White Dolphin (18 page)

C
arl offers us a lift home in the pickup truck. My shorts are soaking wet and I’m freezing cold. I sit in the back with Dad and Felix. We bump along the rippled sand and turn up the slipway to the coast road. The newsagent is open early. The shopkeeper is already putting the papers on the display racks outside. Dad raps on the window for Carl to stop and he jumps out to buy Aunt Bev some bread and a local paper.

I snatch the paper from his hands. On the front is a huge picture of Angel. I flick to the inside pages and see a double spread with photos of Carl and Dougie and the school hall. Daisy and I are pictured too.

‘What does it say?’ I ask. I push the paper into Felix’s hand.

Felix holds up the paper. ‘ “
Save our Seas: Locals and tourists filled the school hall yesterday to give their support to the marine reserve
. . .” ’

Felix is silent for a moment while he skim-reads the article. He breaks out in a huge grin. ‘We’ve done it. Listen here . . . “
Local fishermen signed the petition for the voluntary ban on fishing and dredging the area, while a law to ensure the bay gets statutory protection is put through parliament. The petition was signed by over six hundred people in less than two hours.
” ’

‘So the fishermen are on our side,’ I say. ‘They’ve promised not to dredge the bay until a new law is passed to protect the reef.’ I can’t help grinning. I never dreamed it would happen like this. We’ve saved Angel and we’ve saved the bay.

‘We’ve got to remember this moment,’ Felix says. ‘It doesn’t get much better than this.’

I nod, because he’s right and nothing can take away this feeling.

Nothing.

Not even Dougie Evans’s jeep parked in Aunt Bev and Uncle Tom’s drive.

Carl pulls up outside the house. We can hear raised voices coming through the open kitchen window. Uncle Tom and Dougie Evans are doing the shouting. Aunt Bev is standing with her back to us, pressed against the kitchen sink.

‘Do you want us to come in with you?’ says Felix’s dad.

Dad shakes his head and looks grim. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘I guess Dougie Evans has seen the paper too.’

Dad and I jump down from the pickup. I wave at Felix as they turn the corner and disappear out of sight.

I follow Dad up the path towards the door. I try hard not to step on the cracks in the paving stones, but Dougie Evans flings the door open and stops in front of us. I see he has the same paper in his hand.

He chucks it on the ground. ‘Means nothing, this,’ he snarls. ‘It’s not worth the paper it’s written on.’ He kicks it with his foot, and the pages scatter into the air.

Dad stands back to let him through and he glares at me as he passes. I think he’ll walk right past, but he stops and turns back to face me.

‘Saving bloody dolphins like your mum, eh?’ His face is pressed close up to mine. Sweat glistens on his forehead. ‘Look what happened to her.’

‘Go home, Dougie.’ Dad pushes himself in front of me. ‘Just go home.’ Dad’s voice is calm, but his hands are clenched.

I try to slip in front of Dad. I want him to be safe, but Dad just holds me back.

‘No one tells me what to do,’ Dougie shouts. ‘No one.’

He turns away and storms down the path to his jeep. He spits on the pavement, climbs in and roars away.

And we are left in dust and silence.

Dad puts his arms around me. ‘Ignore it,’ he says.

I lean into Dad and walk into the house with him. But I can’t help thinking Dougie Evans would rip up the whole sea and everything in it if he could.

Aunt Bev is standing at the sink, her hand across her belly. Uncle Tom goes to put his arm around her but she shrugs him off. ‘You didn’t listen to me, did you?’

Uncle Tom sits down at the table and puts his head in his hands.

‘What happened?’ Dad asks.

Aunt Bev shakes her head and stares at her husband. ‘I told him not to sign that petition, but he wouldn’t listen.’

Dad looks between them. ‘Bev, what happened?’

‘He’s lost his job. Dougie fired him just now.’

Dad pulls up a chair next to Uncle Tom. ‘He can’t just do that,’ he says.

‘Of course he can,’ snaps Aunt Bev. ‘He’s Dougie Evans. He does what he likes. You should’ve known that, Tom.’

