by Joy Dettman
‘You looked like a stunned plover there for a while, Mr Thompson. We told you that anything a city diver could do, we could do better.’
‘You’re looking at a man of too little faith, lads. Where did you find it?’ His smile so wide now it matched theirs.
‘It was about two yards further out from where we were diving when you last saw us, but on the far side of the snag. It wasn’t down deep either. We’d been looking deeper, but the strap had got caught up on a bit of branch.’
‘You’re a pair of little bobby-dazzlers, that’s what you are,’ he said, a mite surprised he’d used that expression; he hadn’t spoken it in fifteen years, but by the bejesus, it was warranted tonight. He slapped the kitchen table, made his enamel mug jump high, his smile still growing, then the kids started laughing at him, so he laughed with them. And by God, it had been a long time since he’d laughed like that. And the more he laughed, the more they laughed at him.
Tom was crying, wiping laughter tears away, when the telephone rang again. ‘Those flamin’ things are more nuisance than they’re worth,’ he said, his laughter dying as Rosie started trying to outdo the telephone. ‘Sit yourselves down, lads. I’ll grab that and see if I can find your two quid.’
The telephone bell stopped its jangling and Rosie stopped her yelling. Jeanne must have picked it up. He left her to it.
‘We’ll trust you until tomorrow, Mr Thompson,’ Mike said. ‘We wouldn’t say no to a sandwich, sort of on account – on account of we both missed dinner, and swimming makes you starving. All we’ll get if we go home now is the rounds of the kitchen.’
Tom cut the meat, cut the bread, spread it liberally with butter, his eyes constantly seeking out that handbag. ‘Mustard or pickles, lads?’
‘They look like Mum’s pickles. I get enough of them. A bit of bought tomato sauce would go down well, though – if you’ve got any.’
He added a liberal dash of sauce, then offered the sandwiches uncut, the way he and his boys had liked them. He made a pot of tea, strained it into three enamel mugs, then settled down to examine the handbag. The murdering bastards had ripped the insides right out of it. No rock, nothing to weigh it down – any crim with half a brain would have stuck a brick in it. No little brush either. Probably lost in the river.
‘Help yourselves, now, deputies. There’s plenty of butter.’ He offered two thick slices of fresh bread, the jar of cream and Miss Lizzie’s home-made apricot jam. She made good jam, he’d say that much for her, even if she only brought it to the door in the hope of getting a squiz at Rosie.
The bag lay amid the jam, pickles, cream, meat, plates, breadcrumbs and used knives, and Tom still couldn’t believe it. What a day he’d had. It was damn near used up, though; outside the window the light was taking on that evening glow.
And he wanted those murdering mongrels, wanted to show Inspector Smartarse Bastard at Russell Street that Tom Thompson didn’t need Morgan in his town. What a bonzer end to his day it would be if he could shove Mo Riley and Lefty Logan up Morgan’s snout when he got here – if he ever got here. Tom wanted that so badly, he could taste it.
They could have jumped that morning train to Melbourne. But if they had, why hadn’t Vern gone with them? Too drunk to tangle with a moving train? Legs too short to chase it? Safer to get the night train, go through Willama to the end of the line, then ride back with it in the morning. Those mongrels could have been holed up here somewhere, waiting for tonight’s train.
I ought to give Reg Curtin and Len Larkin a bell, round up a few more reliable blokes to do a search of the bush down behind Kennedy’s crossing, he thought. Heading in there alone at nightfall, pursuing a punchy ex-boxer and his big bugger mate, wasn’t Tom’s idea of a good way to spend a hot evening. Neither was feeling a fool, calling out a posse on a wild-goose chase.
Bill from the garage would have taken a walk with him. He’d given Tom a ride around to Squire’s the night mad Tige went over the edge and did the deed. A good bloke to have around in an emergency, Bill, but he’d headed out of town early and wasn’t back yet. He’d be searching for those missing tots, refusing to give up. He had three little ones of his own.
