‘Make way, make way!’ he’d announced. ‘Here comes the future!’
‘Oh, don’t tell me that’s for me,’ Carol said. ‘I don’t know the first thing about computers.’
Colin staggered over to the shop counter. He was carrying the monitor and the hard drive, with the keyboard tight under one arm and the cords dangling around his knees.
‘Just come and check it out,’ he said, using his hand to wipe a thick layer of dust and static off the bubble screen. ‘This is going to turbo-charge your business. You’re going to get new bookings, plus you can do invoices, everything, on this. It’s going to really get you going.’
Trevor eyed the machine suspiciously. ‘Your mum already does all the invoices,’ he said. ‘We’ve got an invoice book.’
‘Forget that,’ said Colin. ‘This is going to streamline your whole operation. Plus I’m going to build you a website.’
Trevor wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but he left Colin to it, and by the following morning Colin declared the website up and running, saying, ‘Come and have a look.’
Carol had wiped the screen with Windex and old newspaper. It was showing brightly coloured cartoon fish, swimming.
‘I’m not sure I get the point,’ Trevor said.
‘No, no, that’s just a screen saver,’ said Colin, tapping a key. ‘Here’s your website.’
Up came a different screen, still with fish, plus a picture of a smiling Trevor and Carol, and the words ‘Trevor’s Reef Tours’.
‘People all over the world can see this,’ Colin said. ‘They can search for you, and the beauty of it is, you won’t need all those brochures in the local motels. You’re on the World Wide Web now, Trevor!’
Carol was dubious. Nobody she knew had a computer at home and what was wrong with putting brochures in the local motels?
‘There’s nothing wrong with it, but don’t you get it, Mum? Everyone can see you now, they don’t even need a brochure.’
‘Well, it’s not just the brochures we have. We’re also in the Gold Coast Bulletin.’
Colin sighed. ‘Just do me a favour, will you? Every now and then you’ll hear a ping. That means you’ve got mail. See here, Mail? You click on these little envelopes. Not that one, that’s spam. Not that, that’s just a welcome to Yahoo Mail. That’s nothing. But see how they’re closed? You click on them to open them and read the message. See if you get an inquiry. Let’s just see what happens.’
For the first few weeks, nothing happened.
‘I open those E-Mails you told me to open,’ Carol said, ‘and it’s all about losing weight. I mean, who sends these things? It’s not good manners.’
‘I got one the other day, he wanted to make my penis longer,’ said Trevor, winking, ‘and we don’t need that, do we, Carol?’
‘Look,’ said Colin, ‘you ignore that stuff. And don’t, you know, answer anything that looks dodgy. If somebody’s offering to give you a lot of money or something, ignore that too. Don’t give anyone your bank account details.’
‘As if I would,’ said Carol.
A week or so later, Carol got what she would later call ‘the big E-Mail’ from Robert Brancato in New York.
‘Come and look at this, Trevor,’ she said. The computer had been moved off the counter to a small table in a far corner of the little wooden shopfront, where it sat, unloved, and mostly unused.
‘Do I have to? What is it?’ Trevor had been in one of the storerooms, examining a fishing rod.
‘I said come and look.’
Trevor leaned the rod against the wall. ‘You know I can’t see anything without my glasses.’ Carol had his glasses on the end of her nose.
‘This here is one of those E-Mails,’ said Carol, pointing at the screen. ‘It’s somebody talking about renting a yacht for a reef tour.’
‘We don’t have a yacht.’
‘It says there are four of them coming, and look, it says they’re offering ten K. What do you think he means, Trevor. Ten K?’
‘Ten kilograms?’
‘It can’t be kilograms! I think that means thousands. I think it’s saying that they want to pay ten thousand dollars for a four-day tour.’
‘You’re off your trolley, Carol.’
‘No, Trevor … I do think that’s what it means.’
‘You’re off your trolley,’ Trevor repeated. ‘It’s one of those SPAM things Colin was on about. Don’t give them our credit card.’
‘Why would I give them our credit card, Trevor? It’s them wanting to pay us.’
‘You can’t be right, Carol. Ten thousand dollars for a reef tour? They’d have to have more money than sense. In any case, like I said, we don’t have a yacht.’
