Big River, Little Fish

by Belinda Jeffrey

  ‘Your father, here, plans to stay,’ Ted says, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Your mother says he can have a room in the house until he finds somewhere else, so long as you agree to...,’ Ted falters. He clears his throat. ‘Well, she wants you to try harder in school.’

  Tom’s shoulders slump and he feels like he’s been made to swallow a bag of river rocks.

  Oliver steps out of the doorway, away from the glare of the sun, and Tom looks at him. There’s no thinking that they share the same colour hair, the same eyes. Nothing about him is familiar; most especially him being there at all.

  ‘What will I call you?’ Tom says, looking to Ted.

  Ted rubs his chin.

  Oliver clears his throat and this business of not knowing how to talk about the backwards way some families come together is damn hard for everyone. All round.

  ‘How about “Pa”,’ Oliver says.

  ‘Pa,’ Tom says. It’s a beginning.

  At home later Marge says, ‘With the Harley’s departure, Oliver’s arrival and, even, the shock of seeing Ray Guthrie die, it’s no wonder you took off like you did, Tom.’

  And for a moment, Tom’s heart feels light because it seems as though she might understand a little about him after all.

  ‘But you’re not a boy anymore. And you should grow up, Tom,’ she continues, glancing at Oliver standing beside the grandfather clock. Oliver is showered, clean-shaven and more settled.

  The heaviness comes back inside Tom, like he is part limestone inside. Murray Black is not mentioned. Or Hannah.

  ‘I’ve taken over the licence for the ferry,’ Oliver says. ‘I’ll be living in the ferryman’s house. Just down the road.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marge says, her voice like the taste of lemon. ‘We do know where it is. We could name every building in this town blindfolded, Oliver.’

  Oliver looks down at his shoes.

  Ted is quiet and won’t meet Tom’s eyes. He packs a pipe, finding everything outside the lounge room window more interesting than what is going on inside.

  ‘Come and help me with the ferry whenever you like, Tom.’

  For three days Tom waits for Hannah at the fishing beach. He has the canoe ready by the edge of the river, just in case, and, when she doesn’t come, he drags it back up across the sand and scrub to the hut. Because hope is easier to carry at the end of a day than acceptance.

  Tom cooks fish on dusk at the edge of the river and thinks about what it will be like when the waters rise. The town is all talk about Old Mother and when she’s coming; messages coming through up-river saying the water will hit any day. He wonders how many days it will take until the fishing beach is under, and how Hannah’s name will be the first to go.

  Tom helps John with his pump and sits with him in silence as the water boils for his hot-water bottles and mosquitoes buzz around their heads.

  It goes without saying, what is going to happen.

  Mrs Cath manages to clean some of her shack and she is lucid enough to chatter on about past things when Tom visits. Though she will not talk about Lil.

  Bum-crack has so many beer bottles lined up along his jetty that Tom and Jimbo run out of stones before they run out of targets. Bum-crack appears at his window, but he doesn’t even come out running. The future has them all pressed against themselves; like time, that had been their protector, will undo everything it once promised to preserve. And the thing about it, about waiting for change like that to come and find you, is how heavy you become. It’s too hard to make plans, to move on. You just bear down and wait till the waters break.

  ‘Bum-crack loves a woman,’ Jimbo says.

  ‘Yeah?’ says Tom.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jimbo stows his slingshot into his back pocket. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We all love someone.’

  ‘He lost someone,’ Tom says. ‘He wasn’t always like he is now.’

  ‘You knew him before?’

  Tom shrugs.

  ‘We’ve all lost someone.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Jimbo?’

  ‘Go home, make tea, go to bed.’

  ‘No, I mean, the river.’

  ‘Go home, make tea...,’ he says walking away. He waves and disappears into the dark.

  Tom waits at the fishing beach with his legs drawn up to his chest and Old Mother is an upside-down picture of the sky, reflecting everything around yet revealing nothing of herself. She whispers nothing today.

