Devil's Food (5 page)

‘All of those things,’ said Daniel equably. ‘When did you begin to think that something was wrong about your husband’s absence?’

‘It was all wrong,’ she snapped. ‘He said he would be away for a week. I gave him his week. I gave him more, in case he had found some young flesh who could tolerate him once his money ran out. But after three weeks, I knew something was wrong. He had not called, he had not written.’

‘So, no contact at all?’ Daniel made a note.

‘Someone called,’ admitted Star. ‘After three weeks. A man. Said that Sunlight wanted to tell me that he could not come back.’

‘And that was all?’

‘That was all. Not his own voice, a stranger, calling to say that Sunlight could not come back. No reason. No explanation. Just that he could not come back. So I packed my things and I came here. To find you, Corinna. To make you find your father.’

‘Do you remember anything about the call? Were there pips? Was it long distance?’ asked Daniel. Star shook her head violently and tried to run her dirty fingers through her dirty hair. They stuck and she pulled roughly, tearing at her scalp. Therese Webb came to her side and held her hands as she gently untangled them from the strands.

‘I don’t remember,’ Star wailed.

‘And how much money did he have when he left?’

‘About three thousand dollars. We never spent much,’ said Star indifferently.

‘And where would he go, in the city? Where would he stay?’ urged Daniel.

‘We used to stay at the YMCA,’ she said. ‘Corinna wouldn’t have us in her house,’ and then she broke down completely, weeping like a child, nose running freely, tears spurting from her eyes. Therese made pushing gestures and we let ourselves out into the nice quiet hallway and then out of the flat. It wasn’t until we were in the lift that either of us spoke.

‘Phew,’ commented Daniel.

‘I should have asked her for a picture of him — oh, hang on, I’ve got one,’ I said. The relief at not having to go back into that room full of anger and tears was considerable. ‘It’s a passport photo,’ I added. ‘But we can blow it up on the computer. They went to a conference on natural magic once. In New Guinea. Not a success, apparently.’

‘Because?’

‘The shamans were all male,’ I said. ‘No one really appreciates the Goddess-like women who have their own legal rights. Thank you for coming with me,’ I added, kissing Daniel.

‘It was instructive,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s find that photo and wander down to the YMCA. Which has some advantages. One is that the Victoria Market is nearby. The other is that I can buy you a drink in the Stork Hotel, a charming hostelry unspoiled by success. By then we will probably need one,’ he added.

‘Deal,’ I said. I was feeling wobbly. From being bigger than me and a creature in damn big with the devil, my mother had shrunk and become almost … pitiable? I thrust the thought sternly aside. That woman did not deserve pity.

After the usual hand to modem combat with the printer, the hard drive, the thingy and the widget, the printer made passable copies of a balding, unsmiling man who had the honour of being my progenitor. The day had brightened as much as it was going to, just before the sun prepared to leave. This is a Melbourne weather custom and never fails to annoy both inhabitants and visitors. Melbourne is the only city I know of where you must, at all times and in all seasons, carry an umbrella and a pair of sunglasses. A full change of clothes, a lot of coins to buy tram tickets, sunscreen, a snakebite kit and a charm to repel beggars are also useful. No, I exaggerate. You don’t often need a snakebite kit.

‘Bad news,’ said Daniel, as if he had suddenly remembered something. I bumped into him, never an unpleasant feeling.

‘What?’

‘Monday. The market won’t be open.’

‘Drat, you’re right. Never mind. Young Men’s Christian Association it is. Pity neither of us qualifies. I’m not a young man and you’re not a Christian.’

‘They’re tolerant,’ he answered, and took my hand.

I am willing to walk anywhere if I am holding Daniel’s hand so a mere trot down Elizabeth Street to the Y was an unexpected treat, considering what the day had delivered so far. We passed the motorcycles which congregate there and the strong people who rode them, me appreciating the beards as I went. There are some fearsome beards to be found among bikies. I always deal very politely with anyone who has long hair and a speckled white-red-grey beard, on the well-tried principle that getting my head kicked in is bad for business. Then we were up into the far end of the city, which is full of backpackers, people speaking a lot of interesting languages, and the YMCA. A very superior building, with an expensive souvenir shop and a curved and polished reception desk. I wondered how Daniel was going to approach this. Was there a special set of code words? Was he going to have to bribe someone?

