by Peter Twohig
Then Granddad turns to me and says: ‘Got a zac?’
And the bloke says: ‘What —?’
‘Yeah, Granddad, here.’
‘No, don’t give it to me, give it to Mr Blake.’
So I give the bloke sixpence. But he looks at me and winces, as if I’d just reached down his dacks and grabbed him by the nuts.
‘Jesus, Arch, what’re yer doin’ to the kid?’
But Granddad just says: ‘Thanks, Jack. That’s it then. See you at the Valley.’
‘Christ, and they say I’m a hard bastard,’ says Mr Blake. ‘Go on then, take the bugger.’
Well, he was a terrific dog, and looked the same as Biscuit, except he was pitch black. He definitely had the look of a mad killer about him, too. He had it all: the floppy ears, the wagging tail and the tongue that hung out all the time. If you were a thug, you’d think: What a nice doggy, and get sucked into his vicious trap. And the next thing you knew you’d be lying in the back of an ambulance, thinking to yourself: What a revoltin’ development this is! And wishing you’d taken your father’s advice and joined the navy instead of signing on with a network of Bengali smugglers. He didn’t have his own collar, but I had Biscuit’s with me, and with a bit of rope threaded through the metal ring, he was laughing, and I mean it.
While we were walking down to the station, Granddad says to me: ‘So what d’yer reckon you’ll call him, boy?’
‘I’ll call him Zac,’ I say, quick as a flash. ‘That way I get me money back.’
And the three of us laughed ourselves silly.
The second thing that happened that week was that Granddad took the shotgun away. Which was great, because I felt as though I’d seen enough of the flamin’ thing, even though I’d had plans for it. But Granddad’s decision to take it changed all that. The only thing I had to do was quickly remove the spent cartridge, because of what I’d told him. He had brought over a couple of fish in a hessian bag and now put the gun into the bag and rolled it up. It smelt like fish, but then I reckoned that was probably the idea.
When Granddad left, I went over to the Sandersons’ place to show Zac to them. They liked the way he had got his name, and Mrs S thought it was lucky for the dog I hadn’t paid a penny instead of sixpence. While Zac was lunching on a bone that was big enough to be a cocker spaniel, they took me out onto the front verandah where it was shady and Mrs Sanderson gave me some iced home-made lemonade and a piece of cinnamon cake.
I was sitting there wondering how the world was going to get on that day without my help, when Mr Sanderson produced a photograph and slid it over the table towards me. I looked at it. It was a large black and white photo, not the kind of photo you can take with a Brownie Box, but the kind I had seen on the wall at the Gala where they had heaps of pictures of the stars: Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, Peter Lorre, Doris Day and so on — glossy pictures. This man wasn’t a film star, but he could have been, because it was a nice photo. But it was a face I had seen before.
‘Now, I don’t want to alarm you,’ said Mr Sanderson, ‘but I do want to know: is this the man who killed my sister?’
For a second I didn’t know what to say. It was like two short-priced thoughts had arrived at the post the same time and dead-heated. It was the man who killed his sister — and it was also a picture of the bloke who’d grabbed me at the racecourse, and the bloke I’d seen at Wonder Woman’s house. It was the Bob Herbert Aunty Betty had talked about. A part of me had somehow always hoped that they were different people; that none of them was the murderer; that they were all upset with me for different reasons — I mean, I do get around. But the photo made the whole thing solid and real. It was evidence.
‘Yes, he is.’
I looked up at Mr Sanderson with a dry throat.
‘But I saw him get hurt … somewhere else. He might be dead,’ I heard myself say, with a hopeful tone that I was too late to stop.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr Sanderson, only half to me, and half to Mrs Sanderson. He nodded to himself. ‘We’ll soon have him, you know. In the meantime, it might be a good idea if you stayed away from racecourses — not that he’s likely to show his face there.’
‘The lady who died, she wasn’t your sister at all, was she?’ I said, feeling that it was safe to tell him of my suspicion.
‘Amazing!’ he said with true admiration in his voice, and a quick glance at Mrs S. ‘No, she wasn’t. She was a policewoman.’
