Salt and Blood

by Peter Corris

  ‘This was when?’

  ‘First thing this morning. I saw them drinking in the Sea Breeze this arvo. Probably staying there. Should, anyway, they were that pissed.’

  ‘How much did you give him for the board?’

  ‘Fair price. Four hundred. I’ll get five. Business. Speaking of which …’

  ‘Bluey?’

  ‘Yes, Rog?’

  With a wetsuit vest in each hand, Roger had escorted one of the customers to the counter. I thanked Bluey and left the shop. The music hotted up as I reached the footpath.

  The Sea Breeze was the furthest away of the two hotels but only a hundred metres or so and I set out for it. Two men stepped out from a fast-food shop doorway and blocked my path.

  ‘Mr Hardy?’

  I was anxious to get to the hotel and I sidestepped and tried to keep moving. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Just a minute, sir. We’d like to have a word with you.’

  19

  They introduced themselves as detectives, Loomis and Price from Swansea who’d been contacted by Kevin Sherrin. They bought me a coffee in the fast-food joint and we sat down at a bench under an awning on the footpath. Loomis, the older of the two, lit a cigarette.

  ‘Understand you’re looking for Kevin’s missus?’

  ‘His ex, yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Having any luck?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Mind telling us what you were doing in the surf shop?’

  I had to think fast. If Rod was drinking there was a better than even chance he’d meet any challenge with violence. If he had dope on him he could be in more trouble than he was already. If he and Glen were still holed up in the hotel, the last thing I needed was the company of this pair.

  ‘Bloke’s a surfer,’ I said. ‘I was just asking where the best waves were around here.’

  Price grinned. ‘And what did you learn?’

  ‘I was told right here.’

  Loomis nodded. ‘That’d be Bluey, all bullshit. Is there anything we can do to help you?’

  ‘Don’t think so, thanks. I was just going to have a drink at the pub over there and keep looking. Only one drink, mind. Which one d’you recommend?’

  ‘The Sea Breeze,’ Loomis said.

  Price said, ‘The Commercial.’

  I finished the coffee and fiddled with the styrofoam cup. ‘Might have to make it two drinks, then. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll tell Kevin you made the offer.’

  ‘Do that,’ Loomis said. They got up and moved away. I watched them, praying they wouldn’t check on my story in the surf shop. I breathed easier when I saw that in the time we’d been talking the place had closed. I set off for the Sea Breeze and took a quick look back when I was halfway there. No cops in sight.

  The Sea Breeze was a low, rambling fifties-style building in cream brick with some later additions in red brick. Small windows in the older part, more glass in the new bit. First stop was the car park and there was no sign of the Pajero. I swore and then spotted a sign indicating the residents’ car park. I dodged around a couple of cars pulling out and followed the sign around the side of the building. The residential section, a row of six units, was at the back built in the red brick style and was a motel to all intents and purposes.

  The Pajero stood outside the third door from the left but it didn’t look much like the vehicle I was used to. It was dusty and travel-stained and there were severe dents in the front left mudguard and rear right, and a long scrape down the passenger side. The rear-vision mirror on that side was missing and the radio aerial stood at a crazy angle. I took a look inside. The interior was a mess of clothes, bottles, cans and fast food containers.

  ‘Glen,’ I said. ‘This isn’t you.’

  I tried the handle of the motel room door and it swung in. The curtains were drawn over all windows and the room was dark. I peered into the gloom with my damaged slow-to-adjust-to-a-change-of-light vision.

  The room smelled of alcohol and sweat and marijuana. Glen lay naked on the bed on her back, her pale breasts flat on her chest and her mouth open so that she snored slightly. Rod was fully dressed and sitting on the end of the bed rolling a joint. The ceiling fan was making an insistent hum and I’d opened the door quietly so that he hadn’t noticed. His movements had the clumsiness that comes with being stoned or drunk or both and paying too close attention to what’s being done.

  He hadn’t had a shave in a while and his hair was matted and hanging in his eyes, not a help to the joint rolling. I stepped inside and spoke quietly.

