The Boat

by NAM LE

  "Hey." He was holding her shoulders. Vance Wilhelm had been hospitalized with internal injuries-whatever that meant. Had she crawled on her hands and knees for him? Had he afterward regretted letting her? The pier, buffeted by rising waves, felt as though it was beginning to list from side to side. She looked up.

  "I'll go if you want." How she said it – the words running one way and the meaning another. After a while, her mouth opened disbelievingly. "You gotta be joking." She threw his hands off her. "But okay. If that's how it is. You're up for it and Lester Long shit-talks you and then you're going every which way."

  The wind grieved louder. Cutting off his every tack of thought.

  "All year you're up for it – "

  "It's not fucking Lester," he spat, "and it's not fucking shit-talk."

  She exhaled, her eyes shining.

  "Anyway," he said, fetching in his voice with effort, "you're moving."

  "What?"

  "Next year. To the city."

  Alison ignored him. "Stuff it," she said. "They were right about you."

  "We're moving too – but just to Maroomba." He was flustered by her comment. Who? he wanted to ask. Right about what? He said, "It's my mum." Then he stopped himself. Just saying it felt like some sort of betrayal.

  "Look," Alison said. Now he breathed in, primed himself for the inevitable questions. But once again she acted as though she hadn't heard him. She said, "You're scared of Dory – fair enough." Her brow knitted together. "I just thought…" She paused. "It's different with you."

  He didn't say anything.

  "I just thought it'd be different with you." She crouched up, onto her feet. He turned toward her and she was smiling, lips pressed tightly together. Something about that smile. "But I'll talk to him," she said. "He'll leave you alone. Promise." She made a half-choked sound like a chuckle. "Don't worry – Dory listens to me." She held still for a moment, then started across the rocks.

  Jamie turned around to face the water. Years ago he'd swum out there heaps – out where the coral was. It was easy to forget, past the reef, that you were on the edge of the great continental shelf until a rip drifted you out and one of those cold currents snaked up from the depths and brushed its slightest fringe against your body. Then you remembered. She was almost out of sight when the recognition arrived. That smile – her smile – it wasn't one-way. There was a question in it.

  "Alison!" he called out.

  The cry passed his mouth and coursed back into his body. Tons and tons of water moving under you. She stopped. Her body was slim and pale, a trick of light, against the black rocks.

  "How's it different?" he said.

  "What?"

  "How's it different with me?" he shouted.

  She stood in the half dark, then shrugged. When her shoulders didn't stop shrugging he realized she was crying. Jesus. He got up and scrambled toward her.

  "All that time – you don't know what it's like for me all that time," she said. Her voice sounded older. She lifted her head and searched toward him with her open face. "He likes to hold my hand when he's drunk," she said. Even over the wind he could hear the bitterness. "The rest of the time – you look and you look and there's nothing there. Fucking zilch. With you, it's different."

  "Okay."

  "It just is."

  "Okay."

  "I'm sorry." He watched as she stood there, hugging her ribs. You couldn't turn back from something like this. You saw it through and it ruined you.

  "Don't go," he said.

  ***

  WHEN HE WAS LITTLE he used to follow his dad down to the wharf. Watched him cast off the hawser, chug out ahead a rimy trail of grease bubbles, the chorus of curses from the wharfies. In time Jamie was allowed, on school holidays, to come along. But usually his dad would be gone by breakfast and it never felt like a missing – more like he brought the sea into their house and it braced the rest of them to know where he was, what it looked like where he was, the sea around him. Before Michael was born, before his mum's sickness. Best was when they went out in the little runabout with the two-stroke, him and his dad, and sometimes his mum as well-she'd be cradling a basket of barbecued chicken and some beetroots, sitting on rolls of butcher's paper as long as her legs – and he'd dip his fingers behind the stern and draw a white gully into the darker water.

