Past the Shallows

by Favel Parrett

  It hadn’t even tried to slow down.

  And neither had Dad.

  Jake alternated between leading and following on the narrow track through the scrub and the ground was really wet here, wet from the river and wet from the rain. Harry had never been this way before. Not this far upstream. No one came up here really, but George seemed to know the way. And it looked like all this land had been cleared once. A long time ago. When the forest was cleared it never looked right when it grew back. It was missing bits. There was no moss or ferns or dark hardwood trees. Just tall scrappy gum trees and grasses and shrubs.

  They climbed a small hill and from the top Harry could see the bigger blue hills in the distance. A sea of blue forest going on forever. But below, in the valley, the layout of the land was clear. There were paddocks, old wooden stump posts, old sheds. And as they got closer, Harry could see the blackened stone foundations of a building. A house. The brick chimney still standing but slightly crumpled on one side where bricks had fallen loose.

  George put his backpack down, got out some hessian sacks and handed one to Harry. And Harry could smell them, the red apples sweet and bubbling, ripe to bursting. It didn’t take long before his sack was heavy with them. He could only reach the low branches, but the old orchard was so overgrown, the trees weighted and full. Rotten fruit was thick on the ground. He’d better watch out for snakes because there would be rats around – he’d heard some scurrying before, and Jake was barking and running like mad. Chasing rats and taking bites of fallen apples. He had one in his mouth now and he brought it over. It was slimy and half rotten, but Harry took it anyway. He chucked it as far as he could and Jake leapt after it.

  Harry looked up at George.

  ‘Is this your place?’ he asked suddenly.

  George let his full sack rest down against the earth. He looked at Harry. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Where you grew up?’

  He nodded. He picked up the sack again.

  It was time for lunch.

  Harry had taken his jumper off while they were picking and he’d enjoyed the winter sun on his bare arms, but now that he was sitting down he was cold again. George lit a fire, poured some water from his flask into the billy. He got out some bread and, using a large rock as a cutting board, cut a few rough slices. Jake got up from where he was lying and moved closer to the food. There was butter and some smoked orange fish that looked sticky. It glistened like it had been varnished. Harry didn’t like smoked fish but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be rude.

  He watched George put some butter on the bread then a thick slice of fish. Then he took an apple out of his pocket, cut some thin slices and laid them on top of the fish. Harry took the bread in his hands. He could smell the fish but he was hungry, so he closed his eyes and took a bite. It was salty but sweet, too, and with the apple and the butter it tasted good.

  The water in the billy started bubbling. George added loose tea and took the billy off the fire using a stick. When the metal handle had cooled down a bit, he grabbed it in his hand and swung the billy from side to side with quick, sharp movements. He poured the black tea into the two white, chipped tin mugs and there was no loose tea in them. Not even one leaf.

  There was no milk, but Harry didn’t mind. The warm mug in his hand and the fire were making him feel good. Good and warm and tired. He looked around at the old farm. He had so many questions that he wanted to ask George, like why don’t you live here instead of in a marshy paddock? And how did the fire start that burned down the house? But he only asked one question.

  ‘Do you remember your mum and dad?’

  George nodded his head slowly. He put his cup down and rolled up his sleeves. Harry saw for the first time that George’s scars weren’t just on his hands and face. The bubbled white and pink shiny skin went all the way up both arms.

  ‘Sometimes I don’t remember,’ Harry said. ‘Sometimes I can’t remember Mum.’

  He caught glimpses of her in his head, just a flash every now and then and he tried hard to hold onto them. But he wasn’t sure he knew the lady in the photographs at home. He wasn’t sure he knew her.

  ‘Dad doesn’t like me very much,’ he said.

  George finished his tea in one big gulp and put his cup down again next to Harry’s on the dirt. And he squeezed Harry’s shoulder. He told Harry all about Mum when she was young. What he remembered.

  Back at the shack, George gave Harry a small bag of apples to take home, but Harry said no.

  ‘Dad will ask me where I got ’em,’ he said.

