Margie Bates studies her husband in profile as he sits, bathed in golden afternoon light, on the back veranda. She can hardly believe he is finally back on home soil. His hair is longer than he normally wears it and he has grown a short beard, but she has decided not to say anything. In fact, she thinks, she could almost grow to like it. He is facing out to sea and leaning forward, elbows on knees, tying knots in the ends of a piece of rope. It’s what he does when he’s nervous. She checks her watch. Sascha and Scotty were due to arrive a few minutes ago. She tries to distract him.
‘When do they want you back in Fremantle for the hearings, love?’
‘Not for at least a month—maybe two.’
‘Right.’ Margie struggles to think of what to say next, her mind also preoccupied with seeing her grandson again.
Bonnie wanders over to Dave and licks his hands. He gives her a pat and looks out to the water, to a swarm of boats gliding downstream on the wide, gentle expanse of the Derwent River.
‘A grandson, can you believe it?’ Margie says, deciding to articulate what they’re both afraid of. ‘A little Sam.’ Tears well in her eyes and, she suspects, from the way her husband tips back his head, also in Dave’s.
‘Nope. It’s pretty damned amazing.’ Dave’s tears overflow.
Bonnie slinks off the veranda, towards an old bone on the lawn, and Margie turns away while Dave blows his nose and wipes his face dry. She goes to sit on his lap, brushing back his faded red hair with her hand.
‘Any more news of the Uruguayan master’s son?’ she asks.
‘Still hanging on by all accounts.’
‘Listen, there’s something I have to tell you about all that…’
‘Let me guess. You’ve been emailing his wife and have been putting a cat amongst the pigeons in Canberra, trying to get Carlos Sánchez sent home to be tried in Uruguay.’
Margie fails to hide her grin. ‘You’ve heard!’
‘Yep.’
‘Are you cross?’
‘Nope.’ He smacks a kiss onto her lips.
‘I didn’t want to get you into trouble. But I’d promised Julia Sánchez that I’d see what I could do. To ask the stupid idiots in Canberra if there was any way Carlos could see his little boy.’
‘Not much chance of pulling it off though, I gather?’
‘No. Callous pigs.’
‘I made a few enquiries myself in Fremantle. There’s Buckley’s of him being allowed home, even if it’s only for a few days. It doesn’t fit at all with the government’s hard line on the illegals.’
‘I’m surprised.’
‘I’m not.’
‘No, I mean I’m surprised at you looking into it. That bloke nearly led you to your death!’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I think he should get what’s coming to him if he was fishing illegally. I just don’t think we need to be completely heartless about it. The poor bugger’s in a really bad way. Anyway, it’s the owner of the boat we should be dragging over the coals. Not Carlos and his crew.’
‘I love you, Dave Bates.’
‘You too.’ He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
‘You okay?’
‘I think my leg’s gone to sleep. I might have to get you to hop off for a while, love. I’m not as tough as I used to be. And you’re a grandma now, don’t forget.’
‘And that makes me heavier, does it?’
‘Apparently.’ Dave winces, complaining of pins and needles in his leg. Margie laughs at the grimace on his face.
‘By the way, how do you feel about having a holiday in South America?’ she asks.
‘To pursue this legal stuff?’
‘No, just a holiday.’
Dave stretches his leg back and forth.
‘Do you remember Sam had plans to go there?’
‘Vaguely,’ Dave says, trying to stand.
‘I came across an earmarked page in one of his travel books. I’d really like to go. And I’d quite like to track down Julia Sánchez, but only as a social visit. I don’t want to make it a hugely long trip, not now that we have little Scotty.’
‘When are you thinking of going?’
‘Sometime within the next year or so.’ Margie hesitates. ‘But I’d like Scotty to get to know us first. What do you think?’
‘Maybe. But we’ll have to see where I sit with the trial. Let’s play it by ear.’ Dave is finally standing on both feet evenly, the pins and needles evidently gone.
‘I could be waiting forever.’ Margie laughs. ‘Maybe I should go on my own. It’ll do you good to be worried about my safety for once.’ She watches him closely for a reaction. None is forthcoming. ‘But you probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought, you ratbag. You’d enjoy the peace and quiet!’
The telephone rings and Margie runs to answer it, after realising that Dave, who was closer to the phone, wasn’t going to. He had met her eyes and stepped out of the way, and she saw just how nervous he was about even talking to Sascha again.
After perhaps thirty seconds, Margie reappears on the veranda and takes Dave’s hand. ‘They’ll be here in about five minutes. She apologised for being late. Scotty has only just woken up.’
Dave opens his mouth to speak, but his voice catches in his throat. He coughs and tries again. ‘I’m just going to do a bit more work on that swing.’
Margie watches Dave make his way to the bottom of the garden and adjust the ropes on Sam’s old tyre swing, which he has tied to the branch of a large eucalypt. It’s the same strong, horizontal branch that Sam used to swing from—the first rung in a ladder of branches that spiral to the top of the gnarled old tree. It’s ancient, Margie suspects, this stoic giant. What changes it must have endured. For twenty-seven years now, she and Dave have watched the tree shed kilograms of bark—like tired, worn suits—with the seasons. Each shedding exposes smooth white bark underneath, as perfect as the skin of a baby. A previous resident had cut firewood beside the tree and must have lodged his axe in its trunk for safekeeping. In places, these deep, old wounds have penetrated through to the new skin, like memories, but mostly the old bark has taken the scars with it. The giant has healed itself. She respects its resilience. Its capacity to recover and continue to grow. Its preparedness, year after year, to expose its soft inner layers. To be vulnerable.
She hears a car pull up outside. ‘I think they’re here, love,’ she calls out from the veranda.
‘I’ll be right up.’ Dave doesn’t move. He remains ankledeep in old bark. ‘I’ll just finish tying this off. It’s not quite straight. And I have to fix the belt. Can’t have our boy falling out.’
Margie watches as his practised, sea-worn hands work the knots and secure the ropes, and she imagines that they shake, just a little. It’s nerve-racking, she concedes, meeting one’s past and future all at once.