Ember Island (21 page)

“Can I come?” Julian asked.

“He’s welcome to,” I said. “We’re going to have a picnic.”

“Grandma’s taking you across to the mainland to see Aunty Pam,” Joe told him.

“Aunty Pam smells funny. Nina smells nice.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Joe said, smiling so warmly that parts of me melted.

Stacy kicked my ankle gently, grinning.

“But Aunty Pam still has your birthday present from last month,” Joe added.

Julian nodded, all businesslike. “I’m sorry, Nina. I can’t come on your picnic after all.”

“Never mind,” I said. “Maybe next time.”

Joe returned his attention to Stacy and me. “I’ve got a few things to do in the morning, so why don’t we meet at the boat shed around midday?”

“Great!” Stacy enthused.

“You know it’s whale season,” Joe told her. “Not making any promises, but we might see one or two.”

“Are they scary?” Stacy asked.

“They are . . . big.” Joe chuckled. “You know you’re alive when you’re cruising alongside one, that’s for sure. Keep everything crossed.”

I started to wonder if Joe, who seemed to me so close to nature, might be able to make the whales appear with that earthy magic he had.

As we walked back to Starwater, Stacy wore an irrepressible smile.

“What?” I asked.

“You know,” she said.

I did know. I absolutely did.

•

I had just slipped between the covers that night, when Stacy knocked lightly on my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I called.

The door opened. Stacy wore pale pink pajamas and had her long dark hair in a plait. “Look what I found,” she said, holding out some folded sheets of paper.

I sat up, alert. “Where?”

“I dropped my earring and it rolled under the dresser. I had to move it and this was right between two bricks, where the mortar should have been.”

I took it from her and opened it, reading the first lines by the lamplight. “
The Secret Confession of Eleanor Holt.
I can’t make out the date.”

Stacy peered at it. “1869?”

“Well, she wasn’t born then, so I think it must be 1889. She was ten.”

“Can you read it? Her handwriting is appalling.”

“Sure.” I flipped back my covers. “Hop in.”

Stacy squeezed in next to me and I started to read.

“To whomever finds this letter, in confidence. On this day, I record that Mr. Burton, our chaplain and some-time scripture teacher, did act in a most inappropriate fashion towards me. This letter shall serve as a record of said actions &c &c.”

Stacy laughed. “What ten-year-old writes like that?”

“My great-grandmother apparently,” I replied.

“I know where you get your writing gene from, then,” she said.

I didn’t answer, peering at the next line.

“Mr. Burton took us for religious lessons today, in the chapel. There were only five of us there as two of the Randolph children were ill with the vomits. Mr. Burton made us read proverbs until Bertie fell asleep, and then dismissed us at one so that we could have lunch.

“He held me back after the Randolphs had run off and said that he had something to show me. I was curious so I followed him to the back of the chapel, under that dreadful sad carving of poor Jesus. He pulled a chair from the corner of the chapel and placed it beneath a hatch in the ceiling, then stood on it and felt around for a moment. The hatch fell down, and a wooden ladder slid out.

“ ‘This was built by the first chaplain on the island,’ he told me. ‘So that he could light the lantern beside the cross each night. We long ago gave up lighting the lantern.’ He ushered me ahead of him. ‘Go on, climb up. I’ll show you what’s up there.’

“I was not at all sure that I should go up the ladder, but I reminded myself that this was the chaplain and he was a man of God and so would not willingly put me in danger. I climbed up, while he watched me from below. Then I found myself inside the hot and dusty ceiling of the chapel, having to bend my head because the roof was directly above me. Ahead, I saw a half-size door.

“ ‘Keep going,’ Mr. Burton said, and I did, finding the door easy enough to open, and then I was on the roof, on a walkway about three feet across that led to the big wooden cross that stood above me.

“ ‘You see?’ said Mr. Burton, for he was behind me now. ‘Is it not a lovely view?’

