by Peter Corris
The police made noises about suspending my licence, but the facts were clear, with plenty of witnesses. The cops weren’t serious; no one was unhappy about Whitehead being out of circulation.
Piper had no intention of publishing a book. He paid the advance back to the publisher, including Melanie’s commission. He tried to pay me for my services but I told him where to put it. He reclaimed the partial manuscript from the publisher and from Melanie, threatening to sue them unless they complied. They did. What happened between him and the Community of Christ I never found out and didn’t want to know.
My affair with Melanie petered out and died when she asked me if I wanted to write my memoirs.
GLOBALISATION
Jacko Brown was an old mate. We’d boxed together in the Maroubra Police Boys Club, surfed together and got shot at in the Malayan Emergency. After dropping out of law school I’d drifted into insurance investigation and eventually into one-man private work. Jacko had spent a bit of time in the police force and then inherited a farm from his uncle and gone bush. We stayed in touch by phone and when he came to the smoke he looked me up and we had a drink. That happened about once every two or three years. It was a one way street until he phoned me and this time it wasn’t to agree on what pub to meet in.
‘I need some help, Cliff.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘I need you to come out here.’
‘Jesus, it’s what, five hundred kilometres?’
‘Nearer seven fifty. But it’s a reasonable road for five hundred or so, gets a bit rough west of Nyngan.’
‘Is there anything west of Nyngan?’
‘Yeah. Carter’s Creek, my town.’
‘People?’
‘Cut it out, mate. You’re not that much of a city slicker. I really need you to come out here and help me, help us.’
He’d never asked for anything from me before and he wasn’t the sort to ask lightly. I agreed to get there within the week, as soon as I’d cleared up the few things I had hanging. I contacted Glen Withers, an old girlfriend who’d recently succumbed to the lures of one of the big private investigation outfits after running her own show for a few years. On the strength of her new earning power she’d bought a newish Pajero, but I knew she’d always lusted after my vintage Falcon and I arranged a temporary swap.
‘Where’re you going?’ Glen said as she handed me the keys.
‘West.’
‘You’ve never been west of Mount Victoria.’
‘Not true. I went to Broken Hill once.’
‘Why?’
‘I forget. I must’ve been drunk.’
‘Well, don’t drink and drive my Pajero. Are we talking a fortnight?’
‘Could be less, could be more.’
‘Thanks a lot, but okay. Take care, Cliff.’
Two days and a couple of lungsful of dust later I was in Carter’s Creek. It wasn’t one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of places, but it certainly wasn’t big. The main gravel road was crossed by a couple of dusty streets with a few houses scattered around. There was the pub, a police station, a couple of shops, a fire brigade and a bank. A building hidden by trees looked like a school and another, similarly shrouded, was either a church or a community hall.
The country around the town looked to be well watered and green for the time of year. I’d crossed a couple of creeks and one sizeable river-the Narriyellan. I’d tried to look the town up in the couple of atlases and guides I had but they were well out of date and it didn’t rate much of a mention. The district was described as given over to ‘mixed farming’, which meant nothing to an urbanite like me. After Nyngan I’d got an impression of big properties with good fences and irrigation systems and that was about it.
It was March and late in the afternoon but still hot. I parked the 4 WD in the shade of a couple of ghost gums in company with two utes, a tractor, a light truck and a few dust coated cars and went into the pub. The bar was dim and cool the way a bar should be and the few drinkers present were in groups of two and three drinking and talking quietly. Jacko had never been much of a drinker and I didn’t expect to see him there at this time of day. I ordered a beer and asked the barman where I could find him.
He pulled the beer before responding. ‘Mate of yours?’
I fished for money and nodded.
‘Army and that?’
I sipped the cold beer and felt it clean my throat. ‘Long time back.’
‘You’d be Cliff Hardy then.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Ted, Ted Firth.’
We shook and I drank some more beer. A couple of the other men looked across but no one moved. Firth pulled another beer and pushed it towards me. ‘Jacko said you’d be in. He’s shouted you the first two.’
