Making Laws for Clouds (14 page)

On the way to Domino's, I can practically taste it. Meatosaurus – there's nothing meatier. A selection of meats set in tomato sauce with a chewy pan pizza base, topped off with handfuls of mozzarella cheese.

Lucky Mum likes to eat early.

I'm at Domino's by about six and there's only a few people waiting so, in about fifteen minutes, I've got the boxes clipped to the back of my bike and I'm heading for home. Set to deliver a feast, and ready to watch them eat themselves sick. Because we can,
because I'm level two and that's worth noting. Worth a splurge, just this once.

Steve says we should get a jug, a jug or two of Fourex or maybe VB, but I tell him that I reckon I'll just stick to lites, maybe a couple of lites, just pots. ‘Drinking doesn't always work out so well in my family and, you know, there's that thing about it being in your genes.'

‘Oh, righto.'

‘So I'm kind of careful. If that's okay.'

‘Sure. But you like beer, don't you?'

‘Yeah. That's not the issue. Who wouldn't like beer?'

‘Yeah.'

He tells the guy at the bar we'll have a jug of full-strength and a jug of lite and he says, ‘Gives everyone a choice, hey.'

The guy gets the pouring started and leaves the jugs sitting there to fill. The girl next to us orders two rum and Cokes.

‘Better make it rum and Diet Cokes,' she says, and the guy says, ‘No worries. Diet Cokes it is.'

She's by herself, I think, so maybe they're both for her. Or maybe she's got a friend off ordering food. She
looks at me looking at her, and I hadn't expected that. I think I felt invisible, not quite in the room yet, without Tanika here. I don't want to be here like this, just me and the guys and beer. It's suddenly clear. And the girl with the rum and Diet Cokes looks at me as if I might be checking her out, and all I'm thinking is I wish Tanika was here. I'm looking right through her.

There's harness racing up on six screens, maybe from Albion Park in Brisbane. I've never really got harness racing – men on buggies hanging off the back of horses – but there are a few old guys standing round under the screens holding tickets, so they're obviously into it. What with that and all the pokies, there's quite a bit of betting going on in here tonight. The pokies built this place, probably. On the walls they've got photos of surf clubs before pokies – black-and-white photos – and they're just old shacks and a few muscly guys with messy hair and one boat. Not now. This place has high ceilings and exposed beams and a long restaurant overlooking the sea, a carpeted floor – good carpet – and bars made of expensive timber. And uniforms for staff and a dress code applying to all three types of acceptable patrons (members, guests and bona fide visitors).

Mum knows that a lot of that's got to be down to pokie money, and that's partly what she's on about. The money comes from somewhere, and some of it comes from people a bit like Dad, who didn't mind a
wager on whatever was going. And none of it – none of it – comes from me, and she should know that. And she shouldn't get stupid about it because she should just know.

Steve and I each take a jug and a few glasses and we go back to the table. His fisherman's basket's arrived while we've been at the bar, and he sticks a few chips in his mouth as soon as he's put the glasses down.

He starts pouring himself a full-strength beer and I pour myself a lite and he says, ‘Our young Mr Level Two's pacing himself. Probably figures he'll have more fun watching you blokes get pissed and stupid than if he got too far that way himself.'

‘Always been a thinker,' Laszlo says as he goes for Steve's jug and pours himself a glass. ‘Good on you, Kane.'

‘Pours better than you too, Lurch,' Trev says. ‘Are you planning to drink that or use it as an aid to shaving?'

‘Ah, you're all bloody comedians, aren't ya?' Lurch says, in a way that's not exactly happy ‘And so bloody funny that you do verges for a living. Any bloody funnier and they might even let you stick bitumen into holes in the road.'

It's a joke, but a little obscure. Not to worry. That's Lurch for you.

The others are all having burgers – Lurch, Trev and Benno – but I told them I'd eaten at home so I'd just have a couple of beers. The way things went at home, I couldn't spend any more money on food tonight. Plus, that piece of pizza was just about enough.

