19
A southerly blew at the marina and brought with it the sweet smell of tarry old fish. A few blokes had long sleeves on, and Bob had a scarf that he wound round his head so that it covered his nose and lips. ‘Can’t take the smell of that f*ckin’ wind,’ he said with his palms on his temples.
‘Pretty changeable up here, eh?’ said Frank, wishing he’d brought something warm. The sun-white hairs on his arms stood up like cactus spines and he felt girly rubbing them down.
‘Yeah – we catch all the dud weather as it goes past.’
Frank nodded as if this were well-known scientific fact.
‘You hear about Pokey?’ Bob looked at him with one eye, protecting the other from the wind with his hand.
‘Nup.’ Frank pulled on his gloves.
‘Some joker got him last night. Hurt him pretty bad if you want to know the truth. He ain’t talking, though.’ An engine started up, guttering and loud, and they had to shout over it.
‘Christ. He’s all right?’
‘Yeah, he’s around – probably shouldn’t be, but what you gonna do?’
‘Do we know who did it?’
‘Nup. He’s giving out that he’s gonna find who did it himself. Find ’em with a hook.’ Bob picked up his bag from the floor and pulled the scarf from his mouth. ‘You ask me though, mate, he’s just a scared old man. I wouldn’t mind finding the culprit meself with a shovel on my side.’
Stuart passed by with an armful of thick orange rope. ‘Bastard of a thing, eh?’ he shouted, straining like he was carrying bricks not rope. Bob nodded, put his scarf back up and headed down the gangway. Stuart caught Frank’s eye and came close to him. ‘Be those black fellas again, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he said, low and soft. There was a smile in his voice and he gave Frank a wink as he walked away.
At morning tea, Pokey came out of the foreman’s hut. The left side of his face was the deep swollen dark of black wine gums. Stripes of red showed the imprint of a fist on his cheekbone. His left eye was closed, but you could make out the blood-red line that was his eyeball. He walked with a limp, his good eye searching out the faces of his workers, daring anyone to say anything. Most people looked up and then got on with what they were doing, but the silence was heavy. Charlie watched Stuart with an empty look on his face and Stuart giggled.
The ceremony was out in the long grasses by Redcliff. There were five or six cars all by the side of the road and smoke came up from the point, made the air thick and smell of burnt seawater and cloves. It had already started by the time he got down to the small assembly of people, and he was alarmed to see that at first glance they were all aboriginal and mostly young. They turned to look at him, then turned back to themselves, thin scarves round their foreheads. A young girl with hoop earrings and red paint in her eyebrows fanned a small fire, fed it with grasses and the smoke blew low over the lot of them. Two boys sang a song that could have been joyful, if their faces weren’t stretched in the way that they were, if their eyes didn’t stare, full and black. He stood a little way from them, feeling the marsh wet his boots, the sponge earth seeping. He spotted Linus sitting with his shirt off, white lines down the length of his nose. He smiled at Frank and Frank nodded.
Through the smoke he saw a white face, Vicky, her hair tied at the nape of her neck, covering her ears and trailing round her throat. In the heat of the gully she wore an oversize oilskin coat. Frank caught her eye and she slipped through the smoke round the edge of the gathering. They stood next to each other, and he could feel the heat of her and smell the wax of her coat. She stretched out her little finger and all at once she was holding his hand, and it was hot and wet, and she squeezed so that the bones of his fingers ached.
‘Where’s everybody else?’ he whispered.
‘Who?’ she said, not whispering, but no one looked up.
‘I thought there’d be others.’ It felt silly his being there – he hadn’t even known the girl, hadn’t met her father. ‘What about Bob?’ She shook her head but didn’t offer anything else. He stayed quiet, feeling the strange hand in his and wondering what it was supposed to mean. A girl sang a song from a movie. Celine Dion. A kid, about seventeen, his thick hair shaped into a short fin, gold chains round his neck, sat alone cross-legged close to where the smoke blew thickest.
