Blueback

XII

Abel Jackson became a marine biologist married to another marine biologist. With Stella he travelled and studied, diving in all the oceans and seas of the world. In time he became an expert, someone foreign governments invited for lectures and study tours, but inside he still felt like a boy with a snorkel staring at the strange world underwater, wishing he knew how it worked. Blueback still swam through his dreams.

He was diving in the Greek islands one day, looking at the great underwater desert that dynamite fishing and pollution had created when he realised that he was older than his father. It came as a cold shock. His father would always be a young man; he never grew older than the moment that tiger shark loomed out of the murk and broke him in two.

That very day he got back to his hotel and found a diving magazine on his bed. On the front cover Blueback and two divers circled each other like dancers.

There was a letter from his mother.

Lots of people came this year, Abel. Boat after boat full of divers wanting to swim with that fat old fish.

Some days I have fifteen boats in the bay. Not all of them are welcome, I must say. People come spearing in groups. I’m worried about the bay.

A month later an oil tanker cracked in two off the coast of Longboat Bay. Abel watched it on TV from halfway across the world. In another city, and another hotel room, he saw video pictures of the oil slick spreading. In an airport lounge the next day he passed a TV and watched the same ship catch fire and the slick burn up as foul weather drove the mess away and broke it up. The stricken ship drifted far out to sea until the weather improved enough for it to be towed back to port. No oil ever reached the shore. Abel Jackson knew how close the whole coast had come to disaster. He called his mother and let her know that he had seen the drama. She cried when she heard his voice. It’s a warning, she told him.

As he travelled with Stella, going where their work took them, to coral atolls, to estuaries choking on pollutants, to strange countries and new oceans, Abel thought about his home all year long and felt the big blue fish pressing against him in his sleep.