Gone Fishing

by Susan Duncan

  Sam raises his beer in a truce. ‘Well, the old girls are always well-intentioned and in their funny way, they know a lot –’

  ‘She needs modern science not witchcraft,’ Kate says, sighing. ‘Menopause isn’t a new condition –’

  ‘Hey! Here comes Jimmy with his mum. Back in a moment.’ He races down the jetty where he stands waiting for five minutes, wiping the nervous sweat from his brow. Jeez, what does a bargeman know about menopause, for chrissake? Women are a mystery. He finds himself wondering whether he should find a dog to keep Longfellow company. Who’s he kidding? Longfellow? Sam Scully, more like it. He helps Amelia disembark. Indicates she should go ahead. Jimmy chucks a stick from the end of the pontoon. Longfellow plunges into the water and, black-and-white fur fanning out like seaweed, swims after it. Man and boy walk up the jetty. For once, Jimmy is silent.

  The group assembles around the table like they’ve pitched up in holiday clothes for a board meeting. Longfellow returns triumphant and drops the stick at Jimmy’s feet. Shakes his furry body enthusiastically. Water flies. Ettie rushes to cover the nibbles with her hands but the damage is done. The crackers go soggy. Amelia, who has no idea what’s going on, is thin-lipped and nervy. In the past, no meeting called to discuss Jimmy has begun or ended on a high note. She thought those days were over. Since her boy signed on with Sam, she’s watched him grow into a functioning young man. Well, almost. He’d never lose the wondrous naiveté that the massive newspaperman had explained with such tact and insight and that seemed to have captured the imagination of a world weary of juvenile super brains and hard-boiled delinquents. And she’s glad. She doesn’t want a kid like other kids. Jimmy suited her fine. They complemented each other. And he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  Sam picks up on Amelia’s tension and shoots her an encouraging smile. ‘It’s all good, Amelia. Just got a few things to nut out with you both because the offers for Jimmy to appear on television are flowing in thick and fast.’

  Amelia leaps to her feet. ‘A star? Are you saying my boy’s about to be a star?’

  Sam sighs, trying to backtrack from what he silently admits is a super clumsy starting point. ‘Let’s just lay out what’s been happening, one step at a time, OK? That’s what the notebooks are for. To work through Jimmy’s future, point by point.’

  ‘Is this about the ute, Sam?’ Jimmy asks, his eyes as bright as his mum’s.

  ‘Up to a point, mate. Right. So let’s get started.’ Sam pulls a sheaf of crumpled yellow Post-It notes out of his back pocket and places them in a long line in date and time order.

  Amelia leans forward, trying to read the scribble. ‘Never thought to bring my glasses,’ she mutters.

  During the next twenty minutes, Sam outlines the offers. Then he hands over to Kate, who runs through the television shows, the type of audience they attract and whether the fee offered is fair or a try-on. ‘Truthfully, if you prefer one presenter to another but you think the show should pay more, you can have a go at upping the ante. I’d advise hiring a manager. I’d also warn you that the whole deal might fall in a heap if you ask for more money than the original offer. Another word of advice? Make up your mind really fast. By the end of the week, there’ll be a whole new crisis unfolding or star being born and Jimmy will be old hat. The offers will be withdrawn without qualm or conscience.’

  Amelia stands up and circles the group, wringing her hands in an old-fashioned way. Jimmy, who’s been uncharacteristically silent the whole time, kicks the table leg. No one reprimands him. Even Longfellow, curled in a sodden ball at the kid’s feet, picks up on the tension and quizzically eyes first one person, then another, as if he’s waiting for an answer. Or direction.

  ‘If we start by agreeing that it would be madness to turn down a heap of money that could set my son up for the rest of his life, then where do we go from there? Bear in mind that I have his best interests at heart, too. But I have more faith in his good sense and ability to judge right from wrong, sleaze from sincerity than you do. My boy,’ she adds, getting up to stand behind him and placing her hands on his thin bony shoulders, ‘is nobody’s fool.’

  Kate plays with her pencil, her eyes fixed on her notebook where she’s scrawled a heap of numbered points and underlined key words. ‘I’m sure you know your son. But truly, Amelia, you have no idea about the media. All it takes is one cunning producer who takes a dislike to Jimmy for no reason any of us will ever understand, and the kid will be set up to take a huge fall. How do you think he’ll feel when he walks through the Square and people point at him and laugh?’

