Tuesday 24 December 1974
Charlie
I make my way to the kitchen, where Abby hands me the phone then goes back to washing dishes. At least Ryan doesn’t call as early in the morning as Sal does. I say ‘hello Kuta’ to a rumble then boom of thunder, along with Sarah’s chant of ‘one more sleep’ as she stomps up and down the hallway. I hope Abby’s found a unicorn toy or there’ll be an ocean of tears tomorrow.
Ryan’s calmed down since Sal’s call, but is still resolved to move back to Brisbane.
‘Man, I wish I could send photos through the phone to remind you why you left,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing you want here. The city’s crowded with people in a shopping frenzy, there are cranes everywhere throwing up dodgy skyscrapers, you can’t breathe through the car fumes. And in the burbs it’s the other extreme: dead. I take Abby’s dog for a walk and I’m lucky if I see one old lady pruning her roses.’
‘You’re describing a city with suburbs. I know what Brisbane’s like. But man, you should see how many people have shown up here even in the last week. It’s like they’re falling from the sky.’
‘Good for KD, right?’
‘But shit for Bali. I’m worried about this, Charlie. Things are changing fast here. Beach is littered with crap every morning now, and I have to fight for space in the waves. I heard a guy yesterday talking about how they should put roads down so he can get up north more easily. It’s out of control.’
‘They’ll leave. They don’t get it. Bali won’t change.’
He sighs. ‘It’s already changed. It’s time for us to move back, try being adults at home.’
‘You’re not thinking straight. Do you remember why we left? Brisbane’s all capitalism, no culture – a police state. The rest of the country still laughs at us, but it’s not funny. It’s never been funny.’
‘Again, this is not news to me.’
Abby and I lock eyes for a moment as lightning quickfires across the sky.
‘Nah, you don’t understand. Petersen’s getting worse. He’s going to run this place until he dies. And we’re too old to endlessly protest about his latest shrugged-off act of tyranny.’
‘People are never too old to care. And you’re getting me fired up about why I should be there, doing something useful.’
‘But you won’t. You’ll take a job in some law firm, get a mortgage and go to the Gold Coast for your holidays. We’ll moan about things and nothing will change. Don’t give up what we have in Kuta, man. It’s still paradise. Get fired up about keeping it that way.’
‘We got seats on a flight tonight,’ he says.
‘How?’ I’m gobsmacked. ‘Christmas Eve?’
‘Sal’s dad pulled some strings.’
‘Right, okay. Well, make nice with your family for Christmas, and then let’s get on the plane to Kuta. I’m counting the days until I’m back there.’
He’s noncommittal, but I’m not giving up. I know tourists are invading Bali. We all know that. But they won’t stay: there’ll be some other place to go. Bali is for surfers and people genuinely searching for a better way to live. We have a restaurant, a whole bunch of friends, and the perfect losmen a minute’s walk from the ocean. Giving that up would be insanity. But it’ll be okay. Ryan’ll enjoy concrete footpaths, modern cars and eating different food for a few days then he’ll hear something racist or read a newspaper and he’ll remember why he left. And I’ll join the chorus whenever anything here bugs him.
I want to tell Ryan what’s going on with me, about the car crash and Beau, the commune and the cops, but I don’t want to muddy the waters. I keep to my lines of Brisbane bad, Bali good. When the dust settles here I want to be sure I have a place to go.
Abby is back home from taking the kids to wherever she took them. She lugs a brown paper bag of groceries onto the counter then goes back to the car for the rest. They go through a lot of food.
It’s oppressively hot; a downpour of rain causes the temperature to drop for about as long as it takes to drink a glass of juice, then the sky clears and the sun ratchets up the heat. Then there’s the never-ending pre-Christmas organising to do and drive and buy, which makes it feel stressful in this house. The rush is not mine to deal with so I watch and listen, but I know for sure this is not how my family home will be, if that ever happens.
The days here have felt long, and aside from my excursion with Dad I’m not sure what to do with myself. When Ryan and Sal get here they’ll need to spend most of their time with family, in the beginning at least. I decide to read through the newspaper and see if any bands are playing tonight. Might catch up with some friends I haven’t seen since I was here last.
