An Open Swimmer (3 page)

The morning he was thinking about other things, he hit too hard and the leader squealed. They never came again.

‘Sometimes we'd take white pointers following the whales being towed in. Big as whales, too. Tearing great hunks of blubber out of the whales.'

‘Catchin' them bastards is somethink.'

‘Just as they came up on the gaff, I'd have to shoot. A couple of times. To be careful.'

Gaping, writhing in their own spray. Pink sheen. Thud-thud-thud of the tail against the stern. Gulls waiting.

‘They're tricky buggers, orright. Mate o' mine, years back, lost a foot to a bronzie. An hour out of the water it was. Red took to it with a cleaver.'

‘You worked on the boats.'

‘Oath. Did the salmon all along the coast. Sharks when it was bad. Small stuff, herring, snapper. We even went to abalone, one or two bad seasons.'

‘Who's we?' asked Sean.

‘Me an' the wife.' He dragged tea with sucking lips. ‘How long you stayin'?'

‘Got about three weeks,' said Jerra. Abalone. That's what his lips looked like; wet an' rubbery.

‘Can't see anybody wantin' ter stay that long.'

‘Pretty good here,' said Sean.

‘Lots better places,' said the old man.

‘Good coast,' said Jerra.

‘Little bus, eh? All set up.'

Jerra nodded.

‘Move around a bit yourself?'

‘Not for years. Been to Perth. Bad times we drove up and sold straight to the rest'rants. Rabbitin' for a spell. Got away quick, though.'

‘Didn't go much on it?'

‘Too many big mouths. Bigger'n nor'west blowies.'

‘What about smaller places around here? Albany, Ongerup?'

‘All the same. Wherever there's a pub an' people to jabber they just go the same.'

‘Albany's orright,' said Jerra.

‘Yeah?' said the old man. ‘What's it like there now?'

‘Always seemed the same to me.'

‘Probably too young to know it any different.'

‘I s'pose so.'

‘Bugger of a place, I reckon. Sailors' town. Yanks and Wogs walkin' round with the local girls. Make yer sick.'

Jerra nodded politely. He had friends in Albany once. Most of them had either gone to the city, were in gaol for dope, or had died driving big cars.

Smooth stones clicked. Bitter smoke mingled with the steamy breath of coals. Sean yawned, rubbing salt and smoke from his eyes.

‘Fire's out.'

‘Better let youse lads get some sleep.'

‘Haven't finished your tea,' said Jerra.

‘Gone cold, anyway.' He rose stiffly.

Nodding, the old man went slowly up the track, wrinkled khakis merging in the green-black night. Only the single red eye of his cigarette winked. That soon faded too.

M
ORNINGS.
A
FTERNOONS.
It was pointless counting. How could you count the warbles in the grey, colours in the fires, thuds in the bush, keep record of the morse of cicadas, seeds, sap, stems? Fishbones burnt to white powder, and scales clung to bark and licks of grass. Feet burred, nails caught, faces rimed with salt and smoke and dirt.

They cruised on the surface, listening to the breath in the snorkels. Jerra clamped on the rubber bit, feeling the gooseflesh creep along his arms, and saw a long slit at the crest of a hump of rocks and weed that crouched on the bottom. Sean dived across at a small goatfish, away from it. Jerra hovered. He kicked and sank into the weediness of the hole, pulling down the rubber. Prongs glinted. A twilight. Down. He cleared his ears, and the space widened as he kicked. Blennies and pomfrets poked their heads from fissures. His lungs pushed against his chest as he settled on the silt. Corroded things lay half-buried, twisted formations knotted on each other, furred with algal turf, as if the hole had collected the debris of many storms. He peered along wrinkles and ledges. Morwong shot, with lips of congealed blood, from hole to hole, and specks of light showed through the walls. There were other entrances, fresh currents on the bottom fed from somewhere back in the darkness that went further than he dared to go. His mask distorted: the walls seemed to curve. Breath short, he turned for the bar of light. And froze. Pugnacious jaws opened at him, peg-like teeth phosphorescent behind the blue lips. The pectoral fins quivered, balancing. It was as big as him.

