by Tim Buckley
“Good to see you, Bryce,” Nathan said, as though nothing had happened. “You boys ready to get back to work?”
“I think we probably need to have a talk first, eh?” Cooper said, stone-faced. “Rob said you boys had an offer for us?”
If I’d bitten my tongue much more I’d have drawn blood. The offer of a bonus had been my idea but standing there, watching their brazen hubris in the light of everything else that was happening around me, I was regretting any suggestion of a compromise.
“Well, Brycie boy,” said Nathan, with a crooked grin, “we’re offering to have you boys back and no hard feelings. How’s that?”
“That’s not what Robbie promised us, Nate. I think you know that. Look, we’re not blind, we can see what’s been going on. First of all, Stevie nearly kills himself and now we hear there’s no insurance. Then we hear there’s no money to finish the job and we reckon we could be out on our arse in a week. Then there’s all the talk around town – you’re about as popular as a fart in a spacesuit, Wilde, and we have to live here and work here when this is all over. Bottom line, you’re going to have to make it worth our while to stay.”
There were a few mumbles of agreement from the others and one of them slapped Cooper on the back. Short of a high five, it couldn’t have been much more obnoxious and it was grating on my already bloodied nerves. I held my tongue and waited for Nathan to respond.
“Look, Bryce, you guys are on good money here, you know that. And we’ve looked after you well…”
“Tell Stevie that,” muttered Charlie Neill, a plasterer from Augusta.
“Stevie would be right if he’d been wearing a hat, Charlie,” Nathan said, firmly. “You boys know that and you know that we tell you every bloody day to lid up. So don’t give me that, all right?”
There was a grumble but no response from Neill.
“But Wilde’s willing to go further to get the job done,” Nathan went on, “even though he’s under no obligation to do that. So, here’s the deal: we get the rest of the work done and, when he sells the lighthouse, ten per cent of the profit is split between the workers who are here when we finish the job. In this market, with property prices going crazy round here, we could all make a lot of money. That’s the deal, and it’s a better one than you’d have got from me, I can tell you. So, shall we all get back to work?”
“Whoa, slow down, Nate,” said Cooper. “It could take months or even years to sell this place. And we’re supposed to wait? And how do we know what you get for the place? How do we know what you get in the brown envelope under the table?”
“Oh come on, Bryce,” said Nathan, “you’ve been watching too much television. There’s nobody trying to shaft you here. This deal will go through the lawyers and the council, so all the numbers will be out in the open for anyone to see.”
He was taking a bit of poetic licence with the process but I didn’t argue. There was more muttering and Cooper looked at the others then turned back to Nathan and to me.
“How ’bout this?” he said, hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “A little bit of cash now means more to the boys than the promise of a fortune who knows when. Bird in the hand, and all that.” He lowered his voice and looked round with a conspirator’s eye. “So what say you give the four of us a bonus now, five grand say? We’ll say nothing to the rest of the boys and we’ll make sure you get the job done and finished on time.”
I waited for the punchline, but there was none. Nathan looked at Bryce and he waited too, for something, anything, but Bryce was done. That was the deal and I really believe he thought we’d go for it.
“Aw, look, Bryce, I…” Nathan started to talk but I couldn’t listen to any more of this.
“You’re kidding, Cooper, yeah?” I said. “This has to be a joke, because even you can’t be far enough up your own arse to think I’d go for that?”
He opened his mouth but he had nothing. I wasn’t done. My temper had been tested more than I could bear and this arrogant piece of shit was going to get what had been building up for days.
“You think I should reward you for walking out on us? You think I should trust you that I’ll give you the money and you won’t walk out again? You think I’ll shaft the guys who’ve been loyal to me and sneak you a wedge of cash? Do you really think that? Are you that fucking stupid, Cooper?”
“Hold on now, boys,” Nathan stepped in to try to smooth the waters. “Let’s try to…”
“Sorry, Nathan,” I said, waving away his protests, “but there’s no way I’m rewarding these bastards for trying to screw us over.”
Cooper was knocked off his stride. I’d made a mistake with the offer of a bonus that he saw as a victory. I was reaping that harvest now and he’d expected us to roll over.
“Now wait just a minute,” he said, indignant and smarting from the public rebuke in front of his men. “We’re ready to be reasonable, aren’t we, boys? Three grand, and we’re doing you a favour.”
“Get the fuck off my site, Cooper,” I said, spitting out the words. “All of you, just get the fuck off my site.”
It all threatened to kick off then. Charlie Neill and the others started squaring their shoulders and one of them pushed Nathan when he tried to calm them down. Cooper’s snarling face was in mine and I could smell the tobacco and stale beer. Then, in a flash, Robbie and the others were there and Cooper took a step back at the sight of them armed with pickaxe handles and pipes.
“Just go, Cooper,” Robbie growled at him. “Just walk away while you still can.”
