Black Tide

by Peter Temple

  Keegans. Schoolies, the two other sisters. The brother was on the ships, officer on the P &O. Didn’t take to him myself, little beard. Always doin this.’

  Des clawed his chin gently with his right hand. ‘Got on the nerves somethin painful.’

  ‘So you don’t want to include Gary?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll need an executor,’ I said. ‘Someone you can trust to make sure it’s all done properly when you’re gone. I take it Gary wouldn’t be the choice.’

  ‘Bloody oath.’

  ‘Someone else you trust.’

  He thought. ‘All dead,’ he said, ‘everybody I trusted. What about you? Reckon I can trust Bill’s boy?’

  ‘You can but you’ll probably outlive me. What are you planning to leave? Own your house?’

  ‘Buggered old place, fetch a bit though. Next door, bloody chimney’s all that’s holdin it up, but these two girls give a hundred and fifty grand.’ He paused, lines between his brows deepening. ‘Anyway, wife left the house to Gary. You lawyers collect debts too?’

  ‘Some debts, yes.’

  Des looked down for a while, hands on the briefcase, left thumb rubbing the knuckles of the right hand. ‘Gary’s got sixty thousand dollars belongs to me,’ he said. ‘Me sister leave it to me. From the sale of her property. Bastard come over, first time for years, come over and talk me into it. Mad, I musta bin mad. Mind you, I had the flu somethin chronic, thought I was dyin, couldn’t think straight. Umpteenth time he done me. Well, done the family. He’s a bloke gets his mum to lend him the bit she got from his Nanna Keegan. Six grand I think it was. Lot of money to us. Gone.’

  ‘You lent him sixty thousand dollars?’

  ‘Three weeks, he tells me, double the money, guaranteed. Knew I had a bit cause the bugger got twenty grand hisself from the old girl. Must’ve done that dough pretty smart.’

  ‘What was he going to do with your money?’

  ‘Shares. Goin through the roof. Mate of his had the mail on it.’

  ‘Any contract?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lend money, the thing is you should have an agreement written down. Says how much, when it has to be paid back, that kind of thing.’

  He shook his head. ‘Give him a cheque.’

  ‘Des, how does a man who doesn’t have a wonderful opinion of his son’s character hand over sixty grand?’

  He put fingers through his hair, teenage hair, fingers swollen like leaves of some desert plant. ‘Way I felt that day, I’d’ve given the bugger anything to get him to go away.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Two months ago. Bastard’s got the answering machine on.’

  ‘Maybe he’s forgotten, gone on holiday.’

  Des sniffed. ‘Forget he owes me sixty grand? Pig’s arse. Bastard’s lyin low.’

  ‘Let me be clear on this. Gary owns the house you live in?’

  ‘The wife left it to Gary but I thought I could live there until…y’know. Now this fella from the bank comes around. He says Gary took another mortgage on the house. Eighty thousand bucks. And he hasn’t paid anything for more than six months. So they’re gonna sell the house. He says Gary told em, “Go for ya life.’’’

  I whistled. ‘Des, how did your wife do this in her will? She should have left the house to you for your lifetime and arranged things so that it passed on to Gary after you were gone. She didn’t do that?’

  He shook his head. ‘Left it to Gary.’

  ‘Who did your wife’s will?’

  ‘Bloke Gary sent. Lawyer he knew. He come to see her in the hospital and told her how to do it.’

  I closed my eyes and said, ‘Oh shit.’ When I opened them, Des was looking at me with concern.

  ‘You all right?’ he said.

  ‘What’s Gary do?’

  ‘Beats me. He was a copper. That didn’t last. Reckon he resigned. I reckon they give him the arse. Then he had a job with some transport bunch. Then I don’t know. Got one of them German cars, cost more than a house. Lives in a flat in bloody Toorak, know that, got the address. Got the bloody keys too.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Give em to me that day when he come smoodgin around for the lend. Dad this and Dad that. Dad, d’ya mind hangin on to me spare keys, case I lose mine?’

  ‘This was before the man from the bank came round?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Don’t think I’d’ve lent the bugger the money if I knew he’d got a mortgage on his mum’s house, do ya?’

  I didn’t say anything. Des looked down at his hands again. He wanted something from me. I wanted to give him something.

