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BECKER Page 9


  Becker opened the door and went in.

  Normally, the manager was at church, although occasionally he was called to a crisis and couldn’t make it. He did have an understudy, but she was not there that day The office was bare. Becker tapped a bell. He heard a rustle off stage. There was an attached flat, the manager living on site. A hustle and a putting of something aside, a clinking of a cup, the flip of a crisp little napkin and a quick little cough.

  The manager was at morning tea. He came out, wiping a crumb from his authoritative lips and smelling of tea and milk.

  If there was one thing Becker could not stand the smell of, it was milky tea. It reminded him of his mother sitting at the kitchen table, staring out the window and smoking and saying: ‘Why do they do it? Why do they go off and get themselves killed?’ And the steam rising from the cup on the table and mixing in and being with the vaporous nature of things. And the fervent belief in the unbelievable.

  ‘Ah, Mr Becker!’

  He was a solid and stolid man, always dressed in a dark-blue suit, white shirt and blue tie, although he did now and then permit himself a blue and red tie or a blue and grey with a dash of something not quite perceptible. A busy man, courteous to a fault and having all the decency and dedication of a self-important nobody.

  ‘Is it your mother again?’ he said, dispensing with a last crumb.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘How is your mother? How is your good mother? Well, I must say she’s more or less as she was.’

  ‘As she was what?’

  ‘When you were last here? When was that?’

  ‘Last month.’

  ‘Oh, yes, a Sunday too, as I recall. Well—she is, she is, how should I put it? Quite well for a person with her troubles, you know. We must all be thankful for that.’

  ‘In other words, just as bad?’

  ‘Bad? Oh, no, no! Bad is not a word we use here. She is, like so many others, getting on a bit—’

  ‘She’s only sixty.’

  ‘Yes, but, in her condition—’

  ‘She has dementia. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Dementia? Oh, we do not use that word either. If anyone of them were to hear you say they are demented—’

  ‘But she is, isn’t she? She doesn’t recognise me, tells me to go away. Thinks I’m someone else. Thinks I’m Tony Leesham, who flew helicopters in Vietnam. And went down in flames. And won a DSO.’

  The manager understood perfectly. He sympathised completely. He was about to say God in his mercy brought peace to the suffering, but he did not. God’s grace would be wasted on a man like this Becker, a rough sort of fellow. A bent copper and no-good reject, who’d rejected the grace of God and the hope of the Saviour.

  ‘What can I say?’

  ‘She’s dying slowly and dementedly. You could say that.’

  ‘We are all dying, Mr Becker.’

  ‘Not fast enough in some cases.’

  The manager was shocked. ‘How can you say that about your own mother?’

  ‘She’s been dying since the day she was born.’

  It was a cruel thing to say, he knew. But that was how it was.

  Some are born to die and some are born to fly, if only for a few days or nights or hours. Just like Evelyn Crowley. Happy as a lark when they’d loaded up quickly and got out, off in the BMW. Off to a better world, where there was fishing and forests and good wine and fresh food and a long beach, fresh and windy and challenging, south of Perth. On the other side of the continent. They’d never got there. She’d seen the girl sitting on the old seat in the park, the dog snuffling among the fallen leaves, the red leaves. The blood-red leaves. And the girl had been watching them, both thrilled and afraid. The girl was her lost daughter, Christine. “Don’t stop,” he’d said. But it was too late. Evelyn was getting out of the car and walking across. The girl was smiling, unbelieving that she was about to meet her real mother. Then two shots, bang, bang. The girl was dead. The bastards had missed Evelyn and hit her daughter. Straight through her skull.

  Becker was leaning on the counter, on his knuckles. And staring at the manager. Not actually staring at him. There was so little to see. Nothing but a puffed-up functionary in a blue-serge suit. Still searching with his tongue for one last crumb. His belly was full of faith and his eyes full of ebullient sincerity. Quite suddenly and with the adroitness of a fervent believer, he changed his tune.

