There was a place the locals talked about that she’d never got round to seeing. It was called the Tanks, a series of waterholes at the northern end of the ridge behind her house. The man in the post office had told her there was an easy path up there, though the Tanks were quite high up. That sounded good: somewhere quiet and alone where she could see the river and have a dip. She took the boat past the houses to where the rocky cliff was so steep there could be no building, and into a fold in the rock that opened out to a tiny beach and a shallow area between oyster beds. It was cool here and dark, a little rainforest gully. The fire had been further south and behind the ridge; here everything was green and cool, the leaves glossy as they shifted in the morning sun. There was a large boat here already, tied to a mangrove root, but she knew the path continued past the Tanks; perhaps they were bushwalkers, off along the track somewhere, and she’d still have the place to herself.
She saw the opening of the path in the bush beyond the shoreline. She edged her way around it in the shallow water with the motor up, pulling Kane’s dinghy by placing her hands on the surface of the larger boat. The baby was wriggling and kicking, but as she hit the path and began to stride up into the dense growth the movement subsided. It was still and quiet here. There were bell-miners, like knives tapping on glass, the rustling of the breeze in the leaves, her breath. The sky was deep blue above the crowding gum leaves. ‘Sleep, baby,’ she said, and patted her stomach. The little creature filled her now; you could make out hands, feet, the curve of the head, sometimes even through her T-shirt. She didn’t know, before now, how her parents must have felt, waiting for her. Of all the things people told you when you were pregnant, there was only one that had stuck: this is when you realise how your parents loved you, a midwife had told her. Maybe it’s when you begin to worry, that’s when you know. She’d been sick as a kid. Her dad had stayed up at night watching her for a month while she had whooping cough. How did you become a person that could manage that? How could the act of childbirth suddenly turn you into a person that had such reserves of strength, of patience? Maybe it didn’t happen for everyone; it hadn’t for her mother. She just never got strong enough. She’d gone, after all.
As she climbed the path she grew warmer. She hadn’t showered since she’d been with Kane, and felt a little sticky, and dirty. She’d been too keen to get out of the house. The cool water of the Tanks was appealing: to be clean and cold and fresh, for one day to wash her skin and leave everything behind her, down below, in the world of other people.
She stopped for a moment. Had she heard voices? It sounded like singing. How could that be? She was approaching the end of the bushy path; she could see light up ahead, a golden sandstone ledge. She moved towards the opening quietly, keeping her breath low and quiet. She could hear more clearly now; it was singing—it was a group of people, singing what sounded like a religious song. Exclamatory, joyous, more exuberant than the hymns she knew but with that same quality of rapture. How strange, to hear such a song in a place like this. There was a male voice, stronger than the rest, and when the song had finished he began to speak, but she couldn’t make out all of what he was saying. Just words, separated from each other by mumble, with the group breaking in every so often to affirm his words. ‘Yes, brother!’ it sounded like they were saying, and laughter. What had she stumbled upon?
As she reached the end of the path she saw them, ten or so metres out into the clearing—a little group of men and women, maybe seven of them, in ordinary clothes. Jeans, shorts, T-shirts. Strangely, a man’s head and shoulders seemed to hover above the ground in front of them, and then she saw that he was in one of the pools. He beamed into the sun, and held out his arms to a young woman in jeans at the front of the little crowd. She hesitated; another of the group placed a hand on her shoulder and nudged her gently forward. She sat down at the lip of the pool, plunging her jeans into the water, heedless, and the man took her in his arms and cradled her like a child. He spoke over her and the group called again: ‘Yes, brother!’ He submerged her in the water, her hair spreading on the surface, and Rose put a hand to her mouth, took an involuntary step towards them. After a moment he lifted her up again, and she beamed into the sunlight, blinking, before throwing her arms around him. The group cheered and clapped. Then he sat her down at the edge of the pool and raised his arms for the next one. Rose saw that he had already done half the group—they were dripping puddles on the rock—and there were only a couple left to go.
