It looked as if someone had flicked all the switches on under the water, right out past the waves. A black Labrador came out of the water, neon specks all over his fur until he shook them off. His owners came out of the water, the glow still on their skin before they towelled themselves dry. Swimmers’ hair was covered in it. The further out the marina we walked, the more luminous it seemed to get.
And that’s when we heard someone calling out.
‘Taxi,’ the guy called.
We all swung around, our collective, being-chased-by-police guilty consciences making us antsy.
‘Mate,’ he called again, waving at us. He was standing on the deck of one of those rich-people boats, the ones with the glossy white sides and sleek angular windows. ‘How about this, eh?’ he said, gesturing at the brilliant green water.
Taxi went over and chatted to the guy, then shambled back to us.
‘They’re going out to have a better look,’ Taxi said, talking loud enough to be heard by the guy on the boat. ‘Wants to know if we want to go with them.’
‘No,’ Enron hushed at him. ‘Who is he anyway?’
Taxi dropped his voice right down.
‘If we don’t go, he’ll think it’s weird. Have you seen how the ocean is? I mean, anyone in their right mind would want to go. His name’s Judd. I met him in the bar earlier tonight. He seems like a good guy, we just all have to use different names. Obviously he knows my one, but you guys’ll have to come up with something different and just introduce yourselves as we go on board.’
‘I don’t think we should,’ Enron hushed.
‘I don’t think we can avoid it,’ Taxi hushed back.
We walked down to where the boat was moored.
‘It’ll be spectacular a bit further out,’ Judd said.
Enron was one of the first ones over and helped Taxi and Jones lift Jesus in His wheelchair onto the boat, a manoeuvre with a difficulty rating of an eight or nine, especially considering we were trying to go unnoticed.
Lifting a dead body in a wheelchair onto a boat in front of strangers is hardly the stuff of flying-under-the-radar.
But Judd and his mate barely seemed to register. They both seemed so blown away by the neon green highlights glinting on the broken surface of the water that neither of them noticed we’d brought a dead body on board. Although, again, the technicality of that I’d have to check. Was Jesus a dead body? He was warm to the touch, He seemed to listen when you spoke to Him, enjoyed watching local bands and I was even starting to wonder whether He might have a sense of humour. But if one of the defining characteristics of a live body was a beating heart, then He didn’t fit the definition.
Judd introduced us to his mate ‘Pirate’ – I suppose if you work on a boat, there’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll get given that nickname at some stage of your career – throttled the boat into action and steered it out under the bridge for the open sea. The boat skipped like a pebble across the waves as each of us clung to whatever railing was closest, the wind plucking out goosebumps all over my arms and legs.
‘You’re cold,’ Jones yelled at me, the speed of the boat whipping his words away as soon as they were out his mouth.
He turned towards Jesus. ‘You okay?’ he asked, checking that the brakes on His wheelchair were standing firm. ‘First time on a boat?’
‘He was a fisherman,’ Enron shouted over the waves, ‘so I’m pretty sure He’s been on a boat before.’
Jones laughed.
When we were far enough out, away from the pesky lights of Merimbula, Judd cut the motor and we drifted in that fluorescent sea, the glow reflecting off the shiny surfaces of the boat.
‘They’re called dinoflagellates,’ Pirate told us as we knelt on cushioned benches, our arms slung over the railings, to look down at the watery display. ‘Plankton. When the water is disturbed, they emit this light. Sometimes it’s to repel predators, and sometimes they do it to attract predators because they’re ready to be eaten.’
‘Weird,’ Taxi said.
‘Something like that. This is like when we were at Stinson Beach a couple of years back, remember?’ Pirate said to Judd.
‘Californ. I. A,’ Judd explained to us. ‘But that was nothing compared to this. This is something else altogether. It’s incredible. We’re pretty lucky to be here to catch it.’ He peeled off his top. ‘Swim?’
And plunged in.
My first instinct was to say no. There’s always been something scary to me about the water at night. You can’t see what’s in there, but tonight, with the ocean glowing like a gigantic swimming pool, the thought of dipping in there was delicious and compelling.
