Minimum of Two

by Tim Winton

  II

  As soon as Dot was home from school, the Cooksons left for Angelus.

  Just after sunset, near the town of Williams, they hit a kangaroo and Cleve had to get out and kill it with the wheelbrace. It took five hours driving to get to the small town on the south coast. When the lights of the town rose from the dark like a new galaxy, Cleve woke Dot and she watched dumbly.

  Angelus was no longer a whaling town. These days it lived by farm produce and traded hard on its English climate. Tourists came to see its awesome cliffs and beaches, the wildflowers in their season, the museums, the relics. Angelus had learnt to live off its dying. No one mentioned the protest any more. It was a town looking bright-faced into the future.

  The motel Queenie checked them into had a spouting concrete whale in its floodlit forecourt. Their room stale, drab. It stank of cigarette smoke and Pine-O-Cleen. Dot fiddled with the TV and the motel notepaper, flicked through the Gideon Bible without enthusiasm and went to sleep. Cleve and Queenie turned the light out for her and sat in the dark. Cleve pulled some cans from the smelly little refrigerator and they drank beer in silence.

  Pubs closed. They listened to the sound of men weaving up the street to their wives.

  ‘Nothing’s changed.’ Queenie whispered.

  ‘We have.’

  ‘Are we any better, do you think?’

  ‘We try harder,’ said Cleve.

  ‘I suppose we should see everything.’

  ‘I guess it’s the point of the exercise. Exorcise.’

  ‘I just want to come back and see the place and be normal in it. And maybe see Poppa’s grave. I want to . . . confirm things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like us growing up. Like us being properly together. Like this town being the past.’

  Fresh from their antiseptic motel breakfast, the Cooksons went out into the bright, windy morning, and without much sense of purpose or direction, began to walk. Fat clouds bundled up from the south. The air was mild; it was not the summer they had left. As they turned into the main street, the steel surface of the harbour came into view.

  ‘Pretty,’ Dot said.

  Queenie put a hand to Dot’s mushroom head.

  ‘Yep. Pretty.’ It was. It still was. Queenie saw it better than she ever had.

  All morning they visited familiar places: park benches, a certain rose garden, some historic cottages, delicatessens. All morning Queenie hardened herself. Sooner or later someone would recognize her, she knew. She just had to tough it out. But no one did. And as the morning proceeded, anonymity began to peeve her. No one recognized her as Queenie Coupar the local girl who turned coat; she was just another tourist come to see wildflowers and replicas and plaster whales.

  Cleve took them out to the deepwater jetty to show Dot the tiny shack where he huddled when he was a watchman, when his life was creaking and falling around him. It was a long walk to the end. Some boys fished. Down on a landing near the water, two old drunks lay in each other’s arms and the morning sun set alight the dew on their backs.

  ‘Was it cold?’ Dot asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Queenie answered for him. She recalled the fights, the hardness between them, the emptiness of the bed at night.

  ‘Rats used to crawl everywhere,’ said Cleve.

  ‘Ugh.’

  ‘A man jumped off here and drowned one night,’ Queenie said.

  ‘Yes. One night.’

  Dot went to the edge with a wrinkle on her brow.

  ‘It’s hard to understand I know,’ Queenie said.

  Dot nodded. Gulls stitched the sky behind. Queenie felt as though all this was a story she had read somewhere; it didn’t seem part of her life.

  By midday the harbour lost its sheen. The Cooksons ate lunch in a quiet pub with a view of the water. Queenie felt Cleve watching her as they all chattered and rattled cutlery. Below them was the town jetty where the tugs and official craft berthed. Once it had been the mooring for the whale chasers.

  ‘This is a nice town,’ Dot said. She stuffed a chip into her little oval mouth. ‘I’d like to live here.’

  Queenie felt herself flinch. ‘Wait till you see the beaches. The beaches are the whitest, the cleanest . . .’

  ‘Cleaner ’n’ brider an’ bigger ’n’ wider,’ Cleve said in an American drawl.

  Dot giggled. Two men in business suits left off dismantling their T-bones and looked at Cleve with open suspicion.

  ‘Oops.’ Cleve whispered. ‘The accent. They think we’re greenies. Let’s not talk French either, eh? Let’s just be rubbernecks for the day.’

