Gone Fishing (11 page)

 

Chapter Nine

On Monday, with the summer humidity not letting up and the stink of a low tide wafting about like ripe garbage, Sam and Jimmy set off to pick up Kate's writing desk. Jimmy – rake thin, frail almost – wears electric-blue clothes that strobe in the sunlight. Barefooted, he dances and prances on the hot gravel like an exotic bird hoping to attract a mate. His spiked carrot hair a handsome cockscomb. Longfellow nips and pounces at his heels. The boy laughs. The pup squeals back, races off, full tilt and fur flying, to incite to flight a flock of seagulls arguing over scraps left over from weekend picnickers. The kid whistles. The dog screeches to a halt, torn between a full-bore chase or boring obedience. After an indecisive second or two he opts to join the hunt for Sam's ute among the bird-shit-splattered rows of rusting vehicles in the shambolic car park designated for offshorers. Smart dog, Sam thinks. Get lost on the wrong side of the moat and it could be forever.

‘There it is, Sam,' Jimmy says, excited and pointing out the ute. ‘Over there. Under the tree. Aw, Sam, ya windscreen's gunna be a shitty mess. You bring a rag, Sam? You want me to get a bucket of water?'

Up close, the kid frowns. ‘Ya taillights are busted, Sam. Both sides. Ya musta hit something big, eh?'

‘Eh?' Tiny shards of red plastic crunch under the weight of his boots. Sam steps back. He's either been rear-ended or some funny bugger has deliberately taken a hammer to his lights. He checks the windscreen. No note of apology with a contact name and number. He hadn't expected one but he'd hoped, because he sure as hell didn't want to feel the itchy sensation that this small but effective act of vandalism had anything to do with the campaign to save Garrawi. He counsels himself to stop being paranoid. There's not a car in the park that isn't scarred from vandals, falling branches from the few over-hanging shade trees, used as roosts by incontinent birds, or the erratic reverse parking of a few locals who shall remain nameless. (Although the Misses Skettle could well be among them. On second thought, probably not. They've never reverse parked in their lives. A fact they announce proudly whenever the opportunity arises.) He decides to imagine incompetence instead of conspiracy.

‘Hoist that pup in the back seat, Jimmy, and climb in after him. Hold him on your knee good and tight. No questions, mate. Go on. In you get,' he adds, holding up his hand. ‘The mutt will be safer in the back. First we'll get the lights fixed. Then we'll pick up the desk.'

They set off sedately, slowing even more for school zones until Jimmy thoughtfully points out the kids are still on holidays and the law is on temporary hold.

Pretty quickly, the pup starts to whine. Scrabbles at the half-open window. Sniffing land smells. Anxious to explore. Jimmy lifts a furry ear and whispers a litany of soothing sounds into it. With a harrumph of unwilling surrender, Longfellow settles.

‘Someone got it in for you, mate?' asks the mechanic.

Sam shrugs. ‘Why d'you ask?'

The young bloke, clean as a whistle in a dark blue shirt and matching shorts, points a finger at the damage. ‘Too precise to be caused by a bingle.'

Sam bends down, looks closely into the gizzards of the electricals. ‘See what you mean. Yeah, clear as a bell.' The battlefield, he thinks, has just been sign-posted.

‘I'll patch it temporarily with tape and order in replacement parts. Bring it back in a week. The new bits'll click in like a Lego set.' He walks to a computer and hits the keyboard.

Sam thinks: No wonder he never gets dirty. It's a weird day in history when blue collar turns white collar.

He whistles up Jimmy and the mutt. Ten minutes later, he swings into the driveway of Emily's retirement village, slipping into second gear, which is as slow as he can go without stalling. He drives aimlessly through acres of well-tended gardens and hundreds of identical units, hoping to find someone to ask for directions. There is not a soul out smelling the roses (so much for the positive spin on reaching the age when no one wants to employ you any more) or walking the shady paths.

‘Not many joggers, eh?' he jokes.

Jimmy twists and turns, held fast by the seatbelt, checking for himself. ‘Nope. Can't see one. Are we lost, Sam?'

