Out of the Blue

by JR Carroll

  When she came in a bit later, sullen, not looking at him but going straight to the bedroom to get into dry clothes, Teddy wasn’t all that sure that he hadn’t gone too far this time. There was a funny look about her as she walked past. He waited for her to come out. After fifteen minutes he went in and she was putting things in a suitcase, sobbing and sniffing quietly. Teddy stood at the door. He felt really scared. He didn’t want her to leave. If she went he would have to go and bring her back. He would drag her back by the hair if necessary. He loved her and she belonged here with him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, Elaine?’ he said softly.

  She said nothing, kept pulling clothes from drawers and putting them in the case.

  Teddy came into the room and put his arm around her waist from behind. ‘Hey, come on. Don’t be silly.’

  She stood up straight with her back to him, quivering. Teddy put his other arm around her and embraced her warmly. He kissed the back of her trembling neck and said the hardest thing he’d ever said in his life.

  ‘I’m sorry, baby. I was wrong. Things’ve been bugging me, I dunno. Please don’t go. I love you.’

  The word ‘please’ did not come easily to Teddy’s lips. It was possible he had never used it before. Elaine didn’t speak for a long time. He could feel how tense she was right through her body.

  She sniffed, sighed deeply and said, ‘You hurt me, Teddy. You fucking raped me.’

  He closed his eyes and shut up, holding her.

  ‘You’re a violent man. I don’t like that. You got a bad temper. You go right off over nothing. I got no boyfriend.’

  Teddy didn’t want to hear this shit, but if he had to, he had to. Let her get it off her chest.

  ‘You went too far this time,’ she said. ‘You really hurt me a lot.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry, and I mean it. I won’t ever hurt you again, baby. I promise. I dunno what got into me. There’s this guy giving me problems, money problems. It’s been playing on my mind, fucking me around. I haven’t been thinking straight.’

  Elaine sobbed and said, ‘Is his name Graham?’

  Teddy got a shock. She didn’t know anything at all about this. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘A man named Graham rang when you were out. Said for you to call him back. Said you’d know what it was for.’

  Teddy smiled behind her back. Now that was a lot more like it. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Howja like to go to the Cup tomorrow? Put on a nice dress and we’ll do it in style. Special treat. Waddaya reckon?’

  Elaine’s body gradually slackened in his arms. ‘Orright,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Sounds nice.’ She turned and looked at him, her eyes red and swollen, and the stains of tears on her nearly fleshless cheeks. ‘And you won’t hurt me again, Teddy?’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’ve said that before, though. How can I be sure?’

  Teddy was beginning to get annoyed again now. How long was she going to run this fucking number? Hadn’t he grovelled enough? ‘I’m flush again, hon. I had financial problems before, and it was—’ he was about to say ‘upsetting me’, but that sounded kind of pathetic, unmanly, so instead he said, ‘—giving me the shits.’ Only a fucking girl got upset about something. Teddy Van Vliet got the shits, real bad on occasions. ‘It’s going to be all different from now on. I swear. C’m here.’

  He took her in his thick, tattooed arms and gave her a big kiss.

  If he does hurt me again I won’t leave, Elaine thought. I won’t even cry. I’ll wait, wait till he sleeps, then run him through with that butcher’s knife of his. ‘I believe you, Teddy,’ she murmured in his shoulder.

  ‘That’s the way, honey. Forgive and forget. Life’s short.’ He thought, Yours’ll be even shorter if I catch you out, babe. You’re mine or no one’s. ‘Tell you what, forget cooking tonight. I’ll phone for a pizza instead.’

  SIX

  When Dennis arrived at the Welcome Stranger, rain had begun to spit. The change that had been forecast was imminent. He got out of his car, locked it and looked up at the mass of grey cloud that had banked up all morning from the southwest. What had begun as a stationary raft of high cirrus had now developed a dark underside that looked like a choppy sea. Muffled thunder rolled from one side of the sky to the other and there were flashes of sheet lightning in that southwest corner. It was still warm, and no wind blew at all, nothing moved.

