Clem feels tears rising.
‘But at the end, he just looked so peaceful, Clem,’
Eva whispers. ‘So still and light. Like he got lighter and lighter he could just drift away.’
Clem closes his eyes. ‘Mum, I, how long till ...’ The words can’t come. A tear rolls down his left cheek.
‘He’ll be here for a bit, love.’ He can hear her voice trembling. ‘I want to keep him as long as I can.’
*
Two hours later Clem and Rose drive to Eva’s and Rose is fuming, the heat of her filling the cab.
‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ he says. ‘I should have woken you.’
‘Damn right you should have!’ Rose’s arms are crossed over her chest, her belly swelling below. ‘It’s Tom, for Christ’s sakes. Your dad. Wouldn’t you want to be there? And for Eva too! Leaving her alone. Jesus Clem, sometimes I just don’t get you.’ He’s about to speak but it’s pouring out of her: ‘Imagine: she’s lost her husband, calls her son and he says yeah, I’ll come later, after I’ve had me breakfast.’
‘It wasn’t like that Rose,’ he says, looking at her.
‘You imagine Clem ...’—she stares back at him— ‘losing the person you love most.’ And then she’s sniffling, that big belly rising and rising.
Clem brakes. He turns and reaches for her. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he croaks. ‘Should have told you. Eva said to let you rest. I just wanted to do the right thing.’
She clings to him, heaving. ‘I don’t want you to ever die on me, Clem.’
‘Not planning on it, Rosie,’ he whispers, kissing the top of her head.
When they round the last bend before the homestead, she glances down at his shirt.
‘What are you looking at, love?’
‘My tears. They’ve left the shape of a small Tasmania,’ she says. ‘Or a heart.’
*
Rose jolts back. ‘I swore he just moved.’
‘They can do that,’ says Eva. ‘The gases, you know.’
The three of them sit around him, eating toast and drinking tea.
‘Fig jam, old man,’ Clem says, raising his triangle of toast in salute. ‘Your favourite.’
Stories fill the room: how Tom left school at twelve, the pig trap he built and which all the farmers copied, the record he still held for the most belly flops in a row from the Hope Valley bridge: sixteen.
‘And it would have been more.’ Clem puffs up his chest and mimics Tom’s voice. ‘But someone called the cops.’
Eva laughs: ‘Plus he’d split his duds!’
And they all laugh at that.
On and on, around that body, the stories recreating, singing up Tom’s life.
By the time the undertakers from Claytonville arrive in their station wagon, Tom’s mouth gapes open like a tiny bird waiting to be fed. Eva manages to get his eyes closed, but nothing can be done with the mouth: his final, silent protest as he’s stretchered out to the car. The dogs bark up at the clear sky and a flock of green parrots wheels out of the wattle. Eva weeps, hanky shoved in her mouth, and Clem has one arm around her, the other around Rose, as they watch the car move slowly over the hill.
*
A few weeks later, Clem walks down the drive to free an old ewe tangled in the fence. He’s whistling Slim Dusty and kicking up dust, pleased with the synchronicity. Just before he reaches the sheep, on its side, leg twisted, shit half way up its back, he suddenly stops. By his boot is a black feather: ten inches long, one inch wide, brilliant red streaks across the middle. He picks it up, tucks it in his chest pocket, pats it. He smiles and looks up at the sky, feeling Tom close.
At dusk, Jemimah brings pots of food to the beach where Pirate and Beth sit on a blanket, sipping gin. Pink leaks from the sea into the sky; great, long fingers reaching over and beyond them. The frogs and night birds have just started to call. And when they hear the pht pht of a passing dugong, they look at each other in disbelief.
‘Special,’ says Pirate, and they raise their glasses to the sea.
‘This is beautiful.’ Beth’s voice is soft.
Pirate takes the lid off the pot and ladles food into her bowl.
‘Do you know what it is?’ he says.
‘Fish?’ she laughs in mock surprise.
‘Nope.’ He smiles. ‘Close though. Silver medal.’ He fills his bowl. ‘Turtle. I asked them to get one for us.’
