The Story of Danny Dunn

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Go to sleep, my darling . . . and thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you so much.’

  Matron Kirk arrived and congratulated him and then shooed him away. He was totally worn out but jubilant, the single happiest man alive, with the nightmare behind him.

  Danny called Brenda from the red phone booth outside the hospital. It was 1.30 a.m. and she answered immediately. ‘Twins!’ he cried. ‘Girls!’ He laughed for sheer joy. ‘Congratulations, Grandma Dunn!’ he yelled ecstatically.

  ‘Oh, Danny. How is Helen?’ Brenda managed to say before she started to weep. His tough little Irish mother was softening with age.

  ‘I’m coming over, Mum.’

  Danny heard a sniff then a tearful, ‘Yes . . . please,’ followed by a choking sob.

  One minute after visiting hours began the following morning, Danny, bearing a huge bunch of pink roses, burst into ward 3M. Helen sat up in bed, a swaddled pink bundle on each arm. He’d been vaguely aware that both twins had been born with some matted darkish hair but he was not prepared for what he now saw. He’d expected – well, he didn’t really know what he expected; some babies have fuzz, some are bald as eggs – but was simply not prepared for the blazing thatch of red hair above the two tiny, squished-up sleeping faces of his twin daughters. ‘Oh my gawd, redheads!’ he exclaimed, laughing. ‘Two more fiery women in the family!’ But that was all the levity he could manage. At the sight of Helen as a mother, he was suddenly overcome by a love so fierce that he dropped the pink ribboned roses onto the bed and fell to his knees beside her. With his head on her lap, he wept like a small child. Danny now loved three women so deeply that he knew with absolute certainty he would not hesitate to give his life for them.

  In the months of Helen’s pregnancy and the early months of the twins’ lives, Danny and Franz completed their probationary year, the fifth and final of their legal studies. Despite their Law degrees, they were not allowed to practise on their own account until the following year. A week prior to Christmas the two young lawyers were called into the office of the senior partner, John Sharp, a veritable legend in commercial-law circles, who had concluded his review of their three years with the firm. ‘We are pleased with your progress so far, gentlemen, but, as they say in our profession, there’s many a slip between mug and lip, especially when you’re young. You have both shown the qualities that will lead, in the fullness of time, to the prospect of a partnership with our firm.’ He paused impressively. ‘So, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to fill the positions of associate solicitors, beginning in the new year – 1952 – after the Christmas and January recess. You are both invited to share a glass of sherry with the partners in the boardroom at 6.15 sharp this evening, when I will introduce you formally and in the traditional manner to the other partners, with whom you are already well acquainted.’

  Both young solicitors, by now accustomed to the firm’s clubby atmosphere and their lowly order in the scheme of things, assumed suitably grateful and humble expressions and thanked the senior partner for his faith and trust in them.

  However, Danny, perhaps because of his age and military past, couldn’t refrain from asking, ‘Mr Sharp, I hope you don’t find my question inappropriate or impertinent, but, in your opinion, what period of time would you expect to elapse before we could reasonably be expected to be elevated to partnerships in the firm?’

  John Sharp, a little taken aback by so direct and perhaps, indeed, impertinent a question, thought for a moment, then replied, ‘Hrrrmph . . . well, I suppose a little ambition in a young lawyer is not such a bad thing, as long as we allow some humility to prevail. I was made a partner quite quickly, in a little over eighteen years.’ He chortled to himself.

  ‘I recall at the time many of the more senior partners thought it a rather precipitate appointment, ha ha.’

  Franz shot a quick glance at Danny. ‘Well, sir, that certainly sets us a very difficult challenge,’ he said.

  John Sharp missed the irony. ‘You would both do well to just get on with it . . . know your place. Patience is the very essence of the law. You young lads are always in a tearing hurry, but in this profession it’s the tortoise and not the hare that will always claim the prize.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Danny said, trying to appear grateful for the advice.

