Billabong Bend

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Ric was almost convinced he’d imagined it when something smashed his lure with enough speed and power to nearly dislocate his shoulder. The old reel sang as it let out the line. Jesus, he had it. Or did it have him? The boat strained against its tie-up until the willow branch gave way. It was towed up the reach while Ric ducked overhanging trees and struggled to maintain his grip on the rod. After ten minutes the cod changed direction, came back under the boat and slammed into the side. The impact almost catapulted Ric overboard. If he’d been in the old tinny, it would have capsized for sure.

  The reel played out fast again and Ric jammed the rod under the motor to help hold it. Surely the line would break at any moment, but somehow it held and adrenaline took over. He’d release it, of course he would, but landing a fish this size would be the thrill of a lifetime.

  Eventually the giant cod tired. It sought refuge beneath the undercut riverbank that had offered safety and protection throughout the long decades of its life. Not this time. The line wrapped itself around a snag, trapping the exhausted fish in the shallows. Ric manoeuvered close to the bank and tied up to a branch. Then he threw out the homemade gangplank, took it in two strides, and jumped ashore.

  But it wasn’t clean river sand, like he’d expected. Ric sank knee-deep into sucking mud. Damn it. He dragged his right leg clear and his boot remained stuck fast in the muck. Same thing with the left. He stepped back, feeling around for the gangplank, then kneeled down on the narrow board and lay on his stomach. With gritted teeth and closed eyes, he reached into the hole where his right leg had sunk. He was up to his shoulder in mud before his groping fingers found it. Wrenching the boot free with a sickening gurgling sound, he repeated the process to extract the other one. His wet skin was stinging, and a conversation with Nina came back to him. Acid mud was a problem along dwindling inland rivers. Sulphides in waterlogged soils formed sulphuric acid when exposed to the air. At Bottle Bend near Mildura, once healthy marshes were now toxic wastelands, where nothing but microorganisms survived the steel-eating acid water. Could the Kingfisher be brewing the same deadly formula?

  Ric washed off the mud, scrubbing his skin almost raw, and pulled his boots back on. He’d wasted precious minutes. A fish this size wouldn’t cope well with a shallow stranding. Ric leaped into the water and waded across to the cod. It was the stuff of legends, as long as a man. A female and gravid, to judge by her bloated belly. Skin vibrant green, darkly mottled with black velvet roses. Beautiful. Her mouth yawned wide and then he saw them. Half a dozen lengths of broken fishing line, their hooks jammed tight in her jaw. One with its float and leader still attached. The nylon was frayed at the end, crimped where it had snapped from the strain. Ric peered closer. Hang on, that gear looked familiar. He had to get a closer look.

  With lungs bursting and muscles straining, he wrestled the struggling fish from the water and onto the bank. They lay together, heaving for breath. As his hammering heart rate slowed, he scrambled to his feet and examined her gaping mouth. The old float was a drilled wine cork. The leader, homemade from steel wire and a swivel – identical to the one on his own line. Dad’s gear. Dad had caught and lost this giant cod. But when?

  Ric carefully worked out his own hook, but when he tried to pull Dad’s one free, the fish squirmed in pain, and was too slippery to get hold of. She grunted, squashed by her own weight. He gazed into her golden eyes. They shifted focus, but not to return his stare. They seemed to look through him, as if something stood at his back. Ric spun around, but there was nothing there. Only the trees and the river and the creaking of branches as a breeze blew up. He started as fleeting shadows fell across his face. Just a pair of whistling kites circling high above him. Their eerie cries floated down in ascending scale. Snap out of it. He was all alone on the river.

  Snatches of memory merged into greater recall. Nina laughing with delight as the big cod, lazy and trusting, rose to take titbits from her hand. Freeman holding two children spellbound with a dreaming story of Ponde, the ancestral codfish who formed the winding Murray with sweeps of his enormous tail. Singsonging words in his native tongue that had sounded like a prayer. ‘Guddhu is a spirit guardian,’ he’d told them. ‘To harm her would bring down a curse on the people of the river.’

