The Waterboys

by Peter Docker

  I stride to the van and sling open the door. I can’t see my father so I step up into the van – the weapon held out in front of me, ready to fire. I turn into the van and there he is at the computer terminal with his back to me.

  There is a hologram image of my mother, naked and dancing, in front of him. She is singing:

  Come on baby

  Come on baby

  Come on baby

  He swivels his head and tries to smile at me. Maybe he can’t see the pistol. His grief is a horrifying thing to behold. He no longer resembles himself but some tortured monster attempting to morph into human form and failing, destroying itself in the process. He reminds me of that sinister figure birthing itself in Jack’s eye. He sees the pistol now and it causes his whole body to swivel on the chair without his head and eyes moving from their focus on me.

  In his hand he is holding a hunting knife. He has cut himself along his inner forearm. Both sides. He is bleeding freely into his lap.

  He opens his grotesque mouth to speak to me. The colours in his mouth so bright: the yellow of his teeth, the red-purple lips, the red-pink gums, the white and grey snow of tongue-fluff, the angry crimson of the back of his throat. It is into this cacophony of colour that I fire the weapon. His eyes pop out towards me as the back of his head explodes through the image of the naked body of my mother. He slumps back onto the terminal, and my mother disappears. I drop the weapon and slowly back out of the van.

  Nineteen: Right Questions

  The smoke clears. The little breeze that has sprung up simply blows it away into the fresh darkness of the coming night. Mularabone is still tapping out his beetle rhythm. He smiles at me.

  ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ I ask.

  ‘You Djenga love the cot.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I killed my father.’

  He lets his little beetle rhythm go.

  ‘Someone had to,’ he says.

  ‘Shouldn’t we get going?’ I ask, and my voice comes out sharper and harder than I intended.

  ‘Not until we eat this fat fulla,’ he says and dumps the bungarra on the sand between us. He gets up and collects some wood, and in no time there is a fire going. He pulls out his infra-red masking gadget, pulls out the aerial, and quickly activates it.

  ‘We got far to go?’

  Mularabone looks up from his gadget.

  ‘How can you be so close with water, and not have a fucken clue where we are most of the time?’

  ‘I got you to tell me where I am, bro.’

  Mularabone shakes his head. He must know that I’m not quite myself but he isn’t going to play it. ‘We’re coming up on the dam from the top end. You’ll be able to feel that water soon.’

  ‘We’ll be seeing Jack before the night’s through.’

  He pokes the little fire. ‘Was Jack there?’

  ‘He was trying to tell me something about my mother.’

  ‘Was she there?’

  ‘No. Finish,’ and I do the finish-up hand signal.

  ‘You got a plan?’ he asks after a while.

  ‘Maybe.’

  He looks over at me, and smiles, just with his eyes. ‘We need to get the truck?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He nods again. This is our favourite game. Solve the puzzle. Search for the possibilities. He prods the fire again. When he is happy with the shape he puts the bungarra on.

  ‘It’s gonna be too hot,’ I say, knowing he hates me to pass comment on his cooking.

  ‘We gotta eat, brother – so we can get going!’

  He says it with such conviction that I am shaking my head, as the smell of the burning bungarra flesh fills our nostrils, and causes our mouths to water.

  ‘Where is the uncles’ meeting place?’

  Mularabone makes a vague directional point with his lips. I consider this answer. I didn’t ask the right question. That place is not a place that I can ask such a direct question about.

  ‘A meeting place?’

  ‘A healing place.’

  My lips go tight and loose again. I wait.

  ‘Two hour drive. Maybe.’

  ‘From where the truck is now?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  I have a sip of water and hold it in my mouth for a long time.

  ‘How far back to that little gorge? The one where those Other Fullas live? Those Strong Fullas?’ And I make the signal with my eyes and lips so that Mularabone knows who I mean: spirit beings. He nods. This is that strong old water song place that is floating around the edges of my heart.

  ‘One hour. Maybe.’

  Now it is his turn to turn it over in his mind.

