Down, down in Botany, highways run along the shoreline. Trucks from across the country follow the highways down to the water's edge, to meet ships that have only momentarily docked. Container terminals mark where the First Fleet landed. Their red cranes swing colourful steel boxes high through the air, and a two-hundred year exchange between the land and sea continues.
Down, down in Botany, there's a little cove where we used to go swimming. The water sparkles an untrustworthy blue. The sand and scrub hold memories of old industry, of chemicals that have been distilled out of nature and are now trying to find their way back.
It's strangely quiet here, as though the curve of the bay protects this place from sound waves as well as the water currents. Banks of trees dull the traffic noise from the highway, turning it into a low roar. Then the seagulls take over with their insistent cries. There is the sound of water here, of echoes coming from across the sea, the chirping of crickets and other hidden creatures.
There are nicer beaches up north, closer to our house, but my dad preferred to drive us down here on weekends. We'd pick our way between old bricks and shards of broken glass to swim at this beach, where there was just a small patch of yellow sand in amongst the rocks. Dad thought that tangles of rusting barbed wire over wooden posts were safer than big open beaches where there was always the danger of rip-tides or sharks.
He'd point to some old fishing nets, half-buried in the sand.
- Avoid that. You don't know what's buried with it.
But once we hit the water, it was a free-for-all, and if you'd make the effort to swim then he'd always make the effort to stay with you.
- Swim until your arms want to drop off, I'll get you back to shore.
So you'd swim. You'd huff and blow into the water, throw your arms about and try to make some progress, and when you couldn't struggle in the water any longer, when your body felt like a lead sinker that was going to drag you under, his hands would suddenly be under your shoulders, buoying you up, helping you float.
Those were my favourite moments, just lying back in the water and letting him pull me back to shore. I'd close my eyes and feel the sun on my face, and imagine that I was a cloud, drifting on currents above everything in the sky. If I opened my eyes I'd be looking down on the world. I'd be flying.
Then I'd feel the sand beneath my legs, supporting my back, and I'd be ashore. Tired, but safe. Dad would be grinning at me.
- You got out really far today, much further than last week.
- Really?
- Yep. You're getting stronger in the water. You know, if you swim fast enough you could take off, just like an aeroplane.
- Can I fly, dad?
- Yes, Nelle, if you go fast enough you can fly.
I walked along the beach, remembering that version of my dad. There was a certain point of the beach where he'd always stop, and make us look around.
- Imagine Captain Cook seeing this land, where he didn't expect land to be. Just imagine.
We'd peer around us, wide-eyed, and try to imagine the trees stretching back across the highways and roads. We'd try to imagine the land unmarked by buildings and the sea without ships. We'd close our eyes and hear only the seagulls and crickets.
When my dad was growing up, he wanted to be an explorer or an adventurer. Instead, he became a lawyer.
As I walked along the beach I wondered if it was the days sitting at his desk that made him crave the drink, to escape into new worlds he never had the chance to see. I dragged my feet along the sand and I could already feel the carpet of our hallway, sticking to me, begging me not to go forward.
But I was busting to go to the toilet. That night, I'd woken up desperately needing to go. I had to go forward, even though the walls seemed to be wheezing and the light was on in the bathroom.
I was still a little sleepy when I got to the bathroom and it took me a second to understand that dad was sitting on the floor, his arms clasping the toilet bowl. As I came to the doorway he looked up. I saw that his nose was swollen and his eyes were full of tears.
- Dad.
I should have left immediately and gone to the garden. I could have gone outside and peed on the grass. But I was half-asleep, and all I could think of was getting to the toilet.
- Dad, I need to go.
My dad released the toilet bowl and stared up at me. His head bobbed and I could tell that he was seeing double.
- It's me, Narelle.
- Nelle.
- I need to go, dad.
He closed his eyes and nodded, took a deep breath. I thought he was going to get up, but the next moment his face screwed up, tears fell down his cheeks and his mouth opened into a wail.
- Forgive me, Nelle, forgive me.
He reached out and clasped my legs.
- Help me. Help me.
- It's okay, dad.
I reached down to pull him up, but he was too heavy for me. His thick arms dragged me down to the floor with him and then he was hugging me tightly, sobbing into my shoulder.
- Let me go, dad. Let me go.
I needed pee. But no amount of wrestling would free me from his tight love.
- I'm sorry, Nelle.
I'd never seen him cry before. My big, strong father, who'd kept us all afloat. And now I could see that he was drowning, drowning in beer and wine chasers, drowning in a sadness that I couldn't understand. I didn't know what to do.
- Help me.
He held me, nuzzled up to the warmth of my body, and his eyes rolled back. I smelled the alcohol on his breath, felt the vomit of his shirt being smeared all over my nightdress, and his weight settling down on me.
- Dad.
He'd passed out.
- Dad. Get off me. Dad!
I screamed.
I wanted him to let me go, and I screamed. But he didn't wake. His arms gripped my waist tightly as he slept, as though I was a crocodile that he'd wrestled to the ground.
I screamed, but no one in the house stirred. Mum took her pills at night and she always slept soundly through my dad's drunken singing and stumbling, but Lark and Prescott had to hear me. I screamed, but nobody came. I was left there waiting. Waiting for dad to wake up. Waiting for his arms to release me.
Minutes passed. He started to snore. His tears drying on my cheeks were soon replaced by my own. I couldn't help it. The weight of his body pressed against my bladder. I tried to think of other things, to hold it in. Two minutes. Ten. Twenty. Then I couldn't hold it any longer.
