Thirteen Pearls Page 6

  When my favourite track came on I swung my hips and grabbed a couple of plates to shake as tambourines. In my mind, I pictured the spoons kicking out in a chorus line, Disney-style, while brown-ringed mugs howled the low part. I spun around, waggling the plates in the air and . . . crashed into Leon, donking his head with a tambourine plate.

  ‘Sheezers!’ He grabbed the side of his head.

  I stared, less concerned about hitting him than I was at being busted pulling such cheesy dance moves. I held up the offending plate. ‘Um . . . air-tambourine. Only more solid.’

  ‘Right.’ He was still clutching his left temple.

  ‘It’s actually quite complex,’ I continued. ‘Needs a 5/4 rhythm to really shine. Trying to invisibly convey the tinkling of those jingly bits takes real skill.’

  Leon winced again. ‘You don’t know anything about music, do you?’

  I shook my head, ashamed. My lack of musicality could be directly attributed to my mother, who could neither dance nor sing nor keep time to save herself.

  ‘It’s called a time signature, not a rhythm. Myself, I prefer to play air-organ. I can show you if you like.’ Leon mimed rolling back the cuffs of his non-existent sleeves (in the process, drawing my attention to his perfect arms) and gave a curt, tight-lipped bow. Then – he went for it, tousled hair flying as he glared and pounded against the invisible keys like Mozart on amphetamines. At the end he bowed in every direction, one hand tucked behind his ripped jeans, and sweat gleaming on his forehead.

  I plunged my tambourine plates back into the sink and applauded fiercely. ‘Bravo! Bravo! Encore!’

  Leon shook his mane, dismissing my praise as if I were an amateur beneath contempt. ‘I stuffed up the third movement.’

  ‘I would never have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out.’

  ‘There’s never enough time to practise up here, and the sea air makes the organ pipes rust.’

  Uncle Red’s voice boomed through the open door in an incomprehensible rumble.

  Leon rolled his eyes. ‘Boss sent me to get another spigot. Reckons he left it under the sink.’ He bravely ferreted in the dark recesses of the sink cupboard (where clearly no man had gone before) and dragged out a worn, blue metal wheel attached to a tap fitting.

  Leon turned at the doorway and gave the thumbs up. ‘Good to see you’re going troppo so soon. Second day too.’

  ‘When did it happen to you?’ I asked.

  ‘Years ago, mate, years ago.’

  ‘So you’ve lived up here for a while then?’

  He shrugged. ‘Come from a family of cane-growers down at Tully. Left school in Year 10, did some professional pig-shooting for a while until I got sick of losing my dogs, and did my fitter and turner apprenticeship instead. But I got bored with that too and lived on a hippie commune and ate coconuts and sanded didgeridoos. Made a killing doing that, but then I met a Danish babe, fixed up a Kombi and we hit the road.’

  I flicked away a prickle of girly envy. I’d never be described as a Danish babe. Obviously because I wasn’t Danish, but also because I simply don’t rate in babe category – that rarified status belongs to people like Tash.

  ‘So what happened to the Danish . . . um . . . girl?’

  ‘Visa hassles.’ Leon twisted the spigot in his palm. He had big hands with thick, calloused fingers. ‘She had to go home to start her medicine degree anyway. So that’s why I’m here – saving to go see her.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have earned more money fitting and turning than being an oyster hand?’

  Leon tilted his head, considering. His strong profile and green eyes made him look more lion-like than ever. He ’d been named well. Not for the first time, I wondered if the names we’re given at birth shape who we are and what we become, or if it’s the other way round. Leon was like a lion. Uncle Red had a red-hot temper on him. Kaito was a smooth mix of sea and stars . . .

  ‘I like variety,’ Leon said. ‘It’s cool learning new things. I get bored once I know how to do something. And Red promised if I work through until March he ’ll let me choose a few exceptional grade pearls and have them set into earrings and a ring for Kristiana.’

  Kristiana. Sounded like a supermodel name. Unlike Edith – which is the sort of name for someone who wears a body cage and marries a gay Russian painter. I shook myself out of it. Who cared what Leon’s girlfriend looked like? I didn’t even want to think about that sort of stuff. I would be sailing solo (alone, by myself, without others) around the world – remember?

