by Zane Lovitt
Welgrove General is a big country hospital: wide wooden verandahs at the front, farmland in one direction, bush in the other, wallabies on the back lawn of an evening. Beautiful place. I met Jackie there. We stayed six years before we moved to Adelaide. But Welgrove General’s like every other hospital: people get sick, people get better, people die. Jackie was wrong about one thing, though. Yes, there was that woman with the rhabdomyosarcoma – Judy was her name – and poor old Evelyn Lacey with everything under the sun. But Frank Easton was the first. He was a retired barley farmer, huge guy, never smoked a day in his life, sang in the local choir. Bone cancer – primary – then it raced through his body. But he was the man who would not die.
One night, late, Frank rang the call button. The pain must have been bad. He asked me, straight out, to finish him off. You’d be surprised how common that is. I gave him the usual blather – told him it was impossible, strict protocols, rules, laws. He looked straight at me, as much as he could; he’d lost control of one of his eyes by then. He grabbed my wrist, still a surprisingly strong grasp. The rain was hitting off the roof so hard I could barely hear him.
‘Find a way,’ he said.
So I did. Odd how I didn’t give it much thought at the time. It felt like a job to be done, just like all the other jobs. Drugs, of course. What else? There’s not a thing I don’t know about them. The doctors think the nurses haven’t got a clue but, honestly, it’s usually the other way around. It’s a point of pride for me: three generations of pharmacists and a couple of secret addicts thrown in for good measure. I knew what I was doing.
‘All the best, Frank,’ I said to him.
I felt faintly nervous when it was over. But there was no trouble. Poor old Frank was out of his pain. No-one suspected a thing. Not even Jackie.
But Frank had a son, a surly little bastard called Frank Junior who’d come up to the hospital most days to make sure all his father’s finances were sorted in his favour. Day after day he’d sit by the bed, buttoning down every last corner of the farm and all the rest. In a weak moment, old Frank was fool enough to tell him that he was thinking of approaching one of the nurses on the late shift to help finish him off. I think I actually walked in on them having this conversation.
‘Don’t be stupid, Dad,’ Frank Junior told him, as I came towards them. ‘You’ve got the solicitor coming in tomorrow. The house thing.’ Old Frank hushed him with a waving hand, and Junior sat glowering at me from beside the bed, saying no more. Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about at the time.
But it turns out old Frank didn’t want Junior – who must have been fifty, at least – to get the family home. He was going to inherit pretty well everything else, but the house was going to Frank’s niece, not his son. She came in, near the end, and left in tears. Real tears. Frank had made his decision; he was ready to go.
The following morning, as I was packing up the room – old Frank’s body had been moved downstairs by then – Junior came in behind me, closed the door.
‘Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?’ he said, standing very close. I could smell his toothpaste. He was a severe asthmatic; I could hear the pull in his chest as he waited for my response. The barley farm was going to kill him, I thought, with some satisfaction. I didn’t turn around, just kept packing up the kit.
‘I know it was you,’ he said. His father was barely cold and it was pretty obvious that he’d already had word that he didn’t get the house in town. ‘I’m going to make you sorry, Nurse Quinn,’ he said.
Junior was smart enough to know that he could never prove anything, medically. He had taken a long, hard look at me from his perch in the corner of his father’s room and rightly guessed I’d have it all covered. But I remember thinking, as his eyes followed me around the room each day, that he might be a man who could make real trouble. In a hospital, you get pretty good at analysing people. You see everything across those beds. Frank Junior was a hater, I saw that – a vindictive little hater. And I let that slide. I only made one mistake but it was a big one: I put Frank Junior out of my mind.
*
‘Do you remember a guy called Easton. From Welgrove?’ Jackie said, one night, warming up her curry after her shift. I felt my heart race almost instantly. ‘Easton? No.’
‘Yes, you do’, she said. ‘The barley farmer. Frank Easton. He was in Malloy Ward. The one who used to sing sometimes. Hung on for ages, poor sod.’
