Long Gone the Corroboree

by Tony Parsons

  As for me, being the daughter of a top medico had taught me a thing or two and I had a sneaking suspicion that all had not been well with Clayton Steele. The big question was whether any of us would ever see Steele again.

  Chapter Two

  I had a unit in North Sydney and went back to the old home at Killara very infrequently; I couldn’t face living there again full-time after I lost Dad and Mum. One day, perhaps I’d live there again, but in the meantime, I had a fellow come every three weeks or so to mow the lawns and do other odd jobs, while I went there just about every weekend to water the garden. The lawns were extensive and there were nice shady nooks and swings. It was in a quiet street, so traffic noise was minimal. If you were planning on rearing children and also had to live in the Sydney region, then the Killara property had a lot going for it.

  My North Sydney unit was another world entirely. It was close to Sydney’s heart so travelling wasn’t a problem, at least in terms of distance from most of what mattered in business and the media. That’s if you didn’t mind the thousands of vehicles that cluttered every road in and out of Sydney and its environs. While my unit wasn’t far from Shelley’s, my furniture was functional rather than luxurious. But of course, I didn’t have to entertain the kind of people that inhabited her world. I had a couple of comfortable lounge chairs but they certainly weren’t in white leather.

  When I returned to my unit after visiting Shelley, I sat down on one of my chairs, kicked off my shoes and tried to unwind. For the first time in many years, I felt I could really relax. All through my education I’d been aware that Dad had expected big things from me. After we lost my brother, I was regarded as the hope of the family. Hugh had been brilliant, so I had big shoes to fill. Dad had expected me to do medicine like him and was transparently disappointed when I told him I wasn’t interested and wanted to do journalism. But a person can’t live one’s life for someone else. You can try but it isn’t a recipe for happiness, and I wanted to be happy in my work because I’d always thought I’d need to work for a long time. Fortunately, I’d been strong enough to stand up to Dad and I think he respected me for it. The main reason I’d opted for journalism was that I had a secret ambition to be a novelist. I’d never told him that I wanted to write books; to talk about such an ambition seemed premature because it’s a tough field and I still wanted to experience more of the world so I had something worth writing about. And that was how I’d stumbled into writing some environmental articles and first discovered Clayton Steele’s work.

  For several days, I tried to put the author’s disappearance right out of my mind, well, as much as I could when it was the major subject on my agenda. I went to the theatre, took in a couple of movies, drove up to the Blue Mountains to inspect Norman Lindsay’s old home and contents and went to dinner with some of the old gang. I was soon bored stiff and realised for the umpteenth time that I wasn’t cut out for idleness. My parents’ estate had been finalised, with most of the money invested, and it was going to bring me in more income than I’d been earning as a journo without having to lift a finger. I didn’t need to work but I did have to do something. The first ideas for a book were floating around in my head and there was also the urge to do some travelling. The problem was that travelling on one’s own was no longer safe, unless it was to civilised places, and there was doubt about even them. But civilised places seemed a little boring, offering little challenge to a woman looking for new experiences.

  It was in this mood of indecision about what I should do next that I picked up and began to read Clayton Steele’s first novel. I’d previously read his third novel because the subject matter interested me but now I proposed to read his four novels sequentially to try and establish whether there were any common themes. Maybe, just maybe, there was something in Steele’s books that would give me an insight into the man and his disappearance. I had my suspicions but nothing solid. It was a real puzzle and made more so because of Steele’s failure to disclose his intentions to his next of kin. If he wasn’t ill, which was the horse I was currently backing, when would he reappear and where would it be?

  Searching for insight, I read Steele’s books one after the other and after sixteen hundred pages of wonderful writing, I was none the wiser. As far as I was concerned, the books didn’t reveal any clues as to his whereabouts. Or, if there were clues, they hadn’t jumped out at me. I made copious notes – university had taught me well how to dissect large quantities of text – and I was full of admiration for Steele’s skill in putting a book together. However, the sad fact was that until I recorded my notes onto my computer, I felt that all I had achieved was a big fat zero. My computer document suggested otherwise. As I reread my notes, I homed right in on Steele’s numerous references to the need to be in isolation when working on major projects. There was also reference to whether a man could develop the willpower to live alone as a pathway to inner peace and satisfaction, and the discipline required to do so. Although mentioned more than once, they were in no sense major themes of his books, which were concerned with far greater issues. But they were there and I felt that they could have some significance. In the past, Steele had secreted himself in a lonely hut in the Blue Mountains while he wrote one of his books. And now, he’d disappeared completely. If he wasn’t desperately ill or dead, and surely we’d know if the latter was the case, it seemed to me that Steele was most likely to be holed up somewhere while he wrote another masterpiece.

  I kept on analysing my notes and my probing on isolation threw up what was a sub-theme of Steele’s last novel: the desire of a man facing death from leukaemia to live out his last months in a wilderness area where his physical disintegration would be unobserved. Was it merely a coincidence that Steele had disappeared, or had his book been a final harbinger of his intention to disappear? Was that the reason he’d directed the royalties of that last book to the Salvation Army… because he wouldn’t be needing the money? Was Clayton Steele now living out the scenario contained in his last novel?