The clerk was a puffy, spotty youth, no good advertisement for the health-giving properties of the spa and pool advertised on the wall above him. He looked like a pig who had just been told that he should put an apple in his mouth, lie down on a baking tray, and not make any long-range plans or start any long books.

Daniel walked up to the desk and said, ‘Hi, Nige,’ to the clerk and the clerk said, ‘Hi, Daniel,’ and his whole face lit up. Who would have thought that sullen porcine face could smile like that? He didn’t look any less like a pig, but he looked like a very happy pig, a piggy to whom endless carrots and mash have been vouchsafed. I have always had a soft spot for pigs. Daniel laid down the photograph.

‘Seen him?’

‘You know,’ said the boy, ‘I reckon I have. I reckon so.’

‘Staying here?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ whined Nige. He shot a glance at a woman with a thick blonde plait who was peacefully entering a column of figures into a database. She was not looking at the desk. Supervisor, I thought. I moved so that I was blocking her view of the good little piggy at the desk.

‘Name of Chapman,’ said Daniel persuasively. ‘I know he was here, Nige, I just want to know when.’

‘You’ll get me into trouble,’ warned Nige, flicking fingers over the computer terminal at the desk. What happened to the good old days of a nice big leather-bound book which anyone could read if they distracted the clerk?

‘No, Nige, I get you out of trouble,’ said Daniel jovially. That was an interesting comment. Nige flushed as red as a sunburnt Blandings White and found the entry. ‘In on the second, out again the next night,’ said Nige. ‘Says here, asked to leave. Paid cash.’

‘Who asked him to leave?’ Daniel enquired. Nige nodded towards the woman with the plait and I moved over to converse with her.

She was as thin as a lath, as Grandma Chapman would have said. Certainly, I’d seen fatter laths. This might be a problem. Some thin women react to me as I once reacted to standing on a slug with a bare foot — a sort of revolted, retching, amazed disgust. It’s very hurtful. I once had to have an X-ray in a clinic, and the attendant who dragged me around on the glass plate handled me as if I was half a ton of decayed elephant flesh. The blonde woman’s hair was the only rounded thing about her. Her fingers were like claws, her collarbones contained not just salt cellars but coal buckets, and her cheeks were hollow, as though she had no teeth. On her bony wrist was a green rubber band. This she snapped incessantly, the elastic slapping against her reddened skin.

I took a breath. ‘Hello,’ I said as pleasantly as I could, holding up the picture. ‘This is my father, who has … psychiatric problems. He’s gone missing and I’m worried about him. I know he stayed here on the second, and someone threw him out the next day. Can you tell me why, perhaps?’

Bethany — according to the name tag on her nonexistent bosom — was a brave person. Although I stood there representing everything of which she was most afraid, she answered politely, though she never looked directly at me.

‘Have you some ID?’ she asked.

I handed over my driver’s licence. She winced a bit at the picture on it. Then she twiddled a few keys on her computer.

‘It just says “inappropriate behaviour”,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what sort. Sorry.’

‘Maybe someone made a complaint?’ I suggested. Inappropriate behaviour was all too likely from someone who had spent the last thirty years in a mud-brick slum.

Bethany tapped again. ‘Yes,’ she said. She paused, trying to spare my feelings, which was nice of her but not helpful. My feelings weren’t involved. ‘She wasn’t hurt, you understand, just a bit shocked, and really I think the only reason she reported it was in case he did it again to a younger girl.’

‘What did he do?’ I asked, resigned to some embarrassing attempt to pick up that ‘young flesh’ my mother spoke of so scathingly.

‘Look, I really can’t go into it,’ said Bethany, when another voice cut in loudly: ‘But I can, so what about it? Is the old deadbeat yours?’

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘Who are you?’

‘Allie. From California,’ said the young woman.

She shone with health. Her hair was as glossy as a chestnut horse’s coat, her skin was lightly tanned and she stood a good two metres high, a lot of it long, smooth, muscular leg. Most of which was revealed in her bicycle shorts.

‘Come and let me buy you a drink,’ I offered. ‘That old deadbeat is my father and I’m looking for him.’

‘Better you than me. Just wait until I change and I’ll meet you back here, okay?’ she said, eyes widening as she took in Daniel.

