Or maybe, he cautiously let himself realise, it was none of these things—maybe he was just experiencing the truth: that this boat was glorious in ways he could not fully comprehend. That its golden hue was overbearing in its richness. That the way its neat design caused it to slice through the air, even as it lay stationary, was somehow savagely beautiful. The boat seemed to lunge towards the river, as if running home.

Compounding all this was something else he had not expected: the stripped wood’s aroma. Now that the stale, petrollike scent of the paint was gone, Ned was hit by a spicy, sappy pine smell, somehow both cleansing and intoxicating, subtle and strong. It was entirely new to him, and it was unavoidable. At first he thought a lubricant had leaked onto his tools, or that Maggie had spilled perfume on his clothes. It was only when he lowered his face to the boat that he realised it was coming from the timber, rising from the grains to settle in his nose and throat.

He had never worked closely with wood before. If he’d thought of it as having a smell at all, it had been as the broad scent of the forest: the pungency of rotting vegetation, the clearing menthol of eucalypt, the off-sweet tang of wild blossoms, the dankness of mud, the freshness of rain, the rot of a dead wallaby, the chalky minerality of broken rock. The odours of trees belonged to their leaves and flowers; he’d assumed timber would be mute. He wondered at his wrongness, as the wood spice filled his lungs, sank into his blood.

The sight and smell. He felt tricked, drunk. He hadn’t known the world could do things like this to him.

~

He would have gone to find Jackbird if Jackbird hadn’t found him first. Ned was wiping down the shed the next day when his friend came into view, crunching along the beach. When Jackbird saw the boat, he stopped. His face was a palette of circles. ‘Look at the bloody thing, Neddy.’

Ned wanted to shrug. Wanted to pass the boat off as ordinary, not worth making a fuss over. But Jackbird’s face and voice confirmed that it wasn’t just him, that it really was something else, something terrific, and then he was smiling, showing teeth.

‘Come up all right, I guess.’

‘I’ll say.’ Jackbird was walking around the boat, touching it, whistling. He sniffed. ‘What kind of wood is this?’

‘Not sure.’

Jackbird kept circling. Paused at the stern. ‘Gonna need a rudder.’

‘Seems that way.’