Audrey Liza – Chapter 4
In the Blood
Jamie took another mouthful of cider. When in Rome. Though in fact, he seemed to be the only bloke in the bar not drinking beer.
Edward Doherty, Doc to his mates, leaned in to emphasise the point. His eyebrows became a single shaggy line, his eyes gleamed, a smile twitched the lines around his resolute mouth.
‘You can do this, Jamie. You absolutely can.’
‘Glad you think so.’
‘I know so. These boats were built by fishermen, timber getters, farmers, coastal traders. Rarely by trained shipwrights and boat builders. It isn’t that hard to pick up the skills, and I reckon you’re a handy bloke already, and a quick learner too. I can handle the awkward jobs that’d be expensive to stuff up. For the rest, I’ll teach you what you need to know. If you decide I’m too pricey, or too slow, or too much of a grumpy old bastard to work with, there’s always the Wooden Boat School, just upriver at Franklin.’
‘Oh, I don’t think –’
Doc held up his hand.
‘The question is, why do it? That’s what you should be asking yourself, mate.’
Doc paused for a gulp of beer, wiped his mouth. It had been a warm afternoon, and they’d spent three hours crawling all over Jamie’s new purchase, tied up alongside the jetty.
‘And if you can’t come up with a convincing answer, my advice is to walk away now. You’ve only spent fifty K so far, which isn’t bad at all for a forty-four footer that floats, has a big Gardner diesel in good order, and is nearly hundred percent Huon pine.
‘You can still get your money back, maybe a bit more. There’s plenty of blokes out there with more money than sense, who have some sort of weird romantic fantasy about owning a wooden fishing boat.’
Ouch.
‘So. Cards on the table. Why a cray boat?’
‘They seem a good, practical boat for a leisure conversion. Seaworthy, so I’m told. Decent hull volume for accommodation. Good fuel economy. And they look pretty. The wheelhouse at the back, the narrow stern, the full, round shape of the bow.’
‘True enough. A trim little bum and a big bust, that’s what we like to see in a cray boat.’
‘Glad you said that, Doc, not me … Then there’s the personal connection. Dad was a cray man. Martin Anderson, ran a boat out of St Helens. Maria Belle. Back in the fifties and sixties.’
Doc thought for a bit.
‘Might have heard of your old man, and Maria Belle. Was she wrecked in the Gulch at Bicheno? Seventy-two?’
‘That’d be about right.’
‘Lot of good boats sunk that night – nasty business. So you grew up around cray boats, eh … Did you work with your dad?’
‘Nah. Never got the chance. Mum took me away, after my older brother Lachie drowned, out shooting pots in the tinny. I was just a little tacker. Didn’t let me see Dad for ten years. By that time, he’d lost Maria Belle. Lost everything he had to live for, I guess. So he was busy drinking himself to death.’
Doc tutted, shook his head.
‘Sorry to hear that. Your mum did what she thought she had to do, I’m sure. Might’ve saved your life, you know. It was full on out there, back in the sixties. So anyway you grew up … and went to work in the mines, you said earlier. Out of the frying pan, eh?’
‘Aww, maybe. Only did one stint underground. After that, I always stuck to open pits. Kalgoorlie, Broken Hill. Orange. Telfer. There are worse jobs. I’m a sparky, not a miner. I fly in, they hand me the keys to a ute and a nice, clean donga. I drive around to different sites, test stuff, fill out the paperwork, check in with the supervisor. Back to the office and run off some documentation. On to the next site. Eight on, six off. No dramas.’
‘Bit of a bludge then?’
Doc’s face betrayed no sign that he was winding him up, but Jamie knew damned well he was. Getting the measure of him. Having a dig to see if he’d big-note himself. Sly old bastard.
‘Aww yeah, pretty cruisy.’
‘Anyway, why this cray boat?’
Jeez, talk about the Spanish Inquisition. Was it really going to be this difficult, to give this bloke a job?
‘It was for sale. Right time, right price. Nice-looking boat that hadn’t been ruined by a clumsy conversion. A working boat until recently – in commercial survey till year before last. Authentic. And I liked the idea of a Tasmanian boat. Getting back to my, ah, roots?’
Doc nodded, obviously satisfied with the answers he was getting so far.
‘Fair enough. What are you going to do with her?’
‘Live aboard, for a few years, maybe longer, who knows? While I’ve got some living left in the old bones. See a bit more of Oz. The wet bits round the edge this time, not the dry bits in the middle.’
