Tide Read online

  TIDE

  JOHN KINSELLA

  TIDE

  JOHN KINSELLA

  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  www.transitlounge.com.au

  Copyright © John Kinsella 2013

  First Published 2013

  Transit Lounge Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Front cover image: Philip Schubert

  www.philipschubertphotography

  Cover and book design: Peter Lo

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  A cataloguing entry for this title is available from the

  National Library of Australia:http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  978-1-921924-58-3 (e-book)

  To Tracy, as always

  The author wishes to acknowledge

  the traditional owners and

  custodians of the land he writes.

  CONTENTS

  Tide

  Africa Reef

  Orbit

  Flight

  Dumpers

  Dive

  Flare

  Guilt

  Flying Fish (Counterpoint)

  Argonaut

  Bay

  Ferryman

  Brick

  Touch

  Mesmerised

  Magazine

  Bonfire on the Beach

  Loading

  Whaleworld

  The Unfinished House

  The Bouquet

  Tarping the Wheat: The Wages of Sin

  Snow

  The Bet

  The Tale of Ferguson’s Folly

  Misnomer

  A Long Stretch of Nothing in the Middle of Nowhere

  Falling

  Extremities

  Inner City

  The Favoured Son

  A Seaside Burial

  TIDE

  The sea was gone, and the wet that filmed the mud was something else. It wasn’t the sea, it was the bottom of the sea. But the sea was gone and the silver of the horizon was only light, a bright concentrated light full of sun and sky. It was the bottom of the sea and they were walking out over it, further and further out into its bubbling weirdness.

  The two boys moved out from the fetid shade of the mangroves and made tentative steps into the wide-open expanse of the mudflats. They wore sandshoes because they knew about the sting of cobblers stranded in the mud, and then there were the great clawed mud crabs and even sea snakes that might have forgotten about the tide, floundering about. The smell was of salt and rot, and they thought the insides of mud crabs must be rotten, too. The mud bubbled and spat at them. Early in their walk, the mangroves that edged the beach wouldn’t give up, and stuck up stems with growths on them that quickly crusted with salt in the harsh sun. Each step they took further out to the horizon, where the sea should be but wasn’t, the thirstier they became.

  Their shoes went thwock thwock in the mud. Sometimes they sank and stuck; other times the mud seemed as hard as a footpath and they almost skated over it, half running and stumbling. Each seemed to enjoy the other’s successes but also to relish his difficulties. The older, taller one laughed loudest when the younger sank and couldn’t pull his shoe out, the grey and black squirming around the bare ankle and sending its grit and ooze down around the foot, the toes. It was foul and strangely addictive. But they both tired fast, and when they stopped to look back at the mangroves’ opaque, dark-green rigging, they felt even more tired. The green was starting to look like the horizon and the horizon started to make a ring, a halo.

  The older boy said, We’ll be in trouble when we get home.

  The younger boy, marvelling at the breadth and volume of the sky, said, It’ll be worth it when we reach the horizon.

  The older boy smiled. He was half-proud of his little brother’s wisdom. His little brother knew about nature, though he as the older one shouldered most of the blame and got into more trouble.

  Occasionally the distance between them grew as the small boy lagged and the older one raced ahead, because he could. And just when the younger boy was on the verge of tears, the older boy would stand still and call out, Come on slowcoach, we’re almost there!

  No, we’re not, said the small boy when he caught up. The horizon never gets closer.

  Yes, it does, it’s closer than when we left. Look back – the mangroves are like a mirage, and are turning into horizon. That means the horizon where the sea was has to be something we can reach.

  The small boy, who was smart, listened to his brother’s sophistry and believed only because he was excited to be out of the world he knew, and in this almost imaginary world where the unexpected and the unknown seemed part of the fabric of the eternal mudflats, the mundane repetition of each step. He was thirsty and tired, and shook his head in confusion. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Only that though each step seemed the same, and the world looked the same with each step, that anything could happen. That sameness meant a surprise was inevitable. He sucked salt off his arm, making him both relieved and thirsty at once.

  I wish we’d brought a drink, said the younger boy.

  Yes, me too, said the older boy. I think we need to head back home, and come out tomorrow with some food and drink.

  Yes, said the small boy. And a camera.

  A camera? laughed the older boy. Why? There’s nothing to photograph.

  But there is! said the younger boy. It’s everything out here.

  What’s everything? said the older boy, pushing his brother into the mud.

  Don’t! said the younger boy. That’s mean. You always spoil things.

  The older boy, feeling contrite enough to help his brother from the mud, told him that his white T-shirt looked like a Collingwood footy jumper.

  Does not! said the smaller boy, who did not barrack for Collingwood.

  Hey, look! Where you fell over there’s a crab flicking at the mud. Look at the size of its claws. The older brother kicked at the giant crab, and a steel claw latched onto the edge of his shoe. It didn’t crush his toes because his shoes were a size too big (as were all his clothes – he would never accept the size he really was and demanded ‘the next size up’), but it gave him a hell of a fright. Yow! Ouch! Hell, hell, hell! Bastard crab. He shook his shoe in the air but the crab wouldn’t let go.

