Saving Daniel
The grass grew wild and wiry on the southern side of the island. Agnes waded through it, stepping cautiously on the rocky ground. She pulled her scarf across her face in an attempt to block out the blast of cold wind that blew up from the Arctic mass sitting just below the horizon.
It was a lonely, solitary place, inaccessible by road and thought by most to be inaccessible by sea. At that time of year, and that time of day, no sun yet. A distant sketch of light in the east indicated the exact place at which the sun would rise, but mist and cloud cover made precise sunrises a rare thing. Most inhabitants of the island were still asleep or perhaps rising to sit in front of warm fires or cooked breakfasts. She knew the town, clustered in the north, gathered around the wide, expansive blue of the harbour, sheltered from the worst of the southerly winds, would be all but silent, all but still. Not to wake for another hour at least. By then she hoped to be back by her own fire.
She found her spot in a small alcove of rock in a place protected from the wind. She leant forward and peered out to the south.
Her heart was unsteady and her breathing rapid as her eyes traced lines across the wide, wild waters of the ocean. He would come. He would always come. But peering into the mist, watching, searching between fallen cloud and rising wave, there was always that moment when she believed in his absence with greater conviction than she believed in his ability to appear.
Then, at the moment when panic seemed ready to drown her, a small light would always shine through the dawn. First there, then gone an instant later. Blurred and imagined in mist. There again, and again. More there than not. The rest of the boat emerging to create substance for the light, and she smiled to herself, shook her head at her own disbelief.
The force of the wind crashed into her as she picked her way down the side of the island toward the rocks and the churning waves.
They played there as children: she, Lyle and Daniel. Other island children wandered the harbour’s edge. They dodged in and out of coils of rope, tubs of salmon, crates of prawns, along the wharves. It was Daniel who loved the wild side of the island. He appeared at their door on the mornings they were free. Charmed their mother. Dragged them off. They followed him. Each step he took they followed. Each rock and crevice, each beating of wave on rock, each tidal pool, periwinkle, sea anemone – he knew them all, so she and Lyle knew them.
Still, she held her breath as the boat manoeuvred through the narrow gap between rocks, searching out the deep channel and settling with the swell into comfortable, calmer waters. The old smuggler’s dock jutted out at a jagged angle, constructed around rock, moulded into the shape of the island so it couldn’t be seen from the open ocean or from the cliffs above. The memory of it had been washed from the collective island psyche by storms and shipwrecks and the passing of the old seamen. Daniel had discovered it and restored it on those days when she and Lyle were caught up helping in the garden or with the firewood or out on the ocean in the fishing trawler. He had done it on his own, filling his empty hours, and Lyle had sulked because he wanted to be part of it; sulked until Daniel had shown them what it felt like to run wildly across the boards, fly off the end, legs tucked up tightly underneath them to splash into the icy ocean waters.
It was Daniel. He had shown them all this, and now she waited, with that small skerrick of doubt, at the end of the wharf. He was safe in the calm waters of the harbour, but she waited for him to pull up beside her, throw out the rope, jump from the deck, smiling, smelling of fish and diesel and ocean, and lift her up and swing her around, kiss her, own her.
“Be quick,” he whispered in her ear. “They are like frightened mice, huddled together, half starved.” He released her, grinning. “You will look after them. You always look after them.”’ He bounded back onto the deck and into the cabin.
There were five, moving together like small parts of the one entity; swallows taking the same flight path, but without the sense of freedom swallows have. A grandmother, father, mother, two children, scarves wrapped tightly around their heads, covering their faces but not the fear in their eyes. So accustomed to fear, and when the door is left open, still huddled together unable to free themselves. The habit of fear clinging to them.
It was always the possessions they carried that moved Agnes. Not their faces, not their fear or the way they shuffled together. It was the way they clung to the small bundles of all the things they owned, as if letting go of them would untether them from some long-remembered happiness.
Agnes waited on the wharf till the boat cleared the narrow channel and once more entered the open ocean. She knew his course now. He would head out to sea, skirt around the bottom of the island in a wide ark. Enter the harbour from the north as if he’d come from the rich, warmer fishing grounds closer to the mainland.
They stood a little away from her, the small, huddled family. They were silent. Watched her. Waited for her.
Their patient acceptance annoyed her. She turned and began her ascent up the side of the island. She knew they followed, heard the shuffled, tentative footfall, the sound of rocks dislodged as they scrambled up the path that was so familiar, so easy for her. She waited for them, turned her eyes towards the ocean where the small speck of boat disappeared into the slow creeping dawn.
. . .
The cottage was low-set, dark stone crouching in the hollow as if ducking to avoid the force of the southerly wind. It sat close to the edge of the island, defying the scientific properties of balance, fixed to the rock as if growing from it. To Agnes it looked the most forlorn place in the world.
They stopped at the door, the small family pressing closer together, shrinking back from the bleakness of the stone building.
