White Knuckle Ride Read online

  But that is not to say the voyage was a failure, and at least two major achievements can be ascribed to 1819. First, he completed the collection that would form the basis of his definitive work on tidal crab speciation (long before Darwin’s ideas were published), and secondly, he conducted what we would now call field ethnography among indigenous fishing communities, centred on language and folklore pertaining to the weaver fish. The latter is a fragmented opus surviving only in notebooks, journals, and many secondary sources, and greatly deserves the attention of modern scholarship. From these studies, we learn that the majority of names for the weaver fish have roots in native words for death, water (that is, a fish made of water), invisibility, the colour purple and, of course, a woven cloth or matting. These meanings were so concordant with MacAkerman’s own observation that he was persuaded that similar sightings must not have been infrequent, though obtaining witness testimony proved more problematic. In any event, MacAkerman first employed the term ‘weaver’ in 1816, apparently quite independently of any native tradition, and never varied from its use. Paradoxically then, whilst no synonyms exist in English, he has left us with a monumental foreign lexicology far exceeding that of any other single referent.

  In 1916, exactly one hundred years after MacAkerman’s seminal observation, a fisherman named Josef Ta’Salmoud, from the village of Madregalo on Greater Ferende, saw weaver fish. Ta’Salmoud himself gave only a brief description of his experience, and was never persuaded to repeat or enlarge upon it. But there are many eyewitness accounts, from villagers on the shore, which are fully corroborative of what he described. Some of those present were still alive in 1996, and were interviewed by this author during a Language Diversity Initiative field trip. It should be said in this regard that more research is needed using newer validation tools applied to both linguistic and thematic elements. Authentication studies also require a good understanding of cultural specifics in oral tradition, which can be very localized and idiosyncratic. This work is continuing as part of a wider LDI programme.

  On days following severe night storms the fishing grounds of the Ferendes could be deceptively treacherous. It was customary for the chieftain of fishermen to enter the water first and, having ascertained conditions in the bay, signal to those on shore that they should remain there or join him. One morning, Ta’Salmoud set forth on this task. As was normal, his progress was observed closely by those on the beach. When he was about fifty yards from shore he stopped paddling and stood in his canoe, facing the villagers. To this point, nothing seemed unusual, and they next expected his signal. None came.

  The bay was rough with a big sea swell and a bad current. I stood in my canoe to give the signal: do not come out, I am returning. I thought, be careful, Ta’Salmoud, stand safely, these are the times — rough days making the signal — when my ancestors have drowned. But when I got up, suddenly the bay was calm and my canoe became still. I could have stood on one foot. I thought, I have been wrong, the bay is smooth. Then I saw water in my canoe, with little holes in the hide, and purple colour near my feet. When I saw the purple I knew it was the kenijo before I saw the kenijo themselves. The water came up to my canoe side, but it was the kenijo weaving, but water from the sea was inside, on my feet. I was thinking, I must give the signal to save my fisherman brothers, but I don’t know if I did. I was so full of fear. Then my canoe was full of water, but not sinking because I think the kenijo kept it there. For as far as I could see there was the weaving, like a thick mat on the top of the sea, and I thought, Ta’Salmoud, you must run for your life and even though I thought I would die I stepped from the canoe onto the weaving fish mat and it seemed very strong. My feet sank only a little and my good balance from standing in my little boat kept me from falling. I took another step, and another, then I started to run. I knew that if I stumbled I would be eaten but I kept running. Every place that my feet touched there was a purple mark, and my feet hurt but I hardly looked down. I was looking at my village and my people. They said later that I was crying out my word all this time but I don’t remember that. To me it is like a terrible dream, until I see my feet.

  From the village beach, these events must have appeared truly astonishing.

  It was very strange. When Ta’Salmoud stood up the rough water became smooth. Not like wind stopping but as if it was made into glass, all in a second. I thought, what signal will he give? Then his canoe sank and he just stepped onto the water and ran to us. The whole village was quiet. Poor Ta’Salmoud, he was saying over and over his word, not shouting, but very softly but we could all hear it. We all knew it was the fish. I did not breathe until he was safe, and then I did not breathe when I saw his feet. I don’t know when I breathed again.