Doc smiled into his beer, then sighed. Shook his head.
‘If only it was that easy, Jamie.’
How so?
Doc’s phone vibrated on the counter. He glanced at it.
‘Come back to our place for tea, and we’ll talk some more. The missus is expecting you.’
‘What about my van?’
‘It’ll be fine at the yard. I’ll drop you back there later. You can kip there if you like. Use the dunny and the shower. I’ll give you a key. Unless you want Annie to make up a bed?’
‘Thanks, I’ll be right. Might as well get used to it.’
‘As you wish.’
As they got into Doc’s ute, he gave Jamie another of his looks.
‘If you don’t mind my saying, I was expecting a bigger van. You really going to live in that shoebox all winter?’
‘If I have to. I was hoping to move onto the boat, after a few weeks.’
‘Ha! I admire your optimism, mate.’
As they drove, Doc pointed out local landmarks. Then, à propos of nothing:
‘You weren’t expecting the wet well, were you?’
‘How’d you mean?’
‘Come on! Don’t bullshit me,’ he chuckled. ‘I saw your face.’
Might as well come clean.
‘I was envisaging a tank. Like a big livebait tank. Steel or fibreglass. An inlet and an outlet.’
‘Ha. Not a hundred little round holes either side of the hull, eh?’
Then:
‘I knew it before you came down. When you wrote to me about “taking the well out.” instead of “filling the well in.” Not the way we did things, in those days. Keep it simple, see? No pumps, no extra weight or structure in the boat. Just a watertight bulkhead for’ard, and one aft. Simple and effective. And kind on the boat.’
That was a puzzle. How could it be ‘kind on the boat’, drilling it full of holes like a bloody colander?
‘This is us,’ said Doc, pulling abruptly off the main road into a dirt driveway, at the end of which sprawled a big single-storey house. ‘Home sweet home.’
He sounded the horn twice. Two short-legged, barrel-bodied dogs ran to greet them, barking loudly. Corgis.
‘Good working dogs, little short-arsed things that they are,’ said Doc, fondly.
‘Are you pleased with your new boat?’ asked Annie Doherty as she dished up dinner. Home-baked lamb and rosemary pie, veg and mash.
‘Yes, thank you, I am. Reckon I could have looked a lot further, and done a lot worse, as they say.’
‘Good! I’m sure Doc will look after you.’
They could only be a few years older than him, but Jamie felt … what? Mothered? Looked after, to use Annie’s phrase. He liked this couple, the way they welcomed him into their home, their straightforward kindness. It seemed to belong to another generation.
‘I hear you’re a local boy, returned home.’
‘Not exactly local. Northeast. St Helens, Scottsdale, Beaconsfield.’
‘That’s near enough.’
‘But I’ve been on the big island forty years.’
‘Is that right? What were you doing over there?’ She said it as if it were a strange, outlandish place.
‘Oh, this and that. I worked in the mines, travelled around for a few years. Met a girl, settled down, had kids. The usual story. Two kids, a boy and a girl, grown up now. My ex and I ran a farm. Well more of a farmlet, a market garden. In the New South Wales south coast hinterland.’
‘A man of many parts. A tradie, a farmer, a miner.’
‘Only way to make a living in small-scale farming, Annie. Off-farm income.’
‘That’s true, I’m afraid. And now you’re going to be a sailor.’
‘Eventually, when the Audrey Liza’s ready.’ He glanced at Doc. The man was apparently engrossed in the food on his plate.
‘Do you have much experience with boats?’
‘Not much,’ he fudged. ‘Though my dad was a seaman. Merchant navy, then a cray fisherman.’
‘Ah, so it’s in the blood then. Salt water in your veins.’
He studied her face, but could detect no trace of mischief there. Her expression was bland and benevolent, her gaze steady. ‘More mash?’
Doc made an odd spluttering sound, then put his fist over his mouth. Coughed.
‘Went down the wrong way,’ he muttered.
You’re a sly one, too, Annie Doherty.
Coming up:
This Friday in The Last Orchard: Leigh starts to explore Vern’s orchard. She finds the contrast between her childhood memories and the present confronting. (Paid subscription.)
Next Tuesday in Audrey Liza: Doc gives Jamie the lowdown on the cost of realising his dreams. Reality begins to dawn on the new boat owner.
I always learn something from you, Steve. :-)