Jack, page 12
the maddening stink of fish.
It’s hot as hell,
and if that’s not enough
we’re almost out of water.
Take the hex off,
Takemoto.
Take it off, son,
before I really
lose my temper.
The Captain Sits at the Top of the Mast
Squall—
my boat is no clown
but you have made it one.
You’ve dressed it up
in a skirt of grey and white
flounces.
You spit bullets of rain
at its feet,
make it caper
like a fool.
Now you bring
your music on again,
that screech and flay
of the rigging,
that howl of timber.
Give me more tunes
from your broken lips,
more thunder
more lightning.
This mast is my instrument
pushed deep inside your womb.
Let’s see
if I can make you dance.
Truth or Dare
‘You shouldn’t have killed Teddy.’
I’m sitting at the bow
just drunk enough
to wonder why the stars
are blinking so slow
when she’s suddenly beside me
like a nagging housewife.
The rope burns
are stark on her moonlit neck.
‘And you shouldn’t
have fucked him, darling,’
I counter calmly.
‘Did you think I would just ignore it?
My own brother!’
‘Half-brother,’ she reminds me.
She never could resist a dig.
Her avoidance of the point
doesn’t fool me.
That enigmatic smile
would be an admission of guilt
in any courtroom in the world.
The boys are playing cards
at the other end of the deck.
I see the whites of Georgie’s eyes
in the dark.
I stumble to my feet
to address the mob
of busybodies.
‘So now you all know.
Happy?
Happy?
But they’re staring at me
and not at Rose
behind me.
When I swoop back around
she’s gone.
Still the Captain of My Soul
It pays to be optimistic.
Thismoming
I strut up and down
the deck
in my tattered shorts,
and the filthy bandage
on my finger,
like a peacock.
I flutter and preen,
coo and call.
I tell myself it hardly matters
there is no mate
to attract
any more.
A man still has his pride.
Signs
We’re on our way home.
Over in the distance
as I stand at the bow
I see
that patch they call Darnley Deeps.
Two cormorants swoop
then lift up
in front of my eyes
as if between them
they’re balancing
a hull-shaped
invisible weight
on my behalf.
Balancing, for instance,
that polished mahogany
cruiser
I saw in a catalogue years ago
and have wanted ever since.
The overblown luxury
of it all …
The luxury of making a living
catering to bored-rich
couples
on pleasure cruises.
The sun’s
melting the water
like gold slag
over Damley Deeps,
where divers
barely
ever go.
Damley
Deep
Deep
Deeps
where the fat pearls grow.
It Wasn’t Just About Rose
All I wanted
was just one day
of feeling like a winner.
Just once, Ted,
to have the old man
look at me with affection.
Just once,
to know how it must have felt
when you stood on the deck of that ship in 1917,
with all the other boys, bound for France,
those pretty girls throwing
good-luck streamers up from the pier.
That last day,
on the boat,
Rose had been dead for two weeks.
I was ragged with revenge.
You protested your innocence,
once too often.
It wasn’t just for her,
that punch,
that sent you tumbling overboard.
It was for the boats you pinched of mine
when we played naval battles
in the old galvo tub as kids.
And for those
William Bailey Adhesive Boots.
Into the storm-drowned sea
you went
but I didn’t kill you, Teddy.
Just once
I wanted to know
how it would feel
if I didn’t hold out my hand.
He Would Have Wanted It This Way
Change of plan, boys,
slight delay.
We all know
he dreamed
of being as good a diver
as the Shinomisaki.
It’s the least I can do
for his memory.
I will dive
at Darnley Deeps
just once
for Takemoto.
Justified
It felt better when we were moving,
wind ballooning the sails,
the fresh bite of it
on my fevered brow.
Now we’ve set sea-anchor
and the stillness is back.
Bing Tang comes up to me
after breakfast.
I’m humming
and re-wrapping my finger
which,
it must be said
is not looking too good.
There’s a whiff
of something putrid
that makes him reel back.
‘Boss,
you finger. Can’t dive.’
