Gabriel's Bay

by Robertson, Catherine

  ‘His resumé is top-notch for a young fella,’ said Bronagh. ‘And he’s keen, apparently clean living and unencumbered. Quite handsome, too, judging by his mugshot.’

  ‘I’m terrified of making a wrong call,’ said Mac.

  ‘You can think of every contingency until you’re blue in the face,’ said Bronagh, ‘and it still won’t prevent things going arseways. Control is an illusion.’

  ‘That so?’

  ‘Kerry’s father and I also considered entering a Buddhist monastery but the saffron robes made us look like we had kidney failure.’

  Mac let out a long breath. She could prevaricate no longer, and no one else could make the decision. Now, it was all down to her.

  ‘I’d better help him find a decent place to live,’ she said. ‘Strangely, most rental advertisements tend to leave “former meth lab” off their list of features.’

  ‘You’ve a good soul,’ said Bronagh. ‘That should cut some ice with God or karma or the lucky leprechauns, I’d say.’

  If only, Mac thought as she rang off. In her experience, Santa Claus might care whether you were naughty or nice, but in all other respects your moral orientation had zero impact on your fortunes. Bad deeds went unpunished daily, good deeds unrewarded. Fairness was a concept that humans could enforce amongst themselves, but when it came to fate, it was nothing but wishful thinking.

  She wrote a brief official email to Ashwin Ghadavi, confirming his appointment. Hit send. Waited for a sign from the universe to acknowledge either the wisdom or stupidity of her act. Was irrationally annoyed that none came.

  ‘Haven’t you fixed that yet?’ she snapped at the young electrician with his face in the security alarm control box.

  He gazed at her wide-eyed. ‘Uh, no — it’s gone a bit — weird.’

  Weird. Of course. That most excellent and specific of diagnoses.

  Mac had decided her call to Bronagh was a justifiable business expense, so she’d come in to use the surgery phone, gone to deactivate the alarm and found it had beaten her to it. Having hastily confirmed that nothing was missing, it being Sunday morning, she’d phoned the electrician firm’s twenty-four-hour service line and was sent to voicemail, so she left the kind of message that encourages a prompt response. She demanded Barrett come back and fix it properly, only to be told he wasn’t on call that weekend. Her irritation was compounded by the fact that she’d trusted Barrett when he assured her confidently that the alarm was fixed, and right now she didn’t want any hint that her ability to judge people was lacking.

  ‘I think something in the circuit board’s failed,’ said the young man.

  ‘And can you fix that something?’

  ‘Nah, whole board’ll probably need replacing.’

  ‘So we will be alarm-less?’

  ‘Uh, we could install a new one?’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Uh, no, because we’d have to order it …’

  Mac got up from behind her desk, causing the electrician to try to hide inside the control box.

  ‘And how am I supposed to keep this place secure?’ she said.

  If the young man’s eyes opened any wider, the top of his head would flip over backwards.

  ‘Uh, have you got a dog?’

  Mac tried to imagine King on guard duty. All the thieves would have to do is wave a sausage, and King would break the door down for them from the inside.

  If King were around, of course. He’d been off on a wander that had lasted four days now, when the longest he’d ever been gone before was two. Even Jacko was starting to look worried.

  The young electrician was waiting.

  ‘No dog,’ said Mac. ‘All I have is this front-door key, and an old sign that says “No drugs or cash on the premises”. I took it down because too many people decided it was some kind of reverse-psychology ruse. One person who broke in actually left an angry note of complaint that we hadn’t lied to them.’

  She flapped an impatient hand at the young man. ‘Go on, bugger off and put in the order. And make sure you get back here the instant it arrives.’

  He needed no more encouragement. Mac closed the front door, inserted the key in the inadequate lock. Her plan for the rest of the day had been to drive around King’s usual haunts and see if she could spot him. But first, she had a message to deliver.

  Doc Love lived in a modest villa with a rambling garden that rambled more every year because he spent all his spare time in the shed that housed his war-game dioramas. Mac didn’t bother to knock on his front door, but let herself in the side gate and followed the mossy path, punching her way through hydrangeas and wisteria that hadn’t been pruned since some Victorian had planted them over a century ago.

