I saw her standing there

Well she was just seventeen
And you know what I mean.
- The Beatles, 1963

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” he said, rather redundantly.

I nodded. “That’s the M5 then?” I pointed, just as redundantly. Marty and I were standing on the landing of the stairs outside my front door; Maddy was fetching her handbag from the boot of the sleek, shiny black BMW parked in the street below, and possibly preparing herself for what would inevitably be a pretty awkward afternoon, all things considered. In truth, we’d been preparing ourselves as well. It was one thing to have a drunken catch-up with Marty at the pub, but having both he and Maddy dropping by in full coupley mode for Sunday lunch, without any alcohol on board at all - notwithstanding last night’s excesses of course, which wouldn’t be helping us much now… anyway, we were going to tread delicately, because another shitfight over who did what to whom and who was holding whose career back wasn’t really how I planned to try getting over my hangover.

“Yeah,” Marty said, and felt the need to defend himself straight away: “Maybe it’s not as nice to look at as the previous shape [which he’d also owned], but the looks grow on you, and that V10 is seriously something else… and the iDrive control system isn’t as difficult as everyone makes out… and with the selectable power and gearbox options, you can turn it into something which is no scarier than a Corolla, so Maddy can nip around town easily enough…”

I didn’t rate the ‘flame surfaced’ looks of that 5-series, or any BMWs of that generation - their chief designer was a tool - but with the M5’s big wheels and lowered, muscular stance, it looked pretty bloody mean. Even with the Edna Everage indicators on the front headlights.

“Looks an absolute weapon,” I concurred. “Reckon you’ll hang onto it?”

“Nah,” he confessed with a grin, defusing all the hyperbole. “It’s about two years old, I don’t usually retain them much beyond that these days, doesn’t make economic sense. And I’d love a Ferrari or a Lambo Gallardo, but that’s just financially insane, let alone practical… Anyway they say those new HSVs with magnetic ride control and the Corvette V8 are ninety percent of a M5 for less than half the price, and they look schmick. I could sell this tomorrow, buy a new Senator, and still make plenty on the changeover. A new jet ski, maybe? Trouble is,” he added conspiratorially, lowering his voice, “as you’d expect, Maddy’s not so keen on being seen driving around in a Commodore…”

“My ears are burning,” Maddy reported, tramping up the stairs. Not through misuse of that lubricant with Deep Heat in it again, I hoped. “Hello, Andrew,” she began breezily, getting up on tip-toes to air-kiss my cheek. She was wearing a vibrant sundress which showed off her slender figure - not quite as slender as it had been when they’d first met, but she certainly hadn’t let herself go now that she was securely in a long-term relationship - accessorised with some expensive sunglasses and summer shoes. “Lovely house you have. What’s the market like around here at the moment, any opportunities?”

Well, in about a month’s time, this place, if I don’t start picking up regular work…

“Well, judging by the sheer volume of junk mail that the local agents keep stuffing through my letterbox, it’s either really good or really bad,” I quipped. “Come on through.”

So everyone said hello to everyone else and asked how they’d been and made gormless small talk and professed no real opinion on where we might like to go for lunch; I’m easy, what would you like to do. Hmmm, at least this isn’t awkward. We ended up down at the same café that Lena and I had gone to on the morning after our reunion bender a few weeks before. I was struggling to believe it really was just a few weeks before. The déjà vu wasn’t helped by old mate Wally from the residents’ action group appearing out of the woodwork, on his daily lap of the township. He remembered my ‘sister-in-law’ Lena - just as well he did, I’d forgotten we’d spun him that story - and Phil introduced himself as her boyfriend, really starting to enjoy the difficulty she was having with the idea.

“Well, it’s a small town,” Phil had said after Wally had left (but not before pointing out how woefully sick the big Norfolk Island pines in front of Crittenden’s construction site were looking, and launching into a furious diatribe about how useless the council were and how he’d phoned the bastards up to report it and how it’d all amounted to two fifths of bugger-all). “Gotta keep the story consistent, in case the locals start talking…” For which he received an elbow in the sternum for his troubles.

“So what was all that about?” inquired Maddy.

