Thirteen Pearls Read online

Page 8


  I should have noticed that he was being too quiet, too obedient, or the simple fact that there was no rhythmic chink of the spoon scraping the bowl.

  ‘What in the name of . . . ’

  I spun round.

  Uncle Red charged at Aran like an angry bull, his nostrils flaring and eyes rolling.

  UHT milk puddled on a pile of papers, gluing them together in sodden clumps.

  Red lifted Aran from this seat by the scruff of his T-shirt, marched him over to the filthy sofa and dumped him on it.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘He ’s only a little kid. He didn’t mean it. It was an accident.’ Even as I said it, I doubted it. The papers were across the table from where I’d settled Aran, and the whole milk container had been emptied.

  Red turned and thundered towards me. It was ridiculous – it was inconceivable that my uncle, a huge man and a family member, was going to hit me. But as Red’s fists clenched and knuckles whitened, I shrank back against a cupboard.

  ‘You stupid little girl,’ he bawled. ‘All you have to do is look after a four-year-old boy and you can’t even keep him out of trouble long enough to . . . ’ He gestured to the clump of milk-soaked paperwork.

  Stung, I stretched to my full height (compared to him not very high) and shouted back, ‘If you touch me, or him, I’ll report you. I’ll have Dad get DOCs onto you and you’ll go to gaol.’ The tea towel slipped from my fingers to the floor. I was quaking. ‘It’s not my fault he ’s so out of control! He should be with his mother. Where is she anyway? What kind of mother leaves her kid in a place like this, with you?’

  Uncle Red’s eyes widened and he seemed to recoil. He retreated to the table and picked up a clump of glued-together papers. ‘That was my application for the wild harvesting licence. Now I have to start again.’

  Um, hello? Did he even hear me? Why had Lowanna left without Aran? Had Red been hitting her? I wouldn’t put it past him. But if that was the case, why would she leave her child with him?

  Clutching his precious papers, Red stalked from the home– shed.

  Aran had been as cowed as I was – Uncle Red was a far bigger, scarier bogeyman than I could ever be. He crept back into the kitchen and listened docilely to my explanations about needing to do what I told him to.

  ‘The thing is, Aran,’ I said, after lecturing him about spilling the milk, ‘you need proper food to grow healthy and strong. All the junk you’ve been eating is bad for you. It’s full of colours and flavours and preservatives. You can’t just mainline sugar into your system, kid, and food should only have letters, not numbers in it. Do you understand?’

  Aran nodded as he sidled past me to one of the cupboards, pulled out a packet of hundreds and thousands and tore it open with his teeth, sending another technicolour spray of tiny artificially enhanced balls all over the floor as he shoved a handful into his mouth.

  When Uncle Red announced over lunch, without once meeting my eyes, that the new pump he ’d ordered had finally arrived at T.I., and that I could head over tomorrow to do the weekly shop, I was thrilled. I offered to take the tinny over myself and do the pick-up, but Red didn’t think I was capable (probably because I was girl and it wasn’t a pink job).

  When Red asked who wanted to take me over to T.I., Leon and Kaito raced to get in first. I was flattered, until I realised that for them it was a paid excursion away from the isolation and constant work on Thirteen Pearls. They drew straws and Kaito won.

  Kaito flashed Leon a triumphant look and Leon put down his plate of gluey fish and pasta and stumped out of the home– shed.

  Kaito shrugged. ‘You been fishing, Edie?’

  I shook my head. Dad sometimes went fishing with a workmate girl friend (girl friend not girlfriend – besides Anne had a girlfriend) at Yorkeys Knob, but there was no way I’d eat any fish caught too close to the Cairns coast. The mud flats were unappetising as it was, but I knew enough about the effluent coming from boats to make me gag at the thought. ‘You’re going to need fish when you’re sailing by yourself,’ Kaito said. ‘Do you want to learn how to catch them?’

  ‘Sure. That’d be great,’ I murmured, slipping into a fantasy featuring Kaito’s arms around me, showing me how to hold the fishing rod. I quickly turned before he could read my thoughts.

