White Meat Read online

  I finished my drink and pulled the second one across. “Thanks.” I lifted the glass and drank. Sunday did the same.

  “You’ll do,” he said. “At least you’re not a bloody sociologist. They come down here with some weird fuckin’ stories.”

  “How do you know I’m not?”

  He grinned. “They never let a man buy them a drink. This the dinkum story, about Ricky and the girl?”

  “Yes, any reason why it shouldn’t be?”

  “Two. Ricky’s had trouble with the pigs before, I wouldn’t want to put him in the shit.”

  “And . . .?”

  “Someone else’s been asking.”

  “Little white guy, oldish?”

  “That’s right, who is he?”

  “I don’t know. I heard of him up in town. He could mean trouble but I’m not part of it. I just want to find the girl, she’s a free agent as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Fair enough. I reckon Ricky’d be at his auntie’s. If he’s not she’ll know where he is. He moves around a bit, could have gone up to Macleay even. Anyway, try his auntie, Mrs Sharkey, she’s on the corner opposite the bakery. You go left up beside the pub and it’s one street along on the other side. Want me to come?”

  “No, I’ll be right. Thanks, see you around.”

  “Yeah, right.” We each scooped our change off the bar. He picked up his beer and wandered over to sit with the old card players. They gave him a nod and took sips from their glasses, acknowledging his presence in the ritualised way of drinkers everywhere, but the sips were small because those beers had to last.

  I walked out of the pub, crossed the road and used the public toilet. The hum of an aeroplane landing at Mascot filled the night air, which was moist, with a faint chemical tang. The area is ringed about with industrial plants of different kinds; tongues of fire shoot out from them like ignited gases from the escape valves of Hell. I walked over to my car, opened the door and dropped into the seat. I knew at once that something was wrong. There was something missing and something was there that shouldn’t have been. I put the key in the ignition in a reflex action and then jet engines roared in my ears and an oil refinery exploded in my skull. Cascades of sparks and glowing concentric circles flared and died.

  5

  The hand shaking my shoulder seemed to be rattling the vertebrae like dice. I lifted my head off the stem of the steering column and blood dripped down into my eyes. As I came up out of the gloom I remembered what had been wrong — Sunday’s boomerang wasn’t on the seat where he’d left it.

  “You all right mate?” Sunday was trying to steady me and get a look at the back of my head as I swayed about in the seat. I put both hands on the wheel.

  “Think so.” My voice was a squeak, the beer rose from my belly and burnt my throat. I choked it down. “Did you see anyone? How long have I been out?”

  “Dunno. I had another drink then I remembered I’d left me boomerang in your car. Thought I’d catch you up at Sharkey’s. Came out and saw the car was still here. Didn’t see no-one though.”

  I put my hand up and felt the back of my head; the hair was clammy and matted. I pressed down and located the cut, it didn’t quite run from my forehead to the nape of my neck and it wasn’t six inches wide, but it’d do. Sunday eased me back against the seat and fumbled around in the car. He straightened up and leaned resignedly against the open door.

  “Fuckin’ gone. Best one I had.”

  “Don’t worry, he probably threw it away — it’ll come back.”

  He groaned. “Jokes. I should leave you here.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Couldn’t have you on me conscience. If you can’t have two beers and get into your car without getting done there’s no hope for you. Come round to Sharkey’s and get cleaned up.”

  I remembered that that was where I had been going and there seemed no good reason not to go now. I nodded and every hair on my head turned to a needle and dug in. I eased myself across and Sunday got in behind the wheel, started the car and drove up past the pub. We stopped in front of a house on a corner block. The street light lit up a rusty gate. The fence pickets started a few feet off from the gate on one side and marched off irregularly with many missing from the ranks. The house was a wide, double-fronted weatherboard. A wooden porch ran across the front of it behind two beds of healthy, waist-high weeds.

  I pushed the car door open and swung my feet out onto the ground. Sunday came around and helped me through the gate and up the path. He lowered me onto the arm of a derelict sofa standing beside the front door and rapped his knuckles on the weatherboards.

