Big River, Little Fish

by Belinda Jeffrey

  Men arrive in teams, usually, come shearing time. They come from all over to take the work. Moving from one station to another once the job’s done. That’s what has Mrs Guthrie in a worry. It’s not so much her baby – or Hannah – but the business of shearing. And everyone so busy with the flood she feels she can’t ask them for help. Old Mother can take your house, your car. She can chase you out of town. And if you were one man down before she broke, then she could take your livelihood as well. That’s what everyone is thinking and for months it’s been about counting your losses and holding on to what you can.

  You forget that when she’s rising like this, when she’s flowing and churning and dredging and rushing and flooding, she just might bring the past back.

  ‘Well, look what the river dragged up,’ Jimbo says.

  From the edge of the backyard, beyond the fence line beside the shearers’ quarters, Murray waves. He has five other blokes with him. Each of them the colour of tree trunks. Their pants are loose and belted roughly at the waist, each carrying a flour sack over their shoulder.

  Tom pushes through his pa and Jimbo, Mrs Cath and Mrs Guthrie, and runs down to meet them.

  ‘Little fish,’ Murray says.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.’ Tom stops at the fence.

  ‘Nothing ever lost, you know.’

  Tom nods. He smiles.

  Murray holds out his hand and Tom shakes it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Murray shrugs. ‘Always ’ere for shearing.’

  Tom glances back towards the house. ‘You came just in time.’

  ‘Always do.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Different this year.’

  ‘I see them sheep,’ Murray points back towards the paddocks. ‘They got wool they can’t carry forever. Nothing different for them.’

  ‘I missed you,’ Tom says.

  ‘I missed you.’

  ‘Tom!’ Oliver calls.

  ‘You coming up to the house?’

  ‘You think that’s a good idea?’

  Tom shrugs.

  ‘We’ll bunk in there,’ Murray points to the shearers’ quarters. ‘You get the missus to tell us when to start. If she wants us.’

  ‘We got work to do,’ Oliver yells.

  ‘Ray always said he was the best worker around,’ Mrs Guthrie says.

  ‘And he knows what to do?’ Oliver puts his helmet on.

  Mrs Guthrie nods and runs a hand around the bulge of her baby. It’s hard not to think about the baby when she does that. Tom sits behind his pa on Harley. They’re late for the ferry already and there’s so much going on that Tom feels his head might burst. Thoughts of Murray and Hannah and the baby and shearing and Jimbo and Mrs Cath and he hasn’t even apologised to Mrs Guthrie about bringing them all.

  ‘It won’t do having a black running things, though,’ she says.

  Those words have Tom feeling heavy for Murray and he looks down at his helmet.

  ‘For getting a classer here, you know,’ Mrs Guthrie adds.

  Oliver starts the engine. ‘If I hear you’ve been working too hard when I get back–’

  Mrs Guthrie flaps the tea towel in his face, smiling.

  ‘I’ll find a classer, you’ll see.’ Oliver doesn’t wait for an answer. Harley bounces up over the ground towards the road.

  Tom sees Hannah appear at her window before putting his helmet on.

  ‘You like her,’ Tom says as the ferry crosses the river on the second run of the morning.

  Oliver is quiet. He rests his hand on the rail, the wind whipping his hair from his face. He looks happier and calmer, Tom thinks. Nothing like the stranger that appeared months ago on his parents’ doorstep. It gets him thinking about Marge and Ted and how the river is dividing everything. Mixing everything up so those that were once on one side of the river are stranded, living with strangers, on another side. Blokes the town once laughed at are their most valuable resource.

  ‘Some things are none of your business.’

  ‘Why did you leave me when I was a baby? Why didn’t you come and get me?’

  ‘Jeez, Tom.’

  ‘What do you think about when you look out at the river all the time?’

  ‘What the hell has got into you?’

  ‘There’s things I want to know.’

  Oliver busies himself with the throttle and walks towards the gang rope.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Who’s that black at the Guthries’?’

