An Open Swimmer (18 page)

Jerra sat until the sun was above the hole. Lips and nicks in the grassy rock brightened in the direct sun and, near the surface, heads retracted into the snug dark. He had caught a half-dozen small fish; sweep, some cod, and a leatherjacket. There were no more bites. He scaled and cleaned the fish, slicing neat behind the gills, disconnecting the narrow little heads of the sweep, slitting the turgid sac of the black-arsed snapper, and did what he could with the hide of the leatherjacket. The unravelling guts went into the hole. He took out the crab and put the fish in the bag. He broke it in half, an eye and battery of legs either side, and crushed the shell with his heel. Tobacco-coloured juice ran out. He took the abalone off the hook and sank the barb into half of the crab. There was probably nothing left down there, unless something wandered through, but it would have been a waste not to have used the crab.

He lowered the bait into the hole. Before it hit bottom, the line whipped into the water, the spool chasing it all the way in, zizzing loops, vanishing in the water. He stood for a few minutes with nothing in his hands but a red welt, seeing nothing but the hole.

He wet the bag afresh and picked his way to the beach.

.
 . . 
it's a devil

That afternoon, Jerra took three of the bigger fish in the bag, and made for the rocks at the other end of the beach. He followed the crowded little marks, and ran a wide perimeter around the beam half-way. There was still a stink, green as ever, in the sand where the seal had been. It would be there a long time yet. Sand cracked under his feet.

No sign of the old man from the front of the humpy, only a humming from somewhere behind, and the gulls in the trees around. He went round the back. In the few yards between the rickety back wall and the bush, there was a moist, black strip of soil, stirred and turned in heavy sods. The old man crouched in a net of flies.

‘G'day,' said Jerra, swinging the bag.

He looked up, blood wet on his hands.

‘How's things?'

Wiping his knife on a tuft of grass, flies clinging, the old man looked over.

‘Not too bad.' Smiling with blood in his beard. ‘A good mornin'. Got this big bastard.'

The hindquarters of a roo, fur tarred with blood.

‘Not bad goin',' said Jerra, feeling foolish about the headless little fish in the bag. ‘A big buck isn't it?'

‘Buck orright. Hairy ol' bastard. Snared 'im in the hills. Most of 'em give it a wide miss – smell me on the snare – but this ol' hopper wasn't the full quid this mornin'. Fall for things like that when you get old.' Flies dug into the corner of his mouth, a twitching scab.

‘How'll you keep him?' Jerra asked, eyeing the neck and head on the grass a few feet away, glass eyes open.

‘String 'im up in a spud sack an' let 'im bleed for a day or two.'

‘It'll go off.'

‘This weather? Nah. One fine day in a hundred. Flies only out with the sun.'

The old man ran the knife up the stomach from the anus, letting the coils spill onto the ground. Steam from the opened abdomen.

‘One way to get yer hands warm.' He laughed.

A bit revolting, really, smelling the steam, the bowels open. Jerra noticed that the knife had only half a blade, but it looked sharp, very sharp.

‘Caught a few fish this morning. Six. Thought you might like a couple. Too many for me on my own.'

‘Wouldn't be right.'

‘They'll only go off.'

‘You got ice?'

‘No room.'

Rubbed his bloody beard. He peeled off a section of fur, flesh pink underneath.

‘Do you a deal.'

‘Orright.'

‘I'll take a couple of 'em, and you take some o' this bugger.'

‘Fair enough.'

Jerra reached into the bag.

‘You don't have to give me the meat, you know.'

‘Deal's a deal.'

He lay the smooth, softly boned fish on the grass. Something else in the bag. He pulled out the half-crab.

‘Any good to you?'

The old man looked up, a strip of sinew in his teeth.

‘Good for the brew.'

‘What brew?'

‘Good things grow outta shit.'

‘That brew.'

‘Keep it in a drum up the back. Got all the produce in there. Anything comes to hand. Bled this fella in there, 'smornin'. Drop what's no good in as well, after. All good ammo. Plenty o' rain. Good for the carrots an' spuds.'

‘And they grow orright?'

‘Enough to keep the scabs off me arse. She always told me to eat me greens, like me mother.' He chuckled. ‘No bloody choice now.'

‘Was she good?'

The stunted black blade opened flesh in the flank.

‘Good lookin', orright. Spent our weddin' night on a boat we borrowed, a launch with a big open afterdeck. Married in December, hot as hell. We slept out in the open on a big kapok under the stars, with some bottles and a sheet.'

‘On a boat.'

‘Didn't sleep, that night.'

‘And stayed with boats.'

‘Reckon we liked 'em better 'n each other. An' her little pianner. Couldn't play it.' He relaxed on his haunches. ‘Was a goodun, our boat.'

‘Big.'

‘Enough for us.'

‘And the fish.'

‘Yeah, the fish, orright. We lived like bloody royalty. Thought we was the only people in the world. Gawd, I believed in 'eaven, then. But it was a bugger when it went no good. So she had the licker. And her friends in town.'

‘Lousy.'

‘Nothin' else to keep us from each other's necks. Nothin' to share 'ceptin' the boat. A boat can only be a boat, said and done, only a boat. Not the same. I just couldn't give 'er what she wanted. We went bad. Her worse. But I didn't stop her, she was her own girl. She got what she wanted in town.'

‘Hard.'

‘An' some days I dunno nothin'.'

Scaly fingers peeled back the limp skin. It sounded like sticking plaster coming off as the old man sliced upwards, holding the stumpy knife like a pencil, and laid two long pink fillets on Jerra's bag.