  George put the bag down on the table. He took out two apples and slipped them into the pockets of Harry’s parka.

  On the way home, Harry took an apple out of his pocket and rubbed it against his pants. He took a bite. It was sweet and the juice ran down his chin. And it was good like sunshine. Like the inside of an apple pie. He was glad George had shown him the farm. The place he grew up.

  He knew they were real friends now.

  A car pulled up the driveway. A new car, dark blue and shiny.

  Harry held onto the curtains, kept them tightly shut with just enough space for one of his eyes to see out of the window. A man and a woman got out of the car. They were wearing uniforms like police uniforms but they weren’t police uniforms.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Harry stood still. They knocked again.

  The door wasn’t locked and if the man and the woman tried it, it would open and they would see him hiding by the curtains. He moved closer to the door.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Officer Warne-Smith and Officer Taylor here. Are Mum or Dad at home?’

  It was a woman’s voice. Harry reached out and touched the door handle. He opened the door a tiny way and put his face through the crack. The woman was short with blonde hair and she looked quite nice. The man stood behind her and he was trying to see past Harry and into the house.

  ‘My mum’s dead,’ Harry said.

  The man and the woman looked at each other.

  ‘Is your dad at home?’ the woman asked.

  Harry shook his head. He let the door fall open a bit wider.

  ‘He’s on the boat.’

  The woman looked down at the folder she was carrying and she wrote something down.

  ‘And that’s Mr Curren? Mr Steven Curren?’

  Harry nodded. Now the man was staring at him. He wasn’t smiling.

  ‘At home on your own?’ he asked. ‘How old are you?’

  Harry looked down at the worn-out doormat encrusted with mud.

  ‘My aunt’s coming,’ he said.

  The woman tucked the folder under her arm.

  ‘We need to speak to your dad. You say he’s out on his boat?’

  Then the man said, ‘We’re from Fisheries. Your dad’s licence is not valid. Unpaid fines and a long list of infringements. We need to speak with him.’

  Harry could feel the man staring at him and he wanted to say that maybe he’d been wrong, that Dad might not be on the boat and he was probably up at the shops. But he couldn’t make himself say anything. He just kept his eyes focussed on the doormat and waited for them to leave.

  The woman said goodbye but the man didn’t.

  Harry shut the door. He heard the man say, ‘What a shithole,’ and he heard the car doors close. They must be from Huonville or maybe from Hobart.

  From the window Harry watched them reverse down the drive. And he thought maybe he’d go out for a while.

  At least until Miles got home.

  Sometimes mist hung in the air, still and wet, and it wouldn’t move or disintegrate or change all day because the heat from the sun wasn’t strong enough. It would take the afternoon wind off the ocean to break it up. To chase it away.

  Miles walked up to Granddad’s house after work. There was a For Sale sign in the front paddock nailed to a fence post. And it was almost empty now, the house. Broken chairs and full green bin bags left on the verandah. An old phone book
on the floor in the middle of the lounge, a chipped cup on the kitchen bench. All of Joe’s stuff gone. But there were signs that they had been here. All of them.

  Deep grooves in the floorboards in the hallways and near doors, soot in the fireplace, brown smoke stains on the mantelpiece. Harry’s treasure hunt items left hanging from windows and resting on the sills.

  Joe had told Harry he could choose three for the boat and that the rest had to go. But Harry hadn’t chosen any pieces yet. He just kept walking around the empty house looking at them all. Sometimes he’d pick up a shell or a bone or something and hold it for a while. Sometimes he would say something like ‘I found this at Cockle Creek’ or ‘Cuttlefish are smart’. But he always put the item back down again.

  Miles found the old carved notches on the kitchen door: the marked heights of all of them. Of Mum and Aunty Jean. Harry and Joe. Miles ran his finger along the last marking for him. It was hard to believe he had ever been so small. He was smaller than Harry was now. He always thought he would live here one day.

