by Carmody, Sam
His aunt had talked a lot on the drive but she wasn’t one for conversing. She spoke at him and answered her own questions. There was a persistent anger in her talk that had sustained the five hundred kilometres they had driven. Paul had learnt it was better to keep quiet. There wasn’t much to say, anyway. He had never liked her and he knew she cared little for him. It was obvious that she figured she was doing him and his parents some kind of grand favour. Easing the burden on them all. Going out of her way. He found it hard to even look at her.
Paul searched for another station but only found static. Ruth knocked his hand aside and clicked the radio off. Outside the bush murmured. Ruth tapped out an agitated beat on the steering wheel with her thumb, and briefly lifted herself in her seat, trying to lengthen her torso to see beyond the cars ahead. She was desperate to see it, whatever it was that waited for them up the road.
I mean, the stress of it all, she continued, the monologue into its second hour. It is making me ill. You do understand this? Thyroid’s had it. I’m expanding like a force-fed duck. Shingles on my fucking arse.
Paul sighed.
Think that’s a real laugh, do you? she said.
Paul shook his head, turned towards the window.
You do, she said. You think it’s funny that I’ve got these shingles.
No.
I’d crack you one. I swear I would knock you back in time.
I don’t think it’s funny.
Well it isn’t. Hurts like nothing else. It’s making me depressed. That’s how bad the pain is. Ruth breathed out. God’s way of telling you you’ve got too much on your plate. That’s what the doc said. Take it easy, Ruth, he said. If he only knew the half of it. The shit I’ve got to deal with.
A police car howled by them in the opposite lane, rushing towards where the highway swept left, hidden behind thicker, darker bush. It was followed seconds later by another. The traffic was now at a complete stop. Music pumped from the P-plated hatchback in front of them. There was the low throb of a bass drum and the sharp, repetitive refrain of a synthesiser.
It’s weird for a boy to not have his licence. And at your age. What are you? Eighteen?
Seventeen.
It’s queer. People will think there’s something not right with you.
I wanted to take the bus.
Even queerer, she said. Who takes the fucking bus? Junkies and paedophiles. And you don’t look like a junkie. You’ve got that going for you. Do you want people to think you’re a paedophile? They do come as young as you. That is a fact.
The hatchback in front creaked and shuddered with each beat. Paul could just make out a girl in the back seat with straightened hair and large black sunglasses. She was laughing at someone or something out of view.
Ruth shifted in her seat again. God, it’s a circus out here, she muttered. The boys are right. A fucking dam has broken.
Paul didn’t say it but he too thought it was strange. The dense procession of overloaded cars and trailers had been with them the entire trip north from Perth. It was a Friday afternoon but it wasn’t a public holiday or long weekend. Christmas was still nearly two months away. He guessed it might be the university crowd, clearing out of the city post-exams.
I told your mother I didn’t have room. I used to have room but I have Jake there now and I told your mother that I don’t have room anymore. She said it was good enough of me to drive down to get you. That you didn’t need a room.
I called the hostel, Paul said.
The hostel will be closed by the time we get there.
They said they’d leave the door unlocked.
Jake doesn’t need any more trouble, Ruth said.
Paul was looking out the window but he felt the look she gave him.
In the side mirror he had noticed a white four-wheel drive that looked a lot like his brother’s. There were the same yellowed circles of rust on the bonnet, and the roof was laden with gear, perched high enough that you’d think a strong wind might blow the whole lot over. Elliot would have driven this stretch of the Brand Highway countless times, the Pajero packed heavy like a gypsy caravan. Paul had never gone with him. There had been school or his shifts at the supermarket. Even if he could have gone with his brother, he would have found reasons not to.
Wonder if anyone survived it, Ruth said. She pinched at a pale, freckly patch of skin high up on her arm, clamping the flesh between her thumbnail and forefinger. Could just be cleaning it all up, Ruth said. Wish someone would tell us what the fuck is going on.
Out the driver-side window, looking east and inland, the horizon was a sad, purplish mirage, the ridgeline rendered two-dimensional by distance like the painted horizon of a movie set. Leading to nothingness. Dead-ended. Paul glanced again into his mirror and caught the silhouette of the driver of the Pajero, and for a moment he saw Elliot at the wheel, staring out at those same paddocks. He felt a grim tightness in his stomach.