  ‘Guddhu,’ he whispered and she moved her great gasping head. He licked his lips but they wouldn’t stay wet. The shiny hooks in her aching jaw now looked like medals of courage. A sick, desperate feeling took root in his heart and he leaped for the fish, half-dragging, half-carrying her to the water. But Guddhu’s colours were fading to grey, her gaze turning from amber to jaundiced yellow. He stumbled into deeper water, walking to force water through her collapsed gills, struggling with the dead weight of her body. But it was no use. The light had died from her ancient eyes.

  Ric dragged the cod back to the bank and tried to steady his breathing. The rising breeze was now a gusting southerly, blowing sharp and hard against his face. He was choking, drowning in a river of air, unable to draw the life-giving oxygen into his lungs. With a shock he tasted tears on his tongue.

  Ric squeezed his eyes shut and waited until he’d calmed down enough to take stock. Guddhu was dead. He studied her massive form lying prone in the mud. Now that her life force had fled, she looked more like what she was – a giant dead fish. If he could prove that hook in her mouth was Dad’s . . . well, it might offer some clue to his disappearance. It might in some small way atone for her death.

  The wind was strengthening. Above him, clouds scudded into the sky, dark tendrils encroaching from the south. Dark enough, perhaps, to hold a little rain. Wasn’t it always the way? Now that the crop was ripe for picking, rain would just be a nuisance.

  It took a long time and all his strength to haul his catch on board: a hundred kilos of slick, muddy cod. The dozen or so sharp spines along her dorsal fin made it hard to get a grip. And there were some nasty surprises hidden in the murky water. Submerged logs with sharp snags that tore at his legs as he laboured waist-deep. The ‘fresh’ was stirring the sluggish current to life, even in this backwater. Once or twice, something large and soft nudged his leg beneath the surface and he shrank away. It wasn’t unusual for dead sheep or kangaroos to find their way into the river.

  At last it was done. Ric pulled on his shirt and fired up the motor. A flotilla of pelicans took flight at the sound. He cruised up and down the channel a few times, then sped away, anxious to be gone from . . . from what? From the scene of the crime, was that it?

  All this tangled thinking was giving him a headache. The trip home seemed to take forever. How things had changed since this morning. He no longer wanted to be alone with his thoughts on the river. Not like this. Not with Guddhu and her dead, staring eyes for company. His mind played tricks on him. Twice he killed the motor and drifted awhile, scanning the banks, certain the shadowy figure of a man moved in the swamp. But he was imagining things. What he thought was his father’s battered hat behind the bulrushes turned out to be the domed head of an old man emu. And what looked like Dad’s tinny ahead of him was just a floating log.

  Ric remembered the hip flask. Just the thing to cure his shot nerves. He took a big gulp of bourbon, relishing the sweetness that eased his tight throat. He looked uneasily around, and whistled to cheer himself up. Ever since leaving the backwater, he’d felt an atmosphere of swelling tension. Above him, dark threads of cloud had woven themselves into an unbroken blanket of grey. The wind had died, and the air was heavy and oppressive with the expectation of a storm. The cotton could stand a little rain, but a deluge would downgrade quality. He remembered Tony’s words. ‘You’ve got to get this right, Ric. Got to get this harvest in safely. It’ll be the last thing you can do for Max, kind of like a tribute.’ Was the crop insured? He hadn’t found anything to show it was.

  Ric swore at the dark sky. He checked his phone. Getting late, almost five o’clock. There was a message from Gino. When are you back? Sophie wants to go home. She’s worried about her geese. Those damn geese.
She’d forget about them when he presented her with a horse. What would he do with the birds then? His original plan was to give them to Nina. She’d still take them, he knew that, but he didn’t want her to do him any favours. He’d have to work something out for himself.

  Ric swigged back bourbon as he approached the river junction. A flash of light brightened the clouds, chased by rolling thunder. It vibrated through the water, through the boat, through his whole body. This was a teasing storm, and when it stopped playing games with him, the sky would well and truly open. Swinging right, back into the Bunyip, the first fat drops of rain hit his cheek. His hair, grown long and unkempt, soon lay plastered over his eyes. By the time he reached the mooring at Donnalee, Ric could barely see the house through sheets of rain.

