The Gilded Madonna

by Garrick Jones

  “Toilets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not my sort of thing, Clyde. Parks, down in the surf boat shed late at night, the cemetery at Bronte … that’s about it. There’s a strip club in Taylor Square with private cubicles and no lights. Men who want relief and don’t care who gives it to them.”

  I nodded. “You’ll find someone special, Luka. One day.”

  “Maybe, Clyde, maybe. But it’s unlikely I’ll meet someone special in any of those sorts of places.”

  “I tell you what. We have a collection of mates, our circle of friends we call it. Every so often we have a drinks party or a barbecue on the beach or we go on an outing. If you’d like to meet some new faces, I’d be only too happy to invite you along.”

  “As long as I behave?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No fortune telling, no gypsy stuff, no shocking people.”

  “My friends would probably like that, Luka. They’re not all as boring and stuck up as I appear to be.”

  “Clyde Smith. Go home and speak to your man. Ask him if he thinks you’re boring and stuck up.”

  I laughed at the idea, because I knew very well that Harry Jones thought I was anything but.

  *****

  I was sitting in my office with my feet up on the desk when Tom arrived back from wherever he’d been.

  “Did you check the messages?” he called out from Harry’s office, where I knew he’d be taking off his hat and coat.

  “Yes, I did,” I replied. “Brenda had nothing for us.”

  “Back in a sec,” he called out. “Just going to the little boys’ room.”

  “Take your time,” I replied, my mind elsewhere.

  My mind was elsewhere because I’d been regretting not asking about what Luka had “seen” when he’d been holding my tiepin, and wondering why I hadn’t asked. I’d been manipulated away from the conversation. Subtly, but manipulated, nonetheless. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it. I hadn’t sensed anything sinister, but on the way back to the office I hadn’t been able to stop wondering about why he hadn’t told me and why, whatever it was, had precipitated an attack. I still didn’t believe in their world—their spiritual world that is--his own real-life world experiences had been shocking enough, and it would have been easy enough for me to check on his story of assault, so I knew I hadn’t been fed a line.

  I kept clippings of everything that mentioned me or my business. It wasn’t hubris, it was part of my police training. Something niggled in the back of my mind and then I remembered what it was. Earlier in the year, when I’d taken the office and started my private investigations business, I’d been interviewed by Wilbert Curtis for an article for the local paper. It hadn’t been published, but later there’d been a feature article about the crime and conviction tribunal I’d been working on since March. I leafed through my files until I found it. September the seventeenth issue, a photo of me, Sam, Billy, and Harry standing on the steps to the entrance of the old lockup where we were holding our meetings. There it was, a bit about me:

  Clyde Smith, local hero, son of well-loved local shoemaker, Alwyn Smith, who passed away four years ago …

  It wouldn’t have been hard for someone newly arrived looking for a cobbler to repair the sole of their shoe, or to replace a heel, to hear about my da and his thriving business and how sad it was that since he’d passed away there was only one bespoke shoemaker left in the area. There was a possible reason Luka might have known about my handmade shoes. Perhaps it was there, in the back of his mind, like so many other bits of trivia we store away and then which rise to the surface without us remembering how we learned them in the first place.

  It didn’t make me feel like he’d been a trickster, there was something too genuine about the man. It sufficed my inquisitive nature to imagine a logical reason that he knew my father had been a shoemaker, not to have “divined it” by some strange communication with the spirit world.

  “Here you go, Clyde,” Tom said, throwing an envelope on my desk and then perching on its edge.

  “What’s this?”

  “Ten quid.”

  “For?”

  “Thirty shillings of it is mine,” he said. “Two pending cases solved, invoiced last week and then paid for this morning while you were out.”

  I whistled and then opened the envelope. I gave him a fiver.

  “I haven’t got any change, Clyde, I’ll have to give it to you later, or it can wait.”

  “Christmas bonus, Tom.”

  “But, Clyde, I’ve only been working for you for two weeks.”

  “And in that time already you’ve brought a tenner through the door that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Please, Tom …”

  He sighed and then rolled us both a smoke while I told him about my meeting with Gălbenele and Luka Praz. I asked him to double-check the story of the missing child in Nowra and see if he could get a copy of the police or hospital report of Luka’s injury. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe them, but people tended to gloss over facts, either to save face or to avoid revisiting things that had happened to them. I told him it could wait until after Christmas.

  “So what’s the plan for this afternoon?” he asked.

  “I think we might give ourselves an early mark, Tom. I want to drive around and drop off Christmas presents. There’s a card in my out tray I’d like you to sign for the Bishop family, and one for Dioli.”

  “Dioli?”

  “No need to be uncivil, even if he is a shitbag … and to be honest, Tom, it will give me no end of pleasure to think of him sitting at home and wondering why his favourite queer wished him the best for the season.”

  “What makes you think he suspects you’re … you know?”

  “He kept looking at the way Harry and I interacted, Tom. Don’t forget he grew up in an orphanage with the older boys being touted to visitors.”

  “Have you written anything on the card? Do I need to just sign it, or do I need to write my own message too?”

