screen door shut behind her. The dog was delirious to see her again. The truck’s keys were not in the ignition .72 Shame you didn’t bring your dog, she says, still breathless.
He just drives. Capstone. Banksia. Tuarts.
Does he have a name?
Fox shakes his head and strives to be nonchalant.
Seagoing dog like that. Should have a name.
He sweats in his jeans, thinking five things at once. She’s having a dig or sniffing around. Yes, it’s a disgrace having a nameless dog but it was never his to name. And it’s no use explaining that the mutt doesn’t come on the boat because it leaps overboard to tackle fish and he’s gaffed the prick twice already. Besides, he doesn’t buy this new tone. She knows more than she’s letting on. That friggin dog.
Had the place long?
Been there all my life, he says.
Great library.
He nods.
Big reader, then?
Yeah, it passes the time.
So tell me, she persists. Tell me who you read.
Fox sighs.
C’mon, she says. It passes the time… Okay, I’ll shut up.
The empty road feels like a tidal race he’s working against, its surface dimpled with mirage-current.
Steinbeck, I’ll bet. And Keats, obviously. What about Conrad? I see you have a set.
Fox squints neutrally.
Never could stand Conrad, she says. Too… strangled, or something. And earnest.
He purses his lips to defend the old Pole. Holds off.
The horror, the horror! she declaims. Is it a bloke-thing, you think?
It stays with you, he murmurs, that’s why.
Fair point, she says with a smile that strikes him as gloating.
It’s one thing I remember from school. Mr Kurtz, eh? So you are a fan.
I spose.
What is it? The sea? Manly honour? The heartless heart of nature?
He shrugs.
Well, it seemed like a lot of huffing and puffing to me.
Specially Typhoon.
Ha. So what about women writers?
What about them? asks Fox, a little disoriented. For a year his conversations have been procedural exchanges only. It’s making him giddy.
I mean, do you read them?
You live at White Point?
You’re changing the subject, she says. Yes, I live there.
A teacher.
What makes you think that?
Books.
No.
Fox wonders what dream he’s been in. No teacher can afford a rig like the one she just left on the road. She stinks of lobster money. The sideways knowing look. What possessed him?
Nurse by trade. Oncology, she says. Know what that is?
Yeah. As it happens. Get out and walk, he thinks, ever heard of that?
Sorry.
And your old man’s an exporter or a fisherman.
Ah.
They drive in silence for a while.
I really am sorry, she says. For everything. Just being there.
Having to be picked up like this. I know it’s not easy. In your situation.
My situation.
You needn’t worry. I’m not a very loyal fishwife.
Geez, there’s a recommendation, he says, sounding more bitter than he means to.
I see you go out some mornings.
Oh?
And I swim with your dog.
Well, that’s really unfaithful.
My name’s Georgie Jutland, she says turning in her seat towards him.
The name doesn’t ring a bell.
And, look, it’s none of my business or anything but can you imagine what the locals will be like when they catch you? I mean, take up something safer, like bomb disposal.
I don’t think I’m catching your drift, Fox says evenly. You’d swear she can hear the pulse in your throat.
I just can’t see how it’s worth the risk. The law’s one thing, but Jesus.
Fox gives his dumbshit farmboy look and she turns back in her seat and crushes the straw hat across her knees.
Sorry, she murmurs.
Not as sorry as I am, he thinks, wishing he’d settled for the fish and left the abalone for another day. If he’d gotten up on time and stuck to the routine this would never have happened.
There followed an hour’s silence in the truck. An entire hour.
Paddocks segued into pine plantations then market gardens and finally the hobby farms whose flybitten, shaggy ponies marked the farthest outposts of suburbia. Georgie toughed it out. It was,
He just drives. Capstone. Banksia. Tuarts.
Does he have a name?
Fox shakes his head and strives to be nonchalant.
Seagoing dog like that. Should have a name.
He sweats in his jeans, thinking five things at once. She’s having a dig or sniffing around. Yes, it’s a disgrace having a nameless dog but it was never his to name. And it’s no use explaining that the mutt doesn’t come on the boat because it leaps overboard to tackle fish and he’s gaffed the prick twice already. Besides, he doesn’t buy this new tone. She knows more than she’s letting on. That friggin dog.
Had the place long?
Been there all my life, he says.
Great library.
He nods.
Big reader, then?
Yeah, it passes the time.
So tell me, she persists. Tell me who you read.
Fox sighs.
C’mon, she says. It passes the time… Okay, I’ll shut up.
The empty road feels like a tidal race he’s working against, its surface dimpled with mirage-current.
Steinbeck, I’ll bet. And Keats, obviously. What about Conrad? I see you have a set.
Fox squints neutrally.
Never could stand Conrad, she says. Too… strangled, or something. And earnest.
He purses his lips to defend the old Pole. Holds off.
The horror, the horror! she declaims. Is it a bloke-thing, you think?
It stays with you, he murmurs, that’s why.
Fair point, she says with a smile that strikes him as gloating.
It’s one thing I remember from school. Mr Kurtz, eh? So you are a fan.
I spose.
What is it? The sea? Manly honour? The heartless heart of nature?
He shrugs.
Well, it seemed like a lot of huffing and puffing to me.
Specially Typhoon.
Ha. So what about women writers?
What about them? asks Fox, a little disoriented. For a year his conversations have been procedural exchanges only. It’s making him giddy.
I mean, do you read them?
You live at White Point?
You’re changing the subject, she says. Yes, I live there.
A teacher.
What makes you think that?
Books.
No.
Fox wonders what dream he’s been in. No teacher can afford a rig like the one she just left on the road. She stinks of lobster money. The sideways knowing look. What possessed him?
Nurse by trade. Oncology, she says. Know what that is?
Yeah. As it happens. Get out and walk, he thinks, ever heard of that?
Sorry.
And your old man’s an exporter or a fisherman.
Ah.
They drive in silence for a while.
I really am sorry, she says. For everything. Just being there.
Having to be picked up like this. I know it’s not easy. In your situation.
My situation.
You needn’t worry. I’m not a very loyal fishwife.
Geez, there’s a recommendation, he says, sounding more bitter than he means to.
I see you go out some mornings.
Oh?
And I swim with your dog.
Well, that’s really unfaithful.
My name’s Georgie Jutland, she says turning in her seat towards him.
The name doesn’t ring a bell.
And, look, it’s none of my business or anything but can you imagine what the locals will be like when they catch you? I mean, take up something safer, like bomb disposal.
I don’t think I’m catching your drift, Fox says evenly. You’d swear she can hear the pulse in your throat.
I just can’t see how it’s worth the risk. The law’s one thing, but Jesus.
Fox gives his dumbshit farmboy look and she turns back in her seat and crushes the straw hat across her knees.
Sorry, she murmurs.
Not as sorry as I am, he thinks, wishing he’d settled for the fish and left the abalone for another day. If he’d gotten up on time and stuck to the routine this would never have happened.
There followed an hour’s silence in the truck. An entire hour.
Paddocks segued into pine plantations then market gardens and finally the hobby farms whose flybitten, shaggy ponies marked the farthest outposts of suburbia. Georgie toughed it out. It was,
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