An Open Swimmer Read Online Free PDF Page B

You’re the first.’
    â€˜Always a first time.’
    â€˜Everything’s been done. At least once.’
    Both sat, eyes on the sand.
    â€˜You don’t get on with him, do you?’ The old man stated with authority.
    â€˜Yeah, sure I do.’
    â€˜Doesn’t look like it.’
    â€˜How would you know?’ He glanced quickly at the eyes behind the clotted beard.
    â€˜I met ’im. You remember, after a while.’
    Jerra got to his feet, annoyed.
    â€˜Hey, who owns this land? The Crown?’ Jerra was getting edgy about all this; he had enough on his mind already.
    The old man smiled, taking out his stinging mixture to roll.
    â€˜It’s mine. To the high-water mark.’
    â€˜We’re trespassers, then, eh?’ Jerra lifted his chin. ‘Didn’t see any signs.’
    The smile was bent.
    â€˜Well, didn’t you now?’ He rolled without looking. ‘What’s a sign? People shoot holes in it, knock it down.’
    Jerra rubbed his thighs in agitation.
    â€˜They see you don’t want ’em around, so they think they’ll have a look. Wouldn’t blink at the place, otherwise. Not lookin’ for anything in particular.’
    â€˜Well —’ He thought of that damned tree, puzzled.
    â€˜Still, what people can’t have is what they want most.’
    â€˜What the hell are you smoking?’ Jerra asked in exasperation to change the flow of talk.
    â€˜Stinks?’
    â€˜Not baccy, is it?’ It was impossible.
    â€˜Me mixture. Tea-leaves, seaweed, all sorts.’
    â€˜Stinks.’ Jerra laughed. He sat again. ‘Smells like the bollocks of Ben Cropp.’
    â€˜Ben Boyd, more like it.’
    Then suddenly the old man was singing.
    Well the south seas’re fickle
    In the winters of June,
    An’ the wind from the Pole sings the
    Riggin’ a tune,
    When the sperm and the humpback
    Come northwards they say,
    When we found them in shallows
    Down at Two Peoples Bay, Two Peoples Bay.
    Jerra smiled, nervous.
    â€˜An old whaling song,’ said the old man, sucking on his smoke. ‘My ol’ man taught me that. We ’ad whaling in the family, right back to Two Peoples Bay.’
    â€˜At Two Peoples?’
    â€˜That’s where it started round here. Used to whale here when the bay whalers spread in the 1830s. Ten or fifteen blokes dropped on the beach with a keg of rum, a boiler, a boat and a gun. Used to row out to the whales that came in to sun and harpoon ’em, then wrestle one for a mornin’ an’ tow it back in. If they wasn’t all towed out to sea. Next land south is the Pole. Bugger of a life, that. If the whales didn’t get ’em, the Abos did, or they shot each other.’
    â€˜Now they use harpoon guns and spotter-planes and fast little chasers.’
    â€˜Not the same.’
    â€˜Yeah, I sup—’
    The old man rattled off into the song again, mucus bubbling in his throat as he growled the swinging lines.
    Well we anchored her in and off old Coffin Island,
    A nor’wester blowin’ the best of a gale,
    An’ the beach was as white
    As a sweet vargin smilin’ –
    The air around smellin’, smellin’ of whale.
    â€“ smellin’ of whale.
    The old man smacked a hand on his thigh as he sang the chorus.
    Out in the longboats, then sailors.
    Put your backs to the oar.
    Mind a big bull don’t come up an’ nail us,
    Or we will be sailin’ no more
    â€“ We will be sailin’ no more.
    â€˜Good song,’ said Jerra when the old man didn’t continue.
    â€˜Me an’ the wife used to sing it.’
    â€˜Where’s she?’
    â€˜On the other beach.’
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜She died. Burnt in the shed on the beach.’
    â€˜Shit. That’s rough.’
    â€˜We used to argue a lot. She lived in the shed on the beach after a while.’
    Jerra tasted it at the back of his throat.
    â€˜Some