The sun growing eager for its bed of smoky clouds, it was too late now to start rounding up a posse; he should have searched that bush an hour ago, except he’d been waiting for Morgan an hour ago, hadn’t had that handbag, hadn’t believed it was in the river. He hadn’t spoken to that Russell Street inspector an hour ago either and got himself all pumped up and determined to show the smartarse coot that he was still a good copper.
He’d asked him what Mo Riley was wanted for and been told that he, Vernon Lowe and Lefty Logan had robbed an elderly tobacconist, and knocked him down while they were doing it. The old chap died of a heart attack a week later. And why the hell a mob of curs who attacked a defenceless old bloke twice their age had been given bail, Tom did not know. The world was going to the dogs.
‘You look as if you’ve lost a quid and found sixpence, Mr Thompson.’
‘Just thinking, deputies – thinking about taking a walk down near Kennedy’s place. How would you feel about walking down there with me and keeping watch from a distance, in case it turns ugly?’
‘You could lay him out easy.’
‘Who?’
‘Gimpy Kennedy.’
‘I’m looking for the bugger who threw that bag in the river.’
‘Oh. Yeah, he’s a bit bigger, though we still reckon Gimpy killed Rachael because she was leaving him. We saw him this afternoon, sitting in the bush opposite Dolan’s, and for a tick we thought it was old man Kennedy’s ghost, didn’t we, Billy?’ Mike stuffed the last of his bread in his mouth, stood and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers as Jeanne Johnson entered, leading Rosie by the hand.
‘That was Mr Squire on the telephone. He just wanted to know if the other policeman was here yet. I told him you said he must have taken a wrong turn.’ She stared at the handbag, at the boys, and if that girl wasn’t suffering from a severe dose of ‘what’s-going-on-here-itis’, then Tom had never seen a case.
Rosie looked better. All afternoon she’d been wandering around in curling pins, and was now sporting ear length curls, a light floral frock, and even her gnashers. If Morgan walked through that door and saw her right now, she wouldn’t look too bad – though she’d have those gnashers out in minutes and she’d be out of that dress too.
‘Righto, we’re ready to go, Mr Thompson,’ Mike said, either allergic to Jeanne or Rosie.
‘Can you feed her for me, Jeanne?’
‘I’ll make her some scrambled eggs, Mr Thompson,’ she said, eyeing the corned beef on the table. ‘They’ll be easier for her to eat. The Squires make a lot of scrambled eggs for Arthur. I’ll have some meat, though.’
Tom cut two slices, wrapped a clean tea-towel around what was left of that shrinking lump of beef, and put it in the ice chest. He slid his carving knife in behind the tea canister set on the mantelpiece while Jeanne stared at the handbag she probably recognised.
‘What you see and hear in this house stays in this house, lass. And watch her in that dress. It’s not too safe putting that one on her with the buttons at the front.’
‘I’ll watch her like a hawk, Mr Thompson.’
‘Answer any telephone calls that might come through, but don’t make any. We have to keep that line open in case those city police call.’ He picked up the handbag and ushered the lads towards the passage. ‘Oh, and if those city blokes turn up, tell them they’ll find me down at the bottom railway crossing.’
His shotgun was kept beneath the office counter. It raised enough dust to cause a small storm when he picked it up and blew it clean, but he broke it open, sighted down each barrel. No mouse nesting in it, so he loaded it, and stuck four extra cartridges in his pocket.
In the vestibule, Mike had picked up a cricket bat. ‘Can this be our weapon?’
‘Put that down,’ Tom demanded, then, attempting to take some of the stin
g from his words, added, ‘You don’t need a weapon. You’ll be staying on the road using your ears, and keeping an eye out for those other coppers.’
Mike put it down – until his mate picked up the bat’s partner. For a moment Tom’s mind stilled. He stood there, his gun pointing at the floor, just watching those young hands appreciating two good bats, watching them test the weight of the bats, like they might know what to do with them.
It didn’t hurt much, seeing their young hands on those grips. It didn’t hurt like he’d thought it would. The truth of the matter was it didn’t hurt at all seeing those two lads’ hands holding his boys’ bats. He sucked air in deep, reached high, his fingers feeling along the top shelf of the hall stand until they found a cricket ball. He ran his thumb over the seam, ran his fingers over it, then tossed it. ‘Stick it in your pocket. You can have a hit on the road while you’re waiting for me.’