  He walked outside and opened the door to the workshop. The workbenches and metal lathe were still there, too heavy to move. And there were piles of collected wood stacked in the corner. Not wood for the fire, but good wood, supple wood full of oil. Granddad’s wood.

  Granddad had made beautiful things. He made wood glow and shine, and Miles was going to be just like him. He didn’t want to just be a carpenter like Joe. He didn’t want to build houses and kitchens or fixtures on boats. He was going to make furniture. Good furniture. Just like Granddad.

  Miles walked into the workshop. He picked up a small gnarled piece of king billy from the pile and he breathed it in. It smelled of the earth, even after all this time.

  They stood among the destruction, smiling at the abundance. Myrtle, blackwood, king billy pine strewn, left behind. There for the taking.

  A freshly logged coup.

  ‘Jesus, Miles! Look at all that bloody wood.’

  Miles could smell the wood, the pine, the earth. He looked around, rubbing his hands on his corduroy pants.

  ‘What should we get?’ he asked, and Granddad grinned.

  ‘As much as we can load up – as much as we can bloody load up!’

  They started filling the trailer, large pieces first. And Miles was actually helping for once, managing to carry some heavy timber by himself. There were a few good-sized logs, big enough for a coffee table or bedside cabinets. All the smaller bits were good for the lathe – chair legs, bowls, lamp stands. Miles found a big chunk of king billy dripping with sap. Billy was his favourite; the way it smelled sweet like honey, the pink flesh so tightly packed it was as strong as stone. And it was the best wood he knew. Something made of billy could last forever if you made it properly. If you worked the wood right.

  ‘Maybe we’ll find some huon,’ he said, and Granddad winked.

  ‘Used to be everywhere when I was a kid, you know.’

  And Miles did know. When he closed his eyes he could see it. The huon pine growing soft and silent by the rivers. The trees reaching wide out of the dark valleys, so perfect. And they would never come back like that. Not even in a million years.

  ‘Got your eye on a piece?’ Granddad asked.

  Miles nodded, but didn’t point it out. He’d leave that till later. He knew Granddad would be surprised because it was just a small piece, and it wasn’t billy. It was a soft bit of celery top, the grain bold and clear and ready to shine. He could see what it could be, how he would sculpt it on the lathe. And it would be for Joe. For the boat he was going to build.

  Something just for luck.

  Miles heard Joe’s van pull up the drive and he put the old bit of billy he was holding back on the pile. He went outside.

  He waved to Joe and he thought that whoever bought the house would probably think all that wood was just for the fire.

  Miles watched Joe mark out huge arcs on the slate green lines. He was wild, moving so fast he was flying. But Miles couldn’t move. He just stood still at the top of the cliff, hardly breathing, watching the water below churn and run. It was shit that Joe had brought him here. Southport Bluff was rocky and rippy, a steep heavy chunk of water that jacked up over black reef. People called it the Bone Yard, maybe because of all the old shipwrecks, or maybe because the reef could break your bones. Miles didn’t know, but he’d seen Joe get smashed here before; pummelled by thick white water, dragged backwards over reef, had the skin on his hands and feet ripped away. And Joe was much bigger than he was.

  He was just a kid. A baby. He was nothing.

  The light was going. Soon it would be too late. Joe was leaving. Leaving. And Joe had yelled at him before, said that Miles was going to get stuck. Stuck working for Dad, stuck being responsible for Harry, stuck being responsible for everything. He’d said that Miles was always scared of the wrong things.

  ‘I bet every bit of you is screaming on the inside, Miles.’

  And it was. Miles could feel it. His jaw tight, his fists clenched, just standing there with his wetsuit on and his board under his arm. Just standing there like he was dead.

  But he moved. He started running, skidding blindly down the steep rocky path. Unable to stop, too scared to stop. At the bottom he picked his way along the exposed reef until the cold water hit his feet. He threw himself off the edge of the world without even thinking. Without breathing. He just paddled with everything. And Joe was hooting and clapping, giving Miles the strength to paddle faster. He felt the lines punch hard underneath him, pick him up like he was just a leaf, a piece of seaweed. But he wasn’t scared now. Not of this.

