I had written a long story which I thought was aimed at a middle-school market, when I asked for the manuscript to be edited it came back with almost 50,000 words removed from the original draft. I now understood where I went wrong, by head hopping the plot and subplots became so complicated, I missed the mark. After submitting to several publishers and receiving their rejections I asked what were the reasons for rejecting it. No one said it wasn't commercial, but they wee worried it was patronising. I now wonder if I should keep some of these pieces that hit the cutting room floor and re-write for an adult audience.
Meet a couple of my favourite characters in a piece that didn't make the cut.
John knocked on the
front door. It opened, he showed his identification and asked. ‘William Wyatt?’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw you at the
Farrier place yesterday and wondered if we could ask you a few questions. May
we come in?’ Jenny showed her warrant card. ‘This is Constable Azzopardi.’
Willy ushered them into
the kitchen. It was tidy, but Jenny could tell he lived alone. Dishes drained
on the sink and the place was dark.
‘Mind if I open the
drapes?’ She asked.
‘Not at all, I had a
long night and only got up a couple of hours ago.’
‘Do you know the bloke
in this sketch.’
‘He’s Phillip Ryan, a
Professor of History at Melbourne Uni.
‘And you recognise this,
why? Jenny asked.
‘Because I think, no, I
know he wants an old book that belongs to Toby. He has some strange idea that
it’s his. He has a fixation about the criminal characters of early Australia, particularly Melbourne. He’s written about twenty books on
them.’ Willy yawned. ‘Pardon me. After you lost him at the Farrier’s yesterday,
I thought he might have hidden out at his boat, but I didn’t see him near the
marina all night.’ William stood up and lifted the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘No thanks.’ Jenny said.
‘We’ll be off in a minute. Where is this boat?’
Willy scribbled down
the address and passed it to her.
‘Expensive habit,’ John
said studying the note. ‘Professors must earn plenty?’
‘Old money, family
trust, the boat’s in the grandfather’s name. Sixty foot cruiser, called
Shogun.’ Willy scratched his greying temples. ‘A banking family with many
interests, most of the money was made trading and hiring jewellery in Victorian
times. Phillip bragged the depression was a good time for his family.’ Willy
felt his face flush and dropped his eyes. ‘Not that I’m envious, I resent his
manner. But Ill admit I’ve dropped his name if it afforded opportunity. Not
that I’ll do it again.’
‘We’ll check the boat.’
John said. ‘Tell me though. Did you ever give Danny Sabo a mobile phone?’
‘No, don’t have one
myself. I believe people will find me if they want to. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, just wondered?’ He
winked at Jenny. ‘We coppers ask all the hard questions.’ John said.
Jenny started the car while John fiddled with
his seat belt.
‘Want to see the boats
at the marina?’ He said.
‘Nope, I want to go
home.’
‘One more call and
that’s all for today, promise.’
‘You really do know how
to charm a girl, Evans,’ Jenny said , turned into the traffic and headed toward
the bay. She thought about Willy and said. ‘We coppers ask all the hard
questions. Is that the best you could do? You disappoint me Johnny boy. And
what was that about the phone, Slasher said the ASIO guy,’ she took her hands
off the wheel and made quotation signs with her fingers, ‘gave it to him.’
‘I checked the
supplier. It’s in Willy’s name. Why would he do that?’
‘Ask him, shall we?’
‘Love to, gotta find
him first, though.’
‘Well there is that.’
She said.
The marina staff were less than helpful. Nobody
had used the yacht for days. The marina had a security monitor on every pier
and jetty, but relied on the owners to secure everything else.
‘We’d better take a
look then’ John had enough. ‘Where do we go?’
‘Here,’ the squadron
secretary jabbed his finger onto a photocopied directory, ‘you’re not a yachty,
then? I can see that now.’ He answered his own question and followed it with.
‘I hope you swim?’
Constable Azzopardi bit
her lip. ‘Yeah and I might be back with a team to examine your records later. I
hope you’ll have time?’ She said.
They walked to the end
of the pier. John looked around the hull. Shogun hardly rose or fell to the
light swell, it just road there, the fenders squeaking in protest from the wake
of passing boats.
‘You didn’t like the
squadron secretary?’ He said.
