‘Do you want to have breakfast again, Grace?’ asked Les.
‘Yes. That would be nice. Same place, same time?’
‘Yeah. Carey’s. Nine o’clock. You going to join us Clover? We had breakfast there this morning. It’s pretty good.’ Les winked at Grace. ‘The view’s not bad either.’
‘I know Carey’s,’ replied Clover. ‘But why don’t we make it about ten. Have a bit of a sleep in.’
‘Good idea,’ said Warren.
‘Okay then,’ said Les. ‘Ten o’clock it is.’
A metallic blue Holden station wagon with a woman behind the wheel pulled up out the front. The woman gave the horn a quick beep.
‘Here’s mum now,’ said Clover.
Warren walked across to the car with Clover. Grace smiled and put her arms around Norton’s neck.
‘I had a lovely time tonight,’ she said. ‘Thanks Les.’
Les put his arms around Grace’s waist. ‘I didn’t do much,’ he shrugged.
‘You didn’t have to. You were just nice company.’
Les smiled. ‘You weren’t bad yourself.’
Grace returned Les’s smile then kissed him full on the mouth. Her lips were warm and firm and Les returned the kiss avidly. He felt a tiny snap of Grace’s hot, sweet tongue and was just getting into the swing of things when she stopped. Les opened his eyes and looked into Grace’s.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, handsome,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ said Les. ‘See you then.’
‘And when the band’s finished … we might take a look at your back.’
‘Righto.’
Grace gave Les a quick kiss, untangled herself then walked across to the station wagon and got in the back seat next to Clover.
‘See you, Clover,’ Les called out.
Clover waved through the window. ‘Bye Les.’
They drove off and Warren walked back. ‘I left the key under the mat,’ he said.
‘Well, why don’t you get it and open the door,’ said Les.
‘You’re closest,’ replied Warren. ‘You open it. If you can get your fat arse round your car.’
Les shook his head, got the key and opened the door. He closed it behind them and turned the light on in the kitchen. ‘You want a cup of tea or something.’
‘No,’ Warren called out from the bathroom. ‘I’m fucked. I’m going to bed.’
‘Yeah. Me too,’ said Les. He left the electric jug and had a drink of water.
Warren propped in the doorway and yawned. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, dude. If you get up early, try not to wake me will you.’
‘I’ll be like a little mouse. See you in the morning, Woz.’
Warren dragged himself off to his bedroom. Les went to the bathroom, cleaned his teeth then started climbing out of his clothes and into his tracksuit. He looked at the bedroom window and decided to leave it open. If it got cold again he had plenty of blankets this time. He yawned, closed the bedroom door then switched off the light and got under the covers. Les thought about Clover for a while and mulled over what Daddy had told him. Before long, however, he was snoring. What sounded like thunder woke Les during the night and he noticed it was chilly again. But he went straight back to sleep.
Les had a dry mouth and a sore back when he got out of bed the next morning. But no hangover. Outside it looked like being another nice day. He stretched, got into a pair of shorts and went to open the bedroom door. It was jammed.
‘What in the fuck!’
Les pulled and wrenched the solid old door, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was jammed underneath. A piece of rusty metal. Les picked up a shoe and belted whatever it was back out, then opened the door. The piece of rusty metal was a horseshoe. Les picked it up, looked at it for a moment then placed it on the kitchen table and walked into the bathroom. Their shaving gear was scattered all around the floor, along with the towels, and there was water all over the toilet seat.
‘What the …?’
Les stared at the mess. Not the rat again, surely? Then a humourless smile appeared on his face. Warren. He’d stumbled into the bathroom during the night, pissed everywhere then thrown a wobbly looking for his headache tablets. Same as he did at home when he was out of it. The goose. Les cleaned up the mess, got himself together then walked into the kitchen. While he was waiting for the kettle to boil, the reason for the horseshoe sitting on the kitchen table dawned on him as well. Warren again. He would have had a good look around the house when he unpacked, gone downstairs half-tanked on bourbon with a torch, and spotted those old horseshoes. Would Warren go to all that trouble? Ohh shit yeah. Anything to annoy the landlord. That’s why he kept calling him Lucky Les all night. And locking Lucky Les in his room with a horseshoe would be hilarious. Hah-hah-hah! But just to rain on Warren’s parade, the landlord wasn’t going to bite. Les picked up the horseshoe, opened the front door and threw the thing right up under the trees. It never happened. Les dusted his hands and shook his head. If you ask me, Woz has been in that advertising agency too long.
