‘And who are you, darling?’ he asked, in an almost gentle voice.
Gabriel was too terrified to speak.
Mahoney used the blade to lift Gabriel’s fringe from his face. He whistled, a low catcall, and rested a hand on Gabriel’s thigh, lightly massaging it.
‘Hey,’ he said, quietly. ‘Don’t you be frightened, gorgeous. Viola and I are just talking.’
Gabriel had no idea what the man wanted but knew that Viola was in trouble. He began to cry and squeezed his eyes together.
Mahoney tapped the boy on the chin to get his attention. ‘I’m not here to hurt anyone, not today.’ He reached across the bed to where Viola lay, patted her on the hip and drew her dressing gown down. He picked up a diamond bracelet sitting on the bedside table and held it to the light. ‘This will have to do for what Else owes me.’
He put the bracelet in his pocket, looking over at Gabriel. ‘Hey, Viola. I’m coming back next week. Same time. You have one of your girls stay back for me. Unless you’re willing to step up yourself.’ He tousled Gabriel’s hair. ‘What a lovely looking thing. You do the right thing by me, Viola – if not I’ll have to get in touch with the old Welfare molls. They’ll fucking treasure this kid.’ He slowly stroked Gabriel’s head. ‘Either them or someone else will.’
The boy listened to the man’s heavy footsteps walking back along the hallway. He waited until he heard the side door close and jumped onto Viola’s bed. She reached out to him and started rocking him gently in her arms, kissing him on the forehead. She wiped the blood from her face and looked up at the ceiling.
When Viola heard Johnny return to the house she called him into her room. It had taken her precious little time to realise what she had to do. Gabriel lay in her bed, sleeping peacefully. Johnny could see the bruise across one eye and the fine cut below the other.
‘Fuck! What’s happened to you, Vee.’
‘Nothing I’m about to talk to you about.’
‘You will so,’ he protested. ‘Someone’s hurt you. Who the fuck done this?’
Viola took Johnny’s hand in hers, the only show of affection she’d provided him in twenty-five years. ‘Listen, Johnny. There’s something important I need you to do. You can’t afford to get it wrong.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘So, will you listen? Please?’
Johnny wasn’t able to listen. He was full of rage. ‘Fuck this. You’ve been given a belt and I need to know who by.’
She gripped his hand. ‘Shut up!’ She pointed to her bruised eye. ‘Do you reckon somebody would do this to me if they thought I had a hard man running the house with me? It’s not what you do, Johnny, and never has been.’
Johnny dropped his head in shame.
She squeezed his hand a second time. ‘Hey, it’s not your fault. I never employed you to be a heavy. You’re better than that. Police are supposed to look after me. I pay them enough, but they’ve grown fat and lazy on handouts. I need to be able to rely on you. Can I do that?’
‘Yes, Vee. Of course you can.’
She reached into her dressing-gown pocket and handed Johnny an envelope.
‘There’s more than enough cash there. Book a hotel room in the city for me. A couple of nights should be enough. The Australia Hotel. There’s no sticky noses or riffraff. Then I want you to organise for my stuff – clothes, perfumes, anything personal – to be packed up in boxes.’
Gabriel sighed and rolled from his side onto his stomach. Viola went over to the bed and sat with him.
‘The boy’s things as well.’
‘And what will I do with them?’ Johnny asked.
‘Telephone Bobby Featherstone, the removalist, and pay him to move the boxes. Have him hold them until I’ve resettled me and the boy. I’ll be in touch with you when the time comes to deliver everything.’
‘Resettled? Are you going somewhere?’
Viola ignored the question and handed Johnny a bunch of keys. ‘These are for the doors, the money safe and the liquor cabinet.’
‘What am I supposed to do with them?’
‘Whatever you like. The house is yours, starting tomorrow. You can run it however you want to.’
‘I can’t run this place on my own.’
‘Of course you can. You’ve been here long enough, you know the business as well as I do. Even better than me when it comes to organisation. Besides, the girls love you, Johnny. You’ve never once laid a finger on any of them the whole time you’ve worked here. They trust you.’
