Gone Fishing (5 page)

A voice like gravel floats up from the pit of the yacht. ‘You have permission to come on board, Sam. And don't forget to hang your bloomin' fenders out so me paintwork doesn't get scratched.'

‘Give me a break, Artie. When have I ever failed? And there's more scratches than solid paint on your hull anyway.' He lightly slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. Bad move opening the door on that subject.

‘Doesn't hurt to keep you on your toes, son. We all need reminding now and then. As for the paint-job, I'm still looking for a volunteer. Got any ideas?' Sam grabs hold of the lifelines and pulls himself on board, pretending not to hear.

Inside a tidy cabin with portholes open to admit a quickening wind, Artie waits on the portside banquette. In front of him, there's a bottle of rum and two glasses lined up on a spotless table. ‘Medicinal?' Sam queries, eyebrows raised, figuring the lingering smell of detergent and the shine on the glassware means Artie's had the company of Jimmy's hard-working mum, Amelia, for most of the day.

‘Not tonight, mate. Never felt better in me life.'

‘Well, if you're just being sociable,' Sam says, pointing at a glass, thinking a rum might ease the terrible cramp gripping his gut.

‘Amelia sparkles me up till I almost feel these useless old legs of mine could come good in a minute or two.' Artie slaps his withered thighs, grinning. They both know the part of his brain that passed on instructions to stand, walk and run died when a tiny blood vessel decided to explode as he was reaching into the fridge. He was found lying on the floor, his head swimming in spilt milk and nobody home when they checked his muddy brown eyes for signs of life. A miracle he lived, the doctors said. Artie returned from hospital, moved on board his pretty timber pleasure
yacht and immediately tossed his wheelchair overboard in a gesture he confessed was irresponsible and driven by anger and frustration. But he couldn't stop himself and he figured the minute or two of pure power he felt was well worth virtually ripping up the hard-earned dollars he'd spent to buy the bloody thing. For months, he roared at any nosy social worker who managed to get close enough in a water taxi to suggest he'd be better off in a nursing home. ‘Locking him up would kill him,' Ettie told the nurse one day when she nobbled her at The Point. ‘The community will take care of him.'

‘So,' says Artie, slumping on plumped orange floral cushions, his yellow T-shirt riding up his back to reveal a roll of pasty white skin, ‘no hot date with Kate tonight?'

Sam takes a slow sip, feels the burn in his throat, the spreading warmth in his stomach. ‘None of your business, Artie,' he says quietly.

‘Ya'r right, of course. Forgive me if I lose me sense of perspective occasionally. Not much entertainment around for an old bloke whose arse is nailed to a boat.' Artie sighs heavily.

‘Spare me the self-pity and try the heartstring tango on some other sucker. You've been flat-out shooting the breeze with Amelia all day if the condition of your usually, er, homey boat is anything to go by. You're a nosy old bastard. That's the truth.'

Unoffended, Artie grins and taps the side of his nose with a finger that's nowhere near as clean as his clothes. ‘Just tryin' to keep abreast of daily events,' he says. ‘You're drinkin' my prize rum like orange juice, mate.' He lifts the bottle in a question.

Sam holds his empty glass up at eye level then slams it on the table upside down in the negative. ‘A bunch of blue-collar thugs in shiny suits reckon they can steal Garrawi Park from the community,' he says. ‘And correct me if I'm wrong, Artie, but that bottle looks suspiciously like the one I gave you for Christmas so I reckon I'm entitled to drink it any bloody way I please.'

‘Simmer down. Just complying with me duty of care. You in charge of a barge and all. Garrawi, eh? Heard the scuttlebutt but couldn't credit it.'

‘I'm going to fight them, Artie. I'm going to fight them even if I bleed to death in the process. Not sure how to go about it. That's the biggest problem facing me right now. Feel like a tiger looking around a big empty cage for somewhere to sink his fangs.'

