Gabriel's Bay

by Robertson, Catherine

  What did he expect tonight, apart from moral support? Did he expect to come home with her afterwards and—

  She didn’t know him. She didn’t know herself — had no clue what she wanted. Her body had responded as bodies do to the kiss (which was very good, yes it was), but her mind had begun right then to flip and ping about like a pinball machine, and hadn’t stopped. So many doubts, so many questions. Most of which, she knew, could only be answered over time, as you got to know a person, got to see them unguarded, under stress, making choices — all those occasions when the real them, their real values, came out. When the cracks appeared.

  He seemed like a genuine guy. And he fancied her — how often had that happened in the past nine years? The stirring of lust in her front doorway had been a revelation, which she couldn’t help being thrilled by. He wanted her — her! Plump, pleasantly average Sidney, not some svelte young beauty! Brilliant! Thank you, Kerry Macfarlane, for having excellent if anomalous taste.

  But then — flip! ping! — she didn’t want to be grateful! More than that, she didn’t want to become used to what he offered, didn’t want to be seduced by him not only physically but also emotionally. He could buy her wine, he could cook, mind children. He could take the load off, practically and financially — they could share. Such a seductive promise. Such a dangerous one. Sidney hated that she felt always on the knife-edge of financial disaster, but she managed, she coped — and she did that all on her own. Yes, her neighbours and friends helped, but she helped them in return — she wasn’t dependent on them. She couldn’t afford to become dependent. Couldn’t afford to be let down.

  A mind raging with doubts and insecurities wasn’t the best to bring into a stuffy, beer-fumed room packed with leering men. Were there any other women here? Oh, yep, that girl from the bakery, wearing a skirt inadvisably short for bar-stool seating. And a smattering of others Sidney recognised by sight, most the type of women who, by about age fourteen, had surrendered any possibility of being self-determined and submitted to a life that was done to them and not usually in a good way, or by good men. Yes, all right, she should check her privilege, acknowledge her comfortable, well-educated start in life. But even so, why didn’t they want more for themselves? Why couldn’t they see that there was more to have?

  ‘Even the dead beasts on the walls are staring at us,’ Kerry whispered.

  ‘Didn’t you see the “No Gingers” sign on the door?’ she replied. ‘It was right above “No Homos”, “No Feminists” and “No Shandy-sipping Woofters”.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Kerry, without conviction.

  ‘OK, there’s Sam, Gene’s nephew,’ said Sidney. ‘And Barrett. Let’s put them at risk of total ostracism and head their way.’

  Such nice-looking boys, said the DNA within her that, if she weren’t vigilant, would make her a cheek-pincher in her golden years. Sam with that hint of coffee in his skin, green-speckled eyes, and those brown-blond corkscrew ringlets that Sidney always wanted to call ‘boing-boing curls’ after Milly Molly Mandy’s Little Friend Susan. Barrett, darker, and with the classic pugilistic handsomeness of early-years Brando or Elvis. And that smile, my God. The kind that made part of your brain start trying to play down a thirteen-year age gap.

  Devon’s warning came to mind, but Sidney could not give it credence. Barrett was courteous, thoughtful, a dutiful son, and Sam’s best friend. Sam was far too gentle to stick by someone who had a bad side.

  ‘Howdy, gents,’ she said. ‘How’s your evening so far?’

  Sam resembled a dog wondering why it was being punished. ‘OK … ?’

  ‘Sam, Barrett, this is Kerry. He’s working for Mrs Barton.’

  Barrett extended a hand. ‘Think I’ve seen you around?’

  ‘I came into your premises,’ said Kerry. ‘With a broken vacuum cleaner.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Barrett grinned. ‘Cause of damage: Russian vigour.’

  ‘Yes, they broke the mould when they made Oksana,’ said Kerry. ‘Or, more likely, she did.’

  ‘Dad told me she put a filleting knife to a guy’s throat when she worked at the fish factory,’ said Sam. ‘All the guy did was pat her, um — backside.’

  ‘Oh, I seriously doubt that’s all he did,’ said Sidney. ‘But nice segue, Sam, into the exact subject we’ve come here to raise. Kerry?’

