Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

‘You should put milk and sugar in it,’ he said. ‘I’d guess you were a drinker, a drinker with an empty stomach. Your metabolism needs something to fuel it.’

‘I’ve also been hit on the head,’ I said defensively. I leaned forward to give him a look. He put down his cup and eased the hair gently aside. I brought my head up and he looked directly into my eyes.

‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘A possible concussion. You should be at a hospital. I’m afraid I don’t practise any more.’

‘You did though, until recently.’

‘And how would you know that?’

‘From the medical register.’

‘You’ve been researching then. You’re right, I retired two years ago. You should go to the hospital, there’s a good one here.’

‘Maybe later.’ I sipped some coffee. ‘I want to ask you about Gertrude Callaghan and things that happened here thirty years ago.’

‘Do you now? You come here bleeding and smelling of spirits and you ask me that. How do I know you didn’t kill Gertrude?’

‘Would I have come here and told you about her if I had?’

‘Perhaps not,’ he said wearily. ‘But I doubt I have anything to tell you.’

‘I think you do. Thirty years is a long time but I need information and you’re the man that knows where the bodies are buried.’

He winced and a sharp breath came out of him; he tried to cover it by lifting his cup to his mouth.

‘Just an expression doctor. Why does it startle you?’ He didn’t answer and I pressed on. ‘I’ll dig for it doctor. I’ll be working in the dark and things will just have to fall out as they may. It doesn’t have to be that way though.’

‘What are you saying?’

He was good, very good. Without trying he’d got me to say more than I meant to while he hadn’t volunteered a damn thing himself. I had to plunge on with my uncertain knowledge and try to flush him out. I had hints, clues and guesses and just one piece of hard information on him — knowledge of his feelings for Gertrude Callaghan.

‘I’ve seen a photograph of Nurse Callaghan with a pregnant woman taken down here. The photograph was authentic and I’ve identified the locality.’ This was a lie but it seemed like a safe one. ‘My interest is in that woman specifically and the child, I’m not concerned with the wider issues.’ I chose the words carefully but they still sounded thin.

‘May I see this photograph?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘And why not?’

‘It’s a crucial piece of evidence and I don’t carry it around with me.’

He leaned back in his chair and drank some coffee. ‘You mean you don’t have it,’ he said confidently.

‘The man who had it is dead. He was murdered, probably by the same person who killed Nurse Callaghan.’

The smugness left his face. ‘Murdered! You didn’t say that before. No, not Gertrude. Did she…’

‘Tell me anything? I’m not going to answer that doctor, it’s time for you to open up a little.’

I finished the coffee, thought about a cigarette and decided against it. It wasn’t a time for betraying weaknesses. He sat back further in the chair and his eyes seemed to sink deeper into those cavernous, dark-rimmed sockets. He looked like a man letting his mind run back. I waited. When he spoke it was carefully and slowly with the Scots accent more pronounced.

‘I’m going to talk in generalities Mr Hardy, at least to start with. Do you understand? A lot of reputations and lives, good lives, are at stake in this. A lot of harm could be done.’

I nodded.

‘Let me say for a start that I know nothing about anyone by the name of Chatterton. I might have had some dealings with a Chatterton but if so I’ve forgotten. I’m an old man and I have forgotten many names.’

‘But you remember some?’

‘Aye, and with good reason.’ He ran a hand over his head and plucked at the dewlaps on his face. ‘This is hard for me. I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. I know nothing about you.’ He groaned. ‘Tell me about Gertrude, was she… hurt?’

‘She was in bed. I didn’t see any signs of violence but someone had searched her house, probably the same person that hit me. Something happened up there.’

He suddenly looked every day of his age. Gertrude Callaghan was woven into his past and he wanted to talk about it, but secrecy had become a habit.

‘You seem to be having some trouble starting your story doctor,’ I said. ‘Let me help a little. There was an establishment of some sort down here thirty years ago, a place where women came to have babies. Or not to have them. I assume it was a well-regulated place. I’m not a moralist.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Myself, I’m a radical, a reformer and a radical. I am a moralist you might say.’ His eyes, which had been focused on my face, drifted away. It looked like he was going into the mind-cranking stage again. I was impatient but judged it better to let him set the pace. I leaned forward to get some more coffee. He didn’t notice.

‘I love this place Mr Hardy, these people, I’ve been here nearly fifty years. Did you know that?’

I nodded, took milk.

‘I went back to Edinburgh once, detested it! I found the Scots ungenerous and narrow. Well, that’s by the way. Do you know what used to be the single greatest cause of human misery in a place like this?’

I said ‘No’, which was true.

He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. ‘Unwanted children. Forced marriages and unwanted children. It was behind most of the crime, nearly all the drunkenness, most of the trouble.’

‘A problem,’ I agreed. ‘Still is, I suppose.’

‘It’s different now, more information, better methods. And there’s some support for the girls bringing up the babies.’

‘Come down to cases doctor,’ I said gently.

‘Aye. I ran a clinic here for twenty years, abortions and births, adoptions. Proud of it.’

‘It was a secret though.’

‘It was. A secret entrusted to a few.’

‘Nurse Callaghan?’

‘Helped me, the whole time. Wonderful woman, she believed in the work.’

It was more than that and I tried to keep the knowledge out of my response. Unsuccessfully.

‘I was unhappily married,’ he said simply. ‘A daughter died in childbirth with no one to help her.’

It explained a lot but I wasn’t happy with the drift of his account. Too much flavour of abortion in it; abortion wasn’t what I needed.

‘How many abortions did you perform doctor?’

‘Hundreds.’

‘How many births and… adoptions?’

‘Fewer.’

‘It’s the adoptions I’m interested in.’

‘Both things were illegal.’

‘I don’t imagine anyone cares now.’

He misinterpreted me and flared. ‘But I must explain what went wrong, how my ideals were perverted.’

The craving overtook the tact; I pulled out my tobacco and made a cigarette. I said ‘Go ahead’ more roughly than I’d intended.

He glanced at me sharply, annoyed, as though I wasn’t worthy to be his confessor. But he was too far into confession to stop. ‘I did this community a great service for twenty years. A law-abiding community. Blackman’s Bay, very low incidence of violence, disruption. But they wouldn’t let me be.’

‘They? The locals?’

‘No, the others, from Canberra and Sydney. Men and lasses, some terrible stories I can tell you.’

We seemed to be moving into the right area. I blew smoke away from him and juggled the ash.

‘What did they do, blackmail you?’

‘Aye, and worse. Terrible place Sydney, full of the lowest people.’ He looked hard at me and I felt I had the harbour bridge growing out of my head and Kings Cross painted on my face. I knew I had a day’s beard and a very dirty shirt.