  Then Michael. When he was old enough they took him along and together they explored the whole bight of the bay. They fished for King George whiting off the southern promontory and snapper and trevally in the deeper waters. His great-grandfather had skippered one of the first trawlers in HalfleadBay: back then he could go out for six weeks over Christmas, dip in, and make enough money to fish for sport the rest of the year. Jamie loved it-the idea of his family having worked that body of water for generations. He caught his first fish when he was six – a mako – he'd never forget its spearlike snout, the long cobalt gleam of its back. His dad's hands cupping his on the reel. They gaffed it twice, behind the gills, and even when its tail flayed his arm he could barely hold in the rapture. Gulping down his dad's praise – Not a bad effort, he kept saying. Not a bad effort, a shark your very first time.

  His last time, though. Over five years ago. Early evening: no luck – nothing – they'd only stayed to make it worth the long hike. The rock pier was a tricky spot: you couldn't moor a boat and it was on the undeveloped side of the dunes. No tourists out there. The nearest road was an hour off – you had to cart all your gear along the headland. They'd been about to leave when Jamie's rod bowed forward.

  He grabbed it, hauled back until the rod made a tight arc.

  "What is it?" asked his dad.

  The resistance was strong but even."Snagged, I think."

  Michael looked back down, continued packing the tackle away. Jamie reeled in his line. It was getting dark, the sea glass-colored. The tide was coming in fast, too, washing higher against the rocks and leaving a frothy train. His mum, foraging through the lower rock pools, planted her feet – freezing her posture – every time the water surged in, and it seemed to Jamie like a private game.

  "Okay," said his dad. "Pull her in and let's go."

  Jamie continued reeling in. Then his line jerked hard. He leaned the rod back again-probably the reef, or a bed of sea grass – but then he felt it, there, and there – the unmistakable give and drag of a fish.

  "Got one," he cried out.

  "You sure?" His dad observed the weight on the line and climbed to his feet.

  "Got one," Jamie repeated.

  It was fighting now, weaving and twisting. The line went slack. When the charge came he was pulled forward and almost lost his footing. He looked down: browny yellow lichen. Spume churning over his ankles.

  His dad grinned. "Set the drag," he said. Jamie set the drag.

  They watched over the gray water together. Too dark to see anything. He fought the fish, tracking its every tension, tugging and reeling, imagining its flight through spindling reefs and sand and meadows of sea grass. This was it – this was why you waited. His dad next to him, fired up, talking him through it.

  The line went spastic. It convulsed in short bursts. Jamie gripped the rod with excitement – he'd never felt a fish do this before. He glanced at his dad, who was squinting out to sea. Michael and his mum too. The sea was like this. You could wait all day and then, just when you were leaving, it might offer something up – the rubbery back of a whale, the glass-sharp glint of jumping mackerel – something. You wouldn't even know you were waiting till it came and you missed it. In the distance, something disrupted the surface of the glazed water – it was beautiful – beautiful to think it connected to him.

  He tugged, reeled, tugged. His mum said, "Oh my God." He couldn't make anything out in the grayness. When she said it the second time he saw it. Wings beating furiously. A seagull. Then he heard the high-pitched screeching. It sounded human, the intonations of a baby girl throwing a tantrum. He continued reeling, the rod stooping lower and lower as he dragged the bird ac
ross the water, through the chop and, at last, to the rocks. Now it was quiet.

  "Oh my God."

  His dad said, "Where's it hooked?"

  It had stopped moving. Jamie tried to lift the line but its body was wedged somehow, stuck in the rock scum.

  "It's dead," he said.

  It was enormous. Blood dyed the top of its plump breast, banded its neck – impossibly red against its white neck. Its webbed feet, limp in the wash, floated like old orange peel. He stepped toward it. The water shook its body. Then he saw, behind it, the sinuous, steely torso of a fish.

  "There's a snapper too," he said, twisting around. His mum was staring at him, her face peaked but utterly focused.

  "Bob," she said.

  "It's on the fixed hook," said Jamie.

  "Let him do it," said his dad.

