Matthew Flinders' Cat

by Bryce Courtenay

  Con had his back to Billy but now he turned and met his eyes. ‘Jesus Christos!’ he yelled. ‘Billy, Billy, my good friends, thank Gods you is come back!’ Con’s broad face was wreathed in a huge smile though Billy could see the sudden tears in his eyes. He pointed to the coffee and bread. ‘You look, Billy. Always, every days I puts the coffee. Every bloody days, myte! Fingers buns also. Every bloody days!’ He emerged from behind the counter and embraced Billy, giving him a great bear hug. ‘Billy, Billy, where you gone, myte?’ Con Poleondakis sobbed.

  ‘Con, I thought we should try to clear up the misunderstanding that occurred with the boy,’ Billy said, pleased and relieved at Con’s effusive welcome.

  Con pulled away from Billy and lowered his eyes, shaking his head slowly. ‘Billy, you no clears nothings up, me, I clear, I am stupid Greek man and I am bloody ashame, myte. My wife she says, “Constantine, you find Billy, he help you, you find him, he good man. I want to thanks him for my life to come to Astraalie.”’

  ‘Wife? She’s arrived?’ Billy cried, delighted at the news. Con beamed. ‘She’s a beautifuls, myte, like a Goddess!’

  ‘Young and beautiful, what more could you want, eh, Con?’

  Con pursed his lips. ‘Maybe not so youngs, Billy, but Goddess for cookings. Halva, loukoumathes, stafithopitta, tiropitta, spanakopitta, pasticcio.’ He reeled the names off as he pointed to a display case under the counter, ‘Everythings she is makings.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Also she is Goddess for the house and the bed, first class in da cot, myte, fair dinkums, put down your glass!’

  ‘That’s great, Con, I’m glad it turned out well.’

  ‘Tonight you come. She’s cookings what you like, Greek lambs? Maria, she’s cooking Greek lambs and rice, arni a la hasapa, you come tonight, Billy! Firsts class tucker, myte.’

  ‘I thought her name was Sophia!’

  ‘No, no, Sophia that her sister, she dead now, but she sends photograph of her sister because also she look like dat one, only she don’t have photograph for herselfs.’

  ‘But that was a picture of a young girl?’ Con shrugged. ‘That photographs they takes nineteen sixty-eight, myte.’

  Billy laughed. ‘As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters, Con.’

  Con spread his hands and Billy thought he was going to embrace him once again. ‘Happy like Larries, myte. In two day she makes dat coffee machine nearly good like me. You come tonight, we have Greek wine, we all happy like pig in shits.’

  ‘I’m on the wagon, Con. I don’t drink now,’ Billy said quietly. It was the first time he’d admitted it aloud to someone he’d known and he could feel his heart beating faster.

  Before Billy could escape, Con had embraced him again, hugging him to his large chest. ‘Bloody beauties, myte, congratulations! We drink grapes juice, Greek grapes juice.’ He pulled away and kissed the tips of his fingers. ‘Beautifuls, bloody oaths!’

  ‘Thank you, Con, I can’t come before half-past eight. I have to go to a meeting to help me get better.’ Billy was running out of time and it was the only way he could think to explain AA without having to go into a lot of detail.

  ‘Here, you take your coffee, Billy. I see you tonight, half-pasts eight o’clock, I meets you this place, New Hellas Cafe. Black Mercedes, okay?’

  Billy took the coffee, bread and the finger bun. He would have just enough time to consume both before the AA meeting and he’d have to make his ammunition later. ‘Thanks, Con, I’m glad we’re friends again.’

  Con was silent for a moment. ‘Billy, tonight, you brings dat boy, no worries, myte.’

  ‘Thank you, Con, but I can’t. I’ll talk to you about him tonight.’ Billy started to walk away.

  ‘Billy!’ Con called after him. Billy turned. ‘You my fren, fair dinkums, myte.’ He thought Con was going to cry again.