  I looked up and light flared painfully into my eyes from the glass pane above the door. The door opened and a girl stood there holding open the tattered fly wire screen door. She looked about seventeen, she was tall, slim and flat-breasted, in jeans and a tight, high-waisted sweater. Tears were making silver streaks down her coffee-coloured face. My brain was still reacting to the blow and for a crazy second I was convinced that she was crying for me. But she wasn’t; she couldn’t see me. She pushed the screen door wide open and lurched forward onto Sunday’s chest. He caught her, put his arms around her tentatively and tried to keep his head clear of hers.

  “What’s the matter Penny?” He jerked his head out of the way of her thrashing frizzy mop and looked down at me, puzzled. The girl sobbed and couldn’t make it on her first attempt to speak. Then she got it out.

  “It’s Ricky,” she wailed. “He’s dead.”

  Sunday took her full weight and let her head fall on his shoulder. Her voice came through muffled and incoherent but I thought I caught the word “Noni.” The rough horsehair springing through the ripped fabric stuck into me through my clothes and I wriggled. The girl caught the noise and movement. She jerked free of Sunday.

  “Who’s that?” she hissed.

  “Take it easy Penny, it’s just a bloke been in a fight. I brought him here to tidy up. Let’s go inside. Jesus . . . Ricky. He wasn’t twenty.”

  He pushed the girl in ahead of him and I followed them through. We went down a short passage and into a small living room, pan of which had been partitioned off to make another bedroom. An enormously fat black woman was sitting in an armchair. Her breasts rested comfortably in her lap and grief had twisted her face out of shape. She looked like a perpetual smiler and the lamentation had forced an unaccustomed arrangement of her features. A thin man with a grooved, teak-coloured face was sitting at the table cutting his fingernails with a penknife. The sight of the thin, sharp blade slicing into the pink cartilage curdled my blood. His face was an older male version of the girl’s — thin with high cheekbones and a perfect symmetry between the thick lips and the flared nostrils. But his hair was an iron-grey crop whereas the girl’s was brushed out into an Afro frizz.

  Sunday went over to the woman and put his arm around her. He spoke softly to her. She rocked slowly back and forth and I realised that she was chanting the Lord’s prayer. I stood feeling useless, like something inedible cast up on an island of starving men. Sunday detached himself from the woman and beckoned me across the room. I went and stood near him across the table from the man. The girl threw herself down in a chair and sobbed quietly.

  “Where is everybody Rupe?” Sunday asked. “Thing like this, people should be around.”

  The man sliced a thin, curling paring from his nail and didn’t answer.

  “Uncle Rupe,” Sunday said urgently, “snap out of it and tell us what happened.”

  The man looked up. His eyes travelled across Sunday’s face and came to rest on mine.

  “Who the fuck’s this?” he said softly.

  I was conscious of my appearance and irrelevance. I put my hand on Sunday’s arm. “It’s a bad time for me to be here. I’ll push off.”

  Sunday snaked out his hand and hooked me back. “No, hang around Hardy, we might need some help here.” He tapped his pockets and then held out a hand for the makings. I handed them over and he dropped
the packet on the table.

  “He’s a mate, see Rupe? Have a smoke and let’s hear about it.”

  Rupe drew a deep breath, and reached for the packet. He teased some tobacco and rubbed it on his palm.

  “OK Jim. Bit of a shock.” His voice was slow and harsh like a file on metal. He gave me another look, pulled out a cigarette paper and rolled his smoke.

  “Not much to tell, Jim. Copper come around here about an hour ago and said they’d found a body on the rocks at Bare Island. He was a bit of a mess but they reckoned it was Ricky from the clothes. Young Clivie went with them . . .”

  “Them?” Sunday interjected.

  “Noni was with the copper.”

  “Where is she now?” I blurted out the words unintentionally, knowing it was a mistake as I did so. They distanced me from the people in the room, cancelling out the spark of good will and arousing suspicion. I was asking about my own when one of theirs was hardly cold.

