Skins

by Sarah Hay

  Manning and Jem followed Anderson over the headland and heard the men from the Mountaineer cursing Anderson. But not loud enough for him to hear. Manning thought they could curse all they like. There wouldn’t be anyone who would challenge Anderson. Not when he wore a brace of pistols on his belt. And Manning knew that it wasn’t the first time that Anderson had forced men at gunpoint to kill seals for him.

  The boy Jimmy skipped ahead, jumping from one boulder to the next. Red-brown skinny legs darted in and out of Manning’s vision. He reached the whaleboat before them and stood at the bow, holding onto it and jumping up and down on the spot. They used wooden rollers to take it to the sea. The boat sat lightly in the shallows and they jumped in. But as the boy hooked his leg over, Anderson told him to get off and find some muttonbirds.

  Manning took his place at a thwart. Jem had the next oar. They waited for a break in the waves and then moved out into the channel. He watched the boy stare after the boat, little waves lapping around his ankles. He looked over his shoulder at Dinah who sat straight at the bow. Her tightly cropped head held proud and her sad, scarred breasts facing the open sea like a ship’s figurehead. Anderson stood over them, guiding them with the steering oar through the shallow channel. They raised the sail and cut diagonally across towards Isaac and the others who had just rounded the point in the Mountaineer’s whaleboat. They worked the lee oars to keep the boat close to the wind.

  Manning was conscious of his feet resting on thin wooden board. It was all that lay between him and the dark depths of the sea. He hoped the wind wasn’t going to get any stronger. Jem’s eyes were fixed on the back of the man in front of him. Lean forward, pull back, he looked down the line of the oar as it neatly cut the surface. Waves from the bow fanning out into bruise-coloured water. Sometimes the sun pierced the liquid glass and lit the silver fish and the black shapes that moved between the weed. But today the sea was not throwing up any of its secrets. Manning glanced uneasily up at Anderson. Behind him the glow on the horizon grew stronger as the sun presented itself through a veil of cloud.

  They rounded Flinders Peak. The troughs between the waves deepened. Thick banks of water rose and wavered, the little boat rising with them, climbing on an angle and sliding down the other side. They moved in a westerly direction towards an island about a mile ahead. Spray salted their faces and burnt their eyes. Water slapped at the side and ran over into the bottom of the boat where it swirled around their ankles. Soon the rocky island reared up out of the water. Surf surged over its eastern edge and then receded, revealing a black, moss-like weed more treacherous than ice, and dirty white barnacles. Boulders sat at odd angles on the rock just above the waterline, almost indistinguishable from the seals that lay amongst them.

  Manning felt his stomach surge with the swell. They reached the calm water in the lee of the island where they lowered the sail and took in the oars. Two gulls had followed. The boat moved gently up and down. The birds circled. The familiar smell of the seal colony reached them, sharp and sickly. And every now and then the wind carried their sounds. Anderson ordered Manning to change positions with the man in front of him. He let go a stone anchor over the side and then waited for a lull in the swell. Dinah was standing, poised at the bow, holding the side with one hand, a club in the other. Mead and Manning were behind her. The sea flattened.

  Anderson gave the order to pull while he let out slack on the anchor line. The boat thrust forwards. Jem looked around at Manning. Anderson told him to stay with the oar. Manning knew it was a matter of timing. His heart beat hard against his chest as they surfed in on the swell. Together they must leap from the boat onto the foam-covered ledge. They must reach down for a crack in the rock so that when the sea sucked back they could brace themselves against it and hold tight. If he lost his footing he would roll into the sea like a skinned seal. There was a dull thud at the keel and he followed Dinah over the side. He bent double and scrambled for a foothold. He found it and gripped tight, watching as Anderson held firm the stern anchor line so the boat wouldn’t splinter on the rock. Jem and the other oarsman pulled hard on the stern oars but Jem was not quick enough and the surf pushed them sideways. Just as he thought they were going to go over, they straightened and sliced the top of the next wave before reaching calmer water.

