by Mark O'Flynn
I must have looked dumbfounded, for he gave up that line of enquiry.
‘I think I should ask the questions around here, sir,’ said Sergeant Brownrig, who still held the notepad but didn’t appear to know what to write on it.
‘Where is the box?’ snapped Lady Carrington.
‘There was no box.’
‘You lie.’
‘No box,’ Brownrig wrote on his notepad. I suddenly saw how sonky it was to think that the governor’s wife would traipse about the countryside with all her jewels wrapped in a hessian sack.
‘Lady Carrington,’ Brownrig said, ‘can you account for all your valuables here?’
Lady Carrington spread the jewels over the expanse of Goyder’s desk and perused them sternly like a diviner. Not a clock ticked. ‘Apart from two matching sapphire and diamond brooches they appear to be present and correct.’
All eyes turned to me. ‘Two sapphire brooches, eh? And could you give a description of these items?’
‘They are of filigree silver, each in the design of a swan. And, of course, the box.’
‘Byron Wilson,’ said Brownrig, ‘I hereby arrest you on a charge of theft of two sapphire brooches.’
‘And the box,’ said Lady Carrington.
It was then I jumped up and tried to escape out the open window. It was all a mistake, I wanted to scream. Lady Carrington squealed. A chair fell backwards, caught by the carpet. Mr Goyder assumed a boxer’s stance, but he was not required. Buggery Clout had big strong hands and he gripped me tightly with them, his fingers digging into my arms like manacles. He put his face close to mine. The gorge rose in my throat and erupted onto the carpet.
‘Hello, Brutus.’ His teeth were yellow.
TWENTY
They threw me into the police lockup on the Western Road to Sydney. I could hear the jinkers and the trains rumbling up and down the line, the raucous shouts of fisticuffs and merriment from Biles Hotel by the railway crossing. At night all they gave me was a thin blanket, and I froze. The floor was damp, as was the straw tick I tried to sleep on. I must have suffered some delirium because I shivered hot and cold constantly. The walls were icy to the touch. At one point Buggery Clout came into the cell and stood there. Time stopped in his presence and a minute seemed like an hour. I trembled in cold and fear.
It took them three days to confirm my alibi. I don’t think they were in any great rush about it. Mr Edwards vouched for my general regularity, and for my specific attendance on the day when the jewels went missing. I was a good miner, he apparently told them, although the same couldn’t be said for my good-for-nothing half-brother, who was leading me astray.
Each morning Brownrig came to the cell door and asked the same questions.
‘What is the name of your accomplice?’
‘I have no accomplice, sir.’
‘You acted alone?’
‘My only action was to return the jewels.’
‘The name of the culprit.’
‘I cannot tell you that.’
Brownrig sighed, and slammed the door.
I complained about the cold, but got no response. On the second morning, beyond the cells, through two heavy doors, I heard my father’s voice demanding to know why I was being held. His voice was high and angry. What were the charges? What was the evidence? This was before my alibi was confirmed. I dared not cry out. I didn’t hear what the constables said to him in return, but soon after there was silence. Douglas must have been sent away. For some reason, in the darkness, I kept remembering Dundas’s grimace as he was lowered to the ground, twirling gently on the end of the rope. Every time footsteps approached the cell I thought, melodramatically, that my last moments had come. In my mind I rehearsed the final struggle, but it was usually Brownrig or Clout come to shove in a bowl of slop. Once to bundle an old shick into the cell next to mine, where he proceeded to yell, then sing, then cry, then snore.
I remembered discussing with Clancy that we were united more in our mothers than in our father. Well, that had certainly proved to be true. And I found myself praying to her, to my mother, and her ambivalent God, to help me and make me warm and give me another blanket. Thus, in their profound modesty, our greatest desires are reduced to their essence. I was in a dismal state. The darkness and confines of a cell were far worse than the darkness and confines of the coal pit, even though I had more headroom. I worked myself into an abject state of fear. I had to keep moving all the night in order to keep the cold at bay. For brief moments, with my knees locked, I slept standing up, leaning against the wall, until woken by my own shivering. What chilled me even more than the lack of a second blanket was the knowledge of my betrayal of Clancy. My betrayal of his trust. What must he think of me now? This was my reward. I prayed he had got away.
