The Rock Collector

14

The Rock Collector

    Polly had had five days by herself after buying the car—though you couldn’t count the first of them, it was shrouded in a grey mist of hangover—when her phone rang. Buster. He’d finished his painting job, the bloke had rounded up his ruddy nephews to help, which meant that he, Buster, hadn’t got the holiday money he'd been counting on—

    “Oh, dear, was the bloke gonna pay you?” cried Polly sympathetically.

    “Yeah. Anyway, the job’s done, and the flat’s broken up, Steve-o’s finished his degree and me and Mike can’t afford to keep it on and that Emily Chu, she’s pulled out, she only stuck it because she thought Steve-o and her were gonna get engaged. So I was wondering, wouldja mind if I came over there a bit early?”

    “No, of course not, Buster! That’d be lovely!”

    “Oh, great!”

    “But how are you gonna get here?”

    “Um, well, see, I reckon I can get to Wollongong—”

    At this moment a cross voice said in the background: “Don’t you bloody dare, mate!” and then Tom said: “Polly? Look, whatever the little bludger’s up to, say No!”

    “Tom, of course I can collect him from Wollongong, it’s no distance, and the car’s just sitting there, I might as well use it.”

    “Wollongong my arse! He can get as far as Sydney, because Bill Wilson from work’s been suckered into offering him a lift with them—they’re going to the rellies for Christmas and it’s a five-seater. Then he’ll bludge off Blinker until he fails to find a lift to Wollongong. Then he’ll ring you up, all sad—”

    “I will NOT, Dad!”

    “Shuddup, ya bludger. We know ya will. –And sucker you into driving all the way to Sydney and back, Polly. It’s not gonna happen.”

    “I could do that,” said Polly rather weakly.

    “Look, you’ve gotta get from Gorski Bay to Wollongong in the first place, that road’s no picnic, and then it’s nearly 90 K from Wollongong to Sydney, most days it takes the best part of two hours, and it’s the bloody Princes Highway! Not to mention the Sydney traffic when ya get there!”

    She swallowed. ‘”Um, I must admit I don’t fancy the thought of Sydney traffic.”

    “No, and you’re not gonna be driving in it!” There was a mutter from the background and he roared: “You’re not gonna hitch! –Um, sorry, Polly. For God’s sake ring us if he tries it on again, won’t you?”

    “Um, yes, but I’d love to have him, Tom.”

    Tom sniffed. “He won’t be company for you, he’ll be down the beach playing with ’is board all day.”

    “I don’t play,” came a very sulky mutter from the background.

    “Of course,” said Polly with a smile in her voice. “What else are sea, sand, sun and surf for?”

    “Uh—well, if you’ve got a bit of nous, like Stan Smith, for a bit of surfcasting that you sell the results of to Ma and Pa Brinkman for ten times what they’d have to pay in the supermarket.”

    “Supermarket fish is awful, Dad!”

    “Shuddup, did anyone solicit your opinion? –What I was gonna say, Polly, if he manages to make it down there do not let him sucker you into buying him any surfcasting gear. The reels alone cost a flaming fortune and God knows what the rods ’ud set ya back.”

    “Um, all right,” she said in a bewildered voice and Tom Mayhew made a face at the wall and said kindly: “You know, love: great big long rods. They stand in the surf in imminent danger of being swept off their feet by a rogue wave—or even the normal tide—and after only five hours’ sweating effort they might with luck hook one tiddler.”

    “That’s bullshit, Dad.”

    “No-one is going to buy you a surfcasting rod,” replied Tom slowly and evilly. “You want one, you work for it like the rest of the population. Geddit?”

    “YES! I wasn’t gonna ask her!” A door was heard to slam.

    “Tom,” said Polly cautiously, “wasn’t that a bit on the nose?”

    “No. He’s been dropping hints for the past year. And it’s a bloody dangerous sport. Uh—people do do it in New Zealand, do they?”

    “Um, yes, I think so. I’ve never seen it.”

    “Yeah, well, every year in Oz there’s at least one report of some nong getting swept off the rocks surfcasting, and drowning. Him or the luckless hero that plunges in to save him.”

    “Mm. Did you say Stan Smith?”

    “Eh? Yeah. Think ’e brought some fish to that bloody barbie of the Brinkmans, but you might not’ve met him.”

    “Um, Buster got some fish for me. The man he found, that cooked the fish, he was called Stan.”

    She sounded bloody peculiar. “Yeah. He’s all right,” said Tom cautiously. “Not the Kym Corrigan type. Wouldn’t’ve made a pest of himself.”

    “No. Um, would he—would he sometimes come round with fish?”

    “Yeah, I just said. Makes bloody Brinkman pay through the nose, good on ’im!”

    “Mm. Um, I meant to—to the house. Your place,” said Polly in a trembling voice.

    “Well, yeah, if he’s got some to spare and no well-off sucker’s up for shelling out megabucks—yeah. Quite often brings us fish. Why? Did he turn up? Didn’t make a pest of himself, surely?”

    “No. I—I think it must’ve been him, only it was the day after I’d had to keep Kym at bay while I bought the car and, um, I’d drunk so much gin the night before from—from sheer reaction, that I was practically blind with hangover. I didn’t recognise him—if it was him. He had an awful hat on. I’m afraid I was rude to him.”

    “Shit, Stan wouldn’t mind, love!” said Tom on a bracing note, wishing he’d never got onto the bloody topic, in fact it’d be worth buying ruddy Buster a surfcasting rod not to have got onto— Yeah.

    “I—I just couldn’t face even the thought of fresh fish,” said Polly with a shudder.

    “Nah, don’t reckon I could, either, with a hangover. Don’t let it worry you. Stan won’t give it another thought, I can guarantee! Look, we’ll have a think about getting blasted Buster over there, if ya really want him.”

    “Mm, I do,” she said.

    Tom could feel she was smiling: thank Christ! He didn’t chance his luck, he just said: “Right. See ya, Polly,” and hung up.

    Polly went outside and sat down sadly under the big deodar. “No, he won’t give it another thought,” she said glumly.

    Tom rang her the next day. “We’ve given in,” he said heavily. “Paying his bus fare from Sydney to Wollongong. You sure you don’t mind meeting him?”

    “No, of course not!”

    “Right. Well, thanks very much, Polly. Uh—don’t let him sucker you into buying— I was gonna say expensive steak for him, but on second thoughts, anything. And he doesn’t need to be taken to any fancy restaurants, either—well, it’s Bill’s Billabong or Aussie pies at the pub locally, if you don’t fancy fish and chips, but there are some fancy nosh-houses in Wollongong, these days. Sort that go in for dainty little piles and edible flowers on the plate.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Right. Stick to the pizza place we went to,” he advised with a smile in his voice. “They’ll do you a decent meal—pasta if you don’t fancy pizza—at a very reasonable price, and their coffee’s usually okay. And it’s licensed, but don’t let him drink anything stronger than beer, will you?”

    “No, I won’t.”

    “Well, thanks again, Polly.”

    “That’s okay.”

    “Hang on—Jenny wants to speak to you.”

    “Polly, are you sure about this?” said Jenny’s voice, sounding grim.

    “Yes, of course.”

    “On your head be it. But he eats like a horse, remember—or actually, more like a hippopotamus. Buy three times as much bread, milk, marg and peanut butter as you think you’ll need.”

    Polly smiled. “My boys aren’t much older than him, Jenny. I do know how much they can eat!”

    “Yeah,” she said heavily. “Just don’t buy a rotisserie chook and expect there to be any remains in the fridge next day, that’s all.”

    “Okay, I won’t!” said Polly with a laugh.

    “And if you buy any expensive fruit juice—”

    “Gone with the wind: I know! Does he put the empty carton back in the fridge?”

    “No, he puts it back with a teaspoonful left in it,” replied his mother evilly.

    Polly broke down in giggles.

    “On the other hand—” began Jenny evilly.

    “Stop!” she gasped helplessly.

    “On the other hand,” said Jenny relentlessly, “if you don’t watch him like a hawk he’ll leave the milk carton out on the bench. Preferably in full sun.”