  ‘It’s all we ever were, Cleve.’ Queenie pulled back her bread-coloured hair.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We cared about things. No one can take that away.’

  On the crest of a hill, Cleve pulled up before the tall timber house. It seemed to have been dug into the granite flank of the hill. It was old and solid and lovely. An English house. At the sight of it, Queenie felt the veins in her neck thicken.

  ‘This is where we used to live,’ she murmured to Dot who was sleepy and listless.

  ‘Why didn’t I ever live there?’

  ‘You weren’t born then,’ Cleve said. ‘It used to belong to Queenie’s family. Like the farm.’

  ‘Now it doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yeah. Oh.’ Cleve looked at her. She smiled.

  ‘Houses don’t matter, though, do they, Dot?’

  ‘Ya just live in um, that’s all.’

  ‘Glad you came, Spot,’ Cleve said. ‘You’re good counsel.’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  Queenie pulled her springy little body across the seat and put her head in her lap.

  ‘I learnt to swim in this town, Dot. When I did everything else lousy. I knew I could always get in the water and swim like a fish. Like you.’

  ‘I surf, Mum.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’

  Queenie looked away from the old house. Someone had opened a curtain. Cleve put the Land Rover into gear.

  Despite the sombre afternoon light, the beaches along the peninsula glowed. They struck Queenie as almost gaudy in their whiteness.

  Dot slept, but Queenie still addressed remarks to her, even though they were meant for Cleve.

  ‘Yep. Learnt to make love here, too, Dot. And I learnt to stick to my guns no matter what. An’ then I learnt about how stupid it can be to stick to your guns after your ammo’s run out.’

  Cleve smiled. ‘I wanted to be a hero too, you know.’

  ‘Now you’re just a dag. Thank God.’

  ‘Cheer up. This is the good bit coming up.’

  ‘You know we didn’t stop the killing.’

  ‘You helped stop it. That’s enough. Jesus, you’re so proud.’

  Queenie smiled. ‘Yeah. One thing I did inherit.’

  Dot awoke at Paris Bay where the huge, rusting oil tanks still stood. As they coasted down the long hill overlooking the Sound, Queenie saw the tiny whalers’ cabins, the fallen jetty, some paint-smeared sheds, and she was full of memories.

  A caretaker met them at the gate and took two dollars from them. ‘We’re making the place into a museum, since the bastards closed us down,’ he said. ‘Been here before?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ said Cleve. He found himself grinning and he caught Queenie’s eye.

  And there it was. The long ramp of the flensing deck where once Queenie had lain in the blood and offal with the others, the cogs, the great windlasses, the chimneys from the boilers, the oily shorebreak. Beside the ruined jetty, the Paris II was aground and bloody with rust, the harpoon gun up-tilted on the bow.

  As they walked onto the flensing deck, Cleve was grim-faced. Queenie was surprised to discover in herself a sadness for the place. She had campaigned so bitterly to destroy it. Now there were only gulls and wind. It was pathetic.

  ‘Hey, check this out!’ Cleve called to them from the base of a vast tank. It stood forty feet high and silver paint came off in great shaley lea
ves. Cleve turned a wheel and a circular hatch squawked open.

  When they reached him, only his legs showed from the little hatch. His voice thundered inside the tank.

  ‘Let me in, Dad.’

  ‘No, Dotty, it’s a bit smelly,’ Queenie said.

  ‘Used to be full of whale oil.’

  ‘Bet it took a million litres. Let me in, Dad.’

  The legs disappeared and after a moment Cleve’s face poked out. ‘Here.’

  ‘Cleve.’

  ‘It’s all right. Come on, mate.’ He pulled the child in and she let out a gasp.

  ‘Cor.’ Her footsteps echoed. The tank vibrated. ‘Come in, Mum. It’s mint.’

  Queenie stood outside with her back to the flaking metal. Some weak sun came out and retreated. She heard Cleve and Dot charging about inside. Every now and then she caught a hint of the unforgettable stench of burning blubber. But the place was dead; she knew it now.

  ‘All right,’ she shouted into the hatch. ‘Enough.’

