The Ink Bridge (19 page)

Hec got off the bus and watched it cruise up past Pier 35 and desert him. It was the last bus of the day and, with it gone, he would be making the long trip back to the city on foot.

This was not an area where Hec should be at night. But it used to be worse – hard drinkers murdering mates, shootings and concrete boots – or so Dad had told him. He wondered if it was his way of talking it up, creating an aura of menace where there was only hard sand and mutilated seabirds wearing yards of nylon fishing line. Still, he was nervous. It was the first time he had been there by himself.

The lights were winking at him from Spotswood and, as tugs bruised their way back up the river, he ambled between the she-oaks and down to the pontoon. The smell of wild turnip rose from his feet. Then the overtone of oil, dark musk, from the refinery. Finally the sour-packed smell of river sand sat too long. These were the three smells that were this place.

It was not yet the sea, but its water was milky green like a lime spider had been poured into the narrow neck before Hobsons Bay. It was a river tamed, bulked with containers, nudged by huge refinery tanks, cobbled with rough heads of bluestone. The Maribyrnong and the Yarra met up at Coode Island and they brought with them tennis balls, plastic bottles and palm fronds. He knew on the thin ribbon of shore he would find syringes, strewn like still lifes among single shoes, rubber kitchen gloves and old pool noodles. As a kid he loved to beachcomb along this stretch with his Dad bloodhounding behind, warning him not to touch, not that, or that. Now he could touch anything he wanted to, but the hand of fear was on him.

To his left, the bike path ran downriver, past a yellow sign that said ‘Beware' above a snakelike squiggle, onto the stinking ponds of West Gate Park. Hec had never believed that there were snakes here, so close to the city. But many things about the bridge surprised him. It cloaked its secrets well.

During the day, the West Gate Punt ran from spring to autumn carrying cyclists across the river to Williamstown. At night the pontoon was usually abandoned, but there was a hunched figure at the far end. Hec walked down the wooden walkway and across the aluminium ramp that connected the floating pier to dry land. Immediately he could feel the water buckling underneath him. Above him, the West Gate Bridge hummed like a substation. He could see its sleek underbelly, its scaled gut hanging over the river.
Beware
. He kept walking, but he couldn't take his eyes from the bridge, the way it flung itself at the far bank, landing among a nest of pylons and black wires. His feet scuffed as he hit the pontoon proper; the bridge swayed. The lights were brighter near Scienceworks, pulsing into the dull river. And still the bridge droned out its dirge. It looked benign, but he knew it was a rogue tumour waiting to erupt into a new life. His dad had told him of when it had fallen while they were building it, killing, maiming, changing. How it had pushed up the mud, slinging it at houses, burying people. Still Dad continued his belief in engineers, like they were gods and it was his faith. Blind faith.

Hec knew that things fell all the time. You couldn't tell by looking at them. The cracks were so small, naked to the human eye. Things fell and as they dropped, they dragged everything with them. It was something to do with physics, Hec was sure; physics and luck, or lack of it.

Hec felt small under the bridge. He always had. It made no difference how much older he got or what he managed to do, the bridge could take his breath away, pin him like an insect, just by being there. He traced an imaginary line from the bridge to the water. It wasn't a graceful arc, just a straight drop. A drop with no style, just economy, ending in the plate glass of the river. Hec moved forwards, keeping his eye on the bridge and the river, trying to align them in his mind to that exact spot where he and Dad would stand before it all became so tainted.

‘Watchit, ya
eejit
!
'

Hec's knees had hit something soft and his body tricked itself into continuing when plainly it should have stopped. He ended up on top of a fisherman, tangled in him, sprawled over his back as the man bent over his bait bucket.

‘Were ye no lookin where yer goin?'

Hec scrambled to his feet and held up his hands in surrender. He wasn't sure what the old man had said, but he seemed pissed off.

The man rotated his shoulder under a clawed hand. He looked at Hec and his face softened. ‘Aw, yer awright, son, don't mind me I'm just a
crabbit
old man,' he said and continued to bait up. He whirled his line at the water then dropped the spool into the bucket. They both watched the ripples fanning outwards and dying. There was a brief silence between them, the only noise from a boisterous tug moving upstream and the deadly hum of the bridge.

The fisherman shook his head and said, ‘Wanna know somethin?'

Hec didn't, but he nodded politely.

‘I've been comin here for near on thirty years. Thirty years. Long time, eh? One thing that's stayed the same is this water. Keeps on draining into the bay no matter what they do to it.'

The old guy was creepy, the yellow light that crumbled off the refinery made him more so. His eyes were knots of darkness under his wiry brow and, as he spoke, he rubbed his hands together so they made a noise like wind sneaking through dried thistle stalks.

‘I first laid my eyes on the bay in nineteen sixty-six. I was old even then. See these hands, boatbuilder's hands – all scar and weld burn. This one above my eye. Some mental chibbed me with a spanner.'

He rubbed the pucker of the scar with his pinkie.

‘Well shot of the place. A dump. No like here. Raw beauty.'

He swept his arm across from Spotswood to Coode Island, including the umbilicus of the bridge.

‘You look familiar, sonny-boy. Do I know you?'

It seemed more an accusation than a question. Hec quickly shook his head.

The man sandpapered the back of his hand with his stubbled chin and even in the poor light, Hec could make out his chipped teeth and the terrible mess of his nose.

‘You drink?'

Hec shook his head again.

‘Good lad. Shockin habit.' He took a long swallow and winced. ‘See that bridge?' He pointed his bottle neck at the West Gate. ‘I built that.' He laughed at Hec's expression. ‘No by myself. I mean I had help in the matter.'

He coughed and leant against the railing of the pontoon. The water sucked and swirled underneath.

