Bridge
In the early years we spent the Australia Day holiday in a tiny beachside alcove surrounded by water and bush. Then it was little more than a collection of weather beaten shacks that whistled of a night time when the sea breeze swept in. Accessible only during summer along a dirt track that bumped and wound its way through gullies and across hilltops, we fled there each year for release from civilisation, fighting our way through the ocean of timber to the sea.
When the day had settled and our sweat soaked through the sheets to canvass of the camping bunks, we’d lie there peeking through puncture wounds in the walls, watching the repetitive froth of the shore break and beyond, the sea. The thunder of breaking waves beyond the reef ricocheted against the deafening silence in the timber walls behind, while mosquitos whined in the fore. In those moments of silence we were each alone in our thoughts, heartbeats in rhythm with the sea, until fitful sleep crept up with the tide.
Daytimes were spent dipping in the shoaly waters of the bay, dodging sand flies and wasps and whining at the sunscreen call, chasing minnows in the shallows and freeing sand from our togs. In the evenings after dinner when the heat was too intense for sleep, we’d all go back to the beach, you at the front, holding a gas lantern aloft and beating the tussocks with a stick to scare off snakes, our parents at the rear to guard against drop bears and us sandwiched in between.
Our parents would perch above the tide lines and chatter softly while we lay on the watermark, letting the waves lap at our sides to drain away the aches and stickiness of the day. You’d stand nearby, your gaze shifting from a wary glance at us to the darkness below the horizon. In the sky above, a billion year old fire and light show lit reflections against our eyes, and the Southern Lights rained colour as they danced from one horizon to the next. In this perfect untouched circle, we felt the embrace of forces unseen, and it was there we knew, we were nothing more than specs in a playground for giants.
It seemed amazing that so many of us could crowd into that tiny little shack, but for that one week we’d tolerate the niggles and sibling rivalry and suffer through the closeness of summer nights made closer by body heat. With each summer the excitement of anticipation would build before school broke for the holidays, and by the end of the four hour rough and tumble in the car we’d be hanging out the doors before the motor had stopped turning. At the end we’d crane our necks to see beyond the baggage in the car to the receding sight of the shack, anticipating the next year’s arrival and the heady days we’d spend there again.
You’d always been old, even in my earliest memories. What little of your life before ours, we knew only that which our parents had told us. From all accounts, we had no doubt, you’d waged a battle that had lasted a lifetime. If there were a vice to be had, it was yours, and sometime later I came to understand the animosity that seethed between you and your children.
Like most kids we didn’t know where you came from and simply accepted you were part of our lives. The strange smells of your house, the bizarre collections of bric-a-brac lodged in the walls, and the salty sweat of the shack all proved beacons to our curiosity. We were mesmerised by the tales of your being ship wrecked in the Coral Sea, and we held a grim fascination with the tales of the massive ulcers that had scarred your legs for the years to come. We used to marvel at the old watery coloured portraitures of your navy days, and we’d spend hours staring at them, trying to fit the features of the young and ambitious man behind the frame to the wizened and elfin grandfather before us. We’d wonder what it was like to be at war, what it was like to see your ship and crewmates go down, and what it was like to be adrift at sea.
In my later years I’ve often wondered what is was that drew you back to the water, as though you’d left something behind nearly half a century before, and couldn’t quite decide if it would be waiting for you should you return. When you stood on the heads of an evening, fishing rod in hand, finger on the line, we could see it was nothing but a ruse. Your eyes glazed and distant, body at the mercy of the waves and your snow white hair flailing in the wind, none of it mattered in the here and now as you were elsewhere, seeing ghosts and hearing echoes from your past. Something had happened to you on the waves that opened a door through which few had been able to follow.
Though you couldn’t live without it, you could never quite return, and at times we could see you beating against the walls of the no man’s land in which you moved. When we swam you’d come right to the edge, watching the water wash towards you and standing just far enough away to prevent the sea from kissing your toes. You’d watch us, with fear or envy I’ll never be sure, as we broke the water without reason for concern.
Years peeled away and the consistency of your presence held as an anchor to the freedom of childhood and the wealth of discovery it promised. As we grew older the appeal of that beach, the shacks and the isolation faded, and ties to family became strained in the manner only separation can ensure. Our interests lay elsewhere now and we abandoned the icons of childhood to pursue the trappings of being adults. Yet it always seemed that regardless of everything else that might have happened in a year, the knowledge you were still there provided at least a partial certainty to the directions we’d chosen, and there was a comfort in knowing that should we falter, returning to the beginning and starting again would not be a daunting task.
From time to time our paths crossed as family milestones came and went. It wasn’t until afterwards, when you’d gone and that upper echelon of mortality had been revealed to us that the milestones began to count. You knew their importance though, as you were at the other end of the scale and no matter how much a strain you always showed. You seemed eager to soak up whatever few remaining scraps of our lives were there for the sharing, and if that meant five minutes of twelve months, then that was enough for you. For us, simply seeing you there in the background was enough to reassure us life was going on as it always had, and we broke away from our childhood environments without reason for concern.
