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One Day I…
(A sequel to Tim
Winton’s Blueback)
Charlotte
Oakley
Dora Jackson shook her sea-salted hair in the twilight breeze.
The wind had picked up, and she squinted through the gusts
blowing knots of hair in all directions. She pulled off the diving gear
clinging to her body, and pressed her towel onto her strong frame.
Slinging the weights over her shoulder, she trudged up to the broad
timber house where her mother and father would be waiting for her.
Like her grandmother, Dora knew all of the secrets of Longboat
Bay. She didn’t mean to find them, she would just stumble upon
them as she swam into the crystal depths of the bay. As Dora made
her way home, it occurred to her that Longboat Bay hadn’t always
been the same. As a child she vaguely remembered the shock that hit
everyone across the beach. She remembered the smoke that used to
come billowing from the shore. The fumes that intoxicated her
mouth and her nose when she fell asleep. Her thoughts were
interrupted suddenly by her mother opening the door. Immediate
warmth rushed through her joints as she was welcomed home with a
kiss and a hug.
Dora gave herself one last rub with her towel, and hung it over
the rack standing by the door, ready for tomorrow morning’s swim.
She skipped to her room in as few leaps as possible to avoid slipping
on the floor, and flopped lazily onto her bed. After day dreaming for
a minute, she slouched over to her cupboard and threw on a t-shirt.
Bouncing into the dining room, she found her parents sipping on
water, tentatively.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ said her father, Abel.
‘Hey dad. How’s your day been?’
Her mother smiled sweetly down to her, pleased by her daughter’s
politeness. She looked back up to Abel, her husband.
‘Good, thank you, darling.’ He paused, then continued. ‘Today in
the lab, your mother and I did some more research on the causes of
underwater tornados.’
Dora looked up delightedly, admiring her wonderful parents. She
hoped to be like them one day.
A little bit later, she found herself sitting down at the dining room
table, feeding from a bowl of spaghetti bolognese. The noodles
twisted and twirled around her fork, like leaves falling softly to the
ground on an Autumn day. She slurped the pasta into her eager
mouth. Cherishing every bite, she hadn’t even realised that her
parents were sitting together smiling; her father twiddling his thumb
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