Les made a mug of tea and a couple of slices of toast and went out into the hallway. The door to the loungeroom was closed; Les opened it and stepped inside. The bear was on the piano facing the wall and Les could hear snoring coming from Warren’s room. Les had half a mind to turn the bear on and push it inside Warren’s door. Instead, he took his tea and toast out onto the verandah.
There were more clouds around than the day before and the southerly was up a little. But people were fishing or strolling around the jetty and the activity on the lagoon had increased. Les stared across the channel as he sipped his tea and ate his toast. He did a few light stretches and decided to walk around the golf links again. He rinsed his mug, changed into his training gear and set off.
With the southerly in his face, Les found the walk the same as the day before. Enjoyable, but again he would have loved to burst into a run. However, Les kept going, crisscrossing the greens, and before long he started to get a sweat up. He stopped at the beach and noted there were more fishermen than yesterday and the waves were bigger. Les touched at his toes a few times and attempted some sit-ups and crunches but was forced to give the idea a miss. So he headed home. Warren was still in bed. Les had a shower, got into a green Nautica T-shirt and cargos and walked up to get the paper. The two dive shops were open. Les called into the smaller one on the way back.
The counter was on the left with a doorway at the rear leading to a filling station. The wall behind the counter was arranged with certificates and the wall opposite was shelved with snorkelling gear and spear guns. The front of the shop was stacked with scuba tanks and racks of wetsuits, and on the wall near the front window were blown-up photos, as well as maps and posters. A fair-haired bloke, wearing a white T-shirt with Wagonga Dive Shop on the front was behind the counter, fiddling with a spear gun trigger mechanism. As Les approached, the bloke looked up and smiled.
‘Yes mate? What can I do for you?’ he asked, cheerfully.
‘I’d like to take a trip out to Montague Island,’ answered Les. ‘Have a look around and do a bit of snorkelling.’
‘Okay,’ said the bloke. ‘We’re pretty well booked out till next week. But wait till I check.’ At that moment the phone rang. ‘I won’t be a sec.’
The proprietor started talking on the phone and going through his bookings. Les browsed amongst the posters and photos on the wall. Even behind a face mask there was no mistaking the proprietor looking through the porthole of a rusting wreck and another of him stroking a big potato cod. One photo blown up to poster size stood out from the rest. Printed across the top was: ‘How We Don’t Run A Dive School’. In smaller print in the bottom right hand corner, it said: ‘Photo By Ray Bissett’. The photo was taken at Ben Buckler the day Les was there with Ray and the diver drowned. Norton’s face lit up. Well I’ll be buggered, he thought.
Les stared at the poster-size photo in astonishment. It was like living the moment again in IMAX. He could see the angu
ish on the instructor’s face as he worked on the diver he’d just rescued. Sense the shock and exhaustion amongst the other divers lying or milling around the rocks. You could pick out a woman diver standing apart from the others with her head down being sick. Les was amazed at the clarity and detail of the photo. He could read the brands on the wetsuits, spot a lock of light brown hair poking out from under the woman diver’s hood. See the vomit on the face of the rescued diver. Almost count the barnacles on the rocks.
‘Hey, you’re in luck mate,’ said the bloke, hanging up the phone. ‘There’s been a cancellation. And I can get you out there tomorrow morning.’
‘Okay.’ Les walked back to the counter. ‘Hey mate, where did you get that big photo?’
‘The photographer’s a mate of mine,’ replied the proprietor. ‘He sent it to me and I had it blown up.’
‘I was there the day that happened,’ said Les, excitedly. ‘I was with him.’
‘You were with Ray? Really?’
Les told the proprietor how he’d arranged to get some tips from Ray on underwater photography, but it was too rough. Then they came across all the drama as they were walking back. ‘Looking at that photo,’ said Les, ‘is just like being there again. It’s uncanny.’
