by Judy Nunn
‘Holy Mother of God,’ Lou breathed when he came to a halt, ‘how is she still sane?’
‘Maybe she isn’t, entirely,’ Paul said, remembering his initial reaction had been exactly the same.
Looking out over the ocean, which was relatively calm, Paul was not really seeing the white-tipped waves. Instead, he was seeing the soullessness in Jalila’s eyes, the way she’d offered herself to him like a piece of goods, not once, but twice now. He had naturally omitted any mention of these occasions to Lou. ‘I think Jalila’s mind is so damaged it might never mend,’ he said. ‘She’ll never relate normally to other people, not to men anyway, that’s for sure.’
‘Hardly surprising.’
Lou was touched by the depth of Paul’s concern for Jalila. The boy’s obviously attracted to her, he thought. Hell, he’d hardly be human if he wasn’t, but he’s a kind man, Paolo, a sensitive man. ‘Well she’s lucky to have found a friend in you, mate,’ he said. ‘You’re doing the girl a world of good.’
Paul saw the perfect opening to share his plan, so he dived straight in. ‘Jalila wants freedom more than anything in the world, and as we can’t give her that I’ve come up with an idea.’
Lou proceeded to listen without interruption, which rather surprised Paul; he’d expected disagreement.
‘So what do you reckon?’ he asked finally. ‘Do you reckon it’ll work?’
‘I reckon it’ll land you in a whole heap of trouble, that’s what I reckon.’ Lou kept his eyes on the course ahead. They were in sight of land now, and far in the distance he could see the marina. ‘You know what you’re planning is against the law, don’t you?’
‘And aiding and abetting illegal immigrants isn’t?’ Paul countered happily, aware that his grandfather was already won over. ‘We’ve been on the wrong side of the law for quite some time now, Lou. So you’ll help me? You’ll field things with the others?’
‘Yep. I’ll help you.’ Giving Jalila a taste of the freedom she yearned for didn’t seem a bad idea at all to Lou. And he was quite sure Bev would be onside too; she had to be as she was an essential part of the plan. In fact, he was pleased his granddaughter was about to become involved. Keeping her in the dark hadn’t seemed right somehow, particularly as she and Paolo were so close. He knew Paolo felt the same way.
Paul rang his sister that night. They talked for well over an hour, during which he explained everything to her, the refugees on the island, Jalila’s story, everything.
‘All of this was going on a week ago when you were down for the festival,’ she asked in amazement, ‘and you didn’t tell me?’
‘It’s been going on for closer to six weeks,’ he said. ‘Well, from the day Lou first discovered them anyway. We decided we’d tell you when the time was right, Bev. And the time’s right now. I need your help.’
‘Sure, in what way? What way can I help?’
He dropped the bombshell. ‘I’m going to bring Jalila to Gero.’
They talked for another half-hour after that.
Late Saturday afternoon saw Paul hanging around at the pub, ostensibly having a few beers with the gang, but this time he was there for a specific purpose. The Laaksonen brothers were regulars on a late Saturday arvo. They’d meet up with their fisher mates and then, being single men, stay on for a pub dinner. Paul would more often than not join them along with the other single fishers of the group, who were all good friends. Indeed, the whole of the fisher community was close, but most particularly those who, during the season, lived on Gevaar Island as the Laaksonens did. On this particular occasion, however, Paul wanted to corner the brothers alone.
His timing was perfect. He’d arrived early and was seated at a table at the far end of the verandah with four other Gevaar Island fishers, two single men and the tough couple Kath and Bill ‘Buck’ Buckley. Kath was actually the tough one – Buck danced to whatever tune Kath played and at whatever tempo she set. They were the oldest fishers on the island, working side by side, well into their sixties, gnarled like old mangrove trees, but with no intention of retiring. Kath had just risen to her feet. ‘My round,’ she’d announced in the voice some said could cut glass. She was about to set off for the bar, but that was when Paul had seen the Laaksonen brothers in the street heading for the pub: he’d been keeping a sharp lookout.
‘No, no, Kath.’ He stood. ‘I’ll get this one, you stay where you are.’
