Iraqi Icicle

by Bernie Dowling

  The Go-Bees as a duo released their first single, Lee Remick, in 1978. At this time, I was in the orphanage, receiving no exposure either to the Queensland band or to the American actress in whose honour they penned the song. Lee Remick, the song, not the actress, was a quirky, funny expression of the anxiety of the adolescent male in socialising with young women. Robert Forster wrote the song and both he and bandmate Grant McLennan had attended private boys’ schools.

  Beyond gigs like the 1981 evening at Cloudland, the band made its first significant impression on me and a lot of other punters in 1984. Their album of that year, Spring Hill Fair, was a kinda cheesy and kinda cool tribute to a big annual flea market held in an inner-city Brisbane suburb.

  By 1986, the band’s fifth album Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express was spinning on my deck. I guessed most of us got the pun Liberty Belle, and it was only a matter of listening to the record to see whether it was a pisstake or not. Fellow Go-Bees fan Mick Clarence learned from his fledgling Internet connections that the Black Diamond Express was contemporary American slang for taking a walk on the wild side. I did not know if the translation was correct and, if it was, whether the Go-Bees were aiming to make it big on the lucrative American college radio and performance circuit where the reference might resonate. I guessed they were the sort of band which kept you guessing and that sharpened your mind and was all right with me.

  We drove along Coronation Drive and turned into Sir Fred Schonell Drive. I pondered aloud why the rich Westies had drives, when we poor northern-suburbs folk had to make do with streets and roads. Natalie warned me not to start with that class number of mine, so I switched to geography, inquiring why the Westies in Brisbane were rich and the Westies in Sydney were poor. The sun sets in the west in both Sydney and Brisbane. Why was it fashionable to be driving home into the setting sun in the Queensland capital, and unfashionable in the New South Wales capital?

  Natalie smiled thinly. ‘I know it is an imposition to ask you to travel from the northern suburbs, Steele. I know you are uncomfortable among university students. But let’s just enjoy the Go-Betweens, and forget the sarcasm that we both know masks your inferiority complex.’

  Bloody hell, that put me in my place.

  We found a spot in one of the student car parks, a bleak area of dust, gravel, and tufts of grass that told the kids they might be tomorrow’s leaders but they were today’s plebs. We went up to the large building, the “refectory”, which is a fancy word for canteen. All the tables and chairs had been moved out, and the imported stage did not take up much space, so hundreds were able to stand to listen to the band.

  The Go-Betweens hit the right chord with the students, who, for the most part, were seven or so years younger than the band members – a lifetime for anyone between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one. The youngsters showed respect verging on awe for the quartet, returning to the Alma Mater where it all began. The staid and ancient University of Queensland had produced international rock stars, so cool they had survived a decade without a hit album. Maybe the freedom-loving American beauty Liberty Belle was about to change all that.

  God was on their side, as lightning flashed outside to cue the band for Twin Layers of Lightning, a song we faithful loved, soaring and plunging through the glorious, bleak and in-between styles of Go-Bees humour. Robert Forster took the piss, bluntly announcing that the band had made it, despite being thrown out of a club.

  Listen Jack, don’t you know, I’m a star.

  We punters adored it: ridiculing world domination, while keeping the possibility alive in the corner of our minds: Go Go-Betweens. The set flew by, and we enticed them back for three encores, one of which was a surprise cover of reggae man Jimmy Cliff’s You Can Get It If You Really Want. Again that hint of ambivalence to fame appeared, and didn’t we all have that? Even us occasional visitors to the halls of learning how to enter exclusive societies and clubs that you never get kicked out of, no matter how obnoxious you are.

  Spilling out of the hall at the end, satiated and smiling punters were nodding in rhythm, telling one another what a great concert it had been, and how glad they were that they had taken a break from studying for the last of the end-of-year exams. Nat and I congratulated ourselves too on our choice of outing, but the happy times grew a little bleak when Nat returned to her increasingly common theme of saving money to spend six months or more in London.

