Past the Shallows

by Favel Parrett

  ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  It was Mr Roberts again. He was suddenly right there behind him.

  ‘It’s out of your way,’ Miles said, and he covered his mouth as he started to cough again. Mr Roberts pulled something out of his pocket. It was a packet of Butter Menthols.

  ‘I’ll just go and tell your dad then,’ he said.

  Miles watched Mr Roberts cross the road and go into the pub. He was a tall man. He was like a bear and Dad didn’t like him much. No one did since he’d got rich off abalone, since he’d bought three new boats and built a new house and sent his kids to private school. But it was strange. Mr Roberts didn’t seem to care about what other people thought. He really didn’t. It was the way he walked, the way he talked and laughed like he wasn’t scared of anything. And maybe he really wasn’t scared of anything.

  People said he’d been lucky, but Miles thought he’d been smart. He’d built up slowly so that no one even noticed. And he didn’t sell to the cannery like everyone else. He took his catch up to Hobart where the larger abs got more money, and were snap-frozen and sent to Asia whole, shells and all.

  He’d started like all of them. He’d started back when Dad and Nick had.

  Miles got in the passenger seat of Mr Roberts’s station wagon and sucked on a Butter Menthol. It was the newest, nicest car he’d ever been in. The seats were covered in thick, soft material and the heater blew warm air as soon as they started moving.

  ‘Mr Roberts? I’m still a bit wet. Should I sit on a towel or something?’

  Mr Roberts shook his head. He slapped his leg to show Miles that his pants were wet, too. ‘I’m always a bit damp,’ he said. ‘Anyway, call me Brian. Nobody calls me Mr Roberts except for Justin’s new headmistress. I forget her name. Cleary or something. Real piece of work.’

  Mr Roberts laughed and Miles smiled too. It was hard to imagine Justin Roberts at a private school in a uniform and wearing a tie with that long floppy hair of his that hung down over his eyes so that you could only see his big mouth and his teeth sticking out.

  ‘Is he doing all right?’ Miles asked.

  ‘Only thing he likes is the footy team. Good apparently. Haven’t been up to see a game, but he’ll be down here next week. You boys should catch up for a wave.’

  Miles nodded even though he knew Justin and he probably wouldn’t see each other. He hadn’t seen him for ages, not out in the water, anyway. They used to be friends, used to surf, but that all felt like a long time ago now. A lifetime.

  Mr Roberts drove slowly, even on the straight bit of road. He kept a steady pace and his knees hugged the bottom of the steering wheel, his hands resting loose on top. The windows were tinted, just slightly, so that the grey sky seemed to be a midnight blue. Miles would have liked to keep on driving for a long time. To rest down against the warm seat and listen to Mr Roberts talk. To keep on going until there was no more road.

  But then he saw them, on the tight bend before the river.

  Flowers tied to the tree. White lilies right there, tied to that river gum. Miles choked on his Butter Menthol. He grabbed madly at the door, felt the car pull over, and when he got the door open, he leant over and coughed out a pool of phlegm and spit and whatever was left of the Butter Menthol.

  ‘Jesus! Are you all right?’

  Mr Roberts was out of the car. He’d come round and was standing on the side of the road. Miles couldn’t speak. He wiped his mouth, sat back in his seat. He didn’t want to look at Mr Roberts, and he tried not to look outside at all, but his eyes kept finding that tree, kept staring at the tree and at the lilies until he knew that they were real. That the flowers were really there.

  Like they had been after she died. For months and months. Fresh lilies on the tree.

  Mr Roberts took his time getting back in the car and when he did he didn’t start the engine.

  ‘Butter Menthol went down the wrong way,’ Miles said.

  Mr Roberts didn’t say anything. Not for a bit. He handed Miles a hankie.

  ‘I never pass here without thinking of her, you know. Not without thinking of your mum. It must have been bloody terrible.’

  Miles blew his nose on the hankie. He shut his eyes.

  ‘I don’t really remember,’ he said.

