I talked her into going to the community club on Little Rat for a drink with the rest of us. It was her last night for the season, and she’d never been.
“I have been to the club, plenty of times before you arrived,” she responded, stung.
I’d forgotten that she’d been here before I arrived. It was hard to believe she was more a part of this place than I was. It had grown on me, like some horrible fungal disease.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never seen you there.” I hesitated, not sure what else to say. I chose honesty. “It’s the last chance I’ll get to have a drink with you in the club, before you leave in a few days. I’m only here for the season and I’ll probably be back at the mines soon. Just one evening and I’ll buy you a drink.”
Her expression softened. “Okay, I’ll come and you can buy me a farewell drink, but we’re taking my dinghy and I’m driving it.”
Shit. She’d noticed the dents in my dinghy, too.
“Sure,” I replied. Yes!
“Let me get a clean shirt on, then I’ll be ready to go.” She vanished into her house.
I should probably get some clean clothes on, too. I ducked back into my shack.
I put on my least stained pair of shorts and the polo shirt that seemed destined to be The Last Clean Shirt. I’d worn this on her boat more than a week ago, when we went fishing up in the Wallabis, and not worn it since. I shoved some condoms in my pocket, praying that I’d get to use one tonight.
It took her twenty minutes longer than me to find a clean shirt. The one she chose was more low-cut than her usual t-shirts. This would have looked appropriate in a Perth nightclub, especially combined with her little shorts. Different shades of blue against blue – she’d blend in with the water if she fell in.
I think she’d used the twenty minutes to put on some makeup, too, though it was hard to tell. Her lips glistened more and appeared pinker than usual, at least. She smelled good, too.
I offered her a hand to get into the dinghy, but she just laughed and leaped in, ignoring it. “Hop in,” she called.
She cruised around to the side of her boat, where her deckies stood on deck, looking disgruntled.
“Joe and I are going over for a drink at the club on Little Rat,” she told them. “Keep an eye on things, please.”
The dark-haired one looked grumpy and didn’t say anything.
Frosty Belinda nodded. “We will.” She waved as we headed off, not even cracking a smile.
“They really don’t like me,” I told Vanessa, as soon as we were out of earshot.
She shook her head, her eyes on the water. “No, it’s not that,” she said slowly, steering us around a submerged rock. “They’re sick of fishing out here. They want to go home.”
The opposite of me. As long as Vanessa’s here, I don’t want to go anywhere else. I’ll be happy to stay on these isolated rocks, as long as I have her.
We beached the dinghy on the northern end of Little Rat, digging the anchor in between the row of other dinghies.
It looked like a party was well under way when we walked into the club together. It turned out that someone’s son was getting married, and he’d brought a bunch of mates over from Perth and Geraldton for a buck’s party and fishing expedition on the islands. The mates stuck out like bent teeth on a comb. Like I must have when I first arrived. Vanessa wasn’t the only woman there, but she stood out. Or maybe it was just my eyes that were drawn to her.
One of the Perth guys had brought over a karaoke machine and, after a few drinks, we all proceeded to demonstrate how badly we could sing. Vanessa abstained, laughingly telling me that if she sang we’d all go home.
I went to get Vanessa another drink. Skipper picked up the microphone as and surprised us all with his rendition of some old KISS song, I was made for lovin’ you. He sang, he danced and he pulled pouty, kissy faces at everyone until even I wondered whether he was gay or straight, and I knew he had a wife and kids on the mainland. When Skipper’s performance was done, we all clapped and cheered, then fell silent for a moment. None of us wanted to be the next one up.
In the momentary lull, the voice of one of the Perth visitors piped up, slurred with beer. “So, you’re the stripper. When do we get to see you with your gear off?” The idiot was looking at Vanessa.
We all froze in silence. I was willing to bet that every man in the room had fantasised about her naked, but not a single one of us would have been stupid enough to say it.
Vanessa’s knuckles went white around the neck of her empty stubby, her expression as angry as her brunette deckie normally looked. Her eyes were fixed on the table nearest to her and I could almost see the thought process. In a few seconds, she’ll smash the end off that bottle on the edge of the table and gut the idiot like a fish...
My God, she took out a four-metre tiger shark with a filleting knife. This idiot won’t stand a chance. My empty beer bottle slipped from my fingers and smashed on the tiles behind the bar. I couldn’t take my eyes off her to pick it up.
Someone pressed a button on the karaoke machine to break the silence. Pink loudly told the room they didn’t want to mess with her tonight. Fuck. What idiot picked a song that was only going to make this worse?
