Ocean's Trial

by Carlton, Demelza

  "You did that to get back at me for last night," George accused, stabbing a finger at Lucy. "Now look, I'm bleeding!" A tiny trickle of blood oozed down one of his toes.

  Lucy regained her composure. "I didn't put it in there. It must've crawled in by itself. I'm sorry I laughed at you, but you looked so funny, shaking your leg around with that thing waving like a flag, hanging onto your foot for dear life...Mr Williams is right, though. It serves you right for trying to frighten me. It might've attacked me in my sleep."

  Her apology only seemed to make George angrier. "I didn't try to frighten you. I caught them last night and I thought it would be a nice surprise for you to have fresh crabs. I stuck them in a bag and left them on your bunk for you. 'S'not my fault you didn't see them before you went to sleep." He got up and limped theatrically away from her.

  Lucy wore a tiny smile. "Wait, stop," she said. "Let me bandage that for you. Can you really catch crabs?"

  George shrugged. "Maybe. With the right trap and bait, yeah."

  "Can you show me?"

  Seventeen

  Every day I breathed the salt air and tasted the tang on my lips, I longed for home. Not Merry's comfortable house, either – the home where I was born. Shallow reefs like these, far to the north. After a week, none of the oysters keened for miles around and my hatbox was full of the source of their irritation. I wished I could stay for longer.

  But I was the only woman who did.

  The married women had quickly grown tired of fighting the birds from the hut, for the rusted holes in the roof and walls meant they got in, even with the door shut. They'd waged war against the lizards, only to wake up most mornings with a reptilian body cuddled too close for comfort. The water barrel was almost empty, thanks to one of them insisting on washing in fresh water every night. After one woman had seen a shark in the water (and screamed fit to wake the dead, though the hammerhead had no intention of helping her join them), none of the other women would go in past their ankles.

  Lucy had warmed to young George and she disappeared with him any chance she got. Her brother eyed them suspiciously every time he saw them together. I don't think she minded the island or the company, but she wanted to be away from her brother's sea-eagle eyes.

  The men were divided. They'd hiked out to the wreck of the Windsor and taken photographs of them posing on top of the corroded boiler. The fish population had been duly decimated and cooked over the fire. The cameras had come out again to capture the ruins of the abandoned guano mining operation. They'd collected most of the driftwood on the island and tomorrow would have to start cutting wood from the stunted trees. But they were almost out of beer.

  The Stella Maris was due back today to take us north to the unpleasantly named Rat Island, along with a boatload of supplies from Geraldton on the mainland, but we hadn't yet seen a sail and the sun was close to setting.

  When I returned to camp with my afternoon's catch, there were four men lounging around the stacked firepit. I set my gropers on the crate I'd been using as a makeshift filleting table. "Where are the others?" I asked.

  "The women went to Wreck Point to collect seashells. Serventy and Sargent went to look at what they think might be a tropic bird. West and Jenkyns took the others to photograph the seals. Williams said there were heaps of them sunbaking on the beach." He shifted the hat which had formerly covered his face. "What sort of fish are they?"

  "Baldies. Baldchin gropers. Tastiest fish I've caught this week," I replied. I intended to say more, when I heard a shout from the scrub behind me. I turned just in time.

  One of the seal-shooters had evidently found a reluctant subject for his photograph. Williams ran full-tilt out of the prickly scrub, shouting as if all the demons in hell were after him. He wasn't far wrong. Over three hundred pounds of enraged bull sea lion pursued him at surprising speed.

  No one seemed to know what to do. The other men froze in terror and I felt laughter bubble up inside me. Before I could attempt to calm the angry sea lion, the creature sank his teeth into his quarry's behind. The man shrieked and the sea lion let go, shaking its head. Taking no notice of the rest of us, the bull sloped off into the water, presumably to wash the foul taste from his mouth.

  All hell broke loose as the mauled man's wife was summoned to minister to his bare bum. The sea lion's teeth had barely broken the skin, so the most injured part of Williams was his pride, but he insisted on being treated like a war hero for the remainder of the day.