  Uncle Red didn’t want us spending the whole day over at T.I. He needed Kaito and the pump back before the afternoon. I dragged the brush through my knotted-up hair and put on a fresh T-shirt and my last clean pair of cut-offs. After all, it was a special occasion – we were headed into the big smoke.

  Aran trailed after me doing annoying things, like emptying my daypack on the floor to reveal a fluff-covered brush, my wallet with the zip he ’d broken, a rolled-up, dog-eared copy of the December edition of Australian Sailing Magazine, three tampons, a hair elastic and a random assortment of stainless steel self-tapping screws for the Ulysses’ bow rails.

  I stuffed everything back in and did my best to ignore him. Then he found my organic sunscreen and squeezed half the tube out and smeared it against the wall.

  ‘Aran! What did you do that for?’ I snapped.

  Aran looked up from where he was still finger-painting a greasy white pattern against the wall. He almost seemed to be gloating.

  I grabbed the tube and cleaned it up with a towel.

  Aran snatched the towel and rubbed the rest of the goo onto my bed.

  Enough.

  I picked him up and put him on the other side of the curtain.

  He raced back in, tearing one of the curtains from the length of string holding it up.

  ‘You little . . .

  ’ Aran went nuts and started ripping the sheets off the beds.

  If I’d remained in that stuffy oven-like cubicle one second longer, I would have slapped him. Instead, I marched out of the baking hot home–shed to the water tank. Splashing my face with water that was never quite cold enough, I told myself to take calm, deep breaths. Apart from the spilt milk incident, Aran and I had been doing fairly well over the past few days, and now he seemed to have reverted to devil spawn in the course of a single morning.

  Kaito found me out there – my face and hair streaming water. ‘You ready to go?’

  ‘Nearly. Aran’s being a pain in the bum. He keeps throwing my stuff around and getting in my way.’

  ‘Maybe he’s worried you’re going to leave him?’

  ‘Nah, it’s not that . . . ’ I trailed. Maybe it was that. I hadn’t told him that he would be coming with us. Maybe he thought I was abandoning him, like Lowanna had. I hurried back inside. Aran was squatting in a corner of our bedroom, his shorts discarded on the bed, and bottom bare.

  My nose wrinkled. There was a horrible smell in the room. Oh crap. Literally. Aran had done a poo.

  By the time the tinny revved off from Thirteen Pearls, my Enid Blyton ginger-pop-and-sticky-buns level of excitement about a whole half-day off had vanished, probably down the pit toilet along with Aran’s smelly little protest.

  Aran, however, engulfed in the oversized life jacket I’d found for him and secured as best I could, bounced up and down with excitement. He trailed his hand in the water, clutching his elephant with the other, and staggered from bench seat to bench seat. I wondered what his life had been like in Thailand and if he ’d spent much time in boats before coming here. It was the first time I’d seen him smile without the habitual shadow in his eyes. But once we were back on Thirteen Pearls it would be battle-stations again. Where was Lowanna? More and more, I was finding it hard to buy Red’s mumbled excuse that she was looking after her mother in Thailand. Maybe she was escaping Aran too.

  I sat on the middle bench, brooding, with my feet planted wide on the ribs so that the bilge water didn’t soak my sandals. I thought about grit and pearls and about the icy, rejuvenating air in the coolroom at the kebab shop. Surely Kevin had to be the lesser of two evils?

  ‘You all right, Edie?’ Kaito shouted over the motor.

  I nodded, pulling my straw hat t
ighter around my head to avoid it being blown off.

  It was a sparkler of a day – the water was a deep, dazzling blue. In the distance, islands rose up out of the sea on a single sharp point, like cut diamonds. ‘Can I drive?’ I asked. Steering a boat by myself always made me feel better; made me feel in control.

  ‘Not in this bit,’ Kaito said. ‘Sea looks calm, but the tides here are some of the most treacherous in the world. If we ran into trouble we could end up drifting towards New Guinea. A few years back, a family went out fishing in a tinny and ran out of fuel. Boat was found a couple of weeks later off the coast of New Guinea with seven people dead.’