  Not even the sight of a man running on the surface of the sea prepared the villagers for what they next saw.

  When Ta’Salmoud was close to the shore he stopped running, I think as he felt the sand under his feet. He was still saying the word, and we could see his face was very frightened. He came from the water and was bending over like an old man. We were too frightened to go to him, and all of us stayed quiet. I could not look away from his feet but I could not look at them also. Then Maria [Ta’Salmoud’s wife] stepped forward and took his hands, but she was looking downwards too. I think Ta’Salmoud then stopped the word and started crying, and I thought his face is not fear but pain. But we still stayed back, and Maria held him closer. He seemed in much pain and then he looked down, at his feet. From his ankles down there was no flesh, just bones and sinew, all purple stained. Poor Ta’Salmoud cried out and fell to the sand, in Maria’s arms. He was half man, half rinlin. Purple rinlin.

  The last word translates (somewhat inadequately) as skeleton, which is surely exaggerated. Presumably, the digestive secretions of the weaver fish had destroyed the skin and much of the soft tissues of his feet. There is no doubt that the foot bones below the ankle joint were exposed, but we must suppose that sufficient blood supply and other attachments were preserved to maintain rudimentary function. Sensory innervation was clearly compromised, for he was not in constant agony as we would otherwise expect. Only when his feet became dry did he suffer pain, and this was quickly assuaged by immersion in seawater. Almost certainly, the cleansing action of the latter practice minimized the bacterial contamination that in these circumstances would ordinarily lead to suppuration, fasciitis and fatal septicaemia.

  It is said that as Ta’Salmoud collapsed on the beach, the calm in the bay vanished, replaced in a moment by the most frightening storm the villagers had seen. For Ta’Salmoud, then, the weaver fish was not an agent of disfigurement and pain, but of salvation, providing safe deliverance from the temper of the sea.

  Not surprisingly, the news of a fisherman who apparently calmed the sea, walked upon water, and suffered uncomplaining an unspeakable injury attracted the attention of the Church. In 1921, papal envoys visited the Ferendes to investigate the claims and determine a recommendation of sainthood. They declared in the negative on the grounds that, though the events truly occurred, they were not miraculous but explained by natural causes, namely the weaver fish.

  There is one known photograph of Ta’Salmoud, taken during that visit, and protected under lex Vaticani (it may be viewed but not reproduced). He is at the centre of a small group, standing on the beach with the village behind. The others are bowed, but Ta’Salmoud’s head is high, looking not at the camera but into the distance beyond. Almost certainly, he is staring at the sea. The photographer was clearly not a scientist, for what we would like to have had recorded is an image of Ta’Salmoud’s feet. But the manners of the time, or ineptitude of the nuncio, have forever denied us this evidence. While his companions’ feet are all on view, Ta’Salmoud’s are hidden by the tub in which he stands, presumably immersed in his anodyne seawater.

  Ta’Salmoud died, from all accounts peacefully, in the following year, 1922. He had never fished again, nor ventured into the bay. All the stories attest to him being treated with the greatest re
verence, and after his death his word, kenijo, became the main word, the most precious word, and the most protective one, for all his descendants. There is something poignant about a great fisherman who had walked on the sea, thereafter to be made forever to stand in it, in pots and pans and ignominious tubs, or at the water’s edge, half in half out. Half man, half rinlin.

  (From The Weaver Fish, a novel, 2013.)

  K.A. BEDFORD

  AUNT JULIA GOES UNDER

  Pelican River, 192—. The widowed Ruth Black brings Aunt Julia home from the hospital to convalesce in the sleepy fishing town of Pelican River. Ruth enlists her friend Gordon Duncombe to help her get to the bottom of Aunt Julia’s nightmarish encounters with the Other Side.

