O'Fear

by Peter Corris

  ‘Two things. First, Mrs Carboni is putting together a profile of Barnes’ business activities. I assume that’s the operational end. Would you know about the contracts, correspondence and such?’

  He nodded. ‘You’d get most of it from Anna. Barnes believed in open government. The people who worked for him could see the paper on the deals if they wanted to. I’ve got a few things, strictly legal, that wouldn’t be at Mascot. If Felicia okayed it, you could see them. What did you think of Bob Mulholland?’

  ‘Great bloke.’ I told him about the incident at Mascot.

  ‘Stanley Riley’s a madman, according to Barnes,’ he said. ‘Good thing you were there.’

  ‘Everything’ll be tighter now that things are running again. How busy will they be?’

  ‘Very. Quite a few jobs on hold to clear. I can go ahead with some leasing of space for storage and make applications for licences to ship some stuff.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chemicals. You need special trucks, special licences. It was all going through when Barnes died.’

  ‘Why was he getting into that?’

  Hickie shrugged. ‘He said it had to be done, so it might as well be done right. The money’s good.’ He saw me looking dubious and he went on, ‘I should tell you that he was moving towards transporting radioactive waste.’

  I groaned. ‘Jesus, this gets worse and worse. The greenies might’ve taken him out.’

  Hickie put on what I took to be his pragmatic face. ‘You said there were two things you wanted.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m interested in a Yank Barnes had some dealings with last year. Felicia knew about him, but she didn’t know his name. What can you tell me?’

  The coffee was cold; I put my mug on the desk, but Hickie drained his as if he needed to do something to help him think. ‘An American? Barnes dealt with a few of them.’

  ‘Felicia said Constable something, or something Sheriff. Like that.’

  Hickie’s frown disappeared. ‘Marshall Brown. Oh yes, I know all about him.’

  ‘Give me a description.’

  ‘Let’s see. Southerner, late fifties, aggressive and ingratiating. He’s in the demolition business. Wanted Barnes to throw in with him. Brown thought Barnes’ local contacts could be useful. I don’t think Barnes was very interested, but he saw quite a bit of Brown at one time.’

  ‘Did he like him?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Hickie laughed. ‘They went clay pigeon shooting one time and Barnes nearly got shot. I remember that. Some kind of accident. He joked about it.’

  ‘How do I get in touch with Mr Brown?’

  Hickie got up and opened a filing cabinet. ‘Must be something on him. Yes, here we are. Brown & Brown. Office and plant in St Peters … ah … Ashley Road. What’s your interest?’

  I copied the phone number and address from the letterhead he showed me into my notebook, and shrugged. ‘Nothing to it, probably. Just something to check.’

  ‘How’s Felicia?’

  ‘She’s fine. Could you get cracking on O’Fearna now and give me a bit of a rundown on the business stuff, say tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  That was fair enough. There was no reason why he should reorder his life for me.

  It was early in the afternoon and the day was fine. I could have gone calling on Marshall Brown. I could have found out some more about Todd’s violently disposed competitor Riley, and paid him a visit. I could have gone through my police contacts to get a registered owner for the car whose number plate I sort of knew. Instead, I went to Redfern. I got no answer to my knock at the house in Chalmers Street, but the big windows to the upstairs balcony were standing open and I had the feeling that Felicia Todd wasn’t far away.

  I found her in the park. She was sitting on the grass in the shade of a poplar tree and she was sketching a corner of the park and the street and houses beyond. I came up quietly and stood, not wanting to break her concentration. After a few minutes she stopped making rapid passes across the paper, looked up and saw me.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Stay there and I’ll draw you.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t waste the charcoal.’

  ‘Don’t move!’

