Yesterday's Dust

by Joy Dettman

  ‘I hear they’ve arrested Charlie Owen.’

  ‘Yeah. They reckon they found a kilo of amphetamines in his truck. He always looks half zapped out of his brain.’

  ‘They have him down as the local hit man at the Central,’ Malcolm added.

  ‘I’d like to know who set them onto him.’

  ‘The body was discovered near his property. A logical assumption, perhaps.’

  Ben shrugged. ‘It’s getting to Mum. She keeps on denying that it’s him to everyone, but I think she knows he’s dead. She’d be better off facing it and getting over it, I reckon.’

  ‘There appears to be little doubt in the minds of our Sydney friends.’

  ‘Mum recognised the sock and stuff found out there, and they’re going on his left eyetooth. He got it root-filled back in the eighties. I remember when he had it done.’ Ben slipped a rubber band around his notes. ‘It’s got to be him. And the fact that he hasn’t touched his money since he left. He’s not the type to live on air. And he couldn’t be on a pension or they would have found him – unless he’s using somebody else’s name.’

  ‘A possibility.’

  ‘I can’t see it. He was Jack Burton, and proud of it. He wouldn’t scrounge around on a pension using another name when he’s got thousands in the bank. He wouldn’t do it. It’s got to be him,’ Ben repeated. ‘Jeff reckons it is. Reckons it’s just a formality – getting him identified.’

  ‘Our young lawman has become a law unto himself, Burton. He confiscated my car keys and licence last evening.’

  ‘I hear you took on Willis’s bus.’

  ‘Which is still on the road, I note.’

  ‘Jeff’s gone power crazy lately. He caught Bron speeding one night. She did her licence for six months.’ Ben walked off to serve a paying customer. Malcolm turned to the bookshelves.

  Chef-Marlet’s latest had disappeared. He looked back to Ben as the customer left. ‘They say the demised has been that way for some considerable time.’

  ‘At least five years, they reckon. It’s not the way I thought he’d go. I mean, this sounds like one of those execution murders.’

  ‘Perhaps he became involved with some drug baron’s moll, Burton.’ He watched the notes slide into the calico bag. ‘Have you spoken to your sister recently?’

  ‘She rang me on Sunday morning.’

  Malcolm nodded. ‘I have some items in her care and no longer the means to retrieve them.’ He had little interest in the items; his question was only bait, tossed randomly in the hope it might net him information on Ann.

  ‘I’ll run you down on Sunday, if you like. I usually drop in on Sundays.’

  ‘I may have my keys back by then. Young Fogarty was kind enough to collect me this morning and will see me home.’

  Ben glanced up, interested. He liked the no-nonsense infant mistress he’d driven home from the wedding. ‘You’re back at the school again.’

  ‘O’Rouke is incapacitated. A pathetic fool of a man, that one.’

  ‘Funny how his wife hasn’t turned up anywhere. Mum said she saw her walking down the road with her handbag that day. She seemed normal enough – what I saw of her. She didn’t stick around long enough for anyone to get to know her.’

  ‘Three months in Mallawindy is more than enough for most, Burton.’

  But not for everyone. They turned, smiled as Kerrie Fogarty walked through the door. Tall, lean, her blonde hair trimmed to within an inch of her head, she had a grin for everyone, and there were few males in town who could deny her a smile in reply.

  ‘G’day Ben. Ready to roll, Fletch?’ she said.

  Malcolm picked up his loaded string bag and rolled. The young teacher and the old were at the door when Johnny Burton limped through, shedding water.

  ‘Mr Fletcher. Miss Fogarty.’ He swung by them, leaving a three-legged trail of mud and water to Ben’s back room, where he helped himself to the key ring and its many keys. ‘I need to borrow your ute, Ben.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the old man’s car?’

  ‘Mum’s got the keys.’

  ‘What’s she going to do with them?’

  ‘Toss them in the river, the last I heard.’ John attempted to go around his brother but Ben stood his ground.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’re not involved.’

  ‘I am if you’re taking my ute. It’s a manual. You can’t drive it with that foot, and anyway, I’ve got to lock up in an hour and my shop keys are on the key ring.’ But Johnny was out the door.

