Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
T he smell of meat cooking and loud singing coming from the kitchen of The Magic Fish was a pleasant surprise, as Evie bounded in through the front door. She laughed when she saw her mother dancing across the kitchen floor to a tune on the transistor radio. The sound of ‘Eagle Rock’ belted out from the tiny orange radio that balanced on the windowsill. Her mother did a few more moves before leaning over and turning it down. ‘At least we’ll get a bit of music and news on this,’ she said, wiping her arms across her brow. ‘No TV for two weeks. No Molly Meldrum and Countdown for you.’
‘I don’t care. There’s more to do here than watch TV. I just went to look at the beach.’
‘I figured that was where you were. I’ve started dinner. Can you please pour me a glass of that wine your father packed for me? Get yourself a soft drink out of the fridge, and we’ll celebrate the start of our holiday.’
‘Perfect!’ her mother exclaimed as Evie placed the two drinks on the table. ‘Cheers,’ she said, holding her glass up to Evie’s. Their glasses clinked. ‘Just you and me. I know you’re disappointed your father couldn’t come, but we’re going to make sure we have a good holiday. I’m a working woman now, with my own income. Freedom, really.’
Evie didn’t really understand the freedom comment, but she didn’t want to spoil the moment by asking what she meant. If her mother stayed in this mood for the whole time they were there, maybe they could have a good time.
The first two days they spent walking along the beach and relaxing. Both loved to read, and her mother had brought books from the library for Evie and herself. While her mother read thick paperback books, Evie immersed herself in beautiful, hard-covered books like Bill of Billabong and Seven Little Australians . Sometimes she read the stories twice if she really liked them. She noticed her mother kept her books in her bedroom, and when Evie went in there one day to try and find a hairbrush, she ran her hand over the covers of the neatly stacked volumes adorning the dressing table.
Her favourite was the James Michener book called ‘Hawaii’. On the cover was an islander girl with beautiful brown smooth skin, wearing a loose piece of blue fabric around her hips. The rest of her was naked, apart from a shell necklace that hung long over her bare breasts. A young man embraced her, leaning across her as if he was about to kiss her. One hand was wrapped around her head, the other resting on her stomach. Behind the couple, a mountain rose majestically, its peak hidden by dark clouds. Dark green palm trees grew in clusters at the edge of the beach, and under the title it said – A powerful novel of grand adventure . Evie looked at the cover every chance she could. It made her stomach do little flips, and she wanted to read it so badly. When she asked about it, her mother told her it was an adult book and wasn’t for kids.
There were so many aspects of her mother that were confusing. Why did she read books with naked women on the front? The Hawaii book wasn’t the only one in the pile with naked people on the cover. Why was her mother so happy here on the island? Was it because she didn’t have to go to work and clean, or was it because Dad wasn’t here? For once her mother slept in, walked around with no shoes on, read for hours and acted as though she didn’t have a care in the world. She spent time with Evie, talked about school next year and even asked if she had any questions. ‘You know, anything you want to know about the birds and the bees?’ she asked.
When Evie quickly said no, her mother breathed a sigh of relief. It was good to remember that some topics were obviously still off-limits, and some aspects of her mother had not changed.
At first it was fun to spend time relaxing and being by themselves, but it didn’t take long for Evie to start getting bored. She persuaded her mother to drive to Point Lookout, another small township north of where they were staying. They’d walked along the headland and watched dolphins leap in and out of the waves, as well as spotting large brown turtles in a deep gorge further around the headland. Hot chips from the takeaway shop had been a bonus, and as they sat on the grassy knoll eating them, Evie closed her eyes and let the breeze dance across her face.
‘I love it here, Mum.’
‘So do I, Evie.’
By the time they returned, her mother was ready for her afternoon nap. She had got into the habit of reading and sleeping in the afternoon, which left Evie to do whatever she wanted.
The next day Evie retrieved a fishing rod from the shed out the back. The rod was old and the reel was a bit rusty, but she wound it slowly and it still worked. A small tin containing old hooks and sinkers gave her the rest of the equipment she needed.
Tiptoeing into the kitchen, she took out a knife and a tea towel, just in case she caught something. As she made her way out through the front door and along the street, she quickened her pace. Who needed an adult to take you fishing? She knew what to do.