‘It certainly is,’ agreed the bloke.
‘Where do you know Ray from?’ asked Les.
‘Ohh shit. We’re old mates. I come from Clovelly. Me and Ray used to dive together all the time.’
‘I’m only a snorkel sucker,’ said Les. ‘But I like underwater photography.’
‘Well, you won’t find a better bloke to teach you than Ray. He’s won over ten awards.’ The proprietor laughed. ‘He’s a funny bastard too.’
The proprietor’s name was Ian. He could get Les on a boat called The Kingfisher, leaving the jetty at nine the next morning. And seeing Les was a friend of Ray’s, he’d give him a ten percent discount. Les thanked him and paid with his Visa card.
‘It’s funny,’ said Les. ‘The day that happened, I was walking back along the beach and a surfer committed suicide.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ian. ‘I saw it on the news. What a day.’
‘It was.’ Les shook his head. ‘I don’t know about surfing, Ian. But you can keep scuba diving. I had one go at it. I’ll stick to snorkelling.’
‘Yeah. I know what you mean,’ said Ian. ‘You got to be super careful. Any people we take out, we give them the full-on, silkworm treatment.’ Ian glanced over at the photo. ‘I’d hate to have something like that on my conscience.’ As he spoke, a young Japanese couple walked in. The man was wearing Coke bottle glasses, the woman was about four feet tall and looked like she’d never been in anything deeper than a spa bath. ‘Hello,’ winked Ian. ‘Talking about silkworms … Mushi, mushi.’ The two Japanese smiled and bowed towards the counter.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Ian,’ said Les, waving his receipt. ‘Thanks for everything,’
‘No problem, Les. Have a good time out there.’
Les pocketed his receipt and walked back to the house. The front door was open, Warren was in the kitchen in a T-shirt and shorts holding a glass of orange juice and Glen Miller was swinging in the loungeroom.
‘Hello,’ said Les. ‘You finally dragged yourself out of bed.’
‘Hey, what about this fuckin unreal radio station,’ said Warren. ‘They’ve just played Cab Calloway, The Andrew Sisters, Rudy Vallee. If I’d known about this, I would have brought my white dinner jacket.’
‘Maybe Brian Ferry’ll lend you one of his.’ Les tossed the paper on the table, got a glass of water and looked at Warren. ‘So how are you this morning, Woz?’ he asked.
‘All right,’ answered Warren, glancing at the headlines. ‘But Jesus! Doesn’t it get cold down here.’
‘Cold?’
‘Yeah. That room’s like a fuckin deep freeze. I had to get up and put every blanket I could find on the bed. I felt like Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago.’
‘It did get a bit chilly at one stage last night,’ admitted Les.
‘Oh and one other thing, Les,’ said Warren. ‘I know you like your little jokes and all that. But did you have to get up in the middle of the night and play the fuckin piano? And set that stupid bloody bear off?’
‘I was playing the piano last night, Woz?’
‘By playing, I mean clunking up and down on it like a moron. I’m in there freezing to death, trying to get to sleep. And you’re playing Elton John.’ Warren turned back to the headlines. ‘But if that’s what turns you on, so be it.’
‘Warren. I’ve got some news for you, mate.’ Les told Warren about finding the mess in the kitchen the day before then got a rat-trap from the pantry to prove his point. ‘So there’s rats in here. They get in the kitchen and they like to run up and down on the piano. I meant to set this last night. But I forgot.’ Les put the rat-trap back in the pantry. ‘As for the bear, there’s something wrong with it. It goes off on its own.’
‘It wasn’t you then?’ said Warren.
‘No Warren. It wasn’t me,’ said Les, deliberately. ‘I don’t do childish fuckin things.’
Warren shrugged. ‘If you say so. Actually the bear’s a ripper. Clover had it going. She loves the bloody thing. Where did you get it?’
Les told Warren where he got it and how much it cost. ‘I might give it to Clover for letting us have the house.’ Les looked at his watch. ‘They should be here soon.’
‘Ohh yeah, for sure. Clover thinks punctuality has to do with flat tyres.’
