The River Baptists

by Belinda Castles

  ‘I’ll sort that out. We can always rent something. This place shits me, anyway.’

  She was about to speak—she couldn’t remember afterwards what she was going to say, some protestation—but suddenly there was a dark blur of fur streaking up the stairs, a growl, and then it had hold of his leg, the mangy black dog from next door. ‘Call this fucking thing off,’ James was shouting to someone, off to the south of the deck.

  ‘He does what he wants,’ came a voice from the yard next door. It was old Tom, stepping out from under the strip of collapsing aluminium roof patched to his front door. ‘He knows you, fella. That’s all.’

  The dog was growling and salivating, drool running down James’s tanned calf. ‘Bloody hell,’ Rose said. ‘Is he biting you?’ She felt a snort of laughter threatening to escape.

  ‘No,’ James said. ‘He’s trained him to do this. I ought to call the pound.’

  Billie let out a little yelp from the doorway behind them. ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘Just get some food and chuck it off the verandah,’ James said.

  Rose went inside and took some sausages from the fridge. She came back out, showed them to the dog and threw them over to Tom’s yard, where they fell between a rusting stove and a pile of tyres. The dog relinquished his hold and was gone, leaving a film of bubbling moisture on James’s leg. He went inside to wash it off.

  ‘That man! He’s out of control,’ Billie whispered.

  ‘He doesn’t bother me,’ Rose shrugged. She knew she was being childish, but she was in the grip of something.

  ‘You get these people who’ve been here forever and they think they own the place.’

  The little white ferry appeared around the point from the island. ‘Let’s get that one,’ James said as he emerged from the house. ‘Enough excitement for one day.’

  ‘Oh, we could just call that Danny back. He was so nice.’

  ‘The ferry’s right here, Billie. I said I’d duck into the office this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, can’t stand in the way of a man’s career when he’s bucking for partner. It was lovely to see you looking so well, Rose.’ Rose nodded, her throat sore, listening to the ferry approach. Billie reached up to hug her. ‘It kicked me!’ she said as their stomachs touched. She leaned down towards Rose’s stomach. ‘Hello! It’s your aunty. I’ll see you soon!’ James was making busy noises inside, picking up keys, jangling change. ‘I can’t get over this. Look, there’s the ferry. I’ll call you.’

  She raised a hand as they picked their way gingerly around the front of Tom’s yard, looking out for the dog. They just made the ferry, and as she watched it depart her sister waved from the stern. She waved with her whole body, like a child. Again, Rose raised a hand in the air, and turned to go inside.

  She watched the ferry grow small as it rounded the tip of the island. What happened? she thought. She tried to look squarely at what she had done, at the situation they were in now, all of them. She hadn’t meant James as revenge. Revenge for what, anyway? He had lent her the house to write in—or, really, Billie had—when she’d got the commission for her naughty books. Then Billie had broken up with him, and he’d arrived one night with the boat for her, just fixed after months on the slips. They’d smoked a joint on the verandah and kissed slowly, and laughed. It was delicious, and wicked, and it was nothing. But now it was everything.

  She heard Ben’s voice. ‘What did she ever do to you, Rose?’

  Nothing, she answered silently. Nothing, nothing, bloody nothing.

  Chapter 6

  Tom couldn’t say the words in his head. ‘Say it again, mate,’ he said to the young Eastern European doctor. Too young to know what he was talking about, surely. Too foreign.

  ‘Cancer of the prostate, Mr Shepherd. I’m very sorry.’ His accent would have made it sound almost glamorous, if it hadn’t meant what it did. ‘We can’t tell yet how advanced it is, but you’re in good health generally. The outlook can be very positive if we get to it in time, and if you look after yourself properly.’

