The Minnow

by Diana Sweeney

  Once I was safely in the tinny, Sergeant Griffin handed me a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. ‘Here kid,’ he said. ‘Get that into ya.’ I’ve never liked peanut butter, but Nana says hunger is the best ingredient in any dish. That’s not really a saying; it’s just an observation.

  Sergeant Griffin spent all day Monday ferrying people to the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly, which was high and dry on the hill above town. It became a sort of emergency centre, and some of the residents had to be sedated because they couldn’t cope with the intrusion. I was lucky. Nana showered me, dressed me in her flannel pyjamas, wrapped me in her arms and rocked me to sleep. For the next two weeks I ate, slept, cried and waited for Mum and Dad and Sarah to collect me and take me home.

  Sergeant Griffin arrived one morning and told Nana that the house had been washed away. There was an emergency fund, he said, that would help with expenses. And the public pool was full of fish.

  ‘You want to come along, Tom?’ he asked. ‘Help us get them out?’

  Nana looked at me and nodded.

  ‘Yes, thanks Sergeant Griffin, but I don’t have any clothes.’

  ‘It’s fancy dress,’ said Sergeant Griffin.

  Nana said I could wear anything I wanted. She suggested her blue checked dress and Betsy Groot said I could borrow her fish brooch. But I’d never worn a dress in my life. So, instead, I wore Mr Greerman’s grey-and-green striped pyjamas. Mr Greerman only ever wears pyjamas and he has an extensive collection. In fact, he has so many pairs of pyjamas that he houses them in a capacious wardrobe.

  Okay, I made up the bit about the wardrobe. I just wanted to use the word ‘capacious’. It’s one of the alternatives for ‘extensive’ and Mr Wo (James) has been encouraging me to expand my repertoire. ‘Repertoire’ is listed in Nana’s thesaurus under ‘repertory’. My thesaurus leaps straight from ‘repercussion’ to ‘repetition’.

  Mrs Blanket is so devastated when Oscar dies, she closes the shop. Just for the day, not forever. The Minnow and I are standing outside, peering through the front window. But we can’t see anything because of all the clutter in the middle isle. Under the ‘closed’ sign on the door, Mrs Blanket has written ‘death in the family’.

  ‘The Minnow knew he was dying,’ I tell Jonah that night over dinner.

  ‘Tom, you gotta be careful who you say that kind of stuff to,’ says Jonah.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Jonah is often like this. Mr Concerned. I tease him sometimes. ‘So, Mr Concerned,’ I say, ‘what do you think about the situation in Afghanistan?’ Jonah will usually start to smile. ‘Really?’ I say, pretending he has answered. Then I continue, ‘So, Mr Concerned, do you have an opinion on the money crisis?’ I keep on going until I’ve made him laugh.

  ‘I’m serious,’ says Jonah. ‘You’re not in the best situation.’

  ‘Not in the best situation? Wow, Jonah, that’s awesome.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ Jonah says, because now I’m crying and we haven’t finished dinner. ‘I worry about you. What are you going to do when the Minnow arrives? Where are you going to live? What are you going to use for money?’

  I can’t listen anymore and I get up from the table and go to my room. Jonah’s room. And I’m upset because he’s right. I don’t even have my own room.

  ‘Tom,’ Jonah says. He’s standing outside my door—his door. ‘Tom, can I come in?’

  The weather’s quite warm, which is lucky because none of my clothes fit. Jonah says I look beautiful. No one around here has ever shown off their belly before, and everyone has been quite lovely, touching it and putting their ear over my bellybutton to listen to my little Minnow swimming around.

  The police station is really a house. It is cream and white, with a half-porch out the front. You don’t have to knock— even though there’s a big brass knocker on the front door.

  Mum used to say that if we were a bad town, there’d be more than one cop. She used to say Sergeant Griffin was proof enough. Nana always says ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’, but I’m not sure how that relates to Sergeant Griffin.

  He looks up as I enter and smiles. ‘Well, speak of the devil.’

  ‘Hi, Sergeant Griffin,’ I reply.

  ‘We were just talking about you,’ he says and he’s nodding across to the couch. I turn and follow his eyes and there are two people, a man and a woman. I don’t know them, which means I have no idea why they would be talking about me.

