Past the Shallows (17 page)

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea when we stop, OK?’ he said.

The fluoro light that bounced off the deck made the skin on Harry’s face glow ghostly blue. He nodded and Jeff must have been
listening to them because he told Harry that if he got sick, he’d have to be tied up on the outside of the railings. He told
Harry that he’d better hold on tight or he’d fall off and they’d never ever find him.

Miles squeezed Harry’s arm and told him to look at the stars to take his mind off things, because out here, away from the
land, it wasn’t raining and there were no clouds. The moon was out, a tiny slither, and some of the brighter stars were still
shining, but
they were becoming translucent and starting to hide. It would be light soon.

And once the sun cracked orange, it came up quick.

It changed everything.

When Miles looked at the horizon he saw three shapes in the distance. They were heading out to the old islands. The Last Islands.

Black in outline, black in shape.

Black Witch, Flat Witch, Temple Rocks.

Rocks that stood alone in the middle of nothing, in the middle of endless ocean. Miles had never been this far out. Beyond
here, what? Only a few clustered specks of black on the map where no one ever lived and where no one ever went.

Maatsuyker was the last island to reach out of the darkness.

The end of the earth.

Out here the pulse could get bigger than ten metres and the islands were marked and scarred. Battered cliffs, broken rocky
beaches, caves worn well into the rock. It was like another world, roaring and squalling with life. Cliffs screaming with
birds, with shearwaters and silver gulls, oystercatchers and storm-petrels. Patches of scrub and green clinging to any flat
surface. And the water was really moving,
deep channels carved between the islands. Silent currents.

Dad anchored the boat as far out of the wind as he could get, on the calmer side of Flat Witch. It was the smallest island,
the flattest. It was just a baby compared with the others. The air pump was on, the boat steady as it could be in the water,
and Dad and Jeff suited up.

They went down.

Miles got Harry a cup of tea and told him he could sit in the cabin now if he wanted to get out of the wind. But he didn’t
want to. He said he might get sick, so he stayed on deck close to Miles. He seemed OK. He wasn’t green and he looked out at
Flat Witch.

‘That is where that lady is meant to have lived,’ Miles said.

Harry looked up at him. ‘What lady?’

‘You know, the one who took off and went bush. Stayed out here.’

Harry shook his head. He mustn’t have ever heard that story.

And it was only a story. That lady. The one who hitched a ride all the way down here with some bags of rice and a tent. Stayed
here. Lived here all on her own. Everyone knew it was only a story. But now that Miles looked closely at the sheltered side
of Flat Witch, he guessed you could do it, live here, because there was life out here. The surface of every water-level rock
chock-f of mussels and probably wild oyster, too. And there would be plenty of small fish in the kelp beds, plenty of crays.

When it wasn’t too windy – when the swell wasn’t coming in crazy – it would be OK out here. You could live here.

‘Where did she come from?’ Harry asked.

Miles shrugged. He wasn’t sure. ‘Maybe the city,’ he said.

‘When was it?’

‘Before we were born sometime. A long time ago.’

‘And what happened? Did she stay? What happened?’

But Miles didn’t know the end to the story. He didn’t know what was meant to have happened to the lady.

‘She decided she’d had enough after a while and she went back to the city,’ Miles said.

Harry looked back at the island.

‘How did she leave?’ he asked.

Miles shook his head slowly. ‘She must have seen a fishing boat and called them over or something.’

Harry looked like he was thinking about that. He looked like he was searching the island for clues.

‘She must have just had enough of everything,’ he said.

And Miles didn’t know whether he meant had enough of life before the island, or life on the island. But there was a loud sound
of metal screeching, the smell of smoke. Then there was the sound of nothing.

Miles stood still. Heat shot up his spine and ripped through his guts. The pumps had stopped. The engine had stopped. Dad
and Jeff had no air.

He ran into the cabin, turned the engine over. Nothing. He tried again, but it wasn’t even ticking over. He lifted up the
floor, squatted down and ripped the metal cover off the engine. He heard his skin blister, felt the sting. The metal was red
hot and it stuck to his skin. When he pulled his hand away his palm was raw. He closed his hand shut, bit down on his tongue.
It must have been at least sixty seconds since the air pump had stopped.

He stood up and tried the engine again. Nothing.

He ran out on deck to the emergency generator to the air pump. It wouldn’t start either. The fuel tank was empty. Miles looked
over at Harry. He was still standing exactly where he had been, looking blank, his arms by his sides. There was nothing else
Miles could do. Nothing.

He stood next to Harry and looked over the side – searched the moving water for bubbles of air. Cold trickles of sweat ran
down his back and he thought that maybe he should just run. Get the hell off the boat and swim for the island, because if
Dad and Jeff made it up alive, then he was dead. But he knew he would never make it, not with Harry. The current was too strong.
If the boat wasn’t anchored, it would be pulled along like it was just a stick on the river. It would get smashed up against
the rocks. Like they would get smashed if they jumped over the side.

‘Miles? Miles?’

Harry was pulling at his arm as Miles threw up over the side.

‘It’s Dad,’ he said.

S
omehow Miles managed to move, help Dad get Jeff on deck and there was blood coming out of his nose, out his ears. His eyes
were open but only the whites showed.

