The Other Side of Nowhere Page 8

  George stood up, shaking her head. ‘Boys. You’re all so hopeless. Just talk to him. Nip it in the bud and stop making up a whole catastrophe in your head.’ She leant over and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, then wandered off.

  Alone by the fire, I sat battling a surge of confused thoughts, watching the bread roll in the fire slowly blacken.

  Daylight had almost disappeared by the time Nick and Matt came strolling back into camp, boasting wide grins and holding up two decent fish.

  ‘You arsey bugger,’ I said in amazement, as Matt dangled a good-size whiting in my face. Its mouth was wide open, as if it was as surprised as I was that it had been caught by a muppet with nothing more than a puny hand-line.

  Nick got to work scaling and filleting the fish and then cut them into bite-size pieces and skewered them on sticks to barbeque over the coals. Soon everything was ready and when we dipped the skewered fish into the spaghetti sauce, it tasted like heaven. All manners went out the window as we stuffed morsels of food into our mouths with greedy hands, scarcely bothering to chew. Only Matt seemed able to talk and hoover food at the same time, and he held court with his highly embellished fishing tales.

  It grew dark as we ate and by the time the last drop of spaghetti sauce had been wiped from the tin, we could hardly see beyond the trees around our campsite. The sky was clear and sparkling with stars, and a warm breeze gently rustled the leaves around us.

  We talked and joked and laughed by the fire, and for a time everything seemed normal. Even Nick seemed at ease, lying on his side with his head resting on his good arm, listening to Matt babble incessantly. One minute Matt was telling us about the best game of footy he had ever played and the next he was making up some dumb story about pirates on this island and how there might be buried treasure near our campsite. It was kind of like the ‘shuffle’ function on my iPod – you never knew what was coming next.

  George was pretty quiet, as she often was. Most of the time with her, you could sit in silence for ages and never feel like you had to fill in all those quiet little gaps with small talk. But that night, I was feeling uncomfortable.

  Usually I loved how honest and confident George was, but there were times when I thought she became a little too forthright. And sitting there in the firelight listening to Matt on shuffle, I sensed George was biding her time. That she was waiting for an opportunity to probe Nick. And when at last Matt paused, my suspicions about George were confirmed.

  ‘Nick? Can I ask a question?’ she said softly.

  Nick was onto her. ‘That sounds a bit … polite.’

  ‘I’m a very polite person,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I just want to know … What’s the deal with your dad?’

  Suddenly it felt like the campfire was too warm, that the trees were too close. This line of questioning made me feel claustrophobic. I really didn’t want to hear this. I shifted away from the fire a little.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nick asked lightly, staring into the darkness beyond the trees.

  ‘Well, you said you can’t rely on him.’

  Nick sat up, ran his fingers through his hair and scratched at the back of his neck. ‘Is that what I said? It’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Well, that’s what it sounded like,’ George said, probingly.

  ‘Look,’ Nick said, turning his gaze from the campfire to George. ‘I don’t want to talk about my dad, all right?’

  ‘I know you don’t want to,’ she replied a little too sharply, clearly determined not to just let it pass. ‘But maybe you need to.’

  I sighed, a little more loudly than I intended.

  Nick tilted his head and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Is that so? And just what business is it of yours, Georgina?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Nick,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Believe it or not, I might have a passing interest in why no-one’s coming to get us!’

  Nick glared at her, the shadows from the fire distorting his features. For a time he said nothing. None of us did. The only sound was the sharp crackle and pop of the fire.

  ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘Yes, I do. We all do,’ she replied, looking around at Matt and me.

  ‘He drinks, all right?’ Nick said, angrily. ‘He drinks and he forgets.’

  It took a moment for this to sink in. A lifetime of memories flashed through my head, but not one of them involved his dad drinking. Well, not drunk. My dad and him sometimes used to have a few beers together. But my dad didn’t drink much either. In fact, I’d never seen either of them really drunk. Not even close.

