Something Fishy

by Derek Hansen

  ‘Everything throwded,’ said Charlie.

  Abby’s passport. Her lippy. Sunscreen. Her Christmas present Calvin Klein shades. She’d cleaned most of her stuff out of her bag when we’d returned from our bike ride. Taken out her purchases and the fruit we hadn’t eaten. The leftover mineral water. Her Polaroid. Only Abby could say if anything was missing. Her purse? No, that was on the table as well.

  Abby’s hands shook when I handed her the bag. I think she wanted to believe in ghosts because the alternative was even more unacceptable. She could handle ghosts but not some grubby little man who watched her while she slept and took things as a calling card. What else had he done? What did he do that we didn’t know about? I wasn’t proud of some of the thoughts that crept into my mind, but fortunately I kept them to myself. Abby fought back tears and tried to be thorough.

  ‘Nothing missing,’ she said, but she was wrong. Something was missing. Something so obvious we were totally blind to it.

  ‘Wali negari,’ said Charlie.

  I had to admire his optimism. Charlie was nothing if not a tryer.

  ‘Bukittinggeeeeee,’ I said.‘Policemensssss.’

  The police were patient and unsmiling. In fact, I think they did very well to keep the smiles off their faces. Maybe Charlie managed to communicate the seriousness with which we regarded the matter.

  ‘Nothing stolen?’ they asked repeatedly.

  ‘Nobody hurt?’

  Clearly they couldn’t understand why we were making such a fuss. Money changed hands, which substantially improved their comprehension. A few notes managed to crawl their way into Charlie’s top pocket. I could hardly believe his audacity. The police seemed not to notice, or if they did, they accepted it as his rightful commission.

  It normally took us around two hours to reach our village from Bukittinggi. With the police escort we did it in an hour and a half, eating the dust from the police Toyota Landcruiser right to our front door. Even then they didn’t turn off the flashing lights or the siren. Our neighbours gathered in sullen, resentful silence, keeping their distance as if to avoid being tarnished by the event. JP and Handlebars rode past without looking at us. Nobody would meet our eyes. Policemens weren’t welcome in Datar Guguk and it wasn’t hard to see why.

  There’s something about uniforms that strip Indonesians of everything that’s likeable about them. Friendly, generous people become officious and intimidating, if not downright threatening. When I think of Indonesian policemen and soldiers I automatically think of the Javanese. For centuries the Javanese have positioned themselves as the dominant race and used arms to reinforce this presumption. I found it hard to reconcile the gentle people we were living among with the atrocities that had occurred in East Timor and Irian Jaya. I had allowed myself to believe that all Indonesian soldiers were Javanese even though I knew that to be nonsense. Every Indonesian island contributed men to the armed forces. Our gun-toting policemen were undoubtedly Minangkabau.

  The officer withdrew his pistol and pushed open the door. Just what he thought he’d find inside was beyond me. His minions stood guard outside in their dark green trousers, paler green shirts, white belts, black holsters, Top Gun sunglasses and no suggestion of a smile. I think the intention was to warn off our intruder. If so, they certainly knew their stuff. When the officer called to us to follow him inside even I hesitated.

  Of course he’d found nothing. He just wanted to negotiate his fee for house calls away from prying eyes. That way he wouldn’t be seen to be corrupt and he could give his minions a less-than-fair share. No wonder his men weren’t smiling.

  They left us and paid a call on the headman. We could hear the shouting from where we were. Obviously I’d paid enough for the police to stamp their authority and warn the village into line. I don’t think their zeal made us any friends. When I rejoined Abby outside I could see from the reproachful way our neighbours looked at me that I was to blame for the indignity inflicted on them. I could see it would take more than a bit of Linda Ronstadt and a few ‘potos’ to repair the damage.

  The police left at dusk, lights flashing, siren wailing, alerting the surrounding villages to the wrongdoing of Datar Guguk, proclaiming their shame. Even Abby, who’d wanted police involvement from the start, seemed to think I’d been a bit heavy-handed. I shrugged my shoulders in sympathy, but inside I secretly disagreed. Drums might scare off ghosts but there’s nothing like a police siren and a show of force to frighten off an intruder.

