South of Taree with his tank on empty, the hour hand almost at the point where gas stations shut up shop, he saw a Neptune sign and pulled over. The attendant was a young raw-boned guy in overalls. Blake heard himself talking and joking with the guy about the drive ahead, around four hours to go still, but it could have been somebody else, a puppet, doing his part. It was still hot and the smell of the gum trees was as overpowering as Jimmy’s Californian Poppy used to be when he had a date. Jimmy. What the heck would Jimmy have made of this country where you could drive a full tank and pass a handful of cars? The idea of them camping out on some picnic rug, ants biting Jimmy’s ass, brought a smile to his lips.
He’d left Sydney at three in the afternoon, little wiser than when he had arrived. He had tried to find Detective Shearer again to ask about a potential blue film starring Valerie Stokes but was told by the station cops Shearer was out. The way they said it warned against him asking again. His theory that some former client might have hired her had no support, so the movie line was all he had and that was as thin as the paper on a roll-your-own. The attendant gave him his change, wished him well and went back to finish up in the garage. A car hummed by. He felt like a fly trapped in one of those displays in that big New York museum he’d visited as a kid; a rare outing with his mum and aunt who lived somewhere near Cleveland. Like the whole world could be painted and put inside a cube, and it was beautiful but the only thing that was actually real was that dirty little fly. He remembered a card from his aunt and uncle after his mum died, Jimmy ripping it up, chucking it in the bin. He wondered now if they had offered to look after him or something. Jimmy had dismissed the card as crap.
‘Where were they when she needed some help? I’m looking after you, nobody else. We stick together.’
But his aunt, Jane was her name, she had been nice that one time in New York. They had stopped at a café and Aunt Jane had bought pie for him and his mum. Jimmy wasn’t there of course. He was already in too much trouble. Maybe he was in juvie at that time? Too late now. He could not remember the taste of the pie, nothing like that, not even if it was apple or something else but he remembered he liked it, almost as much as those glass cubes with the world inside them.
As he was about to climb back into the ute he saw a shape coming towards him from the south along the side of the road, moving in uneven jerks. He thought for a moment it may have been a roo but as it drew closer realised it was a man walking with an uneven gait on account of the big swag he was carrying across his back. As the man reached the station area, Blake saw he wore tattered clothes and shoes with no socks, and then last of all that he was Aboriginal, and only Blake’s age. Blake had had nothing to do with Aborigines. It wasn’t like back home where there were actual laws in some places keeping black and white from mingling, but all the same there was a real demarcation and the ‘Abos’, as everybody called them, seemed to have the thin end of the stick. On his travels he’d caught glimpses of black people living down by riverbeds or in parks. He’d been drinking in pubs where they’d been shooed out even though they weren’t noisy or drunk. He had never seen an Aboriginal person in Coral Shoals. This guy looked like he’d been walking for a long time.
‘Where you heading, man?’ he asked when the guy was nearly level. The guy stopped, looked nervous.
‘I’m just passing through. I’m not stopping.’
He said it like if he stopped it was going to offend Blake.
‘But where are you heading?’
The young guy looked away, didn’t meet his eyes, said, ‘North.’
‘Me too. You want a lift?’
The guy blinked. ‘In your car?’
‘Yeah.’ Blake slapped the roof. He wondered if maybe the guy was a bit simple. ‘I’m heading to Coral Shoals. I’m Blake.’
He stuck out his hand. The guy hesitated then took it.
‘I’m Edward.’
‘So Edward, you want to take a load off? I could do with the company.’
Edward smiled for the first time. It was like a full moon coming out from behind clouds.
‘Me too, Blake.’
They’d been chatting easily all the way to the outskirts of Coral Shoals. The moon had been hung out like a lantern, birds had faded from silhouettes to invisible. Edward told Blake this was only the third time he’d ridden in a car and the first time ever in the front seat. Apart from that it was the bus or the back of the police wagon. He said he was originally from Wagga Wagga but he’d left when he was sixteen. He wasn’t exactly sure where America was but he knew about Mickey Mouse and Coca Cola. He slapped his knee at Blake’s accent.
‘That’s funny.’ He amused himself trying to sound like Blake.
‘What are your plans from here?’ Blake asked. They had just passed a sign that said five miles to Coral Shoals.
‘Plans?’
‘Yeah. You got a job lined up?’
The idea of a job seemed foreign to Edward. He explained after leaving Wagga Wagga he’d gone fruit-picking but eventually he had to move on and since then he hadn’t worked much at all.
‘It’s not I don’t want a job. People don’t hire us.’
‘My yardman is in hospital. I need somebody. You want the job? Edward looked anxious. ‘You run a pub. I’m not good with the grog. It messes me up.’
‘Well, stay off the grog.’ Blake told him the sorts of things Andy did for his wage. ‘I’ll pay you exactly the same as I pay him. Okay? Deal?’
Edward found enough confidence to nod.
‘You can start tomorrow. We need to find you a place to sleep.’ Edward said he was fine sleeping under the stars and tapped his swag. ‘Got everything I need right here.’
