Cod Opening - by Wayne Marshall
ISLAND | ISSUE 154
It’s dusk by the time Cod speeds over the cattle grid and into the forest. Soon as he hits the gravel, he throws off his seatbelt and brings his window down. The familiar smells of eucalyptus and dust flood the cabin of his green Nissan. The heat too, hitting him like a furnace blast. But he welcomes it, delving into his esky and opening a beer, his first for the drive despite three-hundred-odd kilometres of temptation.
So, finally. After a near torturous week of waiting, it’s here. After a week of sleepless nights, of time crawling by on the factory walls, of preparing his fishing rods and watching the weather – Cod Opening. Every first weekend in December it’s the same. Rain, hail or shine, and no matter what’s happening in their lives, Cod and his friends converge on the river, eager to catch their first Murray cod of the new season.
Deeper into the forest he goes, dodging potholes the size of moon craters, the voices of cricket commentators on his radio turning to static. He spots emus and kangaroos in the tinder-dry scrub. At the river he veers left, driving until he reaches a tree with a green VB can nailed to its trunk. Slowing, he scans the bush.
There are tents, cars, half a dozen men by the riverbank.
‘Boys!’ Cod rides his horn as he pulls into the camp. He hurries from his car, beer in hand. Already he’s in a sweat, still wearing his thick work shirt, trousers and boots.
‘Cod!’ comes the universal cry. The men flock to him, shaking his hand. The last in line is Sheldon. He’s shirtless, and wearing his weathered Akubra hat. It’s been six months since they saw each other – the last time was Cod’s daughter’s engagement party – and Sheldon’s looking older. They all are. But he notices it in Sheldon the most, given how often he sees the younger version, the two men standing side by side during Cod’s wedding ceremony, in the framed photo on Julie’s side of the bed.
Wasting no time, Cod asks how the fishing’s going so far.
‘Haven’t been out yet,’ says Sheldon. ‘Too hot.’
‘Haven’t been out yet? What about throwing a line in off the bank?’
Sheldon sips his beer. ‘Just relaxing, mate. Plenty of time for fishing.’
‘Plenty of time? We’ve got two days. Day and a half, really.’
‘As I said. Plenty of time.’
Cod laughs with the others, walking to the edge of the bank.
Below, the Murray unfurls in all its glory. Snake-like, it curls between the tall banks that wall it in, the blue-green water peppered with the limbs of fallen timber. To some the snags are an eyesore – to Julie, for instance, who refuses to go anywhere near the river, unless it’s on the deck of a luxury paddle-steamer, complete with glass of wine and three-course meal. But to Cod the timber only adds to the magic. Because there are cod down there, lurking beneath the logs. Big cod, enormous cod. He’s hunted them all his life, since his father took him here as a boy. Throughout the years, he’s amassed a considerable tally of really big fish, documented in a shrine of grainy polaroids in his shed. But what he hungers for is the massive one, the monstrous one.
“Because there are cod down there, lurking beneath the logs. Big cod, enormous cod. He’s hunted them all his life, since his father took him here as a boy. Throughout the years, he’s amassed a considerable tally of really big fish, documented in a shrine of grainy polaroids in his shed. But what he hungers for is the massive one, the monstrous one.”
He swings to the men. ‘Righty-o, you lazy bastards. Who’s gonna give me a hand getting my boat in the water?’
*
Cod works fast, racing the falling night. He reverses to the edge, where the men help him slide the tinnie from his trailer and down the steep bank. Drenched in sweat, he lugs his outboard down. Soon he’s in the boat and good to go.
‘What about your rods?’ Sheldon watches from above, hands on hips.
Cod smiles from the driver’s seat. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Then what—’ Sheldon laughs. ‘Can’t help yourself, can you? I’d be careful with that shit if I was you. Fisheries’ll have your balls if they catch you doing it.’
‘How long since we’ve seen Fisheries out here?’ Cod squeezes the fuel pump. ‘And at this time of day?’
‘Never know when they might show up. Especially being Cod Opening.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’ Cod grabs the nose of the starter cord.
‘Oh well. Your funeral.’
‘Yeah, and yours when I come back carrying a hundred-pounder.’
Cod yanks the starter cord and the engine roars to life. He jets away, the rushing air like cool water across his sun-reddened face.
