by Robert Gott
‘Guy?’
Guy laughed because the expression on Joe’s face had moved swiftly from hostility to pleasure.
‘You looked like you were going to attack me.’
‘If you’d been the person I thought you were going to be, I would have attacked you. What the hell are you doing here, Guy?’
‘Christ, it’s good to see you, Joe.’
Guy looked down at his feet and tried to loosen the tightening in his chest, which he knew was the prelude to sobs. He failed, and Joe stepped up to him, put his arm around his shoulder, and said, ‘Let’s get a drink, mate.’
Guy nodded and managed to control the shuddering that threatened to overwhelm him.
‘It’s nearly six o’clock. Nothing will be open,’ Guy said, and his voice was steady. He offered neither an apology nor an explanation for his sudden rush of emotion.
‘I’ve got a room at King’s, and more importantly, I’ve got a bottle of whiskey there that I borrowed from my father, and when I say borrowed, I really mean stole.’ Joe laughed. Guy grinned. ‘He won’t miss it and my need was greater.’
From the foyer of King’s Hotel, Joe telephoned Ros Lord to tell her that he wouldn’t be there for dinner. He asked to speak to Helen and explained that he’d met his old friend Guy Kirkham and that he should be back in Kew by 10.00, when he’d tell her the details of the interviews. He detected in her curt responses that she thought the investigation into her uncle’s death ought to come before everything else. As Guy was within earshot, he was unable to say that he was troubled by Guy’s appearance, and that their meeting was more than just catching up.
Once inside Guy’s room they assessed each other, and each found in the other evidence of recent horrors. Guy’s face was unmarked, but it displayed the strains he’d endured — there was a hollowness around his eyes and he looked exhausted. Joe’s face, with its fading cuts and bruises, was more obviously damaged. Guy made no comment. He found a glass and a teacup and poured two whiskeys. Guy sat on the edge of the bed, and Joe sat in the only chair, facing him.
‘It’s good to see you, Joe.’
‘What’s happened, Guy?’
Because Joe Sable was the person Guy Kirkham trusted above all others, he said, ‘There was a young man named Harry Compton. He was twenty years old. I killed him, Joe, and I don’t know how to live with that.’
9
HARDY TRUSCOTT’S HOUSE in Warrnambool sat on top of an escarpment that overlooked the Hopkins River. A great wall of stone fell from close to his back door to the river below. In a perverse act of defiance of nature, Truscott had built his house so that the sedate view from his front door was his only view. An uncomfortable, narrow staircase at the back door, leading to the privy, limited the pleasure to be taken in the spectacular aspect across the river. He’d built the house when he was a much younger man and had been squeamish about heights and reluctant to experience daily the crushing sense of insignificance the escarpment imposed. If he were building the house now, he’d reverse its orientation and celebrate the view as being worthy of Odin’s majesty.
Truscott’s front yard was wide and deep, but the proximity of neighbours made it unsuitable for the performance of Odinist rituals, many of which involved fire and chanting. His backyard was small and made smaller by the privy. It ran down, unfenced, to the lip of the escarpment. He’d managed to stage a few rituals here, for himself alone, and just once for two men who’d come down from Melbourne, and who’d been disappointed to discover that Truscott had no interest in the ritual being performed naked. They’d gone through the motions unenthusiastically and hadn’t hung around afterwards.
Truscott had been peeved that Maria Pluschow had denied him sex in favour of the much younger George Starling. Somehow, Truscott couldn’t quite divorce George from his late, loathsome father, but by that evening’s end he’d felt real satisfaction at having won over, by the force of his rhetoric, this fierce and fiercely committed young man. That kind of raw, essential energy was precisely what his church needed. There was something frightening and elemental about George Starling, and Hardy Truscott believed that he could marshal that force into the service of Odin. He’d glimpsed glorious possibilities in the writings of Rud Mills, and here was one of those possibilities, sprung into being, right on his doorstep.
