by C. A. Larmer
“Look, I really can’t talk about any of this, I’m very busy. Sorry.” She still wore her polite smile but could barely look Roxy in the eye now, and Roxy held a hand up.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Betty. I’m not here to dredge up the past, I just want to find Gordon.”
The blinking slowed down. “Well, good luck with that.”
She offered Roxy a conciliatory smile and rounded up the cups. Roxy helped her and they placed them back in the kitchen as she said, “As I told you, we haven’t seen poor old Gordon in many years.” She turned to look at Roxy. “That’s why I was so happy before. I thought maybe you had some word. My son can be a pain in the neck, but I know he’s very keen to find out where his dad is, what happened to him.”
“It must be very distressing for you both, losing him like that.”
“Well, yes, although Gordon was lost to us a long time ago. It was my fault really. We had a very ... difficult break up.” The blinking started again. “He didn’t take it well at all.”
“Do you think your boss, Mr Henry, might know where Gordon is?”
She seemed surprised by the question. “No, he has no idea. Why?”
“I just thought, since he used to work here—”
“Oh, only briefly, dear. Mr Henry, the original Mr Henry, Beau’s father, was a very old family friend. He kindly gave us both a job when we got back to Australia in ’76 but, well, Gordon didn’t really settle in. It was me ... he had trouble seeing me every day ... I offered to find another job, he refused, and well, I lost touch with him soon after. We ran into him about ten years back, he didn’t look well even then. He doesn’t have any family here, so I implored him to return home to Perth, but I don’t think he went. Last we heard he was living on the streets.”
“The streets? As in homeless?”
She turned away from Roxy’s look of surprise and began leading her towards the glass doors. “Yes, sadly, that’s what we heard.”
“Do you have a more recent picture of him?”
“Not on me, no.” She turned back to Roxy. “You really are going to try to find him?”
“Yes I am.”
“Good,” she said and then added, “just a second.” She retraced her steps back to her desk and retrieved a business card. “Please, if you do find Gordon, tell him we’re okay, tell him to get in touch. With me. He should call my mobile.” She leant down, grabbed a pen and circled the number. “Not the office, you understand? He should call me, directly.”
Roxy agreed, handing one of her own business cards over. “And if you can think of anything else related to this picture or those days, will you give me a ring?”
“Of course. Anything to help. Now, I’m sorry, I really must get on.”
She held the glass doors open for Roxy. “I’ll walk you out.”
She then led Roxy through the glass doors and back down the corridor, forcing the smile back onto her face. When they reached the front desk, the surly receptionist was sweeping glances between them and Roxy tried not to look too smug as she thanked Betty and made her way out, the elderly woman blinking wildly behind her.
Chapter 17
That evening, tucked snugly under a mohair blanket on the lounge, Nick Drake singing a moody tune on the stereo, Roxy went through the day’s progress in her head. She was glad she had found Betty alive and well, but she was no closer to finding Gordon, nor to confirming why that picture was so special to Berny Tiles. Betty’s reaction seemed to validate her theory that the two were having an affair, but she hadn’t quite come out and said as much. In fact, the older woman had turned quite evasive when Roxy pressed her on that 1975 Survey Congress, much like Wolfgang had.
She thought about this. Something definitely happened that night, but no one seemed to want to elaborate. She shrugged. Perhaps they were just protecting the memory of Berny Tiles and his first wife.
Or were they?
A ringing noise broke through the wistful sounds of Pink Moon and Roxy jumped up to answer her mobile, hoping it was Sondra. She had been unavailable all afternoon and Roxy was keen to get her up to speed and get the photo back to her. If someone really was breaking into places to get their paws on it, she wanted it out of hers, pronto.
She smiled when she heard Sondra’s voice.
“I’m so sorry it’s taken ages to call you back,” the other woman said down the line. “I don’t know what’s worse, a bride on her wedding day, or a bride three days before her wedding day.”
Roxy laughed. “And people wonder why I don’t want to get married.”
“Don’t do it! If only to spare the poor florist the grief.” She laughed, too. “Okay, so how did it all go?”
Despite groaning about brides, Sondra was clearly in a good mood, less nervy than past conversations, and Roxy took this as a positive sign. She wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news that Sondra’s beloved dad might have been unfaithful to her mum, but it had to be said. First, though, she told her about Brownlow, and his mysterious fatal mugging, then of her meeting with Betty and learning of Gordon’s disappearance, before getting to the brightest note of all.
“I have your father’s photo and I’m happy to drop it off to you now if you like.”
In truth, Roxy didn’t feel like going anywhere. The Chinese restaurant downstairs was currently whipping up her dinner (beef in black bean sauce) and she was looking forward to a slothful night catching up on the news. Yet she owed it to Sondra—and her own sense of security—to get the picture back.
“No, no, don’t trouble yourself,” Sondra was saying. “I’ll send a courier now, if that’s okay?”
“It’s more than okay, it’ll be a relief. If all these break-ins have been related to this photo, I’ll be glad to see the back end of it.”