For as long as she can remember, Clem had been cooking up kangaroo and rabbit. When she was a kid, long before she flirted with vegetarianism, Beth loved sheep brains for breakfast and liver with bacon whenever it was going. But turtle? She takes a deep breath. She sticks her fork into a small chunk, brings it to her mouth, chews. It’s moist, delicate. Coconut juice runs over her chin. She heaps rice and kaukau on her plate and then, hungry from the day, from the night before, hungry because she’s sitting on a tropical island so far from home with this man before her, she shovels in mouthful after mouthful, knowing that soon it will be gone, all of it, gone.
Out here, there are stars. So many stars. Pirate moves the dinner plates and pots from the blanket to the sand. A dog skulks in and he shoos it away. Two days on liklik ailan haven’t been enough. For the first time in years, he feels the urge to stop in one place for a while. He stretches out along the blanket and reaches for Beth. She snuggles into him and he hears the slow murmur of the sea coming and going. He brushes a few strands of hair from her cheek and runs a fingertip along her jaw, down the gully to her mouth, over her lips. He kisses her.
*
Pirate sleeps fitfully. At one point he wakes, feels her breath hot on his neck. He clings to her and she holds him, their mouths sour from gin and sleep.
‘You okay?’ she whispers.
‘Yeah. I’m okay.’
He will have to tell her that he’s leaving. Jim wants to be gone in a week and he knows that it’s just as well.
An hour later Beth wakes and can’t find sleep again. Pirate rolls onto his side, away from her. In one breath she wants him to stay, and in the next she wants him to go. She knows she’s been fighting it all day: she’ll feel ripped apart when he leaves. In the slipperiness of night she berates herself, and wonders when This is fine became I need more.
III
2004
Beth meets Sam on New Year’s Eve, a blond, longlimbed man who grabs her arm as she walks through a crowded pub perched over the Indian Ocean. He smiles as he hooks his arm around her, skipping her two steps forward before sending her in a twirl. She laughs and looks at her friends watching from the bar.
‘Come,’ he says. ‘Dance with me.’ And he weaves her through the crowd to the dance floor. The band’s playing a country number and the lead singer, in red and black checks, long beard trailing onto his chest, whips a mouth organ from his pocket. The man drops Beth’s hand suddenly, cocks an eyebrow and gives a wry smile, before shrugging his shoulders, slapping his thigh and clapping his hands. He reaches for her and they step forward, out to the side, back together. He sends her into a spin.
‘Yeeha!’ he yells, throwing his head back and laughing.
‘The barn dance?’ Her voice is hoarse over the music. ‘You’re gonna make me do the barn dance? I haven’t done that since school!’
His eyes are bright as he leads her through the steps. Laughing hard, she clings to his shirt, slick with sweat, as he waltzes her in small, tight circles. As she whizzes past, her friends point and laugh and she feels herself giving over to the music, the movement, the heat of the man.
When the band announces a break, he whispers in her ear: ‘I’m Sam.’ Then, taking an imaginary hat from his head, he bows dramatically. ‘Fancy a drink?’
Outside they sit at wooden benches under party lights and red paper lanterns, sipping cold beer.
‘I’m from Tasmania,’ he says. ‘Just outside Launceston.’ He’d been travelling around Australia and decided to stay in Fremantle, rustle some money together driving a forklift at the wharf. ‘Nearly done. Just a month l
eft.’
‘I’m here forever,’ she says, kicking her sandals off, feeling the cool of the dirt. ‘I live down by the beach but I grew up on the edge of the wheatbelt. My dad still has the farm.’
Sam tells her about his cricket: he loves the game and plays for Scarborough’s A Grade. He played for Tasmania when he was younger, touring the country in the Under 21 side. They talk about music, the ocean, Fremantle, the places they’d been, where they’d like to go; and when the music begins to leak outside, he leads her back in to dance. Sam continues with his thigh-slapping, knee-high country dancing. He grabs her, sends her spinning once, twice, three times, while around them people cheer and clap. Cheeks stretched and sore, Beth can’t remember the last time she’s smiled so much.
Through his open shirt, she can see his chest, slippery with sweat, and smells beer on his breath. She wants him to kiss her. But he spins her again, steps her forward, and waltzes her around the perimeter of the dance floor, twirling her twice, theatrically, in front of the lead singer. As the band counts down to midnight, 10, 9, 8 ..., he pulls her close and she turns her face up to meet his grey eyes.
