Changeling's Island: Chapter Seven

    Tim found himself cramming into the front of the ute with another plump man. “Mally, this is Tim,” said McKay. “Tim is coming along to show you how to fish.”

    “Last time you tried to do that,” said the other man, offering a sideways hand to Tim, and grinning like an overexcited kid. “And I remember the score was ten: three, even if you don’t.”

    “This time,” said McKay loftily, “it will be different.”

    “Ha ha. We’ll see,” said Mally, with a wink to Tim.

    “Seriously, this is Tim’s first fishing trip, and the first time he’s been to sea,” said McKay.

    “I bet he still catches more than you do,” said Mally. “You’ll have to get the gate, Tim.”

    Tim didn’t say much on the trip to West End, but McKay’s friend Mally made up for it. He made them all laugh quite a lot. They turned off the main road next to a lovely old colonial house, and bounced down to the coast on a bush track. In front of them lay the rocks and the crystal-clear, turquoise sea, and across the water stood an island that looked just like something out of Treasure Island. “Roydon. It’s pretty,” said McKay, turning the ute and reversing the boat toward the sheetrock at the end of the track.

    “You live in paradise, mate,” said Mally reverently.

    It did look like a travel brochure for some tropical island holiday.

    “Yeah. But wait until you try it in winter with the westerly pumping, rain coming down, and you have an abalone order to fill. Come on, we need to take off the ties and get the bungs in. The fish are waiting and the tide doesn’t.”

    So they got out, and Tim tasted the breeze off the sparkling water. He learned what bungs were, and Mally took great pleasure in telling him how his friend had, when they were at Uni in Melbourne together, omitted to put them in once.

    Tim had mostly forgotten about being miserable for now. The mention of Melbourne brought it back, but then McKay was expertly reversing the boat down the curving rock into the water, and, two minutes later, Tim was out on the sea for the first time in his life, catching the spray from the bow in his face and heading away from land, and then seeing his first ever wild dolphins swimming past.

    “There goes the fishing,” said McKay, as Mally tried to photograph them.

    “Ah, but they’re a beaut sight. And I’ll swear I saw a seal too,” said Mally.

    “They’re even worse for fish. We’ll run to the eighteen-fathom line. Leave them behind, with any luck.”

    They did, and then McKay cut the outboard, and they were bobbing silently a long way out from the island. Tim looked around for fishing rods. He didn’t see any. He was handed a big plastic spool with a thick green cord wound on it, with two hooks and a heavy weight on the end. McKay had a bait-board and was cutting strips off what looked like thick, semi-see-through plastic. “Here, Tim, weave a strip of squid onto your hooks like this,” said McKay, “and then you let out the line until it hits the bottom.”

    Tim joined in doing as the others were, and let the line down. The boat was drifting and the line didn’t go straight down, and he wondered how he’d ever know if the weight was on the bottom. He felt it bump, and then something began jerking the line. “Uh, what do I do…? Something’s pulling my line.”

    “Wow! You’re in! Just pull the line up, hand-over-hand, like this.”

    Tim hauled. He could feel the line thrum and wriggle, and he kept pulling. It was a lot of line, and a heavy weight to pull.

    “Don’t slow down!” yelled Mally.

    “Keep it coming. Keep it coming!” shouted McKay, looking down into the blue water at the white and brown shapes. “It’s a double hookup. Here, hold my line. Let me swing it over for you. If you bump the hull with the fish, they’ll get off.”

    Moments later two enormous, ugly, mottled flat-headed fish, with eyes that looked to Tim like something out of a fantasy novel, were in the plastic bin, thrashing and flapping. McKay grabbed a cloth. “You got to watch it. They have big spines on their gill-covers. Ouch. Makes you bleed like a stuck pig, they’ve got some anticoagulant on them. You stick the knife through the head here, on this pattern that looks like a map of Tassie, to kill them, quick and clean.”

    “I think I have a fish on yours too,” said Tim.

