Passing Clouds

by Graeme Leith

  I was met by police at Sydney airport and driven to the mortuary. There we met David’s uncle, ashen faced and distraught. He had been unable to identify David’s body, could I do it? I demurred but was told that if I couldn’t do it then David’s mother would have to be brought up from Melbourne. That was unthinkable, so I agreed, and a ghastly half-hour followed until at last I said: ‘That is the body of David Jones.’

  It was then that I had to identify Ondine’s body. I protested—I just couldn’t do it. It was explained to me that if I couldn’t do it, my sister Carolyn, who lived in Sydney, would be asked. That, too, was unthinkable. Mercifully, I was able to identify them, in black and white, through the lens of a television camera transmitted to a screen. There was a scar on her leg, the legacy of a fall at the Inglewood swimming pool some years earlier, and through that I was legitimately able to say, ‘This is the body of my daughter, Ondine Leith.’ And so I was saved from having to view my beautiful Ondine’s face, apparently unrecognisable due to the activity of the blowfly maggots; their bodies had been in the back of that ute for four days in the summer heat.

  I was then taken to the Darlinghurst Police Station to be interviewed. Three detectives questioned me at length about Ondine and David. They came and went from the room, their questions repetitive and circular. Eventually one of them asked, ‘Would you like a drink?’

  The day was wearing on, the sun was weakening outside. ‘Yes, I’d like a drink.’

  ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Scotch, if it’s possible.’

  A half-bottle of Scotch and a glass duly appeared on the desk, some stubbies of beer, too, for the police. More detectives appeared and at one stage there were about twelve of them in the room when the penny dropped and I realised that I was a suspect! Not only that, but the bodies had been found near Kings Cross, Australia’s centre of sleaze and drugs. Of course! The murders were going to be seen by some as drug related, and my beautiful girl, who hated drugs, who wouldn’t even smoke a joint, so much did she respect her mind and body, was going to be regarded with suspicion by people who never knew her.

  At last the questioning ceased. The whisky was gone with the day and I was apparently considered innocent of any involvement in the murder of my daughter.

  The police took me to the airport and I flew to Melbourne. The alcohol had had little effect on me—the adrenalin had quickly chewed that up. I was hoping to remain anonymous but I was paged, and when I went to the desk the cameras were onto me. A friend, Greg Kelly, put me in a taxi to escape the reporters and photographers. I went to see Sue at Carlton Street where the ghastly task of contacting Oma in Holland had to be addressed. Knowing my Dutch language skills would not be up to the task, I contacted a Dutch friend who came to Sue’s and we made the dreaded call together. I rang Vosje, who knew all about the deaths by then of course—I think Rod Parker had been speaking to her. She seemed to be handling the situation better than me; it was as if she thought that they’d just gone away somewhere. I assumed somebody was looking after her with antidepressants.

  Somebody drove me to Kingower. I don’t remember who it was but I bless them for it. My friend Robert Roles was there. He had come to stay and give Julien moral support, and had sent away reporters and a journalist who had helicoptered in. Julien and Robert were wonderfully considerate and supportive. I was ranting and raving, swallowing sleeping tablets and drinking wine, needing sleep but wound up like a clock spring.

  In the morning I awoke before them, put the jug on for tea and a slice of bread into the toaster, which didn’t work properly—a mouse had died in there and two maggots crawled out. My devastation was complete.

  Within days the police had a pair of suspects—Robert Pickford and Michelle Archer, his de facto wife, both heroin addicts. They were members of the Australian Defence Force and were based at the army barracks at Ingleburn, a south-western suburb of Sydney. The man had bought heroin from the occupants of a flat in Melbourne, and the couple had shot up a capsule each. While the woman took their twenty-month-old toddler back to the car, the man held up the dealers and, with the aid of a silencer-equipped rifle, robbed them of $170.