  Rupe stared at Jimmy before deliberately crushing out his half-smoked cigarette. “Who is this bugger Jim? I’m not sure I want him around.”

  Sunday glared at me. I felt his approval dropping in notches like a mechanical jack. There was no warmth in his voice when he spoke.

  “Yeah, well, he’s looking for Noni. Her father hired him.”

  Rupe looked at me as if deciding whether to spit. After a time he shrugged and reached for more tobacco.

  “Keep lookin’ then. She pissed off, don’t know where.”

  “What were Noni and Ricky doing down here?”

  “Hanging around, same as usual.”

  “Anything unusual happen today, Mr Sharkey?”

  The courtesy didn’t noticeably soften him. Maybe he just felt better dealing directly with questions relating to Ricky’s death.

  “Yes — Ricky seemed excited today, but I don’t know why.”

  “A letter, telegram?”

  He looked across at the woman who stopped praying and was taking an interest. She shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Was the girl excited too?”

  “Hard to tell with her, she just tagged along with Ricky. She didn’t seem no different today.”

  “I’m sorry for all the questions. Just one more. What did Ricky and Noni do down here, really?”

  “They talked to people.”

  “What about?”

  He shook his head and relit the cigarette which had gone out while we were talking. I’d run out of questions and answers.

  “I’m sorry about Ricky,” I said to the room in general.

  “Yeah,” Sunday grunted. “Maybe.”

  The girl had stopped sobbing and was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom. I was conscious again of the mess I looked, but that wasn’t what was on her mind.

  “You came down here looking for Ricky did you?” she said.

  I turned to her. “In a way . . .”

  “Is that a gun you’re wearing?”

  My coat was open and the shoulder strap was showing. I adjusted it. it.

  “Yes.”

  “You were too late gubb, someone else got him first.”

  “What’s that?” Sunday snapped at her.

  “Ricky was shot.” Her voice started to break then she gathered it up again and went on hard and cold. “By a shotgun, in the face and the chest, close up.”

  Sunday swore and the woman started praying again. Sunday led me off to the kitchen. I started to apologise for the tactless remark but he brushed the words aside. He ripped a piece from a greyish sheet hanging over a chair and handed it to me. I ran some water in the sink, wet the cloth and mopped at the back of my head. The cloth reddened up and got sticky. I wrung it out and mopped a bit more. I washed my hands and flicked the water off into the sink. I put the cloth in the kitchen tidy. Sunday watched, saying nothing. Up on the wall behind him was a photograph of Dave Sands, a newspaper shot of him wearing a championship belt, blown up to poster size. His dark, handsome face looked angry, as if he was thinking that being the champion didn’t mean a damn thing.

  “Sorry I upset your uncle,” I said.

  “S’all right, you’ve got a job to do.”

  “Is he Ricky’s father or what?”

  “Uncle, real close, his mother’s brother. What are you going to do now?”

  “See the cops, see the body.”

  We shook hands. We had some sort of understanding but it was pretty fragile. I walked out through the living room. Rupe was sitting at the table smoking, the woman was sitting like stone in her chair. The girl had gone. They ignored me and I went down the passage and out the front door.

  I was more cautious about getting into the car than before but the girl sitting in it wasn’t trying to hide. She was huddled against the window on the passenger side. I got in and settled down beside her about three feet away. White men have to be careful about sitting in cars with black girls in this part of the city and one gun under my coat and another under the dash didn’t make me feel any safer.

  She asked me my name and I told her.

  “I knew that white bitch would get him into trouble.” Her voice was thin and bitter.

  “What did they talk to people about down here, Ricky and Noni?”

  She looked at me. In the dim street light her eyes gleamed dark and cold.

  “Are you going to look for whoever killed him?”

  “It might turn out that way.”

  “Let me know when it does, I might help you.”

  I started to say something but she raged at me.

