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I’ve lived with mum and dad and Jack in our house on the riverbank all my life, and I’ve always been pretty happy. Dad’s been skipper of Annabelle all that time, and mum’s always looked after us. All I can remember of going to school is waiting for the bell to ring at 3.30 so we could all go home. I did my best at school, but I think dad and mum were disappointed in my reports; they never said so, but I could tell. After school I usually mucked around with my brother Jack and his gang, playing games in the bush and swimming in the river, but I was littler than them so they mostly just ignored me. When I was ten I started hanging around the boatyards, with the lovely smell of sawn wood and fresh paint, and the sound of hammering and electric motors and the yard hands joking around, and by the time I was twelve I was doing odd jobs and cleaning up for the boat builders. They didn’t seem to mind me being there watching, they said I was always well behaved, not like other boys. They started showing me how to do repair jobs on the boats, and all about marine painting, and after a bit I started earning a bit of pocket money for my work. I’ve never been to technical college or anything, but I reckon I’m as good as a lot of the blokes that have.
Dad’s always encouraged me to learn new things. He was reading the adverts in the paper one evening when he said “Here you are Tim, this should interest you, an auction of a deceased estate over at Black Mountain. There’s a grandfather clock going, and it’s marked ‘not in working order’. I don’t expect they’ll get much for it. Why don’t you take tomorrow off and go and bid for it? If you get it you can try and fix it up.” “I don’t know anything about clocks” I said. “Well here’s a good chance to learn. There’s a fellow up at Warrabi that’s a retired clockmaker, what’s his name now, Bert something. If I ask him he’ll help you get started.” Wow! I’d never thought about fixing a clock. “How d’you buy anything at an auction dad?” “It’s pretty simple. When the auctioneer announces the clock is the next item you call out a low price to him, and if somebody else makes a higher bid than yours you call out a higher bid again. If you’ve made the highest bid when the bidding stops then the clock is yours. Make sure you take your money with you, because you have to pay the auctioneer straight away.” It all sounded pretty complicated to me. Pity Jack couldn’t come with me, he could have done the bidding for me.
Next day I went over to Black Mountain on my motorbike for the auction. I was pretty nervous. There were a lot of people there, so I didn’t expect to get the clock anyway. I took a look at it. It was a bit knocked around, looked as if it had been stored in a shed somewhere. There was a door on the back with a key, so I looked in. The inside was full of cobwebs, and I could see the brass works and a big pendulum hanging down, and weights on pulleys. It looked very complicated. A fellow came over. “I’m the auctioneer today. You interested in the clock?” “Maybe. I wouldn’t mind trying to fix it up. How much d’you think it’ll sell for?” “In good working condition and fully restored it would probably fetch a couple of thousand, but this one’s a bit of an old wreck, round about two or three hundred I would guess. Depends how many bidders there are.” All I had was two hundred dollars. “I’ve never been to an auction before,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll look out for you.”
I waited as the auction got started, and saw how the bidding worked, although sometimes I couldn’t see who was bidding, it all seemed to be done with a wink or a nod. Then the auctioneer said, “Lot ninety-five, one grandfather clock, Westminster chime, needs some repairs. What am I bid?” He looked at me. I summed up all my courage and said “One hundred dollars.” “One hundred dollars I am bid by the gentleman at the back. Come on now, it’s probably worth more than that as firewood. One hundred and twenty anyone?” Someone at the front must have nodded. “One twenty I am bid. One fifty anyone?" I put my hand up again. “One fifty I am bid at the back, two hundred anyone? It’s against you sir,” he said, looking at the bidder at the front. “Going, going, gone, to you sir at the back.” I couldn’t believe it; I’d bought the clock for a hundred and fifty dollars, and I had fifty dollars left over! I found a phone and called Nickie at the office. “Tell dad I bought the clock. Can he come and pick it up in the truck please?” After the auction I went to see the auctioneer and gave him three fifty-dollar notes. “You got a real bargain there son,” he said, “if there’d been any antique dealers here today you’d have had to pay a lot more than that for it. Get it going and clean it up and you’ll make a very nice profit.” He gave me a business card. “Give me a call when you want to sell it.” Dad and Jack turned up an hour later in the truck. “Can you carry it in the cab? It’ll get too shaken about in the back.” “Don’t worry Tim, I’ll nurse it like a new born baby “said Jack.
