An Open Swimmer

  ‘Have to take your chariot. Your mother’s going to Mabel’s.’

  ‘Sure. Needs the run.’

  ‘Don’t leave the packing to the last minute.’

  ‘I’ll start now.’

  Rain roared like a breaking wave, hammering on the tin. Jerra crossed the lino, his feet bare. He packed the bait into the freezer. A strange smell, whitebait and newsprint. He pulled the greatcoat tighter around.

  His father came in, shivering.

  ‘Have to bail the bloody boat out before we put it in the water.’

  ‘Heavy, orright.’

  A backwash of thunder. Rain spraying.

  The tilly flickered on the table. Rain was still pummelling the darkness. Jerra watched his father twist and knot, holding swivels in his teeth, looping, splicing.

  ‘Why back and over?’

  ‘When the fish hits here, see, it flips the hook this way. Always a chance of weakening.’

  Jerra held out the garlands of hooks, gangs of barbs glinting in the lamplight.

  ‘Vicious looking —’

  ‘Vicious eaters.’ He showed the marks on his fingers. ‘Tailor. Slice up fish bigger than ’emselves.’

  ‘Funny how the vicious ones have better meat.’

  ‘Eat better.’

  Smooth skin of the river parted behind, an incision folding back to the banks. The engine chuckled just how he remembered it from his boyhood. The river coiled out to the estuary channel. The estuary was a broad teardrop, meeting the ocean at its narrowest point.

  Jerra sat in the bow, trailing a hand over the smooth flesh of water. Old pickets stood out on either side of the channel. Across the estuary, at the deep cut to the ocean, Jerra stood and rattled the chain over. Rope burred on the gunwale, vanishing in the green. It found bottom, slackened, and floated taut in the tide.

  ‘Here,’ his father said, ‘I’ll lash it.’

  ‘I —’

  ‘Here.’ The old hands, shiny with their hardness, twisted the rope into a good knot.

  From the estuary channel another motor.

  ‘That bloke with the pelican still lives here, eh,’ said Jerra, glancing up.

  The hooked neck of the pelican showed plain against the grey smudge of boat and water.

  Tailor scudded near the surface. His father brought one over the side. It whipped in the bottom of the boat. A moment later he had another.

  ‘Wassamatter? Forget to bait up?’

  ‘Do you yet.’ Jerra grinned.

  ‘Wup!’

  The surface broke and his father was dragging. A whiting rippled out of the water, gills fluttering.

  The bird croaked. It shoved up from the clinker-built dory, pushing it askew as it lifted, circled high, then came low over the water, following its own shadow. Between the shoulders of the breakwater, it skimmed out towards the sea. The fisherman passed them in the cut, rolling in the swell as he went into open water. His hat was over his eyes, and he stood straight in the stern, clasping the tiller.

  Whitebait skipped together. It was like a handful of gravelstones hitting the water. Jerra nudged the whiting with a toe. The pale yellow pectorals fluttered.

  ‘Nice looking fish.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said his father, bent over the gunwhale, rubbing the skin under his throat.

  ‘Wish Mum would come, sometimes.’

  ‘She’s got other things.’

  ‘Not any more. I’m not a baby any more, and Sean’s pissed off to his pooncy townhouse in South Perth.’

  ‘Yeah.’ His father bent over, a hook-shape, looking into the water.

  The lead sky could support itself no longer. Rain broke the water like a million whitebait. Jerra and his father pulled their greatcoats tight, lifting collars.

  ‘Should try for a kingie on the tide,’ his father said.

  ‘No need.’

  ‘Good on the clean tide.’

  ‘Oh, these littluns’ll do.’ Jerra looked into the grey-green. The thought of a kingie excited him. But frightened as well. What if he proved himself deluded?

  As they were paring out the guts, dropping it over the side, scaling and washing the herring and tailor and whiting in the stinging cold water, the fisherman came back through the cut, lolling in the swell, with the pelican perched in the bow on the nets, fish grummelling down its throat. His father nodded. The fisherman may have nodded back; it was hard to tell with his hat so big and low.

