O'Fear

by Peter Corris

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  Her interrogative style irritated me, like when a sparring partner presses too hard. I was tempted to tell her that I’d known him longer than she had, and had shared experiences with him that went pretty deep. But somehow I got the feeling that she’d have a quick comeback and that I’d lose more ground than I would win. And I was here to win ground. I told her about my acquaintanceship with Barnes.

  She nodded; the shiny brown hair bounced on her shoulders. ‘From his boozy days. When his mind was clouded.’

  I took a big gulp of the sherry and tried not to say anything too rude. She was a recent widow after all, even if she seemed to be handling it pretty well. ‘You’re right up to a point,’ I said. ‘I only ever saw him in public places or in his office. We weren’t close but he did me a very good turn and if I could have repaid it when he was alive I would have. He never asked me for anything. Not a thing. I’m flattered that he thought well enough of me to write that note to Michael Hickie.’

  ‘Michael’s a nice young man,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not as young and not as nice. But I’d still like to repay the favour.’

  ‘Would you do it without the money?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’ll take a lot of work—a lot of checking and talking to people and getting the runaround. I couldn’t afford to do it for free.’

  ‘Honest and energetic. Good.’ She drained her glass and put it on the floor. I got the feeling there wasn’t going to be any more sherry so I nursed the inch I had left.

  She pushed back her hair and stood. The light had faded almost to nothing and she suddenly looked dark and widowlike. Her low-heeled shoes were dark, like her stockings and dress. She was a bit below average height and slim, but there was a force in the way the dark shape moved towards the passageway. For a moment I thought she was giving me my marching orders and I stirred, but she flicked her fingers at me. ‘Stay there. I want to show you something.’

  She walked away and I asserted myself by getting up and pouring another belt of the dry sherry. It was sitting warmly inside my empty stomach and, if it wasn’t sharpening my wits, it was making the rest of me feel comfortable. I turned on a light and the room filled with a soft glow that touched the polished wood and the clean glass and metal surfaces. Barnes Todd had left some pretty good animate and inanimate objects behind. I was suddenly aware of another tack to take with the widow.

  She came back carrying a stack of enlarged photographs and two framed objects. When she arranged the stuff on the table I saw that one of the framed works was also a photograph. It was a picture of Barnes Todd looking as I had never seen him. His face was much thinner and tanned; his straggly, thinning hair had been clipped away almost to nothing, giving him a hard-edged, no-time-for-that-hair-nonsense look. He was wearing jeans and a loose, dirty sweater and his smile was surprised, spontaneous. He’d just turned away from something I couldn’t make out with the light on the glass. I moved my head and looked closer—an easel. And the smears on the sweater were paint.

  ‘He looks great,’ I said. ‘Happy inside and out.’

  ‘He was.’ She moved a photograph and the painting to where I could see them better. The photo was of Bondi Beach, but I’d never seen it looking like that. The photo had been taken at dawn; it was overcast, with the horizon and the sea blurred; there appeared to be a mist and an impression that the sea was rising up to envelop the land. The painting was a version of the same thing. It was mostly in blue and white, but it lacked the devastating, visionary quality of the photograph. I admired both, but the photograph said more to me and held my eye.

  ‘Christ. They’re good.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ Her voice was full of pride. ‘He was an exceptionally talented man. Have a look at these.’

  The photographs all had the same alarming originality. They were of buildings, the sea and the rocks, some with people and some without. The images seemed to blend so that the people became part of the physical world around them in a way I’d never seen. Some exhibited these qualities more strongly than others. I was reminded of photographs of Aborigines taken by the early missionaries; in them, the blacks stand and sit and the country around them seems to stand and sit in the same attitude. Barnes Todd’s photographs were urban versions of the same thing. I stared at them and shook my head. It seemed a fair bet that if he had been able to put these things on canvas the art world would have had to sit up straight.

  ‘What comes to your mind when you look at them?’ Felicia Todd said. ‘What words?’