On the last morning of my incarceration, Clout came again to the door and entered the cell. ‘One more time, Brutus.’
‘I didn’t take the jewels,’ I said quickly. ‘You must believe me.’
‘Why must I? Why must I do what you say? Belief? That is a shallow quality. Most people come to the truth in the end, although many do not like the road to get there. Who are you covering up for?’
‘No one.’
‘You are delaying in order to give him time to escape.’
‘No, I’m not.’
He took out his fob watch and studied it. After a long moment he said, ‘Do you know who gave me this watch?’
And after another long moment I said, ‘No.’
‘My wife, Brutus. The one person who made everything make sense. Don’t you have someone in your life like that?’ Before I could answer he pounced. ‘Enough.’
Moving quickly for someone so tall, Clout barrelled me down to the stone floor, where he sat on my chest, trapping my right arm by my side. My head was jammed against the wall. He seized my left arm and roughly pushed the sleeve of my shirt up to the bicep. My muscles were water in his great fists. One hand held my wrist, the other my elbow. I couldn’t even wriggle, only whimper. Slowly he raised my arm, lowering his face to meet it. He opened his mouth.
‘No,’ I cried. ‘Please, no.’ A blubber escaped me. Just as he took the flesh of my forearm between his yellow teeth I cried out, to my utter shame, ‘Clancy. It was Clancy.’
Clout stopped. He looked at me, a grin of jubilation on his face. ‘I know.’
‘Constable.’ Brownrig’s voice came from the doorway. ‘What are you doing?’
Clout didn’t take his eyes from mine. ‘I have just extracted a confession from the prisoner.’
‘This is not the way to go about it. Get off him. Leave us, please.’
Clout slowly got off me, great knees pressing on my chest, and rose to his feet. He moved past Brownrig and along the echoing corridor to the office. When he was gone I sat up, wiping the snot and tears from my face. All I could think of was Clancy. And I was disgusted with myself.
‘Are you all right?’ Brownrig asked.
‘I think that man killed Dundas.’
In the dimness Brownrig looked at me. ‘That investigation is ongoing.’
‘And have you learned anything yet?’
He did not answer my question, but said, ‘What you have said is a serious allegation.’
‘I think he means to kill me,’ I said in a croaking whimper. Who was there to save me now?
‘Do you think we are barbarians?’
‘Clout is. He bit Joshua Morgan.’
‘The man has lost his wife.’ There was a bark of anger in Brownrig’s voice.
‘How many years ago?’
‘Do you mean to put a time limit on grief?’
‘Dundas didn’t deserve to die like that.’
‘Nor did his wife.’
There was never going to be another opportunity so I heard myself asking, ‘How did she …?’
Brownrig looked at me, at last sceptical of his own words. ‘I don’t know. She disappeared,’ he said. ‘Listen, I will look into this investigation myself, but you, f
rom this day forth, are to hold your tongue.’
I nodded, wiping my face again.
The iron door at the far end of the corridor squealed open and Clout’s footsteps grew louder. My guts squirmed. He came into the cell and muttered in Brownrig’s ear and they both left. Ten minutes later Brownrig returned.
‘Take off your shirt,’ he said.
‘Why?’
He made an impatient gesture with his fingers. I peeled off my shirt, damp with sweat and mucus. In return he threw me a clean flaxen shirt. ‘Put that on.’
‘Why?’
‘You have a visitor.’
Shivering, I quickly pulled on the shirt. It was too big, but at least it was dry and didn’t smell like a charnel house. Brownrig left with my rag of a shirt, and a moment later he returned. He opened the cell door and ushered in a person I didn’t expect to see.