“That bloody awful looking thing,” I replied, indicating Tuscany on Point. “Local developer went and poisoned those Norfolk pines there so his new development has clear sightlines. Sorry, allegedly poisoned.”

“Seems to be happening all up and down the coast,” Marty nodded. “It’s a real shame.” He glanced at Maddy for her agreeance, but she merely offered a placating smile. I strongly suspect that her sympathies, if anywhere, would have been with the bloke who was out to maximise return on his investment, but she realised that this wasn’t the place for such views. These days she was getting better at reigning in her right-wing expositions on why the health care and education systems should be entirely user-pays and run at a profit, or why voting should be limited to people of IQ over 100 (though she rescinded from that view once she’d discovered that some members of the working class are actually intelligent, and that such a system wouldn’t completely guarantee poor people wouldn’t vote for idiots and ruin all of capitalist Australia’s grand plans. Or something. I generally stopped listening after the part which went “Well I personally think...”)

“So noone’s doing anything about it?” asked Phil.

“Well, Wally’s lot have bitched about it to the council, but there’s not a lot that can be done,” I admitted. “It’s basically a matter of waiting for the things to die then ripping them out - I’m sure Crittenden’s already been at the council to have them removed on safety grounds. That was his argument in the first place - before they were mysteriously drilled and filled.”

“Couldn’t they move the trees across the street to right in front of the new place,” suggested Lena, “so noone would have to look at the fucking thing?”

“It’s going to be a fuckin’ monstrosity, eh,” Phil concurred. “Even the promotional pictures are hideous.”

“I don’t think we’re the target demographic,” I remarked.

“Then who is?”

“Overcashed, clueless fucktards with no taste,” I proposed, and nodded down the street. “Like this lot.”

Of the three standing in discussion in front of the Tuscany on Point worksite down the way, the younger man was in his twenties, with a tight, sleeveless muscle shirt, three-quarter length cargo pants and trendy sunglasses. Presumably, Bradley Shayne Toogood thought this made him look exceptionally cool, where in point of fact it made him look exceptionally gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless you were him, in which case there was nothing but wrong with that. The older, paunchier man was in his fifties, and was dressed like a fat golfer, because he was. The other man I knew to be of similar age to the fat golfer, but he carried it far, far worse - gaunt and deathly, he looked like an accountant who moonlighted as an undertaker. I was aware Crittenden and Toogood Senior were pals; quite how the fat slimy real estate agent and the rake-thin, miserable, gormless high school principal had found common ground to buddy up (other than their common religious ‘interests’), I wasn’t sure, though I did offer a few opinions to the group in explaining who the three of them were. Likewise what business Toogood Junior had trailing the pair around rather escaped me. Maybe the clan were going to buy a new family pad at Tuscany on Point. About bloody time the kids moved out, I’d have thought…

And became distracted, the usual way I became distracted. Gorgeous suntanned girl, late teens you'd guess, strolled up the road which led down the hill and wound around to the surf club, and the surf itself. Slick black hair, still wet from the water, hanging over one tanned shoulder like a twist of melted licorice. She was wearing a Hawaiian-print string bikini, a sarong around her waist, and cooler sunglasses than anyone else today. She was, let’s be definitive, breathtaking. Phil, Marty and I stared a lot longer than we should have - particularly Marty, who copped an elbow in the ribs for what he was thinking. And me, because I should have been copping an elbow in the ribs for what I was thinking… given Annalise was one of my students. Pedophile. She was seventeen, but as the old ads for Adidas’ Predator boot used to say, it’s legal, but it ain’t fair. Or ‘ethical’, at least.

Recognising the three men in front of the building site, she bounded over and kissed the fat golfer lightly on the cheek. After a few exchanges of conversation he dug his wallet out dutifully and handed over a couple of twenties. This pleased her immensely; another kiss on the cheek, a few words with the Toogood contingent, and she disappeared into an adjoining beachwear boutique.

“Who’s the little friend?” remarked Maddy cattily, rather enjoying the vicarious thrill of people-watching. “And more to the point, how much an hour, do you think?”

“Don’t think she’s that sort of girl,” I offered.

Maddy tut-tutted. “I think you’re being a bit naïve there Andrew,” she said. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before.”