Sheldon’s right, of course. Anyone caught operating an unmanned set-line – a ‘springer’ – faces a ten-grand fine, not to mention the impoundment of his boat and possible court appearance. The argument is that not only are springers cruel in keeping a fish hooked for a prolonged time, but that fishermen can also catch unintended animals – pelicans, say, or other large waterbirds. But it’s all a bunch of bullshit as far as Cod’s concerned, typical of the raft of rules and regulations handed down in recent times. If you want to catch the really big ones, a normal fishing rod just doesn’t cut it. For the really big ones, you need a springer. That’s the way his old man did it. And his old man before him.
He’s not an idiot though, so he works quickly, eyes peeled for boats. In no time he’s planted five springers, starting two bends upstream and working his way back. Every spot’s chosen in a rush, not having the freedom – or light – to choose carefully.
All except the sixth and final line.
Last trip, when they camped in the same spot, Cod set a springer in a tantalising backwater around the bend. He checked it the first morning – the bait hadn’t been touched. But when he came by the second morning, he found the green fishing line floating on the surface, broken, smashed. Whatever he’d hooked had fought so hard that the springer’s rubber handle had left an imprint on the timber.
Cod shifts the engine to idle and drifts to the log. The imprint is still there, evidence of his previous defeat. But not this time. This time, he’s fashioned a rig using steel line, the kind usually reserved for deep sea fishing. Another improvement is the chemically sharpened, triple-barbed hook. Then there’s the yabby. At the bait shop on the way, Cod asked for the biggest, nastiest yabbies in stock. He picks up the wildest of the bunch now, slicing the hook through its meaty tail. The finishing touch is a cowbell. He tests it, the copper bell clanging across the darkening river.
After nailing the rubber handle to the log, Cod tosses in the line. He attaches the cowbell and for a moment it goes on tolling, like a forecast, a premonition.
“After nailing the rubber handle to the log, Cod tosses in the line. He attaches the cowbell and for a moment it goes on tolling, like a forecast, a premonition.”
*
Night’s fallen by the time Cod steps back on dry land. Since he’s been gone, another half-dozen men have arrived. The perimeter of the camp is now a parking lot of four-wheel drives and utes. In front of them, a collection of dome tents and swags jostle for space. A campfire rages, despite the temperature lingering in the thirties. Its flames flicker and leap and spit, illuminating the faces of those gathered around it.
Cod puts up his tent in the firelight, then joins the circle, opening a beer.
Before long the men are telling stories from their years of coming to the river. Barge brings up the time they put a dead goanna in Mick’s sleeping bag. Everyone laughs, even Mick, who says that incident goes a long way to explaining his heart condition. He then tells the story of how Leon, notorious for hating other campers encroaching on their space, stripped naked and did cartwheels by the river, scaring off the old couple who’d pulled up in a campervan. There are stories of roo-shooting missions gone awry, over-inquisitive snakes, wild brawls in the pub outside the forest.
All the while, Cod keeps an ear out for the bell. A number of times he’s certain he hears it, and jogs to the riverbank. But it’s always something else: a bird, the cicadas, a certain high-pitched note in the hum of conversation.
By the time he flops drunk and exhausted into bed, his mind’s an echo chamber of imaginary bells. They even invade his dreams. That’s why it takes him a while to spring upright when, right on dawn, the real one begins tolling in the distance.
“By the time he flops drunk and exhausted into bed, his mind’s an echo chamber of imaginary bells. They even invade his dreams. That’s why it takes him a while to spring upright when, right on dawn, the real one begins tolling in the distance. ”
He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t breathe. When confirmation comes, he scrambles into a shirt and pair of army-green shorts. Then he bursts from the tent, leaping the ashes of the fire. In a heartbeat he’s in the boat and speeding upstream.
He rounds the bend. Ahead, the cowbell swings wildly. But not only that. The log itself is moving. Now pulling. Now bending. Now threatening to snap.
Cod’s at the timber before his next breath, ploughing into it, the overhanging branches slashing his bristled cheeks. He snatches the zigzagging line.
‘Fuck,’ he gasps, pulling. It’s heavy. Heavier than any fish he’s ever caught. It’s an effort just to lift it from the bottom. In the struggle the bell falls into the river.
Grunting, sweating, he finally makes headway. Any second the fish will show in the water. He pulls. And pulls. Suddenly, a sequinned tail rears up and slaps the surface, long as an oar and forked at the end. Cod frowns. And then. No—
A face, in the water. A lip, bloodied and cut through with the hook.
A woman’s face. With green eyes that blink.
He falls back, dropping the line as if it’s white hot.
