The Days of In Between

by Peter Valentine Fenton

  ‘Can we go fishing tomorrow, Dad?’ His dad looked up, across to Toby, then over to Judy and then back to him. He looked surprised for a moment and suddenly came to life.

  ‘That could be good,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Especially since we don’t have Danny with us threatening to overturn the tinny every five minutes.’

  Toby grinned. ‘Or getting snagged all the time!’

  His dad let out a playful groan, motioning for Toby to sit beside him. ‘Always getting the most impossible knot in his line. Geez, that took up some time!’ Dad laughed.

  Judy began shuffling her cards with an increased fervour as Toby’s memories of previous holidays came flooding back alongside his father’s growing eagerness. ‘Or what about the time you were trying to undo the knot and Mum pulled in that mammoth flathead?’

  ‘She always did that! Got the best catch!’ Dad’s voice was raised in an almost outraged glee. ‘And then we’d fry it up after. Oh, those were the days!’

  Thwack! Down went the playing cards that Judy had been dealing with an irritated efficiency. She shot a look at her new husband.

  ‘Might go read, Brian,’ she said, grabbing her copy of the Women’s Weekly. She moved quickly towards the bedroom and deftly closed the vinyl concertina door.

  His dad gazed upon the closed door for a lost moment, his fingers grabbing at his cheek then sliding down his face before he turned to his son.

  ‘Fishing sounds good mate, maybe sometime after a bit of a sleep-in and brekky. How about after ten?’

  ‘Okay Dad. Great. I was thinking I might try and walk up the mountain tomorrow morning, first thing?’

  His dad nodded with a faint smile. ‘Alright Tobes. I might turn in. Have a good night.’

  ‘Yeah, you too, Dad.’ Sensing his discomfort, Toby reached out and placed his hand on his father’s upper arm and said, ‘See you in the morning.’

  As his dad retreated into the van bedroom, Toby prepared his signature dish of grilled cheese on toast, taking it with him to the relative peace of the annex. Beside the bunk that he and Danny usually shared, the annex housed a large fridge and a small wooden cupboard with a yellow ceramic kettle and a side-loading silver toaster on top. He switched on the kettle and made himself a Milo and then curled up on his bed. His sister had given him a copy of Storm Boy for Christmas, so squinting in the fading light, he read, until finally, salty-air weariness triumphed. With a yawn, he placed the book and mug by the bed, closed his eyes and did not reopen them until the following morning.

  Toby awoke early to the distant sound of crashing waves and the rustle of the plastic ribbons moving gently in the breeze.

  Blinking, he contemplated the simplicity of such a doorway. Its main task was to keep the various insects from entering the human domain but it was beautifully efficient at allowing in both sweet warm air and light in striking lines.

  His mind wandered back to the girl at the beach. He was curious why she had just disappeared – like the wave itself, drawn back to her own world. Drawn back to all the things that filled her universe. Her family? A friend?

  Maybe he took it too seriously, jumping in his shoreline bunker and preparing for war. Girls played differently to boys. This he knew. She seemed nice though, her hair gathered up roughly in a bun, with long strands falling over her kind and pretty face.

  He turned his thoughts back to the day ahead. He’d planned to climb the nearby mountain, its scrubby face and jagged peak daring him to challenge it.

  It was already warm, the heat spreading like fingers across the room. He would have to be back from the mountain in time for the fishing trip, and wondered about going to the beach beforehand instead.

  He was torn. Living in an inland town with a man-made lake that felt more like a tranquil decoration than a marvel of nature made the pull of the beach magnetic. It could be tremendously energetic in a way that was exciting and, at times, more than a little dangerous.

  He decided he would do both and be back in time for the fishing trip; he would do the mountain walk first and then go to the beach for a cooling swim. He loved that first initial dive under a wave into the emerald bliss, where the sound changed from high to low nothing, where he would close his eyes and feel his body flood with something special that would surprise him every time.

  He knew his dad wanted a sleep in, so making sure not to wake anyone, he searched for his board shorts in his duffle bag, thinking they’d be the perfect thing for a day of climbing, swimming and fishing.

