The Crocodile Nest

by Des Hunt

  That was it! Not much, but it was a start. At least the date of birth might prove useful.

  As the DP leaned over to remove the folder, she said, ‘There’s nothing inside that I can show you without breaching school confidentiality. However, I can say that he was a bright boy, who could have done a lot better if he’d tried a bit harder.’ She peered at him over her glasses. ‘That seems to run in the family, doesn’t it?’

  Luke shrugged.

  ‘If you want to find out more, I suggest you try the Thames High School yearbooks, which you might find—’

  She was interrupted by loud shouting coming from the corridor. It was a kid screaming abuse at someone—a teacher by the sound of it. The DP was on her feet and out the door in a shot. Her loud but calm voice broke through the string of foul language enough to quieten the kid a little. Other teachers came out of their offices, and the culprit was led away to a less public area.

  Luke looked into the corridor and found that he was the only one left in the vicinity. He sat for a moment, staring at the folder. Inside those covers was more information about his father. He didn’t know what it might be, but anything could be useful. He needed that information, even if it was more than twenty years old.

  He had the folder open before he’d really made up his mind to look. At the top were a lot of old reports stapled together which were of no interest to Luke. Beneath them were copies of letters sent to Hamish’s parents. It soon became clear that Hamish had got into a lot of trouble at school. Theft of property—particularly from teachers—seemed to be the main problem. Then came a letter more official-looking than the others. It was a report from a Board of Governors’ meeting where Hamish Sloss had been expelled for the theft of seventy-six dollars of mufti-day money. A place had been found for him at Thames High School, commencing immediately.

  Luke closed the folder and slid it back across the desk, wishing he’d never opened the thing. The image he’d formed of Hamish was as a rugged pig hunter, not as a kid who stole at school. He left the office wondering if he wanted to continue digging into his father’s past. What else might there be to find?

  Beth had reorganized her lounge. The TV was now mounted on the wall, giving enough space for another item of furniture—a spinning wheel. When Luke arrived after school, she was seated at the wheel feeding wool into the machine.

  ‘Hi, Luke,’ she said without stopping. ‘Help yourself to a drink and some biscuits. I’ll be finished here shortly.’

  He did so, taking them to the computer which hadn’t yet been turned on for the day. While he waited for it to boot, he wondered if Beth was losing her enthusiasm for the digital revolution.

  It seemed not, for she was soon seated beside him expecting a lesson. ‘Right!’ she said. ‘Show me how to use TradeMe.’

  He looked at her. ‘Do you want to buy something?’

  ‘Nope! I want to sell things. Jerseys, cardigans, ponchos, beanies, scarves, homespun wool…I’m going into business.’ A pause. ‘I have to—if I don’t do something soon, I’ll go mad.’

  ‘Have you done anything like this before?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve spun and knitted for years, but mostly for friends and family. Now I want to see if anybody would buy the sort of stuff I make.’

  Two minutes later, they had the answer. Yes, people did buy stuff like that on TradeMe, but there were also a lot of people selling it. Even so, Beth was not put off. She reckoned her’s were better than what was listed, and anyway she wouldn’t know whether she could do it unless she tried.

  As Luke helped her create an account, he learnt that Kevin Thomas had been the one who’d suggested using TradeMe. Apparently, Beth had visited him with some of the brawn she’d made out of the pigs’ heads. In return, he’d given her some wool from one of the several black ewes he had in his flock. Since then he’d been to Beth’s house to mount the TV on the wall, spotted the computer and started talking about TradeMe.

  From all of this, Luke guessed that Beth and Kev were starting to hit it off. He found it hard to imagine the down-to-earth farmer making friends with the sophisticated city woman, but that’s what seemed to be happening.

  This was confirmed when Kev arrived during Luke’s Thursday session after school. The stated reason for the visit was to give Beth some bacon that he’d smoked, but it took the man two hours to hand it over. Meanwhile Luke had the computer to himself, which was just what he wanted, for he’d had some more thoughts on how he might find his father.

