Royce, Royce, the People's Choice Read online

  I swear to the veracity of the above details.

  Duty officer, St John’s officer D. Ross.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘CAN WE GET some heat?’ growled Sergeant Tip Casey. ‘Colder than a nun’s tit in here.’

  Cy Peagram, the Town Clerk, looked offended. He always did. It was probably to do with his down-turned upper lip and the unimportant little moustache on it.

  ‘The council has found, over the years, that mugginess leads to drowsiness; we tend towards a slight chill at meetings,’ he said.

  ‘Well, have yer bloody meetings down at Downie’s morgue; we’ve got non-council people coming, who tend towards the muggy.’

  Some moments later a sort of gas-powered furnace was wheeled in by a still-indignant Cy Peagram.

  COUNCIL CHAMBERS. WINDOWLESS, vertical panels of dark wood, a frieze of portraits of dead mayors, some flags – slightly naval in tenor – a scroll of mayors, deputies and town clerks: ‘Cnr C. Peagram 1964 to – .’ A massive table – about an eighteen-footer, thought Sergeant Tip Casey, who had a fishing background. Some black and white photos. There was one with old Gracie Farrell in it when she was deputy mayor, at some sort of ceremonial dinner in this very room. In front of every important official, two bottles of beer; in front of Gracie, a bottle of beer and one of lemonade – so she can go beer, teetotal or shandy. Who says women don’t have equal rights?

  Arthur ‘Doddy’ Wold strode in with a massive bundle of papers. What did he need all those papers for? They were nothing to do with the case in hand. He, Tip Casey, had all the papers anyone needed. Bloody lawyers: they attract paper like bees to a honeypot. ‘Sit anywhere, Arthur,’ said Tip, and Doddy sat anywhere.

  Bit of a worry, Doddy. Well, a worry to the crooks of the town. Prosecution hadn’t lost a case since Doddy started drinking. Driven to it by his wife, they say. Word was she wouldn’t turn it up for him. Spent all her time not eating – one of them finger-down-the-throaters. Pity – she was a fine-looking woman. But nuts. Doddy should have stuck with Bev Ohern before she was Ohern.

  In came Bob Dodds with Sticky Moody. Laurel and Hardy: Sticky about six two, Bob about two foot six. Built like a bloody washing machine, which made him look squat. Been a boxer for the PYC and nearly got to the Edinburgh Empire Games, had Bob. Tip had had a hand in the Police Youth Club in those days – gone a round or two with Bob, too. Scary. Talk about strong!

  Someone must have hit him, though – didn’t have a tooth in his head.

  ‘Bob, Sticky, sit anywhere, fellers.’

  ‘Ten thirty anti-cyclone sea flat as a Chow’s face and I’m in friggin’ kiddies’ court,’ rumbled Bob. ‘This kid’s gonna be the ruin of me.’

  HAD A TILT FOR the Australasian middleweight title in ’58, did Bob. They sent him over to Sydney: ‘Got knocked out by a friggin’ Abo before we touched gloves,’ as Bob put it. The story went that he went down the Cross, to a brothel, that night, for some consolation – and met his long-lost sister. Ahahaha!

  IN CAME BEATRICE Hartley with the headmaster, Daly. Bloody bozo, that guy, thought Tip. Doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. Supposed to be writing a ‘sexual novel’. Oh well, if you can’t do …

  Now old Beatrice, she was a different story: lovely lady. Dear old thing was about the only one who gave more than a fiddler’s fart for young Rowland. Pity she couldn’t adopt him or something – make a damn sight better mother than his real mother. Away with the fairies, that one. ‘Traumatised in youth,’ the social workers would always say after talking to Laura Rowland. How’d she get all this trauma on board? Could be that Big Dan did a bit of fiddling about with her. You know. There was a bit of that about in those days.

  Last of all, in came Dooley Morgan, rough as guts as usual – hair sticking out like a burst main, eyes like boiled eggs behind his milk-bottle specs, leaning on the doorway stubbing out a fag on the sole of his shoe.

  ‘I can only go eleven minutes without a fag,’ he said as he sloped in, ‘so get on with it. Hello, Beatrice, how are you, love?’

  ‘Well, frankly, Dooley, I’ve got a ghastly headache.’

  ‘Christ, woman, I didn’t ask you for a fuck, I asked you how you were.’

