Sailmaker Page 6

  It actually works. When I cast the line out it only takes fifteen minutes before I feel that pull on the line. When I wind it in there’s a flathead. Yes. But it’s the only one I get. I’m not lucky enough to find another worm and the gents don’t seem as appetising. Either that or the fish know what’s coming.

  I turn back and catch Mei watching me. It feels good seeing her sitting there, grinning, in that blue floppy hat and with her book. What would I do without Mei for a mate? Things would be bleak – that’s for sure. Mei’s more fun to have around than Shawn, even Prescott. Hard to explain that, but it gets me wondering again if Dev ever feels like it too.

  18

  By mid-afternoon and no more fish later, a stiff breeze has started up and it’s time we started making tracks so I pack up all my gear. I put the unused gents in Vern’s rubbish bin. While I’m doing that Vern comes to find us.

  ‘Looks like she’s blowing up.’ He reckons the birds have been more spooked lately too, flying up for no reason sometimes. Could they know a storm is coming? He’s pulling at his beard, watching me packing my little cooler.

  ‘Came in your tinnie, boy?’ I nod. He knows I did but I can tell what he’s getting at. He doesn’t want me to risk it. I check the sky behind me; might be an hour before it comes in.

  ‘Only took us half an hour to get across,’ I say.

  ‘Might take longer in this wind,’ Vern says. He’s pushing his hair out of his eyes now. For once Mei’s urging me to do the more dangerous thing. She wants to go home. Stopping on the island would be even freakier for her than racing a storm across the gulf. She’s been on her dad’s trawler in a storm but I wouldn’t want to be in a tinnie in a storm.

  Vern’s not happy. ‘Wish you’d reconsider, boy.’

  ‘We’ll be okay. We’ve got the motor. And I’ve rowed it across heaps of times before.’ That was in the summer though, when the sea was like glass. It’s not any more. Just to make Vern feel a bit better I give him Grandad’s fishing rod and the cooler. ‘I’ll come back for them.’ It’ll be better to have less weight in the tinnie. Mei’s headed down to the water’s edge. For someone quiet she’s pretty insistent about this. Hasn’t budged a footstep. I check the clouds again. Surely the storm’s got to be an hour away. The tide’s up already and Vern’s watching us from the verandah as we put the life jackets on. Just the stiff way he’s standing, while his grey hair blows in the breeze, shows what he’s thinking.

  The motor doesn’t start first time, nor the second, and Mei’s getting fidgety. Then it splutters into action on the third pull. She sits back, more relaxed. If it was just me I would sleep over. I’d have another chance to prove Vern can stay on the island. The water isn’t as clear now; it’s moving somewhere, anywhere, like it’s got things to do before the storm hits. The wind is much worse out in the open. It’s not as easy going back as it was coming over – we keep getting pushed sideways. I’ve never been out in the tinnie in this kind of wind. The clouds are building up behind us like a fast-forwarding movie.

  It’s when we’re about a quarter of the way home that the motor dies. One splutter and that’s it. Nothing I do will start it again. Mei’s watching the sky behind me while I’m trying hard not to swear. The motor’s fine, it shouldn’t do this. Bet Mei thinks something is conspiring against us. It’d be easy to imagine that, with all this talk of the head keeper’s ghost. I’m just wondering what she’d think was worse – being caught in a storm or staying on an island with a ghost, when she says, ‘Let’s row.’ That answers that one. I pull the oars out and click them into place.

  ‘We’ll have to take turns,’ I say. I start off but I know straightaway that we won’t make it home. It’s started to rain and I’m getting nowhere in the wind. Was this what happened to the head keeper all those years ago? And that guy from the detention gang in Vern’s tinnie? He didn’t even have oars. What chance did he have?

  ‘Mei,’ I shout. ‘We have to go back.’ She doesn’t argue. Her eyes are huge in her face. Her hair’s stuck to her cheeks and I suddenly feel like hugging her, telling her it’ll be okay, but I turn the tinnie instead. It’s even worse rowing back but at least we’re not heading into the wind. The only thing that keeps me going is that I know the island is closer than the mainland. The waves are pounding on the side of the tinnie like we’re a little rock for the sea to have some fun with, like Shawn does with me. The wind is buffeting us and we keep slewing to the side, rising and dropping like riding down killer gullies on a bike. Just one big one over the top of us and we could sink in seconds. This tinnie doesn’t have any special flotation aids.

