Tide (12 page)

I couldn't say with real honesty that I never looked at another woman during the years I was married. Couldn't say that. I mean, when I first met her, she was a ‘skimpy', and she was going out with one of the other regulars who worked on the industrial strip. In the refinery. He's the one who told me that if the burn-off pipe ever went out we were all doomed, that the whole place would go up. The pilot light goes out, he said, and BOOOOOM!

So,
occasionally, I got drunk and another skimpy took my fancy. Mostly I struck out; I mean, I'm not much to look at. But I can be generous on payday when I'm pissed. And my wife didn't mind the company of the bikers who broke pool cues over those who gave them lip.

To hear the sea, to be so close as to taste it through five feet of stone, down through the narrow ventilators, over the smell and saturation of cordite and powder, but not be able to catch even a glimpse of it, is the most extreme of torments. Year in, year out. Occasionally, during a storm, spray would find its way in, lifted and hurled, dampening and colluding with rainwater lashing the roof. At such times
she,
the keeper of the house in the dunes and my captor, would love me most. The sea, she said, sent her wild. Me too, I said, let me free to see it, swim in it. Watch fish swim the shallows, waders test the foam, skimmers take the surface, pollution's oily film rainbowing a still, fine day. In answer, sometimes, she'd bring me shells, but they were small and often broken, and the sea barely lived in them.

I've no doubt she loved me. And I can say now, with her so far away, with it all so far away, that I loved her in my own way. If I've ever really loved. But I shouldn't say that. As a child I loved mystery, risk, the unknown. I loved that beach because of the forbidden, because of the fence. Over
there,
the sea was rich and the blue reflecting and absorbing at once. The sand tingling. The magazines with their roofs poking up over dunes, the rocket ship in the moon's eye.

Imprisonment? Against my interests, I'll say that's a complex term. I mean, her voice through the bunker's ventilators, the door opening into the night and my inability to step out at such moments, to execute an escape; her weaving the crystalline guncotton into carpets of explosive brilliance. With her, time stood still. I was immortal, that most impaired and unlucky of states. My beard didn't grow long, my skin didn't suffer from the lack of direct sunlight. Her beauty was the beauty of war. If you can get my meaning, and I am no warmonger.

But the days are long even for the obsessed, the besotted. And a wish fulfilled is quickly a wish to be moved on from. I retraced my childhood steps in the long time granted, I retraced my every movement under and over the fence, my desire to cross. Gradually I thought about where I had been allowed to walk, swim, play. That had been wondrous, too, but I hadn't realised it at the time. I thought of the meatworks up near the rocks and the blood spilling out and the sharks gathering, and the risk there, where no-one much cared about me going. I thought of the rusting wreck exposed at low tide, where I cut myself on toxic protrusions. Of the times I swam out too far and tired out swimming back, and almost drowned. I thought of perving on that woman sunbathing topless in the shallow hills on the ‘safe side', where we sheltered from the sand kicked up by a strong sea breeze. She looked like a magazine model you could own by cutting her out and sticking her on your bedroom wall, hiding under your pillow, burying under your bed, listening to the wind lift the sea out of the dark into your empty, lonely head. She knew we watched. That I watched. Sometimes, she leered back with burning night eyes that caught you.

When the authorities began dismantling the Magazine, I waited with bated breath. I could hear them working, pulling it down bunker by bunker. Soon they would reach me. I told her our time was up. Soon, soon I would be free. I would be gone. Our love ended. She said nothing, just looked sad in the paling light.

My bunker, our bunker, was the last standing. I could sense her anxiety, that my going would be her death. She would fade with each piece of ammunition disposed of, with each stone removed. I hugged her hard to me as the door opened and I was welcomed by astonished workers back out into the light. Let me see the ocean, I said! I forgot to say to her, I am sorry you loved me. I am sorry I looked where I shouldn't. I am sorry I heard you. But I forgot and didn't look back and that was an end of it.

