From Under the Overcoat (25 page)

THE STRANGE SEA FOG
was going nowhere. The city’s famous winds — northerlies, southerlies, nor’westerlies, sou’westerlies, sou’easterlies and the rare easterlies — were for once blowing elsewhere. The fog slipped up and over the hills, like icing over a warm wedding cake, towards the city. It sent a white finger into the Mount Victoria tunnel, where cars always tooted.

It had settled, too, over the airport. It poured over the lip of the runway between the steep hills, then filled the valley. Aeroplanes circled, waiting for a tear in the white blanket so they could land. They buzzed overhead like hungry vultures. Finally, their fuel tanks nearly empty, they gave up the wait and flew off. Below, on the ground, other planes were stranded.

So, too, were the international writers attending the festival.

The festival organisers had worked tirelessly for two years to put the programme together. They had shuffled and reshuffled appearance orders to appease the bruised egos of overseas superstars. They had suffered tiresome demands and woeful ignorance about their own outstanding works. Now, at the end of an exhausting week, they had had enough.

The budget had been spent. It had been calculated to stretch over seven days — not a minute more. The hosts were uniformly dignified and courteous in manner, but on that last morning, they listened anxiously to reports of the fog. Each had been assigned to look after a special guest and each had tried, for as long as possible, to shield that guest from the news that no one was flying out of the city for the time being.

The last public session ended. Organisers and visitors gathered at the best hotel in town for the final lunch. The
long-suffering
hosts listened one more time as their guests settled into chairs and recounted tales from faraway places where the
real
literary happenings happened. All the time, they looked anxiously outside for signs of wind, a gentle zephyr that might develop into the full-blown gale that would whip the confounded fog and the international writers away.

JACKSON LEFT LOTTE’S CAFÉ
and walked through the fog to his wife’s car. From there, he drove to the centre of town. It was only when he arrived that he realised that thanks to Lotte’s accident he had missed the final session.

Jackson knew about the lunch. He hadn’t received an invitation — not a written one — but the event had been discussed by literary acquaintances in his presence several times. It was clear to him that he was expected to attend. He parked the car and fed the parking meter.

The man dressed in winter clothing — the one that had stepped out of the fog outside the café earlier — walked by. He stopped, waved his arms in the air, and shouted loudly at Jackson.

‘What do
you
want?’ he raved. He walked on, then returned. Again, he pushed himself into Jackson’s personal space. ‘What do
you
want?’

Jackson knew what he wanted. He wanted an end to the years of writer’s block. He wanted to unleash a torrent of words on the page: words worthy of being described as a tribute to the great Nikolay Gogol.

That achieved, he wanted recognition — oh, he so wanted
that. He wanted people to stop him in the street, to say,
Aren’t you the guy
… He wanted invitations to writers festivals, to writers festival lunches. Proper, written invitations.

The doorman at the hotel held the heavy glass door open, waiting for Jackson to enter. But Jackson stayed still, his path blocked by the man in the winter coat.

The man had stopped shouting, but his eyes didn’t move from Jackson. Accusing, Jackson thought. He’s accusing me.

Jackson returned to his car. He leaned against it, his hands resting on the bonnet. It was nothing to do with the man in the coat. Lotte was the problem. Her burned arm, her small bruised body. The way she’d glared at him, telling him to get on
his
way to his festival. Growling, hissing like a tiny dying animal. Defending the only thing left. Dignity.

What had she said?
It’s happened before?
Something like that. She was going home to treat the burn.

Jackson knew where Lotte lived — he’d dropped her off there once, after she was late closing the café. He got back in the car and pulled out into the traffic. He headed for Kilbirnie.

The house was a small grey bungalow close to the road. There was a low wooden fence with a latched gate. A little concrete path led to the front door. The windows were closed. There was no sign, from the front, that Lotte had arrived home yet.

Jackson knocked on the front door. No one answered. He returned to his car to wait.

LOTTE JONES HAD A
plan. She got on a bus going to town. She would stop off at a pharmacy for a dressing for her burn.
Then she was going to the pub to place a bet. After that, she’d buy the glasses.

The bus was full of people dressed in summer clothing. The women wore sleeveless dresses, strappy sandals and brightly coloured sunhats. The men wore T-shirts and shorts. Everywhere she looked, Lotte saw goosebumped skin and puzzled faces squinting through the grimy windows at the sea fog.

When Lotte closed her eyes, her mother appeared. Gloria was staring straight back at her.

MALCOLM HAD WON BIG
on the horses, just a week or so after he had broken Gloria’s arm. Lotte had come home from work and heard her parents’ voices. The conversation was loud, excited. With fear in her heart, she had walked into the kitchen to find her father setting the table with delectable food: cold meats, olives, artichokes, steaming plates of pasta and beautiful breads. Candles lit the room and Dean Martin played on the old stereo in the corner, his voice soaring above the clatter of cutlery.

