by Joy Dettman
Crazy little bitch; she had always kept her promises.
Sobered by the rain and the walk, an exhausted and dripping wet rag, he’d tried to open the passenger side door.
‘In the back,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll go around the river.’
‘You’ll get bogged.’
The old timber trucker’s road had been a sea of mud – mud to the axles. He’d been right too. He’d pushed her out of a bog, ten miles out, almost given himself a bloody hernia doing it, then they’d ploughed on again, the Holden pushing through, damn near bush-bashing its way out behind Daree. He’d had a new respect for Holdens since that night.
She’d stayed on the back roads, bypassing the towns when she could. Nothing he could say to her and no energy to say it. She’d been silent too, her concentration on the road, until they hit Albury, where she’d filled the tank. They’d stopped at a self-service place with one sleepy bloke in the office.
‘Stay down,’ she’d said as he’d opened the car door.
‘I’ve got to take a – ’
‘Self-control is good for the soul. Practise it.’
Capable little bitch. She drove like him. A stark raving mad woman behind the wheel, but she’d taken him to a public loo, driven around the block twice before stopping, opening the boot and tossing him his briefcase, hitting him in the gut with it, knocking the wind out of him in more ways than one. He hadn’t considered his case, hadn’t been thinking further than the moment, the escape. She had. All Burton, that one. Burton smart, always had been. A Burton to her bloody bootlaces.
Locked in the toilet, he’d opened his briefcase and dragged out Sam’s lightweight slacks and his red knit shirt. He’d combed his grey wig and tugged it on, tugged it level, then he’d glued on his mo.
Like Superman, Jack had made a few quick changes in his life – in the airport toilets, his car parked in the long-term car park. In the city. Always had to get rid of his car when he’d driven down by day. The nights had been better. He’d parked it in the Toorak garage.
He’d been trying to clip the heavy gold chain around his throat as he returned to the car that night. Hated the thing. Had to wear it. Hadn’t liked Sam’s glasses either. Not then.
‘Where are your clothes?’ she’d said.
‘In my case.’
She’d opened her purse and then taken Sam’s onyx ring from it, handed it to him.
‘You’ve still got that bastard of a thing?’
‘Long live Uncle Sam.’
‘The perverted mongrel dog – ’
‘That’s your cross. Wear it.’
A tough little bitch. She wouldn’t give an inch. He’d wanted her to stop at a roadhouse out of Melbourne, buy a feed of chips.
‘Stop thinking with your stomach,’ she said. ‘We’ve wasted too much time already. May is probably at Toorak. When we get to the outskirts, call her.’
He’d done as he was told for once in his life, he’d called Toorak. May was there. ‘It’s Sam,’ he’d said. ‘I’m coming home. We should be there in under an hour.’
Melbourne traffic had been on the move when they arrived; May was waiting at her front door, but Ann refused to get out of the car.
‘Thanks,’ he’d said to her, aware that he should say more; what was there to say? It had all been said, said and done too many years ago.
May had tried to kiss her. ‘How can I ever thank you?’
‘By making sure he never sets foot in Mallawindy again. I promise you – I promise both of you, if he ever goes back there, then I tell it exactly how it was in the cellar. I promise you.’
‘He won’t go back. You have my word on it. Our word on it. Thank you. Thank you for everything, Ann. Thank you, my dear, dear child.’
No reply, just a squealing U-turn Jack would have been proud of. He and May had stood together, watching her car out of sight.
‘Shit. Shit.’ He sifted sand through his fingers, sifting out a beer bottle top. Probably one of his own. He’d spent many nights sitting on these dunes, cursing his brother’s name. ‘Shit,’ he said, and he lifted the bottle top to his nose, sniffed it, then pitched it. ‘Shit.’
Sitting, swearing, he sifted sand until the sun fell down behind the trees. Still he sat, staring at the western sky as it turned from blue to mauve to purple and gold, sat until two rabbits came out to eye a dead man, their ears high.
It was near dark when he drove away to tour the town, look at the old place. No lights showing. Deserted. Ellie would be living in her old man’s house with her sons, running around after them like she’d run around after her old man.