Blake was thinking that would be fine for a night or two. After that Edward could hire a caravan at the caravan park. He pointed out the Surf Shack sign, not illuminated because it was closed. Edward was impressed.
‘I never worked in a place like that before.’
Blake felt bad dropping Edward at the river near where he and Nalder met but Edward was delighted.
‘I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty tomorrow, get you some clothes, show you the ropes. Okay?’
Once again Edward seemed worried. Blake asked what was up.
‘How am I going to know when it’s nine-thirty?’
Blake took the watch off his wrist and gave it to him. Edward’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
‘I won’t steal it, mate, I promise.’
Blake told him he knew that. Edward was still thanking him as he drove away. In truth he wasn’t sure Edward would be there; he knew well enough that despite our intentions to change, sometimes we couldn’t, sometimes we are gripped in a current that takes us where it will. But he also knew that every man needed somebody who believed in him. Jimmy had believed in him and he had ultimately failed his brother. He would try and not let that ever happen again.
‘A fish tank? Where has he gone to get that?’
Nalder had never been Doreen’s favourite person. Not just because he was a cop who strutted around like he owned the town, though that didn’t help. It was that he always turned up when she was busy and made a nuisance of himself. Here she was trying to get the bar and tables ready and Nalder was just hanging around at her elbow asking dumb questions. Still, she had to answer. She knew Blake must be paying him off, just not how much or what it covered.
‘There’s a guy in Greycliff. He made the last one.’
‘Those blokes never showed up again?’
‘No.’
She was thinking it had been three weeks now since everything went pear-shaped: Andy getting bashed, that girl murdered, Crane arrested. She wrangled a table into position. Nalder didn’t offer to help, just used the toothpick he had taken from the little shot glass she had just set out, to work his mouth.
‘How’s business going?’
‘Last week was pretty much back to where we were before.’
‘People have short memories. Speaking of which, has Andy been able to remember anything? If he confirms those guys attacked him, I can do something official.’
‘His memory is coming back in dribs and drabs but hardly anything about that day.’
‘How much longer are they keeping him in?’
Nalder was following her now as she went around to the back bar to make sure there were replacement bottles if any of the spirits were low.
‘He’ll be out any day.’
Nalder speculated that the men who had attacked him had probably realised they’d overstepped the mark and done a runner. She stood on a milk crate and checked all the spirits, said she hoped so. In the mirror she saw Nalder sneaking a look at her legs but then quickly looked away as if that was out of bounds. His one redeeming feature was that he actually seemed to love his wife. She stepped down, the squeak of a trolley made them both turn. Edward had brought in two crates of small Cokes.
‘Where you want these, Miss?’
‘Just in the fridge there, Edward, thank you.’
Nalder eyed Edward suspiciously. Edward averted his eyes from the cop, finished his job and got quickly out of there. In the meantime she’d been able to wipe down the jukebox.
‘What’s he thinking, employing an Abo?’ Nalder went to the fridge and helped himself to a Coke.
‘Edward is a good kid, hard worker.’ She started cracking coins from their cardboard cylinders, imagined with pleasure that the counter was Nalder’s scone.
‘People around here don’t like it.’
‘Blake doesn’t pay much attention to what people like or don’t like.’
‘So I’ve noticed but he doesn’t want to get people offside. Gannons employed that Abo and look what happened.’
What happened was some arsehole hoon had been sitting on his car bonnet talking shit about Aborigines and flicked his butt right near the Aboriginal man’s feet. The man told the hoon to watch it. The hoon had asked if he was going to make him and, with a couple of lightning fists, the man had. He’d lost his job and wound up in jail.
‘Edward wouldn’t harm a fly.’
‘They’re different with drink in them.’
‘You know what’s funny? So are most men.’
Nalder didn’t like her cheek, she could see him bristle. He took his time to finish his Coke.
‘I’m only looking out for him. Tell him to drop in when he’s back.’
It was her turn to ask a question. ‘What’s happened to Crane?’
‘He’s still in remand. They won’t bail him. Your boss isn’t still thinking of heading up to Brisbane, is he?’
‘Thinking about it.’
‘Talk him out of it. He’s already wasting good money.’
She’d said something similar but wouldn’t give Nalder the satisfaction of revealing that.
‘And I wouldn’t leave cash lying around.’ Nalder inclined his head to the door, intimating he was referring to Edward. She felt guilty that when Edward had started there she had raised the same concern to Blake, who had shrugged and said, ‘You don’t show a man trust, he will steal from you.’
He said it in a way that told her he had come to this opinion from some personal experience. She would have liked to have the courage to ask about it but she didn’t. So many things I lack the courage for, she told herself. It was just too hard to risk losing the little joys you have for riches you might never get.
Blake rang about an hour later to say he was going to spend the night in Greycliff.
‘The tank won’t be ready till tomorrow morning. I may as well spend the night here.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘The fella has a sofa in his shed. Or there’s the car.’
‘I’m going to see Andy later.’
‘Give him my best.’
That wasn’t why she was mentioning it.
‘Every time I go out there he says he wants to come back to work. He can’t wait. What are you going to do? About …’
She looked around, no sign of Edward, but she whispered anyway, ‘… Edward.’
