The Godson

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Benny Rabinski!?’ said Les.

  ‘Les Norton!?’ said Benny.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ they both said together.

  There was a pregnant pause for a few moments then Les spoke. ‘I’m here to pick up the keys for Cedar Glen.’

  ‘I was expecting a Mr Northam. Not you.’

  ‘Well, looks like they made a blue don’t it,’ grinned Les. ‘But isn’t it a pleasant surprise?’

  Benny seemed to shrink a little. ‘Oi. Such a surprise.’

  ‘Listen, Benny, if I told you once, I told you a thousand times. I put the money under your door. Somebody must have nicked it.’

  ‘Marvin’s too?’

  Norton shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like around Bondi. Anyway that was years ago, Benny. You can’t go on blaming me forever.’

  Benny shook his head, then turned and took a set of keys from a hook on the wall. ‘You know the position with the farm, Mr Norton,’ he said, placing the keys on the desk. Norton nodded slowly. ‘You’ve got the place for two weeks with an option to purchase. A Mr Brennan telegramed the money through. $300 for rent. Plus a $500 bond. $800 all together.’ He stared at Les as he pushed a form across to him to sign. ‘Are you thinking of buying this property yourself?’

  Les shook his head. ‘No. But that bloke out in the car is. He’s a rich Englishman.’ Suddenly Les cursed himself for saying that.

  Benny looked across at Peregrine. ‘Why don’t you bring him in?’

  ‘He wants his privacy for the moment. But he’ll see you if he decides to buy it.’

  ‘I can call out.’

  ‘Now come on, Benny. The gentleman doesn’t want the hard sell at the moment. He just wants his privacy. To think.’

  ‘All right then.’

  ‘Anyway, what can we expect when we get out there?’

  ‘There’s no phone or TV. There’s a fridge, hot water, cooking utensils, blankets. There’s a caretaker, Ronnie Madden. He might be there today. If not, you’ll always find him in the Yurriki Hotel. You know how to get to Yurriki and the property from here?’

  Les nodded. ‘I got a map and directions in the car.’

  Benny looked at Norton a little suspiciously as he handed him the keys. ‘Doesn’t your friend want to know how much it is?’

  ‘Ohh yeah … how much is it?’

  ‘Two point five million.’ Benny’s kindly Jewish face broke into a smile and he made an open-handed gesture. ‘But you tell him to see me and we can negotiate.’

  ‘And you with such an honest face too,’ smiled Les, making the same open-handed gesture. He jiggled the keys and turned to leave. ‘Hey, before I go — what are you doing in Murwillumbah, Benny?’

  ‘My wife inherited some property up here. She likes it. So do my two fine boys. Plus,’ Norton’s old landlord looked him right in the eye, ‘There were getting to be too many unscrupulous people living in Bondi.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean, Benny,’ sympathised Norton. ‘It can be a proper bastard living there at times. See you later, mate.’

  ‘Jesus, talk about the ghost of Christmas past,’ said Norton, when he got back in the car. ‘You wouldn’t believe who was running that estate agency. My old reffo landlord from Bondi.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Yeah. I took him and his brother to the cleaners for about a grand.’

  ‘That’s lovely, isn’t it?’ said Peregrine jokingly. ‘Now everybody will know we’re up here.’

  Les missed Peregrine’s humour. ‘No, I think everything should be all right,’ he said seriously, wishing he hadn’t told Benny he had a rich Englishman with him. ‘Anyway, let’s head for Yurriki.’

  They turned into the main street in Murwillumbah with its two or three pubs, police station and courthouse and rows of cars angle-parked to the curb, took a left and a right, found the Nimbin, Yurriki turn off and headed west. They crossed the Tweed River twice, one particularly noisy wooden bridge almost shaking the chassis out of the car, and followed the narrow, winding road as it led through the lush green valleys, small mountain ranges and the occasional homestead. One particular mountain to their right with an irregularly-shaped summit something like an ugly nose caught Norton’s eye.

