On Cringila Hill

by Noel Beddoe

  ‘Do you mind if David interrupts his day to drive me home?’

  Edna gives a bitter smile. ‘That wouldn’t be using police resources for my private benefit, would it?’

  ‘Well, look, I …’

  ‘It was a joke, Gordon. You’re obviously here for police business. You can’t drive. Of course David will drive you home, assuming he can find the time with what else he’s doing.’

  ‘How’s it going, your matter?’ Gordon asks her.

  ‘Early days. Hasn’t really started. But I can predict the outcome. I’ll be moved out of here, my local credibility has been damaged. I’ll go up into head office, in Sydney. Probably counselled. After a time life will go on.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Edna.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a saying: sometimes a lot of time has got to pass before you know whether a thing was the worst thing that could have happened, or the best thing. I’ll wait to see.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘By the way,’ Edna says, ‘I haven’t made any statements about what it was all about, Gordon, but I want to tell you. Is that alright?’

  ‘If that’s what you want to do.’

  ‘Margaret – Margaret, my partner – has been having some mild chest pain. She rang to say that she was in severe pain, and was concerned there would be a delay with ambulances because of a bad crash, on Ousley. We had a car nearby, on its way up to Ousley, to help. I had them divert, collect Margaret and drop her to Casualty. Gordon, I’d have done it for anybody. I’d have done it for you.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt. And it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time. Maybe you struck an audience that wasn’t very sympathetic and was prepared to make a fuss.’

  ‘Yes, and, as I happen to know, there’d been whingeing to mates up in Sydney, and that was getting a hearing. I suspect that, responding to where we are now, the easiest thing will be done.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Edna looks around the open workspace, frowning. ‘Whatever happens I’m not going to fight. As long as, you know, the response isn’t absurd. I’m really tired of trying to get done what needs to be done here. And Margaret is truly very sick of my coming home in the moods I’ve been coming home in.’ She raises her eyes. ‘I may even suggest a move myself. Could be a blessing.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Whatever happens, I’ve appreciated your professionalism very much. Did it draw fire down on you?’

  ‘No, my relationships are pretty sound. I was unaffected.’

  ‘Anyway, good luck with everything, your back, and whatever this is you’re prodding around in.’

  ‘Thanks. Good luck to you, Edna.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  He’s told his mother he’s leaving. For years he’s believed that his father was somewhere in Queensland and now Jimmy is going there. His mother has neither protested nor shown any sign of emotion, but when he’s in bed that night he can hear her quiet sobbing on the other side of his bedroom wall. Still, the next bit of his future is decided – sleep comes quickly over him and is the sleep of deep exhaustion.

  When he’s woken by his mother the next morning, there’s already strong sunlight in his room. ‘Wouldn’a woke ya. Visitor at the door, young woman. Thought, I sen’ her away maybe she don’ come back, an’ she might be special fren of yours, then maybe you don’ getta say goodbye.’

  She shrugs, lowers her eyes, leaves his room. Jimmy is in a t-shirt and underpants, so he pulls on a tracksuit bottom, walks barefoot through the house.

  Yasemin is waiting for him on the verandah. He goes to the verandah rail, looks down the Hill.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Yasemin. Wha’s happenin’?’

  Steam is rising from chimneys in the grounds of the steelworks, a train is entering the area slowly from the west.

  ‘Jimmy, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You need to know that I told Luz a thing. A long time ago, before any of this stuff about Abdul happened.’

  ‘What you tol’ her?’

  ‘I told her that you’d been saying bad things about her, personal things, that you didn’t value her as a person.’

  Jimmy rubs his face, snuffles, gives his head a little shake. ‘But, Yasemin, I never said any stuff like that. Wouldn’. You carn have heard me say it because I never said nothin’ like that to no one, least of all you.’ He shakes his head again. ‘Someone disrespecks a woman he’s no man. I hate anythin’ like that.’

  ‘Someone told me that you said it.’

  ‘Yeah? Who done that?’

  ‘Abdul.’

