One result of Miles’ stint as a bushfire expert was that Anne started to call him for more advice. What does one wear to a fire? Answer: cotton or wool, no synthetics, and it has to be long sleeved shirts and pants with boots. No thongs, shirts and Tee shirts, unless you like being burnt. How do you put water in the gutter? Block the down pipe, perhaps with a tennis ball wrapped in a Tee shirt. Then put water in it with the garden hose. Should she put out the pump now, to make sure it was ready. Leave it be; if its left out someone might take it.
The conversation usually wandered onto other matters. Anne recommended that he read ‘Right Ho Jeeves!” as the classic Jeeves and Bertie book by P.G. Woodehouse, and he did, thinking himself a besotted fool. They talked about other matters, with Anne trying to trap him into talking about his broken engagement - a subject which seemed to interest her. Eventually she caught him off guard.
“So what happened to your fiancé?” said quickly during one of his bushfire advisory conversations on the phone at home.
“By now she must be married to my former best mate,” Miles replied, before he could stop himself.
“Oh!”
“Yes, oh! Time to come to Sydney and become a bushfire expert.”
“Lucky for me, but these things happen. There’s no need to run away.”
Miles sighed. “That’s what my mum says, but running away is an under-rated survival mechanism. Anyway, it sorta helps if the person who has changed their mind, tells you they’ve changed their mind.”
“You mean it was going on before hand?”
“Yep.”
“You found out?”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t just ‘uh-huh’. How did you find out?”
“I’ve been trying to forget.”
“And..”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Ohhh! Well, tell me how did you feel about it?”
“I felt awful, how do ya think I felt!”
“I guess you would, but did you talk to your fiancé afterwards – what was her name?”
“Elizabeth. I didn’t think there was much to say.”
“You’re the silent type. You walk away from an engagement without a word.”
“Guess.”
“Miles, you’re meant to give details with these answers not just single words.”
“I am?”
“Two short words will not do either. Now, how do you feel about all this now? Are you still angry at Elizabeth and your best friend?”
“Um, hmmm!” Miles thought he should say something, if only to keep Anne quiet. “I don’t blame Elizabeth and Ben, so much. Maybe I didn’t really want to stay. Maybe I couldn’t see myself helping Mum and Dad with the stud for the next fourty years while it went down hill. Dad has been doing things his way and he just wasn’t going to listen to me, but at the same time I was expected me to save the place.”
“I see. So you think you may have not been whole hearted with this Elizabeth.”
“Something like that.”
“Was she pretty?”
“District beauty.”
“Oh! So this was quite a district scandal?”
“Yep.”
“Miles!”
“Whaaat?”
“This question-single-word-answer thing is becoming wearisome. Details please.”
“Why don’t we talk about your romantic disasters? Didn’t you say when we first met you’d just had a bad break up.”
“That was all too boring for words. I had decided that we had grown apart. I was noble about it; he was tiresome.”
“You dumped him for his own good?”
“He was better off. He certainly didn’t pine for long. Anyway, we weren’t engaged. Breaking up with a fiancé is more interesting. So, you don’t have bad feelings towards this Elizabeth now?”
“No not her. The people I’ve got it in for are me mates – or me former mates. They didn’t tell me what was going on, ‘cause they thought it was ‘fun’ to watch it all happen, like it was some big practical joke. That’s the point when you decide you don’t want to know any of them, and bugger off.”
“Perhaps now they’re sorry for the way they acted?”
“Maybe they’re fuckwits.”
“Hmm! I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of you.”
“You’re different. I told you,” said Miles. “I know you’re always right so there’s no problem.”
“That’s boring. I don’t want people to just agree with me.”
“You’re right.”
“Miles, stop that!” she said laughing. “You are coming to my pool party?”
“No.”
“I don’t want you to start disagreeing with me now, for the sake of disagreeing.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you for the sake of it, I’m not coming.”
Miles had been told about this lazy afternoon by the pool, which would include the usual three other suspects besides Anne and himself, but he had a good excuse.
“What? And why not, Mr. Black?” This was said very sharply.
“I’ve got a summer Saturday job as a stable hand cum riding instructor, if one of the regular instructors doesn’t turn up, at a riding stable over at Dural.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Money. You remember, the folding stuff you put in wallets and purses that pays for things.”
“Humph! Well, what time does this job finish?”
“Four, about.”
“Then come after that.”
“Nope. You two happy couples will be just drying out and doing heavens knows what.”
“..we won’t be doing heavens knows what..”
“..And single me will turn up. No good. Pass.”
“Oh, what does coming alone matter?”
“Like I said, you blokes will be preoccupied with one another.”
