Death of a Whaler (22 page)

He has heard that once, during storms like this, two lighthouse keepers were struck by lightning in the same week. Both survived. One was left unconscious, recovered black and bruised and disoriented, and was never quite right afterwards — though nobody could put a finger on how he'd changed. The other was struck quite unexpectedly, as the skies were clearing; the paper he was reading set alight in his hands, his fingers charred. Smelt like burning human hair for weeks afterwards.

Flinchwaits impatiently for a bolt to set him alight where he sits, but the storm dries up and the lightning fades to flashes over the hinterland. The dinghy empties of water through a hole near the stern.

‘Next time,' he says to the goats as they wander back into the yard from their shelter under the awning.

FOURTEEN

A thump that makes the wall paint flake off in scabs. And again and again. Flinch awakes from an afternoon slumber thinking some part of the roof has finally caved in. Realises through a numb haze that it's someone at the door.

‘Who the hell?' He says it out loud, hoping whoever it is will decide to go away before he gets to the door. Karma has a key. The door unlocked anyway. Audrey, once, spying men, starched white shirts and black briefcases, making their way up the gravel driveway, flung the door open just before they knocked. Stark naked except for feathery pink slippers, fanning herself with a soft-bound hymn book she'd pilfered from a church outing. The men, red-faced and wet through their shirts with the effort of climbing the driveway, hands poised in fists, turned around without saying a word. Audrey had put her dressing gown back on, filled a glass with cask wine and poured Flinch a cordial and they toasted the success. It was one of the good afternoons.

Flinch squints as he opens the door. Macca, clutching terry-towelling hat in hands. A couple of goats have wandered up behind and are staring at him, as if he should have asked their permission to enter the garden. And now here he is already at the front door. The audacity. They move away bleating, black tongues out.

‘Mate, you look like shit.'

‘Thanks, Macca, good to see you too.'

Macca starts to laugh, stops, sniffs. Wrings the terry towelling as if trying to squeeze drops from it.

‘You want to come in?'

‘Yeah, thanks, mate.'

Flinch wonders what brought on this visit. Macca hasn't dropped around much since the failed attempts at bringing Flinch out of his isolation after the accident, visits involving warm beers and stilted conversations that ended in an awkward inertia. Now Macca only ever visits the pastel house to drop off the odd bit of news, and pick up tackle he borrows and perhaps one day intends to return.

‘Beer?'

‘Yeah, could do with one alright. Thirsty weather, eh?'

‘Yeah, too right.'

The fridge has to be peeled open from the side. Closes with a thunk and hums like a plane taking off. They take long swigs. Let out sighs, both of them, after.

Macca clears his throat, leans forward over the table, hairy hands clutched together as if in rough and ready prayer.

‘So, I'm startin' a business.'

‘Really? What?'

‘Sailing. Fishing. For the tourists. Charter boat stuff.'

‘Why?'

‘Whaddaya mean why? I've been out of work since they let that lot of us go at the meatworks. Like to say I put aside a nest egg that was big enough to keep us going till we carked it, but all I got really is the old place and the shirt on me back. Need something to live on, eh?'

‘Yeah, s'pose you do.'

‘Anyway, I was wondering … Maybe you'd like some work? I know you're always keepin' an eye out. I can't pay you much to start, but I've got to get my old boat in working order. Set it up all nice and cushy for tourists.'

Flinch shrugs. ‘Not much good at that. Fixing stuff.'

‘Wouldn't need to be, mate. I just need another pair of hands really. I'd direct ya. Then maybe later you could take out some of the charters and stuff. Must be itchin' to get your feet on deck again, eh?'

The afternoon light pounds hot through the window onto the laminex of the table. Warms the beer in their hands. The bubbles dull.

‘Can I think about it, mate?'

‘What's there to think about? Thought you'd jump at the chance. Would do you some good.'

‘How do you reckon?'

Macca pauses. Scratches at the sweat forming on his brow. ‘Well, I met your lady friend the other day.'

Flinch groans. Plonks his beer on the table. Froth rises to the top, dribbles over. ‘So she's got to you too?'

Macca fidgets in his chair. Scratches his thigh, readjusts his privates.

‘Oh, Macca.'

‘No, mate, it's nothing suss. She just said she's worried about you. Says you're sleeping all the time.'

‘Yeah, well I'm tired, mate. Really tired.'

‘She says you yell out in the night. Have night panics. She said you call out stuff about drowning.'

Flinch winces. Sinks back. The vinyl of the kitchen chair brings a sweat to his back.

‘She reckons it's about Nate. She reckons you never got over it.'

‘Yeah, I know.'

‘How much have you told her about it?'

‘Nothing. She just knows it happened.'

Macca sighs and rubs at the sweat that has dripped stinging into his eyes. ‘She's an interesting one, that's for sure.'

‘She's fixated on healing me, whatever she means by that. She's like a bloody terrier. Won't let it go.'

They sip at their beers in silence. Belch and sniff, listen to the radio hissing the coastal forecast in the background. The humidity of the day dissolves around them. The sun shifts across the room.

The chair creaks as Macca stands. Downs the last of his hot beer.

