Peter Corris - The Marvellous Boy

The door opened and the woman in purple struck an attitude in the doorway; she was tall and thin and used to making the most of her figure. She cocked one hand up on her hip and let the other drift out aristocratically towards me. I put one of the cards in it.

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Would your name be Honey?’

‘That’s right darling, I’m Honey Gully.’ She peered at the card and the set smile faded. ‘Trouble?’ The careful control peeled away like the paint from her house and the word came out harsh and anxious.

‘I don’t think so, Miss Gully, can I come in?’

She hesitated. ‘It’s early, place is a mess.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘It won’t take long and I’ll pay you for your time.’

She brought her face up to mine and squinted to focus on it. A network of lines around her eyes and mouth had flecks of make-up embedded in them. Her mouth was wide and just beginning to fall in; she could have been a beaten-up forty or a well preserved sixty. She drew back and her eyes relaxed into a pale blue myopic vagueness.

‘I don’t like this,’ she said. ‘I’m not paid for my time, what do you want?’

I bustled up close and forced her into the hallway. She gave way and I bustled some more and closed the door behind me. Her forward drifting tendril of a hand became a nervous thing that plucked at the neck of the velveteen dressing gown, drawing it higher and safer.

‘Where’s your room, Honey?’

Maybe she liked my honest face, maybe she thought that if I’d been going to hit her I’d have done it by now; she shrugged. ‘Top of the stairs,’ she said. ‘On the right.’

‘Let’s get up there and talk.’ I took hold of her upper arm and my fingers met around it; she had bones like a factory-bred chicken and skimpy flesh to match. I propelled her in front of me up the stairs; using my weight. The stair rail was draped over with female clothing and there was a smell of stale scent, sweat and cigarette smoke in the air.

Honey Gully’s room was full of early afternoon light and the signs of her own creativity; silk-covered cushions were scattered about on the floor and the low bed and some tapestries of Oriental design showing sexually ambiguous figures in contorted positions, adorned the walls. There was a dressing table covered with the usual stuff, a heavy carved chest and a high bookshelf crammed with paperback and hard-cover books.

She shook free of me and glided into the room; dropping down onto a big cushion by the bed, she drew her knees up, the purple tented up into an elegant triangle.

‘Well?’

My aggressiveness had subsided on the stairs and dropped away completely now. Somehow the room was pathetic as if it were the work of a frustrated artist or a woman playing at being a college girl. Standing awkwardly in the doorway I let her regain the initiative. The chin cupped in the hand and the incline of the head were probably perfected twenty years before at least, but the gesture still had charm and some freshness.

‘Well, I don’t think you’re here for a screw, you don’t look the type. If you want information on someone you’re out of luck. I don’t ask their names and I shut my ears if they try to tell me.’ She put her palms over her ears and grinned mockingly. I grinned back and came into the room.

‘You’re quite a girl,’ I said and meant it. ‘You must have been beating the men off a few years back.’

‘I still am, darling.’ She tossed her head. ‘You’d be surprised how many men like drooping tits.’ She played with the catch on her gown. ‘Care to see?’

‘Not just now. I want to talk about someone who probably saw the whole show.’

‘I told you, no names.’

‘You can’t pull that, Honey.’ I tapped my pocket. ‘I’ve got his picture. I can tell you this, you won’t be getting him in trouble. If you can help me it’s a stroke of luck all round.

She sighed. ‘I could use a few strokes myself- of luck that is.’ Her own wit cheered her up. ‘Let’s have a look at him.’

‘Better put your glasses on, Honey,’ I said.

She stuck her hand under the big pillow on the bed and pulled out an embroidered, beaded case which she opened and took out a pair of glasses with fuse-wire thin gold frames. She hooked them on to her fine, experienced face where they looked stylish.

‘They look good,’ I said. I lowered myself onto one of the cushions and took out the photo-prints.

‘Rubbish,’ she said as I handed the prints over, ‘they make me look like a hag, which I am.’ But she was pleased just the same and disposed to co-operate. She looked carefully at the pictures for a long time, then pulled off her glasses and stared across the mile or so of space between us.

‘They’re not very good of him.’

My heart bumped. ‘But you do know him?’

She leaned back, vamping: ‘Many times, many times.’

I was too tense for it. ‘Where is he now?’ I rasped.

‘Haven’t a clue, ‘ she said cheerfully. ‘Haven’t seen him for ages.’

‘Jesus! You don’t know where he lived?’

‘No dear, he never took me home to meet his Mum.’

I wasn’t really let down; I hadn’t expected him to be boarding there, but I’d hoped Honey would still be in touch with him. Still, a year isn’t a long time, I thought. The trail was still warm compared to some I’ve followed and it was time to consolidate, get all I could on him, and look for the next doorway.

I made a cigarette while she fiddled with the pictures. Her face was hard and vain but there was humour in it and in the set of her lean body. She looked as if a shrug might always be her next movement. I blew smoke and put the match in a seashell ashtray.

‘You must have liked this one, Honey?’

‘Why d’you say that?’ She went on fiddling nervously.

‘Do you let all your clients use you as a mail drop?’

She looked up shrewdly. ‘Know about that eh? Let me tell you, I was furious. It broke all my rules.’

‘Like not knowing their names?’

‘Well, that gets broken from time to time. No, I mean about getting involved, families and all that.’

‘I get it. Something came from Canberra?’

‘Canberra, yes.’

‘Was that the last you saw of him, when he picked that up?’

‘The very last. I wasn’t sorry, he was no good.’

‘In what way?’

‘In every way — mean, selfish, rough…’

‘He was violent?’

‘I’ll say. I thought he was going to eat me the first time. Look, this isn’t embarrassing you?’

‘No, I’m older than I look. Go on.’

‘He really liked the old stuff, you know? Kinky for it.’

‘Kinky in what way?’

‘Just… very keen, very appreciative of me and I’m no picture. I’ve been through the mill and I’ve got the marks to prove it. He lapped it up.’

‘Did he have much money?’ I butted the cigarette in the seashell; the old tart fanned the smoke away from her face irritably and reached under her gown to scratch. I decided she was closer to sixty than forty.

‘He didn’t have much money,’ she said slowly, ‘but enough. Most of what he had must have gone on booze.’

‘What did he drink?’

‘Everything, but he never got really pissed. He was big, see? I mean really big,’ she tapped the pictures. ‘These don’t show it. He must have been close to fifteen stone and getting heavier. I suppose he could carry a lot of grog.’

‘All right, now let’s try to pin it down a bit. When did this letter from Canberra come?’

‘About a year ago, October or November last year. Look, what is all this…?’

‘Tell you in a minute. Did he say what was in the letter or give you any idea of what he was doing?’