The Legend of Kevin the Plumber (11 page)

A
few things happened on Tuesday that put me well on my way to erasing that image of Homer from my mind. I mean, I don't think I'll ever forget it — like an ambulance driver or a nurse or those poor bastards in the war, the things they had to see — but a day had passed, I'd found an excuse to wash my shovel and I wasn't working with Homer.

Kevin was back.

He had a limp and he wore the scowl he always seemed to be wearing.

‘You're working with me,' he said, and handed me a box of plumbing bits. ‘Put them in the van.'

Goodie, I thought. I get to work with the Sasquatch Yeti Yowie Monster. The one I put off work for a week.

I ran into Homer on the way to the van. Literally. ‘Sorry, Homer.'

‘Gary the lackey,' he said. He looked at the box in my arms. ‘Shit, you're well organised today.'

‘I'm . . . Kevin gave me these. I'm supposed to be working with him today.'

‘Oh, are you just. We'll soon see about that.' He stomped into the shed. I could hear him arguing with Philthy Phil.

‘Come on,' Kevin grumbled. ‘Let's get out of here before it gets ugly.'

Kevin drove like Grandad past the Mullet Head turnoff to an old dairy farm. Chooks tottered off the track as he eased the van along the potholed driveway, parking beside a red tractor that looked like it hadn't moved in fifteen years.

I followed Kevin to the back door. An old lady answered and ushered us inside. It smelled like cooking.

‘The tap's over here,' the lady said, as she moved through the kitchen into a side room. The side room was a laundry with a concrete trough and an ancient washing machine.

‘Watch,' the old lady said.

The tap over the concrete trough dripped.

‘There! Did you see that? Can't get the blessed thing to turn off.'

The lady turned the tap off, her pointy elbows shaking like featherless wings with the effort.

Another drip.

‘There! See that one?'

‘Mrs Thompson,' Kevin said. He spoke loud and the old lady jumped.

‘Nothing wrong with my hearing,' she said.

‘Sorry. This is Gary, my offsider,' Kevin said. ‘Could you show Gary where the tank and the pressure pump are? Turn the tank off at the valve and the pump off at the
switch. We'll have this fixed in two minutes.'

‘Righto,' Mrs Thompson said, and led me out the back door.

The tank was a concrete job and the valve was covered in grass. The pressure pump was right next to the valve. Valve off. Switch off.

‘Righto,' Mrs Thompson said again, and we went back inside. ‘I'll leave you boys to it. Cup of tea and scones ready in the kitchen when you're done.'

Kevin had produced a spanner and pulled the tap apart. ‘Have you replaced a washer before, Gary?'

‘Nope.'

He handed me a plastic disc with a stem. I'd seen one before. His wet fingers turned the disc on my palm.

‘They eventually get pitted and don't seal. There's a blue toolbox in the back of the van. Should be a new one in there.'

A door from the laundry opened into the yard. I followed a path past an old wind-up clothesline to the van. I found the toolbox and I found a washer, only it was white while the one Kevin pulled out of the tap was black. I turned the toolbox upside down in the back of the van and found six more washers. They were all white.

‘Find one, Gary?' Kevin shouted from inside.

I ran back to the laundry and explained that I could only find a white one.

‘Doesn't matter,' he said. ‘They're all the same these days.'

‘Sorry, I didn't realise . . . '

Kevin showed me where the washer sat then screwed
the tap back together. I turned the water on and the pump on, as instructed. The pump squealed into life and I almost filled my undies. Kevin was at the van, collecting the tools I'd emptied and stuffing them back into the toolbox.

‘Sorry, I was going to pick them up and that . . .'

He kept stuffing the tools away. He didn't look up.

I stood near the door of the van and waited for my next orders. Kevin hulked down the pathway towards the laundry and I wondered if I should follow. Like a bloody puppy. At least with Homer and his bum crack I knew where I stood. Dig the trench. Don't think, don't argue. Just do it. He'd do his thing and I'd do mine. With Kevin, I spent most of my time feeling like a useless knob and wondering what I was supposed to be doing.

‘Oi, Gary. You coming in for a brew?'

I dusted my boot soles on the doormat and found a place set for me at the kitchen table. Mrs Thompson was pouring tea from a pot that had been dressed in a rainbow-striped woollen rasta hat.

‘You have milk, Gary?'

‘Ah . . . yes please.'

Not that tea was something I'd ever drunk. Ever.

We sipped from fine white cups with saucers. I fed my teacup four sugars and downed about nine scones with jam and cream while I listened to Kevin and Mrs Thompson rabbit on about some distant relative they shared.

‘Your dad was Albert Daly, wasn't he?' Mrs Thompson asked.

‘Arch. Albert's my uncle.'

‘That's right. Arch was the tall one. I see you got his height.'