  He asked a woman behind the bar for the publican and was told to hold on, she’d see if he was around.

  There were a few drinkers and pool players and the provincial races were on TV. While she was gone he looked the room over and examined the windows on the side where the parking lot was. There were no blinds on them but the view was obscured by a paling fence, on the other side of which was a blue dumpster with COLLEX stencilled on it. If he stood on his toes he could see most of the parking lot.

  ‘Did you want to see me?’ a man said behind him.

  Dennis turned and saw a lugubrious man in his fifties with bushy brows and enormous ears.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mr—?’

  ‘Skinner. Lyle Skinner.’

  ‘My name’s Dennis Gatz. I’ve got the Pyrenees Hotel in Avoca.’

  Skinner brightened a bit—this wasn’t a visit from the Licensing Commission. ‘Oh, right. Nice little place.’

  ‘Thank you. Mr Skinner—’

  ‘Call me Lyle. Only creditors or men from the government call me Mr Skinner. But they’re the ones trying to skin me.’ Skinner laughed at his joke; Dennis went as far as a smile.

  ‘Fine. Lyle, a man had his truck, a Ford F350 knocked off from here several nights ago. Remember?’

  ‘I do. Believe he found it again next day.’

  ‘That’s right, he did. But the truck had been damaged, because it was involved in a smash in which my wife was killed. On the Sunraysia Highway.’

  The jocularity left Lyle Skinner. He looked at Dennis with his mouth half-open and Dennis wasn’t sure whether he’d believed him or not. But then Skinner said, ‘Well, that’s just awful. I’m sorry.’

  Dennis said, ‘Whoever did it hasn’t been caught, Lyle. I don’t think the police are trying very hard. But you can understand that I have a big interest in this matter.’

  ‘My word, yes. Oh, my word. But you know, that accident, I mean, I saw it on the news, and I’m sure they said no other cars were involved. The lady fell asleep and hit a tree, they thought.’

  ‘They thought wrong, Lyle. Yes, she hit a tree, but she didn’t fall asleep. She was forced off the road by whoever stole Goran Pipic’s truck from here. But that’s my concern, not yours. What I want to know from you is did you or any of your staff notice anyone, anyone at all, a stranger or even someone you might know by sight hanging around outside that night? Say between about eight and ten?’

  Lyle Skinner thought about it, or pretended to, but had already begun shaking his head. ‘Well, you see, I wouldn’t have, because I was behind the bar all night. But waiting staff might have. We had four or five extra on that night. It was quite a big party. They’re not here now, though.’

  ‘Can you give me their names and addresses?’

  Lyle wasn’t happy with that. ‘I don’t know, ah—sorry, what did you say your name was again?’

  ‘Dennis Gatz.’

  ‘Yes. Dennis, I don’t think I can do that. You know, give out personal details. Don’t think I don’t want to help you. Tell you what, I’ll ask them myself, and pass on anything they tell me. How’s that?’

  ‘Well, I would like to speak with each of them personally. Sometimes people remember things without realising. They need to be questioned in a certain way.’

  ‘You sound like a policeman now, Dennis.’

  ‘I was, once.’

  Lyle furrowed his face and massaged one of his ears. ‘I’ll do the best I can,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll call you at the Pyrenees. Or if you prefer, and they’re agree
able, they can call you themselves. Okay? You’ll understand I have to protect the privacy of my employees.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’

  Dennis walked to the window facing the parking lot and peered out. ‘That dumpster, Lyle. Yours?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Would anyone have used it in the course of the evening? You said it was a big party.’

  ‘Sure, it’s possible. Likely, in fact. We use it all the time. That’s what it’s there for.’

  ‘Right.’ Dennis produced a business card and gave it to Lyle. ‘Please ask your staff if they’ll speak to me, Lyle. This is extremely important to me and it’ll only take a few minutes of their time. I know how to interview people. I used to do it for a living.’

