Novel - The Ozone Café, The Agent

The Agent

There were only three placards of restaurants for sale in the window. Ronny Williams knew that Vincenzo would not relinquish thoughts of buying No. 5 Bream Street; a property that had been hidden like a kellick under water. It was late Saturday afternoon, he was tired and wanted to go home. He could hear the clock ticking loudly above his head. Sat squashed behind his small desk, his belt buckle pinching, he wondered just how much money he had stored away now in savings bonds. He was thinking he needed around $500,000 to retire. The real estate business was getting him down. All he wanted to do was laze in his hammock, read, dream or drink his way into oblivion. Since Katherine left, no one had ever taken her place. There was Betty at the club, but he knew she flirted with most of the customers. They’d had a misunderstanding about her home sale commission and he knew that was that. The smile had ceased, along with the flirting. Most days she turned her back on him, especially when he was panting, stationery at the top of the stairs. Women! He didn’t need another one to add to his growing problems. What he wanted was retirement, to maybe take a holiday on Hayman Island, or somewhere where he could get back into shape, maybe lose a few pounds. He worked seven days a week, running the business, taking most of the sales’ commission. There was no room for days off, exercise or another agent. Satara Bay was too slow a pace for another agent wanting entitlements. Marjorie was enough. But then he needed her there three days a week, so he figured he must be working about sixty hours a week.

In the front window he added another “House for Sale”. A small cottage, set back from the Esplanade. A property that he thought would suit Vincenzo and his brother. A nice quiet street, the men could have their café out the front. He could get permission from the Council. Bill Haycock was the man to see when it came to changing a “residential” zone into “commercial”.

He fixed the sign and removed three SOLD cards. How long had they been there, he wondered. Well over a year. Only good selling time was summer, and they were heading into the next.

He went inside and pointed to the clock. His receptionist sat filing her nails. Marjorie looked over her shoulder at the wall, smacked out a bubble of chewing gum and covered her typewriter.

‘Got to go to the doctor’s tomorra, but I can make up the time. Elsie said I should give up the fags, but you know how hard that is doncha, Ron?’

‘Sure do,’ said Ronny, packing his briefcase with notes. ‘If you can come in around twelve, that would be just dandy. I want you to ring Bill whatsit at the Shire, re that property in Bream Street. Need to get an angle on what’s going on there.’

‘That old place used to belong to one of those Masons. Can’t think of his name, but me dad used to go to the Masonic club wiv im. Dad said he was an old cunt. Then he just passed away, mysterious like.’

‘When was that?’

‘I was just a girl,’ she said, pulling down the front blinds. ‘Must have been around 1946. Drink got to im, I think.’

‘Marjorie, you’re a mind of information,’ said Ronny, switching off all the lights and following Marjorie out the door.

‘See you twelve then,’ she said. ‘Wiv bells on.’

‘Yeah, see ya later Aligator.’

‘In a while crocodile.’

Novel - The Ozone Café, Old Heroes

Old Heroes

They drive silently through town; Vincenzo’s dream bubble having sizzled to a watery heap. He’s not sure now whether he is making the right decision. Maybe he should look into buying the cake shop, or the store at Oyster Bay. But his mind is still giving him the beautiful view from his Esplanade café. He is standing at the front door, the easterly sea breeze ruffling his cooking apron. He holds a broom in his hand, giving it a pogo wave to Bill Sanderson across the street. His Maria is inside putting the finishing touches of plastic roses on every red-checkered tablecloth. She is singing along with the wireless, singing along with Marty Robbins, to the tune of ‘a white sports-coat and pink carnation’. At the back of his shop he can hear the crackling sounds of onions and bacon cooking. He can hear the slurping sounds of sipped coffee: an espresso machine gurgling, sputtering. He can hear the wind tweaking the pine trees along the beach, sounds of laughter, children splashing, harping, and the inveigling hover of sea-gulls above each other.

On his first night without Renato, Vincenzo visits the Memorial Club. It is nearly midnight with only a few patrons playing cards. Perched high on a stool at the bar, his only company now is a busty blonde who keeps refering to him in terms of endearment. Earlier, he had moved amongst the lanes of machines, talking to some old diggers, hesitant to respond, elbowing each other when they detected his foreign accent. But Vincenzo had found a sympathetic ear in an old bloke called Herb, making sure his war stories of being a French Legionier, wearing a green beret, and ducking sniper fire in the dessert, had floated over every head. He had found the night amorous and immortal, getting to know Sid and Barney, two war veterans who had supped back their own heroics. With winnings from the poker machines, he had bought them all a beer and a Churchill cigar, telling them, Mussolini was a fascist pig! How they had laughed, patting him on the back, saying they would visit his café, and to keep the onions sizzling. Of course, all this had been a great big whopping lie, but it gave him ideas about the café.

