Deep Water

by Whitcroft, Isla;

  Cate knew that Michel wasn’t the sort of person to care what she was wearing, but still, she was thrilled with the clothes. ‘Thanks again,’ she said. ‘That is so kind of you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Nancy, turning back to Hello! magazine. ‘Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding. Anyway, it didn’t exactly set me back much.’

  Cate grinned inwardly as she sat back down in her chair. You could always rely on Nancy to be brutally honest. And, to be fair to her, at least she had actually remembered the reason why Cate had come all this way.

  With just a few minutes left before the plane began its descent, Cate allowed herself the luxury of becoming excited at seeing Michel again. Back in London, she’d tried not to miss him that much. But now she realised she was desperate to see him again, to tell him all her news, face to face.

  She had texted Michel to tell him the time of her expected arrival at Passande. She knew that reception at the camp was patchy and she wasn’t surprised when there had been no reply by the time she had needed to switch her phone off on board the jet. But still, she was hoping against hope that he had received her message and would be waiting for her at the airport. Could he possibly be as handsome as she remembered?

  The noise of the wheels descending from the underbelly of the plane brought Cate out of her daydream. She looked out of her window onto an endless forest through which a narrow strip had been cut for the runway. Parallel to that, she could see the ocean filling the horizon, an impossibly blue backdrop to endless dots of emerald islands fringed with bright white sand.

  The Friday Islands, thought Cate, marvelling at the beauty and the colours. I’ve really arrived.

  ‘Welcome to Passande airport,’ said the stewardess as the plane drew to a halt. ‘The gateway to the Friday Islands. It’s been an honour to fly with you and we look forward to seeing you again soon.’

  The door at the front of the plane opened and immediately Cate could feel the heat seeping down through the cabin. It felt different from Sydney – hotter, damper. Suddenly Cate couldn’t wait to be off the plane, away from the airport, starting her holiday. For now she was going to forget about the IMIA and the Eco Trust and just enjoy the experience of being somewhere completely different. She grabbed her bags and marched past Nancy, who was applying her lipstick, and out into the afternoon heat.

  The humidity was almost overwhelming, pressing down on her like a heavy woollen blanket, and within seconds of leaving the jet, Cate was drenched in perspiration. She found herself almost running to the doors of the airport and the blessed relief of the air conditioning.

  The band followed her, clutching various bags and instruments. The Aussie soap star was looking decidedly dishevelled, her thick make-up showing signs of running in the heat. Last off were Lucas and Nancy, Nancy already chatting away to someone on her mobile.

  ‘This is goodbye for now then, Nancy.’ Cate gave her a hug, even though she was still on the phone. ‘Thanks so much for the place to stay and ride. Drop me a text and let me know how fab the island is, won’t you?’

  Nancy put her hand over the receiver. ‘Sure thing, babe,’ she said, ‘and come and see us, have a bath, take in a massage. Even save-the-world types need a bit of luxury sometimes.’

  Cate grinned. ‘Honestly, Nancy, I’ve told you, I’m not saving the world. I’m helping look after some turtles.’

  ‘Whatever,’ she said, putting the phone back to her ear. ‘See ya, Cate, and say hi to the lovely Michel.’

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ Cate said to Lucas.

  ‘Take my number, kid,’ said Lucas, passing a small card into her hand. ‘This is my private line. When it rings I know it really is an emergency. Only my close friends and family have this. Only use it if you really have to and, if you sell it to the papers, I swear I’ll kill you.’ He smiled at her. ‘Or I’ll just get it changed.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Cate. She was genuinely touched.

  ‘Come on, babes.’ Nancy had finished her call now and was impatient to be going. ‘The limo is outside waiting.’

  As Nancy and the band took a private exit, Cate went into the arrivals lounge, scanning the faces, looking for the familiar blue eyes, crinkly smile and dark floppy hair. Then suddenly Michel was beside her, lifting her up in a massive bear hug and planting kisses on her cheeks and, after a moment’s hesitation, her lips. ‘Cate! I have missed you so much. You look amazing! I never thought it was possible to want to see someone so badly!’