Sam pulls up to get some local advice. A pallid-faced old man keeps the security door locked while he gives directions in a thin and uncertain voice. Five minutes later, feeling hundreds of pairs of eyes following his progress through lace curtains, they arrive at Emily's unit. Sam takes a solemn oath that when he is too old to fend for himself, he will take the
Mary Kay
way out to sea, drill a hole in her voluptuous rear end and raise a frigidly cold stubby in farewell to what he hopes he'll truthfully be able to describe as a life well lived. Man and vessel going down together. Nobly.

Unless I've got a heap of kids by then, he thinks, coming to his senses, and one of them needs the barge to continue in the Scully family tradition of working on the water. In which case, he'll come up with another appropriate end scenario with the same final result. But god save him from this kind of mortal anteroom where the weekly death rate is probably in double figures so you don't dare make friends for fear of losing them before you finally learn their names. The eternally useful (and therefore youthful) Misses Skettle, he reminds himself, have old age nailed. Feeling less depressed by the minute, he tells himself there are always options as long as you keep your mind open.

‘Let's get this desk, mate, and then we'll treat ourselves to a nice long lunch at The Briny until the tide comes in. What do you reckon?'

‘Sounds good to me. It sure does. You gunna eat your spinach today, Sam?'

‘Trust me, it'll be a pleasure and an honour to slide it onto your plate.' He unlocks the door. He expects the room to be dark and dingy, smelling of decay and dust, but big windows frame a lush garden with a pond where a couple of black ducks dunk their heads to scavenge whatever tasty morsels lurk under water. Wrens, finches and noisy lorikeets play about in a bushy grevillea covered in pollen-heavy lemon flowers. The lorikeets are bullies but the wrens are good fighters with smart, attack-from-the-rear tactics. Despite his prejudices, Sam decides if you're the type that prefers to shoot for unchallenging longevity instead of guts and glory, this isn't such a bad end chapter after all. Never leap to conclusions, old son, he thinks. Or as his father would have said: Walk a mile in a man's moccasins before making a judgment. The unit is bare except for a lone writing desk standing up against a wall, the last remaining evidence of Emily's occupancy, her life.

For some reason, he'd expected a roll top or something equally fancy but it is tall and narrow with head-high glassed-in bookshelves, a drop top and cupboards below. A schoolboy's desk from the early 1900s. Shabby now, but with good bones that will see it through another century if it's restored and cared for.

‘Grab the bottom end, Jimmy, and slowly as she blows. No, no, don't say a word. Concentrate or Kate will end up with nothing but toothpicks. This is a frail piece of furniture held together mostly by habit. Your next job is to tie it down in the ute so tightly it doesn't shift a fraction. See that glass? It's a bit wavy, isn't it? Means it's old, Jimmy, and age should always be respected.'

‘Ya might want to swerve around the bumps on the way home then, Sam. Ya can't be too careful, can ya?'

‘Round up that mutt of yours. It's time to get going.'

*

Ettie Brookbank is in a major flap. The rat-traps, temptingly laced with honey and peanut butter, have remained empty and she's found more poo on the floor near the deep fryer. Every time a stranger walks into the café, she mutters a fervid prayer that he's not from the health department. Just thinking about the problem sends her into a spin. Her face flushes, the strange dizziness she's been experiencing lately returns. Anxiety takes hold until her breath comes in quick little gasps. She feels like Chicken Licken waiting for the sky to crash down on her head.

She cannot think of any new strategies to deter the rats given the garbage is only collected twice a week and if a few cunning little rodents have learned to lift the lid on the wheelie bins, there's nothing she can do about it. Well, one rat, if the single, neat little poo that appears daily is anything to go by.

‘Hiya, Ettie!' Jimmy bounces in, skittering in all directions at once. ‘Me and Sam, we're here for lunch. A treat, says Sam. But I shouldn't get used to them 'cause then it's not a treat any more.'

‘Lamb burger? The works?'

The kid nods emphatically, happily. Ettie could just as well have offered him a winning lottery ticket.

