Chapter Ten #3
Theo wasn’t a tourist. Souvenirs didn’t interest him.
But he stopped to pick up the odd book and flick through the pages.
He looked up and realised he’d lost sight of the Princess.
His heart missed a beat. Had the Princess sneaked out the door while he was reading?
Had she used this excursion as cover for one more of her attempts to escape?
But no—he caught a glance of her through a doorway leading to another room.
He put the book down and headed in. It was clearly the museum part of the building, overflowing with naval and aerial artefacts along with evidence and artefacts from the island’s whaling past. The history of the island was laid bare in the displays.
The island might be tiny, but it had a big history.
Formed from the remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption, there were black and white pictures of times gone by where there had been no airport or runway and when seaplanes had serviced the island, taking off and landing on the lagoon.
And then there was a case containing bones, a skeleton of something resembling a massive turtle, at least a metre long, but this turtle came with a skull bedecked in a tiara of horns and a permanent grimace.
The bones of its long tail were similarly barbed. It looked menacing and fierce.
‘It looks grumpy, doesn’t it?’ she said, appearing next to him unexpectedly, bringing with her the fresh citrus scent she wore.
He edged away. Once he’d realised she hadn’t tried to run away, he’d been enjoying another brief moment of space away from her, but that opportunity had clearly come to an end.
He didn’t want her so close to him. The whole purpose of the outing was about getting some distance from each other, but here she was, edging up next to him and setting the nerve endings in his skin on red alert.
Hadn’t she told him that he was getting on her nerves?
She was showing no signs of it. Instead, she seemed intent on crowding his space. What was her game?
His senses bristled at the proximity. He was hoping that he could make it through the day unscathed, without another attempt by her to seduce him, without another stupid kiss he’d planted on her.
Unscathed?
Theo wondered if it were possible. The longer he spent in this woman’s presence, the more he felt scathed—by her mere presence, by her touch.
By her scent, fresh and citrusy, that suited her perfectly.
By her lips. Enticing. Full and pink.
By her eyes. Her impossible cat-like eyes. Hazel. Or were they more amber, with flecks of gold in their depths? Eye colour that seemed to change with the light.
‘I told you it was interesting, didn’t I?’
She had and as much as he hadn’t cared one way or another, the small museum was full of surprising displays and facts. The tiny dot of an island in the middle of the Tasman Sea, halfway between Australia and New Zealand, had a rich and fascinating history.
‘It’s an ancient horned turtle,’ she said, not waiting for him to answer. ‘They used to live on the island around forty thousand years ago.’
He nodded. ‘I think I’m relieved they don’t still live here.’
She laughed. ‘Wow, you made a joke. How about that?’
Had he? He’d thought he was merely stating a fact.
‘You know what, though?’ she said, looking from the skeleton to Theo and back. ‘There’s a definite resemblance. It reminds me of you.’
He snorted. ‘Very funny.’
‘No, seriously. He looks cranky and fierce. Just like you.’
Excellent. She was comparing him to a forty-thousand-year-old skeleton. He turned away, as much to escape a scent that was becoming more alluring by the minute, as to get out of range of her verbal barbs. There was a reason for his crankiness, and the Princess was a big part of it.
Wrong, he corrected himself a moment later. The Princess was the reason for it.
‘Are we done here?’ he asked, impatient to move on in case she started comparing him to more of the relics in the museum.
‘If you’re ready.’
Theo was more than ready.
The Princess directed him up a hill and along a ridge that seemed to run along the spine of the island, before taking a right turn that led them down a beach.
It was a small bay on the northern side of the island, with a cluster of rocky islands out to sea and with grassy picnic grounds adjoining the sandy beach, where wave tumbled over wave on their frenetic way to the shore.
Nobody was picnicking today. Theirs was the only car in the car park.
Clearly, they were the only mad people who wanted to be out in this weather.
Everyone else must be hunkered down riding out the storm.
‘Okay,’ he said, thinking they were on a fool’s errand.
Getting out of the apartment to avoid getting on each other’s nerves might have sounded like a good plan, but it wasn’t like they weren’t together.
As far as he could tell, it didn’t matter where they were—they were still going to get on each other’s nerves. ‘So, we’re here. Why?’
She smiled on a shrug and once again he was struck by the change in his perception of her, that once he’d thought she looked like a teenager with all those mad colours in her hair, young and innocent.
She wasn’t an innocent—he knew that now—and maybe that’s why she looked like a woman.
And yet still her delight right now was more like that teenager, or maybe, he conceded, someone who had discovered something special.
Was it really that special? ‘Come and see,’ she said.
The wind caught her door, flinging it open. She whooped as she grabbed at it, fighting against the wind to close it.
He sighed. Utter madness. He followed her out onto a path leading to the beach. The wind whipped at his hair, tugging at his shirt. She stopped at a shelter containing a basic vending machine.
‘What is that?’ he asked, as she exchanged coins for two bags.
‘You’ll see,’ she said. He didn’t see anything beyond the loosened tendrils of her hair whipping around her face in the wind. ‘I’ll show you.’