  “Look, they fucked, got off, got pissed. She liked gang bangs, Ricky said. He was teasing me. Jesus.”

  She started to cry again; her thin shoulders shook and her breath shuddered in and out with a thin, reedy sound like papers being shuffled. I wanted to reach over and comfort her but it was the wrong move at the wrong time. I felt for my tobacco and remembered that I’d left it inside the house.

  “What was Ricky to you Penny?”

  “Nothing, worse luck.” The childish expression seemed to stop the crying. “He was wrapped in Noni. She came down here from Paddo or wherever the fuck she lives and I wouldn’t see him . . .” She pulled herself up in the seat until her back was ramrod straight. In that position there was just a suggestion of swellings under her sweater. In profile there was a slight heaviness to her face that suggested strength and stubbornness. She swung her head around, the heaviness disappeared but the strength was still there.

  “Take me to Bare Island, I want to see Ricky.”

  Her voice was steady with no note of hysteria in it and I couldn’t think of any reason not to do as she said. She didn’t look like someone who had to ask permission to go out at night. I started the car and drove off. I took a quick look at her. She was staring out the window as the familiar places whipped past in the dark but the look on her face made me think that she was about ready to leave La Perouse.

  6

  Bare Island is connected to the rest of Australia by a hundred yards of old wooden causeway over a rocky deep water channel. A wind off the ice cap was blowing in all directions at once and whipping up the spray from the water and blending it in with the drizzle when I drove down to the foreshore. I rummaged in the back of the car and found a yellow plastic slicker for me and an ancient, mouldering duffel coat which I gave to Penny. We coated up and ran to the police truck parked near the beginning of the causeway. Two cops were sitting in the truck and I pounded on the glass of the driver’s window as we flattened ourselves against the side trying to get some shelter. The window came down and the occupant swore as some rain whipped into his face.

  “What the bloody hell do you want?”

  I’d seen his face down at police headquarters on one of my not infrequent and ill-starred trips down there. I dug deep for the name that went with it.

  “Evening Mr Courtenay,” I said. “Nice night?”

  “Yeah great, who’re you?”

  “Hardy, private enquiries, I’v
e seen you down at Brisbane Street.”

  “Yeah? Who do you know there?”

  “Grant Evans.”

  It wasn’t a bad name to throw around just then. Grant had recently got a promotion and men on the way up sometimes take others up with them. Courtenay wasn’t unimpressed, as the writers say. I thought I’d better move in on him quickly.

  “This is Penny Sharkey,” I said, guessing. “She’s a relative of the dead boy.”

  The other cop leaned across and looked out. “I can see that.”

  “Shut up Balt,” Courtenay snapped.

  I looked at Balt. The collar on his gabardine overcoat was turned up and some wisps of straw-coloured hair stuck out from under his hat. His head was long and his eyes were as pale as an arctic night. When the migrant rush from Europe got going after the war we called them all “Balts” wherever they came from, but this one looked like the genuine article.

  “What’s your interest, Hardy?” Courtenay asked.

  “I’m on a missing persons case — girl. She was last seen with Simmonds. I hear she was on the spot but isn’t around now. Thought I’d come and have a look here and ask you about the girl.”

  “Did you now?” Balt rasped. “What about her?” He jerked a thumb at Penny. His hostility was undisguised and probably stemmed from trouble he’d had himself as a migrant. Race prejudice has a pecking order and the Aborigines get no-one to peck. Balt seemed to be the wrong man on the wrong job, or perhaps the cops thought he was just right for it.

  “I thought she might be able to help,” I said mildly. “She saw Simmonds this afternoon, might spot something important now.”

  It was lame, I knew it, Courtenay knew it, Balt didn’t even listen.

  “Who’s your client?” he rapped out. “Who’re you looking for?”

  “Ease up, Balt,” Courtenay soothed him. He looked down at the girl who was huddled inside the duffel coat. The talk had washed over her like a wave of nothing. The water drops in her hair glistened in the light from the inside of the truck. She looked stoical and immovable, able to outlast us all.