  The idea was to visit some Australian pig-hunting forum sites. Luke soon found that there were plenty to choose from—pig hunting seemed to be a major activity in Australia. Unfortunately, they all required membership before you could do any searches or communicate with the members. Luke joined up to three of them with the user name of Little Ham. Then he had to wait for an email from each to authenticate his address. One came through fairly quickly, allowing him to log on and look through the list of members. He figured that Hamish would probably use something like Ham as his user name. There were Hams and Hambonez and Hamhooks, but no Ham. While Luke was disappointed, he was also not surprised. This was real needle-in-the-haystack stuff. For all he knew, his father might not have access to a computer; he might not even know how to use one!

  Over the next hour, Luke browsed through the forum to get a sense of what Aussie pig hunting was like. Exciting, was the answer. The many photos showed big, mean pigs surrounded by hunters and their dogs. Luke felt the adrenaline rising just looking at them. Most hunters used dogs and knives to kill the vicious beasts. He would do anything to go on a pig hunt like that.

  On Friday afternoon, Luke finally received email confirmation from the other two forums. He would have liked to have gone straight to them to look for Ham, but Beth wanted to sell a cardigan she’d knitted, and asked that he check that she was listing it properly.

  After that, she wanted to find out how to spin possum fur in with wool. ‘Kev reckons he can get me heaps of possum fur if I want. Garments with possum sell for a lot more than ordinary wool ones, so I want to know how to spin it.’

  What they found didn’t make much sense to Luke, but Beth thought it would be useful. It seemed that it was just like using Angora rabbit fur, which was something she’d done before.

  With that organized, Beth returned to her spinning, leaving Luke to check out the forum sites. The first had no users by the name of Ham or anything like it. The second—a site called AussieHogs—had a Ham308. He clicked on the profile link, hoping that in a moment he’d be looking at a photo of his dad.

  Unfortunately, the photo alongside the user name was not his dad—it was a huge boar charging directly at the camera. The mouth was open to show a pair of tusks curving out almost as far as its ears. Luke had thought the boar that had charged him was big; in comparison, this one was a giant.

  Disappointed, but not yet ready to give up, he clicked on the Gallery tab at the top of the page. Slowly, a page of photos appeared. They all showed pigs; most of them dead; sometimes with a pair of dogs sitting beside them. There were no humans.

  Luke read through the captions. It seemed they were all taken in Tropical Queensland. Some had forest in the background; others, a river or the sea. The dates were all within the last year. Whoever Ham308 was, he seemed to be pretty good at pig hunting.

  Down the bottom of the page was a button indicating there was another set of photos. A moment later, Luke was looking at more pigs and dogs, plus one photo of a human sitting on the back of a ute loaded with pig carcasses. A pit of disappointment formed in Luke’s stomach. This was not Hamish Sloss—this man had a dark complexion that could never be part of the Sloss clan.

  Then he read the caption: My mate Chizza with three boars we got just south of the Bloomfield River.

  With rising spirits, Luke realized that the photo was not of Ham308. He clicked back to the members section and searched for Chizza. Yes! He was there! A click on the profile, and soon Chizza’s photo was visible. It was the same
person. Excitedly, Luke went into Chizza’s gallery. Maybe there he would see a photo of Ham308.

  He did.

  It was a photo of the same hunting trip with the same three boars on the back of the ute, except there was a different person sitting on the tailboard. A man with sandy hair, a fair complexion, and twinkling grey eyes. It was Hamish Sloss. Luke had found his father.

  Chapter 8

  For some time, Luke sat at the computer overcome with emotion. He’d expected to feel pretty good if he ever found his dad, but not the emotion that now surged through his body. Tears ran down his cheeks, and his hands shook. Never before could he remember feeling like this.

  If Beth noticed anything, she gave no sign as she continued with her spinning. The creaking of the wheel seemed to be the only sound in the silent house.

