‘And one day we’re with this US division and they’ve got these Harleys. Yanks brought thousands of them over for the war. Military police rode them, army colonels. And one day the war’s so thick around me. Guns and bombs going off and I don’t remember who I am. And someone needs a message run to another division and the Yank messenger he’s shot up too bad to ride. And I’m running over bragging about my racing days and they show me the bike, point the way and say I have to get there and back before we lose the whole division. I flattened that bike all the way, opened up the throttle. Felt like bullets bounced off the saddlebags but I rode and that was that. They kept me on, then. I rode messages, we rode in cavalcades into towns after we won them back from the Germans.
‘One day I’m riding a message and it’s the safest route in the whole war. A bullet comes out of nowhere, straight through my knee. The bike skids and I’m over the handlebars, winded, looking up at the sky. I think I’m gone, but blokes are dragging me to the bushes, guns pointing at me. I feel a boot in my face and I’m out cold. I wake up in a cage. By the time the war’s over, and we’re rescued by the Yanks from the camp, my leg’s so bad they say I’ll never walk.’ Oliver rubs his knee.
Tom is quiet. He sits on the floor beside his pa, not knowing what to say.
‘They called those Harleys Liberators. The sight of a Harley riding into a once occupied town meant people were free. I got to race after all,’ Oliver says. ‘And because of me, letters got through. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you, Tom. Just took me a long time to work out how to get back.’
Life is an exhausting kaleidoscope of joy when you are a baby. I feel myself yawning and the world blurs before my eyes.
‘I’m going to help my dad fix up the garage and I’m going to run it for him,’ Tom says. ‘No matter what anyone else says. If you need any help with the ferry, I’ll just be up the road, anyway.’
Oliver nods. ‘I wondered,’ he says. ‘Wait here, Tom. There’s something I want to give you.’
Tom waits with his back leaning against the slats of my cot while his pa leaves the room. If my body was more coordinated, I would roll towards him and let the ends of his hair tickle my nose. But my fists make disjointed thrusts and my legs kick restlessly as though my body is a symphony with no timing.
Oliver returns and hands Tom an old tin. Tom opens it, creaking on rusty hinges and inside is a pile of handwritten letters. I can smell their age, dank air and time carried on the breeze. The smell of ink, the feel of the pen in my hand, and the hope I once held.
Oliver digs into his pocket and pulls out a bundle of money, held tight with a rubberband. ‘I want you to have this, Tom. You’re going to need it to get the garage up and running again.’
‘But where did you get it?’ Tom asks.
‘Well,’ Oliver sighs. ‘Let’s just say that I took what little I had in life and took a bet on you.’
Tom’s eyebrows crease in confusion, but he looks down at the tin and the wad of money.
Oliver smiles, runs a hand through his hair. He limps to the edge of my cot and leans over me and I watch the weathered lines of his mouth and eyes crease into a smile. I loved that face.
Some nights Tom creeps into my room while I’m sleeping and writes our name through his foggy breath on my window, and he says we’re like one complete picture. We wouldn’t be here, each of us, without the other. He says there’s few names like mine; a name with no forwards or backwards, which is why time didn’t own me.
He’ll show me that picture of us engraved on the cliff, one day. And I’ll rub my fingers over the outline and I’ll see Tom, the fish, those three letters that make his name, but I won’t see where I am in it all, at first. Until he tells me that Lil is short for little, and without little, there would be no Tom in the first place.
I yawn and feel my eyes closing and I have my last moment of timelessness where we are all one, we have never been apart, and we have never left.
Can you hear me?
But I am a baby after all. I fall asleep.
I hope this is the last letter (can you believe I’m up to number twenty-four!) I’ll have to write to you, before I get to meet you face to face, because I can’t wait much longer. It seems like I’ve been waiting for someone forever. First my father and then yours. I haven’t heard from your dad since he wrote me from war, that one letter saying he would come back to us. But I wonder what he will find if he ever returns. And what he will make of us all. The three of us, here. I’ve started thinking he’s never coming home. I can hardly even remember him.
