Pearly was at the swimming hole below the crossing. The deep pool, lined with weeping willows, one of which held a thick rope hung so that it could be used by the gang to run and swing and let go and fall shouting into the dark water. Their cars would be drawn under the drapery of the trees to escape the sun, and in the open riverbed the greywacke stones would shimmer and the clumps of broom and lupin and gorse tough it out with no relief. Pearly could smell the place and feel it, hear it as well as see it. The heavy, slow-moving water; the tinnitus of midges, flies and bees; the coarse brown beard of willow roots drooping to the low summer river. The air brimming with sun-soaked herbal fragrances mingled with the smell of shit from the stock that were seldom visible. The stones were hard and hot on the soles of their feet, the soil baked hard also. Underfoot in the river, though, were rocks unpleasantly slick with algae, mud and occasional drowned, groping branches. But it was cool in the river and fun for young guys to show off in front of the women by running hard with the rope, swinging high over the river pool, striking a pose in mid-air as they fell.

Pearly felt the weight come onto his arms as he leapt from the bank and curved up towards the polished sky. At the high point he let go. Just for a moment he was suspended there in the equilibrium of contrary forces, the momentum to the sky and the pull of gravity to the core, aware of everything that was about him, especially the assumed indifference of the watching women. He drew up his knees in preparation for a honey-pot. And he realised without waking, and wishing not to do so, that it was a dream, understood that he was young again and rejoiced in it. He smiled as he lived it, lifted his right hand a little from the bed covers in unconscious recognition of his youthful self. The water thick and buffeting as he struck, resistant at first and then letting him sink to its cool, dark depth. The fragmented light of the surface diminishing: an awareness of his breath held and the need soon to propel himself back up for air, but just a little longer to drift deep down, arms and legs free of duty.

FIFTEEN