Floundering (10 page)

I can feel the heat of an ant bite blooming on my neck. I’m way in deep under the roots of the riverbank. I dig away at the surface sand until it’s cooler and I put my hands there, feeling the secret temperature. I can hear my breath, and I try make it come slower. I count them. Where my hands are becomes hot. I dig my fingers in deeper until I can feel hard dirt right up under my fingernails.

I see Jordy’s feet land with a cloud of dust. They’re chopped off at the calves. He has the skinniest ankles ever. I’m quiet. I see them twist around as he’s looking. He starts to walk away. I’ve lost count of my breaths. I make a noise that is a cough or a sob. His feet pause, he comes back, leans right over and I see his face. Two dark eyes. He crawls in under the roots, their ends are as soft and fine as spiders’ webs. His pockets tinkle.
There’s not enough room for us both under here. Little bits of the ceiling crumble. I rub my eyes. He’s holding a soda machine like the one Pa had on the liquor cabinet. It’s old with a silver handle and wire mesh. He’s trying not to sit too close. His legs are stretching out into the sun.

Go away, I say, but it comes out as a whisper.

He pulls little silver bulbs out of his pockets. Here, he says and passes the soda machine to me.

I don’t want it, I say.

He presses it into my hands, but my hands don’t work and it falls and rolls in the sand.

Where did you get it? I say. He pushes the machine back into my hands and everything now is covered with a fine silt of sand. But I just hold it.

Look, I’ll show you, he says and grabs it back off me.

He pierces a bulb and then wraps his singlet over the spout of the machine and presses the leaver down. He sucks it in, holds it, then blows it out slowly. His face is too close to mine, and under here it’s too dark for me to see what’s happening but I think he closes his eyes and leans back for a couple of seconds. Then he’s laughing.

Here, he says. Here.

He passes me the machine again, and a new little silver bulb. I put my Pooh shirt over the spout, pierce the bulb and then breathe in a huge breath. My lungs go freezing cold. I try breathe it back out as quick as possible but then it feels like I’m falling into the riverbank. The earth opens and closes again over the top of me and I’m in there with the roots and the bones and the spiders. There’s humming in my brain and even though I’m in there way too deep it’s okay.

I hear cicadas first. The tendrils of roots come back into focus, and I feel the sand under my fingertips and Jordy beside me. I’m sitting there exactly the same as before. I gasp and a tear escapes. I feel it run down my cheek and drop to my leg. Jordy grabs the soda machine from my limp hand. I look at him suck it through his singlet with a loud hiss and close his eyes. The silver bulb falls. They’re like spent machine-gun cartridges. I feel weird and cool on the inside. There is a headache waiting to boom, but it’s hiding in the back of my head for now.

I wriggle out. Tendrils brush against my face. I go look at the water that’s thick and smells nothing like I expect the bottom of a river to smell. I feel Jordy come stand beside me.

There’s a shark in there, I say. I point to the water. Jordy doesn’t say anything, but I hear him sigh. There is, I say.

There is not, he says reluctantly.

Go for a swim then.

He shrugs his shoulders as if to say, whatever.

I raise my eyebrows at him. There is a shark.

He looks at me, then slips his thongs off his feet. He jumps up and down. The sand is hot. He walks on tiptoe to the edge of the water then curls his toes into the mud.

This is fucken gross, he says. But his feet are in the water now and he’s walking deeper.

Hey, I say, there really is a shark. Really. He rolls his eyes at me and walks deeper. Jordy, there’s a shark. Stop. He rolls his eyes again. Come out, come out, come out. He walks in deeper. I look around for anything to chuck in the water. Jordy, I say. I stand on the edge of the mud. A little lizard slithers away through the muck and Jordy flinches, then walks deeper. The dried mud cracks under my feet. I lean down and, keeping my
eyes on him, like if I look away it will get him, I feel around in the mud for anything to throw. I find a small branch, the bark crumbles under my fingers. I pull it from the mud and throw it past Jordy, into the water. The black water rises up and the fin breaks the surface. Everything is fast. The shark thrashes in the shallows and Jordy stumbles back and onto his bum in the mud. The black water creeps up into his shirt. I don’t laugh. He pushes himself further out of there, leaving gouges.

Shit, he says, and lets a little laugh escape his chest.

We got to catch it, I say. But I mean, we got to save it.

Gulls circle above us. They’re eyeing us off. The sound of the generator makes me queasy. I can see Nev’s buoys turning in the wind. We’re down in the scrub. Little sticks dig into me.

