by Tony Parsons
When questioned, Steele’s publishers said that they were as much in the dark about his whereabouts as everyone else. They admitted they’d received a fourth book with instructions that the advance payment and subsequent royalties were to be paid to the Salvation Army. It was all very strange.
In fact, it was all so strange and weird that it seemed to provide the perfect example of what we’d been discussing.
Jake slammed his glass down in protest. “Steele’s disappearance isn’t quite the same thing at all. He could be overseas and temporarily out of circulation. You could tootle about overseas indefinitely or live in a cave in the Himalayas for as long as your money lasted and not know there was a flap on about your disappearance. It wouldn’t be so easy to do the same thing in Australia.”
“That’s right, Jake,” Frank agreed. “If Steele is still in Australia, someone must know where he is. Steele’s picture’s been in the papers and on TV and you’d just bet that if he’s still here, someone would recognise him. I reckon he’s planted himself in some outlandish spot overseas and is hard at work on another book. Didn’t he write his first book from a hut in the Blue Mountains?”
“He certainly did,” I agreed. “He inherited it from his father.”
“He’d need to grow a beard not to be recognised here,” Julia suggested. “How could anyone not recognise Steele? He’d stand out in any company.” She patted her chest and exhaled deeply.
“If Steele loves Australia as much as he said he did, why would he want to leave it?”
Justine was bright and usually spot on about most things. It was just that she often came up with ideas that floored us.
“Good question, Justine,” I agreed. “Steele seems to have a love-hate relationship with Australia; he loves the country but hates what’s happening to it. Could a fellow who loves his country so much – and it’s plain that he does because it’s in his writing – bear to leave it? I realise that some artists and writers have had sojourns overseas, but I don’t know about Steele. It’s said, and I don’t know how true it is, that some writers shrivel up mentally when they leave their own country. Others develop. There’s no definite rule for writers. I should think that if you’re a writer, and I mean a really accomplished writer, you’d be able to write anywhere.”
“Didn’t Tolstoy say he needed land about him?” Julia asked.
“Yes, he did and there’ve been other writers who thought the same as him. But there have been plenty who wrote under awful circumstances,” Frank said. “A fellow like Steele surely can’t not write. He’ll have to surface sooner or later.”
But Steele didn’t surface, although his massive fourth novel certainly did, and it put the cat amongst the pigeons. It was a brilliantly conceived book but its author was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that Clayton Steele had indeed disappeared without a trace.
It was after the publication of Steele’s fourth novel, and having regard to the above conversation, that I conceived the crazy idea of trying to track him down. I was getting bored with straight journalism and I thought that if I could find Steele, it would put my career into orbit. I had plenty of money from my parents’ estate, so I didn’t have to work for a living. Of course, when I’d started off at university, I hadn’t known that I was going to be the recipient of so much money. I actually liked journalism, but I wanted to be a feature writer and later, maybe, I’d have a go at a book or two. I could afford to ditch work while I searched for Steele and there had to be a story behind his disappearance. Whatever the outcome, it would be a vastly more challenging project than ordinary news reporting. There could even be a book in it and this loomed as an exciting possibility.
I gave in my notice and told my boss that I had a project I wanted to spend some time on. Whether he’d been tipped off about what I proposed to do or was being his usual generous self, I couldn’t tell, but he told me that if I needed any help with information, I could continue to use the newspaper’s facilities. He’d also be interested in taking a story or two from me if I should stumble upon anything newsworthy. I thanked him and accepted on both scores, as I reckoned that having a loose kind of association with the newspaper might come in very handy.
Excited to get started, I began my file on Clayton Steele almost immediately. There were a number of headings…parents, girlfriends, education, interests and so on. I also had a compelling need to visit Steele’s publishers. Even if they told me nothing more than what I already knew, it was the logical place to start, that is, if they’d agree to see me.
