Chapter 5

“Don’t go diving for at least another hour after eating,” Sandy said as they laid the tanks down in the bottom of the canoe. Ascott agreed he would not and they climbed back up the ladder to the dock. Tacus hopped off Ascott’s shoulder and settled at the front of the boat, ready to hurl abuse and navigational advice once they were under way.

“Have you ever seen that guy in the sunglasses before?” Ascott said.

“Nah, probably arrived on one of the seasonal fishing ships, or flew in. We call them tourists.”

“I met him before. He wanted to buy Tacus.”

“What, like some bird seed or something?”

“No, he wanted to buy the parrot. Take him off my hands. Said to name my price.”

“People these days, always so ready to sell things. Trust me, if there weren’t a good reason to be bottling air and selling it to people, I’d be just as happy to give it away. But that Palm, she has plans. Wants Shoal to go to college and see something other than ocean in her life.”

“College isn’t that great,” Ascott said with feeling. “Mostly it’s sitting in a big room full of people being told what to think and believe, but no one really explains why you should think that way or believe those things.”

“They do a college course yet that teaches you how to be happy?” Sandy asked with a grin.

“Not that I’ve seen.” Ascott looked grim.

“Not much point in signin’ up then, eh? If you want to learn things, read a book like yours, or talk to people. Plenty of them around these parts. Some of them know more than they’re letting on. Other ones are just passing through so fast that you’re not sure you should be sayin’ hi or bye. Let alone askin’ their name.”

“I’m not going to sell Tacus, not for anything. Especially to some stranger.” Ascott felt as certain of that as he had of anything in a long time.

“Course you ain’t. It’d be like me trying to sell the air. The air ain’t for sale, neither’s a bird, or a wave, or a tree. They’re just doin’ their own thing and we’re there to appreciate it.”

“You sell air for three blue pearls a tank,” Ascott said.

“Not quite.” Sandy tapped the side of his nose with one long leathery finger. “I sell the service of fillin’ up the tanks. The air is free. The mechanical compression, that’s what you’re payin’ for.”

Sandy started laughing and Ascott found himself laughing with him. They laughed until tears ran down the furrows in Sandy’s cheeks and he collapsed on the dock timber clutching his sides. Ascott slowly recovered his breath, though he couldn’t explain what was funny. Maybe the humour was contagious. Something deep inside let go and he laughed till he gasped.

“Hey,” he said nudging the wheezing Sandy, “Is that Shoal’s boat?” He pointed at a flat-bottomed skiff, the prow pointing skyward at a 45 degree angle while a high white plume of wash shot out the back. The outboard motor hurtled the wooden torpedo into the tangle of the Montaban local fleet. It zipped past the other canoes, coracles, cruisers, crab-boats, catch-craft and the occasional wind-surfer. A flash of blonde hair came into view on some of the turns as Sandy squinted into the glare.

“What’s got her so excited?” he muttered. Shoal was waving and the only thing stopping her from standing up was the angle of the deck and the need to keep one hand on the throttle. With a whoosh and a sudden coughing gurgle from the outboard, she arrived at the dock, cut the engine power and leapt for the ladder.

Sandy and Ascott crowded around as her head popped up. “Whales!” she gasped, her eyes glowing with excitement.

“What, already?” Sandy said.

“Oh yeah, a whole pod of them, maybe twelve veterans and a few first-timers.”

Sandy slapped his thigh and did an impromptu jig. “Goosegonegoggles!” he exclaimed. “I’m gonna ring the bell!” He took off running up the dock, vanishing into the market crowd. Ascott extended a hand and helped Shoal up the last rungs of the ladder.

“The migration has started?” he asked.

“Migration started a month ago, maybe two.” Shoal was breathless with excitement. “They swim a long way from down south to reach us. They come up to the islands to have babies and next year they’ll all come back.”

“So the race…?” Ascott wished he had been less focused on his own misery a year ago and had paid more attention to local news and traditions.

