Heller's Revenge (34 page)

Alex was annoyed at their
proximity. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! We have the whole ocean
surrounding us and they have to anchor right in our pocket.”

“Language, darling,” cautioned
Sali, resting her hand on his shoulder. They smiled at each other
with great affection.

“Maybe they’ve heard of your
reputation for finding productive fishing spots,” said Meili with a
straight face, which only drew him an unamused glare from Alex.

“Ha ha,” he retorted acidly, and
by that exchange I gathered he wasn’t a world-renowned fisherman.
In that case, I sure hoped Meili was, because I really,
really
wanted fresh fish for dinner. They retrieved their
fishing gear and set up on the opposite side of the boat to where
our neighbours were. I watched with interest as they baited and
cast and reeled in, empty-hooked time after time, Meili explaining
everything patiently to me. Sali settled down on deck with a book,
her feet elevated on one of the other chairs, delighting in the
sunshine.

“So,” I said to the men with a
grin, after watching them for a luckless hour. “The object of the
sport is to feed as many fish as possible in one day? Is that
correct?” And that casual quip earned me two sour glances.

“Have a go yourself if you think
it’s that easy, Little Miss Smartarse,” challenged Meili, and I
took him up on the offer, smiling.

He ran me through the basics
again and I spent a pleasant hour feeding the fish and lapping up
the winter sunshine. It appeared as though we were going to be
munching on cheese and crackers for dinner, after all. Luckily,
Sali had packed us some hearty chicken salad sandwiches for lunch,
with a homemade carrot and walnut cake and some lovely ripe pears
to munch on afterwards.
God bless a woman who thinks about the
stomach
, I thought, tucking in, absolutely starving.

“Why aren’t you a vegetarian,
Meili?” I asked him, my mouth full of food and my nosiness showing
through yet again.

He regarded me thoughtfully. “I
wouldn’t eat an unethically caught or farmed animal, but generally
I’m more interested in the survival of species as a whole rather
than individual animals. Obviously, I would never eat any animal
that was in danger of extinction, but I don’t have a problem with
animals being farmed for food sources. Humans have been doing it
for tens of thousands of years, after all. And I’m very glad of
that choice every time I bite into one of Sali’s famous chicken
salad sandwiches because I know she always chooses free-range,
organically-fed chickens.” He cast her an affectionate glance that
she reciprocated.

After lunch as I fished again, I
sat idle, holding the rod and letting my mind roam, thinking about
Meili, thinking about Heller, thinking about Will and Daniel and
Niq. Then I thought about Brian and Gayle. I was in a real reverie,
my mind a million miles away, when suddenly I had a genuine bite on
my hook.

“Oh!” I said loudly, surprised.
“I have something.”

“Reel it in slowly,” Alex
advised, quickly by my side, and I did what he said, carefully
winding the reel back, my arms straining with pressure as the tip
of the rod bent towards the ocean.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, starting to
struggle with the weight on the end of the line. “Can someone help
me please?”

Meili stood behind me, placing
his hands near mine on the fishing rod while Alex barked out
orders. Whatever I’d hooked was bloody heavy and I sincerely hoped
it wasn’t the biggest tyre ever caught in these waters.

“Wow!” said Meili, starting to
struggle himself, his muscles popping out on his forearms. Mine had
popped out about five minutes ago. “Must be a tuna or something.
It’s huge! I’m not sure this reel can handle its weight.”

We grappled with the fish for
another five minutes, and I became exhausted with the effort.

“Just let it go,” I cried out,
my arm muscles screaming in pain.

“
No!
” the other three
shouted in unison.

“It’s so close, Tilly,” Meili
said in my ear. “One last big effort, okay. On three – one, two,
three . . .” We strained together, using all our muscles to pull
the fish out of the water.

“I see it! I see it!” screamed
Alex in excitement. “It’s a yellowfin! Watch what you’re doing! Not
like that! Do it like I told you. Don’t let it get away now!”