  Lyle pocketed the card. ‘I certainly will, Dennis. And once again I’m sorry about your wife. Goodbye now.’

  Dennis went to the door. Holding it half-open, he turned back. ‘Lyle, how did you know the truck was found next day?’ It wouldn’t have been reported.

  Lyle shrugged. ‘This is a pub, mate. Ballarat’s not that big a town. Hear a lot of things.’

  Dennis nodded. ‘Is Goran Pipic a regular here?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah. Comes in two, three times a week, sometimes oftener than that. Depends how cashed up he is. But he likes a drink.’

  ‘And he uses the car park? As a rule?’

  ‘Yes he does. He’s partial to that truck. Wouldn’t leave it in the street.’

  Dennis went out. The rain had still not begun, but the heavy cloud cover was closer to black than grey and a stiff wind had come out of nowhere. Any minute now. Across the road was a string of shops and small businesses, one of them a takeaway pizza joint. That in particular took his attention. It was almost directly opposite the parking lot. As raindrops started hitting his face, he hurried over, stood on the footpath and looked back on the Welcome Stranger and its adjoining car park. From here there was a perfect view.

  He went into the pizza place, selected a soft drink from the fridge and waited for someone to appear. A couple of flies buzzed around his face and would not be brushed away. He swigged from the bottle and in a few seconds a man came through some plastic strips, eating, and Dennis put his money on the zinc counter. The man swallowed his food, took the coins and said, ‘Going to really come down now.’

  They both looked through the window at the downpour. It was impressive. Rain lashed the street and a fierce wind whipped up rubbish and sent anything not nailed down sailing through the air. Aluminium cans tumbled end over end and took off. Dennis strolled to the doorway for a better view. Loose sheets of roofing iron rattled and banged and parked cars rocked slightly. Dennis watched while a tarpaulin was ripped easily from the back of a utility and sent whirling along the footpath until it wrapped itself around a pole. A man hurried out of the Welcome Stranger to shut the window of his car. This was the sort of slanting rain and vicious wind that would get under anything and do a lot of damage. Dennis watched, drinking out of the bottle. In a few minutes it steadied and the wind dropped suddenly as the front passed. Afterwards there was just rain, heavy and continuous, a rain that would go on for hours, possibly all night. It reminded Dennis of the monsoons in Vietnam, except that there he had not been standing dry in a pizza place but marching knee-deep through flooded, mud-sucking paddy fields or creeks blanketed with malaria-carrying mosquitoes, with a sixty-pound pack on his back, an SLR to somehow protect, saturated clothes to sleep in if he could sleep at all.

  Following his discharge at the end of 1970 Dennis had gone backpacking solo around Europe for a year, relishing the freedom of going wherever he liked with no one and nothing on his back except his few possessions. It was a happy time, a time of infinite thanksgiving and celebration during which he honestly believed that he would never have to complain about another thing for as long as he lived. Old habits died hard, however. If he travelled cross-country he sometimes found himself sweeping his eyes over the ground in front of him, searching for land mines, and if he rested against a tree, daydreaming and gazing across the French or Italian countryside while he smoked a cigarette, he would automatically reach for his rifle when the time came to move on.

  Like thousands of other veterans on the loose that year, Dennis wore durable army greens, combat jacket and GP boots. He did not resent the uniform. In the late afternoons when he arrived at a Youth Hostel somewhere, he would claim his bunk, lighten himself of his load and wander freely through the town, smiling at inhabitants and stopping to purchase ingredients with which to cook his meal in the communal kitchen, if there was one. His heart would float away on these evenings, with the yellow sun slipping over distant hills and the sweet scent of food and spice wafting through the dusk from cottages and restaurants, and he would sometimes stand in the street experiencing this sensation, consciously registering it, saying to himself, Nobody anywhere could be happier than I am right now.

