Chapter Thirty-six – Jack
Chapter Thirty-six
JACK
O ne of the downsides of living on a car-free island is the absence of removalists. During the period of uncertainty following the closure of the oyster farm, and before he decided to leave the island, there were a few weeks where Keith tried his hand at a removalist business using golf carts. He called it Carted Away. Unfortunately, the venture didn’t take off and his services were soon monopolised by Arthur, who would transport junk back from the mainland tip and pay in IOUs.
Fortunately, I don’t have much stuff to move out of Moorings, and certainly no clawfoot bathtubs. That’s one of my favourites of Mum’s stories.
Before Clara left yesterday morning, she helped me load up the tinnie with some of my smaller items – pillows, fishing rods, my frypan – and some of her belongings too. There had been no tears when she’d boarded the river boat for her one-way journey. It was like sending a PhD student off on their first day of school; she was more than ready – life was well overdue.
Once the shop is closed, Charlie is coming around to help me slow-shuffle my couch, mattress and bed frame over to the other side of the island. We’ll be stopping for a ‘breather beer’ at Charlie Farleys, he reckons. Good thing Keith is still up north, otherwise he’d insist on helping too, and probably end up being Clam Cove’s very first occupational health and safety claim. Not amazing for Keith’s frail bones, but potentially a way of taking Alec Ogilvy down.
But I didn’t agree to a job at the resort just to bankrupt it.
The lessons from the last few years have been plentiful. Only dead fish swim with the current , that’s what Mum tells me, but now I know it’s better to give in to the flow, to let go and hope that eventually the river brings you back home.
Taking up residence in the farm’s old oyster shed, which conveniently occupied too small a footprint and failed all of the minimum setback requirements to warrant demolition when Clam Cove Resort opened, is my way of forcing that homecoming.