‘Well, fuck,’ Gary said, ‘can’t do that.’
‘Then you’ll have to see a lawyer. Take some kind of civil action against her.’
‘Civil?’
‘A lawyer’ll explain it to you. Basically, they write her a letter, tell her to hand over the ute or else.’
Gary nodded, scratched an ear. ‘She’s pretty scared of cops. Wouldn’t take much to scare her, I can tell you.’
‘We’re not in the scare business, Gary.’
Gary went to the door, disappointment in his shoulders. He hesitated, came back, sniffed. ‘Nother thing,’ he said. ‘How come you blokes don’t do nothin about the fuckin Piggots?’
‘What should we do something about?’
‘Getting fuckin rich on drugs.’
‘What’s the point here, Gary?’
‘Well, the mate she went with. She’s fuckin thick with the Piggots. I reckon they dropped off a bag on the way, who’s gonna check two chicks, right?’
‘You know this, do you?’
Gary looked away. ‘Won’t say I do, won’t say I don’t.’
‘What’s her name? The friend?’
‘Lukie Tingle.’
‘An address and a phone number for you, Gary.’
‘Nah. Don’t wanna be involved. See you.’
‘Gary, don’t be dumb. I’ll find you in five minutes, park outside your house, come in for a cup of tea, how’s that?’
‘Shit, gissus a break, will you?’
He gave an address and a phone number, left without another word, passed Kendall at the door.
On the way home, a man on the radio said:
‘The state government’s problem is that if it’s seen as soft on law and order in Cromarty, it risks losing the white vote and the seat at the next election. And it needs every seat. So there’s a real quandary. For the federal government, Janice, the mileage Bobby Walshe has got out of Cromarty is a nightmare. But of course a huge plus for United Australia.’
‘Exactly how much mileage, Malcolm?’
‘Bobby’s performance last night was amazing, the passion, his sadness. He got on every TV news in the country, huge radio airplay. Bobby’s given Cromarty a kind of symbolic status, and this is very important, Janice. The bit about the three crucified black boys, it had so much power, I can tell you it spoke to all kinds of people. Biblical. The talkback today has been amazing. People crying, even from the redneck belts. Those words struck a major chord, they resonated.’
‘But will that translate nationally, I mean…?’
‘These are interesting times, Janice. The government’s fear isn’t just about losing Cromarty. The government can live without Cromarty. No, now it’s a real fear that United Australia will split the vote all over the place. Become a genuine coalition of the disaffected. And the big shiver is that Bobby Walshe will roll the Treasurer in his own seat. It used to be rusted on. Now it’ll take nine per cent and Bobby might be able to do that, Janice.’
‘Thank you Malcolm. Malcolm Lewis, our political editor on the big issues driving political life today. Did I say life? Excuse me. My next guest knows about life, he almost lost his in a…’
Cashin found the classical station. Piano. He was coming around to the classical piano-the quick-fingered tinkling, the dramas, the final notes that floated like the perfume of women you’d lusted after. Most of all, he liked the silences, the gaps between what had been and what was to come.
THEY WORKED on the building again. By milking time, they had laid bricks to the first doorway to windowsill height.
‘Stone sills in the picture,’ said Rebb. ‘Be stone lintels too, probably. Huge bloody door here.’
‘I’ll talk to Bern,’ said Cashin. ‘He may well have stolen them in the first place.’
Rebb left. Cashin worked on the garden for an hour, took the dogs for a short walk in the cold dusk. Tonight, he had only twinges of pain. He was tired but not hurting. Feed dogs, shower, make the fire, open a beer, water on for pasta.
Rebb knocked, came in, the dogs were on him.
‘Surveyors down there,’ he said, he was half in shadow, menacing. ‘At the fence. Two blokes. When I went to milking.’
‘She’s unhappy,’ said Cashin. ‘Wasting her money. The agent is the snake, she should survey him. There’s pasta on the way here.’
‘Ate with the old bloke, he gets a bit lonely, doesn’t want you to go. Not that he’d admit it. Wouldn’t admit a croc’s hanging off his leg.’ He paused. ‘About the house.’
‘What?’
‘We can get it up till you can see your way to going on yourself,’ said Rebb.
Cashin felt the pang of loss anticipated. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘this’s about that swaggie thing? I’m sorry. I’ll say sorry.’
‘No,’ said Rebb. ‘I’m a swaggie, swaggie’s got to keep moving. We’re like sharks. Tuna, we’re more like tuna.’
‘The old bloke’ll miss you.’
Cashin knew that he was speaking for himself.
Rebb was looking down, fondling dog heads. ‘Yeah, well, everything passes. He’ll find someone else. Night then.’
Cashin ate in front of the television, the dogs on the couch, limp as cheetahs, a head at each end. He refuelled the fire, made a big whisky, sat thinking.
Michael the fag. Did his mother know Michael was queer? Bisexual, he was bisexual. She knew. Women always knew. What did it matter what Michael was? Vincentia Lewis the nurse who gave him her father’s CDs was a lesbian. Given the chance, he’d have married her, lived in hope. What hope? What did men have to offer? They died calling out for their mothers.
Mick Cashin drowned in the Kettle. Took his life. There was something terrible about that expression.
To take your life. That was the ultimate assertion of ownership-to choose to go into the silence, to choose sleep with no prospect of the dawn, of birdsong, of the smell of the sea on the wind.
Mick Cashin and Michael both made the choice.
This was not something to think about.
His father was always laughing. Even after he’d said something serious, scolding, he would say something funny and laugh.
Why did his mother still say it was an accident? She told Michael she would tell him his father had killed himself. And she couldn’t, after all this time. She had probably changed her mind about what happened. Sybil had mastered reality. No need to tolerate the uncomfortable bits.
But why had no one else told him? He had come back and lived in the Doogue house, they all knew, they never said a word, never mentioned his father. The children must have been told not to speak about Mick Cashin. No one ever said the word suicide.
In the hospital, in the early days, when he had no idea of time, Vincentia had sat with him, held his hand, run fingers up his arm to the elbow. She had long fingers and short nails.
The Cashin suicide gene. How many Cashins had killed themselves? After they’d reproduced, created the next generation of depressives.
Michael hadn’t done that. He was a full stop.
So am I, Cashin thought, I’m another dead end.
But he wasn’t. The day he saw the boy walking from the school gate he knew he was his own beyond question-his long face, the long nose, the midnight hair, the hollow in his chin.
His son carried the gene. He should tell Vickie. She should know.
Rubbish. He wasn’t a depressive. He felt low sometimes, that was all. It passed, as the nausea passed and the pain and the ghostly frozen images passed. He’d been fine before Rai Sarris. Now he was someone recovering from an accident, an assault. A murderous attack by a fucking madman.
Rai Sarris. Afterwards, in the hospital, he began to see how obsessed he’d become with him. Sarris wasn’t an ordinary killer. Sarris had burnt two men to death in a lock-up near the airport. Croatian drug mules. He tortured them and then he burnt them alive. It took five years to get to the point when there was enough evidence to charge him.