Shallows

by Tim Winton

  Late in the afternoon Cleve shuffled about the house listening to the radio, shambling upstairs to look out at the harbour from the bedroom window: the mudflats at the northern end, the Yacht Club at Fill Cove, the squat outline of the quarantine station ruins at Pinter Point, only to shamble back down to the kitchen window to look at the same things with his elbows propped on the table. The radio played Charley Pride and Queen and Slim Dusty. He drank his Bushells tea, waiting for something, anything, to happen to him.

  The metallic lights of the wharf came on. Out near the end of the dog’s leg that was the deepwater jetty a tiny yellow light germinated. The radio played local news. The lead story ended his waiting.

  ‘. . . that the inflatable dinghy used by the antiwhaling lobby group Cachalot & Company lost contact with the chaser Paris IV around noon and has not been sighted since. The chaser has reported an incident of interference where a harpoon had to be fired over the protesters’ heads to secure a catch, an action local CIB spokesmen say is completely defensible in the circumstances. There is also a report that one of the protesters involved was a woman . . .’

  Cleve switched the radio off and sat with his cheek against the cold glass of the window, thinking for a while, mulling it over, before taking up the keys to the Land Rover and leaving.

  Despite the cold and the darkness the car park at Middle Beach was full. Geez, Cleve thought, the whales really bring ’em out of the woodwork. He recognised the ABC van across the way and some men setting up lights on the grass. His windscreen wipers groaned across the glass; he waited, irritable, jittery.

  Thirty minutes later he heard the whine of an outboard motor. Everyone in the car park responded to it. Floodlights and spotlights played out on the water a few minutes more until a black shape with two yellow marks within it came into view, attracting long, sweeping beams of light.

  As the boat slid in on the sloppy surf, people raced into the water, tilted the motors, and dragged boat and occupants up to shore. A faint cheer. People stood about in the rain that slanted, lit in the moving pipes of light. Cleve got out. The two yellow figures in the midst of the crowd were hard to keep in view. Cleve jogged towards them, collar up against the rain, moving in certain, measured steps, closing on them until he saw in the sudden brilliant illumination of a camera flash the pale, worn, frightened face of Queenie Coupar. His pace faltered; it shocked him. It was as if her corpse was being manipulated up the beach by some clumsy puppeteer. Cleve came to a halt in the sand and the apparition passed by in the midst of the crowd and he was left alone by the water.

  He did not light a fire to warm the house. He opened the last flagon of invalid port. He wanted to speak with her, to coax the sound of her voice from those chapped lips. Driving home with the image of her death mask still before him, he knew, finally, deep in him, that she would not always be; the thought twisted its way down into his belly. Danger. She had been in danger.

  He drank small amounts of port for an hour and began seeing himself again in his mind’s eye. He saw himself on the road again with the pleasant drone of the Land Rover in his ears and the long stretches of straight bitumen shimmering, deep valleys with gravel coiling through karri trees tall as the sky itself, his senses absorbing, absorbing; and he saw people who did not know that his mother and father were shadows in the shade, people who had not worked with him, schooled with him, had never seen him smiled about, people with whom he felt equal, even superior. He saw himself walking towards a glittering pool on an empty, blinding beach and there was a face. That face. Alive. Wanting.

  Using precious fuel, he drove down to the Ocean View on Middle Beach. He left the flagon of port on the seat and went in.

  In the bar he slowly and deliberately drank a glass of beer and watched the glass doors of the lobby. He also kept an eye out for the bouncers. Twenty-five minutes later, for the sake of appearances, he bought another beer. A beanied man beside him at the bar cornered him into conversation. The man looked as though his nose had been broken several times in the past. He was no older than Cleve and certainly less sober. There was a menacing comradeliness about him as he asked rhetorical questions about the protest.

  ‘I’m no expert,’ Cleve said, wondering how much the man knew. The whole town must know about Queenie, he thought. ‘You tell me what would’ve happened. If they hadn’t been lucky enough to find their way back, I mean.’

