them back to me and sat down.
‘It terrifies me to see Ray with people like that’, she said. ‘His father never drew an honest breath. Of course, that’s what all this’s about-Ray and Chris’s father. You knew that?’
I nodded and took out a notebook to encourage her to keep talking. People sometimes make an effort when they see someone is taking the trouble to record what they say.
‘What’s the father’s name?’
‘He had a number of names. I knew him as Peter Keegan.’
‘How old would he be now?’
‘About fifty-five.’
‘Your husband had the impression that he was dead.’
‘Yes. I encouraged that impression.’
‘He was in the army?’
‘Yes, God knows why, probably to sell things to the other side. I think he was Keegan then. Yes, he was. I saw some papers once. What a mess.’
The mess came out piece by piece: she was born in Brisbane where she’d qualified as a physical education teacher specialising in gymnastics. Six months of the Queensland education system of the 1960s was enough for her. She broke her bond with the Education Department and came to Sydney. She couldn’t work in the school system, so she gave private gym lessons, did physiotherapy, coached swimming. She thought of herself as a bit of a rebel, almost an outlaw for having broken the bond.
‘I wasn’t really a rebel; I’d had a very conventional upbringing. But breaking the bond felt like a criminal act. Money was sacred.’
‘What was your maiden name?’
‘Ramsay, why?’
‘Never mind. Go on.’
‘It wasn’t really so serious, breaking the bond. All they did was harass your guarantor and mine was my father, who died in the year I left Brisbane. Still, I played the runaway. Peter encouraged it.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘At a gym; he was hurt, quite badly. He said it was a football injury but, looking back, I suppose he did it in some brawl or other.’
‘What did he do for a living?’
She explained that he had presented himself as a businessman. He talked about interests in flats, hotels, other things.
‘I believed it all. He had plenty of money and charm. I was flattered. It sounds absurd now, but I was a virgin…’
She suddenly looked directly at me, as if she was seeing me for the first time. ‘God, how can I be babbling like this, I don’t even know you.’
‘You don’t have to know me’, I said. ‘It’s probably better that you don’t. You need to talk to someone, that’s obvious. And I’m here. I’m also very pro-Guthrie as it happens. Go on.’
She smiled for the first time-a good, generous smile that let something go.
‘I got pregnant and I got married. People still did in those days.’
She was right, they did. I remembered how narrowly I’d missed the fate myself.
‘What about your family?’
‘Just a mother and a sister in Brisbane. We’d lost touch. I was in love; I didn’t give them a thought. Well, Peter was good during the pregnancy, and he doted on the baby. He said that having Ray was the most wonderful thing that’d ever happened to him. I believed him-for a while.’
‘Then?’
‘Then things I’d hardly noticed before started to bother me: where he went, who he was with, where the money came from. I started to look at him more clearly. He was a real mixture-of softness and hardness, openness and secrecy. Mixture, that’s what I thought then. Schizophrenic is what I think now.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘He really did know a lot about economics and money. He’d studied it and he kept reading about it-theories and practice. He did have a company too, at least one. I forget the names. But there was a wild side to him as well: he fought in pubs, crashed cars…’
She paused and looked past me and out the window. I swung around on the chair to look too. The light was dying in the sky. I stood up to stretch and watched the water change colour right then-it went from a pale blue to a gunmetal colour, streaked with red. She tugged at the curtain but didn’t close it. I sat down on the bench again, doodled for an instant and looked at her, ready to go.
‘He went with prostitutes. We had a fight about that. A big fight. I couldn’t understand it; I still don’t. He promised to give it up and he did for a while. We got back on good terms again.’ Her smile this time was rueful. ‘Chris was the result of that.’
There was a soft knock, and Paul Guthrie put his head around the door.
‘Is everything all right in here?’
She gave him one of the generous smiles; Guthrie seemed to soak it up. I wouldn’t have minded one myself. He smiled back.
‘Just give us a few minutes more, love’, she said.
‘Right.’ He nodded at me and withdrew.
‘I’d better be quick. Peter didn’t keep his word. He played around all over the place. I’ve never understood why he got married in the first place, except that he was obsessive about children.’ She shook her head as if to throw a thought away. ‘He actually wanted a daughter! When all this shit was going on-it was unbelievable! I left him and took the boys. I went to Brisbane for a while, but the only place I wanted to live was Sydney, so I came back. I never saw Peter again. That sounds bad I know, but I haven’t given you all the details. None of his businesses were legal; he had a conviction for assault and one for carnal knowledge. I felt I didn’t know him. He’d told me thousands of lies. I didn’t want the boys to have anything to do with him. He went overseas when he said he was just interstate. I thought he might take them away. I couldn’t trust him at all. I didn’t ask for anything; I just took the boys and hid. Do you understand?’
‘I think so.’
I was thinking how, after a relationship ends, you come to feel that you never really knew the person at all. It must be a shock to get that feeling while the relationship’s still a going concern. I’d been so interested in the story I’d forgotten to take notes. I scribbled down a few points, added a few question marks.
‘How did you find out all about his criminal life?’
‘I hired a private detective. I used Peter’s money to spy on him. I got tougher as I went along, I can tell you.’
‘Who was the detective?’
‘I’ll never forget him. He was loathsome. His office was at 32 Mahoney Place in Surry Hills. These days I drive blocks out of my way to avoid that part of the world. His name was Phillips.’ She seemed to dislike even saying the name. ‘He knew his job, though. He wrote me a detailed report on Peter.’
‘Have you still got it?’
‘Somewhere. I don’t know…’
‘You say you never saw Keegan again.’
‘No, I didn’t see him, but he made contact with me. Very formal and correct. He sent me money for the boys. He didn’t press to see them and I wouldn’t have let him.’
‘When was the last you heard of him?’
‘About five years ago.’
She had the answer ready for the next question before I’d even formulated it.
‘Yes, he kept sending money after I was married to Paul. Paul’s businesses didn’t really start to do well until five or six years ago. He’s a very good businessman, but he’s very cautious. He built them up slowly. The money from Peter was useful.’
‘Paul didn’t know about it?’
‘No.’