  Jimmy thinks this over. Abdul is now dead and Jimmy sees the pointlessness of anger, realises that things have changed for him a little. It comes into his mind that, indeed, the world is a very strange place. ‘An’, what? This happen roun’ that time she shouted all that stuff at me?’

  ‘Just before. I told her and she got straight up and went to you and abused you.’

  He shakes his head again, rubs his face once more, blinks a lot. ‘Have ya tol’ Luz this, what ya jus’ tol’ me, that you didn’ hear me say what you said I said, that Abdul said that stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was she wit’ it?’

  ‘She was very upset, that the whole thing had ever happened.’

  ‘You still frens, you two?’

  ‘Oh, you know her, Jimmy. Luz is kind. Strong and kind. Yes, we’re friends.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that part’s good anyway. You tell her you was comin’ to see me?’

  ‘No. But I did see her on my way here. She still is not in a very good way. She doesn’t sleep, she needs the light on all night. She has flashbacks.’

  Jimmy isn’t too sure that he knows what a flashback is but decides to let that pass. He says, ‘So all that time she thought I mocked her behin’ her back but now she knows that ain’t true.’

  Yasemin nods.

  ‘Where was she goin’, when you saw her?’

  ‘She was on her way down to the lake to go fishing.’

  Yasemin has said what she wanted and it’s time for her to go. She says, ‘I can only tell you, Jimmy, how ashamed I am of the harm I’ve done. I disrespected you without really knowing who you are. I promise you I’ll never do that again. To anyone.’

  ‘Ah, nah, Yasemin, don’ feel bad. It jus’ happen. Things happen aren’ good things. No one means ’em. Things get away from us. We do what we do on the way through then look back an’ what we done don’ look too flash. Jus’ gotta put that to one side, move on. Don’ give youself a hard time.’ He smiles at her. ‘Life’s too short.’

  She meets his eye, somewhat appraisingly. ‘Okay,’ she says, and then leaves the verandah, walks down to the street.

  Once she’s gone he knows what he’s going to do. He showers, chooses freshly pressed clothes – fawn trousers that reach halfway down his hairy calves, a black t-shirt. He shaves and pats on cologne, spends some time on his hair. He notes with surprise that his palms are sweating. Outside he fetches his bike and rides up onto Flagstaff Road.

  As Jimmy approaches he can see Samuel Solomona’s car is parked near the shore of the lake. He can see Luz out on the jetty. Jimmy lays his bike on gravel, next to the old Ford. More cloud has rolled in ahead of an easterly wind, and the wind is sharper than before. Jimmy shudders and wishes that he’d worn a jumper. He sees the large Solomona man, his legs stretched along the grainy planks of the jetty, his back against a pylon.

  Jimmy watches Samuel as he might watch a fierce dog. Seeing Jimmy come the brother softly calls, ‘Luz.’ She looks over her shoulder, gives a little nod, goes back to her fishing. Jimmy pads along the jetty, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  Luz draws in her line hand over hand. An empty hook swings and glitters above the water. She takes its shaft betwe
en thumb and a finger, slips another prawn in place upon it, tosses it backhand out into the lake. She says, ‘Hello, Jimmy.’

  He nods, drops his buttocks to the uneven wood, dangles his legs. ‘Hello, Luz,’ he says.

  Her fishing line bobs, tightens. Luz pulls in so that it falls in neat coils on the planks, hauls up a struggling, tiny silver biddy. She pinches open its jaws, withdraws the hook, lets the fish gently slide back into the lake, rebaits, throws the line out again.

  ‘What you fishin’ for?’

  She turns her head, gives him a displeased frown. After a while of considering how to respond, she says, ‘Bream.’

  ‘Well, yeah, tha’s good, could maybe catch a bream down there in them reeds, keeper bream. But not wit’ the rig you’re usin’, in my opinion, or the way you got that bait set. Would you like I should help you?’

  She gives Jimmy a narrow-eyed look, drags in another silver biddy, returns it to the water, rebaits, casts out.

  Luz says, ‘Okay.’

  The easterly is sharp, cuts through the cotton of Jimmy’s t-shirt. He draws up his legs, changes position, so he can sit with his back against a pylon, the soles of his jogger shoes flat on the jetty wood. He watches Luz’s head in profile, sees the points where her nose and jaw have been broken. He says, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not too good. I didn’ get back, you know, to who it was I was before all this happen’. Not the worse I been. But not all the way back yet.’

