Chapter Sixteen

On Sunday morning Sam wakes with a bad feeling in his gut. His house is already an oven. It would be irresponsible madness if the community went ahead with the flare safety demonstration. Less than a week without rain and already the air crackles with the kind of moisture-less heat that gives a tiny unnoticed spark from a backyard barbecue the power to explode into catastrophic force. They’d all be wiped out in minutes.

He makes a cuppa, wandering around naked. No point in saving a park, he figures, if fire wipes out every house on the Island. He shrugs. He’s a practical man who knows how to prioritise. He is also painfully aware of how it feels to push the limits and wear the consequences if events go spectacularly belly-up. He wraps a towel around his waist and takes his tea onto the deck to check the sky. A squillion mares’ tails swipe the early-morning blue. He smiles inwardly. If the air keeps moving fast in the upper layers of the atmosphere, there’s a chance a storm will blow up and bring a cool change. It could all work out yet.

He sips his tea, wondering if the gods land on your side if your motives are pure and unselfish. Wonders too, if the reverse is true. But pulls up short when he thinks of the New Planet Fountain of Youth. Worth a billion dollars and flourishing without a philanthropic instinct to be found. He tosses the dregs over the side and wanders back into the house, consoling himself with a fact he knows for sure is true even if science with all its tests and calculations sneers in his face: what goes around, comes around. Or as his mum drummed into him you reap what you sow. An image of Kate creeps into his mind, her face firm and serious: Steer clear of the clichés, Sam. They’re a lazy way of making a point. Well, it is OK for her to think that way: words are – or were – her livelihood. He’s just a bargeman who knows good from bad and wants to lead a blameless life. No rocket science involved. Shit, another cliché.

He gives up digging deep and heads for the shower, turns the cold on with a blast and steps under a stinging waterfall that’s lukewarm from the early-morning sun hitting his tank full on. Yep, it’s hot as the hammers today, he says out loud, taking pleasure this time as yet another cliché rolls off his tongue with ease. He wonders if Frankie has made a decision yet.

The plans are for the community to line up their boats at Triangle ferry wharf at seven pm. Theoretically, there’s still enough light to stay safely on course but by the time they’re organised it will be dark enough to make a maximum impact with the flares. Sam also wants to do a quick check to list the seriously dodgy vessels that haven’t a hope of completing the course without sinking or breaking down. He’ll assign people with fully functioning boats and enough horsepower in their motors to tow, as guardians. He mentally maps out the day ahead until he’s satisfied that, weather permitting, it should go like a dream.

He makes his way down the steps to his tinny and sets off for a substantial breakfast at The Briny Café. He’s going to need his strength. Ettie might even persuade him to eat a little of that spinach she insists on loading onto his plate even though he’s told her a thousand times that he’s long past his growing years and green stuff is for rabbits. With the exception of peas. Nothing beats a handful of peas alongside four lamb loin chops – their fatty tails crisped to a salted golden crunch – and a serious mound of creamy potato mashed with lashings of butter and not a drop of milk. He feels his taste buds slip into overdrive and saliva fill his mouth. He could wipe out a coffee or two and three helpings of Ettie’s spicy baked beans with a fried egg on the top, a hint of greens to lift the look of the plate and about eight slices of toasted sourdough that’s solid enough to hold a serious amount of butter without going soggy. By the time he ties up at the end of the deck, he’s sorted. He bangs his way into the café, gives Ettie a smooch and a quick swing around the kitchen and places his order with all the fanfare of a prime minister announcing a major, guaranteed vote-winning initiative.

‘We’re out of spicy beans and I haven’t had time to make a new batch,’ Ettie says.

Sam is crestfallen. Without expecting any success, he mutters something about a few lamb chops.

‘No worries, love,’ Ettie agrees. ‘How about poached eggs, fried tomatoes and a heap of spuds seared in butter in a hot pan with a little onion, capsicum and chilli thrown in?’

‘You’re the answer to every man’s dream, love. Er, you couldn’t whip up a few peas and a little mash, could you?’

‘No,’ Ettie says firmly. ‘This is a take it or leave it, once only, offer.’