A final goliath yank and we
hauled the tuna onto the deck where it thrashed about violently. It
slapped itself hard against my legs as if in rebuke for its
capture, knocking me off balance. I stumbled and fell on the deck
in an ungainly heap. The dying fish, not finished with reproving
me, gave one last jerk and landed right on my stomach, knocking the
air out of me. I screamed with what little breath I had left and
scrabbled hurriedly to my feet. I pushed it off me frantically,
flinging myself behind Meili, holding his arms tightly. He shook
with laughter, as did Alex. Even Sali giggled at me.

“What?” I demanded, coming out
from behind Meili. “You all saw it. That fish attacked me on
purpose.” That made them all laugh harder and I waited patiently
until they subsided.

“Oh Tilly, if you could have
seen the expression on your face when that fish landed on you. It
was priceless!” Meili said, threatening to erupt into more
laughter. I failed to see the funny side of the situation
personally, because a twenty-kilogram fish was frigging heavy when
it landed on your recently healed stomach. I’d probably have
nightmares about killer fish tonight.

Alex conquered his laughter and
set about preparing the fish for dinner. I watched with equal
curiosity and disgust as he bled the fish, then gutted, scaled,
filleted and deboned it.

“I’d much rather get my food
from the supermarket,” I declared firmly, scrunching my nose.

“Wait till you taste it. You’ll
change your mind,” promised Alex. “It’s a beautiful fish, Tilly. It
will feed all of us well tonight and I’ll be freezing the rest.
Well done!”

“It was nothing, really. It’s
all in the wrist movement,” I said modestly, only to look up to
discover Meili about to dissolve into laughter again. Why do men
find me so hilarious? Heller was always laughing at me.

I felt fishy in my t-shirt and
shorts and showered quickly in the cramped bathroom, changing into
a clean t-shirt and jeans. Afterwards, I took the chance to call
Heller. The reception wasn’t great and kept dropping out, so I kept
the phone call to the barest minimum, enough time to let him know I
was okay and to promise to ring again before I went to sleep. I
came back up on deck to find that Sali had set out the dreaded
cheese and crackers for a pre-dinner nibble. But truly, the term
‘cheese and crackers’ didn’t do justice to the wonderful spread of
four kinds of cheeses, three kinds of crackers, a homemade roasted
capsicum dip, quince paste, dates, figs, grapes and walnuts. I had
thought she meant cheddar cheese on boring, plain crackers.

“Oh Sali, how lovely. You’re a
real gourmet!” I exclaimed with pleasure, gratefully accepting a
chilled glass of sauv blanc and cutting off a piece of brie. We
chatted and munched for a while, watching the colours of the late
afternoon sky change with the coming sunset. It was so tranquil and
relaxing that I was replete with happiness. I didn’t want to be
anywhere else in the world.

“What are your plans for the
tuna?” I asked Sali.

“Alex is cooking dinner, Tilly.”
Damn!
I hoped he was as interested in food as Sali.

“I’m keeping it basic, which is
the best thing to do with very fresh produce. So I will simply sear
it and serve it with baby potatoes and blanched green beans in a
herb dressing. Delicious and easy,” Alex said.

“Yum! You must let me do the
dishes afterwards. I feel so lazy.”

They all looked at me. “Tilly,
you caught dinner, remember?” said Sali, smiling and topping up my
wine glass. She was drinking soda water with lime.

“Only with Meili’s help, let’s
be honest. I’d have had no chance of reeling it in by myself.”

“Tilly and I will both do the
clearing up,” Meili decided and that was the end of the matter.

We watched the sun set and Alex
went down to the galley to prepare dinner while the rest of us
dawdled on deck. As the evening crept in, it was incredible how
dark it was around us. I suddenly felt vulnerable out there in a
small boat, trusting to the ocean’s incredibly fickle nature to
keep us safe.

We ate dinner downstairs in the
dining area and it was a delicious meal, the fish very fresh and
tasty. I held up a forkful of the tender meat.

“I helped catch my dinner. I
don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that before in my life,” I
boasted proudly. Meili reached over to squeeze my hand, a warm
smile on his face. I couldn’t help but notice as he did that Alex
and Sali exchanged a loaded glance, smiling.
Oh brother
, I
thought,
more of Meili’s friends getting the wrong idea about
us
.