‘You got enough saved for a car yet, love?' she asks, feeling the beginning of a plan that is so clever, ‘brainwave' is a closer description.

‘Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?'

‘Well, Jimmy, I think I've come up with an idea that just may earn you some extra dollars.'

The kid puts down the jar of biscuits he's been playing with and spins. A whirling dervish, his face alight. ‘How much money? Enough to buy a car next week?'

‘Not quite, but my mother always said that if you watch the pennies the pounds take care of themselves.'

‘How much is a pound?'

‘It's a saying, that's all. It means if you're careful, you'll always reach your goal. Or something like that. Anyway. Here's the idea. I'm going to find a couple of very big compost bins and fork out some of my hard-earned cash to buy you a worm farm. Every night I want you to collect the scraps from the bins and take them home. Within a few weeks, you'll be able to sell compost and worm castings all over the Island. What do you think?' She smiles encouragingly.

Jimmy looks doubtful. ‘Me mum's not too keen on worms. Says they make your bum itch . . .'

‘Um, these are different worms, love. Good worms. They make the soil healthy so we can grow healthy vegetables,' Ettie explains, her face going puce, sweat breaking out all over again.

‘I better ask her, but. Me mum's pretty firm about worms.'

‘Righto, fair enough. Here, have a piece of lemon tart while you're waiting for the burger. It's got to be eaten today.'

‘I'm supposed to have spinach, Sam says.'

‘How about neither of us tells him.'

On the back deck, Sam scoffs down one of Ettie's magic harissa-marinated grilled calamari concoctions with shaved fresh fennel (to cut through but enhance the spices) spread artistically on top. She's even peeled the cherry tomatoes, he thinks, slowing down to give the food the close attention it deserves. But the episode with the taillights has left him edgy. In his experience, thugs rarely downgrade assaults. They ramp them up.

He drags out
The Concise History of the World
to take his mind off his worries and flips forward to the chapter on Australia.

Once upon a time – around forty thousand years ago – kangaroos were ten feet tall and native lions roamed the land along with giant ox-like beasts. All of them were quickly killed off and people settled near the coast to live on fish and shellfish.

Nothing changes, he thinks. We come, we see and we conquer until there's nothing left.

His phone goes off with the buzz and momentum of an angry fly. He picks up. His face goes black. He pushes back from the table, leaving his lunch unfinished. ‘Jimmy!' he shouts en route to the barge. He barely checks to see the kid is on board before setting off.

Sam pushes the throttle forward and urges the normally dowager-sedate
Mary Kay
to her maximum speed of six knots. Under the broad hull, the water is smooth and glassy.

The short waterway from the café to his jetty is alive with traffic. The light southerly has lured out every passionate yachtie from one end of Cook's Basin to the other on a day when there's just enough breeze to fill a sail but not enough for a skipper to spill his drink. Paradise at its best. Except, Sam thinks, for a new underbelly that reckons money calls the shots. Well, he tells himself, the cockroaches behind the development might find they're jet propelled towards a new and gargantuan learning curve. He makes a conscious effort to loosen his jaw to stop his teeth from grinding.

By the time he ties up at his jetty, he feels calmer, steadier. Nobody died, he tells himself. Anything that can be fixed with nails and a hammer isn't worth sweating over. From the water and in the sunlight, the windows of his house look like broken toffee. Despite his good intentions, his (almost) calm rationalisation of what he considers important and what actually matters, a shaft of hatred slips inside his head. For a second all he sees is red. Red house. Red trees. Red sea. He feels his jaw lock tight again. ‘Stay on board, Jimmy. Don't move till I call you.' He sprints along the jetty.

Eric Lowdon steps out from behind the boatshed. ‘You don't want to mess with us, boy,' he hisses, his chubby little body jiggling with spite. ‘Next time, you'll find yourself floating face down in the sparkling waters of Cook's Basin.' He's dressed unbelievably eccentrically in clashing checks and tartans, and a ridiculous tasselled green cap, a relic from the past, shades his eyes. His fingers caress the fat end of a driving iron. He looks like he's off to play a round of golf a hundred years ago instead of what Sam would assume is a regular weekend game on a local course.