The Bad Policeman
by
Helen Hodgman 

THE BAD POLICEMAN begins with a day in the life of Australian Police Constable Marcus Blainey. In fact the book recounts many such days. Blainey tells
us right from the beginning that he has "done bad things". He is only too conscious of what a contrast he is to his patrol car partner Steve, ever eager,
always ambitious.

In truth life has dealt Mark Blainey many blows. His marriage has collapsed - what policeman's hasn't? - and the job doesn't always allow him to dispense
the sort of justice he would like to see. But then he often takes the easy way out. The poet in him is ever conscious of a burden of human misery and stupidity.
Mark Blainey is disillusioned by the job, often ready to take advantage when it is on offer, but one thing really gets to him - young children caught up
in the nightmare worlds of adult predators.

Helen Hodgman is the author of Blue Skies (1976),
Jack andJill (197'8), Broken Words (1988),
Passing Remarks (1996) and
Waiting for Matindi (1998).

ALLEN  & UNWIN
First published in 2001

Copyright © Helen Hodgman 2001

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Australia
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Hodgman, Helen.
The bad policeman.
ISBN 1 86508 435 2.
A823.3
Maryborough
Printed by Australian Print Group, Maryborough, Victoria

for Georgina Ligertwood
my cellmate for most of these pages
WHAT I THINK is: some are born into the world only to
hate it. Others are born loving the world. I don't know
when all this loving and all this hating started. All I know is
those who love can change. A lover can cease to love. A lover
can begin to hate. And the haters? Haters never change.
I was a lover once, until all loving ceased. I am trying to
tell you. I have done bad things.

I WAS SCARCELY through the station door when a call came
in to tell us how some mad bastard was bouncing round his
own backyard blazing like a bonfire. When we got to the
scene I stayed in the patrol car having a quiet smoke while
my partner Steve dealt with the situation. Under our system
of doing things, which we'd worked out when we were
assigned to each other last year, it was his turn. In fact, it
was almost always his turn. Steve was ever eager, always
ambitious. We worked well together, Steve and I, despite
my age and lack of ambition or perhaps because of those
things. In the light of my failings Steve shone like a superman.
A sound basis for any relationship.
The cigarette turned out to be the high point of my
day. Part of the pleasure, other than the satisfaction I unfailingly
get out of reducing the world, or the tiny part of it
contained in my cigarette, to ashes was not having Steve
flapping his arms about like a wuss to dispel the smoke, a
performance he usually ended by coughing and gagging
and winding down his window and sticking his head out to
suck up some life-giving fresh air.
Steve's a fucking fanatic. I bet if a condemned man
asked for a last cigarette before they strapped him to the
table, opened a vein and hammered him home with a shot
of pancuronium bromide with potassium chloride chaser,
Steve would give the bastard a nice little speech along the
lines of, 'This, sir, is a non-smoking facility. Our policy is
one of zero tolerance.'
Through a pleasing fug I watched Steve chasing after the
mad bugger with a blanket. I didn't know where Steve stood
on the issue of capital punishment. The old chook next door,
who'd called us in the first place, kept on screeching at him
to keep the burning bloke away from her boundary fence in
case he set it alight. This wasn't the first time he had set himself
on fire either, but it was the last. Steve got the blanket
over him just as the ambulance came wailing down the street.
He died on the way to the hospital which meant there was
one more nutter crossed off our list but then, as I pointed out
to Steve, for every one of them you get rid of there's always
another one lying in wait round the corner. This dampened
his enthusiasm a bit, which was a mistake. Steve placed a
high value on enthusiasm. I realised I'd made a mistake
when, once we'd finished at the hospital and were walking
back to our patrol car, Steve asked me if I was okay. He'd
never asked before. I knew I'd have to be more careful in
future because if they decide the job's getting to you the next
thing you know there's some bloody counsellor trying his or
her best to get you to weep on their shoulder whereupon they
end up getting another gold star or scalp or something and
you end up getting a long stretch of leave without pay. I'm
not suggesting Steve was an informer providing information
to those above us on the ladder so they could stamp more
efficiently on the hands of those swarming up from below.
Everyone's been a bit paranoid since it was announced merit
would outweigh age in the great promotion scramble. Me, I
was just hanging on by my fingernails for the sake of my
superannuation. Call me paranoid if you like. I'll plead
guilty. It saves time. One thing you should bear in mind
regarding the paranoid is the curious fact they are almost
always right.
'How's the poetry going, Mark?'
Whatever I replied, which I'm sure was very little, was
lost in the slamming of car doors.
'How's the poetry?' he repeated. 'I mean are you still doing it?'
Fuck, I thought. For a second Steve held my life by the
scruff of the neck and seemed prepared to give it a good
shaking. Why had Marilyn told Steve about any of that?
About my doing poetry? What was the point? Steve is the
sort of bloke who'd think--to borrow someone else's
joke--Baudelaire was a brand of refrigerator. And come to
think of it, why isn't it?

To get him off my case, to keep my options open on the
poetry front and above all to re-establish myself as a man of
action, I grabbed the radio phone and yelled through the
static back to base to find out what, if anything, came next.
Steve squinted sideways at me.
'Oh mate, are they serious?' he wanted to know as he
turned the car around, activating the siren and the lights
just to amuse himself as we headed for Coles. 'You'll see.
It'll be some poor old lady they've caught stuffing a pack of
toilet paper down the front of her frock.'
In the event he was right about the old bit and the poor
bit, but he was wrong about the gender and the toilet paper.
What we found was an old man who'd been apprehended
leaving the store with a frozen chicken stuffed down the
front of his trousers. You'd think having a frigid chook up
against your aged and withered privates would be punishment
enough but the little--no, young, I mean young
because that's what he was and big with it--shit with more
acne than brains who's the manager up there these days
insisted on pressing charges.
'On principle,' he said. 'Store policy. We always charge
them. No exceptions.'
I thought of the befuddled oldies out there quaking in
their slippers and having to change what was left of their
minds about their plans to descend on Coles and stuff their
threadbare undies with frozen meat. It's a widely held belief
that young people are a prime source of trouble in the community,
but they were being given a run for their money by
their elders on this morning for sure. In fact it's often like
this during daylight hours, or at least until schools get out
and the late afternoon trickle of fairly petty larceny starts.
VCRs disappear from lounge rooms and the not-so-well
hidden dope plant gets grubbed out of the garden
although, as you'd predict, this crime is never reported by
the guilty gardeners round the place.
'Dumb cunt,' growled Steve, unable to get over the
prick of a store manager. Steve does display a degree of
social conscience occasionally. At the time, I would've told
you I didn't, but these days I'm not so sure. Social conscience
seems a very selective business. Old ladies in some
sort of insoluble strife leave me cold. I have found, though,
it is young children caught up in the nightmare worlds of
certain adults who really get to me, of which more later
because at the moment that's as close to the heart of the
thing as I am prepared to go.

I LIKED TO get away from it all.
The Warrumbungles is where I liked to walk best. I met
my wife out there on a walk. On a tramp she'd say, being a
New Zealander. She'd sat on the side of the track whimpering
over what looked like a broken ankle. I carried her out
on my back. Somewhere along the rocky trail we introduced
ourselves.
'Marcus Blainey,' I panted; not that she was so very
heavy, but it was a steep gradient we were tackling. Then
came a moment I'll never forget. 'Not the Marcus Blainey
who wrote Portals of Distortion?' Lucky I didn't drop her.
The odds against anyone having even heard of Portals of
Distortion (University of Queensland Press, 1982) were
enormous, let alone finding such a one as I found clutching
her ankle in so remote a place; someone who'd actually
read it, which she left me in no doubt she had, instantly
quoting some of my own favourite bits to me which, she
said, were her favourites too. As it turned out her ankle
wasn't broken, just badly sprained. She'd laughed it off at
first, made a joke to everyone about the nature of our meeting,
but then later on she turned it into a negative symbol
of our marriage. I'd often pointed out how, in the circumstances,
I would have helped anyone I found out of there
but she said this wasn't the point. Just what the fucking
point was I never did discover.
When I couldn't get up to the Warrumbungles I'd
walk round here. Along the Kanangra Walls, or into the
Gardens of Stone off the road to Glen Davis. Trying to get
away from it all, but the trouble is it comes with me. It
thumps and bangs and wheezes across the rocks behind
me. A great pus-stuffed sack of human misery and stupidity.
But once you start thinking this way you cross a line it
seems to me and there's no going back. What line? The line
that separates me from sanity and the state of sheer hatred
for the seemingly wilful fuckedupedness of the human
race. Some days I wonder if I can keep walking fast enough
to keep it from catching up. Some days I can feel disgust
breathing down my neck and one day it'll overtake me.
Run right over me leaving me squashed face-down in the
tracks of its great slimy slug-weight of misery.
'Leave it,' Marilyn would say to me. 'Get out. Do

something else.'
But I can't. Why not? Don't know. Got any ideas? Tell
Marilyn. She's back in New Zealand.
WHAT RIGHT HAVE I to inflict all this law and order on
people? Looking into the blank red rage of his eyes I saw my
own anger reflected. I felt like joining him. These fucking
pay phones never work anyway because blokes like him are
too busy destroying them because they never work. Telstra
wants to do away with public phones. They want to force us
to have mobiles even though most of us haven't got much to
say, or nothing anyone would want to hear. Soon we'll all be
walking around with tumours big as cabbages sticking out
of our ears. I tried to explain these things to the enraged
youth, to put it in perspective so he'd understand where he
stood in the scheme of things, but then he tried to kick me
in the balls so I stopped the social work and busted him.

WHEN I WAS thirteen I got a boil on the back of my neck.
Mum said it was all my badness coming out. She said it as a
joke. Dad said it would go away in time. My youngest sister
Jill said I was growing an extra face on the back of my neck.
'Want to know what it looks like?' she'd say. 'Look at
your face in the mirror. Then imagine you've got a tiny twin
back there.'
I used to take the hand mirror Mum kept on her dressing
table and hold it behind my head to check my twin's
progress in the long mirror on the inside of my wardrobe
door. The girl who sat behind me at school asked to be
moved because the sight of it made her sick. In the end it
made Dad sick too. He stopped saying my boil would go of
its own accord. One Sunday morning, he'd got tired of waiting.
He heated up a metal skewer on the gas stove, grabbed
me in a headlock and plunged the glowing point into my
boil. I must've let out a terrible yell. Mum was furious. She,
in her turn, grabbed me. I was stretched like a rubber band
between my parents until Dad let go and Mum got me in
her own version of a hammer lock, pressing my head to her
bosom. This didn't do her dress much good, what with the
blood and boil contents spurting. I would like to have had
a look at these contents but never got the chance. Mum
screeched at Dad about how cruel he was, what pain he'd
inflicted on me and so on. She reminded him of the grisly
day he'd done some impromptu surgery, which I remember
involved a length of garden twine, on our cat's balls just to
save having to pay a vet to neuter him. No-one asked the cat
how he'd felt about it and no-one asked me how I felt either.
The pain of Dad's intervention wasn't what was causing me
to howl so loud. It was grief. I had liked my boil, and the
thing I liked best about it was the way it had made more
impression on those around me than any other part of me
did. For example, the girl who used to sit behind me was
scarcely aware of my existence before my boil bloomed in
her face. Mum unwittingly cheered me up by telling Dad
it'd probably grow back because he didn't know what he was
doing. For months, first thing when I woke up I'd feel the
back of my neck hoping for a sign of its return. But Dad
must've done a good job after all because it never came back.
It left a scar though. Marilyn found it one night shortly after
we met. She probably wasn't the first woman to feel this
puckered hollow of skin in which my boil had nestled, but
she was the first to comment on it, which made her special,
I suppose, even in the early days.
'What's this?' she'd wanted to know. I told her. I even
told her about liking my boil and she'd laughed. 'Poor

Marcus,' she'd said, ruffling my hair the way Mum did way
back then.
Marcus. Only Mum and Marilyn ever called me that.
Dad never used it even though I understand he chose the
name in the first place. I think he thought I didn't live up
to it. Everyone calls me Mark. I'm comfortable with it.
Marcus always seemed a bit fancy to me though Marilyn
made it sound all right.
'I wonder,' mused Marilyn, 'whatever happened to
boils. You just don't see them about anymore. Probably
they nuke them in the bud or else they've put something in
our water. They've become an endangered species.' And she
was right, don't you think? When did you last see a boil? As
Marilyn said, these days you'd probably have to go to India
to see a decent boil.

I WAS THINKING about Dad. How he didn't sit on the couch;
he colonised it. His own chair. Keep off. His own place at
table. Elbow room. His baked dinners on Sunday. In Dad's
day all meals arrived on time and departed on time too, in
the same ten minutes of each and every day he spent sitting
on the toilet. Keep out. His shirts ironed just so. His underpants
ironed too. Bi-i-i-g underpants. Lebensraum. His
place in the sun. His life ran on a timetable in the wake of
which the rest of us stumbled along.
My dad. Another dictator who never came to power.

IT MUST BE bad when you have to clean up after a car
accident,' says an earnest woman at a party. 'Or a truck,'


:9]

she shudders, 'a truck, you know, crossing the centre line
and smashing into a small car. Or a family wagon filled
with small children. Or ... well, I don't have to tell you,
I suppose. You must have seen it all a thousand times.'
She'd obviously given the subject a lot of thought. I've
met her sort before. Middle-aged women with minds like
charnel houses who borrow all kinds of horrible books from
the library written by other middle-aged women of similar
bent. Anyway, this day I'm in one of those moods so I try
telling her scraping up road-kill isn't the worst thing in as
much as an accident is one thing, but the sheer bloody
buggery stubbornness of deliberately inflicted misery is
much worse.
And, because I was in one of those moods, I nearly told
her about how, even then, I heard children crying. I heard
them crying all the time. Crying coming from a distant
block of flats or trailing from the open window of a passing
car. Even down here now, I hear it, which can't be true. At
least I hope it isn't. I rely on this place being soundproof.
'Yes. Ye-e-s,' she'd said, crumpling her already serious
brow to signify some sympathy, I suppose. 'I can see that.'
I remember she'd leaned towards me and touched my

arm lightly.
'One thing,' she mused, 'one thing,' she added whimsically,
'one thing I've always wondered is how they get the
blood off the road so quickly. Do they hose it off with ordinary
water, I wonder. Or do they add something to it, some
solvent perhaps?'
I left her to her musings and went and got myself a
drink, another drink, yet another drink.

BEFORE I TURNED feral I used to get asked to quite a few such
parties, the place being what it is and what it is is a small
town 100 kilometres west of Sydney. Due to its proximity to
the city and its height above sea level the town had always
been a popular place to escape from the humidity, the pollution
of the plains. That's the picturesque scene which attracts
holiday-makers, day-trippers, tourists and part-time residents.
These people are always telling me how lucky I was to
work in such an interesting--meaning interesting people
(i.e. them)--place which must surely have a low crime rate.
They usually revise their opinions about the latter when
comes the Friday night they, at last, having taken hours to
get out of the city, turn the key in the lock and enter only to
find some local lads have forced the bathroom window and
clambered in for a bit of a party of their own. Natch there's
not a drop of booze left in the house and nothing to smoke,
sniff or whatever it takes to relax the stressed and weary traveller.
There are cigarette burns in the carpet, a fair amount
of broken glass and the colour scheme's been changed with
lashings of whatever horrible shade of spray paint has been
on special at the local Home Hardware store that week.
The next milestone on the road to selling up is the
night their fantastically expensive camera has been lifted
from the back seat of their car while they are attending a
dinner party at the house of some new and thus far fascinating
acquaintance. This means they now have to lock
their cars and the whole point of being up here is that you
didn't have to. Disillusion sets in. After all, you can get all
that at home. And so it goes. They think they'll try the
Southern Highlands, and when that palls there's always the
South Coast or some little haven on the Hawkesbury.
Besides the intrepid weekenders there are quite a number
of people who have bought places up here where they
come to paint and write and sit round drinking coffee.
Where they go coffee follows, it seems, because there's been
a fair number of new cafes opening up in the past year or
so. Steve and I drive down the street and it's all, 'There's so
and so. There's such and such.' So and so and such and such
are usually the creators of, or the participants in, television
programs but I'm never sure what they are because I don't
watch much television. Not because I've got anything
against it. It's just I see so much of it at work.

IN THE COURSE of duty I go to house after house. I enter
lounge rooms, bedrooms, kitchens. I visit hotel room after
hotel room and motel room after motel room. I go to
immobile mobile homes in gloomy settings. I go, in short,
to all lands of places but wherever I go, to no matter what
hell-hole, hovel or hole in the ground, there is one thing
I can be sure of, and that is that a television will be there
providing the soundtrack.
I am called to these places and I go to them. I go to
rooms where, for example, I find middle-aged men strung
up behind doors, dangling from their own thick leather
belts. You might be surprised how many blokes end their
lives hanging behind doors like forgotten overcoats. Some
of them do it with some pretty complicated touches too,
like a length of nylon cord tied tight round the scrotum and
then attached to a kebab skewer inserted into the urethra,
and I presume they do all these complicated things with
the television their only witness. Suffice it to say, since I've

already said a lot, whatever horror that went down in these
rooms, whatever it was had happened, happened with a
television nattering away.
I wonder what it feels like to get your throat cut watching
the Wiggles? Imagine being pinned face down on the
carpet and buggered while those Bananas in Pyjamas tumbled
squealing down the stairs. What if the last thing you
saw on this earth was a commercial for a double CD of
hot hits of the '80s Vol. 1. Supposing Oprah was the last
friendly human in sight when your old man came home in
a drug and/or alcohol fuelled rage and slashed your throat
and smothered the kids because you'd been thinking of taking
them up to Coffs to spend a few weeks with your mum
while the bad bastard sorted himself out and your only mistake
had been to tell him of your plans?
I could go on. I could tell you all the dark details of the
rooms I carry inside my head. Rooms I have not yet visited.
Rooms in which I have never been.

I GOT ON all right with these people at their parties and
these such and suches, so and sos and so on are pretty keen
on parties. To them I'm a bit of a performing seal, or an
amiable gorilla perhaps. Some animal not quite as smart as
them but smart enough to make itself useful, able to behave
itself in controlled conditions.
Tame enough not to make a fuss when it sees their dope
plants waving in the breeze. What they don't know is how
useful those well-tended darlings are, poking so prettily up
above the roses. It makes it easy on those occasions (to give
but one example) when I've stuffed up. When I've carelessly
busted someone for possession when they are not in possession
of anything at all it just takes a quick drive round a
few streets to gather enough weed to correct the error.
Needless to say, these thefts are never reported.
These people think they know me. But they don't. One
day one of them will put a foot wrong and there'll come a
revelation.

I TELL JASON--that's my son, 22 years old and working in
what they call the hospitality industry--I tell him about these
people I meet. I'm not sure why. To impress him, I suppose.
'Sure, Dad,' he says. Jason doesn't give a stuff because
Jason doesn't like me much and why would he? Jase and I
have never been what you'd call close. His mother saw to
that, though to be honest I can't dump all the blame on her
the way I used to. I tried to get on with Jason but it was
hard when he was little and I only got him for the odd
weekend and could never think what to do with him.
Then I met Marilyn and married which, you might
think, would help, especially when we bought a house and
I had somewhere decent to bring him but somehow it
didn't work. Marilyn tried to get on with him, I think, but
he wasn't having any. I reckon he might've come round to
her in time but the initial rejection hurt her feelings and the
visits got further and further apart until, somewhere along
the line, they just stopped.
Perhaps I didn't try enough. I should've persisted. The
fact is the woman was more important to me than the boy.
We loved being together in those days and Jason being
there definitely got in the way of our enjoying ourselves.
Still, I spoke to him on the phone a fair bit. I'd ring in the
afternoon when I knew he'd be home by himself after
school because his mum would be at work so there'd be no
danger of getting her. Not that he ever had much to say but
I wanted him to know I was around in case he ever did. The
fact is I am still around and I'm still waiting.

WHAT CAN I say about Marilyn? What can I possibly say? To
tell you I loved her scarcely covers it. If I told you about
those noises she made just before she came which nearly
broke my heart every time, would it shed any light? I could
tell you this and lots more but what could it possibly mean
to you?

ONE MORNING I heard a woman talking on the radio; or
perhaps she was reading something from a book. She had
one of those high and raspy voices which sometimes come
from fat women.
'It seems to me,' she said, 'all human relationships end
in tears.'
And, yes, I have to say there are days when it seems as
though this is true.

I WAS STANDING in the pizza shop waiting for my deep dish
corn fed knee deep super special family sized with extra
cheese plus the free meal deal extra gross sized Coke. The
shop was busy and I was feeling impatient about the wait,
anxious to get home, when my mobile went.
There'd been an explosion underground at one of the
mines down in Lithgow and it was a case of all hands on
deck Seizing a pizza from an astonished citizen, I ran out,
got back in the car and listened to all the dramatic static
pouring out over the radio. I already knew my part in all
this so I'd just had to wait there eating my pizza until they
got round to me again. The bloke I had grabbed it from
followed me out. He yelled something I chose not to hear.
He was, as they say, beside himself. I sat and watched, daring
him to touch the car so I could turn him into topping
I sat there until they gave me the address they wanted
me to go to, and when they did off I went. Slowly.

OUR FIGHTS, FULL of fear and frustration. Half the time it
was me who was doing the fighting and the test other times
she'd walk out so I was only fighting myself. I could keep it
up for hours, growing punch drunk on my own fury.
I split her lip with the electric toothbrush once--just
threw it in the direction of her head. It flew across the
room, a savage bee, landing on her mouth in a whirl or
toothpaste. Toothpaste, dribble and blood. Shock too, both
hers and mine. Mostly mine. Marilyn already knew what I
was capable of. Next day she wouldn't leave the house. The
day after that the swelling had gone down, so she did.

Some CHICK TURNED up at the station's service desk the
other day and talked to the duty sergeant about this group
she was running. It was a group for concerned grandparents _
What these grandparents are concerned about is the rate of

their grandchildren being raised by their very own drug
crazed kiddies. She felt the local police should know this
facility existed. She pinned a notice about it on the notice
board in the lobby near the Coke machine, under the gaze
of the Queen who may well wish she had a similar support
group she could drop in to every other Thursday evening.
The grannies and grandads had plenty of desperate company,
that's for sure. They were forced to nudge politely for
space on the noticeboard with the battered wives, HIV
infested babies, abused kiddies, bruised wussies, thieving
junkies, vomitus perverts and a yet longer list I cannot be
bothered to compile of all the practitioners of loose cruelty
at large in this world.
The duty sergeant hung her pretty head over her keyboard
and sighed.
'What's the world coming to?' she wanted to know.
Look around, you stupid bitch. The world isn't on its
way. It's already arrived.

I BELONG TO a men's group. Matthew, Luke, Victor and
Brad. God knows why. I was talked into it one night in the
pub just after Marylin shot through. It was a bit of a joke at
first but it's been a help. I mean, they would always listen.
They did their best. We didn't meet in the bush in wigwams,
walk on burning coals or anything like that. We just met
once a week, on Thursdays, at each other's houses in turn,
and we talk. We start at seven and we end at ten. We get in
touch with our feelings and then we have refreshments, provided
by whoever is host that particular week. Tea, coffee
and orange juice perhaps and usually some biscuits. No
alcohol to oil the wheels, which made it tough for us all to
begin with. Matthew had made Anzac biscuits last night.
I thought of those biscuits as I walked up the path
towards the house I had been sent to, and a mean little
house it was too. I could've done with a biscuit. I could've
done with Matthew as well, this being the kind of call
everyone in the force hated to make. Matthew, who teaches
music at the local Rudolph Steiner school and seems to
quite enjoy a spot of emotional turmoil now and then,
would have been better at this than me. There was usually
a box of Kleenex on his coffee table, next to the plate of
home-made biscuits, not always Anzac.
Come to think of it, and I'm sure I did think of it, why
didn't they send a woman out to handle this one? But then
I suppose all the women PCs were fully employed elsewhere,
rescuing people trapped in burning buildings or
sorting out a few unruly seven-foot bikies bearing armalite
rifles in the car park of the pub down the road while I stood
there tossed about by moonlight, memories and confusion.