‘I was thinking that I could pay both of them for a little while. I don’t want Andy trying to do too much. After that, maybe Eddy could work in the kitchen washing dishes and stuff.’
She told him what Nalder had said about people not liking him being there and added, ‘I’ve heard people say a few things too.’ She had kept this from Nalder.
‘What kind of things?’
‘You know: “I don’t want to drink in an Abo bar”, shit like that.’
‘I thought I got away from those crazies and crackers. Why can’t a man ever just be treated as a man?’
‘You sound like that Negro preacher, King? And his civil-rights stuff.’
‘I don’t know him but if that’s what he says, I’m on his side. Edward has never done me wrong. I like him the same as Andy. Nalder and everybody else can get screwed.’
There was nobody like Blake Saunders, or at least nobody she had ever met. The man made up his mind. He acted. He did. Others talked but never did a darn thing. She parked the Beetle in the hospital carpark, felt a pang that he was up there in Greycliff alone in some shed. It was a lovely day, the sun spread like butter with just the right amount of thickness. She smelled cigarette smoke, looked over and saw Peg, one of the nurses she’d come to know from her visits, leaning back against an old Holden, smoking. Peg was probably mid-thirties, piano legs, Scottish skin, always joking. She was in the late stages of pregnancy.
‘Beautiful day,’ Doreen offered.
‘I’m enjoying it while I can.’ Peg indicated her stomach.
‘It’ll be a joy.’ It was just one of those things you say.
‘You got kids?’
She shouldn’t have felt embarrassed when someone asked but she always did. Before she could answer, Peg said, ‘No of course you haven’t. Not with a body like that.’ She didn’t say it in a nasty way, more like she admired Doreen. ‘I’ve got three. Believe me, I would have kept it that way but I was too late.’
It was the first time Doreen had seen Peg anything but cheerful and it threw her. Peg flipped up her Rothmans for another cigarette but the pack was empty. She crumpled it and tossed it.
‘Have mine.’ Doreen opened her handbag and handed over a packet of Viscount.
‘I’ll just take a couple …’
Doreen waved that off. ‘Please. You’ve been so good to Andy.’
‘He’s a nice kid.’ Peg pulled out a cigarette, offered Doreen one from what had been her packet but when Doreen shook her head, slipped the packet in her pocket. She lit up again, drew in deep. ‘Been a rough day today. Lost one of my favourite patients, Lilly. She was eighty-one, a trick.’
And once again Doreen felt that her own life was slight, shallow. Even though her words sounded trite, she spoke them with genuine belief. ‘It’s important, what you do. What I do … show people to a dinner table, organise a dance contest …’ she sighed, not bothering to waste words on a pointless mission.
‘We should swap some day,’ smiled Peg.
‘We should.’
‘He’s in the garden in his favourite place.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Thanks for the cigs.’
As Peg had indicated, Andy was sitting in a wicker chair in the sun in the little back garden of the hospital. Lately it had become his favourite place. This was the first time though he was out of his dressing gown and in real clothes. The bandage had gone from his head. He told Doreen as he ate the lamington she’d brought for him, that he just needed to build a bit more strength.
‘I can only walk for a little way and I have to sit down.’
She reminded him he’d been nearly a month off his feet. She asked him about the day he had been attacked.
‘Nalder called into the Surf Shack and asked if you remember anything yet.’
He pulled the cake away from his mouth and looked sad. She was sorry now she had troubled him with it.
‘No. Nothing, but I did remember something from that night Blake kept asking about.’
‘The night the girl was killed?’ She was on high alert. Andy had been the one important witness the police had never interviewed.
‘Yes. I was out the back just washing glasses and stuff. I saw Crane talk to her — the girl whose photo Blake showed me.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. Maybe she asked him for a light or something. I’m just starting to remember things in like, little flashes.’
‘How long did she talk to him?’
‘I don’t know. I just remember I saw the girl and Crane, and I think he gave her a light or she gave him one.’
She asked if there was anybody else around at the time but he could not remember.
‘Will I still have my job when I get out of here?’
‘Of course.’
Andy began fiddling with his hands, agitated. ‘I heard the boss has hired some Abo.’ Andy was looking at the ground where ants were crawling from a small pyramid of dirt. Word might ride a donkey not a freight train in Coral Shoals but it still travelled.
‘Blake promised you. You’ll get your job back.’
She did not want to be the one to tell Edward he would have to go. Blake could do that himself.
It was afternoon by the time he got back from Greycliff and installed the new tank. The clouds were low, purple and full of rain. The air pressed in on his chest. He was dead-ended on the Crane thing. The case file had arrived from Harvey and he flipped through it but didn’t find anything that stuck out. Crane was still in remand and Harvey said there was nothing more he could do for now. His only move from here would be to travel to Brisbane and make enquiries there but the boyfriend of Valerie Stokes had an alibi, and when Blake had telephoned him he had said he did not want to talk to him — the police had the killer and that was that. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was this shit about Edward. Coral Shoals might be beautiful on the outside but it seemed it wasn’t a million miles from Klan territory when you stirred the pond. Apart from the Mob guys hating President Kennedy, Blake knew shit-all about politics but he thought he’d be safe from it here.