‘I’m not going to kiss you,’ he whispers.
‘Really?’ she says loudly, immediately wishing that she hadn’t.
‘I’ve just met you. That would be taking liberties!’ he says. ‘Plus,’ he adds, shaking his head, ‘midnight New Year’s Eve is so clichéd.’
And then horns are blaring, streamers showering down, everyone wild. Her friends are launching themselves at her—she’s hugged and kissed, pulled from one person to another. When she looks for him, he’s leaning against the bar, smiling, tipping his glass in her direction. Beth laughs, shaking her head. She walks over to him.
‘Tease,’ she says.
‘Now Beth, if I were a tease, I’d walk away,’ he says, arm resting on the small of her back. ‘Meet me tomorrow. I’ll kiss you then.’
He pushes a ripped coaster from the bar into her palm. On the back is his number.
*
Heavyheaded, she waits for him at the cafe by the beach. She’d arrived here early, drank two coffees, and now sits reading an organic gardening magazine. She feels a hand on her shoulder and as she turns and looks up, he leans down and brushes his fingertips over her cheek.
The day easily uncoils: swimming in the cool sea, wandering through sand dunes and then on to the market stalls down by the wharf. Sam haggles for snapper with the fishmonger before they head south to the caravan park by the beach. As the sun dips, heading for the sea, they sip white wine and crunch barbequed fish and fresh bread, telling each other their favourite memories, their best stories. Later, when it’s dark, he smooths out the orange quilt in the back of his van, lights two candles and helps her onto the mattress. Slowly, he runs his fingers down each arm and he hoists up the sleeves of her dress, tugging it over her head. He kisses her neck, her right cheek, her left, her nose, and then finally, finally, her mouth.
*
When Beth wakes it takes a few moments to realise where she is. The sun’s streaming through the gap between the brown curtains and Sam, on his side, back to her, has one ankle crossed over hers. Beth turns, sees his knobbled spine just under his milky skin, his thin hips jutting up under the sheet. She kisses his back and smiles.
For three weeks they spend every night together, either in his van or at her house. She sees her friends in the day and reserves the nights for him. She tries not to think about him leaving.
*
They sit on large limestone boulders that form the marina wall and look north towards the lighthouse. Sam baits two hand lines for them and, though they’ve been trying for an hour, they’ve only caught a small blowfish that puffs up as Sam hauls it over the rocks. Its spines angry, it clings to the hook until he gets the knife and cuts it out.
‘Beth,’ Sam says, staring out into the black water. ‘Come with me. When I leave, come with me.’
‘Where?’ Beth asks, startled. ‘Where? Tasmania?’
‘Maybe Europe. And I’ve been thinking about Asia.’
She can see them backpacking in the jungles of Thailand, or wearing scarves and hats, standing under the Eiffel Tower.
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘I’ll think about it.’
He tells her of the places he wants to see, the flights he’s already looked into, and she’s caught up by his excitement, his plans.
Later she watches him land three whiting one after the other. He guts them on a rock and when he throws the heads out to sea, the seagulls circle and squawk like mad.
By the time they pack up their gear and walk hand in hand back to her house, she knows that she will go.
When Beth rounds the last bend before school, Pirate’s squatting against the trunk of a palm tree, eating a banana. He stands, tosses the banana skin behind him and walks towards her.
‘Hi Beth. Thought I’d wait here,’ he says. ‘Better than coming to your house.’
‘Why? Is something wrong?’
‘Well, Jim came back last night.’ He studies her face. ‘We’re leaving early.’
Beth feels like she’s sinking.
‘We’re leaving. Today, Beth. This afternoon.’
The breath knocked from her, she can barely get out the word: ‘Right.’
‘I’m sorry. I was hoping we could see each other some more, you know.’ Suddenly he’s awkward. ‘Have more time ... but when Jim goes, I go.’
Stay, she wants to yell, then Go, and she grips the bilum to her. ‘That’s okay.’ She locks her knees, makes her legs tight and strong. Something in her runs cold.
