Past the Shallows

by Favel Parrett

  ‘Baked beans?’

  Harry nodded.

  The bright red peeler didn’t work anymore. It had rusted solid and no one had ever bothered to throw it out. Miles picked it out of the drawer, touched the rusted blade with his finger. He could use a knife, and he got the sharpest one out, but then again the potatoes weren’t too dirty. He could just scrub them and mash them with the skin on. No, Harry wouldn’t eat that. He’d better peel them.

  It was hard to cut close to the skin and he ended up losing quite a bit of potato. But there was enough. Potatoes were filling. When Mum used to take them up to Huonville market they would always get hot potatoes from the Potato Man. The little black metal oven full of steaming baked potatoes. One cut in half, with melted cheese and coleslaw and herbs and butter oozing down, would be more than enough. It would keep Miles warm all day. But they didn’t have any cheese or butter or any of those other things. Just milk.

  Miles put Harry’s serve on a small plate so that it looked like there was more food. A small tin of beans didn’t go very far and Miles was careful to split the food equally, even though he knew Harry wouldn’t eat all of his.

  Dark outside, but still early, they sat and ate their warm beans and mash. And Miles knew he would let Harry use the last of the milk for a cup of Milo later, and he knew that Harry would ask him about it just as soon as he finished his last mouthful of dinner.

  And then Harry told Miles about the people who had come to the door. About Fisheries.

  Miles and Harry had stayed out for as long as they could, stayed out past midnight until they were freezing, because Jeff and Dad had been drinking for two days. But now they were back in their room and Harry was busting for the loo.

  ‘Just go out the window,’ Miles whispered.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  Harry didn’t answer. He got out of bed and started jiggling. He could never go to the toilet outside.

  ‘But you’ll have to go out through the lounge,’ Miles said.

  Apart from two small bedrooms, the brown house was only one room, a kitchen–lounge with a concrete bathroom tacked on. Harry looked terrified but he opened the door anyway and ducked out. Miles heard his feet hit the lino in the kitchen and Jeff and Dad hadn’t stopped talking. Maybe they wouldn’t notice. Miles got out of bed just in case. He waited by the door. He didn’t hear the toilet flush, but the talking had stopped.

  ‘It’s the littlest retard.’

  It was Jeff’s voice.

  Miles opened the bedroom door a few inches. All he could see was Jeff sitting in the armchair and the back of Harry and Dad must be on the couch.

  ‘Have a drink, Harry,’ Jeff said.

  There was a bottle of Coke on the coffee table. There was never any Coke at home so Jeff must have brought it over.

  ‘Go on. Have a drink.’

  Harry must have thought Jeff was going to give him a glass of Coke because he said OK. Jeff picked up a bottle of Beam from beside his chair and started pouring. The glass was half full when he handed it to Harry.

  ‘I meant Coke,’ Harry said, and tried to give the glass back.

  ‘You’ll bloody drink it.’ But it wasn’t Jeff speaking now. It was Dad. And Jeff was laughing. His face all red and shiny and laughing.

  ‘Drink it,’ Dad said again.

  Harry took a sip. He was coughing as he tried to put the glass down on the table, but Jeff stood up and took the glass out of Harry’s hand. He grabbed Harry in a headlock, wrapped his thick arm around Harry’s neck and pulled tight. And before Miles knew what he was doing he’d opened the door and run out into the lounge. He looked at Dad, all glazed over and puffy. Glassy eyes that gave no hope.

  ‘Let him go. Leave him alone!’ Miles said.

  ‘Ah, the other retard.’ Jeff turned his body towards Miles and dragged Harry with him. He was enjoying himself. Grinning at the attention and Harry couldn’t move. His eyes were bloodshot, tears all down his cheeks. Jeff rammed the glass against Harry’s mouth and forced his jaw open. The liquid poured in and Harry gasped and choked. Beam spilled down his chin. Miles had tasted Beam before. It must be burning Harry, his throat and his mouth, burning his eyes. And Jeff was still pouring, making Harry swallow by jerking his head around with his wrist and forearm.