*
‘Is everything okay, mate?’ Cod and two others are in his boat, tied to a shady bank. Earlier, he, Mick, Leon and Chappy set out in their boats – downstream from camp – carrying two passengers each. He’d wanted to say no, he’d wanted to tell them the river was the last place he could be. But he was numb with shock and couldn’t begin to explain what had happened. So here he is, smoking like he hasn’t since his cancer scare last year, hunched forward, eyeing the river with something like suspicion.
“So here he is, smoking like he hasn’t since his cancer scare last year, hunched forward, eyeing the river with something like suspicion.”
‘Cod?’ says Geoff.
‘Think I’m just tired.’ He takes another drag of his smoke.
‘Up at the crack of dawn chasing bells’ll do that to you.’ Sheldon’s at the toe of the boat, his jovial voice a telltale sign he’s already drinking. ‘Yeah, I heard you this morning. What’d you catch?’
Cod tells him it was a small yellowbelly. ‘Yeah, figured we would’ve heard if it was something decent.’
Cod smiles half-heartedly. When the men look away, his face goes blank again.
So, a mermaid. He lets the word linger, willing it to conform to the normality of other words he knows, like footy and factory and scoreboard. But it can’t. Won’t.
‘Cod!’ says Sheldon. ‘Your rod!’
Sure enough, his black Shimano is bent double. Normally, he’d be on his feet and snatching it up, his back arched and rod held high. But not today. Today he remains seated, reeling without enthusiasm until the mouth of a reasonably-sized cod appears at the surface. He lifts the fish straight into the boat, not bothering with a net.
‘Good one!’ Geoff slaps Cod’s back. ‘That has to be nudging ten pound.’
Cod looks at the fish as it gasps for air on the aluminium flooring. It’s the first time he’s seen the green-skinned natives as anything other than beautiful.
Back at camp, the eskies are raided, the cricket commentary turned on. While the others take to deckchairs by the blackened fire, Cod walks upstream, following a path between the bank and some tall grass potentially home to snakes. He goes until the river straightens out and he can see the log. It isn’t moving. He can’t be sure about the line.
Aren’t mermaids supposed to have hands, he wonders? He didn’t see any this morning, but if she does, why doesn’t she just pull out the hook? He pictures her attempting it, visualises the underwater struggle of it, and for the first time contemplates what it might be like to have a hook through his lip. He puts a calloused finger to his mouth, the cicada shrill reaching fever pitch in his ears.
He can almost feel the wound.
“He puts a calloused finger to his mouth, the cicada shrill reaching fever pitch in his ears.
He can almost feel the wound.”
*
As per their ritual every Saturday on a trip, come the afternoon they cram into two cars and drive to the pub outside the forest. There are often arguments beforehand, none of the men wanting to drive and thus be confined to light beer. Cod volunteers from the get-go, in no mood for a day of heavy drinking, and keen to escape the river as quickly as possible.
So he drives, the air conditioner on full blast. Around him, the others drink and jostle and yabber, squeezed into the back like teenagers on a joy ride. Cod eyes their ageing faces in the rear-view. These are men he’s known for decades. The best man at his wedding sits in the front passenger seat, for fuck’s sake. Why, then, can’t he tell them? Why is it so hard to simply open his mouth and let the story come out?
Soon, he and Big Toe are pulling up outside the pub in a cloud of dust. Cod steps from his Nissan, confronted not only by the heat, but also the scorched yellow paddocks surrounding the pub in every direction. Swatting flies from his face, he trails the others inside and onto carpet that once upon a time was red. They take their usual corner, beneath a row of screens showing the horseraces and cricket.
Rounds are bought, form guides produced. Cod’s handed a pot of light beer.
Gradually, the paddock outside fills with cars. Men pour into the air-conditioned bar, the majority of them in shorts and thongs, their shoulders red-raw with sunburn. Cod has always loved the communal noise of men in pubs: the peals of booming laughter, the roar of competing voices, the drunken clatter of glasses. But today it’s too much. Today he needs something softer. Something like—
Above the rim of his pot glass, he spots the middle-aged bar woman. Her bleached hair is in a bun, and a gold necklace disappears into freckled cleavage. He’s never paid her much attention during visits. She’s always simply been there, like the pool table, the jukebox. But as the afternoon goes on, he begins to stare at her, more and more, until he finds himself approaching the bar.
‘What’ll it be?’ she asks.
Cod orders a round of heavy beers, plus a light for himself. While he waits, he points up at the taxidermied cod head, looming colossal and unblinking above the bar. ‘That the biggest fish ever pulled from here?’