I don’t want you to, I say.

Just be quiet, he says, it’ll be okay. He’s not there.

But – and I feel an ache in my throat that’s more than being thirsty, or crying.

I’m just going to get some fishing gear, he says.

No, I say.

He’s not there.

But what if he comes? I start to cry. I’m trying so hard not to, but Jordy’s there like nothing’s happened. I see my tears land in big drops in the dust. They just sit on the top of the sand, perfect, whole and round.

Do you want to get the shark or what? Don’t be a fucken baby, he says. But he puts his hand on my back and rubs three circles there before standing up and walking into the yard. His long hair blows out. I put my head in my hands and don’t look. I can see my feet. They’re orange with dust. Ants crawl over my
toes. I count my breaths, and I’m up to eighty-seven when I hear bushes rustling. I look up, holding eighty-seven in. The sun is so high in the sky that Jordy doesn’t even cast me into shade. Our shadows are there, cowering at our feet.

Come on, he says. Quick.

He’s got a handful of sparkling metal fish and a handline threaded on his arm like a bangle. A gaff hanging from his wrist. I trail him. We walk back down to the beach. Crabs scuttle at my feet.

He’s going to know it was us that took it, I say.

I know, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t do anything, says Jordy.

How do you know?

He just won’t.

You’re crazy, I say. Jordy just shrugs.

Maybe I just know, he says.

At the mouth of the river a pied oystercatcher flashes its bright red beak at us, then flies away. The sand is wide and flat here where briny seawater pools. We walk past where the water stops and the river sand begins, until we reach the shark. We stand in the sun, the mud drying and cracking around us. I’m thirsty. My tongue is starting to get fat and thick. The lure shimmers and swims, flapping its silver fins. The fish is so pretty it could lure all the birds from the sky. The pool of water shrinks.

I’m hot, I say.

Jordy ignores me. I watch him tie the lure to the handline and then swing it in a circle before letting it fly, the line unravelling as if from his open palm. The fish flies into the river sand on the other side and the line blows away. Jordy reels the line back in. I run around and get the lure. It glints at me, lets me know
it’s there. I brush dust off it, feel the sharp tips of the hooks. I throw it to Jordy and he jumps aside.

Hey, he says and picks up the lure.

Remember how Pa says, the rabbit goes around the burrow, then down the hole, I say.

He threads the line through the eye then makes a circle for the burrow and threads the rabbit through it, down the burrow, and pulls it tight. He chucks it into the soupy water and winds it back in quickly.

Get the gaff ready, he says.

He chucks it again and again but nothing happens. Only the ripples of water circle out.

Maybe we need some berley, some blood, I say.

He looks at me like he’s measuring how much I’ve got to spare. But the shark takes the bait then and the handline nearly rips from him. He grabs a hold of it and winds it in, his feet digging deep into the mud. He’s sweating, his hair sticks to his face. Bits of the shark start to show. It throws black water at us. It’d be hungry, I reckon. It must have eaten every fish in there and maybe even things that came to drink.

Get the gaff, says Jordy. He’s straining, his arm is going to pop out of its socket, but I don’t want to get the gaff ‘cos I don’t want to hurt it. I see the square snout. I see one of its eyes looking at me before it twists and turns and is all grey skin and fins again. I think it looks a bit like the face of a dog. The gaff is hooked at the end of my arm and I reach in and pull it through the jaw of the little gummy. Pull it up onto the sand. It flicks around, snapping and twisting.

Quick, quick, quick, Jordy, quick, quick. I’m yelling, jumping up and down with the shark at the end of the gaff.

What, what the fuck, what? he screams back at me.

We got to get it to the ocean, quick.

It’s too far.

I start pulling it towards the river mouth, dragging it along by the gaff, leaving a line of blood and filling the shark with sand. It’s hard to pull because the shark is heavy and wild at the end of the hook. Jordy drops the line and tries to grab the tail but it slips out of his hands. The line gets caught by the wind and floats behind us unravelling into blue sky.

Give me the gaff, he says. I hand it to him and he runs, pulling the shark behind him. The shark grazes against my ankles and its skin is rough. I try grab the tail, but the tail is as difficult to grab as a hose turned on full. I fall into the sand and it burns everywhere it touches. I gasp with the shock of the heat, get up.

Wait, Jordy, I say and try to run after him. Wait.

But he’s getting away from me. I can see the muscles in his arms, tense and pulling too hard. I run after him. We leave blood behind us.

