Island (2022)

They went for a walk when the tide was low, out to the end of the sandbank, the furthest point they could see from the hotel. It took longer than expected and they walked back in the dark. Crabs were all around them. They made a chorus of crisp, grainy noises, like an army of men gritting their teeth. Eliza had stood on a crab the first day they arrived, felt its small shell crack under her weight. She sobbed for an hour. She had never killed anything before. Certain the crabs were hunting her, looking for revenge, she clung to her father's shirt and whimpered as they walked back along the sandbank, the hotel security light flashing red in the distance.

It was late when they got back to the hotel room. Salty wet air had collected on Eliza's skin and slid into her eyes, burning. She thought perhaps she was crying, though she did not know why. Tomorrow, said her father, they would go to the jetty and find a sailboat. They would sit out on the water and eat sandwiches with beetroot and salmon. He was standing in the centre of the room, his skin pallid grey, his mouth sagging open like a dead fish. He was not looking at Eliza but was staring, without blinking, at a small painting on the wall. A crowd of women; their red dresses smeared together in a thick field of vermillion. She told him that she did not like beetroot, that she wanted to go into the town and eat gelato. He reached out and placed his limp, greasy hand on her head, but he did not look at her and he did not say anything more.

They were the only tourists on the island. It was off-season. The air was mercilessly hot, but they could not go in the water because of the jellyfish. Thousands of them, migrating south, the hotel clerk had said, as venomous as they are beautiful, so watch out. And they were beautiful, like red flowers quivering in the waves. Eliza wondered where their brains were, where they kept their thoughts.

She asked her father this on the way to the sailboat. They were following the curve of the beach. Sharp sunlight was bouncing off the waves and pricking at Eliza’s eyes. The tide was out and the sand was littered with debris; glistening seaweed tangled through plastic fishing nets, driftwood covered in a crust of shells and lichen. Flocks of seabirds were fighting over the carcasses of shellfish. They don't have thoughts, said her father, adjusting his sunglasses. The wind picked up, it smelt of salt and rot.

Market stalls were clotted around the mouth of the jetty. Men with hard jaws and heavy brows stood behind basins full of fish with eyes like glass inlaid in pearlescent metal. Eliza ran her hands along the edges of the basins, peering down into each of them to see mussels, cod, and crabs like the ones on the beach, shiny and motionless like plastic toys.

A woman with wiry hair and broad shoulders was sitting behind two buckets, shucking oysters in half with a knife. Eliza watched as she pried their shells apart and exposed the glossy, viscous creatures that lived inside. The woman’s hands were calloused and lined. Eliza wanted to touch them. She imagined the hands untangling the knots in her hair and rubbing her back. My name is Eliza, she said, moving closer. My mother used to cook oysters with bacon and cheese. The woman did not look up. Seagulls crowded around Eliza’s feet crying for food, feigning nips at her ankles. Eliza picked up an oyster shell and held it up to the light, looking for rainbows in the mother-of-pearl. Today we are going on a boat, but I don’t want to go, said Eliza. The woman's body turned hard and new lines appeared on her forehead. The knife in her hand shone and dripped with milky liquid. But tomorrow we are going to eat gelato, do you want to come?

You need to leave, said the woman, her voice like a crack of thunder. The seagulls startled and flew away. Eliza dropped the shell and ran, trying not to cry.

The sailboat was moored right down the end of the jetty. It was painted sheet white, and had a big, pink sail, which throbbed into the sky like a shard of stained-glass. Her father was up ahead, walking fast towards the boat, the esky clutched tight to his chest. She ran to keep up. Bits of sand were stuck in the folds of her body, scratching at her sunburnt skin. Wait, she pleaded, but the word turned to a cry as her sandal slipped through a gap in the wood, landing Eliza on her hands and knees with a painful thud.

There, peering down through the jetty’s wooden slats, she saw a jellyfish. Its bright scarlet body was beating like a heart. Eliza had never seen anything so pretty. She wondered what it would feel like to touch, to run her hands over its smooth, bell-shaped head. A mass of tendrils spiralled out from the centre like locks of auburn hair tracing the invisible rhythms of the water. She longed to run her fingers through them, to feel the silky threads wrap around her skin. She knew then that her father was wrong, because this jellyfish was lonely, and you had to have thoughts to be lonely.

