‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘Be among young people. Arrest them.’
‘Turn it into a joke, you get that from your father, that’s pure Cashin. Even a tragedy’s only a tragedy for five minutes, then it’s a joke.’
They went out. Harry was misting the arbour, the cattle dog standing behind him, looking up, faithfully breathing in the fumes.
‘So the dog’s expendable?’ said Cashin. ‘Collateral damage.’
At the gate, his mother said, ‘It’s a pity you don’t have children, Joseph. Children settle people down.’
The sentences stopped Cashin in his tracks, filled him with wonder. How could she of all people say that?
‘How do you know I don’t have children?’ he said.
‘Oh, you.’ She held his arms and he bent to kiss her on the cheek. For many years, he could not kiss her.
‘Did I ever tell you I thought you were going to be the bright one?’ she said.
‘I am the bright one,’ he said. ‘You’re confusing me with the rich one. One of Bern’s boys is in trouble in Melbourne.’
‘It’ll be that Sam, right?’
‘Right.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Theft from a parked car. Him and two others.’
‘What can you do?’
‘Nothing probably.’
‘The Doogues. I always thank the Lord I’ve got no ties with them.’
‘You’re a Doogue. Bern is your nephew. He’s your brother’s son. How can you not have ties with them?’
‘Ties, dear, ties. I don’t have any ties with them.’
‘Game over,’ said Cashin. ‘Bye, Syb.’
‘Bye, darling.’
Harry waved a gloved hand at him, slowly, like a polar explorer saying a final sad goodbye.
DRIVING TO Port Monro on a cold day, overcast, Cashin thought about his mother in the caravan, saw her sitting at a fold-down table topped with marbled green Formica edged with an aluminium strip. She had a plastic glass in one hand, yellow wine in it, a cigarette in the other hand, a filter cigarette held close to her fingernails, which were painted pink, chipped. Her nose was peeling from sunburn. There were blonde sunstreaks in her hair and it was heavy with salt from swimming, pieces fallen apart, he could see her scalp. She drank from the glass and liquid ran out of her mouth, down her chin, fell on her teeshirt. She wiped her chest with her cigarette hand and the cigarette touched her face, the glowing tip dislodged, stuck to her shirt. She looked down at the burn opening like a flower. She seemed to wait forever, then she carefully tilted her glass, poured wine over it. He remembered the smells of burnt cotton and burnt skin and wine filling the small space and how he felt sick, went out into the sub-tropical night.
Some time after Cashin’s father’s death, he didn’t know how long, his mother had packed two suitcases and they left the farm outside Kenmare. He was twelve. His brother was at university on his scholarship. At the first stop for petrol, his mother told him to call her Sybil. He didn’t know what to say. People didn’t call their mothers by their names.
They spent the next three years on the road, never staying anywhere for long. When he thought about those times later, Cashin realised that in the first year Sybil must have had money: they stayed in hotels and motels, in a holiday shack near the beach for a few months. Then she started taking jobs in pubs, roadhouses, all sorts of places, and they lived in rented rooms, granny flats in people’s backyards, on-site caravans. In his memory, she always seemed to be drinking, always either laughing or crying. Sometimes she forgot to buy food and some nights she didn’t come home till long after midnight. He remembered lying awake, hearing noises outside, trying not to be frightened.
The turn-off to Port Monro. Light rain falling.
Cashin’s shift started at noon, there was time for coffee. He bought the paper at the service station, parked outside the Dublin, hadn’t been there for a while. You couldn’t go to the same place too often, people noticed.
The narrow room was empty, summer over, the long cold peace on the town. ‘Medium black for the cop who pays,’ said the man sitting behind the counter. ‘My customer of the day.’
His name was Leon Gadney, a dentist from Adelaide whose male lover had been found knifed to death in a park near the river, possibly killed by one of the sexual crazies for which Adelaide was famous, possibly killed by policemen who thought the crazies were doing a public service when they killed homosexuals.
‘You could close in winter,’ said Cashin. ‘Save on electricity.’
‘What would I do?’ said Leon.
‘Go to Noosa, chat to other rich retired dentists. It’s warm up there.’
‘Fuck warm. And I’d like to go on record that I’m not a retired dentist. Ex-dentist, former dentist, now impoverished barista and short-order cook.’
He delivered the coffee. ‘Want a nice almond bickie?’
‘No, thanks. Watching the weight.’
Leon returned to his seat, lit a cigarette. ‘In a certain light, you’re not bad looking,’ he said. ‘And here we are, virile single men marooned on an island of old women in sandals.’
Cashin didn’t look up. He was reading about police corruption in the city, in the drug squad. The members had been selling drugs they’d confiscated. They had originally supplied the ingredients to make the drugs. ‘You’re very distinguished, Leon,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got too much going on, I couldn’t concentrate.’
‘Well, think about it,’ said Leon. ‘I’ve got good teeth.’
Cashin went to work, dealt with a complaint from a man about a neighbour’s tree, a report of a vandalised bench in the wetlands. A woman with a black eye came in-she wanted Cashin to warn her husband. At 2.15, the primary school rang to say a mother had seen someone lurking on the block across the road.
He parked a way from the school, went down a driveway and looked over the fence. High yellow grass. Someone had thrown a concrete slab and got no further, weeds covering the heap of building sand. There was a small shed, a panel van parked behind it.
Cashin walked back down the drive and onto the block, approached the vehicle. The windows were fogged glass, no one visible in the cab. He rapped on the roof with knuckles.
Silence. He bounced his fist.
‘Fuck off!’ A male.
‘Police,’ said Cashin.
The vehicle moved. He stood back and he could see a figure climbing over the bench seat. The driver’s window came down a few centimetres: eyes, dark eyebrows, strands of black hair.
‘Just takin a nap.’
‘This your property, sir?’ Cashin was showing his badge.
‘I’m the builder.’
‘Not much building going on.’
‘Startin soon as he gets his finance.’
‘You local, sir?’
‘Cromarty.’
‘I’d like you to step out of the vehicle, sir, and show me some ID.’
‘Listen, takin a nap on a buildin job, what’s the fuckin crime?’
‘Out of the vehicle, please, sir. With your ID.’
The man turned, reaching backwards. Cashin saw skin colour, the man was half-naked, he was looking for his pants.
Cashin stood well back, hand inside his jacket, eased the gun in the clip.
The man moved, struggled, he couldn’t get his pants on. ‘Listen,’ he said through the gap. ‘Somethin a bit private goin on here, y’know. Gissus a break, will you?’
‘Get out and put your pants on,’ said Cashin. ‘Sir.’
The door opened. A thin man, late twenties. He moved his legs out, open flannel shirt over a teeshirt, no shoes, hole in a red sock, one leg in his denims, stood in the weeds to pull them up, zip. He had a pimple on a thigh.
He reached inside, found a wallet, offered it. ‘Driver’s, credit, all kinds of shit.’
‘Put it on the roof,’ Cashin said, ‘and stand against the shed.’
‘Jesus, mate, I’m just a fuckin brickie.’
He obeyed. Cashin took the wallet, looked at cards. Allan James Morris, an address in Cromarty. He wrote it down. ‘Phone number?’