Five Parts Dead

by Tim Pegler

  Tim Pegler is an award-winning journalist and author. His first novel for young adults, Game as Ned, was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book in 2008. Tim lives in Melbourne with his family.

  timpegler.com.au

  FIVE PARTS

  DEAD

  TIM PEGLER

  TEXT PUBLISHING

  MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

  The paper in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  textpublishing.com.au

  Copyright © Tim Pegler 2010

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2010

  Cover and page design by WH Chong

  Typeset by J & M Typesetting

  Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Pegler, Tim.

  Five parts dead / Tim Pegler.

  ISBN: 9781921656286 (pbk.)

  For secondary school age.

  A823.4

  For Lawson & Rose

  Luceat Lux Vestra

  CONTENTS

  I

  P: ABOUT TO SAIL

  RU: KEEP CLEAR/MANOEUVRING WITH DIFFICULTY

  Z: REQUIRE A TUG

  II

  ZL: YOUR S IGNAL HAS BEEN RECEIVED BUT NOT UNDERSTOOD

  W: REQUIRE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

  K: DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE

  III

  G: WANT A PILOT

  V: REQUIRE ASSISTANCE

  B: DISCHARGING DANGEROUS CARGO

  J : ON FIRE. KEEP CLEAR

  U: STANDING INTO DANGER

  QD: I ’M GOING AHEAD

  IV

  QX: REQUEST PERMISSION TO ANCHOR

  C: AFFIRMATIVE/CHANGE OF COURSE

  A: I HAVE A DIVER DOWN, KEEP WELL CLEAR & SLOW SPEED

  V

  T: KEEP CLEAR, ENGAGED IN TRAWLING

  FA: WILL YOU GIVE ME MY POSITION?

  O: MAN OVERBOARD

  EF: SOS HAS BEEN CANCELLED

  M: I AM STOPPED. MAKING NO WAY.

  Q: MY VESSEL IS HEALTHY. REQUEST PRATIQUE (PERMISSION TO ENTER PORT)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I

  P: ABOUT TO SAIL

  I hate the wheelchair. Loathe it. Mum’s at the back of the Landcruiser doing reverse-origami trying to unfold the bloody thing.

  ‘Dad!’ I groan. ‘Come off it. I can make it that far. I’m not a…’

  ‘Insurance, mate,’ he interrupts. ‘The stairs are steep. Probably wet, too. They specifically asked, no, demanded, you use the chair, Dan. Can’t risk you falling and suing them for buggering up…making your foot worse than it already is.’

  Mum opens my door as a bloke in orange safety gear and earmuffs beckons the car in front into the bowels of the ferry. I drag my arse across the seat, my left leg trailing. I shift my right foot to the side step and plonk down, wincing as the plaster cast hits the ground.

  I slump into the wheelchair and scowl. Mum stoops, fussing over the bracket that supports my smashed foot. The campervan behind us honks. I wave to them. With one finger.

  Normally Mum’d give me a serve for that. Today she pats me on the shoulder. ‘Good on you,’ she says. ‘What sort of mongrel blows their horn at someone in a wheelchair?’

  She’s trying to be sympathetic but it just pisses me off more. I don’t want to be ‘someone in a wheelchair’. And I’m fed up with all her mollycoddling.

  ‘Where’d Mel and Pip get to?’ I mutter.

  ‘They’re already on the ferry. You’re never going to believe what’s happened…’

  Shit. I clench my jaw, knowing there will be some miracle, some vomit-inducing twist in the latest and greatest adventures of Mel. My sister is charmed, I tell you. A magnet for freakish good fortune. As her twin, I’m the polar opposite. Of course. Yang to her yin. Cursed.

  Mum loves it. She basks in the sunshine of Mel’s luck.

  ‘…So we’re standing there at the kiosk, waiting to pay for the drinks, and a bus pulls up, loaded with tourists. The guide steps out and it’s Hiroshi, Asami’s elder brother, from her host family when she was in Tokyo. What are the odds of seeing him here? Unbelievable.’

  Unbelievable would be right if it was anyone but Mel. That sort of Midas-touch shit happens to her all the time.

