Death in Brunswick (17 page)

‘Who is it?' Dave nodded toward the funeral. ‘The husband, is it?'

‘Nah, must be the daughter, judging by the plate. Funny but, usually the old man goes first, you noticed?'

‘Yeah, yeah.'

The funeral ground on. Despite what Bluey had said, there was little emotion shown except by a bowed elderly man standing by the priest's side. Occasionally he would wipe his face or turn his head away sharply in a gesture of grief. The others stood black and stolid in the hot sun.

Dave looked on with guilt and pity.
Sorry, old man—we had to do it.

At last the service was over and the casket was lowered. Dave stood impatiently.

‘Go on, piss off!' he muttered. Mourners drifted round uncertainly, as they always did, talking quietly and greeting one another. The old man was helped down the hill by the priest. One by one the cars drove away.

The undertaker came over, smiling genially.

‘Well, that went very nice. Quiet like. You can never tell with wops, you know. These were Sicilians but.

They're different—don't carry on. Here you are, boys, have a drink.'

He handed Bluey some notes.

‘Thanks very much, Mr Murphy,' said Bluey obsequiously, ‘glad it went good. See you next time.'

*

The undertaker left and Dave hurried to the grave.

‘What's up, you? What's your rush?' said Bluey. ‘You're gettin' overtime, remember. Besides, there's someone left.'

‘Where?' said Dave, looking round.

‘Over there, behind the trees.'

It was a thin figure, neatly dressed in a blue shirt and narrow tie, its white-blond hair lambent against the dark green cypresses.

‘Jesus!' Dave whispered to himself, ‘It's
Carl
.'

‘Who is it?' asked Bluey puzzled. ‘You know him?'

‘No! Come on, let's start.'

‘You sure you don't know him? He's not from the Trust is he? He don't look like no wog relation to me!'

‘No, Bluey, I
told
you.'

‘From the fuckin' union then,' said Bluey suspiciously. ‘You tell them to stay off me back!'

‘
No
, Blue. Come
on
.'

Dave threw a shovelful of clay into the grave. There was a loud, hollow, metallic thud. Swinging his torso, his feet planted firmly, he worked furiously, Bluey throwing in the occasional clod.

‘Want to do it all yourself, do you? All right, Dave, suit yourself. I'm off for a beer. Here's
your
whack.' He handed Dave a crumpled note.

‘Yeah, OK, Blue. Sorry, mate. Sometimes this job gets me down.'

‘Yeah, well, you haven't bin here that long, have ya? But listen, you sure that bloke's not a boss? Even if he was, you don't have to bust a gut, you know.'

‘No, I told you. I don't know him. Go and have a beer and I'll see you after I sign off.'

Bluey shouldered his pick and left, dodging nimbly between the low slabs.

Dave looked round again. Carl hadn't moved. Dave was too far away to see his eyes but he felt Carl's steady gaze. Dave started to limp torwards him, stopped uncertainly, then turned and laboured on.

Sweat ran down his back, soaking his T-shirt. He swung his body violently, the shovel clunking into the clay and ringing on the gravel. Pain bit into his knee…the hole filled with great wet clods.

Working steadily, it usually took two men about an hour to fill a shallow grave like this. It took Dave half an hour.

He finished, flinging down the shovel. Leaning forward gasping, he rested his hands on his knees, his head hanging. Sweat stung his eyes…Wearily he straightened and started to heap wreaths on the low mound. He heard a soft footfall: it was Carl.

‘Carl! What are you
doing
here? Jesus, mate, you gave me a shock. Sorry I didn't come over before, but I told Bluey I didn't know you. I thought…' Dave trailed off.

Carl stood looking at the grave, his face pale, dark smudges under his green eyes. His thin body seemed braced against an invisible force. Dave noticed with a queer feeling of pity that his hair was neatly combed. His narrow tie was tucked into the waistband of his grey trousers. His long-sleeved shirt was crisply ironed, with a pin through the collar. He looked like a worn and ageing schoolboy. Dave remembered with pain how good-looking he had been.

Carl turned his head and looked at Dave.

‘I wanted to see it finished, that's all.' His voice was toneless.

‘Yeah, of course you did. Well, it
is.
You've got no worries now, have you? I mean…I didn't tell June. She…'

‘She wouldn't believe you anyway.' Carl smiled, showing his bad teeth.