  Believe it or not, old Beatrice chortled. She got on with Dooley – they were cousins. ‘I mean all this business over young Royce,’ she said.

  Daly the headmaster, however, was outraged at what Dooley’d said – looked like he was going to give him a detention.

  The first thing you had to learn about Dooley was that he was not going to change his manners for anyone. He would have said the same thing to the Queen.

  ‘Right,’ said Tip, ‘thanks for coming, everyone. We’ve got an hour or so. I told Laura Rowland to bring the kid down at eleven. What I want to achieve today is to decide what we’re gonna do with this bloody arsewipe son of hers, Royce. Last week he had fifteen people out hooking him out of the sea with a helicopter costing 6000 bucks an hour, never mind the cost in wages …’

  ‘And two ton of bloody flats!’

  ‘Pig’s arse, Bob,’ said Dooley. ‘That bag of yours would blow at three hundredweight.’

  ‘I lost a whole day’s …’

  ‘Yeah, well, I know where there’s a ton of phantom gurnard you can have. We’ll talk about it later. Now shut up and get on with it: there’s four minutes gone already.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Beatrice Hartley, pressing down on the table as if it was a buzzer for silence, ‘we must remember Royce hasn’t actually committed a crime. I think it’s important that we don’t feel we’re dealing with a criminal here.’

  ‘He’s not a criminal because no one ever files a complaint against him,’ said Doddy the lawyer – rather wistfully, when you thought about it.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Tip. ‘Everyone pussyfoots around him and dumps on someone else for his crimes. For example, I hear Penny Turton got fired recently. That right, Mr Daly?’

  Tip leaned his face forward like a left jab. He really didn’t like Daly. Probably a clash of detention systems.

  ‘I was compelled to accept Mrs Turton’s resignation in the circumstances, yes,’ said the headmaster carefully, in his big round voice. ‘The situation was intolerable for all of us and I had to think of the school.’

  You had to think of yourself, you gutless wonder, thought Tip Casey in a mental growl.

  ‘There’s too much of this thinking of the bloody school,’ said Dooley. ‘Half the fishermen off Westport left school at fourteen. Can’t read, can’t write, but all own their own boats and half of them are millionaires.’

  ‘Yeah? Which ones?’ growled Bob.

  ‘You for a start, you lying bastard,’ rejoined Dooley.

  ‘Boys, boys,’ sighed Beatrice Ellen Ann. ‘Now, I do see a virtue in sending Royce to sea, Dooley, but I think he should sit School Cert first. It’s only a few weeks away.’

  ‘He’s still under suspension, Beatrice,’ wittered Daly. ‘I haven’t looked into the situation but it would have to be correspondence tuition. We can’t have him back in the school.’

  ‘No, because he’s a local bloody hero,’ crowed Dooley.

  ‘Of course he’s not!’ blazed Beatrice Ellen Ann. ‘He’s a silly little boy. And pushing him out of the surveillance of the school system seems – if you ask me, Graham – a retrograde way of dealing with him. He is not, I repeat not, a criminal.’

  She was in the process of glaring Graham Daly into discomfort when Tip said: ‘All right, Beatrice, you’ve forced my hand. Fact is, he’s officially more than a silly little boy. I received a complaint yesterday from the Marine Aviation Authority – theft of a survival suit valued at $650. He’s on the end of some crim-friendly legislation, here.’

  ‘Three months,’ said Doddy.

  ‘Exactly,’ mouthed Tip. ‘Consequently I phoned Marine and told them we had plans to offer him diversion.’

  ‘What the hell’s diversion?’ said Bob.

  ‘He fesses up,’ said Tip,
‘and we find a tributary to Shit Creek.’

  ‘Fat lot of good that is,’ snorted Bob. ‘Little shitbag was caught red-handed, wrapped in a bright yellow rubber suit.’

  ‘Very colourful description, Bob,’ chirruped Dooley.

  ‘It’s procedural, Bob,’ said Tip. ‘Just bear with me. Confession, apology, restitution …’

  ‘Restitution? Oh, right,’ chortled Dooley. ‘Restitute ole Penny Turton her virginity back, eh, Tip?’

  Which brought a flash of anger from Sticky, who’d said bugger all until this point. ‘You fuckin’ …’

  Things could have got nasty had not wiser heads (Tip’s) prevailed.