I noticed that he hadn’t touched the note I’d put on the bar. I sank the first beer and started on the second. ‘I know I’ll be driving out to his place. Is the copper around?’
Firth looked surprised. ‘You want him?’
I lifted the glass. ‘I was thinking about being over the limit. I haven’t eaten since morning.’
He laughed. ‘You don’t have to worry about that out here, mate. With Vic Bruce, it’s live and let live. He’ll be in for his three schooners later. Look, I can get the missus to make you a sandwich.’
When I was younger I could drive five hundred miles and go to a party. Not any more. I put my bum on a stool and let out a sigh. ‘That’ll be great. Then I’ll pay for another beer and buy you one.’
‘You’re on.’
He went off and came back inside ten minutes with a beef and pickle sandwich that would’ve choked a horse. Somehow I got it down, helped by the third middy. I checked my watch.
‘I’ve got to get some money,’ I said. ‘I’ll just slip down to the bank.’
Firth shook his head as he collected my glass. ‘Bank’s closed, mate. That’s what this is all about.’
I sank back on the stool. ‘I don’t know what this is. You’d better fill me in.’
‘Naw. Better let Jacko do that.’
‘Well, I still need money for petrol. I suppose it’s a fair run out to his place?’
‘Not really. Fifty k’s is all.’
‘And I wanted to take him some grog, so…’
‘Jacko doesn’t drink.’
‘Since when?’
He leaned closer. ‘Since his missus died. Sounds like you and Jacko haven’t been in close touch.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yeah, well, Shirl was killed when Jacko rolled his ute. He’d had a few. Wasn’t pissed, mind, but Shirl was a popular local girl and there was a bit of feeling for a while. From her family and that. Anyway, Jacko swore off the grog. Doesn’t have any on the place.’
‘Okay. Just as well you told me. But I still need some money.’
‘You’ve got a problem. Now for a while I was cashing blokes’ cheques but I had to stop.’
‘You got dudded?’
‘No. No way. No one around here’d do that to me. My accountant made me stop. He reckoned it was a service and I’d have to charge a GST. Fucked if I was goin’ to do that. The books are hard enough to keep as it is. This bloody globalisation’s fucking us slowly if you ask me.’
‘So how do people get money?’
‘They drive to Cobar, mate. And with petrol the price it is… More globalisation, see?’
‘Yeah. Well, I can probably make fifty k’s if you can just point me the way.’
‘No need. Jacko’s boy Kevin’s been hanging around waiting for you since yesterday. He’s over at the table there. He’ll be pissed but he should still know the way home.’
‘Jacko must’ve described me to him. Why didn’t he come over and say hello?’
‘He’s a funny bugger, Kevin. You’d better haul him out while he can still walk.’
I approached the table where three young men were drinking beer from long necks, smoking and playing cards. I suppose I’d seen photographs of Jacko’s son but not s
ince he was an adolescent. Still, it was impossible to mistake him. In his early twenties, he had his father’s thick dark hair, heavy features and stringy athletic build. He was broad-shouldered and snake-hipped in T-shirt, jeans and boots. He saw me coming but ignored me. Took a swig from his bottle.
‘Kevin Brown?’ I said.
The look he gave me was an insult in itself-a combination of boredom and contempt. ‘Yeah. You must be the great Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m Hardy, don’t know about the great. Ted over there says you’ll show me the way to your dad’s place.’
‘Yeah. When I’m ready.’
He was slurring his words and the hand laying down his cards and fumbling for a cigarette was far from steady.
‘Could we make it soon, d’you reckon? I’ve had a long drive and I’m a bit whacked.’
One of his mates slung back his chair and got to his feet, all 190 plus centimetres of him. He was very big, very belligerent and very drunk. He wore a singlet and shorts and had plenty of muscle on him along with a good deal of beer fat. ‘Didn’t you hear him, mate? He said when he’s fuckin’ good and ready.’
‘I think he’s ready now. And you should sit down before you fall over.’
