Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

I printed out a few copies of the pictures, made some notes and handed the reels back to an attendant who gave me a tired, sceptical smile. The whole operation had taken less than an hour and I hadn’t used a single stick of gum. Outside the air was warm and still; I took a walk along the edge of the lake and tried to think about genetics and blood tests and whether it could be proved that one person was the child of another. I had a feeling that you couldn’t and all the tests could establish was that some people could not be the progenitors of others. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that, maybe it wouldn’t come to anything. It was still a paper chase, the pictures in my pocket were like a talisman but, for all I knew, the man himself could be manacled to a prison wall in Bangkok for heroin dealing.

Wandering around the big, grey complex of government buildings I tried to push the whole thing aside. The letter I’d got from Keir Baudin was calling me to Sydney, to Honey of Darlinghurst whoever she was, but Kay kept breaking in on my thoughts. Ailsa and I had been on and off lovers, a night here, a night there; I tried to think when I’d last slept two nights in succession with a woman — it was a long time ago.

It was a good night. I ran the Falcon through a car wash just to kill some time while waiting to pick up Kay. I felt young again, transported back to when cars and girls meant everything. We had a couple of drinks and ate in a restaurant that had once been an old house — we took our own wine and I wasn’t the only man not wearing a tie. Around ten o’clock we were standing in one of the pedestrian malls and her hips were pressing into me and we were kissing like I was leaving for the front the next day.

We broke apart. ‘Come to my place,’ she said, ‘I can’t wear the same clothes three days in a row.’

I smoothed her hair. ‘I often do.’

‘That’s because you’re uncivilised, a predator.’

‘You disapprove?’

‘No.’ She kissed me quickly. ‘The world’s full of desk-sitters who smell of shampoo and soap. You smell of…’

‘Alcohol and sweat?’

‘A bit, not too much.’

Her flat was in Ainslie, close to the centre of the city. It was the top half of a house which we reached down a sideway pushing through an overgrown garden. Inside the colours were cream and brown and there was a comfortable amount of untidiness. I automatically browsed through her books while she showered; there was a touch too much philosophy for my taste, but the novels were sound — Hemingway and Waugh, Keesey and Amis, a sprinkling of Hammett and Chandler. I was reading Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory when she came out wearing a Chinese dressing gown. Her hair was wet and spiky and gave off a smell of apples. We kissed hard and leaned into each other, needing and giving support.

‘Great book,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ Then we were kissing again and soon after that we were on a big low bed under a window. We satisfied the first, hard, need quickly and then lay close and talked and let a slow warmth creep over us. The second time was slower and I was conscious of the whole of her body and her experience; her slim, strong arms and the long legs that trapped and held me lightly. I lay there in the dim light listening to her breathing and then my breathing fell into synch with hers and I slept.

I woke at five o’clock and got up quietly. I dressed and was copying down the number of her phone when I heard her move in the bed.

‘What are you doing?’ She sat straight up and I could feel a wave of tension flow across to me. I leaned down and kissed her bare shoulder.

‘I have to go Kay. I’ve got your number. I’ll call you.’

She grabbed my hand. ‘When?’

‘Tonight and every night until this is fixed. Then I’ll come back here.’

‘When you’ve finished the job?’

‘Yes.’

‘Business first.’

I knew what she meant the way I’d always known what Cyn had meant — the missed meetings and the professional drinking and the sleep binges. She flopped back and curled up the way she had in the motel.

‘Canberra specialises in quick affairs Cliff,’ she said. ‘I’ve had men propose to me over breakfast and fly to London at lunchtime.’

‘I’ll call you tonight at eight. I promise.’

‘I hope so,’ she whispered; she rolled over away from me, twisting the sheet around her.

I let myself out quietly and negotiated the sideway; the dew was heavy and the overhanging branches dripped on me as I pushed through them. It wasn’t like walking away from a good, quick roll in the hay, it wasn’t like that at all.

I made myself unpopular at the motel by hauling the manager out of bed and paying my bill. From the look he gave me I would’ve bet the first thing he did after I’d gone was check the towels. It was going to be a hot one in Canberra; the sky was a blank blue and a heat haze was forming over the mountains. The air was still cool but a west wind was promising to make it dry and gritty within an hour. I cruised through the quiet streets along with the dogs and joggers and gave my newly cleaned car its head when we reached the highway. The drive from Canberra to Sydney has got easier in the last few years. They’ve punched through some hills and by-passed some of the towns. A good drive in a good car can do it in under four hours. It took me nearly five.

I was dry and hungry when I reached Glebe. I collected the mail and newspapers and went into the house; dust drifted about in the beams of light and the cockroaches, blissfully undisturbed for a few days, ran for cover. I cleaned myself up and made a meal with limp things from the fridge and plenty of cold wine. The papers carried a lot about the economy, all lies, something about prison riots, mostly lies, and profound analyses of events in the Middle East. There was no mention of Henry Brain. Four bills almost cancelled out the Chatterton money and as far as I could remember there was nothing else coming in. I called my answering service and learned I’d had two callers — Cy Sackville and Verna Reid.

I phoned Sackville who told me not to get into any trouble for a few weeks because he was going to a conference in Athens and planned to trip around Europe for a bit afterwards.

‘Who pays?’ I asked.

‘You do mate, the taxpayer. Now about this Chatterton business. I couldn’t get a lot on Henry Brain. He was a barrister, a good one, and he got struck off for drunkenness in court. That’s going back a bit; he never applied for reinstatement.’

‘He stayed drunk.’

‘There’s a lesson in that for you,’ Cy said primly. ‘On the Chatterton estate I can’t help you much. Young Booth didn’t know who gets the dough, Dad hasn’t told him. There are a few funny things about it though.’

‘Like?’

‘Well, the secrecy for one thing. Booth junior says it’s unusual for Booth senior to be so close-mouthed. It might mean that the estate is tied up in some way. Also, someone else has been asking about it.’

‘Who?’

Booth doesn’t remember his name, some bloke who traped an acquaintance with him at a squash court. Big chap was all he said, looked as if he needed the exercise. That probably made Boothie feel smug — he’s in great shape.’ Cy himself is as thin as a stick of spaghetti which he eats in large quantities. He never exercises; he’s a workaholic who burns the weight off by mixing ambition with performance.

‘What did this big bloke say?’

‘Not much I gather and Booth probably didn’t give a lot away. He’s with an old firm, a conservative one, and Boothie knows that he’s not the brightest. He plays it pretty cagey.’

‘When was this and are you sure that’s all?’