A friend finally secured me an interview with Steele’s publisher, Brenda McEwan, who was keen to have me look into Steele’s disappearance. Brenda McEwan was an Amazon of a woman, very handsome with glossy, jet black hair, brown eyes and the shoulders of an Olympic swimmer. Her appearance was overwhelming and her dark eyes seemed to bore right through me. When I told her what I had in mind, I thought there was a distinct possibility that she’d turf me out of her office. But she didn’t, and I soon gathered the impression that Steele’s disappearance didn’t sit well with Brenda, or the publishing house. It seemed that she was as much in the dark about Steele’s whereabouts as everyone else.
Being a journalist, I pushed Ms McEwan fairly hard. “Surely, you must have some idea about Steele’s intentions? You publish his books. How do you finalise contracts? And where do you send Steele’s royalty payments?”
“The contracts haven’t been a problem up to now because after his second book, we took an option to publish his next two novels. That took us up to number four. The only problem we’ll face is if Clay sends us another manuscript. We have no idea whether he has another book on the go. Like I told you, the royalties from the last book go to the Salvation Army,” Brenda said equably.
“Then what does he live on?”
“Clay received substantial advances for his books and significant royalties after publication. Even allowing for taxation, those moneys should have been sufficient to tide him over for quite a while. He lives very frugally.”
“Frugally?”
“Clay isn’t a big spender. He’s very careful with his money,” Brenda said.
“Did Steele give you any intimation that he was going to fly the coop?”
“In a sort of way,” Brenda answered. “He told me he was sick of people and society generally and intended going away for a while. And that’s what he’s done. No forwarding address, nothing. Silence… And then, the fourth novel.”
“You don’t think he’s had a mental breakdown?” I asked with some trepidation. Steele wouldn’t be the first brilliant mind to have cracked under pressure.
“I don’t believe that for a moment, Miss Brooker,” Brenda said sharply.
“Gillian.”
“Gillian,” she acknowledged with a faint smile. “Clay is very gifted, highly intelligent and he’s not your run-of-the-mill Australian male. Clay doesn’t drink, well hardly ever, doesn’t smoke and has always been something of a loner.”
“What about girls? He’s not, well…” I began.
“No, he’s certainly not gay. There’ve been some girlfriends but they’ve all been rather short relationships. Nothing serious from what I can tell,” Brenda said.
“Does Steele have a current girlfriend?” It was a precept of interviewing that you didn’t get answers unless you came right out and asked direct questions.
“Had would be the operative verb. Yes, his last girlfriend was Shelley Carruthers,” Brenda said.
“Good heavens!” I gasped and nearly fell off the edge of the chair I was perched on. Shelley Carruthers was one of the most glamorous television personalities in the country. She was a knockout, a blonde knockout. “Steele was seeing Shelley Carruthers?”
Brenda nodded. “Shelley was devoted to Clay. The story is that she was so affected by his disappearance that she had to take a week off work to recover.”
“Did Steele tell her he was going or leave her a note?” My journalist’s curiosity was aroused now; the more I he
ard about Clayton Steele, the more bizarre his disappearance seemed to be.
Brenda’s lips pursed and she rolled her eyes. “That I couldn’t tell you. We rang the television people and were told that Shelley wasn’t disposed to discuss the matter.”
“You said that Steele lived frugally. That seems at odds with the fact that he had a high-profile girlfriend. She probably earns a great deal more than Steele does. How could a man be frugal with a woman like Shelley Carruthers?” I asked. I had mental images of Shelley being escorted to night clubs and presented with expensive jewellery.
“I don’t know. The gossip around town was that Shelley was besotted with Clay, but I’ve never been told whether Clay felt the same way about Shelley.”
I looked at the piles of typed pages on Brenda’s desk before I asked my next question. I thought it would be very rewarding to have a major hand in turning a manuscript into a book many thousands of people would read. “Did Steele ever exhibit any bouts of peculiar behaviour? I mean, had he ever indicated that he might cut and run permanently?”
“Not in so many words,” Brenda answered quickly. “Clay shunned publicity and hated being feted and interviewed. His last book created such a furore that he may have decided to lie low for a while.”
