Black Water

by David Metzenthen

  Farren shut the firebox, shifted the kettle over the flames, and sat. He could sense the War around Danny, as if every moment that he wasn’t talking, he was thinking about it.

  ‘I bet,’ Farren said. ‘It stank.’ He realised he was remembering the smell of the hospital that Isla was in, not the one Danny had been in. Now, urgently, he wanted to tell Danny what he and Robbie had done, but he knew the story would have to wait.

  Danny’s gaze rested momentarily on the picture of the child and a kitten. Farren knew their mother had cut it out of a paper and their father had framed it. It was an advertisement for Pears soap. Then Danny stopped looking at it and folded his hands in his lap, in a way Farren had never seen him do before, like a lazy bloke or an old bloke.

  ‘And,’ Danny said, ‘I forgot to buy a ticket for the train. And by cripes, it did take me a fair while to get me bloody bearings when I got ’ere.’ He produced his grin of uneven halves. ‘In the end I ’ad to steer by the Southern Cross, but by the grace of God and Allah, here I am. Safe and relatively sound.’

  ‘What’ll you do now?’ Farren asked, getting up, knocking scraps of bark off his pants. ‘You seem real good.’

  Danny smiled slowly, Farren recognising that the smile contained a lot of information he didn’t understand.

  ‘Oh, well, I’m not quite as bright as a button, mate.’ Danny touched a shirt button. ‘But I am breathin’ and that’s a bonus. And from now on, I’m just gunna maybe go out for a few quiet strolls and generally take it pretty easy for a while. Somethin’ll turn up for me, though, I guess. One day.’

  Farren remembered what Maggie had said on the train coming back from the hospital.

  ‘Yeah, somethin’ will turn up, Danny,’ he said. ‘Because you are good at findin’ things.’ Farren saw a glistening trail of moisture under Danny’s left eye and wished that he would wipe it. ‘You’ll be right in the long run. You mark my words.’ This was the first time Farren had ever said that.

  Danny studied Farren, his eyes like dark tunnels drilled into black rock, the uneven lines beside his mouth like vertical scars. Then, like a spider on a thread, he carefully lowered his left hand onto the white handkerchief on his knee and closed his fingers around it.

  ‘This ain’t the white flag, Foxy,’ he said. ‘And I ain’t bloody wavin’ it.’ He winked. ‘The boys would expect nothin’ less.’

  Farren understood. Danny was not giving in. He was just gathering his strength. Farren noticed that the kettle was boiling.

  ‘Let’s have a cuppa tea. I’ll make it.’ He went to the stove, seeing that Danny now sat with his eyes shut, as if he was dozing. So instead he told him that maybe it was bedtime.

  Danny lifted his head, as if it was heavy, full of thoughts and pain.

  ‘Yep, maybe it is.’ He sat with his cramped-looking left hand entrusted to the care of his right. ‘And up in them steep old Turkish hills, and in them bloody brambly bloody gullies, many of the boys are certainly sleeping.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  In the morning, Farren went quietly out into the parlour. Danny was already up, sitting without a shirt in his chair, his body whippet-thin, all muscle and bone, like a lightweight boxer. Slowly he was bending and straightening his left arm, the elbow joint as knobbly as a rock off a road, coloured orange and purple, Farren thought, like a rotten peach. It looked terrible. There were other scars on Danny’s body, long, thick, and livid, with stitch marks like twin rows of pale stars.

  ‘Mornin’,’ Danny said. ‘Just tryin’ to get things back into workin’ order. Might take a day or two.’

  Shock forced Farren to sit down. In a way he was glad his mum and dad weren’t here to see Danny like this, his whole body like a hard, bare brown paddock after a ripper had started on it, all torn up.

  ‘Boy, you sure got hurt,’ Farren said. ‘A lot of times. Boy, I wish you didn’t have to go there.’

  Danny’s smile seemed slowly to be searching the different, damaged places on his face where it might show itself.

  ‘I wished I didn’t have to, too, mate.’ The smile seemed now to have found refuge under his eyes, like seed in soft, sad ground. ‘But eh, it ain’t so bad. You should’a seen the other bloke. He’s in bloody pieces. I think I came outta there with a pretty fair scorecard.’

  Farren did wonder about the damage Danny’d done to the other blokes, because in any fights so far, Danny had always given more than he got.

