The Waterboys

by Peter Docker

  Jack steps back.

  The web begins to vibrate.

  I turn back into the web to face the spider. I can’t see her yet but can hear her percussive eight-footed song on the web getting louder. The web is as thick as my wrist so I know she is going to be big. I wriggle a little and, instead of being further entrapped like the hapless emus we were hunting, I am suddenly freed from the web. Only my hands and feet are touching and I am in control of my own traction.

  Then I see her. It is Nayia. A spider. She is huge. Huge and black and beautiful and terrifying. As soon as I see her I am aroused. She is spider. She is woman. She looks dangerous but now I am the hungry one. My eyes drink in her breasts, her throat, her belly, her thighs. I see her fangs glinting. She is coming at me too fast. She thinks I’m prey caught on her web. I stand up on the web and start to dance. She slows her approach.

  She is so close I can hear her breathing, smell her skin. She sees my erection, and she is ready to couple too. I can see her engorged sex. I want to dive into her. She moves closer, and I start to shoot web over her many feet and hands. I dance, and shoot out web, and dance. I offer myself in the dance, over and over, until I am sure she is ready.

  Then we are fucking. It is the most glorious fucking. Glorious spider fucking. This is the fuck I’ve waited my whole life for. This beautiful fuck. I don’t notice her hands get free, so subtle she is with her movements, so joyous am I within her flesh and surrounded by thigh and breast. My little spider bottom pumps and pumps as she gently ties my hands with her web. I don’t notice until I can’t move.

  ‘Coorda! Chuck an emu on the web! She’s hungry!’ I call out.

  All I hear back is laughter. 44 laughing. He is pacing back and forth, sucking his teeth, and laughing.

  I open my mouth to speak again and she shoots a plug of silk into the hole.

  ‘Ssssssh,’ she seems to whisper, ‘ssssssh.’

  She rears back and sinks her fangs into me, the left tooth going into my heart. I feel the warmth of her poison flood my chest.

  Thirty-one: Memory of Spiders

  I sit up. I’m alone on the rug. The little fire still burns. I feel weightless and heavy all at once like a big river moving slowly. I’m looking at the river and I am the river. There was big rain upriver two days ago. I focus on two floating eucalypt leaves on this huge mass of moving green. On one of the leaves is a little red-brown jumping spider. He rides the leaf boat with patience and acceptance as though he’d booked a ticket on this ferry. He knows he can’t survive in the water, he doesn’t have his cousin’s ability to run across the top, or his other cousin who can trap an air bubble and walk along the bottom. He doesn’t have to because he has his leaf. His memory goes back two hundred and forty million years, so he can take solace in his survival. He was here before us, and he’ll still be here when we are gone, weaving the past, the present, and the future with his silken thread.

  I look up. There is Mularabone, sipping at his coffee and smiling his huge white smile.

  ‘Jeez, you Djenga mob like the cot.’

  The light in the cavern has a gentle bluish hue, and a dense texture like we are actually inside the giant mural on the rock wall behind and above us.

  ‘She’s left with Aunty already,’ Mularabone says in answer to the desperate question in my eye.

  ‘She coulda woken me.’

  Mularabone looks at me like I am a child who knows nothing.

  ‘Wake a sleeping man? Wake a dreamer? Not our way.’

  He hands me a mug of coffee. I nod. The love in my heart and on my skin has overwhelmed me. 44 is still trying to take away my joy. To hurt me in my dreams. Him and Jack thought that they’d be getting me in my core with the spider-fucking-death. Jack is as weak as piss. And that mammoth spider lover, and that eight-legged boy with his silly little penis – that’s all me.

  Mularabone seems to understand. His nature is gentle and consoling, even if there is a huge grin waiting to be set free. Understanding can be overrated. Acceptance is more useful. Mularabone has taught me this. I’ve learned it because it awakens in me those deeply forgotten ways from another time. Forgotten things can be remembered. Them old people have taught me that. It doesn’t matter how long since they were last remembered since time doesn’t work in a linear way, no matter how much we try to fool ourselves that it does. What matters is that real truths, the real way of things, can never be truly lost; only forgotten to be remembered again. This is the nature of these bodies that our spirits must live in, to be constantly in this cycle of remembering and forgetting.