She watched the next, a teenage boy who solemnly handed his glasses to another of the group before stepping forward. It was the same process: the submersion, the blinking bafflement followed by pure joy. Rose was transfixed.
But then, as the last dry one stepped forward, it suddenly seemed important not to be seen; she was sure she shouldn’t be watching. She edged backwards into the bush. She would have her dip somewhere else, in the river itself. She made her way quickly back down the path, not knowing how long it would be before they followed. Down at the river she punted the boat with her oar around the corner, away from the shallows, before she started the motor, out of breath now from the walk up to the cliff and back with only a brief pause.
She opened up the motor and headed out into the broad channel between the cliff and the island, out towards a little beach she’d heard about around the next bend towards the ocean. Still sheltered by the river, it had a view out to sea where you could watch the sails and share the beach with no one. Did she dare head so far away from the houses on her own? She couldn’t swim here in the open river; she’d never get back into the boat, and you had to watch the current, when you were out of your depth. It was a beautiful day, the river flat and blue with the reflection of the sky, and she felt the urge to let the water close over her, to float and dream. She would find the little beach. She would be fine; if she got into trouble, she could swim. You were never too far from one bank or another, or a sandbar. She’d have to watch out for those—she was sitting low in the water in this little boat with her weight and the motor’s.
Those people, surrendering themselves to submersion, emerging new. She’d never believed in all that stuff; her dad had told her religion was like the tooth fairy, or Santa, and she swallowed greedily everything he ever taught her. His funeral was one of the few visits to church she’d made in her life. She wished for a moment that she could believe. But she didn’t, not since she’d prayed to Jesus as a child. Still she imagined the walk back down for them, climbing into their boat and heading back out into the open water, refreshed, joyful, the future different from the past, and the moment it changed a clean slicing, never to be forgotten.
She pulled the tiller and pointed the dinghy’s nose away from the island, motoring slowly towards the bend in the river. As she drew level with her house, and the boatshed, Kane’s body returned to mind. She didn’t regret what they’d done, in itself. She felt much better for it, relieved, less aching and needy. She was nervous, though, of the look in his eye now, the sudden ease of his body. He was happy, she knew. She’d made him happy.
Once around the bend there was more swell, and she could see the ocean beyond the rocky uninhabited island between the heads. She saw, too, to her right the beach she’d heard about. Misjudging the swell she swung the boat around a little too fast and a surge came over the side and drenched her. ‘Bugger,’ she said, and laughed, but then the motor was spluttering, and cut out. ‘Damn.’ She looked around her. She saw the yachts way out to sea. Behind her, a good couple of hundred metres distant now, was the bend. There were no boats anywhere near her. She stared at the silent motor. She knew nothing about mechanics. What could be wrong with it? The bend was moving further away by the second as the tide took her towards the ocean. She placed a hand on her belly and told herself to be calm, gave the motor a couple of pulls: nothing. There was a life jacket lying in the boat. She put it on, feeling overcautious and panicky at the same time. She pulled the starter several more times, then gave up and started buckling the lif
e jacket. Maybe she should jump over and swim for the beach. It couldn’t be more than fifty metres, and if she didn’t decide now it would be too late; she’d be in open water before she knew it. She heard a motor behind her. Rounding the bend was a large runabout. ‘Oh thank God,’ she murmured. She saw the beach slip by as the boat approached and was glad she hadn’t jumped. Her record of hanging onto people’s boats had not been looking good. What would she have done at the beach anyway? It was in the middle of the national park; it could be a day’s walk out of there, if you knew the way and had water and food. She had neither. And she was eight months pregnant.
The boat was soon close enough to reveal itself in more detail. She watched it approach from under her hand. It was the water taxi. What was he doing out here? She put a hand in the air so he wouldn’t just think she was out fishing, but he was coming right for her in any case. He brought the boat alongside her and she threw a rope up to him clumsily. He caught it and pulled her in. ‘Are you OK?’ he called down.
