Mrs Spinks
“YOU HAVEN’T seen theDo-me by any chance, have you?” asked the gaunt, white-haired woman who was looking down at Bony. The brown eyes were burning with a strange heat, and the furrowed face was illumined by pathetic hope.
Knowing instantly who she was, Bony scrambled to his feet and bowed in his grand manner.
“How long have you been up here, mister?” she further asked.
“Several hours, Mrs Spinks. But”-and he pointed to the litter of papers-“as you see, I have been studying.”
Mrs Spinks nodded, and then, whilst Bony was collecting his papers, she stood gazing away out over the blue and white carpet of the sea.
“TheIvy ’s bringing home a swordie,” she said.
“Oh! Where is she?” inquired Bony.
The woman pointed towards Montague Island, and Bony saw the distant launch carrying a flutter of blue at her masthead. The craft was so far away that he wondered at Mrs Spinks naming her. He saw another launch, and he, too, pointed, saying:
“Out there is another launch, see?”
“That’ll be theMyoni, mister. She’s flying the red flag. Angler on her has brought a shark to the gaff. Yes, I know ’em all, all the Bermagui launches. I always watch for ’em coming home at eve, but I can’t never see theDo-me. Oh-I can’t never see theDo-me.” Her hand firmly imprisoned Bony’s arm, held it strongly and without a tremor. The brown eyes blazed at his. “They all say theDo-me went down over Swordfish Reef, and that the sharks took my Bill and young Garroway and Mr Ericson. They’re liars, all of ’em.”
“Let us hope so, Mrs Spinks.”
“Hope so! There’s never no need to hope they’re all liars. They are, I tell you. My Bill isn’t dead.”
“Isn’t he?” queried Bony, his voice gentle.
“No, he’s not. If he was dead I’d know of it, wouldn’t I?”
“How would you know?”
“How would I know it, mister? I’d know it because I’m his mother, that’s how I’d know it. Trust a mother to know if her only boy was drowned at sea. Trust me. Bill was a fine lad, and he’s grown into a finer man. Steady as a rock, is my Bill. He’s always loved me, always looked after me. Why, he nevercome home, not once, without giving me a good hug and kissing me. If the sea had took him he’d have let me know. He would have come in the spirit to stand close to me, to whisper to me that he was dead and that I wasn’t to sorrow. And I wouldn’t have, either. I’d have had to live on for a few more years and then he’d be waiting for me up on high, waiting to hug me again and kiss me. But don’t you fret, mister. The sea didn’t take him, and one day he’ll come trolling home with young Garroway and Mr Ericson.”
“Yes, of course,” Bony said. “I’d like to hear you tell me all about your son and theDo-me. Let’s sit down on the grassy brow there, and watch the launches coming home while you tell me. Will you?”
He saw the generous mouth drop, and was made uneasy. He watched the defiance fade from her own eyes. When she spoke there was wistful eagerness in her voice.
“Would you really like me to tell you about Bill and theDo-me, mister? No one bar Marion ever wanted to hear about him and the launch he built all by himself. Cold, that’s what everyone is. Even Marion gets a bit cold now and then. She’s my girl, you know. She and Bill are twins. There weren’t any others.”
“I’d like to hear about them both and about theDo-me, too. Come!” urged Bony. “Sit down here beside me and tell me everything. You said your son built theDo-me. Did it take him long?”
“A year. A full year, mister. He built her in his spare time. I helped to build her, too. He made me nail a deck plank into place just so it could be said I helped build her. I can’t understand what’s keeping them away for so long. Mr Blade sends out my wireless messages when I ask him to, but Bill never answers them, and he doesn’t come home. It’s not like him, you know.”
Bony puffed cigarette smoke.
“Perhaps,” he suggested. “Perhaps your son and Mr Ericson and young Garroway decided to go a long way away and fish. Perhaps they heard from one of the passing ships where there were many extra heavy tuna and sharks to be caught.”
Mrs Spinks moved her thin body the better to regard this very kind man who wanted to listen to her.
“D’youthink that’s how it is?” she insisted. “You might be right, mister. I didn’t think of that.”
Bony dared not look into the woman’s wide eyes lit by the beacon of hope. He said:
“Did your son get on well with Mr Ericson?”
The woman offered no reply. The work-toughened fingers of her right hand were being pressed to her lips. To the dancing, glittering, beautiful and cruel sea she said:
“Yes, that might be it. Bill and Mr Ericson might havetook it into their head to try New Zealand for the fishing. Mr Ericson he liked Bill. He was thinkin’ of buying himself a launch bigger and faster than theDo-me, and he was thinking of hiring Bill by the month to run her for him. Bill reckoned it would be good-oh. Regular wages would be better than the up and down fishing during the winter. Yes, they might have taken a run across to New Zealand on the spur of the moment. I never thought of that. And Bill could have got new underclothes in New Zealand, too. I needn’t keep his out waiting for him. I can put ’em away.”