ENTER DETECTIVE CONSTABLE Scythe. Her reputation precedes
her. She has, it is said, a black belt in irony this girl,
this chick, this cunt. She has, it is also said, an ability to fit
in. She is, it is said, one of the boys. She is able, in short, to
take it. So is all this a fantasy or is it more of a devout wish?
Whichever it was I might as well spit it out, spit it up, spit
it any way I want to. I'll tell you I'd like to fuck her fucking
throat and I'd make sure she didn't spit it out, I'll tell
you that for nothing. She'd fucking well swallow or die. I
see my service revolver snug against her ear. I see the terror

[is:
in her eyes. I feel the need she has to shit at such an important
moment in her life and I sympathise, I really do, but
then comes the poignant point when she finally gets the
point as she kneels face to face with her place in the scheme
of things. Yes, these admittedly distasteful things I thought
this morning as I'd passed her in the hallway as she strode
purposefully out to the zoo wagon.
'Wish me luck,' she says and smiles at me as though I
were a normal human being or any sort of human being and
I say nothing but I do wonder, as our shiny new Detective
Constable punches in the security code and the heavy double
doors leading out to the garage slide open and she strides
through, I do wonder as it rumbles shut behind her, I do
wonder whether women know how much we hate them.

MARILYN LIKED TO kiss. She liked to slide her tongue into
my mouth. Kissing was her thing, her speciality. How many
times did we kiss? Thousands of times? Millions. She did
love me really, don't you think? I asked her once--more
than once, buzzing about her like a fly--if she did and if she did, why?
'I love the poet in you,' she said. But the poet was very
small and the policeman was, and still is, getting bigger and
one day soon the policeman will plant his big fat bum in
the poet's face and it will be Game Over.

I HAD THOUGHT the woman I had come to see must be out.
It seemed a fair bet at the time. No lights on, so far as I
could see. No car parked outside. I am about to turn round
and go, but then this little dog comes yapping round the
side of the house and skids up to my feet and starts jumping
in the air and I catch it mid-bounce and for no sane
reason I can think of I pull my gun and place the barrel
between its eyes and shout 'Bang'.
'Who's there?'
Was I embarrassed. No question. I was. Definitely.
This widow who did not yet know she was a widow
stood waiting for an answer as I dropped her dog, holstered
my gun and advanced upon the buckled flywire door of her
little house, as I prepared to board her small but ship-shape
ship, for the widow was nothing if not neat and tidy. If
I had been her I would've screamed. If I had been her I
would've called the cop shop and insisted they send a better one. If I had been her I would be the last person on
earth I'd let in.

MARILYN SOMETIMES REFERRED to people in the police force
as being members of one of the punishing professions. By
people she meant men because she'd never admit the fact of
women wanting to do those things. Of course she was
meaning me, really. She couldn't bring herself to label me a
bully. But getting back to this business of punishing professions,
I didn't and still don't agree with this, although I
do admit when a member of a punishing profession turns
up on your doorstep you'd better prepare to be punished.

THE WOMAN STOOD in a cold lozenge of neon light, framed
by the dark wood of the doorway. Her thin limbs were
shaded green by the mesh of the flywire door separating her
from me. Looking through the wire I thought of the meat
my mum used to put under a round cage of fine wire to
keep off the flies, in the days when we lived out west.
I knew I was looking at something important but
couldn't think what. I know what I felt though. I felt fear.
Why should I be scared of this thin green woman with a
long mouth framed by colourless lips; or not colourless
exactly but more the colour of flesh rimming the belly of a
gutted fish? Her fine pale hair pasted to her head with
sweat. And rain. Yes, it had begun to rain. I didn't want to
stand there getting soaked. I wanted to get inside. I wanted
to be let in.
'Is it him?' she'd wanted to know.
In these situations you've got to be careful. You can't
count on the him she wants to know about being the him
you've come to tell her about.
I asked if I could step inside. She didn't say yes and she
didn't say no, she just turned and vanished into the dark
interior and, taking this as some form of consent, I followed.
The old brittle wood of the verandah squealed and
sagged under my boots. I pushed the flywire door then,
realising my mistake, I turned the push into a pull hoping
no-one noticed this pretty basic error, though what audience
I expected to see me I couldn't say and so, resolving to
do better in future, I entered. I followed as she led me into
her kitchen.
Outside, the rain fell in torrents, in cascades, spouts,
globs, jets and waterfalls. Outside, the weather was winning.
i'd COME ACROSS fish tanks in people's houses from time to
time but had never taken much notice because I didn't have
to. Fish don't come charging at you with fangs bared. Fish
never have firearms hidden on their persons or knives stuck
in the tops of their socks. There was a fish tank in the
Emergency Department at the hospital too. It was supposed
to soothe the nerves of the people waiting in the waiting
room. It didn't work. The fish, faded and miserable, had,
after all, been there longer than anyone. There was no way
out for them but death and you could tell they were looking

forward to it.
In the widow's kitchen was the largest aquarium I had
ever seen. It took up one wall of the room entirely, from
floor to ceiling. Hundreds of fish flickered and gleamed,
tiger striped, spotted, neon, bewhiskered. Big, small and in
between, wise and foolish, fat and thin, they sailed through
a wonderland of watery greenery. It was so fantastic, this
fish tank, you could charge admission.
A newspaper lay open on the table. The headline read
'Police Integrity Commission'. What a coincidence you
could say, to which I would reply not particularly. We all
know about these set-ups. Expensive charades where guys
with names belonging on dog collars tell lies through well
sharpened teeth. I guessed she had been reading this item
when she heard me out front. The chair was pushed back
from the table. A pair of glasses lay beside the newspaper.
I stared at the unexpected fish and the widow stared at
me, fine-boned, jumpy. If I took a step further I could see
her sprouting feathers and rising ceilingwards in a crescendo
of clucks and panic so I stayed where I was and waited. She
waited too. She slid the palms of her hands down over her

skirt. The widow had a certain style: soft fabrics, colours rich
yet subdued, a certain faded hippie look. I hope you don't
think I'm noticing too much. This, as far as I could tell, was
not a crime scene. I'm not laboriously laying clues or anything
of the sort. Mine isn't that kind of story.
'It's Terry, isn't it?'
See? They'll usually tell you what you've come about so
in the end you get the feeling you're putting them out of
their misery rather than being the bearer of bad news.
'What's happened to him? He's gone to work. He's on
night shift until the end of the month.'
'There's been an explosion and one of the pitheads has
caved in. The one closest to where your husband and his
mates were working.'
Come on, love, I'm thinking. You say it. Don't make me
point out the obvious, that your bloke's been buried alive,
but in the end neither one of us said it. There was a scrabbling,
as of rats, in the hallway leading off the kitchen.
Keeping my hands well clear of my gun, I swung round.
It was as though her pale face preceded her, bobbing
down the dark hallway; a small face, heart-shaped, nervous,
cradling a fluffy white cat. The cat was mewling and struggling.
If the child was surprised to find a cop twitching in
the kitchen she didn't say so.
The widow said nothing either, staring at her like, I
thought, the kid was a goblin who'd popped in out of the
storm. I put it down to shock.
'Bindi's got a bubble coming out of her bum,' said the
goblin-girl. 'And the TV isn't working.' Then she acknowledged
the large policeman parked in her kitchen. 'What's
happened?'
The widow came out of her trance.
'Raining cats and dogs,' she said because here comes
their dog, a cringing wet dishmop which shoots me an 'if
only I was a great big lard-bag like you the paw would be
on the other foot' sort of look before crawling under the
table with a sick whimper.

THE WIDOW WANTS to go to the mine, and why not?
Since this falls within my job description, I say I will
take them. Outside, things are calming down. Splish splash,
said the rain. Dot dash. In a box the child has found and
lined with the newspaper the widow had been reading
before I'd ridden in on the storm, the cat carried on giving
birth with much mewling. The Police Integrity Commission
disintegrates under a tide of cat's insides.
It is time to go.

WE TURNED OFF the highway at the main gates. The mine,
though remaining out of sight, glowed ahead of us through
the bush, emergency lights turning the night red. It is not
clear to me how much the child knows of the reason for this
outing. Did the widow whispet the bad news to her in the
dark hallway where they had both briefly vanished in order
to shroud themselves in the big black plastic rubbish bags
which served them as raincoats? Perhaps.
I looked at my passengers in the rear-view mirror. I
watched the widow pass a silver flask to her daughter, who
took a good gulp and passed it back. The sweet smell of
brandy filled the car. The girl was snuffling into her
mother's shoulder. But you know, I wasn't sure the child
was crying. Grief and pleasure sometimes sound the same.
I dropped the widow and the widow's daughter inside
the main gates. I was about to get out to help them but they
were gone from the car in a flash, absorbed into the crowd
of bereaved women, grieving mums, the dead men's anxious
milling mates all ashamed and relieved it hadn't happened
on their shift, hadn't happened to them. All this plus television
vans, camera persons, grimy rescuers and all the usual
stuff that fills the screen as chaos follows catastrophe. I
was sitting there wondering what to do when our Area
Commander tapped the glass behind my ear. I lowered the
window. His face loomed in, gulping air like a goldfish.
'Well done, Sergeant,' he said, notching me up a rank.
What it was he thought I'd done well I knew well enough
not to ask. He was after a ride back to the station. He piled
in beside me, looking a bit out of shape round the edges,
like he was about to vomit, which made me nervous as I'd
be the one who'd have to clean it up unless I left it for the
blokes coming on shift at 7 a.m. which wouldn't make me
too popular. I asked if he was all right.
'All right, yes.' He closed his eyes. 'It's just those,
those ...' his finger jabbed the roof of the car, 'those choppers.
I came up in one with the Minister but I'm buggered
if I'm going back in one. They scare me shitless. They take
me back.'
I kept my eyes firmly on the road. I knew it was essential
to make no sign of interest or sympathy. If I did he'd
be off on one of his former glory days trips; his time in
Vietnam, his post-traumatic stress syndrome, his flashbacks.
Listening to him you'd have to wonder if he should
be allowed out, let alone be an area commander in charge
of a considerable number of New South Wales' finest.
'Goodnight, Sergeant,' he said when we got back.
'Senior Constable, sir,' I said.
'Good man,' he said, consulting his watch. 'Best call it
a day, I think. Whatever the trouble is it'll still be there in
the morning. That, Sergeant, is something you can always
count on.'
'Goodnight, sir,' I said.
I watched him cross the parking lot. I imagined him
picking his way across a rice paddy. I watched as his bloody
great foot landed on a landmine which blew Commander
Plod away. I stayed where I was, waiting for the dust to
settle. I waited until he'd driven safely out the gate and
then got out of my car.
The tall black back wall of the cop shop frowned down
on me. The moon shoved its bright face above the wall and
was cut to pieces by the razor wire coiled along the top. For
several spinning seconds, before the intruder lights blazed
on and pushed it back, the wall shuffled towards me.
Three steps led to a steel rear door. I was about to type in
the entry code when the shift sergeant, who must've been
watching my advance on a security camera, saved me the
trouble and buzzed me in. I stepped inside the steel strip-lit
corridor which joined the back and the front of the building.
As I passed his desk the shift sergeant aimed his piglet
forefinger straight at my heart. He wanted a word with me.
Some Koori, it seemed, had lodged a complaint about a cop
pinching his pizza. He'd given them the number of the
squad car. Mine. Not that anyone let on. He'd just told him
the matter would be followed up. The Sarge had said 'No
worries, son' and sent him on his way. Well, shit. What
could I say? I hadn't picked him for a Koori. If I had I
would've raken it off the next mug in line, or a girl, or anyone
at all who wouldn't be likely to make a fuss. Kooris
equal kid gloves these days, I know that.
'Listen. Far as I'm concerned it'll go no further.'
Something moved behind the shift sergeant's eyes.
Something murky. Think of pond life. "Course, I had to
enter the complaint in the duty book but there's a lot in
there never sees the light of day. Just be a bit more fucking
careful in future, right mate?'
'Right.' Shit, now I owed the bugger a favour and I hate
favours. Every cop does. Favours almost always lead to
trouble.
'It's a thin line, motherfucker,' yelled a voice from the
bright cells. White lights. White walls. No dark corners. No
place to hide. Set it all to music and you'd have the ultimate
Country and Western song.
After that the general office, which I have heard on
occasion referred to as the nerve centre of the building
by some gold-encrusted dickhead on an encouragement
spreading mission, was dim. Good. Stay with dim. Don't
turn up the lights. Us coppers like dull.
I headed for the computers lined up on the long central
table and did what I had been waiting to do half the night.
I ran a computer check on the widow and came up empty.

I WAS TOO buggered to take off my clothes. I just fell on the
couch and woke what seemed seconds later to the devastation
of early morning, and it was all there--the familiar
sour smell of my loneliness, the claw marks of my anger
engraved on every surface. I got up. I made myself get up
though I didn't have to. It was my day off. Give us this day
our daily dread.
I hauled my mug of instant round the space surrounding
this house, a space Marilyn used to call a garden and, if
she hadn't left, it might have turned into one but she had
and it hadn't so what I walk round this morning is now,
unquestionably, my yard. I walk past flowerbeds which,
had anybody bothered to plant them, would now have been
well established. The crescent-shaped beds had been
Marilyn's idea. She'd wanted them filled with plants of grey
and silver. Though my knowledge of plants is limited, I had
drawn up lists for her pleasure: cinerareas and sea holly,
lamb's ears, the nicest of the dwarf lavenders, the silver Lavandula lanata, artemisia with its filigree foliage, pale
silver irises, ballotas, senecios and Lychnis coronaria with its
leaves like felt. And she had been pleased. 'Like a little
poem, Marcus,' she had said, in the tones of an infant
school teacher encouraging the slow how to tie a shoelace.

THE MAJOR LANDSCAPING feature this morning is the
cumquat tree Steve and his girlfriend Cheryl had given us.
I'd stuck it in a pot, forgetting all about it until now. It had
fallen over, its leaves crusted with fornicating stink beetles.
I set the pot upright. I gave it a good shake to dislodge the
beetles but I don't think they noticed. It comes to something
when bugs are having a better time than you are.
I pulled a pair out from under a leaf and prised them apart.
They separated but remained joined by a strand of slime.
I dropped them and crushed them underfoot and suddenly
it was war and I didn't stop until the last beetle was crushed
to a stinking bubbling mess, but despite my victory against
the evil empire of insects I still didn't feel any better.
It was men's group tonight. I asked myself if I should
share any of this stuff with Matthew, Luke, Victor and
Brad. I remember thinking, as I hosed the corpses away
down the concrete driveway, how none of this was doing
me any good. I remember thinking how, if I did tell
Matthew, Luke, Victor and Brad how I felt that, as it usually
was, their answer was bound to be along the lines of
coming to terms with Marilyn's absence. 'Letting go' was
the slogan with these guys, which is tricky for a man like
me, raised to hold on to what he's got at all cost and whose
working life is largely devoted to assisting others to do the
same. Then Matthew would probably trot out his thing
about police tending to be socially isolated individuals,
which he'd read in an Amnesty International newsletter.
This was intended to explain why police can turn into
psychotic torturers in the blink of an eye, steal pizzas, and
generally behave in such ways as to cause their wives to
leave them in droves. He might be right. I'm getting really
good at torturing myself and there were times when I'd
quite like to have a go at Matthew as well.
I wound the garden hose into a neat coil--g'day, Dad-- and shit, then I remembered, it was my turn. My first turn.
Here. Tonight. Matthew, Luke, Victor and Brad would be
trooping up my bug-stained driveway at 6.45 p.m. and I
hadn't done a thing.
I could have a quick go round with the vacuum cleaner,
I thought, but first I'd have to pick up my fetid leisure wear
from the floor which included, I noticed as I scooped them
off the back of a chair, the pair of Bart Simpson boxer shorts
Marilyn had given me as a joke, I hope, upon some distant
merry Christmas. I vacuumed. I tidied. I swiped at various
surfaces with a sponge I'd found in the kitchen sink. This
sponge left a funny smell on everything it touched, which I
trusted would wear off before anyone arrived. I had a go at
the bathroom, leaving it far from perfect but bearable.
Next came food. Just what exactly could I provide? I sat
down with a notepad I found in the kitchen drawer and
began to make a list of things I could buy for us to eat. A
loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, 'Is what we chiefly need.' Or
I think that's what he said. But anyway, even a simple sandwich
seemed out of the question. What would I put in
them? Curried egg flitted briefly to mind before vanishing
into the permanent too-hard basket my brain had become.
A couple of packets of Tim Tams and a few bowls of potato
crisps set out on the coffee table would have to do.
Turning the pages of the notepad I found various shopping
lists compiled long ago by Marilyn. I tore them out. I
didn't brood over them. I did not try to reconstruct any of
the many days I could have driven Marilyn to Coles in the
unmarked patrol car--no, you're not supposed to run
errands in them, and yes, we all do--so she could buy a
carton of B&H spec. flit. Sure, Marilyn smoked. Smoked
like a chimney. Smoked like me. Did I say she was perfect?
Did I? On the same list were several brands and flavours of
canned cat food. Cat food? Fuck. I'd forgotten all about the
cat. It had gone. Where had it gone, and when? When I'd
failed to feed it I'd say was when. I saw our kitty blundering
about the bush, a 32-kilo tabby causing havoc. 'Go cat

go,' I chortled. 'More pounce in every ounce,' I cried, and
headed for the shower.

I WENT TO Coles and bought what I needed; even thought
ahead enough to plan and purchase stuff for meals in the
week to come. Standing in the checkout line I remembered
the cat. Should I? Shouldn't I? Was there any point? I was
just about at the front of the queue when the fucking cat
won the day and, sacrificing my place, I trundled my trolley
back to the pet food aisle and chose a few tins. Just in case
it came back. Just in case. Perhaps if I left a saucer of food
out for her, Marilyn would come back as well. When I got
home and unpacked my purchases, when I had scrunched
up all the plastic carrier bags and put them where Marilyn
always put them for recycling, in a raffia bag into which was
woven the words Souvenier of Rarotonga. This bag hung in
the laundry but where they went from there who would
know. When I'd done all this I felt something it took me a
moment to recognise. A sense of achievement.

'LOVELY FURNITURE,' SAID Victor, which was a bit of a surprise because he'd never said anything much about
anything before. Mother's furniture had obviously struck
a chord. 'Very nice.'
It's true my mum had had some good furniture, or
'pieces' as she preferred to call them. Mum's pieces have a
certain dark splendour which, I sometimes think, is all
there is holding this flimsy new house together. When rain,
hail or armageddon strike and turn the roof tiles to confetti
and the miserable, low, regulation-height ceilings sag and
break under the weight of water you could hop inside
Mum's sideboard and float away. Other than that I couldn't
see much point in keeping it, had often thought of selling
it because its scale and generosity only makes this miserable
cut-corners house more miserable. Meanwhile the men's
group cluster round and coo.
'It'd be worth a bit,' chimed in Brad. 'Ever thought of
selling it?' he wants to know, his finger casually describing
a dollar sign in a small island of dust my smelly sponge had
missed.
'No,' I snapped, and I never will, either. I saw Mum's
violet ebony chiffoniere squeezed into Brad's flat, scowling
down on his Ikea armchair like it was lunch and 'over my
dead body' I nearly said, but didn't. Instead I moved them
into the lounge room where they all fell on all those neatly
laid out snacks and I went into the kitchen to boil the jug for
tea since, it seemed, none of us drank instant coffee but me.
How had Marilyn and I come to buy a house in Kelvin
Road on the Winslow Lakes Estate? For what reason had we
come to purchase this house in the style which, the salesman
assured us, was considered by the discerning to be at the top
of the range of the architect-designed homes Winslow Lakes
Estate had to offer. Which was to say it was better than
Windsor, better than Tranquility, and better yet even than a
construction called Waverley was this design he kept referring
to as Halcyon. 'It's the finishes,' he explained. 'The
quality of the finishing touches. You get what you pay for.'
Marilyn wanted to know where the lakes were and was
assured the lakes would follow.
WHY HAD WE done it? A short list of reasons.
Because I had just been transferred to this area.
Because it was roughly equidistant from both our places
of work.
Because we were in a hurry, really, and didn't think it
through.
Because we had the necessary deposit.
Because the salesman talked us into it one hot Sunday
afternoon when, out of curiosity, we had been so foolish as
to follow the advertising signs on the highway telling us a
more rewarding lifestyle lay just one kilometre ahead and
all within easy reach of a golf course.
Because because because of the baby.
But then, in the end, there was no baby and thus no
reason either. Our baby was murdered. I can say this to
myself. To my shame I had once said it to Marilyn, whose
face had what I can best describe as caved in. She had
turned and gone into our bedroom and stayed there for
quite some time. Then she'd come out and said, 'Don't ever
say that to me again.'
As though I needed telling.

