Something in the Water - 1. Part 1

-- Chapter One --

The meeting room at the Macquarie Harbour Writers’ Centre had not been set up for this many people.

Extra chairs had been dragged in from the hallway. A few latecomers stood along the back wall. Someone had even perched on the windowsill, notebook balanced on their knees as though they might catch inspiration mid-sentence.

At the front of the room, Tony Scott sat on the corner of a table, one leg swinging lazily, the other braced against the floor. He held his latest novel open in one hand and read with an easy rhythm that suggested both rehearsal and instinct.

He had learned long ago that readings were performance. You needed to pause in the right place. Look up before the punchline. Let silence do some of the work.

From time to time he glanced at the faces before him – earnest, hopeful, analytical, admiring. He recognised some from other recent events, or from earlier years, back when he had been the anxious young man sitting where they now sat, wondering if he would ever be brave enough to call himself a writer.

Now they called him a local literary prodigy. He tried not to wince whenever he heard that.

He read for twenty minutes. Just enough to draw them in. Just enough to leave them wanting more. When he reached a carefully chosen cliff edge – three chapters from the end – he closed the book softly.

A collective groan rose from the room.

Tony smiled.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is where I stop. I can’t give it all away in one sitting.’

Laughter followed. Then applause.

The director of the centre – crisp, composed, perpetually serious – stepped forward to heap praise upon him and his “generosity in returning to nurture the community that first nurtured him.”

He accepted it with grace. He always did.

Soon enough the formalities dissolved into a ritual he knew by heart. Tables laden with sandwiches and cakes, all lovingly prepared by the local Country Woman’s Association. Cheap instant coffee, or tea bags dipped in hot water, all served in the same delicate white teacups. Dog-eared books thrust forward for signing. Earnest questions about publishing, and rejection, or discipline and inspiration.

He answered them all. Nothing was ever too difficult . . . just so long as they stuck to the topic at hand. If there was one thing he held back on, or was reserved about, it was his private life. He felt entitled to that; hell, there was enough private stuff out there already, so why offer more?

Somewhere between a conversation about narrative voice and another about marketing strategies, the talk drifted – as small-town talk often does – towards the state of the community. A new café opening. Council delays. Property prices.

And then, with a grin from someone near the back: ‘It does seem like there’s an awful lot of gay folk in this town these days.’

A ripple of amusement moved through the group.

Tony arched an eyebrow. ‘Is that a complaint?’

‘What? Oh, no!’ the woman laughed quickly. ‘Just an observation. It’s almost as if there’s something in the water.’

More laughter followed.

Tony smiled politely, but something about the phrase lingered. He had heard variations of it before. Said jokingly. Said affectionately. Said with a shrug. He’d heard it all.

Something in the water.

He became aware, then, of someone who wasn’t laughing.

A young Aboriginal man stood just beyond the loose circle of conversation. Dark skin. Tight curls. Lean build. His expression wasn’t dismissive; more like, it was knowing.

He was smiling. Not at the joke, but at something else.

Tony excused himself from the group and stepped towards him.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Tony said, extending his hand.

The young man took it easily. His grip was warm and steady.

‘I’m Jack,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you. Good reading today.’

‘Glad you think so.’

‘I’ve read all of them.’

‘All?’ Tony asked, amused.

‘Every last one.’

There was no boast in it. Just fact.

‘Well,’ Tony said, ‘either you’ve got excellent taste or far too much spare time on your hands.’

Jack’s grin widened. ‘Bit of both, maybe.’

They stood for a moment, the noise of the room humming around them.

Tony tilted his head slightly. ‘So, you didn’t laugh.’

‘At what?’

‘The water comment.’

Jack’s eyes flicked briefly towards the others, then back.

‘Maybe there is something in it,’ he said.

Tony studied him. ‘That sounded less like a joke.’

‘It wasn’t.’

There was no challenge in Jack’s tone. Just calm certainty.

‘Our people have stories about the place,’ Jack continued. ‘From long before there was a town. Long before there were writers’ centres and folk museums and council chambers.’

Tony felt a small, involuntary tightening in his chest – the familiar sensation of a door opening to a place unexpected.

‘About the lake?’ he asked.

‘And the river. And the mountains. And why some things are the way they are.’

Tony glanced briefly towards the windows, as though he might see the water from here. He couldn’t, but he could see the mountains.

‘And if I wanted to hear one of those stories?’

Jack didn’t hesitate.

‘Then you’d need to talk to Aunty Pearl.’

‘And who’s she?’

‘She’s the one who keeps them. One of the elders.’

‘Keeper?’ Tony echoed.

