Peter Corris - Matrimonial Causes

I sprinted hard on the coarse sand of Dudley beach, ignoring the camber, jumping over the rocks. I’d be sorry the next day when my ankles and knee joints would remind me of my age, but for now I had no choice-Glen Withers was beating me. Sure, I’d given her a start but that wasn’t the point. I could see the line we’d drawn in the sand looming up and she still had a lead. She was flagging, though; I was pulling her in. I threw myself forward, tripped, dived for the line and got my hand on it at the same time as her bare foot.

‘Draw,’ I gasped. I’d sprayed sand into my mouth and had to spit it out.

Glen collapsed two metres past the line. Her chest was heaving. ‘That’s not fair. You were falling flat on your face.’

I wriggled through the sand towards her. ‘Win at all costs. That’s the motto of the Hardys.’

It was a bit past 8.00 p.m. on a summer night. The day had been hot and we’d had several swims, several drinks, made love and had an afternoon sleep. Glen’s house was a ten-minute walk away on the rise overlooking the ocean. There was a prawn salad in the fridge as well as several bottles of Jacob’s Creek chablis. We were on holidays- me from my private inquiry agency in Sydney, her from teaching at the Police Academy. Our second summer together and still laughing at each other’s jokes. Pretty close to paradise.

We splashed about for a while as the last few people left the beach. Glen wasn’t the swimmer she had been. A bullet had left her arm a bit stiff. She got the wound at the time when we first met, back when a case had brought me to Newcastle and Senior Sergeant Glen Withers’ father, who was a high-ranking policeman, had been killed. We enjoyed more than the usual number of bonds-an acquaintance with violence, a distrust of authority and, oddly, the suspicion that relationships couldn’t last. We also showed each other our wounds, competed fiercely on occasions, and liked old black and white movies.

We walked up the hill and went into Glen’s house, one of a set of mine managers’ cottages on Burwood Road. The houses are big and simple and perfect just the way they are, but some of the other owners are going mad with trellises and decks. One has even built a swimming pool, which strikes me as an obscenity so close to the ocean. There ought to be a law. The sandstone house was cool and quiet.

We showered and shared the preparation of the meal, which is to say that I cut the bread and opened the wine. It was good food.

Sneakily, I admired Glen while we ate. She is medium tall with no-nonsense features, all excellently proportioned, and a fine head of thick brown hair. Her hair had got fairer in the ten days we’d been up here. She tans but is careful about it and critical of my carelessness. I had an Irish gipsy grandmother whose skin had the colour and texture of a well-kicked football. I’m a bit the same and go very dark in the summer if I get any beach time. The recession was still with us-beach time wasn’t a problem. Bill-paying was, but a man with a woman who has a house on the coast shouldn’t ask for much more.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Glen asked.

‘Like what?’

‘As if you’re still hungry and thirsty.’

I laughed. Through the open French windows, an acceptable modification of Glen’s, I could hear the neighbours playing in their pool. There were loud splashes and laughter. Perhaps a pool wasn’t such a bad idea. I put the heretical notion aside- I was getting up early and walking briskly to Whitebridge for the paper and then to the beach and back every morning. A very sound constitutional. Wandering out to swim a few laps of the pool wouldn’t keep the flab down. I made coffee and, after dabbing on the insect repellent, we sat out in the backyard to drink it. The waves slapped on the beach and the night wind whispered in the tall casuarinas.

‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘This is good.’

Glen murmured something I didn’t catch. We were sitting side by side in deck chairs. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What was that?’

‘I said you make bloody strong coffee. This is going to keep me awake all night.’

‘Don’t drink it then. I’ll dilute it if you like.’

‘No, it’s all right. We’ve only got two more days. We ought to stretch them. Stay up all night.’

I was wakeful, too. The afternoon sleep had been a long one and I’d only had a couple of glasses of wine. She was right. The coffee was strong and it tasted so good I wanted more of it. Glen massaged her arm. I moved my chair closer and took over the job, rubbing down the muscle towards the elbow the way she liked.

‘How is it?’

‘Aches a bit. That’s nice. Good holiday, eh?’

‘Terrific.’

‘Did you have any good holidays with Cyn?’

I tried to remember. I’d been married to Cyn for eight years. We must have had some holidays, but I couldn’t recall any. No recession back then- maybe we’d been too busy detecting and architecting. I shook my head. ‘None come to mind.’

‘With Helen Broadway?’

More recent history-a battlefield, essentially. ‘If you can call Hastings a holiday, or Agincourt or Dien Bien Phu. I went to New Caledonia with a woman once. We had a pretty good time.’

‘And where’s she now?’

Ailsa Sleeman. ‘She died of cancer a few years back.’

‘Did you love her?’

‘Glen, what is this?’

‘I feel like talking. No, I feel like listening. How long have you been a private detective, Cliff?’

‘ ‘Bout twenty years.’

‘Gee, I was still at school when you started.’

‘Yeah, in Year Twelve.’

Glen laughed. ‘Not quite. Tell me about your first case. You must remember it.’

‘Sure, but Christ, I haven’t thought of that in a long, long time.’

‘What was it about?’

‘Back then? Divorce-what else? But there was a bit of perjury, fraud and murder as well.’

Alistair Menzies, I was told, claimed some sort of kinship with the former Prime Minister, and there was a physical resemblance to back the claim. He had the same height and ponderous build and he wore the same kind of double-breasted suits. But his hair wasn’t as white and thick as old Bob’s nor his eyebrows as dark and dramatic, even though he apparently did all he could to get them that way. He was fiftyish and smoked thick cigars. He was a solicitor and he gave me my first job because someone told him I was fairly bright and inclined to be honest.

‘This will require some tact, Hardy,’ he said.

Which you prefer to hire rather than exercise yourself I thought. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m going to have to call you something other than “Mr Menzies”. You understand why, don’t you?’

The bushy eyebrows moved but not with much dramatic effect-framing more of a puzzled frown than an imperious stare. ‘No, but I was warned you were impudent. I suggest you avoid calling me anything. Take care to avoid “mate”- I detest false egalitarianism.’

As an opening spar, that made us about equal. I was sitting in one of his leather chairs in his Martin Place office. He had the work to hand out and I welcomed it. I’d been ‘in business’ for a few weeks now but there hadn’t yet been a cent to deposit in the Cliff Hardy business account. I assumed a neutral expression while he took a puff on his cigar. ‘As I say, tact needed. You are familiar with the provisions of the Commonwealth Matrimonial Causes Act of 1959?’

‘As amended in 1965,’ I said.

‘Quite. This is a divorce case. Our client, Mrs Beatrice Meadowbank, is suing her husband, Charles. She requires evidence of adultery.’

‘If memory serves,’ I said, ‘she requires a fair bit of evidence-multiple occasions, consistent indulgence, frequent occurrence.’