  ‘But that place is dry.’

  ‘Is now,’ I say, and keep my tone light, almost noncommittal. He looks across at me and gives a smile.

  ‘Knew you had a plan. You Djenga can’t help yourselves.’

  ‘Ha!’

  Soon we are tucking into that lizard flesh and feeling the strength flow into us. We eat. We smoke. By the time we are climbing up and out of that sunken place the stars are starting to come out and I am tingling with the now-ness of being alive. The light breeze that blew away the smoke is still blowing and I can just smell the water on it. It is faint, barely there – and I know it would be stronger if the Water Board didn’t have their anti-evaporation skin stretched across the surface of the dam. But it is there all the same.

  ‘Country gonna start speaking up,’ Uncle Birra-ga said.

  Now we are thinking about what the Country will say. How she will say it. We are made of this Country. Soon we’ll know.

  Twenty: Riding the Skin

  Mularabone was right. We were closer to the top end of the dam than I realised. I should’ve felt that water. I always feel the water when it is close. As we come down the slope the vegetation starts to thicken up immediately and the whole place is buzzing with nocturnal life. The heat of the desert is replaced by the thick blanket of the humid air. But this isn’t old water, I try to comfort myself. This water should be flowing down through the river system, not trapped up here. This dam is the brainchild of the Water Board; as soon as the Company got control of the Country it was one of the first things they did. As if to prove that they’d learned nothing. They flooded the whole valley by damming the river down near where the compound is, condemning kilometres and kilometres of sacred Country to the watery depths.

  Our boots start to squelch in the new mud of the shoreline. We break through the line of trees and find ourselves on the shore. The massive expanse of trapped water stretches out before us, the filmy skin clinging to the surface, almost allowing us to think that we could walk right across. Mularabone walks out into the water up to his knees to the edge of the skin.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Some kind of synthetic polymer. Cuts evaporation to nothing.’

  He bends down to feel the light plasticky texture of the skin. ‘It wasn’t there when I dived into it.’

  ‘They had it retracted; routine maintenance.’

  ‘I forget that your father was Water Board.’

  ‘That was a nice dive, brother. Classy.’

  ‘You saw my dive?’

  ‘Who do you think was giving covering fire?’

  ‘I thought you were drunk?’

  ‘I was.’

  We laugh.

  Mularabone looks back to me and does the question hand signal (What now?).

  ‘What time is it?’ I say.

  ‘Nineteen-fifty hours.’

  ‘We’ve got ten minutes.’

  ‘Ten minutes?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Til what?’

  ‘Every night they retract the skin. Gotta let the water breathe. Otherwise it overheats.’

  Mularabone shakes his head at my explanation. The dam is madness enough – but this? He grabs the edge of the skin and pulls at it with his other hand to test the strength of the film.

  ‘We roll ourselv
es in it. The Sarge reckoned he saw a croc do it once. We can get pulled right across to the dam.’

  He looks back at me.

  ‘That’s your plan?’

  ‘You wanna walk around?’

  ‘I thought you’d have a proper plan.’

  ‘This is a proper plan.’

  ‘I’m not a crocodile.’

  We get down to the edge of the skin. I go to grab the edge of it. It is smooth and slippery, and hard to get hold of.

  ‘Just grab hold of it, Mr Croc,’ says Mularabone.

  ‘He said they rolled in it.’