“Well, perhaps I’m a bit old-fashioned, but considering that she’s his daughter…”

And then, if my heart rate wasn’t elevated enough, I saw her. My girl. If you could call her that. She was power-walking her way up the path from the headland, in a pale blue athletic top and black running shorts, iPod earpieces in, focused on her rhythm and her breathing. Well, she was blonde after all, it took some focusing. On days she was running classes, she usually chose to forgo her usual afternoon run in favour of a less strenuous jog. It was a warm day; her top was damp with sweat, her face a little flushed. I didn’t need to be reminded that I’d seen that all before in much more appealing contexts than these, and for a moment I was lost in the depths of my own memories, filled with shameful thoughts about how I would have loved to taste the sweat on her lips and skin, to peel off that moist, clingy top with fingers and teeth and whatever else it took, to… do all sorts of things to her that I shouldn’t be thinking about in mixed company.

Bethany strode past the three wise men with an acknowledging wave; if she wasn’t about to break stride for her father and brother, I wasn’t confident I would fare any better. If she even noticed me in her Zen-like aerobic state, of course…

No, she’d seen me all right. She actually stopped in her tracks. I’d like to think it was surprise and delight at seeing the man she still loved appearing unexpectedly back into her life, but it was probably because the footpath was at that moment covered in four-wheel-drive. At that point the footpath intersected with the carpark entrance ramp for the block of apartments which sat above the surfwear boutique, bakery and one other vacant shop which was yet to be tenanted; the smart money (and mine) was on an icecreamery, given its ideal positioning on the main access to the beach and headland. I considered suggesting it to Maddy as a business tip, if only to prove that she wasn’t the only ironed-on business genius in the general vicinity.

The 4WD passed by into the street, and Bethany reappeared. For a second, our eyes met. I offered a little wave of recognition. In response, that horrified, startled-deer look, just like the Night of the Long March, the last time I’d seen her, two weeks to the day ago. Then, she turned, glanced quickly left and right, and ran across to the other side of the road to continue her well-established circuit. I was determined not to take it personally that she’d crossed the street to avoid passing me. I’d meant to check whether she was still wearing The Rock, but she was out of sight before I could remember to do so. She could have stopped by, and I could have explained that Lena was really Phil’s girlfriend, not my bit-on-the-side… OK, it would have been at least 90% crap, but so is everything, and it might have worked. But no. Opportunity lost.

“Who’s that?” Phil asked.

“My fiancee,” I replied off-handedly.

“Oh,” Phil said.

“Oh is right,” I concurred, though I’m not sure why. I kept my gaze fixed on her, or by now, on the space where she’d been. Because the moment I turned back and made eye contact, I knew I was going to have to answer a string of awkward questions from Madonna Cohen-Lewis, a well-trained judge of body language, that I really wasn’t interested in facing.

“So where’s this Polish cousin, then?” snarled a voice over my shoulder.

It was Mr Muscleshirt, looking vaguely Ace Rimmer with his gold-framed aviator sunnies and slightly bouffant blonde locks (as much as his profession would allow - which these days was a lot more than the coppers used to allow) and just as obnoxious on his day off as he was in uniform. I bid him a greeting in Polish which Lena just managed to restrain herself from giggling at. She fired off a quick-fire reply, which I nodded at; it wasn’t until much later she told me what she’d said: ‘That’s your mother-in-law you’re talking about there, big mouth.’

“Your car appears to be missing, Mr Young,” he pronounced.

“What, it’s got a misfire, you mean?” I remarked absently. “New plugs and leads, you reckon?”

“You know what I mean,” he growled. “It’s not where I told you to leave it anymore. It’s gone.”

“It wouldn’t want to be,” I replied, still staring out to sea. “If it’s stolen, Bradley, my lawyers will tear you a new one. Starting with harassment and moving up from there.”

“That’s interesting,” he replied, “because I happened to run into Rhonda Partridge this morning, and asked whether she’d seen that car. And she recalled it doing so on Saturday night, boarding the barge for Cleveland.” He pointed at me, his finger close enough such that I was thinking about grabbing it and breaking it off for him. “And you were driving.”

