‘And the octopuses—are they what you needed, Luce?’ Harry asks her quietly, looking down at her again. ‘I mean, after what you were saying that night about how you felt about your body after the cancer and all that, are these what you needed?’

Her tears become real. He’s somehow stumbled upon the perfect question. Why hasn’t Jem asked her that? She blinks furiously and clears her throat with a draught of beer. ‘They are,’ she says. ‘They’re perfect.’

Kat beams.

‘I’m so happy for you, Luce,’ Harry says, beaming as well. ‘But anyway,’ he adds, ‘I’m here for a mate’s thirtieth out back, so, you know.’ He stands, hesitates, then places one of those huge hands on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. ‘I’m so happy for you,’ he murmurs again.

Once he’s gone, Kat lets out a sigh. ‘Man,’ she says to Lucy. ‘He just gets it, doesn’t he?’

It’s August. There’s a community meeting down at the school in Nubeena. No one’s sure who called it, but everyone knows it’s on and most people seem to be about because who’d risk leaving the harbour of Pirates Bay in this weather? Who’d bother going anywhere, except maybe elsewhere if you’re lucky enough to be able to take your holidays now—escape the weather. There’re even representatives from the council down, which has half the community up in a tizz, fretting that they’ll decide to do the rounds and unearth all the unapproved sheds and shanties that dot the peninsula. But really, as if anyone could be bothered with all that paperwork.

The king tide coupled with the storm last week made everyone wonder about the neck, which, up until then, had seemed steadfast. That’s what the meeting’s about.

It really had felt like the ocean was reclaiming the shore. The swell, kicked up by the tight whorl of a low pressure system somewhere near Antarctica, shifted and heaved and looked like the rounded backs of giant grey elephants stomping across the horizon beneath the low-slung clouds. The height of the tide sat the waves so close to the shore it disappeared completely; the waves exploded on the jagged cliffs rather than the beds of rocks that sat staunch, deep below the king tideline, and on the dunes rather than the beach, which no longer existed. The dunes began to dissolve. The marram grass, which usually bound them, was ripped out in clumps and tufts, and the boobiallas were shredded to their roots and then dragged out to sea.

Most shocking, though, the biggest of the waves trickled down the other side of the dunes and then crept across to pool on the black bitumen road in one part of the neck. The pools, augmented by the incessant rain, began to flow towards the tide-bloated bay and then blend with it, and so became inlets of that other shore. The inlets kicked up in spray under the tyres of the cars that sped along the highway and would soon rust if they weren’t hosed off. And the inlets made everyone wonder about the future of the neck, which suddenly seemed so precarious, what with the state of the planet and all. Hence the meeting.