  The breakfast meeting was much the same as the one the previous night though there were several new faces. Billy also asked Don if he might have some literature on the Twelve Steps before he decided to attend a step meeting. He realised that he should probably embrace the program, which was the same as the one he would have completed on a compulsory basis over seven months if he’d gone to the Salvation Army hostel at St Peters. Don had greeted Billy with sincerity and Billy was beginning to realise that a missing face at a meeting was a potential tragedy and an attendant one a small victory for everyone. All these men and women shared both their hopes and fears, and the collective will and close bonding was an important factor in staying sober. He told himself he dare not miss a meeting.

  It was another bright morning and the walk up to The Station, the day refuge for the homeless, after the meeting was pleasant. The sky was a perfect wash of blue. Alas, when he arrived at The Station, Sally Blue wasn’t at the desk and he was greeted by a pleasantlooking woman who appeared to be in her forties. Allowing the blue-eyed Sally to be the first to sign his plastered arm must have had the desired effect because when he inquired after her, the new woman said she’d left to join a computer company. Billy recalled how guilty he’d felt at breaking his promise to Ryan.

  ‘May I inquire if there is any mail for me? It’s Billy, Billy O’Shannessy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, a letter for O’Shannessy,’ the new receptionist replied. ‘It’s been here a while, I remember it clearly because of the beautiful copperplate handwriting on the envelope.’ She started to sort through a pile of letters. ‘Here we are,’ she said finally, handing Billy an envelope. She was right. The address on the envelope looked like something out of an early nineteenthcentury legal document. Billy turned to look at the flip side of the envelope, on which was written:

  Trevor Williams

  Lot 36 Murtee

  Via Wilcannia,

  NSW, 2836

  Trevor Williams was full of surprises. There was no question that the writing was that of an educated hand. The receptionist, who’d introduced herself as Toni Frazer, said, ‘There’s also a parcel for you, Billy, hang on and I’ll get it.’ She left reception and returned a minute or so later, holding an ordinary plastic bag to which was pinned an envelope with his name typed on it.

  Billy looked into the bag to see that it was the old dressing-gown Sally Blue had brought for him from home. He opened the envelope smiling. Except for her signature, the words were typed.

  Dear Billy,

  I got the job. Thanks for bringing me luck. This is your old dressing-gown, I just didn’t want anyone else to have it. All the best,

  Love,

  Sally Blue

  Computer Guru

  Billy asked if he might have a towel and then went through to the bathroom where he shaved and showered. His clothes were rather grubby from sitting in the alley the previous night so he put them through the washing machine and the drier, ironing and then changing into the spare khaki pants he’d acquired at William Booth and the blue shirt he’d found at the Wayside Chapel. Somehow he’d managed to cram both garments into the remaining space in his briefcase. Brushing what he laughingly referred to as his hair, he felt finally ready to open the letter from Trevor Williams.

  Dear Billy,

  I am writing on behalf of my husband Trevor Williams who does not count letter writing among his many skills as a bushman.

  On the other hand, I am a trained school teacher and jolly well should know how to compose a letter. As a girl in Ireland my pater always said, ‘Girl, the Irish are a people to whom words come naturally. To write a sound letter is the first requirement of a good mind.’

  Well, I don’t know so much about that, but we were overjoyed to get your letter and to know that you would help to find our daughter.

  When you asked for details of her appearance, I asked Trevor what he had told you and he scratched his head and mumbled that he couldn’t rightly recall.

  ‘Did you give Billy her name?’ I asked.

  ‘Bugge
red if I can remember,’ he replied.

  ‘Maybe not, eh?’

  I suspected as much. He always refers to her as ‘my little daughter’. I often wonder if he remembers her name, which is Caroline.

  Caroline has dark hair, though it is perfectly straight like my own. I am sometimes referred to as Black Irish. During Sir Francis Drake’s victory over the Spanish Armada, a great many Spanish ships were wrecked on the coast of Ireland. The fairhaired Irish women took rather a fancy to the dark handsome sailors and, as the saying goes, one thing led to another and today some Irish are of a dark complexion, myself among them. Although Caroline has fair skin, she has dark eyes. They’re beautiful eyes and, like her father’s people, seem to see everything.

  It is a difficult task trying to describe someone you love, even one’s own daughter. We, of course, think she’s pretty and I enclose a photograph, though it was taken when she graduated from the Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide some eight years ago and I don’t think it will help much in an attempt to identify her. Oh dear, so very much has changed.