  As I fell asleep that night, I swore that if Tony didn't turn up the next day, I'd swim back to Geraldton on my own.

  Eighteen

  When I surfaced from my customary dawn swim, the Stella Maris floated at anchor in the shallows and Tony was halfway to shore in the tender. I whooped and raced down the beach to meet him, scattering peeping terns into flight.

  "I've missed you, too," he called over the water.

  My laughter must have woken some of the others, if the terns hadn't done it, as the shed door swung open and two rumpled men stumbled outside.

  It took a couple of hours before they were all packed up and ready to leave. My bag was packed within five minutes and I headed off for a walk with Tony while his cousins ferried everyone and their things out to the boat.

  As soon as the others were out of earshot, he asked, "You looked so happy to see me when we arrived. How come you're the only one who's not smiling now?"

  I stared at the waves breaking on the reef, wondering how I'd sleep without the ceaseless thunder. Home. It was the sound of home.

  "I like it out here. Something about the salt and the sea and the isolation. I'll be sad to go," I said.

  Tony folded his arms across his chest and eyed the crashing waves. "Dad said the new boat's perfect for setting up a fishing business up here. We're late because we were checking out the mangrove islands to the north of here – some look big enough to set up a permanent camp. Houses and jetties out to where the water's deep enough to float even our Stella." He sighed. "My cousins are supposed to be the ones to set up the new business while I stay in Fremantle and run the rest from there, but if you like it out here...I'd leave Fremantle to the others and start fresh up here with you, if you want."

  His eyes held a serious question and I knew I couldn't just shrug it off. Tony's questions had grown increasingly serious, the longer I'd known him. "I'd love to return here. Fishing out here would be a wonderful life, I think, though not an easy one."

  He turned to face me and the look in his eyes smote my heart. "Maria, I know you don't want to love another fisherman after you lost your husband, but do you think that maybe in your heart you might –"

  "Tony, you better come quick." Vince Basile burst out of the bushes. "One of the tourists wants to bring a seal on the boat with him. Says he wants the head as a trophy for goring his leg. Only the seal isn't dead yet and he wants us to catch it for him."

  Tony swore in Italian and reluctantly followed his cousin back to the boat. A quick exchange made Williams decide that he didn't need a dead sea lion after all and I realised we were the only ones left – everyone else was aboard the Stella. I handed my bag to Vince and helped Tony push the boat off the beach and into the shallows, before leaping in. I took my preferred seat at the bow and curled my knees up on the bench beside me.

  Tony didn't finish whatever he'd been trying to say, but he seemed as deep in thought as I was. Could I live out here? Yes. Could I spend the rest of my life operating a fishing business out here? Absolutely. Could I do it side by side with Tony? Yes – we made a great team. Could I love Tony, the way he did me?

  If it weren't for William...

  I didn't know.

  Nineteen

  In contrast to our previous campsite on Pelsaert Island, Rat Island was positively civilised. Tony tied the Stella up beside a long, stone jetty that jutted out from the northeast corner of the island. All our supplies went into carts that ran on rails to limestone buildings on the island. No steam engine pushed these, though –
they were hand carts. It was still an improvement over the rusty hut we'd shared for the last week.

  The rattling carts announced our arrival far more effectively than any doorbell. I recognised some of the fishermen who appeared outside the buildings. Lombardi, Davis, Cuocci...and several other men I knew vaguely by sight but couldn't name. Vince, Steven and Tony exchanged greetings with the other fishermen, who fell silent when they saw me.

  Silence I felt compelled to break. "Good morning." I glanced around. "Where are the famous rats the island's named for?"

  Most of them laughed. The notable exception was Davis, who acted as though I'd offered him a personal insult.

  "You'll see them soon enough," Lombardi said. "We have cats to keep 'em down, but even the cats can only catch so many a night."

  It turned out that all of the houses were taken by the various fishermen, so we were portioned out. Lucy, Domenic and I, along with the three Basile boys, would be staying in the same one as Lombardi. The married couples went with Davis and the remaining single men ended up in the third building, following a blonde fisherman I'd never met before.