The sight of the ocean opened a valve, let off steam. He pulled in to his favourite spot, took a deep breath. No matter how bad things were going, no matter what you did wrong in your dumb life, the water and the salt healed it. Holding his board, he waded into the sea, let it melt him, make it one with itself. He surfed for just under an hour, would have kept going but the bar was open tonight. He was putting the board in the back of the ute when the unmistakable hue of Duck’s van materialised. Duck pulled in fast beside him.
‘You better get into town. Your black mate’s pissed and going to get himself arrested. I just saw him wobbling across the street shaking his fist at passing cars.’
It didn’t take Blake long to find Edward. He was sitting in the sandpit of the kids playground on Archer Street sucking on a bottle of sherry. It was devoid of children or parents. Blake was hoping Edward hadn’t scared them off.
‘What’s going on, Edward?’
Edward glared at him like he was going to throw the bottle at him. Then his face crumpled and he started crying.
‘I’m sorry, boss. I’m sorry.’
Blake helped him up, dropped the bottle in the bin and eased him into the car. They drove to the caravan park in silence. There Blake put him to bed.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Edward,’ he said and pulled the door shut.
It was just Doreen and him now. It had been a good night, good turnover, though people were still talking about the crazy psycho-killer who used to do poetry there. Despite everything, or maybe because of everything, the band had played well tonight. Like when he held a weapon, the guitar was an extension of his arm. Energy flowed through it into the world. Unlike with a gun, when he’d finished, nobody was lying dead.
‘You going to sack him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You know why he …?’
‘He’s an alcoholic. They don’t need a reason, just a bottle.’ He asked her how Andy was doing.
‘Still worried about his job, asking about the fish.’
Blake hadn’t been out there nearly enough. He would go tomorrow, buy him a few comics.
‘And something else. He’s remembering things.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Maybe not for everybody.’ She told him about Crane and Val Stokes.
‘You going to tell Nalder?’ she asked.
He told her it was probably better they said nothing to anybody about it.
Next morning when he arrived at the Surf Shack after a surf and breakfast, Edward was hosing and sweeping. He couldn’t look Blake in the eye.
‘I’m sorry. The drink gets to me.’
‘Did anything happen? Anybody pick on you? What started it?’
Edward shook his head, still looking at the ground. Finally he looked back up, right into Blake’s eyes.
‘Nobody to blame but me. I was laying on my bunk and I just started thinking about a drink. Like the devil put it in my brain. “It’s alright, Eddy, it’s alright to think about it.” That’s what I tell myself, “It’s only thinking.” But I keep thinking. And then I start walking … And then I see a bottle all shiny and perfect and I think, “How can that little bottle be bad?”, like Eve and the apple, you know? And then I start drinking …’
Blake said, ‘I’m not paying you for last night, seeing as you missed. You do it again, I won’t have a choice, I’ll fire you.’
Edward nodded. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Nalder looked up from the form guide; it was the races tomorrow and he liked to get in early. Constable Patrick Denham stood waiting, fists clenched, nervous. Nalder had been assiduous in making his juniors aware of his ill temper at being disturbed during lunch.
‘Yes, Constable.’
‘Sorry, Sergeant, but we have another one. Mr Bentley, he wants to speak with you.’
Nalder made a show of slowly folding his newspaper before walking out to the front desk. Tim Bentley was the fourth resident of the Heights who had stood there this week looking exactly the same: annoyed, powerless.
‘What did they take?’
‘I’ve made a list. A radio, a lot of records …’
Nalder took the list off him. He was pleased. Even though it was handwritten and he would have to type it, it would make the report easier. ‘Your golf clubs?’
‘Spaldings.’
‘Bastards.’ Nalder made a show of sitting down by the typewriter. ‘What’s your address again?’
Bentley gave it and Nalder typed two-fingered.
‘How many others have been burgled? I know Tom Leonard got broken into.’
‘Took his TV. I think you’re the fourth. Were the doors and windows locked?’
Bentley shuffled. ‘Women. Margaret went out to have her hair done, left the laundry door unlocked.’
Nalder tut-tutted. Bentley threw his hands around.
‘She should have but … what’s the world coming to? Having to lock your door?’
‘I know, different times now.’ He methodically copied the list.
‘Can I go?’
‘You got to sign it, sorry.’ The Bentleys had been in the area forever. Tim’s father had run a bicycle shop, his mum had been the town florist. Tim Bentley had bought a hardware shop down in Sutton. Nalder was pretty sure Bentley had voted against him at the golf club, at least the first time. Bentley hopped about, checking his watch.
‘I can drive up later, fingerprint the place but there was nothing at the others. You insured?’
‘Yes.’
‘They may not pay out if the door was unlocked.’ Nalder yanked the paper out. ‘Sign here.’
Bentley did as he was told.
‘We’ll keep our eyes out but they are pros by the looks of it. Don’t leave us much to go on.’
