Whipbird

by Robert Drewe

  Some time after 5 a.m. he’d eventually fallen deeply asleep, and woken at noon in an empty bed, in an empty house. On his phone Charlotte had left an SMS of three emoji symbols: a champagne bottle, a stupefied face with a lolling tongue and Xs for eyes, and a horse – and the crisp message Gone riding. Thought I’d let you chill.

  He and the cop chick stood like castaways on a gravelly island of discarded drink cans and KFC wrappers between the freeway and a paddock of scrubby wattles and burned-out tree stumps. A lone cow was poking its head through the paddock fence to eat the apparently superior grass on the other side. An egret-looking bird pecked around its feet. Curious and gleeful faces peered at Liam from passing cars. How delicious to see this chump caught by the cops.

  ‘This is the middle of nowhere,’ he groaned. ‘What happens to my car?’

  ‘Enter the police vehicle. We’re going to search your car for drugs. When we’re done here in a couple of hours we’ll transport you to the nearest police station. You’ll need to arrange for someone to pick you up and retrieve your car.’

  Jesus Christ. His parents would go apeshit.

  ‘I strongly advise that this person isn’t someone else who has taken ecstasy in the past twenty-four hours.’

  13

  People reeled out of pubs in front of Hugh’s BMW. Senior citizens in tourist rural-wear – ironed jeans and leather cowboy hats, like outback drovers on a big night out – shambled out of restaurants and bars, shouting cheerio and bound for their motels. Loud groups of teenagers were also at large, jostling each other across the road against the traffic lights.

  Testily, Hugh wondered what all these numbskulls were doing in Ballarat on a Sunday night. Eureka Stockade buffs, here for the anniversary? He strongly doubted it. Eureka didn’t have any meaning for these idiots, for anyone, any more. The fate of Miner with Pan and Shovel epitomised everything. Stolen, wrecked, dumped in the creek by some vandal. Too damaged to be salvaged and repaired. He expected there’d be an insurance battle to fight.

  The loss was deeply depressing and infuriating. The bitterness behind its theft and destruction! A family vandal!

  Unable to find a parking space outside the police station, he drove around the block one more time. Braking and accelerating impatiently. Shit, shit, shit. He was right out of tolerance. The Yips’ exodus, so coolly polite but definite, had capped a dreadful day. The Yip woman turned out to be terrified of Australia’s legendary wildlife, of which there was precious little remaining locally, and none of it particularly threatening.

  His inevitable droll question, ‘Have you never seen or heard a cow before, Mrs Yip?’ put the sealer on it. Silently, like a retreating marquee, she’d departed the premises, followed by her shrugging husband and impassive son. But Liam’s sorry state of affairs, whatever that turned out to be, might yet eclipse the bloody stolen Nolan and Yip disasters.

  His head was beginning to pound and as he turned a corner a little too fast he narrowly avoided hitting a dreadlocked cyclist, minus the legally required helmet and lights, as Hugh loudly pointed out to him, who loomed beside him, thumped the side of the car, screamed ‘Fuck you, yuppie!’ and gave him the finger.

  On his fourth circuit of the block – thank God! – a space suddenly revealed itself in front of the station and he parked quickly and went inside to collect his son.

  A pale and chastened Liam was sitting on a bench in a far corner of the room under some Missing Persons and Bushfire Warning posters. Four uniformed men and a policewoman chatted at desks while a young ginger-haired cop distributed Big Macs from a paper bag. No one looked up as Hugh entered.

  ‘Is yours the thickshake or the coffee, Robbo?’ asked the young cop. He had the beige skin and pinprick freckles of a classic redhead and looked like a keen schoolboy currying favour with the football captain.

  ‘The frappé mocha,’ an older man grunted. ‘Not that watery shit.’

  ‘Mine’s the shake,’ said the female officer.

  ‘I’ve come for my son,’ Hugh announced to the room. He forced a smile. Half apologetic (I’m sorry this foolish boy has bothered you), half no-nonsense (but let’s fix this problem now). ‘I’m not sure what he’s alleged to have done.’

  Faces looked up slowly from the vital police business of extracting burgers from cardboard boxes and greaseproof paper. Expressionless slow-motion faces, with the customary underlay of annoyance and impatience at the approved order of things being disrupted by a civilian.

