Peter Corris: Appeal Denied

‘Nothing. They say they’re doing a fucking autopsy. Jesus…’

‘That’s standard, mate. All I know is that she was shot at close range, probably when she was asleep. It doesn’t help, but… you know.’

‘I dunno what to do.’

‘Because your mother and father are dead and there’s no other siblings or kids involved, you’d be next of kin. They’ll want you to make funeral arrangements when the… her body’s released. Are you up for that?’

‘Fuck, no.’

‘Anyone with you who’s had some experience?’

‘Jerry Hawkins, I guess-my manager.’

‘Get him to make the calls-to the police and then to a funeral place. There’ll have to be a notice in the papers. She had a lot of friends, Tony. They’ll want to show up and you’ll have to arrange a thing for afterwards. Can Jerry organise all that? Did he know her?’

‘Yeah. He’ll do it.’

‘Give him my number and tell him I’ll help any way I can.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Cliff. You all right?’

‘No. She wouldn’t want any religion and she’d want a party. Can you make that clear to Jerry?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Tell him I want to say a few words. How about you?’

He was crying and I was close.

‘I’ll… I’ll try. Jesus, Lily.’

Lily was cremated at Rookwood. The ceremony, conducted by one of the writers she’d worked closely with on a Fairfax paper, Tim Arthur, went as she’d have wished-no bullshit, good jokes. Arthur did the honours well. He talked about the stories he and Lily had worked on together, and the couple of Walkley Awards they’d won. He said she’d deserved them more than him but he’d accepted just the same. Struck the right note. I spoke briefly, along with some friends and colleagues. Tony managed a halting, distressed sentence or two that didn’t help the rest of us keep our composure.

The wake was at Tony’s place in Hunters Hill-a sprawling sandstone affair he’d bought with his winnings. Tony was doing pretty well as a world-ranked welterweight contender, fighting mostly in the US. I remembered that he’d got on the web when he’d paid his deposit on the place, and checked the history of the area.

‘Bet some of the nobs think it’s named after that governor bloke, the one who had the stoush with Macarthur over the rum and that.’

Lily and I were having a celebratory drink with him at the time. ‘I thought that was Bligh,’ I said.

Tony shook his head. ‘This Hunter bloke, too. Well, turns out it isn’t. It’s named after some farm in Scotland, so up theirs.’

Tony had been nervous about moving into such an upmarket neighbourhood, but it had worked out all right. His house was one of the old ones designed by ‘some Frenchman’, he told us. Apparently Italian craftsmen had worked on it and that showed. When the neighbours saw that Tony was spending money on restoration rather than renovation, they accepted him.

The day of the wake was cool and fine and the party took place mainly on the big upstairs deck that looked out over the Parramatta River. Jerry Hawkins had arranged the catering and there were masses of finger food and a flood of booze for the eighty-odd people attending. Lily’s favourite blues records-BB King, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker-were playing and the only thing wrong with the party was that Lily wasn’t there. She’d have liked it.

Two years and a bit with someone, especially the way we played it, isn’t long enough to get to know all a partner’s friends and a lot of the people there didn’t have a clue who I was until someone filled them in. I caught some curious glances and I could imagine the conversations.

That’s her bloke.

What does he do?

He’s a private eye, or was until he got rubbed out.

Are the cops looking at him?

You’d reckon, wouldn’t you?

Tony introduced me to Jerry and I thanked him for the good job he’d done. Tony was on orange juice-unless he’d spiked it. Who could blame him? He was about twelve years younger than his sister-’an afterthought’ as she called him, and he’d looked up to her from day one. Their mother was a frustrated writer. She’d approved of Lily’s chosen profession. The father was a truckie who’d built up a middle-sized business. Tony was all the late-life son he could’ve asked for. According to Lily, they’d been a successful family until cancer got her mother in her mid-fifties and her father, at sixty-odd, a few years later. It was one of the reasons Lily hadn’t wanted children.

With too many of these memories on my mind, I talked briefly to a few people I knew, but basically wanted to be on my own and let this ‘celebration of Lily’s life’ go on around me. I walked to the deck rail and looked out over the water. There was a good breeze and the boats were making the most of it. It’s not something I ever took to. The few times I tried, it seemed to consist of alternating between being bored rigid and working your arse off while someone yelled at you. I guess if you did it long enough to know what you were about and had enough money, you could get to do the yelling.

I’d had a big scotch on arrival and a glass of wine since, or was it two? I finished the drink, whatever number it was, and thought about another. Against that, if I ate a few sandwiches and had some coffee and took a walk around the streets, it’d probably be safe to drive home. Home-not a lot to feel good about there. I was leaning towards another drink or two and a taxi, when a man appeared beside me.

‘Cliff Hardy?’

‘Yes.’

A small boat about to tip over in the wind caught my eye and I watched it without looking at the man who’d spoken. Rude of me, but for the first time in a while I was looking at some outside action, instead of in at myself.

‘I’m Lee Townsend.’

That got my attention. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was miles away.’

I recognised him. Townsend was an investigative print and television reporter, the sort that get up the noses of politicians, bureaucrats and business types-my kind of guy. He’d broken big stories on police corruption, political cover-ups and government department mismanagement. He’d fronted several television documentaries that had made his image as well known as his written work. He had a couple of spin-off books to his credit that I hadn’t read.

I was facing him now, using the word loosely. He stood about 160 centimetres at the most and his build would have to be described as puny. The magic of television had concealed this.

He saw my reaction. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘People think I’m a six-footer like you.’

I shook his hand. ‘Jean-Paul Sartre was one fifty-eight centimetres on his best days,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Thank you for that. Your eulogy was good. Spot on.’

‘You knew Lily?’

‘A bit in the early days when we were wage slaves. She had the handicap of being a woman, and I was too fucking small to be taken seriously.’

‘You both did okay.’

He placed his glass on the balcony rail. Looked like scotch. He wore an expensive lightweight suit. I was in a dark blazer and dark pants, blue shirt-closest I could get to the suit look. No tie. Lily said ties were as stupid as gloves and she was right.

‘I’d like to have a talk with you,’ Townsend said. ‘Here, if you’re agreeable, or later if you’d prefer it.’

He might have looked different from his TV persona but his strong, resonant, convincing voice was the same. I had a feeling he’d be worth talking to. In a strange way he reminded me of Lily-smaller, of course.

‘Now’d be good,’ I said. ‘Lately I’ve been talking mostly to myself. What about a drink? Was that scotch?’

He nodded. I picked up his glass and mine and headed for the bar. The crowd had thinned out a bit but not much. You can count on journos to form a good, solid hard core at any boozy bash. They’ve always got plenty to talk about and it takes a long while for the grog to make them boring.