by Nick Earls
If Tanika Bell was driving the bus, you should expect community singing. By which I don’t mean ‘Kumbaya’ – I mean those cheery songs about the bus driver. People should just burst out and do it. That’s how they should feel. But it doesn’t happen. Her dad spoils it, turns the driving of the bus into a dreary thing. He slouches across the yard as if he’s on his way to pay a parking fine, so everyone takes a serious approach to transport.
These people, simply, undervalue Tanika Bell. Tanika Bell is a bright light regularly hidden under a bushel by this crowd. To them she’s the girl who got sacked from being a Magus for doing it with Kane. The girl who got sacked even though we walked first, and who will be forever banned from nativity plays and maybe also the three-legged race at the church fete. That’s what they think of her, probably. That’s my guess, because I’m pretty sure what they think of me. Three-time shepherd, one-time near-Magus, gone. And I reckon I know them well enough to be pretty sure that our three-legged-racing status is in doubt. That’s how far this goes – all the way to a stupid picnic months in the future.
She should drive the bus wearing a cap. She would look hot in a cap. And maybe boots. Is there such as thing as bus-driver boots? They’d go at least up to your knee, wouldn’t they? And be black and shiny? And if there’s any mucking up, Miss Tanika takes you down the back and sorts you out.
Yep, they’d go for that at the Blessed Virgin at Wurtulla.
Tanika Bell and thigh-high shiny black boots. Classify that thought under seriously lustful, my friend. That’s what I tell myself, as if I’m doing Father Steele’s job since he’s not around. But it’s just a fashion garment, Father, I’d tell him. It’s what all the young folk wear when they go out raging. Harbo, mate, where did you get that old word from?
Paint goes on, white on white. Fifteen minutes of it, more. This must be the last coat for this part of the boat.
Where is she?
I take a look around, in case the bus is back. There’s been some fire in the hills today and the sun’s going orange as it gets down closer to them, settling in the smoke. I can see along a couple of canals from up here, big houses like castles with their own jetties, and new developments inland, new canals. And I can see past the beachfront apartment blocks to Mount Coolum, and over the fence and through the she-oaks to the beach, though there’s not much of it with the high tide. That’d be enough for me. If we could sit down there and just be left alone to watch the sea getting dark, that’d do.
Just us, once the families have folded their umbrellas and had their last fight about getting out of the water and packed up their stuff and walked off up the sand. And we’d talk, in a way we can’t talk here. And it’d be night soon enough, and I’d sit on Tanika’s left side so that the light from the unit blocks and maybe the moon would be there on her face, for only me to see. That’d do.
I could, in all honesty Father, forsake the bus-driver boots. Most of the time.
When Tanika gets back, Harbo’s on the deck doing something that looks very like farting around. Fidgeting and looking into the distance like a sentry with wrapped-up hands and no real idea who the enemy is. Like someone Joe Bell’s had a quiet word to. Maybe, maybe not. Tanika goes straight to her side of the boat.
Harbo sticks his head over the rail. ‘I’ll be inside, if you need me,’ he says. ‘Not that I think you’ll need me.’
So I paint. I paint and I edge my way to the right, to the bow. She’s waiting when I get there.
‘So, hi,’ she says.
‘Hi. How’s your side coming along?’
‘Good. Who knows, actually? It’s pretty dark round here. Too late for painting.’
‘Yeah, well . . .’
‘We’ve got to talk,’ she says. ‘Before anyone else sticks their head up somewhere.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Listen, what happened, with the nativity play and that . . . You’ve talked to Father Steele, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And he wanted to know if it was impulsive, or if it meant more than that? Did you have to think about that one, too?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, for me it wasn’t so much impulsive. Given the two choices. I’m not really one of those people.’
‘Yeah, I know. And the same for me, right?’
‘Smoko,’ Harbo calls out, pretty much right above us.
He manages to have quiet feet just when you don’t want him to. Clatters round like a drunk old bastard in there most of the time, scaring you into thinking an explosion’s imminent, moves like a ghost when it’s just you and Tanika Bell under the bow with issues coming up.