‘I shall be within earshot,’ Brownrig said, backing out. ‘And I shall consider what you have said, young man, with a substantial pinch of salt.’
‘Lord Byron.’ Sir Henry Parkes entered the cell, his bulk filling the door. He pulled at his white beard. I was suddenly conscious of the bucket in the corner and its rank contents. He looked around the cell, rhetorically. ‘It is not quite the salubrious Carrington, is it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I have been responsible for many things,’ he began. ‘For one, I negotiated the cessation of the transportation of convicts to these shores. Little did I think that at my great age I would have to negotiate the release of a convict from Katoomba watch house barely twenty miles from my own home.’
‘Release, sir?’
‘Not so fast, my boy. You know you are in a good deal of trouble here.’
‘I know.’
‘The courts could leave you here for many a long day before they even decided what to do with you. How would you like that?’
‘Not much, sir.’
‘It’s cold?’ He glanced around at the walls.
‘Very cold.’
‘Given whose jewellery you stole – poled, is that the word? – you could even stand to lose your life.’
‘I didn’t steal any jewellery, sir.’
‘Be that as it may. I am not the judge in this matter. Yesterday I received a visit at Faulconbridge House from a certain young lady who spoke passionately on your behalf. The young lady, who seemed greatly distressed at your predicament, has beseeched me to use my influence with the various parties.’
‘It’s a bit hard for me to understand you, sir. Your words, I mean.’
More beard pulling. ‘She has asked me to adjust the puppet strings, as it were, which I am prepared to do. Lady Carrington is a dear friend of my wife’s. There is, I believe, a bargain to be struck. In short, if you reveal the whereabouts of your accomplice then your prospects would be much improved.’
‘I don’t know where he is. Isn’t it enough that I have given up his name?’
‘Your half-brother, Clancy Wilson, isn’t it?’
I said nothing. I had to stamp my frozen feet, which may have given the wrong impression.
‘An odd relationship, by all accounts. It wasn’t difficult for our good constables to ascertain who has been missing from the mine these last few days. There are certain gaps in the narrative, as it were. Indeed, your own parents have been forthcoming with the name. He is well known. Can I ask you, is your brother a Fenian?’
‘I don’t know what a Fenian is, sir. And I don’t reckon Clancy knows either.’
‘Do you know the root of his … motivation?’
‘He was upset at the treatment of … the young lady.’
‘I see.’ Sir Henry paused. ‘The young lady. If you are making a personal point I can assure you I have made my apologies to that party. Sometimes a man cannot help behaving like a man. Or a brute, for that matter. It’s in a man’s nature.’
I suddenly understood that I had some things in my heart I wanted to say.
‘Then, sir, shouldn’t the man try to change his nature?’
‘Ah, a moralist. I am too old in the tooth for that. I would leave that for the aspirations of the next generation.’
I said, thinking of Clout, ‘I am not a brute.’
‘How do you know? I suspect if we left you here for a good time the brute would let us know of his existence soon enough. I seek to change the social animal, not the private.’ Sir Henry continued, ‘As such, I have undertaken to ensure that all the Carrington chambermaids are reinstated to their old positions, much to Mr Goyder’s relief.’
‘Thank you, sir. They did nothing wrong.’
‘So it seems. It only remains for me to make apologies to my wife. Your young lady was rather voluble in her exposition of … recent events. And though I may possess an instinct for intrigue, I would rather this matter fade quietly, irrecoverably away into that distant realm of amnesiac forgetfulness. Hmm, eloquence in these surroundings is not quite what I had in mind.’
‘I guess she could make things ugly for you, sir.’ I shifted from foot to foot in a futile attempt to keep warm.
‘You are in no position to insinuate anything.’ His eyes flashed and I fancied I saw the latent glare of the brute staring out.
