by Tim Buckley
I showered and lay on the bed to get a couple of hours’ rest but despite the limb-aching fatigue, I couldn’t get to sleep. Like curious kittens escaping from a basket, I couldn’t gather up all of the things that were worrying me, I couldn’t get them to sit still so that I could count them and make a plan. Cara and the lighthouse and Stevie and Emily and money and Cathal and the slaughtered sheep… they buzzed around my head like bugs around a light bulb. Eventually the silence was too much so I gave up on sleep and got up, got dressed and got out of the apartment.
It might not have been the most important, but the most pressing problem was the lighthouse. We were running out of time and the risk was that any cost we incurred now was simply money wasted. I needed a solicitor to help me make sense of the legal questions and so I called Cecil Farnham’s office in town and asked if I could pop in to see him.
“Well, hello there, Mr Wilde,” he said, when his secretary showed me into his office. “It’s nice to see you. It’s been a while. I was going to ask how you’ve been, but… well, not too good, I’m going to guess?”
Cecil was woven into the town’s fabric and little happened in Clovelly that he didn’t know about. He offered me a seat on his sofa facing out to the ocean then poured a coffee from the percolator bubbling on his sideboard and handed it to me.
“Black, right?” he said.
“Black’s great, thanks.”
He sat down across from me and sipped the coffee daintily from a china cup. Cecil was in his late sixties, I’d guess, always impeccably turned out in a three-piece suit and shining black leather shoes, his white hair greased and combed back from his forehead. Despite all his years spent in this climate, his complexion was still pale, ruddied by the sun but never browned. He wore a fob watch in the pocket of his waistcoat and his gold-rimmed spectacles sat perched on the end of his brandied nose. His father started the practice and he took it over when the old man died. Clovelly and its surrounds were not, I imagine, a hotbed of legal intrigue but Cecil and his two associates seemed to do well enough from the cases that came their way. He’d been our representative for the purchase of the farm and when we bought the lighthouse but that had all been in the past and I hadn’t seen him for some time.
“‘Not too good’ is probably about right, Cecil,” I nodded, with a rueful smile. “Which is why I’m here.”
He nodded.
“I heard about the little one, of course. I’m terribly, terribly sorry. I can’t imagine…”
“Thank you, Cecil. Yes, it’s been a difficult time.”
“And I’ve heard too the murmurings around town since that article in the Observer.”
“Well, it’s neither of those things, Cecil. It’s actually about the lighthouse that I wanted to talk to you. There’s been a planning objection, they’re threatening to stop the project and tear the whole thing down.”
I told him about the objection and about my meeting with Baxter. I told him, too, about the revelation that most of our money was gone and we were heading for broke. I didn’t tell him that Emily and I had split up. He probably knew anyway but I just didn’t want to go down that road.
“The thing is,” I said, when I’d been through the whole sorry tale, “I probably don’t have enough money to finish it anyway, at least not to the spec that we’ve agreed. In some ways, it would suit me fine if they took it back and I could wash my hands of the whole thing. Everything has changed since we started it and the plans we had back then… well, to be honest, I just want shot of the place. But Pete Baxter says that I would be responsible for the cost of demolition and landscaping the site and I don’t have that kind of money. So I’m just trying to find out what my options are. Legally, at any rate.”
Cecil went to a filing cabinet and pulled out my file, then he flicked through it until he found the document he was looking for. It was the contract for the purchase of the lighthouse from the council and he began to read through it, murmuring and raising his eyebrows and shaking his head as he did. Eventually, he put it down on the desk and stared out to sea, steepling his index fingers to the tip of his nose. He mulled over what he’d read for a few minutes then turned to me.
“He’s right,” he said. “Baxter is right. You contracted to renovate the property to the specifications as set out in the appendix to the contract or to finance its demolition and any repurposing of the land.” He took a deep breath. “I remember talking about this at the time, Mr Wilde. There is a letter in your file where I said that those provisions were penal but you said that it wouldn’t come to that and so you were happy to sign it. I’m not trying to say ‘I told you so’ or to cover my back, you understand, but it’s all there in black and white and, well, those chickens are coming home to roost.”
I smiled, I don’t know quite at what, and nodded.
“I guess I knew that, Cecil, I was just hoping there was something that might let me wriggle out of it.”
He shook his head.
“So what other choices do I have?” I asked. “If I can’t pay? If I leave the country?”
“If you can’t pay, the state will sue for bankruptcy with all of the usual rules that apply in that case. If you left the country, the debt would not be expunged and the courts could pursue you wherever you go. If that country had a treaty or a legal arrangement with Australia, Ireland for example, then you would be served there and you would have to return to Australia to face the same legal proceedings. If there was no legal arrangement with Australia, then you would effectively be on the run from the courts.”
“So what do you recommend?”
