by Jenni Ogden
“Who are you thanking?” I heard the smile in his voice.
“Nature, the turtle god, you, I don’t know.” My mood had catapulted from the depths of despair to exhilaration in a millisecond.
Eve blinked, and two large tears crept from her eyes.
“Don’t cry, Eve,” I said. “You’re going to live another fifty years, I know it.”
She flapped her front flippers a few times and then launched herself forward and made a slow path to the sea. We followed behind, silently cheering her on. Tom was holding my hand. She slid into the gentle waves at the edge of the lagoon and lay motionless for minutes, her head almost submerged.
“Shall we push her deeper?” I whispered.
“No, let her do it in her own good time. She needs to get her bearings first.”
We sat in the sand behind her and waited. And in her own good time she lifted her head and gazed over the wide lagoon to the edge of the reef and the deep sea beyond, then pushed herself deeper and deeper until she was back in her element and swimming effortlessly into the blue. I turned to look at Tom and he took my face in both hands and kissed me sweetly on the lips.
“Are we friends again?” I murmured when he let me go.
“Always. I’m sorry about last night. Sometimes I get in these moods, and I’m not good company.”
“I don’t mind. You can be moody with me; you don’t have to leave.”
“I’m a loner by nature, Anna, and sometimes I have to be alone.”
“Oh.” I ran my fingers across his chin, rough from a day’s stubble. “That’s okay. I’m a loner by nature too. Since meeting you I had almost forgotten that.”
Tom grabbed my hand and kissed it. “Come on, loner. Let’s go back to your cabin and begin last night again.”
11th April, 2009
Dear Fran,
It’s a new day and I am feeling like a new woman. At the end of the week I am going with Tom back to Lost Cay. The baby turtles are coming out in their hundreds now, and Tom wants to do a survey there to see how many nests hatch over a twenty-four-hour period, to compare with our numbers on Turtle Island. I can’t wait. The snorkeling on Lost Cay is amazing, and this time I’ll be able to go out over the reef edge without being a trembling wreck.
So much has happened lately that I don’t know where to start. I’m up one minute and down the next. Kirsty and Hamish left and that was a down, but at last Tom and I could be together again and that was an up, or should have been. But before we got very far we had our first fight, and that was an even worse down. Then today he helped me free a turtle who’d got caught up in a tree (don’t ask!) and we made up, and after that it felt as if something shifted in our relationship. It feels more real to me now. I think I’m beginning to understand him and what he needs and doesn’t need. I don’t want to be like Mum and lose him, as Mum lost Dad. Tom reminds me of Dad in some ways, especially in the ‘don’t crowd me’ way. I hardly need to tell you that crowding people hasn’t been one of my problems, but it isn’t so easy with Tom. I want to be near him all the time. I have to admit it, Fran, and you are the only one I’d admit it to, but I think I love him. I know this is crazy, but I can’t control it. What’s more, I don’t want to control it. Ha! That’s got to be progress. I can almost hear you cheering.
I didn’t dare contemplate this before because we’re so different and I’m so much older and plainer and more nerdy than him. But I am beginning to think perhaps age really doesn’t matter so much. After all, look at Mum. She’s thirteen years older than her husband and it doesn’t worry them a jot. And all this turtle tagging and snorkeling has changed me physically as well. I’m pretty fit now and so brown I could be an Aussie. And don’t frown like that. I know being brown is bad for you, but at my age who cares? It makes me look good, and I feel almost attractive—in fact I truly do feel attractive, when Tom looks at me.
I’m wondering if I should stay in Australia when my year here ends. I could perhaps get Australian citizenship given Dad was born here. Do you think I’m mad?
Write, dear Fran, and tell me how YOU are.
Love, Anna.
FOURTEEN
If I’d been a bloke, as they say in Australia, I’d have woken with a boner this morning. The very thought of being alone with Tom on Lost Cay turned my insides to goo. Literally. I spent an inordinate amount of time on the loo, telling myself it was just nerves and a serious case of adolescent excitement and not food poisoning like the last time. Too bad if it was; nothing would stop me going. We were to leave on the high tide at eleven. Only two hours to go.