‘The motor cut out. I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘My friend Rob saw you headed out this way from the island. This boat’s not big enough to come out here. Your mate should have told you that.’
‘You followed me?’
‘Thought I’d better check on you. Where were you going, anyway?’
She pointed to the beach. ‘Just for a swim, and a quiet morning.’ She felt incompetent before this man. He was such a river rat. She wondered if he was one of those who had always been here, whose parents had always been here.
‘I can still take you there, if you want. Shame not to have your swim after all this.’
‘Don’t you have to be anywhere?’
‘They can wait.’
He helped her up onto the bigger boat and then jumped down onto the dinghy. He lifted the petrol tank and shook it: empty. ‘I’m an idiot,’ she said.
‘It’s not you.’ He looked pissed off nevertheless. ‘It’s that idiot. Shouldn’t have let you go off without petrol.’ She felt the urge to stick up for Kane, but kept silent. He just wasn’t the sort to worry about things like keeping his tank topped up, that was all. There was something a bit—childlike— about him. Irresponsible, like a kid, not in a way you could hold against him.
At the beach, when Danny had anchored and helped her onto the sand, he peeled off his T-shirt and chucked it into the boat before striking out into the river, spearing the water with his hands until he was just a little black spot. She sat in the shallows and let the water swish around her belly. There was a sort of creaking inside her, nothing so definite as a kick, or a headbutt. It was as though soft discs were rotating against each other in liquid. She didn’t know whether she heard it or felt it, whether it was sound or movement, a distant surge on an inner sea. Are you growing? she wondered. Are you changing? The tide began to push more forcefully against her, and the feeling was lost in the rushing of water.
When Danny returned twenty minutes later he found her floating off the running board at the stern of his boat. He joined her, and they drifted silently, heads on hands in the sleepy sun as the boat bobbed on its anchor. He watched the water drying on her tanned forearm. She was so close that he could see the droplets, little hexagonal prisms, glinting and disappearing. There was a force around her, a whirling chaos of disaster and mishap. Her eyes were closed. She seemed to be stealing a moment of peace. He felt an urge to reach through, beyond the noise of all that trouble, and touch the still centre of her. ‘Rose?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Are you OK? You seem—sad. Whenever I see you.’
She lifted her head drowsily and opened her eyes. Her eyelashes were wet. Her eyes, rimmed with brown, had a wide sparkling circle of green around her pupils. ‘I didn’t used to be like this. My dad died. I can’t stop missing him. And it just seems to dredge up a whole load of other stuff. It’s been a while now. It doesn’t seem to get better. I just want to do something, you know, to move on. But I’m scared, of forgetting him.’
‘Are you close to your sister? Who’s helping you?’
She shook her head. ‘She’s all right, really. We just don’t seem to get on. It’s probably me.’
‘When is the baby coming?’
‘Another four weeks, but I feel like it’s going to come early. I don’t know why. It just feels—ready.’
‘Must be hard, doing all this on your own.’ He put a hand on her forearm. It was cool and damp.
‘I had to keep the baby,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do anything else. Say it—looks like Dad. Say it has his eyes, or smile, or something. I want to meet her, I want to see who she looks like.’
Danny smiled. ‘It’s a girl?’
She nodded and smiled herself for a moment.
‘I went up to the Tanks, before,’ she said. ‘I saw some people. I think they were being baptised, or something.’
‘Oh, you saw them? They’re the River Baptists. I’ve never seen them.’
‘Do they come a lot?’
‘Just religious holidays, I think. They’ve always been here. Since the river was settled. The church is back up past the bridge somewhere.’
‘They seemed happy,’ she said.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Will you baptise yours?’
‘No,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t believe in anything like that. Wish I did, sometimes. Be nice to believe there was a purpose for you. But all the things that happen to you, they just seem random, messy.’
‘You’re about to have a baby. That’s purpose, isn’t it? But I know what you mean.’ The sun was hot on his neck. It must be close to midday. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We’d better be making a move. Alf’ll be wondering.’
