Past the Shallows (12 page)

Everything fell out of his mind. He could see it all now right in front of him, see the ridges, the curves. See the colour
of the water as it moved in the fading light. It was time to do something. Time to make something of his own.

Getting changed, Joe and Miles were laughing at nothing, laughing at everything. Joe couldn’t find one of his socks, and Miles
got his wettie stuck on one arm and he couldn’t get it free. It was freezing and windy, but Miles laughed so much his face
hurt. He still couldn’t believe he had surfed Southport Bluff. He’d done it, caught a few really big waves that were well
overhead. They were still running through him.

In the car with the headlights on, his body relaxed. It was dead weight cradled in the bucket seat. But Joe didn’t start the
car. His hands were on the steering wheel, but they didn’t move. He just sat there and stared straight ahead.

‘I thought I’d leave tomorrow,’ he said after a while.

He looked at Miles. ‘With more big swell coming, if I don’t leave now then it might be weeks before I can get out across the
strait.’

Miles couldn’t think of anything to say. There was nothing. Joe said it was probably best if he didn’t see Harry because he
wouldn’t be able to explain, and that maybe Miles could explain it better. And the whole time Joe looked weird and his eyes
were wide and red. He looked like he was scared.

‘You can tell him for me. And tell him I’m coming back.’

Miles wanted to get out of the car. He wanted to get the feeling back that he’d had five minutes ago, and he couldn’t look
at Joe. He pushed his body as far away as he could so that he was jammed right up against the door with the handle pushing
into his ribs. Joe’s hands were still on the steering wheel. Squeezing the steering wheel.

Miles thought he might be crying.

‘I just gotta get out of here,’ he said.

It was quiet except for the sounds of Joe and Miles wanted to tell him to shut up. He wanted to ask him what he was crying
for, what he had to cry about. He didn’t have to live with Dad and work on the boat. He didn’t have to look after Harry.

Joe didn’t park in the drive. He pulled up on the side of the road with the house just in view. He left the engine on.

‘What time are you going?’

Joe shrugged. ‘Early I guess.’

And Miles knew in his guts that Joe was ready to go right now. That he would probably slip out tonight and that’s what this
afternoon had been about. He’d planned this whole thing. The surf. All of it.

Miles pulled the handle on the passenger door and opened it and Joe reached out and grabbed his arm.

‘I’ll be back, Miles. I will.’

Miles kicked the door open wider and swung his legs out.

‘I’m only nineteen, Miles. I’m only nineteen.’

Miles shut the door. He walked up the drive and thought that when he was nineteen, Harry would be nearly fifteen and they
could both be the hell away from here too. That’s what he thought. But it felt like it would never really happen.

It felt like it would never come around for him.

M
iles knew how to make corn beef hash, only there wasn’t any corn beef. Plenty of potatoes, though.

‘Do you want mashed potatoes, Harry?’

Harry was watching TV and he didn’t turn around, but he said yes. Then he said, ‘What else is there?’

Miles looked in the cupboard. Tomato sauce. A small tin of baked beans, dry pasta, an onion.

‘Baked beans?’

Harry nodded.

The bright red peeler didn’t work anymore. It had rusted solid and no one had ever bothered to throw it out. Miles picked
it out of the drawer, touched the rusted blade with his finger. He could use a knife, and he got the sharpest one out, but
then again the potatoes weren’t too dirty. He could just scrub them
and mash them with the skin on. No, Harry wouldn’t eat that. He’d better peel them.

It was hard to cut close to the skin and he ended up losing quite a bit of potato. But there was enough. Potatoes were filling.
When Mum used to take them up to Huonville market they would always get hot potatoes from the Potato Man. The little black
metal oven full of steaming baked potatoes. One cut in half, with melted cheese and coleslaw and herbs and butter oozing down,
would be more than enough. It would keep Miles warm all day. But they didn’t have any cheese or butter or any of those other
things. Just milk.

Miles put Harry’s serve on a small plate so that it looked like there was more food. A small tin of beans didn’t go very far
and Miles was careful to split the food equally, even though he knew Harry wouldn’t eat all of his.

Dark outside, but still early, they sat and ate their warm beans and mash. And Miles knew he would let Harry use the last
of the milk for a cup of Milo later, and he knew that Harry would ask him about it just as soon as he finished his last mouthful
of dinner.

And then Harry told Miles about the people who had come to the door. About Fisheries.

M
iles and Harry had stayed out for as long as they could, stayed out past midnight until they were freezing, because Jeff and
Dad had been drinking for two days. But now they were back in their room and Harry was busting for the loo.

‘Just go out the window,’ Miles whispered.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

Harry didn’t answer. He got out of bed and started jiggling. He could never go to the toilet outside.

‘But you’ll have to go out through the lounge,’ Miles said.

Apart from two small bedrooms, the brown house was only one room, a kitchen–lounge with a concrete bathroom tacked on. Harry
looked terrified but he
opened the door anyway and ducked out. Miles heard his feet hit the lino in the kitchen and Jeff and Dad hadn’t stopped talking.
Maybe they wouldn’t notice. Miles got out of bed just in case. He waited by the door. He didn’t hear the toilet flush, but
the talking had stopped.