  ‘These people are from West Wrestler,’ he continues, ‘and they want to ask you a few questions about Bill.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Bill in ages,’ I say. My voice sounds shaky.

  ‘There’s something wrong,’ whispers the Minnow.

  ‘I know,’ I say back.

  ‘What’s that?’ asks the woman. But I don’t answer. Something strange is happening. I think I should probably sit down.

  ‘She doesn’t look too good,’ the woman says to the man.

  ‘Something’s wrong!’ shouts the Minnow, and I know everyone can hear her because all three are staring at me.

  ‘Quick,’ says the woman, ‘call an ambulance, her waters have broken.’

  The Crossing is too small to have a hospital. Well, that’s not exactly true; it has a hospital building, just no one in it. After the flood, only about half our population was left and we didn’t qualify for funding. There’s a sort of hospital at the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly, but it can’t do procedures. Nana had to have a procedure and they had to take her to the Mater Women’s Hospital in West Wrestler. It’s a really big town with two hospitals, one just for women. That’s where they’re taking me. The Minnow and I are in the police car. The police woman is driving. Fast. It’s three hundred and twenty kilometres to West Wrestler and we’re going to make it in less than ninety minutes. It would’ve taken too long to wait for an ambulance.

  Jonah’s grandfather, Jonathan Whiting, is Nana’s best friend. He’s younger than Nana and she calls him her spring chicken. She flaunts the friendship in front of Papa

  Jonathan is a keen gardener and that’s how their friendship started. He used to help Nana with the awkward stuff. She was very independent and got angry with him if he tried to do too much. She was famous for not speaking to him for two whole months after she came home from work to find he’d trimmed the hedge. It looked beautiful. All neat and square at the edges, with a gentle inward curve at the front gate. But the hedge had been Papa’s job. Nana didn’t really like the way it was going to the dogs, but that wasn’t the point. The more unruly the hedge, the more everyone noticed that Jude Seth Wolkoff was dead. The hedge had been testament to her loss.

  ‘He was just being helpful.’

  ‘He didn’t know.’

  ‘You can’t blame him.’

  ‘For god’s sake, Valerie, forgive the poor man.’

  It didn’t matter what her friends said. She was too upset. She closed all the curtains at the front of the house so she wouldn’t accidentally see the hedge in all its neatness. The neighbours didn’t dare say anything because they rather liked Jonathan’s handiwork. Most of them hadn’t appreciated the hedge’s deterioration. In fact, Nana told me that she’d overheard the next-door neighbours saying as much to a real-estate agent. They wanted to sell and move closer to their daughter, and they thought the state of Nana’s hedge might threaten their sale. Apparently the agent had agreed, saying that the hedge had the potential to lower the tenor of the neighbourhood.

  ‘What’s a ‘tenor’? I’d asked Nana.

  ‘Don’t interrupt,’ she’d replied, ‘I’m on a roll.’

  Just like me, Jonah has only one living relative.

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ says the Minnow.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ the nurse asks me.

  ‘I need my thesaurus and my dictionary,’ I answer. ‘Jonah can bring them,’ I add. Luckily, my waters didn’t actually break. I have a weak membrane or something. Anyway, I’ve stopped lea
king and I’m hooked up to a drip which is putting the water back in.

  The Minnow has settled down for a nap.

  ‘Dr Patek will be in to see you at about six,’ says the nurse, as she leaves my room.

  ‘She’s a bit weird,’ I say to Papa, who has been with me since this morning.

  I have a phone next to my bed. It rings. ‘That’ll be Nana,’ says Papa.

  ‘Hello, Tom speaking.’

  ‘Hello, darling,’ says Nana. I wink across to Papa to let him know he is right. ‘That lovely nurse put me straight through, said you have your own phone and everything.’

  ‘And my own bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, my,’ she says to me. ‘She has her own bathroom,’ I hear her relay to someone. I hear Jonathan’s gentle laugh.

  ‘Hi, Jonathan,’ I say via Nana.

  Papa’s face squelches.

  ‘Hi, Holly.’