  At night in the hostel he would share food and conversation with other travellers, trading information on where they had been, the good places to stay, the ones to avoid. And of course there were many veterans—Americans mostly but some Australians—men with long hair and beards, like Dennis himself then, carrying books by Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey or Kerouac, travel-worn paperbacks that were usually left behind for future visitors to read. These men, the veterans, were identified not only by their clothes, but by their military style of speech, a legacy Dennis carried too, and a singular expression in their eyes, one that betrayed a mild sort of shock and disbelief at the fact that they had somehow reached this point in their lives, that their time in the army was over, that they had survived it. They had lived one day at a time in Vietnam, counting down, and now that they were free no system would ever be able to contain them again—or so they believed. Dennis had believed it, too.

  There were many pleasant discussions in the course of those evenings, always over a bottle of wine and sometimes accompanied by a shared joint if the hostel was slack. Listening to the Americans, Dennis came to see how sheltered and circumscribed the Australian involvement had been in Phuoc Tuy Province compared to what the GIs had seen and done upcountry in the land of Montagnards, where brains were eaten raw from the heads of monkeys and tribes were even more primitive than those of New Guinea or South America.

  Later he had spent an expensive month in Switzerland, because the snow-peaked Alps and dry air were as far as he could possibly get from the tropics and everything they represented to him. At this stage, nearing the end of his year and with little money left, he believed that by the time he got back to Melbourne and a settled life the war would be out of his system, overshadowed by fresher memories of his travels. He had no idea what he would do for a living, but that was not important. This was the ’70s, and good times would roll. And it never occurred to him, taking the train through the St Gotthard Pass back towards Italy and his return flight from Rome that when he had eventually tired of unskilled jobs that led nowhere and met the girl who would become his first wife, he would apply to and be accepted by the Police Academy at Mount Waverley.

  He became aware that the man behind the counter was speaking, and turned with the empty soft drink bottle in his hand. He could not remember finishing it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The Cup. This will make a big difference.’

  ‘Yes, it will. Back the mud-runners. Or save your money.’

  The Melbourne Cup was the next day, but Dennis knew nothing about it this year. Normally he took an interest, was given tips which he then passed on. It went with the business.

  The rain was a dull thrumming on the roof now and the gutters spilled free and fast.

  He remembered why he was here, put the empty bottle on the counter and said, ‘I wanted to ask you something before, when the storm started.’ The man looked at him blankly.

  ‘Four nights ago,’ he said, ‘a Ford truck, an F350, was stolen from that car park across the road. Did you know tha
t?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man said brightly. ‘Police ask me about it.’

  ‘Did they really?’ This level of thoroughness genuinely caught him off-guard. ‘What did they ask you exactly?’

  The man just shrugged. ‘Whether I saw anyone steal the truck,’ he said simply. ‘I say no, and that’s it. Finish. They go.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Was your truck?’

  ‘No.’ Dennis hesitated, arranging words in his mind. He wanted to explain himself in an uncluttered but convincing way. ‘It was not my truck, but I am involved because of something that happened after it was stolen. For my own satisfaction I need information.’ He pointed to the car park. ‘I need very much to find out who drove that truck away from there. Anything you can tell me will be useful.’

  ‘Yes,’ the man said, nodding. It seemed to Dennis that he wanted to help, if he could.

  ‘For instance, while you were in your shop that night, did you notice anybody hanging around in a suspicious manner? Someone who might have been the thief? A stranger perhaps.’

  The man applied his memory to the task, took his time, but finally just shook his head. ‘Sorry. I didn’t see anyone like that.’

  ‘Sometime between about eight and ten-fifteen.’

  ‘No … No.’

  ‘Anything at all unusual, that caught your eye? Even for a moment.’

  The man folded his arms, studied the floor, then said again, ‘No.’ An apologetic smile followed. It seemed to Dennis that the man was genuinely regretful, and that something of the seriousness of these enquiries had been imparted to him.