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He pushed aside a banksia and found the old smooth rock which the sun kept warm through the day. ‘What’s your plan? Selling it to an antique plane enthusiast?’ What would a World War II relic with a story attached to it be worth to a private collector?
Maybe he and Kirsty could split the proceeds. Fifty-fifty seemed logical; the law made him (and, currently, the bank) the owner, but Kirsty’s moral claim was one he’d hate to see denied.
‘Perhaps,’ Kirsty said behind him. ‘Or … we donate it to a museum. Carol knows of a museum on the south side of Brisbane which is dedicated to the war in New Guinea.’
A donation. That might work for a bloke who didn’t have a bank dangling a noose around his neck. He shucked off his filthy boots and socks and hauled off his shirt, and decided to change the subject since he’d given himself the afternoon off from worry. ‘We used to come here as teenagers with all sorts of contraband. Beer. Smokes. White bread.’
‘White bread is contraband?’ She sounded bemused. ‘I lived on white bread as a kid. Usually the day-old kind.’
‘We—my sisters and brothers and me—didn’t have what you’d call a traditional upbringing.’ Understatement of the century. Hisparents threw tradition out the back seat window of an orange Datsun 120Y the day they met, and they’d not missed it. ‘I’m the oldest of the kids so it was up to me to drag them into mainstream parenting when we hit school.’
‘Really? Like … give me an example.’
‘Sure. Clothing was all handmade at Bangadoon, so Mum was totally useless about buying us the right school uniform.’
‘That … sounds alarming.’
He chuckled. ‘Mum reckons I had an epic tantrum because she wouldn’t buy me a plastic Spiderman lunchbox. Pete had one, and he was the coolest kid in Year One, so of course I wanted one too.’
Kirsty made a sound and he turned to her. ‘What?’
Her eyes were on his as he dropped his pants and then stood in front of her in his plaid boxers, but she skittered them away and gazed out over the water. ‘You don’t seem the epic tantrum type.’
He grinned. ‘Oh, I have one now and then. I get forgiven, though, because I’m real good at kissing everything better afterwards.’
The colour flooding her cheeks was doing wonderful but wardrobe-challenging things to his libido, so he figured it was time to cut the banter and get himself under the waterline.
The water was cold. Joey winced as he slid in a few inches. As deep as it looked, he hadn’t been game to dive-bomb his entry the way he would have if he’d been a hormone-fuelled teenager showing off in front of his mates. The threat of mortality weighed a little more with him these days.
‘How is it?’
He eyed Kirsty, who was perched on the flat rock in the sun. She’d taken off her battered straw hat and the sun was turning strands of her long hair into tinsel. ‘Sensationally warm. You should join me.’
‘If your lips weren’t going blue, I’d believe you.’
His lips weren’t the only thing going blue. The calendar might say spring, and he’d just invested money he didn’t have on a crop of avocado plants that needed springtime sun to grow, but the rockpool hadn’t got the memo.
‘I didn’t take you for a chicken, Kirsty Fox. Come on, you’ll love it as much as Gus, trust me.’
Gus was currently paddling in lazy circles, snapping at a dragonfly as it tried to settle on the water. Joey reached out a hand and rubbed the dog’s head as he splashed past.
‘I’m perfectly happy up here, watching you shrivel.’
He grinned. This was the go. ‘I won’t laugh if you’re wearing Spiderman underwear.’
She pursed her lips. ‘You know, I’m beginning to understand why your mum wouldn’t let you have a plastic lunchbox. Perhaps it was punishment for being bossy.’
‘Is it working?’ he said.
‘Oh, what the hell,’ she muttered, and before his surprised eyes—because seriously, who’d have thought a Spiderman undies taunt would have worked?—she kicked her feet out of the old scuffed boots she wore.
‘I’m going t-shirt and knickers,’ she said. ‘So go look for platypus or something while I get out of my jeans.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said and turned to Gus. ‘You too, buddy, droop some hair over your eyes or something. What’s that, mate? You don’t need to because some numpty at Bondi Vet Clinic cut off your testicles?’
He heard a snort of laughter behind him, then the sharp gasp as his trespasser-turned-tenant discovered that he had, indeed, been lying about the water temperature.
‘Farout,’ she said. ‘It’s colder than snow melt, surely.’
