Gone Fishing Read Online Free PDF

afternoon high tide. And give that mutt a bath when you have your own tonight. There’s enough marine life stuck on him to make a meal.’
    Jimmy studies the pup. ‘You reckon?’
    Sam sighs. Turns towards the crowd. ‘Three o’clock sharp,’ he says, giving the kid’s hair a rough-up before he walks into the thick of a ropeable community with violence and bloodshed up front in its mind. Metaphorically speaking, of course. He wipes his sticky hand on his shorts, checks his watch. No sign of Kate. No word from her either. Even putting a good spin on it, the signs aren’t too auspicious. He’d at least expected an I’m OK call after she finished her tricky legal appointment in town. Serious couples communicate. Real couples support each other. Committed couples share even the most boring minutiae of their lives and find it fascinating. Or pretend to. He’s getting the distinct sense of being an accessory good for occasional use but inessential in the greater scheme. She’s going it alone on the big stuff. He shakes drips of water from his hair. Get busy, mate, he tells himself, or you’ll fry what’s left of your thumping head. If only he hadn’t off-loaded Jimmy for the afternoon. He’d never dream of getting pissed in front of the kid. Lead by example. Not as easy as it sounds. His kingdom for a couple of painkillers.
    Fast Freddy, kitted out for his night-time taxi shift in fluoro orange, appears out of the throng as if by magic. ‘You look awful, Sam. Migraine?’
    â€˜Nice of you to put it so politely, mate. Tied one on. Fell asleep. Now I feel like someone’s ramming a boot into my skull.’
    Fast Freddy reaches into his pocket and comes out with a couple of small white pills. ‘Good old-fashioned aspirin. You’ll be right as rain in a tick.’
    Sam grabs the pills like a lifeline, swallows them dry.
    â€˜Er, they’re meant to be dissolved in water,’ says Fast Freddy, who’s a stickler for following instructions. ‘You might experience a bit of fizz making a rocket-fast return trip from your gullet.’
    â€˜Feel better already,’ Sam insists, punching Freddy’s shoulder in thanks and honing in on Lindy Jones, the shapely real-estate agent who seems to be able to discover the secrets of the universe by clicking on one in a row of bewildering graphics on the bottom of her computer screen. He wonders nervously whether it’s time he embraced the new technology. ‘It’s been around for thirty years,’ Kate had lectured him the other night when he made some disparaging remark about the invasion of electronics and the abandonment of nature for what seemed to him to be a load of time-wasting trivia. ‘The web,’ she replied – almost impatiently, now that he looks back on the conversation – ‘means no one needs to suffer in silence and ignorance ever again. Used correctly, it’s the tool – the weapon if you like – of the masses. All you have to do is hit one key and you can galvanise an army to march for the common good.’ He was unconvinced. Now he wonders if her words were prophetic. If ever there was a time to galvanise an army, it’s right now.
    But army? He checks out the beads, sarongs, shorts, T-shirts, thongs and bare feet; kids splashing about naked in the shallows; the same old Island die-hards glued to their seats in their regular corner, fists curled around stubbies dripping condensation like a dodgy hose. He marches up to Lindy, pushing aside Jason, her good-looking, always-amenable husband, with a business-like shove. Squashing down a ping of envy for this bloke who has it all, Sam kisses Lindy on both cheeks to show he’s up with at least one of the current social fads. ‘We need to do a bit of research, love. Find out where this shower of . . .’ He pauses; Lindy’s two excellent teenage kids are in earshot.