When Bentley had gone, Nalder thought to himself, there will be more, definitely more. He tried to return to the form guide but his enthusiasm had waned. Saturday was the day he should be out there on the golf greens putting, not sitting hunched at his kitchen table listening to the ponies. You tried to make something of your life, somebody was always there to block it. He called out to Denham, told him to mind the fort, he was heading out. He strolled down from the station into town and entered the Victoria Tearooms where he ordered a pot of tea and a vanilla slice. It was quiet in here. The only other customers, a woman and a girl, he assumed her daughter, stared out the window without making conversation. Genteel, that’s what it was here. There was almost nothing in the world that a strong pot of tea and a vanilla slice couldn’t put right, even the slight that those who sought his help when the world turned against him did not want him in their club. Rather than sink his spirits, this anomaly buoyed him. When the enemy is at your door, hypocrites, you come running to mine and ask me to defend you. And so he sipped, mildly content.
The ceiling fans in the Victoria were the best in town but even they were struggling with the build-up today. It was going to rain, that was for sure.
You didn’t imagine policemen having tea and cake, thought Kitty, looking at the big sergeant at the other table. Ministers or priests, yes, you imagined them having tea and cake but not say, standing in a pub drinking. She wondered what kind of things the policeman would be thinking about. What he wouldn’t be thinking about was that he had to sit here having tea with his mum because that was the only place he could go now. Yesterday she was at the Olympia malt-bar with Jenny and Leonie having a milkshake when that bitch Brenda had walked in with Todd and she just had to get out of there, like, that minute, or she was going to faint. It was like hot pins and needles through her whole body. Brenda the cat that swallowed the cream, Todd putting on that nice act of his — she knew now that’s all it was, an act. Jenny and Leonie thought it was just because the date hadn’t worked out, that was the lie she had told them, because the funny thing with girls her age was no matter how much they said they loved you and they were your best friend, sometimes if they had some juicy information they just couldn’t keep it to themselves. Kitty knew Jenny too well. She would have been on the phone to everybody: ‘Guess what …’ The only person she trusted was Doreen. So she’d had to get out of there as quick as she could while maintaining a little dignity. She knew what the others were thinking: poor Kitty, she was so over the moon for Todd but he was never going to ditch Brenda. Part of her wanted to correct them but she’d been smart enough to resist and play along, accept their sympathy. Her mother had been talking about something but she had not been listening.
‘What?’
‘The Bentleys were robbed. You think you-know-who would be out looking for the culprits.’
Her mother slid her eyes towards the policeman.
‘The Bentleys have everything that opens and shuts, they deserve to be robbed.’
‘They are very nice people. That’s ridiculous, you are talking like a Communist.’
‘At least they’re fair.’
‘Stealing from everybody who works and giving it to layabouts who wouldn’t work in an iron lung. You think that’s fair?’
It was stupid, juvenile, the whole thing, her mum trying to talk politics and, yes, what she was saying herself. She really didn’t give a rat’s about who had money and who didn’t. She hated politics. She liked JFK, he was good-looking and vibrant and Jackie was glamorous, kind of like Doreen only richer, but Menzies was an old man in a suit who looked like he’d stepped out of a painting where the men had fob watches and the women parasols. The Labor man, she couldn’t remember his name, he was like one of those old blokes you see staggering home from a pub after closing. She hated politics, she hated this town, she hated who she was and where she was, she hated Brenda and she hated Todd but most of all she hated herself.
The thunder started about eleven that night. Lightning flashes began half an hour later as the core of the storm came closer. Kitty slipped out of her bed and changed from her shortie pyjamas into shorts and a top. The ignominy of being found in those pyjamas was too much to contemplate. It was easy to get from her room out the back door and to her bike resting against the back verandah pole. She wheeled her bicycle as quietly as she could along the side-path past her parents’ bedroom. Once out on the street she pedalled steadily towards the golf club. Everybody always said that golfers got hit by lightning because they were in the open space on high ground. There was not a car on the street and the boom of thunder was terrifying. The lightning by now was coming in jagged bolts, making the sky look like a dinner plate cracked down the middle. She reached the back of the golf course, dropped her bike and ran up the incline. Rain had begun falling in big droplets, you could hear it on the piles of fallen gum leaves she passed. She emerged onto the green and walked to its centre where she stood, arms out like a scarecrow. A clap of thunder sounded directly overhead and the whole area was lit ethereal white.
‘Come on, take me,’ she urged the elements and closed her eyes. Take me, take me, take this stupid idiot.
But the next boom was nowhere near as loud as its predecessor and though the crack of lightning was powerful, the area lit was close to a half-mile south. In a whoosh the rain descended and she found herself in wet darkness.
That’s your answer, she thought. The gods don’t deem you worthy. Her tears poured down her cheeks but she couldn’t taste them because of the torrent pounding her.
‘So, you’re all ready?’
Blake had brought the ute to the front of the hospital. Andy was standing dressed carrying a Gladstone bag that contained his possessions.
‘This is it.’
Blake had promised to drive him home. Andy climbed in and sat the bag on his lap. Blake rolled away from the hospital. It had been just over five weeks since he’d been admitted.
‘When can I come back to work?’
‘Don’t rush. How about next week? Give yourself time to get your strength back.’
‘I’m strong now.’
