by Jenni Ogden
I blinked hard again and turned my palm up and grasped her hand. I’d been aware how close to tears I’d been all day, but of course I hadn’t allowed myself to succumb; not my style at all. In fact my brave little team all remained tearless as I gave them the news at our regular weekly meeting, which just happened to be today. Rachel had disappeared into the bath- room for a long time as soon as the meeting was over, and when she finally reappeared looked distinctly red-nosed. That’s when she told me that she would take this opportunity to retire and go and live with her elderly sister in Portland. Dear Rachel, loyal to the end.
Fortunately, the last PhD student we had in the lab had submitted her thesis a couple of months ago. I’d promised my four shell-shocked researchers that I would personally contact every lab that did research similar to ours and put in a good word for them. They had become quite attached to their Huntington’s families, which is not a recommended practice for a research scientist, but was a characteristic that I’d learned was essential for effective field workers. Releasing four Huntington’s researchers on to the market at once was practically a flood, but they were young and good at what they did and would surely get new positions in due course.
Fran was asking me about other grants, and I wrenched myself away from my gloomy reverie. Taking my hand back, I grabbed my wine glass and emptied it. “Not a chance, I’m afraid,” I told her. “The fact is, I’m finished. God knows how I lasted as long as I did.”
“Anna, stop it. It’s not like you to be so negative about your research. You’ve done wonderful things. You can’t give up because you’ve lost your funding. Researchers lose grants all the time; they just have to get another one.”
“Trouble is, the reviewers’ reports were damning. And they’re right. I was lucky to have the funding rolled over last time. They were probably giving me one last chance to do something new, but I blew it. I simply carried on in the same old way because that’s all I know. I’m a fraud. I’ve always known it deep down, and now I’ve been sprung.” As all this was spewing out of my mouth I could feel myself getting lighter and lighter. I felt hysterical laughter burbling up through my chest, and I poured myself another glass of wine and took a gulp, all the while watching Fran’s face as her expression changed from concern to shock. Then a snort exploded out of me, along with a mouthful of wine, and I put my glass down quickly and grabbed the blue table napkin, mopping the dribbles from my chin and dabbing at the red splotches on the white tablecloth.
Fran’s sweet face split into a grin and she giggled. “You’re drunk. Wicked woman. It’s not funny.”
“It’s definitely not funny, but I’m bloody well not drunk. This is all I’ve had to drink today, and half that’s on the tablecloth.” I wiped my eyes. “Let’s finish this bottle and get another one.” We grinned at each other and then sobered up.
“So what now?” asked Fran.
I looked at her, my mind blank. My pulse was pounding through my whole body. I forced myself to focus. “I suppose I will have to apply for more grants, but you know how long that takes. I don’t think I’ve got much hope of getting anything substantial.”
Fran screwed up her face. I could almost see her neurons flashing as she searched for a miracle.
I tried to ignore the churning in my gut. “I’ll be okay for a while. The good old Medical School Dean said I could have a cubbyhole and a computer for the rest of the year so that I could finish all the papers I’ve still to write.” I swirled the wine around in my glass, and watched the ruby liquid as it came dangerously near to the rim. “Given that boring old basic research is no longer considered worthy, I wonder why I should bother, really.”
“Is he going to pay you?”
“Huh, no hope of that. Although he did say that I might be able to give a few guest lectures, so I suppose I’ll get a few meager dollars for those.”
“Why don’t you go back to clinical practice? You know so much about Huntington’s disease. You’d be a wonderful doctor for them and other neurological patients.”
“Fran, what are you thinking? You of all people know that I’m hopeless at the bedside thing and anything that involves actual patient contact. That’s why I became a researcher.”
“But that was twenty-five years ago. You’ve grown up and changed since then. You might like it now if you gave yourself a chance.”
“I haven’t changed, that’s the problem. I don’t even like socializing with other research staff. You’re the only person in the entire universe who I feel comfortable really talking to.”
“Well you have to do something. What are you going to live on?”
“That’s one of the advantages of being a workaholic with no kids. I’ve got heaps of money stashed away in the bank. Now at last I’ll be able to spend it. Perhaps I’ll fly off to some exotic, tropical paradise and become a recluse.”
“Very amusing. But you could travel. At least for a few months. Go to Europe. It would give you time to refresh your ideas, and then you could write a new grant that would blow those small-minded pen-pushers out of the water.” Fran sounded excited by all these possibilities opening out in front of me.
I could feel my brain shutting down, and shook my head to wake it up. “Perhaps I could take a trip.” I pushed my lips into a grin. “Go and see my mother and her lover in their hideaway. Now there’s a nice tropical island.”
“Doesn’t she live in Shetland? That’s a great idea. You should visit her.”
Fran didn’t always get my sense of humor.
“Fran, it’s practically in the Arctic Circle. I do not want to go there. And right now my mother and her gigolo are the last people I want or need to see.” I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t be unkind. Your mother has a right to happiness, and I think her life sounds very exciting. I thought she was married?”