‘I’d like to take Mr
Tighty Whitey shirt and shorts and throw him, and his white Italian boat shoes,
in the drink. I hope you swim. I’d say as he hit the water. His type are hard
to take. I grew up in Footscray, and blokes like him loved to rub our noses in
it at school. No, John, I don’t like the squadron secretary.’
‘Bad luck, because here
he comes.’
‘I thought I should
tell you, I checked the log and Mr Ryan has booked this boat into the ship
builders for a surveyor’s report tomorrow.’ The polished man was panting now. ‘We
need twenty four hours notice to cancel. Do you think I should cancel? There
are penalties if I do, but bigger ones if the boat doesn’t show up.’
‘It should be okay.’
John said. ‘But tell me, what’s the secret to getting on board?’
‘Here, I’ll do it for
you.’
‘Reminds me of Mr
Humphries from the old TV show; Are You Being Served, just look at him.’
‘Give him a break, Jen.
I don’t like him either, but I want to get this over and go home.’
‘Yeah, but he tightens my
spring.’
Tighty Whitey flounced back; he gestured toward
the rear deck of the cruiser. ‘Come quickly. The launch and the Moke are
missing.’ He had lowered a gang plank and raced onboard. ‘And the alarms are
smashed too.’ He paced in circles. ‘What will I do, Gentlefolk...? Shogun has
been violated.’
‘Thanks we will take it
from here.’ John said. ‘What’s a Moke?’
Tighty stayed near the
stern. ‘A small car, old. Made in the seventies and fitted nicely on the launch.
Phillip had his shortened, and he was talking about replacing it with a Smart
car. But oh, how I do go on.’
‘Oh but you do.’ Jenny
pointed to the dock. ‘You can go now. Don’t leave the marina. We’ll want a
statement of your movements for the past forty eight hours.’
‘When might this be?
I’ve got a champions dinner to organise tonight, the Governor will be here and
all. I can’t have you disrupt that.’
‘Should we book a table,
John?’
‘Sorry, members only
I’m afraid.’ He smiled and shrugged at her, holding his palms out in the manner
of a street beggar.
‘That’s okay. Expect us
to crash at around eight o’clock then.’ Jenny was sick of him. ‘We’ll be back
with an order to seize your records, might be months before they get them back
though. It’s only John and me to go through them.’
‘Aghh, now you’ve
spoilt the surprise, Jen. I so much wanted to come unannounced.’
Jenny glared at Tighty
Whitey. ‘You’d better go mate, before I find something to charge you with.’
He looked at her, his
instinct wanted to put her in her place, but he thought better of it. ‘You know
where I am if you need me.’ He had spent enough time in the company of a
Footscray dialect for one day, thank you.
The cabins were immaculate. Everything was as
it should be. John thought about the way Arthur’s place looked yesterday. The
neat freak, liked things this way.
‘Nice, I could spend
some time on one of these. Do you think he is planning to get away, having her
slipped and all?’ Jenny said.
‘I think it’s
coincidence.’ John said. ‘See the slime and barnacle build up, she hasn’t been
out for a while.’ He flicked through the log book. ‘Over twelve months in fact.
Scraping the hull will be maintenance, but I am curious to know if the theft of
the launch has been reported.’ They looked around and satisfied, left.
‘Home time beckons.’
Jenny said as she pulled out of the parking lot. ‘I’ve had enough today.’
‘Yeah, but first I’d
like to check out his office, or his home. I know it’s a long shot but we
haven’t looked there yet. We just took what Willy said and blitzed down here.
He might have just gone home.’
‘You’ll buy me a dinner
to make up for it. You know that, don’t’ you?’
‘Mario’s, all you can
eat it is then, tomorrow after work.’
‘I don’t think so, what
say the middle of February, the fourteenth. That’ll give me time to find a
sitter, and you time to book somewhere nice. Oh, and get a suit to wear too.
One for dancing.’
‘That’s Valentine’s
Day?’
‘Yep,’ she battered her
eyelids at him, ‘all those William W Ryan romance novels lined up in the glass
bookcase at Willy’s place got me thinking. You don’t have a life after work,
and neither do I. We could go out on a date.’
‘Are you asking me out,
Miss Azzopardi?’
‘I do believe I am, Mr
Evans.’
‘It’s settled then.
Where will we go, on this pretend date?’
‘Surprise me.’
‘Done.’