  ‘You see that mountain over there?’ he pointed. ‘That’s Mount Warning, the first place in Australia to get the sun in the morning. The Aborigines reckon it’s spiritual.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s also supposed to be some sort of power source.’

  Les watched curiously as Peregrine bent his head down and started looking at the mountain side on. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ laughed the Englishman. ‘If you observe the top of that mountain from this angle, it looks like your nose.’

  Norton looked back at Mount Warning, scowled, then looked back at Peregrine. ‘Keep that sort of talk up, and it’ll look like fuckin’ yours.’

  It wasn’t long and they were in Yurriki.

  ‘So this is beautiful downtown Yurriki is it?’ said Peregrine, looking around at the few cars parked in the main street and fewer people. ‘Looks nice. You ever been here before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame you.’

  ‘Let’s check it out anyway.’

  Like all small country towns in Australia, Yurriki consisted of one main street. There was a tiny park with a War Memorial and a fairly busy public school to its left, opposite this was the local one-man butcher shop, what appeared to be a rundown community centre then a School of Arts, with a glass case full of posters and community notices out the front. Next was a supermarket, some more ancient wooden shops and the solitary phone box sitting outside the post office which, like the rest of the town, looked as if time had completely passed it by. A bit of a dip in the road brought them to a one-lane wooden bridge which spanned a picturesque little stream: Roland Creek. To the right of the bridge was another small park with an old steam engine sitting in it and opposite this was an old wooden, two-storey pub with the customary verandah running round the top floor. The Yurriki Hotel. A garage was a little further to their right and what appeared to be an old wooden church built off the main street, and that was it.

  ‘Excitement City, isn’t it,’ said Peregrine.

  ‘Las Vegas it ain’t,’ agreed Norton, stopping the car outside the hotel. ‘Won’t be a sec,’ he said. He was back in a few minutes with a case of beer and two bottles of champagne.

  ‘Fourex, eh?’ said Peregrine. ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘A couple of bottles of High Noon.’

  ‘High Noon? What’s jolly High Noon.’

  ‘That’s another great western. Isn’t it, old chap?’

  ‘Are you trying to say champagne?’

  Norton winked. ‘Gotta look after you, haven’t we, mate?’

  ‘I just hope I can get it down.’

  ‘You’d better, ’cause that’s all they got. And you ain’t gettin’ none of my Fourex.’

  Les did a U-turn back through town and pulled up outside the post office. ‘I’m just gonna make a quick phone call,’ he said, getting some change from his pocket. ‘I won’t be a sec.’ He rang Eddie, who wasn’t home, so he left a message with Lindy to say they’d arrived in Yurriki and were on their way to the farm and everything was sweet. There was no phone on the farm but he’d ring every time he came into Yurriki. When Les stepped out of the phone box he saw Peregrine was standing outside the School of Arts looking at the community message board. He strolled up alongside him and looked in the glass case.

  ‘Well, what do you reckon, Peregrine?’ he said. ‘You gonna go for the psychic healing or the therapeutic massage?’

  Peregrine studied the notice board for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I was thinking of trying the rebirthing or the magnetic balancing. I don’t see any ads for the local escort service in there.’

  ‘In Yurriki? Mate, I reckon the only way you’d get a root in this town
would be to dig up a gum tree. Come on. Let’s go and see if we can find this farm.’

  The turn off to Roland Creek road was behind the War Memorial. Following Eddie’s map they headed further west towards Mt. Cudmore and Mt. Warning National Park till the bitumen ended just past the Nimbin turn off and they hit dirt road. They went down a dip and along a straight when round the next corner Les slowed down for what he first thought were two large sheets of blue plastic fluttering along the side of the road.

  ‘Jesus, look at that,’ he said excitedly, pulling the car up and pointing across Peregrine. ‘Two bloody peacocks.’

  The male’s huge train with its blaze of blue and green feathers almost took Peregrine’s breath away. ‘God, they’re absolutely magnificent,’ he said.