No! I don't agree. No crime was committed. Not by her. And not by me. They can't produce evidence. Of course, ‘no evidence of harm is not evidence of no harm'. But I know the reality. And there was the war. It is eternal. There are no armistices, no sides. All is war. We don't seem to be able to get beyond it. And there's childhood. And there's the factory. And there's the Sound.

BONFIRE ON THE BEACH

The fog came as a surprise, even to the locals. Even to Syd. One could usually predict it easily enough, but this fog was odd and unsettling to even those on solid ground. For those still out in small boats, it smothered and confused them and had them flashing lights and calling into the soup. Syd's boat was alongside Carnac Island, and he thought of how the first colonial ships had offloaded their human cargo there after hitting a sandbar. He thought about such things a lot of the time. He liked to ruminate on history and facts. He felt that it would be safer sitting close to the island than braving the fog, but he couldn't persuade his old fishing mates to listen, and they moved further out from the rocks and disappeared into the fog like the other craft out there in the Sound.

He wondered why he listened to his mates, who were novices when it came to boats. But they played bowls together and they were better at that than him, so Syd followed the usual course of things. He told them to keep calling into the murk every ten seconds, then listen. The outboard putted slowly but surely, and they headed south. Syd estimated they'd need to do this for about twenty minutes before swinging in to where the beach should be. He plotted the course in his head: the shape of a set square.

It gives me the shudders, too, he said, but was surprised at how jumpy his burly mates were becoming. They all wore life jackets; he was an experienced sailor.

No need for name-calling, he said, trying to laugh their barbs away. Why were they blaming him? Should have known a fog was likely. That's probably true, but he'd seen no signs, and other boats with experienced skippers had headed out at the same time. Came up out of nowhere. They do that sometimes. Clichés exist for a reason. Yes, it
should
be in his bones after all these years, but it was the first trip of the spring and he'd not been down at the shack for many months. The bones were settling back in. He was finding his sea legs after a break, but it was all there. He'd been sailing and skippering small boats all his life.

Call and response. Yes, we're over here. Calm down, fellas, just one at a time, you'll confuse them. Swearing won't help. And I won't tolerate being spoken to like that on my boat. One boat, one skipper! They wended their way through crossing voices. To make matters worse, it was getting dark. Always trust the compass; nothing else matters. The shore can only be in one direction.

Trying to keep them calm, he remembered a bitter incident. He was a non-drinker. What his bowls mates emphasised as a
tee-totall-er.
They called him a wowser and a prude, half joking, but it was remorseless. Every week for ten years. He went to the bar with them and drank lemonade; he never begrudged them their drinks. Maybe he should have told them why, but he didn't see it as any of their business. And really, it'd have come back on him anyway.

Syd had been a small child but still old enough when his father fell from a boat just like the one they were in. He had been drinking and fishing under the sun in the Sound, not far from Carnac. Syd had lost sight of him, and after calling and calling and drifting, he'd been found by a family from a neighbouring beach shack and taken to shore in shock. Sunburnt and traumatised. The police had dragged his father's body from the ocean and called it death by misadventure. My dad drowned, said Syd when he went back to school. He drowned in the ocean.

Why the motor chose that time to cut out, he didn't know. But it did. The other men were furious and scared and ranting. They roughed Syd up: old men fighting in a sixteen-foot runabout. Let me at the thing, said Syd, as calm as he could be, and I'll sort it out. He did. After a few tugs, it started and went back to its put-put-put. We'll turn for shore soon. The compass never lies.

Why was he fishing with these blokes? He recalled ‘the incident'. One of them, or both, had spiked his orange juice not three months ago, and made Syd crash his car without even leaving the bowling green's car park. He'd had no idea what was going on. He'd never felt that way before. Totally disorientated, the car not doing what he asked it to do. Someone spiked your drink, Syd.

Now one of the blokes stood up and lunged for the side, as if he were about to dive in and swim for it, but he slipped on the wet hessian sack containing the shuddering corpses of the few fish they'd caught. Saying you won't stand much more of this, said Syd, won't help you or any of us. Just keep your eyes peeled and your ears tuned. I am turning towards the beach now. We should reach it in fifteen minutes. Yes, it's getting a little rougher, but I always find the bump of small waves on the hull a comforting thing. No, I am not having a go, I am serious. I am enjoying this no more than either of you! Disorientating? True, but look at the compass. It never lies. It takes away the confusion.

