Tim Winton - Breath

Shit, he said, holding my hand with a grip just short of painful. You chopped a bloody lot of wood out there, mate.

Well, I said. Not much swell.

Didn't want you to think I don't notice these things.

I laughed uncertainly. I couldn't read him. I wondered if the smudgy bruises on Eva's neck had lingered, or if I'd left something out there to give myself away. It occurred to me later they could have fessed up to one another about their weeks apart, and perhaps this was their way.

Hey, how was the trip? I stammered.

Lively.

Did you get waves?

Jesus, we got everything. Seasick, shot at, seen off, spiderbitten, infected, deported. And yeah, honkin waves.

Haven't seen Loonie, I said.

You and me both.

You mean he's not back?

Little prick blew me off. Took a boat to Nias.

What happened?

Didn't wanna come home, I spose.

Man.

Wilful little bastard, isn't he? Fuckin nuts, actually.

At that moment Fat Bob the mechanic sidled out from the shadows of his workshop. Sando slapped me on the shoulder.

Hey, keep an eye on the weather. We'll do Old Smoky, eh?

Orright.

Gotta go. Come out sometime.

Okay, I'll do that.

But we never surfed Old Smoky together again. Nor did I visit his place while he was there. I did my best to stay away.

There are spring days down south when all the acacias are pumping out yellow blooms and heady pollen and the honeyeaters and wattlebirds are manic with their pillaging and the wet ground steams underfoot in the sunshine and you feel fresher and stronger than you are. Yes, the restorative force of nature. I can vouch for its value — right up to the point of complete delusion. I go down sometimes on leave to cut the weeds and burn off the way my father did, to surf the Point and collect my frazzled wits. But I've learnt not to surrender to swooning spring. In spring you can really ease offon yourself, and when diat happens you'll believe anything at all. You start feeling safe. And then pretty soon you feel immune. Winters are long in Sawyer. A bit of sunshine and nectar goes straight to your head.

I saw Eva in the general store. It was October and she was in a long skirt and sandals. She stood in the narrow aisle considering a bin full of mousetraps. She was fuller in the face and her hair was held back with barrettes. At the sight of her pot belly I felt a tiny stab of lust. I wheeled around and heard her say my name as I slipped out of the shop and into the sleepy street.

In November Frank Loon confronted Sando in the street and took a swing at him but the younger man was too quick. There was a bit of push and shove outside the bank during which Mister Loon uttered threats. From then on it seemed that Sando and Eva did their shopping thirty miles away in Angelus.

I wasn't sleeping much. Some nights I got up and slipped out to the old man's shed to sharpen his tools. One morning my mother found me asleep out there with the axe at my feet. She asked me if I had some troubles but I said that I didn't. I probably thought I was telling her the truth.

I rode out to the coast some weekends to surf. Several times I hiked up behind Sando's place to hide in the peppy scrub and watch the house. I stayed downwind for fear of alerting the dog and though it found me one time it didn't give me away. I saw Eva pegging out laundry in the sun, saw the shine of her bare belly, saw the bras and undies she was hanging up and felt like a dirty schoolboy for watching. I had an urge to wait a while until no one was about and then creep down to press my face into her damp underthings or slip beneath the house and beat off at the thought of her swollen breasts. But I never did.

I all but failed that year of school and I was shamed by the haunted look on my mother's face. The school report recommended that I leave and seek a trade apprenticeship, but I told her I'd stay on and get my act right. Over the Christmas holidays I found every book on next year's syllabus and read late into the night while the old man snored and stopped, snored and stopped, like a man grinding away with a blade at a whetstone.

The new year was weeks old when I found myself surfing beside Sando one morning at the Point. Bareback in nothing but his Speedos, he was noseriding an old tanker from the fifties. He looked fit and tanned as he kicked the board out of the wave and settled down beside me.

Pikelet, he said.

What's with the budgie-smugglers? I asked.

Dog ate the arse out of my boardies. Anyway, what's wrong with Speedos? Son, they made this nation what it is.

You're scarin people.

Well, he said. They need a little scarin round here.

We paddled out together and waited for a set.

How you been? he asked.

Yeah, good, I lied.

Startin to think you're avoidin us.

Well, I said. School and stuff.

You heard from Loonie? he asked, kind enough not to point out that we were in the midst of the summer holidays.

No, I said. Not a word.

Man, what a disappointment he turned out to be.

I spose.

Mate, I thought he was the real deal, y'know? The man not-ordinary.

Maybe ordinary's not so bad, I offered.

Pikelet, you gotta get outta this fuckin town.

I shrugged.

Come and see us, you dick.

I caught a wave in and walked up the hot sand to where Eva lay in the sun with a book. She wore a ragged straw hat and her hair was glossy and her skin was tanned as I'd never seen before. She cut quite a figure in a polka dot bikini. Her breasts were huge and her belly shone. Her distended navel was like a fruit stalk. When she saw me she hoisted herself to her feet. I took in the lavish sway of her back and smiled.

Gross, huh?

No, I said, conscious of passing bathers. No, it's beautiful.

Jesus.

No, honest.

You really are a pervert, she said with unexpected tenderness.

Takes one to know, I said, grinning sadly.

We're leaving, Pikelet. After the baby comes.

Oh, I said. I should have been relieved but I felt a twist of panic and it must have shown.

D'you really mind so much?

I picked wax from the deck of my battered twin-fin.

Pikelet?

Can I see you? I asked without looking up.

Oh, baby. No.

Just once. Please?

Pikelet.

You owe it to me, I said without properly understanding what kind of threat I'd uttered.

Shit, Pikelet.

I'll leave you alone. Just once.

I never would have blown the whistle on her — I couldn't have done it — but for her at least this must have been real and present danger.

Yeah, she said so bitterly that it felt like a blow. For old times'

sake, right?

On a Thursday while Sando was in Angelus I rode out there and was met by the dog. Eva wouldn't let me upstairs so we went without preamble into the shadows of the undercroft where the smells of soil and wax and fibreglass were all about us. I knelt and lifted her dress and kissed the hard projection of her belly while she ran her hands abstractedly through my hair. Her breasts were long and heavy and between her legs everything felt fat and wet and ripe.

Hurry, she said.

I'm sorry, I murmured.

Yeah, well, we're both sorry now.

She turned and braced against the workbench and we took it slowly and carefully. I held her gorgeous belly and saw the veins stand proud in her neck and the sweat gather on her back and when it was over neither of us pretended to be happy.

NEVER SAW THE BABY. In February the old man copped a flying belt at the mill. The initial report made it seem like a let-off — it could easily have been a walking blade or worse, and there were no severed limbs. But when Mum and I got to the hospital in Angelus we saw that half his face was mashed and they told us he'd suffered a major skull fracture from the steel beam he'd been thrown against. Nobody's fault, just a freak accident.