White Meat

by Peter Corris

  I did as I was told. I rolled a cigarette and fiddled with the tape recorder. It seemed to be working alright, drawing power from the batteries and responding to all buttons. I smoked and waited while the morning heated up. Sweat was soaking into my collar when Penny got back. She climbed in and unrolled a bundle.

  “Chic, isn’t it?”

  She held up a pale green, front-buttoning, belted dress with yellow piping.

  “Terrific. Your size?”

  “Close enough. We’ll have to go back to town, I’ll need a scarf and some sneakers.”

  We drove back to the shopping centre and bought the things and a pillow case and a plastic bucket. On the way back I showed her how the tape recorder worked. She nodded, wrapped the machine in the pillow case and put it in the bucket. She changed clothes in the back of the car and left her platform soles, slacks and top on the back seat with her coat. I drove to the service entrance of the hospital and let her out. She stood beside the car while I told her what I wanted to learn from Trixie Baker. I gave her two hours and she didn’t argue about it. She pointed to a park bench near a small copse artfully contrived by the landscape gardener.

  “There, in two hours.” The sheer confidence in her voice made me look at her carefully. She’d moved into the role already, her shoulders were slumped and she carried the bucket as if she’d forgotten it was there. The uniform and the scarf and the sneakers toned her down. She’d pass as a menial as long as nobody got a good look at her fierce, alert face and beautifully tended nails. She slouched across to the heavy plastic doors of the service entrance and slipped through.

  I drove slowly back into town, turning the next steps over in my mind, looking for snags and dangers. There were dozens of both. It took me nearly half an hour to pick my spot from which to watch Bert’s garage. Behind the building and across a narrow lane was a shop that had been burnt out. The blackened brick shell still stood and an iron staircase took me up to the second storey which was intact apart from many missing floorboards. Crouched by the back window I could get a good view through the binoculars of the back doors and windows of the garage.

  It was hot, boring work. I didn’t want to send smoke up into the still air in case the watched were also watching and I hadn’t brought the Esky and the chilled beer with me. For a while nothing happened and as my eyes adjusted to the light and the shadows and shapes I began to be aware of a fine mist drifting out from one of the windows. Coming from a motor garage that could mean only one thing — spray painting. This was confirmed when a man wearing overalls came out into the yard pushing painter’s goggles up onto his head. He was short and stocky and dark — very dark.

  He took a few deep breaths and some more mist came floating out of the open door behind him. Then he ducked back into the garage and came back a minute later with a welder’s torch. He gave it a few experimental blasts and took it back inside. The set-up wasn’t too hard to figure and I had to admire it. You’ve got a hundred thousand or so dollars in ready money but it might be marked. You’ve got cops in Sydney and Newcastle looking for you. And you’re black. So what do you do? Fix up a truck, really fix it up with bars and secret compartments and a new spray job and take to the roads. Get out into the bush where you can camp, spend the money carefully, spinning it out, while the heat dies down. You can come out in Perth or Darwin or wherever the hell you please. Not bad. It was a pity to disturb it but I had to. Fixing a truck in the way I imagined they’d be fixing it would take time and that was what I needed.

  I watched for another hour but nothing changed. I fiddled with the adjustment mechanisms of the glasses, trying to get a clearer focus on an oil drum near the back door of the garage. Something about that drum disturbed me, but it was in shadow and I couldn’t pick out any details. I backed away from the window and went down the staircase and out to the car. My shirt was a wringing wet rag when I got there and I took it off and draped it over the hot roof of the car while I rolled and smoked a cigarette. The shirt was hot and stiff after a couple of minutes. I put it back on and drove to the hospital.

  Penny was waiting on the seat when I drove up. She ran across to the car and threw the bucket savagely into the back.

  “Easy,” I said. Then I noticed that she was carrying the tape recorder. I took it from her and settled it gently on the seat. “How did it go?”