  The shed looked as if it had been last painted about the same time, and had no windows whatsoever, but Mac knew the inside to be spotless, and with better ventilation and heating than the main house. When Doc Love first told her he’d agreed to contribute to the Littleville project, Mac had reacted with a snorting disbelief that masked a real concern. She’d seen too many people who’d worked hard and with robust energy all their lives enter retirement and immediately shrivel up like sprayed weeds. The warning about the devil was nonsense — Old Nick found nothing for idle hands to do, and that was a punishment worse than anything to be found in Hell.

  ‘What will you do with yourself when the shed’s empty?’ she’d asked Doc Love.

  ‘Fill it up again’ was his simple and, in hindsight, obvious reply. Mac had been absurdly relieved.

  She knocked on the shed door.

  ‘Enter.’

  ‘Why do you never ask who it is?’ Mac said, as she pushed the door shut behind her. ‘What if I was a crazed meth addict wielding a machete?’

  ‘Then why bother to knock?’ he replied, with unassailable if irksome logic.

  He was seated at the workbench — an old chipboard door on a trestle — where he did all his painting. To give him more light and better vision for such close-up work, he’d attached a magnifying glass to a caver’s helmet. When he looked up, he resembled one of those yellow cartoon bean creatures that had infested the internet. ‘Mum memes,’ her daughter, Emma, called them. ‘Middle-aged women love Minions.’

  Doc Love flipped the magnifying glass out of the way and carefully set the soldier he’d been painting upright on its metal boots. It had a pointed helmet, so Mac assumed it was German. How many war injuries the Kaiser’s men had incurred by not looking before they sat down she could only speculate.

  ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ said Doc Love.

  ‘I note you didn’t add “on this fine Sunday morning”,’ she said. ‘It could be raining frogs out of a boiling sky out there and you’d never know.’

  ‘Artificial light is more easily controlled,’ he said.

  ‘Well, when your bones snap from rickets, don’t come crawling to me.’

  He smiled, as he always did at her cranky jokes, and Mac felt a stab of — what? Guilt, fear, both? She’d tried to imagine what it would be like not sharing an office, and the bulk of her weekdays, with Doc Love, and the abyss that opened in her mind was the kind that stares right back at you. One conversation and several emails with Ashwin Ghadavi were not enough to flesh him out as a comparable alternative. When she tried to picture him, he had the dimension of a notepad doodle. None of which helped one iota with her current mission …

  Sod it. No point removing the Band-Aid slowly.

  ‘I’ve hired your replacement,’ she said. ‘He starts the last week of February.’

  The delay before Doc Love responded filled Mac with the anxious heebs. Had he thought she’d changed her mind?

  But his reply, when it came, was ‘Good.’

  Mac wanted to grab his collar and shake him, yelling ‘Is it? Is it??’ into his face.

  ‘Though I have to confess,’ he went on, ‘that I’m not as ready as I had convinced myself I was.’

  ‘Look,’ said Mac, in sudden panic. ‘I can always email him b
ack and—’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Doc Love smiled. ‘I am ready. It is time. I should never have said that. I only did so, because — well, you and I, Mac. We understand each other, don’t we?’

  Hellfire, she was going to bawl. The last time Mac had cried in front of anyone was when her son Harry, aged seven, had been clipped by a car while riding his bike outside their house. He was fine, no bones broken, only concussed, but when she’d heard the crunch of metal and rushed outside, her first sight was of his little body lying on the road, pale and still, blood coming from his nose …

  Doc Love was quick to make an accurate diagnosis.

  ‘Whisky?’ he said.

  ‘It’s barely noon,’ said Mac.

  ‘I could add it into a cup of tea?’

  ‘God, no,’ Mac shuddered. ‘A dash of water will do fine.’

  Doc Love removed his helmet, hung it on a special hook on the wall behind him. ‘I also have a cake that Sheila Swanson baked for me.’

  ‘Is it in the shape of a heart?’

  Doc Love held the door open for her. ‘It is, I believe, a seed cake.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Mac, as they walked out, blinking into the sunlight. ‘We don’t need Freud to help us with that one, do we?’