The desk clock ticks 1.00pm, and Betty is still counting the cash in the till. 'Drink up, Dearie,' she says. 'Time to go home to the little wife.'

'I would like one more beer, beautiful Betty,' says Vincenzo, feeling in his pockets for change, letting them topple, so that he soon finds himself scratching for them under the counter.

In the dull haze of his brain he thinks of Maria. She is standing over him, huffing and lifting him out through the door, telling him that if he wants to come back, he better not call soldiers, dirty fascist arsehole pigs.

Vincenzo stills himself at the curbside. He feels his neck hairs bristle as the fresh sea air shudders him awake. He can feel Maria holding him, pushing him into the taxi. 'Darling,' he says, clinging to her warm chest. 'Vinneybum never wanted to clean toilets for those fascists pigs. I never tell you Maria, but I been failure at war.'

'At least you're still alive, Love,' says Betty, pushing his shoulders into the cab.

* * *

Novel - The Ozone Café, Land for Sale

Land For Sale

After two weeks of swimming, fishing, and cruising Satara Bay; Vincenzo wanting to visit every inlet, wooden jetty, foothill and quaint shop, the two men take a Sunday snooze on the front veranda. Vincenzo loves being close to the water, with a view to paddle boats, canoes, children wading, patting mud-cakes, and weekenders lolling about in the sun. Renato’s house sits snugly along the Esplanade. In the encircling the bay to the left and facing the water is Bill Sanderson’s general store, the Esplanade Hotel and beer-garden, and community hall with roller skating and dancing. To the right, and heading out to the point, are the Tea-trees, soft sand dunes road-edged in lantana. In the late afternoon when the tide is low and deplete, fishermen can be seen pumping and squelching blood worms into hessian sacks.
The two brothers have one more weekend before Renato will head back to the city, enough time for a new building project to start in Bondi. He is anxious and tense, often calling someone with his back turned to Vincenzo. On the first day in his holiday cottage, Vincenzo had mentioned how nice it would be to have Cattania visit. But he was met with a loud resounding, Per favore, non parlare! In other words, Please shut up! Vincenzo would not mention her again, the lampara having flashed.

Vincenzo’s voice is lazy, sipping red wine. 'I don’t think I’m gonna find a delicatessen for sale, Renato?'

'It takes time. We look again tomorrow in Bruce Kerr’s Real Estate. Some business premises will come up for sale and if not now, he will ring us later in Sydney.'

'I’m not so sure I wanna go back to Curl Curl. And I don’t like the main street of town much. What I want is a shop here on the Esplanade. You imagine that house up there on the corner next to the hotel being my premises. You would get all the hungry drinkers, families on their way home from the beach, kids maybe buying Gelati or sweets, or some such things.'

'There’s an old lady in there and her son. Maybe we could talk to her.'

'Ah, too much trouble,' says Vincenzo. 'I wait. I am a patient man. Right now, I have another wine and watch the sunset.'

'Tomorrow, we look for some land. I build you a nice house here. You seem to be settled, my brother. Like I said before, you and Pomadina are welcome to stay here. Maybe pay for the electricity, and of course it would make me very happy to know that my crisp lawn is getting watered.'

Vincenzo, having surrendered himself to the beauty of the bay, quickly makes up his mind. 'Yes, yes. I am very grateful for the chance, Renato.' He is only too pleased to think about staying for good, fishing off the jetty, catching a ferry to Rock Island for oysters, or having a beer at day's end, the familiar globe setting over Star Point. Besides, he wanted to be away from Renato’s stinging tone for a while. And then come to think of it, Cattania was of no consequence to him. To meddle in his brother’s affairs now would be very bad karma.

'Karma sutra,' he repeats, trying to raise his body from its lateral position. 'What a brother.'

'What?'

Both men laugh. 'You are pissed,' says Renato, as a glass rolls, as his rickety banana lounge folds in on Vincenzo’s collapsed handshake.