He stepped around the table and from the way he balanced himself, drunk as he was, I could tell he’d done some ring fighting. He threw a looping left that almost reached me and it was plain as day that his next punch was a right uppercut coming from around his knees. I moved to the left and let him throw it and, while his balance was all right for coming forward, it was no good for sideways, which was where he tried to move when he saw his punch would miss. He swayed with neither hand doing anything useful, and it was child’s play to poke a straight right into his belly and land a left hook to his thick neck. He was big so I put something into it. He pawed the air, gasped for breath and went down hard.
I gestured to Kevin Brown. ‘Let’s go, Kevin.’
He got up and gathered his cigarettes as if hypnotised. I pointed to one of his friends. ‘Better make sure your mate doesn’t swallow his tongue.’
I waved to the barman and shepherded Kevin outside. He went like a lamb and climbed into the Pajero without a word. I started it up. ‘Which way?’
He pointed and we were off. After a kilometre or so, by which time we were on a dirt road heading west into the sun, he said, ‘Jimmy’s never been beaten in a street fight or a tent fight.’
I grunted. ‘They were probably pissed like him.’
‘You’d had a few.’
‘If I’d had as much as Jimmy he’d probably have beaten me. As it was, he was too slow.’
He sniffed and pulled out his cigarettes. Lit up. ‘Tough guy,’ he said.
I had nothing to say to that and we drove on in silence while he smoked and I squinted into the lowering sun. The fuel gauge was low but I reckoned there was enough if Ted Firth’s estimate of the distance was right.
‘About fifty k’s is it, Kevin?’
‘About that. Shit, I meant to buy some grog. All that carry-on stopped me.’
‘I heard your dad doesn’t allow alcohol on the place.’
‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Unless you tell him.’
‘Grow up. That’s between you and him. I was sorry to hear about your mother.’
‘Why? Did you ever meet her?’
‘Once. A long time ago.’
He sighed. ‘That’s how it is with you blokes. Everything’s a long time ago.’
‘Not everything. Your dad’s got some kind of problem in the here and now. Want to tell me about it?’
He didn’t answer or if he did I couldn’t hear him because a plane passed over low down but rising, heading east.
‘I’d have flown up if I’d known there was a service,’ I said.
‘There isn’t. The planes run supplies and equipment and manpower to the big properties and freight out the produce. It’s the only way to do business out here in woop-woop.’
Globalisation, I thought. ‘And what do you do out here in woop-woop, Kevin?’
‘Bugger-all. I was in the bank but it closed down.’
I was beginning to get an idea of the shape of things. Kevin lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out with a beer-laden breath. He was still fit-looking but wouldn’t be for long if he went on the way he was going. His fingers were heavily nicotine-stained. ‘I understand you used to be a pretty good footballer.’
He snorted his derision. ‘Yeah, back when the town wasn’t just geriatrics and women. It’s time to go, man.’
‘What keeps you here then?’
He didn’t answer. He smoked his cigarette down to the filter, butted it and went to sleep, or pretended to. I drove on hoping the road would take me all the way to Jacko’s place. After a few kilometres I passed the entrance to one of the big properties Kevin had referred to. The gate was an impressive wrought iron structure set in solid brick pillars with a high cyclone fence running away for a hundred metres on either side. The sign over the gate read Western Holdings Pty Ltd and carried a website address. A flagpole with a blue and yellow flag hanging limply in the still air sprouted just inside. The road leading from the gate was tarred, with garden beds on both sides. In the far distance the fading sunlight bounced off gleaming roofs.
The road climbed suddenly and from the crest I got a good view of the Western Holdings property. It seemed to go on forever and to be very orderly with dams and irrigation channels and sheds at regular intervals. I saw cows and big paddocks with crops I couldn’t identify and several pieces of heavy machinery. Whatever they produced there was on a large scale and capital intensive.
I opened my mouth to ask Kevin about it but he let out a snore. My eyes flicked to the fuel gauge, which was hovering just above empty. I deliberately steered into a pothole and let the Pajero bounce. Kevin jerked awake and swore.