She was also half hoping to see the back end of the case. While Roxy knew there were many unanswered questions, she had a hunch this would be her first and last progress report. Sondra would agree the picture was related to an illicit affair and want to drop it like a hot potato. Roxy couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Oh no, I want you to stick with it, you’re making great inroads,” Sondra said.
“Really?”
“Oh yes, I mean, those words on the back are very ... telling.” She paused. “So they’re the only words you could see, ‘Beautiful Bett’?”
“Yep, scrawled on the back.”
“And you think my father had an affair with this Betty woman?”
Roxy hesitated as well. “I’m not trying to cause trouble here, Sondra, or damage his memory, but yes I do.”
“Did Betty admit that?”
“Not in so many words, but she didn’t exactly contradict it, either. Something obviously happened that night. Just mentioning it made her visibly uncomfortable.”
“Right, well, I still think it’s worth tracking down her ex-husband, that Gordon fellow. He might know more.”
“More about the affair?”
“Yes ... and what it all means.”
It means your Dad was an unfaithful rat, Roxy wanted to say but said, instead, “Do you really want to know? You think it’s worth all this?”
There was a very long pause before Sondra spoke, and when she did, her voice sounded jittery again. “I know what you think and maybe you’re right. Maybe my father and this Betty woman ...” She let the thought drop. “But what if you’re wrong? What if there was another reason he wanted the picture back? We can’t just let it go, we need to find Gordon Reilly. We need to find out once and for all.”
“Betty has no idea where he is, Sondra. Thinks he might be homeless.”
“Can’t you find him?”
Roxy thought about this. “I could try.”
“Good, then try. Please Roxy. I want you to stick with it. But I also want you to keep me in the loop. Just call me re e-mail me as you find more information.”
“Okay, if you think it will help.”
“Oh I know it will. You’re close, Roxy, I can
sense it.”
Close to what? Roxy thought as she hung up. She wished her own senses were sending positive signals; all she was getting was a growing sense that she was poking her nose where it didn’t belong. Judging from Wolfgang and Betty’s reactions, the photograph only reminded everyone of a night they’d all rather forget. And perhaps it was a night that a grieving Daddy’s Girl shouldn’t be hearing about.
Roxy spread the mohair blanket over her legs again, picked up the remote control and began scanning through the channels for the seven o’clock news. As she did so, her mind wandered to her own love life. Since Max had left for Melbourne they had barely spoken, instead playing phone ping pong, missing each other’s calls and returning them without success. She checked her smartphone and saw he had left her another message, just letting her know the advertorial was going well and he’d call later. Ping! She picked up her phone and tried to return his call, but it went straight to voice mail. He probably had a camera lens focused deep inside a shiny new Mercedes at that very minute. She left a quick cheerio then hung up—Pong!—wishing, for the first time in months, that he was here with her now, stealing the blanket and settling in for the night.
She sighed, ramped up the volume and began to watch the news.
**********
Across town, in a very different part of the world, another woman was staring at her television set, too, but she wasn’t really taking anything in. Instead, she was tapping her foot maniacally, her mind darting about in all directions.
“Why can’t she just mind her own bloody business?” she said to the man beside her. “What’s it got to do with her, anyway?”
He ignored this and continued watching the program so she snatched the remote control and stabbed the mute button. That got his attention. He slowly looked around, his eyebrows raised wearily.
“This had better not catch up with us.”
He smiled. “Stop stressing so much. It does your beautiful face no favours.”
“Oh fuck my beautiful face,” she railed. “What are you going to do about all of this? You promised me it would be simple. There would be no problems.”
“And there won’t be, I promise you that. Again.”
She glared at him then continued tapping away while he simply smiled again and ramped up the volume.
Chapter 18
Thursday morning dawned crisp and cold and while the rest of Sydney bemoaned the late start to spring, Roxy smiled. She liked the chill, and she loved the clothes—the luscious coats, the long boots, the bright and cheerful scarves—but she was struggling to find just the right outfit today. She certainly didn’t want to look bright and cheerful. That would not do at all. Instead she needed to be inconspicuous with a little trustworthiness thrown in for good measure. How you dressed “trustworthy” was beyond her, but she’d give it a red-hot go.
Roxy reached for a grey sweater, cargo pants, and black Converse sneakers, then pulled a baggy black beanie over her hair and retrieved a few strands that had got caught up inside. She then took her ID, Betty’s business card and some cash from her purse and placed them in a small backpack that securely zipped on one side.
She was heading for the mean streets of Sydney and she didn’t want to stand out, nor attract prying hands. She knew Max would have a fit if he knew what she was doing, but she didn’t care. Pre-Max she’d do it in a heartbeat, so why should things change just because she had a boyfriend?
Then she thought of her mother. She couldn’t even begin to think what her mother would say about all of this.
Roxy braced for the cold and headed out, through her shabby but dignified suburb, Elizabeth Bay, and up into the neighbouring Kings Cross with its brothels and strip clubs, junkies and outlaw motorcyclists, and amongst them all, wide-eyed backpackers and tourists, ogling this red-light district as though it were pure entertainment. Roxy could never understand the allure, and tried to keep a low profile as she strode through, the picture of Gordon in one hand, the other balled in a fist by her side.