  ‘What’s Pip up to?’

  ‘She wanted to photograph the ferry loading. She’ll catch us up inside.’

  Pip is Mel’s best buddy, but I reckon their friendship sort of defies logic. The two of them couldn’t be more different.

  Mel is tall, like me. We’re alike but not so much that people always pick us as twins. I’m fair-haired in an inconspicuous way, while Mel has yellow-blonde hair she keeps cropped short. We’re both athletic but Mel is leaner, and faster, damn it. She’s loud, confident and super-popular, one of those Queen Bee types that other girls circle like satellites.

  Pip is short, freckled and has long dreads. She avoids sport and couldn’t care less about the social politics of who’s in and who’s out. Her dad died last year so maybe that put school stuff in perspective. I mean, her dad was sick for two years. The cancer ate him from the inside until there was nothing left—just a brittle old cicada skin. Then that was gone too.

  Pip took time off school to be with him at the end. Her mum had to keep working because their family had bugger-all money for so long they nearly lost their house. It was brutal. The bank came knocking, demanding repayments while her dad was on morphine, dying in the back room. Arseholes.

  So Pip hasn’t had a summer holiday for a few years. She was rapt when Mel asked her to come with us. Normally I’d have invited a mate along too. But my mates…well, three of them are gone. There’s really only Barney now and he’s not exactly flavour of the month with Mum. Besides, with my bung foot, I was hardly going to be Mr Party-Animal and Barney likes to be where the action is. And that isn’t where we’re going. Not even close.

  Mum and Dad booked a cottage on Tammar Island. Not just any cottage, mind you. Not in a postcard-perfect beachside village with shops, a cinema and mini-golf. Nope, that’s not their style. Not my folks.

  They booked a lighthouse keeper’s cottage at the northwest tip of the island. In a national park. Near absolutely nothing.

  If I sound dirty on them, it’s because I am. I’m filthy. I didn’t want to come, don’t want to be here. They plan to hike, go bird-watching and work on one of Dad’s nature documentaries. Fine for them.

  Knowing Mel, she and Pip will stumble across a Swedish boys’ school doing massage classes and an extended chocolate-tasting tour of the island. Which leaves me. Alone at the end of the Earth with a smashed-up foot, in virtual solitary confinement. Seriously, it’s a custodial sentence, not a summer break. But after recent events, maybe that’s exactly what Mum and Dad had in mind.

  RU: KEEP CLEAR/MANOEUVRING WITH

  DIFFICULTY

  I ditch the wheelchair and stagger to a window seat. Given the stack of seasickness bags wedged beside the armrest, this isn’t going to be a pleasure cruise. I’m happy to surf or swim or paddle a canoe but put me on a boat and I’m all at sea. My head’s in the dunny within half an hour.

  I was mighty pissed off when Mum
and Dad told me we were taking the ferry to the island. I suggested I fly out and meet them but there was no way they were going for that. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t get on the plane—or they’re tightening the reins, paying out on me for making poor choices in the lead-up to the accident. Whatever.

  This summer was doomed, totalled before it began. Wiped out with Carlo, Aaron and Boris, three of my best mates.

  ‘Dan. Dan! Wake up. We’re about to land.’

  I yawn and look around, trying to remember where I am. Aah, yes…that queasy sensation. The ferry. Tourists jostle on the upper deck, shooting photographs as we approach the island. Bet Pip’s among them. She wants to be a photojournalist after we finish school.

  Maybe snoozing saved me from seasickness. That’s a win. Especially when I don’t like sleeping during daylight. I always feel crook when I wake—all Rip Van Winkle and out of sync with the world. It’s a different story since the accident, though. I can sleep at the drop of a hat. Must be the painkillers.

  Wish the drugs were doing their job right now. My foot throbs in the cast like someone’s inflating it with a tyre pump. I grit my teeth and try to flex my toes. My bum’s numb from sitting in one position so long. Gripping the seat armrests, I push myself up, wiggle a bit and then slouch to the chair. That’s better.

  ‘Nice moves, Dan. Not sure they’d work on the dance floor, though.’ Pip smiles across at me and…I think I’m blushing. Weird.