‘Well, I feel responsible. I don’t want anything bad to happen, and I’m paying you.’
It was a pleasant day. The run of storms had finally cleared.
‘Doreen is going to call in on you once you’re settled.’
Andy smiled. Then a shadow crossed his face. ‘How’s Audrey doing?’
‘She’s fine. I’ve been looking out for her.’ The truth was he’d only got the replacement the day before yesterday. He still wasn’t sure the ruse would hold up once Andy was back at work.
‘Doreen said it was a couple of blokes but I don’t remember.’
Blake assured him that was not a problem. The men were most likely miles away by now. ‘They’re not coming back.’
‘They do, they’ll be sorry.’ Andy punched a fist into his palm. ‘I’ve been remembering stuff, you know. Just bits and pieces.’
‘I know. That’s good. The doctor said you’ll probably remember almost everything eventually.’
‘One thing I remembered just this morning as I was about to leave, because there was a man there with a shirt … and it reminded me.’
‘Of what?’
‘That girl that was killed. I saw her with Crane.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘But I saw her with someone else too, some other bloke.’
Now Blake was totally focused. ‘Who?’
‘I didn’t see his face. They were over near a car and I saw his shirt from the back. It was short-sleeved and had big crabs and crayfish over it.’
Crayfish was what they called lobsters here. He was thinking he had seen that shirt somewhere. At the club maybe?
‘Have you seen that shirt before do you think?’
Andy scrunched up his face, bit his lip. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Do you think you might have seen the guy’s face and just can’t remember?’
‘Maybe but I doubt it. It was the girl I was looking at, you know?’
Valerie Stokes was the kind of woman a young guy like Andy would notice.
Blake wanted to make sure he had this right. He was too excited to think clearly, so he had to repeat everything, straighten it out in his head first. ‘Crabs and crayfish?’ Doreen had come in to do the accounts and found him as he was feeding the fish, just like he’d promised Andy he would.
‘So Andy said. He didn’t see the man’s face but he was certain he was talking to her by the car. You’ve never seen that shirt?’
‘No. But I was busy chasing those wankers that night.’
Doreen had an amazing memory. If somebody had worn the shirt in here when she was present she would have remembered. Perhaps Duck or Panza would recall it, or Crane himself might have got a look at the guy. He’d ring Harvey first thing, let him know. This had to be good for Crane, a witness saying she was talking to some other guy.
‘The problem,’ Harvey said in that measured way of his, ‘is that from what you say, this witness has effectively had brain damage. He can’t recall everything, only bits and pieces. The Crown will play on that. Do you know if it was before or after he saw Crane with the girl that he saw the man in the shirt?’
Blake explained he hadn’t thought to ask that. It was possible Andy wouldn’t know for sure.
‘It’s very important. If she was with the man after talking with Crane, it is much better for us.’
The way Harvey said it, was like he was hinting that should be what Andy remembered. Much as Blake liked Crane though, he didn’t want to put that pressure on Andy. He told Harvey he would check tomorrow and hung up deflated. He would try Duck and Panza, see if they had seen the guy in the shirt. Duck was always sneaking out for a cigarette so there had to be a good chance. They were rehearsing tonight, so he could ask them then.
‘You know I don’t pay much attention to shirts … blouses that’s another matter.’ Duck was fiddling around the jukebox with a new 45 he wanted Blake to hear. ‘And I didn’t see the girl.’
Panza did not recall seeing a shirt like that. Blake couldn’t shake the idea that he had seen one like that somewhere.
‘Maybe back in America,’ said Duck. ‘It’s not like it would be the only one ever.’
Blake was already giving in to that idea. ‘Anyway, are you sure that Beach Bum didn’t do it?’
Sometimes he could imagine putting a neat hole in Duck’s forehead. He shook off that idea because it took him back to the house on Cockatoo Ridge and a world he thought he had escaped.
‘What is this record?’ He asked as much to distract himself as out of curiosity.
‘Last year I was in Sydney and I saw this group on New Faces. They’re instrumental, like us.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Panza.
‘Called The Atlantics. The single is “Moon Man”.’
Blake listened with interest. An Australian group writing and recording their own material was almost unheard of. The track wasn’t special but there was something in the sound, the guitars. He liked it, not enough to cover but it got him thinking, maybe he could actually record those couple of tunes of his.
It was a good rehearsal, nothing but music in his head for an hour or two. It was easy to forget how good it could be here.
It had been a while since she had watched him from her perch on the sand dune. Last week it had been too wet and wild. She asked herself if there was something weird about this. Well it was obviously weird, but was it some psychological condition? It slipped into her mind that sometime in the future there might be a house right here on this block. It would be a shame, her old sand dune no longer there. Maybe this would be a kitchen, kids smeared in Vegemite. Or a bedroom, a couple making love, and perhaps somehow, her spirit from this moment would still be haunting the space, coating it in … what? Longing? Would he still be there opposite, older in slippers, his hair thinner, alone?