“It appears that Mr Ericson liked your son,” Bony softly interjected, valiantly keeping from his voice the pity surging in his heart. And when she spoke again pride controlled her.
“Like my Bill! Everyone likes Bill. Why, a day or so before they went away Mr Ericson was talking of buying that land of Watson’s and building a house on it to live here for keeps. He said it would be a good idea if Bill ran his new launch, and for me and Marion to go and live with him, me to do the cooking and Marion the maiding. He liked my cooking, did Mr Ericson, after I cooked a tunny he caught and sent out with young Garroway for their lunch. He said I was a splendid fish cook, and that only one cook in every hundred could cook fish properly. He was right, too. You want to have the fat hot but not too hot to burn, and when you steam fish you want it to steam slowly, not fast as though in a hurry to get it done with.”
“Mr Ericson had plenty of money, I understand,” Bony suggested.
“Oh, I suppose so. He always paid Bill prompt every week ’cos he was staying for a long time. There’s theEdith coming home.”
“She’s had no catch today.”
“No. If the anglers caught swordies every time they went to sea there wouldn’t be the sport there is in swordfishing.”
“And isn’t this theDolfin coming along from the Three Brothers? It looks like her.”
“That’s her. Trim craft, ain’t she, mister? She’s coming fast this way, too. Must be bringing in a swordie for weighing and recording. You’ll see her mast go up presently, like as not, and the blue flag run to her truck. Mr Rockaway doesn’t bother to bring sharks to be weighed.”
Bony watched the slim bow of the silver-grey launch cutting the water cleanly like a knife and thrusting outwards sheets of spray. TheDolfin ’s speed was much higher than that of the average launch: sixteen knots Joe said she could do.
“Her mast is hinged to the decking,” the woman explained. “Mr Rockaway likes the mast laid down. Says it makes theDolfin more like a cruiser when her mast’s laid flat. I like to see a mast up, myself. There, I thought so!”
They could observe a man working at what looked like a winch, and slowly the mast was seen to rise into position. Then to its summit was run the blue flag having the small white fish emblazoned on it.
TheIvy was about to pass over the bar with her capture of the day. TheMyoni was drawing near the headland. She was flying the red shark flag, and, when a minute or two later, she passed the headland, Bony and Mrs Spinks could see the fish lashed across her stern. Her white paintwork reflected the light of the westering sun. Like birds homing to roost were these launches. Farther out theGladious and theSnowy were coming in, their mastheads bare of bunting.
“Two swordies and a shark so far,” Mrs Spinks said. “Where’stheVida and theLilyG. Excel? At, there’s theExel coming in from Swordfish Reef. She’s got no capture. TheMarlin? But then Jack didn’t go out today. Day off for Jack Wilton and that old fool of a Joe Peace. Jack’s angler landed a good ’un, didn’t he? Why, mister, you must be Jack’s angler.”
“Yes, that’s so, Mrs Spinks. I felt that I required a rest today.”
“Of course. Any man would want a spell after fighting that five hundred and eighty-pounder. That will do Jack a lot of good, you know. It’ll be in all the papers. Good lad is Jack Wilton. He’s been long waitin’ to marry Marion.”
“Doesn’t she like him enough?” inquired Bony, keenly watching the oncomingDolfin riding down the chop and ignoring the rollers.
Mrs Spinks audibly sighed.
“Marion’s like me,” she asserted. “She’s waitin’ for Bill and Mr Ericson to come back home. You see, it’s like this, Mr Bonaparte-that’s a funny name for a man to have: wasn’t there an emperor or something of that name?-Jack Wilton’s got his mother to keep and to think of. If he married Marion he’d have to look after me, too, until Bill came home. Still, that’s not all. Marion always was a wilful girl, but in some ways she’s very cautious. And it’s no fault to be cautious in love, is it? Now if I went to cook for Mr Ericson, and generally look after him, and Bill lived with Mr Ericson, too, things would come straight for Marion and Jack. Jack’s a good lad, but like all the fishermen here he finds money hard to earn during the winter.”
“But there’s plenty of fish to be caught for the market, isn’t there?”
“They could all catch enough fish to sink their launches any week of the year. But there’s no way of selling them. People in the cities don’t like king-fish and tunny, it seems. They like sharks and flathead and other fish what feeds off offal.”
Mrs Spinks’s eyes were flashing, and seeing that he was treading on soft ground, Bony switched back to Ericson and his plans.
“And you think that Mr Ericson really intended building a home here and getting your son to run his own launch?”
