It was Vytas’s idea to spend the next day on the beach fishing.
‘You like to fish, little Gus?’ he asked.
‘I think so. I’ve never really done it.’
‘It is most excellent fishing around here, I am told.’
Vytas tried to talk everyone into joining them but only Hannah and Effie were interested.
Effie whistled Buster into her arms as she and Gus waited beside the battered four-wheel drive. Gus reached out and cautiously stroked Buster between the ears. He’d learnt to be wary of the dog, it was as unpredictable as Effie.
‘So, we make a day of it?’ said Vytas, loading a basket of fishing gear into the back of the car.
‘Have to be back by 6.00 pm,’ said Gus seriously. ‘If I’ve got to do Zippo Zarconi tonight, I want some time to think up a better routine and get ready for the show.’
They drove along a dirt road heading west, following the coast. There were small bays and coves along the way that all looked like good fishing to Gus, but Vytas seemed to have somewhere particular in mind. He stopped the car on a hill overlooking a small cove, with a coral island about 100 metres from the shore. Effie and Hannah spread their towels on the sand, but Vytas hitched his fishing gear on his back and gestured for Gus to follow. They waded out through the ankle-deep water towards the coral island.
The island was only 50 metres wide and 100 metres long. They scrambled up its side and walked gingerly across the rough, rocky surface to reach the ocean.
Vytas spread his jacket on the sharp coral and sat down, pulling his fishing tackle out of the basket. He showed Gus how to bait a line with the greasy little fish that he’d brought with him. It only took a few minutes for Vytas to get a bite and haul a writhing silvery fish out of the water. Gus climbed down to fill a bucket with fresh seawater to keep their catch in.
‘Just a tiddler,’ laughed Vytas, unhooking it and dropping it into the bucket.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Looking at the deep blue sea horizon meeting the sky in a sharp line, Gus felt the inside of his head stretch right out to that far southern point. He had to look away to stop a giddy feeling of freedom making his head spin.
The fishing lines stretched like taut wire into the sea. Gus fiddled with the roll of tackle that Vytas had given him. He had an idea something was biting at the line but every time he hauled it up, he found the bait gone and nothing on the hook.
‘Vytas,’ he asked suddenly, ‘how long have you been with Zarconi’s?’
‘Ah, many years now – I stepped off the boat in Fremantle, and there was Zarconi’s, as if waiting for me. The big top was right down by the docks and I thought to myself; “This is meant to be – a magic sign that Vytas Gatevackas must become one with Zarconi’s in his new home!”’
‘That was Latvia – you came from Latvia, didn’t you?’
Vytas spat into the sea and raised his eyebrows.
‘No, Lithuania. But that was another life then. I don’t like to think about that life there. I was in England for a while before I came to this country. But that was not such a happy time either. This is the best country to be in if you are with the circus. This is a country that loves its circus. In England, they treat us like gypsies. We camped in terrible places and always with the damp and the cold and always the police looked to move us on. It was not a happy time – not like here, with Zarconi’s. Look at this beautiful place. Only with a circus like Zarconi’s do you see these beautiful places.’
‘So did you know my mother? Were you with Zarconi’s when my mother was still with the circus?’
Vytas’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Gus carefully.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘I was with Zarconi’s when your mother was a young girl like Effie.’
He pulled his line up out of the water quickly but he hadn’t had a bite.
‘Your grandparents. They have been very good to me, Gus. I am very grateful to Doc and to Nance.’
He re-baited his line as he spoke and stood up to cast far out into the water.
‘So you can tell me about my mother? Why she left the circus?’
‘Little Gus,’ he said sternly ‘Your grandparents, they loved your mother very much. Because Doc shouts a lot, this does not mean he is not a loving man. Because Nance, not often she smiles, it doesn’t mean she is not a loving woman. They are good people, your grandparents. They have been very good for me when I am getting old now. They are like family to me.’
Gus hauled up his line again and reached for another slippery piece of bait. He could tell he wasn’t going to get far on the subject of his mother.
‘How about the other Gus?’ asked Gus without looking up.
Vytas winced and hauled in his line again.
‘There was another Gus, wasn’t there? That’s why you call me little Gus, because of that other big Gus, isn’t it?’
Vytas coughed.
‘Was he my father?’
Vytas looked startled.
‘Your father? Gus? No, no, this other Gus, he was a beautiful young man – like a bird, he was such a flyer – but he was not your father,’ he said, and then he coughed again. ‘But I see you have baited your line incorrectly. You will lose your bait very quickly if you make like this. Give it to me and I will show you again how you make it work for you.’
Vytas began talking very quickly about the bait, the fishing tackle, how to catch a fish. When Gus finally tried to get a word in, Vytas slammed the tackle down on the rock beside them.
‘You speak too much and you frighten away the fish,’ said Vytas in exasperation. ‘You must be silent or we won’t have anything to show for our work!’
Gus hunched his shoulders and stared down into the water. He cast the line again but, after a while, he grew sick of fishing and got up to explore the coral island. There were all sorts of crevices full of crabs and sea creatures. He stuck his fingers into the sea anemones and felt the queer sucking of them against his skin. The coral cut his bare feet so he climbed down the side of the island to wash his wounds in the salty water, and then dived under. It was the sweetest seawater he had ever swum in. He could see everything clear and sharp – coral outcrops and deep pockets of darkness. The sea washed away his frustration. Turquoise turned to ultramarine as he headed into deeper water. He could imagine swimming forever, swimming all the way to that great southern horizon.