  ‘Thanks. Pins and needles. But if you want to call it choreography, fine by me. How’d you go? Get some good shots?’

  ‘Yeah. There was a pod of dolphins beside the boat. It was fantastic.’

  The ferry engines howl, ripped from forward to reverse as the captain manoeuvres towards the loading ramp. A loudspeaker tells all drivers to return to their vehicles.

  Mel’s over with the backpacker crew. Laughing. Oh to be in her skin! Sometimes I wonder whether we’re actually related. Maybe we were adopted. Maybe Mum and Dad picked Mel and the orphanage threw me in because they’d run out of free sets of steak knives.

  No, that wouldn’t explain the twin thing, the connection we used to have as kids. Mum and Dad never had to buy us walkie-talkie radios because we had this…understanding, already. We could never play hide-and-seek because we always knew where the other was. Sometimes I could hear her voice in my head, usually telling me off for something or other. And the connection went both ways because she always knew what mood I was in, even before she entered the room.

  I haven’t heard her for years though. Not clearly, anyway. It drove me mad, so I stopped listening out for her. Got sick of having her thoughts intrude in my skull. Then again, maybe we just grew apart.

  I lean across to look at the island. Old-fashioned limestone cottages cluster along the edge of some seriously steep cliffs, as if they’re ready to jump. One of Australia’s biggest islands and they build their houses on a cliff-edge. Is the place that depressing?

  The houses face back towards the South Australian mainland. I guess they built them there so they wouldn’t feel so isolated—and they could keep an eye out for boats crossing with news or supplies. Anything to break the drudgery of island life. I can’t wait.

  We dock with a dull thump. Deck-hands loop ropes around bollards. The ferry door whines as it sinks towards the vehicle ramp. Buses and four-wheel drives cough awake in the bay below us. Tourists clutch for bright vinyl travel bags and teeter towards the exit. Mel pecks Hiroshi on the cheek and I swear he has to put a hand out to steady himself. As Mel swans over to us she yells back to him across the din that she’ll catch up with him. Buggered if I know how. Maybe she doesn’t get it: we’re staying at The End Of The Earth.

  I flop into the wheelchair. Mum releases the brake and we make our way to the cramped lift. I hate this. It’s like she’s pushing me in a pram. I can’t wait to switch to the crutches.

  Dad’s parked halfway up the vehicle ramp. It’s so steep it takes Mum and Mel to push me up. I can’t stand having to depend on the others like this.

  Inside the car, I glance at Dad and have to grin. He must have been an explorer in another life. He lives for these expeditions and he’s itching to get to the lighthouse. He won’t really enjoy himself until we’re there and the gear is unpacked.

  ‘Last shops,’ he calls. He’s hoping no one wants to stop.

  Mel groans. ‘Can you pull over, Dad? I don’t know when I’ll be able to buy chocolate again.’

  Five minutes later Mel dumps a supermarket bag laden with chocolate next to my cast. I scowl and she beams, ‘Sorr-ree!’ Time to play the sympathy card. Rubbing my leg, I reach for the chocolate. She slaps my hand away. So much for compassion.

  ‘It was sooo good to see Rosh again,’ she coos. ‘His group is based at a hostel just outside the national park. They’re going to swing by and pick us up…maybe for New Year’s.’

  ‘What side of the road do they drive on in Japan?’ Mum is immediately alert and alarmed. ‘Do we know if this Hiroshi is a good driver? Is he used to winding roads? He won’t drink and drive will he? Is the coach driver a local?’

  ‘Mum!’ Mel shrieks, ready for a fight. ‘Just because Dan…’

  ‘Shit, Mel, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t…’

  I almost explode. Spit out all the bile that’s been brewing since I woke up in the hospital. Pip’s watching though, her eyes wide. I inhale so sharply it’s almost a sob and swallow my fury like lumpy, sour milk.

  We drive in silence until Dad brakes to avoid a wallaby. ‘There we go. Everyone says this island is crawling with wildlife,’ he says. ‘That’s a Tammar wallaby. They’re almost extinct on the mainland now.’