  Miles took a step and lunged into Jeff, but Jeff didn’t budge an inch. He just kicked out and caught Miles’s leg. Miles went down and his head cracked the edge of the coffee table. He lay on the worn carpet face down. It stunk of damp.

  He had heard the sound of his head hitting the table, a dull wooden sound, but he hadn’t felt it. Not yet. Thick liquid ran into his eye socket and he knew it must be blood. Then his fingers burned and he cried out. Jeff’s boot was crushing his hand, the hard soles squashing his fingers into the carpet.

  ‘Dad!’ he yelled.

  Nothing.

  Miles strained his head around to see Jeff move the empty glass away from Harry’s mouth. Harry struggled for breath. He looked sick. He was pale and his face glistened with sweat and sticky liquid. Then he was sick all down his chin and onto Jeff’s hand and arm.

  ‘Ah, fuck. Jesus Christ, you little pig.’

  Jeff pushed Harry away, wiping the vomit off his arm with the back of Harry’s saturated t-shirt.

  Miles realised his hand was free and shot up. But now Dad was up, too. Up off the couch.

  He stood, unsteady on his feet, looking at something in the distance. Then his focus found Miles. And he had the same look in his eye he had the night he busted Joe’s arm, when Joe was thirteen and Miles was seven. The last night Joe ever spent in the brown house.

  And Miles remembered what Dad had said that night. What he had said to Joe. ‘You’re just like him. You’re just like him.’ Then he threw Joe hard across the room and Joe hit the kitchen bench and there was a terrible crack. But Joe didn’t make a sound. He didn’t cry or wince or anything. He just looked back at Dad and said ‘I’m glad’. And Miles remembered that he threw up on the floor when he looked at Joe’s bent arm, and that Dad made Joe clean it up.

  Miles looked down at the carpet now. There was blood where he’d fallen, drops of blood. And there were drops of blood near his feet. One fell while he was watching, then he heard Dad slump back down on the couch. Everything stopped and was quiet and even Jeff was sitting down now.

  Miles grabbed Harry and they moved into the bedroom. He didn’t have to ask Harry to do anything, he was already changing his t-shirt and had his shoes on.

  ‘I’ve got your jacket,’ he whispered to Harry, and Harry grabbed some things from under his bed.

  It was still quiet in the lounge. Miles climbed out the window then helped Harry down. They started to run, not down the drive, but straight into the thick scrub at the back of the house. Then they heard Dad yelling from inside. Yelling at them, at everyone. Yelling at no one. And Miles could hear the words. They came through the brown walls, through the air and cracked open the night: ‘I never wanted you.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Harry asked.

  Miles didn’t know. Just somewhere away.

  The thin track they were on disappeared when it hit the river and from there they had to skirt along the bank. They were careful not to get too close to the sides. It was dark. Really dark. No moon or stars, and it was hard to see the water. But it was there, rushing in the dark, catching on the edge debris and crack wattle.

  ‘We could go to George’s,’ Harry said.

  Miles stopped walking. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s all right. George is all right. He knew Granddad and –’

  ‘What are you talking about? How the hell do you know him?’

  ‘I’ve been going over there to play with Jake.’

  Miles grabbed Harry with both arms now.

  ‘Who the hell is Jake? What are you talking about?’

  ‘George lets me play with his puppy, Jake, and we have lunch. He told me all about Mum.’

  Miles started walking agai
n as fast as he could away from Harry, but Harry kept talking.

  ‘He was friends with Granddad and it isn’t true what people say about him and –’

  ‘We’re not going there, OK? I don’t know him.’

  They walked in silence for a while, Harry still behind Miles, until they got to the bridge.

  ‘George is on the other side,’ Harry said.

  ‘I already told you, we’re not going there.’

  ‘Well, where are we going?’

  Miles stopped. His eyes burned. He hadn’t told Harry that Joe had gone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled. And he didn’t know.

  Harry stood beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. He kept saying ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right’ and Miles didn’t know how long they stood like that, but the cold had got in and he could feel it. He could feel something. Now his head hurt. It ached and stung and his right eye felt wrong. It wouldn’t open properly.

