Still Riding on the Storm

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘If you say so, Amy,’ Les nodded wearily.

  ‘That’s okay, petal,’ smiled Amy. ‘I understand.’ Amy had another good mouthful of bourbon, placed her glass on the coffee table then turned to Les, put her hand on his and stared at him for a few moments. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I have to be honest with you about something, Les.’

  ‘That’d be a nice change,’ replied Norton.

  ‘The main reason I went out with you tonight, Les, was … was because I was hoping you could do me a favour.’

  ‘A favour? I don’t know. I suppose so,’ shrugged Les. ‘What is it?’

  Amy paused for a moment. ‘I’ve got a bloke stalking me,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve got a bloke stalking you?’ answered Les. ‘Christ, Amy! Can’t you just steal his white stick and give his Labrador a swift kick in the nuts?’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth, Les,’ pleaded Amy. ‘Remember I told you earlier, I’ve been in Germany for two weeks?’

  ‘Yes. Furthering your brilliant musical career.’

  ‘Well, I’ve only been back two days and he’s ringing me already. He’s threatening to get me at a gig on the weekend.

  Les stared at Amy. ‘You’ve been back in Australia two days and you’ve got a gig already?’

  ‘A girl’s got to earn a dollar, Les,’ shrugged Amy. ‘Actually we’re doing two. Tomorrow night at the Duke of Cornwall in Randwick. And Sunday night at the Seaview in Clovelly. Eight-thirty till twelve.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ nodded Les. ‘So what do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Just come over and keep an eye on things. Six hours of your time. And I’ll pay you.’

  ‘Pay me?’

  ‘Yeah. Two-fifty a night. Is that okay?’

  ‘Five hundred bucks to listen to you and the rest of those anencephalics for six hours. It’ll cost me that much later in visits to an ear specialist.’

  ‘Hah-hah-hah,’ retorted Amy. ‘No, come on, Les. You said you were doing nothing this weekend.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Les. ‘Price is giving the club a refurbish so I’ve got a few days off.’ Les looked at Amy for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after you. And you don’t have to pay me.’

  ‘Oh you’re a sweetheart, Les.’ Amy put her arms around Norton’s neck and kissed his lips. ‘And you know,’ she smiled, batting her false eyelashes at him. ‘It’s only a matter of time before I’m yours.’

  ‘Yes. I can imagine,’ Les smiled back. ‘So … what exactly …?’

  Amy picked up her drink. ‘Be at the Duke tomorrow night at eight-thirty. Same at the Seaview on Sunday. And keep an eye on things. But mainly let people know you’re there. You’re on the case.’

  ‘Okay,’ nodded Les. ‘Too easy.’ Norton looked tiredly at his watch. ‘Listen Amy,’ he said, ‘I hate to be a lemon. But I’m going to have to send you home. I’m a shot duck.’

  ‘Send me home? Oh lovely,’ gestured Amy. ‘You couldn’t get a root. So now you toss me in a taxi like an old sack of onions. You could at least be a gentleman and drive me home.’

  ‘Drive you home? Amy, I’ve drunk that much bourbon tonight I’ll be lucky if I can drive my car before next week. Besides,’ he added, ‘I’m sure you’ve been tossed out of nicer homes than this, by better-looking blokes than me.’

  Amy glanced around the loungeroom then looked at Les. ‘Yeah,’ she nodded. ‘You’re right. I have.’

  Norton left Amy to finish her drink while he rang for a taxi. As luck would have it, one was close by and before long it was out the front beeping its horn. Les helped Amy up from the lounge then walked her out the front and opened the back door of the taxi.

  ‘Okay, Amy,’ he said, slipping her the cab fare. ‘If I don’t hear from you tomorrow or whatever, I’ll see you at the Duke around eight-thirty.’

  ‘Thanks, Les,’ said Amy, kissing him again before getting into the taxi. ‘Now you know why I’ve been crazy about you all this time.’ She smiled up from the back seat as Les closed the door and blew him a kiss.

  ‘Goodnight, Amy,’ smiled Les, then waved as the taxi did a U-turn up Cox Avenue and disappeared into the night.