  He dressed quietly and quickly, then looked around the van for something to eat. He grabbed three fruit mince pies, left over from Christmas, and a water bottle, and made his way out.

  The rest of the van park was still except for a few preparing fisherman and surfers, which told him it was earlier than he thought.

  He estimated it would take an hour and a half to reach the top of the mountain. Insects buzzed and hovered atop small flowers; in the distance, a kookaburra’s laugh filled the blue sky. He found a small trail that drew him up towards the face of the hill. Up he went through the scrub, past the thin tall trees and long grass, and vines of blackberries bearing ripe fruit. He wished he had brought along a bag to collect some on the way down.

  The sound of rustling caught his attention and he saw a flash of red and the shiny black tail of a snake disappear into the bush. He stopped and took a step back, his legs feeling strange. Fear surged through his body; suddenly the sound of the day was incredibly loud, a gigantic hum of a thousand insects chimed, and dry leaves and twigs crackled under his footsteps as he swung around to gauge where he was.

  He was somewhere in the middle of his journey he thought, as he could see neither the sea nor the mountain top. He took a swig of water and thought of how snakes are cold-blooded creatures who crawl from their holes to lie in the sunlight and it renders them pretty dozy. He had read that snakes are not generally aggressive and he knew the one that slithered away before him was a red-bellied black snake. Venomous, but in the scheme of things, nothing to be overly concerned with. In fact, it was actually quite a thrill to see.

  Brown snakes, on the other hand, he did not want to cross.

  He walked for about another twenty minutes until, quite unexpectedly, he heard some voices a little further up the path. Two bushwalkers, a strongly built man and a fair-headed woman, both in shorts and shirts, had stopped just ahead of Toby, talking and joking as they reached a point on the mountain with an uninterrupted outlook over the ocean.

  ‘Andrew!’ the lady said. ‘Wow, look at that. Only you could describe that view.’

  The man, jostling with a small plastic puffer he brought to his mouth, replied, laughingly. ‘I could try; certainly a little less difficult than drawing a breath right now.’

  ‘Oh,’ she replied, her voice kind and concerned. ‘Do you want to rest or keep going?’

  ‘Keep going I think. Always!’ he replied happily.

  ‘It should be plain sailing getting down to the sea from here.’

  The two of them headed down the slope and towards Toby, nodding at him in the easy way bushwalkers do, and continued on, out of Toby’s sight.

  Gradually the density of the scrub thinned out and odd-shaped patches of the blue sky appeared.

  Finally he reached the top. The peak looked to him like an eagle’s head, capped with pale brown tufts of grass and a granite outcrop. The outlook was incredible, let alone the sense of achievement he felt.

  Before him, below him, lay the caravan park. He made out the amenities block and traced the way to his own van. He watched with curious interest as the tiny figure of his very own father placed things in the boot of their car, with occasional appearances of his stepmum, bringing forth various items for his father to pack.

  Toby wondered if he should head back down immediately, seeing as his dad was already preparing for their fishing trip. But Dad had said after ten o’clock, so he was sure he still had more than enough time to linger, even if it meant skipping his p
lanned cool-off at the beach.

  His eyes scanned from the van across the small road to the shoreline. He loved the layers: an outer ring of green scrub, the golden sand and then the mighty and majestic ocean with its moving pattern of white ripples waving both hello and goodbye to the land, and finally, the blue.

  The old wharf jutted into the bay from the headland, and had been overtaken by shark fishermen. Toby watched as they gave a local boy the bait to take out to sea in his canoe. The bait was a huge hunk of meat wrapped in rope and, he gathered, laced with a pretty decent hook.

  It occurred to Toby that for the boy to get the shark bait in place, he would have to take it past the many surfers waiting for the breakers that they were hoping to catch into shore, to the calm waters that lay beyond.

  He pressed his lips together firmly with concern.

  The day was hot now. The bright sun had shifted above Toby’s eyeline, its rays burning through the trees, making him blink. It was so strong that he could still see the sun with his eyes closed.

