Return to Moondilla

by Tony Parsons

  ‘Did he touch you, Greg?’

  ‘He didn’t even get close, Liz.’

  ‘Ah.’ She didn’t sound surprised. ‘Well, Julie and I warned him not to go near you. Maybe he’ll stay away now.’

  ‘I should say he will.’ Before they said goodbye, Baxter added, ‘You’d better wangle a trip out here with Julie so you can pick up your car.’

  He couldn’t do anything more for Drew, so he took a quick shower and settled himself at his desk, planning to read his previous day’s writing. Then the phone rang.

  ‘You all right, Greg?’ Julie asked, skipping the pleasantries. Once he’d reassured her, she said, ‘I warned Jack not to go near you.’

  ‘Well, when you’ve got Drew in the clinic, you tell him that if I hear he’s hit his wife again, I’ll chew him up properly. Liz seems a really nice woman—how the blazes did she get tangled up with that creep?’

  ‘I might tell you the story sometime.’

  Soon enough the ambulance arrived. The two ambos, one male and one female, had clearly been briefed by Julie. Once he’d greeted them, Baxter pointed towards the shed. ‘He’s in there.’ He followed after them in case he could help. Drew was still out to it, and in a few minutes he was laid on a stretcher and placed in the ambulance.

  ‘This is a new position for Jack,’ the male ambo said, with a quirk of his lips.

  ‘You could say it was his moment of truth,’ Baxter said. ‘He had an inflated view of his ability and belittled something he knew nothing about.’

  •

  As he recovered over the next several weeks, it became clear that Jack Drew had stopped hitting his wife. He also cut down on the booze and avoided getting in fights. Drew’s fellow council workers couldn’t get over the change in their workmate. He was fishing again. And then, to top it all off, he started doing up a gorgeous old car for Liz.

  She rang Baxter and explained all of this, then thanked him for half-killing her husband. ‘Jack had to be thoroughly beaten before he woke to the fact that he’s not a super fighter. He thought he was top dog here and now he knows he isn’t.’

  Baxter smiled and shook his head as he put down the phone. Who needed to think up plots for novels when real-life stories abounded?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  While Drew was getting himself back in order, Steve Lewis came to be Greg Baxter’s fishing mate. Julie had been fishing with Baxter too—on the terms they’d negotiated—and they got along well, but Baxter just couldn’t think of her as another bloke.

  The two men, meanwhile, had developed an instant rapport and respect for the other’s skills. Baxter knew very little about mechanics and was in awe of Steve’s expertise in this field, on top of his talent for fishing. He guessed that Lewis admired his physique and the fact he was a martial arts champion.

  On that first Saturday arvo, Lewis spent an hour or so on Baxter’s boat and had her running very sweetly when he’d finished. The two men and Chief took Flora for a short run upriver, and then headed back against the tide. Baxter was driving and steering, with Lewis lending a hand when needed.

  ‘Do you always take Chief out with you?’ Lewis asked. His eyes were on the dog, who was clearly enjoying himself with the wind ruffling his thick fur.

  ‘He’d be offended if I didn’t,’ Baxter said and grinned. ‘Any problem?’

  ‘Aw, no. He’s pretty well behaved, isn’t he?’

  ‘Better than a child. He doesn’t like other boats coming too close, but I’m getting him to understand that they’re okay.’

  ‘Julie says there’s not a thing he doesn’t know,’ Lewis said. ‘It’s just that it can get a bit rough out at the Islands and he might fall overboard.’

  ‘I doubt that he would, Steve. He stays in the cabin while I’m fishing.’

  Lewis reached out to give Chief a pat, and the dog nuzzled his hand. To Baxter, this proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lewis was a true blue bloke.

  ‘When I was a kid,’ Lewis said, giving Chief’s ears a scratch, ‘the big fellows on the land all had a down on German Shepherds. They called them Alsatians in those days, and reckoned they had wolf in them. Their idea was that they might cross with dingoes and breed dogs that could pull down a beast, so the males all had to be castrated. Bloody stupid really—most farmers are their own worst enemies. A lot of them never tie up their dogs at night, and any of them could’ve mated with dingoes.’

