The Big Whatever (40 page)

I camped on a beach that night, and the next day drove south again. Just out of town I picked up two girls with backpacks, hitching in the rain, looking to get to the turn-off thirty miles down the way. They were friendly enough, but oddly serious too. In their early twenties, army shirts with the sleeves rolled up, dungarees, work boots. Smoking roll-your-owns. One was on the large side, dark haired, with a faint mo, the other slim, also dark. Both had track marks on their arms, I noticed, fairly recent.

We chatted a bit, and after I had apparently passed muster, the bigger girl, Marcie, sitting by the window, asked if I'd like a joint. I said no thanks, but they could go ahead if they wanted. They did. They dropped some pills, too.

We drove in silence for a while, then I asked where they were off to. A place up in the ranges, Margie said, suddenly half out of it. Thirty or forty women lived there, coming and going. No men, except for some children. She looked at me as she said it. They said they bounced back and forth between there and Sydney every few months.

“That'd be a separatist community, then?” I said.

They looked at me, surprised. Denise had hipped me to the term only the month before.

“Some of the women believe that when the San Andreas fault gives way and the west coast of America slips into the sea, it'll make a wave that's gonna sweep across the Pacific and hit Australia.”

Yeah right, I thought. From the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere? I glanced quickly at her. She looked very earnest, no smile, so I said, “Really?”

“Yes. It'll be huge, of course. It'll go way inland. That's happened in the past, you know, it's in the archaeological record. And the wave is going to cause . . . well, chaos, obviously. It'll be the end of nearly everything. The patriarchy and capitalism will be finished.”

At which the other girl, Jan, burst into stoned laughter.

“What about you?” Marcie said. “Where are you headed?”

I had to think for a second. “Nowhere much. I'm on a working holiday.”

In the end I drove them all the way to the commune. Took the turn-off, threaded through the ranges all the way to their place. The rainforest closed in over the road, wild green hills, steep valleys and swollen streams. It looked okay from the driver's seat: by day there'd be birds, at night gliders and all the forest marsupials. But I imagined what it'd be like living rough in there, the damp, the ticks, the leeches, the snakes.

I gave a ride to a couple of teenage blackfellas hitching back down the hill. One had a guitar, no case. He snappily picked out instrumentals, ‘Apache,' ‘Theme for Young Lovers,' ‘The Third Man,' all the way down the mountains, but scarcely said a word. After the kid had finished a version of ‘Maria Elena,' his mate laughed and said, “Wesley's a guitar-playing Jesus, eh?” I agreed that he was.

As I was going to sleep that night, I thought about what I'd told the hitchhiker, about being on a working holiday, and the twinge of guilt I'd felt when I said it.

I drove on down to Kempsey, just a day's drive from Sydney. Out of the tropics now. Out of habit I stopped outside the chemist shop in the main street. The Cat was standing behind the counter. Fifty or so, well-fed, with a good head of neatly trimmed ginger hair, looking competent in his starched white coat and horn-rimmed specs, the sort of country town small businessman you wouldn't glance at twice. But if you did look a second time, you'd see he was a little over-groomed, the hair too neatly cut, nails too neatly trimmed. The eyes a little too wary and calculating. Look closely and you'd see the Darlinghurst spiv.

He was a crook from way back. When he'd had his shop at the Cross, the Cat was the person you saw to arrange an abortion, fill a dodgy script, sell you a syringe – even patch up a bullet wound, no questions asked, then slip you some pethidine to help with the pain. He had good relations with the racing fraternity, could get hold of the exotic substances they needed from time to time. The entertainment industry had occasion to call on him too, for instance when visiting celebrities found themselves without certain things they needed. All that had come undone when he was charged with indecent behaviour after putting the acid on an undercover cop in a public toilet in Hyde Park. His friends fixed it the first time. The second time he had to pay big to get out of it. The third time he went bush.

The Cat gave the merest flicker of the eyes when I came in, then extended his hand and said, “William.
So
wonderful to see you.” He was smiling, but rattled.

I shook his hand. The shop was empty except for us.

“I was hoping I might run into you,” I said.

“How did you know I was here?” he said.

“Plain old dumb luck, I guess.”

“Really? Anyway, you want something, no doubt. People always do.”

“I'm looking for Max Perkal”

He relaxed a little.

“Seen him recently?”

“I have. Twice, in fact. He came in and bought a glass syringe and black hair dye a couple of years ago. He was working as an entertainer at the time.” His voice dropped. “Then I saw him again, about a year and a half ago.”

“He'd run out of hair dye?”

He shook his head. “I filled a script for him.”

“For?”

“Physeptone. That's methadone to you.” His voice dropped further. “And some other things in that line.”

“Know where he is now?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Any idea where he was headed?”

A long look, then a quick shake of the head. “He was rather a mess.”

I thought it best to not push too hard, so I left. Told the Cat I might pop back later before I moved on. Do, he said.

Passing through Crescent Head that night, I saw a public phone with a queue outside it. I waited my turn for a free call, rang Terry in Sydney.

“Mullet's back home. With bad news, and good news,” he said.

“Bad news first, please.”

“Dennis Wilson and that
American Graffiti
guy, George? Looks like they're maybe not going to pick up
Crystal Dreams
. They think it's a bit too Aussie, or too strange, or maybe not strange
enough
for Yank audiences,” Terry said.

“So it's all down the brasco?”

“The good news is that they're still interested. But they want something else.”

“Such as?”