  As they walked back up the gravel drive, Dot grabbed her hand and Cleve’s and the wind blew and she was like a sail between them.

  Then there was only the farm to see. They didn’t stop now; Queenie knew if they stopped they’d never drive out there and she’d never be satisfied. It rained. On the old road parrots sputtered green and the sky hung low and they hissed through sheets of fallen water. Rich milking pasture gave way to a more austere landscape where sheep stood still. Oh, she knew that land, that road.

  On the farm gate hung a sign. NO TRESPASSERS. ROO SHOOTERS SHOT. KEEP OUT. In a century and a half no one had put a sign up before. No one had been denied entry to this place. Cleve and Queenie sat dumb in the idling vehicle. Beyond the gate, the rising land was overgrazed and guttered. In the distance, the hill showed signs of tree-felling.

  ‘A hundred and fifty years,’ Queenie murmured. ‘And now this.’

  ‘We’ll talk to them, tell them who you are.’

  They opened the gate and drove up the bone-shaking track to the old house where they were met by a thin, red man with amber freckles. Queenie felt it all: the smell of wet soil, hay, the slummocky sounds of cattle, the stone house built by her ancestors, the windmill where she’d climbed as a girl . . . she was dizzy with it. The man waited for neither request nor explanation.

  ‘You saw the sign. Get the hell off.’

  ‘My wife’s Queenie Coupar.’

  ‘I know who she is. Get off.’

  ‘She just wants to see the old man’s grave. It’s on the hill.’

  ‘Mr Pustling’s orders are for no one to —’

  ‘He doesn’t own the grave, for Chrissake!’ Queenie began.

  ‘Then you’ll need a helicopter to land on that six foot of ground, lady. Get off the place.’

  ‘C’mon, Cleve.’

  ‘We should have known better,’ Cleve said when they were outside the gate again. Queenie got out to close it.

  ‘I want to go home,’ Dot said.

  ‘Let me drive, Cleve.’

  He looked at her a moment and got out. She got in behind the wheel.

  ‘What about the gate?’

  ‘Leave it open.’

  Dot and Cleve exchanged looks. The farmhouse was obscured by trees and rising ground. There was no one near. Queenie swung the Land Rover around and back through the gate into the firebreak along the inside of the fence.

  ‘We’re going to the beach, anyway. Stuff ’em.’

  ‘She used to be like this all the time, Dot.’

  ‘She drives like a loony.’

  The beach spread itself white between two granite headlands. Queenie churned the Land Rover past places where she had played and loitered. She met Cleve on this beach; he’d been a trespasser once before. Dot was conceived here. And a few years later, this was where everything came aground. A pod of whales. The Coupar line. Their marriage.

  ‘This is a special place, Dot,’ she said, pulling up near the tidal smear of weed.

  ‘No,’ said Cleve, ‘it’s just a beach. Just a place.’

  She looked at him a moment. ‘Yes. You’re right.’

  It started to rain again. Queenie pulled off her tee-shirt. She had the back and shoulders of a rower. Wholemeal hair settled back on her shoulders.

  ‘I think she’s gonna swim,’ Cleve said, and dug Dot in the ribs.

  Dot rolled her eyes. ‘More laps.’

  Queenie jogged down to the water, breasts beating, and dived into the shorebreak. She bellied into the path of a breaker, pierced its back and struck out to calmer water where she floated and waved. Up behind the vehicle on the deserted beach she saw the dunes. Further back was the hulking shadow of the hill where the old man was buried. In his own six feet. Well, that’s all anyone needs, she thought. More than I need.

  She launched into a crawl, smacking across the tops of swells as she had done behind the old man in the boat all those years back. She kept the hill in sight. She struck out, not invincible but strong. And she knew she could swim it all out of her; it was only a matter of time.

  Bay of Angels

  I SAT WITH him by the river. The big, sad peppermints gave us shade and the breezy scent of their litter. Across the rumpled water, on the opposite bank, freeway traffic glittered in miniature and city towers took the white sun on their flanks. Full-bellied yachts were passing; they floated by like light and music. There were children near us, and gulls. It was beautiful to see. But I knew my friend saw nothing. There are times when all you can do is feel, when there’s nothing but alarms ringing and you can’t even see yourself in the mirror.