  Like the others Manning had worn his sealskin shoes to protect his feet from the sharp-edged barnacles. But he had nothing to protect his hands. Bent over they edged slowly and carefully across the slippery surface. Manning fought the urge to hurry, to get off the wet rock before the big wave hit. Finally they made it above the wet black line. They could look around now. Even though they could hear the seals they couldn’t see them for the rock was layered and they were on the lower edge. Boulders rose above them like misshapen building blocks. They would have to climb them to get to the seals. Or as Mead had said they could go back into the water and wade around the edge. Manning shook his head. The less he was in the water the better. And then he remembered his dream.

  It was always the same dream: he would twist and turn and when he opened his mouth to scream, bubbles would push out, floating upwards. An arm would cross his face, white and shimmering. Then he would realise it was his own and as he thrashed about the light would change to emerald and in the distance the tail of a seal would ripple through ribbons of weed. It would guide him to land, where on silver sand a dark shape would breathe beside him. He’d reach out for it and discover that it was only skin. And if he looked up there would be Mooney or sometimes it’d be Dinah or Sal gazing down on him.

  He envied the way seals moved through the water. Sometimes it seemed they were teasing. Look at me they would say as they twirled and bent over backwards. There were some in the water out past the Mountaineer’s whaleboat. It was hovering behind the break, waiting for a lull.

  He and Mead leant against the rock. Dinah squatted beside them. Dark clouds were forming in the northwest, and rising up to meet them was the brown line of smoke that stretched along the mainland.

  Manning noticed the orange nippers of a crab in a crack in the rock. He bent closer and it scuttled sideways and alerted the rest of the clan. They sunk out of sight. The wind brought the roar of the surf crashing on the other side of the island. Finally Johno cleared the boat, followed by Mooney and Sal. Hindered by the strong pull of the surf, they struggled to stay upright while the boat retreated beyond the waves.

  Usually there were only two or three of them who clubbed. But with the extra men on the oars they would get a good catch today. Having another boat meant that Anderson would double his money. Mead told Dinah and Sal to swim around the edge so that they would come up under the seals. The rest of them would surprise them from the top and herd them towards some rocks which formed a natural corral. Manning followed Mead up over the rocks until they reached a ledge. Manning loosened his grip on the club, stretching his fingers. He looked down.

  Silver gulls gathered, circling. Just above the waterline were the cows or klapmatches that had recently given birth and the territorial bulls that were gold and brown like the granite. A bronze-bellied mother lay on her back suckling a pup that sprawled across her flipper like a large black leach. A bull rested with his nose pointed towards her, lying between her and the sea, preventing her escape. They were hair seals. Manning knew their skins weren’t as valuable as the fur seals but it made good leather, and the blubber they would boil down for lamp oil.

  He watched the two women move carefully like cats over the uneven surface. When each one lifted her leg he saw the dusky pink soles of her feet and realised he had once expected them to be black. What he didn’t see were the others, shades of their people who moved between them.

  They entered the sea close to where they left the boat, slipping slowly into the water. Their sleek heads bobbing along the surface. A seal surfed with them onto the rock. They pushed their chests off the weed and dragged their bodies behind them, following the seal which walked with an exaggerated gait.

  The se
als stirred. Some lifted their heads. They pointed their noses to the sky and leant back, sniffing the wind. They were suspicious but their eyesight was poor and the salt water had masked the women’s scent. Gradually they stopped fidgeting and settled, resting their chins on the rock, almond eyes open and blinking and then closed. When a seal nearby lifted a flipper to scratch its broad quivering hide, Dinah lifted her arm and scratched her side. If it rolled over onto its back, she rolled onto her back.

  Manning was sweating. The sky had darkened and the wind had dropped. The sand patches under the sea glowed strangely green. Bright white water skirted the island. Every now and then a wave came from nowhere. It thickened and swept the rock and was sucked back into the sea. On higher ground were the older pups. Some with mothers, some without. They lay sleeping in twos and threes. A seal opened her eyes and stared directly at him. For a brief moment she looked into him and the waves stilled, but then she raised her head and began to move away.

