Black Water

by David Metzenthen

  At half-past twelve Farren left the pub, heading for Scanlon’s Mixed Business, a shop that sold everything from pencils to shotgun cartridges. As he struggled up the hill he thought about Isla, as slim as a princess in a storybook, and her room, which was more like a grey cupboard tucked away under the stairs.

  He’d seen inside it once, cautiously stopping when the door was ajar, curious to see what a girl’s room might look like, only to discover that it was almost as bare as his own. There was a single bed, a chest of drawers and a tiny table, a dress on a hanger, a mirror on a hook, one high window, and that was about it. She didn’t have much, and so the idea of buying her a present seemed even better.

  Farren went into Scanlon’s, quickly finding a book on bird watching in Victoria’s fields and waterways, and bought it. As the wind pushed him back to the pub, he would’ve liked to unwrap the book and take a peek, but the weather was so bad it might’ve been ripped from his hands. Instead he tucked it under his coat and looked down to the wharf. The Camille, he saw, had not returned. Fear bit deep; any boat that was outside the Heads now was in strife.

  The wind, blasting up over the horizon from the south, carried with it the coldness of polar ice, and wielded it like a sword. Already the waves at the Heads would be heavy and huge, Farren knew, the gale rising so fiercely that there’d be wives down at the wharf waiting and praying for the boats that had gone out to come limping back in.

  He began to jog, the wind flying past as if to prove that if he wanted a race, it was ten times as quick. Then it dropped, crouching, only to take off even faster, growling as if the town was nothing but a bone in its teeth.

  Suddenly Farren found himself knocking away tears, knowing that unless his dad and Luther were bringing the Camille down the bay, or sailing her up the inlet, they were in big trouble. And in an instant, the book he’d bought for Isla, about birds that he’d loved every day of his life, was nothing now but a dead weight in his hands.

  TEN

  Farren gave the book to Maggie to mind, told her about the overdue boats, information which already she knew, and left the hotel by the back door, the wind slapping at his back. From the kitchen step Maggie called out, her hair a swirling brown mass as the wind eddied and dived.

  ‘I’ll bring you down some lunch! It’ll be all right, Farren! I’m sure it will!’ Her voice was strong, as if she was prepared to throw hope straight up into the wind. ‘I’ll see you in a minute!’

  Farren, too worried to wave, climbed the picket fence and jumped down onto the road. All the time he was conscious of the wind and the cold. On the inlet sharp low waves were being driven under the wharf like animals to slaughter. Beside him, near the railway line, the gum trees roared and the pine trees hissed, branches tossing, seed cones like riders hanging on for their lives.

  Farren could imagine the Camille in a sea of breaking waves, his dad and Luther crouched, the image perhaps made clearer as the sun, like a useless bystander, broke through to shine without warmth, turning the train tracks to silver and the water to a rare silken green that neither cheered nor fooled Farren. The wind was a savage, edged with ice, a rare dangerous visitor from the Antarctic, ready for battle.

  Farren had grown up with the power of the wind. Even when he was warm in bed at home on Swan Island, the wind seemed to seek him out, pushing and poking around the house, sliding its cold fingers in between the shrunken weatherboards to touch his forehead, a gentle reminder to him that it was only a bit of timber and flaking paint that kept them apart. He knew this wind was not like that.

  This wind, suddenly, had surpassed the type of wind that blew the washing off the line and sent the fishermen happily off to the pub. This wind was really only interested in getting down to business with the sea; of making waves as big as hills that raced for a thousand miles. This wind, Farren knew, was a killing wind and although it hadn’t blown this hard for ten years, and might not again for another fifty, it was blowing like it now.

  No, it was howling.

  There were more women than men on the wharf. All were dressed in their heaviest coats, scarves tied tightly over their heads, their hard hands soft-looking in woollen gloves. Farren was welcomed by them with a hug, murmured words, and drawn into the circle where Connie Craven, the wife of a deckhand on the Thelma Jay, pressed a mug of tea into his freezing hands.

  ‘He’ll be right, your dad.’ Connie spoke quietly. ‘The men’ll look after each other out there. They’re good sailors. They’re good men.’