“We won’t be preoccupied with one another.”
“..and there’ll be me,” he said, ignoring the interruption, “sitting in a corner by myself, drinking beer and smelling of horses.”
“We’ll talk to you.”
“You’ll be able to spare a few words for me, while gazing into each other’s eyes over a candle lit dinner table. Nice of you.”
“Oh! You’re being obtuse.”
“I dunno about being obtuse, but I will be working.”
“Humph. I’m put out.” She did, indeed, sound put out.
Miles thought of the red BMW sports in the garage and the rich lawyer Allen – the man she had chosen - sneering at his car, and hardened his heart.
“Okay, you’re put out.”
“I’m annoyed.”
“Fair ‘nough, you’re annoyed.”
“Men are such boys!” she said and hung up.
Jake also rang to try to get him to go to the pool party, pointing out that he’d be stuck with Allen. Miles did not want to desert his friend but thought again of the red BMW and declined.
“Anne in a bikini is worth the trouble, trust me,” said Jake.
Miles thought that argument was a strong one but remained unmoved.
“Seeing Thommo w’d be worth the trouble too, but they are both off limits.”
“Don’t think Allen’s living there yet. He’s moving in for the kill but he’s not there yet.”
“Did I have to be told that? Why can’t people leave me in ignorance? Allen’s established there so I’m not going to be the fifth wheel.”
“Then bring someone.”
“I haven’t got anyone to bring. Is this a crime in Sydney now is it?”
“Not a crime mate; a misdemeanor,” said Jake, who had recently been doing the police rounds. “You have to fill in forms then go in for counseling.”
“Yeah? What are the councilors like? Sorts?”
“Nah, the cops reckon they’re all gays who want to convert you.”
“Just my luck.”
He never went to the pool party. Instead he went to the football club’s Christmas bash. Anne found out that he had gone to another party instead of her’s and, he was told, was very angry with him. For his part, Miles did not know why declining an invitation to a pool party was such a serious crime in Sydney. It must be a piece of city culture that he had yet to understand.
Anne complained to Tomasina on the phone one day in the following week.
“Why couldn’t he come?”
“Allen was there. You’re with Allen. I don’t see how you could’ve expected him to come?”
“Humph!” Anne decided to change tack. “Well, why does he have to be suburban reporter?”
“What’s wrong with being a suburban reporter? I’m living with a suburban reporter. He’ll do other things.”
“Humph! He’s a pain.”
“He’s a honey, I think,” said Tomasina trying to keep a note of amusement out of her voice.
“Oh shutup!”
While all this was going on, with both Christmas and the bushfire season approaching fast, the Koala Bay Tower Development reached approval stage with various, tiny protests making little headway against the general community approval for the project. There were a few stories about the giant development in the metro newspapers. The story was also considered for a current affairs program – Miles knew this because one of their researchers rang him and they discussed the unusual height of the proposed building – but no story went to air. The researcher soon found out that there was no significant local opposition to it, and no opposition meant no controversy which meant no story.
The beach also started to come alive, with Miles and Emma making another double appearance to do a story on a local champion surf lifesaver team, ready for another season. He was finishing up his interview – standard stuff – just as she arrived.
“How is it going, Miley,” Emma asked.
The interview had been conducted in the shade of a big oak on the edge of Koala Beach, looking over golden sand and waves rolling into the foreshore. The full heat of summer had yet to arrive, but the beach looked inviting. Miles thought that he must bring bathers into work and have a dip sometimes after work. Living well inland most of his life a visit to the beach was always a treat but not today, not with one more story to write - about the controversy over council’s new waste management site (where he came from such a facility was called a tip or a rubbish dump) heaven help him.
“Don’t ask how things are going, I might tell you.”
“Not so good, huh!”
“Thinking of turning gay.”
“Miley, you and gay I don’t see.”
“It’s a big city, I can experiment – behave yourself with these guys now.”
The surf life saving crew, as one man, had run an appraising eye over Emma’s summer attire of skimpy top and jeans, as she strolled up, and had switched their attention from him to her. Just as well the interview was over.
“They’re only men,” she said, waving her hand as if to dismiss them but not minding the attention. “It’s you and women I worry about.”
“No chance of problems there.”
Then there was the welcome distraction of a major case at the Koala Bay court house. Most of the cases were speeding fines that had somehow made it to court, or those involving interaction between an otherwise honest citizen and a breathalyzer. Now and then, however, there was a juicier case.
