On a Starlit Ocean

by Charlotte Nash

  Buoyed on Tristan’s praise, the team stuck around to cover off on a number of items they wanted sorted. Erin asked them to excuse her for a minute and ducked out, following Tristan back to his office in the resort’s old reception area.

  While most of the old furniture had been cleared out, a damp smell persisted that not even strong espresso could compete with. There were roots growing from a hallway ceiling in the back. Stacks of paper had grown around the desk since Erin had last come in here, mostly large architectural plans marked in highlighter and red pen. Tristan went straight to the coffee machine.

  “Tristan,” Erin said, pausing at the door. “Can I have a word?”

  “Just one?”

  She perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair beside his desk, thinking about how to begin.

  “The dinner went well,” he said. “You know, your sister really is quite a woman. Patrick was extremely impressed with her work at the school. I think he signed up on the spot.”

  Erin’s heart twisted, just a little. She would be the first to admit Skye was the better person to cajole sponsors, if her work with the village events was anything to go by. But she couldn’t help feel rejected, replaced.

  “It’s not about that,” she managed. “It’s about the resort, and the development.”

  “Oh?”

  “I heard that the last three owners had plans rejected because of an environmental impact problem. I was wondering how you managed to pass it through the regulators.”

  Tristan extracted his cup from the machine. “It was an effort,” he said, after just the barest pause. “There’s marine park areas out there, and we can’t get around the fact that more people means more potential for pollution. Run-off, litter, emissions, all that stuff. We’re putting in a solar farm and a black-water system to keep all the waste out of the bay.”

  “What about the marina?”

  Tristan gave a slight lift of his shoulders. “We won’t allow dumping, and we’re finding other ways to combat the water quality degradation. I’m confident.”

  “So it isn’t actually approved yet?”

  She saw the flicker of irritation in his face. “It will be. We’ve worked very hard to ensure the plans will pass. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  He popped his eyebrows playfully, and Erin relaxed. She’d been dreading asking him these questions, but he didn’t seem fazed. Travers must have it all wrong.

  “Where’s this all coming from?” Tristan asked.

  “I love the island, that’s all. Thought I had to ask.”

  “I grew up here too, you know,” he said, setting his mug down on the desk.

  “Of course, I know that—”

  “Maybe you should spend less time with people who didn’t.”

  Erin paused, all her caution flags flying up again. “I’d better go.”

  “Would you like to see the plans? Would that satisfy you?” he said. “They’re right here.”

  “Maybe another time.”

  “Erin,” he said, so sharply she stopped at the door. “Remember what your job is. Land me a big sponsor. If not Patrick, then someone else. I mean it.”

  Erin went back to work with her heart thumping in her chest. What had just happened? Tristan was playing the calm-sailing boss in meetings, but something else was bringing his barbs out. Or maybe it was that jealous streak again. He clearly didn’t like Travers, and had probably guessed that was where Erin had heard rumours. She bit her lip, knowing the only thing she controlled was whether the next race went ahead and the regatta in the long term. Tristan was right: they needed that sponsor.

  When she got back to the yacht, she dug in the old ice-cream container she kept under the radio. At the bottom, among the bits of chord, fishing sinkers, pegs, and screws was Ivan’s business card. The personal mobile number scrawled on the back was still legible. Erin played with the card. Ivan was the kind of sponsor Tristan would salivate over, and since he’d called her after the pilot race win, she knew he didn’t hold her leaving his crew against her.

  She took her phone out and dialled.

  While Erin was dialling, Alex was near the end of a punishing five days of work on the mainland. To start with, Karen – the regular doctor – had dashed home to Cairns to her sick mother, leaving Alex and Wendy plugging the roster with a handful of locums. Short-staffed, they’d been faced with a nasty car wreck at two am one morning, needing three seriously injured patients evacuated to the big hospital in Townsville. Alex had worked flat-out trying to stabilise the victims, who were little older than teenagers. By the time the last had left on the chopper and all the paperwork complete, it was ten in the morning. So wired he’d been unable to sleep, he then had to be back at work at five in the evening.