  I stood on the grass, feeling like a fool and admiring the curve of her neck and the sureness of her movements. She pushed up the sleeves of her blue-and-white-striped shirt and sketched fast, shooting occasional quick glances at me. She was wearing a blue skirt, long and flowing, and sandals with leather ties that wrapped around her ankles. Her hair was nut brown in the sunlight and her skin was tanned. It was the first time I had seen her in natural light, and it seemed to give her an extra vitality. I was pleased to see that she had a camera on a strap around her neck. She finished with a flourish.

  ‘Come and have a look,’ she said. ‘Don’t pretend you’re not curious.’

  I walked across and looked at the pad. She’d made me look every day of my age and hard and stern, like an exacting athletics coach who expects his charges to do better.

  ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘Is that how you see me?’

  I held out my left hand and helped her up from the grass.

  ‘That’s the exterior impression,’ she said. ‘I’d have to sit you down in a good light and take some time to get the inner Hardy.’

  ‘God forbid. I can see you’ve got the skills, though. If I put that on my office wall, I could up my fees.’

  She laughed and dropped her charcoal stick into a pocket of her skirt. We walked towards the fountain; she carried the sketch pad and a paperback book. I reached for her free hand and she let me take it. I’d forgotten the bandage and winced when her hand went round it. She let go quickly. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Tell you later. Would you like to go for a drink or something?’

  She stopped and I stopped. Her book hit the cement path. We were kissing before either of us knew what was happening. It seemed like years instead of months since I’d had a woman that close to me, and I felt a surge of pent-up energy. We pressed close and hard, mouths and bodies; the camera pressed sharply and uncomfortably into my chest, but it didn’t matter.

  She broke away and stepped back. ‘God,’ she said. ‘Can you come back to the studio now?’

  ‘Yes.’ I picked up the book. It was Robert Hughes’ The Fatal Shore. I carried it in my wounded hand as we hurried through the park. My good left hand gripped her right. She took a key from her skirt and opened the door. We ran up the stairs and we were both breathless by the time we stood by the bed. The breeze through the open windows was moving the curtains and the turned-back covers.

  She unbuttoned her shirt and I touched her small, firm breasts. She undid my belt.

  ‘You’re doing all the work,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘Kiss them!’

  I bent and kissed her nipples, which became hard. Her skirt had an elastic top; I pulled it down and put my hand inside her pants.

  ‘Everything off,’ she said. ‘Everything!’

  We stripped and began a slow exploration of each other’s bodies, holding back and delaying until the first of the strangeness of it was over and the excitement caused us to hurry. I had forgotten how strong a woman could be, how firmly arms and legs could grip and how solid a body could be when you drove into it, urgently and full of need.

  When we finished the bed was a mess, with the sheet and blanket on the floor and two of the pillows under Felicia’s hips. We moved apart and I shoved the pillows into place under our heads, hooked the sheet up over us and held her in my arms. She moved easily and loosely with me, as if we’d been doing this for years.

  ‘Oh, that was good!’ She wriggled her head free and looked at me. ‘I could draw you better now.’

  ‘Some parts, anyway.’

  She snuggled back. ‘If you’re married or living with someone don’t tell me yet.’

  At this point, in the past, I’d had to lie or fudge it. Not now. ‘I’m not. I was divorced more than ten years ago, and I haven
’t lived with anyone for … about a year.’

  ‘Over it, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever had a lover die on you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s different from an affair ending. Worse in some ways, of course, but different.’

  ‘Are you saying you feel unfaithful?’

  ‘A bit like that, but not really. It’s all right. I’m glad you knew Barnes. I’m bound to talk about him.’

  ‘Bound to. So am I.’

  She moved away and sat up with the sheet pulled up around her shoulders. ‘It’s bizarre, isn’t it?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. Not if we don’t let it.’

  ‘Not just a quick fuck for you, then?’

  I reached up and pulled her down gently. ‘No. Nothing like that, Fel.’