  Baxter nodded. ‘I read up on how things used to be when I was trying to decide what breed of dog would suit me best. Back in those days, only the police and the services could import German Shepherds, but whenever a kid got lost the police would be called on to search with their shepherds! And the import ban did a lot of harm, because the Aussie dogs were becoming too closely bred and too highly strung.’

  ‘Good thing they woke up and allowed imports again.’

  ‘Too right. I’m convinced there’s no breed more straight-out intelligent.’

  Chief looked up at the two men, giving them a doggy grin, and they laughed.

  •

  When they came back to shore, Lewis declared Flora sound, and said he was relieved. ‘Old Harry didn’t use her very often, Greg,’ he explained. ‘His missus didn’t like him taking her out on his own, and she used to get sick every time she stepped on a boat, so he mostly fished from the jetty or from the boat kellicked off the bank.’

  They adjourned to the front verandah, where Baxter gave Lewis a beer while he had orange juice. Lewis eyed Baxter’s drink with some amusement, and said he was only used to drinking with blokes who drank beer. ‘You don’t drink, Greg?’

  ‘Don’t drink and don’t smoke and never did. It’s part and parcel of the martial arts credo, especially when you get to my level. It’s like you’re a priest, as everyone looks up to the top black belts. But it’s never worried me, so don’t let it worry you, Steve.’

  Lewis took this in good part. ‘It doesn’t worry me, Greg. It’s just that I’m used to blokes drinking beer—but of course, none of them are black belts.’

  ‘You’ve got to discipline yourself early on, and after a while the non-drinking becomes part of your way of life. A fellow can do anything if he really wants to. It’s all in yourself.’

  ‘I reckon it is,’ Lewis agreed, but he added that he wasn’t going to give up his beer: he wasn’t a big drinker, but he liked a couple of beers at the end of the day.

  •

  They yarned well into the evening. Lewis knew everyone and Baxter was getting plenty of interesting information from him.

  ‘And how are you getting on with my sister-in-law?’ Lewis asked, after a brief break in their conversation.

  ‘It depends on what you mean by “getting on”,’ Baxter said.

  Lewis shook his head and took a sip of his beer. ‘Damned funny woman, Julie. Never had a boyfriend. The best-looking girl in the district, but she never seemed interested in boys. Not girls, either, in case you’re wondering.’

  Baxter shrugged. ‘I reckon Julie comes out here for a break, and maybe she’s still missing her father. I cook her a meal and sometimes we have an hour or so fishing. She made it very plain that she wasn’t looking for a relationship, and I respect that.’ He just wished he could fully accept it.

  ‘Julie’s a nice person and a helluva good doctor—surgeon too, probably the best in the district—and she’s been great with our kids. But she’s just as happy to be out fishing as doing anything else. Those baggy jeans or shorts and a man’s shirt she gets around in—from a distance you’d swear blind she was a bloke. And talk about tie hooks. Julie can tie a hook while I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Baxter said, grinning. ‘I’ve seen her in action.’

  ‘It must be a bit hard on you, Greg. What I mean is that Julie’s a very attractive woman, but from all accounts she freezes right up if a bloke tries to get too close.’

  Baxter considered this. Steve Lewis wasn’t a dill—he thought things through, and he’d obv
iously thought about Julie Rankin over the years. And of course, he’d be privy to some privileged information about his sister-in-law.

  ‘Do you know why Julie’s like that, Steve?’ Baxter asked. ‘Since I met her, I’ve been trying to figure out if something made her that way, or whether she was always like that with blokes.’

  ‘I’ve wondered too, but there’s not one incident that stands out, and I’ve known her since I started seeing Jane, when Julie was still in high school. What was she like when she was living in Sydney, taking your class?’

  Baxter told Lewis all about Julie’s demeanour back then. ‘And she actually was better than some of the men I taught. I kid you not, Steve. Not many women have the muscle power of men, but technique can make up for some of that, and that’s where Julie shone. She could have clobbered quite a lot of men very easily.’

  ‘Is that a fact.’ Lewis looked impressed. ‘I did hear she put a bloke in a hammer lock a few months ago, and took away his knife—he’d lost the plot at Bega Hospital. But I reckoned he must’ve been a weakling.’

