newspaper article about a hop-step-and jumper who’d cleared the metric equivalent of fifty-seven feet.
‘I did fifty-two myself, once,’ he said.
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s true. I could do a twenty-two foot long jump any day of the week and I tried the triple jump a few times and wasn’t bad. One day in practice I put it all together and I did a fifty-two-footer dead, wind-assisted.’
I thought of my own triple-jumps into the rough school sand-pits — well short of fifty feet as my high jumps had been below six feet. My running was better and I looked at his brand new track shoes and felt a stirring, a nostalgia for jock-straps and starting blocks.
‘I knew you were a runner, what was your best hundred?’
‘Nine point six.’
‘Wind-assisted?’
‘No. I did a 440 in 48.4 once.’
‘I know.’ I dug out the photoprint and showed it to him. He turned it over and over in his hands and looked down sadly at his gut.
‘God,’ he said. ‘They were good days.’
“What happened?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There was a lot of pressure to keep starring and there was that little shit Keir around the place. We were too different, I never felt right about my family. I was interested in the Law course and I did all right the first year, then the grog and the girls got to me. I had hundreds of girls…’ He looked down again at his ruined figure. ‘I haven’t had one for a long time now.’
One thing led to another and within a few days we were out running around Glebe in the early morning and evening. It was slow, lumbering stuff at first for both of us, but we built it up. We kept up the steam baths and he went in for massage
— Lady Catherine’s boy wasn’t going to come cheap. The weight dropped off him because he went onto a diet as well
— I only followed him part of the way there. My own weight went down and I felt I’d kicked the tobacco habit after a couple of weeks. But I was promising myself a bottle of Chivas Regal when all this was through.
I got hooked on it and was pleased to see my stomach flatten and the wind get longer, but some of my weight loss was due to stress. I was nursemaid, trainer and jailer and I was deeply worried about Kay Fletcher. I toyed with the idea of going down to Canberra but I’d have had to take Baudin along and that seemed like a very bad idea.
So I worried. But we kept at it, partly because I had too much invested in a successful outcome by now, partly because the processes had acquired a momentum and interest of their own. It was childish certainly; we raised the number of laps and the distance we’d run, we lifted the number and rate of the sit-ups and press-ups. He was competitive to his back teeth and I’m a bit the same way going back to schooldays when I occasionally won things against the more talented by sheer dint of effort.
We competed. We went down to the University track and started running set distances against each other and against the clock. I beat him at first over his favoured 440 and on up to a mile. Then he ran an 880 in 2.35 and beat me by ten yards. He was standing there, cocky again, as I came past the post.
‘Licked you,’ he said. He was breathing easily, not as easily as he pretended but pretty good — better than me.
I remembered that I didn’t like him, that he’d rolled cars and scarred girls, pushed drugs and informed on his mates. I’d lost sight of this in the competition — that’s what competing does, it makes you insensitive to anything but yourself so that you could tolerate Jack the Ripper out there on the track.
‘So you should,’ I said. ‘You’re ten years younger than me. I need a handicap — a yard a year.’
His self-satisfied face went sullen. The features were clearer now that the fat had dropped off; he was still fleshy and probably always would be, a comfortable life and he’d need the best tailoring available, but you’d have to have been blind not to see the resemblance to Bettina and her late Dad. It was there in the high colour and the ‘up yours’ look in the eyes and efficient way they had of moving their bulk around.
‘You’re on,’ he said. ‘Ten yards, tomorrow.’ He turned away and I gestured at his back. He slid into some loosening up exercises and I creaked off towards the showers feeling old and resentful and used-up.
He gave me the ten yards the next day and beat me going away. After nearly four weeks he could beat me at every distance and although he’d never be spring-heeled Jack again he was doing good jumps. I could still out-swim him but if we’d kept on he’d probably have taken care of that, too.
A few days before the month was up Cy Sackville rang.
‘I’ve got news for you Cliff.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘You’ve bought a Greek island and you want me for head of security.’
‘Shut up, I’m busy. I’ve got a mountain of work.’
‘Great tan though.’
‘Cliff,’ he sighed, ‘I’ll say this once. Old Booth died, young Booth has seen all the papers.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The late Sir Clive’s residence can’t be sold. It can be used to produce income to cover expenses but if anyone tries to sell it the Imperial Legal Society has an option to buy at a nominal price. How do you like it?’
I thought about it for one or two seconds. ‘I love it.’
‘So glad. I’ll send a bill.’
Twenty-four hours from D Day I phoned Mrs McMahon and made the arrangements. She told me that Verna Reid had picked up her traps and departed, also that a Mr Booth had been in touch with Lady Catherine.
‘How did she take that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, very well, she seemed very relieved. I gather there’s not much money, though.’
‘Aah,’ I said.
‘But there is a cheque here for your fee — Mr Booth spoke very highly of you.’
‘Mrs McMahon,’ I said, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting you.’
Baudin went to bed early and I settled down with my notes on the case and the bottle I’d bought to celebrate. I drank and pushed bits of paper around in front of me. Baudin Senior had arranged his birth registration nicely and some doctor and some government clerk had got a little spending money. A mere push of the pen could transform him into a Chatterton who could sow his seed in some suitable girl and produce a line of Managing Directors and hostesses with exquisite taste. To hell with them. I drank some more. By a roundabout route I’d found out that that cops weren’t interested in the demise of Henry Brain. An old drunk, dead in a toilet — why should they care? His room was ransacked but anyone of his fellow knights of the bottle could have done that. To hell with them, too.
I had the level of the scotch well down when Baudin came into the room in his pyjamas. He looked at the bottle and sneered at me.
‘On the piss again, Hardy? What, no cigarette?’ He was smug but his eyes were full of pain and a terrible question. I poured myself out a big one and took a drink.
‘How d’you feel about tomorrow. Nervous?’
He shrugged. ‘Why should I be?’ He watched me drinking like a lizard watches a fly. ‘It’ll be all right.’ He stretched and yawned and for a second I thought he was going to ask for a drink. I don’t think I’d have known what to do if he had. But he just stood there, six-foot-two of ego, all in pretty good shape.
‘What will you do when you’re all set up?’ I asked.
‘I think I’ll finish the Law course.’
I had to laugh at that. I could see him in his after-shave and three piece suit, dealing. I laughed some more and drank.
‘What’s funny?’
‘Nothing. Be sure to look up Honey Gully, won’t you? She’d love to see you.’
He gave me a look that told me he hated me for what I knew about him. He was already living the role of Chatterton and Hardy was cast as an enemy. He marched out of the room and I got on with my bottle.