  Jimmy’s face goes pale, he knits his eyebrows and pulls at the one or two coarse hairs that have sprung up on his chin in the past few weeks. ‘A good laugh or a bad laugh?’ he asks.

  ‘That’s the point, Jimmy. You don’t need to know and you shouldn’t care. Think you can manage that?’ Kate asks.

  ‘We talkin’ ’bout Fast Freddy laughin’? Or Jenny? Or Ettie?’

  ‘No, mate, strangers. We’re talking about strangers,’ Sam says gently.

  The kid’s face lights up with relief. ‘Aw jeez. Is that all? They can laugh all they want, Sam. Nothing to do with me, is it?’

  Amelia stands back with a smug look that says the deal is done. Sam fears the worst. Kate offers to find a manager who’ll charge somewhere between ten and forty per cent of the fee (Amelia almost reels then says she’ll manage her son’s media career with a little input from Kate, if Kate doesn’t mind), Marcus says he will phone his lawyer who will be on call to make sure the contracts are fair.

  Amelia’s enthusiasm falters for a second. ‘Thank you, chef,’ she says. ‘Never been crash hot with the fine print.’

  ‘And perhaps,’ Marcus suggests, ‘it might be permissible to draw up a trust for Jimmy to access at the age of twenty-one, or even twenty-five.’

  Amelia looks nonplussed for a second, then nods. ‘It’s his money, chef. I’m well aware of that fact.’

  Ettie, who’s been quiet all evening, finally chips in: ‘One way of keeping a little control over the interview might be to suggest it is done right here in Cook’s Basin where we can all keep an eye on proceedings.’

  Kate nods. ‘Good idea. All we have to do is make sure it’s stipulated in the contract. If we explain Jimmy gets confused and agitated in foreign environments, they’ll have to agree.’

  ‘So it’s on then?’ Sam asks. Every head around the table nods, with the exception of Jimmy, who’s focused on the dog. Sam walks away with his phone and makes a call to say yes to the highest bidder. He can’t shake the feeling he’s participating in a form of child abuse.

  ‘When do I get me ute?’ Jimmy whispers, coming up behind Sam and cupping his hand around Sam’s ear so no one else can hear.

  ‘Rome –’

  ‘Wasn’t built in a day.’

  ‘You understand what the saying really means?’

  ‘Sure, Sam,’ he replies uncertainly.

  ‘Patience, mate, that’s what it means. Have patience and you’ll end up with an empire.’

  ‘I know that, don’t I? But we’ve started buildin’, haven’t we? We getting’ the foundations laid, right?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess so,’ Sam says, hoping like hell they’re not ripping them apart.

  Kate, pleading genuine exhaustion, is the first to leave. Amelia and Jimmy follow. Sam says yes to a second beer. ‘You’re a smart man, Marcus. How do you think this is going to pan out?’

  The chef shrugs. ‘No one can even guess. But the boy, he has a good heart, no? It would take a criminal to try to crush that for a little entertainment. And this show, it is the best, I think. The reporters do not look for scalps unless they are political, of course, but that is to be expected, yes?’

  ‘Hope you’re right, mate,’ Sam says.

  For no reason at all, Ettie suddenly stands and excuses herself, putting her hand on Marcus’s shou
lder, telling him to enjoy the summer night with Sam. After she’s out of sight, the chef turns to Sam: ‘You see? She is ill, of this I am sure. But she won’t talk to me. Me, the man who loves her like no other.’

  ‘It’s menopause, mate. According to the Misses Skettle, Jenny and Kate, Ettie’s just hit middle-age with a vengeance.’

  ‘Menopause? What does this mean?’

  Sam shrugs, grins: ‘Beats me. Secret women’s business. But it’s not life threatening, so you can relax. A word of warning. Whatever you do, don’t mention the word in her hearing. She’s liable to clout you with a cast-iron frying pan. One of the symptoms, apparently, is a short fuse.’

  Sam’s phone goes off. He checks the caller number, puzzled. ‘Freddy, you all right? Broken down and need a tow? Calm down, mate, I can’t understand what you’re trying to say. Easy, Freddy. Start at the beginning again.’

