Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  Bessie shook her head emphatically. “There’s friends and there’s friends, Cecil. I was in the Reverend’s house for a while there, if you remember. And I always reckoned Johnathon was one o’ them Clayton’s friends.”

  “Whatcha mean, Bess?”

  “One o’ them friends you have when you don’t have any real friends. One who likes to whisper in your ear, like Les’s pub friends done. Some folks, ye know, they get close to ye because they care about ye.” She reached for Mr Bandini’s hand and clutched it in both of hers. “I know for a fact it was Johnathon put the missionary idea in Jacob’s head. Jacob told me that straight out! I tried to say to him how he needed to be thinking about his kids. But every time he started comin’ around, Johnathon was there, cheerin’ him on; congratulatin’ him; promisin’ him the town’s support. For my money, he congratulated that man straight outta town!”

  The suggestion that Johnathon might be somehow other than what he appeared didn’t particularly shock me; it was increasingly clear that that was true of all of us. In fact, I found myself constructing a relatively obvious defence for him. Who was to say, for example, that he, like pretty much everyone else in town, hadn’t just been exercising a misguided sense of concern for his friend’s needs! And as for Bessie pointing fingers, what could be more natural than her, who’d abandoned us herself, calling the loyalty of others into question?

  The Reverend, on the other hand, had no defenses. Considering the ‘Agnes letters’ and his long periods of silence and his refusal to let Bridie be properly cared for after the rape and the coldness that drove Rita into Kevin’s arms. If he was a man who couldn’t tell what was right for his daughter or his wife, why should it be surprising that he couldn’t recognise poor advice? Why surprising that people were having a laugh at his expense in the pub? My father, I concluded, whatever else he was, had been a joke, much like Les Crampton had been a joke.

  I excused myself, went into the mayor’s fancy caravan toilet and threw up.

  On another day, I might have left then; just thrown my hands in the air, walked out of the caravan and kept on going. Just said, ‘I don’t give a rat’s anymore! Do what you want.” But, as I watched myself in the mirror, wiping drool off my lips, I knew I couldn’t do that. No longer just for Bridie’s sake, but for Asael’s and Rita’s and Kevin’s; even for the Hoggitts and Sergeant Morrow, not to mention everyone else in Sugar Town! The story had to be told and we all had to hear it.

  “Orright?” Dale asked quietly when I came back to the table. I didn’t trust myself to answer so I just slid back into my seat, next to Frieda.

  “Right!” Morrow barked. “All ready again? Let’s get back to Bessie’s question then. What I’m hearin’ from you, Lyle, is that some of the talk in the pub that night was about the Reverend, is that right?”

  “Mighta come up a bit, I guess, yeah. ‘Bout the Reverend, yeah. An’ others. But mostly him. And . . . and Rita.”

  “Him an’ Rita! The both of ‘em! An’ ye never thought to tell me this before?”

  All the mayor could do was shake his head.

  “UunnUHH!” Morrow growled in frustration. “Not helpful, Lyle! Be bloody disappointed, I will, if the course o’ justice hasn’ been important to you, mate! Eh? But obviously you’re not gonna leave anythin’ else for me to find out on me own, are ye! ‘Cause as of right now, I’m on the verge o’ re-openin’ this entire friggin’ investigation! ‘N’ if I do, I’ll be kickin’ over every rock in town, Lyle!”

  It was a convoluted story, the telling of which required the mayor to start on the outside and burrow his way in. First up, to his credit, he volunteered at least a padded version of the story of his and Johnathon’s ‘mutual support arrangement’ – information, in exchange for electoral endorsement. Somehow, he said, the Reverend had got wind of it and “got all arse-about, moral-wise, on what it was.” He threatened to publicise it, in response to which Johnathon invited him to go right ahead! No one would care! Because not only was no one being hurt; the whole thrust of it was a look-out for Sugar Town’s welfare and prosperity!

  “Which is dead right!” the Mayor assured us, wide-eyed with imagined innocence. “Effective corporate intercommunication! That’s what it was!”

  The only negative in publicising it, in fact, Johnathon had told the Reverend, would be the need for an expensive, reputation-shattering re-electoral campaign – which would certainly finish with Lyle being re-elected. If the Reverend needed enemies, he’d said, then by all means, he should go ahead and try to undermine the happy stability of Sugar Town!

  In short order the Reverend had pulled back and Johnathon, as a sop, had begun a campaign of support for the Reverend’s church (the big blue gum cross over the door, general refurbishments to the building and so on). At this stage, even Morrow was scratching his head in confusion.

