Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  She looked at me from under her eyelashes and smiled and said in a real sexy sort of throaty voice, ‘Me too – nothing beats a good firm sausage.’

  I immediately panicked. I wasn’t worried about the firm bit – my tentpole under the table had already risen just from looking at her bent over the stove – but it was the way she said it, as if she expected a good firm sausage to be big as well. I mean, you wouldn’t describe a small sausage as a ‘good firm sausage’, would you? Some small blokes end up with big dicks – but mine was about average, even a bit on the small side, and definitely not in the ‘good firm sausage’ category if you were a good sort like Angela Kelly who was probably pretty experienced, coming from the mainland and all. Then I recalled from school that Percy Pig had an enormous dick, and my tentpole wavered for a moment as I plunged into yet another panic.

  I remembered the chocolates and thought that a bit of gallantry might make up for my lack of size in Angela’s eyes, so I started to undo my shirt, my fingers trembling in the process. At that very moment Angela turned around from the stove and caught me. She laughed, ‘Now, now, Jacko – I had that in mind for dessert,’ she said, again in that throaty voice. I thought, Bloody hell, she must have X-ray eyes that

  know the box of Cadbury’s Roses is concealed in my shirt. I produced the box, and held it out.

  ‘For me?’ she asked, surprised. I nodded dumbly. She came right up to me and took the box of chocolates and placed it on the table, then she bent down over me and the top of her dress sort of scalloped and I could see her beautiful breasts straining in her brassiere, firm as anything. ‘Better eat first before you get dessert, Jacko,’ she said, her voice all throaty again. Then she kissed me, her tongue going straight into my mouth and halfway down my throat. She slipped her hand into my open shirt and stroked my chest. There was the smell of burning and it wasn’t my tentpole about to shoot the buttons on my fly up into the bottom of the kitchen table, it was the onions. ‘Jesus, the fuckin’ onions!’ she cried, and straightened up and hurried over to the stove.

  We ate the sausages and the slightly burned onions, which she immersed in a pool of brown gravy made in the top of a volcano of mashed potatoes. There were also tinned peas, if I remember correctly. Though, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember tasting anything, or even if the sausages were firm. I hardly touched the glass of beer she’d given me and it had gone almost flat. She poured one for herself. ‘Hair of the dog,’ she said, picking it up and throwing back her head so her glorious breasts pointed straight at me as she swallowed almost half the beer in one gulp.

  With her breasts in my face like that, my latest panic became how to undo her bra. I’d heard older blokes say how you had to do it with one hand so she didn’t even notice, until you just casually slid or sort of pulled it away, and there were the naked breasts ready for action. Then you sort of tested the nipples with your thumb, and if they were real stiff then you knew she was ready for it. I gathered from their talk that stiffened nipples were like a sheila version of our erection, and you wouldn’t get any until they were hard. I also knew from these conversations that removing the brassiere was a matter of practice, lots of practice. Because you had to do it by feel, sort of backwards, while kissing her at the same time. There were these hooks that slid into pockets in the strap at the back and if you didn’t get the angle dead right they wouldn’t come out, and then she’d know you were trying to get her bra off and she might go stone cold on you.

  Alone in the house on one occasion I’d tried doing it on one of Sue’s brassieres I’d found in the wash basket she’d brought in from the line before going off to her morning shift at the cottage hospital. I slipped two lemons from the tree in the backyard into the cups, and strapped the bra around the middle of the inside back of a chair so the hooks were facing the kitchen wall. Then I sat on the chair facing its back and brought my arms around and kissed the top of the back of the chair while trying to undo the bra purely by feel. But nothing budged, and after about twenty minutes I gave up because one of the hooks had torn the pocket it was lodged in. Besides, the lemons kept falling out and rolling across the lino floor. I decided not to take the exercise any further in case Gloria returned and saw me in her kitchen without permission – not to mention in such a compromising position with the chair, the bra and the lemons. Now I was confronted with the real thing, and so it wasn’t any wonder that I couldn’t taste the sausages and the burned onions that slipped down my dry throat like tasteless worms.

  But I needn’t have worried. Angela Kelly stood up from the table and in a matter-of-fact voice said, ‘Stand up, Jacko.’ I confess I’d dreaded this moment, because I could feel there was a patch of preliminary wet on the front of my light-coloured trousers. But she didn’t seem to notice, and led me gently by the hand into her bedroom, which contained a big brass double bed. Then she undressed me so that I stood starkers, my old fellow in full ceremonial salute. ‘Nice one, Jacko,’ she said, her throaty voice almost purring. ‘Just the size I like.’ I will always love her for that single reassuring remark. Then she took me in her hand.