Maria Pluschow had accepted an invitation to Truscott’s house on Saturday night. They would eat, discuss politics, and he would begin to formally instruct Starling in the ways of the Anglecyn Church. He’d built a wooden frame for a bonfire in the small backyard. Within the frame he’d pushed kindling and pages from the bible, and because it gave him real pleasure, pages from St Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. The fact that he’d torn these from an edition of that work that had been expensive to buy pleased him particularly.
Truscott was only interested in food when someone else prepared it. He ate blandly when he cooked for himself. He was a natural austerity cook, not out of patriotism, but simply because he’d never eaten large amounts of butter, beef, lamb, or sugar. For Maria and George, he’d thrown together a vegetable stew with carrots, cabbage, chokos, potatoes, onions, and parsnips. He’d gone to the trouble earlier in the day of boiling potato skins in water to provide the soup with a starchy stock. A handful of barley and an insufficient amount of salt completed the soup. The best that could be said about it was that it was nourishing and inoffensive, but that was fine. The visitors weren’t there for the food. They were there to experience the exquisite spiritual elation that the worship of Odin ensured. The combination of fire and prayer would secure George Starling as a convert. Truscott was confident of this.
Maria drove, and George sat low in the passenger seat. There wasn’t much danger of anyone recognising him, or even of seeing him. Why take an unnecessary risk, though, by sitting tall? Maria had been displeased by his gradual lack of communicativeness as Saturday had progressed. She’d sat with him as he’d sunbathed, and she’d prayed. He’d remained silent, which she’d interpreted as contemplative. She’d changed her mind about this after he’d come inside. When he’d looked at her there’d been something sour in his face, and he’d refused to get dressed. He’d moved through her house in a way she’d found primal and unsettling, as if he were claiming his territory and marking it, like some dangerous mammal rubbing its musk on surfaces. She wasn’t intimidated by this, she was amazed by it, and she recognised, too, that there was an element of the erotic in it. Nevertheless, she wasn’t altogether happy.
She’d laid out one of her husband’s suits for him, and he put it on without comment. It was slightly too big for him. This didn’t bother him. It was preferable to possibly soiling one of his own suits if Truscott insisted on dancing around a fire.
On a side table in the front room, Truscott laid out his collection of works by Rud Mills. The Odinist Religion: overcoming Judeo Christianity; The First Guide Book to the Anglegyn Church of Odin: containing some of the chief rites of the Church and some hymns for the use of the Church; And Fear Shall Be in the Way; Hael, Odin!; and his two precious copies of The National Socialist: a paper devoted to the British race and British culture. Mills had only published two issues of this paper, in 1936. Truscott had acquired them at one of the Odinist Society meetings he used to attend in Melbourne. There’d never been more than half a dozen people at these meetings, but Mills himself convened them, and that was all that mattered. Truscott had long since lost touch with these fellow Odinists.
When Starling and Maria arrived, Truscott gave them a goblet of home-brewed mead, which tasted herbal and unpleasant. Maria drained the goblet. Starling sipped the liquid, put it down, and declared it undrinkable. Truscott ignored this ungracious act. Starling was, after all, an as yet unformed member of the Church. He allowed Starling to pick up and flick through each of the A.R. Mills books, giving him a brief commentary as he did so. Starling managed to maintain the fiction of his interest, but his mind wasn�
��t on Odinism; it was on how ridiculous this small, ugly man was, and on how ludicrous it was that he would consider himself an exemplar of the benefits of racial purity. Starling believed in racial purity. He didn’t believe that Truscott was evidence of it.
Truscott began to instruct Starling as they ate. The soup was edible, which was the only reason Starling stayed at the table. Maria looked at him nervously throughout the meal, trying to judge from his face how Truscott’s words were being received. Starling was impassive, his face enlivened only by the livid scar. Truscott spoke of how German Christians had wrestled with the fact of Christ’s Jewishness and how some thinkers who espoused Ariosophy — Truscott helpfully explained that this was the mystical truth of the divinity of the Aryan race — how these thinkers had come up with the idea of the Aryan Christ. Christ wasn’t a Jew after all, but a true Aryan whose race had been denied by St Paul, who had propagated the lie of his Jewishness. However attractive this idea might be, Truscott said, it was false. Christ was a Jew all right, and Christianity was a Jew religion that worshipped a Jew as its god. Throughout Truscott’s speech, Starling remained silent and ate. Having swallowed his last mouthful of soup, he said, ‘Germany is losing the war.’ He wasn’t sure if he believed this, because the press was controlled by Jews, which meant all reporting was suspect. He said it because he wanted to hear Truscott’s response.
