Martin Goes Floundering by Kurt Ulmer SMASHWORDS EDITION Published by Kurt Ulmer Publishing on smashwords.com Copyright © 2011 by Kurt Ulmer All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Disclaimer This short story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Smashwords Edition License This eBook is licensed for your personal use. It is not licensed for resale, or for giving away to others. If you want others to enjoy it, please buy additional copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Martin Goes Floundering It was an offer too good to refuse. Martin invited me to go floundering and because I had never been floundering before and because I like fish, I accepted. I knew what would come next: irrefutable advice. Because Martin was a known quantity and when Martin gets involved, things can get a little complicated. Or a lot depending on who and what is involved. “Who was on the phone?” my wife asked. “Martin.” I put the mobile in my pocket. She looked at me as only one’s wife and one’s own mother can. We knew two Martins. She already knew which one. She wanted me to say his name and then follow up with irrefutable advice. The question hung in the air and I always blink first when she is like that. “Your brother Martin.” Now Martin is a good man. I like him for two reasons: he is my brother-in-law and an uncle to my girls. Martin is a sworn valuer for the Lands Department. When people ask him at a party what he does for a crust, he used to tell them. They offered to top up his glass with white wine vinegar or if he wanted something sweet, perhaps a glass of Château Hemlock? People buying a house think its value is too high. Sellers think the value is too low. So rather than upset one and please the other, Martin simply split the difference. Now nobody is happy with his valuations. So now, when people ask him what he does for a living, he tells them this and that. My daughters, ten and twelve year olds, were now in the kitchen. Observing. They have their mother’s excitement sensing radar. “Who was Dad talking to?” Emily asked, all sweetness and light and innocence. “Private stuff,” I declared with the assertiveness of someone being sprung in a second. “Mum?” Susan asked. “Uncle Martin.” “Run, Emily! Run,” Susan shrieked in mock horror. ”It’s Doc Martin. Run.” I heard two bed room doors slam and lock. The girls would do their homework. “I’m going floundering tomorrow night with Martin.” Here it comes: irrefutable advice to which I had a reply. “Water, Martin and boats are a bad combination. Pause and retreat.” “That’s unkind!” I protested. “Alright then Martin, water, boats and you don’t mix. Pause and retreat,” she warned. “I’ll take your advice on board,” I conceded. “Not if it means on board on anything that floats, is to do with Martin or water.” There are few things a man can do in the face of such opposition: go to the pub, mow the lawn, wash the car or go to the shed and hammer a few nails into an innocent lump of wood. I didn't go to the pub. Over dinner, my smartarse 12 year old just had to stir the possum. She gets that admittedly from me and subtlety from her mother. “Dad. What are you building in the shed?” “Goodwill,” I replied. That put an end to that one. “Is Doc Martin at the hospital again?” Emily wanted to know. “You know I don’t like it when you call him names,” I chided her. “I don’t do it to his face. Ever. And I never call him Stubby,” she reminded me. “That’s very kind of you Emily,” I said. “No man likes to be reminded of a short pointer finger.” “Emily,” her mother said. “Eat you broccoli.” There is little point arguing with a twelve year old and especially when she is in the right. Martin, water and boats don’t mix. Martin and tools don’t mix. We bought a four burner barbeque from him. He had won it in a raffle and because he already had one, a stainless steel 28 burner, two gas bottles, with a rotisserie, plate warmer, three thermostats, range hood and LED lights, Martin offered the self assembly Made in China prize to me for $50. He brought it round and sliced his hand open with a filleting knife he got out of my tackle box. I took him to the emergency ward. He insisted on finishing the unpacking. It was not easy. He had five stitches in his left palm. The pain was bearable he mentioned. The tetanus shot was overdue anyway. The girls got a trampoline for Christmas. Martin came round with his two stepsons on Boxing Day. I wouldn’t let him help unpack the trampoline. Or erect it. That was my job. He understood that. He encouraged his youngest boy to have a go. The kid hopped up and down a bit. Dad encouraged him. Martin had his hands on the springs. Even a six year old is a heavy weight when he lands on an adult’s hand. The gash wasn’t too bad. He had broken his little finger before playing basket ball. It would knit by itself. There is no denying reality. Martin is at the doctor’s a lot. I really can’t blame my girls for calling him Doc Martin. The name stuck elsewhere too. We now keep working bees a secret from Martin otherwise no one comes. Watching Martin with hand tools is like watching children play with matches. Someone’s going to get hurt. Martin plugging in a circular saw is akin to a six year old handling a double barrel shotgun with a hair trigger. “You girls want to come floundering?” I asked. It was a brilliant gambit, a stratagem worthy of a four star general. The girls looked at their mother. “Ask your Dad who else is coming.” “Who Dad?” “Esther and the boys.” ”And?” “Your Uncle Martin.” “Run, Emily! Run,” Susan shrieked in mock horror. ”It’s Doc Martin. Run.” I heard two bed room doors slam and