'DO YOU KEEP your gun at home?'
I jumped, burning my hand on the steaming jug. I
didn't let Matthew know I was hurt. I just wished he'd piss
off so I could stick my hand under the cold tap. If I did this
in front of him he'd want to know why I was punishing
myself to which the only reply was I'm not, you made me
jump by appearing in the doorway and asking out-of-order
questions. Only then, of course, he'd accuse me of being in
denial which, of course, I would immediately deny I could
have done him a good turn by pointing out how there's not
much wrong with denial as all our most successful crims
will verify, though it wasn't up to me to educate the wanker in
the ways of the real world.
'No.'
Matthew bustled across my kitchen to the teapot, into
which I had chucked an indiscriminate number and variety
of tea bags. Matthew busied himself removing the tags off
the ends of those that had them and tucking the bits of
string, or whatever it is those tags are attached to, tidily
away inside the pot. He gave me a knowing smile. 'Never?'
I didn't bother to answer.
'Do you have a tray?' I didn't bother with that one
either. 'Do you need a hand?' asked the dogged Matthew as
my own wounded mitt swelled and throbbed and it wasn't
so much the loan of a hand I needed. What I needed was a
transplant. Matthew was opening cupboards and closing
them again. He slid a few drawers in and out, humming
quietly to himself. Was he looking for my gun? Then I
realised he was admiring the finishes, the quality of the
hinges and the brackets which, he told me, were German
made and built to last. Every cupboard and every door
could crumble to decay but those hinges and brackets
would live on. What was the point, I felt like asking but
didn't for fear he'd tell me. 'You get what you pay for,' he
said. Perhaps Matthew's future lay in real estate. It would be
something to fall back on when he got bored with his career
of peddling alternative forms of education.
'How do you find the neighbours?' by which I supposed
he was asking what they were like, not how to get to

them. How was I to know what the inhabitants of Waverley
and Tranquility and what have you were like? Apart from
the famous fact that police are socially isolated individuals,
as he himself had so frequently pointed out, I was hardly
ever here anyway. For all the notice we neighbours took of
each other instead of leaving under her own steam I
could've killed Marilyn with a blunt instrument, wrapped
her in a carpet, dragged her out to the car, driven her to the
handily located golf course and cremated her on the eighteenth
hole.
'Why don't you pour the tea?' Why didn't I? Because
my right hand was killing me. Because I was mourning the
passing of the fragile sense of achievement I had felt only a
few hours ago.
'You pour it,' I croaked. 'I've got to take a piss.' I made it
to the bathroom. Before the gush of water from the cold tap
drowned everything out I heard Matthew bleating about
there being no milk. I flushed the toilet so he was doubly
drowned and hunted up an old tube of burn cream in the
bathroom cupboard. Wincing and flinching, I applied it, and
before I knew it I was sitting in my very own lounge room
handing round the Tim Tams and talking about Suzie,
mother of my son. This made a change because Suzie was
someone I did my best not to think about, never mind opening
my mouth and letting any words slip out on the subject.
I had forgotten the ritual of whoever's house we were meeting in getting to go first and so, caught out, I had seized on
Suzie, laying a false trail to lead the pack away from the
important stuff. I'm not saying Jason isn't important, not at
all. I should've maybe said painful, though Jase can be pretty
painful too, so that wasn't right either. I just didn't want to
talk about Marilyn, that's all, so I pressed on with Suzie.
She and I, being young in the times in which we were,
did the hippie thing which is to say we set forth to discover
unspoilt parts of the world in order that we might spoil
them. One morning, springing awake on a sandbar in the
Ganges, springing awake in my usual state of mortal terror,
in fear of children from a nearby village going through our
packs for something, anything, their faces bright with
hunger and curiosity; in fear of bandits and of beggars;
in fear of the strangest of strange Gods I had sprung awake
to find Suzie, bending over me, clutching a human thigh
bone, her frizzy hair looking quite pretty in tangled silhouette
against the dawn-washed pink and pearly sky. Having
gained my attention she began to cry. Naturally, I connected
her tears with the large bone she brandished, but it
wasn't the departed Suzie wept for. Her period being long
overdue, Suzie was weeping for one not yet arrived. And so
we cut short our travels and returned home to await the
coming of our first and only born, Jason. Suzie kept the
thigh bone. She wrapped it in a copy of The Times of India and carried it on as hand luggage.
'Suzie was quite strange, in some ways,' I concluded.
Neither Matthew, Luke, Victor nor Brad disagreed.
They were keen to discuss their experiences of maintaining
good nurturing relationships with children in the care of
the other parent especially when, as in my experience, that
other parent hates your guts, as was certainly true of Suzie.
'And how did you feel about Jason, Mark?' Matthew
wanted to know.
'Like giving up.' At which bit of honesty a small dismayed
hubbub ensued.
'But you didn't, did you?' Who asked, I don't remember.
'I did,' I murmured, drunk with honesty. Big fat error.
Turmoil.
'But you can't just walk away from your own flesh and
blood,' cried Matthew, until this moment the major pusher of
the letting go, walking away, moving on and the stopclinging-to-the-rock
school of thought.
'A boy needs a father,' squealed Brad.
'To go fishing with,' chipped in Victor.
I was enjoying myself quite a bit, or more than I had in
a long time anyway, when Matthew noticed Luke had
somehow stuffed himself under the coffee table and was
curled up sucking his thumb. The look on Matthew's face;
like a man who'd struck oil at last. He lay on the floor, slid
his hand under the table and removed Luke's thumb from
his mouth. Luke started to cry. Matthew looked up at the
rest of us and smiled. I didn't know where to put my face.
I closed my eyes so I couldn't look. I wanted to put my
fingers in my ears but didn't want to seem like a sook.
Luke was bellowing by now.
'It's all right, mate,' pipes Matthew. It sounded far from
all right to me. 'Just let it out.' The rest of the group chimed
in encouragingly.
'Guilt.' The word shot out and whizzed round the
room like a champagne cork.
Luke tried it again, though this time it was more of a
subdued croak. Clearly guilt was losing its power. I opened
my eyes. The group had dragged him out and were playing
pass the parcel, bundling Luke round the circle, telling him
to face whatever it was that was so terrible. By this they
meant tell us, Luke. We're dying of curiosity.
'Let go,' said Matthew. 'Walk away' How Luke was supposed
to do this when Matthew had him in a hairy hammer
lock I don't know. And then came the magic clinging rocks
mantra, which did the trick. Out it came. Luke, it seemed,
had, at some point in the recent past, had a relationship with
a woman who had a small baby. In other words, Luke had
been screwing a single mum. Luke told us she was a really
good mum and he approved of this, of course he did, except
the baby woke up a lot, especially at night and especially, it
had become to seem to him, when he and the good mum
were on the job. Luke had begun to see this bouncing baby
boy as a rival for the woman's affection. One night, when
Luke was hard at it, the baby had begun yowling right on cue
and this time Luke was prepared. He had withdrawn with a
cheerful smile, hopped out of the steamy bed and told her to
leave it all to him. Plucking the bonny boy from his tiny
crib, Luke had changed his nappy--so far, so good--warmed
his bottle until it was just exactly right, placed the teat
between the infant's expectant quivering lips and instantly
removed it. Unkind. But you have to remember poor old
Luke had been through lots of somewhat similar frustration
lately. The baby's tiny hands opened and closed, as though
climbing an invisible ladder out of there, because infants
know, they must surely know, the worst is yet to come.
With the baby's slightly bulging, trusting eyes following
his every move, Luke went to the cupboard. Luke rummaged
around a bit and found a box of salt. Luke poured a
generous dash of salt into the bottle and popped it into the
tiny trusting mouth. That's all.
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to point and sneer. I wanted
to tell Luke he really didn't cut it, didn't cut it at all. I wanted
to put my arms round him and give him fatherly advice.
Luke, I wanted to yell, believe me, you are a saint, man, you
are a fucking SAINT. Of course, you naight say anyone who
hasn't garrotted his grandmother is a saint to me. You could
say that and you could be right. But let's stick to the matter
in hand, shall we? Listen Luke, listen and take heart.What
you have done is nothing. It's nothing, mate. Just think of
that baby's behaviour, man. Just think what the fucking BABY
did to you. It got off easy if you ask me. I tell you, Luke, and
I fucking do know what I'm fucking talking about when it
comes to fucking babies. I see it all the time, son. And, before
I list a tiny few of the things you could have done, Luke, just
let me say that the mere fact you weren't doing drugs at the
time makes it just that bit harder for you, I reckon. You
weren't even drunk. You can't even say it was the drugs made
me do it; the booze what did me head in. Fuck, man, you
weren't even unemployed at the time. No, mate. You're copping
the lot. All you've got to blame is YOURSELF, imagine
that. Well, I'll tell you, mate, this makes you a HERO in my
book. Anyway, son, you've nothing to worry about. Babies
don't remember a fucking thing. You're safe there, all right.
You think you're a bad lad? Dream on, mate, dream on.

WE END UP sitting round my kitchen table talking about
football which you'd think would be safe but then, naturally,
we started talking about our childhoods and our fondest or
least fond sporting memories and I told them how my dad
had driven me miles every Saturday to play footie and how,
with Dad having at best a slim sense of direction and at
worst none whatsoever, I would huddle in the passenger seat
trying to follow the pages of the street directory devoted
to strange and distant suburbs and give him instructions
which, try as I might, inevitably failed to reach his ears on
time.
'When you say turn right for Christ's sake tell me
before we're right on top of it,' he'd yell as we sailed past the
turn-off. 'There's a line of cars up my bum. I can't just turn
without a bit of warning. Now, look at the bloody map and
tell me how to get back on track.'
We were always late. Always. Once I had suggested I go
to the footie with Bob because his mum had volunteered to
take us, just this once. 'She knows the way,' I added foolishly.
Dad sagged like he'd been shot, rallied, and marched
off to the shed where he spent the rest of the weekend hammering
nails into something. 'I only hope it isn't the dog,'
said Mum and laughed. She reckoned the best way to deal
with Dad was to keep a sense of humour but I could never
quite get it right. What was so funny about the Commander
I never did find out. When I was a bit older I
started calling him that. It drove him wild, and to make
him wilder I'd add a salute to it. He used to chase me round
the place with his belt and every so often he'd land one but
he couldn't stop me, could he? It drove my sisters nuts as
well, which caused me to keep it up even when Dad and I
were both bored with it. We'd launch into our little clockwork
routine without thinking about it. To put it into
Matthew-speak, it could be said this was the closest we ever
came to affection.
Marilyn met Dad in the hospital, just before he died.
She was a bit disappointed with him. I think I'd built him
up too much and here he was, light as a feather. Skin and
bone. Not much left of the old Commander. But I could
see him, a tiny tin-pot ghost in Dad's eyes, standing to
attention. 'Bye Commander,' I whispered as we left and I
swear the cracking noise in his chest was laughter. I was
really stoked. I'd finally got it right, then, the humour
thing.
Matthew, Luke, Victor and Brad all left at ten. I saw
them to the door. I felt pleased it had been a good one.
Matthew lingered on the doorstep.
'It's not a competition, you know,' he said, camouflaging
a sharp jab in the ribs with his elbow as a hug.
I checked the cat dish I'd put beside the back door.
Empty. Did this mean the cat was circling the place trying
to decide whether to come home or not, or was it a possum?
One thing for sure. It wasn't Marilyn.

REMEMBER THE BABE I told you about, the one who came
into the nick with a notice about worried grannies and
grandads? Well, I bumped into her coming out of the bakery.
We had a little struggle in the doorway of the 'you, no
you, after you' variety. I must say, my fault again. What is
it with me and doors? I can't seem to get the hang of them.
She laughed. She was one of those nice, straightforward
friendly types who knows how to open a door. She told me
her name. She offered me a jam doughnut, which I refused.
Steve was in the car, hanging out for his sausage roll, and I
had a potato pie. How often do you see a good potato pie
these days? Not often.
Rhianon drives an old car, with the passenger door
bashed in. She laughed when I pointed this out, saying it
didn't worry her so long as it opened and shut. Two of her
tyres were worn out. I could've booked her on the spot, but
didn't. Some people wouldn't recognise an offence if it
jumped up and bit them on the bum. She got into her
potential deathtrap. I was walking away when she wound
down the window and called after me.
'Have you got a bad back?'
When I told her I had she said she thought so which,
in my book, doesn't make her a genius. I mean, you tell me,
who hasn't got a bad back?
'You don't walk straight,' she said, and roared off in a
cloud of oil smoke.
'Some babe,' grunted Steve through a mumble of
sausage roll.
'Her name's Rhianon.'
'I've got a cousin called Rhianon. Makes me think of Al
Anon.' Steve's tongue tracked down the last crumb, the last
fleck of tomato sauce. He declared himself ready to rock and
roll. He pulled out into the morning shopping type traffic;
mums picking up a sourdough loaf after dropping the kids at
school, people heading for the newsagents because there was
a big Lotto jackpot tonight. And so on. No widows in sight.
I know because I found myself looking as we cruised along
the picturesque shopping mall. I don't know why. I mean, I
don't know why I'd be looking for her at all and, that aside,
why I thought I'd find her shopping on tidy town's overpriced
boutique street. My widow was unquestionably a denizen of
shopping's deeper and cheaper depths. My widow would be
trawling the shopping malls. My widow would count the
pennies; target a bargain and close in on it like a shark. How
did I know all this? Well, I didn't. It just looked that way to
me. The disrepair of the house and a few other things. Of
course the fish tank thing wouldn't have come cheap. But
then she'd probably saved up to buy it for the kid. Maybe the
departed de facto had chipped in. Miners don't do badly.
Why, I ask myself now, was I puzzling over the widow's
finances so early in the piece?
'Rhianon,' snorted Steve, breathing like a bull and
screwing up his face. 'Dumb name.' Steve looking for
amusement on this bright morning where, thanks to recent
frequent downpours, all was clean and green. Me, I didn't
care. Me, I was just thinking of rolling down the window
and stirring Steve up even more by lighting a cigarette
when Steve's longed-for shot of adrenalin turned up in the
form of an olive green Range Rover as it foolishly cut in on
us without so much as a blink of a signal. Not a big thing,
you might think, but then you don't know how jagged
edged a bored sausage roll fuelled cop can get, and now one
member of our mostly innocent and in all probability
entirely law-abiding citizenry was about to get a fright.
With his inner pig well and truly squealing, Steve flicked
the lights, played a threatening riff on the siren and pulled
the bastard over.
What with Steve's attitude being on a rolling boil, and
the fact that the potato pie was bubbling heavily in some
bend in my gut and a brief walk might shift it, instead of
staying in the car I went with him.
It was that woman; the one of the earnest dark-fringed
look and furrowed brow; the lover of slaughter, road accidents
and mysteries. She smiled at me like we were long
lost soul mates, opened her door and rolled gently out on a
fragrant cloud of gin. Steve couldn't believe his luck when
this pissed Range Rover owning resident of what Steve
liked to call Millionaire's Row landed at his feet, pissed in
charge of a vehicle which, as Steve would be unable, sooner
or later, to resist pointing out, probably cost more than all
the houses on Struggle Street put together. Quivering like a
finely tuned aerial picking up all the free-floating envy in
this world, he nicked her.

SHE WAS VERY cooperative. She was breathalised, no problem.
When we got her back to the station she offered us
her blood and urine too. The booking sergeant told her it
wouldn't be necessary. She looked disappointed. She looked
even more disappointed when she wasn't locked up but,
having been formally charged, was told she could go.
The booking sergeant asked if she'd like to phone someone
to come and get her. Her husband, perhaps? A friend
or neighbour?
'Oh no. No. No. People do talk.' Her fingers plucked at
her sleeves as though removing invisible spiders. 'Far better
the judge doesn't hear about this.'
Steve, who was heading back across the lobby with two
plastic cups of coffee, turned and looked at her. Triumph.
He'd nicked a judge's wife. His cup runneth over, slopping
tepid coffee all down his trousers.
She started to cry. No doubt it was beginning to sink
in. The judge would be bound to hear about it, even if only
via a paragraph in the local paper: Judges wife loses licence, etc. If it were up to me I'd have run her home, but I knew
better than to suggest this to Steve so we left her to it.

AT THE END of the shift described above, or one reasonably
similar, Steve wanted me to go and have a beer with him. I
said I would if he'd take his stupid glasses off. Steve wears
his mirrored sunglasses night day rain shine. Shades, he
calls them. I remembered Marilyn saying once how there
are two kinds of sunglasses, those which say 'fuck you' and
those which say 'fuck me'.
'To the judges wife,' said Steve, raising his glass right on
cue, just to prove he's a very fuck-you sort of bloke with or
without his sunglasses. I wondered if Steve would like to fuck
the judge's wife but we never got round to the subject because
Steve was busy ordering himself a bourbon and Coke,
something I'd never seen him drink before, and another beer
for me. The place was filling up, mostly with coppers coming
off duty. Steve was keeping an eye on the door as though
he was waiting for someone and I was right. The door to the
bar opened again and the new detective constable blew in.
She looked round. Saw Sreve. Came over. Steve half rose
from his seat then changed his mind and slumped back.
'Drink?' he said. 'Usual?' She nodded. 'Bourbon and
Coke,' said Steve. 'Make that two. And a beer,' he added, as
a definite afterthought.
'No thanks, mate. I'm on my way.' I nodded to the cute
new member of our investigative team and left them to it.

I DROVE HOME via the widow's house, a considerable
detour. I had no intention of stopping in. I just wanted to
check it out, that's all. I have no idea why, but then why
not? The alternative would be to go home and eat my carefully
planned dinner of pasta with a jar of the well-knownand definitely superior lip-smackingly genuine Italian style
Borgia brand pomordo with a use-by date of anytime
before the end of the world--aarrgh, Lucretia, you've done
it again. And that's not all, either, because there was the
cheese I fully intended to grate on top of it by hand, having
first bravely retrieved the lone letter that had been nestling
in the mailbox for days because I suspected it was from the Police Credit Union about my mortgage, something I
couldn't believe I was still paying off.
The high beams raked the front of the widow's tottery
ticky-tacky house where, as before, no lights shone. I stopped.
Did I mention her house stood alone, not far back from the
road? This was five-acre-lot territory. Because it wasn't pissing
down with rain, I could see the place better. There was a lopsided
gate with no fence attached to it. Nonetheless I felt
compelled to use it which was a mistake. For one thing I
couldn't work out how it opened so I gave it a kick and it
crumbled to the ground. I stepped over it and proceeded up
the muddy track to the house. A handful of chewed looking
shrubs were driven into hard ground, bristling like darts
round the door. There were at least a dozen horseshoes nailed
to a verandah post. There was a car which hadn't been there
before, parked in the rutted lane beside the widow's house. I
supposed it must have belonged to the deceased. To Terry.
There were a few trees round the place. You know how trees
can look sort of wider, thicker, more present somehow, at
night? Well, that's what these trees were like. There were big
scruffy clumps of agapanthus everywhere. It was a wonder I
hadn't tripped on one the other night and broken my neck.
I poked about a bit, sure there was no-one home and no sign
of the dozy dog, either.
I remembered, as I took a quick look in the shed behind
the house, that it was the funeral today, a big official thing
which had doubtless involved the Area Commander suffering
through another helicopter ride and lots of speeches and
tributes to the fallen from the mine owners and operators,
who all had their treacly fingers crossed behind their grey
suited backs hoping the Premier would decide to hold a
Commission about mine safety and conditions across the
board which would give them just the excuse they were
looking for to close the mine down for good.
What a lot of junk Terry had in his shed. There was
most likely a light somewhere but I couldn't find the switch
which was a bit of a bummer because I like to go through
people's things, nosing out their secrets. I always have.
I used to think it was because I was a poet but now I think
I was just a cop all along. There was a lot of junk dotted
round the paddock and, walking back to my car, I thought
I could make out the silver night gleam of a dam.
I knew a few people who lived out there. Down the
road a bit lived a mob of Buddhist monks who had converted
their garage into a temple. I admire these men.
I think they're all men. Anyway, whoever they are I admire
them as I admire anyone struggling away to give life meaning
in the face of all the evidence.
Before the Buddhists bought the block a quiet woman,
not quite young but not yet middle-aged, had owned it and
she--or so Steve told me--had converted this same garage
into a rub and tug shop. According to Steve she operated six
days a week and only between the hours of twelve noon to
2 p.m. daily. He didn't know whether or not lunch was
included in the price. He swore, though, that she had offered
group rates. He'd seen tour buses parked outside. Taking care
not to call during business hours, Steve had gone out there
one day in response to some complaint or other from a member
of the public. Steve couldn't remember what exactly the
nature of the complaint was, this far down the track.
Probably the local sector of the Hell's Angels quietly pursuing
their own cottage industry, busily whipping up batches of
amphetamine in the house next door, had complained of the
possible threat she posed to property values. Steve did
remember, though, he had liked her. He told me she was
really sweet and his main concern was for her safety. When
he had pointed out the dangers inherent in her line of work
she had told him not to worry as she had nearly reached her
target and God was with her in her work. She was raising
money to repair the church roof in her home town. Steve
told me he was so gobsmacked he'd made an unsolicited
donation to the fund. Steve was a born bullshit artist so
naturally no-one believed him. About three months later she
moved away and he'd more or less forgotten all about it until
this postcard had arrived of a small country church up on the
Atherton Tableland. The card, expressing her gratitude for
his donation and for his concern, was addressed to Steve care
of the police station. He still had it, taped on his locker door.
The widow's nearest neighbour, on the other side, was
old Clem Greer. Clem used to be president of our local
Sports Shooters' Association and every Christmas for years
he'd thrown a really good party. He'd rig up a shooting
gallery with cut-out cardboard reindeer as targets. Bring
down the lot and you'd win a prize, usually a bottle of
Chivas Regal. There was always a Santa Claus for the kids in
the shape of Clem's brother Percy down from Queensland
who, year after year, had climbed into the same threadbare
disguise. I took Jason along once. He'd asked Percy how he'd
got there if some idiot had shot all his reindeer. Percy said he
was a cheeky little bastard and wouldn't give him a present,
which I'd say was a bit rough. I'd taken the tearful Jason
home. Still, they were good parties and they were an annual
evenr until Clem's wife died two or three years ago. Clem fell
apart after that. He wasn't helped by the local paper, which
wrote the story up in such a way as to cast doubt on the accidental
death verdict the Coroner gave. The Coroner got it
right, I reckon, but there are still some doubters round the
place. I was thinking about poor old Clem as I stood there.
I was thinking I should call in and see him and then again I
was thinking I shouldn't. Last time I saw him had been
around six months ago. He was in Katoomba high street
struggling towards the taxi stand with plastic bags of shopping
hanging off him. It took me a minute to recognise
Clem as this old man shuffling along, all shrunken and
shaky. I'd waved, but I don't think he saw me. Some terrible
thing had fallen on Clem. I sat in my car outside the
widow's place and thought about it. I thought about all the
things that happen to people. How the dark shadows fall
across us. Next thing I knew I was snorting and sobbing,
beating my fists on the steering wheel. I don't know how
long I did this for. It seemed a long time. It made me feel
better. It left me feeling able to go home.
I didn't call in on Clem. I wish I had. I might have if I
hadn't cried, hadn't been scared he'd see. As if the senile old
bastard would have noticed anyway. And if I had gone
to see him would it have changed anything? The answer to
that, I think, is no.
I'D LIKE TO be able to tell you my heart had skipped a beat
when I found her letter waiting in the letterbox but all
it managed to do was flop about a bit in a fairly frightening
way.
Marilyn was writing because she wanted a divorce. She
wanted it so she could marry a dentist from Christchurch.
I read this letter several times. It was clear enough, God
knows, but my brain wasn't up to such clarity.
Among the several hopes Marilyn hoped in the letter
were the hope that I was all right and the hope I would
forgive her. It had never occurred to me any forgiveness of
Marilyn was necessary. I had thought if any forgiveness was
required it was for me to forgive myself for fucking everything
up.
She had provided a post office box number. Was this so I
would find it difficult to find her and gun her down? She was
wrong. A post office number is no defence. There are rewards
to being a policemen and one of them is the global cooperation
available, particularly in affairs of the heart and the
rancid desire for revenge which often follows. I could have
had a Kiwi cop round there in seconds to stuff a few hard
words into the dentist's ear. Not that I would. But I could.
I'm not saying it was any of my business, but one thing
worried me and that was whether or not a dentist was an
improvement on a policeman.
I was wrestling with this question when the phone
rang. It was the judge's wife.
'It's Janice here,' is what she'd said, only she pronounced
it 'Ja-niece'.
For some reason I wasn't as surprised as I could have
been. Whatever she'd been doing for the rest of the day, it
was obvious the bottle had continued to play a major part.
I wasn't surprised she'd got hold of my number. I'm never
surprised by what people know. It's what they don't which
amazes. I asked her if the judge was home and she said he
was. He was in his room.
'His den,' she slurred. 'His favourite place on earth. It's
horrible. You can imagine. Early Sherlock Holmes school of
interior decoration.'
She'd lost me, I must admit. Gaining no response, she
went on with it anyway.
'No-one's allowed near the judge's lair. Not the cleaner.
Not the children. And especially not ... especially ...'
I guessed she was going to add 'not me' but I was keen
to leave the judge's den, to get to the point and, mainly, to
get her off the phone. On the other hand she was distracting
me from these colour slides I was getting in my head
featuring Marilyn and her dentist: bondage, a blindfold,
laughing gas, his small squinty eyes too close together above
a mask of pale blue paper ...
'What do you want?' I had a feeling she was going to
offer some kind of sexual favour in exchange for which I
would somehow cancel the drunk-driving charge. This has
happened. I took the offer up once, when I was a Highway
Patrol constable responsible for road safety by assisting the
free and safe movement of people and traffic, and got a
quick blow job from this blonde in some scrub at the side
of the freeway between Mittagong and Bowral. The reason
I did it was she had a harelip and I wondered what it would
be like. In the event it was much the same as any other. But
the judge's wife had something else in mind. She wanted
me to describe for her the exact procedures followed during
an autopsy. I told the judge's wife that, from her devoted
reading of police procedurals and viewing of television, she
probably knew as much as I did.
'Oh,' was all she said. I got the feeling there were a lot
of questions lining up behind this one so I beat her to it and
asked her why she wanted to know.
'I'm writing a book,' she said coyly and there was a
silence while she waited for me to encourage her to go on. Since I knew she was going to tell me come hell and high
water I said nothing. 'It's a mystery, a murder mystery, and
I want to get the details right. I have to. There's a series of
autopsies, you see, which in the end all add up to a string
of murders where the modus operandi makes it clear they
were all committed by one man. A serial killer, you see,
stalking this tightly knit community. There's a policeman in
it of course. Well, several policemen. There's one who's a bit
like you, as a matter of fact.'
'I'm sorry I can't help you,' I said before she could offer
me a part in the movie you knew she hoped would follow.
'There is something,' she said. 'If you wouldn't mind.'
'What's that?' I could hear the rustle of paper.
'Well, I've actually written a description of the first
autopsy. Perhaps if I read it to you you could at least tell me
whether or not it rings true,' and before I could draw breath
or mention a fact you'd think she'd know which is in this
country we hold post-mortems she was off.
'First came the external examination. The pathologist
was the cool blonde Dr Sophie Singleton whom everyone
loves to hate and at least two of those gathered love against
their better judgment and one of those is me, Detective
Constable Amanda Jones. Sophie Singleton took a preliminary
look at the wound. Next she shone a light into the
mouth which was rigored half open. For the first and, I
hope, the last time in my life, I found myself envying a
dead woman. Then Sophie scanned the entire epidermis for
abnormalities, marks, signs of struggle, starting with the
fingertips ...'
Fingertips aren't so bad. Fingertips I can deal with.
How much more of Dr Singleton and DC Jones I could
take was another question altogether. I know it's going to
get worse. I stop listening. I bury the phone in my armpit
but still the occasional squawk leaks out. I started wondering
where we are up to. Surely it's over by now. I put the
receiver to my ear and to my dismay we have only reached
the perineal area which is being examined for tearing or
trauma while, no doubt, Sophie and Amanda continue
making eyes at each other over the corpse. And now Dr
Singleton has decided it is time to go in and I don't want to
hear about it.
Let me tell you something: when the first incision is
made the human being on the slab becomes all body;
becomes a body only. I can imagine the scene except it is
not the dykey doctor who makes the first cut. It is the
judge's wife who stands over the body like a schoolgirl. It is
the judge's wife who, with glossy head bowed, holds the
scalpel like a pen and makes three cuts in the shape of a Y,
one from each shoulder to the pit of the stomach and down
through the pelvis. Enough. I replaced the receiver quietly.
Goodbye. She probably didn't know I'd gone. Janice was
too busy prising up the breastbone like a manhole cover,
weighing heart, lungs, liver before drunkenly setting out to
circumnavigate the cranium with an electric saw.