At the end of the table sat Gloria. In her able hand was a glass of champagne. Her chin was tilted upwards and her mouth formed a thin, taut smile. Her eyes looked upon Lotte as a queen might look upon her subject. There was no kindness. It was a look of pity, a look reserved for the vanquished.

Later, her mother had finished the champagne and fallen asleep in the corner of the lounge. Dean Martin crooned on as Lotte cleared the table and washed the dishes. Her eyes were tired and her guard had been down; the dark blur had
loomed behind her before she had time to move away.

LOTTE BLINKED AND HER
mother was gone. She shivered. She would have liked to have rubbed her cold shoulders with her hands, but didn’t dare expose her burned arm in the dirty, crowded bus.

It was twelve-thirty when she got off. The strange sea fog was all around her. Lotte stood quite still for a moment in the street. She closed her eyes and held out her hand and felt the cool, damp air touch the burn. The relief wasn’t enough; her arm was throbbing now.

The pharmacy was nearby. Lotte bought cream and bandages. She slipped into McDonald’s and dressed her arm in the bathroom. Then she made her way to the pub.

She loitered near the door, looking in, making sure her father wasn’t inside. It was just as she remembered. Men staring at small television screens placed around the large room. Blue and grey carpet scuff ed bare in some places, like new in others. Rubbish bins dotted here and there, crumpled balls of paper nearby. She bent down without thinking to pick up the paper next to the nearest bin, and thought for a second about Jackson and the wobbly table and his whatever-writers-festival. When she stood up, the manager was looking at her from behind the bar.

‘Miss Jones, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

Lotte walked to the counter. ‘I need to place a bet,’ she said. ‘I need to win it.’

She had grown only a little since that first time she had come in. He smiled. ‘How old are you?’ She couldn’t be more than fourteen. That was his guess.

‘Eighteen,’ lied Lotte.

‘There are no guarantees,’ he said. ‘If there were guarantees, I’d be out of business.’

‘This is urgent. It’s for an emergency.’

‘How much do you need?’ he asked.

‘Two hundred dollars,’ said Lotte.

‘And how much do you have?’

Lotte knew how much she had. She had counted it on the bus. Under the accusing gaze of her mother, she had counted the notes inside her purse.

‘Fifty dollars,’ she said. ‘More or less.’

‘Four to one,’ said the proprietor. ‘Long odds. Very long odds. You’d better come through. We can discuss the best option.’

He pushed open a door behind him. The office was small and smelled of a man’s sweat. It had a window, but the blind was down. Around the edges, Lotte could see the white glow of the sea fog outside. There was a desk with a light on it. A computer screen flickered. The sound of a horse-racing commentary came from inside the computer, the monotone drone that reminded her of the suffocating presence of her father.

The manager opened a drawer in the desk, and took out a thick bundle of twenty-dollar notes. He placed it on the top of the desk, then sat on the edge of it.

‘Have you placed a bet before?’

‘No,’ said Lotte.

‘If you want to be sure of a win, you have to bet on a favourite. The trouble is, everyone else bets on the favourite, too, so the winnings have to be shared among a lot of people.’

‘Okay,’ said Lotte.

‘On the other hand, you might be lucky enough to have some information about a long shot — an unlikely winner. You put the money on the long shot, take a big risk losing the lot. But if the long shot wins, you’re sweet.’

‘Okay,’ said Lotte again.

‘So, Miss Jones. Have you got the inside running on a horse?’

‘Pardon?’

‘A long shot.’

‘No,’ said Lotte.

‘There’s a third option.’ The manager shifted on the desk. He put his hand in his pocket.

‘What’s that?’

‘There’s an option where you take no risk, and you win all the money.’ He looked at the wad of cash on the table. Then he looked at Lotte. Slowly, up and down.

The manager took her hand — the arm without the bandage — and with his other hand, he unzipped his trousers. ‘All the money, no risk.’

Lotte closed her eyes for a moment.

THE SPECTACLES HAD SHINY
black rectangular frames. The lenses were ordinary glass. Lotte stood in front of the mirror that interrupted a wall of glasses inside Bryant and Rogers Optometrists. Over and over, she lifted the glasses away from her face, then dropped them down to her nose.

The optometrist smiled at the young woman. He’d tested her eyes, her sight was appalling. He wondered how she had coped for so long.

Lotte took the glasses off, and placed them gently back in their slot on the display panel. She blinked at the man.

‘They suit you,’ said the optometrist. ‘Suit the shape of your face. They’re lovely, aren’t they.’

‘Hmm,’ said Lotte. That was all she could manage. There was a lump in her throat and she swallowed it down.

‘So … will it be the black ones? Shall we order those ones?’

‘I can’t afford them,’ she said.

The optometrist leaned forward. He could hardly hear her, she spoke so quietly. ‘Sorry?’