The dive trip and wedding
This short story is written about characters living in the near future but was inspired by actual events.
Dell unloaded at Rushcutters Bay, on the grass near where the commodore of the Navy Sailing Club, a friend, told him to leave his tender, it was vertical by the shed wall. He located the trolley, dropped the dinghy on it, and walked down the boat ramp, slippery with algae.
A voice, a woman’s, made Dell turn as he slid. There was a girl with dark glasses and a hat, hiding her face but not her curves. He tried to place her and looked again, tall, slender, a delightful figure. It was Erin Fitzgerald, he was sure. He wondered what she was doing at the club. They had served together, in the Weddell Sea scientific expedition, measuring the decline of the Larsen Shelf’s ice sheet. That was three years prior, and first time meet was when students, diving on an island called Tryon on the Great Barrier Reef. She had a pack on her back. Dell secured the tender, on the sand shore. Then she said in measured tone.
“Well.”
“Yes,” he replied.
They then loaded her pack and the two waterproof bags.
Now it was thirty minutes later, when warships entered the harbour Dell’s yacht Seaspray was passing Fort Denison. They were line abreast and soon they were close enough to see the crew in white, proud and in formation. That morning he had heard on the news: “task force returning damaged, a battle in the South China Sea.” The flag ship was hit and a black abyss, the result of a hypersonic missile, left and it opened amidships, fortunately above the waterline.
Dell had accepted the war. His philosophy demands that and war was just another manifestation of natures will. That Buddha and his followers did not embrace, they had contrasting view and most of them lived to prevent despair and horror by carefully observing the world and not falling, deep in, Dell thought that was such a powerful waste because looking despair in the eye, feels good. That means you do the hard things, in his mind and thoughts always and about fate he had similar feelings, loving it, as he enjoyed the pleasant morning view on Sydney Harbour, with its usual ferries, yachts, and such.
Erin was talking about diving Lady Elliot Island with Tim and Robert after they sailed to Bundaberg and then asked why did Henry and Diana need a big wedding, that was when the schooner began to roll. It lifted with the gentle swell that entered between the heads. Blue water passed Erin’s feet as Dell said Henry had similar secrets and he understood and she smiled, felt sun on her back, soaking in heat, it burns her legs.
It was an hour later, a northerly head wind made progress slow, sailing toward the North Shore beaches, where he grew up. Sails were close hauled when Dell tacked, to escape the lee shore at Fairy Bower.
Dell recalled the years. A boy living in North Narrabeen, playing with the girl next door. Then he felt her presence and his broken heart. Why did Bronwyn Ferguson question his sexuality. At first he did not believe her, all the years, hiding.
Never tell Dad, now he thought he had fooled everyone. But if she could see it? Then who else knows and he pondered and he felt it and still was confused and handed the wheel to the one who suspected him more than once.
Erin took the wheel. Then spoke of her own lonely years, life in Antarctica, life at Mawson Base, like being on Mars and said she liked to think she was from Mars, the way she did not fit. Said how being the only doctor was boring and scary and sexless and the research saved her, studying divers vitals when they dived deep beneath the ice.
“You wouldn’t know, not by looking at you,” Dell said.
“I usually tell people I’m happy,” Erin replied. “They don’t know what to say when I tell them the truth.”
Now it was noon when Erin set auto pilot and then went below and returned with a stripped blanket that she laid over the fore deck and on it stretched out like a yogi, baring skin. Dell sat beside her. He liked to look at naked women and Erin was almost like that and that desire confused him, because admiring Erin’s body, he felt more a man, but not. He told her of his struggle and she said she understood. But teased and without hiding flesh, trying to contradict his confession and wanting him to want her despite the evidence. Asking why it mattered, Erin said the good news is humanity is bent on destroying itself and that leaves you free to be who you are, until the end of the world.
