chapter 18
There are moments in our lives when fate takes a hand albeit the hand is somebody else's. The moment Frank clenched his fist, ready to kill Steve for taking away the precious guitar, chanced to be the very moment that Scott Phillips chose to raise his hand as though he too wished to be counted in amongst the movers and shakers of Fate. Just so's Mrs Martha got the general idea of what was going to happen to her before she was torn limb from limb and drowned in the sea, Scotty decided a little roughening up wouldn't go amiss so, taking careful aim, he hurled her as far as he could throw over a random heap of rocks.
And so it was that a long-legged, long-armed, yellow-haired rag doll wearing a wide-brimmed wedding hat and pretty wedding outfit (rather impractical attire considering her new hobby) suddenly sailed through the sky and landed nearby, followed soon afterwards by Scott himself, who looked round in bafflement at what should have been Mrs Martha's designated landing area - till he saw two guys he knew vaguely as the Fletcher brothers.
And brothers is exactly what Steven and Frank were at that moment. The guitar dispute could wait till a more convenient time. For now, they were united in a common bond. Sally.
"Where is she?" Frank demanded.
"Who?" Scott asked innocently, knowing they couldn't touch him. He was a kid.
"You know perfectly well who," Steven said.
"Nope!" Scott smirked. "Now, if you're talkin' 'bout the Queen of England, I reckon she'll be in Buck Palace, sittin' on the throne, with her lackeys waitin' outside with the dunny paper, if you're talkin' 'bout Colleen Smartie-Wet-Her-Pants, I figure she's..."
"Where is she, you little psycho?" Frank yelled, losing his temper and grabbing Scotty by the shirt collar, raising him off the ground. "Sally wouldn't have dropped that doll unless she was in a helluva hurry!"
"I dunno, I dunno!" Scotty yelled, truly scared now. "She ran off."
"Why?"
"I dunno!"
"Mate, calm down. He's a kid. Just a kid. Like Sally."
Steven's calm voice and his hand on his arm brought Frank to his senses. This wasn't the way to deal with things. For all his reputation and despite the fact he was grinning at him like the devil incarnate, knowing he was safe now from a bashing, Scott Phillips was just a kid. And Frank wasn't a bully. Being a bully was no way to make his Dad Frankie Morgan proud like he'd promised when just a kid himself. Reluctantly he let Scott go and Scotty ran like a bat out of hell, pausing at a safe distance before he screamed a torrent of abuse.
Steven slapped Frank on the back. He didn't have to say anything. He knew what a huge effort it always was for Frank to keep his temper in check.
"Doesn't help us though," Frank sighed, understanding the silent message.
"We'll find Sal," Steven said, with more conviction than he felt. "She can't be far. Anyway, she's with Carl and Lynn, isn't she?"
But he had a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling. And they might have called a truce for now, but Frank was madly in love with that guitar. He wasn't going to forgive or forget easily that Steve had taken it.
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Mike Langford created a stir the moment he pushed open the arch-shaped doors of Summer Bay Town Hall. Mike, known as Zammo to his friends, had acquired his nickname the day he'd hit the top peg of "Sampson" to triumphantly sound the bell at a fairground test-your-strength machine in a bid to impress Jenny Murray, younger sister of Kathy Murray who taught at Summer Bay Primary. Except he sprained his wrist in the process and then discovered pretty Jenny Murray had missed the moment anyway because she'd been far too busy winning a pink panther on the nearby shooting range to the admiration of the guys clustered round her.
At first Mike's mates had begun calling him Sampson, which he'd hated, but gradually it had become Sammo and finally Zammo. Which, like the test of strength machine, had a nice ring to it.
Zammo was exceptionally tall and this fact often made him rather accident prone. And he had chosen to visit Summer Bay Town Hall, not just because it would have a phone, but also because it was the nearest building from the beach. Two hundred years ago the eccentric architect of Summer Bay Town Hall had chosen to build it because he had more money and time on his hands than he knew what to do with. And, unfortunately, very little talent for architecture. It was a deadly combination. Zammo immediately banged his head on the far-too-low, crookedly semi-arched-shaped doorway, which caused him to trip and fall flat on his face. The portrait of Zachariah McDonald, painted in ceremonial robes and carrying a bell, commemorating the day he had appointed himself town crier, stared down at him from the wall opposite as though wondering if seconds should be counted down and the bell rung for round two.
"Never mind me! She needs help!" Zammo yelled, scrambling to his feet and impatiently shaking off those who had run to his aid. Time was all important. The girl on stage who'd just belted out "Memory" from the musical CATS and thought it wasn't a bad effort, even if her friends had strongly advised against it and some of the audience watching the dress rehearsal for tomorrow's talent show had looked rather alarmed throughout the whole song, scowled darkly at him.
"Who does?" Don "Flathead" Fisher had just returned from taking his recently delivered car for a spin and was bewildered by the fact a crowd had apparently felt the need to gather round the door in his absence as though eagerly anticipating his return.
"One of the Fletcher girls. Carly. She's really drunk. Really drunk. But her sister Lynn's in an even worse state. She needs an ambo fast." Zammo exchanged a look with Jenny. They were still good mates even though they were no longer an item.
