“Not really. I think she’s a bit relieved it’s all come out.”
“How about you?”
“Doesn’t change anything for me. What have you been doing?”
“Watching the garage. They’ll be there till night time I reckon. We’ve got time to see the clever man, how do we find him?”
“Stop the first boong we see and ask.” I looked quickly at her. The hospital encounter had got to her and the tough indifference was a pose. Her features were all drawn tight and there was tension in every line of her body. The bitter remark was hard to interpret. I had too little experience of her moods, but she was seething inside, fighting some deep battle in which her pride and her colour and her loyalties were all taking a hand.
21
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?”