  The midday whisky put paid to any thought of driving around looking for King. Mac decided to leave her car at Doc Love’s and walk the twenty minutes to home, where she intended to lie in a warm spot and read a book. Or snooze like an old nana, whatever.

  On a clear, sunny early summer day, Gabriel’s Bay was hard to beat. Even the shabbiest house looked welcoming, and the dandelions in the cracked pavement and buddleia that sprawled on untended verges flowered as if they’d been intentionally planted to add colour. The sea sparkled in glimpses, and the air carried whiffs of ozone and backyard barbecues along with the sounds of Sunday-afternoon industry, lawnmowers and hammers, radios providing tinny accompaniment to the washing of cars. Children wheeled free on bikes (helmeted these days, Mac was pleased to see) or shrieked under sprinklers, while parents who were done cooking or DIYing lounged in rickety deckchairs dragged out of the shed and dusted free of cobwebs. On a day like this, thought Mac, you could look through a bright filter and see only happiness, unity and productive endeavour. You could pretend there was no darkness, no cruelty or ignorant brutality, no addiction, destitution or despair.

  Of course, whisky added a certain glow, too. Perhaps that was the secret to happiness? Stay permanently soused?

  Her mobile rang. Jacko.

  ‘Big Rog the DOC ranger says he saw King up by Carlton Peak.’

  ‘What? All the way up there?’

  ‘Probably chasing a wild pig.’

  ‘What did the stupid mutt think he was going to do when he caught it? Roast it on a spit?’

  ‘I’m heading up to look for him,’ said Jacko. ‘Might be gone a few days.’

  ‘Can’t Big Rog look for him?’

  ‘Not his job.’

  ‘Suppose not,’ sighed Mac. ‘Does that mean you’re closing the Boat Shed?’

  No one else could cook like Jacko. And his dedication to high standards meant he would refuse to risk serving food even fractionally below par.

  ‘Won’t hurt. Had a good last couple of months.’

  ‘What about Dev and Sidney? I know Sid’s been a bit short lately.’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ said Jacko. ‘King won’t know how to get home. If I don’t find him soon, he’ll die.’

  Jacko’s matter-of-fact tone didn’t fool Mac. He loved that dog and would be worried sick. But his estimation of being gone ‘a few days’ was almost certainly understated. Carlton Peak was way up in the ranges, a full day’s tramp. Mac knew Jacko would use the DOC hut as his base and search from there. She also knew he hadn’t been on a serious tramp for years. The demands of the Boat Shed meant any hunting trips had to be less than a day, and that usually meant more driving than walking. There was no way she could persuade him not to go, so Mac tried not to think about the risks, or to calculate the distance between Carlton Peak and the nearest defibrillator.

  ‘You off now?’ she said.

  ‘Yup,’ said Jacko. ‘Better not delay.’

  He’d be offended if she asked him to take care. He always did — she should know that.

  And they never ended phone calls with any twee endearments, either; that’s just not how they rolled. But today had been a big day — she’d finally shut one door and opened another, and she still wasn’t convinced it was a good move. Intellectually, she knew this was why Jacko’s leaving felt more significant than it otherwise might. Rationally, she knew he was an experienced and sensible bushman. Emotionally, however …

  ‘Love you,’ she said.

  There was a pause. She could picture his startled face.

  ‘Yeahyoutoo,’ he muttered.

  Mac wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.

  Chapter 33

  Kerry

  Last — and the only — time Kerry had been to the Coateses place was when he’d dropped Reuben off after visiting the glass-blowers. Reuben had jumped out of the car, run around the side of the house and disappeared. Kerry had considered knocking on the door, just to make sure there was someone home to supervise — Reuben was only eight, after all. But he had Madison in the car and he knew she was anxious to get home, so he waited a minute in case Reuben reappeared, then drove off, telling himself that generations before had grown up as latch-key kids and no harm had come to them. His own father used to let himself in after school, make a snack and supervise his own homework until whichever of his parents finished their factory shift first returned home. His father bore no ill effects except a taste for white bread spread with fat scraped from the bottom of the roasting tray, a foodstuff he was forbidden from consuming until Kerry and his mother had left the room.

