by Stephen Orr
‘Shop.’
The bell rang and I heard Dad’s voice. ‘Henry.’ He appeared in the doorway, grinning and loosening the tartan tie Mum had given me to give him for his birthday. ‘A man needs to be a detective to find you, Henry.’
His shoulders were square, geometrical, like someone had left a coathanger in his jacket. His face was lightly stubbled; he always said that the Page men only needed to shave every other day. Mum agreed. Small glands, she said. Still, Dad smiled, at least I haven’t got hair growing over my shoulders and down my back.
Dad’s pants sagged. He’d tried to put another hole in his belt but couldn’t get the poker through. His pants cuffs were turned up and up again, and threaded. Mum was always at him to pull up his pants, but he just replied, ‘If you had to carry what I do . . .’
Dad stepped inside and looked at Doctor Gunn. ‘I gotta make a time, George. Every morning when I wake . . .’ As he massaged his neck and moved it from side to side.
Doctor Gunn closed his book and sat up. ‘Early Saturday’s always the best. I open at eight, if you can be here then.’
‘Eight.’ Dad looked at me. ‘You can get me up.’
Doctor Gunn stood up. ‘Henry’s helping me with my library.’ At which point he rehashed his vision for his new Croydon book exchange. Dad wasn’t too interested. The bell rang, a humpbacked grandmother entered and he used this as an excuse to drag me out.
We crossed the road and stood outside the grocery shop on the opposite corner. With my index finger I traced a bottle of Buckley’s cough mixture painted onto Mr Eckert’s window as Mr Eckert himself came outside with his hands in his apron pocket. ‘Bob,’ he said, grabbing my dad by the sleeve, ‘we’ve got problems again.’
Then he told Dad about the Arthurson kids. How they’d been in his shop again this morning; how Mary-Anne, his wife, was reaching up for a bottle of White Crow sauce for Mrs Fletcher when she turned around to see the little blighters handling the lollies. ‘Hands off,’ she’d said, and they’d backed away. But then, a few moments later, when her back was turned again, she heard another noise and looked around to see them running from the shop.
‘And what did she see?’ Don Eckert asked Dad.
‘What?’
‘A packet of Sunbuds and caramels sitting on the floor.’
‘But that doesn’t prove anything,’ Dad explained.
Don Eckert smiled. ‘Mrs Fletcher saw the whole thing.’
‘The whole thing?’
‘Stuffin’ gear in their pockets. Mary-Anne checked. Six packs of Sunbuds missing.’
Dad sighed and loosened his tie even more. ‘Alright, Don, I’ll talk to the Arthursons.’
‘Good-o. It’s not an isolated thing you know. We’ve had it before. And so’s the Acorn deli. Ain’t it funny, eh – ’ He stopped to whisper closely in Dad’s ear. ‘They send ’em to one of those posh schools. What is it?’
‘Frome Street Grammar.’
‘Just goes to show, doesn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Sometimes less is more, eh?’
‘See what I can do, Don.’
And with that Dad almost pulled his arm from Mr Eckert and walked off, muttering.
‘What is it?’ I asked, catching up.
Dad shook his head. ‘Silly old bastard.’ He sat on a bench and waited until Mr Eckert had gone inside. ‘Those Arthurson kids, what are their names?’ he asked.
‘Kate and Andrew.’
‘You talk to them much?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’ Then I remembered the 4.30 train. Me, sitting in my tree with my whistle, as Con closed the gates and the city train slowed for the station, as doors opened and Kate and Andrew emerged in their hats and blazers, as Andrew walked over to me and asked, ‘You still up there?’
‘I’m helping Con.’
‘Why?’
As I shrugged, the Arthursons laughed and ran off down Day Terrace.
‘No,’ I replied, looking at Dad.
Dad put his hand on my knee. ‘You’re still deputised, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Want to help me with this one?’
Real police work. He explained what I needed to do. Discreet enquiries. Nothing specific. And if I was asked why I was asking I should just reply, ‘Nothing to be worried about, just part of the service.’
We started with Joe Skurray the baker.
‘You ever lose stock, Mr Skurray?’ I asked.
Joe just smiled and looked at Dad. ‘What’s this, Don again?’
