Chapter 8

MANGROVE DREAMING
By Kerrie Bygrave

Chapter 8:

He’s not coming, decided Caitlyn. It was five minutes past eight. She swore Thomas had said seven thirty. And she’d been ready to go since seven o’clock. At first she’d been excited, then as seven thirty approached, she felt the butterflies in her stomach kick in as she anticipated him arriving. She had kept peeping behind the blind in the front window to see if he’d arrived yet. But now she just felt annoyed, but strangely she was more annoyed at herself than Thomas. She figured that she shouldn’t have got excited about the fishing trip with Thomas when they barely even knew each other. He probably ran into a mate yesterday and organised a ‘boys’ fishing trip and had totally forgotten about her. She supposed he would drop around some time to get the fishing gear though, since he had paid for it.
Caitlyn was just unpacking her backpack on the kitchen bench when there was a knock at the door. For some reason, she assumed it wasn’t Thomas as she had already accepted that she’d been stood up. But when she opened the door, there he stood. ‘I’m so sorry’ he said straight away, before she even had a chance to say hello. ‘My boss called me at five o’clock this morning, and asked me to help unload the boat. They went out last night and caught a full load, but a couple of blokes got food poisoning last night from their midnight snack, and by the time they got back to shore, they couldn’t help with the unloading, so they were short-staffed, so I got asked to help out. This should have been my weekend off.’ Suddenly he stopped talking when he saw her half unpacked back pack. ‘You thought I wasn’t coming, didn’t you’.
‘Ah, no, not at all.’ stammered Caitlyn. She could see he didn’t believe her so she confessed. ‘Well yes, I guess, but I did think you’d have a good reason. And as it turns out, you did.’
‘Like I said, I am sorry. I would have called you, but I didn’t have your phone number. And I didn’t want to call past at five o’clock this morning to tell you I might be late.’
‘Don’t worry about it, you’re here now.’
‘I sure am. So,’ he said with a slow sexy smile which made her stomach do a quick summersault. ‘You ready for your first fishing lesson.’
‘Yep, just let me umm, repack.’ she laughed self consciously. ‘I’ll only be a second.’ Everything Caitlyn unpacked was still on the kitchen bench, so she quickly put it all back in her backpack including a few rounds of sandwiches she had made for the outing.
Thomas saw the sandwiches and told her. ‘You know you can’t eat them until after you catch some fish, don’t you?’
‘Why not?’ she replied as she grabbed her keys and hat and followed Thomas outside. He picked up the fishing gear from the car port and they headed for his car that was parked on the road verge.
‘It’s a primal thing. My dad always told me, you never fish on a full stomach. You’ve got to be hungry, so you’re more eager to get a catch. The fish can tell if you’re hungry or not.’
‘Yer, right’ laughed Caitlyn as she got in his car. Thomas turned the key and the engine roared to life. It was an old khaki coloured land cruiser. From the amount of red dust on the car, Caitlyn thought it must have been a while since Thomas had washed it. Someone had written ‘wash me lazy bones’ on the rear window
‘I’m telling you, it’s true. I’ve done scientific research to prove it.’ Caitlyn gave him a doubtful look, so he continued. ‘One day, I went out after having a huge breakfast, and I fished for three hours, and I didn’t even get a nibble on my line. The next day, I went to the exact same spot, and I was starving hungry, but I caught the best lot of fish I ever had.’
‘You actually starved yourself for a day to prove this so called theory?’
‘Nope, my mate Rob was meant to pack something for breakfast, and he forgot, so we got bloody hungry. I could have killed him.’
Caitlyn burst out laughing. By now she realised that they were heading down Reid Road, but not towards any particular beach spot she could think off. Then Thomas turned off, and Caitlyn supposed that they were going to Gantheume point to go fishing. But as they left the bitumen and headed down the red dirt road past the race track on the left that was located well and truly away from the residential area of Broome, Thomas drove straight past the Gantheume Point turn off that jutted off to the right. ‘So, where are we going?’ she inquired.
‘I’m taking you to a spot at the end of Port Road, but I thought I’d take you the back way.’ The road suddenly curved around and they were rattling along what now seemed an endless river of red dust. The sides of the road were piled up and were over half of the height of the car. Thomas explained that the road was graded about twice a year, and that the grading machines merely took the top layer of gravel, dirt and dust and pushed it up onto the edges of the road, because this saved carting the dirt away, but he also explained how in the wet, the first sign of rain meant that the road had to be closed to all traffic, as the built up edges prevented water from flowing away, and the gravel was too hard to absorb anything. Added to this, when the fine dust got wet, it turned the road to a mushy mud and even the best of four wheel drives had trouble getting through.
The spindly native bushes which crept up to the embankment at the edge of the road were covered in a fine red dust.
Caitlyn looked around. She knew she was only a five minute drive from town, but glancing around, the route had an isolated feel. They could have been in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of kilometres from any sign of civilisation. Thomas interrupted her quite observation. ‘Look’ he said, pointing to the right. Caitlyn let out a small gasp.
‘Wow’ she said softly. Through the scrub, over a rocky knarled edge, she could see the vastness of the Indian Ocean. The colour of the water went from the brilliant iridescent blue that so typified Broome to a rich, deep, dark blue out on the horizon. There was barely a ripple on the water, almost giving the appearance of a vast sheet of glass.
‘There’s actually a cliff beyond that rock edge with a fifty foot drop.’ explained Thomas. ‘I would stop and show you, but as we’re running late, I want to get to our spot so we can get some fishing in before the tide turns. I’ll show you that another day.’
‘It’s beautiful’ said Caitlyn. She was quietly surprised that Thomas was already talking about there being another day, but on the same token, she was secretly pleased. They drove on for a couple minutes in silence. Caitlyn snuck a peek at Thomas’ handsome profile while he drove, but quickly looked away again and out her own window. She would be most embarrassed if he caught her staring.
Just as suddenly as they had driven onto gravel, they were back on bitumen and had come up to a T-intersection. Thomas turned right, and they were back on Port Drive, with the Jetty stretched out just a couple of hundred of metres in front of them. But just before the jetty, Thomas turned right again, and followed the fence of an old lay-down yard, before heading down a small hill past the Broome Fishing Club, which was perched on another hill top, before he swung his car into a car park at the end of the parking lot. But not before he drove past a dozen or so boat trailers.
Past a couple of rocky outcrops, was an isolated stretch of beach which was peppered with small rocky boulders along the shore line. They had a reddish brown tinge to them and looked liked some giant invisible hand had come along and scattered them like a handful of dice.
Thomas and Caitlyn each grabbed some of the fishing gear and walked down the concrete boat ramp which had small, square grooves that ran across the width of the ramp indented into it to increase tyre traction for cars putting their boats out of the water. They walked towards the bottom of the ramp. Thomas went to warn Caitlyn. ‘Be careful down here, it’s sli…’, but it was too late, Caitlyn stepped on a mossy part of the ramp near the waters edge and lost her footing. As quick as lightening, Thomas dropped the two rods he had in one hand and caught Caitlyn around the waist. Caitlyn looked up at Thomas. His face was merely inches from hers. Neither of them moved for a few seconds, then Caitlyn found her footing and righted herself. After a few seconds of watching Caitlyn regain her composure, Thomas smiled to himself before he bent over and picked up the rods he had dropped and directed Caitlyn to follow him onto the sand.
‘Thanks for catching me before. I thought I was a goner.’
‘No worries. Glad I could be there for a damsel in distress. Look, down here, just past those rocks.’ They walked to a sandy stretch of beach and set their belongings down.
Caitlyn looked out to sea and saw an old pearling lugger out towards the horizon, its majestic sail filling with the soft breeze. Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed that Thomas was getting busy with unpacking. He drove two rod holders into the sand at the waters edge. Caitlyn gulped as she notices his strong muscle bound arms flexing with the effort. His sleeveless T-shirt only made it harder for her to pretend she wasn’t looking.
Next, Thomas grabbed the rods and set them in the rod holders. He then took out some bait and put it on the rod he had bought from Caitlyn. Before Caitlyn had a chance to say anything, he had cast the line out into the water and returned it to the water.
‘I thought I was meant to be learning how to bait a line and throw it out.’ Caitlyn laughed. ‘I barely had time to see how you did all that.’
‘All in good time. I just want to duck back to the car for a second. If anything nibbles on that line, pick it up and start reeling it in.’
‘Got it.’ And with that he disappeared around the outcrop of rocks. A few minutes later, he was back with a fold up chair. He unfolded it and put it near Caitlyn’s fishing rod.
‘There you go, now you can sit and wait for the fish to bite in comfort.’
‘What about you? Don’t you want a chair as well?’
‘Nah, I’ll be right’, replied Thomas. ‘I’ll be too busy teaching you to fish. And besides, my mates would think I was a big woos if they caught me sitting down while I was fishing. I wouldn’t live it down if they caught me.’
Again Caitlyn laughed ‘But it’s alright for me?’
‘Sure is’, Thomas laughed back at her. He enjoyed seeing Caitlyn laugh, she shone from the inside out when she did so. It was a quality he rarely saw in other people. ‘It shows that I'm being chivalrous to my star student... well let’s face it, my only student’.
Thomas then picked up his rod and went over and crouched next to Caitlyn. ‘I’m going to do a basic rig on this line now, so watch and learn. Then with more patience than Caitlyn could have asked for, Thomas started to show her what he was doing. He showed her how to use the knife to cut a fresh clean end in the line, then he explained a bit about selecting sinkers and hooks according to the type of fish you were planning to catch. ‘If you’re after a few nice little garddy for example, to use as bait for a larger fish later on, one of these small sinkers is ideal. Garddys tend to swim towards the top of the surface, so you don’t want your line to sink, so this will keep it where they are most active. Then if you use this nice little one owe hook, it’s just the right size for a small bit of squid bait or a prawn’.
