The Ottoman Motel (27 page)

She tried to get up from under the weight of Kuiper's body, but a piercing pain shot through her shoulder and exploded in her skull. She cried out and collapsed back down to quell the pain. Her knee was molten hot. It was then she noticed Tarden standing above them. He was holding the gun out in front of him. His eyes were completely blank, his head moving slowly from side to side. Madaline tried to call out to him but could make no sound.

Ned's voice came; close by. ‘Jack, it's over.'

Tarden just shook his head.

‘Jack,' Ned repeated. ‘Just put the gun down. Gin's okay, and—'

Tarden turned the gun around and slipped his thumb over the trigger. Madaline squeezed her eyes shut as the shot rang out.

It was slower, this time, the flash of white more like a wave, the sound more like a sail's snap, the feeling more like the heat of the sun as you passed between two shadows.

When Madaline opened her eyes, all she saw were the stars, perfect white dots against the winter sky. She wondered for a moment at the patterns people saw in them. Faith, she thought, and meaning, drawn from such heavenly but ordinary things, whose existence had long since passed, whose light was only ever a reminder of the impermanence of everything.

Simon had not been in a hospital since his fall, all that time ago. He was too young then to remember much except the room he lived in for two weeks while his broken legs set. There was a tree just outside his window that scratched when the wind picked up. A nice nurse had brought him a pack of cards. He remembered the colour of the band they made him wear on his wrist. He remembered the light, too, he realised now. Even here—a different hospital in a different state—the light was the same sickly yellow-white that felt like it stuck to you.

It was morning now, early, the sun nothing but a suggestion below the horizon. The emergency waiting room was in the heart of the hospital, in an alcove where four paths met. It was painfully cold. One of the nurses had given Simon a blanket, and he shared it with Audrey, who was asleep in the chair next to him. She tucked the blanket to her chin, holding it there with two bare arms. With no coat to cover her, Simon saw long sleek lines of scar tissue hatched into Audrey's wrists. He tried not to look, but he had to. He wanted to wake her up, to tell her it was okay. He wanted to tell her that he had scars too.

Audrey had wanted to stay with Gin, but they had to wait for Ned to say it was okay. They hadn't seen Gin, Ned or Madaline since they got to the hospital, but people kept saying they were fine. The doctor told them that Gin was okay, that nothing bad had happened to him. Ned had hurt his ribs, they said, and they had to keep an eye on him because of the concussion. Something had happened to Madaline, something that meant she was having an operation. Tarden was in another part of the hospital, and no one would tell them anything about him. The doctor hadn't even heard of Kuiper.

Simon saw his grandmother coming down the hall from the reception desk. She looked, now, more like Simon had remembered her. No makeup, her hair pulled back to a loose ponytail. Dressed in a jumper and light brown trousers, plain sandals on her feet. She walked with short deliberate steps. She had a bunch of flowers in her hand, held out far in front of her like a firecracker. Simon wondered where she got flowers so early in the day. They were bright and loud, great rainbow tassels, like hats and gloves shoved into wrapping. The cellophane hissed as she walked, past the other people in the waiting room: a young couple asleep with an empty pram beside them; an old man with a suitcase, his head in his hands.

‘Simon,' she whispered. ‘Everything okay?'

‘Fine,' he whispered back. ‘Did you find anything to drink?'

She shook her head. She held out the flowers. ‘I want to take these up to Jack. Will you be all right here?'

‘Why do you want to see
him
?'

‘I just do.'

‘Will they let you? We don't even know what's wrong with him.'

She shrugged. ‘I'm going to see.'

She shot a glance at the policeman by the nurse's station. He was a big guy, middle-aged, his grey hair buzzed short. He held his hands awkwardly behind his back and seemed to have trouble deciding which leg to stand on.

Simon liked the other policeman better, the one he gave his statement to a few hours ago. They'd done it at Tommy's house, although Tommy wasn't there. In a proper office, with a proper police notebook, using a proper tape recorder. The other policeman told him that Tommy would be ‘taking a break'.

It was his grandma who had called the police—the
proper
police. After Madaline and Ned left in Ned's car, Simon knew he had to tell her what was going on. It seemed like—after he told her—that she'd lost her breath. She kept asking him to repeat himself, as if she sort of believed him, but couldn't quite. Then her face seemed to get longer, and she made the phone call. While they waited, she showed Simon her photo album. Pictures of him as a baby, and pictures of his mum growing up, then with a young guy without a beard who was his dad. His Grandpa Karl, who he'd never met, took most of the photos, but now and again he'd appear in front of the camera. His grandma had told Simon that he looked like Karl, but he couldn't see it. He thought about the pictures
his
parents took, their portraits for the calendar every year. He wondered if there would still be a calendar to make.

‘Can I go and look for something to drink?' said Simon. He thought he'd seen a vending machine in the hall.

‘Maybe soon,' said Iris. Her eyes looked glassy. ‘Just stay here a moment.' She walked over to the policeman by the nurse's station and started talking to him.

Simon couldn't hear what she was saying. All he heard was the cellophane rustling from the flowers in her hand. She and the policeman talked for what seemed like five minutes. His grandma's hand movements got bigger and bigger the more they talked. Eventually, the policeman bent down his head. He put his hand on Iris's shoulder.

