Tide Page 5

  The boy had wandered over, nudged his way into the semicircle, and was watching eagerly. A tugboat horn blasted in the background. It was all background now. The sea was no longer present. They could be deep inland for all the boy cared. There was only here and now, the green grass and the wedgied kid crying like a sissy sprawled over the ground. The boy called out, Lamington, Lamington! That’s what we’ll call him! The crowd turned around, stunned, and stared at the boy.

  The school captain thought hard but quickly: an executive decision. Yeah, that’s a bloody good name for the new git, Lamington! Lamington! Lamingtonlamingtonlamingtonlam ington!

  Two weeks later, the Helen was in. It had been six months since her last visit.

  The first officer said, Well, not many months now until you finish school. We’ll be back in another six months, and if you’ve got your ticket you can work your passage to Europe.

  No, said the boy, I won’t. I’ll stay here. I’m only fit for the land. I would bring bad luck to the ship. The boy knew how superstitious the sailors were, even the officers with all their training and their technology to guide them through and around storms, the mysteries of the deep. The officer laughed and ruffled the young man’s hair. For he had grown so much since he’d last seen him. And his voice had finally broken!

  Just having a bad day, son! Would you like a magazine to take home and cheer yourself up?

  The boy said no, then yes and, taking it, glanced at the cover, thinking how much the woman on the front looked like Kirsten.

  Still having trouble at school, asked the officer.

  Yeah, said the young man, that never changes, but I’m glad it doesn’t. It’s better when things stay the same.

  FLYING FISH (COUNTERPOINT)

  Flat out in the V8; Acca Dacca on the stereo. Loud. Yelling over the music. Pumped. They’re on their way to Geraldton to sort the travel arrangements for their Big Trip. The Boys (as they like to be called) will fly to Java, then board a ship in Jakarta and sail up the west coast of Sumatra to Padang. Then they’ll head inland, into the jungle, and see what happens. Swigging from a bottle of Jacks, they joke about how out of it they’ll get on Sumatran heads and mushrooms. Better than getting them second-hand in Perth. We’ll be stoned off our faces and won’t even know which country we’re in. Fuck yeah, out in the jungle being chased by Sumatran tigers!

  Around the islands the waters make shadows work up against the sun. It’s all in reverse. The flying fish skim the surface. Sometimes they fly right through you.

  At twenty years old, neither of them has been out of Australia, even Western Australia, before. They’re hyped. Steady on, Josh says. You’ll stack the car before we even get to Gero.

  The killing of cats at the rubbish tip. Picasso. Memory forged its links and the flying fish baking on the deck became overwhelming. All the dead they’d made stank in the tropical sun.

  Anything would do as targets by the wheat bins, the pickling air getting to them. They fired off round after round.

  Exocoetidae. Exocet. Josh’s mother was French, though she’d never spoken a word of French to him. Not even as a baby, she said proudly. The only register of her Gallic pride came when Josh’s school project on the Falklands War (‘Why the Falklands War, Josh?’ his teacher had asked) had gained a distinction, the high point of Josh’s schooling life. Exocet. French. Named after flying fish.

  Perry – real name Jake, but called Perry by a girlfriend who wagged school to watch daytime television: she called Jake ‘Perry’ because she thought she herself looked like Della – Perry guns the accelerator even harder, and the V8 Commodore hits 200 k’s an hour, the bodywork vibrating at maximum stress levels.

  As the sails of the fish take lift and the tail zigzags the glinting sea, orange-red at that latitude, at that time of day, the Boys are dazzled, confused. The kill urge is confused. The girls, the radical girls, are standing beside them. Looking out over the railings, the ferry furrowing north. The girls have peace signs on their batik tops. They are on the run, they’ve confided. A Marxist-Leninist group from Europe. They are German. This is history, Josh has told Perry, who wants to know if they’ve killed people. Bombed places. Josh won’t let him ask. They watch the flying fish, fast, sleek, full of purpose.

  Asians are okay in their own countries, says Perry. That’s what Dad reckons. We should be fine. Perry and Josh have hung out with white nationalists on visits to Perth. How did that happen? Guns. At the shooting range. Josh and Perry have handed out leaflets but didn’t really take much notice of what they said. Though Josh was a reader, is a reader, will always be a reader. But that’s what he claims. Who is he telling? Assuring?

