Peter Corris: The Marvellous Boy

‘What will you do when you’re all set up?’ I asked.

‘I think I’ll finish the Law course.’

I had to laugh at that. I could see him in his after-shave and three piece suit, dealing. I laughed some more and drank.

‘What’s funny?’

‘Nothing. Be sure to look up Honey Gully, won’t you? She’d love to see you.’

He gave me a look that told me he hated me for what I knew about him. He was already living the role of Chatterton and Hardy was cast as an enemy. He marched out of the room and I got on with my bottle.

I delivered him on a fine, sparkling morning two days before Christmas. He was freshly shaved and barbered and he had a good tan. He had on a beige safari suit and everything that matched. He still had flab on him and there was a muddiness about his eyes, but you had to look very closely to see it. His teeth were good.

Mrs McMahon met us at the door; she was a middle-sized, middle-aged woman with grey hair and a restful face. She was grateful to me the way people sometimes are to those who help them get jobs they like.

I introduced Baudin-Chatterton and they looked each other over warily. He hadn’t yet acquired that particular way of looking through servants but I was sure he’d pick it up. We went into the house and started on the great trek.

‘How do you get along with her ladyship?’ I asked.

Mrs McMahon smiled. ‘She’s wilful, but she has her soft spots.’

‘I suppose your predecessor found that, too.’

She stopped dead in her tracks. ‘That woman! I can’t begin to tell you the things she did. The things she paid for and didn’t pay for, it was a scandal.’ We got moving again. ‘Did you know she drank?’ she said.

Touchy ground I thought. ‘Well, perhaps…’

‘Dreadfully, bottles everywhere.’

‘Dreadful,’ I agreed. ‘But I expect you’ve sorted things out.’

‘Oh yes,’ she glanced at the heir who was avoiding a bare patch in the carpet. ‘Mr Booth has been very helpful and things are on a very sound footing now.’

Lady Catherine Chatterton was waiting in state in the room I’d had an audience in the last time. There was colour in her cheeks and her white hair was waved softly. Her dress was new, a brown silk affair with white lace and it suited her. She looked as good as an old lady could.

I made the introductions; he bowed over her hand, a little eighteenth century I thought, but it went down well enough.

‘Thank you, Mr Hardy, my deepest thanks,’ she said dismissively.

‘How’s Bettina?’ I said.

She let it go. ‘If you would be good enough to leave the young man and I alone? Mrs McMahon will see to the arrangements.’

He was sitting on the edge of a silk upholstered chair taking an intelligent interest in the paintings. He gave me one of his winning athlete’s smiles and then looked away. For all his smooth appearance he still looked like trouble and it’d be her trouble and the thought came to me that he might be vengeance for all those small, frightened men the Judge had bullied in the dock. It wasn’t a bad thought and I took it out of the room with me.

Mrs McMahon was waiting outside and we walked amiably along to the office. She handed over the cheque with a motherly smile. I looked at it. Five thousand dollars.

‘A lot of money,’ I said. ‘Can she afford it?’

‘I believe you’ve earned it. She can just afford it. There will have to be economies.’

‘You like her, don’t you?’

‘Yes, she trusts me and I trust her.’

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘She’ll wipe her feet on your face if he tells her to.’

I left the house and walked down the path to my car. The lawn was ragged and weeds dominated the flower beds. I looked around but there was no sign of Rusty.

I paid the cheque in, drew out five hundred dollars and mailed it to Honey Gully. Then I packed a bag and headed for Canberra. My first call was at Kay’s flat; it seemed to be occupied — no milk bottles or papers lying about, clean windows. My mouth felt dry and I felt flushed and edgy when I walked into the reporters’ room at The Canberra Times. Kay was sitting behind a desk, hammering a typewriter. She had a pencil stuck in her mouth and her concentration was total. I watched her for a minute and then she shook her hair back and looked up; her eyes went wide and the pencil dropped. She caught it deftly and put it down on the desk as I walked over.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hi Cliff.’

‘Busy?’

‘Mmm, fairly.’

‘What’s the story?’

‘You know, dirty Indonesian money and how to clean it.’

‘You were supposed to clear that with me.’

‘You were supposed to ring me.’

‘I got tied up, Kay,’ I smiled. ‘I mean that literally, I called as soon as I could.’

‘Well, it didn’t matter. I started work on this straight away. The paper sent me to Indonesia. Just got back.’

‘Yeah, I heard. Terrific tan.’ It was true, she was wearing a green dress with white trim; her tan was TV commercial standard and she looked cool, clean and lovely. I was trying to hold my feelings in neutral but they wouldn’t stay there. I wanted to touch her very badly. She moved her hand across the desk a little towards me, it was like a negotiating party advancing under a white flag. I reached down and put my hand lightly over hers.

‘Let’s go out for a drink,’ I said.

‘I thought you’d say that.’

We went back to the downstairs place of course and talked and drank there for a couple of hours. She had the goods on Keir Baudin all right and I had no reason to stop her exposing him, even if I could. I felt a bit sorry for the old man, though. I told her how the Chatterton case had developed and she expressed a polite interest. The fact was that she was committed to her story and the career advance it was probably going to bring her. I struggled with the knowledge that she didn’t need me.

‘You look better,’ she said, ‘fitter and you’re not smoking. You’ll be better at the job.’

‘Yeah, we’ll both be better at our jobs.’

She went back to work and we met again later. We ate, drank and made love and she went on with her work. I stayed in the flat and read her books and walked around Canberra seeing how the taxpayers’ money was spent. The city’s grass and gardens were drying out and would soon be yellow under the summer sun. After a few days I had a strong yen for a Beach and I tried to persuade Kay to come to the coast with me but she was too involved in her story. We spent an evening together in which we couldn’t find any common ground. Truth was, I was in Sydney and she was in Indonesia and we both knew it. I went back to Sydney to wait for work. Her articles on the Indonesian connection were run in all the Capital city papers; the next time I saw her name in print she was writing about crime and politics — in New York City.