‘But you’d be mad to knock it back,’ said Colin, after he’d come to have a look. ‘Haven’t you got a mate with a yacht you can borrow? That bloke from Whitsunday Escapes, the one who keeps Blue Moon, isn’t he a friend of yours?’
‘Don Scott? He’s not going to borrow out the Blue Moon. That’s a special boat. All the bells and whistles. I went on board once. He’s got a marble bathroom. He’s not lending her out.’
‘Well, you lent Don our lawnmower. And the Jeep, last Christmas,’ said Carol, hands on hips. ‘You lent him your Jeep when he had trouble with his four-wheel drive, remember?’
‘The Blue Moon isn’t a lawnmower.’
‘You should ask him,’ said Colin. ‘Tell him you’ve got a new client, you need a bigger boat. Offer him a grand … I’m telling you, you’d be mad to knock it back.’
‘I can’t ask,’ Trevor said, ‘he’s going to think I’m off my trolley. Ten thousand dollars for four days. He’ll think I’m running drugs.’
‘You don’t need to tell him what they’re paying. You tell him you’ve got a bigger group. Four people. Your boat can’t handle it. He knows that. He won’t mind.’
Trevor ran a sun-damaged hand over his sun-damaged head.
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘alright. I suppose I could ask.’ And so he did, and Don Scott, remembering how good Trevor had been about the Jeep, had said yes, okay, alright, and so Colin wrote back to Robert in New York, saying, ‘We can confirm that our luxury cruiser, the Blue Moon, is available in the week before the New Year.’
‘I’m not going to believe it’s happening,’ said Carol, hovering over his shoulder, ‘until I see the money.’
‘Show me the money!’ hollered Trevor, in the way of that character from the movie.
‘You’ll get your money,’ said Colin. ‘Just watch, in the next day or so, you’ll get another email with his confirmation.’
Carol was so anxious she instructed Trevor to sleep on a camp cot in the shop, in case the email went off in the middle of the night and they missed it.
‘Sleep with one eye open,’ she said. ‘When you hear the ping, come and get me. Don’t try to open it. You’ll end up deleting it. Call me and I’ll come down.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ said Colin. ‘Emails don’t disappear just because you’re in bed.’ But Carol was worried, and Trevor knew her well enough not to argue. He put up the camp cot, and Carol went upstairs to sleep and, just as she’d predicted, the email did go off in the middle of the night, and Trevor dutifully rolled from the cot onto his knees and started to shout up the stairs, ‘Carol! It’s the computer! It’s saying we’ve got one of those E-Mails … Carol?!’
Carol came down in her nightie, hair loose around her shoulders.
‘Let me see,’ she said, pulling back a chair. She jiggled the mouse, saying, ‘Come on, you little mongrel.’
‘Is it them?’
‘Let me read.’ She clicked and frowned and studied the screen, and then her two hands became fists.
‘It looks like Colin’s done it!’ she said. ‘This E-Mail here, it’s from that same Robert in New York. They’ve confirmed. They’re coming. Can you believe it? They must have money to burn.’
‘Far out!’ Trevor punched the air.
‘He’s sayin
g he wants our details,’ said Carol. ‘He can make the deposit into our business account this afternoon. It must be daytime over there.’
‘Don’t give him the bank account. Remember what Colin said. Tell them we’ll only take a cheque.’
‘I don’t need you telling me how to do the accounts, Trevor,’ said Carol. She got Colin to ask for a cheque, and only when it was banked and cleared did they go out to celebrate on the edge of the timber pier, with a bucket of plasticky prawns, and cups of Moselle squeezed from a cask.
‘You know they’re going to want the works,’ said Colin. ‘No cutting corners, not for ten grand.’
‘Well, we’ve got the Blue Moon,’ said Trevor, ‘what else could they want?’ He was shelling prawns into newspaper, and lowering them into his open mouth by the tails.
‘Well, let’s start with those prawns,’ snapped Carol. ‘You didn’t take out the shit, did you? You left the shit in the prawn. You won’t be able to do that on the Blue Moon. You’re going to have to do it right.’
‘It’s not poo! It’s sand and muck,’ said Trevor, but Carol said, ‘It’s disgusting how you eat it. And Colin’s right. You’re going to need proper help on this trip. Somebody to do the dishes. Somebody to make the toast in the morning and a cup of tea, and clear out the beer bottles. That’s all going to have to be included.’