“Good work, Clouseau,” I offered. “Only one problem. Rhonda Partridge, being both the biggest gossip-mongering shit-stirrer on the island AND a twice-convicted welfare cheat is about as much a reliable witness as you are a heterosexual.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Seriously, champ. A skimpy little muscle shirt with ‘Hard Core’ written on it? I know you’re trying to give out tickets to the gun show, but that’s gay as the day is long.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare... you fuckin’ faggot!”

“Do you mind watching your language, please?” directed a voice like a circular saw on human bone. “I find your tone very offensive.”

He stared at her. Maddy stared back. Trying to outstare Maddy was like trying to win an armwrestle with the Grim Reaper; you were dead the moment you engaged in combat anyway. I swear I saw tumbleweeds blow down the street out of the corner of my eye, as the refrain from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly whistled through my mind.

Toogood lost. He didn’t apologise, but he didn’t hang around. “Expect a visit,” he threatened, as he turned and marched up the street.

“Make sure you bring your uniform this time,” I reminded him. “Unless this is the new look, of course. Very fuckin' Reno 911 of ya.”

And at last, after that explosion of unpleasantness, there was suddenly quiet again.

“Who the hell was that?” Maddy wanted to know, disgusted.

“That,” I replied wryly, “was Senior Constable Brad Toogood of the Dunwich Police. Redneck, homophobe, stalker and psychopath.”

“And your future brother-in-law,” Phil chimed in, unhelpfully.

“Oh yeah,” I muttered. “However did it slip my mind.”

The unpleasantness didn’t bode well for lunch, but at least it’d put Maddy a little more into my corner, though I wasn’t sure whether that was due to genuine offence at Toogood’s conduct, or condescending pity at my expense for ending up related by marriage to these arseholes - if my relationship with Bethany didn’t turn out to be the empty farce she was surely interpreting it to be by now. I had intended to quietly swear-off alcohol for the day (something to do with that bell-ringing hangover), but after that, I needed a beer - if just to wet the back of my throat from talking so much. Like a good mate, Phil prevented me from drinking alone by adding a ‘times two’ to my order of a tall frosty Heineken; he figured it was ages before he had to drive back to the North Coast anyway. For her part, Lena shook her head; she was determined to detox for Monday, and equally determined to remind Phil he’d promised to get her to her 8pm flight before he drove back to the North Coast. I glanced over at Maddy and Marty without a lot of expectancy; I knew Marty was religious about not drinking when he was driving, and with a garage like his, you could see why he preferred to spend his Sundays doing the latter rather than the former. Maddy, for her part, had turned her nose up at the idea. Or so I thought; actually she was just figuring out whether it was sauv blanc or champagne weather. She decided it was the latter, ordering a flute of Veuve Clicquot. And, for the first time in my recollection, spared us any tedious, pretentious discussion over why she chose that particular expensive brand over the other expensive brands available. Yes, we understand. You know about champagne because you’re rich. I know a lot about toilet paper because I do a lot of poos. Daily, even. Equally relevant. Get over it.

Except… she had, apparently. Or at least partially so. When they talked about their houses, their cars, their toys, their large quantities of stuff… it wasn’t really done with the object of advertising how great they were anymore, it was more ‘in passing’ rather than being the point of the story. Likewise, when Marty namedropped a few prominent music identities as potential producers for his next album, it wasn’t for the sake of namedropping (we’d have hardly been impressed much anyway), more to see whether we thought they were a good fit for the job. Like we'd have any fucking clue any more.

“So are you OK with Marty dropping the instrumental stuff from the repertoire?” I inquired. Bravely.

“Well,” she began with a rather cross look, “I’m not particularly happy about the way it was done… we should have at least talked about it…” Marty nodded, quietly conceding it had been a bad look. “…But I’m OK with it, yes. From a strictly business perspective, it’s an indulgence. It’s almost a loss leader,” she remarked, which I took to mean that they were making bugger-all or less on it, but it built his artistic or creative profile in those areas which were interested in that sort of music - so to open up other commercial opportunities in those areas. Slightly bizarre though to hear Marty's electronica being compared with $1.99 tubs of Meadow Lea in the Woolies chiller. “The core business, if you want to call it that, is proceeding fine.”