  When he opened his eyes, Miles looked at the tree again. It still had a scar, a line where the bark had never grown back. And it was amazing that it had survived at all. They had hit it so hard.

  When they pulled up the drive Miles opened the passenger door. He went to get out but Mr Roberts put his hand on his shoulder, held him back.

  ‘Don’t you get stuck here with your dad,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you let him … You’re too young to be out there working, Miles. It’s not right.’

  Miles felt the words sink right down inside him.

  ‘You’ve had it rough enough,’ he said.

  And he let Miles go.

  The Milo had to last for ages. A month. But Miles looked bad. He looked tired, still coughing all the time and even though milk wasn’t good for a cold, that’s what Aunty Jean said anyway, there wasn’t anything else. Harry wanted to make Miles the best hot Milo ever and it was still early and they could watch the afternoon cartoons and put the fire on.

  He heaped four tablespoons of Milo into Miles’s cup and the hot milk went dark brown. He sprinkled more Milo on the top, just a bit, and it looked good. It smelled good. But when he took the cup over, Miles’s eyes were closed. He was already asleep, his head leaning back, resting on the top of the couch.

  Harry sat down beside him holding the Milo.

  ‘Miles?’ he said quietly. ‘Miles?’

  But he didn’t wake up.

  Aunty Jean’s house was white on the outside and white on the inside, and they had to leave their boots at the door. Sometimes she made them take off their socks as well in case they were damp and left marks on the thick new carpet. She always offered them clean socks to put on but Miles would never touch them. Anyway, the carpet felt nice on his bare feet, springy and soft, but the Saturday afternoon roast always took forever to cook.

  It was some kind of dark meat this time. Beef, maybe, and it did taste good. The gravy was salty and it soaked into the roast potatoes. Miles ate fast. If they got out of Aunty Jean’s soon, there would be time for a surf with Joe when he picked them up. But when he finished he saw that Harry had barely touched his. He didn’t like meat much. He’d only eaten the potatoes. It was driving Miles mad watching him move bits of meat and carrot around and around making rings of gravy on the plate.

  ‘Try and eat some meat, Harry,’ Aunty Jean said.

  Harry looked at Miles and Miles stared back. He kicked Harry’s leg under the table, but that didn’t work. He wouldn’t eat any more.

  Aunty Jean put her knife and fork down on her plate and finally they were allowed to get up and take the dishes into the kitchen.

  The clock above the cooker said it was 1:55 pm.

  Miles filled the sink and started to wash the dishes. He squeezed the detergent hard, made the water slimy and full of suds. And he washed like mad, lining the dishes up neatly in the rack until it was full.

  Aunty Jean came into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She got out three teacups and put them on the bench.

  ‘I don’t want any tea,’ Miles said, and he picked up the tea towel, began drying the plates.

  Aunty Jean crumpled up her nose. ‘Well, I do,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll have one,’ Harry called from the dining room.

  Miles knew he just wanted the biscuits that came with the tea.

  ‘I’ll cut your hair after,’ Jean said. ‘You both need it.’

  And then she smiled.

  They were stuck.

  Miles watched Harry squirm on the stool in the kitchen as Aunty Jean pulled at his hair with the comb.

  Every time he tried to move his head, she grabbed his face and held him still.

  ‘That’s what you get for having curly ha
ir, young man,’ she said.

  She wasn’t even a bit like Mum. It was hard to believe they were sisters because Aunty Jean was like an old lady.

  She dressed like an old lady and she smelled like an old lady and she had arthritis like an old lady.

  And he hoped they hurt, her fat knees. Her puffy ankles that spilled over her shoes. All that fluid moving around when she walked. Moving around but never going away.

  ‘Go to the cupboard and get a towel,’ she said suddenly, and when Miles looked up she was staring right at him.

  He turned away, walked down the hall. The linen cupboard was huge and there were piles of sheets and pillowcases and quilts and Miles didn’t know what the hell they were all for. Aunty Jean lived alone. She had been alone for ages, since Uncle Nick, and no one ever came to visit except them and they never stayed over. Never.