We each hauled our clothes off over our heads, underwear substituting for bathers, which is always, for some reason, inexpressibly sexy. If you think about it logically underwear is exactly the same as bathers. In fact bathers should be more sexy because they’re designed to be seen and to look good, but something about Jones stripped down to his barest clothing made my breath catch inside my lungs. Jesus sat in His wheelchair watching over us all, and that was enough to keep me feeling safe.
The water was warm. I’d thought it was going to be freezing, but it was like a bath. The ocean had never felt nor looked so amazing as it did that night, and our eyes were shining from the glow. Even our teeth looked brighter than usual. Jones stayed close to me, doing that thing boys do when they squirt water out through a hole in their hands – something Jesus would have been legendary at, no doubt, except for the fact that he was wheelchair-bound and all.
There was only one small moment when I felt a chill. Not from the water, but from Judd. He was swimming on his back, circling around Coco, talking to her and holding handfuls of luminescent water up to dribble down his arm. But something about him, the way he circled her, made me feel weird. I ducked under the water and swam over to her, tugging at her foot and bringing her down to dip and duck-dive with me.
After our swim we all sat on the deck, fluffy expensive velour towels wrapped around our shoulders, our legs tucked up under our bodies.
‘So this is how the rich people live, is it?’ Jones said to Judd.
Judd shook his head.
‘Nah. This is how we live. The rich people just come on board and visit us every now and then.’
Judd and Pirate worked for some super-rich Melbourne family. A bit like the people in Downton Abbey, but modern and aquatic. Judd did more of the boat maintenance and driving, while Pirate had done his apprenticeship at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, and was into pastries and putting together delicious little somethings on a plate. Which accounted for the delicious little somethings we were tucking into after our swim. As we talked, Pirate had a bowl of ingredients between his legs, kneading some dough to make pizzas for later on.
‘We’re meeting them up at the Whitsundays on the weekend,’ Judd explained, referring to the boat-owners. ‘So we’re taking it easy for the moment, going up the coast.’
‘So this is their holiday house?’ I asked.
Fancy holiday house, if you asked me. We were slumped on white leather couches and the floor and walls were gleamingly polished timber. There were sparklearkling metal doovers on the walls and yeah, if this was their holiday house, I’d like to see their full-time house.
‘One of them,’ Judd said. Okay. So maybe I’d like to see their other holiday houses, as well as their full-time house. ‘Actually, they use it more for business than anything else. Occasionally they’ll bring the kids here, but their kids are grown up and it’s usually, yeah, just business people who get to use it.’
‘So the rest of the time it’s just you guys?’ Coco asked.
Judd nodded.
‘They wouldn’t be happy about you having people on board,’ Enron said, looking stiff-armed and rigid-shouldered. ‘We probably should get going.’
‘What they don’t know can’t hurt them is my theory,’ Judd said. ‘So we don’t tell them. And they don’t ask. I mean, they must know we sometimes have people
on board, but so long as we don’t make a big deal about it and don’t drink the cellar dry, they’re fine.’
‘So how do you get a job like this?’ Coco asked, hooking Judd each time she opened her mouth.
‘After I finished uni a couple of years back,’ he said, maybe leaning in a bit closer to her, hard to tell, ‘I went overseas. I’ve been working on boats ever since. For all different people. Music industry people. Film guys. Whatever. Met Pirate when we both worked on this other boat in Greece, and we’ve been crewing together ever since.’
‘I’ve cooked for David Bowie,’ Pirate said.
‘Seriously?’ Coco said, her eyes wide.
‘And Dave Grohl,’ Judd said. ‘And Bono. And Kings of Leon.’
‘Wow. What were they like?’ Coco asked.
‘Cool,’ Judd said, looking straight at Coco. ‘Very cool.’
I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to be protective of Coco or not. I know Mum and Dad would expect me to keep her safe, but what exactly did that involve? Telling some hipster guy not to flirt with my sister? Doubt it.