‘Oh, yeah. What about him?’
‘Remember he had a son?’ Jackie said. ‘Wiry little guy, about fifty. Not very nice. Came in all the time.’
‘Vaguely,’ I lied.
‘Saw him this evening.’ Jackie was banging sticky rice off the spoon on the side of the saucepan, making an incredible racket. I’d already eaten. I was sipping a beer, watching her from across the table. ‘He was called Frank as well,’ she said. ‘Remember? Frank Junior.’
‘Junior’ I said, keeping my voice flat.
‘Yeah. He was on the bus,’ she said, crashing her cutlery onto the table. Was there ever a moment, I wondered, when Jackie was doing something quietly?
I took another sip. ‘It wouldn’t have been him. Didn’t he inherit the old man’s farm? That’s a day’s drive away. What would he be doing in the middle of Adelaide?’
‘Would have made a pretty puny farmer if you ask me,’ she said, forking in the curry. ‘Bet he sold it, or went bust. Anyway, it was definitely him. Don’t you remember he had a tattoo on his hand? Um…’ She held up her hands to work out where she’d seen it on him. ‘On his left hand. A little thistle, a red-and-green thistle down near his thumb. You must have noticed it. It was definitely him.’
‘Where did he get off?’ I said, remembering that tattooed hand lying flat on his father’s bed. I turned my beer bottle in its pool of condensation. Jackie had pulled the newspaper towards her and wasn’t listening. ‘Jackie!’
She jumped. ‘Jesus, what’s wrong with you? I don’t know where. Oh, yes I do, it was the same stop as me. After I got off. He didn’t see me though. He was reading something on the bus. I only saw the tattoo at the last minute.’
The beer suddenly seemed too cold, sending a shiver to my brain. ‘Did he walk the same way as you?’
She looked up from the paper. ‘Hmm? No. He didn’t walk anywhere. He sat down at the bus-stop and was looking for something in a bag. I saw him when I crossed the road.’ She went back to the stove. Turning to me, serving spoon in hand, she said, ‘Want some more curry?’
*
I always thought he’d come after me. I can honestly say I never once thought about Jackie. What does that tell you? Maybe a man in love would have thought of her straight away, tried to protect her from bad people. But I wasn’t that man.
Jackie’s been listed as missing for six years now. A cold case, they call it. Clint retired to a walnut farm – squinting at aphids these days, I guess. Most of the media pack lost interest pretty quickly. There were richer pickings to be had. There was one journalist who used to turn up on my doorstep every year around the time Jackie first disappeared. The last time I saw him I surprised myself by asking him in, making him coffee. He got chatty, told me he wrote about the economy, mostly, but he was keen to get into investigative work, write a book. He told me he was examining Jackie’s case as a kind of hobby. A hobby. I knew I had to pack up when I heard that, leave Adelaide for good. I was starting to feel rage rather than pity, and that’s not a logical reason to kill someone. Well, not just anyone.
*
Melbourne’s the kind of city to get lost in, only I know pretty well every street these days. I drive a taxi. Seriously. No more hospitals for me. Taxi driving’s harder than it looks: long hours and some pretty despicable people, drunk and sober. Nice ones too, of course, and some days, if I’m in the mood and they mention some affliction or other, I give them a free consultation. There’s always a good tip a
t the end of that ride.
There’s a coffee shop near the big tyre place on Roberts Road. I used to go regularly, mostly because none of the other drivers stop there. It was winter, I remember; everyone had coats on. I’d bent my head to take a careful sip of coffee – they always serve it scalding hot – and I heard a voice I knew behind me. ‘Ham and cheese, not ham and tomato.’ A man, pissed off, complaining about his toasted sandwich. The girl behind the counter apologised, gave him his money back when he wouldn’t wait for a replacement. I didn’t turn my head, just hunkered down inside my collar, kept the coffee mug close to my face. Had he seen me? All I saw was the back of a man in a longish navy coat and a dark red beanie. A woman with a twin pram carved up any further view of him as he left, but, standing up, I could see him at the corner. He didn’t look back. I watched as he pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth to sort out his money. Even from that distance, I could see the dark blob of tattoo near his wrist as he turned towards the train and disappeared.