‘It’s getting dark anyway,’ he says. ‘And I’ve worked out how to boil water on this bloody thing. I’ve made us a pot of tea, so get yourselves up here.’
The cabin looks different this evening, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. It’s not a shell any more, and there’s a mixture of old things saved from the fire, new things just brought in and the mess of unfinished work. But he’s been tidying it, as much as he can, stacking the tins of varnish at one end and making space for the three of us to sit.
‘I hope you don’t mind your tea Chinese style,’ he says. ‘There’s no fridge yet, so nowhere to keep milk.’ He starts pouring, and then stops to sniff the spout. ‘Smells like lapsang souchong. The teapot was here in the fire and maybe it’ll take a while before it stops smelling smoky. Hope the tea’s okay. Here, give it a try.’
He hands me a mug and I taste it. ‘Seems fine, good. A bit different, but I’m pretty much used to Bushells, Australian-style – white with one. I don’t know much about the lapsang kind.’
He gives Tanika a mug as well, and takes a sip at his own.
‘Yuk, it’s foul,’ he says, scrunching his face up. ‘Can’t even make bloody tea any more. Smells like a firework and tastes bloody worse.’ He puts the mug down and leans back in the bench seat, easing his body back slowly as though his healing burns need careful handling. ‘Still, we’re getting there I suppose. Not that you two aren’t giving me headaches along the way, putting in all this hard work turning the old tub into something rather deluxe and making me feel like a guilty old bludger.’
Tanika laughs. ‘Don’t feel guilty, you old bludger.’
‘It’s the “deluxe” bit that’s the real problem of course. How am I going to look, an ugly old mongrel like me, skippering something spiffier than the yacht club commodore’s? He’ll think I’m putting on airs, getting above myself.’
He pulls his shoulders back and goes for a serious snooty face and sits with his head half-turned, like the boring portrait of a retired admiral. Or as close as Harbo could ever get. Not too close.
‘So how long have you two been an item then?’ he says, like it’s a regular question, the next thing to get to after talking about boat repairs and the feelings of commodores.
A hot mouthful of bad tea gets stuck in my throat.
‘Depends how you look at it,’ Tanika says, since one of us has to answer him. ‘We don’t always get to see a lot of each other. It’s a bit complicated. A month maybe. But it feels like longer to me. Longer in a good way, like it’s good that it feels longer, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Some things, if they feel right, they feel like they’ve been around a while already, hey? You just didn’t notice them before. You know, you’re lucky, you two. I never got to be a teenager, not in the way you can be one now. I was off on ships from when I was thirteen or fourteen and most of those months felt pretty long, and not for the best of reasons. I think it sort of stunted my growth socially. That “girl in every port” lark’s not what they say it is. I was a shy kid, but. Maybe that was part of it.’
We didn’t have enough of a plan. That was the problem. We left the rehearsal, we drove back to her place, we ate the sausages and we checked out the night sky. And there was this weird mixture of excitement and the fear of what was coming next. We should have
had a plan, but we didn’t. Not that we would have lied. We would just have been very careful with the truth. We would have let it out on our own terms, but that’s not how it ended up happening.
‘The others’d get as much rum in them as they could when we got into port,’ Harbo’s saying, ‘rum or beer, and then they’d be roaming round looking for the first chance to swing the leg over. And I’d done nothing up till then, not even kissed a girl. Anyway, that’s how it started for me with the sea. But what am I telling you that for? That was years ago. That’s where it started, and this is where it’ll end. Me and Stella. Nice and quiet. This’ll do me.’
‘Why’d you call her Stella Maris?’ Tanika says. ‘And who is she?’
‘Who’s who?’
‘Stella Maris.’
