by Tim Buckley
The smile faded from his face and he looked all of a sudden deflated, literally as though someone had pulled a stopper out of his leg and the air had rushed out of him. He even looked a little bit smaller.
“Failed the medical, didn’t I? Bloody doctor reckoned I’d taken too many knocks to the head, multiple concussions he said. Load of bollocks. Who hasn’t had a few bangs on the head, eh? There’s nothing wrong with me, not a bloody thing!” and he thumped his forehead with the ball of his hand to prove the point.
“I’m sorry to hear that Mitch, honestly. I know it was a big thing.”
He shrugged, but seemed to grow again as though the air was slowly bleeding back into him. That’s the thing with Mitch, he’s not the sort of bloke you can keep down for long.
“What can you do?” he said, and then he paused. “You might have to wait a little while to get your money back though!”
I’d forgotten I’d lent him the cash to go and it wasn’t as though I could be flippant about that anymore, but frankly a few hundred dollars here and there wasn’t going to put this ship right.
“Actually, there was something else that I wanted to chat to you about,” he said, and this was serious Mitch talking. “Karl told me about the sheep, over at the vineyard. What the bloody hell’s that all about?”
“I don’t know, Mitch, to be honest. There’s been a bit of bad blood recently, it’s a long story. Anyway, it’s all a bit nasty.”
“You think it might have been that little bastard Gretz?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t think so, Mitch. He’s an arsehole, but that’s way out of his league. Even if he had the balls to do it, I can’t see him being able to pull off something like that. And I can’t see any of his idiot friends doing it either.”
“Well, Karl’s bloody upset by it and nobody messes my boy around like that, so if you hear anything, you let me know. If I find out who did it, I’ll give them a kicking they won’t forget.”
I’d always been wary of getting caught up in Mitch’s idea of rough justice but it felt good to have someone on our side at last.
“I will, Mitch, no problem.”
Just then, Nathan arrived.
“Get you boys a beer?” he said, throwing his newspaper on the seat.
“Nice one, Nate,” Mitch said, with a grin, “I’ll come with you.”
He got up to go to the bar and turned to me as he left.
“Remember, Wilde, let me know if you hear anything. And I’ll keep my ear to the ground, see what I can find out.”
He winked at me and followed Nathan to the bar. I picked up Nathan’s newspaper, not so much out of interest in the news but rather to avoid the eyes that I could feel trained on me from all sides of the pub. It didn’t feel threatening nor did I have a sense that I wasn’t welcome, not at all. In fact, a few people I didn’t really know seemed to go out of their way to say hello when I’d arrived. It was just that I wasn’t comfortable in the spotlight and I knew that where there was a spotlight, there would always be those looking for what they could get out of a bad situation or those just looking for trouble. Nathan came back but Mitch had gone off with his fresh beer to talk to a few of his footie mates across the bar.
“I don’t think I’ve ever left this bar without buying that bastard a drink!” said Nathan, shaking his head with a resigned smile. “I should have kept a tab, he must owe me a couple of barrels by now!”
“You’d be at the back of a very long queue,” I said, and he laughed.
“So what’s up, Wilde?”
“Have a look at this.”
I took out a sheet of paper on which I’d summarised the position with the lighthouse as best I could figure it out. I’d listed the work that was left to be done and who was going to do it, and put together a rudimentary project plan setting out a timeline that took us to completion. I’d estimated the cost of the materials that we still had to buy, factored in the workers’ wages and added what I thought we’d have to pay for overheads like power, water and sundries like food for what was left of the crew. The bottom line was that the completion date was too far away and the number was too big. Nathan looked it over and took out a pen, marking where he thought I’d got something wrong. When he’d finished, I punched the new numbers into the calculator on my phone and arrived at a new end result that was, if anything, even worse than I’d thought.
“Sorry, Wilde,” said Nathan, “didn’t mean to dig the hole deeper!”
“Do you think, if I ran away tonight to South America, they’d come looking for me?”
He chuckled.
“Don’t reckon you’d like South America, I hear the beer’s bloody awful!”
I stared at the numbers, willing a simple calculation error to jump out at me that I could rectify and fix the whole thing. There was none and I could see no way to fix it.
“First things first, mate,” said Nathan, “do you have the money to finish it, even if we can’t do everything that we’ve promised the council?”
I barely had enough to cover the remaining costs and that was before I took out what we’d need to live until we found someone to buy the place. The only way I could do it was to borrow some money to bridge the gap and that was going to be hard. Nobody would lend me money against the lighthouse and I’d have to get Emily to agree to a mortgage against the vineyard. The money that Cathal owed me would go a long way to filling the hole, but it was clear that I couldn’t count on that any time soon.
“I reckon I can scrape enough together to at least finish it,” I said, “but it’ll be tight and if the council figure out I’m cutting corners then they might still say no. Honestly, I don’t think I can pull together enough to do everything we’ve committed to.”
