Tiff and the Trout

by David Metzenthen

  I can hear Lane talking to Mum in her room. I don’t like him being in there. It feels wrong to me and gives me a type of agony I’ve never felt before.

  ‘Put it out of your mind,’ Cass says. ‘Just think about your own romances of the future when you’ll spend half your life in the spa with some hottie. And I do not mean HOT WATER BOTTLE!’

  Yeah, right.

  Get a grip

  The Warrigal River rushes around rocks, leaps over ledges, and cools the air with a fine mist. You move carefully from rock to rock or stay on the edge. Once I saw an old red sandshoe stuck deep underwater in a forked branch. It made me shiver to think what might’ve happened to the person who was wearing it.

  Lane doesn’t wear waterproof waders when he goes fishing. He wears runners and he hates getting them wet. I’m wearing runners, too, and an old green army shirt to blend in with the scrubby banks.

  ‘Looks good, Tiff,’ he says. ‘I tried to ring the hydro guys, but my mobile kept dropping out. But she’ll be right. It looks fine.’

  I certainly hope so.

  I don’t think Lane actually sees the river. He sees it like the picture of a river. It’s all just flowing water to him, one bit the same as the next, but that’s not right. It’s like the Warrigal shouts at you how dangerous it is, but Lane doesn’t listen. And now he and I are in the middle of it, jumping from rock to rock.

  If they did dump water out from the hydro station, only your eyes could warn you, because your ears are full of sound. There’s no way Dad or Mum would let me be here if they knew Lane hadn’t checked with the hydro people. Maybe I should ask if we can go home?

  Lane casts, his spinner bouncing off a rock. He uses spinners that have three hooks together. A fly only has one hook, so it’s easy to release the fish. Lane doesn’t release fish. He hasn’t even got a fishing licence.

  ‘I keep forgettin’ to buy one,’ he says. ‘And geez, Tiff, I hardly catch any fish anyway, so who cares?’

  I do. I think you should obey the rules when you go fishing, even if no one knows except you. If Lane obeyed the rules I would like him more. And if he obeyed the rules, I would trust him more, because that would show he understands what trout fishing is about.

  Lane has no luck. ‘Your turn, kiddo,’ he says. ‘See what ya can do with that flash gear you’ve got.’

  We scramble up to the next pool. I cast, the fly lands, and as it floats past a toothy-looking rock a little trout takes it in a swirl. Lane yells.

  ‘Haul him in, Tiff!’

  With my lightweight line you can’t haul a trout in. You have to guide it in, and if it gets away, well, that’s just bad luck. Lane uses strong line. There’s not many fish big enough to break it around here, except old Bob the brown trout. He could break a steel cable, I reckon. I actually hope I might lose this fish – just to save it from Lane, but it stays on, dashing here and there until it gets tired.

  It’s a rainbow trout, silver and pink, with black spots behind its fins. Its gills open and shut like the covers of a tiny silver book.

  ‘The frying pan for you, feller,’ says Lane, taking a plastic bag from his backpack. ‘Sizzle sizzle sizzle.’

  I want to let the fish go, but Lane would laugh at me, or ask me why I go fishing in the first place. I know I should stand up to him, but it’s hard. And I guess there are lots of trout in the river.

  Lane whacks the trout on the head with a stick. It goes stiff, shivers then lies still. Its life has gone. Already it is no longer nearly as beautiful. I will not let Lane have any more of my fish, no way, never-ever.

  For a moment I think of Hildy Brooking. I look upstream, the sides of the valley rising steep and huge over the river, and I feel the mystery of the world. I think about the life of that little trout disappearing. I think of how you never know what people are really thinking, even your parents. I think about what might happen to me in the future. And I think about what might have happened to Hildy Brooking.

  I could let myself think that terrible things happened, but I won’t. I will think positive. My dad says that a lot – think positive, kid. So I will.

  Clouds tower over the mountains and hide the sun. All this walking and jumping and the roaring of the water is tiring me out. Lane catches two trout, puts them in his bag, then we rest. He takes something yellow from of his shirt pocket and holds it out.

  ‘Chewy, Louie?’

  When Lane chews chewy he suddenly thinks he’s smarter, funnier, and tougher. The funny thing is, so do I! I take a couple of bits. No need to say I’ve never seen my dad have chewy.

