Through a Camel's Eye

by Dorothy Johnston

  Of course, if she’d been in Melbourne, not wandering around asking for her ankle to be broken, then Graeme would have been there too, looking at the same lights, breathing the same air. It was the absolute contrast of night down here that got to you. Back there, even if she’d been alone, the city lights would have touched her with a human touch. Here there was nothing to answer, though it was not a wilderness she lived in, but a seaside town. She thought of the two single women she’d come across - Camilla Renfrew, Julie Beshervase. Out there, on the cliff top, the idea of walking Riza to his hiding place seemed more than plausible, the idea that Camilla might have taken him, out of love and loneliness, a distinct possibility.

  Anthea had been in such a hurry to begin her walk that she hadn’t remembered to leave her phone behind. It was still in her jacket pocket. She was as startled when it rang as if she’d never heard a mobile phone before.

  It was Graeme. What was she doing at the weekend? If the offer was still open, could he visit? See the local sights? He fancied a boat trip. What passed for entertainment down there on the Bellarine Peninsula?

  THIRTEEN

  Anthea held her phone to her ear, took a deep breath and glanced across at Graeme, who did not look up from the travel section of the Age.

  ‘I see,’ she said. But she didn’t see. How she could have been so stupid as not to tell Chris that Graeme was coming down? She couldn’t tell him now, with Graeme sitting opposite her, waiting for her to get rid of whoever was interrupting their breakfast.

  Julie’s waiting for you at the station was not a request: it was an instruction; and from the way Chris spoke, he wasn’t sorry for ruining her Saturday. But she’d never given him any cause for thinking this particular Saturday might be open to ruin.

  Still not looking up, Graeme said in a mild voice, prepared to be mollified, ‘Got it sorted then?’

  ‘I have to go in to work.’

  Graeme raised his dark blue eyes with an expression which asked what kind of emergency could possibly justify leaving him alone. Instead of replying immediately, he took his time to fold the paper, then pressed the long fingers of his right hand to his lips. Anthea imagined holding them. She took a gulp of air.

  ‘An old lady’s had an accident. She’s broken her leg. That was Constable - that was Chris - ringing from the hospital. I’m sorry. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Graeme could keep her there explaining for ten minutes. But the explanation would mean nothing to him, and would end in acrimony.

  ‘Take the spare key.’ Anthea was suddenly all energy, rummaging in a kitchen drawer. ‘Go for a walk. Just across the road, there’s a path that winds along the cliff.’

  She put the key in front of him, fearing what she would see if she raised her eyes. But then she did raise them. Graeme was smiling, it did not seem unkindly.

  ‘Hurry back,’ he said.

  Anthea fumbled with the car door and then the ignition. One of the traitorous thoughts that followed her along the narrow road was, why did Graeme pick this weekend, and why at such short notice? Perhaps his other plans had gone awry. She recalled his smile, pressed it to her eyelids. How ridiculous to assume he was incapable of amusing himself without her for an hour or two, or that she could be blamed for failing to amuse him. She told herself not to be so pessimistic.

  When Anthea pulled up in front of the station, Julie’s bike was outside, but there was no sign of Julie herself. Anthea inserted her key in the lock. She listened to her even footfalls, the creaking of the wooden floor, noticed the way Saturday morning light shone through the closed slats of Venetian blinds, the small solitary warmth that had collected behind them. She wondered how many police stations around the country were like this at the weekends - too small, too unimportant to be staffed.

  The phone startled her, then stopped ringing as she moved to answer it. Another sound, one she couldn’t immediately identify, was coming from the back. After checking to make sure she’d locked the front door behind her, Anthea walked at a normal pace along the corridor. Both office doors were shut and she did not stop to look into them. She opened the back door, but did not immediately step out onto the veranda. Instead, she let her eyes graze the backyard. Noticing a movement in the grass, right down near the fence, she thought of the neighbour’s cat, who spent long hours following the sun around, and sometimes left offerings of dismembered creatures on the steps. But the movements were too large for a cat.

  ‘Julie?’ she called.