We pored over the numbers for another hour or two but there was no epiphany and so we left the pub no clearer about what to do than we had been before. It was going to be a difficult meeting with Pete Baxter.
50
The junk in the spare bedroom seems to be reproducing at a rate only a little slower than we’re able to sort it out and by the time the sun has set over the ocean, we’ve just emptied the last box and filled the last of the refuse sacks that I got in town. We’ve been at it for almost a full day and we’ve barely got through one room. The “Keep” pile dwarfs the “Rubbish” heap but it’s mostly Emily’s and so that’s her problem.
“Call it a night?” I say, yawning and stretching out my cramped legs. “We can get started again early in the morning.”
“OK,” she says.
The chasm of an awkward silence yawns before the “So what now?” question so I jump into it.
“Look, I’ve booked a room in town,” I say. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
She actually looks a little hurt.
“What? Don’t be silly, you can stay here. I’ve made up the guest room.”
I bite my lip, not sure if I’m ready for a night of more awkward silences. I’d really like to hide away in a hotel room in town, maybe have a few beers on the beach, but I don’t want to make things even more difficult just because I can’t deal with the awkwardness.
“Seriously,” she says, reading my mind, “surely we can manage one night without taking each other’s heads off?”
She smiles but she knows it’s not that funny.
“OK, if you’re sure,” I say, with a shrug. “Do you want to go and get something to eat?”
“I have some stuff in the fridge, I could make some pasta?”
“If you don’t mind, sure. I might go and take a shower then.”
“OK. But use the en suite, the other one isn’t working.”
The shower feels like a hideaway and I don’t want to get out, partly too because the steaming water stinging my skin feels so good after a day sifting through the dust and grime of our past. Eventually, with the tips of my
fingers starting to wrinkle, I get out and towel myself dry. I walk back out through the bedroom that was my bedroom and I notice the rectangular patch on the wall where the sun hasn’t faded the paint and over which her travel collage used to hang. Emily’s travel collage was a huge framed collection of photographs from our trips away and from our early days here. She updated it carefully after every trip, agonising over which snaps to take out so that she could make room for the new ones. It’s gone, and so are the other photographs of us that used to sit on the chest of drawers, her bedside locker, her dressing table. Nothing has replaced them except the marks of where they used to be and the room feels empty without them. It’s like a house with something missing but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Like a house waiting for someone to tell it what the hell is going on.
“What’s wrong with the other shower?” I say, walking back into the kitchen, still drying my hair with a towel draped round my shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she says with a shake of her head. “Bloody thing stopped working a few weeks ago, the hot tap just clunks and groans and there’s no hot water coming out.”
“Did you call Nathan?”
“Not yet… I know I should, it’s just… a bit awkward, you know?”
I do know. Like Karl was always on Emily’s side, I guess it seems to Emily that Nathan is on mine.
She’s cooking while she talks, hardly paying attention as she tears up herbs and chops tomatoes and onions and garlic. She’s a great cook, she started learning from her mother as a child and she picked up tips and tricks as she got older. She cooks by feel. For Emily, a recipe is just another story and as long as she does the right things, without worrying about details like quantities and temperatures, she just assumes the story will have a happy ending. It’s the way she lives her life and maybe that’s what tore us apart in the end. Emily had her story and, as long as she played her part, she was able to cling to the belief that everything would turn out fine in the end and we would all live happily ever after. But I didn’t believe in fairy tales and so she couldn’t let me in to her make-believe world. She had to keep me on the outside. Every time we seemed to get a little bit closer to finding Cara, Emily started to write the happy ending – in Mitchelstown, with the cheater in the SsangYong and eventually with the bastard who stole all our money. That was her way, that has always been her way but, every time, the pain of disappointment got harder to bear. In our early days together, the biggest problems we had were trivial. I could smile at Emily’s insistence that everything would work out because she had worked it out and I could get on quietly with trying to fix it myself. I didn’t always manage to fix it but that was our deal and it worked. It all broke down when I realised there were things I just couldn’t fix, that I would never be able to fix. In the end, I just couldn’t listen to any more of the stories. They began to nag at my frayed nerves and I couldn’t see the happily ever after.
“Jesus, Em, this is fantastic.”
We’re sitting at the table in the kitchen, laden with bowls of pasta and salads and cured meats and her homemade walnut bread. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how good a cook she is, but I’ve never taken it for granted. The door is open out onto the stoop and the chatter of cicadas pierces the quiet. That’s what we loved most about this place, the chattering silence. And the dark. From the stoop, facing away from the faintly flickering lights of the village, the night brings a darkness that only varies in depth – from all-enveloping blackness to the milky glow of a billion stars to the full moon’s pseudo-day. Peace and quiet with a purpose, that’s what she called it when we first saw the place.
She smiles at the compliment and even blushes slightly. Did she always blush or is that new? She picks up her glass and drinks some wine to cover it up.
“The 2014,” she says, staring at the glass and turning it round and round in her hand. “It’s drinking well, don’t you think?”