‘No,’ I replied, trying to regain control. ‘From time to time we just ask. It’s a community service.’
Mr Skurray looked at me and half-laughed. ‘It’s Don Eckert,’ he replied. ‘Listen, DC Henry, I’ve told him he needs to put his sweets up out of the way. And let me guess, it was Kate and Andrew?’
‘So he says.’
Dad nudged me. ‘No it wasn’t. It could’ve been anyone, couldn’t it, Henry?’
‘It wasn’t Kate and Andrew, Mr Skurray.’
But Mr Skurray just looked knowingly at Dad. ‘You know why this is, Bob?’
‘Why?’
‘Don had his kids at Frome Street Grammar. Then there was the Depression. He had another shop but had to close it down. He couldn’t afford the school. So his kids had to muck in with the rest of them. See, the Eckerts are German. Germans are like elephants, they remember things for years and years.’
I asked in Mr Bilston’s fruit shop and the Acorn deli but no one had had a shoplifter, so we returned to see Mr Eckert. ‘We’ve covered the length of Elizabeth Street,’ Dad said to Don, taking off his hat and shaking his head, ‘and it looks like you’re not the only one.’
Don smiled. ‘See, I told you, Bob.’
‘I’m gonna visit the Arthursons, Don. I’m gonna sit those kids down and give them a talking to and scare them a little. I’m gonna tell them that your shop’s out of bounds. How’s that?’
‘We should make them pay.’
Dad stroked his chin with his long, brown fingers. ‘Yes, the problem is, we need proof.’
‘Mrs Fletcher.’
‘And then it’d need to go to court.’
‘So?’
‘You think they’d just admit it? You think that type ever do? They’ve got money, they know the law. They’ve got friends, Don, old scholars. You know what I mean? You want to take it to court?’
Mr Eckert stopped to think. ‘You give ’em a good scare, Bob.’
‘I will, believe me. All I ask is, maybe put your sweets behind the counter.’
‘Yes, I will, and if I see ’em again I’ll tell yer.’
‘Good.’
We walked home past the fish-man, filleting a piece of whiting for a Robert Street grandmother as she stood talking to him at her front door. He worked on a small table that strapped around his neck, using his knife slowly, rhythmically, as his body moved with his hands. As we passed he called to us, ‘Anything today, Mister Page?’
‘What you got?’
‘Tommy ruffs.’
‘Bring ’em around, we’ll have a look.’
We turned the corner into Thomas Street and saw Rosa, standing at her front gate, crying. A man in a linen suit stood in front of her, waving a piece of paper in the air. His body moved closer to her as he raised his voice and used his finger to stab repeatedly at the air, occasionally poking Rosa’s shoulder and causing her to step back.
‘Hey,’ Dad yelled, in his best copper’s voice.
Rosa and the man in the linen suit turned to look at him. Dad shot across the road, straight into the path of a mud-splattered Austin that had to swerve to avoid him. I followed a few steps behind, looking across to our house to see if Mum had noticed.
‘Detective Constable Bob Page,’ Dad began, presenting his charge card.
The man in the linen suit refocussed his attention on my father. ‘Good,’ he said, attempting to smooth down his cropped hair. ‘Have a look at this.’ He led Dad
over to his car, a near-new black Rover, perfectly maintained except for a large dent in the front fender. ‘That’s what her lot did,’ he explained, pointing to the dent.
‘Who?’ Dad asked.
‘Her lot, all those bloody dagos, parked from one end of Croydon to the other. I had my car out on the street. Next morning when I got up to go to work . . .’
He presented the quote for repairs to my father. ‘Who does she think’s gonna pay, me?’
Dad handed it back. ‘Yes.’
‘No bloody fear.’ The man stepped towards Rosa and handed her the quote. She raised her hands and started waving them about.
‘Come on,’ the man said, getting angrier.
Rosa looked at Dad. ‘Please, Mister Page . . .’
Dad tried to reason with him. ‘That’s enough.’
Rosa took a small step back and the man closed the gap between them. He opened her apron pocket and forced the quote inside. Dad stepped between them. He took the quote from her pocket and said, ‘You go in, Rosa.’
Rosa squeezed his hand in both of hers, turned and walked up towards her house, past the healing tree.