Steve says he doesn't like calamari, but he can never talk them into extra prawns instead so he's got a couple of calamari rings going if I want them. Sometimes people trash calamari in the deep fryer and the rings are like little white car tyres inside the crumb coating, but these ones aren't bad.

It's hard to believe what Mum said. And I can't remember the exact words any more, so maybe I'm not getting it right. I had such a clear plan for this evening. It had been such a good day, so maybe I didn't want to listen to anything that'd spoil it. That's all I thought was going on – the usual crap at home, the crap that's become usual – and then it took a turn. All that stuff started coming out and it seemed to be about my life and the time when it began. I'd always known it hadn't been the best of circumstances, but I thought they must have been good times anyway Good in some respects, at least.

Like before Christmas, like the last two months or so – the best summer of my life, and some of the worst days I've had in ages.

Tanika turns up when Lurch is off getting another
jug (full-strength). She looks like Kylie Minogue to me, or as good as you get round here. Kylie Minogue from round about the time of ‘Locomotion', but with much more original teeth. And she's dressed up for this, for tonight, because she wants to let me know my level two's a big deal. And I appreciate that.

Suddenly, she realises we're all watching her walk across the room and she gets embarrassed, but the guys don't stop watching. There's this thing about going the group perve when you're working on a road. Everyone expects it, and there's got to be some perks with the job. They watch her all the way to the table, and Trev pulls up a stool so she can sit between him and me.

‘Hi,' she says to me, and she puts her hand out and touches my side as she pushes herself up onto the stool.

It's all just part of the hello, but it's also taken in by the group perve, and I'm kind of ready for them to stop it now. This is Tanika we're dealing with, not passing pedestrian traffic, and we're not on the job now. She's got a midriff top on, and my hand goes on her bare back, just as a reflex because she touched me.

‘Introductions wouldn't go astray,' Benno says, so I do the honours.

Tanika says it's good to meet them and that she's heard a lot about them, though I'm not sure she has. She's got lip gloss on, and big earrings, and she's blow
dried her hair so that it's bigger than usual, big and frizzy. With the short skirt and the midriff top, it's a hot combo. And Trev's perving her right up and down at close proximity and then giving me a look that says I must be the luckiest man around, and what did I ever do?

Good question. She's just in from outside, so her back is warm under my hand, like the evening out there. Her skin often surprises me. Mine's always dry and rough, and it's not helped by sun and work and sweat, and I thought skin was just skin until I met her. Tanika's skin is always soft and smooth.

I am to turn these thoughts, Father Steele says, into an appreciation of the wonders of nature. And I truly appreciate the fact that nature is under my hand just now, even if it comes along loaded with improper thoughts.

‘Hey, I picked Harbo up from the hospital this afternoon,' she says to me, and then she looks around at the others. ‘Harbo's this old guy we help out sometimes. He's kind of sick. They thought he had cancer for a while there but it's actually TB, a sort of chest infection. He'd had it a long time ago and it was coming back. Anyway . . .' my turn again to get her attention ‘. . . they're pretty happy with him. He'll be on the tablets for a while, but they reckon they're doing the job.'

‘That's good news. So we'll have the old bugger round for a while yet.'

‘Well, probably. Not that you'd think that to talk to him.'

We don't give them the whole story. We know what the whole story is, just the two of us. Harbo only heard the word cancer when the doctors talked through the possibilities, and he walked out of that hospital thinking he should get his affairs in order. We made him go back there, and it took some pushing. I told him he owed us a favour for the work we put in on his boat, and that was it – go back to the hospital one more time and get everything properly looked at.

‘Wouldn't mind a drink,' Tanika says. ‘You wouldn't have a spare glass so I could pour myself a beer?'

‘Jeez, we're a rude mob,' Trev says. ‘I'll get you one. You're sure you're right with beer? You don't want spirits or anything? A Breezer or something?'

‘Beer's good.'

He slides off his stool, and looks past her at me. ‘
And
she thinks beer's good. Jesus, Kane, where does a bloke get himself one of these?' And he rolls his eyes and sets off for the bar.

‘He's a bit of a dag,' Tanika says, smiling about it.