She slid her arm through the gap and reached down. Her fingers clawed at empty air; the water was too far below. As the waves grew, they lifted the jellyfish up, higher, closer. Eliza wedged her shoulder deeper into the crack, pushing her body hard against the jagged wood. Another wave came and water grazed the tips of her fingers. Almost. Far off, muffled, she heard someone say her name, and then the jellyfish was gone.

The boat belonged to an old man with no shirt and a taut, swollen stomach. His body was covered in clusters of long, thin scars. One curled around his neck and up across his cheek, ending just below his eye. He was sitting on a crate next to the boat, smoking a cigarette. A group of jellyfish are called a ‘bloom’, he said, ashing his cigarette into the water. He looked at Eliza; his gaze seemed to slice through her skin. Her father was already onboard, riffling through the esky. Eliza did not know what to say back to the man, so she turned and watched the sail shudder and turn in the wind, though she felt there was no wind at all, that the air was a solid object sliding against her damp body. A splinter of wood was jutting from her bare foot, and when she climbed onto the boat, it left a bright smear of blood on the hull.

The sun was overhead by the time they got out to open water. Her father sat hunched at the stern eating sandwiches. Beetroot juice ran in trails down his chin and his forearms. A burgundy stain had begun to seep through his white linen shirt. Eliza leant against the edge of the boat; her eyes fixed on the shrinking island. The horizon was quivering with mirage. The sea seemed to lick away pieces of the land, the distant sand and rock seething like melted wax pouring into water.

With nothing left to do, she allowed herself to be lulled by the gentle movements of the boat. She allowed the soft sea spray to lick at her hot skin, for her gaze to drift and soften and unfocus, until the sky became the sea, and the sea became her body.

She is surrounded by women. Their hair is long and wet, and it clings to their shoulders and breasts in spider web patterns. She cannot see their faces. They are pressed close together, moving in a single tide of glistening flesh. Where is her mother? She must find her. The women are naked, their bodies jiggle as they laugh. Eliza pushes against them, everything is soft. Hot, slippery thighs spill onto her shoulders, elbows graze the top of her head. The women are embracing, snaking their hands around each other, through each other, laughing wild and shrill. She cannot see their faces. Eliza slips her hand between two bodies, parting flesh, prying through fatty bellies which cling together like melting plastic. Bits of skin get caught between her fingers, stretching out into warm, sticky strands. The women are in every direction. Somewhere, someone is singing, and she knows it is her mother. They swell back and forth, every movement rippling out through the crowd. She cannot see their faces, only flashes of hair and teeth, and the hot pink blush of areolas and vulvas. Someone is singing. She cannot find her.

A loud ripping sound shocks Eliza awake. It is the sound of jagged rock piercing wood. She does not know how long she has been dreaming, but the sun is low and big and pink. Her father is soaked in blood, no, beetroot juice, a sandwich clutched tight in his fist. The boat is still and tilted, and the waves, which had come on in the dusk, are spewing across the deck.

She runs to her father and grabs him by the wrist. His face is smeared with beetroot, his hands are trembling and stained a deep red. Pieces of bread are lodged under his fingernails. Stop! She screams. Can’t you see? The boat is flooding fast. He shrugs her off and takes another bite. Chunks of red mush fall from his open mouth as he chews wild like an animal. Water laps her ankles. The boat heaves and groans, slipping further into the blue-black sea. Frantic, Eliza throws herself at her father, scratching at him, digging her nails deep into his skin. He does not flinch. Behind his dark glasses, his eyes are closed, firm and permanent.

Something catches Eliza’s eye, and the struggle goes still.

*

The cockpit is half full of water now, and the horizon has eaten half the sun, but Eliza has not noticed. She is looking beyond the boat's edge. She is staring at the dancing shapes which linger just below. The water is red and hungry. They circle the boat, hundreds of them, leaning toward Eliza the way flowers lean toward the sun. And now, she is reaching for them. Her fingers slip quick and eager through the water’s surface. They are speaking to her without words. They are saying that they are lonely, that she must come, that they cannot wait any longer. Somewhere, someone is singing.

Soon her hair will be wet, her neck, her body. Soon her eyes will burn and blur from the salt, but she will not mind. Soon there will be no boat, no father, no Eliza, but she will not mind.