  Two women entered. Ben, who had inherited Ellie’s preference for keeping family secrets in the family, walked back to his calico bag, pushing it deep beneath the counter. He wasted fifteen minutes trying to sell them a thirty-dollar dinner set, and ended up with a sixty-cent sale of chewing gum. It was almost five before he got to the telephone and dialled home, and he waited long for the phone to be lifted.

  ‘Mum? Are you there?’ He heard a sniff, a stifled sob. ‘It’s me. What’s going on with you and Johnny?’

  ‘Bessy told him that they’ve locked up Charlie Owen for your dad’s murder,’ Ellie wailed.

  ‘They haven’t got him for murder. They’ve got him on assault and possession of amphetamines. And what’s it got to do with Johnny? He’s taken my ute and shop keys and it’s Dooley’s day off. Can you bring my spare shop keys up? They’re hanging behind my bedroom door.’

  Ellie howled in his ear.

  He’d heard her scream often enough and he’d seen her weep in silence, but never like this. ‘Mum. Mum! Stop your howling and tell me what’s got into Johnny.’

  ‘He said Charlie didn’t kill your dad that night. He said he was going to Daree to tell the police how he knows that Charlie didn’t kill him that night.’ Her words silenced Ben, and the cold wet Tuesday crept up his spine to his head. ‘He knows something, love. And I don’t want it to be – ’

  ‘Stop howling, and tell me what he said.’

  ‘The police keep hinting about him and Annie, as if they think they’ve done something.’ She wailed again and Ben waited. ‘They kept asking me if Annie came back that night, and could she have woken Johnny without me hearing.’

  ‘It’s just questions. They’ve got to ask their questions.’

  ‘Annie nearly shot him once. And she took his briefcase. Why did she take his briefcase? They asked me if your dad had a handgun in his briefcase.’

  ‘You know he didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t know what he had in it,’ she wailed, and the phone hit the floor.

  ‘Mum. Mum. Pick up the phone. Mum! Can you bring up my keys?’

  The only reply was Ellie’s wail, but from a distance.

  He hung up and tried to call Bessy. She was engaged, probably passing on the news to the rest of the town. He dialled Ann’s number and the call went to her answering machine. He was starting to wonder what he’d done to deserve the lot of them when her voice cut in.

  ‘I’m here. In the flesh. Taylor’s asylum. Head loony speaking.’

  ‘All hell has broken loose down here, Annie.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Johnny has gone to the cops and Mum’s cracked up. She’s been heading for this since Friday and I can’t leave the shop. It’s Dooley’s day off and I can’t lock up here until I track him down or get someone to go down to the house and get my spare keys. I can’t raise Bessy and Mum won’t let anyone else in.’

  ‘I’ll toss the boys in the car. Give me forty-five minutes.’

  ‘No. It’s too far and too wet. What I’m calling about is the old man’s briefcase. Do you know anything about it? Mum keeps going on about it. Did you take it that night?’ Ben heard bellowing in the background, he heard Ann’s footsteps, then her voice.

  ‘Share the toys, Matthew.’

  ‘I did share wiff him and he wouldn’t share wiff me.’

  ‘That’s because he’s smaller than you. We have to teach him how to share.’ Footsteps returning. ‘Sorry, Ben.
They’re on the rampage. I need to get out of the house, and I can tie them down in the wagon. See you soon.’

  ‘No. It’s late. I’ll get hold of someone up here. Have you got his briefcase?’ She made no reply. ‘Annie? Are you there?’

  ‘I hear you, Ben. Just. Every time I pick up the phone they start a war, and everyone I know has called me today; I’m just about ready to confess to his murder for a quiet life. Maybe that’s what Johnny is doing.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on with him. And I don’t know what’s going on between you two either, but it’s as plain as mud on your face that something is going on. What do you know about that night?’ Seconds passed and she made no reply. ‘The night the old man disappeared. Do you and Johnny know something?’

  ‘I know you should have rowed your boat to China, Ben, and I should have gone with you. If you feel like taking off I’ll go you halves in a speedboat. Tristan! Puppy dogs bite. Are you a puppy dog?’

