Free An Open Swimmer by Tim Winton Page B

burred on the gunwale, vanishing in the green. It found bottom, slackened, and floated taut in the tide.
    â€˜Here,’ his father said, ‘I’ll lash it.’
    â€˜I —’
    â€˜Here.’ The old hands, shiny with their hardness, twisted the rope into a good knot.
    From the estuary channel another motor.
    â€˜That bloke with the pelican still lives here, eh,’ said Jerra, glancing up.
    The hooked neck of the pelican showed plain against the grey smudge of boat and water.
    Tailor scudded near the surface. His father brought one over the side. It whipped in the bottom of the boat. A moment later he had another.
    â€˜Wassamatter? Forget to bait up?’
    â€˜Do you yet.’ Jerra grinned.
    â€˜Wup!’
    The surface broke and his father was dragging. A whiting rippled out of the water, gills fluttering.
    The bird croaked. It shoved up from the clinker-built dory, pushing it askew as it lifted, circled high, then came low over the water, following its own shadow. Between the shoulders of the breakwater, it skimmed out towards the sea. The fisherman passed them in the cut, rolling in the swell as he went into open water. His hat was over his eyes, and he stood straight in the stern, clasping the tiller.
    Whitebait skipped together. It was like a handful of gravelstones hitting the water. Jerra nudged the whiting with a toe. The pale yellow pectorals fluttered.
    â€˜Nice looking fish.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said his father, bent over the gunwhale, rubbing the skin under his throat.
    â€˜Wish Mum would come, sometimes.’
    â€˜She’s got other things.’
    â€˜Not any more. I’m not a baby any more, and Sean’s pissed off to his pooncy townhouse in South Perth.’
    â€˜Yeah.’ His father bent over, a hook-shape, looking into the water.
    The lead sky could support itself no longer. Rain broke the water like a million whitebait. Jerra and his father pulled their greatcoats tight, lifting collars.
    â€˜Should try for a kingie on the tide,’ his father said.
    â€˜No need.’
    â€˜Good on the clean tide.’
    â€˜Oh, these littluns’ll do.’ Jerra looked into the grey-green. The thought of a kingie excited him. But frightened as well. What if he proved himself deluded?
    As they were paring out the guts, dropping it over the side, scaling and washing the herring and tailor and whiting in the stinging cold water, the fisherman came back through the cut, lolling in the swell, with the pelican perched in the bow on the nets, fish grummelling down its throat. His father nodded. The fisherman may have nodded back; it was hard to tell with his hat so big and low.
    â€˜Saves on an echo-sounder,’ said Jerra.
    Fillets lay flat on the table. His father was trimming pieces, nipping off tails. Rain fell still. A tiny crab clattered across the lino.
    â€˜Moving around in the rain,’ said Jerra.
    â€˜Little buggers.’
    â€˜Still no wind.’
    â€˜Good tomorrow.’
    â€˜If we catch the tide.’
    â€˜What about some fish?’
    Jerra steered out to the estuary channel and his father took over.
    â€˜Lots of shallow banks,’ he said. ‘Can’t be too careful.’
    The channel was too murky to tell. Jerra moved up to the bow, a little peeved. Birds milled on the flats, strutting the thin strips of beach, lifting their wings.
    â€˜What about trying towards the flats?’
    â€˜The cut will be better.’
    â€˜Might be crabs at the flats.’
    They headed for the cut.
    In the first hour, Jerra took two big tailor on the flick-rod. Then nothing. Water surged thickly in the cut; the granite boulders of the breakwater were dull in the brief moments of sun.
    â€˜Jim owns the house in Perth, doesn’t he, Dad?’ It seemed a logical enough conclusion: the sudden move from the North Beach house in Jerra’s last year of primary school. Mail for Jim. Jim at the funeral. All the uncomfortable