The Minnow

by Diana Sweeney

  ‘Really,’ says Jonah, ‘she said that?’

  ‘Yep,’ I answer.

  Jonah and I are making dinner. I’m peeling things and he’s cooking them.

  ‘She said she has had a few friends over the years who didn’t pass. She reckons that time apart is the key component to sorting the besties from the resties.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘No. She said “wheat from chaff”.’

  Jonah would love some chooks, but the flood took the sheds and most of the fencing. Bill has offered to help. Jonah said he would think about it.

  Bill and I hang out occasionally. Jonah doesn’t approve.

  Last night Bill and I went night fishing at the inlet. ‘If you’ve never been night fishing, you don’t know what you’re missing,’ Bill says to Jonah, who just nods. Jonah finds it hard to speak to Bill because he knows about the sex. He also knows I have half Bill’s baby inside me.

  I grab my new tackle box and hand it to Bill (because it’s heavy and I’m already carrying something of his).

  ‘Jeez, Tom,’ says Bill, as he feels the weight of my sinker collection.

  ‘Is it as heavy as gold?’ I ask him.

  ‘Reckon,’ he says.

  The tackle box is from the FishMaster Super Series, and you won’t believe it, but Mrs Peck gave it to me. I think Bill must have told her I was pregnant.

  ‘There you go, Tom,’ she said, her mouth all dry and clicking. As she handed it to me she suggested I look at all its features while she found Bill some line. It had been ages since Bill and I had been to Mingin’s Hardware and Disposals. Mrs Peck looked desperate, but before she could drag Bill into the paint aisle, old Mrs Beakle came tottering in on her walker.

  Mrs Peck rushed over to serve her. ‘Oh, hello dear,’ said Mrs Beakle, ‘I’m just after a few mousetraps.’ Mrs Peck went with her, shuffling along at Mrs Beakle’s pace, ‘…and a couple of plate holders.’

  Mrs Beakle took so long deciding between the freestanding or the wall-hanging plate holders that Bill decided to join them. ‘Is that you, Bill dear?’ Mrs Beakle asked when she noticed him. Bill quietly lifted the back of Mrs Peck’s skirt. Mrs Peck dropped one of the mousetraps and lent down to pick it up. ‘I think the free-standing should do the trick,’ said Mrs Beakle, taking one down from the shelf. Then all three of them shuffled to the cash register.

  By the time Mrs Peck had rung up the purchases, Bill looked ready to burst. Mrs Peck handed Mrs Beakle her change.

  ‘Bye bye, dear,’ said Mrs Beakle, forgetting all about Bill.

  ‘Bye bye, Mrs Beakle,’ said Mrs Peck’s mouth, squashed onto the counter.

  ‘I won’t keep her out too late,’ Bill says to Jonah as we leave the house. We walk through the dark to the inlet. Jonah waves to me from the window, me with half Bill’s baby inside me and he my best friend.

  It’s funny, the fish you throw back. I’m sitting on the pier thinking about this when a little catfish, who looks a lot like the Sarah catfish, leaps straight out of the water. But before she splashes back in, she starts singing happy birthday and that’s just like Sarah to remember. All the other fish at the inlet join in, until the splashing is so loud I can hardly hear the singing.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ Bill calls to me over the racket.

  But I can’t answer because I’m crying. I cry a lot these days.

  Dad taught me to swim. Then he taught me to dive.

  Diving can be scary if you don’t learn early. Dad always said Mum was a case-in-point. Apparently she had tried to learn in her twenties and she never really got the hang of it, always preferring to jump in, feet first, no matter how much Dad disapproved. ‘You’re a bad influence, Angie,’ he would shout from the bank. ‘Don’t watch, Tom.’

  But I always watched. I thought she looked beautiful, swinging out over the dark water at the end of the rope, jumping in with hardly a splash. Mum and Dad took turns swimming and minding the kids, but Dad would always take me with him when it was Mum’s turn to do the minding.

  I loved it. He was a strong swimmer and could breaststroke with me on his back, my arms around his neck. When I learned to hold my breath, we would play submarines, taking breaths on his count and plunging underwater. Mum never liked our games. She said we made her nervous.