  He took another step. Bent down, saw the second hook, the long shanked keeper sunk in above the wing. Barbed into its shoulder and still letting blood. He reached out and suddenly the gull lurched up, screaming, flailing its big wings. Its beak gaped open: he could see right down into its pink, tattered innards. The bird was terrified – leaking something that smelled like dog piss gone off, its shrill squawks corrugating in its throat. He looked into that violent white rush and knew he couldn't touch it. No way. He jerked back and pointed the rod, trying to poke it onto the rocks, but the pliant fiberglass tip spooked the creature even more.

  "Stop that," said his dad.

  "I'll unhook it," he said, but he didn't move.

  Michael stared at the bird, whose cries were tapering now to a dry rattle.

  His mum repeated, "Bob."

  His dad took the fishing rod from him. He squeezed Jamie's shoulder. "It's suffering, son. You understand?"

  He nodded, but he didn't know what he meant by doing that – nodding. The bird's wings were half splayed. He watched it for a long time, churning in the water's guts. He didn't move.

  A minute passed. Then he heard Michael digging around in the tackle box, mumbling to himself. He picked things up and threw them back in, metal-sounding. "Nope," he whispered under his breath. "Too blunt." A little later he handed something up to Jamie: a pair of scissors.

  His dad watched silently.

  So he'd have to hold it. With one hand. Should he hold its head or body? Those huge wings. The fish-flesh writhing behind it. He opened the scissors – so flimsy, with his fingers inside them. He crouched down and then it saw him – the yellow eye with its black heart-and let out a coarse shriek. That smell, that secretion of terror.

  "Come on," said his dad.

  "I could just cut the line," he said, not looking up.

  "You will not just cut the line," said his mum. She said it so scathingly he immediately pictured the bird flying with the nylon leader hanging from one wing, the ball sinker running up and down between the swivel and hook, weighting its body into a sinking spiral.

  "For Chrissake, Bob."

  "He's gotta do it himself."

  "Look at it." "It's his catch." His voice firmed. "He has to do it."

  Jamie bent down again. Then he stood up and backed off.

  "Jesus," said his dad. There was a weariness in his tone Jamie had never heard before.

  "He's crying," Michael pointed out to their parents. His voice was matter-of-fact but his face seemed itself close to tears.

  His mum didn't say anything to Jamie. She didn't look at him at all as she climbed down to the water's edge. She bent over and picked up the gull with both hands and laid it on a fiat rock. Then she sucked her lips into her mouth, lifted one of her Blund-stones, and stomped down on the gull's head, once, hard.

  ***

  The morning was blue when he awoke. Alison gone. Had she even been there? Somewhere on the water a radio dispersed its sound. Translucent sand crabs, the size of his fingernails, scurried over his shins. It was a dream. Last night had been a dream-her skin moving against her ribs, so thin over her body he could see the laddering of it. She rocked above him, coaxing her face out of the shadows. The star-drenched sky reeling. I got you, he said, when she slipped.

  Now, in the shock of early morning, he was wrenched back into his body. The rocks slimy with moss. The water ice-cold and molecular. Late in the night there 'd been thunder, and heat lightning – all night it had felt like it was minutes away from raining – but it hadn't rained. Already you could feel the day hotting up again. From some dark crevice the smell of a dead animal, rank and oversweet. That evening they'd laid the gull on the water and it was borne out, mutilate, into the gray drift. For hours – every time he'd looked back – he'd seen other gulls, dozens of them, circling in a silent gyre. Making black shapes out of themselves in the dusk sky. Then the light had failed. Here, he thought. He stood up, the soreness returning to him all at once. Here is the saddest place I know.

  ***

  IT WAS AFTERNOON by the time he got home. All morning he'd wandered the dunes and tidal flats – too spent to think – then, strange to his own intentions, he'd set eyes on the courthouse before him. Gone in, sat down in a cool, dim corner.

  At home there was a strange car in the driveway, a new-looking four-wheel drive. Out-of-towners. He watched from his bungalow as his dad came around the side of the house with two men. One wore mountain boots and a red polar fleece around his waist and walked quickly, keys in his fist. The other was a suit. His Brylcreemed hair cracking in the thirty-plus heat as he kept pace. They got into their car and did a three-point reverse and dusted down the driveway. His dad still standing by the front veranda. Two beer bottles sweating on the railing. He wore a short-brimmed hat and Jamie couldn't see his face.