Simon thought his grandmother's body seemed to change. Her shoulders dropped, her arms fell to her sides. It was as if the whole shape of her had deflated. The policeman stroked her shoulder, shifted his weight again. His grandmother sniffed. Her legs began to shake.

When she finally turned her head to look at Simon, her eyes were the colour of a slow, sad ocean.

Simon stepped back out of the glare that struck off the surface of Magpie Lake, returning to the shade afforded by one of three giant marquees set up below the carpark. The scene before him was hard to believe. Three police vans parked beside the marquees, teams of searchers in orange and white jumpsuits combing the landscape. A police boat out in the lake, the black heads of divers dotting the water around it.

Audrey came over to him with a can of Coke. She handed it to him. The police had even brought food and drink for the searchers: there was a fridge on a trailer with a loud motor keeping it cool.

Simon took the can. ‘Thanks.'

Audrey had on her mother's tweed coat, but she'd cut the arms and hem so she more or less fitted it.

‘Look, they're using gridlines,' said Simon. He pointed at a screen to their left. A large map of the lake was pinned to a corkboard. It was a satellite picture, turning the lake into opal blue. Thick yellow lines hatched through it, dividing the map into equal squares.

‘I always thought of battleships,' said Audrey. ‘Trying to sink each other.'

They heard a sloshing sound and turned to see four men in fishing overalls hauling in a net at the shore. They dragged it onto a line of yellow tarpaulins and upturned their catch. A fresh load of carcasses spread out, tumbling off each other.

‘More of them,' said Simon.

Audrey scrunched up her face. The stink wafted over them. ‘How many
are
there?'

Simon shrugged. This was Jack Tarden's legacy to the town. Magpie Lake was a graveyard for his mistakes. Simon couldn't imagine how many times he had travelled out here to dump his catches. Or why he'd done it. He was gone now so they would never know. His life had slipped away in the hospital room with two policemen guarding his door.

Kuiper never got to the hospital at all; not the part of it for people who were still alive, anyway.

‘What do they do with all the bodies?' said Audrey.

‘What? Oh, the crabs. I don't know.'

‘Think about all their families,' she said. ‘All those crabs and yabbies. All the babies that won't be born.'

Simon pictured a funeral for all the creatures. It would be pretty strange. Maybe the news crews waiting up on the road, behind the police cordon, would want to cover it. Those vans with satellite dishes perched on their roofs. He'd seen them camped outside Tarden and Kuiper's shed, too, filming and snapping photographs as dozens of police officers filed in and out.

‘Anyway,' said Audrey. ‘We'll keep waiting. Do you want anything else?'

Simon shook his head and she touched his hand. She was about to say something, but decided not to. She walked off, back to where Gin was waiting patiently for her to play her hand in some complicated card game. Gin clearly hadn't enjoyed his first taste of real adventure. Today he had abandoned his superhero costumes and instead wore a T-shirt and shorts. He'd kept on his gumboots, the same ones he'd had on when Simon first saw him that morning at the Ottoman.

Simon peered over at the next marquee along. A score of police officers in reflective vests stood in a semi-circle around Madaline, who was pointing to a poster on another corkboard. She had on her full uniform, one trouser leg cut open to accommodate an impressive cast, her arm in a sling. She'd come out of hospital to take charge of the search, although Simon could see that the leg still hurt her when she put weight on it. As Madaline said her piece and the other officers nodded, Ned appeared with a tray full of steaming coffee cups. He handed Madaline a drink and said something, smiling through the dark plum bruise that covered one side of his face.

Simon wished Pony was here. He wanted to be alone, he wanted to watch the search by himself, but really he wanted Pony next to him. Without Pony, nothing might have happened. Away at the far shore Simon saw his grandmother. She had asked to join the search. She looked strange in the orange jumpsuit though. Simon wondered again why she had been so upset by the news of Jack Tarden's death.

Simon finished his drink and put the can down on the ground next to him. He looked out past the tarpaulins, to the place where he and Audrey had thrown the rocks. The sky was like a grey sheet hung between the trees. The sun had probably just tipped over its highest point, hidden as it was behind cloud. His sadness, his grief pressed into its permanent place, a thick thatch in the air, a warm compress over his heart.

The sound of whistles cut through the air. Simon couldn't tell where it came from, but he saw people go still, the searchers stopping where they were and looking towards the head of the lake. He heard a buzz pass through the marquee. Simon felt it too, a shiver of excitement and dread. He wanted to run out to see what was happening but he couldn't. His feet were stuck. It was the same feeling he got in dreams, when he knew he was in a dream, and knew that if he put one foot wrong everything would disappear.

He closed his eyes and stayed where he was for a long time. At last he heard a walkie-talkie hissing beside him. He turned to see the policeman, the same one from the hospital, with the short grey hair and a giant's unsure steps.

‘Simon?' the policeman said.

Simon nodded. He searched the man's face for clues, trying to guess what he was about to say.

The policeman's eyes kept straying to the water, flicking sideways as if tugged by an invisible line.

Simon saw the police boat, lying still near a point along the left side of the lake. The heads of divers left a short black trail to the shore. A join-the-dots.

‘Simon,' said the policeman at last, ‘I'm very sorry—' He reached out a hand, and Simon saw that it was shaking. ‘It's your parents, Simon,' he said. ‘Your mum and dad.'