The Bay
Authors: Di Morrissey
Di Morrissey is one of Australia's most successful writers. She began writing as a young woman, training and working as a journalist for Australian Consolidated Press in Sydney and Northcliffe Newspapers in London. She has worked in television in Australia and Hawaii and in the USA as a presenter, reporter, producer and actress. After her marriage to a US diplomat, Peter Morrissey, she lived in Singapore, Japan, Thailand, South America and Washington. Returning to Australia, Di continued to work in television before publishing her first novel in 1991.
Di has a daughter, Dr Gabrielle Hansen, and her children, Sonoma Grace and Everton Peter, are Di's first grandchildren. Di's son, Dr Nicolas Morrissey, is a lecturer in South East Asian Art History and Buddhist Studies at the University of Georgia, USA.
Di and her partner, Boris Janjic, divide their time between Byron Bay and the Manning Valley in New South Wales when not travelling to research her novels, which are all inspired by a particular landscape.
Also by Di Morrissey
Heart of the Dreaming
The Last Rose of Summer
Follow the Morning Star
The Last Mile Home
Tears of the Moon
When the Singing Stops
The Songmaster
Scatter the Stars
Blaze
The Bay
Kimberley Sun
Barra Creek
The Reef
The Valley
Monsoon
The Islands
The Silent Country
The Plantation
First published 2001 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
First published 2002 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
This Pan edition published 2008 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney
Reprinted 2009, 2010 (twice)
Copyright © Lady Byron Pty Ltd 2001
Illustrations © Ron Revitt 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:
Morrissey, Di.
The bay/Di Morrissey.
9780330424486 (pbk.)
A823.3
Typeset in 11.25/13.5pt Sabon by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group
Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited are natural, recyclable products made from wood grain in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
The Bay
is a work of fiction. The story, events and most of the characters in it are fictitious, although some people have kindly allowed their names to be used in the book.
These electronic editions published in 2001 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Di Morrissey 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
The Bay
Di Morrissey
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JIM REVITT . . . who has always watched over me and with his brilliant wordsmith skills, improves every book I write by making me think harder, do better and reach higher.
MY FAMILY . . . my mother Kay Warbrook, who cares and fights for her coastal community; my children Gabrielle and Nick Morrissey, whose love, support, advice and humour make every day worthwhile.
BORIS JANJIC for his devotion and for smoothing the wrinkles out of every day starting with a morning flower.
IAN ROBERTSON, loyal legal friend, for soothing the scratchy bits of life.
JAMES FRASER and all my family at Pan Macmillan â thanks for all the love and encouragement over the past decade.
RON REVITT for his delightful sketches and being, along with Jim, a âBig Brother' uncle.
Special thanks to my friends and the community of Byron Bay.
Along with all those other special bays around Australia â like Lovett Bay where I grew up â I hope they will always remain treasured and protected places.
Contents
T
HE OCEAN SLEPT
. I
TS SUNSET-MIRRORED SURFACE RISING
and falling in a gentle swell. The men in the small boat were silent. Smoothly, quietly, the long wooden oars stroked into the golden sea.
The man in the bow stood, legs planted apart, knees flexed to maintain his balance as he searched the water for some indication of their prey. The six other men, some mere boys, also studied the glistening ocean, knowing that somewhere beneath them slid the mighty leviathan, which they had glimpsed what now seemed like aeons ago. It was a rogue individual.
On the steam barque
Orion
, anchored to the south, the crew remained hopeful that their men in the small whaleboat would capture the humpback that was cruising steadily north.
Jergen Strom, the harpooner, was among the best â fearless like his Norse ancestors, strong, swift and deadly accurate. He had an instinct; they said he could think like a whale, knowing where the giant creature might rise up and blow. And it was this intuition that made him now turn and look around.
âAhoy, blow astern. Come about, pull to the port.' The men had the double-ended boat retracing its wake in seconds, surging forward to meet the oncoming shape that was cleaving the ocean just below the surface.
They charged towards each other, the boat suddenly seeming so fragile, the massive bulk of the lone bull whale looking so formidable.
The man in the bow was poised, his thigh braced in a niche cut in the decking. The headsman grasped the twenty-foot steering oar and stood ready for âthe change'.
âIt's sounding!' A young seaman shouted what all hands knew. But in the instant that the whale arched its back, elevating the big tail flukes to throw itself sideways and plunge to the depths, Jergen lunged and released the harpoon. It flew in a low arc, its tail of rope spinning behind it, then fell as the whale dived. The steel fluke thrust into the back of the beast, searing into the soft layers of blubber.
Then, according to ancient custom, the steersman moved from the bow oar to the aft and the headsman, in command of the craft, exchanged places with the harpooner. To the headsman fell the honour of the kill. Picking up the lance he waited for the whale to surface.
The maddened creature rose, shuddered, then disappeared beneath the churning sea, the thread that joined it to the boat whirring so fast around the loggerhead it began to smoke. The men waited, their oars resting horizontally above the water. The rope played out then stopped. They tensed and watched the sea.
It was an explosion of many sounds â the great gasping breath from the blowhole, the eerie high-pitched call, the crunching of oars, the splintering of wood, the shouts of the crew. It was the nightmare they all feared most.
The whale rose under the boat, its angry bulk lifting the wooden peanut out of the water before the vessel tilted to one side and began to slide down its body. But in those seconds the steersman threw his weight behind the lance, sinking it into a vital section of the spine. One of the men, frantically grasping for some support, felt his hand graze over the thick rubbery hide before he was in the foaming water with the other men and the upturned boat.
With a mighty flick the whale's flukes came down, splintering the small boat, dangerously close to the men doing their best to swim away from the monster. The young seaman, afraid this was the end of him, turned to see the whale blow once more â a gushing of spluttering air. But this time the milky vapour rushed red. And the whale began its agonising flurry, shuddering, shaking, shivering in bewildered pain, a prelude to death.
As it slowly rolled onto its back, breathing its last, each man was fighting to save himself â from sharks, from drowning, from his companions struggling to hang onto any debris from the shattered boat. None had noticed that Strom had caught his leg in a loop of the rope and been ripped into the sea, tangled beneath the dying hulk where his drowned body now floated, trapped.
By the time a rescue boat launched from the
Orion
had recovered the shocked survivors, the whale carcass had sunk into the deep reaches of the ocean, towing with it the umbilical cord that joined the hunted and the hunter.
As night fell on the silent sea and drifting debris, darkness softened the floating red mantle of death.
The moon and sun blended, their paths over lapping in the rising of a new day and the relinquishing of the night hours. The gold and silver sisters glided past each other in a pearly sky, and in that moment worlds and time briefly touched.
From the gleaming white lighthouse adorning the headland like a spun-sugar decoration atop a wedding cake, another light signalled mechanically from prismatic crystals, winking seaward to the dawn and misty horizon.
And in that distant mist there suddenly appeared a shimmering boat of another age. It had two masts, square-rigged, and six whaleboats suspended from davits. On the deck were two glowing brick fireplaces, each supporting a huge black metal cauldron of whale blubber and boiling oil.
On the heavy wooden stem beneath the bowsprit was the carving of a woman, full breasted and proud faced, with waves of flowing hair painted gold. Behind the figurehead and on port and starboard bow planks, red letters proclaimed this brigantine to be the
Lady Richmond.
When the light next winked at the eastern horizon, the vision had disappeared.
