The River Mouth by Karen Herbert

Author:Karen Herbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2021-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Colin

Nine days before Darren dies

It was easy to start a fire at the front of the cave and the boys sat around the flames, poking the wood back into the circle of stones when it fell away. Shadows hovered on the bushes and the white cliff walls. The illuminated Virgin Mary shone between a gap in the trees on the other side of the river. Over her head, the lights from the wharf were a distant orange glow and below her feet the carpark was floodlit and still. The night shift had already arrived. The sea breeze had died. The boys took turns to drink from the bottle of Coke they brought with them from Darren’s house. They’d also brought the remains of the pizza Darren’s dad had ordered them for dinner, and they fed strips of the empty box into the fire.

Colin hadn’t been camping since his parents took him and Rebecca on a road trip around the Pilbara. They’d free camped, pulling in at waterholes or by the sides of dry riverbeds, sleeping under the stars on blow-up mattresses, and waking up shivering with dew on their sleeping bags and animal footprints in the red dirt next to them. Rebecca had been good on that trip, he remembered. She consented to playing hangman in the car when they got bored and went exploring with him each day while Mum and Dad set up their camp sites. One time, they’d walked to the top of a breakaway and found a waterhole on the other side. Their parents let them go swimming there and even joined them for a while, the four of them splashing in the strangely chilly water, their shouts echoing off the rocks. It was too shallow for diving, but Colin and Rebecca took turns at being thrown out of the water by their dad. Even his mum had a go. It was late in the day, but they were dry by the time they got back to the camp, the rocks under their feet still warm from the sun. Colin’s dad made a fire on the riverbed and cooked them sausages that they ate between slices of white bread with tomato sauce. There was nothing to do after they’d eaten, so Colin wriggled into his sleeping bag on the wobbly mattress and looked for shooting stars and satellites. Rebecca fell asleep straight away. He could hear her snoring between him and the car.

At the cave, Colin sat on his sleeping bag, but it was thin between his butt and the limestone floor. He wished they’d brought some mattresses, but they were not supposed to be there anyway, and it was hard enough sneaking out at all.

‘What do we do now?’ Tim asked Darren when they’d finished the pizza. It was Darren’s idea to come down here. They’d waited until Mr and Mrs Davies turned out their bedroom light and Darren’s dad started snoring, then let themselves out the back door. ‘I’m not ready to go to sleep.

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