Tim Winton - The Riders

‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ said Scully hotly.

‘Well, she’s like that’ she said squinching her index finger into a circle so that a pinhole of light showed through at the centre.

Scully held the table by the legs. ‘And you’re, you’re what?’

‘Me? I’m interesting. She’s just trying to be.’

‘Still, you’ve never met her?’

‘I’m like you, Scully. I like being who I am.’

‘Irma, just what you are is not real clear.’

‘I said who, not what. What a sadly male thought. I’m like you, Scully. A little rough around the edges. I can take it as well as dish it out. I already forgave you for bolting on me. The ferry. Remember?’

‘I’m surprised you remember.’

‘Okay, I was blasted. Listen, I like you. I like Billie. I just think I deserve another chance. I know you do.’

Scully shook his head and bit back the stream of abuse that bubbled in his throat. But he smiled despite himself. She was a phenomenon alright. And he needed her if he wanted to get to Amsterdam. Time to suck eggs.

‘You look wild, Scully, but you’re soft.’ She laughed and accepted the new pastis from the waiter.

‘Oh?’ That word again. He felt a ridiculous pang of shame at this. ‘Really?’

‘I meant tender, Scully.’

Irma put her hand on his and for an instant he liked her. She was mad, a liar, a bad dream from hell but she was flesh and blood. Just the touch of a hand, a human touch. God, he missed being wanted. The café smelled warm and friendly with its scents of onions and coffee and tobacco. He felt himself loosen a little.

‘Is it that you’re lonely, Irma? This business?’

‘I’m not lonely,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me.’

Scully looked at her, the way her neck stretched back and her eyes narrowed like a snake about to strike. It cleared his head immediately.

‘Okay, Irma,’ he said, meaning it. ‘I won’t.’

‘You don’t understand simple attraction.’

Scully made a smile. ‘Well, maths was never my thing.’

Billie came back, trying not to smile as she climbed onto her chair.

‘What?’ said Scully.

‘The toilet,’ she burst out, scandalized. ‘It was just a hole in the ground!’

He looked at Irma. ‘My daughter has toilet adventures everywhere she goes. Travel with Billie — see the toilets of the world. It’s a squat, Billie. You’ve seen them all —’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, that bit’s gone. Like someone’s stolen it. It really is just a hole in the ground.’

‘So what took you so long?’

‘I was trying to find the button.’

‘Here,’ he laughed. ‘Take your tablet.’

‘Let’s go shopping,’ said Irma. ‘It’s sad, the two of you on the road at Christmas.’

‘Jesus was on the road at Christmas,’ said Billie.

‘Yes,’ said Irma, flummoxed at last. ‘Yes.’

AFTER LUNCH IN THE CAFE it was a long noisy afternoon in the shops with Irma. She took them to Fnac and bought tapes. Ry Cooder for Scully. Hoodoo Gurus for her. At Les Halles she bought herself Ysatis and splashed it on. In a taxi she took them to Galeries Lafayette where she found the same perfume cheaper and didn’t care. She bought Scully a silk shirt there and little red dancing shoes for Billie. In another taxi they went down to the big street market past Bastille and bought lychees and bananas and oranges. There were so many people and smells you couldn’t move. Irma found a saddle in the fleamarket but Scully said no, they couldn’t carry it. It was disappointing but she knew he was right. Then in a big street of ritzy furniture shops they saw a man with a wallaby in a dog-collar. It was a bad moment, but Irma didn’t notice.

And then, so quickly, it got dark.

• • •

ALL DAY SCULLY LET HER drink and buy while a strange cold calm settled on him. He saw it all pass by as though he weren’t quite in it himself. The feeling intensified in the little brasserie off the Rue Faubourg St Antoine. Amid the platters of Breton oysters, the bottles of champagne, the flash of cutlery and linen, the hiss of butter, the caramelizing scent of roasted garlic, time slipped by almost without him. He knew what he was doing, but he couldn’t actually believe it was happening.

He thought it was the terrible, necessary thing he was about to do, but it could have been the fact that he drank along with Irma. By nine he was cold, calculating and shitfaced.

Irma and Billie laughed at some half-arsed joke and jostled one another. He saw Irma’s even white teeth and the bleary brightness of her eyes. Pressed against his, her leg was warm and comforting, hardly the shock it might have been this morning. There was something complete about her tonight. She looked strangely content, magnanimous, and not all of it was the champagne. Maybe this is her, he thought. Maybe this is the person she must have been once — warm, funny, generous. Tonight her mouth was sensual and without a trace of cruelty. What horrible thing had happened to her between Liverpool and Berlin, between the big stops in her life? Those bruises, they meant other bruises, damage he couldn’t even guess at.

‘Are you dreaming, Scully?’

‘Hm? Yes, a bit.’

‘Billie was telling me about when she was born.’

Billie giggled in embarrassment.

‘Well… she was born fugly, you see.’

‘Fugly?’

‘Like extra-double ugly with cheese. It’s when ugly goes off the scale. She looked like an angry handbag.’

Billie squawked in delight. ‘Tell the truth!’

‘That is the truth. Scout’s honour, I asked for my money back.’

‘Stop!’ said Billie giggling out of control.

‘Here, take another pill.’

Irma’s eyes glistened. She ordered more champagne and held both their hands. She seemed about to cry. She leaned into Scully and he felt her breath on his ear.

‘I hate her for leaving you,’ she whispered.

Scully set his teeth. ‘We don’t know she did,’ he said carefully, awkward in front of the child.

‘Even if she didn’t I’d still feel the same.’

‘Well,’ he chuckled mirthlessly, ‘you’re just hard to get along with.’

‘Try me.’

• • •

LATER THEY STUMBLED UP toward the old neighbourhood. The sound of bells roosted on the wind.

‘Hear the bells?’ cried Billie, exhausted and jumpy. ‘Hear the bells?’

In the Little Horseshoe, where labourers, junkies, transvestites and students gathered to see in Christmas, Irma began to drink Calvados and Scully backed off onto beer. Now that she’d stopped moving, Billie wilted quickly and Scully saw that it was ten o’clock. He tried to steady himself. Not a bad place to say goodbye to Paris. This was it, his last drink. Irma was blasted. This was surely it. He dragged them out into the street.

Beneath the bare chestnuts, her breath billowing back from her, Billie ran ahead on a final burst of energy while Scully helped Irma along the pavement.

‘Did you enjoy the day?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I hoped you might forgive me.’

‘Of course I forgive you,’ he lied.

‘Christ, look at that.’

Up ahead, outside the Prefecture of Police and the armoured booth at the doorway, Billie danced with two cops, a man and a woman. Round and round they went, the three of them holding hands. Submachine guns clanked at their hips. Their quiet laughter carried on the cold, sulphuric air, rooting Scully to the spot.

• • •

THERE WAS A MERCIFUL CROWD in the tiny hotel lobby, a warehouse of piled luggage and language that Scully weaved through unchallenged with Irma and Billie, grateful he’d kept the room key on him all day. The mob noise echoed up the curving stairwell as Scully urged Irma along. Billie went ahead with the key.