by Gregory Day
Ron ignored the question, but thought it miraculous that the eels were still. ‘What do you want?’ he asked bluntly.
Craig smiled and put his hand up as if to say he didn’t mean to pry. He immediately liked the old man, and the atmosphere of his land, but there was something private and childlike in Ron’s eyes that he was unwilling to disturb.
‘Oh, I’ve just come for a chat to see if there’s anything we can help you with.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know, Ron . . . if you’ve got any questions you need answering. Basically it’s just a visit to let you know that we’re here if you need us.’
‘Why would I be needing you?’
‘Well, I know you’ve suffered a bereavement recently. Colin’s told me what a great old lady your mother was.’
Ron stared at him, then looked away.
‘You might be looking at doing some investing, maybe a land portfolio or something. Who knows, you might even be thinking that all this up here’s a bit too much to cope with. You might want to simplify things, as a quality of life issue. We just want you to know that if you need a hand with anything, anything at all, then we’re here for you.’
Craig could sense that Ron was unimpressed. Feeling uncomfortable and deciding that he wasn’t going to get much further that day, he pulled his business card out of his shirt pocket and offered it to Ron.
‘This is my card, anyway. Give us a call if you’ve got any questions, eh.’
Ron took the card, too shy to refuse it. He looked down and read: ‘Batty Real Estate, est. 1982 “The Seachange Property Specialists”’, followed by Craig’s name, contact numbers and email address. As he peered at the words and numbers arranged elegantly on the card, Ron felt a wave of pleasure at his own importance. Looking back up at Craig, he found him having a good look around the block. Ron turned sideways on the quartz of his driveway and followed his line of sight.
‘Geez, it’s a good spot up here, Ron,’ Craig said sincerely, his eyes ranging over the vegetable gardens to where the woodpile and the melaleuca gate provided a foreground for the sea and the Two Pointers. ‘How long you been here again?’
‘Born here,’ Ron said.
Craig shook his head in admiration. ‘Gee,’ he said, ‘you must have seen a bit over the years.’
Ron nodded.
‘And you used to own next door as well, didn’t you?’
Ron nodded again and glanced over to where he could just see the dry-stone wall and the blue awning of Dom Khouri’s bar through his screen of fruit trees. ‘Yair,’ he said.
‘That’s a big place they built,’ Craig offered.
‘A beautiful home,’ Ron told him.
‘Apparently it’s got seven ensuites,’ Craig said.
‘At least,’ replied Ron.
‘Geez, some people have got a quid.’
‘He’s a hard worker, my neighbour.’
‘You get on well?’
‘Best of friends.’
Craig nodded slowly, still looking in the direction of Dom Khouri’s.
‘Anyway,’ said Ron.
Craig stood up straight, realising his time was up. ‘Yeah, right, Ron. Well, I’ll be off then, you’ve got my card. Take care, eh?’
‘Cheerio,’ said Ron.
He watched as the real estate agent turned and walked back out his driveway, his blue shirt rippling lightly in a breeze that had sprung up while they were talking. As Craig started the Tribute and turned to drive away down Merna Street, Ron’s eels began to sound again in the crate.
THIRTY
UNDER THE GLOOMP
By late March the last of the really hot sunny days had gone and a constant cloud cover had set in over the coast. The locals called it the gloomp and cursed when it arrived like clockwork every year. They knew that elsewhere, in places as close by as Bar-won Downs or Beeac, or even in Melbourne, the sun could well be shining while they were covered by the gloomp. It was generally at that time of year that they started making plans for their winter trips to Queensland, or Bali, to the Top End, the Maldives, or other warmer climates.
Craig and Liz, however, were dreaming about Prague. The book Liz had bought for Craig’s birthday had taken hold and as the nights got colder the duotone and black-and-white gelatin prints of cobbles and lamps and bohemian flair had set an idea in train. Now that Craig was poised to inherit the business and double his income, why not take their next holiday there? They could go just for a fortnight and as a contrast to living in Mangowak the cultural experience would really make an impression on the kids. They could soak up another world, an antique Europe, like they hadn’t done since their travelling days. What was to stop them? Nothing. In anticipation of their increased income they both just shrugged their shoulders on the couch and said, ‘Why not?’ After all, what was the point of taking on all that extra responsibility if they couldn’t enjoy themselves?
