Truth (5 page)

At noon, he throttled back, the motor stuttered, didn’t want to
die. It was minutes before he could hear the silence. He walked to the tank, disturbing a pair of crested pigeons. They strutted off, offended. He washed his hands, splashed his face. When he opened his eyes, the world dimmed. You didn’t notice this in the city, you needed to be away from the smog for clouds to change the colour of the land, of your flesh.

‘Missed a bit down there,’ said Bob, pointing.

‘I didn’t actually drive up here to cut your grass,’ he said. ‘The phone rings out. What happened to the answering machine?’

‘Buggered,’ said Bob.

‘Well, get another one.’ He drank from the tap. The rainwater tasted ancient, of zinc nails held in the mouth.

Villani cleaned the mower, sprayed it with WD-40, pushed it into the garage. He went inside, washed his face and hands in the kitchen sink, made chicken sandwiches with mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce.

They ate in the kitchen, the dog under the table.

‘Bread’s tough,’ said Bob.

‘It’s expensive bread, handmade.’

‘They done you, mate.’

‘Mark been here?’

‘The doctor doesn’t need his old man.’ ‘Maybe he phones and no one answers.’

‘He doesn’t phone.’

‘Yeah? The phone doesn’t work. I’ll talk to him. The compost heap’s dead. No tomatoes in either.’

His father chewing, eyes on the ceiling. ‘Not growing anything, you don’t need compost.’

‘Not over yet, Dad. You’re still eating, I presume?’

Bob Villani said, ‘Gordie’s growing vegies for a fucking army, what’s the point me growing tomatoes?’

‘Fair enough. How’s he going?’

‘Gordie’s Gordie. Be here five minutes after Luke shows up.’

‘Doesn’t do that for me.’

‘Scared of you.’

‘Bullshit.’

Bob said nothing, took his plate to the sink.

‘Anyway he’s a boofhead,’ said Villani. ‘Always been one. Like his mother. Why you limping?’

‘Fell.’

‘How?’

‘No particular way.’

‘What, your hip?’

Bob turned. ‘You’re not the doctor, boy,’ he said, ‘you’re the fucking copper.’

Bob wasn’t going to look away. Villani put up his hands, they went outside.

‘Ibises,’ said Bob. ‘Never seen so many ibises. That’s a very bad sign.’

‘What happens when the fire gets here?’

Bob turned his head, the long, appraising, pitying look. ‘Fire’s not coming,’ he said. ‘Fire’s going where the wind says.’

‘Just got lucky the last time.’

‘That’s what I am. Mr Lucky.’

‘I hope so,’ Villani said. ‘I very much hope so. Let’s have a look at the trees.’

‘You go,’ said Bob. ‘I’ll wait for Lukie. Take the dog.’

Villani looked at the dog. It was studying the ground like an anteater waiting for food to appear.

‘Walk?’ he said.

The dog looked at him, alert, cheered, a sentry relieved at last. They walked across the bottom paddock, it had provided no horse feed this season, went through the gate to the big crescent of dam, stood on the edge. The dog wandered down the dry fissured side to an unhealthy yellow-green puddle, stepped in and lapped. The hole was carved before they began planting, a man came with a bulldozer on a truck, shifted tonnes of earth, rerouted a winter creek. For years, it was never empty, often it overflowed, its lip had to be raised.

Below them a forest, wide and deep and dark, big trees, more
than thirty years old. Planted by hand, every last one, thousands of trees—alpine ash, mountain swamp gum, red stringybark, peppermints, mountain gum, spotted gum, snow gum, southern mahogany, sugar gum, silvertop ash. And the oaks, about four thousand, grown from acorns collected in two autumns from every russet Avenue of Honour Bob Villani drove down, from every botanical garden he passed. He stored the shiny amber capsules in brown-paper bags in their own fridge, place of origin and date, sometimes a species, written in pencil in his squat soldier’s report-writing hand.

In the spring, Villani helped him fence off a big rectangle behind the stables, rabbit-proof fence. They put the acorns in plastic pots, in a mixture of river sand and soil, a weekend just to do that. Villani was thirteen that year, already alone all week with Mark, making their breakfast and tea, sandwiches for school, washing clothes, ironing. He remembered the delight of the morning he saw tiny green oak tips had broken the soil, dozens and dozens, as if they had received some signal. He couldn’t wait for Bob to get home to show him.

‘What’s wrong with the others?’ said Bob. ‘Water them?’

The others emerged in the next weeks. All that summer, he watered the seedlings by hand, half a mug each from a bucket filled from the tanks.