“The first thing to do, I think, is to challenge the objection in court. That won’t take long and you should be eligible for legal aid. I’m not for a moment saying that you are sure to win, but there are precedents for the dismissal of this kind of objection and we can apply on the basis of the more relevant cases. In my experience, the court will decide very quickly whether the precedent applies in this case, a matter of a few days. If that doesn’t work, then you’ll have to think about a negotiation with the state to see to what extent you can limit your liability. They won’t want this dragging on any more than you do so you might be able to cut a deal.”
I nodded. I didn’t have a lot of money available for legal fees so this at least felt like it gave me a chance. I didn’t really feel like I had a choice.
***
I left Farnham’s office and sat in the jeep for a while, looking out to the white-capped ocean past the families playing on the beach. This was all threatening to get away from me and I knew that, like a gambler, I had to set a stop-loss on my investment in fighting the council beyond which I was simply hurtling towards bankruptcy anyway. I thought about just giving in and letting the council repossess the site, but I couldn’t face the prospect of losing that much money without at least putting up a fight. At last, I started up the engine and headed for the apartment.
I hadn’t planned to call in to the hospital but the drive back to the apartment took me that way and I found myself pulling into the car park without having really decided to go see Stevie. I didn’t really want to face his father so I padded tentatively down the corridor to his room and peeked around the door to see who was there. As it turned out, there was nobody there, not even Stevie, so I looked around for a doctor or a nurse to ask where they’d moved him.
“Wilde,” called out a familiar voice behind me and Nathan jogged down the corridor to where I was. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying your phone all bloody morning!”
“I was with Cecil Farnham,” I said, “I forgot to turn it back on when I came out. What’s up?”
It only took a moment for the stark, cold truth of what was up to hit me, before Nathan even had time to open his mouth. They hadn’t moved Stevie. Stevie was gone. Nathan saw it dawning on me and put an arm round my shoulder.
“Last night,” he said, quietly. “The
y made the decision to take him off life support and the poor bastard didn’t make it.”
I slumped down onto the floor, my head in my hands. Nobody deserved to die like that, victim of some pointless twist of fate that helped no one and shattered a few innocent lives. It all seemed so mean, so carelessly nasty. If somebody gets sick or loses his life doing something that involves a risk he’s accepted, one he’s chosen to take, then the tragedy is somehow tempered by an inevitability or an acceptance of what will be. But when it’s just a mischief, just a cruel toss of life’s coin, then the loss is that much harder to take. It wasn’t my fault that Stevie died, but he’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me, if it wasn’t for my folly, my pointless project on the cliff. It wasn’t my fault, but it was my doing and that was hard to bear.
There were footsteps on the corridor and then an angry voice.
“You bastard,” snarled Stevie’s father, “you’ve got no right to be here! Get away from us, go on, scram!”
His wife tried to calm him down, putting a hand on his arm, but her eyes were no less full of hate than his when she looked at me.
“Easy, Dad,” Karen said, taking his other arm.
“That bastard has no right to be here, no right to try making himself feel better! I hope you never feel better, you bastard!’ The old man spat the words but there were tears on his cheeks.
I stood up and tried to talk to him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, “really, I…”
“You’re not getting away with this,” he shouted, “we’re going to sue you, rich man! We’re going to take everything you’ve got! You took away my boy and now I’m going to take away everything you have!”
“You should go,” Karen said, gently but brooking no discussion. “We’re going to pick up his things and it’d be better if you weren’t here.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and Nathan and I made our way back along the corridor and away from the grieving old man. We walked in silence until we got to the hospital reception, then Nathan put a big hand on my shoulder.
“You all right?” he said.
I nodded, then shook my head.
“Not really, no.”
“Don’t worry about the old man, this must be hitting him hard. He knows it’s not your fault. He’s not going to sue you, he just wants to vent.”
I looked at him askance.
“Wouldn’t do him much good, Nathan, would it? It’s not like I’ve got anything left to take.”
He started to say something reassuring, like things could only get better or every cloud or some such pointless platitude, but pointless platitudes aren’t really Nathan’s bag so he stopped himself short.
“Listen,” he said, instead, “I talked to Robbie and he’s going to close up at the site and bring Ben and Jake down to the Schoolhouse so we can send Stevie off the way he’d want, with a gutful of beer. Jason was off today so I haven’t talked to him yet, but I’ll make sure he’s there. See you there in an hour, say?”
***
I’m not a great one for a piss-up anymore but that day, in those circumstances, a piss-up seemed somehow appropriate. I went back to the apartment, got changed, and was back in the Schoolhouse before Nathan and the boys had finished their first beer.
“Good work, fella,” Robbie said as I walked up to the high table around which they’d gathered. He poured a beer from the pitcher on the table and pushed it my way.
“And you owe the kitty twenty bucks,” Nathan said, “hand it over!”