‘So when the rich people are here, you two look after them?’ Coco asked, clearly impressed.
Judd shrugged.
‘We get extra crew when they’re on board. Six or seven others, depending on how many guests there are. Any of you guys want a job, just let me know and we’ll find you something. You don’t necessarily have to have been on a boat before.’
‘Dodie … um, she’s this friend of mine,’ Coco covered. My name was supposed to be Minty for this part of the trip, ‘we’ve had sailing lessons since we were little. And Minty has as well, haven’t you?’
She looked across at me. I raised an eyebrow at her.
‘Yep. Me and Meals have done a bit of sailing.’
Coco was Meals. And it looked like Judd wouldn’t mind snacking on her.
‘Well, if you want a gig,’ Judd said, ‘just give me a call.’
‘Yeah, anyway, so,’ Enron stood up, ‘we should really get going. It was great going out, really nice of you to take us, but we’ve gotta go.’
‘The night is but a puppy,’ Judd said, looking up at Enron from his lounging position on the couch. ‘Chill.’
Enron frowned at him.
‘We’ve gotta leave early,’ Enron said. ‘Hit the road.’
‘Sydney, yeah?’ Judd said.
‘How do you know that?’ Enron frowned.
‘Taxi and I were going through all the different routes you could take earlier tonight.’
‘That’s how we got talking,’ Taxi explained, looking a little sheepish. ‘I had all my maps spread out, and Judd came over and introduced himself.’
‘You gotta love a map,’ Judd said. ‘So what are you doing in Sydney?’
‘Sam isn’t well,’ Enron said, briskly, abruptly, wanting to get the hell off the boat.
Sam as in Sam-ta. Jones’s little joke that Enron had agreed to go with. After the noogying, it was like the whole issue about Jones calling Jesus Santa had fizzled into nothing.
‘So yeah, He’s not well,’ Enron continued. ‘You can see, He’s asleep now as it is.’ That’d explain why he wasn’t saying anything. ‘But we’ve really gotta go, because the whole trip is for Him. Got to get Him up to Sydney. He’s pretty pumped to see the Opera House.’
And Enron patted Jesus on the shoulder as he took the wheelchair in both hands and clicked off the brake, swinging the wheels towards the door.
I stood up beside Enron, backing his instincts that it was time to leave.
‘Enron’s right, you know. It’s been awesome, but we’ve gotta go. Gotta be up at the crack of, like, nine or something.’
Jones and I walked together on the ti-tree-lined footpath, letting the others walk in front of us.
‘Is ti-tree “tee” as in golf, or “tea” as in cup of?’ I asked.
‘I always thought it was “T” as in shirt,’ Jones said.
‘It could be “t-i”,’ I said.
‘Or it could be “d-e-e”, and everyone’s been mispronouncing it all these years,’ Jones said, grinning at me.
Jones was cute. There was no doubt about that. Long, dark eyelashes that any self-respecting girl would be proud of, a dimple in his left cheek, and skin that looked like it had never been blemished despite some hard living and cigarettes.
‘It’s funny that you’re friends with Taxi,’ I said. ‘You seem kind of different from him.’
Jones pushed his hair off his face. It was stuck together in clumps from being in the seawater, and the flicks in it were more flicky than usual.
‘Different how?’ he asked.
I shrugged.
‘Just different,’ I said. ‘He’s way more serious than you. Although he’s had a pretty shit time from the sounds of it. That’s so sad about his brother.’
‘Yeah. He’s pretty level-headed considering the crap he’s been through.’
‘Have you been friends a long time?’
Jones shook his head.
‘It’s Seb,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sebastian. My name’s Sebastian. Jones is my clan name. It isn’t even my real surname.’
‘What do you mean, clan name?’
‘Cave Clan,’ he said simply. ‘You know, caving. In the drains.’
As if that explained it all.
‘You’ve lost me,’ I said.
Jones took my hand in his.
‘I wouldn’t want to do that,’ he said, bringing me in closer to him. ‘Lose you. Cos that’d be a real shame.’
I grinned up at him.
