Silver Bay (7 page)

I guess that beer must have been a two-fingers to her, as much as anything. Her and her bloody fitness-instructor bloke and her half-share of everything and her stupid demands. Because, to be honest, it didn’t taste that great. I was going to drink one at the pub but somehow, when I thought about it, sitting in a pub by yourself at eleven twenty-five in the morning seemed a little . . . sad. Even on a Saturday.

So I sat in the front of my truck, drinking my beer with a little less speed than I might have done, waiting for the point when it would stop feeling like an effort, and start easing the hours along from the inside. I had no customers that day. I’d had to admit my numbers had dropped a lot since I’d graffitied the boat. Liza had helped me paint over it at the weekend, and told me briskly that if I kept my mouth shut everyone would have forgotten about it in a week or two. And I did – I was going to have to work like a bloody dog to pay the kind of settlement that that ex of mine was demanding.

‘A clean break’, they called it. The same phrase doctors use when they talk about a snapped limb. And that was how it felt, I can tell you. So painful that if I thought about it too hard it made me feel physically sick.

But for now I sat in my cab in the car park thinking of how I had watched the tourists totter down Whale Jetty in their high heels, clutching their video cameras and their whalesong CDs, and eye
Suzanne
warily, as if she might jump out of the water to reveal some other blasphemy.

If I hadn’t had other plans that day, I would have taken her out by myself. Even after a beer. I’d found that sometimes just sitting in the bay watching the bottlenose made me feel better. They stick their heads up with those stupid old smiles as if they’re having a joke with you, and sometimes you can’t help but laugh, even on days when you want to slit your wrists. I guess we were all a bit like that, the crews. We knew that was the best bit – just you and those creatures, out in the silence of the water.

‘At least you didn’t have kids,’ the solicitor had remarked, checking out the joint account. She’d no idea what she’d said.

I’d finished the second beer when I saw him. I’d crumpled the tin in my fist and was about to chuck it into the passenger footwell when I clocked him. You couldn’t miss him. He stood there in his dark blue pen-pusher’s suit, flanked by two oversized matching suitcases, gazing back towards the main street. I stared at him until he clocked me back, then stuck my head out of the window. ‘You all right, mate?’

He hesitated, then picked up his cases and stepped forward. His black lace-up shoes had been polished to within an inch of their lives. Not the kind of bloke I’d normally have got chatting to, but he looked dead beat, and I guess I felt sorry for him. One deadbeat to another, like.

When he reached my window, he dropped the cases and fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘I think my taxi’s dropped me at the wrong place. Can you tell me if there’s a hotel near here?’

A Pom. I might have guessed. I squinted at him. ‘There’s a few, mate. Which end of Silver Bay you after?’

He glanced at his piece of paper again. ‘It just says the . . . ah . . . Silver Bay Hotel.’

‘Kathleen’s place? It’s not a hotel as such. Not any more.’

‘Is it much of a walk?’

I guess curiosity got the better of me. You don’t often see men dressed up like a dog’s dinner in this neck of the woods. ‘She’s a way up the road. Hop in. Got a bit of business over there myself. You can sling your bags in the back.’

I saw doubt pass over his face, as if an offer of a lift was to be mistrusted. Or perhaps he didn’t want his smart luggage touching my seaweedy gear in the back. This bugged me a little, and I nearly changed my mind. But he dragged his cases round to the tailgate and I watched him haul them over the side. Then he opened the door and climbed in, struggling as his feet made contact with the pile of empties.

‘Mind your shoes on those tinnies,’ I said, as I pulled off. ‘The beer should be long gone, but I can’t promise.’

As a name ‘Silver Bay’ is a little misleading. It’s not really one bay at all but two, separated by Whale Jetty, which sticks out on the piece of land that cuts through them. From above, I used to say, the sea looks like a giant blue backside. (Suzanne would raise her eyebrows at that but, then, she raised her eyebrows at almost everything I said.)

Kathleen’s place sat on one of the bays, the furthest, right at the end, near the point that took you out to the open sea. All that remained on her side, really, was the old Bullen house, the museum and the sand dunes. The other side of Whale Jetty was MacIver’s Seafood Bar and Grill, the fish market, and then, as you moved further from Kathleen’s, the growing spread of the town.