  ‘I know,’ he said, leaning to some undignified extent on the counter, on one elbow, offering a knowing ear. ‘Please believe me, Mr Becker, I know, we all know, what it is like for the families. The frustration, the long waiting for something to happen, to get better, but as you know, there is no better and no hope. I mean, unless you believe. Then, then, there is hope. The pure joy of knowing at last that we are to be lifted to another place, where there is no toil and tears and indignity and befouling of oneself and the pain and the pills—the awful indignity some of them have to endure and the anger.’

  ‘The anger?’

  ‘It’s so common what we, the staff, who want only to ease them gently into the arms of the Lord, have to put up with. Only last Christmas, in fact it was on Christmas Eve, a certain lady—I’m not saying it was your own dear mother—said to me I was a bully! A bully? My word, Henry—May I call you Henry? I was startled. That anyone would say a thing like that to me? To me? A devoted servant of our Lord Jesus Christ? And on Christmas Eve at that!’

  His eyes were popping, his blood-red cheeks near to bursting. ‘I was shocked to the core of my soul!’

  Becker was staring at this fatuous fool, quite calmly.

  ‘You don’t have a soul.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t know what a soul is. You don’t know until you’ve seen something so bad it hurts. Like seeing a beautiful girl whacked in the head by some shithead trying to kill her mother. Right there in front of her eyes.’

  The manager jumped back, agape.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw that happen, in Canberra.’

  ‘What?’

  Becker stared at the Manager, or not actually stared at him. Or not at him, but at something in a blue serge suit. He was going to say a lot more, really rant at the stupid, sanctimonious bastard, but he did not. He walked out.

  He went down the path to the common room. Most of them were there, some with visitors. Others fast asleep, leaning over, almost falling out of their chairs, held only by the fast and puffy cushions on fast and stuffy chairs. Old chairs and old bodies, barely hanging on. In a corner, a woman was staring at a television set. There was no sound. The screen was full of zigs and zags.

  She was asleep. He began to move to his mother, but stopped. What was the point? How do you communicate and comfort and try to understand someone who does not recognise you and tells you to go away? Last time she’d told him she was going to England to see the Queen, tell her something must be done about the food. Always curried potatoes for breakfast and raspberry jam on Sundays. Nothing for tea.

  Becker went back to the church and waited. Tapped the wheel of the BMW, waiting. What had happened to Barnes? Nothing since that confrontation before Christmas. He’d gone silent. Desperate, or a con man? Or a fool who’d borrowed too much money and couldn’t pay it back? Pay up or you’re in trouble.

  What about his crass wife? She was Italian. Lots of Italians in Griffith. She would have relatives. Had they backed Barnes in some unlawful caper which had gone wrong? No deal, no profit and no future if you don’t pay up? He didn’t know. He didn’t much care. He didn’t want to see Barnes again. But he knew he would.

  They came out in dribs and droves, then a whole family, followed by a crowd. Then he saw her and smiled. He did not love Robyn, but he liked her immensely. She was the right woman for him. A decent country girl, who would never do anything wrong, never ask for anything she did not
really need. But he’d always tell her to go to town and buy whatever she wanted, for herself or for the kids or the house, and each time she’d been surprised, like every day was Christmas day, the world being so bright and bountiful.

  ‘Oh, Harry,’ she said, getting in. ‘How was she?’

  He waited until they were in and belted-up. Then he let off the brake and eased the car into a roll, in some sort of stately finality, out of the yard and onto the street, before answering. Not the kids; they had to walk. It was not far to the little weatherboard by the station.

  ‘Much the same,’ he said.

  ‘The same?’

  ‘Never says much.’

  ‘Oh, poor Iris.’

  ‘What’s that, dear?’ Muriel said in the back.

  ‘Poor Harry, he tries so hard to help her, don’t you, dear?’

  She reached over and pressed his hand on the gear change, warm under hers. ‘My dear man,’ she said.

  They went back to the house by the railway and had lunch. It was very much the same lunch they always had on Sundays, roast beef sandwiches and soup. Muriel never cooked on Sunday, it being the Lord’s day. A woman was entitled to one day off. And biscuits, and nut roll for the kids.

