by Joy Dettman
Looking back on it, Tom thought, this whole day had been a lead-up to tonight. The way Rosie had been first thing this morning – and giving her that opiate, making her sleep away half of the afternoon. It was all preordained; she’d been chosen to play a part in the devil’s diversion, drawn down that hill to end her life as a pawn in his game of bloody chess – like Kennedy had been drawn here, to do what harm he could before blowing his own brains out.
Rosie would have gone fast, maybe died happy, holding on to her bouquet of roses and thinking her own crazy thoughts. Tom sniffed, sighed deeply. He had to believe she was happy at the end.
‘Shite!’ Rob Hunter said, walking from the house, a cigarette burning in his mouth. ‘Shite on this day.’
‘How’s he doing?’
‘He’s lost a lot of blood, but the bone feels intact, thank Christ. They’re saying it was Kennedy?’
‘You said this morning that he’d go after young Chris.’
‘Did I? This morning is too far away to remember and I’m sleepwalking,’ Rob said, sucking another long draw from his smoke before tossing it away and walking back indoors.
Train still tooting. Probably pulling out. ‘Morgan’s on that train.’
‘He’s off it by now,’ the widow replied. ‘I’ll drive you in and see if I can run him down, if you like.’
That bugger of a woman with her bugger of a tongue, but it was that tongue that got him to his feet, got him taking charge. He told Bill Morrison and Len Larkin to clear everyone off the place. He took charge of Kennedy’s rifle, and told old Joe to put his shotgun away or the city coppers would probably confiscate it, then he took his life in his hands and rode in that little green roadster up the hill – and all he could say about her driving was, if a man was a bit bound up in the bowels, that ride would probably have cured him.
Miss Lizzie had already called the ambulance, and the Willama coppers, and anyone else she felt might have been interested in the news, so Tom took his life in his hands again and accepted a lift to the railway station where he found the Russell Street duo sitting in the waiting room, swatting mosquitoes and expecting to be picked up. And how? The flamin’ handlebars of Tom’s bike?
They’d had a long day, both looked worn out by it, both burned beetroot-red. They’d walked a good few miles in that sun today.
Tom loaded their gear into the widow’s car, then walked his colleagues back to the house. Jefferies, the young bloke, seemed a decent enough sort of kid, or he looked like a kid when standing beside Morgan, who didn’t have a solitary hair left on his head, though the bush growing in, and on, that red conk of a nose compensated. And if Tom had shrunk an inch or so in the last eight years, then Morgan had shrunk three and worn another inch off the soles of his feet today.
Tom led them up Station Street, filling them in on the massacre. Morgan offered his hand when he heard that Rosie had gone sleepwalking, that she’d walked into one of Kennedy’s bullets – which was close enough to the truth. They detoured around the side to the lock-up where, by lantern light, Morgan admired Tom’s collection of murdering mongrels, who probably weren’t murdering mongrels now, though they were some sort of mongrels. Morgan was pleased to see them.
‘Good work, Thompson,’ he said, trying hard to keep his face immobile. He’d be one big blister in the morning – and God help that nose.
The widow had unloaded their gear onto the veranda. She was parked under the tree and keeping low.
‘The maid is sleeping in the front room, so keep the noise down,’ Tom said, leading his guests in, collecting his lamp from the office and walking them down to the kitchen.
He offered his beds while removing his bloodstained shirt – didn’t change his trousers. He washed his hands in the sink, washed up to his elbows, washed his face, then washed his sink.
‘The only hotel is over a mile out of town,’ he said. He didn’t tell them the hotel was next door to the murder scene, or that the licensee was sitting outside in her car, but he suggested the hotel sheets might not have been changed very often. ‘I thought, seeing as you’ll be on foot, that you’d probably be more comfortable here. Your decision, of course.’ Not quite true, but near enough.
He offered his kitchen chairs while poking two sticks of wood into the stove, just to keep the kettle boiling, then he told the weary pair to help themselves to what they could find. Meat wrapped in a tea-towel in the ice chest, butter on the ice, bread in the bread tin, the last of his sugar in the basin on the table, olive oil in the bathroom, which might help with that sunburn. ‘I’ve got to get back down there,’ he said.