  If it helps, people have always thought of her as very attractive, some say beautiful. She is slim and is, I think, about five feet six inches tall (she’s been taller than Trevor and myself since she was fifteen). Oh yes, I almost forgot, she has a mouth that seems at first bigger than it should be, very much like the actress Julia Roberts. As Trevor will have told you, she once used it to sing rather well.

  As to identity marks, it probably doesn’t help much to know she has a small birthmark on her right buttock about the size of a ten-cent piece and it looks remarkably like the head of a man, maybe a Roman emperor, because there is even the suggestion of a laurel wreath upon his head. I don’t suppose she’d happily bare her bottom for you, though.

  There is only one other thing that will identify her without question. When Caroline was eight she was bitten by a brown snake (King Brown) directly on the Achilles tendon and Trevor sliced the bite open and sucked out the poison. Caroline recovered but limped about for months and Trevor was sick for nearly three weeks, but what remains of this experience is a thin, white, slightly jagged line where Trevor’s pocketknife sliced down the Achilles. If you find her and she will bare her heel for you, this would be positive identification.

  Billy, we are so very grateful to you for even agreeing to try to locate Caroline. These last five years have been very sad for both Trevor and myself, we love her very much and only wish that she will come back to us. If my tears could bring her back, then she would be washed home on the crest of a tidal wave.

  Trevor and I will, of course, travel to Sydney on a moment’s notice should you have any success. We quite understand that the chances of finding Caroline are very slim and that Trevor’s travelling to Sydney on the last attempt to find her wasn’t very well-advised. But he’s a bushie and stubborn as hell and you can’t tell him anything, even if it’s for his own good. I’m pleased to say that he’s well and completely recovered.

  Trevor tells me that you are a great man, the finest whitefella he has ever met. If he says so, then I am happy to agree with him. Trevor doesn’t hand out too many bouquets, black or white. The last person who got one from him was Eddie Mabo. Trevor reckons his mob on Murray Island stuck to their guns on Aboriginal land rights and ‘they’re fair dinkum heroes’. When he told me about you returning his money I can understand why he feels the way he does. You must have an extraordinarily generous and loving nature.

  I apologise for this rather rambling letter. I know I haven’t been very specific even though Caroline is my daughter. You think you know every inch of your child’s body, which you’ve held and cherished since she was clutched to your breast as an infant. Suddenly you realise she is a stranger. The soft, innocent parts you kissed and pampered have long since gone away, turned into muscle and sinew.

  Unfortunately we’re not on the phone or fax out here as this is only a shearing camp, but a letter will eventually reach us.

  We both send our sincerest good wishes to you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Whether you find Caroline or not, the fact that you are willing to try fills our hearts with goodwill towards you.

  We remain your friends whatever happens,

  Trevor and Bridgit Williams

  P.S. Trevor says to tell you he’s started on ‘The Ballad of Billy O’Shannessy’ and it’s coming along ‘real nice’.

  B.W.

  P.P.S. Careless. I forgot to tell you that Caroline is twenty-eight years old.

  Billy smiled as he completed reading the letter. Trevor, he thought, despite the terrible tragedy of his daughter, was a lucky man. Bridgit Williams seemed a strong woman and he could feel her affection for Trevor in her letter. He examined the photograph of Caroline. It showed a very attractive young girl in cap and gown, though it was a full shot and taken at some distance. It would be difficult to make a match if she’d changed a fair bit since it had been taken, as Bridgit Williams had suggested.

  He thought of Morgan asking him to visit his de facto and, from his description, it just might be a fortunate coincidence. Although the names were not the same, Morgan’s partner calling herself Kartanya, the fact that she was part-Aborigine and also a singer seemed to fit and Billy told himself that she may well have used an Aboriginal name, which was common enough among many of the younger liberated indigenous women.

  Morgan had said that Kartanya’s forebears came from the Kaura tribe on the Adelaide plains. Caroline had been educated at the Adelaide Conservatorium and Trevor may well have originated from the Kaura tribe. Wilcannia and Broken Hill, the area he now lived in, were closer to the Adelaide plains than they were to Sydney.

  While Billy knew he must make the search for Ryan his immediate priority, Morgan had left him his girlfriend’s phone number and address and he decided he would visit her as soon as he could possibly arrange a time.

