by Ray Clift
I gave Martin a quick summary of the West side of the family. ‘Joyce had an uncle who was obsessed with poo and its connection to good. My grandparents Noel and Elsie – they had a big farm as well – are dead now. Mum’s funeral tore them to pieces and of course there was the young brother killed in Vietnam. The other brother fled away to the south of France somewhere. Elsie’s cousin Joyce was a real card. Alternative for the times, with a bawdy sense of humour. I well remember Elsie telling me some stories about her. The last one’ll show you what a different person she was. Want to hear it, Martin?’
‘Yep. Go ahead.’
‘A family of Aboriginal people lived a few streets away and Joyce used to speak to them, which in the racist Australia of those days was a first. The two kids of that family were good athletes and bright kids. Joyce knitted twenty-one jumpers for the local football team and the two kids were the first to receive them. From then on, once a week she would visit them and share a pot of tea on the front veranda. Joyce would have them in fits with her acid humour mocking the pompous white folk strolling past not daring to look at the black faces. Joyce would home in on any little feature like a pimple on a nose or her favourite face, which she likened to a hat full of arseholes. They grew to love her and the fresh-baked bread she gave them, along with her pickles and preserves. She taught Dorry the mother how to cook a lot more.
‘Joyce understood their dreamtime long before it became politically correct. Some might say she was a bit patronising but those folk loved her for her spirit and her generosity.
‘Easter time was important in her calendar and she involved her indigenous friends in one lot. It all went wrong but it started out well as a re-enactment of the last supper. A large table was in place with white ironed tablecloths. Twelve chairs were provided at the head of the table which was to face an audience of onlookers. The gramophone was set up to play religious music but unknown to her, Uncle Ron her brother, a survivor of Gallipoli, had switched the records to “The old grey mare she ain’t what she used be”.
‘Uncle Bill, her husband, was burnt in a factory accident and could only wear a caftan. He got to be a cross-dresser and Joyce always moaned about him stealing her underwear, which felt good against his burnt skin. He was in the front row with his socks pulled right up to hide his wobbly knees. He also had a sock fetish.
’Ted, the strange one in the family – no one knew how he got there or what he did, he just moved in and was accepted, sort of like a lounge lizard – he wore pancake make-up with poorly applied bright red lipstick. They were both a sight. And they were pissed before the solemn event started.
‘Their dogs and the neighbours’ dogs smelt the food on display and were jumping up trying to pinch some of the fish tails. Only three disciples turned up – Joyce couldn’t muster any more volunteers, because of the snobbery to which she was exposed. The small group heard the sounds of message sticks and Aboriginal men turned up. They filled the seats of the absent disciples.
‘Joyce made a grand entrance dressed in a nun’s outfit, supposedly Mary Magdalene. She tried to bring back some order with a narrative and urged one of her coached black kids to recite his lines. He stumbled and said, “On this night before the chooks speak, one of you will be betray me.” The Aboriginal men started to eat the food and drink wine in large gulps.
‘It was too much for the older drunken relative named Dollie, now very sloshed, and she shrieked with her drunken devil’s laughter. The oldest black man looked at Bill and Ted and yelled, ‘Bloody ugly-looking sheilas, mate,’ and while all of this chaos descended, Uncle Ron had put the substitute record on full blast.
‘The dogs jumped on the table and started polishing off the grub. Joyce whisked away the other wine jugs as it was forbidden then for black folk to drink. It fell silent when Mary Magdalene started to weep. Her friends comforted her and did a corroboree dance with the well known jerky movement.’ I took a big breath and looked at Martin and he knew there was an ending. I had him one.
‘Auntie Joyce decided never ever again to have an Easter or a Christmas celebration. She prayed to God that night for her blasphemy, which she hoped would be forgiven. So, Martin, what do you think about that?’ I asked him.
He was still shaking his head and not speaking so I had to put in my dollar’s worth before he did. ‘Are we mad or not?’
He kept a straight face in spite of the memory of the recital. ‘I believe she was far ahead of her times.’