  I was bowled over, but I still had business to conduct. I drank some sherry and turned away from the art display to look at her. ‘I’m a mug when it comes to pictures. Words? Drysdale, visions and dreams. Also original, if that makes any sense.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’ She collected the photographs and laid them down with their white backs and pencilled inscriptions showing over the painting and the shot of Todd. She was like a magician manipulating the illusions—now you see them and admire, now you don’t. ‘I met Barnes at the State Gallery. I’d gone along to see the Archibald entrants. Didn’t know he was interested in art, did you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘And photography?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was. Always had been. But war and booze and women and business had diverted him from it. He had a vocation, but he’d lost his faith.’

  ‘And you were his redeemer.’

  She snorted. ‘Sorry. That sounded very prissy. No, it was all secular. I was a good swimmer when I was young. Later, I was a good photographer and a fair painter. I had a gallery once but I was a lousy businesswoman and I lost it. Barnes was great at business, and you can see what he could do with a camera and a brush. I got him swimming three miles a day.’

  She picked up her empty glass and for a minute I thought it was self-pity time, but she stalked across the room to the sink and filled the glass with water. When she got back, she was composed. For no good reason I thought of the kids’ game where you put your hands behind your back and produce scissors, rock or paper. My bet was that Felicia Todd would do rock nine times out of ten. ‘I see you got yourself another sherry. How’s your liver?’

  ‘Okay. I don’t drink as much as I used to. How was Barnes in that way?’

  ‘Getting more civilised. Oh, shit. I just said that was overvalued, didn’t I?’ She smiled and her whole face seemed to lift and catch the light. She had good cheekbones. Some fine down along her jaw showed in the light giving her a softer, more strokable look. I wondered if Barnes had got around to painting her.

  ‘Did he ever paint you?’

  She shook her head. ‘He said he wasn’t ready. God, I didn’t want to get into this. I thought you’d be some grasping thug who’d settle for a thousand and go away.’

  ‘I won’t. I want to know what happened to him.’

  She looked at me and didn’t speak for a long time. When she did her voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. ‘He sold a few paintings. He was getting an exhibition together, but he wanted to stay in business for a bit longer to finance a real throw at being a painter.’

  I nodded. ‘That makes sense. Did he talk to you much about his business?’

  ‘Not a lot. I got some idea of it. I know he had plans to expand but that there was some pretty tough competition. He used to say that trucking and flogging pictures weren’t all that different.’

  ‘What did he mean?’

  ‘He didn’t get on with the gallery owners. Some of them actually threatened him. He laughed about that. I suppose he made enemies. They must have seen what he could be worth.’

  ‘Are you saying someone in the art world could have killed him?’

  ‘A dead genius is worth more than a live one.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. It’s a dirty world, believe me. The people who run it are greedy, snobbish crooks.’

  I knew what she was talking about. ‘I had a bi
t to do with it once, but from the other end—forgeries. Did he do enough work for an exhibition?’

  ‘Certainly. I had a break-in a week or so ago. Someone tried to steal the lot. I’ve moved it since.’

  ‘You’ve got a good alarm system here. I noticed it before.’

  She nodded. ‘It worked. You should say, “You owe it to him to find out what happened. You need help, Mrs Todd.”’

  We were standing by the table; in her low shoes her head came to just above the level of my shoulder. I was behind her: the light threw our shadows forward onto the wall, long thin shadows, close together, almost the same length.

  ‘You owe it to him to find out what happened. You need help, Mrs Todd.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’

  5

  Felicia Todd heard my stomach rumbling. She laughed and offered to make a herb omelette. I accepted. She also made conversation about a range of subjects as she was cooking and as I was hunting for plates and forks. I told her what Michael Hickie had said about her doing Mensa puzzles, and she smiled.

  ‘That was just a joke. Barnes and I were having him on. I’d looked up the answers.’

  ‘It impressed Michael.’

  ‘Michael’s easily impressed.’