She led him down towards the water, kicked off her sandals on the sand, and waded into the water.
She looked back at him, while he was still wondering what the point of this was.
The wind was still wild, clouds building, whitecaps mashing on the sea.
The sea was a mess. It would rain later, the forecast predicted.
‘What are you waiting for?’ she yelled over her shoulder.
He could barely hear her over the gusting wind.
He was still waiting to discover the point of this mad venture.
She threw out one arm and whooped, or was it a scream? Suddenly, the water around her bare legs frothed and churned and it looked like whatever it was under those turbulent waves was trying to eat the Princess alive.
Did they even have piranha in Australia? Or was it one of those ancient horned turtles that hadn’t died out after all?
‘Princess!’ he called, tossing off his shoes and ploughing into the water, determined to get to her.
He hadn’t put up with all he had to lose her now.
He reached her and swooped her into his arms, but something was missing.
Blood. There was no blood. Surely if she was being attacked, there would be blood.
And surely, he’d be being attacked right now too. And while something down there bumped and nudged his legs, there was a remarkable absence of teeth.
‘What are you doing?’ she laughed, grinning madly in his arms.
Good question. What was he doing?
‘Put me down,’ she said, laughing. ‘The fish are missing the tourists.’
Fish?
And the nudging and bumping into his calves suddenly made sense.
He put her down and she handed him a small bag.
‘Here, take this.’ He looked at it. Tried to make sense of the label.
Fish food. That’s why they were standing in the shallows while the tail end of a cyclone whipped the air around them?
They were here to feed fish? She had to be kidding.
But he could feel the slap of warm bodies against his ankles and shins before he could discern them in the choppy water. ‘You see,’ she said, laughing as she scattered around some of the fish food. ‘Look!’
The water whirled and swirled around his knees, whipped up by the wind, but yes, he could make out the fish crowding around his legs.
Big fish, small fish, some silvery and sleek, some long and fluid, some brightly coloured, more fish than he’d ever seen in one place in the wild, but all of them angling for a treat.
And with every wave breaking on the shore, it brought still more fish.
‘So feed them,’ called the Princess.
And through the turbulence of the last two days he remembered something that Tom Parker had mentioned on his whistle-stop tour of the island—Ned’s Beach, where he could feed the fish. He’d paid scant attention at the time—it had made no sense—and yet, here he was now.
It was crazy. This was seriously the most ridiculous thing he’d ever done.
The most pointless. But he dipped his hand into the fish food, scattering it all around him.
The water erupted in a fevered flapping rush of silver and scales as open mouths fought for the food.
Fish buffeted his shins, their bodies sleek and surprisingly warm, swept back and forth by the tide, swept up in the fight for the food.
It was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It was unimaginable. It was almost like the fish had been so well trained that they were waiting for bare legs to appear so they could rush into shore and be first for the feed.
He scattered another handful, and then another, entertained by the feeding frenzy and reminded of another day, long ago, when he and Sophia had celebrated the end of their university studies by taking a holiday in the United Kingdom.
They’d hired a camper-van and criss-crossed the country.
They’d stopped at St Ives, in Cornwall, treating themselves to cod and chips from a takeaway near the harbour.
Sampling the local cuisine. Playing at being locals.
They’d sat by the harbour wall and tried to eat their fish before the diving gulls could fly over their shoulder and pluck their meal from their hands.
Competitive and determined, the gulls seemed to work in tag teams, one distracting you, the next taking advantage of an outflung arm bearing treasure.
It was a contest to see who would prevail—the humans or the birds.
In the end, it was more of a draw. The gulls had won some points, but the best bit was when Theo and Sophia tossed the rest of their chips skywards and watched as the gulls engaged in a chip war with each other, any hint of cooperation or tag-teaming thrown asunder, the sky over them filled with the raucous flapping creatures.
They’d laughed so much. And when they found the signs afterwards requesting visitors not to feed the gulls, they’d realised their tourist faux pas and laughed even more. It had been one of the best days of their holiday.
Feeding these fish was a similar experience—except apparently here feeding the wildlife was allowed. Even actively encouraged.
The fish danced and darted around his shins, fighting for the food, fighting for supremacy, and it was so mad, so out of his world, that he did something that he couldn’t remember.
He felt it coming, bubbling up inside him, a feeling so unfamiliar that he didn’t at first recognise what it was.
Until delight erupted from his mouth in a bubble of laughter.
How she heard over the wind whipping around them, he didn’t know. ‘Do you see?’ the Princess yelled over the wind. ‘Isn’t it fabulous?’
Theo couldn’t deny it. And yet, as he scattered the fish food into the water, it wasn’t just fabulous, it felt cathartic.
It was therapy. Laughing at the antics of the fish. Letting go.
It was—fun.
A fish nibbled one of his toes, taking a chunk of skin out of it. ‘Ouch,’ he said, but he was laughing, and when he looked up, he saw her watching him, and he stilled.
Her eyes glittered. ‘You see. This island is magic.’
And in spite of himself, Theo was starting to believe it.