‘Sounds good,’ said Robert, not really knowing or minding what Trevor was suggesting.
‘And then I’ve drawn up a bit of an itinerary. Subject to wind and weather, and anything you particularly want to see or do. We’ll come ashore at Airlie Beach. There’s a bit to do on Hamilton Island, and at Hayman. Nice restaurants and so forth. And there’s Turtle Point for golf, plus the Lady Bowen wreck, you can dive on that. There’s gropers, sea snakes, lion fish, maybe the odd shark, totally harmless. Then back to Airlie Beach, and back again to Townsville. If that suits. As I say, all can change.’
‘All sounds perfect,’ said Robert.
Caitlin emerged from the galley with three cans of XXXX on a plastic tray.
‘Is this the local brew, then?’ Robert asked, tugging on the ring-pull. ‘And you drink this from the can, do you? How cold is it? Look, it’s practically got ice on it, Colby. Would you describe this as ice-cold?’
‘Ha ha!’ said Trevor. ‘Of course it’s ice-cold. You’re not Poms, are you? Poms like a warm beer. Nobody else does. You want a cold beer. The weather bureau says the next few days we’re in for some scorchers.’
‘That means very hot, right?’ said Robert. ‘Hot enough to scorch us? I like that.’
Caitlin was amused.
‘Don’t you say that in America?’ she asked.
‘We don’t say that,’ said Robert. ‘We say it’s going to be hot, or very hot, or, in New York, we say sticky. And we do not get a blue sky like this, do we, Colby? We don’t have all this space. You probably don’t notice, do you? The space. That must be normal for you, if you live here, too?’
He was already flirting.
‘I don’t live on the boat,’ said Caitlin. ‘This is just a casual job. I live in Townsville. I grew up on Magnetic – we’ve gone past it … it’s an island not far from here – but I live in Townsville.’
‘You grew up on an island? Did you hear that, Colby? Our lovely – what are you? – Captain’s mate? Deckhand?’
‘She’s the beer wench,’ said Trevor.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Caitlin, looking down at her white sneakers.
‘Okay then, our lovely host. Your name’s Caitlin, right? Our lovely host, Caitlin, grew up on an island.’
Colby had been leaning over the edge of the boat, beer in hand, studying the water. He didn’t look up.
‘So, hey, Caitlin,’ Robert continued, ‘do you know Daisy Duke … ever heard of her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Caitlin. ‘Is that a show?’
Robert had taken up position in one of the leather swivel chairs in the main saloon. He was still wearing tailored shorts but these were even shorter than the ones in which he’d arrived. His legs were dark and hairy, all the way up. He crossed his bare legs at the ankles. His toes were dark and hairy, too.
‘Daisy Duke is not a show,’ he said. ‘Daisy Duke is a character on a show. And you look just like her, but with blonde hair. Doesn’t she look like Daisy, Colby?’
Colby looked over his shoulder.
‘She does,’ he said, but that was all he said, and Caitlin found herself feeling anxious. She’d noticed Colby. Why hadn’t Colby noticed her?
Colby had noticed Caitlin, of course, and he’d already pegged her as being young and cute, both appealing attributes. But it was early days on the boat and, indeed, in Australia. He didn’t want to blow his chances of meeting other girls – on the islands, or on passing cruisers – by getting involved with the deckhand on the first day.
‘Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to call you Daisy,’ Robert said. ‘Do you mind if I call you Daisy? Just while we’re on the boat.’
Caitlin didn’t mind. She understood that Robert was flirting with her, and although she didn’t fancy him she also understood Americans to be good tippers. Carol had told her, ‘If you just smile and be nice, you might end up getting an extra hundred bucks. It’s not like they can’t afford to throw their money around.’
‘So, how did that happen, that you grew up on an island?’ Robert asked. ‘Your parents were castaways, right? I’m right, aren’t I? Your parents got shipwrecked.’
‘No,’ said Caitlin.
‘Well then, how did you end up there? On that island?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Caitlin. ‘We weren’t shipwrecked. My mum moved there before I was born.’ In fact, Caitlin knew perfectly well how she’d ended up on Magnetic. It wasn’t something she liked talking about. Her mother, Ruby Hourigan, had followed a man there.