  ‘D’you wanna come up into town with me, Dan?’ Farren asked. ‘I’m s’posed to go to work and that. And I’ll have to see Maggie to find out about Isla, the girl me an’ Pricey took to hospital. But there’s lots’a people’d like to see you, Danny, I know they would. And I can show yer the Camille on the way. She’s good as new.’

  Danny stood, a slow and awkward process, as if he had to wait for each arm and leg to do its bit, but when he was fully upright Farren reckoned he looked fine, pretty close to eight or nine out of ten.

  ‘Whadda yer reckon, Dan? If yer ready.’

  Already Farren was thinking of Danny’s scars not as disfigurement but as badges of honour. He would tell Robbie about them and maybe even Maggie.

  ‘Look, matey.’ Danny faced him, supporting himself on the arm of a chair. ‘I won’t be goin’ over that bridge for a wee while because –’ he took a breath. ‘Me head’s not right, me arm’s not right, me eye’s not right, and I’m not right. A lotta things’ve happened to me, Farren, and I gotta work ’em out and let ’em settle. And that’s why I come home. For some peace and quiet. And to see you. But I ain’t crossin’ that bridge. Not today. And not tomorrow, either.’

  Farren instinctively knew that what Danny said was reasonable.

  ‘Orright,’ he said quietly. ‘No worries, Dan. I understand.’ It felt strange to say he understood, but he did. ‘It’s just good yer got back. That’s the main thing.’

  Danny’s eyes shone coal-black, filled with an emotion Farren couldn’t translate.

  ‘Yeah, you bet,’ he said. ‘But enough of that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Hey, can you get us some fags, mate? I bloody run out. And I don’t like to borrow ’em off the rabbit as she left her other tin down the burrer.’

  Farren laughed, relieved Danny could still makes jokes, even pretty nutty ones.

  ‘What sort’a smokes d’you want?’

  ‘Ah –’ Danny scratched his head. ‘Geez, well, you know what? I’m blowed if I know.’ He smiled his lop-sided smile then snapped his fingers again. ‘No, I do know. Anythin’ but bloody Woodbines!’

  Farren crossed the bridge, thinking about Danny and his escape from hospital, but when he started up the hill to the Victory, ten minutes late for work, he thought only about Isla. Taking off his coat, he went in the back door of the kitchen, immediately aware his arrival had brought to a complete stop whatever conversation Maggie and Charlotte had been having.

  ‘G’day.’ He put his coat on the shelf under the bench, like always. ‘Frosty out there.’ He felt as if his words were not quite making it across the room. Something was up and he reckoned he knew what. ‘Freezin’,’ he added, and knelt to start on the fire for the oven.

  ‘Farren. We –’ Maggie seemed not to know what to say next.

  Charlotte stepped forward, her apron strings tight around her middle, her hair up in a bun that Farren thought looked ridiculous.

  ‘Farren. We know you’n Robbie Price –’ she looked at Maggie, as if for permission to continue, but Maggie was looking at Farren, who was carefully shovelling ash from the firebox.

  ‘Isla got through the night.’ Maggie spoke quickly, the tension in the kitchen broken, words released like a basket of clattering homing pigeons. ‘The Matron telephoned Johnny again this morning. She said she’s very ill, but they’re hopeful she might improve today.’

  Farren stayed where he was. Slowly he took a sheaf of old newspaper from the bucket and began to scrunch it up. With a pinching action he tore at the balls of paper, his way of ensuring it would burn
faster to ignite the kindling.

  ‘That’s good.’ He placed a ball of paper into the firebox. ‘I didn’t know she’d been sick.’

  Charlotte laughed so suddenly and loudly it gave Farren a fright. He turned around, amazed to see that her face had totally reorganised itself to accommodate a wide smile. He had never seen so many of her crooked teeth.

  ‘Oh, Farren!’ Her face was pink with mirth, her eyes starred with tears. ‘You great big fat bloody fibber! Oh, you dirty rotten stinkin’ liar!’ She pulled out a chair, sat with a thump, pressed her apron to her face, and shook her head. ‘Oh, Farren says,’ she stammered, ‘he says, oh, I-didn’t-know-she’d-been-sick! Oh, Farren, you are bloody ’isterical! That is the funniest thing I ’ave ever heard. Oh, blow me down! I-didn’t-know-she’d-been-sick! Did you hear that, Maggie? Farren reckons he didn’t know Isla had been sick.’ Charlotte laughed so hard half her bottom slipped off the chair and she nearly fell.