‘All it needs is some salt water,’
I say.
Clive slinks up,
his eyes filling,
‘You poor finger.’
‘Seawater makim better,’ I manage.
‘Not makim better,’ he says.
He grabs my good hand
and holds it,
until I shake him off.
‘No more diving, eh,
betterbe we go home.’
‘Soon enough, son,’
I say.
‘Soon enough.’
My Albatross Necklace
I feel its weight
that dead white charm
on the end of the chain,
just hanging there,
tickling
the stiff
grey hairs
of my chest.
Rose’s Appeal
‘It’s a disgrace,
the way you treat
those boys.’
My fork-tongued love
has seen fit to join me.
‘Yes dear,’ I soothe.
‘And what’s this nonsense
about you diving again?’
‘Well, now … ‘
I give the question
the consideration it deserves,
and decide to tell her
half the truth.
‘Everyone knows that Jap
had it in for me.’
I spit on my faceplate
which I’m holding between my legs
because of my bad hand.
My good hand gives it a polish.
‘He’s waiting for me down there,
waiting to have it out
once and for all’
‘I suppose you think this will
solve something.’
This amuses me
and I look her up and down.
‘Well, I have no idea,
but you’re a fine one to talk
about workable solutions,
hanging yourself
from the rafters
like a Christmas pudding,
all for the love
of my brother.’
‘It wasn’t like that.
That wasn’t it at all,’
she says,
and then another
much older voice
intrudes.
I hear my mother say
with unbearable patience,
‘You always had a chip
on your shoulder, Jack,
and you always got it wrong.’
It’s a Beautiful Day
Blue sky runs into aqua sea.
One place looks much
the same as another
on the surface,
even
this infamous
Darnley Deeps.
Underwater
will be different,
dramatic.
Clive comes up to me
as I’m searching
for my gloves.
Impulsively he wraps
his arms around my waist.
‘Don’ go boss,
you bin sick.’
He brings his face up.
‘Wipe your nose, Clive,’
I say automatically.
Ah May’s grim,
slapping pans and wood
around to show his
displeasure.
‘No good come of dis,’
he mutters, ‘no good.’
‘Sandy, come and pull on my boots.
My hand is still sore.’
He hesitates
then walks over to help me.
‘Now the corselet and helmet.’
I wait for him to tell me
it’s not enough gear,
that the water here
is too deep for anything
but the full rig,
but as if there’s a magnet
held just to the side
of his head
he turns to where Georgie’s
sitting near the mast
in his dirty arm sling.
I can’t read what passes
between them,
but when Sandy looks
back at me
he doesn’t say a word.
I can hear the distant screech
of seagulls and fancy
there’s something flapping
beneath the obvious.
All those wings inside me
like bits of cracked leather.
Sandy’s gentle enough
pulling the glove onto
my damaged hand
but still it hurts like hell
and my vision goes black
until I bite my tongue.
I never could
abide a man
who couldn’t take a bit of pain.
‘Bing Tang,’ I call to the Malay,
‘When I’m down and signal,
slack out the anchor chain.
I want to drift.’
‘Yes, Boss,’ he says, resigned.
He takes the canvas cover off
the compressor
and I take a deep breath.
I Never Underestimate the Wily Japanese
I know when I’m down there
I’ll have to keep
my one good eye open
and my one good hand
at the ready.
When Ted and I were kids,
playing sea battles
he always had more boats
and the bludgeoning power
of rocks,
but I bided my time.
He might have commanded
the mighty Russian numbers,
but the day
I became
Vice Admiral Heihachiro Togo
attacking Lushun
without warning,
I demolished his fleet
in just one go.
I Still Have an Eye for the Exquisite
Even though my lungs are creaking
and my hand feels
as though the bayonets
of the Light Brigade
have just charged
through the skin,
as I fall
my chancy eye takes in
the bright green hair of fern
wavering
on a rock ledge,
then further down
coral,
that comes and goes
pink, lemon, lavender.
Then still further,
huge trees rise up,
the sea around them
the colour
of watered-down India ink.