  ‘I could write him a letter,’ I said. ‘Lawyer’s letter. Tell him we want the money or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’

  ‘Or else we’ll institute proceedings for the recovery of the debt.’

  ‘That any good?’

  I scratched my head. It wasn’t itchy. Vestigial animal body language revealing doubt. ‘Depends,’ I said. ‘Works with some.’

  ‘Won’t work with Gary,’ said Des with absolute certainty. ‘Brass balls.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘not much one can do otherwise.’

  Silence. Des had the disappointed look on his face again. Finally, he said, ‘Go around to his place and see if the bastard’s still livin there. That’s what I’d do if I could.’

  ‘We could go around to where he lives,’ I said.

  ‘You and me?’

  ‘I could drive you around there.’

  ‘No,’ said Des. ‘Not your problem. Just came to make me will.’ He never took his eyes off me.

  ‘Enjoy a drive,’ I said. ‘You could tell me a bit more about my old man.’

  He brightened. ‘Bill Irish,’ he said. ‘Stories I could tell you.’

  ‘Tuesday. About 10 a.m. Give me your address. I’ll pick you up.’

  3

  ‘Jack,’ said the voice on the office answering machine. ‘Ring me. You never ring me, you shit.’

  I didn’t ring her. No phone call to my sister, Rosa, lasts less than half an hour and, from the canyons of Fitzroy, the beer was calling. I was still tired, sagging from my two weeks looking for the alibi witnesses who could save Cyril Wootton’s client Brendan O’Grady.

  But.

  My days wandering through the toxic wasteland of Tony Ulasewicz’s life would keep Brendan out of jail for a crime of which he was certainly innocent.

  Justice for Brendan.

  But.

  In a world of perfect justice, would Brendan walk free?

  Absolutely not. In such a world, the naked Brendan would be dragged from his round waterbed, subjected to ritual humiliation, then thrown face forward into a pit of starving hyenas. Too extreme? What of the ideal of rehabilitation? Certainly Brendan was capable of changing. He could be permanently changed, perhaps into rose fertiliser, a kilo and a bit of blood and bone.

  At peace for the moment, I walked the fifty paces to Taub’s Cabinetmaking, down the narrow lane that ran to Smith Street, Collingwood.

  I opened the battered door, stood for a moment. The smell of the workshop: wood shavings, linseed oil, Charlie’s Cuban cheroots, coffee. Charlie was at the back of the large space, opening and closing the raised-panel door of a narrow, elegant rosewood cupboard. Joints, doors, drawers. For Charlie, it was pistonfit or nothing.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw me coming. ‘So,’ he said without looking at me. ‘Man who finds the scum of the earth. Man who breaks his parents’ hearts. Horses and criminals. That’s his life.’

  ‘It’s too late for him to break his parents’ hearts,’ I said. ‘And sometimes the criminals are on the horses. That door fits.’

  Charlie closed the cupboard door, opened it a fraction, closed it. ‘An old man,’ he said, ‘should be retired. But no, he goes on, teaches something to this person who won’t go away, this nuisance person. What thanks does the old man get?’

  I walked around to look at the back of the cupboar
d. The back of a Charlie Taub piece, destined to be seen only by removalists, was treated the same way as a violinmaker treats the bottom of the violin. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Bugger all?’

  ‘Those who hear not the voice of the conscience,’ Charlie said. ‘Those are the truly deaf. Karl Bernsdorf. He said that. A great man.’

  I said, ‘I quote him all the time. Maybe they could train a conscience dog for handicapped people like me. You even think about not behaving well, the dog nudges your leg.’

  Charlie made his snorting noise. ‘Nudges? Pisses on it. Eat your leg off, right up to the hip even, won’t help.’

  I came around to look at the severe pediment. ‘I gather you missed me a lot then?’

  Another snort. ‘What I miss, I miss someone finishes little jobs I give him. Like little tables. Day’s work for a man who actually works.’

  ‘Finished tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Good as done. Now, time for a beer.’

  Getting Charlie out the front door took me another ten minutes. He was quite unable to end the working day without going around touching, fiddling with, and testing the work in progress. Left alone, this could amount to half an hour of shuffling, muttering and whistling.