I was at the wharf thirty minutes early, my promised curry packed into a plastic container. Tonight we would eat well. A bin full of diving gear and an Esky were already stashed in the stern of the boat. I saw Tom striding out of the trees and the butterflies intensified. It took me a while to catch on to Collette’s presence as she scurried along behind him on the narrow path, her pack on her back. Surely she wasn’t coming too?
“Morning Anna,” Tom said, sounding a little sheepish. “You’re early.”
“Am I? I wasn’t sure of the time.”
“It’s not really appropriate for you to come with us,” said Collette, and I swear she was looking down her nose at me, in spite of my having a good thirty centimeters on her.
“That’s not what Tom thinks,” I shot back.
“Collette knows that I asked you to come, so let’s get off.” Tom was already stashing his pack in the boat. “I’m going back to get the water containers, so you two get your stuff into the boat.” He disappeared along the track, leaving Collette and me stuck there.
I shoved my small pack into the dinghy and watched as Collette struggled to heave her rather larger one over the side. No way was I going to help her.
“Given Tom agreed that you could come, I’ll go along with it just this once, but you must realize that the University cannot be responsible for your safety,” Collette informed me in her surprisingly deep voice.
“Don’t worry, I can look after myself. If a shark eats me I promise I won’t hold you responsible.”
We stood in silence until Tom returned, his face tense and his crooked smile missing. The ride I had been so looking forward to seemed to take forever. Tom sat at the back gunning the boat into the waves, and I sat at the front with my face turned towards the horizon, my butt leaving the seat and crashing back down with every massive bounce. After a bit, I stopped being scared shitless and began to enjoy it. A wave broke over the bow, saturating me, and my dark glasses misted with spray. It was exhilarating. With luck, Collette might bounce right off into the sea. I didn’t look behind me. I’d had enough disappointment for one day.
Lost Cay was even more beautiful than I remembered. We were there before one o’clock, and set up camp—two tents. God forbid that I have to share with Madam. Will Tom take me into his tent in front of her? Oh please, yes. That would be the perfect revenge.
“You two can have a tent each. I’ll sleep outside,” said Tom.
“Me too,” cooed Collette. “You know I always like to sleep under the stars, Tom.”
“Whatever. I’m off for a dive while I can still get the tinny over the reef.” Tom was hauling his wetsuit from his pack.
“Excellent idea. Give me a minute to get my gear on and I’ll be with you,” said Collette, ducking into the tent she had claimed with her pack.
“Are you taking her?” Even to my hot ears I sounded like a petulant child.
“You can come too, if you like. There’s no charge.”
“I can’t dive, you know that.”
Tom looked at me, and his eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Anna.” He was whispering. “I couldn’t stop her coming. The boat is paid for by her grant, and as far as she’s concerned so is my time. And she obeys the rules: no scuba diving alone.”
“You usually dive alone.”
“When the cat’s away …”
“I’ll walk around the beach and see if any hatchlings are emerging. Isn’t that wh
at we’re meant to be doing?”
Tom grinned. “I’ll take you out for a snorkel later; there might be time for a quick one when we get back. We’ll be gone no longer than an hour, I promise.”
I watched them clamber back into the dinghy, Collette looking sexy in her sleek black-and-silver wetsuit with her dive tank on her back. Why hadn’t I learned to scuba dive?
I set off around the island, and came across one nest of turtles emerging on the beach on the far side. That kept me occupied until they returned. As I sat there watching the babies erupting from the sand and scuttling towards the sea on their little clockwork flippers, I sensed Dad beside me, probably because I’d been thinking about how he had gone diving alone. If he’d obeyed the rules and dived with someone … I shook my head and concentrated on counting the baby turtles.
The dinghy was speeding back over the lagoon when I got back to our camp. They’d been gone only forty-five minutes. Tom leapt out of the boat and dragged it into the shallows, shouting to me as he did so.