* * *

On his early morning walk with Pomadina, Vincenzo decides to inspect the length of esplanade. He has a strong feeling there must be something nearby, and if not close to Renato’s house, then a suitable property near the ocean beach or in the opposite direction around Oyster Bay. In their early hunting for land and houses in Renato’s car, Vincenzo found that his brother was too brisk with the inspections, that he had to follow Renato’s every whim, every direction, even his misconceptions. His brother was oblivious to what Vincenzo really wanted. And he himself hadn’t made his shoes walk the back streets to discover the many "For Sale" signs.

Crossing over Bream Street, he notices a strange odour coming from the property across from the general store. He lets Pomadina off to waddle and sniff along its low brick wall. Vincenzo finds it strange that the smell has now turned from a pungent smell to something like orange puke. He whistles to Pomadina as they venture beyond the side gate where gutters and eaves hang as if hit by a tornado. The cottage, made of fibro and weatherboard, and camouflaged in front by thick overgrown hibiscus, is in total decay. He walks around the back, finding a small orchard of citrus trees, a yard of dead oranges, an old copper, a metal bucket housing putrid seawater and a flywire door halved on the back step. He peers through the back veranda’s louvres. Nothing, just fungus and damp rooms. He twists a door knob and the door falls in backwards, the outer casing of the frame remaining while the rest splinters to the floor.

'This I could not live in,' Vincenzo says to Pomadina. 'Borers. And maybe something else.'

He crunches in. Old floor boards seesawing as he painstakingly guides his shoes along a tightrope of exposed floor girders.

Writing Suspense

Class of 31st October 2008
Recently I conducted a class on writing suspense. We looked at various genres, summising that most suspense was familiar to us when it came to TV crime series such as Midsomer Murders, Miss Marple, CSI, Law & Order, and Murphy's Law. We considered suspense in novels, writers like Agatha Christie, E.M. Forster & Nancy Price, to name a few. It was also interesting during class to listen to a member's short story (first published in indigo #2 & on Radio National, Nov 2008). Our writer's short story was full of suspense. Only one thing was wrong, and it was really a shame, the ABC had decided to cut the best "suspense" paragraphs. Nevertheless, we enjoyed her story Crossing and soon discovered that our writer had included all of the following techniques, in building tension, increasing suspense & also revealing an "ever-increasing peril" in the crossing of her shore-to-island story.
1. The moment-by-moment technique - slipping in emotions, no matter how sublte, for a short period of time (1-2 mins) during which the tension or suspense is at a heightened level. You write every emotion, every thought, every sensation (heart stopping panic, prickling skin, sweaty hands, smells or sounds that the character could possibly hear during that time.
2. The slow-mo - slowing down time from the main character's point of view. It is a kind of slowing down the action, as if the main protagonist is moving underwater. In slow-mo you describe everything that the main character sees, hears, smells in this type of pacing. This should arise at the moment of high tension or suspense, and should be used sparingly - no more than once or twice in an entire book/ short story.
3. A third technique is a mixture of both of the above. You slow down the pace of a certain scene, by weaving in sights, sounds, smells, or recurring scary thoughts in the main character's head. A short line or two in between the scary parts draws out the tension, contrasts the creepy with the normal, giving a scene a moment of surrealism.

Novel - The Ozone Café, Train to Satara Bay

Train to Satara Bay

They travel to the Sunrise Coast by train. Rennie wants to show Vincenzo the beautiful countryside and the way for future trips. He knows that if his brother is familiar with the journey, buses to Satara Bay, he can commute on his own, taking little Pomadina with him.

Vincenzo has bought a summer suit for the occasion and he has also packed a beach towel and bathing costume. He is excited by the fact that Rennie has his own holiday house and motor boat for fishing. Vincenzo is a little jealous of his brother’s wealth; a large house in Curl Curl on a hill, with views to the ocean. A double deck, like a peaked cap on the house, overlooks a swimming pool and an undercroft garage containing his work truck and two cars. Rennie has given him the whole second storey where he sleeps, relaxes, feeds Pomadina, and plays billiards on the largest pool table he had ever seen. Vincenzo is also astounded that his brother’s first wife up and left, just as he was making it big in Australia. He knows there is something strange going on with a woman up the street, but after the first blow-up with his brother, he won't say anything anymore. He’s hoping in time Rennie will spill the Bertolli beans, perhaps when he’s good and ready. When he talks to Maria on the telephone, they both worry about poor Cattania; a child from their village as an exchange wife, and never heard of since.

On the train everything passes quickly, each station showing of blur of faces as they plough through, then a ten minute stop at a river junction before heading directly north.

‘See that fellow,’ says Rennie, pointing towards the window. ‘He’s selling oysters. We get some for lunch.’

