Fish Breath

Trent wolf-whistled as Amelia stepped onto the fish-deck of the Rose Too. It was a bold move: she'd come to expect his furtive glances by now, but he'd never been so open as to whistle like that. The other deckhand, Leo, told Trent to shut it. Amelia ignored both of them and made her way forward to where her father stood in the bow, staring up at the radio mast.

"You reckon it's crooked?" he asked without looking at her.

Amelia gazed upwards, automatically putting one hand on the gunwale to steady herself in the choppy sea stirred up by the wind off the Southern Ocean. A gout of spray leaped from under the bow of the Rose Too and splashed her with icy drops.

"I don't know," she said. As if she could tell if there was anything wrong with the radio mast anyway.

Her father's mouth set hard beneath his long grey beard.

"What the hell are you wearing?"

"What?"

"Go and put some clothes on."

She looked down. The red bikini was a bargain, bought just before they left harbour. She'd put some denim shorts over the bottoms, but the top exposed as much flesh as a bikini usually did. The sun had broken through the dull pall that had hung in the sky for the last two days and it was probably her only chance for a tan.

"Don't be silly, Dad. You can't see anything."

He stepped across and looked her in the eye. "I heard one of the hands whistle. Who was it?"

"Christ, Dad, relax!"

He put a finger up to her face. It was a gesture he did every time he criticised her, and it was becoming really old by now.

"Now look. I know you didn't want to come out with us, but the least you could do is act a bit more...I don't know...serious."

Serious? As if she wasn't taking this seriously enough already, cooking for all four of them, housekeeping, even helping drive the boat as they hauled the stinking prawn nets over the stern. She'd done more hard labour in the last two days than she had in the past year. One thing for sure, this was the only time she'd let herself be talked into filling in for their regular cook. At least Jane would be back from her honeymoon by the next trip.

"What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't know. We have another trawl to do before then. Might take hours. We'll need your help if it's a big haul." She kept her gaze fixed on him until he added, "Dinner's your department."

There was a packet of spaghetti bolognaise in the freezer. That would do. She made her way back along the port side of the boat towards the cabin.

"And put a shirt on!"

Leo and Trent were looking into the prawn hold below the sorting table, so she managed to slip into the cabin without being seen. Her dad was right: it had been a stupid idea to wear the bikini top with nothing over it. Leo, at least, was an old hand who could be trusted to keep his eyes away—or at least pretend he didn't notice—but Trent was a new guy, and had yet to prove himself, as her Dad would say. The tan would have to wait.

She took out the frozen packet of bolognaise and slapped it down on the galley bench to defrost. If they did another prawn run, as her father intended, it would be evening before it was finished and they'd all be hungry. After dinner she'd wash up and then Leo and her Dad would drink whisky and sit around the cabin and tell rude jokes and maybe play a few hands of poker with Trent, who at least didn't drink alcohol. She would retreat to her "cabin"—really just a bunk separated from the rest of the boat by a curtain—and try to read and then sleep despite the noise. That's the way the last two nights had gone.