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From: david@f-e-mail.com (David Shaw)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 05:37:58 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: {ASSM} "BRING ON THE CLOWNS" (romance) By David Shaw
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Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:10:03 -0500
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"BRING ON THE CLOWNS" (romance)

By

David Shaw
david@f-e-mail.com

www.f-e-mail.com

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Deceit, lies, low cunning, treachery, sexual betrayal and great
steaming piles of dung -- yes, folks, it's the end of the Australian
financial year again.
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"You'll have no problems following the  channel, it's well marked with
poles. Stay between them going into the estuary  and coming out, and
you'll be right. Once you get into the  Peel Inlet, you'll have a lake
ten kilometres wide to play around in, all sheltered water . . ."

Bob Creedy, the elderly proprietor of 'WEST AUSTRALIAN CRUISER HIRE'
waved a hand to indicate the houses of the  small town of Mandurah,
the calm waters of the inlet now ruffled by  a crisp breeze off the
Indian Ocean. "I'm sure you'll have a  nice time, Mr Benson."

His customer was in his early thirties, deeply tanned, with a strong
face and a tall and wiry body  clad  in  tee-shirt  and boxer shorts,
topped off with a  dirty baseball cap.  In the younger man's hand was
one of the courtesy beers stowed in the ten metre cruiser's fridge on
the first day of hiring.

"Call me Jim, Bob. As soon as I've  finished this tinnie, I'll be off.
It's great to get out of the bush for a change."

"OK, enjoy yourself then, Jim.  She's all  fuelled up and ready to go.
If you have a major problem, you can always use the dinghy to come
ashore and make  a  phone  call . . . "  Bob  paused, looking to his
left along the small jetty to the shore. "Is this your wife?"

A well polished Commodore had stopped by the hire office, the driver a
solidly built yet shapely brunette in jeans and a tank top.  With her
was a young girl about seven years old with long hair the same colour
as the woman's.

"Nothing to do with me, Bob." Jim  sounded  regretful.  "I'm not
hitched. Don't meet too many sheilas when you're living in a railroad
line camp, two hundred kilometres from the nearest town."

The woman strode purposefully along the jetty towards  them. Bob
greeted her cheerfully: "G'day. Can I help you?"

"Sure. You've got a boat booked for me -- Elizabeth Demakos."

"Demakos -- Demakos." Bob Creedy's mood had swiftly changed to one of
pensive concern. He looked along the wharf  as  though hoping to see
another cruiser pop up out of  the  water like a submarine. "Mrs
Demakos, I'm very sorry but there seems to be some kind of a mistake
here. All my boats are booked and all out, except for this one, which
will be sailing any time now."

The woman scowled at Bob and then at Jim, as though  he  was part of
some conspiracy to cheat her. But she was a good looker right enough,
even if she didn't seem too inviting just then, savage blue eyes
raking the cruiser's  deck like Captain Kidd weighing up a prize and
holding firmly onto the child as if it were a reluctant member of a
boarding party.

"My name is not Mrs Demakos, it is Ms Demakos and I've got a letter
from you people confirming my reservation, together with the receipt
for my cheque. Either you provide me with the boat I've paid to hire
or you can expect enough trouble to match your gross incompetence."

Creedy's face flushed. "There's no need for that, Ms Demakos. If
there's been a mistake, I'm sorry, but I've got a new secretary and
perhaps she misplaced the booking form. I'll refund your money, of
course."

"You'll do more than that, unless you want this mess to end up at
Consumer Affairs." The woman's scowl was turning even more shrewish.
"You'll let me have this boat I booked  for free of charge. And I'll
pay the rental to this gentleman in lieu of his using the boat. I
promised my daughter a boating holiday and she's going to have it."

Jim immediately protested: "Hey, hang on, I drove thirteen hundred
kilometres yesterday to get here. Judging by that fancy car you drive,
you must live down here in the city, so you can hire a boat whenever
you like. This one is mine."