‘But what about you? You’re running away from someone. I know it. I can’t believe you’d do that.’
Viola sat back. She felt beaten and worn out. ‘Don’t you be judging me. I’ve had enough. I’m too old to take on another battle.’
Gabriel moaned.
Viola moved across the bed, held his body to hers and cradled him until the boy settled. ‘I need you to get him out of here tonight. Can you take him to your place until tomorrow morning and I’ll come by and pick him up?’
‘Sure. The wife will fall in love with him.’
‘Good. And there’s one last thing I need you to do.’
‘Whatever you ask, Vee.’
‘You find Frank Slim for me. Tell him I have a job that needs doing in a hurry.’
Around midnight Viola walked through the backyard of a dingy boarding house and into the kitchen. An elderly man sat at a table reading a foreign-language newspaper. Viola recognised his face, having occasionally seen the man coming out of one of the local gambling clubs.
‘Des Mahoney?’ she asked. ‘We need his room. Now.’
The man pointed above his head. ‘Is here.’
She climbed the stairs, walked to the door at the end of the landing and turned to the man accompanying her. She nodded. He stepped in front of her and opened the door. The room stunk of cigarette smoke and piss. A kerosene lamp was burning on a table under a window, and empty beer bottles lined the mantle above a blocked fireplace. One wall of the room was covered with pictures of naked women. They’d been torn from magazines. Another wall was papered with clothing-catalogue images of girls, some teenagers, others much younger. Mahoney lay asleep on his bed, nursing an empty bottle. He was covered with a grubby sheet.
Viola walked over to the bed and shook him. ‘It’s wake-up time, Desmond.’
He didn’t move. She shook him more vigorously, stepped back and waited. Mahoney slowly opened one eye, then the other, and looked up. ‘What the fuck?’
‘I’ve come to introduce you to somebody, Des.’
Frank Slim stepped out of Viola’s shadow. He wore a black suit and tie and sported a crew cut. His dark skin was lined with fine wrinkles, uncommon for a man who never seemed to worry. Des sat up. He was naked. Mahoney knew without having to ask that the man standing alongside Viola could only be Frank Slim. He swallowed the lump in his throat.
‘What do you want, Viola?’ His voice quivered.
She answered by giving the slightest nod to Slim. He stepped forward and smashed Mahoney in the mouth with a closed fist, knocking his front teeth into his throat. A second punch broke his nose. Slim dragged Mahoney from the bed, knocked him to the floor and systematically kicked him on both sides of his rib cage, his back, arms and legs. Mahoney collapsed in front of the fireplace. Slim buried the heel of a boot into Mahoney’s collarbone, dislocating it. Mahoney spat a mouthful of blood and several teeth onto the floor.
Viola raised a hand in the air and Slim stood back. She picked up the kerosene lamp. Mahoney’s nose had shifted across his face. He looked up at Viola, spitting more blood.
‘You fucking bitch. Cunts like you always need a man to do your dirty work.’
‘I thought you were an ignorant bastard, Des. But you’re so right. I do need a man.’ Viola winked. ‘What would you have a woman do after you’ve beaten her? Call the police? You know what I think, Des? If I were
to get in touch with the coppers and tell them what you did to me, it might cost you as much as a round of drinks and a couple of cartons of cigarettes for them to forget the whole thing. Well, you can fuck that. What’s happening right now in this shithole is my dirty work, delivered by my hired help. And guess what, Des? I wonder if you know who will be paying? I’ll give you a clue. It won’t be me.’
‘Get fucked, slut.’
Frank Slim waited for Viola to lower her hand. He moved quickly. Neither Mahoney nor Viola saw the flick-knife emerge from the sleeve of his suit pocket and slice a piece out of Mahoney’s left ear. Before Des could scream out in pain, Slim swung a leg back and kicked Mahoney between the legs, expelling the air from his body. He gasped as the pain shot into his throat. Mahoney vomited, pissed himself and passed out.
Viola turned to Frank Slim. ‘Wait downstairs.’ She sat down on a rickety wooden chair until Mahoney came to.