‘Why?’ she demanded with her customary belligerence. ‘We’re goin’ clockwise and it’s my round.’
He flashed her a smile. ‘Because you’re a lady, that’s why.’ Such a remark was bound to get a colourful response.
It did. Her face cracked into a leathery smile. ‘Fuckin’ oath I’m a lady,’ she said, giving the others a good belly laugh, as had been the intention.
‘Jukka and Hekki are here,’ Paul said, ‘they can help me carry the beers. OK with you?’ he asked as if begging permission. ‘Or do you reckon we need you to come and lend a hand?’
‘Bugger off.’ Kath gave a dismissive wave and sat.
Paul met the brothers just as they mounted the several steps to the verandah.
‘G’day, Jukka, Hekki.’
‘G’day, Paul – how’re you going?’ from Jukka.
‘G’day, Paul. How’s things?’ from younger brother, Hekki.
‘Good, good.’
Brief slaps on the back from the brothers, who were tall, well-built young men in their twenties, square-jawed and fair-haired like their Finnish father, but, born in Shoalhaven, Aussie to the core.
‘I’m just getting a round,’ Paul said, ‘want to come and give us a hand?’
‘No worries.’
‘Actually I was hoping to get you on your own for a tick,’ he went on as they weaved their way through the crowd to the queue at the bar. He was hardly ‘getting them on their own’, but men in crowded bars paid no heed to the conversations of others. Those gathered over beers around a table most certainly did. ‘Got a favour to ask.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Jukka said as they joined the queue. ‘Fire away.’
‘I was wondering if I could borrow Anni next week, just for the day, take her out for a run. What do you reckon?’
Anni was the brothers’ modern, high-powered, half-cabin speedboat. She was a semi-professional fishing boat in design, but they’d acquired her strictly for leisure purposes. A seven-metre aluminium vessel with twin two-fifty horsepower Honda outboards, she could go like the wind. The brothers had a mutual love of speed.
‘Don’t see why not,’ Jukka said, he and Hekki exchanging a look as all three shuffled a little further forwards in the queue. ‘Next week’d be fine. We’re out of commission next week anyway, we wouldn’t be able to use her.’
‘Yeah,’ Hekki agreed, ‘Annikki goes up on the slip next week.’
Annikki was the brothers’ professional lobster fishing boat, a magnificent eighteen-metre vessel. Both Annikki and her smaller cousin Anni had been named after the mother Jukka and Hekki adored.
‘Oh well, that makes things handy, doesn’t it?’ Paul said. ‘Thanks a lot.’
And that’s how easy it was. He’d expected it would be. He’d known Annikki was due up on the slip; he’d checked at the marina. Like his own Palermo Miss, which had been up on the slip and anti-fouled just a week or so previously, she’d been booked in well ahead. When a boat was up on the slip, the owner was busy. You didn’t waste a minute of the marina’s time with others waiting in line.
They made arrangements between them for Paul to pick up the keys to Anni and then as they once again shuffled forward in the queue …
‘Going out for a bit of a fish, eh?’ Hekki asked.
Paul was prepared for this part too, covering himself just in case he and Jalila were seen.
‘Nah,’ he said, ‘at least I don’t think so. I don’t reckon she’d be interested.’
‘She? Who’s she?’ Jukka queried.
‘The girl I’m trying to impress,’ Paul said with a grin. ‘Sh
e’s in Gero, just up from Perth. She’s a friend of my sister’s and she’s a real looker.’
‘Ah,’ knowing nods from the brothers and a wink from Jukka, ‘well Anni should do the trick. I don’t know a bird who isn’t turned on by Anni.’
‘What’ll it be, boys?’ Mawsie the publican’s wife asked.
The weather turned nasty over the next few days, blustery winds followed by a storm that was unusually heavy for October, and Lou and Paul found themselves grounded. Lou was not in the least worried about the group on the island.
‘They’ve got plenty of supplies to see them through a few extra days,’ he said, ‘and they’ll know why we haven’t turned up – they’re not stupid.’
But Paul’s concern was about his plans for Jalila.