‘The sad fact, Martin, is she thought it wasn’t funny.’ I could see him preparing another reply.
‘I think you ought to sent it to John Cleese or some of that Monty Python cast.’
‘Nowadays, mate, some wit would say, “Well, that went well.” What do you reckon, Martin?’
He replied by rolling his eyes, with a tonsil tone, after swallowing a peanut.
We were in Perth to catch up with relatives (what’s left of them) but most of them were on holidays so it was a quick trip in a tour bus to catch some sights of Perth and then back home.
We booked a taxi to take us to the terminal. The cab driver was a chatty man and thankfully he did not recognise me in my wig and great sunglasses. But on the way, the back of my head was itchy. Something’s up, I thought.
‘Have you got an enemy?’ the driver said.
‘No, why?’ I enquired because it seemed a strange question.
‘A big black four-wheel drive is following us.’
We were close to the depot and stopped. The driver was paid and we jumped out almost into the arms of a TV journalist thrusting a microphone in my face. This isn’t just fan stuff, I thought, and it wasn’t: they were about to hound Martin.
A man wearing a dark suit stood alongside and produced an ID card which read ‘PI’. ‘Are you Martin MacRae?’
Martin nodded.
The PI thrust an official-looking document into Martin’s hands and hopped away. I guessed he’d brought the media scrum along with him. I read the documents, which said that an Yvonne Streeter claimed that Martin was the father of her daughter – a love child from an encounter of quick lust in Sydney when Martin was supposed to be there on R&R leave in 1968. It was crap on two counts. Martin was in hospital in Vietnam and of course his medical injuries precluded any chance of fatherhood. But we didn’t say anything at that time. No point raking over coals until we had a proper chance away from the tabloids.
Nevertheless, they had a field day with screaming headlines about love children, and me of course. Martin was hung out to dry, convicted in their eyes and probably in the minds of those who read the gossip columns here and in the USA, where it hit in a flash.
The same journo with her crew were camped outside overnight. We just retreated and ignored the door bell until a friendly motel manager dressed us in his mother’s clothes. We fled, jumping over the back fence. Martin fell off the high heels. It was so ridiculous that I had to laugh as I tried to free his foot from a pothole. Bad idea, because a second camera crew came around the corner and filmed us dashing back inside again. The headlines the next day screamed, ‘Suzie and Martin are cross-dressers’.
Apart from getting a helicopter to rescue us, all we could do was wait for our lawyer, who was faxing the USA for medical records and hospital dates. We watched our crazy Keystone Kops moments on the TV, with the manager and staff all guffawing at how stupid we looked.
Later on we walked around the streets and encountered fans who didn’t hold back. One bailed us up and said, ‘Don’t worry. My grandfather’s a cross-dresser and I have a creepy uncle who’s produced three love children.’
It finally came to an end once our lawyer served a summons on the original TV station with attachments of the faxes and the disclosures. Our lawyer came with us to a rival TV station, where our innocence was spelt out. Martin didn’t hold back his dry humour and had the TV reporter cackling.
She asked if he was there in Sydney on that day in 1968.
‘In hospital with a wound. Back in ’Nam.
There for a few months.’ He showed her the date, which was held up for the viewers.
‘I believe you received a Silver Star after the battle?’
Again he just smiled in answer and produced it and held it up.
‘You’re a staffer at the White House?’
‘Yes.’ Martin knew he was on safe ground.
‘Suzie Smith, the famous Australian country and western star, is your wife?’
He smiled again and held up his ring finger with the USMC on top for the eyes of the viewers.
‘What about the cross-dressing episode?’
He explained at length how the kind manager dressed us at the motel so we could escape and asked her if she saw it on the telly.
‘Yes, with the high heels caught as well,’ she said and then she started to smile as well.
‘We laughed like crazy with the manager when we saw it. Bloody high heels. How do you walk in them?’
‘Carefully’ was her reply and she moved on. ‘What was your wound. In Da Nang in ‘68?’
‘1.5 balls blown off.’