There was the shuddering drone of a helicopter above them. His aunty fell back again into her seat and exhaled, long and loud.
Elliot had been happy to travel alone. It was probably the thing Paul least understood about his brother, the way that they were most different, that Elliot could withstand that kind of isolation, be all alone in truly remote places. And he did it often, too.
When his brother was away, Paul often found himself entering the bedroom at the end of the hallway with a kind of tourist’s nosiness. Ringo had sometimes followed him, becoming more interested in Paul’s comings and goings than usual, as if the dog could sense that he was up to no good.
The room had the dank smell of sea things, long dead, and the bubblegum scent of surfboard wax. Paul had more than once rummaged through Elliot’s bottom drawer. Amid the thicket of expired cards and broken watches and empty aftershave bottles, there were odd treasures, the stuff of a life that he knew was far more exotic than his own. A shark tooth on a chain that had been given to Elliot by their grandmother. Maps of islands below India called the Sentinels, fingers of land engulfed in the blue of the Indian Ocean. Paul would return to an envelope he had found. In it was a photograph of a short, thin girl: Tess. She was naked, her dark hair falling forward over her angular shoulders and only partially covering her breasts, wearing the halo of a camera flash reflected in the mirror behind her. The collection of things in Elliot’s room had always tantalised him, and with each search he had grown more reckless. He’d lit cigarettes and sipped at a miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He’d once found a packet of condoms and put one on, felt the starchy powder between his fingers. He knew there was a kind of madness to it. He would often catch his reflection in the long mirror on the cupboard door, see the embarrassment and disappointment on the face staring back at him, and he would wonder who was accusing whom. Ringo gave him that look too, the old dog studying him between naps on the carpeted floor.
Almost an hour passed before they were moving again. A policeman sat against the bonnet of his car, parked across the highway lanes. He waved the traffic towards a fire break that ran parallel to the road. They drove down the narrow overgrown track. Grass brushed underneath the LandCruiser. On one side of them eucalypts lined the road like a curtain. Paul could still see bitumen between the trees, the broad highway eerie in its emptiness. Further up there were lights and the grim cordon of emergency vehicles. Ruth leant so far forward in her seat she was almost up against the windscreen, eyes narrowed, peering through the leaves. Paul caught a glimpse of an ambulance officer on her knees beside a twist of metal and he looked away, stared out his window and into the white light of a field. The paddock was barren apart from a few strange trees. Dwarf trees, bent and bowed, their gnarled grey branches leaning north. Some had grown completely twisted to the ground. The wind, Paul guessed.
Beside him with her eyes still on the highway, a spectator enthralled, Ruth gasped.
We set up camp in flat country near Cobar. Dead arse tingling from the day’s riding. Hard to sleep in the winter desert. The rocky groun
d like a freezer block. Feeling like a corpse in your swag. Harder to sleep with what lies ahead. It is impossible this. What the President is wanting us to do. Go from coast to coast, east to west. Six thousand kilometres across the country. So many who would shoot us on sight.
But it feels inevitable too. The President has that way about him. Like there is no stopping what we started.
At sea
PAUL HAD BEEN IN STARK NO MORE than four hours.
Ruth had dropped him at the hostel near midnight, the front of the building unlit when he arrived. There were signs of backpackers, the beach towels and t-shirts on the wooden rail of the veranda twisting and thrashing in the gale, but there was no movement from inside. The reception area was closed when he entered and most of the lights were off. There was no one about except for a girl leaning against the bench in the small kitchen, eating cereal and reading. Paul made a sandwich using bread from a loaf on the bench and a crusted jar of honey he found in the pantry. He then went to the dorm, sat down on the bottom bunk that was left free, tried to eat as quietly as he could by the small light above his bed. Listening to the breaths and snores of strangers behind the curtains that hung across each bunk. For the few hours until his alarm went off he lay on top of the stiff sheets, his bum numb from the seven-hour drive, his mind alive with thoughts, kept awake by the frenzied song of the wind and rain against the window.