“Anna, get your wetsuit on, quickly. There’s a Queensland grouper out there. You’ve got to see it. It might be gone tomorrow and you won’t get another chance; they’re bloody rare around here. We’ll just make it before the tide’s too low.”
I stood still, just for a moment, poised on the verge of crying off. Then I saw Collette smirking in the boat. Within minutes I was back with my wetsuit half on, clutching my flippers in one hand and my mask and snorkel in the other. Tom stuck out his hand and steadied me as I clambered into the boat, then he pushed it into the deeper water, vaulted in, and we were off. I looked down as we crossed the reef edge, my heart in my mouth. It was only minutes before Tom cut the motor and heaved an anchor overboard. In the sudden silence I looked at him as the dinghy bobbed gently on the small swell.
“You’ll need a weight belt,” Tom said, maneuvering the thing around my waist. “Get your flippers on and you can lower yourself over the side, feet first.”
He was all efficiency and I was all a liquid mess.
“You stay here, Collette, in case we drift and you have to come and get us.” His tone made it clear that Collette had no option.
“Are you certified, Anna?” said Collette.
“Not that I know of,” said I.
Tom snorted. “We’re not using a tank. She doesn’t need to be certified, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. This is university equipment.”
Tom ignored her and pulled the weight belt tight. “Okay?”
“Won’t I sink?”
“That’s the idea. It will make it easier to dive down. I’ll be beside you; I promise you will be fine. Wait ’til you see this beauty.” He was as excited as a small boy.
“What is it we’re looking for again?”
“You’ll see it. Now over you go.”
I held my breath, slipped off the side and sank below the surface. I could feel the panic in my chest, but then I was up again and Tom was beside me, helping me with my mask and snorkel. He winked at me, and then pulled his on and flippered off. I stuck my head under and the underwater world opened up in all its glory.
We swam away from the boat, side by side, and I concentrated on breathing normally and looking at the fish swimming in their myriads below us. The sea bottom seemed a long way down but the water was crystal clear and I could see a large blue starfish on a patch of white sand between the coral outcrops. I felt Tom take my hand. We must have swum out of the reach of Collette’s beady little eyes.
Something strange was happening—a stillness in the water. Then I realized that the fish had disappeared. We were swimming alone. Spooked, I pulled back and Tom stopped and stuck his head out of the water. I followed suit, flapping rapidly in my effort to stay vertical and in one place. I hadn’t quite mastered treading water with flippers on. I looked around and saw our boat far, far away. How could we have come such a distance? I tried to cover my panic. Tom had removed his snorkel and was saying something.
I took my snorkel mouthpiece out and instantly got a mouthful of water, which made me flap even harder. I was about to sink. Then I felt Tom’s arm around me, holding me steady.
“Take it easy. Tip the water out of your snorkel and put it back in,” he said.
I managed that and breathed again.
“I’m going to take you over to a big bommie and on top of it is a massive fish. We won’t go too close, but it won’t take any notice of us so don’t freak out. The other fish don’t like it. That’s why the sea around it is empty.” Tom had sunk back into the water and I had no option but to follow him. What I wanted to do was to flipper as fast as possible the other way, back to the boat.
Tom was pointing ahead and I peered through the fish-free, shimmering water to a large dark coral outcrop rearing up from the deep: the bommie. It must have been twenty meters or more high. Unlike every other bommie I had seen it had no fish darting in and out around it. Tom was hanging in the water and I could feel him fizzing. He jabbed his finger towards the bommie again and I nodded. What was I meant to be seeing? He was pulling me along again, and as we got closer, the top of the bommie became a giant fish. A great brown ugly fish just sitting there, his enormous mouth open. My heart was thundering, and I started to turn away, flee as far away as I could get. But Tom held firmly to my hand and pulled me back. He turned his head and made the okay sign with his free hand. My heart slowed down a little and I forced myself to give him the okay sign back. Together we floated just below the surface, and I gradually calmed down. The monster hovered there above the bommie, glaring at the world. It looked at least three meters long, and it would take two long-limbed men to embrace it around its middle. Not that that would ever happen. Even a couple of Aussie blokes wouldn’t be that crazy. Its repulsive, drooping, wide mouth opened wider, and my heart rate accelerated again. If it sucked inwards, I could disappear right down its slimy throat.