‘Give me five minutes, Thompson – and if you could point me in the direction of your facilities.’
‘The lav is down the back.’ Tom pointed through the open door. ‘Just keep walking down that path and you’ll run into it. The lemon tree is closer and it’s not fussy. And there’s room for one passenger in that car, Clarrie, and nothing to do, nothing to see when you get down there. As far as I read it, Kennedy cracked, and now he’s dead.’
‘Send it back for me in ten minutes.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. The ambulance and the Willama chaps should be coming by in ten or so minutes. If they’re looking for directions, tell them we’re a mile or so down Merton Road, near the bottom of the hill. Now, I’ve got to get back to Rosie. Make yourselves at home while you’re waiting.’
Jeanne was sleeping like a baby; she’d hate herself in the morning for missing out on this. Tom had a bit of a look around for his pipe, couldn’t find it, so he helped himself to a handful of Vern’s cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth, one over each ear, three in his watch pocket and walked gladly back to the widow’s car.
He did his best to arrange a lift down for Morgan; he asked the widow if she wanted to drive back in and pick him up. She laughed, laughed half way down that hill – until she remembered she shouldn’t be laughing.
Tom remained at the scene until the ambulance came and took Rosie and Chris away, took what was left of Dave Kennedy. They hadn’t stopped by the station and Morgan hadn’t flagged them down. Maybe he’d gone to bed – maybe he’d decided to walk down the wrong side of that hill and got himself lost again. Tom didn’t much care one way or the other.
all tuckered out
When there is nothing more to be done, then there’s nothing more you can do. That little green roadster had played taxi, had lent its light willingly to the crime scene until it barely had a glow left to offer. It wasn’t doing any more tonight, not without a crank handle. Tom’s watch told him the time now was eleven-twenty and his legs were telling him they’d ridden twenty-odd miles today and were damn near fifty years old. The rest of him suggested it was not going to have anything to do with a crank handle, not in the dark. He’d seen too many of those things swing back and break arms or heads.
‘Let it rest. Time enough tomorrow.’
They said their goodnights to Elsa then Tom walked the widow to the dividing fence, held the wire up for her as she climbed through, and maybe in the future she’d be climbing through that fence again to visit Elsa.
Three of Joe Reichenberg’s windows had been shot out, and those neighbouring women worked side by side picking up the broken glass, sweeping up the slivers. Odd seeing them together, Elsa’s big face shining clean, her hair drawn back tight, and the widow with her auburn frizz and her painted mouth. And even odder hearing them talk of gardens and bottling peaches, Elsa offering to bottle some of the widow’s pears for her.
Tom turned towards the drive that would lead him up the hill to Morgan. ‘I suppose I’d better make a start back, see where he got to.’
‘Before all the shooting started, as I said, I was in the car and about to drive in to talk to you. It seems sort of unimportant now.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, just something you ought to know about before you go saying too much to Morgan. Have you got the energy to come over for five minutes?’
Tom glanced at the hill an
d his legs muttered ‘too long’. He glanced over her fence and his legs said ‘preferable’. She might offer him a stiff drink. He stretched the wires apart and crawled through to her side.
She must have been feeling the need of a drink herself because she led him directly to the little bar room where she poured straight brandies. His went down fast and she poured him a second shot. Good medicine, it burned his throat and gut. Maybe it might work its way down and burn that shuddering out of his legs.
What sort of man was he? He’d been wed to Rosie for over thirty-one years. He should have been feeling something more than he was feeling. He was feeling a lot of regret, but no real, honest to God sadness. Maybe sadness had run out a long time ago, worn away by her tongue, chewed up by her gnashers, made a mush of by her gums. He was feeling a bit guilty for not feeling that sadness, though not guilty enough to stop him looking around for whatever it was the widow wanted to show him – maybe something to do with the robbery.
