Peter Temple - Black Tide

Wootton didn’t look happy. He didn’t like to use his expensive network of underpaid credit-card, airline and car-hire clerks when he wasn’t making anything out of it. ‘I’ll ring you after 9 a.m.,’ he said. ‘Once.’

‘Thank you. I leave the witnesses in your capable hands. In a very loose manner of speaking. Mind you don’t put it on Bren’s bill.’

Outside the bar door of the Prince, hand raised to push, I paused. Raised voices within. I hadn’t heard the Fitzroy Youth Club so animated since the night it became clear that the Fitzroy Football Club was going to be given to Brisbane. Given with a bag of money.

I pushed, looked straight across the room into the publican’s eyes. Stan was leaning against the service hatch between the bar and what would be called the kitchen if what came out of it could be called food. He gave me a resigned nod.

I sat down on the right flank of the club. No-one paid any attention to me. Norm O’Neill was saying, voice deep and dangerous, hands flat on the bar, heroic nose aimed at the dim, tobacco-dyed, fly-specked ceiling, ‘I suppose, Eric, I suppose, it’s off with the old and on with the new. Easy as that.’

‘Well,’ said Eric Tanner, looking a little shrunken, ‘can’t see the bloody fuss. Always bin me second team.’

‘Second team?’ Wilbur Ong said. ‘Second team? Since when did a man have a second team? Can’t recall you tellin us you had a second team. Bit of news. Bit of a shock. Takes a bit of gettin used to, that idea. Second team. Raises a question or two. How does a man get the proper spirit when his first team’s playin his second in a final? Got an answer to that? Got an answer, have you?’

‘Given the sides,’ said Eric, ‘that’s a bit hyperthetical.’

‘Oh it is, is it? Here’s an example: 1913.’

‘Hang on,’ said Eric, ‘that’s before the first war.’

‘Oh right. Thought it was hyperthetical. Depends on bloody when then, does it?’

Eric sighed, made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Stuck in the past, you blokes. Can’t bring the Roys back, everythin’s moved on. Well, it’s round five and I’m not sittin around here anymore lookin at your ugly mugs on a Satdee arvo.’

Norm O’Neill took a deep drink, wiped his lips, didn’t look at Eric, said at a volume that bounced off the ceiling. ‘Yes, well, off ya go. What’s a lifetime anyway? Saint Kilda’s waitin for you. Club’s holdin its breath. Whole stand’ll jump up, here’s Eric Tanner, boys, welcome Eric, three cheers for Eric Tanner, hip bloody hip, bloody hooray.’

The whole bar had gone quiet. I looked around. Charlie was shaking his head, always a sign that something needed doing. I took a deep breath, cleared my throat. It felt like preparing for my first utterance in court, defending a burglar called Ernie Kyte, a nice man but invasive.

‘Time someone raised the matter,’ I said. It came out loud. ‘Either we go with Brisbane or we go with someone else.’

In the silence, you could hear the screeching complaint of a tram braking on Smith Street, then a match scratched against a box. I was rehearsing back-down strategies when Wilbur Ong let out a long sigh that turned into a low whistle.

‘Jack’s right,’ he said.

Another long silence, Norm stared straight ahead, tugged at a hairy earlobe. I signalled to Stan for a round. He took his time over it. When the last glass was put down, Norm said, ‘Well, bloody Brisbane it’s not. Never. Nothin much against the Saints. Few things but not much. Don’t mind that little Stanley Alves, gets a bit extra out of the lads. Shoulda won the Brownlow in ’75 when they give it to that Footscray bloke.’

‘Not averse to the Sainters,’ Wilbur said. ‘Put me mind to it, I could follow the team. Not the same but I could.’

‘Jack?’ said Norm. ‘Recall your old man used to have a few crafty ales with that Bray bloke, now he was a useful player for the Saints.’

‘Pick of the bunch, the Saints,’ I said.

There was a moment of indecision, then Norm said, ‘Give us the fixtures there, Stan. Let’s have a squiz at the order in which we meet the mongrels.’

Stan went off to his office and came back with half a dozen fixture cards. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Saints. Well, well. This mean I can sell the photos?’

All eyes nailed him, slitty eyes, pitbull eyes.

‘No? That’s no, is it? It’s no.’

‘So,’ said Eric, studying his card. ‘It’s the handbags from Geelong. That’s full marks.’

In the office, the phone rang. Stan went in, came to the door, pointed at me.

With considerable trepidation, I entered the undusted, uncatalogued and unclassified museum to fifty years of pub mismanagement. Only a limited number of people called me here. I wanted it to be Linda and I didn’t.

‘Jack, it’s me.’

Linda. No leap of the heart. Nothing good was coming of this. You always know.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘the weekend isn’t going to happen, everything’s in fucking freefall here. I have to be in Queensland tomorrow, this pollie Webb who’s resigned, his wife could just possibly be persuaded to go on camera: “My reluctant threesomes with hubby and Brisbane hookers.’’’

She was speaking at twice her normal speed.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Devote yourself to it. Stories like that, it’s not an occupation, it’s a calling.’

Silence. ‘Jack. I don’t have any choice about these things.’

‘I understand. I’ll just say goodbye then. We’re pretty much falling freely around here too. Floor looming up.’

I put the receiver down, regretted it instantly, waited for her to call again, waited, waited, dialled the studio, gave the producer’s extension. A polite woman answered. Everyone was gone for the day.

Home to the old stable, no prospects but frozen food and uneasy sleep. I sat in an armchair with a glass of leftover red and thought about Linda.

I dialled the silent number. The answering service said: ‘Please leave a message. If you wish the number holder to be alerted by pager, please say that the message is urgent.’

I said, ‘The message is: The chairs in my parlour seem empty and bare. Jack.’

‘Urgent?’

‘No.’

In bed, I tried reading a novel called The Mountain from Afar brought by Linda on her last visit. Very soon, I could tell a) that it was about men and their fathers, and b) that I was at long odds to finish it.

Men and their fathers.

Had Linda been trying to tell me something by leaving this book? Was there something I should be aware of? Why was I spending time on Gary Connors? There was nothing at all in it for me. Did I identify Des with my father? Of course I did. His father had seen my father and mother meet, lust across the class barriers.

I didn’t see Des as a father-substitute. I saw him as a decent old bloke who was going to be turfed out of his house because, against all the evidence of his experience and in a weak moment, he had trusted his son. Someone had to give him a hand.

Where to start? Wootton’s inquiries might take me straight to Gary’s door. It was strange how many people of reasonable intelligence kept using their credit cards while going to great lengths to conceal their whereabouts.

But Gary was an ex-cop. Ex-cops wouldn’t be that stupid. Still, he was stupid enough to be forced to become an ex-cop.

There was hope.

Wootton didn’t sound like a man who’d spent the night in a luxurious hotel engaged in a deeply satisfying pas de deux with the compelling Sylvia Marlowe and then breakfasted on eggs Romanoff. He sounded like a man who’d spent the night at home in the spare room and then breakfasted on burnt porridge.

‘This favour,’ he said. ‘Person was travelling in Europe. Hotels, etcetera. Came back, paid for airport parking on April 2. Three local things on April 3. Ordinary. That’s it.’