Skins (11 page)

A thread of foam moved back and forth over shiny sand. Beyond it the sea was a rippling turquoise, darkening in places where weed lay beneath the surface, and then it was an inky blue. The hills of Mount Arid stood clearly defined and the break on the edge of the cape flashed white. Crystal wavelets rose and lapped gently at the rock's edge. They swept over ribbons and broad-leafed weed that swayed with the current. He watched his step for the rock was uneven. He had knocked the skin off his toes so many times that the sores wouldn't heal. He caught a glimpse of Owens as he rounded the headland. He paused, waiting for Jem.

By the time they reached the seaweed beach there were only footprints on the sand between the brown lumps. The sea had arranged its discarded weed in piles a couple of feet high and over a distance of about twenty feet or more. They were thick bunches of ribbon that dried grey on top and that crackled as their feet sank into it. Occasionally they'd step on the sharp edge of a shell, and sometimes they'd catch the smell of something rank as though a fish had been trapped in its net.

They reached the end of the beach and faced Flinders Peak, both breathing heavily. Manning glimpsed the bobbing head of Owens as he climbed over the rocks at the other end of the next beach. Sweat was stinging his eyes. The sharp edge of the rocks in front of him softened and wavered and the sun on the water sparkled. He paused for a moment. And then an image he had tried to bury rose up in his mind. He remembered the feeling of his backbone pressed against the foremast. He had been looking for a place to hide. But he knew the way below was blocked. The ship was pitching and he got down on his hands and knees and crawled across to the forehatch, carefully lowering himself down. He looked up and the light from below contorted the rat-like features into a face from hell. The pain from Owens standing on his fingers was nothing compared to what he knew would come later.

Manning set his jaw.

‘Come on,' he muttered.

Jem frowned.

‘What?'

‘Watch me back.'

They passed Anderson's overturned whaleboat and the dorsal fin of a shark that poked up out of the sand. Anderson had shot it the last time they were sealing. The shark had measured twelve feet and three inches long and eight feet round. They tied rope around its tail and towed it behind them. It attracted other sharks, which they shot and left in the sea to sink slowly, white bellies disappearing into red clouds. They pulled it to shore and slit its stomach, releasing the pungent smell of ammonia from its gut and the remains of a seal bitten in two with a spear through it. They cleaned the shark and cut away the fillets, leaving its fins and grey rubbery skin part-buried in the sand.

Manning and Jem reached the end of the beach. Owens had vanished. They climbed onto splinters of basalt rock lying on larger slabs of rock. In some places creamy quartz ran in thick ribbons over the uneven surface. There was still no sign of him. They left the black and white rock and came down onto another beach almost at the base of Flinders Peak. Thick vegetation ran steeply up the side of the hill until it reached the stripy granite. Higher up were thick gashes in the rock where lizards and bats and birds hid amongst the caves and ledges and crevices.

They thought they had lost him. They retraced their steps and then Jem saw two sets of prints higher up close to the thick scrub. Their feet sank into soft warm sand that after a while was wearing on their lower legs. The beach dipped where once a small creek had run down from the hill. The footprints vanished. They stopped. Jem was about to say something but Manning turned and grabbed his arm and put a finger to his lips.

‘Listen!'

Jem listened but he could only hear the hooting of a bronze-wing pigeon and the occasional squawk of a gull that wheeled above and around the towering face of the nearby rock. Manning motioned for him to follow. They got down on their hands and knees and crawled under the sticks and branches that crisscrossed the dry creek bed. Water couldn't have run there for a long time for although it cut sharply into the sandhill it was choked with debris. Marks in the dirt showed that Owens had been there, dragging something behind him. They rounded the bend, and Manning who was ahead suddenly sank back on his heels. He nodded in that direction.

‘They're here.'

‘Who?' whispered Jem.

‘Shush!'

Manning took the knife from his belt. Jem watched him and felt for his own. Then he remembered he had left it back at the camp. But before he could say anything, Manning sprang upwards and ran, crashing and leaping through undergrowth and down onto a man whose trousers were around his ankles.

After they had cut the boy free he ran into the bush. Manning and Jem weren't saying anything to each other. They ambled along the beach at the base of the big rock. The sea sparkled in the channel between Flinders Peak and Goose Island. Manning knew that even though he had wanted to kill Owens he couldn't. He glanced sideways at Jem who walked with his eyes on the ground. He swung his right arm backwards and forwards, holding his shoulder with his other hand. It felt as though it had been wrenched from its socket and his back ached. He realised he ached all over. And the bastard had grabbed him around the waist, catching his fingers in his money belt. Manning put his hand under his shirt. The belt was loose so he tightened it.

