Gone Fishing (30 page)

 

Chapter Twenty-eight

The fundraising art auction takes place on the third Saturday evening in March in the heart of Sydney's posh eastern suburbs. The works adorn the stark white walls of a cavernous echoing gallery owned by Michael Barnes, a very rotund, very volatile, completely passionate curator with big bushy hair; he's affectionately known as the Wombat. The weather is freakish. Stinking hot – forty degrees even with the sun well and truly set. The moon is huge. The kind of night in ancient times that men went mad and women hid. As if to prove the point, a hundred noisy rabble-rousers are gathered with placards denouncing Cutter Islanders as silvertailed toffs trying to prevent others from enjoying their god-given delights.

‘Who sent you?' Sam asks the heavily sweating bloke who appears to be in charge.

‘Mulvaney,' he responds without hesitating. ‘You wouldn't have a cold drink anywhere, would you, mate?'

Sam goes off. The protesters begin chanting: ‘Down with NIMBY bastards.' He returns with a large bottle of water. The leader glugs most of it before passing it around. Figuring he owes Sam a favour, he says: ‘Just so you know, mate, we've been told to smash the place. You might want to keep your head down. Nothing personal, you understand. Just earning a dollar here.'

Sam rushes to inform the Wombat, or Barnesie, as he prefers to call him. Wearing a sleek black suit, red-framed sunglasses and vermillion-painted lips that are bleeding into the perspiration running down his face, he's installed in a kissing booth at the entrance. ‘Gimme a kiss, lovelies,' he says, mock smooching. ‘Five dollars a kiss.' Siobhan, who's dressed in the same glad rags she wore to the black-tie fundraiser and who looks as glamorous as Maureen O'Hara in her Hollywood heyday, gets it instantly. ‘He's sending up John James,' she says. ‘Sending up the cult.' She parts with her money and leans over. Instead of kissing him, she half-whispers in his ear. ‘I will love you forever for this.'

The fake guru gives her a fake blessing and showers her with fake money. The Eastern Suburbs matrons, thrilled to find themselves in the midst of exciting bedlam instead of boring chitchat, line up like over-heated, fluffed-up chooks.

‘Those blokes outside. They're going to bust the place, Barnesie. What do you want to do?'

‘Ooooh,' he twitters, rubbing his hands in delight. ‘I smell a front page. In the art world, all publicity is good publicity. It ramps up prices faster than a freshly dead painter.'

In the midst of what is fast turning into a riot, Jack Mundey steps off a bus and even the protesters go quiet, parting like the Red Sea to let the great man make his way into the gallery, where he's due to make a speech. Soon as he's through the doors, Barnesie bolts inside, shoots the lock and gets on with the show under the happy influence of a noisy air-conditioner running flat out. The rent-a-crowd of hooligans, their moment of reverence for Mundey – whose fame is more apocryphal than real to them – is quickly forgotten. They try to smash their way in. Barnesie calls the media, then waits ten minutes before calling the cops.

Mundey is unruffled and Barnesie leads him to the podium like a precious jewel. Mundey gets straight to the point: ‘Parks are for people,' he says. ‘To turn public spaces over to private estates for the very rich is unconscionable. We must not allow this to occur. Will neither of our major political parties act to save this beautiful piece of coastline?'

The room erupts in cheers. The art auction raises a whopping fifty-seven grand from the sale of thirty paintings by the Island artists and seventeen works donated by friends of the curator (‘I didn't even have to threaten to drop them from my list'). ‘At this rate,' Sam jokes, ‘we'll be able to buy the park ourselves.'

Siobhan gives him a thoughtful, almost cunning look through narrowed eyes. ‘Out of the mouths of babes,' she says.

