Читать книгу Tugga's Mob - Stephen Johnson - Страница 6

The Great Ocean Road curls around coastal crags, twists in and out of gullies and occasionally hides beneath a canopy of Otway Ranges greenery on Victoria’s south-west coast. Tugga Tancred couldn’t count the number of times his battered utility had travelled the road that is dedicated to Australian soldiers killed during the First World War. Tugga didn’t care either. It was black bitumen to him, a link between his weekday work around Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula, and his second home near Apollo Bay.

Most of Tugga’s clients gave him a quizzical look when he told them he was off to the bach for the weekend. Tugga was an ex-pat New Zealander and some words never slipped from his vocabulary. He would shrug and explain – his beach house. A nod and half smile was also the standard response from the clients, who no doubt thought their under-the-table cash was going to fund a luxurious palace with floor to ceiling panoramic windows framing Bass Strait in all seasons. The reality wasn’t that grand: Tugga’s weekender wasn’t much better than a shack. The timber walls and corrugated iron roof framed a combined kitchen, bedroom and living area. Heat was provided by a potbelly stove and the long drop toilet was 20 metres from the back door.

It might have been basic, but it was Tugga’s haven, and had been for 26 years. He bought the land cheaply in 1990 as the region struggled to climb out of the economic slump brought about by the 1987 stock market crash. Tugga was in the right place at the right time when the elderly land owner needed a few thousand dollars to pay local council bills. Fuckin’ council rates? Do I ever see a fuckin’ garbage truck up here? Miserable thievin’ bastards. It was mostly wasted land for the farmer anyway; steeply sloped and tucked into the ranges a few kilometres from town. Tugga didn’t tell the old man that he should have looked at herbal options.

The privacy was perfect for Tugga with few people venturing up the track to say hello or share his retreat. It left him free to indulge in his favourite pastime: cultivating grass – the smoking kind. He didn’t have a big marijuana operation as police helicopters made regular sweeps of the Otway Ranges looking for plantations. Tugga kept his crops small, hiding them in fern-covered gullies. He grew enough to provide weekend bliss and to sell to regular contacts when he was back in Geelong. Victoria’s drug laws meant Tugga had to keep his weekend activities discreet, so enjoying a toke but flying below the radar was his approach. Under the radar was also how Tugga liked to run much of his weekday business. Customers willing to pay cash were rewarded with generous discounts. Who cared if the tax man never found out about the backyard transactions? None of his Apollo Bay neighbours had cottoned on either. There had been no evidence of pilfering from his crops in quarter of a century. Tugga always assumed they were growing tonnes of their own dope in the Otways. Most of the surfies were permanently stoned whenever he saw them at the pub.

Tugga also appreciated the irony of his patch of heaven. He was surrounded by gum trees, ferns and other native trees that would never bear the mark of his axe or chainsaw. But he spent his weekdays chopping down trees and grinding up the waste. His business was called TSG – Tugga’s Stump Grinding – and he happily charged a hefty price to suburbanites who didn’t want to risk a splinter or two when landscaping their gardens.

Regardless of the month or weather, every Friday afternoon found Tugga on the Great Ocean Road heading for his bach. His internal GPS knew every curve, rise and descent of the road all the way to the seaside town with the golden sand. And being a bachelor of great height and expanding girth – even at 54 Tugga still preferred to describe himself as “six foot six of pure muscle and gristle” – his thirst was well known in all the pubs between Geelong and Apollo Bay. His first drink stop was always at Grovedale, originally named Germantown after Lutheran settlers. These days it was part of the urban sprawl of Geelong.

“Just a wee jug for the road,” was Tugga’s standard request after a hard week turning trees into sawdust. That was his same rule at the Torquay, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet and Lorne pubs. Tugga’s reasoning was that he sweated the alcohol from his system on the drive between the pubs, that sticking to a jug per pub was just right for a big man. Further proof for Tugga’s theory was the fact that he never had an issue on the road in more than two decades of commuting to the bach. How that theory ever survived, and Tugga for that matter, was a mystery as the jug rule was often ignored, usually by the time he reached the official start of the Great Ocean Road at Torquay. The local pub was often buzzing on warm Friday afternoons from spring until late autumn. Bikini-clad girls were a powerful stimulus for Tugga to linger until the babes vacated the beer garden.

It was anyone’s guess how much beer Tugga had already consumed by the time he reached the pub at Aireys Inlet, just past eight o’clock on the last Friday in October. It was obvious that he was too pissed to drive and too pissed to be given more alcohol; the pub could lose its licence. That wasn’t Tugga’s concern as he fumbled through pockets in search of cash, expecting the staff to read his mind. Beer. Now!

At a table near the kitchen, duty manager, Davy Allpress, closed his eyes and sighed as he watched Tugga stumble into the bar. ‘Ah shit. Here’s trouble.’

His companions, 25-year-old twins Roxanna and Sophia from Melbourne, had their backs to the bar.

‘What’s wrong, Davy? You’ve gone pale,’ Roxanna asked.

‘Tugga Tancred’s walked in and he’s had a skinful. I’ve got to get rid of him without getting the pub destroyed.’