"I live in Perth, yes, but that doesn't mean I can  organise time off
from work during the school holidays whenever I like. It's taken me a
lot of effort to get this  break  organised and I'm not going to waste
it."

Both of them  paused, locked in an impasse.  Bob  Creedy intervented
in an effort to  prevent the argument escalating. "Listen, can I make
a suggestion here? How about you both share the boat? That way you'd
only have to pay half of the rent each."

The woman stiffened in anger but before she could speak, Bob rushed on
hurriedly: "Ms Demakos, I'm only talking about sharing it during the
day. The local pub is run by a friend  of  mine. I'll arrange a room
to be kept there for Mr Benson to sleep in. I'll pay for that to make
amends for the mistake the  yard  made in the bookings. The only thing
is that you'll have to come back to Mandurah each night to tie up.
Well, I'll make sure  a  berth at the jetty is left open for you and
it's not much of an inconvenience in return for having your rental cut
by  half. It means more spending money left in your pocket."

"You're out of your mind. I don't know this man from a  hole in the
wall and you want me to go off on a boat with him?"

Benson laughed, unexpectedly. "It's all right, I'm quite controllable.
Maybe this will help." He took out  a  wallet  and extracted a 
plastic  card  from  it.  As he  passed it over, Elizabeth Demakos
caught a whiff of aromatic aftershave. If  you discounted the scruffy
clothes, he was reasonably presentable.

The card was a company I.D. issued by Ridgeline Mining,  one of the
biggest of the Pilbara iron ore miners, with Benson's photograph in
one corner. He was wearing  dark  glasses in the photograph and looked
like a Mafia recruit. "You can ring up the Ridgeline Railroad  Works 
Supervisor in Port Ulster to get confirmation that I'm one of his gang
bosses."

There was a hiatus as Ms  Demakos  considered  the  proposal
carefully. Then she spoke: "Let me make three  things  perfectly
clear. The first is that you'll be ashore every night  by  seven
thirty. The second is that if you start getting grogged up, I'll push
you over the side and leave you there. The  third is that there will
be no funny business, otherwise the whole deal goes up in smoke."

Jim grinned cheekily. "Don't worry about that, Ms  Demakos. I bruise
too easily to fight in the heavyweight division."

Ms Demakos sniffed in disdain but seemed willing to go  along with the
arrangement. Bob Creedy heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  at having
adroitly dealt with a difficult situation. And at first everything
seemed to be, to coin a phrase, smooth sailing.

Four times the cruiser went out for the day and four times it returned
at dusk. Four times Jim Benson came ashore, cheerful and happy, and
then went off to roister his nights away, leaving the boat  with 
hardly a backward  glance.  On  the  fifth  he disembarked with an air
of savage frustration that Bob  detected even before Jim's feet had
touched the wharf.  He  stood at the opened office door as Benson
stalked by.

"Streuth, Jim, what's wrong with you?" he asked.

"Bob, that bloody woman is driving me wild. She won't let me put a
finger on her."

"I thought you weren't interested in her."

"I wasn't, until I found  out  she's  an  inspector  in  the
Commonwealth Taxation Office."

Bob twitched and cast a guilty eye on the set of opened accounts he
was working on. "Hellfire and damnation, thanks  for the tip off. But
I don't quite see. . ."

"Don't see, you don't bloody see! I earn my  money  sweating my guts
out in the dust and the flies, and those  bastards  take twenty
thousand dollars off me each year! A hundred days a  year I'm out in
temperatures above the old hundred degrees F scale and my  zone
allowance hardly pays for a cold beer at knock off time, while the
politicians are filling their guts with duty free booze at bars in
Federal and State Parliaments. I live in the middle of a bloody desert
to keep open a railroad that carries  millions  of tonnes of iron ore
every month, and the poxy, motherless swine say my accommodation is a
fringe benefit! And you don't see why I want to screw one of the tax
people for a change!"

