DENNIS DOUGLAS

AN OLD MATE OF HER EX-HUSBAND'S

Harry Dover heard of Merle's death in the pub at Nelia on New Year's Eve, 1957. He had come into town—what there was of it, a pub and a general store beside the railway line—thinking he might pick up a quid or two at the picnic races, but there were too many dicks in the paddock. Every copper in the state seemed to be on to him these days. He stayed out of harm's way at the end of the bar through the afternoon. In the six o'clock crush he overheard three men he had never seen before talking about an accident in the bush. It was a pretty gruesome story. Bloke and his de facto out in the mulga dropping trees for sleeper logs—accident with a motor- powered saw—bloke driving eighty miles on bad roads—dying woman wrapped in a blanket, unconscious, on the passenger seat. Stories like that were common enough, but this one had an edge to it. It was her hair had killed her. Her long red hair had caught on the blade of the circular saw and the scalp was ripped off. They only said her name at the end. Harry didn't know what to think at first. He remembered her the last time he had seen her, in the courtroom, how she hadn't looked at him, hadn't spoken. He had wanted to go up to her at the end, when they let her off, and tell her that it wasn't her fault. It was just that rotten day, the day nothing went right. But there was no opportunity. She stayed talking to the Solicitor and the sergeant. He had a train to catch. The story came back to him late at night. He woke up sweating, with a sour stomach, and made it in a rush to the tiny wash-basin in the corner and spewed his guts up. When he turned on the tap the foetid smell of the local bore-water invaded his senses. Rotten back-country grog. His system couldn't take it these days. Then the car-horns started blaring outside and the noise of somebody belting a corrugated-iron tank with a heavy

137 shifting spanner and through the doorway opening onto the verandah he saw the lights of rockets shooting up over the showgrounds the other side of the railway line. It was 1958. Harry Dover fell back on the bed and closed his eyes. Merle Mclvor was dead. Life was a bit hard on some people.

Nothing had gone right the day of Harry's visit to theMc- Ivors' place. Harry had got off the train at Charters Towers, in the caver- nous station shed at 10.15, with a sense of relief. A country town at last. Somewhere you wouldn't get pinched for carrying your own suitcase up the street. As he was handing his ticket in he looked back up the plat- form and saw the big sandy detective from Townsville ease his way into the station manager's office. He must have come down on the same train. Harry's brow creased. Had there been a tip- off? Easy now, he thought. There were any number of other reasons why a plain-clothes cop might come down the line. He took a taxi to the pub. Fred's blonde blousy daughter, Beryl, was in the office. When Harry asked for her dad she looked at him oddly. 'Didn't you hear, Harry?' she said, 'Dad died six weeks ago.' Harry started to apologize. 'It's alright Harry,' she said. 'You couldn't have known. He took a powder one night and passed out on big Alan's front verandah. We were all having a drink in the kitchen. We loaded him into the car. We didn't think anything of it. We brought him back here and put him to bed. He didn't wake up.' She came out of the office and led him up the stairs. 'Mum's taking it pretty hard,' she said. 'She's a bit crook herself.' In the room, as Beryl's heavy body clumped down the stairs, Harry put the suitcase on the bed. He was getting nervy. First the dick at the station, then Fred knocked off by a powder. Get a grip on yourself, he thought. How would she know anything? Inside the suitcase were some clothes, some letters, a roll of sticky tape, a Zane Grey western, a glossy issue of Man full of

138 cheesecake and suggestive cartoons and an old dark brown glad- stone bag. Harry didn't have a key to it. He didn't want to know what it contained. Aman he ditln't know and would never see again had asked him to take a bag down the line. The less you knew the less could be got out of you. Harry Dover's apprenticeship had consisted of four years in the backstreets of Melbourne, six years in a Commando unit during the war, and a spell in King's Cross afterwards. He had learnt to be watchful but not inquisitive. Death interested him, and what was going on. He knew better than to let his interest in such subjects affect his feclings. He had a hunch that the bag contained a parcel of white powder, which could be coke, or benzedrine, or even castor sugar. There was a rumour that the opening of the National Ser- vice camp just outside this hot and dusty country town had created a market here for stuff that would normally have circu- lated through the night clubs in Brisbane and the odd outlet up the coast. A network of carriers and distributors had sprung into being, obscure, anonymous people, who stayed out of sight. Harry had been asked to carry a bag down the line. He wouldn't be asked again. The powder that fInished Fred off hadn't come out of this load. That was for sure. Harry slipped the sticky tape into his pocket, took the glad- stone bag, and went downstairs. He rang a taxi from the public phone hanging on the wall, and waited for it, standing outside on the hotel verandah. After the muggy air of the coast the dry shining sunlight on the bluemetal comforted his eyes. Tall spear-grass lined the road and the unused shunting line in the middle of the street. The fence of the small general store opposite the hotel carried a brown and orange-painted advertisement for Kinkara Tea. There was nobody about except an old lady, diminutive in height but fat, and stoop-shouldered with her weight of years, who waddled contemplatively through the heat-waves towards her shopping. Harry got out of the taxi two blocks behind the house he had been told about, and walked to it, as he had been directed, by side streets. He opened the gate in the tall fence and crossed the yard with the lemon tree to a lean-to garage.

