You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids (33 page)

Gary was a member of the Ben Buckler Fishing Club and had an old 14-foot aluminium runabout which he kept in the club house round the rocks at North Bondi. He was a pretty popular bloke around the Eastern Suburbs where he used to own a butcher-shop which he'd sold to get a cleaning run and now that he had more time to himself he spent most of it out fishing. The best way to describe Gary would be a roly-poly version of Jack Lemmon the film star, with shorter hair and a much fatter face. Gary was a red-hot Easts supporter and used to do a fair bit of back-slapping down the Bondi Rex, especially if the team was running well. He also used to back-slap most of the heavies around the area and being the heaviest of them all that's how Les got invited to go fishing. Gary's only fault, if any, was that he did like to talk a lot — especially with about half a dozen middies under his belt, and being an irrepressible gossip Gary was also dying to tell all the team down the Rex how he had Big Les Norton out in his boat.

‘So I can expect a big feed of fresh fish up here next week, eh?' said Price. ‘Couple of nice snapper would be nice. What about you George, you want to put your order in too?'

‘Ohh yeah, why not? Save me going down to Doyles. A nice big flathead'll do me Les. About 5 pound. What about you, Billy?'

‘Mmhh, I wouldn't mind a couple of those nice big soup-plate leather jackets. No bones, no scales, they're the grouse. Couple of those'll do me Les.'

‘Anything else youse might like while I'm out there?' said Norton sucking lustily on his can of Fourex. ‘How-about some king prawns, or maybe a few dozen oysters. Or if you like I can dive over the side and bring up a few pearls. Just name it.

They sat around for about another half an hour drinking and cracking jokes, though most of the jokes were directed at Les. Then they locked up. Les and Billy saw Price safely to his car where they said their goodbyes and they all drifted home.

It was oppressively hot and humid the next day, but Billy and Les still trained for almost two and a half hours — they were dehydrated when they finished and dryer than two Pommy towels when they got to the Clovelly Hotel about three, where they proceeded to drink enough beer to launch a Polaris submarine — the first six schooners didn't even touch the sides of their throats. When Les got home about 7.30 he was roaring, but when he got down the boat-sheds at six the following morning after a good night's sleep he felt enormous and keen as mustard for a morning's fishing.

There were only two other cars in the parking area at the top of Ramsgate Avenue when Norton drove his battered Ford sedan in there that morning; one he recognised as Gary's spotless Ford station wagon and an old abandoned Holden silently ending its days in a pile of rust and corrosion. The sun had just risen on an absolutely beautiful day, tinting the few tiny white clouds in the turquoise sky with orange and yellow as it bathed the velvety green sea with its warmth. A long black shadow formed by the big rock on the point with its remaining bronze mermaid, and seemed to point like a huge ebony finger towards the beach as he jauntily trotted down the stairs with their dilapidated white wooden railing, to the boat-sheds. A mangy looking one-eyed cat scurried quickly out of Norton's way and ducked under one of several boats arranged neatly in two rows outside the club-house, where it sat blinking at him with its one good eye as he strode past to the open door. Gary had his back to him and was testing an outboard motor in a rusty, 44 gallon drum full of water. He turned it off just as Norton stopped behind him.

‘G'day Gary,' said Les waving his fumes aside with his hand. ‘How's it goin' mate? Top day.'

‘G'day Les,' said Gary enthusiastically as he spun around. ‘How y' goin'? Looking forward to the big day's fishing?'

‘Bloody oath,' grinned Norton.

Gary was wearing an old faded pair of blue Stubbies, an Easts jumper minus the sleeves and a cap something like Topol wore in ‘Fiddler on the Roof'; he hadn't had a shave for at least a week. Norton had on a sweat-shirt, jeans, sneakers and one of those mesh-back baseball-type caps. In his hand was a huge overnight bag.

‘Jesus,' said Gary, ‘what've you got in the bag, Les? We're only goin' out for a few hours, we're not spendin' a month up the Sepik River.'