I later learned that Sir Henry had had three wives in his life, but unlike my father who had his all at once, Sir Henry lost his one after the other in the manner of a misfortunate man. At this moment, in the watch house, he was still married to the second. I could picture Violet in his drawing room, putting forth her opinions in no uncertain terms. I imagined Lady Parkes (the second) entering the room and hearing Violet’s entreaty. She might have turned her grey eyes on her grey husband and the matter of Sir Henry’s response would have been decided for him. His long life no relief from tribulation.
The bucket was making its presence felt in the corner.
‘Do you know where your brother may have gone? Did he have any favourite hide-outs?’
I had to give painful thought to this. Painful because as his true brother I should have known. He should have told me. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Is that the truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am a very good judge of when a man is telling me the truth. Parliament teaches one this through the obverse. You have a good head on your shoulders, Byron. A head that should know the right thing to do. I am near the end of my life. What do I know? Littler and littler, it seems. But I know enough still to leave you with some final advice.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘A word to the wise: Mr North informs me that there is only a limited life left in your mine.’
‘The mine is closing, sir?’ I stopped my shifting. Then I had a thought. ‘We won’t allow it.’
‘You can unionise all you want, but it will not stop the coal running out. Already the seams are getting thinner. You must have noticed it yourself. It is hardly expedient. The collieries at Lithgow are much more profitable.’
‘I thought that all the union was trying to gain was a little fairness.’
‘I see a certain illogic to this business of bargaining with the enterprise. Will it be fair if North goes bankrupt and you are all put off?’ There was virtually steam coming out of his beard. I did not feel very receptive to fairness. From down the long stone corridor we heard a rattle of keys.
‘You told us just the other day that we were right to organise.’
‘That was politics.’
‘Would you rather have us work for nothing, sir?’
‘I’m sure Mr North and his shareholders would enjoy that. But you’re right. There is no parity in that equation either. However, this is not the time or place to debate industrial relations. The air is rather … close.’
I gave a chilled shrug. How would I tell Douglas? ‘How long does the mine have, sir?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a geologist. North tells me perhaps a year or two. But it is inevitable.’
I could see the reason of it. Already it was like so much
spilled milk.
‘I guess I wouldn’t want to wind up like the ponies.’
‘Now it is my turn to misunderstand you. But if I were a young man again I would set my sights elsewhere.’ Sir Henry shuffled his feet, turning them towards the door of the cell like two pilot boats manipulating a ship in the harbour. ‘I think Sergeant Brownrig has some papers for you to sign, but as I understand it, all charges against you are to be dropped.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, gratefully.
‘Don’t thank me. Thank the persuasiveness of the young lady. And Lady Carrington – it is she who is being … magnanimous.’ He paused at the door. ‘I take it you live down in the valley.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘With your parents.’
‘Yes.’
‘That must be a rather remarkable life. So very … poetical.’
‘I don’t know if that’s the word for it, sir.’
‘No? I always prided myself on finding the right word. It will be a pity to see that way of being in the world come to a conclusion.’ With that the ship moved through the darkened door, which suddenly filled with cold light.
After collecting my empty mutton sack from the constables, I stepped outside to the drizzle and mist of a mountains day. Three big black cockatoos limped across the sky. Behind me on the step Buggery Clout said, ‘It’s always a pleasure to meet a man who can hold his tongue. Lest someone else hold it for him, eh Brutus.’ Then he raised his snout and appeared to sniff the air.
It had only been a few days and in that time the rain had washed all the dust from the buildings and the leaves. Everything looked rinsed and clean. And wet. My emotion had given the day a brand-new, just-hatched look. As I crossed the train tracks, heading towards town, I noticed Ossie Farnell at work cutting railway sleepers. He looked strong, and in charge of his muscles. The daylight suited him.
It was a busy morning, all the shops touting for business. Some of the shopkeepers were out on Bathurst Street calling out to each other. I walked down Parke Street past my old school where the chanting of numbers still came from the high windows. It felt good to walk. Left into Waratah Street past Dr Spark’s rooms. He was out pruning roses with his bone cutters.