  They’d attended the sherry charade, as Franz termed it, where they were formally re-introduced to the partners they’d known and worked with for the past three years as virtual messenger boys and dogsbodies. In the hour or so that the soiree lasted, they were each advised on several occasions by different partners to choose the more commercial areas of the law, or as one grossly overweight partner, appropriately named John Bull, pontificated, ‘Go for the fatter fees, my boy, and avoid the cesspits of criminal law. Criminal lawyers . . . disgraceful bunch, what!’

  With the ordeal over Danny mentioned to Franz that Brenda was babysitting for the night and he and Helen were going to the jazz club up at the Cross to celebrate. ‘Perhaps you’d care to join us?’ he invited.

  Franz hesitated. ‘Mate, I know you two don’t get out a lot now you have the twins. Why don’t you just enjoy the occasion on your own?’

  Danny hesitated then said, ‘No, mate, it wouldn’t be the same. We’ve been in this together since first year. I’ve already talked to Helen; she’d very much like you to come.’

  ‘If you’re sure, then I’d love to. Thanks. Jimmy White, Bob Gibson and Don Burrows are playing.’

  Helen had insisted they have a bottle of champagne and they toasted each other several times over. The bottle was nearly empty by the time the band took a dinner break and they could talk in normal tones. Danny, who’d restricted himself to a single glass of champagne, began by saying, ‘Franz, I’ve discussed with Helen what I’m about to say and she and I are in complete agreement. We were thinking —’

  ‘That to spend the next twenty years working our arses off for that bunch of fucking Wasps is bloody stupid,’ Franz interjected, plainly a little tipsy.

  ‘Well, yes, as you put it so succinctly. As a fucking wasp, I wholeheartedly agree,’ Helen laughed, adding, ‘Danny wants to make you a proposition, Franz.’

  ‘Funny that, I was going to do the same thing,’ Franz replied quickly.

  ‘Oh? And what was that?’ Danny asked, a bit miffed that the limelight had been snatched away from him.

  ‘A partnership, of course,’ Franz answered.

  ‘Bastard!’ Danny cried.

  ‘Isn’t that the point?’ Helen laughed. ‘You each anticipate the other’s thoughts.’

  ‘I anticipated first!’ Danny exclaimed. ‘My name goes first!’

  Franz sighed. ‘Mate, you’re going to do criminal law while I’ll do commercial. That means I’ll make the money and you’ll get all the glory. Money always trumps glory – I’m a Jew and I know these things! Landsman & Dunn, money and glory – the second isn’t much use without the first.’

  ‘Bullshit! You know what your problem is, Landsman? You’re a smooth-talking lawyer! Mouth like a slippery dip!’

  ‘Children!’ Helen remonstrated.

  ‘What?’ both men asked simultaneously.

  Helen balanced a two-shilling piece on her forefinger and thumb ready to toss. ‘Heads it’s the Jew, tails it’s the Tyke.’ The coin sailed into the air and, catching it in her right hand, Helen slapped it down onto the top of the left, keeping it covered. ‘You agree to accept the verdict?’ she asked. Both men nodded. Helen lifted her right hand, uncovering the coin. ‘Heads! Landsman & Dunn!’

  ‘Best out of three,’ Danny growled.

  ‘Danny!’ Helen warned.

  Danny extended his hand to Franz. ‘I was only thinking of offering you a junior partnership,’ he joshed.

  ‘That’s funny. My proposition to you included the same clause.’ Franz accepted Danny’s hand and added, ‘What say another bottle?’

/>   ‘Well, I’m glad that’s settled. It’s okay for the two of you, but I have to deal with my mother. The whole of her bridge club is aware that her brilliant son-in-law did his articles and has now been offered an associate solicitor’s position at Sydney’s topmost law firm, Stephen James & Stapleton! She’s never going to live this down.’

  ‘Wait until I take on my first dirty big criminal case,’ Danny laughed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LANDSMAN, DUNN & PARTNERS was the name they eventually settled on; as Franz said, it sounded weighty and reliable. Their reputation as a young, smart, hungry and aggressive law firm grew rapidly, with Danny looking after the criminal law and Franz doing the commercial. At Franz’s insistence they’d agreed to pool their profits and pay themselves the same salary. This was generous of Franz, who knew his partner well; Danny was likely to put as much work into a pro bono case as into one that paid a hefty fee, so someone had to make the real money.

