Night Swimming Page 5

  ‘Good. I’ll let you be on the committee. It is imperative that we go to the pub after you finish work. My entire future is at stake.’

  The publican is not keen on hosting our musical.

  Clancy leans over the bar between Mr Down and Mr Jameson, trying to get the attention of Mrs Hunter as she pours a beer. ‘Mrs Hunter,’ he says, in his deepest possible voice, which is not at all deep, ‘how would you feel about offering live entertainment at your venue? I feel like it would really boost attendance.’

  Mrs Hunter has managed the pub for at least five years, because the Worthingtons, who own it, are too old to manage it now. We live in an ageing town. It’s comforting and safe and everyone has lots of good stories, but I do worry that once the older generation dies, the town will gradually die with them. Mrs Hunter isn’t with her husband anymore (he moved to Adelaide to build boats) but we still call her Mrs Hunter. She wears her hair short with a shock of purple at the front—she thinks it is ‘jazzy’—and has the sort of thick build that makes me think she’d be a great hugger. Not that I have told her this.

  She takes a minute to respond, placing the beer on a coaster in front of Mr Down. I watch the condensation on the outside of the glass. She sets her hands on the bar and stares right at Clancy before she speaks. ‘Clancy, are you going to be the one doing the entertaining?’

  ‘I may be part of the show.’ His nonchalant tone betrays him; of course he’s going to be part of the show.

  ‘We can’t have a cabaret in here, Clancy. It’ll drive customers away.’

  Clancy puts his hands together as if praying, moving them back and forth to emphasise each point. ‘I am really out of my cabaret stage. It’s a musical, but it’ll be fun and upbeat and everyone will be able to eat their parmas while it’s on. It will in no way interfere with the running of the pub.’ He is making promises he can’t keep. I am trying not to undermine him, but I can’t stop myself from cringing.

  His theatrical hand movements have obviously affected Mrs Hunter, who throws her own hands up in the air. ‘What’s the incentive for me to have it here, then? I like you and I like your parents but it’ll be an inconvenience.’

  ‘It is very disappointing that a community-oriented business owner such as yourself would not support cultural programs in your own town. It’s like you want the youth to be disengaged.’ His tone is absurdly indignant.

  Mr Down laughs, glances over at us. ‘Hi, Kirby. Didn’t see you there.’ We shake hands. He is sunburnt, his nose peeling.

  I give Mr Jameson a pat on the shoulder. ‘Hi, Mr Jameson.’

  ‘Don’t ask me about the aliens,’ he says into his drink.

  ‘Now you’re just being ridiculous,’ says Mrs Hunter, still talking to Clancy.

  ‘He has a flair for the melodramatic,’ I explain. ‘Could I get a packet of chips? Chicken, please.’ I fish a fiver out of my pocket.

  She takes my money and hands over the little green packet and my change, carrying on her conversation with Clancy all the while. ‘Why don’t you put it on in your parents’ restaurant?’

  ‘It’s too small, and my parents don’t believe in musicals because they think they’re too American. Never mind all the English ones, or the French, or even the Chinese. This would be a brilliant performance space.’ He gesticulates to the back of the pub. ‘Stage there, seating, green room in the beer garden, beautiful acoustics—what more could you ask for?’

  ‘If your parents aren’t keen, I’m not going against them.’

  ‘I am prac-tic-a-lly an a-dult.’ He emphasises each syllable. Mrs Hunter is used to belligerence in the pub, but I am embarrassed at this stage, especially considering Clancy doesn’t have intoxication as an excuse for his behaviour. ‘I am four months off eighteen.’

  ‘So a bit old for me to indulge you in a song-and-dance routine.’

  I try not to say ooh. I exchange a look with Mr Down.

  ‘It will be a piece of professionally produced musical theatre with a multi-person cast. I can guarantee between fifteen and twenty attendees, most of whom will binge drink, despite the health dangers. One night only. Two hours. Three hours max. A Saturday evening, say, two months from now. I will be forever grateful. You’ll be personally mentioned when I win a Tony. Not if, when. I will be a musical theatre trailblazer. The lack of roles in the theatre for Asian-Australians? That’s not going to be a problem, after me. And everyone will know this is where my story began. You’re going to feel a lot better about yourself if you support local talent. Whereas, if you deny my right to perform musical theatre in my hometown, this could turn into Footloose.’