  Oh, Jesus! Please God, don’t let her squeeze! I pleaded silently. She reached out and switched off the light. ‘Lie on your back,’ she commanded, still leading me by the tentpole and with her free hand pushing me gently onto the bed. I did as I was told, but I confess I was confused. Wasn’t she the one supposed to lie on her back? But I wasn’t game to move. The moon was up and moonlight came through the window just enough so I could see her in silhouette as she pulled off her dress, undid her bra easy as anything and stepped out of her panties.

  I couldn’t see any of the vital details, just her general shape, which, I can tell you, was very, very sexy. Then she moved over to the window and drew the curtains and I caught a flash of moonlight on her breasts before we were in the pitch dark. I heard her breathing coming towards me and then the springs on the bed creaked as she climbed onto it. Then her whole body was over me, one leg on either side of me. Her mouth came down on mine and her tongue filled me. Shit, what now? I thought desperately. Do I pull her over onto her back and climb aboard? If I do, how do I find it? But then her hand found me, and the next thing I knew I was in paradise. A creamy smoothness surrounded me that was indescribable and wonderful, unlike anything I’d ever imagined, even in the shower. Angela was sitting on me. ‘Buck, you bastard!’ she said, gasping as she started to rise and fall on top of me.

  Jimmy had laughed heartily when I’d described my first sexual encounter. ‘Me too, Brother Fish, it a co-in-see-dence. I got dat same bucking ex-pere-ee-ence. I jus’ sixteen an’ dis pretty lady who I know is a whore and who stand on da street corner, she done proposition me. “You wanna good time, baby?” she say to me. Now, I ain’t had no gobblin’ spider for near nine months and I need it bad, man! “Yoh look like yo’ a frisky young stallion,” she say to me.

  ‘“I ain’t got no bread, ma’am,” I say to her, real cool.

  ‘“Ten bucks,” she say. “It a special matinee price – I’s a twenty-five-buck whore, but it a slow afternoon, sugar baby.” She put her head one side an’ she look at me from da top to da bottom. “Yoh some fast young stud who need his big mama bad or I ain’t no sassy whore,” she says to me.

  ‘She right in dat department, an’ I got me ten bucks from sellin’ some contraban’ me an’ da gang done find in a shed we broke open. Fifteen bran’ new carburettors, dey still packed in der General Motors boxes. Da shed, it ain’t even a service station – some dude, he stole dem somewheres foh sure. Now we’s stealing dem back. So I got me ten bucks that’s my share, compliments General Motors. Dat greaser who think he got hisself some nice little profit in his shed, safe behin’ his big ole Yale lock, in foh a big surprise, man. So I says, “Okay, lead me away, pretty lady.”

  ‘I get me laid real good, twenty-five bucks for ten greenbacks, but den she say dat what she like is a young stallion permanent dat ain’t broke in yet, ’cos he still willin’ to buck good when she ride
him. Iffen I jus’ lie on mah back it don’t cost me another cent. Dat was real nice, man! She tell me I’s a strong young stud and I can come back any time and it ain’t gonna cost me a dime, always pro-vide-ding I stay on mah back as her bucking horse. Soon I’s a young stallion dat bucking her regular, so I’s broke in real good and to her ulti-mate satisfaction.’ Jimmy grinned, enjoying the play on words. ‘But den her pimp he fine out ’bout da young stallion who bucking her and who ain’t earning her no income to pass on his share of the bucking rights. Two punks come to visit me one night an’ dey beat me up real bad.’ Jimmy laughed. ‘Dat da sad end of my career in da US of A Cavalry.’

  Standing at the bus stop in Launceston and remembering the story he’d told me, I said, ‘Well, mate, you’d better brush up on your bucking – the island’s women have never seen a big black stallion before and they’re bound to want to ride him.’ I wondered briefly what Angela Kelly would make of Jimmy – that is, if she was still with Percy Pig.