  I had absolutely zero interest in going to London for six days, let alone six months. If it were a decade earlier, sure . . . The next day, though, Who Loves Yer Baby could provide us with enough cash for the trip. I had a strange feeling I would end up in London with Natalie in the unlikely event of the horse prevailing. I am easily led.

  After the necessary chatting to strangers at the uni, we drove on to Fortitude Valley. Natalie talked me into taking in the Beat nightclub where we sipped two stubbies each of overpriced foreign beer, watched a low-key floor show and listened to some composite audio tapes.

  A lot of it was dance-type product, some top forty along with some alt pop such as R.E.M. and U2. They even played the Smiths for the young hipsters. There were Talking Heads and Headless Chickens from New Zealand. But nothing from the Go-Betweens’ new album.

  We got home from the Beat about 3am, both knackered, but up for a couple of rum and cokes for nightcaps.

  We were happy to crash out in Natalie’s double bed without screwing.

  38

  I NUDGED MY CUCUMBER awake at 7 a.m. only to cop an earful of curses for my trouble. I had presumed, for no particularly good reason and incorrectly, that Nat would be working that morning. Unlike myself, Natalie has the ability to sleep in until noon when the occasion allows it, and I had destroyed her opportunity for slumber.

  Good did come of my mistake though. The lingering effects of a great gig, boutique beers and rums made us in the mood for early morning sex, after which I did the manly thing. I fell asleep, waking to slink back to my flat for breakfast.

  I grilled a few snags and fried onions, zucchinis and cabbage for a hearty breakfast, complemented by bread too fresh to toast and white filter coffee not defiled by sugar. I opened the daily paper to the sports page and was greeted by a photo of Mecklam standing beside All The Favours as the horse was being blessed by a Catholic priest.

  The story underneath told of the lawyer’s plan to donate part of any prize money won to the Church’s missionary work in Africa. Mecklam was quoted at length. He hoped some of his corporate clients would top up his contribution. We in Australia, he said, did have All The Favours, with democracy, and wealth for toil, and other yummy gifts. This made it our duty to assist the less fortunate in other parts of the world.

  Well, that was news. Mecklam was a saint, and not the selfish, conniving bastard I had thought he was. Who would have conceived that his winning thousands, and my winning hundreds, on his horse would benefit the third world?

  Given normal circumstances, the bookies might have chipped in for the African kiddies, but they would not be cheering Mecklam’s divine plan this time. Helping orphans is one thing, but getting fleeced by Mecklam was another. Charity begins at home, and bookies had private schools to support for their own children, as well as assisting the kids of luxury car dealers where the successful ones shopped every three years.

  Religion had never come up in discussions with the mad Russian Bill Smith, but I imagined his heritage allowed him few spiritual ties with the Catholic Church. If his Mick son-in-law Gregory Sailor was an example, Smith probably associated the Church more with hypocrisy than honourable works.

  The Russian would really have been ticked off with the way Mecklam was upstaging him in the press war. Smith had come up with a ripping yarn. Noted track-work duffer Who Loves Yer Baby, with the prodigal son-in-law and father-to-be on top, scorched up the grass in preparation for today’s race. His rival had trumped him all ends up with a prediction of divine intervention, which Smith would try to thwart with only a handful of magic beans or,
hopefully unknown to most of the general public, several handfuls of magic mushrooms.

  I tried to work out a few trebles and doubles to put on at the tote before I went to the races, but I had trouble concentrating. I scribbled out the unlikely combinations of eight and eight in the double, and eight, eight and eight in the treble for the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne races. I lay there on the couch listening to the radio racing previews and surprised myself by falling asleep for more than an hour.

  I woke and did my ablutions, a wonderful expression, unfortunately slipping from our language. My future Melbourne Cup winner will be called Doing My Ablutions, even if the stewards refuse my request for a cake of soap rather than a boring shamrock at the centre of my racing colours. I am sure they will let me play the song Doing My Ablutions, a parody of Losing My Religion, at the winner’s ceremony.

