A Drop in the Ocean. Jenni Ogden
for you?” he asked.
I nodded, and he bent down and put the bottle and two wine glasses on the deck, then disappeared inside, returning with a packet of biscuits and a wooden board complete with two types of cheese—a wedge of blue and a hunk of tasty—and a bunch of purple grapes.
“Gosh, this looks very civilized,” I said, accepting a glass of wine.
“It does, doesn’t it,” he agreed, grinning again. “I like my little luxuries; got to have something to stop myself turning into a wild man.”
“How long have you been here?” I sipped the wine. It was good: rich and round and Australian.
“Six years, off and on. Before that I spent about three months a year here while I was doing my PhD research. Fell in love with the place and decided to stay a while.”
“Your PhD was on turtles?”
“Yep. Addictive creatures.”
“Do you work on them all year round, or only when they’re mating?”
“The full-on field work is now—October, when they’re courting, and we study mainly the males—then November to March, when the females are laying, and through to about May we study the babies when they’re hatching. But there’s plenty to do the rest of the year, analyzing data and writing papers and thinking up new research projects, as well as less frantic field work on the health of the reef more generally, and the distribution of the turtles, what they’re feeding on and so on.”
“How fascinating. It sounds the perfect job,” I said, realizing that I was envious. I also noticed that my stomach had stopped churning and my heart had stopped thumping. Perhaps it was the wine, but I felt relaxed sitting there talking to this unusual young man.
“I think so,” he was saying. “If you’re interested, you should come out one night when the females start nesting. It’s pretty special.”
“I’d love to. I’ve seen documentaries on it, but never the real thing. When does it start?”
“Any day now. At first just one or two females will come up, but by late December and through January we can have any number from fifty to one hundred a night laying.” He poured me some more wine and then refilled his own glass.
“What do you do? Count the eggs?”
“Sometimes. We wait until they’ve dug their nest and started laying, and then we read their tag if they already have one, or if not, we tag and measure them. That way we can keep a record of how often they nest in a season, where they lay, and any damage they have.”
“Doesn’t that disturb them?” I asked.
“Not usually. They’re easily upset before they begin dropping their eggs, but once they’re at that point nothing can stop it. A physiological imperative. A bit like orgasm, or I suppose birth, although I can’t relate to that experience so easily.”
I felt myself flushing and bent to smear some more blue cheese on a cracker. The light was going. I should leave before it became too dark to find my way. I stuffed the biscuit into my mouth and tried to eat it fast without making too much noise.
“What about you?” he was saying. “Are you here for long?”
I swallowed the last of my biscuit and gulped down the last of my wine. “I’m here for a year, looking after Jeff’s campsite and doing some writing.” I wanted to take that revelation back the second my words hit the air.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
“I’m a researcher too. Well, I was a researcher. I lost my grant and thought I’d have some time off to rethink what I want to do. When this opportunity came up it seemed far enough away from what I’d been doing to be very attractive. So far I haven’t had a single camper, so it’s not exactly a big job.”
“What is your research area? Are you writing papers?” He sounded genuinely interested, and I looked over at him, his face blurred in the dusk.
“Not interesting like your research. It’s medical laboratory research. And to be honest, I’m not sure what I’m writing; it’s a sort of memoir on my work. Pretty silly, really.”
“No writing is silly. It’ll happen. Just give yourself some slack. This is a pretty magic place to write. Just let it work on you in its own good time.” I could sense the warmth in his tone and I was glad it was nearly dark. I felt quite shaky. Clearly too much wine.
“Thanks for the wine and cheese. And the company. It was lovely,” I said, getting up. “I’d better make tracks before it’s completely black.”
“Will you find your way okay? Do you want a torch?”
“I’ll be fine. I might go back along the beach. If the moon is up it will be easy to see.” I tried to sound lighthearted. Thank heaven he hadn’t offered to walk me home.
“It should be rising right now on your side of the island, and it’s almost full. Thanks for calling in. I’ll let you know when the girls start laying.”
I made my way along the path to the main track, sneaking a look back towards his house. The light came on inside and I heard his whistle and a clatter of glassware.
FOUR
I had begun to talk to myself, out aloud. I also talked back to the radio. If this continued I’d be a raving lunatic by the time I left this island. Since I got there ten days earlier I’d spoken to only two flesh-and-blood people—Jack and Nick excluded—and in total time, I couldn’t have spent more than three hours in their company.
In Boston, I relished my weekends of isolation after being duty-bound to communicate with the others in my lab all week. When I arrived on the island I was anticipating with rampant pleasure being on my lonesome for twelve whole months. Now I’m desperate for the sound of a human voice other than my own, or a disembodied radio substitute.
Basil was a man of few words and I couldn’t see myself spending hours with him. And Tom the turtle whisperer was hardly going to be hanging around, waiting for another excuse to slurp wine with me. He couldn’t be much older than thirty-five.
An image of his body inserted itself between my thoughts again. I rolled my eyes, ignoring the fact that there was no one there to notice my exasperation. Naked men do not, in theory, do anything for me. I did, after all, train as a doctor and even worked as one for a brief period. On the other hand, the last time I’d seen a naked man in the flesh had been more than twenty years ago, and my memories of that occasion were, thankfully, dim. So perhaps I could be forgiven for replaying the image of a wet, brown, healthy male body, especially as I was too embarrassed to make the most of the vision at the time. I could feel myself blushing at the very thought. And his casualness with the whole thing. He was probably used to walking about in front of women stark naked. A matter of course for the younger generation.
But he had seemed genuine about my going out with him when the turtles were laying. I noticed he didn’t ask me if I’d like to accompany him and his friends on the turtle rodeo. Thank goodness. I might have said yes and then I’d have had to find an excuse not to go.
Concentrate on the memoir, woman. Boring, boring, boring. Who was I kidding? No one was going to want to read this. A pedestrian account of a dried up, middle-aged academic’s broken dreams. Not even that, really—just tedious descriptions of working in a lab. But I had to do something for the rest of the year. For people not keen on going in the sea, there was a limited selection of activities to choose from. Bird watching, walking.
I snapped shut my laptop, grabbed my binoculars and hat, and set out in the direction of the wharf. Time to find some other people to converse with. They must be out there somewhere. Where do Tom’s research assistants live? What about those kids I saw; they must have parents. Stop moping woman, and get a life.
TO MY SURPRISE I DID MANAGE TO STRIKE UP A conversation with the mother of