The Briny Café (25 page)

“Maybe I was desperate,” she says, so quietly he almost misses it.

“Maybe. Only you would know. But what I'm getting at is that risks are at the heart of life. You and me, we're like chalk and cheese, but sometimes you find that opposites soften the hard edges in each other …”

“Are you making a pass?”

“I'm taking a risk 'cause I'm hoping that every time you bit my head off it was because you were worried you were getting to like me. And yeah, I'm making a pass.”

Kate looks directly at him. “I'm a bad bet, Sam.”

“It's a risk I'm willing to take.”

“I've got to ask … why?”

He reaches across the table and grabs her hand. “I can't
explain it. Not in a way that's all flowery and romantic. Christ, I'm not even sure why, if you want the truth. Maybe I just feel better when you're around.”

“Definitely not romantic …”

“Yeah, well …” Sam drops his eyes and pushes away his food. The effort of eating now beyond him. “I'm not much good with words.” He feels defeated, worn out by trying to explain himself.

She sits still and silent for so long, he begins to plan a withdrawal that will leave his pride intact.

“Have you always been a risk-taker?” she says at last, smiling.

 

Sam wakes in his own bed in the middle of the night. He lies there for a while, listening to an owl hoot mournfully on a single note, the slurp of an incoming tide. He lets his mind drift. He is shocked by how much he wants Kate to like and understand him. He trawls back over their evening together. He might have rabbited on a bit too long but you've got to start somewhere, haven't you?

Out of the blue, he remembers what was bothering him about
Ciao Bella
. He sits bolt upright. It was the phone call, he thinks, struggling to recall the details. There was the roar of an engine, a shout, then the phone went dead. The Weasel must have had a visitor. Happier now, he settles down. He'll check with Artie in the morning. With a bit of luck, he'll find out that the Weasel has slunk off once and for all. Except why'd he want his mooring serviced if he was planning on disembarking for good?

He closes his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. He thinks of Kate again. He doesn't delude himself that their relationship will blossom in the same way as Ettie and the chef, who are old enough to desire contentment instead of hunting for thrills. He knows instinctively that with Kate, for every step forward, he'll have to take two back. He worries she is too young to settle for what to him is the nirvana of Cook's Basin. That the fire in her belly for more, much more, still smoulders. But there's only one way to find out and even if it ends up hurting him like hell, he's willing to take the risk that at some point she might vanish with a laptop and a backpack. Off without a twinge of regret and only a casual goodbye, on some new quest on the other side of the world. He sighs. Of all the coffee joints in all the world …

 

Unable to go back to sleep, Sam gets up at dawn. A light breeze off the land stirs the bush into life and ruffles the water. A single kookaburra makes a staccato start, before bursting into a full-throated declaration of his territorial rights. One by one, his family joins him until the air is filled with raucous joy. If only everyone, he thinks, set boundaries with laughter. He does a quick check of the barge and starts the engine. Cruises across pink water towards a pinker sky. He hopes the Misses Skettle are awake to see their favourite colour splashed about so extravagantly.

At the stern of Artie's yacht, he thumps the hull to announce his arrival. The old bloke's already up and about. Sam can smell burnt toast and coffee.

“You decent, Artie?” Sam asks, hoisting himself into the cockpit.

“Indecent, mate. And it's too late to change the habits of a lifetime,” he replies.

“Glad to hear it.”

Sam goes down the ladder into the cabin.

“Mate, wanted to ask you. Did your sleazy neighbour have any visitors late yesterday afternoon?”

“As a matter of fact he did. Four blokes wearin' suits pitched up in one of them speedboats that look like shiny black arrowheads. The Weasel gave them a big hello like they were best buddies, so I pulled me head in and had me dinner.”

“Went off with them, did he?”

“Well, he got on their boat. That's the last I saw. Not me job to look out for the Weasel. By the way … that Kate.”

“You know her?”

“Yeah. She's popped by a few times now. Brings me some goodies from the café on her way home.”

“Did she ding your boat, Artie, or is she learning to come alongside decently?”

“Anyway,” Artie says, ignoring Sam. “Ya better watch out. That girl's showin' signs of bein' a stayer.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

 

A collective cheer erupts when the locals hear of the Weasel's departure. For the next couple of days, people drop by Artie's yacht with words of congratulations for a job well done. Artie conveniently forgets to point out that he's done nothing but observe events and tells them firmly that one
good turn deserves another. If they'll just step aboard for a while, he can find plenty of ways for them to show their gratitude.