  I looked down the street and saw there was a chemist shop directly opposite the bus stop. ‘Hang on,’ I said to Jimmy, ‘I’ll be back in a mo. Don’t let the bus go without us.’ I crossed the street going hell for leather, the metal tips of my crutches going clickety-clack on the hard surface of the road. As luck would have it the chemist was at the back of the shop with his female assistant at the cash register near the front. I hopped past her. ‘G’day,’ I said to her, without really looking, and made for the chemist at the back. He looked up as I approached, and I saw he was mixing something with a mortar and pestle.

  ‘G’day. I’m in a bit of a hurry, sir,’ I said a little breathlessly.

  ‘Not too many soldiers drop in here, and even fewer on crutches,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Can I have two dozen crutches . . . er, I mean, contraceptives please?’ I corrected. I’d intended to sound real casual, like it was a request I made all the time, but now I’d messed it all up.

  He nodded, not changing expression. ‘Certainly, son,’ he said. ‘In a hurry, and two dozen?’

  I nodded dumbly, failing to see the joke. He turned and went into a small room at the back of the shop, and returned a few moments later holding a brown paper bag.

  ‘How much?’ I blurted out, when I’d intended saying, ‘What do I owe you, please?’

  ‘Wendy, there’s no charge for the soldier,’ he called over to the girl at the front. Then he said quietly, pointing down to my chest, ‘I recognise the ribbons. You see, my son was killed in a napalm attack at the Battle of Kapyong.’ He paused, then said, ‘Perhaps you knew him? Harry Walsh?’ He handed me the bag and added, ‘Enjoy – life is much too short.’

  I was stunned and panicked all at the same time. ‘Bluey Walsh! 10 Platoon, the Yank planes, I was there!’ I said in astonishment.

  I knew I should stay and talk to him, but the bus to Stanley was due any minute. Then I heard Jimmy yelling out from across the road that the bus had arrived.

  ‘Better get going, son,’ the chemist said, smiling.

  ‘I’ll come and see you next time I’m in town, Mr Walsh,’ I said lamely.

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ he replied.

  I was halfway back across the street when I realised I hadn’t even offered my condolences. What a piss-weak bastard you are, McKenzie! I almost decided to turn back and talk to him about Bluey, but the bus was waiting and Jimmy called out again, ‘Get yo’ ass ovah here, Brother Fish!’ I could hear the passengers in the bus laughing at Jimmy’s hollering out to me. So, of course, as usual, I lacked the character to do the right thing. It wouldn’t have killed us to stay a couple more days in Launceston to speak to Mr Walsh about his son – I would’ve liked someone to take the time with Gloria if I’d died in battle. Arriving a few days late on the island wouldn’t have been a big deal, and after I explained the circumstances to Gloria she’d have understood. But I did no such thing – I got on the bus and said nothing to Jimmy until we were fifty miles or so down the road to Stanley. He didn’t say much, just nodded his head. ‘Dat too bad,’ he said slowly, but I knew he was thinking we should have stayed to talk to Bluey’s dad.

  We arrived at Stanley around two o’clock to find the boat was waiting for the bus, which meant we’d be docking in Livingston Harbour around midnight. During the entire trip Jimmy was still in uniform and attracting a lot of local attention everywhere we went. The idea had been to buy him some clobber in Melbourne, but he couldn’t find a pair of trousers his size off the rack at Myer and there wasn’t a tailor handy who could make him a pair in the time available. A Yank the size of Jimmy in uniform and on crutches was an eye-popper anywhere we went, and so to save him embarrassment I’d decided to wear my uniform as well.

  We must have looked pretty weird with my slouch hat not rising all that far above Jimmy’s waist, and both of us on our double sticks. This time at least my chest sported four ribbons. There was the original one I’d got for turning up to World War II too late to fight. This had been issued soon after the war ended. There was another issued for much the same reason later, and which caught up with me in hospital in Japan. Now there were the two campaign ribbons for Korea. The first, the Korea Medal sanctioned by the King of England, who had died before it was struck so it bore the uncrowned head of Elizabeth II. The second, the United Nations Korea Medal, which everyone called the ‘Butcher’s Apron’, because the ribbon was blue and white similar to a butcher’s apron. And then there was the emblem of the US Presidential Citation, a blue rectangle bordered in gold and worn above the right breast pocket. Jimmy had four ribbons – the Purple Heart that Americans get for being wounded in battle, the Korean Service Medal, which was the American campaign medal, the Butcher’s Apron the same as me, and something called the National Defence Service medal. He also wore a combat infantryman’s badge. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that these extra ribbons on my chest made a big difference to how I felt about myself. I reckoned they’d been hard earned, even though no civilian would have a clue what they were for and probably couldn’t have cared less.

