She didn’t feel the least bit tempted. She didn’t…
Her uncle was being fed at the hospital. Fern made herself a sandwich for lunch and another for tea and then, toward dusk, she wandered down to the harbour.
It was as if she was in some sort of limbo-some waiting time-but she didn’t know what she was waiting for.
It was a glorious night, a repeat performance of the night before. The island might be in the grip of drought, its grasses burned brown from a long hot summer, but in the dusk little of that was obvious. The moon shimmered into existence low on the horizon and slowly started to rise.
Fern dug her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and walked slowly along the rows of boats representing Barega’s fishing fleet. She knew each and every one of them. Normally they’d be out on a night like this-but most of the fishermen had been at the wedding…
Most had eaten Lizzy’s oysters.
They’d still be feeling weak and washed out after last night’s stomach upsets and the sea would have little appeal.
Fern walked slowly from boat to boat. They were as familiar as…as familiar as Sam.
She walked halfway down the jetty and then stopped dead as an unfamiliar sound smashed across the silence.
Fern turned, trying to figure out where the sound had come from.
There was another smash, the splintering of timber under something that sounded like an axe. Then a shout of horror echoed over the water from the end of the jetty and, as if driven by the shout, a diesel engine roared into life.
In the dim moonlight Fern saw a fishing boat swerve out from its moorings and head for the open sea. Fast!
It was Lizzy’s boat. The fishing boat that Lizzy’s father had operated before her. The Dolphin…
What on earth was the crash, though? Instinctively, Fern started to run toward the gap Lizzy’s boat had left, her sneaker-clad feet moving swiftly on the jetty boards.
There was someone else there. The boat next to Lizzy’s belonged to Alf Gunn. Alf was in his eighties and his boat was the old fisherman’s only home. He slept below deck. Now he was standing on the jetty, rubbing his eyes as if waking from a bad dream.
‘Alf, what is it?’ Fern reached the old man and took his shoulders in her hands. The sense of urgency inside her was making her feel sick. She just knew…
‘The girl…’ Alf’s voice was a disbelieving whisper. ‘Lizzy…I heard the first smash and was up like a cork in a bottle of fizz, thinking it was vandals. It was Lizzy, miss. She’s stove a ruddy great hole in her boat-in her lovely boat!-right below the Plimsoll line. And she’s headed out to sea with water pouring in! Top speed…’
‘Why…?’
They both knew why. The old man and the girl stared at each other in horror as they came to terms with what Lizzy had done.
‘It’s suicide, isn’t it, Fern?’ Alf said bleakly. ‘After what she did yesterday…’
‘I guess…’ Fern’s mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. ‘How big was the hole?’
‘Big enough. Not so big that she’ll go down in the harbour, though. Most of the hole was above water. It’s only when the boat hits the ocean swell…’
Lizzy had thought this out well. If the boat went down in the harbour she wouldn’t drown. She could swim like a fish. But if she got her boat out into the main ocean currents…and her boat sank…There was no way Lizzy could change her mind after that.
‘So we follow her,’ Fern said frantically. ‘Can we do it, Alf?’
‘We don’t have a choice,’ Alf said grimly. ‘Come on, girl!’
Alf was born on the boat and born to the sea. The same as Lizzy. It took such a one to follow Lizzy because the girl was moving with both desperation and skill.
From the mouth of the harbour a reef ran eastward in a foaming, jagged line. Lizzy’s boat, lights cut, turned north-straight across the reef. If it hadn’t been a moonlit night they wouldn’t have seen her. As it was, Fern could hardly believe her eyes.
‘She’ll smash on the rocks,’ Fern gasped.
‘Not Lizzy,’ Alf said grimly. ‘Not that she’d mind if she did-but there’s a gap, if you know the way. If she hits the reef she’ll risk being washed up on the beach within minutes. It’s my guess Lizzy doesn’t want that to happen.’
‘Do you know the way…?’
She didn’t have to ask. Alf was already swinging his boat north and it was all Fern could do not to close her eyes in horror.
There was foam surging all around their boat and jagged rocks on either side. Surely this was impossible…In the dark…
It wasn’t impossible. The boat lurched through the last breaking wave and surged on. Ahead of them was Lizzy’s boat, sinking lower and lower in the water as she went
‘May it keep afloat another five minutes,’ Alf said through gritted teeth, ‘or she’ll drift back onto the reef.’
His wish was granted. Lizzy’s boat was gunned hard out to sea; it went on and on, its deck sinking to an impossible level…
Then it stopped dead. A swell must have caught it broadside and the huge mass of water below decks shifted.
The boat reared sideways and slowly, slowly, slipped under the water.
As it disappeared under the surface, a thin, forlorn figure raised her hands in the air and slipped beneath the waves with her boat.
CHAPTER SIX
‘DEAR God!’
Alf had unconsciously gripped Fern’s arm in-for Alf-an almost unheard-of gesture of emotional need. He’d throttled right back to dead still.
‘The boat will suck her down,’ Fern whispered.
‘It’s not big enough to pull her right down and hold her,’ Alf said, as though thinking to himself. ‘Too small a boat for huge suction. It’ll put her down a way but she’ll come up again-unless she’s caught…’
‘But…’
‘She’s aimed right for the middle of the slipstream.’ Alf chewed his lip and then gunned his boat forward fast, slowing as they reached the point where Lizzy’s boat had sunk. ‘She’s thought this out, all right.’
There was nothing to see. A vague turbulence swirled on the surface as though air was escaping from the cabin below but there was no Lizzy.
Alf cut his engine. He grabbed the lifebuoy on the side of the boat and tossed it overboard and then tossed a couple of life-jackets over, for good measure.
No one tried to swim to them.
There were no cries for help. Nothing.
There was dead silence apart from the slap of water against the wooden sides of Alf’s boat.
Nothing at all to show that Lizzy had ever been here.
‘She’s gone…’
‘She won’t have drowned yet,’ Alf said grimly. ‘It’s darned hard to make yourself drown if you’re as strong a swimmer as Lizzy Hurst. The slipstream here runs straight out to sea and it’s too strong to swim against. That’s why she’s come here, I reckon. Lizzy’ll be carried out-and the only way we can stay within cooee of her is by letting ourselves be carried with her.’
‘But, Alf…’
‘Water pushes everything along at the same rate,’ Alf muttered. He was talking more to himself than to Fern. ‘See the lifebuoy and life-jackets I tossed over? They’re still almost together. As soon as we start the engine we’ll lose her. Drifting with her is our only hope. Her only hope.’
The old man cupped his hands around his mouth.
‘Lizzy,’ he yelled. ‘We’re here. Swim to us and stop being a damned fool…’
The old man stopped on a spurt of coughing.
‘You yell,’ he said grimly. ‘My lungs aren’t as strong as they used to be. I’m going below to see if I can find a torch.’
‘Lizzy…’
Fern’s yell drifted over the eerie silence like a hopeless dirge.
Ten seconds later Alf was back with his torch-a big flashlight with a powerful beam. He played it over the water while Fern yelled.
On Fern’s tenth yell they both saw her, a frail floating figure that ducked under the surface as the spotlight hit her.