Floodtide

by Judy Nunn

  The rest of the afternoon proceeded smoothly. Miss Bunbury was declared the winner, which very much irritated Miss Perth, a professional catwalk model who'd won the highly contested local competition held at Cottesloe and who'd considered herself a shoo-in.

  Dougie Mac called Mayjay to the stage and the audience went wild as she draped the sash over Miss Bunbury's shoulder and placed the crown on her head. Miss Bunbury had been a popular choice.

  'Our winner!' Dougie screamed into the microphone, and Miss Bunbury stepped forward, a hand to her head, fighting to maintain possession of her precariously balanced crown, which, if lost, threatened to take her hairpiece with it.

  'Miss WA Beach Girl Beauty!'

  Upon Dougie's further ear-shattering pronouncement, Mayjay turned to the crowd, arms extended in gracious acknowledgement of the winner. The applause was suddenly overwhelming. It was obvious for whom it was intended. Lovely though she was, the newly crowned Miss WA Beach Girl Beauty didn't hold a candle to the real thing.

  Twenty minutes later the show was well and truly over and the cameras had stopped rolling, but up on stage, as he continued his speech, the Honourable Gerrard Whitford seemed unaware of the fact.

  'The WA Beach Girl Beauty Quest,' he concluded, soldiering on manfully as families collected children and beach mats and headed off to the car park, 'is proof positive that the marriage of government and private enterprise is indeed the way of the future!'

  It was only then that Gerrard noticed there was no cameraman behind the nearby camera. Strange, he thought. Perhaps they were getting it in a long shot from one of the others. Pity. He wanted to finish on a close-up.

  In the grandstand, where the captive official party had been forced to lend its attention, Howard Stonehaven led the dutiful applause, blissfully happy in the knowledge that Gerrard had made a thorough fool of himself.

  Two familiar figures were standing beside the Itala chatting to Ziggy as Spud and Anthony Wilson strolled up from the beach. One of them held out his hand to Spud.

  'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'

  'Cut it out, Pembo.' Spud slapped the hand away, and Mike flashed a look of rebuke at Ian, who ignored it.

  'Or is it perhaps Henry Morton Stanley himself?'

  As Ian looked him up and down in wide-eyed mock admiration, Spud cursed the fact that he was still wearing the pith helmet. Did he really look stupid? He wouldn't normally have allowed Pembo's ridicule to affect him, but he was reminded of Mayjay's scorn. He was about to tell Pembo to fuck off, when Anthony Wilson's need for attention unwittingly saved the day.

  'Ian ... Mike ...' Anthony offered his hand, teeth gleaming. 'Good to see you again, boys.'

  The three men shook.

  'I've been reading about Excalibur in the press, Ian.' Anthony had read one tiny snippet about Ian Pemberton's company in the financial pages, but he was eager to make an impression. 'Most exciting. I believe you're acquiring new –'

  'You've met Ziggy, I take it?' Spud addressed his mates, excluding Anthony altogether. Pembo's piss-take was for-givable, Anthony Wilson's obsequiousness was not, and poor Ziggy, whom Spud liked, was being left out of things.

  'Yeah, we introduced ourselves,' Mike said. 'We've been admiring the Itala, but he won't let us take her for a test drive.'

  'I should bloody well hope not.' Spud was suddenly all smiles as he turned to Anthony. 'I can't remember if you've met Ziggy, Anthony, have you? Siegfried Schultz, Anthony Wilson.'

  'Yes, we've met,' Anthony said tightly. 'Hello, Ziggy.'

  'Anthony.' Ziggy smiled broadly and offered his hand. 'It is gut to see you,' he said in his thick Bavarian accent.

  Anthony returned the smile and the handshake, but he was not amused. He had employed Siegfried Schultz himself and at great expense. It had been a costly exercise enticing the highly skilled mechanic to leave his home in South Australia and relocate to Perth. Indeed, Ziggy would not have succumbed to the offer at all had he not been given Anthony's personal assurance that the vintage cars for which they shared a mutual passion would be solely under his control. All of which had meant that Anthony had had to blow his cover. Siegfried Schultz was aware of his employer's true identity. He knew that Farrell Vintage Motors was principally owned by Anthony Wilson, MP.

  'Perhaps if you're really nice to Ziggy,' Spud continued amiably, 'he might let you drive the Itala back to the showrooms.'

  Anthony looked daggers at Spud. That had been the plan from the outset, and he'd been eagerly anticipating the drive to Fremantle in the Itala. Now Spud was forcing him to play out this ridiculous charade in front of his mates.

  'What do you say, Ziggy?' Spud's plea to the German appeared in earnest. 'Anthony's really interested in vintage vehicles, and I hear he's a very good driver.'

  'Ja, this we could arrange, I think.' Ziggy grinned from one to the other. He hadn't registered the subtlety of the exchange and the power play behind it. He genuinely thought it was a very good joke. 'We drive together, Anthony. Just you and me in the Itala, ja?'

  'That's very kind of you Ziggy. Thank you.' There were times, Anthony thought, when he very much regretted having gone into partnership with Spud Farrell.

