Jack Read online

  Judy Johnson is an award-winning writer with a special interest in bringing to life little known but fascinating aspects of Australia’s history. Prizes for her historical narratives include the Banjo Paterson Award, which she won three years in a row, and the Val Vallis Award. She has been the recipient of three New Work grants from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and is currently working on another historical novel.

  JACK

  Judy Johnson

  First published 2006 by Pandanus Books

  This Picador edition published in 2008 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Judy Johnson 2006

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Johnson, Judy.

  Jack / author, Judy Johnson.

  Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2008.

  9780330424226 (pbk.)

  Pearl industry and trade - Torres Strait - Poetry

  A821.4

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the

  Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products

  made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes

  conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Jack

  Judy Johnson

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  978-1-74198-672-3

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  For Rob, Joel, Trent and Hannah

  THURSDAY ISLAND

  1938

  It’s the Waiting I Can’t Stand

  Nothing but wormy dogs,

  dusty tracks,

  and wilting coconut palms.

  I wouldn’t give two bob

  for this piece of flea-bitten rock

  that calls itself an island.

  The only consolation

  is that nothing

  lasts forever.

  Pity

  I won’t be around

  in a thousand years or so

  to watch

  the whole scraggy

  lot of it

  sink back

  into the sea.

  At the Chandlery

  It’s the same as any other one

  I’ve ever been in,

  the same faint pong

  of rat droppings and seaweed,

  the same murky gloom

  so you almost fall over

  the anchor chain near the door.

  The same cleats, rudders, ropes and sails.

  The same paint-peeling wheel,

  all hanging on a crumble-dark wall

  like tools in a torture chamber.

  I put the list of things I need

  on the counter.

  A stumpy bloke in a dirty singlet

  appears from out the back.

  He looks down at the paper

  then up at me,

  and introduces himself.

  ‘Frank Snow,’ he says.

  ‘Jack …’ I begin, then hesitate

  before settling on ‘ … Flannery.’

  I knew one day my mother’s maiden name

  would come in handy.

  ‘You wouldn’t know

  where I could get a crew

  at short notice?’ I ask.

  He stops, with a handful of nails.

  ‘Well now … the fleet are mostly

  on lay-off. The rest’ll be comin in shortly.’

  The way he’s staring

  at my glass eye

  unnerves me.

  ‘You bought Bluey Wilson’s lugger, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say carefully.

  ‘Haven’t seen you round these parts.

  Thought you were takin Matilda

  down the Queensland coast,

  goin fishin p’raps.’

  ‘Then you thought wrong.’

  ‘What’re you after: trochus,

  bêche-de-mer or pearl shell?’

  ‘Pearl shell,’ I say shortly.

  ‘I’ve no time for saucepan diving.’

  Some new spark is in his eyes

  when he hears me use the local term

  for trochus diving.

  He moves the tobacco he’s chewing

  from one cheek

  to the other.

  ‘Been shellin before?’

  I reluctantly tell him.

  ‘I used to be a deckie up here

  years ago on a Burns Philp lugger.’

  ‘S’that so.’ He considers the floor

  for a moment, takes aim,

  then spits black juice

  in a concentrated stream.

  ‘You’ll need a better compressor

  than’s on Matilda.

  I got a nice reconditioned

  Siebe & Gorman pump out the back

  only used on Sundays by a little old lady.’

  He laughs at his joke,

  then starts to cough.

  ‘I’ll fix up the one

  I’ve got, thanks.’

  He shrugs,

  ‘Sutcha self.’

  ‘So you can’t help me then?’

  ‘Bout the crew?

  Don’t be too hasty.’

  The back of my neck

  is starting to sweat.

  I move my hands below the counter

  so he can’t see they’re shaking.

  ‘Got your recruitin permit

  for the blacks?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I might know where

  there’s a mob would want to

  sign up some boys.’

  At last …

  He’s looking at the money

  I’ve put down.