  “So what yer sayin’ is, Cranna’s friendship with Jacob mighta been coverin’ up a layer o’ resentment? O’ the fact that the Rev’ managed to see through your bit o’ petty graft and corruption? That what you’re saying?”

  “Not graft, Mash! Wunt ever graft!” But Lyle nodded morosely even as he denied it.

  “Well, I s’pose that kind of fits in with Bessie’s observations, I s’pose! But lookee here! If that was the only bug up anyone’s ass, it don’t seem hardly enough, does it? I mean first up, Cranna was prob’ly right! No one woulda cared! An’ it was nothin’ to him for sure; you bein’ the public official an’ all, not him! An’ then I don’t get this! Once the Reverend’s kinda . . . softened to it . . . why wouldn’ Cranna leave it? Why carry it on, months later, to the point o’ nigglin’ the Rev’ away to New Guinea? Away from his kids! That don’t make sense!”

  “Well,” the mayor said, “I can’t comment on that! I’ll just say, I never saw any signs o’ lingerin’ bitterness in Johnathon Cranna.”

  Morrow gave him a hard, unsatisfied look and Lyle stumbled on, half under his breath. “Except . . . maybe ind’rectly. Maybe ind’rectly, there mighta bin . . . a hardly important sump’m else.”

  His eyes flicked to me and away, as if I’d caught him peeking through my bedroom window. He huffed and squirmed and cast appealing looks around the table.

  “Maybe, though,” he said to Morrow, “might be a good time to let these young folks go their ways, eh Mash? You know? Some things . . . not for young ears? Best said in private? ‘Mongst adults?”

  It was me and Dale he was talking about and Morrow looked us up and down, one after the other, as though he was considering the request. I steeled myself for a fight – a physical one if need be.

  Then Dale said, “I’ll go if I’m making you uncomfortable, Mayor. But Ruthie gets to choose, eh? No one here has more right.”

  And he stood there like the stump of a tree in the doorway, looking first at the mayor and then at Morrow, daring them to deny it. I had to fight off an urge to reach for his hand. Morrow gave me a long look then turned back to the mayor.

  “Just get on with it, Lyle.”

  * * *

  To make a long story short, according to Mayor Hoggitt, there were actually two aspects to Johnathon’s conflict with my family. The ‘information misunderstanding’ was one thing. The other had to do with plain, old-fashioned sexual jealousy.

  Rita, my mother, as people never tired of telling me, was a beautiful woman. ‘A face you could rest your eyes on,’ people were still inclined to say. ‘She could look at you – one glance – and a five-day headache would disappear! Curves like a Formula One race track!’ I’d heard it all.

  And I’d also heard (just earlier that day, in fact) about the contrast my father presented. Around women, he was . . . ! Lyle was stuck for words but Frieda filled in for him: “. . . as cold as a morning in July, that man! Full of learning, mind! But a man frightened o’ being a man.” And by all accounts, he blamed women for that – for making him want this when he all he wanted to be wanting was that. “Why Rita ever took up with him,” Frieda decl
ared, “was a question for the ages!”

  Johnathon, according to the mayor’s account, was one of many who’d tried to get close to my mother and been rebuffed.

  “But . . .” he looked around the room, sly and panicky as a cornered Chihuahua, and I thought for a minute that he was going to vomit as well. “It seemed to lots of folks that . . . there was maybe one man who . . . got on her good side . . . if you know what I mean.” And he raced on. “Not that I’m sayin’ it was so, you understand! Or makin’ any judgements on anyone! No sir! Just rumours an’ inyerendos as far as I was ever concerned! No doubt in my mind Rita was a fine, up-standing, honourable woman! But . . . you know how people like to talk!”

  He sputtered to a stop. All eyes were frantically looking for something to light on – anything, so long as it wasn’t me – and I suddenly realised that he was talking about Kevin. I picked Bessie to focus on, thinking she was the most likely to understand what my mother’d endured.

  “If this is about Kevin,” I said, “I know all about that!”

  Eyes goggled and mouths dropped open. Apparently such shocking information should have melted my brain on impact.

  “And so what?” I said to the table at large. “Kevin’s not the point here! And neither is Rita! Their . . . relationship . . . has nothing to do with the attack on Bridie! And anyhow, there surely must have been other women who said no to Johnathon Cranna!”

