Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,50

Would I? Course I would. Ernie took me outside where he set up a recording machine with an enormous horn about the length of a man and which I were to sing into while the needle put me song into the wax cylinder. But what would I sing? The only song I knew all the way through were one that I heard on the whaler. The crew sang it when they were working round the windlass and capstan. It were called ‘Hurrah, my boys, we’re homeward bound’. The last bit went: ‘We’re homeward bound,’ you’ve heard us say, ‘Goodbye, fareyewell, Goodbye, fare-ye-well.’ Hook on the cat then, and rut her away.

Ernie played it back to me. I didn’t recognise me voice. It sounded like a boy’s. There were also the sounds of the crickets and birds when I were singing. Ernie said he would send it to Becky so she could hear me and know I were thinking of her. It were then I remembered what I had in me bag. I ran up the stairs and returned with a handkerchief tied in a knot. I undid it and showed Ernie the last bit of the ambergris, about the size of a marble. I told him to give it to Becky when he gave her my song. He promised he would.

The days were long while I waited for an answer. There were nothing for me to do. I watched Ernie build his phonographs and telephones. His fingers were chubby but he were so delicate when he worked, even fixing the tiniest parts of a machine. It seemed a miracle to me the way he put everything together to become a phonograph or telephone. To test the telephone he asked me to go upstairs where he had set up a receiver. He told me to answer it when he rang from his phone in the basement. I jumped when the bell rang and when I picked it up and put the tiny trumpet against me ear I heard nothing except a faint grumbling noise, like it were the sea. Then I heard Ernie’s voice saying hello, like he were next to me. I jumped in surprise. It seemed a miracle that his voice would go all through the wires and pop out of the hearing horn. Now, of course, people take telephones and record players for granted; but Ernie, who were an inventor and obsessed by voices one might say, whether it be on a wax cylinder or coming through the telephone wires, were one of the few people in Hobart who knew anything about these novelties, for that’s what they were at that time.

If he didn’t need me he became so caught up in his work he hardly knew I were there, if at all, so I’d go out into the back yard and lie under the apple and almond trees looking at the sky, daydreaming and growing bored. I were used to doing things. I didn’t like doing too much thinking cos I ended up feeling low ’bout me mother and father drowning and Becky being so far from me. Some times as I lied in the long grass I’d find meself remembering Dave and Corinna and in remembering I thought that those times were a kind of paradise. I know we were cold and hungry sometimes but mostly it were good times. I liked Ernie, but I liked whaling better. Hunting agreed with me. I liked feeling the sudden pumping of me blood when I seen a whale and the cry of Lower the boat! as the ship moved in on a monster.

In the evenings Ernie and I walked down to the harbour. He called me Harry cos I were still pretending to be a boy. When I seen girls my age I were puzzled as to how fragile they seemed in their pretty dresses and long curly hair. Their lives were not for me. Ernie didn’t cook much and we ate at one of the seamen’s hotels. He ate huge til he would go puce in the face and burp a lot, especially when he’d had a few beers. He were like me - he hated vegetables and he’d say to the cook when he ever attempted to put even a potato on Ernie’s plate, I am an animal. All humans are animals and if it’s good enough for animals only to eat meat, then it’s good enough for me.

One night as we were polishing off our