    Áed could see the selkie, down in the depths. He wondered if the seal-woman would tip the boat or stir up the sea. Or drive off the fish. But she was playing a long game. She was making sure that if he would wish to fish, he could catch fish, and come to the sea to do it. She’d get him that way, eventually. He’d go fishing alone…and she would work her magic on him, get she wanted, or maybe hurt or kill him if she couldn’t.

    Áed would just have to see that it didn’t happen.

    The fishing was fast and furious for a time, and all of them bled and laughed, and cheered and hauled fish into the bin, tangled lines, baited hooks, and got teased by Mally, who was always the one to have his fish tangle in the lines or miss the box and go slithering around the bottom of the boat, putting feet and the inflatable pontoons at risk with the spines. Tim got spiked getting his fifth fish off the hook, and it hurt and bled a lot. But no one else seemed to care about their wounds, and he didn’t want to make a fuss, so he went on fishing. He forgot about it when the next fish pulled like a train.

    “I think we’ve just about bagged out,” said McKay a little later, looking at the fish bin.

    “Last cast,” said Mally. “I’m still in the lead. Well, I would be if you hadn’t brought your secret weapon along.” He pointed at Tim. “And you told me he’d never been fishing before. Ha. He’s an islander, born and bred, I bet.”

    “That’s because we had to untangle the mess you made dropping your fish in our lines,” said McKay. “Okay, last cast. Then we’ll go over to the island and clean fish and have some grub.”

    “Hmm, division of labor!” said Mally cheerfully. “I’ll eat and you clean the fish…Whoa…Tim, that thing is pulling the boat!”

    “Shark. Get your line up, Mally, or it’ll cross our lines and get off,” yelled McKay, pulling his own in hastily. Tim was too busy fighting the fish to pay attention. The cord cut at his hands, and it fought much harder than the flathead had. He could see the gray and white shape surging through the clear water.

    Áed could see the selkie coming up, pulling at the line, working her magics. Was this her plan? To get on the little boat, perhaps set them all to fighting? Or had she really been caught? Áed doubted it. She was too old and too cunning and too used to fishermen for that. He prepared himself to break the line, just as what the humans saw as a fish surfaced.

    And then she let go.

    Hearing the cries and watching the master and the other two humans on the boat, Áed realized that the selkie understood fishermen very well indeed.

    It had been a bit of a letdown to not get the shark into the boat, but McKay had been adamant. “No more. We’ve got fish to clean, tide to make for getting the boat out easily. Besides, the sea is picking up. There’ll be another time. And we’ve got more than enough fish. Leave some for next time.”

    So they’d gone across to a small cove on the nearest little island. Here there’d been a bit of tricky work getting them, and the fish bin, and their lunch off, and the boat safely moored so it wouldn’t ground and wouldn’t swing into the rocks. “Food!” said Mally. “I’m starving. And I’ve only got dried fruit and nuts. My wife thinks I’m a monkey.”

    “A fat monkey,” said McKay. “It’s all the exercise you do, sitting at that heavy desk every day.”

    “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it,” said Mally cheerfully. “But I’ve been smelling something fresh-baked since young Tim got into the ute. And it’s not him. He must smell of something the fish like. I hear you blokes use squid essence for hand soap.”

    “It’s all we can get in the bush,” said McKay. “I brought a spare sandwich, because last time you only had fruit and nuts, and you ate most of mine.”

    “Nan made me some cinnamon buns,” said Tim, opening the bag, hoping that he wouldn’t be embarrassed by them, like he was about the homemade bread sandwiches at school. His grandmother either thought he was going to be stuck at sea for a week or that the others would share. There were eight of the buns, sticky with sugar and trailed with spice and popping raisins.

    “You beauty!” said Mally, diving in, not waiting for an invitation. “You can keep your sandwich, Jonno. And you can come again, Tim, as long as you bring the baked goods.”

    “It’s my boat,” said McKay.

    “Then you better have a bun. Just one, mind. Oh man, they’re just a little warm still. They must have been baked this morning. You’re one lucky kid. If she was my nan, I’d be fatter than a house.”

    “You’re working on it already, Mally,” said McKay, having a bun too.