  Mei can see I’m getting tired. She moves and sits beside me, and we have an oar each. With two hands on, we should be able to manage better. It takes a few strokes to get synchronised but good old Mei, she knows how to handle a boat. I know we’ll never make it to the other side of the island where Vern’s house is. Just have to head for where we can. The only thing I can see ahead is the flash of the lighthouse every ten seconds. It’s started already.

  The rowing takes forever and I can feel the pain in my arms. Mei’s not saying much but I can tell by her screwed-up face she feels the same. This straining, groaning. Do ironmen in a race feel like this? Commentators talk about pushing to the max, the last bit of strength, the punishment. All I know is this is no race – maybe we won’t make it and there’ll be more to lose than a medal.

  Finally we come close to the western end of the island. We make an extra effort and we’re in far enough to take up the oars and jump out. I pull the tinnie in. Mei helps and we drag it up high into the boxthorns and get growled at for our efforts. The penguins have settled in the roots, dry from the rain. Then we hurry through the park to Vern’s house.

  It’s an understatement to say he’s relieved to see us. ‘Just rang your gran. When I saw the storm come in quicker than we thought. Your dad’s back.’

  I stiffen until I realise he means Dev. No one would still have a pleasant look on their face if they were thinking of Scott. ‘So we’d better ring again and say you’re safe, eh?’

  ‘Is there time?’ I know that you can’t use the phone once it starts thundering and streaking lightning. The exchange gets knocked out.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ and Vern hands me the phone. Dev answers. He doesn’t say he’s worried but I can hear it between his words.

  ‘So you’re back with Vern,’ he says. ‘That’s good, mate.’ I can tell he was about to bring the Sea Wolf to find us. How risky would that have been! I ask him to let Mrs Pham know. Then I reckon I should ask about Nancy.

  ‘She’ll be okay, mate. Her daughter’s there now. She’ll look after everything.’

  My knees nearly buckle with the relief. I had no idea Nancy had kids.

  ‘Her daughter?’

  ‘Sure, mate. I just had to stay until she came from Sydney.’

  ‘So you’re home now.’ It’s a dumb thing to say, of course he’s home, but I mean ‘for good’. Maybe he knows – I can hear the chuckle in his words.

  ‘Thought I wouldn’t come home, mate?’ It’s the way he says ‘home’. It sounds so warm and steady. Yep. I should have known better. He doesn’t say anything about Zoe and nor do I want to ask. I glance across at Mei; running scared, she is, though she’s trying not to show it. Every time there’s a different noise, she turns to listen. That’s how I feel about Zoe. She’s my ghost.

  ‘You hang tight out there, mate. I’ll come when it dies down.’ He could’ve said tomorrow but we both know it could take more than a day to clear.

  19

  After we take our clothes off (at different times in the bathroom) and get into some of Vern’s, we help him storm-proof his house, as he puts it. ‘Have to batten down the hatches, pull on the ropes hard, get the sails down.’ It’s not the first time I’ve wondered if he’s an old sea dog. ‘These houses been here since 1852,’ he carries on. ‘Rare to see a timber-framed house this old. It’s because they’ve been looked after that they’
re still standing.’ We go round latching all the windows. In his bedroom there’s a ladder that goes through a square wooden trapdoor in the ceiling. He even latches that. Never knew it was there.

  Olsen looks as scared as Mei. His ears are down; the whites of his eyes showing.

  ‘When he was younger, he’d always sit in me lap in a storm, didn’t ya, ol’ son?’ The dog moves his tail in agreement. He definitely looks like he wants to be in Vern’s lap now. Poor dog. So I sit with him for a while and he moves the top half of his body across my knees before I can change my mind and stand up. So he can move a little faster when he’s got reason to. Vern is getting his heater out to dry our clothes.

  It’s then that Mei sees the light. ‘Look.’ She sounds breathless. She’s peering through the kitchen window towards the second keeper’s cottage. By the time I get out from under Olsen and join her, it’s gone.