    “Then there won’t be any milk for his coffee, will there?”

    “No, well, serve him right. And don’t bother to make real coffee for him, he thinks Instant’s coffee.”

    “So do my kids. We’ll be okay, Jenny!”

    “I hope so. Well, ring us if there’s the slightest problem, Polly.”

    “I will! But there won’t be!” she said cheerfully.

    Not much, thought Jenny, bidding her goodbye and thanks again.

    Nothing went wrong with the arrangements, and Polly and the Merc duly collected a grinning Buster in Wollongong. He offered generously to drive back, but Polly replied cheerfully: “When you’ve driven me to the supermarket and back a few times and we’ve done a little run up the coast, and I’m quite sure you can handle the car, then I’ll think about letting you drive a longer distance. And not before.”

    “You sound just like Mum,” replied Buster glumly.

    “Good,” said Polly heartlessly.

    Once they reached the weekender he of course had to ingest huge amounts of food, even though she’d fed him in Wollongong. Then he thought he might like a beer but Polly replied that there wasn’t any. They could go to the Gorski Bay supermarket tomorrow and he could lift one of those bloody “slabs” for her. This went down extremely well and he forgot all about his grudge over not being immediately provided with alcoholic refreshment.

    That huge meal had really been his tea, though it had been a bit early for it, true; so after a couple of hours he made himself two giant peanut-butter doorsteps, using the sliced bread that she’d bought as toast bread. These were washed down with a large mug of very weak Instant. The milk carton was left on the bench but Polly was on the watch for that. She looked at it thoughtfully. Then she went into back into the main room, where he was sprawled on a divan, reading a magazine with a picture of a surfer on its cover.

    “Buster, go and put that milk carton in the fridge.”

    “Eh?”

    “You heard.”

    Groaning, he shambled out to the kitchen. “You could of put it away,” he complained, coming back.

    “I didn’t leave it on the bench,” replied Polly sweetly.

    “Aw, heck! Ya might cut a bloke some slack, Polly!”

    “Your parents have both warned me not to. Severally.”

    “Eh? Aw. Severally. Right,” he acknowledged. “Were ya that hard on your boys?”

    “Yes, but most of the time I didn’t need to be, because if they did anything that looked like giving other people work, or even inconveniencing them slightly,” she added evilly as he opened his mouth, “their father came down on them like Jupiter Tonens. That’s like a ton of bricks, to you.”

    “I know what it means,” he replied mildly. “I’m not as ignorant as they think.”

    “It’s the reading matter that worries them, chiefly, I think, Buster,” replied Polly, eyeing his magazine.

    Buster heaved his long length up, sighing. “Wait on,” he adjured her, going out.

    Polly waited.

    Buster came back with his backpack. “I brought a couple of books in case the weather turns nasty.” He produced them from the backpack and handed them to her.

    Polly swallowed. One was Caesar’s Gallic Wars in Latin, though with the English translation, and the other was a volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. “Are you doing Classics at university, then?”

    “Sort of. Fitting a bit in as extras. Those aren’t prescribed texts, I just got interested in Julius Caesar.”

    “I see.”

    “What really interests me,” the young man admitted, “is how democratic states end up as dictatorships. Well, the communist states, too, when ya think about it. And look at the French Revolution! They had it all, real people-power, and they chucked it all away and let Napoleon take over! I mean, why?”

    “That’s interesting… They had been through the Terror, though. I think that there must have been a general feeling that they needed a strong hand at the helm to sort out the mess.”

    “Yes, but didn’t they have a triumvirate? I mean, it was just like the situation with Caesar, wasn’t it?”

    “Um, yes, I think you’re right,” she agreed.

    “Yeah, and see—” Buster plunged into it eagerly.

    Polly felt rather stunned. His parents had clearly been underestimating Buster for some time.

    Eventually she said: “Buster, your mum and dad seem to think you’re doing economics.”

    “Yeah. Well, I am. It’s boring, though. And none of them foresaw the subprime mess, did they?”

    “Not as far as I know!” replied Polly, twinkling at him. “Jake was always very rude about the economists. He always reckoned if they really knew what made money tick they’d be out there making it!”

    “Right!”

    “Well, um, would you think of switching?”

    “Nah, they’d go spare. Anyway, I’m not sure it’s Classics I want to do. Caesar interests me but I don’t go much on the poetry.”

    “Not Horace?” said Polly faintly.

    “Nah. Not into poetry. I’m interested in systems of government, ya see.”

    “Mm. They must have something on political systems at ANU, surely?”

    “Full of tight-arsed types in business suits and weirdos with beards that think they’re gonna rejuvenate the Labor Party and end up Prime Minister in 2030.”

    Polly swallowed hard. Things hadn’t changed much since she was a student, then! “Yeah, well, there’s usually a lot of shit you have to work through before you can get to do what you’re really interested in.”

    “Is that what you hadda do?”

    “Hell, yeah. And then I found that if you don’t toe the academic line—if you don’t follow the fad of the moment—you don’t get published.”

    “Ya mean ya gotta be a hypocrite,” he translated.

    “To some extent, yes. I was lucky; I found a sympathetic mentor who got my first book published, but admittedly I was using the methodology that was very in at the time. But back then it was what I was interested in.”

    “Right. What about later?”

    “Well, it took a while. I got a research fellowship, eventually, and then I could do my own thing, only then they wanted me to get into administration…” She sighed.

    “Dad says that’s a real bugger.”

    “He’s right.”

    “Yeah, well, I don’t wanna be an academic—seen too much of it at home!” he admitted. “I just want to do a bit of stuff that interests me.”

    “Mm. Well, if you plug on with the economics I suppose at least it’ll help to find a job that’ll feed you. You can always do your own thing in your spare time. And you probably can’t see it now—I know I couldn’t—but you’ve got years and years ahead of you, and you never know what’s gonna turn up. You may well end up doing something completely different.”

    “Yeah,” he conceded thoughtfully. “See whatcha mean… Yeah. Like Stan.”

    “Stan?” croaked Polly. “The fish man?”

    “Yeah. He started off doing geology at uni, ya see. But his dad said he was never gonna make a living studying old rocks and he’d better find something practical to do, pronto. He worked for BHP for yonks. Then he gave it away: said they were a lot of exploitative bastards that were lying in their teeth to the public about their policies in underdeveloped countries.”

    Polly winced. “Got it.”

    “So then—well, I’m not sure exactly what came next, but I know he was working on container ships for a bit, as a radio operator, only he reckons you were more or less a general hand with responsibility for the radio. And he was in China at one stage, that’s right.”

    “China? Doing what?”

    Buster looked vague. “Dunno. Something to do with mining, I think. And he seems to have been in and out of Afghanistan—don’t ask me how or when. Nothing to do with the war.”

    “Wars, plural,” murmured Polly. “Oh, good grief!”

    “What?”

    “Afghanistan—geology! Doesn’t that— No, I suppose it doesn’t ring any bells, if you’re not interested in gemstones,” she said, smiling at him.

    “Ya mean, like jewellery?”

    “No. Semi-precious stones. Hunks of coloured rock. Most of the world’s best lapis lazuli comes from Afghanistan. Those arid, jagged mountains you see on the news reports are just stuffed with interesting rocks.” Buster was looking completely puzzled. “They’re very collectible,” said Polly, trying not to sound patronising. “Collectors and museums pay good money for really nice specimens.”

    “Ooh, heck.”

    Ooh, heck was right. “Yeah. Getting blimming rocks out of Afghanistan must be one of the riskiest jobs in the entire world!”

    “I can just see the bugger doing it! Risking his stupid neck for a few bits of ruddy rock that some rich git in a New York high-rise is gonna put in his flamin’ collection—and laughing about it afterwards!”

    Somehow Polly wasn’t in the least surprised. Of course she’d barely glimpsed the man. But—yes. That laconic drawl… Oh, yes. The macho tit personified.

    “Jenny says she’s very clever, of course!” said Mrs Brinkman with a smothered titter.

