by Joy Dettman
the truth of the matter
She came in a cloud of dust, scattering dogs and urchins but managing to bring her wheels to a halt before she hit the tree. The widow Dolan liked trees, dogs and urchins, and always made a concerted effort to miss them.
Miss Lizzie, Miss Jessie and their niece, Jeanne Johnson, sat in a small utility room beside the office. It had a window looking out on the street, was only a wall away from the telephone exchange and, at this time of day, was the least hot place in the house. Each of the three waved fans: Jessie’s, a feminine one made of varnished bamboo, Lizzie’s, a large piece of cardboard; Jeanne was using a folded newspaper. When they heard that car, they lost interest in telephone calls and the stifling heat. The three rose as one and moved to the window, easing the heavy curtain back far enough to see the driver step from her car, flashing bare legs.
Widows wore black in Molliston, or at least something dark. Even if the dear departeds’ departures had been a blessed relief to their widows, they knew better than to flaunt that fact in the town’s face. A gold-digger, that woman, her husband dead a bare year and there she was, wearing a maroon skirt too short for a woman of her advanced years, a mere scrap of a cream blouse and no stockings.
‘She ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of town,’ Miss Lizzie said, lifting the curtain higher.
Jeanne, a maiden of nineteen, nodded in agreement, though she dreamed of wearing such a skirt and scrap of a blouse one day, and of having the necessary requirements to fill the front of that scrap of blouse. Jeanne’s breasts were flat and her serviceable Sunday frock, buttoned to the neck, lent her the shape of a telephone pole. She was a Johnson, but one who had inherited the Martins’ unfortunate nose – long, narrow and beaked – and she had their small, close-set eyes, if not their baby fine hair. Her father sported a head of wiry carrot-red hair; Jeanne’s was as wiry and as red. She’d also inherited his blotch of freckles and his buckteeth.
Heads close, the three watchers followed that blaze of colour, then, as of one mind, hurried to their eastern door and crept outside, because that Dolan woman was walking towards the police station.
‘What does she, of all people, want with the constable?’
Tom was seated on a cane chair on his veranda, resting his hardworking legs for a minute while digesting his visit to Kennedy, and counting down the minutes to the anticipated arrival of Morgan and his car. The car Tom was eager to see; he’d done enough bike riding for one day. The car’s occupants – well, he was trying not to think about them. That piece of corned beef, plus the spuds, carrots and onions he’d just now added to the pot, would be ready for eating in twenty minutes, and though he’d put in enough to feed four, he had no desire to feed four. Far better if he could get Rosie fed, get her down for a rest, and get Jeanne installed in the house before he had to deal with Sergeant Clarrie Morgan and Constable Jefferies – whoever he was.
Tom suffered a spray of dust as the widow’s car braked. He watched her slide from the driver’s seat, expecting her to walk towards the café, but she was heading for his veranda.
‘Some have got it tough,’ she said, stepping up and standing before his door. He eyed her but made no move to rise. ‘Unless you’re wanting the whole town to hear what I’ve got to say, you’d better invite me in.’
Better the whole town hear her than she get Rosie started up again. He removed his feet from the second cane chair and gestured towards it. She sat, and proceeded to remove one sandal, shake grit from it, brush grit from her long bare foot. Determined not to ask what she wanted, he sat puffing smoke.
‘I just heard that Rachael Squire died down near my place this morning. Is that fact or town fiction?’
‘Fact, Mrs Dolan.’
‘I take it that’s the reason you came snooping around my place at dawn.’
‘It was after eight,’ Tom corrected.
‘What happened to her? When did it happen?’
‘More to the point, Mrs Dolan, what do you know about it?’
‘I know she turned up at my place last night.’
‘So I heard,’ he said, his eyes forcibly concentrated on the marble players beneath the tree. ‘What I need to know is what time she left and who she left with.’
‘She left alone, twenty, thirty minutes later.’
‘Not with Chris Reichenberg?’
‘No. Kurt brought her over but he was leaving as I came out the door.’
‘And?’ he said.