The old man uses the strength in his saggy-skinned arms to shift further back on the banquette until he rests against the bulkhead. He nods at Sam, points at his glass, out of reach now. Sam slides it across the table to him. ‘In me own day . . . Now, now, Sam, relax. I'm not about to give you me entire life story, even though a drop of this amber rocket fuel is enough to set an old man down the sometimes melancholy path of memory. But I've fought me share of battles. Ran a union once, one of the tough ones, back in the days when Jack Mundey was king. 'Course, forty years ago, there wasn't any other kind.'

‘How old are you, Artie?'

‘What's that got to do with the price of rum?'

‘Just curious.'

‘Bullshit. You think times were different then, don't ya? Well nothing changes, mate, and I've been around long enough to know that for a definite fact. And me age is none of your business. If you don't mind me quotin' someone sittin' right here in this cabin.'

Sam holds up his hands. Surrendering.

Artie hitches his trakkie daks with the underside of his forearms, like he's scratching an itch. ‘Them silvertails didn't have much time for union members. Thought we were riff-raff and they could bully us into workin' our guts out for the privilege of livin' on the breadline.'

‘Hard days, eh?' Sam says, fiddling with his empty glass, almost tempted to go for one more slug to see him through what he senses will be a drawn-out soliloquy.

‘That was the point, mate. One of the most prosperous times in history.'

‘So what did you do?'

‘We lit spot fires. One after the other. Just as one trouble spot got doused, we'd light another. On and on until the factory was shut more than it was open and it was costin' 'em more than givin' us a decent wage.'

‘There's no factory floor. No identifiable bosses. No bloody union.'

‘Oh, there'll be a boss somewhere. Find him then put the pressure on. It's all about money, Sam. Keep hittin' them in the pocket till it hurts so bad they go away.'

‘Not sure how you do that.'

‘Talk to your girlie. Kate.'

‘You ever call her girlie to her face?' He is curious. If he tried it, she'd probably knock him to the ground. Half his size or not.

‘Do I look like a nincompoop? Me legs might be buggered but me brain still functions. Once worked as a financial journo at the big end of town, didn't she? She'll know where to start.'

Sam leaves Artie and goes back to his own home for the second night in a row. Forgetting to eat, he sits on the deck. All night he reads the development proposal over and over under the weak yellow outside light, wearing out the print with the force of his thumb and forefinger, hoping he'll be hit with a genius idea.

When he was nine years old his mum and dad took him on his first holiday ever. He was shivery with the excitement of sleeping somewhere other than the bunk bed in the primitive rented boatshed the three of them called home. God, the excitement of crossing the water from Oyster Bay to Garrawi Park on Cutter Island – what would it have been, five hundred metres? But it felt like an ocean voyage even though he'd done it a million times because this was a
holiday
, not just a visit to play with friends.

He helped his dad put up a tent his mum had bought second-hand from Vinnies, a rare and exotic find that had sparked the whole holiday madness to begin with. The park, already noisy with kids running wild on the first day of the school break, was alight with dancing campfires. Families sorting billies, frying pans, plates, searching before it turned dark for somewhere flat to spread a sleeping bag so the blood didn't run to your head and give you a headache in the morning. A rite of passage it was, now that he looks back on it. And all of it free, which was the only kind of holiday his family could have afforded. ‘This is how you light a campfire safely, son, so you don't burn yourself or endanger the bush. See up there? Stars. Look hard. Learn their names. That's how ancient mariners travelled uncharted waters and found their way back home. You can always get your bearings from the stars, son. Remember that when you're out in a boat with nothing but the sea all around and you feel like you've lost your way.'

He'd stolen his first kiss from Carly Atkinson under the spreading arms of the old cheese tree that weekend and fallen head over heels in what he'd thought was everlasting love. ‘I've got a girlfriend,' he'd raced to tell his dad, who saw the glitter of infatuation in Sam's young eyes and took him aside for a chat. ‘Man to man,' he'd said in a serious tone. Sam nodded, his chest bursting with a whole host of sensations he could hardly define let alone control. They sat together, cocooned in that same tangle of massive roots at the base of the cheese tree. His father placed a protective arm around Sam's young shoulders. ‘There's love and there's sex, son,' he said. ‘It's wise to be able to pick the difference.' Sam's understanding of life changed forever in the next half hour.

