The Reef (41 page)

‘I've thought about it. Didn't happen.'

They danced for a moment and Jennifer decided not to probe further. Was Tony one of those men she'd read about in magazines with commitment phobia? Yet he seemed such a
worldly man: well-travelled, experienced, sophisticated; he'd seen the underbelly of life, yet was sensitive, and also sentimental, she suspected.

But he seemed to want to talk. Holding Jennifer, talking into her hair, he couldn't see her expression, which made it easier for him. ‘I've been emotionally wounded, which pales in comparison to the wounded in war, but the final blow was trying to rescue a little girl and adopt her. I was prepared for the difficulties and red tape. I wasn't prepared for her to be killed. I came to the conclusion it was easier not to open your heart than to get it shattered.'

‘Isobel says you have to trust. Believe there is something wonderful waiting for you. That you deserve it,' said Jennifer softly, adding, ‘I'm working on that concept.'

‘You must be a strong woman,' said Tony. ‘Not many would have the guts to do what you're doing. I admire you. You see a lot of bad relationships and marriages out there, and you think, Who'd want that? It all looks too hard.'

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,' she said wryly. ‘I can't think past doing my degree, the book with you and Mac and, oh yes, having a baby.'

Tony gave a mock wince. ‘Ouch. Makes my current lifestyle seem rather lazy. Another reason I like being on an island is I don't have to face a cranky editor, ageing parents, a sister with family problems and the decision about what to do with the rest of my life.'

‘Oh dear. When does it get easy? Simple? I hoped I wouldn't have to struggle like my mother.'
Or be as unhappy.
She spoke lightly but he sensed something in her voice.

‘What does your mother think about your big decision?' he asked gently.

‘She doesn't know yet. I'm going over to see the doctor and have a mother–daughter talk in a few days' time. She'll probably be pleased.'

‘Why would that be?' Tony was thinking of his own mother, how she longed for him to get married and how devastated she'd be if his pregnant wife left him. The enormity of Jennifer's step hit him even more.

‘Oh, being a widow, the trauma of losing my father and brother . . . she's a bit possessive. Frankly, no man is ever going to be good enough for me. Blair never stood a chance. And because of her own baggage she dislikes all men. So there you have it.'

‘Hmm. I suppose you can't blame her,' said Tony sympathetically. ‘Though it must be hard on you.'

Jennifer felt a swift rush of annoyance and then immediately guilty. ‘It is. If you met my mother you'd like her. And wonder what I'm going on about.'

‘No, no, I know what you're saying,' he said comfortingly. ‘My sister has problems with our parents and gets cross at me for not backing her up. Maybe that's the trouble. I'm too objective, I have to look at something from all sides, and that
annoys those close to you who want unconditional approval and support.'

‘Maybe that's what makes you a balanced journalist,' said Jennifer.

‘Maybe it's what also holds me back in emotional relationships,' he said carefully. ‘I'm not prepared to dive in, throw caution to the wind and be passionately committed, no matter what.'

‘That's sad,' said Jennifer. ‘I bet Gideon would have something to say about that.'

‘It's not easy to change, trust, relinquish your hand on the controls.' He smiled at her.

‘Look at me. It's easy!' She lifted both arms in the air. ‘I've taken the paddle out of the water and I'm letting the current push my canoe along and I have to hope I don't go over a waterfall.'

‘God, you seem so fearless. Isobel is right. She says women are stronger than men when it comes to the heart stuff.'

‘Don't beat yourself up, Tony. You've been through more than most of us. I can't think how I'd deal with a child I loved and wanted to protect being killed.'

He drew her to him. ‘Thanks, Jen.'

The baby seemed to resent the pressure of their bodies pressed so close and did a small somersault. They laughed and Jennifer lifted her head to see what she could read in his sea-green eyes. Tony was gazing at the shirt stretched across her expanding tummy. Jennifer took his hand and placed it on her belly so he could feel the rolling movement of her baby.

‘It's either a bum, a head, or a small soccer ball,' he grinned. ‘Amazing. How do you sleep?'

The music revved up and they walked away. ‘With difficulty,' admitted Jennifer. ‘Speaking of which, I'm going to head to bed. I'll just check with Mac about the procedures and protocol for the big day – seeing there are so many VIPs around.'

