Big River, Little Fish

by Belinda Jeffrey

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  MOT

  MURRAY

  OLIVER

  TED

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  BIG RIVER

  TED

  OLIVER

  MURRAY

  TOM

  LITTLE FISH

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Copyright

  Belinda Jeffrey lives in Brisbane with her husband and two boys. Her short story ‘The Hallelujah Roof’ was published in One Book, Many Brisbanes 2007 and she had a poem published in Penguin’s What is Mother Love? Her novel Brown Skin Blue was published by UQP in 2009. Big River, Little Fish was inspired by the years she spent as a teenager on the Murray River, at her father’s shack.

  www.belindajeffrey.com

  Also by Belinda Jeffrey

  Brown Skin Blue

  For my boys,

  Caleb and Luke

  If

  I had

  words I could tell

  Tom that I am real, even

  though he can’t see me yet, and

  some days we are so close we can almost touch.

  That I hold in my memory the moment of our future;

  because if a backwards birth can be a boy’s

  beginning, then it is possible death is not

  the end but a big river flowing

  forward. Tomorrow

  remembers

  us;

  Little and the Fish.

  MOT

  December 1940

  Tom Downs was a small five pounder when he came out backwards on the sand at Big Bend; a place on the Murray River halfway between the towns of Swan Reach and Nildottie in South Australia. There was Old Mother Murray, sweeping past the tallest section of cliffs to be found anywhere along the river. It would have been sunset, the marbled limestone glowing orange in the last moments of light, and that’s the stage Lil wanted for Tom’s arrival; cockatoos screeching home to holes in the cliffs, the sound of pelicans honking and diving for fish. Tom bursting forth from Lil’s great inland sea to the river; Old Mother Murray slowing from the free-flowing current of day to her smooth mirror of fortune on dusk. Lil was a gypsy, reading her future and that of her son. Only sometimes you can’t comprehend what’s been written until you face the mirror of your life, chase it around the bend, all the way back to tomorrow.

  But the truth is that no one knows why Lil didn’t call for help when she felt Tom coming or walk up to the top road, but a single girl of sixteen does what she can. It was a hot December evening and the river would have cooled her down, except she never quite made it. And Tom never quite made it. And they were stranded on the riverbank instead.

  Murray Black was wandering down along the river away from the mission, cutting mallee scrub to fill the army quota, when he heard Tom’s crying. An effort so faint, he was fading away to his own end. Crying for milk that never came. Lil was dead, and he was wrapped in a corner of her dress, because giving Tom life had bled her dry.

  It was the doctors that said Tom must have come out tail first and that would explain what happened. Any wonder he survived at all. But that was Tom’s capital ‘T’ moment of life right there, because ‘T’ for Trouble is a black man finding a white woman like that in 1940.

  MURRAY

  December 1955

  Murray Black leans back against the same tree where Lil died fifteen years ago, and looks out at the river. He touches the ground and closes his eyes, trying to remember it differently. But he still sees himself walking along the river’s edge that day, with his sack of mallee wood slung over his shoulder, and no knowledge of what he would find. If only he had not taken his time, if he had hurried. Things might have been different.

  He’d been whistling and life had never seemed so happy-sure. He had begun to believe that a man could shrink the world down to himself and one other person, and nothing outside that picture mattered. His heart felt light, he remembers that. He wanted to sing about the future, to run forward and take it with both hands. But the girl in his picture was a jittery bird when it came to the future and he hadn’t wanted to scare her off. There was a book of words in his head and he looked forward to letting them all out, one day. He’d planned to paint her pictures with those words; most beautiful pictures she’d ever seen.

  That’s what had been in his head the evening he strolled along the river towards the row of shacks when he had heard that sound. Even before he registered exactly what it was, he dropped the wood and ran towards it. He’d known Lil had a baby coming, everyone in town and all along the river knew, but she’d said it wasn’t coming for weeks.

  From a distance he’d seen her against that tree, her body at awkward angles. Her head rolled to the side and something moving against her legs. The sight of her like that was a dagger dragging through his flesh, stripping him down to nothing. Poison raided his heart. His legs turned to water and he almost collapsed. Despite the look of her telling him one thing, he ran towards them hoping against it. Tom was cold and he had to touch her skin to free him. He wrapped Tom in a corner of her dress and tore it from her. Murray thought his heart might beat through his chest and he held Tom close, like placing an orphan pup near a ticking clock for comfort. He said nothing. Fifteen years ago to this day, Murray Black turned his back on Old Mother and ran.

  Murray sits forward and watches Old Mother Murray settling herself beneath the sunset. He stands to face the tree trunk, running his fingers along the bark, before picking at it to create a break. He digs his fingers under the edge he’s created and pulls down, tearing four long strips from the tree. Even now the sound of it coming away triggers the same feeling inside him. The tree seems to bleed where he has exposed the soft, inner-flesh to the sun. It will harden in time, he knows, and a scar will form; just another line, indistinguishable among many, to mark one moment in life.

