like a rebuke. He could sense his colleagues’ discomfort when they talked about the project with him. These were people dedicated to saving a species that on the current clock had less than ten years left. And he had let them down. Pete began to question his priorities. If he couldn’t give his all to the job, then it was time to resign and let someone else have a go.
‘There’s not much I can do any more,’ he tells Desi.
‘You could go to Sumatra – make sure he’s okay.’
‘I don’t work at the zoo now, Desi. I’m not connected to the project.’
Desi shakes her head, as though unable to believe it. ‘But surely they’d welcome your help. There can’t be many people with your skills and experience.’
Pete thinks about it for a while. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Make the calls – find out. It can’t hurt. Don’t get stuck through indecision, Pete. It will eat you up. You didn’t make a mistake – you made a tough call. If you had stayed, it could have been Maya who suffered. You can’t beat yourself up because you weren’t able to be everywhere at once.’
Pete gets up and kisses her forehead. ‘I’ll think about it. I’d better go and check on Luke. You get some sleep.’
‘I think I will,’ she says, and rises to follow him.
Pete settles himself in the armchair and studies Luke as he sleeps. The force of protectiveness he feels for Maya begins to rise in him. ‘Don’t you hurt her,’ he says quietly. It has been hard to tell in the circumstances whether they are friends or something more, but he had thought he could detect a longing in Maya – after all, it was an emotion he recognised far too easily.
It is a daunting task to be the responsible adult in the face of teenage passion. Half of him is horrified at what they’ve been up to, and keen to stop them. The other half wants to applaud them for doing what they can.
Luke is sound asleep, breathing steadily, and looks comfortable enough. Pete tries to keep his eyes from closing, but he can hear the distant, rolling waves outside, and the noise begins to hypnotise him. Slowly the rise and fall of his breathing aligns to the sound, and his mind drifts below the surface of his consciousness.
It seems like he’s only been dozing for a few minutes when someone starts shaking his shoulder.
He comes to with a jolt. Maya is standing there, regarding him anxiously.
‘Where’s Luke?’ she asks.
Pete looks across to the sofa to see it holds a pile of rumpled blankets.
Luke has gone.
33
Desi
Once Desi is back with her family in Lovelock Bay, she soon gets used to being partially invisible. While her mother and Jackson shower her with affection, Charlie is trying his best to pretend she doesn’t exist. The most she gets from him in the first few weeks home is a grunt at her initial hello. After that, he avoids her as much as possible.
It is no more than she expected, but it still hurts. And before long Hester’s attentions are beginning to grate on her, as her mother tries to make up for Charlie’s lack of affection a little too transparently. Only Jackson’s company is a true pleasure. His endless questions about sharks and dolphins and his repeated requests to see her few photographs not only allow her to relive the last eight months but also keep her distracted from the bigger question that flickers further into life each day.
Why hasn’t he called?
Since they parted, she has only spoken to Connor once, at the airport. He had promised to get in touch as soon as he was in the States. She had expected to hear from him within days. But one week came and went. And then two. She spends her evenings sitting in the kitchen, near the phone, not daring to go out in case she misses him. She tries to concentrate on her mother’s ceaseless conversation as she cooks the dinner and washes up. She studies the dome of her father’s balding head through the doorway as it peeps from the top of the sofa like a timid sun, and the TV’s light casts a colourful, ever-changing pattern over the semi-dark room. Jackson flies around her now and again with cars and planes, but it is as though her chair is an island, and the air between them all is a foggy, unfamiliar ocean. She pretends not to notice when her mother casts