  He made his way down the track. The steepness in some parts had him adjust his walk to an almost crablike scuttle, sideways on the dusty dirt track, carefully placing his foot to avoid the grooves and tree roots and the myriad of wombat holes which punctuated the landscape. Sometimes his foot would slip and dislodge small rocks, which tumbled from the place they once were firmly embedded.

  He could feel a single line of sweat run down his back and his mouth was dry. He stopped and drank the last of his now warm water. He looked towards the park as it came into view. Sharp angles of light exploded off the roofs of vans and cars as the sun bounced across them. The patch of green grass alongside his van was now visible, which told him his dad and stepmum had left. He wondered if they had decided to head out to the shops for things for breakfast but usually they bought things from the little on-site general store. Maybe, he thought, Dad has taken Judy out for breakfast at a cafe as she wasn’t going to join ‘the boys’ when they went fishing.

  At least, he didn’t think so. If Judy wasn’t that keen on the caravan, he couldn’t imagine her tossing about on the river in the tinny. But he himself felt a growing sense of excitement at the thought of some time with his dad, and hastening his stride to get back down the slope, recalled the song they recently learned for his school concert, as part of his end-of-primary school celebrations. ‘The gypsy rover came over the hill, down through the valley so shady. He whistled and he ...’

  Suddenly his foot gave way and he found himself mid-air and landing with enough of a thump to push him off the track. He began sliding on his side, down into the scrub. Desperately he tried to cling to anything he was passing but there was nothing except a dry fallen branch which only travelled with him, scraping the ground and clearing the undergrowth to reveal the sharp rocks that lay beneath.

  He finally came to a stop. Dust held in the air, splays of light revealing its gravity-defying dance. Toby craned his neck and pulled at the skin of his thigh to see that he had cut himself. It was a fine slice and as long as his finger, surrounded by a rash of lines with a mixture of dark dirt. Blood started to stream down his leg.

  Then he felt the sting.

  He bit his lip and rode the pain out by breathing small breaths, high in his chest. He hated these grazes the most. Cuts and stings you could deal with but these skin scrapes took more time and discomfort getting over.

  He slowly crawled back up to the track, got up, brushed himself off, and spotting a tree nearby with bark layers like soft paper, tore some of it from the silvery trunk and pressed it against the wound to stem the bleeding. That gave him time for his breath to slow and to gather his thoughts. After several minutes, he resumed the last leg of his trip back, annoyed with himself but he couldn’t help a wry grin as it crossed his mind: he had a little trip on his little trip.

  As he rounded the last turn down the mountain, and the sun shone fully on his face for the first time since his moments at the peak, a figure caught his eye in the near distance, bent over among the scrubby vines. It startled him for a moment as he immediately recognised her.

  She stood and turned and smiled, to which he warmly responded in kind. ‘Hi beach boy!’ she half-shouted in the friendliest of ways.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied. As he got closer, he could see the girl’s eyes travel to his leg, her friendly smile changing to a look of concern.

  ‘Oh! What have you done?’

  ‘Ah just a bit of slip, I’ll be right,’ he said slightly embarrassed.

  She bent in for a closer look. ‘It looks a bit nasty. That cut’s a big one. And they can really sting, those grazes.’ She looked up again. ‘You should go and jump in the ocean to clean it up. We can head down there together if you like?’

  She continued to talk happily. ‘I’ve been picking berries.’ She showed him a small white bucket with a layer of blackberries. ‘Would you like one? I picked more but I keep eating them,’ she said laughing.

  He felt it would be rude not to do so, so he picked one out. It was so good, ripe and warm.

  ‘How delicious are they?’ she said eating another herself. ‘More?’ she offered, covering her now full mouth and pushing the bucket towards him.

  For the next few minutes they said very little, eating the remaining berries as Toby tried to ignore the insistent pain in his leg. When they had finished what was in the bucket, they decided to pick some more, devouring them directly from the small bushes, both doing their best to avoid the thorns that peppered the branches.

  ‘Careful,’ the girl warned, ‘you don’t want to hurt your other leg!’ She turned round to see Toby grinning in agreement. ‘And now you have black teeth! Oh, I must too!’