‘You were an accident.’ That’s what Ruby used to tell her. ‘You’re what happens when the condom breaks.’ Did she mean to be cruel? Probably not. She probably thought, ‘I’m only telling the truth!’ Caitlin had been an accident.
‘I was living in Townsville and your dad lived on Magnetic,’ Ruby would say whenever the topic came up. ‘He begged me to go over. I mean that: he begged me. I said, “No, I can’t, I’m only fifteen. My mother will have my head. More to the point, she’ll have your head.” Because he was fifteen years older than me. And I wasn’t yet sixteen. So, you know. But he was saying, “Do you love me or don’t you love me?” Of course, I was head over heels. Older man and all that. Sophisticated. But it was all bullshit. I followed him to Magnetic. He got what he wanted. Then, when he found out I was pregnant – it only took that one time – he dropped me like a hot potato. Not that I could care less.’
Ruby would puff on her joint and then add, ‘And then, you know, I thought, “Well, when he sees the baby, things will be different.” But he didn’t even come to the birth. Not that he would have made it. Because you didn’t exactly come on schedule, Caitlin. I had it all planned – a water birth in the baby pool. But, no, you decided to come on the floor.’
That wasn’t quite true. Ruby had turned sixteen – and was eight months’ pregnant – when she took the ferry from Magnetic, where she’d been living in rented accommodation set aside for single mums, to Townsville. She needed to fill out the forms to get benefits once her baby was born. She had been standing in the Centrelink queue in forty-degree heat, fanning herself with folded pamphlets, when her waters broke.
‘Jesus!’ she’d said, gripping the sides of her belly. Caitlin – the unborn, the unwanted, the mistake – was moving head-first into her pelvic region. Ruby sank to her knees. ‘Jesus,’ she said again.
Two of the staff at Centrelink, working behind glass partitions, stood up simultaneously and craned forward to see what all the noise was about.
‘Jesus is right,’ said one of them, ‘she’s having a baby on the floor!’
‘Not on my floor,’ said the office manager, coming out from the side door to take Ruby by the elbow. ‘Up you come, love. We’re going next door.’ The old Townsville Hospital was next door. Ruby waddled like a penguin up the disabled ramp, with one Centrelink worker on either side. She made it as far as the emergency corridor. Caitlin was born on a wheeled trolley.
Two days later, mother and daughter were back on Magnetic.
‘They basically wiped the gunk off and chucked us out of there,’ Ruby said. ‘There was me, worried sick about what they might do to your dad, getting all my stories ready to say he was going to help us so they didn’t even think about taking you away, but oh no, it was in and out, like a production line. And did your father come and see you? No. Not until he needed to borrow some money.’
That’s not exactly an easy story for a little girl to hear, and Caitlin had decided early on to reject her mother’s explanation for how she ended up on Magnetic, in favour of some fiction: she’d been sent to Magnetic to take care of the colony of endangered fairies that lived in a fallen tree at the bottom of her garden; her dad wasn’t her dad because her real dad was a prince in a castle. But she was hardly going to say any of that to the Italian-American sitting in the leather swivel chair in the Blue Moon saloon.
‘I don’t really know how it happened,’ she said. ‘Mum never said how we ended up there.’
‘
Just lucky, then?’ replied Robert.
‘Right,’ said Caitlin. ‘Just lucky.’
Chapter 4
‘What time does it get dark?’
It was 4 pm on Grant’s first day on the Blue Moon, and being a redhead he was slathered in sunscreen and wearing a baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses in an effort to keep the sun from blistering his freckled face.
‘It can stay light until seven o’clock,’ said Caitlin.
Grant adjusted his cap. ‘In New York it’s dark around now.’
‘I couldn’t hack that,’ said Trevor. He’d steered the boat out past Horseshoe Bay towards North Molle, but when he’d offered to drop anchor so the guests could swim they’d said no, they were fine just dozing with beers in their deckchairs.
‘Don’t interrupt her,’ Robert told Grant. ‘I want to hear more about growing up on one of the islands out here. It sounds brilliant.’
Caitlin opened three more cans. ‘I guess it’s what you’re used to.’
‘Well, what kind of island is Magnetic?’ asked Robert. ‘Tropical?’
