Read Online Making Laws for Clouds by Nick Earls - Free Book Online Page B

near-Magus, gone. And I reckon I know them well enough to be pretty sure that our three-legged-racing status is in doubt. That’s how far this goes – all the way to a stupid picnic months in the future.
    She should drive the bus wearing a cap. She would look hot in a cap. And maybe boots. Is theresuch as thing as bus-driver boots? They’d go at least up to your knee, wouldn’t they? And be black and shiny? And if there’s any mucking up, Miss Tanika takes you down the back and sorts you out.
    Yep, they’d go for that at the Blessed Virgin at Wurtulla.
    Tanika Bell and thigh-high shiny black boots. Classify that thought under seriously lustful, my friend. That’s what I tell myself, as if I’m doing Father Steele’s job since he’s not around. But it’s just a fashion garment, Father, I’d tell him. It’s what all the young folk wear when they go out raging. Harbo, mate, where did you get that old word from?
    Paint goes on, white on white. Fifteen minutes of it, more. This must be the last coat for this part of the boat.
    Where is she?
    I take a look around, in case the bus is back. There’s been some fire in the hills today and the sun’s going orange as it gets down closer to them, settling in the smoke. I can see along a couple of canals from up here, big houses like castles with their own jetties, and new developments inland, new canals. And I can see past the beachfront apartment blocks to Mount Coolum, and over the fence and through the she-oaks to the beach, though there’s not much of it with the high tide. That’d be enough for me. If we could sitdown there and just be left alone to watch the sea getting dark, that’d do.
    Just us, once the families have folded their umbrellas and had their last fight about getting out of the water and packed up their stuff and walked off up the sand. And we’d talk, in a way we can’t talk here. And it’d be night soon enough, and I’d sit on Tanika’s left side so that the light from the unit blocks and maybe the moon would be there on her face, for only me to see. That’d do.
    I could, in all honesty Father, forsake the bus-driver boots. Most of the time.
    When Tanika gets back, Harbo’s on the deck doing something that looks very like farting around. Fidgeting and looking into the distance like a sentry with wrapped-up hands and no real idea who the enemy is. Like someone Joe Bell’s had a quiet word to. Maybe, maybe not. Tanika goes straight to her side of the boat.
    Harbo sticks his head over the rail. ‘I’ll be inside, if you need me,’ he says. ‘Not that I think you’ll need me.’
    So I paint. I paint and I edge my way to the right, to the bow. She’s waiting when I get there.
    â€˜So, hi,’ she says.
    â€˜Hi. How’s your side coming along?’
    â€˜Good. Who knows, actually? It’s pretty dark round here. Too late for painting.’
    â€˜Yeah, well . . .’
    â€˜We’ve got to talk,’ she says. ‘Before anyone else sticks their head up somewhere.’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Listen, what happened, with the nativity play and that . . . You’ve talked to Father Steele, right?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜And he wanted to know if it was impulsive, or if it meant more than that? Did you have to think about that one, too?’
    â€˜Sure.’
    â€˜Well, for me it wasn’t so much impulsive. Given the two choices. I’m not really one of those people.’
    â€˜Yeah, I know. And the same for me, right?’
    â€˜Smoko,’ Harbo calls out, pretty much right above us.
    He manages to have quiet feet just when you don’t want him to. Clatters round like a drunk old bastard in there most of the time, scaring you into thinking an explosion’s imminent, moves like a ghost when it’s just you and Tanika Bell under the bow with issues coming