The Minnow Read Free Page A

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    â€˜I won’t keep her out too late,’ Bill says to Jonah as we leave the house. We walk through the dark to the inlet. Jonah waves to me from the window, me with half Bill’s baby inside me and he my best friend.
    It’s funny, the fish you throw back. I’m sitting on the pier thinking about this when a little catfish, who looks a lot like the Sarah catfish, leaps straight out of the water. But before she splashes back in, she starts singing happy birthday and that’s just like Sarah to remember. All the other fish at the inlet join in, until the splashing is so loud I can hardly hear the singing.
    â€˜Can you hear that?’ Bill calls to me over the racket.
    But I can’t answer because I’m crying. I cry a lot these days.
    Dad taught me to swim. Then he taught me to dive.
    Diving can be scary if you don’t learn early. Dad always said Mum was a case-in-point. Apparently she had tried to learn in her twenties and she never really got the hang of it, always preferring to jump in, feet first, no matter how much Dad disapproved. ‘You’re a bad influence, Angie,’ he would shout from the bank. ‘Don’t watch, Tom.’
    But I always watched. I thought she looked beautiful, swinging out over the dark water at the end of the rope, jumping in with hardly a splash. Mum and Dad took turns swimming and minding the kids, but Dad would always take me with him when it was Mum’s turn to do the minding.
    I loved it. He was a strong swimmer and could breaststroke with me on his back, my arms around his neck. When I learned to hold my breath, we would play submarines, taking breaths on his count and plunging underwater. Mum never liked our games. She said we made her nervous.
    I haven’t been swimming anywhere but the pool since the flood. I fell in at Crabs Creek once, when Bill and I were fishing. I froze with fear. Bill had to haul me out.
    â€˜What is it?’ I ask Bill when he hands me a small gift box. Bill has come to Jonah’s house to visit me and the Minnow, who is half Bill’s but is beginning to feel like half Jonah’s. It’s an odd feeling.
    Even odder is Jonah’s behaviour. Bill and he are being quite civil. I know the two of them had words the other night. Maybe they called a truce.
    â€˜Open it,’ says Jonah. So I undo the ribbon and remove the lid. Inside is a tiny gold sinker on a chain. I place it in the palm of my hand and feel its weight.
    â€˜Oh, Bill,’ is all I can say when I open my eyes.
    â€˜It’s from Jonah, too,’ says Bill.
    Jonah grins at me. His face looks a bit awkward, and I realise he has kept this secret for a while. ‘Here,’ he says, gesturing to me. Jonah has pianist’s hands, long delicate fingers. He takes the necklace and clips it around my neck.
    The boatshed didn’t have a mirror but Jonah’s house has three. I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. The bathroom mirror is smallish, but private, and I stand in front of it for a long time. Then I flush the toilet and go back out to the kitchen.
    I am wearing the sinker the next time I go to Mingin’s Hardware and Disposals.
    â€˜Well, what have you got there?’ asks Mrs Peck, licking her lips and probably thinking how much better the sinker would look on her.
    â€˜I tell you what I’ve got,’ I say, lowering my voice and leaning close to her ear, ‘I’ve got half Bill’s baby inside me and if you ever speak to me again I’ll tell Mr Peck everything I know.’
    In the quiet that follows, I watch Mrs Peck’s mouth open and close. I notice little marks around her neck where she’s gotten herself all tangled in someone’s line. And that’s not all.
    â€˜Here, let me get that for you, Mrs Peck,’ I say, and I pull a shiny FishMaster Super Series hook out of her ugly bottom lip.

    I haven’t left the house for a few days. Jonah says I’m nesting.