‘Not any more. Does that disqualify me?’
‘People who haven’t been married have trouble understanding how things can change over the years. I was married to Ian for nearly twenty years and I knew less about him at the end than I did at the beginning. Yes, he could kill himself.’
Now you wait.
‘If you ask around about Ian, you won’t hear anything but praise. Everywhere I went, people used to tell me how wonderful he was. It’s worse now that he’s dead. People stop me in the street, tell me how they could ring him in the middle of the night, never get a referral to a duty doctor, never get an answering machine. How he’d talk to them for twenty minutes, calm them down, cheer them up, make them feel better, traipse out at two am to comfort some child, reassure the parents, hold some old lady’s hand. And it’s all true. He did those things.’
‘Sounds like the old-fashioned doctor everyone misses,’ I said.
She smiled, without humour. ‘Oh, he was. Like his partner, Geoff Crewe, seventy-nine not out. And Ian wasn’t just a good doctor. He was wonderful company. Mimic anyone, not cruelly, sharp wit. He noticed things, told funny stories, good listener.’
She looked around the room, looked into her glass.
‘But,’ I said.
‘Yes. The But. That was Ian’s public face. Well, it was his private face too. In the beginning. There was an unhappiness in Ian and it got worse over the years. After about five years, it was like living with an actor who played the part of a normal human being in the outside world and then became this morose, depressed person at home. He’d come home full of jokes, talkative, and an hour or two later he’d be slumped in a chair, staring at the ceiling. Or in his study, head on his arms at the desk, or pacing around. He cried out in his sleep at night. Almost every night. I’d wake up and hear him walking around the house in the small hours. He used to love skiing, one thing that was constant. Went to Europe or Canada every year for three weeks. Then he just dropped it. Stopped. If he’d been drinking, he’d try to hurt himself, hitting walls, doors. He put his fist through a mirror once. Forty stitches. You couldn’t reason with him. All you could do was wait until the mood swung. It happened a few times a year when we were first married. I was in love. I sort of liked it. It made him a romantic figure. In the end, we didn’t speak ten words a day to each other. I stuck it out until our daughter left home and then I left him.’
‘Did he have treatment?’
‘Not while I was with him. I’d try to talk to him about it but he wouldn’t, he’d leave the house, drive off, God knows where. And I was always too scared to push it for fear he’d do something in front of Alice.’
‘He wasn’t like that when you met him?’
‘You had to live with him to see that side. People who’d known him for donkey’s years had no idea. I met him at Melbourne Uni. He was fun, very bright, near the top of his class. We went out a few times, but I didn’t impress his friends and he dropped me. Then I met him again here when I started practice.’
‘He was a local?’
‘Oh yes. Part of a little group from here at uni. Tony Crewe, Andrew Stephens, Rick Veene.’
‘Tony Crewe-is that the MP?’
‘Yes. All rich kids. Except Ian. His father was a foundry worker. Left them when Ian was a baby. His mother was Tony’s father’s receptionist for about forty years. I think Geoff Crewe paid Ian’s way through St Malcolm’s and through uni. They ended up partners.’
‘And the group? Did Ian stay friends with the others?’
Irene had a sip of whisky, ran a hand through her hair. ‘It’s not clear to me that they ever were friends. Not friends as I understand friends. Mind you, I’m just a Colac girl. Ian was sort of…sort of in their thrall, do you know what I mean?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Andrew Stephens was a golden boy. Clever, rich, spoilt, got a sports car when he turned eighteen. Scary person, really. Completely reckless. His father was a Collins Street specialist, digestive complaints or something, friend of Geoff Crewe’s from Melbourne Uni. They were very close once, I gather. Andrew was sent to St Malcolm’s because Geoff’s boy went there. The Stephenses had a holiday place outside Daylesford called Belvedere. Huge stone house, like a sort of Bavarian hunting lodge. Andrew lives there now. With the gorillas. Sorry. Shouldn’t say that.’
‘Why not?’
She emptied her glass. ‘I’m going to risk another one. What about you?’
‘I’ll get them,’ I said.
She shook her head and went to the serving hatch. I was admiring her backside when she turned and caught me at it. We smiled.
‘The gorillas?’ I said when she came back with the drinks.
‘Doesn’t do to talk about valued clients. I’m due out there to look at a horse tomorrow. Still. Andrew’s got two large men with thick necks living on the property. We call them the gorillas.’
‘What do they do?’
‘Nothing as far as I can see. Well, except take turns to drive the girls around.’
‘His children?’
She laughed. ‘Right age. No. He doesn’t have children. Two marriages didn’t take. There’s always a new girl at Belvedere, two sometimes. Some of them look as if they should be at school. Primary school, my partner once said.’
‘What’s Andrew do for a living?’
‘It’s not entirely clear. Developer of some kind. They say he owns clubs in Melbourne. His father apparently left him a heap. He used to talk shares with Tony Crewe-shares and property and horses.’
‘So you’ve been with them?’
‘Oh yes. We’d go to dinner with Tony and current woman and Andrew and sometimes Rick Veene and his wife two or three times a year. I have to say I hated it. I think Ian did too. He turned into a kind of court jester when he was with Tony and Andrew and Rick. I once suggested we turn down a dinner invitation and Ian said, “You don’t say no to Tony and Andrew”. I said, “Why not?” and he said, “You wouldn’t understand. They’re not ordinary people”. Anyway, Andrew and Tony had some kind of falling out and the dinners stopped.’
‘Did Ian ever talk about Kinross Hall?’
‘No. Geoff Crewe was the place’s doctor for umpteen years and I think it sort of passed on to Ian. The director came with Tony Crewe to dinner a few times. Marcia Carrier. Very striking. Ian didn’t get on with her so he gave up the Kinross work.’ She swirled her drink around and finished it. ‘Night falls,’ she said. ‘None of this helps in finding out why your friend went to see Ian, does it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Why did Ian give up his practice and move to Footscray?’
Irene shrugged. ‘No idea. Seems to have happened overnight. About a year ago, he phoned Alice, our daughter, and gave her a new phone number. She rang me.’
‘Thanks for taking the time,’ I said, getting up.
She gave me a steady look. ‘If you want to talk again, give me a ring.’
We went out to her car in the deepening dark. There was a house across the road and I could see into the kitchen. A man in overalls was staring into a fridge as if he had opened a door on hell. As she was getting in, I said, ‘Ian’s pethidine habit. How long did he have that?’
Irene closed the door and wound down the window. The light from the pub lit half her face. ‘What makes you think Ian had a pethidine habit?’
‘Heard it somewhere,’ I said.
She looked away, started the car. ‘News to me,’ she said. ‘Give me a ring. We’ll talk about it.’
I watched the cheerful Swedish tail-lights turn the corner where the ploughed paddock ran to the road and nothing interrupted the view. The line between night and day was the colour of shearers’ underwear. Far away, you could hear the groan of a Double-B full of doomed sheep changing gear on Coppin’s Hill. In the pub, a hand grenade of laughter went off.
The man across the road slammed the fridge door: hell contained. For the moment.
‘Well, get on with it. What d’you want to know about Ian Barbie?’
‘Why would he kill himself?’