  I didn’t want to think of Clayton Steele in that kind of situation. It was scary. And as a journalist, I wanted to be able to unearth him fit and well so that I would be able, in the best journalistic tradition, to break the news to all and sundry.

  I climbed out of my chair and strode across the room to get my phone, punching Camilla Steele’s number into the keypad.

  “It’s Gillian Brooker, Camilla. Did your brother ever speak to you about his health?”

  “Not a word, Gillian. Do you have a special reason for asking?”

  “Not in so many words. It developed from something Shelley told me. She said your brother looked and felt tired, and I fancy the lovemaking might have tailed off a bit towards the end. I’ve been analysing some notes I made from reading Clay’s four books and there are some interesting results. Maybe I’m over-reacting and there’s nothing in it, but I’d like to follow it through. Do you know if Clay saw a doctor at all?”

  There was momentary silence while Camilla Steele considered my question. “Now that I think about it, I fancy Clayton might have gone to the GP who took over from our old family doctor at Balgowlah. I think it was a Doctor McLennan. I remember his name now because Clay mentioned him once and said that he’d been a rugby international,” Camilla said.

  “Bless you, Camilla,” I said and hung up.

  If I hadn’t had solid experience interviewing all manner of people, I wouldn’t have had the courage to make an appointment with Doctor McLennan for other than medical reasons. The doctor had a formidable persona. He was a huge man with a rather fleshy face that sat on a substantial neck. He had direct grey eyes, thinning sandy hair and one of his ears could have been in better shape, while it was obvious that his nose wasn’t shaped quite as well as it had been originally. I found him intimidating before he’d opened his mouth. This wasn’t surprising because quite a few opposing rugby players had no doubt found him to be exactly the same.

  The big medico positively bristled when he learned that I was
n’t there to see him medically. Moreover, when I told him that I was trying to locate Clayton Steele, his grey eyes became distinctly frosty. I rushed on before he had the chance to berate me. “Could you tell me if Mr Steele came to see you and if he was ill… seriously ill?” I managed to get out before he put up his hand and stopped me.

  “Miss Brooker, you must appreciate that I can’t reveal patient information to anyone, especially to someone who appears to be engaged in a private investigation about one of them,” Doctor McLennan said sternly.

  “I understand medical ethics quite well, Doctor McLennan. My father was a Macquarie Street surgeon of some standing,” I told him. I’d often found that it was an advantage to mention my late father’s name when dealing with doctors.

  “That wouldn’t have been Miles Brooker, would it?” McLennan asked in a slightly less icy tone.

  I nodded and I imagined his eyes softened.

  The doctor sat back in his chair. “I was sorry to hear about his death. Doctor Brooker was an outstanding surgeon and a very fine man.”

  “He wasn’t a bad father either,” I said. “The thing is that Clayton Steele has been gone for some time and nobody knows where he is, not even his mother or his sister or, for that matter, his publishers. Steele directed that the royalties from his last book be paid to the Salvation Army, which, you would have to admit, was very odd behaviour for a person living off the returns of his writing. That could suggest that he was ill and didn’t expect to be needing those royalties,” I said.

  “What’s your interest in Mr Steele’s whereabouts, Miss Brooker?” McLennan asked.

  “I simply want to find him or, in the worst instance, what’s happened to him. I don’t have to but I want to. I never met Steele but his absence is worrying a few people, including his mother and sister, and as I have time on my hands, I thought that trying to locate Steele would be a worthwhile undertaking. I’m not working for a paper now so it’s for purely personal reasons,” I said.

  McLennan rubbed his thickened nose between two fingers before he spoke again. “All I’m prepared to tell you is that Mr Steele came to me. I gave him some advice and he said he would follow it but not in Australia.”

  “Do you know where he went?” I asked him.

  “I fancy it was the United States,” McLennan said.

  “Could he be cured?” I asked.

  “Sick people are often cured,” he said noncommittally.

  “You couldn’t tell me exactly where Mr Steele would have gone? I mean, which hospital?” I asked with more hope than expectation of receiving a favourable answer.

  “No, I couldn’t. If Mr Steele had wanted his whereabouts known, he’d have told people,” McLennan said bluntly.

  “Thank you, doctor, you’ve been a big help. You’ve confirmed my view, too,” I said and gave him my best smile. It was supposed to be rather special and I think it softened him a mite further. Well, he had been helpful because despite not telling me anything specific, he’d hinted at more than I’d been able to unearth elsewhere.

  “I hope you find him and that he’s all right when you do,” McLennan said more congenially. But despite his softer manner, I still couldn’t imagine anyone ever having enjoyed playing rugby against him.