‘There's a fair swap, seein' I've got a weak spot for leatheries.'

‘'Squits.' He looked at the long tongues of flesh, side by side on the bag.

The old man continued his cutting and peeling.

‘Thought you'd go gogglin' today. Good day for it.'

‘Bit cold.'

‘Not as cold as yesterday.'

‘No good yesterday.'

‘Get it while yer can. Bad weather comin' soon.'

Gulls stirred, bitching in the trees.

‘Take long for a roo to die when you snare it?'

The old man stretched a flap of skin, seeing the sun through it.

‘Not if you do a good job. There's ways.'

‘What do you do for a snare?'

‘Pianner wire.'

‘Must be painful as hell.'

‘If you make a mess. Bad to mess up an animal. Killin's bad enough without mutilatin'. This one went down with his legs caught, see?' He showed Jerra the raw patches in the fur. ‘Lucky I heard 'im go down, or I wouldn't've found him till later in the day. Just slit 'is throat while he was stunned. Didn't take long.'

‘Still, a pretty awful way to go, especially if you don't hear. Could lie there for hours.'

‘You can only try to be around.'

‘And if yer not?'

‘Some things 'ave to be done.'

He laid some organs on the grass.

‘If yer want 'im bad enough, yer do everything you can and still do the best by him.'

Liver jellyfish-wobbling.

‘Ever go into town?'

‘Questions.'

‘Bloody hard life.' Jerra shrugged.

‘Said before.'

‘Ever thought about goin' back to town? To live. Normally.'

‘This is normal enough.'

‘What about when you get too old to look after yourself?'

The old man bit an intestine in half.

‘Too old to look after meself?'

Jerra covered his steaks. Flies were bad.

‘One day you'll be too old to fish or hunt any more.'

‘Reckon I'll know what to do.'

‘And you could die trying to think of something.'

‘Not too many choices.'

‘And just die?'

‘Others are dead an' still walkin' around. You know why I won't go back.'

‘If anyone had any idea they would've been out years ago.'

‘They've been out, orright. They must've seen the driftwood the day they came – wouldn't've known she sank it before – they think I'm drowned, both of us. Sometimes they're right. I take the punishment every day. Why the hell go back for more? Any'ow, they wouldn't make much fuss over the like of her. Better out've the way, for some. One bastard 'specially, if he knew. Why go back for more?'

‘And lockin' yourself away here, isn't that runnin' away. Chuckin' it in?'

‘Not chuckin' it in. Any'ow look who's tellin' me.'

She kissed him, gown open, by the hedges at the south end of the gardens.

‘I've been writing poems, again, Jerra.'

He nodded. It was hard now. She wasn't getting any better. Sometimes she was worse, carrying herself like a queen, dainty in slippers that scuffed the lawn.

‘About my babies. The ones you never saw. You never knew them, Jerra. They loved me. Brothers for Sean. He'd have liked brothers I think. His father didn't want them, though. Not even the last one. It was
his.
I was an animal, Jim said. But I was only a mother, Jerra.'

She pulled Jerra to her breast. His tears wet her, but she didn't seem to notice. There was nothing he could say.

‘But he doesn't do it on purpose, Jerra, I know it. He couldn't. It hurts.'

He cried.

‘My baby,' she whispered.

He looked up. She was smiling. She liked talking about her babies now. Jerra couldn't bear it. He decided, then, in her arms, that he would go away. A job. Anything.

Sun was gone from the trees. It lit the sky over the hills. Smoke and hints of mist hung in the boughs. Jerra sat looking into the fire, smelling the flesh cooking in the pan and pulling his coat about him. The cold shrank even the fire a little, though the flames sprang out at unexpected moments, the greens and blues so pure and inviting that Jerra sometimes longed to touch. A moment later, a tongue of flame would leap out and burn the hairs off his hand.

He turned the curling meat, sizzling in its
fat, darkening. It was too fresh to cook. When it began to burn, he took the pan off the fire. It was hot in his mouth, still bleeding, and tough as hide; he could not tear a piece free from the rest. It tasted of smoke and blood. Spitting out what he could, he threw it into the fire with the piece he hadn't cooked, and went for some water.

The tea was strong and scalding. He sat chewing the half-bitter leaves from the bottom of the mug, watching his shadow move in the pearly moonlight. He breathed the cold air deep.

Better out of the way.
He wondered about the old man's Annie and whether the old man knew what he was saying. How could anyone be better out of the way? Perhaps he was like all the rest. Sometimes the old man really got his goat.

‘Orright, eh?'

‘That's how people get married.'

She smiled, long legs shining in the sun.

‘Yes.'

He took the ringbolt out of the VW, and sat by the fire, just looking, picking bits off. He hung it on a short branch and looked at it for a while longer.

Then he went to bed.

He would stay down till he exploded; bring it up to know, wrenching it out of its black watery recesses to end the whole thing. The pearls. He wondered.

. . .
It's
all fishermen's bloody superstition
 . . 
.

B
IRDS WERE
making cautious sounds in the half-light of morning as Jerra carried spear and bag through the trees. His feet were cold under the fleshy wet leaves, and he was hungry.

Smooth rocks colder under his feet. He felt his heels brushing the pores of granite as he hopped from shoulder to shoulder until he came to the flat rock where Sean and he had dived and caught their fish. He undressed slowly and was stung by the air, naked, fumbling in the big hessian bag for the wetsuit. He pulled it up over his legs, damp and mouldy from the last dive. The zip burped all the way up his chest and the black skin was tight on him. Stooping, he clipped the weights on, then the knife on his leg, cinching the little rubber straps over the hairs on his calf.