Cold Skin (9 page)
and suggests a reward.
He calls it ‘an incentive’.
I waste valuable time
explaining that it isn’t how things work.
He keeps repeating,
‘No stone left unturned.’
As if it’s all so easy.
Like getting elected Mayor
when no one else wants the job.
Sergeant Grainger
The Johnston twins don’t say much.
They saw Larry Holding
hanging around behind the pub
and admit drinking their fair share.
For two years they’ve been going down the mine
and have faced worse things
than a suspicious policeman.
They keep calling me mate
to remind me of my place.
Les says,
‘I passed her a shandy and she took a drink.
That’s all.
She’s too young anyway.’
Then he realises how that sounds.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean nothing.
She’s Frank’s daughter, for pity’s sake.
No one in their right mind would touch her.’
Barry says,
‘Look. She left before the other two girls.
That’s all we know.
Ask them. They’ll tell you.’
They’re both dressed in overalls
preparing for the next shift.
Les glances at his watch and reaches for his bag.
‘Do us a favour, mate.
Don’t mention the shandy to Frank.’
Mr Butcher
Hard working men like me
should be left in peace
on a Sunday afternoon.
I’ve only just walked in from the train.
Sergeant Grainger is too interested
in what time I left on Friday night.
He should mind his own business
but something in his manner
tells me not to provoke him.
I answer his questions,
as honestly as I need to,
but I’m hardly telling the town cop
what I do away from school.
That’s my secret.
‘I caught the evening train,
same as always,
to stay with my mother.
She’s getting on in years, you know.
No, I didn’t see anyone else on the platform.
Yes, I know Taylors Bend.
Doesn’t everyone?
It’s a lovers’ lane, or so they say.
Yes, I’ve been there.
Alone.
I take a book and read,
enjoying the outdoors.
It’s good for the health,
even in this gritty town.
No, I haven’t been there this week.
I had dinner on Friday at the Sunset Café
and I caught the train to be with . . .
‘What!
You want her phone number?
What is going on, Sir?
I don’t want you disturbing her.
Look, I’m not answering another question.
What happens in the city is private.
Between my mother and myself.
It’s not for anyone in this town to know about.
That is the end of the matter.’
Sergeant Grainger
Butcher is a snob.
You don’t need police training to see that.
He almost had a fit
when I suggested phoning his mother.
The old dear is probably as pompous
and insufferable as her son.
No doubt I’ll get a lecture in manners
from the old woman as well.
Bugger it.
I’ll look up Mrs Butcher
in the phone book.
A cold call should put the wind up her son,
the stupid wowser.
Butcher’s respected in town.
Not liked, but respected.
That won’t stop Frank though.
If he hears I’m suspicious of anyone
he’ll beat the daylights out of them.
I’ve got a few days
before Frank and his mates
start getting pushy.
I don’t want them deciding who’s guilty.
A vein throbs in my temple
like a loud ticking clock.
Albert Holding
I came out here for a smoke
and to get away from the wife.
She’s been on and on about the pub,
the beer,
my mates and me getting drunk,
ever since the war.
War!
What does she know about it?
To blokes like Frank it meant starvation
and brutality beyond imagining.
He once told us, over a few beers too many,
that the lucky ones were those who died early.
The others came home to a life in the mines,
with nothing to look forward to but Friday arvo
and a mate at the bar who understands.
He’d wake up at night to thunder,
thinking he’s under attack
when it’s only rain on the roof.
I spent too long in the desert driving trucks
when I could have been beside Frank
and had the honour of getting beaten to a pulp
by some slit-eyed bastard with a skeleton grin.
Some blokes reckon I was one step away
from a white feather in the mail.
Cheetham had his excuse,
being deaf in one ear.
But all I got was some pea-brain army doctor
scrawling ‘not for the frontline’ on my report.
When I pushed the white ant for an answer,
and stood close enough
for him to count my nose hairs,
he had the hide to say,
‘It’s not only the body that has to be fit, Holding.’
I almost slugged him, then and there,
but they had military police
stationed outside his door.
He’d been punched a few times before
by the look of him.
Cheetham and me wandered around in a daze
for a week
until they stationed us in the Alice,
a million bloody miles from Frank and our mates.
When I got home
I thought the wife would understand
and wouldn’t nag me
about going back down the mine,
where the enemy is a thousand tons of dirt
held up by timber studs and a few nails and bolts.
After the war I was going to make up for lost time.
But the time I spent away,
it’s still lost.
No matter what I do,
it stays lost.
I pull hard on my durry
and watch the heavy clouds roll in.
It’s going to rain for Colleen’s funeral.
As it should.
At least that’ll keep my wife quiet,
for an hour or two.
After the funeral.
That’s when I’ll make my move.
If Grainger can’t put two and two together
then I’ll do it for him.
No one in this town will think of me as gutless.
Not this time.
Eddie
The Catholic church is full to bursting
with every pew taken
and people crowded along the walls
and at the back.
They shut the mine for a shift
and the shops are all closed.
The school has a day off
and we’re spending it here with Colleen,
her coffin near the altar,
with a photo on top.
Her long blonde hair
shines from behind the glass
and I can hear Mrs O’Connor
crying in the front pew.