‘Bloody kids. Too many bloody kids. Always put them first, and her bloody old man. She’ll be happy now with her mummy’s boy Benjie and her Johnny Jesus. She’ll be happy now.’
He turned, cruised back, parked his car on the verge of the road while he took out his cigarettes, struck a match and watched the small flame burn, felt it lick at his fingers. Familiar, these night noises. The river rustling by. Hardly a river, just a snag-riddled stream for most of the year, twisting, turning, still fighting the will of the dusky gods who, in some forgotten Dreamtime, had charted its course west.
Made a muck of it, didn’t they, he thought. Never big enough, it hadn’t gone far enough to do much good. It seeped underground, crept out into reed-infested billabongs; there was little left of it by the time it got to Mallawindy. But it had a smell of its own; a mud and fish smell, mixed with honey and eucalypt, chook shit and cows. Old essence of Mallawindy. It hung in the air tonight.
Essence of Ellie.
‘Trapped by her, you stupid godforsaken bastard,’ he said.
A door slammed behind him and he swung around to face it. Light filtered out, framing Malcolm Fletcher’s shapeless bulk.
‘Christ! Is he still alive?’
The cigarette stubbed out, Jack started the motor and took off, spraying gravel; he hit the brake and did his skidding U-turn. ‘A bloody man is a maniac. That’s the one bastard who’d recognise me with a black face and a boomerang in my hand. How the bloody hell can he still be alive? The obese old bastard has got to be hitting eighty.’
Jack was back at the Warran motel before eight and, May waiting, her eyes worried, her kiss of greeting given only so her nose could pick up the scent of whisky.
‘I’m clean.’
‘Where have you been, Sam?’
Bloody Sam. She was halfway to convincing herself that was who he was these days and he didn’t like it. He lit a cigarette, wanting to stir her, pay her back for her suspicious kiss, for her Sam. ‘I went down to see Ellie.’
And she bit, like he knew she would. ‘You fool. You hopeless fool.’ She stood before him, her face red. ‘What in God’s name possessed you to do a thing like that?’ For minutes she ranted and he sat in silence smoking up the unit. ‘What did . . . did she – ?’
‘She didn’t say much. Where have you been for so long, love?’ He did the nasal voice; an actor born was Jack Burton. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you, love. Oh, by the way, the old brindle cow had twin poddies.’
May swallowed, waving his smoke away with her hand. ‘You didn’t go there.’
‘Do you think a man’s a total bloody maniac?’
‘Don’t make me answer that.’
‘Then leave it alone. I think I’m dying. My head is crawling on the inside and lousy on the outside. Lay off me tonight, will you?’
‘But you did go to Mallawindy?’
‘I bloody well told you I did. I went out and spat on Sam’s grave.’
The power struggle would continue until one of them died. May had held all the cards for too long and she wasn’t going to give them up. She fought like a fiend, but she fought him with words, not tears. He could stand words. Many were the nights they warred, but only with words.
‘Who saw you there?’
‘A few rabbits.’
He didn’t mention Malcolm Fletcher. He didn’t want to think about that snooping old bastard
who should have dropped dead twenty years ago, died of diabetes, been stomped on like the bloody old slug he was. Always pulsating around someplace, sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Always behind you, listening. Always in front of you, derisive.
I shouldn’t have parked there, he thought. Should have thought. Shouldn’t have lit a cigarette. How long had the old bastard been watching before he opened his door? He was dangerous, and Jack was worried, and when he was worried, he preferred to blame someone else.
‘You promised me you would never go back there.’
‘Leave a bloody man alone tonight, will you? I’ve been through enough today. I did what you wanted me to do, didn’t I? Gave them my blood, let them shoot me with their bloody X-rays, gave them the bloody hair off my head. What do you expect from a man? Some perverted cockroach you can crush beneath your bloody stomping little foot?’
‘What if someone had seen you? You’re a fool, Sam.’
‘And you were hiding behind the door when the milk of human kindness was handed out. You push a man too far with your bloody demands and your questions and your bloody Sam. Shut up with your bloody Sam.’
