The Windy Season (9 page)

By five o'clock
Arcadia
had completed six runs and the deck was empty of pots. They were heading back to Stark, and Paul was relieved at the relaxed pace Jake was going. It was a rare thing. Paul was sitting in the cabin, his eye locked on land to manage the seasickness, when he felt the engines kick under the deck, heard the rumble of them. The boat lifted in the water as it gained speed, the deck slanted upwards towards the sky.
Michael jumped down from the bridge ladder and stepped into the cabin.

More pots? Paul asked.

No, no, Michael said hurriedly, one arm in his backpack. Something is out there. Jake wants a look.

How far?

Michael either didn't hear him or chose to ignore the question. Got it, he said to himself, and pulled his camera from the bag.

They headed north-west for twenty minutes, away from town. Paul felt the nausea descend on him again, a heaviness that swept through his limbs. Michael paced the deck. At last the boat slowed and the German roared with excitement. Paul stumbled out from the cabin.

Michael was leaning over the gunwale, talking to himself, eyes wide. Paul didn't know what they were seeing, and he struggled to focus his eyes on the water. It looked at first as though something had been spilt over the sea, like the fuel from a wreck. But he saw the thickness of whatever it was, like a giant bluish rug that had been dumped into the ocean, laid out and floating, inexplicably, on the surface, its edges torn.

What is that? he muttered.

Moby Dick! the German announced theatrically.

What? Paul asked.

Not much left of him, though, he said, grinning.

As the boat neared the whale carcass, the smell flooded Paul's nostrils and he instantly retched. Michael bellowed.

Jake cut the engine when they were alongside. He heard the German exhale.

Paul gazed into the thick, ruffled carpet of white tissue. The stench seemed to warm and thicken the air, like the smothering fumes of petrol.

And then he saw the flesh tighten, drawn flat by some great force at its far side.

See that? Michael gasped, his voice a high-pitched wheeze, as though someone had him by the throat. Up on the bridge Jake hooted.

Big fish down there, the deckhand muttered. Jesus.

Paul could sense movement in the water but all he could make out were shadows. His vision flickered.

Fuck, eh?! Jake yelled down, head over the railing. Get up here, Michael. Think there's two big sharks. Fucking whites, too.

Paul turned towards Michael. He thought he might pass out. Michael gave him an almost crazed look, tongue out, eyes huge, and laughed. Should throw over the handline, he shouted to no one in particular and then hurried up the ladder to the bridge.

The boat bobbed and danced in the water, and Paul settled his hands on the gunwale, head over the sea, waiting to purge. And he could hear the sharks, moving their huge bodies around the carcass. He expected the sound of ripping and tearing, like knives through upholstery. But there was only the shushing of water. Muffled. Benign. He could hear Jake and Michael above him, delirious. And he forced himself to open his eyes, shuffling along the gunwale, trying to get a clear sight of them, the shadows sweeping underneath.

Circus

MICHAEL ATE WITHOUT SPEAKING
. Paul still felt the hollowness in his gut that was with him all day on the boat and he was suspicious of it. He dismantled his burger slowly and picked at his chips.

Men from another crew filed into the tavern and sat on the bar stools next to them.

German, a red-haired deckhand said to Michael, sitting down next to him.

Noddy, Michael said matter-of-factly, and shook the man's hand. He returned to his pizza, his eyes on his food.

You boys saw a white? Noddy asked.

Yep, Michael replied through a mouthful. We saw two.

Two? Noddy turned to the men next to him. Hear that? Two white sharks.

There was a pause, the crew silent as they considered Jules, the barmaid marshalling the beer taps.

That's not normal, declared someone up the end of the bar, a smoker's voice growling each word. Not this far north, and so many of them. Fucking sharks have been hanging around all year. It's like they're homeless.

It was a dead humpback, eh? Noddy asked, turning back to Michael.

He nodded.

There you go, Richard, Noddy said, looking down the bar again. Rotten whale. What do you expect?

That's not the only rotten thing down there, the man growled. Whole coast is a corpse.

Paul looked at the quarter-eaten burger on his plate and knew another bite would make him sick. He closed his eyes and felt the room move around him, as though his chair was being lifted off the floor, drawn perpetually to the ceiling. He pressed his palms hard against his eyelids. The voices swum around him.

Was it that freak show? someone asked.

Circus, another voice said, confirming the name. That fucker still loitering around?

Yeah, Circus, said another. The retard. We saw him last week, didn't we, Robbo? His big, lazy mouth all over the hull like he's got dementia. Swear he looks like my pop.

Was it him? Noddy asked, turning back to Michael. The bar quietened.

Different sharks, Michael replied, uninterested in the conversation. We just saw two regular, able-bodied great white sharks.

The group gave a tired laugh and went quiet as Jules put the orders on the counter. Paul could smell the reheated chicken. His gut recoiled.

That shark, whatever you call it—Circus—isn't retarded, the older man grumbled. There's nothing dumb about it. It's hungry, that's what it is.

Circus is retarded, Richard, Noddy said. No doubt about it. Taking a propeller like that. It's got a hole the size of a laundry bucket where its eye should be.

Won't last long like that, said a deckhand that Paul had heard the men call Elmo. Paul could guess why. The deckhand's face was permanently flushed red, bloated and shining as if he had been hanging upside down

The men fell silent again as Paul heard the shuffle of boots coming from the doorway. He removed his hands from his eyes and recognised the men he had seen on his first night in Stark. They took the stools underneath the televisions.

Paul nudged Michael with his elbow. Who are they? he whispered.

Arthur's boat, Michael replied without taking his eyes from his pizza.
Deadman
.

