It was housed in an old wooden building, one of the few on the island that hadn’t been turned into a café.
Not that it wouldn’t have made a good café.
Because even though it was pretty run-down, and pretty ramshackle, it was run-down and ramshackle in a very cool, very salty, sort of way.
Helping People Go Under Since 1965, said the faded sign at the front.
As I made my way in I noticed a broken window to the right, shards of glass glinting on the ground.
I pushed open the door and the smell hit me straightaway. It wasn’t unpleasant, just smelly: a salty, weedy smell. If the shop had been pretty rundown and pretty ramshackle from the outside, it was even more so on the inside.
This place obviously had a lot of history, history that was all over the walls – photos, newspaper clippings – and history that was hanging from the ceiling – pieces of old diving equipment, a set of enormous shark jaws.
There didn’t appear to be anybody about, so I took a look around.
Dive Shop Opens on Island, read the heading from a yellowed newspaper clipping.
I didn’t bother reading the rest, because it was the photo that immediately had my attention: two long-haired, suntanned men were standing beside some old-fashioned scuba equipment, smiling at the camera.
Partners Cameron Jamison and Dane Zolton show off some of their new equipment, read the caption underneath.
Now I was interested in what the article said. Really interested.
Childhood friends Cameron Jamison and Dane Zolton have turned their hobby into their profession by opening the first dive shop on Reverie Island and only the second in the whole of Queensland.
‘Plenty of history there,’ came a voice from behind me.
I turned around to see that the voice belonged to a woman, maybe mid twenties, with shoulder-length red hair. She was wearing a wetsuit rolled down to her waist and a bikini top.
‘So this is the Zolt’s father?’ I said.
She gave me a blank look.
‘Otto Zolton-Bander? The Zolt? The Facebook Bandit?’
‘Oh, yes. I hadn’t made the connection,’ she said, in a way that struck me as being a bit phoney.
I noticed her accent now – American, but not very.
‘Are you Canadian?’ I said.
‘Originally,’ she said, stepping forward, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Maxine, and you must be Dominic.’
‘People just call me Dom,’ I said, shaking her hand.
‘Well, Dom, we’re going to have a great three days together,’ she said, the enthusiasm bubbling in her voice.
‘I’m sure we will,’ I said.
A police car pulled up outside, and two police, one male, one female, got out.
As they made their way inside I wanted to run like the wind, and not just any old wind, either – one that was very, very quick.
Because one of the police officers I recognised from the day the Zolt and I stole the plane and flew to Preacher’s Forest.
I’d seen his face as he drove the car, loudhailing for us to stop. But had he seen my face?
‘Boss reported a break-in last night,’ Maxine said to me. ‘You’ll have to excuse me.’
I turned my attention back to the wall.
I didn’t want the police to have the opportunity to see too much of my face, but I also wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation.
Who would want to break into a beat-up old dive shop?
As they began talking it soon became obvious who would want to break into a beat-up old dive shop: somebody who wanted to help themselves to a whole lot of diving equipment.
‘You’re not the only dive shop that’s been hit,’ said the female officer asked. ‘So could you tell me exactly what was taken?’
‘Well, there was definitely a BCD.’
‘Buoyancy control device?’ queried the female officer.
‘That’s it,’ said Maxine. ‘And it was the largest size we had – an extra large.’
‘So we’re looking for a big thief,’ said the policeman. As he wrote, the policeman shot a glance in my direction: perhaps literally sizing me up as the potential thief. I figured it was time to get out of there, so I walked through the back door and into the training area. As I did something occurred to me: the Zolt would definitely need an extra large. What? Was he planning on joining The Debt in Diablo Bay? Unlikely.
A waft of chlorine rose up from the pool. Beyond that, on the wall, a mural depicting underwater life had been painted. Nothing really surprising about that, except for the number of sharks there was.
Maybe the artist liked sharks – and I have to admit they did seem to be more professionally done than some of the other sea life – or maybe they had a sick sense of humour, but pretty much everywhere you looked there was a shark, sleek, streamlined, its mouth crammed with teeth.
I remembered reading somewhere that sharks have remained the same for thousands of years – no need to change when you’ve got it so right.
As I was contemplating this, and other questions, a woman joined me.
She looked familiar, somehow – where did I know her from?
‘So you’re here to do the diving course, are you?’
Of course, it was joyless Joy Wheeler from the Australian Labor Party office.
The woman who had showed me the archives that day.
Who had corresponded with Imogen about her missing father.
If she recognised me, she didn’t say so, and I was happy enough with that. I wondered if it was just a coincidence, however. Had Ron Gatto, one of the Nimbin Four, sent her to spy on me? Or was I turning into one of those conspiracy theorists who sees a pattern, and a purpose, in everything?
We talked a bit about diving: she’d always wanted to but hadn’t got around to it, then a friend had given her this course as a birthday present.
She was still apprehensive, however.
I noticed her giving the sharky mural a couple of nervous glances.
We were then joined by the other students: two male Swiss backpackers.
Except they weren’t backpackers.