    Stan Smith eyed her drily. He’d bet his right arm Jenny had never said any such thing. He’d like to tell the cow to shut up—and preferably to drop dead—but if he got on her wrong side they wouldn’t buy his fish, would they? “That right?” he grunted.

    “Of course! She's got a doctorate, you know!” Significant nod.

    Uh—signifying what? That the dame was too good for a layabout that sold fish to well-off summer visitors that polluted the coastline with glass-sided abortions of so-called “holiday homes”? He already knew that, thanks.

    “They were students together in France. Isn’t it lovely that they’ve got together again after all this time?” she sighed. “Of course, dear Jenny isn’t quite the sophisticated type,”—silly titter—“but then, France was a long time ago, I suppose!” Another silly titter.

    What the Hell was that lot supposed to mean? Just getting at Jenny? She seemed to be waiting for a response, so he offered, more or less in spite of himself: “So ya reckon this Polly dame is the sophisticated type?”

    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Stan!” –Silly titter.

    He didn’t have to ask what the fuck she would say, because she was going on: “Well, you saw what she was wearing at our barbecue.”

    Yeah, tight jeans and that delirious little peachy top with them two ripe peaches stuffed into— “Nope,” he said stolidly.

    “Not that I expected anyone to dress up, of course; after all, it was just a barbecue, and then, dear Jenny usually wears jeans, doesn’t she?”

    What was this? For God’s sake, all the other moos had been wearing bloody cotton sunfrocks! He took a deep breath and said: “I don’t suppose she brought much casual stuff with her. She came over from New Zealand with a rich friend to do some shopping in Sydney. Double Bay or thereabouts, was what Jenny told me. And she wouldn’t’ve expected to come out to the coast: the Mayhews live in Canberra. Probably never thought she’d need a sunfrock.”

    “No, well, I dare say you’re right… Double Bay?”

    “Yeah, evidently this well-off mate dragged her round all the dinky boutiques.”

    “I see!”

    Yeah, I betcha do, ya cow, thought Stan sourly.

    “I wonder… Well, I must admit I assumed that big green ring she had on was costume jewellery!” Silly titter.

    “Aw, yeah?” replied the geologist noncommittally. South American emerald, was more like it. He wouldn’t give the cow the satisfaction of saying so, though.

    “No, I think it must have been,” she decided. “A real emerald that size would be worth a fortune!”

    Uh-huh. Several mill’. Glorious colour. Even under them fucking fairy lights of theirs it had had that deep glow… “Eh? Yeah, ’course it would, Mrs Brinkman,” he agreed.

    “But then, Double Bay… Did Jenny happen to mention who the friend was?”

    “Not to me.”

    “Oh. Well, I don’t suppose it would mean anything to me, anyway. But she’s very nicely spoken, don’t you think?”

    “Didn’t have the chance to find out. Just gave her some fish.”

    “Yes, of course,” replied Ma Brinkman as from a great height. Stan eyed her sardonically. Not noticing, she went on: “Now, I wonder if you could manage some fish for us next Friday?”

    Uh… Friday fish? They weren’t Catholics, were they? “Having a do, are ya, Mrs Brinkman?” –One of these days, one could only hope, his persistent use of this term of address might penetrate past that lacquered pale fawn hairdo of hers, and it’d dawn he was taking the Mick. Round about when pigs flew, possibly.

    “Just a little dinner. Peggy and Norman Bentley are coming down from Sydney, so we thought we’d have a little welcome dinner.”

    Right. They owned that other glass-walled monstrosity just a bit further along the coast from the Brinkmans’. Completely surrounded by cream stone pavers that must reflect the heat like nobody’s biz. Their power bills must be through the roof. But old Norm Bentley owned a huge chain of pharmacies—well, they operated under some daft trading name that kind of gave you the impression they were a cooperative or at the least franchises, but nope, old Norm owned the lot. Or his company did. Added to which he’d invested in some smallish health-food business very early on and got on the vitamins and minerals bandwaggon, made a fortune out of that and then sold out to one of the huge overseas pharmaceutical companies for megabucks. He could afford not to notice his flaming electricity bill.

    “Yeah, well, I’ll do me best, Mrs Brinkman, but I can’t guarantee anything. Depends if the fish are running, ya know.”

    Louise Brinkman emitted a loud, coy giggle—Stan repressed a start—and cooed: “You men always say that!”

    Uh—yeah, because it was true! Managing not to shake his head madly as of one with water in the ear, he said: “Well, look, if I don’t turn up with fish on Thursday, ya better plan to give them something else.”

    “Yes, of course. A pie-ella is always nice, don’t you think? And I thought we’d have avocado starters, with prawns, of course, the menfolk always like those.”

    If she said so. Why the Hell was she telling him? “Uh—what was that, Mrs Brinkman?”

    “I said should I invite her, do you think?”

    “Who?” he groped.

    “Jenny’s friend Polly, of course!”

    “Oh.” For some reason Stan found he’d gone very red. Luckily he was really tanned and Ma Brinkman wasn’t the noticing sort. “Well, dunno. I mean, it’d be uneven numbers for ya, wouldn’t it?”

    “That’s quite right, Stan! Fancy you thinking of that! Men never do, do they?” Silly titter.

    He just had thought of it!

    “No, well, she might be more comfortable with just a family do,” she decided. “She struck me as rather a quiet person.”

    More like couldn’t get a word in edgeways. “Yeah.”

    “Now, I rather think I caught sight of Buster with her in that car Kym Corrigan foisted on her. –I really do think that was beyond the pale! A nice small car would have been far more suitable, and I’m sure, much more likely to be within her budget, poor woman!”

    Stan took a deep breath. Any minute now he was gonna say something they'd both regret. And he didn’t want to drop the “poor woman” in it. So as he couldn’t think of what else to say he dropped young Buster in it, instead. “Yeah, think Buster’s come over. Well, his term will of finished, eh?”

    Mad trill of laughter. While he was still goggling at her and wondering why, she cooed: “Not term, Stan! It’s all semesters, these days! You’re living in the past! But we’re all getting on, aren’t we?”

    “Yeah,” he said limply. Semester, eh? Three whole syllables? Wouldn’t’ve thought the cow knew the word.

    “Now, Stan, dear, if you wouldn’t mind?” She released her claw-like grip on his arm at long last and allowed him to fulfil what had been, about fifteen hours back, the object of the exercise: to wit, helping her get her shopping into the car. She seemed to have been to the hardware store—there still was one, the town wasn’t big enough for a Bunnings or a Mitre 10. Whatever she’d bought it weighed a ton. Presumably old Phil was keeping his head well down. Doing what, God only knew. Didn’t seem to have any hobbies, and of course they didn’t have a garden, just bricks and nasty little coloured pebbles. Thankfully he dumped her stuff in the giant Volvo station-waggon that she drove down here when she was shopping. A considerably newer model than that one that was sitting in Kym Corrigan’s yard. The old joker drove them down here from Sydney in a BMW. Not short of a few bucks—no.

    … And let’s hope—though he could do with the cash—that the fish weren’t running, and she choked on her ruddy pie-ella!

    He escaped after the expectable reminder about the fish. Um… what the fuck had he been doing before cornered by Ma Brinkman? Oh! Supermarket. Why he was parked in their carpark, actually. Yeah.

    Bree Wilson was on the check-out today. Her plump, pleasant, fifty-ish face took on a sad expression as she looked at his carton of milk, his sliced dark rye loaf, and his large packet of toilet paper. “Is that all you want today, Stan?”

    “Why? You own Woolie’s or something, Bree? Worried about ya profit?”

    The expected burst of giggles. “No! Silly! I mean—well, what about some nice fruit?”

    “Too dear,” replied Stan stolidly.

    “Bananas have come down again.”

    “Sort of. No, thanks.”

    Sighing, she rang his purchases up. “There’s some nice steak this week. Barbecue steak,” she offered without hope.

    “Don’t need steak: there are plenny of fish in the sea.”

    “But a person needs a varied diet!”

    Cripes. Musta been reading them women’s mags. Didn’t think she could read, actually. Just as well all she hadda do was let the shop’s barcode reader read the stuff’s barcodes, eh? “The Japs live on fish and rice, and they’re some of the longest-lived people in the world.”

