Past the Shallows (22 page)

Past the Shallows is your debut published novel, but is it your first novel?

It is my first novel. I never thought I could actually write a novel but somehow I did (over many years). I wrote before, short stories mainly – some published, most not. In my late teens and early twenties, I published a ZINE called
Numb
(homemade, photocopied, cut-and-paste magazine full of rants and opinions and all sorts of stuff). I was a huge ZINE fan and I met so many great people. It was before email, so there was lots of letter writing. I used to get so excited checking my mailbox after work. That doesn’t happen much these days. I miss it!

Who are the authors you most admire?

This list gets longer every day, but here are just a few …

Maya Angelou – She taught me about the power of words, the power of writing with truth. I love her.

Per Petterson –
Out Stealing Horses
is one of the best books I have ever read. I read it often. He is a master. I have learnt so much from his writing.

Cormac McCarthy –
The Road
is an incredible book. We are so with the characters that we cannot pull away, even when we want to. Even when we don’t want to be on that road anymore. The last paragraph is up on my wall in my studio and I read it most days. It still moves me as much as it did the first time I read it.

I love novels. All the care and time and heart that goes into them. Some novels have changed my life. I know they are important.

Where is your favourite place to write?

(Not necessarily the best …)

I spend half my week in Torquay and half in Melbourne. I write in both places but I do my best work in my studio in the Nicholas building on Swanston Street. It is filled with other artists and galleries and has two old cage lifts with lift operators that are always up for a chat. It is a great place to work. It is my office!

What was the inspiration for
Past the Shallows
?

The south coast of Tasmania had a huge influence on me when I was young. It is isolated and wild – a place I will never forget. The story grew out of my memories and feeling for that place. It is a sad and beautiful place. An ancient place.

How did you come up with the title?

The title came from the first line of the book: ‘Out past the shallows, past the sandy-bottomed bays, comes the dark water – black and cold and roaring.’ It was actually my publishers’ brilliant idea. For a long time, I knew the book as Crack Wattle. I knew this title wasn’t quite right, but it did mean something to me. There is still a section in the book about crack wattle. Then, when they suggested changing it to Past the Shallows I knew it was perfect straight away. I think it is a great title.

Which character spoke the loudest, to you? Did any of them clamour to be heard over the others?

I love Harry very much. Sometimes it still makes me cry when I think about him. He is a very special character to me – some kind of gift really.

Although Harry is not totally based on my brother, the way I feel about my brother is there in the writing. One of the worst things that could have happened to me when I was a child would have been losing my brother. We are very close.

The ocean and its guises feature heavily in the book, like a character of its own. What is your connection with the ocean?

You are right. The ocean is a character of its own. I am in love with the Southern Ocean. I know that surfing changed my life. I’m thirty-six and I still love it. It connected me to the natural world, made me aware of tides and winds and the subtle changes that happen every minute of every day. I  couldn’t have written this book if I did not surf. And I know I am grumpy and hopeless if I go for more than a week without getting in the water. My favourite time to surf is at dawn, watching the sun come up over Torquay and illuminate the cliffs and sand with the new day.

I know you are working on your next book. Can you share a bit about it?

I will give you a bit of a blurb, although I don’t know the whole story yet. The working title is ‘Time of the Vikings’.

A young girl and her brother try to find their way in a new place. A stone city full of ghosts and empty streets. A place where the wind blows in cold and from the south.

Everything gets brighter when the Vikings come to town – the men who work on an Antarctic supply vessel from Denmark. They are giants and they breathe life into Hobart. Chasing the light from the Arctic to the Antarctic, they sail the world end to end, never stopping for long enough for the darkness to catch them.

But there is a terrible accident off Macquarie Island.

And nothing is ever the same.

Favel Parrett has written a number of short stories that have been published in various literary magazines and journals. Turn
the page to gain glimpses into other worlds and the creative mind of one of Australia’s newest literary talents.

First published in
Griffith REVIEW
,

No. 34, Summer 2011

It was the best part of the day when Mr Peters read to us. He was reading a book that he had written and it was about some
kids who had found a portal through time. I don’t remember what it was called or the names of the characters now, but I remember
that I was captivated by it then.

I listened to the story – to the words spoken in his soft, low, rolling voice. I looked out of the window and I watched the
sky, watched the clouds moving. I saw my brother’s class walk out across the lawn, all of them. The whole class.

Most of them were holding hands.

Their teacher was Mrs Davison and she was tall and had long blonde hair and she was very beautiful, I thought. I knew that
my brother really loved her. I think all of her students loved her. And she was like
a shepherd standing among her flock.
She looked like a shepherd – the children gathered to her, gathered close under the old chestnut tree where kids played conkers
at recess.

Mrs Davison had papers in her hands.

My brother just sat on the floor in his school uniform, one grey sock pulled up to his knee, the other scrunched down around
his ankle, when Mum came in and burst into tears and told us about James Tomanek.

About how he had been hit by a car on the way home from school.

