The dead-end underground, the hangover, brought me forcibly back to my other obsession. Matthew Talbot wasn’t the only hostel in Sydney, there were others. Some of them in Surry Hills. Another snippet of the conversation with Sebastian came online. Surry Hills was where my father had shifted to. And he may have specifically mentioned Swanton Lodge because the place seemed vaguely familiar. It wasn’t a lot different from Matthew Talbot except that it didn’t cater exclusively to men; they took women as well. I walked in, hopefully looking better than I felt.
I breezed up to the desk, trying a slightly different approach this time. ‘I’m here to see Guy Valentine,’ I said, as if it was a business appointment.
The woman looked at me as if the name rang a bell. ‘Ye-s,’ she said, ‘just wait a minute, will you?’
I was taken aback, not anticipating such a quick result. I didn’t expect him to actually be here right at this moment. I thought about leaving a message and then walking out. Did I really want to have the reunion with my father in the reception area of a hostel?
The other woman at the desk was smiling at me, ready to start up a conversation. I smiled back, not enthusiastically enough for her to start talking to me though. It didn’t seem as busy here as it had at Matthew Talbot, perhaps because it was a quiet mid-afternoon period. There was the sound of metal buckets and mops in the corridor, and the same strong smell of bleach I’d noticed at Matthew Talbot.
‘Excuse us.’ The bucket and mop had made it into the reception area, manoeuvred by a gentleman with black eyebrows and grey hair swept straight back from his face. I moved aside to let him get on with the job. He was whistling, enjoying his work.
The woman came back carrying a ledger. Alone. I expected to see a short stocky man with her but there was no-one. ‘Did you say Gay Valentine?’
‘No, it was Guy Valentine.’
‘Hmm, that’s odd,’ she said. ‘We had a Valentine in here last night but in the women’s dorm.’ She placed the ledger on the counter. ‘Only here for half an hour though.’
Oh God, no wonder the place looked familiar. When I’d said last night ‘I’ll be back’ I hadn’t realised how prophetic those words would be. Well at least no-one would recognise me, unless the night shift doubled up and did the days as well. Upside down I could read the comment: ‘Refused to stay.’ Yes, I remembered that bit. The cleaner had now started mopping up around the desk. I moved out of his way.
‘This isn’t Guy, it’s a longer name than that. It looks like …’ she squinted her eyes, peering. ‘What does that say, Robyn?’ she asked the other woman at the desk. ‘Is it Caroline?’
The other woman peered at it as well. ‘Looks to me like Claudine,’ said Robyn.
‘Actually, it’s Claudia,’ I said, putting them out of their misery. ‘It’s me.’
‘You were in Proclaim last night?’ They weren’t surprised-they got all sorts in here—just baffled.
‘That’s right. Let me clear things up for you. I was in Proclaim briefly last night, that’s over and done with. This afternoon I’m here on an entirely unrelated matter—looking for my father whose name is Guy Valentine.’
But they were still baffled. The mix-up with the names, it was all too confusing for them.
‘Guy,’ I repeated to their blank faces. ‘Shakespeare,’ I said as a last resort. ‘He used to hang out at Rushcutters Bay, had a mate called Sebastian.’
They stood there slowly shaking their heads. So many names, so few beds.
‘That’s the trouble with you professionals,’ the cleaner addressed the women. ‘They keep swapping youse round so you don’t stay in one place long enough to get to know anyone. He used to do this job, Shakespeare. Gawd, he was so slow.’ He chuckled to himself as if it was a private joke.
I forgot the women and turned my attention to the cleaner. ‘He worked here?’
‘Sure did. Volunteer. Same as me. You’ve got to put something back into it.’ He went on with the job, whistling and sluicing water around and throwing that mop to the ground as if it were a bull.
I moved away from the desk and started following him round. ‘How long ago?’
‘How long ago what?’ he said, his mind completely back to the task in hand.
‘How long ago did Shakespeare work here?’
‘Ooh, let’s see now.’ He pulled the mop through the wringer. ‘Two, three years.’
‘Do you still see him?’
‘No. I reckon he lost interest. He just dropped off. They often do. No commitment,’ he said disparagingly.
‘Do you know where I can find him?’
‘Not really. He used to walk to work so I assume he lived round here somewhere.’ With a quick flourish he finished the reception area. ‘Ask them,’ he said, meaning the women at the desk. ‘It must be on the records somewhere. Excuse us.’ Off he went to plough other pastures.
I returned to the desk. Presumably the women had overheard most of the conversation. ‘Could you tell me his address?’
"Fraid not,’ said the first woman. ‘We can’t give out that sort of information about staff members, volunteers or otherwise. We do about clients—we have to give addresses to police and Social Security, so we figure, why not family members, members of the public. But I’m sorry, not with staff.’
‘I’m sure he’s been a client at some stage,’ cajoled. ‘Could you do it on that basis?’