  The towels were on a shelf at eye height and they were all white. There were no other colours, not even cream. It was weird. Miles pulled one out but they were packed in so tight that about five came loose and fell on the floor. He bent down to pick them up and there was a wooden box at the bottom of the cupboard. It was a big box, pushed right to the back – old wood, dark like blackwood. He had never seen it before.

  He looked down the hall. He could hear Aunty Jean talking, but the door to the kitchen was closed just enough so that he couldn’t see her.

  He squatted down, pulled the box out. It had brass handles and carved flowers on the lid.

  Inside there were carefully folded things.

  Soft things.

  They were all baby things.

  ‘Miles! The towel!’

  Miles shut the lid and slid the box away. He picked up one of the towels and shoved the rest back in the cupboard without folding them.

  While Aunty Jean cut his hair, he stared straight ahead. She talked on and on about selling Granddad’s house, but he just kept thinking about the box. He just kept thinking about the little blankets and the baby clothes and how all that stuff was perfect and clean and never used.

  ‘What am I meant to do? What am I meant to do?’ she kept saying.

  And he heard her voice rise up, the familiar tears come.

  ‘I grew up in that house, Miles. Don’t I deserve something?’

  Harry was sitting on the edge of the bath when Miles walked into the bathroom.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, his curls all gone, his eyes bigger than normal because his hair was so short. And it made Miles smile, the way Harry just said Jesus like that, the way they both looked terrible like freshly shorn sheep.

  Mum never used to cut Harry’s hair short. She told him that curls were lucky and should be left alone. Harry liked that and he believed her. He believed everything. He even let her brush his hair every night without complaining.

  Dad even brushed Harry’s hair back then to stop it getting knotted.

  Miles wiped his neck and face with the face washer to get the hair off before it started itching. His hair was really short. She may as well have just used the clippers.

  ‘That’s the last time,’ Miles said.

  Harry nodded but he didn’t look convinced.

  By lunchtime the shed was half empty.

  Out on the grass the ‘throw away’ pile was much smaller than the ‘keep’ pile thanks to Miles. He fought Joe over every piece of furniture and every tool, saying it was wrong to throw any of Granddad’s stuff away. Harry agreed but he didn’t say anything. He just tried to stay out of the way. He waited on the lawn until someone told him what to move and what he could touch and where to put things because he kept doing everything wrong. Most of the things in the shed were too heavy for him to lift and it was dark and full of cobwebs and he knew there were spiders in there. He’d already got two splinters from moving wood because there were no gloves that fit his hands. They were all too big. He should have just gone to Stuart’s.

  Joe took the first load of junk to the tip and Harry thought about going into the house and sitting down inside for a bit. It was cold and the wind was coming off the bay and Miles hadn’t called or come out of the shed for ages. Maybe he’d gone in the house and Harry hadn’t noticed.

  Harry walked over and poked his head through the shed door. It seemed so much bigger inside now that it was half empty – big and dark. He couldn’t see Miles anywhere.

  ‘Miles?’

  No answer. Harry stayed in the doorway anyway. There was still so much stuff in the shed. It was going to take them all day. They wouldn’t be doing anything else. Just this.

  ‘Miles?’

  ‘I’m here,’ he said. His voice came from down the back, behind a stack of old chairs. Harry made his way over, ducking through the spaces left between furniture. Miles was sitting down on a low seat leaning against the back wall of the shed.

  ‘It’s Mum’s,’ he said.

  Harry didn’t know what he was talking about. He looked on the ground and then behind him.

  ‘It’s from the car. The back seat from Mum’s car.’

  Harry looked at what Miles was sitting on. He couldn’t tell what colour the seat was because there wasn’t enough light, but he remembered that the seats in Mum’s car were red, dark cherry red, and that they were always slippery and shiny and cold in the mornings. He remembered that the doors in the back had wooden panels that he could run his Matchbox cars along.