  ‘Looks like the wind has come up a bit,’ Lane says.

  I nod. The leaves of the tallest trees flutter like a million silvery-green flags, but down here I can only hear the rushing of the river. Suddenly my ankles feel cold.

  Water is flowing into my runners!

  I look down, thinking I might have stepped off my rock, but I haven’t. The river is changing. It’s rising and it’s rising fast. The hydro station must be dumping water!

  ‘Lane!’ I yell. ‘Lane!’ The water is halfway up to my knees and it is powerful.

  Lane’s hand locks around my arm.

  ‘Step in, Tiff. Now!’ And we do.

  The water is freezing, it takes my breath away, and it’s up to my waist. It swirls, lifting me off my feet, but Lane’s grip tightens. All I can see is water and it is like some enormous glittering snake, its great coils getting stronger and stronger. I think of the wave that might be coming and I gasp in fear.

  ‘Just keep goin’!’ Lane yells, his teeth gritted, his face as wild as if he is in a fight. ‘Keep goin’!’

  I step forward, but slip on a rock. Lane hauls me up.

  ‘We’ll be right,’ he grunts.

  I slip and go right under. The water is so cold it seems to squeeze all my energy out. Lane lifts me. My feet are right off the bottom. The current tries to pull me away, but Lane doesn’t let go. Something flies across in front. Lane has thrown his rod away.

  ‘Big steps!’ Lane yells. ‘Big steps, Tiff!’

  Rocks slip. One grates across my ankle like a blunt knife. I drop my rod. It disappears. I feel like I’m about to be washed away, but Lane keeps on towing me towards the bank. Suddenly we’re both swept off our feet. We go under then come back up.

  ‘Don’t panic!’ Lane yells, his face dripping. ‘We’ll get to that little beach.’

  The current sweeps us forward. My feet hit the bottom then the bottom drops away. The beach is pebbly and grey. It looks like heaven, solid, safe, and still. Now the current swings us around, away from the beach. I feel a cry come out. Then the current pushes us straight towards sheets of high-flying spray where the water crashes head-on into rocks before disappearing over a chute.

  ‘Agh!’ Lane grunts as he drags me towards the beach. ‘Agh!’ It’s like he’s trying to leap out of the river. ‘Agh!’

  I try to help by lunging, too, but all I can do is kick hard as if I’m swimming.

  Again I go under. The water and the bottom of the river flash in front of me. I can see the stones of the beach shelving up. Then I feel the bottom and I kind of spring off it towards the shore. I hear the sound of crunching as Lane’s runners push down into the loose pebbles. They slide as if there’s an earthquake.

  ‘Yes!’ Lane shouts. ‘C’mon, Tiff!’ And then he throws himself forward, his free hand clawing at the beach.

  I end up falling right onto his fishing bag. It hurts, but we haul ourselves out of the river, water streaming off us, sunlight flashing, each pebble on the beach as clear to me as if it was under a huge magnifying glass.

  ‘Oh, man,’ Lane says, breathing hard. ‘Let’s go, Tiff. Come on. Keep moving. Quick!’

  I nod and walk, the stones clacking and sliding under my runners. I’m too scared to look anywhere but ahead. The bush is green, the tree trunks are thin, and they look a long way away. The water seems to be climbing up the beach with us. My breath is dragging in and out. I feel sick. Lane l
ets go of my arm. It’s like a clamp has been taken off it. Then he grabs it again, closer to the elbow.

  ‘Keep goin’, Tiff,’ he says. ‘Right into the bush. Just in case.’

  We blunder forward, through little ferns and beds of loose white sand that have been left by floods long ago. The water comes with us, racing around rocks and lifting sticks, but it is only up to our ankles. I think of the wave, and again panic jumps up from under my ribs. I picture it coming down, bringing logs and broken branches, but I don’t look. I just blunder forward with Lane until we’re in the ti-tree, the ground dry and mossy underfoot. It even smells safe! It’s like the river has let us go, the sound of it shrinking back to crouch down like a growling, disappointed crocodile.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Lane says. ‘Thank Christ for that. Come on, Tiff, keep moving. Right away from the river.’

  Fear keeps me going although the water is now metres behind us. I feel light and fluttery, as if I could blow away. It’s as strange as a dream and everything seems to be melting away at the edge of my vision.