  That evening I sat on the front steps and played guitar. I played for myself, a blues grab bag of Taj Mahal and Eric Clapton. I was dimly aware of dark faces gathering, and of Abby moving among them sharing our replenished stock of toffees. I guess I was aware of the appreciative murmurs after every tricky lick and show-off riff but pretended not to be. They were a smart audience. There’s not a lot you can teach the Minangkabau about music. In the end I gave in and played their song so they could join in.

  ‘Peels lie comb toomey, peels lie comb toomey . . .’

  And I sang along, popping my ‘p’s, trying to keep the smile out of my voice. All forgiven? I thought so. Somebody barbecued corn and the Iceman fetched my voddy. JP brought me two green coconuts and laughed when I mixed coconut milk with the spirit. It tasted fine.

  I think I scared Abby when I moved furniture over the trapdoors, and tied empty bottles to the doors and shutters so that they’d clink together if disturbed. I thought of setting up a kerosene lamp on a chair, a night-light for the nervous, but the kero lamp that doesn’t smell hasn’t yet been invented. Instead I placed my torch under my pillow alongside my wallet. Our neighbours may have forgiven us for bringing in the police but they hadn’t forgotten. When a policeman taps you on the shoulder in Indonesia you forgo the right to call a lawyer, not that any of our neighbours would have had or even known a lawyer. But they understood tyranny and they understood power. They understood exactly what would happen the day they fell foul of the police. But a deterrent is only that and what I wanted was impregnable defence. What if it wasn’t over? What if the warning had been ignored? What if our intruder called again? We’d raised the stakes. The question was, how would he react to that?

  Abby’s eyes opened wider when she saw the crudely hewn and broken axe handle alongside my mattress. I’d found it lying under the house. In truth it wasn’t much of an axe handle.

  But it was a hell of a nightstick.

  Abby could sleep standing up. I think she could sleep hanging by her thumbs. Her lumpy mattress had proved no impediment. But she heaved and sighed and plumped up her pillow, seemingly taking for ever to succumb. I lay and listened, eyes useless in the Stygian dark. Mice skittered in the thatch. Bats squeaked. Somewhere nearby an animal snuffled. The voddies leaned heavily on my eyelids. Something happens to determination in the wee small hours. Will weakens, intentions waver. Stygian darkness? There was a word to play with, an escapee from my education on the run in Sumatra. Darkness from Hades, scene-setter for our demon, our evil within. My hand reached out to touch my nightstick, my piece of reassurance tailor-made to deliver us from evil and those who trespassed against us. My hand touched something else.

  Something living.

  I screamed, gripped the hand that gripped mine and instantly regretted doing so. Whatever had hold of me was immensely strong, inhumanly strong, and pulled me downwards, trying to drag me through the gap in the floorboards.

  Abby levitated in the darkness beside me, wailing with fear. From below came a screeching unlike anything I’d ever heard. A foul, breath-snapping stench of pestilence rose like fumes from hell. And me utterly helpless, pinned to the floor, my elbow jammed hard against the gap in the floorboards, my lower arm feeling like it was going to part company with the rest of me.

  ‘Get the bloody torch! Get Charlie!’

  Never give people a choice of actions in critical circumstances. Abby hesitated, unsure which to do first, her fear paralysing. Oh God! Nails scored my wrist and the impossible vice-like grip inte
nsified. It, whatever it was, screeched its frustration, screamed its fury, spat defiance.

  ‘Torch! Torch!’ I yelled.

  ‘Mr Wallace! Mr Wallace!’ Charlie, shouting and banging on the door.

  It was winning. I no longer had the option of letting go. It had the option of letting go of me. Oh Christ! Somebody was sobbing. Me.

  ‘Mr Wallace! Mr Wallace!’

  If Abby had left me and run to open the door, I don’t know what I would have done. I was convinced it was only a matter of time before my lower arm was ripped off. Something hard hit my face.

  ‘Argh!’

  ‘Sorry!’

  You’d think someone with as much common sense as Abby would turn the bleeding torch on before passing it. I slid the On switch forward and aimed the beam between the boards. Inhuman eyes stared back, frightened, angry, but instantly recognisable.

  Eyes from a Polaroid.

  ‘Hello, Handlebars,’ I said.