She got up and dusted herself off. She did not feel like going home yet. There was nothing there for her except a kettle and a bed. She had girlfriends but they were trending younger as one by one the older ones got engaged or moved. It scared her: that is you in three years. She was making progress saving for a television. That might make things less lonely at home. The golf club would be open. You had to be a member to play but the public could drink there and a pianist plied his trade Wednesdays. It would mean wearing a dress though and that would mean going home to change but at least it was on the way.
There were about a dozen drinkers in the golf club — only one other woman, who was with a man likely her husband because they barely said a word to each other as they sipped gin and tonics and listened to the pianist play ‘Moon River’. She felt the eyes of all the men on her, noted a perceptible but short halt in their murmured conversations about golf or business as she took her stool at the bar. The barmaid she knew as a woman who worked in Gannons. She ordered a brandy and dry. The pianist switched to ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’. She was halfway through her drink when the first man took his chance. He was wearing a suit that looked like it had spent a substantial time in a car. She guessed he worked up near the Heads. Wedding ring said he was married but then the men here all were. He introduced himself as Gary, said he was an accountant, made small talk. Did she live here? Where did she work? She answered politely. He asked if she would like a drink. She was only halfway through the brandy and declined.
‘We should go for a drive,’ he suggested hopefully.
‘You should go for a drive …’ she corrected him, ‘… home.’
He took it well. A man used to plenty of rejection. He placed his empty glass on the counter.
‘Nice meeting you, Doreen.’
The man in the dark suit on her left, whom she had barely noticed because he’d been so quiet, spoke with a mellow voice.
‘Doreen meaning “gift”. From the Greek.’
She felt obliged to say she had never heard that before and asked if he was Greek. He did not look Greek but he must have been fifteen to twenty years older than her and had grey at the temples, which for some reason she associated with European men.
‘No, I’m not Greek,’ he laughed and she enjoyed his smile. ‘Adrian.’
He offered his hand and they shook. ‘My name is from Latin, Adrianus. You know the English Pope was an Adrian?’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘When I was a young man,’ he said, ‘I worked at a magazine for a time. One of the things I had to do was a column on names. I’ve never forgotten.’ He ordered himself another whisky and politely gestured whether she wanted another drink. What the heck. She finished her brandy and thanked him. ‘It’s remarkable how something trivial you do in your teens or twenties is marked indelibly on you for the rest of your days. I bet there is something you remember?’
‘My father loves the Melbourne Cup. He used to run off all the names of the winners. I learned from him. Only from nineteen-thirty, mind you, Phar Lap.’ Their drinks arrived.
‘Go on then,’ he urged. She felt foolish but at the same time it was fun to remember being a child.
‘I’ll give it a shot.’ She rattled them off and was going like a storm until 1951 when she hit a blank. At the last second, the name jumped out at her: ‘Delta!’ From there it was easy an easy run home.
‘I backed the winner of the Melbourne Cup last year,’ Adrian said. ‘It was a complete fluke. When I was at school we had a tyrannical headmaster, Mr Stephens, who was proud of the fact he could deliver the cane with either hand with equal proficiency. We nicknamed him Even Stephens.’
She toasted him and for the first time their eyes met in that other way that men and women seem to register instinctively.
‘Fate,’ he said, ‘is a strange beast.’
The bar was closing. Everybody else except the staff had gone. She wasn’t sure when the piano had stopped. Doreen still didn’t want to face her house alone. She shouldn’t have said it.
‘I’ve got a bottle of Starwine at my place.’
She saw him running through the same scenario in his own mind. He had a wife, almost certainly a family to go home to. His hesitation was like a nick received in battle, it stung but was not fatal; she would recover.
‘I’ll follow you,’ he said.
It did not occur to her until they were actually inside her house — she was far too worried about whether it was too untidy to entertain — that as far as she knew Valerie Stokes’ murderer was still out there, that this ‘Adrian’ could be him. The thought was no sooner through her brain than she felt his hand rest on hers beside the glasses of wine she had just poured. Her heart nearly burst into her mouth and she turned and opened it ready to scream when he gently kissed her on the lips. Crazily, she responded; the brandy and the night and a lone pianist had conspired to bring her to this point and she wanted and needed this moment because this was her house in the here and now, her body, her blood, she was not just some phantom spirit who had once sat on a dune where the house now stood, longing for connection.
Blake was at the back of the bar washing his ute, Edward doing a good job with the chamois, when Nalder drove in. Blake had not told Nalder yet about the man in the shirt. He was thinking that could backfire. Until he could identify the man, all the police would do was what Harvey had said — concentrate on Crane being with the girl, saying Andy’s memory was messed up. So what was Nalder up to? He looked serious as he got out, put on his hat and walked over carrying something in a bag.
‘Morning, Sergeant.’ He kept it formal between them in public. Edward was scooting around the back of the car, trying to dematerialise. ‘How can I help?’
‘Actually, Mr Saunders, it’s your friend I need to speak to.’
Blake wondered where this was going.
‘Turn off the hose, Edward,’ he said.
Edward did as he was told. Not surprisingly he was nervous.
‘You reside in a caravan, lot five in the caravan park, do you not?’
Edward looked to Blake for reassurance. Blake nodded go ahead.
‘Yes, sir. I mean I don’t know the lot number.’