    “But you never buy rice!”

    Uh—God. The literal mind. “Never mind, if I go at half the age of yer average Jap, me teeth’ll outlive me, according to me dentist.”

    “Oh, is that why you went to Sydney last month!” she beamed.

    Used though he was to small-town life, Stan blinked. “Yeah,” he said feebly.

    “And how’s your sister?” she asked cosily, regardless of the fact that young Mrs Lyons was now waiting patiently behind him and that beyond her, Ma Corrigan was started to look really narked, as much as of her as could be seen for the piled trolley, that was.

    “Mad as a snake.”

    Burst of giggles. “Don’t be silly! How is she really?”

    “She’s good, thanks, Bree,” he said, smiling at her. “That the lot? Thanks. See ya!”

    Bree leaned on her counter gazing after him wistfully…

    “Can we have some SERVICE here, please?” said a loud voice from the hinterland and she came to with a gasp. Little Mrs Lyons was very red in the face. It wasn’t her that had shouted, of course, it was that Mrs Corrigan: she would.

    “How are you today, Mrs Lyons?” she asked cosily, starting to check out her stuff. Not very fast, Mrs Corrigan could blimmin’ well wait!

    Mrs Lyons was very well, thank you, and how was she? After this exchange little Mrs Lyons, who wasn’t from round here, added: “That was Stan, the fish man, wasn’t it?”

    “That’s right, dear. Haven’t you met him?”

    “No. Ronny pointed him out to me. He sells fish door-to-door, doesn’t he? But he never seems to come round our way,” she said sadly.

    Bree cast a fleeting glance past her in the direction of the red and scowling Mrs Corrigan. “No, well, you wouldn’t wanna buy his fish, dear, at the prices he charges. But I tell ya what, tell your hubby to get on round to his place, and he’ll take him out in the tinnie.”

    “Really? Ooh, that’d be good! Um, but Ronny hasn’t got a fishing line.”

    “Rod, dear,” corrected Bree kindly. “No worries, Stan’ll lend him one. You wanna encourage him: it’s a very good hobby for a man! Loads of blokes round here are fishers.”

    Nodding obediently, little Mrs Lyons agreed she’d do that.

    “Will you PLEASE get a move on! Some of us haven’t got all day!”

    Sighing, Bree got on with it. If only Stan’d look twice at her… Oh, well.

    Polly woke up at what felt like crack of dawn to the sounds of crashing and clattering coming from the kitchen. What in God’s name was he up to? If she’d been at home and he’d been one of her kids she’d have left him to it, but… She crawled out of bed, remembered at the last moment to put the green floaty thing on over an old singlet of Jenny’s and tonight’s pale pink bikini panties (Saturday, God knew why), and staggered into the kitchen.

    “Buster, what are you up to?” she sighed.

    “Just grabbing a bit of breakfast. Thought I might do a bit of fishing with Stan, this morning.”

    What? “You know your mum and dad don’t like you to do that surfcasting crap,” she sighed.

    “It’s not crap! And Stan knows what he’s doing.”

    If it hadn’t been the crack of dawn she’d have let that one go by. “Yes, but do you?” she replied evilly.

    “Yeah! Anyway it won’t be surfcasting, tide’s wrong for it. We’ll probably get out in the tinnie.”

    Polly sat down heavily at the kitchen table. “I see.”

    “You could come if ya like,” he offered generously.

    “I get sick in boats in any sort of sea,” she sighed.

    “Aw. Um, wanna a piece of toast?”

    “No,” she groaned. “I can’t eat toast if I’m asleep, can I?”

    It penetrated at long last. “Um, did I wake you up? Sorry. I was trying to be quiet.”

    Yes, in his terms he probably had been!

    “Um, want coffee?”

    “You mean brown dust, don’t you? No, thanks.”

    “I could make you a cup of tea. Mum sometimes has that.”

    Oh, dear. He was trying to be nice. But tea-bag tea made by Buster? With a great effort she replied: “No, thanks, Buster. I’ll make some real coffee later.”

    “Righto. Hey, we’re almost out of marg.”

    “Are we?” she said dully.

    “Shall I put it on the list?”

    “Oh—yes, righto, Buster. Ta.” She watched in a lacklustre way as he wrote “MARg” on the tiny blackboard that was dinkily positioned above the sinkbench and that Jenny had apparently never used in her life. It had been a present to the weekender from one of Tom’s sisters who was, though this had hardly needed clarifying, like that. Its chalk had long since been lost but Buster had found some at the local hardware store after the disastrous day on which he’d discovered she’d forgotten to buy bread or meat and that dinner would therefore have to consist of a salad, Tasty cheese slices optional, and breakfast would have to consist of coffee or tea. He was now firmly in charge of the list.

    “We’ll probably get back around lunchtime. Don’t go an’ buy any meat until ya see how much fish I’ve caught,” he ordered sternly.

    “Okay, but remember the wolves come down on that fold pretty early and there won’t be many decent cuts left by late afternoon.”

    “I won’t be that late!”

    Much.

    Stuffing the better part of two slices of peanut-buttered toast into his mouth, he exited, with a muffled “See ya.”

    Polly sighed. After an appreciable period she managed to stagger to her feet, stagger back to bed, and grope for her watch on the bedside table. What? Oh, God!

    By four o’clock that afternoon she was starting to panic. Had the silly blighters got caught in a rip, or something? The sea didn’t look particularly rough, but that was the bloody Tasman out there. Or had the famous Stan taken the kid surfcasting after all? Who the Hell could she ask if this was—was normal, or—or what might have happened to them? The only people she knew were frightful Louise and negligible Phil Brinkman or flaming Kym Corrigan. She didn’t even know where bloody Stan had his lair, so she couldn’t get over there.

    Eventually she bit on the bullet and rang the Brinkmans. Louise answered: fancy that.

    “Um, it’s Polly Mitchell here, Louise—Jenny’s friend.”

    Gushing ensued.

    “I’m fine, thanks, but I’m a bit worried about Buster. He said he was going fishing very early this morning with that Stan man—the fish man—and there’s no sign of him.”

    Before she could ask where the bloody man lived Louise burst into a series of gushing exclamations.

    “Um, yes,” said Polly when she’d run down. “But do you know where Stan lives, Louise? I mean, they might be there. Or would you have his phone number?”

    “Oh, no, dear, he isn’t on the phone!”

    He wouldn’t be, no. Polly gritted her teeth.

    Considerable fluffing around ensued but she finally decided that Phil would be the best one to give her directions—Phi-il!

    Phil duly came on the line and gave her explicit directions. Explicit male directions. Polly wrote them down carefully and looked at them in despair. She’d got the point that the place wasn’t actually in the little township of Gorski Bay, but… “Phil, I—I don’t understand. Well, where is Mac’s Kitchen?”

    Phil was heard to clear his throat uneasily. Crikey, was it a speak-easy or something? Or, horrors, an Aboriginal hang-out that’d get him killed by Louise if he even thought of setting toe across its threshold? Though that was difficult to imagine in this all-white enclave—

    Okay, it sold crabs and sometimes rock lobsters but Louise didn’t care for it. And Mac did do fish and chips, but—

    “Phil! She doesn’t want to know about that that dirty little place, for Heaven’s sake!”

    “No, um, ya go down Edward Street, Polly, and than ya turn into Brydons Way East, there’s not much left of it now, it used to be the old bullockies’ road, and if you take the first on the left, it’s longer but it’s the easiest way, that’ll take you straight down to the waterfront and Mac’s Kitchen’s just there. Head south and past the roundabout and that’ll take you to the path over the point. Ya can’t get a car up it but it’s the quickest way. Stan’s place is just over the hill.”

    “Um, but it’s a very hot day,” said Polly lamely.

    “Aw, right, you’re not used to our climate. Well, like I said before, it’s quite an easy drive, but you have to watch the turns.” An incredible further amount of instruction followed. It seemed to be repeating what he’d said in the first place but she wouldn't have sworn to it. From where she stood in the kitchen Polly had a view of the beach over to her right: she peered hopefully but the answer was a lemon.