‘I'm going to be with Lloyd on the cruiser taking pictures. Could you tape some stuff?' asked Tony. ‘Just chat to people. Everyone present will have something interesting to say, I suspect. It will be useful for my article and the book overview.'

‘Sure. I gather people are going to be at the research station so I'll talk to them after the dive.'

‘What these people are doing and learning is quite possibly going to have global implications,' said Tony, as they walked back to Mac's cottage. ‘I mean, what started as looking at ways to save our Barrier Reef is turning into groundbreaking research into medical, energy, environmental and conservation issues on a massive scale.'

‘I was talking to a scientist tonight – correction – I was listening to a scientist tonight, that fellow from Florida who was trying to explain the theory of interconnectedness in nature's network,' said Jennifer, shaking her head. ‘Boggling stuff.'

‘I'm still trying to grasp the finer points of the world wide web let alone the patterns and networking Mother Nature has created amongst planets, animals and the human sphere,' said Tony.
‘It's hard enough just relating to other people. I think I'll stick to the written word.'

‘I enjoyed the dance. And talking with you,' said Jennifer.

‘Me too. You're easy to talk to, Jen. I've never been one to share personal stuff. I'm going to have a beer.'

‘See you over at Gideon's in the morning,' said Jennifer. ‘I'll bring my notebook.'

The next morning Jennifer was surprised at the crowd gathered by the lagoon outside Gideon's Shark Bar. Everyone from the research station was there, the documentary film crew, and standing by on one of the resort's launches were Lloyd and Carmel with Tony, who had his camera out with a long lens attached. Doyley and Rosie were also watching. Blair, Jennifer had heard, was over on Sooty Isle. With Susie, no doubt. Rudi joined her.

‘It's going to be interesting to see the video footage,' Rudi said.

‘I don't understand how it works,' said Jennifer. ‘And who's the Japanese scientist?'

‘Mr Ikigawa. They've put up a lot of money for some of Isobel's experiments over the years. Japan is really the leader in deep-ocean technology.'

‘Nice to see they're collaborating,' commented Jennifer, jotting in her notebook.

Isobel had a small group around her for a final briefing. Jennifer watched her talking, her expressive hands fluttering as she made a point, her dark
eyes intense and excited. Even though she was short, her dynamic personality commanded everyone's rapt attention. She spoke rapidly, and ended by saying, ‘If, as has happened in the past, we find an unexpected occurrence or creature, we shall pursue it, within limits.'

‘Do you expect to find anything particularly unusual?' asked the reporter with the film crew.

‘We are in alien territory, we still don't know what exists in the deep ocean beyond the outer reef,' said Isobel simply. ‘Sometimes things swim up to meet us, or we stumble into difficult or unusual natural phenomena.' She smiled disarmingly. ‘It is an adventure – yes? Which is why we are drawn there. Some people ask, “Why climb mountains?” Because they are there. The bottom of the ocean is the last frontier. We go because it is there. And because it is the last hope for this planet.'

‘Everything in order, Gideon?' asked Jennifer, walking to the edge of the lagoon.

‘Ready as I'll ever be. Question is, are they ready for us?' He jabbed a finger downwards. ‘We'll be the unexpected visitors. I always hope to find answers to what
is
down there. Isobel looks at water as molecules of hydrogen and oxygen that share their energy to create water – the hydrogen bond that fuses the world together.'

‘And you look at it more poetically,' smiled Jennifer.

He nodded. ‘Do you know “Kubla Khan”? Samuel Coleridge's poem:
Where Alph, the sacred
river, ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea . . .
'

‘Do you get scared . . . down there?' Jennifer was remembering her own fears.

‘Can't think about that. There have been some grand pioneers before us. What do you suppose Wilbur and Orville thought when they went flying? Mr Beebe dived in his bathysphere in the 1930s to more than three thousand feet. In 1960 the bathyscaphe
Trieste
went to the bottom of the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, thirty-six thousand, one hundred and ninety-seven feet down. It's time we followed in their footsteps. Forget the moon, the sea is the last great frontier.' He raised his arm. ‘And one day I will meet that mysterious fish. Then we'll know if we indeed walked from the sea.'