‘Stella Maris? She’s an Italian movie star from the fifties. Very deluxe. No, I’m kidding. She’s the star of the sea. It’s Latin. Someone else called her that. It’s not really right for her, is it? She did a good few years fishing off here, then some bloke bought her and refitted her so that he could live on her. He went broke and he had to sell her pretty cheap since she was neither one nor the other – not really a fishing boat any more, but not really a cruiser either. Anyway, how’d we get onto that? That’s right – I think he might have given her the name. But, look, I shouldn’t be keeping you here, at least not until I can make a decent cup of tea. Stop drinking it, Kane. It’s bloody awful, and I don’t require that kind of politeness.’
He grins and I realise how old and wrinkly his face is, or how old and wrinkly it’s become, how many years it must have spent on decks in the sun and wind. Thrashing-down weather, endless sunlight beating into his skin, making wrinkles and cancers. He’s had bits cut off here and there – the top of one ear, chunks of scalp, and something at the corner of his mouth. He looks as though the mice got at him during the night and, with the sun setting and not much light coming through the porthole behind him, the last of his hair is like a wisp of pale grey smoke. The sea has worked him hard, every cell of his body, and it’s no surprise he likes it nice and quiet now.
There’s a cool salty breeze coming in from the east when we get back on deck, and the last orange piece of sun on the hills.
‘I’ve got a few blokes to catch up with,’ he says when we’re down on the concrete and Tanika offers him a lift home in the bus. ‘A couple of boaties at the yacht club for a couple of beers. Just to get me measured up for that smart white skipper’s cap I’ll need to go with the new-look Stella. Lots of gold braid and shit, hey?’
‘No worries, skip,’ she says. ‘I’m sure it’ll suit you. So, you’re right for a lift after that?’
‘Yeah, they’ll drop me back at the place where I’m staying. I’ll be right.’
We walk with him to the gate and watch him as he heads over to the club. Big old Harbo, all limping and bandages and creaky old parts that aren’t quite up to what they used to be. Lumbering through the darkness of the car park, then stepping into the light of the yacht club foyer, showing his wrapped-up hands to the receptionist in lieu of a signature in the book and taking a seat to wait for his boatie mates.
‘You got much on tonight?’ Tanika says. ‘Any Friday night things happening?’
‘Sure. But family, you know. Fridays we do takeaway if we can. And I’ve got a Domino’s voucher. Two pizzas for fourteen ninety-five if you pick them up yourself.’
‘I’d take you home,’ she says. ‘But, you know, that’d be you and me in the bus by ourselves. Just us and your pizzas. And you can guess my new deal for driving the bus. The new rule they came up with for me as regards passengers.’
And here, in the car park, when the evening’s become night, with the chandlery lights glinting in Tanika Bell’s eyes, I could break a lot of other people’s rules and kiss her and she’d kiss me right back. I feel her fingers on my arm, touching it so lightly it’s hardly a touch at all, hardly even a bend in a rule but still there anyway.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve got my bike.’
And she says, ‘Yeah,’ but slowly.
‘I’ve got my bike, so that’s probably good. No dilemmas, then. We can toe the line tonight and look totally respectable. Fine upstanding members of the community. But, like you said, this isn’t over, hey?’
saturday
Rules apply on Saturday too. The rest of the church crowd are off to see a band – some Christian country group – but Tanika and I still have an event ban slapped on us.
So, today we win. And they don’t even know.
Wayne knows. Wayne who was shouting at Mum as she slicked down his hair. Something about ‘Kane fornicated so he gets out of it. It’s totally unfair.’ And Mum said there’d be some soap heading for his mouth quick smart if that trash talk didn’t stop.
‘But Wayne,’ I said to him as I put my boots on, ready for Brown’s Slipway. ‘You love a bit of music, don’t you?’
Wayne loves music all right, a few kinds of music but particularly metal. Big grunting thrashing metal. Not Christian country. Wayne loves the metallest metal so much that he hates Metallica for selling out and doing that Symphony album, and he hates AC/DC for being old. It turns out Dad was into them and we’ve got his records from about 1980, only Wayne didn’t know they were from 1980. Wayne, mate, they’re records. You could have thought it through.