  After retrieving his gear from the trunk of the Itala, Spud retired to the hotel to change, telling Mike and Ian that he'd leave their names with the bouncer at the door to the pub's main lounge. They agreed to meet him there in an hour or so when they, too, had changed. It was after six, the party wouldn't kick off for some time yet, and Mike was keen to catch a few waves before it started to get dark.

  'It'll give us a while for the mob to clear,' he said as he and Ian wandered down to the beach. 'The change rooms at the surf club'll be packed.' Mike couldn't wait to get into the surf. He needed to wake up. Four beers on an empty stomach and an afternoon in the sun had left him desperately tired.

  An hour later, freshly scrubbed up in their suits and ties, they joined the throng on the Esplanade. The families had gone home and the crowds had thinned dramatically, but the place was still crowded. People were queuing up for hamburgers and flocking to the pub's main bar, preparing themselves for the evening's entertainment, and as night fell there was an air of expectancy. There always was in Scarborough on a Saturday night. Soon the Snake Pit would come alive.

  'Let's skip the hamburgers,' Ian said when they found themselves once again confronted by a long queue at Peters by the Sea. 'There'll be food at the party.'

  Hungry as he was, Mike agreed and they strolled up the street to the Scarborough Beach Hotel where the lounges and beer garden had been privately booked for the sponsors party. They presented themselves to the bouncer, who checked their names on his list, and were immediately granted entry. Spud, however, was nowhere in sight. Nor was Mayjay. Nor were any of the other girls they were so eager to meet. Instead, in the rather mothy main lounge, which had certainly seen finer days, a score of men in suits stood around sipping champagne and beer, swapping business cards and talking shop.

  'Some party,' Ian said, having checked with a passing waiter, 'there's not even bourbon. If you want top shelf you have to buy it in the main bar.'

  They stopped another waiter and asked about food. A buffet dinner was being set up in the beer garden, they were told, and the guests would shortly be invited in. Before the man could bustle off, Ian slipped him a note and asked where the girls were.

  'They're in there.' Pocketing the five dollars, the waiter gave a jerk of his head to indicate the beer garden. 'With a bunch of bigwigs, doing pictures and stuff for the press. I could sneak you in if you like.'

  'No, we'll wait for the food.'

  Ian made the decision without consultation, but Mike didn't mind, he was still feeling weary and he couldn't be bothered either way.

  'Well at least we know where Spud is,' he said.

  'Bugger him.' Ian turned on his heel. 'Let's go to the main bar, I need a bourbon.'

  The main bar was open to the public and crowded. While Ian fought his way through the mob to buy
the first round, Mike found a niche for them in the corner at the far end of the bar.

  'I said I wanted a beer.' He looked askance at the bourbon and Coke Ian handed him ten minutes later.

  'It's not a case of what you want, it's a case of what you need,' Ian countered, 'and you need a bourbon.'

  Bloody Pembo, Mike thought as he took a sip – it was a double. Pembo was plainly out to get drunk, but Mike wasn't in the mood himself. The swim had freshened him up a little, but not enough. The day had been wearying and he didn't have Pembo's energy. He knew why. He knew exactly where Pembo's energy came from.

  'I'll tell you what else you need.' Ian dived a hand into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and produced a small plastic screw-top phial.

  'No,' Mike said emphatically, 'I'm not doing those bloody things again.'

  He'd recently joined Ian on one of his pill-popping evenings, just to see what it was like. He'd been as high as a kite until six the following morning. It had been fun. But the palpitations he'd experienced later that day hadn't. They'd been an unpleasant reminder that he had a heart condition.

  The speed pills were a habit Ian Pemberton had picked up from his business partner – a brash young American financial expert called Phil Cowan. Whenever the two came into town together, they'd party all night.

  'We've gotta lotta lost time to account for,' Phil would say in his mock John Wayne accent. 'Let's face it, there ain't much happenin' in Kal.'

  Mike and Spud liked Phil well enough, he was good fun, but his boundless energy could be wearing, even when he wasn't on the pills. It was hardly surprising, they'd agreed, that Pembo needed to pop a few himself in order to keep up with the bloke.

  'Two each.' Ian held out his hand to reveal four Dexedrine tablets resting in the centre of his palm. He'd downed a couple several hours ago when they'd been drinking in the beer garden, but he could do with a booster. 'They're only Dexies,' he said reassuringly as he slipped the phial back in his pocket, 'they won't do you any harm, just pep you up a bit.' He peered at Mike. 'And you could do with some pepping up – you're not in the mood, are you?' That was the trouble with Mike McAllister, Ian thought. When Mike wasn't in the mood he was no good at faking it. He never pretended he was having a good time if he wasn't – he could be a real downer like that. 'Christ, you look as if you don't even want to be here.'

  I don't, Mike thought. The truth was, he didn't want to be anywhere. All he wanted was a feed and a bed.

  'Come on,' Ian urged, plonking the pills on the bar in front of them, 'liven up. You don't want to spoil things for Spud, do you?'

  'Don't blackmail me, Pembo.'