  ‘I Darp Bada.’

  ‘Well Darth Vadar doesn’t bite his brothers. Go to your room, please.’

  Ben leant against the wall, listening to the distant voices, smiling when there was nothing in the world to smile about. But there he was listening to Annie, and for some reason it didn’t seem real. Annie, whose only voice had been her hands when they were kids. Hard to believe it was the same Annie, laying down the law to her boys.

  ‘Go to your room. Now. Do you want Mummy to put you in your cot and close the door?’

  ‘I det you wiff my lipe sayba.’

  ‘Go. Run. I don’t want to see that naughty face. Bedroom! Now!’ Footsteps on tiles, a door closing. Footsteps returning.

  Ben waited and looked out at the rain, his mind away in yesterday, at that serene white house in Mahoneys Lane that was once a place of peace, and the little girl who’d called him Unka Benny, who had kissed him all better, had held his hand and taken him to see her kitty. Not so serene these days.

  Life and death. Who deserved what life dished out?

  ‘Sorry, Ben. It’s like living in a madhouse at times.’

  ‘I can relate to that. Johnny is half as mad as Dad ever was, Mum is heading for a nervous breakdown, and I’m stuck with them – and I’m sick and tired of being stuck with them, and that’s a fact and I don’t care who knows it, Annie. I had Johnny singing drunk all the way home on Saturday night and Mum howling because he was singing drunk, and Kerrie Fogarty wondering what the hell she’d let herself in for. I spend my life pussyfooting around the two of them lately and I’m fed up with it.’

  ‘I know. I know you are. I’ll try to call Mum.’

  ‘You won’t get anywhere. She’s left her phone off the hook. Those Sydney cops have been down here today. They asked me about his briefcase. I’m only telling you because you’ll probably get a call from them tomorrow. I’ve got to get down to Daree and give them a blood sample – to check his DNA, which apparently takes weeks.’

  ‘They called me but I had the answering machine on. Living in Bedlam has its advantages. Oh God. I think he’s taken off in his spaceship. Got to go.’ The phone disconnected, Ben hung up and dialled around until he found Dooley and his keys. He left him to lock up and he walked home in the rain. Ellie sat at the kitchen table, her head on her arms, sobbing for Johnny or Jack. He didn’t know which one and he didn’t care either. The cows hadn’t been milked.

  ‘If he’s dead, then he’s dead, and he’s been dead for six years. Pull yourself together, Mum. I’ve got to do the cows.’ He was changing his clothes when he heard the knock at his door; he flung it wide, ready to take on the police in his singlet.

  Only Kerrie Fogarty. ‘Is John at home, Ben?’

  ‘John? No. Want another serenade, do you?’ Sarcasm had never been Ben’s forte. He didn’t do it well and he felt his face begin to burn. The cow yard sweater was pulled quickly over his head, hiding his blush first and his singlet and freckled arms second. ‘I’ve got to do the cows,’ he explained. ‘Nothing has been done around here today. They’ve all gone mad.’

  ‘Mad cow disease?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He grinned and he wasn’t sure why, because he sure as hell didn’t feel like grinning. ‘Johnny has gone off somewhere in my ute and Mum’s bawling. You might be able to make her a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘Can I tag along with you, give you a hand? I’ve served my time in a cow yard.’

  He looked at her rain gear and boots. ‘The mud will be up to your knees.’

  ‘It will wash off.’

  ‘Reckon you could fit into Mum’s gumboots?’ He didn’t wait for a reply or invite her in, but collected his raincoat and two pairs of gumboots, then watched Kerrie undo her shoelaces and slide her feet into Ellie’s black boots. They fitted well.

  ‘We’re off, Mum,’ he called, closing the front door and leaving Ellie weeping at the kitchen table. Leaving her, her topknot tumbled, her thick plait hanging loose to the floor, sweeping the floor; a skein of fading silk shimmering with each heave of her shoulders.

  his father’s son

  For forty-five years Ellie Burton had absorbed the blows life and Jack had dealt out to her. Few had got close enough to see through the cold armour she wore, and wore proudly, armour forged from crumbs the world and Jack had tossed to her, but Ellie had swept each crumb up gladly, had buttered it lavishly.