  ‘They would’ve been drowned or ate by Noahs,’ the man said, moving his big, cracked hands on the bar. ‘Or they would’ve got lost and we’d’ve had a big search on our hands and the whole town’d go lookin’ for ’em. And the whalers would’ve took the blame. You think the shot over their ’eads was any bigger danger to ’em than their own fucking stupidity? They don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground. People comin’ from other countries, other places, to tell us what to do with our town. Our industry. Our jobs. And they roam around – professional protesters – livin’ on the dole. They don’t need jobs. They ’aven’t got families to feed.’

  Have you? Cleve wondered, looking at the man. He looked barely adult. It was only his hands that made him look a man. ‘Well I suppose that might be true of some of them,’ he said. ‘You know, over-educated bored romantics and everything, but they’re still people doing something they believe’s right. I don’t know if you – we – can write them all off.’

  ‘Bloody hell I can’t,’ the man muttered. ‘A woman out there, too. You shoulda seen it.’

  ‘Seen it?’

  ‘Bloody stupidity, that’s what it is. Miles out over the shelf in a rubber-bloody-duckie. You’d think a shot over their ’eads might’ve scared some sense into ’em. This dumb bitch looking up with a camera, makin’ out she’s stoppin’ the end of the world. My Gawd, it gets my goat. Ah. But nothin’ a good screw wouldn’t put right. Eh?’ The man shrugged and seemed to cheer up a little. He bought Cleve a drink to stand beside his untouched other one.

  Cleve, shuddering, nodded. Be resigned, he told himself, you can’t do anything. ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’

  The man eyed him. ‘You don’t reckon, do ya?’

  Cleve took a token sip of beer and replaced the glass with an agonised steadiness. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You reckon I’m talking bullshit.’

  ‘Well, not —’

  ‘Carm on.’

  Cleve watched the man’s big meathook hands and searched himself for safe words. ‘Well —’

  ‘I mean people can’t just turn up and decide for other people how they’re gonna live, how they’re gonna do their job and if they’re gonna do their job, now can they? I mean if I went into Woolworths and sat on the girl’s cash register and said I thought it was cruel to wrap toy kangaroos in plastic and that all plastic kangaroos should be set free, the cops’d drag me out by the balls, wouldn’t they? They’d say I was crazy.’

  Cleve nodded emphatically.

  ‘Some French bastard and his girlfriend shouldn’t be able to do it either. Stupid slut.’

  Cleve sighed. It wasn’t just honour; it really hurt. Only words, he told himself, they’re only words.

  ‘Well?’ the man said, shifting his feet on the bar rail.

  ‘Well what?’ Cleve said.

  ‘Do you reckon?’

  ‘It’s hard for me to talk about it in those terms, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . .’ he sighed, incapable.

  ‘Because what?’ The man turned to face him directly.

  Something’s gonna happen anyway, Cleve thought, regardless of what I say. You tell him. Cleve took a gulp of beer. ‘Because the woman you’ve been calling a stupid slut is my wife.’

  Cleve’s head swept along the bar, uprooting towels and glasses and small change; he watched them pass and then his eyes focused an instant later and he was amongst the cigarette butts and gobs of spit in the tray beneath the footrail. Moving. He saw the legs of chairs pass. Feet and trouser legs. Then he was floating.

  ‘Lettin’
’is wife be spoken about like that . . . shoulda killed ’im. And all that time ’e was one of ’em.’

  Cleve felt his head bunt the swing doors open and then he was floating again, renewing his acquaintance with the grass, only this time it was wet. It went very quiet.

  In time Cleve’s head stopped its gyro-compassing and his vision cleared and he became aware of a circle of faces hovering over him. He stirred and twisted into a protective ball on the wet grass until someone laughed and, with great caution, he sat upright. The faces were dark.

  ‘Kick you out too, uh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cleve said. Say yes, he thought, say anything.

  ‘You got a dollar?’