“What was the line from the Simpsons?” Phil remarked. “‘Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel’? I suppose it’s the same with getting lonely single chicks to buy albums from 'heartbroken' male singer-songwriters, hey…”

“Hey, way to totally denigrate my art, you jumped-up metronome,” Marty chided. Ah, the banter was back.

“That’s a point,” considered Lena. “How do you go for inspiration, trying to write these soul-wrenching songs about being heartbroken and wronged and discarded by wicked women, when you’ve been in a stable relationship for so long?”

“That sounded like an interview question,” Marty remarked. “Is this going to turn up in print somewhere?”

“Depends how good the answer is,” Lena replied.

“Well,” he thought, “the short answer is, I find my inspiration when I get the Visa bill from this one’s shopping trips to Paris, and have to figure out a way to pay for it…”

“Hey,” she growled playfully, jabbing him in the ribs. “At least half that’s my money, remember… and anyway,” she claimed, “I’m better than I used to be. Admit it.”

He did, with a smile. “But the real answer… that’s a bit trickier. It’s becoming a bit of a problem to be honest - buggered up Paul Dempsey from Something for Kate didn’t it? He was able to be Mr Misery Guts until the cows came home until he suddenly ended up in a happy relationship, and bang - there went all his inspiration to write depressing love songs.”

“Lost his muse,” I said.

“Exactly. So to prevent this happening, Maddy and I break up every month, from the third Tuesday through to the following Friday, just so I can be reminded what it’s like to be lonely and single and don’t lose my inspiration…”

“Unless of course we have to go to an industry function or a dinner party or something during that week,” added Maddy, “in which case we go together and scowl at each other when noone’s looking, and make up the time later.” I’d never heard Maddy do deadpan humour. It almost suited her.

“Is that your final answer?” queried Lena.

“Okay, okay. Here’s the truth, but if this turns up in print, I’ll be pretty cranky…”

Lena nodded, to acknowledge that she wouldn’t dream of it. She was a good liar.

Marty paused for a time. “When I need to get back into that mindset,” he admitted, “I remember back when I was living with you guys in the early days,” he said, looking at Phil and myself, “You guys usually had girlfriends… you knew how to talk to girls, you had the confidence to; I didn’t. You had the magic combination, I didn’t.”

“I didn’t either,” Phil replied.

“Yeah, but Phil, for some reason you were a magnet for chicks… really bloody weird chicks, granted… so you didn’t need to talk much.” That much was true. Back in the day (as now) Phil did tend to attract the crazy ones, if not the borderline psychotics, who threw themselves at him; to his credit, he usually ducked. “Whereas you had your patented line of charm and bullshit that always seemed to work…”

“Not always,” I disagreed. “The crash and burn ratio was always pretty high.”

“It looked pretty bloody successful from where I was sitting,” Marty maintained. “And Sam, well, he had Lena here, until he ballsed that up - but that wasn’t until much later. Me, I couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t unlock what I was meant to do, or say, or whatever. It just killed me,” he admitted. “But now I guess I had to go through all that for my relationship with Mads to mean what it does. For Mads to make sense out of it all, the way she does.”

Maddy squeezed his hand as he stroked her hair; it was all rather sweet.

“And of course, all that gives me plenty of historical material to mine for my cynical commercial exploitation of lonely chicks who can’t get a date, doesn’t it…”

To me, the beach is an adventure sports playground. The point of going to the beach is to go and do something in the surf. Swim, surf, jet-ski; even ride a goat-boat if that’s your thing, baldy. I don’t like people who go to the beach and don’t go into the water. I think they’re a bit odd and generally not to be trusted. But to Madonna Cohen-Lewis, the beach was a solarium; to her, the point of going to the beach was to lie about on the sand absorbing UV rays. Why this couldn’t be done, say, on the expansive balcony of one’s high-rise riverside apartment, and instead required travelling out to North Stradbroke Island for the day, kinda escaped me. Then again, maybe she just wanted to catch up with the three of us, and let her boy have some male bonding time for once. As a prominent and long-running New Zealand beer ad campaign would put it:
Yeah right.

