Ocean's Gift

by Carlton, Demelza

  “What’s wrong with your internet and phone?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” he said. “We got a sparky who came over, told us we’d need this stuff, then took a job up in the mines before we got the stuff shipped up. He says he can’t install it now.”

  “Let me take a look,” I suggested.

  “The Department facilities aren’t just a fishing shack. All our electrical and communications work has to be carried out by a licensed electrician. Sorry mate.” The bloke turned away from me to climb onto his quad bike.

  “I’m a licensed electrician, have been for almost ten years. I’ve been wiring up mining construction and operation camps for the last three. Electrical, communications, the works. I bet I can install it. Let me take a look. If I can’t do anything with it, you can still wait till you find some sparky on the mainland to come over.” I shrugged.

  He turned to look at me. “Mate, what are you doing here if you earn that kind of money? No one leaves a mining job to be a deckie out here.”

  I laughed. “I get two months off a year, and I’m on holidays. I told one of my mates I wanted to go fishing on a charter boat. He told me about this great opportunity, getting paid to go fishing as a deckie.” My expression must have said it all.

  The bloke laughed. “In that case, if you want to take a look, go ahead. If you can fix our communications, give me a quote. If it’s not more than the other sparky’s quote, I’ll hire you on the spot.”

  “Sure,” I replied. “I’ll head over now.”

  He buzzed off on his quad bike and I trudged along the tinkling coral shingle path behind him. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, FUCK. Concrete path. I continued on, limping on what felt like two broken toes now. I hobbled up to my shack, grabbed my tools and headed back along the path.

  When I’d reached the Fisheries camp, I saw the boxes were still in the trailer. I opened one up and took a look at the parts. It looks like a full reinstall. Shit, this is going to be easy. The uniformed bloke came into sight, carrying a ladder.

  “There you go, sparky. Knock yourself out.” He laughed.

  “My name’s Joe,” I told him. “It’ll be on the quote.”

  “I’m Glen, Senior Operations Manager out here,” he replied. “If you can get our communications failure fixed, you can come over and watch the footy with us on the big camp TV whenever you want.”

  “When’s the next match?” I asked. I was too embarrassed to tell him I didn’t know what day it was. The lobsters didn’t care and I didn’t have TV reception in my shack.

  “Tonight. West Coast versus Richmond.” Glen smirked. “But the other sparky told me it’d take him a week to get that stuff installed. So, maybe next week, mate.”

  I laughed. “Then the other bloke was a pretty shit electrician. I bet he’d never seen some of this stuff before and he told you a week because he had no idea what he was doing. I’ve spent three years installing this sort of gear. I could do it with my eyes closed. I figure I got four hours till dark. If I can get your communications working by kickoff, will you pay me whatever he quoted you?”

  Glen considered for a minute. “Sure mate. Bring your own beer, though.”

  A week’s pay for four hours’ work? I’ll need the beer to celebrate. I nodded and got to work.

  19. Belinda

  We played with the dolphins through the channel, from the depths to leaping across the surface. I laughed for the sheer joy of it, after the caution and control of life on land.

  I dove through the remains of vessels in the depths. One ship rested on the bottom with its masts upright, as if it might sail on the surface instead of the sea floor. Once the craft of a lobster fisherman, the lobsters had reclaimed the vessel in a peculiar revenge.

  The tuna were no longer in the channel. A dolphin spotted them in the passage to the north. We proceeded up the passage between the islands in the Wallabi Group, searching for the elusive fish. We could have called them to us, but my pleasure was in the chase and the swim.

  Sea lions slept on shore and sharks swam through the passage. Tiger sharks, a hammerhead, some smaller whalers and a wobbegong passed us, but none had the temerity to attempt a taste of us.

  I watched the sharks, wondering if they had taken the tuna, when Maria called my name.

  Pointing through the coral, she looked puzzled. “What is that? It looks like a human artefact, but it has been in the water a long time.”