lock. The girls went to finish their homework. “Alright then! If nobody wants to come, I’ll just have to go on my own.” My wife is a good sport. She made me sandwiches and filled the thermos. She put a pair of woolen sox in my tackle bag and suggested I take the first aid kit from the station wagon with me. That, I thought was a bit over the top. I had a perfectly good first aid kit in my SUV. There were at least three bandaids in it. The elastic bandage had never been used. The girls waved good bye. They looked worried when I told them I was going to Marion Bay, flounder spearing with Martin. Spearing sounded dangerous they thought. But at least, I wasn’t in Martin’s 12 foot clinker built boat. It, Martin and I had made the 6 o’clock TV6 news once. His outboard wouldn’t start and we drifted for three hours in Storm Bay. We waited until dusk and for the rain to stop before letting off a flare. The water police gave us to a tow to the nearest jetty which was at Dunalley. Martin’s grandparents lived there in retirement. Quite convenient really. We sat in front of the open fire. Martin’s grandfather had sage advice for us:” That which doesn’t kill you makes you strong.” I couldn’t thank him then and there for the comforting words because my teeth were chattering from mild hypothermia. It must be a generational thing: this idea of learning from suffering. I’m glad my parents hadn’t borrowed the same book on child rearing. Martin’s Pop gave us a lift to Bream Creek to pick up the boat trailer. I was only five hours overdue. It wasn’t Martin’s fault really, the weak mobile signal. And he had a spare flare he assured me. He had replaced the two he let off last New Year’s Eve. I wanted to believe him. I was off floundering with Martin and the crew. I’d be home no later than eleven. I think my family really wanted to believe that. Ten and twelve year olds shouldn’t frown. It gives them premature wrinkles. Martin and water: pause and retreat. I wasn’t going near water. Well-technically perhaps but only knee deep at most. But no boats involved. Pause and retreat. I threw caution to the wind. I arrived at the Bream Creek turn off at 3.30, half an hour late. I knew that this was no problem because Martin is never on time. Exiting things happen when he hits the road. He rocked up a 4.15 in a Daihatsu 2 ton flatbed truck. Esther, his partner, followed close behind in her Ford Escort with her teenage sons. They were late. Sorry. A puncture and the spare being flat. Never mind. It was still warm for an autumn day. Martin led the way along the dirt road, in between the two weekend shacks and onto the beach. Yeah! The beach was at least 50 metres wide and the tide was still going out. Fun. Fun. Fun. Burning along the beach. Martin sent spray high into the air when he veered off and came a bit too close to the water’s edge. I overtook Esther and called out to the boys. “How much further?” “Don’t know.” It seemed to me that one stretch of beach looked pretty much the same as any other as we zoomed along. Martin obviously had a spot picked out. Esther and I parked alongside. We could just make out the two shacks in the distance. No one around and only a slight breeze. I was surprised at all the gear Martin had. None of it was his as I found out. He had borrowed the truck from his brother. The small aluminium punt, the flounder spears, the waterproof flounder lights and the two 12 Volt batteries were also his brother’s. Martin and the boys made camp. Esther and I gathered driftwood. We pushed aside some kelp and dried neptune’s necklace seaweed, made a fire pit and lit the fire. We sat around and had a cup of tea. Martin’s plan to spear flounders had an elegant simplicity to it. The two boys would sit in the square bow of the punt, legs dangling and hold the flounder lights under water. The two men would push the punt parallel to the beach in knee high water. Martin on the starboard side (because he was right handed) and I would man the port side (because I was right handed). Wading along would disturb the flounders which would swim into the light and then, one of us would spear them. The older boy, who was wise for a fourteen year old, objected. There were only nine things in motion that the flounder lights illuminated. A flounder, Martins two feet, my two feet and the boys’ feet. The kid calculated that for every one flounder, if it moved, there were eight other objects that moved or to be more precise, were subject to being speared. And they all looked like feet to him. He withdrew his feet and his brother’s feet from the equation. I asked him to recalculate the odds of someone spearing a flounder or foot. I could have done this myself but I wanted Martin to hear the probability coming out of the mouth of a babe. One in four. Martin’s timing is terrible and his aim is worse. The odds were definitely in the flounder’s favour. Someone was going to get speared. I thought my best chance of avoiding pain was with the boys in the punt. We rehearsed Martin’s plan without spears at dusk. There were no flounders. We pushed the boat until our legs, below the knees turned blue. We rested and tried after dark with lights. A breeze had come up meanwhile. It was impossible to see any movement under water at all because of all the ripples. When the punt started bobbing up and down, we made for the shore. Esther and the boys had fried tofu with black beans and toasted marshmallows for afters. Martin had coleslaw without flounder. I shared my sandwiches out of gratitude for not getting speared and getting attacked by white pointers attracted by blood in the water. The breeze had turned into wind. The boys