There was grumbling and muttering and swearing but in the end they saw sense and backed away. They got back in the truck and roared away in a shower of grit and sand.
“Thanks, boys,” Nathan said quietly, “let’s get back to work, eh?”
We worked on in silence for the rest of the day, even at lunch the conversation was muted and stilted. Nathan said he’d try and find some more workers but it wouldn’t be easy. I don’t know if he was annoyed at my belligerence or if he understood it, but we didn’t talk any more about it and that might have been for the best until we all calmed down. There wasn’t much to say, in any case.
I got back to the apartment that evening and sat on the balcony with a beer with my feet up on the railing.
What a day. What a bloody day.
48
The next morning, like every morning since news of our financial predicament had broken, I checked the internet banking site to make sure everything was in order and that there was enough money in the project account to pay the weekly wage bill. The bill was now a lot lower, but we certainly weren’t in a position to leave the workers that were left high and dry for the weekend. To be honest, I was also checking to make sure that Emily wasn’t off blowing more of our money on scam artists’ schemes to find Cara or spending money we didn’t have on the vineyard. It was, I realised, a futile exercise in checking the stable door when the horse might already have spent a small fortune on a fortune teller, but at least it made me feel like I was in some kind of control. It was also, if I’m being honest, a way to check on Emily and how she was doing – not just what she was spending, but I wanted to make sure she was OK and I didn’t want her to know that. This was the only way I could keep an eye on her, albeit a distant one. It was a bit ghoulish, but I checked for anything to do with doctors or the hospital or the pharmacy or anything that suggested she was in any kind of trouble.
There was nothing to have been worried about that morning, just like there hadn’t been on any of those that had gone before. Groceries, petrol and something from a shoe shop told the story of what Emily was doing with her life and I guessed it was working, eating, television and sleep. I knew, though, that I had to tell her about the money. It was hers as much as mine, whatever she’d done with it, and she had a right to know. She needed to know. In any case, I wanted to check how she was doing after the gruesome even
ts of the days and nights before.
I drove over to the vineyard and passed Karl on his bike on the way. I pulled over and he threw the bike in the back of the jeep and climbed in.
“How’s it going, Karl?” I said.
“Good, thanks,” he said, quietly, eyes fixed on the track in front.
“You guys busy?”
He nodded, still looking straight ahead.
“Did you talk to Sergeant Willis? He said he was going to take a statement.”
He nodded again. “He called over to the house couple of nights ago.”
I waited for some elaboration but there was none. I didn’t know what kind of conversation he’d had with Emily but I knew his loyalties were with her and I didn’t want to put him in an even more awkward situation than the one he was in. There wasn’t going to be much in the way of idle conversation either so I turned on the radio and we drove the ten or fifteen minutes to the farm without another word.
We reached the farm, and Karl jumped down from the truck.
“Thanks for the ride,” he said, almost under his breath, and he took his bike out of the back.
I went up to the front door and rang the bell.
“Coming, Karl,” Emily shouted and I heard her scurrying about inside.
“Hey, Ka…” she said, opening the door and trying to put on her other boot at the same time. “Oh, Wilde, it’s you?” She stopped what she was doing, stood there in one boot holding the other in her hand while her brain tried to work out what was going on.
“Sorry, Emily. I should have called,” I said and I wished that I had.
“No, it’s fine. I was expecting Karl.”
“I passed him on the way, gave him a lift. He’s gone down to the sheds already.”
“Oh, I see. I need to tell him what to do. Go on in, I’ve just made some coffee.”
She put on the other boot and ran off towards the machinery shed. The image flashed across my mind of Cara sitting on the floor by the front door one morning before we went off to the lighthouse. She had one arm in the sleeve of her coat and one boot on the wrong foot, the other half on and she was heaving and grunting trying to pull it on the rest of the way.
“What’s the problem, Cara?” I said.
“Boot won’t fit,” she said with an exasperated shrug of her shoulders to emphasise the pickle she was in.
She never really did get the hang of putting on her shoes or, indeed, getting dressed, although she insisted on doing it herself.
“Maybe it will fit on the other foot?” I suggested.
She looked at me suspiciously but in the end decided it was worth a try. We spent another five minutes switching boots and while we were reorganising her coat sleeves she found an old bobbin in her pocket that demanded her immediate attention. Eventually we were ready for the off, and that was part of the joy of it all. There was never any point in being in a hurry because Cara was never in a hurry and there was always something more interesting than whatever it was you needed her to do.
Emily came back, poured herself a coffee and came over to the table where I was sitting.
“How are you doing, Wilde?” she asked me, pulling up a chair and sitting down across from me. Not too close.
“Good, not bad,” I said. “You?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you OK, after all that stuff with the sheep, I mean?”
“Of course not, but what can we do? I talked to somebody about getting an alarm, and about putting up security cameras. They’re coming round in a few days to give us… to give me a quote. I’ll let you know when I have it.”
It wasn’t a good time to be spending money but that was a good idea and I was glad.
