Skyglow

by Leslie Thiele

  ‘Just breathe, Victor,’ she’d said over and over again. ‘Just breathe.’

  Vic concentrated on the cool distant voice of his wife. The thought settled him, precious air easing in, the blackness receding. Calming himself enough to know for certain he wouldn’t die, he eased himself up and crawled to the front of the boat. Stowed under the seat was the first aid kit and, tucked discreetly out of plain sight under the bandages, a precious puffer. Air flowed miraculously into his lungs, and an uncontrolled trembling ran through his limbs. Had he the energy, he would have laughed at the joy of it.

  The fish slapped on the deck and made a deep groaning sound, celluloid scales littering the surface where it had thrashed, silver flakes dulling to grey.

  Vic breathed some more to make sure his attack had abated, then bent to slide his arms under the body of the fish. It twitched feebly in his hands.

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Lie steady.’

  At the side of the boat, the fish still gasped at the air. Legs trembling, Victor steadied himself against the rail and gently lowered it down towards the briny water. The fish lay on the surface. Vic kneeled on the deck, his chin level with the rail, tears streaming down his pale face.

  ‘Go on,’ he whispered.

  Still, the fish lay on its side. He grabbed at his rod, angry now, at himself, at the fish, at everything. He poked, missed, and poked again, this time hitting the translucent fan of its tail. The fish worked its gills, seemed to shiver a moment, then disappeared.

  Vic made his way to the radio. Made the call for assistance.

  ‘I need help,’ he said to the disembodied voice at the other end. ‘Some help to get home.’

  Ashore

  8 June 1801

  Geographe Bay

  L’un de nos matelots, nommé Thimothée Thomas Vasse, excellent nageur, eut le malheur d’y perdre la vie, il fut roulé par la vague et enseveli dans le sable. Je m’exposai, de nouveau, pour le sauver, mais inutilement.

  One of our sailors, an excellent swimmer by the name of Timothée Thomas Vasse, was unlucky enough to lose his life—he was dumped by the waves and buried in the sand. I risked my life, again, to save him but to no avail.

  Journal of Post Commander Pierre Bernard Milius

  Last Commander of the Baudin Expedition

  Thrown on the shore, Thomas felt himself still in the thrall of the angry salted sea. Limbs humming with the ache of bruises, extremities cold through to the point of numb. More alive than dead, he decided. More’s the pity. The shriek of storm wind reached through ears clogged with gritty sand, eyes he dared not open fully. Rain stung his upturned face.

  Chancing disappointment, he cracked an eyelid. Wet sand. A broken oar. The sand-logged body of the abandoned chaloupe. The feeling, strong and unnerving, of being watched, but seeing nothing but long beach, pulling foam, suck and swallow water.

  So, he had survived. So, they would come back for him.

  He would have a tale to tell Baudin. The proof of his broken knuckles split open, stinging still with the salt. Damn them. Damn him to hell for this. And no help from the others. He would get his justice in time. He was a patient man.

  He felt a patch of warmth against his stomach in contrast to the freezing numbness of everything else. The dog was there. Milius’s hunter. Curled up against him, leeward. Though the frightened eyes were fixed on his, it licked its lips nervously. Thomas lifted a heavy hand to rest it on the dog’s head. Grunted his throat clear.

  Tossed you as well, did he? The bastard.

  It wasn’t true. The dog was worth more to Milius than Thomas could ever have been. Somehow in the waves and confusion, the animal had washed overboard. Swum to shore or been tossed there like himself. It would have been a regretted accident, unlike his own circumstance. He tried to straighten his swollen fingers, gasped at the pain. Not Milius to blame for this, he was useless, though he had done nothing to prevent it. There would be other, older scores to settle. At least Thomas had the dog with him, an extra reason for them to come back looking.

  He turned himself enough to look upward towards the dune, away from the sting of rain and sea spray. There was a man there, cross-legged in the storm, still as stone. The two held their gaze, a string of concentration in the shrieking wind. The other broke into a grin, rain sliding across his wide cheeks, and launched into a series of words and gestures too complicated for Thomas to follow.

