynthia remembers when he dressed in a suit for their Boat Island tour; he combed his hair. She likes a picture of a three-legged dog.

  ‘If I threw you over’—his whisper is even quieter now—‘would you be afraid you might drown? No? Because you can swim?’

  ‘I can swim,’ Cynthia turns and hisses back at him. ‘It’s just fucking boring.’ Her face is much too near to his. She can feel him breathing.

  He clears his throat; a deep, reverberating noise, like a rock falling in a cave. ‘Because you think Anahera, that nice strong girl, would save you? You think you know she’d save you?’ She can feel him grinning now. His lips are stretched. ‘Think of Anahera—she is a lion. She would murder a goat with her mouth and eat it. And she knows how to speak nicely to people.’

  ‘Guys,’ Anahera says from the cabin. ‘Quit muttering.’

  Cynthia closes her eyes. Not to sleep—she won’t surrender—but to rest. He’s probably a farmer in Germany, she thinks. He’s got the waiting intelligence of a dog, and the muscled tongue of a bull. Here, he has found himself so at home in New Zealand, our dirty country of animals. Cynthia doesn’t know any farmers, but you only have to watch the news to know what sort of place this country is.

  47.

  In the morning she wakes in bed alone.

  Gordon is clean—his clothing and his smell, his articulation and the way he moves through the boat. His body’s sectioned into tidily cleared parts like those of a Ken doll.

  He’s clean, but Cynthia finds a bottle of piss in the cabin where he sleeps. It’s tucked away, where the walls narrow and the ceiling meets the floor, behind some cushions they don’t use. She opens it and peers in. It’s a big old Fanta bottle, nearly full. At its neck the liquid’s surfaced with five or so little bubbles. She takes a whiff—putrid—then screws the lid back on tight, and replaces it behind the cushions. What a revolting man he is, she thinks again and again, kneading the cushions with her feet.

  For the rest of that blessed afternoon she ponders what to do about it. During dinner she decides that at their next meal time she’ll pour it very gently under the table onto the crotch of his pants. She only needs something good to say afterwards. Something he can’t reply to.

  The piss bottle is from when he first arrived with them. When he stayed in the cabin at night, unsleeping. He behaved properly in their home then.

  48.

  The next day Anahera’s swimming and Gordon’s having breakfast; it’ll have to wait till lunch. When Anahera comes back Cynthia’s having seconds.

  ‘You look cute,’ she says. ‘Happy.’

  Cynthia nods, it’s true—she does and she is. ‘What will you do today?’ she asks.

  Anahera shrugs and leans forward, towards her. ‘You?’

  ‘Just some stuff,’ Cynthia says. />
  Gordon’s standing at the back, shouting at the guy on the yellow boat. It’s closer now, not twenty metres away. He’s so noisy, Anahera rolls her eyes.

  ‘Hey!’ Cynthia giggles. ‘Hey, hey—wait a sec.’ She touches Anahera’s nose, and clambers into the cabin. It’s the perfect time for the chocolates. He’s distracted, and she and Anahera are both beautiful today, and near love, or just near each other.

  He’s folded the clothes in his bag, and she doesn’t want to mess them up and disturb him prematurely. The chocolates are right at the bottom. She’s got the bag on the floor, and she’s lying on a lower bunk with one of her legs sticking through the cabin door. Anahera taps her foot with something cold, like a spoon. Wet, maybe—with Anahera’s spit, maybe. Cynthia stops worrying about the foldedness of the shirts. She pulls out the chocolates, then fists everything back in. The spoon taps her again, and she turns to see Anahera’s face smiling through the gap in the door.

  ‘Yeah?’ Anahera says.

  ‘Yeah!’ Cynthia throws the box at her.

  They sit opposite each other. Gordon’s yelling at his buddy. ‘Women!’ He laughs uproariously. ‘They’re always screaming! Ha!’

  Anahera hasn’t opened the box. Cynthia wants to take them back and do it. She wants at least ten chocolates in Anahera before Gordon says they’re his. But, Anahera’s examining the little smiley faces. ‘These look expensive,’ she says, beaming.

  ‘Yup,’ Cynthia nods. She can feel herself squinting, and she’s pulling at her thumb with her fist, so it aches at the socket.

  ‘What?’ Anahera asks. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I just want to see you eat five at once,’ Cynthia says, still squeezing and pulling. She looks behind Anahera, through the door at the deck, but she can’t see Gordon. He’s quiet now, he must be listening, either to them or his friend.

  Anahera’s only silent for a moment. Then she laughs and rips the box open. ‘Five?’ she asks.

  Cynthia nods, waiting.

  ‘Do you want one?’ Anahera pauses.