    “Got that?”

    She jumped. “Ye-es… So I just go up to the main road, do I, and turn, um,”—she looked hopelessly from her right hand to her left. Then she turned to face the road to the weekender. “Um, left.”

    “No, ya don’t wanna take the main road! Ya wanna take Brydons Way West, that’s—”

    “Phil, I really think you’d better drive her,” broke in Louise’s dictatorial tones.

    “Yeah, that’d be best,” he agreed thankfully. “I’ll be there in five minutes, okay, Polly?”

    “Yes. Thank you very much, Phil.”

    “No worries!”

    He was as good as his word. “Brought the old Volvo, didn’t want to risk the BMW’s springs on that track down to Stan’s place.”

    “No. It’s awfully good of you, Phil.”

    “No worries! I wasn’t doing anything.”

    Judging by the noise when Louise had answered the phone he’d been watching  the cricket but Polly didn’t bring that one up, she didn’t want a blow-by-blow sports report.

    It took Phil’s brutally heavy Volvo fifteen minutes to get to the turn-off to Stan’s track. Polly stared at it dazedly. “I’d have missed it completely,” she admitted.

    “Yeah, really hard to spot,” he agreed.

    Right. A dusty fawn track, not signposted, not even a country letterbox in sight, amidst dusty fawn fields.

    “It’ll be a dry summer,” predicted the brilliant Phil as he bumped over the track.

    “Yes!” she gasped, clinging on for dear life.

    Pretty soon the Volvo breasted a rise. Polly gaped. “What a beautiful little bay!”

    “Cove,” corrected Phil. “Dead Man’s Cove. There was a murder here back in the old days—they never found out who done it. One or two people have thought of settling here but the name puts them off.”

    “Mm. When was this?”

    “Eh?” He was carefully easing the car down the slope to the pristine little beach.

    “The murder.”

    “Aw! Back in the Thirties, woulda been. You know: the Depression. They never identified him—he was one of the deros that used to turn up asking for handouts. The people that had a weekender here, they’d long since cleared out—lost the lot in the crash, I think was the story—and the place was empty, I suppose he’d been kipping there. Anyway, they found him on the beach: shot in the head.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Yeah, pretty nasty. Well—puts people off, ya see,” Phil concluded with complete placidity.

    Polly just nodded limply.

    “This is Stan’s shack,” he announced.

    Right. It bore a certain generic resemblance to Ian Peters the wood-turner’s place. “Shack” was a good word for it. Its outer integument appeared to be old corrugated iron. It had two mismatched windows, one on each side of the door, and a small verandah with what looked like driftwood posts holding up a roof of what looked like bark. The rest of the shack was roofed with old corrugated iron.

    Phil beeped his horn loudly. “This’ll bring him out. –Don’t get out, Polly, stay here in the air-con.”

    Polly sank back thankfully into the embrace of the Volvo’s upholstery.

    Three blasts of the horn resulted in nothing. “That’s funny,” said Phil. “The tinnie’s here: see?”

    She nodded. The battered little aluminium dinghy was drawn up onto the sand.

    Phil scratched his scanty hair. “Wonder if ’e’s gone bush? Wouldn’t of taken the kid with ’im, surely?”

    “Um, from what Buster’s said about him he sounds pretty irresponsible,” she replied cautiously.

    To her surprise Phil hesitated. “Wouldn’t say that. Well—stopped our Melanie and a crowd of stupid kids from going out the day the rip caught a joker from Sydney. Drowned before they could get to him.”

    “Heck.”

    “Yeah. Nasty, it was. Melanie had bawling fits for a week afterwards. Wouldn’t go near the water for the rest of the summer.”

    Judging by the squealing that had gone on during the barbecue she seemed to have got over it, however. “I see,” murmured Polly. “That certainly sounds responsible.”

    “Yeah. Well—nearly drowned, himself, trying to fish that joker out—I wouldn’t have gone in, meself, in a sea like that,” he admitted. “But yeah.”

    “The—the man who drowned? Stan Smith tried to rescue him?”

    He made a face. “Yeah. Well, Olympic-level swimmer in his day, ya know.”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah. Wouldn’t have been the same lot as good ole Dawnie, I don’t think. Bit later. Think he’d only be in his early fifties.”

    “I see,” she said faintly. “Did he win any medals?”

    “No, but he went. Nobbad, eh? And they reckoned he held the relay team together, that’s right!”

    She had no idea what that meant but she nodded obediently.

    “Dunno where the Hell ’e can be—pardon my French.” He blew a long blast on the horn. “Nah,” he concluded. “Well, look, I do know where he hangs out, we might find him there, but do us a favour and don’t let on to Louise, will ya?”

    “Of course not, Phil,” Polly agreed, smiling at the anxious little man. How dreadful to be that hen-pecked! “Anything you say.”

    Unfortunately this resulted in a pat on the knee and a “Good girl!” but at least he didn’t leave the hand there, as Mr Corrigan undoubtedly would have.

    “We’ll go back through the village,” Phil decided, starting the car. “There is a kind of side road that’d be quicker: they call it Brydons Cut, but it’s not on the maps any more, it’s in terrible condition.”

    And off they went, bumping cautiously up the slope, down the other side, and across the wide dusty field. Then it was just a short run to the turnoff to the township. In the main shopping precinct they were of course slowed by the press of vehicles, and Phil found it very difficult to get out of the left-hand lane and make the right turn that would lead to Edward Street. Polly had sort of thought that that was directly off the main drag, but it wasn’t. Eventually, however, they were crawling down Edward Street past a collection of shabby old vans and ancient Holdens, parked outside what seemed to be the backs of commercial premises and a couple of small industrial yards that looked deserted, and thence into Brydons Way East. Brydons Way East wasn’t signposted and was composed largely of ruts and dust. It was edged by a few broken-down fences and some overgrown hedges, with here and there a glimpse of a dilapidated wooden building. There were no people in sight, in fact there hadn’t been since the main drag, but this was hardly surprising on a very hot afternoon.

    “There ya go!” said Phil proudly as, after several excruciatingly sharp turns to right and left amongst more broken-down fences, they suddenly emerged onto what was undoubtedly a waterfront. The road surface had once been tar-sealed but had sadly deteriorated. It seemed a very pleasant spot: there was a low seawall and of course a wonderful view of the sea. But, in sharp contrast to Gorski Bay itself, where the waterfront was lined with horrible “second homes”, there were no houses! Why on earth had it been abandoned?

    “Okay, now, there’s a bit of a roundabout—tricky, see?” he said as he negotiated it and instead of leading him straight along the waterfront it turned off to the right and dived down amongst a huddle of sheds. He negotiated a bend to the left and then they were back on the waterfront. Polly peered behind them. There was no rhyme nor reason to this break in the road. Unless its purpose was to preserve that low, scraggy tree that occupied the centre of the not-quite-roundabout? “Um, is that a heritage tree or something, Phil? Or—or maybe something to do with a sacred Aboriginal site?”

    “Nah!” he replied with a surprised laugh. “Aw—see whatcha mean. ’Tis odd, eh? No, well, back in—woulda been just after the War, I think—a bloke with a lot of pull in the Council built a house here—just to ya right, now,” he noted. Polly looked blankly at what could possibly have been an abandoned garden with some stretch of the imagination.

    “Flaming lantana, gets everywhere,” noted the New South Welshman sourly. “Anyway, people used to speed along here—they had some sort of dance hall down the far end, it’s long gone—so the roundabout was put in to stop them.”

    By her calculations they’d have had just enough room to work up a nice little turn of speed before they’d have to break horribly—whichever direction they were coming from—just a few yards from this influential gent’s home, but she replied obediently: ‘I see.”

    “Yeah. Well, it wasn’t worth putting the money into getting rid of it, nobody much comes down this end of Brydons Beach.”

    Except bloody Stan Smith, one presumed?

    “This is it,” said Phil unenthusiastically as he reached the southernmost end of the low sea wall and pulled up outside a shed.

    “Mac’s Kitchen?”