‘That’s Johno, Joyce’s boyfriend,’ Vicky said in his ear. The boy’s jaw was hard set and he blinked a lot in the smoke. His fingers pressed at each other. A dark orange scarf shone against the matt skin of his face. The boy stared at the two of them and there was something bad about the way he did it. Then he got up and made off into the long grass, and Frank wanted to leave too. Linus gave him a look and he wondered what he was thinking about the two of them holding hands. Crickets cracked all around them. The ground seeped under Frank’s weight, the water stained brown from the tea trees. He tugged on Vicky’s arm and she looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there. She didn’t resist when he steered her back towards the path, when he took them down the route to the beach, razor grass slicing at their shins. ‘Where’s everyone else?’ he asked again, once they were out of earshot, just the occasional high voice and the smell of smoke on the breeze.
‘Who else would you expect to come? Those are just her friends.’
‘Did you know her?’
Vicky looked at him but didn’t answer. She turned her head to look up the beach. The sky was pinking. She sat down in the dry sand close to the grass. He sat down too and took his boots off. She buried her feet, letting the loose white sand run through her fingers and watched as she did the same to his feet. He felt a sort of sickness about what could happen next – her strong legs, the width of her hips.
‘That poor boy,’ Vicky said, ‘they had him in for questioning. God only knows what they did to him.’
‘The boyfriend – they think he did it?’
‘He didn’t do it. The one that did is most likely a million miles away by now.’ The sea pulled at the sand and spat it out again.
‘But do they think Johno did it?’
‘They?’ Her voice was faraway and flat, like the questions didn’t mean that much to her.
‘I suppose he wouldn’t be around if they thought he’d done it.’ Vicky didn’t answer, not even a shrug. They sat in the quiet until the sun was setting and a large, smooth, black piece of petrified driftwood that had long ago washed up and planted itself on the sand cast its shadow long and dark up the beach.
‘Couple of days ago Ian Mackelly went to have a talk to Johno. Took along some of the marina boys. Bob went.’
‘What happened?’
‘They went to his house – place he lives with his parents and his grandfather. Little kids there too. They didn’t take along anything but they rolled up their sleeves. Bob said they really just wanted to talk.’ Vicky smiled and shook her head like she couldn’t even believe the fact.
‘Well, maybe that is all they wanted to do.’
Vicky looked at him. ‘You don’t have kids.’ She pushed the balls of her hands into her eyes and there was a small wet noise from them.
‘They asked for Johno to come out and he didn’t, so they stayed there all night. Four of them, big men, waiting with their flaming shirtsleeves rolled up.’
‘I can’t believe they would’ve hurt him, Vick. Bob wouldn’t let it happen.’
‘It’s like I said. You don’t have kids.’
The waves were quiet, the birds didn’t sing, and ghost crabs scattered on the surface and disappeared into their holes. The wind must have shifted because smoke came down and threaded slowly out to sea. It blew in through their hair and Vicky sniffed. ‘No spirit sticking to me,’ she said.
He saw the difficult lines of her face, the hair that hooked in her eyelashes, smelt the oilskin coat.
‘Bob told you about Emmy?’
Frank nodded. He wondered if he should mention those bruises on Bob’s face, but it wasn’t for him to stick his beak in. ‘Think maybe we should go home?’ he said, even though it would have been nice to feel her hot and sinking into the sand underneath him.
She held out her hand, laid it palm up on the sand. He put his over hers, not to hold it, just to cover. ‘Why are you here, Frank?’ she asked and he found that, really, he didn’t know.
The next day the southerly still blew at work and it dried him out, leaving the skin of his hands tight and old-looking. He couldn’t stop touching his right eye, which became blood-lined and weepy, and he could feel some bit of grit in it, like his eyeballs were drying out and sand was getting in. When work was over he went into the pub toilet and rinsed his eye, soaped up his papery hands and washed them until they looked pink. The men had gathered round a set of tables by the front window of the pub, so you could look out and watch surfers on main beach. There was hardly any swell, but still the water was speckled with them, some lying flat, some sitting upright, dangling their legs in the water and looking out to the horizon, willing a wave to come and knock them off.