  ‘Good. Let me up. I’m going to make coffee.’ She found her striped shirt on the floor and put it on; she gathered up two empty coffee mugs, both from the same side of the bed, and went out. It wasn’t a bad room to be post-coital in—low bed, polished floor, clothes in those white wire Swedish drawers and some framed drawings on the walls. There were no male clothes or items around. Paperbacks lay around the bed in piles—mysteries, poetry, travel—but books are gender-neutral.

  Felicia came back with the coffee and we sat on the bed and drank it and didn’t say anything. I looked at the drawings—nude studies, front and back, male and female.

  She saw me looking. ‘Barnes,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘I cleaned all his clothes out, shoes and that.’ She wept then, long and hard, with her body shaking and the grief buffeting her, until she was drained and quiet. I sat close to her on the bed, sharing the space but not touching her while she went through it. At last she pulled up a bit of the pale yellow sheet and wiped her eyes. A lot of black stuff came off on the sheet, and I realised that eyeliner was the only make-up she wore.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m …’

  ‘Don’t say sorry. It’s all right. You’ll miss him and things about him for years, probably. I still miss Cyn, sometimes.’

  ‘Cyn?’

  ‘My wife. Someone else’s wife for ten years or more, but still …’

  I put my arm around her shoulders and she relaxed against me. ‘And who was it a year ago?’

  ‘Helen.’

  ‘D’you miss them all, Cliff?’

  ‘There aren’t many.’ I pointed to the bean bag and the cane chair and the wicker chair on the balcony. I patted the bed. ‘We wouldn’t need many more seats than this for my roll call. A few, but …’

  She laughed. ‘I know what you mean. They’re always with you if you let them, but they don’t have to be.’

  ‘Right.’

  She took my right hand. ‘You haven’t told me about this.’

  I told her what had happened in Coogee. She got off the bed and straightened one of the pictures on the wall. ‘What do they want, for Christ’s sake?’

  I shrugged. ‘Barnes’ paintings? Documents?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any documents. The paintings and photographs’re with a friend in Bulli. I’ve been thinking about them. I’m going to go down and get them. I’ll offer them to Piers Lang for an exhibition.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Leon Willowsmith’s arch-enemy.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. I’m waiting for everything—for O’Fear’s release, for Anna Carboni, for Michael Hickie to fill me in on some business matters. I want to talk to the Bulli cops and some witnesses. Can I come with you to the coast?’

  ‘Is it just business?’

  ‘No.’ I put my hands on her smooth shoulders and she came back onto the bed, and we did some of the same things and some new things, and it was even better the second time.

  13

  We ate and drank whatever was in the fridge. Felicia touched up her drawings and developed some of her pictures in a darkroom that was part of the flat’s second bedroom. I dipped into Robert Hughes and wondered whether I was related to the old lag Henry Hale, who arrived on the Third Fleet and endured the hell of Toongabbie. My maternal grandfather had been a Hale. I praised the photographs, which seemed to capture every detail of the park and add something to them. Perhaps Felicia’s grief. But we spent most of the time together in bed.

  At nine o’clock the next morning we were on the road to the south coast. I was wearing the clothes I’d worn the day before; but I keep a towel and swimming trunks, a sweater, shorts, thongs and sneakers and a jacket in the car, so I wasn’t ill-equipped for the trip. I had my Autobank card and my answering machine was switched on. I had the device to monitor it sitting in the glove box of the Falcon, about ten centimetres from the Smith & Wesson .38. I had a woman who made me laugh and felt like a friend and a lover and a sparring partner. What the hell else did I need?

  It was a grey but not threatening day. I’d done work in Wollongong and Port Kembla and some of the farther-flung south coast towns before, but some years back. I thought I was familiar with the route, but Felicia had to jog my memory at a couple of the turns and bypasses.

  ‘Did you know D.H. Lawrence lived in Thirroul for a while?’ Felicia said as we went into the National Park.

  ‘I saw the film.’

  We talked about the film of Kangaroo and related matters all the way over the Audley crossing and past the turnoffs to Maianbar and Bundeena. On the other side of the park the sky seemed to clear; a couple of hang-gliders hovered, high above the coast from Otford Heights.