  Maggie began to laugh and Farren grinned, seeing that he probably had just told the most useless lie of his life.

  ‘Oh, and of course,’ Charlotte continued, her voice trembling, her eyes spilling tears, ‘you an’ Robbie Price have absolutely no idea how she even got to ’ospital. An’ even less of ’ow Doctor Thomas’s shiny new motor car was seen bein’ driven’ by a pair of bloody idiots matchin’ the description of one Robert, “I’m a dead-set drongo”, Price, and one Farren, “I’m a bloody shockin’ liar”, Fox!’ Charlotte wiped her eyes, first one then the other, with a corner of her apron. ‘Oh, God, I’m glad I came ta work today, Farren. This is the happiest day of my life!’

  The balls of paper caught fire, Farren watching as words, stories, and the pictures of things went up in flames and fell away in black ashes.

  ‘Danny’s home.’ Farren didn’t look up but kept pushing sticks into the weaving flames. ‘He turned up last night. He took off from ’ospital.’ Farren shut the firebox and stood, as if admitting to some minor classroom crime. ‘But don’t tell anyone in case they send the coppers after him or somethin’. Though probably everybody in town knows anyway. Since he come down on last night’s train.’

  ‘Yes, I did hear something about that.’ Maggie slowly took a worn cutting board from a rack. Loaves of white bread sat in a basket, ready for slicing. ‘How is he, Farren? D’you need us to do anything to help? Food or clothes or anything?’

  Farren felt an overwhelming desire to tell Maggie how badly Danny had been hurt. It was a pity Charlotte had to hear, but he couldn’t help that.

  ‘He’s got scars all over him.’ Farren edged towards the door. He wanted to get out of the kitchen. ‘And lots of his mates got killed. He won’t come into town. He needs some time to get himself right. I gotta get him some smokes from up the road. I’ll get some more wood in then I gotta go. But I’ll be back later.’ He looked at Maggie. ‘Or tomorrer, I promise.’

  ‘Of course, Farren.’ Maggie had yet to cut a slice of bread. She held a knife poised over a white loaf. ‘You go when you like.’

  Charlotte hadn’t said a word since her laughing attack, although Farren could see that she certainly was thinking about it.

  ‘Youse two probly saved Isla’s life,’ she blurted out. ‘Johnny says he’s gunna give yers both a guinea, an’ he said if Danny’s not right in the head, then maybe he can work ’ere pickin’ up glasses an’ ashtrays an’ that.’

  Farren felt anger shoot into his face and fingertips. He turned away from the door as if he was coming out of his corner swinging punches.

  ‘Stuff bloody Johnny!’ The words exploded. ‘Danny ain’t never gunna work here! And there’s nothin’ wrong with his head except that he’s gotta couple’a big scars on it.’ The words kept coming. ‘And in a week or so he might just come down ’ere and belt the livin’ daylights outta bloody Johnny for even talkin’ such bullshit!’

  The kitchen doors opened and Johnny Lansdowne-Murphy came in, his face perhaps even redder and more expectant-looking than usual, his blue eyes holding the cheekiness of a clever parrot.

  ‘Who said what about what?’ He cupped a hand around his ear. ‘Did I hear that someone is on their way down ’ere to give old Johnny a poke on the nose?’

  Farren felt his heart accelerate.

  ‘Yeah, I did.’ He faced his boss across the kitchen table. ‘So you just watch what you’re sayin’ about Danny. He’ll be right as rain soon, and then he’ll either be back in the sail loft, or fishin’ out the bloody Heads with me. But he won’t ever be in ’ere pickin’ up glasses. Bloody never.’ Farren felt the words trickle away.

  Trouble. In spades. Coming his way.

  Suddenly Charlotte advanced, putting herself in front of the publican who was hardly taller than she was.

  ‘This is my fault, Mr Murphy.’ She looked as if she was prepared to push the boss straight back out into the other room. ‘Let’s go inter the lounge and I’ll tell ya what happened because I think Farren got the wrong end of the stick. I didn’t explain it properly that you was offering to help Danny and that’s why he’s gone off.’

  Charlotte stepped towards Johnny, forcing him out of the kitchen, the both of them disappearing through the swinging doors and out into the lounge. Silence descended, leaving Farren to wonder what might happen next until Maggie started to laugh. He saw that she stood with one hand on her chest as if she was finding it hard to breathe.