  Back inside, Les folded his jeans and changed into a clean T-shirt, then cleaned his teeth before switching off the lights and climbing into bed. Well, that’s a funny one, he mused, scrunching his head into the pillows. One minute Amy’s telling me she’s already doing gigs because ‘a girl’s got to earn a dollar’, yet she can afford to pay me five hundred bucks to hold her hand for two nights. Les shook his head in the darkness. Fair dinkum. I’m in the wrong game. I should buy myself an electric guitar. Even if I played the thing with a pair of chopsticks I couldn’t sound any worse than the Hairy Crumbs. Les yawned, scrunched his head into the pillows once more and seconds later the big Queenslander was blissfully snoring away in a deep, drunken slumber.

  Saturday dawned cloudy and a little cool with a moderate sou’easter blowing in off the ocean. Norton rose around eight, seedy and dehydrated with a noticeable headache that promised to get more noticeable as the morning wore on. He shuffled down to the bathroom and, when he’d finished, dragged his sorry behind into the kitchen. He didn’t bother to switch the kettle on. Instead Les breakfasted on two Digesics and half a bottle of sparkling mineral water. After a horrendous belch that made his head spin and his eyes water, Les knew there was only one way to get rid of all the toxins and other nasties from the night before: a jog and a swim. He changed into his Speedos, cargoes and a grey tracksuit top and got a towel from the bathroom. He put his cap and sunglasses on and was about to leave the house when the phone rang and the answering machine cut in. It was Warren ringing from Brisbane where he was shooting a TV commercial.

  ‘Hey Boofhead. Are you there? Pick up the phone, you big goose.’

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ replied Les, gingerly holding the phone to his ear. ‘What do you want, you pain in the arse.’

  ‘Hello. She’s home,’ replied Warren. ‘Listen, Ugly, did a courier drop a parcel off there for me?’

  ‘He did. Yesterday morning. It’s on your bed.’

  ‘Beauty! It’s got two camera lenses in it. They’re worth a motza.’

  ‘Well, you can stop worrying,’ said Les. ‘Everything’s sweet.’

  ‘Unreal,’ replied Warren.

  ‘So how’s things in BrisVegas, Woz?’ asked Les.

  ‘All right. Hot. But the shoot’s going okay. And I should be home early Monday morning. What’s doing with you?’

  ‘I just had a night on the piss.’ Les told Warren about his evening with Amy and how she was having trouble with a stalker. So he was going to keep an eye on her.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ said Warren. ‘You’re still trying to get into Outhouse’s Reg Grundies. And now you’re playing Kevin Costner to Amy’s Whitney Houston.’

  ‘Something like that, Woz,’ agreed Les.

  ‘But who’d want to stalk Outhouse anyway?’ asked Warren. ‘She’s a beast.’

  ‘Warren,’ intoned Les, ‘you’re talking about an attractive young lady that happens to be very close to my heart, who is also an extremely talented singer and entertainer.’

  ‘Yeah. For a baboon with false eyelashes. I’d rather lie on a bed of nails and listen to the best of Engelbert Humperdinck than cop two nights of Amy and her bunch of music criminals.’

  ‘Whatever turns you on, Woz.’

  There was a brief pause at the end of the line. ‘Hey Les. I got to go. I’ll see you when I get back.’

  ‘Righto mate. See you then.’

  Les hung up the receiver and stared at the phone. Now where was I? Yeah, right. A run and a swim. Then maybe a bite to eat and a couple of litres of coffee. Les placed his towel and water in a small overnight bag, locked the house and walked down to the beach.

  There wasn’t that big a crowd down the end of Bondi, just the usual hardcore waxheads milking what they could from a sloppy one-metre swell and the regular punters walking or jogg
ing along the promenade. Les returned the smiles of some people he knew, wrapped an old sweat rag round his head, then walked down to the water’s edge and took off.

  The tide was out so it was easy going on wet sand. The Digesics cut in after the first lap so the last five laps were almost a breeze. Les plunged into the surf and wallowed around. Noticing a few blue bottles drifting in with the southerly, Les cut his short, had a cold shower and got changed. Feeling almost human again and his appetite returning with a vengeance, Les cut across to Hall Street and walked up to his favourite coffee shop, a restaurant-cum-bookshop across the road from the Hakoah Club called Gabrielle and Angie’s.

  Les exchanged pleasantries with the owner and staff as he stepped inside and was about to sit down when a woman’s voice called out to him. It was Lisa, a brunette hostess from the club, seated with her brown-haired boyfriend Nick, a successful carpenter and builder.

