An Open Swimmer

  And die. With the mate sliding off deep, leaving you with it in your lap, covering the gaff-holes.

  ‘So there’s nothing worthwhile in hunting?’

  ‘Not animals, but fish —’

  ‘You just said fishing was all luck.’

  ‘Not spearfishing.’ He grinned. ‘That’s hunting. Real hunting.’

  ‘Oh —’

  ‘Odds are nearly even. A few in the fishes’ favour.’

  ‘What about aqualung?’

  ‘Slaughter.’

  She curled around him. Hot by the fire.

  ‘Now I know you’re bullshitting.’ She giggled. ‘All that crap about things different dead.’

  ‘Doesn’t apply.’

  ‘Crap! Surrender while you can.’

  ‘A fish is different,’ he continued, blurting, trying to explain. ‘Doesn’t collapse when it dies. The eyes the same, scales the same. Still a fish. A good kill leaves a small mark in the right spot. Preserved.’

  ‘Until it goes off.’

  ‘It’ll fight, a big fish. Try to drown you if he can.’

  She pressed against him.

  ‘I believe it,’ he said.

  ‘Mm.’ Buttons.

  ‘Do you know about the pearl?’

  ‘Little hard —’

  ‘Something you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Oh, I —’

  ‘Made out of the part of the brain.’ The aggregated life, the distilled knowledge of lifetimes, of ancestors, of travel, of instinct, of things unseen and unknown. His sluggish mind blundered on unaware.

  ‘Silly —’

  A hand at the back of his neck.

  ‘The bit he stores and hides —’

  ‘This way.’

  ‘. . . in the back of his head, hard as —’

  ‘Anything.’ She breathed hot.

  ‘And I believe it. Dad —’

  ‘Mind the wall —’

  ‘But lost it.’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Fell between the boards.’

  Floating on his back, the water moved under him. Shirt opened to hot fingertips, scalding, everything. A knee pressed into his side. Ends of hair in his face. Her giggles.

  ‘Bloody fish. Tell me —’

  ‘God —’

  ‘Something nice.’

  ‘No,’ he breathed, empty.

  ‘Hmmm?’ Hands on him, opening everywhere.

  ‘No! No!’

  His face met the scorching breasts as he struggled, hair between his lips. She gasped as he levered her mouth off, flung her aside, groping for the faraway light of the doorway. And no breath.

  All down the hall, staggering, he scrabbled with his shirt, chest burning. He tried to cover up, but there were buttons gone. Jumper, he couldn’t remember. He wanted to puke. Anything. Opening the door, he sucked the chill deep and it stung all the way down in his chest. Stubbed on the rusty tricycle. Off the veranda.

  Kettle screaming.

  PART THREE

  like men and boys

  ‘I JUST am, that’s all!’

  ‘No sense in it!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are you running away from?’ asked his father.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Something happened?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Tell us,’ pleaded his mother.

  ‘What the hell can I tell you that you don’t know already?’

  ‘Jerra,’ she sobbed. ‘We don’t know anything.’

  ‘Then it’s the same.’

  His father held his arm.

  ‘Jerra, yer not making sense!’

  ‘Course I’m bloody not!’

  His mother crying on the bookshelves.

  ‘Tom, what’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing! I got sacked, orright? Here’s my board.’ He held out some notes.

  ‘We don’t want that!’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘You can’t. It’s too late.’

  He rolled the canvas tight. Rope lay in coils. He had done it well in the dark, not sleeping all night. Picking up the box of cans and cartons, he went for the door.

  ‘Where will you be, then, son?’

  ‘Fishing,’ he said. ‘Or something.’

  ‘Jerra?’ His mother held out her arms.

  He slapped the flywire door back.

  Boys don’t say it.

  The VW was nearly full. Next door, the man was starting his mower before breakfast. Drizzle drifted.

  Boys don’t.

  All the way to the sea he could see the collage of city, misted with rain and latticed with sunlight where it penetrated the cloud, gradually losing focus, diminishing in the mirrors as Jerra sat in low gear up the winding hills. Drizzle spotted the windscreen, blurring, but not wetting it enough to use the wipers. At the top of the hill, the labouring VW was eased, and the road wound through hilly pine forests and gravel pits. It rained heavily. The tyres hissed and the wipers slapped spastically on the glass.

