by David Burton
David Burton is an award-winning writer from Brisbane. He has written over 30 professionally produced theatrical works, including several pieces for the youth and education sector, and directed productions for the Queensland Music Festival. His memoir, How to Be Happy, won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing in 2014. The Man in the Water is his first novel.
www.daveburton.com.au
For Michael.
I love you.
I miss you.
On the first day of Year 10, Shaun sees a dead body.
An hour before, Tenner, the English teacher, broke a metre ruler over his desk. Shaun was trying to get Will to shut up. Didn’t matter to Tenner, who brought the ruler down with a clap that made Shaun jump. Splinters went flying. One hit him in the eye. He saw the spark of shock on Tenner’s face as he raised his hands to cover himself. On the way to sick bay Shaun tried his best not to cry from the sting. He avoided eye contact with Megan as he left, but she would’ve noticed. She was probably laughing at him.
Now he’s standing at the lake’s edge with a cotton ball and sticky tape over his eye like an idiot. His mum will lose her mind when she finds out. He walked out of the front office before they called her and the receptionist didn’t even yell after him.
He picks up a stone and flicks it lazily across the water, watches it skip – one, two, three – plop under the surface, the ripples shimmering gently in its wake.
He isn’t sure what to do. His bag’s still at school. His phone’s in his pocket, but it’s been dead since lunchtime. He’d asked Tenner to let him plug it in during class, without luck.
The water stinks. It’s hard to believe there’s any water at all; it’s been so dry. There’s rations on in town. Shaun can see the lines around the lake where it’s receded over time. Now it’s a stagnant pool. Still and silent.
He watches with his good eye as something moves in the water. Slow and dreamlike. Something rising from the bottom. Some unknown thing. A big meaty lump. A body.
Facedown and skin marble white, its clothes are dark and sodden. The water makes a sick sound, a backwards breath, as the body suspends itself and begins to float gently towards him.
Shaun’s good eye blinks. He laughs and then stops himself. His skin prickles.
‘Jee-suz,’ he whispers.
He watches himself step into the water now, feels the cold chill of it creep up over his legs. It takes a moment for the cold to reach his feet through his shoes. He stretches a hand out to feel the thing – he can’t help it. Their hands touch, the living and the dead.
This body was once a man, younger than his dad. He has hairy arms and worn nails from hard work. His hair is matted and dirty. His orange hi-vis top is open, floating up from underneath, waving in the water like a flag in slow motion. The body wears jeans, but his boots are absent.
That’s strange. Why would he be barefoot?
It’s all strange.
Shaun stands there in the cold, simply touching the hand of the dead man and taking note of the details. A blue polo shirt under the vest. A hole in the back pocket of his jeans.
He reaches for his phone and then he remembers. It’s been out of battery for hours.
He should tell someone. The police. There’s no way they’d believe him and they’d tell him off for running away from school, so maybe it’s not worth it. Still, a dead body is a dead body, and it’s a bloody hard thing to ignore.
A quick movie surges through his mind like bright liquid. He is hailed as a hero by the police for bringing the matter to their attention. The principal reads out his name in assembly and the cavernous hall echoes with applause. Tenner bows his head in deep shame and is fired. There’s a statue and a parade. People start giving his mum money and she doesn’t have to work at the IGA anymore. Shaun is finally able to take care of her. She can relax and be happy again. And he gets to run away to a beach with Megan.
Now he needs to move. He leaves the dead man and sprints down the dusty track, back up through the empty scrub and into town. His wet shoes make damp footprints in the dirt as he heads for the police station.
He passes the centre of town. It’s a block of buildings that’s generously referred to as a ‘plaza’. What’s the word ‘plaza’ supposed to mean? If it means a row of empty shops, a post office, an IGA, and a huge block of black bitumen for cars then the name’s right. He jogs further, already sweating, passes the tiny old weatherboard church with paint peeling. The bank that was one of the first buildings in town, 40-odd years ago. And the skate park with an abandoned rusty bathtub in the corner. No-one is sure how a bathtub ended up there.
He’s thirsty and hot by the end of his journey. As he passes the town hall he looks up at the big clock. There’s still another half an hour before school’s out. By the time the police drive him back to the lake to see the body, the school day’ll be done.
He grins. What will Megan think?
The police station is a small house. The sign out the front has faded and the letters are almost invisible.
He strides up to the front desk, his heart full of pride. He’s a noble and important messenger. This may just be the best day of his life: the day he saw the body in the lake.
He thinks of the body. It was pale and cold. He swallows and tries to shift his mind back to the statue they’ll build of him.
‘Excuse me,’ he begins, leaning against the blue front counter.
A saggy-faced police officer stares back at him, her lips curling. She’s a large and imposing woman. Behind the counter is a desk and on it is a mug. It reads, QUEEN BITCH.
‘Yes?’ she says.
‘I’ve just seen a dead man.’
There’s a short pause. Her face softens.
‘Where?’
‘At the lake.’
‘When?’
‘Just now. I came straight here.’
‘What end of the lake? Was it at the—’
‘The school end, yeah. It was near the school end.’