Miles had been told about it by Sergeant Wooldridge, police prosecutor for the district, who Miles knew slightly through people at the football club. As this police official was also not averse to getting his name in the paper, he was quite willing to tip the reporter off about the occasional “good” case. Police co-operation was important in another respect, as court clerks at Koala Bay did not consider it part of their job to give out information, any information, about court cases past, current or pending, to the media. In America, routine information about court cases might be online but in Koala Bay the clerks glared suspiciously out of the window where they t
ook applications and notification, and waved reporters away.
That week Sergeant Wooldridge was prosecuting an assault in a super market by an 18 year-old making his first judicial appearance outside the Children’s Court system. He was a tall lad with a long face, prominent cheek bones, lank brown hair and long arms with large fists on the end. Miles would have been wary of him at school and, as the trial showed, his caution would have been justified. Amazingly the youth had decided to represent himself.
After charges had been read Wooldridge led his first witness, a bespectacled youth about the same age as the defendant who was the victim, through his testimony. The facts were simple. The defendant had asked for a packet of cigarettes at the supermarket front counter, and the older women serving had asked for proof of age. Although the defendant had just turned 18 he did not have proof on him and he became resentful, yelling at the women and pushing over a stand of cigarettes. The police were called. The youth, who worked at the supermarket, asked the defendant to leave, and received a whack on the jaw for his trouble – an act which detained the defendant just long enough for the police to arrive. Only the victim’s ego had suffered any significant damage, and it was the sort of thing the defendant had been doing to school mates in a hidden corner of the school yard a few months before, without the police being called. But he wasn’t at school any more.
“So what happened then,” Wooldridge asked.
“I was hit on the jaw, here.” The youth pointed at a spot on his jaw.
“What happened after that?”
“I fell back into a tray of bread and knocked it over.”
The defendant looked grim and scribbled furiously on a folder in front of him. At that point, he received reinforcements in the form of a mate of the same age who walked into the courtroom and sat down beside him, at the defending legal team’s small table. The newcomer was obviously overawed by the proceedings, gazing around the room open-mouthed and open-eyed at the assembled prosecutor, magistrate and witness in the witness box.
“Fuck me dead,” Miles heard the newcomer whisper to his friend. If the magistrate heard the whisper he chose to ignore it. “This is awesome. This all about you?”
“It’s nothing,” said his mate. “Be out of this soon.”
“Your witness, Mr. Adams,” said the magistrate. He was a red-faced, white-haired man who did not like the thought of lunatic eighteen year-olds asking questions of witnesses, but had to follow procedure. “You can ask questions of the witness.”
“Yeah thank you, your honour,” said Adams getting to his feet.
(‘There were a few dropped charges on his sheet,’ said Wooldridge later, ‘maybe he’d been able to talk his way out of charges in the Family court and thought he could do the same here. We had a victim, a witness and police who grabbed him at the scene and stupid comments he made later, and he was trying to play TV lawyer. No wonder the pro bono guys walked away.’)
“So you reckon I hit ya?”
“You hit me and I fell over,” said the witness, defiantly.
“A likely story, you tripped.”
“I did not. You hit me.”
“You tripped on the bread stand, when I asked you to leave me alone.”
“I was asking you to leave. You hit me.”
“You know, I can have you sent to jail if you lie in the witness box.”
“You can do no such thing!” interrupted the magistrate, appalled. “You have to ask me and.. oh, just ask questions and don’t make stupid threats.”
“I’m just trying to get at the truth, your honour.”
“Just ask the questions!”
Adams managed to get himself deeper in trouble with cross examination of the witness, the older lady – his mate scuttled away after that - then with a statement made under oath from the witness box which Wooldridge demolished in a few questions.
“I find the charges proven,” said the magistrate, relieved that the TV lawyer had finally shut up. “Anything known?”
“Several offences, your honour.” Wooldridge handed up a sheet, which the magistrate glanced through, grunted and put down.
“Well what am I going to do with you?” he asked Adams.
“Your honour?”
“You experienced a minor frustration in a super market and went and assaulted someone working there, and damaged property because of it. Not only are you not contrite about the matter, you made up a pack of transparent lies in order to get out of it. I have a good mind to send you off to prison straight away, and would have had the victim suffered anything more than minor bruising. But prison might just make you worse. Do you have a job?”
“Looking, your honour.”
The magistrate sighed. “A fine is not going to do much either, so it’s community service. Twenty hours. You will be told when and where to go for it. And Mr. Adams, I urge you to pull yourself together and not come before the courts again. Go and find a job and stop hitting people, now get out of my court before I change my mind and send you off to jail.”
When Adams left the court he looked puzzled, Miles thought.
On his way home that day, he noticed that the fire danger indicator board had been changed from moderate to high, and he thought of Anne.