  Farren nodded, knowing as Connie did that the men might be all right – but there was a bloody good chance that they might not be. He looked away, to watch three or four fishermen securing boats in their berths. A few of the fleet had already been moved to shelter further around the estuary, but the wind had risen so quickly many of the fishermen had yet to arrive, or were already standing by the lifeboat if it was to be launched.

  Others, Farren knew, would be up on the cliffs watching the Rip for any sign of a sail or boat. That was where he might go later, he thought; to be up there would be better than waiting here. Up there he’d see the boats a whole lot sooner.

  May Flowers turned towards him, loose red curls sneaking out from under a frayed silk scarf.

  ‘You’re growin’ up, Farren Fox.’ She stood close, her belted coat adding more power to her bulky form. ‘I ’ear you’re doin’ a good job down there at the Victory with Johnny and Maggie, eh? Your mum’d be proud.’

  Farren nodded, but he could not let himself think of his mother on a day like this; he’d only end up crying, so instead he moved to the edge of the wharf to watch what the men were doing.

  ‘Eh, Farren.’ Jack Haggar, one of the oldest fishermen, called up to him from a rocking boat. ‘’Ow ya goin’, mate? You wanna get down ’ere and bail a bit of this out? Then we’ll get some sort a cover over ’er and see what else we can do.’

  To help was what Farren wanted most of all, and so he climbed quickly down into the Gayle Dean and began to bail with a tin, glad to be working with the men rather than standing with the women. Spray, lifted off the waves and flung like hail, forced him to keep his head low.

  The fear of losing his father crippled his imagination. He could not hold a picture of the Camille, or his dad, or Luther, in his head for more than a second before imagined waves swept it away. Farren had felt as bad as this before. When he knew his mother was going to die he’d felt absolutely powerless and lost, but this time perhaps it was worse, because of what the sea was deliberately trying to do to the Camille, which was to stop her from ever getting home. And Farren knew, no matter who said what, prayed which prayers, or sung which hymns, the sea would do what it wanted.

  He wished Danny was here, and although Danny couldn’t do anything about the storm, either, he could do family things, brotherly things, talking things, that would help.

  ‘Eh, Farren.’ Jack Haggar’s rasping voice forced Farren to steady himself, to look up. ‘They seen two sails out past the Rip.’ The fisherman lifted an arm then lowered it, as if he was also trying to lower Farren’s hopes a little. ‘Not sure which ones. But the Camille’s a good sea boat. So don’t give up, mate. Never give up.’

  Farren tried to keep the searing, soaring, unbelievable joy out of his body; because if the Camille wasn’t one of those boats, and he’d allowed himself to think that she was, he’d die of agony. He finished bailing and saw Maggie passing through the thin crowd. It was as if she’d given a password, proving she’d brought something of value for someone who waited. And Farren knew that she had; herself.

  Farren and Maggie watched waves swamp the pier that the ferries used. Like soldiers they charged, spray spurting as bollards, steps, and railings were overrun, leaving timbers hanging and long black bolts exposed like bones. Along the beach, other waves waged war, gouging channels and laying siege to the dunes – but of the two sails there was no sign.

  ‘Your dad’ll be right.’ Maggie bent to Farren’s ear. ‘He can get through this.’
/>
  Farren felt it was wrong to say that anyone could get through this, because he doubted that they could. The sea was white and a fierce green, the waves peaked like mountains, and when the sun caught them they looked even worse, the light picking out the charging faces and the deep, glittering troughs.

  ‘Hope so.’ Farren allowed himself to hope that the Camille was at the Heads, because if she wasn’t there now, he doubted she ever would be. ‘I hope so.’

  The bike rider dropped his black bike and strode over the bridge.

  ‘’Ere we go,’ said a fisherman in dirty brown oilskins, moving away from a rail he’d been leaning on. ‘This looks like somethin’.’

  Farren knew the man crossing the bridge was Mack McVinny, a fisherman and a boat builder, a friend of his father’s. He walked fast but awkwardly, a man not used to hurrying, a man not used to delivering anything but fish to the wharf or a boat to a buyer.