‘How do you know he was dead?’
Shaun has to take a moment to understand the question.
‘He was dead. Lying facedown in the water.’
‘He was just floating there?’
‘He came along.’
‘Came along from where?’
‘From the bottom.’
‘From the bottom?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, what was he doing there?’
‘I dunno. We should hurry.’
She sighs and looks at him. And Shaun sees the flicker happen. It’s the moment she decides to believe him.
‘Wait here for a tick.’ She turns to the desk behind her, picks up the phone and punches in a number with a series of tired whacks, and waits.
‘I’ve got a kid here who says he’s seen a dead body at the lake.’
Silence.
Then, ‘I don’t know, about thirteen?’
‘I’m fourteen,’ Shaun mutters, but Queen Bitch doesn’t hear him.
‘Yep,’ she says to the person on the other end of the line. ‘Yep, righto.’ She hangs up.
She looks at Shaun and points to a chair behind him. ‘Wait,’ she says.
He does, collapsing into a big mustard-coloured plastic chair. It has ANGEXXX scratched into the arm. He traces the letters with his thumb. They’re bumpy from where a sharp point has met the plastic. If he had a pen he’d do the same thing. There’s a desk at school that he’s been working at for a while. He’d just managed to finish the SH of SHAUN at the end of last year. He’ll have to find the desk again now that school’s b
ack.
Queen Bitch leaves, and Shaun’s in the room alone. A minute later a door opens and a police constable appears. Skinny and blond. Shaun knows him, he’s seen him round. He’s young and new, been in the town for six months. The police station only has two officers at any one time. The town has trouble hanging on to police officers, doctors and teachers. No-one wants to come to a place this small, this far north. They’re a three-hour drive from the coast, and an expensive, long plane flight to the nearest capital city. No-one comes here by choice. No-one but the mining companies and the families who work for them.
The blond copper’s face twists into a smile. His green eyes look at Shaun dead on.
‘G’day, mate,’ he says, ‘how you going? I’m Police Constable Charlie Thompson.’
He holds out his hand and Shaun shakes it. It’s cold, like it’s just been run under ice water.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Shaun.’
‘Okay, Shaun. I hear you’ve seen something not too great.’
Not too great? Why’s he got that smile on his face? This guy’s a patronising douchebag.
‘Yeah,’ says Shaun. ‘In the lake. A man. In a hi-vis vest and no shoes.’
Charlie nods slowly. ‘And what were you doing by the lake?’
‘Nothin’.’ He looks at the ground.
Charlie bends down, tries to catch his good eye. ‘You sure about that?’
‘We should go there now.’
Charlie waits, his face serious, looking at Shaun. Shaun looks back.
‘All right,’ Charlie says, and gets the car keys.
The cop car is clean and cool. Inside, Charlie nods at the cotton wool over Shaun’s eye. ‘What happened?’
Shaun tells him about school and Tenner and running away. Even though Charlie smiles like a dickhead, Shaun trusts him. He seems okay, just doesn’t know how to talk to teenagers.
‘Where are your mum and dad?’
‘Work,’ says Shaun. It’s the easiest answer. His dad is long gone, but he can’t be bothered explaining.
‘Which, uh …’ Charlie says, ‘which way is it again?’
Shaun directs him to the lake.
‘What year you in at school?’ Charlie asks.
‘Ten.’
He grins. ‘You’re a man.’
Dickhead.
‘Here,’ Shaun says, his heart suddenly fast. As Charlie pulls over, he jumps out and Charlie yells at him to stop but Shaun’s already running to the lake and the moment’s so perfect, all so golden and beautiful. Then he arrives at the edge and the body’s gone.
The water’s a dark and murky mirror of the sky.
It’s blank.
‘It was right here.’
Charlie’s behind him now. ‘Here?’ he says. ‘Are you sure?’
Shaun goes down further and his shoes start to get wet again. He kneels and tries to peer deeper, as if the body is hidden under the surface. But there’s nothing there.
‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ He gets up and looks around, points to where he was skipping stones just an hour ago. ‘I was right there, and he appeared.’
‘How?’
Already Shaun can hear the doubt in Charlie’s voice. He’s certain Shaun’s a liar.
‘He rose to the surface, all still.’ Shaun doesn’t blink, trying to convince him.
‘Maybe he was just sleeping.’
He can’t believe his ears. ‘Sleeping? He was dead. Facedown in the water, not breathing!’
In the distance, a crow shrieks. The cotton wool over Shaun’s eye is itchy and he looks down.
Bugger it.
Bugger it and shit.
Charlie sighs. ‘Well, he’s not here now. So either someone’s moved him or he’s got up and walked off. You’ve had a long day, mate. If I take you home, will someone be there?’
If Shaun’s mum sees him come home with a police officer she’ll murder him.
‘It’s okay,’ Shaun says. ‘I’ll stay here. In case he comes back. You can go, though.’
Charlie’s face softens. ‘How about I take you home and we talk about it with your mum and dad? They’ll want to see you.’
But Shaun’s eyes are on the water. He’s waiting for the man to come back. Waiting for the body to rise from the depths again and prove him right.