Be gentle, Jordy. Be careful, I say, catching up to him. Jordy just pulls harder on the shark. I grab its tail and it lets me. Now, we’re more walking, stumbling after a while. I don’t look back because I’m scared of how little way we’ve come. My headache booms at me with each step. I can hear Jordy’s ragged breath. Then there’s the sea. It’s so blue it’s painful. We fall into the water and Jordy pulls the shark in after us. Blood seeps from the shark’s mouth. I wash the sand off its rough, grey skin. Jordy’s enormous singlet billows out like a parachute in the water. I hug the shark to me. It doesn’t move. The gaff hangs from its lips. The lure in its mouth shines like a new filling. We float in the shallows, on the end of a line, bumping up against each other.

Jordy is slick and dark with water.

Is it dead? Little pale fish, the colour of sand, dart around our feet. I see one take a nibble at the shark’s lip. The waves rock it back and forth. I’ve seen when fishermen throw almost-dead fish back. They pull the water through the gills of the limp fish and it comes alive. The gummy bobs in the water.

Yeah, I guess, says Jordy.

Gulls circle overhead. One of them lands on the beach, arches its back, screeches at us. Waves curling around our legs. Jordy reaches down and for a second I think he’s going to thump me, but he gets a hold of the tail of the shark and starts pulling it back to the sand. It bares its teeth at me, grinning.

He gets it to the sand, then slumps down beside it, leans back with his hands under his head and closes his eyes.

You killed it, I say. But I know I’m the one who really killed it, because I found it in there and it was me that wanted to catch it, but I say it again, You killed it.

Just shut up, he says.

The bite on my neck is itchy. I dig my fingers into it. I hate you, I say to Jordy, standing above him. He opens his eyes. I saw you before, I say to him.

Whatever, he says, it comes out of his lips in a hiss. He’s lying there, still.

I saw, I say. I scratch at the bite on my neck hard.

He sits up, tackles my legs from under me. He gets two of my wrists into one of his hands so he can have the other free to punch my face. I kick up into his belly. I smell his breath, hot and like rotten meat pie. His hair gets in my eyes.

Get off me, I yell at him. He’s grimacing so hard his lips crack and I see blood on his teeth. His face is red. The sound of waves breaking.

Don’t say anything, he whispers between his bloody teeth, his lips clenched tight. A vein in his forehead is pulsing and sticking out so far that I want to reach up and put my finger on it, feel the pumping of the blood. But he has both my hands. I knee him in the balls and he falls off me. He curls up, groans. When he looks up at me the water reflects in his eyes and makes them shiny blue.

It doesn’t matter, Tom, he says.

I look away. We both look at the gummy. He gets up, Come on, he says. He gets the gummy. He hugs it, holding its head in his arms. We’ll take it back, he says. Get the tail.

Even though it’s a small shark it still has that scary feeling to look at it. It feels as if maybe it could still give me a nip. The
hairs on my arms are white with salt. Jordy has a good hold on the gummy. The flies come.

We walk back up the beach, the tail slips. I stumble in the high-tide mark. The seaweed curls and scratches my ankles, tangles my feet. I’m stuck there trying to get out of it and Jordy looks back at me with such a pained expression, his arms full of shark, that I feel like giving up, letting the seaweed keep me and just waiting for the tide to rise.

Come on, he says. I pull myself from the weed. At the dunes we drop the gummy and it gets covered with sand again. He pushes it up the sand and I get above and try pull it up by the head. Trying not to gouge its eyes out. At the top of the dune we hug it again. We walk back towards the caravan. I can smell sausages and kerosene. I can’t itch the ant bite on my neck because I’m holding the shark. The gulls are following us, circling high above, and as we get to the caravan they settle on the roof. We get in under the awning and I let the gummy’s dry tail drop. Jordy has the head still, he gently lowers it to the ground. The gummy’s arm fin is poking up, waving hello. I stare at the place where Bert should be.

She’s still not home, I say and look up at Jordy.

Yeah, he says. I hear him breathe out all the way, until he must be totally empty inside. I slump down in the half-broken chair, the gummy at my feet. But from here I can see Nev’s caravan. The windows are dark. The front is neat, like he’s swept the dirt since this morning. Jordy opens the caravan door and I get up, follow him in. My chair collapses on top of the gummy.

There’s an elastic on the windowsill, with her hair still in it. A red singlet under the bed. Blown tissues along the edge of
the bed. I finger half a piece of bread that’s gone hard left out on the bench.

Are there any chips left? I say.

I dunno, he says.