  Ease up on the deadpan, guys, Hugh thought, not for the first time. Give it a break. The police poker face was why he enjoyed getting coppers in the witness box. Five minutes and he’d wipe the deadpan expression from their dials.

  ‘Hugh Cleary,’ he boomed. Any recognition? Maybe it would smooth events if he gave the desk sergeant his card. Couldn’t hurt to point out the legal connection. Stress the legal connection, in fact. So he did so. ‘Winters Cleary Cohen, Melbourne,’ he added.

  The sergeant managed to place Hugh’s card on the desk beside his Big Mac while elaborately declining to look at it. At the same time a plain-clothes cop materialised from a back room, gun on hip, his biceps and chest bulging out of his red polo shirt. Obviously a detective, a gym junkie like they were these days. Victorian detectives watched too many American cop shows, in Hugh’s opinion. He gave him his card as well.

  ‘Hello there,’ he enthused. ‘We’ve probably met. I work with the Crime Squad all the time. I’ll get my son out of your hair now.’

  The detective looked Hugh up and down, grunted, grabbed a burger, left the card behind, brushed past him and exited the room.

  ‘It’s me you need to talk to,’ said a little female officer, appearing abruptly beside him. She could have been fourteen. She was much shorter than his daughters. As always in the case of policewomen, he thought, What happens in a pub brawl? In a riot? When biker gangs resist arrest? When they fight you? Do you just pull out your gun?

  This blonde girl-child said, ‘Your son failed a drug-driving test. Sign here, sir. Here are his car keys. Expect to hear from the court.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ he lied. ‘Right up my alley.’ Drugs! He frowned at Liam. ‘Let’s go.’

  On their way out he suddenly remembered something else. ‘By the way,’ he announced to the room, ‘I want to report the theft and wilful destruction of a valuable painting by Sidney Nolan. You might have heard of it: Miner with Pan and Shovel? It was stolen from me and dumped in Kungadgee Creek.’

  Silence. They all stared at him with blank, disinterested expressions, and at each other, and someone coughed. Did he detect smirks?

  In a languid aside to his cronies, the older cop said, ‘The wife does a bit of painting. Not bad either. She’s done a watercolour of Lake Burrumbeet. I keep telling her, “Have an exhibition, Janice. Support me in my retirement.”’ He screwed up his hamburger wrapper and lobbed it casually, basketball-style, into a bin.

  Hugh glanced around, seeking a response. Finally, the desk sergeant said loudly, ‘One offence at a time. The painting-in-the-creek department is off duty tonight. Come back tomorrow.’

  About to protest, Hugh hesitated. But his shamefaced son, avoiding his eyes, muttered, ‘Come on,’ and trailed after him.

  Hugh began mustering words grave enough for the drive home: suitable words for Liam’s dressing-down. Along the lines of how bitterly disappointed he was, and how he and Mum expected more of him, and whether Liam had thought of the serious consequences of his actions. How a charge involving drugs, for God’s sake, could blight a career and damn his life forever, and prevent him getting a visa to enter America some time in the future. In a nutshell, did Liam realise the import of a drugs charge?

  Strangely, when they reached the street another older, serious-looking policeman was standing by the car. Hugh nodded to him but the cop didn’t respond.

  Until Hugh started the ignition. Then the officer loomed. Pounced. Leaned in the car window. ‘Turn off the ignition. This vehicle yours?�
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  ‘Of course,’ Hugh said.

  The way the cop’s heavy cheeks hung down reminded Hugh of Droopy, the gloomy dog from the Saturday-morning TV cartoons of his childhood. Allowed only at the weekend. Despite his lugubrious countenance, Droopy always prevailed over the chaos he created. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were favourites, too. Tom and Jerry not so much. The hilarious way Daffy’s beak spun around his head when he lost his temper.

  ‘For a start, you’re in a disabled-parking space,’ the cop said. ‘You disabled? I don’t see a DPP sticker. That’s an offence.’

  ‘Sorry, officer,’ Hugh apologised. ‘I just nipped into the station for a second to pick up my son. The other officers will vouch for us. We’ll clear the space right away.’

  ‘The positive drug-test offender?’