  ‘You’re bloody lucky to ever see any, especially like that. Dogs get them, or feral cats. Or mugs take shots at them. I reckon they’d belong to someone.’

  Peregrine watched the two birds frollicking just outside his door. ‘People shoot them? You’re joking, Les.’

  ‘I wish I was, mate. But there’s some loonies running around with guns. Sports shooters they’re called, Peregrine.’ They watched the two beautiful blue birds going through their mating ritual before they abruptly disappeared into the scrub. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Norton.

  They crossed another tiny arm of the creek. The road dipped, and rose again, then at a curve on the left was a metal gate with a wooden one next to it. Les stopped the car and had another look at the map.

  ‘Yep. This is it,’ he nodded. ‘Cedar Glen.’

  The metal gate was painted white and slung between two poles with another two poles above; a stained wooden letter box sat between it and the older wooden gate on the right. Les found the right key, opened the gate and rolled the car over the metal grill onto a concrete drive, then closed the gate behind him again. The concrete drive led through a huge open field on their right and a swampy looking one on their left. They followed the driveway to where it crossed a beautiful little creek full of ferns and trees and climbed several metres to another white metal gate set on poles. A billabong formed where the driveway crossed the creek and to the left of this was an old, rickety wooden bridge that had obviously been disused for some time. The second gate was open and they drove straight in for their first sight of the house.

  It was two storeys high but the bottom storey had been built about a metre into the ground. It was all solid wooden beams and thick poles and looked more like a small fortress or a stockade than a house. Oddly-shaped windows faced everywhere and the entire house was surrounded by well-kept rockeries full of palm trees and native plants identical to the French colonial style of landscaping in Saigon during the thirties when that part of Asia was known as Indo-China. A hundred or so metres to their right was a set of stables in a fenced-off field where half a dozen horses watched them curiously as if they too seemed to be appreciating the strange beauty of this unique homestead set in the middle of nowhere. Les stopped the car in a covered driveway and they got out.

  The rear of the house was identical to the front, more thick beams and poles, and looking around him Les could see they were in a valley surrounded by a high ridge of trees making the only access to the homestead through the front field and along the driveway. It was now crisply silent with the car engine off and the only sound was the sighing of the wind in the trees and the calling and whistling of countless birds.

  ‘I say,’ said Peregrine. ‘This is certainly different from anything I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Norton. ‘It’s not what I was expecting. It looks like someone’s taken Fort Apache and put it in northern New South Wales.’

  ‘Who did you say it belonged to?’

  Norton shrugged. ‘All Eddie told me was that some American colonel from the Vietnam war built it. He was a survivalist or something.’

  Peregrine gazed around at the surrounding mountain range and the solidly built house. ‘You could certainly survive here,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a bit of a look around.’

  They walked across to a brick-paved barbecue area trellised with vines, creepers and stag-horns. More huge poles supported these and there was a beautifully-crafted, solid rosewood bar area with a sink and an old fridge; a turn of the taps told Les there was no shortage of clear, clean water. There was an old table and chairs and hanging off a beam above this was a set of stereo speakers fastened back to back. Les smiled and pictured himself eating plenty of steaks and drinking plenty of Fourex out here over the next two weeks.

  The bar area was built onto a small cabin or guest quarters; Les found the key and opened the double glass door. Inside was a double bed and blankets, a built-in wardrobe and an unusual en suite full of blue and grey slate tiles, old brass taps and great slabs of solid granite which even formed a seat in the shower. There were more wooden beams and crafted woodwork everywhere.

  ‘Do you want to sleep in here?’ asked Les.

  As he said that, a rather healthy looking frog jumped out of the shower area, bounded across the en suite and splashed down the toilet bowl with a startled croak.

  ‘Why don’t we have a look at the rest of the place first?’ replied Peregrine.

  ‘Okay,’ laughed Norton. ‘We’ll start at the top and work down.’