  I haven’t been swimming anywhere but the pool since the flood. I fell in at Crabs Creek once, when Bill and I were fishing. I froze with fear. Bill had to haul me out.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask Bill when he hands me a small gift box. Bill has come to Jonah’s house to visit me and the Minnow, who is half Bill’s but is beginning to feel like half Jonah’s. It’s an odd feeling.

  Even odder is Jonah’s behaviour. Bill and he are being quite civil. I know the two of them had words the other night. Maybe they called a truce.

  ‘Open it,’ says Jonah. So I undo the ribbon and remove the lid. Inside is a tiny gold sinker on a chain. I place it in the palm of my hand and feel its weight.

  ‘Oh, Bill,’ is all I can say when I open my eyes.

  ‘It’s from Jonah, too,’ says Bill.

  Jonah grins at me. His face looks a bit awkward, and I realise he has kept this secret for a while. ‘Here,’ he says, gesturing to me. Jonah has pianist’s hands, long delicate fingers. He takes the necklace and clips it around my neck.

  The boatshed didn’t have a mirror but Jonah’s house has three. I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. The bathroom mirror is smallish, but private, and I stand in front of it for a long time. Then I flush the toilet and go back out to the kitchen.

  I am wearing the sinker the next time I go to Mingin’s Hardware and Disposals.

  ‘Well, what have you got there?’ asks Mrs Peck, licking her lips and probably thinking how much better the sinker would look on her.

  ‘I tell you what I’ve got,’ I say, lowering my voice and leaning close to her ear, ‘I’ve got half Bill’s baby inside me and if you ever speak to me again I’ll tell Mr Peck everything I know.’

  In the quiet that follows, I watch Mrs Peck’s mouth open and close. I notice little marks around her neck where she’s gotten herself all tangled in someone’s line. And that’s not all.

  ‘Here, let me get that for you, Mrs Peck,’ I say, and I pull a shiny FishMaster Super Series hook out of her ugly bottom lip.

  I haven’t left the house for a few days. Jonah says I’m nesting. I doubt it. I’ve just been mooching around. Mooching and pottering. Mum used to say they were one-and-the-same, but I disagree. Pottering is when you actually do something, like pottering in the garden, whereas mooching is when you’re thinking about it. I’m getting very good at both.

  Jonah cooked fish and mashed potato for dinner tonight. I washed up and now we’re sitting on the couch. Sometimes I wish we had a TV.

  ‘You say something?’ asks Jonah.

  ‘I’m tired,’ I say, ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

  I sleep in Jonah’s room. He sleeps in his parents’ room. I hear him crying some nights. We don’t talk about it.

  There’s a loud knock on the door. ‘We should make a run for it,’ shouts the Minnow, jabbing me in the ribs. ‘It’s the police.’

  I’m way too comfortable to move.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ says Jonah. He gives my belly a gentle pat before he gets up to answer the door.

  ‘Hello,’ says a man’s voice.

  ‘Hello,’ says Jonah.

  The man introduces himself and his partner. They’re detectives from West Wrestler. His partner is a woman.

  There’s a pause, then the woman asks, ‘Are you Jonah Whiting?’

  ‘Yes,’ answers Jonah.

  ‘Does a Holly Thomas live here?’ she continues.

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Can we come in?’ asks the man.

  The Minnow has stopped swimming and whispers to me to be quiet. I wait for someone to speak. Jonah breaks the silence.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘We’d rather speak to Holly,’
says the female voice.

  ‘Well, she’s asleep,’ says Jonah.

  The couch is old and soft with a really high back, so I’m invisible from the front door.

  ‘Okay,’ says the woman after a short pause, ‘we’ll come back another time.’

  ‘Can I tell her what it is about?’ asks Jonah.

  ‘It has to do with Bill Hamperton,’ says the man.

  ‘I hate Mrs Peck,’ I say, flopping onto Nana’s bed. Nana is sitting in her armchair, reading or doing the crossword, I can’t tell which.

  ‘I’d rather you used an alternative to the hate word,’ she says, throwing me her thesaurus.

  I open it and choose a few that I like. ‘Abhor, despise, detest, loathe. Be hostile to, have an aversion to, recoil from…’

  ‘Tom! Stop being annoying and fetch me another snifter,’ she says. ‘And don’t tell.’ I sit up and feel around under her pillows until my hand finds the bottle.