So Maddy lay on her towel in her designer gold-trimmed black bikini (not that I was paying any attention) soaking up rays; Lena’s concession to beachwear was to take off her shoes, reminding me of Jeff’s comment about city girls and beaches being mutually exclusive. Couldn’t imagine what those two could have been talking about. She sat on the sand next to where Maddy lay, knees drawn against her chest, watching the three unwise men splashing about ungainfully in the mediocre surf - just sufficient to make bodysurfing possible, but not by much. Half an hour’s work yielded more sand and salt up the nose than successful rides into the shallows. We retired, in need of a cold drink to dilute the salt, eyeing off the surf club rising out of the rocks closer to the headland.

We were towelling off, clearing the sand out of our ears and trying to justify our lack of wave-catching success to our audience (using every reason I could come up with other than being old, fat and slow) when we were accosted by a gang of delinquent youths. Well, OK, maybe Crittenden’s daughter Annalise and her ragged mates weren’t really that delinquent, but Crittenden himself had seen her friends as bad enough influences to pull her out of Dunwich State High last year and have her enrolled at Stradbroke Christian College instead. In truth he’d wanted to do so as soon as SCC had opened for business the year before, but she’d vehemently resisted like only headstrong teenage girls can, arguing she was established there, her friends were there, and she was one of the top students in her year. It wasn’t until Annalise and a few of her friends were suspended from school for bringing alcohol to a year 10 school camp last year - I wasn’t at the camp but I certainly heard about it, given that I’d been covering for some of the teachers away from Dunwich SHS - that Roger the Dodger managed to claim enough moral high ground over his wayward offspring to force her into attending SCC. It was probably as much that it was a bad look for Crittenden to have his daughter attending the government school given that he was on the board of trustees of the Christian school, as his wishes to get his daughter away from the riff-raff she associated with. Her friends weren’t that bad, mostly miners’ kids from Dunwich - a bit rough around the edges and definitely not short of an opinion, but fundamentally decent kids. To Crittenden, it was just that none of them were Christians. And at least half of them were dirty Aboriginals on welfare, who probably sniffed petrol like the dole-bludging petrol sniffing Abos in the NT that his beloved J.W. Howard sorted out by sending the Army after them.

But his strategy hadn’t really worked a pinch of shit (much like little Johnny's) - Annalise still rolled with her old crew out of hours, and didn’t bother to hide her lack of respect for her preppy rich-kid classmates at SCC. Indeed, ‘lack of respect’ was the most common character trait quoted against Annalise, whether by teachers, principals or classmates. One theory blamed her age, in that she was a year older than most of the class - I gathered that Crittenden had moved her here from interstate following his divorce from her bohemian mother several years ago, who'd apparently shacked up with a sculptor-cum-aura-interpreter at a commune near Bellingen; the school system in the southern states runs to an extra year compared to Queensland, such that most of the local first-year uni students at UQ when I’d first gone there had been 16 or 17, whereas I was 18 by the end of O-Week and had to put up with a lot less fake-ID-related bullshit from large men in black T-shirts outside pubs.

So Annalise’s cockiness was often blamed on her age, whereas I would have suggested it had more to do with the fact that she knew she could get away with anything she liked because she had the looks, the finances and the father-on-the-board-of-trustees to do so. Then again, I was more likely to be on the end of her lack of respect than any other teacher at SCC, because I was younger, less experienced and inevitably less formal in the way I carried myself and conducted lessons. That was just my personality, my way, no matter how I tried to change it, or whether it was in my interests to.

Oh yeah, and one other, minor, point - I used to be in a band who she thought were fuckin’ awesome when she was younger. And if I wasn’t going to show myself any respect, given that I’d reduced myself to the point of whoring myself out as a casual teacher at a tinpot Christian school on Straddie, she wasn’t going to show me any respect either.

“Hey Angus,” said a confident female voice behind me. It was always ‘Angus’, never ‘Mr Young’. Noone on this island called me Angus, or even knew I'd ever been called Angus for that matter. “Where’s your board?”