  ‘Do you love me, Jerra?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her gown was slipping; a nurse passed, eyebrows lifted.

  She always asked before he left. He always felt the eyes on him in the corridors as he left, with her looking after him.

  The monotony of pines diminished into hills and thick pastures clogged with huddling grey sheep. Gullies lined with trees furrowed through the hills, and already, in low paddocks by the road, flat black pools lay pocked with rain, fences jutting out with stiff stalks of cut weeds. Cows slapped their tails in the wet. He passed a tractor hub-deep in the dung-like mud. Cold air was piercing the panels of the cabin, and Jerra felt his feet numbing. He remembered the times on the farm when he had stood, barefoot, in the fresh, green cowpats, warming his toes as he squelched.

  ‘I’m old.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ugly.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Tell Jerra you said it.’

  ‘Jewel, I am Jerra.’

  She smiled uncomprehendingly.

  ‘I am Jerra.’

  She was watching him gaily as he plodded down the stairs, defeated.

  A roo lay upturned beside the road, legs stiff in the air. Smears of blood disturbed the gravel, picked over by crows and magpies. Pie meat, the poor bastard, he thought.

  Listening to the note of the engine, and tapping out its rhythms on the steering wheel, Jerra tried to remember the things he had forgotten to bring, but it was hopeless; he hardly knew what he had, and, as always, he confused this with other trips, other forgotten things, other items to be remembered. He pulled in at Williams, coasting into the Golden Fleece roadhouse with the motor off, and sat for a moment with the silence.

  ‘Yeah?’

  A girl in a red parka, with black teeth, at the window. Jerra wound down. It was drizzling.

  ‘Fill it up, thanks.’

  She went around to the fuel tank as he stumbled out. His thongs slid over the oily tarmac, spotted with greasy spectrums, as he made his way to the –EN door. He pee-ed into the crap-stained bowl and flushed away the scum of butts and paper. He had seen the flies and smelt this place in the summer, and for a moment the winter was not so bad. The deodorising thing sat on the browning cistern, a sugary, yellow jube.

  Outside in the drizzle, he dug his hands into his coat pockets and watched the girl spill petrol down the duco as she tried to force more into the tank. A cow moaned. He got up into the cab shivering, wiped the mist from the windscreen with his hand, and glanced in the back at the jerrycans, the smoky canvas, the blankets, stakes, tins of food, bags and boxes; the handle of the axe and the end of his spear protruded from the hessian bag. He reached over and dragged out a bag of peanuts. He shelled a few and ate them, stuffing the shells into the ashtray, already full with Judy’s stinking butts and the foil from Lifesavers.

  ‘Why doesn’t he love me, I w
onder?’

  She was wandering again, and Jerra picked off a bud, feeling it between his fingertips.

  ‘He does.’

  ‘You think I’m an idiot, dear.’

  He pressed the bud.

  ‘He hates me, I think. Does Jim say things about me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Sean hates me.’

  ‘He hates this place.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to live in it.’

  ‘No,’ said Jerra, smiling nervously at the nurse who scurried by at exactly the same time each morning, to watch them.

  The girl came back to the window, hands wet with petrol.

  ‘Six fifty-three.’

  ‘How much in the tank?’

  ‘Eh?’

  He gave her the money, noticing the black underneath her nails.When she returned with the change he had the motor running.

  As the country flattened out, opening onto wider slopes of green, the cold crept up from his fingertips, blueing his knuckles. He felt the tyre blow and the van list as he rounded a bend, and he stopped at the gravelly edge of the road. Thongs flicking spots of mud up onto his back, he went round to the rear tyre. He dragged the dusty spare out and rolled it onto its side in the mud. He found the toolbox and left it out on top of the gear in the back. Opening the heavy jarrah lid, he pulled out the jack and wheelbrace, tossing aside something wrapped in a smelly old flourbag.

