The Survivors(7)

‘Good to see you, mate. Sorry I’m late, you know what it gets like with the season change.’ Sean pulled his chair around next to Kieran’s and after a moment, Kieran sat down too. ‘I’m glad you’re still here. I thought new parents would be crashed out by this time of night.’

‘Yeah.’ Kieran could feel Mia watching him closely and cleared his throat. Tried to remember what his normal voice sounded like. ‘Well, usually we are, but –’

‘Let me guess. But Ash bullied you into coming out anyway.’ Sean gave a knowing nod and held up a palm. ‘Say no more.’

Kieran’s smile was genuine this time. ‘But we wanted to say hello, mate.’

He meant it. Kieran couldn’t remember a time when he and Sean hadn’t been friends. Sean had always been there. There were photos of them as infants at each other’s first birthday parties, and Kieran’s earliest memory was of the two of them on the beach, their parents chatting while the boys dug holes in the sand and kicked water at each other.

Sean had grown from a quiet, skinny, hippie kid into a thoughtful, rangy, eco-conscious man who was at his happiest out on the water, watching the horizon rock gently from the deck of a boat. His hair was still short enough to dry with a single swipe of his hand, and he always gave the vague impression that he’d emerged moments earlier fresh from the sea and thrown on whatever clothes were to hand.

He wasn’t quite the same person he’d been in the time Kieran now simply thought of as before, but none of them were. Mia, Ash, Olivia, Olivia’s mother, Kieran’s own parents. Liam. Kieran himself, obviously. No-one had come through the storm unscathed.

Kieran glanced now at the kitchen hatch. At least he couldn’t see Liam anymore. He sat back in his chair and tried to relax.

‘Hey, hey, no-one’s been bullied into anything,’ Ash was saying. ‘I’m insulted by that on Kieran’s behalf. He and Mia are here of their own free will.’

As Ash spoke, he made eye contact with Bronte near the bar and circled his hand in a more drinks motion at the table. She gave him a thumbs up and he winked. Her gaze snagged on Kieran and he tried to gauge her reaction to her conversation with Liam in the kitchen. Curiosity? Contempt? She looked away before he could tell.

‘Look, I’m not claiming any different.’ Sean was still smiling as he pointed at Ash. ‘But it’s funny how often people’s free will turns out to coincide with exactly what you want, mate.’ He grinned at Kieran, who had to force himself to focus. ‘Happens all the time at home.’

Kieran couldn’t think of anything to say, and was relieved when Mia jumped in.

‘Where are you two living now?’ she said. ‘Still out by the marina?’

Ash nodded. ‘Yeah, same place. Got a few things that need fixing, but suits us both for work.’

Kieran pictured the sprawling beach house Ash and Sean had shared for at least the past six years. It had always been a little ramshackle, but there was no criticising the location, and it was an upgrade from the smaller and even more ramshackle place they’d shared before that.

Mia turned to Sean. ‘How’s the business going, anyway? We saw you out there earlier. Or the boat at least.’

After Ash had left them at the beach that afternoon, Kieran and Mia had looked at each other, then at his parents’ house where they knew a mountain of moving boxes awaited.

‘I guess we should go back,’ Mia had said.

Kieran had glanced down at his baby daughter. ‘Or we could show Audrey the sights of Evelyn Bay. First time she’s been here.’

‘Where were you thinking?’

‘The lookout?’

Mia had shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. You’re the one who’s going to have to carry her up that cliff path.’

‘No worries.’ Kieran had slipped on his t-shirt and shaken the sand off the baby sling before clipping it around him. ‘Too easy.’

In fact, the well-worn trail winding up and away from the town had been harder going than he remembered with the extra weight against his chest. Part-way up they had passed the gates leading to the rear of the town’s cemetery, before the path narrowed and grew steeper. Kieran had been glad to reach the top. Twelve years ago, the former whaling lookout had been little more than a flat clearing with a single faded sign that implied, as Kieran remembered it, that it might not be the greatest idea to go clambering about on the cliffs but, hey, live and let live.

Now the lookout was a small but formal decked area, enclosed by a wire fence topped by a thick wooden railing at waist height. Next to smart laminated boards offering illustrated information about whale migratory patterns and the nesting area of crested terns, a very legible notice warned that trespassers on the cliffs risked a $500 fine, enforceable under local by-law Section D, amendment 16.1.

There had been no-one else up there, and Kieran had sat next to Mia on a bench that had also appeared in recent years and looked out at the sea as the wind snatched at their hair. The water, which could be a thousand different sparkling colours, was that afternoon an undulating plain of dull grey-green. Some way out beyond the rocks, an anchored catamaran listed gently. Sean’s boat, the Nautilus Blue.

‘Is he under?’ Mia was squinting at the deck.

‘Looks like it.’ Kieran could see the hoisted flag flapping its message. Blue and white. Diver down.