Almanac Fiction: The Search for the Shield (Episode 4)

 

As the search for the shield continues, Swifty Taylor crosses paths with an old and bitter friend.

 

It was a wet, windy, and lonely stroll to the museum. I often found that when I had too much time to think, my mind danced a waltz with my memories. I contemplated my predicament: I was hungover, divorced, and searching for a missing shield. At least the hangover was serving as a reminder that I’d enjoyed a tumbler or two too many of Jameson last night. I absent-mindedly shrugged to myself – it seemed like the right decision at the time.

The divorce? Well, maybe I shouldn’t have gone on that last footy trip. Sure, I’d had a great time with the team…but I should have had the cojones to tell my wife I was flying to Hobart with the guys, rather than say that I was popping down to Coles for a carton of milk. When I returned three days later, she was gone. But she’d had the courtesy to leave a hand-written note on the fridge: “It’s just not working”, she had scrawled. At first I thought she was referring to the fridge itself, but it was still rattling away, and the beers inside were cold. Then it dawned on me that, selfishly, I had come home without any milk.

The shield was another proposition all together. The footy club had no idea what had become of it. And I had even less idea. I tripped on a rough, unkempt section of footpath and almost fell. By now, I was passing by the Masonic Lodge, a building whose doorway I had never once darkened. Of course, I had always heard the rumours about their weird initiation ceremonies. Was one really expected to expose one’s left nipple on entry? Were newbies really bound to a fencepost on the beach at low tide and told not to scream even when the tide came in? And I was never sure what to make of all those tall tales about riding goats. No wonder their enrolment numbers were in decline. Heck, I heard that they were even admitting Catholics these days. Maybe that was just so they could humiliate them in initiations. I tilted my head to one side and rubbed my thumb along my unshaven chin. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Further along the street sits the Mechanics Institute. It is an attractive old stone building. The windows are all boarded up, which gives the structure a sleepy appearance, like all its eyelids are closed. It has served many a purpose over the years – a setting for tv serials, a venue for the light opera company, the home of the historical society. But the building has been closed to the public for the best part of five years now, and no-one in the town seems to know when it will re-open. Renovations? I could see no sign of work being undertaken. But through the darkness I could see something: light seeping out from beneath a door around the side.

Growing impatient and not really expecting a response, I rapped loudly on the door, not giving a damn about the neighbours across the road. To my surprise, the lock was unlatched, and the door slowly opened. The hint of a scent which I vaguely recognized reached my nostrils. Lynx Africa, perhaps? In the doorway stood a woman whom I instantly recognised. Her face was taut, pale, and wild. “How are you, Vivian?” I inquired, not too loud, but not so soft that she would mistake the seriousness of my tone. “You know goddamn well how I am, Swifty Taylor,” she replied. It was true enough, for in Williamstown the grapevine hums and sings with many a tale, either true or salacious enough that you wished they were.

Vivian was an old school friend whose marriage had dissolved suddenly and awfully in a mess of recriminations and tears. Vivian did not mind that her hubby had been catching up for coffee dates with a female friend of the family, but had been blindsided on the day that the cad came home and revealed that he and their friend wanted to take their relationship to “the next level”. Their days of remaining platonic friends were over, he announced. And in reply, Viv had stated that his days of owning his house, his car and a sizeable chunk of his superannuation were also at an end. But that had not made it any easier for her, and I could see she was still bearing those scars from when the rug had been brutally pulled from beneath her. I told her the reason for my appearance. She said “I am the supervisor, site manager, cleaner, and general dogsbody at this godforsaken place. There is nothing here. It’s a bomb site. The historical society has been waiting for five years to get back in here. No-one is sure what is going on. But as long as I keep cashing my paycheque, I don’t really care. And there sure as hell ain’t no shield here”.

Another dead end. Turning away, I bid her goodnight and left her alone with her memories. If she fought with them the way I did mine, she was in for a long and bruising night.

 

Note: The Swifty Taylor series first appeared earlier this year in the Williamstown CYMS FC coterie group weekly newsletter.

You can read Part 1 Here.

You can read Part 2 Here

You can read Part 3 Here

 

You can read more from Smokie HERE

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