  Outside, the coming winter was in the polluted air, the cold sharpening the smell of the hydrocarbons. We walked to the Prince of Prussia, Charlie telling me about his latest bowls triumph.

  ‘Youngsters,’ he said. ‘We draw to play these junge. They think, old buggers, goodbye. I say to Freddie Chan, he thinks we got no chance, “Freddie, I say, what do these pishers know about skill? Nothing, that’s what.’’ He doesn’t believe. Well. Next thing, the little fat boy and the other one, the chemist. Mr Pills. In the gutter. You follow?’

  ‘Every word.’ We were walking past the old chutney factory. A yellow Porsche and a huge four-wheel-drive were parked on the pavement. Two men, one shaven-headed, the other with a ponytail, were talking in the open doorway. You could smell the sweet, vinegary smell of the long-gone chutney barrels.

  ‘The pricks like the industrial look,’ the man with the pigtail said to shaven-head as we came abreast. ‘Some paint, some plumbing, don’t even have to hide the fucking pipes.’

  ‘So where am I lying?’ said Charlie. ‘So close, a veneer you can’t get it in between. That’s where I am and that’s the end of these smart boys. Freddie, he can’t believe it. He says to me, “Charlie, you’re a master.’’’

  ‘Toothless whip ruthless,’ I said. ‘These pishers, how old are they, more or less?’

  Charlie shrugged, waved a huge hand. ‘Sixty, sixty-five, there around.’

  ‘Pishers,’ I said. ‘They should have a junior league for them.’

  The Prince was its usual vibrant, cutting-edge-of-the- hospitality-industry self. Stan, the publican, was at the far end of the bar reading a paperback called Desperado: Success Secrets of the New Small-Business Bandidos. At the counter, the men Charlie called the Fitzroy Youth Club, Wilbur Ong, Norm O’Neill and Eric Tanner-all men who were shaving when Fitzroy won the 1944 Grand Final-were reflecting on past injustices. Next to them, Wally Pollard, retired tram driver, was talking bowls with a man called Alec Leach. Three other men were seated at a table in the corner studying the racing pages of the Herald Sun. Under the window, two thirtyish women, serious-looking, short hair, business clothes, were studying what looked like proof copies of the telephone directory.

  Charlie veered off to join the bowls talk. I sat down next to Wilbur Ong.

  ‘Bloody disgrace,’ said Norm O’Neill, huge nose pointed roofwards under the peak of his flat cap. ‘Rot set in, there and then. Bastards never give us a fair go years after that.’

  Eric Tanner caught sight of me. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘You ever hear about that ’49 scandal?’

  ‘Not that I can recall,’ I said.

  ‘Three goals in front, five minutes to go. Two of these Tiger girls get in front of Bill. He’s taken to the air, you understand, big leap. Bill had a big leap, not the biggest but big. Big enough for this lot certainly. Anyway, he’s up there, reachin, and these pussycats they’re buggerin about and they end up bangin their heads together, altogether accidental. One wobbles around whinin, the other, he’s an actor, he falls over, they have to help him off. Crebbin, that’s his name. Umpire gives the Tigers a free. Well, a few of our fellas get around him, give him a few words, next thing the kick’s bein taken plumb in front.’

  ‘First of three,’ said Wilbur Ong.

  ‘Three frees in a row,’ Eric said. ‘Roy puts a hand on these sheilas, they get a kick. Win by a point.’

  ‘The next week…’ said Norm O’Neill.

  ‘I’m tellin this story,’ said Eric. ‘The next week this actor Crebbin that got the little knock on the head, he gets married. Nice-lookin girl from the picture in the paper. And who d’ya think’s standing next to her at the altar, givin her away?’

  ‘Could it be her father?’

  ‘Her bloody father. And who’s her bloody father?’

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Too bloody true. The bloody ump give the game to the Tigers. How d’ya like that?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Not at all.’

  Stan put down his paperback and came over, scratching the surviving corkscrew hairs on his head. ‘You bin scarce,’ he said.

  ‘Duty called,’ I said. ‘Been out there saving a man from a cruel miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘Don’t have to go out. Save a man from a cruel bloody miscarriage of justice right here,’ said Stan. ‘You’re the old man’s lawyer, talk him into sellin this dump, save me wastin my whole life listenin to old farts goin on about dead footy players.’