Uncle Tom gets up. He grabs his jacket and walks to the door.

‘Where are you going now?’ snaps Aunt Bev.

‘Out,’ he says. ‘I need fresh air.’

He pushes past us and I hear the front door slam shut.

‘We need the money, Tom,’ she calls after him through the open window. ‘What are we going to do without money?’

I back away to the door too. Aunt Bev’s in no fine mood. I expect the shouting to start at me and Dad, but she sinks into a chair. She pushes back thin strands of hair from her face and stares up at the ceiling.

‘What am I going to do, Jim?’ she says. ‘We got no money for the rent this month.’

Dad takes Aunt Bev’s hand in his. ‘Things will work out, Bev. You’ll see.’

But Aunt Bev shakes her head. She doesn’t even wipe away the tears that fall and soak dark drops into the T-shirt stretched across her bulging belly.

‘We can’t keep you and Kara too,’ she says. ‘God knows how we’ll keep ourselves.’

Dad nods and sits with her, still holding her hand. ‘You’ve been good to us, Bev,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’

I back out of the door and turn to head up the stairs. But Daisy’s sitting on the bottom stair, Teddy-cat clutched to her chest. Her face is puffy and her eyes are red with tears.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ she says. She wraps her arms around me.

I hug her tight. ‘Come on, Daisy,’ I say. I put my arm round her and we climb the stairs up to her bedroom. I sit next to her on the bed and hug her into me. ‘Carl released Angel this morning,’ I say.

‘I wish I could have come,’ she says.

I stroke her hair. I feel bad that I didn’t take her. But I couldn’t have asked Aunt Bev. She’d never have let me go either. ‘She found her mother. She was waiting for her in the bay.’

Daisy smiles and picks at the fluff balls on Teddy-cat’s fur.

‘We saved the reef too,’ I say. ‘There’s a picture of you and me in the paper. We’re famous, Daisy.’

Daisy frowns. ‘Dougie Evans is mad at that.’

‘I know,’ I say. I can’t help smiling. ‘But we’ve got the other fishermen on our side. They’re not going to dredge the reef.’

Daisy shakes her head. ‘Dad said he wouldn’t do it, that’s why Dougie Evans started shouting.’

‘Uncle Tom said
he wouldn’t do
what?’

Daisy looks at me. Her bottom lip trembles. ‘I heard them in the kitchen, and Dougie Evans is going to do it anyway.’

I feel my heart pump in my ears. I search her face. ‘Do what?’ I say.

Daisy hugs Teddy-cat tight into her chest. ‘Dougie Evans said he’s going fishing on the midnight tide. He’s going to rip out every coral in the bay.’

‘
I
t didn’t make any difference, did it?’ I say.

I turn the brittle skeleton of the pink sea-fan over and over in my hand. A small piece comes away and falls onto the wet sand. Every day, more sea-fans and corals are washed up on the shoreline. It’s been nearly a month since the local fishermen signed the voluntary ban. But since then, more and more trawlers from other fishing towns up and down the coast have come to dredge the bay. It seems they don’t care about the ban, or the bay.

Felix flings a pebble into the waves. ‘Dad heard the local fishermen complaining because they’re not getting as many lobsters and crabs in their pots. And the fish market in town won’t buy the scallops,’ he says. ‘At least they still support the voluntary ban. The trawlers that come here have to take their catch elsewhere.’

I shake my head. ‘For now,’ I say. I know Uncle Tom managed to get work on another boat. He’ll be out there soon too. And he’s not the only local fisherman to go out on the trawlers. Dad heard them say it wasn’t fair that other fishermen were taking their share of shellfish instead. I stare out to sea. At least it’s been too rough to work these past few days. The high waves have washed up broken reef. I don’t want to imagine what it looks like now. It must look like a ghost reef, like the pictures of torn down rainforest, only under water, out of sight.

Felix pulls his hood up over his head. We’re the only ones on the beach today. The clouds are low and heavy. They scud across the headland and the hills behind. Cold rain blasts in from the sea, horizontal.

‘We saved Angel, though,’ says Felix. ‘It counts for something.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I wish we could see her again.’