  ‘OK,’ was all he said.

  Harry led them across the road and onto a track, almost running.

  They were close when a dog started barking from inside.

  Miles stopped dead but Harry kept moving towards the small wooden shack.

  ‘It’s just Jake,’ he said, without bothering to keep his voice down, and a light came on from inside. A figure stood in the half-opened doorway.

  ‘It’s me and Miles,’ Harry said.

  A dog bolted out the door and ran to Harry. It jumped around his feet and the man at the door waved them in. Harry went inside but Miles followed slowly. He stepped carefully onto the creaking verandah and he tried not to stare at the dark hollows and missing pieces of the man’s face. Miles had never really seen George Fuller up close, had never seen his face, but somehow it didn’t shock him now. Somehow the man standing there just looked like an old man. He was just an old man.

  Miles turned away and stepped through the door. Inside a small gas lamp lit the room. The place was neat and ordered, clean, the walls painted white against the dark wood ceiling and supporting beams. There was a small bed against one wall, a table, one armchair and two wooden chairs, a single shelf with a few pots and things, a wood heater in the middle of the room, a rug, a metal trough with one tap attached to the wall. More things than Miles would have thought could fit in a place like this, and yet it all did.

  George gestured for Miles to take the armchair, but he put his backpack on the table and sat on one of the small wooden chairs instead. Harry seemed happy to just stand there and not introduce Miles, so Miles didn’t say anything either. He watched George fill an old kettle at the trough, the water from the tap running slowly, then he put the kettle on the wood heater. Harry fed the fire some more wood and sat on the floor with the dog in front of the fire like nothing had happened, like tonight hadn’t happened and he’d always lived in this tiny wood shack with this old man. Miles looked at his backpack and then at the floor. His head really hurt now and the heat of the room was making his eye swell up. He could feel it growing, his eyelid fat and heavy. He cleared his throat.

  Harry turned around.

  ‘This is Miles,’ he said.

  The dog looked up at Miles for a second, then put his head back down on Harry’s lap. Miles thought he should say something but he couldn’t think of anything. George stood up and got a box down from the shelf. He put it on the table and pulled out a bottle of Dettol and a cloth.

  ‘OK?’ he said, and the sound came from deep in his throat and nose, rather than out of his mouth. He pointed at the cut on Miles’s forehead. Miles nodded.

  George diluted some of the Dettol with water and soaked the corner of a cloth in the liquid. He moved towards Miles, touching his forehead lightly. He brushed the hair away from the wound and dabbed gently at the cut. The antiseptic stung the broken skin and Miles pulled away. There was blood on the cloth, bright and fresh. Miles breathed in.

  ‘You OK?’ Harry asked, and Miles nodded.

  George fished around in the box and found a butterfly clip. He squeezed the skin tight and applied the bandage, then put blobs of some kind of cream around Miles’s eye and cheek. It was cold and it smelled like Aunty Jean’s herbal tea, but it made his head feel better.

  The kettle boiled. George poured some tea into a teapot, followed by the hot water. There were two teacups and one mug. George went outside to the verandah and came back with a bottle of milk. He poured it in all three cups and put the bottle on the table. Miles stood up, having a purpose, and took the bottle in his hand. George nodded. It was really warm inside now and wouldn’t take long for the milk to go bad.

  He could see quite well on the verandah because of the light coming though the window, but the moon was still behind clouds. There was a meat safe hanging from the roof and below it a wooden cupboard with flywire sides. Miles put the milk in the otherwise empty cupboard and went back inside.

  A cup of tea was waiting for him on the table. Harry had the other cup in his hands.

  ‘George put the sugar in already. I told him you have it like me.’

  Miles looked at George as he sat down on the chair again. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Harry gulped his tea down like it was a cold drink. Joe always added some tap water to Harry’s tea when he wasn’t looking because he always gulped it down, no matter how hot it was. He got up off the floor and put his empty cup on the table.

  ‘These are like Mum’s cups,’ he said.