    Áed left them eating and moved watchfully to the rocky point where he’d spotted her in the water. Maybe the selkie could come ashore here, even if the main island was off-limits.

    Her teeth were sharp and he could see each tooth had three points to it. Humans might see her as beautiful woman, but Áed saw past the glamour. “Still watching and guarding, little fae?” she asked, from in among the kelp fronds.

    “It is what I am,” said Áed. “And I watch you.”

    “All I want is the key,” she said, smiling. “I won’t hurt him if I have that.”

    “It’s his birthright. His to decide to use, give to you, or his to pass on to his firstborn child.”

    She said nothing. Just smiled again, all sharp teeth.

    “Hey! That flask looks like one of the original Colemans! My uncle had one,” said McKay. “But it looks brand new.”

    “Nan said it was my grandfather’s.”

    “They don’t make them like that anymore. That’s quite something. You better look after it.”

    “Is it worth a lot of money?” asked Tim, grasping an idea. Not a nice idea, but…

    McKay shook his head. “Probably not, unless, like me, you remember having picnics on the beach when you were a kid. But it’s such a neat thing to have. A lot of memories attached to it, I’d guess.”

    Thinking of his grandmother’s voice when she’d told him to take the flask made Tim feel a bit guilty to have even thought about selling it.

    “I seem to recall my Uncle Giles saying your grandfather was killed in Vietnam,” said McKay. “It looks like she kept it without using it since then. You should be proud, son. Look after it.”

    But she didn’t even like him much! Tim was still thinking about this when they got up and gutted and filleted the fish on a low rock, putting the skins and heads and guts back into the sea to “feed the sharks so they can eat me when I’m working here,” according to McKay.

    Then they had to get back into the boat and head for shore. The wind had picked up while they’d been on the little island, and so had the swell.

    “I’ll be lucky if I don’t lose my lunch,” said Mally uneasily.

    And he was rather quiet and a bit of an odd color on the way back. It was quite a wet, bumpy ride until they got into the channel. Tim had briefly wondered if he would feel seasick. He’d heard about people throwing up, but actually he didn’t even feel queasy. It was like a really cool roller coaster ride, and you could imagine you saw things in the waves too. Mermaids, sharks, ichthyosaurs…

    He was rather sorry to have come to the end of it. The minute the water calmed and they were back to the shoreline, Mally recovered and made up for his silence with a great performance of leaping ashore: “Land, land! We’re saved,” he yelled, and kneeled, and artistically kissed the rock, and then slipped on some seaweed as he stood up, and slithered down the slip and into the water. “It’s out to get me!” he said, shaking his fist at the sea, as he stood up from it, dripping.

    “I can’t blame it,” said McKay, laughing with Tim. “I suppose now that you’re all wet I’ll have to reverse the ute and trailer down.”

    Mally shuddered. “Anything to avoid that. I can’t do it.”

    “Watching you try is a great comedy number though,” said his friend, cheerfully.

    They hauled the boat up onto the trailer with the winch, unscrewed the bungs, and watched half the ocean run out from under the boat’s floorboards. “A wet ride,” commented McKay. “She handles it well, though.” He patted the boat affectionately. “Okay, Mally. There’s a towel behind the seat. I’ll drop you off first, if your missus will be back by now. Or you can come up to my place. I’ve got a boat to scrub.”

    “She should be back. Personally, I think photographing the dawn is overrated. She’s a prizewinning photographer,” he explained to Tim. “Learn by my mistakes. Marry a prizewinning cook instead, like your nan.”

    “She’s a prizewinning gardener too,” said McKay. “You should see her spuds.”

    “Unlike the poor bloke we’re staying with,” said Mally. “He’s one of those sea-changers and he’s trying so hard. I reckon he’s getting at least half a kilo of potatoes for every kilo of seed potato. Nice guy though.”

    They drove on, and then down a long hill back to the sea, to a beautiful decked house, and a slightly harassed-looking balding man with a ponytail, a muddy shirt, and an armful of tools. Tim recognized him as Molly’s dad. “Hello. I’ve just got that tap fixed. How did the fishing go?”