Caitlyn concentrated extra hard as she watched Thomas put the basic rig on the line. When he finished, he surprised her by slicing a clean cut through the fishing line above the sinker. He then used the knife again to nick the knot that had held the hook, until the line came away and left the hook without any line holding it.
‘What did you do that for?’ exclaimed Caitlyn, somewhat startled. ‘I thought that was a good “rig” as you fishermen call it’.
‘Yep, it was. But the idea is I’m meant to be teaching you. So now, you’re going to do it. Do you reckon you can remember how I did it?’
‘Well I’ll give it a shot, I guess.’ And with that Caitlyn picked up the sinker and threaded it onto the line. She then proceeded to tie the hook on in the line as she thought she remembered Thomas doing it. Every now and again, Thomas gently corrected her technique verbally, but never in a condescending way. It wasn’t long and Caitlyn had tied her first rig. ‘It’s not as neat as yours.’ she said with a sigh, but Thomas assured her it was excellent for a first effort.
After that, Thomas suggested to Caitlyn that she reel her line in and check her bait. It was still intact. Thomas cast it out again and rested the rod in one of the rod holders.
‘Now’ he said in a mock official sounding voice. ‘Up here young lady, for part two of your lesson’.
‘Yes ssssir.’ Caitlyn replied in an equally official sounding response. They both laughed at the silliness of it all, as Caitlyn followed Thomas up the beach about ten metres. He was carrying the rod that Caitlyn had rigged up a few minutes before hand.
‘Next, I’m going to teach you how to cast a rod.’
‘But aren’t we a bit far from the shore line?’ said Caitlyn in a mildly alarmed voice, ‘I have pretty much zero faith in my casting ability as it is. From here I doubt I’ll even make it to the water’s edge, let alone beyond that.’
‘Ahh, but I’m not intending for you to cast into the water.’ Thomas said in a cheeky conspiritual tone. Seeing Caitlyn’s confused look, he continued. ‘This is what you call a literal dry run. The idea is you cast up the beach onto the sand. That way you get a real feel for what result your casting has on your line.’
Again with the utmost of patience, Thomas gave Caitlyn a step by step guide to how to cast out the line from the rod, and as he did so, Caitlyn saw the hook and sinker sail fifty feet up the beach. Then he handed the rod to Caitlyn for her to try.
The first couple of casts, Caitlyn only managed to get the hook, ten feet away, but with a few friendly pointers from Thomas, ten feet soon turned into thirty feet.
Twenty minutes later Caitlyn exclaimed ‘Well, I think I’m getting the hang of it, but I feel a bit silly casting onto dry land.’ She laughed slightly breathlessly as she cast up onto the beach for what felt like the umpteenth time.
‘I suppose you would.’ replied Thomas with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, I think you’ve got the idea. Let’s head back down and check your line.’
As they walked back down to the shore line, Caitlyn was about to ask Thomas why he was being so nice and giving up his precious free time to give her a fishing lesson, but she decided against it. She didn’t want to put him on the spot like that. She just wanted to enjoy the day as it came.
Thomas got Caitlyn to check her line, and this time he also got her to cast her line back in. It went a fair distance out, and Caitlyn was quietly chuffed with herself. But she didn’t let on. Instead, she started, ‘So is that how you learnt to cast, on dry land that is.’
‘Yep, sure is. Down south at Bussleton in Nan and Pop’s backyard. It’s how me and all my cousins learnt to cast. Pop would stand there for hours making us repeat our casting, until we could get the line from one side of the yard to the other. The yard was thirty five feet wide, so that was no mean feat for a six year old. We used to pretend to grumble and complain, but secretly, we loved it. Especially when we finally managed it. Pop would make such a big deal of it. Anyone would think we’d just won gold at the Olympics. Pop had a way of making us feel special for the smallest thing.’
Caitlyn was surprised by the tenderness in Thomas’ reminiscing. It was unusual for her to witness a male being so sharing with their inner thoughts. But as if he read her thoughts, he quickly and swiftly changed the subject. ‘So what is it that you do in Broome, Caitlyn? Are you leaving town soon? Is that why you had your garage sale?’ He held his breath for a moment. He hoped he was wrong about her reasons for having the garage sale.
‘Oh no. In fact, just the opposite, I just arrived, but having such a small unit, it quickly became apparent, that me and my worldly goods were not all going to fit in, so the garage sale was a good way to clear out some of the unnecessary junk.
‘But back to your original question, I’m a teacher with Broome Christian Primary School. I teach year seven there.’
‘That’s interesting. I might have to start calling you Miss Caitlyn. Do you enjoy teaching?
‘I love it. Teaching is my passion. Ever since I was ten years old, it’s all I wanted to do. And as I got older, I became even more determined to become a teacher. I just knew I wanted to work in a job where I could help make a difference if possible.’
‘So have you been teaching for long?’
‘No actually, I just finished Uni, and this is my first teaching position. But I love working with kids and have always been involved in youth programs and what not. I used to work in a vacation care during the holidays to help support myself...’
Caitlyn was about to continue, but suddenly there was a sharp jab on her fishing line and there was a long whirring sound as the fish began to take line off the reel. She jumped out of her chair so suddenly that the chair over balanced and tipped over.
‘Easy’ laughed Thomas, ‘Just pick your rod up. That fish is well and truly hooked, the way he took that bait.’ Caitlyn quickly grabbed the rod, while Thomas put her chair upright again.
‘So I just start winding?’
‘That’s the name of the game, but try pulling the tip of your rod up high, then winding as you let your rod go down again. That’s it, you’re doing fine’ Thomas said encouragingly.
‘Hey, this is more fun than it looks, no wonder Aunty Tara loves this so much.’ Caitlyn laughed breathlessly as she continued to wind.
‘You mean you no longer think, all those people that love fishing are boring.’ Thomas said with more mock seriousness. He saw the startled look on her face and broke out in a smile. ‘I’m just kidding, you don’t have to answer that.’
‘Oh, ha, ha. Very funny. But seriously, I never realised it could be such an adrenalin rush to pull a fish in.’
Just then, the fish broke through the water about ten metres off shore, and Caitlyn stopped winding.
‘No don’t stop winding.’ Caitlyn quickly started winding again. Thomas continued ‘You’ve got to get that fish up to shore, unless you plan on swimming out to grab it.’
‘No thanks’ Caitlyn said as the fish finally came to the shore line, and before she realised it, there was a forty centimetre fish flapping around on the sand.
‘Congratulations. You’ve just caught yourself a nice G.T.’
‘G.T?’
‘That’s short for Golden Trevelly. A very nice eating fish.’
The fish stopped moving momentarily, and Caitlyn went to touch it with her index finger, but as she did, it went back into a wild flapping frenzy causing Caitlyn to take a quick step back.
‘Here allow me’, said Thomas. He picked up the fish, seemingly unphased by all its flapping. In the blink of an eye, he had the hook out of the mouth. He then grabbed a knife and went about preparing it to take home.
‘Now this is the part I don’t think I want to learn’ exclaimed Caitlyn.
Thomas laughed ‘Well for now, I’ll take care of that for you. I’ll even fillet it for you ready to cook.’
‘That’s fine. It’s very nice of you to offer that.’
‘Well, as your fishing teacher, I do like to offer a value added service.’ he replied.
After that, Thomas and Caitlyn fished for another hour. Caitlyn caught one more fish, and Thomas caught a couple as well. During this time, they idlely chatted away, discussing everything from the Broome weather which was slowly becoming more bearable, to Caitlyn’s kids that she so loved to teach. Although of course, Caitlyn was professional enough not to mention any of the kid’s names.
At eleven o’clock, Thomas glanced at his watch and sighed. ‘I hate to spoil our fun Miss Caitlyn, but we need to think about packing up. I’m working tonight, and need to get a few hours of shut eye, beforehand.’
‘Not at all’ replied Caitlyn and she promptly began to pull in her line. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve kept you too long.’
‘No, no, no. Don’t apologise. I love fishing.’ Thomas paused, then added with a smile ‘And besides, I’ve really enjoyed the company too.’
Caitlyn smiled back and said somewhat shyly ‘And so have I.’
They packed up in relative silence and headed back to the car.
Thomas drove along Port Drive on the way back to Caitlyn’s unit. Caitlyn marvelled to herself at the fact that they were driving not far from the isolated road they had travelled on this morning, and yet somehow it seemed so different and remote compared to Port Drive, despite the similar vegetation at the side of the road.
‘Thank you so much for the fishing lesson.’ said Caitlyn as Thomas pulled into her driveway. ‘It’s been a very enjoyable morning indeed.’
‘Yeah, but there’s an important question that remains.’ countered Thomas turning off the engine.
‘What’s that?’
‘Have I changed your mind about fishing?’
‘Definitely. I can’t wait til the next time I tag along with my Aunty. She’ll be so surprised.’
‘In that case, you’ll be needing this.’ And Thomas promptly jumped out and started unloading the fishing gear that he had only yesterday paid for at the garage sale.
‘No, no, you paid for that, I’ll just go and buy some more.’
‘Don’t be silly. Besides, I’ve got heaps of fishing gear at home, so I can spare it.’
‘In that case, I must give you a refund.’ Before Thomas could say anything, Caitlyn had let herself inside and came out ten seconds later with a fifty dollar note. ‘I insist.’ She said and handed him the money.
‘Well, if you insist, but I better get going now a catch some zzzz’s.’ In return, he handed her the fish he had filleted for her in a plastic bag. He then reached out and gently grabbed her upper arm. ‘I’ve had a nice morning Caitlyn. I’ll see you around.’
‘Yer, me too, bye.’ With that Thomas got back in his car and reversed out. He waved one more time before he took off down the road, and disappeared into the distance.
It’s only then that Caitlyn realised how disappointed she was that Thomas had not invited her on another fishing trip, or asked for her number.

