She did, the number and colour and a description of the frame mounted over the tray. I picked up my gun from the bench and tucked it away. I nodded to her and headed for the door. She ignored me, her hand snaked out for the gin bottle and she wasn’t worried about her glass.
Outside the drizzle was steady and the ground was slippery underfoot. I walked slowly along the side of the house and pulled open the driver’s side of the Chevy. The interior light came on. A profusion of wires and fuses spilled out over the floor like a heap of multi-coloured guts.
10
I was tired and Macleay was three hours away by road if I didn’t kill myself by falling asleep at the wheel. It was three a.m. and I needed some sleep badly. I drove to Newcastle airport and bought a seat on the flight leaving for Macleay, Coffs Harbour and points north at six a.m. I parked my car in the airport lot and locked it after taking out the duffel coat and the whisky. I wrapped the. 38 in a scarf and stuffed it into the coat pocket. The bottle went into the other pocket. I found the dimmest corner of the passenger lounge, stretched out on the seat and took a long pull at the whisky. It hit hard and started to close down some departments in my mind. I pulled the coat over my legs and went to sleep.
Three hours later I was awake with stiff joints, a headache and a vile taste in my mouth. The lounge canteen wasn’t open this early so I went into the toilet and swilled water around in my mouth and lapped it into my face. The black-bristled dial that looked back at me from the mirror was red-eyed and pale-skinned.
“You look terrible,” I said to it and it insulted me right back.
There were a few people standing around in the drafty lounge. There was a sleek guy in a suit carrying a steel-rimmed briefcase and a girl in overalls and a fringed shawl straddling a big New Guinea-style string bag who looked aggressively at me when I glanced at her. A clutch of kids swarmed around a woman in black who had the long-suffering, my-reward-is-not-of-this-world look of an Italian matron. A young man with a thin aquiline face like a Spanish gypsy was reading a paper and seemed to be taking some trouble to ignore me as I walked through to the seat allocation desk. The clerk ripped leaves out of the ticket and when I looked around again the gypsy had gone and left his paper behind. I went over and picked it up. It was the Newcastle Herald of three days before.
More people turned up and about twenty of us got on the plane. We look off dead on time and ran straight into a headwind which we battled for the whole trip. The dark widow fed sweets to the children like a conveyor belt. The executive type took papers out of his briefcase and worked on them with a gold ballpoint pen. The girl in the overalls dug a paperback copy of The Golden Notebook out of her bag and didn’t lift her head from it the whole way. I looked down across the wing of the plane as the central coast of New South Wales slipped past beneath us. The mountains and valleys were wrapped in swirling blue mist and the ground, when it showed through, was a patchwork of brown and green and white like camouflage. I rubbed my hand across my face and promised myself a shave and some breakfast in Macleay. The eight hour sleep in a soft bed would have to wait.
The plane bucked about on the descent but the weather up here, a few degrees north of Sydney, was clear and the moist wind blowing across the little runway was warm. The terminal was a fibro-cement affair with a galvanised iron roof, the whole structure sitting up on yard-high brick piers. We trooped across the tarmac, went up some rickety wooden steps and into the arrivals lounge which was also the departure lounge and the cargo despatch. I had all my luggage in my pockets so I went through the building and out into the real world before anyone else. The executive was hot on my tail but I caught the first taxi going. The driver seemed half asleep when I got into the cab and he stayed that way. We ran out of the airport standing area and along a road that was only wide enough for one car to drive on the metal; the gravel beside the road was washed thin and runnels threatened to undermine the surfaced section. I sat in the back seat and rolled a cigarette for want of anything else to do. The rainforest grew close to the road on either side and screened out everything else, only the occasional track running in, showing deep caterpillar treads, betrayed the logging going on inside that would eventually thin the forest away to nothing.
After a few miles the straggling houses and half-hearted fences that mark the outskirts of all Australian country towns appeared and then we crossed a bridge over a river and houses stood side by side and we were in the main street of Macleay. The shopkeepers were out, splashing water over the dusty footpaths and sweeping the night’s rubbish into the gutters. On both sides of the street most of the shops had iron awnings which covered the whole depth of the footpath. A couple of gnarled old jacaranda trees buckled the bitumen and the streetscape was dominated by two pubs on either side of the road. Rusted tin signs on their sides advertised brands of beer long since defunct and both buildings boasted acres of trellis work, painted white, around the balconies which ran across the front and along one side. The Commercial Hotel had a sign out front promising breakfast for non-residents. I paid the cab fare and went in.
I wolfed down the mediocre breakfast of chops and eggs and put a little character in the thin instant coffee by adding some whisky. An old biddy eating crumpets at another table and dabbing at her thin, bloodless lips with a lace handkerchief caught me at it. I stared defiantly at her and was surprised when she gave me a tolerant smile. When I crossed the room to pay the bill I noticed the patchwork of blue veins under the powder on her nose. I’d made her day. She probably didn’t start till ten.
Barber shops are getting thin on the ground everywhere, but they’re hanging on better in Macleay than most places. There were three in the main street. I chose the cleanest and sat down to think while the artist went to work. The coolness of the lather on my face was nice and the razorman’s total silence was soothing but they didn’t change anything. I was still just chasing people, following thin leads and not understanding the pattern of things. I tried to tell myself this was flexible, open thinking, but I wasn’t convinced. I refused a hair trim, gave a good-sized tip and got the address of Bert’s garage. He said I could walk it from there so I walked.
The garage was set on a narrow block with the pumps right on the street in the style of the 1920s. The workshop needed a coat of paint and the bowsers hadn’t yet been changed over to decimal currency. The alarm cable didn’t work when I trod on it and an old dog lying in the sun between the air hose and a rusted watering can that seemed to serve as the radiator water supply didn’t even scratch himself as I walked past him.
I went up to the workshop and peered inside. An old Holden was up on jacks in the middle of the floor which was littered with tools, car parts and other equipment. A battered work bench was in the same condition. I called out and nothing happened. Another yell and a door opened at the back of the shed and a man came through it carrying a teapot and an enamel mug. He moved carefully, picking his way through the litter like an actor obeying chalk marks on a stage. He had heen tall but had lost inches from years of bending over cars. He wore thongs, old grey flannel trousers and a brown cardigan over his bare chest. His grey felt hat had been all the rage when Don Bradman was a boy. I moved forward into the shed and heard a growl behind me. The dog was bristled up and baring its teeth six inches from my ankle.
“Easy Josh,” the man said. “Back off boy.”
I let the shiver run its way down my back and legs and stood still. The dog growled again then jogged off to the shade of the petrol bowsers.
“Is your name Bert?” I asked.
He moved closer and took a good look at me. It was impossible to judge his reaction. The nose was a bit purple and the face hadn’t been shaved today, yesterday or the day before. The smell coming off him was strong – motor oil, tobacco and underarm. I dropped back a fraction.