  I shuddered – the surface looked so serene. It was disturbing to imagine the murderous currents criss-crossing beneath us. A large streak of silvery-grey flashed through the water only metres away. My first thought was – shark! Was it going to knock into our boat? Instinctively, I grabbed Aran and clutched him close.

  In the scrabble to pull him next to me, Aran let go of his elephant at the exact moment the tinny hit a wavelet and thumped back down, sending the grimy toy flying overboard. The elephant floated for a moment and began to slowly sink.

  Aran’s scream threatened to burst my eardrum.

  ‘Stop!’ I yelled to Kaito. ‘We ’ve got to go back.’

  Kaito promptly turned the boat in a wide arc and we slowed as we neared the sinking elephant. I leaned over the side and scooped my hand down, ever mindful of the grey sea creature that could be lurking just beneath. My fingers missed the elephant by the slightest distance.

  Aran was bawling beside me.

  ‘I can’t reach it,’ I said to Aran. ‘We ’ll have to get you another one.’

  ‘I’ll go in,’ Kaito said. ‘You’ll have to hold the tiller.’

  Treacherous currents and a large shark-like flash. ‘No, we’ll have to leave it.’

  In the second I took my eyes off Aran to answer Kaito, he somehow managed to clamber up the seat and was over the edge of the boat with an ominous splash!

  ‘Aran!’ Without thinking, I stood, making the tinny rock violently back and forth, and dived in.

  I latched onto Aran, whose face was sinking into the oversized life jacket where there were air pockets between the jacket and his shoulders. With my other arm I reached down and only just managed to grab hold of the elephant’s trunk. As I did, I saw the grey shape slide beneath us and turn. I tasted metal. Everything slowed down.

  With almost superhuman strength, I hoisted Aran back over the side of the tinny.

  The creature turned beneath. I vividly pictured it chomping off one of my dangling legs as I attempted to heave myself back up over the side.

  And then it was too late. The grey shape burst up out of the water, less than a metre away. It stared at me with soulful little eyes, its bulbous, mallet-shaped nose and whiskers quivering.

  I froze. Nature ’s oracle. The creature looked directly into my eyes. Then, with a gentle plop, it dived back under.

  Kaito’s strong grip helped to pull me back over the side, and I sprawled against the bottom of the boat, not caring about the bilge water fouling my already soaking shorts.

  ‘Sea cows,’ Kaito said. ‘They graze the sea grass. They’re very gentle.’

  I nodded, still stunned by the encounter.

  Aran pointed at the dugong, delighted. Something about those squeals of laughter made me want to giggle too. Maybe I was in shock. It wasn’t every day I pressed up face-to-face with a dugong in dangerous waters.

  ‘Islanders say they make good tucker too. It’s nice, but oily. I prefer whale.’

  ‘You’ve eaten whale?’

  Kaito nodded. ‘In Japan we eat everything we harvest from the sea. But a couple of years ago I went on a boat to Lady Musgrave Island for uni. A humpback swam right under the cruiser, and I know it sounds crazy but it winked at us. It was like it was telling us something. I haven’t eaten whale since. Off the coast of Tonga you can actually swim with the whales. Imagine that! Imagine what an experience that would be.’

  I instantly resolved to sail the Ulysses to Tonga.

  By the time Thursday Island loomed closer, I’d calmed down. It was surreal seeing so many houses dotted above the mangroves. I was dry-mouthed with excitement. There was something about living on a tiny island – it made everything seem so insular and monotonous. Here there were houses and shops and people!

  We puttered into the bay where the bakery stood opposite, and Kaito hopped out to drag the boat up onto the sand. He hoisted Aran out then held out his hand to me as though I was a lady from the olden days (Edith Sitwell without her body cage perhaps), alighting from a carriage. ‘I’ll help you with the shopping,’ he said.

  I bit my lip. On the trip over I’d been formulating plans. None of them included having Aran with me. After our unexpected swim and near-dugong encounter, I still felt protective towards him, but I needed a break. ‘That’d be great but . . . um . . . do you reckon you could look after Aran for half an hour? Maybe even an hour? There’s something important I have to do.’

  Kaito dragged the anchor chain back off the mud flat. ‘He can come with me to pick up the pump.’

