On Cringila Hill

by Noel Beddoe

  Chapter Twenty-four

  They’ve moved a hard-backed chair from the kitchen so that Gordon can use it while watching television – easy to get onto, easy to get out of, firm support for his back while he’s seated. With May nearby he watches the state news bulletin. Then the local news comes on and the anchor gives the camera a hard-eyed look. ‘Heading tonight’s bulletin – evidence of serious misuse of police equipment for personal purposes at Port Kembla command.’

  The Winters sit silent, waiting. A list of further headlines is recited, then they hear, ‘Serious allegations exist that police equipment has been placed at the use of a senior officer at Port Kembla. Our reporter, Ian Battle, has the details.’

  Gordon hears the details, announced with portentous solemnity by the young man dressed in a new suit that doesn’t fit very well, though he gazes confidently into the camera, states calmly, without notes – a police car has been deployed to act as the personal taxi for the female partner of head of unit Edna Carruthers. The officers involved refuse to comment, but others ‘to whom this reporter has spoken’ are outraged at what their colleagues have been required to do. There are shots of a plump, matronly lady looking flustered as she walks into a home unit block, looking embarrassed and ill-at-ease while she declines to comment.

  ‘Oh, Gordon,’ May says. ‘Edna looks so guilty.’

  ‘People do, when they’re suddenly on camera and they’re not used to it.’

  The item is brief and soon the program switches to the erection of a new outdoor learning area in a primary school playground.

  ‘Well,’ May says. ‘Perhaps you’re not going to have for too much longer this audience you currently enjoy.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gordon says. ‘That’s very possible.’

  That night, in bed, Gordon eventually abandons any hope of sleep. He finds a position in which pain seems least and lies as still as he can. A spasm comes, so sharp and uncompromising that it goes beyond anything he’s ever known. He whimpers, unsure if he can endure the level of agony, and then accepts that there is no alternative. He balls sheeting, presses it into his mouth, bites into it. Eventually the hot stab falls back into a throbbing ache.

  Thoughts occur to him compulsively: Edna may soon be re­assigned and he’ll lose his audience. He recalls his last conversation with Jimmy Valeski, whose father is gone, lost, vanished, unheard of; he’s heard the question, what if there was another murder? He hears Lupce Valeski saying, ‘Who said there was a murder?’ And, ‘I sorted that out with the other detective.’ Gordon thinks about Detective Laecey.

  ‘You mean Detective Laecey?’

  ‘Yeah. Him. Man with long face, not much hair.’

  Another murder. He sorted it out with Detective Laecey.

  Hours pass. Eventually he’s sure that, if he stays in bed, he’ll wake up May. Gordon takes several stages to ease himself out of bed, put on his dressing gown, locate his cane in the dark. His first destination is their lounge room, where he turns on a lamp. In the kitchen he takes a double dose of painkiller – committed to an operation he believes the amount he consumes is now an irrelevance. The tablets down, he gathers up a cordless telephone and the little leather-bound phone book he keeps on a table. With a gait that slides his feet along the floor he makes his way out onto the verandah, eases into a wooden chair.

  A couple of occasions come into his thinking as flashbacks. They come to him now as he waits in the blustery dark for the relief and sense of well-being the drugs will deliver. He sees, for a moment, Michael Laecey narrowing an eye while regarding him, saying, ‘I think you’re being too tough on yourself there,’ and, ‘I think you did that vey well, better than most could do it.’ He recalls what those endorsements had meant to him. He thinks of May, remembering her experiments with affection for the Laeceys, experiments with trust, growing through the period of their young married years from a hopeful, doubtful teenager to a poised and confident woman. Gordon traces through his memory the pattern of decisions and events that have led to him finding himself sitting on this particular verandah as the dark night passes.

  Painfully he changes position. Darkness lifts a little. He watches the shapes of massed gum foliage twist and shake under the wind. He listens to the wind, and the boom of surf breaking on the beach at the bottom of the hill. He reflects on what he sees as the extraordinary good fortune, which has come to him through his life and considers, appalled, the terrible risks he’s taken with some of the things most valuable to him. He thinks of his daughter sleeping in the bedroom of her inner-city dwelling. He hopes that she is warm and at peace, and imagines that, probably, she is. He thinks with gratitude of the generous, principled, charming woman who at present is slumbering in the bed they share. And he allows himself to wonder, for the first time, if in fact May’s life would be simpler, pleasanter were she free of him and his compulsions. Without experiencing emotion, he ponders whether May might ever decide to leave him. The air over his face chills, the wind drops – soon it will be dawn. The sky has lightened to be a pale grey out across the sea where the horizon is.

  He thinks about Michael Laecey, and what, at last, he’s come to fear is the truth. He tries to reconsider snippets he’s heard, to get himself to believe an alternative explanation but eventually must return, snared, to the same interpretation. He tries to remember the values he’d once liked to believe he’d held, tries to understand the nature of the ones he now finds himself trapped with. He decides on a course of action. He ruminates for a while over the terrible costs it may carry. For the first time he regrets that he has become a policeman.