She whisked away and I smiled my thanks at Bethany, who went back to her computer, never once having looked me in the eye. Nige grinned at Daniel and I saw his trotter close over a ten dollar note which had miraculously appeared on the polished desk.

‘It all goes on expenses,’ he said.

‘But no one’s paying us for this,’ I protested.

The crowd in the YMCA ebbed and flowed. Chinese students chattered past, carrying bags from McDonald’s. Australians belted up the stairs bearing cartons of sushi and tempura. I heard a fascinating babble of languages — Greek, Arabic, Japanese, even French. Daniel was drawn into a sharp discourse in a harsh language, all consonants — must have been Hebrew — by four tall olive-skinned boys with number one haircuts, flourishing maps. They were accompanied by four tall, olive-skinned girls, stalwart and very pretty with their glistening black curls. The Israelis were going to St Kilda and I idly wondered about the fate of anyone who decided that those girls were fair game …

Then Allie was back in a bright purple tracksuit and hot pink trainers. I had seen their kind before.

‘Oh, they’re Fair Trade hi-tops,’ I commented. ‘Goss just bought a pair. Are they comfortable?’

‘I guess. It makes me feel better knowing that I’m not walking around in something which some little kid has gone blind making,’ she told me. ‘Are we going to take Mr Wonderful?’

‘As soon as he explains the tram system,’ I said. Daniel handed back the map, farewelled his compatriots, and we went out of the Y.

‘So that creep is your papa, eh?’ Allie asked me as we crossed the road to the Stork. ‘Bad luck.’

‘I have always thought so,’ I said, wondering a little at the candour of Americans. This was the sort of fresh faced, innocent plain speaking that started wars.

Daniel took over. ‘Come along, ladies, there will be a fire,’ he said, shoving open a recalcitrant door and letting out a scent of beer, cooking and wood smoke. I have always liked the Stork. The food is restaurant class and the wine list is extensive, but it is still basically a comfortable pub where anyone is welcome, even if he or she is wearing work clothes. Indeed, occupying the big table in the saloon bar was a gang of Maori women in their roadwork boots, looking amazingly sexy in their blue singlets and dungarees. They were drinking beer as though the six o’clock swill was still a reality, and picking bits of concrete debris out of each other’s hair. I’d heard them working. Male road crews are quiet. The Maori women talk all the time, in a high shriek with frequent laughter, as they tunnel their way down gutters or excavate for pipes. Their comments on passing men, however, cannot be quoted in any reputable newspaper, which was, I suppose, why no one but me had noticed them.

Allie looked a bit askance at all this rampant femaleness but settled down near the fire and accepted a glass of Australian red wine, which was nice of her considering that California made good red wine of its own. I had a glass of Marlborough Sound sauvignon blanc, wine of the gods. Daniel had mineral water.

‘Your papa is creepy,’ said Allie.

‘What did he do to you?’ I asked. ‘I can only apologise in advance.’

‘It was weird,’ she said. ‘I was in the spa and it’s a public spa, all right, so when he came to sit in it I didn’t pay any attention. Then he started sort of sliding closer to me, you know, creeping up? And then when he was right next to me and I was about to move away, he put his hand on my leg and said, “We could be cosmic together,” and when I said, “Get your hand off my leg,” he said, “You’re groovy, California girl,” and then I got up and got out of the spa. He didn’t grab for me or try to follow me. He didn’t say anything else either, just looked real sad. I wouldn’t have complained but he might have tried it on someone who’d be real scared. I mean, he doesn’t look …’

‘What does he look like?’ I asked.

She sipped and thought about it. ‘A deadbeat. A street person. Long grey hair and beard. Clean, though. Just … not sane.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I apologised again.

‘Did you get any idea of where he was going?’ asked Daniel.

Allie shook her head and her chestnut hair gleamed like a shampoo commercial.

‘No, but he might have stayed around here. Sorry I couldn’t help more,’ she said, getting up from her low seat with the grace of a heron.

‘I hope this hasn’t turned you off Australia,’ I said.

‘Got good wine, fantastic boys, good weather, terrific forests,’ she said, grinning a grin which showed that absolutely every tooth in her head was buffed to the blinding whiteness of new snow. ‘One creep isn’t going to kill that. After all, my home town has a lot of creeps of its very own.’

‘I’ve always meant to go to California,’ mused Daniel.