"Makes sense," Jamie said. "Hundred bucks a kilo."
Michael looked up. "A hundred bucks?"
"That's right, big man. Flog it off to posh restaurants, don't they? And those restaurants, they flog it off to posh wankers — for ten times that much."
"Ten times easy," said Jamie.
"Farkin abalone." Cale grinned. "A month's pay, hey?"
Jamie's parents, finally, had agreed to his getting a job over the break. He'd have cash of his own. He'd be able to buy things. He was starting at the fish plant, where Cale worked as well, but secretly he hoped to get a spot on a commercial boat before too long. He was his dad's son, after all.
Michael started whistling, then stopped. Jamie lay down on his back. The wooden planks seared his skin for a second, then eased their heat throughout his body. He closed his eyes: a dark orange glow, shadowed fitfully by gulls. He felt, in his bones, the slap of Michael's cricket ball against his palm. Muzzy with warmth, he allowed himself to relive that morning's assembly: the gale of applause… Alison… but each time, at that point, his mind looped back around. He found himself thinking about Dory. That huge, mean body-the man's face on top of it. He'd been held back a couple of years. He'd been full forward for Halflead four years running. From the sudden silence, the irregular scuffing of feet, Jamie could tell Michael had tossed the ball high into the air. He pictured it arcing slowly up, out — over the water. The dangerous thought came; he brushed around it, then he let it in: What if they — Alison and Dory — weren't together anymore? When was the last time, anyway, anyone had seen them together? Michael caught the ball. Then, against the planking. . thump. . thump. . each bounce a mottling shape in the sunglow.
"Cut it out," Jamie murmured.
The bouncing stopped. Cale wet his lips loudly. Water lapped against the pylons.
"So," said Cale. "What the fark." Jamie remained quietly on his back.
"Look who's in a good mood lately."
He said it accusingly. "Alison Fischer. She got anything to do with it?"
"What?"
"Yeah yeah." His mouth made more slopping noises. "What a shifty cunt. You, I mean."
Jamie sat up, opened his eyes-the world bursting yellow and vivid-and gestured his head toward Michael. His brother's shape crouched over the tackle box.
"Sorry." Cale lowered his voice. "He's always around so I forget."
"What'd you hear?"
"Nothing." He smirked. "She's a bit alright-that's all." He licked two fingers and held them curled upward, then glanced dramatically at Michael. "Remember Stevo. . Stefan? That Danish show pony? He reckons he got a finger in — you know. After that school play in April."
Jamie rolled over onto his stomach. He hadn't expected word to come round so quickly. Who was where, with who, how far they got — a town like this spread gossip like the clap. Cale, despite being older, hung out a lot with high-schoolers — couldn't hack being out of the loop. He was looser-lipped than any girl. But it'd only been a couple of hours since Alison had come up to Jamie. . and — he kept reminding himself — nothing had happened.
Cale paused. " 'Course Dory never found out… that time."
"Shut up."
Of course what Cale meant was: Remember those other times? Jamie remembered. The whole town remembered. There was an element of community ritual in remembering all the things Dory was known or suspected to have done. The worst, of course, being the to — do with the Chinese poacher. Never cleared up. He was only twenty but he stood in as the town's hard man. And Alison — the girl with the silver spoon, the girl with the reputation — was known to give him plenty of reason for it.
"So?" said Cale.
"You don't know shit." Cale nodded in satisfaction. "Ahh," he said. "If only you truly believed that."
Jamie laid one eye up against a crack between two timbers, felt the old, beaten wood on his face. If he could choose a place — if it could be all his — this was it. Strange how trying to think and trying to forget amounted to the same thing here. Cale was still talking about Alison. The sound of his voice familiar, pointless, in keeping with the complaint of the mooring lines, the metal creakings from the wharf's gantry crane across the bay. He was talking about Alison and Jamie wasn't listening but then something dislodged itself from the craw of his memory and the incident was undammed, clear and natural as breathing: Last summer — sun-white day — Jamie crabbing on the flats when word was sprinted down from town: Fight. The thrill in his blood as he raced up the main street. Kids streaking in from every direction, breathlessly swapping accounts on the way: Dory — him and some bloke — Vance Wilhelm, that was his name — who'd been spending time with Alison. Sirens started up to the south just as Jamie veered into the main carpark. Through the mayhem he took in the whole scene at once: a black jeep, its windshield smashed, keeled back at an odd uphill slope; people limping off, nursing arms; the flash of a blood-slagged face. He was about to scatter as well when he saw, on a grassy strip, two bodies asprawl one another — elbows bloody, pebbled with glass — one finally shunting its knee into the other's back, wrenching the head up into an armlock. The face looked full at Jamie. It was to Lester — Dory's best friend. Jamie, it gasped, get him off me.
"Hey, Romeo," Cale called out.
Always he returned to this. Get him off me. And — weak in the legs — he'd frozen. A heavy shape barreled across his vision and lifted the body clean off Lester and drove it hard into the ground. Trapped beneath Dory's weight, it gave out an odd creaking sound. Jamie circled around for a last look, saw Dory holding down the head, then saw the stranger's face — it could only have been Wilhelm — his mouth agape and crammed over a steel sprinkler head, cheeks streaming and shuddering. His face a picture of drowning. Lester staggered to his feet and glared at Jamie, then Dory looked up at him too. Lester made to speak but Dory stopped him. His arms still bearing down on Wilhelm's head, he'd said: You're rubbish.
But that was a year ago. Now, things were different. He was a hero now.
"Hey, Jamie, wake up." Cale's voice sounded as though it had risen a meter.
"Hmm."
"Your girlfriend's here."
"Piss off."
Bit by bit his thoughts tailed off; he began to feel the knurled wood jutting into his hip bone. His back roasting. He gazed down. Small schools of baitfish inflected the clear water. Old squidding lines and sinkers caught on the crossplanks, bearded with kelp.
"Nothing you wanna say to her?"
Jamie reached behind himself and pulled down his board-shorts, flapping one bum cheek open and shut: "Piss… off."
Michael sniggered.
"Piss… off… Cale… y."
"Any luck?"
A girl's voice — he spun over, shielded his eyes. It couldn't be. She was standing at the head of the jetty with Tammie, both decked out in their netball gear. Alison still wearing a bib that spelled "GA" — goal attack — in large lettering. Cale, next to him, cracking up.
"Nope," reported Michael. "No fish."
"What'd I say?" said Cale.
"You're a fuckwit," said Jamie.
"I'm a fuckwit? Whose knickers are down?"
Even Michael couldn't conceal his smile. Tammie laughed, a squeezed sound like the yapping of a small dog. She was playing with her camisole straps, studying him.
"You told me to come," said Alison.
He got up, face burning. He felt suddenly naked in front of them. Even though everyone, all summer, went around in just their boardies, he felt naked. "We're actually heading back," he said, gesturing to Michael. Why had he said that?