  ‘Me too,’ said Cate, feeling slightly dizzy as he set her back down on the ground. ‘Michel, I am just so happy to be with you again.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Michel led her to the far end of the car park where, under the shade of the sugar canes, a large yellow motocross bike waited, two helmets strapped to the side.

  Cate looked at Michel, excitement welling up inside. Her dad had a Harley Davidson which he rode for pleasure, often taking Cate out to the country on it at weekends. She loved those rides, the speed, the thrill of the powerful acceleration and the feeling of freedom they brought with them. She even got a kick out of travelling to school on the back of Monique’s powerful Lambretta scooter and she had already put one on her wish list for her seventeenth birthday.

  ‘Michel, is that yours?’ She hardly dared ask in case she was disappointed.

  He nodded, his grin larger than ever. ‘Well, not exactly mine, of course, but I have hired it for the time I am out here. The camp is so remote that this bike makes great sense. It gets me to the most inaccessible of places.’

  ‘Genius,’ said Cate, as Michel strapped her luggage onto the back rack and handed her a helmet. ‘Let’s go!’

  The bike bumped and skittered over the rutted track, through endless mango groves. Hanging on tightly as Michel weaved the bike around the potholes and deep furrows, Cate found herself having to duck to avoid overhanging branches. Several flocks of parakeets, disturbed by the engine’s roar, rose up in a great shriek, their whirring, flashing wings a kaleidoscope of bright colours. Cate could smell the dry, almost burning intensity of the peaty soil thrown up by the wheels, and the unmistakable tang of the sea breeze.

  Soon the mango groves were thinning and the neat rows of tall trees became more erratic and interspersed with other tropical vegetation. As Michel slowed the bike, Cate glimpsed the sea over his shoulder and her heart soared.

  Michel steered the bike over the end of the track before coming to a halt by a large timber-framed hut built on stilts. He switched off the engine and, as Cate swung her leg over the saddle of the bike and removed her helmet, she heard the first unmistakable sounds of the ocean. Even on that calm day it was remarkably loud, sucking back and roaring forwards across the shingle sand.

  ‘Welcome to Snapper Bay,’ said Michel proudly, draping his arm over her shoulder as they walked around the side of the hut. ‘I can hardly believe you’re actually here with me, Cate,’ he said, pulling her close. ‘Thank you for coming all this way. I promise we’ll have a great time.’

  Cate squeezed his hand. Any anxiety she had had about seeing Michel again had vanished, but for a few seconds Cate’s stomach lurched as she thought of how she was supposed to deceive him, spy on his friends, abuse their hospitality. She hoped against hope that it would turn out to be nothing, just over-caution on the part of Marcus and Henri, and that Michel would never have to find out about it.

  She gave herself a mental shake. ‘Stop thinking about the IMIA,’ she said to herself sternly. ‘Just for a while, be a teenager and enjoy being here with Michel.’

  She looked around her with interest. A dozen or so tents and tepees, in a variety of colours and conditions, were pitched in two separate groups in the sandy soil between the trees, which lined the edge of the beach. In front of them lay a circle of blackened stones, the remains of a campfire, surrounded by sawn off tree trunks, large boulders and a few plastic camp seats.

  Several tents had been customised with bunting or flags, one or two wer
e spray-painted in vivid colours, and hammocks were slung between the trees around them. A clear stream ran quietly beside the camp, forming intricate patterns in the sand before fanning out into a deep orange delta as it reached the edge of the beach just a few metres away.

  ‘It’s really pretty,’ said Cate, as she stared at the peaceful scene. ‘So cool. I can’t believe that just a few days ago I was in cold, grey London and now I’m here in this paradise.’

  Michel laughed. ‘I know what you mean. I felt exactly the same when I first got here.’

  Cate was suddenly struck by how empty the camp seemed to be. ‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.

  ‘A couple will be out on boat patrol, keeping the tourists and their speedboats away from the bay, some are down on the beach checking that there aren’t any predators sniffing around the turtle nests,’ Michel explained. ‘Late afternoon is a busy time for us.’