  The thing that had kept him going through all of it was a resolve to see Erin when he got back to the island. But circumstance conspired against him from the moment his toes hit the Haven sand. Several land-sea race teams had sent scouts ahead to reconnoitre the land course, and a good number of interested spectators had done the same. So his waiting room was full of sprained ankles and oyster shell cuts, and travellers with gyppy belly from drinking the untreated island water.

  The village was buzzing with excitement for the upcoming race. Accommodation was filling up and the bakery and cafe were enjoying full tables at night. A concert had been planned for the evening of the race, and rumours were flying that celebrities would be making an appearance – Hugh Jackman, whispered Sandy, as if the full power of her voice would shatter the possibility. Alex couldn’t begrudge anyone the much needed revenue, even when the village’s boon had added to an already overworked week.

  But all this activity meant that Erin had been elusive. Travers had been out on training runs with her over the weekend while Alex was stuck in the clinic, and her evenings were full of meetings. Her yacht – still moored inaccessibly off the jetty – had still been dark when his last patient had left. More than once, Alex had walked down the main beach under the stars, Bella’s Leap backlit in the full moon, hoping to run into her returning from the old resort. It hadn’t happened.

  Now it was Friday and he had only a day until returning to the mainland again. The moon had waned to a fat quarter, throwing silvery light across the sand and the piers of the jetty. Alex trudged along the waterline, wondering whether to call in on Travers. Then, he spotted someone sitting half-way along the jetty, and his heart stopped.

  Erin.

  She had an open packet of fish and chips, a bottle of ginger beer open alongside. His palms prickled as he climbed the jetty and she glanced around. Even in her bad books, she made him absolutely giddy. She frowned when she saw him, but there were tired circles under her eyes.

  “Can I sit down?” he asked.

  “Only if you can eat a kilo of chips. I think they thought I was feeding Travers again.”

  He felt a glimmer of hope. Erin had crossed her arms, but she wasn’t telling him to piss off either.

  “Beautiful night,” Alex said as he sat. Out of the jetty lights, the bay was black glass, the breeze lazy. “Thought Haven had a reputation for bad weather.”

  “Unexpected weather,” Erin said. “When it’s quiet like this, you can bet it’s brewing something. See the way the water’s breaking on the point? That swirl?”

  Alex peered through the darkness, but all he could make out was the occasional silent plume of spray catching the moonlight. He could never read signs in the darkness.

  “Erin, I’ve been wanting to talk to you all week.”

  “I’ve been busy.” She crammed another few chips in her mouth, wiping salt across her knee.

  “To apologise.”

  “For what?” she asked, around her mouthful.

  Alex plucked a chip from the packet and squeezed its soft sides. “For being an insensitive ass.”

  “And?”

  He smiled. “And … anything else I did to upset you.”

 
Erin flicked a glance at him, and he saw the possibility of forgiveness. “You kinda suck at apologies,” she said.

  He was taking a breath to make a joke, to build more in this wall of repair when his phone rang. Alex pulled it out, and saw the clinic number. “Let this not be another I-can’t-leave-the-toilet call,” he muttered, and was rewarded to see Erin smile.

  But Sandy’s voice sobered him immediately. “It’s Helmut,” she said down the line. “Stella called. He’s having trouble breathing.”

  A chill ran down Alex’s arms. He was on his feet in an instant. “He’s still at the hut?”

  “Yes. She didn’t think he could move. She sounded terrified.”

  Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, his thoughts turning together like well-oiled gears. “Sandy, grab my bag from the surgery and come down to the jetty. After that, find Travers and tell him bring the portable stretcher up to Helmut’s. Then I need you to stay at the surgery by the phone. Got it? Now run.”

  He then had to turn to Erin, who had scrambled up, her brow furrowed in concern. “What’s going on?”

  “Do you know your way up to Helmut’s hut in the dark? I need you to show me. He’s sick.”