As a result, the galley is scoured, the foam mattresses turned out to be aired. Old bed linen is ripped into useful rags, while new sheets, still crackly from their packets, are spread in luxurious splendour in the forward cabin. Artie's motley collection of shorts, T-shirts, trackie dacks and windcheaters are removed to the laundromat. They are boiled at 95 degrees, which has the double benefit of blasting out all stains and shrinking them to fit his dwindling body. The toilet shines like it's new and the bilge pumps are primed, oiled and any rusted wires replaced.

The only thing that isn't touched – on Artie's insistence – is his look-out post, a pile of bolsters arranged in a series of steps so he can haul himself to the top with comparative ease to keep watch through the forward hatch. He may not have to spy on the Weasel any more but it is a prime spot, he says, with a wink and a nudge, to keep abreast of Cook's Basin goings-on. Everyone understands that between Artie and the Misses Skettle, there will be even fewer secrets than normal.

“Betta watch yarselves,” he says to all comers. “Or I'll be foldin' little good behaviour reminders and stuffin' 'em in bottles to send across the water. So ya know I'm on the job.” He slaps his withered thighs, finding the thought hilarious. “Don't write me off yet, maties.”

Another slap, then a beer appears in his fist and for the umpteenth time he recounts how a spiffy boat with four blokes in suits and dark glasses – like gangsters out of a movie
– arrived at the tail end of a cracker day to take the Weasel off into the sunset. Hopefully never to be seen again.

 

“No bugger was willing to dive over the side to give the old girl's bum a good scrape,” Artie tells Sam when the bargeman arrives with a bottle of Bundaberg rum that smells so
medicinal
he's forced to take an immediate swig.

Sam ignores the hint to volunteer for the job and refuses a nip at the same time. “Too early for me, mate.”

“Nectar of the gods,” Artie says, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Can feel it doin' me good already.”

For a second, Sam worries whether he's done the right thing, but the colour floods back into Artie's face, his eyes take on a low sheen, and he cracks a smile that's almost beatific.

“Go easy, mate,” Sam says gently. “Quality should be savoured.”

“Remember that the next time you see Kate.”

“Don't want to appear rude, Artie, but it's none of your business.”

Artie looks taken aback. “You're serious, then?”

“No bloody secrets, are there?”

“None worth knowing,” he grins.

Growing up on the water, Sam's developed a sixth sense for disaster, and right now, as he prepares to service the Weasel's mooring so Artie doesn't have to worry it might break loose in a storm, his instinct is working overtime. Nothing smells right about the whole situation. Not the derelict yacht, the Weasel's sudden disappearance, or even what he was doing living so damn squalidly anyway. Sam feels like he's missing some essential clue that will force all the pieces to slip into place. He hits the hydraulic switch and the chain begins a slow and steady rise to the surface. The huge concrete mooring block for
Ciao Bella
appears. Attached, but floating like it has a life of its own, is a dark green industrial-strength garbage bag tied at one end with a rope.

Sam stops the winch in a hurry. Goes over to the upturned milk crate and sits down. The bag is probably filled with empty bottles and takeaway food containers, dumped by some shyster too cheap to pay ten bucks at the council tip.

But it isn't. And he knows it.

After a short while, he stands and pulls his mobile phone out of his shirt pocket. He dials the water police. On the other side of the bay, a tinny flies past. The wake reaches the
Mary Kay
at the same time as a cop comes on the line. The bag is jolted by the surge. A foot appears through a tear.

“Dead body, mate,” Sam says. “Stuffed in a bag. Look for the barge in Oyster Bay.” He throws down his mobile and rushes to the edge of the barge. Heaves over the side.

It takes two boatloads of cops and forensic experts four hours to measure, tag, clip, assess, question Artie and finally leave. They tow
Ciao Bella
into custody as though the yacht is a credible witness.

 

Before the end of the day, word of the Weasel's murder quickly spreads from one end of Cook's Basin to the other. No one knows any details so speculation is rife. People gossip. Hearsay turns into truth. A guess becomes a fact. The camaraderie of friends and neighbours is thrown off-kilter because suspicion, once aroused, has a nasty way of taking hold.

A flock of sleek, fat crows, feathers gleaming like armour, swoops on the Square, scattering the seagulls and miner birds. Yellow-eyed, they loom like dark accusations, their dirge-like cries raising the hairs on the backs of necks.

“They're such doomsayers,” Kate says, watching the birds from the doorway of the café. “First time I've ever seen them here. Do you think they're drawn to death? Like ghouls. Or do they know more than we do?”

“Stop it, Kate,” Ettie says. “They're just scavengers. And today is garbage day.” She grabs a saucepan and a wooden
spoon and marches into the Square, banging like a drummer. The birds eye her menacingly, then slowly take flight. “No more witchery. Now there's work to be done. Let's get on with it.” Ettie slips her arm through Kate's and guides her firmly back inside.

