The Godson

by Robert G. Barrett

  The interior of the Yurriki Hotel was pretty much what you would expect to find in a one-pub, Australian bush timber town. High wooden ceilings with thick beams and polished wooden walls covered by old photos of local rugby league teams, bullock wagons hauling giant logs and other memorabilia. Cheap brown curtains hung over the windows and tatty brown carpet covered the floor, on which were scattered several beat-up chairs and tables. There was the mandatory pool table with a few video poker machines close by and a jukebox next to a red phone in one corner. Opposite this was a snack bar and brick fireplace near a passageway that led to the toilets out the back. A sign above the bar, next to a photo of some mongrel-headed local alderman with a haircut to match, said ‘We shoot every third salesman. The second one just left’. A double-door led to a fairly extensive beer-garden full of chunky wooden chairs and tables. The bottle shop was next to the front door. In an alcove between it and the bar, several rough-headed locals were quietly drinking their beers when Les and Peregrine walked in.

  They had a bit of a look around while they got a slow, silent once up and down from the locals and the publican.

  ‘Well, what do you reckon, mate?’ smiled Les.

  Peregrine had another look around him and briefly returned the stare of one local wearing a battered Akubra, who had a lop-sided jaw and teeth like a fruit bat. ‘What do I reckon?’ he sniffed. ‘I reckon even the beer in here would have two heads, wouldn’t it?’

  Norton caught what Peregrine was looking at. ‘Yeah, I see what you mean. All we need is Burt Reynolds with his bow and arrow out the back, and a bloke playing a banjo out the front. Anyway, what are you gonna have?’

  The Englishman peered into a glass-doored double fridge behind the bar filled with cans and bottles. ‘I’ll have a Heineken, thanks.’

  The tall, skinny barman, looking more like a council clerk in his horn-rimmed glasses, shorts and long socks appeared in front of them. ‘A bottle of Heineken and a middy of New,’ said Norton. The barman served them then went back to the regulars in the corner.

  The beer wasn’t too bad, and nice and cold. They finished their first ones fairly smartly so Les ordered the same again.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ he said to the barman as he got their beers. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know if a Ronnie Madden drinks in here, would you?’

  The barman nodded slowly. ‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘Ronnie’s a regular. Comes in most nights for a few. And always on a Friday.’

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  The barman thought for a moment. ‘Little bloke, gettin’ on for forty. Long black hair, always wears an old brown hat. Got a gold stud with a ruby in it in his left ear.’

  ‘Righto, mate. Thanks.’ Les paid for the beers and the barman once again returned to his regulars.

  ‘Who’s Ronnie Madden?’ enquired Peregrine.

  ‘He’s the caretaker where we’re staying. Eddie knows him somehow. I’d like to have a yarn with him about the property.’

  Peregrine shrugged and sipped his beer. Something on the wall near the pool table caught his eye. He walked over to it, had a closer look, laughed and came back to the bar.

  ‘See that sign over there?’ he said to Les.

  Norton looked over to where Peregrine was pointing with his beer. It was a poster with an old negro minstrel on the front. It said: Yurriki Humdinger Boogie Woogie Ball. Dogs And Guests Welcome. ‘Yeah. What about it?’ said Les.

  ‘It’s on Saturday week. We should go to that too.’

  Norton took another look at the poster and shrugged a ‘Yeah, why not?’

  Peregrine took a good slug on his Heineken and slapped Les on the shoulder. ‘And you reckon there’s nothing doing up here? My dear boy. We have this fine establishment to drink in. The Buttery Bazaar this Sunday. And the Humdinger Boogie Woogie Ball next weekend. This could be the entertainment capital of Australia.’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Les. ‘Looks like the place pumps non stop.’

  They had one more beer each, which really started to put an edge on their appetites, so Les suggested they go home and get the barbecue going. Peregrine agreed wholeheartedly. On the way out Norton got two cases of Fourex, six bottles of Great Western and two of Jacobs Creek.

  Back at Cedar Glen, Peregrine gave Les a hand to unpack the groceries, but had to admit he couldn’t help him with the barbecue. Back in England they had cooks, butlers and all manner of servants to attend to that and when it came to cooking, he was flat out lighting a stove. Les said not to worry. When it came to getting a barbecue going, no man or woman in Australia was a match for him. Just slip into those shorts and thongs and look and learn.