On the second day, a threatening sky turned on a solid downpour that didn't look like shifting for a week. Water filled the tent like a swimming pool until his dad couldn't pretend it was
only condensation
any more. Sam feels a tear run down a groove in his face to the corner of his mouth. He licks it away, tasting the sting of salt.

Near dawn, with the wind dropped to a breathy murmur and the sea flat calm, his anger compressed into a tight little kernel and stored away for the time being, he knows he has to make a start somewhere. He feels pressure build again, time running out. Maybe a visit to the address in tiny print secreted away in the bottom corner of the last page. Find the head honcho where the buck always stops and force the bastard to see sense. How hard can it be? He hits the sack to grab a couple of hours' sleep.

 

 

 

Chapter Four

Sam wakes to the screaming harangue of cockatoos, the loony racket of kookaburras and a low-grade clench in his gut that he knows from long experience is born of dread. Hot and sweaty for all the wrong reasons, he throws back the sheet. The sea breeze is long gone; the mercury is rising. He pulls together the pieces from yesterday until they fall into place. Garrawi, he remembers. They're trying to steal Garrawi. He glances at the clock his mum bought for his eighth birthday and that he's kept ever since even though the tick tock is loud enough to shatter the peace of the kitchen four doors away. Swings his legs to the floor. There's work to be done. He reaches into the wardrobe for a clean pair of jeans, a halfway decent shirt. He's going calling.

Ten minutes later, showered, shaved and out on the flat, shimmery water on the magnificent
Mary Kay
, he passes the usual early-morning commuters, all of them barefoot to avoid ruining their good shoes in the petrol scum that pools in every hull. He waves a hand out of his cabin door. Gets a nod, a flick of the wrist in return. Bob the Rower raises a leg in acknowledgement, not missing a stroke of the oars. The morning light is fuzzy with heat. It's going to be a scorcher.

A civilised chat with the people at the top. That's the go. He'll mention storms that wash fragile beaches out to sea. How it can take years for nature to repair the damage. He'll tell them about towering eucalypts and their frail grip on the land. How they suddenly let go and keel over, destroying anything in the way as they crash to the ground. Then there are death adders. Spiders big as a man's hand – although it's the smaller ones that carry enough poison to kill. Goannas that rip your guts out if you get in their way. He'll point out that the Island survives mainly on tank water. How many tanks would they need for a resort catering for . . . He hauls the development pamphlet out of his back pocket, slowing the
Mary Kay
to a crawl to avoid rear-ending a yacht on a mooring. Eighty. No change since he last looked. With more staff quarters at the rear. Insanity. It won't work. It's a bad investment. Sam likes the leaden certainty of the phrase
bad investment
. Surely they'll see the risks, the downside of a still-raw paradise that is not necessarily everybody's cup of tea. Feeling like he's on stronger ground, he pushes the throttle forward.

He's on the road in his battered white ute twenty minutes later, the already burning hot bitumen shimmering wetly, pollution thick in his nostrils, his vision blurred by salt scale glued to his windscreen like dry skin. Suburbs unfold on either side of the road in different shades of baked brick. Red. Cream. Brown. Speckled. Grey. Liver. Solid and serious houses, crafted to last for generations. He's a timber man himself but in Cook's Basin, where white ants are voracious, just about the only houses still standing after a hundred years are built from brick or sandstone or both. One day, he thinks, when he and Kate have a brood of kids . . . Ah jeez. He's fairdinkum off with the pixies. Everyone steps off on the wrong foot once or twice in the early days of a new romance but the core issue – the fact that he is besotted and she is engaged in a disengaged sort of way – is hardly the stuff of firm foundations. Boil their personalities down to the base ingredients, and they're a different species. She analyses. He feels. She likes crisp linen and cutlery laid on the table in the right order. He prefers to sit on the end of a pontoon with his feet in the water and his hands slippery from the shells of fresh prawns. She's a woman who enjoys a good glass of wine. He wouldn't cross the road for a glass of fermented grape juice but he'd scrabble over ten tradies on a murdering hot day to get to a frigidly cold.

