Jon Cleary - Endpeace

‘I don’t think Derek ever gave a thought to what he earned as a cricketer.’

‘He could afford not to.’

The old man accepted the rebuke. ‘Sorry. So you and he were not close?’

‘Not as bosom friends, no. He was my – well, I guess my mentor.’

Sir Harry nodded. ‘He was always good at that. Mentoring, or whatever the verb is. Except with his siblings.’

That was another old-fashioned word that, unlike lavatory, had come back into fashion. Malone, having no siblings, could think of nothing to say and, as he often did in interrogations, stood and waited. The old man seemed not to notice his silence; he went on, ‘What’s your heritage, Scobie?’

The question made Malone pause; he could not remember ever having been asked it before. ‘Not much, I’m afraid. I’ve never bothered to trace the family further back than my grandparents. And even that far back I’m in the dark on a lot of things.’ Including my own mother’s early life; or anyway her early love. ‘I’m of Irish descent, the name tells you that. I guess all I’ve really inherited, if I knew about it, is a lot of pain and trouble. That’s Ireland, isn’t it?’

‘It doesn’t seem to have affected you. On the surface.’

‘Maybe it’s because I don’t think too much about it. Maybe I should.’

Sir Harry shook his head. ‘If you don’t have to, don’t. Heritage, I’m beginning to think, is like history – it’s bunk. Henry Ford, one of history’s worst philosophers, said that. But perhaps, who knows, he had a point.’ He had an occasional stiff way of putting his thoughts into words, as if he were writing an editorial. Then he smiled and stood up. ‘I’d like you to come again, Scobie. I don’t get to talk enough to –’ Then he smiled again, without embarrassment. ‘I was going to say the common folk. Does that offend you?’

‘I’m a republican, Sir Harry. We’re all common folk.’

‘You must debate some time with my wife. She’s a monarchist through and through. At Runnymede she would have been on side with King John. You’ve heard of Magna Carta?’

There it was again, the arrogance: unwitting, perhaps in Sir Harry’s case, but endemic. ‘They were still teaching English history when I was at school. I had to study it in a plain brown wrapper, so my father wouldn’t throw a fit. He hates the Brits.’

‘Perhaps you should bring him here to debate with my wife.’

‘Are you a monarchist, Sir Harry?’ All at once Malone was interested in the older man, wanted to put him in front of the video recorder in one of the interrogation rooms at Homicide. Take him apart, perhaps take a hundred and fifty years of Huxwoods apart. This family, this man, had wielded influence that had toppled governments, that had sent young men to a war they didn’t believe in, that had, in various ways, influenced the running of the force in which Malone himself served.

‘Mr Malone, I fear that all my beliefs, whatever they were, have somehow turned to water.’ Then abruptly it seemed that he had revealed enough of himself: ‘Shall we rejoin the others?’

They went out into the wide tessellated hallway. A curving staircase went up to the first floor, its polished walnut banister following it like a python heading for the upper galleries of a rain-forest. Four of the family stood in the hallway: Derek, Nigel, Sheila and Linden. Halfway up the staircase Lady Huxwood had paused, stood with one hand on the banister and stared down at her children. Malone, the outsider, unconnected to whatever demons were stirring in the family, was struck with a sudden image: he had seen it all before on some late night movie, The Magnificent Ambersons or The Little Foxes , Bette Davis or some other over-the-top actress pouring venom from a great height.

‘You deserve nothing, none of you! I should have aborted the lot of you!’

Then she went on up the stairs, paused on the gallery that ran round the upper level of the hallway and looked back down into the pit. Malone waited for another spit of spite, was surprised when she looked directly at him and snapped, ‘Goodnight, Mr Malone. I’m sure you won’t come again.’

Then she was gone. There was absolute silence and stillness for a long moment, then the four siblings let out a collective sigh. Sir Harry touched Malone’s arm, said, ‘Forgive us, Mr Malone,’ and went on up the stairs, moving stiffly and not looking back at his sons and daughters.

Malone had known embarrassment, but nothing like this. He looked for an exit, some way he could skirt the four Huxwoods and be ignored by them. Then Lisa appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, coat over her dinner dress. If she had heard what had just been said in the hallway, she gave no sign of it.

She held out her hand to Derek. ‘Thank you, Derek, A most entertaining evening.’

Nigel and his sisters slipped away, not even looking at the Malones, just disappearing into the shadows of the house. Derek shook hands with Lisa, did the same with Malone, then escorted them towards the heavy front door.

‘I’m glad you thought it was entertaining.’ He was smiling, that whimsical grin just short of a sneer. ‘Like Macbeth or King Lear . You should see us when we’re in top form. Our paper’s cartoonists could get a month’s run out of us.’

3

Driving home Lisa said, ‘Don’t ever accept an invitation to that house again, understand? Never! ’

‘There’s no chance of that. What happened while I was out with Sir Harry?’

‘I don’t know. All of a sudden the four of them were down one end of the room with Lady Huxwood, arguing in whispers. The rest of us were at the other end, trying to look as if we hadn’t been left there like – what’s that expression you use?’

‘Like shags on a rock?’

‘That’s it. We never go there again, understand?’

He knew how adamant she could be, but never about anything as unimportant as a dinner invitation. He had, however, noticed a gradual change in her over the past few months. Last year she had been operated on for cervical cancer; the operation had been successful and there had been no metastasis since. She had undergone chemotherapy and it had had a temporary effect: there had been the recurring bouts of vomiting and she had lost some of her lustrous blonde hair. The hair had grown back, as thick as ever, and she was once again healthily vibrant; but her patience had thinned, she had less time for inconsequentialities. It was as if she had looked at the clock and decided it was closer to midnight than she had thought. She had not become self-centred, but she had begun to ration her time, her attention and her charity. He couldn’t blame her: she had been fortunate to come out on the lucky side of a fifty-fifty chance.

‘What drives them to be like that, for God’s sake?’ She was stirred, more than she should be. ‘They have everything , there’s nothing missing in their lives. Not the way ordinary people count things. And yet ... Have you ever met such a bunch?’

‘There’s lots more around like them, I’m sure. We just never meet them. When we do, it’s usually after a homicide and by then they’ve called a truce.’

‘Lady Huxwood invites homicide. Anyhow, we never go there again. Watch the red light.’

‘You’re the one who’s driving. You watch it.’

For several years the Homicide Unit of the Major Crime Squad, South Region, had been housed in the Hat Factory, a one-time commercial building where the ambience had suggested that the Police Service was down on its luck, that the hat had had to be passed around before the rent could be raised. Recently Homicide, along with other units in the Major Crime Squad, had been moved to quarters that, for the first few weeks, had brought on delusions that money had been thrown at the Service which the State government had actually meant for more deserving causes such as casino construction or pork-barrelling in marginal electorates.