  ‘Could I buy you both a beer?’ he said. ‘Bribe you to listen for ten minutes?’

  ‘Oh, nah, it’s OK,’ said Sam. ‘Our mate’s just gone to—’

  ‘Here ya are, girls.’

  The mate was back, jug in hand. Sidney’s heart sank a little. Not that she knew Tubs Hanrahan particularly well. But his father, Rob, was a self-important, big-noting a-hole, who wore alligator-hide cowboy boots, for Pete’s sake, and threw his weight around at the Boat Shed, acting like he was doing them a huge favour by giving them his custom. Devon hated serving him, gritted his teeth at the endless insinuations, though he knew it would be worse if he actually were a girl. Rob was a finger-snapper, demanding instant attention, and if he wasn’t shit-scared of Jacko he’d be a faultfinder, too, the kind that sends back meals just because they can.

  Sidney assessed Rob’s son. Lardy, shifty, nowhere near as attractive as his two friends. He made a feeble attempt to give her the once-over, but when he met her gaze she raised one eyebrow and he instantly blushed. As she suspected: bravado on top, jelly underneath.

  ‘Tubs, you know Ms Gillespie,’ said Barrett. ‘May I introduce Kerry, who has requested that we lend him our ears for a speech he prepared earlier.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Tubs tried to give Kerry the once-over, too, the sizing-up macho version. Met only a smile and an extended hand, which he accepted, ever so reluctantly, like he’d catch foreign, unmanly cooties.

  ‘A short speech, I promise,’ said Kerry. ‘And the next round’s on me.’

  Sidney watched while he talked, compared him to the men around them. The key difference was that Kerry seemed entirely at ease with himself, whereas these guys were about as comfortable as cats adrift on a rubber raft. Sure, they seemed relaxed — they bantered with each other, teased and mocked in that dry, laconic way. But their interactions followed a proscribed routine, a tight script that must not be deviated from. This was a tribe and its members would rather die than not belong. It defined who they were; without it, they were nothing.

  Sidney’s tolerance for male bullshit was normally nonexistent, but at that moment, she experienced a brief surge of empathy. How hard must it be to always conform to such rigid rules? To never say what you really feel? To have to live by ‘it’s all good, bro’, that most perfect suppressor of uncomfortable discussion?

  Not as hard as conforming to expected female standards, of course. At least the blokes got beer. Whereas women got waxing kits that stripped the hair from their pudendas, and yoghurt that prevented bloating. Good one.

  ‘What do you think?’ Kerry had reached the end of his sales pitch. ‘Would the club be willing to send out a message to its members, calling for volunteers?’

  ‘Um,’ said Sam. ‘I guess …’

  ‘Can but ask,’ said Barrett. He pointed at an older man leaning against the bar. ‘Earl over there’s club captain. I’d advise you to get him now while he’s only five pints down.’

  Sidney said, ‘What about you lot? Will you help?’

  ‘Clean up the fish factory?’ Tubs snorted. ‘Not likely!’

  ‘Sam?’

  He wouldn’t look at her. ‘Um …’

  ‘That means yes,’ said Barrett. ‘Yes, we’ll be glad to help. Tubs, too.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’

  Barrett put his arm around Tubs’s shoulders, squeezed in a way that must have felt harder than it looked, because Tubs instantly deflated.

  ‘It’s your civic duty, mate,’ said Barrett. ‘The dues you owe this ol’ town.’

  ‘Well, fucken Deano’s coming, too,’ muttered Tubs. ‘No way he’s getting out of it.’

  ‘Wh
ere is Deano?’ said Sam. ‘Loretta’s here, but he’s not.’

  ‘He had to work.’ Barrett released Tubs, who sagged further.

  ‘Work?’ said Sam. ‘At night?’

  Barrett shrugged. ‘What he told me.’

  ‘So we can count on the four of you?’ said Kerry. ‘That’s great. Thank you.’

  Barrett smiled his killer smile, and Sidney wondered why he didn’t have a girlfriend. How could any young woman resist?

  ‘You don’t get that many opportunities to clean the karmic slate,’ he said. ‘Speaking personally, I look forward to it.’

  He raised his glass.