‘Good as gold,’ he says in a hurry, remembering Delaney’s sound advice that a wise man knows that it’s smart to quit while he’s ahead. His mobile phone goes off in his pocket. Sam checks the screen. The loyal Cook’s Basin anti-development protesters have woken up and, given the weather, they’re edgy and looking for direction. Sam tells them it’s all systems go until they meet at Triangle, which is where they will assess the climatic conditions and come to a democratic consensus.

The Islander with a legendary thirst takes umbrage: ‘What the hell does that mean? You’re getting a bit high fallutin’ with your vocabulary, mate.’

‘Be there and we’ll see what happens,’ Sam explains, patiently.

‘Orright then. All you had to do was say so.’

Ettie delivers Sam’s breakfast with a flourish. ‘Have you seen Kate? She hasn’t turned up yet.’

Sam’s gut somersaults. ‘You called her?’

‘No answer on the landline or her mobile.’ Ettie is puzzled. ‘Can’t understand it. We made a deal. If she can’t make it, she calls. If today is like yesterday, we’re going to be under pressure from the word go.’

‘Put my brekky in the oven to keep warm. I’ll do a quick dash.’

‘No, love, I’m sure it’s all OK. Eat your food while it’s hot. If she’s not here in the next few minutes, I’ll call Jenny to fill in. It might teach her that rules are rules. And,’ she adds with a grin, ‘she can dock her own pay.’

Ettie disappears inside the café. Sam drags out his mobile and dials Fast Freddy. ‘You pick up an Oyster Bay resident in the early hours, mate?’

‘Kate, ya mean? Yeah. She was off to the airport. In a stinking hurry and all revved up like it was life or death. Never seen her so nervy.’

Sam ends the call. Pushes Jenny’s number. ‘Get over to The Briny asap, love. Ettie needs you.’ The phone goes dead in his ear. Five minutes later, he sees Jenny’s tinny flying across the water from the Island. Good communities, he thinks, know how to take care of each other and never, ever worry about the details. Kate, he realises, may never get it. For once, he feels sadder for her than for himself.

By lunchtime, blue sky is a fading memory and the sky is bruised and overcast. Heavy rain will mean a washout. Even though the community is hell-bent on saving Garrawi, postponements kill enthusiasm and douse the spark of spontaneity. Sam keeps his fingers crossed, trusting luck to hold off the storm until well after dark. He checks four weather sites. They’re all over the place. Anything could happen.

At four pm Delaney arrives at The Briny Café, this time wearing a baby blue shirt with his khaki linen trousers. He looks uncomfortably hot, with large rings of perspiration darkening the fabric under his arms. His trousers give the impression they’ve been through a mangle. Clive, the photographer, is as ruddy-faced as the reporter. ‘Do you reckon Ettie would be able to find a couple of icy cold beers?’ Delaney asks, straight off, throwing himself into a chair on the back deck with reckless abandon considering his size and the relative fragility of the furniture. ‘Maybe throw in a burger for Clive and a salad of some kind for me? Almost didn’t come. The weather. What do you think?’

‘Good as gold,’ Sam fibs, fingers crossed like he’s a five-year-old kid.

Ettie and Jenny appear with a platter of cold-cuts, cheeses and grilled vegetables and a tray of cold beers. ‘A few snackettes for the workers,’ Ettie says brightly. ‘Paid for by the café, if you’re worried about ethics, Mr Delaney. An army marches on its stomach. Napoleon, I think.’

‘Well, the French understand food better than anyone else . . .’ He reaches for a beer with one hand, a snack with the other.

Ettie looks like she’s come out of a fierce stoush victorious.

Half an hour later, fed and refreshed, the men step on board the Mary Kay for the quick trip across the water to Triangle wharf. The air is still and sharp with electricity. The sky is the colour of an eggplant. Sam begins to worry. He thinks about bringing forward the time of the demonstration to beat the storm. Delaney settles himself comfortably on the bow in a director’s chair Sam’s loaded on deck. Clive is already snapping, his eye glued to the lens, treading clumsily around chains, cleats and coiled rope. Sam considers warning him about the lack of lifelines, pointing out he should be careful he doesn’t topple overboard, but holds back. Clive gives the impression of a man who has learned how to take care of himself the hard way.

‘You covered many demonstrations like this?’ Sam asks, as much to lure the photographer into the safety of the cabin as anything else.

‘Like this?’ Clive looks astonished by the question. ‘Just how many little water-access backwaters do you think there are around town?’