‘Just about.’ She doesn’t look up from the tap. ‘Although there’s always someone claiming to have caught bigger.’
He swallows. ‘You know of anyone catching other big things? Weird things?’
‘Weird things? What sort of weird things?’
‘Things you wouldn’t expect to catch.’ He bites his lip. ‘Impossible things.’
She looks at him. ‘Such as?’
‘A mermaid.’ He fires it out, before his better judgement can stop him.
‘A mermaid.’
‘I’m not joking. I’ve caught a mermaid. I think she’s still there.’ Tears streak towards him in a hot, shameful flush. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
The woman glances at his friends, then beckons him forward. ‘Listen to me, mate,’ she says in a low voice. ‘You lot. You come in here. You drink and you fight and you piss all over the toilet seats I have to clean – and a hundred times worse. And I cop it all with a smile. But if you expect me to stand here and be the butt of some joke for the benefit of your mates, you’ve got another thing coming. Got it?’
It’s an effort for Cod to remain standing.
‘You fucking got it?’
He nods dumbly.
‘Good.’ She snatches the fifty from his fingers. ‘Now here’s your drinks.’
*
He switches to heavy beer, gulping four in the next hour, and god knows how many after that. The horses run. The Australian batting order collapses. Next thing it’s dark, and the men are stumbling to the cars. It isn’t until Cod drops his keys while reaching for the ignition that Sheldon asks how many he’s had.
‘A couple.’ He adjusts the rear-view.
‘More like a lot. You’re ratshit, mate. You can’t drive.’
‘Be fine.’ Cod starts the Nissan and throws it into reverse.
And he is, trailing Big Toe between moonlit paddocks and back into the forest. Right up until there’s a flash of headlights in his mirrors. Turning, he sees an official-looking white car. The others stop their drunken horsing around and turn.
‘Cops!’ says Geoff.
‘Pricks must’ve seen us leave,’ says Barge.
Sheldon looks to Cod. ‘They’ll have a mobile breatho, mate.’
Cod glares back at him. ‘Think I don’t fucken know that?’
Sheldon’s face sours. ‘Hey, I’m not the one who got tanked after putting up his hand to drive. What’s wrong with you, anyway? You’ve been in the shits all day.’
Cod drives in silence, hands strangling the wheel, the car close behind. His headlights wash through a conspiracy of trees; the glowing eyes of unknown animals watch him from the scrub. An eternity later he reaches the tree with the VB can.
‘Is it following us in?’ he mutters, pulling into camp.
The men watch with bated breath. And then, ‘Yeah. Shit, mate. It is.’
Cod parks the Nissan and, head hung low, steps out. The others follow.
‘Gentlemen.’ The approaching voice is stern, official.
Yet when Cod looks up, a weight lifts from his shoulders. Because it’s not a cop. It’s a Fisheries officer, blue-uniformed and youngish, with a bushy black beard. He walks towards them, pooled in the headlights of his idling four-wheel drive.
‘G’day, mate,’ says Cod, offering his hand. ‘How’s things?’
The officer refuses the handshake. ‘I’ll cut to the chase. We had a boat through here this afternoon. And all along the next two bends heading upstream we found a slew of illegal set-lines. So tell me: what do you guys know about that?’
The men chorus a denial of any wrongdoing.
‘Yeah, right. There’s not another camp for kilometres in that direction. I know it was one of you. Only thing saving you is I don’t have any proof.’
For a good five minutes he keeps them there, lecturing them on the debilitating effects of set-lines and other rogue fishing practices of the past. When finally he turns to leave, he says, ‘Oh, and don’t bother going to check your springers. We cut your lines and hacked the bands from the timber. I’ve taken down all your regos too. So you’d best be very careful next time you enter this forest.’
‘You cut the lines?’ Cod blurts out.
The young guy seizes on it, stepping towards him. ‘Why would you care?’
‘No reason. Just curious, I guess.’
‘Just curious, you guess.’ He shakes his head. ‘What’s it gonna take for you dinosaurs to get it? The days of you raping this river are over.’
Cod says nothing, but inside he’s beaming. Because just like that, she’s gone.
“‘Just curious, you guess.’ He shakes his head. ‘What’s it gonna take for you dinosaurs to get it? The days of you raping this river are over.’