“Listen,” I said, slowly, treading carefully through what I knew was a field of unexploded emotions and bitterness, “we have a bit of a problem.”
“Just one?”
In spite of myself, I laughed. In her own deadpan, phlegmatic way, Emily could be really funny and usually she had no idea what the joke was.
“One in particular,” I said. “We’re running out of cash, Emily.”
She waited for me to go on, to explain this crazy statement. But I didn’t, I just left it to hang there between us.
“What do you mean, out of cash? Can’t you just take it from the other investments?”
“No, I mean we’re nearly out of money. Cash, investments, the whole lot. There’s just about enough left to get us to the end of the year, maybe through the summer. But we’re going to have to do something.”
She processed it and arrived quickly at her own conclusion, a conclusion I should have seen coming and should have blocked off before she got there.
“You’re just saying this,” she said, her voice getting louder as she got it all wrong, “because I spent that money to find Cara! We can’t be out of money, you think I’m an idiot? Is that what you think? You’re just saying this to make me think I’ve ruined us! You bastard!”
“Emily, wait, that’s not…”
“You bastard,” she spat again and she threw her coffee cup at me. It hit me square in the chest, then smashed on the tiles, coffee splashing all over me and the table and the floor.
“Shit! Jesus, Emily, that’s hot! Shit!”
I jumped up to get a towel to wipe myself down and put my hand under the cold tap.
“Fuck sake, Emily! What are you trying to do?!”
She stood up, not sure whether to shout at me or to check if I was all right. She said nothing for a moment, then slumped back down into the chair.
“Why are you doing this, Wilde?” she whispered, her eyes filling up with tears. “Why are you trying to hurt me? If we’re over, then let’s just get this over with.”
I finished drying myself off as well as I could and brought a cloth over to wipe up the coffee that had gone all over the kitchen. I picked up the pieces of the broken cup and put them in the bin. I sat down and rubbed my tired eyes.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Emily,” I said. “It’s true. I didn’t see it coming either, but I checked with the bank and I guess we’ve been spending a lot. A lot more than we should, anyway. It’s my fault too, I’m not blaming you. But we have to stop spending so much, and we’re going to have to make some plans to fix it before we…”
Before we divide it up between us is what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to say it. The way it was going, there wasn’t going to be much left to divide up anyway.
“I can boot up my laptop and show you?” I offered.
She shook her head.
“Just do whatever you want to do, I don’t care,” she said, waving me and all of this away with a tired flick of her hand. “I really don’t care, Wilde.”
With that, she stood up and went out to the vines.
***
I checked my phone as I got back into the truck and my heart sank to see that I had a missed call from Pete Baxter. Whatever he wanted, it was unlikely to be good news, but his message just asked me to call him back. I called Nathan from the truck on the way back but there was no reply. The last couple of kilometres of the road back into Clovelly ran straight downhill and I could see the town in the distance, the clear blue sky behind and sea glistening beyond. We fell for this place the first time we saw it. Back then and before the boom, it was a bit too far from Perth to be a suburb but not so far as to be isolated. We couldn’t believe our luck to have found somewhere so beautiful and so calm where we could settle and live the life we wanted to live. We’d been living the dream but the dream was over and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that Clovelly would be a part of my past before too long. My phone rang and it was Nathan on the other end of the line.
“Sorry, Wilde, missed your call, did I?”
“Yeah, no worries, Nate. I was just checking if you need me out there?”
�
��Don’t think so, mate. Might need a hand tomorrow when we’re putting the lintels in, maybe?”
“Sure, no problem. Listen, I had a call from Pete Baxter, he just left me a message to call him back. He might have heard already, but when he finds out we’ve lost half the crew and we’re already behind, we’re going to need a story to convince them that we’re going to make up the time. Do you mind meeting up later to go through the plans? In the Schoolhouse maybe?”
“Sure, no worries. About eight OK?”
“Thanks, mate, see you then.”
49
I got down to the pub early, just before seven, because I needed a real beer and a bottle on the balcony of the apartment wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a draft beer in a pub, sometimes nothing else will do. I brought my laptop so that we could look at the plans and the budget to concoct some sort of story that might placate the council. I wondered if Pete had heard something on the grapevine or if Cooper had said something to him. I decided that was unlikely, Cooper wasn’t smart enough to realise that he could derail us by going to the council. Either way, it had to be more than a coincidence that he chose this week to call so he must have had a whiff that something was up.
“Wilde, you old bastard, setting up office in the pub now, eh?! Nice work, if you can get it!”
A big hand slapped my shoulder and I didn’t need to turn round to know that Mitch was back in town. He slid into the booth in front of me.
“Mitch? I didn’t know you were back?”
“Decided to surprise you, didn’t I?! Go on, you’re pleased to see me really, aren’t you?!”
He was infectious and I grinned in spite of myself, somehow glad of the relief.
“So what happened? In New Zealand, I mean.”