166. Pushing off

Rainbow smears eddied between the bow and the pier. A flaccid flathead gulped its last, glassy eyes fixed and staring, readying for the journey. Trapped in the mesh were discarded prawn shells, together with faeces from dogs which often littered the water’s edge.

Ginny was not ready for this, Ava being just five months, but Rob was desperate to return to normal life, not realising that normal had undergone a quantum shift. He had left the house at first blush, filling the thermos in one last panic. Ginny surmised the rest was up to her.

Rattling down the gangplank, Ginny saw Jim hunched over the stripped outboard in the runabout. Beside Rob, rolled out to its edges, lay his engine cloth. Greasy pieces of metal were arrayed in accordance with the celestial chart of boat engines, known only to those in the shadow cast by Captain Flint of Cormorant Island.