Chapter 1
The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord is over many waters.
Psalm 29:3
The water glistened on the walls of the cavern; the moisture caught the late afternoon sunlight and offered a bright sheen. Gideon looked down at the water below. Its surface was still and grey blue. It looked cold. He shivered in anticipation of its icy touch. He stared into the water for a few more moments.
Gideon began to peel off his shirt and shoes. He swept his unruly mop of auburn curls from his forehead with one tanned hand. His gaze was fixed steadily on the churning bluish liquid below. He looked fervently upwards at the sky; its colour matched that of the water. He took a deep breath and dived in.
The water’s chill shot straight through him in a way he couldn’t have prepared himself for. He let his dive linger. He didn’t come up for air right away. He let the pale indigo waves swirl around him. When he dove into a sea like this he felt like he was slicing through cold grey silk.
He had to breathe, so he swum to the surface. The salty air hit his nostrils with a firm whack. He let out a gasp, as he pulled the sweet zephyr into his lungs. Gideon lay floating on his back, his arms folded across his chest, looking up at the sky. The first wisps of black clouds were wrapping their tendrils around the blue sky. Gideon knew it would not be long until the whole sky was stormy. He would clamber up the cavern walls and onto the salt encrusted rock soon. But half a minute in the ocean’s frosty grip was worth more than half a lifetime on the land to him. So he floated another second. The sunny sheen on the cavern walls was now mirroring ebony tresses of raincloud. He pulled his shirt over his damp curls. He felt an involuntary shiver run up his spine. He was almost as cold as the sea itself. A storm was on the way. He was dripping wet and he was in the worst place to be in a storm. And yet he was happy.
The climb down the rock cliff was tough, but uneventful. The sharp surface felt reassuringly rough against his tanned hands. The walk along the beach ignited Gideon’s zeal for life. God had given him this gift of diving to bless him, just because He could. Occasional dark rumblings of thunder rolled above him. The smell of storm was thick in Gideon’s nostrils. The damp sand crunched beneath his feet.
Gideon glanced out over the ocean, the wind was howling its dirge, and whipping the waves into foaming behemoths. The usually lilac tinted sands were a smoky blue black. Wave after wave washed over the shore’s pensive face. Gideon stared at a scuttling crab. Why was it in such a hurry? It should be savouring the sultry air as he was, and not dashing back to a hole in the sand. Gideon revelled in the salt flavoured atmosphere.
In his home street Gideon heard a huge crash of thunder that made him jump. The elms swayed and thrashed their branches together rhythmically. The noise was immense.
He picked up his usual lope to a run and began to pound along the sidewalk until he reached his house. He swung open the gate and slipped up the crazy paved path. Once safely under the veranda and out of the rain Gideon shook himself. An icy avalanche of water dislodged itself from his body. Rainwater and seawater blended together in one harmonious trickle.
Gideon opened the front door and slipped inside. In the passage he left small puddles behind him. He made a beeline for the laundry; however his mother caught him on the way there. She was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Her back was turned, but Gideon knew she was smiling.
‘You’re back early,’ she said, as she tossed a handful of chives into a pot.
Gideon smiled and nodded energetically, sending rivulets of water running onto the floor.
She laughed and sent melodious music into the air. Gideon loved his mum’s laugh. The noise came from her heart and rolled rhythmically around him, like a wave’s mellow swell crashing over him in a sweet crescendo.
‘You better get in the shower and stop dripping water all over my house child,’ she said gently, sampling some basmati rice, ‘Dinner will be ready soon,’ she finished, knowing this would add to his haste.
‘Your sushi and fish soup is all I’ve thought of all the way home Mum,’ Gideon confessed.
She smiled, ‘shower child.’
The hot steam and warmth of the shower’s almost volcanic temperature soaked into him. This is what he envisaged hot springs to be like. He began to hum a tune, ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.’
At the dinner table the family gave thanks and ate homemade sushi and soup. Gideon was most satisfied. The sushi was tuna and his Mum had used snapper in the broth, his favourite.