We washed up together in the
cramped kitchen, giving Alex and Sali some private time together on
deck. I washed and he wiped, leaning his divine butt against the
tiny dining table as he did. We chatted about the next day. He had
an early evening lecture at the university and Maria had invited us
over to her house for dinner afterwards, along with a group of her
environmentalist friends. The week was drawing to an end and I
didn’t think I’ve ever wanted an assignment to keep going before,
but I sure did with this one.

Once everything was absolutely
spotless, scrubbed down and put away neatly, Meili and I went back
up on deck. Sali excused herself not long after, citing tiredness
and she did look sleepy. Alex took her down to their little room
and settled her to sleep before rejoining us on deck. We chatted
for a while, enjoyed another glass of wine and the evening
passed.

It was still reasonably early,
only about nine o’clock when Alex excused himself as well to head
off to bed. I wasn’t feeling at all sleepy, buzzing still from the
adrenaline of hauling in the tuna and perhaps Meili felt the same
because he wasn’t making any moves either. We chatted and laughed
about trivial stuff for ages when I spotted the boat near us
moving, returning to shore.

“Hey, they’re leaving,” I said,
pointing them out to Meili.

“Strange time to leave.”

“Perhaps we’re being too noisy
for them? Or they haven’t caught any fish and have to go to
McDonald’s to buy some dinner because they’re starving?”

He chuckled. The other boat
passed reasonably close to us, within fifty metres, as it
manoeuvred itself back to the harbour. I watched its lights
intently, still puzzling over the reason for its sudden departure
when I noticed a strange sight. It was as though they’d let off a
firework or something.

You wouldn’t do that on a
boat, would you?
I wondered and turned to comment to Meili.

Without warning, the boat
exploded under my feet. Simultaneously, the deck disappeared
beneath me and I was catapulted through the air for so long I
thought I was flying, only to land with a hard, cruel splash, head
first into the cold, bottomless ocean.

Chapter 22

The force of the impact drove me
deep into the water, but my life jacket slowly buoyed me to the
surface, where mercifully I ended face up. I’d been knocked
unconscious for an unknown amount of time and would have surely
drowned if I’d surfaced face down. I came to groggily, immensely
frightened and not knowing where I was, cold and wet. I watched the
retreating lights of the other boat without recognising what I was
looking at. In the other direction, the bare hulk of
Lady
Hawk
burned fiercely in the darkness. Despite the devastating
implications of it being on fire, at least it provided some light
in the general area. But what I saw did nothing to cheer my
spirits.

Debris floated everywhere,
little patches of fire here and there. I struggled to group my
thoughts, but it slowly dawned on me that I was in the ocean,
surrounded by the wreck of
Lady Hawk
.
There must have
been a bomb on board to cause such an explosion
, I thought in
shock. Where was everyone else? I couldn’t see anybody. I had
survived, so hopefully someone else had as well.

My right leg was hurting badly.
I hoped it wasn’t bleeding because that made me think about sharks
and then I really started to panic.
Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!
Shit! Shit! Shit!
The irony of me being eaten by a shark, after
catching and eating a tuna for dinner didn’t escape me. An
hysterical giggle broke from my lips. It was loud in the utter
silence around me. I began hyperventilating with fear for a minute,
which accomplished nothing except using up my precious energy
reserves. I gave myself a stern talking to.
Stop it! Calm
down!
I told myself.
Sharks feed at dawn and dusk, not night
time
, I reminded myself. And that helped to slow my breathing
down to a normal,
stuck-in-the-ocean-by-yourself-at-night-with-no-help respiration
rate.

There were other boats nearby;
we’d seen them passing us when we’d anchored. There were bound to
be people who witnessed a huge explosion in the night. It would
have been very noticeable. It was probably visible onshore. And
there was the boat next to us, I remembered.
They would surely
have noticed
, I told myself. Even now they were probably on
their radio, giving the mayday to Search and Rescue. Soon
helicopters and water police would be here and would find me and
would take me back to land where I swore I was never getting on a
sea-going vessel again. That boat could be turning around right
now, headed back to search for survivors. I would be rescued in no
time. Those thoughts helped me calm down even more.