‘What else do I call you? Tell me that. You do what you want, and to hell with everyone else. You promised you wouldn’t go near Mallawindy and that’s exactly where you went. Your promise is not worth the breath it is given with, Jack. And you left me stranded at the hospital. I had to walk back here without a coat.’
Jack. He’d dredged one out of her. He wouldn’t let her forget who he was, and while she knew who he was, Jack lived.
‘I told you to take your bloody coat with you, didn’t I? I offered to get it out of the boot for you, didn’t I? If you’d listen to me sometimes instead of thinking you know every bloody thing all the bloody time then you bloody well wouldn’t have had to walk home without a coat, would you?’
Safer territory, coats. Safer ground. And they both knew it.
‘Go and have your shower and cool off,’ she snapped.
‘Where are we eating tonight?’ he replied in like tone.
‘David said they do a good meal at the club.’ She took clean underpants and shirt from the case, tossed them at him. He caught the underpants and walked to the bathroom, leaving the shirt on the floor.
‘You frightened me tonight, Sam. You frightened the life out of me. I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been sitting here since five, sick to the heart with worry that you’d come back drunk.’
‘Don’t bloody call me Sam!’
‘I’ve been calling you Sam all day. Ben, your son was there. He’s a lovely boy.’
‘He’s a mealy-mouthed mummy’s boy little poofter and always has been.’
‘Stop that! He said he remembered . . . Sam.’
The shower was running, the bathroom door left wide open. His voice rose to compete with the splashing.
‘He probably had to dodge the bastard too. Hang on to his pants when Uncle Sam came visiting. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with him. Maybe he didn’t hang on hard-a-bloody-nough.’
‘Stop it, Jack. For the love of God, will you let up on it?’
‘It’s the only way I can get you to say my bloody name. I’ve got to fight you for it every time.’
‘Be reasonable. If I call you Jack in private, it’s going to come out one day in public. Be reasonable about it. I’ve got to stop calling you Jack, and well you know it.’
‘Just for tonight, May, for Christ’s sake call me Jack. Just for tonight let me hear my own bloody name. And dig me out a half a dozen of those Panadol extras. My head is like a nest of bloody stinging hornets.’
on the scent
Thursday 21 August
The wind and the rain hadn’t left much behind. Three white camellias and a few reliable little violets had lifted demure faces to this morning’s sun, which hadn’t wasted time in creeping up on Mallawindy. By tomorrow the garden might be looking for shade.
Malcolm wandered his gravelled paths, selecting, rejecting until he had a small posy. He hadn’t been to Warran in over a month, but he was dressed for visiting today, and as sober as a judge; not that he’d ever had great faith in the sobriety of judges. He wound a rubber band around the stalks of his posy, washed his hands, then slipped into his new jacket, the tailor-made dark grey with silver buttons he’d worn to Bronwyn’s wedding. Quite sporty. It had set him back eight hundred dollars, but it concealed some of his bulges.
Monday’s Warran Advertiser was still on his bedside table, the headlines screaming:
IDENTICAL TWINS’ MOLARS NO MATCH. BODY NOT JACK’S
Samuel Burton’s X-rays when compared with those taken from the body found near Daree prove conclusively that it is not that of the missing Jack Burton, a police spokesman said yesterday.
The slim paper came out on Mondays and Fridays; it was full of items of no interest. Malcolm rarely kept newspapers for more than a day – except this one. It had Bethany’s birth notice in it. He loved the mother, thus he loved the as yet unsighted new daughter.
He’d glanced at the full-page write-up on Jack Burton and his twin brother, but it was old news to Malcolm. He had seen the dead man smoking, he had recognised his tyre-skidding U-turn, and he’d checked the skid marks in daylight, always envious of how Jack could turn a car by hitting his brakes and allowing the rear of the vehicle to slew in a half circle. The old teacher had never attempted it himself, though many of the town hoons had perfected the art and now coloured the roads with their rubber.
So, with Jack no longer dead there would be a few in town eager to collect their winnings. Malcolm had placed fifty dollars on his nose, but he’d allowed a decent interval to pass, not wishing to look too eager for his winnings.