“She is. And good on her. But she and I are better off living a long way apart.” I yawned. “I can’t think about all this any more tonight. And it’s way past your bedtime; you have to work tomorrow.”
Fran frowned. “I wish you didn’t have to go through all this. It’s horrible. But I know something will come up that’s better. It always does.”
But not for the next four months. I closed up—or down—the lab, took the team out for a subdued redundancy dinner, and moved into the cubbyhole, where I put my head down and wrote the final report on fifteen years of work. Then I wrote a grant application and sent it off to an obscure private funding body that gave out small grants from a legacy left by some wealthy old woman who died a lonely death from Parkinson’s disease. I had little hope it would be successful, as all I could come up with as a research project was further analysis of the neurological material we had collected over the past few years—hardly cutting-edge research. At least waiting to hear would give me a few months of pathetic hope, rather like buying a ticket in a lottery.
That done, I dutifully went into the university every day and tried to write a paper on a series of experiments that we had completed and analyzed just before the grant was terminated. But my heart wasn’t in it, and I could sit for eight hours with no more than a bad paragraph to show for it.
Boston was hot and I felt stifled. Fran and her family were away on their regular summer break at the Professor’s parents’ cabin on a lake somewhere, and the medical school was as dead as a dodo. I used to begrudge any time spent talking trivia to the researchers in my lab, but now that I didn’t have it, I missed it. Even my once-pleasant apartment had become a prison, clamping me inside its walls the minute I got home in the evenings. I was no stranger to loneliness, but over the past few years I’d polished my strategies to deal with it. I would remind myself that the flip side of loneliness could be worse— a houseful of demanding kids, a husband who expected dinner on the table, a weighty mortgage, irritating in-laws—it became almost a game to see what new horrors I could come up with. You, Anna Fergusson, I’d tell myself sternly, are free of all that. “I’m a liberated woman,” I once shouted,
before glancing furtively around in case my madwoman behavior had conjured up a sneering audience. If self-talk didn’t work, or even when it did, more often than not I’d slump down in front of the TV and watch three episodes straight of Morse, or some other BBC detective series, and one night I stayed awake for the entire 238 minutes of Gone with the Wind.
When Fran finally returned from her lake at the beginning of August, I was on the phone to her before she had time to unpack her bags. Understanding as always, she put her other duties aside and the very next day met me at our usual lunch place. She looked fantastic: brown and healthy and young. I felt like a slug. It wasn’t until we were getting up to leave, me to go back to my cubbyhole and Fran to the supermarket, that she remembered.
“Gosh, I almost forgot. Callum was mucking about on the Internet while we were at the lake and came across this advertisement. He made some joke about it being the perfect job for him when he left school, and I remembered how you said after you lost your grant that you should go and live on a tropical island.” Fran scrabbled in her bag and hauled out a scrunched up sheet of paper.
“Fran, for heaven’s sake, you know that was a joke. What is it?” I took the paper she had unscrunched and read the small advertisement surrounded by ads for adventure tourism in Australia.
For rent to a single or couple who want to escape to a tropical paradise. Basic cabin on tiny coral island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. AUD$250 a week; must agree to stay one year and look after small private campsite (five tents maximum). Starting date October 2008. For more information e-mail lazylad at yahoo.com.au.
I looked at Fran in amazement. “You printed this out for me? I think the sun must have got to you. Lazylad is looking for some young bimbo. And he wants to be paid to look after his campsite. What cheek.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but Callum pointed out that thousands of people would give their eyeteeth for an opportunity like this if the cabin were free. But that’s the beauty of it; you can afford it. And wasn’t your father Australian? You mightn’t even need a visa.”
“Fran, you’re a dear, but can you see me on an island on the other side of the world, singing jolly campfire songs with spaced-out boaties?”
“Have you got a better idea? Or are you just going to continue to fade away in your cubbyhole?”
“No, I’m out of there as soon as I finish this damn paper I’m writing, and then I thought I might try my hand at writing a book.” So there, I felt like adding.
Fran’s face lit up. “A book? That’s fantastic. What sort of a book? A novel?”
I started to laugh. “What happened to you up there at the lake? This is me, Anna. I haven’t suddenly morphed into a normal person. I’m still the same old ivory tower nerd, clueless about people. No, I thought I might be able to write some sort of account of my experiences getting research grants and running a lab. All the highs and lows. Perhaps I’ll discover where I went wrong.” I could hear the gloom in my voice as the words came out of my mouth.
“But that’s a great idea. And you’ll need somewhere to write it.” I could see the mischief in her eyes as she grinned at me.
“I know what you’re thinking, and no, I do not want to live on a desert island at the end of the world.”
“Oh well, worth a try. It wouldn’t hurt to check it out though, would it?”
Two days later I composed a careful e-mail to Lazylad, not expecting a reply. Surely the cabin had been snapped up by now if it were such a dream opportunity. I got used to holding my breath as I turned my e-mail on each morning, scrolling rapidly through all the usual stuff looking for Lazylad, telling myself I didn’t care. But the idea of going to Australia had got stuck in my head.