Jack nodded once. ‘Of the stories.’

There was something about the way he said it – not mystical, not dramatic – that made the word feel solid.

‘And where would I find her?’ Tony replied. He was always up for a story.

Jack’s smile returned, smaller now.

‘Mission Island.’

Tony felt the old, inherited discomfort flicker through him at the name. Everyone knew of Mission Island. Few went there. It was spoken about in lowered voices when it was spoken about at all.

‘Yeah, I know where it is,’ Tony said carefully.

‘Good.’ Jack held his gaze. ‘We can go tomorrow, if you’re serious.’

Tony considered the offer. A dozen safe responses flickered through his mind – another time, perhaps; let me check my schedule; sounds fascinating.

Instead he heard himself say, ‘What time?’

Jack’s grin sharpened. ‘Eight. Meet me at the wharf.’

‘Done,’ Tony replied.

For a moment neither moved.

Then Jack stepped back slightly, nodding once as though something had been confirmed.

‘See you in the morning, writer-man.’

Tony watched him leave – slipping quietly out of the room, unnoticed by most.

The chatter around him resumed its comfortable rhythm.

Something in the water.

For the first time, the phrase did not feel like a joke.

*     *     *     *     *

-- Chapter Two --

The marina was almost empty at eight in the morning.

There was a lone café on this side of the harbour, not too far from the waterfront, which was usually frequented by only the fishermen and the owners of the yachts moored in the marina. They were only just setting out their chairs when Tony arrived.

The tide was half in, the water moving lazily against the pylons. A gull strutted along the timber planks as though it owned the place.

Tony stood with a travel mug of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other, rereading a message he’d sent fifteen minutes earlier.

Heading out to Mission Island this morning.
Back by lunch.
Don’t let the dog eat my manuscript.
– T

Aaron’s reply had come almost instantly.

I make no promises about the dog.
Be careful.
And behave.

Tony had to smile at that. Eight years together and Aaron still said be careful whenever Tony went anywhere unfamiliar. Nothing possessive. Just habit. Just love.

He slipped his phone into his pocket and looked out across the grey water, which reflected the gloomy skies above.

Mission Island sat low and unassuming in the pale morning light. From this distance it looked like nothing more than scrub and rock and a few wind-twisted trees. It did not look like a place that people called home, or a place where stories were kept, but Tony knew that the settlement was on the far side of the island, facing the west; hiding from the Thompsonville township, or at least in a position where it didn’t have to be constantly under the gaze of the founding fathers.

Suspicion still ran strong, even after all these years.

Noticing that a small aluminium boat had detached itself from the shadows of the southern side of the island, Tony followed its path as it began making its way across the choppy water towards the marina. He recognised Jack immediately, even at a distance. There was something unhurried about him. Not slow – just . . . deliberate.

The boat skipped across the water, bouncing a few times on the choppy surface, before Jack eased it alongside the dock, with a skilled hand that suggested he’d been doing this since childhood.

‘Morning,’ he called lightly as he cut the motor.

‘Morning,’ Tony replied. ‘You’re punctual. I like that.’

Jack shrugged. ‘The tides wait for no one.’

Tony stepped down onto the lower platform and into the boat, gripping the side instinctively as it rocked on the gentle waves.

‘You always this trusting?’ Jack asked.

‘I didn’t say I trusted you,’ Tony replied mildly.

Jack grinned. ‘You did get in the boat.’

‘Fair point.’

Jack pushed off and pulled the cord. The motor caught on the second try, the sound echoing briefly against the hulls of nearby yachts and pleasure craft. They moved away from the neat lines of the marina and into open water.

Tony looked back at the town. It looked different from this angle. Softer. Less defined.

‘So,’ Jack said after a few minutes, eyes on the horizon. ‘You nearly didn’t come.’

Tony blinked. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘You had that look yesterday.’

‘A look?’

‘The one where your head’s arguing with your feet.’

Tony laughed softly. ‘You read people for fun, do you?’

‘Comes in handy, I guess. You do the same, I reckon.’

‘I reckon I might. You can learn a lot by just watching. You don’t even need to listen.’

Jack nodded once. ‘Yeah. You’re right there.’

They grinned at each other for a moment, before Tony turned and looked in the direction of their destination, then they rode in silence for a while. The early air was cool but clean. The island loomed ahead of them.

‘You grow up out there?’ Tony asked eventually, nodding towards the island.

‘Mostly.’

‘Mostly?’

‘Mum moved us to town for a few years when I was little. School stuff. Housing stuff.’ He shrugged. ‘Didn’t stick though.’

‘Why not?’