He sits at the table. I look in the cupboard and inside the big Black and Gold bag there is one packet left – chicken flavour. I reach in and pull the little green packet out and show it to Jordy triumphantly.

Chips, I say. He rubs a space clean on the table and raises his eyebrows at me. I open the chips and stick them one at a time into my mouth. They’re so covered in flavour they almost burn. Do ya want one? I say when there’s really only crumbs left.

No, he says and rests his head on the table.

I open the screen door and look down at the gummy. There are flies crawling all over its eyes and near its bared rows of teeth. The awning snaps in a new breeze and the air grabs the empty chip packet from my hand. It floats up and over the dune. I go to run after it but it’s gone. I tighten the awning, like that’s what I’m out there for, pulling it out as hard as I can. The gummy is rotting at my feet.

There’s heaps of flies on it, I say loudly so Jordy can hear me inside. I look up and see a lady walking towards me. It’s not Loretta because Loretta walks jaunty, like how teenage boys walk. This woman is swaying with a growth on her hip.

I look for somewhere to put the gummy. I grab the chair and it tangles in my arms, snapping me in the mouth. I taste blood.

Jordy, I say. No answer.

I take a hold of the gummy’s fin. Roll it over, under the
caravan. The tail catches on the metal step. I shove it and a little triangle of the tail snaps and hangs by a flap of skin. I taste blood and chicken flavouring.

Jordy, I say.

He opens the door and looks out. What? he says. Then – What does she want?

As she walks up we both look at our feet.

Hi, she says.

I can see her feet, her thongs. She starts talking like it’s a conversation we’ve all been having before and she starts right in the middle of it.

She just cries and cries if I don’t walk her, she says, but if I walk her she’s happy as Larry, aren’t you, sweets, happy as Larry. I look up at the tiny girl. The girl gurgles, laughing bubbles of spit. The woman kisses the little girl on the top of her head.

Your mum here? she says. Thought I might try see if she’d reconsider. She touches her hair. About my hair, she says.

I say, Nup, but Jordy speaks over me.

She’s gone into town, he says.

And left you two all on your lonesome?

I can look after him, says Jordy.

You’re not my babysitter, I say.

You’re younger than me.

We’re nearly the same age.

Are not.

At the start of the year, we’re only a year apart.

So. What.

So.

I see him look at her, then back at me, and swallow what he is going to say.

Hey, you’re both pretty grown-up. That’s pretty excellent, she says and smiles a giant smile at us.

We’ve got Nev, though, from across the road, I say. I don’t know why I say it, and I want to suck the words right back inside me.

She looks at Nev’s caravan. Oh, she says, yeah, okay. She shifts the baby on her hip. Comes back to us with a smile. Well, I’ll let you kids be, hey. Tell your mum I came by. See ya later. She starts back down the road towards the tents.

Bye, I say with a grin.

Jordy looks at me like I’ve betrayed something and my grin turns brittle.

You know what happens, he says. They put you in a foster home. We never see each other again, and Loretta goes to jail.

Shut up, I say and get the half-broken chair and perch on it. I’m so thirsty. I lick my dry, cracked lips. My bottom lip feels fat under my tongue. We both look over at Nev’s caravan. I can smell the gummy.

It’s what happens, he repeats.

I find an old tennis ball in the drawer. I try squish it in my fist but it’s still hard. It’s grey and bald in spots.

Wanna play catch? I ask.

Yeah, nah, Jordy says.

I throw the ball from hand to hand. Feel its rough fur. I throw it gently at Jordy. He doesn’t catch it but lets it land on him and roll off. I get up, grab it, brush the sand off with my fingertips and throw it at him again. He makes no motion to get it, and it rolls away again.

Why are you ignoring me? I say.

I’m not.

I throw the ball at him hard. He doesn’t react, just holds the ball after it hits him, and doesn’t look at me.

Catch? I say. He doesn’t reply, holds on to the ball. I go sit back outside. After ages he comes and sits outside too.

Stop scratching your bites, he says.

I’m not scratching them.

I pull the ball from his hand. I throw it against the side of the caravan and it makes a bang that shakes salt and rust. The ball rolls back towards my feet. I throw it again.

You don’t want to play? I say to Jordy. He rolls his eyes and sits down, hunches over his knees. I throw the ball at the caravan. After the noise and the flakes of rust have settled I hear one sharp clap from across the road. I look over my shoulder. Nev is there and he mouths the words, Stop it. Or he says it quietly. I wonder how long he’s been standing there, watching. My skin shrinks. I hide behind Jordy. When I look next Nev is gone. I pick up the balding ball in my hand and squeeze. It cracks down the side. Inside it’s dirty and smells plastic and strange. I scrunch my nose, throw the ball to the dunes. We wait for the afternoon, and then for night. I couldn’t say how many days we’ve been here, in my mind they’ve all mixed into one.