‘Herr Hitler is a great man,’ Truscott said, ‘and he is, I believe, inhabited by a great Aryan spirit, a great mythological being. However, Herr Hitler has made a mistake in rejecting Herr Himmler’s call for Odinism to be the state religion. He has instead made Hitlerism the state religion. This, George, this goes to the heart of what we believe. Nordic ideals are not carried in the vehicle of politics. For Hitler, it’s all politics, and yes, you can see it unravelling. Odinism is about you, George, and me, and Maria. Salvation and, ultimately, domination lies within each of us. The spirit of the ancient, northern gods cannot be contained by parliaments, or Reichstags. It can’t be stopped by bullets or votes. It will sweep us up, one by one, until order is restored and the purity of the Aryan race resumes its rightful place, and then lies about equality and democracy will be exposed as tawdry and weak. This is the glory that awaits us, George. You, me, and Maria, here in this room, are more powerful than a battalion of tanks.’
Truscott reached across the table and took hold of Starling’s hand. With his other hand he reached towards Maria who stretched out her hand and took his. Starling wanted to crush Truscott’s fingers into shards of broken bone. He let his hand remain limp, certain that if he closed it even slightly the temptation to exert force would be too great to resist. Truscott accepted Starling’s unresponsive hand as acquiescence, surrender. He squeezed Maria’s hand to signal this. When she raised her eyes to Starling’s face, she didn’t see surrender. She saw the emotionless eyes of a crocodile.
Starling was staring at Truscott, and Maria thought he might be calculating Truscott’s height and weight, the way a lion might do before it brought down a wildebeest. There was no way to warn Truscott, and a part of her didn’t want to. A part of her wanted to see what George Starling was capable of doing. She felt no fear for herself. She was confident that Starling would never raise a finger against her. She’d made love to him and she’d felt his brutishness give way to fleeting tenderness. No, not tenderness exactly, but something other than violence. She’d seen him cry and believed that this was a privilege that offered her protection from the worst of him. Besides, if he ever struck her, she’d insist that he leave. Maria Pluschow wouldn’t tolerate being hit. Her husband had slapped her once. Just once. She’d hit the hand that had slapped her, with a mallet, and had broken three of its fingers. Mr Pluschow never hit her again.
After dinner, Truscott took his guests into his backyard. He handed each of them a piece of paper on which he’d written prayers from The First Guide Book to the Anglecyn Church of Odin. He lit the pyre he’d built and stood back from it. He spoke a prayer, then asked Maria to do the same. Starling read his prayer tonelessly, and Maria thought that perhaps it was going to be all right, that George would put up with the evening and later complain about how boring it had been. His acceptance of the new faith might just take longer than she’d hoped.
Truscott explained that once the flames had died down it was important that they each jump across the diminishing fire, intoning certain phrases as they did so. They watched in silence as the pyre burned low.
Maria, mesmerised by the dying flames, didn’t see Starling place his hand on the back of Truscott’s neck. Truscott leaned his head back to accept the embrace. It was over in a matter of moments.
With astonishing ferocity and strength, Starling forced Truscott to his knees and drove his face into the glowing coals. He held it there, his knee pressed against Truscott’s back. With a deft movement, he pulled Truscott’s right arm back and out of its socket. Then, gripping the useless limb, Starling dragged Truscott across the yard to the lip of the escarpment. Maria caught a glimpse of Truscott’s blistered, ruined face, before Starling simply pushed him over the edge. Truscott hadn’t uttered a sound.
Maria, conscious only of the crackling of the fire near her, spoke the words that saved her life.
‘The soup wasn’t that bad, George.’
MARIA DIDN’T ASK why. She and Starling drove back to her house in silence. Once there, she matter-of-factly said, ‘They’ll find Truscott’s body and they’ll come here.’