  I add a couple of notes.

  ‘Seems I recall where they are.’

  ‘How lucky for me,’ I say dryly.

  ‘I need a diver too.’

  ‘Then you’ll be need in a Jap.’

  He turns side-on

  and starts wiping an empty shelf

  with a greasy rag.

  ‘Bit tricky, that. Most Japs

  are tied up with their letters of callin.

  I’ll have to put me thinkin cap on again.’

  He takes a deep breath.

  The ti
p of his tongue shimmies

  across his upper lip.

  I unfold another note.

  ‘Seems I recall there’s

  one or two blokes

  greedy enough

  to go on a wages boat

  with a white fella.’

  ‘Lots of greedy people

  in the world, eh?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know about that,

  only know about people

  tryin to make ends meet.’

  He’s lost the power

  of speech again.

  Inwardly I’m seething

  wondering how that

  thinking cap of his would look

  rammed halfway down his throat,

  but I hold my temper.

  ‘If you go over

  to the Diver’s club on the other side of town

  there’s a Jap over there

  might be willin to go out with you

  while his reg’lar crew are on layoff.’

  He winks.

  ‘Got himself some money troubles.’

  I look down at the counter.

  ‘Seems him and me

  have already

  got something in common.’

  Hearing the Bu Horn

  Small licks of the paintbrush.

  Matilda’s anchored

  in TI Harbour

  and I’m touching up her mast

  when the roar

  sets me back on my heels.

  Impossible to tell

  where it’s coming from.

  The slow-winding whine

  and then

  the deep-bass boom

  is everywhere.

  My gaze flicks to starboard

  but there’s only the half-moon shoreline

  and a dozen pair of hands

  casting out a fishing net.

  Further up there’s bungalows

  and palm trees,

  the Christian Church,

  the neat European gardens

  but not the howling beast

  I expect.

  Then they appear to port

  a dozen incoming luggers

  racing along the harbour

  sails quivering,

  wires singing.

  The riggings are hung

  with shell meat

  to boast how much mother-of-pearl

  is in the holds below.

  The Islanders are on deck

  with their white Bu horns.

  Each shell

  is the size

  of a grown man’s head

  and they’re blowing

  through the mouth-sized openings

  till their lungs give out

  and each giant shell

  winds up

  and roars.

  News from the Mainland

  The newspaper’s two weeks old.

  I sit on my landed lugger

  in the blazing sun

  and turn each double page

  as carefully

  as if

  it’s the hinged mouth

  of a snake.

  Finally

  I’ve been through it all

  There’s no mention

  of my brother Ted,

  no picture of his body

  washed up at Roebuck Bay,

  no pencil-drawn likeness of me

  without the beard

  that now covers the scar,

  no Reward for the Whereabouts.

  I breathe out

  then turn to the comics

  for the latest adventure

  of ‘Felix the Cat’.

  Too Many Years in the Sun

  Today’s salt spray’s

  prickly powder on the skin.

  The scaly patches on my arms

  itch and itch

  like the spectre

  of all those fish I’ve caught

  and wrenched open at the neck

  come back to haunt me.

  I pick at each crusty edge

  until it curls

  and the slit fills

  with pepper spots of blood,

  then hang my arm

  over the side,

  let the acid sting of seawater

  do its job.

  What emerges is shiny

  shilling-sized

  pink eyes

  winking up through the swamp

  of spring-loaded

  grey hairs

  and forty-five-year-old skin.

  No-one ever said

  new beginnings

  were painless.

  Things on the Captain’s Cabin Shelf

  a bailer shell

  a tobacco pouch

  thirteen silver coins

  in an Amott’s biscuit tin

  a toothbrush

  in a battered mug

  a King James version

  of the Bible

  the condensed

  Coleridge, Blake

  and Shakespeare

  in red leather

  a photograph of a woman

  blonde hair

  feathered around her face

  another shot—older—

  of two small boys

  in sailor suits

  some dried

  rose petals

  in a bottle.