  Ric tied up at the little jetty, just two planks side by side, nailed to a stout red-gum log sunk in the river bed. Low flows meant the walkway was two metres above the water. No way could he lift the cod that far. He’d have to get her overboard and drag her up the bank. The prospect of jumping into the mud again, of grappling with the dead fish in the pouring rain, filled him with dread. He upended the hip flask over his mouth, his tongue collecting the last drops of bourbon. Then he used the oars to help lever the cod over the side.

  Steeling himself, Ric jumped into the shallows, sinking to his knees in stinking sludge, and losing his boots again in the process. He groped uselessly around in the mud for a while, hindered by his wet clothes, shivering now with cold. Damn those boots, they could stay there. He undid his belt and dragged off his waterlogged jeans. Bare feet found little purchase on the slimy bank, and he slipped time and time again. More than once he found himself flat out in the mud and rain, arms wrapped tight around the great fish, lying together in some sort of grotesque lovers’ embrace.

  Ric finally managed to drag her up onto the bank. High, but not dry. The rain had become a torrent, closing in, turning day to night. He could barely see his hands in front of him. Ric took a few moments to catch his breath. When he turned back to his task, Guddhu wasn’t quite where he’d left her. She seemed to have moved closer to the water. For one unnerving moment he imagined the fish had magically returned to life. But no, she was simply sliding down the bank, as if even in death she longed for the river. He lunged for her and then screamed at the storm. In the gloom he’d grabbed the dorsal fin by mistake, and one spear-like spine had pierced his palm. Fuck. Ignoring the pain he hauled at her tail, grunting with each heave, slipping and sliding in the mud and rain. At last he had the fish safe on the gravel beside the jetty. He sank to the ground to catch his breath. It was coming in short tearing gasps.

  ‘Dad?’ His ears were playing tricks on him. But when he turned around, there was his daughter, her face pale. A figure stood behind her, covered in a hat and Drizabone. The rain redoubled its efforts, pounding down in a fury. The figure moved closer and his heart dropped in his chest. Nina. She stepped forward and kneeled down between him and the body of the cod, tenderly stroking the fine scales of her skin. ‘Guddhu?’ She looked at first like she couldn’t fathom what had happened. But her expression soon changed into a mask of grief.

  ‘She’s got Dad’s hook in her mouth and I wanted to take a look. I tried to release her . . . tried to put her back in the river.’ He buried his face in his hands. The words sounded hollow and self-serving, even to him. He looked up, directly into Nina’s accusing green eyes.

  ‘How could you?’ She swayed alarmingly, as if she didn’t have the strength to remain upright. He offered his arm and she slapped it away. ‘How could you?’ Then she was pummelling him, raining blows down on his bare arms and chest, screaming like a wounded animal. From the corner of his eye he saw Sophie running for the house.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He made no effort to defend himself.

  The fervour of her attack was waning. ‘Sophie rang me and asked for a lift. I thought we could talk,’ she said. ‘Thought maybe, just maybe there was still a chance for us.’ Her voice was weak now. Her fingers trailed the contours of Guddhu’s face. She began to cry and he was sobbing right along with her.

  ‘Goddamnit, Nina, I’m sorry. I’d do anything to take it back.’ He was dizzy with anguish and self-reproach.

  ‘How will you sleep?’

  ‘Who says I will?’

  ‘Sorry isn’t enough. It’ll never be enough.’

  She sprang to her feet and sprinted for the house through the driving rain. He ran after her, wanting to grab her, to make her listen, to make her understand. But sharp gravel under bare feet slowed him down. She was running for her ute parked out the front of the house. He reached it as the car began moving away. The Donnalee drive was awash, and the spinning wheels showered him with mud. The ute took off, skidding wildly as Nina swung for the gate. She reached the road and turned right over the low bridge, vanishing behind a heavy curtain of rain.

  He thought of Nina coming to him, wanting to work things out. He thought of the cotton, that this morning had been bright and fluffy as fresh snow. He dug his nails into his palms, but felt nothing. He was numb. Numb to the shame and cold. Numb to everything that had happened this last month. He turned and shuffled through fast-running rivulets of water to the house, leaving puddles on the kitchen lino.