It's never going to work, he admits, feeling what's becoming that familiar clench in his gut. He's on a hiding to nothing. To hang on and hang in is just a weakling's way of putting off the hurt that he remembers vividly from when ruby-lipped Carly dumped him for suave Billy Morris and he thought his eight-year-old heart might die of the pain. ‘C'mon, Sammy. Let's get busy
.
'
His mother had grabbed his hand and a couple of hessian sacks and dragged him along the wallaby track leading from the boatshed into the bush on a search for firewood. By the time they staggered home bent almost double under the weight, the moon above white in a fading summer sky, he was almost too buggered to eat his dinner. ‘Keep busy, love, and you won't feel as bad.'
She'd cooked the Sunday roast on a Thursday for him. Maybe because in her heart she knew it wasn't quite that simple but it was as good a place to start as any.

He skids to a stop at a red traffic light, burning rubber. Scaring himself rigid. Longing for the open waterway where there is room to move. He's way out of his comfort zone and the pressure is like a vice squeezing his chest so he can hardly breathe. He urges himself to take it easy. Drives on when the light goes green, accelerating a fraction of a second too slowly. The car behind him honks. Sam gives him the finger. A P-plater passes him at double the speed limit. Dead meat in a month, he thinks, more sad than angry. He recites his bad-investment spiel out loud to take his mind off the numbing stop-start drive. His voice bounces back, failing to convince even him. He hasn't a hope. He hasn't a choice. No wonder commuters go nuts, he thinks, hitting the brakes for the tenth time in as many minutes and yearning again for the snap of clean air in his lungs, the freedom of open water.

The café is humming. Clattering, banging, hissing. Sweet scents of sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon, baking, knock back the smell of the sea and wet sand. A low murmur of voices comes from inside. Ettie, who didn't fancy another brutal day if Kate decided not to appear, has called in help. Marcus, a former top city chef and
two hats
restaurant owner, is working the customers, the food, the cooking, like a virtuoso performer. He tosses pancakes, swirls maple syrup, spins delightedly from grill to counter. Every so often, his eyes land on Ettie, who has returned to her usual joyous self, and his faces softens. He is a man in love with a woman he believes to be a treasure above all others. He is contemplating a quick little behind-the-counter waltz of happiness when he catches the change in Ettie's demeanour. He looks behind. Kate stands in the doorway. Ettie takes a deep breath. Marcus steps aside. Kate has shame or chagrin hanging off her like a cloak. Ettie moves forward. Marcus watches. Kate appears to be fighting an urge to flee. Ettie holds out her arms. Kate heaves in a bucket of air, swallows and walks straight into them.

‘I will make coffee, yes?' says the chef, pleased with the outcome of what could have been a tricky moment. ‘You girls, you wait outside in the sunshine. I will come with everything in a few moments.' He flits around the café, shooing them away with the flick of a tea towel when they fail to move fast enough.

Ettie slips an arm around Kate's waist and guides her onto the deck. ‘He's happier on his own. He's a chef and I'm a cook, both noble in their way, but with little in common beyond ingredients. God,' she adds, referring to Marcus and smiling brightly, ‘how did I ever get so lucky? Fifty-five years old and he calls me a girl. Love, thank the lord, is blind.'

‘I'm so sorry, Ettie . . .' Kate says.

Ettie reaches across the table for Kate's hands, holds them tightly in hers. ‘Next time, call me. I was worried something had happened to you,' she says softly. ‘There's always a fall-back position but I need to know what's going on.' She lets go and leans against the back of her chair, eyes closed, letting the sun wash over her, enjoying an unaccustomed break. ‘So how did it go with the lawyer yesterday? Any nasty shocks? '

‘Nothing unexpected.'

Ettie stirs from her languor. That's it? she thinks. Kate disappears for a whole day on the basis of
nothing unexpected
?
Ettie frowns. Checks out Kate's body language: back ramrod straight, eyes focused on the table. She's lying, Ettie thinks, tilting her head sideways, considering whether to push for more information or to leave it alone. Before she can make up her mind, the chef swoops on them, plates balanced on his arm as if they're glued in place. With a theatrical flourish, he delivers five-star service. ‘Two coffees. Two of my exquisite almond croissants. Two each, of course. One is never enough.'