Holding uncomfortable uncertainty, let the sea breeze wash his soul and the words be words and bisexual thoughts released him. Why not, he thought, be myself. Erin seemed disinterested in further conversation but finally said, that if you’re not yourself darling, who are you? He dropped eyes, her tanned skin, wet with spray, glistening in the sunshine.
The day had nearly past. Sugarloaf Point now lay to the west and Seaspray was still on autopilot. As the sun sank into the mountains, Dell prayed for guidance, he felt unworthy and was unable to behold such majesty, surely God would not allow only heterosexuals to enjoy this life and asked the wind was he destined to be outside in the cold because of the way he was born. Took the wind to be God and asked it, why did you give me this body and not feelings too match. This life, without being honest, was no life. When he explained why he was down to Erin, still sprawled mostly naked on the deck beside the cabin. Erin looked as beautiful as any sunset, a natural wonder and gave him the look he knew, the fly that kite baby look, let the wind take you baby look.
Blue haze draped mountains, the sun approached ignited sky, it was orange now above the blue hazed mountains, a world briefly transformed. Slowly and inevitably it became dark.
In fading light, he grinned at her. She asked was he better after her hours of shadow work, the naked body was therapy, had it worked on him. He looked at her after she said that, confused because he did not know that Erin was a Jungian psychotherapist, a course completed during the Antarctic winter. Dell did not know what magic made him feel better, that she wanted him to want her, therapy, or that she realise he did not have feelings for a woman, not that way. Baby it is called facing the truth, bringing threads of thought from the deep subconscious into consciousness. That place baby is were it is seen, real and painless. Undetected thoughts like that are so sharpe and piercing. And then when he emerges from the shadows she loved that smile, a reborn and new smile and she grinned back, knowing she was onto it at last. She was winding in the truth like a marlin, sharks in the water thrashing hungry ego predators and she wished he might be happy one day, if only she could land the marlin before the sharks devoured the whole thing.
It was discovered later that night that only when the Southern Cross was shining in the night sky and the pollution of coastal light diminished, magic powers were held by her. Erin mused that and said the ghost is back baby and that the “everything is better with love” song is perilously loud and in a tone soft and deep, she spoke like a G chord played on the bottom octave of a piano. Her offering that at sea it’s easy to be that someone else you want to be. Find that someone baby, it is like yourself, such a discovery. What changes your perspective and your heart is finding your twin, will you let go then, and nail that imposter to the cross you carry and refuse to create anymore avatar, false and manifest only to please others. Take a pledge.
“Baby it feels good,” she said and lifted her eyes. They were different from his wife’s eyes, and it was the first time he had thought of Skye since leaving home. Dell wondering why he had a wife. “You love Peter.” She said that as if she had known it since the day the three of them slid down the ice amongst King Penguin. Silent night followed because she had called him out, spoken the name of his twin, what she said frightened him. Silence followed but for the water, loud over the bow, creaking stays.
Because she loved him she later said, “Don’t forget what you vowed as we watched the ice cliffs fall into the Weddell Sea,” and she asked had he remembered what he had said.
“Yes. I said we have little time and why waste it with out your twin.” That ice had raised the sea. Nothing was the same anymore. And he recalled the memorable line and the conversation on the rail as Larsen C disintegrated.
They both took time for silent reflection, victims, legs dangling. Their knuckles white on the rail, they braced themselves as the bow plunged deep, and the rawness of the sea. Then he leaned against her, close to her and her wet face, the water cold. She wiped it with her hand.
“Why you here?” he asked.
“Talk more,” she replied. “Then sleep. No drink don’t need it.”
“You said it all on the Weddell Sea.”
“And I’ll say it again until you hear.”
“You are an old ghost.”
Dell then left her to the moon. He swung his legs and held the rail surfing the schooner. When he swung into the cockpit the landing made a thud. Seaspray plunged into a wave, propelled him into his bunk. Then he crawled into his sleeping bag. Where he found comfort. A rouge wave lifted him then an intimate and gentle dipping of the bow and the yaw of the beam and the rocking put him to sleep.
