Tide by John Kinsella Page B

reckon. Yeah, it’s nice being next to you. Yes, it’s nice. It’s so damned humid. I’m sweating like a pig. Probably puts you off.
    Okay. We’ll have to hitch. Let’s just get to Gero and sort the trip out and then worry about the car.
    Perry, you’ve changed. We’ve only been on this boat for a day and you’re saying I’ve changed? I changed when we got into the Sandman. I changed when we boarded the yacht with the clothes we stood up in. I changed when I begged my girl for more. For more. But then again, you’ve changed too. You’re an ocean of change. I don’t know you anymore. Did she ask you again? To do it? Yeah, she did. Will you? Might. And you? Same. Blood brothers.
    He’s stopping. Grab the bag. I’ve got the shit down my pants. Okay. Long time since I’ve seen a Sandman panel van done up like that. See what it had on the side? Repainted. Some kind of beast.
    We’ll just store the stuff in our bags and carry it, casual-like. If it goes off before we get there, fuck it. Pain in the arse, but we won’t know much about it. You know, I like her. I like mine as well. They might like it where we come from? Good place to hide. Yeah! Fuck, did you see that flying fish. Must have flown miles. Nah, it went in then out. Fucked the water. Yeah …
    Hey Josh, Perry calls, reaching the PV first. It’s a couple of chicks driving. I thought it was a pair of hippie blokes. Josh reaches the car. He is studying the paintwork. That’s a flying fish, he says. A what? A flying fish. Looks magic. Yep, going to Gero. You girls just cruising around, on holidays or something? Yep, great, we’ll climb in the back. Sound like Germans to me, says Josh to Perry as he turns the handle to open the hatchback. Look strung out. Should we go with them? Yeah, why not. Might get a root! Right. Let’s go.
    A Sumatran prison would be a bad move, Perry. Yeah, true mate, but to tell the truth, I’ve got nowhere to go anyway. Not really. And it might not happen. You know. I’m sick of the farm. Of inland. I like the sea. I like the air. I like the tropics. The flying fish. Water and air. You’re sounding poetic, Perry. Yeah, mate. It’s frightening, ain’t it!
    They are reported missing at around the same time as the car is towed into town. The engine has been cooked. There is no trace of the Boys. Their passports can’t be found but there is no record of them having left the country. The travel agent hasn’t seen them. No, not at all. Their mothers insist they were going to see the travel agent, to book their trip.
    The fish flew out of the sea and landed on the steel decking of the ferry. What do you reckon they look like inside, girls? he asks as he picks it up, wriggling, placing his fingers under the gills and bending the head back until the neck snaps. Must be a complex organism. Don’t be an arse, Perry, can’t you see it’s upsetting the girls? Upsetting them? Doesn’t bother them much to bump off a few capitalist pigs in Italy, does it? You’re losing it, mate. Come on, girls, leave him. He gets like this. Don’t worry, we’ll go through with it. You can count on us. We’re convinced.
    It is the strangeness of it all. That’s why they’re missed. It doesn’t make sense. Everyone knows they were in the car. The car broke down. Then they vanished. No-one saw anything, no-one knows anything. It was the end of the harvest and people were thinking about Christmas and New Year’s and spending their wheat cheques. The next working year, the next school year. The dams drying up, winter creeks dried to their bones. Town swimming pools overstocked with slippery children, frazzled adults. Waiting for the heat to subside, the first rains to come, seeding … making hay while the sun shone. Old accents grow a little fainter, the dirt and dust work on the sound of voices. There’s no reward