  We darted between the coral gardens, eerie in the light of the full moon in the sky above. Between the coral, we came upon a corroded, coral-encrusted cannon. Nearby was a large hole carved in the reef, where something had evidently been removed.

  “I think it is from one of the old shipwrecks, before there were humans on these islands. The humans removed this shipwreck to display on land.”

  Maria touched the corroded metal of the cannon. “There are more of these, further to the south. Do the humans not know of them all?”

  I reflected before I responded. “Perhaps they do not. The humans fear the waves near the reefs. The pull of the water’s power, the surge in the swell during a storm, the feeling of fresh water flowing across our skin…these are pleasures for our people alone. The humans know little of such things.” My sigh sent a stream of bubbles to the surface.

  Maria gave a bubbly snort. “People who cannot revel in the simple pleasures of life? I pity the humans more than ever.”

  One of the dolphins called to us over our conversation. She said they would come for us the following evening, once the sun had set.

  We bade the dolphins farewell, promising to return the following night to search for the school tuna. We headed quickly in the direction of the Siren.

  20. Joe

  On my way home after the footy was finished, I cut across the rocky scrub to the back of my shack. Just as I reached my back door, the generator behind the house sputtered and was silent. The lights in the house next door dimmed and went out. It must be time for bed, I thought.

  I opened the door and went in. I shut it behind me and heard another door slam. Through the window, I could see a shape heading for the generator shed with a torch, swearing loudly.

  I found my torch and headed back outside, toward the generator shed.

  “Useless piece of shit. Now my ice cream’s going to melt. I’ll get a new one sent over from the mainland tomorrow.” Unmistakeably female and obviously pissed off.

  I stepped into the shed doorway. “Can I help?” I offered.

  Vanessa crouched over the generator, a rusted hammer in her hand. “No. I’m going to beat the crap out of this until I feel better and I’ll have a new one that works tomorrow.”

  Wow. Sweet, friendly Vanessa has a volcanic temper.

  “You might not need to. I can probably fix it,” I told her. It sounded like it had just run out of fuel.

  “What, because blokes know more about generators, and having boobs makes girls useless at telling when equipment needs to be replaced?” She rose to her full height stiffly. She had the hammer raised and as she turned to glare at me, she looked as if she might consider using it on me. She was quivering with anger, the aforementioned boobs doubly so.

  Those boobs may not affect your technical ability, but they’re distracting me from mine.

  Unable to help it, I burst out laughing, my hands up in surrender. “No, because I’m a licensed electrician and I probably know more about generators than most of the people on this island. But I’m happy to let you break your hammer on it, if you like. It’s your generator.” I backed away from her.

  Her lips quirked into a slight smile as she looked at me quizzically. “You think you can fix this piece of shit?”

  “I’m willing to try,” I began, “if you hold up the torch so I can get a good look at it.”

  She held up her torch, spotlighting the generator, and moved out of my way.

  A quick examination of the generator told me that there didn’t look to be anything seriously wrong with it. I went around the back of
it and kicked the fuel drum it was connected to. It echoed hollowly. Yep, out of fuel.

  I kicked the next fuel drum and wished I hadn’t – it was full. Fuck, those broken toes hurt like hell. Quickly, I unhooked the empty drum and connected the fuel hose to the new drum. I tried to start the generator again. It took a few tries, until the diesel had a chance to run through it, before it settled into a healthy buzz. Behind me, the lights in her house flickered back on.

  I backed out of the generator shed to stand next to her, wiping my oily hands on my shorts. “So, are you going to put the hammer down now?” I asked.

  She looked in surprise at the hammer clutched in her hand, before going back into the shed and hanging it on the wall. She closed the shed door behind her as she stepped back outside.

  She looked at me, her expression difficult to discern in the torchlight. “Thank you,” she said in wonder, holding out her hand to shake mine.

