Donnie never witnessed the old man sleep. Of a night, when he should have been slumbering himself, he would observe his grandfather quietly from his bed, through the opening between the two rooms. William would lean back in his handmade rocking chair in front of the dying fire, sipping cups of leaf tea and quietly humming to himself. Occasionally, he would reach into the fireplace and take a stick, which he used to light his pipe. As the tobacco flared, Donnie would catch the old man’s face in the light. Fascinated by his brown, wrinkled forehead, long hooked nose and proud moustache, Donnie would wonder at the origins of this mysterious figure. As the flame died, William would blend back into the darkness where, as a dark, dark man, he seemed to Donnie to belong.

As Donnie’s time on the island with Jack approached a year, Jack began to notice his uncle’s failing health. The decline had been slow and gradual but now was very evident, although Donnie was quick to dismiss the matter when it was raised. His one remaining interest was their family’s connection to the island. As time went on, this interest turned to fascination and then to obsession. Jack would accompany Donnie on his expeditions around the island in search of ruins and remnants of the old families’ lives. They filled Jack’s hut with all types of bottles and coins and buttons — treasures that they found or dug up. Donnie discovered a stash of broken inkwells, smothered by a century of discarded pine needles, under the great macrocarpa down by the jetty. He was adamant they once belonged to Lucy Beeton’s school, the first school on the islands for Aboriginal kids.

One unnaturally still afternoon, under a violet, electrified sky and at Donnie’s unrelenting insistence, they searched carefully through the pieces of a stone wall behind the island’s old homestead. At the southern end of the wall, under a piece of glittering basalt, Donnie found a battered jam tin. The tin was so old that the hinges had seized and its lid had fused shut. Donnie’s excitement over the find was contagious and the two practically ran back to Jack’s hut with their find. Lingering thoughts of mortality brought on by Donnie’s fading vigor were forgotten as they held counsel over the opening of the tin. After failed attempts using heat and muttonbird oil as lubricant, they finally cut it open with a rusty can opener.

Inside, bundled in a greasy cloth, was a large handful of gold sovereigns. They were English coins, with dates ranging between 1819 and 1823. The find was worth a fortune — they both knew it. But neither man, for reasons of his own, sought riches for himself. The true value in the find was in the history and the corroboration of their family’s origins. Donnie reckoned that the coins belonged to the original Beeton, the whitefella who came out from London on a tall ship and discovered a relative peace on the islands, with an Aboriginal wife and family. Donnie was truly like a boy who had found where X marks the spot. His body allowed him this triumph and celebrated with a sudden return to health, for a few days anyway.