On Cringila Hill

by Noel Beddoe

‘You got a soft heart, you know?’

  ‘Well, I think you hurt ’em real bad, with the kicking. That was pretty heavy, what you done.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I get angry. That’s what happens to me if someone hits me or grabs me. I get this real … anger. So bad that afterwards I feel sick. Sick in my stomach. I lost my temper. I’ve got a bad temper.’

  ‘Yeah. Where’d you get those boots? I ain’t seen those before.’

  ‘They’re steelworkers boots.’

  ‘Yeah. They got the metal in the toes?’

  ‘They do. They were my father’s. They’re all was left. When he left us, my grandfather come into the house, had a sack, took everything was my father’s, filled up the sack, took it all away and sold it.’

  ‘What? You reckon your father went away and left all he had behind?’

  ‘Well, that’s just what happened. But the boots were under the bed and Grandfather didn’t get them. So I kept them. My feet just now got big enough I could wear them.’

  ‘What was the scene?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When your grandfather come, took the clothes?’

  ‘Ah. Awful. My mother was shrieking, crying, shouting swear­words at him in Macedonian, which she hardly ever spoke. She took a photograph of him, I know that. Hid it somewhere Grandfather couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Must have been upset, you know, that my father ran away.’

  ‘Sure.’

  After a while of sitting together, their backs against the tree trunk, Piggy says, ‘Remember him much?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Nothin’ about what he was like?’

  ‘Drunk or sober? When he wasn’t drunk he was nice, is what I remember, play with me, laugh with me, all that shit. We used to dread pay night. I was only little but I can remember how tense my mother got when it was pay night. He’d come home, you know, the big man, laugh at her, put her down, hit her sometimes.’

  ‘Hit you too?’

  ‘Yeah, if I got in the way, which sometimes I did. But he was never like that when Grandfather come around. Always prim and proper, when it was Grandfather. And now I dream about my father sometimes. Same dream. There’s someone come to the door and I know it’s him. I open the door but I can’t see his face. He holds out something that’s wrapped nice and I know it’s a present, a present for me.’ In the darkness Jimmy lifts to his mouth the knuckle that throbs with deep pain, he licks and sucks it. ‘Sometimes I was frightened about my father, would he have been drinkin’? I don’t like feeling frightened. I always felt safe with my grandfather, when he was around, when I was with him. I’m with my grandfather, nothin’ can frighten me.’ After trying to ease the pain in his knuckle, he takes it from his mouth and says, ‘I love my grandfather.’

  ‘Sure. You call him Grandfather.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s not all that usual. Most people I know got a grand­father – and, let me tell ya, I don’t know too many that has – usually they call him Pop, Pappy, somethin’ like that.’

  ‘Funny you say that. Sometimes in the night if I can’t sleep I think about that, when I started callin’ him Grandfather. Because I didn’t when I was little. I used to call him Papa. Then I stopped that, and called him Grandfather.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yeah. I used spend time with him a lot when I was little. He’d come get me, take me places. He’d carry me up through the forest on that hill above the beach. I remember I’d reach up and touch the leaves of the trees we was passin’ under, and there was them little finch birds in the bushes, you know, bright blue birds, other birds with red on their chests. Grandfather would point at them, and whisper about them, not to scare them away. He liked birds. I guess he still does. And down at the surf he’d take off his shoes and socks and leave them on the beach, and roll up his trouser legs and we’d walk along the low sand, maybe let the sea get over our feet, and point out at the ships on the horizon, goin’ somewhere. There would be rocks up out of the beach at low tide, and we’d look down into pools of water the sea had left and see little fish shoot this way and that, and wet crabs walkin’ that funny way they do, over the rocks.’

  They sit in the darkness for a while. Jimmy says, ‘You know anythin’ about your father?’

  ‘Nah. Just one of the customers, you know. Even my mother couldn’t know who he was.’