  My fingers closed over hers. Rust and diesel, salt and lubricant. Instead of wanting to pull away and wash my hands, I held hers for longer than necessary.

  “Any time,” I told her. “If you have more trouble with your generator, let me know. You know where I live.” Reluctantly, I let go.

  She rubbed her hands together as if she was dying to wash them, but a smile lit her face. “Come in for a second and wash your hands. I’ll get you a beer – it’s the least I can do. After all, you saved my ice cream.”

  I followed her back to her house, shaking my head. Well this has to be the strangest house call I’ve had yet. At least it’ll make a funny story to tell in between Dean’s interminable ones.

  Silhouetted in the doorway against the light, Vanessa looked mouthwatering. Ah, he won’t believe me anyway.

  I swallowed and followed her inside.

  21. Belinda

  “What is it that you miss most of home?”

  Maria’s question surprised me, but there was no hesitation in my response. “I miss my daughter, Zerafina. I do not like to be apart from her.”

  “I do not miss Estella so much. She is twelve now, learning about human culture and language so that she may better blend in with them when she does her duty among them.” Maria sounded thoughtful.

  I was curious. “What do you miss, then?”

  Maria hesitated before she answered. “I miss Cantrella. Human beds are cold, alone without her. I miss her conversation and her insight.” She gave a sigh.

  I thought of the elder who was Maria’s partner. “But she would never live on land among humans for long. She does not like them.”

  Maria immediately leaped to the defence of her partner. “She did her duty among humans who were cruel and hurt her. Would you like them if they had forced themselves inside you, without your permission?”

  “I doubt I would. I understand now why you had difficulty in doing your duty, when the time came. As Cantrella’s partner, you must share her thoughts and feelings often.” I attempted to sound conciliatory.

  Maria was thoughtful once more. “Yes, though not always. She dislikes dolphins, also, for reasons she cannot explain. She says that they remind her of humans. Yet I have no distaste for them – they are less like humans than we are.”

  I returned to my initial question. “Is there anything else you miss?”

  Maria closed her eyes, her response deep with yearning. “When I wake up to find the sun shining far too bright, I miss the darkness in the deep. I dislike the sense of smell we have on land, and I miss the absence of it in the water. I miss the feel of the pull of strong currents on my body in the open ocean, for the currents are dampened by the reefs and the shallow water here. I miss feeling connected through the water to every living thing in it – the air is too thin to give me that feeling.”

  An amusing idea came to me. “And when you are in the deep, is there anything of the land that you will miss?”

  Now Maria’s voice was quick and businesslike. “Coffee, chocolate, chilli and beer. And playing with the dolphins in the shallow water, though they are not of the land.”

  I smiled and said, “I will miss my fire drink, warm food and hot showers. I will miss chilli, also. Speaking of chilli, I have an idea. What do you say to bringing our catch back to the vessel and placing chilli on it before we eat it?”

  The idea struck her as it did me. “You mean the whole fish, eating it as our people eat it, but with the addition of chilli?”

  I was eager to try this new idea. “Yes. It seems an intriguing idea, which I suspect will have a pleasant taste.”

  Maria was more cautious. “This is an idea I would like to try. Does the type of fish matter?”

  I dismissed details in my desire to experiment. “No, I think we will try it with whatever we catch on the swim back. Let’s see who can catch the biggest!” I darted off into the water, Maria not far behind.

  22. Joe

  “Bathroom’s this way,” Vanessa told me, leading the way.

  I followed her through the now well-lit house. She had vinyl and tiled floors on the concrete, instead of the bare concrete in my shack. The bathroom was old, but definitely a lot better than my tiny mouldy one. I washed my hands in a sink with a brand-new bar of soap, some liquid handwash and a nailbrush that looked too clean to touch.

