The Gilded Madonna

by Garrick Jones

  We both laughed, our arms around each other. It did feel a bit strange, although I was happy, if not a little wistful over the loss of the sexual relationship I’d had with both of them. I felt like a matchmaker, the in-between person who was the pivot point for arranged matches. Sam and Billy, and now Craig and Harley.

  “There’s more though, Clyde,” Craig said, having returned to my side after retrieving his smokes from where he’d left them. We both lit up and I waited.

  “He’s moving in with me.”

  *****

  It was close to seven o’clock when I opened my front door. I’d smelled something wonderful floating down the stairs the moment I’d walked through the entrance to my block of flats.

  “Hello?” I called out. No one answered.

  Something was in the oven. I walked into the kitchen and opened the door a few inches. It was a large Italian frittata, a robust, hearty omelette, covered with one of my Pyrex oven dish lids. Next to it was a tray of cooked sausages. I noticed the oven was turned down as low as it could be without the gas going out.

  “Is that you?” I called out.

  “Yes, it’s me. I stole the spare key from under your pot of basil on the back landing. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I followed his voice to my bedroom as I threw off my singlet, hopping on the way as I slipped out of each of my shoes. Harry was lying on my bed, his hands behind his neck, his feet together, but his knees splayed open. Of course, he was naked.

  “Now that’s what I call a morning surprise. What are you doing here?” I asked as I threw off my clothes.

  “Wanted to speak to you early … hey, where you off to?”

  “Shower,” I said. “I had a swim but I’ve been running. I’m all salty and smelly.”

  “Get your arse here, Smith. I like salty and smelly.”

  I saluted and so did my dick. I tripped while trying to get my swimmers off and fell on top of him, but he rolled me in his arms and attacked my mouth with his own.

  *****

  Twenty minutes later, still not showered, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, clad only in my swimming trunks. Harry wore my cotton dressing gown, but hadn’t bothered to tie it; it hung open at the front, dangling over the sides of his chair. I couldn’t take my eyes off his chest. I’d bitten him in the throes of our lovemaking and there was a dark bruise just above his right nipple.

  “What you looking at, Smith?” he said, before shovelling a large forkful of frittata into his mouth.

  “You.”

  “And …”

  “How can we do this every day?”

  “What, me cook breakfast for you and us sit around in our next-to-nothings while we do it?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He sighed and then pushed back his chair, beckoning me to come around the table to sit on his knee. I wound one arm around his neck and kissed him, after which I helped myself to more of the omelette he hadn’t eaten yet. “Ready for sausage, Smith?” he asked, running his hand down the front of my new, nylon swimmers.

  He’d bought them for me after I’d told him how sexy they looked on the young lifesavers at the beach. Bright yellow and tight, they left little to the imagination, and I was only allowed to wear them when he was around. I liked it that he was a little jealous. I’d come home from my run wearing his pale-blue cotton American-style trunks under my shorts. I’d stolen them from him earlier in the year on Australia Day, when we’d been on a “family” picnic at Parsley Bay. I loved wearing them, they made me feel as sexy as he obviously did when I was wearing the canary-coloured Speedos I’d changed into after our earlier lovemaking.

  “Ready for sausage? I can’t believe you didn’t say that on purpose … you and your insuazioni sottili,” I whispered into his ear.

  “What’s that mean? Is it something I’d like?”

  I bit him gently on the tip of his nose. “It means ‘subtle innuendos’ in Italian.”

  “I wasn’t being subtle, I was asking if you wanted more to eat.”

  I kissed the side of his neck and then stood, allowing him to get to the oven.

  The sausages were delicious, unlike anything I’d eaten before, and I asked him where he’d bought them. He told me his mother had found a new artisan butchery in Dover Heights, not far from where they lived, which specialised in continental goods. I put the name on my list of priorities. Even now it was still fairly tricky sourcing anything other than regular British or Australian foodstuffs. I wasn’t unused to driving all over Sydney to get ingredients that were nigh on impossible to buy unless you knew where to go.

  “So, you didn’t get around to telling me why you’re here so early.”

  “We’re trying out one of Shirley Watson’s nurse friends to see how that works. My sister’s room is empty and it was Mother’s idea to get someone to help her and Dad while I’m so busy. It’s to give me a break every so often, and if it works out, it will be cheaper to get someone to come to look after them than taking them to a health resort when I’m away with my adventuring groups.”

  “Shirley Watson? The nurse from the hospital who looked after me?”

  “Don’t you remember, Clyde? We purloined the nurses’ rest station for a private meeting, and Mother arranged for me to get the most enormous box of chocolates for you to give to them as a thank you present for stealing the only room they could put their feet up in and a have a cuppa.”

  “Of course I remember. But what’s the connection with Shirley and your mother?”

  “At the time, Shirley twisted my arm, and I told her it was Mother who’d phoned her friend, whose husband is the manager of the city Darrell Lea shop, and who’d managed to get those chocolates, and on a Sunday too! Shirley wrote to Mother to thank her, and they’ve kept up a correspondence. Don’t forget Mother used to be a nurse herself.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea,” I said.