  Sensing his confusion, the stranger made the unmistakable motion of come here, and then impatiently now! Seeing no recourse, Thomas rose in stages to his feet, keeping his face down out of the rain. The dog rose too, shaking itself vigorously, tail tucked. On the dune, the stranger stood impassive. Body already half turned inland, as if the day were fine and the cold of no great matter. Rain streamed off his cloak.

  It took all the strength Thomas had to make his way to the base of the dune. Even with the howling wind behind him, his muscles were cramped and ill-used, and he found each step an agony. He would not fall. Not in front of this stranger. If his life did not depend on it, his pride surely did. When he reached the shallow rise, he knew that he did not have it in him to climb the dune. He stood at the base panting, bent over with his hands on his knees, fearing he might vomit with hunger and weakness. The dog sat at his feet, sensing a need for help and unable to give it. It gave a short sharp bark ending in a whine. Both demand and apology.

  A warm hand clasped his upper arm. The stranger.

  Thomas looked up at him—the impervious face, dark eyes—and shook his head. ‘Kill me now, you bastard. I’m done anyway.’

  The man blinked his confusion and manoeuvred them both so Thomas had his arm draped around the other’s shoulders. Like two drunkards leaving a wharf-side tavern, they made their way up the dune, feet drowning in the deep sand. At the top, the wind was an angry push, and Thomas thought they might fall, but the stranger hefted his arm further around his own and said something that ended in a half-suppressed laugh. The dog yapped again and bounded down the landward side of the dune.

  Immediately they were over the ridge, the wind died to nothing but an overhead howl. The sudden absence of pressure made his eyes water in relief. At the base of the dune, a fire burned in a shallow pit amid low scrub. To their left stood the remains of a massive tree, burnt out long ago and hollow, alongside it a rude hut of bent sapling and leaves. The dog made no fuss and lay down in the fire-warmed sand nearby, putting its nose in its outstretched paws and keeping one wary eye on the men.

  The stranger stopped supporting him, and Thomas dropped to the ground, too weak to hold himself up. He tried to sit, then made do with leaning awkwardly against a hillock of sand. A coughing fit seized him, salt water burning his throat.

  Better out than in.

  He could still feel the pressure of water trapped under his nose and eyes. The skin of his thighs, where they touched, was rubbed raw with wet sand. He was miserable, his mind too disordered to take in the enormity of his situation, and could only think of the warmth of the fire, the absence of wind, the smooth dog stretched out in front of him, his hunger. He coughed again, a wet sound, and spat green muck on the sand.

  The stranger’s feet appeared, carefully pushing sand over the spat glob of mucus. Words were spoken, a skin offered. Thomas reached to gather it to him, but it was pulled away. The stranger gestured, bent to tug at Thomas’s wet trousers, his impatience clear.

  ‘You would steal my clothes, would you?’

  He tried to rise, ready to defend himself and fell back, knocking the back of his head against the wet sand. It was too much. The strangeness of the place spun briefly before him, the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, the dog leaping. The fathomless dark came for him, and he swam gratefully towards it.

  *

  It was early light when he woke again. Low grey cloud moved steadily across the sky, but the furious danger had slipped away in the night, leaving the air thick with seaweed and the loneliness of gulls. The fire burned low, and he was on the other side
of the camp with no notion of having moved, the pungent smoke flowing away up the dune. His wounded hands were sticky with salve, and when he brought them to his face, they smelled slightly acrid. He realised his nakedness, gradually, underneath the softness and warmth of the skin cloak covering him.

  Both dog and stranger sat across the fire. At his movement to rise, they turned on the instant to stare at him. The man had divested himself of his own cloak and wore little but a rough weaved string around his waist and Thomas’s own red scarf bound on his head. Anger and fear allowed Thomas to ignore the fact of his own nakedness and how he had come to be that way. They would be sending parties to search now the weather had turned. He must be ready on the beach. Fully clothed.