She decided to stay close to where the track led onto the beach. There were miles and miles of deserted coastline and although her father would have walked a good way along the beach to find the best gutters to fish, the spot in front of the track would do for today. After all, the reel was rusty and the hooks small, so it was going to be tricky to catch anything. Twisting her feet into the sand in the shallows, she moved her toes in and out, swivelling around until she found what she was looking for. Hard shells beneath her toes. Pipis. Big ones. Again and again, she twisted her body, picking out the smooth oval clam shells whenever her toes struck them. She worked fast. Pipis were smart and could bury themselves deeper, as if they knew someone was after them. But she’d done this a thousand times with Dad, and even he said she was the best pipi collector he knew.
Soon she had filled her bucket halfway, the kitchen knife doing its job as she levered the pipis open and flicked out the meaty muscle that lay protected inside.
After manoeuvring the hook through the bait, she walked a short distance into the water and cast her line to just beyond the waves. The tide was in, and although it was a calm day, small waves pounded in along the shoreline. The Pacific Ocean glistened in front of her, the surface moving with the currents and actions of the waves. She peered out beyond the breakers. There was nothing. Not a boat, surfer or swimmer as far as she could see. Her dad always called this spot ‘Saltwater Place’—a beach where hardly anyone came, where you could catch enough fish to feed a family, and where the salt air and cool breeze reminded him of the ocean near where he grew up, in Italy.
A tug on her line broke her daydream, and she spoke the words ‘Saltwater Place’ aloud as she wound her line in. Maybe today she would catch a fish big enough to feed her and Mum. She squinted as she tried to see where her line entered the water. It was difficult to tell if there was a fish on the end of the line, or if it was just the waves dragging her line back out to sea.
When she reeled in, her bait had gone and she bent down, putting her hand into the bucket and choosing the biggest pipi to put on her hook. The sounds of people behind made her look to see who was coming down the track. She swung her head back quickly, pretending she had not even looked that way. Staring out to sea, she turned her back on the group of kids coming down the beach. She had only quickly glanced at them, but there was no mistaking it was Chris and his sisters. Their laughter and chatter grew louder, and soon they were right behind her.
‘Catch anything?’ asked the eldest sister, who she remembered was called Lily.
‘Not yet.’
‘Hi, I’m Rose. We got some bream yesterday,’ the younger sister added.’
Chris peered into her bucket. He held a fishing rod in one hand and a wicker creel in the other. ‘Pipis. Big ones. Nice work.’
She tried not to stare at him, but his blue eyes were the same colour as the sky and his blonde hair reminded her of the boys who rode surfboards in her Dolly magazine ads. He wore shorts and a striped T-shirt, his feet bare the same as hers.
‘It’s just an old rod I found where we’re staying. Usually, Dad brings better ones for me, but he couldn’t come.’
‘Where are you staying?’ he asked, twisting his feet in the sand as he spoke.
‘Flinders. The Magic Fish .’
His sisters stood to the other side of her, their feet also busily trying to find pipis buried beneath the sand. ‘Don’t tell our mother that,’ Rose said. ‘That house is where we usually stay, but we changed our dates this year. You must have booked it before we could.’
‘We’re in the first house that backs onto the beach. It’s new and it’s called The Salty Dog ,’ Lily added.
Evie forgot about her fishing for a moment. ‘You’re staying here at Flinders?’
Chris held a pipi up high. ‘We’re here for two weeks,’
‘So are we.’ Evie said. Even though the girls were older than she was, they talked to her as if she was the same age, asking her questions about where she lived and what she thought about starting high school next year. Rose filled in some more details. ‘We’re in year twelve and eleven. Chris is in year ten. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you when you start. You know they’ll call you a vegemite. That’s the name for year eights.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ She must have sounded nervous because they reassured her she would be safe because she knew them. No one would be game enough to hide her bag or flush her head down the toilet. They were just some of the initiation acts they did to new kids .
Chris changed the subject. ‘I’m going to fish. What’re you two doing?’
‘We’re going for a walk,’ Lily replied. ‘See that headland. We’ll jog there and back.’
Evie concentrated on her rod. She thought she felt a tug on her line, but the waves bounced the bait around, and it was difficult to tell what was a bite and what wasn’t.