Gideon and his Mum had always loved fish, all kinds of seafood too. His Dad had never been quite so keen on it though. Gideon looked across the table at his Dad. He had a hair of less intense auburn curls than Gideon and his hair was more closely cropped to his head. He had a weather beaten pitted face, with love etched into every mark. He was a weathered seaman. He was gentle yet strong. He worked at the Lighthouse. He steered ships away from treacherous rocks and ultimately saved lives. The sea could be soft and comforting, but it could also be cruel and vicious.
Gideon’s Dad was a pillar of strength, in every aspect. And he was the definition of soft spoken. He was kind-hearted. He had the voice of thunder, yet never spoke above a whisper.
‘Go diving again today son?’ His father’s warm eyes fell upon him.
‘Yes, but I didn’t get much of a chance to dive. The storm broke, you see Dad.’
His Father nodded, ‘I hope the lighthouse’s light will be strong enough to keep those ships away from Anvil Point. Those rocks are perilous, even more so in this storm.’
‘I know,’ Gideon said into his snapper soup.
Anvil Point was a ridge of rock that stretched to the east of Gideon’s favourite diving spot. It crumbled when stood on, and below it sprawled miles of barbed jagged rock. If an unsuspecting victim were to walk out on Anvil Point the rock would collapse beneath their feet and they would fall to their doom and be impaled by spikes of cruelly twisted rock. All the locals round the Bay knew if there was one thing you didn’t do, it was go near Anvil Point.
After dinner, the family put their plates in the kitchen, while Gideon’s Mum prepared dessert. Gideon’s Dad disappeared somewhere at this point.
Gideon folded his hands across his chest again and closed his eyes. The warmth of the kitchen, and clank of dishes lulled him into a gentle slumber. But only for a second. His peace was disturbed. Gideon’s dad cleared his throat. Loudly. Gideon’s eyes had flown open by now.
‘What,’ his father asked with forced composure, ‘is in the bathroom sink Gideon?’
‘They’re whitebait Dad,’ Gideon said.
‘Why are they in the bathroom sink?’ his Dad asked.
‘They lost their home when the tide went out in Wilson’s Inlet,’ Gideon leaned back in his chair.
‘Get them out please,’ Dad said calmly but with authority.
‘But Dad, they’re homeless!’ cried Gideon in dismay.
‘You can find another home for them I’m sure,’ Dad said.
‘But I can’t use the bath because the crayfish are in there.’
‘Were they homeless too?’ Dad asked.
‘No. I’m just trying to see how many I can breed in there.’
Gideon’s Mum was attempting to stifle her mirth.
‘Selma,’ Dad said imploringly, as his gaze fell upon her.
Not ignoring the plea she answered, ‘why don’t you put the whitebait and crayfish in two separate buckets on the back porch Gideon?’
‘Ok,’ said Gideon, scraping his chair back, ‘Sorry about the whitebait in the sink Dad,’ he said on his way past.
On the back porch Gideon had rehoused the aquatic wildlife in two separate buckets as advised. The storm raged outside the comfort of the veranda. Pleased with his work, Gideon walked back inside.
*
Gideon awoke from a deep sleep. He had been having a lovely dream about the ocean. He could dive as deep as he wanted to, and never need to come up for air. But as soon as his feet hit the floor, he felt the dream slip through his fingers. He was confronted and reminded of school. He moaned dispassionately. He absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck. He padded across the room and opened the cracked peeling white door and crept down the hallway.
He was pleased to see his Mum was up and making breakfast. She had piled her copious amount of black hair up on top of her head into a kind of loose bun. Thick damp curls fell around her face and clung to her neck. She was swathed in an orange sari and smelt of foreign spices and sandalwood.
Mum was Indian. Her beauty was almost exotic. Gideon didn’t know a lot of her past, but he did know she was woven together from the sands of distant shores and the ocean’s fibre. Her eyes gleamed and danced when she saw her son.
‘Gideon,’ she said in greeting, she reached out for him.
‘Mum,’ there warmth to his hug.
