The Turning by Tim Winton

Author:Tim Winton [Winton, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330528221
Publisher: Picador
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sand

FRANK AND HIS OLDER BROTHER MAX walked behind the men along the white beach at sunset. They walked for ages. The sun boiled in the sea and the bare dunes turned pink. Tackle jingled and pattered on the rods over the men’s shoulders. Frank listened to the rhythmic clink of the lantern glass and fell into step with it, singing under his breath: hot cross buns, hot cross buns. Veins stood out in his father’s legs. The men’s footprints were deep. They were like mouths with tongues of shadow hanging out of them. One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns. It wasn’t Easter but Frank couldn’t get the song out of his head.

Now and then Max darted ahead to walk amongst their father’s mates. He said things that made them laugh. He was ten already and could make men laugh. He didn’t miss their mother. Frank knew he should shut up about her; it was only two weeks.

When they finally came to the rocks the men shoved pipes into the sand to stand their rods in and their father lit the gas lamp. The sun was gone but the sky was still light; it swirled yellow and green and blue like a bruise. When the tackle boxes opened he smelt whale oil and mulies. Frank watched his father tie on a gang of hooks whose curves flashed in the lamplight. Around them the others muttered and smoked. They were just like ladies knitting, like his mother’s friends. Max was down at the water’s edge skimming shells out across the tops of waves that spilled across the shelf of reef.

Now that he was used to him, Frank loved his father. It took a few days every summer to like the sweet and sour smell of him again, to understand the dark cracks in his palms and the way he squinted behind the smoke of his fag. Frank watched him pick up a half-frozen mulie and stitch it up the hooks. Max came up and threw himself down on the sand between them.

Now you boys behave yourselves, he said getting up off his haunches. When the tide drops you can come out onto the reef with us, orright?

Can we play in the sandhills? Max asked.

Yeah, but don’t go far. We might need someone to run the gaff out for us.

The other two men were wading out across the reef, the baits swinging in the last of the light, and before their father could join them they were casting into the gloom.

For a while Frank knelt in the warm sand to watch. You could see their heads and the curves of their rods against the sky. They were laughing. Moths came out of the dark to butt against the hot white glass of the lantern.

Max picked up the pack of matches that lay on the tackle box.

Let’s go up the hills, he said, slipping the matches into the pocket of his shorts.

Orright.

They walked over to the steep foredune and clawed up it and on the other side the sandhills rolled on and on forever.

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