An Open Swimmer by Tim Winton Page A

Hard to find, eh? Have to get me twice if yer countin’. Two !’
    â€˜I could meet you up at the shack, tomorrow.’
    A confused muttering from the darkness. Short laughs. Something scraped on the floor. A piece of wood fell in the sand next to Jerra.
    â€˜I’ve ’eard yers talkin’ about me in me dreams . . .  send n’ fetch him . . .  an’ fetch . . .  can’t drag me down there to burn. Arr, yer bastards!’
    Climbing the rocks, Jerra could hear the hollering, a flat echo off the rocks.
    The VW hawked, then started with the old clatter, and the exhaust blew dust and scales from the grass behind. Sean slopped some water on the windscreen and got in, slamming the door. It fell open again. He cursed, slammed it again.
    Jerra turned in the clearing. He gazed a moment at the windblown beach and the cairn of blackened stones.
    Rain had hardened the sand. It was darker and packed in the ruts.
    â€˜Anti-bloody-climax,’ murmured Sean, against the window.
    â€˜Veedub’s mine. We all have our moments of power.’ He slid into the bends, frightening birds into the air, and the shack came into view. Jerra pulled over.
    â€˜The last farewell,’ Sean sneered, glancing at Jerra’s grazed elbow.
    Jerra went over to the hut and hit the wall. He thought the old man might have come up to say goodbye.
    â€˜You there?’ Bubbling of the VW. ‘It’s me.’
    â€˜Might’ve slipped to the other side. You know, psychically.’
    â€˜Pass some paper.’ Holding the paper against the window. ‘Ah. Hadn’t thought —’
    â€˜Hmm?’
    â€˜His name. Can hardly write anything if I don’t know his name.’
    â€˜Jekyll?’
    â€˜For shit’s sake!’
    â€˜Seen it all before. Movie, perhaps.’
    â€˜Bugger it,’ said Jerra, climbing in and slamming the door. He yanked the handbrake. ‘Let’s just go; that’ll be enough.’
    He gave it a little. And missed second with a crunch.

PART TWO

what you’d want most
    S UDDEN COLD days of autumn. Jerra felt the dull hardness of the bedroom walls as he overlooked the prim tablecloth of the garden next door, its zig-zagged edges, hem-stitched borders with bougainvillaea and little drooping mauve things that clung tight; seeing the same things that had excited him in those early years when it was like living in a tree-house looming above the silky oaks, being higher, even, than the jacaranda clouds that were now an old, hard purple, and thick enough, it seemed, to walk on. The two-storey house in Nedlands had been an abrupt change, he remembered dimly, from the weatherboard place at North Beach. Night times, when he couldn’t sleep, Jerra would lie listening to the tide coming in at Cottesloe; it was six miles away, his father said, but he could hear it, anyway. Now all he heard was the traffic on Stirling Highway and the long breath of the downstairs air conditioner.
    Sunlight was a neat square on the shag. There were books and photographs on the shelves, dents in the wall from bats and balls, and, above his pillow, a small footprint that wouldn’t come off.
    Under the silky oak the downy leaves were the same, crackling beneath his feet, wet in the coarse chill of the mornings. Early, the man next door tortured the mower into life and chased it around until lunch time, shouting when the soft cores of dog turds bit into his shins.
    Jerra was watering the nature strip, which didn’t need it.
    â€˜Son.’ His father nodded, hands in the pockets of his loose grey trousers.
    â€˜â€™Lo, Dad.’ The water was numbing his fingers.
    His father sniffed, staring at the kangaroo-paw.
    â€˜Been thinking much?’
    â€˜About what?’
    â€˜What you’re gonna do with yourself. Long time since you had work.’
    â€˜Yeah, I know.’
    â€˜Though you might’ve stuck at the boats