  ‘My clothes. Give them back to me.’

  The stranger stared at him, and the dog put its head to one side.

  He rose with difficulty and moved towards them, made a clumsy grab for the scarf. The world swirled, and he was on his back, down with a hard thump, looking stupidly upward. The man loomed over him, a wicked-looking spear in his upraised arm. Thomas hadn’t even seen him begin to move. He closed his eyes and opened his palms in supplication.

  ‘Very well, then. Have it your own way, touchy prick.’

  The spear never wavered, nor did the man’s expression of mistrust. He could have been made of granite. Thomas closed his eyes, examined his conscience. If it were to be now, there was nothing he could do about it. He was not ready, but he would go guiltless at least. He was hungry, would have liked a meal before he went to God. He wondered if his death would have reprisals for the stranger when his shipmates found his body with a spear through the heart.

  The wind was cold on his bare stomach. His own pulse beat dully in his ears. He breathed in and out as slowly as able, and still nothing happened. Perhaps the bastard wanted to see the whites of his eyes as he killed him. Well, all right then. He was a representative of the great Republic in this new land. He would be the first to die brave here. He took another breath and opened his eyes.

  The sky above him was empty. The dog and the man were back where they had been, a game of tug o’war in play with a piece of skin. They looked at him in unison, again unconcerned. The dog rose and came to him, licking his face and shoulder. He sat up slowly. There was no sign of the spear. He wondered if he’d dreamt the whole thing.

  Thomas felt unsure of his position. With each graduation in the light, he knew that he must get over to the beach, be at the chaloupe when they came back for him. He did not want any part of a confrontation between the ship’s company and the inhabitants here over possession of his person. He couldn’t think of anything more pointless, and he knew, with a surety which dismayed him, that there were those aboard the expedition who would provoke a conflict for the sake of their own spurious view of ‘scientific’ observation.

  Still, on the beach he must be and alone, preferably dressed in more than he was at present. He sat up slowly in the cool sand, imagined himself back in Dieppe, bargaining with merchants at his father’s house over ivory carvings. It was a subtle business, calling for a delicate play of manners. He cleared his dry throat, gathered his scattered wits about him.

  ‘May I introduce myself to you, sir? I am Timothée Vasse from Dieppe, in the great Republic of France.’

  The stranger paused in his game with the dog, but did not look at him.

  Thomas continued in as confident a manner as he could manage. ‘I must be going back now, over to the beach.’ He gestured up over the hill. ‘My shipmates will be shortly looking for me, and I will soon be of no more bother to you. If I could please have my clothes?’ He put a clumsy fist to his chest. ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Omagh?’

  ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Omagh.’

  ‘Oui. And you?’

  ‘Djiral.’

  ‘Cheeral?’

  ‘Djiral.’

  Thomas slapped his chest. ‘Thomas.’

  The stranger slapped his own, smiling widely. ‘Djiral.’

  So, they were introduced.

  ‘May I sit with you?’

  Djiral nodded, smoothed the sand beside him with a wide hand.

  Taking the opportunity, he moved warily towards the other man, so they were face to face, the dog between them. His new friend seemed unsurprised by his appearance, and he wondered how many had been here before him. He held out his hand and, after a pause, the other man accepted the gesture, wrapping his long fingers around Thomas’s wrist. Not a handshake but something holding the same sentiment.

  Djiral bent towards the fireside and offered Thomas cooked meat wrapped in leaves and a handful of dried berries.

  Thomas accepted the food and chewed slowly with his swollen gums, swallowed gratefully. The meat was dark and pungently gamey, the berries a sharp aftertaste. He nodded. ‘Good.’

  The two men sat facing each other in the sand, the language barrier heavy between them. Thomas wiped his hands on his thighs and explained his predicament, adding gestures as he could. His companion listened closely, head to one side, nodding vigorously each time Thomas waved his hand.

  ‘I leave.’

  ‘Nyidiyand kooloot!’