  Shirley Temple

  The ocean’s full of whitecaps

  and the wind’s tinny screech

  makes humming impossible.

  Nevertheless I start in

  on The Good Ship Lollipop

  when that Badu boy

  steps on board.

  He says his name’s

  Georgie Liela.

  I can’t stop gawping at his hair.

  It’s a freak show

  of bleached peroxide

  corkscrew curls.

  ‘So seagulls don’t shit on me head.’

  His face is grave with logic

  which makes me laugh even harder.

  I show him round Matilda,

  everything on the squally deck

  then down

  to the relative silence

  of the cabin.

  My ears are still ringing

  but it’s cosy

  just the two of us.

  And now

  he doesn’t have to hold

  his lava lava down

  to stop it blowing up

  around his waist,

  his slim fingers are busy

  stroking the bits and pieces

  on my cabin shelf.

  I open my mouth to stop him

  but the words get stuck halfway.

  It’s the way

  his fingers move,

  those little flicking strokes,

  spine tickles

  on my

  most intimate things.

  I’ll make him my navigator,

  send him

  and his white feathered head

  up to perch on the rigging.

  He be my own

  brown-bodied albatross.

  Inventory

  ‘It’s daylight robbery,’ I mutter.

  The fat woman at the supply store

  shrugs.

  I have to raid the secret stash

  in the bottom of my duffle bag

  to pay for it all:

  three bags of rice

  three flour

  two sugar

  one coffee

  one salt

  tobacco … tea

  two dozen tins

  of corned beef

  a dozen golden syrup

  and jam

  soy sauce, shrimp paste

  curry, string bags

  of onions

  two crates of beer and whisky

  four barrels

  of drinking water.

  Having a Squiz at the Japanese Cemetery

  I wonder how you would have gone,

  Ted

  if you’d been a Jap

  and carked it up here.

&nbs
p; You could have had

  one of these fancy

  grey stone monuments

  with swirling characters

  to spell out your name.

  Not to mention

  some withered old crone

  in a kimono

  come to sweep your grave daily.

  We both missed the boat

  on this one, old son.

  Clearly there’s something

  pretty flash

  about dying

  when you’re Japanese.

  At the Diver’s Club

  I’m ambling along the dirt road

  under the palm trees’

  streaky sunshine

  when I think I see something

  in the corner of my eye

  and whirl round

  but there’s nothing,

  just the puce-coloured dust

  and a few scrawny chickens

  rat-a-tatting the ground.

  I have to stop jumping at shadows.

  It’s the sign of a guilty man.

  The Diver’s Club

  is a long Queenslander

  with steps that lead

  to a wide verandah.

  I ask for Takemoto lzabura

  at the door.

  The man who comes out

  is dressed in a white shirt and pants.

  He’s got a birthmark dead

  in the centre of his forehead

  like a bullseye.

  ‘I need a diver for a month or two.’

  I’m not one

  to beat around the mulberry.

  And neither, it seems, is he.

  ‘Yes, I know this.’

  ‘The good old bush telegraph, eh?’

  I name a wage

  and watch the shadow

  of a palm leaf

  sway a crucifix

  in his left eye.

  The birthmark’s

  scrunched up with a worry line.

  ‘Who be my tender?’ he asks.

  ‘I will.’

  By the look on his face it seems

  I’ve just thrust a lump

  of horseshit

  under his nose.

  ‘I want Japanese tender.’

  I feel my lips tighten.

  ‘You’re safe with me.

  I’ve tendered before on salvage boats.’

  I decide to cut off any further debate

  on the subject.

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.

  You tell me your decision then.’

  He squares his shoulders.

  ‘Day after,’ he says.

  I raise my eyebrows,

  start walking away,

  then hear an imperious

  ‘And I not work for you

  unless I have Japanese tender.’