At seven-ten the trio walked out onto the veranda, Tom feeling a lot of things he didn’t understand – and feeling a flamin’ fool hanging on to that shotgun too. He couldn’t decide how to carry it.
From their front steps Joan and Rob Hunter watched the armed trio step down from Tom’s veranda and, as one mind, they walked out to Church Street, just to see where he was off to. Only minutes before, they’d moved Ruby into their infectious diseases ward, two small rooms well separated from the main hospital but not too far from their rear door, where Irene Murphy would sit with her through the night.
For the past hour Ruby’s blood pressure had been creeping higher. There was no plan to move her to Willama yet – maybe tomorrow. All they could do for her this night was wish her through to morning.
Joan stood on the side of the road, craning her neck to get a better view of Tom and his posse, who had disappeared down Station Street. ‘I wonder where he’s going, Robbie? He was carrying his shotgun, wasn’t he?’
‘Could be going after Miss Lizzie from the rear – don’t know, don’t care. I’ve got a date with my pillow. If they bring her in with a dose of saltpetre in the bum, don’t wake me up, love.’
Barely a stone’s throw away, Miss Lizzie and her sister were considering a walk over the road to enquire after Ruby. They had every right to express their concern. She was, after all, their niece.
‘I wonder if Jeanne found out anything from Constable Thompson, Lizzie.’
‘You could pop over there while he’s out.’
‘I’m not going over there.’
‘You’ve been complaining all day about the telephone, and when I give you the opportunity to get away from it, you complain about that too. You don’t have to go in. Speak to her on the veranda.’
nightfall
Joseph Reichenberg had no use for lamp light; he went to bed when the sun went down and rose again when it rose. Not so many years ago he’d forced his sons to their beds at nightfall. Not so Elsa. She shared his bed but spent little time in it. Night-time was her freedom time.
‘Your brother is still digging his holes,’ Elsa said, peering out of the kitchen window. All afternoon she had watched her youngest son digging holes. He had found old bottles, even a black man’s stone axe, but not Joseph’s money. Soon it would not be light enough for him to dig.
On her work table, peaches prepared for bottling waited to be packed into her preserving jars. She’d stripped the peach tree today, and tonight she’d boil many jars of peaches in the washhouse copper – like a squirrel storing summer food for winter.
The kitchen lamp lit, she crept up to the parlour, which was directly opposite her bedroom. The old man was already sleeping, so it was safe to waste a little more of his kerosene and light the parlour lamp. Mrs Buehler had given her that lamp the day she and her husband left Molliston. ‘A house without eyes is a blind house,’ she’d said. ‘When you light it each night, you will think of me.’
A good woman, a good friend and neighbour, she’d taught Elsa how to bottle the fruit and vegetables, how to cut fabric and stitch garments. Tonight, as on no other night, Elsa missed her friend. She had a bad feeling and wanted a lot of light around her.
Back in the kitchen, she chose her large saucepan and into it measured sugar then water, placed it on the stove and stood stirring until the sugar dissolved. Plenty of work for her hands tonight.
Kurt sat at the kitchen table reading. He’d bought a new book with his dairy money and tonight he studied it closely and, at the same time, studied an old book she had brought to the house. She knew each picture in that one, as she knew the lines on her own palm, and though she couldn’t read the German words, she’d read its stories to her sons, a hundred stories of her own making. Tonight she wanted those boys at her side, wanted to shelter them with her arms and keep them safe, read them a picture story then tuck them into bed.
Too big for bedtime stories.
‘They say in town that the pears from those hotel trees are good for bottling. What a crop she has,’ Elsa said, needing to kill the silence. ‘She is out there, carrying buckets of water to her garden, bringing it from her house. Perhaps she empties her bathing water to her garden as we empty ours, eh?’
‘Probably,’ Kurt replied, glancing at her, then returning to his book.
‘Is the story in your new book a good one?’
‘It’s just a dictionary, Mutti. It has the German and the English words side by side.’