  ‘Well, Farren,’ she said. ‘This’s certainly been an interesting start to the week. So. Would you like a crust with butter and jam and a cuppa tea? Because I can tell you truly that I need a little sit-down before I fall down.’

  Farren walked back over the bridge with a tin of Golden Eagle cigarettes and a string bag of food that Maggie had packed. It was a beautiful day, waterbirds in their hundreds on the estuary, the Camille rocking at her mooring as if she were content to wait for Farren for twenty years. His mood lifted. Everything in the place seemed to be going along quietly and purposefully about its designated business. The stuff that happened with Johnny didn’t seem like much at all.

  Ahead he could see Danny sitting on a box by the doorstep, as if that was exactly what he should be doing at this moment on this beautiful, sunny day. Maybe the world, for once, Farren thought, was trying to make up for some of the terrible things that it had done to the Foxes. Maybe the world might be like a ship steadying down after long months of rough weather, to gradually swing back onto the right course, and set sail for where it was supposed to go – wherever that might be.

  Yes, it was true Danny’s head was damaged, and his body was pretty broken-up, but Farren knew that he wasn’t mad or simple like Johnny thought. If anything, Farren reckoned Danny was about ten times more complicated than he’d ever been. Once he used to be an open book; or he’d sure tell people things. Now Farren knew he had stories he would never tell. The scars he had were one thing, what he’d been through was another.

  ‘Oi. Danny.’ Farren walked off the track and out onto the yard. ‘I got yer some smokes. Golden Eagles.’ He took the tin out of the string bag.

  Danny put up his best hand. ‘Good on ya, mate. Chuck ’em over. I need those things like medicine. Ta.’

  Farren threw them, Danny missing the catch, the tin landing to spill tailor-made cigarettes onto the damp grass.

  ‘Oh, bloody hopeless.’ Danny picked up the closest cigarette. ‘For God’s sake,’ he added, ‘hang on to the eggs.’

  ‘That rabbit’s a funny joker.’ Danny watched Hoppidy nibbling clover that grew beside the path. ‘Even if the damn things are a bloody nuisance.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Farren said, monitoring her careful progress. ‘I was gunna knock ’er on the head but then I didn’t. She’s good, eh? Like a dog. She can go along pretty quick now.’

  Danny, elbow propped on a knee, nodded.

  ‘Yeah. A bit of mercy ain’t the worst thing.’ He looked towards the low hills across the water, patches of brown bracken like the shadows of clouds. ‘Not that I was ever that free with it. So it
’s funny to think that I was the one they let crawl away.’ Danny drew deeply on a cigarette which he’d lit from the butt of another. ‘Not a bad bloke, old Abdul the Turk, all things considered. Him and his brother, Mehemet. When you get down to it.’

  Farren felt words spluttering out like hot water from a spout. ‘Not bad blokes?’ He couldn’t believe that Danny, of all people, was saying this. ‘Them bloody Turks? Shit, Danny, look what they done to you and yer mates.’ Farren waved a hand around, not knowing exactly what he was intending to point at. ‘They bloody killed our fellers. They nearly killed you. They’re bloody mongrels.’

  Danny nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, they did. And we killed theirs. Not a bad man though, Farren,’ he said evenly. ‘All the same. He was always gunna have somethin’ to say about us jumpin’ his back fence. Just like you would. And sometimes he did the right thing. By me. Once. Anyhow. True enough.’

  ‘Whadda yer mean?’ Farren sat on the step, so close to Danny he could feel the warmth of drifting cigarette smoke. ‘Tell me.’

  Danny cleared his throat and shuffled his boots, Farren noticing he jiggled his cigarette as if he was winding up some mechanism, or fiddling with some lock that might allow the story to be freed and told.

  ‘Kind’a pretty simple, really.’ Danny took a deep drag, savouring smoke on the way in and out. ‘Me and a good lot of the boys went forward and got absolutely hammered. I got hit, I went down amongst a few mates, lay around for a day or two then at night some fellers come out from the wrong trench and instead’a cuttin’ me throat, they pointed me in the right direction. So off I crawled, happy as a lark.’

  Farren felt himself collapse. Danny was here only because the Turks had spared him. He hadn’t fought himself free, or been brought back by the Aussies, he’d been allowed to crawl back by the Turks; and even though the Turks’d shot him, and killed lots of his mates, he still reckoned they were all right blokes. It didn’t make any sense.