  Nana has put her hand over the phone and she’s saying something to Jonathan. She finishes whatever she’s saying— probably admonishing Jonathan for calling me Holly—and clears her throat. There is a long silent pause. Nana and I never speak on the phone. Bill’s boatshed didn’t have a phone, and Jonah’s house used to have one but it hasn’t been reconnected.

  ‘How’s the Minnow?’ Nana sounds relieved that she has thought of a question.

  ‘She’s sleeping,’ I answer. ‘They’re putting in more water, so she’ll be swimming around in no time,’ I add. If Nana says something back we’ll be having a conversation.

  ‘The nurse who answered the phone. What’s her name?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Nana,’ I say, ‘but I can find out.’

  Nana likes to know names. She’d like to get off the phone and show off to Jonathan and Mavis and Betsy Groot and say nurse Tamsin says this and nurse Tamsin says that. I don’t know if the nurse’s name is Tamsin, I’m just making that up.

  ‘Well…’ Nana says.

  ‘Thanks for calling, Nana,’ I say.

  ‘Okay, dear.’

  ‘Nana, can you ask Jonathan to ask Jonah to bring my thesaurus and dictionary?’

  ‘All right dear, but remember you’re a long way from The Crossing. I’m not sure how Jonah will get there.’

  ‘But I need my thesaurus and dictionary,’ I say, borrowing the Minnow’s whiny voice.

  ‘Okay, dear. I’ll see what I can do.’

  There is an enormous fish tank at the entrance to the maternity ward. If you take the lift, it’s the first thing you see as the doors open. ‘Thanks to all the staff, with gratitude and love, the Spencer family’ says a small brass plaque. It has a sad tone to it. Like someone’s missing.

  The tank is home to numerous fish, about a hundred tiny snails with red and brown striped shells, some pretty awful plastic weed and one lone turtle. None of the fish are talking, which makes me think of something Oscar said. ‘The tank’s full of mixens,’ says the little turtle.

  ‘Mixens?’ I say, hoping he will explain.

  ‘Dunghill,’ he answers. For a turtle, he is being extremely unhelpful.

  ‘Shit,’ he adds. I don’t know if he is explaining or swearing. I wait to see if he’s going to elaborate and, when he doesn’t, I decide that he is what Papa would call a smart-arse.

  Papa says the best thing about smart-arses is they usually give themselves away pretty early.

  ‘Uh huh,’ I say, ‘…well, we were just passing.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ he says.

  I almost don’t want to leave; he is such a complete tosser.

  On Saturday morning, Mr Wo and Jonah drive all the way to West Wrestler to visit me and the Minnow. Jonah promised to bring my thesaurus and dictionary and Mr Wo is bringing me some schoolwork.

  Jonah arrives first; Mr Wo has stopped at the cafeteria.

  I wish Mr Wo hadn’t asked me to call him James. Do I call him Mr Wo when he is visiting as my teacher? It’s starting to do my head in.

  I ask Jonah about it and he tells me he only refers to James as Mr Wo on school property. I smell something fishy.

  ‘On school property?’ I reply in a singsong voice.

  ‘Don’t be annoying, Tom.’

  ‘Hi, Tom,’ interrupts James Wo. James Wo: much better.

  Neither of us heard him arrive. ‘The doctor tells me you’ll be here for a few weeks,’ he says as he leans down and drops his bag on the floor.

  ‘So,’ he continues, pushing at the bag with his foot, ‘I took the liberty of bringing some extra work.’

  Jonah and I sit quietly. James Wo drinks his coffee. Jonah divides his time between staring out the window and staring at James Wo. Eventually James Wo pulls a chair next to my bed and talks me through each assignment. It takes about half an hour to explain everything.

  He says that language is one of my strengths, so some of the tasks are aimed at broadening my skills. That, he says, will be the fun part. The rest is revision, plain and simple. He has designed a lesson plan to catch-me-up with the aim of entering year ten (with a baby in tow).

  What did he say? The Minnow at high school? Is he high? I raise an eyebrow across to Jonah. He rolls his eyes back at me. ‘You two finished?’ asks James Wo, looking back and forth. Jonah’s face turns red.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. Jonah can’t speak.

  ‘Well, I think that’s about it,’ says James Wo, ‘unless you have any questions.’

  Yes, I’d like to know how my school’s going to cope when I turn up with a baby. But instead I ask, ‘Why does my thesaurus omit particular words?’

