Past the Shallows (4 page)

And God, it felt like some kind of ancient place.

The water sucked and moved, smashed against the rocks, and no matter how Miles positioned the boat, no matter how hard he
tried, he couldn’t keep a clear fix on the airlines. He wiped the sea spray off his face, checked the air pump one more time,
and he thought about going into the cabin for a minute
to thaw out. To get out of the wind. But he saw something on the water. A catch bag.

It broke the surface, inflatable buoys pulling it up from deep, and Miles edged the boat closer. He hooked the bag with a
long metal rod and dragged it around to the back where the boat was flat and low. With his hands on the netting he leaned
back and used his body weight to get the abalone up on deck. Yesterday he had fallen backwards when the bags lurched out of
the water, but not this time. This bag was light, not even half full.

Inside, the abs stuck fast to each other and formed one giant rock. Miles used the blunt metal blade to separate them out.
He sorted them by size and put them in the plastic tubs. Most of them were small, undersize, but Miles knew better than to
throw them back. Dad would kill him. The cannery turned a blind eye to these things. They never asked questions. Not of Dad,
anyway.

When the bag was empty, Miles checked over the abs. Most of them had stuck to each other again, piled high in the corners
of the blue plastic tubs. He reached into the water and picked one up, held it upside down. The black slimy disc of flesh
flinched against the cold air. And it was strong, that muscle.
If you put it against your skin, it would grab on, suck hard. It was the only defence it had.

He used to feel sorry for the abs when he was young. The way they pulsed and moved in the tubs, sensing the bright light and
heat. But he couldn’t think about them like that now. He was only careful not to cut or bruise them, because once abs started
to bleed, they kept on bleeding until all the liquid inside them was gone. They just dried up and died.

Miles looked up as Martin’s bald head appeared in the water. He dropped the abalone back in its tub, watched Martin pull himself
up on deck and sit on the back of the boat. He was such a big man, just a thick, wide back and a thick, wide neck. And he
never wore a hood, so his skin was always red from the cold. But he wasn’t like he looked. He wasn’t like Dad.

He took his mask and mouthpiece off but he didn’t speak. He was just breathing. Taking big breaths in and out with his head
down. Miles stood behind him for a moment and waited. He went to get the bag Martin had brought up with him out of the water,
but Martin stood up and stopped him.

‘I’m the one being paid,’ he said, and he winked.

Miles stood back, watched Martin work. He watched his hands – so quick and careful. And even when his bloodshot eyes looked
out at the water, his
hands never stopped moving. The tool never slipped, his hands never hesitated. They just separated and sorted smoothly until
the bag was empty. Then he put the shucking knife down, walked into the cabin and poured some tea out of the thermos. He handed
Miles a cup.

‘They’ll be up soon,’ he said.

Miles took his gloves off and held the warm cup against his bare hands. The sun was high now and the water had changed from
black to deep blue, and the white water churned up against the rocks was so bright against the sky that it was almost blinding.
It must be at least ten, maybe even eleven already.

There was a seal resting in the swell, its head and neck reaching out of the water, and Miles could see its black eyes, its
long whiskers. It looked right at the boat, right at Miles, and sniffed the air like it knew exactly what had been taken.
What was on board. It opened its mouth, let out a hoarse protest, before it disappeared back under the surface.

Jeff lurched on board. His face was pink, squeezed tight by his protective hood and he peeled his head free, sat on the back
of the boat.

‘Glad to see you working hard, Miles,’ he said.

Miles looked at the tin cup in his hands. He had only taken a few sips but he chucked the rest over the
side and returned the cup to the cabin. He walked over to Jeff, picked up his flippers, gloves and hood and put them in the
fresh water bucket. And he could hear Jeff’s breathing, over the sound of the water and the sound of the engine. Jeff’s heavy
breath. And he stayed where he was for a long time. He didn’t even try to get up. He just sat there, the skin on his face
still pink.

Martin paced around the boat. He held the slack airline in his hands and looked out at the water. Miles watched his eyes,
the way they skimmed back and forth over the surface. Dad had been down for a long time.

Miles looked over the side.

Below in the murky darkness, in the swirling kelp, all you had to guide you was one hand touching the rock wall while your
legs kicked you down blind. And that’s where they were, the abalone. Down where the algae grew thick, where the continental
shelf dropped away. They could eat their way across kilometres of submerged rock, those creatures. And there were caves and
crevices, places to get stuck. Places where the air hose could get snagged.

Miles had only been down once, but that was enough. He’d been scared of the darkness and of the kelp wrapping around his legs.
He’d been scared of
the heavy feeling in his chest. And it made his head buzz like crazy, the pressure. The weight of all that water.

In a few years he would have to dive down there for real.

Dad surfaced close to the rocks and Martin had him. He pulled him in. And Dad was still in the water when he ripped his mouthpiece
away, let out a roar.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus!’

He was still saying Jesus when he clambered on deck. He’d brought up two full bags and the abs were huge.

‘A few days of this! A few days of this and we’re back.’

He looked at Miles and he smiled.

H
arry put his parka on and picked up the Redskins show bag he’d got for Stuart. He wasn’t meant to walk around by himself,
not if he wasn’t going to Aunty Jean’s, but he thought going to Stuart’s would be OK. Anyway, Dad wouldn’t know.

He walked through to the lounge and slipped his feet into his rubber gumboots. They were freezing. He thought about grabbing
another pair of socks, but he couldn’t be bothered. His feet would warm up if he walked fast.

He’d walk fast.