  ‘Rod.’

  He reacted as if a cannon had gone off in the room. His fist closed around the makings and he sprang to his feet. His eyes were wide and mad in his contorted face and saliva bubbled around the corners of his mouth as he gaped at me. It looked as if he didn’t recognise me.

  ‘It’s Cliff, Rod.’

  He let out a roar, part pain, part anger, part fear, and rushed towards me. I was caught in the narrow opening between the door and a breakfast table and had nowhere to go. He dropped his shoulder and hit me mid-chest with all his weight and leverage and momentum. I was thrown back against the half-open door. My head jerked back and smacked full square into the heel of the door. I heard the sound and felt the impact, but then everything slid away into a reddish haze as my knees gave way and the floor rushed up to meet me.

  I wasn’t fully unconscious but close to it, too close to move or speak and my eyes kept fluttering closed. I was aware of sounds and movement, but my chest hurt and I was fighting for breath. I realised that I was lying face down and that years of ingrained stink from the synthetic carpet was filling my nostrils. I rolled over. Everything hurt but I could breathe and I managed to keep my eyes open. Turning my head to the side was agony but I did it. Glen was still on the bed. She hadn’t moved, but Rod had gone.

  Good, I thought. Go where you like, you fucker. I’m finished with you.

  When I could suck in a full breath I decided that I didn’t have any broken ribs, cracked at worst. I levered myself up against the table until I was sitting. I remembered reading somewhere that with a fractured skull you get bleeding in the ears. Feeling silly, I probed them with a finger. Nothing. I reached gingerly to the back of my head and felt the blood in my hair and the tenderness underneath it. How do they check if a footballer’s concussed? Ask him if he knows what day it is. I thought I did. I was pretty sure.

  After a while I crawled across to the bathroom, pulled myself upright and used a towel to clean the back of my head. It was still bleeding and I held the towel hard against it until it stopped. I washed my face and hands and looked at myself in the mirror. You’ve looked better, I thought. And you’ve looked a hell of a lot worse. I drank some rusty tasting water that gave me an idea. Clutching at uprights I worked my way back into the room. An uncapped bottle of the Black Douglas sat on the bedside table near Glen’s outstretched hand, along with two grimy glasses. I wiped the top on my sleeve and took a swig. It tasted better than the rusty water, much better. I took another swig and felt the warmth run through me, past the aching chest to my still wobbly legs. It didn’t do anything for the pain in my head, but you can’t have everything.

  I put the bottle down and sat on the bed next to the woman I’d once shared just about everything with. The sheets were a tangled mess, stained with sweat and spilled liquor. Her mouth was closed now and she’d stopped snoring, but her immaculate grooming had vanished and she looked ten years older than when I’d last seen her. Her hair was disordered, greasy and dull, and her skin was dry and flaky. I reached out and put a strand of hair back somewhere near where it belonged.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Glen,’ I said. ‘It’ll be all right.’

  Slowly and painfully I tidied the room, hanging up clothes and emptying bins. I rinsed the streaky glasses, got rid of the roaches and threw out the bottles and cans. I opened a window to disperse the dope fumes. I wet a towel and bathed Glen’s face and wiped the sweat from her body. She stirred b
ut still didn’t wake up. I straightened the sheet under her as best I could and covered her with the top sheet. Glen’s overnight bag and laptop were in the closet and her handbag was beside the bed. There was no sign of a bag for Rod or any of his clothes.

  The effort made me dizzy. I sat and waited for the spell to pass. It took a while, quite a while.

  When I felt steady I found Kevin Sherrin’s card in my wallet and dialled his mobile.

  ‘Sherrin.’

  ‘This is Hardy. I’ve found Glen. I’ve got her with me now.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes and no. She’s been on a bender. She’s sleeping it off.’

  ‘What about the bloke?’

  ‘He took off.’

  There was a pause and I thought he was going to ask about the how and why of that. I was glad he didn’t. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Broken Beach, that’s …’

  ‘I know where it is. I’m coming up.’