  ‘Well, he may have been. Whether she performs the old routines or even remembers them, I can’t tell you. She watches me do mine and never joins in. She wants to give people the impression she’s no pussycat, but I’m inclined to think she might have let the martial arts side of things slip because of her hands.’

  Lewis nodded his understanding. ‘I get you. Surgery’s still her top priority.’

  The conversation drifted away from Julie, and Baxter brought Lewis another beer and poured himself another juice. He hesitated before asking the question that had been in the back of his mind ever since Lewis arrived.

  ‘Have you ever had anything to do with Franco Campanelli?’

  Lewis gave Baxter a sharp look. ‘Why do you ask?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Baxter made an effort to sound casual. ‘Well, you might have heard I had a bit of trouble with the big bloke—it was the same day I decked Jack Drew at the Family Hotel.’

  Lewis burst out laughing and had to take a moment to calm down, have a sip of his beer and wipe his eyes. ‘Yeah, everyone in town was talking about how you kicked his fat behind and sent him scurrying for his Mercedes. That I would like to have seen.’

  ‘Sounds like you don’t have much time for the man.’

  ‘Well, I’ve done some work for him—he’s got the Merc, two trawlers and a fancy yacht. He always pays on time, but he’s not my cup of tea, to put it mildly.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘A lot of reasons. There’s the fact he’s got too much hoot for a trawler owner. They don’t make that kind of money, not even with two trawlers. He gives flash parties, some out on his yacht, and there’s always heaps of girls.’

  That reminded Baxter of something, and he searched his memory—it was the argument between the Drews, weeks ago at the hotel. Drew had accused his wife of being involved with Campanelli’s ‘dirty parties’.

  Lewis lowered his voice. ‘There are rumours galore. The story is that Campanelli owns a brothel in Sydney and uses some of his girls to “entertain” his guests.’

  Baxter scowled. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’ He thought of the undercover policewoman who’d had to go ‘all the way as a prostitute’, in Latham’s words.

  ‘Look,’ Lewis said, ‘Julie wouldn’t like me telling you this, but I reckon you should know. Campanelli tried to get her to go out on his yacht, but she wouldn’t come at that.’

  This made Baxter straighten, his fists clenching. ‘Really?’ He felt ready to throw all caution to the wind—swim out to that gaudy yacht, and pummel the creep into a pulp. He called on his training and tried to calm down. ‘Did he threaten her?’

  ‘No, fortunately. He thinks a lot of Julie—she operated on him for a burst appendix. She’s one woman he won’t bother too much. But she’s aware that he’s a heavy crumpet man, and you know, Julie hates the thought of women being exploited by men.’

  ‘There’s much more to Moondilla than appears on the surface,’ Baxter said thoughtfully, wondering just how much Lewis knew, or had guessed.

  ‘You can say that again. Did you know Campanelli once put the hard word on Liz Drew? That was before she married Jack.’

  ‘She mentioned something about that when I was driving her home from the hotel. What’s the full story?’

  ‘Campanelli had the hots for Liz, Jack wanted her too, so they had a stoush. Campanelli can’t fight, as you know all too well, but he’s supposed to be able to wrestle and he’s a strong bugger. Anyway, they had a go—not in public like the two of you—and apparently Drew cut him up pretty badly. The big fellow was heard to say he’d “get” Drew. That was a couple of years ago, but Drew is still here.’

  So Baxter wasn’t the only man who’d been threatened by a humiliated Campanelli. The fact that Drew was still alive and kicking was pretty reassuring—it seemed like an empty threat, and Baxter felt silly for paying it any mind.

  ‘There’s something very fishy about Campanelli,’ Lewis said, ‘and it isn’t what swims about in the sea. I reckon I know what he’s into, and that’s drugs.’

  Baxter raised his eyebrows. He trusted Lewis, but he didn’t want to say anything because he’d given his word to Latham that he’d keep quiet.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I reckon all right,’ Lewis confirmed, ‘but a fellow can’t say it too loud or he might end up like that bloke in Griffith. There’s been some queer things happen here lately. Blokes poking about that I don’t know—and I know just about everyone in Moondilla. Man and boy I know them.’

  ‘What kind of blokes?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘I reckon some are undercover coppers,’ Lewis said. ‘Then there’s bad-looking fellows too. Could be crims because they sure look that way.’