  “No trouble,” she said tightly. She got into the back seat and began changing her clothes. I resisted the temptation to watch her in the rear vision mirror. She stuffed the uniform, sneakers and scarf into the bucket and clambered over into the front seat. She put the tape recorder on her lap and patted it.

  “Want to hear it?”

  “Not now. How’s Trixie Baker?”

  “Bad. I don’t think she wants to live.”

  “Upset about all this?” I nodded at the machine.

  “Not really. I think she’s a bit relieved it’s all come out.”

  “How about you?”

  “Doesn’t change anything for me. What have you been doing?”

  “Watching the garage. They’ll be there till night time I reckon. We’ve got time to see the clever man, how do we find him?”

  “Stop the first boong we see and ask.” I looked quickly at her. The hospital encounter had got to her and the tough indifference was a pose. Her features were all drawn tight and there was tension in every line of her body. The bitter remark was hard to interpret. I had too little experience of her moods, but she was seething inside, fighting some deep battle in which her pride and her colour and her loyalties were all taking a hand.

  21

  We picked up some sandwiches in town and Penny talked briefly to an Aboriginal girl in the shop while she was waiting for the food. I lurked in the car. About fifty pairs of male eyes followed her as she trotted across to where I was parked. She got in and handed me a paper bag.

  “Thanks. Got the address?”

  “Yes, and directions. You’d better get moving. It’s out of town a fair way.”

  We ate as I drove, I wanted a drink badly and said so.

  “You’ll have to pick up some grog for the old man anyway,” she said. I could hear the disapproval in her voice. Drink for her was synonymous with broken heads and blood or maudlin sentimentality that wasn’t the same thing as love. Nothing to show for the rent money but a reeking breath. I’d seen it too but managed to overcome the prejudice. I stopped at a pub on the outskirts of the town and bought a dozen bottles of beer. I cracked one and swigged it as I followed Penny’s directions. Her voice, as she gave them, was muted with contempt.

  We got clear of the streets and houses and passed through a strip of forest and a patch of fifty-acre farmlets. The road got dusty and narrow and when a couple of vehicles came from the other direction I had to put the bottle down and steer cautiously. We went over a hill and crossed a bridge across a sluggish creek. Around the bend a small weatherboard cottage appeared. Its front gate was about three feet back from the side of the road. I swung the car down a rutted track that ran along beside the house. An ancient Holden ute was parked under a lean-to at the end of the track. Rusted car bodies and unidentifiable bits of ironware lay around like corpses. A thick bush grew all over the place; it straggled up the peeling walls of the house and ran around the front and tackled the decrepit verandah.

  We got out of the car and Penny put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Let me do the talking. I’ll have to introduce myself and that’ll take a while.”

  “What about the beer?”

  “Leave it in the car for the moment. Tobacco will do for now.”

  We went around to the front of the house. The verandah boards creaked under my weight but held. Penny knocked on the door. The house wore a guarded, cautious air with curtains drawn across the narrow windows and a blind pulled down over the glass pane in the door. Penny knocked again and we heard shuffling footsteps inside. The blind flew up and an old, thin Aborigine looked at us through the glass. His deep-set eyes ran over Penny
and then pierced into my face I had to look away. His eyes were like lasers searing through to the back of my skull. He released the door catch and pulled the door inwards.

  “Gidday. Come in.” His voice was like the rest of him, smoky dark and seamed with experience. He wore grey trousers and a white shirt pressed into razor sharp creases. Veins and sinews stood out in his arms like a network of thin ropes. The verandah and the floor of the house were on a level. So were his eyes and mine. That made him six feet and half an inch tall. I wondered if I would still measure that in my seventies. He ushered us through to a small sitting room occupied by a threadbare couch and some old padded chairs, a scrubbed pine table and a glass-fronted case. Penny and I sat on the couch and he lowered himself into one of the chairs; his feet were bare so he was taller than me. His hair was thick and grey, waving over his neat skull like a finely worked helmet. I searched my memory for the face his reminded me of and got it — Robert Graves. He had the same beaky nose and sunken eyes, old as time.