  Tom leaned across the desk and began pulling pieces of paper out of the doctor’s file. ‘No, Doctor. You’ve got me mixed up. This is someone else’s information.’ But when he’d finished shuffling the pieces of paper around the desk, he saw that his name was clearly typed at the top left-hand corner of each. ‘You’re not having me balls,’ Tom mumbled into his chest. ‘You can forget that right now.’ The truth of it was, if it would rid his body of the disease, he’d let him take the pair of them, right now, on that bed in the corner. This was the last way he wanted to go. He’d witnessed Edie’s pain until in his heart he’d wished her death on her, willed it to hurry up so he didn’t have to watch her body fall apart, the smells, the moans anymore. And her bald head, it had frightened the life out of him every time he’d woken up next to her, right to the end. Had to remind himself it was still Edie, over and over again.

  ‘That’s not what they do for prostate, Mr Shepherd. It’s the prostate gland, not the testicles. Listen,’ the doctor said as Tom stood. ‘Talk to friends, family. Try not to be frightened. It is likely you have many good years ahead of you. You need to go to the hospital for the tests. Irene can give you the details.’

  He almost bumped into his neighbour in the corridor. She was shuffling around reception in a daze, big dopey bovine. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he shouted in her face. If you’d asked him about it, he was being restrained; in his head he called her a fat cunt.

  ‘What?’ She stepped back.

  ‘Mr Shepherd!’ the receptionist snapped. ‘Do you mind? Miss Baker is pregnant!’

  He was halfway out the door. ‘Do it a favour,’ he turned to face her briefly. ‘Drown it at birth.’ The screen door banged behind him.

  The next morning a northerly blew through the mesh nailed over Tom’s bedroom window, the warmest yet this season. Christmas Eve tomorrow. Perfect. Behind his still-closed eyes pricked the beginnings of a headache. But there was a warmth in his belly, spreading through his body. That wind, the early heat—irresistible. He opened his eyes. The yellowing curtains were billowing in the strong breeze. An orange glow burned behind them. Must be later than he thought. Dog’s chin lay on the cool tiled floor, mouth lolling open. ‘Carn, Dog,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a drink. I’m parched, too.’

  From the kitchen he could see the river. There were little orange caps on the water, reflecting a sun discoloured by smoke. Someone had been busy. He could smell it now, faintly. A branch fell on his tin roof and made him jump.

  As he filled Dog’s bowl at the tap a movement on the Mancini jetty caught his eye. It was that Kane, disappearing into his shed. Useless bludger. Where was he coming home from at this hour? Tom had made the mistake of smoking a joint with the lad a couple of weeks back. Bad idea. Been years since he’d touched the stuff and he never would again. He’d sat on his front deck for two days unable to make a decision about going to the pub, feeding Dog, fixing the barge, anything. There’d been a feeling of something beyond the edge of the wharf, something floating in the air over the river that meant him harm, and he hadn’t been able to shake it or move from his spot.

  He had to row over to the village; his barge was still on the bottom. He left the side of a carton of VB tied to the post at the end of his wharf, a note for the woman who owned the big barge round at the Gut. He’d painted on it: ‘Sharon, please pull up barge if you’re passing. Owe you one. TOM. PS You put a hole in the side last time, had to weld it, be careful, thanks Sharon.’

  It was a bugger of a row against the northerly and the little waves, his headache growing by the second. But he felt great, like he used to on his way out to sea for a proper fishing trip. Or when he’d helped build the Kennedy house on the eastern point of the island. That had made him happier than almost anything he’d ever done, to see its frame go up where nothing had been before. The rhythm of the hammer. The smell of the shavings as you planed the timber smooth. He knew something was going to happen today, there was g
oing to be a bit of excitement. You could smell it in the smoke, see it in the churned-up river. It was going to be a long, long summer.

  He passed Danny in the channel, taking the people who’d bought the island shop across the water. Blow-ins like everyone else these days. Like that blonde piece who’d turned up next door the other week. What was young Mancini up to now? Starting a brothel? He knew that one, seen her before. Something weird going on there, no question.

  He pushed on to his wharf by the rail track and lugged his kit up the ladder shakily. It was heavy and he was hungry. Have to have a bacon roll before he went any further. Maybe stop in and see Alf. Sort out this business about Molly. They hadn’t spoken for a good few weeks now; if Tom was at the marina in the afternoon, he’d go to the pub, and vice versa.

