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Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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First published by Random House Australia in 2010
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Author:
Blain, Georgia
Title:
Darkwater/Georgia Blain
ISBN:
978 1 86471 983 3 (pbk.)
Target audience: For secondary school age
Dewey number: A823.3
Cover photograph courtesy Getty Images
Cover design by Christabella Designs
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Typeset in 12.5/16.65 pt Bembo by Midland Typesetters, Australia
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one
I’m not sure who found Amanda Clarke’s body. I
think it was her mother, but I may be wrong.
I imagine it was dinnertime, and she called
them both – ‘Amanda, Daniel, come to the table
now’ – used to receiving no answer. Putting her
glass down, the ice clinking, she wiped her damp
hands on the edge of a tea towel, and wandered
through to the family room where Daniel lay
on his stomach, the seagrass matting pressing
a pattern into the pale skin on his arms, chin
resting in his hands as he watched the last of Get
Smart.
‘Off,’ she told him, flicking the switch despite
his protests, the image collapsing into a tiny
1
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

pinprick of light before black covered the screen;
although, she was not an assertive woman, so
perhaps she simply left the television on, hoping,
foolishly, that he would do as she asked.
In the hall she called Amanda’s name again,
shouting up the stairs to her daughter’s empty
bedroom and, when there was no response, she
returned to the kitchen, its back door open onto
the smooth green lawn that sloped down to the
river’s edge.
Slipping on her sandals, she stepped out into
the still-warm evening, the sky a deepening
mauve through the high branches of the white
gums. In the distance a sail clinked against a mast,
a rhythmic sound that repeated itself over and
over again as she walked across the garden to
look down to the reserve four houses away.
She saw her from there, a strange, dark shape
floating facedown, one foot wedged in an outcrop
of rock, the sandstone pocked with oyster shells.
Or maybe she had to keep walking, crossing
the lawns of the neighbours’ houses, calling her
daughter’s name a little louder each time, almost
running now, before she saw the shape, there in
the water, although she still may not have been
sure what it was. Perhaps she cut through the
scrub that bordered the Parsons’ garden and
2
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

the reserve, pushing back the scratchy branches
of the bottlebrush to reach the white wooden
railing running along the uneven stairs. It must
have been almost dark by then, only a single
streetlight illuminating the path, although most
of the time the globe was broken because we
kids liked the darkness (or at least we did until
Amanda’s death), and would throw rocks up at
it, jumping back when we made a hit, the glass
showering down on our heads as the brightness
gave way to sudden black.
I hope it wasn’t Amanda’s mother who found
her. When I imagine that, it’s like the ground
giving way, collapsing with a rush, a landslide
into emptiness.
‘Fact:’ I wrote in my diary at the time, the page
headed with the date, February 16, 1973. ‘Amanda
Clarke is dead. They found her at the waterfront.
Drowned, they reckon.’
It was an exercise book, covered in cut-out
pictures from magazines, my favourite pop stars,
women in tight Amco jeans and halter-neck tops,
and perhaps the odd logo from an advertisement, a
word or two, there only to break up the images.
3
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

I kept it hidden at the back of my wardrobe,
occasionally taking it out to write about what had
been happening in my life. Most of it was dull –
Sonia irritating me, or Cassie having a crush on
my older brother Joe – but lately there had been
more space given to Nicky Blackwell, his name
appearing with greater regularity since the time
he had stepped back to let me in the school gate
before him, winking at me as he did so.
In the past I had only ever written on the
evenings when I was bored. But in the weeks
following Amanda Clarke’s death, that changed.
I took that book out most nights and it seemed
she occupied nearly all of the pages I filled.
‘Dead’ and ‘drowned’. I underlined both those
words and then scribbled out the line that lay
beneath the second. She was dead, that was a fact,
but whether she had drowned was not so certain.
Sitting at my desk, I chewed the plastic end of my
biro and looked out the window to the darkness
of the night sky.
The first I heard of her death was that morning
at school. The sun was glaringly hot as we stood
in our assembly lines. We shuffled our feet, the
bitumen burning through the thin soles of our
sandals as we waited for the principal to come to
the microphone. Behind me, the boys started their
4
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

un of remarks about the girls in our year; I was
used to them sniggering about Sonia’s tanned legs
and Cassie’s long blonde hair, or if they turned
their attention to me, it was the word ‘tits’ that I
heard muttered, and I would glance behind me,
fixing them with a stare designed to chill, before
turning back to the podium where Mr Castle
reiterated rules into the microphone. But this
morning there was no sniggering, because within
moments of flicking on the PA, the amp crackling
for an instant, he told us that some of us may have
already heard the news, but for those who hadn’t,
he was very sorry to let us know that one of our
fellow students had been found dead – ‘down by
the waterfront, yesterday evening’.
‘Who was it?’ we all asked each other, our
whispers flickering along the lines like the
blowflies that buzzed between us, settling for a
moment only to be brushed on to the next person.
‘Amanda,’ someone said, and then the word was
running fast like fire down each row, burning
hot, until someone cried out and Mr Castle was
shouting into the microphone: ‘Order. Order this
instant.’
It was Kate Bradshaw, Amanda’s best friend,
two lines back with the senior years. She fainted,
her body hitting the concrete with a thud, the
5
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ow broken as the others in her year clustered
round her, while a teacher, Miss Tilley, told
everyone to let her through.
It didn’t take long before Mr Mulley, the PE
teacher, and Mrs Acton, the assistant principal,
carried the stretcher out to where Kate was now
sitting up, head between her knees. They told her
to lie down and two of the boys in her year took
one end of the stretcher, while Mr Mulley, with
smooth tanned muscles from years of surfing,
hoisted the other end, and they carried her
towards the sick bay.
As I watched, I saw my brother Joe in the line
that Kate had been standing in. He was white,
eyes round and dark against the paleness of his
skin. ‘Are you all right?’ I wanted to ask him,
worried that he, too, might collapse onto the
asphalt, but we were all being told to get back
into line, everyone, this instant.
‘This is a shock to all of us,’ Mr Castle said,
and I was surprised that even he seemed upset
because he was not a man to show emotion. ‘The
police will be visiting the school today and have
requested our cooperation.’
Again, there was a rush of whispers, a flurry
of words hastily hissed from person to person.
Why the police, we all wanted to know, and we
6
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