Takemoto was right.
This is a beautiful working ground.
Hide and Seek
‘Come out, come out
wherever you are.’
The words ring and ring
in the helmet.
My head’s a clapper
in some enormous bell.
I watch and wait
but apart
from darting angelfish,
there’s no movement.
He’s playing hard to get.
‘I’ve been collecting a lot of shell
since you carked it,’
I lie.
‘Forty in one spot, would you
fucking believe it?
Much better than
you’ve ever managed,
old son.’
There’s a puff of sand
to my right
and I whirl around
but it’s only
a mother-of-pearl shell
closing
at my approach.
The whipfern around me
sways and waggles
its black fingers.
‘Any of you, then.’
I feel little Miss
has-to-know
Rose
peering over my shoulder
but she’s got
nothing to say.
‘Ted. Daddy.’
I throw down the gauntlet.
‘Here’s your chance
to get me good.’
I can hear my heavy breathing,
and the compressor
cluk, clakking
way above me.
I signal for Bing Tang
to let me drift
and feel the rope
slacken.
There’s a shadow
that must be Takemoto
moving towards me in the distance,
looming through the fog.
And it’s about bloody time.
Not for the first time
it occurs to me
it’s an odd profession
for a man
with claustrophobia
being enclosed, like this,
in such a small
helmet space.
Takemoto’s diving bare,
no helmet, no suit.
Not hampered by the heavy gear,
he’s bending for shell,
fluid
in every limb.
My shell
I reach up my hands,
turn the helmet
anticlockwise
just a little
on its thread
like a safe-cracker,
listening for the clicks.
I do it slowly,
just a smidgin
so he doesn’t have
the advantage.
Just one more turn
on the old roundabout,
one more click …
Wings
It’s comforting
how twisting-arm achingly
deep it is
down here.
Even the do-gooding angels
that might hatch
like water-breathing maggots
in a man’s lost soul
would find it hard to grow
a decent set
of wings.
NOTES
While Jack is a work of fiction, I have adhered as closely as possible to historical evidence, both technical and anecdotal, of what life was like on pearling luggers in the Torres Strait in the 1930s. Sincere thanks to Dr Regina Ganter, who has generously allowed me to view research material collected for her definitive historical text, The Pearl Shellers, published in 1994 by Melbourne University Press. The transcripts and abstracts of Japanese, European, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal interviewees speaking of their experiences in the pearl shelling industry have proved invaluable to my own creative response to this unique time and place.
The pearl shell industry in the Torres Strait spanned a century, beginning in 1860s and continuing until the early 1960s when the introduction of plastic buttons spelled the demise of the industry. Pearls were a byproduct of the industry, not the object of it. Only one in a thousand shells contained a pearl of any worth, and divers considered it a rare bonus to find one. Instead, it was the inner lining of the mother-of-pearl shell that constituted the harvest. Mother-of-pearl shell was exported unprocessed to Europe and America to supply the button making industry.
Pearl shelling was the only industry exempted from the White Australia Policy. A Royal Commission in 1916 agreed that ‘the … Policy will be neither weakened nor imperilled by allowing the … industry to be worked by Asians.’ By ‘Asians’, the commission referred primarily to the Japanese divers who dominated the industry. Their reasoning was clear:
… Diving for shell is not an occupation which our workers should be encouraged to undertake. The life is not a desirable one, and the risks are great, as proved by the abnormal death rate among divers … The work is arduous, the hours long and the remuneration quite inadequate. Living space is cramped, the food wholly preserved of its different kinds, and the life incompatible with what a European worker is entitled to live. Social life is impossible and enjoyment out of the question.
Living conditions on luggers were abysmal by any standard. There were no sanitary facilities. The crew’s sleeping quarters became more and more cramped as harvested shell was stacked in the hold. Nutrition on board was not well balanced; as the Commission noted, food consisted mainly of tinned and preserved items. There were many reported cases of beri beri. Vermin were a constant concern. At the beginning of each season, luggers had to be completely submerged to rid them of cockroaches.