    “Eh? No, ya got the wrong end of the stick, Polly! That’s back the other way; see, if I’d of turned left off Brydons Way East—”

    Oh, God, she’d started him off again. “I see,” she lied as he ran down. “So what is this?”

    He sniffed. “Well, it belongs to ole Bert Hutchins—now, you’re not gonna mention any of this to Louise, right?”

    “No, I promise.”

    “Good,” he said heavily. “A few blokes get together here for the occasional game of poker.”

    “I see.”

    “Not me!” he said hastily. “Mug’s game. –Your hubby play, did he?”

    Polly jumped. “Um, off and on,” she said limply. “He used to say it was a mug’s game, too, but he quite often won.”

    “Yeah, well, so does flamin’ Stan Smith,” he allowed on a sour note. “Now, you hang on here, I’ll see if he’s in there.”

    Polly wouldn’t have minded getting a look at an Aussie poker dive, actually, but she sat on in the air-con obediently. She couldn’t see anything when Phil knocked on the door and was cautiously admitted: whoever had answered the door only opened it wide enough to let him slide in. Were they afraid of the cops, or their wives? Her money would have been on the latter.

    Phil came back, looking gloomy. “Nah,” he reported: “haven’t seen him. Come on, we’ll have to try Mac’s.”

    He turned the big Volvo laboriously and they headed back the way they’d come. The roundabout again, the straight stretch, then past, she thought, the road they'd come out of—had that been the end of Edward Street, or, no, of Brydons Way East? Or not? After driving north for about five hundred metres, there it was. Mac’s Kitchen. It was a neatly painted little shop, the sort of little, block-like shop that you used to see all over Australasia: in New Zealand they were usually wooden but you got the occasional concrete or brick one with peeling stucco. This was one of those, but its stucco had been carefully painted in a cheery deep blue. Like all the little shops of its kind it was quite narrow, with a deepish verandah, that would have reached right to the edge of the footpath if there had been one any longer, and the shop itself was in front of what would have been the living quarters—perhaps still were. Its sills and door frame were bright white and there was a neat sign depending from the verandah roof reading “Mac’s Kitchen” and “Fresh Fish”. The small shop window bore further intel, hand-painted on the glass: “Crabs. Crays. Fish & Chips”. Why on earth should bloody Louise object to it?

    This time Phil let her come in with him, and it dawned. “Mac” was a woman. A large, blowsy female, not young, with heavy bright make-up, large earrings, and a mop of curly red hair—obviously dyed, it had that purple look to it—kept back off her face by a neat blue and white checked bandana. Her bulging form was clad in a white overall.

    The shop itself was rather hot, but there was a fan going. No fish was displayed in the glass-fronted counter: probably just as well, on a day like this.

    “Gidday, Phil!” she greeted him chummily. Ouch!

    “Gidday, Mac,” he responded on what Polly fancied was a wary note.

    “Who’s this, then?” she asked with avid interest.

    “Polly. Friend of the Mayhews. We’re looking for Stan, Mac.”

    “Well, I’ve got ’im, but ’e won’t do do ya much good, the state ’e’s in,” Mac reported without apparent animus.

    “Aw, yeah? Tied one on, has ’e?”

    She sniffed. “Somethink like that. Serves ’im right for drinking ’is own firewater, dunnit?”

    “He hasn’t been making that again, has he?”

    “It was in one of them ruddy great glass bottles of his: whadda you reckon?”

    “Right.—Two-quart, I think.—Right.”

    “Ya want young Buster Mayhew as well?”

    “He hasn’t been letting him drink, has he?” cried Polly.

    “Think ’e was too pickled to stop ’im, love,” she replied kindly. “Go on through, Phil. But I’m not volunteering to haul them out of there, got more respect for me back.”

    So Phil and Polly went “on through”, which entailed going round the end of the counter, down an oddly cool, windowless very short passage with a closed door on one side of it, and through another door into what was clearly Mac’s living-room. It was gaudy but very clean, and contained a small but heavy dining table, covered with a white tablecloth trimmed in cut-work, the sort of thing that Polly’s elderly Aunty Vi had favoured, laid diagonally so that its corners hung down in neat points, an ancient sofa and a matching armchair, both upholstered in something fawnish but shrouded neatly in bright crocheted granny squares, and an old oak sideboard, on which stood an elaborate gilt clock and several china vases sporting bright flower designs. It also contained Stan Smith snoring in the armchair and Buster Mayhew snoring on the couch.

    “Oh, shit,” said Polly lamely.

    Phil scratched his head. “Yeah. Well, at least ya know where they are.”

    “Yes!” she said with a sudden laugh. “So I do! Thank you so much, Phil!”

    “No worries!” he beamed.

    “Leave them here, eh?” said Mac’s voice from behind them.

    Polly turned, smiling. “I’m afraid we’ll have to. I’m terribly sorry, Mac.”

    “Not your responsibility, love.”

    “Um, well, Buster is, sort of. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on him.”

    “Nah, well, boy of that age’ll get into strong liquor whaddever ya do. If that bloody firewater’s on form it’ll teach ’im a lesson ’e won’t forget in a hurry, though, don’t you worry!” She shook all over.

    “Good!” beamed Polly.

    “You fancy some fish and chips?”

    “Um, no, thanks awfully, Mac, but it’s a bit hot, really, isn’t it?”

    “She’s a Kiwi,” explained Phil kindly.

    “Thought I reckernised the accent. Tell ya what, love: I can let you have some nice crabs. Won’t be anyone after them now, the fish and chips mob’ll be in soon. Don’t like to keep ’em in the fridge overnight—they’d be all right, but if ya got a reputation for selling fresh, ya don’t wanna spoil it, do ya?”

    Oh, dear! “That’s very kind of you, Mac. But I’m not really too fond of seafood, I’m afraid,” she faltered.

    “Yeah, that’s right, she didn’t fancy prawns at our barbie,” contributed Phil.

    “Well, I could do you a nice piece of fish. He brung it,”—with a jerk of her head. “I’ve filleted it. Snapper.”

    “Really? That’d be lovely: thank you, Mac!”

    “Good!” She led them back into the shop.

    “Tell ya what,” she said as she wrapped two beautiful big snapper fillets, “I’ll give you them crabs, Phil, and you can say ya got them off Polly, and ya dunno where she got ’em from!”

    “Um—she’ll see through that, I think,” Polly admitted.

    Not questioning the use of the third person feminine, Mac replied: “Okay, say ya got the package out of Jenny’s freezer, ya thought it was fish only then ya thawed it and ya realised it was crabs that ya can’t eat!”

    “Brilliant!” said Polly with a loud laugh.

    “That’d work,” Phil admitted. “And, um,” he said, going rather red, “if she rings you up, Polly—”

    “I’ll lie like a trooper!” promised Polly.

    Embarrassingly, Mac then refused utterly to be paid for the beautiful fish and crabs. “Nah, they’d be going to waste! Go on!”

    What could they do but accept? So, both very red-faced but grateful, they accepted.

    It did occur to Polly to wonder, as Phil drove her back to the weekender, if maybe poor Mac had been saving the crabs and those two very nice pieces of snapper for a quiet fish supper with blasted Stan Smith.

    Stan came gloomily round the house. Nobody had answered the door so maybe she was outside sitting under the Mayhews’ big deodar. Anglo-Indian style, like the British Raj up in Darjeeling: she’d have fitted in real good in one of those Edwardian get-ups: white muslin with bits of lace and embroidery, bit see-through on the chest, but polite, ya know? With a big gauzy white hat that she’d take off under the tree to show that lovely curly hair all piled up in a big nest sort of thing like they did in those d—

    Not under the tree, no. She was sitting down the beach, just below the tide mark on the hard sand, wearing a big hat, though it was just a straw sunhat, with her jeans and that yummy peachy top. Stan swallowed. Okay, he’d already put it off long enough—green as grass day before yesterday, couldn’t’ve walked ten yards to save his soul, barely capable of staggering from the car to the front door when good old Mac dumped him back at his place, and yesterday all he’d been able to face all day was very weak tea. Black tea. Though he had been ambulatory then, and if he’d had the guts of a louse he’d have got on over here. But funnily enough rank cowardice had won. This morning he’d forced himself to have a slice of toast and Vegemite—without marg, thanks—and to get off his bum and get moving.