I WAS WRITING to Marilyn when the phone rang again.
I didn't answer. I had found a postcard in the kitchen
drawer. It had a picture of the Wollemi pine on it, and
cross-sections of its needly leaves and seeds. I can't remember
where I got it but I thought it might interest Marilyn
since she's so keen on flora and fauna.
Having settled on this card and found a pen I couldn't
think what to say. I don't suppose Marilyn wanted me to say anything. All she wanted was a divorce, which she hardly
needed me for. Our marriage had left very little mess. So little,
in fact, it's getting hard to believe it ever existed. She
didn't need me to sort it out. I saw myself at some future
date, probably sooner rather than later, sitting at this very
table signing something official, final and in triplicate while
Steve watches over my shoulder breathing heavily, clutching
his own special pen he's so fond of, an expensive pen,
one I think his girlfriend Cheryl gave him. Steve breathes
heavily as he signs with a flourish in the space marked Witness. Then we go to the pub. Something like that.
Mum and Dad didn't believe in divorce, which could
be the reason their children have embraced it so enthusiastically.
Of the four of us, my sisters and me, three are
divorced and the youngest, Marie, lives in what Dad would
have called 'sin' with a wine merchant in the Hague. Oh
yes, and we've all pretty much divorced each other, too.
Ann rings from Adelaide every so often. Last time she said
Marie wanted my e-mail address but I don't have one.
I never hear from Jill. Jill's a travel agent. We've always
hated each other's guts, to put it childishly, because Jill
always makes me feel childish. 'Little miss bossy boots' was
what Mum called her and she wasn't wrong. Come to think
of it, Jill was sort of a commanderess. These days we have
nothing to do with each other, but I reckon the others are
in touch with her. I sent them all a signed copy of Portals of
Distortion but none of them ever said a word. Well, they all
said thank you but no-one said anything about the poetry.
I bet they talked about it among themselves though. I bet
they had a good laugh.
Once Marilyn had been keen to organise a get-together
so she could meet these sisters of mine. I kept putting it off.
I put it off so long she gave up.

DID MARILYN TALK to the dentist about me? I expect
she must have. What did she tell him? Not the good things,
for sure, which leaves a whole lot of other stuff for her to
choose from. If I were her I wouldn't know where to begin.
I didn't know where to begin with this postcard either. It's
a lonely situation to be in, trying to write a postcard no
one wants to get. The phone was ringing. It kept ringing.
I couldn't tell whether it was outside or inside my head. Or
both; both was a possibility. I wanted to pick things up and
break them. At that moment I could've fetched an axe and
chopped mother's 'pieces' to pieces. Instead I wrote I'll forgive
you when you forgive me, and then I tore it up and went
to bed and suddenly I'm in the car; the girl and her mother
in the back. I adjust the rear-view mirror to make sure they
are both all right. But they're not there. Instead the back seat
is packed with anxious grannies and grandads. Row upon
row of them with faces grey as pavement. Why do they follow
me about? Even in my sleep they follow. They're not just
touching a nerve, they're pulverising it. I want to grab an
AK45 and make them get out of my car. I want to bully
them into a neat line and then I want to open fire and not
stop shooting until their body parts hang dripping from the
trees. Instead, because even in my dreams I can't do what I
like, I am forced to try to reason with them.
'Listen,' I said, or I think I said because by now my
dream was being torn up by the telephone, 'you morons,
what right have you got to worry? After all, just ask yourselves,
what kind of parenting job did you lot do, given
your children all grew up to be junkies and all your dear
little grandchildren are consequently in dire peril?'
Consternation in the back seat. Have I got this right?
They seem about to go mad. I try to calm them down with
bland murmurings about them undoubtedly doing the best
they could in the face of a changing world, disintegrating
social values and other such bullshit. Have I got it right? Is
this what you wanted to hear? Will you all go home now?
May I please pick up the fucking phone?
'Yeah?'
'It's me.' For one dizzying moment I thought it was
Marilyn. My hair stood up and fried on invisible wires. My
heart staggered round the bedroom, missing beats. I could
have died. I should've died. Think of the trouble it would
have saved. My throat closed, leaving me the thready voice
of a 90-year-old. It wasn't Marilyn. Of course not. Why the
fuck would Marilyn be phoning me? Marilyn's gone. She's
gone. She'd chosen to leave me, a fact for which, as I at that
moment realised, I would never forgive her. Was this
progress? It depends on how you look at it. It seemed a bit
like it at the time.
'It's me,' the voice insisted. The. Ja-niece. Me.'
I said nothing. I didn't want to. I was too busy gathering
my wits. I was too busy not forgiving Marilyn. I was too
busy struggling for breath. I was too busy undoing the
ropes tying me to my dream. I was too busy hammering flat
the thought of how, should Jason have a child or children,
I would be a guilty grandfather as well as a guilty dad;
double jeopardy. I was too busy wrestling with the doona in
search of cigarettes. I was too busy convincing myself how
guilt is a waste of time. I was just too busy all round. I
slammed down the phone. It seemed the best thing to do at
the time. I thought she'd ring again, but no.
I got up and went to the kitchen where I wrote a letter
to Marilyn. I'm not saying what I said. It was nothing to be
proud of. I left the house to post it as, somewhere out there,
the sky began to lighten and Janice continued her restless
pursuit of the mysteries of murder through the bottom of a
bottle.

STEVE HAS TWO hobbies. Well, one's a hobby and the other's
more of an obsession. He also has a Jack Russell terrier
called Boot, though he doesn't seem particularly passionate
about him.
His hobby is collecting police patches from all over the
world. At last count he had 759 all displayed in glass cases
like gloomy butterflies.
His obsession is the crossbow. Steve knows all there is
to know about crossbows, including military history of,
social significance (if any) of, distribution of, parts of, making
of, maintenance of, uses of.
He has two of them. One big. One small. The big one
is his favourite. It is called Excalibur. The Excalibur is a
185-pound draw-weight powerhouse which produces a
blazing velocity of 300-plus feet pet second, truly making it
the magnum of crossbows. All the Excalibur's specifications
are in pounds, feet and inches because the crossbow, despite
the fact that it made its debut at the Battle of Hastings-- remember the arrow, remember the eye--the crossbow is
now firmly located in the New World. Of course, it has
improved a fair bit since 1066. Had the Excalibur, for
example, been around at the time it wouldn't just have
taken out Harold's eye, it would have splattered his head
right across the battlefield and most of his upper torso as
well. This is all rubbish as Steve pointed out. As far as he
knew there had been no crossbows present.
The small crossbow, known as the Stealth Striker, Steve
says he keeps exclusively for his own personal protection.
Although Steve describes it as being both powerful and
portable, he never takes it anywhere. It stays under his bed
within reach in case he's the target of a home invasion. It
doesn't have arrows, it has bolts which, though arrow
shaped, are actually made of a special death-dealing plastic.
I may or may not have mentioned this but Steve is exceptionally
accident prone. If there's a banana skin within a
radius of 500 metres, Steve will be the one to step on it. I
don't think Steve is the kind of guy who should have such a
lethal thing as the Stealth Striker all primed and ready to go
off under his bed. He got really shitty when I said this to
him, so if he ends up with a bolt in his bum my conscience
will be clear.

Only a few weeks before he had cracked a tooth on a
crab sandwich and had to have root canal work and a crown
fitted, so you see what I mean. Five of us were eating those
sandwiches but Steve got the one with an overlooked fragment
of shell and crunched down on it with his one weak
tooth--the dentist said the tooth must have been fragile to
begin with'--when he had all those other teeth to choose
from. Don't think I'm putting Steve down, because I'm not.
I love Steve.

'BROTHERS IN ARMS,' snickers a voice from some dark corner.
It is a tearing down sort of voice; a voice I know well.
It used to belong to Marilyn but since she's gone there are
plenty of others to take up the theme. It comes and it goes,
this voice. It has a lot to say and it says it. It has a lot to say
on police corruption, it has a lot to say on deaths in custody,
on police brutality, on endemic racism in the force,
ditto sexism and yatter yatter yatter. Oh yes. But who does
this same voice cry to from the depths of some nightmare
scenario it finds itself in, when it is beaten up and relieved
of its hard-earned cash in broad daylight and perhaps some
item of jewellery as well, some item it was particularly fond
of wrenched from its person in front of 500 or so of its fellow
citizens none of whom feels moved to assist. Poor old
voice. What then? I know you know but I've got this thing
by the throat now and I want to go on.
A question. Who would you wish to appeal to if you
woke up and found you were locked in all alone except for
someone you'd never seen before in your life standing at the
end of your bed waving a knife you had last seen sitting
neatly on the small magnetic strip you'd affixed to the wall
in the kitchen to keep them tidy. In this case I feel compelled
to point out you might as well save your breath for
something more constructive like a short prayer since the
breath you waste will almost certainly be your last.
You know who it is the voice calls out for, don't you?
But just in case you're having trouble with this, let me say
it is not usually a civil rights tribunal, a prisoners' rights
action group, a victims' support group, an ombudsperson,
the United Nations nor even its mother though, on occasion,
I am told the last does happen.
And when it comes to those noisy all-night parties
which showcase the neighbours' bad taste in music and the
inability of their 10 000 cheerful mates to carry a tune,
there's the voice on the phone before you can yell 'turn it
down nagging the local nick to send along a posse of big
blokes to charge in with all guns blazing.
Okay, Marilyn. Not just someone. I agree, pronouns
are important. I am a poet after all and in poetry, if not in
the police force {service, I mean; no more force), precision
is important. So not just someone. It'd be a MAN. You're
right. And I'm sorry, Marilyn, I really am, but what the
fuck you expected me to do about it is beyond me.

STEVE HAD HIS patches and his crossbows and then he got
this other thing, a .40 caliber Splatomatic blow gun with a
special paintball magazine attachment. The attachment can
carry up to 80 paintballs. I suppose the paintballs can be all
one colour or mixed. Steve didn't say. His all seemed to be
white. Since he got this thing Steve had been keen to organise
a paintball weekend, which consisted of going bush with
enough people to be able to divide into two teams who
would then wage war on each other with paint until
4.30 p.m. on Sunday when a ceasefire would be called.
Unless, of course, one army had already wiped the other
out before the time was up.

IT TURNED OUT our new detective constable also owned a
Splatomatic. She also was eager to hold a war one weekend,
preferably when her fiance, who lived in Melbourne, was
up here for the next long weekend, Labour Day, I believe.
I was relieved to hear about the DCs fiance and that
therefore, I presumed, she posed no threat to Steve's
relationship with Cheryl. Not that it's any of my business,
but I'm used to Cheryl and I know I could never get used
to Detective Constable Tracey Scythe even though I was also glad she wasn't a dyke. I mean, before this fiance in
Melbourne got a mention I'd had her picked for a threat or
gay. Go ahead, call me old-fashioned but I aways go for the
obvious because nine times out of ten the obvious is all
there is. Okay, so one time out of ten I'm wrong. Okay, so
things have changed since women joined the force 80 years
ago. After all, there are lots of dykes being recruited these
days and I'd better get used to it. They're even advertising
for them. They offer them a lifetime's supply of sensible
shoes, I think, something like that. Okay, so they don't all
wear sensible shoes all the time and okay, men wear sensible
shoes all their lives without attracting comment and okay,
I did try to be reasonable about this, that and the other
thing and, with the possible exception of Neighbourhood
Watch meetings, my tolerence was, in my opinion, pretty
elastic.
baton and its application in modern policing' refresher
course that night. And as further proof I simply refer you
to the Blackheath Neighbourhood Watch newsletter of
September 1999.





NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH MEETINGS weren't hard. All you
did was look approachable and assure the frightened citizenry
the sky isn't falling because of the malicious damage
done to the picnic shelter in Memorial Park next to the
library and then there'd be an update on the investigation
into little Johnnie Wang's stolen bike, which was proving
difficult to recover even though we were all busy working
night and day to get the fucking thing back.
Then the scourge of the force, one Merv Tovey, would
clamber to his feet and suggest that as the weather warms up
the house numbering project should be reactivated. As Mr
Tovey pointed out, houses need to be numbered clearly so
the police know where they're going. For similar reason,
yards should be kept neat and tidy at all times. Valuable time
could be lost while the confused constabulary fight their
way through thorny rose bushes trying to find a number.
Then Mrs Betty Miller hops up and down on her sparrow
legs and wants some advice on how to deal with
requests for money from strangers. My colleague, Sergeant
Peter Quinlan, advised that a firm 'no' is the best response
in this situation.
You think I'm exaggerating don't you? You think I'm
making it up. When and if you are reading this I won't be
in a position to argue but, I assure you, I was there. I was
there with Pete Quinlan because Steve had a 'use of the long
I'VE JUST REMEMBERED Steve's favourite unlikely story, or one
of them. He swears it's true and it might be, too. Last place
he was at, just before he was transferred here, he was in the
locker room one morning when one of the cops walks in
with a real worried look on his face. So Steve asks what's up.
Seems the bloke was really worried his wife was fooling
round with his partner, his best mate, right-hand man, all
that. He'd had his suspicions for weeks now. It was keeping
him awake nights. Was his wife, a nurse, really working night
shift or was she off screwing his best mate? Poor bugger.
'Ask him,' suggests Steve. 'You reckon?'
'I reckon. Clear the air.'
So next day the man walks in looking a lot more cheerful,
walks up to Steve and gives him a slap on the back.
'You were right,' he says. 'I asked him straight out if he
was rooting the wife and he pulls over onto the soft shoulder,
switches off the engine and he turns to me, looks me right in
the eye and "Tony," he says, "you're me best mate, all right?"
It was a relief, I can tell you. Lucky I hadn't fronted up to the
wife about it. I'm taking her out to dinner Saturday night to
make up for being such a suspicious bastard.'
Steve told this story quite often. He'd laugh and laugh.
I remember when he was telling it to Marilyn she'd just
about laughed herself sick. I was surprised she thought it as
funny as all that. When Steve had gone I'd asked her about
it. I mean, it is funny, but it's a bit bloody tragic as well.
She'd just shrugged and said something about it being good
to know the spirit of mateship was still alive in the land and
then she'd started laughing again.
'I like Steve,' she'd said.
'That's good,' I'd said. 'Don't go liking him too much.'
It just slipped out. If I could've I would have grabbed those
words and shoved them back down my throat.
'Oh for God's sake, Marcus, get over it,' she'd said. She
was still laughing. It didn't sound as sharp as it does when
you read it. In fact she put her arms round me but I shrugged
her off. Stupid. Because I wanted to get over it. I really did.
I wanted to get over everything. I didn't want to be the knotted
cranky soul Marilyn saw standing there before her.

THE STATE GOVERNMENT had obliged the mine owners by
calling an inquiry into conditions at the mine, which
promptly closed. Men who had worked down there for
years were thrown out of work. There was the usual public
flurry of piety as to the morality of it all. Men with seamed
faces wrenched forth wounded tears on television. They
spoke of unrewarded loyalty; a lifetime of work discounted.
Everyone agreed. It just wasn't right. But what could you
do? Bye-bye.

IT WAS ON a pension day I next saw the widow. On pension
day every second Thursday, shopping happens. Small treats
are bought. The widow gets a widow's pension and,
I suppose, a child allowance. I saw her in K-Mart where we
were stalking a flasher last seen lurking in one of the aisles
of toys.
'Near the Teletubbies,' said the solemn infant involved.
'He was holding Laa-Laa over his sticking-out penis and
when I looked he took Laa-Laa away and I saw it.'
'I encourage her to call things by their proper names,'
said her mum. 'I don't believe in talking down to children.'
'What's the proper name for Laa-Laa?' I asked, trying to
sort it out.
'Laa-Laa's the yellow one,' supplied the victim.
'He took Laa-Laa with him when he ran away,' said her
mother which, I suppose, added shoplifting to the flasher's
tally of terror. Assisted by the eager beaver manager, we
searched the store. We found Laa-Laa on the floor of one of
the changing rooms but no flasher. In the interest of customer
relations the store manager handed over the only
slightly shopsoiled Laa-Laa to the kid who, as it turned out,
already had the yellow Teletubbie and wanted the purple
one instead.
'Right,' said the store manager, plucking the purple
thing from the shelf, smiling through clenched teeth.
'Tinky Winky it is.'
'We'll have one in a box, thank you,' said the mother. 'I
mean, how do we know where it's been?'
In light of what had just happened to poor Laa-Laa it
seemed a reasonable request to me. Steve agreed. 'In fact,'
said Steve, savouring a moment of retaliation over the incident
of the old man with the frozen chicken inside his
trousers, 'I reckon you ought to chuck in the weird little red
one as well, mate. Sort of victim compensation. I mean,
technically, the kid could turn round and sue you for possible
psychological problems caused on your premises.'
'We take all care but no responsibility,' squeaked the
store manager. Nonetheless he handed over two boxes
before ushering them to the exit and off the premises.

IT WAS THEN I saw the widow, over in the cosmetics section.
She was applying a glossy purplish lipstick to her daughters
lips. Then she pointed her in the direction of a small mirror
on top of the sunglasses rack. The girl stood on tiptoe,
tipped her head to one side then the other.
'What do you reckon?'
'This one's best,' said the child.

'Sure?'
'Yeah.'
'What about this nail polish then? It matches.'

'Cool.'
Small treats.
'Gday,' I said. They looked up. Both smiled and said
hello. I had a sense the widow wasn't all that pleased to see
me, though the girl was grinning up at me, clutching her
cosmetics. It occurred to me the woman wasn't keen to be
seen talking to a policeman, especially one in uniform. Lots
of people aren't. It doesn't mean anything really. I decided
to cut it short. Steve was just behind me, making impatient
noises. I realised he didn't know the widow and now didn't
seem the time to introduce them. There was an awkward
silence before the kid saved the day.
'When are you coming to see our kittens? They've got
fur and proper sticking up ears and their eyes are open and
everything. Wouldn't you like to see them? Mum says if we
can't find homes for them they'll have to go in the dam.
D'you want a kitten?'
'That's enough,' said her mother. 'Don't pester.'
'I might,' says Steve. 'Cheryl was saying just the other
night she'd like a cat. Cheryl's my girlfriend.' This last was
to the widow and then of course I had no choice but to
introduce them, so 'This is Steve. My partner.'
For some reason the child giggled and slapped the palm
of her hand against her lipsticked mouth, spreading purple.
'Stop it, Sondra,' said the widow and thank God she
did. Now all I had to do was remember what her name was
and I did.
'This is Michelle,' I told Steve.
'She didn't mean it, about the kittens,' said Michelle.
'She likes to make things up.'
Steve shrugged.
'I did mean it. It's what you said,' shrieked little lipsticked
Sondra. People were starting to stare. I wondered if
one of them was the flasher.
'We're leaving,' said Michelle. 'Come and see them if
you want. The kittens.' She nodded in my direction. 'That
one knows where I live.' Meaning me.
'Michelle, my belle,' hummed Steve as, having given up
on the flasher, we walked back to the patrol car. 'She looks
pretty good for her age, mate. You'll be all right there, for
sure. Do you good.'
'Get stuffed.'
'It was all bullshit, that stuff about Cheryl wanting a
kitten. I was doing you a favour.'
'Her bloke was killed at the mine.'
'All the better, mate. All the better. You know what they
say about widows.'
I knew.

ALONE AT HOME it was pizza night again. I really wish I
wasn't such a stereotype and please don't tell me chemical
additives cause cops to turn nasty because turning nasty
is a special talent and can't be written off as a junk food
side effect.
I began thinking about what they say about widows. I
tried not to think about what Marilyn would think about
such thoughts. I was pleased to find it wasn't difficult.
Marilyn had taken the night off. Steve's theory was how by
shagging Michelle I could create a sort of barricade between
me and Marilyn. It would be a step in the right direction.
But what about the widow, I'd wanted to know. Steve had
shaken his head.
'What about her?'
'Her bloke hasn't been dead all that long.'
Steve brushed this aside. He'd advised me to think of it
this way: if I was doing myself a favour I'd be doing her one
as well and for the same reason. I objected to this. Marilyn,
for example, wasn't dead.
'Same difference, mate. You think about it.'
I thought about it as I ground the pizza with my teeth
before swallowing and found he was right. In fact I found
myself thinking it would possibly be better if Marilyn was dead; at least then she wouldn't be writing me letters
which in turn would protect me from the embarrassment
of having to supply her with nasty and abusive replies.