I knew there was a chance Frank Junior could be in Melbourne. I’d met old Frank’s niece – the one who got the house – when I went back to the area for my mother’s funeral. She came to the service. ‘Thank you for being so good to Uncle Frank,’ she said, pressing my hand in the overheated chapel.
‘He was a way better man than I’ll ever be,’ I said. That was true. Later, she told me the barley farm was gone: ‘Junior sold it for half nothing. Said he hated the country. Said farming was for idiots.’
I thought it would be easy, but I didn’t see Frank Junior again for a long time. I drove. I had good days and bad days. I waited. I dreamed – literally dreamed – of him getting into my cab without realising it was me at the wheel. I had special locks fitted, just in case.
*
It took me almost a full day before I finally twigged about the man I’d seen in the lane. I was at home, drinking coffee, staring out the window. Scenes from the previous few days were looping through my mind: that nice big tip from old Ingrid; the Scottish guy with one arm; the truck roll-over on Hodda Terrace – all the jumble and flare of ordinary life. And then, half watching someone in the street lugging a heavy bag, I realised what I’d seen the night before: the man with the rubbish bag, the way he walked, the way he turned. The thought stunned me. At last. The man was Frank Junior.
It was a Thursday night. Late-night shopping – busy for me, most times. I was thinking about Jackie, if you can believe that. I’d gone a fair while without giving her too much thought, then for a week or so she kept coming into my mind. Robbie Quinn. Robbie Quinn. There she was, pecking away at me, just like before. His flat was above the noodle shop. I almost laughed out loud when I pulled the corner of a letter out of his mailbox and I saw his new name: just one letter stuck on the front of his old name. Frank Neaston. Pathetic. At least I had the decency to change mine completely.
*
Frank Junior always took his rubbish out last thing at night. It’s never a good idea to be predictable. His death didn’t get any more coverage than it deserved. A body discovered … a laneway off Drummond Street ... the schoolboys are receiving counselling … not believed to be suspicious. So said the woman on the news. The next night she announced that the body had been identified as Frank Neaston, retired labourer. I actually chortled. Frank Junior never laboured for anything in his life, except maybe that last breath. I used ketamine, mostly. Not ideal, but my options are limited these days. Hypodermic, of course. It was late; I knew he’d be dead by the time he was found.
The TV showed a long shot of the laneway. The woman from the noodle bar was leaving a small bunch of flowers. Uncannily, she got the spot exactly right: just left of the big wheelie bin. ‘He came in on Tuesday nights,’ she said to the camera, standing awkwardly close. ‘Beef noodles.’
The camera panned across a small crowd of bystanders staring down the now-empty lane. A couple of kids chewing gum, a very tall man, a few women. The reporter, a young guy with a square thatch of red hair, signed off, ‘Back to you, Elena.’
And then it was over. I’d been watching all this, mulling over the mixed feelings I was having: relief, pleasure, that odd flatness. I was half thinking that I might move back to Adelaide, now that everything was settled. There was no more danger now. No prospect of exposure. The vacant faces of the crowd in the laneway had just faded into the next piece of news. Suddenly, I was on my feet. One of the women in that crowd, that one with the white jumper. It couldn’t be her. But the way she turned her head, her chin in profile, her hands balled in her pockets. It was Jackie.
*
Every day I tell myself it was not her. A look-alike, that’s all. Jackie’s dead, and you know it. I say that over and over. I work hard at keeping everything tamped down. You know it better than anyone else. For certain. I force her out of my mind. The look on her face. Her voice. I think of nothing, just sit at the window, watch the world go by. After Frank Junior – after Jackie – I thought I’d feel … free. I thought the past could be filed away and forgotten. At peace. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. A bit of peace. But when I empty my head, that’s when I hear it. Robbie Quinn. Robbie Quinn. In a crowd, especially, I hear that voice. And when I wheel around, my eyes raking through all the bodies, I swear I catch a glimpse of her face, turning away.