‘He's a lot of a dag,' Lurch says. ‘He's the whole arse end of the sheep if you ask me.'

‘Hey, did you get that dickhead on the door with the “no trainers” rule?' she says, and she swings round to give Benno and Lurch a look at her shoes.

And therefore her excellent legs. They perve mightily, like two people with a lifelong passion for footwear. We probably won't be seeing these guys again socially, that's what I reckon. At least not until a time of year when there's a fair bit less flesh on show.

‘They're not trainers,' she says. ‘Are they? You guys'd agree with me, wouldn't you?'

Steve leans over and says, just to me, ‘I reckon she could say they were clogs and those guys'd agree with her. What do you think?'

‘I told him they were a fashion shoe,' she says to the other two, and it's become a bit of a performance. ‘And if he didn't know the fashion that shouldn't be my problem.'

Too right,' Benno says. ‘Do you want me to hit him for you?'

And he could be serious, but we all laugh. The rest of us laugh, then Benno laughs too.

‘I might tidy up a bit of that drool around your mouth first, but, Benno,' Steve says. ‘And maybe stop the tongue hanging out. You don't want to go belting people while you look like your mind's on other things. It could be seen as impolite.'

‘And . . .' Lurch says, and then he remembers that
only Steve makes jokes about Benno, so he stops. ‘Nothing. They're not trainers, but. Obviously. They're a fashion shoe. Hey?'

Benno isn't smiling. He doesn't have to. Benno will never get caught up laughing at something he doesn't definitely think is funny, and that'd include nothing that's at his expense. But we know how it is and, if you can get a laugh out of Benno, you know you've done well.

Trev comes back with a glass and pours a pretty dodgy beer for Tanika.

‘Fetch me a bloody razor, someone,' Lurch says. ‘Mr Neale's up for a shave.'

‘It'll settle,' Trev says in a shitty kind of way, and Lurch just laughs.

Tanika holds up the glass and it's more than half-f of foam and she says, ‘Yeah, and any time you want to pour me a beer to go with this, that'd be fine.'

And she gets a laugh out of Benno with that. There's a lot to admire about Tanika Bell, always, even if I could have done without her driving my pervy workmates crazy with that performance about the shoes. It'd actually not be that hard to get them talking for an hour or two about a fine pair of tits or a great arse, or whatever, so it's not a huge accomplishment really to fascinate them with your obviously excellent legs.

‘Well, now that we've all got a glass,' Steve says, ‘a toast to young Kane and his accomplishments. One of the hardest young workers for Caloundra city, and a guy who'll go far, hey?'

And we clink our beer glasses together over the middle of the table, and even Benno gives a nod while the others are saying, ‘Good on you, Kane,' and ‘Go for it, Kane,' and things like that. It's a good moment, a good moment in a strange, strange day.

There's talking after that, but I'm not much into it. It's my mother I need to talk to, but probably in the morning.

Steve says something about plants, my interest in working with plants, and they all start talking about TV gardening shows, particularly the backyard makeover type. No one's interested in the quieter kind any more, the kind where there's just some old guy with a lisp talking about plants as though he's a bit excited. Now they have to rip your yard up to make it look like anything worth watching, and they always finish the job with only seconds to spare.

The guys talk about ‘Backyard Blitz' and we all know every one of them's totally hot for Jody but it's Trev who actually says it first.

‘She knows so much about plants and how they'd do in different parts of Australia,' he says, in awe of something (and it might be wisdom, I suppose, but it's
probably not). ‘She knows more about 'em than they'd ever put on the tag that you get on them when they're at the shop. She's good. She gets real dirty too. Specially on the wet jobs. Real dirty I love an episode of the Blitz when you see the clouds rollin' in on the Saturday morning and they're knee deep in dry dirt already and you just know Jody's going to be getting all muddy. And that's when you wish there was another chick in the crew as well, and they'd have disagreements on the wet days, really bad ones, and . . .' And that's the moment when he realises he isn't in his lounge room at home, talking to himself. ‘Christ. More beer?'