When he eventually sat up his face was unrecognisable. Blood ran from his ear, down the side of his neck and onto his chest.
Viola spoke calmly. ‘You’re not to go near my house again, Des. Not ever. You’re not to so much as brush by another woman in the street. You see one of my girls, any girl for that matter, out and about, you cross the road. You fail to do that and he’ll be back here to pay you a more intimate visit. You understand me?’
Although Mahoney was in too much pain to reply, Viola was satisfied he’d got the message.
‘And, Des. My bracelet?’
Mahoney pointed to his pants, lying on the floor. Viola went through the pockets and retrieved it. ‘Thank you, Des.’ She placed the bracelet around her wrist and admired it.
‘On second thoughts, if I were you, I’d invest in insurance. Like moving. Interstate would be my suggestion.’ She opened the door. ‘I won’t be seeing you again, Des. You take care of yourself and stay out of trouble.’
She walked back downstairs into the kitchen. The old man looked up at her, anxiously. She knew there was no need to bribe or threaten him to ensure he’d keep his mouth shut. Viola liked the newly arrived migrants from Europe. They worked hard, were polite to her girls when they visited the brothel and, best of all, they had an inherent quality for minding their own business.
‘You married?’ she asked him.
‘No. My wife is dead. A daughter, I have.’
Viola took the diamond bracelet from her wrist and handed it to him. ‘Be sure she gets this for her next birthday.’
Frank Slim was standing in the laneway. Viola took two envelopes from her handbag and handed the first one to him. ‘That’s for the work tonight. Two as we agreed.’ She then handed him the second envelope. ‘There’s double in there. Four thousand. You hear of Mahoney misbehaving in future, pissing in the street, public littering, whatever it is, you be sure it’s the last sin he commits. You need any more than that, you contact me through Johnny Circio.’
Frank took the envelope and felt its weight.
‘I do trust you,’ Viola added. ‘The men I know that have any integrity, I can count on one hand with a couple of fingers to spare. You’re one of them, Frank Slim.’ She kissed him on the cheek and closed her handbag. ‘I’ve scraped the shit from these streets off my shoes for the last time. I’ve a child to take care of.’
Moama
Bryan Andy
Bryan Andy is a Yorta Yorta man from Cummeragunja – an Aboriginal village on the Murray River. Bryan is a writer, radio broadcaster, theatre maker and art critic.
* Moama means ‘place of the dead’
When I lived in Collingwood I started chatting to a guy on Grindr who was a few kilometres away. He told me he was watching a game of footy at the MCG. After weighing each other up and swapping pics, I invited him to my house and we had sex as the day’s light faded and night crept in.
Between sex and small talk and lingering kisses, somewhere in the air he broke a long silence saying, ‘It must be so much easier being accepted as Aboriginal with darker skin.’ He told me he too was Aboriginal, that he was Wiradjuri, and in response to his original statement I said, ‘Sometimes it is easier with darker skin, sometimes it isn’t.’
The night soon settled in and, after checking his phone, he confessed he’d missed his train back to central Victoria. ‘What, you think you’re gonna stay here, do ya?’ I asked him with a wry smile, tickling him before we both became a mess of uncontained giggles.
He spent the night with me in my bedroom. In my space with the photos of family on the wall, with my artefacts and artworks, my books and the items in my life that remind me of my home, Cummeragunja. He spent the night with me in my bed leaving his scent.
In the morning as I made him coffee, he fossicked through my books before picking up a rock that sat on a bookshelf. ‘Is this ochre?’ he asked, and I caught his eye and smiled. It was a smile that said: ‘I’d forgotten or put aside that you’re just like me, that you’re Aboriginal with your light, freckled skin and sinewy limbs.’ It was a smile of relief, a relief in knowing this Wiradjuri man who had pleased me, and honoured me, and slept in my arms, knew what the white rock was.
I explained that the ochre was from my home, my country. I told him how our white ochre is the most prized type because it is used for ceremony, and that it was a commodity in our culture, and that it still is. In my relief I told him he could have it, on the proviso that he look after it. He thanked me with a kiss, and took the ochre home with him that day to Dja Dja Wurrung country.