  He looks across the lake at the Primbee shore, his eyes narrowed in the wind. ‘It was a big thing, what you went through. All that stuff what went down, was big stuff. Of the people left, you the one had the worst time.’

  The water is dark under the cloud bank. Boats move, looking slow at a distance. Jimmy notes the tumble of fog down the face of the escarpment. Soon he’ll leave the lake behind him, so now he stares at it with a sort of desperate longing.

  ‘Yasemin come to see me.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I know she tol’ you I said bad things ’bout you. I never done that. I never would’a. Well, I wouldn’ do that ’bout any woman, but you … well, the way we was, that was a big thing to me. Importan’ to me. Never felt nothin’ like that. All I ever had to say about you would be good things, ’bout who it is you are.’

  He shakes his head, waits. ‘I never felt like that, way I felt when we was together. Never knew I could. Was a whole new thing to me, that feelin’. Was like goin’ crazy. Couldn’ think ’bout nothin’ but you, an’ wantin’ to be wit’ ya.’

  He turns his head towards her. ‘I’m not sayin’ this to get ya to do nothin’. Is jus’ the way things was for me. An’ tell you what I use ta want an’ couldn’ have, the way things was – I wanted spen’ the night with ya, two of us inna same bad. No need for sex nor nothin’. Just wished you had on pyjamas maybe like them ones you was wearin’ the other night, looked nice, looked comfortable. An’ if you had a bad time inna night you could reach across an’ I’d hol’ ya, get you sleepin’ deep an’ good again. Like to lay awake, listen to the wind, maybe listen to rain onna roof, an’ hear the soun’ of you sleepin’, breathin’, an’ if somethin’ disturbs you I’d whisper to you ’bout how good you are, you safe I’d say, get bad thoughts out from your sleepin’ mind.’

  He’s embarrassed, then, that he’s said things that he never previously has admitted.

  ‘I’m so sorry, them things I yelled, Jim. No way for no one to talk. Me sayin’ them things to you! Low thing to do. I’m ’shame’, you know?’

  ‘Out of all them things that’s happen, me gettin’ yelled at is a small enough one. That ain’t the way I felt at the time, but tha’s what I see now. More importan’ things goin’ aroun’ than you get upset, yell at me.’

  She has another biddy. Up it comes, flapping and fighting. She gets the fish back to where it’s come from with as little damage done as possible. She rebaits, re-sets.

  Jimmy rests an arm on a knee, lowers his face to rest his chin on the arm. Up the lake a yacht race has started. He watches the little vessels bob out onto the water, their sails – scarlet, white, orange, pale blue – grow taut as they fill with wind. The boats spread out, rush up the lake like a flock of startled butterflies.

  ‘What I said I use ta feel about ya – still feel the same way, Luz. Never stopped.’ He looks up into the clouds, which now are racing towards the west, rubs his dry lips with his knuckles. ‘What you think? Any chance we can get back together?’

  She brushes her face with her palm. ‘Ah, Jimmy, I ain’t ready, you know? I ain’t a person yet can do nothin’ like that.’

  ‘You gonna feel better, Luz. I’m goin’ away. Leave Tuesday night. Goin’ up to Queensland. Got somethin’ goin’ up there.’ He waits a moment, then adds, ‘You could come with me, Luz.’

  ‘Carn do that, Jimmy. Carn take a step like that, leave my family, go away. Lot I gotta do to be ready do a thing like that.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She winds in her line, buries the barb of the hook into her fishing cork. ‘Tell you what I thought, ’bout what I should do next cos I know that now. Gonna stop the work at KFC. I’m never gonna own a KFC. Gonna work in one them sandwich shops down in Westfields. Gonna do Hospitality at school, gonna do Business Studies. One day, gonna have one of them sandwich shops in one of them centres. Gonna be someone my family can respeck. All they done for me. I want they should be able to respeck me.’