Jim actually stamped his feet in anguish. "Once, just once, I've got
one of the sods within striking distance and  I  didn't even know it
until today. Look at that figure, look at it -- that's my bloody tax
rebate floating around out there, and I want it!"

"Jim, come and have a beer and let's talk this over."

Even after several beers Jim refused to be consoled.  "Bob, this is
like a crusade to me. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do the
right and proper thing -- just one good night in the master cabin and
at least I  can  have  a  little  smile  to myself the next time I 
have  to  pay  one  of  those  stinking assessment notices. Just one
little scrap of pleasure on my side of the ledger to help balance the
books, that's all I'm asking."

Bob nodded in appreciation. "For a  roughneck  ganger  boss, you've
the soul of a poet, Jim. But what's the  story  with  the lady? Was
she married, what happened to the daughter's  father, does she have a
boyfriend now?"

"The daughter, Tata, she said something  about  her  parents getting
divorced when she was a baby. That's all I know."

"Well, look here, young Jim, you're out there every day with Ms big
mouth Demakos, cheek by jowl as you might say. It's up to you to get
things moving."

"How -- by chatting her up? By whispering sweet nothings to a tax
inspector! The  words would stick  in  my  gullet like a blockage in a
sewage pipe. Anyway, she's about as cheerful as  a croc on a
vegetarian diet."

"Perhaps you should try being  masterful then.  Some women like that,
whatever they pretend."

Jim sighed and put down his glass. "You stupid old bugger, aren't you
listening to what I'm saying? The woman is an  income tax inspector. 
Suppose  she  doesn't  go  for  the  macho  male approach? Do you know
what could happen if  somebody  like  that decided to hold your return
up to the light and go through it to the last decimal point? My
accountant's good but once that  mob of dingos get their teeth into
you . . ."

Bob nodded in understanding. "It's a  challenge, isn't it? Set them up
again, while I have a ponder."

When Jim returned with the glasses, Bob was wreathed in smoke from a
stinking old pipe. "Jim, lad, it looks like it's going to be a rotten
day tomorrow. Dull, cloudy, probably  some rain. During the  early 
afternoon, I  want  you  to  trip  the domestic power supply circuit
breaker without being seen.  Tell the lady you'll have to come back to
the  jetty for the electrics to be repaired. Arrive back as close to
one o'clock as possible. Because it's  a Saturday, I'll have a good
excuse not to be there in  the  afternoon. She can't get at her car
because it's locked up in  my  security pound.

"By about four o'clock you should all be bored stiff sitting there
watching the rain fall. No TV, no radio, nothing. Wait for the
daughter to start making a nuisance of herself."

"And then what?"

"Tell them you can see into the future by reading tea-leaves, or some
such tripe. Put on a big show and tell Tata something is soon going to
happen which will mean she'll have a wonderful evening. Mother Demakos
is going to get  very uptight about you making those kind of promises,
especially in the  foul mood she should have reached by then. Tell her
that if you turn out to be right, you expect her to grant you one
wish. She'll be so keen to show up your silly ideas with her usual
arrogance that she'll say yes. And once she does, you're in  like
Flynn. Those sort always keep their word."

Jim was baffled. "What the hell can happen to give  Tata a wonderful
time while she's stuck at the side of your decrepit old jetty?"

"Never you mind, just you do as you're told, that's all."

It was bright and early on Sunday morning when Bob arrived at the yard
gate. The last of the garishly coloured  trucks  was pulling  out  and
 accelerating down the coast road towards Pinjarra. Left in the small
field behind the boat sheds was a circle of beaten down earth and a
pile of very large animal droppings. Walking along the jetty were Tata
and her mother. Elizabeth Demakos looked happy, relaxed and glowing. 
Tata came running over to Bob in great excitement.

"Mr Creedy, the circus came here yesterday!  We  were just sitting
around with nothing to do and suddenly they came and put up the big
tent, and there were  elephants, and monkeys, and clowns . . ."

