We picked up some sandwiches in town and Penny talked briefly to an Aboriginal girl in the shop while she was waiting for the food. I lurked in the car. About fifty pairs of male eyes followed her as she trotted across to where I was parked. She got in and handed me a paper bag.
“Thanks. Got the address?”
“Yes, and directions. You’d better get moving. It’s out of town a fair way.”
We ate as I drove. I wanted a drink badly and said so.
“You’ll have to pick up some grog for the old man anyway,” she said. I could hear the disapproval in her voice. Drink for her was synonymous with broken heads and blood or maudlin sentimentality that wasn’t the same thing as love. Nothing to show for the rent money but a reeking breath. I’d seen it too but managed to overcome the prejudice. I stopped at a pub on the outskirts of the town and bought a dozen bottles of beer. I cracked one and swigged it as I followed Penny’s directions. Her voice, as she gave them, was muted with contempt.
We got clear of the streets and houses and passed through a strip of forest and a patch of fifty-acre farmlets. The road got dusty and narrow and when a couple of vehicles came from the other direction I had to put the bottle down and steer cautiously. We went over a hill and crossed a bridge across a sluggish creek. Around the bend a small weatherboard cottage appeared. Its front gate was about three feet back from the side of the road. I swung the car down a rutted track that ran along beside the house. An ancient Holden ute was parked under a lean-to at the end of the track. Rusted car bodies and unidentifiable bits of ironware lay around like corpses. A thick bush grew all over the place; it straggled up the peeling walls of the house and ran around the front and tackled the decrepit verandah.
We got out of the car and Penny put her hand on my shoulder.
“Let me do the talking. I’ll have to introduce myself and that’ll take a while.”
“What about the beer?”
“Leave it in the car for the moment. Tobacco will do for now.”
We went around to the front of the house. The verandah boards creaked under my weight but held. Penny knocked on the door. The house wore a guarded, cautious air with curtains drawn across the narrow windows and a blind pulled down over the glass pane in the door. Penny knocked again and we heard shuffling footsteps inside. The blind flew up and an old, thin Aborigine looked at us through the glass. His deep-set eyes ran over Penny and then pierced into my face. I had to look away. His eyes were like lasers searing through to the back of my skull. He released the door catch and pulled the door inwards.
“Gidday. Come in.” His voice was like the rest of him, smoky dark and seamed with experience. He wore grey trousers and a white shirt pressed into razor sharp creases. Veins and sinews stood out in his arms like a network of thin ropes. The verandah and the floor of the house were on a level. So were his eyes and mine. That made him six feet and half an inch tall. I wondered if I would still measure that in my seventies. He ushered us through to a small sitting room occupied by a threadbare couch and some old padded chairs, a scrubbed pine table and a glass-fronted case. Penny and I sat on the couch and he lowered himself into one of the chairs; his feet were bare so he was taller than me. His hair was thick and grey, waving over his neat skull like a finely worked helmet. I searched my memory for the face his reminded me of and got it – Robert Graves. He had the same beaky nose and sunken eyes, old as time.
Penny set about introducing herself. It involved references to Auntie this and Auntie that and towns in this part of New South Wales and gatherings held over the past twenty years. Gurney nodded and smiled at the familiar names. While this was going on I looked around the room; the case held photographs, elaborately framed, and sporting trophies. There was a picture of the Queen on the wall above the fireplace. Penny finished talking and the old man leaned back in his chair and beamed at her with what looked like a full set of genuine teeth.
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you girlie. I never knew your dad but I heard of him. Who’s your friend?”
I got up and leaned forward, sticking my hand out. “Cliff Hardy, Mr Gurney. Glad to know you.”
We shook. His hand was as hard as iron and a joint of his little finger was missing.
“Hardy, eh? What’s your game Cliff?”
I told him and rolled a cigarette while I spoke. I offered him the makings and he took them.
“Thanks. How can I help you?”
“Penny here tells me that you know all there is to know about the Aboriginal people in this district.”
“S’right. Lived here all me life, never been to Sydney even. I was put through up by Burnt Bridge in 1919.”
“Initiated? Can’t be many around like you.”
“I’m the last one.” He got his cigarette going and pierced me through again with those eyes. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“All you can about Albie Simmonds.”
“Albie in trouble?”
I nodded.
“What sort of trouble?”
“Bad. Kidnapping. Gun trouble.”
“Why should I help you. You huntin’ him?”
“Not exactly. I want the girl he took. If I know certain things maybe I can stop more people from being killed. Two men’re dead already.”
“Albie kill ‘em?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. That’s one of the things I’ve got to find out.”