  It was simple.

  What he needed.

  The rise and fall of the ocean breathing and someone out there who felt it too. Joe understood. He lived for this, for these moments when everything stops except your heart beating and time bends and ripples – moves past your eyes frame by frame and you feel beyond time and before time and no one can touch you.

  When he reached the main break it was bigger, thicker than it had looked from up high on the cliff. The back of the wave almost as steep as the face so that the peaks and troughs were metres apart. But Miles kept his eyes on Joe’s eyes. Kept his eyes fixed right on Joe.

  This next line.

  His.

  This wave was going to take him whether he liked it or not. He turned. He waited for that feeling when the back of your board gets lifted. For the moment when you are collected. And his body knew how. It knew what to do, when to lean in, when to pull back. That drop rolling out fast.

  Everything fell out of his mind. He could see it all now right in front of him, see the ridges, the curves. See the colour of the water as it moved in the fading light. It was time to do something. Time to make something of his own.

  Getting changed, Joe and Miles were laughing at nothing, laughing at everything. Joe couldn’t find one of his socks, and Miles got his wettie stuck on one arm and he couldn’t get it free. It was freezing and windy, but Miles laughed so much his face hurt. He still couldn’t believe he had surfed Southport Bluff. He’d done it, caught a few really big waves that were well overhead. They were still running through him.

  In the car with the headlights on, his body relaxed. It was dead weight cradled in the bucket seat. But Joe didn’t start the car. His hands were on the steering wheel, but they didn’t move. He just sat there and stared straight ahead.

  ‘I thought I’d leave tomorrow,’ he said after a while.

  He looked at Miles. ‘With more big swell coming, if I don’t leave now then it might be weeks before I can get out across the strait.’

  Miles couldn’t think of anything to say. There was nothing. Joe said it was probably best if he didn’t see Harry because he wouldn’t be able to explain, and that maybe Miles could explain it better. And the whole time Joe looked weird and his eyes were wide and red. He looked like he was scared.

  ‘You can tell him for me. And tell him I’m coming back.’

  Miles want
ed to get out of the car. He wanted to get the feeling back that he’d had five minutes ago, and he couldn’t look at Joe. He pushed his body as far away as he could so that he was jammed right up against the door with the handle pushing into his ribs. Joe’s hands were still on the steering wheel. Squeezing the steering wheel.

  Miles thought he might be crying.

  ‘I just gotta get out of here,’ he said.

  It was quiet except for the sounds of Joe and Miles wanted to tell him to shut up. He wanted to ask him what he was crying for, what he had to cry about. He didn’t have to live with Dad and work on the boat. He didn’t have to look after Harry.

  Joe didn’t park in the drive. He pulled up on the side of the road with the house just in view. He left the engine on.

  ‘What time are you going?’

  Joe shrugged. ‘Early I guess.’

  And Miles knew in his guts that Joe was ready to go right now. That he would probably slip out tonight and that’s what this afternoon had been about. He’d planned this whole thing. The surf. All of it.

  Miles pulled the handle on the passenger door and opened it and Joe reached out and grabbed his arm.

  ‘I’ll be back, Miles. I will.’

  Miles kicked the door open wider and swung his legs out.

  ‘I’m only nineteen, Miles. I’m only nineteen.’

  Miles shut the door. He walked up the drive and thought that when he was nineteen, Harry would be nearly fifteen and they could both be the hell away from here too. That’s what he thought. But it felt like it would never really happen.

  It felt like it would never come around for him.

  Miles knew how to make corn beef hash, only there wasn’t any corn beef. Plenty of potatoes, though.

  ‘Do you want mashed potatoes, Harry?’

  Harry was watching TV and he didn’t turn around, but he said yes. Then he said, ‘What else is there?’

  Miles looked in the cupboard. Tomato sauce. A small tin of baked beans, dry pasta, an onion.