It was a big house built facing east on a large property, high up on the escarpment, further north and deeper inland than the Heights. You drove up a long dirt driveway from the west, arriving at the rear of the house. Orange and lemon trees, untended, formed a natural border to the north before giving on to a bushland of tall gums. On the house’s south flank was a disused tennis court. Its surrounding fence was still up and, though the grass court was overgrown with weeds, the net poles, while rusted, looked intact. The wide back lawn also needed a trim but compared to the rest of the property seemed manicured. Blake had slept well. In the end he’d not gone out to the golf club. He had no plans to end things with Carol but one day that would happen — maybe her choice, maybe his — and it was always easier to cut a line than a net. He pulled his ute up on stubbly lawn occupied only by an old wooden clothesline and an aqua EK Holden. He guessed it was Thomas Clarke’s. Winston Clarke had said his son would be there. Blake climbed out and enjoyed the isolated mechanical sound of his car door closing in what was otherwise a noise-scape of pure bush — unseen birds, a slight rustle of dried, brown gum leaves. He stood, hands in his jean pockets, taking in the rear of the house. Unlike the Queenslanders in town, its stone foundations sat directly on the ground. Cement steps led to a high but small back porch. About ten years old, estimated Blake. He tackled the steps, waited at the back flywire door and called out, ‘Hello? Anybody here?’
No radio to suggest a teenager in occupation. Maybe he’d got lucky and Thomas Clarke was out with a friend. He stepped onto the linoleum floor of a large kitchen. The smell of toast still clung faintly to the room. He walked through and into a short corridor and called out again.
He turned right and came to a large sliding door that gave onto the lounge room. He stepped inside and found himself looking out over rolling bushland through concertina doors. They were still closed and the room was hot from the late-morning sun. He saw they opened onto a low concrete porch that sat on level ground, not a deck. He realised then that the house had been built on the top of the hill, probably into the back of the cliff with the rear built up to reach this level, hence the concrete steps. The lounge room itself displayed all the untidiness of bachelor living: newspapers and Man magazines strewn about, a couple of cushions on the floor, a sofa that had been expensive once upon a time but was now worn. Father and son living. In one corner was a bar, Blake caught sight of himself in its mirror. There was a Pye TV in the opposite corner and a large radiogram with LPs scattered on top; Sinatra, Ray Conniff, Julie London; Winston’s taste not the kid’s.
‘Who are you?’
He’d not heard a sound. In his old game, he’d be deader than manners. He turned. Thomas Clarke had an ugly block head, small rosebud ears, small eyes, and was wearing shorts and singlet. He was also holding a cricket bat ready to swing.
‘Blake Saunders. I’m supplying the booze for your party. I called out.’
Clarke lowered the bat. ‘Sorry. Dad didn’t say.’
‘Nice place.’
‘I’m only here for the holidays.’
No way was this kid twenty-one.
‘You finish high school?’
‘Last year.’
So this was for the kid’s eighteenth, not strictly legal but on a private property, supervised by the old man. Nalder wasn’t going to fuss.
‘Any idea what you’re going to do?’
‘Not really.’
Blake knew that feeling, wished he could go back, make a different choice than the one he made when he was eighteen. But maybe you can’t. Maybe it’s all written in stone where the gods hang out.
‘Well, Thomas, I have two kegs to set up. I’m thinking on the back lawn there would be the best spot. I don’t reckon it’s going to rain anytime soon. It might help if you had a table or something?’
‘There’s a trestle table and chairs in the shed.’
‘I didn’t see a shed.’
‘It’s around the side of the house.’
‘Good, we’re in business.’
He was just finishing the set-up when a pink-and-white Chevy Bel Air rolled up the driveway. Left-hand drive, he noticed, as it pulled up on the grass beside him. It was gleaming, not like the ones he remembered. Winston Clarke climbed out. His shirt was crisp white, his tie broad royal blue, handpainted showing a scene from some bay in LA or Mexico, cacti in the foreground looking down over yachts.
‘No problems finding the place?’
‘No. I figure it’s not going to rain.’