  Mularabone hands me some cooked meat. I take it from him and bite into the emu flesh. My mouth explodes with saliva and my stomach floods with juice as I chew the meat.

  ‘We got a long walk,’ says Mularabone. ‘Got to eat.’

  ‘Can’t we get a vehicle?’

  Mularabone’s grin bursts out from behind the clouds and floods me with light. ‘You’re just not a morning person, are ya, bro?’

  ‘Is it morning?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  There are two packs close by; Mularabone is serious about this walk.

  ‘We’ll have to get another water truck,’ I say.

  ‘Uncle Birra-ga needs us to go back to the refugee camp.’

  ‘To organise more fighters?’

  ‘To wait.’

  ‘Wait?’

  ‘For the pathway south to open up.’

  ‘Jack will kill us.’

  ‘Jack is as weak as piss.’

  I finish my meat. I pull my clothes on and lace up my boots. I look up and Mularabone is watching me.

  ‘Watchu lookin at?’ I fire at him.

  ‘Hain’t worked it out yet,’ he fires back.

  ‘If you need a hand with that thinking thing, just let me know, bruz.’

  ‘Why, do you know someone?’

  We laugh.

  ‘How ya feelin?’

  ‘Snapped back and cuttin slack, brother. I’m a bit tired but we ... She...’

  My voice trails off. Mularabone has this funny look on his face.

  The blood floods my pale Celtic skin and I blush to my toes.

  He got me. Got me good.

  ‘You weren’t asking about Nayia, were you?’

  ‘You’re right, coorda,’ Mularabone says more gently, he’s had his fun, and now doesn’t want to cross a line.

  We both slowly nod at the fire as if it is telling us something.

  ‘Old James did a healing on you. But you still swam through the Sick Mother.’

  ‘Which means she birthed me. I am the Son of the Sick Mother.’

  ‘That’s what them old fullas were talking about. If you and Nayia both came through her, and both survived...’

  I chew down some emu meat, swig black coffee from my tin mug.

  ‘Am I healed, coorda?’

  ‘You’re changed.’

  Mularabone pulls out two pre-rolled thinnies. He hands one to me. It’s the fattest thinnie I’ve seen for ages. He must have a truckload of that ropey old defence-force tobacco buried in the hills somewhere. We light them off the small fire at our feet.

  ‘We’ll finish these and get a wriggle on.’

  ‘Country gonna start speaking up,’ I add with a voice from faraway.

  We suck on our thinnies. I stare into the fire.

  There’s a small red-brown jumping spider near my left boot. His head bobs quickly and he jumps onto my trouser leg. He moves so quickly that to my eye he is only visible again when he lands, like he has disappeared into another world and reappeared again. When he lands he holds his front two legs and back two legs together on each side so that he only appears to have four fat, long legs. He does this to fool his prey that he is one of them. I look back to the fire for a tiny moment. Suck on some smoke. When I look back to my trouser leg the little jumping spider has gone. Disappeared into that other place. I blow smoke.

  I want to thank Mularabone for standing up for me last night. There are m
any Countrymen who believe that nothing good can come out of any associations with us Djenga, the white spirits. Mularabone and his old fullas are still pioneering a new way, even after all these years. Uncle Birraga says it is the Country. If us Djenga had been here for as long as his mob, we too would become deeply affected by the Country. Affected to the point that Country and people become indivisible: that the people are the Country’s way of moving itself around, to look after it, to make music to resonate with.

  We finish our thinnies and throw the stubs into the flames. We grab our packs and head for the surface.

  Thirty-two: Neanderthal

  Young James is at the inner door at the end of the tunnel near the surface, standing with a stillness that is only ever a heartbeat away from explosive, devastating action. He gets us through the door, and then silently drops back down behind the inner door, leaving Mularabone and I alone in the pure dark below the heavy steel outer door. We get up onto the ledge and put our shoulders into the steel door to slide it across. As our bodies bump together I feel the weapon Mularabone has in his belt, one of those nasty little death-spitters imported from South-East Asia. He never offered a weapon to me. Nor mentioned that he was going to be armed.