The day before he found the dead body, Shaun was with Will, his best mate. They were in Shaun’s lounge room, mostly because they could blast the aircon and be undisturbed. Shaun didn’t have any siblings, and his mum was always working. He liked Will’s house because it was a heaving mass of people: siblings, cousins and open doors. Will would often escape to the relative loneliness of Shaun’s place.
Earlier in the holidays, they’d discovered a small treasure chest in Shaun’s garage: a dusty cardboard box filled with his father’s CDs. There was even a CD player. It was dark blue and had worn silver knobs. There were flecks of cream paint along its surface. When Shaun asked his mum where the paint had come from, she laughed.
‘We repainted our old place before you were born,’ she said. ‘The one in Brisbane.’
They would have been uni students then, or just out. Shaun had spent the first few years of his life in Brisbane, then his dad got a job at the mines up here. He met Will in Year 5, and life had been good for a while.
Then his dad left last year.
Will had flipped out when they discovered the CD player and all the music. ‘Dude!’ His eyes were wide with glee. ‘This stuff is ancient!’
‘We can probably get all of it online,’ Shaun said.
‘Yeah, but not like this. This is out of real speakers. And we can play whole albums in order. Like the old days.’
Shaun laughed at Will’s enthusiasm. He was such a dork. A stick of a kid with a smile that broke his face in half – all white teeth, his eyes crinkling.
They’d spread the collection out like jumbled tiles on the lounge room floor, and spent long afternoons listening to his dad’s old music.
None of the CDs were in their proper cases, but Shaun didn’t mind the chaos. It meant he could track his father’s listening habits. He could make out which CDs were his dad’s favourites from how scratched and worn they were.
They’d spent the first few weeks going through Matchbox 20, Usher and Puff Daddy, which Shaun didn’t mind. It was the final day of the holidays, and they were into a part of the collection that he suspected belonged to his mum. They were playing a Shania Twain album, both spread across a sofa, gazing at their phones.
‘This is all right,’ said Will. ‘I guess.’
Shaun couldn’t find a trace of his father in these songs. Not like the proper rock ones, which he could imagine blaring out of a car stereo as his dad raced around Brisbane before he met his mum.
The last song ended, the CD player finishing with a tiny metallic hum. They lay in silence for a while, then Will stretched out restlessly.
‘I don’t waaaaaaaaaant to go baaaaaack to school tomorrow.’ He yawned dramatically.
‘Yep.’ Shaun nodded.
‘Did you hear that Malcolm moved back to the coast? At least we won’t have to deal with him.’
Shaun yawned, catching Will’s. ‘Yeah.’
Malcolm was one of the footy boys. He’d picked on Will and Shaun, but he wasn’t the only one.
Will and Shaun were losers. There was no denying it. Part of the debating team, they drifted to the library at lunch, and sat under the Nigel Tree for recess. The Nigel Tree was a gum tree that stood right on the edge of the oval. Nigel was code for ‘no friends’, and anyone who dared to sit there was permanently declaring themselves at the bottom of the food chain. But Shaun didn’t care. Will was the only friend who really mattered.
He was also one of the few who stayed. Malcolm was just the latest classmate who’d come
and gone. Hardly any kids had been living here for as long as Will and Shaun. Most families came for the mines, toughed it out for a couple of years, and then left for somewhere along the coast. Will’s dad worked at the mines, just like everyone else’s. His mum worked at the bank. Shaun had never asked him why they bothered to stay. Maybe they were waiting for Will and all his siblings to get through school.
After Shaun’s dad left last year, there’d been talk of him and his mum moving, travelling back down to Brissie to be with family. Shaun refused. It had been the only thing in the entire ordeal that he’d been certain about. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay at school with Will and try his best to feel like everything was normal.
‘It’ll be hot,’ Will said. ‘And boring.’
Shaun closed his eyes, felt the aircon move across him. ‘It’s always hot. And boring.’
The first day of school moved with a sweaty slowness. They gathered in the hall, big enough to land a plane in, for assembly. A ‘multipurpose facility’ with blue corrugated iron walls and fans the size of helicopter rotors. The building was no older than Shaun. Nothing in the school was old. The town had only been built 40 years ago, when the mining companies moved in. It was originally just a few streets for the workers and their families. The mines owned all the houses and rented them out. Then the boom came, and the town exploded. Houses weren’t being built fast enough. New people camped out in the middle of town until their houses were ready. Everyone wanted a piece of the place, because there was money in mining.
‘The whole world loves Australian coal, mate,’ Shaun’s dad had said. ‘China runs on Aussie coal. The stuff we pull out of the ground here powers the entire planet.’
His dad always seemed to like his job. But Shaun knew now that that wasn’t true. Every day, his dad would disappear underground, digging into black rock. It was hot and cramped, and he was filthy when he came home. There was a permanent black ring around the shower from the dust.
The boom had died off fast, when Shaun was in Year 8, and the school population was halved in the space of six months. Shops in town closed up too. Looking around the school hall now, Shaun remembered how much noisier it had been a few years ago.
