Tim Winton - Eyrie

And sea-goals? Gulls? asked the kid.

Nah, but maybe a heron’d have a go.

Heron.

That’s a waterbird. They mostly hunt fish.

But it’s high up, said the boy. Floor ten.

No problem for a bird.

Like… like a eagle?

Exactly, said Keely, beginning to enjoy himself. Or an osprey.

The boy tested the word, seemed to like it. Said it again.

That’s a sort of eagle, said Keely. Swoops down, snatches up something good to eat, flies off to his nest right up high. He’s like, king of the mountain, prince of all he surveys.

The boy glanced up at Gemma for verification. She shrugged, blew smoke sideways as they negotiated the dawdling, icecream-dripping hordes.

Reckon Tom knows his birds, she told the boy. He’s a nature nut. Isn’t that right?

Keely returned the shrug. Keen on birds, are you, Kai?

The kid said nothing.

Keen on givin his nan the runaround.

Osprey, said the kid.

Keely did the arithmetic. Gemma was barely into her mid-forties. So that was how it’d gone.

Around the northern rim of the marina the chippers were packed, their jetties and terraces aswarm with lunching day-trippers, sunstruck Brits, giggling teens. Enormous white cruisers pulled in to moor alongside, bristling with portly folks in deckshoes and sun visors anxious to parade their grand success. It was a kind of western-suburbs ritual, casting off from their enclaves upriver in Perth to steam downstream in their ocean-going craft, and the moment they met the open sea they hurled the wheel hard aport to tuck in here and tie up two metres from dry land alongside the plebs who could gawk and chew, rendered dumbstruck, presumably, by the angelic logic of the trickledown economy.

Doesn’t that pep you up? he said.

What? What’s that?

These floating gin palaces. Give you the can-do feeling, that aspirational awe.

Gemma ignored him, or perhaps she didn’t hear, preoccupied as she was with muscling them into a table by the water’s edge. She lunged, weaved, saw a party get to its feet and pounced.

Stay here, she told him. Kai’n me’ll go inside to order.

Keely obeyed, sat a few minutes in the shade of the umbrella, and breathed in the vapours of fat and diesel and algae. Which were rather homely, now he thought of it. But he felt self-conscious down here with the weekenders, wary of faces too familiar for comfort. Few locals came down anymore, certainly not at the weekend, but there were always the pollies and bureaucrats in their short sleeves and Country Road shorts, the epicene journos relieved of an afternoon’s weeding, and he didn’t want any sudden encounters.

Gemma and the boy returned with hefty paper parcels of fried goods. And he stuffed himself, soaking chips in harsh white vinegar, slathering his wedge of snapper in the sort of ketchup that probably glowed in the dark. He watched the kid. How he gorged on chips and left his fish so long the batter went soggy. Eventually he peeled it back with meticulous care, as if it were a scab on his knee. Then he ate it, grease leaking from the corners of his mouth, and left the fishmeat naked on the paper. Not completely odd. Just a kid doing more or less what Keely would have done at six.

A few metres away a pelican alighted on a jetty pile, sending Chinese tourists into a frenzy of videography.

What about a pelican? said the boy. Would a pelican eat a rat?

I doubt it, he said.

They catch fish, said Gemma. Like that other thing. What was that other bird, Tom?

Heron, he said, wiping fat from his chin.

The kid’s fingers twitched. He blinked. Keely saw him silently count the syllables, then the letters, absorbing the word.

There used to be one round here, said Keely, a heron that pinched my koi, my goldfish. Swooped down, reefed them right out of the pond.

You got a pond? said the kid. At your flat?

No, said Keely with a chuckle. This was when I had a house. Back over there, see? Past the boatsheds, behind the trees.

Gemma turned with the child, looked across the marina to where he was pointing. She chewed, said nothing.

Did ospreys come too? asked the child.

No. But they’re around. Sometimes you can hear them. They have a weird sound, like a whingeing noise they make.

The boy looked doubtful, glanced at Gemma.

What? said Keely.

He thinks you’re winding him up.

But it’s true.

And there’s really ospreys? asked the boy. Here?

He nodded. Maybe one day I’ll show you. And your nan.

He’ll be telling the truth, said Gemma. It’s a Keely thing.

What’s a Keely thing?

Never mind. Carn, you two, I’m as full as a fat lady’s sock. That’s us done.

They left the marina and let the kid run across the little beach behind the long stone mole protecting the rivermouth and the shipping harbour. Riding seaward on the other side of the breakwater a reeking sheep carrier loomed like a slum, the hawser of smoke from its stack coiling back upriver to the wharf. Kai seemed happy enough by himself at the water’s edge and Keely sat with Gemma on the low wall above the sand, taking what little succour the sea breeze offered. They were quiet a while, the two of them, and awkward. Then, unprompted, Gemma told him about her daughter, the boy’s mother. Her name was Carly. She was Gemma’s only child and she was doing a stretch in Bandyup for drugs, assault and thieving. Not her first stint by any means. Kai had been with Gemma, off and on, for much of his life.

You’re good with him, he said, for something to say. He thought of the dreams. Didn’t know why. Tried to focus. Really, he said. You’re a champion.

She shrugged, said nothing.

So what’s it like? he asked before he could help it.

She pursed her lips. Is what it is.

They watched Kai a moment.

You had a house on the water?

Near it, he said.

Posh.

We both had good jobs, I guess.

And?

Had to sell it, he said. Divorce.

And now you’re livin in a one-bedroom flat.

Yep.

What’s that like?

Feeling the rebuke, he looked at her. She blew smoke into his face and smiled.

Tommy Keely.

Yep.

What’s the odds, eh?

The studs of Kai’s new boots rapped at the pavement all the way home. Touching neither turd, crack nor rail. The kid was canny. Pedestrians parted before him and if he noticed he didn’t let on. Keely wittered on about ospreys and other birds of prey for the pleasure of the kid’s attention. He didn’t know that much about raptors. Birds weren’t really his thing. Which was cute, given he’d gone down in flames for the sake of an endangered species of cockatoo.

I need a wee, Kai announced as they came into the forecourt.

Litre of Coke, I wonder why, said Gemma.

Keely followed them through to the lifts. Thought of the same sequence from a couple of days before. Their meeting in the dim lobby. And felt strangely cheered. They rode up in a companionable lull and at the top floor Gemma gave the jouncing boy the keys, sent him on ahead.

Is it safe?

Is what safe?

Letting him run like that, letting him go on his own.

She fixed him with a smirk. What are you, a kid expert, too?

He shrugged, a bit stung. In the distance the screen door slapped; the kid was inside.

For Gawdsake, aim to please! she bellowed after him.

They were silent a few moments.

So, tell me, he said, what did happen to my rats?

Ah, she said. Me, actually.

What d’you mean?

When you all moved. You left em with me.

Geez, I don’t even remember.

I was that excited. Almost forgot why you had to go, I was so thrilled.

So how did it go?

Lasted one day. First night I fed em all rum and raisin icecream. Thought I’d spoil em. And in the morning they were cactus. Every one of em. Toes up.