  ‘To cleaning slates! Let’s scrub away all our bad deeds along with the fish grime.’

  ‘That Barrett’s a good-looking lad, isn’t he?’

  Kerry sounded casual, which meant, judging by every time she’d tried it, that he felt anything but. She had two choices — wind him up, or reassure him that she haboured no desire to seduce a younger man. They were walking hand in hand, so it seemed churlish to pick the former.

  ‘If you like that type,’ she said.

  He gave her a sidelong glance.

  ‘The devastatingly handsome type is traditionally the most successful at attracting women,’ he said. ‘Followed closely, of course, by the ninety-year-old billionaire.’

  ‘My gender thanks you for confirming that we’re all shallow and avaricious,’ said Sidney. ‘For a moment there, we were worried that we might be building a reputation for being multi-dimensional individuals.’

  After a beat, Kerry said, ‘My seduction technique needs work, doesn’t it?’

  ‘More like your insecurities do,’ Sidney said, with a smile. ‘If it’s any consolation, mine have been a lifelong project.’

  ‘May I kiss you again?’ he asked.

  They were outside the gates of the primary school, a common gathering place for underage drinkers, petty vandals and teenagers who lacked cars to have sex in. It was eleven-thirty, and Gabriel’s Bay street lighting was partial at best. Any number of eyes could be on them right now.

  ‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘But if you hear applause, that’s a hint we need to find somewhere more private.’

  They kissed, and it was nicer than before, which was usually the case. First kisses were like exploring a dark cave — it took a few tries to find your footing and was always damper than you expected.

  The kissing evolved into what teenagers of her mother’s era — though never her mother — would have called heavy petting. But her body’s keen desire to give in to the moment was derailed by her practical mother-brain planning ahead. She broke away.

  ‘Sorry, but I think now’s a good time to tell you that I will not do it up against a wall, in a doorway, on damp grass, wooden boards or any surface where I’m made aware of my hip bones. I detest the shower because bits of me get cold and if my face is under, it’s like I’m being waterboarded. I’m not even that keen on carpet or rugs.’

  ‘I’m not good with food,’ he told her. ‘To me, Nine and a Half Weeks was a horror movie.’

  ‘Of course it was. It had Mickey Rourke in it.’

  ‘Er,’ said Kerry, ‘I don’t want to overstep the mark here — but now that all those other options have been, very fairly, eliminated, can I infer that you’re keen on going to your place?’

  The boys were at Mac’s. She could bundle Kerry out the door before they got back. (Not because she didn’t want to explain it to them — it was Mac who’d phone her up and give her the third degree.)

  But should she rush in? Shouldn’t she and Kerry get to know each other better?

  Her body voted like a kid who’d been asked whether they wanted a puppy, a bicycle and a jumbo bag of free lollies. Her mind was more like a kid standing on the high-dive board, which had looked a lot less high from the ground.

  Her body snuck up behind the second kid and pushed them off.

  ‘My place it is,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Chapter 23

  Bernard

  Camaraderie. Was that the right word for what Bernard was witnessing, or was it too old-fashioned? ‘Mucking in’ was an ugly modern phrase, yet appropriate given the setting. Bernard had poked his head around the door of the old fish factory, expecting to see a few people attempting a task even Hercules might balk at — clearing out decades’ worth of accumulated industrial residue. He’d been astonished to see at least thirty residents, young and old, shifting, scraping and cleaning, apparently all in willing good humour.

  Although the Progressive Association had not yet given its stamp of approval to the project, Bernard found he did not mind seeing its team press on regardless. He had a duty to everyone in Gabriel’s Bay to thoroughly assess the proposal, and so that is what he would do. But in his heart, he knew he wanted it to go ahead, and so this blatant disregard for due process and consultation bothered him less than it might. A second tempering factor was the knowledge that this activity would absolutely incense Elaine. Bernard liked to picture an outraged Elaine. He liked less that she was clearly plotting some kind of obstruction behind his back. Oh well, until she revealed her plan (no doubt with triumphal fanfare), there was little point expending energy in worry.