  Tom digs a burrow in the sand and drags Doc close to him, laying inside with the grey army blanket over his body. Above him stars dance like fairies. He watches them, he envies them, until sleep nags him. He hooks Doc on his shoulders and walks up the path towards the top road.

  There is no sign of Murray Black.

  BIG RIVER

  July 1956

  Oliver has the ferry ready to go for the first run of the day when the waters start rising. He steps out of the enginehouse – a corrugated-iron room to the left-hand side of the deck – and looks at his watch. Two weeks of sunshine and air have restored him. His skin is tanned and he has a glow about him and he’s handsome, Tom supposes. Not that you would have thought so the first time he arrived in town.

  Cars click-clack up onto the timber ferry deck, that’s enclosed with stockyard fencing, and Tom lifts the ramp and latches the boom gates across the entrance. The motor kicks in, whirring and grinding, as the drive-wheels spin and the twisted double cables, that span the river, navigate the punt to the other side.

  It had taken an hour for the water to start lapping the ferryman’s house, where Tom had watched his pa scuff his boots on the doorstep earlier that morning. Oliver had stood, looking out across the water, thinking. Measuring the distance between the river and his threshold and knowing there was nothing a man could do about it. No point building a levee bank at the water’s edge.

  It would be a beautiful sight if it weren’t twisted with danger and loss; the river rising and growing. Swelling up beyond her natural stronghold, a rare bird spreading her wings in the sunshine. It seems as if Tom is never meant to be with his pa for long; always something between them.

  ‘You’d better be off, Tom,’ Oliver calls. ‘I’m not going to be responsible for making you late for school.’ Oliver pulls on the brake lever and Tom unlatches the gates as the ferry bumps against the bank on the other side of the river. Tom could see himself giving up school and running the ferry with his pa every day. He likes the feeling of putting his body to work; achieving something useful. He’d split his time between the ferry and the garage and spend the late afternoons checking up on people down the river.

  Tom lowers the ramp and waves to drivers as they leave the ferry for the road. He adjusts his hat and winds up the pulley, to draw the ramp flush against the ferry, and latches the boom gates closed.

  Oliver slips the belt over the drive-wheels to set the ferry in reverse and shifts the crank handle. The cables pull tight and the ferry motors across the river with the smell of diesel smoke lingering.

  From here Tom can see the front of the ferryman’s house and the pub on the hill above it. Pelicans perch on rocky clumps jutting out from the bottom of the cliff face, bobbing about on the water.

  The ferry hits the bank with a thump and the inertia throws Tom back on his heels as it settles to a stop. He opens the gates and lowers the ramp.

  ‘School, Tom,’ Oliver says, his hands on his hips and his hat hanging low over his eyes. A crooked smile has become a confident expression in the last week.

  Tom kicks the ground as he walks away. ‘It’s a bloody joke,’ he says, waiting for his pa to say something. Berate him for swearing. But there’s just the sound of the ferry motor turning, timber gates closing and the metal chain grating on the ground as the ferry leaves the bank again. Tom watches his pa limp back to the engine house.

  Later that eveni
ng Tom helps Oliver prepare for the flood waters. There’s minimal furniture in the house and Tom helps his pa hoist the settee and china cabinet and occasional chairs onto forty-four gallon drums that he found in the afternoon, in the back of Ted’s garage. It’s dark and water laps the lino in the front passage already, just a trickle over the floor as if the kitchen sink has overflowed. But that’s only the start, they know, and, while nothing will save the house, there’s hope for the furniture.

  Oliver bends over every now and then as his body shakes.

  ‘You right?’ says Tom.

  Oliver nods and changes the conversation by pointing to the chair in the corner and another drum that has to be moved in from outside. At nights, Oliver rubs horse liniment into his knee. Best stuff ever made, he says.

