Family and Love Theme Analysis

Abel loved being underwater. He was ten years old and could never remember a time when he could not dive. His mother said he was a diver before he was born; he floated and swam in the warm ocean inside her for nine months, so maybe it came naturally.

Abel Jackson had lived by the sea here at Longboat Bay ever since he could remember. His whole life was the sea and the bush. Every day was special, his mother always told him this, but it all became much more precious the day he first shook hands with old Blueback.

Some nights [Abel] stood on the back verandah to watch the kangaroos gather in the orchard […] Looking at those roos he wondered what it would be like to live in a big family like one of theirs. He figured it would be crowded and noisy but probably a lot of fun as well. When I’m older, he thought, I’ll have a family of my own. I’ll make sure we’re a crowd, a real mob.

Abel knew all about fishing for food but he couldn’t understand people who wanted photos of themselves beside huge dead fish, fish killed for fun.

Abel poured the tea. “Are you lonely here on your own?”

“I miss you,” she murmured. “I miss you terribly. But no, I’m not lonely. Sometimes I feel I should be. But this place is a kind of friend to me. Maybe I’m a bit odd.”

Those men didn’t understand that a place isn’t just a property. They didn’t see that Longboat Bay was a life to his mother, a friend. And maybe a husband to her as well.

If Blueback could speak, thought Abel, he could tell him about his father. All the secrets of the sea would be there waiting for him.

“You two,” [Stella] said. “You seem to be able to talk to each other without saying anything.”

“Practice,” said Abel.

“It’s the fish in us,” said Dora Jackson. “We don’t always need words.”

In time [Abel] became an expert, someone foreign governments invited for lectures and study tours, but inside he still felt like a boy with a snorkel staring at the strange world underwater, wishing he knew how it worked. Blueback still swam through his dreams.

One afternoon [Abel] walked up past the orchard to the peppermint tree and stood there a long time. He thought about his father and felt close to his memory there. He put his cheek against the rough bark the way he had as a boy and hugged the thick trunk.

At sunset he stood on the jetty and watched a big blue shadow circle beneath him and peel off into the golden light. The wind luffed at his hair. Cicadas in the dry grass clicked their tongues. Crabs bubbled and clattered across the rocks. Whalebones made a chain all the way along the beach, yellow in the sunset. Abel felt the place was calling him; it made him dizzy.

But Blueback slipped in close to them, fins rippling. His scales shone. His tail fanned. He was the colour of all their dreams and he rested against the child, quivering with life.