He told me his name was Mike, and I forget his surname. He didn’t say much else. I asked him if he was here on business, and he said, ‘Pleasure, mainly.’ I remember thinking, What the hell kind of bloke dresses like that on his holidays? He said he’d just got off the plane that morning and he should have had a hire car but the company had screwed up and said they’d deliver one to him up here from Newcastle tomorrow.

‘Long flight, but,’ I said.

He nodded.

‘Been here before?’

‘Sydney. Once. I wasn’t there very long.’

I figured he was in his mid-thirties. He looked at his watch a lot, for someone who wasn’t working. I asked him how he came to be booked in to Kathleen’s. ‘It’s not the busiest,’ I said, glancing pointedly at his expensive suit. ‘I thought someone like you’d want to be somewhere . . . you know . . . smarter.’

He looked straight ahead, as if he was working out his answer. ‘I heard the area was nice,’ he said. ‘It was the only hotel I could find listed.’

‘You really want to be over at the Blue Shoals up the coast there,’ I said. ‘Pretty nice place, that. En-suites, Olympic-sized pool, all that jazz. Monday to Thursday they do a pretty good all-you-can-eat buffet too. Fifteen dollars a head, I think it is. Fridays the price goes up a bit.’ I swerved to avoid a dog that loped across the road. ‘And there’s the Admiral, in Nelson Bay. Satellite telly in every room, the decent channels, not the crap. You’d get a good deal this time of year – I happen to know there’s hardly anyone in there.’

‘Thank you,’ he said eventually. ‘If I decide to move, that may come in useful.’

After that there wasn’t much we said to each other. I drove, feeling a bit irritated that the guy hadn’t made more of an effort. I’d picked him up, driven him all the way – a cab ride would have cost him a good ten bucks – given him the low-down on the area, and he made barely any effort to talk to me.

I was half thinking of saying something – I guess the beer had warmed me up a little – but then I realised he’d fallen asleep. Out cold. Not even a sharp-suited businessman looks like a winner when he’s drooling on his shoulder. For some reason this made me feel better and I found myself whistling all the way along the coast road to Silver Bay.

Kathleen had done up the table something beautiful. I saw the cloth and the balloons long before I saw anything else, the white damask billowing in the brisk winds, the balloons bobbing in a bid to break free for the heavens.

The home-made bunting read ‘Happy Birthday, Hannah’, and below it, the birthday girl and a gang of her mates were squealing at some bloke with a snake wrapped round his arm.

For a minute I forgot about the visitor in my cab. I climbed out and walked along the driveway, remembering with a jolt that the party had started an hour earlier.

‘Greg.’ Kathleen had a way of looking you up and down that told you she knew exactly where you were coming from. ‘Nice of you to make it.’

‘Who’s that?’ I nodded towards the bloke with the snake.

‘The Creature Teacher, I believe he calls himself. Every creepy-crawly you can imagine. Giant cockroaches, snakes, tarantulas . . . He lets the kids hold them, stroke them, that kind of thing. It was what Hannah asked for.’ She shuddered. ‘Can’t think of anything more disgusting.’

‘In my day you’d stamp on ’em,’ I agreed, ‘with your Blundstones on.’

There were eight kids, and a few adults, mainly other crew. That didn’t surprise me. Hannah was a funny kid, old before her time, and we were all used to her hanging around with us. She had done since she was small.

It was good to see her with some kids her own age. Apart from that girl Lara, I hardly ever saw her with one. You’d forget how young she was, half the time. Liza said she was like that, a bit solitary. I sometimes wondered whether she was talking about Hannah or herself.

Kathleen handed me a cup of tea, and I took it, hoping she couldn’t smell the beer on my breath. It didn’t seem right, somehow, at a child’s party. And I was very fond of that kid.

‘Your boat’s a bit prettier now.’ Kathleen grinned.

‘I suppose you know Liza helped me repaint her name.’

‘That temper of yours’ll get you into trouble.’ She tutted. ‘Old enough to know better, I’d say.’

‘Is this you telling me off, Kathleen?’

‘You’re not that drunk, then.’

‘One,’ I protested. ‘Just one. Okay, maybe two.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘And it’s just after midday. Well, good for you.’

You’ve got to hand it to the Shark Lady. She tells it as she sees it. Always has, always will. Not like Liza. She looks at you as if there’s a whole other conversation going on in her head, and when you ask her what she’s thinking (like a woman! That’s what she reduces you to!) she’ll shrug as if nothing’s going on at all.