were asleep in the tent. The floundering was over. I said good-night and drove off into the night. I sped along the beach in the darkness. There was a bit of spray now and then. I could see our tracks and then a whole lot more tracks. And then none. Bugger! I had missed the turnoff. I swung round and got bogged in the soft sand up to the axle. The sand was soft and wet. The tide was rising. There was plenty of time for someone to pull me out. I jogged along the beach in the moonlight. It was quite romantic actually. Martin and Esther were still sitting by the fire. They laughed at me missing the turnoff. Martin drove me back to my car and pulled it out without any problem. I thanked him. My wife was still up. I had come home early. I told her about getting bogged. Fish? No fish but we had a good time. Injuries? None. Disasters? None. The night was still young. Exiting things could happen when Martin goes floundering. My daughters were disappointed. They had expected blood to be spilled or at least a broken thumb. Not even a band aid scratch? Sorry girls. My wife was denied an opportunity to say I told you so. Martin, water and boat-nothing. It was too good to be true. Our home phone rang at 5.30. It was Martin. “Hang on,” my wife said. “I’ll put you on speaker.” “Hallo Uncle Martin.” “Hello girls.” “Did you get any fish?” “None.” “What time did you get home?” I asked, not sure why. “Just now,” Martin replied and then we listened. When Esther and I made the fire pit, we should have realized from the dry seaweed and from the distance to the sand dunes, that we were below the high tide mark. When the wind kept on blowing, Martin and Esther went to sleep in heir tent. Martin couldn’t say with certainty when they woke or why. But there was water in the tent and around the tent. The once roaring camp fire was no more. Burning sticks now bobbed up and down and some had floated quite some distance. They woke the boys. The smart kid took inventory. The punt was missing. He spotted it offshore. Martin urged him to swim and retrieve it. The kid watched and pointed out sparks and flames. The batteries! Sea water and batteries are a dangerous combination. The sparks stopped when first one battery and then the other exploded. They were now standing in knee deep water in the moonlight. Esther’s Ford Escort, closer to the water than the truck, started moving. The boys hung on to it while Martin fumbled in the moonlight tying one end of the tow rope to the Escort and the other to the truck. The flounder lights would have been handy. But they were with the batteries on the sunken punt. “We then collected all our gear, wet as it was and put it on the truck,” Martin said. “How high was the tide?” “Quite high actually,” Martin said. Then he told us about the floating Escort. It was pulling hard against the rope. That was alright at first. Martin, Esther and the boys were now sitting on the truck tray to keep dry. As the water rose further, the car started dragging the truck as the waves washed up and down the beach. They had little choice. Martin cut the tow rope and the Escort floated away. Esther couldn’t bear to watch. The truck started bobbing up and down a little. Martin thought he might go for help and jumped off. The truck started moving so Martin hopped back on. Rescue would have to wait until the tide changed. “You have no idea,” Martin wanted us to know,” How boring it is watching the tide go out.” When it was safe to do so, Martin jumped off the truck and sought help from the nearest house. The occupants did not appreciate being woken at six o’clock on a Sunday morning. They were however good sports and rang for a tow truck. ”It was a bit embarrassing,” Martin admitted,” The truck wouldn’t start. The fire extinguisher came in handy when the battery and the wires started smoldering.” “And then? What happened then?” Emily wanted to know. “Esther sat in the tow truck with the boys on the way to Dunalley. We used my Gran’s blow dryer to dry the truck’s electricals. Pop paid for a new battery and told me not to expect a birthday present.” “Ah well,” my wife declared,” As long as no one got hurt.” “Only a bit,” Esther admitted. “A few minor burns on Martin’s hands. He’s more worried about the insurance on the truck. Not sure if it covers other drivers and there is the matter of batteries and……” I didn’t want to hear any more about Martin’s disaster and went to the shed. I’m safe there. Sooner or later, I’d have to go inside and hear ‘I told you. Didn’t I?’ Maybe we’ll invite Martin, his missus and the kids to McDonald’s? Yes, I’ll do that. Nothing will happen to them on the way there and back. Please. Interesting things happen when Martin goes floundering. ### About the author I have one grandfather, a builder. My other grandfather was a stonemason and my father was a traditional blacksmith. Both my grandmothers had cooked for a living, one in a hotel and the other for well-to-do people. A career in construction or perhaps engineering or catering would have been an obvious choice. Instead, I spent 20 years in business and in mid life retrained myself. I chose to work with my hands as my father and grandparents had. I become a renowned woodcraftsman and founded with my wife an art and craft gallery in a Tasmanian tourist town. After 20 years there, we followed our children to mainland Australia to retire on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula. I took up writing seriously in 2003. Working with their hands, creating and shaping materials has occupied my forebear. From stone, to iron, to wood. Now I spend my time putting pen to paper. The medium is getting softer.