  ‘She still do that line of work?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jimmy waits, wondering if he can say what’s come into his mind. Eventually he says, ‘Pardon me, Pig. No disrespect. But your mum don’t look like no young woman no more. She still gets men to come?’

  ‘Well, yeah. See, she don’t charge very much. Some of the sailors hit Port, they come from Asia, Russia, places like that – they don’t make much money. Sometimes they sell things they brought, probably that’s their best way to make a buck. I guess they ask around, where’s it cheap. So Mum does some business.’

  ‘Yeah. What do you do.’

  ‘What, while they’re there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I wait. I go out into the backyard till they’re finished.’

  ‘Even in winter?’

  They sit for a while, listening to the rain over the pine tree needles. Piggy says, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Must get cold.’

  ‘It does. But, see, what some of them like to do is hit her around while they’re doin’ what they’re doin’. And I don’t like to hear that. You know what I’m like, Jim, can’t handle that stuff like you. You’re fast and strong and I’m not. So I’m better off just being outside, so she can make her money.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Pig. Can’t be no fun for ya.’

  ‘It’s not. Once I stayed in and I heard what someone was doin’ to her. I lost all control, you know, from anger, I was shakin’ with it, and I didn’t know what I was doin’ and I raced in and jumped on his back and tried to claw his eyes.’

  ‘I recognise the feeling.’

  ‘But he was a tough little bugger, you know, a Dutchman I think. He threw me off and beat me up, and then left without finishin’ and didn’t pay her nothin’, so she didn’t have her money for what she needed and she got the shits with me. So now I stay out in the yard, where I can’t hear what they’re doin’.’

  They sit together in silence for a while, thinking. Then, to break the line of discussion, Piggy says, ‘Where’d you learn to fight?’

  ‘Didn’t learn much.’

  ‘Well, you must of. That stuff, where you’ll hit a guy, you must of learned that.’

  ‘That spot, behind the ear, hit that a good shot you cut off blood to the brain and he goes down and out. Anyone. I guess it’s what David done to Goliath. You just can’t always get at it. Grandfather showed me that. And some other stuff, you know. We’d go in the backyard and he’d show me, keep the right foot behind the left foot all the time, how to throw a punch, how you use your elbows and knees. Only a few times. You only need a few times.’

  ‘Ever see him fight?’

  ‘Only once, long time ago, someone upset him and upset him, and in the end he done it. There’s no one like him.’

  ‘That’s what I’m told.’

  They wait, each hurting in his individual way. Piggy says, ‘I haven’t seen you too much.’

  ‘Well, yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Not since Abdul.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Think about Abdul?’

  ‘All the time. I can’t fucken forget about him. I have nightmares about him.’

  ‘It had an impact.’

  ‘Fucken oath it did.’

  ‘What do you think about it?’

  ‘Coupla things. One, there was a gun, you know. Now, that’s a big fucken deal. When was the last time there was a gun on Cringila Hill? Neve
r, is what I think. So that struck me. Guns have come. Those two cocksuckers tonight, at least they didn’t have no gun or it would have been a different story.’

  ‘That’s what I think. That’s exactly what I think.’

  ‘Then, the other thing, people get murdered.’

  ‘What, this came as news to you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve read it, you know? I’ve read about it so I knew it somewhere in my brain. But I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel it in my belly, like I do now.’

  ‘Things are gettin’ wild, ain’t they? Abdul three in the head. Do a little business some cunt wants to bash ya.’ He laughs. ‘Maybe we should move.’

  ‘What – get away from bad company, eh? Break off contact with them illegal influences?’

  Piggy laughs again. It hurts his chest.

  ‘Pig, we are bad company.’

  ‘Maybe. Still, there’s worse around than us.’

  ‘So we’ve seen.’

  There is no sound beyond the sanctuary of their tree except the swish of gently falling rain. Jimmy says, ‘Okay. Crawl out – can you do that? Then go home. Straight home. If you can. The way your ribs are.’

  It takes Piggy a long time to crawl from the tree-cover. He grunts, moving. Sometimes he has to stop for a while, panting.

