‘Not again,’ said Liza. ‘The noise,’ she said. ‘It destroys them. They get confused . . . especially the babies. And there are too many boats. She’ll be frightened.’ She got on to the radio, fiddling with the dial. ‘Ishmael to Disco Ship, or whatever your name is. Turn your music down. You are too loud. Do you hear me? You’re too loud.’ As we listened to the static of the radio, I stared at the water. Nothing broke the surface now. No sound could be heard above the insistent thud of the beat, drawing closer.
Her brow wrinkling as she realised the speed at which it was approaching. ‘Ishmael to unidentified large cat, east-north-east of Break Nose Island. Turn off your engines and your music. You are close to a whale cow and calf, possibly one male too. You are going too fast, putting you at risk of collision, and your noise is likely to cause them distress. Do you read me?’
I stood there helplessly as she tried twice more to contact them. It was unlikely, I thought, that they could hear anything above the noise of that bass.
‘Ishmael to Suzanne – Greg, can you call the coastguard? The police? See if they can send out a speedboat. They’re too close.’
‘Got you, Liza. Moby Two is headed round to see if they can steer them off course.’
‘Moby Two to Ishmael. I can’t see our whales, Liza. Hope to God they’re headed the other way.’
‘What can I do?’ I said. I had no idea of the significance of what she was saying, but the anxiety in the atmosphere was clear.
‘Hold this,’ she said, and handed me the wheel. She started the engines. ‘Now, steer for Disco Billy over there, and I’ll tell you when to turn. I’m going to make sure we don’t hit anything as we go.’
She didn’t give me a chance to say no. She ran downstairs, then came up with a load of things under her jacket. I made out a loudhailer, but I was too busy focusing on the wheel to notice much. It felt unfamiliar in my hands, and daunting to be going at such speed, the waves bouncing under us. The little dog had picked up on the tension and stood up, whining.
We were about a hundred feet from the ship when Liza instructed me to keep a parallel course. Then she ran to the front, shouting at me to stay where I was.
She leant over the rail, a loudhailer in her hand. ‘Night Star Two, you are too loud and travelling too fast. Please turn your music down. You are in an area inhabited by migrating whales.’
God knows how they could have been so drunk in the middle of the afternoon. The dancing figures on the top deck reminded me of those holidays for young people where the object of day trips is to get them as inebriated and incapable as possible. Was there an Australian equivalent?
‘Night Star Two, we have alerted the coastguard and National Parks and Wildlife Service. Turn your music down and leave the area at once.’
If there was a skipper, he wasn’t listening. One of the stewards – a young guy in a red polo shirt – gave Liza the finger and disappeared. A moment later the music was noticeably louder. There was a faint cheer aboard, as more people began to dance. Liza stared at the boat, then reached down. From where I was I could no longer see what she was doing. I stared at the name on the side of the big boat. Then it hit me.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, as the radio hissed into life: ‘Liza? Liza? It’s Greg. The Parks people are on their way. C’mon, let’s head back. The fewer of us moving around the better for the whales.’
I put my phone back into my pocket, then stared at the receiver for a moment. I picked it up. I squeezed it tentatively. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’
‘Suzanne to Ishmael, do you read me?’
‘It’s – ah – Mike Dormer.’
There was a brief silence, then Greg said, ‘What’s she doing up front?’
‘I don’t know,’ I confessed.
I heard him mutter something, which might have been an expletive, and then there was an explosion. I leapt to the side of the boat just in time to see a huge flare headed into the air angled at no more than twenty feet above the disco ship.
Liza was standing at the prow, loading something long and thin into some kind of launcher.
‘You’re not going to bloody shoot them?’ I yelled at her. But she didn’t seem to hear me. My heart thumping, I saw people backing away rapidly from the top deck of the other ship, heard the shouts of concern and a man screaming abuse at her. The dog was barking wildly. Then I saw Liza load another flare, point it high into the air and stumble backwards as, with a huge crack, she sent it into the sky not quite high enough above them.
As my ears rang and the disco ship’s engines finally swung it round and propelled it the other way, I heard another voice come over the radio: a gravelly one, filled with disbelief and admiration. ‘Moby Two to Ishmael. Moby Two to Ishmael. Jesus Christ, Liza. You’ve really gone and done it now.’
Seven
Liza
By the time we reached the jetty Kathleen was already shouting at me, her rigid, upright body bristling with indignation. I secured Ishmael, helped Milly ashore and walked briskly towards her. ‘I know,’ I said.
She raised her hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done? Are you totally insane, girl?’
I stopped and pushed my hair off my face. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
The anxiety on her face mirrored my own. In fact, I could have kicked myself. I had thought of nothing else for the twenty minutes it had taken us to come back to the bay.
‘They were straight on to the Water Police, Liza. For all we know they’re on their way over here now.’
‘But what can they prove?’
‘Well, put it this way, you let the second one off while they were on the marine radio.’
I was a fool, I knew it, and Kathleen did too. Against every rule of marine safety, against all common sense, I had loaded those two distress flares into their launchers, and positioned them just close enough to scare the boat’s passengers. Flares were notoriously unpredictable. If one had misfired . . . If Search and Rescue had caught sight of the other . . . But while I knew it was a stupid thing to do, how else could I have got those boats away? And how could I tell my aunt that if I had held a gun, instead of a distress flare, I would have shot at them instead?
I closed my eyes. It was only when I opened them again that I remembered I hadn’t waited for Mike Dormer to disembark. The crunch of his shoes in the dirt heralded his arrival next to us, his brown hair dishevelled and damp from the speed of the journey back. He looked a little shaken. Kathleen’s face softened. ‘Why don’t you go inside, Mike? I’ll make some tea.’