While Erin lay on the foredeck. She was feeling the boat rise and fall. Finding joy in the intense moving, rising and falling swell and the travelling stars. While he dreamed below; she watched the stars and recalled how it felt being alone, an alien, born on Mars, war and tending to the wounded. The sound of his breathing, the sound of the water. She gazed at the stars in the sky.
After four days at sea, they sailed into Port at Bundaberg. In the morning Robert and Tim would arrive, with gear and dive boat and Snake. In the text said they had a good week, moray eel and sea snakes, diving Great Keppel Island.
Robert was an athlete, trained with the university Tae Kwon Do club, three times a week and his reason sad. He was bullied from an early age, his cruel father lacked empathy. Love was stifled in his family for generations.
Tim was not like Robert. He was a mechanical engineer destined to take over his father’s business. A truck dealership and was a complete contrast to Tim, who had to prove himself.
Snake was a fellow diver they all knew. A scientist who milked sea snakes and studied their numbers and habits declined because of the warming.
When the divers arrived and greeted their friends and then they loaded their gear and the extra they had for Dell and Erin from the club shed. That took an hour later. Leaving port, the dive boat on a line behind Seaspray. Beyond the break wall the sea was rough, a north easterly cross swell lifted and tossed, intense salt and tropic humidity.
Eight hours later, in the lee of Lady Elliot Island at anchor, after the open sea was a haven. Seaspray near the reef’s edge. Tim secured the dive boat on the gunnels and they prepared to dive.
Dell’s wet suit half-unzipped. Erin rubbed sunscreen on his shoulders. The morning was bright and Dell was glad Erin was there and grabbed a hat and reached for another, lifting his foot to stretch and retrieve it when a Zodiac appeared, driven by a bearded man. On board researchers looking for Snake, working for the Coral Reef Protection Initiative, dressed in matching polo shirts, they had bounced across the lagoon and now the bearded man threw Tim a line.
The lagoon divided – the inner sandy patch where sea grass thrived, an outer reef that was walkable at low tide with caution due to sharp coral and spiky sea urchins that descended at the outer edge where a permanent blue and white flag bobbed and fluttered. That was the best place to dive, right there, where the reef gently sloped to thirty meters.
Erin splashing saltwater into her open suit before him, yellow bikini top wet straining and more teasing. She loved it.
They anchored the dive boat near the dive buoy where the researchers were entering the water. A tanned girl wore a yellow bikini. A diver in the water wore half-suit said she was a sea grass specialist and was called Amy. Snake and Amy had a thing going. “Join me,” she said. “I must show you, it maters, this is the last refuge on the Barrier Reef.”
Dell and Erin followed Amy. At ten meters coral bleached white. The warm water causes the symbiotic algae to manufacture toxin, then the coral expelling it, like food poisoning and without good food was unable to escape the rising heat and died. The sight made Dell feel sick. And in disbelief also think of himself, unable to escape from his own toxic male body. I want to be a girl, he thought but feared he would die if he tried like the coral. Dell then saw two Manta Rays circle. He followed them and they glide pincers down, a wide dark mouth silhouette, hovering like a spaceship and their wings flying in the water and their beautiful grace soothing the trouble.
Later he returned to the group. Erin and Tim and Robert were next to a blue brain coral, and the four moved on. Then at twelve meters, a hole in the reef, they descended. They swam around for an hour, then surfaced and spoke, sadly about the reef.
That night Amy and Erin got drunk. Wild night fuelled by grief and vodka. They hatched a plan to save the dying reef. Their time machine would take world leaders back and show them, did anyone have one they asked, drinking vodka. Later, Amy revealed dark emotions and spoke sadly about the reef’s fading beauty. Sad and drunken yelled that they knew and did nothing, viscously she said it.
Before dawn, alcohol hit like a mule. Amy hugged Erin and Dell and asked if they were lovers. Erin started explaining the relationship and why loving Dell was an issue, a girl has needs, before he shut her up, too many words, she fell back onto the sand. Then Amy who was totally confused collapsed, using Erin’s bare torso as a pillow fell asleep.