  He isn’t likely to sound more reasonable than this. She thinks for so long I eat half my packet of chips. She even wipes down the bar. Clancy is vibrating on the spot.

  Finally, she exhales, a great sigh. ‘You’ll have to pay to hire the space, because all this stage area you’ve got planned usually contains tables where I could have paying customers. Three hundred dollars for three hours on a Saturday night. Not a minute more.’

  ‘What?’ He is so loud everyone in the pub pivots to look at him.

  ‘That’s a very competitive rate,’ Mrs Hunter says defensively.

  ‘This is a monopoly! This is not legal! I will take this to the ombudsman!’ He turns to me. ‘Is there a pub ombudsman?’

  ‘Can we pay it off, like layby, would that be all right?’ I ask Mrs Hunter. ‘We’ll have to get the money together.’

  Mrs Hunter nods.

  Clancy grabs my shoulder, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Kirby! This is extortion!’

  ‘I don’t think you know what extortion is. Do you want to have your play or not?’

  Clancy eventually concedes that he does want to have the play, and we agree to reconvene the committee (me and him) when we’ve worked out where we’ll get the cash from. I apologise to Mrs Hunter and Mr Down and Mr Jameson and the rest of the patrons, and make my way home.

  When I get in, the kitchen table is cluttered with paperwork: receipts, bills, statements, the minutiae of our financial lives. Mum is at her spot at the head of the table, clicking a pen over and over again. She looks up and takes off her reading glasses.

  ‘I had something I wanted to test on you,’ she says, and gestures for me to sit. I sit next to her. She looks around the kitchen, trying to find something. ‘Ah!’ It’s a spray bottle. A new product. No label, dark glass, no hint of its contents.

  Without warning, she sprays it in my face. ‘Ugh, Mum, can you not mace me?’

  She spritzes it in her own face, then puts her glasses back on. Then she waves her hand in the air to waft the scent around. ‘It’s a face mist. What do you think?’

  ‘It smells like lavender and dirty socks. It smells like something someone would use to disguise the overpowering stench of having thirty cats living in their house.’

  ‘Exactly who I was aiming for. Who do you think buys our stuff?’

  ‘I think our market is more mothers of children with sensitive skin.’

  ‘More lavender, less dirty socks, then?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say. ‘I don’t know why you thought putting dirty socks in was a good idea to begin with.’

  Mum smiles. It’s a rare sight.

  ‘I could be more involved with the goats and soap and everything, you know?’ I tell her. ‘I’m much better at this than Nathan is. Remember when he tried to eat a bar of soap because he thought goat’s milk meant it was edible? He’s clueless.’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘He was ten. He’s got smarter in the last eleven years. Slightly.’ She looks back at the piece of paper in front of her and sighs. ‘I better get back to this.’

  I get up to leave. Trying to explain my point of view to her seems pointless.

  Grandad bursts out from his bedroom, agitated. This is a fairly common occurrence.

  He’s patting at the pocket of his shirt and the pockets of his trousers. There’s a dribble of soup spilt down his shirt. ‘Jess? Jess? Where’s my
passbook? It’s pension day. I need to take my pension out.’ He hasn’t noticed that it’s after dark.

  Mum speaks slowly, her voice level. ‘It was pension day on Thursday. We spoke about it. I already took it out. The cash is in your dresser drawer under your hankies.’

  Grandad isn’t soothed. ‘See I need that money to pay the bills, Jess. That’s how I do it. I pay the bills at the post office in cash.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry. We pay them on the computer.’ She puts down the pen.

  ‘Some of them come in the mail and I have to pay them at the post office. You know how I do it.’

  Mum takes off her glasses again, slowly, balances them between her hands. ‘Yes, I know, Dad. We’ve got it all sorted.’

  ‘We’ll get the money out at the post office tomorrow,’ he says. ‘That’s that.’

  ‘We already got it out. It’s in your drawer. Bills are paid. I’m on top of it, don’t you stress. All right?’ She doesn’t falter. Mum is patient, but with Grandad she is most patient of all.

