Gone Fishing (19 page)

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.

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

Earlier than usual on Monday morning, the community flocks into The Briny eager to pick up a copy of Delaney's mass-circulation newspaper. A picture of Jimmy, Longfellow and the giant cockatoo is front-page news. The story is continued on page three, where a collage of shots of the floating protesters takes up half the space. It's massive coverage of the kind that no amount of money can buy. If Delaney would let him, Sam would offer to shout him a slab of the best brew on the market. He pulls out his mobile and calls the big newspaperman.

‘Don't get too excited,' Delaney says. ‘The bastards will send a counter-attack your way any moment. Watch your backs. They'll be seething.'

Sam mulls whether to mention the fancy boat loaded with goons and decides against it. He'll sound like a whinger. Refuses, anyway, to spoil the moment.

‘Glenn's first flying lesson courtesy of the New Planet Fountain of Youth is on this afternoon. He's supposed to take a mattress. It's got me beat why.'

‘That's what you sit on when you're airborne, Scully. What else would you think it was for?'

Sam ends the call. He buys a copy of the newspaper and heads off in his tinny to call on Artie who, by all accounts, made it back to his mooring without any major mishap. The old man responds to Sam's knock on the hull with a hacking cough.

‘Came by to say thanks, Artie. Helluva spot fire last night, eh?'

‘Spot? Nah. I don't think so. It was a full-on blazing hot, voracious bushfire, son. Is that the paper?' Artie stretches to take it from Sam's hands. Holds it up at an angle to catch the light from a porthole, his eyes narrowed for better focus. ‘Front page, eh? Not bad, not bad. Little word of advice, though, if you don't mind an old man ramblin' on a bit at this almost civilised hour of the mornin'.'

Sam dips his head.

‘Keep Jimmy away from the press. He's easy fodder for every half-baked, snaky-minded current affairs show in town. He'll be chewed up and spat out until his sticky red head is so done in even that poncey gel he uses won't be able to point out which way is up. You gettin' my drift? Water off a duck's back for some folks. But not for a kid like Jimmy.'

‘You mention this to Amelia?'

‘Yep. But all she can see is that her not-so-little baby boy is gettin' the kudos she reckons he deserves. And as we are both painfully aware, Amelia isn't too nifty when it comes to seein' the long-distance picture. She's a go-for-broke woman. Has a light-bulb moment, chases the dream and then wakes up to find herself hurtlin' into disaster. 'Course by then it's too late. Remember the double registration for the dole that landed her in the clink for a few months? Did it for Jimmy, o' course, and was blind to the downside. Lovely woman, though, not sayin' she isn't. Just doesn't have much of a clue and reckons everyone will see it her way once she explains. Bit like Jimmy, now that I think about it.'

‘Her head's been turned, in other words.'

‘They'll ruin him, the media. And they won't give a damn. Wouldn't want to see that happen to a kid who's never done a bad turn in his short, innocent and sincerely good-hearted life.'

‘Hear you loud and clear, Artie.'

‘That Kate would say the same if she was around. Saw her go off with a suitcase yesterday. Any idea when she'll be back? I'll miss me morning confabs with her.'

‘Let you know the second I hear.' Morning confabs? He gives the old man a quick salute.

Artie says: ‘Was good to feel the fire in me belly again, son. Real good.'

Sam makes it about one hundred metres before swinging his tinny around. Maybe she's left him a note, he thinks.

The house is cool and still. Sam checks for a note under the kettle. On the bed. In the bathroom. On the coffee table. He circles the kitchen table where Emily's treasure trove is laid out in the order of discovery: the mysterious contents of the grey tin, the documents in the plastic bag. A stack of letters. There is no note for him here, either. He considers his options. Takes a seat. Pushes aside the mementoes and pulls the bag towards him. He removes and unfolds the first yellowed document. Neat copperplate writing in faded ink. A deed to a house in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, dated January 27 1938. Not a bill, then. He skips to the names. Phyllis and Robert Conway.

He puts it aside and reaches for the next document, more stained, this time, and worn thin around the edges. It's a death certificate for Phyllis, dated 1963. Cause of death: Suicide. There's another death certificate. Robert Conway, who departed this mortal coil in 1983. Kate would have been eight years old. Next, a birth certificate for Emily Elizabeth Conway. Kate's mother. If he's not mistaken, the old girl was two years older than she admitted. He grins, wryly, impressed. Emily was a law unto herself. There's a wedding certificate for Emily and Gerald.

He looks up at the sound of thunder. Pushes back his chair and goes to the window. The far-off glow of sheet lightning strobes way beyond the escarpment. With a smile, he counts and gets to fifteen before there's another rumble, testing Jimmy's theory. A wind from the west gathers and riffles the casuarinas, setting off a low keening. Leaves start to fall from the spotted gums. A dark shadow makes his way down the steps to Kate's pontoon. Sam knows it is her wildly eccentric and reclusive neighbour on his way to fish off the end. He hopes he doesn't get struck by lightning.

He returns to his seat and pauses for a moment to consider whether he has a right to be in Kate's kitchen, looking through private documents. Too late to think about that now, he tells himself. He reaches for an envelope that's been slit open. And there he is. The long-lost brother: Alexander Conway. Born September 12 1961. Place: Corowa Base Hospital, Victoria. Mother: Emily Conway. Aged nineteen. There is a blank space where the father's name should have been.