  ‘Shuddup, Dooley, and siddown, Sticky, or I’ll order Bob to plant yers both.’

  When things had calmed down Tip carried on. ‘Royce still has to appear in court. Then he writes an apology to the Marine Department and he gives back the survival suit.’

  ‘He’s already given it back,’ said Doddy. ‘I witnessed him handing it back to the Diversions Officer.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know that, Doddy,’ sighed Tip. ‘Christ, let’s not get too officious here – every bugger here knows I am the Diversions Officer …’

  ‘It has to be said for the record.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, for the record. So, our Diversions Officer – who, as Mr Wold has pointed out, happens to be me – offers him diversion, and then stomps on him till he agrees. So, he’s diverted away from conviction and towards …’ he shuffled in his seat, moving the throb of his haemorrhoids from one cheek to the other ‘… well, towards Bob.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Bob Dodds, toothlessly.

  ‘Yes, Bob. To you,’ intoned Dooley Morgan flatly, not even looking up from the filter he was rolling into his next cigarette. ‘You gotta take the little fucker to sea.’

  ‘What? Like stink!’

  ‘Aw, come off it, Bob,’ said Dooley. ‘What the hell you think you’re here for?’

  ‘To give my opinion on whether the little arsewipe should be taken to sea at all – which is no, I friggin’ don’t!’

  ‘Are you going to be inhumane to your fellow man, then, Bob?’

  ‘To that little bastard I am, yeah. He cost me a netfull of fish. And he pinched me girlfriend’s groceries!’

  ‘Right,’ said Dooley, ‘I’m gonna be inhumane too. Gimme back the three thou you owe me or I’ll impound yer bloody boat.’

  A few loud minutes later Dooley’s diplomacy had prevailed; Bob had smoulderingly agreed. ‘And don’t forget that gurnard you promised, either,’ he’d purred, and Dooley’d reassured him he hadn’t forgotten the gurnard. It was all okay.

  ‘I’ll contact the Marine Department,’ said Tip. ‘Tell them I’ve okayed diversion, and that Rowland will go to sea with a responsible crew under strict supervision.’

  ‘Right. Well, that’s settled,’ said Doddy briskly. ‘We’re blessed with a new fisherman. Sounds quite biblical, doesn’t it? Cheer up, Beatrice, he can swot between trawls. Let him go, love: you’re keeping him from a fortune.’

  ‘Maybe he could study at sea,’ murmured Beatrice Ellen Ann, and that was the end of Royce’s academic career.

  ‘NOW,’ SAID STICKY Moody, ‘the Normandy goes on the slip tomorrow: spintles, sea cocks and bearing shaft. Then a repaint. I’ll miss a full moon in two weeks so that’s five weeks before she’s refloated …’

  ‘What you mean is, can you crew with Bob in the meantime?’ suggested Dooley.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I’ve got a crew; I’ll organise my own boat, thank you!’

  ‘You’ve got the two laziest bastards in town, Bob,’ said Dooley, ‘and you know it. What Sticky is pissing about trying to say is that he should be on your boat. You’re a good fisherman but a bloody useless teacher. If the kid’s gonna learn anything it’s not gonna be from you. You’d have him over the side first time he tangled the leads.’

  ‘He tangles my leads I’ll have his balls!’ roared Bob.

  ‘I rest my case,’ said Dooley. ‘Sticky, you’re leading deckhand for Bob for the next five weeks. Now, I’m going out for a smoke.’

  Dooley was not a subtle man, but he’d done exactly what Tip had called him in to do. Bob was the best skipper around – and renowned for putting his foot down with a firm hand. And seeing as how the kid’d already cost Bob a net of fish, life on board would be satisfactorily tough. But just in case Bob went a bit too far and chucked the little bugger over the side, there would be dependable old Sticky to gaff him and pull him aboard again.

  Overall, an elegant solution, and when Royce Rowland walked in with his mum at 11am, he was told he was deckhand on the Aurora, leaving at five-fifteen next morning.

  DAMN THAT FAT-faced bully-boy Tip Casey! Never been anything higher than C stream, now trying to be Rod Steiger in In The Heat of the Night. Only thing they had in common was the sweat … Did he know anything?