Jenny had been the one who'd introduced him to Carly, at the end-of-term party in Yabbie Creek for a group of Kathy's friends, student teachers who had passed their final exams, and she had been stoked when Zammo seemed smitten. Because his parents insisted on sending him to an expensive private school in Mango River, Zammo often missed out on what was happening in Summer Bay, but Jenny herself knew heaps of people through Kathy.
Jenny, by virtue of her being Kathy's sister, had been invited on the night out and allowed to bring a mate (naturally she chose Zammo) on the understanding neither of them were to have more than a couple of lagers. Nobody ever figured out how Carly had got her invite. Where there was alcohol on offer, somehow Carly always somehow managed to be there. She'd been drinking heavily then too.
It had broken his heart to see Carly later leaning over the sea wall and throwing up into the sea. Not just because she couldn't even remember his name when he'd gone to help but because he couldn't understand why someone so pretty, so popular, was doing that to herself. Although their own group were pacing themselves, aware that newly fledged teachers couldn't afford bad publicity, few others around them had any qualms about it; it was Saturday night, it was the city, it was expected.
But with Carly it wasn't just drink drinking. It was wild, out-of-control drinking. It was dicing with death, running along the sea wall and announcing she was going for a swim (till half a dozen of them managed to pull her down). Zammo and Jenny stood together, shivering in the night air, as they waited in the long queue at the taxi rank. They knew that Kathy, even though she hadn't invited Carly (it turned out Carly somehow knew a couple of the guys from the college and, like Carly always did whenever booze was on offer, had simply turned up, knowing full well no one could send her back on her own) felt responsible for her, even though Carly had ruined her night. Kathy, Zammo and Carly had gone home far earlier than they'd intended and Kathy had phoned Pippa and Tom the next day and, without exactly dobbing her in, had explained Carly had a real problem with alcohol. She looked pale now.
"Just like Kathy to worry about everyone," Jenny whispered to Zammo as the emergency services were contacted. "I wish she had someone to worry about her for a change."
"You do a pretty good job," Zammo smiled, squeezing her hand.
"Thanks, mate! But Kathy's too soft-hearted for her own good and I'm not here all the time. I mean like a guy. Robert was gorgeous but he was only in love with himself and Kathy's better off without him, but he was the last guy on the scene and there's nobody else around..." Jenny shook her head sadly. "I wish she had someone."
"Wish we all did," Zammo sighed, thinking of Carly.
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"You got us in this ------- mess," Milko said. "You can -------well get us out of it."
Funny thing was, even though he was dressed as usual all in white except for the black hat (somehow that had changed colour on the way home) Milko reminded Kane of Scotty when he said it. It was the first time he'd heard Milko swear. But he'd changed heaps lately. No more Mr Nice Guy, Milko had said angrily as he'd thrust himself down on one of the old wooden crates that had once contained bottles of beer while Kane picked up the almost skeletal frame of an arm-chair, burnt out from the day Dad had nodded off in it whilst smoking, and, trying to ignore the combined musty smells of damp, dust and charred furniture, made himself as comfortable as he possibly could under the circumstances.
Fred the dragon bub was pretending to be engrossed in blowing smoke rings and Deefa the puppy, who hadn't barked for ages as if wary of drawing attention to himself, was watching the fire-breathing act as though he'd never seen anything half as fascinating in his entire life before. Truth was, they were both a bit scared of him. Milko wasn't the Milko who sat drawing cutesy pictures in school anymore.
"Yeh, well, like how's it my fault?" Kane demanded to know.
He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as they heard heard his father's fist thudding against something - probably his mother - again. The bashing had gone on for some time now. It was the reason all four of them were sitting in the garden shed, afraid to go indoors.
"You ate the bacon," Milko said accusingly, glaring at him. "You and Scotty. Not me or Deefa or Fred. You and Scotty."
Tears stung Kane's eyes but he fought them back. Milko was right. It was Kane's fault. He'd got home just in time to see and hear it. The back was always the safest way to go in because the kitchen window was easiest to slip in and out of so he and Scotty always returned via the back way. And Kane had witnessed everything through the grimy glass.
There was a smashed bottle (Mum's medicine, with the funny name of vodka, she told Kane the doctor prescribed it and she had to drink it regularly) on the floor and Dad was in the act of flinging two dirty plates out of the cupboard with the door that hung off its hinges and throwing them at Mum like he was discus throwing.
"No wonder there was hardly any ------- decent bacon left! Gave it to the ------- brats, didn't ya?"
And then he'd grabbed her by the hair and...Kane hadn't the stomach to watch anymore.
And now Milko was glaring at him exactly like Scotty looked in a bad mood before he bashed someone.
"Do something, drongo!" Milko ordered.
But Kane didn't know what he should do. He wasn't even five yet, for Crissakes. Maybe when he was a year older, a whole five-and-a-half, he'd know what to do then. He closed his eyes and, wrapping his arms around himself, rocked himself to and fro, listening helplessly as the fight escalated, knowing that, even if they heard, nobody would intervene. Fighting, inevitably fuelled by drink and drugs, was the norm in the Hell Houses of Summerhill and police were not welcome in the tough little seaside town. Anyone foolish enough to dob someone in to the cops risked being bashed or worse.
A solitary tear ran down his cheek and he was glad Scotty wasn't there to see it. Milko alone would give him heaps. But at least he had his mates here for company, he thought. At least he wasn't sitting here all alone.