  ‘Hey, Les. Over here.’

  Les walked over to their table. ‘Hello Lisa. G’day Nick,’ he smiled. ‘What’s doing?’

  ‘We just got here,’ said Nick. ‘Why don’t you join us?’

  ‘Okay. That’d be good.’ Les sat down, ordered a double shot latte with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on Turkish and eased back in his seat.

  ‘You been for a swim?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘Yeah. And a run on the beach,’ replied Les. ‘I got on the drink last night and decided to sweat it out of me.’

  ‘Did it work?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Sort of,’ replied Les. ‘I’m starting to feel half alive.’ His coffee arrived promptly. Les stirred some raw sugar into it and took a healthy sip. ‘Oh yeah,’ he winked. ‘That sure works.’

  Lisa gave Les a cheeky grin. ‘We were walking past Gulu’s last night. You didn’t happen to be in there looking very romantic with Amy Herschel, did you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Les. ‘That’s why I’m so crook today. Christ!’ he said with a shudder. ‘You reckon she doesn’t fancy the pen and ink.’

  ‘What did she tell you about her trip to Holland?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Holland?’ queried Les.

  ‘Yeah. I got her to bring me back a couple of Van Gogh prints for my office. They’re getting framed now.’

  ‘She told me she went to Germany,’ said Les.

  Lisa shook her head. ‘No. Holland.’

  ‘Maybe she slipped across the border or got her countries mixed up,’ suggested Nick.

  ‘You know Amy,’ smiled Lisa. ‘She’s not what you’d call a very solid citizen.’

  Les looked at Lisa for a moment. ‘No. No she’s not,’ he replied.

  Their food arrived and they all began eating. When they’d finished they ordered another round of coffees and Les had a mixed berry muffin. They talked and joked about different things and it turned out a very enjoyable breakfast with Les feeling a hundred per cent compared to when he first greeted the day. Finally, Nick had to inspect a building site somewhere and Lisa wanted to go shopping. Les split the bill with Nick, said goodbye and continued on up Hall Street towards home, stopping on the way for the papers.

  Inside, Les dropped his bag and the papers on the kitchen table, poured himself a glass of mineral water and stared out the kitchen window as he drank it. Holland? Well, why did Amy tell me she was in Germany? Then again, like Lisa said, Amy doesn’t do much part-time work at Cape Canaveral. And the poor skinny wreck was that full of delicious last night, smiled Les, she’d probably say anything. Ain’t no nothing to lose no sleep over I don’t suppose. Norton finished his water and left the glass in the sink.

  After leaving his wet gear in the laundry, Les hung his towel on the line and changed into a clean white T-shirt over the same cargoes. Returning to the kitchen, he turned on the radio to get a laugh with George and Paul on 2UE while he went through the papers. By the time the two larrikins had finished their show, Les had finished the papers. He took them out the front and dropped them in the recycling bin, noticing it had clouded over and the wind had got colder, threatening rain. Which suited Norton. He had nothing planned and there was a heap of things to do round the house, starting with the mess in his room.

  With the stereo pumping out his favourite CDs, Les spent the day putsing round Chez Norton, cleaning and sorting out bills. He rang Billy Dunne, his offsider at the club, and told him what he was up to and where he’d be if he wanted him. Billy wished Les good luck and was really and truly sorry he couldn’t join him. But he was taking his wife and kids to the pictures. Les thanked Billy for his kind if not sarcastic thoughts. Late in the day Les strolled down to the Hakoah Club and had a Hungarian goulash and before he knew it, he was back home, shaved, and changed into a pair of jeans, a blue T-shirt and a black leather bomber jacket. After one last detail, Les got some ear plugs from the bathroom, then walked out to his faithful old Holden Berlina and headed for Randwick.