  ‘Saves on an echo-sounder,’ said Jerra.

  Fillets lay flat on the table. His father was trimming pieces, nipping off tails. Rain fell still. A tiny crab clattered across the lino.

  ‘Moving around in the rain,’ said Jerra.

  ‘Little buggers.’

  ‘Still no wind.’

  ‘Good tomorrow.’

  ‘If we catch the tide.’

  ‘What about some fish?’

  Jerra steered out to the estuary channel and his father took over.

  ‘Lots of shallow banks,’ he said. ‘Can’t be too careful.’

  The channel was too murky to tell. Jerra moved up to the bow, a little peeved. Birds milled on the flats, strutting the thin strips of beach, lifting their wings.

  ‘What about trying towards the flats?’

  ‘The cut will be better.’

  ‘Might be crabs at the flats.’

  They headed for the cut.

  In the first hour, Jerra took two big tailor on the flick-rod. Then nothing. Water surged thickly in the cut; the granite boulders of the breakwater were dull in the brief moments of sun.

  ‘Jim owns the house in Perth, doesn’t he, Dad?’ It seemed a logical enough conclusion: the sudden move from the North Beach house in Jerra’s last year of primary school. Mail for Jim. Jim at the funeral. All the uncomfortable talk. Sean’s mocking glances.

  ‘A favour. We did him one when Sean needed a home.’

  Jerra couldn’t say anything more.

  Another motor. It was raining. They couldn’t see.

  His father slept on the bunk. As he slept, Jerra brought out the box. He laid the diaries on the table.

  August 3rd, ’36

  Warmer today. Job shaping up well. Ellen helping organise the deliveries. She has a good head for figures. Apples are up. Mr Chambers says they’ll fluctuate. He’s probably right. Young Jeannie is well. Five in October. Alf and Horrie got seven dozen tailor in the river last night. Brought some over.

  6 Eggs.

  The handwriting improved and deteriorated with each entry. Days were often missed. It resumed, usually in poor writing, and got better with successive entries.

  May 6th, ’37

  Ellen no better. Big confusion over the money. I don’t know where it goes to. They’ll have me out by the end of the week. Mabel is staying home from school to look after Ellen. She worries that Ellen will not get well. The Rugby is playing up.

  4 Eggs.

  May 12th, ’37

  Have been helping old Henderson with the hens since the weekend. It will do for a quid until I find something else. Nothing interests me, but there is the kids. The trams just get worse. Haven’t seen them so erratic since the bad times. Almost went for a job selling clocks in a shop, yesterday. The sound would send me barmy. Reminds me of the noise prawns make in the trough on the way home. Took Ellen down to the river with the kids last night. Thought it might take her mind off the worry. Will have to sell the old Rugby, though I will regret it.

  2 Eggs.

  Great gaps of months appeared in the rest of the entries, the last being in December 1939.

  December 5th, ’39

  Joined AIF today. Have asked for Catering Corps, though I do not know whether or not I will get it. Sounds like a good wicket. Could not find boots to fit properly and had to settle for a size too big. Went to church yesterday. Will go again at Christmas if we don’t travel.

  8 Eggs.

  The rest of that diary was empty yellow pages. Jerra tossed it aside and picked up the notebook. Pages were stained and gr
itty with dust. Many pages were folded back and torn. There was a brown stain on the cover. It could have been ink or bootpolish. Most of the erratic entries, starting from 1940, contained troop movements, rumours, and descriptions of mates. Jerra flicked through ’41.

  December 1st, ’41

  Greece has given me a bad stomach. Cooking the mush that we do makes it worse. Am writing this because Ernie Morris had a spare pad, and there is nothing else to do. Ernie says it’s hard cooking when you don’t know salt from dust. I don’t know if I care much. There doesn’t seem to be much hope for us.

  A few old photos of men drinking in a café, pinned to the page, blurry shots of buildings and women.

  April 15th, ’42

  Writing this from hospital (that’s what they call the damn place). Was hit in the foot by shrapnel during the bombardment a few days ago. They say I might be shipped out. What luck! Still, it hurts a lot. I will see young Tommy for the first time. Ellen will be glad.