  ‘He made a good impression on me. I think he’s honest and has your interests at heart. And his own, of course. He doesn’t want to work out of that little office for the rest of his life. Can’t blame him for that.’

  ‘No. I think he has a future. Has he still got that pretty secretary?’

  ‘Yes, but I think she’s hanging by a thread. I know the signs. I had a secretary once, then I had to put her on part-time and then …’ I mimed a wave goodbye.

  ‘What sort of an office do you work out of now, Cliff?’

  We were Cliff and Fel by this time. I told her about the St Peter’s Lane situation and the Glebe situation, which is, essentially, that the house needs repair but is worth a lot of money as it stands. ‘I’ve got an offer of a place in Hastings Parade, in Bondi. A lot of my business is in the eastern suburbs anyway. I could combine the house and office and have a better water view.’

  She shoved the pan under the griller. ‘Have you got a water view now?’

  I put plates on the bench near the oven and took the forks across to the table, also the salt and pepper and some crumpled paper napkins. ‘Blackwattle Bay,’ I said. ‘If I stand on the fence.’ I pointed out the window to where the ocean was a dark rippling mass, white-flecked and stretching away forever. ‘Nothing like this.’

  She pulled the deep pan out; the omelette had risen to the full height of its sides. ‘This costs, but it’s worth the money.’

  Over the meal we talked mostly about Barnes but some about her. She was thirty-five, born and raised in the Blue Mountains. Dux of Katoomba high school and runner-up in the under-eighteen New South Wales 100 and 200 metres freestyle in 1970. She studied Fine Arts at Sydney University for three years before switching to an art course at Sydney Technical College.

  ‘That’s a big switch,’ I said. ‘Must’ve shocked the professors.’

  ‘It did. They had me lined up to do a PhD on Gainsborough and the pastoral tradition. I preferred Frida Kahlo, but there was no interest in her. Do you know about her?’

  ‘I saw a programme on SBS,’ I said. ‘Mexican. Tortured stuff.’

  ‘Right. I’ve got a back problem that comes from weight training for swimming. It’s nothing like the agony she suffered after her accident, but it’s pretty bad sometimes. I related to her and I wanted to learn how to do, not teach. Understand?’

  ‘I think so. I’m a practical man myself.’

  She finished the art course, painted, had no success, inherited some money and opened a gallery to display adventurous work. ‘Not mine,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t ready. I was still scraping them off and doing them again.’

  I thought of the early cases I’d had; the ones where I muddled through, missed things, half got there. Our plates were empty by this time; we had finished off the French bread and were slicing bad bits from a few elderly pieces of fruit with the knives we had already used.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m a lousy housekeeper.’

  ‘So am I,’ I said. ‘I call a plate you can brush the crumbs off clean. If they stick, it’s dirty.’

  She laughed. ‘If I’d met Barnes a few years earlier, I probably wouldn’t have lost the gallery. I just didn’t know how to do things right, moneywise. D’you want some coffee? You look as if you need it. Were you up all night?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  She plucked at her chin and I laughed. ‘Just careless shaving. Coffee’d be good.’ I followed her across to the kitchen and rinsed the plates. We hadn’t drunk anything with the food and I really wanted the coffee. She put a kettle on the gas, spooned coffee into a glass pot and set the plunger.

  ‘No milk,’ she said. ‘I’ve neglected the shopping.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Reading. Going for walks. Feeling randy. We had a great sex life, Barnes and me.’

  We went back to the table and sat quietly over the black, bitter coffee, looking out at the sea. In the old days, I would have smoked and told myself the ritual and the nicotine stimulated thought. Now I just stared across the road and the randomly parked cars, past the stained concrete buildings and the faded brick ones, to the water. It was the sort of view that was desolate but could be comforting and warming if you had someone to share it with.

  ‘So, d’you want me to look into it, Fel?’ I said.

  ‘What does it involve?’