He leaned back and blew smoke at the roof. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him; his belly was flat and the skin around his throat and jaw stretched smooth and tight. He had authority. If he’d said no and told me to leave I’d have gone. He was that sort of man.
I felt as if he was putting me through some kind of test only I didn’t know the rules and the proper way to conduct myself. I sat there and tried to look honest and strong. He looked at me so long I thought he was going into a trance. Then he came out of it and nodded sharply.
“All right.” He took a draw on the cigarette. “I can tell you a bit about Albie. Mind you, he’s had a few names in his time. Not too many people know him as Albie Simmonds.”
“Percy White?”
“That’s one. Terrible man for the grog Albie, that’s no secret.”
“That reminds me, I’ve got some beer in the car, would you like some?”
“Too right.”
“I’ll get it,” Penny said. She left the room. Gurney watched her appreciatively. So did I. I wondered if he lived alone. There was no sign of a woman’s touch in the room we were in.
“Where d’you want me to start?”
“Just tell me about Albie, from the beginning.”
“Yeah, well, Albie wasn’t a bad lad. Too much grog around the family always, but that wasn’t his fault. He got into bad company and a fair bit of trouble with the coppers. Small stuff though.”
“Is he a full blood Aborigine?”
“Pretty nearly. Like me. Why do you ask?”
“His boy, Ricky, wasn’t very dark, I just wondered… what about the mother?” He looked at me again, as if he was testing the quality, the very grain of me. “Nellie? Half and half,” he said slowly.
“I see. Go on Mr Gurney.”
“Albie moved around a bit… up here… Sydney. Couldn’t settle. Nellie just had the one kid, Ricky, and she died young. The boy went to people in Sydney.”
“Did Albie see much of his son?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s something you’d have to ask him.”
“Fair enough. Did Albie work for Trixie Baker?”
“Sort of- aah good girl!” Penny came back into the room with a tray. Two open beer bottles were on it and three glasses. She poured a glass for the old man and half a glass for herself. I filled a glass and we all said cheers and drank. The beer was warmer than it should be but still not bad. Gurney sighed and emptied the glass in three long gulps. He filled it again and watched the head rise and settle.
“Where was I? Albie and Trixie, yeah. You couldn’t say Albie worked for her, he was a mess then, drinking fierce. He was calling himself Carter then – this is a few years ago.”
“Why all the names?”
“Police trouble I s’pose. We all knew who he was but the whites around didn’t. It’s a bit like that up here.”
“Do you know if his son got in touch with him at that time?”
“He tried.”
“What happened?”
“Albie ducked him, went bush.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sayin’. Personal to them.”
“I suppose you won’t tell me about Albie’s relationship with Trixie Baker either?”
“That’s right. Sorry. I haven’t been much help. I will say this, you seem to know a thing or two about Albie and the boy.”
“Not enough.”
“You know some. It’s dangerous. I’d keep out of it if I was you.”
“I can’t.” I finished the beer and got up. Penny had hardly touched hers and she didn’t give it a glance now. She shook hands with Gurney and he and I exchanged nods. I’d intruded too far on a matter that excluded whites or should, in his view. It was too delicate to be trusted to me with my clumsy, money-motivated ways. He’d decided that and exercised just as much of his authority as he needed to keep the knowledge from me. He knew that I’d go on, that he couldn’t stop me. He accepted that, but he didn’t want to shake my hand again.
“Thanks for the beer,” he grunted.
I said something polite and we trooped down the passage and out into the raw sunlight.
“Not very helpful,” Penny said as we walked to the car.
“Could have been worse. I got some things out of it by implication.”
“Trixie Baker told me she and Albie Simmonds were lovers. It’s on the tape.”
I nodded. “I thought so.”
We got in the car and I noticed that three of the beer bottles were still on the seat. I pointed to them.
“That was for him.”
“Not good for him.”
“I know what he’d say to that. Has he got a wife by the way?” She grinned. “I heard he has three.”
We drove off and Penny yawned a couple of times and knuckled her eyes. I pulled over under a tree and stopped. “Have a sleep if you want to. I’m going to listen to the tape.” She nodded, took her coat with her out of the car and settled herself on the grass using it as a pillow. I made a cigarette and lifted the top off one of the beer bottles. The liquid frothed out and the stuff left behind was warm but I sipped at it anyway. I pushed the “play” button.
PENNY: “Mrs Baker, can you hear me?”
VOICE: “Yes, I can hear you, who’re you?”
PENNY: “My name is Sharkey, Penny Sharkey. You don’t know me, but I know who hit you – Berrigan.”