Built rough from heavy boards and worn smooth by the years and the elbows that had leaned on it, the old bar looked less warped, less battered by lamplight. He studied her lamp too, a nice one, a red glass bowl and a fancy fluted shade no doubt as old as the bar. It only lit their corner, leaving the rest of the room in darkness.
She wasn’t talking, and he couldn’t think of anything to say, couldn’t say what he was thinking at the moment, that Rosie was maybe better off dead than rotting away in a state madhouse. That’s where he’d been ready to put her when he found her nightgown on the road, and that was a fact, though it wasn’t a decent thought to be having right now. Not a lot of decent thoughts to be had at the moment.
He’d had dreams when they moved to Molliston, dreams of maybe starting off fresh. He bought a new double bed, fantasised about having a little daughter that no bloody war could take away from him. Rosie was only forty-four; she could have had another one – if he’d been able to get anywhere near her. After six months of her bad nerves, he gave up trying, gave up pleading. He was forty-two years old, a mere lad, living the life of a priest.
He looked at the widow’s flaming hair, and by Christ she had a mane of it. It looked as thick as it ever had, looked like fire with that old lamp burning behind it. Embarrassed just standing there with not much to look at, standing in silence, he had to say something, get some communication going: ‘I suppose I’ve got to think that she’s with the boys,’ he said. She offered no reply, barely lifted an eyebrow. ‘She gave up, you know. Just gave up on life when she lost those boys. You’ve got to fight to live sometimes. You have to make the best of what you’ve got left.’
‘Tell me about it, Thomo.’
She knew more than most about fighting to live. He shouldn’t have said that. Picking up his glass then, he sucked the dregs from it, and she took the hint, this time pulling two beers, and leaving the last of her brandy orphaned on the bar. He gave it a good home before following her and the beer out to her front veranda where they sat on the worn cane couch, side by side. No choice but to sit side by side – nowhere else to sit and his legs badly needed to sit.
They sat quiet for a time, smoking her fags and sipping her beer, just listening to the crickets chirping in the cool green vines and breathing in the scents of that garden.
‘So, what did you bring me over here for? Not that I’m arguing about the free refreshments.’
‘Who says they’re free?’
‘They’d better be. It’s after hours.’
‘God, I wish a bit of a breeze would blow in,’ she said.
‘Don’t go wishing for that. The fire will still be smouldering; put a breeze behind it and the whole state forest will go up.’
Something seemed to be whispering in those vines, or it could have been Tom’s ears. He was a cheap drunk. A double brandy was more than enough for him, but that beer tasted good, so he emptied his glass. And why not? She emptied her own, took the glass from his hand and walked inside. He hoped she’d bring it back full, and she did – and if she was trying to get him drunk before showing him whatever she had to show him, then tonight he wasn’t going to argue.
More now to do tomorrow. Funeral arrangements to make, and he’d have to send telegrams to Rosie’s sisters. Only one of them had kept in contact since they moved up here, though they hadn’t heard from her in two years. There were a couple of cousins who sent Christmas cards.
The heat had gone out of him and a soft, foggy fatigue began to wrap around his mind. He yawned. ‘So he killed his wife, went after young Reichenberg and shot Rosie because she was there.’
‘I’ll give you two out of three, Thomo.’
‘Two out of three’s not bad. What’s wrong with the third?’ No reply. ‘He had to be out of his mind, getting himself decked out in his uniform. When I saw him at midday, I knew his response wasn’t rational. And Rob Hunter said to me this morning that Kennedy could have done it and was probably hanging around waiting to get young Chris. I should have taken more heed.’ Still no comment. She was unusually quiet. ‘So, what have you got for me?’
‘You’ve probably had enough for one night.’
‘May as well be full as half full.’ He yawned, wide enough to lock his jaw.
‘I wasn’t talking about beer. I should have let you go home, get some sleep. You’ve been running around like a chook with its head cut off since dawn.’
‘It’s all uphill. I couldn’t walk twenty yards on flat ground right now. Anyway, Jeanne is in Rosie’s bed and the Russell Street boys are probably in mine. I’ll sit here for a while longer, but you go to bed. You’ve been up since yesterday.’
