‘Go where?’ said Shane DiSanto, former panelbeater, now operator of Veneto Travel.
‘Canberra, Shane. The nation’s capital. Heard of it?’
‘Jack, no. Nothing there. Like a farm. No nightlife, nothing. Brown shoes with big rubber soles, that’s what the men wear. The women all got their hair in buns. Listen, whaddabout a week in Bali? This package you won’t believe, not a cent in it for anyone.’
‘This is business, Shane. Today, this morning, coming back this evening. Is Denise around?’
‘I dunno,’ Shane said. ‘Business, business. Nobody takes a holiday. Business? You want business class?’
‘Economy. I’m paying.’
He dropped his voice. ‘Listen, Jack. Fifty bucks cash I get you an upgrade from economy. Both ways.’
Shane had been a bit rough on Canberra, although his capsule description of the city’s life and people was not without some basis in fact.
Canberra is a nice place to pass over on the way to Sydney. Even on the ground, the massive amounts spent on freeways enable taxpayers to pass through the capital at high speed. And massive spending on itself is what Canberra does best. This one city is the most expensive and longest running job-creation project in human history.
These thoughts came to me as I made my way to the top of the most recent employment-generator, the new Parliament of Australia, formerly a rather nice hilltop. Following the design of American architects, an army of workers removed the hilltop and spent years replacing it with a neo-Aztec pyramid of sacrifice. A pyramid with its top lopped off and replaced by a triangular flagpole.
But I’d underestimated the appeal of the structure. The huge spaces were full of tourists. Coachloads of elderly people, eyes glazed, were being sheepdogged by hard-voiced tour guides when all they wanted to do was sit for a minute, rest the legs, think how nice it would be to be home with a book. Scrums of children moved around, girls bored, whispering to each other, boys yelping, pinching and punching. Japanese were eyeing the place uncertainly, like men who think they may be in the women’s toilet.
It was a relief to get to the top, out into the weak sunshine, the biting little wind. I was tired, furry-mouthed. Opening the second bottle of Heathcote shiraz was now a matter for regret.
I went out on the flat top, on to the mountain meadow on concrete, looked down on the Disneyland lake. Off to the right, trophy buildings represented Art, Justice, Science. But the eye was drawn across the shining water, up another slope to a monumental building, the memorial to Australia’s part in wars for Britain and America. The great place of the killing: honour the dead, believe in the glory, keep sending the children.
I felt for the pulse of patriotism. Two Irish were listed as dying for their country on the slate they were running in the war temple across the water. All I felt was a sense of waste. That and a recidivist desire for a cigarette.
Meryl Canetti was in her mid-thirties, jeans and a jacket, medium-height, thin, pale hair cut close to the head, memories of freckles around her nose. Smoking a cigarette, pressing it to her lips, hissing out smoke, looking around jerkily like a bird. When the cigarette came away from her mouth, her left hand went up to her eyes, nervous eyes, to her ears, to her hair, touching. She’d been a pretty teenager, attractive in her twenties, could be again if the feeling of panic ever went away.
She saw me coming, two quick puffs, dropped the cigarette, ground it, looked pointedly at the copy of the Age I was carrying.
‘Mrs Canetti?’
Sharp nod, sniff.
‘Let’s find somewhere to sit.’
There was a cafeteria, not crowded. I fetched tea, watched her looking around, shifting in her seat like a child.
‘I don’t know a lot,’ I said, sitting down. ‘What’s MarketAsia Consultants?’
‘Import-export,’ she said. Bitten-down nails. Thin lines, cracks, ran down from the corners of her mouth. ‘I thought. Now I don’t know. Believe that? Married for eight years. Two kids.’
‘He went off to work every day?’
‘Yes. Office in Manuka.’
‘You don’t know exactly what kind of work?’
She didn’t answer the question.
‘How can you just be missing?’ she said.
The medication was only just keeping the lid on. She took a sip of tea, choked, coughed. Her eyelashes were short, almost invisible. I waited, drank some of mine.
‘You said men came to tell you. When was that?’
‘Eighteenth of April.’
‘Did they tell you where your husband was when he went missing?’