A real blog

Hi everyone, and welcome to my blog. Well it really is a shameless effort to pre-promote my part written novel 'Mangrove Dreaming'. Just as a bit of a background, when I decided I wanted to try and write a novel, I felt that Broome was a natural choice for a location for my novel. I love Broome, I met my husband there, we fell in love and we married there. So it definitely holds memories for us.

The story of Mangrove Dreaming is one of love, friendship, growth and healing. It concerns Sam, who has moved to Broome to save her failing marriage, Tara, her older neighbour, with whom she forms an endearing friendship, and Caitlyn, Tara's niece, who has come to Broome to start her teaching career and finds the last thing she ever expected to... true love. Through the unlikely female hobby of fishing, these three women give each other the strength and support to face whatever life may throw at them.

I started writing 'Mangrove Dreaming' just under a year ago, and had grand plans of writing it in three months. Now it's a year later and I'm half way through chapter 8. Sometimes, I've written three chapters in nine days, other times, it's taken me three months to write one chapter, with life (moving house, back problems, two active kids under four) getting in the way of my original plan. Apart from that I have no real excuse, not even writers block as I have a full chapter outline of what happens in every chapter (there are 22 Chapters in total). Part of my motivation of putting my chapters on a blog, is if I know there is an audience out there waiting to see the next (hopefully) exciting chapter, then I will be more inclined to sit down and write more.

So please feel free to comment on what I've done so far and if you like what you've read so far, you have my permission to give me a cyber kick in the butt if I fail to deliver more chapters at an acceptable rate :-).

Hope you enjoy my story.

