Past the Shallows (11 page)

Back at the shack, George gave Harry a small bag of apples to take home, but Harry said no.

‘Dad will ask me where I got ’em,’ he said.

George put the bag down on the table. He took out two apples and slipped them into the pockets of Harry’s parka.

On the way home, Harry took an apple out of his pocket and rubbed it against his pants. He took a bite. It was sweet and the
juice ran down his chin. And it was good like sunshine. Like the inside of an apple pie. He was glad George had shown him
the farm. The place he grew up.

He knew they were real friends now.

A
car pulled up the driveway. A new car, dark blue and shiny.

Harry held onto the curtains, kept them tightly shut with just enough space for one of his eyes to see out of the window.
A man and a woman got out of the car. They were wearing uniforms like police uniforms but they weren’t police uniforms.

There was a knock on the door.

Harry stood still. They knocked again.

The door wasn’t locked and if the man and the woman tried it, it would open and they would see him hiding by the curtains.
He moved closer to the door.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Officer Warne-Smith and Officer Taylor here. Are Mum or Dad at home?’

It was a woman’s voice. Harry reached out and touched the door handle. He opened the door a tiny way and put his face through
the crack. The woman was short with blonde hair and she looked quite nice. The man stood behind her and he was trying to see
past Harry and into the house.

‘My mum’s dead,’ Harry said.

The man and the woman looked at each other.

‘Is your dad at home?’ the woman asked.

Harry shook his head. He let the door fall open a bit wider.

‘He’s on the boat.’

The woman looked down at the folder she was carrying and she wrote something down.

‘And that’s Mr Curren? Mr Steven Curren?’

Harry nodded. Now the man was staring at him. He wasn’t smiling.

‘At home on your own?’ he asked. ‘How old are you?’

Harry looked down at the worn-out doormat encrusted with mud.

‘My aunt’s coming,’ he said.

The woman tucked the folder under her arm.

‘We need to speak to your dad. You say he’s out on his boat?’

Then the man said, ‘We’re from Fisheries. Your
dad’s licence is not valid. Unpaid fines and a long list of infringements. We need to speak with him.’

Harry could feel the man staring at him and he wanted to say that maybe he’d been wrong, that Dad might not be on the boat
and he was probably up at the shops. But he couldn’t make himself say anything. He just kept his eyes focussed on the doormat
and waited for them to leave.

The woman said goodbye but the man didn’t.

Harry shut the door. He heard the man say, ‘What a shithole,’ and he heard the car doors close. They must be from Huonville
or maybe from Hobart.

From the window Harry watched them reverse down the drive. And he thought maybe he’d go out for a while.

At least until Miles got home.

S
ometimes mist hung in the air, still and wet, and it wouldn’t move or disintegrate or change all day because the heat from
the sun wasn’t strong enough. It would take the afternoon wind off the ocean to break it up. To chase it away.

Miles walked up to Granddad’s house after work. There was a For Sale sign in the front paddock nailed to a fence post. And
it was almost empty now, the house. Broken chairs and full green bin bags left on the verandah. An old phone book on the floor
in the middle of the lounge, a chipped cup on the kitchen bench. All of Joe’s stuff gone. But there were signs that they had
been here. All of them.

Deep grooves in the floorboards in the hallways and near doors, soot in the fireplace, brown smoke
stains on the mantelpiece. Harry’s treasure hunt items left hanging from windows and resting on the sills.

Joe had told Harry he could choose three for the boat and that the rest had to go. But Harry hadn’t chosen any pieces yet.
He just kept walking around the empty house looking at them all. Sometimes he’d pick up a shell or a bone or something and
hold it for a while. Sometimes he would say something like ‘I found this at Cockle Creek’ or ‘Cuttlefish are smart’. But he
always put the item back down again.

Miles found the old carved notches on the kitchen door: the marked heights of all of them. Of Mum and Aunty Jean. Harry and
Joe. Miles ran his finger along the last marking for him. It was hard to believe he had ever been so small. He was smaller
than Harry was now. He always thought he would live here one day.

He walked outside and opened the door to the workshop. The workbenches and metal lathe were still there, too heavy to move.
And there were piles of collected wood stacked in the corner. Not wood for the fire, but good wood, supple wood full of oil.
Granddad’s wood.

Granddad had made beautiful things. He made wood glow and shine, and Miles was going to be just like him. He didn’t want to
just be a carpenter like
Joe. He didn’t want to build houses and kitchens or fixtures on boats. He was going to make furniture. Good furniture. Just
like Granddad.