‘You probably say that to all the girls.’
‘Only because it usually works.’
I smacked him in the stomach with my free hand. He put his hand over mine, keeping our two hands against his stomach, the fabric of his shirt the only thing separating his body from my palm.
‘You smoke?’ he asked me, breaking the moment.
‘Cigarettes?’ I checked, taking my hand away.
‘Dope. I got some pretty sweet stuff at the moment. Not too strong, just mellow. Makes you feel like the world is a sweet, sweet place.’
‘You know what?’ I said, watching my feet as I tramped the pavement. ‘I’m driving to Sydney with the warm body of Jesus in the car. The police are after us, Enron’s probably going to jail for abducting us, I’ve got exams in less than two weeks, people are ramming into our car and I don’t know if my parents are okay or not. I hardly think I need something that’s gonna make me feel paranoid and weird.’
Jones laughed.
‘Coward.’
He rolled himself a table-for-one joint, licking the glue on the papers with a fondness that told me he smoked a lot. We sat on a bench looking out across the water, the oyster farms casting shadows in among the hi-wattage plankton. He took my hand in his again, our fingers linking like a chain.
‘When I was little,’ I told him, ‘I used to do this thing with my mum. I’d ask her, “what would you rather”, and then ask her the hardest question I could think of. Like, “What would you rather? Me die or Dad die?” Or, “If you had to choose between saving me or saving all the animals in the whole world, who would you save?”’
He laughed.
‘What would she say?’
‘She’d always say … She’s always say she’d rather she died so Dad and I would be okay. But I’d tell her she couldn’t do that; she had to choose. So she’d say she’d save me, because she knew that Dad would prefer it that way. But the animals were a tricky one. She said as my mum she’d save me instead of all the animals. But as a human being, it would be the morally right thing to save all the animals, rather than to save me. Even though she couldn’t bear not to have me, all the animals in the whole world were bigger than the two of us, bigger than just her and me.’
I looked down at my hand in his, and smiled. He had beautiful hands. Long fingers, slim. I looked back out at the oyster farms to stop myself imaginging his hands in
my hair, on my body, under my clothes. It seemed wrong to be thinking of kissing a guy when my folks were missing.
I looked across at him.
‘Do you think that’s true?’ I asked him. ‘Do you think sometimes it’s okay to sacrifice a couple of people for something bigger?’
Jones folded my fingers over his, twining them together like a braid.
‘You know what I think?’ he said, not looking at me. ‘I think we’re miniscule. Tiny. We matter to each other, but we don’t matter to anyone else. And sometimes we don’t even matter that much to each other. But there’s something kind of nice about being involved in something so important that we don’t matter. Do you know what I mean?’
I shook my head. He pushed my hair off my face.
‘It’s kind of an honour,’ he explained, ‘to be part of something so big that it makes any one person tiny in comparison.’
‘But you don’t even believe in Him,’ I said.
He didn’t say anything for a minute.
‘Dodie,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I think. I’ve taken the piss the last couple of days, but I don’t know. I’ve held His hand, I’ve hung out with Him. Gone to bands with Him. I wouldn’t do that with just any old Messiah.’
And he grinned at me.
I didn’t even feel my tears till they were spilling onto my arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jones whispered to me. ‘I’m acting like it’s all a joke. But I know it’s not a joke. Not for you. Or your mum and dad. I said the wrong thing.’
I shook my head, then looked across at him. His arm was warm around my shoulders and his eyes were kind and gentle and long-lashed.
And then, just when I thought he might kiss me, he stood up and walked me back to the motel.
And on the third day we rose again.
Me feeling awkward and embarrassed.
Jones hadn’t kissed me. Even though my face had been right there; even though all he would have needed to do was pucker up and his lips would have bumped into mine, he didn’t. Instead, he’d stood up and walked me back to the motel. Which had to mean he didn’t really like me that much. Or he just liked me as a friend. Although maybe I should have leant forwards when his face was close to mine. Maybe I should have just straight out kissed him, seeing as that’s what I’d wanted to do.
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