‘I had a lot of pickers in last night, and a few of them were giving her the eye. She was dressed up to the nines, so when Chris Reichenberg left her standing, I took her into my parlour.’ She glanced at his pipe, took a cigarette from her handbag and lit it. ‘She asked me –’ Movement behind the post office’s side gate caught her eye, and closed her mouth.
‘Asked what?’
The widow nodded in the direction of the post office gate, blew smoke in the same direction, then in a voice aimed to carry, continued: ‘She asked if it was true that those old maid Martins were being taken to court for listening in to people’s phone calls.’
Miss Jessie went indoors faster than she’d come out, but Lizzie and Jeanne remained where they were, half hidden behind a trellis.
‘Stop your rabble-rousing,’ Tom said. He eyed her for a moment, considering a question he wanted to ask. It came out of his mouth as an accusation. ‘What were you doing at the dairy with Willie Johnson this morning?’
‘What’s that got to do with the Squire girl?’
‘What’s it got to do with young Ruby is what I’m wondering.’
‘I was down there to buy butter.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to inform you, Mrs Dolan, but you left without buying any.’
‘Did I? Tut, tut.’ She drew on her cigarette, flicked her ash at him, wriggled her chair further back into the shade. ‘I came up here to tell you what I know of the Squire girl, but if you’re more interested in having a gossip, then go over and talk to that lot.’
‘Talk then.’
‘She told me she was going to Melbourne, and that Chris would go with her once he came to his senses. I’ve known what those two kids were up to since I moved here. Anyway, I told her to sit tight for a minute and I’d bring him in to talk to her. He wouldn’t talk, so she took off. I couldn’t leave her wandering around by herself – some of those pickers had put away more than was good for them –’
‘I could run you in for that admission –’
‘Oh, don’t come the puritanical arsehole with me today, Thomo. I’m not in a mood for it. I liked that girl, and there’s not many in this town I’d say that for. She’d come through the Reichenbergs’ fence some nights and walk around the garden with me, and you never would have known she was Squire’s daughter. Some mongrel murdered her, and I wouldn’t mind betting it was her husband.’
‘Just an educated guess, Mrs Dolan?’
‘No, it’s not. I saw him driving around late last night.’ She sucked the last from the butt then tossed it. ‘Let me go back to where she took off from my place. By the time I got my car out, she was running up the hill. The train was coming, and she said she wanted to catch it and go across to Willama for the night.’
‘So, you’re saying all this happened early, around train time?’
‘Around ten-thirty. I drove her up there, but the train must have gone straight through. We missed it. I told her I’d give her a bed for the night, that I’d drive her in to catch the morning train to Melbourne, but she said she’d wait at the station. ‘Chris will come,’ she said. ‘He’ll know I’m waiting here.’
‘I thought she’d be safe. I mean, the station house is right next door. Anyway, I was driving back along Railway Road and I stopped for a minute down near the bottom crossing. That’s when I saw Kennedy’s truck lights coming out of his gate. He was probably looking for his absconding wife.’
‘I’d better take a ride around to the station, see if Wilson knows anything,’ Tom said.
&n
bsp; She shrugged, tossed her hair back, finger-combed it from her eyes. It had a will of its own, each strand possessing its personal spring.
‘I had a talk to Kennedy, just a while back. He mentioned a name you might remember, Mrs Dolan. A Vernon Lowe. Have you seen him about town?’
‘What’s he done?’
‘He’s supposed to be picking up here. I’m wondering if he’s improved with age.’
‘He was down there last night and he was eyeing the Squire girl off, as were a dozen others – which reminds me, Len Larkin heard her telling Chris she had money, and if he heard her, others did. They could have followed her when she left, saw me pick her up and head for the station.’
‘Was Lowe at the pub late?’
‘I couldn’t get rid of him, but I can’t guarantee he was there all night. Len Larkin would know more about that than me. I wasn’t around for a lot of the night.’ She reached beneath the low neckline of her blouse, removing a much folded sheet of paper and handing it to him. Its heat burned Tom’s fingers – or perhaps it was the knowledge of where it had so recently rested. ‘That’s the list of names you wanted – or the names I know.’