I try to chat to Abby while she puts her groceries into the pantry and fridge, fills Woof’s water bowl, wipes muddy paw prints off the floor. ‘Where’s today’s paper?’
She makes a grumbling sound to indicate she’s annoyed, though I don’t see how answering a question is such a big deal. ‘No idea, Charlie.’
‘You keep them in the living room, yeah?’
‘Why don’t you get up and go look?’
She’s cranky about something so I drop it. The phone rings before I can search for the paper.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say. I’m worried the call could be something to do with our visit to the commune.
‘Well it probably won’t be Roberts,’ she says as I pick up the phone.
‘Hello? Hang on a sec.’ I cover the receiver with one hand. ‘Why not? Anything I should know?’
She frowns and points at my hand. ‘Don’t do that.’ But I indicate I’m ignoring the call until she answers my question. ‘God, Charlie. So rude. He rang yesterday. I’ll tell you after.’
‘What time yesterday? What did he say?’
‘Charlie, talk to the person who’s on the phone right now!’
It’s Abby’s friend Lou. I pass it to Abby then pace around while she’s talking. I didn’t think Roberts knew about the commune, but maybe he does. It could be that the ‘good cop, bad cop’ thing is a ruse. Maybe someone left the commune right after we did, told Roberts what happened and – no, Abby would’ve said something. But if she inadvertently made it clear she knew nothing about what Dad and I were doing, that’s bad, too. These guys would love to divide us, play us against one another.
‘What’s your problem?’ Abby asks when she’s off the phone. ‘I thought you wanted me to take his calls.’
‘What did he want to know?’
‘Times. He’s as obsessed as Doyle about getting the timeline straight. I was convincing on the phone. I told him about us arguing. As far as I can tell they have no evidence, and I’ve answered for the missing hours. Charlie, this might be okay.’ She flushes.
‘It’s all right. I want it to be over, too.’
At dusk, I’m back in the kitchen again. I went for a walk, read a little, slept a little and now I’m sitting next to Dad at the bench, drinking a cold beer. No bands on tonight and no friends at a loose end. The radio is on but the sound is low. Woof is lying on the floor near my feet, snoring. And Abby is working the stove like a pro, turning the kids’ lamb chops and quickly moving her arm away from the leaping hot fat, checking on their corn cobs and peas boiling in separate saucepans. We could use her at KD.
When the phone rings, I mentally put money on it being Mark calling to say he’ll be home late even though he’d seemed relieved this was his last workday for the year.
Dad is aggravated by the constant ringing. He pushes his chair back, picks up his glass and stands. ‘You get half a dozen phone calls a day! It’s noisier than being in an office.’
‘This is more than normal,’ Abby says, draining the peas into a colander. ‘We don’t usually get calls from Bali or the police. I’d go out of my head if it rang this much every day.’
Dad makes a face that suggests it’s still somehow Abby’s fault, and heads out into the backyard with his book.
I’m not going to indulge his tantrum about modern life but he’s right that it’s noisy in here. Between the cooking sounds, the radio, the TV on full volume in the living room, Woof barking at who-knows-what and the occasional kid shout, I struggle to hear who’s on the phone. I turn off the radio, wave at Abby to keep it down as she calls the kids to dinner. But it turns out to be a call I should’ve let ring out.
‘I hear you and your father took a drive yesterday,’ Doyle says.
While Sarah clambers into her designated seat, Abby lifts the twins onto chairs made high with stacked cushions. She places a small plate of food in front of each of them.
I wish I could take the call in another room. I don’t want Abby or the kids to hear this. In a house this size, you’d think they’d have a second phone.
‘Who’d you hear that from?’ I want Doyle to admit he knows Finn and his henchmen, or Maria.
‘The man in the fucking moon. What does your father want with that boy?’
‘Not sure who you mean.’
Abby looks at me. I cover the phone and whisper, ‘My mate Jason. All good.’
‘Don’t get smart with me,’ Doyle says. ‘What does he have that you want? Did she give him something? A letter, photographs? Maybe I’ll ask him myself.’