  ‘I saw a light, like a torch.’ She’s really defensive when I can’t see it. I don’t say anything. It might have been a reflection from the lighthouse flash. She tells Vern. He doesn’t make much of it either. ‘I’ve seen that too lately. Just the ghostie. Don’t worry about it.’

  Don’t worry? Can’t he see what stuff like this does to Mei? And what it’s starting to do to me? ‘What about the windows over there?’ I ask.

  ‘Done those after the last guests left,’ says Vern. ‘Looks like we just have to sit this out now,’ and he gets his whisky bottle out of the top cupboard. And produces a bottle of Coke from the fridge. ‘I had Steve bring this out for when you came again. It’s what you kids like, eh?’

  It cheers us up a bit; makes me grin because Gran would have a fit. Surely a bit wouldn’t hurt, and I take the glass from Vern. Mei must have imagined that light and to tell you the truth I don’t think Vern means us to take him seriously. He’s full of stories. He most probably doesn’t believe there’s a ghost at all. Look at Olsen. He talks to Olsen; you can’t tell me he believes Olsen talks back. Nah, think I’m starting to catch on to the sailmaker.

  That’s when the clanging starts. Mei can’t help herself – she actually lets out a cry. Vern’s soothing her. ‘Don’t you worry none, girlie,’ he says. ‘That there clanging’s been going on for over a hundred years and no one’s been hurt from it yet.’

  Did he have to say ‘yet’? Mei picks up on little things like that. Of course it’s not the thought of being hurt, it’s the imagining, the unknowing, the waiting, wondering what could happen. That’s what I see in Mei’s pale face right now. She’s all eyes.

  Vern’s got a couple of mattresses and he’s going to put them down in the kitchen but I reckon the lounge would be better. If there are rats we don’t want to be nibbled. Besides there’s always the murmur of the marine radio, set on its special channel. Vern has to leave it on in case some ship in the gulf gets into trouble. This shoal is littered with wrecks from the past hundred and fifty years.

  Mei says she wishes the storm would stop and Vern hears her. ‘There’ll always be storms, girlie. You just have to ride them through.’ He makes it sound like we’re on the wildest wave possible with our boards and when we ride it all the way in to shore we’ll win a gold medal. Mei doesn’t want to be in a room by herself either so we put the mattresses together. Vern produces a blanket.

  ‘Sorry I’ve only got the one,’ he says. There’s most probably more in the guesthouse next door but I wouldn’t want him to go out in the wind and rain.

  Now I’m lying here, listening to the wind shrieking around outside, trying to get in. We’ve got a lamp on. I’m watching Mei. She doesn’t say what she’s thinking, but I can guess. I feel a bit the same. What if tonight’s the night the island starts to disappear for good? Then there’s the ghost; he keeps coming to mind when I think I’ve got him all sorted out. Isn’t it nights like this when ghosts come out? Vern doesn’t seem worried. He’s already taken his eye out, and even told a horrified Mei how he lost it. Heaps interesting. He stuck a pocketknife in it first when he was my age. Trying to undo his bootlaces. ‘Remind me not to do that,’ I said. Then in the war it got infected in the jungle where they were. It just had to come out, Vern said.

  Now he’s in with Olsen, telling him everything that’s going on.

  ‘Now don’t you mind the storm, ol’ son. It’ll blow over soon.’

  ‘You’re right, Dad.’

  ‘Everything’s okay, the ship’s safe. We’ve done all we can. Just have to ride it out now.’

  ‘Yeah, Dad.’

  ‘Get a bit of shuteye now. Never know if we will have to get up later. If the wind turns or a ship’s in distress.’

  ‘Okay, Dad.’

  Mei’s grinning at last. ‘He’s cute, isn’t he?’ she says. And suddenly I feel like doing the weirdest thing. I feel like reaching over and touching that black fringe of hers. It’s dry now. Part of it has flopped over her cheek. And kissing her. Kissing? How could I feel like that? Maybe ’cos she’s scared. I want her to feel better. Yeah, that’s it. But there’s this feeling down in my gut – it’s for me. I want to do it. She’ll most probably hate me. It’ll ruin everything. She’s a mate – you don’t kiss your mates.