  Abby soothed the panicking monkey so that it would let go of my battered hand. She dropped little bribes through the boards, giving him what he’d come for, what he’d come for almost every night, what had been missing from Abby’s bag — Abby’s Macintosh’s toffees.

  It was all so obvious when I thought about it. There are no such things as ghosts. Of course there aren’t. There was no way any human being could have found a way into our house. There was no motive. But a monkey besotted by toffees could breach its training, slip its collar, climb the three or so metres up to the floorboards without a ladder, and have the strength to hang there while he reached between the floorboards, searching for his prize.

  Alongside two prize fools.

  Tipping the Scales

  Ian Kenny sat in the back row overlooking a sea of heads to the lectern. The speaker’s amplified voice rang clear in the hall, no longer having to compete with the sound of rain on the metal roof. Its drumming hadn’t mattered. The audience were oblivious to it, eyes and ears fixed on the speaker who held them completely spellbound. He was the fifth author to speak at the Norfolk Island Writers’ and Readers’ Festival but no mere author. Oh, no. He, Johannes de Benke, was a legend, an adventurer and hero, a man who went where mere mortals feared to tread; a man who’d spent much of his life exploring and exposing myths so successfully that the press referred to him as Johannes de-Bunker. It didn’t matter to the audience that it had been quite some time since the speaker had ventured anywhere that didn’t boast a five-star hotel or, at the very least, the civilised comforts that merited the sort of prices the speaker was happy for other people to pay. The indisputable fact was he’d done what lesser people only dreamed of doing, and now he was reaping the rewards.

  Ian waited patiently while de Benke told his enraptured audience how his boat had been upturned by enraged hippopotami on a Congolese lake while he was searching for evidence of the elusive Mokele-mbembe — a sauropod which apparently had failed to become extinct along with all the other dinosaurs seventy million years ago. The story seemed to have grown somewhat since Ian had first read In the Wake of Lake Monsters & Other Myths, and then become hooked on reading all of de Benke’s books. He didn’t mind the elaboration or the apparent exaggeration. He dismissed it simply as the licence authors are granted when extolling the virtues of their wares. He glanced over his shoulder. As he’d suspected, the sun had returned, confirming its presence with a brilliant slash of light that lit up the entrance of Rawson Hall. Someone had failed to close the double doors properly. Ian hoped the intrusion would encourage de Benke to wind up his tales so that question time could begin. He had a question to ask. But de Benke appeared as oblivious to the sun as his audience had been to the showers.

  The festival had attracted hundreds of visitors from the mainland as well as the local islanders, and it occurred to Ian that many of the visitors had not yet had the opportunity to see Norfolk Island in all its glory, bathed in sunlight, as green as Ireland at its fairest, a tiny drop of paradise in a seemingly endless ocean. And a bountiful ocean at that. Ian let his mind wander. He’d lived on Norfolk for most of his sixty years but sometimes he honestly believed the sea was more his home. He loved its forever-ness and its capacity to endure; loved its ever-changing colours and moods, feared its rages and rejoiced in its serenity. As a charter-boat operator Ian lived off its generosity, but the truth was he would have gone to sea at every opportunity even if there’d been no keen fishermen among the tourists for him to take out. It was the mystery that attracted him, the sea’s infinite capacity to surprise. That was what drew him to the sea and also what had drawn him to Rawson Hall to hear de Benke. He had a question to ask.

  The sudden explosion of applause snapped him out of his reverie. De Benke had finished and the Master of Ceremonies was striding to the microphone. Ian leaped to his feet and all but ran down the aisle between the two banks of seats towards the audience microphone. De Benke had grossly exceeded the time allowed for his talk and Ian realised question time would be limited or even cancelled altogether. He was also aware that sometimes people used question time simply to express their admiration for the author and he couldn’t allow that to happen. De Benke seemed amused by his haste.

  ‘I was about to say that there was no time left for questions,’ said the MC.‘However, it appears I have been pre-empted.’ He smiled warningly at Ian. ‘Our next speaker is ready and Johannes has other engagements. I’ll allow your question on condition that you keep it brief.’

