The two men worked diligently for half an hour, until the boat was unloaded. Then Jack reminded Red of his obligation.
“Are you going to call the navy?”
“Suppose.”
“Just get Kate on the exchange. She knows the number and name of the bloke you have to talk to.”
Red walked into the half-partitioned corner of the corrugated iron factory shed that constituted the office. He lifted off the handset and cranked the handle. He waited anxiously. Only four lines connected Great Barrier Island with the mainland, and there was usually a queue. For once Kate answered almost straight away.
“Yes, Jack.”
“It’s Red.”
“Hello, Red, have you got any pants on?”
“No.”
“Oooohhhh …”
“I have to call the navy, Kate.”
“All right … keep your hair on.” He heard Kate giggling. “Stay there, Red. I’ll call you back.”
Red hung up and stood by the phone. The mess on Jack’s desk distracted him, and he couldn’t help himself. He gathered the scraps of paper into a pile and weighted them down by putting Jack’s pad over them. The dregs in Jack’s coffee cup had evaporated, leaving a caked crust. He reached over to the washbasin in the corner, rinsed the cup, filled it and left it to stand in the bottom of the basin. He straightened the calendar, and crossed off the last two days of February, which Jack had omitted to do. The phone rang.
“Red here.” Red could feel a tingling grow in the pit of his stomach and his neck muscles tighten.
“Lieutenant Commander Michael Finn.”
Lieutenant commander. Red could feel his throat begin to tighten. “You want to speak to me, sir?”
“No, I bloody well want to kick your arse! What the hell did you think you were doing? Do you know how many strings we had to pull to set up that ambush? Do you know what it costs to get a bloody Sunderland airborne?”
“Please don’t shout.” Red lined up Jack’s ruler parallel to his pad.
“Jesus H. Christ!”
The fist in Red’s stomach tightened. His hand trembled. There were too many memories beating on the door inside his brain. Screaming officers, screaming guards, and a body that couldn’t obey. His voice shrank to a whisper. “Don’t shout. You don’t have to shout.” Perhaps some of his desperation reached down the line to the naval officer, because his attitude changed.
“Sorry. My turn to apologize. I guess we’re on the same side, Red, but we’ve got to find some means of keeping out of each other’s way.”
Red waited for the officer to continue. He laid Jack’s ballpoint pen and his pencil neatly alongside the ruler.
“What I mean is, we’ve got to work together, pool information. You with me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any chance you could come over to Devonport?”
“No.” Red gathered up Jack’s wayward paper clips and returned them to their home in a little plastic bowl.
“What if I sent a boat for you?”
“No. I have a boat.”
“Don’t like cities?”
“No.” Red closed his eyes. “I don’t like cities.”
To say Red didn’t like cities was colossal understatement. He couldn’t stand the cars, the noise, the crowds, the milling and disorderliness. He’d had to leave Auckland when he’d become too frightened to go outside his own front door.
“Do you want me to come to you?” The officer worked hard to keep the exasperation out of his voice and only partially succeeded.
“You coming alone?”
“Alone, but with a crew. If you want, they can stay aboard the patrol boat while I come ashore.”
“Okay.” Red was beginning to feel more confident. “I took their lines.”
“I guess that’s something. I’m sorry for shouting. Don’t feel too bad about this morning. You weren’t to know. But look, if we can get something worked out together, we could really nail the bastards next time. You’re in the ideal position to help us. Have you got a number I can ring you on?”
“No. Call Col at Port Fitzroy and leave a message. He’ll know what to do. Good-bye, Lieutenant Commander.”
Red hung up too quickly, before the officer had a chance to respond. He stood silently in the gloom of the shed while he gradually calmed down. He’d fulfilled his obligation. His duty was done. If the lieutenant commander needed to find him he knew where to look. More than anything Red just wanted the whole thing to blow over. Like the hermit he was, he just wanted to crawl back into his shell.
Red motored home as fast as he could and copped a soaking in the process. He grabbed a spray jacket from the storage locker and huddled in close to the console and splash guard. Archie had crawled up under the bow deck, safe from the flying spray and wind. The wind was the problem, working on his wet skin and chilling him to the bone. He knew he had no need to run so fast, knew he was also wasting diesel, but he had things on his mind. Unwelcome things. When he wasn’t worrying about Bernie, either the woman or the lieutenant commander would sneak into his thoughts, and he couldn’t find sufficient distraction. There was no place for either of them at Wreck Bay. He turned the corner around Needles Point and felt the wind and sea swing behind him. The temperature jumped ten degrees immediately, and his entourage of seagulls, blown from their station astern, wheeled indignantly as they tried to regain formation. They knew about the fish. Red had kept one box of snapper, which Jack had generously iced for him, and left nearly fifteen hundred pounds of fish behind to be sent to the co-op. Enough to pay his bills for months.
The calmer water gave Red the chance to work. He began gutting and filleting his fish, splitting the big fish up the back and saving them for smoking. The gulls feasted raucously on the guts but he kept the heads and frames to make stock and fish soup. Nothing was wasted, ever. He killed the motor as he reached Wreck Bay, and let the boat’s momentum carry him up to his mooring. He knew that he should make Bernie his first priority, but there was still work to be done and a logical order for doing it. His boat needed cleaning and there was no way he could leave it while one speck of fish blood or guts remained to harden in the sun and stain the paint. He scrubbed the decks and gunwales till they were spotless, dried them with cloths, then fastened the storm cover into place. The sun had dropped behind the ridge by the time he began the steep climb up through the bush to Bernie’s. When he reached the pohutukawas he automatically took the left fork, which would take him by the Scotsman’s cabin. Angus was waiting for him, a grim, brooding presence framed in the doorway.
“I saw you come in. What is it you want?”
Red glanced up at the veranda, the demarcation line beyond which he’d never set foot, not in the Scotsman’s time anyway. “I’ve brought you some fish.”
“Aye, I thought as much. It’s why I never went fishing myself.” Angus took the fish and watched as his faithless Bonnie smooched up to Red. “Is there something I can give you in return, some gherkins, perhaps?”
“No. I have to get on up the hill to see Bernie.”
“How is he, the old man?”
“Why didn’t you go up and see?”
“Don’t you lecture me! He’s entitled to his privacy as I am to mine.”
“He needs help,” Red shouted back in a flash of anger. “And he’s entitled to that!” He wasted