Kevin smiled. His beard opened and his mouth opened and I saw his white teeth. It wasn't that funny.

‘How's Dulcie these days?' Mrs Thompson asked.

‘Mum died a few years back. She had some heart troubles. Died in her sleep. Died with a smile on her face.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Still, she would have been ninety, wouldn't she?'

‘Ninety-three.'

‘How are your kids? You've got the one son and the younger daughter, haven't you?'

Kevin lowered his cup into the saucer without making a sound. He swallowed. ‘Just the daughter.'

‘Oh. I could have sworn you had a boy as well. Maybe I was thinking of —'

Kevin nodded. ‘I lost my son the same year Mum died.'

Mrs Thompson slopped her tea on the table. Her cup clattered into the saucer and her chair scraped musically on the kitchen floor. She took a cloth from the sink.

‘Of course,' she said. ‘I do remember that. I read it in the paper.'

Kevin stared at his huge mitt laying flat beside the saucer.

‘Fate's cruel like that,' Mrs Thompson said. ‘I've outlived two husbands and all three kids. That's not the way it's supposed to be.'

‘No,' Kevin said. ‘You're right. Well, we'd best be off.'

‘Right you are. Thank you very much for that. How much do I owe you?'

‘Nothing, Mrs Thompson. Your company and your tea and scones are more than enough.'

‘Now come on,' she said.

Kevin held up his hand.

Mrs Thompson stood at the back door as Kevin backed the van into an empty bay in the hay shed. She waved with one bony finger as we bumped along the drive.

I didn't talk as Kevin drove back to the highway. In some ways I wanted to say something, but I couldn't talk. I thought that maybe I'd be better off if I didn't talk to Kevin again. Not to Kevin Daly the plumber. Not to the poor bastard who'd lost his son in a car accident. Not to Vanessa Daly's dad.

R
ock scissors paper.

The not-talking-to-Kevin-the-plumber got easier as Tuesday morning dragged on. It was going to be a hot one.

Rock scissors paper.

We'd driven up the Kellep River Road and into the bush, to a little cottage made of mud brick.

‘Nice place,' Kevin said to the owner.

She was probably as old as my mum, slim but not totally titless. Short cropped salt and pepper hair. I'd seen her sitting at the cafe in Mullet Head. Gel called her Butch Dyke.

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘My sister and I built it a few years back. Nearly killed us. Neither of us are game to move out.'

She showed us her piss-stinky overflowing toilet. She showed us where her concrete septic tank was buried. Grey liquid bubbled from the seam along the lid of the tank. Blowflies zinged around our heads.

‘I'll leave you to it,' Butch Dyke said, held her nose and left.

Kevin said we had to play rock scissors paper to decide who was going to lift the lid. ‘It's fair that way.'

I chose rock. Kevin chose rock.

Again.

Rock. Rock.

Again.

I chose paper. Kevin chose rock. Paper smothers rock.

‘Damn,' the big bloke said, and squatted over the lid.

I could see beach sand stuck to his scalp.

‘Hold your breath.'

The mess of shit sighed and bubbled when Kevin cracked the seal. I held my breath but I couldn't hold it forever. When I eventually had to breathe in, I could taste the air. Thick with the essence of a thousand craps, it made me gag then spew. I didn't have time to think or move. My guts clenched and I heaved. Up came a porridge of tea and jam and scones. I found a tree and ralphed until I was empty.

Kevin had his hand on my shoulder. ‘You right, Gary? Bit of a shock to the system. You'll get used to it. Some are worse than others. That one's a shocker. Are you okay?'

I nodded and spat.

‘Just take it easy for a few minutes. Sit in the van if you like. I'll get a tanker organised.'

He unclipped his phone from his belt. He squeezed the leather and plastic case and looked at the screen. He stuck it back on his belt and headed for the cottage. No signal, I thought. Out of range. Stay out of range of the shit-tank. I walked right around the house to the driveway and propped in the passenger's seat of the van. I could still
smell it. It was in my clothes. In my dreads. Everywhere. My mouth was burning with leftover chuck.

Kevin appeared a few minutes later. I saw him coming down the drive in the mirror but I didn't notice his limp. He wasn't scowling. There was a genuine look of concern on his face.

‘You right, Gary?'

I nodded and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.

‘What's the go?' I asked, praying that I didn't have to move from the van.

‘Tim will be here in half an hour or so with his tanker. It's like a huge vacuum cleaner and he just sucks up all the waste and dumps it at the treatment plant in Christmas Bay.'

‘That's it? All fixed?'

‘I'll check the outlet but I've got a fairly good idea what went wrong.'

Kevin looked at his hands, wiped them on the grass beside the driveway and took a sandwich from the little esky he used as his lunch box.

I held my stomach. ‘How can you eat?'

‘You get used to it. Smells are part of the territory.'

‘I don't think I'd get used to it.'