  I scrunch up a tight handful, and then I feel it start to go tense. Looking out, the whole surface tension is starting to ramp up. Out there in the dark on the wall of the dam, they are taking up the slack. I lower myself onto the water and roll myself into the skin, wrapping it around me like some unholy prophylactic blanket. Mularabone is following suit. The skin is so thin and slippery that it just unrolls me again. We are both splashing and thrashing as we try to get some purchase and wrap ourselves in the film. Behind us and to the left there is a dull splash. Something else coming into the water. Something big enough to make that deep dull splash. Mularabone hears it too. He pushes himself out onto the skin, flattening his body, slithering as far as he can out onto the surface, and at the same time gathering the skin before him so that he’s got some bunched up skin to hang onto. I try this method, hurling myself out across the skin with the sound of that dull splash behind spurring me on. Then the whole skin starts to move. It is so sudden, and building up speed so fast, that for a moment, both of us lose our tenuous grip and feel ourselves sliding back. I’m scrabbling across the skin, and bunching it in front of my chest so that my arms wrap the bunched skin, and my fingers dig into it. Then we are moving, being dragged through the water much faster than I imagined. That old croc must’ve been a thrillseeker. We are on a manic ride to the dam wall, and the Water Board compound. We cling to the anti-evap skin like parasites and plough through the water. The water rushes past us and now the challenge is to stay up and out of the water, as we leave little phosphorescent wakes behind us in the darkness.

  ‘All right for the crocs,’ Mularabone calls out, ‘they don’t have to breathe as often as us!’

  And the last word of his sentence is almost drowned out by his head being dragged under the water. I use my fingers to continually scrunch the skin up under me as the water rushes past. Now across the skin on the water I can hear the faint whirr of the machine that is hauling us to the dam wall. Already if we let go we would be in big trouble. Too far out to swim back. And we aren’t alone.

  The waterfall sound of the water starts to take me over. It buffets me and usurps every other sensation. The water passing beneath me is like a solid wind. And that sound is constantly building, thudding into my ears with relentless velocity. I close my eyes and give all my energy to my fingers to hold on, as we fly across the surface of the great dam like two fat pelicans who can never take off. I try to keep my breathing even. The water flows on and on until it’s rushing right through me.

  Ghost of History: Waters off Wadjemup

  Even though my hands are making fists in the pockets of my coat, the rain in my face feels like a friend. Each rivulet on my skin is like a kind word. I stand looking out to the island of Wadjemup, called Rottenest by the Dutch. The Parmelia is still having a rough time of it as she attempts to come into a safe anchorage. She is hidden from the swell and the brutal southerly by the island. To the south, the Challenger is still riding peacefully at anchor in the calm waters of the sound, protected well by the island of Meandip.

  I turn and head back down from the high ground of Manjaree. I am still an officer, and I have my orders. As I come down into the camp I meet midshipman Sutton coming towards me with the Birdiya’s eldest son, Bright Eyes, carrying fishing spears with their distinctive three-pronged barbed heads. With the rain in his face, Sutton greets me as though we are passing each other at Ascot on a spring day.

  ‘Morning sir.’

  ‘Morning.’

  The Birdiya’s son imitates Sutton’s tone exactly.

  ‘Morning sir.’

  ‘Morning.’

  Bright Eyes takes my hand and pumps it enthusiastically.

  ‘Morning sir.’

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning sir.’

  ‘You don’t have to call me sir.’

  ‘Morning sir,’ he cries triumphantly and finally lets go of my hand.

  ‘Lovely day for ducks, sir.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  The Birdiya’s son pounces on this new word.

  ‘Indeed,’ he says. He shakes my hand again. ‘Morning sir. Indeed.’ And he laughs at his own attempts to get my language.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ says Sutton.

  ‘Stand the men to. Ready the cutter and gig. Fishing will have to wait.’

  ‘Are the French coming, sir?’

  ‘Captain Stirling is standing just off Wadjemup in the Parmelia. We are going to pay our respects.’

  ‘Sir,’ he acknowledges, clearly disappointed, and turns on his heel to march back into our camp.

  Bright Eyes remains and looks directly at me, holding my gaze. Eventually he turns and follows Sutton down to the camp.

  I get back into my own tent, reach under the makeshift mattress and retrieve my Marmeluke from where I had hidden it. I open my trunk but there is no spare uniform or hat in there. I look down to see how filthy my trousers are. At least I can give my boots a shine. I pull out a rag and drag it back and forth a few times before I realise my heart just isn’t in it. I buckle on my sword and stand straight. I examine the blade of the Marmeluke. Bright and sharp – the only thing a true marine needs. Outside I can hear the hustle-bustle of Sutton rousing the men to action.