  It seemed they were both keen on his departure. The problem of clothing was resolved, and his trousers were handed back to him with a laughing comment he had no hope of understanding. The man watched closely, shaking his head and grinning, as Thomas clumsily pulled them on and then struggled into his shirt. His shoes were long gone in the water, kicked off in his desperate fight for life. The bandana he decided to leave where it was on the man’s head, a thank you and farewell.

  They walked together towards the dune, Thomas more confident now he was dressed and rested, with the food settling his nerves and belly. He would tell his shipmates best he could that manners remembered here would go a long way with these people.

  At the crest of the dune, the two men stood in the weak sunlight, a cool breeze tugging at the ends of Djiral’s makeshift bandana. Before them, the bay spread itself wide in the aftermath of the storm, the sheltering arms of land on each side purple under the clouded sky. The sea itself shone like a smooth plate of pewter. On the horizon, a thick line of pure silver where the sun broke through the cloud shone down a benediction on a new day. A splash of fish and falling cormorant turned the scene into a Chinese painting he had seen once as a boy in the great gallery at Paris when his father took the family there on business.

  Paris, France. Home.

  There was nothing he could say. A loud hammering beat in his chest, a roaring in his ears. His eyes filled with tears, blurring the view. All that vast beauty, so perfect, so horribly empty. The Naturalisté and the Geographé were nowhere to be seen, not even the suggestion of a mast out in the far reaches of the impassive sea. He did not know what to think, tried to remember their sailing orders. To rendezvous if separated at the Island of Rats’ Nest? Why had they gone so soon? Perhaps the storm. Perhaps running from all the bad luck this bay had brought them.

  Nothing so bad as his own luck.

  My God. They must believe me drowned. Or been told so. The dog whined at his feet, sensing his distress, pushed itself against his leg. The man continued to stare out to a sea as discomforted as himself. The situation for both men had just changed irrevocably, and the short encounter would now require a different resolution.

  Thomas looked wildly around him. The vacant ocean, the scrubby dune, the vast inland swamp. He licked his dry lips.

  ‘They will soon be back for me.’ His voice sounded reedy in the drifting air. He looked at his reluctant companion, whose eyes held confusion and no small sorrow for them both at what this turn of events might mean. ‘They will be back for me. They will. They will be back for the dog.’

  Neither man spoke. Through the long grasses on the dune, the breeze whispered only of this place, this time.

  French Linen

  She called them the honeymoon sheets, though they turned out to be nothing of the sort.

&nb
sp; They’d been sightseeing all day, footsore and not a little cold. From late morning, the skies had drizzled on and off, and they had turned down a cobbled side street on the Rue du Bac in the hope of finding dry awnings for shelter.

  In a bay-windowed shopfront, draped over the delicate tracery of a chair, the sheets glowed in the dim light cast from inside. Pete had rolled his eyes when Liz turned in at the entrance and stood in the doorway, his bridled impatience rising like steam at the delay to their dry hotel room. When she peeked in, the interior had been more salon than store; empty but for some artfully arranged antique French linens and glass shelving.

  ‘I’ll only be a minute,’ she said.

  The woman behind the glass counter, immaculately presented in a black sheath and plain pumps, looked her up and down in that peculiar French manner—half appraisal, half insult. She seemed annoyed at their late arrival and refused any English.

  ‘May I see these, please?’ Liz pantomimed her desire to examine the sheets in the window display, feeling foolish and shy of practising any schoolgirl French.

  Had Pete or the woman made light of the situation, it might have been something they would have looked back on, laughing. Instead, he stood obstinately by the entrance, conspicuously checking his watch, while the shop assistant stared at her incredulously, before moving stiffly towards the back of the display.

  Spread across the wide counter, the sheets revealed a telltale seam through the centre, made before modern looms had become common. They were soft as silk, washed a thousand times, the cutwork edging exquisite; lilies, white on white, adorning the hem. She knew a little from her grandmother’s haberdashery, her summer holidays spent smoothing fabrics and listening to her gran’s tales of a life before Australia.