‘It’s all pretty tropical around here,’ said Caitlin. She handed out the beers and put the empties in the plastic garbage bin. Then she stood awkwardly, in her torn shorts and tied shirt, with one tanned foot curled over the other. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to do for her guests. She’d offered to make sandwiches. They’d declined, but then when she’d carried a bowl of peanuts and another of salted cashews up from the galley, they’d taken great handfuls and eaten them all. She’d asked them if they wanted her to get any of the equipment out – for jet-skiing or snorkelling – and they’d said no, they were happy just to be on the deck, faces tilted towards the sun.
‘It’s like they’re half-asleep,’ Caitlin had whispered to Trevor.
‘That’s the jet lag. They’ll be different tomorrow. Just sit and talk to them and if they ask for anything, get it.’
Caitlin shrugged. ‘Are you sure?’ It didn’t seem right to be paid to sit on the deck in the sunshine, even if she, personally, wasn’t drinking beer, but Trevor said it was fine.
‘So, your friends, when you say you grew up on an island, they must be jealous, right?’ said Robert. ‘Or does everyone around here do that?’
‘Everyone does not do that,’ said Trevor. ‘Caitlin’s lucky. Magnetic’s beautiful. And they say it’s got magic powers.’
Robert lowered his sunglasses. ‘Magic how?’
‘Well, Captain Cook – he’s the bloke who discovered Australia – used to complain that his compass would go funny when he sailed past Magnetic.’
‘That’s how it got the name,’ Caitlin agreed.
‘Well, did you hear that, Colby?’ said Robert. ‘Our little castaway is from a magic island. An island so powerful it can turn your compass! That sounds hot. Ha. That sounds cool, actually.’
Colby had been standing beside Trevor, looking out towards the horizon. Grant was half-asleep in his deckchair.
‘I don’t think it’s actually true,’ said Caitlin. ‘It’s just what they taught us in school.’
‘Did they teach you that Captain Cook discovered Australia, too?’ Colby asked suddenly. He hadn’t turned around.
‘Yes,’ said Caitlin, nervously.
‘Well, I don’t think that’s true.’
‘You mean because of the Aborigines?’
‘I mean because of the Portuguese.’
Caitlin hadn’t known what he was talking about. Robert saw her confusion, and jumped in to save her from embarrassment. ‘Ignore him,’ he said. ‘He’ll have read something in a book. Don’t let him lecture you about it. And I don’t want to hear about the Portuguese. I want to hear about Magnetic. How many people live there? Did you have an apartment or a house?’
‘A house,’ said Caitlin. ‘I don’t think there were many apartments.’
She was still a bit flushed – embarrassed, actually – by Colby’s intervention. Did he think she was stupid? She was also surprised by how much she suddenly cared about what Colby thought.
‘And what kind of house was it?’ asked Robert.
‘I don’t know. Just a house house.’
‘And did you go to school on the island, or did you have to go to the mainland for school?’
‘There’s a school there at Horseshoe Bay,’ said Caitlin. ‘We had to walk over a little creek to get there. There were stepping stones. And there’s a shark cage in the bay, so if it’s lunchtime, you can swim. You can see the shark cage, actually, if you go down with goggles. It’s got wooden bars, with slime hanging off them, and sometimes you’d see a hammerhead on the other side, looking back at you.’
‘Hammerheads!’ said Robert. ‘That’s fantastic.’ He was delighted. ‘Did you hear that, Grant? Daisy Duke here went to school with sharks.’
From behind his mirrored glasses, a dozy Grant murmured, ‘I work on Wall Street with sharks.’
‘I’ve got to know more,’ said Robert. ‘Tell me everything, Daisy Duke. But get me another beer first. And don’t let me fall asleep. We’ve got a plan to stay up until it’s dark. Then we’ll eat. Then we’ll nap. Then we’ll wake up tomorrow, and all this jet lag will be gone.’
Caitlin nodded, and went down the tiny spiral staircase to the galley. She was wondering how much to share. Magnetic Island is famous as a nature reserve. There’s a colony of tame rock wallabies. It’s home to the curlew, a bird with thick knees that bend backwards. Hippies think it’s paradise, and where you find hippies, you find marijuana. Caitlin had grown up with that: she learned to count with her mother’s five-weight copper scales. And where there’s drugs there’s often other problems, all of which were on her mind as she emerged from the galley with three more beers.