Backwater? He swallows a retort. ‘Yeah. Gotcha. Dumb question. Anything you need, just ask. I’m giving you Jimmy, my first mate, as an aide. He’s a good kid. Got a real thirst for knowledge so gear up for a few questions here and there.’

‘He the kid Delaney wrote about on Saturday?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Fine piece. One of Delaney’s best. Handled right, Jimmy could be a star. Get him a site on YouTube promoting products. He’s got an unforgettable face and a turn of phrase that could sell anything.’

‘He is a star, mate, in all the ways that genuinely count.’ Sam starts the engine and listens for the diesel thrum to settle into a smooth rhythm before he pushes the throttle forward. The canary-yellow hull (homage to his parents) glides over the water. He steers around yachts on their moorings, feeling a cool afternoon breeze kick in from the north-east. If it freshens quickly, there’s a small chance it will hold back the storm looming in the west. Up ahead, he sees Jimmy and Longfellow waving madly from the wharf. Jimmy has outdone himself in a costume of lime green and brilliant orange. His feet, encased in silver shoes, are hippity-hopping with excitement on the weathered timber planks.

‘That’s Jimmy,’ he tells Clive, with a hint of pride in his voice. ‘And the black-and-white mutt glued to his ankles is Longfellow. Hope you like dogs, mate, ’cause the two of them are inseparable.’

But Clive is already out the wheelhouse door, his lens nestled in the palm of his left hand to reduce the rock of the barge, his right index finger on the shutter, lining up a shot of Jimmy and his faithful companion. Sam feels a twinge of unease. It’s that bloody invisible enemy, he thinks, the one you never see coming that does all the damage. Jimmy a media star? Open the doors to the bigger world and all of a sudden life gets complicated.

He ties up at Triangle and checks his watch. Plenty of time.

At five pm the old Seagull comes alongside the Mary Kay to offloads its passengers. They step from ferry to barge to wharf, which violates every safety regulation in the book. The skipper announces he’s calling it quits. ‘Any bastard who needs a ride can hop the flotilla for a freebie,’ he says.

‘What about the parade, mate? Aren’t you going to be in it?’ Sam asks.

Chris looks at him as though he’s lost his marbles. Uses his foot to fend off from the Mary Kay. ‘The Seagull’s a tightly woven pack of toothpicks, mate, held together with more faith than finesse. One spark from a belligerent flare and poof! Gone in a flash with me on board.’

Clive crosses from the barge to the ferry in a single step: ‘Lovely old boat. A real classic. Reckon I could get a shot of you at the helm?’

Chris gives him the same look he’s just chucked in Sam’s direction. ‘No,’ he replies flatly.

‘Lucky most old fellas aren’t like you or I’d be out of business,’ Clive mutters. The old ferry master disappears back into the wheelhouse, one shoulder tilted towards the ground, the other hoisted skywards, his legs bowed like two sides of a melon, slightly unsteady as though the sea is pitching hard under his heavy feet. At the last minute, he sticks his head outside and addresses Clive, who hasn’t moved: ‘If you’re stayin’ on board, mate, you’ll need to buy an overnight ticket.’ He revs the engine. Clive leaps aboard the Mary Kay before the distance between the vessels becomes more life threatening than athletic.

Sam explains: ‘He doesn’t want anyone from the Maritime Services Board getting a squiz at any of a hundred safety violations.’

‘Ah.’ Clive nods.

Sam spends the final hour before mustering time checking hoses and pumps in case of emergency. The weather is stable, the sea breeze carrying a bit of bite and forcing the storm clouds into a holding position. With luck, they’ll make it. No bastard’s turned up early so getting the parade under way ahead of schedule isn’t an option. He starts splicing rope to make a few ties for the crucifix bollards, keeping busy. He’s a patient man, lord knows, but he’s never been much good at sitting around doing nothing. Time drifts by; the hands on his watch creep slowly towards seven o’clock. The Mary Kay rocks under a quickening sea. Not bouncy enough to catapult a few leaky tinnies straight to the ocean bed, though, so his luck is still holding.

He’s suddenly conscious of an eerie quietness on board. He puts down the rope and stands up, looking around.