  “It also means that if …”

  “If you get too tired and have had a few too many drinks at my place or we’re at the office needing to work late …”

  “On our joint business venture,” Harry said with a wink.

  “Wait … what joint business venture?”

  “Well, I’m putting some brainwork into your private investi­gations. And you? Well, let’s say I’m thinking of maybe running a few weekends of bush survival for young fellas, with a few hours of instruction on self-defence as part of the course.”

  “Uh huh, and I’m going to be the instructor? Maybe I’ll be busy?”

  He smiled; already he knew the teasing tone in my voice. “We’ll have Tom to man the fort on weekends if need be …”

  “Guess I could come along and help out.”

  “What time are you due at work?”

  I looked at my watch. “We have a meeting of the investigation team at ten. Before that, I’ll have to call into the office and sort Tom out for the morning. Maybe I’ve got an hour before I have to leave?”

  “Come with me,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me behind him.

  “Where we going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “But I still haven’t showered.”

  “All the better, Smith. I like smelly, crusty men. Now get your arse into our bed.”

  “I thought you said smelly and salty before?”

  “Same thing, Clyde. Now do as I said.”

  I smiled at the “our bed”. I knew it had slipped out, but somewhere inside it made me feel very good indeed.

  *****

  Although it was odd for four people who’d been close friends to sit together on such an important investigation, the atmosphere was always businesslike whenever we met.

  Someone who knew us well would pick up on the closeness between Sam and Billy and me and Harry. They’d also probably notice my cool treatment of Sam. For, despite how angry I was with Billy, I owed him my life. It was he who’d saved me from the P.O.W. camp in Italy.

  However, it was a different kettle of fis
h with Sam. Billy had simply avoided telling me about their relationship, but Sam had lied to me, and not only to me, but to Jeanette, the girl he’d been seeing as a cover for his true sexuality. He’d picked me up and dumped me so many times I’d lost count, and then after I’d finally walked away, I’d discovered all sorts of other trysts he’d been keeping over the six years we’d been close. I’d only ever had one other regular in my life during our fractured years together—Harley. I’d been open and upfront with Sam about him and my other, very infrequent, times with Billy and Craig. But Sam had been duplicitous and had lied to my face, over and over again.

  Just how many times he’d been carrying on lengthy and multiple liaisons behind my back had been a real revelation. Of course, the knowledge hadn’t come from him. It was surprising how many people had kept their mouths shut and had tried to protect me. I wished they hadn’t. If I’d known earlier, I would have told him to get lost and then have not felt so torn about getting together with Craig and Harley, and guilty about the few times I’d slept with Billy, who Sam had hated at the time.

  It would take a long time before I could brush what Sam had done under the carpet—if I ever could.

  We sat around a large table in the old lockup next to Randwick police station, Sam’s and my former workplace. Herbert Campbell, the Special Crown Advocate, at its head and Colonel Jeff Ball, Harry’s boss from military intelligence, with his aide sitting next to him, at the other end. I sat next to Billy, opposite Sam and Harry.

  This morning’s meeting was another of our endless discussions about how our investigation had been stalled right from the start. A letter had arrived from the Premier of N.S.W. arguing in the strongest possible terms that we should not proceed with legal action against one of his cabinet members. The government was hanging on by its toenails and had the slimmest of majorities in the house. He felt that if his minster’s transgressions came to light, and a successful prosecution could be launched, he’d lose his majority and there’d have to be another election. The minister in question was a man who’d been laundering bribes through a knock shop that he owned in Palmer Street, the seediest red-light district in the city.

  I’d had a sinking feeling, right from the start, that my wish to have a public enquiry into crime and corruption would end up being conducted behind closed doors and with few convictions of major public figures. However, I’d had the enormous satisfaction of being on a panel that had unmasked not a few exceptionally nasty pieces of work. Already six people were in the clink, and four waited trial, albeit in camera. Three more had skipped the country, and another two had taken the “coward’s escape”, leaving their widows and kids to bear the brunt of their shame.

  One thing we had managed to achieve was to keep men’s private lives out of the picture. We may have had cause to produce photographic evidence to convince one or two highly placed corrupt officials to own up to their own malfeasance, but we’d also managed to save the reputations of more than twenty men, who’d been extorted after having been photographed without their knowledge in compromising situations with men in powerful positions, usually after the exchange of money. I made no judgement. I’d never been dirt poor with a family to feed. Some of those men had been screwed over for information, but the majority had been coerced into further unwanted sexual liaisons.

  When Herbert excused himself to go to the men’s room, I spoke to Billy under my breath. “Can I have a few minutes with you before you leave please, mate?”

  “Of course, Clyde. Business?”

  “No, not now. I’ve made an appointment with your secretary next Monday to talk business. This is personal.”

  “Oh?”

  I wasn’t unaware that Sam was pretending not to listen, even though Harry was showing him something in a document.

  “It’s about Africa,” I said.

  Sam turned back to Harry. He knew Billy and I had history. It’s where we’d met and where we’d fought together against the Germans before I’d been shipped off to southern Italy.

  “Clyde …” Billy said under his breath.