  The spare on, Jerra wiped the punctured tyre as best he could, shoving it under the canvas. He sat at the edge of the sliding door for a moment, scraping the mud from his jeans, then wiping his hands on the flourbag. Something heavy inside. He pulled it out. Small flakes came off in his palm. The ringbolt without a bolt. Funny old thing. He dropped it back in.

  Rain was falling heavier in big thick drops that left welts in the rusty mud. He climbed back into the cab, shaking off the water. It was midday. He shelled a few peanuts, left them in a little pile on the seat beside him, and drove off.

  ‘Come on, read yours.’

  They lazed in her backyard. Sean was standing under the hose, cooling off.

  ‘It’s your turn, Auntie.’

  ‘That was yesterday.’

  ‘Okay. This is the end of the one I was on last Saturday:

  And so everywhere I go

  I know

  That there’s ships and planes

  And football games

  And bubbles to blow.

  ‘What bubbles?’

  ‘Snot.’ He grinned.

  ‘Oh.’ She laughed palely. ‘Jem-Jem, you’re so corrupt!’

  Echoing.

  Clouds gathered choppily over the southern edges of the sky, thicker and darker than the nondescript overcast spreading behind. Rattling across the small white bridges, he caught glimpses of the creeks with that energetic, muddy complexion of winter. Beaufort, Balgarup, Kojonup, Hotham, Crossman, Arth-r, Abba, Orup, Kalgan: little white signs, rough-faced with blisters, fighting out of the strangling weeds of the banks. Jerra ate the peanuts slowly, spinning them out. He passed through the one-street towns, hardly slowing down as he whipped past the diagonally parked utes rusting outside the co-ops and pubs.

  In a flooded paddock, with the low, weepy-clouded mountains in the background, Jerra noticed a flight of ducks skidding onto the water. He slowed as he neared the paddock, pulling over onto the gravel. A few hundred yards away, the ducks haggled on the water, and he watched them poking their heads into the black, coming up again and again with gobs of mud slushing from their beaks. He shelled a few more peanuts, tearing the brown film that looked like cigarette paper off the kernels, watching the ducks pecking each other behind the neck. He blew the horn and drove off as they lifted away together, a dense cloud, into the grey sky.

  Petals fall like scales onto my hand,

  My love seeps like water through sand,

  – Nothing.

  He smiled, feeling his unshaven chin.

  ‘You remember?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  They strolled in the yellow sunlight between stiff buds of Geraldton wax, bees hopping from flower to flower.

  ‘Wasn’t a very good poem, was it?’ she trembled.

  ‘Better than some I’ve read.’

  ‘But not as good as yours.’

  ‘Better. Yours was true.’

  ‘. . . And bubbles to blow.’

  He looked away, flushing at the waxed petals. Other women walked by with husbands and children.

  It was late in the afternoon when he passed through Albany, its little houses set into the gully between hills. The main street overlooking the shoals of the inner harbour was clogged with cars and children. He parked beneath the shadow of the town hall clock and went into the Wildflower Café and bought some milk, making his way out of town in a light rain that swept the dark bitumen. The hilly roads wound through fences of trees through which Jerra caught glimpses of the Porongorups on his left, and the coastal hills, low and scrubby, to the right. Gradually the hills subsided, and the trees became rugged scrub. Farms were smaller and less frequent. Cleared land was set further back from the road, the kerosene-tin mail boxes gaping in flat scrub with little sign of farmland behind.

  ‘Don’t let them, Jerra.’ Eyes direct, of a sudden, then gone again, out the window, to the dressing gowns strolling the lawns.

  Light weakened and the sun ignited the mirrors. Jerra found a truck bay and parked under some ghost gums. His eyes ached and he was hungry. There was a barbecue fireplace under the trees, and a table with benches screwed onto it, but the ground and the wood in the pile were wet. He climbed over into the back of the van and did his best to separate the mattress from the boxes and bags. He found a can opener and hacked open a can of peaches. He speared them with the end of the opener. They were sweet and soggy in his mouth. The milk burnt cold as it went down. He shelled more of the peanuts. They weren’t too bad with the milk, but he was getting sick of them. He left some milk for the morning and drained the sugary juice from the peach tin.