“It’s okay,” Agnes nodded and smiled. “It’s nice inside.”
When she opened the door, she released the memories of the place. Daniel’s shelter from the anger of his father, from the cruelty of the other island children, from the fickle rages of the island’s weather. She released the memories of the first time she and Daniel lay together. His arms gentle, their bodies close and warm.
She beckoned them in. The warmth from the fire, the smells of stew cooking on the stove, the comfortable furniture.
“There’s food here.” She opened the cupboard. “No power I’m afraid, but the wood box is full. I’ll bring perishables, meat, milk, cheese, from the house as you need it. There are books, toys, spare blankets.” She pulled open the door into another room. “The bedroom’s in here with extra mattresses.”
The tightness of their weave loosened. She noticed it as the realisation of the place began to take effect. The smallest boy stepped away. His father’s hand immediately reached for him. It was a habit learnt over their long journey. The boy looked up at his father. The hand fell from his shoulder. He moved forward and crouched on the floor beside a small box of colourful plastic blocks.
“It’s lonely out here,” Agnes said. “It’s very unusual for anyone to come this far south. Sometimes a boat will come in close to shore. Keep out of sight. Stay to the house during the day. We can’t risk you being seen.”
She stepped outside, closed the door on them, the quiet voice of the woman still hanging in the air. “Thank you,” she had said.
But the word that settled in Agnes’s mind was risk.
She felt nothing for them. Her heart was silent on the subject of the battered, scarred human beings she left in the middle of the floor in the warm, confined space inside the cottage. She never did feel anything for them. It was Daniel who felt everything. His heart, so connected to hers, held enough for both. She left hers unaffected, left it to concentrate on him, on the risks he took, on the fear she felt as a constant ache when he was away from her.
She turned her face towards the sea. There was a change in the feel of the air, in the strength of the wind. There would be a storm. She clenched her body tightly, walked quickly, the storm at her back, along the edge of the island, through the small forest of stunted pine and paper bark. Home.
. . .
“Lyle.”
“Agnes.”
His voice always sounded formal on the phone. His lawyer demeanour carrying over into every aspect of his life. He lived his profession, just as Daniel lived the ocean.
“It’s done. They’re here.”
“Good. I’ll organise the transfer as quickly as I can. No problems I hope?”
“No. All good.” She tilted her head and listened to the increasing wind. “But there’s a storm coming.”
“Daniel still out?”
“He’ll be in soon.”
There was a silence between them. Ever since childhood their silences had been filled with things unsaid. That’s how it was on the island, with the ocean surrounding them.
“Mum asked for you yesterday. You and Daniel. When this one’s done, we’ll have a break. Come over.”’ He stopped. He laughed. “Come for a visit. Come. I can show you the sights. We can all be together.”
“We’ll see,’ she said. ‘Daniel won’t … ”
“I’ll talk to him.”
. . .
The first time had been by chance. Daniel out on his own, fishing for mackerel and it was there, floundering in huge waves, a boat not fit to be out on the open ocean. He found two still alive. A woman clutching her silent, dead child. A man desperately trying to save them.
As Daniel approached, the boat disappeared below the waves, taking with it their possessions and the rest of their family. He pulled the two from the water, the woman still holding the child.
There had been a similar incident months before. Bill Grundy rescued a group of women and children, brought them back to the island. Daniel sat on the breakwater, elbows on his knees, and watched the police boat arrive to take them away.
“Treated them like criminals.”’ He spat the words at Agnes. The words took away his smile, left him angry and ashamed. Agnes rubbed his shoulders, kissed the intensity of his brow. “Criminals,” he repeated the word.
So he took the man and woman to the smugglers cove. They wrapped the child in a blanket and buried him in a shallow grave beside the cottage.
He told Agnes.
He phoned Lyle.
He knew they couldn’t save them all.
. . .
The storm grew.
Agnes glanced down into the hollow towards the cottage. They would be safe down there. Her resentment towards them was not personal. It was wrapped up with risk and the fear she felt. But they would be safe. They may be frightened by the storm, but they would be safe. For Daniel, she needed them to be safe.
Wind buffeted the car. Windscreen wipers flicked and swished, unable to keep up with the relentless rain. She pulled up in the car park beside the Fishing Co-op and scanned the harbour. Even within the safety of the harbour, the boats rocked precariously at their moorings, the wind rattled and smacked against the net riggings.
“Has he come in?”
She knew the answer to the question. Fredrick Hammel understood that she knew the answer. “I’ll give him a call for you love.” He reached across his desk. Took the hand set. The radio crackled. “Come in Daniel. Come in White Gull. Are you receiving?” His voice monotonous, giving away no emotion. He repeated the call.
“He should be in by now.” Agnes leant forward.
“Probably holed up in some safe harbour over by Strandford of Billow. He received the storm warning last night.”