  Does that mean it’s official – that I’m no longer a soldier? I’ll fight if I have to, I tell myself. Anyone will fight if they have to. Trouble is, I’m not sure if I’m telling the truth. And if I’m not a soldier, then what? A water finder? A dreamer? I don’t wanna get killed. I wanna be a man. This is a new beginning for me. I have to see Nayia again. Our destinies lie on the same dreaming path. And if I don’t wanna get killed, it’s good to be with Mularabone. Mularabone and his nasty little death-spitter.

  The door slides across and the cool desert evening air rushes into the space. After the close heat of being underground, it’s like a sea breeze. A hundred thousand years ago it might’ve been a sea breeze. Mularabone would be here to smell that salty air but not me. I’d be scratching across Europe all the way from Africa, my skin and features evolved into something paler and sharper to suit my new home and diet.

  We go up through the hole and slide the cover across behind us. We get to our feet on the surface and just breathe for a moment. The sun has already gone down but there is still a little bit of light about to stroke our skin.

  This time, and the time just before sunrise, are my favourites. The sun and the moon seek each other in an endless courtship around the earth, and it is these times when they must come together briefly, before going back to that endless circling and tremendous longing. They can never truly consummate their love, just these rare moments at the beginning of the night and the end of the day, and the beginning of the day and the end of night, where they can enjoy the soothing touch and the gentle poetry of the other. I feel cleansed by it as though love itself is the water of life, the elixir of everlasting existence, and the constant reinforcement that nothing is born or dies, but all things are in a continuous state of change from one thing to another.

  ‘Ssshhh,’ says Mularabone quickly.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ I whisper back, too loud like a petulant child.

  ‘Don’t fucken think anything!’

  In the bottom corner of my eye I see his hand drifting to the small of his back to where the death-spitter is, and then I hear that voice.

  ‘Evening boys.’

  Suddenly there are a dozen Water Board troopers all around us, rising out of the sand like wind spirits, weapons pointing at our hearts. Mularabone’s hand hovers for a moment, caught in the middle of his movement. The drugs and grog and electricity flash through our bodies in a spasm of memory.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ says Jack, and the moment of decision is gone, as Jack grabs the death-spitter from Mularabone with the barrel of his weapon touching him right between the shoulder blades.

  ‘Face down, gents. You know the drill.’

  Jack knows that his Eastern States colonial act gives us the shits like nothing else on earth. We are both smashed from behind and find ourselves sprawling in the dust. Mularabone is spewing.

  ‘They learnt that off us,’ he spits through sandy teeth.

  ‘Get the hatch off,’ we hear Jack say.

  There is a scraping and two troopers drop into the hole.

  ‘There’s another door, boss,’ one trooper calls out.

  ‘Blow the fucken thing!’ Jack yells.

  There is a terrific thud as the booby trap goes off and the two troopers are skewered on ten or so short spears that Young James has rigged up. They don’t even have time to scream, they’re already dead.

  ‘Get back! Get back!’ screams Jack.

  ‘Maybe youse were expecting a cuppa tea?’ says Mularabone into the dirt.

  Jack rounds on him and puts his boot onto the back of Mularabone’s woolly head, pushing his face hard into the desert floor.

  ‘Maybe they’ll be havin a cup of tea in a couple of days when half a dozen deep penetration missiles rain down on this spot, ya fucken Neanderthal! I’ve got your coordinates now!’

  Mularabone and I both enjoy a secret smile; he couldn’t keep up his Rum Corps accent very long. Typical Jack, as soon as something goes wrong, he goes to shit.

  Jack strides back to the hole, and shines a torch onto the speared troopers. He takes out his PersNav and double checks the coordinates.

  ‘Let’s move, or they’ll be up our arse with ready-react force.’