  I love Nana. I love Papa, too.

  Jonah thinks it’s strange that I love someone who died before I was born. When I told him that I also loved the Minnow and that, strictly speaking, I hadn’t met her yet, Jonah rolled his eyes.

  ‘Well, Jonah, that’s profound,’ I said, letting him know that I clocked the eye-roll. It annoys me that someone as smart as Jonah can be so narrowly matter-of-fact sometimes.

  ‘Profound?’ he said.

  I could tell he was irritated with the word, but I didn’t care. I love it. I also love the word ravenous, but profound is up there as one of my favourites. So I let it hang. I’m much better than he is at taking the high ground.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Jonah said, after a lengthy silence, ‘it’s different.’

  Different. The extent of Jonah’s argument.

  ‘Of course it’s different,’ I replied, giving the word the same emphasis. ‘But if I’m honest, Jonah, I’d have expected you, of all people, to understand.’

  Anyway, where was I? Oh, that’s right: Nana.

  Nana is the best. She is wise and warm and totally adorable. Right now she’s throwing back her fourth gin. Neat. Before lunch. Bill says she’s pickled.

  She used to smoke but she was told to stop, so she did. Just like that. ‘If you had told me it would be that easy,’ she had said to Dr Frank, ‘I would have given up sooner. Nasty things. Don’t you ever smoke, Tom.’ No one’s game enough to ask her to stop drinking.

  ‘Some detectives came to see me,’ says Nana.

  I say nothing.

  ‘Anything wrong, darling?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

  I want to tell her that I miss the morning swims at the public pool and rock fishing at Crabs Gully and getting soaked-to-misery. But sometimes it’s easier to lie.

  ‘I’m fine, Nana,’ I answer.

  Nana knows I’m lying, but she trusts me. The thing is, everyone else seems to think I’m fragile, but Nana knows I’m tough.

  ‘Tom, darling,’ says Nana, interrupting my thoughts and handing me an empty vase, ‘be a pet and fetch some ice.’

  I walked down to the inlet by myself the other night. Jonah was asleep.

  ‘Hi Bill,’ I said.

  ‘G’day Tom.’

  ‘Anything biting?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  We sat together, me with half his baby inside me and him with no one.

  ‘Want some line?’

  ‘I miss you, Bill.’

  ‘Miss you too, champ.’

  ‘I wish I had my FishMaster.’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ It was Jonah, looking for me. ‘I was worried.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I just miss stuff.’

  Jonah doesn’t fish. He can eat it, he just can’t hook it. Says he feels awful when they look up at him. I know what he means, but if I said that to Bill he’d call me a sissy.

  Jonah’s not a sissy. He’s just a gentle person who’s not afraid to live with contradictions. I wanted to say ‘antithesis’ just then, but I couldn’t work it in. Mavis (from Nana’s home) says I have ‘an inquiring mind that craves expansion’ and gave me her thesaurus. The Minnow loves it. Her favourite word so far is ‘cornucopia’. It’s one of the words listed under ‘profusion’ (which is on the same page as ‘profound’).

  I can’t believe I haven’t told you about the pet shop.

  Fielder’s Pets and Supplies. It’s on the same street as the pool and the courthouse and right next door to the pub and it’s the only pet shop in town. There used to be three, but the other two closed down after the flood. I think Mrs Blanket was the only one who had insurance.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Blanket,’ I say, letting the screen door bang behind me.

  Mrs Blanket waves to me from the counter. ‘Hi, Tom. Long time, no see.’

  ‘Yep,’ I say. I visit every week, sometimes more than once. But, I know what she means.

  Mrs Blanket doesn’t mention the Minnow.

  After a minute or so, she goes back to whatever it was she was doing, leaving me to browse.

  The bird cages are along the left wall, the fish tanks are along the right, and down the middle of the shop is an assortment of cages with rabbits and guinea pigs and mice. I walk slowly past the fish, letting the Minnow have a look, pausing every now and then to admire something special. But the best is at the back, and Mrs Blanket knows it: a mini-aquarium with a statue of liberty and four giant carp. Mrs Blanket almost lost them in the flood when the rising waters threatened to spill into their tank. From the mud on the pet shop walls, you can tell it got close. Everything else drowned or was washed away. I often wonder if the carp saw Sarah. She could have rounded the fire station, doubled back down Wesley Street, crossed over the park and come up through the lane and in the back door of the pet shop. I’ve asked the carp a few times, even described her in case she didn’t give her name. But they’re not speaking.