  “Just sign it, Tom.” I chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You asking about a message. I have to admit I was tempted to write, ‘oh, and by the way, Tom’s no poofter, but I reckon his arsehole isn’t as tight as yours is’.”

  “Clyde Smith, has anyone ever told you there’s a dark side to your character?”

  “On a daily basis, Tom, on a daily basis.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “No underarm bowling!” Tom called out and then collapsed in a heap laughing when Harry turned around and threw the ball between his legs. It sailed over everyone’s heads and disappeared over the back fence.

  I was about to climb over to fetch it from the neighbour’s yard, when it hurtled back from the other side of the fence in time for Vince to leap in the air, catch it, and throw the ball at the wicket, knocking off the stumps. A loud cheer erupted from us all, much to the annoyance of Trixie, who’d been caught midway between either end of our “pitch”.

  I gave the thumbs up to the lad who lived behind Harry’s parents’ house and who’d thrown the ball back in a timely enough fashion to run Trixie out.

  “Want to come join us?” I called out to him.

  “No thanks, Mister. Mum is calling for lunch,” he replied cheekily.

  “Talking of lunch,” Harry said. “We need to get things on the table.”

  “You were very thoughtful,” I whispered to him on the stairs on the way back into the house. “I had a present for Billy, but not for Sam. We never gave Christmas gifts.”

  “Well, I hope he likes it. It’s from us both; a gift card for David Jones.”

  “A gift card? What’s that?”

  “It’s a new way of giving a present without having to choose something for difficult people. He takes the card into the shop and he can redeem it for something he wants. You told me he was picky.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Forget about it, Clyde. It was for a fiver, so he’ll be able to
buy a few work shirts, or a couple of pairs of slacks.”

  “Don’t tell me, it’s a new American idea …”

  “Well, it’s a jolly good one, Clyde. I’ve done the same with Tom and Vince and Philip.”

  “When can I open my present?”

  “Along with everyone else, just before lunch. But I’ve got a special one for you that I’ll give you when we’re alone.”

  “Uh huh?”

  He laughed. “And it’s not that either. I give you one of those on a regular basis. It’s something far more personal.”

  *****

  The Joneses’ house was one of those dark, two-storied, Spanish revival affairs, built in the mid-1920s and made popular by the films of the period that had come out of the new movie capital of the United States, California.

  It had been built with servants in mind, and not only did the kitchen have a scullery but it also had an attached maid’s room next to the walk-in pantry. I was standing at one of the two deep, white ceramic square sinks, scrubbing pots that needed to be re-used after making sauces and gravies for lunch, which was about half an hour off, when I heard Mary walk in behind me.

  She stood there for a few moments before clearing her throat quietly.

  “Everything all right, Mary?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “I was just admiring you, Clyde,” she said and then moved to my side and leaned against the draining bench. “Not only your manly physique,” she added with a small chuckle, “but also your thoughtful­ness. Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “You know very well what for, Mr. Smith. Arnold and I were very touched to learn you’d attached our names to the presents you and Harry had bought for the children. We’d intended to take Elizabeth’s boys to the football next year and have arranged a season’s ticket for all four of us for South Sydney’s games.”

  “Ah, you remembered that was their favourite team?”

  She lit a cigarette, took a puff, and as my hands were up to the elbows in soapy water, put it in the corner of my mouth.

  “As for Trixie’s children. We have a pass for each of them, good for twelve visits to both Taronga Park Zoo and Luna Park.”

  “I’m sure they’ll love those far more than what Harry and I chose, Mary, because they’ll enjoy those things over a period of time and you and Arnold will be there with them to share their pleasure. As for our trainsets, tabletop skittles, and doll’s house, they’ll be played with at the beginning and eventually end up in a cupboard under the stairs.”

  “Not if you spend time with the children playing beside them, Clyde.”

  I finished my last pan and then wiped my hands on my apron before taking it off. “Train sets and tabletop skittles yes. But a doll’s house? Can you see Harry and me sitting beside a young lady while she has tea with her dolls?”

  Mary patted my cheek. “You underestimate yourselves, Clyde. Besides, there’s one thing you’ve forgotten about your doll’s house. There’s no furniture. So, a timely visit every so often from Uncle Harry and Uncle Clyde with a suitable tiny table and chairs, or a bed, or perhaps a—”

  I put my arms around her and hugged her. It was when she kissed my cheek and patted my back that I started to feel my shoulders shaking.

  “Shh, Clyde. When was the last time you had a real Christmas with lots of friends around you and a tummy full of good food you’ve helped prepare yourself?”

  “December of 1938, Mary, the year before I went to war. Mum died while I was away and then there was just Dad and me. We put on a brave front after I got home, but it was pretty miserable, just the two of us.”

  “No Christmases while you were away all those years? No, don’t answer that, it was a stupid thing to ask. I’m sorry, Clyde.”

  “No need to apologise, Mary, and in answer to your question, we had no celebrations, even after the war was over. The first Christmas in Italy after the Germans surrendered I spent in San Michele del Carso, not far from Montefalcone in the north of Italy. We shared a bottle of Prosecco, which we’d left out in the snow to get cold—but there was nothing to eat. Everyone was starving for the lack of food. I brought up my cup of wine almost immediately—I hadn’t eaten for three days.”

