Echuca Paddlesteamers

PS Pevensey — Afternoon, With Steam and Steps I did not so much go for a ride on the PS Pevensey as find myself temporarily arranged upon it, which felt different somehow and therefore worth acknowledging. The paddle steamer occupied the river with a quiet confidence, as though it had done this before and expected to continue doing so regardless of my observations. The water complied. I did not interfere. At some point in the 1980s — and this is difficult to place chronologically — I became aware that the vessel had previously appeared in All the Rivers Run. This knowledge arrived not abruptly, but gradually, carried on the air in a manner that suggested it had been waiting. There remains, on the deck, a faint but unmistakable suggestion of John Waters and Sigrid Thornton. Not the actors themselves, of course, but something adjacent — ambition, hairspray, or the echo of a line delivery that went particularly well. That said, it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that this sensation may, in fact, be something else entirely. It could equally be the sweet, dewy smell of steam — warm, earnest, and carrying with it the vague reassurance of machinery doing exactly what it was designed to do. Steam has a way of inserting itself into memory, and I am not immune to this. It is therefore possible that what I took to be lingering television was simply water in an elevated state, passing through wood and iron and time. The distinction is difficult to make, and I did not attempt to clarify it. This presence does not drift. It lingers. At its most concentrated, it appears to gather near the forward port-side steps, which rise at an angle suggesting effort without urgency. The timber has been worn smooth by decades of shoes belonging to people who were going somewhere else. I paused here longer than necessary, partly because the steps invited it and partly because they did not object. Standing at the foot of these steps, one becomes aware not only of the river and the steady machinery of the vessel, but of a faint atmospheric residue — a mixture of period television, warm wood, and decisions made in the early 1980s. It occurred to me that if either actor were ever to reappear, it would be here: not dramatically, but midway through ascending, having remembered something they meant to fetch. I did not climb the steps. This felt correct. Elsewhere onboard, passengers looked at the river, which continued to be a river without embellishment. The paddle wheel paddled with a commitment that did not seek approval. I leaned on a rail. The rail accepted this without comment. When the journey downstream concluded, we returned to where we had begun, though the afternoon had moved on without us. The steamer appeared satisfied with this outcome.