Skins (6 page)

‘That'll teach you. Thinking you could haul up here and eat your way through our supplies. We work for our food.'

Then he withdrew and followed Anderson into the hut. Manning heard Jem let out his breath. He hadn't noticed he was awake. They got up with everyone else and stowed their bedding under the shelter. The black women passed through the clearing on their way to the beach. They were naked except for amulets of shells and bone around their necks.

The beach looked bleak in the cold light. Pale cloud arched overhead. There was a strip of yellow and brown cloud over the mainland where there had been a fire. The breeze, although light, seemed to have moved into the northwest. Their footsteps squeaked on the sand and before them an oily sea rippled, colourless except for the occasional white flash of foam marking the place where the swell broke over a rock. A black and white gull circled. Its mate appeared and they both glided and flapped overhead, calling to one another: Caw, caw.

Manning noticed William Church walking beside him. He was tying his stock in the way that people who wear stocks do. He reached into the top pocket of his coat for a piece of cloth and wiped his face. When he put it back, it fell out. He bent down to pick it up but a fellow who Manning recognised as one of the crew from the
Mountaineer
thrust his pelvis into his arse and knocked him off balance. He fell on his hands and knees. Manning laughed. Serve the toffy bugger right. Church stood up and wiped the sand from his hands. Jem looked at Manning and grinned. The crewman began to circle Church with one hand on the top of his knife. Manning turned away. Then the fellow saw Anderson watching him and he stopped, but not before he had hissed something under his breath to Church.

The
Mountaineer
's whaleboat had been lifted to the water's edge. Men surrounded it, looking up at Anderson who stood on the sloping rock. He told them what he wanted and then looked over at Church and asked if he had pulled an oar before. Church shook his head, clasping his pale hands in front of his frockcoat which hung loosely from his thin frame. He told him to get firewood.

Manning and Jem followed Anderson over the headland and heard the men from the
Mountaineer
cursing Anderson. But not loud enough for him to hear. Manning thought they could curse all they like. There wouldn't be anyone who would challenge Anderson. Not when he wore a brace of pistols on his belt. And Manning knew that it wasn't the first time that Anderson had forced men at gunpoint to kill seals for him.

The boy Jimmy skipped ahead, jumping from one boulder to the next. Red-brown skinny legs darted in and out of Manning's vision. He reached the whaleboat before them and stood at the bow, holding onto it and jumping up and down on the spot. They used wooden rollers to take it to the sea. The boat sat lightly in the shallows and they jumped in. But as the boy hooked his leg over, Anderson told him to get off and find some muttonbirds.

Manning took his place at a thwart. Jem had the next oar. They waited for a break in the waves and then moved out into the channel. He watched the boy stare after the boat, little waves lapping around his ankles. He looked over his shoulder at Dinah who sat straight at the bow. Her tightly cropped head held proud and her sad, scarred breasts facing the open sea like a ship's figurehead. Anderson stood over them, guiding them with the steering oar through the shallow channel. They raised the sail and cut diagonally across towards Isaac and the others who had just rounded the point in the
Mountaineer
's whaleboat. They worked the lee oars to keep the boat close to the wind.

Manning was conscious of his feet resting on thin wooden board. It was all that lay between him and the dark depths of the sea. He hoped the wind wasn't going to get any stronger. Jem's eyes were fixed on the back of the man in front of him. Lean forward, pull back, he looked down the line of the oar as it neatly cut the surface. Waves from the bow fanning out into bruise-coloured water. Sometimes the sun pierced the liquid glass and lit the silver fish and the black shapes that moved between the weed. But today the sea was not throwing up any of its secrets. Manning glanced uneasily up at Anderson. Behind him the glow on the horizon grew stronger as the sun presented itself through a veil of cloud.

They rounded Flinders Peak. The troughs between the waves deepened. Thick banks of water rose and wavered, the little boat rising with them, climbing on an angle and sliding down the other side. They moved in a westerly direction towards an island about a mile ahead. Spray salted their faces and burnt their eyes. Water slapped at the side and ran over into the bottom of the boat where it swirled around their ankles. Soon the rocky island reared up out of the water. Surf surged over its eastern edge and then receded, revealing a black, moss-like weed more treacherous than ice, and dirty white barnacles. Boulders sat at odd angles on the rock just above the waterline, almost indistinguishable from the seals that lay amongst them.

Manning felt his stomach surge with the swell. They reached the calm water in the lee of the island where they lowered the sail and took in the oars. Two gulls had followed. The boat moved gently up and down. The birds circled. The familiar smell of the seal colony reached them, sharp and sickly. And every now and then the wind carried their sounds. Anderson ordered Manning to change positions with the man in front of him. He let go a stone anchor over the side and then waited for a lull in the swell. Dinah was standing, poised at the bow, holding the side with one hand, a club in the other. Mead and Manning were behind her. The sea flattened.