‘Yeah, well. The offer's there. And even though your lady friend suggested it, it is genuine. Could really do with a hand. The old lady would be pleased to see you again. You know how she is. Needs to dote on someone when she's had enough of me. And she's always had a bit of a soft spot for you, mate.'

Flinch takes a final swig of his beer. ‘Yeah, righto, mate. Look, I'll think about it. Get back to ya. Ta.'

Outside the afternoon is bruising blue to night, cooled by a wind that flutters in over the ocean. Birds call out to each other from overhead, in the shrubbery, as if passing on news of the day, the evening headlines.

‘Great spot up here, eh?' says Macca, stretching his arms, back cracking like a nut. The ocean sprawled before him to the horizon.

‘Yeah, good view anyway.'

A goat starts towards Macca with its head lowered, ready to butt. He shoves a boot in its face.

‘Feral bastard. Pity they don't make good eating. You'd have to stew 'em for days and then they'd still taste like me thongs.'

‘Yeah, I guess.'

‘I'll see you around then, son.'

‘Yeah, Macca. See ya.'

Karma comes home late. Slams the door, trips and laughs out loud.

‘You high on something?' Flinch smoulders quietly in the doorway to the kitchen, preparing to get mad at her for interfering, not really knowing how to vent his irritation.

‘Life, Flinch. High on life.'

He takes a step into the kitchen and sits opposite her. She's grinning at him, eyes like a dozing cat.

‘Smells more like bourbon to me.'

‘Yeah,' she concedes, stretches lazy arms across the table and rests her head. ‘Could be a bit of that. Friday night drinks. A tradition, I have been told.'

‘You shouldn't have talked to Macca.'

‘It's a free world, baby.' She looks up at him through a mesh of hair. ‘Anyway, he approached me. Well, kind of. Came into the surf shop to see if he could bring in flyers for his fishing thingy when it's up and running. Seemed right up your alley. So we had a little chat.' She yawns. Flinch sees her tonsils. ‘I'm so sleepy I could nap here all night. But I think bed is a better plan. See you in the morning, darl.'

Flinch, alone, wonders what to do with his annoyance. Whether to bring it all up again in the morning. Instead, he does the dishes that have been left stinking in the sink for three days. Somehow ends up washing the energy to discuss it all down the drain with the suds.

Flinch catches himself daydreaming about stripping the paint off Macca's old boat. Setting it newly sealed and freshly painted out onto the ocean and pushing it off like some majestic creature he's releasing back into the wild.

When he finds himself going through his toolbox, fingering the paint scraper and screwdrivers as if they were musical instruments, he figures it's probably inevitable. The return to water. His love affair with the docks and with leaving them for the wild blue.

‘Yeah, alright,' he says. Throws his shadow over Karma as she sunbathes in the garden. Over the faded yellow and white plastic foldout sunbed she had found at the back of Audrey's cupboard.

‘Yeah, alright, what?'

‘Yeah, alright, I'll do it. I'll help Macca with his boat.'

She smiles, lies back, spreads a magazine over her face.

‘Yeah,' says Flinch. ‘You knew I would.'

The boat tilts to one side in the dry dock that Macca has fashioned in a shed in his backyard out of broken-up leftover pylons from the jetty. Looks like a dying beast, slumped at that angle, ribs exposed on one side, flaking wood elsewhere, metal all over rusted dark brown, staining Flinch's hands the colour of dried blood when he touches it. An old sail is clumped in the corner in a rippled pile of grey.

‘She's a beauty, though, mate, I can tell ya. I saw her in all her glory, before she went under. A real classic yacht.' Macca swollen and buoyant like a new father with his firstborn.

‘Where did she go under?'

‘Weathered every storm this bloody coast could whip up then went down in the slip, would you believe it?'

‘How?'

‘Fire. Some idiots shootin' off fireworks one New Year's Eve. They never caught the culprits. She didn't burn much but enough to take out some of the wood down one side and send her down. She stayed half afloat, anyway. The owner was devastated. Hadn't insured her. He sold her to me wailing like a baby. Felt bad takin' it from the man. Apparently it was the last straw after a rough divorce. The missus said his wife had taken off with another woman, would ya believe.' Macca raises his eyebrows. ‘Bloke shot himself eight months later.'

Flinch looks at the boat, sees the wet charring at the edge of the boards, and feels cold.

Macca shakes the gloom off like a wet dog. ‘Anyway, she's destined for greater things than fillin' up a shed in my backyard, don't ya think?'

‘Yeah, mate. Sure.'

The boat has to be stripped bare. Foam swollen thick with sea salt and reeking has to be torn from cabin bench seats. The masts are gone, eaten away by termites while the boat awaited repair in the shed. She's a funny old thing, thinks Flinch. Part wood, some sections a sort of ill-moulded iron. It looks like she's been revamped once or twice, probably when the previous owner could afford it. Or when Macca had a bit of time and a brainwave, in Flinch's experience of his mate a risky combination at the best of times. Parts that were almost right have been battered into shape then drilled together like Frankenstein's beast. Flinch is not surprised to hear from Mrs Mac that Macca retreats to the shed when he's in a temper.