I nod. It was a tough year but a good one.
“Not much of it left,” I say. “You know what, I’ll miss it when it’s gone!”
We both smile and for the first time since I arrived this morning there’s a wee crack in the tension. This wine was one of her first and, like a willful, rebellious child, it put us through heartbreak and pain but made us proud in the end. It feels strange, sitting here with her like this. At the same time, it’s comfortable and awkward, familiar and new. And it reminds me of so many evenings spent at this very table in angry silence or screaming at each other and smashing glasses against the walls. I didn’t ever stop loving her, but that was when I started to hate her. That was the beginning of the end.
51
I spoke to Pete the next morning and we arranged to meet in Bunbury that afternoon. He was very keen to meet and that just made me more apprehensive. I got to his office a little bit early so that I could rehearse my pitch one last time before I went in but I had barely sat down in reception when he came bounding down the stairs, a folder under one arm and the other hand outstretched.
“Wilde, it’s good to see you,” he said. “Come on, we can use this office over here. I can’t bring you up to mine, it’s a right mess!”
He checked that the office was empty, then we went in and he offered me a seat by the window.
“So, how are you doing?” he asked, when we were settled. He was his usual affable self, but a little bit more animated than usual, fidgety almost, as though he’d had too much coffee.
“Good, Pete, thanks,” I said, carefully, trying not to stray from the script I’d been practising in my head all day. “Well, not that good actually. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?” He frowned slightly, thrown a little bit from a script of his own.
“I’ll get to the point, Pete. We’ve lost a couple of workers and we’re going to struggle to meet the deadline.” I paused, not sure how to continue but deciding to lay all of my cards on the table. “And, to be honest, we’re… I’m running out of cash. I’m not sure we can deliver the spec we promised. We’re going to have to make some cutbacks.” I took the pages I’d prepared with Nathan out of my laptop bag and slid one to him across the desk. “This is what we’ve come up with as a compromise.”
He looked at the page but before he had time to digest the amended plans he put it back down on the table. His face darkened and any remnants of the smile faded from his lips and from his eyes. Suddenly, he looked sad, bereft almost.
“Listen, Wilde,” he said, looking me right in the eye, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
No good news was ever delivered with that introduction.
“Shit, I don’t know how to tell you this, Wilde. You have to know I’ve done everything I can, but… well, there’s just nothing I can do.”
“Just spit it out, Pete,” I said.
He took a deep breath and pulled a document of his own from the folder he’d set on the desk and passed it over to me.
“This was filed last week with the planning department. It’s an objection. It claims that the refurbished building exceeds the maximum square metres allowed on the site. I checked the plans and they’re right. The footprint is nineteen per cent too big. I’m really sorry, but I’ve checked it out. They’re right and there’s nothing we can do.”
I read the document but it made no sense to me so I put it down on the desk and stared out the window, trying to corral my thoughts. Finally, I turned back to Baxter.
“Hold on, Pete, this makes no sense. You knew what we were building, you’ve always known the footprint. How can you tell me now that it’s too big?”
“The allowable footprint is a percentage of the plot size. In the planning application, you included the space where you guys have been parking your cars in the total size of the plot, but that’s on a public right of way. It’s public land, it doesn’t belong to the plot. When you take that out, the footprint of the building is too big.”
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“But it was all in the application, Pete. If there was a problem, why didn’t you tell me back then? Why did you wait until now, when we’re almost done?” I was losing my temper and I didn’t care. “This is bullshit, Pete! It’s bullshit!”
“I know, Wilde, and I’m sorry. I’ve talked to the planning officer but he says that the plans were approved based on what you told them. They don’t verify the details, they just approve the plans as they’ve been presented. If it turns out the plans were inaccurate, then the approval can be revoked. They can’t check the detail of every plan that comes in, they have to approve based on what they’re given.”
“Who lodged the objection?”
“I don’t know, Wilde. The planning officer wouldn’t tell me.”
I slumped back into the chair, elbows on the desk and head in my hands.
“Can I get you something, mate,” Pete said, softly. “Coffee, maybe?”
I nodded and he left the room. My mind was racing, trying to create a frame on which I could hang all of the new facts that were blowing around in the maelstrom in my head. I couldn’t catch them to set them down and start to make sense of them. Gradually, they slowed down and the noise in my head abated. I could see them now, the facts, and there weren’t as many as I had imagined. In fact it was quite simple now that they were coming to a stop. We made a mistake in the planning application. Someone found out. They objected. Our planning approval was going to be revoked.
It was that simple. Our planning approval was going to be revoked.
Baxter came back into the room and handed me a coffee. He sat down and waited for me to talk.
“So…” I started, staring up at the ceiling so the facts didn’t start to fly around my head again. “So, what do I have to do to get the planning approval renewed?”
His raised eyebrows told me it wasn’t going to be as simple as all that.
“You have two options. First, you could try to buy the extra land to bring the plot size up. Alternatively, you’d have to reduce the footprint.”