Our lives struck tangents and we moved in new directions. Summers came and went and while each year our thoughts returned to the water, the timing was never right and to an extent it seemed wrong to try and recapture the moments we’d spent there. But every summer—for a time at least—you went back to the shack, fished from the heads, and spent evenings on the beach. But it was empty now that the family had moved on, and the richness you’d enjoyed there had ebbed. Eventually time took its toll and you grew too frail to make the journey to the sea, and even though you tried your hardest each year became more of a struggle, and you too left the sea behind.
Fighting seemed to have been your code and your last would be your greatest, even if it were eventually to be one you could never win. The last time I saw you it was obvious you were fading. The spark in your eyes and voice were gone and you looked worn and weary. Your speech had become pinched, and you could only manage what your emphysemic lungs would permit. Even though we could see you were beaten, we all hoped you’d kick on again like last time.
Some experts say that people know when the end is coming. I’ve no doubt you knew for a long time. For a while it looked like you might come good and that you might just squeeze out a few more years yet, but we knew in the back of our minds that you’d simply given up the fight, and your improvement was only in the release of defeat. The tell-tale sign was when you decided to go back to the bay.
Those that could made the journey with you, hoping they too would be able to gain something from revisiting the magic of that place. Despite their objections you’d insisted on them remaining in the car, telling them it would only be a short visit. They’d watched you wrestle through the tussocks to the beach, and after a time you returned. They said you seemed to have found some sort of peace out there, that the pinched brow you always wore near the water was gone. You got back in the car, mentioned that the weather was coming in, told another dirty joke, and before they got a chance to laugh you were gone.
It wasn’t until they were bringing home your body that they noticed your shoes were missing and your feet wet.
At the gravesite it was sombre, but not tragic. By all accounts you’d had a good innings and while no-one wanted to see you go, there was a comfort in knowing that you made your exit gracefully in the place you loved with people you loved. In true Irish fashion the jokes started at the close of the eulogy as people walked back to their cars enroute to the pub. Your brothers-in-law started a sweep on who would be next and they all hoped that when it was their turn, it would be as peaceful as yours.
In the pub they told stories of your days as a magistrate, and of how your perfect poker face had found its use on both sides of the law. There were stories of how lawyers dreaded a day in your court, as they’d never know if they were winning or losing or coming third. There were regrets among the generations you’d spawned, as with your passing old wounds had leached to the surface. There were discussions about how in your final years you’d shut out many of those in your present life in preparation for whatever lay beyond. To me, it seemed, the biggest regrets were that neither you nor they had tried hard enough to bridge the gaps that had opened over the years. I learned more about you in the days following your death than in the decades I knew of your life, and whilst I can never lay claim to having believed in a God, for now at least, I hope there is something.
It wasn’t until later that I noticed no-one spoke of your time at sea. Even though we knew the skeleton story of what had happened in the physical realm, no-one it seemed, understood what had really happened to you and you were, I realised, as much a mystery to them as you were to me.
More time passed and eventually I went back there, to that hidden little bay. But after twenty years and then some it seems your best kept secret finally got out. The bush has retreated to beyond the second ridge and the shoreline is rimmed by kiosks, carnival stalls, litter patrols and carefully manicured lawns. A highway winds through the heart of the bush so the weekend getaways can come and go as they please, and package deals are being offered to backpackers on their way interstate. A resort and conference centre is going up on the heads where you once fished, and a supermarket chain has just opened its doors not far from where we used to spend our evenings. There’s a summer time church where your shack once stood and the river banks are smothered by camping grounds and a horse-back riding school. There are notices on every power pole protesting the advent of McDonald’s and the hysterical claims that golden arches will spoil the place can’t help but bring a smile to my lips as I imagine what your opinion on such matters would be.
The beach sand is whiter than I remember, but maybe time is doing that to me. Without the shade of the bush on the shorefront the beach head roasts and ice creams melt faster than I’d have ever thought possible. Sticky trails roll down over the fingers and forearms of dozens of toddlers and children, hanging from elbows for a moment before disappearing into the whiteness of the sand. For a while I wade in the shallows. The minnows are still there, but in significantly less numbers. Pieces of fishing net and the occasional confectionary wrapper drift on the tide and the shallows are choked with rotting kelp, wrenched from the sea bed by the fishing trawlers. The water smells stagnant and the air is tainted with the fumes of the city.
I wait for the night, hoping that the allure here once held will return when the light can no longer cast shadows against the scars on the land...and I’m sure it would if the light were to fade completely. As they flicker on in the dusk, the hum of the streetlights drowns out the whispers of the bush. Disappointment wells and I’m ready to give up and move on. I don’t know why I came here, and wish now that I hadn’t. The answers I’d hoped for don’t lie in my childhood haunts, and if ever they did, they’ve long since been dispatched by the developer’s shovel.
There’s little here that I recognise anymore, and I struggle to hold the memory of you and here as it was. From what seems a million miles away, the thunder of waves upon the reef pierces my consciousness. The sea breeze is up and the water licks coolly at my feet. The street lights and man-made sounds fade away and for a moment, I’m home again.