So why did I hang around with him? I’m not sure. There weren’t many kids my age in the Port. And his old man and my old man were fishing partners. And Pickles did have some good points, which I’ll get to. Eventually.
Pickles and I sat there for a while, not saying anything. The clouds bunched up on the western horizon started to drift apart, and the sun appeared for the first time that day.
Pickles stood up, facing the sea, his hand shading his eyes.
‘Here they come,’ he said.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘Over there,’ he said, pointing.
I got up.
‘So it is,’ I said. ‘I can see ’em too.’
I couldn’t though. All I could see was water.
Pickles wasn’t having me on either. Somewhere out there he could see the Meryl, the old man’s boat. And I couldn’t. It wasn’t my eyesight. When they did those tests at school I could read the bottom line, the smallest letters, no problem. It was because Pickles was a fisherman. Sure, he went to school but that’s only because the government made him. The day he turned fifteen he’d go fishing. Just like his father went fishing. And his grandfather went fishing. Pickles was born with saltwater in his blood.
There’s no way I wanted to go fishing for the rest of my life. But somehow I was envious of Pickles. At least he knew what he’d do. Me, I didn’t have the foggiest.
I could see the Meryl now, but only the wheelhouse, white against the dull brown of the island. If the boat headed straight for the moorings it meant they didn’t have much of a catch, they’d be able to unload it into the dinghy, but if it was a big catch then they’d make for the jetty.
‘They’ll be pulling into the jetty,’ said Pickles. ‘They got amongst ’em.’
How the hell did he know that? I could only just see the boat and he was already telling me what sort of catch they had.
Sure enough the Meryl passed the jetty, then it swung around, slicing a wide arc in the water, and came alongside the ramp.
‘Let’s go see what they caught,’ said Pickles.
‘I’ve gotta go home.’
‘Come on.’
‘No really, I’ve gotta go. Mum’s got some jobs for me.’
‘You don’t go nowhere near the boat no more, do ya?’
He was right. I didn’t.
‘I just gotta go,’ I said.
‘Ever since youse got caught in that southerly. It really put the shits up you, didn’t it?’
‘Something like that,’ I said, and I turned around and walked away.
Did Pickles know what happened that night? I didn’t think so. He knew about the storm, but that was all. He didn’t know the rest. Only me and the old man did. Thank God.
But now I’m going to have to tell you what happened. I don’t really want to. As Dumby would say, it shames me, brudda. But I’ve got no choice, it’s part of the story, after all.
11
It happened a few months ago. It was a really warm day for early autumn. There was no wind, not a breath, and everything was hazy, like you were looking through an out-of-focus camera.
We’d slipped the moorings and were chugging past the jetty. A swell was running, but the sea was as smooth as glass.
The Meryl, the old man’s boat, was a wooden thirty-footer. He’d found it, half sunk, on the other side of the peninsula, and done it up himself. I liked the Meryl, it reminded me of Darcy – it was old and slow, but it had a heap of character. The cabin was up front, and the wheelhouse was at the back, above the engine. The Meryl had a mast, even a sail, but the old man never used it. He didn’t know the first thing about sailing. Actually, he didn’t know much about the ocean at all. He wasn’t from the Port, he wasn’t even from the country. He was a city boy, born and bred in the Big Smoke. That’s why he went fishing with Mick. Mick had the know-how and the old man had the boat. It was a good partnership. But Mick had done his back, he couldn’t come, so the old man had roped us in.
I was sitting on the bowsprit (that bit that sticks right out the front of the boat), my arm wrapped around the stay, my legs dangling over the side. Team-man was lying on the deck, watching the bow slice through the water. The boat lurched into a swell and my feet dipped into the sea.
‘Watch out, there’s a shark!’ yelled Team-man.
I pulled my legs up even though I knew he was having me on, there was no shark.
‘Sucked in,’ he said, laughing.
It was Stephen Spielberg’s fault. If I hadn’t seen Jaws (three times), I would’ve kept my legs where they were.