Love Kerrie xoxo

Chapter 7

MANGROVE DREAMING
By Kerrie Bygrave

Chapter 7:

When the alarm blared out at five fifteen in the morning, Caitlyn’s instinct was to turn off the source of annoying bleeping and pull the cover up over her head. But then she remembered that it was the day of the garage sale and she had to make an early start. She had mentioned to Kara, one of the other teachers at school, that she was holding a garage sale, and Kara had warned her that no matter what time you advertised your sale as starting, that potential buyers would converge in the masses on your yard at no later than seven o’clock. Caitlyn had spent the afternoon before, riding around on her bike to the major intersections of Broome, placing signs around advertising the time and place of her sale. She had put eight o’clock on the signs, but after talking to Kara, she had decided to make sure she was ready by seven.
Jolene had dropped by the night before, and Caitlyn had informed her that she planned to be ready by seven, but if Jolene didn’t want to come that early, she understood. Jolene had replied that she would see how she went. Jolene planned to go to the Roey that night, and it would just depend how late she was out as to how early she would show up.
Caitlyn grabbed a quick coffee to wake herself up, then had a quick shower. She then started dragging the old furniture from the back veranda through to the front yard. By the time she finished that, it was coming up to six thirty already. Next she took the old plastic table that belonged with the unit out to the front yard and unpacked the boxes of unwanted bits and pieces she’d put to the side onto it. Caitlyn also grabbed the fishing gear she had bought the weekend before, and brought it out the front. She debated whether or not to put prices on the items she was selling, and decided that maybe she’d better, so that Jolene would know what to sell things for. She found a marker pen and some masking tape and started tearing bits of tape off, sticking them on various items and scribbling prices on to them.
Caitlyn hadn’t even finished doing this when the first car pulled up. A family of four got out their four wheel drive and wandered into her front yard. ‘We’re not too early, are we love?’ asked a man who appeared to be the father. His daughters appeared to be about ten and twelve. Caitlyn didn’t recognise them from her school, so she guessed that they were from another school in Broome.
‘No, not really.’ replied Caitlyn. She was so lucky that Kara had warned her to be ready early, or else she would still be just climbing out of bed right about now. The family wandered in and out of the various pieces of furniture. Occasionally, the wife would call out to the husband and he would go and investigate a particular item that she was looking at. The kids came up to Caitlyn and asked if she had any toys for sale.
‘I’m afraid not.’ said Caitlyn. ‘I don’t have any kids, so I don’t have any toys to sell off’. The kids gave her a bored look and the older girl rolled her eyes. Caitlyn quickly added, ‘but I am selling some pretty costume jewellery over on that table if you’re interested.’ This sent the two girls scurrying over to the table that Caitlyn had indicated.
After a few more minutes, the husband came up to Caitlyn with a few odds and ends in his hands including some of the costume jewellery that his daughters had picked out. He also said that he wanted the armchair. He gave her some money and he and his wife loaded the chair into the back of the car.
Caitlyn had about a five minute reprieve before more people arrived. Then it seemed that everyone suddenly arrived at once. Sure enough, just as Kara had predicted, at seven o’clock on the dot, there were fifteen or so people fossicking through her belongings. Caitlyn wandered around amongst them waiting for someone to approach her to buy something. A tall thin man in his early forties was inspecting her fishing gear. He called out to see who the owner was, and Caitlyn hurried over to see him.
‘You honestly want fifty dollars for all this stuff. I thought this was supposed to be a garage sale.’ The man sounded slightly arrogant.
‘It is, but this is all brand new, it’s only been used once. In fact I only brought it a week ago.’
‘So how come you’re selling it then.’
‘I decided fishing wasn’t for me, so I thought I may as well get rid of it.’ Caitlyn didn’t feel like explaining to this man that she felt she wasn’t any good at fishing.
‘I’ll give you thirty bucks for the lot.’
‘Sorry, the lowest I’ll go is forty five. Like I said, it’s all new.’
The man thought about it for a minute and rubbed his chin with his rough gnarly hands.
‘Alright, but I don’t have any money on me at the minute. I’ll be back in half an hour.’ He walked out without even saying goodbye. It amazed Caitlyn how rude some people could be.
All at once, everyone seemed to be bringing items to Caitlyn and trying to pay her. Much to Caitlyn’s relief, Jolene walked into the yard just at that moment. She immediately saw the throngs of people and said to Caitlyn ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot of people here already. What can I do?’ She put down the large bag she was carrying.
‘Thank goodness you’re here. I’ve put prices on most things, so just help people that want to buy something I guess.’
Caitlyn and Jolene spent the next fifteen minutes furiously selling this and that to people. Every now and again, Jolene would ask Caitlyn if she would accept a lower price on certain items. After a while, the crowd thinned out again and eventually there was no-one, and Caitlyn and Jolene were able to sit down for a few minutes and relax for a bit.
While they rested, Caitlyn counted the money she had made so far. ‘Hey, I’ve already made over a hundred dollars.’
‘That’s not bad.’
‘Definitely not, considering I probably would have thrown half of this stuff out if you hadn’t given me the idea of holding a garage sale. Thankyou so much, and thank you for coming along to help. I’ll shout you lunch to show my appreciation’,
‘That’s nice of you. And as for coming to help, it’s not a problem. By the way, that reminds me. I brought some stuff I want to sell. Do you mind if I put it out on display?’
‘Of course not. Go for it. What are you selling?’
‘Actually it’s some of my x-boyfriends things. Just some CDs and surf shirts that he left at my place. We broke up a month ago. I’ve been waiting for him to pick it up, but now I figure, stuff him. He was a bastard anyway. He doesn’t deserve to get it back.’ Jolene pulled about a dozen CDs out and a stack of surf shirts.
‘But what will you do if he does come back for them?’ Caitlyn could see that the CDs were quite new and what’s more, she recognised most of them as new releases. They would have been worth a small fortune. She also noticed that the surf shirts were brand name shirts and would have been worth probably fifty dollars each.
‘I’ll tell him I threw them out. Then I’ll tell him to go to hell. Serves him right for dumping me. And besides, if he wanted this stuff, he should have come and got it by now.’ Jolene sounded almost venomous as she spoke, and she had a look of near rage. Caitlyn was taken aback by her tone and demeanour.
But in a split second, Jolene snapped out of her angry look and smiled Caitlyn’s way. ‘Sorry about that. It wasn’t the best of break-ups.’
‘I understand.’ Caitlyn replied cautiously. ‘Break ups can be hard.’ But after what she had just witnessed, Caitlyn decided that Jolene was definitely not the type that you would want to be on the wrong side off in any situation. She decided to change the subject. ‘So how was last night at the Roey. Did you manage to talk to that guy you told me about?’
‘No. He wasn’t even there last night. I felt really bummed when he didn’t show. I went home early. That’s why I was able to get here just after seven. Some tart has probably got her claws into him and won’t let him out of her sight.’
‘So do you want any of these CDs?’ Jolene continued. ‘You can have them cheap. Five dollars each.’
‘No thanks. I’m trying to save money.’ Caitlyn lied. Some of the titles were by her favourite artist, but she didn’t want to have Jolene’s x-boyfriend’s belongings in her possession, especially given that they could almost be considered stolen.
So Jolene set the CD’s out on the table and used Caitlyn’s marker to price them at ten dollars each. She looked at Caitlyn. ‘I was only going to charge you five dollars, but everyone else can pay ten. They’re worth thirty dollars each.’
The next wave of people arrived soon after that, and Caitlyn and Jolene were busy for the next few hours. There were lots of people who didn’t actually buy anything, they just came in for a look. A few people asked about the fishing gear. But Caitlyn explained that they had been sold. By nine thirty, all of the furniture items had been sold, and by eleven o’clock most other items had been sold as well. There was only the odd person stopping by to look now.
As they sat on the front patio, waiting to see if anyone else would show up, Jolene stretched out her arms, and gave a big yawn. ‘I didn’t realise that a garage sale could be so draining. I might head home and have a sleep. I’ll take a rain cheque on that lunch if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not. Thanks for your help. I’ll probably pack up soon anyway. I might have a snooze myself.’ Caitlyn paused. ‘But I am disappointed about that fishing gear. Someone told me first thing this morning that they wanted it, and they were going to come back and pay for it within half an hour. I told other people that it was sold, and now it looks like I’m stuck with it.’
‘I take it your fishing trip last week wasn’t too successful.’
‘That’s an understatement.’ Caitlyn laughed.
Jolene stood up and started packing away the few unsold items she had left. ‘Oh well. You never know, a few more people might come along before you pack up. Let them buy the gear if they wanted. You’ve given the person more than enough time to come back.’
‘I guess you’re right, but knowing my luck, I won’t get any other offers.’
‘OK. Then I’m off. Good luck with selling the rest of your stuff. I’ll catch up with you soon.’
Caitlyn waved good bye, and picked up one of the books she’d been trying to sell. She flicked through it and started reading one of the chapters. She read for a while, and she was just thinking in the back of her head, that she might finish up the garage sale, when a shadow fell across her and she realised someone was standing there.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.’ she said as she closed her book. ‘Now, can I help you with anything…’ Upon looking up she caught her breath. In front of her stood one of the most gorgeous men she’d ever seen. He was about five foot six tall, had jet black hair which was shortish with an ever so subtle wave. It was brushed back off his face, except for a small lock of hair which sat across the left side of his forehead. He wore a brown pair of knee length board shorts, and had a yellow singlet on. His arms were powerfully built with firm bronzed muscles, but not so muscled, that they looked grotesque the way some body builders arms did. In short, Caitlyn thought he looked the picture of perfection, and she wasn’t even normally the type to ‘rate’ guys that she saw.
Caitlyn quickly tried to recompose herself. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious that she was staring. She decided that he mustn’t have noticed because suddenly he flashed her a brilliant smile. Caitlyn was glad she was sitting down, because she felt her knees go weak, and wasn’t quite sure they would have supported her had she been standing up. She started idly rearranging items on the table in front of her as an excuse to stay seated.
‘I’ll just take a look around if you don’t mind.’
‘Yep, go right ahead. I’m afraid there’s only what is on this table and that fishing gear over there.’
‘Well, I don’t think this jewellery would suit me’ Caitlyn laughed despite feeling as nervous as a young school girl with a crush. ‘So I might check out the fishing gear. Is that it over there?’
Yes that’s it.’ Caitlyn stood up and was quietly grateful that her knees were actually supporting her much better than she thought they would. She followed her would-be customer over to where the fishing gear lay. He squatted down to inspect it.
‘Hey, this all looks brand new, how old is it.’
‘It’s only a week old, I bought it last weekend.’
‘And you’re selling it already? Why?’
‘It’s quite embarrassing really,’ Caitlyn glanced at the handsome stranger and blushed, but it had nothing to do with being embarrassed about her fishing misadventure and everything to do with the butterflies in her stomach that took flight every time she looked at him.
‘Oh I get it. You have an embarrassing fishing tale to tell, and I’m a complete stranger, so you don’t want to tell me about it. So I know what I have to do.’
‘You do?’ Caitlyn sounded mystified.
‘Yep. I have to introduce myself.’ H e said matter-of-a-factly.
‘Why do you have to do that?’ She gave him a confused look.
‘It’s obvious isn’t it? If I introduce myself, I won’t be a stranger anymore, then you can tell me what your embarrassing story is.’ He stood back up and held out his hand. ‘Hi, I’m Thomas Carter.’
‘Hi, I’m Caitlyn Jackson.’ Caitlyn shook his hand with her own, and found his hand grip to be warm and inviting. She swore that he held onto her hand a few more seconds than necessary, but she thought that could be just wishful thinking on her behalf. When he did let go, she could still feel her hand tingling.
‘Now, that we’re no longer strangers, I reckon you should tell me your embarrassing fishing story.’ Thomas could see Caitlyn hesitating. ‘You do know that every second person in Broome has an embarrassing fishing tale. It’s almost a right of passage in this town. I don’t think you’re allowed to vote in the local elections without one.’
Caitlyn laughed and started to feel more at ease. Wow, she thought, good looking and a sense of humour.
‘If it’s any help,’ Thomas continued, ‘I can almost guarantee you that I have a more embarrassing story than you.’
‘I seriously doubt that.’
‘Try me. You tell me your most embarrassing fishing story, and I’ll tell you mine.’ He said with a cheeky tone.
‘I actually brought this fishing gear to teach myself how to fish. My auntie lives in town, and she loves to fish. At first I didn’t even want to fish. I would just go along with her on her fishing trips and just enjoy the scenery and read a book, but after a while, I saw how relaxing Aunt Tara found it when she was fishing. So I thought I’d give it a shot. Only thing is, I wanted to try and teach myself to fish, then surprise my aunt by joining in.’
‘You actually went fishing by yourself the very first time you tried fishing?’
‘Yes, I thought it was a good way to ease into it without feeling pressured to be good at it straight away.’ Caitlyn paused. ‘You see, my auntie is quite a remarkable woman, she’s now in her fifties, and she takes herself off fishing all the time, and it’s nothing for her to reel in a huge fish and think nothing of it. I just didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of her.’
‘I can understand that, but fishing isn’t really the sort of activity you normally teach yourself. And that wasn’t really much of an embarrassing story.’
‘You don’t think so? What’s your embarrassing story then.’
‘I once went fishing at Crab Creek, and went to catch some fresh bait with my throw net in the creek. Because I didn’t want to get my clothes wet or dirty, so I took them off and went in the water, wandering down the creek looking for bait fish.’
‘What’s so embarrassing about that? Did someone see you?’ Caitlyn laughed, trying not to imagine what Thomas would look like with no clothes on.
‘Worse than that. While I was upstream, someone nicked all my gear, including my fishing gear, my clothes which had my car keys in it, my car, and my esky which had my bottle of water in it.’
‘Oh dear, what did you do?’
‘What could I do, except start walking back to town?’
‘How far from town were you?’
“Crab Creek is about a half an hours drive from town. I started walking back hoping someone would pick me up, but considering I only had jocks on... Let’s just say I got a few weird looks from passers by. And I walked for miles without anyone stopping for me, which wasn’t fun on a thirty seven degree day with no water.’
‘So how did you end up getting back to town then?’ By now, Caitlyn could barely contain her laughter.
‘Luckily a mate drove past and after nearly driving on thinking I was some weirdo, he happened to recognise me in his rear view mirror. But boy, I have never lived that day down with him.’
‘I bet.’ replied Caitlyn, her chuckles slowly subsiding.
‘So,’ said Thomas cheekily. ‘Do you still think your story is more embarrassing than mine?’
‘No, not at all. Your story definitely wins hands down.’
‘I told you so. Anyway, I’ll buy your fishing gear but only under one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You have to try fishing again, and this time not try and teach yourself.’
‘Well, my auntie is good at fishing, and I know if anyone could teach me, it would be her, but if you buy my fishing gear, I’ll have nothing to fish with.’
‘Who said I was suggesting that you’re auntie should teach you. I thought you said you wanted to get some practice in before you tried fishing with her.’
‘Yeah, but if you take my fishing gear, and I don’t get my Aunt to teach me then how…’ It suddenly dawned on Caitlyn what Thomas was hinting at. ‘You mean you want to teach me?’
‘Is that such a bad idea?’
‘Oh I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’re probably too busy for that.’
‘Hey, I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have the time. In fact, what are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Nothing, but are you sure…’
‘Course I am, see you at seven thirty tomorrow morning. We’ll head out early before it gets too hot.’
‘But I haven’t said yes yet.’ exclaimed Caitlyn.
‘Do you want to turn my offer of expert fishing tuition down then?’ smiling at her with a silly grin.
She smiled sheepishly back at him. ‘No I guess I can’t say no to such a generous offer.’
‘Good. That’s settled.’ said Thomas. He took his wallet out of his pocket. ‘Here’s fifty dollars for the fishing gear, and I’ll pick you and my fishing gear up at seven thirty tomorrow. But don’t go spending that fifty dollars.’
Caitlyn frowned ‘Why not?’
‘Because after tomorrow, when you have such fun fishing, you’re going to beg me to let you buy your gear back.’
‘Oh you think so do you?’
‘I know so. Anyway I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow.’
‘Bye then’ Caitlyn replied.
She watched him saunter back to his car casually. Once he was in his car and pulling away he waved one last time. When his car was out of sight, she sat down again. She felt almost surreal. Half an hour ago, she was merely having a garage sale, and now she had been asked fishing by one of the most attractive men she’d ever met. Caitlyn mused over the concept for a few minutes before she decided to pack up for the day.
Luckily all the furniture had sold so she didn’t have to drag anything heavy back inside. She grabbed a small packing box, and packed up the remaining small things on the table. Caitlyn decided she would donate the remaining items to an op shop.
After she’d packed away, she grabbed her bike and went around collecting the signs from the street corners, before heading home and starting some classroom preparation for the following week. She was feeling weary and had been planning to relax for the afternoon and do her work tomorrow, but now that she had plans for tomorrow morning, she didn’t want to risk leaving it til the last minute in the afternoon.