‘There were a lot of men, good men, on that bridge. I left all my folk behind in Scotland. We were like a family, us bridge-builders. Believe me, sonny, it's a good thing to belong.

‘There was a young guy, a Croat called Stanko. When the bridge fell, I watched him go.'

The fisho took another long swig at his bottle.

‘You know what a slab of concrete does when it hits the ground?' The man dropped his flat palm onto the railing. ‘It makes a bloody big mess that's what. The folks round here were pickin mud off their curtains fer weeks. As we were diggin our mates outta the shit.'

He hadn't noticed his handline was quivering in the bucket.

‘But I loved that job. Everyone tellin me how I shoulda given it up after that. How could I?'

The spool was rattling now, jumping to the lip of the bucket.

‘That's what I knew – steel and mates. And with my mates gone, all I had left was the steel.'

The spool shot from the bucket, bounced over the pontoon and to the rail, it was ready to hop over and disappear into the river when the old fisho's foot came down, stopping it dead. He reached down slowly, keeping his eyes on Hec's and smiling. Slowly, he reeled it in, the line biting into his fingers, zipping through the grey-black water.

‘This one's a wee stoater.' He pulled with one hand, freeing up line then spooling on with the other. It was a battle. The strain was on his face as he drew the fish in from deep water. His brows were waves, his eyes whirlpools.

‘He's looking fer snags, anything – old wheels, bikes, washin machines, skeletons – the river's full of them, and he knows it.'

He dragged at the line until Hec saw a flash of white in the water. He had never been a fisherman, but he could not take his eyes from what was happening. It was a battle between land and sea and it looked as if either could win. Hec closed his eyes and hoped for the fish. Surely this man would never eat something that came from this polluted water. It would be just another waste of life.

Hec caught a flash of it as it neared the surface. He gasped. For all the world it looked like the slender body of a child. He shook his head free of the thought. It came up again, further out, shattering the surface of the water, grunting like a pig. The old fisho was panting. There was whisky leaking from his skin, smoke seeping from his chest.

After fifteen minutes, the fish rolled its glossy belly to the sodium suns that illuminated the bridge. It grunted again, deep belly burps, as it drew alongside the pontoon. The old man reached down and, grabbing it by the gills, pulled it up beside him. The fish was nearly as tall as him, dark-brown flanks in the light of the lamps with dappled purple along its back. He slammed it onto the worn boards. It lay there panting for a moment, its gills clutching at the thin, thin air.

Hec placed a hand on the heaving fish. It felt warm. How could that be?

‘King Mulloway, sonny-boy. Knew it.'

The fisho gathered his knife in his scarred hand and pinned the giant fish to the boards. When the blade slipped in, the fish shuddered violently. Hec wanted to be sick. It had looked like a child. A strong smell pulsed from the fish – pungent kerosene or ammonia, piss from a copper pot.

‘Others call them jewfish, but I like to think of 'em as Jewelfish. Know why?' The deep purple was draining from its skin, the belly still silvery-white.

‘Let's have a wee peek, shall we.' The fisho's knife went in deep, up behind the eyes. The old man dug around and flipped something onto the pontoon. ‘Jewels, sonny-boy. One fer you and one fer me.' He picked up the small bloody bag that had come from the fish and forced two tear-shaped pearls from it.

The man pressed the jewel into Hec's palm. Hec looked down at the mess on the pontoon. When the fish had come from the water it had been so vital. There was strength in its tail and the red slashes of its gills. Now, it was an empty sack. Its eyes were dull. It had shed scales over the splintered planks.

‘Hey, where you goin? We were just gettin started. Yer no cryin over a bloody fish are you? These bastards fed off my mates. You get it? They live on the dead!'

Hec backed up the walkway and onto the path. Past the she-oaks – whispering to him in the dark. He could see the man's eyes, feel his clawed hand kneading into his. He turned and ran.

‘We'll be seein each other!' the man shouted after him.

He was past Pier 35 when he stopped. It was a long way back to the city and he couldn't run the whole length of Lorimer Street. He hoped the trams would still be running. The fear was still inside him and he half considered calling Dad. But it would have meant a total surrender. No, he would walk home just to scare his old man a little, to prove to him that he could do it, that he could be alone in this world without him. It was his choice to come home. And his choice to take that stinking nuff-nuff job at the candle factory.

The walk along Lorimer Street and back into the heart of the city was tiring and Hec's calves ached. When he boarded the last tram it felt good to rest his legs. He thought back on the night. He felt like he had won a small victory.

He had been sitting on the tram for fifteen minutes when he felt the sharpness in his jacket. He reached inside and pulled out the jewel. He held it to the light and it seemed to glow. It was a tear, a drop of sadness from inside the fish; a fish that had swallowed the bones of those who fell from the bridge and with them their sorrow. And then it had swallowed the fisho's hook.

That old fisho. He was weird. And he stank of rollies and whisky and bait. He was wrong. They would never see each other again. Not if Hec had anything to do with it.

THE TRAIN SHRIEKED INTO DANDENONG station and Hec crossed the platform and turned left into Little India. He pulled the scrap of paper with directions from his pocket. Dad's stencil-sharp lettering, his ruler-edge streets, the ladder of rail tracks. Beyond the boundaries of the map, a wino scummed fags and change, a teenage girl bought a hit from a guy in a Metallica shirt. Hec turned the paper over and noticed his dad had written something on the back, but changed his mind and scrubbed it out. He held it up to the light, but the blue frenzy of biro lines was too thick and there was no way of knowing what Dad had thought he needed to say.

Polynesian girls in butt-huggers and hip-hop hats sat staring at the concrete in front of the Alfy Travel Centre. Tall Africans in shirts and dark trousers with skin like ripe eggplant loafed outside of Heritage India – its chaos of bright saris not even worth their cool stares.