  Possibly having let thoughts of Elaine waft like miasma through his mind, Bernard’s initial surprised pleasure at seeing so many hard at work began to slip sideways towards dejection. He was not part of this team, and even if he offered to help he suspected he’d be turned away. They’d be polite, but after he’d left they would grin at each other and probably deploy some vernacular phrase signalling their belief that he would be about as useful as udders on male cattle.

  It took him back to times he would rather forget, but which, at moments like this, flared up like hotspots in a forest fire. At school, Bernard had never fitted in. Too small for the rugby team, too academically able, too rich, he’d spent the years between five and seventeen a daily target of suspicion and derision expressed (on good days) verbally and (on most days) physically. Bernard had been prescribed glasses at age ten, but after the third pair had been ground under someone’s heel he dared wear them only indoors, meaning that when in the playground and travelling between school and home, he was effectively blind. So he stopped going outside. He stayed in his bedroom, or in a corner of the school library (guarded by the librarian, Mrs Philpott, whose ear tweak was legendary) and he read his way through Sir Walter Scott, H. Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and all of Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. (There were more modern books, American ones also, but he didn’t much care for those.)

  Inside books, he lived adventurously, won hearts and vanquished enemies. He became a hero, capable, adored, muscular in body and intellect, with a tongue nearly as lethal as his first choice of weapon, a sleek, slim poignard, which, when the enemy was particularly dastardly, he augmented with a flanged mace. (In his dreams, Bernard’s arch-nemesis, a thug named Kevin Nattriss, regularly felt the might of his mace. Kevin Nattriss’s Datsun Violet went under the wheels of a logging truck on State Highway 30A back in 1976, but even now Bernard would often wake with fresh and satisfactory images of Kevin’s skull after a single, well-placed mace blow.)

  University had been a relief, but despite it being safe to wear glasses all day, he had still felt on the outer. No clubs to join: he neither skied nor drank beer and he’d rather stare at a page than a chessboard. He had hoped to bond with his fellow English Literature students, but none seemed to share his level of enthusiasm for the greats. They preferred modern writers, like Pynchon. Bernard hadn’t got past page three of The Crying of Lot 49.

  These days, he and Patricia had a respectable social circle, and invitations came at well-spaced intervals. But if Bernard were to summon one word to describe his relationships with others, that word would be ‘formal’. The people he socialised with were well-mannered, with moderate voices and opinions, even if their political views did skew rather far right at times. They did not drink to excess, nor
laugh raucously. And they certainly didn’t rib each other, or hug, or put each other in affectionate headlocks like the group of young lads he was watching now.

  Camaraderie. It was a good word. It would do.

  ‘Bernard.’

  His heart lurched, his pulse quickened, and silently he despaired. Forty-six years it had been. Forty-six! If nearly five decades could not act as a buffer to emotional turmoil, then there was no hope. He was doomed to a lurching heart and quickening pulse for the rest of his life.

  ‘Meredith,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’

  A raised eyebrow. ‘Why? Am I too old for this kind of work?’

  ‘No, no,’ Bernard corrected hastily. ‘I merely thought — well, that you are one of the patrons, I suppose. Surely your contribution has been made.’

  ‘I’m not quite ready for that to be end of my involvement,’ said Meredith, ‘although I am less anxious about my little house now than I was at the start.’

  She smiled, and Bernard realised that it was the first time in ages he’d not seen her look drawn and weary. There were still tired lines in evidence, but her eyes were clear again, warm brown and glinting with humour.

  ‘Heikki the jeweller offered to replace the plastic chandelier in the dining room with one made of real quartz,’ she said. ‘I told him I couldn’t possibly let him spend his own money, and so I brought out my grandmother’s diamond tiara. Do you remember? I wore it at my wedding?’

  Bernard remembered. Meredith had been an unbearably beautiful bride. He’d got quite drunk at the reception and fallen asleep face-down on a table. No one noticed.

  ‘Heikki was horrified,’ she continued. ‘No, no, he protested. He couldn’t possibly break up a family heirloom. Quartz it would be. I agreed but insisted on paying half, which he reluctantly accepted. But not two days later, he was back, pounding at my door, brandishing a drawing of his design for the chandelier. I must have the tiara!, he declared. That centre pear-shaped diamond is perfect for the drop!’