“I believed Mr. Burton misunderstood the best purpose of the walkway. It was not so much a good place to see, but a good place not to be seen. Nobody knew of this place, I was certain. Papa had certainly never mentioned it. I imagined myself slipping away from classes and coming here to write on the walkway, hiding my stories in the warm, dark ceiling. I was quite taken with the idea.

“But then, Mr. Burton touched me. He extended his fleshy hand and rubbed the back of his knuckles lightly across my cheek. I flinched and he laughed and said, ‘No need to be so precious, Miss Holt. I won’t hurt you.’ And he looked at me in a way that made me confused and
ashamed, and I cursed myself as a ninny for letting him bring me up here.

“ ‘I would like to go down now,’ I said, for he was blocking my way and I didn’t want to push past him and have him touch me again.

“ ‘You will be such a beauty when you are sixteen, Nell,’ he said, and his voice was thick and I was frightened. But then I remembered that my father was the most strongest man on the island and I said in a big voice, ‘Let me past or I will tell my father.’

“Mr. Burton stood aside, but he was laughing, and as I squeezed past him he moved a little so I rubbed against his belly. He thought it terribly funny, but I simply felt embarrassed and hot in my face, and came back here immediately to record all this and now I feel better for having it out. I cannot tell Papa for he already has so much on his mind and I know I shouldn’t have gone up there anyway. So if you have found this, you are the only other person to know.

“Yours sincerely, Eleanor Holt.”

Stacy took the letter from me and scanned it. “That is super creepy.”

“The poor little thing, thinking it was somehow her fault for going up there.”

“She’s lucky she got away without something worse happening,” Stacy said.
“The nineteenth century wasn’t a great time to be a woman. I wonder, is the chapel she’s written about the same little church that’s still down near the Stockade?”

“It is. It used to be considered part of Starwater. But there isn’t a big wooden cross on it anymore. Just that tacky light-up one on the front.”

Stacy yawned and climbed out of bed, handing back the letter. “Thanks for the bedtime story. Good night.”

“Good night.”

After she left I reread the letter. From my great-grandmother to
me. Though she didn’t know it would be me who found it. I wished I could reach back through time and take that little girl in my arms and tell her not to worry about wretched Mr. Burton, tell her how incredibly clever she was and what a wonderful writer she would grow up to be. I fell asleep into half dreams about shadowy old churches and shelves full of dusty, empty books.

•

Sunday afternoon, I saw my boat for the first time. It was a seven-meter fiberglass 1979 Shark Cat with near-new twin outboard motors. Or so Joe told me. I just saw a boat. A yellow one. He had backed his van up to the door of the boat shed and unlocked the roller door. Stacy, slathered in nuclear-proof sunscreen and wearing a gigantic straw hat, waited with me on the grass. We had a picnic basket between our feet: Stacy may have been a high-flying property lawyer, but she was also a magnificent baker of savory muffins and lemon curd tarts. The bottle of champagne was my contribution.

Joe hooked up the trailer and tugged the boat out of the shed. I peered into the empty space. Cobwebs and mold. The creeping cold that only stone buildings can harbor.

“Nina! Come on!” This was Stacy calling. She had started down the path after Joe and the boat trailer. I hurried down after her, the picnic basket awkwardly held against my hip.

Joe knew what he was doing, of course. He’d been getting this boat in and out of the water and steering it round the bay for two years. He was confident and comfortable in his body, dressed in cut-off jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Stacy and I did as he said, strapped on our life jackets, and got in when we were told.

Then we were off, powering out into the bay. The boat was in poor repair. The vinyl on the long bench seats was torn and the
sponge was falling out; one of the front windows was cracked and taped up with duct tape; and the waterproof carpeting was almost worn through. But Joe assured me that it was safe and that I’d got a good deal.

“Where are we going to go?” I asked.

“Out a little way and then north. We might see a dugong, maybe a few turtles. Heaps of jellyfish. Go look over the side. Relax.”

So I did. I leaned over the side and watched as we cut through the water. A flotilla of pale blue jellyfish surrounded us. The sun was warm on my back and I felt a warm sense of being in good company on a good day. I even managed to forget about the book for a while. Stacy opened the picnic basket and pulled out crackers and cheese and a flask of coffee. She poured one for Joe then settled next to me with a plastic cup. “This is the life.”