Kevin took another bite and half his sandwich vanished into his gob. He didn't say anything for a long time then he swallowed and said, ‘You'll probably surprise yourself.'

In that moment I could see that I'd been wrong about Kevin. Right from the start. He was a mountain of hair and muscle with a scowl that would freak little kids out from half a block away, but he wasn't a monster.

‘Sorry about chucking up all over the place.'

‘Don't apologise,' he said.

‘And sorry for dropping the grate. At the milk factory. Sorry about your ankle.'

Kevin's scowl returned. ‘That wasn't your fault. I slipped. Don't beat yourself around the head for that.'

I shifted in my seat and crossed my arms.

‘I should be apologising to you,' Kevin said. ‘Didn't have a very good day all round. Still, a week of kicking back at home wasn't exactly punishment. I like my work . . . but it's still work.'

Tim arrived. A blue truck with racks for pipes on the side and ‘Tim's Takeaway' written in huge flowing letters on the tank that sat on the back. I walked up with Kevin and shook Tim's hand. Tim and his truck stunk, but not like the septic. They stunk of industrial disinfectant. And shit. Maybe the smell never really comes out no matter how much you wash. Maybe you just don't notice the pong after a while.

I stood upwind as Tim emptied the septic, but I was close enough to see what was going on. The shit didn't look like shit anymore. It looked like a sea of long party balloons. Some were full of air. Others contained only a bubble. A rainbow of colours. I realised, with a kind of kinky horror, that the balloons had tips and they weren't balloons at all.

Kevin stood beside me. ‘How's it going?'

‘Fine,' I said. Every so often I caught a whiff of the septic but I didn't feel like ralphing. ‘Are those floaters what I think they are?'

Kevin nodded. ‘Condoms and septics don't mix too well.'

Butch Dyke appeared next to Kevin with a handkerchief held over her nose and mouth. With the sea of condoms bobbing around Tim's pipe, I had to wonder about Gel's assessment of Butch Dyke.

‘Have you found the problem?' she asked.

Kevin shifted feet. ‘Ahhh . . . yeah.'

Butch Dyke stepped forward and peered into the tank. ‘What was it that . . . ?'

The back of her neck went red. Instant sunburn.

She turned and shook her head at Kevin and me. Her hair was salt and pepper and her face tomato sauce.

‘I knew my sister and David were good friends, I just didn't realise they got on
that
well,' she said, and scurried into the cottage.

Kevin was tight-lipped but his eyes were smiling.

The laugh wasn't lost on Tim, either. ‘People try to flush their secrets away,' he said. ‘The likes of Kevin and me have seen it all. Haven't we, Kevin?'

Kevin raised his eyebrows.

Tim wiped his shit-caked hands on his overalls, pushed up his sleeve and showed me his watch. A Rolex diving watch. It was a beauty and it looked out of place on Tim's grotty body.

‘Found it at the bottom of a septic. Five grand's worth. Still ticking. You don't flush shit like that by accident, ay.'

Kevin and me helped Tim pack up his pipes. He wrote an account in slow, precise writing with the book resting on his knee, tore out the original and handed it to Kevin with a smile. He parped on his air horn as he pulled out of
the driveway. On the back of the tank it had Tim's company slogan: ‘Your shit is our bread and butter.'

Kevin parked the van beside the water at the Kellep River Reserve. We washed our hands in the public toilets and carried our lunch to a wooden table. There was birdshit on one end and the paint had peeled in patches. I sat on one side, Kevin the other. When he sat, the rail beneath his bum dropped and I was briefly airborne, like the table was actually a seesaw in disguise.

The big bloke laughed. It tumbled out of his mouth and filled the park. It bounced off the trees and bubbled down with the river.

‘Sorry, Gary,' he said.

I pretended to dust myself down and he shook his head.

‘You live at home, Gary?'

‘Yep.'

‘Mum? Dad?'

‘My dad is a stuntman in major productions. He lives in Queensland. At the moment I live with my mum and her husband, Mario, and their kid, Sharon.'

‘In Mullet Head?'

‘Yep. I lived in Chrissy Bay until Mum and Dad split up, then we shifted to Mullet Head.'

He nodded slowly.

‘You?' I asked.

‘Me? One wife . . . Maureen. Been married twenty-two years. One living offspring. A wild little animal named Vanessa. She's thirteen. I think she goes to school with Sharon. What's Sharon's last name?'

I screwed up my lunch bag. I imagined Kevin would do the same to my head if he knew the story. ‘Lived in Mullet Head all your life?'

‘Pardon? Yes. What did you say your sister's name was again? Sharon . . . ?'

‘DiMartino,' I said. My voice squeaked on the
Mar
bit.

‘Yes, that's right! She's stayed at our place a couple of times. She was there just recently. She's lovely. Very bright young lady that one.'

