Barry Maitland: Bright Air

‘Fine. See you there.’

As soon as I hung up Anna thanked me and said she had to go. We got in Mary’s car and I drove her to Central to catch her train back to work.

‘See you tonight,’ I said, and she waved and ran off into the crowd.

I arrived at Sammy’s Bar with ten minutes to spare and saw Anna already there, sitting at a corner table with a glass of mineral water and a look of lock-jawed determination. I bought a beer and joined her.

‘Your clients all tucked up for the night?’ I asked.

She smiled, looking tired. ‘They’re watching a movie, which means they’ll all be asleep.’

‘So, what’s the approach?’

‘Will you tell him? I think it’ll work better that way.’

‘Fine.’ I took a welcome gulp of cold beer and looked around. The bar was filled with clusters of corporate warriors, young men and women making quick sharp judgements on the action of the day. They were the same as the people I used to know in London, and as I picked up snatches of their insider chatter I felt like a deserter, absent without leave. There was one table with four girls sitting together. A spotlight overhead caught the hair and face of one of them and she reminded me of someone. At first I couldn’t place the memory, and then it came to me, a girl I’d met not long after I’d first arrived in London. I remembered feeling guilty with her, as if I was being unfaithful to Luce, not realising that Luce was already dead. What surprised me now was how long it had taken me to make the connection, as if my London experiences were already being packed away in mental drawers of long-term memory. Soon it would be as if London, all four years of it, had never happened, and I felt a stab of resentment that Anna was dragging me straight back to the time before I’d left.

‘How’s your love-life these days, Anna?’ I asked. ‘Do you have a partner?’

She shook her head. ‘Not at the moment. You?’

‘No. There was someone in London, but …’ I shrugged. ‘How about Damien? Do you know?’

‘Oh yes, rather predictable really. He married the senior partner’s daughter. Captured her heart within three weeks of joining the firm, I believe.’

‘As soon as he’d mastered the six-minute time sheets, eh? Were you invited to the wedding?’

‘Yes, but I couldn’t go. Owen told me about it afterwards. Very plush apparently.’

‘Kiddies?’

‘I don’t know.’ She glanced over my shoulder. ‘Here he is now.’

I got to my feet and went over to intercept Damien, feeling the need for a little foreplay.

‘Hi, Damien.’ Another firm handshake. He was in shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, his thick silk tie unfastened, a sheen of sweat on his face as if he’d just walked out of a heavy meeting. ‘You look as if you could do with a beer.’

‘Too right, but better make it a mineral water, mate. I’m in the middle of a conference.’

‘Oh, sorry. Listen, Anna’s just told me you’re hitched. Congratulations!’

He grinned. ‘Thanks. We wanted to invite you, but I didn’t have your address.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Lauren. Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay long. What’s this all about, Josh?’

‘Oh, just something that came up when we were talking after the funeral.’ I paid for his drink and we made our way between the gesticulating combatants to our table. I noticed that Damien, too, seemed unsure how to greet Anna, then braced himself and bent to kiss her cheek.

They exchanged brief compliments about how they both looked, Anna reserved and Damien expansive, trying to gauge her mood.

‘So, what do we need to discuss?’

‘The funeral got us talking about Luce’s death, Damien,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ He looked wary.

‘Yes, about how the two of us weren’t there, with the rest of you, when it happened. And then the fact that she was never found … We discovered that we’ve both been left with a sense that it’s never been resolved.’

‘Resolved? But-’

‘Oh, I know it has in a legal sense, but emotionally, you know? For us. We feel a kind of guilt.’

‘We all do.’

‘But you went through it all at first-hand. It must have been terrible for you, but at least you can feel you did what you could. We just weren’t there.’

‘So, what, you want me to tell you about it?’ He glanced pointedly at his watch.

‘We’d like to get hold of the police report to the coroner. The full report. That way we can understand exactly how it unfolded.’

He looked startled. ‘Really? Well, I suppose you could apply-’

‘We don’t have a direct interest,’ Anna broke in. ‘I mean as far as the coroner’s concerned. I understand the Coroners Act provides that an interested person can apply to the registrar of the local court for a copy of all or part of the coroner’s file, but they have to show sufficient cause.’

This sudden display of homework, delivered in a low rapid voice, was rather jarring, and undermined my attempt to sound casual. ‘I don’t think we’d be successful,’ she went on. ‘But you could get it. You’re a lawyer.’

‘Commercial lawyer,’ he murmured, frowning at a coaster on the table between us.

‘Still, you must know people who know people. Your father-in-law’s very highly regarded, I believe. I’m sure you could get a copy for us.’

He looked from one to the other of us. ‘Is that really necessary? I can show you newspaper cuttings I kept …’

‘We’ve seen the cuttings,’ Anna persisted. ‘We’d like more detail.’

He took a deep breath, thinking, raised his glass to his lips, placed it carefully back on the table, then said, ‘All right, I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise, but I’ll do my best. Okay?’

‘Thanks, Damien,’ I beamed, surprised.

‘And now I really must get back. Great to talk to you both again. You look as if you’re working too hard, Anna. Maybe you should do a bit of climbing with Josh, now he’s back. I’ll be in touch.’

We watched him leave, and I took a deep breath. Anna gave me a tight, expressionless look and said, ‘Now I’d like a vodka tonic. You?’

‘Yeah, me too.’

I made to get up, but she waved me down. ‘I’ll get them.’

When she returned with the drinks I said, ‘Sounds like you’ve been doing research, about the Coroner’s Court.’

‘One of our residents worked there for thirty years. She filled me in.’

‘So, did he pass the test?’

‘What do you think?’

I shrugged. ‘He was reluctant, but that’s understandable. Yes, I think he passed. You?’

She sipped her drink, staring into the far corner of the bar, then said, ‘No. I didn’t think he passed at all. I bet he finds it’s impossible to get hold of that report.’

The hotel became busy again that week and into the next, and I put in a lot of time helping Mary with the daily routine, filling the hours in between with overdue maintenance work. I cleaned out the gutters and repaired a section of uneven paving in the small garden below the terrace at the back, and as the days passed and I heard nothing I began to think that the whole thing had fizzled out. But I still had Anna’s file of cuttings, with their photos of Luce and the others, and when I went up to my attic room at night it was impossible not to turn them over, again and again.

I first set eyes on her at a summer wedding on a beach. It takes a lot of organising to have a wedding on a Sydney beach, and friends and relatives had been out there since early morning, roping off the designated area, raking the sand, setting up flowers. I didn’t really know the couple, but had agreed to accompany my then girlfriend. Unfortunately our relationship had unravelled in the interval between the invitation and the event, so that things were a little tense by the time we arrived at what we both agreed would be our last outing together.