Jack, p.9
Jack, page 9
‘Have to knead like this.’
Takemoto,
the ever-subtle negotiator
is making the movement
of someone wringing water
out of a jumper.
‘That way not so tough, see?’
Ah May pushes him out of the way
and gets on with making dinner.
‘I sick of you, bloody diver,
want dis, want dat,
too hot, too cold
too hard, too soft.’
He bares his rickety
fencepost teeth, then laughs
with serious malevolence.
‘How bout I cook you for dinner, eh?’
His hands turn wildly in the air.
‘But have to knead you like dis,
otherwise
you too tough to eat.’
Labour Disputes
‘I not go down today,’
he says listlessly.
Takemoto’s leaning
on the engine casing,
shading his eyes
against the glare.
‘Why not?’
‘Diver can’t go down
always.
We have Sunday off
other boat.’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed,
this is not other boat.’
When he doesn’t respond
I have a dig.
‘You can’t put your white
shirt on and march
out here.’
He stirs a little, knowing I’m
referring to the infamous
Japanese deckies’ strike of ‘27.
I take a closer look at him.
He’s not on usual form.
There are pouches under his eyes
that would hold a bag of sugar each,
and he’s a bit green around the gills.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘That cook,’
he says ominously,
‘he try to poison me.’
I look across to where Ah May’s
tending his fire.
He does look
particularly smug
this morning,
singing to himself.
‘I doubt it,’ 1 say,
not doubting it
for a minute.
A Barney with the Missus
It doesn’t matter how long
you’ve been married,
the same old whinges
keep cropping up.
She’s talking in one ear.
I tilt my head
trying to catch her monotone
harpy whisper.
‘For the umpteenth time,’
I answer,
‘that wedding ring
cost me thirty quid.
I saved up for it
for months.
And it wasn’t plated,
it was proper bloody
nine carat gold.’
‘What, Boss?’
Sandy looks up
from his shell cleaning.
‘Nothing,’ I snap.
Her complaints
are making me bad tempered,
griping my backbone
all the way
from the neck
down.
A few more words
and I’m ready to smother
that long twanging voice,
that sarcastic, worming tone.
I finally explode.
‘And who are you to
put on airs and graces?
Some common shop girl
and a slut to boot
just like my mother!’
Sandy’s staring at me
open mouthed.
‘Don’t you start in on me
about the war again,’
I warn her.
‘It was your precious Ted
that put my eye out—
put an end to my chances
of signing up, remember?’
She squirts in a bit more venom,
and I know
I should know better
than to listen
but twenty year habits
are hard to break.
‘Well that may
well be.
What did he have
that I didn’t?
Apart from a few wounds
and some sob stories from the Somme.’
‘Boss?’
Sandy drops the shell
he was about to open.
It clatters across the deck.
I thin my lips
he was about to open.
It clatters across the deck.
I thin my lips
when I see the look
in his eyes.
‘Now you’ve gone
and upset the boy.
Just look at what
you’ve done.’
There’s Nothing Like a Man
in Uniform
In 1917, war was the only game in town
for real men.
The night Ted came over
with his movement orders
for France
he was twenty-seven,
handsome,
all kitted out.
Rose blushed and fluttered
over the
mutton and potatoes
she was cooking for dinner
in our poky little kitchen.
Even way back then
I saw she had a weakness
or should I call it patriotism?
What girl who loved
her King and Country
could resist
a man in uniform?
SIX WEEKS OUT
… NOR’EAST OF
STEPHEN ISLAND …
Auguries
Coming on dark,
water lapping
kathunk
against the anchored lugger.
The smell of frying onions
rises
straight up
past the thin
sail-less tree
of the mast
then further
into the yellow sky.
The crew all have the same
argumentative itch,
have had it
for days.
It’s the still, clammy weather.
Georgie throws a shell
that clocks Clive
on the head.
Takemoto and Morishita
are bitching at each other
in Japanese.
I look over to where
Dickie’s cleaning fish,
unzipping the bellies of trevally,
and I think,
before he tosses the steaming
wad of entrails overboard,
I should have a go at reading
them
the way the Romans used to do.
But then again,
some things are better left unknown.
In the end
I content myself
with sipping lukewarm whisky,
listening
to the single
teeth-edge chord
Sandy’s playing on his old guitar.
And watching
that last
lost bird
of the day
fly into the west.
I’m Not Jealous
‘You two.’ I hear the rasp in my voice.
‘Go out and stand on that sand bar
for the afternoon.’
Their faces drop
as they both look
to where
I’m pointing,
where the water is waist-deep
and the heat haze shimmering
like corrugated iron.
‘Why?’
The stunned innocence
in Sandy’s voice
almost gives me pause.
‘Because it will teach you
to keep your own counsel’
My eyes narrow.
I’m not telling
the whole truth.
I just don’t like the way
their heads are always together,
him and Georgie
getting stuck into
their Island lingo
and laughing.
Georgie never laughs
with me,
but that’s neither here nor there.
A man
of some sensitivity
can always tell
when he’s being laughed about.
Besides which
day in day out,
getting that close,
if I don’t put a stop to it
next thing I know
their hands’ll
be down
each other’s lava lavas
like a couple of bimbos.
Ah May’s carving up the lunchtime damper.
‘They can take their lunch out there,’
I tell him.
‘Only half a piece, mind.
Flour’s getting low.’
‘But, Boss!’ Georgie’s entreaty almost
undoes me, those fluttering lashes,
those glow-in-the-dark eyes.
Almost,
but not quite.
