concealed on my body. We ate in silence for a while, then Norm wiped his lips of flakes, held out his hand for another one, and said, ‘Jack, bin sayin the team’s on the edge of a big one.’
Eric coughed. ‘Scuse me,’ he said. ‘Scuse me, what you bin sayin is the team’s full of duds and the coach shoulda stayed in Warrnambool,’ he said. ‘I’m the one’s bin predictin this.’
‘You idiots,’ said Wilbur. ‘Saints bin twelve-odd goals in front and the Hawks come back and win. Idiots.’
‘Not today,’ said Norm. ‘That was another bunch. This lot puts me in mind of the Lions in ’48.’
‘Jeez,’ said Wilbur, ‘I reckon yer short-thingy memory’s goin. Round 11 in ’48, Lions play the Saints, Lions top of the ladder, Saints got one draw from thirty-one games, one draw from thirty-one games, that’s sparklin form, not so? Who’d yer reckon wins?’
Norm finished chewing, put up a hand and added smudges to his glasses. ‘Don’t do to dwell on the past,’ he said. ‘Unhealthy.’
At the halfway mark, St Kilda’s lead was all but vanished. I went off and got the pies. When they too were almost gone, Norm said, ‘Big worry, this lot. Puts me in mind of the day the bloody Hawks come from twelve-odd goals behind…’
‘Shut up,’ said Wilbur. ‘Just shut up and eat.’
In the last quarter, matters improved. The Saints stood up. So did we, often, as we watched our team humiliate Carlton. The arrogant Blues, the benchmark for football arrogance, they were run off their legs.
On the way to the Prince, the Youth Club agreed that they had all predicted the famous victory, seen it coming from a long way, always been on the cards, matter of time.
Serving the beer, Stan said, ‘Well, looks like your team could miss the wooden spoon this year. Not coming last, that’s like winning a grand final for the Saints.’
Norm looked at him, adjusted his thumb-blurred monster glasses for a clearer view. ‘The problem with you, Stanley,’ he said, ‘is you don’t have yer dad’s judgment. Now yer father, had he not bin dragged screamin from this place by wife number two, Morrie’d be shoutin us a round.’
‘Have I taken any money?’ said Stan, chin up, skewered through the heart. ‘Have I asked for money?’
I was home by seven, lighting a fire on a winter’s night, filled with the sweet humming happiness of having seen my team win. Did people who often saw their teams win lose this feeling? That was so far beyond my experience as to be unthinkable.
I stood in front of the fireplace, watching the Avoca kindling flare on top of the grey, powdered and weightless remains of an Avoca tree, hands deep in the pockets of the old footy coat. It was a terrible garment, elbows and cuffs threadbare, lining torn. The pockets held tickets, bits of biscuit, matchsticks, keys to forgotten doors, coins no longer current, a plastic lighter, coughdrops coated with fluff and crumbs. On the front were stains: beer, tomato sauce, the brown fluid that leaked from pies, champagne from a bottle uncorked in the parking lot after a Fitzroy win.
I was thinking about uncorking a bottle, about what to eat later, when the phone rang.
‘Comin your way,’ said Barry Tregear. ‘Only got a minute.’
‘Time for a drink?’
‘No, mate. Just a word.’
‘Hoot,’ I said.
I was unwinding the cork from the screw when I heard the horn. Opening the front door of my building, feeling the shock of cold, seeing the wind shaking the bare oak branches, I regretted not putting on the footy coat.
The passenger door of the dark Falcon was unlocked. I got in, grateful for the warmth of the cabin.
‘You’d be a happy man,’ said Barry. ‘Sticking it to the blue boys like that.’
‘My word,’ I said.
He was studying me. ‘Christ, you’re thin,’ he said. ‘Eating?’
‘I’m eating.’
‘Yeah? The salad sambo? Get into the junk, mate. Build you up quick. Now, this stuff. First, the girl. Feehan. Hooker. Reported missing 15 February 1995. No trace. Then there’s Dilthey. What I read says he’s got a couple of tickets in Queensland, small stuff. Local, there’s nothing. He had a job in the table-dancing business for a while. Someone says he was running a few girls and boys but they couldn’t find them. Then he’s in a motel in Kaniva. Tied to a chair, mouth taped up, hands broken, smashed, face the same. And shot up the nose with a. 22. Twice.’
Barry’s window slid down. He lit a cigarette with a lighter.
‘Clearly person or persons didn’t like the boy,’ he said. ‘The file’s open, empty basically, no one saw anything, one other customer that night, it’s a Sunday, he heard nothin. The bloke who runs the place, he’s asleep. More asleep than is usual as I read the document. Medication.’
He scratched his head. ‘That’s it.’
‘What was Dilthey doing out there?’ I said.
‘There’s a map in the car, he’s written down mileages to buggery in South Australia.’
He lit a cigarette, slit eyes on me over the flame. ‘Read your statement,’ he said.
‘Like the way I express myself?’
‘Pure fucken poetry,’ he said. ‘You get there, it’s an appointment, in the door. But you don’t go down to the business end, you fuck around for a bit, lookin at the art shit. Then when you’re what, ten metres away, the bang?’
I didn’t like what was coming. I didn’t want to hear it. ‘More or less the way I phrased it,’ I said, ‘but I put lots of work into the rhythm.’
Sucking on the filter cigarette, eyes on me. ‘Behaved the way you should’ve, you’re not sittin here thin but nevertheless fucken alive.’
‘The bang gang couldn’t find anything.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Possibly cause they’re not dealin with a cunt tries to send the Frankston falafel shop to kingdom come with the barbie gas his cousin’s husband cleverly took the trailer to Geelong to buy.’
The gloss off the evening.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’d like to know for certain, wouldn’t you?’
Barry shook his head, eyes closed. ‘Christ, Jack,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to know anything for certain. I go into that fucken hospital, you’re lying there looking dead, white like a tissue, stuck full of tubes, fucken wired for ten speakers.’
The wind had strengthened, it was whip-cracking the thin oak branches outlined against the streetlight. At the light’s faint edge, I could see two figures on the open ground: a man being pulled home by a large dog.
‘You don’t need to know,’ Barry said, looking ahead, into the dead glass. ‘Never mind fucken certain, you don’t need to know anything.’
‘Yes, well, I’ve got something on the stove,’ I said. ‘Thanks, mate.’
He looked at me, I couldn’t bear the gaze, nodded, said goodbye, left the car.
The quick, neat swing of the vehicle, red tail-lights burning for a few seconds, gone. I went upstairs, poured wine, sat in front of the fire, uneasy now.
When I came back from hospital to the long-empty house, there were no messages on the machine; no blinking red light greeted me. The thought came from nowhere, released by Barry Tregear’s words.
In all that time, not a single message? Had I forgotten to switch on the machine that morning? Pushing the button was part of the ritual of leaving, but sometimes, distracted, I forgot.
I was pouring another glass of wine when I remembered Sarah on the mobile, I was outside Enzio’s: I tried you at home, left a message. I’ve had a call from someone, a man.
That message at least should have been waiting for me. My machine had been wiped.
I couldn’t push it away anymore. Whoever murdered Mickey murdered Sarah. And I was supposed to die there too, in the brick and tin shed, blown to pieces, just collateral damage.
I rang the most recent number I had for Cam, left a message. He rang back in seconds. When I told him what I was after, he said, ‘Jesus. Well, I can ask around in the hospitality industry. Don’t hold your breath.’
29