  ‘I’d better get on with this,’ I said, gesturing to the filthy dishes and cutting short the conversation. ‘Before Aran wakes up.’

  Leon’s smile evaporated as if disappointed that he wouldn’t get to keep talking about his brilliant supermodel Danish babe girlfriend. He nodded in the direction of Aran’s and my curtained off square. ‘Yeah, you gotta keep a real eye on the boy – he gets into everything. Red isn’t even sure if he can swim. And he had to take a few weeks off to look after him, so we ’re way behind.’

  The washing up took just under three and a half hours, judging by the dinky little clock with the mother-of-pearl Sydney Opera House in its centre.

  I could hardly believe that Aran, bless his filthy little cotton socks, had slept in long enough for me to finish. I flashed one last gloating look around the gleaming kitchen and headed over to the curtained partition.

  What was wrong with this scene?

  Two beds: both in a twist of sheets, one high, the other a trundle, with a wet patch on the higher bed, and . . . no sleeping child.

  Leon’s words, ‘Red’s not even sure if he can swim,’ echoed inside my brain, which had suddenly drained of anything approaching a sensible thought. Instead, I was filled with panic. Damn – how did he get past me?

  Then I realised that, for the last three and a half hours, I’d been singing and dancing with my iPod turned to top volume. Frankly, a herd of elephants with sticky-up or sticky-down trunks could have thundered past me and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  There was no time to peel off my wet clothes, now soaked with suds and nauseating varieties of grease, and I rushed outside. ‘Aran?’

  A kamikaze chook darted across my path, sending me bowling into a hibiscus.

  ‘Aran!’

  This was the first time I’d seen the island in daylight – not counting the half-asleep trudge through the grainy dawn to the shower hut. Now, I pushed past the frangipani tree and darker, glossier shrubs that grew near the shed.

  It was . . . flat. Not a single discernible rise, or hump or bump, only scatterings of stunted eucalypts scratching a torturous existence out of the dry red soil.

  ‘Aran!’ I called again. Which way to go – right or left? To my right, pushing up against the muddy red-blue sea was another shed, made from timber and rusting iron. I figured it was the work shed. Best to avoid it.

  My walk took me instead around a small dirt path no wider than an animal track that twisted to the other side of the island in about three minutes. I peered anxiously into the shallow lapping water. The tide was out, exposing reddish sand pocked with shells and stones.

  Rounding a little inlet, I literally stumbled into a ring of five giant termite mounds. I’d seen termite mounds before at Litchfield National Park. Though they look like eerie tombstones, they actually function as huge compasses for hapless bushwalkers. I noted the position of the sun in the sky. Yep. These were magnetic ones too. They were perfectly orientated – the thin edges pointed north–south, while their breadth stretched from east to west. It meant that the termites would cop minimum exposure to the northern sun and stay cooler inside. Dad reckoned that if people could be more like termites and work together for the common good, he wouldn’t have to work at DoCS, and, in fact, that there wouldn’t even be a DoCS. He also reckoned that while everyone hated termites, if they didn’t exist we’d all be buried under hundreds of metres of rubbish.

  Dust puffed up from behind one of the sun-baked edifices.

&nb
sp; I tiptoed over.

  Aran huddled behind it – poking one of the smooth clay ridges with a sharp stick and causing drifts of chewed-up mud to powder the earth. ‘There you are,’ I said, plastering on a bright, fake Mary Poppins-what-a-jolly-lark-now-that-I’ve-found-you-we’re-going-to-have-so-much-fun smile.

  Aran wasn’t buying it.

  ‘Maybe you could show me the island?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll bet there ’re all sorts of excellent hiding places.’

  Black eyes regarded me suspiciously. He snaked a hand around the ridge of the termite mound and tightened his grip, as if expecting me to reach down and prise him away.

  Dad had always said that when I was little bribery and corruption had worked a treat. ‘I found a whole pile of strawberry milks in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘And there’s a pack of Tiny Teddys as well. You can have the whole lot if you come with me now.’

  Maybe he didn’t speak English, but the kid certainly understood it. Aran sprang up like a jack-in-a-box and tore along the path ahead of me.