Norton held up the massive bag, grinning sheepishly. ‘I couldn't find my little one in the dark this morning to tell you the truth so I had to grab this one. I've only got a bit of tucker and something to drink.' He didn't mention the bottles of Quells and Dramamine tablets. ‘Besides, I'll need a bag this big for all my fish, won't I?'

Gary winked as he put some more petrol in the outboard motor and loosened the clamps holding it on to the 44 gallon drum.

‘What do you reckon we'll get anyway?' asked Les. ‘Any jewies? What about snapper?'

‘We'll be fishin' for red bream,' replied Gary, with all the sagacious wisdom of an expert. ‘There's a ton of reddies on at the moment, me n' Tom the Beach Inspector got 30 the other mornin'.'

‘Thirty. Fair dinkum?'

‘Yeah, my oath. They're on at the moment. Anyway, give us a hand with this motor, will you?'

With Norton doing most of the lifting they easily manhandled the outboard motor out of the steel drum and over and on to Gary's weather-beaten aluminium runabout, where he clamped it to a wooden plate at the stern with two large wing-nuts. He told Les to throw his bag in the boat while he went into the club-house, returning with a large plastic, box-type container full of fishing lines, bait, knives and other fishing paraphernalia which he carefully placed in the middle of the boat.

‘Now, what do I owe you for juice and bait Gary? Ten bucks, is that right?'

‘Yeah. That'll do,' replied Gary magnanimously.

Les had agreed previously to weigh in $10 for gas and bait and though Gary's meagre motor would be flat out using 75
worth of gas in a day and the bait Gary would have caught beforehand, Les wasn't to know this. Gary always liked to make a little profit on anything he did. If he could take Les fishing for a few hours, get plenty of fish himself and end up $9.25 in front on the day, that was a pretty good result for Gary — not to mention the fact that he sold most of his fish to an Italian mate who had a restaurant in Bondi. When it came to making a dollar stretch further than anyone else Gary ran second to Les in a very tight photo-finish.

‘You got change of a rock lobster?' said Norton, pulling a $20 bill out of his jeans.

‘No,' said Gary, taking the twenty and pocketing it in the fob pocket of his Stubbies. ‘I didn't bring any money with me. I'll have to fix you up when we get back, or through the week. Okay?'

‘Yeah all right, I s'pose,' said Les, a little apprehensively.

‘Right,' said Gary. ‘I'll lock the club up and we'll be on our way.' While he was doing this Les slipped his sneakers off, tossed them in the boat and rolled his jeans up past his shins. Gary returned and with one either side they slid the relatively light boat over some splintery lengths of wood set into the concrete outside the clubhouse, down an old slimy wooden ramp and across some equally slimy weed-covered rocks, where Norton almost went on his arse, to the water's edge where Gary said to wait for a swell. A small wave surged gently around them and they pushed the boat out on to it; Norton flopped clumsily in the front and Gary hopped up on to a seat in the back as adroitly as Ron Quinton jumping up on Gunsynd. In almost the same quick, competent movement he kicked the motor over and they were on their way.

From the moment they left Gary was talking incessantly, but over the roar of the outboard Les could hardly hear him; if he could he wouldn't have taken any notice anyway — this was all new to him and he was more than a little excited. With the salt spray stinging his eyes and splashing over his clothes and the smell of old fish and two-stroke in his nostrils, mixing with the throb of the outboard motor and the screeching of a few seagulls flying overhead, Les felt as if he was setting off on some great adventure. His enthusiasm and adrenalin were surging.

When they got out past the Big Rock on the point and started hitting into a few swells, the enthusiasm and adrenalin inside Les started to turn into a rather shithouse feeling in his stomach. By the time they got another hundred metres out, Norton's face was starting to look like an Italian flag. He rummaged quickly through his bag, found his Dramamine tablets and unscrewing a large bottle of lemonade quickly washed two down.