‘You look pretty ropy mate,’ offered Bob, as he sat down. He pushed a drink across the table.
‘Ta for the beer,’ Frank said. ‘Got some grub in my eye.’
‘Listen, Vick told me about yesterday.’ Frank bit his tongue. What had she said? ‘Thanks, mate. Should’ve gone meself, just couldn’t face it.’
Frank nodded and took a long drink simultaneously so he wouldn’t have to talk.
Linus cleared his throat. ‘How’s the bass, Stuart?’
Stuart leant forward and set himself more comfortably in his chair. There was no sign that he was put out by the previous week. ‘Yeah, she’s pretty good, thanks, Linus mate. She’s getting pretty tame.’
‘Stuart keeps a bass in his pool,’ said Linus, looking at Frank. There was the suggestion of laughter round his mouth.
‘Really? It’s okay with the chlorine?’
‘Aw, mainly rainwater, mate, more of a pond right now than a pool.’
‘A mosquito pot,’ Linus said. ‘An’ a stinking one at that.’
‘You’re just jealous, mate.’
Linus no longer looked like he was taking a rise. The old man’s eyes narrowed as if he was seeing something different from the rest of them.
‘Sure thing, she’s a pretty bass.’ There was a general quiet reverence while apparently everyone pictured the fish.
‘You teach her any tricks?’ asked Bob.
Frank was on the verge of laughing out loud.
‘Aw, she’s coming on. Last weekend got one of the kids to take some footage of me feeding her. She’ll come right up and take it out of my hand.’
Everyone nodded, impressed.
‘Aw, and then – it was unreal!’ Stuart sat up tall, smiling, leaning back on his stool. ‘The kids caught a skink and threw him in, and Bassy came up and hit it – took the bloke in one go!’ He used his hands to show how the fish went. ‘I was spewing we weren’t filming. She was too full to take any more – gonna give it another shot this weekend. Been thinking about throwing a mouse in there too.’
‘Sweet as,’ said Bob.
Everyone drank.
‘So,’ asked Frank. ‘What’s your plan, is she a pet or are you going to let her go?’
Stuart eyed him suspiciously, then seemed to decide it was a genuine question. ‘Well, I catch her about once every two weeks – jus’ using a lure – an’ then at some point I’ll go an’ release her.’
‘Righto – where at?’ It had seemed to him to be a perfectly normal question, but the atmosphere at the table changed. Everyone sat up a little straighter, Linus moved his beer in concentric circles, Bob snorted and cleared his throat.
‘That’, said Stuart, ‘is for me to know.’
Later in the evening the drink seemed to sort out the creakiness of Frank’s body. His joints felt lubricated, his head light and he felt unusually spry as he kept his eye on a girl at the bar, thinking perhaps he should buy her a drink. When it came to his round, he sidled up to her. ‘Anything for you?’ he asked.
She looked at him like she might laugh and for a second his good feeling died in his boots, but she smiled. ‘Sure – rum and lemonade, please.’
He put in the order and leant against the bar. ‘You work around here, then?’ he asked.
‘Not exactly – what about you, been down at the marina?’
‘Yeah, been packing nails today.’ It wasn’t the keenest line he’d ever used.
‘Nice one.’ She said.
‘Ta.’
‘So . . . ?’
‘Yeah.’
And as easily as that it was over and she had on one of those looks again like she might laugh.
‘Guess I haven’t been up to much lately.’
‘Guess not. Well, ta for the drink anyways.’ She sipped through her straw and gave him a smile that was nice, and he cheered up.
With his hands full of drink, Stuart slapped him on the back. ‘Nice one, Franko,’ he said, the tops of the beers running down Frank’s fingers. ‘You just bought the foreman’s fourteen-year-old niece a drink. He’ll thank you for that, I’m sure of it!’ The table erupted and Frank felt his face go hot. He glanced over to where the girl sat down opposite a battered Pokey and sucked wetly on the red straw.