She kept her composure, which was clever, but I could see she was starting to crack up.
‘You’re not able to father a child then?’ Which was more of a comment than a question.
‘You got it right.’ He produced the copy of the medical report and showed it to the viewers.
She paused. ‘What are you going to do about the scurrilous TV channel and papers who had you convicted before you could explain?’
‘I could go for money but I’ve decided to demand a spoken and written apology from the reporter and the channel’s parent companies wherever they are.’ Martin was still enjoying the show.
‘Has the injury caused any other problems?’
I thought that was a bit indelicate but I knew what he’d say.
He produced his best good old boy accent. ‘Yes, ma’am, it has. Only when I cross my legs too quickly.’
It was too much for her and she dropped her steely-eyed look and burst out laughing. As did the audience and, from what I heard, so did the population of Australia.
Apologies thundered in one after the other. The journo was sacked. However, I think it damaged us. Some people not reading any further would have had Martin tried and convicted. It did make a difference to Martin. Part of his mojo was gone forever. He was in turmoil some nights trying to figure out how he had been named or who named him and of course why. I had no idea back then but I did know something: my itching head after the RSL show in Australia with the woman standing with her daughter told me then about trouble looming with Yvonne Streeter. That much we knew.
Martin phoned the White House as soon as the apologies arrived and we faxed some of them as well. He was assured by his boss (and the president) that his job was safe.
‘Got any idea who the man was that gave your name?’
Martin had some sleepless nights about how to answer that question. ‘Not a bloody clue, Sam. Guess I might find out one day.’
The conversation petered out.
‘How is Suzie?’
‘Great,’ he replied.
‘Oh, the first lady has a pair of size ten shoes with high heels when you get back. What a bloody buzz. I could hear her and the chief laughing right across the White House. It was after the apologies came in of course. No one knew where it was going. And neither did we.’
We boarded a plane back to the USA and I realised how much Australia had changed since I left. Apart from seeing Shane and his family, I wasn’t keen to travel there again.
12
Federal Prison, Washington DC
2017
From a high point in the communications control room, James and Thomas watched the cell with their revolving cameras at certain times. Victor Byron Marshall was due for release in 2018 and had given no trouble in his long haul since 2009. His brother Mark was slotted in there six years later and occupied the adjoining cell. They were left, as much as the guards could let them, to their own devices.
Tonight was the night, however, a night for James and Thomas to watch a bizarre live session which provided a fair bit of amusement to the two honest guards who would never think they were voyeurs.
‘Now watch, Thomas.’
James zoomed the camera onto Victor Marshall, who was stripped naked. He lay on the top of his companion, stroking the red hair, nibbling at the ear and sliding his fingers gently on the neck, the breasts and the rib cage.
‘Good foreplay, James.’
‘Shush’ was the reply. ‘The major event’s about to start.’
Victor arched his back and thrust his pelvis up and down for a few minutes and then sagged. He looked up and waved at the camera and stood up. Victor bent down and released the deflate button and watched it descend with the lookalike of his mother with the red wig flattening out. Just before it was completely flat, he jumped on the toy, grabbed the neck and squeezed out the rest of the air. The guards knew what he was doing. They were witnessing a strangulation. He stowed the sex toy under his bunk and dressed.
‘And they’re going to let this nut case out soon, James.’ Thomas shook his head and thought, I don’t think I want to watch any more now that he knows. It’s only encouraging him, I reckon. And the camera was switched off.
Victor banged on his brother’s cell door.
‘OK, Bro’ was the tired response.
‘Grub’s up. Come on, get up, up, up,’ and Mark did because he always obeyed his brother, even when Victor sat alongside the mysterious Bill, a former bomb explosive man in the army.
‘So, Bill, you can make one for me next year when I’m out?’
Mark was sick of the queries.
‘So, Mark, let’s go over the instructions again with Bill and me. We both have to get it right.’
Weeks of practice had honed Victor’s fingers into careful manipulation of wires. Mark was there all the way.