Vincenzo pops his head out of the carriage window, and watches the man’s hands extend into the train, while at the same time passengers reach for the slim creamy bottles. The briny air and tang of fishing makes Vincenzo think of home. He could always smell the sea from his rooftop retreat. When he worked in his shop all day, all he could smell was glue and leather. So with the lulling sounds of the clickety-clack, he falls into a deep reverie imagining his own cottage and anchored boat offshore.

‘Another half-hour, says Rennie, ‘and we are there. The bus will take us along Sandy Bay Road, and then two streets down near the water is my bungalow.’

Suddenly a thrust on the rails sends the train rattling through a very long and dark tunnel. Vincenzo makes a mental note that the encircling smoke will give him enough reason to buy a car he noticed in Manly. He hopes next time they might drive along the Pacific Highway, with the fresh mountain air not blocking his sinuses.

Novel - The Ozone Café, Harbour Crossing

Harbour Crossing

With sails brightening Sydney Harbour, and noisy tugboats hugging the liner like pilot fish, Vincenzo waited in the main lobby area. He sat close to his suitcases; little Pomadina slumped beside him, chin leaning on her paws.
He was glad to be free of his fellow passengers; especially the two sickly boys, who Lars had carried around on most days like two ends of a wet rope. Since they had complained about Pomadina, Vincenzo was a cool customer, he thought; usually darting from view when Lars and his big armfuls of children rounded certain corners. In the dining room, Vincenzo always made a reservation with another migrant family from Sicily, and only at bedtime did he grunt two words at the man. When Vincenzo came face to face with him, which was often in the main bar, he raised two fingers in a secret Calabrian salute (a leftover war infiltrators’ sign). And when Lars, (dressed in a red waistcoat), raised his green Swiss hat in greeting, along with his fly-away foxtail hair, Vincenzo thought how very similar he looked to an animal actor he’d once seen in a play of Little Red Riding Hood.
Vincenzo was keen to leave the ship; spending two days completely ill under a blanket on a windless deck; his polo-neck jumper pulled up high. He wasn’t sure whether the sea had made him sick, or through watching others run with their hands ready to spill. By the time the ship sailed out of the Great Australian Bight, Vincenzo recognized the wilderness around him, and thought about the population with his imagination. He couldn’t have stood the journey if it hadn’t been for the Paolucci family. Waiting together, they had asked him if he wanted a lift when the ship docked. Something Vincenzo found most kind. Now almost Australian, they had a twang in their voice that he found quaint; telling him that he would soon learn words like ‘mate’, ‘good-onyer’, and ‘cobber’. Everyone was friendly in Sydney, they said.
‘Oh, no, many thanks, kind peoples, but my brother Renato is meeting me. He been here now maybe for ten years. Starting a building company.’ Vincenzo said, raising his glass, and clicking a last vodka Dakari with the couple.
‘Cin, Cin,’ said Bruno. ‘Eh, here, you take my card. It’s got our address and telephone number on. Rena and I would be pleased to see you again. We over there in Sutherland now, we have a nice house, plenty of room, eh, Rena?’
‘And when Maria comes, you bring her too, Vincenzo,’ she said, pinching both of his cheeks.
‘Aah,’ said Vincenzo. ‘When she arrive, we have big party!’

Novel Writing

Creative Writing Resources
Resources are fairly important for the novelist. The internet provides an abundance of sites that specifically deal with creative writing, writing tips, prompts, and most importantly - technique. As a prose teacher, I find these following sites beneficial in constructing class notes. They are placed here on my blog, mainly for my own convenience and daily searches.

Interactives - Literature
One of Us - Writing Tips
Writing Companion

Novel - The Ozone Café, B2 - Lower Deck

B2 - Lower Deck

Vincenzo unpacked his blue striped pyjamas and placed them under his pillow. He put Pomadina's things in one corner and proceeded to fill a small dish of water from a porcelain pitcher. He was about to leave the cabin with Pomadina, when three roommates bundled themselves through the door.

'Hiya,' the man said, lifting a Tyrolean hat in the air. 'Lars est my name. And this is Roland und Yetz. We are all set then.'

Vincenzo swapped the dog over to one side to free his right hand which he extended to Lars. 'I am very pleased to meet your family. I am Vincenzo of Calabria.' For about two minutes they held a tight grip, the man obviously ecstatic about his trip, continued to rattle Vincenzo's five fingers.