  One of the pair had driven David’s ute back to their house at Ingleburn with the bodies of Ondine and David in the back, parked it in their carport with their own car, and ransacked it. It later transpired that both vehicles had been apprehended at Tarcutta, because they were being driven erratically, but the police officer let them continue on their way, for neither vehicle was stolen. Later, outside the court in Melbourne, the policeman involved told me he sensed something profoundly evil at the time and was glad to see them continue their journey north on the Hume.

  There was television footage of the ute in Kings Cross where they had dumped it. It was a distinctive vehicle, and one of their neighbours easily recognised it as being the vehicle that had been parked in the carport of the Pickford–Archer residence; they contacted the police. The two were arrested at Avalon, north of Sydney, where they were spending a day at the beach with their toddler.

  It was necessary for me and members of David’s family to fly to Sydney to examine the pair’s house with the police. David’s mother Val, her husband Bob (David’s stepfather), a mate of David’s and I duly took the flight, and at Sydney’s Mascot airport we were met by police who drove us to the army settlement at Ingleburn. We were to look for anything belonging to Ondine and David.

  The house was a chaotic mess of strewn clothes, dirty nappies and cheap books about violence and killing. Only Pickford’s army uniform was folded, clean and neat. There were also plenty of new packs of disposable nappies; they must have been spending up big with Ondine and David’s holiday money, I thought. Under a cushion on a settee there was a large dagger, no doubt in case of unexpected ‘guests’, and there were some letters from army members from various countries in which they were serving, with references to ‘good gear’. It seemed that there was quite a little nest of heroin users in our armed forces. And then there, incongruously among the cheap rubbishy products on the bathroom shelf, was the bottle of ‘Opium’ perfume that I had given Ondine for Christmas little more than a week before, and also the perfume that Ondine was taking to Geurilla Bay to give to her sister Abigail. There were other things, too—some of Ondine’s clothes, David’s running shoes and a pair of David’s jeans that Val involuntarily hugged to herself when she found them.

  Back home there was now much to be done, and we liaised with Val and Bob. Our children’s bodies had to be flown from Sydney, funeral arrangements had to be made, and I had a eulogy to write; friends were sending cards and letters of sympathy and some of their sentiments could be included in it.

  Another problem had to be solved; the always emotional and dramatic Vosje would, if discovered by the press, provide all too colourful interviews, particularly if she’d had a few drinks, so she was spirited away to the Daylesford house where Robert Roles, Jane Buck, Mary Rogers and Kate Millard looked after her on a roster system and helped her through her grief.

  The cremation was conducted, the funeral held, the eulogy read by John O’May, an actor friend of Rod Parker’s family, a man who knew Ondine. The next day Ondine and David’s ashes were buried at the Kingower cemetery. In the oppressive Central Victorian heat my neighbour, John Sendy, gave a short and poignant speech. And then the earth was cast in to cover their ashes.

  Some days later a committal hearing was held at a small courtroom in Russell Street in Melbourne and only when a question was directed to ‘Robert Pickford’ did I realise that I was sitting two metres away from my daughter’s killer. Julien realised it, too, and quickly positioned herself between me and Pickford. I was strong and fit but no match for a trained killer, a physical fitness instructor in the army. I looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing except a fire extinguisher on the wall, with policemen between it and me. Had I known that I was going to be in the presence of that man I would have secreted a short length of heavy chain on my person an
d smashed his head to a pulp.

  Many, many stressful months later, the trial was held. Pickford had contracted hepatitis and someone had bungled blood samples and other things to do with the evidence in a similar manner to the Lindy Chamberlain case. When the trial was eventually held I was, of course, called as one of the witnesses. The defence barrister questioned me: ‘Did I know that David had a toolbox below a panel on the floor of his ute?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’ And so on . . . I only attended on the one day I was needed. I could not bear to endure the agony of the complete trial, and what was the point? Very little mattered anymore. Ondine and David were dead.