Chapter 6

MANGROVE DREAMING
By Kerrie Bygrave

Chapter 6:

Sam sat back and closed her eyes. Tara had spent some time telling her about life in Broome back in the Seventies. As much as Sam thought it sounded exotic and romantic to have lived in Broome back then, she admitted to herself that she didn’t know that she would have coped back in the days of no air-conditioning. It just added to the admiration she had for Tara that was slowly but surely growing, even at this early stage of their friendship. Now they were both sitting down, not saying much, each woman waiting to see when the next nibble would take their line. With her eyes shut, Sam became more aware of the birds calling out to each other in the distance. She could hear the gentle, constant lapping of the water at the edge of the creek. Despite the mud all over her, and the heat of the sun above, Sam couldn’t believe how relaxed she felt. In fact, she had trouble remembering the last time she was truly able to forget everything and just unwind.
Suddenly in the bushes behind them, there was a rustling noise. Sam may not have noticed had she not had her eyes shut concentrating on the things she heard. She opened her eyes and turned around. At first she couldn’t see anything but then a young woman appeared out of the trees. She stepped down over the log and started down along the mud towards Sam and Tara.
Tara called out without even looking ‘Hello Caitlyn. So you made it, huh? How great that you could join us.’
‘Hi there, Auntie Tara. Yes I made it. I managed to do a few hours of class room prep. So I thought a bit of time out down here would do me the world of good.’
Tara and Sam stood up and Tara made the introductions. ‘Sam, this is my niece Caitlyn. Caitlyn this is Sam.’ The two women smiled at each other and shook hands.’
Hi Caitlyn.’ Sam began. ‘It’s nice to meet you. Tara tells me you’re new in town.’
‘Nice to meet you too Sam. Yes, I’ve been here about six weeks now. What about you?
‘I’ve been here about four months. I don’t know about you, but I just love it.’
‘Yes, Broome is a great place, despite the heat and humidity at this time of year.’ They both laughed.
Tara interrupted ‘Just you two ladies wait until winter. The days will be absolutely idyllic, and the nights will be cool but pleasant. That’s when Broome truly comes into it’s own. Anyway, believe it or not, you do get used to this wet weather season.
‘Somehow, I find that hard to believe.’ returned Caitlyn. ‘But I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.’
Sam noticed the mud on Caitlyn’s old denim shorts and commented ‘I see you had about as much luck as me in avoiding the mud on the way in here.’
‘Yes, well, trust my Auntie to find such a nice spot that you have to trek through the mud to get to. And yet look at her, barely a spot of mud on her.’
‘I told you,’ interceded Tara. ‘I’ve been coming here for years. It doesn’t take long to get adept at getting in here whilst staying cleanish.’
The three women sat down again, after Caitlyn pulled an old towel out of her back pack to put down on the muddy bank of the creek. After she was settled, she took a book out of her backpack and started to read.
‘Aren’t you going to join us in a spot of fishing?’ inquired Sam.
‘No. Fishing isn’t really for me. I’m happy to read my book and enjoy the peace and quite down here.’
Suddenly Sam’s fishing line went taunt. She quickly grabbed her reel and started pulling in her line. ‘I’ve definitely got one.’ Sam said. She was concentrating on her line, but she had a huge smile on her face. The thrill of pulling in a fish again excited her more than she thought possible.
Tara encouraged her gently ‘Just pull it in like you’re doing, you’ll be fine.’
It didn’t take long, and the fish broke through the water at the edge of the creek. Just as Sam had the fish up on the shore and was about to go over to take a closer look, Tara warned her to be careful. ‘You’ve caught yourself a cat fish there. Don’t get to close. The spikes around its head are poisonous and can make you very sick if you touch them.’ Tara grabbed a rag out of her bag, a piece of wood shaped like a rolling pin, and a pair of fishing pliers. She went over and grabbed the fish by the tail with the rag and used the pliers to remove the hook from the fish’s mouth. She then took the piece of wood and carried the fish a little further along the bank and turned her back to Sam and Caitlyn. When she came back, Caitlyn asked where the fish was. ‘I hit it on the head and put the dead fish back in the water.’
‘I think that might be one of the reasons I don’t like fishing’ replied Caitlyn crinkling up her nose. ‘Isn’t that cruel?’
‘Not really in this situation. The cat fish population in Dampier Creek is particularly prolific. Some days you can come down here and catch nothing but cat fish, and their presence can actually mean there is less food around for other fish species that are more desirable. So, it’s kind of unspoken amongst the fishing community that the cat fish is one of those species that you don’t always re-release alive if you catch them.’
‘Well, like I said,’ Caitlyn said, ‘I just don’t think fishing is for me.’ She went quite. She hadn’t told her Auntie about her fishing trip out to the jetty. After debating with herself about whether she should, she decided against it. After all, Tara would just try to change her mind and get her to try again, and she didn’t feel up to justifying why she didn’t want to try again. She put it down to ‘different strokes for different folks’.
Tara put some more bait on the hook, and Sam tossed her line back out. This time she managed a good cast the first time. ‘Gee, you really are getting the hang of this’ said Tara.
‘Thanks, but its early days yet. I still need to learn to put bait on and replace my own hooks and things.’
‘How long have you been fishing?’ asked Caitlyn.
‘Today’s my first time.’ replied Sam. ‘But I already feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it. Your Auntie’s a good teacher.’
‘Aaah, but your also a good student.’ added Tara and they gave each other a warm look.
Caitlyn became even more sure that fishing just wasn’t for her. If Sam could pick it up in one day, then she definitely wasn’t going to embarrass herself by trying to fish in front of anyone else. She went back to reading her book, but found that she couldn’t concentrate. She was slightly annoyed at herself. She wasn’t the type who normally gave up so easily. So she couldn’t work out why it was so when it came to fishing. After reading the same paragraph three times, Caitlyn put her book down and stared out towards the water.
When Sam noticed that Caitlyn was no longer reading, she said. ‘So Caitlyn, you’re a teacher up here? What do you teach? Primary or Secondary school?’
‘I teach year seven at Primary school.’
‘And how do you like that?’
‘I love it! I’ve known since I was about fifteen that I wanted to be a primary school teacher. At first I thought I wanted to teach young children in years one to three, but being my first year of teaching, I couldn’t be fussy about what year I taught. But now I think I’m really luck to be teaching year seven. I feel like I’m helping all these great kids to prepare themselves to go out into the world. I get such a sense of satisfaction when I see them achieve things in their day to day learning. What about you? What do you do?’
‘I’m not actually working at the moment. My husband Matt and I are in the fortunate situation where I don’t need to work. Before we came here, I was an accountant for a big firm back in Melbourne. I worked long hours crunching numbers whilst I sat in front of a computer all day long. By the time I left Melbourne, I hadn’t had a real holiday in over three years. So when we got here, Matt encouraged me to have a break for a while before I look for work. I’ll probably leave it another few months before I start looking again.’
‘Well I’m sure as an accountant, you’ll have no trouble finding work.’
‘No, probably not. But you know what. I’m not so sure I want to go back to doing accounting. It’s so dull and boring. I might try looking at something else. I don’t know what yet. But something where I’m interacting with people more.’
‘You’re bound to find something you want to do. And even though I just met you, you strike me as being a real people person.’
‘Why, thankyou. That’s a lovely thing for you to say.’
The three women then enjoyed another hour at the creek’s edge. Every now and then they had to move back up the bank a few feet to keep back from the incoming tide. At times, they chatted happily, and there were other times that they just sat and absorbed the peace and serenity around them.
Suddenly Tara stood up and started reeling in her line. She advised Sam to do the same. ‘But we’re having such a nice time.’ Sam said. ‘Couldn’t we just stay another half hour or so?’ She noticed that Caitlyn had also stood up and was starting to pack her belongings into her backpack.
‘Definitely not.’ replied Tara. ‘Not unless you want to swim out of here.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The tide is due to start flowing in much faster soon, and if we don’t leave now, that path we come in on will be a few feet under water. And the creek we have to cross, will be a couple of metres deep.’
‘Gosh, that’s hard to imagine, seeing as it was just a trickle when we came in. But you’re the expert, so I’ll get packed up.’
Tara was sympathetic. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when I come out here next time. You’re welcome to join me again.’
The three women packed up the rest of their things and headed up the bank and over the log into the mangle of salt water trees. Each of the women became lost in their thoughts, and none of them noticed as each one glanced longingly back at the water’s edge.
The trail was slightly muddier on the way back out, and for the first fifteen minutes of the trek, they said little to each other as they concentrated on making their way over the slippery terrain. At least the mangroves that formed a canopy overhead provided them with shade from the beating sunlight. When they reached the creek crossing, Sam was surprised to see that indeed, it was no longer a trickle but it was now about a metre across, but she and Caitlyn followed Tara’s lead, and got across without any drama’s although their shoes were saturated by the time they were on the other side.
Once they had used the log to climb up the other side of the creek, the path was slightly drier and the walking became slightly less slippery for a while.
‘So Sam,’ Tara said as they continued along the path, ‘How is it that you and Matt met. I hope you don’t mind me asking.’
‘No, not at all. We met just over three years ago at a dinner party one night. I wasn’t even going to go. It was a Friday night and I had had a horrendous week at work. I was feeling dead tired, and didn’t really feel like socializing. My friend Kristy was hosting the dinner at her place. I actually considered ringing her up and cancelling, but I knew she’d been planning it for weeks, so id didn’t want to disappoint her. So three cups of coffee later, I showed up on her door step with a nice bottle of red. As it turns out, one of her other guests happened to bring their cousin along, and when I walked into the dining room to take a seat, Matt was seated directly across from me. I saw him the moment I saw him. Even though he was sitting down, he struck me as being tall and incredibly cute. Once I sat down, we started talking straight away, and basically we just kept talking all night. By the end of the night, I knew he was the one. Not that I told him that at the time, but later we admitted to each other that we both felt that by the end of the night.
‘So you reckon it was love at first sight?’ asked Tara.
‘Oh definitely. From the night we met, it was exactly three months to the time we got married. We had the cliché whirl wind romance. Matt wined and dined me for a few weeks before whisking me off to one of his friend’s weekend estates in Shoreham, down near Portsea, where he proposed to me. I said yes instantly. I was so incredibly happy. We decided to get married as soon as humanly possible.’
‘Your mum and dad must have been thrilled for you.’ commented Caitlyn.
Suddenly Sam went quite briefly before continuing. ‘No unfortunately. In fact, it was just the opposite. The moment I announced our engagement, they flipped out. They tried desperately to talk me out of it. They argued that we hardly knew each other. In the end, when we made it clear that we would be getting married with or without their permission, they gave me an ultimatum, they said that if we got married, they wanted nothing to do with the wedding.’
‘Wow, that must have been hard.’ said Caitlyn sympathetically.
‘Yes, it was incredibly hard. But we got married as planned. The week before the big day, Matt offered to postpone the wedding if it would help fix things, but I knew we were meant to be together and I wouldn’t hear of putting off our vows. True to their word, mum and dad refused to come. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life, but in the back of my mind, I kept hoping mum and dad would magically appear. I was devastated when they didn’t show up. But I was determined not to let it spoil our special day. And I haven’t heard from them since.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Tara said gently. ‘I know it must be hard. But my daughter Emily is the most special person in the world to me. I’m sure deep down, your parents feel the same about you. They won’t stay estranged forever.’
‘I really hope not.’ There was a sad tinge to her voice. ‘But mum is a pretty determined lady. If she’s decided that she’s not going to communicate with me, then she’ll be pretty keen to stick to her guns. To her it will be about sticking to her guns.’
‘Like I said, I’m sure she will come around. You wait and see.’ said Tara encouragingly. But Sam still had an incredibly sad look on her face for the rest of the walk, and they walked in relative silence.
When they came back to the main road, they all agreed that they would have to do this again real soon. Caitlyn unlocked her bike from the tree that she had chained it to and said goodbye to her auntie and Sam before setting off.
Sam and Tara walked home, stopping at the Shell service station on the corner of Hamersley Street and Napier Terrace to grab a cold drink. It was the only place they were willing to go into with their muddy feet. The man behind the counter gave them a funny look when he saw the state of their feet and the mud on their shorts, but they just laughed and told him not to ask.
They parted at Sam’s gate and said their fond goodbyes. Sam washed her feet and legs at the tap near the steps to the veranda, and bounded up the stairs. She went inside and had a long soaking shower, washing her hair as well. She then made herself a sandwich for lunch, before deciding to take a nap. She realised she was quite exhausted from her first fishing adventure. She laid down with the intention of sleeping for an hour or so, but she ended up sleeping for five solid hours.
That night over a late dinner and a glass of wine, she regaled Matt with the story of her day’s outing. He was amused by the thought of his wife and an older woman trying to fish in the creek. Sam could tell from his expression that he was not really taking her seriously, and she grew annoyed.
‘Don’t get me wrong.’ Matt said, trying extra hard not to sound dismissive. ‘Look, I’m glad you’ve met someone to enjoy yourself with. As long as you’re having fun, that’s all I care about.’ He stood from his chair, picking up his empty plate and wine glass and leant down to kiss Sam on the top of her head. ‘Look, I’ve had a long day, I’ll see you in bed.’ With that he walked off to their bedroom.
Despite being irritated by Matt’s blasé attitude, Sam became determined to do as much fishing as she could over the next few months just to prove to Matt that women could fish too.
Later when Sam fell asleep, she had the strangest dream. She dreamt that she was fishing at the Mangrove creek, when she heard her mother’s voice. She put her fishing line down and followed the sound of the voice into the mangroves. She left the normal trail in an effort to get to her mum more quickly. At times Sam was making her way in between the entwined tree branches, and at other times she felt like she was floating above the dense blue-grey foliage. But the more she followed the noise into the mangroves, the more distressed her mother’s voice became. Just as Sam thought she was about to find her mum, she woke up in a cold sweat. Matt had already awoken and was instantly concerned. He turned on his bedside lamp.
‘Don’t worry.’ Sam said hoarsely. ‘I just had a bad dream, but I’ll be fine now.’
‘You don’t look fine. Let me get you a glass of water.’ And he padded back to the kitchen to do so. When he came back, Sam looked slightly less shaken.
She drank the water that he brought her and smiled. ‘See? All better.’
‘So what was the dream about? Was it about…?’ He paused. ‘Well, you know, what happened back in Melbourne?’
‘No, it wasn’t about that. I don’t really remember what it was about to tell you the truth.’ she lied. ‘Let’s just go back to sleep’. Sam decided against telling Matt about her dream, because she was worried that he would think that the mangroves had spooked her, and he might try to discourage her from going again. And as much as the dream had temporarily upset her, she was very much looking forward to going down there again.
Matt turned off the light again. And they laid down. Matt sidled up to Sam and put his arm protectively over her. Soon they were both fast asleep again. It was the first time since a long time before they had arrived in Broome that they slept in each other’s arms.