Abby cuts the kids’ meat into small chunks and butters the corn, then leaves the room, thinking, I suppose, that I’ll supervise. I ignore Petey’s instantly spilled water and speak quickly.
‘Beau doesn’t have anything. Dad wanted to make sure he was okay. He promised Skye he’d do that.’
‘And all of a sudden he knew she’d lived on a commune and how to get there. Should’ve told me the truth when I asked the first time.’
‘Sure, yes. She recently told him she had a son and wanted Dad to check in on him. Which we did. End of story.’
He’s eating something – is everyone eating right now? – and makes me wait while he chews into the phone. ‘Not quite. It’s been brought to my attention that your brother-in-law is that Four Corners reporter.’ I’m amazed he didn’t already know that. Not much of a cop. ‘Did he send you out there? Because if he did, we have a problem, you and me.’
‘No, we didn’t tell him we were going there. It was only a quick drive to see that Beau was all right. Nothing else there is of any interest.’
‘You lot need to compare notes.’ He goes back to eating and I’m glad I can’t see him. Sounds like his snout is deep in the trough. ‘You see, your brother-in-law is unhealthily curious about what goes on there. Seems to have a keen enough interest in farming that he’s been asking people about it for months. He hasn’t gone as far as trespassing like you did, but he is behaving in a very bloody intrusive manner. And I’m going to have to insist he stick his nose somewhere else.’
I have no idea how to respond to this. If Mark is investigating that commune, it’s news to me.
‘So what’s going to happen,’ Doyle swallows, ‘is that I’m going to offer you a deal. And it’s a good one, so you’ll say yes. See, I’m not exactly sure how you and your sister – maybe your father – are involved in this woman’s death. But you are. I don’t have evidence but I’ve been doing this long enough to trust my gut. I’m prepared to drop the whole thing, and say she had car trouble, blew a tyre, skidded off the road, alone and unaided, if you get your brother-in-law to stay away from Eumundi and anyone involved with that place. Got that?’
‘Won’t that make him suspicious?’ Petey looks up and I turn my back on him, twisting the phone cord across my chest.
‘Not my problem. You’ll find a solution.’
I’m whispering now, but Doyle doesn’t seem to notice. ‘I hear you, I do. And I’m not saying we had anything to do with anything, because we didn’t. But hypothetically, if Mark thinks there’s something going on at that commune he won’t stop poking around because I ask him to. Why would he?’
The kids are digging into an intense argument about who-cares-about-what, which suits me perfectly.
‘To protect his wife. I presume he’d like to keep her out of jail.’
‘And my dad won’t believe it was an accident, though it obviously was. You told us the body had been laid out and the door was closed.’
‘Don’t recall saying that.’
‘Roberts –’
‘Makes mistakes.’
‘Your men took photographs. The medical examiner.’
He exhales loudly. ‘Are you telling me how to do my job, boy?’
I call up flashes of the stories Mark told me about his investigations into the Whiskey Au Go Go, the two men rotting in jail, swallowing metal and clawing the walls, locked up for life with no evidence, the crooked cops and judge in collusion. Doyle holds the power here. The only value I have is in my relationship to a journalist who’s educated me about how scared I should be right now. ‘No, not at all. But seriously, how do you suggest I keep him away from Eumundi?’
That’s a word I’ve said only a couple of times in my life, and my timing in saying it again could not have been worse. Mark has walked into the kitchen, kissed each of the kids on the top of the head, nodded to me, and is on his way to the fridge. After I mumble a ‘Good to talk to you, have to go now’ into the receiver and then hang up, Mark asks me – placing a longneck on the kitchen bench, not making eye contact – ‘Eumundi?’
I stand still as a lizard as Mark pulls out a drawer, removes a bottle opener and looks up at me.
I feel my face reddening but make an effort to keep my voice steady. ‘Yeah, the ginger factory. Friend asking whether it’s worth a visit.’
‘That’s in Buderim.’ He flicks the lid off the bottle, takes a tumbler from the dish rack.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘You said Eumundi.’
‘Pretty sure I didn’t.’ He’ll put two and two together, but I’m not going to help speed up the process.
Mark pours the beer and drinks a slow mouthful, letting the silence hang. ‘My mistake.’