  ‘Aran.’ I squatted to make our faces level. ‘I have an important errand to run. Kaito’s going to look after you for a little while. But I’ll be back soon. Okay?’

  Aran glanced anxiously from me to Kaito. Kaito closed slender fingers around Aran’s salt-crusted little paw. ‘Would you like to come to the bakery with me? We ’ll get some doughnuts.’

  The promise of extreme sugar worked every time.

  I was on a mission. Smiling at people sauntering down the wide street, I finally found what I was looking for and pushed open the door. ‘How much is the internet?’

  The girl behind the counter shrugged and pointed to a laminated sign. ‘What it says it is.’

  I looked, feeling stupid. The price had been printed in 72 point font: $5 per hour.

  During my week’s imprisonment on Thirteen Pearls I hadn’t craved chocolate or trips to the hardware store or even a decent morning run (well, that last one was no great sacrifice), but now I dived on the computer like a starving woman. Technology . . . bliss. Mum had told me that she ’d heard on the radio (ABC Radio National – as if there ’d be any other sort at my house) that my generation were characterised as digital natives while hers were digital immigrants, not born into it, and only embracing it as far as their perceived needs reached. She reckoned my generation lived and breathed technology and took to every innovation like ducks to water.

  Quack.

  Here’s what my browser history looked like by the time I finished:

  Parenting techniques

  Disciplining children

  Dealing with difficult children

  What is a naughty mat?

  Who is Supernanny?

  Thai mountain tribes

  Thai culture Thirteen Pearls

  Sprouting for beginners

  (And, this was being ambitious, but:)

  Exciting ways to cook fish

  (A clip flashed up on YouTube with a woman who practically oozed into everything she was cooking and who made licking her fingers almost indecent. I’d never be able to find all the fresh ingredients her recipe called for, but she made cooking fish far from boring.)

  Basic fish recipes

  Hotmail

  To [email protected]

  From [email protected]

  Dear Tash,

  Things are great up here. My uncle is a redneck psychopath and the kid is like something from a horror movie. He wets the bed and bites and kicks me and we’re stuck on a prison island surrounded by sharks. The only good thing is that the two oyster hands are cool. Cute actually. I’m glad you’re not here(!). How’s dear old disgustingly humid Cairns? How’s Jason? How are you? Did you decide to give him his Christmas present early?

  Luv,

  Edie.

  To [email protected]

  From spinnake
[email protected]

  Dear Dad,

  (I hesitated, thinking carefully about what to say – if I gave Mum too much ammo against Uncle Red, she ’d insist I come home. The one time they’d called, I could only speak to them for a minute; Aran had just broken a bottle and shards of glass had scattered on the floor and up onto the kitchen benches. And I was paranoid about broken glass because Dad’s cousin had died from swallowing glass from a broken pickle jar when he’d coughed during the operation to extract it.)

  Things are great up here. How is Ulysses? Have you had a chance to put sealant on the ply I left under the house? How’s Mum’s research on the 1837 pay cuts for mill workers going? Love,

  Edie.

  btw: do you have any info on parenting and anger-management?

  I left the computer reluctantly; it had felt like a lifeline to the real world, to my world.

  Outside the bakery, Aran was running up and down the beach, generally going crazy from a doughnut overdose.

  Kaito glanced up from beneath a palm and scanned my face, perhaps wondering about my mystery hour. ‘The pump hasn’t come in yet,’ he said.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ I asked.

  Kaito shrugged. ‘May as well go shopping.’

  The air conditioning inside the supermarket was amazing, the most delicious sensation imaginable, putting me into a type of trance as I scanned the shelves. There wasn’t a vast selection, but for me it felt as if I’d been let loose at the top of the Faraway Tree in the Land of Goodies. This time, however, there would be no Sippahs or M&Ms or other junk. We filled two trolleys, with Aran firmly mounted on top of a box of tins, and then Kaito packed the shopping for a later pick-up.

  Muggy air drooled over us as we left the icy pleasure of the store with a cruel sliding shut of the electronic doors. Beneath a massive mango tree, teeming with green and orange fruit, a man lounged on a bench. His familiar brown face crinkled into a wreath of pleased wrinkles.