  ‘What about your course?’

  ‘Fuck it. I’ll be there by midnight, depending on the traffic. Where are you exactly?’

  I told him. I didn’t particularly want him to come but clearly there was no stopping him and Glen was going to need someone around for all the pain and guilt and horror she was going to suffer. She was still sleeping soundly so I slipped out, walked back to my car and drove it to the room, parking it where the Pajero had been. There were paracetamol tablets, a toothbrush and toothpaste in my bag. I had a shower, changed my shirt and took three of the tablets with another slug of Scotch. The wound on the back of my head had stopped bleeding but it was throbbing. My chest and left side were bruised where Rod’s shoulder had hit me.

  I got a can of Coke, a container of orange juice and a sandwich from vending machines near the units and called it dinner. Then I slumped in a chair beside the bed and fell into a doze.

  ‘Rodney!’

  I hurt my head against the back of the chair as Glen’s voice jerked me awake. She was sitting up, gripping the sheet and staring wildly around her. The room was dark with just a dull glow coming from the bathroom. I went across to the bed.

  ‘Glen, it’s Cliff.’

  ‘Cliff. Oh God. Oh God. What? Where’s Rodney?’

  ‘He’s gone. Lie back. Take it easy.’

  ‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘In the Pajero.’

  She fell back against the pillows. ‘He’s a terrible driver. He’ll kill himself.’

  Good riddance, I thought.

  Her eyes closed and I thought for a moment she’d fallen asleep but she said, ‘I feel like death. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead.’

  ‘You don’t. You’ll be okay. Just take it a step at a time. Can you make it to the shower?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  I’d put the Scotch out of sight in my bag but I had the pain-killers to hand. I broke two out of the foil and gave them to her with a glass of water. She swallowed them down and lay back limply. ‘We drank and drank.’

  ‘I know. But it’s over now. You kicked it once, you can do it again.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She was negative, passive, compliant. I got her to the shower, stripped the cover from the soap and unscrewed the top of the miniature shampoo bottle. She was in there a long time; too long. I went in and she was just standing under the lukewarm water, staring at the tiles. I turned the water off, dried her and got her into the kimono she used as a dressing-gown. In the kimono, with a towel around her hair, she looked something like the Glen I knew. All except her eyes, and they were dark, hopeless hollows.

  20

  Glen drank four cups of milky, sweet tea, using all the sachets the management provided. She also ate the two lots of biscuits. She dressed in jeans and a sloppy joe, used the hair dryer and we went for a walk on the beach as we’d done often before on a similar beach not many kilometres north. But this was different; we weren’t lovers now and never would be again. The question was, where was she going from here?

  We took off our shoes and paddled along in the shallows. There was just enough moon and starlight for me to see by. The water was cold but Glen didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I needed someone,’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t go on alone. And I thought he might be the right person, having some of the same problems.’

  The water was too cold for me and I steered her onto the sand but I let her keep talking.

  ‘I gave him the computer lesson and he took to it quickly. He’s very bright. Then we made love. He was good at that as well. I was happy for the first time in ages. I felt strong, in control.’

  My feet were freezing. We stopped and sat down and I put my shoes and socks on. She didn’t. She hugged herself as if to keep warm although the air wasn’t that cold. I thought it might be the beginning of the shakes that were bound to come, but it wasn’t.

  ‘So we went out and had lunch and it all felt so normal and nice. I felt normal and nice. Like an ordinary person, not like a fucking alcoholic.’

  ‘So you had a drink.’

  ‘Two. We had two glasses of house white each. But Rodney bought a bottle of Scotch when I wasn’t looking and we started in on that when we got back to the flat. Then it seemed like a good idea to go away for a while, to forget about all this shit. So we did. We collected some of my clothes and took off. He said Redhead beach was one of his favourite places in the world. And I said …’

  I knew how it would have gone. Swapping stories, finding parallels, drawing closer until it seemed it was all meant to be. And the alcohol would have helped, broken down barriers, released inhibitions, provided punctuation points; lubricated the possibilities.