‘It’s the littlest retard.’

It was Jeff’s voice.

Miles opened the bedroom door a few inches. All he could see was Jeff sitting in the armchair and the back of Harry and Dad
must be on the couch.

‘Have a drink, Harry,’ Jeff said.

There was a bottle of Coke on the coffee table. There was never any Coke at home so Jeff must have brought it over.

‘Go on. Have a drink.’

Harry must have thought Jeff was going to give him a glass of Coke because he said OK. Jeff picked up a bottle of Beam from
beside his chair and started pouring. The glass was half full when he handed it to Harry.

‘I meant Coke,’ Harry said, and tried to give the glass back.

‘You’ll bloody drink it.’ But it wasn’t Jeff speaking now. It was Dad. And Jeff was laughing. His face all red and shiny and
laughing.

‘Drink it,’ Dad said again.

Harry took a sip. He was coughing as he tried to put the glass down on the table, but Jeff stood up and took the glass out
of Harry’s hand. He grabbed Harry in a headlock, wrapped his thick arm around Harry’s neck and pulled tight. And before Miles
knew what he was doing he’d opened the door and run out into the lounge. He looked at Dad, all glazed over and puffy. Glassy
eyes that gave no hope.

‘Let him go. Leave him alone!’ Miles said.

‘Ah, the other retard.’ Jeff turned his body towards Miles and dragged Harry with him. He was enjoying himself. Grinning at
the attention and Harry couldn’t move. His eyes were bloodshot, tears all down his cheeks. Jeff rammed the glass against Harry’s
mouth and forced his jaw open. The liquid poured in and Harry gasped and choked. Beam spilled down his chin. Miles had tasted
Beam before. It must be burning Harry, his throat and his mouth, burning his eyes. And Jeff was still pouring, making Harry
swallow by jerking his head around with his wrist and forearm.

Miles took a step and lunged into Jeff, but Jeff didn’t budge an inch. He just kicked out and caught Miles’s leg. Miles went
down and his head cracked the
edge of the coffee table. He lay on the worn carpet face down. It stunk of damp.

He had heard the sound of his head hitting the table, a dull wooden sound, but he hadn’t felt it. Not yet. Thick liquid ran
into his eye socket and he knew it must be blood. Then his fingers burned and he cried out. Jeff’s boot was crushing his hand,
the hard soles squashing his fingers into the carpet.

‘Dad!’ he yelled.

Nothing.

Miles strained his head around to see Jeff move the empty glass away from Harry’s mouth. Harry struggled for breath. He looked
sick. He was pale and his face glistened with sweat and sticky liquid. Then he was sick all down his chin and onto Jeff’s
hand and arm.

‘Ah, fuck. Jesus Christ, you little pig.’

Jeff pushed Harry away, wiping the vomit off his arm with the back of Harry’s saturated t-shirt.

Miles realised his hand was free and shot up. But now Dad was up, too. Up off the couch.

He stood, unsteady on his feet, looking at something in the distance. Then his focus found Miles. And he had the same look
in his eye he had the night he busted Joe’s arm, when Joe was thirteen
and Miles was seven. The last night Joe ever spent in the brown house.

And Miles remembered what Dad had said that night. What he had said to Joe. ‘You’re just like him. You’re just like him.’
Then he threw Joe hard across the room and Joe hit the kitchen bench and there was a terrible crack. But Joe didn’t make a
sound. He didn’t cry or wince or anything. He just looked back at Dad and said ‘I’m glad’. And Miles remembered that he threw
up on the floor when he looked at Joe’s bent arm, and that Dad made Joe clean it up.

Miles looked down at the carpet now. There was blood where he’d fallen, drops of blood. And there were drops of blood near
his feet. One fell while he was watching, then he heard Dad slump back down on the couch. Everything stopped and was quiet
and even Jeff was sitting down now.

Miles grabbed Harry and they moved into the bedroom. He didn’t have to ask Harry to do anything, he was already changing his
t-shirt and had his shoes on.

‘I’ve got your jacket,’ he whispered to Harry, and Harry grabbed some things from under his bed.

It was still quiet in the lounge. Miles climbed out the window then helped Harry down. They started to
run, not down the drive, but straight into the thick scrub at the back of the house. Then they heard Dad yelling from inside.
Yelling at them, at everyone. Yelling at no one. And Miles could hear the words. They came through the brown walls, through
the air and cracked open the night: ‘I never wanted you.’

‘Where are we going?’ Harry asked.

Miles didn’t know. Just somewhere away.

The thin track they were on disappeared when it hit the river and from there they had to skirt along the bank. They were careful
not to get too close to the sides. It was dark. Really dark. No moon or stars, and it was hard to see the water. But it was
there, rushing in the dark, catching on the edge debris and crack wattle.

‘We could go to George’s,’ Harry said.

Miles stopped walking. ‘What?’

‘It’s all right. George is all right. He knew Granddad and –’

‘What are you talking about? How the hell do you know him?’