The Bitter End

“That’s what they used to call a wine bottle,” the old man says, handing me the bottle of water. He’s huddled on the stern seat, all elbows and knees – like the dead coral on the beach, chalky limbs jutting this way and that.

“I know, Gramps. You told me,” I say, furling the skiff’s patchwork sail and slipping the anchor into the sea, calm and dark blue in the early morning light. “And wine was made from things called grapes, and grapes were food, but back then we had so much of everything in Oz, they would squash the grapes and drink the juice.”

“Smart arse! I guess I’ve told you everything I know,” he chuckles, with a cough. “But it wasn’t just here. They drank grape juice all over the world.”

I take a sip from the bottle and offer it to him.

He shakes his head. “I had a drink before we left.”

He didn’t.

He was still in his cot in the corner of our cabin when I woke up. I thought he was asleep as I picked up my fishing line and tiptoed to the door, so I almost jumped out of my skin when he hisspered, “Boy. I’m coming with you.” I helped him out of his cot and down to the beach and the boat in the darkness, telling him he should stay in the cabin, that I’d catch something for breakfast, that I knew what I was doing. He told me he knew I did, but that he was coming anyway.

My belly grumbles and he chuckles. “Better get fishing.”

I take up my deadline, thread a couple of pipis onto the hook, check the weight is secure, then drop the line over the side of the boat.

The old man’s craning around, looking north, back to shore. The rising sun is slowly lightening the sky behind the dark outlines of our camp on top of the dune. Our cabin. The greenhouses. The water harvesters whirring away, sucking less and less water from the air every year.

“Are you OK, Gramps?”

He nods and turns to me, his eyes bright in his creased face. For a moment, I can imagine him as a boy. My age. Sitting in this same boat with his grandad, listening to stories about the Fall, about Yoosa and China, the Drone War and Ayii, about tipping points and sea levels and melting ice caps. The difference being Gramps’s grandad actually tasted grapes and wine.

“You know, we can’t stay here?” he says.

It’s not really a question.

We’ve barely had enough water for Mum and my sister and Gramps and me this past year, let alone enough to grow oats and potatoes. If it weren’t for the fish, we’d have starved. And now the fish were getting harder to catch.

“I know,” I say.

We both look south. Nothing between us and Antarctica but the rolling ocean.

“It’s time to make plans,” the old man says.

Whenever we make the trek to the village, there are less and less people there. The market is just a few stalls. Word is that there’s a growing settlement in Antarctica where there’s fertile land and fresh water now that all the ice has gone.

How anybody can be sure, I don’t know. If anyone made it there, nobody has come back. But then, why would they, I suppose?

“You’ll need to do all the hard work,” the old man says. “I’m no use these days.”

I nod.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asks.

This is a test. Gramps already has a plan. He just wants to make me work for it.

“Well, if we’re going to make it to Antarctica in this old thing,” I rap my knuckles on the hull of the boat, “we’re going to need supplies.”

“Right,” he says. “What do you need?”

“We’ll need to strengthen everything, and we’ll need more space. Stability is important, too, so we could build…” I gesture out to the side of the skiff.

“Outriggers,” he says. “They’re called outriggers.”

“Right, outriggers. So, we need timber and nails – screws if I can scavenge some.”

“You already have the timber and screws,” he says.

It takes me a moment. “The cabin?! But where will we sleep?”

The old man just stares at me and waits.

“OK, got it. We make the cabin smaller and use the timber and bolts and screws to work on the boat. We’ll be living on top of each other, but the skiff is more important now.”

“Good,” he says. “What else?”

“We’ll need supplies. Food. Water. Weeks of supplies for the four of us. But we barely have enough to live on now. How will we build up a store?”

“I’ve got a plan for that. What else?”

“We’ll need your compass, of course.”

“Of course. Anything else we need?”

He’s looking at me like there’s something else. What is it? I can’t think.

He tuts and shakes his head, disappointed, but then chuckles. “A shitload of luck!”

Silly old bugger.

Right then, the sun finally edges above the dune. The old man closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, enjoying the warmth.

“Come on,” he says. “The fish ain’t biting. Let’s try further along the bay.”

I wind my deadline in – the pipis are still there, not even a nibble – then haul the anchor up.

“So, how are we going to build up a store of food and water?” I ask, as I unfurl and set the sail. The old man shifts in his seat then stands, shuffling to the bow. I’m not sure why. He’s not in the way.

“Boy, tell your mum and sister I love them,” he says.

He’s standing in the bow, cradling the anchor.

“Gramps?” I start, but he’s already smiling that smile – the one that means he’s decided something. He winks and steps off the side of the boat and disappears beneath the water.

I half stumble, half fall to the spot where the old man had just been and look over the side in time to see him sink into the darkness, bubbles masking his upturned face. And again, I can see the young man he once was.