  ‘His name’s Murray,’ Tom feels himself getting hot inside. Something rising up. ‘And if he hadn’t been there when I was born I’d have been dead like her. I’m alive because he found me.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Oliver turns towards him, grabbing his arms.

  ‘I said he found me. Doctors said I would have died of cold–’

  ‘No, I mean what did you say his name was?’ The ferry arrives at the bank, bumping against the buffers. It shudders and a current pulls it away from the ramp dock. The ferry slides, suddenly, like there’s nothing holding it fast. The river is getting dangerous. The engine grinds as it meets the ramp.

  ‘Murray Black,’ Tom shouts. ‘Everyone leaves,’ he screams. ‘You all leave and how do I know when you’ll be here and when you won’t? Only people I know will never leave are those down by the river.’ Tom pulls away. Cars honk and two drivers wind down their windows and tell Oliver to get a move on. Oliver seems stuck there, like a ghost has him pinned.

  ‘Lil’s friend, Murray Black?’ Oliver says as if Tom isn’t there.

  ‘What?’ Tom says. ‘He’s my friend.’

  ‘He knew your mum.’

  The day stretches on forever. Oliver not speaking and Tom holding onto his anger, knowing there’re secrets everyone has about him, his mum. Each other. The sirens ring out in the dark after soup beside the hall and a hot cup of tea. Dark comes on. The wind howls and the cold daggers his bones. He feels it now. The weight of it all. A force you can’t beat. Something stronger than a man, a town of men. The weight of holding something back that’s coming no matter what you do.

  He imagines his mum down there by the river that morning. All alone with him inside her and no one to help. She was a flood of her own and no one knew. She’s just a name, in some ways. Lil. And an age. Sixteen. But she was someone back then. Flesh and blood. She was Hannah, or Biscuit even. They’re about the same age. He swallows the thought.

  Tom shovels hard and fast. His body is like a machine with an endless job to do. He tries to ignore his aching arms, the dull throbbing in his legs and feet. The cold that has him feeling like he could snap with a sudden movement. There’s not much talking on the levee line tonight. Swanson is quiet and his eyes look lost. He can’t be bothered joking or laughing. Or even lighting a cigarette. The sound of shovels scrape on the ground, boots squelch in the mud, and even the Ferguson tractors struggle and grunt with the work. The water is louder than all of them. The wind has the upper hand. She wails and squalls, and tonight, Tom thinks, they might all go under.

  Oliver barely has the energy to start Harley, but he does. And Tom hangs on and they drive on automatic. Mrs Guthrie is waiting at the table with stew. Tom falls on his arm at the table.

  ‘You can’t go on like this, Oliver,’ Mrs Guthrie says.

  ‘I’m okay. You should be in bed.’

  There’s only the sound of Oliver scraping his spoon in the bowl.

  ‘Do you think about her?’ Tom says, without raising his head from his arm.

  Oliver clears his throat.

  Mrs Guthrie stands.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ Oliver says to her. ‘I don’t think he’s even awake.’ He tips his head in Tom’s direction.

  ‘Am. So.’ Tom says slowly. ‘Do you?’r />
  Oliver hesitates. ‘For years the thought of her caused such a pain in my chest I couldn’t breathe,’ he says. And once he starts it’s as though he can’t stop. ‘After the war ... I drank too much.’

  Mrs Guthrie reaches over touching Oliver on the arm. ‘You don’t have to–’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I used to drink so much, I ... I haven’t touched a drop since I came here.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot to make up for.’

  ‘You’re doing a pretty good job. Oh,’ she says, clutching her stomach.

  ‘You okay?’ Oliver stands and moves around the table beside her.

  She laughs gently. ‘Just the baby.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Here,’ she says taking Oliver’s hand and placing it on her stomach. ‘There,’ she says. ‘Feel it?’

  ‘I’ve never...,’ Oliver falters.

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Tom really wants you to go to the dance with us tomorrow night,’ Oliver says quickly, pulling his hand away. ‘I think you could use a night out,’ he says in a rush.

  ‘But ... I...,’ she looks down to her stomach.

  ‘Truth is I don’t want to be the only eyesore,’ Oliver taps his leg.