  ‘You can let me go now,’ I say. ‘I’m ok-k-k-kay.’

  Lane lets my arm go. It feels numb, the muscle squashed. He has a look on his face as if we’ve been chased.

  ‘Keep goin’,’ he says. ‘Just a bit further.’

  We climb until we reach a large flat rock high above the river, and there we stand, huffing, puffing, and dripping. My jeans feel cold but my legs feel hot. Big whirlpools slowly spin in the river and thick wedges of water slide over ledges in wide black and gold tongues. In my chest my heart goes bump-bump-bump-bump. I feel so wobbly I have to sit down and even then I feel dizzy.

  ‘God!’ Lane keeps saying. ‘God!’ He puts a hand up to his face, which is pale, but red on his cheeks. ‘Damn. And I lost my bloody sunglasses. Ah well, that’s what you get for being an idiot.’ He folds up his sleeves. ‘How’s your arm, Tiff? I couldn’t let you go, you know that, don’t you? We were always gunna get out of there. But it was pretty scary, eh?’

  I feel weird – in a way kind of peaceful. My arm feels bruised and I’ve banged my shins and stuff, but the pain is dull and doesn’t matter. My fishing rod is gone, though – my good fishing rod. What will I tell Dad? He bought it for me when it wasn’t even Christmas or my birthday. He bought Nathan a golf club on the same day to keep things even.

  Today will result in trouble. I don’t think I’ll be in trouble so much, but there will be trouble. I would actually like to forget about it completely. I’d like to just sit here for a while, go home, get dry, and try not to think about it ever again. I don’t want to blame Lane. He knows this was his fault and that’s enough. I can tell how bad he’s feeling already. He looks down at the river.

  ‘I would never have thought,’ he says, ‘that could happen.’ He looks at me. ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. And that’s saying something. God, why didn’t I keep ringing those bloody people?’

  I don’t know what to say, so I just mumble, ‘Oh well, it’s okay. We’re all right.’

  ‘If we wait for a few minutes,’ Lane says, ‘I’ll go and see if I can find your rod. I don’t care about mine, but yours, you know, yeah, I’d like to try and get it. If I can.’

  I would like it back. In fact, if I did, maybe the whole thing wouldn’t seem so bad. It would be like, ‘Oh, we just got a bit wet in the river.’ But if we have to go home without our fishing rods, Dad and Mum’ll know what happened was serious. Fishermen just do not lose their rods unless something radical happens.

  ‘It even looks a bit lower now,’ I say. ‘And it’s not as loud.’

  The river is shrinking, leaving behind harmless-looking puddles, the sand and pebbles wet between the rocks. I really want my rod back. My dad gave it to me specially and the only time I ever use it, really, is when he’s with me. But I’m not going into the river, no way. I might be able to go down to the edge maybe, and help look.

  ‘It’d be good to get it,’ I say. ‘But I’m not going out onto the rocks.’

  ‘Yeah, no, I understand.’ Lane nods. ‘You stay here. I’ll go.’ He looks down into the river gorge. ‘Give me five minutes, then we’ll go home.’

  As Lane heads down, I look at the river. We could’ve been drowned – and knowing that puts a deadly cold fear right inside my bones. I start to shiver and a few tears come out, but they stop as soon as I wipe them away. I don’t like this river any more. I’ll never come near it again. I wish I was at home with Mum, nice and warm, clean and dry on the couch, and that this had never happened.

  ‘A living nightmare,’ Cass would call it. Or perhaps a ‘dinosaurus-sized mess of mega-normous proportions’. And she’d be right.

  I watch Lane stepping from rock to rock in the river. He looks small from up here, his hair black, his shirt sticking to his back. Lane might find the rods. The water is clear, except where there are rapids, but clear water can be a lot deeper than you think. Getting stuff out of rivers isn’t as easy as it looks. Lane looks up. His face is pale like the sand.

  ‘I can see it!’ he calls out. ‘Don’t worry. It’s shallow here.’

  ‘Okay,’ I yell back. ‘Be careful.’

  Lane lowers himself into the river and just as I’m about to tell him to forget about it, he comes up with my rod. I can see its green from here. Yes!