  He lays the strips on the ground so that they criss-cross each other, takes three mallee root shapes from his pocket, and places them on top of the bark. He found the shapes and dug them up from the ground himself, over the last month. Folding the ends of the bark over the shapes, Murray forms a parcel and secures it with a river-reed, knotted at the top.

  Holding the parcel in his hands, he walks away from the river towards what is left of Lil’s hut. He ducks under the doorframe to stand inside where it is cooler. Shadows fall across the floor, which is mostly dirt after so many years of neglect. Part of the roof is missing, there is a hole in the side wall, and the glass windows were stolen long ago.

  Murray walks to the far corner where Tom’s canoe is tied up to an exposed wall post. He knows Tom will be coming by later so he places the parcel inside the canoe, covering it with a swatch of leaves. He rests his hand on the parcel for a moment, and smiles. ‘Happy birthday, Tom,’ he says. And then he leaves.

  OLIVER

  December 1955

  Oliver Richardson wakes remembering he is a father. The thought faces him like a groper, fat and grotesque, in front of his eyes. He squints it away, rubs his eyes and runs his fingers through the greasy tangle of his hair. And then there are no thoughts. Oliver can’t remember where he is or where he’s been and his mouth feels numb. His tongue is a rubber mullet and an empty ocean fills his head. He sits up and coughs, and waits until the world stops moving, before trusting his
legs to hold him up.

  After dressing, Oliver staggers out of his room, down the passage and through the front door. The sun attacks him and he closes his eyes, opens them briefly, closes them again. He repeats this until it is bearable to keep them open longer than needing them closed. On the footpath he remembers to straighten his shirt. He might be missing one shoe, but he can’t be sure, and he doesn’t want to risk falling with the effort of bending over to check for it. He licks his lips with a dry tongue and staggers against a wire fence.

  ‘Bloody no good drunk,’ says someone, passing.

  Oliver bends over with his fingers hooked through the gaps in the wire and coughs until his chest relaxes and he can breathe again. His heart hurts more this day than yesterday and he doesn’t need a doctor to tell him he has a bad case of Lil and Tom today. Only one drug for that.

  He can feel it building up inside him. Like a small vibration getting louder until it’s the only thing he can think about. All he has to do is to make it to the river and drink it down – glass after glass – and every razor inside him, his scratchy thoughts and the pain in his gammy leg, will dissolve and the world will be a fluid cocoon and that’s all that matters anymore. You crawl through the desert for water and it’s pretty much the same through the streets of Norwood for beer.

  It’s a good distance from the room he rents to the pub where it is beer after beer. Thank God he remembered his wallet.

  The world is almost quiet and Oliver orders another beer. He scratches around his wallet, but it is empty. Nothing left and pension day not for another week. But he needs the drink; it’s everything, the only thing, and he is nothing.

  It is an easier walk from the pub to the bank, with the drink in him, and he asks the teller to fill out his withdrawal slip for him. ‘What’s the date?’ he asks.

  She looks at him over the rim of her glasses and pauses, her pen hovering over the paper.

  Oliver looks down.

  ‘December 23rd.’

  Oliver winces as though her answer is a club to his chest. He looks to the ceiling, calculating years, and the teller asks him how much he wants to withdraw.

  ‘All of it,’ Oliver says, tapping the paper with his finger. Every cent. He takes a bus to Waterloo Park, to see the dogs, his pocket thick with everything he owns.

  Sixteen years ago people called Oliver, Sprint, and he showed every promise of being a speedway champion. He was cocky and rough and there wasn’t anything could spook him. Speed was his drug and the newly opened Rowley Park speedway signed his name up against every race and fed him beer and dreams of making the big time. Saturday nights were about racing the track and the sound of a thousand people cheering. He was young enough to go all the way, they said; those in the know.

  He resorted to begging his father for money even though he knew it was useless before he tried. ‘You’re no son of mine,’ his father had said. ‘Bloody no good lout.’ But there wasn’t anything else he loved like the track and his bike and the way he felt when those two things went together and he vowed to make the money himself so he could get to England or America where the real action was.

  Fruit picking wasn’t his first idea, but it was a good one. Working hard, a man could do well in picking seasons. So he took the Harley and rode off into the Riverland. He worked in Mannum and Loxton and Berri, and the blokes he spent his days with picking apricots told him they were signing up for the war. A man could come back with enough to set him up for life. Better than picking, they said.

  Oliver arrived in Swan Reach with another bloke from Berri on his way back to Adelaide to sign up and, at his suggestion, decided to stay for a week in the pub. Last week of freedom before war, and all that. Have a holiday and take in the clean air and it sounded good. Except he met Lil and that week felt like a year of living; he was a man in love by the end of it.