  ‘Raking things up. Talking to people about things they don’t want to talk about.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘Like this. Was Barnes faithful to you? Were there any other women? Could he have got out of his depth? You must know that he used to hang around with some …’

  ‘Glamorous women,’ she said. ‘I know I’m not glamorous.’

  We had stopped sparring long ago, but I felt I was on the ropes again. ‘I didn’t mean anything like that. Glamour mostly just scrapes off. But …’

  ‘Men are attracted to it. Active, successful men in particular. No, I’m sure Barnes had given that life away. I expect he would’ve painted it, later.’

  ‘Mm. Well, you seem to be able to handle that side of things. What about the implication in the news story that he was drunk?’ This was the line I had been saving and I watched her closely to get her reaction.

  She brushed back her hair; it was a plain, forthright gesture but it did good things to her face. ‘No chance. He wouldn’t have had more than a couple of light beers at that party, or a glass of wine. Two at the most. It wasn’t a problem for him.’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to everyone who was there. Ask. Insinuate.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Fel, I have to ask you about the hospital. You saw him before he died?’

  She nodded. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

  ‘Spoke with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much. He was terribly badly injured. He barely had the breath to speak.’

  ‘Was his mind clear?’

  ‘I hope not. He’d have been in terrible pain if it was.’ She sipped at the cold dregs of her coffee. ‘They rang me at the beach house from the hospital. I suppose it was about two a.m. I drove straight in. They’d been going to operate but they decided there was no point, so I knew he was going to die when I went in to see him. Have you ever talked to a dying person?’

  ‘Yes. Not someone I loved, though.’

  ‘We’d talked so much in the time we’d been together … stayed up all night talking sometimes, and now there was nothing to say. I couldn’t tell him to fight or anything. It was hopeless. He was all broken inside. I just held his hand, really, and waited.’

  ‘But he did speak. What did he say?’

  ‘He said …’ Her voice caught. For a moment I thought all the careful control
was about to rupture and spill, but she put the coffee mug on the table and laced her fingers together. ‘He said, “Oh, oh, oh”, like that and then a word I don’t think I understood.’

  ‘What word?’

  ‘It sounded like “fear”, but I don’t think it could have been. I mean, I doubt that he knew what was happening to him. And Barnes wouldn’t talk about fear. He knew me, knew who I was. But he just made these sounds and then he gave a sort of shudder and he was gone.’

  I mouthed the sounds, imitating her deep tone. ‘Oh, oh … oh … fear.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Like that.’

  ‘O’Fear,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a man’s name, or a sort of nickname. Kevin O’Fearna his name is, but he’s called O’Fear. I didn’t know Barnes knew him, but he could have. They’d be much the same age and O’Fear’s been around. Come to think of it, I believe he was in Korea.’

  ‘That again. Bloody Korea, I don’t like to think that he was meandering on about that bloody shambles.’

  The female view of war again. It looked as if Barnes Todd and I had had some marital as well as war experience in common. But it was a side issue now. I shook my head. ‘I doubt it. He left the note for Michael Hickie about me and then he mentioned O’Fear. There has to be some kind of connection.’

  ‘You mean this O’Fear could have … killed him?’

  ‘No, no. O’Fear’s not a killer. Barnes could have meant that he knows something, or could help in some way.’

  ‘You evidently know him, Cliff. Would he help?’

  ‘O’Fear’s a funny bloke. He might help you for the price of a drink or he might not even if you offered him a thousand bucks.’

  ‘Will you ask him?’

  ‘There’s a snag.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The last I heard, O’Fear was in gaol.’

  6

  I left Felicia Todd’s house shortly after ten o’clock. I was utterly sober, intrigued by the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death and stimulated by her company. She explained that it was grief and loss that had caused her initially to take such a negative attitude to Michael Hickie and Todd’s note about me. She was still grieving, but she was ready to go on with her life. I persuaded her to call Hickie and discuss the future of Barnes Enterprises with him. I didn’t have to persuade her about the investigation—now she was all for it.