The air is still. I can hear conversations all the way from where the tents are. Like the people are real close. Around and into the distance there are spots of torchlight and lanterns coming on, one after another. I hear something and I jump. I see things in the shadows. I swallow and calm my breath.

Jordy?

I can hear him rustling inside and he comes out with the stub of a candle and a VB lighter. He makes us a small patch of light. His eyes look too big and round. In Nev’s caravan the fluoros go on and we can see in there perfectly. I can hear the generator. My stomach swims and grumbles. Nev is there in front of a window. He looks out and I wonder what he can see of us. I can see his watery eyes even from here. He shakes his head and I see his lips moving, he’s muttering something to himself. He turns away.

I’m thirsty, I say.

Yeah, so? Jordy bangs up the steps and into the caravan and then straight back out again because there’s nothing inside, and it’s dark. He sits down beside me. I hear a car from ages away. The growl of it on the corrugations.

Is that her?

How should I know?

I dunno. I bite my pointer fingernail and rip at it until it hurts. It tastes like fish-dirt. Up the road, headlights show over the hill and my heart beats fast. But as the car comes down and past us into the camp, I see it’s not Bert. The nose is a different shape. The car is white and new and it drives past without slowing down, leaving behind the smell of hot engine.

The crickets are so loud. When there is no more electric blue in the sky Jordy gets the candle and goes with the wavery light into the caravan. I follow like there’s a little piece of string connecting us, and I got no choice but to go with the pull of it.

You wanna sleep there? he says, pointing with the candle at Loretta’s bed.

No, I say.

Well, I’m gunna sleep there then. But he doesn’t go to get
in the bed. I sit on the edge of the bench seat that becomes my bed. A puff of air farts out of it but this time neither of us laugh. He puts the candle down. We look at the double bed at the end of the caravan, the sheets crumpled as if someone just got up.

Okay, he says, and goes and lies in Loretta’s bed, smoothing the sheets out first, then climbing on. He lies there with the stained pillow and his arms under his head. Blow out the candle, he says. I blow it out, and the wick smoke curls and stinks. Loretta always licks her fingers and pinches the wick but I’m too scared of burning myself.

Can I come sleep with you? I say.

No.

I get onto the bench and lie there, running my hands over the underside of the table. I can feel things carved into the bottom of the table. I try trace over them with my fingers. Names, I reckon, I feel
Loretta
there, carved into the wood but I can’t be sure. There are shadows on the roof, shifting darkness as if there are night clouds up there. There’s a whistle from the wind. Rustling so it sounds like there is someone just there, right outside the door. I can tell Jordy’s not asleep, his breaths are short and irregular.

I’m scared, Jordy, I whisper and the words snag in my throat like a fish bone.

What? he says.

I’m scared.

I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Nothing, I say loudly. Nothing. The words echo in the tinny room.

Jordy.

What?

There’s someone outside.

Just shut up, he says, shut up.

I hold my breath, but I can hear someone out there.

Jordy.

Look, he says, and bounds out of the bed, and is at the door. He opens it slowly, worried maybe at the last second that he’s wrong. I sit up and stare out with him. There’s two eyes there. Jordy stumbles back and the door swings shut. He bangs himself on the table.

Shit. It’s a dingo, it’s a dingo, he says. He laughs and opens the door again. Shoo, he says. The dingo has his snout in the gummy. He’s got the gummy, says Jordy. He goes to step towards it and the dingo stares hard at him and growls. Both the dingo and Jordy step back. The dingo pulls the gummy along.

Jordy claps his hands, Shoo. I pull my knees up and hug myself. Hey, he says and steps down closer, stamping. Hey, he says louder. Hey. He’s outside now, with the dingo, the screen door screeches closed.

Give it back, he says. I hear a scuffle and the low growl of the dingo. Then the screech of the door and Jordy’s back inside, dragging the gummy in with him.

Shit, he says, shit. He’s got the tailfin in his hands. Close the door, close the door, he says. I jump up and pull the screen door shut. But I can see the dingo still pacing outside. The screen door is not a real door either, the dingo could just push its snout through the mesh. The gummy’s face looks not quite right, bite marks on him. Jordy drops the tail.