I regretted the letter I had written the other night. Well,
I didn't regret the writing so much, it was the rushing out
into the dawn to post it I couldn't deal with. I tortured
myself with visions of her face as she opened and read this
letter. I beat myself up with unanswerable questions. Had
she got it yet? Surely she wouldn't show it to the dentist,
would she? Perhaps she wouldn't get it. Perhaps it got lost
in the mail. This thought gave me false hope which lasted
about one and a half minutes because, thinking about it, it
seemed to me things don't get lost in the post anywhere
near as often as we would like them to.
But the original question remained--would going to
bed with the widow help me feel better? Would it make her
feel better? This latter I supposed was none of my business.
She could make her own mind up about that. What if it
made me feel worse? What if it made her feel worse? What
if--a horrible and unexpected thought--what if she turned
me down?
In a way, you see, Steve was right. The thing was
working. For a full five minutes, if not more, I hadn't been
worrying about Marilyn. I'd been worrying about the
widow instead.

STEVE FIXED UP a time to go and see the kittens. I turned
up, he didn't. And I didn't end up in bed with the widow
either. What I ended up doing was going home with a ginger
kitten I didn't think I wanted screaming and struggling
and pissing in my pocket.
'WHY ARE THESE fucking graves always fucking shallow?'
Steve wanted to know. We'd been assigned to check out a
suspicious behaviour call. We get quite a few of those. This
one had been called in the night before by the neighbour of
a man who apparently spent his nights digging up his garden.
'Digging shallow graves,' was how the caller had put it.
'Dunno. Short shovels?'
We cruised to a stop outside the house. The garden was
pitted as a lunar landscape. 'Well, it's not wombats. Looks
like someone's looking for something, not trying to hide

anything.'
Steve cut the engine. He got out of the car and
stretched. The leathery crackle of his jacket drowned out the
bird song. I'd seen this many times, Steve's morning routine.
Next he would rearrange his balls, hitch up his pants by his
thick leather belt, adjust his holster, give his gun a comforting
pat, suck air through his mouth down deep into his
lungs and out through his nose. The routine ended with a
flourish of throat clearing and the expulsion of one explosive
gob of something so deep rooted and gruesome you'd expect
it to start eating like acid into the cringing earth. All this
accomplished, he'd give me a smile, a smile that was kind of
shy and girly, not that I would ever say so.
'All right? Coming with me or not?'
A woman walked towards us. She had long grey hair,
the kind of long overcoat you find in army disposal shops,
an anxious look and a black and white dog on a lead. She
looked at us. She looked at Steve. She looked at me.
She looked nervous.
'Gday,' said Steve. 'Know these people?' He jerked his
head towards the house. The dog barked.
'I don't think there's anyone home,' she said. 'He goes
to work early every day. He was here last night though.
Digging. He dug all night, then he goes to work.'
'You wouldn't know where he works, would you love?'
"Course she wouldn't know' A short red-faced man
shot out of the shrubbery. 'What would she know? I'm the
one called you. It's me you should be talking to, not dog
woman. Skedaddle. Shoo,' and, would you believe, he
stamped his foot at her and she fled, whimpering, away.
'Hang on,' I said. 'So you made the complaint Mr ...'
'Tovey. Merv Tovey. Surprised you don't remember.
House numbering project. Ring any bells?' He whipped a
card from his jacket pocket. Merv Tovey, Regional Sales
Manager, Ford Australia (ret). 'And I'm not complaining,
am I? I'm just reporting unusual activity. At night. And
then there's his wife. If she's his wife. More like a live-in,
leg-over arrangement I'd say. Where's she gone? And the
car? Where's that gone? Nice car, too. Brand new. And the
dog's gone, too. Not that that's anything to worry about.
They're carrion feeders, dogs. Did you know that? Dirty
things doing their business wherever and whenever they
feel like it. Since she left he's been coming and going in his
van. The one he drives for work.'
'What van would that be?' enquired super-sleuth Steve.
'The one with a laughing cow and a grinning pig both
holding a knife and fork on the side. Smallgoods van.
Preserved meats and that. Delivers round the place. Slips
me a nice bit of ham or something from time to time.
I won't touch those preserved sausages though. None of
that stuff. Lethal. Killing kiddies like flies in South
Australia. Food hygiene. It's a joke.'
'Thank you, sir, you've been most helpful. We'll follow

it up.'
You could tell the bloke suspected Steve was taking the

piss, which he was.
'You'll let me know what happens, won't you?'
Neither of us replied. We got in the car, slammed the
doors and drove off.
As we swung back towards the highway we passed the woman with the black and white dog. Steve trod on the
brakes and backed up.
'What are you doing?'
'Dunno. Got a feeling.' Steve jumped out of the car.
I half-expected her to start running but she didn't, rooted
to the spot, no doubt, by Steve turning on megawatts of
charm, which he can do when he wants. Next thing I
know, she's laughing and Steve's squatting down next to
the dog and stroking its ears, which the dog seems to like.
After that the two dog lovers stood there talking. Then
Steve touches the peak of his uniform cap, pats the dog
and comes bounding back. If he had a tail to wag, he'd be
wagging it.
'So?'
'I knew it,' said Steve, 'I just knew she'd know what the
story was. It was the dog connection. See, the wife had a
dog, like the old fart said. Now if the wife had a dog she'd
be bound to walk it, wouldn't she? And if she took it for
walks round here there was a fair chance she'd have met up
with other people who have dogs, like Stella.'
'Stella?'
'Her name. "Dog woman" he called her. Remember?'
I didn't. But I didn't let on. 'Right.'
'Anyhow, it seemed to me Stella might know the
missing woman, might have talked to her. Dog people
often talk to each other about their dogs. I do the same
when I take Boots out for a walk when I get home. And I
thought, being women, they might have talked about more
than just their dogs and I was right. The missing woman
isn't all that missing anyway. She's just gone home to her
mum, somewhere up round Orange. With the dog.'
'Why the fuck didn't this Stella say so before?'
'Because we didn't bloody ask her, that's why. And the
other thing we didn't ask her was why this man was digging
up his garden, at night, after a hard day's work.'
'So did you ask?'
Steve nodded.
'So did she tell you?'
'She wasn't 100 per cent sure. But she had a theory and
I reckon she's right.'
'Come on, mate. You going to spin this out much
longer or what?'
Steve got sick of waiting for a space to open on the
highway. He flicked on the siren, put his foot to the floor
and screeched out into the terrified traffic.
Waiting caused Steve's blood to turn into something I
can only describe as liquid GBH and he flips over into cartoon
character mode. You'd think I'd have been used to it by then but no, it still scared me shitless. Looking into the
rear-view mirror I expected to see a number of blazing
semi-trailers, squashed sedans and wounded citizenry
strewn about the place, but it was just business as usual
back there. Steve laughed.
'What's up, mate? You've gone white as a sheep.'
Sheep? Sheet, did he mean? Steve kept the siren going
for a bit just so those traumatised drivers behind us would
know they had suffered for the greater good.
Anyway, according to Stella, Dvojec's a bit of a wild
boy, bit of a boozer, bit of this, bit of that.'
Okay. He'd lost me. Stella equals Dog Woman. Dvojec
equals ...?
'The mad bastard who's doing the night digging. The
other thing about Dvojec is he loves his wife. Which I guess
is why he always felt so bad when he didn't make it home
for a day or so. Last week he must've felt seriously bad
because before he fronted up at his house he bought some
jewellery off this kid in a pub. It was really nice stuff too.
At least, so the wife told Stella when she was crying on her
shoulder. He'd got it for a good price because it was stolen
and the guy was hanging out in a major way. So, armed
with his peace offering, Dvojek rocks up the garden path
and begs forgiveness, chucking in the jewellery as a sweetener.
Only it didn't work. She wouldn't let him in. She told
him to piss off. Though it cost her to turn it down, she'd
told him to shove the lot because she didn't want him or his
stolen gear. Only he didn't. He buried the stuff in the garden.
He was stressing badly, and what with that and the
hangover of all time he forgot where he buried it. And so
he's looking for it.'
'Why?'
'What d'you mean, Why? Maybe he wanted to give it to
some other chick. Or post it to his mum for Mother's Day.
Sell it. Wear it. Who knows? Point is, case closed as far as the
digging goes. Except we'll have to turn the garden over properly,
get some blokes onto it. And we'll have a word with

Dvojek, see if we can get a line on the junkie he got it from.
Because remember the jeweller who got done a couple of
weeks ago? I reckon Dvojek's stuff came from there. What do
you reckon?'

I reckoned it was time to turn the matter over to the
investigative branch; to the cute new member thereof.
'If you mean DC Scythe, why not say so?'
Get fucked, was what I wanted to say but didn't.
Instead I lit a cigarette and joined this state's 556 000
smokers in pursuit of their impressive daily target of sending
$2 million up in smoke. The statistics are Steve's. God
knows where he got them from. All I know is he had a lot
more stored away where that one came from, and given the
least opportunity he'll trot them out endlessly. I'd try not to
give him chance. There's something so eye-glazing about
statistics. One I remember was how those of us who leave
the tap running while we clean our teeth will waste 90
Olympic swimming pools worth of water daily, which
doesn't seem very likely to me. Or had he said nineteen
Olympic pools? Or had he said nine? I'd believe any of
them, really, but so what?
'You listening, mate?'
I assured him I was.
'See, the thing is I need to take this a bit further, get the
thing a bit more solid before I hand it over. Like a name to
hang it all on. It'll be good back-up for my application. I
need a few points on the board. It's an initiative thing.'
'What application?' And where have you been, I asked
myself. How come I keep getting so, well, so surprised would have be the word. Caught out by events. Like I'd
really and truly lost the plot.
'Ah,' says Steve. 'There's something I've been meaning
to tell you.' And then he does tell me. I don't say anything.
Why hadn't he told me before? He'd probably decided that,
on a need to know basis, I didn't. And so I sit there, pinned.
It felt like a crossbow, straight through the gut.

WE HAD OUR word with Dvojek and then we went out and
found his junkie, which wasn't hard when you know where
to look. He was slumped on the ground feeling happy in
the disused outdoor dunny behind what is laughingly
known as the Family Hotel. He wasn't alone. But he soon
was. His companions melted away like butter in the sun.
Not that we were particularly sunny. By no means.
We were all alone in the early quiet. Just me, him, Steve
and several thousand spiders.
'How does it feel, shit for brains, to have veins bigger
than your bank balance?' Steve nudged the boy with his
boot. He commenced asking his questions and, after a bit
of a delay caused not so much by lack of willingness to
cooperate as by shock, fear, and brain cells so scattered their
owner had to join the dots to get any kind of picture at all, Steve sot his answers.

LIKE A FLEDGLING when it takes to the air. Like a duckling
when it takes to the water. A moment of doubt, followed by
a moment of terror; then the new element embraces it as
though it has done this a thousand times already. Violence
is like that. First time terror. First time you hate yourself.
Then it's honey to the bee. Moths to the flame. The sizzle

of wings. The destruction of beauty. The first and final fall
from grace.

'he'll KILL ME,' sobbed the junkie, naming one of our
area's middle-ranking crims whose home the foolish youth
had been reckless or desperate enough or both to have
burglarised.
'Come on.' I felt about ten years old, tugging at Steve's
sleeve. Worse, I wanted to go to the toilet. 'You've got your
name.' My voice sounded thick to me. You could practically
hear the sun beating down on the tin roof of the
dunny. Thick sunshine and what tasted horribly like blood
mixed in the back of my throat. 'You'll have to turn it over
to DC Scythe.'
'Fuck DC Scythe. This is one for the big boys.' He
could be very contradictory, Steve. He hadn't looked so
happy in his work since the day he caught the judge's wife.
Back at the station Steve disappeared into the detectives'
room where, watched by me standing in the corridor looking
through the observation window for no good reason but
several bad ones with jealousy being a firm front runner, he
had an animated conversation with Detective Sergeant
Robert Skinner. Detective Sergeant Skinner simultaneously
slapped Steve on the back and barked into his mobile
phone, producing Detective Constable Scythe who popped
up behind me in the corridor. I don't think she noticed me
as she strode past me into the room, slamming the door
behind her. Tracey Scythe was very good at striding.
Beyond the glass, important things continued to
happen.
THE HAIRDRESSING SALON where Cheryl worked closes early
on Tuesdays and so, on Tuesdays, Steve and Cheryl usually
went to a movie and afterwards Steve took her for a meal at
the Tandoori Hut or sometimes, for a change, they went to
the Thaitanic. After all that Steve would take her back to
his place while the bloke he shared with made himself
scarce. You could say it's a sort of old-fashioned relationship.
Cheryl still lives with her mum, who doesn't like them
doing it at her place. Cheryl could get her own place but
that would cost money and she's saving up so she and Steve
can start married life in their own home. I don't suppose I
would have given Steve and Cheryl's tidy and restrained
arrangements much thought if I hadn't passed them as
I drove back from the gym. They were hurrying, hand in
hand and laughing, from the Tandoori Hut towards
Cheryl's shiny red Holden Starlet.
I wondered whether or not Steve had told her he had
applied to Charles Sturt University to do a degree in policing.
I expect he had. On a need to know basis she would
definitely have to. I went home. I was pleased to find the ginger
kitten waiting for me and I think it was pleased to see me.

NEXT MORNING THE bastard of a desk sergeant called in his
favour. There had been a multiple pile-up on the freeway
and all available personnel were being sent to the scene to
interview witnesses, divert traffic, discourage the curious:
well, you know the sort of thing. Most of you will have
driven past something like it at some time or another and,
depending on your genetic structure or whatever it is that's
replaced free-will, you will have been forced by the dead
weight of your massed ancestors either to crane your neck
to get a good look or to keep your eyes firmly ahead trying
your best not to.
Steve didn't consider himself available and said so. He
wanted to check progress down in Dvojec's garden. The DS
reckoned DC Scythe was on the case and Steve should
get on with the job he was paid to do, which is respond to
incidents in our area such as break and enters, domestic
violence, noise complaints, lost children, criminal activities
and road accidents.
'Nothing about gardening in your job description,
mate.'
Steve reckoned he was going to the toilet and went. He
could be some time, as I knew from experience.
It was then the reptile waved a crooked claw. He gave
me this neat digital camera which he told me to keep hidden
about my person until I found anything at the accident
scene worth shooting. I asked him what came under that
heading. Amputees were always good, he said. Female
rather than male, but if there were any dismembered young
men lying round they'd be worth a shot. There's a market
for everything, after all. With the females, a frill of underwear
still clinging to the severed limb was highly desirable.
The Desk Sergeant's eyes flicked upwards, sideways, down.
It was like being propositioned by a cane toad.
"Course,' croaked this human cartoon. "Course,' he
repeated, "course, if you happened to come across a suspender
belt, that'd be extra good. They're scarce as hen's
teeth these days.'
He was right, I suppose. How many suspender belts
had I seen in my lifetime? How many have you seen in
yours? I remember my first one all right. It had been one of
my finer moments. I'd burst into my sister Jill's room one
night because I knew she was getting dressed to go to the
Christmas dance the cement company put on for its
employees and their families every year, and I reckoned I
had a good chance of getting a look at her tits, which I did.
I also got a glimpse of the neat tight triangle of pubic hair
sweetly boxed in snowy white straps. Unfortunately a
glimpse is all I got as she bundled me out the door screaming
at the top of her voice so Dad would be sure and hear
and come and kill me.
'Anything else?' I wanted to know and I didn't want to
know.
'Kiddies.'
'Kiddies?'
'Yeah, but you've got to be a bit careful with kiddies.'
'Careful?'
'Careful they're not too mutilated. People don't like it.'
I was dizzy with astonishment. When did people get so
choosy?
'With kiddies, what you need is a sleepy sort of look.'

'Sleepy?'
'Sleepy, yeah. What are you, mate, a fucking parrot? It's
like their mummies and daddies have tucked them up for
the night. It's like they're asleep except there's maybe a
trickle of blood coming from their nose or mouth.'
The shiny little camera lay between us. It seemed to
pulsate with evil possibilities. I pushed it towards him. He
pushed it back. It now lay closer to me than it did to him.

'It hasn't been easy,' he said, 'confining that incident
involving the pizza because, believe it or not my son, it
turns out your Abo is some kind of a big man. He was here
attending a conference on copyright and indigenous art.
You wouldn't credit it would you? And guess what? He
wants an apology.'
He nudged the camera a bit closer.
'He wanted your address, mate. I told him we don't give
out that kind of information about our officers. I told him
to get fucked. 'Course, I could always change my mind, but.'
Closer. He pushed the camera closer. "Course,' he said.
"Course,' he repeated, 'there's no hurry, mate. Take your
time. Just take the flaming thing, mate. Doesn't have to be
today. Keep it with you. That way, when you come across
something interesting you'll be able to take advantage.
There's a bottomless market out there. It's unreal how many
hits I get on my web site. 'Course lots of them just want the
ordinary police stuff. Pictures of weird weapons we've confiscated.
Links to sites where they can buy or sell badges and
patches. Hints on home security, personal protection products.
All that. Then there's the X-rated stuff. Plenty of slimes
out there really into it. Pix of murderees. Rape victims. Car
accident carnage. Post-mortem close-ups. All you've got to
do is promise you're over eighteen, type in a credit card
number, register your password and hellworld's all yours.'
I picked up the camera, dropped it on the floor, stamped
on it and walked away. Triumphal music swelled in my head.
It would make fuck-all difference to anything but for once I'd
done the right thing. I considered, briefly, the possibility of
getting in touch with the man I'd pissed off. I wanted to let
him know nothing personal was intended when I stole his
pizza; how who he was made no difference to me. How could
I convince him my hatred is evenly distributed, and handed
out without fear or favour? How can I possibly explain what
a prick I am? I couldn't. And I didn't.

'WHAT WAS ALL that about?' Steve wanted to know when he
finally came out and found me giving the patrol car tyres a
good kicking while I waited. 'Why's the DS sitting on the
floor snivelling and trying to fit all these little bits of busted
plastic back together?'
I didn't answer. It was childish, I know, but if he could
keep secrets then so could I. Steve laughed. 'Nice day,' he
yelled above the shriek of the two-way radio which was spewing
strings of code numbers all of which I knew and understood
but which this morning were coming across as urgent
attendance calls for police rescue to come and untangle hundreds
of amputees trapped in a web of suspender belts. Steve
switched it off and flung us round in a screeching U-turn.
'Think we'll take the scenic route,' he said and we did.
'You're closer to God's heart in a garden than any place
else on earth,' said Steve, looking round Dvojek's wrecked
yard. 'That's a poem,' he told me. I could have told him
this was a matter of opinion but didn't. Steve was well
pleased with himself. The jewellery was recovered. Our
junkie had made a statement. The middle-ranking crim
had been arrested and was out on bail and probably by now
had tracked the sad case to Lithgow where he had fled
under the illusion he'd be safe there with his mum; safe
within her walls of fibro. At this very moment he was probably
copping another kicking while his mum was down at
the shops buying her daily dose of Craven A. Yes, they do
still make them, I checked. You just have to search a bit,
that's all. Anyway, no matter what his mum was up to at
that very moment, her pathetic offspring was being encouraged
to withdraw his statement or die.
Dvojek was facing a charge of assaulting a police officer.
He'd thrown a punch at DC Scythe when she'd told him
there was no way he'd be getting his money back or his jewellery.
He should've known better. Holding Dvojek's arm just
that bit too far up his back, DC Smythe had pointed out to
him he was lucky not to be charged with receiving stolen
goods. He was also lucky to get his arm back, I reckon.

He wouldn't be getting his wife back in a hurry either,
according to the dog woman, who'd popped out for a word
when she'd seen the police car in the street. Of Merv Tovey
there was no sign.
'It's his bingo morning,' said Stella, 'over at the leagues club.'
I got the feeling Stella looked forward to Bert's bingo
days. I could see her slightly pointed, slightly anxious small
face, sensitive nose twitching, whiskers all aquiver, peeking
round the door to watch his Ford Fuckwit, or whatever it
was he drove, roar off. I could see her skipping out to play.
'Happy birthday, Mark,' roared Steve, chucking his arm
round my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Shit.
He was right, too. How had I completely forgotten such a
thing? And how could it be the legions of my nearest and
dearest had managed to do the same? Well, I thought, there
just might be a card or something from Jase flopping into
my mailbox right this minute. 'So what are we going to do
about it?' Steve wanted to know.
Stella squeaked. She asked us in for cuppa. She had
scones she'd made this very morning. They could be my
birthday scones. Steve accepted. Steve was really determined
not to turn up at the boneyard down the freeway. As
we followed Stella into her house, stepping round the black
and white dog which lay on the doormat banging his tail
up and down, grinning up at us the way dogs do, Steve
winked at me and laughed. I realised he was enjoying himself.
I realised he really liked Stella. I realised not everyone
lived behind a pane of glass the way I do.
We sat at a round yellow table in Stella's sunlit kitchen.
On the table was a newspaper turned to some inner page
with a small headline, 'Mudslide in Mexico', the sort of
thing your eye drifts across until it trips on something
more interesting. Beyond the glass doors was a birdbath,
complete with wet and happy birds. Beyond that, a herb
garden, a sundial, flowers, shrubs, trees.
We toasted my birthday with tea. Stella told us she knew
better than to offer us anything stronger to drink since we
were on duty. Steve yelped with laughter. I half-expected
him to tell her alcohol might be out of the question but a
line of coke would be very nice thanks but he didn't. Well,
obviously he wouldn't. He has said it before though and it
had sometimes paid off, too.
I sat in Stella's careful paradise, my heart ripping in my
chest over some lost treasure, some vision that flickered and
fled from me, while Steve and Stella chatted about his
future plans, his application to Charles Sturt University at
Wagga Wagga to enhance his professional status by studying
to become a Bachelor of Policing.
'You'll miss him, I expect,' said Stella, tapping on my
shield of glass. Be careful, lady, look out. Don't tap too hard
or we'll all be swept away on a tidal wave of crap. Or I will.
Then we were leaving. Stella gave Steve a hug. 'You're a
good boy,' she said, and Steve, suddenly ten feet tall, pecked
her furry old cheek and loped back out to the car. Perhaps
she reminded him of his poor old mum except Steve's
mum, being a tax accountant in Bondi Junction, wasn't
poor and also not particularly old, either.
Then it was my turn. Stella took my hand and shook it.
'Take care of yourself, son, and have a happy day,' she
said to me.
What I wanted to say was, You must be joking. Instead,
'Thanks' was what I said. I'd like to say it was a deep and
meaningful moment; that she reminded me of my dear old
mum or whatever, but the trouble was she didn't.


