Ember Island (19 page)

Joe looked nothing like his mother, but even less like Dougal, who was a burly Scotsman with bright ginger hair. He called me “lassie” and gave me a very warm hug, and invited me to sit down. Julian demanded I sit on the long bench seat next to him. Their dining table was so big it took up most of the kitchen, with Lynn having to breathe in to move around us as she set out the lasagna and the salad bowl. It was made of scarred wood, no tablecloth, the cutlery all thrown in the middle for us to help ourselves.

“Och, it’s grand to have a guest for dinner,” Dougal said.

“It’s lovely to be here,” I said. “This table is huge.”

Lynn slid into her seat. “We love to entertain, but don’t get the chance much. Every Christmas we have a big group of extended family that come over from the mainland, but usually it’s just the four of us sitting here. Go on, eat up.”

I served myself a small portion of lasagna, only to hear Dougal tsk-tsk and tell me I needed to put some meat on my bones. Joe looked pained. Julian was leaning his head on my shoulder. I thought about my family dinners growing up. The carefully laid table, the insistence on using the right fork at the right time, my mother clearing her throat softly every time I put my elbows on the table. Joe’s parents argued merrily with their mouths full, Julian ate cherry tomatoes with his fingers, everybody helped themselves to seconds. The wine flowed freely, too. I had never seen my mother touch a drop.

I decided I really liked Joe’s family.

“So what are ye doing on Ember Island, lassie?” Dougal boomed during a lull in his good-humored ribbing of his wife. “You working or playing?”

I had just taken a mouthful of food and chewed rapidly to swallow before I spoke, but Joe spoke ahead of me. “Nina’s on holidays. She’s a . . . journalist.”

“Journalist, eh?”

“What paper do you write for?”

I swallowed, not sure what to say. Why had Joe lied about what I did? “Just a local Sydney paper,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. My voice was too small for lies. “Covering dog shows and so on.”

“Joe was saying Starwater has always been in your family,” Lynn said.

It wasn’t entirely true, but I was out there on a limb, going along with Joe though I didn’t know why. “Yes, my great-grandmother Eleanor Holt owned it. She was quite a lady.” I told them a few Eleanor stories and the topic of what I did for a living moved on and disappeared.

Joe leaned over while Lynn and Dougal were up clearing the table. “Trust me,” he whispered. “If they get a whiff that you’re famous, they’ll drive you mad. Mum will have you guesting at book clubs and Dad will show you his unfinished memoir.”

I laughed softly. “Thank you. It’s nice to pretend I’m not a writer.”

“Well, you do write about those dog shows.”

We shared a giggle, and Dougal looked over his shoulder at us fondly. I pulled away a little from Joe then, remembering my vow not to get involved. It was just so nice to feel that spark of initial attraction, to flirt a little. I had so few small pleasures in life that I was clinging to this one.

“Will ye have a pudding with us, Nina?” Dougal said.

“I’d love to.”

“Sticky toffee,” Lynn said, uncovering an oven pan.

“The sauce will kill ye,” Dougal added. “Made with butter, cream, and sugar. Nowt else. A heart attack waiting to happen.”

“You’ll never die,” Lynn said, flicking him playfully with a towel. “You’ll stay around to torment me forever, you ratbag.”

They were so affectionate with each other, laughing and cuddling and play fighting. It was no wonder that Joe was such a good-hearted man, that his son was so demonstrative.

Lynn placed bowls of sticky, warm deliciousness in front of Julian and me, then scooped frosty vanilla ice cream on top. She turned to Joe and said, “Are you having some, Jonah?”

“Sure,” Joe said.

“Jonah?” I asked, smiling at him. “Your name is Jonah? And you work with whales?”

“Ah, that’s a tale,” said Dougal, refilling my wineglass. After the beer earlier, my head was beginning to swim, but he wouldn’t be refused.

Everybody sat down to eat—the most evil dessert I have ever tasted—and Dougal filled me in. “Lynnie and I couldn’t have our own child. We tried for years—”

Lynn butted in. “Six years,” she said, in a voice so impassioned that I understood just how long those six years had been for her. Heat rose in my solar plexus. I remembered Cameron’s face and voice, as he pleaded with me, “Can’t we just try? Can’t we investigate the possibilities?” Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his body that was going to be investigated, its integrity called into question, found faulty.