  Jimmy says, ‘Then go to school tomorrow, do something, hurt your ribs, have someone look at ’em.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do that. And Pig …’ He’d made it out into the rain and stood, bent over, from the hurting in his ribs. ‘That was good back there. Thanks for that.’

  ‘What, I’m gonna hide over the fence in the dog shit and let them do you?’

  ‘Plenty would of.’

  ‘Yeah. And plenty wouldn’ of, neither.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway. That was good.’

  ‘And I knew I’d be okay, Jim. I knew my Lord would care for me. My dark Lord.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Not with that. Believe what you like, just leave me out of that shit.’

  ‘No. I actually thought it, climbin’ over the fence, “My dark Lord will protect me.”’

  ‘Look. Believe what you like. Just leave me out.’

  ‘Jim …’

  ‘Nah. Tell me this – what do I believe about all that stuff?’

  ‘Got no idea.’

  ‘And what harm does that do?’

  Piggy looks the distance he’s got to travel to reach his bedroom. He says, ‘Nice boots.’

  He struggles down into the wet night.

  Chapter Nine

  Police on duty at Port Kembla station work under unforgiving fluorescent lighting. Gordon watches Peter Grace, at a desk, struggling with a computer. Peter Grace is a big man, an athlete once but gone to fat now. Peter’s hair has thinned, there are beads of sweat on his pale scalp. His shirt is a little too small for him and folds of flesh bulge over the collar. Gordon walks over to where Peter is working, swings a chair from an unoccupied nearby desk, with difficulty settles himself into it. Peter Grace looks up, nods an acknowledgement of Gordon’s presence. ‘Chilly.’

  ‘Good evening, Peter.’

  ‘How’s the back?’

  ‘Deteriorating, I think. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay around.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Peter works on for a little, to complete the ‘FACTS’ sheet he’s compiling. He saves his work when he’s finished, swivels his chair to face his colleague, smiles. ‘Got anything for us?’

  ‘Oh. Maybe a little. Maybe a few things. How are we doing?’

  Peter wrinkles his brow.

  ‘Not too sure. There’s this task group O’Shea has put together, mainly folk from Sydney. I haven’t spoken to him for a while. Do you think you got anything to add?’

  ‘A few things maybe they haven’t come across.’

  Peter nods, drags his notebook across the desktop, flips it open to a new page, uncaps his pen.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘One. Luz Solomona’s brothers found Abdul Hijazi in Sydney where he was supposed to be hiding.’

  Peter raises his eyebrows, says, ‘Shit!’ He writes some notes. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘Luz did.’

  ‘Amazed it didn’t come out before.’

  ‘It’s why he came back, she thinks. He decided there was no safety anywhere so he might as well be back on familiar ground.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that logic.’

  ‘Abdul’s brother thinks Abdul was resigned, you know, that something bad was going to happen. He thinks that the boys who were with Abdul when that thing happened to the Solomona girl were probably concerned Abdul would eventually identify them if the case went to retrial. His theory is that those boys arranged for something bad to happen to Abdul in jail, to intimidate him and make sure he keep his mouth closed. But then the lawyers got the first trial overturned and Abdul was let out, which no one had foreseen. Upset a lot of apple carts. So Abdul thought, “They’re going to catch up with me.”’

  ‘Those boys got something bad done?’

  ‘Them or someone close to them.’

  Peter Grace raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Sounds very likely to me. The bit of work I’ve done on it, for O’Shea and before, it didn’t strike anyone as the sort of thing you’d get down here. It didn’t strike me as the sort of thing you’d get down here from the first time I heard about it. Don’t know about you.’

  ‘I know more about Wollongong and the northern suburbs than here, but you’re right. This really is something new under the sun.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Maybe not too much. I keep hearing about a kid called Jimmy Valeski.’

  ‘Jimmy? Yeah, I know the name. Maybe moves a bit of Mary Jane, trivial street stuff. Got a bit of a reputation as a street fighter.’