Clarke ran his eye over the set-up, nodded approval. ‘This is a good spot for it.’
‘How many you got coming?’
‘About thirty I think. He lives up at Clough with his mother. Quite a few are coming from there. They can park all over the lawn.’
‘If the kids aren’t twenty-one, you know that’s not legal.’
‘Come on, I’ll be here.’
‘What you’re telling me is that this alcohol is for you and your friends and those above legal drinking-age only.’
Clarke got the drift, his eyes twinkled.
‘Of course. I’ve got soft drink for the others.’
If one of the kids did something stupid and wound up in hospital, at least Blake could assure Nalder that he’d checked.
‘I was just about to do a test pour on this one. You be alright with the other?’
Clarke chuckled. ‘Oh yeah, I’ve tapped a few kegs in my time. Why don’t we wet the baby’s head?’
Blake obliged. He pulled two glasses out of the box and poured them each a beer. The flow was nice and even. Clarke raised his glass.
‘Here’s to the good old US of A.’ They both drank. ‘You’re about the first Yank I can think of around here. There’re a few older guys up at the Heads, came for the war and stayed.’
Blake shrugged. ‘Australia’s a long way away.’
‘I might have told you. My sister married a Yank, moved to California. I went over and worked there a few years. Paul’s in the movie business, started as a refrigeration mechanic, wound up making movies. Land of opportunity.’
‘Plenty of opportunity here.’
‘Tell that to my son. Where is he? On his bed reading a comic, I’ll bet.’ Clarke took a deep gulp, finished the glass right off. ‘No, it’s too damn dead here. I was your age, I’d be in the States, but then again, I hear that bar of yours is doing good business.’
‘I can’t complain.’
‘What brought you out here?’
‘A girl.’ It was the easiest lie.
Clarke shook his head sympathetically. ‘Yeah, they can fuck everything up. Still with her?’
‘It didn’t work out.’
‘Best thing for you. You got the bar, no ties.’
‘I best be heading back.’
‘Of course.’
‘I can leave everything an extra day if you like. Just give me a call.’
Clarke caught him admiring the Chevy.
‘Could be yours, I’ll do you a good deal. Like I said, you want to project the right image.’
‘It’s probably a little more than I can afford.’
‘You ever want to talk terms, I’m sure we can look at some arrangement.’
Blake offered a noncommittal smile.
Clarke called after him, ‘You play golf?’
‘No.’
‘Well, no matter, I’ll drop in to your bar sometime. Come into the yard tomorrow morning, I’ll fix you up then with cash, if that’s okay.’
After setting up Clarke’s, he’d gone to the Surf Shack and with help from Duck and Andy prepared the stage and the go-go platforms for the evening competition. It was only a Thursday night but the vibe around town was building strongly and he was expecting a big crowd.
‘Audrey seems to be doing better.’ Andy was pointing her out. Blake reckoned he was right, the glitch in her swimming had gone.
‘Fingers crossed, Andy.’
Duck joined them. ‘I’ve got a job in the Heights, better be going.’
Blake dug two pound notes out of his pocket for him and thanked him.
Duck said, ‘What time tonight? I’m judging the contest.’
‘You?’
‘I come cheap.’
‘Be here by seven.’
‘Is The Beachcomber on tonight?’
‘If I can find him.’
Blake left Andy to clean up, got into his ute and headed north seven or eight minutes before swinging off the road onto a beach-side track among thick trees, maybe blackbutt, he wasn’t sure. About a hundred yards in, he stopped and turned off the engine and climbed out. Built in the grove was a small shack constructed of tin, hessian bags and a few bricks. A couple of sheets of rusting corrugated iron propped between branches and some wooden uprights did for a roof. He pushed away the two hessian bags tacked to a horizontal piece of ply and peered in. A bamboo mat lay on the flattened earth beside a small kerosene stove and lamp. Three empty wine bottles stood neatly beside a cardboard box of books and a suitcase, which he knew contained men’s clothes. A pyramid of shells of all shapes and sizes provided decoration. There was no sign of the shack’s inhabitant. Blake backed out and walked through spiny grass to the beach. It was narrower here and a little rocky so the tourists rarely came, preferring the broader, cleaner sand to the south.