  Cloud has blown away out on the eastern horizon. Soon Gordon can see a band of light grey along the far edge of the sea, then a pastel-coloured rose-glow beneath it. He hears the alarm come on to wake May. In time he hears the muffled sounds of her moving in the house. He sees the first crimson curve of the rising sun. The flywire door swings open and she is there, wearing slippers and a dressing gown. ‘There you are,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d lost you. Have you been out here for long?’

  ‘I think so. It isn’t easy for me to tell.’

  ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

  ‘Not so much now. I took some painkiller. I’ll need some more shortly.’

  ‘Shall I bring you some coffee?’

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘I’m going to fry an egg and put it on toast. Would you like that too?’

  ‘Yes, please. And May …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was just thinking before how lucky I am that I’ve shared my life with you. I love you very much. I’m sorry that sometimes I feel I need to do things that make a difficult time worse for you. I’m still struggling with some things I should have sorted out years ago. I think I’m going to get better at not making your life tougher. It’s good it’s your term break. I hope you’ll be able to rest.’

  May watches him for a while, then says, ‘Yes, I’m so grateful it’s the mid-winter holiday. It will be good to get some rest.’

  There’s a new, sharp chill in the air. A small motor car comes along their street, pauses before their house. An arm emerges through a window, the newspaper turns in the air, smacks onto the dewy lawn.

  Gordon lifts his telephone book from his lap, opens it at ‘B’, taps on numbers on his phone.

  After a wait, he hears ‘Leon’.

  ‘It’s Gordon Winter.’

  ‘What, couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘No, in fact I couldn’t. But that’s not why I rang. Can you give me a quick minute?’

  ‘Sure, I’m up. I’ve got an early time at the first tee. How can I help?’

  ‘Jimmy Valeski.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His father. His father’s not around.’

  ‘You are correct. He is not.’

  ‘How long now?’

  ‘I can’t be all that preci
se, Chilly. He was gone before I started at Warrawong, in fact before Jimmy started at Warrawong, as I understand it. Way back. What, ten years, twelve years?’

  ‘And the father just left the home, this is what you believe?’

  ‘That, as I understand it, is the family’s version of events.’

  ‘And is there another version of events?’

  He listens to a long silence while Leon thinks things over. ‘Gordon, I’m dressed for golf. I’ve got a piece of half-eaten toast in my hand.’

  ‘Is there another version of events?’

  ‘I’d be passing on gossip, which I try hard not to do. Understand this – I have absolutely no idea what happened, no way of having an opinion. I’m sure that the police looked into it and reached their decisions. That’s their job, not mine.’

  ‘What’s the other version of events?’

  Gordon listens to another silence. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve heard, without any suggestion that I know the truth of the matter. I’m totally agnostic when it comes to the matter of Jimmy Valeski’s father.’

  ‘You’re just passing on the gossip to me, Leon. I’m not going to tell anyone what you said. No one’s going to sue you.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what some people on the staff have heard. Some of the oldtimers. We’ve got people have been here since the school opened. They’re the ones know a lot about the Hill.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They’ll tell you that Jimmy Valeski’s father was a drunk who beat Jimmy, beat Jimmy’s mother. And they’ll say there’s people on the Hill believe that Jimmy’s grandfather killed Jimmy’s father. Killed him or had him killed. But, what we know about Lupce, probably, if it happened, he’d have done it himself rather than pass the job on to anyone else.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘This is a part of the folklore. I’m sure the police had plenty of chances to look into it. Besides I educate kids, I’m not a policeman.’

  ‘The teachers who told you this … rumour. What do they believe?’

  ‘They don’t believe anything, in particular. These things get said, what the history of the place is. What’s true? What’s fanciful, a myth? We have no way to know and, probably, it’s none of our business, but I’ll tell you what I know from personal experience – it’s a strange place, the world. Bloody strange place.’

  ‘Sure. Before I go, Jimmy’s real name. It isn’t Valeski, is it? That’s the name that was adopted after the … loss of the father.’

  ‘I can tell you the original name because I took the matter up with Legal Branch, not long after I came, what should we call him officially, what should we, for example, put on report cards. I was told, whatever the mother calls herself and him, whatever he can live with, call him that, but the father, no question, was called Rodriguez, Tonio Rodriguez.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And now, Gordon, I’m going to hang up, finish my cold toast and get out to the course in time to have fifteen minutes on the practice green.’

  ‘Sure, Leon. You’ve been very helpful. Thanks.’

  Gordon and May breakfast together, commenting, as they do, on the weather, the view, speculating on what their daughter might be up to over the weekend. When May returns inside to clear up, Gordon dials another telephone number.

  ‘David. Are you on duty?’

  ‘I will be shortly.’

  ‘Come and get me. I need to go to the station.’

  After a long pause, Gordon hears, ‘Fine.’

  When May returns he asks her, ‘Would you be kind enough to bring me slippers, some socks and a tracksuit?’

  ‘Out here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m going to put them on.’

  ‘What – are you cold?’

  ‘No. I’m going to the station. To Port Kembla.’

  There’s a time, then, of them standing together, watching the tossing of the trees, hearing the sound of wind, the surf below their hill.