  Kate laughs. It’s a soft, warm sound and Oliver smiles back.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I am so not asleep,’ says Tom, his words slurring.

  Jimbo is outside waiting, before dawn, when Tom and Oliver stagger out of the shed. He has Doc on his chest in the bag.

  ‘Don’t know how you can sleep in there,’ he says. ‘Blacks.’

  ‘Tomorrow we start shearing,’ Oliver says, ignoring him. ‘Got a lot to do and, frankly, without them,’ he gestures inside the shed with his head, his hands dug into his pockets, ‘we don’t stand a chance. Unless you know a thing or two about sheep,’ he adds.

  Jimbo folds his arms.

  ‘I’ll see to the ferry myself today and leave Tom here to keep the peace,’ he pauses. ‘What Tom says goes. And he says what Black says.’ Oliver walks towards the house.

  ‘Let me have him for a while,’ Tom says, reaching over for Doc.

  ‘He’s right,’ Jimbo says. ‘I’ve got used to this little fella. So what’s your first order?’

  Tom yawns. ‘Caught any rabbits this morning?’

  Jimbo snorts. ‘Any new news about Old Mother?’

  ‘They reckon we’ll lose the hall. Post office doesn’t look too good. Store’s gone under. You should see the farms that are lost. People putting sandbags in the gutters on roofs to keep them from lifting off in the water and washing away. On the lower ground water’s swelled up whole houses and roofs are the only thing peeking through. Like silver tents.’

  ‘All I know is there’s a bloody awful smell around here lately. Won’t ease up.’

  ‘Dead bloated fish all over.’

  ‘Bugger me.’

  Tom sniffs. He hears the sound of Harley starting up and watches him drive off, mud splattering up under his wheels. The back door springs open, the hinges creaking, and Mrs Cath is there in her pink dressing-gown. Tom waves and she waves back and he’s glad she seems herself.

  ‘I’ll be right, Tom,’ she says, shooing him out the door of the washroom. She pulls the sleeves of her dressing-gown up to her elbows with shaky hands and begins to hum. ‘Used to do all the washing when I was a girl,’ she says with a chuckle. The water boils in the copper and the washroom, with its thick concrete floor and copper pipes, warms up. Steam rises across the small scratch of glass window above the copper. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask,’ she says as Tom’s almost out of the door.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I got words I don’t want to forget,’ she turns to him. A slither of light breaks through the window and falls across her nose and left cheek. Tom sees how thin her skin is.

  ‘I want someone to write them down for me. Before they float away,’ she says. Her cheeks flutter and her smile quavers. ‘Some days I can’t remember who I am.’ She turns back to face the washer and rests her hands on the edge of the concrete tub. ‘You’ll write them down for me, won’t you, Tom?’

  Tom feels a weight pull against his insides and he swallows. And he nods.

  ‘Same as always,’ Mrs Guthrie she says, tying an apron around the expanse of her stomach. ‘Women to do the cooking,’ she smiles. She fumbles at the back with the tie and her face screws slightly and she huffs. ‘Darn,’ she says bringing her hands forward and resting them on her hips. The apron gathers, unfastened, around the most extended curve of her stomach.

  Hannah, standing beside her, laughs and so does Tom.

  ‘You shouldn’t tease,’ she says, a smile forming in the crease of her mouth.

  ‘You’re huge,’ Hannah says. ‘Isn’t she, Tom?’

  Tom doesn’t want to look at her stomach, but whether he looks or doesn’t look, he’s caught up in a conversation that’s uncomfortable. It’s a fascination to him that there’s a life in there behind that hard cliff. As though something buried long ago is working its way into the world. He feels sticky and prickly all over and his face heats up.

  ‘You embarrassed, Tom?’ Hannah says, her face lifting slightly. Like she’s trumped him.

  ‘Better get to it,’ Tom says disappearing out of the door.

  Tom checks into the shearers’ quarters and all he sees are beds. Every one of them neatly made, grey blankets folded down in-between the mattress and the springs. The water pitcher and array of glasses stand neatly on the wooden table and a small square of shaving mirror squeaks in the breeze, swinging from its nail dug into the beam against the iron sheet wall.