  It was 11 a.m. four hours before the big race when I parked the EH ute down the road from Mick Clarence’s flat. I had become used to parking a short distance from my destinations over the past week, and decided that it was a practice that I would follow in life from now on.

  Mick’s door was slightly ajar and the stereo was up loud. I knocked and received no acknowledgment, so I walked on in, almost tripping over a vinyl briefcase lying horizontal next to Mick’s beloved armchair. I called out and received no reply. The door to the toilet and bathroom was wide open, but no Mick inside.

  That probably placed him in his bedroom, the door to which was slightly ajar. I would go back to the lounge, to listen to the music and wait for the young punter. I gave the bedroom door a slight nudge and, as I turned to go to the other room, I saw a leg on the floor.

  Mick Clarence lay on his back on the floor of his bedroom, with a piece of rubber tied around his upper arm and a hypodermic needle in front of his outstretched fingers. My first strange notion was that he was playing a practical joke, but that idea was washed away by a wave of nausea that rose from my stomach, up through my chest and caught in my throat. I felt for a pulse, mostly so I could look away to pretend to concentrate on feeling the vibration that was not there. Mick Clarence, maths whiz, professional punter, eighteen-years-old, someone I never ever suspected of being a junkie, was dead.

  Impressions rushed in on me as I staggered back to the lounge. I had a crazy notion of hopping in my car, driving around Spring Hill, coming back and finding Mick alive. I conjured a scenario in which I would track his murderer down. It would turn out to be Mecklam.

  I told myself out loud to switch off the music and calm down. If the coppers or anyone else found me here, they might declare me as a cert for bringing about Mick’s death.

  I would sit down, think the situation over, leave quietly and contact an ambulance. That’s what I would do. Sitting in the humble guest chair, I again noticed the briefcase next to Mick’s armchair. I could see it was not locked, so it could not contain much of value.

  It contained wads of $50 bills, rolled over one another and bound with thick rubber bands. Twenty bills I counted in one wad, and there were twenty-two wads. Mick the mathematician would have put the same number of notes in each wad. I was staring down at $22,000, enough motive in the mind of any ambitious copper for me to have slipped my friend an overdose.

  I snapped shut the latches on the briefcase, grabbed it by the handle and stood up, to find that my hand holding the case was shaking beyond my control. I slipped the case under my arm, and nudged through the front door with my hip.

  I’d had minor run-ins with the coppers, but they were yet to take my prints. I felt safe about leaving my dabs behind. Knowing some of the company he kept, Mick’s place would be full of prints, some of them among the cops’ records, some of them from coppers. I hoped one set belonged to his heroin dealer, and the coppers would look closely at those prints.

  39

  I DROVE HOME, using my key to let myself into Nat’s flat. I had a great desire to tell her what had happened. I usually manage to keep the dangerous aspects of my career hidden from her, but I felt the need to offload this terrible news. Nat was still sound asleep, so I left a note saying I was off to the races and would be back at 6 p.m. or later.

  I picked up Bill Smith’s five grand from my kitchen drawer, pushing it into the briefcase on top of Mick’s punting money. Then I got back into the ute, dropping the briefcase onto the passenger’s side of the one-piece seat. I was operating on instinct and drove past Eagle Farm racetrack without even knowing why.

  I headed to the city, but swung a left into Kingsford Smith Drive towards the sea, before dropping a U-turn and parking in front of a small jetty beside the Brisbane River. I opened the briefcase and took out Bill Smith’s five grand and four bundles of Mick’s bills. I stuffed some of the money in my wallet and some in the two front pockets of my trousers, putting one grand of the nine in my back pocket for Flick. That left $8000 for betting. I took the bands from the remaining wads and roughly spread the money across the floor of the briefcase.

  Locking the driver’s door of the ute, I went to the passenger side and wound down the window. I looked at the open briefcase, and the faces on the fifty-dollar bills stared back at me. I reached in and flipped the top of the case over to meet the bottom, without bothering to secure the latches. I grabbed the case between the thumb and fingers of my right hand.