  Racing to keep up, I entered the shed, panting, just as he dived into the cupboard, dug out the Tiny Teddys and tore at the packet with his small, disturbingly capable hands.

  ‘Not so fast, Mister!’ I pulled the box from his grip and half-carried him out to the washhouse where someone had refilled the blue water drum.

  I yanked Aran’s stinking T-shirt and shorts off, with him aiming kicks and punches at me the whole while, and tipped a bucket of water over his head. Then another. He yowled and screamed and broke away to dash naked like a dunked puppy back into the home–shed, where he huddled over the bag of biscuits.

  I hurried into the bedroom and hunted around for some clean clothes. I managed to tug the T-shirt over his head, but gave up on trying to get his shorts on. He was cramming fistfuls of Tiny Teddys into his mouth, crumbs spraying onto the newly swept floor.

  I made myself peanut butter on pizza biscuits for breakfast before sinking beside Aran. Day One of my job as a nanny and I was feeding a half-naked kid strawberry milk and chocolate biscuits for breakfast.

  Aran’s hand swung out and clopped my ear.

  ‘Ouch!’ I snatched the pack of biscuits out of his hand.

  ‘Aran, you can’t keep hitting me,’ I said, trying to stay calm even though I was itching to whack him.

  Aran’s eyes widened and his mouth quivered, revealing clumps of chewed chocolate biscuit that showered my arm as he erupted into a full-scale tantrum.

  I’d seen kids in full flight down at Cairns Central and I’d thought it was pretty funny the way they’d screw up their faces and pound their arms and legs against the floor. Not for a moment had I felt sorry for their poor mother. Instead I’d thought, she should teach her kid how to behave. Now, I watched helplessly while Aran performed an Academy Award winning tantrum, complete with beetroot face, flailing limbs, the whole fandango. I shook my head and sat back to watch helplessly.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Leon marched in, scooped up Aran, stood him upright and growled, ‘NO!’

  Aran froze.

  ‘Now say sorry!’ Leon commanded.

  Aran looked up mutinously. ‘Sorry.’

  He speaks – the boy speaks!

  Leon let him go. ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded. ‘But I’m never going to have kids. Ever.’

  He grinned. ‘He ’s not that bad. You wait; your clock will start ticking and you’ll get clucky.’

  I glanced at the Opera House clock. It seemed kind of icky that he was talking about my biological clock. And now here’s a news flash to the world: my clock would be permanently set a minute to midnight.

  ‘Red sent me in to ask when you’ll have lunch ready.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘I know what you just said, but he has to be kidding, right? Dealing with Aran is a job for three!’

  Leon shrugged. ‘He said there ’s some fresh bread in one of the boxes.’

  Sighing, I searched the supply boxes and pulled out a squishy loaf of white bread. Mice, or some other creature, had only chewed the top two slices.

  I assembled the can of sardines, cheese-in-a-tube and a tub of margarine.

  Aran stuffed the last Tiny Teddy in his mouth and then turned on the computer game.

  This time, I didn’t care. I opened the can of sardines, squeezed in some runny cheese, stirred it about, found an ancient jar of dried basil, shook half of it in and margarined the bread.

  When the men trooped back to the home–shed, covered in grease and soaked with seawater, they discovered that the outside table had been draped with a fresh new plastic tablecloth and there was a plate of sandwiches piled high. I’d even picked a red hibiscus and put it in a newly washed vegemite jar.

  Aran continued playing his violent computer game. He ’d already eaten the Tiny Teddys plus five marshmallows and a mini chocolate bar, which I figured could count for a kind of brunch.

  I sat at the table, hoping for conversation, but Uncle Red, Leon and Kaito ate without speaking. Instead, they threw down sandwich after sandwich and washed it all down with beer. Even Kaito, who seemed more refined in the way he walked and talked, gulped the revolting sandwiches like a starving man.

  Suddenly, more than ever, the thought of six endlessly stretching weeks filled me with indefinable panic. It was hot. Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip and my hair was sticky and tangling. I walked away from the home–shed, hoping to catch a sea breeze, but the air was equally humid and muggy.