'STILL A GENERAL duties constable, Constable?' the Born
Again Bastard wanted to know. 'You should give yourself to
the Lord. He'll make sure you get a promotion.'
He stood in the locker room, taking up too much
space, towelling his thin hair vigorously, his skinny dick
swinging in time with his arms. I should've known born
again former Chief Constable Cunt would turn up today.
The founding and, as far as I know, the only member of
something called Counselling Cops for Christ or Cops
Counselling for Christ, something like that. Whatever it
was called the man was clearly a complete stranger to
embarrassment. He'd retired from the force but they still set
him loose on the dead and dying, whenever we get any.
'Three souls today,' he crowed, clambering damply into
his Y-fronts. 'Three lost souls who've found themselves in
Christ. Praise the Lord.'
I shouldn't have bitten. I know that. I should have just
grabbed my stuff and walked out of there. But what the
hell. It was my birthday. I had a right to be miserable.
'Why don't you keep this shit to yourself?'
'You don't understand,' he said. He sat on the bench
and started putting on his nasty nylon socks. 'I have a duty
to spread God's word.'
'You'd better stop that mate. You'll go blind.' Steve was
trying to lighten things up, I know. I didn't want to lighten.
'I was just like you once,' the Christian cot-case confided.
'I didn't need God. I already had everything I
needed. Good job. Good wife. Nice home. Lovely kiddies.
New car. Boat.'
Steve was at the basin, cleaning his teeth. He always
cleaned his teeth after work. It was something he did. Ex
Chief Constable Cunt, having put on his trousers, was
doing up his shoes. And what was I doing? I was standing
there relishing the taste of bile; cherishing the thrill of hate.
How could it be that this fool had so much? Where's the justice
in that? I wanted what he had. All of it. Except the boat.
'I had everything any man could want. I was a cop. I
had a gun, a badge, and most of all I had authority, I had power.'
'Have a shower,' said Steve to me. 'Let's go to the pub.
Get the birthday boy a drink. Cheryl says she'll join us when
she gets off work. She's got a bit of a surprise lined up.'
'But those things weren't mine,' droned former CCC.
'Make up your mind,' said Steve, carefully putting the
lid back on the toothpaste because Steve is like that.
'These things were on loan from the Lord.'
'You mean you had to give everything back. The wife?
The kiddies? The boat? Jeeze, surely not the boat.'
'It's all right, son. Pour scorn. Make fun. Blaspheme.
I was like you once. I was just a macho cop thinking I had
the world by the balls. I didn't know it then but if you don't
have the Lord you don't have anything.' He was struggling
with the top button of his shirt. Having won that one, he
crossed to the mirror to put on a tie.
Steve left us to it, saying he'd be in the general office
when I was ready. He'd be reading this. He waved a booklet
called The Changing Workplace at me. We all got one of
those. I'd flicked through mine. There was a lot about
maternity leave in it, I remember, and something about
gender bias and about coming across as more approachable
and sounding compassionate when we answer the phone so
as not to frighten the punters away.
I didn't want Steve to go. I wanted to beg him to stay,
not to leave me alone with this fool. I struggled with my
locker door. It never worked properly, not all the time I was
there. I took out a towel and the shampoo Cheryl had
recommended I use. I get dandruff sometimes. Not much,
but it's a bugger the way it shows up on a uniform so I was
giving it a try.
'Pride,' said the maniac in the mirror. 'No-one was going
to tell me anything because I knew it all already. Too proud
to need God.' He spun round and pointed at me. He hadn't
done too good a job on his tie. 'But God was working in my
heart. I started to understand what was missing in my life.'
Imagine, I thought, if the last face you saw on this
planet belonged to him. I was thinking about the pile-up
on the freeway. Imagine if you were dying and he was ranting
at you and I was by his side shooting close-ups of your
wounds. You'd probably be glad to go.
'Then the day came. September 25, 1994. The day I
received the Lord into my heart. The day I was born again.
Let's kneel, let's kneel together and invite the Lord in.'
I told him I couldn't do that. I was in a hurry. I was
going with Steve to the pub. I told him one birthday in a
day was more than enough for me.
I walked out. I left the station. I walked faster. I walked as fast as I could. I walked as though pursued by demons.
I walked as though pursued by former Chief Constable
Cunt the Proselytising Prat and for all I know I was because
I didn't look back to find out.

DID I MENTION mist?
Did I mention fog? Did I mention drizzle, rain and
snow? Mildewed hiking boots, sour smells, wet granite
boulders, rocky promontories with dizzy ledges above bottomless
valleys? Edges inviting flight for those deluded,
drugged, distracted enough to expect a safe landing on a fat
mattress of mist way way way down below. We get all that
here. A lot of scenic drama. Our fair share of suicides. Our
fair share of suspicious deaths. But this night, my flight
night, my birthday night, it's not like that. The night is
dark, but clear. No murk lurks in the corners. It is, I decide,
a night when things happen, and they will. On such a night
as this (yes, I know) the widow might be worth a visit. I am,
after all, the birthday boy. I am, after all, entitled to a little
something, surely.

I had reached a well-known beauty spot. It is night. It
is cold and yet there must be 30 people gathered, give or
take a few, each one with camera pointing skyward so they
at least knew where they were and why, unlike me who
had just sort of ended up there. I heard German, I heard
Japanese. I heard a thread of Spanish. I heard the collective
drawing in of breath as the huge moon billowed out from
behind the ancient rock formations which is what this spot
is all about. It was impressive. Ancient rocks are impressive.
It might look the same if you found out the council had put
them up the day before yesterday, but it wouldn't feel
impressive. I stood watching as the moon seemed to strain
to set itself free. It was like one of those giant bubbles
you formed by blowing through a circle of wire dipped in
washing-up liquid when you were a kid. Still fragile, the
moon seemed to catch on those old rocks before it floated
free and wobbled up the sky.
A girl walked up to me. She didn't have a camera. I
didn't recognise her at first. Thinking this was a tourist,
I braced myself for some enquiry, a burst of question marks
in a foreign language.
'Hello.' It was the girl with the name which rhymed
with Al-Anon. She had no recognisable distinctive feature,
by which I probably mean she didn't have big tits. Around
us, people were packing up. The moon was becoming ordinary
again, growing smaller as it rose.
'This only happens twice a year,' said Rhianon, 'so it
always seems so special.'
'Very special,' I said, sounding like I was a moon-hand
from way back, instead of a large cop blundering about in
the dark. 'Self-affirming.' I'd heard Steve say that the other
day about something and thought it might be suitable in
the circumstances.
'Mmm,' said Rhianon. 'You know, you're still not walking
straight.'

BECAUSE I DIDN'T have my car she gave me a lift back to the
station. The seat belt on the passenger side didn't fasten.
I pointed this out to her. I told her there were two offences
here and both could attract a fine. One was having a defective
seat belt. The other was carrying a passenger not wearing
a seat belt. She laughed.
'Is this what you get when you have a friend who's a
policeman?'
Did she regard me as a friend? I had been about to tell
her about her bald right rear tyre, but I didn't. As I was
getting out she leaned across and picked something from
my sleeve.
'What?'
'Cat fur. I didn't know you had a cat.'
Well, why would you, I wanted to say, but in the light
of our brand new friendship, I didn't.
'I haven't had it long. It's just a kitten.'
'What's its name?'
'It hasn't got a name.'
'Yeah. I know. You have to live with them a while, get
to know them before you decide.'
'I haven't given it a thought. It's just a cat. I didn't want
the bloody thing in the first place. I just got stuck with it.'
I figured if a friendship can't stand a bit of truth then fuck
it. Rhianon was looking worried.
'Do you know what makes me so sad?'
'No.' I said, wondering if I'd ever get out of her car.
'The way people say animals don't have souls. You
know. Christians. They say that. But I think they do, don't
you? I mean, you've only got to look into their eyes, don't
you think?'
Listen, I wanted to say. I don't even think people have
souls.
Instead I said 'Yeah. There might just be a cat flap in
the pearly gates.'
Rhianon laughed. For some reason this pleased me. She
was so young. About, I decided, the same age as Jason. For
some reason, when he was a kid, Jase didn't laugh a lot, or
not when he was with me anyway.
'Thanks for the ride,' I said, struggling with the door
handle. It came off in my hand. She laughed. I laughed.
God knows why. I hadn't laughed so much in ages.
She drove off. I was almost sorry to see her go. I walked
to my car. The tall black back wall of the cop shop seemed
taller than ever.

I HAD INTENDED going straight to the widow's place but all
this cat chat made me think I should call in at home first
and take care of my kitten. Also, a shower and a change
into anything which wasn't a uniform might improve my
chances with Michelle, I thought. When I got home I
didn't bother pulling into the driveway, I just jumped the
fence. Well, I tried to jump the fence. The bastard of a
thing must have grown a bit since I last did this. My toe
caught on the top and I went sprawling on my face.
It knocked the breath out of me. I lay there, my face firmly
planted in the sour soil. Someone was crying. I hoped it
wasn't me. I managed to prise my face off the ground. It
didn't seem to be me, for which I was grateful. I got up.
Then I saw the bundle, a person-sized bundle wrapped in a
tattan blanket, crying on my doorstep.
'Cheers,' said the judge's wife as I pressed a glass of
brandy into her hand. She was shaking so badly I had to
help guide it to her mouth. The glass rattled against her
teeth. She had what looked like a black eye, though I wasn't
sure. I hadn't replaced a light bulb in months and those few
which remained had shades shrouded with bits and pieces
of insect. Then I saw a long cut across her chin.

'What happened?'
'I walked into a judge.'
'Was it about the drink-driving charge?'
'Christ no, he doesn't even know about that yet.'
The phone rang.
'That wouldn't be him, would it?'
'How could it be?' She drained her glass. 'He doesn't

know you exist.'
What a lot the judge didn't know. I answered the

phone.
'What happened to you, you bloody mongrel? Me and
Cheryl waited hours for you in the pub. Cheryl's pretty
wild about it. She'd booked us a table at the Tandoori Hut.
She'd ordered a special cake too, shaped like a gun.'
'A gun?'
'Yeah. A fifteen-round Glock .40 calibre semi-automatic'
'Fot fuck's sake, mate. How was I supposed to know?'
'Dunno,' said Steve. 'I was a bit surprised myself
A scream, wild and girlish, came from the couch.
I slammed my hand over the receiver but too late.
'Got someone there with you, mate?' Steve's voice was
sounding a bit more forgiving. I grunted in what I hoped
was a non-committal kind of way. 'You've got a woman
there, haven't you? That widow. Am I right?' I'd pretty
much perfected my grunt technique so I did it again. And
she's on your couch, isn't she?' Steve was practically
chortling by now. 'And you can't talk can you? Look, mate,
go for it. I'll leave you to it.'
'Say sorry to Cheryl for me.'
'Don't worry about Cheryl. I'll just tell her you've got a
girlfriend with you and she'll be sweet. She'll be designing
you a wedding cake soon. Handcuffs or something. Except
I reckon she's got that particular one in mind for me.'
'It's not like that.'
'It's always like that where Cheryl's concerned. I've got
away with it so far. But time's tunning out.' Then I realised
that what I'd suspected was true. He hadn't told her he'd
applied to do whatever it was he was going to do in Wagga.
'You bastard,' I said. Steve laughed and hung up.
As though on cue, the judge's wife started squealing
again. She was searching the folds of the blanket. 'It's alive.
A rat. Must be ...' she was off the couch, stamping her feet,
jumping up and down. My kitten tumbled out, hissing.
'Christ,' she said, collapsing back onto the couch.
'Sorry. I didn't know you had a cat, well, sort of a cat.'
Sort of a cat? What did she mean? What was wrong
with my cat? She was the second person that night to tell
me they didn't know I even had a cat. They had both been
puzzled by this. Did they think I wasn't capable of looking

after a pet? Well, I thought, give me a chance. I mean, right
now it might not look too good. But you had to allow for
some period of adjustment.
The kitten ran towards me. I scooped it up. It was
frightened. I could feel its body shaking in my hands.
'Careful,' said the judge's wife, 'it's got poo all over it.'
She was right. In fact the whole place smelled of cat, now I
got round to noticing. 'Plus it's starving,' she said. 'It needs
that special kitten food you can buy'
The tiny creature sat in the palm of my big fat hand. It
yawned and lost its balance. I grabbed it and held it to me.
It started to purr. I thought of Jason. How once he must
have trusted me as much as this kitten apparently did. As
much as the judge's wife apparently did. She trusted me
enough to nod off to sleep on my couch. Why had she
come here and what was I to do about it?
I thought these things over as I hunted round the
kitchen in search of the tins of cat food I'd bought before.
I told myself to remember to get him the special kitten food
tomorrow. I thought how strange it felt to have something
totally dependent on you. I found some old newspapers
and tore them into bits for the kitten to crap on and, as
I did so, I ran through the options available to the judge's
wife. I could phone and apply for a telephone interim
order. On the other hand the judge wasn't outside the door
with a baseball bat. Well, why would he be? Why would the
judge own a baseball bat? Yet, on the other hand, it's astonishing
how many injuries are inflicted with baseball bats in
a country where baseball is not a widely played game. If the
judge could lay his hands on any bat at all it was far more
likely to be a cricket bat, I thought, but anyway, given the
judge wasn't anywhere on the premises, it seemed to me his
wife could just go to the station in the morning and get
them to take out an apprehended violence order on her
behalf. That would give the boys some amusement. They're
always reminding us how domestic violence happens to all
women across the board, rich or poor, but nonetheless we
don't get many judges' wives turning up with black eyes.
It seems the professional classes prefer to abuse each other
in secret. Anyway, she'd have to sort it out for herself.
Tomorrow was my rostered day off. Watching the kitten
gulping down its food I made up my mind. I would go and
see Jason. I wouldn't phone or anything. I'd just go.
The front door closed. The kitten and I both heard it.
The kitten rushed and hid under the table. I went to see
what was going on. She'd gone. She'd left the tartan blanket
behind, neatly folded on the couch. Not that I care, but it
wasn't my blanket.
'What was that all about?' I asked the kitten and thus I
discovered one of the major benefits of pet ownership. You
can talk to yourself as much as you like. 'Do you reckon
any of it was true?' I wanted to know. But the kitten wasn't
listening. It had curled up on the tartan blanket and gone
to sleep. I found myself something to eat and sat on the
couch next to my pet to eat it. I switched on the television
and watched the late news. A ferry had gone down somewhere
in the Philippines. Hundreds of lives had been lost.
There was no more mention of mudslides in Mexico.

IT WASN'T UNTIL I'd put myself to bed that I remembered
my plans for the widow. Fuck. I'd forgotten all about it.
I got up and fetched the kitten back to bed. He curled
against me, purring like a tractor.
It took me a long time to go to sleep. I kept thinking
of the puffed up born-again former chief constable. Why
did I let him get to me so much? To draw a biblical bow,
why can't 'all malicious bitterness and anger and wrath
and screaming and abusive speech be taken from me'
(Ephesians 4:31). You know how it is when you can't sleep,
you exaggerate. And the longer it goes on, the more you
exaggerate; you tend to look for signs and portents. Like
this, for instance. When I'd stepped outside to make sure
the judge's wife had seen herself safely out I'd found an old
copy of Awake! sticking out from under a shrub. I'd
knocked the snails off and for no reason known to me,
instead of chucking it I'd brought it inside and now, for
want of anything else to hand, I was reading it. The topic
for consideration in that week's issue was 'Does fate control
your life?' It quoted unnamed theologians and philosophers
who seemed to all agree human destiny is not meaningless
or fortuitous and I dwelt a bit on this without reaching any
conclusion. And Marilyn. I dwelt on her, too. Was I predestined
to have come across her in the middle of nowhere
nursing her injured ankle? Was it luck, coincidence or part
of some great eternal plan? I lay there next to Tyger ... I'd
dwelt on a name for the kitten as well, and that's what I
came up with and why not? ... and I dwelt and dwelt.
I thought about love and I thought about the apostle
Paul which is something I don't often do, but if you really
want to feel bad about love, Paul's your man. You realise
when you read the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians
(13:4-8) that you may think you're pretty crash hot at
loving but, according to Paul, you're a total fucking nonstarter.
Check this. It's one of my favourite bits of the Bible;
I recited it at my mother's funeral last year.
'Why the old-fashioned language?' my bossiest sister
had demanded afterwards. 'They have more up-to-date
versions these days don't they?' She was annoyed I got the
furniture and she didn't, but never mind her. Here's the
quote: 'Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not;
love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.'
Oh, but it does. It faileth. I try not to think on these
things. Where does it get you? There's this old Korean
saying an old Korean waiter told me once. 'Beyond the
mountains, more mountains.'
Exactly.

THE BALEFUL TECHNO beat came towards me as I climbed
the stairs to Jason's flat. Jason lived near a beach, behind a
major coffee strip. He shared it with three others; another
bloke and two girls. The two girls had a business they ran
from home, designing web sites. They sublet a couple of
rooms at the back of the place, one to Jason and one to the
other guy. I'd met these girls once before. They were a bit
older than Jason. I'd picked them for a couple of dykes but
when I said this to Jason he'd just shrugged.
I knocked, hard. The music went down. As I expected,
it was one of the girls who answered my knock.
'Hi ...' she drawled.
'I'm Jason's dad,' I puffed.
'Yes, I remember. Mark. Come in.' She had a lovely
smile I must say. She asked if I'd like a glass of water. 'It's
hot,' she'd said. I know she was trying to make me feel better
about being reduced to blubber just by climbing a set of
stairs. It wasn't that hot. 'Sit down,' she suggested, so I did.
She brought the water. 'Jason will be really pissed he missed
you,' she said.
'Yeah, well, you know, I was in the city today and just
thought I'd drop by.'
The other woman came into the room. She carried a
plate of freshly cut fruit--mango, rockmelon, watermelon,
pineapple, strawberries. 'Hey. Jason's dad. Right?' She held
the fruit plate out to me and, foolishly, I took a slice of
mango.
'Right.'
'How are you?'

'Fine, thanks.' The mango drooled down my chin.
'Jason'll be sick he missed you, won't he, Em? Hang on.
We need napkins, I think. My mum always says the only
place to eat a mango is the bath.'
'Everyone's mum says that,' I said. 'Mine did.' I didn't
mention the fact that the Commander wouldn't let anything
as out of control as a mango over the threshold. All
mangos, if they must be eaten at all, had to be eaten well
clear of the premises.
'Jason's mum wouldn't, would she, Em? She'd say enjoy
yourself. Smear it all over the walls if you want.' Both girls
laughed.
'Suzie's so-o-o cool,' said Em.
I looked at their scumbled walls, their pretty floor all
painted in the palest blue. I didn't think they'd think it so
cool if these careful surfaces were smeared with mango
pulp. As with so much about Suzie, her deeds sounded
better than they ever proved to be.
'I think I'll go and wash my hands,' I said.
'Sure,' said Em, jumping up. 'I'll show you.'
As I closed the door I heard a burst of laughter. I tried
not to be paranoid. I tried not to think they were laughing
at me; at Jason's poor old blundering dad.
There were lots of bottles and jars in the bathroom. Not
just the usual brands like Radox, Colgate, Sunsilk, etc. but
things in glass jars labelled in French, things like walnut leaf
shampoo which promised to highlight dark brown hair.
This, I thought, would be Em's. Next to it was a shampoo
made from peonies which promised to calm and protect
fragile hair, sensitive and irritated scalps. This one, I
thought, this one would belong to the slightly spiky Phil.
The bathroom smelt sweet and girlish. I tried not to
mess it up. What I most hoped was neither of the girls
would want to come in here for a while.
When I walked back into the room the fruit plate was
finished and the girls were sitting neat as punctuation marks,
one at either end of a work bench built under the large
window. There were two computers on the bench, one of
those lolly-coloured ones and a sharp looking black laptop.
Through the window a familiar Sydney panorama of harsh
red roof tiles clattered down to the ocean; just a hint of an ocean, in the distance. The place was beautiful in a sparse
sort of way. As I looked round I thought one or two of
mother's pieces would go very well in here. I thought of
mentioning this to Jason when I saw him but then I thought:
(a) I didn't know what he thought of his grandmother's furniture,
if anything; and (b) whether anything in this room
had to do with Jason anyway. I mean, as far as I knew, which
I admit wasn't much, Jase just rented a room here.
I didn't want to pry but nonetheless I did ask Em, who
seemed the most approachable of the two, where Jase was.
Like, for instance, whether he was at work.
'Oh no,' said Em. 'Jase is so much less of a stress-head
since he met Simon. I mean, he still works, I don't mean he
doesn't, but he's not quite so berserko about it, if you know
what I mean. Anyway, they've gone up to Mudgee for the
wine and music festival. Simon's trio's got a gig up there
and, well, you know Jason. He's been a bit of a wine buff
since he did that sommelier course at TAFE. He'll be quite
happy sitting outdoors in the moonlight with vine leaves in
his hair while Simon fiddles away.'
I don't know if it's because I'm a cop and so rarely get a
chance to ask questions of those who have nothing to hide,
but I was struggling to find my feet in this great wave of
information. I also noticed the other one shoot Em a bit of
a warning look.
'Well,' said Em brightly, 'it's such a pity. Jase will be so
sorry when we tell him. Won't he, Phil?' Phil nodded. She
wasn't giving anything away. You got a feeling she'd be good
in a tight corner.
I took my leave. They assured me they would tell Jason
of my visit, as though I might be supposing they wouldn't.
'Bye, girls,' I called from the turn of the stairs. Their
door closed. I could see them stepping lightly over their pretty floor to take up their positions at the cutting edge of
technology while I stood outside in the bright sunlight, my
nose buried in the generous bouquet of facts Em had
handed me, snuffling suspiciously round its pretty edges,
snuffling after the razor blade hidden in its fragrant heart.
But what I had found, when I'd shoved aside the petals,
when I'd torn the thing apart, was the simple, wonderful
truth that my son was happy.
Despite me, he was happy.
Despite his fool of a mother, he was happy.
Despite our combined foolishness, he was happy.
Happiness, I thought, as I walked towards the Coogee
Bay Hotel, happiness, no matter how attained, was surely
what we all most want for our children.
With what was left of Em's bouquet fluttering down
upon my shoulders like confetti on a bridegroom, I entered
the pub, stepped up to the bar and ordered my beer.
Christ, what had they done to the place? It was all yup
pied up. Neddy Smith wouldn't be caught drinking in here anymore. Well, let's face it, Arthur Stanley 'Neddy' Smith
will never be caught drinking anywhere anymore and so, as
one no-frills shampoo user to another, I raised my glass over
the shiny expensive heads of those gathered in a silent toast
to Neddy and his kind without whom I, for one, and all
those similarly employed, would be out of a job.
Cops versus robbers. If you blew a whistle and ordered
both teams to change sides, no-one would notice the difference,
especially the players.

AT 6.45 A.M. the widow got up, went into the bathroom and
pissed long and loudly. Like a stallion, I thought, a stallion






1 00
with a gleaming coat pissing on a bright and frosty morning.
A yellow stream softening the brittle grass. Yellow
steam rising. A yellow smell. Lying in her bed that morning,
it made me feel happy. I hadn't intended to stay all
night but I had, I'd crashed and I felt glad I had. Listening
to the widow pissing I felt safe, even. It sounds strange and
I can't explain it. It's not as though I'd grown up surrounded
by stallions. In fact I grew up not far from here, in a small
town devoted to the manufacture of concrete.
The Commander worked for the company. The
Commander loved concrete. We had a concrete garden.
I won't go into it. By way of a joke the Commander put up
a sign reading, Please keep off the concrete. Well, he may have
said it was a joke but neither my sisters nor I were convinced.
We rarely entered his cracked cold world of sour gnomes,
sullen frogs painted a particularly dull green you just don't
see anymore and a family of whitewashed rabbits. I smashed
the ears of the mummy bunny with a careless cricket ball one
day and prepared to die. Nothing was said. In some way this
made everything worse. The reproachful mother rabbit sat
with her crumbling ears witnessing my comings and goings
until, one day, I couldn't bear it any longer and wrapped her
in newspaper, tucked her in my book bag, and put her in
the rubbish bin outside the school. AND STILL NOTHING
WAS SAID. It was, I think, one of the Commander's better
reigns of terror, the summer I spent in the shadow of a
concrete rabbit.