“Will be in a few days. These are just the first whales. Soon there’ll be so many coming through the deep channel that they’ll block the way for shipping and then the race will happen.”

Ascott wanted to ask more questions, but at that moment a bell started ringing somewhere up by the Exco. An urgent, joyous pealing echoed out over the island. Silence fell over the market and then it was as if all Montaban took a deep breath and shouted at once: “WHALES!”

A spontaneous carnival atmosphere erupted across the dock and surrounding town. People cheered, screamed and shouted. Bands struck up a discordant song and it sounded like it could be a while before they all came round to playing the same tune with the same timing, in the same key.

“Shoal, I need to go home. Back to The City,” Ascott said while Shoal jumped up and down and cheered along with the others.

“What?!” she shouted over the noise.

“I’m going to dive that wreck we found, with SCRAM gear. I need to find some pearls so I can pay for a ticket home. “

 ”Why?”

Ascott wanted to say that he felt that Drakeforth had given him a message that he couldn’t ignore. But the prospect of explaining about Charlotte, and his own anxiety about everything, muted Ascottt for a moment. Instead he shouted, “Because it might be home to fish I haven’t seen before. I’ll need to catalogue them for the encyclopaedia!”

“Ever seen a whale?” Shoal shouted back.

“Well, no, but they’ll be here for a while. I don’t imagine that they are leaving again today!”

“This is important!” Shoal’s face darkened.

“So is this diving trip. I want you to come with me!” he added.

“We can go out there any time! It’s carnival! The whales are here!”

“Great! I’ll go on my own, then!” Ascott threw his hands up in the air.

“Diving alone is dangerous!” Shoal snapped.

“And running along the backs of whales isn’t?”

“Is that what this is about? You don’t think I can do it?!”

“I think you are crazy! I think that anyone who tries it risks getting killed!”

A heaving mob of singing dancers twirled along the dock, sweeping up everyone in their path. Ascott stepped back to the edge to avoid being caught in the crowd. Shoal followed him, her face as grim as a stonefish with toothache.

“You’d better get going then!” she shouted and shoved Ascott backwards. Arms flailing, he yelled and toppled off the dock. Landing with a splash in the water, he surfaced and stared up in surprised outrage. Shoal had gone, vanishing into the clapping, slapping and excitedly rapping crowd of Montabanians celebrating the arrival of the whales.

Crawling into his dugout, Ascott started the motor. Tacus waited in his position at the bow and didn’t say a word as they made their way out of the log jam of boats around the dock.

Ascott fumed all the way across the shallow waters between the thousand islands of the Aardvark Archipelago. This was only the first whale pod of many that would come through the deep channel into the warm waters of the islands. There would be at least a week to see the migration and the race wouldn’t happen for a day or two. He only wanted Shoal’s help for one afternoon.

The canoe’s outboard hummed until he was in familiar waters, then Ascott turned the boat and began tracking to where he thought Shoal had taken him fishing the day before. Opening an old metal lunchbox, he took out some crackers, a tin mug and a bottle of water.

“Bread an’ water, thirty dayth!” Tacus squawked.

“More like thirty minutes. Don’t fly off. I’ll be back soon.” The tin cup filled with water was set on the floor of the canoe, with crackers for Tacus to amuse himself with while he waited.

Ascott attached an air tank to his inflatable vest, clipped the floater on and cinched a weight belt tight around his waist. Slipping fins on his feet he positioned his goggles and took an experimental breath through the respirator. The air flowed clear and sweet into his throat. A voice in the back of his head reminded him that Shoal was right, diving alone was stupid. If you got in trouble, there would be no one to help. Another part of him coughed politely and replayed the footage of Shoal pushing him off the dock in a huff.

“Your argument is invalid,” Ascott said through the respirator and toppled backwards out of the canoe.

Surfacing for a moment, he waved to Tacus and then deflated the buoyancy vest. The counter-weight of the belt dragged him down and he flicked his fins, swimming out in a search grid to find the coral-encrusted wreck.