  ‘That’s yet to be decided. There’s a further laboratory process to go through. And due legal process in court.’ Hugh wasn’t standing for this nonsense. ‘I’m a lawyer, as it happens.’

  ‘Step out of the car, please, sir.’

  For Christ’s sake! Oh, for that fucking QC ticket right now! He dived a hand into his wallet to proffer another business card but for some fucking reason a wad of fucking jammed-together credit cards sprang out instead and scattered at his feet.

  As he scrabbled in the gutter for the dropped cards, the cop ordered, ‘Stand up, sir. Stay right there.’

  What was the most humiliating, taking the breath-alcohol test in public view, under a bloody streetlight, for Christ’s sake, blowing into the device in front of his son, or what happened next: the raised eyebrows and satisfied look on Droopy’s dewlaps when he saw the figures on the digital display?

  ‘Give me your car keys, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll get someone to park it legally. So the unfortunate cripples can have their space back.’

  Hugh was indignant. He couldn’t bear to look at Liam. ‘I haven’t had much to drink today, officer.’ The booze had been well spaced, hadn’t it? ‘Only a couple of wines at an important family event. A rare event. A 160th celebration, actually. To do with the Eureka anniversary. A big deal in this town, as you know.’

  Hadn’t he eaten a couple of meals in between? Not really. What with hosting the celebrations, and the fuss over the stolen Nolan, and the Yips’ visit, he must have forgotten to eat lunch. And had he eaten breakfast this morning? It was so long ago, he couldn’t remember. He’d been steadily drinking wine for two days.

  Snatches of old DUI cases flooded into his head. All those times he’d defended showbiz and football identities who’d failed the breath test the morning after a big session at the casino or the pub – failed it even after eight hours sleep. Unsuccessfully defended many of them.

  ‘Point O-seven,’ said the breathalyser cop, firmly.

  Out of instinct, Hugh said, ‘I’ll be disputing that, of course.’ He felt faint and shaky.

  ‘Let’s take the test again inside the station,’ said the officer contentedly. His droopy cheeks seemed to have lifted. There was a spring in his step.

  It had all happened so quickly some of the cops hadn’t finished their burgers. They weren’t expressionless now. They smirked as Hugh was breathalysed again. Someone finished his drink with an elaborate, drawn-out slurp.

  ‘Nice family,’ one of them said loudly.

  The BMW was already gone, spirited away somewhere. Outside the police station the traffic was dwindling. Pedestrian traffic, too, had dried up. Neither teenagers nor senior citizens were roaming now. Father and son stood at the curb in confused silence. What could they say to each other? No taxis cruised past.

  As they walked off, looking for a cab rank, a small dark-skinned man, possibly Indian or Sri Lankan, wearing a scarf and a tight belted overcoat, odd clothing for the last day of spring, for Australia, for the Southern Hemisphere, hurried up to them while they waited at a corner for the lights to change.

  ‘Excuse me sirs, may I ask if you are Christians?’

  ‘What? Why?’ Hugh grunted, turning away.

  ‘Do you know God personally?’ the man asked.

  ‘Not personally,’ muttered Hugh. Piss off, he thought.

  ‘Don’t depend on your feelings, sir.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Hugh grunted. ‘Listen, we’re very tired and I’m sorry we don’t have time to chat.’

  ‘Although feelings are valid and important, they don’t determine what is true,’ the man in the overcoat continued.

  ‘Quite right,’ Hugh sighed. ‘But my son and I have had a rotten day and we’re trying to catch a cab. Anyway, we’re Catholics.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Liam said.

  The man looked earnestly from one to the other. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said, and did the side-to-side head bobble to match his comic accent. ‘Sirs, relax. It doesn’t matter what brand of faith we have. Are you accustomed to aeroplane travel?’

  Hugh didn’t answer. Would the bloody lights never change?

  ‘If we’re transported by an aeroplane, we must put our faith in the aeronautical construction. Our feelings don’t at all influence whether the plane will stay safely up in the sky.’

  ‘Correct. Bye-bye now.’

  ‘In the same way as we trust the plane not to plummet to earth and incinerate us in our seats, we can rely on almighty God. We can trust what He has promised us in the Bible and not depend on the way we feel.’