Cod says nothing, but inside he’s beaming. Because just like that, she’s gone. ”
*
Soon as the red tail-lights disappear into the scrub, Cod announces he’s heading out in his boat. The others tell him it’s madness to go near his springers now. For all he knows, the Fisheries guy could be sitting upstream, waiting to catch him in the act. Besides, they say, all the lines are cut.
‘I have to make sure.’ Cod hurries down the bank.
Sheldon follows him. ‘What’re you doing, Cod? It’s night-time. You hit even a small snag the wrong way and you could rip the arse out of your boat. And in your condition, mate? I don’t like your chances of swimming against that current.’
‘Full moon up tonight.’ Cod clambers into the boat. ‘Plenty of light on the river. And I’m fine.’ He flops into the driver’s seat. ‘There is one thing you can do for me.’
‘Yeah, and what’s that?’
Cod rips the starter cord. ‘Throw another slab on ice.’ With that, he’s off.
It’s lovely on the water. The night’s warm and still and the rivertop’s velvety to his touch. Rounding the bend, Cod laments the fact it’s been a wasted trip. Waste of today, definitely. And tomorrow morning, they’ll pack up and return to the grind. At least now he’ll be leaving on reasonable terms, with a clear—
‘Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,’ he says.
The springer. It’s still there, clinging resolutely to the log.
Cod looks back in the direction of camp. Already there’s the orange of a fire between the trees. But he can’t go back. Not until he knows.
He inches towards the log, like someone approaching a bomb. Initial signs are promising. The log’s still, the line limp.
‘Please, God,’ he whispers, even though he doesn’t have a religious bone in his body. He takes the steel line in his trembling palm. Then he pulls.
“‘Please, God,’ he whispers, even though he doesn’t have a religious bone in his body. He takes the steel line in his trembling palm. Then he pulls.”
For a second there’s nothing, no weight. Then the line becomes heavy and there’s a flurry of upward movement. Next thing she’s exploding from the water, sending him scrambling back. In the moonlight her mouth is an agonised pink hole, the dead yabby still jammed between her tongue and the gleaming hook. She has hair like dark seaweed and small girlish breasts and two deformed looking things that aren’t quite hands and aren’t quite fins. She’s at the edge of the boat, scrambling, groaning, trying to get in. He grabs an oar, swinging it in her direction until finally she retreats.
He doesn’t remember getting back to camp.
*
It’s over. All of it – over. This thing that’s kept him sane, that’s been the carrot in a gruelling monotony of work and marriage. Without the river, what will he have to look forward to? He has nothing, nothing but fishing and drinking and endless shallow banter, and how are those things supposed to be even near enough to sustain him through the years and decades of a punishing work life, with a woman he’s stopped loving so far back it seems like a memory from his distant childhood?
Yet he could still have the river. He knows what he has to do. He’s known all along what he has to do. She stands before him, like a bridge he has to cross. It could be over so quickly: just one cut from his gutting knife, then the lifting of her body into his boat, the unthreading of the hook from her wet, silent lips. He’ll be famous. He’ll be in the papers and on TV. All he has to do is go back out there and slit her throat.
He’s crying. Like a child, all of whose illusions of safety are gone.
‘Cod?’ comes a voice. ‘Is everything okay in there?’
Now he’s started crying, he can’t stop.
‘Guys!’ shouts the voice. ‘I think there’s something wrong with Cod.’
There’s a flurry of zips as the men emerge from tents and swags. His own tent is unzipped and Geoff appears in the opening, the first browns of dawn at his back.
‘Cod?’ he says. ‘Cod, what’s going on?’ He looks nervously over his shoulder, waiting for the cavalry to arrive. When they do, the men linger at the opening, peering in, exchanging bewildered looks. Eventually it’s Sheldon who pushes through, sitting beside Cod on the stretcher bed, wrapping an arm around his quaking shoulder.
‘What is it, John? Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll fix it. I swear to god I will.’
‘Okay,’ says Cod. And with his head in his hands, he begins to talk.
*
Two coffees later, and after a second (slower, less teary) telling of the story, Sheldon sets out in Cod’s boat. Cod watches him, slumped against a tree with the names of previous campers carved into its trunk. The others crowd the bank, watching Sheldon round the bend. When he disappears from view, they pace the dirt, chew on fingernails, talk between themselves as if Cod isn’t within earshot.
‘What happens if there really is something there?’
‘C’mon, mate. A mermaid?’
‘Yeah. The real question is, what happens when he comes back with nothing?’
‘About Cod, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’
He feels their eyes shift to him. But they’ll see, soon enough.