  Erin ran to the jetty’s end and grabbed two torches from the courtesy box. Then they were running together, across the sand, meeting Sandy huffing under the weight of the mobile medical kit. Alex grabbed the case, then he was sprinting after Erin, down the long arc of beach and towards the dark headland.

  He had no idea how Erin navigated through the bush. To Alex, it seemed an endless uphill climb in bobbing torchlight over no discernible path, his feet and head crashing against rocks and branches. By the time they reached the hut, he was soaked in sweat, his lungs painful with each breath. But the scene he found inside threw an icy bucket of water over him.

  “Thank god,” Stella exclaimed as she pulled them inside. Her mascara had run, her face pale and panicked. “He only had a sniffle this afternoon.”

  Helmut sat in a chair in the main gallery, his arms propped on his knees, his wiry hair damp. Through the collar of his shirt, Alex could see all the accessory muscles struggling to pull in each breath.

  “Helmut, it’s Alex,” he said, kneeling by the chair. “How long has it been like this?”

  Helmut tried to speak, but he sounded like his mouth was full of marbles. A string of drool escaped his lips and smacked the floor. Alex felt a cold dread.

  “It’s been maybe forty minutes now,” Stella said, her voice wobbling. “He said it was just a sore throat!”

  “Do you need me?” Erin asked quickly, and when Alex shook his head, “Then I’ll run back and meet Travers.”

  A second later, Alex was alone with Helmut and Stella. With rapid movements, he took pulse and counted the respirations, then felt over Helmut’s throat, which made the artist jump like he’d been branded. Alex pulled his bag open, acutely aware that he was a long way from a hospital.

  “Stella, he allergic to anything? Or complain of being bitten by anything?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Call the clinic again. Tell Sandy to organise an evac right now.”

  Alex heard a rumble come into Helmut’s breaths, an audible noise on the inhale. Stridor. That was not good. Not good.

  Alex could see where this was going. Helmut was finding each breath harder and harder, his airway clearly obstructed. Left much longer, he might not be able to breathe at all. As Stella spoke to Sandy, he began pulling out packets, hoping with all the good luck he had that Travers was nearly here.

  He motioned for Stella to give him the phone. “Sandy, this is a cat one emergency. Get them here asap. Stella will stay on the phone.”

  “What’s happening?” Stella begged.

  The artist’s eyes flickered over Alex, full of fear. “I think this is epiglottitis. That’s when the flap that keeps your food pipe separate from your airway swells up. Kids get it a lot, but in an adult it’s really serious. That noise you’re making means your airway’s closing up. We’ve got a plane coming, so my job is to keep you breathing until we get you to hospital.”

  He squeezed Helmut’s hand. “I am absolutely going to get you through this, but I need to make you a new airway – like on the movies, a tube into your throat, do you understand?”

  Helmut’s eyes flashed to Stella, then he nodded. At that moment, Alex heard heavy footsteps crashing towards the hut. Erin and Travers appeared, the medic hauling another medical kit like a bandolier and a collapsed mobile stretcher on his back. Travers was sweating, but his eyes were calm as he took in the situation.

  “What are we doing, doc?”

  “Emergency cric, then we need to transfer down to the airstrip.”

  “Right.” In ten seconds flat, Travers had assembled the stretcher, and was back helping Alex prepare.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got a tracheostomy tube in that bag?” Alex asked.

  “Nah, but I’ve got a fourteen gauge cannula. You got a bag?”

  In no time, they had helped Helmut to the stretcher. Alex knew he would have to work fast; the stridor was worse, and Helmut found breathing even harder on his back. Travers had snapped on gloves and was wiping Helmut’s throat with antiseptic, and handing across the cannula, attached to a syringe of saline. Alex quickly numbed the area with local anaesthetic, then palpated the cartilages with his left hand, looking for the membrane between.

  There.