  In fact, Billy was finding himself with little disposable time, which was a good thing, he supposed. It meant he didn’t have too many idle moments to think about his craving for drink. One thing he told himself he must persist with, under all circumstances, was his routine. He must only substitute the time he would have normally taken up drinking with something else.

  Billy knew that he was a creature of habit, that he was apt to panic when his routine altered. It was a strange contradiction in his personality. As a lawyer his mind had been famously agile, constantly capable of speculation that more often than not proved to be accurate. He had been known for his ability to remorselessly follow a convoluted argument, setting mental traps on the way and exploring the dark corners in the minds of others, discovering the secrets they hoped to conceal.

  But, paradoxically, in the physical world, he craved order without complication. It was the reason he had wanted the button sewn back onto his shirt when Davo had come to his rescue. It was unlikely that any of the other alcoholics at William Booth would have even noticed it missing from a garment they were wearing. Billy would only be able to attempt to track Morgan’s partner in what he considered the time previously occupied with grog.

  Perhaps this was selfish, an allocation of time that best suited him, but Billy knew that unless he was very careful he could easily lose the plot. Rigid adherence to a plan was required. He reasoned that to aimlessly wander around the Cross, hoping that he might run into Ryan, wasn’t a sensible way to behave. He felt sure sooner or later Ryan would find him. That he had only to stick to his routine and the boy would eventually sniff him out. That was, of course, if he wanted to do so.

  He’d do all the sensible things, leave Ryan’s name and description at all the food vans and refuges, such as Father Riley’s group. He would also maintain his vigil in the lane at night. The Sheba sex club was the only connection he had to the boy’s mother. Freddo’s description of what happened to kids of Ryan’s age who suddenly found themselves on the street was the gloomiest of all possible
speculations, but the sex club and what lay concealed behind it was the one very fragile and tenuous connection he possessed and he was obliged to maintain his observation.

  Billy’s speculative mind had put together a scenario which, for once in his life, he hoped from the bottom of his heart, was incorrect. If Ryan’s mother had been ill with Hepatitis C, as had been the case, and if she had desperately needed heroin and was too weak to get out of bed to make a connection with her supplier, as had also been the case, then she may have begged Ryan to procure it for her. Assuming that Ryan was initially successful, her need for heroin would soon have left him without any money. With no money to buy heroin, Ryan had gone to Dorothy Flanagan for some of Billy’s funds. He had failed and thereafter had tried to flog his grandmother’s wedding ring and locket and his own skateboard. Billy further reasoned that Ryan couldn’t have needed the money for food, he’d get that easily enough from the Just Enough Faith van. There could only be one possible reason why he needed the money. Dorothy Flanagan’s instinct had been correct, it was to feed his mother’s addiction.

  Billy now attempted to think out the rest of the scenario. Based on what Freddo had told him, Ryan’s mother would tell the boy where to go, where they might give him heroin. Freddo had said that most addicts get their shit away from home, he’d suggested Ryan’s mother probably got it at the place where she worked. As an exotic dancer, she was a freelancer at The Queen of Sheba, among other places. It was just possible that her dealer came from there, the heroin supplied to her by the proprietor or one of his henchmen, a doorman, someone like that.

  Billy was aware that he was drawing a long bow, that a small boy trying to obtain heroin for his mother was an unusual circumstance. But he also knew heroin addicts had no conscience, all that mattered was that they fed their habit. They’d steal, lie and betray and it was even possible that a mother might use, even sacrifice, her son to satisfy her craving.

  Billy hated himself for his next hypothesis but his legal mind was forced to make it. Ryan goes to The Queen of Sheba and Mohammed Suleman, the Assyrian proprietor, sees this tender little boy. Ryan was a beautiful-looking child and, with ‘the club’ out back, the notorious crim might agree that heroin could be supplied ‘under certain conditions’. Billy winced inwardly, ashamed for even thinking in such a way. He prayed that it was merely his febrile imagination that was taking him to places he didn’t want to go. His fervent hope was that Ryan had simply panicked when he heard the police were after him and was hiding in a squat somewhere, hungry and miserable, but safe from such vile predators.