At midnight he found himself in the driver’s seat of his truck, too tired and too drunk to go anywhere. ‘Lucy Lucy Lucy Lou Lou Lou,’ he said quietly to himself and then he was crying. He fell asleep strapped into his seat belt and didn’t wake until it was just starting dawn. There was a red drinking straw in his shirt pocket that he couldn’t place and he dropped it out of the window, preferring not to think too much about where it had come from. He felt like his guts had collapsed on each other and breathing out too far made him feel sick. He started the engine and pulled out into the empty street, glad it was too early to have to try to avoid crashing into other vehicles.
It was a soft, damp morning and things were paler than usual on the road that led home. The bark of the gums blanched at him as he drove down the track. A heavy mist hung low in the air, so that once he’d come to a stop outside the shack there was nothing to see past the cane.
Both chickens were sleeping, their white eyes closed like small barnacles, their bodies fluffed and frowsy. When he closed the truck door it sounded too loud and made his heart beat like a footstep. A rosella took off from the veranda and a large white cockatoo, which perched in the banana tree, turned its back on Frank at the same time as crapping into the open air.
His boots made a din on the floorboards. He was usually bare-footed and he trod lightly for fear of waking someone. He sat down on the side of his bed and undid his laces carefully, softly placing the boots next to each other underneath the bed. A swim was the only real cure for overcooking yourself. He tried whistling to break the ice of quiet as he floundered for his towel, but the bare windows glared at him. The banana tree swept against the roof, shhhhhhh.
He cleared his throat.
He took off his clothes and slung the towel over his shoulder, pulling at fistfuls of his hair to try to clear his head, and making it stick straight up as he walked out of the shack and down the path to the bay.
The sea was pasty, the rip a little high. Scum yellowed the tidemark. The water was warm and his dick hardly shrank as he floated until he lost the feel of his body. He watched from the corner of his eye as he passed the bream hole and thought of his mother standing there holding a live prawn in her fingers and hesitating to thread it on to the hook. Past that, further out, was the point where they’d used to set the crab trap. A memory surprised him: his father waking him at dawn before everything, when his mum was sleeping in that creaky double bed of theirs. ‘Come and we’ll see what the crab pot’s sucked up,’ his dad had whispered.
‘What about Mum?’
‘Man’s work.’
‘Hokay.’
He’d felt an odd gravity to the situation as they tiptoed out of the shack, not closing the door in case the noise woke her up. They wore just the pants they’d slept in and he’d felt yesterday’s sunburn wince on his back.
When they got down to the water, his dad disposed of even his pants and flung them at the dry sand up the beach. He did the same, and went and stood by his dad as he dragged the surf ski down to the waves.
‘C’mon then, Franko, in you get.’ His dad held the surf ski steady in the shallow white water.
‘We going in the nud?’
‘Nud as a grub.’
He hesitated.
‘You worried a crab’s gonna have it off or something? C’mon, who’ll see?’
He stepped in, cautiously viewing the funny pigskin hanging from his dad.
‘’S the thing I’ve learnt, Franko,’ he said as he pushed them off into the gentle swell, ‘there aren’t that many places to be nude any more – you gotta take the chance when it comes along.’
His dad hopped in behind so that his legs, dark with thick hair, went either side of Frank. Water swilled crisply in the hull of the surf ski, turning warm with being near their bums. He wondered if he would get away with peeing, but thought he’d best hold it.
They lapped out to the point where the bottom was sandy and deep, and the polystyrene ball painted with the name COLLARD floated. He’d watched his dad stroke out with it the day before, seen the hooked skeleton of a blackfish dark against the sky, and he’d been sulky then that he hadn’t taken him along too. But here he was for the good bit and heat rose in his chest at the thought of the two of them on their own, bringing in the food. The sky was fully light now, but still a pale impression of the day ahead. Even the sea was a calm version of itself. It rocked them gently in their long boat, there were no rips to steer against. The wind was a soft hooting breath.