  They strolled back to the driveway and up a set of thick wooden steps to where a small verandah led into the kitchen and the top part of the house. Inside was more polished wood from the floor to the ceiling. Huge beams supported the ceiling which in turn were supported by poles thicker than your waist that were nothing more than roughly hewn lengths of trees complete with twists and knots. The walls were red cedar shingles, the kitchen table was one huge slab of polished cedar with a table made from a solid slab of black marble next to it. None of the countless windows opened — instead, there were fly-screened vents alongside which opened to let the air either in or out. There was an old brown corduroy lounge and Les was happy to find that the porta-gas stove worked and there was a decent-sized fridge. A large bedroom full of more polished cedar and oak had an en suite almost as big. There was a study between it and the kitchen which opened onto another verandah at the front of the house. The view over the rockeries and gardens from above made the place look even more French colonial than ever; a tricolour fluttering in the breeze and French Foreign Legion band playing ‘The Marseillaise’ would not have looked out of place at all. When Les stepped back inside, Peregrine was coming out of the bedroom with a grin on his face.

  ‘This bedroom will do me admirably, thank you,’ he said.

  Norton glanced over at the double bed sitting beneath a huge window. ‘Go for your life,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m not fussy.’

  Gazing around them they noticed another solidly-built verandah overlooking the barbecue area with a set of steps running down from it.

  ‘I have to admit that this place is quite unique,’ said Peregrine. ‘All this wood and the craftmanship — the chap who built it must have owned a jolly sawmill.’

  Norton ran his hand up and down one of the poles supporting the ceiling. ‘What I reckon he’s done is he’s brought all his own timber down from those mountains. He’d want to,’ he added, ‘the wood in this joint’d cost you a million dollars.’

  ‘It almost reminds you of the inside of an old sailing ship.’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Les absently. It reminded him of something else, but he couldn’t quite think what it was. ‘Come on. Let’s have a look downstairs.’

  A set of concrete steps took them a good metre below ground into the bottom of the house and into a bedroom even bigger than the one upstairs. It too was made of more polished and crafted wood: maple and cedar walls, a double bed, a desk, and huge built-in wardrobe. But it was the enormous open bathroom that brought a gleam to Norton’s eye — it was pure decadence. The walls were a blaze of various shades of blue and gold tiles set like a mosaic to look like waves breaking and the sun rising on a beach. There were shiny brass taps and faucets
but the piece de resistance was a tiled, sunken bathtub big enough for six people. It looked like something out of Nero’s palace in ancient Rome. Norton chuckled inwardly — he could definitely see himself flopping around in the bath full of Radox while he sucked on one cold can of Fourex after another.

  ‘Well, I’m certainly glad we worked at those sleeping arrangements, Peregrine,’ he grinned.

  When he turned around Peregrine had opened another door which was an office with a long desk running along one wall with a computer on it which didn’t appear to be working. They both had a tap on the keys then left it.

  The bedroom led out past a laundry then back into another lounge room bigger than the one upstairs; this time the floor was made of brown ceramic tiles and the ceiling was much higher. There were more wooden beams and poles, double windows that didn’t open with vents alongside, and a solid wooden ladder which led up to a small loft overlooking the front of the gardens. In one corner of the room was a potbelly stove with a Canadian brand name.

  ‘Christ!’ said Norton. ‘Does this joint ever stop?’

  ‘It’s certainly amazing,’ agreed Peregrine.

  A side passage laid with the same brown tiles led from lounge room number two past more windows which didn’t open but gave an uninterrupted view of the front gardens. The corridor ran the length of the house past another tiled en suite, a couple of bunks in another kind of room, then into another bedroom. This time the ceiling was a lot lower and the walls were made of split logs and timber which was stained a dark brown, giving it a definite rustic or American backwoods appearance. You almost expected to find Davy Crockett sitting on the double bed in his coonskins cleaning a muzzle loader. It was quite dark and Norton hit a switch on the wall for a fluorescent light. As he did a huge Huntsman spider scurried across the wall and disappeared into a built-in wardrobe.