Les read the paper out on the verandah, then gave it to Warren and tidied up his room. Warren read it then they both sat on the verandah, enjoying the view. A couple of ghetto blasters were playing CDs on the surrounding balconies.
But Warren insisted on listening to Season FM. He was tapping his toes to Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy playing ‘Boogie Woogie Cocktail’, when there was a knock on the door just before eleven.
‘Look at that,’ said Warren, holding up his watch. ‘Right on time.’
Footsteps sounded along the hallway then Grace and Clover stepped out onto the verandah. Grace was wearing faded jeans and one of her originals in white, with a beige pelican on the front. Clover was wearing hipsters, and a blue Hawaiian shirt four sizes too big for her. There were pecks on the cheek and smiles and greetings all round, then Grace and Clover leant against the railing sizing the boys up. Grace spoke first.
‘So how did you sleep last night?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Did you sleep all right?’ said Clover.
‘Yeah. It got a bit chilly at one stage,’ said Les. ‘But I was okay.’
‘Forget chilly,’ said Warren. ‘It was bloody freezing. I’ve never been so cold in my life.’
Clover looked at Warren over her glasses. ‘Freezing cold?’
‘Where was it cold?’ asked Grace.
‘In my bedroom,’ said Warren. ‘Are there any electric blankets, Clover?’
Clover shook her head. ‘Was there anything else besides the cold?’
‘Only the rat in the piano,’ smirked Warren. ‘And the bear going off.’
‘Rat in the piano?’ said Clover.
Yeah,’ replied Les. He told them about the noise the night before, then waking up to the mess in the kitchen and finding the rat-traps in the pantry. ‘Only I forgot to set the trap last night. Jerry Lee Rat’d be in rock ’n’ roll heaven right now.’
‘What was that about the bear going off, Warren?’ asked Grace.
‘Les said there’s something wrong with it,’ shrugged Warren.
‘I think it’s the batteries,’ said Les. ‘They’re wired wrong.’
‘And it went off on its own,’ said Grace.
‘Yeah. It even dances round in circles,’ said Les. ‘I told you, it’s got a mind and style all of its own.’
‘Anything else, Les?’ asked Clover.
Les thought for a moment. But he didn’t have the heart to tell Clover her boyfriend got up during the night
and pissed all over the bathroom. ‘No. Nothing else,’ he replied.
Grace and Clover exchanged glances. ‘A piano-playing rat and a dancing bear,’ said Grace.
Clover shook her head. ‘What next?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s next,’ said Warren. ‘How about breakfast.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh shit! Look at that. Ten o’clock already.’
‘We stopped to pick some flowers,’ said Clover.
‘You could have picked half of Amsterdam.’ Warren got to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s go. Whose car are we taking?’
‘Car?’ said Grace. ‘It’s five minutes up the hill.’
‘There’s a hill?’ said Warren.
Les locked the front door, Grace locked her Jackaroo and they set off. Les told them about booking a trip to Montague Island and about the photo in the dive shop. They crossed the road, wended their way through the Saturday morning crowd and were soon at Carey’s.
The restaurant was packed; even the tables outside were taken. But they were lucky enough to arrive just as four people were getting up from the same table Les and Grace had the day before. They ordered, Les picked up the tab, then they got their little wooden objects and sat down. This time Les got a banana. Their coffees arrived and they got into a bit of chitchat about the night before, about clothes, the house. Les told Clover about the photo of Lander Merrigan in Jasmine Cunneen’s book.
‘That was my great, great uncle,’ said Clover. ‘We’ve got the original photo at home. Poor old Lander and his wife were drowned.’
‘Yeah, Grace told me,’ said Les. ‘And their son Eachan finished in the rathouse.’
‘My hundred-and-forty-eighth cousin removed, or something,’ said Clover.
‘So how did your parents end up with the house?’ asked Les.
‘It’s been in the family for years. Now dad owns it.’
‘It’s the most beautiful house,’ said Grace.
‘How come your parents don’t live there?’ asked Warren. ‘It’s a fantastic spot.’
‘They’re happy at Dalmeny,’ said Clover.
‘Do you ever rent it out?’ asked Les.
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