Anderson gave the order to pull while he let out slack on the anchor line. The boat thrust forwards. Jem looked around at Manning. Anderson told him to stay with the oar. Manning knew it was a matter of timing. His heart beat hard against his chest as they surfed in on the swell. Together they must leap from the boat onto the foam-covered ledge. They must reach down for a crack in the rock so that when the sea sucked back they could brace themselves against it and hold tight. If he lost his footing he would roll into the sea like a skinned seal. There was a dull thud at the keel and he followed Dinah over the side. He bent double and scrambled for a foothold. He found it and gripped tight, watching as Anderson held firm the stern anchor line so the boat wouldn't splinter on the rock. Jem and the other oarsman pulled hard on the stern oars but Jem was not quick enough and the surf pushed them sideways. Just as he thought they were going to go over, they straightened and sliced the top of the next wave before reaching calmer water.

Like the others Manning had worn his sealskin shoes to protect his feet from the sharp-edged barnacles. But he had nothing to protect his hands. Bent over they edged slowly and carefully across the slippery surface. Manning fought the urge to hurry, to get off the wet rock before the big wave hit. Finally they made it above the wet black line. They could look around now. Even though they could hear the seals they couldn't see them for the rock was layered and they were on the lower edge. Boulders rose above them like misshapen building blocks. They would have to climb them to get to the seals. Or as Mead had said they could go back into the water and wade around the edge. Manning shook his head. The less he was in the water the better. And then he remembered his dream.

It was always the same dream: he would twist and turn and when he opened his mouth to scream, bubbles would push out, floating upwards. An arm would cross his face, white and shimmering. Then he would realise it was his own and as he thrashed about the light would change to emerald and in the distance the tail of a seal would ripple through ribbons of weed. It would guide him to land, where on silver sand a dark shape would breathe beside him. He'd reach out for it and discover that it was only skin. And if he looked up there would be Mooney or sometimes it'd be Dinah or Sal gazing down on him.

He envied the way seals moved through the water. Sometimes it seemed they were teasing. Look at me they would say as they twirled and bent over backwards. There were some in the water out past the
Mountaineer
's whaleboat. It was hovering behind the break, waiting for a lull.

He and Mead leant against the rock. Dinah squatted beside them. Dark clouds were forming in the northwest, and rising up to meet them was the brown line of smoke that stretched along the mainland.

Manning noticed the orange nippers of a crab in a crack in the rock. He bent closer and it scuttled sideways and alerted the rest of the clan. They sunk out of sight. The wind brought the roar of the surf crashing on the other side of the island. Finally Johno cleared the boat, followed by Mooney and Sal. Hindered by the strong pull of the surf, they struggled to stay upright while the boat retreated beyond the waves.

Usually there were only two or three of them who clubbed. But with the extra men on the oars they would get a good catch today. Having another boat meant that Anderson would double his money. Mead told Dinah and Sal to swim around the edge so that they would come up under the seals. The rest of them would surprise them from the top and herd them towards some rocks which formed a natural corral. Manning followed Mead up over the rocks until they reached a ledge. Manning loosened his grip on the club, stretching his fingers. He looked down.

Silver gulls gathered, circling. Just above the waterline were the cows or klapmatches that had recently given birth and the territorial bulls that were gold and brown like the granite. A bronze-bellied mother lay on her back suckling a pup that sprawled across her flipper like a large black leach. A bull rested with his nose pointed towards her, lying between her and the sea, preventing her escape. They were hair seals. Manning knew their skins weren't as valuable as the fur seals but it made good leather, and the blubber they would boil down for lamp oil.

He watched the two women move carefully like cats over the uneven surface. When each one lifted her leg he saw the dusky pink soles of her feet and realised he had once expected them to be black. What he didn't see were the others, shades of their people who moved between them.

They entered the sea close to where they left the boat, slipping slowly into the water. Their sleek heads bobbing along the surface. A seal surfed with them onto the rock. They pushed their chests off the weed and dragged their bodies behind them, following the seal which walked with an exaggerated gait.

The seals stirred. Some lifted their heads. They pointed their noses to the sky and leant back, sniffing the wind. They were suspicious but their eyesight was poor and the salt water had masked the women's scent. Gradually they stopped fidgeting and settled, resting their chins on the rock, almond eyes open and blinking and then closed. When a seal nearby lifted a flipper to scratch its broad quivering hide, Dinah lifted her arm and scratched her side. If it rolled over onto its back, she rolled onto her back.

Manning was sweating. The sky had darkened and the wind had dropped. The sand patches under the sea glowed strangely green. Bright white water skirted the island. Every now and then a wave came from nowhere. It thickened and swept the rock and was sucked back into the sea. On higher ground were the older pups. Some with mothers, some without. They lay sleeping in twos and threes. A seal opened her eyes and stared directly at him. For a brief moment she looked into him and the waves stilled, but then she raised her head and began to move away.