I wished he had said something else, something like: ‘No, she rides Topsy the elephant at Bullen’s Circus,’ or ‘No, she was a clippie on the Camberwell tram.’ I mean, I would have filed that away on my map under: ‘Oh yeah, and here’s something else I heard at the Sandersons’.’ But he had said one of those words that are practically taboo at our place, or anywhere else around the neighbourhood.
I felt that that would have been a good time to spit my lemonade all over him, like Lou Costello, when he gets a shock. But I had developed a few manners around at the Sandersons’, not to mention the Palmers’. Also, Granddad had told me never, never, to let the punters see your real emotions. In other words, spit out your lemonade by all means, but only at a time when you want the punter to think you’re shocked. But I really was shocked, so Mr S came as near as a toucher to wearing his wife’s finest, that is, of course, if she really was his wife. I was so tempted to ask, it hurt, but Kim knew when to keep his mouth shut, and so did I.
But Mr S was like Mandrake the Magician and Wonder Woman all rolled into one. Listen to what he says next: ‘You’re wondering if Mrs Sanderson is really my wife. Am I right?’
I nearly fell off my chair.
‘Well, she is,’ he said. He took the photo back. ‘And that’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.’
‘Will I have to tell the police what I saw?’ I had not yet trained Zac in running away from home, and besides, I did not want to tell anyone what I saw that day. I had put it on the map, complete with colours, and for me that was an end to the matter.
‘Do you want to?’
I thought back, to the noises and the purple face, and the staring eyes. Now Mrs S looked into my eyes.
‘It’s all right, you don’t have to. But there is one thing I’d like to know: does Mrs Palmer know what you know? Now I’m not talking about what you saw at this house any more, but about what you saw at her house. Does she know? It’s all right, you can speak freely. We’re not really interested in how it happened; he was a man who made enemies easily.’
‘You said “we”,’ I said.
‘Yes, have you ever heard of COMPOL?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a special police force. We aren’t interested in the same things the local police are interested in, and we’re not like them either,’ he added, watching me carefully. ‘The kind of people we are interested in are big fish; you know what that means, don’t you? What your grandfather and his mates might get up to is no concern of ours, though I can tell you this: the local police are cleaning up, and some of his mates are going to end up in jail. Don’t worry; I’ve given him the drum, so hopefully he’ll keep his head down for a while. So, Mrs Palmer?’
‘Yeah, she knows. She said she’d dob me in for B&E if I told anyone. And my aunty said the copp —, I mean the police, had my fingerprints. They got them off the phone the night I was there … I used the phone.’
‘It was you who called the ambulance.’
‘Yeah, then I shot through, but Wond — Mrs Palmer saw me through the window.’
‘Well you don’t have to worry about the police record of your fingerprints —’ he pulled a large brown envelope out of his briefcase and waggled it a bit ‘— because I have them in here. And tomorrow I’ll burn them. And you don’t have to worry about Mrs Palmer, either. She said those things before she knew you. Besides, she and I are old friends.’
Just when I thought I’d heard everything!
‘Why are you helping me?’
‘Because if someone doesn’t help you, you’
ll get yourself into serious trouble one day, and I think you’re worth more than that.’
The next thing that happened was that I walked into the house one day after a Commandos meeting — you wouldn’t read about it, Matthew Foster had been made a lance corporal — and there was Dad, sitting on the sofa with Mum, holding her hand. Actually, when I looked more closely, I could see that it was Mum who was doing the holding — there’s a difference.
My first t hought was that I had the DTs, like old Mr Begley down the corner, and was seeing things, and I swore to myself on the spot I’d never touch sacramental wine again — Matthew Bloody Foster was welcome to it. Looking back, it was a lucky thing I didn’t swear on a cat’s skull.
The second thing I thought was that he’d better get the hell out of there before Mum sees his friend, who wasn’t better-looking than Mum, but did have bigger knockers, and I knew from what I heard at school that a girl with big knockers always had the inside running. But then I remembered that it was her idea that he go home, and she wouldn’t be hiding in the broom cupboard, ready to jump out and yell Surprise! which is exactly what killed Uncle Owen — and don’t get me started on him.