  There was no answer, but the movements in the grass stopped. Anthea called again. Julie’s head emerged from the green tangle, against grey-brown slats of fence. Anthea had the illusion that the head was somehow growing out between them. It wasn’t until she had helped Julie inside, and made her strong, sweet tea, sitting close to her while she drank it, that the illusion disappeared, or that either of them spoke.

  Julie hunched forward, then looked up at Anthea. Grimy streaks on either side of her mouth were dirt mixed with saliva. Broken capillaries in her cheeks were those of a much older woman.

  Anthea put her arm around Julie’s shoulders, willing herself to stay calm, and to find the means to calm Julie down as well.

  Julie had found Camilla Renfrew on the track to Riza’s paddock, or claimed she had.

  ‘Had Mrs Renfrew been attacked?’ Anthea wished she’d asked Chris, but her mind had not been on Camilla and what had happened to her.

  Julie shrugged as if to say, are you accusing me? But it was an exhausted shrug, as though she had no energy left for anger or self-defence.

  She’d gone for a walk to watch the sunrise and had found Camilla on the path. Camilla had been conscious, but disoriented.

  ‘I didn’t expect her to speak. I mean, I know she can’t, but it seemed like she couldn’t hear me either. And she was so cold! I rang here. I had the number in my phone. I got a machine, but it had Constable Blackie’s number. When he got there, Camilla tried to talk, but nothing came out. The ambulance guys carried a stretcher up the path. If she wasn’t crazy before, she sure as hell is now.’

  ‘The pain - ’

  ‘Yeah, well, like, if it was you or me - can you imagine lying there all night?’

  A familiar stubbornness came back into Julie’s face. ‘What if she’s got Riza hidden somewhere? And now she’s in hospital. She won’t tell anybody where he is. He’ll die of thirst! He’ll starve to death!’

  ‘What were you doing on the path so early?’

  ‘I told you! I wanted to see the sunrise. There’s no law against it, is there? I couldn’t sleep, so I got up early.’

  Anthea thought of Graeme and wondered where he was. She made herself focus on Julie’s sunken features, on the smell, insinuating itself into her nostrils, of human flesh that had not been washed for days.

  ‘She’s dead!’ Julie cried. ‘That woman I saw. The river sicked her up!’

  Anthea reached for Julie’s hand. ‘It’ll be okay. Calm down. Show me where you found Camilla Renfrew.’

  The corner where Camilla had fallen was marked by broken twigs and churned up sand. Rocks and a huge tree root made the path much narrower. There was something foolishly wilful about venturing alone there in the dark. Anthea recalled her own night wanderings and stopped herself from checking her watch.

  Graeme hadn’t rung or sent a text.

  Julie stopped on the other side of the tree root, where the path curved sharply to the left.

  Anthea thought about the young woman’s temptation, out there on the track at dawn - Julie, who hated Camilla, with Camilla in her power. Julie was disturbed, mentally and emotionally, and there was only her word for the fact that she’d found Camilla lying injured. Presumably, when Camilla had recovered sufficiently, she would provide her own account of what had happened, in writing.

  At every gateway - country, town, and city - Anthea could imagine, if she wished, a woman desperate to escape.

  The flat was empty.
Anthea’s breath caught as she went from room to room. She picked up the spare key from the kitchen bench, then began looking for a note. She found it pinned to her pillow, a cruel gesture she would not have believed Graeme capable of, and that made her breathing so strained she had to sit down before she could read it. She didn’t want to sit on the bed, whose covers had been pulled up without it being properly made.

  ‘Hey Ant,’ the note began - Graeme’s nickname for her in childishly carefree days. ‘Couldn’t wait around I’m afraid. Call you later in the week.’ He’d simply signed it ‘G’.

  Anthea wanted to get into her car and follow him. It was as though the notion of compulsion had been introduced into the human repertoire for just such an event, and, with this leap into the future, she thought that perhaps she would never again owe allegiance to restraint. She imagined chasing Graeme up the highway in a police car, lights and siren daring other motorists to get in the way. She pictured herself arriving at his house. There wouldn’t be much time lag because of his laid-back approach to treachery, her unnatural speed.