  The shakes started with the tears and she sank to her knees on the sand. I put my arm around her and felt the convulsions surge through her and heard her grinding her teeth. The spasm didn’t last long and she wanted to walk again. Standing up made me grunt with the pain in my chest and side. Glen didn’t notice. We went back the way we’d come and she told me how the money had started to run out, partly through Rod buying dope, and how they’d ended up broke in the Ti-Tree caravan park. How Rod had insisted on driving and banged up the car.

  We found a Nite Owl shop and bought more tea bags, Coca-Cola and chocolate—comfort food. On the way we began to talk about the Harkness case. I told her what had happened at my end, including my encounter with Warren and my suspicions about why he and his mother had hired us.

  ‘Bastards,’ Glen said. ‘Anyway, I suppose we’re off it now.’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t answer if you don’t want to, but did you get anything out of him about what sent him off the rails. Did he say anything about killing his wife and child?’

  I’d told her about getting this information from the ex-cop Hughes and Jerry Weir and how this had upped the concern for her safety being felt by me and Kevin Sherrin. She’d taken it on board, including the mention of Sherrin, without much reaction. She was still trapped by her own demons. But she answered the question.

  ‘No. Nothing like that. But he hated her. She was promiscuous. I located an old girlfriend of hers who gave me a list of her lovers. I’ve got it on file. God, that reminds me. Rodney dropped my laptop. I have to see if it’s still working.’

  A good sign that, concern about possessions. We hurried back to the units. Glen pulled the computer out, unzipped the bag and turned it on. It booted up smoothly and the screen glowed. Glen sat back.

  ‘That’s good. For what it’s worth.’

  ‘You’d better check that you can access the files.’

  She tapped away and a file came up. I leaned over her shoulder.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s that list of names I told you about—blokes who’d fucked Lucille.’

  I ran my eye down the list. There were seven names—Lucas, MacDonald, Bartoli, Ellsworth, Seagram, Sexton—none of them meant anything to me. Glen turned the machine off and put it back in its case without bothering to close the
zipper. Her eyes were set in that hopeless, far-seeing, looking-at-nothing gaze.

  I hadn’t told her about Sherrin coming up. Maybe this was the time. ‘Glen, Kevin Sherrin’s on his way here. Should arrive soon.’

  She sat on the bed with her shoulders hunched. ‘Why?’

  ‘He cares about you.’

  ‘Could’ve fooled me. No, that’s not true. He’s a good man, Kevin. The only thing wrong with him is that bloody job. Have you ever thought about it, Cliff? What this sort of work does to people? The crap we see. The lies we listen to. The shit that bubbles up from down below.’

  I put the jug on and got set to make tea for her and coffee for me. I tossed her a chocolate bar and she let it fall on the bed. ‘I try not to think that way,’ I said. ‘Sometimes we help get things straightened out.’

  ‘Not often.’

  She was determined on sliding down and there wasn’t a lot I was going to be able to do about it. I made the drinks and put them on the table, forcing her to get off the bed at least, stand upright, take in a breath. She reached down and picked up the chocolate, ripped it open and ate a couple of squares. Still standing, she drank some tea and pulled a face.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, ‘shit, shit, shit. I want a real drink.’

  As if on cue, a knock came on the door. I opened it and Sherrin, in his suit but looking weary, walked in.

  ‘Hello, Kev,’ Glen said. ‘Wouldn’t a have a drink on you, would you?’

  Sherrin looked at me.

  ‘A bad patch,’ I said. ‘She’ll get through it.’

  ‘Don’t talk about me like that! Maybe she won’t fucking get through it.’

  ‘I’ll take you back to Sydney,’ Sherrin said. ‘You can go to an AA meeting as soon as we get there.’

  ‘At three a.m?’

  ‘Yes, at three a.m.’

  Glen squared her shoulders and looked from one of us to the other as if she was seeing us for the first time. But at least she was seeing us and the blank state had gone. I got some inkling of the power of the AA approach. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think that’d be best. I think it’s that or …’