“You don't think Sam could have done it, do you?” Kate asks, unable to stop saying out loud what she dreads.

Ettie drops her arm and furiously rounds on her. “I'll pretend I never heard you say that!”

“It's just …”

“Sam is Sam. What you see is what you get. There's no dark side. Not even a grey side. He may do things his own way, get it wrong occasionally, even bend the law. But his motives are never in doubt. Sam tries to do good. End of story.”

“None of us knows what we're capable of, Ettie, until we're pushed to the brink. He was so cut up about Boag and what that man was doing to the kids. I found him on the deck of the yacht, around the time the Weasel disappeared. I can't help wondering …”

“You really think a puny little drug dealer could tip Sam over the edge? I thought you knew him better than that.”

Throughout her childhood Kate had felt like she was stuck on a runaway train heading for a smash. Now she feels she's on it again. “But I saw him there,” she says, defensive. “I can't get that out of my head.”

 

When Sam ties up to the deck of The Briny he hears footsteps and looks up, expecting – hoping – to see Kate. But it is Ettie who runs towards him with her arms out.

“Oh love,” she says. “What a horror.”

“Yeah. A shocker. He's no great loss, Ettie. But it's a terrible way to go. I've been up at the cop shop all afternoon.”

“Police got any ideas?”

“Yeah. Those four goons Artie saw pull up in a stink boat. They're prime suspects.”

“Ah,” she says, thinking the sooner that bit of information makes it into the gossip mill the better.

“Coffee, love? Or something stronger?”

“Is Kate around?”

Something in the way Ettie hesitates makes him wary. He tries to think of how he might have upset her.

“Ah jeez, she thinks I did it, doesn't she?”

Ettie, who cannot lie although she's an expert at fudging the edges, shrugs. “The whole community's in a state of shock. It's only natural Kate is too.” She sees the naked hurt on his face.

“Jeez,” he says. “Tell Kate the bottom line of any decent friendship is trust. Without it, there's nowhere to go.” Before Ettie can say a word, he jumps on board and reverses away from the dock.

Behind the wire screen door, Kate watches him leave, unable to move.

 

White-faced and silent, Sam lies on the red banquette out of sight of passing tinnies. He does not want to recount for one, and then inevitably all, the ghoulish details of the Weasel's murder, turning tragedy into pornography. The man is dead. That is enough to know.

After a while, the familiar rock of the water loosens his bunched neck muscles, the lock of his jaw. One by one, he slides the horror images into a far corner of his mind where he hopes they will, in time, dissolve into nothing.

He knows he should go home. Settle the kid who must have heard by now. But he isn't ready. Not even for Jimmy, whose capacity for trust is limitless and who would know, without any doubt in his pure heart, that Sam was incapable of hurting a living thing; who, unlike Kate, would follow him to the ends of the earth.

Christ, he wasn't a complicated man. No fancy frills. No slick dinner party repartee. No rubbing shoulders with power and money. No international travel. Just a man and a barge. Plain and simple. But not, he hoped, without his own brand of honour. If Kate couldn't see that, there was no point in trying. He feels his thoughts beginning to spiral in a million different directions again. He has responsibilities. To Jimmy, who is becoming a young man. To the community, that is like family. To the barge, that is not just his living but there for anyone in times of crisis. To the landscape, that's as much a part of him as breathing. He is a man of substance who sees a problem and wears it away.

He's about to sit up when he catches the whine of a boat close by. He ducks out of sight and the boat drones away. He waits until it is late and very dark before he slips over the side in his jocks and swims ashore. Tiptoes into his house. He chucks out the dinner Jimmy's left for him with a sharp pang – Boag would have loved it. Heads for the shower.

In bed, he tosses for an hour before he gives up on sleep. Instead he switches on the light, picks up a couple of books.
He chooses one recommended by Kate about a pig-headed Yorkshireman who took forty years to convince critics and cheats that he'd truly discovered the secret of measuring longitude. He reads the last ten pages of a heroic battle for recognition and justice then closes the book. Forty years. He sighs and switches off the bedside lamp. In the scheme of things, maybe it's too soon to give up on Kate. But three strikes and she's definitely out. Unless she has a bloody good reason for behaving like a twit. Love, as his father used to say, is an act of courage after all.

 

The next morning, the house is deathly quiet. Jimmy – the whirling dervish who has been Sam's shadow for weeks – is gone. His clothes are missing, his posters stripped from the walls, his two pairs of sneakers and his workboots nowhere to be seen. Believing Jimmy has done a runner after hearing the rumours, Sam is so hurt he doesn't bother to go looking for him.