“He should be back.” She clenched her fist by her side. “He should be back.”
“Look love,” Fredrick patted her shoulder. He’d known her since she was a little, wild girl. He read the story of her loss in her eyes. She wore it there like all the fishermen’s wives did. “I’ll head out to the wharf, and down to the pub. Ask around. See if anyone caught sight of him out there.”
. . .
The office felt small, smelt of damp and salt. She stood in the centre of it, her fists clenching and unclenching at her side.
Daniel knew of the storm. Knew of it and still brought them. Kept them safe. Thought of them, but didn’t think of her. Didn’t think of himself.
Hate and love require the same amount of passion. Anger and fear inhabit the same internal space.
The door flung open with the wind and storm. “No one’s seen him love.” Fredrick pushed his way into the office making the space smaller. “Can’t send anyone out till the storm softens. You should go home, get some sleep.”
He could see she was not going home.
“We’ll go out first light. He’ll be in some safe harbour, I’m sure of it. Your boy knows these waters better than most.”
He’s not in any safe harbour.
She wanted to shout the words. She wanted to reveal it all. Tell him she’d seen him at dawn on the other side of the island. Tell him Daniel was out there in the open water, trying to get back to her. Nothing else was important. She would risk it all for him to be back in the safety of the harbour.
Hot coffee in her hands, Fredrick persuaded her to sit on the office lounge. She looked out through the window to the harbour entrance. Waves rolled and crashed across the mouth, inundated the breakwater. It was impassable, she knew it was, but watched for him all the same.
. . .
The sea will take us all, her father had said. In the end it will take us all.
And it had taken him, deep, deep down. And the loss of him had swallowed her mother. The knowledge of him floating somewhere between the coral and the hump-backed swell of the ocean’s surface had stolen the recognisable parts of her.
“I’ll take her with me,” Lyle said as they watched her.
She no longer looked at the ocean. She wandered along the beach, face towards the island, collected stones and saw only sand, hurled them at the waves, but looked skyward. Her lips moved constantly as she alternately cursed the sea and called her lost husband’s name. Lyle took her to the mainland, to the city, where there was no view of the sea to remind her of loss and sadness. To the city where she returned to her painting and scenes of fishing boats safely moored in harbours, of calm summer days, sun glinting off the surface, waves trickling in to caress the sand.
“She’ll be happier away from here,” he said.
. . .
Fredrick shook her arm. “We’re heading out,” he said, so close to her she felt the warmth of his breath.
She was awake in an instant, unaware she’d been asleep. She followed him out onto the wharf. His Arabella, lights on ready to push off. Three others on board, heads lowered, shoulders hunched, readying the boat. The sky was unusually clear, washed of storm, the last of the night stars beginning to fade with the first of the day’s light.
“If he’s out there,” Fredrick called to her, “we’ll find him for you.”
She stood, looking out, watching the entrance of the harbour. The day began. The business of the wharf increased. The eyes of fishermen slid off her as they passed. Boats left the harbour, but none entered.
“Mrs.” It was the young boy who manned the office when Fredrick was out. He stood close and repeated the word “Mrs.”
She turned and looked at him.
“They’ve found him. Foundering all right. The engine’s conked out, but he’s fine. They’re bringing him in.”
She nodded.
. . .
At the top of the hill, she stopped the car. She saw them, the two boats strung together. The crippled vessel dragging out behind. He would come. He would always come.
But he would not see her like this.
She thought of the family in the cottage. He wanted to save them all. She only wanted to save him.
RI Quin is a writer living and working from her home in regional Queensland. Her work is inspired by Outback landscapes and a love of solitude. Her short fiction has appeared in the
Forty South Short Story Anthology 2020 and in Overland.
Judges comments:
Judging the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2021 has been an immensely enjoyable experience. It is gratifying to have so many writers share stories that entertain, illuminate and in many cases are thought-provoking. We had stories of life after the Covid pandemic, stories focusing on Tasmanian history, stories of ageing, of dying, of relationships, of escape from urban living, of the inner resources of humans. Above all, when judging each story, we looked for a captivating storyline that lingered in the mind after the reading. We looked for stories with a satisfying shape and poignant or arresting moments, with an opening that drew the reader in. We appreciated the imagery of some stories, the humour of others, the characters we met. Because of the island theme, we sought island settings or references. In this, we were not disappointed. The range of interpretations of the theme was impressive. We looked for fluid writing and the effective use of language that goes beyond cliché yet doesn’t draw attention to itself. We hoped for flawless spelling, grammar and punctuation, because errors in these interrupt the flow of a story, and make the writer intrude into the story. Saving Daniel, our winner, is a well-crafted, poignant story with a lovely lyrical flow to the writing. The setting is beautifully portrayed. Chasing the light is another well-written story with striking imagery. We applaud the writer for their subject, an exceptional choice for a short story.
Learn more about the Forty South Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2021 and its judges, click here.
