Below Deck

Caught in the in-between, I imagine the earth is rocking. It's all back and

forth, back and forth.

But now I'm coming to, and there's drool caked to my chin and fur on

my teeth, and I'm peeling apart puffy eyelids to see the sun through a

skylight that's only a few feet above my head. The sun is swinging back

and forth in the sky and I realise the earth really is rocking. I prop myself

up on one elbow. My head is pounding like someone's clobbered me with a

brick. I look around and, as the room comes into focus, I wait for this all

to make sense. But it doesn't. The walls are curved, and no wider than the

bed—if you'd even call this a bed. I'm lying on a wafer-thin mattress,

wedged between a huge canvas bag and a fishing rod. There's a weird

thumping outside and, when I look up, the sun is still swinging. I feel a

tightening in my chest, a fierce contraction of my ribcage, like my breath

is caught and can't get out. Where the fuck am I?

I'm wearing clothes, at least: a silk dress, my denim jacket, two pink

socks and one boot. I feel under my dress and I've got undies on. The

contents of my bag are sprawled around my pillow. Wallet, check. Cards

and cash are still there. I grab my phone, hands trembling. The battery is

dead. 'Shit,' I mutter.

Wriggling out of the bed, I find my other boot on the floor beside a

bucket full of sponges. My legs are wobbling as I clamber out of the room.

I knock my head on the roof. Who the hell designed this house? I'm tall

but I'm not that tall.

The earth is still rocking as I stumble into a room with a kitchenette,

sling bunk beds, slit windows, and a table that's bolted to the floor. I feel

my way through, grabbing corners and edges for balance, to keep myself

upright, dragging myself towards a ladder that leads to open sky.

Climbing up, it takes my eyes a second to adjust. The light is piercing.

'Oh. My. God.' The words are barely a whisper.

In front of me is an old man wearing an oilskin jacket, an orange beanie.

His skin is weathered, salt-encrusted, with sunspots and a coarse white

beard. Beyond him is ocean. Its surface is dark and choppy. My body

shudders, my spine curls. The horizon is impossibly far away.

'Morning.'

I stare at him blankly

He laughs.

'Where am I?'

'Sorry?' he says. 'You'll have to speak up.' He puts a finger to his ear.

'Bit deaf.'

'Where am I?' I repeat, louder this time.

'You're on the Tasman.'

At my feet, there are ropes coiled around metal stumps, and lines

threaded up a towering pole. The old man pulls on one of the ropes and the

creases in the sail above me are smoothed out, like skin pulled tight

around bone. I feel the boat pucker, then lift a little.

'The what?'

'The Tasman Sea,' he says, pointing to the endless expanse of ocean, as

if I'm meant to recognise this water as distinct from any other water. 'But

more specifically,' the old man says, 'you're on a yacht.' He rests a hand

on the boat's deck. 'And her name is Sea Rose.'

I feel like a hand is wrapped around my throat, squeezing. I might throw

up. 'I need to get off.'

'You will. In a few days … when we get to New Zealand.'

The blood drains from my face. 'What?!'

'I'm sailing her to New Zealand and needed an extra hand. You said you

wanted to come.'

'Are you kidding? When did I say that?'

'Last night.'

I sink back into alcohol-soaked hours, searching for something,

anything. But last night is a gaping black hole.

'Why would you let me agree to this? I was legless last night!' The boat

rises over a wave, slams down. My head hurts. I feel bile surge in the back

of my throat. 'You're basically kidnapping me.'

'I'm what?'

'Kidnapping me! You'll go to jail for this.'

'Well,' he says, reclining with a wide smile, 'I'll only go to jail if

someone finds out … I guess I'll just have to kill you.'

I take half a step away and my ankle rolls on a coil of rope. I fall back,

landing heavily on the deck, the wind knocked out of my lungs.

Suddenly, the old man bursts into laughter, his eyes disappearing

between deep wrinkles. Between bouts he wheezes, 'You right, kid?'

I try to speak. But I can't.

'Look over your shoulder,' he says.