  A gunshot rings out in the air, and another. Tom smiles thinking of Jimbo roaming the paddocks with his gun slung over his shoulder, the end warm and smoking. A gathering of fresh-killed rabbits slung over his other shoulder and an endless field of them running clear of the rising river. For a moment it feels to Tom like everything is almost exactly in its place. But how long does it last, this belonging and being? How long before it’s lifted up and scattered in the swirling currents.

  The shearing shed is across the paddock, down the hill towards the river. Tom runs through the grass at full speed, dodging trees. Sticks crunch under foot and leaves whizz past his ears. There’s a pressure between everything and every movement you make creates a ripple. He has a sudden thought of Mr Guthrie in that car and he can see it happening again, in his mind. One moment the air was quiet and everything in its place. The next thing it’s a screeching and smashing in the night and hearts stop. An explosion. He thinks about Marge and Ted. And how it would feel if they were suddenly gone. And what it might be like to see them proud. Smiling. If only he had something to give them.

  When the shearing shed appears over the edge of the last rise of grass Tom hears the sheep before he sees them. All of them bleating out like uncoordinated percussion. The air is damp with rain and it’s the smell of lanolin. Knitting baskets in winter. The river is loud, pounding out her stubborn rhythm not too far away on the other side of the shed. It hits him, like a fist in his guts, how close she is, how close Old Mother really is. The cliffs seem so far away now there’s that much water to cross.

  Murray waves.

  Tom waves back. His breathing slows but the feel of his heart pumping blood, carving air into his chest, takes a moment to settle. He hasn’t heard Old Mother talking since she started rising; swallowing his fishing beach and the Big Bend sign and taking what was left of Lil’s house, swelling over the cliff hang.

  Tom wonders, if it were possible to go back in time, to step in every footprint you’d ever made and slip back, unseen, to one moment, whether you’d be able by some determining, by some wishing, by some wanting, to change the way it turned out. Did he and his mum ever share one living moment together? Did she speak to him, di
d she have words at all? There are more questions to any one thing than answers.

  He has an image of those letters, that fish of his name, flicking free from the cliff under water and swimming to the sea. Forwards; one word, one body in picture-perfect script. What a life that fish might write. What it might feel like to come un-stuck like that. And Tom thinks about what Hannah said all those months ago, about how she would be the first to go. Don’t go getting all real on me, Mot.

  ‘There’s not as many of us as there should be,’ Murray explains as he hangs up waterskins from rusty hooks nailed to the roof. Inside the shed it’s hot and smells of old oil and sweat. The shears hang, like hands on the end of bent elbows, in the centre of each shearer’s stand. Tom follows their mechanics with his eyes, trailing up the tubing to the wheel that powers the blades.

  Sheep are already packed in the holding pen inside the shed and Murray’s men herd more outside. ‘Mr Guthrie always ran his own team. He never made use of standard shearing contractors like most blokes I work for. Anyway, most of them don’t take blacks on a team.’ Murray looks up at the wall to the clock wound with cobwebs fluttering in the breeze. You can smell the water inside the shed; a fresh, cold, metallic smell.

  ‘How far you reckon she’ll come?’ Tom says.

  Murray shrugs. ‘She’s not finished, yet. Now,’ Murray continues standing up and hitching his pants. ‘Listen up. You the roustie. You grab those fleece and throw ’em on the table and your job is to skirt the fleece. Pick it clean and sweep the floor and tar the sheep if our shears nip ’em too close.’ Murray points to the tar pot beside the door with the brush sticking out of the top. ‘Hard work,’ Murray continues. ‘Gotta be fast and there’s no time for chin waggin’. We’re not down there fishin’,’ he says. ‘You got things to say, you keep ’em for later.’

  Tom looks around the shed. The sheep are restless, pushing against each other. The men outside whistle and yell.

  ‘Your pa better get that classer ’ere,’ Murray says, looking at the clock again. ‘Can’t grade the wool without that.’