  Penny set about introducing herself. It involved references to Auntie this and Auntie that and towns in this part of New South Wales and gatherings held over the past twenty years. Gurney nodded and smiled at the familiar names. While this was going on I looked around the room; the case held photographs, elaborately framed, and sporting trophies. There was a picture of the Queen on the wall above the fireplace. Penny finished talking and the old man leaned back in his chair and beamed at her with what looked like a full set of genuine teeth.

  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you girlie. I never knew your dad but I heard of him. Who’s your friend?”

  I got up and leaned forward, sticking my hand out. “Cliff Hardy, Mr Gurney. Glad to know you.”

  We shook. His hand was as hard as iron and a joint of his little finger was missing.

  “Hardy, eh? What’s your game Cliff?”

  I told him and rolled a cigarette while I spoke. I offered him the makings and he took them.

  “Thanks. How can I help you?”

  “Penny here tells me that you know all there is to know about the Aboriginal people in this district.”

  “S’right. Lived here all me life, never been to Sydney even. I was put through up by Burnt Bridge in 1919.”

  “Initiated? Can’t be many around like you.”

  “I’m the last one.” He got his cigarette going and pierced me through again with those eyes. “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “All you can about Albie Simmonds.”

  “Albie in trouble?”

  I nodded.

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Bad. Kidnapping. Gun trouble.”

  “Why should I help you. You huntin’ him?”

  “Not exactly. I want the girl he took. If I know certain things maybe I can stop more people from being killed. Two men’re dead already.”

  “Albie kill ‘em?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. That’s one of the things I’ve got to find out.”

  He leaned back and blew smoke at the roof. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him; his belly was flat and the skin around his throat and jaw stretched smooth and tight. He had authority. If he’d said no and told me to leave I’d have gone. He was that sort of man.

  I felt as if he was putting me through some kind of test only I didn’t know the rules and the proper way to conduct myself. I sat there and tried to look honest and strong. He looked at me so long I thought he was going into a trance. Then he came out of it and nodded sharply.

  “All right.” He took a draw on the cigarette. “I can tell you a bit about Albie. Mind you, he’s had a few names in his time. Not too many people know him as Albie Simmonds.”

  “Percy White?”

  “That’s one. Terrible man for the grog Albie, that’s no secret.”

  “That reminds me, I’ve got some beer in the car, would you like some?”

  “Too right.”

  “I’ll get it,” Penny said. She left the room. Gurney watched her appreciatively. So did I. I wondered if he lived alone. There was no sign of a woman’s touch in the room we were in.

  “Where d’you want me to start?”

  “Just tell me about Albie, from the beginning.”

  “Yeah, well, Albie wasn’t a bad lad. Too much grog around the family always, but that wasn’t his fault. He got into bad company and a fair bit of trouble with the coppers. Small stuff though.”

  “Is he a full blood Aborigine?”

  “Pretty nearly. Like me. Why do you ask?”

  “His boy, Ricky, wasn’t very dark, I just wondered . . . what about the mother?” He looked at me again, as if he was testing the quality, the very grain of me. “Nellie? Half and half,” he said slowly.

  “I see. Go on Mr Gurney.”

  “Albie moved around a bit . . . up here . . . Sydney. Couldn’t settle. Nellie just had the one kid, Ricky, and she died young. The boy went to people in Sydney.”

  “Did Albie see much of his son?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s something you’d have to ask him.”

  “Fair enough. Did Albie work for Trixie Baker?”

  “Sort of — aah good girl!” Penny came back into the room with a tray. Two open beer bottles were on it and three glasses. She poured a glass for the old man and half a glass for herself. I filled a glass and we all said cheers and drank. The beer was warmer than it should be but still not bad. Gurney sighed and emptied the glass in three long gulps. He filled it again and watched the head rise and settle.

  “Where was I? Albie and Trixie, yeah. You couldn’t say Albie worked for her, he was a mess then, drinking fierce. He was calling himself Carter then — this is a few years ago.”