"Yes, they phoned me last week and said they were coming.  I meant to
tell you about it and it slipped  my  mind.  Must be getting forgetful
in my old age. Did you enjoy the show?"

"Most of it but I fell asleep at the end and Jim -- Mr Benson -- had
to carry me back to the boat. But he said he had a fantastic time as
well. He stayed on the boat last night because it was very late when
the circus finished. He didn't seem  to  want to wake up himself this
morning though."

"Oh."

Bob and Elizabeth exchanged glances. Hers was unabashed and confident.
"I don't think you need to leave a space for us at the jetty at night
any longer," she said. "By the  way, we  had an electrical problem
yesterday. I was going to ask you to fix it. Then Jim suddenly
wondered if it might be a tripped  circuit breaker on the 240 volt
system  when  he  found  out  that he couldn't have any coffee this
morning. That turned out to be the cause of the trouble."

"It occasionally happens when the generator surges."

"I  suppose so.  Electricity is like the male  mind  -- unpredictable.
All afternoon yesterday Jim sat around trying  to think of what could
be wrong, completely baffled. Deprive him of his morning cup of coffee
and he solves the problem in a flash. Very odd."

Bob scratched his chin, warily eyeing Elizabeth.  "Sometimes a man
needs some kind of a stimulant to get himself going."

"Yes, and sometimes he gets supplied with one. Tata, dear, go and see
if Uncle Jim has finished in the head. And if he has, make sure he's
cleaned all of those revolting  bristles out of the sink."

"You're getting very nautically minded," Bob said, trying to be
jocular. "Picking up the language very well."

"Perhaps it's simply a throwback to the five Sydney to Hobart yacht
races that I crewed on. What is it about me, Mr  Creedy, that gives
you the impression that I'm a total cretin?"

Bob flinched. "Nothing at all -- nothing at all. What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that if it even crossed my mind  to suspect collusion
between you and Jim Benson in that pathetic piece of play acting which
went on here  yesterday, then I might just decide to give your
business affairs the kind of  scrutiny usually reserved  for a newly
discovered Rembrandt.  Do you understand now what I mean?"

"Ah . . .  yes, I think I get  the  general  drift.  But  I  can
assure you that I don't know what you're . . . " Bob mumbled his way
into silence as he realised he was doing no good at all.

"Don't bother wasting my time and yours. It's not likely I shall be
working for the government for much longer anyway. I do believe that
Jim and I will soon be living together permanently. Of course, he'll
have  to move  back to Perth.  He's done a remarkably good job in
saving his money though.  Between us we should have enough to start up
a business. I think that would be an interesting challenge."

"Well, I hope you'll be very happy."

"I hope so too."  Elizabeth  stared across the estuary, molten in the
rising sun, light shimmering through her simple white dress and
creating an  interesting silhoutte around the heavy breasts. Bob
sighed.

"Tell me the truth. You set him up to get that promise  from me,
didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I object to being taken for a fool. But, strictly between ourselves,
Bob, I'm glad you found a way of breaking the ice. I wanted to, but I
couldn't find a way of showing it." She took  a piece of bread from
her pocket and tossed it downwind. A pack of gulls were squabbling
over the scrap before it even touched the water.

"This is a nice place to live -- a  nice  place  to  work.  I think
running a fleet of boats for hire might be a good business as well. I
saw a site on the far bank which might be  just  what we're looking
for."

"You're joking!"

"Perhaps it would be better all round if we injected our capital in
the form of a partnership in your business. I think you could use some
younger blood around the place."  Elizabeth turned to face him again
and delicately brushed the  crumbs off her fingers. "By the time I've
been through your books I'll know exactly what a fair price is, down
to the last dollar."

"Oh, will you?"

"Sure. Just because somebody goes to a  circus, it  doesn't
necessarily mean they're a clown. Old Tax Office saying, Mr Creedy."

                              THE END

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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