‘I hope he wasn’t trying to learn how Kerouac lived. He drank himself to death.’
She nodded. ‘Bill wanted to stop. He tried to a few times, but he couldn’t.’ She pushed back her fringe and gave me an unimpeded straight look. ‘Are you going to try Mai again today, Cliff? Can I come?’
I liked the ‘Cliff’, but I was trying to think of a way to say no, when the book came open at a page that had been turned down at the corner more than once and the binding had been strained by being bent back flat. A couple of paragraphs on the page were heavily underlined in fresh-looking ink. While Erica waited, I read the paragraphs: they described the period, late in Kerouac’s life, when he went to live with his sister and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop drinking. My mind flicked back to what Erica had said about Mountain’s alcohol problem.
‘You said he wanted to give up the grog?’
‘Yes, but he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to write without it. And you know how it is, all his social contacts were drinkers, they met in pubs… he’d have to give up almost everything he did to stop drinking. It was just too hard.’
‘Does he have any relatives?’
She thought about it, which meant lighting another cigarette. ‘A sister, but they’re not close.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Did he ever talk about her?’
‘Mm, not. much. She lives in Melbourne and she’s pretty straight. Bill called her something strange, something old-fashioned. A wowser.’
‘Wowser is old-fashioned?’
‘Is to me. Why? What’s his sister got to do with it?’
I showed her the passage in the book about Kerouac drying out with the dried-up sister. It seemed too thin and fanciful to even be called a lead, but if I followed it I could at least get off on my own and do some investigating in my own style. My old mate Grant Evans was currently nudging his way up the police preferment ladder in Melbourne, and I could have a quiet word about stolen hire cars with him without alerting Bernsteins and Woodwards. I’d have preferred a trip to Byron Bay but you can’t have everything.
‘What’s the sister’s name, d’you know?’
‘I don’t know, but I know where she lives-place called Bentleigh. I remember Bill said there was no-one bent in Bentleigh.’
‘Witty. She married, this sister?’
She shook her head and blew smoke over my shoulder. ‘Don’t think so, no.’
‘That’s a help. Can’t be too many Mountains in Bentleigh. Is that witty?’
‘Not very.’
‘A terrible thought just occurred to me, Erica. His name really is Mountain, isn’t it? It’s not his nom de plume or anything?’
‘God, that’d screw it up. No, I’m pretty sure it’s Mountain, but I don’t know why I say so.’
‘I’d better go down there and see her.’
‘And what am I supposed to do?’
‘Why did you go to his house the other night?’
‘To work through all his stuff really carefully to see if I could come up with anything. I don’t know what — diary, letters-anything.’
‘That’s still well worth doing.’
‘Meanwhile you go off doing the interesting stuff.’
I looked at my watch. ‘You can come with me when I visit Mai. That’s in about twenty minutes; want first shower?’
We were preoccupied and not cheerful on the drive to Woolloomooloo. The weather didn’t help; the sky was overcast, with only pale, yellow breaks in it, and there was a swirling cold wind. The water had an ugly grey sheen, and the high buildings looked dirty against a dirty sky. I snapped at Erica when she lit her umpteenth cigarette for the morning.
‘Can’t you cut down on those bloody things?’
Her Oriental eyes widened, the frown line in her forehead deepened and the corners of her mouth turned down. I felt like a bully and was sorry I’d spoken, but she looked calmly at me and took a puff.
‘I’ll quit when you find Bill,’ she said.
We walked across the street, with the wind whipping at us, to the entrance to Mai’s block of flats. The building had had a sort of seedy glamour at night, but in the grey light of day it looked faded and tired. We went into the small lobby and I wondered what sort of image Mai would present in the morning. Dressing-gown? He was hardly the track-suit type; that’d be more Geoff’s style.
I knocked, but there was no response. Another knock brought a slapping of slippers on the stairs behind us.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Glad stuck her head around the corner of the stair, looked down on us, and began an imperious descent. Her multi-coloured hair was up in curlers; she wore a violet dressing-gown with a pink sash and huge, fluffy green slippers. Splashes of high colour showed in her cheeks and her second chin quivered.
‘Go away.’ She looked at me with pale, watery eyes across the top of a pair of half-glasses. ‘And take the little Chink with you.’
‘Easy, Glad. We’ve come to have another talk with Mai.’
‘Don’t you Glad me. If you want to see him you’d better ring up the bloody hospital.’
‘What?’
‘He’s got a broken leg and a broken arm, poor devil. He’s in St Vincent’s.’
‘What happened?’ Erica said.
She came to the foot of the stairs and gave us the whole show-hair, dressing-gown, sash and slippers. ‘They came and did him over in the early hours. I thought it mighta been you from the way you was chuckin’ punches last night.’
I shook my head. ‘Not me. What about Geoff?’
‘Him too. In the hospital.’ She nodded her head as she spoke and her glasses fell off. It had happened a thousand times before and she caught them deftly, without looking. Erica took out her cigarettes and went over to the stairs with the packet extended. Glad hesitated, then she took a cigarette and bent her head to the lighter.
‘Ta. I’m a bit shaky.’
‘Did you talk to Mai? Before he went to hospital.’
‘Couldn’t talk, they broke his teeth. He didn’t think I knew he had false teeth but I knew.’
‘I’m sorry. Glad.’ I said. ‘We’ll try to look in on him.’
She nodded, pushed up her glasses and slapped her way up the stairs.
‘It’s hotting up,’ I said.
Erica was getting the idea. She looked both ways before stepping out onto the pavement. ‘It’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Can you drop me at Bill’s place?’
We drove through the tight, late morning traffic, and I thought of broken bones and hospitals, of which I’d had a bit of experience, and of Australian Chinese families, of which I knew nothing. We passed a restaurant where Helen Broadway and I had eaten, and I thought about her being physical on the farm or talking wittily on the local radio where she had a part-time job. I wondered if she’d smoked her one Gitane a day yet, or was saving it for after dinner. I wondered if she was thinking about me and thinking, as I was, that six months is a short time to have something you want and a long time to be without it.
There was a mist still hovering over the park when we reached Mountain’s place. The air was nearly as cold as it had been up at Katoomba, but it had a very different flavour. Erica didn’t have to use her key on the front door: it had been jemmied open and pushed roughly back. It was held half-shut by the splinters.
I pushed past Erica into the front room. The furniture looked as if it had been attacked with a chainsaw-the couch had been up-ended and disembowelled. Stuffing and fabric lay around everywhere and broken ornaments and torn curtains littered the floor. Erica gave a little gasp and darted to pick something up off the floor. She clasped it in both hands and wandered through to the next room.
The chaos continued through the house and was worst in Mountain’s study, where books had been dismembered and papers torn and scattered like losing betting tickets. The search hadn’t been professional and the destruction looked to be the result of frustration and failure. Erica skirted around the messes-tumbled-out drawers, shredded clothes and torn photographs.