She shrugged, packed four more jars with peaches, packed them in tight, in silence, and the silence was not good. Better to speak of Rachael, let the pain come out, not hold it inside to grow hard as a stone. Only five large jars left, then she must start on the small ones, and no matter how firmly she packed those peaches, she wouldn’t fit all of them in.
She ate two halves while watching Mrs Dolan emerge from her front door with her bucket. Growing dark out there – or perhaps it seemed darker because of the light in her kitchen.
‘I have the Buehler money. I would have given it gladly –’
‘It’s not about the money, Mutti.’
‘Is he leaving?’
‘He says he is, but he knows he can’t. Those city police will be here tonight or tomorrow, and if he leaves, they’ll think he’s guilty and chase him.’
‘He is too much like his father, that one.’
She had been a child in this house, an orphan, given shelter by Joseph when her father, Joseph’s labourer, died on this land. She’d worked hard while the other children played, and she committed the unforgivable sin of surviving the diphtheria epidemic that stole Joseph’s beautiful wife and his three children.
Such a cold, dark house it had been then, a house of wine and anger, but she’d grown to womanhood in it, grown without love, thickset and plain. And when, at twenty-seven, no offer had been made for her hand, Mrs Buehler spoke to Joseph of a marriage between Elsa and the Buehlers’ slow-witted eighteen year old boy: ‘My son is of an age to need a woman in his bed. Marriage is for the betterment of the woman’s position, and for the children it brings. When we are gone, our land will be Elsa’s land and her children’s,’ she’d said.
Was it better to have children by a drooling boy than no children? Elsa looked to Joseph for advice. He said nothing, but that night he emptied two wine bottles then gave his brutal reply in her bed. Elsa did not go to the Buehlers’.
Like the cows in the paddock, Elsa was born to breed; a few visits from the old bull had been enough, and what could no longer be disguised at church must be confessed to the elders. They came to the house one Sunday afternoon and put an end to Joseph’s wine, cut his vines to the ground, broke his bottles, poured his wine upon the earth.
‘Lick it from the dirt, you dog, and what you get on your tongue you can take with you to hell.’
‘The girl is like one of your own blood. You have raised her from childhood. She calls you uncle, and you defile a family trust.’
‘Filthy swine in man’s clothing.’
How they’d cursed him. And later, while Joseph stood with the shame glowing red o
n his face, Mrs Buehler packed Elsa’s clothing. ‘We will do what is best for the girl now. My son will give your child a name.’ So Elsa was taken from Joseph’s house.
But who would feed her chickens if she did not creep home at dusk? And who would milk her house cow at dawn, and could she lie with that slow-witted boy, and how many slow-witted grandsons would she make for the Buehler land? And what of the one who already tumbled and played beneath her heart, who made her heart sing with love?
One night when she crept home to feed her chickens, Joseph came out of his cold, dark house.
‘Uncle?’ She was not afraid of him. She’d been more afraid of the Buehler son.
‘You are to wed on Sunday, eh?’ he said.
‘They have made the arrangement.’
‘I will give your child a name.’
‘You cannot give to him what rightfully is his, Uncle. I know his name and he will know his name.’ The bucket placed down, she stood there, her hands sheltering her unborn while measuring the old man with her calm eyes.
‘My land needs sons. It is better that the child wear his rightful name,’ he said.
‘Is it better for the mother of the child when the offer comes from one who cannot look upon her face in daylight, but treats her like a whore in the dark, Uncle?’
He grunted, walked away, only turning back when he could no longer see her face. ‘You have the calmness of a slow-moving stream about you, girl. I have need of your calmness in my life. The offer has been made.’
‘Speak of this to Mrs Buehler. It has now become her concern,’ she said, and she walked away.
Elsa and Joe wed only seven weeks before Kurt’s birth. He was her son, born with her own calm eyes and her inner strength. Then, so soon, a second son wilfully thrust his head into life, even before she felt the first pain of birth. A wild one, Christian, already grasping for what he wanted with those tiny hands. He grasped at Joseph’s heart with those hands. She saw this, saw it plain in her husband’s eyes as he watched the tiny one’s mouth sucking at her breast, fragile fingers claiming what was his.
