Free Tide by John Kinsella Page B

pleasantries, although we kept those to a minimum. We all, all of us men and even the odd office girl, carried paperbacks like Bibles.
    I love the moment the ferry shoves off as much as I sadden when it arrives and manoeuvres into place and the gangplank goes down, ushering one off. I enjoy glancing up to watch the ferryman spin the wheel and take the ferry out from the jetty, looking over his shoulder to ensure all is clear. Then he settles in to small-talk with regulars, chastising children, and complaining to the conductor (yes, they had conductors back then!) about a passenger with the wrong fare.
    But that Saturday’s skipper was one I’d not seen before, and had none of these habits. He was frightfully old. I felt intimidated by this. It made me feel vulnerable in my suit, in my high office tower, and in my flat, the only almost-high-rise on the eastern bank of the river. I was doing well. Not rich, but very well-off. I drove a Porsche, racing up and down the new freeway as if there were no law to constrain me. I’d paid the odd bribe here and there upon being caught. I was living the life. I part-owned a nightclub I rarely visited, but I liked to let my rich mates know. I did well with the women, and had no intention of getting ‘stuck’ … But the skipper’s sheer age, his shock of white hair and grizzled face, which I hadn’t fully registered when boarding, struck me as he swung round to check his wake, catching my eyes with his bloodshot stare. I imagined spittle dribbling from the corners of his mouth.
    His death wasn’t a possibility; it was inevitable. I was caught in the gaze of a man already dead. The ferry started to veer off course. The ferryman is dead, I called – no, screamed. Some people laughed, and the children next to me huddled closer to their mother.
    The ferry was heading down towards the ocean. No-one seemed to notice. This ferry always goes to South Perth, I called. There’s never a variation. It takes visitors to the zoo, to see the lions and the polar bears!
    Then the ferryman, now crawling along the floor of the ferry, said, Polar bears? Here? In such a hot climate? What are you on about?
    I was stunned. The passengers were sitting and chatting, pointing and relaxing, as if nothing were happening. Disaster was imminent. I stepped up to take the wheel of the ferry. The dead ferryman grabbed my ankles, gripped them like steel. He said, And lions? Lions need room, my friend, lions need to roar across Africa, they need space to roam! They will tear a human apart. There are no lions here.
    Yes! yes! I called down to him, trying to prise his bony fingers from my ankle, my Italian trousers. Yes! There is a lion, and polar bears, and even rare birds, and orangutans, and a gorilla who smokes cigars and sits in a giant bird cage. A gorilla smoking in a giant birdcage in South Perth? You are dizzy with being so high in your towers. The shaking of the earth, the exploding mountains of the north have unsettled your sanity. You have vertigo!
    We are going to crash and sink! I called to everyone.
    They looked at me, laughed, then appeared nervous. I don’t like that man, called one boy. A large gentleman got off his seat and came over and told me to settle down or he’d ditch me overboard. I frantically pointed to the wizened corpse of the ferryman gibbering out of death at my feet.
    The gentleman – the very large and brutish gentleman – ignored me. Shut ya face, mate, or I’ll give you a hiding.
    Well, at least grab the wheel yourself, I begged. The gentleman looked at me as if I were mad, beneath contempt, and returned to his seat.
    I was in tears. I couldn’t drag the ferryman off me. I couldn’t reach the wheel. It was just a matter of time before the ferry collided with the supports of the new freeway bridge. We’d die, and so would those in cars racing across above us. I opened my hands to the other passengers and implored