  ‘There’s sandwich bars up north, Luz.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. Maybe one day …’ She smiles unhappily at him. ‘If the offer’s still open …’

  ‘Always gonna be open, Luz.’

  ‘You carn really know that, Jimmy. Things change. You ain’t gonna spend your life waitin’ for me to get sorted out.’

  ‘You carn know that, Luz. We gonna stay in touch. You gonna do them things you gotta do, like you said. I’m gonna get settled; be ready for ya. Come up. If I’m bad to ya, sen’ for you brothers. I know what they gonna do to me, if they gotta come all that way cos I didn’ know how to behave.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You gave lotsa thought to them plans you got. You done lotsa thinkin’.’

  ‘I was thinkin’ ’bout Abdul.’

  ‘Abdul?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She looks down into the water. ‘You know that thing that Abdul done? Ever wonder how he could do that? You know, funny, laughin’ Abdul, become that … thing done what he done? Oh, I spent long time thinkin’ ’bout that, I can tell you. This is what I think – Abdul didn’ ever become nothin’, didn’ have any way to know what was right for him to do. Sometimes I get so angry with what he done, glad he’s dead. Other times, I think, poor Abdul. Never had no way to be a person, now his life’s over. That’s sad, ain’t it? Sad for anyone, spend a life, never know how to be a person.’

  She looks back to where her brother is sitting, nods to her brother, reaches and touches Jimmy’s cheek. She says, ‘When you leavin’?’

  ‘Tuesday night, bus to Queensland.’

  ‘From that bus station there in Wollongong.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s the one.’

  ‘Okay,’ she rises, fishing cork in hand. ‘Gotta go now. Get Samuel to his work.’ She starts along the jetty, stops and looks back at him. She says, ‘I love you, Jimmy.’

  He nods. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I know.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  David brings the car as close as he can to the station entrance and Gordon hobbles over. As they pull out into the street the mood is sombre.

  ‘I’ll tell you what it is that I think,’ Gordon says at length.

  ‘What’s that, Chilly?’

  ‘That things happen. They’re unexpected. And, when they happen, you have no choice but to respond. Even if you decide not to do anything, that’s still a response, and you have no choice. What you’re going
to do was decided by things that happened a long time ago.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Tell you another thing. I think some of us spend a lot of our time trying to win the approval of people who, we know, are never going to approve of us. Sometimes even the dead. But even if we have contempt for them, still we keep struggling, to show them, “See? I am worth something!”’

  David Lawrence pulls down the corners of his mouth in response, but concentrates his vision on their hilly path.

  ‘Michael Laecey used to quote poetry,’ Gordon continues. ‘Auden was his favourite.’ They are down through the hills, approaching the shopping centre in Warrawong. “Motives, like stowaways, are found too late.”’

  ‘Yeah? Motives found too late?’

  ‘“Each in the cell of himself is nearly convinced of his freedom.” No, turn left here, please David. Sorry to give you the call so late. And get yourself into that carpark by the lake.’

  Gordon has seen Luz Solomona get into an old Ford, seen it pull away, seen Jimmy Valeski alone on the jetty.

  Gordon shuffles his way out onto the jetty. Jimmy watches him coming. Gordon leans against a railing, lowers his head, grimaces in his pain.

  Jimmy says, ‘What? Them pyjamas you got on under that top?’

  ‘Yes, Jimmy. That’s what you can see.’

  ‘Way police is dressin’ these days?’

  ‘I can imagine that it disappoints you that my standards aren’t higher.’

  ‘Don’ worry ’bout it.’ Jimmy leans on the rail beside Gordon. Together they watch the far-off yacht race that now is under a misting of rain. ‘’Nother thing: don’ call me Jimmy Valeski, is my preference. Is not my name. Is what it suited other people to call me but is not who I am.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll respect your wishes. And what is your name?’

  ‘Dimce Rodriguez. Is who I was christened. Well, I was christened twice, which I guess not too many people can say. An’ I guess is a funny kinda name, but is who I am. Rodriguez was my father’s name. What I hear, he maybe wasn’ too much of a man. But he was my father. I’m his son. An’ I ain’t pretendin’ ’bout that, to please no one.’