Deadman
? Paul repeated. I haven't seen it.

You probably would not.

Why?

They moor it further up the inlet, upriver.

Why?

Michael returned a slice of pizza to his plate and breathed out impatient. I have not asked them, he said.

Paul glanced towards the crew, careful not to be seen staring.

Roo Dog, Michael said, anticipating the incoming question. He looked at Paul. And Anvil, Michael continued. Those are their names. It is best to stay far from them.

Which is which?

Roo Dog is the one like a skeleton, the one who looks sick. His brain is not well. Anvil is the big one. Not so smart, not so nice either.

Elmo overheard Michael's words and grimly nodded in agreement, eyes wide.

There was something magnetic about the
Deadman
's crew. They had everyone on alert, all eyes inexorably drawn to them. The old captain sat in the middle like a ringmaster.

Arthur, Jules greeted him. Good day?

The old man shrugged. Things stay like this I'm gonna have to start prostituting myself.

Anvil grunted.

Give them my lovely arse, Arthur added, and sculled his beer, pleased with himself.

Oh yeah, Jules said. Real gold mine.

Arthur cackled. A girl walked out from the doorway behind the bar and immediately the gallery went quiet in a kind of perverted reverence. Kasia. Paul recognised her. It was the girl who had been in the hostel kitchen the night he had first arrived in Stark. He had seen her there again the night before, pouring milk from a carton with her name written in black.

She pushed a mop and bucket across the concrete towards him. He didn't look, but Paul could sense the men were watching them. Kasia looked up, her eyes square on his as she drew the mop from the water, wringing it out against the wire arms of the bucket. The bleach drifted hot from the floor and bit deep in his nostrils. He noticed the lightness of her blue eyes. They were almost fluorescent against her dark hair and the brown of her skin. The girl raised her eyebrows comically at his staring, and he willed himself to say something to her.

Hey, fuckwit, take a photo, a voice boomed from the other end of the room.

Kasia looked down at the mop head and he saw her smile.

I said hey fuckwit, the voice came again, louder.

Paul looked searchingly up at Michael.

The German winked at him. You should be going, he said.

Deadman

ON MONDAY AFTERNOON HE SAW
DEADMAN
moored in the inlet. It was where Michael had said it would be, away from the other boats, where the inlet hooked into the cover of the rivergums and sandstone gorge.

Paul went there alone, as soon as he and Michael had loaded the crays into the freezer truck on the jetty. He didn't tell Michael where he was going. He knew it wouldn't make much sense. He walked along the beach of the inlet, below the tavern beer garden. Beyond the town the beach narrowed to a thin bank, and the beach sand gave way to firmly packed clay. He felt the breeze, confused in the mouth of the gorge, as if trying to turn back towards the sea.

The boat was moored in shallow water, the river dark red with tannin.
Deadman
flew two Stark Vikings football club flags, the black cotton stressed and frayed. A sheep's horned skull was tied to the bow rail, sun-yellowed.

He stood there for fifteen minutes, boots in the river mud, just watching.

Three afternoons in a row, when
Arcadia
had returned to Stark, Paul did the same thing. Walked into the shadow of the river, watched
Deadman
. There was no sign it had left its mooring. Nothing had been moved on deck.

On the fourth day,
Deadman
was gone.

Every night out in that desert I listen to the President while he has those bad dreams. The big fella grunts like he is dying, makes sounds like he is crying. When I say his name he doesn't wake but he stops for a while.

He kicks about when he sleeps too. Kicks his sleeping bag right off him every night so it is just his big tattooed body lying there with the desert air on him. Somehow it doesn't ever wake the two old generals he brought with him. They both sleep heavy after a day's riding but I can't sleep a second with him doing all that kicking and crying business. Out in this flat country in the dark before morning it is below zero and could kill even a fella as big as the President and sometimes I get up and lay the sleeping bag back on him. His face is all scrunched up like a white-bearded baby under the moonlight. Shivering and grunting. It is a weird thing to see an old fella looking like that and I don't know how it makes me feel.

One thing I do know is that it is hard to sleep easy when you are as heavy as the President. I tell him that he is an unhealthy man and he just says, Swiss, you mind your own business.

I tell him it is a miracle how fat he is when out here nothing much is moving around more than bone and tendons and fur
except for the President. I tell him he is the exception to every rule out in the flat country. I can tell him these things and he seems to take it okay and plus he knows it's true. We been in the desert five days but the President can sniff out a jam doughnut from two hundred kilometres. Anytime we get near enough to a town or a roadhouse he sends me in to get fuel and food and water and I know if I want to keep the peace I won't forget those jam doughnuts. Half a dozen of them. He likes Wagon Wheels too if they got them. He drinks chocolate milk like it is keeping him alive and I reckon he has got chocolate milk running through his veins. I get that mean look in every shop with all the stuff there in bags on the counter. I know they look at my skinny arse and wonder where I'm putting it all.

An hour out of Innamincka the big fella has to ditch his bike. Steering head bearings gone and he can hardly turn it, so I have him on the back of mine, feel him killing the suspension. Imagine the bike exploding out on every drop in the track. Bolts and spokes and pistons rifling out into the brush in so many million shining pieces like space junk.

The President is heavier in more ways than just the guts.

I think it is the worry that makes him eat like he does. Like a hole in him that he cannot fill and I swear to God he tries real hard to plug it right up but there's no way of plugging a hole that big.

And every night he is grunting away and whimpering like a dying man. I listen to it and think it is all the dead speaking through him. God knows there are enough dead fellas who would have something to say.

I tell the President he has a hole in him that he cannot fill and he just says to me, Swiss, you mind your own business.