She knew it was like looking for a needle and all that, but she had to try. She was being paid to try.
Being paid to waste my time, more like, she thought gloomily as she studied the faces around her looking for a craggier version of the man in the black and white photograph. She wandered the streets for a good hour, peering into doorways and down alleyways but didn’t see anyone who fit the description. Most of the homeless types she spotted were much younger, more like street kids, but that didn’t lessen her resolve and she kept trawling the streets and scrutinising faces as she methodically made her way to a twenty-four-hour crisis centre she knew was tucked away in neighbouring Potts Point.
At Macleay Street she took a detour down Hughes Street to an old brick building with bars on the windows, bright red doors and a yellow sign that read Wayside Chapel. A haven for street youth, the homeless and other troubled souls, Roxy had walked past it many times in the past but never had the need to step inside. She did so a little warily now, but was greeted warmly by an elderly man wearing a Bulldogs cap, a red apron and a trimmed grey beard.
“Can I help you?” he asked, placing aside a garbage bag of old clothes he’d been sorting.
“Yes, I hope so. I’m looking for a man in his seventies by the name of Gordon Reilly, known as Gordo. I think he might be homeless and I’m just wondering whether you’ve seen him around.”
“Gordo Reilly,” the man repeated and then shook his head slowly. “A lot of the folks who come through here don’t give their names, of course, at least not their real names that we know of, got anymore for me?”
She produced the photo—a copy of the original which a courier had collected from a very relieved Roxy Parker the evening before—and he took it off her and studied it for some time before saying, “Anything more recent?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
He shook his head again. “Try Matthew Talbot’s Hostel down near the wharf.”
Hearing her stomach rumble and not liking the look of any of the grotty cafes on this side of town, Roxy decided to take a quick detour back to Elizabeth Bay to get something to eat at Peepers. On the way there, she dropped into the newsagency to fetch her Herald so she’d have reading material while she fuelled up. Both Costa and Rocco were nowhere to be seen today and there was a young Asian girl behind the till.
“I just want to grab my paper,” she told her.
“Name?”
“Roxy Parker.”
She reached below the counter and began shuffling through until she found the one she was looking for. “Just the one today?”
“Yes thanks.”
She paid for it and continued on to Peepers where she ordered a warm poppy seed muffin and a latté, and sat down to devour the day’s news. It had been a slow news week and there weren’t many stories that would make Roxy’s Crime Catalogue. The front page seemed to be captivated by a federal government power tussle and some mining company’s latest gold find up in Irian Jaya. Her thoughts instantly went to Sir Wolfgang Bergman and she wondered if it was one of his. Funny how the rich just kept getting richer. She briefly wished she had taken up Caroline’s offer and invested in mining stock. She was never going to make her fortune accepting obscure, odd jobs like this one, she thought, polishing off the muffin and then ordering another two.
On the way out, she paid for and pocketed the muffins, then began to stride back through what Oliver called “the arse-end of Kings Cross”, through Potts Point to the super steep McElhone steps which provided a short cut down to the wharf-side suburb of Woolloomooloo. At the top, she soaked in the stunning Sydney skyline, the Harbour Bridge in the distance, and the old navy docks that were now home to the rich and famous, their gleaming yachts and cruisers bobbing about. And tucked away incongruously nearby, several public housing blocks, boisterous pubs and a halfway house for men called the Matthew Talbot Hostel.
Roxy waited while several joggers puffed their way up the 113 stone steps and then began her descent, gratefu
l she was heading downwards and conveniently forgetting she would have to puff her own way back up at the end.
At the bottom, she checked her bag then walked away from the trendy wharves towards the slummier side of the suburb, under a rail bridge, past a police station and down an alleyway to a shabby, three-storey brick building with a fenced roof terrace on top. On one side, below the words Matthew Talbot Hostel, was a large white cross that spoke volumes for the poor souls inside.
Just like the Wayside Chapel, Roxy had walked past this hostel many times before, always affording it a wide berth, not so much to avoid the old men who loitered nearby, but because it always seemed to smell like a public urinal. The road was freshly washed today and there wasn’t a soul about, so she made her way straight to the front door where a white van was parked and a young Aboriginal man, barely out of his teens, was loading what looked like ratty old blankets into the back.
Roxy stepped up to him and produced the picture. He shook his head and pointed inside. She went in and found a weary looking middle-aged man behind the front counter. He, too, shook his head.
“Jeeze, sweetheart, we get a few people in here from time to time, trying to locate loved ones. Most our blokes don’t want to be found so you’ve got Buckley’s chance.”
“And you haven’t seen anyone who might look like an older version of this?”
“Everyone here’s an older version of that,” he said, glancing around. “But, no, can’t say I have.”
She, too, looked around and sighed. There were various elderly men in the room and he was right, any one of them could be Gordon, thirty-seven years later.
“Oi, anyone know a Gordon Reilly?!” the older man yelled out and various faces turned to look at her and then away. No one said a word. He shrugged at her again and she thanked him, returning to the street.
This was going to be even harder than she thought.
