The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtenay

a bit more — so hang on while I walk us through.’ I stepped into the deeper water and I could feel him shaking, his hands clasped around my forehead as he hung on for dear life. At its deepest the water came to just under my chin. I made for the bronze mooring post on the starboard quarter of the deck and by the time I’d reached the cutter the creek level was just above my navel. ‘Righto, Kevin, hop aboard,’ I instructed.
    ‘I’ll fall, sir,’ he said in a small voice.
    ‘No you won’t, I’ve got you. Just loosen your grip on my head and grab that post in front of you, then climb onto my shoulders. Here, I’ll push you up.’ His arms left my head and I let go of his legs as he wriggled frantically. Placing one foot on my shoulder he managed to scramble aboard, lying on the deck gasping furiously just as a young kid might. ‘Well done!’ I called and waited until he sat up and had pulled himself well clear of the edge of the deck. ‘Now, Kevin, wait for me. I’m going back to get the knapsack. Just sit, don’t move. Okay?’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied meekly. Wherever the little bloke had been brought up as a child, it hadn’t been easy. His tone of voice carried all the hallmarks of regularly enforced obedience.
    I returned to my knapsack, then recrossed the creek, holding it well above my head and finally depositing it onto the deck. I heaved myself aboard and started to remove my clobber. ‘Everything off, Kevin,’ I called cheerily. ‘Time to clean you up, mate,’ I said, reverting to my normal accent.
    I expected the little bloke at any moment to return to his ‘Lissen, sonny boy’ adult personality. We were safely on the boat and I told myself I could deal with a recalcitrant sailor when he had nowhere to go. If it came to a fight, I was too big for him to take on and hope to win. But he remained a small kid, anxious to cooperate for fear of the dreaded cooking pot.
    I got out the kero and some of the cleaning rags Anna had stowed for the voyage together with a couple of worn towels. Kevin ‘ouched’ and ‘aahed’ and winced a fair bit, the kerosene stinging and uncomfortable on his skin. When it was all over I scooped a bucket of water from the creek and soaped him down, rinsing and repeating the soaping three times, each time making him do the same over his pubic area and bum. Finally, I reckoned he was almost good as new.
    The cleaned-up version of Kevin Judge, aka ‘the little bloke’, was no metamorphosis from chimp to prince. His eyes, the whites still very bloodshot, were a tawny hazel colour. His crew-cut hair was mousy brown and his ears appeared too large for his sharp little face. His front teeth overlapped slightly and were somewhat crooked, the sign of early dental neglect. I wasn’t sure how his nose had started out in life because it had been broken, perhaps more than once, and was flattened like a lump of dough pressed into his face. His legs were thin and bandy, an indication that rickets had probably been present in childhood. In appearance his type is often referred to derogatively as ‘bog Irish’, an undernourished look that was common enough among the working class in post-Depression Australia and that stamps itself indelibly on the adult who evolves from the neglected child. I guessed it was much the same in America.
    Oh, yes — there was something else. On his right hand between the first and second knuckle of each finger was a crude and amateur attempt at tattooing, a single letter on each finger: the first an ‘L’ on his pinkie and, facing outwards, it was followed by the other three letters spelling the word LOVE. Identically, on the fingers of his left hand was the word HATE. He was left-handed so I had to assume that HATE assumed the greater importance.
    The gash on his forehead needed stitching if it wasn’t going to leave a bloody great scar, which wouldn’t add to his good looks. I had no way of stitching it and my only treatment was cotton wool