‘Jimmy?’ he calls out. Puzzled, he wanders the deck, which is ridiculous because he can see quite clearly that he’s alone. He looks towards the shore, wondering if the indefatigable Clive has dragged everyone off on a photographic mission to capture the increasingly legendary cheese tree. There’s not a soul in sight. Jeez, he thinks, it’s almost starting time. Even allowing for the local tendency to arrive late, the protesters are pushing the limits. He pulls his battle plan from his back pocket. According to the list of definite starters, the ferry wharf should be six deep with more than one hundred tinnies. And that’s not counting the yachts, stink boats and working barges.

He feels the beginnings of panic followed quickly by despair. Lowdon’s got to them, he thinks. Lowdon and the freaking black cockroaches with their shiny black glasses and evil smirks have somehow put the pressure on and everyone’s done a runner. Christ, there’s not even a tear-away kid to be seen tossing a footy on the bottom track. Irrationally, he thinks of the Pied Piper piping the children of Hamelin away forever and even though he tells himself he’s being stupid, he can’t shake a black feeling of dread. Where are the kids? He pulls out his phone. Calls Jimmy. The call goes to message bank. He calls Delaney, Ettie, Marcus. Same result. He spins on one foot. It’s seven o’clock. Too late to hang around, too late to go off investigating. He’ll go it alone. There’s no other way.

He unties the Mary Kay from the ferry wharf, his eyes wet with disappointment. For a second he can’t remember which way the parade was meant to go – clockwise or anti-clockwise. He shakes his head to clear it. Clockwise. Yeah. He sets off slowly. Keeps trying the mobile phones but no one picks up and nothing adds up. The Island is ghostly quiet, every jetty he passes is deserted and bare of boats. He looks down at the loud hailer on the banquette and feels like a fool. Mostly, he’s worried sick.

Five minutes later, the Mary Kay rounds the south end of the Island. If he’d been driving a car, he would’ve slammed his foot on the brake. The sea is a moving landmass of boats. A roar goes up from this massive armada of vessels of all shapes and sizes crammed so tightly on the water people are boat hopping without getting their toenails wet. Everyone laughs, waves and cheers, giving the thumbs up. Skippers sound their horns; the flag-waving is hysterical. Bastards, Sam thinks, so relieved he’s borderline furious. Not bloody funny at all. But no Pied Piper, no dastardly threats, no fear of revenge or physical recriminations. The parade is on! He’ll settle the score with whichever numbskull came up with the idea of scaring the proverbial shit out of him later.

The Three Js, crammed into a tiny tinny weighted down with a large aluminium bucket stuffed with ice and bottles of champagne, cup their hands around their mouths and hoot out loud. He shakes his fist in mock anger and they laugh harder. The curly-headed, mischievous chief of the volunteer fire brigade shouts out an offer to take off her top if Sam thinks that might increase publicity for the cause. He grins but makes a cutthroat signal, not sure whether the sight of Becky McKay’s admittedly superb chest would win the right kind of support. Or lose it.

Lindy, who has hung a banner across the bow of her spiffy but honourable timber stink boat to give her real-estate agency a bit of exposure, indicates the huge turn-out with a wave of her hand, and silently applauds. He shakes his head. Nothing to do with me, not really, he thinks. This is community at its best – though he can still feel the bitter taste of failure lingering in the back of his throat. That fear – that his passion to save Garrawi had destroyed Cook’s Basin’s everyday sense of safeness and replaced it with dread and terror.

He can’t help wondering what he would’ve done if they’d bowed to pressure. Would he have backed off and let the thugs have their way? Or fought on alone? He can’t be sure but he makes a guess. If you lie down for bastards and thieves, you end up with nothing. Like he’d said to Kate, over and over, if you don’t stand up for what you believe in, you lose it and you never get it back. The balance shifts, your tiny fraction of the earth’s surface spins and a new game begins. She always argued that change was inevitable and only fools and reactionaries resisted it, but he’d fought back with force: change for the common good is rarely an issue but change for the profit of a few and the destruction of what is important to many, is untenable. It widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots until it spawns revolution.

He wishes she could experience the force of a good community fighting for what it believes in even though the odds are stacked against it. He does a quick count of the boats. They must have come from all points north and south of Cook’s Basin.

Delaney’s column about Jimmy has done this, Sam thinks. A kid, who in a different environment would be slapped with a long-winded diagnosis and have a tag hung on his shoulder forever after, a kid who’d be written off as an odd-ball no-hoper without a future, has somehow inspired a wider population to help save a park it will probably never set foot in. Well, Kate told him the media had an awesome power. He’s finally seeing it at work.