  Sam listens. His face goes white, he ends the call gently and gives a stop hand signal when the anxious chef makes a move towards him. Then walks slowly, almost blindly, to the end of the jetty where he bends from the waist and dry retches over the water in violent, noisy spasms. A couple of minutes later, he straightens, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and shuffles back along the timber boards, holding onto the painted white rail like an ill old man in need of physical support: ‘It’s the Mary Kay. She’s been scuttled.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sam Scully takes a deep breath and dives into tepid black water, pushing through a burst of phosphorescence that sparkles festively, obscenely, in the moonless night. On his jetty, a hundred Islanders in pyjamas, nighties, crumpled boxer shorts, or just a towel wrapped around a waist lean forward in anxious silence. Everyone is aware, without a word being spoken, that the battle has ramped up to a notch they have never before experienced and have no idea how to handle. Sam’s busted taillights were bad, the smashed windows and trashed house were shocking. Sinking the Mary Kay, a much-loved local icon that has rescued, resurrected and stalwartly provided for any vessel in strife and never failed the community, is one step short of murder.

  Islanders gaze into dark water where she lies silent and lifeless, a heartbreaking, ghostly sight as the pale green torchlight washes over her. One or two women swallow sobs. A couple of the blokes wade in deep to rescue whatever floats. Ropes. Fuel containers. The flashy red cushions from the infamous banquette. Sam surfaces, gasping. Duck dives again. Anxious eyes follow his beam of light. She looks so perfectly undamaged and inert, like she’s sleeping soundly with just a slight lean where she nestles into the seabed, but the Mary Kay, once the beating heart of Cook’s Basin, is going nowhere.

  After six dives, Sam hauls himself on to the jetty, where he sits dripping wet with his legs over the side: ‘Hole in the hull the size of an orange,’ he says, to no one in particular. ‘Perfectly round – edges neat enough to satisfy a shipwright. Done from the inside by a pro.’

  A hissing sound caused by quick intakes of breath passes through a crowd that suddenly parts to let Jimmy, approaching at a flat-out sprint in nothing but a pair of banana print boxers, to line up alongside his captain. The black-and-white mutt, ears flying, is not far behind. He drops down. Flings his painfully young arm around Sam’s neck: ‘Me money’s all yours, Sam. Every penny. Soon as I get it.’

  Sam shakes his head. ‘We’re good. Mate. All good.’ But in his heart, he knows the Mary Kay will never be the same again. She will take up her old career with a new crane provided by the insurers but she will wear the scars of her time on the seabed forever. So will I, he thinks, feeling a terrible sadness for his own loss of innocence. He gets to his feet, stumbles under the heavy weight of consoling hands on his back, shoulders, even his cheek. Jenny slips an arm around his waist and falls in step beside him.

  ‘So it’s over, eh? They’ve won,’ she says, her eyes focused on her feet, tears in her eyes.

  Sam stops short, trying to get his head around what she’s saying. ‘Won? Not bloody likely. The thing is, Jen, I can’t stand bullies. Never been able to. But it’s my battle now. Mine alone. And I’ll die before I’ll let them get away with this.’

  Jenny lets out a long, sad sigh. ‘Well, it looks like if you die, you won’t be alone. We’re all with you, Sam. Whatever it takes, we’re up for it. So you better make bloody sure we win.’

  He nods. He feels a warm, wet touch on his hand. He looks down. Longfellow gazes up with button brown eyes full of sorrow. He gives the hand another lick. And it is the dog’s mute tenderness during a horror night that brings Sam undone. Without another word, he runs up the steps to his house and locks the door behind him.

  At dawn the next day when the first light is nothing but a pale grey loom and it’s still too early even for the cockatoos to rant, Sam is wakened by his mobile phone. Eyes closed, he fumbles on his bedside table, feeling for the off button. Then he remembers. The Mary Kay. His eyes flash open and he checks the caller number. Private. The goons.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says sharply.

  ‘Figured a man with a barge, you’d be up and around by now.’ Gravelly voice, a hint of humour in the tone. So not the goons. Not unless one of them has had a recent lobotomy reversal and found his laughter gland.

  ‘Who’m I speaking to?’

  ‘I wanna help you. Help you fight for Garrawi.’

  ‘Great. You know any politicians? Celebrities? Journalists?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, thanks, mate, I’ll put your name on a list and if I need you to write a letter . . .’

