Making Laws for Clouds by Nick Earls Page A

sins of word while I wasn’t concentrating. ‘She was saying she thought she’d hang back a while this evening and do some more of the other side. Not that I’m trying to push you into staying, but she reckoned she’d get her dad to drop all the others off and then come back for her. And maybe you if you were up for it, but . . .’ Not trouble at all. The opposite of trouble. ‘Anyway, there’ll be a second run happening. For the two of you if you aren’t doing anything. If you don’t have plans.’
    â€˜Just painting plans.’
    â€˜Well, if that’s . . .’
    â€˜Harbo, is there no one else you can yack to? I’m a busy man. Someone’s got to give this baby a second coat.’
    He laughs and says, ‘Good on you,’ and I keep pushing the brush along the timber, focusing on the job and not the turn things are taking.
    Tanika Bell. Tanika Bell and me working on the boat, and practically no one else around. If we worked all night till it was finished, maybe we could just push it into the water and leave. Cruise the high seas.
    â€˜I should have brought beer,’ he says. ‘I should have brought a cold beer or two to pass up to you right now.’
    â€˜Hey, I’m on the job. You can buy me as many beers as you like when we’ve got you back in the water.’
    â€˜I’ll tell Tanika you’ll be staying then?’
    â€˜Sure. Actually, it’d be good if you could tell Mr Bell when he gets here with the bus. It’s, you know, a passenger issue.’
    â€˜No worries.’
    No worries at all.
    Mr Bell gets here right on time and Harbo meets him at the gate. I dunk the brush in the paint again and slide it along the wood. I paint like a quiet machine, I look like a worker, I think only of Tanika Bell. The sun’s getting low but it’s still hot on the back of my shirt and the sweat’s running down my chest. The second coat looks better than the first. This time the timber stays white and looks painted.
    Towards the front the boat narrows, and Tanika’s somewhere just over there on the other side, working away in the shade, loading up her brush with white paint and doing plank after plank. Like me.
    I can imagine just how she looks right now, trying to keep her hair out of her face and getting flecks of paint in it, blowing it out of her eyes the way I’ve seen her do, tucking it out of the way but it doesn’t stay.I know her from watching her, not recently but last year. I suspect I remember more about Tanika Bell than they think I do, and this isn’t over.
    Mr Bell goes round the back of the boat, with a look on his face that lets me know why they call the back part the ‘stern’. There’ll be talk going on round there. I keep painting, taking the new white paint right to the top of the hull where the blue trim’s going to go. I keep painting and looking straight ahead at the timber, as if it’s the only thing on my mind.
    â€˜Kane.’ It’s Mr Bell, back already. But he hasn’t said my name in a while – that’s what takes me by surprise. ‘Kane, just clarifying this evening’s movements.’
    â€˜Sure, Mr Bell.’
    I turn around and he’s looking up at me with the sun glinting from his sweaty head. He’s got his hand up to his face and he’s squinting, even though the sun’s behind him. It’s the white paint that’s making him do it. The glare of the sunlight from the white paint.
    â€˜You see the difference with the second coat?’ I figure a comment related to the job could be a good choice. ‘The wood just soaks the first one right up, so I thought I’d stay on and do some of the second. At least give myself some sense of accomplishment.’
    â€˜Yes. Good. Well, I’ll be twenty minutes and then I’ll be back. Twenty-five at the outside. And Mr Harbison’ll be here