‘Quiet?’
‘Really quiet,’ says Henry. ‘I like the fish too.’
I look at Henry in his board shorts and rashie, his goggles and his weight belt, and I feel myself smile.
Hearing him talk about the river and seeing the joy in his face, a strange mixture of happy and sad creeps under my guard.
‘Sorry, Henry,’ I say. ‘I thought you were … I guess I panicked.’
A pelican flies into view above the tree line to our right, and the two of us watch it descend until it’s only a few metres above the water. I’ve never seen a pelican before, in real life I mean, and I’m struck by its size, by its strange and unusual elegance. I wouldn’t have thought a pelican would be known for its flying, not like a smaller bird anyway, but there’s a gracefulness about its barrel-shaped body, the way it glides effortlessly above the water. When it draws level with where we’re sitting, its wings make a whooping sound. Its large webbed feet lurch forward and it skitters across the surface of the water.
Henry starts to make pelican noises with his throat. As he gargles and groans, the pelican looks our way.
A voice rings out behind us. ‘Morning, lads.’
It’s Mick. He’s standing on the jetty wearing jeans, a pale-blue cotton shirt and sandals. He’s all dressed up.
‘I have to go into the city for a bit,’ he says. ‘Run some errands. Do a few things.’
He coughs a few times, heaves a breath when he’s done, and his chest makes a hideous rattling sound.
‘Jesus, are you all right?’ I say.
‘Yeah, yeah. Fine. I might be gone for a bit. You two be right?’
I go to get up, but he raises a hand in the air and shows me a palm.
‘Help yourself to whatever’s inside,’ he says. ‘Take the quad bike to the end of the drive if you need to go into town. I should be back in the arvo sometime.’
I nod my head, but Mick still seems a little hesitant.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you later …’
As he goes to move off, he seems to remember something and turns around.
‘Oh, and we had a few delivery orders overnight. I’ll organise someone to take you out on the river and show you the ropes. Shouldn’t take long.’
I nod my head again. I shield my eyes from the morning sun and watch Mick walk back towards the pick-up. Barry seems okay with that. He drops himself down near the edge of the landing and eyes the pelican.
I turn to Henry beside me. ‘You hungry?’
‘Yep.’
‘How about I get us some breakfast? We can eat on the landing, if you like.’
‘Okay,’ says Henry. ‘I’ll wait out here. I might go under again.’
It’s strange to be in the house by myself – in the house where my mum grew up. Without Mick hovering about and watching me, I can take my time and have a look around, get a proper feel. I go straight for the photo on the sideboard, the one of my mum and Mick as teenagers, sitting on the jetty in their bathers. I pick it up and look at my mum’s happy, smiling face. I never saw her smile like that so I touch the glass with my finger and gently swipe her face just to make sure the smile is real.
I put the photo down and look around the house. I walk past the mantelpiece, past the two black Ms, and then continue on towards the kitchen. The white plate on the table, the knife and fork, and the folded red napkin look even sadder now I know why they’re there.
There’s not much else to see on the fridge, just the card, a few magnets and the photos. The rest of the stuff is mostly bills. I’m getting hungry so I open the fridge door and look inside for something that might pass for breakfast. Not surprisingly, there’s not a lot to choose from. I’ve eaten the bread so there’s just the milk I bought the other day. I look in the fruit bowl, but it’s bad news.
After a full sweep of the kitchen I’ve come up empty-handed so I lean against the bench and look back at the fridge, at the freezer section at the top. I can’t believe I’m even considering it.
Even with the quad bike in the shed outside, I can’t be bothered heading into town so I open the freezer door. A gust of cool brushes against my face and when the chill cloud clears I scan the handwritten labels on the ends of the frozen dinners. I read them aloud and try to find something that sounds like breakfast – Thai Green Chicken Curry, Shepherd’s Pie, Linguini Carbonara, Roast Lamb and Vegetables, Beef Stroganoff …
It’s not an easy decision, but in the end I go for the Shepherd’s Pie. I pluck two from the freezer and get one going in the microwave. While I’m waiting for it to cook, I gather up the things I need and soon I’m ready to head back out.
Barry meets me at the end of the landing and looks hopefully at the food. Henry’s underwater so I balance the two food trays on the top of a pylon, warn Barry to behave, then walk back to the boatshed to pick up two chairs. I grab my boating booklet while I’m there and double back to the landing.
Everything’s set up when Henry breaks the surface of the water, heaving in air. He pushes his goggles up and spits water.
‘Visibility okay?’ I ask.
‘It’s all right,’ says Henry. ‘Barry kept barking, though.’
As soon as Henry climbs the ladder and steps off onto the landing, Barry starts to lick the salt from his legs. I sit in my chair and watch the pelican cruising up and down in front of us, about ten metres out.
Henry grabs the black plastic tray from the pylon and sits down beside me. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s called Shepherd’s Pie.’
‘I have cornflakes for breakfast,’ he says.
‘Yeah, well, it’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.’
‘Have you got any sauce?’
‘No, Henry. I don’t have sauce.’
He looks unimpressed. ‘You can’t have a pie without sauce.’
‘It’s not actually a pie, Henry. It’s minced meat with mashed potato on top.’
‘Why do they call it Shepherd’s Pie, then?’
‘I don’t know. Just eat it, mate.’
Henry doesn’t eat it, not straight away. He digs his fork into the tray and scrapes the top layer of potato off to one side. I watch him arrange his food for a bit, then I open the booklet and flick through the ‘nice to know’ bits until I get to the important stuff, the sample questions for the test.
‘Here we go,’ I say. ‘Where should you drive a vessel when in a channel? Possible answers are: on the port side, on the starboard side, in the middle, or on any side, it does not matter as long as a collision does not occur.’
I look out across the water, at the solitary sailing boat cruising up the middle of the river.
‘It’s starboard,’ says Henry.
‘Yeah, yeah, I knew that,’ I say. ‘Okay, what about this one, then? When driving a vessel at six knots or more, or towing a person, what is the minimum distance both the vessel and any towed person must keep from power-driven vessels, land or structure?’
I scroll down to the answers underneath, but Henry beats me to it.
‘Thirty metres,’ he says.
I run through a few more questions, but Henry knows all the answers and gets bored. He puts his tray back on the pylon and stands on the landing to look south along the river towards the bridge. We watch a silver tinnie zip by.