I knew, I said. “What about the dark girl?”
“She didn’t stay, didn’t buy anything. The blonde and the man with her paid and went, then the young guy went after them. The girl came in the front – they were all going out the side, see? She just went straight through after them. She came back later and had coffee… yeah, I think it was her.”
“You’ve got a good memory.”
“I sing, opera you know? I have to remember the words and the movements. You like opera?”
I hate it. “Yes,” I said. I gave him the other five and he tucked it away in his apron.
“Thanks, I’ll buy a lottery ticket. The big one, you know?”
“Yeah, good luck.”
“It’s bad luck for those people, isn’t it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing personal, but I got a sense, you know? You’re a bad luck man and the chair told me anyway. The one with the ears, he sat in the bad luck chair.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t let this get around, eh? But there’s a chair in this place that’s unlucky. People sit in it and they have bad luck. A friend of mine, his daughter died, and a woman I know, she got hit by a bus, right out there.” He pointed out into the street. I took a last look around the cafe. Nobody had moved. Nothing had changed. It was just a little bit later and the air was a little bit staler. And for the men at the tables the park was just so much nearer.
“Why don’t you move the chair?” I said.
“I do, every day. It’s over there now.” He waved his hand with the cigarette in it to the far wall. “You think I’m superstitious?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, could be. Why don’t you try an experiment?”
He looked interested. “Like what?”
“Try the chair on someone you don’t like.”
“There’s no one I don’t like that much.”
“You’re lucky. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Mr Hardy.”
He was quick. I grinned at him and went out.
The house was quiet when I got home. The bedroom let out a soft glow and Penny’s coat and clothes were still in the kitchen. I tossed the clothes onto a chair and fought down the impulse to go upstairs. I needed help in the fight so I rooted around and found a bottle of rum, half-full. I got out ice and chopped up lemons and settled down in the front room with the bottle and the fixings. I worked steadily through the liquor and started on Flashman for the third time. I remember reading “Possibly there has been a greater shambles in the history of warfare than our withdrawal from Kabul…” and taking another drink of the rum and thinking what a shambles the Tarelton case was in and then nothing more. The couch was big enough and soft enough and I was drunk enough. I slept.
20
When I woke up Penny was standing over me with a cup of something emitting steam in her hand. I groaned and pulled myself up on the couch. I took the cup and sipped it. Instant coffee. Not the worst thing for my head just then but not the best. I ungummed my eyelids a second time, enough to see that Penny had put her clothes back on. Not that it mattered. I was in no condition to take her up on her offer of the night before if she should repeat it. Her hair was damp from the shower and her skin shone like polished copper.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thanks. What’s the time?”
“Six-thirty. The taxi’s due at seven. You’ve got time for a shower.”
“Thanks again.” I set the coffee down on the arm of the couch and swung my feet off it. My head rang like a J. Arthur Rank gong. I headed unsteadily for the shower. The water helped a bit. I felt better still after a shave and ready for a drink after I’d dressed. In the kitchen Penny was sinking a big white tooth into a piece of toast. I shuddered when she offered me some and got the white wine out of the fridge. When a tall glass of riesling and soda was fizzing in my hand I felt well enough to compliment her.
“Don’t work in offices. Go on television, advertise things, make yourself some money.”
“I might,” she said and knocked back half a pint of orange juice.
Carrying the drink with me I went from place to place collecting things. I packed a cassette tape recorder and a pair of binoculars into an overnight bag. An old credit card Ailsa’s firm had issued me and not cancelled went into my wallet and an unlicensed Colt automatic went into the lining of the parka where the. 38 had been. She had her coat on and the glasses and plates and cups were rinsed and stacked when the taxi honked outside. We went out of the house into a neutral and uncertain dawn.
We preserved silence on the drive to Mascot. The airport preliminaries weren’t any more complicated than usual and I still had a few dollars left after buying tickets, papers and magazines. Unlike most people, Penny was easy to travel with; she was there when she was needed and not in the way when she wasn’t. We got looks, usual I suppose for couples of mixed colour; half curiosity, half hostility. Penny noticed me glowering at the lookers.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking my arm, “your lot have been staring at us since you got here.”
Flying was a novelty for her and she enjoyed the rituals of it all. I sat in my seat and obeyed orders slavishly out of some dark belief that this would keep me safe. When we were airborne Penny stared out of the window at the few flashes of green and brown that showed through that high-flying fog. We were half a hundred people flying blind, trusting our lives to a few fuses and valves. I tried to concentrate on the papers but couldn’t. Penny read in a desultory fashion for a while and then I felt her go tense beside me. I sneaked a look across and she was gnawing her lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m frightened.”
“Of flying?”
“No.” She waved strong men’s traumas away with one thin hand. “No, of course not. It’s nothing, flying. I thought it would be more exciting. It must be boring after the first time.”
I nodded. “Well then…?”
“All this. How’s it going to end? You haven’t even told me what’s happening.”
“You’re holding out on me, too.”
“Where they’re going? I told you I’ll tell you in Macleay.” She glanced around the cabin. “I suppose I can tell you now. We’re not going anywhere else.”
“It can wait,” I said sharply. “I think I know anyway. No, you’re holding back something else, but I’m not going to press you. In fact I’ll tell you things and not ask for anything from you. OK?”
“Why?” she said warily.
“I have reasons. Partly because I have to. I want you to do something for me and it won’t make sense unless you know what’s going on.”
I filled her in on some of the details – on the ransoms for Noni and who paid them and how the police were in on the whole thing now. I didn’t tell her about Berrigan’s death or about “Percy White”. She’d heard a little about Coluzzi and the fight game from friends. I expanded on that a bit and kept away from the subject of Ricky Simmonds until I mentioned Trixie Baker. Penny looked interested in the name.
“I’ve heard of her,” she said, “from Ricky I think. Doesn’t she have a farm or something?”
“That’s right, just out of Macleay. Ricky talked about her?”
The smooth brown skin on her forehead wrinkled. “I think so, once when he was a bit drunk, not so much about her as about someone who worked for her, one of us.”
“An Aborigine?”
She snorted. “I don’t mean a Hottentot.”
“OK, OK, keep your hair on. What did he say about this person of your own race?”
She looked at me to decide whether to take offence or not but I’d arranged my face in its most winning shape and she let it pass.