Jack Read online

  I take a few more steps,

  hear a mozzie

  zinging near my ear,

  then tum.

  The sun’s right in my eyes.

  My words

  with their measured indifference

  fall into a black hole

  rimmed

  with yellow.

  ‘You can have Nellie Melba

  work the compressor

  for all the fuck I care.

  I just want to be out

  on the open sea.’

  Getting Out of Broome

  It was only three weeks ago

  but it feels like months

  since I hitched a ride

  on that ketch

  out of Broome

  bound for the Torres Strait.

  I remember how the skipper

  kept it up all night,

  the rattling cough

  and then the fart

  three shakes

  of the maracas in his lungs,

  two blurts of the tuba).

  He didn’t ask why

  I was in such a hurry

  to leave the West Coast.

  In return

  I didn’t ask what contraband

  was in the tarp-covered boxes

  in the hold.

  I just listened to his concert

  and kept watch

  for fishing boundary patrols

  looking over an ocean

  swollen with moonlight.

  Catching Rose Up

  Some days it’s hard to believe

  she’s not with me any more

  so I talk to her

  as if she is.

  It’s no different really

  than any husband

  standing, cap in hand

  at his wife’s grave

  on Sundays

  telling her his doings.

  It’s just

  with all my moving round,

  Rose has to be more portable.

  ‘I signed up two Aboriginal boys,’

  I tell her.

  ‘They’re from Lockhart Mission

  and boys they are …

  although they look strong enough.

  Dickie’s seventeen and looks fifteen.

  Clive’s fifteen and looks ten.

  One pound a month

  they’ll cost me, plus tobacco.’

  I lie back on the bunk,

  draw on my pipe

  and stare at the scorched

  overhead; a perfect circle

  surrounds the lantern.

  ‘I also signed up

  two Papuan deckies in Daru.

  It’s a similar deal,

  one pound a month,

  which is fair enough.

  They can hardly speak English

  and they’re crazy

  with superstitions.’

  Something on deck creaks,

  the lugger tugs at its leash.

  The afternoon sun

  ripples through the porthole

  near my head.

  Sometimes my words

  plunge into a silence

  so loud

  I stop talking

  but then

  water slaps against wood

  or a seagull squawks

  and either is a reply

  of sorts.

  ‘I’m happy with the Badu Island lads.

  There’s a white-haired one

  called Georgie,

  reminds me a little of you, Rosie,

  that cheeky glint in his eye.

  I’ll have to pay those Island boys

  five pounds a month.

  Would you believe it!

  Just for being deckies.’

  I uncross my legs,

  pick my nose

  absently.

  ‘Did I mention I picked up

  a Chinese cook?

  Funny bugger—got a moustache bigger

  than Fu Manchu.

  And a second diver’s turned up

  from nowhere,

  some itinerant Malay.’

  I snort then

  remembering the major hold-up

  that’s delayed me three days.

  ‘I got that bloody Jap

  the tender he wanted.

  They stick to each other like glue.

  I’ve nicknamed them

  Tweedledum San

  and Tweedledee.’

  Full Sail

  Listen: blue sky

  the air fizzing

  like seltzer

  as the hull

  lifts free of the water

  then ka

  boom

  crashes

  with a whoosh.

  We’re headed

  for a patch

  near Moa

  with the sails

  taut,

  ropes tied off,

  and the new crew

  all of a sudden

  alive and smiling

  like ten

  ugly

  Snow Whites

  woken

  by a salty kiss.

  Libation

  ‘A toast to our voyage.’

  I stare out to sea for a minute,

  nothing visible this time of night

  except the spidery gloves of foam

  on indigo water.

  The lugger’s various bits and pieces

  like a child’s teeth

  grind away in the dark.

  ‘To a shipshape crew.’

  My curious gaze

  moves from one

  to the other of them,

  trying to peep

  behind each curtain.

  They hold up their mugs

  and drink the rough whisky.

  Clive coughs and splutters.

  Dickie thumps him on the back.

  There’s one thing left to do.

  The warm breeze shivers

  the hair at my temples

  as I pour a small amount over the side.

  ‘To the gods of good weather

  and abundant shell,’ I intone.

  The nongs don’t seem to realise

  what’s called for next.

  Only Sandy,

  that Badu lad,

  who’s been to Sunday School

  knows a cue

  when he hears one

  and says ‘Amen’.

  Then it’s all over.

  Georgie and Sandy

  start chatting.