  ‘Things I’ve yet to do,’ I said. ‘That and scuba diving.’

  ‘What about parachuting?’

  ‘I’ve done that in the army.’

  ‘How was it?’

  I looked at the hang-gliders; one of them executed a turn and swoop, and soared far out over the sea. ‘Not much fun.’

  ‘Do you find your work fun, Cliff? All this questioning and digging into lives and pushing people around?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I like the blondes and brunettes.’

  She looked out the window, and I felt the chill.

  ‘Sorry. That was dumb. There isn’t much of those things you mentioned. Just now and then. Mostly it’s dull routine stuff. I don’t mind it—I’m independent, I can think my own thoughts.’

  ‘Mm. This is awkward, isn’t it? You screwing the widow in the case. Ever done this before?’

  ‘Come on, Fel. You’re not the widow in the case to me. That’s not how it is. You’re you, I’m me, Barnes was Barnes, the job’s the job. Things can be kept separate.’

  ‘Can they?’

  ‘Look, I know a guy who married three sisters. Three. The first one died and the second marriage didn’t work out because she left him. He’s been with the third sister for fifteen years. He told me me that when he thinks about it, he never thinks of them as sisters. They’re individuals.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s a nice story.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I don’t care whether it’s true or not. It’s a nice story.’

  The temperature was more pleasant for the rest of the drive.

  The Todds’ holiday house was a 1930s-style, double-fronted weatherboard bungalow, on a bluff about a hundred metres back from the ocean. I carried Felicia’s overnight bag through the rather gloomy passage to the back of the house. The light was held out by bamboo blinds drawn down low on all windows. When Felicia lifted the blinds I saw that the view of the water was a bit blocked by trees and other houses, but there was more than a glimpse.

  ‘When can I see Lawrence’s ghost?’

  She pointed out the window at a narrow stretch of rocky beach at the bottom of a steep path. ‘Down there at high tide. Or is it low tide? I forget.’

  I put the plastic shopping bag that held my few possessions on the floor and moved quietly around the big room. It ran the width of the house. The room had a closed-up, musty smell. It occurred to me that this was probably her
first visit since Barnes’ death. We both felt the awkwardness. In holiday houses people have fun, drink and eat a bit, spend a lot of time in bed and forget their cares. That’s what those places are for. We were both wondering if the mood was transferable.

  ‘I think I’ll do some drawing,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘I’ll go into Bulli and poke around.’

  ‘We’re well back from the scarp here. It stays warmer later. It’d be good to have a swim around four.’

  It was just past eleven. She was giving me my marching orders for five hours while she dealt with her memories and emotions.

  ‘Right,’ I said. I kissed her on the forehead. ‘What provisions should I get?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ll take a walk to the shops. If you want Drambuie or something exotic you’d better get it yourself. Jesus!’

  ‘What?’

  She had opened a door that led to a narrow passage and out onto the deck that ran along the back of the house. The intense light outside showed where the door to the deck had been jemmied open and later pushed back into the frame.

  ‘Have a look around,’ I said. ‘See if anything’s been disturbed.’

  I went out onto the deck. An agile person could have reached it easily from the overgrown garden. Behind the house was a narrow lane and the backs and sides of other houses. No problem. The surf crashed on the beach around the headland. Felicia had taken off her sandals and I didn’t hear her on the deck until she was beside me.

  ‘Someone’s been through the place,’ she said. ‘Nothing taken, nothing damaged. I suppose they’re going through the Redfern flat right now. Unwrapping the tampons. What is this, Cliff? What’s it all about?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d better come with me.’

  ‘No chance. This is my house and I’m staying here.’ She stalked away and when I went back into the house I found her clicking bullets into the magazine of a .22 repeating rifle.

  ‘Hey. What’re you doing?’

  ‘Go and earn your money, Cliff. Don’t worry, I know how to use this. I’ll be all right.’