“Yes, dear, now keep quiet and let me talk,” Dougal said. “We tried for six years and then we waited another eight on an adoption register. It was August the first when we got the call. Whale migration season. Lynnie and I were overwhelmed with the news. We walked down to the pier to wait for the boat across to the mainland,
to go and pick up our bundle of joy, and a pod of humpback whales was passing. Och, ye’ve never seen anything like it, lassie. Heavy as trucks, but thrusting themselves out of the water like they weigh as feathers. So I said, let’s call our boy Jonah, because of the whales.”

“Of course, Dougal here has never read the Bible in his life and tells me Jonah rode whales and was some kind of whale king,” Lynn laughed. “After we’ve named our boy and signed off on the paperwork, I looked it up in an encyclopedia and found he was
eaten
by a whale.”

“I
have
read the Bible. The best bits, anyway. I misremembered that part from Sunday school.”

“In any case, he was already our little Jonah, though he’s all grown up now and prefers Joe.” Lynn reached across the enormous table to pat Joe’s hand. “And it’s no surprise he should be interested in whales. He’s watched them come up here every year of his life and they are great, grand creatures.”

More gentle ribbing passed between them, more laughter, and Julian shouted “I love whales!” because he was keen to be part of the conversation. Somehow I managed to fit every last sodden crumb of the toffee pudding in, though my stomach was sore. It was hard to feel sorry for myself while half drunk, full bellied and surrounded by warmth and family. Then Dougal turned to me and asked me directly, “So, lassie. Are ye married? Are ye seeing anyone?”

“Dad . . .” Joe protested.

I opened my mouth, hesitated, knowing I had to shut this down.
Joe had to know I was unavailable and it wasn’t as though I could easily tell him why. I wouldn’t be on the island for long; it didn’t matter if I lied. “I have a boyfriend,” I said, then cleared my throat. “His name’s Cameron.”

“Then where is he, love?” Lynn asked, puzzled.

“He’s back in Sydney. He couldn’t come with me, he has . . . work.”

I could feel an uncomfortable distance opening up between my shoulder and Joe’s. He was disappointed, maybe angry. Perhaps he thought I had led him on. Perhaps I
had
led him on.

A little of the warmth had left Dougal’s voice. “What kind of work does he do, then?”

“He’s a poet,” I said.

Dougal laughed loudly, then realized I was serious and feigned a coughing fit.

“A poet, eh?” said Lynn. “He must be quiet and sensitive.”

“Um . . . I guess so.” They weren’t the first two words that came to mind with Cameron. Obsessive and vain?

“Well, then, it’s a shame he had so many poems to write he couldn’t be here with ye. I hope you enjoy your holiday, nevertheless,” Dougal said, regaining his warmth.

“And you’re always welcome to come for dinner. Any time, dear. Any night of the week.”

“Come every night,” Julian said, hooking his elbow through mine.

“I will certainly come again,” I said, heart beating hard as the awkwardness slid past. Joe insisted on walking me home, while Lynn and Dougal wrestled Julian off to have a bath and clean his teeth. The sky was clear and warm, a sea breeze ruffled the palms. We were silent for a while, then I said, “I’m sorry I hadn’t mentioned Cameron to you. There hadn’t really been a chance.” There. That would put an end to it.

“You don’t need to be sorry. It was nosy of Dad to ask.”

“I . . . I hope that isn’t weird for you or anything.”

“My parents are always weird for me,” he laughed.

“I think they’re fantastic,” I said.

“So do I. But they’ve embarrassed me more times than I can count. I’m used to it.” We walked on a little further in silence, then he said, “Is he really a poet?”

“Um, yes.”

“Does he make a living out of it?”

“He teaches as well. Writes articles for magazines sometimes.” But mostly he had lived off me. And now he was sponging off Tegan and her rich daddy. We were at the foot of the pathway up to Starwater now. I cleared my throat, keen for a change of topic. “I’ll see you on Monday then?”

