Free The Glass Canoe by David Ireland Page B

that. Like this.’ And Sammy shows him to keep the fingers together, and wave side to side, nice and slow. As if it was an effort.
    Danny does this, Sammy gives another toot, and a ragged cheer breaks out on both sides.
    â€˜These dills think it’s royalty,’ Sammy says out of the side of his mouth. ‘Look, those old ducks are frothing at the mouth. Smile a bit.’
    That wasn’t hard for Danny. Tears are running down his cheeks.
    They come up to the official table.
    â€˜Here you go,’ says Sammy. The drill is, I stop and you get out. Go up to the official party shake their hands and I’ll wait here.’
    â€˜What will they be drinking?’ asks Danny, between convulsions.
    â€˜Champagne, maybe. Wine.’
    â€˜No way, mate. I’m no wino.’ Danny has his pride.
    â€˜Come on, we’re stopped. Out you go.’
    â€˜No fear, mate. Not me. I’m not up to it. I’m nearly pissing myself laughing.’
    â€˜Well, we can’t stop here.’ People were coming forward, peering in. Sammy looks at Danny. He’sshaking. He’s died in the arse, Sammy tells himself, and moves off.
    â€˜Wave, go on, wave.’
    We follow them. They go right round and out the exit. Sammy lets him out a few yards down the road. Danny hops the fence on the bush side and comes back to us.
    I look up. There are three coppers leaning against a picket fence, like the three wise monkeys.
    First time I ever see three coppers in a row and all laughing.
    Sammy could always get things. He got a gross of champagne last week and tried to get the boys round the pub to take a dozen each to flog.
    â€˜Great for Christmas presents,’ he said. But the tribe weren’t traders, they didn’t come in. Sammy had to go up the hill to the bowling club, up to the lower middle class: they took them. For a profit of fifty cents a bottle their eyes gleamed with more healthy interest than they showed for the books and bundles of coloured photographs they passed from briefcase to coat pockets while the women bowlers weren’t looking.

BELIEVE IT
    I was drinking not far from Sharon’s taps one day wondering how the radiogram knows the record is a twelve inch or a nine inch or one of those little forty-five-speed things, and also how it knows there’s still one more record to come sitting up on the spindle, when there was a great roar from the back of the pub.
    Blue raced in waving his arms in a westerly direction.
    â€˜That way! Up the hill!’
    Everyone rushed for the door and took a screw up the hill. Even Flash, who was down the back of the car park having a screw with a woman from the cheese factory showed himself, alert, ears pricked for trouble.
    For a while there was only one glass on the red bar, which was awash with the tide of slops. It was full, a beached ship of treasure.
    Blue pointed, they saw a figure darting round a corner.
    â€˜That ute there. I saw him pinching tools from that ute. Whose is it?’
    No one knew. It probably belonged to one of the old builders sitting in the pub, too tired to be bothered with fights.
    It didn’t matter. A dozen set out after the thief.
    I’d seen a lot of things like this before and not all of them had a thief at the end of the chase. Sometimes you’d catch a decoy up the street with his own propertyclutched under his arm and a grin on his face and later you’d find someone ratted the cars left open in the car park.
    I watched. When they were out of sight, I went back inside for another beer. On the uneven ground, sparrows cocked their heads, alert for sparrowhawks. The beer tasted thick, like fresh milk.
    They straggled back in twos and threes with stories of defeat. In fifteen minutes they were all back, the sprinter was away.
    No one was happy about it. You could see by the way they began to snap at each other, not exactly looking each other in the eye. They should have caught someone or something. There