Tim Winton - The Riders

‘Are you in Paris long?’

Scully retrieved his passport as casually as he could. ‘I don’t know. No.’

‘Will you be making a payment on this account soon?’

‘I have credit still, don’t I?’

‘Yes, monsieur , you still have twenty-eight American dollars.’

‘What?’

Heads turned. Billie pressed against him.

‘The computer says twenty-eight —’

‘That’s nearly four thousand dollars. I haven’t spent that much!’

‘The account is before me, monsieur.’

Scully thought about it. With what he had rattling in his pockets he’d never pay off the hotel or even get out of the country.

‘Can I see that account?’ he croaked.

‘I can read the details off, sir. It would be quicker. If you would prefer —’

‘No, read it out.’

Scully looked at the clear sweatprint of his hand on the counter. There were old scabs on his knuckles. He saw dirt in his nails. It simply wasn’t possible that he’d blown his credit, unless Jennifer had spent up in Australia. Or since.

‘Just the places for the moment.’

The clerk sighed and recited tonelessly.

‘In December: Perth. Perth. Birr. Roscrea. London/Heathrow. Dublin. Athens. Rome. Florence. Paris. Paris. Amsterdam. Amsterdam.’

Scully set his nails against the counter and breathed. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Amsterdam.

‘Sir, here is the form for the reporting of —’

‘Can you give me the details on Amsterdam?’

‘A restaurant, sir. Three hundred dollars. And a fine art gallery. One thousand two hundred and seventy-five dollars.’

‘No hotel?’

‘In Amsterdam? No, sir.’

Scully could see pity in the clerk’s face. A softening somehow.

‘The form, sir.’

‘No. Don’t bother.’

‘Monsieur}’

Scully turned away, pivoting his whole body as though he was encased in plaster. There was no use waiting for a replacement card. It would be worthless. They’d cut it in two before the day was out. Amsterdam.

Faces, arms, umbrellas slurred by. He ascended the staircase like an old man, the child holding his elbow. Billie piloted him for the doors.

‘Look!’ she cried.

Scully straightened. He stared at the entrance Billie was heading for. There, accepting the pats and poking of the guards with great pleasure, was Irma. He could not believe it and yet he was hardly surprised. She saw him and her face lit up like a grill and something turned inside him so that he saw clearly, with the logic of a shithouse rat, his ticket out of Paris and the cold sweat of this day. He began to laugh.

BILLIE FELT THE SWEET STICKINESS of Irma’s lipstick against her cheek. She smelled of flowers and chocolates and smoke and she was so small compared to Scully. Billie hugged her, surprised that her arms could go all the way around.

‘Europe is so small,’ she murmured. ‘And you, Billie, you’re so big.’

‘Well, fancy this,’ said Scully.

They all stood there a moment. Irma’s eyes were bright. She wore black tights under a little denim skirt with pointy boots. Over her saggy jumper was a cracked leather jacket. Her ears jangled with rings and studs.

‘I was thinking about a walk,’ she said.

‘Don’t you have business in here?’ said Scully.

‘Oh, it can wait.’

Scully smiled. It was a surprise to see it. ‘Sure,’ he said.

They went out into the river of people on the street and just went with the current. Billie walked between the two of them, holding their hands. The town looked polished, all the way down the big streets toward the river. A woman with two dogs came their way and Billie leaned away from them, turning her face.

‘Christmas Eve!’ said Irma. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘No,’ said Scully and Billie at the same time. He blushed.

They walked on a long way until her legs got tired. Irma led them into a café. She ordered apple juice for Billie and Pernod for them.

Irma pulled off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve.

‘Look.’

She had a tattoo of a knife on her white arm. The knife had flowers around it.

‘Did it hurt?’ asked Billie.

Irma laughed. She pulled a flat packet out of her pocket.

‘They’re stick-on, silly.’

Billie tipped them out on the table. One was an anchor. There was a snake. One said MOTHER but the next one was a shark.

‘Can I?’ Billie said to Scully.

He shrugged. The café was full. He looked busy again, in his head.

Scully watched Irma lick the kid’s arm wet. She looked up as she did it, deliberately engaging his gaze. Billie pressed the shark tattoo to her arm triumphantly.

‘Australian,’ said Irma gulping her pastis. ‘She chooses the shark.’

Billie held her arm up to the long mirror behind them. ‘It’s cool.’

Scully nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s clever.’

Irma raised her eyebrows innocently. He thought about Amsterdam. Irma had been in Amsterdam lately herself.

‘I have to go,’ said Billie.

‘It’s just there,’ said Scully pointing to the WC door beneath the stairs. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No,’ said Irma. ‘I’ll go.’

‘I’ll go myself,’ said Billie. ‘So embarrassing!’

‘Lock the door,’ said Scully.

‘What a pair you are.’

‘What’s the story, Irma?’ he said when Billie was out of earshot.

‘What story?’ She gulped the rest of her pastis and called for another.

‘This remarkable coincidence.’ The moment he opened his mouth, he started seeing it clearer. ‘Our meeting at Amex the very day I have to go in and see about my stolen card. The card somebody reported stolen. I’m thinking of the ferry, Irma. Your adventure into my luggage. You got the number then, didn’t you? What is it you want from me? I’ve got no home, no money, no wife. Are you some kind of hustler, a travelling whore?’

‘Not professionally, no.’

‘Is there an amateur league for whores?’

Irma smiled. Her cheeks flushed. Around the glass tumbler, her nails were uneven, some bitten, some long and glossy with varnish.

‘You’ve been with us since Greece, Irma. That’s a long time.’

‘Okay, I followed you.’

‘And the rest.’

‘That’s all.’

‘The Amex card. Who cancelled it, then?’

‘Alright, the card, then.’

‘And the note. You were in Florence.’

‘No, there was no note from me.’

Scully rolled his eyes.

‘What note?’ She drank greedily and licked her lips.

‘And the so-called sighting in Athens. You never saw my wife at the Intercontinental, did you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Geez, you don’t even know when you’re lying, do you?’

‘Why would I lie, Scully?’

‘Why? Why? Why would you get my credit card stopped? Do people like you have reasons?’

Irma smiled bashfully and licked a crimson smear from her teeth. ‘People like me? You think I’m mad and just do one thing and then the next thing and then something else, don’t you? But that’s exactly what you do, Scully. It’s what you’re doing this very minute, it’s what you’ve been at all day, all this week. You follow whatever moves. We’re not that badly matched.’

Scully’s mind reeled. Was he crazy? Had he lost it so completely?

‘Are you a friend of Jennifer’s?’

‘You might ask yourself the same question, Scully.’

‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve never met her,’ she said, raising her glass at the waiter and smiling coquettishly at him.

‘Never met her? Not even at the Intercontinental?’

‘Don’t be clever. I told you, I just saw her. You’re clinging to me like… like a Greek to a wooden horse. I saw her. I’m sorry I ever told you. Honestly, can you image Jennifer and me together?’