BAKER: “How do you know that, I never told…”
PENNY: “I’m working with a man who knows all about it. He wants to fix
Berrigan, will you help?”
BAKER: “I dunno, Berrigan… he might come back…”
PENNY: “Hardy says he won’t. He guarantees it.”
BAKER: “Hardy? Never heard of him. What is he, a cop?”
PENNY: “He’s a private detective…”
BAKER: “Shit, no, nothing doing…”
PENNY: “I trust him.”
BAKER: “Well, good for you… Something about you. Can’t see with all these bloody bandages. What are you, a darkie?”
PENNY: “I’m an Aborigine, yes.”
BAKER: “I like Abos, good people. I had a good man once. (Cackling laugh).
Could be one of your tribe – Albie Simmonds, know him?”
PENNY: “I knew Ricky, his son.”
BAKER: “That right? Well, well.” (Laughter) “Yeah, well that’s another story.
What’s in this for you girlie?”
PENNY: “I want Noni.”
BAKER: “How’s that?”
PENNY: “Noni Tarelton. She’s with Berrigan now. I hope he kills her.
Anyway, she’s up to her neck in this. She’ll go to jail if I have anything to do with it.”
BAKER: “Now you’re talking! That slut Noni. Tarelton you call her? She was
Rouble when she was fucking everything in sight round here. You reckon this Hardy’s good, he’ll get Berrigan?”
PENNY: “I’m sure of it, but he needs to know the story to put the pressure on. I don’t really understand it myself Mrs Baker, I just have to ask you some things.”
BAKER: “All right, ask away.”
PENNY: ‘You’ve answered one – you and Albie Simmonds were lovers?”
BAKER: “Yeah, when he was off the grog.”
PENNY: “Hardy said to ask you about the bank job, Simmonds and Berrigan,
Noni and the money.”
BAKER: (Laughter) “Shit, he does know a thing or two. Smart bugger is he?
Alright, this is it. Joey and Albie did the job. Fifty thousand they got. Nearly killed them. Well, me and Joey weren’t getting on so well, on account of me and Albie, see? They gave me the money, but Joey got real rough one night and I decided to do him. I got Noni to get off with him and charge him with rape. I paid her a hundred dollars.” (Laughter) “Funny thing, I never had to pay her all of it because she got put away for moral danger, you know?”
PENNY: “Yes.”
BAKER: “Well, Joey got sent away. Albie went to see him. They’d been mates for years, and I don’t know what Joey told him, like, but Albie wasn’t never the same again. He went on the grog like you’ve never seen. He took his boy to Sydney. Nellie, the mother, she was dead by this time, and he stayed down himself a while. He came back from time to time but he was never much good. Nice bloke though, Albie. What’s his son like?”
PENNY: “Bit wild.”
BAKER: “Yeah? Albie was quiet, real quiet, drunk or sober.”
I stopped the machine, re-wound the tape and played the last two passages again to make sure I had it right. Then I let the tape run on.
PENNY: “What about the money?”
BAKER: “I moved it, got about thirty thousand for it. I sat on it for a while, then I got the farm and started to set up… you know about that?”
PENNY: “No.”
BAKER: “Doesn’t matter then. Oh shit, this pain in the side of me head, I can’t stand it.”
PENNY: “Are they giving you something for it?”
BAKER: “Yeah, doesn’t help though. I reckon I’ve got something bad.
Growth or something. They won’t listen, nobody’ll listen…”
PENNY: “Why did you stay here? You must have known Berrigan would come back.”
BAKER: “Yes, I did. Well, I’ve got some money put away. I was going to give it to him, it’d be his share of the job nearly. And there’s big money coming. Was, anyway, before this. But I hadn’t reckoned on him looking up the girl and finding out it was me set him up, see? It’s a long time ago but he was wild, crazy. When I didn’t have the whole fifty grand to give him he went off his head. Noni just watched while he worked on me. Christ it hurt, still hurts… Well, that’s it, that’s what your man wanted to know?”
PENNY: “I suppose so. Is there… anything else?”
BAKER: “No. That’s enough isn’t it? Jesus what a mess. He wouldn’t let me explain. I wonder if Albie seen him?”
PENNY: “Do you think he might have Mrs Baker?”
BAKER: “Ah, I dunno. Albie was up here not long ago. He was talking about
Joey and his boy. Pissed, though. Didn’t make much sense.”
PENNY: “I’ll have to go. Don’t worry Mrs Baker, I’m sure nothing will happen to you.”
BAKER: “Good luck to you girlie, you’re game. I’m not worried.. . doesn’t matter… I’m not going to leave here alive anyway.”