Tim Winton - The Riders

‘Dildo,’ he murmured, remembering.

The quack wrote something in a notebook.

‘They say you are upset,’ she said. ‘You are laughing.’

Scully looked at her questioningly.

‘Two hours you are laughing.’

By the feel of his throat it didn’t surprise him.

‘What is your name, please?’

‘Anne Frank,’ he said looking around the cell. ‘Have you got Billie?’

The doctor smiled. She pulled out some plastic gloves and put them on.

‘Please take off your jacket. Will you do that for me?’

‘Why?’ he croaked.

‘I want to see your skin. Your arms.’

‘Arms?’ But he peeled off, stiffly and showed her anyway.

‘What drugs have you eaten today?’

‘Booze,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

‘This is why you fight?’

He looked at her hands in their plastic gloves and she shucked them off with a smile.

‘Are you crazy?’ she said kindly. ‘I am here to see if you are crazy. To help you.’

Scully squirmed down off his knees. Two hours of laughing he couldn’t recall. A bloody gaol cell and a shrink. Not good.

‘Okay,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not Anne Frank.’

‘Ah,’ she found the notebook again and squatted before him.

‘Listen, can you ask the cops about my little girl?’

‘You are upset about her, yes?’

‘Can you just ask them? Now? Please?’

Over her shoulder the doctor called in Dutch to the uniform in the corridor. It was a strange, comforting sound. Sweat began to germinate all over him. Scully held his head.

‘They say she is upstairs yet.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘There is someone with her, yes.’

He didn’t like the way it sounded.

‘How old is your daughter?’

‘Six. Seven, seven. In July. She’s just a little girl.’

‘You are British?’

‘Australian,’ he said.

‘You have no papers, no money, no ID?’

He swallowed. ‘Billie. Billie’s got the bag, hasn’t she?’

‘What is your name?’

‘Jesus!’

The policeman leant in and murmured in Dutch.

‘He says there is a bag and passports.’

‘I want to go now,’ he croaked.

She backed away subtly.

‘You are depressed, yes?’

‘Oh yes,’ he admitted. ‘You could say that.’ They’ll take her away, he thought. These people will take her away if you don’t straighten up. But he saw the quack’s eyes on the straining veins in his arms, following them like a map of his hopeless travels. She was wondering if he would burst. He was interested himself. Was this when it would happen, when he’d burst like a watermelon under a car wheel, go off in a curtain of stale juice?

‘I just want my daughter.’

‘She is safe,’ she crooned. ‘She is safe.’

He got up, unfolded himself, licked his lips. She watched him cross the cell and come back.

‘Can… can you tell me your name, please?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

The floor was gritty and suddenly unbearable. The idea of Jennifer was simply a joke, just the notion of her. He was just a raw hole. There was nothing in him, he knew now, nothing to make an explosion, no mad fit of energy to bust him out of here. There just wasn’t any juice left.

‘You are from Australia.’

‘Yes.’

She whistled. ‘Such a long way.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, feeling it.

‘How… how long have you been in Holland?’

He tried to think, to find his way back through all those streets and lights and bars but he couldn’t see where they began.

‘I know,’ he stammered. ‘I know that.’

‘You are restless.’

‘Scared,’ he breathed.

The uniform opened the door and spoke to the doctor. Scully stopped and watched.

‘Coffee?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Two.’

‘Please. Don’t take her.’

‘Be calm.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He began to weep and stopped.

‘You can cry.’

‘Today,’ he said. ‘We came to Amsterdam today.’

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Lie down.’ Her hands were warm and kind. He felt the plink of his eyelids against his face. She knelt beside him on the vinyl mattress, her downy upper lip quivering into a smile. She looked rag-arsed with fatigue.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘about Australia. The animals with pockets. I want to know.’

AFTER ALL THE QUESTIONS, Billie sat with her mug of milky tea and ate the cake. It was dry and crumbly. People came and went. The police station smelt of disinfectant. The lights made her squint. She was tired. She thought about Dominique, everything she knew about her. Dominique was pretty. Kind of pretty. She had small hands and her apartment was full of sad photos. She was nice, Dominique, but she watched you. Carefully, like she didn’t know what made you work, like she just didn’t get kids. She looked at Scully sometimes. Billie saw her. He didn’t know how she looked at him. Like he was a cake or something. Maybe she loved him. Billie didn’t care. No one loved him like she did. That was a fact.

Dominique had a mole on her arm. Her shoes went kind of outwards when she walked. The floor of her apartment was all checked with wood. Sometimes, driving trucks across it Billie would look up and see the big poster on the living room wall. A dark face. White words, ATELIER CINQ, PHOTOGRAPHIES. And Dominique’s name. LATOUR.

That was it. That was her name.

Billie put down the mug and the rest of the cake and went to the desk. The phone book was there like a brick. Two policemen told jokes by the window.

AMSTERDAM SCHIPOL

TELEFOONGIDS

PTT TELECOM

She opened it, saying the alphabet in her head. Telefoonnummers. Alarmnummers. Phones rang at desks everywhere. A siren wound up right outside. Dominique had bad breath, that was the other thing.

latour, d herengr. 6 627 9191

The page sounded like rain as it tore softly down the spine. She folded it neatly down into a parcel and put it into her pack.

‘You want more cake, Billie?’ called one of the cops, the one with all the questions before.

She shook her head. He turned away to finish his joke. Billie shifted the pack with the heel of her boot. On the strap was the number Scully had written that day on the road. The postman. Two numbers, she had. She lay down across the bench and went to sleep with sirens all around. In her dream she had wings, silver wings.

SCULLY WOKE and Van Loon was taking his pulse again. She had fresh clothes on and smelled of soap.

‘All that boose,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was a lot.’

‘You are strong.’

He shrugged, tried to muster some confidence. ‘I feel better.’

‘Good.’

‘Am I crazy?’

‘Not so much. Sad, maybe.’

‘You look sad yourself,’ he said, surprising himself.

‘No,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘Crazy to have this job.’

‘Is Billie still here?’

She nodded. ‘She is like you?’

‘What will the charges be?’

‘No charges. Keep away from the dildos.’

‘Yes,’ he said meekly. ‘You too.’

• • •

THEY LED HIM UP THROUGH the tunnels into the fresher air. Amidst the snarls of desks and glass partitions he signed forms with his hands shaking. A meek daylight tinted the windows. He saw Billie standing by the glass. She waved minutely, face compressed. He felt a kind of remorse he had not felt before, a sense of humiliation that flattened even his relief. They could have taken her. He would have deserved it. He dropped his head a moment, unable to look. The cops seemed relieved to see the back of him. He watched her shaking their hands. A new shift straggled in. He stepped out to meet her.