  She was at the pub that first night and Sprint, bolstered by booze and the confidence of his Berri mate, asked her to join them. She looked young and wise all at once, dark eyes and hair. Her skin the colour of honey. The conversation between them was easy, a feeling like they’d always known each other despite having so much to say. She didn’t tell him the circumstances of her life that night. Instead they took picnics all around the ridge for the next two days. Wednesday, he kissed her and she kissed him back and it was a bond like he’d never felt before. He promised her everything in the moment and she laughed and took his arm and put it around her shoulders and the afternoon rolled into evening and the moon rose above them and the air turned cold.

  The idea to take Lil racing was a whim, but she sat on the bike behind him, her arms held tight around his waist, and they rode most of the night to reach Adelaide. They slept on the veranda of Sprint’s parents’ house and were gone at dawn for Rowley Park.

  Thursday, Sprint raced and Lil watched from the gate at the pits. He kissed her when he won, grease and dirt and diesel smoke spinning about him like fairy floss. Ignoring the wolf-whistles and jibbing from the other riders, Sprint held Lil close to him. They rode on the Harley all the way back to Swan Reach and camped out on the fishing beach in front of Lil’s hut.

  They swam naked in the river and what Sprint felt and thought had no words. At least none he could think of and Lil, who was the chattiest girl he’d ever met, was quietened by the moment, too. He traced the outline of her face in the moonlight and watched drops of water run down her skin and her hair. Their kisses were a majesty unknown before and when he made love to her on the beach by the fire, time and plans and life itself disappeared.

  Friday, Sprint’s Berri mate found them at the pub and he glared at Lil over dinner and reminded Sprint of his promise and his dream and how they were rolled up in one plan they had made together. Lil said Oliver was born to race. Even she could see that and Sprint knew then he had nothing to give her. Just the chance to come back the man he meant to be. He said she was the girl he’d marry.

  When Lil’s friend, Murray, showed up outside the pub, a fight broke out and Lil cried and Sprint couldn’t understand what was going on.

  Bloody boong get off.

  Leave him alone! He has a right.

  You’re trash, girl. Rooting with a darkie down there on the river.

  A crowd came out of the pub and they were all of them shouting and someone pushed the black man and he just stood there looking at Lil and she tried to reach him or tell him something and Sprint didn’t like the feeling creeping up inside him like she had another man. A bloody boong. He didn’t know her at all. Just a few days was all. He left the pub with his Berri mate and the last thing he saw was Lil running off down the road and the black man gone.

  ‘Things you don’t know going on here,’ his Berri mate said that night in their room. ‘Breeze into a town and there’s a shit lot happening you don’t know about. Best you leave it alone and do like you said and come with me.’

  As Sprint fell asleep that night he knew there had to be a simple explanation for what had gone on and he was stupid for running off like he did. He loved that girl, he knew it for sure. And she loved him.

  He’s missed a race or two, but another race begins as he arrives. Greyhounds are in their boxes, lined up and ready to go and it’s a day of listening to Richo in the commentary box.

  ‘And they’re off. Knocklaun Aim and Bradley’s Babe in the lead.’

  Oliver wanders the length of the track until he finds P.J. Simpson, the betting man, and he tries to play it cool when all he can think about is another drink and the river of it running through him.

  Oliver runs his finger down the list of names for the next race. He looks for the favourite – no point betting on a loser – but his finger stops still, trembling as he reads one name. And there is a vibration, stronger than his own addiction, singing out inside him and he knows that it is his moment of truth right here. A chance, or something. Tom is fifteen today. So Oliver be
ts every last cent he has on a dog – with odds at twenty to one – called River Tom.

  TED

  December 1955

  ‘This time I’m having my way about it,’ Marge says to Ted. ‘I’ve given in to your “leave him be” attitude long enough and look where it has got us. Our Tom like he is.’

  It doesn’t seem right to Ted that Marge is bringing up the subject of Tom’s inadequacies today of all days. At least she waited until Tom had gone down to the river.

  ‘All these years you’ve told me it would be all right, the boy would learn in his own time, his own way. And look at the state he’s in now! It’s not just cars he talks to, Ted. He talks to her, you know. I’ve heard him. As if she was real!’

  Ted folds his arms across his chest and sips his tea. Beside him, Marge makes a clicking sound with her tongue and stands up from the table, taking what’s left of Tom’s birthday tea to the sink. She scrapes cake crumbs into the bin and rinses the plates. It wasn’t a bad cake, Ted thinks, looking for the positive in it all.

  Fifteen years ago and Tom was such a small thing. Barely alive when he arrived; a fighter, though. He remembers hearing all the commotion in the main street and running down to the police station with half the town. And that Black with Tom in his hands, guilt written all over his face. Blood on his clothes. Ted sips his tea again with the sound of tap water filling up the sink behind him. Marge had been happier, that day it was suggested she take Tom in, than she had been in years. She was a distant cousin of Lil’s, not that they had anything to do with Lil at all. Still, blood is blood.