Peter Corris - The Washington Club

‘That happens,’ I said.

‘I know. But my father wouldn’t have driven a car with his beloved wife beside him in a drugged state unless he was almost out of his mind over something. He just wouldn’t.’

‘I can see how distressing all this must have been. But what’s the connection to Fleischman?’

‘My father had kept a journal. It was this thick but tiny book and the writing was minute. The entries were in Yiddish and I’m a real Yiddish dunce. I picked up some along the way from my parents who spoke it sometimes and left notes for each other in it, but I can’t really read it. I just flicked through the notebook. I suppose I was thinking that I’d get someone to translate it for me some day. But as I did that I began to understand a few words and phrases about Julius. I dug out a dictionary and learned the words for “enemy” and “liar” and “demon” and that’s what my lovely, kind humanity-loving Dad was calling Julius. I also knew the words for “afraid” and “daughter”. Dad wrote, “This demon will never have her, never.” Something like that.’

Her hands holding the coffee mug started to shake. She’d lost colour in her face. Her mouth went almost white. I moved forward, took the mug from her and raised it to her lips, cradling the back of her head with my other hand. The tousled hair looked hard and brittle but was actually soft and almost fluffy. Another contradiction. I held the mug to her lips and tilted her head.

‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘I want to hear it all. Drink a bit of this, you’ll feel better.’

She sipped the spiked coffee and some colour came back into her lips and cheeks. When she spoke the words tumbled out.

‘As I say, the journal was hard to follow but I matched it up with the financial and medical records and the change in my parents’ behaviour and health and everything dated from very soon after they met Julius. Very soon! I was freaked. Really crazy. This was right when the baby-having stuff was going on. Julius could tell something was wrong. I got sick. I was vomiting all over the place. I was afraid of him and I told him I thought I was pregnant. He was kind again for a day or so. Then I got really sick. A doctor came and I was out of it for a few days. I’d put Dad’s journal in a filing cabinet I had in my study in the Vaucluse house. I’d locked it in. But when I recovered from this bout of whatever it was, the journal was gone. Julius told me that he’d put an accountant onto the job of sorting out my parents’ affairs.’

I took her hands and we moved across to a two-seater couch. I fetched the drinks and we rearranged ourselves. She was leaning against me now, her head on my shoulder, rubbing against it slowly as if the movement comforted her. Despite all the distress she was documenting, or maybe partly because of it, I was becoming aroused again. I moved to keep the evidence from her. Her kimono opened and I could see her breasts, white, full and firm, nestling inside the black fabric. I stared at the ceiling rose.

‘Go on, Claudia. I’m listening.’

She sucked in a deep breath and a tremor ran through her. ‘I’ve thought about this for so long and in such a Crazy state that I’m not sure any more of what’s true and what I’ve imagined. Do you understand?’

‘I’m a bit of an imaginer myself,’ I said.

‘Have to be in this game. Sometimes, what you imagine can turn out to be as true as what you know, or think you know. I understand.’

‘I believe that Julius was deeply suspicious of me. I think he knew what was in Dad’s journal and how damaging it was to him. He knew I didn’t understand Yiddish very well but he didn’t know how well. I think he had a doctor keep me in a sort of stupid state while he thought about what to do. I’ve got no evidence for any of this.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m basically a very strong person physically. I’d hardly ever been sick before this. Nothing much worries me-antihistamines, antibiotics. I’ve drunk a lot at various times and I’ve never had a hangover. I can drink strong coffee at midnight and still get to sleep. I took the pills and things but somehow I came up out of the bog they were trying to keep me in. I surfaced one day and I heard and saw Julius abusing Van Kep for some minor thing he’d screwed up. Van Kep didn’t like it. And at the same time Julius had to leave Sydney on business. He didn’t tell me, but I picked up an extension phone in the house and heard him make the arrangements. I pretended to be as dopey as I was supposed to be and he left.’

Her body was warm and yielding against mine and I wanted to tell her that she had nothing to worry about, that I’d solve all her problems and… I jerked back from this nonsense and forced myself to put a sensible question to her, one that would anchor us in harsh reality.

‘How long before he was shot was this?’

She tensed a bit and then relaxed. ‘It must have been a couple of days. A week at most. He went to Adelaide. The next bit’s hard to tell you. Do you want to hear it?’

‘I have to hear it.’

‘I seduced him, Van Kep. I fucked him four times in one night and I gave him five thousand dollars to protect me from my husband.’

‘What’re you thinking?’ Claudia said. ‘Tell me the truth.’

‘There’s so many questions. What did Fleischman have on your parents? Why was he so worried about you getting hold of the journal? And the big one-if Van Kep killed him, for whom?’

‘Are they your only questions, Cliff?’

I knew from the tone of her voice what she meant, but I was concentrating now, focused, as the sports commentators say much too often. ‘Christ, no. Who was watching you and who tried to blow me apart? But those are the primary ones, the ones that need to be answered to get a grip on this. Did you look for the journal after Fleischman was killed?’

She nodded, but she was frowning. ‘Everywhere. No sign of it. I’ve assumed whoever killed him took it.’

‘You’ve got no idea who this other man might be?’

She went rigid and the gentle rubbing of her head against my shoulder stopped. ‘How could I? I didn’t have anything to do with.. ’

‘I know. I know. I just thought Van Kep might have mentioned needing help. Something like that.’

‘No! No! All I asked him to do was to keep an eye on Julius, make sure he didn’t hurt me or try to take me away or anything while I got things together to leave him. That’s all! He said he’d do it. He said he hated Julius, he…’

She didn’t cry much and she didn’t actually collapse, but letting all this loose drained her. She’d been holding it in for a considerable time, telling no one, rehashing it over and over until it was like a permanent thread through her every thought and action. She’d called on her wits and reserves of nervous energy to see her through the police investigation and the charging procedure and the meeting with Cy Sackville and the first encounter with me. She told me she’d devised little mental games and pretences to keep her courage up, and now it was as if the props and supports had fallen away. Her hard drinking days must have been well behind her because, together with the emotional turmoil, the laced coffee on top of what we’d had before seemed to slow her down and bring her to a stop.

I put her to bed in her kimono. Before she went to sleep she told me where to find a spare security card. I sat on the side of the bed in my pants and shirt and bare feet and smoothed some damp strands of hair away from her face. The slanted dark eyes looked up at me and I could sense all the same emotions that were affecting me flowing and cross-currenting in her. Doubts, suspicions, sexual strings, a need to believe and trust. Her eyes closed and she went to sleep with her mouth falling slightly open, exposing the extraordinary teeth and making her look young and vulnerable.