  Slowly, Luke calmed down enough to be able to operate the mouse. He clicked the back-button until once again he was looking at Ham308’s profile. All the information it contained seemed to take on a greater meaning now. He saw that Hamish had been a member for more than five years, his last posting had been a month ago, and he had last logged on the day before. If Luke had made the discovery a day earlier, then he and Hamish would have been online at the same time. That thought made his father seem so much closer.

  One of the tabs across the top was labelled Personal Statement. A click and Luke was reading his father’s words:

  About me, what can I say, except I love pig hunting. Have done all my life, ever since I was a kid on the Coromandel in New Zealand. I used to get some big buggers back there, but nothing like what I’ve got since I came to Oz. I live north of Cairns, near the Daintree Rainforest. I mostly go hunting between Cape Trib and Wujal Wujal, where the pigs come out of the National Park. It’s not easy country, and in places you’ve got to watch out for crocs and snakes, but you sure can get some great hogs. I’ve had some close encounters, but they don’t worry me. If I’m to die while out hunting pigs, then I’ll die a happy man.

  Luke smiled to himself. This was the sort of dad he wanted: one who fought off crocodiles and snakes to satisfy his love of hunting. It seemed that Hamish Sloss was everything he’d hoped for. He had a dad to be proud of.

  It took several minutes to investigate the rest of the profile. Nothing new was revealed. If Luke wanted to find out more, then he would have to send Ham a message via a link at the bottom of the page. This would put the message in Ham308’s AussieHogs mailbox, and also send a copy to his email address.

  If Luke hadn’t still been so emotional, he might have given more thought to the message that he sent. As it was, he told his father almost everything: pig hunting with Kev; how he learnt that he had a father; Beth and her millions, and how he’d used her computer to track him down. Then he asked lots of questions. Where did he live? What did he do? Was there a family? Did he ever come back to New Zealand?

  When Luke clicked Send, he felt immensely satisfied with his afternoon’s work. All memories of the boy who stole money, and the man who deserted his pregnant partner, had disappeared into the back of his mind.

  Saturday was the first day of the school holidays. Alice got an early phone call, asking her to go into work. The owner of the café was expecting extra business, as lots of holidaymakers were passing through Whitianga on their way to the beaches.

  When Alice woke Luke to say she was going, he hurriedly put on some clothes and joined her. This was just what he’d been hoping for: the chance to get to Beth’s so he could check his emails.

  Alice chatted away happily on the journey into town. She was excited about earning some extra money and being able to buy a nice top she’d seen in the local op-shop. She might even have enough to get a pair of matching trousers.

  Luke hardly heard what she was saying. He was thinking about the message he’d sent to Hamish, and was beginning to feel a little guilty that he hadn’t mentioned anything about Alice. It hadn’t been intentional—in his excitement, he’d just forgotten about her for a moment. But that didn’t explain why he hadn’t told her about finding his father. He now realized that he was holding back because he was worried about her reaction. She might not be too pleased to learn that her son was secretly communicating with a man who had ditched her years before. While she would have to know eventually, he’d wait until he got a reply from Hamish and had something definite to tell her.

  There was no reply that day. No email, and no message left on the AussieHogs website.

  Luke could think of all sorts of reasons why his father hadn’t replied, but none of them made him feel any better. In the end, he spent most of the day attempting to find out if Ham308 had any other presence on the World Wide Web. There was none.

  Sunday morning, Luke got up early and went into the hills to do some thinking. It was a glorious autumn morning, but he hardly noticed. Everything along the way reminded him that he had a father—one who didn’t answer emails. The marijuana clearing where he’d first heard that Ham existed; the place where Kev had shot the pigs; even the view over the valley to where Ham used to go hunting on Kev’s place. To Luke, they were an uncomfortable reminder that there had been no reply, and maybe never would be.

  Soon after Luke returned to the house, Beth arrived, hoping to have a chat with Alice. She was still in bed, but quickly appeared in a dressing gown. Over a cup of coffee, Beth quizzed her about the café. Did it make a lot of money? What was business like in winter? Was it easy to get workers? Alice answered as best she could, considering she’d been working there for only three months. Then she asked Beth why she was so interested.