Healing. The breath and smell of Alex Pedavoli venting from each pore. As Rosa took a deep breath she sensed him everywhere around her, blowing in her front window, resting on ledges, trapped in flywire and lemon-scented clothes hanging on the line. She could still hear him, or not hear him, as she stared out to sea, waiting for her two boys to surface. Con appeared, waving to her, as she cupped her hands: ‘Where is he?’ He couldn’t hear her. He looked around and then dived, and then came up for air. Again and again, for a full half-hour. He fought the current trying to drag him out to sea and eventually returned to shore. As he came up the beach Rosa’s legs collapsed beneath her, her body crumpling into a ball. He knelt down and held her. Then ran back into the water, checking his watch to see how long it had been. In and out of the ocean for an hour. The times written on the blackboard in his gatehouse.
And when Dad had explained this to the man in the linen suit, the man closed his lips, lifted his eyebrows and breathed deeply through his nose. As if he was trying to help find Alex – to find a healing, a resolution, a setting-to-rights more tangible than a thirty pound quote.
He got in his car and drove off.
I looked at Dad, and smiled, but there was nothing to say.
Chapter Three
It was a steamy morning. Black and purple clouds massed high above the Southern Ocean, promising a storm that never seemed to arrive. Thunder rolled across the city, shaking kegs in the basement of pubs and drops of water from the tips of magnolia leaves. Lightning struck at the ocean and then retreated, waiting, marking time like a live wire in a meter box. A confetti of light, warm rain fell and quickly evaporated from concrete driveways and slippery roads; it pock-marked sand at Semaphore beach and sent mums and kids, swimming in their undies, running for the cover of the jetty. On the plains it wet dead grass and filled the air with a sweet, stale smell, and in the hills it dampened the top crust of soil without reaching roots. And through all of this, it filled the air with vapour – people pulled wet shirts from their back and cursed the weather, saying if they wanted this they’d go and live in Townsville.
It was our annual day at the cricket. The train was full, and in the space of two stops on the way to the city Dad and Bill discussed the Japanese emperor, the Korean War, the atomic bomb, Castro and the Somerton mystery man.
‘The cigarettes they found on him,’ Bill said to Dad, ‘ – they were never tested for poison?’
‘No.’
Bill shook his head. ‘Well that could be it . . . since there were no puncture marks.’
‘Could be.’
‘His stomach was full of blood?’
‘Where are we gonna buy lunch?’ Dad asked.
‘They should’ve tested.’
‘We should have brought sandwiches.’
‘And listen, I read the cigarettes were a different brand to the packet they were in. They missed that one, eh?’
‘Surely a spy wouldn’t make that kind of mistake,’ Dad said.
Bill looked across the carriage at Gavin. ‘You wouldn’t think.’
Gavin waved at him, a secret wave he reserved for his dad, a clenching and unclenching of his fist. Bill returned the wave, secretly, as if he was the one being watched by spies. ‘It’s like a glass of champagne,’ Bill concluded. ‘Next morning you wake up sober, the kidneys’ve got rid of it.’
‘The liver,’ Dad corrected.
‘Same difference.’
We crossed the Torrens and the parklands, and lined up for the cricket. Once we got into the oval we settled on the mound. This was the area under the scoreboard where the peasants sat. From here we could stare across to the members’ stand, and if we were lucky, see Bradman sharing sandwiches with his wife. There was very little shade on the mound, just a couple of Canary Island palms that had seen much better days. We found a patch of dead grass littered with cigarette butts and beer caps. Dad spread out a rug and opened the esky that Bill had helped him carry all the way from the station. They cracked a couple of beers and a bottle of lemonade for us kids.
‘You’ll have to drink it from the bottle,’ Dad said. ‘Your mother forgot the cups.’
It was mid morning before the action began, slow at first, and then, after a few hours of beer and sunshine, revving up into an orgy of anything-but-cricket. Australia was batting, and one of our best (Dad explained, not that he knew anything about cricket) was given out two runs short of a century. The mound erupted in a roar of beer-soaked voices, paper cups were thrown onto the oval and an old, grey-haired copper shouted at the lot of us to keep quiet. Dad and Bill were laughing, sheltering under the esky lid from a shower of beer. Higher on the mound, closer to the beer van, voices were calling for the umpire to be replaced. Eventually it all settled down. ‘This could end in a riot,’ I said to Dad, but he only laughed, looking around and saying, ‘What, this lot?’