  A wind blew up around me as I walked to the end of the jetty, swinging the briefcase across my chest, opening my outstretched hand, allowing the case to open wide. Some of the bills flew into the air as the case hit the river, displaying its contents to the sky. It floated for a few moments, slowly taking on water until it slid away under the surface, leaving the fifties to float gently down the river to the sea.

  The money looked peaceful and at home on the tidal river, and I waved it farewell on its journey to the Pacific.

  ‘Goodbye, Mick,’ I said.

  I turned to see three teenagers, two boys and a girl, standing on the footpath and staring at me. They all wore jeans and flannelette shirts though it was the dead of summer, and the girl had a jumper tied around her waist. For some reason, I thought they were homeless, so I reached into my pocket and eased off three fifty-dollar bills. It was only November, but I wished them Merry Christmas anyway as I handed each a fifty. None of them said anything in reply. They just looked at me as if I was deranged and, at that moment in time, they were probably right. I quickly unlocked the door, climbed into the ute and headed to the racetrack.

  40

  IT WAS A LITTLE PAST NOON when I entered the track. The Brisbane Handicap was on after 3 p.m. so I bought a race book and sat reading in a far high corner of the public grandstand. My head was muddled as I read all the details on the horses’ breeding, trainers, owners and form. Usually, I would sift through and collate this information in my mind to pick a winner, but I couldn’t hang on to the bits and pieces as they rose to the front of my brain and receded. I heard two indistinct calls of southern races from a loudspeaker and I could not make out the winner of either race. I watched the first race in Brisbane, then went down to see if any bookies were betting early on the main event.

  Fifty metres ahead of me, ex-jockey George and his big mate Phil were prowling around the bookies’ ring. George had a handful of notes – it looked a lot more than he would normally have at the races – while Phil had his hand over his shirt pocket as though protecting something valuable. George claimed a bookie for a bet, but I was too far away to see what he was backing and how much he put on. He was gone before I was close enough to see that the bookie was betting early on the Brisbane Handicap. He had Mecklam’s All The Favours at nine-to-two.

  Walking up to put $100 each way on the horse, I noticed Mecklam stride in through the gate. He was with a wealthy Brisbane businessman who sometimes bet with the bookie I worked for. Mecklam grinned as he told the businessman an obviously funny story, well out of range of my hearing. The bookie I was standing in front of was annoyed at my silence and he barked at me. ‘What’ll it be?’

  �
��A thousand dollars each way Who Loves Yer Baby,’ I demanded.

  ‘You’re joking, right? You work for Brownie. But Brownie’s not laying off this early, is he? What do you really want?’

  I ignored his insinuation about only having that sort of cash if I was fronting for Brownie, the bookie I worked for.

  ‘Well, can I have $400 each way on Who Loves Yer Baby?’

  ‘I suppose, but it is cash on the knocker and you are holding me up.’

  I pulled out a wad, counted it and gave the bookie $800.

  ‘Ten thousand to 400 and twenty-five hundred to 400,’ the bookie said suspiciously, writing out the ticket. As he handed me the stub, he leaned down to ask me if there was something he should know. We were on the same side, he suggested. I shrugged, folded the betting slip in half and put it in my shirt pocket, while the bookie lowered the horse’s price to fourteen-to-one. I claimed another bookie for $200 each way at twenty-to-one, and another for $100 each way at sixteen-to-one. These were the only three bookies betting early on the race, so I went to the tote. I put $400 each way on Who Loves Yer Baby, knowing, if it came up short on the tote because of my bet, other punters would leave it alone instead of backing it, giving me the opportunity to get a good price later. I also took a trifecta with Who Loves Yer Baby to win and all other possible combinations to run second or third. That cost me another $240. All up, I had spent about $2600 counting the $150 I had given away. I still had more than $5500 left, including my own money. After seeing Mecklam giggling like a fun human being, his horse would not get one dollar of my funds. If Who Loves Yer Baby went down, it was taking Bill and me with it.