  Miles looked at the cup in his hand. It was like the ones Mum liked, like the ones she had. Aunty Jean had taken all the cups away after she died. She said Harry and Miles would just break them if she left them at the house. Now they were displayed in a glass cabinet at Aunty Jean’s and they were never used for tea. They were never used for anything.

  ‘If you need to go to the loo, it’s outside. I’ll show you where it is if you want,’ Harry said.

  Miles watched George go over to a cupboard and get out a pillow, a sleeping bag and a rolled-up sleeping mat. Harry helped him unroll the mat on the floor and unzip the sleeping bag so that it opened out to double size like a doona. They seemed to have an understanding, George and Harry. One that didn’t need words.

  ‘We have to share,’ Harry said.

  Miles didn’t care. The sleeping bag in front of the fire looked good. It was warm and the light was low and now he just felt heavy and tired. He just wanted to close his eyes.

  George sat down in the armchair.

  Miles lay on the floor next to Harry under the sleeping bag and the dog burrowed in between them. He patted and cuddled the dog, felt its small heart beat into his hand, and wondered how it was that George came to live here in a wooden shack with no power and not much of anything.

  Harry’s breathing changed. Miles guessed he was asleep already. The gas lamp went off and soft, warm light filled the room. Miles heard a match strike. He watched the flame, watched George light his pipe and the smell washed over him. He closed his eyes. He knew that smell. It was the smell of Granddad’s house, the smell of rich sweet pipe tobacco. And Miles could see Granddad sitting by the fire listening to the radio, his eyes almost closed, slowly puffing on his pipe. And he was there, too. Just a small boy, playing on the floor with his Matchbox cars.

  Granddad had made him a toolbox.

  And he’d watched Granddad make it. He’d tried to help. He’d handed Granddad things when he needed them. The plane. A chisel. The four screws that held the whole box together. And Granddad had carved his name carefully on the side, M. Curren in curly writing.

  Granddad said Miles would be old enough to have some tools of his own soon. Old enough when he was five. And he held on tightly to the handle of his toolbox when Mum came to pick him up. He cradled it on his lap and waved goodbye as they reversed down the drive.

  It was getting dark. When they got on the road, the radio crackled with some old kind of song and a man was singing low and soft like sleep. And with the sound of the car and the sound of the radio and with Mum’s v
oice softly singing along, Miles had to close his eyes. He had to rest his head down against the window.

  But the car stopped.

  Miles lifted his head, blinked his eyes. They weren’t at home. They were still on the road. On the road near the bend where the track was narrow and dark, and Mum opened the door. She got out of the car and left the door open and the cold air rushed in. Miles called out, but she was already into the trees and she didn’t hear, or at least she didn’t stop. She just walked into the darkness and was barely there to see at all except the white frill on the bottom of her skirt that flashed as she moved.

  Miles opened the passenger door. He got out of the car and he stood on the road.

  ‘Mum?’ he said, and he looked into the trees.

  Now he couldn’t see her at all.

  He stepped onto the earth covered with leaves and cracking sticks and he touched the rough trees with his hands. The wind rustled high above, invisible, and made the air rain leaves. They fell on his face. He kept on walking. He kept on going deeper into the forest until he saw her, almost see-through in the dark. Just an outline now. Mum leaning against a tree, her arms hugging her sides. And she was crying.

  Miles stood silent until he could barely see her anymore, and then he asked quietly if they could go home.

  And her voice was small, but he heard her. A whisper.

  ‘I left here once. But I came back.’

  Miles moved closer. He felt for her hand.

  ‘My darling,’ she said.

  And he led her back through the trees, and back to the car and her skin was like ice.

  Miles rolled over and opened his eyes.

  Harry was there next to him on the floor, fast asleep. He sat up. George wasn’t in the room. His bed was made, neat and tidy, and maybe he’d never slept in it at all. Miles had seen him there, his dark silhouette still in the armchair. But then he’d closed his eyes. He’d slept like stone. And he didn’t know how the night had passed or how long he’d slept. He just remembered feeling the warmth of the dog on his back and then there was nothing.