‘How did you sleep?’ she whispered warmly.
‘With my eyes closed,’ Gideon replied.
‘Never gets old,’ she replied faintly sarcastic.
She passed him a plate heaped with sea eggs, abalone, and whiting. Instead of toast there was naan.
Gideon thought about school while he ate fried whiting. He hated school, with its narrow halls and narrow minds. It was uninteresting to learn of people long dead in history. He lived for the present.
Why couldn’t schools teach the laws of the sea, the migration of the albatross, the pattern of the tides, and how to dive? Instead they’d rather teach them things any old chump could look up in a book. It wasn’t that he had an aversion to learning. On the contrary, he loved to learn. But he did have an aversion to patronising teachers, bullies and being inside.
His Dad had broken free of the grip of slumber and joined mother and son in the kitchen.
‘Good morning my dear. You look beautiful today. You could outshine the sun,’ he said as he took a plate.
‘Never mind me Dad. Say something nice to Mum,’ Gideon said.
Dad chuckled mostly to himself.
Later that day Gideon walked down the crazy paved path with his Dad. They parted at the gate, each saying their goodbyes, his Dad going to the Lighthouse and Gideon going to temporary imprisonment. Anything that separated him from the sea was a cruel captor.
Once at school he stood outside the classroom for a moment staring in through the glass. He looked in at the perfectly uniformed students sitting in perfectly uniformed rows and sighed. With one last wishful glance in the direction of the sea he walked in to the classroom.
The morning passed uneventfully. Soon it was lunch time. Gideon felt like Daniel in the Lion’s Den as he walked by the groups of big mean kids. These juvenile delinquents delighted in insulting him for no reason. They were huge, dumb, and cruel. They seemed to multiply in number each new school term.
He found a spot in the shade, and pulled his lunch out of his metallic blue lunchbox. The biggest bully Alex came over just as Gideon was taking the first bite of his oyster fritter. His name was Alex. He was cruel and brutal.
‘Sitting with all your friends, eh Gideon,’ Alex snarled.
Gideon continued to eat quietly. Alex gave it another shot.
‘Must be nice to be a reject and not care about what others think, ya loner,’ he said with an ugly sneer. His cronies came up behind him to watch the sport.
‘Yeah the Lone Wolf!’ they guffawed. They howled like wolves and burst into fits of laughter. Gideon had gone from Daniel in the Lion’s Den, to a Christian in the Roman Colosseum facing the Gladiators and wild beasts.
They hurled a few more insults and resorted to some foul language to try to aggravate Gideon. Nothing worked. He just sat in silence and didn’t return the abuse.
Alex would just not leave Gideon alone. Gideon was staring Alex down the way he would a crab. Staying still, concentrating, waiting for the right moment to bring his hand up from behind and snatch it.
‘Aw the retard’s real popular. Aren’t ya Lane?’ he leaned right in Gideon’s face, ‘Not talkin’ eh Lane,’ he growled.
To each one of his taunts and sneers Gideon made no reply. He just stared into Alex’s muddy brown eyes. Gideon’s penetrating stare did not falter. Alex finally realised his attempts to stir Gideon up weren’t working.
Gideon was bringing his hand up behind the crab. He had it right where he wanted it.
Suddenly the bell rang, just as Gideon swallowed the last of his oyster fritter. He rose abruptly and stood directly in front of Alex. Alex was taken aback. Gideon looked him in the eye and raised his hand toward him. A shadow of fear flickered through Alex’s muddy brown eyes. Gideon knew he was expecting a cutting remark or worse yet, a punch from the raised hand.
Gideon’s hand fell heavily on Alex’s shoulder.
‘Hi Alex,’ he let his hand fall and scooped up his bag with it. He began walking in the direction of his class, he twisted back to look over his shoulder, ‘bye Alex.’
He had snatched the crab.
Alex’s jaw was left hanging open catching flies while his pals gathered around him not understanding what had just happened.
Gideon had a skip in his step as he waltzed to class. He knew he had heaped coals of fire on Alex’s head.