  If you stop behaving like a clown, said the younger boy, and put your foot back on the mud, it will probably let go. It doesn’t like you and probably wants to get away as much as you do.

  The older boy, who had been dancing in the end because he liked the drama and watching his own foot performing its antics, suddenly stopped and put his foot down, and they watched the crab let go and submerge back into the mud.

  It looked repulsive.

  It was camouflaged.

  I am so thirsty, said the younger boy. I’m going back. And with that he turned and started tracking his own footprints. He dared not go any other way because the mangroves truly were a horizon now.

  The older boy stared at the sea horizon they’d been aiming for. As the sun dipped close to its surface, it looked like it was bleeding red. A red sea. He said, The sea is coming back. It’s coming back fast.

  The older boy ran past his brother, who was standing still, looking at the sea covering his shoes. The horizon has broken, he said. We’re in a bowl and the horizon is spilling into the centre.

  Run, said the older brother. If we don’t run, the tide will catch us and we’ll drown.

  The young boy, who was so smart, didn’t really understand. This was a new experience. They’d only just moved to this far
northern place where their father had gone after the divorce. Six months in the tropics, six months in the cold of the deep south. That horizon – the water – was rising so fast. He said, It wouldn’t be like drowning. It would be as if the world had gone back to the way it always was.

  Stop being a little idiot and run!

  The small boy wondered about his brother far ahead. The water was around his knees, and he was tired and thirsty, and every step was a slow, struggling slosh slosh slosh. He wondered about the mud crabs. And the sea snakes would be coming back, the ones that hadn’t been stranded. They have tails like oars and kill you quick. He couldn’t see horizon in either direction now because horizon was all around him. It was dark and light and shaded and bright. It shimmered and stung his eyes. He kept walking, steadily, slosh slosh slosh.

  He couldn’t see his footprints from the journey out, but every now and again he glanced up at his brother, still far ahead. Slosh slosh slosh. The water was up at his waist and he swore that next time he would bring a bottle of water because you can’t drink the sea. You’re not allowed to drink the sea.

  AFRICA REEF

  Dylan had heard that it was called Africa Reef because it was halfway to Africa. It was a long way out to sea, out in the open ocean, a weird protrusion surrounded by deep waters. Maybe an island that hadn’t yet formed, or had been swallowed by the waves. He wasn’t sure, and when he asked he got no more than the usual story, though more often than not it was said ‘halfway to bloody Africa’.

  He did know, though, that this new town he was living in was on the ‘shipwreck coast’, where for hundreds of years ships had come to grief. And out at the Islands there had been mutiny and mass murder. The local museum was full of relics from the early days of European exploration and the watery graves of fate. With apprehension and excitement, he pieced this together in his head, making a narrative that compelled him to accept his new best friend’s offer to visit Africa Reef, Saturday afternoon on his father’s boat.

  At least it compelled him to ask his mum, who rang his best friend’s father and talked it over. After ascertaining that the father was a police sergeant and all passengers on his boat would wear life jackets, she gave a nervous, cautious ‘okay’. Two former best friends of the sergeant’s son would be shipping out as well. The boat would be back at the marina by dark, and they’d all be home soon after that. The weather was still warm and soothing.

  The boys were all thirteen. Dylan was excited to be living in a new place, but the other boys were keen to leave their coastal town and go just about anywhere else. Eighteen miles out to sea, straight out into the wide ocean, certainly qualified as ‘anywhere else’, and though they considered themselves too old and too sophisticated to say they were embarking on an adventure, they all secretly felt that they were.

  Dylan had just started reading The Old Man and the Sea for English, with his usual lack of enthusiasm, but now he decided to get stuck into it, as well as the book he’d seen on his gran’s shelf, The Cruel Sea, though he knew nothing about that one and couldn’t pronounce the author’s name.

  Dylan walked down to the beach every day after school and stared out long and hard, filling his head with the vastness. He had come from far inland where there was also vastness, but a vastness that was red and dry; or on those rare occasions when water came, it was a huge flood that vanished after a few days. But what the sea and the desert had in common was the immensity of the sky itself, arching over them like a protective dome, keeping things in and out, keeping and making secrets. The sky seemed to be the reason for the desert’s existence, and for the sea’s existence.

  The police sergeant, with his son and the two other boys, collected Dylan from outside his house on Saturday after an early lunch. Dylan’s mum had a quick, reassuring chat with the sergeant, and hugged her son, reminding him to be sensible and do what he was told. Normally Dylan would have been embarrassed, but he was too excited to care and the other boys were the same. One of them, Serge, whom Dylan knew least, scowled and smiled at the same time in a way that was ambiguous, but not ambiguous enough for Dylan to spend any time thinking about. And it was through the back window of the car, and Dylan’s eyes were really on the twenty-foot boat that sat on the trailer behind the four-wheel drive. He’d seen it before, at his mate’s place. It was called Hilda, after the sergeant’s wife. It didn’t seem that big, really, but it did have a large outboard motor – an Evinrude – on the back.