139 The door of the garage was open. A door and a window in the side-wail of the house opened into the garage. The window was slightly raised and the door was ajar. Against the back wail of the garage was a gladstone bag like the one he was carrying. He went in and changed them over. Everything was going fine. Then the cockatoo shuffled side- ways around the door and said 'Polly want a cracker!' There was a sound of doors opening and bare feet on lino. At the same time the voice of an old woman said angrily 'Piss off.' The barrel of a sawn-off .22 slid across the window-ledge. The old woman Harry could not see at the window said to him, 'You. Bugger off.' A hand came round the door and seized the cockatoo, which screeched indignantly and flapped its wings. Harry made himself scarce.

Down towards the main street he went into a pub looking for a toilet cubicle. In the bag he had just picked up he found an envelope con- taining the halves of four fifty-pound notes. He had been given the other halves of the four notes in Townsville. He laid them out on the closed lid of the toilet-stool and pieced them together with the roll of sticky-tape. Beats working for a living, he thought with the two hundred pounds tucked into his top-pocket. It was time for a drink. In the bar, with a beer in front of him, the episode in the garage rankled a bit. Harry didn't like people having the drop on him, and old ladies with horse pistols always reminded him of Squizzy Taylor's end, being mown down in an upstairs room in Carlton by his own old lady with a .38. Because she was his mother she had got off. No Melbourne jury ever believed that a woman would knowingly shoot her own son. In the garage, at the time, it had amused him. Why had they panicked in the house when the cockatoo came out? Either they were amateurs or they thought he was one. The thought of incompetent amateurs pointing a-gun at him annoyed Harry. That was the kind of situation in which accidents happened.

140 The two coppers were inside the doors before Harry realized they were coming in. Harry studied the bottles on the wall be- hind the bar. It would take about fifteen seconds for their eyes to get accustomed to the shady interior after the glare outside. Harry stood up casually and went out the back door. He crossed the back yard in a hurry, reached the overgrown footpath and doubled back towards the main street. When he was two paces from the corner they stepped out in front of him. One was a big country boy. The other had a clipped moustache and a lean face. The country boy was holding the gladstone bag. Harry could have wept with rage. The only con- solation was that it wasn't the bag with the stuff in it. He would have to make the best of things. 'This yours?' said the country boy seriously but politely. 'Aw yes thanks', said Harry. The country boy handed it over. 'The sergeant heard you were in town,' said the country boy. 'He'd like you to look in.' Harry's heart gave a sharp lurch. It was not going to be his day. 'You wouldn't know what he wants?' he said. 'He didn't say,' said the country boy and paused, 'but I wouldn't keep him waiting.' 'You taking me round there?' said Harry, feeling hot under the collar. He suspected the lad of taking the mickey out of him. 'Nothing like it,' said the country boy. 'You know the way?' 'I've been there before,' said Harry. The country boy nodded and he and his mate sauntered off.

The main street had livened up as it did around the lunch hours. School children cycled to and fro. Clerks and shoppers dawdled about. Each pub had a thickening swarm of cars parked nose in to the footpath, late models, utilities, battered sedans. The sergeant let Harry cool his heels for twenty minutes before seeing him. 'We've been looking over some records, Harry,' hesaid, 'and I've got some advice for you.'