Tom looked at me and I could see him grinning around his snorkel. He made a diving motion with his hand and raised his eyebrows above his mask.
I shook my head desperately.
He shook his head back and jabbed himself in the chest and made the diving motion again, and then the okay sign.
I breathed through my snorkel and returned the okay sign. Tom released my hand and swift as an arrow dove down and swam towards the bommie. My heart was still thumping but it was definitely in my mouth now. I tried to stay in one place, concentrating on keeping my snorkel end free of the waves, which had become choppier, and conscious of my weight belt holding my body below the surface. I knew if the monster went for Tom I’d never get back to the boat by myself.
Tom had surfaced again, far too close to the side of the fish. Now I could see him diving and swimming just above it. Men are so mindlessly stupid.
Then it moved. A giant wriggle. Its great mouth shut and opened again. I could feel the force of the water pushing out to where I floated, twenty meters away. It could have me in a heartbeat. I held myself there with phenomenal courage and looked for Tom. He had scuttled away bloody fast and was back at the surface. He made one last dive down to the monster and skimmed alongside it, then continued towards me. I waited for the monster to lunge after him.
I felt like a pro as we flippered away from the fish-free zone and back into the friendly bustle of the healthy reef. Even the sleek shape of a small white-tipped reef shark minding its own business a few meters below us caused only a brief palpitation. Within minutes we were back at the boat and Tom was shoving my butt from below as I heaved myself over the side. Even Collette seemed nicer, leaning over and grabbing my shoulders to haul me in. As we sped back to Lost Cay, weaving in and out of bits of coral piercing the rapidly receding waters over the reef flats, I sat in the middle of the boat and grinned at Tom. Wow was all that I could think. Wow.
Things felt a little easier between Collette and me after that. At least we managed to be courteous. Over a sandwich and a good billy of strong tea, we listened
as Tom, still on a high, told us stories about the legendary Queensland grouper. Only twice before had he seen one, and never had he been so close. He was skeptical of tales about them eating divers in one gulp, but it seemed entirely possible to me.
We patrolled the island in the afternoon and again at dusk, looking for signs of recently emptied nests, and between us discovered six more eruptions. After a fine dinner prepared by me—my pre-cooked rogan josh and rice—accompanied by Esky-cool glasses of In Vivo, a special New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc I’d purchased online, and a surprise I had intended to share only with Tom, we roasted marshmallows on sticks and squashed them between wafer biscuits. Their revolting sweetness enhanced the sense I’d had lingering at the back of my mind all day: being with Dad in this same sort of place, doing these same sorts of things and feeling happy.
High tide was at midnight, so around ten Tom and I took off in one direction to circuit the island and look for laying turtles, and Collette went in the opposite direction. I don’t know whether she had finally caught on to us, but she didn’t argue when Tom suggested she walk the other way.
Tom and I found no late nesters, but sat for a while under the slender moon and watched the sea, just in case. In the silence I turned to him, and was stopped by his profile, chiseled against the lighter night sky. He looked like Michelangelo’s David, admittedly the only Greek god I’m even remotely familiar with.
Kiss me. The thought was so intense, so real, so out loud, it was as if a wizard had tapped me on the head, endowing me with an instant understanding of the psychotic seduction of auditory hallucinations.
Tom turned, perhaps captured by the same wizard, and breathing his breath, I wondered if perhaps I’d spoken out loud after all.
“How can you stand being bossed about by her?” I asked him when I’d climbed back out of my seventeen-year-old psyche.
“She’s not so bad when you’re not around. You bring out the worst in her. Competitive bloody women.”
“I’m not competitive.”
“No?”