BOTTLES
dad & i looking for bottles at twin rivers in the
dry heat of february/ where the birrie & culgoa
meet on the back blocks of the property/ dozens of
bottles scattered across tidal floodplains/ washed
back & forth by brown rivers rushed down by north
queensland rain & winter flood/
bottles of dry &
mysterious origins/ tonics, skin balms/ perfume
bottles, whisky bottles/ hot sauce & tomato sauce
bottles/ lemonade bottles from bourke, brewarrina
gundagai & bathurst/ milk bottles from dubbo/ &
dozens of ink bottles/ some square/ some round to
fit into the round holes of old bush school desks/
torpedo shaped bottles with glass marbles wedged in
the necks/ one hundred year old bottles/ thickly
cracked & densely lit/ bottles of impenetrable glass
& weevils webs connected to lumps of glug from river
bottoms/ i dive down into the culgoa to uproot
bottles from the muddy bed/
dad said that in the
bread & dripping & treacle days of the 1940s
the culgoa was crystal clear/ & how his dog branto
used to dive down to the river's centre & bring up
fresh water mussels/ cracking them between his canine
teeth in a frenzy/
i would feel the black edge of
mussel shells between my toes/ or shrimp nibbling my
legs at the steep banks of river's edge/ or big grey
yabbies held in sunlight & air for too long squeezing
tiny bubbles from their tender grey armour/
i released
as much air as possible from my lungs/ enabling my
body to sink in a standing position to the bottom/
once at the dark centre the currents slept/ & all
the dry land worlds would drift away in tangles of
floating hair/ beating low & still in my eardrums in
murky brown throbs/
then i pushed through to the river's
warm surface/ dispersing skaters & disturbing frogs
in low lying branches that dunk their leaves in & out
of slow currents/ dad & i by the river for hours/
scrounging through piles of broken glass near the
shearers' huts/
& thousands of bottles piled up near
abandoned homesteads or burnt down hotel rubbish
dumps/ where all other traces of early lives had
rotted away into inland mulch/ leaving bottles to
eons of floodtide, insects, sun & dust/ the deeper we
dug the older they got/
dad said: you can sell all
these down in sydney/ where people were 'sugarfoot',
'tenderfoot' or 'as silly as cut snakes'/ for old bottle
tops like big glass tacks/ they're always afta these,
he said/ take 'em ter the antique shops in manly/
they're stupid over there/ buy anything/ they love
the pretty ones the best/ plentya money/
i couldn't
see myself selling bottles from the bush/ to the
peak hour rush of buyers he had conjured up for me/
we stacked bottles in the end room of the house which
he was caretaking/ & i spent days washing them clean
in plastic buckets & clearing them of gluggy stuff
with a bottle brush/ so i could see them inside out
& look through them into the sun/
always dad's words
niggling that some must be worth a fortune/ & in the
late afternoon a brilliant golden light through a
hundred window slats/ sending the deep blues, mauves
& sun bleached greens & the opaque crystal oldness
of bottles/ striking angles & patterns of light on
walls, grass floor mats & upon my skin as i worked/
a few weeks later my e.h. holden rattled all the way
back to sydney/ across the blue mountains with no
breakages/ & dad saying that he was 'glad ter get rid
of the fucken things'/ & in sydney mum saying: what
are you gonna do with all those bloody bottles?/
remembering when dale & brendon had travelled home
on the XPT from dubbo after visiting dad/
with their
suitcases full of pumpkins & half their clothes left
behind/ from when dad got stoned & had driven to a
pumpkin orchard just out of town/ filling the ford
again & again/ & the next morning a loungeroom full
of hangovers, aching muscles & pumpkins used as stools
& footrests/ & the kitchen piled high with pumpkins
from floor to ceiling/
& months after/ everytime
dad rang up STD to liverpool/ dale would ask: how's
the pumpkins dad?/ how many ya got left?/ & dad afraid
of gossip on the brewarrina telephone exchange/ either
hanging up/ or his frantic whispers from the phone
receiver: shut up you fucken idiot/ they're all
listening in up 'ere/
later at nan & pop's/ i lined
the best bottles up on the kitchen table/ & nanny
remembering each as plotting points in her own life/
telling me what they had contained, who sold them/
who would have used the contents & how old they
were/ pop listening in the background & her wisdom
bringing each bottle to life again in the fluorescent
kitchen |