  Helen was not able to work in the first year of the twins’ life, caring for them devotedly until a few months after their first birthday, when she stopped breastfeeding and found a nanny. Mrs O’Shea, a widow in her fifties, was a trained Karitane sister, and Helen felt confident leaving the twins in her care. She returned to her former position at the university, where she was promptly elevated to the position of lecturer in ancient history, specialising in ancient Egypt. It was now twelve years since she’d obtained her masters degree and she started preparing her dissertation for her doctorate, warning Danny that she would have to attend a dig in Egypt or Mesopotamia under the direction of a British team at some time in the future.

  Danny, absorbed in his work, had agreed without paying much attention at the time. He was rapidly earning a reputation as the lawyer of choice in certain criminal circles, but not without putting enormous effort into his briefs. In addition he’d taken on a great many pro bono cases, representing people too poor to afford a lawyer, and in several of these he had successfully exposed the police for verballing. Hard work became a haven for him; if he buried himself in it and never allowed time to reflect on the past, then the nightmares weren’t anything like as bad. But the moment he relaxed, the past came storming back in his sleep, in particular the terrible beating he’d taken from the Japanese kempeitai officer who’d used a rifle butt to mutilate him. Stay busy, get involved, work, work, work became his credo. His efforts in the swimming pool were every bit as frenetic. He’d pound through the water, back and forth, as if the water itself would serve to wash the negative thoughts from his mind.

  Danny was always immaculately dressed in a beautifully cut dark suit, which Pineapple Joe had copied directly from the pages of Tailor & Cutter, using only the finest English worsted wool. He now sported a dark eye patch, the story of which was in the press often enough for at least one member of any jury to have heard it and, naturally, to relate it to the rest of the people sitting in judgment. Thus, he started ahead of most of the stuffy, patronising barristers in their sombre black gowns and horsehair wigs.

  While Danny was entitled, in New South Wales, to act as a barrister and a solicitor and to appear in both the District and the Supreme Court – the High Court being the only exception – his legal colleagues generally disapproved of anyone doing so. A practitioner was expected to choose to be either a barrister or a solicitor. But Danny’s experience as a prisoner of war had taught him to trust no one but himself, and his success in some pretty tricky, high-profile cases, where he came up against barristers with considerable reputations, soon proved the wigged-and-gowned mob wrong. He was good – very good – and the general consensus was that the young lion was way too confident and cocky (if only they’d known). Moreover, many of the cases he took on were ones in which barristers with solid middle-class upbringings and private-school educations were socially out of their depth. Danny understood the underlying psychology, social background and environment of the people he defended, especially the crims, who trusted his judgment. This often antagonised judges or magistrates, who tended to share the privileged background of the barristers, but it worked a treat with the jury, whom he addressed in his easy courtroom manner, as if they were his neighbours.

  Danny didn’t win all his cases, and some were doomed before they reached the courts – none more so than the case of one of Sydney’s most notorious safe crackers, a recidivist known in Balmain as ‘Blaster’ Henderson. The ageing crim had used too much gelignite on a job in a CBD high-rise and the explosion had knocked him out, as well as several windows on the third floor, so that the police knew where to find him.

  Blaster Henderson’s case was dead in the water before it even began and the jury had no option but to deliver a guilty verdict, whereupon the judge, himself an old-timer, wearily pronounced the comparatively soft sentence of four years in Long Bay.

  Danny had gone down to the cells to commiserate with the old bugger as he awaited transport to ‘the Bay’, to find Blaster not only cheerful but appreciative. ‘Don’t you worry, Mr Dunn. If it hadn’t been for your plea in mitigation the judge would’a give me twelve years, no risk!’ He’d chuckled. ‘Yeah, fer sure. After yer finished tellin’ the court about me daughter’s ’ospital bills and me little granddaughter being whatzit . . . yeah . . . autistic, I think His Honour hisself was feelin’ a bit sorry for me an’ all. I’ll be out in three wid good behaviour. I got your fee, Mr Dunn,’ he added. ‘Me daughter Dulcie’s got it under the mattress. She’ll drop it in to Brenda . . . er, old Mrs Dunn, at the Hero termorra.’