“So he told Bill. Why, he was telling me, too, that evening before they last went out. I was down on the jetty waiting to tell Bill about a telegram that had come from an angler who wanted theDo-me for a fortnight. When theDo-me come in, I give Bill the telegram, and Mr Ericson and me was talking on the jetty when theDolfin came in to get a fish weighed. Mr Ericson asked me then if I would cook and housekeep for him, and he was talking about Marion doing the housemaiding when theDolfin was being moored.
“All of us looked at the tunny what Mr Rockaway had captured. Mr Ericson was extra interested. He seemed to get suddenly very jealous of Mr Rockaway, for off he goes along the jetty leaving me a bit surprised like and Mr Rockaway with his mouthopen like he was a fish out of water.”
“That,” Bony said slowly, “is most interesting. Was that the first time Mr Ericson ever met Mr Rockaway?”
“I don’t know. Oh, I wish theDo-me would come in. I never liked Bill being out late and having to navigate the bar after dark. Especially when the tide’s out as it will be tonight.”
“Was Mr Blade on the jetty waiting to weigh Mr Rockaway’s big tunny?” pressed Bony.
“Mr Blade? Oh-Mr Blade. No. He met Mr Ericson on the shore. They spoke for a second or two. I remember that because that Dan Malone shouted to Mr Blade to hurry along and weigh Mr Rockaway’s fish.”
“Who else was standing on the jetty with you?”persisted Bony.
“I don’t remember, mister… Yes, I do. There was Alf Remmings, of theGladious. He was there, because Billgive him the angler’s telegram, and asked him if he would take the angler. Remmings said he would.”
Bony was smiling faintly as he regarded the panoramic view of sea and land: he saw the highlands darkly gleaming beneath the sinking sun, saw the summit of Montague Island and the lighthouse swimming on the horizon like a fabled land waiting to be visited by Ulysses; he watched the nearingGladious andSnowy, and saw the sunlight reflected on the silver-grey hull and the brasswork of theDolfin, now about to swing past the blunt tip of the headland. Mrs Spinks stood up to scan the steel-blue horizon.
“That’s theCanberra,” she said, indicating a ship hull down but whose decks and upper-works showed vividly against the sky. “TheOrcades will pass late tomorrow afternoon. I always follow up the big ships in the papers. Mr Blade gets in wireless touch with them to ask if they’ve seen theDo-me, and if so to tell my son to come home. He’ll bewantin’ clean underclothes, and I’ve got ’em all ready laid out for him.”
“He’ll come home when Mr Ericson is ready,” Bony said softly. “You don’t want to worry so much about those underclothes. And you don’t want to worry about Bill. He’ll be all right. I must be getting along to the hotel for dinner. It’s getting late. Come along. We’ll keep company.”
“No.”
The negative was spoken sharply. In the woman’s brown eyes again was rebellion.
“Very well, but I rather wanted you to tell me more about Bill and Mr Ericson and young Garroway.”
“I’m not going. I want to stay here and watch for theDo-me coming home.”
Bony paused when some six or seven yards away from the afflicted woman.
“You said, Mrs Spinks, that everyone else was cold, that they wouldn’t listen to you speaking about Bill,” he reminded her. “I’m not cold. I like to hear about Bill and Mr Ericson, and there you stand and say you are going to let me go back to the hotel alone. Come along and talk about Bill and Mr Ericson and theDo-me.”
For the first time he saw Mrs Spinks smile. She said, walking to him:
“It’s nice to have someone to talk to, someone who will not say that Bill was taken by the sharks. He’s a fine lad, my Bill.”
She chatted about “her boy” whilst accompanying Bony down past the Zane Grey shelter-shed to the road where they were met by Marion, who was hurrying to fetch her mother from her vigil.
“We have been gossiping about your brother and Mr Ericson and theDo-me,” Bony said cheerfully. “And we have decided that most likely Mr Ericson persuaded your brother to go across to try the fishing in New Zealand waters. That is why they have been away so long. And, of course, over there they found the fishing so good that they forgot to send word.”
“That’s how it is, Marion,” Mrs Spinks cried, again smiling. Marion regarded her mother, a smile stillborn on her vivid face. She turned and walked with them to the hotel; and for the first time since the fourth of October, Mrs. Spinks went home without resisting.
While Bony was preparing himself for dinner, he thought it strange that those two women refused to believe that William Spinks was dead, were so emphatic in their belief that he still lived. And when he thought of that little scene on the jetty when Mr Ericson walked away in a huff because Mr Rockaway had captured a large tuna, he smiled at his mirror-reflected face and murmured:
“You are a very clever man, my dear Napoleon Bonaparte. Mrs Spinks gave you this afternoon the authority for thinking along a certain line. Ah yes-this case is moving. But I can’t think that those Spinks women are right in believing William Spinks to be still alive.”