Amanda O’Callaghan
Three-Pan Creek Gift
A Cliff Hardy story
I was reading a history of professional foot running in Australia. It had a chapter on the Three-Pan Creek Gift near Willow Bend in the southern tablelands, which, for over a hundred years, had been the next richest professional footrace to Victoria’s Stawell Gift. It was still big in the 70s but faded as interest in the sport waned. It died in the early 80s to be revived in 1988 when Willow Bend got some Federal funding to put it on for one last time as a Bicentennial event. The race attracted sponsors.
Reading about it reminded me of my involvement with Travis Cooke. I had a behind-the-scenes story the writer of the book didn’t know about. The Gift originated in the years after gold was discovered, very late in the piece in the 1870s. In the early alluvial phase a legend was born that you could make a substantial strike after panning a particular creek just three times. Hence the name of the creek and the establishment of the race in a paddock near Willow Bend and its eventual adoption as part of the annual Willow Bend Agricultural Show.
Held in early October before the weather got too hot, the show drew people from all over the district and further afield – the south coast and Canberra, once the capital started to grow after World War II. The stakes were high while gold was being found, with miners stripping down to their underwear to make the hundred-yard dash in bare feet. A number of Aboriginals won the race.
Over the years the winner’s prize stayed attractive as young athletes – boxers, footballers, swimmers, axemen and shearers – tried to make some extra money during the Depression and later. The bookies naturally took an interest and betting became a big feature of the race. For the Bicentennial event the competition among sprinters and bookmakers was intense. The prize money was $25 000 and an officially sanctioned handicapping system was in place.
I was surprised when I got a phone call from professional sprinter Travis Cooke in September of 1988. I’d heard of him because he’d finished second twice in the Stawell Gift and had won some other big races. I had more than a passing interest in professional running. An uncle had won the Stawell Gift in the 1940s and was a family hero. I was a useful sprinter in my younger days but better over 200 metres than 100 and that, then and now, wasn’t a glamour event. I hadn’t quite inherited my uncle’s speed out of the blocks or over the distance and regretted it.
I agreed to meet Travis Cooke where he was training on a grass track marked out for him on an oval in the grounds of Sydney University where he worked as a fitness coach and gym instructor for several of the university’s sports teams.
Late on a cold afternoon, I stood near the cricket nets while Cooke did 20-metre spurts, running forwards, then backwards, then skipping sideways. In earlier times, sprinters tended to be middle-sized or compact men – Jesse Owens, Mike Agostini, Hec Hogan, my uncle Clem. Later, wherever they came from, they were mostly big – Alberto Juantorena, Darren Clark, Carl Lewis. Travis was six-foot-four in the old money, and probably weighed 78 kilos plus. Despite that, in motion, he appeared to be as airborne and graceful as a ballet dancer.
I watched him go through these demanding exercises for twenty minutes. When he stopped and came over to me he was sweating freely but wasn’t significantly out of breath.
‘Cliff Hardy,’ I said.
‘Travis.’
We shook hands. Strong grip, hand calloused from working weights and exercise machines.
‘I’d put money on you in anything involving running backwards or sideways.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘Sorry, it’s a bad habit. I wasn’t that keen on meeting here. It’s cold and I knew you could run.’
‘Yeah, well I just wanted to show you I was in serious training.’
‘I’m convinced. For what?’
He towelled off. ‘The Three-Pan Creek Gift. You’ve heard of it?’
‘I have. My uncle Clem ran in it as a back marker. Didn’t win.’
‘Well then, you’ll know that it’s on again for one last time. Decent money. I can win it – I bloody will, unless some bastards manage to stop me.’