  The Duke of Cornwall wasn’t a regular haunt of Norton’s, but he’d been there with Price a few times to keep an eye on his boss while he discussed certain things with certain people who were apt to get a little hostile if things didn’t go their way. It was an older style hotel with a brick and tile front, built on a hill running up from a cluster of shops in Carrington Road. Les found a parking spot outside the sub-station behind the pub and walked round the front. A door on the left led into the bar and gambling area, and another in the middle led into a hallway and bistro with a short set of steps running up to a larger dining area and a small beer garden outside. The walls were panelled and hung with old sepia photos of Coogee and Randwick. The management had cleared away several chairs and tables in the large dining area and the band was set up against the far wall, down from the glass doors opening onto the beer garden. Les stepped into the room and was surprised to find a fair crowd of young people already there, wearing some of the weirdest clothes and hairstyles Les had seen outside of Oxford Street. The Hairy Crumbs were dressed in solid black, with plenty of hair, chains and body piercing. Amy was wearing the same clothes she had had on at Norton’s place, except she had added a pair of tatty fishnet stockings and leopard-skin stiletto heeled shoes that looked four sizes too big for her. The band seemed almost ready to start and Amy was at the back helping a sour-faced roadie with a black buzz-cut pack bag weights into the kick drum. Les waited till she stood up when they were finished then walked over.

  ‘Hey Amy,’ called out Les. ‘What are you up to?’

  Amy spun around wide-eyed. ‘Oh, Les,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Of course,’ smiled Les. ‘I said I’d be here, didn’t I?’

  Amy exchanged glances with the roadie, who promptly disappeared into the crowd, then she gestured to the band. ‘You know the boys, Les.’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Les. ‘I met you before. How are you, fellahs?’ There was a disinterested murmur of greetings then the band went back to tuning their instruments. Les turned to Amy who wobbled over to him in her high heels. ‘So what’s doing Amy?’ Les asked. ‘Have you had any more phone calls?’

  ‘Yes. He’s rung twice,’ replied Amy.

  ‘You any idea what he looks like?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Well,’ shrugged Les. ‘I’ll just have to wait for him to show his hand. But don’t worry. I won’t be far away.’

  ‘Come over here, Les.’ Amy led Les down the back of the room to a table with a reserved sign on it alongside the doors to the beer garden. ‘This is for the band,’ she said. ‘You can sit here if you want. But remember, make your presence felt.’

  ‘Make my presence felt.’ Les indicated the exotically dressed crowd sucking on their drinks. ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to miss a square like me amongst these Bolsheviks.’

  Amy turned to the band. ‘I have to go, Les.’

  ‘Okay. And don’t worry about a thing.’

  Les pulled out a chair, when he noticed two bouncers wearing black security uniforms come up the steps and was pleasantly surprised to find he knew the taller o
ne, Luke, who’d sometimes train with Les and Billy down the surf club.

  ‘Hey Luke,’ Les called out. ‘How are you going?’

  ‘Les. Hey. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Ohh mate. Don’t ask.’

  Luke introduced his solid offsider Wayne and Les told them why he was at the hotel. Luke turned to the band and screwed his face up.

  ‘That’s got a stalker?’ he said.

  ‘Yep,’ nodded Les. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  ‘He must live in a bat cave or just got out of the nick,’ said Wayne.

  Luke absently glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better get back out the front,’ he said. ‘There’s a few starting to get here. If you need a hand, Les, just give us a yell.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks. I will.’

  Well that’s good, smiled Les, once he sat down. At least I know one friendly face in the joint. Les was thinking of getting a mineral water when the roadie sat down at the table and stared straight ahead.

  ‘How’s things?’ asked Les. The roadie gave a brief nod of his head. ‘You been with the band long?’ The roadie gave a brief shake of his head. ‘You like their music?’ The roadie gave a slight shrug. ‘Yeah. Well, bad luck you couldn’t be here tonight,’ said Les. The roadie ignored him, stood up and walked over to talk to some girl in a red jacket.

  Les went to the bar and got a bottle of mineral water then returned to his seat. He’d just sat down again when the band leapt furiously into Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ and started beating it to death. After that they murdered everything from the Headless Chickens’ ‘Cruise Control’, to Poison’s ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’, to some indecipherable songs they’d written themselves. Les put his ear plugs in, sipped his mineral water and checked out the punters for a possible stalker. He had a couple of walks around then sat down and slipped his ear plugs out just as the band finished and joined him at the table with Amy choosing to sit next to him.

  ‘By golly,’ said Les, raising his drink. ‘You’re sounding good.’

  ‘You think so Les?’ beamed Amy.

  ‘Reckon. Especially that version you do of “Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy”. I can just see Thorpie now, that big grin on his face, smiling down from heaven on you.’ Rolling over in his grave’d be more like it, the poor bastard.