Chapter 5

MANGROVE DREAMING
By Kerrie Bygrave

Chapter 5:

Sam stepped out onto the veranda and closed the door behind her. It was five minutes to eleven, and she was expecting Tara to show up any time. She had a pair of long tan coloured boardies on, a white singlet top and a white long sleeve cotton button up shirt. She’d packed a small bag with the items Tara had suggested she bring on their fishing trip. She went and sat on the front step of the veranda and waited. She placed the broad brim hat that she had bought herself from the Yuen Wing store on her head and unconsciously played with the hat string that held it under her chin with a bead to tighten it with.
It had been two days since she had gone out for dinner with Matt. Yesterday, after his early start, he had worked until eight o’clock that night. She had made them a quiche for dinner, but they had said little over dinner. Last night in bed they had talked briefly, but not about anything personal. This time it had been Matt who claimed to be tired and had quickly gone to sleep.
Sam had got up early with Matt this morning and made him a cooked breakfast before he went to work. After breakfast, he had smiled his appreciation, but Sam vowed to herself that she would do more to make things up to him. It was actually a public holiday today for Labour Day, but Matt claimed he had too much to do to take the day off.
It was only after Matt left for work that she realised that she had not told him about her fishing plans with Tara. She had written him a brief note and left it on the kitchen table for him in case he came home while she was out.
A couple of minutes later, Tara came walking down the street. Sam let herself out the front gate. Tara smiled at her. ‘Good morning Sam. Are you ready for some fishing?’
‘Definitely.’ replied Sam. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this since you invited me. Thanks once again for letting me come.’
‘That’s alright’ laughed Tara. You’re more than welcome. But before we go, are you sure you want to wear those white clothes. They probably won’t be clean when you get home, and I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to ever get them that white again.
‘They’ll be OK’ Sam said. ‘ I’ve had them a while anyway’.
With that, they set off. Sam was surprised to realise they were walking through the back street in China Town. Once they were on the other side, Tara led them through a bush track down to the edge of the mangroves. The mangroves looked so thick, and Sam wondered how they would get to the water through them. But suddenly there appeared a break in the thick vegetation and a wide path led straight into the heart of the mangrove trees. The upper branches of the mangroves formed a canopy over the path, and Sam marvelled at how they were now walking through the mangroves themselves. She commented on how the path was a relatively easy walk.
‘Don’t speak too soon.’ warned Tara. ‘It isn’t this easy the whole way’.
Sure enough, another thirty metres along, the path narrowed dramatically, and split into two. ‘So which path do we take?’ inquired Sam.
‘This one.’ replied Tara a matter-of-a-factly, as she took the lead on the right trail. ‘It’s much shorter, but it also has a few obstacles. Like I said the other day, I hope you don’t mind your shoes getting muddy.’
‘By the way,’ Tara added, ‘I hope you don’t mind but my niece might join us later. She’s also new in town, and I brought her down here about a week ago. She’s not really into the whole fishing part, but even so she enjoyed herself last week, so I told her she was welcome to join us today. She had to do some work at school first, she’s a teacher. But she may come down later.’
‘Of course I don’t mind’, said Sam. ‘Being new in town myself, I like meeting new people. I’m sure your niece feels the same way.’
‘I’m sure she does.’ replied Tara. ‘You’ll like Caitlyn, she’s a lovely person.’
Just around the first bend, there was a wide, muddy puddle that spanned the width of the path and disappeared under the mangled roots of the mangroves on both sides. It was about two metres long. ‘Be careful, here’ Tara cautioned Sam who was amazed at how Tara didn’t miss a beat and just stepped into the puddle and kept walking. She went to do the same, but the moment her foot found the bottom of the puddle, her foot started to slip away from under her. She withdrew her foot quickly before placing it back in the puddle, this time much more gingerly.
Tara paused and looked back. ‘If it helps, you can reach up and hold onto the branches above your head.’ she said. ‘They won’t support your weight if you fall, but they will give you more of a sense of balance, when things get slippery.’
Sam took Tara’s advice, and grabbed a low hanging branch just above her head as she carefully continued to step through the puddle. She was able to get through the puddle without slipping over and join Tara on the other side.
Around the next bend, the path dropped away to a small creek. The edge of the creek looked steep and slippery, and Sam wondered how they would get across.
‘Up here.’ Tara directed Sam a few metres to the right of the original path and sure enough, there was a large fallen log that went down to the edge of the trickle of grey, muddy water. Sam copied Tara and held onto the log as she traversed the steep bank. It was easy to step across the water, and on the other side, there were some well worn step ledges going up the other side, where people had obviously walked up many a times. Even so, they were extremely slippery and Sam found herself reaching out and putting her hands on the wet mud-covered bank in front of her to get up to the other side. She noted wryly that Tara had had to do no such thing.
‘You make it look so easy.’ commented Sam.
‘I’ve been coming here for many years.’ replied Tara. ‘Believe me, the first dozen times or so that I came, I was that dirty from falling over. I swear I must have thrown out at least five sets of clothes that were ruined down here. You’re doing quite well considering this is your first time.’
‘Thanks.’ said Sam as she got to the top of the embankment. She saw her hands had a thick layer of mud on them now. She looked at them and laughed. ‘I wonder if this mud has the same therapeutic qualities that the expensive day spas charge a fortune for. Maybe I should smear some of this stuff on my face too.’ But instead she wiped her hands on the side of her shorts. ‘I see what you mean about not going home clean.’
‘Come on.’ Tara said. ‘Not long to go now.’ They continued to walk along the path that meandered this way and that. ‘Look over there.’ Tara directed Sam’s gaze to the left. Through the mangled branches, and the tall arching roots, Sam could see that the main creek and the path they were following was now parallel with the edge of the water. Before long, the path deviated towards the water’s edge. At the edge of the creek, was a wet sandy bank, but instead of being white like Broome’s other well known beaches, it was the same bluey-grey that permeated the rest of the marshy area surrounding Dampier creek.
‘One last obstacle’ commented Tara. There was a large fallen log at that blocked the way down to the creek, but it was relatively easy for the two women to scramble over it and reach the bank.
Sam went to make her way down to the water, but as she took a few steps, she lost her balance and slipped over, falling squarely on her bottom.’
Tara rushed over to her, but Sam was alright. In fact she burst out in a fit of laughter. ‘Just my luck.’ she mused. ‘I make it all the way here and I managed not to fall over, but when we’re at our destination, the first thing I do is fall on my derrière.’
Suddenly Sam went quite and stared off in the distance. ‘You know,’ she said ‘a few years ago, I would have hated someone taking me on a track like the one we just walked on. I used to be such a prissy when it came to getting dirty. I would have seen the entrance to the track and turned back there and then. I would have been too worried about things like breaking a nail, or messing up my hair. It was the way I was raised. Women just don’t get dirty. That’s what I was taught. But after I met Matt, he made me see that no matter where I was or what I did, being true to myself was so much more important than the insignificant details. He was the first one to take me on a real camping trip. It was just after we started seeing each other. He took me to a little place called Waratah Bay in Victoria. I thought I was going to hate it, but I had a ball.’
Suddenly, Sam picked herself up, and said sunnily ‘Just like I’m having a ball now.’
Tara gave her an admiring look. ‘You’ve obviously grown a lot as a person since you met your husband.’ said Tara.
‘I have.’ replied Sam reflectively. ‘And I have Matt to thank for it. I’m lucky, he is a remarkable man, and he is so good to me. But enough of that for now. I don’t think these fish are going to catch themselves.’
‘No, certainly not’ joined in Tara who walked back up to the edge of the mangroves and pulled out two old milk crates from the branches just above her head. ‘I don’t know who first brought these down here, but they definitely come in handy.’ she said.
With that, Tara sat down on one of the crates next to the side of the creek, and opened up her back pack. She pulled out two hand lines and a little tackle box. Sam sat on the crate next to her.
Sam paused to look around her. ‘Gee, this place really is beautiful.’ she whispered. The creek was about ten metres wide, and along both sides, it was framed by tall, towering mangroves. At various points, there were patches of exposed banks. The sky was a brilliant blue and finished the scenery off, as if an artist had planned the blue of the sky to complement the bluish, green foliage of the mangrove trees and the green tinged water.
Next Tara pulled out a small snap-lock bag with some frozen squid in it.
‘Ooh, that looks appetising.’ giggled Sam. ‘Not.’
‘Luckily it’s for the fish, not us.’ commented Tara, amused by Sam’s reaction to the slimy bait. ‘Have you ever been fishing?’
‘No, never.’ replied Sam. Like I said before, I was brought up to believe that proper ladies don’t get dirty. So when I went camping with Matt, I still wasn’t keen on the fishing aspect. I know this sounds so cliché, but I used to sun-bake on the beach and read magazines while Matt fished in the surf. He never even attempted to talk me into trying to fish. As wonderful as Matt is, there are still a couple of things he see’s as belonging to men alone, and fishing is one of them.’
‘What does he think of you coming fishing with me then?’ said Tara, as she deftly cut two bits of squid off on the lid of her tackle box, and baited up the hooks of the two handlines
‘I actually forgot to tell him that we had planned this.’ replied Sam. ‘I left him a note on the kitchen table in case he came home while we were still out, which is unlikely’. She frowned briefly, then smiled again. ‘He’s pretty busy at work now days.’
Tara had seen Sam’s frown, but didn’t say anything. If Sam wanted to say something, she would. Otherwise, Tara wasn’t the type to pry.
Tara handed one of the hand lines to Sam and said ‘Well, best I be giving you a few tips on throwing your line out then.’ before walking a few feet upstream. ‘Just stay there and I’ll show you what to do.’ She held the plastic spool in her left hand out to the side. With the other hand, she let out about a metre of line. She held it out and started spinning it round like a lasso vertically to her right side. After a few spins, she released the line and it seemed to sail gracefully through the air and land about halfway into the creek. ‘Now, you have a go.’ she motioned to Sam.
Sam repeated what she thought she’d seen Tara do. She got to the part where she was spinning the line around, but when she let go, the sinker fell at her feet. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she lamented.
‘See the way you’re holding the spool in your left hand?’ Tara replied. ‘You need to turn it over so the sloped side faces away from you. This allows the fishing line to come off freely when you let it go.’ Sam tried again, but this time the hook and sinker flew high into the air above her and after she ran to the side a bit, they landed just behind where she had been standing. Before she could say anything, Tara interrupted her and said ‘Try again. You nearly had it. Just be sure to release your line as your hand flicks towards the water’. Sam gathered up her line and tried again. This time it landed in the water, but not as far at as Tara’s line had gone.
Sam was about to pull her line in and try again, when Tara stopped her. ‘No, no. Leave your line out there.’ she said.
‘But it’s not far out enough, is it?’ Sam said doubtfully.
‘Why not?’ said Tara. ‘Do you think fish only swim down the middle of the creek in a straight line?
‘No, I guess not.’ and Sam took a seat next to Tara again on one of the milk crates.
‘Now, for the important business.’ declared Tara, as she stood up. ‘If you get a bite, whatever you do, don’t ever wrap the fishing line around your hand or your fingers. A strong fish can pull so hard, that the line could cut into you quite deeply. Instead, use one hand to pull the line towards you.’ She demonstrated on her own line as she told Sam what to do. ‘Then use your other hand to grab the line further out in front of you and pull it towards you, repeat this, and you’ll soon have the fish pulled in.’ After Tara pulled her line in, she wound it back onto the spool and expertly threw it out again.
They then lapsed into a comfortable silence. Sam took more time to admire her surroundings. She felt more at peace on this muddy bank than she had in a long time. She could see the bay out of the mouth of the creek.
A few minutes later, she felt a sharp jab on her line. She jumped up suddenly and nearly slipped over again, but managed to save herself. ‘I think I just had a bite.’ she said.
‘It’s OK.’ interjected Tara. ‘Don’t pull it in straight away. Let the fish have a few nibbles, and then it should take the bait and hookproperly. Then you’ll be able to pull it in.’
Sure enough, after another few sharp jabs, the fish took the line and Sam felt her line tense and pull away. ‘Put your spool down and start pulling like I showed you before.’ advised Tara.
Sam followed Tara’s advise, and started pulling the fish towards her. ‘This is harder than it looks.’ she said, but she had a smile on her face. It took her a minute, but soon there was a shiny silver fish flip flopping all over the place on the shore line.
Tara came over to inspect it. ‘Congratulations, you just caught a fish all by yourself. A beauty too. It’s a little mangrove jack’. She used both her hands to pick the fish up and carried it over to her tackle box.
Sam was brimming with a girlish excitement, having caught her first fish. ‘I can see why people become addicted to fishing.’ she said breathlessly. ‘Can I do anything to help?’
‘No, it’s alright, you’ve done the hard work.’ replied Tara. ‘This fish has swallowed the hook. I’m going to have to cut the line. She pulled a pocket knife out of her back pack and sliced it through the line near the fish’s mouth. ‘This fish is slightly undersize, so we can’t keep it, but trust me, you’ll catch a bigger one, if not today, another day.’
‘That’s fine. I like the idea of letting the fish go. It seems more humane to me. I might keep the odd fish for a meal for Matt and I to eat.’
‘I like to hear that’. mused Tara as she put the fish back in the water and watched it swim off, before walking back up to the milk crates. ‘That’s what’s called fishing for the future. Actually, you can do something. I need to rig up your line with a new hook, so you can try again. Can you grab me a large hook from my tackle box?’
‘With pleasure.’ replied Sam, and she reached down to her feet to open the box at her feet. She went to pick out one of the larger hooks, but paused. ‘What’s this?’ she picked up a small plastic bag with a small, narrow, plastic fish with a three way hook coming out its mouth. What had caught Sam’s eye was its brilliant teal colouring.
‘What’s that, dear?’ Tara turned around to look at Sam, but she quickly grabbed the plastic bag off her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to snatch.’ she said in a in an unusual curt tone. ‘That just has sentimental value.’ and she placed it carefully back in the tackle box.
Sam put a hand on Tara’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you’.
‘You didn’t. I guess I’m normally the only one who goes into that tackle box. That lure belonged to my husband, and it comes with a lot of bitter sweet memories. That’s all. He passed away ten years ago.’ She stared off into the distant bay.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Thankyou. You don’t have to apologise. It hit me really hard at first, but I’m fine now. I just get a little sentimental sometimes
After a while, Sam said quietly ‘How long have you been in Broome?’
. ‘Since the early seventies. Broome was a very different place back then. That was before all the tourist found out about this place.’ Then she chuckled softly, ‘And before there was air conditioning.’
‘Wow, sounds fascinating.’ replied Sam. ‘You must have some memories of this town, and it must have been quite an adventure to move here.’
‘Yeah, it sure was,’ said Tara with a resigned sigh. ‘Let’s get your line back in the water, and I’ll tell you about my life when I first came to Broome. Hopefully I won’t bore you to tears.’
‘I’m sure you won’t.’ and Sam watched Tara rig up line once more. She listened to Tara tell her about arriving in Broome over thirty years ago, and was fascinated.