‘If you say so.'

‘It's true. Reminds me of that girl on
The Simpsons
. Lisa Simpson.'

Kevin was packing his lunch rubbish into his little esky and he froze with a revelation. ‘Come to think of it, Vanessa has stayed at Sharon's place, too. My daughter had a sleepover at your place. Only a couple of weeks back. I think it was Sharon's birthday. You must have met her. She has blondish hair and green eyes.'

I held my chin and looked at the treetops. I shook my head. ‘I don't think so. My sister has so many mates. I make myself scarce if she's having a party.'

‘Yes. That sounds like a good idea.'

I sighed into my hand and thought that the gossip didn't flow as readily in the Daly household as it did in ours. Thankfully. And then it dawned on me that Kevin might have been trying to find out if I had anything to hide. He might have been sussing out if I was guilty. Saying I didn't know her would have been like a confession.

‘Hang on,' I said. ‘I know your daughter! They call her Ness. That's what threw me. Not Vanessa, Ness.'

‘That's right! Ness. What did you think of her?'

‘Huh?'

‘What's she like . . . as far as teenage girls go?'

‘Oh. Fine. Yeah. She has a good laugh on her. I . . . I think she was the one who was scared of the dark.'

Kevin nodded. ‘That's her. She's been jittery about the dark since her brother died.'

‘Yeah. I'm really sorry.'

Kevin's whole body seemed to buckle a bit at the mention of his son. And nobody had told him that I'd slept with his daughter. Little s.

‘Yep,' he mumbled. ‘Thanks. I've got six bags full of sorry up in the garage. I'll put it with them.'

I almost said sorry again. He slid his esky into the back of the van and slammed the door.

I lowered myself into the passenger's seat. Kevin looked over his shoulder as he reversed out of the park. His face had changed again. The scowl was back.

We spent the afternoon working on a rough-in at Christmas Bay. Rough-in is plumbing jargon for a job where we (the plumbers) fit the pipes inside the walls of a house that's so new it's still a skeleton inside. It's drilling holes into the pine frame with the battery drill and hacksaws and pushing pipes through the holes and fittings and pipe saddles. It was tape measures and reading house plans and Kevin explaining things in a gentle voice. It was the incense-sweet smell of burning pine as Kevin used the oxy torch to weld the pipe. It was the shit-eating grin on my face when Kevin showed me how to use the oxy and I nailed my first weld like a pro.

‘Good job, Gary. You're a natural.'

When it came to knock off, I wasn't sure I wanted to leave. The job wasn't finished. I could see what needed to be done. It would have only taken us a couple more hours.

Kevin yelled at me to pack up the tools. ‘We'll be back tomorrow,' he said, as he jumped into the van. ‘If it was our own business we would have finished it off but we're working for Phil. We knock off at knock-off time.'

Philthy Phil. I told Kevin what I'd seen on Monday morning. About Pip and Philthy in his SS ute. He had a doubting look on his face.

‘Phil's been giving Pip a ride to work since she lost her licence last year.'

‘Lost her licence?'

‘Drink driving. They've been coming to work together for ages.'

‘Phil normally travels with his pants undone?'

‘Yeah, well. I'm not sure about that. Maybe he was late or something.'

‘I was ten minutes early and they were there when I arrived.'

Kevin poked his bottom lip out and shrugged. ‘You riding your bike all the way from Mullet Head?'

I nodded.

‘Fair hike first thing in the morning.'

‘Yeah. I like it. It's great. Keeps me fit and that.'

Kevin asked where we lived in Mullet Head and I explained where Marlin Avenue came off Tailor Drive.

‘I drive right past there in the morning. I could pick you up if you want.'

‘Serious?'

‘Yes. You'd have to be out the front at quarter to seven.'

‘I'll be there.'

‘You can think about it for a minute if you like. Think of your fitness. The open road. Air blowing through your . . . dreadies.'

‘I'll be there.'

The big bloke smiled.

$416.85. I looked at the little yellow envelope with ‘$416.85' and my name on it and thought there must have been a mistake. I thanked Pip and stuffed it in my pocket. It rattled with coins. Outside, I pushed my helmet on my head and squeezed the envelope. It was also bulging with notes.

‘Do you want a lift, Gary?' Kevin asked, and I jumped.

‘I've got my bike . . . '

‘Chuck it in the ute if you like.'

He pointed with his hairy chin at the old ute with the pipe racks over the tray and the green boat on top.

‘Cool. Fanks.'

Kevin slid his esky in the back and helped me thread my bike under the rack. The tray of the ute was empty except for a grey rubber mat, a paddle, Kevin's esky and a dusting of beach sand. My bike rested on a pedal and the seat.

Kevin shook it. ‘Should be right there.'

Inside, the ute smelled like an old car should: sunbaked plastic, dust and essence of oil smoke.