  Rutherford brought the great vehicle to a stop out front of my home. He climbed down and came around to help Julia and me disembark. Doing this, he settled into the usual routine, ordering the three other staff about, getting young Ryan to come and help with the luggage, and asking Sally Hall if she and Vicky Tool had made up a room for Miss Templesmith, as per his telephoned instructions. Sally said they had prepared the Yellow Room, next to mine, thinking that Ma’am would want her relative close by. I greeted everyone, and told them they were doing a fine job, as always. Though I did pause as Ryan went by, and said, ‘The new hair cream not working out?’ He coloured and said, ‘No, Ma’am, sorry, Ma’am,’ and struggled into the house, bearing more luggage than his skinny body looked capable of carrying. I introduced Julia to everyone, and in particular to Sally and Vicky, and instructed them to take the very best care of her. ‘Aunt Julia’s not been well, and is in need of a good pampering.’ They agreed and escorted her into the house.

  Julia, however, was staring around her at the house — a modest red-brick two-storey Federation-style property with an extensive verandah all the way around. One of the house’s most novel features was the circular windows here and there, like portholes on a ship. ‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ she said, smiling weakly back at me. She was also staring at the enormous, but very strange-looking, paperbark gums looming around us, their pale, peeling trunks looking as though they had some terrible skin disease. Native birds cawed and squealed and carolled noisily; the breeze carried the salty tang of the sea, and a faint waft from the fish canning factories on the foreshore. Julia, swatting at flies, seemed all at once aware, as she looked at these alien trees and heard those unusual birds, that she was indeed somewhere very different, and very far, from home. I knew she was an inveterate traveller, but she had never come this far, as if to another world.

  Rutherford looked at me, concerned, and I could see he was wondering if bringing Julia here was a wise decision. I, too, was having second thoughts about this, but resolved to adhere to my plans. I told him to take the car around to the garage and give it a clean; it was white with gravel dust. ‘Yes, ma’am, as you say.’

  In the quiet coolness of the house, with its high ceilings, polished jarrah floors, tasteful but unfashionably minimal furniture, I breathed in the complex aroma of home. I could never describe its exact scent. Part of it was the very air of this region of Western Australia, part was the native-plant pot pourri, part was the fresh smell of a house kept meticulously clean, part was the lingering traces of last night’s fire in the big fireplace. There were many elements, and I treasured them all. No house in England would ever smell like this. I remembered the grand, stuffy, echoing manorial homes in the old country, much like my own family’s house, with its thirty-two rooms, all of them cramped with too much heavy furniture, maddeningly busy wallpaper, ancient heirloom floor rugs, hunting trophies, sombre portraits of long-dead ancestors looking like they hated the artist and the fuss of having to get all dressed up when they’d much rather be out with the hounds and the horses and all their inbred chums. By contrast, I had determined this house I bought would be full of air and light; it would never be stuffy; it would be welcoming, not intimidating; and comfortable without that cloying cramped feeling I still remembered and hated from my old life.

  I joined Julia in the Yellow Room, where she was having a word with Vicky. Before entering, I heard Julia ask, ‘What on Earth would make a sensible girl stay in such a place, I ask you!’

  I interrupted, knocking pointedly on the door. ‘Now now, Julia, you mustn’t harass my staff like that. Is everything under control, Vicky?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said, not stuttering too much today. I sent her to help Sally.

  ‘Well,’ Julia said, sitting on the bed as if worried it might eat her. ‘You appear to have created a very nice little realm in the midst of all this chaos.’

  ‘Chaos? What do you mean?’ I knew very well what she meant.

  ‘Do those birds ever shut up? And what’s all this …’ She lacked a word for it but simply waved a hand at the view through the window, which showed extensive natural bushland: gum trees, wattles, grevilleas; it was marvellous, and I had gone to great trouble to preserve as much of it as I could. I had never, when I first arrived, seen such native bushland. It was exotic, alien in every respect. I could not stop looking at it, marvelling at how such unusual plants could possibly survive in such an arid environment. The people who sold me this house had offered to get people in to clear all this ‘clutter’, to make it, ‘you know, suitable’ — whatever that meant. The only concession I had agreed to was the stipulation that I allow a clear area around the garden’s perimeter. I found out about this from the land agent when arranging the purchase of the house. He told me the perimeter was in case of bush fire, and I stupidly asked what exactly that might entail. ‘It’s the end of the world, Mrs Black,’ he explained. Feeling foolish, I agreed, and allowed a clear perimeter. Trying to get a lawn to grow on the cleared land, however, was another matter.