Wayne thinks Acca Dacca ripped him off, as if they were young and angry and loud and totally convincing, and then they whipped twenty years away from him behind his back and turned fifty and rich to embarrass him. ‘Fifty’s not so bad,’ I said to him. ‘Nanna’s fifty-four remember. You playing Acca Dacca’d probably give the two of you something in common. She probably even knows them. Like, from school.’
So Wayne checks the dates of things now and he likes Rammstein and Sepultura, and he doesn’t mind that Nine Inch Nails song with the animal reference that’s not consistent with Christian practices.
It’s not fair that they should send Wayne to a Christian country band, not unless he’s done something very bad. It’s just not him.
The bus pulls up outside our place and we take our usual seats.
‘Country songs about God, Wayne,’ I whisper in his ear. ‘You all have a good day now, you hear.’
He belts me in the thigh and glares out the window.
Mum’s head whips around and she says, ‘Stop it you two,’ in that crabby voice of hers that never takes the facts into account. ‘Country music’s changed, Kane. You know that. And you could be a bit more open-minded.’
She turns to face the front again and Wayne points forcefully at the back of her seat and looks at me and says, ‘All day. Right? That and country songs about God.’
‘And respectful of other people’s tastes,’ she says, louder this time, since upping the volume is easier than turning. ‘What about that Heartaches and Highways album I wanted for Christmas, Kane? And you got me Powderfinger instead . . .’
She has this habit – and it’s not a good one – of finishing what she’s saying, then totally ignoring what anyone else says and starting up again with an And, as if she never stopped in the first place.
Wayne just looks at me – gives me a blank look that says, fill in the blank with whatever look’ll do justice to the next six hours of my life.
Mr Bell stops the bus in the street outside Brown’s Slipway.
‘Okay, you two,’ he says as Tanika and I walk past him and down the steps. ‘Mr Harbison’ll be around all the time for advice or anything. So you should be right. I’ll be back for you later this afternoon.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Tanika says. ‘Have fun.’
The door swings shut and the bus drives off, Wayne looking straight ahead but discreetly giving me the finger through the window.
And the day gets better. The work on the boat’s nearly done, and Mrs Bell gave Tanika money for the three of us to have fish and chips for lunch. First I thought I was back in with the flock, but then I figured she might have be
en planning to buy lunch for Tanika anyway and it’s Christian to do things for Harbo, and in that case it could have looked pretty un-Christian to cut me out.
We all go to the fish and chip shop together, since Harbo reckons he should be there to sweet talk them into a couple more potato scallops. We get it takeaway, all wrapped up in paper, and we go across the road to the ocean side and grab a table with a view. It’s a family picnic table with a bench seat on each side, and Tanika sits next to me and she fights me for chips sometimes.
‘Oh, all right,’ she says when she wins a particularly good one. ‘Here you go then.’ And she puts it straight into my mouth.
‘It’s like feeding time at the zoo, watching you two at work,’ Harbo says, just as a big chunk of potato slides out of the scallop he’s holding and slaps down onto the table. ‘Bloody thing. No wonder they give ‘em away.’
He tosses the piece to a seagull and it picks it up from the grass and takes off, flying back across the road and over the slipway. We’ll finish the boat today. It’s over there now, nearly done. Fresh as new paint at Whitby. We’ll finish the boat, and then what will we do? It’ll be back to Sundays on the bus and only Sundays on the bus, four rows apart. Tanika Bell, a person in the distance I’m barred from talking to without a good and proper purpose. That’s all we’ll have, that at the most. That’s how it’ll be.
She sees me looking at her and says, ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘White with blue trim,’ Harbo says, looking back at the boats. ‘Would the Stormy have been white with blue trim too? Your dad’s boat, Kane?’
‘Might have been. She was certainly white.’
‘Yeah, I think she was, you know. White with blue trim. Of course, I’d only just come back here round that time and it’s one of your more common colour schemes. It was a bugger all that, all that business.’