  A friend of mine, Robin Hardiman, attended every day of the trial but I never spoke to him about it. He’s now dead so I don’t know the particulars of the proceedings, but it was apparently established that Pickford had probably shot them both while they were sleeping in the back of the ute, the motive apparently robbery. Pickford and Archer had earlier driven to Melbourne where they had taken part in that abortive drug-related robbery during which he apparently fired shots. Thus it seemed that there was an angry, frustrated drug addict driving north up the Hume Highway, possibly out of money and needing another fix, when he encountered Ondine and David in a lay-by. Pickford was given two life sentences, so is, of course, now released. Archer was not charged with murder.

  I used to think that if Ondine went to New York (as she hoped one day to do), and was ever confronted by a mugger, that she would simply give him her money. But I never dreamed that it could happen in a lay-by on the Hume Highway, in Australia, and it’s probable that there was no time for negotiation with a drug-crazed madman in a killing frenzy. I suppose they awoke and confronted him, and so met their deaths. Thus two innocent people with so much to live for had their lives brutally taken by a loser, a poor example of humanity. Charles Darwin, where are we now? The rules have changed!

  Ondine would have come into her fiftieth year in 2013. How many hopes and dreams would have been fulfilled? Some years after her death, I was moved by such thoughts to write:

  The chair is empty where she sits, or sat,

  From where she charmed us with her wit, oh that

  She were here again!

  How is it now that good by evil is outdone?

  The murderer breathes his air, my daughter none.

  8

  Life goes on

  The climb back from Hell

  As I write this, the 21st of May approaches—my daughter’s birthday. As the days creep closer towards it, I am increasingly overcome with sadness and despair, with misery and anger, although less anger as the years pass—and twenty-eight years have passed since my daughter’s death.

  I would have given my life so that my child could have lived even another hour on earth. She was the person I loved, admired and respected most in the world. Many fathers love their daughters as much as I loved mine, but none could have loved more.

  In the immediate months surrounding the deaths, the funerals, the court case and conviction, I wondered how I could bear to live with such grief. They were the hardest of times then, as mind and body adjusted to the anguish. Three hours’ sleep, often induced with sleeping pills or alcohol, became standard fare before the gunshots in my head woke me in the night and early morning, the desperate hours until dawn.

  In my hours of despair I wondered if, as I grew older and the strength of comparative youth ebbed, I might not be able to endure such pain. Now I am seventy-three years of age and I still don’t know the answer to that one. Even now I sometimes draw a great involuntary gasp, when the horror and the loss suddenly overwhelm me.

  Over the years there have been good, productive and happy times. I have had a close bond with my oldest son Sebastian, and later, with my two younger sons, Cameron and Jesse. I’ve been lucky enough to have known other loves and many friends.

  But back then, in 1985, daily life and work ground on in a haze of grief and exhaustion. Winemaking had become difficult, as I had lost my sense of taste and smell. There were other manifestations of my condition. When I thought of the murders my body would instantly exude an unpleasant and alien odour. And for years the electricity in my body would cause a spark to jump to metal objects, so painfully that before I opened my car door I would first test it with my elbow as a matter of course, the elbow being less sensitive than the fingertips.

  I have been reading Ondine’s diaries lately, seeing life through the eyes of a girl between the ages of fourteen and twenty years; reading of the pain and the joys of growing up. A girl of intelligence and charm, ambition and industry—a girl who tells her diary: ‘I will succeed. I can do it!’

  Ondine had to mother her mother, Vosje, who fell victim to alcoholism and physical violence. Some time ago I read one of Ondine’s HSC papers, an essay on Bob Dylan: the teacher praised the work, but commented that it was three days late. The diary shows that during those days Ondine was helping her mother recover from a bashing administered by her then boyfriend. She was physically relocating her mother, dealing with the medical, legal, financial and psychological issues associated with her mother’s predicament, doing her school assignments and sparing me, the divorced husband, some grief that I would have voluntarily taken from her shoulders, as I did later when I realised the magnitude of the problem.

  But the diary takes me back to good times, too, to the teenage intrigues of her life, to the memories of those lovely girls, her friends, whose faces still appear in my mind’s eye—Laura, Hanna, Karina and all; they know who they are, and I hope that we can meet up again one day. It would be great if we could get together with our families and remember Ondine and those good times and see what changes a quarter of a century has wrought.