  Grandad gets more aggressive, accusatory, as if Mum is deliberately trying to undermine him. ‘Jess. What don’t you understand? I get cash out on pension day to pay the bills.’

  ‘I understand, Dad. We’ll deal with it in the morning. Yeah?’

  Then it passes. He nods, echoes her. ‘Deal with it in the morning.’ He turns and goes back to his room.

  Mum sits there in his wake for a minute, staring at the spot where he had stood. ‘Don’t know what to do,’ she says, all in one exhalation. I think she’s talking to herself, so I don’t respond.

  I was going to tell her about the photo in the paper that may or may not be of my father, but now seems the wrong time. She looks like her batteries have been totally drained. It would not be very sensitive of me to dump something heavy on her now—like discovering what the bloke who abandoned us has been up to all these years.

  So I say, ‘Shall I chuck some dinner on? And do you fancy a cuppa?’

  She squeezes out a smile. ‘We’ve got chicken soup in the freezer. Tea would be good.’

  The next night I’m up in my room re-reading Catch-22 in the hope that it’ll make sense to me on a second reading. So far, no dice. I hear banging out the front, and peer through my window, expecting to tell off Stanley for jumping around on the deck. I’ve seen it on YouTube videos, those jumping goats. It’s hilarious. Our goats don’t jump but if anyone is going to try new things, it will be Stanley. When I look down, though, it’s Clancy, tap-dancing on the front veranda.

  He’s wearing a skin-tight leopard-print dress, and by his feet is a green plastic box with a handle and holes in the top.

  ‘You happen to have a blonde wig?’ he calls out.

  I laugh, and head downstairs to let him in. At the door he gives a spin. ‘What do you reckon?’ Maude plonks herself in the doorway, wagging her tail for a pat. Clancy obliges her.

  ‘Magnificent. Suits you to a T.’

  ‘I feel like I could be a spokesmodel.’ He picks up a bar of soap from an open box by the door and holds it up to his face and speaks in dulcet tones. ‘Goat’s milk soap. Natural. Beautiful. Family-owned. Farmed and processed in the splendour of rural Australia. This fantastic product has cured my eczema, acne, rosacea, cirrhosis…’

  ‘Psoriasis,’ I correct him. ‘Cirrhosis is what alcoholics get.’

  He returns the soap to its box. ‘I’m a model, not a doctor.’

  ‘Where’s the dress from?’ I ask.

  ‘Would you believe my mum owns this? I didn’t think she was a fan of animal print.’

  ‘I can’t believe she let you borrow it.’

  ‘I sorta told her I was lending it to you. Not that you ever wear a dress unless somebody’s died. She didn’t seem to remember that. How about that wig?’

  ‘Do we have any wigs?’ I shout into the house.

  ‘Inside voice!’ Mum yells from the kitchen.

  In the lounge room, Clancy slaps Grandad on the shoulder. ‘Cyril!’ He has this whole blokey routine with my grandad, totally out of character—he isn’t sure how to deal with Grandad’s memory problem, and tries to disguise his unease.

  ‘It’s Clancy,’ I say.

  ‘Good to see you,’ says Grandad. Clancy could just as easily be a plumber as far as Grandad is concerned. He doesn’t even acknowledge that Clancy is wearing a leopard-print dress. He just keeps staring at the TV. It’s hard to tell how much he takes in; tomorrow he won’t be able to tell me what film he watched tonight, but he can probably tell you every single movie he saw in 1976.

  Clancy is uncomfortable but trying not to look it. I nod for us to go upstairs and he returns to his usual unusual self. My room is a mess: precarious piles of books on the floor, desk and bed. I make a mental note to ask Mr Pool if I can build some bookshelves. Clancy clears a space and sits down.

  ‘I’ve worked out that we can’t afford the rights to legally perform the musical,’ he announces. ‘So, there’s a bit of criminal activity already. Hopefully no one dobs us in because I don’t want to get sued. I’ve also worked out that we’re probably not going to get any more actors than the three of us. So I’ve decided which characters can be cut and what roles each of us will have. There’ll be some gender bending but it’s the only way it’ll work.’

  I shoot Clancy a look. ‘I’m not going to act. I can’t act. I certainly can’t sing. And, between Year Twelve and working at the restaurant, you do not have the time for directing and starring in a play.’