  “Oh my word!” Frieda confirmed. “Johnathon’s tried it on with more women than you can shake a stick at! Some you’d be surprised at, I’m sure!” She wiggled in her seat and arched an eyebrow at the mayor. “But with Rita, it wasn’t so much a case of who missed out as who lucked out. You know what I mean?”

  I truly didn’t.

  “Well, you’re young see; but look at it this way! Johnathon’s a wealthy man! He’s got influence, charm and good looks to burn, right? Put him up against Kevin and . . . ! Well, Kev’s a lovely bloke, he really is! But he comes up . . . less!”

  “And he’s black,” the mayor said. “Not that it ever made a difference to anyone here in Sugar Town! No sir! Black, white or brindle – makes no difference. But it has to be said! And Johnathon, he can . . . !”

  I suddenly twigged to what they were doing – looking for issues – even non-existant issues – that were big enough to hide their own guilty consciences behind! I felt steam rising into my head. I didn’t care if Kevin and my mother had been lovers. In fact, I was happy about it! Fine! Great! Wonderful! Kevin had been a much better, more caring and supportive father to me than the Reverend had ever tried to be! And Johnathon, for all I knew, had been watching over us for years! No way was I going to sit quietly while more scape-goats were paraded in front of me!

  “Can what?” I bristled. “Johnathon can what? Listen! If cutting down Kevin and Johnathon Cranna’s the best anyone’s got, then we’re all wasting each other’s time! It’s all just ducking and weaving! Why the hell have you got me here? You can do this on your own!”

  I’d have left then, but Sergeant Morrow intervened.

  “ ‘At’s enough now!” he soothed. “It’s ugly enough stuff we’re talkin’ through here! No harm meant, I’m sure. But . . .,” he eyed the group, “I’m takin’ the girl’s side on this! I’m over bein’ side-tracked!”

  He planted his elbows on the table and fixed his beady eyes on the mayor. “So let me see if I got the nub o’ this, Lyle. There’s you, Johnathon, Doc’ Dabney, Les and Alf Caletti, drinkin’ in the pub. ‘S late in the day. Somehow the talk comes aroun’ to how the Reverend and his missus get along with each other. That what yer sayin’?”

  “Yeah, yeah! Well an’ so,” the mayor continued, stung into closing on the truth. “I guess someone at the table, I don’ know who, mighta suggested, just quiet-like, that Rita might be a little on the . . . hypocritical side, you know? I mean, self-righteous, like. Sorry, Ruthie, but considering what everyone reckoned’d been going on – between her ‘n’ Truckie! That’s just how it came out!”

  I gave him my narrow-eyed, freeze-your-blood-with-a-glance glance and Morrow forged ahead. You could see that he was doing his best to separate the relevant bits from the dressed up bits.

  “Okay now! Le’s jus’ stop there now for a minute!”

  He wrote a couple of words in his book but I could see the pencil line wandering off in doodles. He was quiet for a long time before suddenly snapping the pencil down on the table and leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He puckered his lips, blew a little breath and squinted at the ceiling.

  “We got some new dots, here,” he said. “For sure! But like young Ruth here, I’m havin’ just a tad o’ trouble seein’ how they connect. For instance: number one, we got some minor, unethical business dealings (he bobbed an elbow at the mayor) which led, in fairly friendly fashion, it has to be said, to a bit o’ money bein’ paid, some of it into church coffers. Number two, we got an attractive, maybe unattended woman who maybe / maybe not got a bit closer than usual to our man Truckie, which led, not too surprisingly, to a bit o’ jealous speculation in the pub. But then . . . we got number three! Les Crampton, listenin’ in to some drunken chat about it all. Then wanderin’ off, maybe / maybe not in company, comin’ across Bridie and – somethin’ crazy even for him – decidin’ to do her over! What’s the connection? Does he think it’ll put him in his mates’ good books? Has he got some gripe of his own against the Rev’ an’ Rita? Or is he just a bloody screw loose and don’ actually know what he’s doin’?”

  Morrow’s arms came down, the front feet of his chair struck the floor with a thud and he leaned out onto the table. His voice fell to an ominous level.

