Eventually he turned away, took a tin of tobacco from his pocket, and swiftly made a roll-up. With his back to the others he lit it and inhaled, the tension in his shoulders beginning to soften.
In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Lana asked Shell, ‘How’s the postcard writing going?’ Any time they were in a town, Shell would scour the market stalls in search of postcards to send home to her parents.
‘Sometimes I feel like I’m writing a tourist brochure rather than sharing anything about how it actually feels to be here, you know?’
Lana nodded – although the truth was, she hadn’t been in touch with her father since coming away. Kitty had sent a couple of emails home, and Lana imagined that the news would gradually filter through to her father. ‘Your parents must love getting them.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Shell said, lifting her shoulders. ‘I never hear back from them. Not a single email. I don’t even know if they read my letters.’
Lana was taken aback. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’
‘We weren’t on the best terms when I left. They didn’t like my … life choices.’ She laughed as she said, ‘When I told them I was a lesbian, it was like there’d been a death. They grieved – actually grieved over the news.’
Joseph exhaled a drift of smoke into the clear blue sky. ‘Why do you still write?’
Shell turned and looked at him. ‘Because I want to at least try. They’re my family.’
‘Parents are not God. They are people. People who can be … fucking assholes, no?’ His voice was breathless with a sudden anger. ‘If they do not like who you are, then, so what? Yes?’
Shell’s eyes widened.
‘This – this is a waste!’ Joseph said, gesturing to the postcards with the roll-up.
‘Joseph …’ Heinrich said, and Lana caught the warning in his tone.
‘It is true, Shell. I just tell you truth. You are very nice, very kind girl. You waste your time thinking of them, if they do not think of you!’
Shell’s eyes turned glassy. Slowly, she gathered up her postcards and left the deck without a word.
Heinrich got to his feet too, glaring at Joseph. ‘Why the fuck did you say that?’
‘I only say what I think.’
‘Next time, don’t! Shell’s had a hard time of it, okay?’
Joseph drew on his roll-up. ‘Better to hear the truth, than live in dream, no?’
‘You,’ Heinrich said, pointing, ‘can be a little prick.’ He disappeared below deck after Shell, leaving the pieces of the dismantled radio gleaming silver in the sunlight.
Looking at Joseph, Lana could feel the bitterness and hurt locked away with his grief. She wondered what had happened between him and his parents.
He brought the roll-up to his lips, but before he inhaled he said, ‘I do not mean to make Shell cry. I like her very much. But I also believe when parents tell us, “We do this for you, because we love you,” they are not always right, are they?’
Lana contemplated this, thinking of her own father. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘They’re not.’
*
Lana returned to the cabin, where Kitty was lying in her bunk recovering from a hangover. She hadn’t made it up onto deck before mid-morning all week.
‘He didn’t mean to upset her – it’s just his manner,’ Lana was saying, filling Kitty in about Joseph. She knew he sometimes acted in odd ways, but she also knew he wasn’t cruel. ‘But I don’t think Heinrich saw it that way.’
‘When it comes to Shell, Heinrich does have a tendency to be a little overprotective,’ Kitty said, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.
‘You’ve noticed, too?’
‘Noticed?’ Kitty said. ‘He follows her around with his tongue hanging so far out that I’ve almost skidded over in his drool.’
‘Shhh!’ Lana said, laughing.
‘Trust him to fall for a lesbian. The ultimate challenge!’ Kitty said, taking off his accent perfectly.
Lana laughed again.
‘Hey, you know what Heinrich told me last night?’ Kitty lowered her voice and said, ‘Aaron used to be a barrister.’
‘Aaron? Seriously? How does Heinrich know that?’
‘When they were moored up somewhere in Thailand, this huge motorboat – a gin-palace type, owned by a Swiss guy – reversed right into The Blue. Put a hole in the stern. Then motored off.’
‘Aaron must’ve lost it!’
‘Apparently not. He caught up with the boat a day or two later. Heinrich reckoned he was lethally cool when he confronted the owner, didn’t raise his voice, didn’t get angry. Just told this bloke that, unless he sorted out the repair bill, Aaron would be going to the police, and started spouting all this legal speak about operating a motorboat under the influence, endangering lives, leaving the scene of a crime. Afterwards, Heinrich asked how he knew all that stuff and Aaron told him he used to be a barrister.’
Lana pictured him in a courtroom, chest puffed out, arguing his case – and found that the image came to mind easily. If he’d been a barrister, it probably explained how he could afford to buy The Blue in the first place. ‘Wonder why he gave it up.’
‘No idea.’
There must have been some reason. Barrister to skipper was some career swerve. She mused on this as she picked up her sketchbook and slipped it under the mattress of her bunk to keep it flat.
‘What’ve you been drawing?’ Kitty asked.
‘Just a coil of rope up on deck.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
Kitty was one of the only people Lana was happy to show her sketches to. The tutorials during her art degree had left behind a residue of fear – all those panic-inducing moments of standing in front of her peers, trying to put into words what she’d been hoping to capture in a piece. Even now she’d break out into a sweat when she had to speak to a roomful of people. Lana slid out the sketchbook and opened it at the image of the rope.
Kitty studied it carefully. ‘Lana,’ she said, looking up. ‘This is beautiful.’
‘It’s just a rope.’
‘But look at the detail! It’s amazing. It’s how you’ve captured it.’ She shook her head thoughtfully. ‘I can’t wait to see your work hanging in a gallery one day.’
Lana laughed. ‘You’ve got a high opinion of me.’
‘Yes,’ she said seriously. ‘I have.’
Lana was reminded how – even when they were teenagers – Kitty had always encouraged Lana’s passion for art. ‘Do you remember how we used to make that tepee den in my back garden and hide out in it over summer?’ she said, thinking about how she’d draw in the shade, while Kitty filled the space with her chatter and the smell of drying nail polish.
Kitty said, ‘We’d tie a piece of string between the shed and rotary dryer and drape a sheet over it, pegging the corners out wide. Then we’d bring out all the blankets and cushions we could find, and camp out there for hours.’
Hidden within the folds of the sheets they’d talk as if they were invisible to the rest of the world. ‘We’d spend hours and hours imagining what our mothers would be like if they were