I MUST'VE DOZED off again. Next thing I know, the widow
appeared in the doorway dressed for work. 'There's tea made
downstairs, if you want,' and she went. I heard the rusty bark
of her car starting. Not that anyone cares but it was one of
those dung coloured late-'70s early-'80s things, a Chrysler
Sigma perhaps. The widow could have said something before
she left, I thought. She could have mentioned something
about the events of the night just past. But I didn't dwell on
it. I was going to do my best not to get whingey and clingy
this time. But still, she could at least have said goodbye. She
could at least brought me up a cup of tea before she went.
'Uncle Mark!' The girl gave my name two syllables
which hung like a complaint on the air. 'Mum says you're
to walk me to the school bus.'
Uncle Ma-ark? What did this mean? It must be an honorary
title bestowed on those who made it into her mother's bed.
'Why not?' I called back. Michelle had a full-length
mirror leaning against a wall. I stood in front of it. What
did I expect to see? A miracle or, at the very least, some
slight improvement? If so, I was out of luck. I turned away
in search of clothes and there she was, little Sondra, sitting
on the bed.
'Shit,' I said, for want of anything better.
Sondra giggled. A high sound, a stressed sound which
collided with my dismay midair. She was staring at my bum.
She was pointing. Terrible possibilities of what she was
pointing at shot through my head. My mind reeled back to
boils. What if I had a boil on my bum? Or what if ...?

'Out.' I take it no exclamation mark is required. She fled.
I twisted round. I struggled and peered every which way, but
the more I struggled to come to grips with it, the more my
bum escaped me. My fingers groped, stumbling over
something that felt like a bandaid. I clawed at it but it didn't
want to let go; at least not without taking the patch of my
skin it called home along with it. Youch. I held the offensive
thing in front of my eyes. It was a sticky flesh pink square
with several dark and seriously coarse hairs stuck to it which
I hoped were mine and not hers. Had my bum always been
so bristly or was it getting worse as I got older? Then I saw
the packet of patches on the bedside table. I picked it up and
squinted at the writing on the box. Menoprem, I mouthed. Premarin conjugated oestrogens and medroxy progesterone.
What had I done to myself? How long ago had this
thing transferred itself from her to me?
'Christ,' I'd cried. After tugging on my clothes I raced
to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet which was
bound to be the wrong thing, but I bet lots of people do it.
I pictured whales with tiny dicks and great big tits raging
round the oestrogen overloaded oceans. Do we have a clue
what we're doing? Do you? Some people claim they do, but
they're lying.

SONDRA WAS IN the kitchen. She was kneeling on a chair,
her nose pressed against the fish tank, a cloud of breath on
the glass, dim misty fish moving slowly behind it, like traffic
in the fog.
I told her if she got a move on I'd drive her to school.
She said she'd rather get the bus, which was fine with me.
After all, I'd only been trying to be nice because I'd fucked
her mother and she knew it.
I poured myself a cup of the widow's tea and watched
Sondra tuck the packed lunch her mum had left her carefully
into her school bag and, to my disgust, I felt tears coming up
behind my eyes. I hate myself sometimes. Even now I do,
even at this distance because now, of course, it is later, much
later. What to do? Well, that morning I just stuffed those
tears back where they came from. Where they came from was
the night before when Michelle had been preparing this
lunch, cutting neat bread for sandwiches, going to the cupboard
for two teddy bear shaped biscuits which she'd
wrapped in a scrap of tin foil and tucked into the plastic box
beside the cling-wrapped sandwiches, and I had chosen to
make my move. I'd walked up behind her as she fitted the
plastic lid carefully onto the lunch box. I had put my arms
round her waist. I had kissed the dampish back of her neck,
breathed her stale, sweet, tired smell. She had turned in my
arms with a sigh, whether of tiredness or of pleasure I couldn't
tell and could not care. Seizing the lunch box from her, I had
tossed it to one side and kissed her. And this and that until
up the stairs we went.
So what was there to cry about? Why do these tears
keep coming? What was it about the girl-child Sondra and
her ordinary lunch box on this particular morning after? I
had watched the widow prepare this ordinary plastic lunch
box and had seen love in the preparation; some kind of love
I didn't know about, never had, never would.
I had moved in, cold as a shark, and tossed the box
aside, eager to claim her attention, eager to inflict on her
the only kind of love I had to offer. Lonely love. Love on
the rebound or love which gets you through the night and
leaves you nowhere. Stop it. Enough.
Was Sondra sure she wouldn't like a lift to school?
'In the police car?'
'My own car.'
'No thanks,' she said.
'Well, I'll walk you to the bus then.'
'What for?'
'Because your mum said I should.'
'No she didn't.'
'You said she said.'
'No I didn't.'
'Yes you did.'
'Didn't.'
'Enough. Please yourself. I'm going. I've got to call in at
my place to feed the kitten before I go to work.'
'You never wanted a kitten, did you? It was just to trick us.'
What could I say? At the door I turned. 'Goodbye. See
you later.'
She didn't reply. Whatever happened to Uncle Mark?
Come to think of it, whatever happened to the rest of the
kittens? Better not to ask. I closed the door. I walked to my
car. I thought of the questions I would like to have asked
Sondra, other than the fate of the litter. Does your mother
do this often? What was Terry like and why don't either of
you appear to care that he is dead? Who is your father,
anyway? I forget how now, but I knew it wasn't Terry.
The widow must have told me.
One more thing--do they let kids wear makeup to
school these days? I mean ten-year-olds, like Sondra?
Then I forgot about it all because during the night
someone had done a dot painting of a pig all along one side
of my car.
STEVE WANTED TO know if he could store his Excalibur
crossbow and, possibly, his Stealth Striker as well, at my
place while he was in Wagga. He told me he'd be staying in
student accommodation on campus at first and the rooms
weren't very big. Depending on how things went, he might
look for a flat in the town or, ideally, he thought, an old
farmhouse out in the country. If and when this happened,
he'd arrange to have his crossbows moved out there. As
Marilyn pointed out when he bought a jet ski, Steve's
leisure activities involved lots of long, hard, noisy, pointed
things and all the paraphernalia that goes with them.
Why not? I thought, in regard to the Excalibur. 'Why
not?' I said.
'Who did that dot painting of a pig on the side of your
car?'
'Don't know. I just found it like that when I went outside
this morning to drive to work.' I didn't tell him where
I was coming outside from. I kept to myself the fact that I
had spent the night with the widow. With the Widow, not
with Michelle. I couldn't do it with Michelle. I'd suspected
this all along, and so it had proved.
Feeling some word of passion, if not flat-out gratitude,
was required at the moment of penetration, which at my
age is not always a certainty, I'd dismissed my desire to mutter
'widow' in her ear and tried 'Michelle' instead and lost
it completely. I got it back by some pretty swift mental
gymnastics which, I'm embarrassed to say, involved
Marilyn and myself in one of our most intimate and infinitely
better moments.
'You sure?' Steve had got his teeth into this pig thing on
my car and he wasn't going to let it go without a struggle.
'Fuck, mate, we should find the bastard, don't you reckon?
Make him lick it off.'
'No,' I said. 'I like it.'
'You're a mad bastard, you know that?'
'Yeah,' I said.
'Who was she?'
'Who was who?'
'Come on. You know bloody well who. Who was round
at your place the night I phoned? It was Michelle wasn't it?'
'No. Janice. Ja-niece. You know. The judge's wife.'
'Jeez Mark, you're a lying bastard.'
'Suit yourself,' I said.
Steve shook his head. 'Shit, mate,' he said. He drained
his beer and thumped the glass down on the bar. 'Gotta go,'
he said, and left.
It was the closest we had ever come to a falling out.

FOUR MESSAGES WHEN I got home:
One from Jase saying how gutted he was to have missed
me.
One from Matthew to remind me it was men's night.
One from Janice asking me to dinner.
The fourth was from someone who sounded a long way
away, someone I didn't think I knew; someone, I thought,
if I'd thought about it at all, who must have dialled a wrong
number.
Well, really it was no contest. Dinner, a whole dinner
versus a few biscuits, no matter how good, well, any man in
his right mind would go for the dinner. Thinking of
roast meats, thinking perhaps of a pudding followed by a
selection of cheeses laid out on a plate, I rang Janice and
accepted.
'Good,' said Janice, 'and don't forget to bring the blanket.
It belongs to the judge.' Right. The judge. I hadn't
considered the possibility he'd be there. 'He'd notice it
instantly if it wasn't in its place when he comes up on
Friday. He's like that.' So that settled that.
'I'll be there,' I said and I was.

'TO POETRY,' SAID Janice, raising a pretty glass of a very
good red at me over the remains of one of the best racks of
lamb I had ever eaten.
'Poetry,' I said, and wondered why, or how, or something.
Really I was curious to know how much more of this
red the judge had stashed in his cellar.
'I know all about you, you see,' she said.
I shrugged. 'Not that much,' I said.
'Why did you join the police force?' would be the next
question, I thought, and I was right.
'For the money'
'Come on.'
'For the glory, then.' I should've added 'for the power,
too', which is a touch closer to the truth.
Janice sighed.
'How's your book going?' I asked. I'd presumed this was
what her invitation to dinner was all about.
She stared at me as though she didn't have a clue what
I was referring to.
'There's something you should see. Something in the
judge's room.'
"I thought you said no-one was allowed in there.'
'They're not. But I did, the other day. Believe it or not
I was looking for a bandaid because I'd cut myself and it
wouldn't stop bleeding.'
And he turned up and caught you.'
'Right. And he didn't believe my bandaid story, which
is why I turned up at your place the other night. I was
going to tell you about it then but ... well, I didn't. Do you
believe me? About the bandaid?'
'Not really. Did you find a bandaid?'
'No.'
And he hit you?'
'He did. You saw.'
'I saw a cut on your cheek and the beginning of a black
eye. I didn't see who inflicted them.'
'I knew it. None of you would believe me. He's a judge.
He's beyond reproach, right? And I'm just another middle
class middle-aged menopausal woman who's up on a
drunk-driving charge, a woman the judge had the misfortune
to have married and hasn't been able to dump, yet.
I've always thought it would happen, you know, that he'd
find some tall blonde thirty years younger than him. I was
looking forward to it. I had it all sorted out in my mind. I
was absolutely ready to take him to the cleaners.' She
laughed, at least I think it was a laugh. 'But it's not going
to happen. He's not interested in girls a mere thirty-five or
so years his junior. He's sixty. He prefers them young,'
'How young?'
She didn't answer. She topped up my wine. She topped
up her own and that was it. She made no move to fetch
another.
'I found a photo album. I'd seen it before. It was always
on his desk, although he had a lot more of the same on his
bookshelves, side by side with his law stuff. All these
albums had the same leather binding. What I mean is, it
might not always have been the same one he kept on his
desk all the time.'
'What was in it?'
She burst into tears.

WHEN I WAS a little boy I was afraid of the dark. I don't
know when this fear began and I don't really know when it
ended. Round the time I started school, I think. My mum
and dad (not yet christened the Commander) were not
unsympathetic.
When she put me to bed Mum would make a routine
search of the wardrobe, opening all my drawers and looking
under the bed before declaring the room monster-free.
I didn't know how to tell her it wasn't bad things that may
or may not be hiding in the dark waiting for me I was
scared of. I was scared of the dark itself. I couldn't convince
myself the light would always come back. I couldn't convince
myself the sun would rise in the morning.
It helped a bit when Mum went to town and bought a
night light. I'd stare at its dull glow until I fell asleep. This
was good until one night I woke and the light had gone out.
I cried out. No-one heard. The household was asleep. My
memory is I lay all the rest of the night too scared to move
until the light started to come back beyond my window.
In the morning Mum had trouble waking me up and
when she did I started to cry. Mum checked the lamp. It
had been switched off at the wall. Mum didn't say anything
to me but later, while Dad shovelled down his breakfast,
she had a go at him. 'I was just trying to save electricity,' he
protested. This saving of electricity was to blossom and
bloom into one of the Commander's pet obsessions. For
years I wondered what he was saving all this electricity for;
was he planning some wonderful event involving millions
of coloured lights, like Christmas, only better?
At the end of his life he told one of my sisters not to let
them put him on any form of life support. 'It'd just be a
waste of electricity,' he'd gasped, consistent to the end.

JANICE WASN'T WRONG. The judge liked them young. Little
girls. Oh Christ, why did I agree to come to dinner? I was
aware of Janice, sitting sobbing at the table in the next
room among the remains of our meal.
The judge was a bit of an old-fashioned boy, though.
Only a few of the photographs had been downloaded from
www goldengoosedotcomdotau, the home sweet home to
many a web-crawling bottom-dwelling slime-sucking
pedler of pornography busily turning flesh into gold.
What, in the face of such alchemical feats, did this
woman expect of me?
'Call the police?' suggested Janice. I wanted to laugh.
I wanted to scream at her to get real. This man's a judge, for
Christ's sake. All the men caught up in this stinking web
were, in all probability, men of power and probity. And
why pick on me? If I'd known, if I'd even suspected what was
going to happen I wouldn't be in this position, would I? I'd
be enjoying my biscuits with the group. Fool.
'You're supposed to say, "But madam, I am a police.
Sorry. The police."' She was in the doorway, mocking,
laughing. 'What kind of a policeperson are you?'
'Shut up,' I said.
I crossed the leathery room with its leather couch,
leather chairs, leather desk, leather carpet, leather curtains,
leather pot plants and plucked a leather book with a leather
binding from off a leather shelf. Inside this book, it was
business as usual for the judge and his mates. Where did
they do all this? The backgrounds held few clues. And who
were they? There weren't any adult faces in the pictures. All
the men were shown from below the waist and above the
knees. A blurred side shot of a nose, a hand here, a hand
there, an out-of-focus wristwatch. In one of them the camera
had caught a tall man wearing only his socks standing
to one side, his face glued to a cam corder.
But the little girls were afforded no such shelter. The
camera was a cold extension of the talons on these birds of
prey. The cameras were crucial to the process.
I cannot write this. I cannot and I won't. I can't even
remember the children's faces anyway. After a while they
reduce down to a sort of identikit picture of fear, pain,
bewilderment.
I didn't hear Janice come into the room, so naturally I
jumped when she asked what I thought she should do. She
also told me to put everything back as it was when I'd
finished or the judge would take it out on her.
'Wait. Just tell me, how do you know the judge is in
these at all?'
'I'd know that scrawny chicken neck of a prick
anywhere, believe me. And look there, that scar, it's an
appendix scar and that particular scar belongs on the judge.
On Hugo.'
I certainly didn't want to upset the woman anymore so
I didn't say I thought one disembodied penis and one faded
appendix scar didn't add up to much. I took another album
from the shelf and flicked through it. The photos were
good, even professional, which would make sense because
whoever took them was probably part of the group and
developed them himself.
I was looking for a face I could recognise, or someone
else could recognise, some point at which to begin. They
had been very careful. I suppose when they were developed
they immediately destroyed both the print and the negative
of any picture in which anything incriminating had managed
to slip into the frame.
'Those children,' wept the judge's wife, 'those poor,
poor children.'
I put my arm around her and the album I'd been flicking
through slid down onto the carpet. The photographs
went everywhere. She gave a little yelp and fell to her knees
and scrambled about after them. I knelt beside her, not too
close. I was sticking to the farther reaches of this disaster,
rescuing stray prints that had drifted under chairs. I tried to
keep making conversation, thinking it would help her calm
down. Did she and Hugo have children, I asked her. She
looked at me, sniffed, and wiped her nose on the back of
her hand.
'Twins. Giles and Gillian. They're overseas right now.
Giles is finishing his MBA at Harvard. Gillian's studying
costume design in ...' She broke off. She put her hand to
her mouth. 'Why? You don't think ... you're not saying ...?'

I wasn't saying anything, I said. I was only asking, that's
all. No reason. Promise.
I was looking through the pictures I had gathered, trying
to arrange them in a neat pile to put back in the album.
Then I saw the one I had been looking for. I'd known it would be there somewhere. I'd just known it in my gut.
Purple lipstick thick on girl-child lips; purple lipstick
coated onto the nipples of her unformed breasts.

THERE WAS A piece of cardboard propped against the car
window. WET PAINT, it warned. I had a look. There was
another pig, this one on the passenger side. It matched the
one on the driver's side, though the colours were different,
I thought. It was difficult to tell. No moon yet. Black night.
Janice hadn't noticed me slip the photograph into my
pocket. I sat in the dark in my colourful car and, in truth,
I was afraid.

I DID NOTHING. Can you believe it? I walked round for
weeks with the photograph burning a hole in my pocket.
I didn't go near the widow. I could have. I should have.
I didn't. Did or didn't she know about what had happened
to Sondra? She must. I kept thinking about all the expensive
consumer items dotted about her house. It seemed to
me she must be giving a lend of her daughter in exchange
for various minor electrical appliances and one reasonably
major one--did I mention this before?--in the form of a
fridge with a compartment which produced ice cubes and
iced water at the touch of a button. And the aquarium.
I spent my days with Steve and my nights with Tyger. I
thought about Marilyn, though not much. Every day I was
expecting to hear from her about our proposed divorce but
nothing happened.
I lay low. I waited. I waited for someone somewhere to
make a move. I was almost certain they would. I had a very
big fish on the end of a line. I couldn't reel it in, but to get
away my fish was going to have to inflict major damage on
itself. I don't want to bore you with boastful angling tales;
that's the way I saw it, that's all, and for once I was right because,
one day, the fish phoned and asked me to lunch. Steve
was attending court that day and it was my rostered day off,
as the fish pointed out, keen to let me know it knew all about
me. I didn't care what he thought he knew or didn't know,
though I sincerely hoped he wouldn't bring my poetry up.
You may wonder why he wanted to meet me in so public
a place as a restaurant. I mean, could this fish afford to
be seen with a lowly cop, wining and dining and all that?
Apparently it could. Perhaps it felt safer in a public place.
Perhaps, unlikely thought, the fish was frightened of me.

I HAVE A confession to make. I want to make it now, before
I have lunch with the big fish.
It's about my night with the the widow. I raped her. At
least I kind of did. But you can't 'kind of rape someone, so
either I did or I didn't. I'll have to decide.
Rape may not be the word to use; but if it isn't, then what
is? I could say it was more of a battle of wills. A wearing
down. A drip drip drip of water on a stone. Slow, gradual,
relentless. I didn't know I had it in me.
I had gone there, armed with chocolates for the widow
and her daughter. Such a generous predator. But wait,
there's more. There's also the quite reasonable bottle of riesling
I'd bought at the Liquorland drive thru on the way
over. I'd decided, you see, on no grounds whatsoever except
gender, that Michelle would most likely prove to be a
riesling drinker. I had also, on the same flimsy grounds,
decided she would be pleased to see me. I even thought she
might be grateful for my personal follow-up on her
progress. I told myself she might welcome my company.
That she might be pleasantly surprised to find a policeman
on her doorstep again, especially one all showered and
shaved, unarmed, out of uniform and bearing gifts.
As was the case on the first occasion, the widow didn't
say 'yes' and she didn't say 'come in' and she didn't say 'fuck
off, either. No. She just turned on her heel and went back
into her house and this time, as I had then, I took this to
be a form of consent and followed her.
Sondra at least was pleased to see me, looking up from
the wide-screen television which hadn't been there before.
'Turn that thing off, Sondra,' and Sondra did as she was
told, turning her attention to the chocolates.
'These are for me, aren't they? And the wine is for
Mum, right?'
'Right. Shall I open it?'
'If you want to,' said the widow, so I did. She went to
the cupboard and took out a wineglass, filled it and handed
it to me.
Aren't you having any?'
'I don't drink white much.'
'Oh.'
Meanwhile, the widow had fixed her own drink, a good
slug of Scotch with lots of ice from her smart shiny fridge.
So there we were in the widow's kitchen with the gorgeous
aquarium, the big-screen television, the flash fridge
complete with ice-maker, all these wordly prizes snuggled
away inside this outwardly unpromising house like jewels
in a cardboard box.
She was tired tonight, Michelle. She most likely wanted
to veg out with her daughter in front of their nice new television.
She might have wanted to go to bed early with a
good book and a cup of camomile tea. She certainly didn't
want to go to bed, early or otherwise, with an overweight,
overbearing cop in search of salvation. If I really want to lash
myself, and I do, I'd say she probably felt about me the way
I felt about former Chief Constable Cunt, but I hope not.
Come to think of it, I really hope not. But what exactly was
the nature of the salvation I sought? It was this, or something
like it: I had decided how, if I could only get a few
runs on the board, I would create a barrier, a buffer zone,
between me and my one true love and life wouldn't seem so
bad. In other words, I'd decided Steve was most likely right.
Okay. Problem is, there aren't many women to be found
who'll perform this basic service. But I knew the widow
would. Steve too, Steve had known the widow would. There
was an air of resignation about her. The widow had about
her the faint sad odour of victimhood. The widow would
not protest. The widow would put up with it. And she did,
didn't she? It was like the first occasion I'd turned up on her
doorstep. The time when she'd seen me pretend to shoot her
dog. The time she hadn't protested. The time she hadn't
asked me what I thought I was doing.

This time round, though, she didn't have to ask. She
knew what I was doing. So, why call it rape? After all, she
didn't say no, did she? But then, perhaps she had said it
before and nobody heard and nobody listened. A long time
ago in once upon a time territory, a little girl had had all the
no knocked out of her.

'IN CASE YOU are wondering why we are here,' said the
judge to me, 'I will tell you. We are meeting to discuss your
role as advisor to my wife who, as I believe you know, is
writing a book which involves a degree of insight into the
workings of the police force.'
"I see.
'Good.'
'I take it your wife won't be joining us later?'
'Indeed she won't. She's in no state to appear in public,
which is understandable in the circumstances. There was a
fire at our house, you know.'
I said no, I didn't know. How could I not know? But I
didn't.
'Last Friday. I returned home for the weekend to find
the house ablaze and my poor wife struggling to put it out.
Brave woman. Unfortunately she sustained a few burns,
fortunately all but one are of a minor nature. I arrived at
the same time as the fire brigade. They saved the rest of the
house but my study was burning beyond control. A lot of
paper, you see. Everything lost. The computer a puddle of
plastic'
'Downloading obscene material from the internet is a
criminal offence.'
'My files, all my files are destroyed. No-one will attempt
to resurrect them. You have my ... my word on that.'
The judge was pale. His voice shook slightly. Not that
I sympathise or anything. I'm just recording what happened.
I could also record how much I wanted to get up
and punch him in the face. I wanted to see blood on the
snow-white double damask tablecloth. I wanted to blow
my nose loudly on one or more of the snow-white etc. table
napkins all dazzling with bleach and stiff with starch. He
leaned towards me, and the closer he leaned the more I
wanted to wipe my nose on his cream silk tie.
The judge lowered his voice. 'I'm ashamed, Sergeant.'
'Constable,' I corrected, which reminder of my lowly
rank apparently put him off pursuing this moment of
truth. He remembered who and where I was in the scheme
of things. More importantly, he remembered who and
where he was on the same scale. He leaned back in his chair
and picked up the wine list. All the waiters in the place
snapped into alert mode. The judge put the list down
again. There was something he still wanted to say. I sensed
he was about to piss on me from a great height, and he was.
'Those children,' he said. 'They don't just walk in off the
street. Do you understand what I'm saying? Certain arrangements
have to be made. Either monetary or in kind.'
It was then it began, the soft sharp weeping I knew I'd
never be rid of, like a child's violin slipping on a difficult
scale.
'None of this expiates my guilt in any way. I'm simply
giving you information you might find useful.'