  Tea was a quiet affair. Every now and then Michael looked at him furtively but otherwise they kept to themselves. Afterward, Jamie plastic-wrapped the leftovers and washed the dishes. Michael dried and stacked. They worked silently, waiting to see if their parents' voices would start up. Michael's studied silence beginning to get on Jamie's nerves. Their dad came out of the living room, grabbed two bottles of wine, and went back in.

  "They turned down the offer on the house," whispered Michael.

  "Who, Mum?"

  "Nah, the buyers."

  "Why?"

  But he wouldn't say any more. Jamie didn't push. Once, he'd caught Michael at the caravan park, wagging school, and hadn't said anything – he never knew whether it was out of loyalty or laziness. Once, he'd hit Michael in the mouth harder than he'd meant to and broken a tooth. I hate you, Michael had said, blood darkening the arches of his gum. It had only struck Jamie later that his brother might actually have meant it. That he might actually hate him. That he'd have reason. But Michael had calmed down, his face settling into an expression as smooth, cloudy as sea glass. He hadn't dobbed him in. They didn't talk to each other much, maybe, but they kept each other's secrets.

  The dishes were done and then there was nothing to do.

  At eleven that night his dad knocked on his door. He was holding an open wine bottle. His teeth shone chalky in the dark.

  "Your light's on," he said.

  "Sorry."

  He stood on the concrete steps of Jamie's bungalow, swaying a little. His shadow stretched out long behind him and hung over the acacia shrubs. "Looks like no one's sleeping tonight," he said. "Not your mum either." He looked up the drive at the dark house and smiled broadly. He only smiled like that when he was drunk. "She can probably hear us."

  "Dad."

  "I thought I might just. . ."he patted the air above the steps, "Do you mind ..." now hoisting his bottle – the staggering of statements confusing Jamie.

  They both sat down on the steps. His dad didn't seem to know what to do with the bottle: he clamped it between his two straightened palms, rolling it forward and back, then set it down with a loud chink.

  "Big game next week," he said at last.

  Jamie nodded. Unbidden, his mind cast back to the school assembly – he'd been onstage – could that really have been him onstage four days ago? That per
son seemed unrecognizable.

  His dad said, "Well, at least you won't have to move."

  "Those the buyers today?"

  His dad laughed. "We're all set, right? Then she tells them to bugger off. Calls the guy a tight-arse, says they can't even wait another couple of months." "A couple of months?" Jamie regretted it as soon as he said it. You couldn't talk about that. Not without talking about after. There was no after.

  "Sorry," he said.

  But this time something came into his dad's eyes. "No . . ." he said, "No, you should know." He glanced at the house again, then stared out into the garden. "A matter of months. That's what they told us in Maroomba." He spat on the ground away from Jamie. "It's her kidney. They can map it out like that. They're useless to fix anything but they can give you pinpoint bloody timelines."

  Jamie froze – it was as though he'd stalled. He heard his dad's words. He'd expected them-he'd hoarded himself, day after day, against them – but now, when they came, all he could think about, obscenely, was Dory. The black tablet of his face. He hated it. He hated himself for it.

  "I thought you should know," said his dad.

  He could tell him: Dad, I'm in trouble – it'd be that easy – Dad, it's Dory Townsend. He wanted to, but there was no way. He knew what his dad thought of him.

  "Does Michael know?"

  His dad shook his head. Finally he said, "It's tough enough for him already."

  The smell of wine was strong on his breath. They each waited for the other to speak. How did people speak about these things?

  His dad said, "You know you can't work these holidays."

  "Yeah, I know."

  "I need you around the house." He fell silent. "Good boy."

  After a time he said it again. "Good boy."

  "Dad?"

  "Yeah, son."

  But the distance was unthinkable. His dad took a swig from the bottle and patted Jamie's knee. He stood up, teetering with undelivered advice.

  "You been fishing."

  "Yeah. With Cale."