“Thanks for my boat.”

“Any time.”

We cruised a little further, and Stacy and I chatted and ate and made up stupid jokes. I could see my reflection in her sunglasses and—even though I was thinner than I had been and my hair looked a bit wild—I was surprised to see myself laughing.

Then Joe cut the motors and we were drifting lightly, bobbing on the waves. He went to the other side and beckoned us. “Loggerhead turtle,” he said.

“Where?” Stacy cried, leaping to the other side of the boat. Shoulder to shoulder we stood, peering at the water, following Joe’s finger.

“I see it!” she said. “Look at that!”

Then I saw it too, its barnacled brown shell and its big black eyes, then it had dived under again.

“Is it time for our picnic?” Stacy asked hopefully.

“Great idea,” said Joe.

There wasn’t really anywhere to lay out the food, so we sat like three birds on a wire on the long bench, picking what we wanted out of the picnic basket and chatting. Joe didn’t have any champagne, but Stacy and I got stuck in. Joe seemed to enjoy our company, laughing good-naturedly at our silly in-jokes, his body close enough to mine that I could feel the heat of his skin and smell the sunshine-and-salt scent of his hair. I needed more of this: more silly joking with old friends, more Joe, more moments in the sunshine. I’d become a hunched creature of the city, turned in on myself, like something out of a Poe story.

But then Joe stood up suddenly, a startled expression on his face as he peered off to the east.

“What is it?” I asked, following the direction of his gaze.

He was back at the engines a second later, starting them up, then returning to the wheel. “I saw a flipper.”

“Whales?” Stacy squealed.

“Hang on.” He turned the boat and we sped out further into the bay. The speed and motion didn’t agree with the champagne and lemon curd tart in my stomach, but I held on.

A few minutes later I saw it myself. A great hump breaking the waves, its flipper raised almost as if it was waving, then disappearing again. I was utterly unprepared for how I would feel. I had seen photographs of whales, I knew what they looked like. But this, here in the wild open sea, thrilled me in a way that was both deep and natural.

Stacy clutched my arm. “It’s a whale,” she said, “a real one.”

“You must have seen so many of these,” I called to Joe. “Do you still get excited?”

“Yes, every time,” he answered. “You never get used to it. They are magnificent.”

He knocked back the speed and we slowly approached the place we’d seen the whale. Then he cut the engine and we waited, holding our breaths.

With a huge watery gasp, a gray-black back cut up through the waves and sprayed water everywhere. Stacy yelped with fright and I found myself laughing and laughing.

“Other side!” called Joe, and I turned to see another one, swimming below the water, close to the other side of the boat.

Now Stacy clung to my arm. “They can’t tip the boat, can they?” she asked.

“It’s never happened,” Joe answered.

The closer one skimmed up through the water and sprayed through its blowhole.

“It’s breathing,” Stacy gasped. “Just like us.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty close,” Joe said, getting ready to start the engine again.

Then the first whale broke through the water, its huge bulk impossibly airborne in a glorious arc, its white belly visible as it backflipped into the sea and disappeared, showering us in seawater.

My heart thundered as the water dried salty on my skin. Words and meaning failed me. I felt as though I had just seen through all of the artifice of civilization, all the way to the other side where nothing was as important as the pulsing sea and the brazen sky. Stacy’s death grip on my arm tightened.

“Oh. My. God,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, because it was the only word I could think to say.

Joe smiled, as happy as if he had orchestrated the breaching creature himself. “He came to say hello,” he laughed. “Lucky you.”

•

After our boat trip, Stacy invited Joe up to Starwater to have dinner with us, but he said he’d promised Julian he’d be home by six so he parted company with us on the road home. I was more disappointed than I could understand. I kept thinking about him, his face turned to mine, the sunlight in his hair, telling me the whale had come to say hello. He had become entwined with my memory of that experience, that deep and thrilling moment. Why was I thinking of him like this? Why couldn’t I get my head and my heart to agree?