Now, standing at the kerb in the predawn, the town was black around him. He barely recognised it. In the dark the place seemed almost shrunken, the inlet smaller, the town flatter. It just wasn’t like he remembered it from when he was younger. A terrible, howling wind blew from the inlet, smelling of rotting seaweed. The rain fell in jagged panes. Paul held his damp backpack to his chest, under his jacket.
A ute rounded the corner, headlights tunnelling through the sea mist. It pulled a skiff on a trailer. Paul raised his arm in a wave. The vehicle stopped. Paul had started to walk around the bonnet to the passenger door when there was a whistle from inside. He looked through the windscreen into the gloom of the cabin. Jake peered out at him from under the hood of a jumper.
In the boat, he yelled through the open window. And keep your head down. Don’t need a fucking fine.
Paul stepped on the hub of the trailer, dropped his bag in first then clambered over the lip of the dinghy. The walls of the boat were low and he tried to lie as flat as he could but there were things in the hull, lumpy objects with hard edges, and he couldn’t make them out. He touched one with his hand and felt its icy damp. He felt around for his backpack and pulled it to him, but found it was soaked, creamy and slick under his fingers. He put his hand to his nose, smelt the stink of fish blood and almost heaved. The ute set off and the boat jolted and bucked on the trailer. Another sheet of rain slapped over him. He leant back into the frozen bed of bait boxes. The sky above was a dense, shapeless dark.
After a few minutes the ute slowed and then stopped. The engine idled. There was an accented voice and then the closing of a car door. The trailer lurched and they were off again. He felt jittery, lying there. A sort of edginess he couldn’t put his finger on. Exhaustion, he figured, or the putrid cold on his skin. Whatever it was, he felt weak and empty, and as though each bump in the road was shaking him loose.
It wasn’t long until the drone of bitumen ended and they were on sand. The trailer squeaked and rocked. The boat swayed. Paul raised his head as they slowed again. The ute groaned, revving hard as the load was manoeuvred. The skiff was reversed down towards the water. When the vehicle stopped he climbed out.
The inlet seethed with chop and spray. Jake and the deckhand stood at the water’s edge, staring at the clouds dark and knotted above them. Out past the sandy spit of the rivermouth, Paul could see the glow of surf. He could hear it too, a seismic rumbling that he expected to feel in the ground under his feet.
The deckhand, thin-armed and blond, not much older than Paul, signalled as the skiff was backed further down the bank. He shielded a cigarette under the crook of his arm and winced at the sea spray in his eyes. But he was grinning, a proper joyful smile, despite the wind and the mouldering stink of the rivermouth and the thunder of the surf, and Paul assumed he must be drug-fucked. The trailer submerged and as the back wheels of the ute touched the water the deckhand gave a shout and held his palm up. The ute halted. Jake jumped out and threw the keys to the younger man before hauling himself into the boat with a grunt.
Okay, the deckhand yelled to Paul. You with Jake.
Paul stood, unsure what he meant.
Fucking now! Jake shouted. Get in so the German can give it a shove!
Paul scrambled once again over the rim of the skiff, back into the foul wet. The German leant against the nose of the boat and pushed it free of the trailer. Paul watched him scamper up the dark beach as they drifted out. The small boat reared and jerked in the water. Spray whipped over them. Paul hid his head under his jacket arm. The older man swore. On the shore, the ute’s headlights streamed over seaweed, pot floats and dune scrub before turning off the beach. Jake tilted the outboard from the water and pulled hard at the cord. The motor gave a startled growl and went silent. In the purple light Paul studied the look on the man’s face. The eyes were wide, staring at the outboard with a kind of desperation. Teeth gritted and lips flattened. It was a look somewhere between contempt and repulsion. Anger and fear.
Hi, Paul said.
Right, Jake said, and pulled at the cord again. Fuck this!
The boat dipped and the river cast more water over them.
Paul yelled into the breeze. This is my first time out.
I know. Jake ripped at the cord once more and the motor cried out. You’ve picked some day . . . The words trailed off under the grunt and sputter of the outboard and the moan of the wind.