‘Jukka and Hekki are lending me Anni while their boat’s up on the slip,’ he said, agitated, ‘they’ll have her back by next week.’
‘And they’ll still lend you the speedboat,’ Lou remarked in a voice that clearly said calm down, ‘they’re good mates. Stop being so impatient, Paolo.’
Aware of the rebuke, Paul’s reaction was a little sullen. Am I being impatient? Is that all it is? Yes, he thought, maybe I am, maybe Lou’s right.
His plan now set in motion, Paul was certainly raring to go, but there was a genuine concern at the back of his mind. He must continue the momentum while Jalila was still communicative. What if, when he next saw her, she had retreated once again behind that impenetrable shell?
Then finally, as the weather forecast had predicted, Saturday dawned bright and clear; there was a post-storm ocean swell, but nothing that warranted deferring their course of action.
Bev had been pleased when Paul had rung her on the Friday night to say all was going ahead. She’d been on standby ever since their previous phone conversation, and Saturday was far more convenient than a weekday, when she’d have to have taken time off work.
‘How very kind of the weather,’ she said, ignoring the impatience in his tone as she always did when he allowed his irritation to show.
‘I’ll call you when we’re half an hour out,’ he replied brusquely. ‘If all goes according to plan we should be there around lunchtime.’
They set out for the island early that morning, Lou aboard the old Princess and Paul aboard Anni, having fuelled up both vessels the previous day. They kept pace with each other during the crossing, their intention being to arrive together at around nine o’clock, although Anni could have roared on ahead at four times the speed.
The group awaiting them at the end of the jetty was astonished to see the shiny new, modern speedboat. They’d been rather wary at first by the sight of two approaching vessels, but the fact that the strange craft was accompanying the old Princess surely meant they were safe. And then, as the boats had come a little closer, they’d recognised Paul at the helm waving through the open side window and their own returning waves of welcome had commenced in earnest.
‘My, my,’ Rassen said as Paul stepped up onto the jetty, ‘what a speedy-looking vessel.’
‘Yes, she’ll move all right.’ Paul’s eyes had sought Jalila’s, where she stood silently as the group chorused their ‘good mornings’, and he’d been instantly reassured by the complicity he saw there. Jalila had not retreated at all.
They unloaded the provisions and carried them to the hut, Paul doing his best to curb his impatience, longing to be on his way. Then, when the women finally set about storing the food they’d unpacked and the men prepared to go their separate ways, he made his rehearsed ‘casual remark’ to Hala.
‘I thought I might take Jalila for a ride in the speedboat,’ he said, ‘that is, if she’d like to come – would it be all right?’
‘Good heavens,’ Hala said, surprised, ‘yes of course.’ She turned to the girl. ‘Would you like that, Jalila?’
‘Yes,’ Jalila replied. ‘I would like that.’
‘Me too! I come too!’ There was no escaping little Hamid. But they had anticipated this. Paul glanced over at Lou, who had deliberately lingered before departing for the yellow hut and his customary poker game with Rassen.
‘I’ve got a better idea, Hamid,’ Lou said. ‘Why don’t you come out on the old Princess with me?’
Hamid’s huge, doe-like eyes glanced from Lou to Paul and then back again. He’d been out on the old Princess twice now, and both times had been thrilling, but he’d never been out on a speedboat.
‘I’ll let you steer her if you like,’ Lou said enticingly, miming the steering wheel to ensure the boy understood. ‘No steer speedboat,’ he said with a stern shake of his head, ‘too fast. But the old Princess … What do you say?’
A squeal of joy. The deal was sealed.
The two boats took off on their respective jaunts together, Karim and Hany accompanying Lou and Hamid while Rassen and Massoud, who were not in the least interested in boats, retired for a game of chess.
As Anni sprang into action, Karim and Hany couldn’t help feeling a touch of envy. They would love to have been invited for a run on the speedboat, but they recognised this was a private arrangement between Paul and Jalila; it was not their place to interfere. Like the rest of the group, they were all too aware of the remarkable effect the young Australian was having on the girl – he might even have set her on the road to recovery.