Jem still wasn't saying anything. Manning watched him pick up a stone and cast it out into the water. It skimmed the surface and bounced two or three times before it plopped and drew perfect circles that grew and grew. Manning picked up a rock too. It fitted in the palm of his hand, smooth and oval. He stroked it with his fingers for it felt nice and hot. He flicked his wrist and sent it skimming across the water, where it hopped several times before landing with a plop. Jem looked up and grinned. They hunted around for more rocks.

Much later they sat in the sand facing the sea and were warmed by the low afternoon sun.

‘The
Defiance
… she was a dirty miserable schooner. The skipper, his name was Merredith. He was buying skins off the sealers. He said he was sailing for Swan River.'

Manning drew patterns in the sand with his finger.

‘Didn't get far. Left Sydney in August two years ago. We passed Cape Howe and the wind headed us and turned to a gale. We were blown off the land. She blew like one of them hurricanes. We were hove-to. The skipper said she ain't going to stand up much longer. The sea is rising. The wind'll be worse when the moon gets up. So we brought down the topmast and she lay-to a bit easier.'

Manning paused, remembering.

‘But the waves, you ain't never seen anything … they had curling monster heads, and they was like hills rising up and when we were in the hollow it was quiet. You couldn't even hear the screeching of the wind. The helm was lashed and they was all below 'cept me. I was on deck for they couldn't get me there. Them bastards scared witless. I prayed she'd break up and they'd be the first to get their bleedin' feet wet. I didn't care what happened.'

They listened to the gentle sigh of the ocean as its waves slapped the sand and swept it in half-circles all the way along the beach. The sun was retreating quickly and the sand beneath them was cold. Jem rubbed his arms. About half a mile back they saw Owens stumble out of the bush, his shirt torn and flapping behind him. When they couldn't see him any longer they got to their feet and headed back to the camp. The air grew cold as the sun sunk further. They wandered, two small figures against an immense backdrop of wispy strands of coloured cloud in a lavender sky and a dark velvet sea that spread out to surround distant islands.

He pushed back the thin branches that crossed his path. He could hear Jem trampling heavily behind him. Wet air had descended into the hollow and the sticks he fought back were slimy to touch. They came out into the other clearing and saw firelight winking through tangled wattle. It was the black women's camp. The dark shape of a woman glided before the fire. Manning stopped.

‘What are you doing?'

Jem came up against him.

‘There's no one about,' said Manning uneasily.

Jem shrugged and they continued to the hut. Manning stood back as Jem went before him. The air was dry and smelt of smoke and damper. Dorothea and Mary looked up.

He stood with his back to the fire, staring into the dark corners of the hut. He felt her eyes on him. He registered her appearance, her soiled gown and her bare, blackened feet. She was like all the dirty whores he knew. There was one who had been kind to him once. It was his mother. But he never thought of her because she was dead. He had been taught to hate her and other women like her when he began working with mariners.

‘Look like you fell into a bush.' Dorothea glanced at him and then towards her sister who smiled.

He knew it. They were making fun of him. He turned back to the fire, warming his hands and relishing the heat on his legs. He would show her who she could laugh at.

When he could smell his trousers singeing he left to stand in the doorway. From there he could hear snatches of coarse voices from over the sandhill. Anderson had returned from the mainland and the others must have been down on the beach. Lights appeared, glowing torches held above the heads of solid shapes on the crest of the dune. Behind them the sky was yellow and purple where the sun had not long set. Slung between the featureless men were two large kangaroos. They were dumped in the middle of the clearing and the animals' ungainly legs sprang up and fell sideways.

Jem came up behind him and they both moved outside to get a better look. One of the men pointed his torch at a pile of firewood. Yellow tongues licked at the kindling. Faces glowed and flickered. Anderson pushed between Dorothea and Mary who stood in the doorway and then came back with a knife. Its blade caught the reflection of dancing flames. Smooth white wood was thrown on top of the fire and devoured by a shower of sparks and long tendrils of light. Balls of smoke rolled into the air and drifted randomly, stinging eyes and choking throats. Men and women drew closer like moths to its fiery brightness.

Anderson leant over a kangaroo and cut through its fur. He parted the hide from the body as though he were peeling the skin of a vegetable and threw it aside. The strange triangular body of the naked kangaroo gleamed white in the light and was marked with a web of purple veins. He cut a slit in the flesh of a hind leg and drew out of it a long white tendon. He wound it around his wrist and then reached for the other leg. Thick ropy muscles bulged from his forearms and his forehead shone. Shadows deepened the lines between his eyes and around his mouth. He stood up and straightened his back and then reached down again to cut through the taut skin of the belly, releasing its contents, like water bursting from a split in a water bag. He fastened back the sides of the stomach with wooden skewers and pulled out the steaming slippery coils of intestines. The black women who had been standing in the shadows came forward. They placed the guts onto the coals they had flicked out from their own fire and used sticks to turn them over.