  Norton made a big tossed salad and boiled some rice which they took down to the barbecue area along with the plates and other odds and ends. The old fridge was working okay so they crammed that with booze, which they attacked while Les got the fire going. Before long they were both well and truly in the mood, Les had the steaks and sausages on the barby and had fried the rice up on the hot-plate with some diced onion. There was an Otto-Bin next to the barbecue. Les went to put some rubbish in it and found it was absolutely packed to the gunwhales with empty Victoria Bitter cans. Hundreds of them.

  ‘Jesus! Someone out here sure likes a fuckin’ drink,’ he said. After a look into the Otto-Bin, Peregrine had to agree.

  The local butcher might have had a brusque, take-it-or-leaveit manner, but he could afford to. His meat was unbelievable. The T-bones were so soft you could have eaten them with a spoon, and his sausages had so much flavour they practically glowed in your mouth.

  ‘Christ! How good are these steaks?’ said Norton, gnawing on the bone like a hungry cattle-dog.

  ‘Absolutely melts in your mouth,’ agreed Peregrine, doing much the same thing.

  ‘Reckon you could go another one?’

  The country air and the exercise, plus the beers and the two bottles of Jacobs Creek and half a bottle of Great Western must have started to bring out the bulldog in the conservative English aristocrat. He jumped up from the table in his stubbies and thongs and grabbed a can of Fourex.

  ‘Yeah, righto, cobber,’ he drawled, not making a bad fist of an Australian accent. ‘Shove another couple on. And bung a few snags on too, digger.’

  Norton shook his head arid went to the fridge. ‘Isn’t this gonna be lovely? Stuck out here for two weeks with you.’

  They stuffed themselves with more steak, sausages and salad and sat back listening to the radio while the sun set over the farm and the valleys. The birds had stopped singing so Les turned the outside lights on as the crickets and frogs started up. After about an hour or so Les couldn’t have fitted another beer in to save his life and suggested they take a stroll down to the front gate and back and walk some of the food off. Even though Peregrine was well into his second bottle of Great Western he said that didn’t sound like a bad idea. Les got a torch from his room.

  They crunched down the driveway stopping momentarily where it crossed the stream that ran around the property not far from the house. It bubbled and sang as it flowed beneath them in the moonlight and when Les shone the torch into the two crystal clear ponds on either side of them, several big yabbies scrambled amongst the rocks on the muddy bottom.

  ‘Les, have you noticed anything about the way this driveway has been laid?’ Norton shone the torch around and shrugged. ‘The way the opening is bigger on one side forcing the water through when it comes out the other?’ Norton shrugged again. ‘And the way those rocks are squared off around the opening? You could set a turbine up just there and generate electricity.’

  ‘Have like, your own little hydro-electric scheme?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing,’ shrugged Peregrine. ‘Just thought I’d point it out to you. That’s all.’

  Les nodded and they followed the torch beam along the concrete part of the driveway to the front gate.

  The air was absolutely thick with dew coming down in the moonlight and a
dense mist had settled on the two large fields on either side of them giving them an eerie, appearance.

  ‘Shit! Have a look at that,’ said Norton, flashing the torch around. ‘Reminds you of that movie Werewolves Of London don’t it? You’re not a bloody werewolf are you, Peregrine?’

  The Englishman shook his head. ‘No. No werewolves in the Normanhurst family. Though I believe great-greatgrandfather Augustus was a vampire.’

  They reached the front gate and Les checked the lock. ‘Perimeter’s secured, sir,’ he said, adding a quick salute.

  ‘Very good, corporal. Now let’s get back to the champers.’

  They crossed the two ponds and were crunching along the gravel not far from the house when in a row of trees to their left Norton heard a movement and felt as if someone was watching them. He flashed the torch up into the trees to find three huge brown owls staring down at them; one was much bigger than the others and with their saucer like, orange eyes you couldn’t miss them.

  Peregrine suddenly roared laughing. ‘Hello,’ he cackled. ‘It’s Bunter. What are you doing up there Bunter, you blithering bloater?’