  ‘Forget it, mate. She’ll need the money while you’re away.’

  While Blaster Henderson insisted on paying, many didn’t. Danny was a pretty soft touch, and while the pro bono cases he took on and usually won might have enhanced his reputation, they did nothing for the firm’s bank balance. As Franz once said after a disastrous financial month, ‘Mate, your wins and acquittals are from the wrong side of the tracks. A favour should always be redeemable, quid pro quo, but these people don’t pay and, what’s more, are never going to be in a position to help you; they can never return the favour.’

  ‘Franz, as far as my mob are concerned, you blokes from the middle class are from the wrong side of the tracks. Take my word for it – in the years to come, it will pay off handsomely.’

  ‘All right, Mr Counsel for the Hopeless and Hapless. Just how is that likely to happen?’

  ‘Christ, you know how. Criminal law is all about inside information – the grapevine. People hit paydirt when they have their ears to the ground, not their noses in the air!’

  ‘I hope that is merely a philosophical and not a practical approach, mate. A little cash in the kitty would be handy.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Danny winced.

  It was the closest the partners ever came to a row. Franz, who was beginning to bring in some quite profitable conveyancing business, had always made the bulk of the money they divided.

  Every young lawyer hopes a big case will come his way, and while this seldom happens, Danny got lucky. The wife of Bryan Penman, who’d advised Franz’s parents that their son should accept the scholarship to Scots College, was discovered shot dead in her home. After their initial investigation the police charged Penman with murder. While he’d never practised as a lawyer – hadn’t needed to, as the heir to Moresby Vineyards and Brandy Distillers Pty Ltd – and didn’t play the social game, he was certainly considered to be a member of one of the leading families in New South Wales, and the case was big news in all the papers. Some of the most senior barristers in town waited eagerly for their telephones to ring, but while Penman could afford any barrister in the city, he chose, to the consternation of the legal fraternity and the delight of the press, the young, aggressive and relatively inexperienced solicitor from ‘Gawd help us, Bal-bloody-main!’

  Not only was it a high-profile case, but the evidence against Danny’s client seemed pretty compelling. But either way it would bring Danny well and truly out
of the shadows and into the harsh spotlight of public attention. Or as one journo wrote, ‘This young lawyer has crept from under the grapevine into the distillery crush but has yet to prove whether he can turn on a vintage performance.’

  The story seemed to have all the trimmings and most of them pointed to a guilty verdict for Penman. Neighbours reported constant and violent arguments and, in particular, one instance where, incongruously, Penman had been chased by his wife down the garden path with a cricket bat and beaten over the head so severely that he had required hospitalisation. To everyone’s surprise, Danny didn’t use this incident to prove that Penman, a small man, was in fact beaten by his wife, a large woman. Instead, the prosecuting barrister used it to indicate that Penman had shot her precisely because she was beating him. Her motivation for attacking her husband, he contended, was that he was having a longstanding affair with an unnamed popular actress.

  The case appeared to be fairly open and shut. But no murder weapon was found and Danny, using forensic and ballistics evidence, showed that she had been shot with a standard-issue army 303 rifle. The bullet that entered her head through her left brow had been shot from a considerable distance, probably through the open bedroom window some twenty feet away from the bed. Penman had never been in the army, did not possess a rifle, and had never been known to use one. Danny succeeded in convincing the jury that nobody could shoot so accurately without a great deal of experience and skill. He also fortuitously managed to have the information about the actress, who had been described in the press with such heavy hints that everyone immediately knew who she was, excluded from the evidence. There was also a rumour circulating among the criminal underground about Mrs Penman, using the name Thompson, having been seen in various Balmain pubs, dressed in slacks and a jacket, flashing a wad of large-denomination notes and looking for a hit man to do her husband in. To the obvious fury of the QC prosecuting the case, Danny had interviewed his source – a prisoner in Long Bay – and the judge had allowed the witness, a notorious safe cracker, to give evidence in front of the jury. In the judge’s summing-up he had instructed the jury that the jailbird’s evidence was unreliable and should be disregarded, but juries are only human.