  ‘Maybe I could come look at the oysters today?’ I suggested as the men filed past to return to work.

  Uncle Red shook his head. ‘We ’ve got too much to do. You’d just get in the way.’

  Seeing my expression, Leon bent his head to my ear and whispered, ‘Last time Aran was in the shed he dropped a one-thousand dollar pearl between the cracks in the floor. Fell straight into the sea.’

  Sighing, I turned back to Aran as, glassy-eyed, he blew up another bad guy. I stalked over and pulled out the plug. ‘Come on kid, let’s have a real adventure.’

  ‘DOES YOUR MUM LIKE ELEPHANTS TOO, ARAN?’

  I’d decided to talk openly about Lowanna. After all, she ’d only gone away; it wasn’t as if she was dead or anything. Unless there was something more sinister about Uncle Redmond that I didn’t know . . .

  Aran clutched his stuffed elephant closer and kept his lips mutinously sealed.

  ‘Because I like elephants,’ I said, ploughing on with this thrilling one-sided conversation. ‘When my grandmother was little, she lived near a zoo and there was an elephant you could ride.’

  Perhaps I was imagining it but there was a momentary spark in his eyes before they went flat and black again.

  ‘The elephant escaped and galloped down to the harbour to swim in the local sea pool. There were all these kids in there swimming with it.’

  A nanosecond of a smile. I definitely wasn’t imagining it.

  ‘Do you know they say that elephants have fantastic memories? They never forget, and if a mother gets separated from her baby . . . ’

  The shadow crept back into Aran’s eyes.

  Good one. Call me Miss Sensitivity. I grabbed Aran’s free hand and tugged him after me. ‘I think I can see a place to build a cubby. Have you ever built a cubby before?’

  Aran shook his head.

  I led him onto a defunct concrete jetty that projected out through the mangroves. The mangroves here were huge and the leaves dark glossy green. The sea breeze and shade made it feel like the coolest spot on the island.

  A big white pigeon cooed from a branch above. Sunshine sifted through the thick screen of mangroves, sending little chinks of light flying, illuminating the water so that it flashed sepia and gold like an old-fashioned photograph. Dark, sea-polished roots arced down into the water, creating a maze of tunnels.

  I breathed in the cool, salty air and squatted beside Aran. ‘This is magical place,’ I whispered, squeezing his
hand. ‘I think there are fairies living here. Salt-water fairies. We don’t even need to build our cubby – they’ve built it for us.’

  Aran’s dark eyes shone in the shadowy light. He looked up at me and smiled.

  The effect was instantaneous and I grinned back like an idiot. There was something hushed and forever about this spot, a little oasis. From here, all we could hear was lapping water and birds rustling in the leaves.

  A sudden flash and the silvery glint of a baby shark sped between an arching root, with another shark in close pursuit. We sat cross-legged on the jetty to watch the sharks playing tag until snapping twigs and the slap of thongs on cement broke the spell.

  Kaito ambled along the jetty carrying his bamboo flute. The black pearl dangled in the hollow of his neck above his T-shirt. He smiled. ‘You found my spot.’

  ‘This is your spot?’

  ‘It’s okay; I share it with special people.’

  ‘How did it go down at the plant?’

  ‘Good. Hard work. My shoulders are aching.’

  As far as I knew, oysters made pearls out of bits of grit and people extracted them. How hard could that be?

  ‘What do you actually do? How do you get the pearls out?’

  Kaito laughed. ‘Red would have a fit to hear you simplify it like that. Harvest time isn’t for months. What Leon and I do now is turn and clean the oysters in their racks, check to make sure they’re healthy and clean all the gear. We ’re also getting ready to collect the wild shells. Red has to apply for licences and prepare his boat for a dive crew. That’s basically Leon and me. It’s intense though – we harvest west of Badu Island and usually do about ten dives a day.’

  I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for anyone who got to do ten dives a day. ‘But you love it, right?’

  Kaito shrugged and toyed with the flute. ‘My mum’s from a pearling family in Broome, and Dad worked on my grandfather’s pearl farm in Japan since he was old enough to swim. Then he started cultivating pearls in Australia. It’s in my blood.’