  “Outside, when we’re having a smoke break, okay?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I left Harry deep in discussion with Colonel Ball and Sam about police–military boundaries. Billy and I wandered out into Coogee Bay Road to have a smoke, leaving them to it.

  “So, Clyde, Africa?”

  I handed him the photo, and he reacted more or less in exactly the same way I had done, except Billy was Italian. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and then blew his nose.

  “Simpler days, eh, Clyde?”

  I shrugged. “I’m assuming you didn’t send this to me.”

  He shook his head and then spoke in Italian. We were out in the street and people were passing by, in and out of the police station and on their way to the local hospital, which was only a few hundred yards away.

  “I’ve never seen this photo before, Clyde. Where did you get it?”

  “Posted from a false post office box as the return address, no return sender’s name either.”

  He held it up so the light shone over the surface. “I don’t think it’s a new copy, Clyde, it’s scratched and there’s a bit missing at the edge of one corner.”

  “That’s what I thought too, Billy. Any idea who it could have come from? I don’t even remember when it was taken or who took it.”

  “Trafford Olsen took it. Don’t you remember him? He was that lanky Swedish or Norwegian guy who’d arrived in Australia just before war broke out. Remember? He used to tell terrible jokes, translated direct from his own language and they were never funny.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember him. He—”

  “Povera bestia,” Billy said, shaking his head.

  I agreed. Poor thing, he’d said. It was something Italians said to describe someone who’d come to a terrible end through misfortune and who’d not deserved to suffer. I held out my hand with forked fingers and spat between them. It was a way of warding off misfortune.

  “You’re even more Italian than me sometimes, Clyde.”

  I smiled at him shyly. I still loved him in my own way and found it easier to forgive him than Sam, who’d hurt me to the bone.

  “Johnny was an orphan, and Sonny’s mother left to live in Western Australia, am I right? He didn’t have any other family members as far as I remember.”

  “He had an uncle, Clyde, his mother’s brother, but he was working in the post office in Darwin when it got hit. They only buried bits and pieces.”

  “Billy …”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too. You know I’d do anything for you. But, Sam?”

  He bowed his head and then crouched on the footpath, his back against the wall of the lockup. I could see he was holding back tears and it broke my heart. Despite being one of the toughest, most ruthless soldiers I’d ever met during the war, Billy Tancred wore his heart on his sleeve.

  “Nothing was done on purpose, Clyde. No one set out to hurt you.”

  I crouched down next to him and offered him one of my tailor-mades.

  “Billy, I can forgive you. I have to forgive you. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. I see that you and Sam seem to be working things out together, but I can’t … I just can’t.”

  “He knows you’re angry with him, Clyde. And he’s ashamed, but, to be honest, what I have with him is our business. I know you’ll be respectful for my sake, and he’ll never get in the way of our friendship, I’ve made that very clear.”

  I patted his knee. We’d said enough on the subject.

  “Do you know how to contact Sonny’s mother?”

  “Why? You want to know who sent the photo, don’t you, Clyde?”

  I chuckled. “You know me well, Billy, I’m not good with unsolved mysteries.”

  He sighed and then smiled at me. “I’ll put my articled clerk onto it this afternoon and I’ll let you know.”

  “I could always search the wido
w’s pension records myself, Billy. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Nah, leave it with me, Clyde. It will make me feel good to know we’re still in each other’s pockets.”

  Had not Harry poked his head outside the doorway of the lockup to tell us they were about to start again, and several people passing by on the street, I might just have kissed his cheek.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By Friday things were really underway. Thanks to Harry, the P.M.G. technicians had turned up the day before, the new switchboard—which turned out to be a rather large telephone with a few illuminated buttons below the dial—had been installed and Tom had done a crash course on how to patch through calls to me, to the spare handset in Harry’s new office, and how to divert either or both numbers back to Brenda Brighteyes.

  Painters had turned up on Wednesday while Harry and I had been at the tribunal meeting and had given the whole of our floor a lick of white paint. It looked very clean and crisp, and now, with all of the windows opened for over twenty-four hours, the smell had gone.

  Not long after the furniture we’d bought early in the week had arrived, Tom and I were sitting at my desk going through a list of jobs that needed to be done, when someone opened my door and walked in without knocking. I kept making notes, waiting until I’d finished the sentence I was writing before finding out who’d barged in.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” the voice said, as an envelope skidded across the page I’d been writing on.

  I looked up. I knew it was Dioli without having met the man. Tall, very slim, beautiful suit, wavy Brylcreemed hair, and a face not a little unlike my pal, Billy Tancred.

  I sat back in my chair. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, mate, but get out of my office and sit and wait on the bench until I’m ready to see you.”

  Red-faced, he pulled out his wallet and flashed his I.D. far too quickly for anyone to read it—that is if, like me, they hadn’t already worked out who he was.

  “You got a warrant or are you going to charge me with something? If not, then go outside and wait like I said. Close the door after you.”

  I returned to the page I was writing and then noticed the envelope had smudged my ink right across the page—there was no way it could be salvaged. I’d have to do it again. “Jesus wept,” I muttered.