  ‘I’ll give you a million dollars.’

  Sam sighs. A nutter, he thinks in despair. Jeez, it’s too early in the frigging morning to have to deal with nutters.

  ‘I’ll give you a million dollars now. Who do I write the cheque to?’

  Mad as a cut snake, thinks Sam: ‘Look, mate, I can’t take your money, but thanks –’

  ‘I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars now.’

  ‘No. I can’t take your money.’ Trying to humour the bloke.

  ‘I’m gunna pull out my cheque book. I’ll write a cheque for fifteen thousand dollars right now. Who do I make it payable to? Sam Scully?’

  ‘Jeez, mate. No. Don’t give me any money.’

  ‘How about the campaign? You got a fund? I can transfer the money to the fund right now.’

  Pigs might fly, Sam thinks, but he gives him the details and hangs up. Then he heads for the shower. Onwards and upwards, as his dad used to say. No use crying over spilt milk, according to his mum. He comes up with one of his own: Don’t let the bastards wear you down. At least he thinks it’s an original. Maybe. He nicks himself shaving and sticks a bit of loo paper on the cut to stop the bleeding, then he ignores the early hour and calls the Water Police and the insurance hotline. It’s time to resurrect the Mary Kay. He can’t help wondering how she’d look with a cannon on her foredeck. Jimmy would love it but there’s probably a law against installing major artillery in peaceful times. Peaceful? Who’s he kidding? He’ll get the bastards. He really will. He just needs time to come up with a plan. On an impulse, he dials Delaney’s number. The big man picks up.

  ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ Sam shouts in relief.

  The big man goes in fast and hard: ‘Heard they’re out to skin you,’ he says like he’s talking from the bottom of a canyon. ‘I’m out of the country –’ The line drops out. When Sam redials, the call goes to message bank. Bloody journalists. You wouldn’t want to depend on them for the time of day.

  It takes all morning to raise the bedraggled Mary Kay from deep water, drain her and plug the fist-sized hole in her hull. Then she’s towed to Frankie’s boatshed with a support flotilla of banged-up tinnies guided by angry Islanders on full battle alert, itching to fire up their arsenal of leftover flares at any bastard who looks even slightly dodgy. At the boatshed, the dishevelled but still essentially grand Mary
Kay is gently positioned between the two steel arms of a boat cradle and hauled up the cement slipway into dry dock in small, smooth increments. ‘No bumps and bangs for the old girl. She’s been through enough,’ Frankie says, patting the hull like she’s a frail old lady.

  The classic 1960s, low-speed, high-torque Gardner diesel marine engine, designed to drive sewing machines in the early 1900s then tanks during World War II, will be pulled apart, wiped down and restored to former solid, workhorse glory. If a war couldn’t wipe out the machine, a simple saltwater dunking hasn’t a hope.

  On the other hand, salt water is a fatal mix with the delicate electronic wiring of the crane’s gearbox. There is no choice but to dismantle it and consign it to the tip.

  The insurers send in a team to assess the damage and sign off without quibbling over the dollars and cents. Sam’s never made a claim in more than twenty years of hauling. ‘We’ll need a report from the coppers, though,’ they tell him. ‘Nothing flash. Just a note the barge was sabotaged.’ He nods.

  Frankie puts all his other work on hold without bothering to call a single client to say they’ll have to wait. ‘They’ll know what’s going on.’ He shrugs, tilting his black cap over his eyes. ‘If they don’t like it, they can go elsewhere.’ They won’t, of course. Sam nods a thank you and the work begins. ‘A week,’ Frankie estimates. Sam nods again. In any other boatyard it would take a month. ‘Get the bastards, eh?’ Frankie says. ‘Scum’s got to be scrubbed off with a wire brush.’

  ‘Still thinking about the marina?’

  ‘What marina?’

  Sam gives him a quick salute and climbs into his tinny. It’s the middle of the working day but without the Mary Kay, he’s stymied. He feels like a man who’s lost his connection to reality and he hasn’t the faintest idea what to do next. He detours to call in on Artie. The old bloke might have one or two ideas. Long as he doesn’t suggest shooting the bastard that did in the Mary Kay, he thinks, because right now, I won’t need a heap of persuading. Which brings him to another thought: What are the odds of getting away with murder? He sure as hell is tempted.