  ‘Give me an example.’

  ‘Repetoire,’ I say, ‘and there are others.’

  James Wo smiles at me. I think he finds me amusing.

  ‘I could compile a list.’

  ‘You could, indeed,’ says James Wo. He stands to leave. ‘I’m going into town for a few hours,’ he says to Jonah and me. ‘Apparently West Wrestler has a fantastic library. I’ll be back at about three o’clock. That should give the two of you time to catch up.’

  He takes a small card from his pocket and tucks it into the side of one of the books that he’s piled up on the table next to the bed. ‘That’s my mobile, if you need me. Otherwise, see you at three.’ James Wo smiles, and he and his pretty face turn and leave.

  It’s quiet. Just me and Jonah. The Minnow has been asleep for what seems like days. I pat the bed.

  ‘C’mon, Jonah, time to talk.’

  Bill’s truck is a twin-cab. He and I are up front and Paul Bunter and Jacko Davis are in the back. The four of us are driving up north to Minbayon Falls. Everyone goes there to fish for blue swimmer crabs, but the road is so bumpy that if I didn’t have my seatbelt on tight, I’d have banged my head on the roof or the window, or both. As it is, I have one hand braced against the dash and I’m gripping the edge of the seat with the other. The drive to Minbayon Falls is never fun.

  ‘You see that new fella in town, Tuesday?’ yells Paul over the racket. I never bother talking to Bill while he’s driving, mostly because he never bothers to answer me. But he’ll answer Paul.

  ‘Nup,’ says Bill, ‘but I heard he was sniffing around.’

  Sniffing around. Bill’s term for any unwelcome male and, as far as I can tell, they’re always unwelcome according to Bill.

  Paul leans forward, draping his arms over the seat between Bill and me. The first and second fingers of his left hand are stained a rusty yellow from years of roll-your-owns. ‘Jacko’s mate,’ he says, hooking his right thumb back at the passenger sitting next to him (in case we’d somehow missed the fact that Jacko’s riding in the twin-cab with us), ‘from out west,’ Paul continues, ‘near Lake what’s-its-name.’

  Paul pauses a moment, but Jacko doesn’t offer up the name of the lake. It’s always like this. If Paul wasn’t with us, the two-hour drive would go by in silence. But Paul’s a talker. Bill says that Paul’s the kind of bloke who sees a gap in the conversation and just has to fill it.

  ‘You see him, Tom?’ he asks me, when it is
obvious that Bill has lost interest.

  I shrug indifference and resume staring out the window. If I wanted, I could tell him that I saw a strange guy loitering around the pie shop. Saturday afternoon, while I was waiting for Jonah. Tall, red hair. Walked like he had ridden a horse all his life. Papa says a horse spoils a man. I’m not sure what that means.

  Instead I say nothing. I like Paul. I’ve known him most of my life. It would be so easy to chat about the new guy; make guesses about what he’s doing in town. But it would only make Bill edgy. Bill likes to be the one in the know. If I piped up, Bill would wonder why I hadn’t told him first. Then he would question me about it; why I had kept it to myself. Stupid, really. Just a stranger standing outside the pie shop. But Bill can make a mountain out of any molehill, no matter how small.

  ‘Jacko reckons he used to have family. The Fischers would be my guess, if his red hair is anything to go by.’

  Shake Fischer. I think he was in the year below me. I didn’t know him that well, but I’d chat to him every now and then. He had one blue eye and one brown eye. Apparently it ran in his family. That and the red hair. Shake was a nickname. I’ve no idea how he got it.

  ‘You know the Fischers, Tom?’ asks Paul, tapping my shoulder.

  ‘I knew them,’ I answer. ‘Their house was in Keen Street, below the marker.’ The flood sign in Keen Street had been incorrectly positioned at the high end of the road. No one had bothered to move it because, back then, it never rained. People thought it was funny.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Paul, putting two and two together. ‘Poor bastards.’

  ‘Jesus, Bunter,’ says Bill, ‘could you get any more depressing?’

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ says Paul to Bill. Then the penny drops. ‘Oh, shit, Tom…’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. But there’s a lump in my throat and suddenly I’m crying.