About how he was dead.

And he didn’t cry, my brother. I didn’t see him cry. I only saw his body shake – just a shudder, like something very small
had collapsed inside his bones.

The accident was on the news. Flashing lights reflecting off a fallen school bag, the emblem of a waratah with the Latin words
that meant
No man is an island
shining out in the dark. And the man on the TV got it wrong because he said it was a high school boy who had been hit by
a car and died from his injuries on the way to the hospital. But it wasn’t a high school boy. It was a small boy.

A boy just as small as my brother.

James Tomanek had come to my brother’s birthday party three days before and he was like an angel then with his white hair
and blue eyes – his skin so pale. Not see-through like mine, just creamy and pale. He gave my brother a really huge pencil
case. It was all the bright colours in stripes and my brother carried it around with him for a long time after the party,
after everyone had gone. He carefully put all of his pencils and pens inside and put it in his school bag ready for school
the next day.

Monday. Then there was Tuesday and then there was Wednesday.

I was on the bus and I had seen James and my brother walking out of the school gate together. My brother got on the bus and
he waved to James and James waved back – his hair bright against the grey sky and the grey of his uniform.

It started to rain as the bus pulled away.

Mr Peters stopped reading. He put the book away but I kept looking out of the window. Even when other kids were busy working
on projects, I just sat looking out of the window. And my brother’s class stayed out there under that old chestnut tree all
day. They had lunch together, and in the late afternoon they
walked back to their classroom with Mrs Davison leading the way.

They were all still holding hands.

First published in
Wet Ink
,

No. 16, September 2009

That white boggled eye is on me, the other turned up wrong – a slither poking out from under the lid. I feel sick.

‘She likes you,’ he says. Her father – drunk and sweaty and drinking more.

The girl punches my shoe, screeches loud like a monkey. I get out a notepad and pen, set them down on the floor and I’m cold
now. All the sweat from the long trek to the village is making me cold. I take a sip of butter tea. Hot and salty – the fat
stays on my lips, coats my mouth and tongue.

‘She doesn’t speak,’ he says. Her father – sitting cross-legged on the wide wooden boards.

She picks up the pen, scribbles hard-packed circles of black lines. She punches my shoe. I turn the page, another fast scribble,
another scream. I turn the page.

‘I took her to Thimphu. Two days’ walk, then the bus. They said take her to Calcutta but I cannot afford it.’

She stops scribbling and there’s that eye again.

‘She has a hole in her heart. She will die and I will cremate her.’

Her face is about as close as it can get to my face now. That eye right in my face.

Look at me. I am here. I’m not dead.

Then she’s gone. Crawls over to her father and plops down in the crook of his cross-legged knee. Like a seat, like a throne,
she sits up straight with her arms to the sky.

‘I will cremate her.’

I look down at my shoes. My brand new Colorado hiking shoes – waterproof, lightweight, good in snow. I didn’t even need to
break them in. They were perfect straight out of the box.

First published in
Island
,

No. 119, Summer 2009/2010

I look for him on the red sandy earth, in the tall dry grass, among the heat-blistered acacia trees. I look for him all day
but when the sun becomes a huge blur of orange burning up on the horizon, I know I will not see Peter again.

Last night when he stepped away from the light shining through my tent he became invisible in an instant. I searched for the
whites of his eyes, his white teeth, but he had let the night swallow him whole and he was gone. I stood still. I stood silent.
I zipped up the door of my tent and I knew I was safe – yet I did not sleep. The two pride of lion that Peter said would come
that night did come. The first just twenty minutes after I turned out my gas lamp. The second, hours later in the coldest
part of the night when my hot water bottle had lost all of its heat and the guttural bass call of a female lion right
by my tent chilled me to my core. I curled up in my sleeping bag and I cried then.

But it wasn’t because of the lions.

I help Emanuel unpack the jeep and he tells me how much he misses his kids. He hasn’t seen them for over two months.

‘Three boys, you know. My God!’ He shakes his big shiny head and smiles.

In the distance elephants are walking back to their sleeping grounds and Emanuel tells me he used to be like an elephant –
big and strong. Now he says he is just big and fat. He could not outrun an elephant now.

‘Elephants never injure people, they just kill you,’ he says and he laughs like he does when he tells me something serious.

I have seen young bull elephants red-eyed and angry, ears fanned out, feet stomping ready to smash a jeep to pieces, so I
know it’s true. Elephants will kill you. But when you see them lumber along, mothers protecting babies in a line that stretches
out forever towards the darkening sky, it is hard not to love them. It is hard not to feel peace.

Mama Rose proclaims that dinner is ready and she sings us the menu.

‘Tonight we will be having,’ her hands reach up to the sky, ‘slow-cooked beef stew with potatoes!’ Her feet move on the earth
– stomp, tap, stomp, tap – ‘Followed by treacle pudding,’ and her eyes widen, ‘… There is also fruit salad!’ Her hands
come down to rest by her hips and the performance is over. We all clap.