  He had news all right, Farren could tell.

  ‘Can’t be too bloody bad,’ a fisherman muttered. ‘Or he sure as hell wouldn’t be hurryin’.’

  The crowd watched McVinny as he came down off the bridge, the women moving close together, the men shuffling in behind them, heads bowed as they struggled to light pipes and cigarettes. Farren felt as if he might faint and took long breaths to steady himself. Maggie squeezed his hand.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ McVinny said, standing in front of a nest of craypots, nervously rolling his hands together. ‘The two boats seen on their way through the Heads are the… the Thelma Jay and the Delray Two.’ He squared his shoulders, shrugging off the wind. ‘So far there has been no news or sightings of the Ocean Gull or the Camille. I’m sorry for that. The lifeboat is on standby, if it can be launched.’ He stood waiting, like a minister after church, for people to come and talk to him.

  Farren was blinded by the news. The world disappeared and if it wasn’t for Maggie holding him, he knew he would simply have turned to stone, petrified like ancient wood, deader than dead, preserved in sorrow forever, never to move again.

  ELEVEN

  A battering rain arrived, driving those on the wharf into the dark shelter of the fishermen’s sheds. Maggie shepherded Farren inside and sat close by him in a corner. Together they watched Jack Haggar and his brother, Len, rig and light kero lamps, even though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Farren could focus on nothing, the people around him as insubstantial as fog. The only things that seemed real were the things that he could least comprehend; and that was death, and the fact that his father was missing at sea.

  ‘I’ll get you some more tea and a biscuit.’ Maggie gave him no choice. She got up, Farren feeling the cold return as if it had sat down in her place. ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’

  The rain drummed so hard against the wall Farren felt it through his back. Now that the Thelma Jay and the Delray Two had struggled ashore, driven rather than sailed, those waiting had become even more subdued, saving energy for the oncoming evening.

  With two boats in, no one had given up hope that the Camille and the Ocean Gull might also make it home – but that hope, like the wicks in the lamps, had to be shielded and so people talked less, looked into the air, and tried to will the men into shelter with whatever type of prayers they believed in.

  ‘They can make it.’ Maggie put a mug into Farren’s hand. ‘They can.’

  Farren knew Maggie had not mentioned the men, or the boats, by name because it was better not to say those things out loud so the storm could not know whom it had in its grasp.

  ‘She’s a wicked, wicked old night,’ a fisherman muttered, a shadowy figure hunched around a smouldering pipe, a man who Farren had never heard speak more than three words in a row. ‘And not a bloody glimmer of goodness to steer by.’

  At midnight, when Maggie told Farren he would stay at her cottage, he simply did as he was told, leaving the wharf to cross the bridge and trudge up the hill in the wind and rain. And when he lay down on his makeshift bed in front of the low glowing fire, sleep, untroubled by dreams, released him as if he had been put down with one swift and kindly hammer blow.

  In the early morning, the house still dark, Farren woke to see Maggie moving around. He sat up, wide awake, sick and giddy-feeling.

  ‘The wind’s dropped,’ he said, and it had, a bit. ‘It’s still blowin’ though.’ Reality came back with force; he could not imagine how the Camille could’ve survived the night, yet he would not accept that she was wrecked or sunk.

  ‘A better day,’ Maggie said with assurance. ‘Why don’t you get up and get dressed? Then we’ll head down to the pub for breakfast. Then I’ll go with you, or someone will, to the wharf.’

  Farren did as Maggie said, washing his face in the welcome heat of hot water, and soon they were outside, walking down the hill, the wind joining them like some careless, remorseless companion who brought nothing but the sound of slow-booming waves.

  ‘They might’ve got ashore last night.’ Farren could not stop himself talking. ‘Because this wind’s dead southerly and it’d blow ’em straight in. They’d never have been able to sail any other way.’ And if they hadn’t, they were lost.

  Maggie put her arm around him.

  ‘Yes. That’s certainly true. They could be up or down the coast. They could’ve been blown in at Ocean Grove or Torquay. Or run all the way down into Westernport. Yes, you’re right, Farren.’