Outside, the light was flat and even, the same grey light that there always was. Sometimes right in the middle of the day
the sun shone bright and broke through, but it never made anything warm. Not the air or the ground. Not really.

At the end of the drive Harry turned onto the gravel road. He listened for cars. Listened for trucks. He checked for dust
clouds up ahead. It was clear.

After his house there weren’t any houses for a while, not near the river, anyway. The place was thick with trees, black with
them, and there wasn’t anything else but trees until you crossed the bridge and went round the long corner. After that, where
the road was straight, there was scrub and rectangles of cleared land full of weeds. A few old fire tracks. A few old farmhouses.
Not much.

But that’s where Stuart lived. He lived in a caravan. It was a caravan with a wooden shed attached so it was like a house,
really. And Harry didn’t think that it could even move anymore, the caravan, because it had been in one place for so long.
It had been there for all of Stuart’s life, maybe even longer, and it had sunk down into the earth so that its wheels were
almost buried.

Stuart’s mum’s white Ford Cortina wasn’t in the drive, but Harry walked up to the door and knocked anyway.

No one answered.

Maybe they had gone to set up the stall. Stuart’s mum grew berries, raspberries and blackberries, and she sold them on the
road just outside of Huonville.
She usually just left an honesty box but sometimes, on the weekends or holidays when there were people from Hobart driving
down, she would stay at the stall. Stuart hated it when he had to stay there, but at least he got to go to Huonville and look
at all the shops. It was better than hanging around here.

Harry put the show bag by the door. He rolled it up in case it rained, and then he walked away. But he didn’t walk fast now.
He took his time. Stuart and his mum might drive past. They might come back.

A truck appeared when he was nearly back at the bridge. Harry stood in the ditch and closed his eyes tight against the grit
that kicked up in his face, against the wind. And he could smell the sap, even over all the dust. He could smell the freshly
cut trees – the smell of crushed leaves.

When he opened his eyes, the truck was lost in a haze of smoke and gravel and dust. There wouldn’t be another truck for a
while.

He walked onto the bridge and leant against the railings on one side. The dark water of Lune River was moving with a silent
speed that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He picked up a rock and dropped it over the edge. It disappeared
instantly into the rushing water and didn’t even leave a mark on the surface.

You would need a million rocks to make a dent.

He looked for bigger rocks on the side of the road to chuck into the river, and he nearly stepped on a dead bandicoot. It
was in perfect nick, its stripy fur and speckled white cheeks still intact. Harry bent down to inspect it closely. Only a
dried trickle of blood coming from the corner of its mouth gave away that it was dead and not just asleep. And it must be
pretty fresh, because it hadn’t been eaten by quolls or devils or been picked up by a wedgetail yet.

Joe collected roadkill. Only the good ones, though. He stripped away all the fur and flesh, then rebuilt the skeletons – like
the megafauna at the Hobart Museum, only smaller. The biggest one he had was a wallaby, but Harry liked the Tassie devil best,
with its big jaw and sharp teeth. Harry wondered whether he should take the bandicoot around to Joe’s place. It wouldn’t take
that long, maybe an hour.

Something moved in the grass ahead. The tail and then the small face of a dog. A pup. It had just come right out of the bushes
and it sniffed over the dead bandicoot, looked up at Harry. Harry checked to see if anyone was with the dog, then he knelt
down, let the dog lick his face. And he cuddled the dog. It was a kelpie. He could tell because of its smile – the
red-brown mouth rimmed by tan, unable to hide its joy. Harry was glad, too.

The pup wagged its tail, started walking away from the road, and it looked back to see if Harry was going to follow. He did,
and the dog led him into a thick pocket of trees. Harry picked up a stick, whistled, and threw it, and the pup grabbed the
stick in its mouth and ran ahead. Harry ran, too. He chased the dog through the scrub, chased it all the way out into a clearing.
And there was a long bogged-up paddock. There was an old wooden shack.

Suddenly Harry knew where he was.

This was George Fuller’s place.

Kids at school were scared of George Fuller. Harry had only ever seen him once, standing on the side of the road, but he didn’t
ever want to see him again. His face was all squashed in and he looked like a monster. Stuart said that he lured people to
his shack and ate them. Other kids said worse things. They said that George had killed his parents, burnt them alive, while
they were sleeping in their beds, and that he was crazy. Harry never came this way. And if he had to, he was always careful
to stick close to the road instead of taking the short cut.

The dog dropped the stick and trotted closer to the shack. It took a few gulps of water from a yellow
bucket then ran straight back to Harry with an old bit of rope in its mouth. It dumped the rope at Harry’s feet. Harry looked
at the shack. He couldn’t see any signs of George so, with one eye on the house, he picked up the fat knotted rope and chucked
it as far as he could. The dog was fast. It took an aerial leap, had the rope in its mouth before it had time to reach the
ground.

‘Good boy,’ Harry said quietly. ‘Drop it. Drop the rope.’

He grabbed one side of the rope and tugged. He pulled as hard as he could, almost lifted the pup off the ground, but the dog
held on, growled and pulled back.

There was a creak, a door opening, and Harry bolted. He ran as fast as he could, only looking back when he had nearly reached
the safety of the trees. George Fuller was standing there by his shack, and he was waving.

Harry’s leg hit something. Something sharp and he fell hard, smacked the ground. Hot pain shot up his shin and he grabbed
at his leg. Someone called out his name.

He jumped up, kept running and he didn’t look back or stop until he made it to the bridge. There he hung onto the rail, caught
his breath. He
checked his shin. The skin was grazed but it wasn’t bleeding much.

There had been no one else around.

How could that man know his name?