‘So, did you just have the run of the island?’ Robert asked. ‘Or am I fantasising?’
‘You’re fantasising,’ murmured Grant, but he didn’t mean about the island.
‘I suppose I did. Mum was pretty slack,’ said Caitlin. ‘I didn’t really get told what to do, if that’s what you mean.’ She wasn’t kidding: there were some hippies on Magnetic in the early 1980s who practised what’s now known as attachment parenting, meaning they kept their toddlers on their long nipples until well after they could walk. But Ruby’s style, if she even had a style, might best be characterised as benign neglect. ‘Go away,’ she’d say if Caitlin ventured home before it was completely dark, ‘and don’t come back unless you’re bleeding.’ But actually, there was no point in Caitlin heading home when she was bleeding. Ruby wasn’t the type to keep Smurfette Band-Aids in a medicine kit. She’d hold open whatever wound Caitlin presented to her, pour water into it, and then she’d say, ‘Okay, off you go.’ If Caitlin said, ‘But it hurts, Mummy,’ Ruby would scoff and say, ‘You’ll live.’
Ruby’s cooking wasn’t her strong point either. She served up Cornflakes for breakfast, and cheese jaffles, or baked beans on toast, at what she called ‘teatime’. And she never ran a bath for Caitlin and she never cut her hair, except once, and that was only after the school ordered her to do it because Caitlin had nits. The memory was seared into Caitlin’s psyche. She had been sitting at her wooden lift-top desk in Mrs Landry’s class at the school at Horseshoe Bay when the child behind her shot up his hand.
‘Nits!’ he said. ‘Caitlin’s got nits!’
The class collectively said, ‘EWWWW!’
Mrs Landry said, ‘Quiet!’ and ‘Don’t be so silly.’
‘But they’re jumping off her head, Mrs Landry! They’re jumping on my desk!’
Mrs Landry walked briskly down the aisle towards Caitlin’s desk. Caitlin was beetroot red, and she’d never felt more like she wanted to reach up and scratch her head, but she didn’t.
‘Look, look!’ said the boy. He was on his feet, dancing from one foot to the other, pointing and saying, ‘Look, there it is!’ And there it was: a single nit with a translucent body, limping crookedly across the surface of his wooden desk.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Mrs Landry. She squashed the nit and gently touched Caitlin’s shoulder, saying, ‘It’s alright.’ But the rules decreed that a note go home. Caitlin would have to have a nit treatment and, to prove it had been done, she would need to bring the empty nit solution container to class. She walked home feeling the weight of that problem. Ruby loathed spending money on nit treatments (and on shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, make-up, pimple cream, hairbands, and pretty much everything else).
‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Ruby, when Caitlin broke the news. ‘So, you’ve got nits. Doesn’t everyone?’
‘You have to get the special wash,’ said Caitlin, but there was only one shop on Magnetic, and it kept strange hours. ‘We can go to Townsville. We can go on the ferry.’
‘No, we can’t,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s ridiculous, a teacher telling people how to spend their own money, and how to live their lives.’ She got up, and went into the pink-tiled bathroom. ‘Like every kid at that bloody school hasn’t had nits at one time or another. Now they want me to prove that I’m doing something about it? Anybody else’s parents have to prove anything to the teacher?’
She had been looking for scissors, but not found them. ‘I’ll prove that I’ve done something about it,’ she said. ‘Come here, and bring the StaySharp with you.’
The StaySharp was a twelve-inch kitchen knife that lived in a triangular plastic case stuck with double-sided tape to the kitchen bench. In normal circumstances, Caitlin loved to drag the blade out by the black handle, but on this day she refused.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ruby, drawing the blade herself.
‘Sit,’ she said, and Caitlin sat between Ruby’s knees and under her lit cigarette, and she cried silently as her mother hacked at her hair with the StaySharp. ‘Now you can go back to school and you can tell them, “Mum fixed my nits.”’
Caitlin did go back to school, with hair chopped like felled trees in a forest.
‘Goodness,’ said Mrs Landry, ‘did you do that yourself?’
‘Yes,’ Caitlin said.
‘Oh my! Why didn’t you ask your mum?’
Can You Keep a Secret? Page 3