One of the older skippers laughed. It sounded forced and unnatural. He pounded the idiot so hard on the back he almost knocked him over, not entirely by accident, driving him away from Vanessa. “Ha! Bucks’ parties at the Abrolhos don’t have strippers. The last stripper we had out here wore huge high heels and wanted to know where the roads and the hotel were...”
A few of the others joined in, helping to tell the story as loudly as possible, to be heard over the music. I knelt down and swept up the broken glass as quickly as I could.
The buck, clearly visible in his newspaper admiral’s hat, was apologising profusely for his mate by the time I reached Vanessa. “I’ll get him up as soon as he’s sober tomorrow, no matter how hungover, and he’ll tell you how sorry he is. Or we’ll ship him back to Perth...”
Wordlessly, I handed her a fresh beer and pried the empty bottle from her fingers. I tossed the empty into the bin, out of her reach.
Vanessa tipped the beer up, taking a big drink. She stopped to take a breath, then drank deeply again.
Admiral Buck headed off, distracted by something.
I moved closer to her. “Would you like to head off soon?”
She emptied the beer, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and threw the empty into the bin. She opened her mouth to reply and let rip with the mother of all belches.
Well, she drained that beer in less than a minute. No wonder.
A few blokes stared. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Please, excuse me.”
She stepped carefully around the table and headed out the door. I started to follow her out, but one of the experienced fishers grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” he muttered.
I pulled my arm out of his grasp. “Why the hell not?”
He kept his voice low. “The last bloke who followed her out of the club when she was upset ended up with a broken jaw, before he fell off the cliff and broke a few more bones. Skipper doesn’t need to lose another deckie to stupidity.”
It took a minute for the details to click in my head. “You mean Vanessa pushed Skipper’s last deckie off a cliff?”
The old-timer shrugged. “He said he fell. But half an hour before he fell, he told her she should start a whorehouse in her place and she’d earn more on her back than she did fishing. She left here in a hurry, he followed her, and not long after we found him at the bottom of the cliffs. She said she went home to Rat and didn’t see him. He says he fell. But if she decked him, he probably deserved it.”
I backed away from him, stammering some kind of goodbye, and headed into the darkness outside, switching on my torch. I’m not stupid enough to insult her. She won’t push me off a cliff.
Instead of following the track to the beach, she’d stumbled through the low scrub to the cliff. She was faster than I would have thought possible and I struggled to catch up to her. When she reached the edge, she stopped, looking out over the dark waves, less than a metre below her feet.
“Hey, the boat’s back this way,” I called softly. “Or were you thinking of throwing yourself off the cliff?”
I shone my torch at her, so I saw her half turn to give me a look. We both knew that if she jumped off the little cliff, she’d probably just get cold and wet and have to climb back up again.
Unless she landed wrong, like the stupid deckie, or someone pushed her off.
“No.” She sniffled. “I want to swim.” She sounded fierce.
I got close enough to her to see the tears streaking her cheeks in the torchlight. She swiped at them with her hands.
“You want to swim back to Rat? In the dark, with the waves and the sharks?” I asked gently.
If she meets up with a shark in her current temper, my money is on her. The shark will be supper for sure. Even a big wave with any sense will only help to carry her home. God help anything that crosses her right now.
“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “I want to go home.”
I was near enough to touch her. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ll take you home.” I held out my arms to her.
She gave a strangled sob and threw her arms around me, literally crying on my shoulder as I clasped my arms around her back. We just stood there for a while, until she was still and the tears stopped coming.
“C’mon,” I whispered. “Let’s go find that dinghy.”
She held my hand as we walked together down the track to the beach. The dinghy hadn’t moved. I stowed the anchor and we both pushed the tinny out into the water. She got in first and I followed. I reached over and started the motor, which purred like mine never did.
She curled up in the bow seat. Her knees were bent on the seat beside her, her feet hanging off the back of the seat. She leaned forward over the bow into the wind, looking like the figurehead on some old ship. I blinked, wondering if I’d had too much beer, to be imagining stuff like this.
“I should drive,” she said half-heartedly, making no move to get closer to the motor.
“The dents in my dinghy are from when the engine got flooded by a big wave and I drifted onto a rock,” I told her. “Unless you think the same thing’s gonna happen tonight, I’m fine to drive.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she muttered.
Shit, I bet every wave will behave tonight, speeding her home so as not to incur her wrath. Even she thinks so.
I gunned the engine, heading back to Rat.