White Ute Dreaming (4 page)

I
DIDN'T GO TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY
. M
UM DIDN'T HASSLE
me. The cartoons were still going at half past eleven and I realised it was Saturday. I hate that. Felt like I was being the total rebel having a big sleep in on a school day and Mum was so wrapped up in her own shit that she hadn't noticed, so instead I wasted half a Saturday. I had a shower and a huge breakfast-at-lunchtime, grabbed Ernie's lead and rode my bike out to Dad's caravan. The telly was on but the ute wasn't there. He'd left the door open but he usually does—there's nothing much to steal, just the telly that you have to bash-start in the morning and his clothes and that. All his tools live in the back of his ute. I wondered where he might be and in a flash-of-where's-your-grandmother, I knew. Not just a guess, I knew. Could have phoned up the TAB if they were running a book on where he was and made a small fortune. When I pulled my bike into Auntie Pat's driveway, I smiled at the rusty old tailgate poking out from the carport. I had to touch it, good old ute. I chucked my bike in the back and knocked on the front door. Carolyn answered it. I wasn't ready for
that. Not the girl who had been writing the notes for Fitsy to put in my locker. She had half a smile on her face and that spooked me. It wasn't that I didn't like blondes or even that I didn't like Carolyn—she's all right—it's just that I didn't fantasise about her, you know.

She invited me in and when I asked her about Ernie she said it would be fine to bring him in. Ernie didn't think it was a good idea. He sat there like a rock tied to his lead and he wouldn't budge.

It's all right mate, I thought. She'll keep her hands to herself. Don't worry.

Dad came to the door to see what was going on and Ernie changed his mind. He waltzed up to Dad like he was his long-lost owner and clubbed Carolyn and me with his tail.

‘It's my boys!' Dad said, but he only patted Ernie. He took Ernie's lead from me and led him through the house to the kitchen where Pat was cooking.

‘Hey Pat,' Dad said. ‘Here's Ernie. What do you reckon?'

‘God, you're right, Mick. Dingo all right. What a gorgeous-looking animal. Who's the other stray? Wayne! He's pretty gorgeous too,' Pat said and her daughter laughed.

Dad got close to Pat and asked if I could come with them.

‘Yeah. Sure. We've got another life jacket.'

‘How about it, Wayne? Come fishing out from Mordialloc this arvo?'

‘Yeah. Cool.'

Dad smiled.

‘What about Ernie?' Carolyn asked. ‘Can he come too?'

Dad looked at Pat.

‘Yeah. I bet he can swim,' she said. ‘We haven't got a life jacket small enough. Oh, yes we have. Carolyn's old one would fit him.'

Dad grunted and handed me the lead. Pat gave him a plate and he pushed the sliding door open so they could get onto the back deck.

‘Do you want something to eat, Wayne?' Pat asked politely.

‘Nah. I just had brekky. Smells good though.'

Pat shrugged and took her seat at a plastic table on a rickety plastic chair. I leant against the handrail and it wobbled. I felt like I was going to go arse over.

‘Yeah. Careful, mate,' Dad said through a mouthful. ‘Haven't finished bolting that together yet.'

‘One day,' Pat moaned.

Dad nodded and I could see his knee jiggling under the table.

They left the dishes in the sink and lashed some rods onto the roof of Pat's white Crown sedan. Looked like the racks had been fitted especially for that purpose. Dad stuffed five life jackets in the boot and we were away. I was sitting with Ernie and Carolyn in the back of the car and she was chowing down on her thumbnail. My leg was jiggling. I'd been hanging out to go fishing with Dad since forever and I couldn't get excited. There was too much stuff going off in my head.

We arrived at Clarkson's boat hire at 1.23 pm. Ernie looked like a premiership dork with the life jacket on. Carolyn laughed so hard I thought she was going to pop a foofer valve. By 1.39 pm we were in a boat with all our gear
and motoring out to an amazing hole that Dad had been raving about the whole way down. The wind blew in and chopped the water so it felt like the little tinny would be shaken apart. Boats are supposed to glide through the waves, aren't they? This one bounced on them so it was like riding in a bongo drum with an outboard. Dad wasn't wasting any time. Ernie was standing at the front of the boat between Carolyn and me. At one stage he got a heap of salt water in his face and shook so hard that he lost balance. Nearly tipped us all out. No shit. That little shift of weight made us lurch into a turn that would have flipped us if Dad hadn't backed off the revs. Nearly heaved up my breakfast. Lunch. Whatever.

