The Pearl Farm – Part 1: Salt and Shell

"Hold the line," said Luke. "Don't let go."

"I won't."

"Even when it pulls."

Hannah held the rope with both hands as the little boat rocked on a turquoise sea. Red cliffs rose from the water in ragged bands, and the sky was a high, cloudless blue. A pelican sailed past. The only sound was the lap of water against the hull and, somewhere below, a stream of bubbles rising from the diver.

Luke surfaced with a dripping net full of oysters, grinning. He was thirty-seven, brown and broad-shouldered, with salt in his hair and sun creases around his eyes. He had worked the farm for twelve years. "Every one gets turned by hand, every few weeks," he said, hauling himself onto the deck. "They don't like being rushed."

Hannah, thirty-four, a jewellery designer from Perth, had come up to the Kimberley for a week to choose pearls for a collection. She had expected a tour and a brochure. Instead she was in a wetsuit on a diving boat at dawn, watching a man lift treasure from the sea.

"Hold out your hand," said Luke.

She did. He opened a shell with a thin blade and tilted it, and a single pearl rolled into her palm, round and heavy, glowing like a tiny moon.

"Oh," she breathed.

"Silver-pink. Rare." He watched her face. "That's why I do it. For the moment someone first sees one."

She stayed all week. She learned to clean shells and rinse nets, to read the tides and the light. She learned that Luke told bad jokes and made wonderful coffee on a camp stove. On the last evening, they sat on the jetty with their feet in the water as the sky turned violet.

"I have to go back to Perth," said Hannah.

"I know."

"I don't want to."

Luke picked up her hand and laid the pink pearl in it again. "Then I would like you to keep this," he said. "And I would like to kiss you. If you'd like."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Night Tide.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Night Tide.