Later in the week, Barnesie, who's found his inner thespian and is hell-bent on making the most of his newfound role, repeats his performance on the pavement outside Mulvaney's office, tossing fake banknotes into the air with gleeful abandon. ‘No resort. No bridge. Save Garrawi, bless you, bless you,' he chants until his voice gives out. One or two passers-by pounce on the money, thinking it is real, before striding off in disgust. Ben Butler calls Sam to give a full and frank account of the reaction of the Minister for Housing and Development to the energetic art dealer. ‘He went totally ballistic. Ape-shit,' he reports, ‘Completely nuts.'

The following day, the goons descend on the Square. They hang around for hours. Pointing fingers, like guns, at passing Islanders: ‘Boom,' they say. ‘Boom, boom. Boom. Love your dog? Boom. Love your cat? Boom.'

The Islanders swallow their rage and instead, laugh in the vacant faces. ‘Love your
outfits
, boys – off to a funeral, are you?' ‘Bit old for cowboy games, aren't you?' ‘Could you help carry the shopping, loves? There's more in the boot. No, love, I'll take the light bags. How about you carry the three slabs of beer and two cases of wine?' And on it goes until the Misses Skettle, who are collecting signatures in the shade of the giant cockatoo, which has been returned to its customary perch, finally have enough. Arms linked, brows furrowed, they march in their kitten-heel shoes to the pair of dark glasses they've decided is the leader. Pounding one arthritic old finger each against a gym-toned chest, they utter in perfect unison: ‘Bugger off. And take your simpletons with you.'

For the second time in her recent life, Ettie Brookbank, who's been keeping an eye on the women all day, nearly has to be resuscitated. Five minutes later, to everyone's amazement including the Misses Skettle, the goons depart in a cloud of stinking, burning rubber. ‘Losers!' shout the Misses Skettle, raising clenched fists high. Ettie reaches for the Thermos and swigs straight from the mouth. ‘We knew they'd run,' the Misses Skettle explain. ‘Bullies can't handle old ladies. We remind them of their mothers.'

Siobhan O'Shaughnessy literally pops a shirt button when Ettie gives an account of the stoush between two sparrow-like genteel old ladies and six towering muscle-bound goons. ‘Oh bejaysus, I wish I'd been there,' she says, wiping tears of laughter. ‘They took off like startled crows, you say?' And she bends double, laughing until her stomach hurts.

Then suddenly, everything goes quiet. Lowdon, who's been holed up in his house with a broken foot, disappears. Mulvaney's almost constant presence in the daily press ends. There's not a goon to be seen. Sam tries to call Delaney for a chat. He's no longer surprised when the call goes straight to message bank.

March drifts into April. The heats finally starts to lose its ferocity although the sea is still so warm the fish are sluggish and pathetically easy to hook. Anglers feel like they're cheating and go after bigger game fish to keep the thrill of the challenge intact. Nights are blessedly cooler. A single cotton blanket appears on beds to ward off the chill that creeps in an hour before the kookaburras sound the morning reveille.

The chef cooks like a maniac: fish, fish and more fish. Sushi, sashimi, whole, baked, curried, stewed, grilled and dishes of lemon-cured ceviche. Ettie swears she's on the verge of transforming into a mermaid. The chef smiles with delight: ‘You will always be my siren,' he declares gallantly.

Yes, but for how long? Ettie thinks, understanding the time for denial is over. Theirs is not a relationship built on love, children, grandchildren, the richness of family and history, the iron grip of decades of support through good and bad times. She is menopausal. No amount of the Misses Skettles' sweet-potato cream, evening primrose oil or even hormone replacement therapy can hold back aging forever. Her libido, already erratic, will drop. (Never mind the stories octogenarians tell documentary makers about their rampant sex life – fantasy or lies if her own experience is typical and she has no reason to think it isn't.) Her ability to function sexually will diminish. Their relationship will be forced to embrace a new reality. Or end. Squaring her shoulders, she asks for a snifter of cognac that she tells Marcus she would like to sip while she dangles her feet in the bath-warm water at the end of the jetty. Will he join her?