Carolyn scraped the anchor noisily across the front of the boat and sort of dropped it over the side. It was obviously heavy for her and Dad had made a big fuss about exactly when to throw it. He was lining us up between two huge red buoys that were probably a kilometre apart. Looking left and right, getting her ready. Now. I think she busted a nail, or if it wasn't busted it was bruised.

Dad baited my hook for me. We were using little lobster dudes called ‘one-arm bandits' that were all pinkish with one white claw. Dad paid ten bucks for a tiny little bucket of them at Clarkson's. They were still alive as he was skewering them onto the hooks. He did mine and I wriggled to the edge of the boat, took the bail off and flicked the line overboard. He baited Pat's hook too. And Carolyn's. By the time Carolyn's bait hit the water, I'd hooked the first fish. I had the rod sitting in a piece of pipe that had been welded to the side of the boat—I think for that purpose—and it bucked and bent until I thought it was going to get pulled overboard. I tried to steady it with my stump while
I cranked the reel frantically with my hand. I felt bloody awkward. Carolyn leant forward to help then thought better of it. Frantic flashes of silver in the water. I grabbed the rod out of its holder and hoisted the fish into the boat. Ernie went apeshit and almost bailed out. Dad put his foot on the fish and took the hook out—that would have been awkward with only one paw—and held it up, flipping.

‘Garfish. Nice one. Well done, Wayne,' he said and put the fish in the cool box.

What a buzz. It looked like a fat archer's arrow with a point at one end and a fine tail at the other. Talk about built for speed. Dad baited me up and I flicked my line overboard. Bang! Hadn't even hit the bottom and there was another fish hooked. It managed to run out fifty metres or so of line before I got the bail over and started reeling it in. Felt like I'd reeled for ten minutes with the line zipping across the water under the boat and back out. The tip of the rod was bending almost to touch the waves. What a battle. Pat got the net under this one while it was still in the water. Big pink fish that she plopped at Dad's feet, much to Ernie's disgust.

‘Snapper. What a ripper! Told you this was a good hole.'

I caught three more fish that afternoon. Another two garfish and a nice plate-sized flathead that managed to spike Dad in the thumb as he was getting the hook out. Carolyn caught a garfish and a spiky fish that blew up like a balloon when Dad poked it with his filleting knife. It floated for a few minutes when he chucked it overboard. Didn't look too healthy when it tried to swim off. Pat caught one little garfish that Dad kissed and threw back. Dad didn't catch anything. Can you believe that? Mr Fisherman didn't even get a serious bite. I think he was a bit
pissed off. That's probably why we got into trouble.

We packed all the rods away and Carolyn pulled the anchor on board. Dad grabbed the little black rubber bulb and pumped some fuel into the engine. He stood up a bit so he could get a good heave on the pull-start. He ripped at the cord and it broke in his hand.

‘Fuck,' he shouted then apologised to Pat.

It took a while for me to realise how significant that piece of rope was. It was the only way to start the motor. Can't push-start a boat like we can Dad's ute. Or jump-start it. Without the motor we couldn't get anywhere. There were no oars and paddling with our hands seemed like a stupid idea. Must have been a full k from Clarkson's boat hire. We started drifting. Dad told Carolyn to throw the anchor back out.

‘Make yourselves comfortable. I think we'll be here for a while yet. They'll start getting suspicious when it gets dark. We'll take it in turns waving. Maybe they'll send someone out in another boat.'

Have you ever tried to wave for ten minutes? Shit, it's hard work. Dad had a go at getting the cover off the motor with a pair of pliers from the tackle box. That little project was short-lived. The pliers slipped off the first screw and Dad cracked his knuckles against the side of the boat. He lost his grip. They rattled against the aluminium and plopped into the bay. Nearly lost his grip on reality as well. His face was so red. He turned to cleaning fish. Pat took over the waving. Ernie got sick of his life jacket and nearly rocked us overboard trying to bite the thing off. Carolyn mustered a weak laugh as she helped me get it off him. We fell into a strained and anxious silence. Yep. That was fun.

