Free An Open Swimmer by Tim Winton

Doors were open and thin heads protruded from stiff sheets, noses and cheeks twitching.
    46-B. The B was coming off. Sunk in the bed, the hairless old man watched them come. His eyelashes were gone and the eyes were those of a reptile or a bird. His father’s would be the same. Hands, the colour of ash, clawed the sheets.
    Jerra followed in and leant on the bedside cabinet. It creaked.
    â€˜Hullo, Dad,’ said his father. ‘How’s things?’
    The mouth contracted.
    â€˜Hullo, Grandad,’ said Jerra, trying to keep the lips from his own teeth.
    It was cold in the little room. On the cabinet stood a cactus in a Vegemite jar. He squeezed, carefully, the firm flesh. He glanced at his mother, who smiled, lips dry and pale. A stocking was slipping, he could see. She smiled again.
    â€˜How’s he been?’ the old man rattled.
    â€˜Jerra?’ his father asked. ‘Oh, he’s fine, aren’t you, Jez?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Job . . .’
    â€˜What was that, Dad?’ asked his mother.
    â€˜A job. Has he . . . ?’
    â€˜He’s workin’ on it,’ said his father, looking sideways.
    â€˜Get him something to do, Tom.’
    Thin membranes fluttered.
    â€˜I can’t do it for ’im, Dad. Boy’s gotta find something for himself. He’s had work. Fishing. I told you about that. Might even go back one day, eh son?’
    â€˜Don’t let ’im sit around. Doesn’t do us any good.’ The old man tightened his grip on the sheets. ‘You gotta do something, Jerra.’
    Jerra nodded, managing not to look away.
    â€˜Jump in.’
    His mother clasped the knuckles on the sheet.
    â€˜He’s doing his best, Dad,’ she whispered.
    â€˜Jobs are hard to get,’ said his father. ‘I don’t want him settlin’ for anything. Like me.’
    She glanced.
    â€˜I never did much,’ said the old man. ‘You get old ’fore you get around to doing anything.’
    Jerra almost smiled, leaning on the cabinet, but the cactus caught him.
    â€˜Didn’t do anything wrong. Not a bad man . . . sometimes you almost think you can see . . . the light on the surface . . . too far away . . . Oh, why do they give me the pills?’
    Tears. A nurse came.
    â€˜Come on, Mr Nilsam. Cheer up, shall we?’ She folded him neatly into the pillows. ‘I think it’s time for your medication. And a rest, eh? A nice rest?’
    She was still at it as they went up the corridor.

the cut
    T HE FUNERAL, a few weeks later, was the third Jerra had been to; it was almost as hurried as Jewel’s, though there was no embarrassment, only resignation and dull skies. His father was tired. Jerra noticed his patient handling of the relatives, the jolly handshakes, the meaningful sorrow-filled glances. At the cemetery Jerra’s mind strayed from the burnished RSL badges and Glo-mesh handbags to Jewel’s funeral where he had stepped in time with the other men, the coffin not quite resting on his shoulder, his arms aching to keep his corner up, and he saw in front of him the reddening neck of his father, red, he thought then, because his father was older than the others and was feeling the strain, but it was the same unmentioned colour that had come into his face the first day in the big house in Nedlands, and the day, a week later, that Sean moved in. Jerra often saw his father with that complexion in his younger days, standing at the window overlooking the jacarandas, hands fisted in his pockets. No, he thought, watching the serpentine movement of the Glo-mesh skin in front of him, Dad wasn’t angry then, but something stuck in his guts. He knows a few things, my poor old man.
    The will was read two days later.
    After the relatives had left, and the lamingtons gone, Jerra’s mother came up to his room with an old wooden box. Her face was dark, cut deep