  ‘Twelve cents, sorry.’

  The Aborigines shuffled about in the rain. One wore an old navy greatcoat, another a chenille dressing-gown, another a green garbage bag with a hole in the top for his head.

  ‘I got some port, though,’ he said, wanting to please.

  ‘Gawd, no complain’ ye’ll ’ear from us.’

  Ten minutes later Cleve was sharing his flagon of port in the concrete entry of the men’s toilets over the road with five dark faces. The surf mushed below and the grass outside glittered with the light from passing cars. The smell of urine, Cleve found, was not overpowering, and the cold was held at bay by the sweet warmth of the port. He passed the flagon round quickly, afraid his drinking mates might suddenly turn on him. He felt sorry for them – all Aborigines – particularly those in Angelus. They looked sick and listless, like undernourished dogs whose coats had lost their shine, but he was afraid of them too, their eyes, the pinkness of their palms, and he could not trust them. As the port loosened him, he spoke more to them.

  ‘You know, I thought you blokes – youse cobbers – were gunna beat me up when I first saw yers. A skinny whitey like me sees a group of blokes like youse, he just expec’s to get his head beat in. Yer scary buggers, you know.’

  They laughed, embarrassed.

  ‘Why’d you want the dollar?’ he asked.

  ‘To buy a plagon,’ the one in the chenille dressing-gown said. ‘We ’ad seventy-five orready.’

  ‘Well, we cut out the middle man,’ Cleve said, tipping the heavy bottle back.

  ‘Yairs,’ they all said, solemnly waiting their turn. They spoke quietly amongst themselves until the drink made them relax.

  ‘What d’you do?’ the boy in the greatcoat asked.

  The question was a surprise to Cleve. Even they’ve started to think like that, he thought to himself. Why don’t people ask what you like, what you want, what you are, instead of what your job is? ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Whitey bludger.’ The others laughed.

  ‘What about you?’ Cleve asked him.

  ‘Worked on the wheat bins once.’

  ‘E’s a bludger, too,’ the boy in the plastic bag said.

  ‘You c’n bloody talk. Bit of ol’ rubbitch in a rubbitch bag.’

  They all laughed and shifted their numb buttocks. They’re kids, Cleve thought, just kids.

  ‘Where you blokes sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘Sleep where we sleep.’

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘When it rains?’ Cleve asked.

  ‘Somewhere.’

  Cleve took his turn at the flagon. Geez, he thought, geez.

  ‘You fellas know Abbie Tanks? Best centreman I ever saw.’

  They laughed, elbowing each other in the ribs.

  ‘Our cousin,’ the boy in the dressing-gown said. ‘Just Abbie.’

  ‘Just Abbie,’ Cleve said, passing the bottle. It went round and round and round and round until he was dizzy. The six of them laughed at each other laughing. They gargled the port and it ran down their chins like blood.

  ‘What about the whales?’ Cleve asked, spinning. ‘What do you think about them whales?’

  ‘Wadda we want wiv whales?’ one said.

  ‘Fuck d’ whales,’ one said.

  Another yawned. ‘Whales are nice.’

  ‘He thinks it’s a bank. Wales.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘You never seen a whale.’

  ‘Seen a snail.’

  ‘Fuck d’ snails.’

  ‘Yeah, fuck the snails,’ Cleve said, rattling the nearly empty flagon. His body moved in concentric spirals.

  The night slipped by with warmth and songs and then sleep.

  Well before dawn Cleve was woken by the cold and damp and he stole away from the sleeping youths. He didn’t want them to know where he lived, so he did not wake them and he made his way in the darkness and the drizzle to the Land Rover over the road. And he fell asleep trying to start the engine.

  He woke on the front seat, cheek against the cold buckle of the seatbelt, when a group clattered past carrying big, heavy things, shouting instructions at one another. Through the misted window he heard the voice of Queenie Coupar and, fumbling with the door handle, fell out onto the wet bitumen, picked himself up raggedly, and went after her.