  As I wait for him to come back I watch a wedge-tailed eagle. I can imagine how it sees me; a lonely small person surrounded by bush, and that’s exactly how I feel. Today has not been a good day. Looking on the bright side, though – it’s a pity grade six doesn’t have Show and Tell, as this could’ve been my greatest moment!

  Mum lets us in, saying nothing until we move off the carpet and stand on the cork tiles in the kitchen.

  ‘So,’ she says, ‘I gather the fishing wasn’t a big success, then?’ She turns away from Lane. ‘Get those wet things off, Tiff, and go and have a shower.’

  I do as I’m told. The kitchen door shuts behind me. I hear muttering, then I hear Mum, her voice loud and clear through the sliding door.

  ‘You’re sorry, Lane? Sorry? My God. She could’ve drowned! She’s only eleven bloody years old! I will never forgive you for this.’

  Actually I’m twelve, but I guess that’s beside the point. And now, since Mum’s still going right off, I decide that the best thing I can do is have a shower – a very long shower.

  Winter warning

  At lunchtime Cass and I sit under our favourite tree. In summer it’s nice and shady, but now in autumn it’s cold. We talk about my Saturday swimming lesson in the Warrigal.

  ‘Boy, Lane’s strong,’ I say. ‘Like a bulldozer.’

  Cass bumps her fist onto her knee.

  ‘And as dumb as one. Geez, I bet Sian got stuck into him when she found it. I bet your dad wanted to kill him.’ Cass nods. ‘My dad’d wring his neck like a rabbit. Or a chicken. Or a screw-top bottle. Or the lid of a –’

  I get the idea.

  ‘My dad doesn’t know yet,’ I say. ‘But he’ll be wild, all right, although I wish everybody’d just forget about it.’

  ‘That Lane.’ Cass shakes her head. ‘So dumb. You go under in there and you’re bloody gone. Remember those people who drowned in the lake? Lane’s a dead-set boxhead.’

  I do remember. Two people fell out of a canoe in the middle of winter in our lake and drowned – and because the water was so cold, their bodies sank, and were never found. They’re still in there, way down deep, where it’s always absolutely freezing. I don’t like to think about it.

  ‘Anyway,’ Cass says, ‘snow soon, which means snow boys.’ She squints at the sky, which is blue. ‘My dad reckons it’s gunna be a good season. The council’s got a new grader. The boys love it. They’ll start a fan club for it, I reckon.’

  Cass zips up her big yellow parka and stands. The music for the end of lunchtime is on. John Farnham. Blah!

  ‘So do you think your mum’s still thinking about that Queensland thing?’ Cass asks as we walk across
the bitumen.

  ‘Well, she’s been ringing up there a lot,’ I say. ‘I found the phone bill and it had Queensland numbers all over it.’ It makes me feel sick just saying this. ‘Maybe she’s trying to get a job up there or something.’

  ‘She would never take off without telling you.’ Cass seems sure of this. ‘She’d never do anything like that. She’s good. She wouldn’t.’

  I look up at Mount Power. It’s like a judge, that mountain, a judge who sits there all day long, knowing everything but saying nothing.

  ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ I say – but I do know Mum isn’t like I always thought she was.

  She’s done stuff like meet Lane, and be mean to Dad, and she’s said how she hates where we live and she doesn’t like our things. Maybe she might just go away one day? Other mothers have, I know. I mean, I don’t know any, but it’s possible. What’s to stop her? I couldn’t, and she sure wouldn’t listen to Dad, or Lane, either. Tears spill over. I can’t help it.

  Cass puts her arm around me. ‘It’ll be all right, Tiff. She wouldn’t ever leave you behind. She probably won’t even go. Or not for years.’

  God, crying at school is so HOPELESS! I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and scratch my cheek with my coat, which really hurts. Cass gives me a little shake.

  ‘Why don’t you ask her who she’s been ringing up. She’ll tell you. She will.’

  I nod. I will ask, straight after school. I sniff hard. At least mountain air gets rid of tears fast.

  ‘You can spit if you like,’ Cass says. ‘That always makes me feel better.’ She makes a disgusting spitting sound. ‘Go for it, mate!’

  I don’t, but I do laugh, which is even better.

  Hide and seek

  I dawdle home so slowly even Cass is annoyed. She likes to get to her place for fruitcake and hot chocolate.

  ‘C’mon, slow-coach.’ She’s way ahead of me. ‘You’re goin’ backwards now.’