They took off, and I followed on my motorbike. We carried the clock into the house and stood it in the family room. Mum immediately went at it with the vacuum cleaner. “Looks a bit of an old wreck to me” said Jack, “reckon you can get it going?” “If I can’t it’s a hundred and fifty dollars down the drain.” Next day dad phoned Bert Williams, the retired clock maker. “G’day Bert, this is Ted Farley, you know, skipper of the Lady Annabelle ….. Yeh, that’s right, it is a long time. Anyway, my youngest son Tim’s got hold of an old grandfather clock that needs a few repairs and he wants to get it going. He’s real good with anything mechanical but he doesn’t know where to start. I wondered if you could give him a few pointers on what to do. Yeh, sure, he could bring it to your place. Next Friday? Good. About nine o’clock then? Thanks Bert. I owe you one.” Dad turned to me. “Borrow the truck next Friday and take the clock to his house. He said he’d take a look at it, as a favour to me.”
After four days in my job at the old boatyard I now had nothing much to do so I went back working on Annabelle. The engine needed attention so I had plenty to do catching up with the maintenance. I went round to the ships chandlers at the marina to get a few bits and pieces. While I was at the marina I saw the owner of the boatyard next door that I’d done odd jobs for many times. “Hi Tim, hear you’re learning how to paint properly over at the old boatyard." "Don’t ask me about it. I’m just doing what I’m told. If it’s a crappy job they want it’s a crappy job they’ll get, but I hate doing it.” “If you wanted a proper job why didn’t you ask me?” He seemed a bit hurt.
I told Jack about the arrival of Maria at the boatyard. “Here comes trouble,” he said. “Why’s that?” “Well haven’t you noticed? In films, everything goes smoothly while it’s just blokes in the story, but then a girl turns up and that’s when everything starts getting buggered up. Take us for instance, me, dad, and you. We’ve got everything on Annabelle running real smooth, but imagine if a good looking blonde started to work with us, everything would get screwed up almost straight away, and we’d all be miserable instead of happy.” I was a bit stunned. We were always so happy on Annabelle, I didn’t want anything to go wrong like that.
On the mail run next day we had a well-dressed man and his smartly dressed wife aboard. She had an expensive hair-do, expensive overcoat and high-heeled boots, and she was weighed down with so many earrings, necklaces, rings and broaches it struck me that if she fell overboard she’d sink like a stone. Her husband was talking to dad through the wheelhouse door. “So what do you do for a crust?” dad asked him. “I’m a doctor, a specialist, but please don’t start telling me about all your medical problems. I don’t give free consultations.” I told Jack about it. “Snooty bastard” he said, ”I hate people like that, think they’re so blood superior.” Towards the end of the trip the sky went dark and the first few spits of rain came down. As the passengers disembarked it started to rain harder. Me and Jack happened to be crossing the car park when we saw the doctor with his new Mercedes sports car with a fold-down roof. He was trying to get the roof up to keep the rain out but it kept jamming half way. “Don’t keep doing that” I said, “you might burn out the motor.” “Do you know about cars?” he asked “Yeh, sure. Want me to take a look at it???
? I felt in among the levers that unfold the roof. There was something jammed in there; it felt like a soft toy. Jack asked quietly in my ear “Can you fix it?." “No trouble.” “Hold on a minute.” He turned to the doctor. “Excuse me sir, that’ll be forty dollars please, in advance.” “Oh, I didn’t realize you were going to charge me.” “Sorry sir but we don’t give free consultations. Don’t worry though, we’re only charging you the minimum professional fee.” Jack gave me twenty dollars and kept the other twenty. “Shouldn’t I get the forty? I did the work!” “Tim, Tim, if I’d left it to you you’d have done the job for nothing. My twenty is a kind of management fee.” I had a feeling I’d just been swindled.