  Bass Strait behaved itself for a change and we had a calm and uneventful trip, with the sun going down over the horizon around eight o’clock – a spectacular sunset falling against fast-rising cumulus cloud to bring on a moonless night. At about eleven-thirty, standing on deck, I pointed out the lighthouse winking away on the steep rise above Livingston Harbour. ‘Hope we can get a lift, mate – the harbour’s a good couple of miles from town.’

  ‘We catch us a yellow cab,’ Jimmy replied simply.

  I laughed, then explained, ‘Mate, there’s only one taxi on the island – Arthur Cooper’s 1932 Morris Major – but old Arthur is usually pissed by six o’clock. Even if he met the boat, which is highly improbable, we haven’t come all this way to die on the final stretch at the hands of a drunken taxi driver.’ Then it occurred to me that with the Douglas DC3 on the blink the skipper would have brought the mail and maybe Busta Gut would meet the boat with the post-office van. In this second unlikely event, we could get a lift into town with him.

  ‘Busta Gut – dat his name for real?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Nah, it’s Buster Gutherie, big idle bastard. His mum, Ma Gutherie, is the postmistress, which is just as well for Busta Gut or he’d be unemployable. His idea of delivering an urgent telegram is sometime in the next couple of days if he happens to find himself in the vicinity of your street. He’s probably still got the one I sent to Gloria from Launceston in the bottom of his mailbag.’

  The harbour was in darkness as we approached – not even the fish co-op lights were on, or the big blue light that usually lit up the dockside. Stranger still, all the fishing boats were in, which was weird – at this time of the year the boats would be out all night cray fishing or shark longlining. Someone’s mucked around with the lights, I thought, surely they must know the boat comes in at midnight. The skipper gave a blast of the ship’s horn as he started to bring the bow around in order to dock. Suddenly all the co-op lights went on,
and the lights from several parked trucks flashed on in the dark, then the big dockside light flared up washing the area in pale-blue light. Truck horns started to blast out and a great cheer rose from the shore.

  ‘Jesus!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Look like yoh got yourself a welcome committee, Brother Fish,’ Jimmy said, laughing. Now we could see a crowd of about 200 people on the dockside outside the co-op.

  ‘The whole bloody island’s turned up! Shit, what do we do now?’ It was the last thing on earth I would have expected. A banner strung across the front of the co-op read, ‘Welcome Home Jacko!’ then, hastily added, was, ‘& Jimmy!’ They must have rigged up a loudspeaker because on a small platform standing at the very forefront stood Gloria, Sue and the twins, Cory and Steve, with a bit of a brass band arranged around them. Moments later it struck up, with the four harmonicas to the fore belting out ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’. Gloria was the lead mouth, and she was good, but she didn’t quite have the authority a lead needs. I guess there was still a place for me in the family group.

  By the time we’d drawn alongside people were cheering their heads off, throwing streamers, whistling and carrying on a treat. ‘Giddonya Jacko!’, ‘Bloody beauty, mate!’, ‘Well done, son!’ individual voices in the crowd yelled. One female voice cried out, ‘Thanks for bringing me a Yank, Jacko!’ It was Dora Kelly, one of my numerous cousins on Gloria’s side. I was surprised – she’d turned into a real good-looking sort in the time I’d been away. It was a grand welcome home and everywhere people were opening bottles of beer and filling paper cups from a flagon of sherry and passing them to the ladies present. Then the band struck up ‘For They are Jolly Good Fellows’, with everyone singing at the top of their voices.

  ‘Three cheers for Jacko and his Yank mate!’ Father Crosby yelled, and the crowd responded. When the gangplank went down and Jimmy and I came down on our crutches the crowd hushed, then someone in the band started a drum roll and the clapping began, and the cheering started all over again with all the women crying. Gloria and Sue came rushing up, both of them bawling their eyes out as they hugged me. Then they turned to Jimmy and did the same, welcoming him to the island. I’d forgotten to mention to Gloria in my letter from Korea that Jimmy was a Negro, and the island kids who’d been allowed to stay up to meet the boat stood gaping, their mouths around their kneecaps. It wasn’t just the kids – I doubt if one in twenty of the islanders had ever seen a black bloke before, and I’ll guarantee none had seen a six-foot-nine American Negro in full military dress uniform.