He hauls out a bucket and a heap of cleaning fluids from the cupboard under the sink. He'll start on the house. Move to the barge. A clean slate.

Just then the door bursts open, whacking the wall with a bang.

“Where you been, Jimmy?” Sam demands without bothering to turn around to check it's the boy.

“Sam! Sam! Guess what?” Jimmy's face is excited. He hops from one foot to the other as if the floor is on fire.

“You know the rules, mate. You go out. You leave a note.”

“But, Sam —”

“No buts, Jimmy. If you want to live with me, you follow the rules.”

“Me mum's home, Sam! She's home for Christmas, just like she promised. I'm movin' home.”

Sam gets up from the floor. He puts the bucket on the counter and holds out his hand, man to man. “Well, mate, that's good news. The best,” he says.

“I'll still have me job, won't I? And a dog? We're still a team, aren't we, Sam?”

“Yeah, mate. A team. But I'm holding off on the mutt until we sort out a few logistics. You gotta understand, a mutt's a commitment. Like having a kid on four paws. Understand, Jimmy? Long as you're clear. Deal?”

“Deal, Sam. We're a team.” Jimmy thrusts out his knuckly mitt, with its ripped fingernails and bloody scratches, to seal the contract. Then dashes off. “See ya, Sam,” he calls from halfway down the jetty.

 

The official explanation of the Weasel's demise at the hands of a bunch of (apparently rival) goons lifts the pall that's been hanging over Cook's Basin. According to newspaper reports Leo Merrizzi, who'd been hiding out “on the isolated shores of a difficult to access island off the east coast of Australia” was the victim of a gang war that had been raging for more than a year.

It's the hottest topic of conversation – until everyone realises there's only two weeks to go until Christmas and rushes headlong into festive preparations. The Stony Point Tinny Yacht Club holds its annual Christmas party in a sandy little
cove north of Wineglass Bay, far enough away from civilisation so the ruckus doesn't upset anyone. Mutts go into training for the annual Dog Race. Kids start jumping into the water in their school uniforms on the way home, knowing that by next term they'll have outgrown them anyway. The party season fires up with a vengeance and all the cooks trot out their best recipes to celebrate another glorious year.

Despite this, the Misses Skettle decide to take matters into their own gnarly hands to make extra sure lingering doubts about Sam are decisively quashed. They set themselves up in the Square with a few homemade sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper because, even though the tucker is certainly much improved at The Briny, fools and their pennies are easily separated. With a large Thermos of coffee doctored with brandy to perk their spirits, they hold court for a whole day at one of the scabby old picnic tables, like a couple of purple-crested galahs at a Sunday school gathering. Any possible doubters – and they know who they are – are plucked out of the passing crowds and forced to listen.

“Known him since he was no bigger than a jelly bean in his mother's belly,” said one Miss Skettle through fuschia-pink lips. “His mother always had a sort of glow about her. I remember her old dinghy had more holes than a colander. She and little Sammy would head to the Spit, laughing louder than the penguins that quacked alongside. He would hold a jam tin bailer in his hand while she rowed. Sam's father was one of nature's gentlemen. Nothing was ever too much trouble. And what a body. Phew! Joanie, who lived in a house with a view of the boatshed, would hold her kettle out the window and hit it with a wooden spoon when he stripped to
his togs and went for a swim. There wasn't a woman in the bays who didn't rush outside and go all goggle-eyed at the sight of him. Joanie weaved baskets, you know. Very beautiful. Sold them to the big department stores, who could never get enough of them.”

While one pauses for breath the other Miss Skettle takes over. At the first sign of antsy-ness from their audience, fingers are shaken. “Now, now, we haven't finished yet. Hold your horses. The ferry's not going anywhere for a few more minutes.” And they take a firm grip of an arm, a hand – even a thigh – and insist nobody move until they've had their say.

“Sam's mother and father raised him to love all living things and once a boy's learned the sanctity of life, he doesn't change. No matter how hard-pressed he is to put up with the bad habits of blow-ins without any idea of common decency. So if you're wondering about that shifty-looking fellow who ended up in a garbage bag, well, if Sam says he had nothing to do with it, then that's the truth. Now off you go. See you at the next fireshed dinner.”

“And don't forget to bring your torch.”

When the old girls, hoarse by the end of the day, pack up feeling they've done their bit, Ettie wanders over to ask if they'd like a sandwich, a cake, a coffee, anything. “On the house, ladies. You've done a magnificent job.”

“Thank you, Ettie, dear. We put on our dinner before we left this morning. It'll be perfectly cooked by the time we get home.”

“Slow cooking, always the best way,” Ettie says, impressed.

“Eh?”