Silence then, and this couch too small for two. There was a space between her thigh and his and he was keeping that space between them – pressing his left hip into the cane with keeping that space between them.
‘Whoever would have thought it, Thomo?’ she said. ‘Today just looked like any other day when I went to bed this morning.’
He looked at her face, half lit by the moon, half in deep shadow, and he damn near laughed at her words. There was no self-blame in her, no shame for what she was, or for what she’d been either. She was who she was – take it or leave it.
The moon looked a bit red, as if there could have been more smoke about. Odd how a smoky sky could make a moon look red. Christ, don’t let it be another fire, don’t do that to us, he thought, and was going to say it but she’d taken his glass and disappeared inside. He sniffed the air, sweet perfumes, then he let his thigh relax as he watched that moving moon, watched it until she returned with another beer, balanced on a frying pan. He helped himself to the lone glass, barely giving a thought to her unique tray, even when she placed it on his lap. He didn’t notice the girl who had followed her to the door, and when he did, he didn’t recognise her.
‘Good evening, Mr Thompson,’ she said.
Then he recognised her, or recognised her voice – and Nicholas Squire would have forty-five flamin’ fits if he found out his daughter was down here.
‘Young Mike ran into her on the bridge. He brought her out here a couple of hours back and we talked her into staying. She’s been a bit upset, but she got something off her mind, and she wants to tell you before she tries sleeping tonight, Thomo.’
Tom attempted to gather his wits, get them working as a team instead of a pod of hopping kangaroos. He placed his beer down and the frying pan fell, as he stood to give the girl his seat. She picked up the pan, handed it to him, then sat on the veranda, knees up, her back against a post as she started telling a disjointed story about frying pans and scrambled eggs, wiping her eyes from time to time, wiping her nose.
‘I had put the pan down on Mrs Johnson’s serving table, so I could spoon his scrambled eggs out to his bowl, Mr Thompson. I should have turned the handle away –’
Her fault. She shouldn’t have mentioned Ruby or her baby. She hadn’t finished getting the scrambled eggs into his bowl when he stood, grabbed the wooden handle of the frying pan and swung around.
<
br /> Maybe he’d been reaching for Mrs Johnson’s cooking sherry – who could ever know what went on in Artie Frankenstein’s mind? But when he swung around, that pan hit the back of Rachael’s head.
She didn’t try to grasp the table, or the chair. For an instant she looked surprised, then she fell.
No one thought it was serious. Nicholas didn’t. ‘See to her, Olivia.’ He took Arthur’s arm and his bowl, and walked him from the room. ‘Come along, son. All is well. You can eat supper in your room, and perhaps a glass of wine tonight.’
Olivia placed the cushion from Mrs Johnson’s easy chair beneath Rachael’s head, patting her face, trying to wake her, while Helen scraped up spilled eggs and put them back in the pan. No one thought it was really serious – just another of poor Arthur’s little indiscretions that had to be hidden from the outside world. Then she saw the blood running from Rachael’s nose, the blood on the intricate beadwork of Rae’s wedding dress, Olivia tut-tutting about the dress being ruined. Watery blood leaking from her ear.
Helen grabbed a tea-towel, wet it, put it on the back of Rachael’s neck. Everyone knew that was the best way to stop a nosebleed, but the pan hadn’t hit her nose. Or her ear.
‘Father! Father, she’s bleeding!’ Running up the long passage, belting on Arthur’s door. ‘Father! You have to get Doctor Hunter.’
He’d come from the room, locked the door, and returned to the kitchen where he took the lamp from the table and pressed it into Helen’s hands. He lifted Rachael, looked at her ear, in her ear, at the back of her head. Then carefully he placed her down on the bloody cushion, his hand reaching out blindly for a chair, finding its seat, sitting.
‘Go to bed, Helen. Put your mother to bed, then go to yours. All will be well.’
Rachael’s breathing strange. Moaning breaths.
‘She’s badly hurt. We have to telephone Doctor Hunter.’
Olivia staring at Nicholas.
‘Take your mother to her bed, and stay with her. I’ll drive your sister to Willama.’