  Bob Elliott was a studious man. He read the local paper and listened to the radio. Read the Weekly Times each week to check the prices of wheat and wool and maize and canola and fat cattle. He was a help to Becker. He knew so much, like a neglected book, which has opened after some years of its own volition to unburden its facts and experiences and wisdom.

  It was a good lunch, even with milky tea.

  Then they drove home—Becker, Robyn and the two kids, the boy slapping a knee and occasionally slapping his sister’s knee and humming something unintelligible, even occasionally kicking the back of Becker’s seat. It was irritating. Overactive, but he’d grow out of it. Turn into some kind of a man one day.

  Nutty was barking in the background. Straining at his leash. Always tied up while they were absent. He couldn’t be trusted not to run away. He loved to go exploring by himself and was not as intelligent as his grandfather, the one which could open and close gates and had had enough sense not to run away. It was not Nutty’s normal bark, not welcoming. But urgent, as if he knew something they did not. And wanted to warn them.

  They went up the steps and opened the front door, the kids first and then Robyn. She stopped, surprised. So quickly Becker bumped into her.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘What is it?’

  He pushed past her.

  A man was sitting on the sofa in the living room, the sofa on which the kid had shot Alfredo in the guts three times. It was the man with the hunting rifle and the scope. He was holding it across his knees, and looking lost and tired and worn-out like a man who has suffered too long. And has made up his mind.

  ‘Martie!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Chapter 11

  Becker did not jump or say anything at first. He was an instinctive sort of man. He did what had to be done to survive, often without thinking. Now and then he failed, but he was still alive. He went to the man, a hand out. Not offering to shake but to make a gesture, as if saying not to worry. No-one was going to hurt him. It had been a part of his police training. Don’t do anything to provoke a man with a gun. Try to be natural and friendly and interested. Try to get him talking. Try to be sympathetic.

  ‘G’day, mate. Been here long?’

  The man did not reply. His eyes moved from one to the other, not with precision or purpose, but like a child following whatever moved. He was dressed more or less as Becker had last seen him, even with the sweatband around his head. It may not have been the same band; it looked a little cleaner, as if cleaned for the occasion. Like dropping in on friends on a Sunday afternoon.

  ‘Oh, Martie,’ Robyn said again.

  She had stepped back a foot or two, shielding the children. At the same time trying to back out slowly, ushering them with a hand behind her back. Becker was signalling her not to move, not to run.

  ‘Been to church,’ he said. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’

  There was something about the pale-grey eyes, leaden eyes. Perhaps a flicker of surprise and gratitude and relief. That he wouldn’t have to do anything, that it might work out after all. Becker had moved in front of Robyn, still backing up. Even so, she was able to speak. ‘Martie, what brings you here? Way out here to Wagga. I mean, here to where we live?’

  He breathed, perhaps hopefully. He might well have said something, but Wendy the girl said, ‘Mum, I’ve got to wee.’

  ‘What? Oh, no, you should have gone at Nanna’s.’

  ‘I didn’t know then.’

  Becker was watching his hand on the rifle. One finger was on the trigger. And wondering if perhaps he could not speak. Maybe he was a dumb man, all ears and eyes and nothing to say, except what he had to say with a bullet. Then he recalled Robyn saying at the Gumnut that day they’d re-encountered each other last year: ‘He hit me. He slapped my face. I jumped back against the wall. He came at me. You bitch, he said. Then, he… he…’ The man could talk then, and that was only a few months ago.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘Told you I’d find you.’

  Robyn shook. ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘And y’wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘I know, I know. It was difficult, Martie. I mean, I tried, didn’t I? I tried to be good for you.’ She was shaking, her hands up imploringly. And yet spread as if to shield the kids. Perhaps catch a bullet.

  ‘Mum, I’ve got to go!’

  ‘What? Just a minute, Wiggles.’