Jennifer took his arm, sensing the old man was looking for something other than the creature he believed existed somewhere in the depths of the ocean.

‘I hope you find it,' she said softly.

‘It's there. It'll make its presence felt when the time is right.'

‘What are you talking about, Gideon?' Rosie appeared beside Jennifer. ‘I couldn't miss this.'

‘Ah, an old fisherman's tale, is all. I have to get Isobel, don't go away, Miss Jennifer.'

They watched him walk towards the cluster around Isobel.

‘Gideon told me he once saw a wonderful unknown creature, a fish like our lung fish, with protuberances like legs. A bit like the coelacanth –
the last living fossil linking humans to amphibians,' Jennifer explained to Rosie.

‘Is that why he keeps devising ways to go deeper into the sea?' mused Rosie.

‘It does sound intriguing. A place where maybe anything is possible, where you can start again, do it right.' Jennifer stared thoughtfully at the shining surface of the sea and Rosie glanced at her curiously, then walked back to the Shark Bar where the group waited the hours until the shark mobile returned.

After the celebration of the big dive came the sobering conclusion that the threat to the reef was real, continuing, and climate change was only part of the problem. It wasn't until the video footage was set up and played in the canteen, which was converted to a viewing room with a big TV screen, that Jennifer truly understood Isobel's world and her addiction. Gideon's too.

The lights dimmed. From Lloyd and Carmel's boat the camera crew caught the shark mobile's bow wave as the submersible bounced slightly in the resort boat's wake. The knot of people on the beach outside the Shark Bar began to dissipate. Gideon's instructions could be heard above the engine as Isobel flipped through a clipboard covered in calculations and graphs.

‘The island looks so lost, fragile, lonely out on its own,' Jennifer whispered to Mac beside her. ‘I wonder how it's anchored there, what massive
eruptions thrust that tiny dot out into the world of sunlight. No wonder I felt so isolated, so impermanent when I first arrived.'

‘Each island is unique in its creation and development of its nature and fauna. An island has few enemies, perhaps the sea and wind,' he answered softly.

‘It makes me feel that we're interlopers in a living museum. And wherever humanity goes, we destroy what is beautiful and special. And it makes me wonder, should we go down into that last frontier? I rather like the idea of it being unknown, undisturbed.'

When the boat and the submersible reached the outer reef it looked to Jennifer as if Isobel and Gideon had landed on some marine moon. The camera panned over the atlas of light and richly coloured reef channels and outcrops where the shallower water was pale and clear, to the inky indigo of the depths beyond the continental shelf. Jennifer imagined chasms deeper than the Grand Canyon, into which you could drop Mount Everest and never see its peak.

The camera zoomed in, shortening the distance between the boat and a spurt of seawater from a whale blow. In the next few seconds the dark back of the whale rose from the water to slide back into the sea with a silent gush of white water and shake of its tail flukes. There were three in the stray pod heading to their annual breeding grounds in the warm northern waters of the reef.

On screen Gideon, in the shark mobile, and
Lloyd, on the resort boat, were studying the GPS sonar depth finder. Lloyd slowed the engines, then turned and called to Isobel, ‘Anywhere in the next few metres will take you down to Plateau One.'

‘Great. Let's do it.'

The acoustics were strange, not just from the sound-recording. Jennifer knew sound penetrated water more readily than air, some frequencies travelling hundreds or thousands of kilometres. No wonder whales could sing to each other across long distances. She glanced at Mac beside her, recalling his telling her that acoustic technology used for mapping the sea floor, and locating objects, animals and natural resources was also used for military purposes and for studies beneath the polar cap. It could detect if the ocean was cooling or warming. Or discover ancient undersea rivers.

There were three cameras, underwater and internal, which captured from various angles the sharkmobile's descent past brilliant coral hills, dazzling, jewelled fish and an occasional bombora pillar of ancient dead coral where shadowy large fish lurked. Jennifer had the sense that the submersible was swathed in soft blue velvet that had creased as if it had been slept upon. Shafts of sunlight sliced through the blue, making fishscales shimmer. Diaphanous jellyfish pulsed past and small creatures like spangled shrimp shot in jerky leaps, then froze, waving enormous tendril antennae before shooting off again.