On a Saturday morning in late summer they walked down to the bottom gate and across the road that went nowhere, stood at the gate opposite. Bob waved a hand. ‘Bought it,’ he said. ‘Hundred and ten acres.’

Villani looked at the overgrazed, barren, pitted sheep paddocks. ‘Why?’ he said.

‘A forest,’ Bob said. ‘Going to have our own forest.’

‘Right,’ said Villani. ‘A forest.’

That winter they dug the first holes, at least a thousand, left paths, clearings, Bob appeared to have a master plan in his head, never disclosed. They dug in icy winds and freezing rain, numb black hands, your cold skin tore, you only found out you had bled
when you washed off the dirt. Towards spring that year and the next two, Saturdays and Sundays, eight hours a day, they created the forest. They planted the oak seedlings and the bought eucalypt seedlings through squares of old carpet underfelt, protected them with house-wrap cut from fifty-metre rolls, Bob got these things somewhere, perhaps fallen off the back of some other driver’s truck, like the plastic pots.

In the cold spring when it was done, when Bob said it was done, Villani was heading for sixteen, marginally shorter than his father.

Now he looked at what had once been a burrowed, bumpy landscape covered with little silver tents, then with hair-transplant plugs, and said to himself, ‘Looking good.’ The sight filled him with pleasure, with joy even.

He went around the dam, the dog came up, muddy-pawed, and they entered the shade by the path once wide as a street, now narrowed to a track. From the time the trees were head-high, every time he walked the forest he heard new bird calls, saw new groundcovers spreading, new plants sprung up, new droppings of different sizes and shapes, new burrowings, scrapings, scratchings, new holes, fallen feathers, drab ones and feathers that flashed sapphire, scarlet, blue, emerald, and soon there were tiny bones and spike-toothed skulls, signs of life and death and struggle among the arboreal mammals.

‘Lots of little buggers in there now,’ said Bob one day. ‘Echidnas, bandis, God knows where they come from.’

The walk took almost an hour. When they got back to the house, Villani said, ‘We should’ve done something about the understorey a long time ago. Well, got to go. Long day tomorrow.’

Bob raised a hand. ‘He’ll be here in a minute, hang on.’

‘See Luke some other time.’

‘Give him a chance. Don’t often get two of you here.’ He rose. ‘Come. Got two new horses.’

They walked along the horse paddock fence. The ten-year-old Cromwell had sensed they were coming, stood near the trough with his rough head over the wire.

‘Having a little rest, Crommie,’ said Bob. He fed the horse something, stroked his nose.

‘What was the last payday?’ said Villani.

‘Third at Benalla, that’d be…a while. Still, got a run or two left in him.’

‘Encourage them to have a race for ten-year-olds,’ said Villani. ‘No more than four non-metropolitan wins. A level playing field.’

They went into the stable, a long building, doors open at both ends, cracked and pitted concrete floor, twelve bays. It smelled of manure and urine and straw. Two heads looked at them from adjacent boxes on the left.

They stopped at the first one, a big animal, colour of rust. ‘This’s Sunny,’ said Bob. ‘Red Sundown, six-year-old. Bought him off Billy Clarke at Trenneries, three hundred bucks, he’s got this leg. Only had the six runs but he’s out of St Marcus.’

‘If he can’t actually run, he might as well be out of St Peter,’ said Villani.

‘I’ll fix him,’ said his father. ‘The lawang.’

‘The what?’

‘Oil. From a tree in Indonesia. Costs a fucking bomb.’ He fed the horse something out of his cupped hand.

‘What happened to magnets? Last time it was miracles from magnets.’

‘Lawang’s better than magnets.’ Bob moved to the next horse. ‘My baby. Tripoli Girl.’

The coal-dark animal was skittish, jerked its head, white-eyed them, backed off, toed the floor. Bob showed his palm, closed his hand, opened it, took it away, turned his back on the horse.

‘Cairo Night out of Hathaway,’ he said. ‘Cairo won two, maiden by ten lengths. He bled and then he came back and run terrible, they gave up on him after a year or so. Just produced the four fruits.’

‘All duds?’

‘Bad luck early, badly handled, that’s the way I read it.’

‘How much?’

‘Cheap. Cheap. Dollar Dazzler.’

Tripoli Girl was nudging Bob with its silken head, moving it from side to side. He turned, kept back from the horse, extended an empty hand. The horse nosed it, looked at him. He offered the other hand, opened it slowly, Tripoli nuzzled into it, found something.

They went back to the house, shoes disturbing the dry mown grass. Bob fetched two beers, a VB and a Crown. He gave Villani the Crown. It cost more than the VB.

‘Said he’d be here around three-thirty,’ said Bob.