‘Yeah, well, I already know a girl,’ Trevor said, and the girl he had in mind was Caitlin.
‘But you can’t waltz into the Merchant and offer their bargirl a job,’ said Carol. ‘You know how hard it is to get people. You can’t just pinch other people’s staff.’
‘I’m not going to pinch her,’ Trevor said. ‘It’s only a few days we need her for.’
‘It’s a busy time, though,’ said Carol, ‘between Christmas and New Year, and this year especially.’
‘Yeah, but she’ll be back for New Year’s Eve,’ said Trevor, ‘and that’s all the boss at the Merchant will care about. I’ll go down there tonight and ask her.’
And so he had.
‘We’ll be on the water for four days,’ he told Caitlin. ‘I’m okay to steer but I’ll need somebody to help out. You can cook some fish, make some salads, can’t you? Clean up the cabins, make the beds and stuff like that. They’re paying a pretty penny and I mean that literally.’
He didn’t mean it literally.
‘It won’t be all day every day,’ Trevor added. ‘We’ll come in at night so they can try a few of the counter meals, even here if you want. It’s easy money for you. And the boat’s beautiful.’
‘Your boat is not beautiful, Trevor,’ Caitlin said. ‘It’s an old fishing trawler you’ve painted blue.’
‘But it’s not my boat we’re taking. I’ve got Blue Moon, borrowed from Don Scott. It’s a classy trip we’re doing. So, what do you say? Yes or no?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Trevor. What’s the wage?’ Caitlin was folding and unfolding the cleaning rag, uncertain about what to do. Trevor was doing his best to keep his gaze above the frilled apron over her breasts.
‘Five hundred dollars,’ he said. ‘Plus you can keep whatever you make in tips. And look, it’s better than working here. No skimpy! And they sound like nice blokes. Good fun. The one who made the booking, Robert, I take it he’s the ringleader. The last E-Mail we got – it’s all been done on the E-Mail – it was all about meeting Aussie sheilas while they’re here.’
‘And that’s where I come in, is it?’ Caitlin said, hand on hip, indignant.
‘Ha ha! No! But I mean, you never know, do you? One of them might just take a shine to you.’
Chapter 3
It was snowing in New York when Robert, Colby and Grant from Goldman Sachs boarded a Qantas jet for the first leg of their flight to Townsville. (Marcel, being a tech expert, had been asked to stay in Manhattan, lest the rumours about Y2K come true.) They turned left into business class, where a smiling flight attendant stood waiting with a linen napkin, a small glass of champagne and a dish of warm peanuts.
‘This is going to be grand,’ said Robert, but it was torture: delays blew out their flight to thirty-two hours, as they made their way from New York to Los Angeles – where they were delayed – and then onto Sydney – where they were again delayed – and then from Brisbane to Townsville. Christmas Day had come and gone at some point on the long flight.
‘I’m going to kill you for this,’ Colby said as they waited at the baggage carousel.
‘Not when you see the boat,’ promised Robert.
The heat and the light of Queensland, after the subtle glow of snow in New York, was dazzling as the Americans stepped out of the airport. All three reached for sunglasses from their top pockets. Trevor hadn’t thought to provide a limo service, so they caught a Silver Top taxi from the airport to the pier.
Trevor, Carol and Caitlin stood waiting.
‘Check them out,’ said Caitlin, nudging Carol.
Colby was first to come striding down the pier, his hard-shell Samsonite rattling over the old timber.
‘Are those pink shorts?’ asked Caitlin, eyeing Colby’s pressed belted shorts, with a baby-blue polo shirt and tan boat shoes. Robert had the same shorts, but in leaf green, and then there was Grant from Goldman Sachs, in canary yellow.
‘What is this – some kind of uniform?’ said Caitlin. ‘They’re going to get themselves bashed if they turn up at the Merchant dressed like that.’
‘Shush,’ scolded Carol. ‘They’re paying customers.’
‘She’s right, but,’ said Trevor.
‘They’re dorks,’ said Caitlin.