As the girls started to walk away, Rose turned around. ‘Do you play cards? Poker or Pontoon?’ She turned to her sister. ‘Evie could make up a four when we play Five Hundred.’
Evie took her focus off the fishing. ‘Yes. I love playing cards. My dad and I play all the time.’
‘Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?’ Chris asked.
‘No, it’s just me, Mum and Dad.’
Lily did a cartwheel, then came to stand beside Evie. ‘Will your mum let you come over and play cards with us? I can ask her on the way back. We’ll look after you.’
‘Sure. Yes. That’d be fun.’
The two girls waved as they walked away, playfully pushing and shoving each other as they jogged up the beach.
Chris was busy collecting pipis, and had put a bit of distance between himself and Evie. He walked back to her though, and threw some more in her bucket. ‘I have heaps,’ he said, pushing his hair back from his face.
‘Thanks,’ she said, focussing back on the fishing. She turned her reel slowly and stood firm. Something heavy was dragging on her line, and she let it pull a bit more before lifting her rod high, winding steadily and hanging on tightly.
‘I’ve got something,’ she called out.
Chris came and stood beside her, watching the tip of her rod as she hoisted it high and then wound. The rod bent over, and she moved her feet to gain a better balance in the sand. ‘Do you think I should wind or let it have a play?’ she asked Chris.
‘Just give it a sec and then pull that rod up again. That’s it, hold it tight, now wind.’
‘Whoa, it’s gone for a run.’ The reel spun in her hand as the line was pulled out by whatever was on the end.
‘It might be a shark. It looks big by the way the rod is bending over.’
She found it hard to talk as she concentrated on trying to reel the line in. Back and forth. Wind in. Pull up. Wind in. Pull up. At one stage, whatever was on the end of the line came in close before going for a second run. The line spun through her fingers as the fish tore away from the shore, then changed direction and swam parallel to the beach.
‘What will I do now?’ she asked as she followed the path of the fish.
‘Go with it,’ Chris said as he walked beside her, stopping when she did. ‘It must be getting tired.’
‘I wonder what it is?’
‘Wind again.’
‘My arms are hurting.’
‘Keep going. Come on, you can do it.’
Eventually, she felt like the fish was tiring. ‘I feel like it’s coming in.’
‘Keep going. You’re doing great. I think I saw it there, where the water’s clear. It’s huge.’
Suddenly, they could see it, a large silver fish that swam towards them in the waves, its final flings of freedom making them both catch their breath as it jumped high in the air before plunging below. As the fish trailed across the shallows, it wriggled and flopped in the clear water. Walking backwards up the beach, she pulled it up until it was visible on the waterline, its mouth open and its large eye staring straight at her.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said, running her hand over its shiny silver scales. ‘It’s bigger than me!’
‘It’s a mulloway, and I reckon it’s gotta be nearly six feet long. They love deep gutters. I’ve never seen one that big. It must be old.’
She looked at the fish again, the waves breaking behind it, the spray from the waves misty in the air. ‘I want to let it go.’
Chris’s eyes opened wide. ‘Really. You don’t want to eat it?’
‘No. I want to let it go. Look at it. It’s beautiful.’
He twisted his mouth. ‘It’s up to you. It’s your fish.’
‘Can you help me get the hook out of its mouth? Dad usually does it for the big fish.’
‘Are you sure about not keeping it?’
‘Yes.’
He looked up and down the beach. ‘I’ll help, if you promise not to tell anyone we let it go. I’d never hear the end of it.’
‘I promise. ’
‘Run and get the folding ruler out of my creel. I’ll measure it for you first.’
‘Five foot, eight inches,’ he declared as he held the wooden ruler beside it. ‘Remember that length.’
Holding it firmly with one hand, Chris gently wiggled the hook free from its mouth. He held its large body against the sand with both hands, and she looked at the colours of green and bronze that glimmered in amongst the silver scales. The huge fish twisted, its tail kicking up sand as it fought for breath. ‘Do you want to put it back in the water?’ Chris asked. ‘It’s going to be hard to hold.’
Evie put her arms around its body and clasped her hands together. ‘Can we do it together? We’ll walk out in the water and then let it go.’
Together, they lifted the fish and waded into the water until it reached their hips. The fish squirmed as if sensing the freedom of the depths below. Evie examined it closely, her fingers tracing its shiny scales. ‘That was amazing!’ she exclaimed, meeting the fish's gaze with a smile.