  But look at her – she’s smiling. She doesn’t look like she’ll hate me. And I do it. I lean over. It’s really quick but her mouth moves a bit like she’s doing it too. And when I dare look at her after, she’s still smiling. Doesn’t even look scared any more either. Phew. It was worth it. The feeling in my gut’s gone all warm and tingly. Def-in-ite-ly worth it.

  It’s much later when I wake up. The lamp’s still on. Mei’s facing me but her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly open. Then I hear what woke me. Rustling. In the kitchen. At first I think I’ll get up. I’ll catch those dirty rats in the act and no one will be trying to get Vern off the island any more.

  I’ve just got my hand on the blanket; ready to pull it back, when I hear the footstep. Just faintly. Out by the table. A chair scrapes just a moment. I freeze with my hand on the blanket. The ghost? It can’t be Vern; whenever he does anything, he’s talking to Olsen. And besides, this is too quiet. Ghostly even. So it’s true after all. I’m not dreaming, am I?

  Nah. Get a grip. What would a ghost be rustling in a kitchen for? They don’t eat, do they? Don’t know much about it and – you know what? – I can’t get myself off this mattress. I never thought I’d feel like this. Facing Shawn for a fight I never feel like this. I know that’s going to hurt but I don’t care. This is different. Every part of me is shaking like I’ve been shut up in a freezer for hours. I can’t wake Mei. That’s it. If I get up, it’ll wake Mei and she’ll freak for sure. She thinks ghosts are real.

  So I just lie still, hardly breathing, wishing I wasn’t such a coward, hoping it doesn’t come in here. Finally, all I can hear is the wind rattling the window frames and squealing around the lighthouse.

  20

  In the morning we’re still under siege.

  ‘Don’t think your dad will be getting you today, boy,’ is Vern’s verdict at breakfast. It’s cool the way he calls Dev my dad. It settles deep and I try not to let thoughts of Zoe disturb it. We go out on the verandah – it’s a pretty wet experience. The waves are pounding on the lighthouse. I never knew they could get that high. Bet it’s four metres. There’s no noise from the birds. When I ask him, Vern says the penguins should be okay in the undergrowth.

  ‘It’s the cormorants I worry about,’ he says. ‘They build such flimsy nests on top of the boxthorns and saltbush. Lot of eggs will be lost.’

  ‘Mightn’t be a bad thing,’ he mutters a moment later. ‘Getting too many of them for this little island. Nature’s way,’ he says. Mei and I are a bit different today. She hangs her head and smiles when I look at her. It’s not so bad. She still likes me at least.

  ‘She’s whipping herself up,’ Vern says then and I know he’s talking about the weather. ‘Blow a blue dog off its chain.’

  I’ve heard of the circular winds that blow up out here, usually at midnight
– winds that can match the fury of a tornado. Vern’s worried about the vegetation and the sand wall, so we put coats on and check everything out. We stagger down past the lighthouse. The groyne wall that we worked so hard on is still there. It held. We stand there grinning at it.

  ‘There’ll be more tonight though,’ Vern warns. ‘Worse, maybe.’

  We spend the day cooking stuff and playing cards. Vern reckons he must be eating more lately so he shows us where the cellar is and we help bring up more of his supplies. ‘Steve Pengelly can’t be bringing out as much as he used to,’ complains Vern. I grin and tell him it’s because of his guests. Mei shows me how to make chocolate chip cookies, except Vern hasn’t got chocolate chips. The cookies still taste okay. Vern’s got lots of reports to write. And he puts on his big dark-rimmed glasses. One of the lenses has been broken since we saw him last, but Vern reckons it doesn’t matter since that one was only plain glass. He gets out his notebook.

  ‘Just like a ship’s log,’ he remarks with a chuckle in his beard. ‘I write what the weather’s like,’ he says, when Mei asks, ‘and what the birds are doing; how the erosion looks.’ He writes down that the groyne wall is still standing.

  ‘There’s lots of people interested in these reports,’ Vern says proudly. ‘The wildlife people, the ranger, those transport folk that check on the lighthouse every now and then. The government too, you know. They’re the ones that handed out the money for the wall. It’s heritage-listed, this island.’ And the Friends of the Island, they’re interested too, of course. Gran’s one of them. Yeah, lots of people interested, not just the sailmaker and Mr Pengelly. I start hoping this storm doesn’t eat up too much of it.