‘Jan is a radical,’ she said. ‘We came here in 1975.’
‘Not such a good year for a radical,’ I said.
‘Not at the end, no. Jan was furious about it.’
‘How does he feel about now?’
‘More furious still.’
‘What about you?’
‘I was a secretary, then I was a wife, now I am a mother. That is the trouble. Oh,’ she tumbled the hair again, ‘it is good to talk. Thank you. I feel better. Would you like some tea? The kitchen is a mess too, but I could…’
‘No, thank you. I have to go.’ My hour was almost up. ‘You have no idea where your husband is?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know where they went to do it.’
‘When did you last hear from him?’
‘On the morning after he left. He telephoned to ask if the children were all right.’
I was checking through my mental list, the one that covers what people do when they flit. ‘Did he take his passport, Mrs de Vries?’
The idea was a new one, but she shook her head quickly. ‘No. I saw it just now when I got the photograph.’
‘How did he sound on the telephone?’
She considered it as if for the first time. ‘I was so mad. I never thought he would leave me.’
‘He said he was leaving to live with Carmel?’
‘Live? I don’t know. Live? I am not sure.’
‘What, then?’
‘He spent all the time at the party with her. Then he said he had to go with her. Something like that. I had drunk a lot. We fought. He said he had to go. Go, I said. Go!’ She was crying now but she stifled it and wiped her face with her hands. ‘I must pull myself together.’
‘I’m sorry. How did he sound on the phone?’
‘He sounded frightened.’
‘Frightened of what?’
She shook her head. I asked her if she wanted me to send someone over to help her but she refused. She said again, as if she liked the phrase, that she’d pull herself together. I thought she could do it. She said I could keep the photograph; I gave her a card and the usual spiel about calling me if anything happened or if she wanted help. She thanked me a couple of times. Before she let me out she kicked off her sandals; I expect she rolled up her sleeves as soon as the door was closed.
The taxi was waiting. I sniffed at the kid a bit for alcohol as I got in but all I smelled was tobacco. ‘Glebe, you said?’
‘Right.’ I gave him the address and settled back to think about what I’d learned from Barbara de Vries. Suddenly I got a stabbing pain in the eye and I gasped.
‘Hey, you all right?’
‘Yeah. Just the eye. I need to put some drops in it. Could you stop a minute?’
He pulled over and I got to work on the patch. He turned off the meter and helped me by holding the bottle of drops and producing a tissue. ‘How’d it happen?’
‘I was running away from some people who didn’t mean me any harm as it turned out. Thanks. That’s good.’
‘What line of work are you in?’
I told him.
‘Yeah?’ He fumbled for a cigarette, remembered and stopped. ‘That’s tremendous!’
‘Let’s get going. It’s not really tremendous. It’s mostly like what you’ve just seen me do-visit people.’
‘I see the gun too.’
I grunted. ‘I haven’t used one in a long time. How’s the Dostoevsky going?’
He flicked the meter on, started up, checked the traffic and pulled out in a series of smooth, easy movements. ‘Finished it. Great! How d’you get into your business?’
‘By bad luck. What’re your plans? Taxi driving must interfere with your reading.’
He laughed. ‘Yeah, it does. Everything does. Oh, I dunno. I’ve done a few things. Ran a lawn-mowing business for a while. Lotta work, not much dough. I sold it. I’ve got an interest in the cab. Not much but it’s better than nothing.’ He put his right hand across his body. ‘Scott Galvani’s the name.’
‘Cliff Hardy,’ I said. We shook quickly. ‘You’re kidding-Scott Galvani?’
‘No, dinkum. My parents, they’re Sicilian, but I was born here. They reckoned Scott was a true-blue Aussie name.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe they were right.’
‘Maybe.’ I glanced into the back seat and saw several paperbacks in a half beer carton. ‘You buy them in job lots? the books?’
‘Sort of. I carry a few around, never know what I’m going to read next. Think I might try Gunter Grass. What d’you reckon?’
‘Out of my depth,’ I said. ‘You turn here. You know Glebe?’
‘Sure. I live in Leichhardt. Look, Cliff, what case’re you working on now?’
‘I told you, it isn’t like on TV.’
‘Still. You have to get around, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can’t drive?’
‘Not for a while.’
‘You need an assistant.’
‘No.’
‘Come on. A driver, call it.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
He scratched his dark, whiskered chin. ‘Call it work experience. I’m thinking of going into the security business.’
‘It’s overstocked.’
‘I’m multi-lingual. English, French, Italian well, Sicilian.’
‘What else?’
‘I’m a wrestler. Would you believe it? I’m a top-notch wrestler and you know how much money there is in wrestling?’
‘How much?’
‘Zilch. Come on. Cliff. You’ve gotta go out again tonight, right?’
‘Why d’you say that… Scott?’
‘You didn’t look happy coming out of that house. You looked thoughtful. Like you said, you visit people. I bet you’ve got someone to visit tonight.’
He pulled the cab up outside the house. The Falcon sat where Rolf had parked it. Helen’s Gemini was behind it. I was tired and hungry and thirsty. I needed a rest and a drink and some time to think. And I had to go and see Mrs Wise. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘When can you knock off?’
‘Now. Let me help you in and I can meet the Missus.’
‘I haven’t got a Missus.’
‘Who’s this at the door then?’
Helen came to the gate. She was looking spectacularly good in a red shirt and jeans. Scott Galvani broke the taxi driver’s record for getting out and assisting a passenger-not the world’s hardest record to break. He helped me to the gate.
‘You look terrible,’ Helen said.
‘I’ll be right. Helen Broadway, this is Scott Galvani.’
‘Hi’ Galvani said.
‘Hello. Are you going to pay the fare, Cliff?’
‘Hey, hey, don’t worry about it,’ Galvani lit the cigarette he’d been waiting for.