In the distance the engine dies, and it’s as if the entire forest goes silent in waiting. All except the cicadas, who refuse to let up with their shrilling.
Closing his eyes, Cod sees her face again, desperate in the fevered night. Where did she come from? And how did she get here? Until now he hasn’t given these things a thought. But does she have siblings? A mother? A father?
Cod’s startled from his reverie by the motor.
One by one, the men jog down to the water’s edge. Cod remains sitting.
A long time passes – longer than it should take – but finally the nose of the boat appears. Then all of it, the brim of Sheldon’s Akubra steadfast against the breeze. He has the look, Cod can tell. The look Cod expected, afterwards.
‘Well?’ Mick bellows, when Sheldon draws near enough.
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’
Cod stumbles to his feet. ‘Nothing?’
Sheldon arrives at shore. ‘I’m sorry, mate. There was nothing.’
And then Cod understands it: Sheldon’s ghostly pale look. It’s not the face of shock or terror, but of embarrassment. He’s embarrassed for Cod, embarrassed at having to deliver the verdict they all suspected. Embarrassed at what it means.
“And then Cod understands it: Sheldon’s ghostly pale look. It’s not the face of shock or terror, but of embarrassment. He’s embarrassed for Cod, embarrassed at having to deliver the verdict they all suspected. Embarrassed at what it means.”
Sheldon steps from the boat and leads the men up the bank. ‘Here you are, mate.’ He hands Cod the springer. The steel line has been neatly wound, the hook buried in the folds of rubber. ‘I believe you. But whatever it was, it’s gone.’ He wraps Cod in a hug. The others linger in the background, unsure where to look.
It isn’t until later, after Cod’s winched up his boat and had help lifting it onto his trailer, that he looks across at Sheldon and makes his discovery.
On his flannelette shirt, just below the elbow, is a huge, silver scale.
*
When the men meet in the middle of the empty camp to shake hands before leaving, Cod tells them he’s hanging around for a bit, to clear his mind before hitting the road. They don’t like it, especially Sheldon. But Cod’s adamant.
‘I’ll stay with you,’ says Sheldon.
‘No, mate. You’ve got the longest drive out of all of us. You go. I’ll be fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Sheldon nods reluctantly. ‘But don’t stick around too long. Okay? And you and Julie have yourselves a good Christmas.’
Finally, the entourage leaves in a blanket of dust. Soon as they’re gone, Cod unties the ropes from his trailer and drags his boat back to the river.
Arriving at the log, he cuts the engine. He runs a slow hand over the spot where the springer was, where the imprint is from last time. He leans over the still water, his face mirrored back at him. It’s a weary, unshaven, dark-eyed animal he sees.
He sits – wondering, reflecting – until a glimmer catches his eye, fifty or so metres upstream, sprawled in the shallows on the New South Wales side. Cod starts his motor, picking up speed as it becomes clear what’s there.
When the boat ploughs into the bank and he leaps to her side, the mermaid doesn’t acknowledge him. Blood smears her cheeks. Her emerald eyes stare skyward. Her sequinned tail lies long and thick in the mud. Already, bull ants are festering over it. If it wasn’t for the rise and fall of her naked chest, he’d think she was dead.
‘C’mon. Let’s put you back.’ He scoops her into his arms. She’s even heavier than he imagined, but he doesn’t buckle, stepping one boot and then the other into the river. He wades out until the water laps his chest. Lowering his right arm, he lets the mermaid’s body be submerged. In his left, he cradles her head.
Still she lies inert, her bottom lip swollen and bloody.
‘Please,’ Cod says. ‘It’s time to go back.’
She blinks awake. Seeing him, her eyes grow wide with terror.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘For all of it. Please.’
The mermaid swallows. Her face tells him it’s agony. He remembers reading books to his daughter, back when she was young and things between them were easy. He remembers reading books about mermaids, lovely creatures with angelic singing voices, rescuers of shipwrecked sailors and princes.
Cod looks inside himself. Then, in a cracked and faltering baritone, he begins to sing. He sings from a place of gentleness, as the child he once was, so long ago.
Slowly, gingerly, she rolls from his aching arms. She lies immobile for a second, face down. But with a kick of her glittering tail, she ventures into deeper water.
He stands in the river for a long time afterwards. The sun rises high. The cicadas shrill. On the opposite bank, in the branches of the trees, cockatoos swarm; they look down on him, curious, before winging suddenly into flight, screeching as they go. ▼
This story appeared in Island 154 in 2018. Order a print issue here.
If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.