Kijana by Jesse Martin Page B

Nicolette seemed to work at a slower pace than Beau and I, and often asked annoying questions. Not sailing-type questions, but commonsense stuff that I thought everyone should know.
    â€˜I dunno, just make sure it’s clean,’ was my typical response. Any more effort on my behalf to answer a query on how to put things away from the table and I figured I may as well do the job myself.
    About an hour later, I saw Beau grab his dirty clothes and I looked around to see that all his jobs were done. That’s what I liked about him, he just did things.
    He said he was going to do his washing, so I asked if he could wait a few seconds while I grabbed mine as well. I wanted to get off the boat as much as anyone, and I’d just finished what I had to do.
    We had a bit of trouble finding the marina washing machines, then we had to get change for the machines. We had just put our washing in and started the machines when Nicolette and Mika stormed into the laundry and dumped their clothes on the machines next to us. They looked extremely pissed off and Nicolette had a go at us for not offering to do their washing. The thought had crossed my mind but I knew from experience that when either of them asked for a few seconds to get something it would take five or ten minutes. All I had wanted was to get away and do my own thing.
    I could see that both were genuinely disappointed and angry, yet I couldn’t understand why. Nicolette reminded us how she and Mika had done everyone’s washing at Port Stephens. With that, they put their money in their machines, pressed the button and stormed off.
    I was dumbfounded. It was as if I’d been reprimanded by a school teacher for doing something I didn’t know was wrong. It didn’t take long for a seething anger to rise in me. My head was full of ammunition to hit back with. I began thinking of everything I wished I’d said. I wanted to cut them down and let them know how I felt about their performance, that so far on the trip Josh, Beau and I had done all the sailing, while we waited for them to stop being sick and start pulling their weight on board.
    One half of me was saying I should be understanding because they didn’t yet have the confidence to take the initiative on board, while the other half wanted to have a go at them for personally attacking Beau and me. I wanted to remind them that they did the washing in Port Stephens because they weren’t doing anything else, while Beau was cooking a meal and Josh and I were trying to send our update on the satellite phone. Beau and I sat in silence as we waited for our washing to finish.
    That night Josh was lying on his bed while Beau and I played cards in the main cabin. Nicolette announced she wanted to call her mum from the phone on the fishing wharf but didn’t have enough change. None of us did, so I suggested she hitch a ride into town to change a note. It hadn’t been dark long and the shops would still be open.
    She disappeared and I went to bed, leaving Beau to clean up the kitchen. A few minutes later, from under my sleeping bag, I heard her ask Beau if he would go into town for her to get the change because she didn’t know how to get there. It made my blood boil and I hoped he’d say no. After the laundry incident, my patience was quickly running out.
    I was wondering what Beau would say, when I heard him say ‘OK’ in a tone I knew so well. It was the one he used when Mum asked him to do something he didn’t want to do.
    As he left the boat, I pictured him taking the note and walking in the dark to find a passing car, arriving in town, changing the note and arriving home a couple of hours later, all so Nicolette could call her mum.
    The next morning he told me how the guy he got a lift with was smoking a joint and Beau had been concerned at the speed he was driving on the winding road to town.
    By the third day in port the wind was still strong with no change in the