Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

have been a postmortem muscle spasm, then a definite sigh. I imagined myself as a tiny infant nestled against that same breast, almost dead, blood and vomit in my cot. Who’d have babies?
    Gogo predictably walked a wide arc around me and stood close to my mother, glaring at the patient.
    “The ladies and I have been talking about setting up a cooperative of home-made produce,” she said. “It’s something I’d been thinking about for quite some time.”
    “You had? Then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you do it?”
    “I was waiting.”
    “What for?”
    “For you all to decide you liked it here.”
    “Wait! Who said I liked it?”
    “You like it.”
    I pointed out to Mair that something unpleasant was leaking down the front of her shirt but she smiled and nodded knowingly.
    “And Arny seems happy too,” she said. “And even Father has his moments. I only wish we could convince Sissi to come down. We could be the happy family we used to be.”
    I wasn’t sure we’d ever all been happy at the same time.
    “I’m not sure Sissi would see the happy side of all this.”
    Mair removed the soiled newspaper and put Sticky Rice back in his box.
    “The poor fellow can sleep in your room tonight.”
    “Inside?”
    “Of course, inside. You can’t leave him on the veranda with all the snakes and bats around. They sense frailty.”
    We stood and dusted off the sand and I picked up the box. It felt heavier, suddenly, as if Mair had donated him an organ. Perhaps she’d just pumped him full of hope.
    “Did I mention Ed came by this morning?” she said. “He asked after you.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes. He is a sweet boy.”
    “He didn’t have his sister with him, by any chance?”
    “Which one?”
    “He’s only got the one. The gay one.”
    “Don’t be silly, child. Ed has three sisters, all happily married. Something like ten children between them. And I have noted that not one of them looks a bit like Ed. A little bit of extra-domestical hanky-panky in their history I wouldn’t be surp – Where are you going?”
    I handed her the box.
    “Pump some more hope into this one, will you,” I said. “I’ll be back for him later.”
    I left her standing bemused on the beach and strode to the bicycle. Had it been physically possible, flames would have been spewing from my nostrils. I knew Ed’s house. It was just off the road and impossible not to pass on the way to and from our place. In the past, I’d always turned my head away when I got close so as not to seem rude, but today I rode directly down their dirt drive and skidded in front of the open front door. His mother, a large jovial woman with sun-damaged skin, pointed me toward the southern bay.
    “He’ll be down with his boat,” she said.
    “He’s got a boat? I thought he was a grass cutter.”
    “Not much my Ed can’t turn his hand to,” she boasted.
    Although there’s probably some nautical expression for it, Ed’s boat was parked on a grass bank about a kilometer down the bay from our place. The craft, a typical, modest five-meter squid boat was upside down on blocks. Ed was planing, or some such woodworking venture. His top was off, and the torso that I’d imagined being ribbed like plates on a rack was, in fact, all muscle. Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t steak. He was skinny but not bony. The silvery sweat clung to him like dew on a gristly vine. I threw down the bicycle and paced to the boat. He ignored me. I knocked loudly on the far side of the hull. He looked up and had the audacity to smile at me. I put my hands on my waist.
    “I have come to tell you that I do not appreciate being lied to,” I said.
    “You don’t?”
    “No.”
    “OK.”
    I think he was about to return to his planing.
    “And you lied to me,” I said. “You told me you had a sister who didn’t like the company of men.”
    “I know.”
    “But you don’t.”
    “Nope.”
    “So why did you tell me you did?”
    “Because you were rude.”
    I was stunned.
    “Ha. So, how was I rude, exactly?”
    “When someone comes to visit down here, you don’t treat them like a servant. You don’t keep them waiting or snap at them. You show manners.”
    “Is that right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, excuse me for not knowing I was in the good manners capital of the country.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Thank…? What for?”
    “Your apology.”
    “I did not…I…” I could feel my aplomb slipping. “And, while we’re on the subject, don’t you