  Below, the women stood up. They hit out in frenzy, shrieking with bloodlust or perhaps it was anger or grief. Seals fell over each other. They met the men on the other side and were driven into the rocky corner. It always surprised Manning how quickly the seals moved. And from a distance they looked like sheep, following one another, galloping and bleating. Trapped. They turned, necks wobbling, teeth bared, spitting and red mouthed and roaring. One hit was often not enough. And he had to be quick. Three came at him at once. He swung wildly, barely able to recover from the last before he brought it down again, and again, and again, conscious only that it had to be hard. Those that escaped lolloped away, rolls of fat moving like jelly as their weight shifted from front flippers to back. Around him lay seals that been felled, grey bodies like stumpy tree trunks, sap leaking from their heads.

  Seals that reached the safety of the sea bobbed up, straining back towards the island. Their pups, stranded, many motherless, called desperately. Johno reached into a crevice and pulled one out by its back flippers and threw it high in the air. Manning watched it arch over his head and as it did so its flippers moved and its body twisted and then it hit the rock, bouncing a little.

  The men moved between the mounds, skinning them quickly. Some were still alive, blowing bubbles through bloody nostrils. Manning was always faintly uneasy with the pink body that remained. Especially the eyes, which appeared larger and blinked. He didn’t look around. The women followed, hacking off flippers and slabs of meat that would be wrapped in canvas and hauled across the water to the boat. Mead picked up the thick coil of rope that at one end was secured to the bow of Anderson’s whaleboat. When Mead raised his arm, the men pulled the bundles of skin and blubber through the surf. They had to be quick for soon there would be sharks.

  When the foam took on a pinkish hue and the boats were loaded, the sharks began to circle. Anderson steered the boat in. Luckily the swell had dropped off and there was no wind. But the storm was close. And as they moved out into the open sea, using only the oars, thunder rumbled in the distance and spears of light flickered above the mainland.

  January 1886

  Remember our first summer at the Sound. How we were flattened by the sun and the wind that would gust dryly from the north. How our eyes would itch and the hot air was so hard to breathe. We would bring water up the hill to the hut so we could dampen lengths of canvas to hang in the doorway and the windows. But by the time we finished putting them up, they would be dry again. In the afternoon the trees were still and the birds sat quietly. The bush twitched and rustled with the rasping of cicadas. And then if we were on the other side of the hill, for sometimes we took the trail that wound around and down towards Possession Point, there would be a whisper of a breeze that would touch lightly the beads of water on our foreheads. And the fresh scent of the sea would revive us.

  Middle Island 1835, Dorothea Newell

  Men’s voices on the beach woke her. She crouched before the opening of the tent and watched as their dark shapes launched the whaleboat. She thought for a moment that the Mountaineer’s whaleboat was leaving without them. But then she saw Anderson and his men. They were preparing to go sealing. Some of them, including her brother Jem, followed Anderson over the rocks. One of the men was turning back towards the camp, his coattails blown from behind by the wind. She recognised him. It was William Church. He had spoken to her briefly on the deck of the Mountaineer, saying that he had noticed her small posy of blue flowers pinned above her chest. He told her that it was a rare colour for flowers.

  The beach was bare and through the crack in the canvas it looked less forbidding than before. Leaves that were slightly damp stuck to her knees. She pushed her hair off her face and coarse grains on her hands scratched her skin. Behind her, Matthew and her sister slept. He lay on his back, mouth open, black whiskers and hair flecked with sand as though he had a skin disorder. When he was asleep his face softened and he looked as though he might have been kind. The dark spikes of her sister’s eyelashes rested in a gentle curve on her pale skin. Her breath was light and even.