Jack adjusted the throttle slightly as they hit a small wake.

‘Too much noise,’ he said simply.

Tony smiled faintly. ‘You live on an island with sixty people.’

‘Yeah. But it’s our noise. Not much in the way of machines. When you hear the wind, that’s all you hear. When you look at the stars, that’s all you see.’

That landed differently.

‘Yeah, I get that,’ Tony replied.

They were close to the island now, and Jack steered to the channel on the southern side, while Tony studied the details that were beginning to emerge; the jetty, the rise of land, the scrubby vegetation that seemed to cover most of the island, the scatter of structures that from town were barely visible.

‘You go to uni?’ Tony asked, careful not to make it sound like judgement.

‘Lasted a year,’ Jack replied. ‘Environmental science.’

Tony raised his eyebrows.

‘That surprises you?’

‘A little, maybe,’ Tony admitted.

Jack’s mouth twitched. ‘Yeah, I get that.’

‘What happened?’

Jack shrugged, but didn’t answer immediately.

‘They wanted to study the river,’ he said at last. ‘Measure it. Model it. Predict it. Maybe change it.’

‘And?’

‘And none of them wanted to listen to it.’

Tony considered that.

‘And now?’

‘Now, I work a bit here, a bit there. Fisheries. Council contracts. Take tourists out sometimes.’ He glanced sideways briefly. ‘Not usually this far though.’

‘Am I a special case?’

Jack grinned. ‘You’re curious. And I don’t think you want anything . . . other than stories, maybe. So that counts.’

They were close enough to the jetty now, at the western end of the island, and the main cluster of buildings, and Tony could see movement near the shore. Children. A dog. Someone hanging washing on a line.

‘Why me?’ Tony asked.

Jack didn’t pretend to not understand.

‘You write about that place,’ he said, while pointing back towards Thompsonville. ‘Maybe you’ll write about this place. About the people here. About what it feels like to belong. About their stories.’

Tony didn’t interrupt.

‘You get that wrong,’ Jack continued evenly, ‘it sticks. But like I said, you watch and listen. I don’t think you’d get that wrong.’

The words weren’t threatening. They were simply true.

Tony nodded once.

‘So, you think I might get it right?’

‘I think so,’ Jack said, easing the throttle back as they approached the jetty.

As they drew closer, Jack killed the motor, then the boat drifted the final few metres, bumping gently against some old tyres hanging against the timber.

The quiet that followed was different from the marina’s quiet. Less curated. More . . . honest.

Jack stepped out first and secured the rope. Then he turned back to Tony.

‘Ready?’

Tony looked up towards the island. Towards whatever waited there.

He realised, suddenly, that this wasn’t just about a story. It was about recording history. It was about responsibility. He stepped onto the jetty.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m ready.’

*     *     *     *     *

-- Chapter Three --

Up close, Mission Island did not look that mystical. It looked weathered. Lived in.

The jetty stuck out about twenty metres into the channel, and the sun-bleached boards, splintered in places, creaked and rattled beneath their feet as they walked forward. Tony noticed that rust had crept along the bolts.

When they reached the shoreline, Tony noticed the sand was tracked with bare footprints and dog prints and something that might have been bicycle tyres.

A boy of about ten stood halfway along the jetty, staring at Tony without blinking. He wore maroon football shorts and nothing else. His hair was a tight dark halo around his head, and his chin was lifted with a mixture of curiosity and challenge.

‘Who’s he?’ the boy asked Jack, not bothering to lower his voice.

‘Visitor,’ Jack replied evenly.

The boy’s eyes slid back to Tony.

‘You famous?’

Tony hesitated. ‘Depends who you ask.’

The boy considered that, then nodded once, as though accepting a reasonable answer.

‘You bring anything?’ he asked Jack.

Jack snorted softly. ‘Not for you.’

The boy grinned, entirely unoffended.

Two smaller children hovered near the start of the jetty, one clutching a plastic bucket, the other dragging a stick through the sand in looping patterns. A skinny dog circled Tony cautiously, sniffed his ankle, then decided he wasn’t worth the effort.

Tony crouched slightly to make himself seem less . . . large, or threatening. For the kids, and the dog.

‘Morning,’ he said gently.

The younger child hid immediately behind the bucket-holder’s shoulder.

Jack was already moving up the path.

‘C’mon,’ he called lightly. ‘They’ll warm up eventually.’

Tony straightened and followed.

The path that led from the jetty was little more than packed sand and flattened grass. It curved upward towards the centre of the island, where the land rose just enough to catch the breeze.

As they climbed, Tony became aware of the sounds.

