An Open Swimmer Read Free

fissures in tin and timber, worming up under the boarded windows, and trees had elbowed their way in through the roof, flexing, bending upwards and out, growing inside and almost ready to lift the roof off. Grass penetrated the crust of the truck. Holes in the roof left warm pools on the fermenting upholstery. Jerra saw. It was like the hulks he had seen gaping in the bush where he had wandered after school, watching carefully for snakes and spiders and dirty things. It would have made a good hideout, with holes to shoot through and bayonet the Japs. A good hideout, he thought, guiltily. He still looked for hideouts, despite his age.
    â€˜God,’ he whispered. ‘It looks like a skeleton with eyes still in it.’
    â€˜You can hear it rusting.’
    All was intact, but disintegrating.
    Behind the shed, the water-tank was rusted through at the rim. Jerra thumped it. Little freckles flaked off. Gutters fallen into the undergrowth, the rain had continued to fill, falling through the rusted cover.
    Jerra felt the cold greenish tap. A stack of bottles winked green and brown.
    â€˜Hey, you reckon we should be knocking it off like this?’
    â€˜No one’s been here for ages. Who’s gonna mind?’
    â€˜You mean who’s gonna know.’
    â€˜Ah, come on, hold the can.’
    It filled with a cold, loud rush. Jerra tightened the spout.
    â€˜Here, grab an end.’
    â€˜Nuh-uh. Not in the contract. I carried it up.’
    â€˜Rotten bugger.’
    â€˜It’s downhill.’
    NO the sheoak was congealing.
    â€˜Shall we add an S and a T?’
    â€˜Waffor?’ asked Jerra, pulling the jerrycan, trying not to notice it.
    â€˜ SNOT .’
    Jerra looked at him and gave him a kick. ‘Don’t let the employees hear you saying things like that. Give ’em the impression you’re the wrong kind of material.’
    During lulls in the flames, shadows creased their lips, holes opened where eyes had been. Sean farted and stretched.
    â€˜Really quite full.’
    â€˜Shows how hungry a bastard can be, when he can eat baked beans and nearly admit to enjoying it.’
    â€˜Don’t get any better, do they?’
    Sean burped a long bark, ‘Rrruth.’
    â€˜Definitely.’
    â€˜My bladder creaketh.’
    â€˜Piss.’
    â€˜If I must.’
    â€˜Must or bust.’
    â€˜Back in a sec.’
    â€˜Watch the possums. Never know what you might catch.’
    â€˜They should be worryin’.’
    Things breathed in the fire. Carefully, Jerra watched the dew appearing. It came silent on the rocks, on the softness of grass, on sticks, ropes, beading brown on the blade of the axe and, unless you watched for it, it came without your knowing. Until you moved. Or ran a hand over something. He chafed his hands together over the fire.
    Twigs and leaves moved.
    â€˜That was quick.’ He turned.
    It wasn’t Sean.
    â€˜Shit!’ he cried, almost going into the flames. ‘Who the hell —’ He saw fire in the beard and eyes.
    â€˜Where you from?’ the old man asked.
    â€˜The city,’ Jerra admitted.
    â€˜Campin’, eh?’
    â€˜Where you from?’ Jerra asked, tremulously.
    â€˜Around.’ A vague wave.
    â€˜A shack?’ He was choking.
    â€˜And tank.’
    â€˜Oh, Gawd, we ah —’
    â€˜Nobody got claim on the clouds. Least not me.’
    â€˜Just thought —’
    â€˜It’s orright.’
    Fire twisted. The blood cracked in his ears.
    â€˜Well —’
    â€˜Would’ve scared youse off.’
    Undergrowth parted.
    â€˜Ah, thought I took a wrong —’
    â€˜Sean, this is someone from up the hill.’
    Sean was stiff.
    â€˜Hey look, we didn’t take anything. The old joint looked —’
    Jerra sat over the fire. It burnt his cheeks.
    â€˜Doesn’t matter,’ said the old man, squatting in the warm. Sean began to say something,