  Cypselurus. Sleeker. Do they overlap? Cross flight paths? We’ve been friends forever. Neighbouring farms. Big farms. Eight thousand acres. Mothers lonely, both born elsewhere. Both with accents. Touches of other places. Fathers hating that. Things in common. Hunters. Ride over to each other’s places on dirt bikes. Boundary riders. Are you girls lezzos? What? You know, do you do each other? What? Lick each other out? What? What? What?

  Once, the Boys were hauled up by the new cop in town, but he was disciplined and transferred. At 200 k’s they laugh about it and Josh hurls the empty Jacks bottle out the window, something else at that speed. Beyond the laws of physics. Fuck, man, see that? No! Ha. Funny bastard. I’ll roll a spliff – slow down, you mad cunt.

  Flying fish are mythical as well. Of course. ‘Fish out of water’. It sticks in Josh’s craw as he apologises in private to the girl. His girl. A terrorist. Assumed name, false passport, on the run. I am into peace, she says. But I hate the state, I hate fascists, and I hate racists. Would you kill a racist? he asks. Where is this boat sailing and why? she asks. It is following the flying fish, he says. No, they are accompanying it, she replies. He wonders how Perry is making out. Perry had wanted to sleep with ‘Sumatran hookers’. He was getting sidetracked.

  This car is a fucking flying fish, yells Perry. He is pumped and the car is disintegrating around him. Slow down – fuck ya, Perry. Slow the fuck down.

  But why tell us so much about yourselves? You pulling our legs? Spinning a story, making it up and having a joke at our expense. Sorry! You were giving signals. I thought you wanted it. That you were bi or something. I’d do it with a lezzo, no problem. We’re here because of the flying fish. We caught the ferry at the same time as you. Out of Jakarta. We arrived, went to a hotel, slept, and got a cab down to the port. You gave us money. Lots of money. But we’re not doing it for that, or you. We’re just doing it. You took us on board that yacht? We heard your words, your anger. Didn’t we fuck you senseless while those big crew-mates of yours listened. We had no problem being understood by the driver or anyone in the hotel. You’d think English was the language here. We even tipped the bloke. He seemed fine. And we’ve not complained about the egg, rice and fish-head meals. We’ve not pushed anyone around. When in Rome …

  You’d think Perry was a sports star, but he isn’t. He played footy but was middling. He was a lousy schoolboy cricketer. But he is a fair shot and loves roo shooting. He isn’t averse to wounding, to leaving them hopping around in circles. Actually, he finds it hilarious. ‘Hilarious’ is a Perry word. A catch-all.

  Wanna feel how hard my arm muscles are? See, like rock. That’s because I work hard. Perry does as well. We were on the bins making extra dough for this trip. We’ll both inherit farms. We’ll take wives from outside the district. Maybe from far away. We’ll take them back and … domesticate them. It’s a family tradition. Nah, I’m joking! Can’t you take a joke? You might speak English okay but you sure as hell can’t understand it. Nah. But seriously, if you want to come back to Australia … You bitches think you’ve got us by the short and curlies. You’re mouthy, but you don’t know what that means, do you?!

  Steam erupts from the bonnet and the car rapidly decelerates. Fuck ya, Perry, now you’ve screwed it. The car careens and Perry rights it onto the gravel shoulder, hitting the brakes, skidding, fishtai
ling back onto the bitumen and then back onto the shoulder. Pounding the wheel, shrieking, Cunt cunt cunt of a thing! Josh hands him the spliff which he’d arced up just before. Perry grabs it, tokes hard, holds it, then slumps back into the seat. Fucken hell, sorry mate, he says. They are friends to the core.

  I don’t get all this political shit, says Perry to ‘his’ girl. I’ve handed out some pamphlets. Keep everything in its place, I reckon. Yeah, it’s nice being next to you. Yes, it’s nice. It’s so damned humid. I’m sweating like a pig. Probably puts you off.

  Okay. We’ll have to hitch. Let’s just get to Gero and sort the trip out and then worry about the car.

  Perry, you’ve changed. We’ve only been on this boat for a day and you’re saying I’ve changed? I changed when we got into the Sandman. I changed when we boarded the yacht with the clothes we stood up in. I changed when I begged my girl for more. For more. But then again, you’ve changed too. You’re an ocean of change. I don’t know you anymore. Did she ask you again? To do it? Yeah, she did. Will you? Might. And you? Same. Blood brothers.