  Angling down, he slipped the needle through the membrane, withdrawing the plunger until he saw air bubbles in the syringe. “Yep, got it,” he said, pushing the cannula down and removing the core. Travers was ready with a syringe connector and the bag. The cannula was narrow, so they had to help Helmut breathe, but the stridor was gone.

  They heard the evac plane land when they were almost down the hill. Travers insisted on taking the heavy head end of the stretcher, while Stella, Erin and Alex rotated carrying the other two handles. By the time they were half-way past the old resort, they saw Sandy and two paramedics rushing towards them and soon, the weight was gone and Helmut was loaded into the plane. Stella climbed in, then Alex followed, knowing he could help and that he would be on shift at the mainland hospital tomorrow anyway.

  As the door closed, he caught sight of Erin, so small next to Travers on the edge of the runway. Her hair and skin were pale in the lone light post, just like the woman he’d imagined on Bella’s Leap those weeks ago. Then the plane lifted towards the mainland, and he left her behind.

  The next morning, Alex dropped by the hospital early where Stella wrapped him in a grateful hug. She was much more collected this morning, fresh in a borrowed set of scrubs, her hair plaited in a rope down her back.

  “Thank you so much, Dr Alex. You are a miracle,” she said, rubbing his back.

  “How is he?” Alex asked.

  “Still on the tube, but the doctor says he’s responding well to the antibiotics, and they should be able to remove it soon. I can’t tell you how grateful I was that you were there. You must take a job permanently – this just proves that we can’t be without you.”

  “I’m glad I was there,” he said, knowing that Helmut could easily have died if it had happened just a day later, when Alex had been back on the mainland. He kept that to himself and allowed Stella to draw him down to the hospital canteen, where she insisted on paying for breakfast. They sat in the window seat, where they could see the ocean. The sea was a grey slab today, the sky thick with clouds that promised humidity, but no relief in rain. Great Haven was not even visible over the horizon.

  “I’ve told him before how dangerous it is living up on that cliff at our age,” Stella was saying. “But he won’t leave. ‘The muse is too strong,’ he says.”

  “It is a beautiful spot,” Alex said carefully. “If a little ... macabre.”

  “Oh yes, I mean, what could be more macabre than a murder? No wonder he’s so obsessed with her. When I first came to the island, I wondered if Bella would be the death of him. I’m just gl
ad it wasn’t this time.”

  Alex paused with his coffee half-way to his lips. “Did you say murder?”

  Stella nodded sagely. “Of course. What, you didn’t think Bella threw herself off the cliff, did you?”

  “Well, I just assumed ... Bella’s Leap and all.”

  “Just a name. I suppose they might have thought it was suicide after everything that had happened to her, but it just doesn’t make any sense. Think about it. She comes out to the island with her husband. He dies early, but she stays on running the place, isolated, only dogs for company. Builds it into a prosperous place, good relationship with the Elders, even after all that earlier trouble and the people who’d failed before her. Then suddenly, at the end, she kills herself? No, that’s not Bella. She met a foul end. And that’s why she’s still here.”

  Stella crossed herself.

  Alex rotated the cup in his hands. “Why are you telling me this? Is it like the Masons? I’ve saved the life of a local, so I get the real story?”

  Stella’s laugh tinkled like crystal. “Oh, there’s lots of versions of Bella’s story. Helmut says he knows what really happened. But then, he does paint ghosts. Maybe in another ten years, he’ll tell me too and confirm my suspicions. All I know is that she didn’t kill herself. It all feels more sinister than that.”

  All this secrecy was still turning in Alex’s mind later, even after he’d been to the visiting doctor’s flat to sleep, and after he’d dealt with the first cases of the evening. Unresolved questions always niggled him. So, in a quiet early hour in the ED – when he should have been sleeping – he found himself opening the hospital records catalogue.

  Bryan Jacobs, he typed.

  Only one record came back on the search, and the birth date was correct. But when he opened the record, it appeared to be empty. No clinical notes, just a few blood tests.

  “Hey, Wendy, why would a patient’s records be blank?”