It didn’t stop them watching enviously though as Paul upped the revs of the massive twin outboards and Anni spanked across the water, leaving a broad white wake, while the old Princess chugged away from the jetty at her customary, sedate pace. Perhaps Paul might give me a quick ride when he gets back, each thought hopefully.
Being aboard Anni was certainly exciting for the uninitiated – flat out she could get up to around thirty-five knots – and Paul kept his eye on Jalila in case she found the experience alarming. Quite obviously she did not.
They stood side by side in the high half-cabin, Paul at the wheel. He preferred to skipper standing rather than sitting, so she’d opted to stand also, ignoring the sturdy bucket seat at her disposal. Jalila kept a firm hold on the metal grip of the dashboard as he’d instructed she must, for the boat was at times practically airborne, skipping across the ocean’s swell. The side windows of the cabin were open and the wind whipped back her dark, shoulder-length hair, her scarf tied around her waist for safekeeping. With her feet securely anchored, she weathered the boat’s movement well as she stared through the windscreen at the endless all-surrounding blue. There was no land in sight now. Even the island behind them had been swallowed up by the blue.
Stealing surreptitious glances at her, Paul once again found her unfathomable. There was no trace of alarm, which for one who had lived through a shipwreck and a night in shark-infested waters might have been expected. But the boat’s speed appeared to have aroused in her no sense of exhilaration either: she was affected by nothing and simply gazing at nothing, or so it seemed. Everything about her was unreadable. Paul was worried. Has she gone away again? he wondered. Have I lost contact with her?
He pulled back on the revs, reducing the roar of the engines, slowing the boat so that it ploughed strongly through the waves rather than spanking along the top.
‘Are you looking forward to your adventure?’ he asked.
Jalila turned to him, her eyes meeting his directly. ‘Yes,’ she said. She still had no idea what an ‘adventure’ might be, but whatever it was, she was looking forward to it.
Paul wanted to cheer. Jalila’s facial expression and body language might be unfathomable, but her eyes were not. The dead eyes that had once said nothing now said every thing, and in their green depths he could see the light of excitement.
‘That’s good,’ he said simply.
But Jalila was about to offer more. She wanted so much to please him. ‘I prepare for adventure,’ she said, picking up from the passenger seat the small cloth bundle she’d brought with her. It was actually a tea-towel knotted at the corners. She untied it and displayed the contents. ‘See?’
&n
bsp; Paul looked down at the items nestled in the tea-towel: a toothbrush and a comb, the tiniest sliver of soap and an all-but-devoured tube of toothpaste. Jalila had obviously taken only the dregs of the group’s communal toiletries that would have been destined for the rubbish bag. Something about the pathetic little collection she’d packed for her adventure touched him deeply.
‘We’ll buy you these things in Geraldton,’ he told her.
But Jalila wasn’t listening. She’d put down the bundle, taken up her firm grip and was once again staring through the windscreen.
‘We go fast now?’ she asked.
They arrived at Geraldton marina shortly before one o’clock, by which time Bev was waiting patiently on the jetty. As arranged, he’d rung her on his mobile phone when they were half an hour out.
He didn’t even bother tying up – the breeze was keeping them alongside anyway.
‘G’day, Bev,’ he said, ‘climb aboard.’
She did, and very nimbly. Courtesy of her brother and grandfather, Bev knew a great deal about boats.
And then they were off. The whole procedure had taken less than thirty seconds. The marina was busy, it was a Saturday and no one had paid them any particular attention. Upon Paul’s instruction Jalila had remained in the passenger seat, under cover of the half-cabin and out of sight to general passers-by. The episode had gone unnoticed and they were out to sea in a matter of minutes.
‘Bev, this is Jalila,’ Paul said, slowing the engines right down to a gentle cruise level so they wouldn’t have to raise their voices to be heard. ‘Jalila, this is my sister, Bev.’
Jalila rose from the passenger seat and turned to meet Paul’s sister.
‘Hello, Jalila,’ Bev said. He didn’t tell me she was this bloody beautiful, she thought.
‘Hello,’ Jalila said. She does not look like his sister, she thought.
Presuming that Jalila would retain her customary silence, Paul decided to speak on her behalf in order to break the ice.