‘I know they will. I won’t be here.’
‘You’ll need more clothes. Casual clothes.’
Together they chose an assortment of Mr Pluschow’s shirts, trousers, socks, and underwear, and packed them alongside Starling’s suits. In a separate, smaller bag, Maria packed her late husband’s shaving equipment, a brush, and a comb.
‘Did your husband have a gun?’
‘He had a Luger, from the first war, yes. He used it to shoot rabbits and cats.’
Maria found the gun and put it, along with its remaining six rounds of ammunition, into the small bag. Starling retrieved it and felt its heft in his hand. Blondi, who’d been lying in the living room, came into the bedroom as Starling was holding the gun up to the light. The dog barked twice. Starling levelled the gun in Blondi’s direction, and perhaps because the downward swing of his arm resembled the signal to sit, she sat obediently on her haunches. Starling sighted the pistol so that a bullet would hit the dog in the middle of its forehead. Maria, looking in the wardrobe, had her back to him. She turned in time to see him pull the trigger.
Click.
‘Seems to be in good working order,’ Starling said and called Blondi to him. She came and accepted the desultory pat he gave her. Maria, feeling giddy with relief, said, ‘Where will you go?’
‘Melbourne. I’ve got unfinished business there. The gun will be handy. Thank you.’
10
GUY KIRKHAM WAS drunk. Not falling down drunk, but sufficiently drunk to stagger when he stood up to use the lavatory down the hall. While he was away, Joe, also drunk, wondered if he should telephone Helen. He’d told her he’d be back at Lillee’s house at a reasonable hour, and it was now close to midnight. It was too late to disturb the household. It was also too late to get to the house in Kew. He didn’t have a car, he’d missed the last train, and there’d be no taxis about at this hour. The discourtesy irked him, but there was nothing he could do about it until the following day.
He’d spoken freely with Guy about the investigations he’d been involved in, and he’d withheld nothing. Telling Guy about his and Tom Mackenzie’s torture at the hands of Ptolemy Jones had been easy. It had always been easy to talk to Guy. When Guy came back from the toilet, Joe told him that he’d have to stay the night with him in the hotel room.
‘I’ve been sleeping with a lot of men recently,’ Guy said.
‘Oh?’
‘I just meant sharing a tent. The army doesn’t
go in for separate quarters.’
‘So, platonically then.’
‘Yes, Joe.’ Guy paused for deliberate effect. ‘Mostly.’
‘That can get you into trouble, Guy.’
‘It isn’t fucking a man that’s got me into trouble, Joe. It’s killing one.’
‘You said you fall asleep suddenly. That hasn’t happened so far this evening.’
‘You know something, Joe? I have to piss sitting down now because once I fell asleep when I was standing, and I pissed everywhere. It’s unpredictable. Like your heart. You just never know, do you?’
Joe finished his glass and stopped drinking the whiskey. He knew that at a certain point alcohol made him sick. Guy continued to drink while they talked, until finally he fell back on the bed in a stupor. Joe took Guy’s shoes off and arranged him into a comfortable position on his side. It was 3.00 a.m.
Joe took his own shoes off, and his jacket, and lay on the bed beside Guy. There was one dim light on in the room, and Joe couldn’t be bothered getting up again to turn it off. He’d had enough whiskey to cause his head to spin mildly.
Guy was breathing deeply, and then his breaths began to be interspersed with small, whimpering sounds. Joe shook his shoulder, but Guy didn’t wake. The whimpering quietened, and then ceased. Joe leaned across to look at Guy’s face, and was disconcerted to find that his closed eyes were streaming with tears. He lay back on his side of the bed and wondered if there was any good in the world. Buried deep in the daily newspapers, certain place names had begun to appear. Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen. Joe spoke them quietly and thought, No, goodness had fled from the world. As if to prove that this was so, Guy uttered a single cry of terror.
WHEN JOE WOKE the next morning his throat was sore — he must have slept with his mouth open — the muscles across his shoulders ached, and the whiskey hangover was beginning to establish itself. Guy wasn’t on the bed beside him. He must have gone to the toilet.