'I have my dog here,' he said. 'I found it strange, no one to take him in the baggage room. I hope you don't mind little bushkush here. She's my only companion to Australia.'

'You leave the dog in here?' said Lars. 'But it's no room for animals, sir! We better do something about it, na?'

'Hey, what you call my Pomadina, an animal?'

'I go see the steward. Come boys, this is not good.' Lars left the confined quarters in a hurry, lifting his two boys up and out through the narrow passageway of the door. Vincenzo sat on the end of the bed, and let Pomadina sniff around the man's luggage. She squatted over a limp attaché case, letting a small stream trickle down the side of the new leather. Vincenzo was too upset to notice. He opened a small valise and read some of the contents from a large envelope. 'Says here, Pomadina, you are to be kept in a cage with food and drink in the bloody baggage hold.'About to step out of the cabin once more, Vincenzo was confronted by a rather tall man in a black uniform, who began explaining that he could not keep a dog in such confined quarters. And that a - Mr Lars Rausis and his two boys - were very upset to think that he would keep the dog in the room.

'I make no trouble,' said Vincenzo, 'but this bloody boat company has me scratching my head. And you can see if I scratch too hard, I will loosen already my only few hairs.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' said the steward. 'Please pass me your dog and I will fix everything. You can visit him on the lower deck in B2. There is nice straw there. A very comfortable room where we are housing, oh, let's see - one parrot, two cats, a chihuahua and soon a very nice little Pomadina owned by one Mr Vincenzo Polamo.'

Novel - The Ozone Café, Voyage to Sunrise

Voyage to Sunrise

Vincenzo left his rocky shores without Maria, who remained unconvinced that Australia could ever offer her a land of milk and honey. (If it had been gorgonzola cheese, she might have considered). Instead her husband's words fell like drops of frustrated spit to the ground. He was sick of clasping his hands together, forever explaining that his older brother Renato would see to a new house for them. She could have the colosseum front porch, like his, the same arbor and pergola, the same 1 acre backyard, enough room for the cottage vegetable industry, (already Vincenzo's legs pacing out a future subdivision). But all the dropping to his knees on wobbly pins like his marriage proposal, only left Maria housing a permanent sun squint, as if to say, 'Vinnybum, this woman has made up her mind, read my furrows.'
In the fifties, most Italians left by ship for America or to Australia. Vincenzo's ship was called the Columbo. A marvellous steel bulk of bolts and nuts, with a wide steerage, cramped 4-berth cabins, windworn decks & rooms of table tennis, darts and Baccarat.
On the Sunday at 1.00pm, or close to that time, Vincenzo arrived by bus with Pomadina tucked firmly in the shoulder bag. He looked out on the colourful lines of streamers that left passengers' hands in quick successive throws. He had no one to say goodbye. Although Joanna, his fourth daughter, had telephoned to say she'd be there to wave goodbye, the sunny spot near the big hanger shed, was empty of her shade.
He bundled Pomadina in a blanket, together with her favourite bowl & leash and proceeded to the lower deck. He rang the bell. He rang it again. Then he read the notice - the baggage room was unattended due to illness.
What - in all of Italy- could he do now with Pomadina. There was only one thing he could do, and that was for this little dog to join him in his cabin. How nice, he thought, imagining her sleeping at the end of his bed. Like back home.

Novel - The Ozone Café, Leaving Italy

Leaving Italy

Vincenzo lifted his soft Calabrian beret from the hatstand, wrapped his Scottish scarf twice around his neck and whistled to Pomadina, already carrying her leash. He stepped into the tiny lane of his misty town. He would walk up to Mrs Scorcese’s bread shop for the last time. He would amble back down the right handside, call into old Joe’s for his last newspaper, then buy three red apples at Bernie’s for the bus trip. He was leaving for Australia.
   'Hey,' he said to Gino Scorcese, 'I got my boat tickets in the mail today. One for me and one for Pomadina.' He looked down at the dog, lifting her hind leg in a rotating movement as if winding a hidden clock.
   'You better put some flea powder on that animal before she gets to Australia,' said Angela Scorcese. 'Otherwise, they won’t let you in, huh?'
   'Aah', said Vincenzo. 'Maria doesn't want her to go, not yet. But I need some company in that new place, before she decides to come.'
   'She’s half-n-half, Vinny,' said Angela. 'She told me. Angie, I don’t wanna move ‘cause of the girls.'
   'Aah,' repeated Vincenzo. 'She’ll miss my warm body too much, and then pronto, she’ll ring me up, and say Vinnybum, I’m coming!'