    “Fantastic!” said Mally. “And Tim here got a shark, but we lost it at the boat.”

    Molly looked out of the window on the stairs, on her way down, seeing the white ute and boat coming up to the house. It would probably be that Mr. Harrison back from fishing. At least he was a nice guest, not like some.

    She was surprised to see Tim tumble out of the ute. He was smiling and looking a lot happier than he did at school, or on the bus, where he was like a little mouse. He and the other two were in animated conversation with her dad, which involved lots of gestures. Big gestures. She grinned, hiding her mouth with her hand out of habit, even if no one could see her. She hated people looking at her braces. Fishing stories. Like her dad, and the flathead that got away, when he went angling on the beach. It was always the big ones…

    “Molly. Can you get us a bowl?” called her dad. “We’ve been given some fish. I’m a bit muddy for the kitchen.”

    So she brought one out to them. “Hi, Tim. Hello, Mr. Harrison. Did you have a good time?”

    “Fantastic! This is my mate Jon McKay. I see you know our champion fisherman.”

    Tim looked slightly embarrassed, but pleased. He nodded. “Hi, Molly. I was lucky today.”

    “Lucky as all get out,” said McKay. “He took to it like a duck to water.”

    “And he nearly caught a shark.” Harrison held his arms at full stretch. “It was towing the boat.”

    “Nearly pulled us under,” said McKay cheerfully. “And Mally was yelling ‘Cut the line, cut the line’ as we went skiing along. Good thing it came off, or we might have been in Perth by now. Tim was standing up in the bow like Captain Ahab, holding on, hauling it in, saying ‘it’s only a tiddler…’ while Mally was begging and weeping.”

    “Ha,” said Mally, gesturing widely. “That was you. I said we might make a new round-the-world record, and to hold tight. It was bigger than a blue whale. Maybe two blue whales.”

    “Aw, you blokes!” said Tim, grinning. “It wasn’t that big.”

    “It was a good fish, though. Get up and pass us the Esky with fillets in it, Tim,” said McKay.

    Tim actually ran to do it. Molly had never seen him look so lively at school. He struggled with the icebox. He wasn’t the biggest of boys, and it was obviously heavy. You wouldn’t think so, though, by the way Mr. Harrison’s friend McKay took it.

    “How many did you get?” They were beautiful big fillets.

    “Fifty-five.”

    “I thought you said we’d caught our bag-limit?” said Mr. Harrison.

    “No point in taking all the fish in the sea,” said McKay. “Leave some for next time. Besides, we’d still have been gutting, and the sea is a lot worse now. It gets up pretty fast around here. How many do you want, Mally?”

    “Well, if I could freeze a few to take home, it’d be nice. Some for tea tonight. But we’ve got abs and that crayfish you gave me, and we’re only here for two more nights…”

    “So what did you need sixty fillets for, then?” asked McKay. “I want about twenty fillets, to stock the freezer and to give a few fresh ones to my neighbor. Tim’s grandmother will want some for the freezer, but that’s still plenty.

    “My gran doesn’t have a freezer,” said Tim.

    “Good grief. We couldn’t live without ours,” said Molly’s dad.

    Molly couldn’t help noticing that Tim cringed a bit. He obviously wished he hadn’t said anything. “Dad. You did promise me you’d take me up to my babysitting,” she said, partly because it was true, and partly to change the subject.

    “So I did. Is it that time already?” He looked at the tools in his hands. “Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?” He grimaced. “We’ll take what fish you can spare, guys. And there is space to freeze a nice batch for you to take home, Mr. Harrison.”

    “So who are you babysitting for?” asked Tim as the fish fillets were divided up.

    “More like child-minding really. Troy and Sammy Burke. They live just over the hill. In that big posh place with the all-glass front up the hill, a bit toward your gran’s place. They’ve got a fantastic view.”

    She wondered what made him cringe about that too.