‘What the fuck…’
‘We’re almost out of fuel. How much further is it?’
He peered through the dusty windshield. ‘Have you passed the Yank place?’
‘If you mean Western Holdings, yes.’
‘That’s what I mean. Five thousand fucking acres making money hand over fist. Dad’s crummy little dirt patch is about two k’s off. When you cross a scummy little creek you’re almost there.’
‘You don’t like the farm?’
‘I used to, when it was a farm. I loved it.’
The gauge read empty. To take my mind off it I said, ‘Tell me about it, Kevin.’
But his eyes were riveted on the gauge. ‘Dad’ll tell you all about it. And he’ll tell you about his insane idea to save the fucking world.’
I couldn’t help making unfavourable comparisons between Jacko’s farm and the Western Holdings outfit. Jacko’s fences needed repair, his main track needed grading and his sheds were sway-backed. The farmhouse had once been a handsome, broad-verandahed building sheltered by spreading eucalypts but it wore a shabby defeated air created by peeling paint, faded brickwork and rusted iron. A battered ute stood under a makeshift canvas shelter and I pulled up beside it.
Kevin Brown jumped down and strode off towards the house without a word. The fuel gauge had flopped below empty and the motor died before I could turn it off. I climbed down and stretched. The Pajero was air-conditioned and comfortable but I’d driven for more hours than my mature limbs cared for. I stood in the long shadows cast by some spindly trees and worked my shoulders.
‘Left shoulder still a bit stiff, eh? I remember when you dislocated it in a dumper.’
I turned to see Jacko Brown standing a few paces away. His soft feet had made him a good boxer and a great jungle fighter.
‘Jacko,’ I said. ‘So this is what you traded in a contract with the Balmain Tigers for?’
We shook hands. His was as hard and rough as a mallee root. ‘This is it. A thousand acres.’
‘You’re behind the times, mate. It’s hectares now.’
‘Yeah, I keep forgetting. Great to see yo
u, Cliff. Where’s Kevin?’
‘He took off inside.’ I reached into the 4WD for my bag. ‘I hope you’ve got some fuel here. I’ve used the last drop.’
‘Of course. Gallons.’
‘Litres.’
He laughed. ‘Fuck you. Come in and have a shower and a scotch.’
I shouldered the bag and we walked across the scruffy grass to the house. ‘I heard you went dry.’
‘I did, but I got some in for you.’
The temperature dropped welcomingly inside the house. I took off my sunglasses and adjusted to the reduced light. There was a broad passageway with rooms off to either side. The floor was polished hardwood but dusty. The carpet runner was frayed. We went through to a kitchen and sunroom stretching the width of the house at the back. The kitchen held a combustion stove, a big old-fashioned refrigerator and a microwave oven, plus a long pine table and chairs. Three pine dressers, antiques. The furniture in the sunroom was cane, old and with sun-faded cushions.
Jacko opened the back door and pointed. ‘Shower’s out there. I’ll just have a word with Kevin, then we can have a drink.’
The washhouse, combining a bathroom and laundry, was a fibro outhouse ten paces away. To shower you stood in a claw hammer bath. You hung your towel on a nail on the door. I showered quickly in cold water, dried off, changed my shirt and went back to the house. Jacko put ice in a bowl, got two glasses and a bottle of soda water, and put them on the low table in the sunroom.
‘Kevin’s shot through,’ he said. ‘Dunno where. I was going to give him a drink. I know he gets on it in town. Did you have any trouble with him?’
‘Not with him. A mate of his named Jimmy had a go.’
‘Did you hurt him?’
‘Not really. He’ll have a stiff neck and a bruised beer gut for a bit.’
‘Say when.’ He poured a solid slug of Johnny Walker red over ice. He put ice in his own glass and topped it with soda water. He handed me the drink. ‘Cheers.’
We sat and I drank and felt the whisky slide down my throat and lubricate my bones. As soon as we’d both had a swallow Jacko got to the point.