‘Righto, let’s see what we’ve got here. If it’s a shark, you knock it on the head.’ He’d nodded seriously as his dad began pulling up the rope. Once the slack had been taken, his dad pulled hard on it, frowning, the tendons at his neck and the muscles round his shoulders pulsing.
‘Is it stuck?’ he asked, worried the ski would upturn.
‘I reckon she might be, mate. Must be under a shelf rock or something. Hold on, we’ll come about and try a different angle.’ They let the tide move them gently in an arc, his dad pulling all the time.
‘Crikey! She’s a bugger,’ his dad muttered under his breath. And then a little give. Then another and he began to pull, red-faced, hand over hand, straining, with his teeth set and his arms shaking.
‘She’s coming up, mate, bit by bit – we’ll have caught on an old anchor or something.’
After what seemed like ages they saw the trap down in the water, full and black. ‘What is it?’ asked Frank, unable to keep the sense of dread out of his voice.
‘Dunno, mate, but she’s sure as hell something.’
As the trap came up at the side of the boat, his dad let it hang a little, so the seawater drained out and it became light enough to hold up and get a proper look at.
‘By crikey,’ whispered his father. ‘Get a load of that, Franko boy.’ Suspended over the side of the boat was a cage of crabs, a mess of bright blue swimming legs and the ticking noise of their breath, all of them muscling about, too many for the cage. ‘That’s at least sixteen, seventeen crabs in there, Franko.’ He held the trap over the side, the great weight gone. They both stared at it, wondering how on earth to get it back in to dry land.
Frank floated on his back, remembering how the place had stunk the good stink of boiled crab for days and the noise the shells made when they tipped a bag of them back in the sea. He smiled at the memory and tilted his head back a little so the water could get at the lids of his eyes.
Something bumped his arm.
He raised his head and saw that he had drifted clear out of the bay and there was something in the water with him. After swallowing a mouthful, he felt for all his limbs and found them still there. A fin appeared a few feet away, not a huge fin, but still a fin and it didn’t look like a reef shark. It hung in the water, oddly still, waiting for him to make the first move.
‘Shit,’ he said and he kept on saying it to keep himself calm. He tried to keep his legs in a steady stroke, but they kept shaking and flinching of their own accord. The main thing, regardless of the shark, was to get out of the rip that was taking him further and further out. He’d been caught in currents before and he knew to swim the horizon, not fight against it. He rounded the point of the bay and swam and swam, the sound of his breath like wind through a torn plastic bag. The shark kept with him, an arm’s length away to the side, and he tried to keep it in the corner of his eye, tried not to turn his head to look at it, which slowed him down.
Then the fin went under.
With every kick he imagined plunging his foot right into its mouth, having his feet taken, the sharp white bone at the ankle, bleeding to death. He passed through a cold current and thought he was being swallowed whole. His guts moved inside him and he thought, Don’t piss. God, don’t shit. As he gained on the land, he fixed on the dunes, thinking about the solidness of it for his feet, and about running up into them and rolling naked in the dry yellow sand.
Paddling hard, he came into the shallows, but it didn’t leave him alone. When he could touch the bottom with his flat foot, it darted at him, sending bow waves at his chest, coming for him and veering away at the last second, chasing him, herding. When he stood, he could see the back of it, and it made him fall over, get up again and fall over and get up. It was bigger than he’d thought, as long as he was, but worse were the dark streaks across the pale fish, the boxed head of a tiger shark. He ran in the water, falling every second step, choking on salt; his hand was speared by a sharp shell or point of coral, but it didn’t put a beat in his progress. He ran out of the water and didn’t stop until he was far up the beach, a hooting noise coming from his chest. Turning and flopping on to the ground, he watched the fin torpedo up the bay and out into the open sea.
‘F*ck me,’ he said, wiping his face over and over with his hands, standing up naked and bleeding with a sandy bottom.
‘F*cking well f*ck me.’