“Could he be at the hut where he wrote his first book?”
Brenda looked at me keenly. “You’ve done your homework on Clay.”
“It’s par for the course in my occupation.” I tapped my pen against my notebook. “So, could he be at the hut?” I persisted.
“I suppose he could be. And I suppose that would be the first place I’d imagine he would be because he’s not been seen at his parent’s old place at Balgowlah for some time. We made some enquiries and came up with blanks. The problem is that there isn’t a mailing address for the hut and I understand that very few people have had access to it. It’s on a creek and surrounded by bush. It belonged to Clay’s father and he inherited it,” Brenda said.
“I’ll have a think about the hut. What kind of man is he?” I asked.
Brenda shook her head. “Clay is something of a puzzle. I was going to say that he’s moody but that wouldn’t be right. You can be talking to him and suddenly realise that he hasn’t taken notice of one word you’ve said to him. Clay’s ideas come in great blocks and when he’s in that frame of mind, he’s impervious to anything else. If you tell him he hasn’t listened to you, he merely smiles and his smile makes you melt inside… if you know what I mean,” Brenda said.
I nodded as if I understood. As I hadn’t yet met a man who made me melt inside, I didn’t really know what she meant, but I was certainly hoping I’d meet someone someday who’d make me feel that way.
“What’s the current family situation?” I asked. I’d read that Steele’s brilliant father had been an alcoholic and that his liver had conked out. After that, his novelist mother had returned to Britain to live on the old family estate in Kent. I also knew that Steele’s sister was an artist of some distinction and that she had a studio in Paddington, but that was all I knew about her.
What Brenda told me was very much in accord with what I already knew. “Could Steele be with his mother in England?”
Brenda shook her head and lights danced in her glossy black hair. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her she’d be a good advert for a shampoo commercial but I restrained myself. “We rang her. She told us she’d received a brief note from Clay to the effect that he was dropping out for a while and she wasn’t to worry if she didn’t hear from him for some time. Obviously, the note made her worry quite a lot.”
“That was all?” I pressed.
“That was all I was told.”
“Have you been in touch with Steele’s sister?”
“It was the first thing I did because Camilla and Clay have always been fairly close. Clay told her about as much as he’d told his mother… in three sentences.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “That’s odd. Why would a man who had the literary world at his feet decide to drop out?”
“Clay wouldn’t be the first creative person to opt out of society, Gillian. There are any number of precedents. Clay doesn’t think much of what people have done to the planet. He once told me that he’d like to go and live in some place where there were no politicians, no vehicles and very few people.”
“Ah,” I breathed. “Now that is interesting. Is it possible that he’s done exactly as he told you he wanted to do? Does he own any other land? I mean, could he have a retreat in some place other than the Blue Mountains?”
“If he does, he’s hidden that fact very well,” Brenda answered.
I tapped my pen against my thigh and looked Brenda squarely in the eye. “I take it that you and this publishing house wouldn’t be averse to me trying to locate Steele?”
“Not at all. We’d welcome news of Clay’s whereabouts, unless of course, discovery pushed him into doing something even more drastic… like clearing out to the Andes or some other remote locality,” she said with a half-smile.
“He could be in some such place right now.”
“Granted, but what I mean is that I suppose there’s always some place more remote to retreat to. There are writers and artists in Provence and Tuscany but they’re more accessible there than in the Andes or the Himalayas. I guess it depends on how serious you are about dropping out,” Brenda said.
“I take your point,” I said as I stood up. “I hope I haven’t wasted your time, Brenda. It’s just that Steele’s disappearance intrigues me. Some friends and I were discussing this very subject a few weeks ago. That is, can someone simply disappear? I realise that some people have done it but it’s much more difficult now with all the checks there are on one’s identity. It would have to be infinitely more difficult in the case of a high-profile person such as Clayton Steele.”