Tom scanned the page. ‘Like the good ladies say…’
‘What good ladies?’ She lit another cigarette, offered her pack to Tom but he refused. He was scanning that list. Thirty-odd names there and he knew most of them. ‘What time did your party break up, Mrs Dolan?’
‘My roosters were crowing – which doesn’t mean much. They crow at the moon.’
‘The buggers crow as soon as they see my bike coming too.’
‘True,’ she said. ‘They’re a special breed – don’t like uniforms.’ She looked towards the old gum tree, then allowed her eyes to sweep back to the post office. Mary Murphy was out, and almost making Miss Lizzie’s backside look small. Jeanne must have been behind the trellis.
‘Why don’t you come over here and admire the constable’s weeds, Miss Martin. You’ll hear a lot more,’ the widow called.
‘Will you stop your flamin’ rabble-rousing,’ Tom said, moving his chair back, placing a safer distance between him and that bloody-minded woman who was now pulling weeds from Rosie’s potted geranium.
‘That plant could use a drink of water, and so could I,’ she said.
‘I’m not planning on going inside to get it.’ He refolded the paper, slipped it between the pages of his notebook. ‘What sort of handbag was Rachael carrying last night?’
‘Expensive, light tan with a pleated front. The shoulder strap had been done in a plait. I took particular note of it when it was in the boot shop window – because of that plait. I couldn’t work out how he’d done it. I would have bought it if I hadn’t had one too similar.’
He took his pipe and tobacco tin from his pocket and packed a pipe, which effectively kept his eyes away from her crossed knee and shapely calf. She had long legs that tapered into slim ankles. Her toes were long and straight. They’d always intrigued Tom; his own toes spent their lives attempting to curl under, burrowing like fat grubs into the soles of his feet.
The first time he’d seen those toes they’d been attached to a raga-muffin of a girl who looked about ten or eleven. Tom, sixteen at the time, was leaning against a wall, watching four coppers blowing whistles while trying to run down a brown-clad urchin who’d helped herself to one of the baker’s steak and kidney pies. They’d gone around the corner when Tom sighted her, or sighted those toes poking out from a pile of rubbish down a back alley. He stuck two fingers in his mouth, planning to whistle those coppers back, then he saw one amber eye peeping at him from behind a tangle of red gum hair.
‘You give me up, boy, and I’ll get you,’ she said, stuffing the hot pie in, catching the crusts as they fell and pushing them back, her fingers and a mouthful of good teeth working as one unit.
There was something about that eye – the fan of lashes framing it were black when they should have been red – and something about that mouth and the way it was putting away pie, determined to get it in and down before she was caught, have the enjoyment before taking the punishment – there was definitely something rare about that raga-muffin girl.
Her toes had grown a mite longer the next time he’d sighted them. Her red gum hair had been combed, tied at the nape of her neck, but you couldn’t mistake that hair, or those eyes. She’d been with a big coot, well known in the area, as was his establishment. Tom took in at a glance that she’d progressed from stealing pies to a different trade. She’d caught his eye, though, given him a wink, and when the coot she was with boxed her ears for it, she laughed. She had a bugger of a laugh on her, even back then. Over the following years he’d taken an interest in her progress from one establishment to the next – had seen quite a bit of her at one time – then she’d disappeared. Until Harry Dolan brought her to Molliston.
Tom sighed, tried not to stare as she hitched down the neck of her scanty top, which was already showing too much for his comfort. She had no right to look like she did. Why couldn’t she look old and dissipated? And how the hell did a woman with red hair get to grow black eyelashes, anyway? Look at those Johnson kids – hardly an eyelash between the lot of them.
‘How was she killed, Thomo?’
‘The back of her skull was fractured. A single blow, by the looks of it. Something heavy, a cricket bat, a full bottle – she didn’t have a hope.’ He turned to the road as a car broached the hill. It pulled over in front of the café. ‘I’ve got two Russell Street chaps driving up here today. You might get a couple of rooms ready for them.’
‘I might not too. My rooms are full.’