  They called her Wiggles, because she was always wiggling and wobbling, being a smoochy sort of girl, a smiley girl. Even wiggling while talking. Or chewing an apple. Sometimes she’d stand with one foot on the other, wiggling. Which is not quite the same thing as wriggling. You can wiggle your bottom, but you can’t wriggle it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Becker said. ‘Off you go.’

  She hesitated. The man was watching her, a finger still on the trigger.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  Becker was going to jump him, when the girl was out. Grab the rifle.

  ‘Go on, love,’ Robyn said.

  The girl went. The man had tightened a hand around the stock, as though he were going to lift the rifle. Becker walked around, thinking. Trying to look nonchalant. He snapped his fingers.

  ‘Would you like a drink, mate?’

  The man looked about fifty years of age—and aged before his time. His hair was grey with some residual ginger. His beard was all grey. It was uncut and indecisive. It could have been a smart beard once, but it was pretty ragged now. Looked chewed in the corners of his pinkish brown and blistered mouth. He opened his mouth, showing the tips of broken and ground-down teeth. Not many. His forehead was spotted and scratched, little cuts here and there. Possibly scratched with worry when he could not sleep, and even when driving a cab. His ears were burnt and lumpy. Maybe they’d seen too much sun.

  Robyn was staring at him, not so much because he was holding a rifle and could wipe them out at any second, but because she was sorry. She had once loved him after a fashion. Now he was on the edge. Pushed there by hurt and misery and indecision and pulled by the wide-open chasm of despair. She hurt for him.

  He seemed to reply. Then he spoke: ‘Don’t worry ’bout me.’

  Robyn had an inspiration. ‘Would you like some nut roll? Remember? I used to make it. The way Mum does, with walnuts and ginger and lots of butter on it. Would you?’

  ‘Ah—,’ he said.

  ‘I brought some home,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I might.’

  She went out, taking the boy with her. He soon reappeared at the corner, peering. Becker could hear her whispering, urging him to come aw
ay. But he would not. He wanted to see. If the boy would do as he was told, if he’d got out of range, Becker thought he might have a chance, all of them now being out of the room. He could jump the man, wrench the rifle from his grip. But the rifle was pointing directly at the stupid boy at the door. Also, he couldn’t see the safety catch. Was it on or off? If it was off, too risky. Anything could happen, one shot leading to another. Everyone screaming.

  ‘I’m going to have tea,’ Becker said.

  ‘Me too,’ the man said.

  He was wearing a big hunting jacket, no doubt a handful of cartridges in one of the deep pockets, probably the right. He was right-handed, at least his right hand was on the trigger. And the jacket was floppy and sprawly—voluminous, you might say. Waterproof gabardine. Looked as though it’d had some use. Most likely he didn’t do a lot of shooting, not a keen hunter at all. Only now and then. When he went for a walk to think about things. And to shoot at whatever came his way.

  Most likely he roamed the Brindabellas Ranges west of Canberra, or went up around Yass looking for quail or down to Jerangle, up high among the rocks and scrubby reaches of high hills. Not so much mountains as granite peaks, bleak and barren and forlorn and abandoned. Except by the wedgetails soaring up high, gloriously free and eagle-eyed. Becker didn’t know why he thought about the Jerangles. Perhaps it was one of those unrelated thoughts you have, when someone is sitting three or four feet from you with a loaded rifle. Finger on the trigger.

  ‘Ever go up on the Jerangles?’ Becker asked.

  ‘Yeah, been up there. Nothin’ much there, but.’

  ‘Wasted sort of country, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, wasted.’

  Becker crossed his legs. He could hear movement in the kitchen. Not much. Robyn could have cleared out, run for her life, gasping into her phone: ‘For god’s sake, come quickly, there’s a madman in the house and he has a gun—’ But she had not; she was still there. He couldn’t hear Wendy. Perhaps she’d been sent flying to the nearest neighbour. He hoped not. If this nutter knew, he’d probably go wild, jumping up and screaming: Why’d you do that? Why’d y’ go and do that?