  ‘Do you mean he’s … an alcoholic?’ asked George hesitantly.

  ‘No. He’s not an alcoholic, all right?’ Nick snapped back. He pulled a stick from the ground and started breaking off pieces, flicking them one by one into the flames. When at last he spoke, all the venom in his voice was gone.

  ‘When Granddad couldn’t run the farm anymore, Dad decided we’d go help him. He didn’t give it a second thought. I mean, he wasn’t that happy in the city anyway – with Mum gone and stuff. So we moved to Shell Harbour. At first things were okay. I mean, it was hard, but it was still kinda fun, in a way. Anyway, he started to have a beer or two at the end of the day. Fair enough – he’d bloody well earned it.’

  Nick stopped for breath, and I could see there was a look of resignation on his face. As if telling the story didn’t change anything for him. He sighed deeply and threw the rest of his stick into the fire.

  ‘But then in the last couple of years, it got hard. It just never rains. For weeks, months at a time. And then when Mum –’ He stopped mid-sentence, as if he had started to go somewhere that he didn’t want to.

  He turned to me and I felt sure he was about to open up. For a fleeting moment I saw Nick exactly as I remembered him – an open book, a best mate. But in a flicker, he was gone again.

  ‘So, anyway, there you have it,’ he concluded, scooping up a handful of rocks as he got to his feet. ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die.’

  ‘You don’t believe that,’ said George firmly, her eyes sparkling in the firelight.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. So things have been a bit crappy. So what? Things can change.’

  Nick laughed bitterly and shook his head. ‘Change is for people who’ve got choices. People like you, George. Actually, like all of you. You’ve got choices, opportunities. Heaps of them. I don’t. You think I don’t want to be living in the city, going to school with Johnno?’

  He looked across at me, a strange expression on his face. It was almost contempt. Was he hating me for having some kind of charmed life?

  ‘My choice was made for me three years ago and I’m stuck with it. Nothing’s gonna change. Bloody nothing.’ He threw his fistful of rocks at the fire and stormed off.

  ‘Nick, Nick!’ I called out, but he just kept walking.

  George got up and yelled after him. ‘You want to know what I think? I think that’s rubbish. We all have choices. We do. And we all have a purpose in life. I don’t know what yours is, but I’m willing to bet it’s not living on some farm in the middle of nowhere while your father drinks himself stupid.’

  I could see Nick’s walking had slowed, that he’d heard her. But he didn’t stop or turn back.

  Part of me wanted to go after him, to try to talk to him, but it seemed so hard. I had no idea who Nick was anymore. And George, I just hadn’t seen her like this before. The look in her eyes, the tone of her voice – what was she doing? She hardly even knew Nick and it was like she was trying to save him. Suddenly I felt overcome by tiredness and a sense of confusion that made it almost impossible to move.

  George sat back down and said nothing for a minute. Then she reached out and touched my arm. ‘I’m sorry, Johnno,’ said George staring into the fire. ‘I should have probably kept my big mouth shut. But I’m getting scared, you know? No-one except Nick’s dad knows we’re here.’

  ‘I get it, George,’ I sai
d, quietly. But I was starting to feel resentful. We’d been so close to being okay at dinner, just for a moment. But she just had to push too hard and now everything was broken again. ‘But there’s no point in badgering him …’

  ‘I wasn’t badgering,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Just let it go, George,’ I said firmly.

  ‘No, I won’t let it go,’ George said, firing up again. ‘And neither should you. Can’t you see? God, Johnno. Just because he doesn’t ask for it in one-syllable words doesn’t mean he’s not begging for help.’

  Frowning, I slumped to the ground. ‘George, please. I’m too tired to figure out what that even means,’ I said with a groan. ‘Look, I’m sure his dad will be here in the morning. Just get some sleep, okay? And tomorrow we can get away from this crap-hole of a place.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said in a fierce low tone. ‘Let’s all just go home and pretend nothing ever happened.’