Dell was sober and Erin had passed out and was a big girl and a heavy dead weight and he worked the problem. Too difficult to drag back to the dive boat and abandoned the attempt and frustrated he found two towels and rolled them into cylinders and placed one under Erin’s head and lay beside her and remembered sleeping on the beach during summer dive trips when big mother turtles would wake him digging a hole to lay eggs. Dell unravelled his own sarong, which was his favourite clothing, like a skirt. Then listened to the lapping waves and the heavy breathing of the two women and placed his head on his own rolled towel and dreamed. In a deep dream he saw the woman who had shattered his heart, Bronwyn Ferguson and started to forgive her because the truth was apparent.
At dawn, he woke to a partially flooded lagoon, the dive boat was tied to Seaspray, past the reef. Erin lay still. He waved and soon the boat moved away and glided over the reef . “Roll her onto my shoulders,”Tim said. Amy barely stirred, Snake would soon come looking for her.
On the day of the wedding sunlight poured in the window of the bar, bringing with it heat and flies. Erin walked in her blonde hair cropped short accentuating her broad athletic build.
“Do you know when the wedding starts?” Dell asked, but Erin didn’t know. Robert was appalled and all laughed and Robert finally declared it was five. “We have time for another beer,” Tim said. They sipped their beers, still unable to comprehend Erin’s lost invitation.
Sun set on the cane fields. Casually the car headed down the dirt road to the farm, dust rising behind covered the tall grass. Why was the road empty? Entering the farm, a sight, the bride and groom together. Tim asked, “Why are they together?” Stepping out of the car to hear Henry’s low voice that carried hurt, he felt rejected and they all could see that and knew his loneliness fears, at his wedding had not disappeared and his friends had not helped, life weighing heavy on him.
Tim, Robert, Erin, and Dell looked at each other, all ashamed and decided to hide. Deep in the crowd away from disgrace and far from where a photographer gathered the family, bridesmaids under a fig tree.
Dell walked to into the backyard were a young waiter served beer. He stood behind a long table, covered by a white cloth, and near his left hand, a row of gleaming glasses sparkled in the dying sun. Robert was there talking with a woman. “Dell,” said Robert, “Meet Bronwyn Ferguson. She’s the new diver I told you about, we dove together at Flinders Reef.” “Hello,” said Dell. “Hello, Dell,” replied Bronwyn with a question in her voice.
He felt the wind on his neck. “Of all the women in all the world,” said Dell. “Yes, always so lucky darling,” replied Bronwyn with a smile, “The girl of your dreams.” Robert watched the exchange the worry etched into his face and he defensively folded his arms. “Oh, we go way back,” said Bronwyn, taking a sip of wine. “Playing games, happy memories. Just here for wine and fun.” She ignored Robert and walked over to Dell, smiling. She took a sip of her wine. Robert like he’d been hit in the head with a club. Bronwyn in a white linen top with a deep cleavage and open back, and her auburn hair shone in the light, highlighting her firm jaw, high cheeks, enchanting brown eyes, and full lips. Robert still stunned and Bronwyn laughed, “Dell and I are childhood friends, sweetheart,” she said and then Dell teased Robert. “We had a perfect day in the park drinking sangria and making love.” Bronwyn replied with a seductive look to hid the truth, “Oh yes, with so many lovers, it becomes a chore to remember all of them, except the best. So I could never forget you darling, that we were great lovers. To friends and lovers.” She held up her glass to toast, but it was empty. “More wine. I need more wine.”
Bronwyn said to Dell, they needed to talk and walked away from Robert to dance, a defeated Robert standing at the bar, watching them. “Being nice to Robert is a trap for a pretty girl,” Dell warned her that he thinks he’s in love with you, but I doubt he’s ever been in love and Bronwyn laughed, “I’m a collector of men, like people collect butterflies.” “How’s your husband?” Dell asked. “Dead, I hope,” Bronwyn replied. “Really?” “It’s over,” Bronwyn purred. “How is your wife?”