  Once they reached the marina, the boys hopped out of the car so the sergeant could back the boat trailer down the ramp. His son directed him with precision, knowing his dad had little patience for showing off, especially when doing something serious. Once the trailer was submerged, the sergeant winched the boat down, down, down into the green water. Wading in up to his waist, he directed the boat around the ramp and, taking a rope hooked to the bow, dragged it to the small beach alongside. There were other craft, but since the sergeant was a well-known local, the other weekend sailors did their best to avoid him.

  He called to the boys to hold the rope while he jumped in and got the sheet anchor, which he tossed into clear space on the shore and jumped out to secure. The boys, champing to get on the boat, held its bow while the sergeant parked the four-wheel drive and trailer exactly where they should be. Then the boys clambered on board. The sergeant retrieved the anchor and towed the boat out, then climbed aboard himself. He told his son to lower the outboard; then, just as the other boys thought they were drifting too close to the marina jetty, he started the engine and turned the boat out towards open sea. Dylan was overwhelmed as he sat with the others at the back – at the stern – watching the water churning and frothing, the propeller digging its furious, white wake.

  As the boat skipped along past the grain ships moored outside the shipping lanes, Dylan considered the only way to confront, to absorb such vastness was in the orderly manner of the sergeant, who said nothing more than was necessary. Occasionally one of the other boys hooted with joy, but the sergeant’s son was clearly on duty with his father, watching for any sign of a command, and if he was enjoying himself it was only in a form specific to his relationship with his father. The two former best friends, who were very close, pointed to the town they were leaving behind, muttering under their breath and barely restraining their excitement. They didn’t invite Dylan into their conversation, which they directed over the engine’s roar and the hull’s slap slap slap on the gentle swell. Dylan didn’t mind.

  When Dylan noticed the waterspout on the horizon, he said nothing, because he didn’t understand what it was. He was sure, though, that no-one else had seen it, because he had trained his eye to see so far into the distance, into the vastness, that he hardly believed anyone else could see that far or in that way. But the others did notice clouds forming on the horizon, and the sergeant half yelled above the boat-noise, Have to keep an eye on that, the weather comes up fast out here.

  But he kept the boat going at a steady pace, and a half-hour passed before he spoke again.

  That cloud’s building and the wind is picking up, boys, so we might play it safe and head back in today. We can come out on another day.

  The two former best friends moaned a little, but the sergeant’s son cut them a look that said, Don’t do it, my father’s not in the mood.

  Dylan wondered where the shore was. He considered the sun, which was fast vanishing behind thick cloud, and thought he’d worked it out. The boat was old, but had a compass and all the safety gear, and they all felt overprotected rugged up in their orange life jackets. The sergeant cut back on the throttle and curved the boat around.

  Look, boys! he called. Dolphins.

  His son, no longer able to restrain the excitement he’d been sitting on, burst out. Please, Dad, we’re not going to see Africa Reef – can we just sit here for a few minutes and watch the dolphins?

  The sergeant looked at the boys, all well-behaved, and said, Just for a few minutes. The sky’s getting dark out there and it’s c
oming in. We don’t want to get caught.

  And the boat was rocking much more than it had been, and with the engine idling, it started to tilt in ways it hadn’t tilted before. The dolphins surfaced, submerged, surfaced, submerged, appeared a long way off, then vanished.

  Okay, boys, said the sergeant, we’re off. He pushed the throttle lever out of idle position and accelerated. The engine sputtered and died. He tried to restart, and it sputtered and died again. Another death later, he said gruffly, Move out of the way, boys, and went to check the fuel tank, and then the motor itself.

  Enough fuel, he said, squeezing the bulb and checking the indicator. Motor doesn’t smell flooded.

  He messed with it a while, though he had trouble because the swell was gaining strength, tossing him and the boys together. Watch it, boys! he roared. Dylan retreated to the cabin area under the bow deck. The other boys followed him, except the sergeant’s son, who was stationed at the wheel, holding on as if all life depended on it. Dylan felt a jab in his back, and looked around to see Serge snarling at him. Out of my way, you dork, he said just loud enough for Dylan alone to hear. You’re a bloody stranger, mate, and if anyone’s getting the comfy position it’s not going to be you.

  Dylan moved, and looked out at the sergeant, the dead motor, the vast sky black in all directions now. A strong wind was cutting across the boat and spinning it like a top. Every time the boat went side-on to the swell, it felt as if it was going to tip and capsize. Dylan rolled onto Serge, who openly thumped him and yelled to the sergeant, This guy’s a dag, Sir, he’s rolling onto me like a girl.

  The sergeant yelled against the wind, Act like a man, son! Dylan knew the instruction was meant for him.

  As the sergeant worked frantically at the motor, barking at his son to ‘turn it over’ every now and again, he began to swear. Fucking prick of a thing, fucking bastard. The fucking battery will be flat next and then we’ll be well and truly fucked. The swell was getting massive and there was fear in everyone’s eyes, even the angry sergeant’s.