Syd silently assured himself that he wasn't enjoying his mates' discomfort. He was certain he wasn't the vengeful sort. It wouldn't have even crossed his mind if they hadn't intimated.

Time dragged on. The men had grown hoarse with shouting, and gasped at the sharp salt air. Fog was seeping through their pores, eyes, noses, mouths. When they gasped, fog poured back out from deep inside their lungs. They vomited it out of their stomachs. They were generating fog.

How much longer? Not much longer. The fog isn't lifting, though. I'll admit, it's almost solid. Can't hear a thing. Other boats have probably made shore by now. I doubt any are lost. Some might be sitting it out. Fishing through the event. The skippies and gardies and whiting and flounder on the sandy bottom are still doing what they do. We could drop a line. No, no, just being lighthearted. Passing the time, taking our minds off the … situation. And punching me in the head won't fix anything. You need me, really you do!

Yes, you're right! It's a light. A brilliant light broken down by the fog. It must be spectacular up close. I'd say a bonfire has been lit on the beach to help guide lost boats back to safety. We haven't been forgotten. Our loved ones are concerned. They forgive us our sins and value the best parts of us. Sorry for blabbering on, I'm as excited as you are. Sanctuary is at hand. We'll follow the light and when we reach the shallows, I'll step out and drag us in. You guys just sit tight and we'll be warming our bones around the bonfire in minutes. We'll know precisely where we are and what's what. The fog won't matter a damn – we can lead each other up the beach by the hand.

LOADING

The bulk carrier was high alongside the jetty. The youth watched the loading gantry move into place by Hold 8, and noted the fact in his logbook. Crew who weren't on duty were hanging around outside the crib house, waiting for their cabs to arrive at the front gate. Security would ring through, the youth would let them know, and they'd be off to the bars and brothels of Perth and Fremantle until the early hours of the morning. Loading of mineral sand had started, and machinery was grinding overhead, wheels turning and conveyor belt taking the land to the sea. There was a breeze, but not enough to stop loading. He checked the anemometer. Within limits. If it got too high, he'd have to send a message to the operators to stop loading. One of the sailors stuck his head through the door and said in Filipino English, How long? Dunno, said the boy. I'll let you know. The sailor saluted him and went back to talking with his mates, all clutching packets of cigarettes and tobacco, hanging out, but forbidden to light up during loading (no matter what was being loaded).

The call came: the taxis had arrived, and the youth signalled. Suddenly he was alone on the jetty. He could see crew on the ship, and in the distance, if he stood outside, an operator above the gantry. The ship's light glowed, and the communications gear over the bridge rotated and bristled. This was a big Swedish ship. All the officers were Swedes who spoke English with more clarity than the youth. But they rarely spoke to him. He was a functionary. He'd noticed how dismissive they were of the Filipino crew, whom he liked. He always liked the crew.

It was a clear night. The lights of Cockburn Sound bent and warped with the shimmering water and the caustic air. Not long ago he'd supervised the loading of a caustic soda ship, and the wind had lifted, and they'd kept loading despite his protestations, and the pipe had broken free of its mounting and spewed alkaline hell into the waters – the same waters his little brother and sister swam in every day when they got home from school, summer or winter. His father was a person of influence along the industrial strip, and the youth had got this occasional night job, one of great responsibility, befitting one who was studying law at university. His quick thinking in having the operator shut down the pumping rig had prevented a disaster. Everyone knew how hard it was to control things down on the jetties, with pressures of time and tide, of business and officers. He was a level-headed young man.

He phoned through that the wind speed was still within limits, though his crib room rocked with the jetty, and everything shook like the interior of a jet in turbulence with baggage compartments threatening to open and drop their holdings on passengers' heads. He sent another signal for the gantry to move to Hold 1. The loading had to be balanced, or the ship could split in two: great responsibility.