  ‘Hey, Michel!’ A tall Japanese girl came out from behind the trees and walked towards them, her smile wide and friendly. She gave Michel an energetic high five before putting out her hand to Cate. ‘Hi, you must be Cate. I’ve heard heaps about you from Michel and Noah. I’m Mitsu. I’m from Kyoto. Welcome to Snapper Bay.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Cate shook her hand, touched by her friendliness. ‘Lovely place you’ve got here.’

  ‘Michel, I’m really sorry to do this to you when Cate has only just arrived . . .’ Mitsu was smiling apologetically. ‘Noah asked if you could come and help him right away. He’s trying to move some logs and he needs another pair of strong arms.’

  She turned to Cate. ‘Sorry to you too, but I’m happy to show you around instead. Unless you want a nap that is?’

  Cate hesitated, looking up at Michel.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort things out with Noah and bring your bag over in a while.’

  ‘The girls’ tents are over there,’ Mitsu said, pointing to one of the groups. ‘I hope you don’t mind being in my tent – no one else will put up with my snoring.’ She winked at Cate as she spoke and Cate felt herself relaxing. If everyone was as friendly as this, she was going to have a great time.

  ‘Let’s start with the most important place,’ said Mitsu, linking her arm through Cate’s. ‘The loos. Luckily they’re not as bad as you might think.’

  As they reached the edge of the clearing and headed into the trees, Cate felt rather than saw a movement in the dry grasses and instinctively stood still.

  A snake-like head poked out of the grasses, its black eyes darting around furiously before the remainder of its long thick body and even longer tail was hauled out into the sunshine.

  ‘Oh my God,’ breathed Cate, hardly daring to move a muscle. ‘What’s that? Some kind of lizard?’

  ‘It’s a lace monitor,’ whispered Mitsu. ‘Look at the size of its claws. You are very lucky, Cate. We don’t often see them this close to camp.’

  The body of the creature was well over a metre long, its tail at least half that length again. Broad yellow and black stripes covered its reptilian back, giving it the distinct air of an armoured medieval knight. It was surprisingly graceful, moving with sudden rapid bursts of speed as it snuffled, nose down to the rocky soil, now and again stopping to claw at the earth in the search for yet more bugs to eat.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ said Cate, completely transfixed. ‘Like some prehistoric creature.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is,’ replied Mitsu. ‘They’ve been around for literally millions of years. Like those lovely turtles on the beach down there. They’ve been coming here almost since time began to lay their eggs and hatch their young. They are so precious, so incredible. Yet you’d be surprised just how much protection the turtles need.’

  ‘From what?’ said Cate, feeling stupid about asking such an obvious question.

  ‘From fishermen who chuck their lines and nets overboard and don’t care if the turtles get tangled up in them and drown,’ said Mitsu, all traces of her previous cheerfulness vanished. ‘Thugs on jet skis or in powerboats who just charge along at high speed, mowing down everything that happens to get in their way. Not to mention dumb sailors who ignore the warning signs we have put up in the bay and bring in their boats to the beach because they fancy a picnic. Or, worse still, decide to do a spot of night fishing and shine bright lights onto the water. The poor turtles get disorientated and can easily drown.’ She shook her head. ‘A couple of weeks ago some drunken holidaymakers decided it would be a great idea to take a midnight boat trip from their hotel on Summer Island.’ She pointed out to sea. ‘They ended up in this bay, dropped their anchor and started to party, complete with lights and music. Somehow they failed to notice that they were bang smack in the middle of a shoal of turtles who were trying to get to shore to lay their eggs.’

  She grinned. ‘They got a heck of a shock when they found themselves surrounded by several irate eco-warriors in their kayaks. They hardly spoke any English. Luckily Miles is fluent in Spanish and he managed to persuade them to go and party somewhere else. Seriously, Cate, if we weren’t here I really believe the turtles wouldn’t stand a chance.’

  There was a silence as Cate digested this information.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mitsu said suddenly with a smile. ‘How depressing am I?’

  Cate gave her arm a squeeze. ‘You just care, that’s all. Most people stick their heads in the sand and hope it’ll all be OK. You’re out here, accepting reality and trying to make a difference. I’m really impressed.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mitsu. ‘Speaking of Miles, I hear you popped into the Eco HQ. How was it?’