  The wallaby glares and, with a scornful flick of its head, skips away across the bitumen. Lucky it was Dad driving. Most tourists in their hire cars wouldn’t have stopped for a lone wallaby with a bad attitude.

  No one speaks until we get to the lighthouse.

  Z: REQUIRE A TUG

  The Cruiser grumbles to a halt outside one of three almost identical limestone cottages the colour of hummus. The lighthouse towers over us like a judge.

  Dad swings out of the car, eager to explore. Mel’s hot on his heels, ready to claim the best bedroom. Knowing her, she’ll probably find a $100 note under her pillow. In my bed it will be a used condom, false teeth or a cockroach. Maybe all three.

  Mum sighs, loops her handbag over her shoulder and climbs out. She’s been mopey ever since the accident. Any time Mel or I talk about driving anywhere with anyone other than Dad, she implodes. Guess it’s not that surprising.

  I’m lowering myself to the gravel when a vicious gust of wind catches the door and slams it into my cast. Nice. Five-star hospitality. At the sound of the crunch, Pip dumps her camera bag and scurries back. ‘You okay, Dan? I didn’t…’

  ‘Hey, not your fault. I’m fine…wearing reinforcement. They’ll probably need a panel beater for the door, though.’

  Inside, Mum has dumped her gear in the first bedroom and moved on to inspect the kitchen.

  Pip lugs her stuff to the second bedroom, where Mel is lying on a bed scowling at her mobile. ‘No signal,’ she grizzles. ‘How am I supposed to keep in touch?’ Poor Mel.

  And there she is, inside my head. It’s a faint but distinct Get stuffed, Dan. I’m shocked to hear it after the radio silence between us for so many years. I thought we’d grown out of that twins shit. Why is it starting again now?

  I ignore her and limp the length of the hallway to the end room, my foot stabbing with every step. I’m dizzy with the effort of walking this far. I should have grabbed the crutches from the car. Welcome to your cell, Dan.

  I sit on the bed and inspect the tiny room. Two single beds with tatty patchwork quilts. A narrow chest of drawers, the first of which contains some battered German disco tapes. A lamp. Coat hooks. Lace curtains hide a small window, the glass frosted with salt.

  Outside, I can see a washing line and a thick mound of shrubbery. I can’t see the sea. I c
an’t even hear it.

  The back door creaks and Dad strides across the enclosed verandah to my room. His ears and cheeks are red. He must have been running. Either that or he’s excited. Or all of the above.

  ‘What’s up Dad?’

  ‘There’s a path up to the lighthouse,’ he pants. ‘Just checked it out. Only three hundred metres or so. I could push you up there, no worries. Want to check it out? I’ll bring the chair around.’

  Right now I’d rather sleep than explore—close the bedroom door and shut everyone out. Everyone. Everything. All the shit that’s gone down since the accident. The constant reminders of how my life is in the toilet.

  ‘Come on! It’ll do you good.’ Dad’s still puffed but he’s grinning like a politician in a kindergarten. ‘Come on, I’ll race you.’ It’s a crap joke but at least he’s not treating me like I’m broken.

  ‘Okay. Fetch the damn chair. But you just wait until this cast is off. Then you’ll eat my dust.’

  As Dad thumps down the hall, the back door crashes shut, rattling my window. Man, the wind here has a temper!

  Moments later Dad returns and I slump into the chair. He wheels me up a gravel path that leads to the highest point at this tip of the island. I’m no lighthouse buff, but I have to agree with Dad: this one’s a classic. The round tower is mustard limestone with porthole windows. It’s topped with a white lantern room and a red dome roof. A balcony edged with a red railing fence encircles the lantern section. It’d have to be more than twenty metres high.

  There’s a narrow paved area around the base of the tower. Dad stops at the steps leading to a padlocked door. ‘Pretty cool, eh? I’ll open her up so we can look inside.’ He pats his pockets. ‘Errr, no, I won’t. I must have left the key in the kitchen. Next time, then.’ He wheels me to the seaward side of the lighthouse and whistles at the view.

  ‘How good is that sunset? It’s magnificent.’

  In spite of myself, I nod. The horizon smoulders.