  ‘Ah. And his grandfather, Lupce.’

  ‘Now there’s an interesting figure. Big noise in politics. Jimmy took his grandfather’s name from the time his father shot through, is what I’m told.’

  ‘But nothing says to me they were involved.’

  ‘No. The Solomona brothers either, so far as that goes. Maybe just as well for Abdul. The Solomona boys had caught up with him when they was full of ink, maybe we’d have gotten the same outcome but not in so pleasant a way.’

  ‘I’ll get it along to O’Shea. Look in Sydney is what you’re saying.’

  ‘That’s what the brother believes.’

  Peter Grace sighs, returns the cap to the pen, closes his notebook, raises a hand to rub his forehead.

  ‘You look tired, Peter.’

  ‘Yeah, well, this stuff with Edna, you know? It wears you down after a while.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Any outcome, you know? Even a reprimand and transfer – things could get very difficult. Marge has got her job, Josie’s in Year Eleven – even if they sent me to western Sydney, think they were doing me a favour, I can’t move the family at this time. Be spending my life in a car, getting to work and back. Bit old for that. Hadn’t been planning on anything like that happening.’

  ‘Yes, well – it may not come to that.’

  Peter says, ‘You know what she’s got?’

  ‘No, Peter. I’ve never asked.’

  ‘Petrol. A couple of fucken tanks of petrol. Oh, well, to be fair, maybe a bit more than a couple.’

  ‘Ah,’ Gordon says, although his facial expression does not change.

  ‘I’ll tell you what it was. There’s an all-nighter around the corner from my place. It’s a petrol station, they’ve got a few groceries, so I’d drop in on the way home, get some chocolates for Marge, make up for coming in late. Sometimes there’s kids hanging around being a nuisance. I’d show them the badge, hassle them a little, they’d move on, the owners would feel better. So I fill my
tank, one night, the private car, and he didn’t let me pay.’

  Gordon frowns, ‘Sure.’

  ‘Sort of thing been happening for years. They did that for me now and then. Then my son went in and the owner wouldn’t let him pay, neither.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I never asked for any of that, Chilly.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that, Peter. I know you’re straight. How’d she hear?’

  ‘Complaint. The kids I’d hassled, probably. Or their parents. You know what some parents are like these days, someone finds any fault with their little darlings. Caucasian kids, you know? Anyway, I’ve got a case to answer. And you know what Mick Laecey always told us – don’t lie; whatever it is, the lie is worse than what you did, makes a bad scene worse.’

  ‘That was Mick.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘I’m truly sorry, Peter.’

  Peter drums the fingers of his right hand on a desktop. ‘I don’t suppose you’d speak to her, Chilly? Put in a word?’

  ‘Ah, Peter … I’m not sure that would help. Might make things worse, actually. Despite what people think, I’m not all that close to Edna. She brought me over for a bit of support when you boys were giving her such a hard time, at the start.’

  ‘Well, in she comes, you know? New broom. No respect for anything we knew how to do. A few of the boys didn’t like it. And not just the boys. Some of the girls too.’

  ‘Yeah, well, bad scene. Just stick with it.’

  ‘Yeah, and who knows? Maybe there’s a little surprise for Edna. Maybe old Peter is not just the defenceless pushover she likes to think he is.’

  They both look towards the glass walled partition where Edna does her work.

  Peter swings his attention back again. ‘Where will you go with this Abdul business now?’

  ‘Not sure. If I stay on duty I may go up and see Michael, on his mountain. He knows Cringila, he may have a thought that hasn’t occurred to any of us. Besides, I should have been up months ago. Do you know I haven’t spoken to him since Julie’s funeral? Well, the wake, actually, which was some months after the funeral. Came as something of a surprise, I must say, that out of nowhere he wanted us all to be together.’

  Peter Grace gives a sincere chuckle. ‘I went to see him,’ he says. ‘Visited the guru.’