‘We are travellers, not backpackers!’ one of them snapped at me after I suggested that backpacking must be great fun.
There was the sound of the police car leaving, and Maxine joined us.
‘You can all stop looking at the water,’ she said. ‘We won’t be hitting that till tomorrow.’
Groans – backpackers, Joyless, but not mine.
I understood that before you did the practical you had to do the theory.
‘Let’s hit the classroom,’ she said.
‘Let’s!’ I said, doing a very good impression of a girly swot from hell.
As you may have gathered, generally the classroom is not my favourite place in the world.
And a quick perusal of any of my report cards would back that up: Dominic really needs to apply himself more, Dominic is yet to reach his full potential.
But this was different, this was learning how to dive, and I could so see the use of that: when The Debt came a-knocking I, Girly Swot from Hell, would be so ready.
As we watched the videos, as Maxine went through the theory, I hung on every word.
I pretty much wrote them down as well.
And whenever Maxine asked if there were any questions, I always had a few ready to go.
At the end of the day, my brain was mush; it was just not used to such full-on concentration.
But when the other students had gone, I did what all girly swots from hell do: I pestered the teacher even more.
‘So oxygen poisoning happens when you dive deeper than sixty-five metres?’ I pestered.
Maxine answered my question patiently, but then she gave her watch a big old look and said, ‘Well, look at that, I better be getting home. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
‘So do we have any homework?’ I said.
‘Just brush up on what we went over today,’ she said.
Her p
hone rang. She looked at the number, and walked away before she answered.
But I did catch a bit of what she said: ‘Well, Bones will have to wait for a while longer.’
I’d been so engrossed in the course, I hadn’t even thought about how I was getting home, but when I saw the Jazys’ Mercedes sitting outside I figured Mom had come to pick me up.
But as I got closer and heard the Rolling Stones pumping from the stereo I knew it was Dad.
‘How’d it go?’ he said, sunglasses pushed up high on his head.
‘Awesome,’ I said.
I was almost going to add, ‘One of the best days of my life,’ but didn’t, because I thought it sounded a bit OTT.
‘Really awesome?’ said Dad.
‘One of the best days of my life,’ I said, completely OTT.
Wednesday
Imogen, oh Imogen
The next day we hit the pool.
First was the swimming requirement – two hundred metres, any stroke, no time limit.
All the training I’d done with Tristan meant that I was pretty slick and I thrashed out the laps in a few minutes. Then I had to wait for the others to finish.
The Swiss were pretty strong swimmers, but Joy Wheeler seemed to take forever.
She did it all in old-fashioned breaststroke, head high of the water, as if she was scared to get her hair wet.
Still, she did it, so we were all clear to go on to the next stage. To actually put on our BCD and our mask and our fins and go underwater.
Again, the Girly Swot from Hell aced everything: clearing your mask, changing regulators, taking your weight belt on and off.
I did it all.
And that feeling, the first breath I took underwater, was one of the most magical feelings I’d ever had in my life.
Suddenly, I was no longer a slave to the surface.
By the time we finished the day’s course, it was just past three. After the others had gone home, I helped Maxine wash the equipment in fresh water and hang it up on pegs.
‘Are you this enthusiastic about everything?’ she said.
‘Perhaps running,’ I said. ‘Before I retired.’
‘Well, it’s obvious you’re an athlete. But why did you give up? Was it because of an injury?’
‘No, I just had a fight with an official,’ I said, thinking of that particular official, the loathsome Mrs Jenkins.
As I said this, for the first time since I’d retired, I felt a pang of longing.
Did I miss running?
Of course not, I had scuba diving now.
‘It’s the real thing tomorrow,’ Maxine said. ‘Open-water dive.’
‘I can’t wait,’ I said, as I put the last dripping BCD on its peg.
Again Dad was waiting for me outside.
I got inside the car, we took off, and I told Dad all about how great, how magical, it had felt to breathe underwater.
‘You’re making me jealous,’ he said, laughing. ‘I wish you hadn’t talked me out of doing the course, now!’
Had I talked him out of it? Yeah, maybe. Okay, probably.
When we got back to the Jazys’ there was another car parked in the drive.
I hadn’t really believed it when Dad had said the Havillands were coming to visit; Mrs Havilland never went anywhere.
But I walked inside and, indeed, there she was, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking what looked like a gin and tonic. Yes, she was perched on the very edge of her chair, as though any second she would have to get up and go. And she kept taking these nervous glances, her head darting here and there like a sparrow’s. But she was here.
But where was Imogen?
The last time we’d been together, we’d kissed. But then, as usual, The Debt had got in the way, and I’d got distracted, and she’d stormed, like really stormed, out on me. Come to think of it, she’d been more like a cyclone, but I don’t think you can say somebody ‘cycloned out on me’.
We hadn’t talked since, though I have to admit I had done some cyber-spying on her. Which even creeped me out a bit when I thought of it now.
Great, she’s not here, I thought. So I wouldn’t have to deal with whatever needed to be dealt with.
But then footsteps, and she was there.
