It is a common misconception that mermaids dwell only in the ocean. In fact they live in rivers too. The seas that surround this great southern continent are for the most part inhospitable to her—in the south they are icy and wild, lashing themselves against rocky shores, and in the north prehistoric beasts still glide through the thick brine like darts. Those beasts will store what they cannot eat and a full belly is no deterrent to a hunt, though to use the term ‘hunt’ is misleading, given that they are the oldest and most successful predators on earth. ‘Kill’ is the more accurate term. Over millennia, mermaids have migrated inland against the current of narrowing estuaries to warmer, stiller waters. But here again the ineptitudes of language confound me—to say ‘still’ is incorrect. The word ‘river’ should not be a noun. A river is in constant motion, drinking mountain streams and feeding the ocean and whatever forms its tributaries might take; bleeding into irrigation channels. A river is never the same river if you should happen upon it twice. For that matter you are never the same person, such is the process by which the cells of your body fall away and are regenerated. In fact, any word that claims to own a thing with a name is a misnomer. Nothing can be named because nothing can keep still. How we dance and disappear in our earthly composition. But as does the river, I digress.

If you have ever seen a mermaid—and I have, because as children we used to camp on the bank of the Murray where the great river swerves in a southerly direction towards Echuca, and because I have always had a habit of seeing things that are not meant to be there—then you’ll know that it is easy to mistake her for something else. People who do chance to see her ducking under the surface as their motorboat careens along assume they are seeing girls swimming in the river who will eventually climb out onto the bank and gather up towels and sandals. They cast their eye about for belongings, scan the bank for a colourful tent. Could it have been a dolphin? Or a giant Murray cod, the likes of which they imagine tugging at the end of their line. They turn back to look along the course of the river, squint into the glare and pull their hats down over their brows. It is a surprisingly clear, blue day and the esky, full of ice, is waiting.