  Dorothea crawled from the tent, her boots and shawl under one arm. She straightened and felt the moist breeze on her face and noticed the faint smell of smoke. Her head felt heavy and a place behind her eyes ached. She sat down to put on her boots and then decided against it. There didn’t seem to be anyone about. She walked through the low scrub to the beach, barefoot and hair loose down her back. When she reached the sand she stood still for a moment, letting it seep between her toes, a thick liquid that caressed and tickled the sensitive arches of her feet.

  Her skirts rustled and billowed behind her. She noticed the pause and then the crash as the waves broke on the beach. She decided to walk away from the camp to the other headland, which trailed out into a thin strip into the sea. Just off its point was another low-lying island. For every few steps she took, another wave broke.

  She had sometimes escaped to the beach at the Sound. Their home was on the hillside facing away from the sea. Surrounding it was bush, dense with robust tall trees that shed their bark. One day she found a thin trail that led to a horseshoe bay where her feet sunk into wet grey sand. She discovered that it was comforting to wander along its shoreline because it was neither suffocating like the bush nor empty like the sea. It was somewhere in between. When she turned around she would step into her footprints and follow them home.

  She remembered the day she and her family had arrived. Father leading them from the landing along a dirt track between lumpy lime-washed huts thatched with reeds and people standing in front of their canvas tents tending their fires and staring with an expression she didn’t recognise. Later she realised it was smugness for what they already knew.

  Before reaching King George Sound they had spent a week in a tent on the beach at Fremantle. There their father had learnt that all the town blocks of the Sound had been taken. So when they arrived he borrowed a horse and a cart from a man called Digby. He led the horse while Mother followed, carrying William on her hip although he was too big for her, the wet hem of her skirt trailing in the dirt. Dorothea and Mary walked behind their mother. The others sat without speaking on the back of the cart, too tired to take the last steps of their long journey. As they climbed higher the bush grew thicker. They left the little cottages and the half-finished huts and tents behind. The smell, which she had first caught on the wind as the line of the coast grew nearer, became stronger.

  It was thick like honey. The noise of the bush surrounded the sound of their footsteps as they scuffed the dry dirt. Turning back towards the sea, the horizon unravelled emptily. And the bush to the east and to the west was so much of the same that it hurt her eyes.

  The wind blew her hair forward on her face. She tucked it behind her ears. Holding it with one hand she knelt down to a clump of seaweed in front of her. A shell the size of her hand shimmered in the sand. Silver ripples that changed to pink and green when held at different angles to the light. She turned it over. On the other side it was coarse and brown. She reached
the end of the beach and watched the waves roll over a reef a little way out. Breakers quivered as they came to full height. Briefly they offered a glimpse into another world. Too soon a foamy film came down like a blind and the wave was reduced to a ripple at her feet. Hair whipped her face but she didn’t feel it. She breathed deeply and her mind felt clear and whole. She was not afraid any more.

  The air was heavy in the hollow behind the beach. Flies crawled over plates left in the dirt. Dorothea and Mary gathered them up and the pot with gravy congealed on its sides. The flies swarmed over their heads. They heard the snapping of branches as someone pushed their way through the undergrowth on the other side of the clearing. Both stopped and looked. Dorothea flicked a fly from her face. Bush tops swayed.

  ‘Tis only that man, Church,’ she said, relieved, as he emerged from the wattle.

  Later she made tea and brought him out a cup. He took it with both hands. She sat on a stump a short distance away. The hem of her gown, which was torn and beginning to fray, was smudged with black dirt. She rested her chin in her hands and stared into the bush. She could feel his eyes on her and she wondered what he saw. A pleasant-faced woman who was slightly soiled, or perhaps he just wondered why she wasn’t married. He would think she had nice hair for they all thought that. And her eyes too, they were green like her grandmother’s. She was strong with good shoulders and well-shaped arms. But her gown was her mother’s and she spoke badly. Eventually he turned away. Her eyes followed his to the raven in the branch above them. Its blue-black feathers glinted as it hopped from one level to another. More black birds circled under a threatening sky and landed heavily on nearby roosts. Their eyes flickered.

  ‘They’re smaller here than in England.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Which is surprising really since everything else seems bigger.’