‘No. But I know where he was. Melbourne.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘The phone. Shows the caller’s number.’
‘He phoned you from Melbourne. When was that?’
‘Charlotte’s birthday. Third of April. She’s the first. Mad about her, couldn’t miss her birthday. Princess Charlotte he called her.’
She hung her head, shivered. ‘Jesus, why can’t you smoke in these places? Never been here. Watched the whole bloody thing go up. Waste of money.’
‘How long had he been away?’
She bit at a nail on her right hand, checked herself, put both hands on the table. On the little finger, she wore a big ring, a greenish stone, oval, set in gold. ‘When he phoned? About a week. Bit more. He went away a lot once, but not recently. Once it was five months, he came home five or six days in all that time. I used to go mad. After I had Lorna, she was, oh, a year old, he was gone for three months. Then we went to Noosa for six weeks. Unit on the beach, hire car, ate in restaurants all the time, three times a day some days. Everything. Lovely. You just forget. Till he goes away again.’
‘But you don’t know what he was doing when he went away?’
‘Sometimes he said it was secret work. For the government. He speaks Thai and Vietnamese and Mandarin. That’s a kind of Chinese. His mother was half-Thai. Never met her. Never met anyone in his family.’
I looked around. Secret work for the government. Parliament House. This was an excellent spot to be discussing someone who did secret work for the government.
‘Any idea what kind of secret work?’
Helpless look. Shake of the head.
‘And he didn’t tell you where he was going this time?’
Shake.
‘Or how long he’d be away?’
Shake.
This was fishing without a hook.
‘The men who came to tell you. Who were they? Police?’
‘Didn’t say. You don’t ask, do you? Said Dean might have had an accident. That he was doing secret work…’
‘For the government?’
She shrugged. ‘Didn’t say that. Can we go out? I need a smoke.’
We went out and found a smoking spot, in the wind, evidence vanishing as it left her mouth.
‘They said I couldn’t tell anyone about it.’ Deep draw, expulsion, instant disintegration of smoke. ‘They said we’d be taken care of. Mortgage paid out. All that. But I couldn’t tell anyone.’
She had two more quick, shallow draws, threw the cigarette away, leaned towards me, took my left hand in both of hers, long fingers, squeezed. Eyes on mine, pale blue eyes. ‘I thought, just forget Dean? That’s what they want. Sorry, Dean’s missing. End of story. Here’s some money. Don’t tell anyone. Sorry about the girls. I thought, fucking hell, do they think I can buy another Daddy for the girls? One day, they’re grown up, and all they know is their Daddy went away and never came back.’
The end of the day was in the wind, a cold end. I looked out over the city. Designed by Americans, the city and its citadel. Built from scratch. Our Brasília.
‘When Dean rang from Melbourne, did he give you any idea of what he was doing? Anything at all?’
She made a helpless shoulder movement, looked away. ‘I shouted at him, started crying. I’d had it, it was all too bloody much. Birthday party, no-one to help me. Then Lorna, the little one, they’re all rushing around, she fell and hit her head against one of Dean’s bloody garden boulders, I never wanted the ugly things. He wanted these rocks, I couldn’t see the point. Little girl lying there, not making a sound, blood pouring out of her head. I thought she was dead…’
She let go of my hand.
‘Anyway, when he rang, it was after eleven that night, the girls were asleep, I wasn’t going to wake them, just went ballistic, how can bloody work be so important that a father can’t be at home for his little girl’s birthday? Said that sort of thing. I mean, can you blame me?’
This was possibly therapeutic for Meryl but it wasn’t helping me. The view was palling, too.
She fired up another cigarette. ‘So, he said, Dean said, listen, pull yourself together, I’m not having a holiday here. He was cross. Really cross. Shouting. Never like that. Never.’ Tossed her head.
Silence. I could feel her shivering.
‘Christ, it gets cold. Then it’s hot. Never felt well since the day I came here. Never. Hate the place.’
She shook her head, scratched her face. Chemical relief was needed. She turned to me, tears down her face, put out a hand, put it on my chest, on my heart, leaned her head. ‘Love him so much,’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t cope. Stupid, weak person.’