‘Bro, if it goes wrong and I die, remember I’ve got the big C. You’ve got to keep it on the boil till you’re out. 2025, isn’t it?’
Mark nodded sleepily. He was tired due to his constant masturbation at night and furtive smoking which his brother did not approve of.
‘Stay alert, Mark. My enemies have to die. Now tell me the address once again. What are their names? Come on, tell me –get with it and stop that bloody smoking. I won’t tell you again. Nicotine is disgusting.’
‘Martin MacRae and Suzie Smith. OK OK OK.’ It was getting monotonous, he thought.
‘Good, Bro. Do you want to borrow her tonight?’
Mark shook his head. ‘She smiles like Mum, Victor.’
Victor belted Mark across the back of his head, just like Gibbs in NCIS, which they were allowed to watch. He shouted at his young brother again. ‘And stop wanking, Mark. It’ll make you blind.’
Victor loved his great dream that night and remembered he was laughing. Laughing about the headlines and the telly when Martin and Suzie were dragged through the press a while back. It was so funny. He was in a good mood when he woke in the night. He reached under the bed and started to blow up the lookalike of his mother who didn’t die in the night like she ought to have, he always thought, and let her mongrel husband get away with his bashings.
13
2018
Martin heard a noise outside in the driveway where he had parked his car the night before, behind Suzie’s. He switched on the outside light and looked for a moment but saw nothing. He was sleepy and returned to the bed, snuggling into the fine back of his wife.
A huge noise which shook the entire spacious three-bedroom flat caused a photo of his mother and his sister to fall shattering on the floor. Martin smelt smoke and burning petrol. He ran to the front door and watched while the giant flames engulfed his car.
Suzie stood alongside holding him, in her dressing gown. ‘I never saw this coming, love. Did you?’
Martin was too preoccupied with the police to give her an answer. A roasted figure of a man sat in the front seat
and appeared to be dead. The sirens were coming up fast getting louder and louder. Firemen sprang from their truck dousing foam all over the burning vehicle which still smouldered. Two city detectives walked carefully up the driveway watching their footwork, not wishing to destroy any evidence. The introduced themselves. A CSI vehicle prowled into the driveway.
The next two days were a blur of paper signing and insurance stuff because part of the flat had been burnt.
Two days later
Martin and Suzie went to the CSI office in response to a phone call. The two detectives were there with beaming faces and immediately opened up the dialogue.
‘Do you know this guy, Martin? Was he in the marines in ‘68?’
Martin stared for a second. The motive gradually dawned on him as the recognition came into his mind.
‘I do, I do. It’s Victor Marshall. Went down in 2009 for a lot of stuff. A drug dealer bad cop.’
‘We’ve ID’d him from dental stuff. Have you got a clue why he would want to kill you both?’
Martin’s mind went back to ’68 and the gossip about Marshall. ‘I need to to think about it.’
‘Well, he certainly stuffed it up. Crossed the wrong wires, so the bomb people say. Do you think it was meant for your wife? ‘Cos from the old file she dobbed him in for bashing her friend Joan Oliver.’
Suzie interjected. ‘He did threaten us three when he was sentenced in court. Quite an outburst really.’
Martin spoke out and asked them to be patient while he recalled 1968. ‘Possible, but I reckon it goes back to our marine days. I can’t think what but I will try.’
They called into the Two Dogs bar and had a few drinks with the many staffers gathered there who were also shocked at the gravity of the act.
Martin sat up at four a.m. feeling that something or other had spoken to him. Suzie was on her computer typing away to Rosemary in Canberra and then to her dad, who was unwell again.
‘I think I’ve got it, love.’
Suzie swung round after saving her text.
‘Before I was shot, it actually went well till we were ordered up for the attack. Victor was trembling. He always did. He was very scared from the time we landed. He feigned sickness when his time for night patrol came up and all of us were sick of him. I called in to see him later in hospital but I was called out for another patrol and that’s when I copped it. I heard Victor got a bullet wound – only a crease on the head. The guys reckoned it was self-inflicted.’