Dad hooked the stinky fish guts over the side of the boat
and within two minutes a couple of seagulls had homed in on the free feed. They're amazing. Must have been on patrol. Two more arrived, one of which had a leg missing. What is this? Are these deformed birds attracted to me or what? Seems like every time I see seagulls I see a seagull with one leg. See? Say that ten times, fast. Maybe there are thousands of seagulls with one leg and I had only just started noticing. Like when Mum got her new car, suddenly everybody had a white Hyundai.

Carolyn didn't notice the bird, or if she did she kept quiet about it. Carolyn gives me the impression that she doesn't notice much. Her pimply face always carries half a smile like a puppy that's just happy to be alive. That is unless she's gnawing on a fingernail. She's pretty. Big blue baby-doll eyes and that. Her blonde hair is always pulled back in a thick ponytail. Three earrings—two down low, one up high. Her skin is smooth and flawless except for her face and she has rounded bits and flat bits on her body exactly where they are supposed to be. If she's writing notes and slipping them to Fitsy then she should be working for ASIO or the FBI—seriously. I had been watching her but she wasn't watching me.

Another one of Clarkson's boats came buzzing in from way out in the bay. Little bloke at the motor with a perfect ring of baldness on the top of his head and olive skin.

‘Saw you waving. Everything okay?' he asked as he pulled alongside our boat and killed the engine. The kid with him could only have been his daughter. Pretty girl. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Dad held up the starter cord and the little bloke slapped his forehead.

‘Don't know your own strength,' he said, and Dad squeaked out a laugh. ‘What do you want to do? I could get
them to send out another boat or maybe I could tow you in. Any rope in there? Anchor rope maybe? Yeah, that will work.'

Dad just nodded and started pulling up the anchor. I was holding on to the little bloke's boat and his daughter was hanging on to ours. She's going to be gorgeous—full lips and soft sad eyes. Already looked like a model, even in her trackies, Windcheater and life jacket.

Dad passed the dripping anchor to the little bloke, who tucked it under the seat in the middle of their tinny. He pulled a few loops of rope in then tied the end to one of those little hookie things at the back of his boat.

‘I'll just take it easy or I'll pull the bloody cleat out,' he said, and chuckled.

Yeah. Cleat.

One tug on the pull-start and his engine was spitting water and blue smoke. The throttle was like half a handle-bar from Hendo's shitbox XL 185. The little bloke cranked it and started moving towards Clarkson's. When the rope took up, their boat zigged and our boat zagged. Dad sat down in a hurry. The little bloke must have towed another boat before or maybe he just had skill. After that first little jerk it was smooth sailing. Motoring. Whatever.

‘Now we're cooking with gas,' Dad said and rolled onto one arse cheek to let a fart out. It rattled on his seat like someone dragging a chain and Carolyn laughed.

‘What sort of gas are we cooking with, Mick?' Pat said, and frowned.

‘Yeah. Whoops. Sorry about that. Sort of slipped out.'

Pat nodded and looked over towards St Kilda.

The little bloke pulled us right up to the edge of the jetty. What a legend. The fat bloke that Dad had hired
the boat from was standing on the end of the pier with his hands on his hips. Carolyn and I grabbed on to the big stumps of the jetty and steadied the boat while Pat threw a rope up to the hire bloke. I got to the ladder first and Dad and the girls passed Ernie and all the gear up. The hire bloke was standing beside me, hands on hips again.

‘What did you do to my boat?'

‘Nothing. The pull-start busted,' Dad said.

‘We'll have to take that out of your deposit,' the bloke said, and we all stopped.

‘What?'

‘Yeah. You broke it, you pay.'

‘Piss off,' Dad said and stood up. ‘Those things wear out, mate. It's a maintenance issue. Got nothing to do with me. We were lucky this fella spotted us or we'd still be out there.'

The little bloke was coiling a rope on his arm. He put it down and walked over.

‘That frayed pull-start cord constitutes a big safety risk,' he said. ‘I'm sure if I mentioned it to the blokes at Occupational Health and Safety or Worksafe . . . or whoever . . . you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. And where's your oar? Every boat is supposed to have an oar.'

Yeah, good point. He might have been little but he packed a punch.

‘When you hire the boat,' the fat bloke said slowly, like we'd have trouble understanding, ‘you sign a contract to say that you'll pay for any damages. You damaged my boat. You pay.'