Not traffic. Not construction. Not the distant thud of bass from passing cars. Instead, there were different sounds; washing flapping against a line, a hammer striking metal somewhere out of sight, low voices carrying across open spaces, the rhythmic scrape of a broom on concrete.

The huts were scattered rather than aligned – some timber, some patched with corrugated iron, some painted in colours that had long since surrendered to salt and sun. None of it looked staged. It just looked . . . real.

‘Do you get many visitors?’ Tony asked quietly.

‘Depends what you mean by visitors,’ Jack replied.

Tony let that pass.

A woman in her thirties emerged from one of the houses carrying a laundry basket. She paused when she saw Tony.

Jack nodded once in greeting. ‘Morning, Sal.’

She returned the nod, eyes flicking briefly over Tony, assessing.

‘Morning.’

There was no sound of hostility, but no real warmth either. Just curiosity; or was that awareness.

As they continued uphill, the children began to follow again – never crowding, just orbiting at a distance. Tony was conscious of every step. Conscious of not wanting to stare. Conscious of not wanting to look away either.

‘You can look,’ Jack said mildly. ‘They’re looking at you.’

Tony glanced sideways. ‘I wasn’t . . .’

‘Yeah, you were, but that’s okay.’

Tony huffed a quiet laugh. ‘I don’t want to appear to be rude.’

‘You’re only rude if you pretend you don’t see us.’

That landed solidly.

They reached the crest of the rise – the centre of the island – and from there the view opened up; the mainland stretched in a neat crescent before them, the marina small and orderly in the distance, the town beyond it tidy and deliberate.

From over there, Mission Island looked like a footnote, an empty inconvenience for the tourist trade. From the island, the town looked like something from a not-too-distant past. It didn’t look like anything modern, just a settlement. At least it hadn’t been excessively marked by progress.

Tony turned slowly, taking in the sweep of water between the two.

‘You can see everything from up here,’ he murmured.

‘Yeah,’ Jack said. ‘That’s kind of the point.’

Tony looked at him. Jack didn’t elaborate.

At the far end of the clearing stood a slightly larger hut with a narrow verandah. Its timber posts leaned just enough to suggest age rather than neglect. Wind chimes made from shells and old cutlery tinkled softly.

Three figures stood outside, on the verandah. Watching. Two men, both older, both upright despite their years. And a woman in a cotton dress, covered in flowers, with silver hair pulled back from her face. Her skin was dark and fine-lined, her feet bare against the weathered timber floor.

She did not move as they approached. Jack slowed his pace instinctively.

‘That’s her,’ he said quietly.

Tony felt an unexpected flicker of nerves. Not stage nerves. Not interview nerves. Something older.

They stopped a few paces away and Jack inclined his head slightly.

‘Morning, Aunty.’

Her eyes never left Tony.

‘Morning, Jack,’ she replied.

Her voice was not frail. It was steady, textured by time but not weakened by it.

‘This him?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

Tony stepped forward just enough to be respectful without invading space.

‘Good morning,’ he said.

She looked him up and down, not rudely, but thoroughly. Tony had the distinct sensation of being weighed up. Not his clothes. Not his profession. Him. Like this woman was looking inside him already.

‘You the writer bloke, then?’ she said at last.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

A faint twitch touched the corner of her mouth.

‘Don’t ma’am me,’ she said. ‘Makes me sound dead, or worse . . . American . . . and I’m not either of those things!’

One of the elders chuckled softly.

Tony smiled. ‘Sorry.’

She stepped down from the verandah then, closing the distance by a single measured pace. Up close, her eyes were sharper than he had expected. Not suspicious. Just clear.

‘You know where you are?’ she asked.

Tony hesitated. ‘Mission Island.’

Her head tilted slightly. ‘That’s what the town calls it.’

He felt the correction without heat.

‘I’m here because Jack said you keep stories,’ he said carefully.

‘Stories ain’t things you keep in a cupboard, writer-man,’ she replied. ‘They’re things you live with.’

Tony nodded. A small silence followed. The breeze shifted again, lifting the edge of her dress.

She glanced at Jack briefly, then back to Tony.

‘He bunji-bunji?’ she asked.

Tony blinked. Jack didn’t.

‘Yes, Aunty.’

Tony felt the word land in the open air between them. Aunty Pearl studied him a moment longer. Then she nodded once.

‘Good,’ she said.

Tony wasn’t sure why that mattered. But it did.

She turned slightly towards the verandah.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you didn’t come all this way to stand around looking at me.’

One of the elders shifted, stepping aside.

‘Come and sit,’ she said. ‘Let’s see what kind of listening you’ve got in you.’

To be continued . . .