  He’s stopping. Grab the bag. I’ve got the shit down my pants. Okay. Long time since I’ve seen a Sandman panel van done up like that. See what it had on the side? Repainted. Some kind of beast.

  We’ll just store the stuff in our bags and carry it, casual-like. If it goes off before we get there, fuck it. Pain in the arse, but we won’t know much about it. You know, I like her. I like mine as well. They might like it where we come from? Good place to hide. Yeah! Fuck, did you see that flying fish. Must have flown miles. Nah, it went in then out. Fucked the water. Yeah …

  Hey Josh, Perry calls, reaching the PV first. It’s a couple of chicks driving. I thought it was a pair of hippie blokes. Josh reaches the car. He is studying the paintwork. That’s a flying fish, he says. A what? A flying fish. Looks magic. Yep, going to Gero. You girls just cruising around, on holidays or something? Yep, great, we’ll climb in the back. Sound like Germans to me, says Josh to Perry as he turns the handle to open the hatchback. Look strung out. Should we go with them? Yeah, why not. Might get a root! Right. Let’s go.

  A Sumatran prison would be a bad move, Perry. Yeah, true mate, but to tell the truth, I’ve got nowhere to go anyway. Not really. And it might not happen. You know. I’m sick of the farm. Of inland. I like the sea. I like the air. I like the tropics. The flying fish. Water and air. You’re sounding poetic, Perry. Yeah, mate. It’s frightening, ain’t it!

  They are reported missing at around the same time as the car is towed into town. The engine has been cooked. There is no trace of the Boys. Their passports can’t be found but there is no record of them having left the country. The travel agent hasn’t seen them. No, not at all. Their mothers insist they were going to see the travel agent, to book their trip.

  The fish flew out of the sea and landed on the steel decking of the ferry. What do you reckon they look like inside, girls? he asks as he picks it up, wriggling, placing his fingers under the gills and bending the head back until the neck snaps. Must be a complex organism. Don’t be an arse, Perry, can’t you see it’s upsetting the girls? Upsetting them? Doesn’t bother them much to bump off a few capitalist pigs in Italy, does it? You’re losing it, mate. Come on, girls, leave him. He gets like this. Don’t worry, we’ll go through with it. You can count on us. We’re convinced.

  It is the strangeness of it all. That’s why they’re missed. It doesn’t make sense. Everyone knows they were in the car. The car broke down. Then they vanished. No-one saw anything, no-one knows anything. It was the end of the harvest and people were thinking about Christmas and New Year’s and spending their wheat cheques. The next working year, the next school year. The dams drying up, winter creeks dried to their bones. Town swimming pools overstocked with slippery children, frazzled adults. Waiting for the heat to subside, the first rains to come, seeding … making hay while the sun shone. Old accents grow a little fainter, the dirt and dust work on the sound of voices. There’s no reward out for information. Why would there be? There’ll be an explanation. Something will turn up, or they’ll be forgotten and it won’t matter, not really.

  ARGONAUT

  Not a beachcomber. No. Never. Not really. The collection and collation of flotsam and jetsam, the pocketing of shells, the skimming of pebbles, polished by the earth-roll, into the waves. No. Incidental.

  Also the torn shirt flapping in the breeze. The gnarled, salt-and-pepper hair on head and chest. The frayed denim shorts.

  His shack not far over the dunes, with their drift bringing them closer. Casual work, few hours here and there. Not much required for upkeep. Why bother? No need for electricity. Sun-up sundown. Night day. Diurnal nocturnal.

  A young woman had been there. In the shack. On the beach. Surfing, smoking his dope, moving on. That’s okay. Come and go, come and go. When she’d been right around the coast, the whole trek, the entire country, she’d drop back in. Older. Maybe she’d stay and inherit. Who else would he leave to? How long ago was that? Two, three months? Years?

  You sound like a teacher, she’d said. I was. A teacher. Can you guess what I taught?

  Nah, you just sound like a teacher. Teacher of anything. Like you know something that others don’t, that you want to tell them but hold back. Until it’s time. Until it’s due to be taught.

  Curriculum?

  Yes, that’s it.