There was warmth between my legs. It spread out along the floor, soaked up into my nightdress and also into my dad's pants. And still, he didn't wake up. I started to cry as a sour smell filled the room.
Down, down in Botany there were more people than I'd expected.
Something in the bay reeked of stale fish. There was a fruity and overripe smell that the salt couldn't mask. The afternoon sun was getting low in the sky, turning patches of the sea orange. I was early.
When all of us three kids had learnt how to swim, we stopped coming down here. The cove was smaller than I remembered it, the sand grittier. I paused before a sign I hadn't seen before.
'Warning,' it said, in bright red letters. 'The Penrhyn Estuary area is contaminated with industrial pollutants. The public are advised not to swim in the estuary and to avoid wading in the area. A fishing ban currently applies to the area.'
It might as well have been a mirage. Behind me there were kids playing in the water. A little further along, where the sand petered out into a rocky point on the bay, three men stood fishing. They'd planted a line of long rods into the ground and were pacing up and down beside them. They went about their work in silence, checking lines, re-baiting hooks and casting them into the water.
I watched for several minutes, enjoying the rhythm of their work together. Even though it was warm, one of the men wore a long-sleeved shirt. Its thick black and white stripes reminded me of the convict stripes prisoners used to wear. Reshma would have appreciated him wearing this shirt at Botany Bay. It made me smile.
- Nice day, isn't it?
He'd caught me looking at him. His face was leathery and weather-beaten, his brown eyes drooped with the weariness of age. There was something so polite about his manner that I expected him to hold out his hand for me to shake, but he didn't.
- Yes.
One of the fishing lines twitched and the man moved towards gracefully, as though he was dancing with it. Nothing could interrupt his calm. The other two men called to him in a language I didn't understand. The words rolled off their tongue like gunfire.
He pulled a fish up from the water. It twisted and writhed to see the air.
- Tailor fish!
The men took up the call with him.
- Tailor fish! Tailor fish!
I moved in closer to see.
- Can you eat it?
The fish fluttered, its gills flaring. The man sniffed, and pulled his mouth back in a grimace.
- Yeh, tailor's good grilled with a little bit of lemon.
It didn't flinch as he removed the hook from its lip. It continued to swim, suspended between his thumb and fingers.
- This fish, he wanna go home.
The man waved the fish through the air, showing it to the others, drawing an arc with it against the sky and then it was flying, flying through the air. There was a silver flash, a burst in the water, and it had disappeared.
- Why didn't you want to eat him?
- Aw, you can't eat the fish here. Little packets of cancer, waiting to eat you from inside out. Guess it's only fair. We eat the fish, it gets its own back in the end. Can't eat the fish, but it's still a good spot for fishing.
In profile, he reminded me of Bashir. The same scowl hovered across his forehead when he was thinking or remembering something.
- Where are you from?
- Me?
The man laughed. He put his arms up to his waist and his convict sleeves marked right angles to the ground.
- The Philippines. But over thirty years ago. I came here when I was just a little boy, younger than you. I've been here longer than you've been around.
He reached into a red bucket beside his feet. His fingers fumbled around with a prawn, juggling it with the hook. The metal looked dull in the sunlight. I tried to imagine what it felt like for the fish, biting through it. Maybe it was like when I got my ears pierced. A sharp sensation, too quick for pain, and then a slow burn that tingled for hours. The man finished with the prawn and dropped the rest back in the bucket.
- When we first got here, we ate all the fish we caught. Such a great country, we thought, where you can just go catch fish in this beautiful harbour. Now they tell us there were chemical plants down here, leaking into the water. Dunno if one of those cancer packets is going to go off in me, boom! One of these days. But the fish tasted so good, back then. My mum used to tell me to eat as much as I could, that it was good for me.
- The fish causes cancer?
- Makes me angry, when I think that she just didn't know. Guess I should just be thankful, that she'll never know.
I felt suddenly nervous. I'd called my dad and asked him to meet me here, by himself. But now that I was here, I wasn't sure if I was ready for it. I thought about Zahara and Reshma, and of how they'd made the effort to stay close to me over the past three days. I wanted them to be here with me now.
The man's eyes were clouding over with past memories.
- It makes you homesick, watching them coming and going all day.
I followed his gaze across the water. A plane was taking off. The runway in the distance was only a thin line, so that it looked as though the planes were rolling on top of the water itself.
- The superjumbos are going to be here soon. Over five-hundred people. They're supposed to be as big as buildings, flying up there. Imagine - five hundred people, and not one seat for me.
- Did your mum pass away?
- Yeh, long time ago. Think I'll be joining her pretty soon.
I could see him with his mum, sitting on these very same rocks with their fishing lines cast into the water. Further along I could see myself with my dad, floating in the water.
- Do you forgive her?
- Past is past, nothing we can do about it now. I've got my own kiddies now. Who knows if I'm doing the right things. We all just muddle through, in our own ways, don't we?
The low rumble of engines groaned in the background. And on the wind I heard a familiar voice calling my name. At the other end of the beach I saw my dad, waving at me.
Down, down in Botany, an old world was lost.
I started the long trudge towards him, my feet sinking into the sand. I remembered his hands underneath me, lifting me up, telling me to swim.
Down, down in Botany, a new world was discovered.
I was running. I was running towards him. I was running so fast that I was going to take off. I wanted to take off and shoot across the sky like a star.
Down, down in Botany, the cranes never stop their work, loading and unloading cargo.
And then his arms were around me, and the smell of old graphite shavings and sandalwood. And I was home.