  Graham Daly … There were moments of one’s life … There had been incidents …

  This Royce Rowland thing had been a godsend: a way of getting the infernal bitch out of town …

  But it had still been a dreadful moment. There had been no real way of knowing how she’d react …

  ‘I’m sorry, Penny, but you leave me absolutely no option. You must realise that. You must give me your resignation and I must accept it.’

  ‘You hypocritical bastard!’

  Fortunately he had locked the office door. There would be no witnesses.

  ‘Penny, I had hoped we could get out of this thing with a minimum of unpleasantness.’

  ‘You fire me for something you tried to do yourself?’

  ‘Now, Penny, that – as I’ve said before – is ridiculous. You completely misunderstood me on that …’

  ‘You lying bastard! What you did was …’

  ‘An entirely innocent act of …’

  ‘Rape, if you’d got it right!’

  ‘How dare you?’

  ‘How dare you obliterate the memory, you devious little fart?’

  ‘I have a standing in this town! You don’t seem to realise that someone like me would never …’

  ‘No, they would never – because no woman in her right mind would agree. Because you are such a …’

  ‘Mrs Turton, with all due respect, I have a certain reputation in this town, a certain … gravitas. Do you really think I would jeopardise that for a fling with someone like you?’

  ‘You bloody well jeopardised, all right. Do you know how disgusting it felt to have you …’

  ‘Not only do you know that is ridiculous, Penny – and I know it is – but anyone else you ever tried to convince would know it was as well. I think this present, totally disgusting dalliance with a schoolboy has put your credibility well into the zero category. I doubt very much that your claims would be seen as anything other than a petty attempt to take someone else down with you.’

  ‘You stinking …’

  ‘Your word against mine, Penny, would be a sandfly against an elephant. Collect what tatters of dignity you have left and get out of Westport.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  (From a treatise called The Sea Off Westport, delivered to the West Coast Geological Society in 1977 by J. ‘Noddy’ Somerville. If you have no wish to read the text of what was evidently a quite well-received speech, skip the next 1531 words. Author.)

  THE SEA OFF WESTPORT is two million years old.

  Some of its denizens, however, are half a billion years old, for there had been many seas before the sea off Westport. In them, life had somehow appeared and the Archaean seas had begun to breathe.

  Life, at first, was little more than heroic slime. Then, perhaps because the sun shone through the primordial clouds for the first time, parts of the slime produced chlorophyl and became plankton. Other parts did not. Instead they ate the plankton and became the first animals.

  For aeons the sea was filled with these one-celled diatomic plants and animals, then some single cells united and complexity began.
Suddenly the ancient Ordovician seas teemed with sponges and jellyfish – then starfish, sea cucumbers and snails. And nautiloids, in such quantity that today they are cliffs in Sweden, and pagodas in China. The plants, too, throve and multiplied, and seaweed began.

  Soon after came the first nightmare of the sea – a subaqueous scorpion, equipped with vicious sting and dreadful claws. Claws that caused – in a thousand kinds of mollusc – the hasty evolution of thick protective shells.

  Then there was an Ice Age – 430 million years before the one known to the woolly mammoth. The refrigerated seas halved in volume, then were poisoned by the rotting nutrients released as the ice melted. Most of the creatures of the earth died. Those that did not went on to become the residents of the earth today. Including us, of course. Never forget us.

  WHY DO WE just know that the scorpions survived? Was it because even Death couldn’t bear to grapple with them? They became jointed giants, the size of a man: genus Slimonia, death-dealing haunters of estuaries during the Silurian and Devonian epochs.

  The Devonian began 405 million years ago, and lasted another 60 million. It’s called the Age of Fishes, for – side by side with the infernal scorpions – there now swam fishes with backbones. One of them – and only one – became the ancestor of every vertebrate on earth, just as, long after, the human race would spring from just one woman; not her mother, not her sister – her. Geneticists call her Eve.

  Sadly, no one has ever given a Christian name to Eve’s ancestor – that lone, backboned fish.

  For three-quarters of the history of life on earth, that life was lived only in the sea. The land lay barren – naked rock without soil or voice. Then plants floated ashore and in a semi-aeon the great forests of Lepidodendron trees, and horsetails and giant ferns grew up, soaked in the steamy sunlight, and stored it in the coalbeds of Pennsylvania, Silesia and Westport.