  May says, ‘There’s a lot of things I could say. One has to do with you appearing in public in your pyjamas and slippers with a track-suit on over the top, but as there’s so much else I’ll let that pass. And I’ll let it pass because I’m tired. Very tired. There’s also this … obsession of yours. Gordon, it’s not very easy to live with someone who’s got all his deepest needs away off somewhere, away from you, away from his family. If I thought you could be reached I’d point out that what you’ve got is a job. You are not responsible for equity in the world. There will be many things that you can’t control. And if you’re ill, desperately ill, there will be other people to take up whatever it is you have in your mind to work on.’

  ‘This isn’t like the other thing, May. This is a personal matter, something that means the world to me. No one else could do what I’m about to do because no one else would understand what it meant, or why it matters. Please, get my tracksuit. David Lawrence is going to fetch me. And I know you have your thing you do of a Saturday.’

  By the time Lawrence arrives Gordon has made his way to the driveway, so as not to delay things. May has already left. They head south. Partway, David breaks the silence by saying, ‘Has it ever occurred to you that you may be insane?’

  ‘I haven’t given that a lot of thought, David, to be truthful. I’m sure May’s thought about it quite a bit.’

  Inside the station, Gordon notes that there’s not much interest in his dress. His colleagues have seen it all. He speaks to Henry, controller of files. ‘Who should I talk to about records of missing persons?’

  ‘What date?’

  ‘A long time. Ten years, twelve years.’

  ‘Ah. The computer records haven’t been backdated that far. If there’s a file it will be in the stacks, filed alphabetically. But there may be nothing there. Every five years, the policy goes, someone has to check a missing person’s file to see if it should stay current. Otherwise we’d have files back to the nineteenth century. Maybe not such a problem when they’re all on computer, but you can imagine what the size of the file room would have to be if it’s all on paper. If someone thinks a file should be closed another officer has to read it, and agree. So the file might be there or not, depending what decisions have been made.’

  ‘Who reads the files in the first place?’

  ‘Whoever the job’s given to. Most people hate it. Some people like it because it’s soft, repetitive work. Softer than being on the street.’

  Gordon goes into the stacks, writes the appropriate signatures, looks at the file card – he notes the matter of Tonio Rodriguez never has been signed away. Twice, the same officer has ruled that the matter stay open. Gordon can make little of the initials, and wonders if someone has deliberately obscured his signing.

  ‘Henry, do you recognise these initials, the person who’s kept this matter open?’

  The policeman slips his reading glasses into place, peers at the card. ‘Sure. That’s Peter Grace.’

  Gordon finds the suspension file for Rodriguez, Tonio. He carries it back to a vacant desk, lowers himself into a chair. It’s a thin file. It begins with a note from a senior officer of the Port Kembla steelworks. Rodriguez, abruptly, has ceased reporting for work. The man’s father-in-law has reported that, unexpectedly, the employee has decamped for Queensland and arranged that due payments be made to the employee’s wife. The reporting officer has no forwarding address for Rodriguez. He has no reason to doubt the story he has been told but the situation is sufficiently unusual that he feels he should report it to the police.

  There is then a record of interview between a police officer and Rodriguez’s wife. It has been a very good interview and the record is precise. The husband has departed for work and not come home. No, he was not a good husband, he drank compulsively at times and had been violent, to her and her son. Who knew of this situation? She suspected that it w
as common knowledge in her neighbourhood.

  There is a record of interview with the absent man’s father-in-law, a Mr Lupce Valeski. Mr Valeski believes that there may have been significant debts, from gambling. He’s sure that Rodriguez will not want to be found. Mr Valeski has transported some goods to the place where, initially, Mr Rodriguez had hidden, the home of a Mr Jose Barradas. Perhaps he’s working under an assumed name. Perhaps he’s left for his original country, Portugal. A recorded interview with Mr Barradas confirms Lupce Valeski’s version of events.

  There is a concluding comment: ‘There is no reason to doubt the version of events of Messrs Valeski and Barradas.’

  All file entries are signed, M. J. Laecey.

  This is what is clear to Gordon: someone had had sufficient doubts regarding the matter, for whatever reason, for the file to be retained.

  Gordon sits for a long time, hearing the bustle of the station. He notes that his hands are trembling. There’s movement beside him. Edna Carruthers has drawn up a chair on rollers. He turns and looks at her. Her hair is carefully set, held stiffly in place by some spray-on product. The make-up is as heavy as ever. Beneath the make-up, however, Gordon can see the dark blue flesh just under the eyes, bloodshot, he’s sure from stress. He remembers a thing he’s learned, long before – determined actors can compose the features, control the trembling of the hands or hide them; no one can do anything about stress showing through the eyes. Initially, this truth was pointed out to him by Michael Laecey.

  ‘Truly, Gordon,’ Edna says. ‘There was no need to get all dressed up just to come and see us.’

  ‘There was something I needed to do, Edna. There was no way I could face struggling into a suit.’

  ‘And this thing – is it something you should tell me about?’

  ‘Not yet. I need to talk to someone else first. That other conversation, of course, will be against all normal procedure, but it’s what I’ve got to do.’

  ‘Best not tell me about it then.’