  Norton looked at Peregrine like he was mad. ‘What the fuck are you goin’ on about?’

  ‘In the tree,’ giggled Peregrine. ‘It’s Billy Bunter, the fat owl of Greyfriars. Don’t you recognise the piffling, pernicious porker?’ Peregrine shook his fist at the completely baffled owl who thought the Englishman was madder than Les did. ‘Get down from there at once Bunter, you fat, frabjous, foozling, frowsy owl! And report to Mr Quelch’s study this instant.’ Peregrine was now roaring at his own private joke.

  To Les he was speaking a completely different language, and a nutty one at that. ‘Fair dinkum,’ he muttered. ‘Two more weeks of this and I’ll end up in the rathouse.’

  Back at the barbecue area Norton still didn’t feel like drinking any more beer. The Jacobs Creek now tasted like vinegar and he wasn’t all that rapt in champagne at the best of times. What he should have got at the hotel earlier was a couple of bottles of bourbon. He watched indifferently as Peregrine slopped into another glass of Great Western with a squeeze of fresh orange.

  ‘Hey, Peregrine.’ The Englishman looked up from his glass. ‘You want to come for a run into town while I get a couple of bottles of bourbon? We might even have a couple at the pub while we’re there. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Capital idea, old boy. Friday night in beautiful downtown Yurriki. There could be painted women and dancing in the street.’

  ‘I doubt that. But I should be able to get a bottle of Jackys.’

  Half an hour later they were cleaned up, changed into their jeans and heading into town.

  There wasn’t quite dancing in the street in Yurriki, but there were several drunks weaving around the front of the hotel, the worst of whom was the local butcher. He was in a pair of stubbies and a dirty blue T-shirt, down on his hands and knees completely muled out and looking like he was getting ready to have a laugh at the footpath.

  ‘Recognise our local butcher, Peregrine?’ said Les.

  ‘My God. He didn’t make those sausages, did he?’

  Before they went inside, Les bought two bottles of Jim Beam Green Label and put them in the car with some Coca Cola.

  Inside, the pub was honking along reasonably well. At the front end of the bar near the door were the older locals: RSL haircuts, thick necks, big ears and cardigans. Next to them were what looked like timber workers or stockmen in their R.M. Williams boots and jeans, oilskins and broken noses under battered Akubras. The rest seemed made up of battlers or ‘alternates’ with long hair and beards wearing mainly faded jeans, army pants, sleeveless tops, leather hats and wrist bands. There were a few children running about and a number of women. Most of them too had long hair, some plaited, sporting either jeans or gingham dresses with rough made, leather jackets or fake fur or animal skins over the top, Apache boots, and the odd pair of John Lennon glasses. Double Bay or Toorak it wasn’t, but the children were all clean and well-behaved.

  Les and Peregrine had a quick peruse of the situation and found a spot where the bar curved round near the jukebox, which was cranking out ‘The Murwillumbah Bank Job’ by The Bullamakankas. There were two women behind the bar now, not bad sorts wearing corduroy jeans and jumpers. Norton caught the eye of one and ordered a double Jack Daniel’s and Coke for himself and a brandy and soda for Peregrine.

  ‘Well, what do you reckon, bloke?’ he smiled, looking around as he took a refreshing pull on his drink. ‘Friday night in Yurriki. Boogie city, ain’t it?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ replied Peregrine. ‘Bad luck I’m only here for two weeks.’

  They sipped their drinks while the hubbub of noise, smoke and clicking pool balls swirled around them. Peregrine said he was going to see what records were on the jukebox. While he was gone Les started checking out the punters a little more intently. The person he was looking for was wearing jeans and a brown Crestknit T-shirt in a half-hearted conversation with one of the stockmen near the front door. He was as short as the publican had said earlier, with long black hair under a battered brown hat, and even from where Norton was standing you couldn’t miss the glint of the gold stud in his left ear. He also had a wispy goatee beard and a world-weary face with eyes that seemed permanently set in a tired smile. Norton waited till Peregrine came back.

  ‘Find anything worth playing?’

