Tourists who are leaving the island pass it on. New arrivals splurt laughter, clap hands to mouths in embarrassment, cast sidelong glances at the skipper of the Moby Dick, then furtively retell and embellish. The whispering buffets Rufus – his hearing is painfully acute – though he knows no malice is intended. The rumours multiply like krill and bruise him, but gossip is normal, he knows that. He knows this is the sort of thing that normal people do. He watches as they arrive from the mainland on the catamaran, already infected, brushing salt and hearsay from their cheeks. The story, the joke – with variations – always travels sotto voce, stealthy as a harpoon, but hits target with a brutal bang of laughter. This is the way the joke goes. Question: How do you know if he likes you? Answer: He looks at your shoes when he’s talking to you. Rufus gets it. Call him Rufus, he has heard many times, always spoken with a slow American twang. He gets that one too, though the backpacking college students believe it is their in-joke, coded and not translatable into Australian.