  “Tell me about your childhood Christmases then, Clyde. Let’s change the subject a little.”

  “Ah, well, what’s to tell? There were just the three of us. Da’s family were and still are back in Wales. We never heard from them while he was alive, and I haven’t got the energy to track them down. Mum’s family moved to New Zealand when I was three, so I don’t remember them much. We were dirt poor, Mary. I’m not saying that for sympathy, but nevertheless, our Christmas celebrations were made just as happy as anyone else’s even for the lack of money.”

  “Happiness is not all about having things, Clyde. It’s about people.”

  I smiled at her remark, knowing it to be a truth. “I’m not sure if Harry told you, but my da was a cobbler, so there was always a leather belt, or a new wallet, or a school satchel, or then, later in life before I went away, a wonderful briefcase on my seventeenth birthday with a matching attaché case the following year. Mum was a knitter, and although summertime wasn’t the best time for jumpers and cardigans, I always had three or four new ones every year.”

  “How very wonderful, Clyde. Handmade gifts are a thing of the past. What did you make for them?”

  I laughed and then turned around to lean against the draining board next to her, with my arm around her shoulders.

  “Woodwork and metal working was the thing for boys in both primary and high schools. So my mother ended up with a supply of teapot stands, cases for her knitting needles and crochet hooks, magazine racks, a draining rack for the kitchen sink, and Da? Well, pipe stands, boxes for all his bits and pieces, a carved wooden card case … why, one year, while he was out for the day, I put up rails and hooks in his workshop to get some of his tools out of the way—”

  “Clyde? What is it, sweetheart? Come here.” Mary turned me in her arms and I wept on her shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I thought I’d be able to talk about it without getting all mushy.”

  “You are forgiven, Clyde.” She patted my back and then asked if I had a handkerchief. When I said no, she pulled one of her immaculate white tea towels from the kitchen drawer and gave it to me, telling me to blow my nose on it.

  “You know, Mary. I saw my father cry twice in my entire life,” I said, snuffling as I wiped my nose. “The first time was when he saw my face when I came down the gangplank of the ship coming home from war. He told me he’d cried because of the pain and the hardness he saw there.”

  “And the second?”

  “Well, that was the year he died. I made him a shoebox for his shop. It had a sloping front so the clients could rest their feet while he fiddled with the fit of their shoes, and at the back was a drawer in which he could put his tools. ‘Did you make this?’ he asked me, and when I said I had, especially for the only person left in the world I truly loved, he broke down and wept in my arms, just like I did then into yours.”

  “Clyde, may I tell you something?” Mary asked quietly after a few minutes of silence.

  “Of course you may. What is it?”

  “The money clip Arnold and I gave you for Christmas. Harry chose it. You know what he said when we were making up our minds what to buy you in David Jones?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve no idea.”

  “He said it was the perfect gift as it would sit in your pocket close to your heart, where it would always be warm and filled with radiated love …”

  It was at that precise moment that I noticed Harry, who’d been leaning against the doorjamb of the scullery with his hands in his pockets. His slight blush told me he’d been listening for more than a few minutes.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Mary said, patting my arm. “I need to check the table. Lunch won’t be far off.”

  “Warm and filled with radiated love, Harry?”

>   “My heart is when we’re lying side by side,” he said, closing the scullery door behind him. He moved into my arms and placed one hand on my chest. “There’s enough love in here for half the world, Clyde Smith.”

  I’d never cried while I was kissing anyone before.

  “Happy Christmas, Clyde,” he whispered as we drew apart.

  “Happy Christmas, my love,” I murmured against his cheek, reluctant to release him from my arms.

  *****

  I’d been home for about an hour when Harry slipped into my bed.

  I hadn’t expected him. We’d made arrangements to meet up late in the morning on Boxing Day for a pre-planned picnic at Craig’s baths, using the gargantuan quantities of food we’d known would be left over from Christmas Day. I’d also prepared extra, and my fridge was jam-packed with roasted chickens, a large ham, and mountains of makings for salads.

  We’d put together a list of our friends to join us for the get-together at Craig’s, and on my way home from Harry’s parents, I’d decided on the moment that I’d phone Luka in the morning and ask him if he’d like to join us. As it was to be a men-only do, perhaps he wouldn’t want to come without his sister, but I’d promised to invite him sometime to meet some of our “circle of friends”.

  As the pool was always closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and over Easter, Craig often made it available for private parties of like-minded men—queer men, in other words. I’d put my hand up just after we’d got back from Melbourne, asking if anyone else had bagsed it yet. Luckily, he hadn’t promised anyone else and had enquired whether I minded if he invited a few of his pals that were regulars at the baths—blokes I knew myself, and even though they weren’t men I’d call friends, I had no objections. I knew he’d never ask anyone who didn’t fit in with our crowd, and we easily had enough food for everyone, especially if everyone brought something to add to the table.

  Just after Harry pulled back the sheets and slid down beside me in bed, I felt something slip into my hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s your Christmas present,” Harry whispered.

  “But you gave me two wonderful imported Italian cookbooks and a pair of copper saucepans …”