After a few minutes we got bored and ran off through the crowd, with Dad calling, ‘Stay close.’ We got to the top of the mound and Janice climbed one of the pylons supporting the scoreboard. She lifted Anna and Gavin and looked at me. ‘I’ll lift you.’
I looked out at the small white figures on the oval. They were waiting for the bowler, who didn’t seem in any rush. I looked up at Janice and she was trying to pull off Anna’s jumper. Anna held on to it and pushed her sister away. ‘You’ll faint,’ Janice warned.
‘I won’t,’ Anna replied, sticking out her tongue.
‘Well don’t expect me to help you.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said, and they all looked at me.
Janice smiled smugly. ‘You wanna find the Don?’
‘Maybe Himmler’s here,’ I replied.
Anna giggled and Gavin started to parrot her.
‘Let’s play kidnap,’ I suggested.
‘Who’s it?’ Janice asked.
‘Not me,’ I replied.
‘Gavin,’ Janice smiled, looking at her younger brother.
Back on the mound, Bill had made a friend. He had overheard a conversation and invited a tall, balding man to join them. He’d cracked one of Dad’s beers and given it to the man. Then he’d asked, ‘This hotel you manage, does it have a dining room?’
Meanwhile, my crime was taking shape. I led Gavin behind the cafeteria under the scoreboard, sat him on a wooden crate and said, ‘Wait here.’ Then I ripped a piece of cardboard from a box, took a pen from my pocket and wrote: A thousand pounds by twelve o’ clock or the kid gets a bullet. I asked a man, returning to his family with an arm full of pasties, to deliver the note to the girl in the white jumper. I watched as he walked past, spoke to Anna and then handed her the note.
Back on the mound, Bill Riley was handing the man his business card. ‘Give me a ring. You’d be very surprised: tablecloths, napkins, the whole lot. If you want to make that dining room classy . . .’
‘They got y
ears of wear in them yet.’
‘No, you don’t want to think like that. What message does that give people?’ He stopped to applaud a six. ‘Listen, you go into Ayers House – ’
‘The Halfway Hotel isn’t Ayers House.’
‘But it could be. It’s just the small touches.’
Back behind the scoreboard it had all started falling apart. Gavin wanted his sisters. I sat down beside him and said, ‘It’s a game. They’ve gotta pay the ransom.’
‘What ransom?’
‘Yours. A thousand pounds.’
But he wasn’t interested. ‘I want Dad.’
‘In a minute.’
‘Now.’
And before I had a chance to do or say anything he exploded into tears.
‘Okay, come on,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘We’ll find Janice.’
But it was beyond that. He just cried louder and louder and a lady in an apron came out of the canteen. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked me.
‘It’s a game,’ I replied.
‘Where’s his parents?’
‘Watching the game,’ I said, taking Gavin’s hand and trying to drag him off. He screamed and threw himself on the ground. ‘You go get ’em,’ the woman said.
I hobbled off and fetched Janice. When his sisters arrived, Gavin stopped crying but the woman wouldn’t let him go. ‘Get your parents,’ she said to Janice.
Janice wasn’t about to get herself in trouble. She took Gavin’s hand and started to walk off. The woman took his other hand. ‘Your parents?’
‘Let go,’ Janice screamed.
‘Listen to me.’
‘Fucking old bitch.’ And with that she kicked her hard on the shin. The woman dropped to the ground, clutching her leg. ‘Come here . . . NOW!’ We ran through a sea of hatted men, lost in a fog of body odour, men with shirts unbuttoned to the belly, smelling of beer, laying on dead grass with their Best Bets and rollies, men farting without shame, no longer bothering to clap for singles but mustering a few calls and whistles for a six.
Eventually we sat down, hiding nervously behind our fathers as the old bag scanned the mound. Then the clouds finally decided to open up.
Half an hour later we were still there, soaked through, sitting on our wet, muddy rug. As Bill and a hundred other men sang: