An Open Swimmer (21 page)
Authors: Tim Winton
âYou what?' The old man's voice sounded strange again, as if he was taking another crazy turn off on his own.
âHard findin' yer way in the rain?'
âBloody oath. Water was up to the sandhills. Thought I was gonna get sucked in, a couple o' times there. In the bush, stuff tumblin' everywhere. An' gettin' you up the track with all the water comin' down, like wadin' upstream.'
He coughed, rattling. âHeavy bastard you are, too.'
âHang on â' It was crazy talk to Jerra who did not understand.
âOh, you â' The old man laughed.
âHow'd you get here in all â' Jerra became impatient.
âStumbled into the tree. Bloody great tree stickin' through yer bus. Crashed through the roof, pinned you. Bloody mess. Bit of a shame about yer bus. An' yer a bit knocked about by the looks of it. Nothin' busted, I don't think.'
What the hell?
âSo where are we?'
âThe old hut. Up the hill. Nowhere else to go.'
Jerra lay, going through it again. Then the VW is gone, he thought, or maybe the old coot is exaggerating. He decided he would have to see for himself. He could feel the old man next to him on the dusty boards. It hurt under the damp blanket.
âDawn soon,' Jerra murmured. âI'll go down an' check the damage.'
The old man wheezed, shuckling up some phlegm.
âNight's only just come.'
Jerra listened to the gentle burr of bark on tin, his back aching. He thought he caught a word or two, but they were gone. It was all beyond him.
âWill you stay here, now the other hut is gone?' he asked a bit later.
âHave to think,' breathed the old man.
âNot much timber around. To rebuild.'
âI got this one. Last as long as needs be.'
âPretty safe up here. No one's gonna look for you.'
âJust can't fight 'em any more, that's all. Just keep goin' till I can't.'
Ocean hammered in the distance.
âDon't s'pose there's anything to eat,' said Jerra. âThirsty as hell, too.'
Old man scuffing around in the dust.
âWent down this afternoon and found some things. Matches . . . knife . . . here, some biscuits. Soggy, I expect.'
Jerra ate a couple. They might have been gingernuts.
âSaw that groper, too,' the old man said, carefully.
âMm.' Jerra closed his eyes.
âStuck up in the rocks, above the watermark. Crabs been at it.'
âMade a mess o' that. Didn't I?'
âYeah, a mess.'
âNearly took me with him.'
âDid good to beat him, I s'pose.' Cough coming from deep within him. âBut not good enough, son.'
âBeat him, didn't I?' said Jerra, suddenly arrogant.
âNo.'
âSome things you can't get around. Your words.'
âYer can have anythink and it'll likely be no good. It's how yer get it and what yer do with it, that's what counts. Havin' it's nothin'. Everybody's got things. It's nothing.' The old man paused and spat. âGo to sleep. Some water here if you need it.'
Jerra closed his eyes.
âI was after the pearl, you know,' he whispered. âIt didn't have one.'
The old man chuckled in his throat.
âKeep tryin', boy. You 'ad the wrong fish. Spear an open swimmer, they're the ones. Cave fish see nothin'.'
âAn open swimmer.'
âThey're the ones.'
Morning was a long way.
any more, lest I die
T
HE POOL
of yellow slag was dry and hard beside the blanket left in a crumpled ball. Green, fleshy leaves protruded through the tin. Out the window, the sky was the colour of dead skin.
Pain was more distant than he anticipated, much of it from lying on the wooden floor so long. His back was tight. On his forehead there was open skin, hard already with drying, and he found grazes on his arms, and a thin pain â like little barbs â in his hip. He limped out into the pale light.
Guttered with washouts, the sand track wound slowly âÂ
NO
faint and puffy wound in the bark â until he saw the knotted masses of foliage in the clearing; a shred of canvas impaled on a branch; vomitty flour pooled on the mud. Wide black puddles reflected the thin clouds. The VW, toppling on its side, was fused to a thick gum, fenders crushed. Unmelted hailstones of glass lay on the ground. He peered in. The steering column a splintered tangle; panels buckled; boxes spilling. Black blood, stinging scent of eucalyptus, wet blankets. He reached in for his shoes. He found two oranges and his coat. Matches. The shoes might have been anywhere. He put the oranges in the pockets of his coat. The old man will be hungry, he thought, wondering where he might be.
Weed and shells were strewn up on the sand; heaps of piled weed, buzzing with little insects. The bottoms of the dunes were eaten away and deep gouges ran part of the way up the beach. Jerra heard the gulls. The old man was not here.
He went up the track, stumbling barefoot in the deep open veins in the mud, pulling his coat tight around him, the shit-stink following. Bird noises. He thought perhaps the old man would be back at the shack. Gulls hahed high in the trees. Others were skirting the treetops, crowding in.
âAh, bastards.'
He cut into the bush.
The gulls moved back without blinking when he came close. The old man's face was in the mud, feet in the air, ankles pecked raw where his trousers had crept up, skin open, sunk with piano wire that gleamed dull. A little puddle of blood and mucus bathing the old face. The ringbolt on the ground, next to the puddle.
Jerra sat keeping the birds away for a while. He knew what he would do.
A single witness shall not prevail . . .
On the beach, he wrapped the old man in the tattered canvas sheets. He tied his diving weights around the middle, threaded the ring through. He undressed. He took the old man's boots off the cooling feet. He waded out to the shallow part of the reef, the icy water gripping his shins. Beneath his numbing feet, the fur of algae yielded softly. He steered the bundle out stopping every few moments to unsnag it, until he manoeuvred it over a hole, using the ring at the waist as a handle, and lowered it over the edge, watching it sink slowly into the green, grey hole. The water stung his cuts. He watched the green.
Seagulls were gathering on the water as he pulled his clothes back over his blue limbs. The old man's boots were rank, but soft inside. He went up to the clearing. Digging into the mess he found sultanas, and socks for the boots. Packets, boxes, coils, blankets spilling. Birds in the trees, mostly gulls, were showing their pink tongues, one close in the fallen tree that crushed the VW. It laughed at him with those red Sean-eyes, squinting, edging closer.
âBugger off, yer bastards!' he yelled.
The gull came closer. Blinking.
Jerra lit a match, smelling the dead breath of its smoke, dropped it into the fuel tank and ran.
I would like to offer my thanks and respect to Michael Henderson and Denise Fitch for their patience and assistance in the writing of this book.
The lines from âDiving into the Wreck', from
Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972,
by Adrienne Rich, copyright © 1973 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., are reprinted by permission of the author and W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Tim Winton has published twenty-one books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-five languages. Since his first novel,
An Open Swimmer
, won the
Australian
/Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for
Shallows
,
Cloudstreet
,
Dirt
Music
and
Breath
) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for
The
Riders
and
Dirt
Music
). He lives in Western Australia.
ALSO BY TIM WINTON
Novels
Stories
The Turning
For younger readers
Non-fiction
Down to Earth
(with Richard Woldendorp)
Smalltown
(with Martin Mischkulnig)
Plays
Signs of Life
PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Allen & Unwin, 1982
First published in paperback by Picador, 1983
Published by McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1991
This digital edition published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012
Copyright © Tim Winton, 1982
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by John Canty © Penguin Group (Australia)
Cover photograph by Pete Seaward
ISBN: 9781742537368