looked around to see whether anyone had any
knowledge, anything at all to help us work out
what was going on.
The microphone crackled and Mr Castle
adjusted the volume on the PA. ‘In the meantime,
classes will be conducted as normal.’ He paused
for a moment, before finally uttering the word he
used every morning to signal the end of assembly.
‘Atten–’ and the ‘en’ was always drawn out for
maximum effect – ‘SHUN.’ This last syllable,
however, was like a lead bullet, fast, loud and
furious, followed by the mass slap of over eight
hundred pairs of ankles clicking together. All that
was missing was the salute, and I would stretch
out my palm, fingers together, arm pointing
downwards rather than up, to give him the Heil I
felt he deserved. But not that morning. My hand
stayed limp by my side.
As we turned towards our classrooms, I
looked once again at my brother, whose face
was obscured by his mat of white-blond hair.
Behind him was Stevie, who had been Amanda’s
boyfriend until she dumped him a week ago,
giving my brother some hope that if he waited
a respectable amount of time, Amanda might
finally turn his way. Stevie’s face was still, his
gaze fixed on the back of my brother’s head as
7
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

they walked in single file towards the science
block. Behind him the girls who knew Amanda
broke rank, some crying, others talking; they
had their arms around each other, their heads
bent low as they dissected the news in disbelief.
Only Cherry Atkinson stood apart, her long
dark brown hair in two ponytails. She twisted
the end of one in her fingers as she trailed
behind, looking out at the glittering line of
river that ran along the edge of our oval and up
to the bridge where magic mushrooms grew
in the dark rich soil under the shade of the
overpass.
There was of course no hope of normal classes.
As soon as we were out of Mr Castle’s gaze and in
the cool of our room, we did not go to our desks.
What happened? We all asked each other the
same question over and over again. Sonia, who
was, I suppose, my best friend (although Cassie
sometimes had the honour) couldn’t believe I
didn’t know a thing.
‘Why would I?’ I asked, irritated with her now.
‘Joe,’ she told me. ‘Duh.’
I rolled my eyes as I sat on the window ledge,
one leg up on the chair in front of me. Most
afternoons Joe hung out at the waterfront. A
group of them did. But he knew nothing. Or
8
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

at least, that was how it seemed, and I tried to
remember if there was anything that had happened
the previous evening to indicate otherwise.
‘Maybe she was murdered.’ Cassie plaited her
hair and took an elastic off her wrist to tie the
end. ‘It’s creepy down there.’
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘At the waterfront.’ Cassie looked at me, her
bright blue eyes rimmed with silvery eye shadow.
She chewed on the edge of her fingernail.
Suddenly she burst into tears.
Sonia put her arm around her. She, too, started
crying.
At that moment, Miss Ingleton, who was our
home-room teacher, clapped her hands. She was
new to the school and even though it had only
been a couple of weeks, we liked her.
‘Everyone is upset,’ she told us. She sat on the
edge of her desk and crossed her legs, her knees
visible through the split in her faded wraparound
skirt. ‘Talking about what has happened is good.’
She looked around the room. ‘But I’m not sure
that guesswork and rumours are going to help
anything. If any of you have any questions, ask
them now and I will do my best to answer.’
Cassie sniffed loudly. ‘Why are the police
coming?’
9
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

‘As far as I know, they are not entirely sure
how she died. They are hoping that some of the
students may be able to shed some light on this.’
‘Do they suspect someone . . .?’ I couldn’t
finish the question.
‘I don’t know,’ Miss Ingleton told us.
She walked towards the other window, which
looked out across the heat-parched oval. There
was a small bird on the ledge and it cocked
its head to one side, chirruping loudly in the
momentary silence. Miss Ingleton turned back
to face us.
‘We should take a minute,’ she said, ‘to think
about Amanda and to send loving wishes to her
family.’ She bowed her head and closed her eyes.
In the stream of light through the window, she
was pale, illuminated, and we all looked at her,
unsure as to whether we too should close our
eyes. The classroom was quiet. I could hear the
slow flick of the mower blades outside, and I
knew the gardener was starting at one end of
the oval, cutting lines into the green as he made
his way up and down the great stretch of grass.
Someone walked past the window. I could hear
their footsteps on the asphalt that bordered the
row of classrooms. They had probably been sent to
carry a note. I looked around and saw that most of
10
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

the class has their eyes closed now, heads bowed,
in the same pose as Miss Ingleton, still standing in
the stream of light. I shut my eyes too.
Amanda Clarke is dead, I thought, and I tried
to see her face but I couldn’t. In the darkness,
it was the waterfront I saw. The mud at the
tide edge pressed tight against my eyelids as
the river slipped back, murky and dark, to
reveal the rocky outcrops of sandstone and the
crusts of oyster shells.
11
Copyright © Georgia Blain 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.