  By the time I emerge into the rain again, the place is alive with activity as the men ready the cutter and the marines sort themselves out. Even though the small vessel is still beached, Bright Eyes and two other Countrymen have climbed aboard. They sit up forward, pull their kangaroo skin cloaks around themselves, and hold their distinctive stone axes in their laps.

  ‘Let’s go, Midshipman Sutton.’ My Royal Marine voice booms out from nowhere.

  I clamber aboard, and the sailors manhandle the cutter into deeper water and climb on. The draft is shallow so it doesn’t need much. We will be feeling that shallow draft when we hit the big sea beyond the river mouth. We grab the wind and skirt the reef to head into the open sea. Bright Eyes and his companions stand up as we come into the big swell. He points out the reef to his companions where we came to grief on that first day. The cutter rings with their raucous laughter above the tearing wind. That seems like several lifetimes ago now. We come belting into the big swell, and now all of us are holding on for dear life as the midshipman shouts orders and fights the bucking helm, throwing it this way and that, his steady eye on the mountainous seas charging in on us. Bright Eyes looks back to me as he realises the insanity of putting to sea in such conditions. I give him a grin, and his eyes get brighter in response. The midshipman takes a course that will bring us just to the north of Wadjemup and then tack back in to meet the Parmelia at her anchorage on the leeward side. The boat slugs into the big swells, crawling up the face, and crashing down the back.

  I start to feel faint. My head is reeling from the motion of the boat. My fingers in my pockets ache with cold and they keep cramping up, making claw-like shapes. I throw up at my feet, leaving a little puddle of white muck. I wipe my mouth with the back of my claw-hand. I hold the hand out to consider its claw shape and tightened pain. The rain that is sleeting in goes right through my flesh as if I am a shadow. I look up to see Bright Eyes watching me. I grab onto the gunnel to steady myself.

  ‘Take in sail!’ the midshipman is calling, and the swell levels out as we swing in and come under the protection of Wadjemup.

  The four hundred and forty-three tonne barque Parmelia looms up out of the rain as
we come alongside. Ropes are thrown and tied off as sailors call back and forth. I go to stand, and Bright Eyes is next to me offering his hand. I take it, and we both go up the rope ladder on the hull of the Parmelia. On the deck there is only a marine sergeant to greet us.

  ‘Welcome aboard, sir.’ He salutes me. ‘This way, sir.’

  He shows us the way to the captain’s quarters towards the stern. I hesitate for a moment, glance at the Countrymen, and step inside. Bright Eyes follows me in. Inside the cabin it is warm and dry. Stirling and Luscombe stand at a table, poring over a chart. I come to attention and salute.

  ‘Sir. Lieutenant Conway from Captain Fremantle.’

  They both look up.

  ‘Conway, eh?’ asks Captain Luscombe.

  ‘And where is the good captain?’ asks Stirling.

  Outside it may be the waters off Wadjemup – but in here it is the Empire of King George IV.

  ‘On board the Challenger, sir.’

  Stirling is older than I expected but he carries himself with such erectness that he gives the impression he still commands physical power as well as position. He takes in Bright Eyes, standing just behind me to my right.

  ‘Why is your prisoner not secured, Lieutenant Conway?’

  ‘This man is not my prisoner, sir.’

  ‘Your guide?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, sir.’

  My tone causes them both to look at me hard. Stirling moves unhurriedly to sit behind the table. He pours himself a drink. He looks me up and down and my shabby appearance is reflected in his snarl. I’m thinking of my still-sharp blade.

  ‘Are you here to guide me in, Lieutenant Conway?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Stirling takes a drink, savouring the wine. Luscombe stands to his right, ramrod straight.

  ‘Then why are you here?’ asks Stirling.

  ‘To welcome the new governor?’ asks Luscombe.

  ‘Captain Fremantle is still the governor.’

  Their eyes flap around like the Union Jack on the flagpole in this heavy wind.