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of the sobbing wave is pulling across the dimpled ocean floor. But still he taps her lightly on the arm. “It’s all right,” he says. “You’re such a funny little thing, Bethesda.”
    And so she turns. But it isn’t him, it’s Giddie.
    â€œOh Giddie,” she says, resigned. “I might have known.”
    â€œG’day, Beth.” It’s his lopsided grin, all right, and his bear hug, which haven’t changed. It’s the same old dance. Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you? the waitresses sing. We’re back again, he’s back again, all together now, the old refrain. “C’mon,” Giddie says, pulling her, and the waitresses twirl. Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? “C’mon,” Giddie says, and now they’re swimsliding down and around, it’s a spindrift sundance ragtime jig, it’s the same old tune going nowhere. Shark time, dark time, lip of hell; they are going, going, gone. “ C’mon” he says, and it’s the edge of nothing, the funnel, the whirlpool, he’s gone over, he’s pulling her down.
    â€œNo!” she screams, struggling. “No! Let me go, Gideon, let me go!”
    But he won’t let her go and she’s falling, plummeting, there’s no bottom to this, it’s forever and ever, amen, though she makes a last convulsive grab at the watery sides – Gid-ee-oooooon! – and crash lands on her bed.
    She gulps air, trembling, the sheet stuffed into her mouth.
    Heedless, the sobbing wave rushes on, noisy, shaming, a disgusting snuffling whimpering sound, the sound of a sook.
    No, wait. Wait. It’s not Beth’s wave. It’s not Beth.
    She listens.
    Sue, she thinks.
    She must warn Sue: keep the sheet in your mouth. They don’t forgive, they’re like the fish on the reef. Remember this: the smell of injury brings on a feeding frenzy. They go for blood. You have to keep the sheet in your mouth.
    â€œWhat are you reading?” he asks, and Beth startles violently. “Hey,” he says. “Sorry. What a jumpy little thing you are, Bethesda” He sits down beside her on the sea wall, the hum of the esplanade traffic behind them, the tide lapping the wall below their feet. “Is this all you ever do in your lunch hour? Read?”
    She says primly: “I’m watching the tide going out.”
    He grins, then offers: “I’ve offended you. Would you like me to leave?”
    â€œNo,” she says, too quickly. Then, indifferently: “If you want. It doesn’t matter.” She tucks the book into her bag and sets it on the wall between them. “It’s me, I was rude.” She is angry, not with him, but with herself, for the thing that happens in her throat when he says her full name that way. “You gave me a scare. I didn’t think anyone could see me here.” She gestures toward the pandanus clump behind them, the knobbed trunks and spiky leaves rising from a great concrete planter with a brass plate on its rim: Rotary Club, Cairns District. She trails her finger over the engraved letters and says, inconsequentially, “I used to have to be a waitress at the Rotary dinners in Mossman.” She rolls her eyes. “Grown-up men, honestly. They sing the stupidest songs.”
    â€œOh God, I know. They tried to get me to join. One dinner was enough. They were raffling a frozen chicken and throwing it round the room. Playing catch.”
    â€œIn Mossman,” she says, “they had this mock-wedding. Fundraising for a playground or something. You should’ve seen the bride” She shakes her head, incredulous. “Mario Carlucci. His father’s a cane farmer but Mario’s in the ANZ bank, he’s the manager already, everyone says his father got it for him because the Carluccis have the biggest account. Anyway, Mario, he’s about six-two,