  It looked strangely empty for a woman’s bathroom. A toothbrush, the soap and not much else, except a container of salt. I’d never seen a bathroom used by a girl which didn’t have some makeup or hair products scattered around. Hell, my sisters took up so much space in our shared bathroom, when I was home I gave up putting any of my stuff in there. I just used theirs and smelt of whatever fruit-scented shampoos and soaps they’d picked. There were worse things for my arse to smell of than coconut or mango.

  I dried my hands on a pristine white towel that I tried to touch as little as possible.

  Vanessa sidled in behind me and started to wash her own hands, taking longer than I had. I watched her for a moment. Her fingers were long and thin, topped by nails that were surprisingly short. She didn’t have any nail polish on them. I looked down. Nope, none on her toes, either. I tried to focus on her toes. They looked long and straight, like her fingers, but something about them was strange. It’s not that they were any longer than anyone else’s toes, just…not right. I felt dizzy and closed my eyes. All those months of no drinking on site, a six-pack of beer and I’m imagining things.

  I opened my eyes to find she was right in front of me, those unadorned toes almost touching my feet. Ten perfect toes, perfectly normal.

  She reached around me to get the towel, her arm brushing my shirt.

  I realised I’d frozen in exactly the wrong spot and stepped out of her way to go to the kitchen instead. She followed me, wiping her hands on the towel as she went. She hung it on the back of one of the dining chairs, before opening the fridge.

  “What sort of beer would you like?” she asked. “We have Corona and something called Cooper’s that one of my deckhands likes.”

  I accepted a Cooper’s Pale Ale as she chose a Corona, opening them both with the bottle opener on the side of the fridge. A girl’s house this may be, but the bottle opener was in the right place.

  “To the miracle man who came to help a girl in distress,” Vanessa said, lifting her beer to clink it against mine. We both drank.

  A thought came to her as soon as she had a mouthful of beer. She put the bottle down on the table, opening her mouth to say something, then closed it again, looking embarrassed. “Would you like to sit down, in the lounge?” She said it in a rush.

  “Sure,” I replied, following her to the other end of the big room. There were two metal-framed futon sofas here, which presumably earned it the title of lounge.

  She perched on the edge of one as I sank back into the other, leaning right back with a sigh. Even her elderly sofas were more comfortable than the one in my shack.

  “I figured everyone else would be asleep,” she said. “What were you still doing up, or was I making too much noise?” Th
is had evidently just occurred to her and she looked worried.

  I shrugged. “I was watching the footy with some of the Fisheries guys and I’d just got back to my shack when I heard some pretty loud swearing. I was going to go to bed, but it sounded pretty dire. I figured I’d better go help before someone got killed.”

  She looked down, embarrassed. “You thought I was going to kill someone?” She put the beer to her lips.

  “Well, the way you held that hammer, I figured if the generator wasn’t going to get it, you might use it on me,” I admitted.

  She almost choked on her beer as she burst out laughing. “So you braved the mad girl with a hammer to save a generator from a violent death at her hands, at great personal danger to yourself? You’re the generator’s hero!”

  I’d prefer to be yours. I grinned back. “Yeah, well it wouldn’t be the first time I saved a generator from death.”

  I told her about one night out on site, when the generator had died just as Dean started cooking dinner. He’d been holding a cook’s knife and cutting up steak when the lights went out. Then I told her about fixing the communications for the Fisheries camp.

  She looked impressed. “You know how to install communications for a place like this, in the middle of nowhere?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Sure,” I told her. “That’s my job the rest of the year. I set up communications and electricity for remote mining camps. Once I get the equipment and the power set up, hooking up the satellite uplinks and the network is easy...” I continued for a bit more, until I realised I was boring her. She had that polite, glazed look I wore when my sisters talked about the merits of tampons, foundation or vampires. I remembered that I was talking to a woman who’d just threatened a generator with a hammer, because she didn’t know it had run out of fuel.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologised. “You’re very easy to talk to.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry that I don’t understand. Do you mean that you can set up communications for a house so that we could get the internet out here?”