  Butter melted. Her armour was crumbling, falling away, and Ellie Burton, hiding within, couldn’t take life without her crumbs.

  She didn’t hear the ute return, nor the thunk of the crutches and the single footstep across the verandah. Johnny entered via the back door. He stood in the passage, watching her weep.

  ‘I’ve seen you like this since I was two years old. I’ve watched you cry for that bastard, wait for that bastard.’

  Ellie lifted her head, her swollen eyes shaded against the light with her hand.

  ‘They let you go.’ She attempted to uncross her leg, to stand, but the blood supply, too long restricted, had turned her legs to twin lumps of wood. She stumbled, fell to her knees.

  He didn’t move from the doorway to help her, but stood watching her try to pick herself up. She grasped the table, and a chair, she heaved, then released her grip and sank slowly back to the floor.

  John’s eyes were empty of feeling. Cold. Cold anger, colder rain had chilled his blood, and her tears for that bastard had driven anger deep, seeding his eyes with cynicism.

  ‘Help me up, love.’ Her arms reached out to him.

  Still he would not move. Perhaps he feared he might hit her, as his father had hit her, that he might smash her head against the table, keep smashing it until she woke up. His hands clenching the crutches grew white.

  ‘I thought you’d done it. I thought they were going to take you away from me too. I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose both of you.’

  ‘Don’t mention that bastard in the same breath as you speak of me, Mum.’

  She wiped at her mouth, her nose. ‘He’s my husband.’

  ‘He was a diseased dog and now he’s dead.’

  ‘He was your father!’

  ‘It takes more than a high sperm count to make a father.’

  She looked at him, her head shaking. ‘I can’t stand to think of him as dead, as murdered. I can’t do it, Johnny. I can’t.’

  He made no reply, but his right hand left the crutch. It clattered to the floor as his fist slammed into the wall. It hurt, and the pain was good.

  She howled anew for his pain and her mouth remained open as she shook her head, the plait swaying backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, like a charmed snake.

  ‘Did he . . . did he come back that night? Did you or Annie – ?’

  ‘Kill the bastard? Didn’t we have reason enough, Mum? What did he ever do for you, for any one of us, but make our lives a purgatory on earth?’

  She leaned against the leg of the table, her own legs extended before her, and she rubbed at her calves, trying to force blood to circulate.r />
  ‘Answer me tonight, Mum. What did he ever do for you?’ His voice was loud. ‘Answer me, Mum. I need answers tonight.’

  ‘It’s . . . it’s not what people do.’ She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘It’s . . . I married him in the chur – ’ she began, then she looked up at her first-born, looked at his eyes and knew she needed a better excuse for Johnny. ‘He loved me back then. You know he did. He used to call me his Sleeping Beauty. He used to buy me such beautiful things. You know he loved me back then.’

  Johnny leaned on the doorjamb, as his father used to lean, and he stared at her, as his father had stared, tired, bored. ‘Love? Was his brutality love, Mum? Did a roll in the dust turn you on?’

  ‘Stop it,’ she screamed. ‘You stop talking to me like that, Johnny.’

  He turned away, aware he’d gone too far. ‘I’m leaving. There is nothing here for me. Where are the car keys?’

  ‘There’s nothing here for any of us,’ she said. Perhaps it was her tone, perhaps her words that brought him back to the door. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Not any more. Nothing matters to me any more. Not the cows and the chooks. Nothing. It’s like we’re lost, love. It’s like everything that should have been good got lost. All of my beautiful children, all of my beautiful hopes for my children just got lost.’

  ‘Tossed in the gutter by that bastard.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you. To any of you. I tried to do the right things. I thought I was doing the right things, but I don’t know if anything I’ve ever done in my whole life was right or wrong any more. I don’t know anything, love.’

  ‘Because he isn’t around to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, he’s not around to belittle every move you make?’

  ‘I don’t know. I . . . I . . . it’s like Bessy says, like I didn’t let myself grow up. It’s like, suddenly all the years of not growing are pushing me down, Johnny. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be if he’s dead. It’s like . . . like I’m no one.’ She wailed anew and he stood there, wanting out.