  She was armed. She would confront him. The scene had such elemental power and rightness that the actions she willed herself towards left no room for doubt.

  Gradually, Anthea’s vision cleared. She told herself she could not spend the rest of the day alone in her flat. The cliff walk did not appeal because she’d suggested it to Graeme. Perhaps he’d taken her up on her suggestion. What if the walk that she’d begun to cherish had given a sufficient edge to Graeme’s boredom with her, sufficient, that is, for him to scribble off that note and leave?

  Characteristically, the break had not been expressed in clear terms. He should just have said ‘Goodbye.’

  Anthea’s car followed the by now familiar turns and ended up back at the station. Graeme’s betrayal felt like a stone in her stomach, replacing the food she’d gone without, taking up too much space. She felt sure that Chris, when he walked in, must see this.

  But Chris was full of the accident, the hospital, Camilla’s son Simon, who’d reacted with an irritation he hadn’t bothered to conceal to the news that his mother had broken her leg.

  ‘A piece of work,’ Chris called him, putting on a plummy voice. ‘My mother shouldn’t be living on her own. I’ve been trying to get her into a retirement home for years.’

  Anthea said, ‘Does he want her house?’

  ‘The money from it, possibly. I can’t see a man like that burying himself down here.’ Chris glanced at his assistant quickly, then away. He thought that she was looking pale and tired. ‘Of course, if he was rich enough he could keep it as a weekender, but I got the sense that Camilla’s son has a real aversion to Queenscliff.’

  Anthea was careful not to catch her boss’s eye. She made a pot of tea and he accepted a mug gratefully.

  ‘Oh, that’s the other thing. Simon took his mother to a specialist in Melbourne. Her lack of speech - it’s a medical mystery apparently.’

  ‘Could it be psychological? Perhaps she doesn’t want to talk.’

  ‘It’s possible. But when you see her struggling for words - well, what do you think?’

  Anthea took a few moments to answer. ‘I think Camilla wants to speak, but I don’t think she wants to be bullied into it.’

  Chris nodded, frowning, perhaps, at the recollection of a greedy son.

  Anthea related what Julie had told her about finding Camilla on the path.

  Chris listened, looking thoughtful. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anthea, surprised that her voice sounded normal. ‘Hungry. I missed lunch.’

  Chris did not ask what her plans had been for the day, and she felt relieved, certain that he’d recognise a lie.

  Anthea used the toilet, washed her hands and face, then stood leaning against the sink in the station’s small kitchen. The mug Julie had used was sitting on the draining board, but it seemed days, rather than hours, since she’d been there.

  She stood staring, bug-eyed, at the crockery. When she came back to the present, it was with the relatively harmless observation that her boss had never cultivated charm. But he was sensitive enough not to want to give offence, and to try and guess, in advance, what might cause it. Up until now, he’d never asked her a personal question.

  In Graeme, charm had replaced other qualities, like a coloniser squashing previous inhabitants.

  ‘It’s too late for lunch and too early for dinner.’

  Anthea turned around and smiled.

  ‘There should be an equivalent of brunch,’ she said. ‘A mid-afternoon meal that’s more substantial than tea and cakes.’

  ‘Right,’ Chris said, and then, ‘That Chinese along the Geelong Road’s open all day.’ He smiled back, patting his pockets. ‘After you.’

  FOURTEEN

  They were the only customers. ‘Diners,’ Anthea said solemnly. ‘We’re the only diners.’

  Egging one another on, they ordered enough for four people. The waiter showed no surprise at this, but the glances he gave them were wary, though neither was wearing a uniform.

  They voiced their fears for and about Julie Beshervase. It was Chris’s opinion that Julie was less reliable than Camilla, more inclined to lie if she thought she had anything to gain by it.

  ‘You don’t think she broke Camilla’s leg, do you?’

  No, Chris didn’t think so. But there was really no telling, with a wild one like that.

  Anthea put down her chopsticks. She liked eating with chopsticks and, when their food arrived, had decided not to be put off by the wince of embarrassment Chris offered her before taking up his knife and fork.

  ‘Do you think Riza’s dead?’ she asked.