  Stan’s father, Morris, owned the pub and, at 87, showed no interest in selling it.

  ‘Find a suitable buyer and I’ll think about it,’ I said and ordered a round.

  Stan was at the tap, drawing beers without looking, when he said loudly, ‘Speakin of dead footy players, had a bloke in here this mornin, wants to buy the pictures.’

  All talk stopped.

  ‘The pictures?’ said Wilbur Ong. ‘What pictures?’

  Stan gestured around the walls with the back of a meaty hand. ‘The photos. All this junk.’

  ‘Bloke,’ said Norm O’Neill, cold voice. ‘What kind of a bloke?’

  Stan put down a glass, hitched his pants over his paunch. ‘Very nice bloke. Well-dressed. Blazer and grey flannels.’

  ‘What kind of a bloke?’ said Norm, voice now icy.

  Stan drew the last beer with great concentration, held it up and inspected the head. ‘Brisbane Lions bloke,’ he said. ‘Reckons the photos’d be better off in Brisbane in this Lions clubhouse they got there, big luxury clubhouse. Carpets. Got a Lions Wall of Fame. In the bistro.’

  ‘In the what?’ said Eric Tanner.

  Stan shook his head in sadness. ‘Italian term we in the hospitality industry use, Eric.’

  In the silence, you could hear the traffic on Smith Street, hear two women talking as they walked by outside.

  I looked around the pub walls. The bits you could see between the photographs were stained the colour of black tea by a hundred years of tobacco smoke. The photographs recorded Fitzroy Football Club sides and players going back to the turn of the century. On my way to the toilet through the door marked GENTS, I often paused to look at my father, big, dark Bill Irish, in the sides of the late 1940s. My grandfather was on the wall too. He had three seasons in the seniors before breaking an arm in two places against Collingwood. His team’s faded photographs were near the dartboard.

  ‘Lions Wall of Fame,’ said Eric Tanner, head tilted, eyes slits. ‘What Lions would those be?’

  ‘The way he put it,’ Stan said. ‘Fitzroy Football Club’s in Brisbane now, photos should be there too.’

  The silence was absolute.

  Norm O’Neill’s nose seemed to grow larger, now much more than a prominent feature on a facial landscape, now it was the landscape, a nose and glasses with a fac
e attached. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Stanley,’ he said, ‘Stanley, you’re missin somethin.’ He was speaking slowly and clearly, leaning forward, knuckles on the bar. ‘Fitzroy Football Club’s not in Brisbane, Stanley. Fitzroy Football Club can never be in Brisbane. Nobody can take the Lions to Brisbane. Why is that, Stanley? Because Fitzroy Football Club can only be in Fitzroy.’

  Norm paused, looked around the room. Then he said, ‘Well, bloody Brisbane can put a lion on their jumpers but that doesn’t mean the Lions are now in that bloody tropical hellhole. The Lions are here, in this bloody pub. And they’re not yours to sell. Grasp that, can you?’

  Silence, all eyes on Stan.

  Stan picked up a beer glass, held it to the light. ‘Be that as it may,’ he said. ‘Pretty good price offered. Never thought the old photos’d be worth anything.’

  ‘You talk to Morris about this?’ asked Wilbur.

  ‘Don’t need to talk to anyone,’ said Stan. ‘I’m the manager. He’s sittin in the sun in Queensland with all the other ancient buggers got any brains. This pub, I decide what happens.’

  ‘I remember you when you were two bricks and a pisspot high, your mum made a little Roys jumper for you,’ said Wilbur.

  ‘Given it a lot of thought,’ said Stan. ‘Bloke gets an answer tomorrow.’

  Without even glancing at one another, Norm, Wilbur and Eric stood up. Charlie rose from his barstool. Wearily, I got up, put on a menacing look.

  ‘And what, Stanley,’ asked Norm, ‘and I want you to think hard about this. What is the answer?’

  There was a long silence. Stan looked at each of us in turn, little smile on his face, put the glass down, turned and set off back to his paperback. Over his shoulder, he said, ‘Given it a lot of thought.’

  He picked up the book and looked down the counter at us.

  We waited.

  ‘Reckon I’ll tell him to piss off,’ said Stan.