  ‘Never a truer word,’ Hugh said to the man, as the lights finally changed. Ignoring the proffered religious pamphlets, he grabbed Liam’s elbow and hurried him across the road.

  ‘I’m not a Presbyterian either,’ Liam muttered, as they reached the curb. ‘I’m an agnostic.’

  An idling taxi appeared to be waiting for them, but then sped off defiantly as they hastened towards it. Another cab approached but its

  ‘For hire’ light maddeningly snapped off as it reached them, the driver ignoring their imploring gesticulations.

  Hugh swore under his breath. A sudden throaty rumble made them turn as two bikers on throbbing Harleys rode slowly past, their bikes and patches displaying the Eureka flag of the Southern Cross. In their wake, a threatening procession of thirty or more bikes, three abreast, thundered by. When the rumbling finally faded, the street seemed far quieter than before. A ghost town.

  ‘An agnostic, eh?’ Hugh said to his son. ‘Bully for you.’

  14

  The boy in black stole a barbecue. A Bushman Hotplate Commercial Model 1200 BBQ. His latest provocative act of the weekend. Again, like the thefts and acts of vandalism, no one noticed. Of the dozen portable cookers standing side by side in the party paddock, it was the farthest from the house and what remained of the party. Used last at supper to grill spicy slices of chorizo, its four cast-iron burners were still warm to the touch. However, the steering handle was set well away from its hotplates.

  The team of young cooks had cleaned all the barbecues, lined them up together to be collected by the hire company next day, sunk a few beers and gone home. The northerly wind was picking up and the warm-weather moths and beetles battering the verandah lights seemed to be declaring the Australian summer officially under way.

  In the darkness, out of sight of the dozen people from interstate who intended to stay another night at Whipbird and hit the highway fresh and sober on Monday morning, and who were now mingling loudly in a decidedly overpartied group on the verandah, Nicholas simply walked up to the Bushman Hotplate and pushed it across the party paddock and into the vineyard.

  He could hear the gusts of conversation and laughter as his new family – family! – those smug, annoying, yuppie strangers who were so fucking confident about everything, polished off the remaining wine supplies. They certainly liked a fucking drink, the Clearys.

  Old people’s music began playing. The fucking Beatles or something. A few old farts were singing along. Fucking ‘Yellow Submarine’.

  Roughened by all the socialising feet over the weekend, the paddock was now worn down and grassless. Over the clods of eroded earth and
gravel, the barbecue’s wheels bumped and lurched and swivelled and its gas tanks lurched about, but with a little effort Nicholas pushed the barbecue deep into a narrow corridor between the vines.

  15

  As if he were programmed to undertake the serious mission of hailing a cab – this task, and only this one, until the end of time – Hugh led them through town in tense silence. Eyes fixed on the scant traffic, he frowned and shook his head at the gall of each passing non-taxi for not meeting his transport requirements.

  His misdemeanour keeping him silent, trailing morosely behind his father, following the repetitive squeak of the vigneron’s rural footwear, the compulsory R.M. Williams boots, Liam was silent for five or six blocks, until finally he burst out, ‘This is bullshit, Dad! Phone one now!’

  Still in silence, Hugh considered his son’s pale, anxious face for a moment. Suddenly a drug-addicted stranger’s face. The face of the junkie-to-be. He imagined him stealing TVs and car radios and old ladies’ handbags for heroin cash; then, in an ice-crazed, axe-wielding domestic siege, shot by cops. He saw him in the dock, in prison, bashed, homeless, wizened and toothless, dead in an alley.

  His phone? Of course, his phone was back in his car, in police custody. Shit! Would he walk all the way back to the station, face the cops’ disdain for a third time, and wheedle the phone out of them? Not likely. He’d get it tomorrow. Requisition it, if necessary. Sue the hamburger-eating bastards.

  ‘Use your phone,’ he grunted to his son the stranger.

  But Liam’s phone had run out of charge at the police station.

  They stood together on the curb, staring into the night. Bugs tapped and crackled on the streetlights. Hugh looked around the deserted streetscape. Of course the nation’s public telephones had suddenly disappeared from the streets a few years ago. Overnight they’d evaporated. Postboxes were on the way out, too. And taxis, obviously.