  Beth gave a little laugh. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure. I’m trying to get a feel for this town.’ She played with her wedding ring for a while, turning it around on her finger. ‘I’d like to get involved in a business somehow. Maybe something to do with tourism. The only thing I’ve thought of is a little gift shop where I can sell my knitting and other people’s stuff. But that sort of thing seems to be covered quite well already.’ Again the wedding band was twisted. ‘What I’d really like to do is something for people my age. Most of the touristy things seem aimed at younger people. I’d like to support something for those who aren’t so nimble, but still want some excitement.’

  ‘Such as?’ prompted Alice.

  ‘That’s the problem: I don’t know. I was hoping you might have some ideas.’

  ‘You could have hunting tours,’ suggested Luke. ‘Shoot some pigs.’

  Alice rolled her eyes.

  ‘Actually,’ said Beth, ‘that’s what Kev suggested, too. Not pigs. Possums. He reckons that oldies would find it exciting, and they wouldn’t have to get out of the vehicle. He said we should try it some time.’

  ‘Can I come, too?’ asked Luke, quickly.

  Beth looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes, Luke. Maybe you should. Perhaps I’ll need a chaperone going into the bush at night with Kev. It might not be the possums that he’s interested in at all.’

  Luke slept in on Monday morning. He woke when his mother got up, and for a moment he gave some serious thought to getting up and going into town with her. Instead, he snuggled down again, pulling the blankets up to keep out the noise. Sleep would be much better than another dose of the disappointment he’d felt on Saturday morning after discovering there was no answer from Hamish. When he did finally get up, he found there was nothing to do except mope around the house and the nearby bush. He would almost have preferred to be at school.

  When Alice came home, she said that Beth had rung asking why he hadn’t gone in. Apparently she was in a bit of a panic because she’d sold her cardigan and wanted to know how to send her bank account details so that she could get paid.

  ‘She could’ve driven out and got me,’ suggested Luke.

  ‘Yes, she could’ve,’ replied Alice, ‘but now she’s got another idea. She asked me if she could buy you a cellphone.’

  ‘And?’ asked Luke, excitedly.

  Alice smiled. ‘I said that she could, but only if you worked
to pay it off. Not just computer stuff. Digging the garden and things like that. She agreed, and I think she went out and bought one this afternoon.’

  Luke punched the air. ‘Yesss!’ he hissed.

  ‘So, now you have to do work for her instead of messing around here all day.’

  That suited Luke fine: another day like the one he’d just had and he’d go mad.

  The phone was waiting for him when Luke arrived at Beth’s on Tuesday morning, and immediately he began working for it. Beth needed to sort out payment for her cardigan. It soon became clear that she was terrified of getting it wrong. It took ages to convince her that giving away her account number didn’t mean someone could get into her account. They would need the access number and the password to do that. By the time it was all sorted, Beth said she understood, and left Luke to get on with his own computing.

  He went straight to the AussieHogs site to check for messages. There were none, but Ham308 had logged on and must have seen Luke’s message, because it would have been on the opening screen. It seemed that once again he’d chosen to ignore it.

  This was confirmed when Luke checked his emails and found nothing but junk mail. The disappointment was even more intense this time. It was now certain that Hamish knew he had a son, but had decided not to have anything to do with him.

  It took some time for Luke to start thinking sensibly again, and realize that he had no option other than to try again. Short of going over to this place called the Daintree Rainforest and searching for the man, all he could do was send messages through AussieHogs.

  This time he told Hamish about Alice and their life in Whitianga. He made it appear better than it actually was, as he didn’t want Hamish to think he was after money. Then he pleaded for a reply, ending with a list of every way that Hamish could contact him: mailing address, his own new cellphone number, and two email addresses—both school and webmail. He left nothing to chance. If there was no answer this time, then he could be certain that it was by choice, not because something was wrong with the system.