  No sign of him at the chandlery, so he bought a longie at the marina shop and left it on Alf’s wharf—they’d been mates too long for all this. Besides, his short-term memory was shafted and he was never clear on details the next morning, let alone a couple of weeks on. If you can’t remember what you’re pissed off about, no point in being pissed off. And there was the barge. It was going to need a new bilge pump when it came up. Wouldn’t make any sense going all the way up the bloody river to find one. Some people you just had to stay mates with. Who else was he going to tell about what the doctor had said?

  He had to admit, old Alf did love Molly. No kids of his own. No wife either. Face like that, who’d have him? Loved little kids and they loved him—that was the thing about kids, they didn’t worry about reputations, just saw you for what you were with them. Molly especially. Other kids gave her a hard time, being a bit simple. They mostly gave up on school with her and she’d sit on Alf’s lap over at the chandlery wharf, waiting for Tom’s trawler to come back from a trip. He’d know it was her soon as they came around the point, tiny kid jumping up and down and waving next to a bloody big giant, still as a mooring post.

  Alf didn’t know Edie though, not like Tom knew her. Very religious woman. Wouldn’t have put up with what he was talking about. And she was the one who had Molly in the first place, who had to identify her when they fished her out. Tom was adrift. Bastard motor had gone on a night trip and he was well out past the heads and drifting towards New Zealand. The coastguard picked him up in the morning and it was them who told him: a couple of young fellows who it was clear felt that being paid to go to sea was the best thing that could happen to a bloke. They weren’t wrong. Anyway, they didn’t know she was his daughter, they were just passing the time of day. Even made a blue joke about the ‘touched river girl’. He hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t wanted to embarrass himself. This is twenty-five years ago now, Tom thought. Just wish people would leave it the fuck alone.

  After he’d dropped off the longie he rowed back out into the channel—time to see what was happening with this fire—but coming out of the channel, the ferry swamped him in its wake. Steve was driving; he lifted a hand slowly. Fucking Steve, Tom muttered sharply. He vaguely remembered giving the frizzy-headed freak a dressing-down in the pub the previous night. He was in there with the brigade, feeding them a load of bull—as usual—about cleaning your gutters three times a week and never having a barbie in summer. Big help that was going to be on a day like today, when the firebugs got a feeling in their waters.

  Tom could see the ferry full of the yuppies from the island pissing themselves. His dory was filling with water and his feet were soaked. It’s OK though, he thought, as he watched the arse of the ferry chug off towards the island, tooting its horn—’cause there’s Alf, coming into the channel now. He’ll tow me back to the chandlery before I sink and fix me up there.

  Alf pulled alongside him in his new Quintrex. The water was over Tom’s boots now; he was having to bail fast. ‘Hand there, Alf?’ he called over his shoulder as he drew up level, but Alf kept right on past him. Tom looked up and all he could see was the back of Alf’s fat head getting smaller as he motored off to the chandlery.

  He could still just about manoeuvre the boat so he rowed back down the channel to Alf’s wharf just as he was tying off, casual as you like. The beer was still there, so he paddled in behind him, retrieved his longie, smacked it on the side of Alf’s shiny paintwork and took off down to the public wharf. It was slow going and a lot of bailing but he made it, just. Let it sink here and with a bit of luck Steve wouldn’t be able to get the ferry in till he’d pulled it up. He scrambled onto the wharf, careful to keep his satchel dry, gave the dory a tap at the stern with his foot and watched it dive slowly to the bottom, the bow pointing upwards. Right in Steve’s way, perfect.

  His pants were wet to the knees and so was his backside. Couple of oldies gave him a funny look as he walked up past the station towards the pub. Didn’t often pass the pub by, but at this hour it was closed, like the police station opposite, and he carried on up the hill and found himself a nice high flat rock at the top of someone’s yard in the bush. From up here he could see where the fire was, at the south end of the ridge that ran along behind his place, back into the national park. There was a helicopter filling its little bucket from the river and making drops. Couldn’t be that big or they’d have those American tanks up there, Elvis and the other one. They’d had Elvis out for one of his once, a couple of years back. A sight to behold, spraying tonnes of water on his raging wall of flame on a farm up the old highway towards the coast. Everyone stood back to watch; the volunteers, including him, called back out while the wind whipped the fire in every direction. They sat on top of the truck and watched the helicopter and the fire waging their battle. And the sound of the heat as the leaves and branches exploded, it reached some part of him deep in his gut.