‘No buts,’ I say.
‘Soaking your willies for a while
won’t do you any harm.’
I watch them wade through the shallow water,
holding their lunches above their heads,
the golden syrup
melting down their arms
in a sticky trickle.
At the End of the Day
Sandy was all right,
just blubbering,
bubbles of spit
on his blistered lips.
It was Georgie
who pulled me up short.
Although he could hardly walk
after battling the currents
all afternoon
he stood upright,
while Ah May fussed around him.
‘No good,
skin clammy,
heat stroke.’
Georgie didn’t say a word,
but he didn’t take
his red-rimmed
octopus eyes
off me
for a second.
Of Mice and Men
Georgie hates me
but I can’t approach him,
not this morning
when I know
I own him
and he’s mine
to touch
and touch.
I’m doing you a favour, son.
I might be slow and stupid
today
but I’m also
full of idiot cunning.
I wouldn’t want
to do a bad thing
with my big
rough hands.
I Just Wanted Her to Look at Me
I close my eye
smell
fresh-from-the-bath
Cashmere Bouquet
with
coffee and cinnamon
from the honeymoon breakfast
at the Paragon cafe
still on her breath.
Rose lay on her back
in the park
and I learnt over her
obstructing
her cloud-watching view.
‘Back off,’
she teased.
‘I can’t see a bloomin thing
with your mug
in the way.’
Takemoto’s Paranoia
He says he doesn’t get enough air
when he’s diving
and points,
as if
it’s damning evidence
of my neglect,
to the place where his air line
joins the helmet.
With a brilliant leap of insight,
once again
he manages to point out
the bloody obvious.
‘It fraying,’ he says.
I sigh.
‘The end of the air line underwater
is under much less pressure
than the end above the surface.
Anyone who knows
which way’s up
should be able
to figure out
the stronger end
is always attached to the pump.’
‘You fix,’ he demands.
I’m not an endless well
of patience.
I feel my blood start
to heat.
‘You want something
to worry about,
how about
those staging guidelines
you keep ignoring?
Or that nong tender of yours—
just because he hasn’t
made a mistake for a while,
I wouldn’t take my health for granted
if I was you.’
Ted’s Last Night
Sometimes I imagine
how it must have been
for him,
just after dark,
that cold, dark
punch,
going over the side,
and
as he went under,
the storm-lashed light
from the lantern
on the mast
see-sawing
like a tipsy
moon.
I Get Mean when I Drink Too Much
I know it,
the boys know it.
They try to stay clear
when the whale
stirs in my belly
and every look they dare
hits me
like a blunt harpoon.
My knuckles are so stiff
this morning
I can’t unfold them,
the sun’s
throwing knives.
Then I see Dickie’s split lip.
‘You shouldn’t cheat at cards.’
I try to explain,
the rivets in my skull
groaning
with the effort.
‘Yessth, Bossth,’
the words whistled
through broken teeth.
His head’s down.
Still I feel the plague
he’s flinging at me
on a thin finger of morning fog.
It’ll have to wait
in line
till all the other plagues
are done.
I drag my black death
over
to the rocking side
of the lugger
and spew
great chunks of rice,
soy sauce,
corned beef,
all simmered
in gut-rot whisky.
Half Dress
‘What’re you doing?’
I’m not really interested.
I’m still trying to get
that snake
out of my mouth,
the one that crawled in there
and died.
‘Isaid … ‘
I wince at my own raised voice,
and promptly lower it again.
‘ … what are you doing?’
‘Make it easy to move round,’
he tells me curtly.
Takemoto’s got a knife out
and he’s cutting the legs off his diving suit.
The material’s resisting the blade
with a sickening sound
that makes my guts leap.
‘Go right ahead,’ I say,
carefully avoiding
the sharp edge
of each word.
‘Just don’t come running to me
when an eel
takes a chunk
out of your leg.’
Love and Marriage
What’s an argument
here or there?
It’s fun making up.
She giggles and twitters,
teases and pleases.
We wriggle and giggle,
happy as two foxes
with their heads
down a rabbit hole
built for two.
Mutiny
‘We want go home.’
They’ve chosen Bing Tang
to be their spokesman.
‘Soon.’ I grit my teeth.
‘Boss.’ He’s trying to be persuasive.
‘The hold full of shell,
food almost go,
and water.’
‘I’ll go back when I’m good
and ready.’
In my mind’s eye
is that vision
I’ve had
the last few nights
something milky-clear
as the tear
in any god’s eye …
sinking through
the layers
of my defences
to settle
in its undisclosed
cradle of sand.
Bing Tang’s voice brings me back.
‘We all say so, Boss.’
‘It’s that fucking lap, isn’t it?
He’s stirred the rest of you up.’
‘It all us,’ he says,
shrinking a little
in his skin.
‘We have meeting.’
‘Ah, mutiny, eh!’
I fix him with my glass glare.
‘Did I ever explain
what keelhauling is,
-boy?’
Now I Know
They’re All Out to Get Me
I’m not listening
as Georgie and Clive squabble.
Instead my ears are tuned
for that clink of steel.
I’m watching
for its giveaway flash.
Rose has taught me this much.
Just because
I can’t hear something
or see it
doesn’t mean
it’s not there.
Like the man
who swallows
swords for a living,
I take carefullungfuls
of air
around their
treacherous blades.
Strategy
‘It’s like this.
I’ve brought you all together
to explain
why we can’t go home right now.’
They’re sullen as storm clouds
sitting in a circle on deck
as I’ve instructed.
‘You see, boys …’