The women turned to the bar and gasped. Sophia whispered, ‘Oh my god! He’s a giant, Davy. What are you going to do?’

Allpress stood up. ‘Pray – and hope I think of a plan by the time I reach the bar.’

The duty manager knew Tugga well enough to chat about the weather and other innocuous topics. Allpress would avoid the local religion – Aussies Rules football – as Tugga called it “aerial pingpong”. Beer was a mutual interest and therefore safer ground for conversation. Tugga claimed to be a connoisseur as he had sampled Europe’s best offerings many years before. He wasn’t impressed: real ales were overrated and Dutch and German beers were for pansies. Rugby Union was Tugga’s real passion. Allpress heard the big fella had broken the nose of a Lorne drinker who dared to call the sport bum-sniffing.

A drunk, two-metre tall ex pat with a reputation for violence when slighted wasn’t good for business. Allpress watched his customers shuffle past him towards the beer garden and the rear of the pub. No need to crowd the big fella.

The duty manager believed he had two options to defuse a confrontation: diplomacy or getting physical. Allpress could handle himself in a bar scrap, but giving 20 cm away to Tugga, even when the Kiwi was pissed, wouldn’t be a smart move. The gift of the gab that had charmed the Melbourne twins until Tugga’s arrival might save him.

There were no other drinkers within cooee of the bar by the time Allpress reached Tugga. ‘Jesus, Tugga, are you trying to get us closed down?’ Allpress waited just outside of punching range, or so he hoped, while a befuddled Tugga made sense of that question.

‘I just want a jug, Davy. What’s the problem with that? I’ve only had a couple.’

Apart from a slight slurring, Tugga sounded coherent. It was the upper body sway while his feet did the sideways shuffle that betrayed him. Undeterred, Allpress played his ace.

‘We got word the pub inspectors are doing the coast tonight, you know, looking for under-age drinkers and people who, ah…might have over-indulged.’

Tugga shrugged. Why should that concern him?

‘I just heard from the guys at the Torquay pub. The inspectors have finished there and are heading for us.’ Allpress allowed that to filter through to Tugga. ‘And someone’s dobbed you in, mate. Someone said there’s a big Kiwi who shouldn’t be drinking any more. If they find you in here, even if we don’t serve you, we’re busted mate. We’d be the pub with no beer, possibly for up to 12 months.’

That was the slam dunk. The king hit. No Australian town wants to suffer that indignity. It was bullshit, but Allpress hoped his bluff might get Tugga out the door.

The only noise came from the traffic hurtling past, unaware that the wheels of cogitation were grinding for Tugga.

‘Fucking bastards. They hate us Kiwis. Think we can’t handle this cat-piss Aussie beer.’

Allpress held his breath. Was that acceptance or belligerence? He edged around Tugga to place himself between the big fella and the bar. He took a gamble on acceptance and put a hand on Tugga’s shoulder.

‘Yeah, I know, mate. You guys are renowned for holding your piss and being good sports. I’ll never serve any of the Chappell brothers if they set foot in here, you know that. It’s the bloody bureaucrats, mate. They’re always looking for scalps, you know? They have to ping someone with a huge fine or close down a pub to justify their junkets.’

Allpress steered Tugga towards the door. ‘Look mate, give me your car keys. I’ll shift your ute around the back and out of sight of the inspectors. It’s not going to rain, so you can crash out in the back until morning. You’ll be in Apollo Bay for breakfast, no problems.’

Tugga grunted and left. Five minutes later Allpress returned to find patrons eager for refills, happy that a messy showdown had been averted. God, the crap I deal with to keep the peace.

One of the locals called out to Allpress as he slipped behind the counter to help his staff. ‘Well done, Davy. He’s a big bastard all right but you know we had your back if he got out of hand, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, right,’ Allpress muttered as he poured a pot of beer. He knew the ringside supporter and panicked mob would have trampled him if Tugga had taken the belligerence option.

In the carpark, Tugga sat in the tray of his ute with a travel rug wrapped around his shoulders. It smelled of sawdust and beer. He’d spilled his last roadie while rolling a cigarette. He managed to save half the VB stubby, but that disappeared in two swallows. He threw the bottle into the darkness and sniggered when it shattered. ‘Fuck you, Davy!’

Tugga had no idea if the bottle hit a car or a tree as Allpress had backed his ute into a corner near the cricket practice net. He finished the cigarette and considered staying awake until the hotel inspectors arrived.

‘I’ll fucking teach them not to pick on a Kiwi.’

He slithered onto his back and wrapped the blanket tighter as he searched the sky for The Southern Cross. He found the constellation, but couldn’t retain his focus. A minute later he was asleep.

Tugga’s snoring drifted across the car park. The only person who could hear was in the cab of a battered Ford ute parked 20 metres away. The observer was slouched behind the steering wheel, a New York baseball cap pulled low. It wasn’t important to keep Tugga in view, it would be obvious when he awoke. The dry horrors or early morning chill were bound to wake sleeping beauty in a few hours. If Tugga was true to form, he would piss against a car and resume his journey. The observer was relieved Tugga didn’t cause trouble in the pub. It would have ruined carefully laid plans.