‘Fifty dollars at five to one.’ He rubbed his palms together, soft pink palms, then he clapped his hands. He’d be delighted to take a little of his own back from young Bourke’s mean pocket. This morning the world was looking brighter, and not all of it due to the sun. His car keys and licence were again in his pocket.
After a mild confrontation with a passing bus, Malcolm had blessed his ten-year-old Falcon. It was of solid construction; its steering wheel a captive between hands, thighs and belly, the car had taken the jolt then continued on, in a near straight line, until all four wheels had come back to earth in the middle of a boxthorn hedge.
Then Jeff Rowan, the town dictator, had arrived on the scene and offered his breathalyser, and at a time when air was still at a premium. Malcolm had, of course, refused to blow, and for over a week now he had been without wheels.
‘Ah, the power of my distant solicitor,’ he’d quipped when licence and keys had been handed back at his door.
‘You’re a danger to yourself and everyone else on the road. I’ll be following you, Malcolm. Every time you look in your rear-view, I’ll be behind you, and next time you refuse to blow, I’ll run you in. One wrong move and you’ve done your licence, and I’ll see that you don’t get it back.’
‘I believe the term is police harassment, Constable.’
This morning Malcolm drove sedately to town, his posy of flowers on the passenger seat. When he parked in front of the Central Hotel, beneath his peppercorn tree, it was ten past eleven. Unable to absorb his smile he fronted up to the bar and Mick Bourke reached for a small glass.
‘Never before lunch, thank you, Mr Bourke. I have come for my winnings.’ Malcolm’s puffy little hand was out, but Mick Bourke had other ideas. Though Jack was no longer dead, it appeared that he was not yet alive.
‘Not today, Fletch. The cops still reckon he’s a goner. With all the publicity he’s had, they reckon he would have turned up, or the insurance blokes would have got him. They’ve circulated his dial all over Australia.’
‘I have seen him quite recently, Mr Bourke. I believe the money is mine.’
‘Yeah, but you got fuckin’ pink elephants running loose down your end of town,’ young Bob West commented from his corner.
‘Oh, nothing so commo
n, Mr West. The pink elephants with hobnail boots are waiting around some near corner for you, I fear. Good morning.’ Malcolm left. He drove to the cemetery, one eye on his rear-view mirror.
Alcohol had not touched his lips while his wife and son had lived. He never came to their graves with the smell of brandy on his breath, thus his visits to the Mallawindy cemetery were rare, and always morning visits.
JOHN KELVIN FLETCHER, BORN 1954. DIED 1968.
His bright and beautiful son, who had grasped the world by its tail, had been stolen from him by this town. So fast. A healthy teenager one day, and dead within the week. Filthy, diseased little town.
And his wife. JILLIAN MAREE FLETCHER.
Always of nervous disposition, poor Jillian had taken her own life. She’d jumped from the Mallawindy bridge with enough weights tied to her dressing gown belt to hold her down. No one had seen her jump, but the river, cleaner, clearer back then, had given her up the following morning – unlike Amy O’Rouke. From the bridge Jillian’s dark hair and her pink dressing gown had been visible to a drover herding his flock of sheep across the bridge.
Malcolm had sucked on his first bottle on the evening of his son’s funeral. He had taken up the brandy bottle his wife kept in her pantry for cooking and medicinal purposes, and found it to be very good medicine. Then he’d slept for the first time since his son had died. Not until awoken by the then local lawman, Bob Johnson, had he been aware that Jillian was not beside him in the bed, but had wandered away in the night carrying the two flat irons they’d used as doorstops. The three days of waiting for her funeral was all it had taken to alter Malcolm’s status from sober husband and father to childless widower with his bottle.
Poor, grief-crazed Jillian. He should have seen it coming, should have found some way to comfort her, but his own grief had been too blinding.
A month after they’d arrived in this town she’d begged him to leave, pleaded with him to take her home. ‘No colour,’ she’d said. ‘It’s grey. It’s all grey, Mal.’