141 Soft bastard, thought Harry, I've run rings around you before and I'll do it again. 'Yes, sergeant,' he said meekly. 'When you were last down from the coast,' said the sergeant, 'three school offices were broken into and robbed.' 'It wasn't me,' said Harry. 'The time before that,' continued the sergeant, 'the council offices were raided.' 'How long ago was that?' spluttered Harry, and then realized he should have kept his mouth shut. 'Three years,' said the sergeant. 'Right, Harry?' 'I've been up and down oftener than that,' said Harry. 'Eight years ago,' said the sergeant, 'it was the cinema—the takings out of the safe, on a Saturday night.' 'How would I open a safe?' asked Harry. 'You didn't,' said the sergeant. 'Your mate Benny Mclvor blew the safe. You drove the car, helped him in, and kept nit.' 'Give a dog a bad name,' said Harry bitterly. 'How do you know all this?' 'We've checked up on the jobs you and Benny were charged with in Melbourne in 39. There are enough similarities to satisfy me.' He squinted tiredly and squeezed his forehead with his left hand. 'Not enough to satisfy a jury, but enough to satisfy me.' 'I don't know what you're talking about, officer,' said Harry. 'What do you take me for, some kind of jailbird?' 'You were pretty lucky Harry' said the sergeant. 'If you hadn't enlisted when you did, you and Benny too, you would both have spent more of the last fifteen years inside than out.' 'The country's come to a pretty pass,' snorted Harry, 'when a man's war record's held against him.' The sergeant laughed briefly through his nose, 'Your war re- cord has got you out of more trouble than enough. Why do you think they let you off with a kick up the backside in Katoomba in 47 and Eankstown in 48?' Harry squirmed. He didn't like the memory of those kicks up the backside, and he hadn't expected the sergeant to know anything about them. 'What are you checking up on me for?' he blurted out defensively. 'I haven't done anything.' 'I like this place,' said the sergeant. 'I like it because it's a

142 quiet place. I'm old enough not to get much of a thrill out of running yobbos like you in for jobs that weren't worth tuppence. Benny's going soon. He's selling the farm and going down Kingaroy way. I wouldn't like a conviction to hold him up,' he paused, 'or to be held against him when he gets there. With the stuff we've got on file, if anything happened this weekend I'd have no alternative but to get around to Benny's at first light.' 'I'm not Benny Mclvor's wetnurse,' said Harry. The sergeant shrugged. 'Just don't get him into strife, that's all. Harry, you'11 be forty in a couple of years. You can't risk a major sentence now. You know as well as I do how Townsville would cheer if I saved them the trouble by getting in for you first. You'd better push off. Just think about it, that's all.' The country boy was on the front deck as Harry stumbled out into the sunlight. 'You've forgotten your bag, Mr Dover,' the country boy called after him. Harry went back and picked it up. If I ever get a chance to even scores with you, sonny, he thought, you'll smart for a week. 'Forget my head if it wasn't screwed on,' he answered aloud, smiling.

Benny's square little ute was parked by the pub. Beryl met Harry at the door with an arch look. 'Friends of yours on the back verandah' she said. Caught in the crook of the L-shaped building was a small courtyard with a few ferns and an aggressive display of back stairs and plumbing. It was the coolest corner of the place. Benny was sitting with Merle at a metal table staring morosely into a fresh beer. He had a habit of sitting with his legs wide apart and his elbows on his knees. It was a posture that had enabled him to pass unnoticed on many an occasion when more conspicuous beings were being picked up all around him. 'Aw Jesus here's trouble,' said Benny without looking up. 'Better get going Benny,' said Merle sweetly. 'Drink up quick.' 'Lousy cocky-farmers,' said Harry. 'Do anything to get shouted a drink.'

143 'Cocky-farming'd break anyone,' said Benny. 'The bank manager only lets me come to town twice a month.' 'If that old wether could leg-rope us to a tree-trunk out there,' said Merle, 'he wouldn't think twice about it.' 'Wouldn't mind myself,' said Harry with the merest sugges- tion of a leer." 'Get out you filthy cow,' said Benny. 'I saw her first.' They stayed a while at Beryl's. Benny had been picking up a quid in the sergeant's mess at the army camp and was rejoicing over the latest scandal there. Three of the local girls had set themselves up in a caravan just across the river from the camp and started a minor epidemic. A CMF captain, a bank clerk from a small town further south, had hung himself in conse- quence in the quartermaster's store. The boys had gone out one night and wrecked the caravan inflicting a number of indignities on the ladies in question. The camp was in Benny's view a nuisance. Townsville CIB had been upgraded to take up the slack. Files in Sydney and Melbourne had been consulted. He knew eight or nine blokes on the line between Townsville and Hughenden, blokes living quiet lives and staying out of trouble who had been called in for a chat with the local sergeant. Developments like these had not encouraged him to stay around. He already had a buyer for the farm. It was cruel how little would be left after the mortage was paid but he'd rather be anywhere else just now. They drove down to the main street later so Merle could pick up some groceries anda Woman's Weekly. Harry and Benny dropped in on The Golden Dawn, a bloodhouse of a pub that Benny insisted on calling, with a covert allusion to sanitary vehicles, The Morning Glory. Harry wanted to torment Fanny, one of the chambermaids, about her investment in the caravan trade. They left The Golden Dawn, riding out a stream of sarcastic abuse, and met Merle in the lounge of a more respectable estab- lishment at the top end of town. Merle had a packet of fish and chips. The evening started to speed up. It always surprised Harry how interesting conversations got