  The last volume, though incomplete, was better preserved, neater. The little crab scuttled under the table.

  October 5th, ’46

  The foot has been acting up, lately. Ellen up all last night, trying to help. Work at the markets is no good. Never thought I would see the day when I would hate the smell of fish.

  Saw some kids near the Causeway, paddling in the water (yesterday). It reminded me, for some reason, of a kid I saw in Athens, before I copped my lot. I was sitting with a couple of mates at a café, drinking the vino. A little boy sat on the edge of a fountain. His legs were too short to reach the water, and I could see that he badly wanted to get them wet. He looked at a loss, for a while, then, quite suddenly, he jumped in feet first. I went over to see if he was alright, and there he was, neck deep in the pool. I offered to fish him out, but he smiled and shook his head. Strange, those foreign kids. I would have given anything to get my boots off, big clods that they were, and get my feet wet, too.

  Funny, seeing the little Wog jumping in. I’d bet a fiver he took a gamble on how deep it was. Maybe it was deeper than he expected, it was a bit . . .

  The spine of the book had worn, or, as it looked, had been torn in half, and with it went the rest of the sentence. Jerra slipped it back into its envelope and closed the box. Nothing of any interest there. A drink of water was what he needed. It was the dust.

  For tea they ate some tailor and whiting fillets, fried in butter. Rain fell on the roof. His father looked across in the light of the Tilley lamp.

  ‘I’ve got another one,’ he said.

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Diary.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘One of the later ones. When he used to live here, after Gran. Best bit is – never forget it – “So-and-so date: Tom married May. Met her family. Queer mob. 4 Eggs.”’

  ‘So this shack’s all you’ve got?’

  ‘And what’s in the Nedlands house. We own a lot of the furniture and things.’

  ‘Not much, is it?’

  ‘Oh, I can do this up. For when we retire. No, it’s not much.’

  He brought a small cloth-bound book from a cupboard.

  ‘He threw the others out,’ he said, putting it on the table. ‘Do the dishes, will yer? I’m knackered. Think I’ll pat the mat.’

  The writing was neat and compressed. Almost every day had an entry. Jerra read one of the last.

  August 5th, 1968

  Young Jeremy good. Tom and May left last night. Fished for bream down near the Brewery. Caught two apiece. Taught him a bit of C. J. Dennis. He can remember the first verse. Will write his own if he gets past the first verse. He’s got a soul that boy. And he thinks no one knows.

  Jerra sat back in the chair. His chest. He must have swallowed a bone. He closed the book.

  ‘Spring song,’ he muttered. ‘“A Spring Song”’:

  The world ’as got me snouted jist a treat;

  Crool Forchin’s dirty left ’as smote me soul;

  An’ all them joys o’ life I ’eld so sweet

  Is up the pole.

  Fer, as the poit sez, me ’eart ’as got

  The pip wiv yearnin’ fer – I dunno wot.

  Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything, he asked himself. Why do they just let you go on and then give you a letter or something or write it down in a poem instead of telling you?

  He went to bed, comfortable in the pretence that he didn’t know.

  ‘We’re late for the sea tide,’ said his father in the bow.

  ‘Didn’t hurt to sleep in.’

  The boat cut the brownish river. The pickets in the channel were rotting stumps of teeth. In the cut, the water was still, the anchor rope slack as the boat turned on itself. Sun burnt through the film of cloud, lighting up the water. It hurt their eyes. Plip! Whitebait being chased, they both knew. Jerra clicked his tongue. His father nodded, not lifting his lids.

  The bird croaked. The long boat slid over the shallow banks, the Hat punting with an oar, watching the bird’s shadow on the water. It wafted around in a loose curve, without moving a feather, beak flat against the sky.

  Jerra saw swirling spectrums of whale oil in the water, purple and yellow, even when the sun was sucked back into the clouds. He heard the slop of the net on the water.