I looked behind. The Port had become indistinct, a jumble of shapes and colours. Up ahead, to the right, the island sat low and flat.
‘Dolphins!’ said Team-man.
Three of them joined the boat. I watched their dark shapes zigzagging across the bow. Then they were gone.
‘Where’d they go?’ I said.
‘Over there.’
The dolphins leaped into the air, their slick grey flanks gleaming in the morning sun. They landed back in the water with a splash.
‘Wow!’ said Team-man.
‘Wow!’ I agreed.
It was going to be a great day, I could tell.
‘Get that bait chopped up, can ya, Gary?’ said the old man, stepping out of the wheelhouse, the gold cap on his front tooth glinting.
He’s a big bloke, my old man. Well over six foot. Everybody said I had big bones. I was skinny but one day I’d fill out. But there was no way I’d ever be as big as the old man. Maybe as tall, but never as big, never as strong.
As usual he was wearing overalls, the sort that carpenters wear. The sleeves on his shirt were rolled up past his elbows. His thick, sandy hair was uncombed.
‘And Tim, there’s some lines that need untangling,’ he added.
‘Old man’s in a good mood,’ I said to Team-man.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Called me Gary.’
‘He’s always in a good mood out here. It’s only when you start tangling lines that he gets shitty.’
‘Piss off.’
‘It’s true.’
Team-man liked to go fishing, he went every chance he could. Not me. I liked the boat, I liked the sea, I liked catching fish, but I didn’t like it when the old man got angry, and when I went fishing he always seemed to get angry.
Mostly because of tangles. Lines and me just didn’t get on. All I had to do was look at a line and it’d tangle. And it always happened at a critical moment, just when we’d hit a patch of fish. The others would be pulling them in, one after another, and I’d be sitting on the deck with a tangled line in my lap. Then the old man would start.
‘Haven’t you got that bloody thing untangled yet?’
And I’d get anxious. The more I tried to untangle the line, the worse it would get. The knots would get tighter and tighter.
Until finally he’d say, ‘Give us the bloody thing here.’
He’d grab a knife, cut the tangle out, and knot the two ends back together.
‘If I’m so hopeless,’ I said to Team-man, ‘why does he make me come out?’
‘You know why,’ said Team-man.
I did, too. I was lucky. Hopeless, but lucky. Whenever I went fishing, they caught heaps.
I got the bait out from the ice-box, a bag full of big eyes and squirmy tentacles. Squid, the best snapper bait you could get. Even Darcy wouldn’t argue with that.
‘Do you reckon what they say in the front bar is right, that wogs eat squid?’ I asked Team-man as I decapitated a big one.
‘Course it is. A wog’ll eat anything. Even snails,’ he said, tying a sinker onto the end of a line.
‘I thought it was the froggies who ate snails, not the wogs.’
‘Froggies, wogs, they’re all the same, aren’t they?’
‘I s’pose.
There were no wogs living in the Port, but sometimes wogs from town would come up the jetty. Continentals, Darcy called them, and didn’t they get excited
when we landed a squid. What did they call them again? Calamala? Carimari? Something like that. Maybe the front bar was right, they really did eat them.
By the time I’d finished chopping up all that squid, we were right out in the gulf. The land was out of sight.
The old man throttled back. I stood in the doorway of the wheelhouse watching the echo sounder as the needle traced a straight black line across the paper.
‘Look at that, bottom’s as flat as a tack,’ said the old man.
He wasn’t keen on flat as a tack. Neither were the snapper. They liked holes or ledges, and that’s what the old man was looking for. Features, he called them. I looked at the compass. We were heading due west, out into the gulf, further away from the Port.
Suddenly the needle jagged upwards. A reef. A feature.
‘Whoa!’ said the old man, swinging the wheel hard. ‘You boys get ready.’
I grabbed my line. The boat came back around.
‘Now!’ he said.
I dropped the sinker over the side of the boat. The line slipped through my hand, until it hit the bottom. Team-man did the same. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.