They then walked into the cane fields. Dell placed the wine and glasses on the road and Bronwyn kissed Dell’s hand. “The marriage was so bad. I’ve been unhappy, Dell,” Bronwyn cried out and he embraced her. They moved deeper into the shadows. They left the wine and glasses on the road, the glasses glowing in the moonlight. Hidden in the dark, Bronwyn’s face came close to Dell’s. Her brown eyes met his, and they kissed. Bronwyn dropped her head on Dell’s chest. She pushed him away and stepped back into the moonlight. “What was that?” she asked. “Does your wife know you kiss other women like that?” “I hope not. But darling, the passion is back! It’s worth celebrating,” Dell said, pleased. “Do you still love me?” Dell asked. “Love you? I burn for you. Love is not the word. I dream of you, adore you,” Bronwyn replied. “I dream of you too. I dreamed we ran away,” Dell said. “We should have. People like us never do, do we?” Bronwyn replied honestly.
“Our flame burns,” he said, eyes locked on hers. “It always will. We can be happy.”
“I wish,” she whispered. “Your sick in the most horrid way, what you do to a girl. Your looks and kindness and you know how to talk to a woman but darling it is not enough. A girl has needs.” Dell was silent under the moonlight until he said, tears streaming, “At night you want a brute.”
“Yes.”
They returned to the reception. Bronwyn and Dell were different from any other couple. Dell left her. Robert was staring at the cane. “We’ve always loved each other,” Dell said. “I can’t remember a time without it.” “She’s the one I told you about,” said Dell. “Why’s she here with another guy?” Robert asked. “What guy?” Dell asked. “I’m devastated that she loves you,” Robert said. “But I hate the other guy more.”
Dell found his table, searching for his name. It was near the band, next to Amy from Lady Elliot and Dianna’s single friends. Amy wearing a green dress smiled as Dell sat beside her. “Amy White, how are you?” Dell asked, and Amy gushed. “Delaney de Clare, imagine seeing you again so soon. I’m well.” “What’ll you drink?” she asked, draining her glass. “Red wine for me and keep it coming.” “I like a drinking girl.” Dell filled both glasses with red wine. “Drinking’s the only thing to do. I don’t like weddings,” Amy replied. “Reminds me I’m getting old and still single.” “What about Snake?” “Oh, that was my fantasy. He is the wind.” “I just had a surprise, an old flame.” “Good surprise or bad surprise? Bad, I guess. Weddings are full of surprises,” she said.
Tim sat beside Erin at the end of the table. People milled about, settling in. Robert looked sad, sitting beside a pretty girl, but ignoring her. He looked solemn, like he was at a funeral, drunk and down. Bronwyn and her guy, tall and strong looking like a rugby player. They chatted at a distant table, with animated laughter. Dell caught Bronwyn’s eye, and they both raised their glasses. Red and white wine flowed, carafes up and down the tables, spaced regularly.
The band played Irish music, a new group of four. Amy drank dark red shiraz, explaining how she had studied with the bride. What pain did Amy have to make her drink? Dell wondered if it was the reef, aware of his own suffering, but recalled Snake and his cavalier approach to women. Others sitting at the couples table, flirting. Amy extended her chin and Dell gazed at the full moon over the cane fields. “Why won’t anyone try to pick me up?” she asked with a giggle. “I must have a sad sack sign on me. My boyfriend just left me.” “Was he your boyfriend?You’re not a sad sack,” Dell replied. “I can pick you up as an old acquaintance. But I must be careful. My wife has rules.”
“I like rules, but you are dangerous. I am fragile like a butterfly and would not survive someone as complex as you and my intelligence tells me I would be waiting in line. Erin, that old flame and the wife.” Amy said.
