30 Days in Sydney (15 page)
Authors: Peter Carey
I had hypothermia. I was exhausted but I lifted myself up bodily on to the bow of his boat. And I staggered down towards my rescuer.
Why?
I asked him.
Why did you come out here?
I was up in the bloody estuary, he says, and this storm come through and I thought somebody might be in trouble so I come out to take a look.
My saviour's name was Stratmore Garside. He was a real character, the smallest of all God's angels. He gave me his clothes to put on. His pants came up to here on me. And a little tiny sweater. He saved my life. Then he got the water police on the radio so they could save my boat.
Of course the water police are local people. And they came out like a flash. They were just brilliant. But when they saw little Stratmore with his hot-water boat and his dinghy they must have recognised a disaster waiting to unfold.
For Christsake get the fucking hell out of here.
Stratmore was offended by this message on the radio.
What's the matter, can't they see how I'm handling it?
What a wonderful character. As soon as I got home, or the next morning - because that's when you draw best - I did a drawing for him of the scene. Really rough charcoal, but the sense of a storm and the boat coming out of the mist. He was just terrific, this guy, although the cops were right - he should have just turned around and come in, but he was fearless and he stayed with
Dorothy
until the police arrived.
For Christsake get the fucking hell out of here.
He was offended but he obeyed, although not before I had witnessed my great mate Bowsey jump off the police launch into those screaming seas. He got a rope around my boat and then they towed her. Side on! At twelve knots! By God, you should see the photograph - the entire boat is out of the water.
My boat survived the rescue and my life was saved, so you'd think I'd be content, but I soon began to dwell upon that missing rudder. Such a lot of time and care had gone into its manufacture. And I began to think, if the tide was running out and the southerly wind was blowing in, and if the tide was about to change, then my rudder
might
have been taken out to sea and it
might
have been carried north and gotten washed up on the beaches north near Ettalong.
Of course, it might just as easily have been smashed on the rocks on Lion Island, but I phoned my mate Fisho who lives at Woy Woy. I asked him if he would put an advertisement in the local rag.
In less than a week he was back on the phone.
A bloke's rung me, he's got your rudder.
You got to be joking.
Fisho explained how this bloke was fishing at low tide, way up the coast, near Gosford, and he slipped on something under the weeds.
As it happened, he was also a member of a local crafts movement. He was a
woodworker
and when he saw the red mahogany, he knew its worth. What he now had in his hands was a laminated centre rudder blade - spotted gum in the centre part of the rudder head, cedar cheeks, laminated Australian beech tiller curve.
My lucky day,
he thought. He took it home and put it on his mantelpiece.
Then the poor bugger read Fisho's ad in the local newspaper. That was a cruel test of character, which he passed with flying colours. Just the same he was not exactly
delighted
to hear from me.
Describe the rudder to me.
And
I
did.
Just my luck.
I can't tell you how grateful I am.
I bet you can't.
Do you mind if I come and pick it up?
No.
What can I bring you?
A bottle of Inner Circle rum.
So I found a bottle of Inner Circle rum, and went to a warehouse in Gosford where this bloke worked as a storeman and packer.
And he handed over the rudder.
And I paid in the oldest currency of all.
And that's the end of the story.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Peter Carey received the Booker Prize for
Oscar and Lucinda
and again for
True
History of the Kelly Gang.
His other awards
include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize
and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. His
most recent novel
His Illegal Self
was published
in 2008. Born in Australia in 1943, he now
lives in New York, where he is the director of
the Hunter College MFA program in creative
writing.
The text of this book is set in Linotype Sabon, named
after the type founder, Jacques Sabon. It was designed
by Jan Tschichold and jointly developed by Linotype,
Monotype and Stempel, in response to a need for a
typeface to be available in identical form for
mechanical hot metal composition and hand
composition using foundry type. Tschichold based his
design for Sabon roman on a fount engraved by
Garamond, and Sabon italic on a fount by Granjon. It
was first used in 1966 and has proved an enduring
modern classic.
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