  Farren skirted a wind-wrinkled puddle. What Maggie said was true; it was just possible, even if Farren thought it was more like it was not impossible. She squeezed his hand, her gloved fingers imparting warmth that reminded him of his mother.

  ‘We will not give up.’ She would not put down his hand, allowing him to reclaim it only when he’d agreed.

  Across the inlet, Farren could see knots of people on the wharf. He knew he could not go to the pub with Maggie. He was not hungry. All he wanted to do was go to the wharf and wait, and so he left Maggie at the back gate of the Victory.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute!’ She waved, her glove a bright hopeful red. ‘Don’t give up!’

  And Farren hadn’t. Not quite.

  Halfway across the bridge Farren knew there was no good news. There was no sign of the Camille, or the Ocean Gull, and no one was doing anything but watching him walk from one side of the estuary to the other.

  For a moment he looked toward his house on the island, its two small windows the colour of tin, and although he tried with all his might to make his dad appear, to walk out the front door or come along the path, he couldn’t do it. The place was empty. It was like he hadn’t lived there for years. He stopped on the bridge, unwilling to go down onto the wharf.

  ‘Farren!’ Maggie caught up, out of breath, her pale face tinged with pink. ‘Are you all right? I’ve left Johnny to help Charlotte.’

  He couldn’t speak, although he wanted to tell her that he would remember how his house looked now, empty as an old jar, for as long as lived.

  ‘No one’s told you anything, have they?’ Maggie watched him closely. ‘You haven’t –?’

  ‘There’s no boats.’ That’s all he could say.

  Maggie, moving as swiftly, got hold of his hands.

  ‘Yes, that might be so.’ Her eyes held the knowledge of other tragedies and other miracles. ‘But that’s not to say they’re not somewhere else. Come on.’ She put pressure on him to move down the hill. ‘Let’s go and see what they’ve got to say.’

  Maggie was right, again, to a point. What was it that Pricey sometimes said? She was right in theory, but that didn’t mean she was actually right at all. But he would go with her because he didn’t want to go by himself. And he would go to the wharf because there was nowhere else to go.

  TWELVE

  Maggie kept her hands on Farren’s shoulders as they were met by Jack Haggar, May Flowers, and a woman Farren only knew as Blue Jess, who was different to Tall Jess. Others kept their distance, perhaps not wanting to hear bad news repeated, or to witness Farren’s r
eaction, or intrude on what was certainly his own business. Jack gently shook Farren’s hand.

  ‘Eh, Farren. How yer goin’, feller? You holdin’ up orright there?’

  Farren wasn’t, but he nodded before looking down at the dirt and broken shells in the cracks between the timbers.

  ‘Well.’ The old fisherman glanced at the water, as if he’d speak more openly if he was closer to it. ‘Yesterday Jimmy Murano saw your dad and the Ocean Gull running to the north-west, probably trying to get to Ocean Grove or somewhere like that. And that was the last sighting.’ Jack was silent for a bit. ‘But don’t give up, mate. There’s bloody miles of good sandy coastline down there. It’s early days yet.’

  Farren nodded, to show that he had understood, and had not given up. He was aware of people watching him and wished hard again that Danny was with him, to do the talking, to make decisions, to shield him, to take him home. Jack held up a bent finger.

  ‘Farren. He’s a seaman, your dad. All those blokes are. Orright? Y’ad ’ny breakfast?’

  Farren shook his head. All he could think of were the long sandy beaches down at Ocean Grove, the Camille coming in through the shore break – or his dad and Luther already ashore, trudging slow miles along the coast, the low dunes beside them like desert.

  ‘I’ll take him up to the pub.’ Maggie’s hands left Farren’s shoulders. ‘That’s where we’ll be if you need us.’

  ‘Good-oh.’ Jack looked relieved, his news delivered. ‘That’s the way.’

  With surprise that drew a short-lived smile, Farren saw Robbie walking across the wharf, dressed for school, his brown satchel slung carelessly across his shoulder.