She was overdressed, in a proper dress and jewellery and makeup, but she was still Imogen.
My heart skipped several thousand beats, and I knew exactly what it was telling me: despite all that had happened, she was still uh uh uh the one that I wanted.
But, and it was a major but, I had so much other stuff going on.
The scuba course.
And the scent of Yamashita’s Gold.
‘Hi Dom,’ she said.
‘Hi Im,’ I said.
It wasn’t much, an exchange of names, but it was enough for me to know that the storm/cyclone had passed and we were friends again.
I’m not sure if it was my idea, or Imogen’s idea, or maybe even one of our parents had come up with it, but suddenly I was taking Imogen for a spin in the speedboat.
Of course, she had to get changed.
Of course, this took forever.
And when she eventually did appear I actually couldn’t see how her new clothes differed that much from what she’d been wearing before.
So by the time we got aboard it was quite late; there was maybe only an hour of daylight left.
The key to the speedboat was in the same spot as before.
And I felt really grown-up as I turned the key in the ignition and the monstrous outboards burbled into life.
‘Wow!’ said Imogen as I backed the boat away from the pier. ‘Where did you learn how to do this stuff?’
From Tristan, I didn’t say.
‘Did Tristan show you?’ said Imogen.
‘Not really,’ I said.
I wondered what Imogen would say if I told her that Tristan had pushed me off the boat and that he probably would’ve run me over if he hadn’t been, fortunately for me, shot at.
‘So where do you want to go?’ I said. ‘It’s a great big ocean out there.’
‘I’d love to see where the Zolt holed up,’ she said.
I’d probably forgotten, or had chosen to ignore, how much Imogen had bought into the whole Zolt thing. But it all came rushing back: the day the three of us – Imogen, Tristan, me – had gone to Town Hall Square to celebrate the Zolt’s escape. I remembered how comprehensively detriangled I’d been. Well, there was only the two of us today. A straight line between me and Imogen.
‘Gunbolt Bay?’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s the name of it, isn’t it?’
It was a pretty outrageous suggestion: Gunbolt Bay was a long way away; Gunbolt Bay was a dangerous place; it was the end of the day.
Imogen didn’t know that, though; all she knew was that it was where the Zolt, her hero, had holed up for two years.
And even though the sensible part of me said we shouldn’t go, the less sensible part of me was really excited by the idea.
Gunbolt Bay – yeah!
‘Ride like the wind, Bullseye?’ I said to Imogen.
‘Ride like the wind, Bullseye!’ she said, all smiles.
If I was going to do the me-all-grown-up routine I was going to do it properly.
And it was an ideal time for it: what breeze there had been had died away and the water was mirror calm.
‘Ready?’ I said.
‘Ready,’ said Imogen.
I gunned it, the outboards growled, the boat reared up and for a terrible second I thought I’d overdone it and we were going to flip over and we were going to die.
But the propellers bit into the water, the boat surged forward and we were off, riding like the wind, Bullseye.
Yes, I know I do bang on a bit about how beautiful Imogen is.
Yes, I know beauty is only skin deep and all that stuff.
But every now and then, when I looked behind and saw her sitting in the stern of the boat, the wind tangling her hair, a this-is-exciting smile
adorning her face, the monstrous outboards in my heart starting revving too.
‘So your mum seems heaps better,’ I said, yelling to make myself heard over the roar of the motors.
‘I finally got her to see somebody,’ she said, yelling back at me.
By somebody I guessed she meant a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, a psych-somebody.
‘How did you manage that?’ I said.
‘I told her that if she didn’t, that if she kept on drinking like she was, I’d leave home.’
I knew Mrs Havilland was a drinker – a few times I’d been around there I could smell the alcohol on her – but Imogen had never said this outright before.
I looked at her, trying not to let all that beauty get in the way.
And it occurred to me that something had happened to her, that while I’d been dealing with The Debt, she’d been dealing with her own version of teenage hell.
The Imogen of the day of my fifteenth birthday, the day I learnt about The Debt, was not this Imogen.
But I knew I wasn’t the same Dominic, either.
‘You really would’ve left her?’ I said, though I was already pretty sure of the answer.
‘Idle threats don’t really work that well,’ she said.
‘It’s still pretty amazing that she’s come all the way here,’ I said. ‘Is she taking medication or something?’
‘Pills galore,’ said Imogen. ‘But so is just about every adult on the Gold Coast. That’s not the reason she left the house, though.’
‘It isn’t?’ I said.
‘First, I promised her I would find out what happened to Daddy.’
Guiltily I thought of all that information I had on ClamTop, information I’d downloaded illegally from the Labor Party’s computer, information that could help Imogen find out what happened to her missing father.
‘And that worked?’ I said.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Imogen. ‘Mum totally freaked. She said that there was absolutely no way I was to get involved. She said it was way too dangerous. She said those drug people would come and get me.’
Mrs Havilland had a pretty valid point, I thought.
‘So I went the other way: I told her that if she accepted your dad’s invitation to come here I would definitely not try to find out what happened to Daddy.’
‘So you lied?’ I said.
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