They motored back slowly so the dinghy, jumping and skittering along behind, wouldn’t flip. He dropped her and the little boat back at the house. The day was bright, the river flat and glassy, and his skin tingled with salt from the brackish water. He felt a tugging sadness as she disappeared along her wharf into the shadows. He had been so sure of himself, here. He’d wanted to believe it was his place, his time at last, but it seemed for a moment he was starting from scratch, knowing nothing, lurching about in a little boat on a big sea.
Chapter 11
Tom was picking about the scrap in his yard. A bloke at the pub wanted a drive shaft for his old Camry. He was sure he had one somewhere, stashed at the bottom of a pile of lumber to keep the rain off. Buggered if he could find it, though. He sat down on an old sofa he’d left out for so long it had weeds growing from it and rolled himself a ciggie. Finished the mug of tea he’d started earlier as he watched young Danny tearing off in his taxi. Fellow from the boatshed up on her verandah while the wake was still spreading beneath her jetty. He was in front of her, on the steps, before she’d seen him coming. She was a pretty lass, he had to admit, hair like hay in the sun. The bloke said something to her, touched her arm. From where Tom was sitting she didn’t seem keen; flinched a bit, stepped backwards onto the verandah. Gave her a bit of a fright, from the looks of it. She said something back, and went inside.
Then Kane was picking his way through Tom’s rubbish to where he sat, an idiot grin plastered across his chops. Plonking himself down on the arm of the sofa he pulled a small bottle of whiskey from his pocket, poured a slug in Tom’s mug and took a swig from the bottle for himself. Gazed out across the river with a look in his eye like he was planning how to spend his lottery winnings.
‘See you’re making inroads with your landlady, there. Looking for classier digs, are you?’
Kane smiled at Tom, and shrugged.
‘Like ’em on the large side, hey?’
‘She won’t be big for long. She’s gorgeous, anyway.’
‘Whose d’you reckon that baby is, then? Not worried about him coming back?’
‘I dunno. Figure he’d be here already if he had any interest.’
‘I’m betting it’s Mancini’s. So you’re probably safe there. They’re all worthless. But
maybe he’s sending her money. She doesn’t seem to go to work.’
‘She works from home—she told me.’
‘Oh yeah. One of them web designers or something.’
‘She’s a writer. She writes books.’
‘No. She famous, your bird?’
Kane was quiet for a second. ‘Don’t reckon. Don’t reckon she writes the kind of books that make you famous.’
‘Spill your guts, then, before you do yourself some damage.’
‘Nah. Maybe I shouldn’t say.’
‘Oh for Pete’s sake.’
‘Promise you won’t go blabbing?’ He looked back at Rosie’s place. He was bursting with something. Seemed young all of a sudden. Tom felt a stab of envy. It was about a bazillion lifetimes since he’d felt anything like this bloke did.
‘She does those, you know, those erotic novels for women.’
‘Christ almighty.’
‘Don’t tell anyone. I probably shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Well, young fella, you’re welcome to her. That is definitely not a woman’s work in my book.’
Kane’s brow creased. He pulled a packet of tobacco from his pocket, containing his rolling papers and weed. ‘Smoke, Tom?’
‘No, mate. Not after last time. Nasty stuff.’
‘Mind if I do?’
‘Help yourself.’
Tom leaned back in his chair and watched the ferry idle into the wharf while Kane rolled his funny tobacco, for once not even thinking to swear at Steve under his breath. He was truly stunned. What a generation. In the space of twenty-odd years you could go from his Edie, a quiet, tough woman who looked after her family and never complained, to this bloody strumpet at Mancini’s, writing filth for a living. And that other blonde bit, he’d seen her here before with Mancini. Something weird was going on. They all swapped around these days. Probably had bloody orgies all over the place, and now one of them was pregnant. What chance did the little kid have, born to those people? It made his skin crawl to think about it. And this young fella. Messing around with a woman carrying another bloke’s baby. Who dragged these kids up anyway?
The River Baptists Page 10