  ‘The music selection is absolutely abysmal. I’ve never even heard of half of the records. But there’s an old Manfred Mann and “Come Back Suzanne” by Bill Wyman. And,’ Peregrine’s face lit up a little, ‘“Living Doll” by The Young Ones. Do you like The Young Ones, Les?’

  ‘Peregrine! How dare you ask me that? You utter, utter bastard!’ Les dropped some money on the bar. ‘Anyway, order another couple of drinks will you? I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Norton walked to the end of the bar and stood next to the short man with the stud in his ear. ‘Excuse me, mate,’ he said. ‘Are you Ronnie Madden?’

  The little bloke gave Les an odd smile, as if he already knew him from somewhere. ‘Yeah,’ he said shortly. Not ‘Yeah, that’s me’ or ‘Yeah, what can I do for you?’ Just a blunt ‘Yeah’.

  ‘My name’s Les. I’m staying at Cedar Glen. The estate agent told me you’re the caretaker.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Norton offered his hand. Ronnie’s was hard and calloused and for a small man he had a grip like a vice. ‘If you’ve got a minute, I’ve got a mate down there. Do you want to meet him and we could shout you a drink?’

  ‘Okay.’ Madden turned to the others around him. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Then he followed Les to the other end of the bar.

  ‘Peregrine. This is Ronnie, the caretaker.’ Les smiled when he saw Peregrine stiffen at Ronnie’s grip. ‘What are you drinking, Ron?’

  ‘Can of VB’ll do.’

  Norton ordered, waited till Ronnie got his drink and there was a quick ‘cheers’ between the three of them. ‘You know a mate of mine in Sydney, Ron. Eddie Salita.’

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Madden.

  ‘Where do you know Eddie from?’

  ‘I… ah… knew him from when I lived in Sydney.’ The caretaker had an already nervous, twitchy nature, but now he noticeably avoided Norton’s eye when he answered his question.

  ‘What? Did you work with him?’

  ‘I… used to live down the road from him.’

  ‘In Edgecliff?’

  ‘Ahh … yeah. It could have been there. I’m not sure.’

  Norton picked up on Madden’s evasiveness when he spoke of Eddie. But that was understandable. A lot of people were evasive when they spoke about Eddie Salita.

  ‘How long have you lived up here, Ron?’ asked Peregrine.

  ‘About ten years or so.’

  ‘You must like it?’

  ‘I do, Peregrine. It’s good. Nice and quiet. Not many people.’ Madden went for his pocket. ‘What are you blokes drinking?’
/>   ‘No, you’re right, Ron,’ said Norton. ‘Finish these first. I’ll get them.’

  The caretaker didn’t say anything. He just crushed his empty VB can as if it were an eggshell and dropped it in the butt tray running beneath the bar. Peregrine and Les exchanged a quick glance. Madden would have been flat out being with them half a minute and he’d downed his beer like it was a spoonful of cough medicine. They both suddenly realised where all the empty VB cans in the Otto-Bin back at Cedar Glen had come from.

  Norton caught the barmaid’s eye. ‘Same again for us, love. And another … two cans of VB thanks. Take it out of that.’

  The drinks arrived. Les sculled his first bourbon to keep up with Madden. ‘How often do you do the caretaking on the farm, Ron?’

  ‘Two or three times a week. That estate agent doesn’t pay all that much.’

  ‘Benny Rabinski?’ chuckled Norton. ‘That’d be about right.’

  ‘But he pays for all me piss.’

  That’d be enough, thought Norton, as the little caretaker downed the first can of VB, got rid of the can and immediately attacked the next one.

  ‘Whereabouts around here do you live?’ asked Peregrine.

  ‘Not far from you. Next valley before the National Park.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘With a couple of mates.’

  ‘You’ll have to call round before we go back, Ron,’ said Les. ‘Have a bit of a drink and a barby.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Pity my girlfriend’s father isn’t out here,’ said Peregrine. ‘He owns a brewery back in England. I’m sure he’d like to meet you.’

  Norton gave the Englishman a steely look.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Ronnie, downing can number three. ‘I’m in a shout back there, I’d better get back. Nice to meet you fellahs, I’ll see you again. Thanks for the drink.’