She nodded. ‘You see, it’s as I said before. I didn’t really know him. If this is true I’m glad in a way. I never liked to think of him alone and sexless. Pedalling away the frustration. I suppose I was thinking of a nice female companion, someone I’d like, but you can’t legislate for people’s sex lives, can you?’
‘No way known so far.’
‘So when’re we going up there to take a look?’
Before setting off for the coast, we went in to Newtown to
tell Hank and Megan the latest.
‘Jesus,’ Hank said, ‘that opens up a can of worms.’
‘Ugly image,’ Margaret said.
Hank said, ‘Sorry, Ms McKinley, I. .’
Margaret smiled. ‘Margaret, remember?’
Megan watched this exchange with amusement. As far as I could tell, Margaret and I presented exactly as before, but some women can read signs not apparent to most. She was fighting to repress a knowing smile.
‘Any quarries up there?’ I asked, just to deflect her.
She went to her desk and shuffled paper. ‘There is as it happens-Larson’s quarry at a place called Howard’s Bend, not that far away.’
She tapped keys and the printer spewed out a sheet.
‘Bit of a mystery this,’ Megan said. ‘Mind you, most of them are. Ownership or leasehold has to be tracked through a minefield of interlocking companies. I’m struggling, I admit. But you might check this one out physically. Why not?’
I took the sheet and folded it. We left.
‘She knows we’re fucking,’ Margaret said when we reached the street.
‘Yes. She-’
A movement across the street took my attention and I caught a glimpse of Phil Fitzwilliam in a car pulled up at a set of lights. He looked my way and then said something to his driver as the car accelerated away, jumping the red light.
‘What?’ Margaret said.
‘Nothing. Just saw someone I don’t want to see.’
‘I suppose you’ve got a few enemies?’
‘A few.’
‘But friends as well, right? Who’s this Frank Parker you talk about?’
‘He’s my best friend, and he outweighs quite a few enemies.’
We took my car because Margaret said she wasn’t confident about driving any great distance on the wrong side of the road. She was worried about the turns on and off the bridge.
‘I can just see the headline,’ she said. ‘“Expat driver causes pile-up on bridge”.’
We’d originally planned to go up and back in the one day, but Megan’s quarry would take up some time, so we stopped in Glebe and packed overnight bags. In the past I’d have taken a pistol, even on a benign trip like this, but I didn’t have a licensed firearm anymore, or an unlicensed one. The last illegal gun I’d had I’d thrown into the harbour after I’d tried to kill a man-Lily’s murderer-with it. The gun had jammed, for which I was eternally grateful. I packed a camera instead.
Myall was about 200 kilometres north-west of Sydney. I’d never been there but the directions I’d got from the web seemed easy enough. Drive about 70 kilometres north of Newcastle and then 10 kilometres off the Pacific Highway. The village, the region, were named for the Myall Lakes, where I seemed to remember there’d been important archaeological digs in the past. I’d forgotten the details. Something significant about stone axes and the length of time the Aborigines had been in the country-longer than anyone thought.
Margaret and I chatted about these sorts of things on the drive. I played an Edith Piaf CD and one of the best of Cold Chisel and we pledged to find out about ‘Sweethearts’. The Falcon, recently tuned up, performed well and I enjoyed the first decent stint I’d had at the wheel since the heart episode. We had a rest stop just north of Newcastle-light beers and salad sandwiches. Time was when a country salad sandwich was white bread with a thick layer of butter, a slice of tomato, a slice of beetroot and some limp lettuce; mayonnaise if you were lucky. These were California style-wholemeal rolls with your choice of almost everything. There are things we should thank America for.
Margaret took over the driving. ‘I haven’t driven a stick shift in years,’ she said.
‘We call it a manual.’
‘Whatever. Be a challenge not to stall it.’
She didn’t. The secondary road was good and we followed it to a bridge across the Myall River, skirted the towns on either side and followed the road, not as good now, west beside the river for a couple of kilometres. The guide books described Myall as a ‘village’ and that’s what it was, if not a hamlet. It consisted of about twenty houses that all seemed to be hiding from each other, a general store and a boat and fishing gear hire establishment beside the jetty. Not my idea of a holiday destination but I don’t fish. The river had muddy banks and mangroves.
The house was up a gravel stretch bearing an amateurish sign reading ‘Mosquito Track’.
‘Great,’ Margaret said, ‘just what we need-a dose of Ross River fever. I can’t see Dad up here, there’s nowhere to cycle.’
He wasn’t here to cycle, I thought, but said nothing as she pulled up in front of a weatherboard cottage mostly hidden by thickets of lantana.
We went up an overgrown path to the front porch. From there I could see a couple of boats downriver but no other sign of activity. If privacy was what you wanted, this was it. The key worked and we stepped into a short hallway leading to a living room. The house had the musty smell of being closed up for a long while, plus touches of damp, dust and dead flies. The living room was comfortable with armchairs, a coffee table, well-stocked bookshelves and a television and CD player.
There were two bedrooms off the living room. I took the one on the right, Margaret took the other. The room I entered held a queen-sized bed with a black satin cover. There were mirrors attached to the walls adjacent to the bed. A TV with DVD player stood at the end of the bed. A wardrobe held a variety of fetishist clothing-silk, satin, leather, latex items in sizes from very small to fairly large. The top drawers in the bedside chest contained an array of sex toys-dildos, masks, gags, restraints-and a variety of lubricants and condoms. The lower drawers held neat stacks of pornographic DVDs.
I switched on the bedside lamp and got what I expected-a red glow. I left the room and found Margaret sitting on a chair staring into space.
‘Fun and games,’ she said. ‘A cross between what I imagine a brothel and a dominatrix dungeon would be like. I wonder where they keep the coke and the herb? I could do with a joint.’
I nodded. ‘Same in the other room. Nothing really cruel though, and signs of care being taken. No harm done with everyone willing.’
‘You’re right. It’s just a bit hard to take in, when it’s your parent.’
‘Mine would’ve got along a lot better with a bit of the same,’ I said. ‘Well, Josephine Dart was telling the truth.’
Margaret smiled. ‘I wonder how she’s going to deal with all the accoutrements when the lease runs out.’
‘She might renew.’
‘You say she said she loved my dad. I’d like to meet her, I think.’
‘She’s impressive in a brittle kind of way.’
Margaret jumped up. ‘Give me a kiss.’
We kissed close and hard.
‘Have you ever been into stuff like this?’ she asked.
‘Skirted the edges once or twice. It didn’t do a lot for me.’
‘Mm, I had a brief dyke phase after my husband split but it didn’t take.’
We broke apart and went out to the kitchen. It was mid-twentieth century style with lino, laminex and formica, and a hot water tank over the sink. But it had the right modern fittings-a microwave, dishwasher and gas stove. Margaret opened a few cupboards and found them well stocked with tinned and packet food and jars containing rice, sugar and flour. She pointed to the jars.