Miles walked into the workshop. He picked up a small gnarled piece of king billy from the pile and he breathed it in. It smelled
of the earth, even after all this time.

They stood among the destruction, smiling at the abundance. Myrtle, blackwood, king billy pine strewn, left behind. There
for the taking.

A freshly logged coup.

‘Jesus, Miles! Look at all that bloody wood.’

Miles could smell the wood, the pine, the earth. He looked around, rubbing his hands on his corduroy pants.

‘What should we get?’ he asked, and Granddad grinned.

‘As much as we can load up – as much as we can bloody load up!’

They started filling the trailer, large pieces first. And Miles was actually helping for once, managing to carry some heavy
timber by himself. There were a few good-sized logs, big enough for a coffee table or bedside cabinets. All the smaller bits
were good for the lathe – chair legs, bowls, lamp stands. Miles
found a big chunk of king billy dripping with sap. Billy was his favourite; the way it smelled sweet like honey, the pink
flesh so tightly packed it was as strong as stone. And it was the best wood he knew. Something made of billy could last forever
if you made it properly. If you worked the wood right.

‘Maybe we’ll find some huon,’ he said, and Granddad winked.

‘Used to be everywhere when I was a kid, you know.’

And Miles did know. When he closed his eyes he could see it. The huon pine growing soft and silent by the rivers. The trees
reaching wide out of the dark valleys, so perfect. And they would never come back like that. Not even in a million years.

‘Got your eye on a piece?’ Granddad asked.

Miles nodded, but didn’t point it out. He’d leave that till later. He knew Granddad would be surprised because it was just
a small piece, and it wasn’t billy. It was a soft bit of celery top, the grain bold and clear and ready to shine. He could
see what it could be, how he would sculpt it on the lathe. And it would be for Joe. For the boat he was going to build.

Something just for luck.

Miles heard Joe’s van pull up the drive and he put the old bit of billy he was holding back on the pile. He went outside.

He waved to Joe and he thought that whoever bought the house would probably think all that wood was just for the fire.

M
iles watched Joe mark out huge arcs on the slate green lines. He was wild, moving so fast he was flying. But Miles couldn’t
move. He just stood still at the top of the cliff, hardly breathing, watching the water below churn and run. It was shit that
Joe had brought him here. Southport Bluff was rocky and rippy, a steep heavy chunk of water that jacked up over black reef.
People called it the Bone Yard, maybe because of all the old shipwrecks, or maybe because the reef could break your bones.
Miles didn’t know, but he’d seen Joe get smashed here before; pummelled by thick white water, dragged backwards over reef,
had the skin on his hands and feet ripped away. And Joe was much bigger than he was.

He was just a kid. A baby. He was nothing.

The light was going. Soon it would be too late. Joe was leaving. Leaving. And Joe had yelled at him before, said that Miles
was going to get stuck. Stuck working for Dad, stuck being responsible for Harry, stuck being responsible for everything.
He’d said that Miles was always scared of the wrong things.

‘I bet every bit of you is screaming on the inside, Miles.’

And it was. Miles could feel it. His jaw tight, his fists clenched, just standing there with his wetsuit on and his board
under his arm. Just standing there like he was dead.

But he moved. He started running, skidding blindly down the steep rocky path. Unable to stop, too scared to stop. At the bottom
he picked his way along the exposed reef until the cold water hit his feet. He threw himself off the edge of the world without
even thinking. Without breathing. He just paddled with everything. And Joe was hooting and clapping, giving Miles the strength
to paddle faster. He felt the lines punch hard underneath him, pick him up like he was just a leaf, a piece of seaweed. But
he wasn’t scared now. Not of this.

It was simple.

What he needed.

The rise and fall of the ocean breathing and someone out there who felt it too. Joe understood. He lived for this, for these
moments when everything stops except your heart beating and time bends and ripples – moves past your eyes frame by frame and
you feel beyond time and before time and no one can touch you.

When he reached the main break it was bigger, thicker than it had looked from up high on the cliff. The back of the wave almost
as steep as the face so that the peaks and troughs were metres apart. But Miles kept his eyes on Joe’s eyes. Kept his eyes
fixed right on Joe.

This next line.

His.

This wave was going to take him whether he liked it or not. He turned. He waited for that feeling when the back of your board
gets lifted. For the moment when you are collected. And his body knew how. It knew what to do, when to lean in, when to pull
back. That drop rolling out fast.