‘No, that's right, who would,' said Dave, fumbling with the wreaths.

‘Dave…why weren't you
surprised
last night?'

‘What do you mean, surprised? Well, yeah, I suppose I wasn't…I don't know why. You…I just
dunno
.' Dave stood. ‘Look, just forget about it if you can. What are you doing this arvo? Come back to my place and have a few beers. We'll listen to some Bird and get a bit pissed and…June's going to some feminist thing, she'll be out all afternoon.'

‘No, I have to go to work. It'd look funny if I didn't. And then I have to look after Mother.'

‘Well then, I'll drive you down…just hang on till I finish.'

Carl turned away and started down the slope.

‘No, Dave. I can't see you any more…you should know that.'

‘Carl! Wait!' Dave started after him. ‘Carl!'

Dave, his eyes on Carl's back, slipped in the loose sloping gravel and fell heavily on to his bad leg. His knee twisted agonizingly. He tried to get up.

‘Carl!'

Carl didn't look back.

*

Carl caught the tram to work, down Sydney Road. It was one of the new orange type with folding hydraulic doors. They hissed closed behind him.

The tram was crowded with shoppers going home with laden baskets. He stood for a long moment in front of the conductor seated behind his change machine.

‘Come on, mate!'

At last Carl took a dollar from his pocket. It was his last…He handed over the coin, got a ticket, pushed his way through the crowd and sat down ahead of a heavily laden Greek lady. He sat, looking straight ahead, oblivious to her angry mutterings.

The tram made its jerky way down Sydney Road. The doors swished and thumped. It was very hot. The crowd swayed and lurched.

He glanced out of the window to his right. The bright sun outside threatened him like an interrogator's spotlight. He looked away to his left but the packed tram pressed on him like a suffocating blanket…he found it hard to breathe. He felt like tearing open his tight collar. A dull pain grew in his chest. Concentrating hard, he held his hands steady in his lap and his head rigid.

Stop! Catch the fear! Catch the thoughts like…like
fish.
Don't look at them! Throw them back into the black! The black.

The awful feeling subsided a little, and then a little more. His breathing slowed. He was able to look round again.

As the fear ebbed, he was suddenly filled with sexual tension: through the swaying bodies and across the aisle, he saw a pair of rounded knees, broad thighs, flattened by the tram seat. A short, fawn, uniform skirt, like those worn by shopgirls, rode high near the groin.

He shifted sideways surreptitiously. The open knees swung toward him with the motion of the tram. He caught the vee of white panties. He leaned sideways to see more.
God! What am I doing? This is perving!

But anything was better than the
fear.
Curiously, as his fear lessened, his excitement grew. He slipped his hand into his pocket and touched his penis. The mass of people swung round him. A basket pressed into his back. The plump legs opened a little more. With the clarity of hallucination he saw a light shadow of pubic hair through the thin fabric.
Can't she
feel
me looking? Just a bit more, please!

The tram stopped. The crowd shuffled forward. The knees straightened, the skirt dropped and the woman got up. With a shock, he saw that she was middle-aged.

He rose quickly, pushed through to the doors and jumped off the tram before they closed.

As he reached the pavement he saw that he had come a little too far; across the road, the huge bulk of the town hall rose white and radiant, like an inner-suburban Ministry of Truth. He averted his eyes and crossed the busy road like a sleepwalker, his mind busy with new discoveries: he could control his mind. He could stop the fear. He could take the ugly frightening thoughts, grab them and push them down into the blackness. What was in the blackness he didn't know. Did all the fears collect and wait? Or did they die?

And if it got too much, if he couldn't capture and dispose of the evil, then he could
swamp
it with something stronger. He thought of the woman on the tram, then of Sophie, with a fierce hard lust.

Sex! Yes, that was useful. But so was anger, and—most useful—a steady coldness, a tense callous numbness.

Every time he performed this mental exorcism it got easier. He became more skilful.

He passed the Lebanese delicatessen.

Wonder if Yanni paid them yet—was it only last night?

Then the thought came, half pleasure, half fear:

I killed him.
Me.
And I hid him and nobody will know!

He held the thought for a second and then pushed it away and back.