I had all but given up and stopped daydreaming about writing a book on a deck looking through the palms across an azure blue ocean, when there it was—a reply from Lazylad, who I later found out was actually called Jeff.
Thanks for e-mail. Been away sorry for delay in reply. Cabin still available if you want it. Photos attached. Island called Turtle Island (after the sea turtles here) and is a coral cay just above Tropic of Capricorn about eight hectares in area with a large reef surrounding it. A few eccentric people own houses here and that’s about it apart from my small campsite. Only transport is fishing boat or charter. Cabin basic but comfortable, everything included. Solar hot water (roof water) and solar power for lights and computer, gas fridge and stove, no telephone. Satellite broadband from some locals’ houses you can use occasionally in return for a few beers. One of the local fishermen brings supplies over about once a fortnight in his boat and locals can hitch a ride for a small fee or more beers. Fantastic snorkeling and diving, birds, turtles, etc. Weather always perfect (almost). If you are interested e-mail me your phone number and I’ll call you when next on mainland to chat. Looking after campsite is a doddle. First come, first served (no bookings), take their money, and make sure the old guy on the island does his job of emptying the toilet and the rubbish bins. It would be good to get someone here before I leave for UK on 18th October so I can show you the ropes.
When I scrolled down so I could see the photos my hand was trembling. The first one showed a rectangular wooden building with what appeared to be an open front with a wide deck. A big wooden table and a few white plastic chairs, along with a heap of what looked like diving stuff—a wetsuit and flippers and a tank—sat on the deck. In the dimness of the inside I could make out a bed on one side of a partition and what looked like a kitchen on the other. The cabin was surrounded on three sides by trees with large leaves, and in front of the cabin was a sweep of white sand. The sand had something black on it, and when I zoomed in I could see it was a cluster of three large black birds just sitting there. The second photo showed a narrow strip of white sand, fringed by trees with feathery-looking leaves, and then the truly azure blue sea and sky. The last photo was like something on a travel brochure: a tiny, oval, flat island with green vegetation crowning the center and white sand around the edge, surrounded by blue. In the blue I could see dark patterns, the coral. I grabbed my pendant and brought it to my mouth. The last time I had seen coral sea had been when I was twelve years old, and I had thought then that I never wanted to see it again.
Chapter 2
I stood hanging on to the railing that ran round the bow of the fishing boat and looked at the white-and-green spot on the horizon. “Heavens, it’s tiny,” I said, obviously louder than I had intended.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” I turned to see the weather-beaten face of fisherman Jack, who was kindly delivering me to my new home. Presumably his son was driving the boat while he took time off to chat. “Well yes, I knew, but it somehow looks a lot smaller than I’d imagined. I suppose it’s the isolation of it in that great expanse of sea, rather than it being so small.”
“Think of it as the whole reef.” He leaned over the side and nodded his head like a pointer. “Look, we’re already over it; you can see the coral below now. The island is just the bit sticking out at high tide. So it’s really a massive area.” He grinned at me.
“Right. That’s very comforting.” I looked back to the island, which was getting marginally bigger. Not another island to be seen. Not even another boat. And then a dark speck appeared in the blue, weaving back and forth and increasing in size until I could make out a small dinghy. “What on earth is that boat doing?” I asked, pointing. “It looks as if it has lost control.”
“Some would agree with you there. It’s the turtle rodeo. I’ll cut the engine when we get a bit closer in and you can watch for a bit. It’s a sight not to be missed.”
“What do you mean, a turtle rodeo? Surely people aren’t allowed to ride turtles.” I was shocked.
Jack chuckled. “Now there’s a good idea. You hang on there and I’ll get up to the wheelhouse and bring her closer.” We turned towards the smaller boat and our engine went quiet. I could hear the screeching of the dinghy’s outboard motor as it sped first one way, and th
en, in a mighty spray of water, turned back and then around again in dizzying zigzags. I could make out three figures, one standing dangerously near the bow. Suddenly the boat screeched to a stop, and the black figure at the front dove into the water as the engine was silenced. I held my breath as the figure disappeared below the surface. Minutes seemed to go by before the diver’s head came out of the water right by the dinghy. He seemed to be carrying something—it looked like a large body. We were still too far away for me to see.
I remembered my binoculars and scrabbled for them in my backpack. It wasn’t a body—well, not a human one—but a massive turtle that the man—I supposed it was a man—had clasped in front of him. I could see the big head and the front flippers flapping desperately as the people in the boat struggled to get ropes around them. The man in the water was grasping the shell, which was much wider than him. The others in the boat were leaning over the sides trying to grab the flippers, and then I saw them tying the poor thing to the side of the boat. They seemed to be measuring its shell. This went on for some minutes while the dinghy pitched and swayed—it was quite choppy—and then they untied the unfortunate creature and it sank below the surface, and I hope got well away. The diver was clambering back into the dinghy, and one of the others waved at us. Jack was standing beside me again, waving back at them. They started their outboard and made a beeline for us. Their dinghy did a sort of side-skid like a teenager in a hot rod as they reached us and pulled up short, their motor grumbling to a low putt-putt.