  ‘And I came back here because I thought Moondilla would be a nice, quiet place.’

  ‘Nowhere’s perfect, Greg.’ Lewis’s smile was thin. ‘I reckon there’s drugs coming in and I reckon this drug mob picked Moondilla because it was such a nice, quiet place—they thought nobody would trouble them. Then there’s the trawlers that can meet incoming boats and land the drugs on shore. I hear things and what I hear I don’t like.’

  Baxter sipped the last of his orange juice and looked down the river. If you believed what was in the Bible, even Eden had its share of problems. Lewis was right, there was no perfect place. There were always those who weren’t fussy about how they made money. It didn’t matter how much grief they caused or how many people died.

  ‘Sorry for troubling you, Greg,’ Lewis said, his voice tinged with regret. ‘I’m spoiling your view of the town, and you just moved back here recently.’

  If only Lewis could know the whole story, Baxter thought. He gave his mate a reassuring smile. ‘No worries, I like to know the score. And I really can’t say if I’ll stay here that long. I still love this place, but I’ve only got so much money put by, and if my first book doesn’t succeed I’ll probably have to go back to Sydney.’

  ‘I hear you’re a pretty good cook. Worked for your mother, didn’t you?’

  ‘From time to time. It’s come in handy, but I’m not keen on it full-time.’

  ‘The word is there’s to be a new flash restaurant just outside Moondilla on the Sydney road. It’s a great spot, overlooking the ocean. Could be the place for you.’

  ‘Thanks Steve, that sounds all right. I don’t want to take on a day job, but I’ll probably need to—writing is a tough game. If you make it big, say on the international market, it can be very profitable, but the average Aussie author doesn’t earn much.’

  ‘I take off my hat to anyone who can write. I have trouble putting two sentences together, but give me an engine and I’m right at home.’

  ‘I reckon I’m the opposite,’ Baxter said, and the men exchanged grins.

  ‘Well,’ Lewis said, getting up, ‘this place is tough to leave but I’d better make tracks. Jane told me not to be late for dinner. And that reminds me, s
he asked if you’d like to come round tomorrow night. Julie will be there—she gave Jane one of your recipes and they’re trying it out.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it, mate. And thanks for seeing to Flora Jane. Can’t wait to take her for a spin to the Islands and stock up my freezer for Mum.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next day, Baxter called Jane to ask what he could contribute to the dinner, and she said he could bring one of his apple pies—the pastry was so light it threatened to blow away, was how Julie had described them to the Lewises. So Baxter baked one along with a smaller rhubarb pie, thinking that Sherrie and Jason would bypass the rhubarb in favour of the apple.

  Jane had told him that there’d be a couple of others in attendance: a woman called Verna Graham—the receptionist at Julie’s clinic—and her daughter Lisa, one of Sherrie’s closest girlfriends at Moondilla High. Verna could have been described as a faded beauty, with darkened blonde hair streaked with grey, and some lines about her neck and eyes. Lisa was fresh-faced and pretty—not as lovely as Sherrie, but maybe Baxter was biased because of the Lewis girl’s resemblance to Julie.

  The evening began quite normally. Jane had made roast pork with a white wine gravy—Baxter’s recipe, which she’d cooked to perfection. All except Baxter had wine with their meal, and he noticed that Verna topped up her glass more than the others. The pies went down well with dollops of vanilla ice-cream, and then everyone moved to the lounge room where the Lewises served coffee. The schoolgirls were allowed to stay up, while Jason headed off to bed.

  ‘A very nice dinner, Jane,’ Baxter said, sitting down in one of the big leather lounge chairs. ‘You got it just right.’

  ‘I’m so relieved—I was worried I’d mess it up. Oh, I almost forgot to mention,’ Jane added, addressing herself to Verna Graham, ‘that Greg is, or was, a professional chef with his mother. You’ll have seen her on the telly.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about your mother being the Great Woman,’ said Verna to Greg. ‘Lisa’s told me a lot about you.’ There was a twinkle in her eyes, and her face was a little flushed from the wine. ‘Evidently you’ve been a topic of discussion at Moondilla High. Isn’t that so, Lisa?’