The surf was even as a metronome but the tide was out. He should have realised Crane would be out scavenging from the detritus of a world he had rejected. Blake started off north but abandoned that pursuit after about ten minutes when he’d made it around the little rocky point and still could see nobody on the long beach ahead. After backtracking to his original position and walking five minutes or so south, he saw a figure stooping in the shallows, pants legs rolled up to the thigh. He called out and the figure became erect, waved and started wading in. Crane was aptly named, around six foot, thin as a rail. He had his left arm through something doughnut-shaped, carrying it like that because he had his hands full, almost certainly with shells. A shirt knotted by its sleeves was around his throat, the rest of it covering his back. His chest was bare except for a clump of white hair. Locally he was known as the Beach Bum, but he’d taken pseudonyms ‘The Beachcomber’ and ‘Robert T. Menzies’ for his weekly Surf Shack performances. He beamed at his visitor.
‘Ah, the footnote Hemingway declined to write.’
Because of his penchant for complicated words and flowery expression, most people assumed Crane had been a lawyer or teacher but he’d told Blake he’d been a pastry chef before signing on to the navy in the war. The only thing Blake knew for sure about Crane was that in the dark hours he was a slave to alcohol. Now Crane was closer, Blake could see that the doughnut hanging from his arm was a toilet seat. Crane displayed it with the pride a conqueror might have brandished the severed head of an adversary.
‘The treasures the sea yields up are wondrous indeed.’
Blake realised he must have pulled a face, for Crane chided, ‘Oh come on. You Americans … Neptune himself could have sat his arse on this throne.’
Crane walked on to his shack, dumped the shells and let the seat slide off his arm into the sand. ‘Probably a damn sight cleaner than the ones in the public lav I’m normally subjected to. I tell you, friend: Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson et al. are valueless unless one can sit down and have a decent shit while reading them. You literally — like the literary play on words? — you literally may as well wipe your arse with them. Sherry?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Of course you won’t. Don’t mind me though.’ Crane ferreted through his part-empty bottles until he found the one he was looking for. Blake thought he better get in quick, before the night’s path was set.
‘You feel like doing a spot tonight?’
Crane had popped the cork on the sherry bottle already. The aroma was calling him, his focus was loosening. Blake drove on.
‘You’ll be able to buy two full bottles of that tomorrow.’
That brought Crane back. ‘Deferred gratification?’
‘I guess so.’
‘You know how to torture a man.’
‘Two bottles. I’ll throw in breakfast.’
‘How fucking ingenuous. You know I don’t eat breakfast till lunch.’ It was the usual banter between them and normally the highlight of Blake’s day. ‘For a man named after the most wonderful poet of them all, you are more than a disappointment.’
‘I wasn’t named after the poet. I told you.’
‘But why should I believe anything you tell me?’
Blake pulled out two one-pound notes. Crane smiled.
‘Ah, that’s why! The currency of currency. Perhaps you could pay me upfront?’
‘I think not. Well?’
Crane pushed out a bottom lip and reluctantly recorked the sherry. ‘I’ll give you ten minutes but I want to be on no later than eight-thirty. I will have drinking to catch up on.’
Ten minutes of Crane’s weird-shit poetry was about all his audience would take. Blake hadn’t been game to put him on a weekend but it worked great on the Thursday, and even if the kids hated it — plenty did — Blake dug it. What was the point of owning your own bar if you couldn’t run with what you liked yourself? And the counterbalance of the spoken word with his own twangy guitar just somehow worked.
‘Done. See you at eight.’
‘Two bottles of your best plonk and a kiss from the delightful Doreen.’
‘In your dreams.’
‘That’s a place you would not want to visit, believe me.’
Blake did believe him. Sometimes, after a bad binge, Crane looked like a painting on the wall of a haunted house.
‘You want me to get the guys to pick you up?’
‘I shall make my own way.’
‘Eight. Don’t be late. We have a dance competition too. You might enjoy that.’
Crane curled a lip. ‘Dance is for those who can’t talk. That …’ he pointed at the toilet seat, ‘… is far more edifying.’
Kitty had barely slept. Last night she’d spent over an hour in the bathroom practising in front of the mirror all the things Doreen had shown her in the afternoon. In the evening, the bathroom was the only safe haven in the house. She could lock the door, pretend she had period pain and was taking a bath. Days were usually easier, especially today because it was her mum’s tennis day. The trouble was she was tired now from no sleep but when she tried to shut her eyes, she was still buzzing. Todd Henley was going to be there for sure, checking out Brenda. And that meant Todd would also be checking out her. At school he’d never noticed her, not once. Of course she was two years below him, so why would he? Brenda was that irritating one year older than her, and the sub-leaving and leaving years went to the same dances and social functions, which gave Brenda so much more opportunity to toss her stupid straight hair in his face and push her tits up with her elbows. Brenda was actually small-breasted, especially compared to her, and that was one thing boys noticed … or two things as the joke went — boobs. Todd had just done his first year of engineering at university. Maths was one of Kitty’s best subjects, she could talk to him on his level … though of course he would know so much more about life now having lived in the uni college in Brisbane. All the same, what she had lacked up until now was opportunity, but that would all change tonight and Brenda with her skinny legs and cute little bum was in for the fight of her life.
Kitty swung up and sat on the pink bedspread that had covered her body for so many nights as she’d slowly transformed from a little girl to a young woman. The shelves her dad had built for her sported Barbies whose accessories were all still neatly packed at the ready in a little wooden treasure chest. Her hockey stick rested against the wall where she had practised her arabesque and her wardrobe door bore the pencil marks made by her dad recording her annual height, a practice which regrettably had been abandoned two years ago when her body had refused to move past its peak of five foot three. Nothing in her external world had changed all that much but inside everything was suddenly incontrovertibly altered and all she could think of was Todd’s amazing, glorious lips … and him kissing her as he held her in his arms. As for what happened after that, well, Kitty really wasn’t too sure. Naturally she knew the basics of sex: the penis, the vagina, sperm, egg. She also knew she wouldn’t be having intercourse before she was married. Poor Ginny Herrison had made that mistake and been forced to drop out of school and start wearing smocks. She’d disappeared for a month or two then come back and now worked in the bakery. The baby had been adopted — or so Mary Cunningham said and Mary knew most everything, like what college at university Todd was boarding in. So no, Kitty wouldn’t be going ‘all the way’ with Todd but she was sure she could keep him happy if she could get a hint or two about what to do after the kiss. Perhaps Doreen could help? When Kitty was thirteen, while the parents were drinking beers on the back patio, Brian, her kind-of-cousin had put his hand on her breast, but she was wearing a jumper and bra and all she felt was a bit of pressure on it, as if she’d dropped to the floor during PT push-ups.
She mustn’t get ahead of herself though. First things first. Make it through tonight’s heat at least: three were going through, seven would miss out. Brenda was a certainty, much as Kitty hated to admit it. That left two spots out of nine. The tricky thing was how she was going to get to the Surf Shack. In the end she decided to do what she had for the practice: ride her bike. It was mostly downhill from here so she wouldn’t sweat up too badly. She’d told her parents that she was going to a beach barbecue with some of the kids from school and that she expected to be home by eight but not to worry if she was late because they might all go over to Geraldine Wilson’s. The advantage of Geraldine was that she did not have a phone and Kitty’s parents and their crowd had nothing to do with the Wilsons, who were poor but not wild criminals-in-waiting like, say, the O’Haras or Moores. That would have brought a straight-up ban from her father. With nothing better to do she went into the lounge room, neat as a pin as usual from her mum’s vacuuming efforts, and put the soundtrack of South Pacific on the stereo. Her mum loved the record and played it all the time, which was naturally annoying because there was no space for her to squeeze in her own Paul Anka 45s, but how could you not want to sing along with ‘I’m In Love with a Wonderful Guy’? And so she played it now and danced right around the lounge room imaging that she was in a faraway place with nobody around but Todd.
For a Thursday, the place was packed. Doreen was being run off her feet. Thank God when Blake had arrived and seen the line of kids queued up before the doors had even opened, he had told her to serve no alcohol in the main room until the contest was over. It would have been chaos. Any adults who wanted a drink, she’d invited to dine in the Conga Drum, the small restaurant serviced by the back bar. She had taken it upon herself to offer each diner a complimentary drink and Blake had better not complain or she would drop one of these crates of Cokes right on his head. She was ferrying the soft drinks through the crowd — no mean feat in stilettos — to the fridges in the back bar because the stock of cool ones in the front bar would soon be exhausted. Blake’s first set was coming to a close. The dance floor was a heaving wave of young bodies. She’d hired a photographer who was busy snapping left, right and centre. She wished she could have taken it in. Blake was playing better than he’d ever done. She handed over the Cokes to Jeff in the back bar and turned back, almost colliding with Kitty.
‘I’m so scared, Doreen.’
‘You’re going to be fine.’ Kitty was wearing a kind of car coat. Her hands were trembling. ‘You got your bikinis on under that?’
Kitty nodded, spat out words. ‘He’s here. Todd’s here.’
‘That’s what you wanted, right?’
Doreen had no time to linger, she had to push back into the main room. Kitty was a limpet.
‘But what if I’m hopeless? Then he’ll never be interested in me, ever.’
Doreen said, ‘Kitty, sooner or later you have to take that risk.’ The guitar and drums were building to a crescendo. ‘You need to get backstage, now. You’re on in ten.’
Kitty managed to nod unconvincingly. She turned to start back. Doreen grabbed her hand. ‘And you’re not going to be hopeless. You’re going to cook, right?’
This time Kitty managed a thin smile before moving off. She was quickly swallowed by the crowd which erupted as Duck crashed a final cymbal. The screams and applause gradually settled. The three musicians took a bow. Duck, who fancied himself as the Shack MC, grabbed the microphone.
‘Not long now before the watusi comp, but in the meantime hot-dogs and kitty-kats, the one, the only … Beat-comber.’
Wearing what had once been white tennis pants and shirt, and topped by a panama, Crane shuffled on halfway through a deep drag on his cigarette. There was a smattering of applause. At first Doreen had hated Crane’s abstract poetry but he’d grown on her. He could be hit-and-miss but there was something about his couldn’t-give-a-fuck-attitude she admired, like he’d been in a deeper hell than anybody in his audience could imagine so he didn’t need your kind words or admiration, like he knew how to separate artifice from truth in himself and offered only the latter.
On stage Crane regarded the microphone like it was an alien spaceship. He started in sudden and sharp like a knife thrust:
Please, pretty please, give me these, to be the bees’ knees
I need things, rings, not words or ideas,
Even a bum can have those, but clothes
Give me those, not a rose, not a plant, not a moon …
Anyone can have a moon over their head, or a star, but a car!
Shows who I are what I’ve got, what you’re not,
So please, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme these …
Doreen felt a sharp pinch on her arse. She turned to find a group of young guys smiling up at her. The offender, a clean-cut kid from the Heights, probably just finished high school, licked his lips and said, ‘Choice,’ with a shit-eating grin. Doreen took the Bic biro from where it always sat work nights, behind her ear, and jammed the point into the kid’s thigh. He yelped.
‘Just remember, handsome. The pen is mightier than the sword.’ His friends hooted in delight.
Blake was back of the stage, carefully wiping down his guitar. He’d given over the dressing-room to the dance hopefuls but he didn’t mind. He would have come out anyway to hear Crane who was rolling through his verse even though the dance floor was long empty. Doreen loomed out of swamp smoke. In those heels she was like a skyline.
‘You good to go in five?’
‘Panza and me are cool. Duck’s somewhere out the back.’
Almost certainly smoking the funny stuff. He’d been good tonight, right on the beat.
‘He’s supposed to be our MC.’
‘He’ll be cool.’ Blake put more certainty into that than he felt.
‘You know the format?’
Of course he knew the format. She’d drilled it into him for what seemed like an hour straight.
‘Duck introduces the contestants. Five-minute song while they dance. The judges eliminate four girls. We go again. Three more girls eliminated. Ten-minute break, then back for the finale. And here he is.’
Duck was coming in from the back door. Blake smelt the acrid, sweet smoke follow him in.
‘How many we got in the Conga Drum?’
‘About a dozen, and birthday party of six.’
‘How are they handling it?’
‘Fine. I offered them all a complimentary drink.’
‘Good thinking.’ She’d looked prepared for a different reaction.
‘I better get back there. Make sure he knows what he’s doing.’
Blake watched Doreen head back out to sea. He turned to his drummer.
‘You know what you’re doing?’
‘Shit yeah.’
For just a shard of a second, Blake thought of Jimmy. Trust me.
The stage seemed a long way up anyway but the platforms that rose either side were scary. Doreen had run them through it one more time just before they got called out. They were to line up across the stage in order of their numbers from one through ten. Kitty was number eight, Brenda number seven, which meant they were side-by-side. Doreen was going to stand side of stage and indicate when they were to move to the platforms. They would do that in pairs, one girl each side on the platform, the other eight keeping their position on the main stage. That meant she’d be up against Brenda on the platform as well. Each girl got one turn on each of the platforms so everybody could see them no matter what side of the room they were. The trip from the dressing-room up onto the stage had been like walking on a thick mattress, like Kitty wasn’t connected to anything solid and could have just blown away with a gust of wind. Her stomach was twitching too but all of these feelings were distant, baffled as if they belonged to somebody else imitating her. She tried to look for Todd in the crowd but with the lights in her eyes it wasn’t possible to make out anybody. And then everything just completely stopped except her pounding heart and, boom, she felt, rather than heard the drums and bass and the stage was vibrating and everybody around her was moving including herself. The routine she’d practised over and over again was somehow still there but so was the disconnect, the feeling she was a mere shadow. Then Doreen was gesturing it was her turn and she felt Brenda peel to the left and she went to the right and scaled the ladder and stepped onto the tiny platform so high that had she been wearing a high pony like Brenda she would have been worried about it hitting the ceiling.
But suddenly up there it all went clear in her head again. The music was in her bones, fizzing her blood and she was filled with an urge to paint the whole room with what she knew: her limited, precious, prescribed, boring life of pogo sticks, and pretty pink frocks, dolly tea parties, of spread woollen picnic rugs and flies that had to be shooed, and a Goofy ball that rolled lopsided on a buffalo grass lawn that would always bring her out in red itchy blotches on summer nights when mosquito slaps sounded from distant corners of an ill-lit back-lawn barbecue, of shared bunks in a Christian camp where with an illicit pocketknife the girls cut initials into criss-cross beams that spoke of loves long forgotten or stillborn, of cold homemade swimming pools, and woollen pyjamas staving off the cold of cracker nights while a Guy Fawkes of some father’s socks burned with the slow progress of a piano lesson. This was the rhythm of her life, such as it had been so far, and her shoulders and thighs and arms beat it out like a confession. And it no longer mattered who was watching, or who knew because she was beating on life’s door and yelling, ‘Open up, open up!’
It was like that great feeling you have walking across a frozen lake, everything white, snowy, and you’re feeling so good, and then right in front of you, you come across a pile of dogshit. Not that this had happened to Blake before, but that’s what he imagined it would be like. He was on a high. The dance comp was killing it, the band was smoking, everybody was having fun. And then he looks up, and there they are coming through the door, the would-be extortionists. Deep down he’d known they’d be back. He forced his way through the crowd, found them at the back of the main bar.
Harry scanned, pushed out his bottom lip and said as if with real appreciation, ‘Well, this is really cooking, Blake.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry but I thought I made it clear, I didn’t need insurance.’
‘Actually mate,’ Harry gestured at the crowd, ‘I reckon with all these kids here you need it more than ever.’
‘Yeah. Imagine if a fire broke out or something?’ Steve shook his head as if already choking up at the tragic consequences.
Blake could see Duck mounting the stage, getting back behind the kit, ready for the last set. He told himself to stay cool.
‘Gentlemen, I am sure there are other businesses that would really appreciate your services but as I said before, I’m good in that area.’
‘You’re making a big mistake, Blake. I feel trouble is just around the corner for you.’
Blake said, ‘I have to go to work. Why don’t you enjoy a drink on the house?’ He caught Ken’s eye, ushered them towards the Conga Drum. ‘Ken will look after you.’
Harry said softly, ‘You’re gonna be sorry.’
Blake started back to the stage. If only Jimmy had been here.
He found Doreen down by the dressing-room, hustling the three finalists out. He pulled her aside.
‘Something I want you to do for me. Those guys who turned up the other day trying to sell insurance, they’re in the Conga Drum. When they leave I want you to follow them, find out where they’re staying.’
‘What am I? Sam Spade now?’
He ignored that. ‘And be careful. If they stop somewhere, drive on by.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Please.’
Why couldn’t she refuse him when he looked at her like that?
‘You owe me.’
He squeezed her arm tenderly. ‘I know.’
She found a position halfway up the room where she could watch the stage and keep an eye on the bar at the same time. One look told you those blokes didn’t fit. She wondered what their game was. They were sitting on bar stools mumbling a few words to each other, ogling the waitresses. Then the band started and she swung back to the stage. Kitty, Brenda and one of the leotard girls, Vanessa, had made it to the final. Kitty was more confident each time, and in the previous heat Doreen had noticed her playing up to the audience, shaking her backside at a young man, the same young man Brenda had been pawing earlier. Odds on, this was Todd. He was good-looking and knew it. Doreen sighed. Kitty was a toddler playing with matches. Doreen shot a look at the Conga Drum. The blokes hadn’t moved.
They were still there when the song was over and Duck finished conferring with his fellow judges: a couple of surfer regulars. The expectation in the room had been wound high, everybody had stopped what they were doing. Duck came to the mike.
‘Firstly we would like to say all the girls were amazing and our finalists were incredible. Vanessa, Brenda, Kitty you were all brilliant but there has to be a winner. And that winner is … Kitty!’
Doreen’s gaze fell not on Kitty but Brenda, who, after an instant of blinking disbelief, knitted her brow in a good old-fashioned scowl. While the other runner-up, Vanessa, politely applauded, Brenda’s hands knotted into fists.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’
Kitty bearhugged her. Out the corner of her eye Doreen caught Brenda gesticulating at Todd and storming off.
‘Don’t thank me. You earned that.’
Doreen noticed the two blokes she was supposed to tail were climbing off their stools. Kitty was pouring excitement.
‘It’s unbelievable. The best thing … Todd asked for my number.’
‘Are you sure that’s such a good thing?’ The men were halfway to the door.
Kitty was confused. ‘Of course. He’s a dream.’
‘But he’s asking for your number when he’s here with his girlfriend?’
‘He probably got sick of her. Who wouldn’t?’
Doreen started moving. The men were at the door now.
‘I gotta go. Well done, Kitty. Keep dancing.’
Doreen pushed out the back door. Crane was sitting on a low brick fence by the area where they stacked the empties, smoking. Her Falcon was parked there.
‘Don’t know what your poems are about, Crane, but I liked them.’
‘May the stars always shine upon your crown, Doreen.’
Doreen opened her car door. It was dark out here but the Surf Shack sign threw enough light to catch the unmistakable shape of the two men heading for an FJ Holden. Doreen fired up, no choke needed on a night like this, almost balmy. She heard the car doors close, there was a beat then the headlights ignited. The car swung left in an arc. She waited a few seconds then dropped the car into first and followed, catching sight of the vehicle at the exit. It turned left, heading north up the coast road. She slid after it.