  Still drizzling outside. He stuffed the can and the peanut bag into the barbecue and hurried back. As darkness came, the inside of the van warmed with his breath. He found a blanket and lay with his head on his sleeping bag, the heat of the engine underneath his back. It ticked as it cooled. Rain beat on the roof. Dripping from the cab. He had forgotten: the dash leaked. Little drops; one, another, again, more, each a different shape and weight and tone – drop!

  From his patch of black, words dropped, sank and swam his way, bending, involuting scary letter-faces, some sounding, others just lighting up, burning into the empty space behind his eyes.

  JELLYFISH

  BLOOD . . .

  BOYS

  . . . WITNESS

  NO

  JERRA

  CORRUPT

  JEM

  DON’T

  JEM

  CLOVER

  JEZ

  LEAVES

  CRAZY BASTARD

  coming and going, streaming out, a bubble trail uncoiling to the invisible silver of the surface.

  In the middle of the night, the whole world lit up, as if by an explosion or a fire. A truck engine knocked. He heard it pull in. Darkness returned, then silence. A moment later, Jerra thought the dash had given way altogether, but then the gush stopped and he heard a zipper and footfalls.

  He was warm inside the blanket.

  He woke in the twilight, and it was cold in parts of the blanket; places that hurt they were so cold. As light pretended to come, shapes and outlines emerged, and he saw the clusters of droplets on the ceiling. His breath, no doubt. Shivering beads, ready to fall at any moment.

  The sky was low and heavy. The rain had stopped. No wind, no sound. He staggered out into the cold. The gravel was soft. His breath clouded grey before him. His feet were stiff and heavy with mud as he hobbled round the car, noticing the Kenworth further down the truck-bay. He climbed back inside, scraping the mud from his feet with a stick.

  Th
e Veedub spluttered, backfired and growled. Jerra saw a head appear behind the fogged windscreen of the Kenworth as he slid out of the mud and chirked hitting the bitumen.

  He passed the turn-off and almost didn’t go back. He braked, sliding off into the loose edge, sat for a moment, then reversed up. The dull gravel strip led down to the coastal hills. There was nowhere else.

  He slid on the surface. In the gullies, ochre puddles lay across the road. The deeper ones slopped up into the windscreen leaving mud and grit on the glass. Ruts and holes deepened. Jerra slowed down, wincing as the old bus was jarred and shaken crossing the hollows and washouts.

  The black sand was hard, packed down with rain, and the tyres ran whispering over, the wide ruts curving up gently to a smooth hump in the middle. Dark wet roots protruded, and grass grew high, rasping the underside of the body. Trees had grown thicker, leafier. Below in the stillness, the sea through the trees was grey and opaque. Boughs and leaves brushed squealing against the fenders and the roof, showering heavy drops on the ground. A bird slapped skyward.

  He passed the shack, furred with grass and leaves. He saw the truck in the mirrors as he rolled carefully down the track, avoiding stumps and jags of limestone. A sapling poked through the truck window. He rolled.

  NO said the tree.

  The clearing was smaller and greener. The thick grass grew in hairy tufts. Black stones lay scattered, some in the clearing, others in the edges of the bush. He turned off. Birds tittered. He got out and unfolded his legs, tasting the salt.

  It was a struggle to get the annexe up alone; it had been difficult enough with Sean. Rope bruised his hands and the axe-handle roughened his palms. The ground wasn’t quite dry, but he couldn’t wait and risk further rain. Because of the sea-winds he knew would come, he faced the annexe away from the beach, behind the van between two thick-trunked gums.

  For lunch he ate braised steak from a can. It tasted of gas and fat. Rain looked inevitable later in the afternoon. He gathered wood and shoved it under the VW to dry and, while he still had time, he gathered stones for a fireplace. It puzzled him that the blackened stones from the previous fire had been scattered. He left them alone, foraging in the bush for clean lumps of limestone, avoiding the granite because it often exploded. He set them in a knobbly circle and dug a shallow pit in the centre. Then the rain came, spattering the shivery leaves, and he sat in the annexe stacking food and utensils. Gulls passed over, heading inland with vacant cries.