Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

Keir was loving it but he was a hypocrite to the core. ‘Really father, is this wise? I don’t trust this man an inch. His story is quite unbelievable. He’s in this with Warwick, you can bet your life on it.’

‘Bet my life,’ the old man said dreamily. ‘A good expression for the young. It doesn’t carry much punch at my age. It might interest you to know, Keir, that I’d bet my life Mr Hardy here is telling the truth.’

‘Why?’ Keir said petulantly.

‘God boy, you’d better sharpen up. If you can’t judge character better than that you’ll be on the dole before I’m cold. Have a look at the man for Christ’s sake, does he look like a confidence trickster?’

‘He’s in a cheap trade,’ Keir muttered.

‘There!’ the father said triumphantly. ‘There! You accept that he’s an enquiry agent. You’re confused. You’re believing what you want to believe.’

The unequal contest was starting to bore me. I wanted facts and leads, not a sparring match. All I had were impressions and hostilities; it would be hard to concoct a professional-looking report for Lady Catherine on what I had so far. The cigarette was a dead stub between my fingers.

‘Let me get this straight, Mr Baudin. Your son is something of a black sheep, or was. But he’s a grown man now. You mentioned gifts, what did you mean?’

‘Everything again,’ Baudin said slowly. ‘He was brilliant at everything. God you should have seen him run… cricket… tennis

… matriculated with honours…’ He was weary. The whisky seemed to have hit him. His eyelids were flickering as if he were fighting to keep them up. Keir watched him intently and expertly and I realised that this was what he had on him — the staying power of fewer years on the clock.

‘My father is tired, Hardy, and I have nothing to say to you.’

‘When did you last see your brother?’ I snapped.

‘Three years ago.’ Again, it came out too quickly; my firmest impression of this wispy young-old man was that he lied almost every time he opened his mouth. ‘You have to go,’ he said smugly.

There was no arguing with it, the old man was drooping. I put in a last desperate question.

‘Mr Baudin, what was the last address you had for Warwick?’

‘Sydney,’ the old man whispered.

‘He’s wandering,’ Keir said brightly. ‘It was London, a slum in Islington. Don’t make the trip, it wouldn’t be worth it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Warwick is a drunk among other things. His last card was a drunken…’ He stopped as if he was unhappy at giving this information away but I misinterpreted him. His pale face turned blotchy with anger and he seemed to be recalling nursery days. His voice went soft, almost babyish.

‘I wouldn’t put it past Warwick to dream up something like this. He hates me.’ It was interesting psychologically but I needed facts.

‘Have you got the card?’ I said.

‘What? No. I tore it up. Get out, get out!’

A light snore from the old man did the trick. Baudin senior was dead asleep in his chair. His hand rested an inch away from his glass which still held a few drops of whisky, just a few.

The sky had darkened and the party had thinned by the time I got outside. The secretary was hovering and he bustled back into the house when he saw me. I wondered which Baudin he served, Senior or Junior, or if he knew. Kay was sitting under a tree a little apart from the hard core drinkers. I walked over to her with that little pilot light of excitement burning.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ She got up smoothly but didn’t seem to mind my token help in the form of a hand on her arm. Her arm was cool and soft and I kept hold of it.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit too tired to think about it right now. I’ll worry about it later. Do you want another drink here or will we go somewhere else?’

‘I’d like to eat. I’m starving.’

She went into the house and came out with a shoulder bag. We went down the drive past the remaining imported cars to my honest Falcon.

‘No car?’ I said.

‘Cab — expenses.’

She untangled the crescents and circuits for me and steered me towards the city. Otherwise she was quiet and didn’t volunteer much. I had to prompt her hard to find out that she worked two days a week at the university as a research assistant in Political Science and two days as a feature writer for The Canberra Times. She preferred the journalism but the two jobs complemented each other. We pulled into a big parking lot behind a department store and she stared out at the city lights.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not used to talking about myself.’

‘Okay I’ll stop. One last question. What brought you to Canberra?’

‘Marriage.’

We walked through the parking lot and down some streets and across a couple of pedestrian plazas. Canberra has scored a few points against the motor car in the centre of the city, but just a few. The closed-off roads with pot plants and painted barriers look as if they could be swept away easily enough if someone decided they should be. Kay led me to some steps that went down into a big, circular concrete cellar. There was enough light to see by and some kind of matting on the floor. The food was on a serve-yourself system. We got steaks and garlic rolls and salad on our plates and I got a couple of small carafes of white wine. There were about ten plain wooden tables which would seat a dozen people and the drill was to plonk yourself down wherever you pleased. I was surprised to see people choosing to sit near others, obviously strangers, rather than going off by themselves. Kay went over to where a hippie-looking couple were sitting: the woman, who wore a plaid poncho and jeans, was holding a baby on her knee. The man was dark-bearded and thin: they nodded as we sat down, pushed the pepper and salt along and went back to talking quietly about their kid. We started on the food.

‘Good place,’ I said.

She nodded and kept eating.

‘Is there a no-talking rule?’

She shook her head and smiled. She had big white teeth and her smile was a fraction crooked. I looked at her hands — no rings. I drank the first glass of the cold wine fast and poured another — she did the same. Then we both smiled and touched glasses. She put down her knife and fork.

‘Ask,’ she said.

‘It’s a compliment really. What happened to the marriage?’

‘It did what it was supposed to do.’ She picked up her fork. ‘Then it finished.’

‘What was it supposed to do?’

She shrugged. ‘Get him a PhD and a couple of books.’ She didn’t sound or look bitter, more amused. If it had scarred her she wasn’t letting it show. Then she went back to eating and kept at it until all the food was gone. She wiped her plate with bread and put that down. We started on the second carafe.

‘God I needed that. I ran out without eating this morning and I don’t eat lunch. Sorry to be so incommunicative. I was just bloody hungry. Now, are you going to tell me what you’re investigating?’

I suppose I’d known all along that I would and that I’d be needing her help. The wine and food and her company had relaxed me. Little things that had come out in the interview with the Baudins were floating around in my mind, coming to the surface and forming a pattern. Something about this girl, which was how I thought of her although she must have been in her mid-twenties, and something about the ease we felt with each other made me trust her and want to try out the pattern on her. So I told her. I gave her all the details as far as I could recall them and put it all in order as it had happened. She looked concerned when I got to the bit about being bashed, but more interested than concerned. I’d obviously survived to do more sleuthing and that was what mattered to her. To me too. It took some time and the wine was finished when I got to the end. The hippies had melted away into the night early on in my exposition.