I clamber to my feet and turn around to see land. A stretch of beach,

houses dotted between greenery, a rocky headland, a lighthouse … I know

that lighthouse. It's Barrenjoey. Sydney. We're still in Sydney.

I turn back to him.

'You know where we are now?'

I nod.

'We're going to the RPA Yacht Club in Newport; I need to drop my Rose

off for a clean. Should be there within the hour with this wind. I'm giving

you a lift back to the city.'

'Chivalry, now … doesn't change …' I cough; I'm still winded from the

fall. 'You … kidnapped me.'

'You, young lady, were blind. Couldn't even tell me your name. Was I

supposed to let you go home like that? No. Jane and I had to carry you to

the boat.'

'Who's Jane?'

'She manages the restaurant at the CYC. Apparently she found you in

the women's bathroom. I let you sleep the night on board … Woke you up

this morning, said I needed to get going and you told me to leave you be.'

'Well, I don't remember that.' The cold wind is snaking around my

body. I cross my arms, trying to summon any recollection of the night

before. 'Where did you sleep?'

He meets my eye. 'In my bed,' he says. 'At my house.' And there's

something in his deadpan delivery, in the steadiness of it, that makes me

believe him. He smiles gently. 'You don't need to worry about me, kid—

I've only ever loved one woman.' The smile fades and he looks beyond the

horizon. 'And she's gone now.'

I relax my arms. 'What was her name?'

He rests his hand on the boat's deck again, smooths it the way you touch

a lover. 'Robynne. Robynne Rose.' He clears his throat. 'Anyway, I didn't

mean to kidnap you, but I gotta be at the boatyard by ten, and assumed

you'd be out until we got there.'

Relief washes over me. 'This is so weird,' I say, shuffling towards him,

my arm outstretched, offering my hand. 'But whatever … My name's

Olivia.'

He gives me his callused, leather hand and we shake. 'Mac.'

***

At first glance, Mac is grey slate. Cool and hard. But then he laughs and

the slate ripples. I see then that he is impossibly deep, like dark ocean.

Inky stories twist in him like sea serpents in underwater caves.

On the rare occasions when my dad told stories, they were painfully

obvious. Like etching words into sleek metal with a needle, he'd trace

them over and over until they bled.

Mac is different. His way is guiding me through crevasses studded with

barnacles and adorned with starfish. Alive with dancing weeds.

Instantly, he reminds me of my pa who could tell stories that filled any

room with colour.

Mac tells me about a time he and Robynne got so drunk on rum on a

beach in Barbados that they rowed back to the wrong boat and made love

in someone else's cockpit. I lean in. His voice is like thunder beneath a roll

cloud, bold and exciting. Electric. I could listen to him for hours.

He pauses. 'You cold?'

I shake my head. 'Nah, this tea is fixing me up.'

He smiles. 'Good.'

I'm sitting with Mac in the cockpit, wearing one of his wet-weather

jackets. It's huge, creasing and folding around me as I lift my hands to

take a sip of tea. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

I look past Mac's shoulder. The surface of the sea is raised like pricked

skin, a wash of goosebumps as autumn reaches out into winter.

'How old are you?' he asks.

'You aren't meant to ask a woman her age.'

He snorts. 'You, kid, are not a woman.'

'Excuse me?'

'Not yet, anyway.' He draws the wheel closer to him and the boat tips

harder on its side. 'Are you even old enough to drink?'

'I'm twenty-one,' I say. Two, red. One, pale yellow. 'I can even drink in

America.' He rolls his eyes, a wry smile bending his lips. 'How's your

head?'

'Sore.'

Mac laughs. 'I bet. You could barely stand last night.'

I feel the hairs raise at the nape of my neck. 'Don't … I don't want to

know.'

'You're right,' he concedes. 'I'm sorry. Didn't look like it was your

fault anyway.'

I tilt my head. 'What?'

'That boy you were with—he looked like a right piece of work.'

And just like that, the previous evening washes over me like a wave

across the deck.

Dinner at the Cruising Yacht Club on Sydney Harbour. And Adam.

