The Windy Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

Inside the cabin Jake put the kettle on. Paul crouched beside the bait. He pulled back the clear tape from one of the greasy cardboard boxes and again almost vomited at the flash of scales and purple eyes and reeking stench. The German squatted with him under the lights of the deck to quarter the silver bream, slipping the long knife through the fish with such nonchalant ease that he might be slicing oranges. Paul turned away and gulped in the sour air of the inlet. He looked beyond the twisting mouth of the river, past the white boil of the inshore reefs and out to the shadowy scowl of the horizon.
    Alright, Jake sighed, stepping out from the cabin. He closed his eyes for a moment before settling a glare on Paul. You listen to the German here. We’re not going to have time to fiddle around and show you what’s what. You keep your eyes on the job and you work hard. While you’re on this boat you’re busting your arse. Not here to fluff about.
    Yep, Paul said.
    Yep, Jake mimicked, unsmiling. Hope your head’s screwed on. There’s a million and one ways it can all go to shit out there.
    Paul nodded.
    Jake pointed to the circular steel head of the winch at Paul’s back. If the German rips a pot in too hard and it leaps into the boat, and you’re pissing about in front of that winch, you’re gone.
    Paul looked at the taut face of the skipper, at the slight spasm of his jaw, the swollen vein on his temple. He spoke like he was trying to hold his whole body together, so tense he just might fizz over, spitting into oblivion like an aspirin.
    It’s going to be ugly water, he said. Keep the rope off your legs or you’ll go over. Don’t fuck about with the winch or I swear to God it will take your arm clean off. You listen to the German. You listen to me. He gave Paul a long stare. Just fucking pay attention.
    Yes, Paul replied.
    And don’t use the shitter, Jake said, flicking a hand towards the white booth on the outside wall of the cabin. It’s buggered. If you have to, you piss or dump over the side.
    He stepped back inside the cabin and left Paul and the smiling German to the pong of the bait and the hostile company of the breeze. For a moment Paul thought about the broken toilet, trying to imagine how one would keep their balance squatting on the low wall of the cray boat, bum dangling over the sea. He pictured Jake, grim-faced on the gunwale, arse poised above deep water.
    On the shore there was still no sign of the sun but it had lightened just enough that Paul could see the caravan parks and bed-and-breakfasts that crowded the banks of the rivermouth. Behind those, spied in glimpses down darkened streets, there was something like suburbia.
    Jake climbed up onto the bridge with his coffee flask. The diesels announced themselves with a thought-clearing rumble and the huge deck began to vibrate. Paul felt the tremor of the engines in his body, rattling through the hollowness of his stomach. They taxied out to where the river gave way to the sea through a narrow gap between the sandbank and the churn of a reef. Paul looked back along the broad creamy wake to the paradoxical vision of the town. A mess of new and old. Smooth and rough. Shiny and dull. There were the bright rendered walls of the resort on the headland and then the yellowed brick of the TAB further down the inlet. Ruler-straight tropical palms and twisted dwarf trees. He saw the buttery light from a hotel-room window and wished like hell he was in there. Or even in that musty bed in the hostel.
    The cray boat roared as they reached the rivermouth, running the gauntlet of backwash and coral. There was the gnash of water over shallow reef. They hurtled through the gap in a hail of spray and in an instant they were on the sea, the swells long and bloated beneath them. The boat tore impatiently for deeper water, like a jet seeking altitude. The horizon danced about. Paul’s mouth was dry. The bow lifted over a swell and then dropped and all the gear on the