‘The ego of the man,' Ettie says, when he's gone. She's laughing. Happy. Rips off a corner of her croissant, chewing with her eyes closed. Ecstatic again. She mentally gives the subject of Kate and her mother's will the flick. If Kate wants to tell her, she will when the time is right.

‘Now . . . Let's move on. We've got a business to run. OK? Eat your pastry or Marcus will be offended. If you can't eat both, I'll help you out.'

‘Ettie!' Marcus Allender roars from the kitchen, his normally velvety tone so distraught that Ettie leaps to her feet, almost knocking over the table. Kate follows at a run.

Inside, the chef's tope is askew; he twists the corner of his apron, points to a corner near the soft-drinks fridge. ‘You have a rat in this kitchen. Look. There. Shit. A rat has made this shape of a poo. I know these things.' The chef's voice has climbed an octave, he's reverted to a strong German accent, he looks about to collapse.

‘God, is that all?' Ettie says, relieved, the colour coming back into her face. ‘I thought you'd had a heart attack. I'll find a trap. He'll be gone by tomorrow, Marcus. I promise you.'

The chef dabs his neck, flushed lobster red, with his trademark black-checked kerchief – a remnant from his glory days – then stuffs it back into his breast pocket and frowns at Ettie. ‘This is serious, my pet. This rat can close you down. He must be gone quickly.'

Feeling like he's travelled into territory so foreign he should have brought his passport (if he owned one), Sam feeds a small fortune into a parking meter that allows him exactly half an hour to do his business. As he's a fair way from his destination, he almost jogs to the address on the flyer. He'd read the penalty notice. The fine was worth four hours of Jimmy's labour on the
Mary Kay
. He picks up his speed.

At the end of a long corridor in an aging building dwarfed by downtown's plate-glass skyscrapers, built before the money stream dried up in a global fiscal meltdown, he finds black lettering peeling off a smoky window.
New Planet Fountain of Youth
. Fountain of Youth? Bollocks. Varnish from the bottom half of the door flakes at his feet. Shysters, he thinks. The whole development plan is a scam. Someone testing the water. Nothing to worry about. He tries the knob, expecting to find it locked. It turns under his touch. He steps inside.

A dark-suited goon – Sam can't tell whether or not he's from the amorphous group that turned up at the Square – perches on a corner of a naked 1970s standard veneer desk with two drawers on either side and not even a telephone to dignify it. Looks more and more like the place has been hurriedly rented to provide a temporary but legal address to print on the posters. The goon's ankles are casually crossed; dark glasses cover most of his face despite the gloom. He's drinking a can of imported beer. The whole set-up is like a bad joke. Black suits. Sunglasses. Cartoon character stuff. Too weird to take seriously.

‘Gidday,' Sam says, prepared to be civil.

The goon grins. ‘Got some advice for you,
mate.
Real good advice
.
You don't want to take us on. Believe me, you take us on, and I'm warning you, you'll get kicked to death.'

‘Now hang on,
mate
 . . .'

The goon rises. He flicks at an imaginary piece of dust on his sleeve, removes the dark glasses. His eyes are shiny bright – half crazy or just plain stupid: it's too hard to know. He drains his beer and flattens the can in his hand. Crosses to open the door and chucks it into the deserted hallway. He sneers at Sam, then turns on his heel and disappears into the bowels of whatever lurks darkly and silently behind the reception area. Sam feels like he's stepped into a totally surreal parallel universe.

So stunned by the crazy eyes and the casual act of vandalism he fails to react before he hears a key turn, a bolt slam home. Finally finds his voice.

‘If there's one thing I can't cop, you bastard, it's bullies,' he yells, blood rushing to his head, his face reddening fast. He strides to the door, yanks hard. It holds firm. ‘You picked on the wrong bloke, mate. Believe
me.
' He pounds on the timber. Kicks the door in frustration. What kind of a pea brain brushes the fluff off his clothes but doesn't hesitate to chuck an empty can into a clean corridor? They're all bloody nutters without a single grey cell between them, he thinks. It's a full-on, blue ribbon tin-pot organisation. Are they serious about Garrawi? What the hell is really going on here?