He kicked upwards, hard, pulling at the water, making for the fluorescent bar, then through, into the silver, crashing the surface, gasping the warm air.

Sean surfaced.

‘God, I thought you'd gone for good!'

Jerra floated onto his back, pushing the mask back.

‘Thought you must've drowned or something. Didn't even see you go in.'

Jerra spat the blood that came to the back of his throat.

Dripping gobs of butter, the fillets were sweet and firm. The white flesh broke off in their fingers.

‘Lots of fish,' said Jerra. ‘Sea-junk.'

‘How deep?'

‘About thirty.'

‘How could you tell?'

‘Ears.'

‘Risky.'

Jerra did his best to ignore him. He was thinking.

On his back, Jerra drifted in and out. Sean read a hard-covered book. Jerra opened his eyes. His hair felt like unravelled hemp.

‘Buggered if I can sleep.'

‘Hmm.'

‘What you reading?'

‘Shit.'

‘Catchy title.'

‘Hmm.' He flicked a page. ‘Seen Ben Gunn since his midnight meeting?'

‘Who?'

‘
The Old Man and the Sea
. The wino from up on the hill.'

‘Oh, him.' Jerra got up on an arm. ‘How do you know he's a wino?'

‘Did you see his face? Weathering the years, and more. The more is the piss. He's as mad as a cut snake.'

‘Seemed orright to me.'

‘'Cause he talked about fish.'

‘Held a conversation.'

‘Flittin' amongst the tombs.'

‘Got him sewn up, haven't you?'

‘You saw him.'

‘You're a bloody cynic.'

‘Try it.'

‘Must get a prescription.'

Sean went back to the book, smiling as he recognised one of his own lines. Jerra lay back.

‘You must admit, though, he did look pretty wild. The shirt held together with nappy pins, the gummy smile.'

‘Wonder where his wife is.' So many things were bothering him.

‘Probably dreamt it up.'

‘He was dinkum.'

‘Got you fooled.'

‘Least I didn't make an arse of meself.'

‘Who says you didn't – amberjack.'

‘I would've remembered.'

‘He wouldn't know himself, probably.'

‘He'd know a lot've things, I reckon.'

‘You've been sucked, mate. Again.'

Eventually, they slept.

Into the soft dark before him, a silver gleam. Jerra sank in the blankets of eddying current. On the bottom, a blacker form, inside the skeleton. It sank darker, where he was hesitant. He longed to plunge into the thing, drag it thrashing into the clear, feeling the tough mosaic of scales, the muscle of tail, to brush lightly against the dorsals, to lever open the skull to see the pure white, feel it, hard as a pebble, in his palm. No breath. He clawed up the smooth curving walls for the surface, the clear sheen, feeling the grey coarseness against his cheek and neck, dry, chafing. In the smoke and gasps of kookaburras, his hands smelt of fish.

‘Sean?'

‘Yeah.' He rolled over.

‘You remember the kingie my old man caught on the jetty?'

‘That was years ago.'

‘I was eight.'

‘What about it?'

‘Remember the pearls?'

‘Oh, you're not on that, again.'

‘It happened.'

‘You were eight years old; you imagine all sorts of bloody things, especially you. Gawd, between you an' your grandfather and . . .'

‘It happened.'

‘An' so there's these things inside a fish's head. It's all fishermen's bloody superstition.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Geez, Jerra. Next thing you'll tell me is that you know God and Father Christmas.'

‘I've seen 'em.'

‘Who, God and Father Christmas?'

‘No, the pearls.'

‘Arr.'

As an eight year old he remembered the noises the kingfish made as the air bladder deflated and the gush that came when his father opened it up and pulled out the roe, then opened the head and took one of the jewels from the base of the spine.

‘Why don't you take them both, Dad? One for you an' one for me.'

‘Leave one for the fish, eh?'

He did not understand, but his Dad knew. They put the pearl on the jetty next to the fishing bag, and took the fish down onto the lower landing to wash the guts out and throw the head away.

When they returned, the pearl had gone, slipped between the rough sleepers and disappeared into the dredged green.