  Today, the Coateses’ house looked just as empty as it had before. Possibly it was — surely any house in that state would be condemned? Decades ago, it had been painted white with green trim around the windows, but now more weatherboard was visible than paint. Even the undercoat had worn off. The corrugated-iron roof was lifting off, nails long rusted through, and it seemed the only thing keeping it in place was a solid crop of lichen. If there had ever been a garden, there wasn’t one now, only weeds, foot-high grass and shrubs grown so wild and huge they covered one entire side of the house, blocking light from any windows that might be concealed beneath the dank greenery. In the windows that were visible, Kerry counted three broken panes, covered inadequately from the inside with taped-up cardboard. Surrounding the house on all sides was a decorative feature known as rubbish — piles of wood, rusted oil drums, an old smashed toilet, a rotting couch, lumps of concrete and other items whose identity Kerry was quite happy to leave unknown.

  It was four-thirty. Reuben should be home from school — though Kerry realised he had no idea how the boy travelled between the two. There was no bus, so did he get a ride with the Booths, or someone else, perhaps? The house was a good five miles from the school, so he couldn’t walk … could he?

  Kerry sat in the car, well aware that he was putting off getting out. He had no desire to venture any closer to this ruin that passed for a house, let alone knock on its door and speak to whoever might answer. He hadn’t grown up in the smartest part of London, and he’d seen plenty of rough, destructive and even criminal behaviour. But he hadn’t personally been acquainted with any of the perpetrators or, indeed, their victims. He hadn’t known any abused children, just read about them in the paper, and, as you did, shaken his head at such tragedies and moved on to the football results.

  Then again, he didn’t know that Reuben wasn’t cared for. Judging by the house, and what Reuben wore, the Coateses were clearly not flush with cash. But poverty didn’t automatically encompass domestic violence or neglect. The house’s interior could be perfectly clean and tidy for all he knew, the pantry well stocked with homemade preserves. He shouldn’t jump to conc
lusions.

  Besides, this visit wasn’t exactly his choice. He was only here because Sidney had — he should say ‘reminded’ rather than ‘nagged’ him about his promise to involve Reuben in Littleville.

  ‘I don’t have anything for him to do yet,’ Kerry had protested. ‘Unless he’s capable, at eight, of negotiating with the Hampton District Council.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to do anything,’ said Sidney. ‘It will be enough that he feels involved. Take him with you when you go around enlisting support, like you did when you visited the glass-blowers.’

  ‘That was hardly a success,’ said Kerry. ‘I still can’t work out why he didn’t want that horse. It was beautiful.’

  ‘Is it possible he was afraid of owning anything he saw as precious?’ said Sidney. ‘Because the risk of it being destroyed was too great?’

  Kerry had wanted to deny any such possibility. Mainly because it hadn’t occurred to him first.

  He stared hard at the Coateses’ house, as if hoping to be suddenly endowed with X-ray vision. Sidney was convinced it was a terrible place for a child, though she hadn’t been able to support her theory with any actual evidence. When he politely suggested that she had none because there was none, she got all defensive and declared that social services had no obligation to broadcast their work to the rest of the town, and nor did Casey Marshall. Interventions might already be in play.

  When Kerry, again politely, pointed out that she’d contradicted herself — if the authorities were intervening then life for Reuben couldn’t be terrible, could it? — Sidney lost her last grip on temper and accused him of being spineless.

  ‘You’re like a kid who covers his eyes and thinks because he can’t see anyone, no one can see him! Out of sight, out of mind!’

  He decided not to highlight the additional logic flaws in that argument because, even if it wasn’t a hundred per cent coherent, its premise was correct. He did choose to relegate any tasks that weren’t immediately pressing, giving priority instead to those that shouted loudest, sometimes literally. Bernard, who had thus far rebuked Kerry for his shortcomings in a moderate tone, had, at the last Littleville meeting at the Boat Shed, yelled at him, and for several minutes. Called him, among many other things, ‘a shiftless charlatan’. The force-ten rant shocked even Gene into silence. Mac rose and fetched a bottle of single malt out from under the Boat Shed’s bar. Poured Bernard alone a generous measure, even though it was Kerry who’d been under attack. The meeting dispersed soon after, and they had not held another since.