They bumped across to the jetty where the German was waiting, holding a packet of tobacco and a red thermos. The deckhand climbed down into the skiff and sat at the bow. He yawned and then smiled out into the dark. The three of them made their way into the inlet where the boats were huddled together in deeper water, hulking silhouettes that wrenched and nodded on their moorings. It was a short stretch from the riverbank but it was miserable going. Jake cringed and swore at each pitch of the bow, at every shower of brackish water.
As they neared the moorings, Paul could see the flicker of lights on a few of the cray boats and the shadows moving about on their long decks. There were names tattooed on each bow. Lady Stark. Hell Cat. Nun’s Nasty and Blue Murder. Jake cut the outboard when they pulled up against the vast side of Arcadia. The German hurried the rope around the brass bollards of the cray boat then gestured for Paul to climb up. The skiff reared and kicked, battering the walls of Arcadia like a riled bull. Paul hesitated. Jake grumbled. When the skiff bucked again Paul jumped, scrambling up and over, landing on the carpeted deck on his belly, breathing hard. Jake climbed up behind him. The German stood wide-legged in the skiff and passed up the sagging boxes of bait. At one moment he thumped a hand down on the rim of the small boat, just keeping himself from going in, and grinned wildly.
When the bait was loaded, the German tied the skiff to the moor and clambered onto the deck. Inside the cabin Jake put the kettle on. Paul crouched beside the bait. He pulled back the clear tape from one of the greasy cardboard boxes and again almost vomited at the flash of scales and purple eyes and reeking stench. The German squatted with him under the lights of the deck to quarter the silver bream, slipping the long knife through the fish with such nonchalant ease that he might be slicing oranges. Paul turned away and gulped in the sour air of the inlet. He looked beyond the twisting mouth of the river, past the white boil of the inshore reefs and out to the shadowy scowl of the horizon.
Alright, Jake sighed, stepping out from the cabin. He closed his eyes for a moment before settling a glare on Paul. You listen to the German here. We’re not going to have time to fiddle around and show you what’s what. You keep your eyes on the job and you work hard. While you�
�re on this boat you’re busting your arse. Not here to fluff about.
Yep, Paul said.
Yep, Jake mimicked, unsmiling. Hope your head’s screwed on. There’s a million and one ways it can all go to shit out there.
Paul nodded.
Jake pointed to the circular steel head of the winch at Paul’s back. If the German rips a pot in too hard and it leaps into the boat, and you’re pissing about in front of that winch, you’re gone.
Paul looked at the taut face of the skipper, at the slight spasm of his jaw, the swollen vein on his temple. He spoke like he was trying to hold his whole body together, so tense he just might fizz over, spitting into oblivion like an aspirin.
It’s going to be ugly water, he said. Keep the rope off your legs or you’ll go over. Don’t fuck about with the winch or I swear to God it will take your arm clean off. You listen to the German. You listen to me. He gave Paul a long stare. Just fucking pay attention.
Yes, Paul replied.
And don’t use the shitter, Jake said, flicking a hand towards the white booth on the outside wall of the cabin. It’s buggered. If you have to, you piss or dump over the side.
He stepped back inside the cabin and left Paul and the smiling German to the pong of the bait and the hostile company of the breeze. For a moment Paul thought about the broken toilet, trying to imagine how one would keep their balance squatting on the low wall of the cray boat, bum dangling over the sea. He pictured Jake, grim-faced on the gunwale, arse poised above deep water.
On the shore there was still no sign of the sun but it had lightened just enough that Paul could see the caravan parks and bed-and-breakfasts that crowded the banks of the rivermouth. Behind those, spied in glimpses down darkened streets, there was something like suburbia.
Jake climbed up onto the bridge with his coffee flask. The diesels announced themselves with a thought-clearing rumble and the huge deck began to vibrate. Paul felt the tremor of the engines in his body, rattling through the hollowness of his stomach. They taxied out to where the river gave way to the sea through a narrow gap between the sandbank and the churn of a reef. Paul looked back along the broad creamy wake to the paradoxical vision of the town. A mess of new and old. Smooth and rough. Shiny and dull. There were the bright rendered walls of the resort on the headland and then the yellowed brick of the TAB further down the inlet. Ruler-straight tropical palms and twisted dwarf trees. He saw the buttery light from a hotel-room window and wished like hell he was in there. Or even in that musty bed in the hostel.