They sat on the shady side of the house. After a while, Villani said, ‘Why’s Gordon scared of me?’

Bob wiped a beer tidemark from his upper lip. ‘Well, you know. People.’

‘What?’

Bob frowned at the landscape. ‘You’ve got a manner.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Boss manner.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since a kid. Just got more so.’

Villani could not believe that he had always had a boss manner. ‘No one’s said that.’

‘Be like telling a bloke he’s got red hair.’

‘Where would I get a boss manner from?’ said Villani.

‘Don’t look at me.’

They sat drinking, Bob looking at his watch every few minutes. They heard the car, Bob was up, gone. Villani sipped beer and looked at the hills, row upon wavy row, greying now, darker in the foreground. He put the bottle on the table and got up.

Luke got out of a black Audi, embraced his father, kissed his cheek. A woman got out, tall, dark hair pulled back. Luke saw Villani.

‘Steve. Been a while, mate.’ He had a tan, he’d lost weight, white shirt worn outside his pants.

Villani stepped off the verandah. They shook hands.

‘This’s Charis, works with me,’ Luke said. ‘Charis, this’s my dad, best bloke on the planet, my brother Steve, he’s another matter entirely.’

‘Hi.’ Charis smiled, uneasy, offered a hand.

She was young, a teenager.

‘You didn’t say Steve was coming,’ Luke said to his father.

‘Didn’t know. Beer time.’

They sat on the verandah. Bob brought beers, glasses. Luke and the woman drank Crown from the bottle. Luke was a race-caller, all he ever wanted to be. He did all the talking, asked questions, didn’t hear the answers, gave answers himself. The woman giggled at everything he said.

‘Charis does T-WIN weather,’ he said. ‘Just a start, she’s going to be big-time.’

Charis smiled, showed all front teeth, a for-the-camera smile.

‘Oh, Luke,’ she said.

‘How’s Kathy?’ said Villani. ‘The kids.’ There were two. He couldn’t remember their names.

‘Great, good.’ Luke didn’t meet Villani’s eyes. ‘Yours?’

‘Same, yeah.’

A cough. Gordon McArthur, the neighbour’s son, approaching thirty, a fat twelve-year-old face, checked shirt beneath clean overalls.

‘Gordie, my man.’ Luke went to him, tapped his cheeks, hard, both hands. ‘How you doing, big fella?’

‘Good, Lukie, good.’ Gordie’s eyes were lit.

‘Charis, meet Gordie. Seen Charis do the weather, Gordie?’

‘Seen her,’ said Gordie. He didn’t quite look at Charis and she didn’t quite look at him.

Villani’s mobile went. He stepped away, to the far end of the verandah.

‘Tried you a few times, boss,’ said Dove.

‘Comes and goes,’ said Villani. ‘What?’

‘Two things. One, got an HSV doing 130 on the Hume about 9.40 on the night of sixteen December. Driver is a Loran Alibani,
address in Marrickville, Sydney, vehicle registered to him.’

‘That’s good. What shows?’

‘We’re waiting. Second thing, Prosilio now says it’s got no vision at all from the lifts and the parking, the basement, from Thursday 4.23pm to 8.55am Friday. Recording malfunction.’

‘This is shit. Happened before?’

‘That’s not clear,’ said Dove. ‘The company runs the electronic security for the building. Stilicho. They offer cutting edge, you expect bugs. It’s the first time they ran the full casino system and it sort of blew other bits. The CEO is blaming the techs, they’re not happy.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Weber. He talked to people.’

Villani was looking at the mountain. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘That’s an old-fashioned thing to do.’

‘He’s from the country,’ said Dove. ‘Manton says Prosilio management’s not responsible for Stilicho’s technical failures. He says talk to Hugh Hendry, he’s the Stilicho boss.’

‘Is that Max Hendry’s son?’

‘Don’t know, boss.’

‘Find out. And the other stuff?’

‘Running the names. Unless someone pops up for killing women, even one, it’ll be a while.’

‘Takes as long as it takes,’ said Villani. ‘Do it right and sleep tight.’

Oh God, another Singo saying. He killed the call before Dove could say something clever, walked back down the verandah.

‘Got the meat, the Crownies,’ Bob Villani said to Luke.

‘Can’t, Dad,’ said Luke. ‘The talent dropped out, some weak-dog excuse. I can’t say no, it’s in the contract. Really pisses me off, been looking forward to talking ponies.’

Luke rose and they all stood. Luke put an arm around his father’s shoulders, walked him along. It struck Villani that he now looked completely unlike Bob. At the car, the girl inside, Luke took out a wallet, thumbed fifties.