Free Tide by John Kinsella Page A

a word to help us cope with the weird and grotesque. We don’t want the mythological coming too deeply into our living days. And the day the ferryman of the Swan River ferry service became the ferried dead … well, it was memorable.
    It’s not a long haul across the river. The ferry departs on the half-hour either side and takes a bare ten minutes to sail from the Barrack Street Jetty to the South Perth Jetty. Visitors use it as the most convenient way of travelling between city hotels and the zoological gardens. The ferry service’s history goes way back; this particular incident took place some decades ago. I was a witness, and it has stayed with me for over thirty years.
    Back then, there were no women skippering the ferries as there are now. It was still a man’s province, at least in terms of employment statistics, payroll records. But on the day the ferryman last crossed the river to deliver his load of human souls for their tour of the gardens of the tormented and imprisoned birds and beasts, the ferryman was a woman, if only for part of the journey.
    I was seated a few rows behind the ferryman, as always. If I did not get my familiar seat, I was disturbed and could not function properly. Most of the regulars knew me, and kept the seat for me. After all, I had always crossed the river from my South Perth flat, opposite the zoo, to my job in one of the earliest high-rise towers built along Saint Georges Terrace as a result of the 1960s mining boom in the north-west. I trained as a solicitor, and I was in on the ground floor when the great iron mines started doing their Japanese business. I went up floor by floor until my view of the river I crossed, there and back every day, was glorious and overwhelming.
    I love the river now as I did then. I love the pelicans, the occasional dolphin one sees, even the bronze whaler shark I spotted from the ferry one wintry evening – its fin reflecting the ferry’s pilot lights. I am sure that’s what I saw. And the yachts and gulls and cormorants. Colours changing with the seasons. I felt every scrap of pollution. I used to be a member of the neighbourhood ‘Keep the River Clean’ group – four times a year we did a clean-up along the banks. There is no such group now, but I still pick up what I can, though my movement is so limited.
    I was lucky to be sitting in my regular seat, because I had been working a Saturday, which was unusual, and heading back home after lunch: peak time for daytrippers to the zoo. Many tourists and local families just heading across the river on the ferry – kids, prams, the lot. I have to admit, I slightly pushed a kid across the bench to ensure I got my spot, but he was distracted by his sister, who was eating (and dropping) a slice of chocolate cake. There was a greater injustice taking place there than in the closest-to-the-window realm. Their mother looked exasperated, as if she’d made the promise of a zoo outing she wished she didn’t have to keep.
    Though a pretty woman, she was haggard and worn down by much more than her kids. I noticed she wore no ring on her finger. It wasn’t quite the age of women’s liberation in Perth then, and I cocked an eyebrow. And she noticed, because she looked embarrassed, told her kids to behave, and drew them nearer to her, leaving a half-person’s space between me and the family, which suited me fine.
    I turned to my thriller. I always read thrillers on the ferry. True, there wasn’t much reading time during the crossing; mostly I’d be staring at the light play on the murky water, or looking up at the majestic trees in Kings Park to the southwest, or the sombre, brooding aspect of the Darling Scarp to the north. But there was always plenty of waiting time, because I’d board the ferry as soon as it arrived from the far bank and the passengers had departed. Being early Saturday afternoon, my usual crowd weren’t there to exchange