When the sun was fully down he carried her to the tent and laid her on the mattress, where she opened her eyes. She’d smiled, and locked her arms round his neck and grabbed at the hair there. ‘Beautiful boy,’ she’d said and he’d kissed the sand from her belly.
By the time he saw what was going to happen it was too late. A regular tugging at his line that he had taken for the ambling of his bait over rocks became the urgent yank of a caught fish. The fish had swum up to the surface and the eagle was swooping for it, as he stood there, gormless, his mouth working around words his brain hadn’t instructed him to say yet. Just too late, he let out as much line as he could, hoping the fish would take it and swim back down, but the eagle was keen and it easily grabbed hold of the fish in both claws, not missing a beat with its huge black-tipped wings. The drag screamed and he watched in amazement as his line began to go, his rod bouncing like old buggery and he yelled at the bird, ‘Let go, you idiot!’ but the eagle only angled its head at him, giving him no more of a look of understanding than it would have a rival bird.
Frank floundered, holding the rod firmly in one hand, searching for a knife with the other, thinking in horror of how it would feel to reach the end of the drag, to have the bird pull and then plummet down into the water, tangled in line. With one hand he found the knife handle and held the blade to the line, and there was an elastic snap as the line was cut. The eagle kept on flying as if nothing had happened, the long string of line trailing from its claws, the fish still weaving in its grasp, shining silver where the sun caught it. The eagle flew out of sight round the bend that was the mouth of the river and Frank knelt down, his hands on his knees, breathing hard, a lump in his throat.
That night he lay awake, hearing the noise that echoed over the tops of the cane. Sometimes it sounded like a dog or a fox and other times it had the lightest touch of man or woman about it, like it was trying to shape a word it couldn’t finish. He couldn’t sleep for a memory of Lucy sitting at the end of their bed. He’d lain there watching her through half-slitted eyes, just lain there when he could have touched her or spoken to her, heard her voice directed at him. She’d brushed her hair without ever getting any of the tangle out of it, just pulling the teeth through, ripping, the noise of it like tearing cabbage leaves. She wore too many beads, so that they caught in everything: her clothes, her hair, the curtains. Her lips were raw like she’d been in the cold. She looked in the mirror and ran a finger round the side of her mouth. There. Better. She turned to look at him and he closed his eyes. ‘I know you’re watching.’
He said nothing. Let his eyes close fully.
‘I know you’re awake, Franko.’ There was a laugh in her voice, and he thought he might laugh too, but he stayed still, slack-faced, gummy-eyed. He felt their old soft mattress sink at the foot, felt her clambering towards him, up his body, saying softly, ‘Frank. Franko. Woohoo, is anybody in there?’
And her voice was soft and she was warm on top of him, and he felt the pulse of his penis under the covers, a separate heartbeat. And from nowhere he could place, anger. She had the backs of her fingers on his throat, she was stroking him, he could feel her smile next to his face and he shoved her, hard. ‘Will you just let me sleep?’ he bellowed and he saw that she nearly laughed, even as she had the wind knocked out of her. Her face a pale half-moon in the dim light, took the shock slowly as she understood he was not joking, and he turned his back to her.
The silence thickened, so that the room felt soupy. There was one sniff from the foot of the bed and nothing more. He kept his eyes closed, his heart beating strong in his chest, the anger remaining all the while the silence did. The sound of her gathering her things about her, the snuffle of old tissues, the heavy greatcoat with the grub holes in it shifted over her back, he heard it swamp her. She zipped something up and left the room. Out in the hall, he heard her find her keys; the scented silver jangle of her key chain. The front door opened. Closed. Her feet clacked down the street. He opened his eyes and the room was soaked in red light, the morning sun coming through the rag-rug curtains. He let the breath run out of him, the anger evaporated like it had gone out of the door with her, like he had simply given it to her.
He rolled over and reached for the phone, but her mobile rang on her side of the bed. The anger rose again in his throat. There would be no getting hold of her then, no chance of getting in there quick and making things better. What did she expect? That he would chase her out into the street naked? He threw his phone at the floor and again the anger went, and he just felt sore and sorry and lonely. That was the beginning of when he’d got bad, that was the first time.
In his camp bed, Frank plucked at the frayed edge of his blanket. There wasn’t much space, but there was space enough for another body next to him, a length of mattress that was cool and vacant, an open hand waiting to receive something. The teeth in his head ached and he sat up to pour himself a drink to get him to sleep while the night dripped slowly by. Jesus was in the cane again, and that didn’t help matters, cooing and growling at the heavy air. It didn’t seem right to drink beer, so he unearthed a bottle of brandy he’d bought to cook with and it smelt like Christmas. Something, Jesus or maybe a frogmouth, barked not too far away and Frank raised his cup to the window, ‘An’ you sleep tight too, sweetheart.’ After a pause he added, ‘Don’t let anything bite.’
12
It had started as a tight feeling under his ribs, like a drawstring for his lungs, but then in the thickest part of the night, Leon found himself sweating and gulping like a drowning fish, clamped to the open-air dunny. After the bouts of scorching liquid that shot from his bowels came a moment of wonderful cold. He sat, shitting by starlight, sweat coming off his face while his teeth chattered against the after-frost, and frog song echoed up around him, drowning out the sound of what was going on in the toilet shute. The meaty thick air around the dunny and an ache in his tail bone made him feel worse, but there was no getting off the seat, and he looked up at the cool space of the night sky and wanted that air to come down closer to him. Over by the cookhouse someone smoked, the orange glow of it lighting up a shine on his rifle. Cripes, he thought, if there was trouble now I’d just sit here and let it come. No one’d come near me anyway with the smell of it. They’d have to grenade me.
There was the hollow-wood sound of an owl, beyond that the chirrup and hiss of the night-time things. The moon looked damp nearly hidden by banana leaves. As another cramp struck him in the guts so that he bent forward and a creak escaped his lips, he saw a star move. He panted with his tongue out and watched as the satellite drew, smooth and slow as melting ice, right through the centre of his patch of sky, happy as a larrikin.
At breakfast Pete clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You look crook, mate.’
‘Not feeling great.’
‘They call that acclimatisation. You’ve got the acclimatising shits.’
‘Beaudy.’
Pete turned to face everyone and held up a couple of letters. ‘Post for Clive,’ he said. ‘Won’t be much more of this for a while.’ He wasn’t able to hide a greedy look at the sealed envelopes as he handed them out. ‘Posties are on strike. Hopefully it’ll get sorted out soon, but.’ There was a long silence.