  I explained to Julia about the bush, that it was something fundamental to the landscape in this country. Julia glanced at me as if to suggest that I was the one with problems in my head. ‘But it’s just so awful! It’s so wild and uncontrolled!’

  Later, Julia and I sat in the drawing room. She kept looking around the great room. ‘How do you manage with all this … all this space everywhere?’

  After lunch, I rode my purple Imperial Racer bicycle around to Gordon Duncombe’s house. Gordon lived on a small farm on the outskirts of town; he had converted the great barn, its old wood long turned greyish-silver, into a workshop-laboratory. Even before I arrived, his dogs — twelve of them — erupted into a deafening barking frenzy. As I opened the front gate, and wheeled the bicycle inside, the dogs, mutts all, swarmed around me, jumping, barking, wagging their assorted tails. Expecting this, I had brought a small bag of meaty offcuts which I doled out with great care. None of the dogs lunged or made as if to bite me. They accepted the idea that they would have to wait before receiving their treats. Once it was all handed out, the dogs wagged off, going about their own business on the extensive property, and I walked my bicycle up the long gravel drive to the house.

  Gordon, who would have heard the dogs, stood waiting on the front porch, under the verandah. He was in his fifties, a soft sort of man with a slight stoop, as if having trouble bearing the weight of the world.

  He smiled. ‘Ruth! What a grand surprise — and here, I’ve just put the kettle on, too. Coffee?’

  I thanked him, and he took my bicycle, as usual, and walked it up under his verandah, where it would be safe in case it rained. I followed him inside, careful the dogs didn’t bowl me over as they boiled around my legs. I knew they each had names, but I had not yet learned them, even though I heard him talking to these dogs all the time. They kept him busy. He, for his part, kept his house surprisingly tidy and clean. The odour of dog was rarely detected in his modest house, despite the menagerie.

  In his cozy lounge room, I took a seat on the old couch and Gordon sat across from me in his favourite overstuffed brown chair, with its very large rounded arms. No sooner had he sat than two of his dogs appeared and leapt straight into his lap. He yelled, shooing them off, ‘
Come on, you lot, get out of here! We’ve got company! Yes, that’s right. There’s someone else in the world apart from you mongrels!’ The two dogs stared for a moment, then trotted off, tails high. He looked at me, a little embarrassed. ‘Sorry about that. What a madhouse!’

  I rather liked that it was such a madhouse, to be honest, but I didn’t want to tell him that, in case it sounded somehow patronising or condescending. I liked that things were always happening here, that there was such a lot of life about. I loved my own home, for its peacefulness, for its grounds and for its view of the distant Estuary, but it was a house for quiet contemplation and reflection. Gordon’s house, by contrast, was a place for making things happen.

  I explained the situation with Julia.

  Gordon’s manner changed, growing serious and thoughtful. His lounge room, as with much of the small house, was full of jammed bookcases, none of which matched, just like his dogs. The whole collection looked like something put together over time by someone with limited funds but a great passion for books and knowledge. As rickety as the bent and straining shelves looked, I knew he had some wonderful old books, and not all of them were science and engineering texts. He was soon up on his feet and perusing his shelves, squinting hard because he was too proud to get spectacles, and then he would complain about fierce headaches. This was something we argued about a lot. I knew he would much rather buy a book than something as useful and practical as spectacles. He would rather buy a book than clothes. Most of the time he would rather buy a book than food, too, if it came to that. He managed on sandwiches and crackers and soup, and was generally hardly even aware of food. It was a tedious necessity. I had only seen him sit down and enjoy a good meal for its own sake when I invited him to my home for a friendly dinner; he always had to have a notebook with him, or a technical journal, or a new book open on his lap or next to his plate. And his plates often went cold if inspiration should strike mid-meal. Gordon and I talked a great deal about creative impulses and what they meant, how they worked. Such conversations inevitably boiled down to Gordon ruminating about the functions of the human brain and how it must work in order to produce the kinds of things it could produce.