For Craig, the proposed trip to Prague, even though it wouldn’t be able to happen till the following year, made the doubts he had about running a real estate agency bearable. As he took on a larger burden he would simultaneously be returning to an old freedom. The freedom of travel, the old drug of his go-with-the-flow self. It would be good to get out of Mangowak too, away from the blinkered thinking of a small town, away from the tribal obsessions with the surf, to freshen up amongst the steeples and statues of Prague. After dinner at night he took to reading the text between the images of his coffee table book. He’d read particularly fascinating passages aloud to Liz and they’d discuss their plans over a bottle of wine. They wouldn’t tell the children yet, though. Not until the handover of the business was signed, sealed and delivered.
Colin Batty planned to get Ron McCoy’s land by working on two fronts. As Craig fronted up to Ron in the daylight hours, visiting him regularly and getting to know him, Colin would continue his niggling sabotage at night. The idea to disturb his woodpile was, in Colin’s mind, a simple way to unsettle the old-timer. It didn’t do any actual damage, it didn’t harm his person or hinder him in any way, but Colin knew it’d annoy him no end. He’d have to be careful, though. The old bloke was as nocturnal as a possum. If he got caught, the shit would really hit the fan.
Of his nightly raids he said nothing to Craig, knowing he wouldn’t approve. But Craig didn’t understand the subtleties of the situation. Now that he’d made his money and Batty Real Estate was an institution on the coast, Colin could feel exactly what it was that he was lacking. He’d grown up watching other people kowtow to his dad as a surfing pioneer, but he knew his dad had been a phoney. He swore that whatever it was that he ended up doing he’d do it for real, inside-out, and with a bit of class. It was an absolute joke to think that as a successful estate agent, and the only one in Man-gowak itself, that he wouldn’t handle the properties that counted.
He found it humiliating if agents from Minapre, or Colac, or Melbourne for that matter, or private sales like Ron McCoy’s to Dom Khouri or the Morris house, were pipping him at the post. But Craig didn’t understand these local subtleties, the natural respect that comes with selling the pick of the bunch, and with being trusted by Ron McCoy and his ilk. From Craig’s perspective it would all seem a little absurd. Well, he’d learn. Too right he would. Colin had nurtured the property market in the Mangowak area for years, he’d fostered it, made it grow, and it was his inalienable right to handle the silk. Ron McCoy’s place should have had Batty Real Estate written all over it. It should have been a given.
Now that he’d dangled the carrot in front of Craig he had the set-up he needed. Once Easter had passed and the auction season wound up for the winter there would be no more bullshit, only hard work. He’d go like a sprinter to the finishing line and when the deal was done he’d fuck off to Laos or Thailand or somewhere with contentment in his kit. All the spruiking and the spin would fall away and he’d take up his life as a man of leisure. He’d read. Nut out a few things. Who knows what else he’d get up to? He lived on an
acre which in itself would keep him fairly busy. One thing he knew for sure was that he wanted a good woman and maybe even kids. He was in his fifties but it wasn’t too late. He was sick of nights on his own, just sitting there with the ticking of the flue, mulling things over. He’d be a good father too, now that his money was made.
*
For Ron, autumn was traditionally the time for duck and quail shooting, for mushrooming, for planting the broad beans and for catching whiting, but apart from a few whiting and the eels he’d hooked since giving up the tinned food, he’d managed none of those things. He watched the season developing in huge billowing banks of vaporous cloud and then all-encompassing silver coloured stratus hovering over the water, as day after day he sawed the giant cypress cross-sections until they were of a size where he could take the splitter to them for the Rayburn. Of late, shooting had become a bit of a no-no around the riverflat anyway, although the farmers didn’t mind him having a shot around their dams out back. But in truth he couldn’t be bothered now. Perhaps if young Noel or Darren turned up and persuaded him he’d go but, of course, a standard was set over the years that it would be him go and get them, not the other way around. As for mushrooming, well, it was still a bit dry.