  After a lunch of sandwiches made from some of the fresh supplies Tony had brought from Geraldton, Davis insisted on taking us on a walking tour of the island. It was very easy going, as he followed the path of the railway tracks that ran all over the island. Part of the guano miners' infrastructure, he said, when I asked. My heart sank as I realised that there was no mining going on here, either. What if William's mine had closed and he'd gone back to Scotland? I could take ship for there, but I'd spent months learning about the colonies – I knew little or nothing of Scotland.

  "Where are the guano miners now?" Mrs Williams ventured.

  Davis shrugged. "Doing other jobs, or working at other mines. The new factories in Europe want higher grade guano than we have here. Maybe at Christmas Island."

  Christmas Island! That's the place William had spoken about. I wanted to ask more about it, but Davis was already twenty feet ahead of me and I hurried to catch up.

  When we reached the southwest corner of the island, I stared out to sea, drowning out Davis' commentary as I listened to the boom of the breakers on a reef I could barely see. Pelsaert wasn't the only island that felt like home – this one did, too. And this one had a water supply – Davis had already pointed out the stone well.

  If I stayed on land, I wanted it to be here. Isolated from cities where my people could do the most harm, but still among humans. There were plenty of fish – the large number of fishermen here proved it. Maybe I could build a house here, facing the ocean, and a jetty like the stone one I'd seen. I stepped closer to the cliff, wanting to see how deep the water was here.

  "Careful, Maria!" Davis said, pointing down. My eyes followed his finger and I realised I was treading on a grave. I backed away hurriedly and scanned the marble cross marking the head of it. Giuseppe Benvenuto, who'd died...in the summer of 1921.

  No. It wasn't possible. My Giuseppe had drowned and I'd seen his body sink to the ocean depths. It couldn't be buried in the stone beneath my feet.

  Numbly, I barely listened to whatever Davis said as he led us around the island, pointing at birds, nests and piles of rocks as if they had the power to interest me.

  I sat silently by the fire as others prepared our dinner that night. The stars spilled across the sky like scattered salt and I willed my body to be as cold as they appeared to be. No feeling, no pain.

  The fishermen started telling stories of shipwrecks at the islands and I realised there'd been a lot. One where the people had massacred each other when their food and water supplies ran low. One where they'd survived by hunting seals on Pelsaert Island. Idly, I wondered if Williams' bum-biting bull remembered those days and had been seeking revenge.

  When someone mentioned that we'd been at Pelsaert and seen the wreckage of the Windsor, Davis piped up with the sad tale of how some of the guano miners who'd gone to rescue those aboard the Windsor had perished in the attempt and that's why the mining camp was empty – because it was haunted.

  Several men laughed at this, but Davis insisted it was true. "There's a vengeful ghost here on Rat Island, too, you know," he added.

  He seemed to treat the loud laughter as an invitation to continue. "There was a cyclone that hit the Abrolhos a few years back. The fishing boats were all securely tied in the anchorage here, just like they are now, but one boat broke free. When it overturned in the huge waves, the two men aboard were thrown into the water. It was each man for himself and they both struck out for shore, but only one man reached it – the skipper. The other man – his mate – disappeared.

  "Now, in the morning, when the storm had died down a little, the skipper told everyone his mate couldn't swim, so no one looked very hard for the man before they called off the search. Instead, they looked for the boat and brought it up to the surface for repairs. Three weeks later, on the day the skipper's boat was finally ready to go fishing again, the guano miners came back to repair the damage to their jetty and start work again. One of them noticed something strange on the island just to the north of here. Three fishermen rowed a dinghy over to the island for a closer look.

  "There, they found the mate's body. He'd hauled himself out on the island with a broken leg, like an injured seal, and there he lay, in full view of the skipper repairing his boat here on the beach. And the skipper just let him lie there until he died of thirst and exposure. Now that's a horrible way to die. The fishermen buried his body at the southwest point, in the grave you saw. So now that vengeful mate roams Rat Island at night, looking for the skipper who murdered him by letting him die slowly for want of a drink of water."