  There’s a sea eagle, nests on that old lookout. People don’t swim here now. Sharks. Surfers. Rips. But once they tried. Surfers leave it alone for the eagle. You leave it alone.

  Yes, Teacher.

  Right time, right place. Or wrong.

  On the raft of pickets, fencing wire, and forty-four gallon drums, a sheep. A golden merino sheep in its prime. A ram. A mighty beast with curling horns and a bleat that was a bark. Catching the smallest of the set of waves, until until until. The raft crashed into shallower waters and the ram managed to remain on board and upright, the raft holding together in the surf. It didn’t cling but stood firm, hooves braced.

  The sea ram was close enough to the shore to leap down, though its hooves sank and it struggled in the soft sand. Assist? Watch from a distance? Marvel?

  Venture closer. No recoil. Steam out of the nostrils. Snorting, stomping in the froth, fighting hard to keep upright. Horns down, to butt, to ram?

  Run back and get an old leg-rope to use as a lead? Lead it up from the ocean’s edge, up through the hills, to the dry land. The paddocks. Sheep lands? Sheep were a fair way inland. Mainly cows in the district, and vast distances between them. Not sheep country. Not the land of the Golden Ram. But out there, goats, and camels, even. And the shooters who hunt them as monsters. Who’d hunt the Golden Ram. What to do?

  Ram treads steadily up the shore, arresting its slide, imbalance. It glances back at the raft, struggling in the foam. In and out, back and forth. Secure. Grip, pull, drag, up the beach, hunched back ache. Up up so it doesn’t slip back with the tide’s searching sweep. Ram seems happy with that. Making oneself useful. The gulls approve and settle on its gunwales. Cuttlefish navigation markers in the sand, glinting with sun setting orange to say weather of a different sort is on the way, and the rest of the world held to account.

  She could be anywhere now, surfing big waves or complex waves. Shacked up. But then again, she could be close by, almost back. Done the circuit. The big loop.

  You should see the stars out here. More than anywhere else.

  Out at sea there are more: in the sky and on the water. And you can find your way if even one shows its eye through clouds.

  Old salt. In every port. Won’t hang around long, I guess?

  I’m older than I look. I have fathered many offspring, but none recently. It wouldn’t be right, this kind of life. I’ve done my time roaming, now it’s time to stay put. Is this settling down? Settled. Settlement. The kernel of belonging. Flag up. Claim?

  Never alone, really. A special place, a ripping left-hander when it fires. And the beach curves like an alta
r. I sacrifice myself to its new moon. Its old moon. At night the crabs scuttle out of their burrows in the deeper wet sand. Like burrs in wool, they are part of the sand. Part of the world’s covering.

  Accepting that it’s not satisfactory, no way of life for a proud and mighty golden ram. Why hang around? In the struggle to get home to loved ones, distractions are just ageing. And who is to write it up, record? How much research would be required to chronicle? How to find witnesses, collect their stories? Trapped under the spell. Wolf in sheep’s clothing. Welcome to the table. Lambs to the slaughter.

  Any idea of what the information, the code of my body, is worth? So much wool. So many folds to carry the extra. Caulk the planks, secure the wiring. A week’s fodder and fresh water and the gods will reward. If they no longer tell stories, they still dish out favours. Just no song and dance about it. It all having been killed off. I have learnt that the world is an abattoir. The ocean a cauldron of blood. Our blood. Our shared sacrifice. After rest I will set off. A pleasant if insignificant port of call. No rocks hurled at me, no storms whipped up in anger or frustration. I have left no-one short.

  Except for the shooters. They drop by to harass every now and again. Look for surf chicks. But not many come this far out. Mainly young men in vans whom I wave to in passing. It’s a secret place. Some have given it a name but I have forgotten. I was a teacher once.

  Help me with this. Down to the sea, a foot up (or two), all secure. A push out past the breakers, which are gentle now. Not surf season. Remember me. No return. No looking back. I am not an explorer.

  The smell of wet wool. A second sun rising and setting. The sea eagle due back any day. Its partner. To nest. Mating for life. Waiting it out. Fish in talons.

  Not a beachcomber. No. Never. Not really. The collection and collation of flotsam and jetsam, the pocketing of shells, the skimming of pebbles, polished by the earth-roll, into the waves. No. Incidental.