  ‘I know you don’t see this now, Kirbs, but this is an important part of your personal evolution. Think of your character arc.’

  I shove my clothes into two clear piles (wearable and in bad need of a wash), so my room has less of a disaster-zone vibe. ‘I’d rather not. And I don’t think Iris agreed to be in the musical, either. I’m not even sure what musical you’re putting on.’

  ‘It’s got alien space plants. And we’ve got aliens. It’s like…Serendipity. Synchronicity. One of those. I would’ve gone with Rocky Horror but singing about being a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania might be pushing the boundaries of what’s considered good taste in this town.’

  ‘And the animal-print dress isn’t?’

  He is excited, and I’m having trouble keeping up with him jumping topics.

  ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am Iris is here.’ He is gabbling now. ‘And that she’s going to be in the play. Before we were just two friends. Now we’re a group.’ Then he adds, in a tone that suggests absolute authority on the matter: ‘A triad is the strongest formation.’

  I shake my head. ‘I think you just made that up.’

  ‘We’re going to be like the three musketeers,’ he pronounces. ‘And I don’t want to speak prematurely but I have a very strong feeling that Iris is probably the love of my life. She’s beautiful, she likes musicals and, against all odds, she has arrived in our town. It’s the hand of fate at work.’

  I ignore the last part. ‘You realise The Three Musketeers is a novel about soldiers, right? Which we are not?’ There are increasingly odd noises coming from the green box Clancy has now placed on my bedroom floor. ‘Do I want to know what’s in the box?’

  ‘I’ve been collecting cane toads. We’re going to plant them in people’s front yards, then offer to sort out the problem for them. Cane-toad removal specialists. Of course, they can’t see us put them there. They just happen to be there and we just happen to show up, saying, hey, Mr Atkinson, it appears you’ve got yourself a cane-toad issue. We can help you out. For a modest fee.’

  ‘That sounds illegal. That sounds like a bad idea.’

  ‘What’s your plan to get enough cash to hire out the pub, then?’

  ‘I’ll save the money Mr Pool pays me. I can resist the urge to buy books for a couple of weeks.’ I leave out the fact that I owe Mum money because she lets me use her credit card to order books online. The only books you can buy in Alberton are from the op shop, pulp romances published in th
e eighties. I like a little variety.

  ‘It’s not fair for you to do all the work.’

  ‘I’d rather pay than use your dirty cane-toad-extortion-racket money.’ It is sort of a joke but also not. Clancy has had a lot of insane money-making schemes over the years. The trouble with living in a town of our size is that your pool of potential customers is small to begin with, and smaller still once you’ve already sold them something that was a bit crap, like the scones we made when we were eleven and accidentally used salt instead of sugar.

  ‘It’s not a cane-toad extortion racket. I don’t think you know what extortion is.’

  ‘Why don’t you just offer to mow people’s lawns?’

  ‘Ugh. Boring.’

  ‘And catching, releasing, then catching cane toads again is exciting?’

  ‘It’s got that undercurrent of we-might-get-in-trouble thrill. Do this, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll do something reasonable. How about that?’

  My lack of response is taken for agreement.

  It becomes apparent the next morning, once the plan is enacted, that this is surely the worst plan Clancy has ever concocted.

  Clancy has got us both wearing overalls, as Cane Toad Removal Specialists do, apparently, and he’s just dinged the doorbell at the Kingstons. He turns back to me and gives a thumbs up. I am standing at his shoulder like a backbencher at a political press conference. I stare down at a recently released cane toad hopping over my shoe.

  ‘I wonder if there’s a cane toad god,’ I muse aloud. ‘Or a cane toad heaven. Do their lives have meaning and significance? Do they have karma or reincarnation or nirvana? Do you think when cane toads go really still, they’re meditating?’

  ‘Shut up, cane-toad philosopher,’ hisses Clancy, who then beams at Mr Kingston as he opens the door.

  ‘If you’re asking if we need a party-planner, Clancy,’ says Mr Kingston, through his very excellent white moustache, ‘we don’t.’ That was one of Clancy’s schemes last year. It did not go well.

  ‘Mr Kingston,’ says Clancy, sticking to the script. ‘It appears you have a cane-toad problem.’