  Jack knows he can’t take the uncles’ perimeter defence for granted. He’s just found out the hard way. One of the troopers speaks into his radio and we see a vehicle start up about a kilometre away from our position and head straight for us at full pelt. Jack comes over to me.

  ‘We won’t leave you alone, Conman. Not until you accept whose side you are really on.’

  ‘I’ve already accepted that, Jack.’

  He kicks me hard in the guts.

  ‘You’re a child, Conway.’ He kicks me again.

  Even with the sudden pain in my ribs, I feel like laughing.

  In Jack’s voice I hear the inner tremble. He is my younger brother. He thinks he hates me. He just lacks the courage to believe in anything. Our father saw to that. Each time I meet him he seems further away from himself. The gulf between us is wide – but not as wide as that terrible lonely distance contained within him. Now he’s gonna get expansive, he won’t be able to stop himself. It’s like a child’s comfort blankie that he carries around.

  ‘There is a new world here, boys,’ Jack says. ‘You just haven’t been in it.’

  ‘No, it’s still comin, it just ain’t what you think, Djenga!’ Mularabone fires back.

  My eyes go to him. It’s not like Mularabone to feel the need to speak. But he doesn’t look at me; he is concentrating hard on Jack’s boots. Jack strides the three steps and one boot goes back for the kick. The boot goes in but at the very last moment Mularabone spins his body on the earth like a dance move. His knee coming up knocks away the barrel of the trooper’s weapon at his back, he catches Jack’s kick, and twists. Down comes Jack; the fool has forgotten how fast Mularabone can be, and the PersNav falls from his hands. Still on his back, Mularabone jams his boot hard into Jack’s groin and grabs the death-spitter from Jack’s belt and brings it down hard on the handheld navigation computer. The blow smashes the gadget open, spilling wires out the side, and in the same movement Mularabone tosses away the weapon.

  Three troopers fall on Mularabone and blows rain down on him while he lies still. I’m blinking and almost smiling. Fuck, he’s good. His mind never stops. Of course he is willing to die to delete those coordinates.

  Jack gets to his feet.

  ‘Fuck! Fucken Countryman bastard!’

  He kicks Mularabone hard.

  ‘How’s ya missile coords now, Jack?’ Mularabone laughs at him through the blood and the dust mixing in his mouth.

  ‘Shut up. We found this place once! We’ll find it again!’

  The vehicle comes roaring up and we�
�re bathed in the headlights before the machine slews to a dusty halt right next to us. A figure jumps out of the dual-cab and strides towards us through the dust.

  ‘Jack! Jack! What the fuck are you doing?’ he booms.

  ‘He attacked me, sir!’

  ‘Leave it!’

  ‘We lost two troopers down the hole from his fucking booby trap!’

  ‘Your orders were to arrest these two and nothing else! If you sent two men down there, it is on your head.’

  ‘We couldn’t let the opportunity...’

  ‘Shut up! Your entire fucking command is hanging from a thread!’

  ‘He smashed my PersNav, sir.’

  The big man strides right up to Jack like he might strike him.

  ‘If you mess up one more thing, you’ll be cleaning toilets in the officers’ mess at Port Fremantle for the rest of your pathetic fucking life! Understand?’

  Jack doesn’t respond.

  ‘Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mularabone and I share a look. We can’t see the big man’s face clearly in the glare of the headlights – but we know that voice. We know it even though we’ve never heard it before. Whether it is genetic or environmental, siblings always have a sameness of making language. Even if they haven’t spent much time together. Some malicious emotion is clawing at my guts but Mularabone is as light as a feather, in spite of the beating he’s just taken.

  ‘I think he’s been damming up his feelings for too long,’ says Mularabone, indicating Jack with his lips.

  ‘Damming things up can be bad,’ I agree.

  ‘Damming stops the flow.’

  ‘No flow, that’s dam hard.’

  The fidgety little bastard in Jack’s eye is throwing televisions out the window.

  Greer the Guardian turns to us. ‘On your feet, gentlemen.’

  The troopers covering us step back.

  ‘Jump into the vehicle. I have a proposition for you.’