  “Why all the names?”

  “Police trouble I s’pose. We all knew who he was but the whites around didn’t. It’s a bit like that up here.”

  “Do you know if his son got in touch with him at that time?”

  “He tried.”

  “What happened?”

  “Albie ducked him, went bush.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sayin’. Personal to them.”

  “I suppose you won’t tell me about Albie’s relationship with Trixie Baker either?”

  “That’s right. Sorry. I haven’t been much help. I will say this, you seem to know a thing or two about Albie and the boy.”

  “Not enough.”

  “You know some. It’s dangerous. I’d keep out of it if I was you.”

  “I can’t.” I finished the beer and got up. Penny had hardly touched hers and she didn’t give it a glance now. She shook hands with Gurney and he and I exchanged nods. I’d intruded too far on a matter that excluded whites or should, in his view. It was too delicate to be trusted to me with my clumsy, money-motivated ways. He’d decided that and exercised just as much of his authority as he needed to keep the knowledge from me. He knew that I’d go on, that he couldn’t stop me. He accepted that, but he didn’t want to shake my hand again.

  “Thanks for the beer,” he grunted.

  I said something polite and we trooped down the passage and out into the raw sunlight.

  “Not very helpful,” Penny said as we walked to the car.

  “Could have been worse. I got some things out of it by implication.”

  “Trixie Baker told me she and Albie Simmonds were lovers. It’s on the tape.”

  I nodded. “I thought so.”

  We got in the car and I noticed that three of the beer bottles were still on the seat. I pointed to them.

  “That was for him.”

  “Not good for him.”

  “I know what he’d say to that. Has he got a wife by the way?”

  She grinned. “I heard he has three.”

  We drove off and Penny yawned a couple of times and knuckled her eyes. I pulled over under a tree and stopped.

  “Have a sleep if you want to. I’m going to listen to the tape.”

&nb
sp; She nodded, took her coat with her out of the car and settled herself on the grass using it as a pillow. I made a cigarette and lifted the top off one of the beer bottles. The liquid frothed out and the stuff left behind was warm but I sipped at it anyway. I pushed the “play” button.

  PENNY: “Mrs Baker, can you hear me?”

  VOICE: “Yes, I can hear you, who’re you?”

  PENNY: “My name is Sharkey, Penny Sharkey. You don’t know me, but I know who hit you — Berrigan.”

  BAKER: “How do you know that, I never told . . .”

  PENNY: “I’m working with a man who knows all about it. He wants to fix Berrigan, will you help?”

  BAKER: “I dunno, Berrigan . . . he might come back . . .”

  PENNY: “Hardy says he won’t. He guarantees it.”

  BAKER: “Hardy? Never heard of him. What is he, a cop?”

  PENNY: “He’s a private detective . . .”

  BAKER: “Shit, no, nothing doing . . .”

  PENNY: “I trust him.”

  BAKER: “Well, good for you . . . Something about you. Can’t see with all these bloody bandages. What are you, a darkie?”

  PENNY: “I’m an Aborigine, yes.”

  BAKER: “I like Abos, good people. I had a good man once. (Cackling laugh). Could be one of your tribe — Albie Simmonds, know him?”

  PENNY: “I knew Ricky, his son.”

  BAKER: “That right? Well, well.” (Laughter) “Yeah, well that’s another story. What’s in this for you girlie?”

  PENNY: “I want Noni.”

  BAKER: “How’s that?”

  PENNY: “Noni Tarelton. She’s with Berrigan now. I hope he kills her. Anyway, she’s up to her neck in this. She’ll go to jail if I have anything to do with it.”

  BAKER: “Now you’re talking! That slut Noni. Tarelton you call her? She was Rouble when she was fucking everything in sight round here. You reckon this Hardy’s good, he’ll get Berrigan?”

  PENNY: “I’m sure of it, but he needs to know the story to put the pressure on. I don’t really understand it myself Mrs Baker, I just have to ask you some things.”