  The line tightened, singing, Jerra had a fish, struggling off at an angle, going deep. He swung it up out of the water and into the boat. It beat itself against the boards. Then another, and another. His father shifted. The Hat was poling the boat away from the net. Corks jostled on the surface.

  ‘Must’ve seen something in those shallows,’ said his father.

  ‘Him or the bird?’

  Jerra smiled. His father glanced across. Inside the perimeter of shimmying corks, the water was coming to the boil. A tail slapped the water. The Hat beat the water with an oar.

  The bird-shadow flickered across. Jerra pulled in another tailor, the oar beating and slapping as he baited up. The pelican croaked playfully. He hoped it wouldn’t scare the fish off. He saw it settle just outside the perimeter of the net. Fish boiled the water. The pelican was becoming excited.

  It rained, heavy.

  ‘Not going too good?’ he smiled.

  He looked up. It was hard to see. He saw feathers and the oar coming down on the water driving the fish into the net. Feathers ruffling, excited. Something tearing? Jerra couldn’t make out the sound. Beak skyward; pink webs of feet. The bird was inside the net, churning about in the living mass. Churning. Then, the oar not hitting water. Blemishes appeared on the water outside the net from a volume of escaping fish. It was caught up in the net; a bumper catch fleeing. Shouts. Rain fell harder. Frightened croaks. Where? The rain was blinding. The bag-throat appeared again, quivering. For a moment he saw nothing again and looked away. He looked again to see the bird-rag on the surface and flagellant rain and the spreading feathers.

  All around their boat, fish were jumping, flattening themselves on the water. Jerra pulled in another as the anchor chain cleared the water.

  Out of the brown river the tide was oozing into the estuary towards the sea. Brown pickets. Jerra sat in the bow, wishing they had a bigger motor.

  hooks

  TOWN WAS gritty with the dry powder of leaves rasping along the footpaths. Windows offered, reflected, but he was reluctant to look. Horns and tinny music. From the railway bridge he watched the trains slither and jolt, their roofs dusty below. Often he wondered how far down they were. Since a child, he had wanted to drop something, a peppermint or a stone, onto the carriages as they passed. He wondered whether anyone had jumped. They had from other places. And made the papers.

  Across the railway, he wandered through the sleazier streets, past dead neon, the tight restaurants, clubs, bars. A man opened the door of a wine bar, pinning it back with his broom. Bearded and weary, he nodded as Jerra passed, but got no response.

  He completed the circle; crossed at the western bridge.

  ‘Granpa’s teachin’ me C. J. Dennis.’

>   ‘Oh? Is he?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Gone off love poems?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, pulling at a sock. ‘Love’s orright.’

  ‘Orright, eh?’

  ‘That’s how people get married.’

  She smiled, long legs shining in the sun.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d marry you, Auntie Jewel. You’re orright.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jem, I’d take you up. You’re the only man for me. You and your old man are okay. Your Mum’s got a good deal.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s orright, too.’

  He went home.

  In his room, he sat with his head against the marked wall. What a bunch of cripples, he thought. To resort to writing diaries and letters . . . and bloody books; he looked up at hopeless, drunken Malcolm Lowry whose spine still protruded from the tightly packed shelf.

  He sniffed his hands. They smelt of buses and handrails and dust, not fish; they didn’t even smell of him.

  He sighed and got on his knees beside the bed and pulled the bottom drawer from the desk. Feeling in the space behind it, he worried out a long manila envelope. He put it on his bed and was about to open it when he remembered the door and got up and locked it.

  He shuffled through the letters, reading excerpts.

  Dearest Jerra,

  Thank you for your lovely visit. It must be quite a shock to you. You didn’t show it, of course. You never have. It’s nice to think of yourself as a tough little biscuit. Your poems are better. Quite sexy, some of them. I didn’t know you were so advanced. I’m sorry about saying what I did. I’m not used to the smell of fish, that’s all. I expect you’ll be all hurt now and wear a screechingly clean-collared shirt, have red-raw hands and shoes and all, next time you come. You’d better not! I’d feel awful. And I wouldn’t recognise you, anyway!

  Send me some more poems when school becomes a torture.

  Much love,

   Jewel