  ‘Mr de Benke,’ Ian began, suddenly aware of a dryness in his throat and all the eyes fixed on him. ‘Mr de Benke,’ he repeated,‘I have a fascination with the sea. I have spent my life gathering curiosities and artifacts, rare books and illustrations, evidence of the sometimes weird and wonderful creatures which over time have inhabited the oceans of the earth.’ Ian was aware of the MC rolling his eyes impatiently and a freezing of de Benke’s smile. He swallowed and continued. ‘You must be aware, Mr de Benke, that from the very beginning of civilisation, writers have spoken of and ancient artists depicted a sea creature which they refer to as . . .’ Ian hesitated. It was so easy to expose himself to ridicule among strangers. Among the islanders his words would be listened to and respected, even if the listeners did not agree. Ian could feel his face beginning to redden.

  ‘Referred to as what?’ cut in de Benke.

  ‘Sea serpents.’ Ian said the words so softly he doubted the microphone had picked them up. He was about to repeat them when he saw de Benke’s impatient reaction.

  ‘Sea serpents, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what exactly is your question?’

  ‘Can you categorically deny their existence?’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said de Benke, ‘do I need to? Hasn’t it occurred to you that when ships were few and cameras nonexistent sightings of sea serpents occurred all the time? Mind you, these sightings were by people who’d been so long at sea they mistook manatees and dugongs for mermaids!’ De Benke paused to allow the audience to laugh with him and at his questioner.‘Does it not also occur to you that now, when the oceans of the world are positively buzzing with shipping, sea serpents aren’t seen at all, at least never by people with cameras? Why do you think that is?’

  ‘Perhaps because when there are many witnesses the question of photographic evidence doesn’t immediately arise.’

  ‘What? In this age when television networks and magazines pay fortunes for such photographs?’

  ‘They don’t on Norfolk Island.’

  ‘Aha! I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve seen one of these sea serpents.’

  ‘Yes, and it wasn’t just —’ Ian wanted to say how it happened, how his guests and people on a nearby boat had seen it too, but de Benke didn’t give him a chance.

  ‘I suppose you’ve seen other phenomena as well. Ghost ships, perhaps?’

  Ian gasped. How did de Benke know? But then he guessed de Benke would have checked out the local bookshop, the Golden Orb, flicked through books abou
t the island, flicked through his books.

  ‘Well? Have you seen a ghost ship?’

  ‘Yes, myself and my —’ Ian wanted to tell him how his wife and two of his grandchildren had also seen it, but again de Benke didn’t give him a chance.

  ‘I don’t suppose you had your camera with you then either.’ De Benke looked away from him and swept the audience imperiously with his eyes. ‘The world of cryptozoology exists only in the minds of cryptozoologists. There are no yetis, no bigfoots, no yowies, no mermaids, no Loch Ness monsters and no fire-breathing dragons. Nor are there any sea serpents or ghost ships. How do I know? How can I be so sure? Because I’ve spent my whole life looking for them. And what did I find? Nothing! Why? Because there is nothing to find except a bunch of fanciful, deluded people. Thank you for being such a wonderful audience.’

  Ian slunk out of the hall into the sunlight with the sound of the audience’s adoration of de Benke ringing in his ears, and the shame of his humiliation burning them.

  ‘I think you’ll find Ian Kenny is neither fanciful nor deluded.’

  Johannes de Benke’s eyes narrowed irritably and focused on his coffee. The Golden Orb bookshop provided free coffee to the festival’s speakers and de Benke was not one to let any entitlement pass. He believed he’d earned his coffee and had also earned the right to enjoy it in peace.

  ‘And who might Ian Kenny be?’ he asked, looking up and instantly regretting his facetiousness. He found himself staring into a familiar face, a young face in an older man’s body. More to the point, he saw both the intelligence in the eyes and the mild reproach.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said de Benke, forcing a smile. The newcomer was his host, Peter Clarke, owner of Shearwater Scenic Villas. Peter had provided de Benke with his best villa for the duration of the writers’ festival. He was also painfully aware that he’d inadvertently sat at a table alongside shelves carrying a display of Ian Kenny’s books. Ian smiled down at him from the cover of his book Hooked by the Sea. Of course de Benke had looked at it. It was the natural thing for someone with his specialisation to do. He was grateful that his host had enough tact to overlook his question.