He returns, hands her a brandy balloon and drops to her side with a small grunt. With a pang, she takes in his smooth, tanned legs, where not a single vein has bled into a small blue badge to mark the years. The difference between the way men and women age is a cruel joke, she thinks. Surely, in a fairer world, their diminishing capacities – or does she mean capabilities – would be shared more evenly.

Before she has time to lose her courage, she spells out the future – her future and therefore their future – if they have one after she finishes – in terms that are blunt and even a little exaggerated. She wants him to be under no illusions. It is like taking a knife to her heart and slicing it in thin slivers before tossing it in a smoking-hot frying pan and burning it to a cinder.

The chef listens closely, seriously. He doesn't squirm or fidget. Nor does he try to dismiss Ettie's worries and fears as a momentary bout of female hysteria. He understands precisely the cost to her of these intimate revelations. Who, man or woman, can easily bear to admit they have reached a stage where there is no cure and no going back?

When she is done, he reaches across the short distance between them for her hand. Has he not learned already that to sit too close causes her body heat to soar, brings on discomfort and distress?

‘This is about sex, no? Not love?'

She nods.

He is earnest, grappling with words so that when he speaks, they cannot do harm or lead to misunderstanding. ‘Sex is a hunger that is never satisfied.' He feels her stiffen. Knows he's already floundering. Rushes to explain. ‘Love, Ettie, love sustains us. Not sex. Never sex. It is a side effect, yes, if this is the word. Disappointing, often, unless it is part of love. Do you agree with this?'

She nods.

‘If I may explain?'

She nods again.

‘When we are together, the world shines. When we are apart, it is like the lights have been turned off. For me, this is love. This doesn't die. Sex, well, of course if you ask, I will never say no. But this is not –'

‘Let's go to bed,' she interrupts, breathing in like oxygen every massive nuance in a few simple lines that she knows will be burned in her mind forever. ‘While I've still got a couple of hormones left.'

Ettie hosts the fifth Save Garrawi meeting on the back deck of The Briny Café on a spectacular evening stroked by a cool southerly. Members of the committee cannot decide whether to feel jumpy or confident. They all agree, though, that this sudden quietness on the battlefront is eerie.

At a loss about what to do next, they tuck into one of Ettie's new recipes: slow-cooked neck of lamb eased off the bone and swizzled in a sauce based on tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, chilli, capers and olives. Put the same sauce on spaghetti and it would be called puttanesca.

‘More chilli,' Sam advises.

‘Less chilli,' Siobhan contradicts, entering the food debate for the first time anyone can remember.

‘Perfection,' Marcus adjudicates. But no one takes any notice of him because Ettie could dish up raw rats' tails and he would find nothing to complain about.

Siobhan is unusually vague when they look to her for new directions. They worry she might be wearing out, that the pressure is getting to her, but they are experienced enough now in the sleight-of-hand ways of developers and politicians to know that quiet times can be just as dangerous as open warfare. So they wait, worrying they are not as alert or inspired as they once were. That they have lost the knack of stepping forward. But how do you lead a charge when the enemy has gone to ground?

Towards the end of the meeting, Sam tells them about Artie's suggestion for a rally and a march in the streets of Sydney. Siobhan suddenly seems to wake up and speaks out: ‘What day does parliament reconvene? Do we know?'

Seaweed pulls out his phone and Googles the question. ‘Second sitting is in a week.'

‘Right, well how about we organise a small rally for the Sunday following this one? Seaweed, put out a notice on the website. We're holding a protest march and everyone who fancies a day out for a good cause is invited.'

Reinvigorated by the thought of action, members shrug off their sloth. ‘What'll we call it?' Seaweed asks.

They toss around ideas for the next hour. ‘RAPE,' Siobhan finally decides. ‘Rally Against Plundering the Environment.' Hear, hear. ‘We'll need posters, newsletters, placards, banners and loud-hailers.'

‘Leave it to the artists!' Hear, hear.

‘How about a band? Music is a huge drawcard,' Jenny suggests. ‘Big Phil and Rexie might enjoy the opportunity to take their music to a wider audience!' Hear, hear.