‘Hi, Greg.’ Hannah ran past, beaming. I remember that feeling – when you’re a kid and it’s your birthday and for one day everyone makes you feel like the most special person in the world. She paused just long enough to clock the little parcel under my arm. She’s an angel, that girl, but she’s not stupid.

‘Oh, this is for your aunt Kathleen,’ I said.

She stopped right in front of me, mischief in her eyes. ‘How come it’s got kids’ wrapping paper?’ she said.

‘It has?’

‘It’s for me,’ she ventured.

‘Are you saying your aunt Kathleen’s too old for this paper?’ I put on my best innocent face.

It had never worked with Suzanne either. She stared at it, trying to work out what it might be. She’s not the kind of kid to snatch. She’s cautious – thinks before she acts. I couldn’t bear making her wait any longer, so I handed it over. I have to admit, I was quite excited myself.

She ripped it open, flanked by her friends. They were all growing up, I noticed, losing the skinny little legs and the chubby cheeks. In a couple you could already see the women they would become. I had to fight my sadness at the thought that some would end up like Suzanne. Dissatisfied, nagging . . . faithless.

‘It’s a key,’ she said, puzzled, as she held it aloft. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘A key?’ I said, making myself look confused. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Greg . . .’

‘You sure you don’t recognise it?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s the key to my lock-up.’

She frowned, still not getting it.

‘The one by the jetty. Darn – I must have left your present in there. You and your mates might want to scoot down and check.’

They were gone before I could say another word, feet kicking up in the sand, all squeals and sneakers. Kathleen gazed at me quizzically, but I said nothing. Sometimes you just want to savour the moment and, these days, I get precious few to savour.

Within minutes they were sprinting back up the path. ‘Is it the boat? Is it the little boat?’ Her cheeks were flushed, her hair mussed round her face. I lost my breath. She was so much like her mother.

‘Did you check the name?’ I said.

‘
Hannah’s Glory
,’ she told her aunt Kathleen breathlessly. ‘It’s a blue dinghy and it’s called
Hannah’s Glory
. Is it really for me?’

‘Sure is, Princess,’ I said. That smile nixed my crappy morning. She threw her little arms round me, and I hugged her right back, unable to stop myself beaming.

‘Can we take it out? Can I take it out, Auntie K?’

‘Not right now, sweetheart. You’ve got your cake to cut. But I’m sure you can sit in it in the lock-up.’

I could hear her excited chatter the whole way down the path.

‘A boat?’ Kathleen turned to me, one eyebrow arched, when Hannah was out of earshot. ‘You talk to Liza about this?’

‘Ah . . . not yet.’ The kids were skipping back to my lock-up. ‘But I think I’m about to get my chance.’

She was striding towards me, holding a plate with the birthday cake on it, the little dog at her heels. She was beautiful. As always she looked like she’d meant to head for somewhere else but at the last minute she’d decided to stop by you, as a favour, you understand.

‘Hi. I’ve been hanging that bit of baleen on her wall – over her bed, she wants it.’ She nodded a greeting at me. ‘Stinks to high heaven. She’s got four books on dolphins, two on whales and a video. She’ll be opening her own museum at this rate. You’ve never seen a room so full of dolphin tat.’ She straightened. ‘Where are the kids off to?’

‘You might want to talk to Greg about that,’ said Kathleen. Then she walked off, one hand raised, as if she didn’t want to be around for the next bit.

‘They’re – ah – checking out my present.’

She put the plate on the table. ‘Oh, yes? What did you get?’ She began to whip the clingfilm off the sandwiches.

‘Old Carter was selling it. Little sculling craft. I’ve rubbed it down, given it a lick of paint. It’s in perfect nick.’

It took her a minute to register what I’d said. She stared at the table for a moment, then looked up at me. ‘You got her a what?’

‘A little boat. Of her own. I thought once she’s had a few lessons she can go and see the bottlenoses with her mates.’ I was a bit unnerved by her expression, so I added, ‘She’s got to have one eventually.’

She put her hands up to her mouth – 0a little like she was praying. She seemed something less than grateful.

‘Greg?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Are you out of your tiny mind?’

‘What?’

‘You bought my daughter a boat? My daughter who isn’t allowed out on the water? What the hell did you think you were doing?’ Her voice was blistering.