Marcus breaks out of the crowded boats. With Ettie beside him holding on to her fiery red bandana, he guns his spiffy timber runabout towards Sam. ‘It wasn’t my idea, Sam,’ Ettie shouts when they come alongside. ‘I voted against it!’

In the back, Paul Delaney has his arms flung wide over the white upholstery. Squashed next to him, Siobhan O’Shaughnessy looks triumphant. ‘We’ve got ourselves a real campaign, Scully. We’re seriously on our way!’

Sam, too emotional to speak, waves his hand loosely in acknowledgment, looking in the direction of Ettie’s pointing finger. Ahead, and lining up to lead the parade, Glenn’s long flat furniture-removal barge is decked out like an over-dressed float in a mardi gras. The centrepiece is the artists’ huge white papier-mâché cockatoo, wearing a bright red sash that reads Save Garrawi.

Jimmy and Longfellow prance around the deck of Glenn’s barge, each as excited as the other. Clive is not far behind with his camera. And there he is. Jack Mundey. Man of the people and for the people. Once the conscience of a generation. Leaning against the chest of the cockatoo, his legs slightly apart for balance on the water. Glenn is nudging the barge into position with his pissy little tinny, one hand on the tiller, the other thrusting a stubby high in the sky. The atmosphere is electric. Boats manoeuvre into line behind the giant bird. The sea is a churning, frothing cauldron. The noise of engines is like sitting under the fuselage of a jet plane. The sky is black but no rain. Not yet.

‘We’re going to make it,’ Sam shouts out.

Ettie and the chef salute the rough and emotional bargeman with grins that go way beyond their eyes and reach into their hearts and souls, then gun the boat into the queue. Sam steps into the cabin to fire up the Mary Kay. He catches a movement out of the corner of his vision and looks behind. ‘Ah jeez,’ he thinks, this time crying for real.

Artie has slipped his mooring for the first time in years and he’s steering his gloriously rundown, shellfish-encrusted and shabby old rusty yacht into the parade with Amelia standing at attention by his side. She’s dressed in the same colours as her son and salutes Sam with a laugh as they motor past the Mary Kay with an engine that coughs, splutters, occasionally bellows, and barely holds on to the lowest rev.

‘Know anything about boats?’ he shouts out to Amelia.

‘Not a thing,’ she shouts back, laughing.

‘Right,’ says Sam, falling in behind Artie in case he needs rescuing. He loves this place, he thinks, feeling his throat clam up for the third time in minutes. He loves this place with a blind, unswerving passion that will last a lifetime. He slams the helm with an open hand, euphoric. ‘It’s you and me, Miss Mary Kay. You and me to the finishing line.’ Stretched ahead, a glorious procession makes its way around Cutter Island to fight for a cause for the common good. How can they lose?

With the light dropping fast now, Sam releases a flare into the sky. On cue, everyone follows his lead. The smell of sulphur dulls the briny tang of the sea. The Island disappears from sight in an orange fog. It is spectacular, eerily otherworldly, with people dancing on decks and on bows, the high-and-low-pitched thrum and chug of outboards, inboards, diesel engines and putt putts, the background music to a floating party on a serious mission.

For no reason he can pinpoint, he feels his hackles rising. Once again, he looks behind him. Six black-suited goons, legs apart, arms folded, span the bow of a million-dollar stink boat so fancy the deck trimmings are leather. In the faded light, their sunglasses are round black holes in their faces. They look like standing cadavers formally dressed for their own burials.

The pointy-nosed launch – shiny ebony hull, glittering chrome and cat’s eyes portholes – speeds alongside. The goons turn to face Sam. Each one raises his arm, makes the shape of a gun with his hand and fires a couple of mock shots. ‘You’re a dead man,’ says one. ‘You’re a dead man floating.’ Then they’re away, kicking up a wash that knocks the Mary Kay sideways. Eric Lowdon waves from his seat at the stern. His face is smug, his expression cocksure. He holds a glass of champagne in his hands, already celebrating.

‘You’re a bit premature, you scumbag,’ Sam shouts angrily. In the distance, lightning makes a serrated tear in a black sky.