“I should think it would require a lot of prior planning,” Brenda said. “I’d go and see Clay’s sister, Gillian. She might be able to help you.”
I was way ahead of her there because I’d already planned to visit Camilla Steele. Besides any leads she could give me about the whereabouts of her missing brother, a first-hand view of her paintings was something I was looking forward to. I’d seen a few of her paintings in exhibitions and there were a couple I wouldn’t mind owning.
I contacted Camilla and she agreed to see me but said that she doubted she could help me, as she was as much in the dark about her brother’s whereabouts as his publishers. But when you’re clutching at straws, you clutch at even the most fragile of them.
Camilla Steele had a house in Paddington. It was a double storey house that had been made over and now looked stylish and presentable. The studio was upstairs, with large windows letting in lots of light. It was littered, quite literally, with dozens of canvasses and other artist’s paraphernalia. Camilla herself was a very attractive young woman in a windblown sort of way. I took her to be in her early thirties and she was the kind of woman who could drag a comb through her hair, whack on a bit of lipstick and look terrific. In short, she looked great without really trying. Her hair wasn’t fair like her brother’s but chestnut, streaked with gold and sort of wavy. She had lovely hazel eyes and a well-endowed chest that even the oversized man’s shirt couldn’t diminish. She wore her shirt over a tattered pair of blue jeans which finished about a foot above her ankles, with her feet sockless and enclosed in well-worn red slippers.
Camilla greeted me warmly and turned out to be nothing like her anti-social brother was supposed to be. I told her that I liked her paintings and might be interested in purchasing something, which got us off on the right track.
“I haven’t seen a lot of Clay the last few years. That’s more because Clay doesn’t have anything in common with most of my friends, especially my male friends, and he doesn’t care to associate with anyone he doesn’t like. If Clay came to see me and there was a fellow here he didn’t take to, he’d simply leave and I wouldn’t see him again for several months. He’d
never come to any of my parties, so I gave up inviting him. I know that Clay loves me in his own fashion, but God broke the mould when he made my brother. Would you like to see the note Clay sent me?” Camilla asked.
“Very much.”
Camilla retrieved the note from a flower pot on the sideboard and handed it to me. “How’s that for a goodbye note?” she asked.
The note read as follows:
"Dear Cam,
I’m clearing out for a while. It’s all got too much for me and I need to think things out a bit. There’s also something I need to attend to.
As always,
Clay"
“How odd.”
“Yes, isn’t it? Would you like some coffee?” Camilla asked when I handed back Steele’s note.
“Thank you,” I said. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her so I followed her downstairs to her kitchen with its variously coloured stools and crimson-topped table. “That note was all you received from your brother? No phone calls?” I asked when we were sitting down with our coffee.
“That’s all. I haven’t heard another word from Clay. Mother’s note was about as communicative as mine and that’s all she’s received too,” Camilla said.
It didn’t seem much information to send to his two closest female relatives before disappearing off the face of the earth. Someone had to know more.
“I understand that your brother was seeing Shelley Carruthers. Do you know her?” I asked.
Camilla’s nose wrinkled. “Only slightly. I met her on a couple of occasions. The last time I saw her, she was in hysterics because she’d received a note something like mine but also more or less inferring that their relationship was finished. I’ve never seen a woman so uptight. It was as if the end of the world was at hand. Shelley must have thought a hell of a lot of Clay. But he couldn’t have felt the same about her or he wouldn’t have left her the way he did.”
Camilla took a deep breath then exhaled slowly before sipping her coffee. “Mind you, Clay is a good-looking man and his smile would melt concrete. There’s something about Clay that seems to turn women on. He had girls chasing him at high school and all through university.” She smiled at the memory. “It’s funny, but Clay doesn’t give a stuff for his looks and he doesn’t care whether people like him or not. It’s not that he lacks warmth, because he’s a very caring person. Clay is concerned about a whole raft of issues. Did the publishers tell you that all the royalties from his last book have to be credited to the Salvation Army?” Camilla asked.