The shareholders’ meeting took place on the bridge of the Bonanza around a case of beer McQuade had provided to jolly them along. Walvis Bay was still shrouded in thick fog. The Kid was late in arriving and everything got off to a bad start with Rosie, long-suffering Tucker’s long-suffering wife, showing up with her four children at heel. She came clomping up onto the bridge in her sexless sandals, sand between her toes, her sexless dress clammy, to lay down a few laws. ‘Now look here, James McQuade, I hear you’re not going back to sea today, and I demand to know what this meeting’s all about because if it’s about another cut in salaries I’m here to tell you—’
‘Rosie, this is a shareholders’ meeting.’
‘And this,’ Rosie pointed dramatically at undramatic Tucker, ‘happens to be my shareholder, my breadwinner, and these—’ she indicated the little girls staring up at him – ‘happen to be the little mouths he has to feed. I don’t mean with fish, the damn freezer’s full of damn fish, but four little mouths, plus mine, need more than fish, you know, they need ordinary, normal things from places like supermarkets that you wouldn’t know much about but which, I assure you, ordinary, normal, healthy people with responsibilities do know about and have to spend considerable sums of money in just to stay normal – let alone happy! – and I know what happens at these damn shareholders’ meetings, it’s money money money, how we’ve got this whopping great overdraft, and we need these new nets and what about a new whatnot and the fishing isn’t like it used to be so hadn’t we all better tighten our belts another notch! I’m here to tell you, Jim McQuade, that if one single rand comes off my housekeeping as a result of this meeting,’ she held up a finger like a sword, ‘one single rand, and you’ll be hearing a lot more from me!’
Elsie murmured, ‘Even more?’
‘Yes, even more! You,’ she pointed at McQuade, ‘just because you’re prepared to live like a gypsy in that appalling house of yours doesn’t mean that you can drag everybody else down with you, and I insist on having some say in my own future. My Hugo happens to be a first-class engineer who could get a well-paid job anywhere and he hardly brings home enough to keep body and soul together except more damn fish, we got fish running out of our ears, but we need meat and shoes and clothes and Tammy needs a new bed and Gracie needs a new bicycle—’
‘Please …’ Tucker groaned. He held his head.
Rosie turned on him: ‘“Please”? “Please stop embarrassing me?” And will you please stop letting him—’ she pointed at McQuade – ‘walk all over you just because he owns fifty-one per cent of this damn company!’
‘That’s Company Law …’ Tucker groaned.
‘And it’s also Company Law that you’re entitled to your say, and if you’re too much of a softie to say it you’re going to transfer your shares into my name so I can say it for you!’
‘Oh Lord …’ Elsie sighed.
‘Well until that happens,’ McQuade said, ‘this is a meeting for shareholders only.’
‘Which—’ Rosie continued at Tucker – ‘you will report to me verbatim! Or there’s no more you-know-what for you! And one penny off my housekeeping …’ She glared at them all and left the threat unspoken. ‘Good morning, gentlemen!’ She turned and stomped off the bridge.
Tucker held his brow. ‘Oh Lord …’
Then the Kid came toiling up to the bridge with a big cut on his forehead and a big hangover behind it, and all because of his fucking Bitch. Elsie demanded: ‘What’s her problem this time? Let’s have a look at your new teeth?’
The Kid sat down in a lump and reached for a beer. Then he bared his new smile at them. His teeth were magnificent, even and white. McQuade said, ‘Wasn’t she pleased?’
The Kid lifted the beer and glugged it down, down, down. Then banged the bottle down. ‘Now get this for a hard-luck story.’ He paused, glaring; then went on dramatically: ‘They wheel me into the dental surgery. They proceed to give me about twenty-four lethal injections, right up to the eyeballs. Then out comes the drill. And for the next three hours he re-files all these upper teeth down to needle-points. Then he glues in my beautiful new ones.’ He paused and bared his new carnivorous smile again, for clarity. ‘For the next two days I can’t even see them, because of the swelling. I can’t eat anything except baby food. But yesterday the swelling subsides. Out I go to the airport with my brand new smile—’ (Another glare of his dental perfection) ‘to meet Beryl …’ He paused, glaring at them murderously, then swept his arm dramatically, ‘And through the door she comes …’ He paused again. ‘And up to her I go, beaming—’ he grimaced – ‘my bee-you-tiful new smile! …’ He paused, his face suddenly a mask; ‘And she says: “There’s something different about you …”’ The Kid put on a modest smirk: ‘And I said, “Well, yes, actually …” And’ – he frowned prettily – ‘she says, “It’s your teeth!”’ He smirked modestly again, re-living it all: ‘And I said modestly, “Well, yes, actually …”’ He paused. ‘And she frowns and says, “But why …?”’ The Kid waved his hand. ‘And I said, “Well, remember you wrote me that memorandum …?”’ The Kid glared at them, then he ended dramatically. ‘And the bitch says: “I meant the bottom ones …”’
He dropped his head on the table and banged his fist and howled: ‘She meant the bottom ones …’
They were all laughing, except Tucker.
McQuade called the meeting to order.
‘The proposition I am about to put to you must not be repeated to anyone. Got that, Hugo?—’ Tucker blinked. McQuade looked at him hard, then turned to Potgieter. Pottie nodded earnestly. McQuade went on, ‘If, when everybody has had their say, there is one dissenting vote, then the subject is closed, and I will carry out my plan by myself. At my own expense, with a chartered boat.’ He paused. ‘In that case, all the profit will be mine.’ He paused again. ‘But I don’t want to charter a vessel and hire a crew. I want to use the Bonanza, which has got all the gear for the job, heavy-duty winches and derricks and so forth, and I trust you guys. I’d rather share the loot with you than with a hired crew I don’t know.’
The boys were listening with rapt attention.
McQuade proceeded to unfold the story. He did not tell them what he had seen at the Schmidt ranch, nor about the threatening telephone call afterwards, nor what he had learnt from the dental records. He started with his meeting Skellum, and ended with what Commander Manning and his men had told him. The boys’ reaction was one of enthralled astonishment, followed by enormous enthusiasm for becoming rich. The Kid got up and did a little jig and Elsie solemnly went off to his cabin and came back with a bottle of champagne. Oh, they all wanted to be millionaires, particularly the Kid who had The Bitch to maintain and his new teeth to pay for. Only Tucker was not brimming with excitement; oh, he wanted to be a millionaire too, of course, with all his little mouths to feed, of course he did, don’t be stupid, but what about the cost? ‘But what about the cost?’ Tucker said worriedly. ‘What about our housekeeping money meanwhile?’
‘Oh Jesus,’ Elsie groaned.
‘But I mean,’ Tucker explained worriedly, ‘this is going to cost a lot and we aren’t going to have any fish-income while we’re doing it. Are we going to be able to draw our housekeeping money and stay within our overdraft facility at the bank?’
‘If you struck an oilwell in your own backyard,’ Elsie sighed, ‘Rosie would complain about the mess.’
‘I mean,’ Tucker said, ‘we may never