“Let’s dance then, no harm in dancing,” Dell said, taking her hand and they held each other dancing and talked about the life cycle of sea grass and how it still remains a mystery and vulnerable and shared drunken kisses, close to Bronwyn and her brute. Amy sweating from the effort, sweat on her nose and the garden spun around. Amy ran to the toilet. Long tables, a large tuna, reef fish, red emperor, whole snappers on ice with red prawns, lobster tails under fairy lights.
After boring speeches, Henrys was cruel. Robert circled around the other guy. Bronwyn screamed, the crowd making space. Robert kicked the other guy but he blocked and grabbed his foot, sending him crashing onto a table. Recovering, Robert ran headfirst into the other guy and received an uppercut. A sick shot and sounds of crunching bone on jaw. Falling glass, blood red shiraz stains the cloth and salad, saffron cloth, rising and falling. Bronwyn was appalled and ran to Dell. Robert’s jaw was broken, the fight over. On the ground Robert lay, covered by blood stained saffron cloth mixed with wine and salad. Bronwyn was sobbing on Dell, face in hands. Erin ran over, knelt beside Robert, who started to stir while she turned him to open his airway. An ambulance was coming, a guest announced.
“We did this,” Bronwyn accused Dell, who now sat beside her on the back stairs. “How?” Dell asked. “You know how,” Bronwyn replied. “It’s what we do to everything.” Robert moaned in the distance as they lifted him onto a stretcher, like a wounded bull. “I should be a nun,” Bronwyn said, wiping away the last of her tears. “I don’t see that,” Dell replied. “Without men, my life would be better,” Bronwyn said.
Dell and Bronwyn sat on the back steps. “Let’s not lie anymore,”Bronwyn said, removing Dell’s hand from her arm. “Get me a drunk,”she said. “No, let’s sober up,” Dell replied. “Boring,” Bronwyn sighed. “I like having strong men around, you know that, but they are only good in the dark, between the feathers. “I’ll help you change if you want to,” Dell offered. “Do that,” Bronwyn said. “Dell I really have had enough, really darling.” He did not want to say what he thought so he went to the bar and returned with two glasses of water. They spent time talking while people cleaned up. Bronwyn was a scientist and her research on carbon sequestration by algae was published. Dell was a brilliant software engineer. They wanted to work together and Dell agreed to come out.
In the morning Dell lay in bed, thinking of Bronwyn Ferguson and the night before. He rose, showered, and dressed, walked to the hotel dining room, but it felt wrong. He left and went to the café next door. A blonde girl in black was cleaning outside. He thought she saw him, but she went inside and then Erin appeared and they both ordered breakfast. “What a night,” he said. “Yes, it’s over,” Erin replied. “I’m glad it’s over.”
He spoke: “I can’t love women. No point. What’s the use?” “Your wife?” she asked. “I do my best. Skye’s happier if I don’t get too close.” He looked at her, cold. “Sad,” she said. “Why are we like this?” “Didn’t ask you,” he said. “Glad I didn’t marry you,” she replied. And they recalled the wedding from hell and felt down and hungover. Red prawns, broken glass, blood, wine. Bride crying alone. Groom thinking of celibacy or suicide and decided to leave before the locals or police ran them out of town. She ate eggs, toast, drank cappuccino. A moustache formed on her upper lip. “Dell, you’re one of the good guys,” she said. “Take it easy and be honest with yourself and those around you.” “Yes. Take care of Robert. Love you,” he said, hugged her and left for Bronwyn Ferguson’s motel. At the reception desk, a young blonde girl told him Bronwyn had left for Lady Elliot Island.
He set sail, offshore, blue ocean broken by white caps, south easterly swell. He thought of the marine life protected on the island, once mined for bird droppings. He rowed to the white beach, shallow lagoon, resort, lighthouse with red roof, now hidden by vegetation. He remembered his childhood with Bronwyn in North Narrabeen, loving nature, always outdoors. He rowed to her and a new life, feeling the water’s pull in the narrow channel, blasted long ago.