“You want me to take you up to your door?”

I think we both felt the awkwardness. “No, I’ll be fine,” I said. “There are no murderers on the island, right?”

“Not anymore. Not since they closed the prison.”

I smiled at him. That thrill was still there and I knew he could feel it too. But that ship had sailed. I told myself over and over it was for the best. Next time I fell in love, it had to be with somebody in his fifties who had had a family and was looking forward to a quiet retirement with a clean house. Maybe with a cat. “Thanks,” I said. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

We parted ways and I trudged up the hill and let myself into the house. I felt a little lost, all on my own after a warm evening of company. But I put myself to bed and decided to read the next little diary entry I had pulled out of the brickwork. This one was dated a year before the last, written when Eleanor was only eleven. It didn’t surprise me that she wrote beautifully, even as a child. The deep well of language had always been inside her. If only I had inherited that instead of a box of old papers.

•

I have decided to start this diary because my mother is dying and I have nobody else to speak to. My teacher is without much compassion, my classmates are without much brain, and Papa says I need to be strong and not lean so much on him.

The thing that makes me saddest of all is that Mama is the person to whom I would love to tell my troubles. So when she dies I will suffer the double blow of losing her, and losing the person whose lap I would rest my head in to cry. I feel as though I am on a ship in deep water, sinking slowly.

Mama has been sick for two months. At first she would sleep a lot. She was hard to wake in the morning and couldn’t wait to get into bed at night. Some nights she went to bed before me. The tiredness grew worse. She couldn’t make it through the day without having to put her head down. I heard her making jokes with Papa about getting old, but she’s only 36 and I once met a lady who was 80 who could stay awake all day.

Then she started growing thin. She had no appetite, she complained about a constant back ache.

Still, I didn’t worry about it because she and Papa didn’t seem worried about it. But then one Tuesday, the day the surgeon always came over from the mainland to check on the sick prisoners in the infirmary, Papa called the surgeon to come up to the house and look at Mama. I was playing with my peg dolls on the southern verandah so I didn’t hear what he said to Mama, but then he and Papa came out on the eastern verandah and I could hear them quite clearly.

“The lumps under her arm. How long have they been there?”

“She’s never mentioned them. I presume she’s had them for some time.”

“It doesn’t look good, Superintendent Holt. That and the back pain. I’ve seen it before.”

His words lit a little fire in my heart, a soft whoosh of flame.

“Should I get her across to the mainland?” Even under these circumstances, Papa sounded perfectly measured.

“It won’t make a difference. I don’t think she has long.”

A silence. I wished I could see Papa’s face. My body buzzed with fear.

“What will happen?” Papa asked, in a quiet voice.

“Well, she will simply grow tireder and one day she will lie down and not get up again.”

I sobbed out loud, once, then clapped my hand over my mouth. I leapt to my feet and ran down the stairs and into the garden, fearful of being caught eavesdropping (Papa simply hates me eavesdropping), but also feeling shocked and not sure what to do with my body. I climbed the giant fig tree, with its teeming roots, and sat on the rough branch a while and cried.

It was some time later, perhaps half an hour, that Papa found me.

“Come down,” he called from the ground. He didn’t look too stern.

“Is it true?” I asked. “Will Mama die?”

“Come down.”

I did as I was told and clambered down from the tree. I jumped the last three feet and he caught me, and held me close for a moment before lowering me to the ground. He never hugs me usually.

I looked up at him, waiting for my answer.

“Your mama is very sick. You overheard what the doctor said, I gather.”

“Not all of it. I ran out here.”

“She will grow more and more tired. She won’t be able to get out of bed at all. Then she will sleep a lot. She will feel some pain, but the doctor will give us something to help her. She will look very ill. One day she will not wake up from her sleep.” He nodded once, decisively, as if he had imparted to me all I needed to know. “This may take a few weeks or a few months. In that time, you are not to ask her to do anything for you. Not so much as read a line of a book. In fact, you will do anything that she asks, without a flicker of defiance. Do you understand all this?”