I’m wearing Dad’s army boots,
polished with spit and rags,
because my feet are too big for my good shoes
and Dad said we weren’t buying new ones,
not for a funeral.
Sally and me are sitting close,
listening to the priest
talk about God calling his children home,
welcoming them to his side,
asking us to pray for those lost
and those reunited.
I close my eyes
and imagine the river at Taylors Bend.
A bunch of us from school
went there one afternoon to swim.
Colleen sat on the wild grass beside the bank
and laughed as I dive-bombed from the tree
and nearly flooded the beach.
The priest asks us to stand
and hold hands to give us strength.
He prays that peace be with us
and I’m pleased to feel Sally’s warmth
and look into her sad eyes.
We sit down again and I glance around.
My family are in the pew opposite.
Larry is looking at the altar.
Mum is clenching her hands tight in her lap
and Dad stares straight ahead,
not a muscle moving.
Mr Carter is sitting near the front.
His paper said Colleen was a ray of sunshine
that bathed our town in a glow,
bright enough to stay with us for ever.
When this is all over,
I’ll thank him for honouring Colleen.
The priest calls us to sing
but all I hear is the sound of hard rain
falling on my empty town.
Albert Holding
Christ almighty!
I can’t put up with this much longer.
The organ’s grinding on,
putting my teeth on edge,
and the wife is crying by the bucketful.
If the rain crashes harder
I won’t have to hear this singing.
Paley’s weasled his way into the front pew,
wiping his pudgy face with a white handkerchief.
I remember him on Friday,
drunk and backslapping,
offering the shout.
I was outside under the sarsaparilla vine,
watching him buying friends at the bar,
until the girls came along
and I turned my attention to them.
The town prays to a God
who takes young girls
and welcomes the killer into his church.
Believing,
it ain’t worth a pinch of dust.
There’s a trick I learnt in the army,
on the parade ground
listening to the drill sergeant bellowing insults.
I stand straight and stare forward,
close my mind to everything,
feel my breathing steady
and try to sleep, with my eyes open.
I spent long days at the base camp
working on doing nothing but this.
It’s probably the only good thing I learnt,
along with how to roll smokes with one hand
and how to hate someone
and never show it.
Mr Butcher
Sergeant Grainger is up the back
looking for a sign, a weakness.
I dare not turn around to see him.
I stare straight ahead at the statue of Mary,
her immaculate heart,
and think of what to do.
But what I can’t get out of my mind
is the sight of blonde hair
through my fingers.
I tighten with the memory.
Of course!
There’s my answer.
I’ll pay for a mother.
My blonde friend must have a mother,
or an aunt,
anyone who’ll be Mrs Butcher
if someone rings.
Simple.
A few pounds for answering a phone call.
I hope mother is like daughter,
willing to provide a service.
Anything to get rid of Grainger.
It’s a waste of my wage though.
The money would be better spent
on soft warm silken pleasurable things.
Sally
As we follow the procession out of the church
I want to hold Eddie’s hand
but my dad is watching,
so I walk quietly beside him.
I hear his sharp intake of breath
as we see the rain falling on Colleen’s coffin.
Mr O’Connor and some miners
load the coffin into the wagon
for the short trip
around the corner to the cemetery.
We all follow in the rain.
Eddie opens an umbrella
and holds it over my head,
and instead of saying thanks,
I look at his downcast eyes
and say,
‘I love you.’
It just came out.
I looked into his eyes and saw love.
I thought I saw love,
so I mouthed the words.
The rain tumbles down
as we reach the old iron gates and file through.
Eddie’s worth more than anything to me.
So I’m glad I said it.
Eddie
It’s like the first time we kissed
beside the river
and I fled as fast as my feet could take me.
Only now,
I’m holding an umbrella
in a line of people.
There’s no escape.
I focus on the hearse up ahead
and think of Colleen
being lowered into the ground.
I’m afraid of hearing
the thump of dirt on her coffin,
and her mother wailing
while Mr O’Connor struggles
to hold himself steady.
Sally’s words dance, uninvited,
inside my head.
I move the umbrella closer to Sally,
so I can feel the drops of rain
on my face,
cooling my skin
and rolling down my cheeks.
I feel too much.
Let the rain wash it away.
Mr Carter
As the rain drenches us all
I close my eyes for a minute
and pray for my Grace
to be with the young girl
and to tell her of our thoughts,
our sorrow,
and to forgive us.
The Lord sends these things
to test our spirit,
and while we can’t make sense
or understand why,
we must believe and accept.
Mr O’Brien leans heavily on his cane
beside the grave.
As we all start to leave,
I touch his arm and say,
‘Can I walk with you, Bob?’
He was a watchmaker,
before the war, before his injury.
His workshop next to my office
rang with chimes and gongs,
and I marvelled at his dexterity,
his long fingers tinkering
with the crowded workings
of all manner of clocks and watches.
We slowly file out of the cemetery,
his cane tapping a route home.
He says,
‘Sometimes it’s all right being the way I am.
Not having to see things.’
When we reach his front gate,
he holds out his hand and asks,
‘Are you still a Catholic, Mr Carter?’
Before I answer,
he adds,