    “You wouldn’t like a job for a few hours?” asked McKay, as they drove up the track from Molly’s parents’ place. “Nothing interesting. Just scrubbing down the hull of a boat. But I’ll pay you…oh, fifteen dollars an hour. I think that’s the going rate for young’uns.”

    Tim nodded eagerly. “Yes, please.” For a start, he didn’t want to go back to the farm, where he’d be working anyway. For a second thing…he didn’t have any money at all. Not that there was anything to spend it on. For a third thing, he’d rather liked Mr. Jon McKay and his friend Mally. Being out on the boat and fishing was some of the best fun he’d ever had, and he’d have done the boat scrubbing for nothing, just for a chance to go to sea with McKay again.

    “I feel a bit guilty taking you away from your gran and the farm, but I really need to get this boat finished, and your gran’s coped without you up to now. Amazing old bird, she is, running that place on her own. She must be glad to have you to help.”

    Tim hadn’t seen any signs of her being glad. But then she’d lent him the flask. And she had said “welcome.” But she was crazy, talking to invisible people. He said so. Maybe…

    “Heh. I do that myself. You should always talk to the most intelligent person around, and a lot of the time it is just me.”

    During the afternoon Tim found out a fair bit about the abalone diver. The first thing he found out was that McKay had no plan to sit still and do nothing while Tim worked. After a while, Tim decided that McKay didn’t really know how to sit still. He worked next to Tim, scrubbing and scraping the hull of the wooden boat. It was an old Cray boat that McKay planned to fit out with live tanks for prawns — a new idea that he wanted to try out. There was music from a CD player and they talked as they worked, about fish, about diving, about sharks, and about McKay’s on-and-off girlfriend, and about his own trips to the island as a youngster.

    And the man worked hard. Tim tried to work just as hard, but by the end of two hours he felt like his muscles were jelly. He was relieved when the abalone diver looked at his watch and said, “Right. I’d better get you back. You’ve done well, youngster.” He stood up, pulled off the safety goggles and mask, and hauled his wallet out of his jeans pocket.

    Tim wanted the money. But he realized that he wanted other things a bit more. “Look, it’s fine. I had a great day, and I’m happy to do this anytime if you take me to sea.”

    McKay laughed, pulled money out of his wallet. “I don’t go out fishing that often, Tim. Just when my friends come over from the mainland, really. But at the price of a flight over here, that doesn’t happen that often. They’d rather go to Bali or Fiji with fifty thousand other people. Crazy. But you can come out someday when we go ab diving. It’s pretty hard work, mind you.”

    “Really? Oh, wow! That’d be fantastic. I’d love that. I…I don’t mind hard work.” That was true…if it was doing this sort of stuff. “But you don’t need to pay me.” His grandmother’s words about being useful and learning came back to him. “I need to learn.”

    “You’ll go far with that attitude,” said McKay, handing him the money. “Far, and stay broke. Take it. I can afford it, and we’ve got a lot done. There’ll be other jobs if you want them. There’s always work on the island if you’re reliable and work hard. Now let’s get you back. Your gran will be wondering if you’ve drowned.”

    Tim folded the cash carefully and put it in his pocket. “Anytime you need help. And anytime I can go to sea…”

    The diver grinned. “Right. You really liked that, did you?”

    Tim nodded. “It was the best ever.” To his surprise, he wasn’t just saying it. It had been.

    He didn’t say much on the trip from the boat shed back to the farm. He was tired. Gran was pleased with the fish, though. “I get some off the beach, but not as big as these,” she said, touching the fillets. “Yer thanked Mr. McKay?”

    Tim nodded. “Yes, Gran.”

    “Not more than ten times,” said McKay. “Right. I’ll be seeing you, then.”

    And he drove off. “Fresh fish and chips for tea,” said Gran.

    Fish and chips had been fairly low on Tim’s list of take-away meals, back in Melbourne. But this didn’t taste even a bit like that. This would have beaten chicken tikka pizza, any day, hands down.

    Tim had eaten, washed and fallen asleep, and the world, even Flinders Island, seemed a fairly good place.

    It was too good to last, though.