  Takemoto says something

  in Japanese to his tender,

  then neighs with his horsey teeth

  in what passes for a laugh.

  Ah May, with his two fingered

  right hand

  upends the pot from dinner

  over the side

  with a glop/splash

  emptying the slops.

  I think to myself:

  so much

  for ceremony.

  Complaints to the Cook

  Any bloke with half a brain

  knows you don’t insult

  the babbling brook

  unless you’ve an appetite

  for piss, shit, hair

  and toenails

  in your tucker.

  But it seems Takemoto

  hasn’t quite got half a brain

  which is half as much again

  I’d guess

  as that dopey-looking tender of his.

  Ah May picks up the cooking pot

  with his two fingered hand

  then hefts it onto the

  cut-down

  oil drum stove

  with an irritated thump,

  and a puff of sparks.

  Takemoto is oblivious.

  ‘My first year, I was kuk san

  on the Bell-Maree,’

  I hear him say

  in his uppity tone.

  Smoke flushes Ah May’s face.

  He reaches into the rectangular

  hole at the bottom of the dr
um

  for a piece of firewood

  then straightens up

  and spits voluptuously.

  ‘You cook Queen Mary

  all I care … no Japanee

  tell Ah May how make rice.’

  He picks up an onion,

  puts it on his wooden block

  and starts chopping.

  ‘That rice too hard,’

  Takemoto insists.

  ‘Also not enough soy.’

  Ah May is suddenly very still.

  ‘Too hard, eh? Not enough soy, eh?’

  His right arm starts flapping

  which wouldn’t be a problem

  if he didn’t still have the cleaver in it.

  Takemoto takes a step backwards.

  He’s about to learn

  these Chows

  have two speeds

  ‘laid back’ and ‘full throttle’.

  Lost for words, Ah May

  points to a smear

  of sloppy green moss on deck.

  ‘You Japanee rice … it

  mush like that!’

  His eyes are glittering.

  The cleaver’s still flapping.

  It’s time to intervene

  and let them both know

  where my loyalties lie.

  ‘Oi. You.’ I stride up to Takemoto

  and give him an instructive poke in the chest.

  ‘Stop your nitpicking.

  Back home in Tokyo

  you’d be eating dirt, wouldn’t you?’

  When he doesn’t respond

  except to drop his bottom lip,

  I give him a proper push,

  let him know I mean business.

  ‘Get back to work.

  Or seeing you’re so good

  at opening your gob,

  if you really want more salt,

  start swimming back to TI.

  On the way

  you can swallow as much

  seawater as you like.’

  Ah May’s Magic Tin

  The cook and I

  have become firm companions,

  not least because

  we both can’t stand the Jap.

  After dinner, he tells me

  about the gold rushes,

  how his father Jimmy Sing

  had his ponytail cut off

  in the riots at Lambing Flat.

  The Europeans may loathe

  the yellow peril

  but tonight

  I embrace the Chinese.

  Where would we be

  without their tea?

  Or this opium

  he lifts with reverence

  from his magic tin,

  rolls into a ball

  then warms on a needle over the fire

  until it sizzles and swells.

  He tamps my pipe with the pellet.

  I draw in deep, then drift

  through the endless purple sky

  in my head.

  It Quickly Becomes Habit

  It’s still dark

  when I hear Ah May

  coughing and hurking,

  putting on the damper and coffee.

  I get up, toe the boys awake,

  and shortly after

  we all stagger

  through the hold,

  and up

  into shivering air.

  Takemoto’s drinking coffee,

  the steam rising

  in a buckled stream.

  ‘Time to get suited up,’

  I tell him

  blearily …

  He grunts, puts his mug down,

  then reaches for his flannels

  to keep him warm underwater.

  His tender, Morishita,

  helps him on

  with the heavy suit and helmet.

  By the time we lower him over the side

  it’s dawn and the horizon

  foams pink at the mouth.

  The compressor’s

  shrouded in fog

  cluk, clacking away

  as I see him disappear

  dragging the two long tentacles

  of airline and lifeline with him.

  I know what it’s like

  to rely on a mechanical heart

  to pump down

  your breathing air.

  I know

  what it’s like

  to have no contact

  with the outside world

  except those tugs and shakes

  on the lifeline.

  A man

  while he’s searching for shell

  is like a spirit

  trying to get through

  at a seance.