  Back at my unit, I considered the implications of the information Doctor McLennan had given me. Knowing that Clayton Steele was probably in America was marginally better than knowing he was in Russia or Africa. However, setting aside Hawaii and Alaska, there were 48 other states in America and it was highly likely that every one of those states had at least one really outstanding hospital, with a number not much inferior. If it was leukaemia or testicular cancer, which one of Shelley’s remarks suggested, there were sure to be some hospitals that had greater expertise in these areas than others. But trying to find Steele would still be like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The big question was whether I should go to the US to search for Steele, expending the kind of money such a search would entail and maybe not find him, or call it quits. I really couldn’t justify that kind of personal expense on a whim. Also, it had been some time since Steele had disappeared and by now he could be on his last legs, as my mother used to say about her ancient rellies. I thought it unlikely that Steele was dead because this fact would have been made known to the Australian authorities and the media would certainly have picked up on it.

  And then, a very strange thing happened. Well, it wasn’t so much strange as a stroke of luck, one of those fortuitous occurrences that can change your life and ultimately, it changed mine. It so happened that I was watching a prominent Israeli author being interviewed on the ABC and I heard Clayton Steele’s name mentioned. The author, David Leibmann, mentioned that Steele had paid him a visit in Israel not long prior to his, Leibmann’s, departure for Australia. They had discussed many things and it had been a very fruitful couple of days.

  I was so buoyed by this piece of news that I wanted to let out a loud ‘whoopee’. I now knew that Steele was alive and, evidently, well enough to travel. I wonder if I can get to Leibmann? was my first thought.

  The ABC wouldn’t tell me where Leibmann was staying and when I finally traced him, he’d already left for home. Undeterred, I rang the Israeli Embassy and they told me they were prepared to forward a letter on to Leibmann. So, I wrote the letter, emailed it to the Embassy and six weeks later, received a brief reply from Leibmann. He told me that his friend, Clayton Steele, was in good health after treatment in the United States. He’d stayed at a kibbutz near Leibmann’s home for a little while, both to bolster his recovery and to learn something about horticulture. Steele’s intention at that time was to return to Australia via France, India and Nepal. Leibmann couldn’t tell me how long Steele intended to be out of Australia, as he had no definite timetable, but that he’d be staying with fellow authors in France and India.

  At least he’s alive and well enough to trip around, I thought.

  I rang Camilla, Shelley and Brenda to give them this additional information, just as I had as soon as I heard about Steele being in Israel. They all sounded greatly relieved, as they, like me, felt that he must’ve been well enough if he was able to stand up to the demands of travelling, especially in India and Nepal.

  I’d asked Camilla for her mother’s email address and sat down and wrote her. I told her what I’d been doing and asked her if she had any idea where her son might stay in France and India. I waited expectantly for a reply, though I suppose I had a cheek writing to Steele’s mother in such a way because I wasn’t a friend of the family or one of Steele’s past girlfriends.

  In fact, the reply came quite quickly, which was, I felt, mostly due to the fact that Camilla had put in a good word about me to her mother. Emma Steele wrote that she was very pleased and relieved to hear that her son was apparently in good health, though he had never let on that he was ill so I’d spilt the beans on that score. She told me that there was an old writer/philosopher by the name of Bernard Latterais who’d been a great friend of her late husband and with whom Clayton had corresponded for years. Latterais lived somewhere in the Provence region of France but she didn’t know his exact whereabouts. I sighed. More detective work.

  If I hadn’t been a journo, and a determined one, at this stage, I might have given up on locating Steele. But I decided to have another bash at locating him and rang the French Embassy. They wouldn’t give me Latterais’ address so I spent several long hours googling until I’d unearthed what I was looking for. Unfortunately, I’d have to use snail mail to contact him because no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find a phone number or email address for Monsieur Latterais.

  By the time my letter reached Provence, Steele had been and gone, swallowed up in India. I adhered to my original decision that India was far too big for me to tackle and I hated the idea of climbing even small mountains in Nepal, let alone large ones. I could hike up and down the Himalayas and still be no nearer to finding Steele. For all I knew, the fellow could be leading
a monastic life in some out-of-the-way valley that few people knew even existed.

  I was beaten. I’d done all I could do for the time being, which was what I relayed to Camilla. She thought I had done ‘bloody well’ and said I shouldn’t be downhearted by not being able to take my search any further.

  “Clay will return to Australia when he’s good and ready,” Camilla assured me.

  I was still intrigued about what Steele would do if and when he returned to Australia. If he came back, as he probably would because he was supposed to love the place so much, would he return quite openly, or would he continue to maintain his anonymity? With Australia’s land area roughly equivalent to that of the United States, there were plenty of places where Steele could hide himself if he really wanted to. But as large an area as it was, finding someone in Australia didn’t present the same problems as in the United States. I’m not suggesting that it’s easy to find people who don’t want to be found, because of course it’s not, but with my Australian journalistic contacts, there were ways and means of tracking people down. Whether this would prove to be the case with Clayton Steele remained to be seen.

  Once again, I recalled the conversation I’d had with my friends about the possibility of remaining anonymous in Australia. Would Steele hide himself in some out-of-the-way place or would he come back to Sydney and resume his writing career there? It seemed that Steele was a law unto himself, so there was no telling what he might do. Would there be another best-selling novel and would he go back to Shelley? The first was a distinct possibility because Steele was a hugely talented writer, but I doubted very much that he’d go back to Shelley Carruthers.