Chapter 4

MANGROVE DREAMING
By Kerrie Bygrave

Chapter 4:

The first few weeks in Broome were a bit of a blur for Caitlyn, as she was so busy. The day after her first trip to Town Beach, she started at school. After the first morning meeting where Mr Basil introduced the five new teachers, he went over some details about the upcoming school year. Caitlyn then went to find her class room and set about working out what she had to start the school year off with.
She found that there really wasn’t that much to work with, and when she went to the teacher’s filing cabinet to look up the programs that the previous Year Seven teacher had been using, Caitlyn was disappointed. Apart from some odd student stencils, and a few scribbled notes on some scrappy bits of paper, there was next to nothing. She went to Mr Basil’s office and inquired whether there would be any where else she could look to find resources. Mr Basil directed her to a large box of papers in one of the stationary rooms behind the main office that the previous teacher had left. But after lugging the heavy box marked ‘Year 7’ back to the classroom, she was again disappointed to find that not only was the material highly unorganised, but it was also out of date, and largely unusable.
So Caitlyn spent the next two weeks at school, writing programs and preparing student stencils. She was getting to work at seven in the morning most days and not leaving until six in the evening. She would arrive home at night utterly exhausted. It’s not that she wasn’t used to hard work, but the old air conditioner in the class room, whilst taking the bite out of the heat and humidity, wasn’t really that effective.
After two weeks, the school year started and Caitlyn finally got to meet her students. As it turned out, Sissy was one of her students. In fact about a quarter of the students were indigenous. The school had a policy of helping underprivileged students with heavily reduced school fees. This presented Caitlyn with quite a few challenges as a new teacher, as she had only taught ‘white’ students during her student practicums at University in Perth. Not only were the numeracy and literacy standards of these children significantly lower than normal, but these students often missed days on end of school, as their parents weren’t totally convinced of the importance of getting a ‘white-fella’ education, so the kids found it easy to convince their mums and dads to let them stay home the majority of the time. Every now and again, Mr Basil would visit the parents and remind them that it was now the law that their kids attend school, and suddenly all the kids would show up for a few days, but it never took long for attendance to drop off again. However, Caitlyn found that Sissy never missed a day of school, and it showed in her school work. She was one of the brightest students.
About two weeks after the school term started, Caitlyn’s furniture and personal effect finally arrived from Perth. While she was at University, she shared a house in Shenton Park with some other students, and had managed to accumulate a fair bit of furniture, even though a lot of it was fairly old and tatty, as well as quite a few boxes of house hold effects.
Mr Basil came to Caitlyn’s class at ten o’clock the Friday morning that her things arrived. He watched the class so that she could go home and let the removalist in. As soon as the removalist arrived and opened the back of the truck, she realised that there was no way that everything was going to fit neatly into her small unit. She had the removalists put most of the furniture out on the back veranda, and the boxes were put inside. Even so, there was next to no room to move inside. But once the removalist left again, Caitlyn just left everything where they had put it and went back to work. However, she was able to ride her bike back to school, as it too had been delivered.
After school, she went home and turned the air conditioner on, then started unpacking the boxes inside. As she did so, she kept a couple of boxes aside to ‘repack’ things into that she didn’t particularly want to keep, especially given the lack of room them. She was about half way through unpacking, when in the late afternoon, there was a knock at the door. Caitlyn went to see who it was and found Jolene at the door. ‘Hello, Jolene’, she said, and opened the flyscreen door.
‘G’day Caitlyn, she began. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I might drop in and see how you’re getting on. I remember your address from when we delivered your groceries’.
‘Not at all. Come on in. My gear finally arrived today, and I’m just in the midst of unpacking.’
Jolene must have seen Caitlyn frown briefly, because she said ‘What’s wrong. Is the unpacking that hard?’
‘It’s not that. It’s just that now that everything has arrived, I realise I don’t have enough room in this small unit for everything, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Not only is there all these boxes of stuff in here, but there’s also all my old furniture that I’ve had to put on the back veranda, that I don’t have room for’
‘Mmm, that is a dilemma’ said Jolene, before lapsing into silence and watching Caitlyn empty out the bottom of one of the kitchen boxes. Suddenly she piped up again ‘Hey, I know, why don’t you have a garage sale.’
‘A ‘what’ sale?’
‘You know’, said Jolene. ‘A garage sale. It’s where you put everything you don’t want out on the front lawn on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and people come around and if they want your stuff, they pay you money for it. You just put a few signs on the main road to tell people where to come.’
‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them. I saw the occasional road sign where I lived in Perth. Do you think people would go for that idea up here’
‘Are you kidding, of course they would. Haven’t you seen all the signs on the corner of Fredrick and Hamersley streets on a Saturday morning. There’s normally at least five or six, if not more.’
‘Well, not having a car, I don’t really go into town a lot, although I do like to go to the Courthouse Markets on a Saturday morning. But I’ve never really noticed the Garage Sale signs.’ Caitlyn paused thoughtfully, then continued. ‘Mmm, might be worth trying I guess’.
‘Oh this will be really cool.’ said Jolene. ‘I’ll come and help you if you like, it’ll be fun. We can sit and talk and gossip and stuff, while we do it.’
‘That sounds alright. You can come if you want. But it will take a bit of organisation, so I might leave it till next weekend. I wouldn’t be ready to do it tomorrow. But what I was planning to do is go fishing off the Jetty. Would you like to come?’
‘Sorry no can do. Fishing really isn’t my thing. I can’t stand the smell, the slimy bait, or the slimy fish. And besides, I work every second Saturday, and tomorrow is my rostered day on. But go ahead, enjoy yourself. Do you fish much?’
‘No, I’ve never fished before. But my Auntie Tara who has lived in Broome for years, has taken me to her favourite fishing spot a few times, but I normally just sit and talk to her or read a book while she fishes. She’s such an old hand at it that I didn’t want to embarrass myself by trying to fish in front of her. Of course, she has offered to teach me, but I feign a disinterest in it. My plan is to take myself down to the tackle shop in town, buy a fishing rod and then head to the jetty and have a crack at fishing by myself. Then I might muster up the courage to fish with my auntie when I can make the impression that I half know what I’m doing.’
‘Well good luck with that, but like I said, it’s not my thing. Hey, but I am going to the pub tonight at the Roey. Do you want to come with?’
Caitlyn smiled at Jolene ‘It’s nice of you to invite me but, I’ll say no this time around. I feel quite exhausted to tell you the truth. I’ve had a busy week at school, and having done all this unpacking, I’m likely to fall asleep by eight o’clock, so I’d only be a drag if I came. Maybe next time?’
‘Yeah sure. I go every Friday pretty much. I love it there. Especially now, the last few weeks, there has been the cutest guy there with his mates. I haven’t actually met him yet, because every time I muster up the courage to go over to him, I turn around and he’s already left, even though it’s before ten o’clock. Speaking of which, I might head off now. I’m going to go home and have a nanna nap before I go out tonight. That way, I’ll have plenty of energy to dance the night away to the live band.’
‘OK, well have fun tonight. Good luck with your cute guy.’
‘Ah thanks. See ya.’ And with that Jolene left and Caitlyn shut the door behind her. She wanted to try and do more unpacking, but decided she would eat first. She’d had her Auntie Tara over for dinner the night before, and there was left over pasta and sauce in the fridge. Now that her old but trusty microwave was here, she grabbed the plastic container of pasta out and put it on to heat for a couple of minutes, poured a glass of juice and then sat down on the old cane lounge to eat.
The mere act of sitting and eating made Caitlyn realise just how exhausted she really was. But she was determined to do a bit more unpacking before going to bed. So she put her dishes in the sink and started unpacking some of the boxes lying around the lounge room, then she put the empty boxes and used packing paper in the car port. It was now six forty-five, and she decided that she was truly done for.
Caitlyn headed inside and turned her TV on. One of the removalist men had been nice enough to set it up for her and tune it in. The picture was a tiny bit fuzzy, but after weeks of not having a TV at all, it was a nice change to be able to watch it if she wanted. Her two seater cane lounge, wasn’t really big enough to lay down on, but she found if she put a pillow length ways over the cane arms, she could sort of rest there. So after turning off the lights and locking the doors this is what she did. She intended to watch the end of the news, but before she knew it, Caitlyn had fallen fast asleep. She woke up slightly disorientated. It was eleven o’clock, and the TV glowed softly in the dark. She went to get up, but felt a cramp in her neck from sleeping in an awkward position, so she eased herself up more slowly, grabbed her pillows and turned the TV off. It was only after doing so, that she realised how dark it was. She groped her way back to her bedroom, bumping into the occasional packing box. When she reached her room, she turned on her bedside lamp, changed into a night shirt and got into bed. She turned off her light and promptly fell asleep again.
The next morning, Caitlyn woke up just after eight. She was very surprised and considered this a huge sleep-in, as she was normally awake by six most mornings, even on weekends. Because she got up at six to get ready for school, when it came to Saturday and Sunday, her body-clock pretty much dictated that by six it was time to get up.
When she realised how late it was, she leapt out of bed and discovered that she felt quite refreshed. She thought to herself that she should try to sleep in on a Saturday more often, but doubted if she would manage it. She never was one to be self indulgent.
She quickly had a shower, and threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. She brushed her shoulder length brown hair and pulled it back into a pony tail at the nape of her neck. She grabbed an apple to eat on the way, a bottle of water from the fridge, and some sunscreen. She shoved them into her backpack along with her purse and keys, picked up her bike helmet from near the door, and then let herself out. She unlocked her bike and headed into town.