  “Or is Les even the right man to be lookin’ at? I mean, it seemed obvious back then; but somehow not so much now. Because now . . .,” he said, looking coldly at each of us in turn, “. . . now we’ve got number four, haven’t we! Number four bein’ that, eleven years down the track, my town’s in an uproar!” His voice fell even further, so that I wondered briefly if he was still talking to us. “I got houses bein’ burned; I got animals bein’ slaughtered in the street; I got gas bottles bein’ moved around with what I take to be criminal intent. I got bloody people campin’ out so’s to protect one another from some evil bastard! An’ I, personally, got doubt! Doubt, ‘cause I’m hearin’ stuff now that I never heard back then. You know what that should be tellin’ youse?”

  He banged a fist on the table and then turned the fist into a terrible, pointing finger that swung to each of us, one after another.

  “That should be tellin’ youse that I’m a shit of a long way from bein’ happy! That should be tellin’ youse that, if I got stone-walled on this once before an’ let it ride, thinkin’ it had worked itself out for the best . . . I ain’ grateful!” He leaned back again, made a sweeping motion with his hand, as though swiping crumbs from the table. “I want them dots connected! Now you lot called this meeting. If I walk away from here an’ find out later that someone forgot to tell me somethin’, that someone’s gonna get their tail stomped on! Understood?”

  He looked around expectantly, flushed to the eyeballs, nostrils flaring. No one moved. Well, I think a number of bowels might’ve come close to moving, but outwardly, we froze. Might be a good time, I thought, for Dale to speak up and at least re-tell his ‘I stole the knife but I lost it’ story. Or for Hoggs to be called in and made to explain his false confession. But it wasn’t either of them who spoke. It was Bessie.

  * * *

  “There’s one more thing maybe should be said.” She was looking at me.

  “I’m sorry, Ruthie. I’d keep it but . . . I think it might help you understand. It’s about the Reverend. And Rita. . . . And Bridie.”

  And she went on to elaborate on what Kevin had hinted at: the Reverend’s infatuation with his developing daughter, Rita’s concerns and Bessie’s own decision to move in with us after Rita had died; ‘just to be another woman in the house’.

  �
�I never seen him touch her! I’m not saying that! But you could tell . . . from the way he watched her – the way he kept her at arm’s length. She’d be like a cat, there, purring around him, never knowin’ what he was goin’ through. But your ma saw it. An’ I saw it. An’ eventually, even Johnathon Cranna saw it!” Bessie began to cry and Frieda followed suit. “When I talked about Johnathon whisperin’ to your dad, I think . . . I know . . . it had a lot to do with that. The final straw he used to convince Jacob to go. To protect her, ye see? And you. And himself. But Jacob . . . don’t ever believe it was easy for him, Ruth.”

  At the end of the story, Frieda reached out, grasping both Bessie’s and my hands. “God bless ye, Bess!” she blubbered. “God bless you for being there.”

  It was a lot for me to process. I couldn’t put myself in the Reverend’s shoes, obviously, but I had an inkling. All those strengths, defeated by one weakness!

  “Why didn’t I know about this?” Morrow demanded.

  “Beause you didn’t need to, Cecil,” said Bessie. “The Reverend was a mighty man. He knew what temptation was an’ he fought it every day! You never saw a stronger hand than that man’s! If that was all, he’d o’ won! Worse luck for him, though . . . he didn’t know how to fight shame.”

  Morrow’s eyes fell to the table and went blank. Somewhere in there, his mental file was being re- re-organised, another fact being fitted into its appropriate spot. When he looked up, it was to exhale a mighty breath, at the end of which he said, “Shit.”

  * * *

  I guess I sort of collapsed into myself for a bit there. It occurred to me that I’d been prepared for, and exercising, all sorts of anger and resentment, ever since coming across that first letter in Bridie’s bedroom. I was good at anger. I was almost a professional at it. (Dale, standing there behind me, could safely vouch for that.) And yet, at this point where it was surely would’ve been a useful response, it fell away from me entirely! Leaving just an incredible sadness for people.

  Like the Reverend; so proud of, and respected for, his wisdom and high standards! What a sad, surprised and frightened man he must have been when he looked in the mirror. Because what else was he? What else were any of us? What did I really know of Bridie or Asael or Kevin or Amalthea? Or of Johnathon Cranna or Dale Sutton! Even of myself! I’d had the Reverend sorted in my mind for years; hated him for years! But if he was really, in the end, undermined by his own God-given character, he hardly warranted hatred. He truly was, like all the rest of us, just one of the little jokes the universe seemed to enjoy seeing enacted. Even there in New Guinea, spreading his message of spiritual purity while bare breasted, teenaged Agnes waited on him in their hut! Just a sad, sad joke, and the laughter too strange and far away to understand.