  ‘You wouldn’t remember,’ Miles said.

  Harry sat down next to Miles. ‘I remember,’ he said.

  He ran his fingers along the cold leather. The seatbelts were still attached. He found the middle metal buckle, pressed the button with his finger. It still worked.

  He looked at Miles. He didn’t know why the seat was here. He didn’t understand. Miles was staring ahead. Harry watched him slip both of his hands into the wide gap where the seat bottom and back joined. Harry remembered that his Matchbox cars used to end up there sometimes and Miles would fish them out for him.

  He put one hand into the gap, too, but his fingers only found dust and grit. Then his hand touched the sticky threads of a spider web and he pulled it out quickly. He stood up.

  Miles had something in his hand. He’d found something in the seat. Something small attached to a string.

  ‘What is it?’ Harry asked.

  Miles held the string out for Harry to see. For him to take. And it was heavy. A big triangle of bone, sharp on the sides.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘White pointer’s tooth,’ Miles said.

  And he said it like he knew it. Like he was sure.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was Joe. Harry hadn’t heard his van pull up, but he was standing in the light by the shed door.

  Miles grabbed the tooth out of Harry’s hand. He stood up and put it in his pocket.

  ‘What are you doing back here?’

  Joe bent over and picked up something from the ground. It was a steering wheel. He held it up in both hands.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said.

  And Miles showed him the rest. The crumpled bumper bar, and bent doors. The whole boot and back axle. But he didn’t show him the tooth.

  Joe put the steering wheel down and wiped his hands on the front of his jeans.

  ‘Maybe we should stop for a bit, have lunch.’

  Outside, the light hurt Harry’s eyes. Miles and Joe walked towards the house but Harry stayed on the grass. He shielded his eyes with his hand.

  ‘What are we going to do with it?’ he asked.

  He knew Miles would never let Joe chuck Mum’s seat out, take it to the tip. The seat and the steering wheel and whatever else was there would go on the ‘keep’ pile. They would keep it.

  But Miles kept on walking. He went into the house. Joe stopped on the verandah, rested his arm on the railing.

  ‘I don’t know why Granddad kept all that stuff, but I don’t think he should have. I don’t think he should have kept those things.’

  And he turned to go inside. He told Harry he’d make him a sandwich.r />
  But Harry stayed where he was. He stayed among the piles of Granddad’s things left on the lawn – all the things that were no longer needed, no longer useful – and he wished that Joe would stay.

  Harry climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. He liked going to the tip. Lots of devils had dens up there and they were slow and fat and almost tame from eating scraps and rotten food. Sometimes you could see them hanging around in the day, not like the ones near home that you could only hear late at night, growling and screaming and fighting when everything was dark. Sometimes Harry looked out the window and tried to see them. And sometimes he thought he saw eyes – little red eyes staring out through the scrub – but he was never sure. He knew Dad hated them, the sound they made. He knew if any devils ever made a den under the house then Dad would shoot them.

  Harry hoped he would see some today.

  They had found even more of the car as they emptied the shed, mostly dented panels, bits of the engine, and it was all loaded up in the trailer. The back of the van was full, too. There was so much junk at Granddad’s that they would probably have to make four trips or more to the tip.

  Joe backed out the drive and Harry waved to Miles. He was sitting on the verandah and he didn’t wave back. He was meant to be going through the stuff in the house now, but Harry knew he would just sit there until they got back. He wanted to keep the house more than any of them. Joe didn’t seem to mind much and Aunty Jean said it had to happen. ‘We could all do with the money,’ she said.

  Harry just thought Granddad would be sad about all his stuff going to the tip.

  Joe asked him if he was all right. ‘Is it because I’m leaving?’ he asked.

  Harry shrugged. He wanted to wind down the window so he could breathe some cool air, but the car was kicking up so much dust off the road that he’d better not.

  ‘I’m coming back, anyway. After I’ve seen a few places.’