Miles thought he might be dead. Maybe every drop of blood would pour out of him until there was none left.

Dad slumped down next to Jeff on the deck. He lay still and looked up at the sky. He took short breaths in and short breaths
out. One of his eyes was trying to bulge out of its socket. It was bright red, filled with blood, and Miles couldn’t stop
looking at it.

‘What did you do?’ he said.

He tried to sit up and Miles took a step back. He could feel Harry right behind him. Feel Harry’s hand on his arm.

‘It just stopped,’ he said. ‘The engine – it just stopped.’

Dad stared at him, told him to get the oxygen and he ran towards the cabin but there wasn’t any oxygen. They’d lost the tank
with the mako; the first aid kit, too. He stood still by the cabin door.

Dad got to his feet. He stood unsteady as the boat rocked back and forth. The swell had picked up, maybe even as much as a
few feet, and Miles could see the lines backed up high to the horizon. Coming in – pushing in with the wind.

‘I tried to get it started,’ Miles said, but Dad came at him, lurched at him, knocked him back against the rails so hard that
his body bent over the side. His head fell back. It touched the water. And when the swell pushed in, he went under completely.

Into the cold.

Into the silence.

He opened his eyes, could see the water moving, and it felt like his whole head had smashed against the side of the boat because
the cold stung so bad – the freezing water. His hands still held the rail but he couldn’t pull himself up. Dad was too strong.
Dad was holding him down.

Finally the swell rolled back and Miles could feel the air on his face. He sucked it in. Dad was staring
down at him, his big hand tight around Miles’s throat.

‘That’s what it feels like,’ he said, and Miles kicked his legs, rocked his body from side to side, but it was no use.

He gasped and was under again.

It felt like longer this time. It was a long time. And when his breath was gone and there was just a burning tightness in
his chest, his hands slipped loose from the rails, his arms fell back. He felt them touch the water, felt them floating free.
And his head was light. His whole body light.

But something was pulling him, dragging him up through the water. And it was heavy, the water. It was holding him down. But
he felt the air again on his skin, felt the world spin. And somehow he was standing, dizzy. Somehow he was on the deck.

He blinked his eyes, wiped his face with his frozen hand.

Harry was going mad.

He was punching Dad and screaming. Screaming, ‘Let him up! Let him up!’ and he was kicking Dad. Kicking his legs. And Dad
was just standing there laughing like it was funny. Like it was a game. Harry kicked out again and caught Dad’s ankle hard.
Hard
enough to make Dad wince. Then he looked at Miles and he ran.

And he was yelling, he was saying something over and over.

‘We’re at the Witches. The Witches … Please!’

He was on the radio. And his voice got louder and then he started to scream as Dad smashed into the cabin. Miles heard the
radio receiver hit the ground before he could even move. Dad had Harry by the shoulders and he shook him like a rag doll.
He dragged him out onto the deck.

‘These are protected waters, you idiot! You always fuck everything up. You always fuck everything!’

And he slammed Harry against the rails. Held him there, and the spray was coming over thick now, soaking Harry, drenching
his hair and running down his face. And Harry was squirming and moving and trying to get his body away from the edge until
Dad pulled his hair so tight that he stopped.

Harry just closed his eyes then. He just shut his eyes.

And suddenly Jeff spluttered and coughed, and when Miles looked down he was on his side curled up, and he coughed again. He
wasn’t dead. But Dad didn’t notice. He didn’t even look. His eyes were fixed on Harry. He just kept staring at Harry. And
his hand moved away from Harry’s hair, moved down to the string around his neck. And he cupped it in his palm – the white
pointer’s tooth.

‘It’s his,’ he said, and his face went pale. ‘His.’

He let the tooth go. He stared down at Harry.

‘She was leaving, because of him. Because of you.’

And that’s when it happened. When something inside of Harry must have just gone wrong. Because he opened his eyes and he looked
right at Dad and he said, ‘I’m glad.’

And all of it came at once then.

Miles saw the wave; he saw Dad push Harry. And he went to run but something caught his leg, pulled him down. It was Jeff.
Jeff right there next to him, all the blood drained from his face.

‘For God sake,’ he said.

And the whole boat tipped. A mountain of water broke the sides, swept the deck, and Miles smashed into the rails. He held
on tight, held on until the boat straightened, until the water drained away.

But when he looked back there was only Dad.

Harry wasn’t there. Harry wasn’t anywhere.

M
iles’s mouth was open. His tongue moved but there was no sound, only the muffled crash of seconds passing: one, two. Then
it came, a million seconds too late. His voice screaming out Harry’s name.

Miles felt his blood as a fresh wave crashed against the boat. He climbed onto the rails, was ready to jump, but Dad grabbed
him up – held him like stone.

And it was no good.

‘HARRY!’

Miles saw Harry’s arm reach out of the water. He saw his face there in the churning mess. The current had him now, his mouth
open, his arms flailing. He was moving away, moving into the channel.

‘You remember,’ Dad said, and he held Miles tight. ‘You remember, don’t you?’

And he kept shaking Miles, kept pulling his face away from the water, away from Harry.

‘They were dead when I found the car.’

And the insides of Miles went very still.

He couldn’t see Harry now. He couldn’t see him anywhere. There was only water. Only all that water moving.

‘She was leaving me.’