I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to him with a grateful nod, my card wouldn’t have gone far behind the bar that night.
“Heads up,” he said under his breath, stuffing the bill into a pint pot on the table, “Cooper’s over there with some bloke I haven’t seen before. Don’t worry, he won’t start something when he’s outnumbered like this, he knows when to stay away from a kicking.”
So we toasted Stevie and we laughed about some of the daft things he used to do. It reminded me of Karen’s stories from their childhood and the clumsiness that got him – and her – hurt in their youth. Robbie told stories from other jobs they’d been on together and Nathan told us how he’d offered Stevie the job.
“I’d been looking for a plasterer, a really good one, but it was so bloody hard to get a bloke you can trust. Anyway, I had a mate supervising a site down in Albany. We were out one weekend and he told me how he’d had to fire his plasterer. The bloke had been in a rush on a Friday afternoon and trying to get finished so he could push off for the weekend. He was finishing a wall but there was a lump just below one of the first-floor windows. Now, there was no scaffold where he needed it and someone had locked the ladders away. Everyone else had gone and the place was all locked up, so Stevie breaks into the house and goes up to the bedroom. He ties a rope to the radiator, ties the other end round his waist and climbs out the window. He fixes the lump in the plaster while he’s dangling from the rope, but the rope slips and tips him upside down. First of all, he drops the plaster, but then he realises he can’t clamber back up to get back in the window. So he’s just swinging there.
“My buddy comes back to fetch something he’s forgotten and sees Stevie hanging out of the window. He runs into the house and somehow hauls Stevie back in the window. But he’s mad as a spitting cobra and he fires him there and then. I thought about it for a minute. ‘Can he plaster?’ I ask him. ‘Better than any man I’ve ever had,’ he says. So I scribble on a beermat and hand it to him. ‘Here’s my number,’ I say. ‘Give him a call, tell him he starts Monday.’”
There were more stories about Stevie and there was some more sombre reminiscence too. It wasn’t as though any of them had been lifelong friends but even these men, who would never admit to even a hint of sentimentality, were genuinely touched by his loss. The pitcher was drained and filled a few more times and when Nathan emptied it again, it was my turn to fill it.
“I’ll come with you,” Nathan said, “I know how long it can take you to get the beers in!”
The others laughed and Robbie slapped me on the back as we went to the bar.
“This was a good idea, Nathan,” I said, as the barman filled the pitcher. “Thanks.”
“When in doubt,” he said, “get the beers in, eh?”
The barman handed the pitcher over the bar and it slopped a little on the countertop. I gave him a note and he went off to get my change. Over the other side of the bar, I could see Cooper with his back to me. A couple of tables away, Mitch was talking with one of his football buddies. All the usual suspects were in that night.
“I was thinking, Nate,” I said, and seeing Cooper had helped me come to a decision I’d been struggling with for a few days, “these guys have been loyal, they’ve really come good for me. I think we should tell them what’s going on. I wouldn’t feel right, if we have to close the job, to only give them a day’s notice before leaving them out of work.”
Nathan nodded slowly.
“I’ve been thinking about that as well,” he said. “It’s a tough one. If you tell them, there’s a chance they’ll walk. There’s plenty of work out there and loyalty only goes so far.” He shrugged, tipping an imaginary scales in his hands. “On the other hand, if you don’t tell them, there’s plenty of work out there. They’re good guys, they wouldn’t be long out of a job. I don’t think anybody would blame you. But let’s just have a good night tonight. Stevie’s gone and they need to let their hair down, they surely don’t need more bad news. Let’s get them together at the site tomorrow and, if you want to tell them, we’ll tell them then, OK?”
“OK. I owe them that much at least. And look, mate,” I said, prodding him in the shoulder with an index finger, “I owe it to you, too. I know there are other jobs out there crying out for someone like you. I won’t hold it against you if you put out some feelers, you know, to te
st the water. Just don’t go diving in, that’s all I’m saying!”
He laughed.
“Thanks, Wilde, I appreciate it. But let’s just get through the next week and let’s see how the land lies. You can tell me tomorrow what Cecil Farnham made of the whole thing.”
The barman came back with my change and we brought the pitcher back over to the table. We talked some more about Stevie and then about footie and women and all the other mandatory agenda items for a night on the beer with the boys. For a couple of hours at least, I allowed myself to forget about the gathering storms and to just be for a little while.
56
Fate had determined, however, that the respite would be short. Or, at least, Mitch had. He made his way through the growing and increasingly boisterous evening crowd to where we were standing and pulled me away by the arm. He looked unusually earnest.
“Get your things, we’re leaving,” he said, in a hushed growl.
“What are you talking about, Mitch?” I said, my mind slowed down a bit by the beer, and I pulled my arm away. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He grabbed my arm again and I realised that he was deadly serious. He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t even buzzing, and his eyes were darting round the bar looking for something or someone.