Until the old man said, ‘Nothing, eh?’
‘Not even a nibble,’ said Team-man.
‘Pull ’em in then, we’ll try somewhere else.’
This went on all morning, the same pattern repeating over and over. The black line on the echo sounder would deviate from the horizontal, the old man would swing the boat around, we’d throw our lines over, and wait.
‘This time, boys. This’ll be the one.’
But it never was. If there were any snapper down there they weren’t hungry, that’s for sure. Or maybe they weren’t keen on squid. I couldn’t blame them for that. I wouldn’t touch the stuff either.
It was mid-afternoon and we still hadn’t caught a thing. The haze had lifted. It was clear now and hot, like a summer’s day. The old man’s good mood had gradually evaporated. He’d started drinking, tossing the empty stubbies over the side. I watched them bobbing in the wake. There was still no wind but a fat swell was rolling by. The boat kept heading west.
‘We’ll be on the other side of the gulf soon,’ I said to Team-man.
‘Is that land over there?’ he said, pointing towards the horizon.
The sky there looked dirty and smudged, like the sink in the old man’s shed.
I was no expert on the weather, but I’d sat on the jetty and listened to old Darcy plenty of times. The weather was one of his favourite topics, along with maggots and the war.
‘That’s not land. It’s a change, and by the looks of it, it’s headed this way. D’ya reckon the old man knows?’
‘Of course he knows,’ said Team-man.
But I wasn’t so sure. Like I said before, the old man was a city boy, he didn’t know the sea like Mick or Pickles or even Darcy did. And all day his eyes had been on that black line, and nothing else.
‘You better tell him,’ I said.
‘No way. You go tell him,’ said Team-man.
Just then the boat swung around again. The old man had found another one of his features.
‘Lines in now,’ he yelled from the wheelhouse door.
Best Team-man dropped his line over. I watched it slip through his hand, droplets of water flying off as the sinker sped towards the bottom. Then it stopped.
‘Got one!’ he yelled, almost immediately.
I threw my line in. As it hit the bottom, a fish took the bait. The line bit into my hands.
‘Me too!’
Team-man gave his line a mighty heave, and a huge snapper landed flapping on the deck.
The fish on my line was big, too. It was taking all my strength to pull it in. Finally I landed it. Another snapper, bigger than Team-man’s, the biggest fish I’d ever caught.
‘Get the hook out of it,’ said the old man. ‘Before it tangles the line.’
He’d dropped the anchor, and was just about to throw his line over.
I knelt down, leaning on the snapper’s head with my forearm, and guided the hook out of its mouth. Then I pushed it into the well.
‘Got one,’ said the old man. ‘You little beauty!’
‘So have I,’ said Team-man.
I rebaited the hook and threw my line in. Down deep I could see a silvery-pink flash. I felt a tug.
‘Me, too,’ I said.
Then the line started ripping out of my hands.
‘It’s too big. I can’t hold it!’
‘Give it here,’ said the old man.
He wrapped my line around his left hand. The nylon cut deep into the skin. He didn’t flinch.
‘Take this one,’ he said, handing me his line.
I’d hit patches before, but not like this one. These snapper were monsters, and they were ravenous. They were flying up from the bottom, not even waiting for the bait to reach them. Almost as soon as I threw my line in one of them would take it. I’d pull it in, or if it was too big, the old man would. I’d take the hook out and push the fish into the well. Then I’d rebait, and throw the line over again. Another monster would take it. They didn’t stop.
My back was sore, my arms were aching and my hands were cut to shreds.
‘Anybody wanna drink?’ I said.
‘Yeah, me,’ said Team-man.
The old man said nothing.
As I got the water from the ice-box, I looked up at the sky. It was as black as squid ink.
‘Have you seen the sky?’ I asked the old man.
His shirt was soaked with sweat. He hadn’t stopped all afternoon, hadn’t slowed down. Fish after fish after fish he’d pulled in. Like a machine.
‘What?’ he said, annoyed.
‘The sky. I reckon there might be a storm coming.’