We continued to chat via Grindr and then via text. We expanded on our lives digitally: me in the city on Wurundjeri country; him in a regional town on Dja Dja Wurrung land.
We shared images, thoughts, jokes, insights, frustrations, dreams … and we made arrangements to catch up. He’d let me know when he was visiting Melbourne, and I’d let him know that I was keen to see him. Sometimes he’d go see a football game at the ’G before joining me at my house; sometimes we’d eat out for lunch or dinner before going back to mine; sometimes we’d catch up for nothing else but sex – to hold each other, and marvel at each other’s bodies, to become entangled in each other’s hair, to smell and taste each other’s skin.
One time, after planning via SMS to meet up, I waited for his train under the wavy roof of Southern Cross Station. I greeted him with a hug and a kiss, telling him that waiting for him on the platform made me feel like a wartime bride waiting for her soldier to return. We laughed at the heteronormativity of it as we left the platform, surrounded by people reuniting with their friends and loved ones, and others making their way into the thick of the city unaccompanied, alone.
That night we ate at an Italian restaurant, before I took him home where we fell into each other and fucked; we made love.
In the morning I made him coffee as he fossicked through my belongings, plucking books from the shelves, looking curiously at my photographs and paintings. As I passed him his coffee he reassured me he was looking after the rock of white ochre I gave him when we first met. Again I smiled with relief.
He left to catch a tram to the city – and that was the last time I saw him. That was the last time I ever heard from him.
I SMSed him a few weeks later to let him know I’d be heading home to Cummeragunja via Echuca, with a suggestion that we cross paths there, as he’d often talked about visiting that town, as his parents lived across the river in Moama.
He never responded to my text.
I went home to Cummeragunja to see my family and kept the sadness I felt about not seeing him to myself. I took his lack of response as a sign he was no longer interested in me. I wondered if he was in a relationship. Was I just an affair on the side? Maybe he was still in the closet …
Months passed and I continued to wonder about him and l took to social media to glean some insight into how he was. We weren’t friends on Facebook, so I was left poring over the rare posts he’d made public, finding his charm
and cheek in the quirky messages that populated his wall, messages about the footy, or Barbara Streisand or his longstanding crush on tennis player Andre Agassi. I figured he was out. I noticed his posts stopped around six months prior.
More time passed and I took to Google, entering his name and the town he lived in. The results were fruitless. I re-entered his name and wrote ‘Moama’ after his surname in the search bar. A PDF of a church newsletter showed up as the second result. I downloaded the file, opened it and found his name in the funeral notices with details of a church service being held in Echuca, followed by a burial at Moama Cemetery. He was listed as the beloved son of Jacinta and Ron.
There was no insight into how he died.
The following spring, when I was up home with my grandparents, I asked my grandfather how I might find a grave at the Moama Cemetery. In his life Pop has identified, marked and documented all of the graves at Cummeragunja, and I knew he’d give me an insight into how I might find the resting place of my lover and, thus, the confirmation that he had indeed passed.
Pop gave me his advice and I left him to continue working on a wooden cross he was making for the grave of one of his own friends.
That afternoon I wandered around the Moama Cemetery for almost an hour before I found his grave.
His gravestone reads like that of a person whose valued life has been cut short: his parents, his sisters, his brothers-in-law, and his many nephews are all named.
I cried as I removed the dry, brown ash leaves that were tangled in the ornaments placed on his grave – a small ceramic angel in perpetual, silent prayer; a vase filled with fake flowers; and a fist-sized rock painted with blue, white, yellow and teal dots representing country. On the smooth rock was a trail of black kangaroo tracks passing a circle surrounded by three black figures, representing mob seated around a campfire. I held the rock in the palms of my hands lending it warmth before placing it back on his grave. I sat with him, staring at the portrait photo on his headstone, wondering about his long and sinewy limbs, his robust hair and the state of his utilitarian hands. I sat remembering the warmth and hunger of his kisses.
Flock Page 17