  Queenie’s yellow figure bobbed about in the swirl of silhouettes on the beach. Zodiacs were pointed out to sea, noses in the water. Cleve merged with the steam-snorting crowd, trying to locate her by homing in on her voice and following brief glimpses of yellow. He saw his own feet against the white, hard sand and knocked elbows with others who swore and lit red eyes of cigarettes.

  ‘Queenie?’ he called out, gingerly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Queenie,’ he called louder.

  ‘Oh, God.’ A pause. The crowd hushed for a moment and someone asked her if anything was wrong. ‘Go away, Cleve.’

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ Cleve said, frightened by the sudden silence. ‘Can I talk to you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, after a pause.

  ‘Just for a moment.’

  ‘Look, I’m busy.’

  ‘Geez, can’t you —’

  ‘Cleve, piss off.’

  ‘You’re going out there again today, aren’t you?’

  There was no reply, only a murmur of embarrassment and disgruntlement vibrating from the group. Someone coughed.

  ‘I don’t want you out there again.’

  ‘Hey, listen mate,’ an Australian voice said.

  ‘No, you listen. You’re not taking my wife out there in one of those rubber duckies.’

  ‘She decides that, Mr Cookson,’ the voice of Fleurier said.

  ‘Piss off, Cleve. Please.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Cleve said, angry, helpless. He began to push his way through the shadowy bodies until a large hand gripped his left shoulder and he stopped. ‘Orright.’ He surrendered, fearing more violence. ‘Okay, okay.’ He went back through the bodies, up the beach, climbed the retaining wall and crossed the wet grass. An outboard sputtered.

  He sat in the Land Rover, shivering with cold and a deep, sustained fright. He wondered whether he was afraid for her, or frightened that she would not come back. He noticed in the dull twilight the group of youths emerging from the public lavatories and he sank in his seat until he was sure they had gone. Poor buggers, he thought. Small mushrooms of mist sprouted from the wet grass. A haze hung over the white of the beach. Gulls, sluggish from the night, cartwheeled cautiously and a man with a lumpy bulldog thudded down the footpath wearing only shorts and sandshoes. Somewhere, the other side of Mount Clement, a foghorn sounded.

  The wail of outboard motors faded into the distance. Cleve sighed. The light was curious, as indefinite as moonlight. In an hour, he thought, the town will be awake. Angelus, town of my dreams.

  It wasn’t long before Cleve thought he heard the sound of outboards again. He sat up with a start and bumped the horn with his elbow. He jumped out, embarrassed.

  Down on the grass he stood beside a resinous pine that reminded him of disastrous woodwork lessons – rapped knuckles and bent nails – as he listened to the approaching sounds. He ignored the cold and gazed out into the grey mass of conjoined sea and sky. In time two small bow-waves showed and he watched them g
row as they approached until he could see spots of yellow and the engines cut and the inflatables drifted in on the shore break. He heard voices. Some people waded in the shallows. Torches dissected the gloom near the water. He heard them talking.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Too rough. Even the chasers turned back.’

  ‘Not our day.’

  ‘No, not today, dammit.’

  ‘Someone make me a Milo.’ Queenie’s voice.

  Someone make me a bloody Milo, she says. Cleve almost laughed. He turned and walked towards the lit frontage of the Ocean View Hotel.

  He was sitting on the kerb outside the hotel when the group came across the road. Some pulled small trailers with the inflatables on them; others carried plastic fuel drums and cameras and bags. Queenie stopped at the kerb, pulling the yellow hood from her head. Her breath steamed out before her, lit pink by the overhead neon sign.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘To talk.’

  ‘I don’t really want to.’

  ‘We haven’t talked about anything.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to.’

  ‘I’d love a Milo,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘You bloody look like it. Been sleeping in the park by the looks of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Bull.’ She wiped her running nose on the back of a woollen mitten. ‘A quick talk and a Milo and that’s all.’

  He got up and followed stiffly.