“Hello, Annalise,” I said evenly, careful not to sound like I'd been rehearsing it. Annalise was wearing that astonishing floral-print strong bikini, with just an unbuttoned pale-blue gents’ business shirt draped over her tanned shoulders. Jesus H. Christ on an inflatable ocean-going tricycle; I felt vaguely ill. And Annalise knew it. Probably another reason she didn’t respect me as a teacher. I did my best to conceal my distraction with a vaguely bemused smile. “Surf’s lousy, no point in going out with the board.”

“So you’re just body-bashing then,” she nodded. “Old school. Respect.”

A little awkward moment, while she looked at me and I tried not to look at her. Her friends giggled amongst themselves.

I suddenly realised introductions might be polite. “Ahh, so this is…”

“I know who you guys are,” she replied with a smile, putting me in my place. “Marty and Phil, yeah?” Obviously the girls didn’t rate a mention. “I’m just a bit surprised to see you in the one place, all happy families - I figured you still hated each others’ guts...”

“Is that what he’s been telling you?” quipped Lena.

“Nah, he won’t talk about it at all. He’s a professional,” Annalise observed. “Professional bullshit artist. Sorry, I don’t know you…”

“Lena,” she replied, a little taken aback by the girl's forthright nature. “Just an old friend of the band.”

Annalise regarded her carefully, her brow furrowed momentarily. Then brightened. “Sam McCarthy’s ex, yeah?” she queried, cheerfully ignorant of the fact that this might be sensitive territory. “Hey,” she added conspiratorially, “you’re not the reason Angus got barred from SCC, by any chance?”

I’d not seen Lena so uncomfortable in a long time. At least that made two of us.

“So who might you be?” engaged Phil, indulging in most of the same thoughts that I was, but not anywhere near as regretful about them.

“Just Angus’ least favourite senior student, yeah?” she offered with a self-deprecatory smile, to which I nodded wryly. “Annalise. And Manda, Jo and Tasha,” she added, indicating her posse.

“So, what’s he like as a teacher?” Marty wanted to know. I’d rather he hadn’t asked, the little bastard. He was just trying to wind me up.

“Well,” she said, “as a teacher… he makes a fucking good guitarist.”

“He’s a pretty average guitarist…” reasoned Phil.

“He’s a very average teacher,” she laughed.

“Anyone else want a go at me?” I remarked.

“Aww, poor Angus,” Annalise mewed. “Sorry, big fella,” she offered, her dark eyes shining. “You’re not enough of a bastard to make it as a disciplinarian.”

“I’ll bloody well discipline you…” And regretted the reaction instantaneously. Even before the words had leapt, fully-formed and locked on target, from my mouth.

“Yeah baby,” she laughed. “Bring it on. Are you going to put me across your knee?”

This was hopeless. Obviously someone hadn’t read the memo which explained I didn’t need to be reminded that I was a shit teacher.

“So, you guys are getting the band back together, yeah?” she challenged.

Assorted mumblings, ranging from ‘No’ to ‘Hell no’ to ‘NFI’, which was probably closest to the truth.

“C’mon, you have to,” she mock-pleaded. “If only to get this guy out of the classroom corrupting young minds, and back corrupting young bodies like he’s meant to be.” With that, Annalise winked at me, and turned to lead her posse up towards the road back up towards town.

“Faaarrk,” exhaled Phil, watching her arse fade into the distance. “I can’t believe you haven’t…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. It finished itself.

“Aside from being almost old enough to be her father… firstly, last I checked, I’m engaged. To someone else. Secondly, I’m her teacher…”

“Before, maybe. Now, you’re neither,” Phil pointed out.

Damn the man’s logic. For about two tenths of a second, it seemed the most appealing suggestion I’d had in weeks. I replaced it with a better one.

“I’m going for a beer,” I declared.

The question wouldn’t go away. Not the one about Annalise - there was no way that should have even been raised as a question in the first place - but the one about what we were doing all back together if we weren’t planning to get back together as a musical outfit. It cropped up again up at the surf club, while we shared a last drink out on the balcony watching the surf before everyone really had to get moving in order to get back to where they’d come from. Scotty, the bar manager, came out to say hello - Gasket had played here twice after I’d moved out to the island, once a Queensland surf lifesaving fundraiser with a couple of Brisbane bands, the other a Christmas Eve show about six years ago which was just an excuse for everyone to spend Christmas at the beach that year - the band’s last Christmas as a unit, if you wanted to think about it that way. Scotty was a teetotaller, an oddly appropriate lifestyle choice for a bar manager, and he had a brilliant memory for dates, names and faces. He remembered us all, even Lena and Madonna who he’d only met peripherally. And of course, he asked The Question. This time, Maddy had The Answer.