144 and how much seemed to be going on towards the evening of a beery day in good company, and how hard it became to keep track of everything. Merle was in fIne form. She gave an account of how one of the barmaids had scored offa town businessman. She had tucked a hanky into her cleavage and he had said 'My word Betty, I'd like to be that handkerchief.' 'Wouldn't suit you, Mr Jones,' she had answered. 'It gets laundered once a week.' The way she told it, it was a very funny story.

Harry was.in high fettle about nine when they squeezed into the ute and headed out of town. Merle was on his knee in the cramped front seat but his thoughts were light-years away from her stringy thigh. He was thinking about how little he could remember of all that happened in the islands, about Singapore and the bright lights of Sydney, about situations he had endured or braved or ducked out of, about crawling in mud, and running for cover in full pack with an Owen on his hip, about living it up in night clubs and sitting in out-of-the-way streets with the engine running while Benny did some exploring. At the back of his mind was a grievance. It was one grievance, though it focussed on a number of people. They flickered to and fro in his memory, the big sandy detective from Townsville, the sergeant, the country-boy policeman, the old woman who had covered him in the garage with a sawn-off .22. Just as well the day had gone right at last. As he walked in Benny and Merle's front door he asked Benny if there was a gun in the place. 'Too right,' said Benny and produced from behind the bedroom door a nicely balanced .22. 'Any bastard fronts up here at night when I'm out,' said Benny, 'Merle can take care of herself orright.' Then he added 'airight' as an emphatic afterthought and slumped onto the sofa. He was out to it -straightaway. Merle was making a pot of tea in the kitchen. A carbide light was flaring on the bench by the back door. Some time after that Harry found himself in bed with her.

145 How he got there he wasn't sure. She wasn't as stringy as she'd seemed in the front seat of the ute. At the back of his mind something stirred. It was all happening too fast. Somebody was screaming at him. He wpke up. It was Benny, standing in the doorway, his face discoloured and distorted with rage. He was shouting abuse and threats. Harry leapt out of bed and went straight for the .22. He came round the bedroom door with the gun in his hands. Benny was running for the back door. The carbide light Merle had lit when they first came in was still flaring away on the kitchen bench. Harry snapped a shot from the hip, aiming by instinct. Benny fell down the back step. He didn't try to save himself. He fell as men do who have no life in them. Merle was standing in the bedroom doorway. She was holding a dressing gown around her. Harry covered her with the rifle. 'It was a set-up wasn't it?' lie snarled. 'What did you two set me up for.' She walked across the room and went down the step. She felt for Benny's pulse and closed his eyes. She was kneeling beside the body. Harry covered her from the top step with the rifle. 'It's no good, Harry,' she said to him. 'If you kill me too, here won't be any witnesses, but you can't get your stuff from Beryl's without taking the ute into town, and we three were seen all over town yesterday.' 'You women,' gritted Harry, 'without you women.' She came heavily up the step and brushed past him. 'Yes Harry, I know,' she said. 'It was my fault. I'll take the rap.' She sat on the sofa and let her head fall back. Her eyes were bleak. 'Shoot me if you like. I wouldn't blame you. But I don't want to do for both of you. If they get you in there you'll never get out again. They've got nothing on me.' She got up and went into the bedroom. 'Make some coffee,' she called through the door. 'And pour me a stiff brandy. I'm going to need it.' When she came out she was wearing a dark brpwn skirt and a pink jumper. The collar of a white blouse rested on the high