‘They started north up the coast. They stopped at Greycliff and went into the Toreador.’ Doreen sipped her gin and tonic, the room lit only by the fish tank and bar signage, bare like a carcass stripped by ants. It was after one now. Blake had finished the tidying up in here nearly an hour earlier. He’d even done the carpark, including a used condom. More than once while waiting for her, he’d cursed himself for allowing her to do something so dangerous. The sight of her headlights swinging into the carpark flooded him with relief.
‘How long did they stay at the Toreador?’ Blake had eaten there, a small steak restaurant with a decent bar.
‘Ten minutes.’
Not long enough for a pitch to a new customer, sounded more like an existing client.
Doreen continued, checking a small notebook. ‘They then drove straight to the Heads and called in at Chez Fifi and the Sandcastle. They ate a complimentary dinner at the Sandcastle …’
‘How do you know that?’
‘They were inside twenty minutes. I went in and had a look.’
He flashed, ‘I told you just to tail them.’
‘I needed to wee and my legs were cramped, okay?’
‘How do you know it was complimentary?’
‘Put it this way, they didn’t offer to pay.’
‘After that?’
‘They turned around and drove back south, through here and then took the turn to Barraclough.’ Barraclough was a small logging town with not much more than a general store. ‘Eventually they turned off on Cockatoo Ridge Road. You know it?’
‘Winding climb, lot of trees?’
‘That’s the one. There’s a few old places up that way the workers used to live when the sawmill was bigger. The rest is farms. They took the third driveway on the right. I kept going in case they were watching me.’
‘Good.’
‘Then I parked and hiked up through the bush.’
‘What?’
Jesus what had he been thinking asking her to do this?
‘You owe me a pair of fishnets.’ She pointed to where hers were torn.
‘That could have been dangerous.’
‘It was. I nearly got wee’d on by the short one. I was in the bushes. The place is surrounded by them. He came down the back steps, wooden, rickety things. I thought, oh hell he’s spotted me. To be honest, it was a good thing I’d gone to the ladies back at the Sandcastle. I didn’t know whether to run or stay. I was frozen. He came right to where I was hiding behind this tea tree but he was obviously drunk, weaving. And then, well, he pulled it out and started spraying. Then he stumbled back up the stairs and I got out of there.’
‘Was there anybody else there beside those two?’
‘Just them from what I saw, and only their FJ at the house. The back of the place has a window you can look right in.’
He should have skipped his last set, done it himself. He told her he was sorry.
‘No need. I actually had fun.’ She finished her G&T.
‘The dance comp was great. That was a really good idea.’
She made a dismissive sound. ‘Maybe.’
‘Was there a problem?’
‘Kitty, the young girl.’ She looked at him like she was going to explain and then just shook her head. ‘Don’t worry. It’s just a girl thing.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have rigged her to win.’
‘Huh?’
He liked it when she acted dumb. He said, ‘She was very good. But you had three male judges. And the other one was blonde. How much did it cost you?’
There was no point her lying. Duck would give it away soon enough. You could never get anything past Blake. She wondered what his background had been that he knew people so well. All he’d told her was that he’d worked in a factory where his brother was the foreman but his brother had died in a work accident and Blake needed to get out, find something new.
‘Less than six pounds all up.’ Six pounds she couldn’t really afford if she was going to buy herself a television set. But then again, it was worth it for the look on Brenda’s face. Blake reached into his pockets and pulled out ten pounds.
‘Petrol and hosiery,’ he said with that wicked smile of his.
The transistor radio sat on her bedhead directly behind her. It was Japanese and had a little aerial you could pull out, and you needed it here because the signal was weak. Kitty levered herself up with her elbows to take one last look at it before dropping back down and trying to sleep. She didn’t dare turn it on because then her mum would want to know where it came from. What she would do was, she would hide it. Meanwhile she would start saying how she was going to save up to buy one from her pocket and babysitting money. It was the happiest night of Kitty’s life. Winning the competition and shoving it right up the nose of that bitch, Brenda, that was one thing, but then to have Todd actually ask for her phone number …
She let out a little squeal and her legs kicked furiously under the sheets. Why would he want her number unless he was planning to ask her out? There was no way now she could sleep, she’d be lying awake the whole night because perhaps tomorrow, the phone would ring.