Then I thought someone was was playing a trick, probably God, to whom I was no longer speaking, and this wasn’t Dad at all but some bloke who’d been paid to pretend to be him, like Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda; after all, he was holding Mum’s hand — well, sort of — and the real Dad wouldn’t have done that unless maybe he thought that hand was holding the winning Tatts ticket.
In the end I reckoned it would be simplest to accept that it was Dad, and no one was going to jump out of the cupboard, and Mum hadn’t won Tatts, and I could still have the odd cruet of red if I felt like it, not that I did much, these days.
‘G’day,’ he said with a shy smile. Funny, I thought, he doesn’t look pissed.
‘G’day,’ I said, wishing to hold up my end of the conversation.
‘I hear you’ve been up to mischief, as usual.’
You haven’t heard the half of it, I hope.
‘Yeah.’
‘Heard you’ve got some new posh friends. Yer own family not good enough for yer any more?’
‘They’re okay.’ Ever the cryptic one, not unlike Kim.
‘Why don’t you go and put your best clothes on,’ says Mum finally, with a look on her face like Loretta Young introducing a guest. ‘We’re going down to the Golden Pagoda.’
The Cartographer liked the Golden Pagoda, as it always reminded him of that Robert Stack movie, The House of Bamboo, which was chockers with back streets and dark canals. Let’s face it: movies know everything.
‘Okay, Mum.’
I did as I was told. Lucky I did, really, because I think if I’d stayed I might have seen Mum kiss Dad — it was pretty much a one-way thing — and that was something I only imagined for me and Josephine Thompson, and of course, Tuesday Weld. And Annette Funicello. Except I was thinking more in terms of both ways.
Best clothes meant my cream shirt with boats on it. The rest didn’t count as best. I decided to give them a minute extra to get reacquainted — that was long enough — then out I went.
‘So, Dad, where’ve you been?’ I asked over the noodle soup, which was a bit like spaghetti in water. You know me — I like to see people squirm.
He took a slurp of his soup as if he liked it, which I doubt, as it had no grog in it.
‘Here and there,’ he said. ‘Never you mind.’
Mum was looking at her soup as if she had just spotted the Loch Ness Monster swimming in it.
‘Okay,’ I said. The Cartographer always knows how far he can go.
I imagined that Tom was sitting beside me, and that, secretly, we swapped looks — one of those looks that has no words.
I could tell by the way Dad gripped his soup spoon — as if it was a live cobra — that he was wondering how he got into this mess, and how he was going to get out again. And I wondered what would happen to him if his lady friend were to walk in right about now. Noodles, probably.
26 Portia faces life
Well, as it turned out Dad’s friend didn’t have to walk into the Golden Pagoda for the happy reunion to come unglued. It happened all by itself about five minutes after we got home. I didn’t even bother listening this time. I just retired to the map room and did a bit of cartography. Zac still had to be added to the map, and the Caulfield racecourse toilet incident, and a special commemorative bit for Biscuit, though, as I couldn’t bear to draw him getting hit by a tram, I drew him trying to save me in the river.
Dad hadn’t done everything he had promised his friend. He hadn’t even made it clear to Mum that he was scratching himself from the family form guide. What he had done was chicken out.
So next morning, I told Mum that I was worried that Granddad might get arrested and that I wanted to visit him after school. Actually, while that was partly true, I wanted to visit Dad’s other place in Eden Park, to see how everyone was getting on. There was something I liked about the lady, something peaceful, and I thought that that was probably what Dad needed. I wasn’t worried about him being there, because now I knew where he was. And I reckoned that she was the kind of person who wouldn’t give me a thick ear for giving her the benefit of my opinion. As I’d already souvenired one of their photos, I wasn’t after any more, but a good cartographer always likes a bit of a sniff around in any area that has already paid off.
But Mum told me that the last thing the police were going to do was put Granddad in jail, which I thought was kind of strange, as he once told me that when he was young he was sent to Pentridge for jobbing a bloke who’d turned out to be a cop on holidays. And on top of that, I always thought that he stood a better chance than anyone in South Richmond of getting arrested for something, just because, as he himself said, the coppers can’t abide an honest businessman. Then I thought that Mum might only have said that because Granddad was sick, as he was a pretty old codger. In fact, I reckon if Mandrake sawed him in half and you counted the rings, you’d get to about sixty before you threw up. But no, he was apparently in the pink, and Mum said that he had a cup of tea with her in the Hibiscus Tea Shop just the other day, though that was very hard to imagine, as I had been in that place, and it actually did serve tea.