The fish are jumping today. I can see them popping their heads in and out of the water and I can feel you underneath my skin and it makes me laugh. I can trace your feet, your heels, some days. You drag them inside of me. I felt your head, I think. But I never know which way you are. Back or front, tail or mouth? So I’m going to call you Tom if you are a boy – which I think you are. I’ve told Murray. But he calls you ‘Little Fish’ no matter what I say. I sent him off to fetch mallee wood for the army quota. He didn’t want to leave us, but he needs the money and, besides, I’ve got you for company. Mrs Cath is my only other friend, but she’s gone visiting her daughter in Adelaide. Muriel, I think her name is. She owns greyhounds and Mrs Cath said she might convince her to name one, ‘River Tom’ one day. I’d like that.
There’s something I’m going to tell Murray when he gets back. It took me a long time to see I’ve always felt this way. And I think he feels the same. But I’ll tell you, for now, because the words I write here aren’t really words at all. Just thoughts we hold in the secret places of life.
Can you hear me, Tom?
My love is this big river, Little Fish.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel is set in the small town of Swan Reach in the Murray Riverland of South Australia in 1956 during one of the greatest floods of the century; South Australia’s most severe natural disaster in recorded history. Flooding is a natural occurrence in the riverland and, unlike the flash flooding common to other parts of Australia, residents knew some months in advance that a flood would hit that year. Months of severe rainfall in parts of Eastern Australia created unusually high levels in the Murrumbidgee and Darling Rivers, which converge into the mighty Murray. No one knew how high the waters would go, but everyone knew it would likely be a big flood. Anecdotal records suggest that in Swan Reach the waters rose severely in late May, peaking in mid September, and did not fully recede until after Christmas. I have taken some licence with the timeframe of the flood in this novel, having the residents know about a likely flood in late December 1955, and the waters rising in July.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A book is a collaborative effort and, while my name might be on the front cover, many more names deserve to be there. To my wonderful husband, Michael: sincere gratitude for your support, encouragement, insight and feedback on every draft. Thanks to our children, Caleb and Luke, for understanding my passion for writing. I am indebted to my agent, Sophie Hamley, for believing in Tom’s story right from the start, and to my publisher, Kristina Schulz, for her expertise and support in nurturing this manuscript into a novel. Many thanks to the team at UQP: to Christina Pagliaro, Meredene Hill, Kristy Bushnell, Madonna Duffy, Greg Bain, Jodie Lee and Simone Bird. Thanks to Emmy Hickman for reading and critiquing the final manuscript.
I am thankful to Mike Lefcourt for his feedback and comment on the original manuscript, to Lauren Daniels, Lyndelle Gunton and Marcia Pitman. Thanks to Megan Adsett for driving with me to Bundaberg, which began this whole publishing adventure. I am forever grateful to my family and friends who have supported me throughout this writing journey. A particular thanks to Ruth Ladley for always being a phone call away, Krissy Kneen, Nick Earls, the QWC team lead by Kate Eltham, Kim Wilkins and the Year of the Edit 2007 crew and my writing friends: Ben, Chris C, Chris B, Sheryl, Katherine and Ki
rsten. Thanks to Fiona, Phillip and Guy.
Big River, Little Fish would never have been written if Dad and Sue hadn’t purchased that little shack on the Murray River at Big Bend. To the Easter crew of 2007: I thank you for being so knowledgeable in so many areas. Thanks to my dad, Michael Perry, for advice on all things mechanical.
The story of the cow being rowed behind the boat, that Swanson tells the group picking oranges, comes from the testimony of Ruth Kenny as told in the book, Where Were You When The Waters Broke? Recollections of the 1956 Flood (Berri Barmera Council, 2006). I am grateful for Ruth’s permission to site that story in the voice of my character, Swanson, in this book. In this matter I also acknowledge the assistance of the Berri Barmera Council, especially Jacqui Zagotsis.
Thanks to Graham Barlow of the Swan Reach Museum for his advice and assistance. Thanks also to Jan Brooks for providing me with details about Murray River ferries in 1956.
To Lynne and Jane, and the team at GJ’s Indooroopilly (level 1): thank you so much for a table to write at and great coffee.
First published 2010 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
www.uqp.com.au
© Belinda Jeffrey 2010
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Ebook produced by Read How You Want
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Cover design by Design by Committee
Cover illustration by Design by Committee
Illustration on page 36 by Aileen Lord
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from the National Library of Australia
www.nla.gov.au
Big river, little fish / Belinda Jeffrey.
ISBN (pbk) 9780702238505
ISBN (pdf) 9780702238284
ISBN (epub) 9780702246371
ISBN (kindle) 9780702246364
Big River, Little Fish Page 21