He looked up. I knew he hadn’t noticed it before.
‘Nothing in it,’ he said. ‘Bit of a blow, that’s all.’
‘But haven’t we got enough fish, anyway?’ I said. ‘The well’s full.’
‘Enough!’ he repeated, incredulously.
Another snapper smacked onto the deck.
‘We’re not fishing for a feed, you know. These are dollar bills we’re pulling in. Enough, my arse. Keep on fishing!’
I dropped my line into the water.
‘Please, Mr Snapper,’ I said under my breath. ‘Go away. I’ll tell you a little secret – there’s a nasty sharp hook hidden inside that scrummy-looking piece of squid. And what about your friends? Haven’t you noticed that they’re all disappearing? Please, Mr Snapper, go away.’
Another moronic fish grabbed the bait. Slowly, I started reefing it in. Suddenly there was less weight on the line.
That’s strange, I thought. They don’t usually get off, not these kamikaze fish.
I pulled the line in. There was a head on the end. That’s all – just the fish’s head, the body had been bitten off.
Then Team-man pulled in a head. So did the old man.
‘Noahs. That’s the end of that,’ said the old man. ‘Looks like we’re going anyway.’
Stephen Spielberg really did have a lot to answer for. He’d given sharks a bad name, and they didn’t deserve it. Not these sharks anyway. They’d rescued me from a pack of monster snapper.
Team-man winched the anchor up. The old man started the engine. A plume of black smoke shot out from the exhaust and the smell of diesel filled the air.
‘Get me a coupla stubbies, can ya?’ said the old man.
I got them from the ice-box.
‘I tell you what, there’s nothing to this fish caper,’ he said, and took a huge swig of beer, almost emptying the bottle.
‘Money for old rope it is. Money for old rope.’
‘What about the storm?’ I said. The sky was blacker now, more threatening. A breeze had sprung up, ruffling the water. And we were at least five hours from the Port.
‘Christ, you’re a worrier, ain’t ya? I told you it’s nothing, bit of a blow, that’s all.’
He
took another swig and flicked the stubby over the side.
He was probably right. A bit of a blow, that’s all. Nothing to get worried about. What I needed was some shut-eye. The air inside the cabin was old and stale and I was covered in stinking fish slime, but I was too exhausted to care. I lay on the bunk, fully clothed, and closed my eyes. The boat was rocking now. Gently, like a cradle. I soon fell asleep.
I dreamt of snapper. A giant one had pulled me off the boat, and down through the water, to the bottom, to the ledge. There was a mob of them down there, and they weren’t happy.
‘Where are our friends? Where are our friends?’ they were yelling, showing their huge teeth. And they were closing in on me …
Then I woke up. I was on the floor. I’d been thrown out of my bunk. The boat was pitching and rolling. The cabin was leaking, water dripping from the windows where the sealant had been shaken loose. My clothes were wet. There was a terrible smell. I got up.
Best Team-man was on the other bunk, moaning. His face was white. There was a pool of vomit on the floor next to him.
‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘Where are we?’ he said.
I put my face against the porthole. It was dark outside, all I could see was water foaming against the glass.
‘Who knows?’ I said, then the boat pitched suddenly and I was thrown back onto the floor.
Then Team-man tumbled out of his bunk. He landed on top of me.
‘Sorry,’ he said, and he dragged himself back up.
‘That’s okay,’ I said.
I looked at the clock, six hours since we pulled the anchor up. Christ! We should be home by now.
I opened the cabin hatch. The wind, full of spray, blasted into my face. The boat slid down a trough and an enormous wave smashed onto the deck. I’d been in storms before, but nothing like this – the boat was being tossed around like it was one of the old man’s stubbies. I looked around. No lights. Nothing but waves. Huge waves with foaming crests. It was terrifying.
I could see the old man, framed by the window, standing in the wheelhouse. Through the spray, in the dim glow of the deck lights, he looked half-human. There was a grotesque smile on his face. Like he was enjoying it, enjoying the challenge.
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