  ‘Oh, do I?’ he giggled.

  ‘My mum showed me to do this,’ she said, using her index finger to rub at her teeth.

  Toby rubbed his teeth as well, as the girl’s smile almost imperceptibly faded.

  ‘Mum showed me lots of things. Especially on the mountain.’

  ‘Like what?’ Toby asked, keen to know more.

  ‘Well, where to find the best berries for a start!’ Her smile returned. ‘And even a secret cave.’ She paused and stayed silent a moment. ‘But I can show you that another time.’ She looked down his leg, pointedly.

  The graze on his thigh was now joined by a tapestry of tiny scratches on his shins from the blackberry thorns, trickling small globes of blood.

  ‘Let’s head down the beach and sort that out,’ she said, with a gentleness that Toby found comforting.

  ‘Hmm, it’s okay, thanks. I’m going fishing with my dad, so I better head back to the caravan.’

  ‘Oh, you’re staying down there?’ she said, turning and pointing at the park below.

  ‘Yes, just ...’ Toby paused as he saw that his dad’s car still hadn’t returned. Surely he wouldn’t let him down again? Then it struck him. He had. For a moment, the sting in his leg was overshadowed by the lump of pain that was once his heart.

  He answered her, but kept his face looking away, in an attempt to hide his bruising disappointment and growing resentment. ‘Actually, I can go fishing any time. Let’s go to the beach,’ he said, forcing the friendliest tone he could muster.

  ‘Let’s! I’m Tara, by the way.’

  ‘I’m Toby ... um ... Toby Rhone.’

  She glanced at him questioningly.

  ‘It was Mum’s idea. She liked that it sounded like the Toblerone bar ... she thought I’d be sweet,’ he said, with a wry grin. ‘It’s a family joke.’

  ‘Oh, I think that’s wonderful!’ She looked at him again and thought for a moment. ‘And I think she was right.’

  They made their way down the slope to the flatlands, around the caravan park, across the roughly tarred road which was sticky with heat. They stepped carefully along the white line markers as they were a lot cooler than the black asphalt, then onto the wooden path through the lovely tract of bushland with its beautiful banksia and flowering gum that announced, with quiet m
ajesty, the glorious beach.

  They stopped at the low log fencing, and Tara deftly undid the small leather straps on her sandals. There were dark lines on the outer white lining where the buckle and spike had rubbed. Toby slid out of his thongs, mud-stained white on top with blue rubber soles.

  The sand was near white, fine and smooth and hot underfoot, and gleamed like another form of sunlight. Can eyes be deafened? thought Toby as the glare from both the water and the sand overwhelmed all his senses. ‘Oh, the sun!’ he shouted out loud.

  ‘I know!’ shouted Tara, laughing.

  They crossed the beach, their feet squelching with every step. They made their way past the colourful umbrellas, and the laid-out beach towels with their fringed-tasselled ends. Atop lay sunbakers, their skin glistening, girls with their eyes closed. Small colourful transistor radios, half buried in the sand, their silver wire antennas extended, rejoiced in their ability to draw invisible music from the empty air, hissing tinny songs that entwined with the sounds of waves crashing and seagulls squawking.

  They reached the cool damp tidal shoreline and came to a standstill as the water rushed past their ankles. They waited for the wave to return and it did so powerfully, pulling their feet nearly wholly into the sand. ‘Aaaaahhhhh,’ they sighed in unison.

  Then, forming their hands into beaks across their foreheads, they ran into the sea, laughing at the waves, and with each other.

  But Toby sensed a shift. He watched as Tara’s eyes settled on something near the old wharf. He watched her for a moment too long, and didn’t see the oversized wave approaching until it was too late.

  It stood, it seemed, at least twice his height, possibly more, almost a glowing green with an intimidating power. He tried to duck underneath it like his dad had showed him but the energy of the wave lifted him clear off his feet and turned him over and over in the saltiest of somersaults, churning him in a cloud of sand.

  For an instant, time slowed down and Toby felt like an astronaut, twirling in a spin of fluid freedom.