We’ve looked for the dolphins every day, but we haven’t seen them since Angel was released. Carl asked us to record any sightings of dolphins or whales. He took us out one day in the Marine Life Rescue boat and we saw basking sharks, their sail-like black dorsal fins cruising through the water and their huge white mouths gaping open, filtering plankton from the sea. We saw grey seals too, their fish-fattened bodies stretched out on warm rocks, sleeping in the sun.

‘I don’t reckon we’ll see much out there today,’ says Felix. ‘Come on. Let’s get some food in town.’

I stand up and wipe the sand from my hands. ‘Don’t you ever stop eating?’

Felix grins. ‘Lunch was two hours ago. I’m starving.’

We walk through the streets in town, but the cafés are packed. Through the mist of condensation on the windows, I see families crowded around tables. Bags, coats, and umbrellas lie scattered around chairs.

‘We could get some chips from the take-away and eat them in
Moana
under the cover,’ I say. ‘There’s not much room, but we’d be dry.’

‘It’ll do for now,’ Felix grins. ‘We’ll have more room when I get my yacht for my solo trip around the world.’

I laugh. ‘So you’re still up for the regatta race next week?’

‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Dad and I got round Gull Rock and back in under an hour and thirty minutes last time.’

‘Not bad,’ I say. But secretly, I’m impressed. The fastest time Dad and I raced
Moana
was in one hour and forty-five, but I’m not telling Felix that. He and his dad have been out sailing nearly every day. I’ve watched them from the shore. I’ve watched, wanting to be out there too with Dad in
Moana
, like it used to be. But now, even on his days off work, he finds something else to do. He’s just not interested any more. It’s as if he’s turned his back on her. Maybe it’s because he can’t face losing her. Maybe that’s the way he feels about me.

Felix and I take our chips from the counter. I slip mine inside my coat to keep dry and we turn down Rope Walk, a quicker way to the harbour. Rain hammers on the rooftops and water pours out of gutters and across our path. The cobbles shine wet, the moss between them damp and slippery. Felix picks his way slowly down, but I hurry ahead, keen to get out of the rain. I hear him shout. I turn and see him stumble to the ground and his knees hit the hard stone cobbles. His chips scatter into the rivulets of water.

I run back and kneel down beside him. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have rushed on.’

I offer my hand to help him up, but he pushes me away and swears under his breath. I try to scoop up some of his chips, but even the ones still in the packet have turned to mush. The seagulls are pacing up and down behind us, ready for an easy meal.

Felix pushes himself up and thumps his hand against the wall. ‘I
hate
being like this sometimes.’

His jeans are ripped at the knees. Dark red bloodstains spread across the frayed denim.

He leans against the wall and kicks the chip packet towards the seagulls. ‘Out on the water, I can do anything anyone else can do. It’s like my boat is part of me.’ He thumps the wall again. ‘Out there, I’m free.’

I nod, because I know just what he means.
Moana
feels part of me. She keeps us safe, a protective shell around Mum and Dad and me.

The wind gusts up from the harbour walls and whips my hair across my face. I wrap my coat tightly around me and feel my packet of chips burn warm against my skin. The smell of vinegar and salty chips wafts up around my collar. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’ve got loads in here. You can share mine.’ I’m starving too, and can’t wait to eat them under
Moana
’s cover spread across the boom.

The harbour walls are empty. A few gulls march along the wall beside the waste bins hoping for scraps of food. I look down along the line of pleasure yachts to see
Moana
. But her cover’s been drawn back and there are two people sitting inside. Even from here I can see who they are. It’s Ethan, and Jake Evans.

I leave Felix on the harbour wall and climb down the ladder set into the granite blocks. I run along the pontoon, my feet thudding on the boards.

I stare at them in the boat. Crisp packets and a drink can lie scattered inside. ‘Get out,’ I yell.

Jake and Ethan exchange glances. Ethan puts his feet up on the seats.

I climb inside
Moana
. ‘Get out of my boat.’

Jake leans forward and smirks at me. ‘I think you’ll find she’s not your boat.’