I put my right hand over hers, pressed it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re a strong, brave person. What was he shouting?’
‘He said, he’d been drinking, I can always tell, he said, “Two more days with this bastard Connors and I’m home and fucking Black Tide’s over.’’’
‘The name. Connors. You sure?’
‘Yes.’ Sniff. She sat back. ‘Connors. That’s what he said. This bastard Connors.’
‘The other thing. Black Tide? Is that it?’
‘Yes. Black Tide.’
‘You knew what that was?’
‘No.’ Sniff. ‘Well, knew the name, didn’t know what.’
I waited.
Sniff. ‘We went to a barbie at the Conroys’. Friends, well, Tony’s a friend of Dean’s. She says she can’t talk to me any more.’
‘Who?’
‘Deirdre, Tony’s wife. I rang her after they came to tell me.’ She looked around, distracted.
Prompt: ‘And at the barbie…’
‘Tony said to Dean…They were doing the meat. I came out with beers and I heard Tony say, Black Tide’s running again. So I asked Dean on the way home, what’s Black Tide? A horse? And he said, forget you heard it. Don’t ever mention it to anyone.’
She put a hand to her hair, stood up. ‘Stuck in my mind. Black Tide. S’pose I shouldn’t mention it to you. What the hell does it matter now? Got to go. Kids.’
I stood up. There was an intimacy between us. She came closer. ‘He’s everything,’ she said. She touched her head to my chest. I put my lips to her pale hair, sweet-smelling, my hands on her shoulders. Total strangers on a former hilltop.
‘Listen, Meryl,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to find out about Dean. Don’t sign anything, don’t accept any offers these people make. I’ll get a lawyer to ring you.’
She said, muffled, ‘Aren’t lawyers all crooks?’
I crossed my fingers. ‘That’s a myth,’ I said.
Meryl gathered herself. She took something out of the top pocket of her jacket and offered it to me. It was a photograph of a man with a child on his shoulders.
‘Dean,’ she said. At the door, she looked back, raised a hand, feigned a smile. I raised a fist, felt stupid immediately. It was a symbol of strength, solidarity, hope. What did I know of strength, solidarity and hope?
I waited a while, went back inside, wandered around to the lifts. When one came, I politely allowed everyone in, decided to take the stairs. Caught another lift on the next floor. Getting into a cab, outside the front entrance, I looked back. The only person looking my way was a tall man in a grey suit, convict haircut, bony face. He was moving, bringing dark glasses up to his face. And then he found them uncomfortable, stopped to adjust the fit.
Could be nothing. Could be otherwise.
More than two hours to kill. I got dropped in the city centre, or that’s what the man said it was, walked around, found a bookshop, bought a promising-sounding novel called In the Emptiness of Time, found a cafe, drank coffee, reasonable coffee. I saw many men in rubber-soled brown shoes, spotted a number of women with buns: insufficient evidence to back up Shane DiSanto’s generalisation but certainly a worrying incidence. Enough to justify a large university research grant.
I didn’t see the bony-faced man in the grey suit. But not for want of looking.
And still I was early for the plane. In the tawdry bar, I asked for a beer with half a shot of lime.
‘Dynamite combination,’ said the barman. He was young and pale, long nose, sleek fair hair, very likely a final-year student at the local university, cultural studies student perhaps, deconstructing our encounter.
‘Beer cocktail. What kind of glass? Martini glass?’ He had a look, a smart amused look.
Bartending was clearly a fun experience out here at Canberra airport. Low-level politicians. Public servants. Assorted jovial political parasites. Polite people. No hard-core drunks, no unpredictable people to take offence at your smile, throw a full ashtray at you, climb over the counter, get you in a headlock and try to drown you in the drip tray. Around here bartending was just a source of income and good party stories. About how you said all these smart things to this old fart who wanted a beer with lime.
Beer with fucking lime. I ask you.
These thoughts came to me while looking at the person. I was tired. I didn’t say anything, just looked at him. He looked back, smiled another kind of smile, looked away. After a while, even the young and smart and playful recognise men at the edge of endurance.
‘Coming up, sir,’ he said.