‘That’s a lie.’
‘It won’t be if you try lodging coppers with me. I’ll invite a few pickers in for the night.’
‘You haven’t had young Ruby Johnson staying down there, have you?’ No reply. ‘Do you know who got her into that state?’
‘Ask her sister. She’s still over there, her ears on swivels.’ The widow stood, flipped her skirt down with the backs of her hands and stepped off the veranda.
‘Those chaps will be requiring two rooms and all meals.’
‘They’ll go roomless and hungry then, won’t they?’
‘You can charge them city rates. What are you quibbling about?’
‘Who are they sending up?’
‘Clarrie Morgan, for one. He’s a sergeant now.’
‘Morgan?’ she said. ‘You think I’m giving him a room?’
‘You’ll have to.’
‘You think I’m having him on my premises? You’ve got a bigger think coming to you, Thomo. I’m not cooking for him, and I’m not paying anyone else to cook for him either.’
‘There’s no place else for them to stay. I haven’t got any room – and I can’t have him here with Rosie the way she is.’
‘The Greens take in boarders.’
‘They’ve got that bank chappie and Willie Johnson staying there.’
‘They had four lodgers at one stage – and I don’t care what you do with them. Bed them down under a barbwire fence, for all I care. I mean it – I’ll close up. I’ll leave town before I share a roof with that mongrel.’
‘I suggest you start packing then.’ He looked at his watch.
She was already on her way, blowing Miss Lizzie and Co a kiss as she passed, then stooping to pick up a marble and send it spinning into the ring, scattering the kids’ marbles.
He watched her through a haze of pipe smoke as she got into her car and drove off in a cloud of dust. He stood, walked to a veranda post where he leaned, watching that dust until it settled, then he turned towards the railway station, and maybe to Rachael’s handbag waiting there. He didn’t blame the girl for wanting to run. Folk got themselves stuck in bad situations and they learned to roll over and play dead. He sighed, slipped his watch back into his vest pocket. Morgan’s projected time of arrival still half an hour off, he had time for a quick ride around to the railway station. That girl’s bag was somewhere. Kurt had
seen her with it earlier that night, but maybe he’d imagined seeing it at the site.
As he mounted his bike and pushed off down Station Street, he was smiling, knowing that if the widow Dolan said she wouldn’t be supplying room and board, she wouldn’t be supplying room and board. He shouldn’t have been smiling, not on a day such as today. His brains were probably fried, and if they weren’t yet, they would be by the time he got back. He’d forgotten his helmet and the sun was now at its zenith.
sunday dinner
One o’clock and the town tree’s shade, inching away to the east, exposed Tom’s veranda to the full might of the sun. A nest of bull ants in residence beside Bill’s petrol pump, directly opposite Tom’s veranda, now waited their turn for some small relief as that patchy shade crept across the grease-stained clay towards their nest. A few ants were about – scouts, perhaps, measuring distances then scuttling downstairs to pass on their calculations. Red clay was hot underfoot when you had six feet.
Perhaps the blowflies felt the heat, or did their busy wings do double service, supplying both flight and fan? Drawn by the rich scent of meaty midday meals, they buzzed at every kitchen door and window, wanting in, and out of that sun. They infiltrated kitchens, found gaps in wire screens, crawled beneath doors, flew down unused chimneys. But the women of Molliston were on guard, their flysprays, swats and rolls of newspaper at the ready.
‘Get him quick before he blows that meat,’ Mary Murphy yelled. She’d pared every edible morsel from a large leg of mutton, and was now measuring it equally onto eight plates. Three of the older boys were in Willama, searching for those missing children. Irene, having eaten early, was sleeping but, like the blowflies, the rest of Mary’s tribe now converged on her too-small kitchen.
‘Did Jeanne say how it happened, Ma?’
‘No. I don’t think anyone knows yet. She just said they found her down near the Reichenbergs’ place, pretty close to their gate, and that Squire reckons Chris killed her. Of course, he would, wouldn’t he?’
‘Reckons Chris killed who, Ma?’ her third youngest, not long from his bed, asked.