  Cate felt herself go pink. She hoped that Mitsu wouldn’t notice that she had something to hide.

  ‘Errm it was, um, grungy,’ she said. Well, that was true, anyway.

  ‘A bit like our bathroom arrangements then.’ Mitsu laughed and pointed to three small timber shacks standing close together in a clearing ahead of them. ‘There are the composting loos. The waste is digested by a quick-acting bacteria which converts it into a brilliant compost – one that doesn’t actually smell.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Cate, who had had a rather nasty experience with portaloos at a rock festival the previous autumn that had left her feeling nauseous.

  ‘And over there . . .’ Mitsu gestured to several large black bags, hung from branches, with hoses disappearing behind material panels. ‘. . . is the shower area. Each shower is solar heated and then the water drains away to a reed filter bed not far away. We’ve come here to help keep this place pristine, not to mess it up.’

  ‘You’ve thought of everything,’ said Cate. ‘It’s a great setup. I can’t wait to have an open-air shower.’

  As she spoke, a short, powerfully built, dark-skinned young man came striding up through the trees, clad only in dripping surf shorts and a pair of flip flops.

  ‘Hey, Mits,’ he called as he positioned himself under a shower, twisting the plastic nozzle until the water began to run over his hair and shoulders.

  ‘Hey, Jacob,’ said Mitsu. ‘Good day at the office?’

  ‘Wicked,’ said Jacob, as he rubbed the salty residue of the sea off his skin. ‘No reported attacks on eggs, no lunatic jet skiers and, best of all, I spotted a small school of hammerheads out there enjoying a tasty lunch of stingrays. Pretty pleased that the hammerheads got to the stingrays before I did. Otherwise – ouch! Even the suit wouldn’t have saved me from a pretty nasty jab.’

  ‘Cate, meet Jacob Anderson, our resident shark expert and camp leader,’ said Mitsu. ‘He’s majoring in marine studies at the University of Stockholm, but like lots of Scandinavians, he hates the long winters. So every December, as soon as uni breaks up, he jumps on the first plane to Australia, where he does lots of sunbathing, surfing and, of course, a tiny bit of shark watching.’

  ‘How do, Cate?’ said Jacob amiably, tipping his head backwards to keep the water out of his eyes. ‘Mitsu, sell me short, why don’t you? Clearly my intimate knowledge of the shark feeding patterns and th
eir breeding grounds in this area counts for nothing.’

  ‘It’d count for more if you did your fair share of the washing up,’ said Mitsu, winking at Cate as the two of them left him to his shower. ‘Honestly, these academics, they’re all the same. Think things like that are beneath them.’

  They left the last of the trees behind them and walked through a narrow opening in high sand dunes. Suddenly the beach was in front of them, a perfect curve of wide, fine sand framing an almost circular lake of turquoise water, the circle broken only by a narrow mouth through which Cate could see out to the ocean beyond. The sand was so pale it was almost white, the dunes piled up beyond the high tide mark like plump duvets.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Cate, breathing the clean, salty air deep into her lungs.

  She gazed down at the milky surf, watching transfixed as the bright sunlight bounced and shimmered off the ever-shifting surface of the water. As always when she first saw the sea she was seized with an urge to run down to the water and jump over the breaking waves as she used to do with Arthur when they were young children.

  Several brightly coloured kayaks floated just beyond the surf and a rack of wetsuits flapped in the wind. To Cate’s surprise, two tall fishing rods were stuck into the sand at the water’s edge.

  ‘I thought turtles could get caught on hooks,’ she said to Mitsu.

  ‘The turtles hardly ever come into the bay in daylight. They wait until nightfall. It’s safer for them and their eggs if they lay them under cover of darkness.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Cate, looking out at the ocean. ‘So right now, out there, are turtles just waiting for darkness so that they can come in and lay their eggs?’

  Mitsu nodded. ‘Awesome, isn’t it?’

  They stood there in silence for seconds, enjoying the view. Then the older girl touched Cate on the arm. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if the boys are finished.’

  Cate followed Mitsu back up through the dunes to camp. There, two men were sitting on a large log, pouring over a laptop.