  This Is What It’s All About

  The shells when they’re closed

  look for all the world

  like the skulls

  those Island boys

  used to impale on sticks

  before the ‘Coming of the Light’.

  Except these heads

  at my feet

  came off the necks

  of disfigured trolls,

  with scourbrush hair

  and shaggy barnacles for teeth.

  ‘This a beauty, Boss.’

  Sandy’s holding up a shell

  for my inspection.

  It’s a whopper,

  at least four pounds.

  He opens it with a snick

  of his knife.

  The inner lining’s lustrous

  with all the colours

  of the faintest

  iridescent rainbow.

  ‘A good un,’ I agree,

  imagining all those buttons

  it’ll make

  for all those English ladies.

  Resistant as I am

  to women in general,

  this mother-of-pearl

  could teach me a thing or two

  about disguise:

  the way it hides the light of that angel skin

  under an ugly bushel.

  I Don’t Think I’ll Ever

  Get Used to the Smell

  So much for the bracing

  astringent tang

  of the sea.

  With eleven of us

  falling over

  each other,

  every breath I take

  my senses dine

  on bilgewater

  diesel

  unwashed armpit

  pong of oyster

  left too long in the sun

  greasy onion

  wood smoke

  curry powder

  my own sweat-trap

  stink

  I’m not tall enough

  for my nose

  to get away from.

  The Bottom of the Food Chain

  ‘Make a place for him in the shade,’

  I growl.

  It’s lunchtime, the day is scorching

  and because he’s the youngest

  the rest of the crew have pushed

  that skinny Aboriginal boy

  out in the feverish sun

  while they relax

  in the small patch

  of coolness

  under the sails.

  Flies swarm all over his damper

  and, as I watch,

  a lava flow of melted jam

  falls onto the deck.

  Nobody’s moving

  and it’s too hot to argue.

  I glare menacingly

  but it takes too much effort

  to keep it up for long.

  ‘Mongrels,’ I mutter.

  ‘Come and sit near me, Clive.’

  He sidles over

  as if I’m about to bite.

  I don’t have to make much room.

  One of my legs

  would make two of his.

  He’s snorting and snuffling.

  The kid always seems

  to have a cold.

  Now he sniffs

  and a huge grub of snot

  crawls
back up his left nostril.

  ‘Get a bit of rag and blow it,’

  I manage.

  ‘And don’t let me catch you

  sniffling like that again.

  You’re a man now

  not one of those

  Gloria Suction Sweepers,

  the flamin housewife’s

  best friend!’

  Remembering My

  Once-Upon-a-Time Father

  I don’t know why

  I thought

  of the cruel old bastard

  this morning—

  how he used to piss on the palms

  of his calloused hands

  to harden them up for cane cutting.

  It’s something to do

  with the whistle

  high in white flecked clouds;

  the sting of the hot Nor’easterly

  carrying the ammonia-reek

  of seaweed with it

  and that katink, katink

  sound

  the rigging makes

  when the hard hand

  of the wind

  whacks the bum

  of the sails.

  The Movie Mirror

  He can’t read too well

  but the missionary school

  taught him enough

  to fumble along.

  It’s smoko,

  we’re sitting on deck

  and Georgie’s tormenting

  a captive audience

  from the pile of Movie Mirrors

  resting on his lap.

  ‘You know that Keystone Cop bloke

  Boss … that fat one?’

  ‘Fatty Arbuckle?’

  I swallow the last river-silt dregs

  from the bottom of my coffee mug.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He kill his girlfriend.’

  ‘In a movie, you mean?’

  ‘No, real life.’

  Before I have time to digest

  this bit of suspect trivia,

  he’s off on a different tack.

  That a fine motor car

  he got, you know?’

  ‘Who, Fatty Arbuckle?’

  He holds a picture up

  so quickly in the blinding sun

  I can’t see anything except

  a flash of metal

  then he pulls it down again.

  ‘No, not him, that Clara Bow’s husband,

  Pierce Arrow,’ he adds.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ I say.

  ‘Nooo,’ He throws his head

  back and laughs.

  That not the name

  of her husband,

  that the name of the motor car.

  Pierce Arrow Motor Car.

  When I get to be movie star

  I maybe get one of those.’

  He turns back to the pages

  and I shake my head.

  ‘Where’d all the magazines

  come from?’

  He takes a drag on his smoke

  then squints under the whiteness.

  His bleached hair is silver in the sun.

  ‘My brother-in-law

  bring them from Brisbane,