  In the morning Nick was still gone. None of us could recall seeing or hearing him come back to camp, and there was no indication he had, either. We went to check the beach with no luck.

  Not quite knowing what to do with ourselves, we scanned the ocean and the sky hopefully for a while, looking for rescue boats or planes, but there was nothing. Two nights and still no sign of help.

  I picked up a stick and flung it into the sea. ‘This is freakin’ unbelievable,’ I muttered. ‘Someone’s gotta be out looking for us.’

  ‘Maybe he went back to The Dolphin,’ said George, seemingly oblivious to what I’d said.

  ‘But it sank,’ said Matt.

  ‘Maybe he went to see if anything else got washed up,’ George said, shrugging.

  ‘Well, he’ll come back when he’s good and ready. I’m not walking all the way down there again,’ I announced, slumping onto the sand as if to show how immovable I was on the subject.

  ‘But what if something’s happened to him?’ said George, chewing on her fingernail. ‘It’s my fault – he wouldn’t have stormed off if I hadn’t stuck my nose in,’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ moaned Matt, rubbing his stomach.

  ‘Shut up Matt. As if you’re the only one who’s hungry,’ I snapped.

  ‘I’m going to have a look on the other side of the rocks,’ said George. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘George,’ I groaned. ‘It’s going to be about a million degrees again today. Just sit in the shade and wait for help. Nick’s just being Nick. He’ll be back soon. All right?’

  But it was written all over her face that she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she knew he was safe. ‘Just to the rocks, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I just want to check the next beach.’

  As if. There was no way George would stop at the rocks. If she didn’t find Nick there, she would just keep going until she did. It was obvious she was desperate to find him. Sure, she was feeling guilty for making him crack it and walk off, but I felt sure that she wouldn’t be so hell-bent on finding him if there wasn’t more to it than that.

  I wondered: If it were Matt or me who’d gone walkabout, would she be this worried?

  ‘Okay,’ I said, standing up. ‘But you’re not going on your own. So let’s eat something first, all right?’

  Surprisingly, she agreed and we headed back to camp. We filled the empty Gatorade bottle with water and shared half of the last banana and the tin of peaches, leaving the last couple in their syrup for Nick. All we had left was the half-jar of peanut butter and maybe a third of the container of water. No-one said it, but I bet we were all thinking the same thing: Today would be a good day to get rescued.

  We trudged slowly around to the spot where the yacht had sunk. The sun was getting high in the sky and the sand burnt my bare feet. Hundreds of flies buzzed around my scratches and cuts, which were mostly scabbed over, although a few of the deeper ones oozed gross liquid.

  We reached the rocks without seeing any sign of Nick, not even a footprint in the sand. And apart from a few pieces of white timber hull washed up on the shore, the only evidence of The Dolphin ever being there was one of Matt’s sneakers tangled in a clump of seaweed on a rock.

  The rocks where The Dolphin had sunk jutted out into the sea like a long jetty. On the land-side, the rocks sloped gently to the base of a cliff, which rose up quite steeply. The cliff top was maybe the height of a three-storey building. On the other side of the rocks were steep cliffs that plunged straight into the sea. There was no sign of another beach beyond the rocks, and we had no way of knowing how far the cliffs went before there was one.

  In light of this, none of us thought it made sense to swim around in search of another way to get ashore, and we didn’t think even Nick would have tried that. I wondered whether he had doubled back to try to find another way to get through the bush. But I had to admit it was more likely he would have chosen the only obvious way forward – climb the cliff.

  ‘I reckon I can get up that,’ chirped Matt, as if he’d been reading my thoughts.

  ‘We don’t need to get up anything,’ I told him. ‘Let’s just chill out here for a bit, then go back to camp.’ Then I added hopefully, ‘Bet you a million bucks Nick’s already back there wondering where the hell we are.’

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ said Matt.

  Before I could respond, he was running to the base of the cliff and, without hesitation, started to climb as effortlessly as a spider up a wall.

  ‘That is not human,’ George said, watching him in amazement.