  The smoke was billowing back over the ridge and spreading across the sun in the east. A strange light hung over the river, and there was hardly anyone on the streets. He’d missed the flow of commuters herding over the railway bridge, and the early comings and goings from the post office and the café. He had no set time for rising in the morning. He could wake suddenly in his bed and haul himself out on the river at any time. He saw the early mists on the mirrored surface of the water and the full moon high in the sky. Kids coming home in the afternoon, roaring on and off the ferry, tiny hooligans. You could see in their faces what families they came from and how they’d turn out. Who’d go, who’d stay. It was about ten now on a Friday. No sense in hanging around, making himself conspicuous.

  He slipped behind the rock and scrambled through scrub overgrown with ferns to the path he knew was above him, leading up to the old dam. Couple of tourists and their dog had drowned in it the summer before and now hardly anyone went up to swim in its cold green water. Usual thing, dog gets in trouble, husband goes in, wife goes in. Kid left crying on the bank until he has the sense to run down and tell someone. Tourists, he thought. Somebody tell me what they’re good for.

  It took him a good twenty minutes to get up to the dam. Felt better for the walk. Could have made it sooner but best to keep off the tracks as much as he could on a day like today. Place’d be crawling with National Parks and Rural Fire Service. Where were they the rest of the time? He was crunching over dried gum leaves and bracken an inch deep. Hadn’t been a burn-off since the season before last. Disgraceful.

  As he thundered through the undergrowth, breath so loud he wouldn’t have heard someone walking next to him, the slicing blades of a helicopter startled him as it appeared suddenly over the freeway from the ridge beyond. Not the fire service this time. Channel Ten. He smiled, once he’d stopped for a moment and slowed his breathing down. Better give ’em something to look at then, now they’re here.

  He reached the dam and sat down on the high wall at its perimeter, his legs dangling above twenty metres of nothing. He pulled a tin mug out of his satchel and reached behind him into the water, poured cup after cup of icy liquid over his head. His blood charged through his body and his skin tingled, cool for a second in the hot air.

  The bomb was in his bag. Liked to h
ave one ready on a hot day, just in case. Mostly they sat there for weeks and he only remembered them when something had really ticked him off. Brown Bundy bottle, bright yellow dusting rag. He took a bottle of metho from the satchel and poured it carefully into the bottle through the fabric stuffed into the neck. Slapped the pocket of his pants for matches. ‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ he said. But in his shirt pocket was a book from the pub with a couple left. He let the first one go out, his hand trembling. ‘Come on, Shepherd, you goose.’ The final match flared suddenly. A gust of wind rustled the leaves all around him and he quickly placed his body between the fragile flame and the source of the wind. He touched it to the rag and threw the bottle clear across the dam into the shrubs beyond.

  He took a couple of steps backwards, watching the dark patch of undergrowth intently where his bomb had disappeared. There was an almighty bang and one low shrub was aflame, then two. ‘Beauty,’ he said quietly as he settled into a patch of clear ground out of sight of anyone approaching on the track.

  Soon it blazed along the opposite side of the dam, hot winds coming off it, smoky orange and black fire reflecting in the disturbed waters. Tom finally began his retreat; big black embers were drifting across the dam, and there was already a small fire in the grass of the picnic ground a little further back along the track behind him. And now the news helicopter was back. He’d have to stay off the track altogether until they were out of the way. They’d have their telephoto lenses and whatnot poking around all over the place. Wankers.

  Here came the first of the trucks. How long had that taken? Half an hour? Hopeless. He scrambled through the trees away from the fire to a cave above the track that he’d known some of the local homeless fellas to sleep in. None around at the moment. They’d had one of their clean-outs lately. Wouldn’t give them their pensions without an address, shipped them all off to shelters for about five minutes.