    Okay, he’d got this far, what the Hell was he putting it off for? He went down the beach.

    “Gidday,” he said glumly, sitting down beside her.

    Polly looked round with a start. “Oh—it’s you,” she said lamely.

    “Yeah. Um—Polly, isn’t it?”

    “Yes,” she replied warily.

    “Come to apologise for the other day, Polly. Letting the kid drink,” he explained.

    She didn’t say anything nice-lady, like he’d been expecting: she gave him what he fancied was a hard look through those extremely rare 1960s Polaroids, and replied: “According to Mac, you were too pickled yourself to stop him.”

    “Uh—yeah. All right, I was. And I’m bloody sorry. Should never have taken him round to Mac’s in the first place. Well, should never have got started on the firewater before I even thought of going to Mac’s, actually,” he admitted.

    “No,” she agreed flatly.

    Stan swallowed. Bugger. He hadn’t thought it’d be easy, but it was proving—well, not worse than he’d imagined, because he had a pretty lurid imagination, more especially when it was helped along by an almighty hangover and a load of guilt, but—yeah. Pretty bad.

    “Um, how is he?” he asked feebly.

    “Well, you probably don’t remember how sick he was when poor Mac brought him back here the day before yesterday. He was pretty much comatose all day yesterday. Today he’s at the stage of eating half a piece of toast and Vegemite without marg and drinking all the Perrier that I’d got at the supermarket for a treat for myself.”

    He tried to smile and failed. “Goddit. I’m about the same. Without the Perrier.”

    “Serve ya right.”

    He sighed. “Look, I am only human.”

    “You’re three times his age with God knows how many times his experience.”

    Ouch! “I’ll grant ya the experience but I’m not three times the kid’s age, for God’s sake, that’d make me sixty,” he managed.

    “Fifty-seven,” she corrected him instantly.

    “All right, I’m two years off three times his age!” he said angrily.

    “There you are, then,” she replied, sounding horribly detached.

    Stan breathed heavily. Then he noticed— “Look out, the tide’s coming in, those dinky little green sandals of yours’ll get wet.”

    “That’d be a tragedy,” she returned, still sounding detached.

    “Well, it would to most dames,” replied Stan limply. Sort of. Put it like this: most of him was limp, but part of him wasn’t—even though over the last two days he’d been convinced not merely that he’d never get it up again but that his whole body was rotted and bound for the scrapheap before Christmas.

    “Imprimis, I’ve had them for about ten years, secundus, I’m not fixated on consumables like most dames—”

    “And tertius,” said Stan sourly before he could stop himself: “you can afford any shoes ya want, from anywhere in the world. All right, I get the picture!”

    After a moment she said uncertainly: “I wasn’t going to say that or anything like it. And just because I let Kym Corrigan sell me that second-hand Merc, doesn’t mean I—I’m gonna buy shoes from the other side of the world.”

    Stan sighed. Big-Mouth strikes again, eh? “Come on, Polly,” he said heavily, “ya can’t kid a kidder. That was a real good photo of you and Sir Jake in that Paris Vogue a couple of years back.”

    She gaped at him. “Paris Vogue?”

    “Vogue Paris,” said Stan in French, shrugging. “Saw it at me dentist’s last month. He’s a really flash dentist in Sydney: ask Bree at the supermarket if ya don’t believe me.”

    “Who—who have you told?” she asked in a trembling voice.

    He bit his lip. “No-one, love,” he said kindly, laying a hand cautiously on her denim knee. “Didn’t even mention it to young Buster, though to anyone that had read up about your academic career, the ear-bending he gave me the other day mighta been a clue— Oh, shit!” he gasped as she burst into snorting sobs. “Don’t cry, love!”

    She went on sobbing, so he put an arm cautiously around her shoulders, whereupon she turned and buried her face in his chest, doing considerable damage to the straw hat as she did so.

    He grimaced ferociously above her head, but got both arms round her and held her strongly. When the sobs seemed to have slackened off he removed the frightful hat: the thick, curly brown hair with the golden lights in it and the little silver streaks at the temples was all bundled up in a big fat nest just like the Edwardian ladies of the Raj. Then it all tumbled down and he smiled a bit. Must’ve just shoved it up under the hat. “Come on,” he said, laying his cheek on her head because he couldn't bloody well stop himself: “your secret’s safe with me. It’d take hot irons to make me let on about anything to the second-homer cows like Ma Brinkman, let alone something that’d drop you right in it.”

    After a moment she said soggily: “Thanks.”

    “My pleasure,” replied Stan, smiling a bit.

    “You said that before,” she said soggily.

    “Huh?”

    Polly sniffed juicily. “At that horrible barbecue. You said it as if I was one of them, and then you went away.”

    “Aw. Right. Then.”

    “Mm. I noticed particularly.”

    “Look,” he said, rather more loudly than he’d intended, not that he’d intended mentioning it at all, nong that he was, “I lost me nerve, okay? I mean, shit, we were surrounded by them!”

    “Oh.”

    There was quite a long silence, during which Polly just leaned her head against Stan Smith’s wiry chest and he just sat there hugging her with one of the greatest hard-ons of his adult life. Nong that he was.

    Then she said: “I noticed it not just because I thought you’d assumed I was one of them, but because of the usage.”

    “Eh?” he groped.

    “It’s usually ’No worries’ in the Australian vernacular.”

    She had time to wonder if she’d said the wrong thing, and then he said drily: “I’d better watch it, then. Hate to give meself away to one of them.”

    She looked up at him, still a bit teary, but smiling. “Yes! Aren’t they awful, Stan?”

    Stan felt himself grin like a nana. “Pretty bad, yeah, pet. Okay, now? Sure I’m not gonna betray you?”

    “Mm. Thanks,” she said, sniffing. “Have you got a hanky?”

    “Uh—sure. Here ya go. It is clean,” he added quickly.

    She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, and gave it back to him. “What are those green stains?”

    “Dye. Had some fish for one of the worst of them; she was at that bloody do of Ma Brinkman’s, I think, but if the gods were smiling on you you wouldn’t have noticed her: Ma Caldwell. They own that yellow fright on the—”

    “Ugh!”

    “Exactly. On the main beach. Yeah, well, Ma Caldwell’s got artistic leanings, ya see, and she’s got this so-called shed, twice the size of the average lounge-room and fully air-conditioned, where she does all the stuff. He collects Dinky Toys. Vintage Dinky Toys. Anyway, he said that was where she was, so I went over there and the latest—or it was the latest two weeks back—was screen-printing on fabric. And she couldn’t get this bloody bottle of the full-strength dye open, ya see, so Muggins—” He stopped, grinning: she was choking already. “Yeah. I’ve got a nice green-patterned shirt, too—free-form, think you’d have to call the design.”

    “Stop—it!” gasped Polly helplessly.

    “They’ve both been washed several times—in the sea, as well, thought salt water might be the go—but no dice.”

    “Um, wouldn’t salt water tend to fix dye?” she offered dubiously.

    “Probably!” Stan admitted with a laugh.

    To his amusement, not to say his considerable pleasure, at this Lady Carrano smiled shyly into his eyes and suddenly went very, very pink.

    “Um, yeah,” said Stan inanely, swallowing. “Hey, could I kiss you?”

    “Yes,” replied Polly simply.

    So he kissed her.

    Eventually he came up for air, though the world still had a tendency to whirl and his heart was hammering like the traditional piledriver. “Whew,” he said feebly. “Not that I didn’t have a bloody good idea it was there, but— Cripes.”

    “Mm. Me, too,” said Polly in a small voice.

    Uh… “Couldn’t be bad?” he croaked.

    “No, of course not. But I’m due to go home in a couple of days. Jenny and Tom are coming tomorrow, and Tom’s gonna drive up with me to Sydney—he insisted. Then Blinker—sorry, that’s their daughter, her name’s really Belinda—”

    “Yeah, I’ve met Blinker.”