  For the first week his pa was here and started running the ferry, Tom thought he might be suffering from a sickness. He shook, at times. Tom would walk down from his house to the ferry in the mornings and find his pa with dark circles under his eyes, his body looking like he’d been ravished by animals in his sleep. It took him hours to thaw out, some days. As though the sun was drying him, slowly, day by day. But after that first week, living seemed a little easier for him. Tom and his pa didn’t talk a lot. They might comment on the weather. Slowly Oliver found out small details about Tom and the town. Tom was gone for school hours, busy with Mrs Guthrie till tea time, then he’d help Ted in the garage most nights. He didn’t go out of his way to look for Marge.

  Running the ferry, especially on weekends, was how Tom and his pa came to understand each other in the present, which was the only safe ground between a murky past and uncertain future. They kept the motor oiled, cleaned decks, filled diesel tanks and talked to locals. They passed on messages left by one motorist to another farmer in the afternoon. They were equals when it came to the ferry. Only one word could break up the perfection of time between one river bank and the other: school.

  Tom has hardly seen Hannah at school in the past weeks. His whole life has changed and he hasn’t been able to talk to her about it. It’s like they’re stranded on different sides of a river. Harry hasn’t said anything about what happened that night and Tom heard via Biscuit that he told his father he fell over a tree stump in the dark on the night in question. Biscuit told Tom it was all sorted and no one had to know anything else. Harry doesn’t talk to Tom at all. But it’s not just what happened that night that Tom holds responsible for the distance he feels. Tom has a real father who’s come back. Hannah will never have that.

  ‘Right,’ says Oliver looking through each room to make sure no furniture has been missed. He stands with his hands on his hips in the lounge room, turning his head left and right as if something small has been forgotten and he can’t find it. He scratches his head and rubs his hands together.

  ‘What now?’ Tom says, realising there’s nowhere to sit down and by morning his pa could be knee deep in water. ‘We could get a pie at the pub,’ he says. Oliver doesn’t respond straight away.

  ‘Please?’ Tom says.

  The pub is crowded, the smell of yeast and hops is thick. Everyone is talking about the river. It’s hard to make himself heard, so Tom just points towards the counter as they push through the crowd. Tom is greeted with nods and a few ‘hi there’s’ from people he knows. He turns to see his pa, who’s following him with his head down.

  At the counter Tom waits for his pa to order and he notices Oliver shaking. Sweat breaks out on his forehead and he digs his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Two pies,’ Tom says, turning back to the barman.

  The barman nods. He looks at Oliver. ‘Beer?’

  Oliver coughs and clears his throat. He goes to say something and swallows. He shakes his head.

  The barman shrugs his shoulders. ‘Suit yourself.’

  Oliver slaps some coins on the counter and turns, pushing his way through the crowd.

  Tom watches him leave. He looks around at all the other blokes in the pub. They’re laughing and patting each other on the shoulders. Complaining about crops and pests and how to get the best yield from a paddock that’s dry one year and a foot under water the next. Someone’s telling a joke and there’s a shout of laughter behind him.

  There’s a lot Tom can’t understand about his pa. Sometimes he looks like one of those animals that turn up in town. Thin and shabby and shaking all over. You go to touch them and they either snap at you to keep your distance or they cower and whimper. Ted says animals like that have had their spirit broken.

  Tom takes the pies, hot and steaming in paper bags, out through the crowd. His pa isn’t waiting by the door and Tom looks around the carpark, but he’s not there either. He wanders out onto the road and down beside the pub back to the ferryman’s house to find his pa standing on the doorstep with water lapping over his boots. He’s breathing heavily and holding his arms around himself and he doesn’t even notice Tom straight away. Tom rustles the paper bags and scuffs his feet. He coughs and Oliver turns, suddenly, his arms straight out in front of him. Tom steps back, one pie slipping free of his hand, falling in the mud.

  Oliver rushes to pick it up. ‘Sorry,’ he says, handing it back.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Tom says. ‘One’s yours anyway.’