With care, they lowered it back into the water. As it neared the surface, it sprang from their grasp, disappearing into the depths in a shimmer of silver. A fleeting blur darted through the clear water, vanishing towards the deeper expanse. Only ripples remained, and they stood silently, scanning the surface for any hint of its existence. Birds swooped and dove, while waves crashed, obscuring what lay beneath. Chris broke the quiet, his voice filled with awe. ‘I’ve never released a fish like that before. But it felt... incredible.’
‘I knew it would.’
‘What now?’ he asked.
She grinned at him. ‘It’s a competition. Catch and release. See if you can get a bigger one.’
Standing side by side, they spent the next two hours fishing. When the pipis looked like they were running out, Chris gathered more and filled her bucket. Between them, as well as the mulloway, they caught four bream and two dart. They were even, but she was the overall winner today, with her catch and release fish.
Evie felt like she was really on holiday now. The fishing was what she loved the most, and now she was with someone else who loved it also. ‘We’ll tally up the fish count at the end of the holiday. I have a book I write in, and I’ll keep a record of who catches what,’ she told Chris.
By the time the two girls came back from their walk, Chris and Evie were talking and laughing like they had been friends for ages. She even mentioned that she remembered him from her first day of school. ‘You poked your tongue out at me. Standing next to Mrs Montrose and holding a list of students. It was you.’
He looked bashful. ‘It was me, and I remember you because of your long hair and black shoes.’ He laughed. ‘I do remember, and also I knew who you were even after that because your father sold us a vacuum cleaner, and I saw you in his shop.’
‘Oh, I never saw you. ’
‘I was with Mum and she was cranky with your dad because something wasn’t right with the vacuum.’ He sighed. ‘She gets mad when things don’t work.’
Evie laughed. ‘Oh, he’s used to that. Don’t work in a shop, he tells me.’
‘He’s very good at his job. He calmed Mum down and won her over. I sat near the front door, and that’s probably why you didn’t see me. But I could see you. You were sorting things out at a big desk. Then you dusted the shelves and you fell off the chair. Your dad didn’t notice though, because he was still calming Mum down.’
‘I remember the day I fell off the chair. I didn’t think anyone saw it.’
‘I did.’
‘I didn’t hurt myself. Just a couple of bruises. You shouldn’t have poked your tongue at me on that first day of school. I was only in year one.’
‘You poked yours back.’
‘Okay, then we’re even.’
They stared at each other and laughed. ‘Watch out, here come my sisters. They’ll love you because they’ve always wanted a younger sister.’
‘I always wanted a brother or sister, younger or older, I wouldn’t have minded. It’s just me though.’
The girls came up beside them. ‘Nice catch,’ Lily said. ‘Dad will be happy to have some fish for dinner.’
‘Three of them are Evie’s,’ Chris said. ‘We’re even with the fish count.’
‘We’re going back to the house. Let’s get together this afternoon,’ Rose said as she looked in the bucket at the fish. ‘We have ice blocks and cream buns. Our mum won’t want extra kids over though, so if you go to the park, we’ll meet you there.’
Lily was doing cartwheels up the beach and Rose twirled around, running after her younger sister. ‘See ya later,’ she called out.
‘I’d better go too,’ Chris said. ‘Mum wants me home around this time.’ He shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘Meet you in the park this afternoon.’
‘Sure, that’d be fun.’
He packed up his fishing gear and picked up his rod, watching as she tipped the pipis from her bucket into the water. Seagulls squawked loudly, picking up the pieces and flying off with them hanging from their beaks.
‘I’m going up too,’ she said. ‘Hang on, I’ll walk with you.’
Now that she’d caught a fish with Chris, and made a secret pact for a competition, she felt like they were friends. He was easy to talk to and didn’t treat her like she was younger. He wasn’t boisterous and noisy like some of the other boys at school, and she wondered if it was because he had sisters. When she suggested throwing the fish back in, he immediately understood and told her it was her decision. Other boys would have made fun of her and called her a girl, or a sook. Letting the fish go was the best feeling ever. The mulloway had been beautiful to look at and hold, but it had fought hard and been full of life. All she wanted was to see it swim away. To be free.