  'Why not?' To Ian it seemed perfectly justifiable that he should. 'You said it yourself. This is Spud's big day, remember?'

  The rock band in the nearby Snake Pit struck up 'Time Is On My Side', the first in its Rolling Stones bracket. Mike was a great Stones fan and it seemed like an omen. What the hell, he thought. Pembo was right, he needed to get in the mood. He grabbed two of the pills and downed them, downing most of his bourbon and Coke at the same time. He'd worry about the palpitations tomorrow.

  'That's my man,' Ian said, following suit. 'And I tell you what,' he grinned lasciviously, 'if you manage to score tonight you'll thank me. You can go on forever with a couple of Dexies in you.'

  Mike bought the next round and he made it two double bourbons. It seemed the way to go, and besides he could hardly switch to beer when it was his shout. Half an hour later, he was no longer hungry and no longer tired, and the music from across the street was enticing.

  'Let's go to the Snake Pit,' he said, draining his glass.

  Ian readily agreed. He wasn't feeling hungry either, he was just raring to go.

  It was nine o'clock, and in the pub's beer garden, now atmospherically draped with fairy lights, guests continued to attack the buffet table. Waiters replenished the platters of meats and prawns and local lobster at breakneck speed, the food disappearing as soon as it was set down. An afternoon in the sun had rendered everyone ravenous.

  Spud was wondering where Mike and Pembo had got to. He'd checked in the main lounge, which was also crowded, diners having escaped the feeding frenzy of the beer garden to scoff their meal in comparative comfort, but there'd been no sign of the boys. A waiter had told him they'd gone to the bar, but a check there had also proved fruitless. They were nowhere to be found and Spud was annoyed. He'd had Mayjay all lined up for the introduction, and she'd seemed quite keen.

  'Any friends of yours are bound to be interesting, Spud,' she'd said.

  Mayjay had even meant it to a certain degree. Anyone would be more interesting, she'd thought, than the bloody journalist and local mayor, with whom Trish-bloody-Barraclough had landed her for the past ten minutes. The photographer from some crappy little local newspaper had clicked away as if it was the New York bloody Times. Thank Christ the press meeting had finally come to an end and the scumbag journos, photographers and other free-loaders had been let loose on the food and the booze.

  Spud, mystified again by Mayjay's contradictory nature, had found her interest in his friends flattering, and had been impatiently awaiting Mike's and Pembo's arrival so that he could show off. But they hadn't turned up, and Mayjay had lost interest, wandering away to chat to the Qantas Chief Executive who'd been literally drooling at the mouth. Now, having explored the pub to no avail, Spud had returned to the beer garden, cross.

  Trish Barraclough was relieved that Mayjay hadn't deserted her post. She watched her chatting to the Qantas chief executive and the newly crowned Miss Bunbury, and was pleasantly surprised that Mayjay appeared to be still working the room. A number of the girls, bored with the chat-ups from drink-affected sponsors and government officials, had been lured by the sound of the rock band across the street and had quietly slipped away to seek a bit of action on the dance floor of the Snake Pit. Trish couldn't blame them, but it was one thing for the contestants to disappear to the Snake Pit and another thing altogether for Mayjay. The evening was not a social event for someone as highly paid as the symbol of Western Australia.

  Trish checked her watch. She'd give it until ten o'clock, she decided, another half an hour or so, and then she'd rescue Mayjay and take her back to the hotel. She returned her attention to Gerrard Whitford, who, she was aware, suddenly found her attractive. She'd taken off her suit jacket – although lightweight, it had been unpleasantly hot throughout the afternoon – and she knew he found her breasts riveting. She also knew that all the contestants had his number and had successfully avoided him, and that she was the poor sod who had no option but to suffer his company.

  Howard Stonehaven was observing Gerrard with distaste. The combined effect of alcohol and a smorgas-bord of beautiful young women was bringing out the worst in the man. No wonder so many of the girls were disappearing, Howard thought. But then they'd probably have left even if Gerrard wasn't around – it was a drab party. And that, too, was Gerrard's fault. Howard had strongly argued against the choice of venue. They needed somewhere far more up-market than the shabby Scarborough Beach Hotel, he'd said. But Gerrard had insisted a local venue was essential, maintaining that it would break the mood of the day if they moved the party to another area – and besides, the Scarborough Beach Hotel was atmospheric and colourful.

  The argument had sounded not altogether unreasonable, so Howard had hedged his bets, allowing it to appear that the idea may have been his own, just in case Gerrard proved right. Now that the party had turned out a failure, however, he would be sure to remind his colleagues that the Scarborough Beach Hotel had been Gerrard's choice. It would be yet another nail in the man's coffin. And that, at least, Howard thought, would be some compensation for having to endure a dismal evening like this.

  Spud was thinking along similar lines. It was a bloody awful party and a big disappointment – he'd really looked forward to tonight. Half the girls had ducked off to the Snake Pit, which was probably where Mike and Pembo were, he thought. Christ, they weren't
dumb. They'd no doubt heard the party was a wash-out and headed straight for the rock music, and who could blame them?