    “Then you’ll know what she’s like. She’s going to give me a really good price for the Merc, and she and Tom’ll come back for Christmas.”

    “Yeah?” replied Stan vaguely.

    “Um, yes. My plane leaves from Sydney.”

    “Right. Do you have to go?”

    Polly made a face. “Yes. Mum’s nearly ninety and she’s not too strong, and they’re expecting me down at the farm.”

    Right. So that unlikely bit in the assorted biogs and gossip he’d looked up had been true, after all: she was a country girl.

    “So I—I can’t change my plans,” said Polly in a trembling voice.

    “Eh? No, wasn’t asking you to, love…” She was looking up at him with those great big luminous grey-green eyes, help! “Just working something out… Got any plans for New Year?”

    “I don’t know,” said Polly with a sigh. “It depends how bad Mum really is. Half the time they don’t tell me things, you see.”

    “No, once you leave home it’s often like that, especially if you’re—well, overseas, for one, but if you’re leading a very different sort of life from theirs.”

    “Mm. We did try to get down there whenever we could, but… And Jake was annoyed when our Davey didn’t want to come into the business, so there was always a bit of tension once he took over the farm—my oldest brother, Vic, used to manage it, you see.”

    “Ye-ah…” Somehow one of his hands seemed to have got onto one of those juicy peaches. He gave it a bit of a squeeze. “Jesus, these are good,” he muttered. “Know what I thought when I saw you at that bloody barbie?”

    “Um, no, what?” asked Polly nervously.

    “Two ripe, juicy peaches!” he said with a grin.

    She swallowed hard. “Help.”

    “That’s the intention, surely? Stuffed in here like they are—ooh!”

    “I think you’d better stop,” said Polly unconvincingly. “Buster’s just up there in the house.”

    “Mm. Well, dare say he’s still sleeping it off, but yeah—wouldn’t want to embarrass you,” he said, smiling a bit. “But since you’re heading off to the other side of the Tasman, do ya think I could just, um, nuzzle ’em a bit?”

    “Mm!” she squeaked, very flushed.

    Right! He buried his face in them immediately. After quite some time he said indistinctly: “Oh, God.”

    “Yes. I—I think you’d better stop,” said Polly shakily.

    “Yeah,” he admitted, sitting up and making a rueful face. “I think I better had, love, or I’ll be up you like the proverbial ferret.”

    Polly sighed. “Mm. I think Fate has it in for me.”

    “You and me both!” replied Stan with feeling.

    “Yeah. Well, I suppose I’ll be down at Taupo with my friends Jan and Pete later in January… Only I can’t guarantee it.”

    “No. Right.”

    “And, um, some time fairly early in the year I’m supposed to be laying a ruddy stone,” she added sourly.

    “Eh?”

    “With my Lady Carrano hat on. It’s for the new children’s hospital. They’re using the house and there’s a lot of work that needs doing to it. I suppose it’s not actually a foundation stone, because the house is already standing, but Bruce said his board was insisting.”

    Stan didn’t ask who, what and where, he just said: “I getcha.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Oh, well,” he said, pulling her against his shoulder.

    “Mm…”

    “The tide is coming in, ya know,” he remarked after some time.

    “Mm.”

    “Come on, we’ll go and sit under the tree, it’s hotting up, you mustn’t get burnt,” he decided. He got up, took her hand firmly and pulled her up. Then he just shut his eyes and pulled the whole length of those curves against him… Oh, God!

    “Ooh!” squeaked Polly.

    “I’d like to think that was because you’ve noticed I’m hard as bejasus for you, but something prompts me to deduce the tide’s reached them dinky sandals of yours.”

    “Mm,” Polly admitted. “But I have noticed.”

    “That’s good,” he said mildly. “Come on, we’ll sit under the magic tree.”

    “It is magic, isn’t it?” she smiled as they retreated from the beach. “I think it must be at least ten degrees cooler in its shade.”

    “Yep.” He sat down and patted the ground beside him. Polly sat down, sighing.

    “I’ll think of something,” Stan promised, putting his arm round her.

    She leaned into his side. “That’d be nice.”

    Silence fell. He didn’t know what she was thinking about but the knew ruddy well what he was. Talk about agony, Ivy!

    After quite some time Polly said: “Is he a good dentist?”

    Stan jumped sharply. “Uh—my bloke? In Sydney? Yes, he’s a very good dentist. Why? Having trouble with your teeth?”

    “No, I’ve got very good teeth. Have you been having trouble with yours?”

    “Nope. –Ditto,” he explained. “No, just have a regular clean and check-up. –He has back issues of Country Life as well as Vogue,” he added.

    “I see.”

    “Real leather sofas in the waiting-room. Buttoned,” said Stan reflectively.

    “Shuddup!” she choked.

    He smiled and obliged.

    After a few moments Polly said: “If Buster hadn’t been so sick and he was a bit older, I’d suggest nipping round to your place, but I really don’t think I ought to leave him.”

    “Nah, I’d worked that one out for meself, love.”

    “Oh, good.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed.

    Stan just stared blankly at the view of the sea…

    Eventually he said: “I’m a geologist.”

    “I know, Buster said.”

    “Big-Mouth,” he discerned wryly. “Um, well, I keep up with my subject… There are some jobs coming up at your Sir George Grey University. That’s the one your husband built, eh? Bit like ole Bondie.”

    “Yeah, except Jake never had delusions of grandeur and started buying up Van Goghs he couldn’t afford.”

    “Right. But it is that uni?”

    “Mm.”

    “That anywhere near you?”

    “Um, yes,” said Polly weakly. “It’s just down the Inlet… Are you serious?”

    “Might be. Depends. Baranski still the Prof?”

    “The Dean of Environmental Resources,” said Polly groggily. “Yes, he is. But, um, are you up to date enough?”

    “Rocks don’t change.”

    “No, but I think the techniques of analysing them and carbon-dating and so forth might have!”

    “Not fundamentals, though. No, well, worth sussing out.”

    “Stan,” she said cautiously, “Buster gave me the impression that you’d definitively given all that shit away.”

    “Uh—given flaming BHP and all its works away, yeah. Not the same thing. Anyway, I’ll suss it out. Used to know Baranski, back in the bye and bye.”

    “Did you really?”

    “Mm. Thomas the Tank Engine, he used to be called.”

    “Yes,” said Polly, smiling, “that’s him! Um, but then you must know that he’s not the man to have the wool pulled over his eyes.”

    “Wasn’t gonna. No, well, as I say, I’ll suss it out.”

    Polly didn’t really, in her heart of hearts, believe he would. Not when the immediate attraction of the ripe peaches, so to speak, wasn’t there any more. She didn’t say so, however. She just said: “That’d be nice.”

    Ten minutes later when Buster came into the kitchen where she was making a sandwich and said groggily: “Was that Stan’s old heap just now?” she merely replied: “Mm.”

    “Did he bring you some fish?”

    “No, Buster, he brought me an apology,” said Polly, fixing him with a steely eye.

    “Aw. Any of that spring water left?”

    She took a very deep breath. “No. You drank it all.”

    “Aw. Blow. Hey, ya won’t tell Mum and Dad, will ya?”

    She’d already promised this—three times. “No. But if you ask me that once more, I will tell them. Goddit?”

    “Yeah. Um, is that a cheese sandwich?”

    “Mm. Want one?”

    “Um, no, thanks,” he said, blenching.

    Polly sighed. “I’ve made some iced tea. It’s in the fridge: the big plastic jug. Very weak. I always found it—um, not palatable. Downable, when I was that bad.”

    “Aw, right: I’ll try it,” he conceded. Forthwith he liberated the entire jug of tea and wandered out with it.

    Polly looked at the cheese sandwich and sighed again. “All right, I suppose you’re fuel,” she conceded. “But,” she said to it severely, “it ain’t gonna happen. It’s the visiting-fireman syndrome. Well, in reverse. But yeah. It ain’t gonna happen.”

    The sandwich just sat there stolidly so she ate it to spite it.

Next chapter:

https://anothercountry-apuririchronicle.blogspot.com/2023/08/unsettling.html