146 neckline 'Quite the little innocent, aren't you?' he said. She sat at the kitchen table and drank the coffee, then the brandy. Then she went outside and vomited. He heard her retch- ing in the dark. She turned on the tap of the rainwater tank and poured water into a tin washbasin to sponge herself down. When she had finished he went out too and washed his face and hands, and splashed water over his chest and arms. While he was dressing she wiped the rifle over with a damp cloth and dried it to get rid of his fmgerprints. Then she held it for a minute or two in firing position, and put it down in the middle of the lounge-room floor. As they drove in he noticed that she was shivering. 'You wouldn't rat on me, Merle,' he said. 'Keep it quiet when you get to Beryl's,' she said, ignoring him again. 'You don't want anyone to know when you came in.' 'What are you going to tell them?' 'I'm going to say that he had an attack of the d.t.s and went for the axe. They'll let me off on a plea of self-defence.' She laughed quietly, 'Poor Benny. He wouldn't have hurt a fly if he could help it.' She dropped him up the street from the pub. As he walked along the gravel footpath with the first glow of piccaninny dawn lighting the sky he planned his moves. He would go up the fire escape to the first-floor verandah and enter his room that way. He would pack in the dark, leave some money for Beryl- she wouldn't put him in—and walk to the station. There was just time to catch the early train up the line. The coppers wouldn't be thinking of looking for him yet. They'd be too busy getting organized to go out and see Benny.

He took a risk and went down for the trial. It was a forma- lity. They accepted Merle's plea of self-defence, as they had done at the inquest. She didn't look at him in the courtroom, didn't speak. He wanted to go up to her at the end, when they let her off, and

147 tell her that it wasn't her fault, that nothing had gone right that day. But she was talking to the solicitor and the sergeant. As Harry left the courtroom the big country boy and the chap with the clipped moustache fell in step with him. 'That's your taxi, Mr Dover,' said the country boy. There was a taxi at the steps. The coppers got in with him. 'Am I under arrest?' said Harry. 'You could be,' said the country boy, 'but you're not. Jim and me have instructions to treat you with kid gloves. You wouldn't like us to disobey our instructions, Mr Dover. I can promise you that.' At the railway station the three men sat in the far corner of the empty refreshment room where they couldn't be overheard. The two coppers produced a booking for Harry on the new air- conditioned diesel to Julia Creek. 'But I haven't got any luggage,' said Harry. 'I came clown with the clothes I stand up in.' 'Townsville's looking after that,' said the country boy. 'They're delighted to have an excuse to run you out of town.' 'What excuse have they got?' said Harry. 'I haven't done anything.' 'We don't look at it that way,' said the country boy. 'We know Merle Mclvor lied in court today. We know you were at Mclvors' that night, and we know you shot Benny. The whole town knows it. Merle wouldn't know one end of a rifle from the other.' Why don't you charge me then?' said Harry. 'See how far you'll get with that one in court.' 'Because it was simpler not to shake Merle's story,' said the country boy. 'She's gota lot of guts, don't you think? She might be lying to satisfy a bad conscience. She might .have a warped sense of loyalty to an old mate of her ex-husband's. She might be gambling against all the odds on a no-hoper's ability, left to his own devices, to stay out of jail. She might be a silly bitch every which way you look at it. But she risked a charge of per- jury or manslaughter to keep you out of jail, and since she took that risk the sergeant decided we'd bend the rules far enough

148 to put you on that train. He thinks you still have a sense of shame.' 'We can't actually make you get on it.' The chap with the clipped moustache spoke for the first time. 'But how much standing in the community would you reckon a bloke has who shoots his best mate and then lets his best mate's widow take the credit for the transaction? Work it out for yourself. If you don't get on it we'll pinch you, and under the present circum- stances there's no charge wouldn't stick—except the shooting of Benny Mclvor. Don't think we wouldn't welcome the opportu- nity to put you away.' The three men fell silent. More people were appearing out- side on the platform. Tea ladies brought in an urn and cups and biscuits. The diesel drew in. Harry's escort took him outside. The big sandy detective from Townsville was waiting for them. 'That's Dover, is it? 'he said. 'Been getting into deep water lately, Dover. I wouldn't get off that train before Julia Creek if I were you. It wouldn't be worth your while. You'll find your belongings in the carriage in your suitcase, and the gladstone bag you picked up a few weeks ago on the seat. If I ever have the misfortune to clap eyes on you again you'll be in pokey for the rest of your life.' Sitting in the carriage as the train drew out Harry thought the option of a kick up the backside might at least have been offered. Getting a sermon from a kid just out of short pants was a bit much, at his age.

In the pub at Nelia on New Year's Day Harry Dover lay awake. It was 1958. It might be safe to go back up the line now, with Merle dead and all. . . . Funny how she had all the bastards on her side in the end. Pack of hypocrites.. . . Maybe he should head South, down Cunnamulla way instead. There'd have to be a quid about if you only knew how to find it.

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