  ‘He’s definitely from another planet,’ I agreed grimly.

  Watching, I winced as one foot slipped from its narrow foothold. Mostly, though, he climbed easily, and made it to the top faster than I would have believed possible.

  At the top of the cliff, Matt paused for a moment. Then, parting the undergrowth in front of him like he was opening a curtain, he pulled himself upwards and disappeared from sight. A few seconds later, the scrub trembled as he pushed back through.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth he called down to us. ‘Hey! There’s a path up here. Come on … it’s easy.’

  ‘It doesn’t look easy to me,’ George said as we approached the rock wall.

  ‘You’ll be right,’ I said encouragingly. ‘I’ll be right behind you. Just try not to hit me if you fall.’

  George made her way up cautiously, slower than Matt, but still pretty fast. Soon she was at the top of the cliff, where Matt was able to give her a hand up. I followed her up. It wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it was still hard work. By the time I made it to the top there was no sign of either of the other two. Finding a sturdy tree root, I managed to hoist myself up and through the mess of prickly undergrowth.

  On the other side was narrow path, where George was sitting waiting for me. To my left, the path snaked up towards the headland and out of sight around the bend. To the right, it dropped away in the direction of the beach we’d just come from.

  ‘I vote we go that way back,’ she said nodding her head towards the beach path.

  ‘Good plan,’ I agreed, plucking about a dozen prickles off my arm. ‘So where’s the alien?’

  ‘Up there,’ she said, nodding towards the bend.

  ‘C’mon then,’ I said, reaching down for George’s hands to help her up. ‘Might as well see what’s around the corner, I guess.’

  The path was narrow and crisscrossed with gnarly tree roots that were slippery with moss. Far below, I could see perfectly formed waves rolling towards shore in a never-ending procession. A lone hawk circled high above us, gliding on the breeze.

  It all looked idyllic enough, but I made sure to hang onto the rock ledge and stay as far from the edge as possible. One wrong step and it was an awfully long way down. As we rounded the bend we saw Matt resting against a boulder, the wind ruffling his hair as he took in the sweeping views of the coastline.

  I slumped down next to him. I was tired, sore and sick of walking aimlessly in search of Nick. Bugger him, I thought. Why couldn’t we just stay put and wait for him to come back
? Instead, we were stuck up here, miles from camp, getting fried by the sun and torn to pieces by the scrub.

  Matt passed the bottle of water and I took a long swig before passing it to George. By the time we’d all had a drink, there was hardly any left. It would be empty long before we got back to camp.

  ‘This is totally pointless,’ I announced. ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘But we’ve come this far. We may as well keep going a bit further,’ said George.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said in disbelief. ‘No way! What if he’s not on the next beach? Or the next? We could do a tour of the whole island and still never find him.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Matt suggested. ‘You guys wait here.’

  ‘Matt, how dumb are you?’ I shouted. ‘We stick together. Not sticking together is what got us here in the first place.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to stick with you?’

  ‘Tough!’

  ‘Get stuffed, Johnno,’ he said and started up the path.

  Furious, I ran to stop him, grabbing his shirt. I tugged hard and it ripped.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he shouted, walking off angrily.

  I growled. I was sick of him, sick of everything. Instead of grabbing him again, I ran up and pushed him hard in the chest. ‘Go on then, get stuffed. Do what you want. But I’m going back.’

  I turned away and started back down the path, seething at the world. Mostly though, it was Nick who was fuelling my anger. It was his fault we’d come on this wild goose chase. I was going back to camp and no matter what anyone said or did, I wasn’t going to leave there again until someone came to get us.

  And that’s exactly what I would have done if something near the cliff edge hadn’t caught my eye. It was something so commonplace that at first it didn’t register. But then I realised its normalness was what made it so unusual.

  ‘Hey! Hey! Come check this out.’

  George ran over, and Matt followed, our argument momentarily forgotten. They stood behind me as I knelt down and picked up a half-finished cigarette squashed flat in the mud.