  "Davis, you're a damn liar," a voice roared. The man who stormed over to Davis looked like he'd been relieving himself and his pants were in danger of slipping down, he'd returned so fast. "No one ever saw Benvenuto on that island. We found his body down near the southwest point and he drowned, man. I tried to carry a rope to shore to help him, but the current was too strong and I had to let go or I'd have died, too. The last time I saw him alive, he was floating on the well hatch. We searched every damn island twice for him and Little Sandy Island isn't big enough to ignore someone on. I wasn't the only man here. Lombardi, you were here. Weston and Olivari, too. I no more murdered him than you did, you –"

  The man with the rope. I recognised him. This was the man who'd almost drowned beside my Giuseppe. The body buried at the cliffs was him. I jumped to my feet and hurried away, feeling hot tears streaming down my face. I didn't care. I followed the tram lines blindly until they ended at the cliff and the body of my beloved.

  He'd let go of that hatch to cling to me, so I could swim him to safety. We'd beached, yes, at a deserted sand island that was just for us. And in the cold, surrounded by storm and not knowing what the future held, we'd made love. He'd been a gentle lover, for he knew it was my first time, and I'd responded to his touch as if there were fire in my blood. Fire I could use to warm him.

  I fell to my knees on the grave, sobbing my heart out and wishing I could hold him one last time, but I knew I never would. It was my fault for trying to return him to his people. If I'd left him on the tiny island, they'd have found him quickly and he might have lived. Instead, I'd pulled him back into the water to his death. The sharks had come and I forgot he was asleep. I forgot he couldn't swim and his heavy clothes would drag him under. I forgot he didn't have gills and a tail as I did. I'd fought the sharks and I'd lost him. And when I found his body on the seafloor, it was cold. Cold as my heart. Cold until the day William woke it with a touch. And I'd almost killed him, too.

  "Maria?"

  I didn't want to answer. Maria had been Giuseppe's name for me. I now knew it wasn't that at all – he'd thought I was Saint Maria, Star of the Sea, the virgin saint the churchgoers believed had borne their saviour. He'd thought I was the saint come to save him and not the siren who would swim him to his death. I was safer swimming away. Safer for all those humans I'd hur
t if I stayed near them for too long. Time to end this misguided trial of living life on land. I'd failed. The ocean had won as it always did.

  I needed to slip over the cliff, into the water and away. But if I did, Tony would follow me. He'd followed me from the fire and it was his voice asking me, "Maria, are you all right?"

  Swallowing, I nodded, then realised that it was too dark for Tony to see the movement of my head. "I just...he drowned in a cyclone." I hiccupped.

  "He did. Lombardi helped dig the grave and the boys at the Young Italian Club paid for the marble headstone. He...damn. You're thinking of your husband, aren't you? That's the life of a fisherman. Never knowing if this voyage will be your last, if the next storm will swallow you, or if the fish will bite and bring you enough income to feed your family. No woman deserves to be married to a man who may never come home. Maybe fishermen shouldn't get married. Like priests, only married to their boat instead."

  I managed a weak smile. Wearing a priest's robes on a boat was a terrible idea. Not practical at all.

  Almost as stupid as diving from this cliff and swimming away from the life I'd built, as if I could run from it.

  "I wouldn't be surprised if Lombardi and Miragliotta stake Davis out for the rats and seabirds tonight. He won't be telling any more scary stories tonight, that's for sure." Tony snorted. "Do you want to go back, or stay out here a bit longer?"

  I rose and dusted off my hands. "We should probably go back. It's pretty cold away from the fire with that southerly blowing."

  Twenty

  "I've never seen pearls this big. And the colours! Where did you get these?" Charles asked as he fingered the globes spread across his black velvet cloth.

  I smiled at the jeweller. "Fishing up north, we found some unusual oysters. When I opened them up, this is what I found." What I didn't add was that the handful I'd given him was only a tiny part of what I had at home. And these were the poorest quality ones, too. In the fortnight I'd been home from the Abrolhos, I'd done my research with the pearl merchants. More than they'd realised – from their ledgers, I knew who paid the best price for pearls and he sat in front of me now.