Looking back at the shoreline it seemed as if they were out 500 kilometres; Bondi seemed to be on the other side of the moon. Norton swallowed and watched some water splashing round on the bottom of the boat and it was then he realised that all that was between him and at least 50,000 metres of water, not to mention monstrous tiger and white pointer sharks plus sting-rays, barracudas and Christ only knows what else was about half an inch of corroded aluminium.

‘Hey, how far out do you want to go?' he protested. ‘What are you fishin' for? Fuckin' black marlin?'

‘I got to find me mark,' yelled Gary over the noisy motor.

‘Your what?'

‘Me mark.' Gary explained to Les how he lined up with Long Bay Rifle Range and North Bondi Surf Club. That was the mark and that was the reef they fished off.

Gary squinted towards Maroubra, then to North Bondi and cut the motor. ‘Here we are now,' he said turning the motor completely off and tossing a kellick over the side. ‘Righto, reddies, here comes uncle Gazz.'

Within what seemed like a matter of seconds Gary went deftly through the bait-box in the middle of the boat, Norton had a reel shaped like a large plastic dough-nut thrust in his hands and Gary was baited up and ready to cast over the side.

‘Now, you know how to bait a hook and all that, don't you?' said Gary looking slightly suspiciously at Les as he dangled the weighted hook in his hand.

‘Yeah, of course I do,' replied Norton gruffly, ripping a piece of half-rotten yellowtail out of a mess of smelly, blood-stained newspapers Gary had spread out in the middle of the boat. ‘I have been bloody fishin' before, you know.' Which was true. Les had fished for Murray-cod and perch on the banks of the Narran back at Dirranbandi with quite good results; but that was a lot different to bobbing up and down in a rusty boat out in, what
seemed like to Les, the middle of nowhere. He jammed the piece of yellowtail on his hook and dropped it over the side not long after Gary.

Thirty minutes later Gary had six reddies which he quickly unhooked, belted over the head with a lump of wood and tossed in a wet sugar-bag lying near his feet. Another 30 minutes went by and Gary had another five fish. Norton hardly got a bite.

Another hour or so passed by with Gary pulling in a reddie about every five minutes and not one under a pound and a half. Norton still hadn't broke his duck.

‘Christ, what's goin' on here?' said Les, starting to get a bit shitty as he baited up again and cast over the side. ‘I'm using the same bait, the same hooks and I'm getting fuck all. You're pulling them in like Zane bloody Grey.'

‘Just keep goin' mate,' said Gary, pulling in another fish. ‘They'll hit you sooner or later.' He was starting to get a bit toey with Les and didn't want to appear to be rubbing it in to him about his not getting any fish — though he wouldn't be able to tell all the team down the Rex about Norton's dismal effort quick enough. Not to mention his seasickness.

Norton had stopped getting the shits, now he was just getting bored and fidgety; the Dramamine tablets had settled his stomach and his sea-sickness had almost disappeared until Gary pulled out his breakfast. Four packets of Smiths chips, two cans of Coca-Cola and a cigarette. Norton started looking around in disgust and boredom. Something in a bag near Gary's feet caught his eye.

‘Hey, what's that in there?' he asked. ‘Are they binoculars?'

‘Yeah,' replied Gary. ‘I bring 'em with me just in case there's a bit of fog around and I can't find me mark.'

‘Give us a look.' Gary handed Les the binoculars.

Norton wiped the lenses with a dry part of his sweat-shirt, adjusted the dials to suit his eyes and started peering idly towards the horizon. He still wasn't getting any fish so he wound the line around his big toe and let it dangle over the side. There wasn't a great deal to see. He watched a flock of screeching seagulls sitting on top of and diving into a school of surface fish in the early morning mist off to their left. The cliffs at Coogee and Maroubra were too far away and too hazy to make anything out clearly. The same at Bondi. He watched a jumbo-jet go overhead, then swung
back to the ocean. A freighter steaming steadily towards their boat seemed to be almost on top of them, ‘Christ,' he said out loud, removing the binoculars, but when he did he could see that it was at least seven or eight hundred metres away. As it approached them he started viewing it intently.