  ‘They’re getting even bigger, Mrs Blanket.’

  ‘I reckon you’re right, Tom,’ she says, staring at them, beaming with pride.

  ‘Which one’s Oscar again?’ I ask, not because I’ve forgotten; he’s unforgettable.

  ‘This is my darling Oscar,’ she says and points to the most magnificent silvery-white fish whose enormous eyes are circled in blue.

  ‘Look at that,’ I whisper to the Minnow.

  ‘I think he’s dying,’ she whispers back.

  ‘What’s the matter, Tom?’ asks Mrs Blanket.

  I’m fast asleep and dreaming about the police. They’re at the front door, again, having another conversation with Jonah. Only this time they’re sounding a bit irritated.

  ‘Look, we really need you to bring her in,’ says a voice.

  ‘Otherwise, we could be forced to use force,’ says another.

  I hear the front door close. Open my eyes. Realise it wasn’t a dream.

  Jonah walks to my door, which is really his door, seeing as I’m sleeping in his room. ‘You awake?’

  I don’t answer. I keep my breathing steady. The Minnow doesn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Okay, Tom, I’ll buy it,’ says Jonah, ‘but they’re getting insistent.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, out loud.

  ‘Me too,’ says the Minnow, just to me.

  ‘Get up and I’ll make you breakfast.’

  ‘You hear that,’ I say to the Minnow, ‘he’s making us breakfast.’

  ‘Hungry?’ calls Jonah as he walks the three steps to the tiny kitchen.

  ‘Ravenous!’ the Minnow and I call back in unison. The Minnow loves the word ‘unison’. She says it describes us perfectly.

  ‘Forced to use force,’ I say halfway through my toast and eggs.

  ‘Knew you were awake,’ says Jonah, as he puts more bread under the grill. I pour us both a cup of tea.

  ‘Jonah.’

  ‘Yes, Tom.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For being my best friend. And for letting the Minnow a
nd me move in.’

  Papa had only just turned fifty when he died in a boating accident, almost thirty years ago. I overheard Nana telling Mavis that she thought it was ironic when Mum, Dad and Sarah also drowned. I’m not sure I agree with her choice of word. I looked up ‘ironic’ in the thesaurus and I don’t like the alternatives any better. I prefer ‘tragic’. Tragic has a much better list of alternatives, like ‘ill-fated’ and ‘heartbreaking’.

  Papa says I shouldn’t worry. He says Nana was probably referring to the role water played in all of their deaths. Whatever. I still don’t agree with her—especially as Papa told me he didn’t actually drown. He got caught in the propeller. Apparently he was a real mess, and when Mum had to identify his body she decided to keep the truth to herself.

  I can’t be sure, but I think I saw Mum once. Bill and I were fishing at Crabs Gully and we kept seeing someone scuttling around the rocks. On our way home, Bill spotted a piece of fabric in one of the shallow pools, in the direction we had seen the person heading. Bill grabbed a stick and fished it out. When we got home we rinsed off the mud and laid it out in front of the pot belly. As it dried it filled the boatshed with the faintest smell of honeysuckle. Mum’s smell. It wasn’t a hanky, as we’d first thought, but one of the pockets from Mum’s gardening apron. She must have left it for me to find, so I’d know she wasn’t far. Papa says he hasn’t seen her yet. Sometimes, he says, it takes time.

  Most days, Papa hangs out at the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly. He says he likes the company. Plus, everyone has one of his photos, so he feels like a bit of a legend.

  The Minnow has a habit of prodding me awake. She is doing it now, and I’m trying my best to ignore her. The bigger I get, the more sleep I need, the more she prods. Right now, her fin is poking me in the ribs.

  ‘Ow,’ I groan, ‘stop it.’

  ‘There’s someone at the door,’ she whispers. ‘It might be the police.’

  ‘What should I do, Papa?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to speak to them sooner or later,’ he answers.