Over toast and the last of the store of his mother’s jam he’d begun to talk to Min’s empty chair, as if she was still sitting in it. He told her about the washing machine: for the life of him he couldn’t work the darn thing out. He’d taken to doing his clothes by hand in the old concrete trough on the porch, but as he was used to the comforting smell of fresh laundry, it wasn’t the same. He also talked to her about the broad beans, apologising for what to her would amount to a heresy: he hadn’t planted them.
Out amongst the sawn timber near the shed, with the whining cocoon of the chainsaw for company, he did find himself wishing for visitors, but they never came. Except for one young lady from Aged Care, who wanted to ask him questions about whether or not he thought he could continue to live in the house alone. She told him she’d be back to check on him from time to time, even though he told her she needn’t bother.
Sweet William came, of course, at the end of each day, with his BYO bag and a steady jocularity. The others stayed away, and he knew why. People around Mangowak kept to themselves most of the time and without Min to greet them at the porch door his place wasn’t much of a prospect. He knew that he wouldn’t know what to say anyway, if they did come now. It’d just be all condolences, unless, of course, they needed him for something, like his gun. But with the pall of his mother’s death still about him, they wouldn’t be likely to ask him to destroy an old dog, or a horse who’d foundered. That was a shame, he thought, something like that would get his mind off things. He wouldn’t find it difficult at all.
Of course, the visitor he would’ve liked most to see, to buoy him up and distract him, was his neighbour. Dom Khouri hadn’t showed since Min had died, although he had sent a card. One Sunday out the front on Merna Street Ron bumped into his youngest son, who said his father was flat out with work. Ron knew he was busy but wished that he could turn up next door anyway, if only for a night. They could have a yarn. He’d like that. Perhaps they could even listen to some music. Or watch a film in the cinema. Anyway, Dom Khouri would know what to do. At night Ron went so far as to consider ringing him for a chat but could never have done it. He would just have to sit tight, until the time arrived for them to sit on the clifftop and talk things over.
It took him ten days to chainsaw the cypress and chop it with the splitter to size. He left a few particularly sappy blocks uncut and rolled one over to Min’s grave, where he used it as a seat. The good stuff he stacked at the far end of the woodpile, where it could sit and dry out further until it was ready to use the following year. But when he came back from yabbying on a Friday morning and noticed that the top row of the new cypress was missing, he thought he was dreaming. For the life of him he couldn’t work it out; the holidays were well and truly over, kids were nowhere to be seen.
He told Sweet William about it in the open shed later on in the day. With a light rain misting their view back onto the house wall and the garden. As he dealt the VOLTAREN cards, his friend thought Ron must’ve been slipping. There was no way known that wood could be disappearing from his pile. Especially not new cypress, too fresh to burn.
Sweet William didn’t challenge Ron on it, he didn’t see the point, but it worried him. He could see how difficult life had become. Ron was alone and he didn’t know how to get things off his chest. He wasn’t as sharp at the cards either. He’d bet too many matchsticks on mediocre hands. Miss golden opportunities. He was distracted and now it seemed he was imagining things, like wood missing from his woodpile. When Sweet William laid the deck to rest that night and left after his fourth glass of stout, he clamped Ron’s shoulder in his hand and told him he could see it was hard. ‘Daylight savings ending’s a bugger as well, eh?’ he said.
Sweet William felt almost guilty as he climbed into his car to leave. But it was pointless asking Ron around for tea. He knew he’d say no. As he backed out the drive into the encroaching night he heard the plover’s rapid rat-a-tat and watched Ron walking back to the porch to go inside. ‘Poor bugger,’ Sweet William said aloud to himself as he flicked on his headlights and slowly pointed them home.