‘Beth?’ He touches her arm. ‘I’m sorry. Truly. I thought we’d have longer.’
‘It’s fine,’ she says brusquely. ‘Honestly.’ Stupid, she thinks. Shouldn’t have done this anyway. Too soon. Too hard.
The hand bell rings in the distance. Children shriek and laugh.
‘I’ll walk with you,’ Pirate says, gesturing to the school.
They walk in silence until they reach the Saint Mary’s gate.
‘Close your eyes, hold out your hand,’ he says.
Beth feels something small and cool in her palm, and when she opens her eyes she sees an exquisite conical shell, apple green.
‘My God,’ she says, holding it up. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘From Manus, north of here. Land crabs.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, close to tears. She looks past him, clenches her fist around the shell. Hard, Beth, you’ve done hard before. She can feel the eyes of students behind her, and hears Val hurrying Mr Reis to class. ‘Beautiful,’ she says again, looks back at him, struggles with the words: ‘Thanks for everything. I’d better go in.’
‘I know.’ He touches her arm again. ‘Thanks, Beth. I’ve had a great time here, mainly because of you.’
She just wants this over.
‘Look after yourself,’ he says.
‘You too. I have to go.’ Heart pounding, head down, she hurries through the gate, past Mary with her ridiculous lips, and Ruth watching from the doorway of a classroom.
‘You okay?’ Val’s at Beth’s front door with a bottle of New Zealand white.
‘Sure, fine,’ Beth says, opening the screen door. She looks at the wine. ‘Why?’
‘The yacht’s gone. I drove home along the beach and it wasn’t there, so I thought you could do with a drink.’ Val knows she’s talking too fast, has no idea what else to offer. Except wine.
‘I’m okay, Val,’ Beth says. ‘And if I drink now I’ll be wrecked for the day.’
‘There’s not much left of it, it’s nearly five.’
‘Oh all right then, okay.’ She turns and Val follows her through the kitchen. ‘As long as we don’t talk about men.’
No great change there then, thinks Val. In the four months since Beth’s arrival, neither of them has mentioned Sam. Val wants to. Sometimes. Usually after she’s made dinner and hears Beth out in the haus win strumming that old guitar, the mournful sound of a c
urlew emptying into the night. Val thought she could take a bottle over and maybe some biscuits, and if she just phrased the first question right, Beth would talk. But then Pirate had arrived and Val’s relief was almost embarrassing—she was off the hook. She likes that joke.
The wine is crisp and fruity and the two of them sit in the haus win, trickling sand through their fingers. Val sticks to safe topics. She recalls her visit to the Education Office that morning: papers everywhere, broken louvres, a leaking roof, a dog sprawled behind the director’s chair.
‘National exam papers for the Year Eights,’ she says. ‘Can you believe it? Lost! They couldn’t find them anywhere!’
She senses that Beth’s laugh is contrived, that she must be somewhere else. Later, Lena joins them, giggling after half a glass, but Val wants to talk about the girl in the local lockup, still there after two weeks for allegedly stealing from the elections office. She’s only fourteen. Val’s heard she was raped by election officials and, later, by a policeman when she was taken in. Her family’s camping outside under a tree and take her food every day. The girl hasn’t spoken in a week.
Val says she’s written a letter to the editor of The National last week.
‘They won’t publish it,’ she says, and shakes her head. ‘This country. It can send you mad.’
Beth wakes, staring hard at the dark, the old fan humming beside her. She knows she’s dreamt about Pirate, wills herself to find sleep. She’s losing the thread of the dream, she can’t remember what came before. Maybe it’s an omen, some sign that he’s coming back for her. That he realises she’s worth it and they’ll spend the next few years travelling together. South America, Alaska, Mongolia, West Africa. They could keep on going forever; be each other’s country. Then she’d never have to go home.
‘Happy birthday, Bethy love,’ says Clem. He’s standing in the doorway of her bedroom, surveying the stuffed toys, piles of books, the dresser she painted to look like the sea: he never tires of it, even after all these years. Then he reaches for the photo of Rose, Beth and him at Beth’s christening and sits on the squeaking bed. ‘She’s thirty-two today our girl, Rosie.’
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