‘They’re paying customers,’ Carol repeated. ‘And aren’t you glad now that I got a uniform for us?’ She was referring to the chambray shirts she, Trevor and Caitlin were wearing, with the new logo for Trevor’s Reef Tours embroidered over the breast pockets.
‘It’ll make us look like a team,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll wear white on the bottom and it will be like we know what we’re doing.’
‘I don’t have white pants,’ said Trevor, but actually he did have white bowling pants, so Carol had asked him to wear those (and not with the red underpants, thank you very much). Carol’s own pants were white knickerbockers – not cotton, but some kind of crinkly fabric – from Sussan in the Townsville Mall.
‘I’ll wear denim shorts,’ said Caitlin, ‘with white shoes. If that’s okay.’
‘I suppose so,’ Carol said. She was a bit disappointed, but then Caitlin had shown up, and her torn shorts were almost white, and she had new white sneakers, and she’d tied the front tails of the Trevor’s Reef Tours shirt over the fine blonde hairs on her belly, and she did look lovely.
‘Have you seen the deckhand?’ Robert whispered to Colby, after Caitlin had been introduced. ‘She looks like a blonde Daisy Duke.’
‘This is a fantastic boat,’ Colby had replied, wiping a broad hand over the polished woodwork. ‘Look at these fittings.’ The Blue Moon had three cabins below the main deck, including a state room with an island bed that Robert wanted and Colby claimed on sight by virtue of being more confident, in any situation, and simply taking control.
Trevor encouraged his guests to ‘dump your stuff and come onto the main deck for beers’. He was keen to show off the boat – ‘We’ve got all the bells and whistles’ – but Colby again took charge, saying, ‘If it’s all the same to you, Trevor, we’re beat. Feel free to motor on out. We’ll put our heads down, and maybe come up for a beer in the late afternoon.’
‘No worries!’ Trevor said, and Robert, who hadn’t heard that expression before, immediately adopted it.
‘No worries!’ he said. ‘I love that. You’ve got no worries. We’ve got no worries. Nobody’s got worries.’
‘Yeah, like, no problem,’ said Trevor, confused.
‘No problem! Okay.’
The three New Yorkers went down below. Trevor took the wheel, and Caitlin, having coiled up the ropes, stood beside him, watching as he guided the Blue Moon away from the pier
.
‘Have you noticed how all their clothes are new?’ she said. ‘Not one of them has worn those clothes before. And they all have their shirts tucked in. Did you see that? They’re on holidays and they’ve got shirts tucked in.’
‘They’ll loosen up,’ said Trevor. ‘Let ’em sleep off the jet lag, then get some prawns up out of the Esky. She’ll be right. Just, you know, be nice to them. It’ll be worth it for a tip.’
It was Grant who emerged first from the lower decks, shielding his eyes against the dazzling Australian light.
‘Jesus, it’s bright,’ he said.
‘All things bright and beautiful,’ said Robert, who had come up behind him, and was now throwing his arms wide. The boat was well away from the pier. There was nothing to see but water and sky – both of them flat, unending blue.
‘It’s magnificent,’ said Colby.
Caitlin had spent her down time sitting near the bow, with her legs dangling over the pointed edge. Her skin glowed from the coconut oil she’d applied, and her blonde hair, which she’d tied into a plait, was long enough to tuck into the breast pocket of the Trevor’s Reef Tours shirt. She was used to men like Grant – and of course like Robert – giving her the once over, but if Colby copped a second look, she missed it.
‘Does anyone want a beer?’ she asked.
‘Beer,’ said Robert, ‘make that three. I’m talking three for me. Can’t speak for the other two.’
‘Three is good. One each for the three of us,’ said Colby.
‘Spoilsport.’
It was not outside Caitlin’s experience at the Merchant to have one man order three beers, but she nodded at Colby and headed down to the galley.
‘Now, where are we headed, Captain?’ asked Robert. The Blue Moon was a pilothouse saloon, with cockpit and saloon on the same level; a truly social boat.
‘We’ve just cleared the east side of Magnetic Island,’ Trevor said. ‘Over there’s Cape Cleveland. The plan is to drop anchor around Middle Island. There’s quite a bit of coral there. Otherwise, we can head south-east towards North Molle.’
Can You Keep a Secret? Page 2