  ‘I think he might be.’

  ‘Do you believe his death is related to Margaret Benton’s?’

  ‘I said I thought he might be dead, that’s all. But yes, in answer to your question, I believe it is.’

  When Anthea had collected her car from the station and gone home, Chris made himself another cup of tea and drank it on the back veranda. A big meal like that should have made him feel sleepy, but he wasn’t sleepy. His senses were alert and his mind flicked from one set of problems to another. He wondered if he should have found out what was bothering Anthea, but she’d made it clear she didn’t want him to pry. She’d looked so white and strained; her small face had been pulled tight, to hold together whatever was going on behind it.

  Chris’s thoughts returned to Simon Renfrew and the interview he knew he’d handled badly. He reflected that, of all the circumstances under which he could have arranged to question Camilla’s son, the way it turned out had been the least likely to produce a satisfactory result. He was annoyed with himself for not having spoken to Simon earlier, for having put it off till now, when his mother’s broken leg was an added complication.

  Chris had seen immediately that Simon was the sort of man used to dominating any gathering he happened to find himself in, even a gathering of two when the other individual was a policeman. First, there was his size. He was a good seven centimetres taller than Chris, who marvelled that a small, slight woman could have produced such a thumper. He understood that Simon was the kind of man who, having reached a peak of sporting prowess by the end of high school, too young to have learnt the relativity of any success, and no doubt confident that his would go on forever, had blamed the world when this turned out not to be the case. A sulky dissatisfaction in his eyes and around his heavy shoulders looked to be habitual, hinting at people and situations that went on letting him down.

  Simon’s features had taken on an attitude of boredom when Chris asked him how often he thought he’d be able to get down to see his mother. Then Chris had asked about the possibility of transferring Camilla to a Melbourne hospital, to make it easier for her son to visit, and had the satisfaction of watching an expression of alarm take over.

  Simon’s face would resist ageing; every muscle would resist it; but that challenge was still some years away. His straight
fair hair was the type that thinned early. This realisation gave Chris a small, uncharitable satisfaction, till it occurred to him that his own hair was of a similar type. He recalled the café where they’d talked, how tense Simon had been inside the hospital and how his muscles had visibly relaxed after they’d walked through the main section to an outdoor eating area, decorated with plants in raised, brick-surrounded beds.

  The sun had shone down warmly on the paving stones, and on the children’s corner with its moulded plastic blocks and climbing frame. Chris had bought coffee for them both. They’d sat facing the You Yangs, and an oil tanker making its way across to the refinery. Chris had liked being on a level with the treetops. He could have gone on quite happily drinking his coffee, but he wished he’d been more adept at handling Simon.

  FIFTEEN

  Swan Bay caravan park was on the Geelong-Queenscliff road, well placed to attract visitors to the Bellarine Peninsula. The McIntyres had left most of the trees in front to provide a screen from the dust and noise of traffic. The cabins and van sites weren’t cramped close together; between them trees and bushes had been used to good effect as well. It occurred to Chris that noise within the cabins - noise of an argument, for instance - would be muted. The place was clean and well maintained. He knew Penny was worried about the lack of custom, and he didn’t want to add to her worries; but that couldn’t be helped.

  When Chris knocked on the office door and asked if he could have another word with Ben, Penny said he’d taken the dog for a walk around Swan Bay.

  Chris hurried away before she could insist on being present when he questioned her son.

  Once out the gates, he forced himself to face his fear. He was about to make himself do something he hated, all because he wanted to catch Ben on his own.

  Chris was of an age and class of man who did not believe in therapy. He believed in getting on with it. This belief, or lack of belief, had been a source of corrosive disagreement with his mother, never openly expressed. Born in the Otways, never having learnt to swim as a child, Fiona Blackie had been, for all of Chris’s life, and certainly before it too, frightened of the water. To give his mother her due, she’d tried hard not to pass on this fear to her only son. He’d had swimming lessons. He’d been encouraged, even forced against his will at times, to do what other boys did. It hadn’t worked. He’d endured the lessons, and absorbed the emotions that lay beneath his mother’s strained encouragement.