Clean-shaven, Rolex-wearing, Adam.

'He's my boyfriend.'

'He left you passed out in the bathroom.'

'We were having an argument.' Though perhaps what I really mean is

that Adam was having an argument with Adam. And I was both between

and outside. Silent. Strangled.

'An argument about what?'

'My … my career, I guess. We're just about to finish our economics

degrees; I've been offered an internship at Lazard, this big investment

bank, but I told him I don't know if I'm going to take it,' I explain. And

I'm so ready for the usual response—What an opportunity!—that at first I

don't hear what Mac actually says.

'Sorry,' I say. 'What was that?'

'I said, what's it got to do with him?'

'Well, he said I was throwing away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,' I

say, skimming over: I know ten guys who would kill for that gig.

Skimming over: You're lucky they even gave it to you.

Lucky, I think. After all that work.

Sheer luck. A fluke.

Mac shakes his head, and then, with a certainty that sets my world on

fire, he says, 'You're your own person, Oli. Maybe he's scared of that.

I laugh. 'No one's ever called me that before.'

'Oli?'

'Yeah.'

'Do you like it?'

I smile. 'Yeah, I do.'

***

We watch from the restaurant at the yacht club as the Sea Rose is hoisted

from the water and slung up in the shipyard. Mac has bought me a huge

strawberry milkshake and a portion of chips. I mix mayonnaise and tomato

sauce together on a plate until it's salmon pink, flecked with pepper, and

Mac says, 'Your accent—you didn't grow up here, did you?'

I shake my head. 'Lived in Manly until I was five, then Hong Kong and

Singapore.' I slurp my milkshake.

'So what brought that about? Parents' work?'

'My dad heads the South-East Asia division of an oil company.'

'Oil, hey?'

'Yep.'

Mac opens his mouth to speak, then seems to change his mind. He looks

over to the shipyard where the Sea Rose is cradled above the ground.

'I live with my grandpa in Manly now,' I explain. 'My dad sent me back

here for uni.'

He turns back to me. 'The business degree?'

'Economics.'

'So what are you going to do now?'

'Dunno. Lazard, I guess …'

Mac gives me a sharp look. 'I thought you didn't want the internship?'

'Well, if it was up to me I would have studied art, but Dad said he

wouldn't pay for that.'

Silence drapes between us.

I sigh. 'There's no money in art anyway.'

Mac laughs. 'You should meet this friend of mine.'

'Who?'

'Maggie.' His mouth wraps around her name with the same kindness as

an arm around a friend's shoulder. 'She was a curator in London for years.

Retired now. Lives here in Sydney with me.'

I edge forwards in my chair. 'That's cool.'

'You'll like her,' Mac assures me. 'She's an incredible woman.'

'When can I meet her?'

'I'm coming back up here on Wednesday to sail the Sea Rose back down

to the CYC. Maggie's coming with me. How about you join us?'

I think of our sail into Pittwater this morning, how hard I'd laughed. I

grin. 'Yeah, sure. I'd love to.'

'But no drinking Tuesday night, okay, kid?'

'Never again,' I say, my cheeks hot.

'Ha! Heard that before.' He helps himself to the last of my chips. 'Come

on, let's get out of here.'

We're strolling across the car park, the sun falling through a hole in the

clouds, when Mac excuses himself, tells me he'll be just a minute, and

heads over to the shipyard. He walks up to the Sea Rose, touches his palm

to the bottom of the boat. It is full and round, white with tendrils of brown

algae. Mac whispers something as he smooths the fibreglass, kisses it

softly. And I find myself feeling awkward suddenly, shifting my weight

from one leg to another, like I'm spying on lovers, witnessing a moment

reserved for someone else.

***

In the car, Mac turns on the radio.

I feel it coursing through me in a stream of soft reds. 'I love this song,'

I say. 'It feels very pink.'

'Pardon me?'

'I said, it feels very pink.' Then, considering how odd that must sound, I

laugh sheepishly. 'I don't know. It's just a feeling I have.'

Mac shakes his head. He's smiling. 'I can't wait for you to meet Maggie.'