Even though it was still the end of summer and the weather was still hot, there was a slight breeze making the ride more bearable. Before she knew it, she had reached the tackle shop. She locked her bike up on the veranda and headed inside. There were no other customers inside, so she wandered over to a rack of rods and reels and had a look. It wasn’t long before she realised that she had absolutely no idea what to look for in a fishing rod.
From the other side of the shop, the salesman watched her browsing. Being a fishing tackle shop, females didn’t come in that often by themselves. They were usually with their boyfriends or husbands. Frank watched her with curiosity. She must have been a few years older than his own daughter. She was a pretty girl, though he supposed she was more of a woman than a girl. She wasn’t the sort of looker you would expect to find modelling on the cover of some fashion magazine. She had more of a classic beauty, like Grace Kelly. It was if she radiated a secret, natural attractiveness, and yet she seemed totally oblivious to her own good looks.
Eventually, Frank made his way over to her, and said ‘Is there anything I can do for you, love? Are you looking for something in particular? Perhaps a present for your boyfriend?’
Caitlyn laughed ‘No, there’s no boyfriend. I’m actually here for myself. I thought I’d try some fishing at the jetty today, but I don’t have any fishing gear. Can you suggest anything?’
Frank thought for a moment. ‘So, you’ve not been fishing before, I take it?’
‘No, I’ve seen my auntie fish a few times, but this will be my first time’.
‘Alright, well since this is your first time, we won’t get you to buy an expensive rod.’
‘Why, how expensive do rods get.’
‘Well, pretty expensive, if you get right into fishing. For example’ he went and picked up a rod a few feet away and returned to her, ‘this beauty costs about six hundred and seventy dollars.’
Caitlyn tried not to baulk ‘Just for a rod and reel, it cost that much?’
‘No, love. That’s just for the rod. The reel is another five hundred and eighty. Then this thirty pound fishing line we put on it is another eighty five dollars.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding. Who pays that kind of money.’
‘Well to some people, fishing is a deadly serious sport, and if you consider that to buy fish at the supermarket, you can pay up to twenty five dollars a kilo, then when someone pulls in a thirty kilo fish, they only have to catch two or three of those type of fish and the rig has pretty much payed for itself.’
‘Well, if you put it that way…’ and her voice drifted off.
Frank noted the look of alarm on her face, and laughed before quickly adding, ‘But don’t worry. We can get you rigged up for a lot less than that.’
‘How much less? She said doubtfully.
‘Oh I reckon if we get you this little rig here,’ he replied picking up a smallish rod from near the front of the shop ‘which is only fifty eight dollars, with the reel as well mind you. Then get you a few bits and pieces of tackle, a small knife for cutting bait, and perhaps a small tackle box from over here, that ought to about do it.’ He took the various items that he’d collected from the store back to the cash register and rang them up. ‘All together, that comes to ninety six dollars and sixty five cents. How does that sound? I’ll even throw in a packet off bait for free’
‘Much better, thankyou.’ and she dug some money out of her purse.
‘Now before you go, can I just give you a few pointers, this being your first fishing adventure and all.’ Caitlyn shrugged and then listened attentively. ‘Since your planning to fish at the jetty, I suggest you put a heavy sinker on. The incoming and outgoing tides can be pretty strong out there, and you don’t want your line to run out too much.’
‘Well, how do you do that?’
Frank grabbed the knife back out of the tackle box. “Let me show you. You’ll need to know how to tie hooks on the line anyway.’
Once again, Caitlyn looked a bit bewildered. ‘But if you put the new sinker on, I should be right, shouldn’t I?’
This made Frank chuckle. ‘Not necessarily love. A fish might swallow your hook or your hook may get snagged on a rock. Don’t worry, I’ll show you a nice simple knot, that you can do if you need to.’
He patiently showed her how to cut the line, thread on a sinker and do a basic knot to put the hook back on. ‘And that there’s called a blood knot.’
‘Thanks.’ said Caitlyn. ‘I better get going before it gets too hot to cycle out to the jetty. And with that she let herself back out the shop, put the tackle box in her backpack and used her jockey strap to tie her fishing rod onto the rack at the back of her bike, before setting off for Frederick Street.
Caitlyn was fairly fit, so the thirty minute ride to the jetty was not really a problem, although she did not enjoy it when the big cattle trucks lumbered past her on Port Drive, leaving her in clouds of choking red, Kimberley dust.
Once at the jetty, she locked her bike up again, grabbed her new rod and headed out to about half way down the jetty, walking slowly down the side walk and taking note of all the people who apparently had the same idea about fishing off the jetty that she did. She managed to find a spot where no one was particularly close to her, so she set her things down, retrieved the sunscreen from her backpack and liberally applied it to her face, legs and arms, noting that she already had a very slight red tinge to her arms and legs from the bike ride.
Next she grabbed the packet of bait out of her tackle box. It was still pretty much frozen. She read the label. “Squid” it said. She grabbed her new fishing knife and opened the pack. She managed to prise off one piece of squid. She thought it looked way too big for the hook that was on her line. So she cut a small piece off, then picked the hook off where the guy in the tackle fish had hooked it onto one of the rings on her rod. She went to try and put the bait onto the hook but managed to prick her finger with the hook instead. She tried again and got one end of the bait onto the hook, but it hung loosely off the hook. She was about to try and cast the rod out anyway when Sissy and her brother walked past carrying a bucket with three fish in it and a couple of handlines.
‘Morning Misses’ said Sissy.
‘Morning Sissy, Morning Jack’
The kids stopped walking, and looked at the bait hanging off the hook. They burst into a fit of laughter.
‘What’s wrong’ Caitlyn said.
‘Misses,’ said Sissy breathlessly when she finally managed to stop laughing. ‘That bait’s gonna come off as soon as it hits the water. You’ll never catch a fish with that.’
‘What have I done wrong’.
Jack put down his own fishing gear and picked up her hook. He started doubling the bait over on the hook another two times as Caitlyn carefully watched.
Sissy explained ‘You can’t have bits hanging too far off the hook Misses. Even if it doesn’t come off the hook when it hits the water, if it hangs off, the fish will just nibble on the end of the bait and they won’t take the hook.’ Sissy said it as if everyone knew a simple fact like that
‘Ah, got it.’ replied Caitlyn. ‘I think I’ll be right now.’
Jack picked up his stuff again, and they continued on their way. When their giggles had faded and Caitlyn was sure they were no longer throwing glances over their shoulders, she walked over to the rail. She figured that she wouldn’t have to try and cast out, she would just let her bait drop straight down beneath her. She held her rod out over the side and pushed the metal bar on her reel over tentively to allow her line to run free. The hook, bait and sinker started hurtling towards the water ten metres below her. She heard a soft splash as it hit the water. The water was fairly clear, and she could see the bait and sinker for the first few metres before it became blurred beneath the surface and disappeared. Even though there was a heavier sinker on the line, there was a strong current created by the outgoing tide, and the line started rapidly drifting out. As soon as Caitlyn realised this was happening, she flicked the metal bar back over, and her line came to a sudden stop.
Then she played the waiting game. It took about ten minutes of just standing there before she felt a tight tug on her line. She hadn’t been concentrating, and nearly thought the rod was going to go over the edge of the rail into the water. She quickly tried to get her wits about her, and started reeling her line in as fast as she could mange. An gentleman in his mid fifties happened to be walking out towards the end of the jetty and queried whether she had a fish on the line, but Caitlyn was only able to reply that she wasn’t sure. The gentleman stopped to watch as she kept reeling her line in. Suddenly the tension on the line lightened. She realised that her she had nearly wound her line in the full way, and that her sinker and hook were out of the water. The gentleman who had stopped to watch continued on his way, but she could him making a sympathetic ‘tck, tck, tck’ sound as he left.
Caitlyn felt a bit despondent but decided to try again. She cut off another piece of bait and put one on the hook, then started to try and double it back over as she had seen Jack do. After pricking her finger a number of times, she finally managed to do it, but it looked no where near as neat as the one that Jack. She guessed it was something that you got better at with practice. She never really took much notice of when Tara put her bait on a hook, but she knew it seemed like second nature to her Aunt. There was still a small ‘tail’ of bait, but she decided to cut it off rather than risk pricking her finger once again. She put her line back into the water and waited again. This time, it only took a couple of minutes before she felt a tug on her line. She went to reel her line in, but suddenly her line went tight, and she was unable to reel any line it. She tried pulling on the actual fishing line with her hand, but to no avail. The same gentleman came walking back past and again stopped to watch.
‘I must have something on my line.’ Caitlyn said. My line isn’t budging a bit.
‘Um, I don’t think you have a fish, I think your line is snagged.’ he replied.
‘How do you tell the difference?’
‘Well, if you had a fish on the line, the fish would be swimming somewhere, if not towards you, then away from you. Your line is just plain snagged, probably on a rock or something.’
‘So what do I do now?’
‘You could try and pull your line about and hope that it comes free, but chance are it won’t. If I were you, I’d just cut the line and put some new tackle on.’
‘Oh. Yer. Well thanks. I’ll do that.’ Caitlyn got her knife out and cut the line. This was the bit she’d been dreading. She sat down and started digging through her tackle box for a sinker and hook.
‘Excuse me’, interrupted the man again. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but you look like you’re a bit new at this. Would you like me to put a new sinker and hook on for you?’
Caitlyn debated with herself whether she should try to do it without help, but decided she would accept help while she could.
After the man had rigged up her line, he headed off again. Caitlyn cast her line out again. But this time waited for fifteen minutes without feeling a thing. She finally reeled her line in only to find that she had no line on her hook.
Caitlyn debated whether to put more bait on her line and try again, but decided against it, and thought to herself that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for the sport of fishing. She packed up her gear and headed back to her push bike. She stopped along the way and offered her left over bait to a couple who were fishing just down from where she had been.
She felt that at least she could say she tried it once, and decided that she would add her fishing gear to her garage sale next weekend. With that she got on her bike and started pedalling back home.