She smiled. ‘If you’d like to leave your name and address, perhaps we can pass it on. That’s the best I can do,’ she said regretfully.
It wasn’t the best they could do. ‘Look,’ I said, presenting her with an alternative, ‘you don’t have to tell me the address but could you at least tell me if he is on your records so I know this isn’t all a wild goose chase?’ I stood there, feet firmly planted on the ground. I may have refused to stay last night but this morning they couldn’t get rid of me.
‘Well …’ She brought out another ledger from under the desk.
What was it with all these ledgers? We were living in the Information Age, didn’t they have all this on computers, databases? She was shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, he doesn’t appear to be on our books.’
‘Are you sure?’ I said. I felt like seizing the book out of her hands and looking through it myself. I mean, they did have trouble making out my name in the Proclaim register.
‘We get so many volunteers through here,’ she explained. ‘Clients who dry out, are full of good intentions. They work here for a couple of days then they’re back drinking again. I mean, we’d have someone like Stan on the books,’ she said, referring to the cleaner, ‘because he’s been a regular, but I’m afraid we have no record of your father.’
I wrote my name and phone number on a piece of paper. I could have given them my business card but this wasn’t business, it was personal. And knowing I was a private investigator would only complicate things. ‘If you hear anything, could you let me know?’
‘Sure.’
I walked towards the corridor. ‘I’ll just say goodbye to Stan,’ I said and disappeared before anyone could call me back. I found him in a room marked Laundry. ‘Hi,’ I said, holding my hand out to him, ‘I’m Claudia. Guy … Shakespeare’s daughter.’
He wiped his hand down his trousers. ‘Pleased to meet you, Claudia.’
‘I’ve left my number at the desk. If you happen to run into him, or you see anyone who knows him, can you let them know there’s a message for him here?’
‘No worries,’ he said.
I walked out into the streets of Surry Hills again. If he was here two or three years ago, he could still be here now. Within walking distance of Swanton Lodge. I could walk in ever-increasing circles from where I was standing right now and doorknock every residence in the area.
There weren’t many residences around the Lodge, it was businesses, rag trade premises, a few Chinese clubs, secondhand books and music stores. Perhaps I could just walk around the area, I was bound to run into him. I headed up Campbell Street, crossed over Crown. Before I knew it I was up behind Taylor Square. I walked through a back alley full of crumbling little houses on one side and the garbage from Oxford Street restaurants on the other.
Taylor Square had always had its coterie of homeless men despite the trendy cafes springing up around it. Cafes with that blotchy paintwork that cost the earth and could have been done for nothing by a five year old left alone with a box of paints on a wet afternoon. The cafes also had bentwood chairs and tables on the footpath to cater for the long hot summer. Sitting at the tables were elegantly pale-skinned people wearing flimsy dresses, singlets with deep armholes, big socks and workboots, talking about art galleries and eight millimetre movies. No-one seemed to be talking about the smoke in the air. In doorways between the cafes lay men who showed absolutely no interest in any kind of conversation at all.
There were ways of finding out where people lived other than knocking on every door and wandering round the streets. Social Security. He was on it once, he may still be on it.
Bernie was my Motor Registry contact, he’d been slipping me bits of information over the years and in return I’d been slipping him bits of money. In fact I think I must have paid for the renovations on his house.
‘G’day, Bernie. It’s Claudia.’ Bernie went through his usual routine of trying to chat me up and I went through my usual routine of asking about his wife. Then we got down to business. ‘You wouldn’t know anyone in Social Security, would you, someone interested in augmenting their disposable income?’
‘I might do,’ said Bernie. ‘Depends what you want done.’
‘I’ve got a name, I need an address. Last known address. And it’ll probably be sickness benefits,’ I added.
‘OK, I’ll see what I can do,’ Bernie said. ‘It’ll have to be money up front for this one.’ Between ourselves, Bernie and I had gotten to the stage where prompt payment didn’t matter. Often I didn’t pay him till after I had billed the client. Payment to Bernie was part of what is euphemistically known as expenses.
‘I’ll get a quote,’ Bernie suggested.
‘I don’t need a quote,’ I said. ‘I want the job done, whatever it takes. I know the person in question was drawing Social Security in 1985, the search can start there. I want a current address and anything else on record. I’ll pay the going rate. Plus I suppose you’ll be wanting a small commission.’
‘Well,’ said Bernie, ‘you know how it is trying to put a kid through private school.’
‘I’m sure you’re doing it tough, Bernie.’
We worked out the nasty business of payment then I gave him the name. For the first time in his life, wise-cracking Bernie was stuck for words. ‘He’s a relative?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Father.’ Bernie was a mate but he wasn’t a friend and I didn’t feel any compunction to go into the details. ‘I’d like it as soon as possible, Bern.’
‘It’s already done,’ he said. It must have shaken him because he signed off without his usual ‘cop-u-lator’.