“Another film. Something a bit like
Crystal Dreams
, but with more of a proper story. With surf, dope, cars. And maybe a bit of fantasy, too. Thing is, I've been thinking about it, talking with Mullet. We could reuse some of the footage from
Crystal Dreams
– the big surf stuff, the sunrises over the Pacific Ocean, all that. We'd have to film some other bits to string it all together, though.
Add some motor bikes and car crashes. And more drugs.”

“Cars, bikes and dope?”

“Yeah. And Australian settings. Outback, abos, koalas, that sort of thing. With tits.”

“Mullet's all right at surfing and smoking joints, and filming other people surfing, but is he any sort of real director?”

“I dunno. Are you?”

Next morning I went back to the Cat's pharmacy.

“You're still here?” he said.

“When Max was in town did he see anyone else?”

“Not to my knowledge. But then, what do we know of others,” he said, “and the things they get up to?”

“Food for thought,” I said. “You're not in the phone book. The Pharmacy Guild didn't have you on their books.”

“My, you've been busy. I suppose I should be flattered you've taken such an interest. No, I'm not in the book. And this place isn't mine, technically. It's a friend's. But now I'm intrigued. Why did you so want to find me?”

“Max wrote a book about his exploits in Melbourne. The book never really got around, but a few copies were circulated. He mentions you.”

“By name?” Now he was alarmed.

“Just your nickname. Said you were hiding out in a drab coastal town in the tropics, with no trendies, no surfies.”

“I was for a while. But can you see me living for long in a town with no surfie lads?”

“Right.”

He got serious. “I got the distinct impression Max had a base of sorts, somewhere inland, and was heading back there after he'd cleaned up. I mean,
well
inland. A one- or two-day drive.”

“That includes a lot of country.”

“I did ask him where he was going, out of politeness. He said he'd make a suitable announcement when the time came. ‘But meanwhile,' he said, ‘the superior man must be on guard against what is not yet in sight.'” The Cat was grinning now.
“Always with Max, the riddles!”

“You said it.”

“He was quite nuts, you realise. And he looked a fright.”

I said toodle-oo but before I got to the door the Cat called out, “You could ask the music boys.”

I turned back.

“The music boys,” he said again, when I got back to the counter. “Max was in the district for a month or more before he did the detox. He became friends with the music boys. They used to play up at the pub on Saturday afternoons.”

“Where are they now?”

“I wouldn't know, but maybe you could track them down. They called themselves the Mugs. With good reason, I understand.”

No one I spoke to at the pub seemed to remember them or know them, and I left town. Next day, in a newsagent window in Taree, I saw a crudely done handbill: a dance at the Forster community hall the following night featuring the Muggs.

The Muggs were something different, only not in a good way. Surfie types, but not wholesome. They wore old-fashioned black stovepipes – no flares – and were clean shaven. Their hair was long and lank, and they wore pointy-toe boots, like a band from ten years ago. They played loud and fast, but with no finesse. The drummer was loose, the guitarist was just a bit out of tune and played mostly downstrokes – he couldn't really play lead. Still, there was a good crowd on hand. The singer kept telling them what a bunch of fucking idiots they were, but the more shit he put on them, the more they liked it.

During a break I asked the drummer if he knew Max Perkal, but he was well drunk and just looked at me blankly.

Late that night I called Terry.

“Jeez, where've you been?” he said.

“Around. What's new?”

“Lots. Your friend Denise was here,” he said. “She stayed in your room, actually. We took her around to the squats. She met
the women. Stayed there all day, went back the next day. I think she spoke to your political mate too.”

“Who?”

“Neville Wran. And the story turned out pretty good. Did you see it? In last week's
Review
?”

“Where is Denise now?”

“Back in Melbourne.”

“All right, thanks—”

“Wait!” said Terry. “She rang here yesterday, left a message for you. Kind of urgent, she said.”

“Tell.”

“She said a bloke named Fred has been in Melbourne, asking after you.”

“Fred Slaney?”

“I don't know. A fat old bloke, she said. Menacing.”

“Yeah, Fred Slaney. A cop. Did Denise see him?” I said

“No. But she heard he'd been to some place in Echuca. Saw someone named Helen.”

“Helen Messenger.” Bikey Vic's mum.

“Apparently he frightened the daylights out of her.”

“What did he want?”

“Don't know.”

“When was this?”

“A week ago. Anyway, Denise said to tell you Helen Messenger wants to talk to you. But she'll only talk in person.”

Echuca was a long, long way from where I was.

“Terry, you still got that panel van?”

A weary sigh. “Yeah, I have. After sloping all the way down to fucking Bungendore to pick it up, yeah, I thought I'd hang on to it for a while. Why?”

“Sorry pal, but I need it. I can leave you a ute in exchange.”

Next morning I managed to round up a copy of the previous week's
Nation Review
. The front page had a picture of a bunch of ragtag hippies in front of the Guilliat Street houses. Raised fists, anarchist flags, banner hanging from the veranda,
“HOUSING FOR PEOPLE! STOP DEVELOPERS!” The main story about real-estate shenanigans in inner Sydney had Denise's by-line. The next page included a picture of Neville Wran frowning, as though he was particularly pissed off about those housing shenanigans. I quickly skimmed the piece: all good.

I filled up, and hit the road. The tyres were totally bald now and I dared not go above thirty-five miles an hour. It took all day and some of the night to reach Sydney.

Late that night I pulled up outside Terry's place in Balmain. I bipped the horn and he came out grinning. He looked at the ute I was giving him. Till that moment I'd regarded it as my steadfast old faithful, but seeing it now through Terry's eyes, coated with four different shades of dirt (from dark red outback dust to light grey tropical mud), the tyres showing more canvas than rubber, the motor idling noisily because once stopped it would need to be push-started, exhaust pipe blowing blue smoke, it didn't look too impressive.