Free Something Fishy by Shane Maloney Page A

The girl, too, seemed deliciously ill at ease. She tugged a thread from the shredded elbow of her tatterdemalion sweater and absently toyed with it.
    A Landcruiser pulled into the kerb, blocking my view. A recent model, roof-racks, rear window plastered with surfwear stickers. Ripcurl. Balin. Hot Tuna. The driver stepped out and checked the crowd, standing in the angle of the open door. She was lean, crop-haired, a wading-bird with a cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders. It was just beginning to drizzle and, as she raised the shawl over her head, the flecked light caught a dark seam that ran down her cheek, hard against her ear, and crossed the angle of her jaw.
    Urchin-girl saw the woman and waved, then detached herself from the gang, flapped her sleeve-ends in a collective goodbye and tripped to the Landcruiser. A boy I had seen before, maybe one of Red’s classmates, straw-coloured dreadlocks, got into the front passenger seat. Red watched them drive away. He kept watching until the car turned the corner.
    I tooted and he came, bringing a boy named Tarquin Curnow with him.
    Tarquin and Red had been mates since kindergarten and their friendship had survived Red’s years of exile interstate after my divorce from his mother. His parents, Faye and Leo, were my closest friends, family almost, pillars of strength and providers of casseroles in the dark days when I was fit for nothing. Back in Fitzroy, our houses were separated only by a cobbled lane and the boys spent so much time together whenever Red came to town that they might as well have been joined at the hip. After Red’s permanent return to Melbourne, the boys went to Fitzroy High together. Now at different schools, they were still as thick as ever.
    Adolescence had done wonders for Tark. Formerly a drip, he had transformed himself into a Goth. Spiky black hair, funeral weeds, fingerless gloves, high-laced Doc Martens. A pet rat, too, until the cat ate it. Purple candles and Nick Cave records. But Faye and Leo had drawn the line at the eyebrow piercing. And no tattoo, not yet.
    Not that his parents were panicking that Tarquin was on the slippery slope to glue sniffing and satanic rituals. He was too smart for that. His maths were good enough to get him into an advanced studies program, his general aptitude test placed him in the top eight per cent for the state and he was vice-captain of the school debating team.
    He and Red loped across the road and piled into the back seat of the car, like I was the chauffeur.
    â€˜Any good?’ I said. ‘The bands?’
    â€˜Wimpy pop,’ declared Tarquin. ‘Think they’re alternative, but they’re not.’
    â€˜He can’t wait to get home,’ said Red. ‘Take the Marilyn Manson antidote.’
    We drove past the market, windscreen wipers scraping the drizzle, and turned down Victoria Parade towards Fitzroy. The boys talked bands, names I’d never heard, until we were almost at the Curnows’ place.
    â€˜Before I forget,’ said Tark. ‘Mum wants to know if you’ve decided about the holiday house.’
    Faye Curnow had invited the two of us to spend part of the summer break at Lorne, a couple of hours west of town, in a rented beach house. I’d mentioned the idea to Red, but we hadn’t yet discussed it in detail.
    â€˜What do you reckon?’ I asked Red. ‘Any chance of an opening in your hectic social calendar for some time at the beach with your poor old dad?’
    Red had been giving the matter some thought. ‘I’ve got Christmas with Mum, so I’ll be in Sydney until the twenty-seventh,’ he said. ‘We could go down to Lorne when I get back, take Tark with us. Then Faye and Leo can come down with Chloe after New Year when Faye’s holidays start.’ Chloe was Tarquin’s nine-year-old sister. ‘There’s that non-residential rowing camp in mid-January, but I haven’t made my mind up yet. Maybe we can