He heard Vytas shout at the same moment as he saw the fin rise up in front of him, a sharp dark triangle only an arm’s length away. Gus felt a rush of panic. He gasped and his mouth filled with brine, as he turned and made for the coral island, thrashing wildly. The water whirled around him. A huge dark body surged up out of the sea. He cringed, shut his eyes and waited for the pain.
‘Look, little Gus, look!’ cried Vytas, his voice full of delight.
Gus opened his eyes just in time to see the body of a dolphin arcing over him. It circled Gus twice and then leapt out of the sea again. Gus turned his face up and watched the dolphin moving between blue sky and blue water. Rough skin brushed against his leg as it dived in beside him and then it was gone, a dark shadow heading for the horizon.
Slowly Gus paddled back to the island and hauled himself out of the water. He felt a bit weak from shock, but he shivered with pleasure rather than cold.
Vytas hopped across the coral and draped a towel over Gus’s shoulders and slapped him on the back.
‘You have had a great honour. This is a very special thing that has happened,’ said Vytas. ‘They are great spirits, the dolphins. They are most beautiful sea creatures. It must have known you, that one, I think. From now on I must call you little fish!’
Gus laughed. ‘You reckon it knew me?’
‘Yes – the sea, it knows its own. You are like your father in this, and the sea I think it knows you because of this.’
‘My father? So you did know my father?’
Vytas squatted down on his heels and pulled his long silver hair away from his face, tightening the band that held it in its ponytail. He thought for a while before speaking and then folded his hands and looked straight into Gus’s eyes as he spoke.
‘I tell you a story. That is all I will tell you. There is a legend amongst the Aboriginal people that I have heard which makes me think of you. It tells of a woman swimming, and the dolphin swimming with her, and then the spirit of the dolphin enters her and she has his baby.’
‘I’m not going to have a baby dolphin!’ yelped Gus.
‘No, this is a magic thing between a woman and a dolphin. Your father, he is like the dolphin; he is a creature of the sea. And your mother – she has swum with the dolphins, and you, little fish, are the spirit of the dolphin. This is why he comes to you. Because he knows you.’
‘Vytas, that’s a whole lot of…well, it’s pretty crazy. I wish you’d tell me stuff straight.’
‘I tell you straight. This is as much as I can tell you of anything about your papa. This is a magic thing – this thing with you and the dolphin. You know, I am a magician. But real magic is not tricks – real magic is in very ordinary things. Magic is what you believe. The dolphin coming close to you, this is real magic.’
Vytas went back to his lines and recast them far out into the deep water. For a creature of the sea, Gus didn’t have much luck in catching fish, but Vytas hauled in one after another. Gus gave up and made his way back to the beach, the rising tide lapping against his knees.
Hannah and Effie had made a fire on the sand and put potatoes in amongst the coals. Later, Vytas brought his bucket of fish across and gutted them on a flat rock. They cooked them on a little rack and the flesh was the sweetest-tasting that Gus had ever eaten.
As the afternoon shadows grew longer and the tide moved out, Gus and Effie practised handsprings and cartwheels on the sand. Vytas lay on his back with a hat over his face. Buster wandered up and down the beach, digging holes and bringing back strange and grungy objects to leave beside the blanket that Hannah had spread with their picnic things. Gus picked up a soggy tennis ball and flung it down the beach. Buster raced after it but returned to drop it at Effie’s feet.
‘Buster knows who’s boss around here,’ said Effie.
‘Then, perhaps, Buster knows it is time for us to go back,’ said Hannah sharply.
Vytas loaded his fishing gear into the car while Effie and Gus stayed on the beach and helped Hannah clear the picnic things away. Hannah shook the sand from the rug and Gus took the other end to help her fold it.
‘Hannah,’ said Gus, ‘Vytas reckons my dad was a dolphin.’
Effie looked up and gave a shout of laughter.
‘Hey, that explains why you’ve got a face like a fish!’ she said.
‘Rack off,’ said Gus.
‘Oh, sorry. Dolphins aren’t fish anyway – they’re mammals. Maybe your father was a sardine. That would make more sense.’
‘Effie, that is not kind,’ admonished Hannah. ‘You take these things up to the car and stop being such a naughty, sassy girl!’
‘I am what I am,’ said Effie.
‘Off you go,’ said Hannah, pointing her finger sternly.
‘Okay, I’m going,’ she grumbled and turned to Gus.
‘See you at the car, fishface!’
They watched Effie and Buster make their way up to the four-wheel drive and then Hannah turned to Gus.
‘Gus, that Vytas, he is a crazy man to say this to you.’
‘Well, if he wasn’t a dolphin, who was he?’
‘Has your mama told you about your father?’ she asked.
‘No, she never told me anything.’
‘Then you must ask your mama about it. It is not for me to tell you about him, nor for Vytas.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘I think this is fair. You ask your mama – not me.’
‘What, so I have to live with thinking my father was a fish ’cause no one will tell me about him?’
‘Gus, I tell you this much: there is a little bit in what Vytas says – your papa, he loved the sea, like the dolphin, but no, he was not a fish! He was a man, a fine man.’
‘So you knew him?’
‘All these questions you ask, they are not for me to answer. Your mama will tell you when she’s ready. She has her reasons. For now you must carry this for her. We all do this – carry things for our parents.’
‘Well, what about the other Gus, then. Will you tell me about him?’
‘What are you, the Gestapo? Questions, questions – I don’t have time for all these questions. We have to get back. We have a show to do.’