  Sophie and her geese stood in the hall doorway, regarding him with uncertain eyes. ‘Are you hurt? You’re bleeding.’

  Ric looked at his pierced hand and shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m fine.’ He started towards her and she took a step backwards.

  ‘Dad, you stink of fish.’

  He caught sight of his reflection in the window and barely recognised the half-naked, filthy, wild-eyed man staring back at him. ‘I’m sorry, Soph.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sophie. ‘Now go and have a shower.’ She slipped away and the sound of soft honking followed her down the hall.

  CHAPTER 32

  Nina burst in the door at Red Gums. Jinx, unsettled by the storm, whined in greeting. A crack of thunder sent him hurtling down the hall to his favourite hidey-hole beneath her bed. The drumming of rain on the iron roof grew to a deafening roar. A tap came at the window, like a pebble tossed against the glass. Then tapping everywhere, a rapid staccato, growing in speed and ferocity. Hail hammered the roof and walls and windows. Jinx howled from the bedroom and Nina shut the door to keep him safe. Then she went outside, her delight in the storm outweighed by her sorrow at the fact and manner of Guddhu’s passing.

  It was surreal to think the magnificent cod, Freeman’s spiritual guardian of the river, had died at Ric’s hand. Incomprehensible. But then so much of Ric’s behaviour was incomprehensible. His suspicions about Max’s death. Buying Billabong. And yet Guddhu’s death had hit her the hardest of all. Dad could still be cleared of blame. Billabong could still be saved. She’d been keen to give Sophie a lift home for that very reason, hoping to reason with Ric and change his mind. Hoping their love could be rescued along with the wetlands.

  But Guddhu could not be raised from the dead. Guddhu, who was older than Nina, older than her father, older even than Freeman. Guddhu was here when the great flood of ’56 formed a vast inland sea, drowning everything in its path. She was here when the fires of ’75 raged through these plains, with four million hectares burnt and fifty thousand stock lost. She’d lived through a century of storms and droughts. The taming of the rivers, the Second World War. It was hard to fathom. Mandela had lived and died while Guddhu swam these same waters.

  Nina’s tears mingled with raindrops. A link to the living history of the floodplains had been broken today. Forks of lightning stabbed crazily across the sky, their brilliance reflected in the silver sheets of rain. Freeman said Guddhu was magical, that vengeance would fall on the people of the river if she was harmed. Superstitious nonsense? Maybe. But when Nina stared into the angry face of the sky there was no doubting Freeman’s words. It seemed right, even proper that the storm should come.

  She returned to the house and hunted around for matches. At this rate the power w
ould be out soon and she didn’t fancy a night alone without heating. Where was that bundle of sticks? Somewhere on the verandah. How long had it been since she’d lit a fire? November, probably. There, beneath those old tarps, a little dry kindling. Nina gathered what she needed, took it into the lounge room and shovelled out the ash from the grate into the box. Occasional hailstones found their way down the chimney. One hit the bricks and ricocheted into her cheek, drawing blood, but she didn’t flinch. Nina had herself on a very short leash.

  She usually enjoyed setting the first fire of the season. It meant the end of summer’s gruelling heat. It meant that harvest was near, the most exciting time of the year. But as the flames wandered over the kindling, there was nothing but sadness in her heart. No, that was wrong. There was something else, something she didn’t normally suffer from, even though she lived by herself in this remote corner of the river, even though she sometimes felt unsettled by the night. It was a crushing sense of loneliness, of losing the land she loved. Of finding Ric, and the truth held deep in her body and skin and memory – of wanting him, of knowing him. Then losing that too.

  She moved to the window, stared at the drops of water spilling down the glass. When she turned around, enough rain had come down the chimney to extinguish her fledgling fire. She flicked on the light switch. Nothing. It could be hours before power was restored. A clap of thunder shook the house, accompanied by a flurry of muted barking.

  Nina went to the bedroom to calm Jinx down. ‘Jinxy,’ she said, stroking his golden head, grateful for his constant love. Outside the wind howled. Jinx poked his muzzle skyward and joined in. The eerie sound held her in thrall. It seemed to be saying something important, to be sharing some wisdom just outside the edge of understanding.