problems. He drove Margot to Frankston, wedged between Harry and Lenny in the rear seat, ahzeeing. Georgie sat at Jack’s side, pleased to be at his side.
She walked on the beach with him that day, after Veronica Andrews and her doctor partner had shot Margot in the backside with a horse needle to shut her up.
They walked for miles, Georgie picking up shells and lacy seaweed, crawling over rocks.
And in a rock pool, Jack found a treasure, identified by another beachcomber as a nautilus shell. A delicate thing, perfect and white, which the identifier wanted to own. Jack gave it to Georgie and told her he had put in for a transfer back to the city.
‘I thought you’d be down here, love.’
He asked her to marry him on their walk back to Jenny’s rooms.
‘I wish I was ten years older,’ she said. That was all she said.
*
The chap renting Vern Hooper’s house received notice that his lease wouldn’t be renewed and that he’d be required to vacate the property by the end of March. Two more families received identical letters. The Hoopers were selling up in Woody Creek.
There were few rental properties in town. Most who owned a house lived in it; Charlie owned three and two of them were vacant. He hadn’t slept in Jeany’s bed since the robbery. When Hooper’s tenant approached him, though Charlie wanted him, he shook his head.
‘The last lot buggered it,’ he said. They had. Every door was dog-raked, one of the kitchen cupboards had been dog-chewed. The floor coverings needed replacing again. One of his smoke bombs had singed the floor. His hose had done its own damage.
‘Your insurance ought to cover it,’ Hooper’s tenant said.
Charlie scratched his head and eyed him. There was still a stink of sump oil in that house. He hadn’t put in an insurance claim. Maybe he ought to chance it. He wanted Hooper’s tenant.
‘Give me a day or two to think it over,’ he said. Or to think something over.
Until his last tenants had gone feral, he’d considered renting out Jeany’s house. He thought about it that day.
February ended no better than it began, and March came in, looking no better than February. Two days into the month and work began on building Sydney an opera house, which would likely cost the taxpayer countless millions. And what did the average taxpayer need with an opera house? Charlie couldn’t turn his radio off fast enough when one of those screeching opera-singing sopranos opened her mouth.
He received two letters that day. One made him happy – the insurance company had paid up for the robbery. The second letter killed his pleasant mood. It was from the taxation department.
2 March 1959
To whom it may concern,
Your thieving city bodgies have already done over my business this year. It might be to your advantage to put off your own raid until next year when, with a bit of luck, I might be in a better position to pay for your bloody opera house.
Yours bloody sincerely,
Charles W. White, Justice of the Peace
They didn’t reply, not by letter. One of their numbers men replied in person, a chap of thirty-odd, heavy dark-rimmed glasses, dark suit, couldn’t crack a smile to save his life. For two days he took over the bottom end of the counter, demanding invoices. Charlie gave him a few cardboard cartons full, half of which were prewar, a few of which may have been pre first war.
Before the tax accountant retired defeated, he learned of the hidden costs in running a country grocery store. Potatoes went rotten, mice got into bags of oatmeal, power wires blew down in storms and goods went off in freezers. He learned, too, that it was a dangerous game to make a move on the person of Georgie Morrison. He departed for home with one arm of his heavy-framed glasses held together by a bandaid, and none the wiser about Charlie’s habit of filching big notes from the cash drawer, or about his clutch of share certificates, impaled on a wire spike and hung behind the storeroom door beneath a
She walked on the beach with him that day, after Veronica Andrews and her doctor partner had shot Margot in the backside with a horse needle to shut her up.
They walked for miles, Georgie picking up shells and lacy seaweed, crawling over rocks.
And in a rock pool, Jack found a treasure, identified by another beachcomber as a nautilus shell. A delicate thing, perfect and white, which the identifier wanted to own. Jack gave it to Georgie and told her he had put in for a transfer back to the city.
‘I thought you’d be down here, love.’
He asked her to marry him on their walk back to Jenny’s rooms.
‘I wish I was ten years older,’ she said. That was all she said.
*
The chap renting Vern Hooper’s house received notice that his lease wouldn’t be renewed and that he’d be required to vacate the property by the end of March. Two more families received identical letters. The Hoopers were selling up in Woody Creek.
There were few rental properties in town. Most who owned a house lived in it; Charlie owned three and two of them were vacant. He hadn’t slept in Jeany’s bed since the robbery. When Hooper’s tenant approached him, though Charlie wanted him, he shook his head.
‘The last lot buggered it,’ he said. They had. Every door was dog-raked, one of the kitchen cupboards had been dog-chewed. The floor coverings needed replacing again. One of his smoke bombs had singed the floor. His hose had done its own damage.
‘Your insurance ought to cover it,’ Hooper’s tenant said.
Charlie scratched his head and eyed him. There was still a stink of sump oil in that house. He hadn’t put in an insurance claim. Maybe he ought to chance it. He wanted Hooper’s tenant.
‘Give me a day or two to think it over,’ he said. Or to think something over.
Until his last tenants had gone feral, he’d considered renting out Jeany’s house. He thought about it that day.
February ended no better than it began, and March came in, looking no better than February. Two days into the month and work began on building Sydney an opera house, which would likely cost the taxpayer countless millions. And what did the average taxpayer need with an opera house? Charlie couldn’t turn his radio off fast enough when one of those screeching opera-singing sopranos opened her mouth.
He received two letters that day. One made him happy – the insurance company had paid up for the robbery. The second letter killed his pleasant mood. It was from the taxation department.
2 March 1959
To whom it may concern,
Your thieving city bodgies have already done over my business this year. It might be to your advantage to put off your own raid until next year when, with a bit of luck, I might be in a better position to pay for your bloody opera house.
Yours bloody sincerely,
Charles W. White, Justice of the Peace
They didn’t reply, not by letter. One of their numbers men replied in person, a chap of thirty-odd, heavy dark-rimmed glasses, dark suit, couldn’t crack a smile to save his life. For two days he took over the bottom end of the counter, demanding invoices. Charlie gave him a few cardboard cartons full, half of which were prewar, a few of which may have been pre first war.
Before the tax accountant retired defeated, he learned of the hidden costs in running a country grocery store. Potatoes went rotten, mice got into bags of oatmeal, power wires blew down in storms and goods went off in freezers. He learned, too, that it was a dangerous game to make a move on the person of Georgie Morrison. He departed for home with one arm of his heavy-framed glasses held together by a bandaid, and none the wiser about Charlie’s habit of filching big notes from the cash drawer, or about his clutch of share certificates, impaled on a wire spike and hung behind the storeroom door beneath a
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