So it is true, he thinks, weirdly flat, finally understanding that it's the not knowing that drags a person down, eats away at any idea of who you are and where you come from.

He rocks on the back legs of the chair in a way that sets Kate's teeth on edge. The letters are in date order. He begins with the earliest.

In the Newbury County Court No R 1367 In the Matter of the Adoption Act, 1947

And In the Matter of Baby Conway, an Infant Take Notice that an Adoption order has this day been made in respect of the above-named Infant

On an application under the serial number BQO Dated this 27th
day of March 1962.

(Two names are stamped above ‘Registrar':)

J F Hampton

G Barr-Jones

3014/27

The address shown is in Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom. The opening times for the court are also thoughtfully supplied: ten am to four pm. Mondays to Fridays only.

England. The baby was put up for adoption in England. He reads on.

General Register Office Newbury

Berks PO 27, RG14

Telephone: (0)1635 1356

Your reference: Our reference: RAC 0638202 20 February 1980

Dear Madam,

Thank you for your recent letter containing information as requested. The adoption record of your son has been noted in accordance with your wishes. If he should apply to this Office for access to his birth records under provision of Section 26 of the Children Act 1975, your request will be conveyed to the counsellor conducting the interview which your son will be obliged to attend before particulars of his birth are provided. In order for this office to maintain up-to-date records, it would be appreciated if you would advise us of any change either to your address or your original request. Please quote the above reference number in any correspondence to this Office.

Yours faithfully,

Mrs IL Roberts

General Register Office

Ed Harrison Adoptions

Casework Officer

Date: 22 June 2000

Dear Mrs Jackson,

Thank you for your letter dated 15 May 2000, informing us of your change of address. Our records have been noted accordingly. Should you have any further changes of address etc. please keep this office informed so we can keep our records up to date.

You would not be informed if your adopted son were to die as we do not know this information and would not be informed ourselves. If/when your son applies to access his birth records or applies for entry onto Part 1 of the Adoption Contact Register, your name and address will be forwarded to him.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Harrison

Berkshire County Council

20 January 2002

Dear Madam,

My name is Joe Brampton and I work for the Berkshire County Council Social Services Directorate. One of my jobs is Section 51 Counselling, that is to help people who have been adopted research their birth origin.

I am aware that you have thrice made contact with the adoption registrar to seek information about your adopted son. These enquiries have now been forwarded to me for action.

I am pleased to advise that your birth son has now requested information about his birth and, because of the emotional implications for all involved, we offer to act as intermediary.

My first meeting with your son went well and we are in the process of requesting records from the appropriate adoption agency to enable us to take the next step. He is not yet aware of your contact but was told about the adoption register.

When the records I have requested are received from the agency, we will meet again. May I suggest you write a letter to him via this office to enable me to present this letter at our next meeting.

I realise this letter is out of the blue and perhaps will trigger many emotions and I do hope that you have some support. It goes without saying that we will help all we can.

You will be pleased to learn that his name is still Alexander, the name I believe you gave him at birth. That's as much as I am able to tell you about him at this stage.

I would take this opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Brampton

Family Placement Assistant

Berkshire County Council 10 February, 2002

Dear Mrs Jackson,

Thank you for your telephone call and subsequent letter sent to me for onward transmission to Alexander. I write to advise that our meeting on 28/01/02 went exceptionally well. He was visited in the security of his home. There was a lot of information given in your letter that caused much joy and excitement.

Alexander will be writing to you and will no doubt share with you his life story. You are both sure to be emotional but I sense you'll both handle it well. In the first instance, Alexander will correspond via this address until he feels confident enough to pass on his location. I'm sure you will understand. He has a lot to think about and so do you. I hope you have some support.

I am away on leave for two weeks from today. I would expect that you will receive mail direct from Alexander before I return. I wish you well and feel that your contact is progressing well. From past experience it is advisable to progress at a pace that all concerned can handle and are comfortable with.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Brampton

Berkshire County Council

17 September 2004

Dear Mrs Jackson,

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I last wrote to you on 10/02/02 about Alexander. Alexander was contacted the moment your letter arrived this week and collected it from my office within the hour. He read it in my presence and was obviously delighted. My understanding now is that he will make contact by letter in the first instance then progress to a phone call at a later time. This being so, and since I am unable to effect a face-to-face meeting locally, the time for me to withdraw has come. I will now place the file back in the archives for safekeeping. I do hope all is well with you. I can imagine the emotions you have gone through and am glad to have been of some service to you. It goes without saying that if there is anything you feel we are able to help with in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Brampton

Family Placements

Sam leans back in his chair, his head spinning. Emily could have opened the door in 2002. Instead, it took her two years to write a letter to the child she relinquished. Why? She definitely wanted to find him. She first began her enquiries into his whereabouts in 1980. Clearly, it took a long time for Alexander to begin searching from his end. He must have been – he scans the letters, scribbles a few dates – nearly forty years old. Probably with children of his own. Sam mentally puts himself in his shoes. If
his
adoptive parents were good and kind – parents in the true sense – to avoid causing them hurt or grief, he'd delay the search until after their death.