Back in the kitchen Ron stoked the Rayburn, screwed in the vent and threw some frozen fillets of mullet into a frypan as the radio recounted the ups and downs of the international financial markets. He could tell Sweet William didn’t believe him about the woodpile but he didn’t doubt himself for a second. He’d have to wait and watch but if he caught whoever was doing it there’d be trouble.
As he fiddled the mullet in the pan with a breadknife, he felt a quick wave of fury come over him, dislodging his sadness. He corrected his previous thought, and declared loudly to the mullet: ‘If I catch whoever’s doing it I’ll put a bullet through ’em.’
Suddenly he felt strong with the thought of dealing one back. He went to the fridge, took out a bottle of stout and some butter and milk for his mash. As the mullet fried on a low heat he pounded the potatoes in the pot where he’d boiled them in the afternoon and sipped at his glass. He added a pinch or two of salt in imitation of Min but poured in too much milk. It splashed back up at him and hit him in the eye. He wiped it away. He swore and then said sorry to the room, or to Min in particular. She was still there, he knew that, but he wished she’d bloody well show herself. He needed her!
His breathing grew loud through his nose as he pounded the mash with his mouth clenched, absorbing the excess milk into the potato as best he could. He turned and flipped the mullet with the knife, then took another sip of stout. The radio was playing the opening bars of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. He stopped what he was doing, curious. He’d played the song himself on the pump organ so many times that for a moment he hadn’t recognised it. He’d not heard the original for many years, perhaps not since the day Leo Morris had played the record for him at Bonafide View. Now it sounded strange; he was used to his own version.
Then he realised the song was Min’s way of showing herself.
It was too much of a coincidence, hearing it now, after all this time. He stood motionless between the stove and the table, listening carefully to the words. His mother talking to him.
She was saying: ‘Thanks, boy, for playing that song for me, but now it’s time you heard it yourself.’
She was in the lyrics also, telling him she was on his side now that times were rough. He tilted his head back where he stood by the stove and his hand moved with emotion across his brow, knocking his cap off onto the floor.
The way the song was sung, he knew it was for him. In the white light of the kitchen, the mullet sizzling now, he closed his eyes. He saw Min’s fine-boned face, the aureole of tight white curls around her head, and her smiling down at him from a background of purplish darkness. From the mantel the music began to soar and he took it into himself. A mother’s compa
ssion filled the kitchen.
When the song ended and a man’s voice started speaking, Ron opened his eyes and gasped in shock. It was an age before he registered the sound of the mullet. He reached over and took the pan off the heat. It was burnt. He sat down at the table to eat.
The swirls of the laminex table-top shone, the navigational light flashed through the sink window, the stout tasted better than it had for weeks. The kitchen felt warm again. He sighed, deep in a reprieve. As the night grew wild outside he relished the sound of it. The sound of the world. He’d asked and she’d come. Now the big blow he’d been expecting was brewing outside. Like an old friend. His anger was gone and a flame-lick of faith had come back into his heart.
THIRTY-ONE
THE TIP-OFF
‘I don’t think he’s interested.’
By late April, Craig had visited on three occasions and had left a Batty Real Estate calling card under the porch door on another. He’d got nowhere. Each time he visited he was conscious of stepping into another, almost forgotten world. The old bloke would stand at the door and hardly say a word until Craig felt half ridiculous and decided to leave. One day he turned up to find Ron laying out three flat pans of ocean salt to dry in the sun on the mown slope. He was fascinated. But no conversation was forthcoming. ‘Well, you know where to find us, hey, Ron,’ he would say, before getting back into his Tribute and driving off.
‘Yeah, but are you getting anywhere?’ Colin wanted to know, as he and Craig discussed their project in the office.
‘Nup. He’s the same every time. He hasn’t asked one question about price or procedure or anything. Are you sure we shouldn’t just leave him alone?’
‘If he wasn’t going to sell the place I’d leave him alone. If he was like the Trahernes, for instance, who I know for a cert will never sell their place, I wouldn’t even bother. But don’t you see, Willo, it’s clear as day, with one thing and another, he’s a monty to sell.’