He turned the corner, walked up to the club, unlocked the door and went through into the kitchen. All without thinking or faltering.

The lights were on. The kitchen was quite normal, rather cleaner than usual. He paused, summoned up that icy numbness and walked to the bench and stood looking at the floor: nothing.

He opened the coolroom. Potato bags lay scattered, away from the wall. He stacked them neatly and returned to the kitchen. On the bench were loaves of sliced bread, cartons of eggs and a few salamis. Pushed to one side lay his cooking tools, still laid out on their cloth.

He looked around again. Nothing.
Nothing.

On Saturdays he had only to make sandwiches for a couple of hours in the afternoon. For some reason Saturday night was always quiet and Yanni closed most of the club—Carl didn't have to work.

He folded back his sleeves, cleared the bench and laid out rows of sliced bread, chalky white in the fluorescent light. Opening a tub of cheap margarine, he methodically plastered the slices, concentrating on his work, keeping that cool detachment. He looked at his hands, they moved smoothly, without a tremor…then he stopped. He saw that his right hand held an old table knife.

My knife! Where's…?
Dave's
got it—it's all right. (Catch the thought, push it back!)
He worked on.

He was slicing salami awkwardly with the blunt knife when Yanni walked in.

‘Hi, Cookie, you're looking pretty sharp today.'

‘Yeah, I had to…'

Yanni turned without listening and shouted:

‘Through here! Come on!'

A thin, dark woman sidled in, a little boy following her; although she seemed quite young, her face was lined and her shoulders were stooped. She wore a long, shabby coat and a scarf wrapped round her head. She smiled tentatively.

Carl looked at the little boy. His round cropped head, his expression…he quickly put the knife down and gripped the bench.
He looks like…!

‘Listen, Cookie,' said Yanni, ‘this is Mustafa's missus and kid. You know Mustafa? Well, he hasn't been home and that and I was telling them we hadn't seen him. Isn't that right?'

Carl couldn't speak. There was a pause. The woman bent to the boy and whispered in his ear. Carl caught the throaty Turkish vowels.

‘My mum says you seen my dad, Mustafa Cuyuk?'

Carl looked into the woman's eyes. They shone with unshed tears. A great surge of…pity? fear?…rose in him. With a huge effort he drove it back.

His hands relaxed and he said calmly, ‘No, I haven't seen him since…when was it, Yanni?'

‘Last week, Cookie. Yeah, that's right. Listen, kid, tell your mum, don't worry, he'll be back…he's probably out gettin' whacked or something.'

The woman bent to the little boy again:

‘Mum says…'

‘OK. Come on now,' Yanni broke in. ‘Cookie's busy.'

He ushered them out. Carl went on slicing sausage mechanically.

He conjured up a wave of anger and contempt.
Bloody wogs, why can't they leave me alone?

Like an echo he heard Yanni's voice as he came back:

‘Bloody Turks! I didn't tell them nothing…he
was
here last night. Trying to get in. You hear? But fuck 'em, they'll get nothing out of me.' Yanni paused and crammed an egg sandwich into his mouth. He looked embarrassed. ‘Listen, Cookie, I got some bad news.'

Carl looked up.

‘Yeah…ah…it was all right last night, but we're a bit short on…we got a
liquidity problem
, yeah, and anyway we're going to have to close for a while. Know what I mean? So I…'

‘Yanni,' Carl cut in, ‘where's my pay?' He looked at Yanni coldly.

‘Here it is, mate,
and
a bit extra. I'll give you a ring when we open again, OK?'

‘You haven't got my phone number,' Carl smiled. He looked steadily into Yanni's shifty eyes. The Greek looked away.

‘Well, you ring me, OK? That's enough sangers, you can go if you want to—see you in a couple of weeks.'

He left hurriedly.

Carl laughed a little. It sounded strange in the empty kitchen. He rolled up his tools and, without turning, walked steadily out of the kitchen door, down the passage and home in the hot afternoon.

FOUR

At three o'clock one Sunday morning, about three weeks after Mustafa's sudden end and impromptu interment, Carl was dreaming. The first part of the dream was quite pleasant: he was flying, or was it skating? He couldn't tell. He could see nothing, and all he could feel was the wind against his face as he plunged swiftly forward.