When the Night Comes

Praise for
Past the Shallows

“That rare thing, a finely crafted literary novel that is genuinely moving and full of heart.”

—
The Age

“Wintonesque.” —
Herald Sun

“A wonderful story told with a voice that I wanted to listen to. A voice that will stay with me for a long time.”

—
Sydney Morning Herald

“A fresh and vital voice in Australian fiction.”

—
Australian Women's Weekly

“Parrett's writing is exquisite in its simplicity and eloquence, and her narrative is heart-rending. This poignant story resonates.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“An amazing book by a wonderful writer—Cormac McCarthy meets David Vann meets Favel Parrett. Read this book.”

—
The Sunday Times

“Clearly the work of a talented new novelist.”

—
The Weekend Australian

“Parrett's debut marks the addition of a strong voice to the chorus of Australian literature.”

—
The Canberra Times

“Her prose is as powerful as a rip.” —
The Australian

“So real, so true—this novel sweeps you away in its tide.”

—Robert Drewe

“Parrett's crystalline prose and her rhythmic sentences give the narrative a wave-like power.”

—
Australian Book Review

“A small gem of a story.” —
Who Weekly

“A rare work of fiction.” —
Good Reading

For my brother

Blue-white ice that floats on a moving sea

It is the opposite of gray

It is the opposite of everything I had known

T
here was a time when Vikings filled our house and there were people and parties and Mum was happy then.

They were real Vikings. Big hulking Vikings who came from far away on a bright red ship, which busted through pack ice and made it all the way down to Antarctica. They had names like Anders and Bo and Finn and Henrik and they were all tall and blond, except for Bo, who had dark brown hair and gray-blue eyes. He was from a small island that was
the sunniest place in all of Denmark.

Bo liked to walk and keep on walking. He liked the smell of wet grass. He made us pancakes with jam and cream and he could get a tiny bird to eat right out of the palm of his hand without even trying. When we went out for pizza he always ate two slices at once, one piece on top of the other with the toppings on the inside, like a pizza sandwich. He could eat four pieces to my one and I liked him very much.

Sometimes we would visit his ship.
Nella Dan
was all wood and brass and there were paintings in the mess—bright flowers and birds, green and orange and yellow. I liked to walk down the long passageways, go up all her stairs, from the bottom right up to the monkey deck and down again. I never grew tired of that.

I would pretend she was my home, that my cabin was down below, cozy and wood-lined with a bunk just for me. A warm snug duvet and soft pillow, a round porthole that let the light in. All I needed.

It was never dark—it was never night.

Sleep now

Close your eyes, hold them tight

It's just a strange dream that comes in the darkness

Just a strange dream that comes in the night

Don't listen to the shouting

Don't listen for the sounds

It's just a strange dream that comes in the nighttime

You are asleep

I am asleep

W
e had dinner in the canteen, at a wooden table and the chairs didn't move. They were stuck to the floor somehow.

Mum was quiet, and my brother was quiet, and when we finished eating a man in a white uniform came over and said that the ship was going through the heads soon and that the forecast was for very rough seas. He was only looking at Mum when he spoke. He told her that it was advisable to get the children to bed as soon as possible.

My brother fell asleep quickly, his small body tucked in tight on the top bunk. But I lay awake, waiting for the rough seas. Waiting to see what they would feel like so far down. Flights and flights of stairs down from the canteen and from the windows that looked out to the sky. Down where we were, there were no windows. Down where we were, there were only fluoro lights and bunk beds. The bathroom was down the passage and Mum had left us. She was upstairs somewhere, upstairs above us where there was air, and I wished that she would come back.

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke the whole world was rocking and shaking and I was rolling in my bed. Not just from side to side, but up and down as well. Mum's bed was still made. She wasn't there.

When I tried to get out of bed, I fell over and was sick on the floor. My brother was looking at me, his hands stuck fast around the railings of the bunk bed, his face white like death.

“Where's Mum?” he asked, but I didn't know.

He got down somehow, down from the bunk, and he didn't fall. He stood holding on to the bed as the room turned over and over and he got a towel off Mum's bed and put it over the vomit on the floor. He helped me up and in our pajamas we made it out the door and into the hall. Together we fell against the walls as the ship lunged, and we slowly moved toward the stairs. Up and up, gripping the rail. Up to the deck where the canteen was.

There was hardly anyone around, only a few people sitting in the carpeted lounge, sitting with their heads in their hands. The canteen was empty and I couldn't tell what time it was. Outside the windows it was dark.

Outside it was black.

Mum was sitting by herself on a bench attached to the wall of the ship under a Plexiglas roof. We sat next to her, holding on to the bottom of the bench tightly.

Mum said that she would just have one more cigarette and then we could go inside. I looked at her white face and her white hands. She was always sitting places by herself in the night—always sitting by herself having one more cigarette.

I told her that I had been sick and she wiped my forehead and cheek and said, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” It looked like she was crying. She said it was just the sea spray and the cold. And it was cold. It was freezing and windy, and the wind cut into your back like you had no skin at all. I could hear the water crack against the ship, feel it hit then hear the spray shoot up. Only I couldn't see it. I couldn't see anything past the light cast out on the deck.

Out there the world was raging in the blackness.

We were going to a new place.

We were sailing toward it in the night.

An island in the middle of the sea.

An island that was made of stone.

It was only the ship that was keeping us safe. Only thin layers of steel and an engine pumping away in the dark were keeping us above the water, which would gladly swallow us all up like we had never ever been.

W
e stayed in a B&B.

It was where we lived when we first arrived, after we got off the ferry and off the bus that drove through flat farming land and towns made of stones and old red bricks. Mum used the pay phone at the bus terminal in Hobart. She rang a place that was advertised on the information board and made a reservation. Abbey House Bed and Breakfast.

I don't think it was very far away but we had two big suitcases and my brother was tired, so we all got into a taxi that was waiting out in front of the bus station.

The taxi driver was a very big man. He was wearing a clean blue shirt and his buttons looked like they might pop open around his belly. He asked if it was our first time to “The Island” and my brother said yes, but my mum said no. I sat in the backseat and tried to imagine Mum being here before, maybe with Dad or maybe when she was young with her parents, but I couldn't see it. I didn't know this place.

We weren't in the taxi for long. We went up a steep hill and then around some curved streets and we were there. Battery Point. There were old houses, wooden houses, bare stone houses on the narrow streets, but they all seemed empty, deserted, and nothing moved. The sky was gray.

We stopped on a corner by a sign that said
MONA STREET
.

“You will be able to walk to the market from here come Saturday,” the taxi driver said. He got out of the car and helped Mum with our suitcases.

Mrs. Wilson owned the B&B. She made my brother and me a cooked breakfast every morning and we ate it at the breakfast bar that looked out to the rose garden—a cottage garden. It was a cottage, the B&B, an old wooden cottage with a white picket fence and everything. It was just about the nicest place I had ever lived, except that we didn't really live there. We were just staying there.