  One of the greatest changes for me came only days after Ondine’s cremation and burial, when Julien told me she was pregnant. ‘Thank you, God. My life’s love, my life’s work, gone, and now you’re giving me another baby!’

  Good friends and loyal helpers

  The year 1985 was difficult, exacerbated by Julien developing a problem with her wrists that appeared to be carpel tunnel syndrome but was later found to be a calcium deficiency and easily remedied when diagnosed. At times she could not lift our new baby, Cameron, and eventually she went to live for a while with her sister Eryl, in East Gippsland.

  Because I was managing to sleep only a few hours a night for the year following Ondine’s death, I lost my concentration. And with my sense of taste and smell gone, I don’t remember much about the 1985 vintage.

  The 1984 vintage had produced fine wine: it had been a year of average rainfall, the vines were in good balance and, with the addition of the Carisbrook and Harcourt fruit, it was more elegant than the straight Kingower wine. The wine critic Mark Shields wrote of it as ‘Vivaldi in a bottle’.

  The 1983–84 vintage had turned out successfully, too. James Halliday, Philip White and others wrote well of it and, although a few people who did not approve of mixed vintages didn’t buy it, it sold well enough for us. I had put a pink label on it, a sort of ‘sporting globe’ pink, to differentiate it from our regular vintage wines, and that was a novelty. It even had a pink-printed lead capsule over the cork and it became a cult wine in some circles. It was quite an amazing wine and lasted in the bottle, never seeming to tire, doubtless due to its lively and lovely natural acid. Last week I dug out my remaining three bottles and gave one to Cameron and one to Jesse; the third I’ve kept to share with Sebastian.

  Anyway, the ’85 vintage was going to be difficult. But I did it, supported by good friends and loyal helpers. The old team was there for me—including Vanessa Buck and China Gleeson—and some new friends that year, particularly Regina, and between us all we got through it somehow. We were still picking at a ripeness of 12.5 degrees baumé or so. (Later on I decided that shiraz was better a bit riper and moved the picking time to coincide with about 13.2 degrees baumé and cabernet at about 12.8 degrees; I think that this gives a good balance of mouthfeel and varietal flavour. Of course,
these days the big shiraz are picked at 14-plus baumé.)

  Due to my loss of smell and taste the H2S escaped me, and that took a bit of correcting later with the addition of tiny amounts of copper. But the wine seemed fine. We had a bottle of it for Cameron’s twenty-second birthday some years ago, because 1985 was the year of his birth, and it was fine—very fine, in fact!

  Le viticulteur Australien

  After vintage, towards the middle of that challenging 1985, Fernand and Catherine Chevrot arrived from France and invited me to Burgundy to work some of their vintage with them.

  Some years earlier, fellow winemaker Stuart Anderson, who had worked and stayed with the Chevrots in Burgundy, had introduced them to us. The Chevrots were a young couple in their thirties who ran their vineyard and winery at Cheillylès-Maranges near Chagny, some distance from Beaune. They were progressive, and had travelled widely in Europe (perhaps unusually for Burgundians). They were well aware of tradition but not blinded by it.

  Fernand was a red-headed Gaul if ever I saw one, looking as if he’d stepped from the pages of an Asterix comic book, and was possessed, unsurprisingly, of a Gallic sense of humour. Once, on his initial solo visit to Passing Clouds, I asked him if he missed his wife. He replied, ‘When I get back ’ome you will ’ear zee bang from ’ere.’ Catherine was part Spanish so she was not blinkered by Burgundian tradition. She was by no means a strident feminist but she was going to play a positive role in their mutual winemaking endeavours. This may have had something to do with their willingness to learn new ways from the New World, for they recognised that something good was happening here, in the United States and New Zealand with pinot noir, perhaps more so than with chardonnay. They were humble enough to think that they could learn something from us.