‘The caretaker says it’s yours. Do you recognise this?’ Nalder reached into the bag and pulled out a large National transistor radio. Blake noted the look of panic on Edward’s face.
‘I found it,’ he blurted.
‘Where’s this going?’ Blake felt he had to try and intervene.
Nalder shot a scorching look at Edward. ‘The last few weeks, ever since around the time he came to town, we’ve had property and valuables being stolen from houses. Mainly up near the Heights.’
‘I didn’t steal that. Honest to God, I found it. Honest, boss.’ His eyes pleaded for Blake to believe him. Blake tried to remain calm. Nalder was worse if you got him offside, but maybe he could reason with him.
‘I don’t understand. Why did you check his caravan anyway?’
‘The caretaker heard music. He was aware of the robberies. He took a look.’
‘He can’t do that!’
‘It’s his property and if he believes it is being used for illegal purposes he has every right. This radio is from one of the houses.’
Edward was scared stiff. ‘I found it, day before yesterday.’
‘Where?’
It was Blake who asked the question, not Nalder.
‘Down where you dropped me that first time, near the river. I went down for a swim and it was just lying there.’
Blake asked if there was anything else he found.
‘No, just that, lying on the ground like somebody dropped it. And I tried it and it worked.’
‘You should have handed it in, boy.’ Nalder could be a stern prick. For the first time Edward looked a bit guilty.
‘I thought someone had thrown it away.’
Blake cut in and asked if anything else had been found in the caravan. Nalder confirmed nothing had been. Blake asked what other things had been stolen and Nalder ran off a list.
‘So where is the iron and the television and the watches and cufflinks and all the other loot? Up his ass?’
Nalder’s reptilian look told him he had gone too far. ‘Maybe he hocked them.’
‘Maybe he’s telling the truth.’
Nalder retorted, ‘Maybe he is but that doesn’t help any of us. Fact is, he is in possession of stolen property. I could lock him up for that alone.’
‘Or you could believe him.’
‘I don’t do anything, you know what happens? Some bugger decides to take the law into their own hands. It’s not safe for him here.’
‘What are you saying?’
Nalder sighed. ‘Best all round if he clears out. I won’t charge him, his record’s clean. If he stays there will be trouble.’
‘He didn’t steal anything. He’s not going.’
Edward said in a clear voice, ‘No. He’s right. It’s the best thing. You got your boy coming back anyway, you don’t need me.’
‘You could work in the kitchen.’
‘That’s not me, boss. I don’t like living in a caravan and washing dishes. This is better.’
‘Too right it is. I’ve got his swag in the van. We’re settled?’
Nalder scanned both of them but fixed on Blake. Blake looked back at Edward who gave a nod.
Blake said, ‘Yeah, we’re settled.’
Nalder turned on his heel, went to his van, brought out the swag, walked back and handed it to Edward. Without a word he then trudged back to the van, climbed in and drove off. Just like a sheriff in the Wild West.
After they had settled up, they stood in the shadow of the Surf Shack sign.
‘Tell Doreen goodbye from me.’
‘Yes, Edward, I will. She’ll miss you.’
‘It’s for the best. Time I moved on but.’
Another few seconds passed. Edward put out his hand and they shook.
‘It’s not fair,’ said Blake.
Edward shrugged as if to say ‘it is what it is’. He went to move off.
‘Wait.’
Blake slipped his watch off his wrist and put it on Edward’s.
‘I can’t take this.’
‘It’s mine to give. I want you to have it.’
‘No. I mean I can’t take it. I’ll get arrested for stealing it.’
Blake was about to bite when he saw the smile breaking over Edward’s face. This time they clasped one another tight.
‘Thank you,’ Edward whispered and put the watch on his wrist.
‘Stay off the grog.’
‘I’ll try, boss.’
Finally they separated. Edward started walking. Blake watched him all the way out of the carpark and down to the coast road and along, with that slight limp, leaving his life just the way he had entered it.
Nalder turned off the road and drove down the track towards the river. He reckoned the radio must have fallen out when he’d got out to take a piss. Well, this would be the last trip. It had worked out well, the blackfella going. Sooner or later there would have been a problem with him and he didn’t want to lock up the poor bugger for something he knew he hadn’t done. He pulled into a quiet bend and reversed the van. This was where the river was deepest. Sooner or later some kid diving down would find it but it wouldn’t matter. The important thing was that they had suffered. Six of those bastards who’d voted against him either this time or the last. He opened up the back doors of the van, hauled out two kids bikes and tossed them in. Next a record player and a bunch of LPs. He was tempted to keep Andy Stewart but knew there could be no trace of anything stolen in his possession. In a town this small, coincidence was bound to happen and someone would find it one day during a barbecue or a church fete. An oil painting from that poser Lamont’s wall — looked like shit a kindy kid could have drawn — was next to go in the drink, followed by some tools out of Bentley’s shed and, last but not least, the Morgans’ vacuum cleaner. He watched it all sink, shut up the van, climbed into the driver seat and started up. Revenge was a dish best served cold; speaking of which, Edith had promised cold lamb for dinner. With a lager to wash it down, that would be just perfect.