The Island(11)

Tom drove on first, followed by the Dutch couple and the Toyota.

They got out of their cars while Ivan unhooked the two hawsers tying the ferry to the shore. He used a stick to fend the ferry away from a bunch of old tires protecting the dock and then he put the diesel engine into gear and they were away.

“If you want to see sharks, I’d go to the port side. That’s the left side for you landlubbers,” Ivan said as he stubbed out one cigarette and lit another and Jacko took the tiller.

They went to the port side and caught a glimpse of a tiger shark’s fin, which made Owen favor everyone with a smile. “How big is the island?” Tom asked.

“Four kilometers lengthwise,” Ivan said. “In old money, that’s about three miles wide, and it’s two from top to bottom.”

“Where are the koalas?” Heather asked.

Matt came over from the leeward rail. He had taken his hat off. With his long chestnut hair, Heather thought he looked like one of those men a woman in a ’90s Tampax commercial would be riding her horse to meet. “The koalas will be in the trees,” Matt said. “Look, don’t drive far from the dock. There’s no internet or Wi-Fi and it’s easy to get lost. Definitely stay away from the farm—that’s in the middle of the island.”

“I would like to see an Australian farm,” Tom said.

“No!” Matt said. “You’re not supposed to be on the island at all. Nothing to see, anyway. It’s just a hobby farm now. Sheep, goats, generator, a well. Just for us. Just for the family.”

“So how do you live?” Tom asked.

“The federal government had a prison just down the road here from the 1910s to the 1980s. They paid us rent and we sort of live off the remains of that cash. They tried to run it as a tourist attraction after it closed, but Ma put a stop to all that.”

“She bloody did,” Ivan grumbled.

“Over here! Another shark!” Owen said, taking Tom’s arm and leading him to the front of the ferry with Olivia. Hans followed them, leaving Matt alone with the two women.

“How many people are there on the island?” Petra asked Matt after a time.

“Including the kids, about twenty-five, twenty-seven, I think.”

“Do you have a school?” Heather asked.

“The older kids go to boarding school. The younger ones are homeschooled, if you know what that is.”

Heather smiled. “I do. I was homeschooled.”

“In Seattle? I thought that was a big city,” Matt said, becoming, perhaps, slightly more friendly.

“I just moved to Seattle a few years ago. I grew up on a small island myself. Goose Island in Puget Sound.”

“What was that like?” Petra asked, genuinely curious.

“We moved there when I was little. After my parents got out of the army. It’s sort of an artists’ colony,” Heather said, digging the experience of telling perfect strangers some of her story. “It was founded in the 1970s but it attracted a lot of ex-servicemen, army veterans with PTSD, that kind of stuff. They have art therapy. And nature. And it’s real quiet. It, um, got a bit too small for me, so I moved to Seattle.”

“I did exactly the opposite,” Matt said. “Like your folks. I moved here. I married in. I’m not one of Ma’s sons. I’m a son-in-law.”

“It’s a bit, um, off the beaten track?” Petra suggested.

“That’s the point,” Matt said. “I grew up in a flat in Melbourne. Single mum. The trams, the cars, people yelling. Does my head in, the city. I came here with Tara, Ma’s second youngest. But she and Ma fought like cats and cats. She buggered off and I stayed. I learned bushcraft out here and I can see a hundred different birds on a morning walk.”

“Bushcraft? Birds? You and my dad would get on famously,” Heather said.

“Sounds like we would. That’s not your dad with you, is it?” Matt asked.

“No! Tom’s my husband!” Heather said, coloring.

“You seem barely old enough to have children,” Petra said.

Heather looked at Tom and the kids. “I’m his second wife. His first, Judith, died a year ago,” she said quietly.

“Oh no, poor little things,” Petra said. “But I am sure you are a comfort to them.”

I try, Heather mouthed but did not say.

Matt tried and failed to light a cigarette. Heather lent him her Zippo, and the cigarette caught.

“Is there an Aboriginal heritage here?” Petra asked.

“No. Look, this is not a tourist destination,” Matt insisted.

“We took care of them lot. We did a black line on the bastards,” Jacko said as he and Ivan swapped places at the tiller.

“Black line?” Heather asked.

“You know about the Black Line of Tasmania, of course?” Jacko said.

Heather and Petra shook their heads.

“Two thousand men under Major Sholto Douglas marched across Tasmania to capture all the remaining Aboriginals. Killed the lot of them,” Jacko said gleefully. “They did the same here on Dutch Island soon thereafter.”

“And the dream lines?” Petra asked.

“We had one come here a few years ago spouting that nonsense. Remember that, Matt?” Jacko said.

“I remember,” Matt said.