But Mum did agree, so I now had the opportunity to break the ice and see if Dad was keen to have his little talk with me, as Dad seemed reluctant to say what needed to be said. Understandable, really. Our family was probably not the most talkative outfit in Melbourne; in fact, I reckon if they held a claiming race for talkers, we’d probably only place if we entered Mum on one of her bad days, or Aunty Betty on one of her good days, or else not waste our entry fee. The rest of the family was about on a par with Joe Friday and Frank Smith from Dragnet. So I figured I had a duty towards Dad and his friend. After all, someone’s got to keep the ball rolling, or where would we be? Anyway, it was time I introduced myself and added their house to my list of hideouts.
Should I travel by lane, drain or tram? I asked myself. I’d definitely take a tram to the other side of Richmond, as it was less than one whole section, so I wouldn’t be charged for a ticket, and besides, it would give me a chance to ask the clippie if she had any ticket stubs for my collection. The rest of the way, I’d walk via the lanes. That way, I’d be able to drop in on Dad without anyone seeing me, as the Cartographer likes to travel incognito.
Anyway, the tram ride is a winner. The clippie gives me a set of lime green five-penny ticket stubs and doesn’t try to charge me, the way some of them do to kids who are by themselves, even if they’re not going over into the next section. Also, I see Andrew McGuin, a boy from school, and his mother. He tells me his mum is taking him shopping for a new pair of shoes, then to the Gala to see Carry on Sergeant. He also tells me he has some new comics to swap and some of them are superhero comics, and I tell him I have a couple of Century comics, and maybe we can swap before the other kids get a look, so he says okay. His mum tells me
that she saw my picture in the paper with Biscuit and she is very proud of me. That bloody picture again!
She says: ‘I heard that you never go anywhere without your dog, except to school.’
‘I used to, but now he’s dead,’ I say, smooth as a toffee apple, but feeling like a grenade went off in my stomach, because it hit me that this could be the tram that killed him.
‘That’s terrible,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without King; he’s such a part of our family, isn’t he, dear?’
‘It’s all right. I’ve already got a new dog; he’s just not used to trams yet.’
‘Well now, Andrew’s birthday is in a few weeks, and we’d like you to come over for his birthday party. Andrew will give you an invitation to give to your mum next week.’
Andrew looks at us both as if his mum has complete control over his social calendar, and he never knows from one minute to the next who he’s going to be entertaining. I know how he feels.
‘Thanks. I’d like that very much,’ I say in my talking-to-parents voice.
‘Well then, that’s settled.’
Then she looks around and says to me with a frown, the way Mum looks when she’d expected the cake to come out shaped like a hill, and instead it came out shaped like a valley: ‘Does your mother let you take the tram by yourself?’
‘No, never,’ I say, using the face Granddad had taught me to put on whenever we were at the track. ‘She loves to go out with me. But today, for the first time, she’s letting me go to my granddad’s place by myself, because she’s sick in bed.’
Actually, some of that was the truth; namely, the last two words. Sometimes when Granddad turned up with a crate of something on his shoulder, Mum would say: ‘What the hell is that?’ And he’d say, with a funny look on his face: ‘Surplus to requirements.’ That was me.
Then I suddenly realise that we’ve reached Swan Street, and I jump up and pull my bloke’s hat down so that it’s a bit tighter, and yelling a breathless goodbye to one and all step down onto the running board and swing out over the street, hanging on to the tram’s getting-on-and-off rail with my right hand, ready to drop into a well-practised run before the tram can come to a halt. Behind me, I hear a car engine whining as it brakes suddenly to avoid running over me, and up front, the trammie starts ringing the bell as if he just got it for Christmas, to tell me to wait until he has stopped. Fat chance, Mario, or whatever your name is. Tell you what, when the Cartographer gets off a tram, heads turn.