  Tom pulls the pie out of the bag and bites into it. ‘You got a problem with crowds?’ Tom says, a stream of gravy trickling down his chin. He wipes it clean with the back of his hand.

  ‘Pubs,’ Oliver says. ‘Jeez,’ he says quickly, ‘You better get back to your parents’ place.’

  ‘I got friends down the river, Pa,’ Tom says to avoid going home just yet. He’s begun enjoying spending time with him. Somehow Tom feels he has to hold his pa here, to give him a reason to stay once his house goes under. ‘If water’s coming in here, won’t be long and it’ll be coming in their places, too.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I should ... I should check on them. You can help if you like,’ Tom says. ‘But we’ll have to get you a bike.’

  Oliver laughs.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it, Tom,’ Oliver says. ‘You have to check the spark plug gap.’ Tom nods, not minding that his pa is teaching him how to do something he already knows.

  It’s quiet in the garage with the string lights blowing in the breeze. Oliver sits beside Tom on the ground with his leg stuck out to the side next to the Harley.

  Tom watches as Oliver runs his hands over the chrome, smiling. He traces her curves and contours and for the first time it feels to Tom like this man is his father, and there’s a connection.

  Tom used to go to bed some nights when he was younger, thinking about what it would be like if Lil came back. How it felt as though part of her had never left. But with Oliver it was different. It wasn’t something he thought about, he didn’t long for it. Maybe because he deliberately left Tom whereas his mother had no choice. Whatever it was, Oliver hadn’t felt real to Tom. Not in the way Hannah felt real. Or Murray, or even Ted and Marge. He was just a person who showed up. But here beside each other, with Harley between them, his pa comes alive.

  ‘I had a name, you know,’ he says to Tom. ‘They called me Sprint. I didn’t race with this bike,’ he says, watching Tom check the spark generator. ‘This was the bike I took on the road. It was what I took when I came here, when I met your...,’ he coughs.

  Tom doesn’t want him to stop.

  ‘But I sold my racing bike when I signed up. Jesus, that seems a long time ago.’

  Tom tightens the bolts on the chain and takes away the tray used to drain the old transmission oil.

  ‘She only needed a grease and oil,’ Oliver says. ‘Bet she still flies, no problem.’

  Tom wipes his hands and looks at Harley while Oliver stands up, his leg stuck out beside him. He wants to ask what happened. He wants to ask a lot of things. But that bike is already growling inside his chest and the thought of riding her swa
llows everything else he might want to say.

  ‘You ever ridden?’ Oliver says.

  Tom nods with the lie.

  ‘Wheel her out,’ Oliver points towards the door.

  The night is cool and a spatter of rain falls on Tom’s head. At the end of the road, the river is swelling and flowing fast. She’s churned up and loud.

  Oliver swings his good leg over the seat and lifts his foot up on the pedal, wrapping his fingers around the handlebars. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Hop on.’

  Tom sits at the back, wrapping his arms around his pa’s waist. The bike bounces as his pa pushes down on the throttle. Nothing happens. Oliver thrusts on the throttle again and the engine chokes to life before sputtering out. A third time and the engine is a strong, rhythmic growl underneath them. Oliver revs the engine and she sounds strong and healthy.

  ‘Hold on,’ Oliver says and Tom squeezes tighter. He clicks into first gear and the bike takes off over the uneven rubble of the dirt on the road-shoulder and onto the flat of Victoria Road. The noise drowns out everything as Oliver accelerates.

  Halfway to Big Bend Road Tom realises he left Doc on the floor in the garage. But the feeling of freedom drowns out his worry. He’s never felt anything so exhilarating. Racing time, racing life, flying free of everything way back behind him.

  It’s a disappointment when the bike stops still at the end of Big Bend Road. There’s no dust with the light rain packing down the earth. The bike leans over to the side as Oliver puts out his bad leg to hold her steady. The engine is warm.