  I sat by, in the world outside of him.

  ‘Ah, God, the water,’ I said. ‘My grandmother called this the Bay of Angels.’

  My friend gave an all-but-imperceptible nod.

  ‘I can’t think why,’ I said.

  I sat with him. Neither of us was young anymore. I couldn’t see those nerves blue-sparking in him, but I knew it was happening. I took off my shirt and saw again that I was tanned and going to fat. What the hell, I thought guiltily; who cares.

  I sat outside of my friend and waited for him to tell it all to me. That’s why we were there. He said these afternoons helped him stay afloat; it was like jettisoning cargo. His mother looked after his wife and kids once a week, and in return she expected him to cope.

  I learnt to walk on that soft strip of sand by the water. My mother took me down there as a baby. In all the photos we’re brown as nuts and she looks like that old film star, Esther Williams.

  I thought: it’s safe here – next week I’ll bring little Sam down.

  I was waiting to hear it all.

  My friend was trying to understand, but he just didn’t know what it meant to seize up altogether. Though I heard him speak of it, he’d never been unable to continue the way a swimmer, cramped up and beaten, prepares to drown. Thinking about it made my mouth taste electric. I remembered that year, hiding out in the bush. I remembered the four walls of that hut and the suggestions of the sea and the lapping of family voices and the ultramarine light slowly deepening inside.

  But today I was alive enough to be going to fat and to see the city as beautiful. I felt grateful and, somehow, guilty for not being able to explain myself.

  ‘Want a dip?’ I asked.

  My friend took off his singlet. He was white and not going to fat. What the hell.

  We waded out. The cool water was stained from its path through the hills but it was clean. We breast-stroked out toward the line of moored boats. I dived to the bottom and came up laughing.

  ‘Middle of a city and it’s clean water!’

  My friend cut the water beside me.

  From there it seemed as though the city block was resting on water. Kings Park sat green above it. The sky was the colour of sleep. I rolled on my back and saw the old university, pretty and fatuous in its nest of foliage. At night the shores here would germinate with the light of lamps and the sound of people laughing and wading with
nets and calling after children. There would be fires and the smell of cooking prawns, the hiss of beer cans, faint music and the commotion of somebody stung by a cobbler. There would be cars revving. There would be the dark way of the water.

  And I forgot I was swimming, supporting myself in water. My friend laboured beside me. Sobered, I said, ‘We always come back to water. When things happen.’

  I waited for my friend to tell me, but he stroked along, eyes shuttered against the sun.

  Swimming back through the boats, we came upon a yacht swathed in nets to keep children off. Hanging strangled in the net, a gull swung above the water like a cheap symbol in a film. I swam wide. I sensed my friend tiring; his stroke was ragged.

  We scattered tiny smelt before us in the shallows as we waded in.

  We sat on towels.

  ‘C’mon,’ I said. ‘Is she worse?’ He had kids. He believed in a God somewhere. His wife always told mine he was good in bed.

  We sat there a long time, and as I waited for it all to come out I saw a host of white-sailed yachts sweeping down in the wind. Bay of Angels. The sails were like the wings of angels. My heart fattened with joy.

  My friend began to weep.

  I sat there with my mouth open.

  The Strong One

  I

  ONE MORNING AT the beginning of summer, Rachel left them asleep and walked down through the peppermints to the caretaker’s office to post her letter. The office had wide plate windows pasted with maps and announcements. She stopped to witness her reflection in the glass. She looked good. Her skin was clear, there was light in her hair, and when she put her hand against her belly it looked as firm as it felt. The ponderous weight of her breasts was gone. She had survived something to become Rachel again. No; she knew she was more.

  The caretaker took her letter and slipped it under the old hinge he used as a paper weight and a filing system. He looked at the city address.

  ‘The university, eh?’

  ‘Applying for social work.’

  For a moment his eyes settled on the front of her tee-shirt where her nipples stood out dumb from the morning chill. He was a short, dark man. In his fifties, she guessed, with a strangely turned foot. It seemed that every caravan park they stayed in was run by lame men. Rachel wondered how it must be for him to gimp across the grass every morning knowing that from behind curtains in caravans all around, people were watching, discussing.