“We’re just waiting for a large enough offer,” she replied. “I think about five million would do it, yeah guys?”

“I don’t get out of bed for less than that,” Phil remarked.

“You don’t get out of bed full stop,” Marty replied. “Not before two in the afternoon anyway.”

“Why do you ask Scotty, are you short of talent?” I asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Phil said, “you’ve seen the girls behind the bar haven’t you?”

Scotty looked a little uncomfortable, like he was about to ask The Question, but seriously this time. “We are, actually. The band we booked for our big Schoolies gig fell through. I won’t mention the name but let’s just say we should have been warned by their reputation. We’re kinda screwed – we don’t have much time to sort something.” In his position, we forgave him for stating the blind, bleeding obvious. November 22 was three weeks from yesterday. He sounded a bit more than kinda screwed, bluntly.

Ah. Here we go, I thought. The Question, with a carrot dangled in front. I steeled myself.

“So I was wondering,” Scotty posed in Maddy’s direction, “whether Marty’s management would be interested in him doing a show with his band, and what that might cost… should he be available, of course.”

Oh.

Marty’s management pursed her lips, reflected for a moment and put forward an estimated quote for her employee’s services, which were time-pressured but could be made available. I could tell by the sudden lack of colour in Scotty’s face that the Point Lookout SLSC’s budget for the event wasn’t even in a nearby suburb to that sort of figure. Maddy nodded, with a superior little smile. She knew her man’s worth and wasn’t interested in underselling him, regardless of the context. If you need to ask the price, you can't afford him.

I glanced over at Phil, who’d produced a shiny silver-and-black PDA from somewhere - usually, if Phil had a new gadget to show off, he didn’t hang around in showing it off - and was tapping away at the touchscreen with the little plastic wand which usually gets lost inside the first few days of use. He was hmming and aaahing away to himself as he reviewed the content. Then, he looked across at Scotty and said, “We’re available.”

“Who’s we?”

“Spam Filter,” Phil said, and I realised that he must have the band’s schedule synchronized into the calendar. Scotty’s blank, uneasy look indicated he didn’t have an earthly clue who Spam Filter were, and was a little worried he was now obliged to book them. “Me, Jeff - that’s Andy’s brother - plus two others from the North Coast scene, Jack White and Jen Bailey. We’re shit hot, even if I do say so myself.”

“They’re pretty good,” I offered, by way of support.

“Covers?” Scotty asked, tentatively.

“Yeah. But very well done,” I said. “They’re a class act, very professional. Even with Phil.”

Scotty seemed a bit dubious, even if he was also a bit desperate. “What’s the damage?”

Phil scratched his head, and pulled a figure out of his arse. Quite the conjurer, our Phil. This figure, it seemed, was much more in line with what the club could afford to pay. And so the deal was done, at least provisionally. Phil passed Scotty a copy of Chris Kurtin’s business card, and punched the provisional date into his PDA. Looking over his shoulder I couldn’t see anything along the lines of ‘Act as high-speed courier for major illicit drug deal out the back of Nimbin’ in his calendar, but it didn’t mean I had any more confidence it wasn’t the sort of thing he got up to in his downtime. “Not sure why that weekend was free, to be honest,” Phil admitted, but shrugged his shoulders. “It’s OK if we all crash at yours that weekend, yeah?”

“Had a feeling this would bite me in the arse somehow,” I muttered.

“Look if it’s going to be a hassle, we can try to…”

“Nah, it’s no problem.” I knew that they’d have Buckley’s of getting decent accommodation that weekend - the first major weekend of Queensland schoolies. “We’ll stick old mattresses in the garage or pitch a tent in the backyard or something. Just so long as you wankers don’t drag me up on stage again...”

Phil shook his head, and I just knew a smart-arse response was imminent.

“Do we look like we intend to commit professional suicide?”