If I'd thought such a thing possible I would have said,
at this point, two steely grey tears had formed like ball
bearings in the corner of each of his eyes. He seemed,
almost, sincere. He leaned towards me across the table. For
a moment I thought he was going to take my hand but, if
he was, he'd changed his mind which was just as well.
'There are a lot of sharks like me about, Constable. But
there are no laws I know of stating you must feed them.'
'It's not good enough,' I said,
'I can see how you might think so. But I'm afraid it will
have to be. You could also,' suggested the judge, 'take some
pride in the fact that you have effectively disbanded what
the press like to call a paedophile ring.'
I got up. I walked out. I'd like to be able to say I was the one that got away. But I wasn't.

A PROPER STORY should have a hero, don't you think? Yes.
What is required of a story is a hero, a journey and redemption
in some form or other. And if redemption proves impossible
at least we might expect some conclusion. But I am no
hero and, far from undertaking any kind of journey from A
to B or beyond, all I am able to do is go round in circles.

THERE'S A MAN, a lonely man, in this town. He is a doctor
or, I should say, he was a doctor once, trained in Western
medicine at a university in northern China.
Now, because his qualifications aren't recognised in this
country, he does massages. He does foot massage, full body
medical massage, professional back-stepping, head massage
(including shoulders and arms), press cups treatment and
body scrubbing treatment.
Because of some small favour I did him once he gives
me a free foot massage from time to time. I find it helps me
think. In fact, I couldn't think why I hadn't thought of
going to see him in the past few weeks because I have had
to do a lot more thinking lately than I am used to. After my
non-lunch with the judge I went round to see if the doctor
could have a go at my feet. He could.
'One hour?' he said and laughed. This was an old joke
between us. The first time I hadn't been sure about it. Lying
down while someone you hardly knew fiddled with your
feet didn't seem right. An hour is a long time. What if I got
bored? What if I needed to go to the toilet? What if it gave
me an erection?
'You'd like a girl better,' he'd said and he'd been right.
'Sorry. No girls. Bad luck.'
My bad luck, did he mean? Or had he meant girls are
bad luck? It didn't matter. The man's a genius. But a genius
can only do so much. This day, instead of slipping into neutral
and drifting away, as I usually did, into this pleasing
space, I stayed where I was, aware of a tap dripping into the
sink where he prepared the footbaths. Sensing my tension,
he tried harder. He tried harder and I felt guilty. He wanted
me to feel better and I couldn't. It was my fault, not his.
I found myself lying there faking it. I thought of the widow
and how she must have faked it for me in order to get
things over with. I thought of a girl I'd known long ago at
school, a girl famous in fact and in fiction who fits in nicely
here, the girl most often referred to as the town bike. I'd
had my ride one lunchtime under her house. How I
laboured on top of her, light filtered through floorboards
falling across my labouring bum in broad bars and then her
finger tapping on my shoulder blade. 'Haven't you slimed
yet?' she'd whispered impariently. 'Haven't you?'
'Time is up,' said my doctor friend, though we both
knew it wasn't. He wrapped hot towels round my feet. 'Stay
until you're ready to go. Take your time. There's no hurry'
And, after parting my leg gently and telling me to come
again soon, he disappeared through the curtains shrouding
the next cubicle but one, closing them together in a small
sharp clash of plastic rings.
I lay there until the towels cooled; until they felt like
cold wet nappies.
I lay there listening to the doctor's voice as it twined
soothingly in and out of what sounded like a long story a
woman was telling him behind the closed curtains. Then
a silence. Then a muffled cry. Then a sigh. Then his soft
enquiry--'Is that better?' Then her fervent thanks. 'It feels
better, doctor, much better thank you.'
I unswaddled my feet, put on my shoes, pocketed my
socks, and left, shoe-laces, which I hadn't bothered to do
up, trailing. It was freezing outside. I turned my collar up
against the wind. Why am I always so cold? Isn't this supposed
to be a hot country? I reached my car. Fuck. There
was a pizza painted on the bonnet. And then it dawned on
me. I knew what I had to do, knew what I should have
done a long time ago.
I drove to the hardware store on Waratah Street. I know
the bloke who owns it. We were in the same Scout troop a
long time ago. Back in the days when you could count on
the sun being hot.
I bought my paint. Sunshine yellow.
'ARE YOU ALL right?' asked Steve at some point in the next
several days. This was just a routine enquiry, I thought.
I mean he must have known I wasn't exactly what you'd call
all right but he accepted my upwardly inflected grunt as an
assurance of wellbeing. He'd be leaving in ten days, after all,
and was living half in the future, a quarter in the present
and the remaining quarter in the past--chasing up old
mates for a beer, that sort of thing. And planning his
farewell War Games Weekend to which I was, of course,
invited, as well as DC Scythe, her fiance who was coming
up from Melbourne for the weekend and sundry other
friends of Steve's most of whom were unknown to me. We
were to be divided into two teams. DC Scythe and her
bloke were leading one team into battle and Steve and I the
other. I was a bit surprised at this, since I knew nothing
whatever about whatever it was, but Steve brushed aside my
protests on the grounds we were partners and worked well
together so we should be quite a team. I let him rave.

I HAD THE photograph of Sondra always handy about my
person. I didn't look at it, but I knew it was there. It was
like acid eating into my skin. Like any fatal wound it was
headed for my heart, pulsing and pumping poison through
my bloodstream.
It reminds me of something. What's it called? A highly
coloured picture of Jesus I've come across in many a lounge
room belonging, mostly, to the mothers of thugs of vicious and
sentimental disposition. I'm sure you know the one: He's
standing with His shirt open and there it is, a Great Red Heart
pulsing and bleeding and giving off rays of light. The photograph,
it seemed to me, might at any moment perform a similar
trick; it would burst through my uniform shirt and put the
fear of God into people. What a useful trick. 'Good morning,
Mr Jones. You've been seen nicking ladies' knickers off every
Hills hoist in the street. Now tell the truth and shame the
devil, Mr Jones,' I'd cry, tearing open my throbbing shirt.

'YOU SURE YOU'RE right, mate?' chipped in Steve, for about
the tenth time that morning. It occurred to me he may have
been paying more attention than I thought.
'Does it hurt when you get shot with a paintball?'
I asked. He gave me a pitying sort of a look but still, I
thought, better to be thought cowardly than insane.
'Stinging feeling sort of a thing. Like getting snapped
with a wet towel. I mean, there's a definite sting attached to
a game. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point would
there? What adrenalin rush would you get if you just ran
around chucking cotton wool balls at each other?'
'No rush at all,' I scoffed. 'None,' I said. 'No point,' I
added. 'Waste of time,' I repeated, just to make it crystal
clear. Satisfied, Steve went on to describe the head protection
gear and various other types of protective clothing you
could hire on the spot at the paintball arena and I went
back to my brooding.

I'D GOT INTO the habit of not answering the phone, not
switching the answering machine on. Every night it was just
me and Tyger on the couch watching anything so long as it
was sport. It's not the case that I am nuts about sports. I can't
speak for Tyger, but during this time sport was about all I
could understand. Anything with a plot, I couldn't follow.
The news was like having a pile of dead bodies stacked up
in the corner of the room growing bigger by the day as
earthquake followed flood followed howling gale, none of
which vile weather caused anyone to stay at home. On and
on it went. Torrential rains caused not the smallest pause in
the slaughter and those busily engaged in the digging and
the filling in and the glossing over of mass graves merely
turned up their collars and got on with it.
No, Tyger and me, we stuck to the boys with the balls.
Pizza cartons littered the kitchen, plus tins of cat food
begun but not finished. Tyger wasn't getting any new tins
until these were all empty and that was that. The idea
hadn't sunk in yet. Tyger spent a lot of time sitting in the
middle of the kitchen whingeing. A battle of wills was what
it was and I was fucked if I was going to be beaten down by
a kitten.

IT WAS A fantastic irony how the news of Marilyn's death
reached me. Too fantasic, you might say. I can't help this.
I can only tell you it is true.
You could possibly wonder as well why I would go on
talking about sport in the face of so terrible an event. But
surely this is a largish part of what sport is about. It fills
your brain. Bad things take a back seat.
Marilyn hadn't been too keen on sport. I mean, she
thought it had its place in life but lately, or not all that
lately, things sporting had gone too far.
Especially golf.
She had a particular thing against golf.
Golf courses were gobbling up rainforests and spreading
like a rash all over Third World countries, sucking up
water from the dirt-poor local villages to water the greens
and so on.
So you see it was a bit unnecessarily ironic how, as I lay
with Tyger on the couch watching the final moments of the
last round of the PGA championship, the phone rang.
'Give up,' I said to Tyger. 'Go away.' But it wouldn't. So
I answered it.
'Ith thith Marcuth?'
'Er ... yeth,' I said. I hadn't meant to thay 'yeth'. It just
slipped out. It was the 'Marcuth' thing which threw me.
No-one calls me Marcus except Marilyn. Wath I alone, the
lisper wanted to know. He sounded like a man in a raincoat
in a phone booth about to launch into a murky stream of
the things he liked to do to ladies when they were all alone.
But I'm no lady and, whoever he was, my caller had far
worse in store for me.
He had, he told me, bad newth. Time stretched out. A
small white ball crept towards a hole sunk in some kempt
grass somewhere. 'It'th about Marilyn.'
I said nothing. I kept my eye on the ball. Get on with
it, I wanted to shout, I know it's bad whatever it is, so don't
fuck around, but still no sound came.
The ball teetered on the rim of the hole and rolled and
tumbled into the cup. Everyone was cheering because a
man had knocked a ball into a hole.
Had I heard of the recent ferry disaster in the
Philippines, lithped the lisper. I had. There have been a few
over the years haven't there? I mean, you'd think twice
before you'd get on a Filipino ferry, wouldn't you?
Shut up. Hang up. No. No. Mustn't hang up. If I did I'd
never find out what I already knew. Just tell me, you bastard.
'We were attending a conference on preventative dentistry
in Manila.' His lisp wasn't as pronounced now he was
on his own territory, a safe place behind a barricade of teeth.
'The wives decided to take themselves off to do a bit of thighttheeing.
They caught the ferry, you thee, and it ... it
'Thank,' I prompted.
'Sank. Exactly. I think this is the hardest phone call I've
ever made. Are you still there?'
It occurred to me this was a good man I was talking to.
Are you all right, Marcus?'
'Where is she?'
'I don't know.'
Why don't you know, you arsehole? This man, this
dentist, is keeping something from me. I can practically
smell it. I hate to say this, but it had to do with teeth. Blood
whirling in water. I am staring at white porcelain, at dilute
pink blood whirling down a stainless steel plughole. I am
rinsing. I am spitting. Like so many before me I am merely
following instructions.
'I blame myself,' he said.
'You musn't do that,' I said. I said it not out of any care
for his sanity or his wellbeing or anything whatsoever to do
with human kindness. In short, it was an order, not advice.
Keep off.
'Nonetheless, I do.'
Clearly, this dentist just didn't get it. He'd had a loan of
Marilyn, that was all.
Everything about her, her life, her death and all the
unfathomable depths of grieving and guilt which would
follow were mine.
'Her body, it ... it wasn't recovered.'
But I already knew that, you bastard. It's the kind of
thing goes on out there in shark-infested waters. Indeed, I
found it perversely pleasing that in the end he at least didn't
have her body because if I couldn't have her, nobody could.

THE SUN SHONE bright upon the wolfish world and about
bloody time too, according to Steve. It had been a lousy
summer so far, didn't I think so? I agreed it had. 'I mean,'
said Steve, 'it's the middle of December and most days it's
freezing.'
'It's been bad.'
'It has.' I hoped this was enough about the weather but
it wasn't. I'd left out global warming. Steve seemed to know
a lot about it and proceeded to tell me. It had to do with
warm currents in the oceans which made it rain more. Steve
was extra chatty today, which was surprising considering
that he'd had a big night the night before. So big, in fact,
that he'd missed muster at 6.30 a.m. and missed hearing
what our major assignment of the morning was and when
I'd found him vomiting in the parking lot and told him
about it he hadn't believed me anyway.
'You what?' he muttered in a nasty Neanderthal sort of
a tone.
'Must've been quite a party,' I'd said, wondering why I
hadn't been asked.
'No party. Just Cheryl. We had a fight last night.'
'What about?' Although 1 bet I already knew. It'd have
to be about DC Scythe, right?
Steve brushed aside my question with a bit of tooth
grinding and mumbling which I think translated as 'the
usual sorts of things' or something.
'Then her bitch of a mother comes in and starts yelling
too. And, like I told you before, I'm willing to bet the old bag
must be going through menopause the way she's always
spoiling for a fight and the amount of booze she puts away
doesn't help. I reckon she'd had a few on her way home from
work plus a few before she left the abattoir. They're laying
people off left right and centre up there, so there's always a
few of the broken-hearted pissing it up on their last day on
the job. Anyway, when the old bag burst in and took one
look at Cheryl and one look at me you could see her putting
two and two together and I was out of there real fast. I mean,
you know what Cheryl's mum's like. She's always been a bit
handy with her fists. I went to the pub and there was DC
Scythe trying to drown her sorrows too. Christ, mate, the
chick can really drink. I lost her at some point. The last thing
I remember is practically crawling into the new Chinkateria
down the bottom end of the high street thinking something
to eat might sober me up a bit. I don't know what part of the
family dog they gave me but it's been a close call, all right.
Shit, man, can you drive me to Belinda's?'
'Don't be sick in the car, that's all.'
'Trust me, mate. If I've got to chuck I'll let you know
quick so you can stop and I'll do it outside the car.'
Well, twice I stopped and he got out and then the third
time he didn't make it and then he fell asleep. It was going
to be a long hard day. Let me count the ways: nostrils
assaulted by vomit, Marilyn dead, the photograph of
Sondra I didn't know what to do with or about burrowing
its way like battery acid through my inside jacket pocket
lapping at the edges of my heart, and last and probably least
my car covered with dotted pigs. I told myself I must do
something about those pigs. I wondered what I'd done with
the paint I'd bought. I hope I don't sound ridiculous. I don't
mean to. It just comes out that way.
I pulled up outside the chemist with all means of communication
contained within today's cop car all communicating
at once, which probably meant something major was
going on out there. It's like the hounds of hell are let loose
inside a sardine tin but you get used to it. Steve staggered
out of the car and went into the policeman-friendly pharmacy.
I could see him in the shadows at the back of the
shop waving his arms about, having a good laugh about
something, and Belinda too, with her snarl of grey hair, she
too, as far as I could tell, was laughing. Sweet Belinda the
policeman's friend. Dispenser of serious analgesics to those
in need in return for the occasional turning of a blind eye.
Steve was a new man when he came out.
'Time for church,' he cried cheerfully. It's a wonder he
remembered what we were meant to be doing. Steve could
be pretty impressive when he wanted to be.

YOU DO UNDERSTAND, don't you, there was nothing I could
reasonably do about Sondra, the photograph, the wicked
judge and his mates?
It's important to me you understand. I do not want to
be weighed in the balance and found wanting. Perhaps if
I listed my options as I saw them at the time?
I could have told everything I knew to the police. I
could, for example, have talked to the Crime Manager
attached to our Local Area Command. I should have had
more faith in this, the most obvious course of action, but I
didn't. I didn't really seriously consider it at all. It seemed
futile. It would achieve nothing because while possession
and distribution of hard copies of child pornography is
illegal the judge, or rather his wife, had burned all the evidence
and had destroyed his hard disk so no plod could go
through his files.
There was something else. I had this suspicion senior
(and not so senior; think of the suspender belts, the slobbering
duty sergeant) members of the force were part of this
circle of cyberspace paedophiles or had some other similar
arrangement all their own. In short, I didn't want to end up
in fish-nibbled bits all along the Georges River.

WE PULLED UP outside the local Uniting Church and parked
under a sign that read, WITHOUT CHRIST CHRISTMAS IS ONLY
XMAS, which was absolutely fine by me. As we got out of the
car, a wedding spilled like a squabble down the front steps.
The minister didn't seem pleased to see us. He told us he'd
expected us earlier. Now we'd have to wait for the wedding
party to leave and then we could have exactly ten minutes to
talk to him before the next one arrived, at which Steve got
all scrunched up and surly on the grounds we were here to
do him a favour and not the other way round. Myself, I just
got out of the car, walked to the nearest tree, stood in the
shade and lit up. Having pulled himself together Steve
joined me, despite the smoke, because he had more to say
about the doomsday weather we were having to live with.
He said the polar ice caps were melting. What with the
buckets of rain caused by off-shore currents and the rising
water levels from the melting ice, things didn't look too
good. Something should be done to stop it. The trouble is,
people don't think about it. People don't care. He glared at
the wedding group who were grouping and re-grouping for
photographs and clearly not thinking about it at all. Did I
know, he wanted to know, that one million Australians go
to church on Sunday? And, of those otherwise inclined,
43 500 will play tennis, 315 000 will get on their bikes,
462 000 will just go for a walk. What's more, Sunday drivers
will pump $750 000 worth of petrol into their tanks,
wear 273 000 kilos of rubber off their tyres and ...
I remembered what Steve had said about finding DC
Scythe drowning her sorrows in the pub. What sorrows
were those, I asked, seeking to stem the tide of statistics.
Just exactly when had Steve turned into such a concerned
global citizen and how long would it last? My bet was it
would last as long as it took him to get into the pants of
DC Tracey Scythe.
'Her bloke in Melbourne, he's not coming up for the
splatterball weekend.'
Well, there are sorrows and then there are sorrows, if you
ask me, and in my opinion DC Scythe's bloke not flying up
for the weekend didn't rate highly on any sorrow scale.
But perhaps, I thought, there was more to it and there
was, though not much.
'She thinks he's got a girlfriend down there. She's sure,
really. All the usual stuff. Not taking her calls. Not returning

them, e-mail. Voicemail. Mobile switched off. He didn't even
tell her himself he wasn't coming. Just left a message on her
answering machine.'
'Good timing for you.'
"What d'you mean?'
The minister was beckoning. I ground out my cigarette.
'Leaves the field open for you.'
'I hadn't thought of it that way'
'You lie,' I said.
'I do,' said he and then, bubbling up from the vast fastnesses
of the laddishness within which he tried so hard to
suppress under a weight of weather and statistics and all the
other bits and pieces he thought lent him gravitas, came the
desire to execute a perfect cartwheel right here, right now,
on this piece of hallowed land. And he did. And 'bravo!'
cried the bloke in the frock at the top of the steps and
'bravo!' he cried again as he bustled us both over the threshold.
'Take a pew,' he said, and cracked up at his own little
joke. Finally we all settled down and he outlined the nature
of his problem. Someone had been eating the Bible.
'Someone or something?' I asked, just to be certain.
'Someone, I assure you.' He fetched the big Bible from
the lectern. He directed our attention to the number of pages
removed thus far. 'He or she averages about five pages a day
washed down by a large bottle of mineral water which they
leave behind. He or she doesn't favour any particular brand.'
'Do you have any idea who's doing it? Any member of
the congregation who's a bit ... suspicious?'
'No. No-one. Though we have our share of oddballs, of
course. There is something, though ...'
'Go on,' encouraged Steve.
'Well, twice now, once yesterday and again today, I've
found excrement, human excrement deposited by the
church door.'
Are you sure it's human?'
'Quite sure.'
And you think the two things, the Bible eating and the
excrement, are connected?'
'I know so, Sergeant.'
'Constable,' I corrected.
'Constable,' he repeated.
'How do you know?' asked Steve.
'Because, as I removed it, I couldn't help but notice the
bits of Bible contained within it. The Bible, I imagine, is
difficult to digest.'
And have you kept any of the evidence?'
'Certainly not.'
'So you flushed it?' I half-expected Steve to come out
with some statistic about the amount of water flushed down
toilets in New South Wales every day but he didn't. Instead
he instructed the bemused cleric to collect and keep the evidence
in future. This included the bottles of mineral water as
well.
'Yes. Very well. But what can you do? I mean, this
cannot go on. You do understand. I mean, what are you
actually going to do about this?'
'Believe me, sir,' said Steve in his new, smooth,
ambition-charged manner, 'every step will be taken to clear
this matter up.'
A handful of members of the next wedding were
drifting into the church. The minister was looking understandably
nervous.
'It seems our time is up,' he said.
'Leave it to us, sir,' said Steve, rising to his feet.
'Can't you mount, a what do you call it, a surveillance
operation?'
Obviously the minister wound down after his hectic
Saturdays of joining souls in matrimony by watching The Bill,
'That would be for the Sector Supervisor to decide, sir.
I'll make sure she's given the facts. Meanwhile the beat constables
will be alerted to keep their eyes open and our
Community Liaison Officer will be contacting you during
office hours on Monday'
Steve turned and marched smartly down the aisle. I followed
until my progress was checked by an ancient usher
wanting to know whose side I belonged to, the bride's side
or the groom's?
'Don't you know,' came a light, gin-propelled voice out
of nowhere, 'he's not paid to take sides?' and the judge's
wife came up to me, smiling. She was wearing some pretty
kind of a hat, slightly askew. The judge loomed behind her
as she kissed my cheek. He seated himself firmly on the
groom's side and acknowledged my presence with a nod.
'What are you investigating, Constable? A murder at
the vicarage?'
'Why don't you sit down and stop making a fool of
yourself?' suggested the judge. 'I'm sure the constable has
work to do.'
'I'm sure he does,' said Janice. 'The world is full of evil.
The question is, how does one, anyone, take a stand against it.'
Evil?
'That's enough,' warned her husband. 'Quite enough.'
'I mean, how does one poor old constable cope? How
do you cope, Constable?'
'You're getting shrill,' hissed the judge.
The church was filling up. The organ began wheezing
and belching.
'When evil wins everyone ... everyone ... is diminished.'
Evil?
'The bride or the groom?' the usher persisted.
'The elect or the damned?'
'Ja-niece, sit. This is neither the time nor the place.'
'No. The very last place, it seems. Better the courtroom.
Better the hospital. When did people stop being bad and
start being merely ill?'
I thought of grabbing Janice and making a dash for it.
Run away. Make a new life. The thought zoomed in from
nowhere. But what and where exactly would this new life
be and would we ever reach it and what the fuck was the
matter with me anyway?
'There's a peculiar smell in here,' she said. 'The stink of
the pit, perhaps.'
Steve waited in the doorway. When I joined him he
told me there were 800 000 words in the King James
version of the Bible.

SOMETIMES, NO MORE than a floorboard creak above my
head gives them away. I've lost count of the number of
times they have come. They used to call my name but now
they come less often and more quietly. I hope they soon
give up. Those who seek me do so only to save me.
I HAVEN'T MENTIONED the widow for a while, have I? But
she was there all right, there all the time, firmly lodged in
the rancid vat I call a brain. Sondra. Sondra too. Sondra
especially.
All those people I couldn't bring to justice on her
behalf. But then, how could I be sure I couldn't? I should
have acted then and there. That night. Not given the bastard
the chance to destroy it all and warn his mates to cover
their tracks. Even now I could do something. I could take
my aerosol can of paint and write his name large and
underneath his name I could write 'paedophile'.
I could drop his name like poison into the ears of various
eager politicians who would be pleased to drag his
name all through the mud and some of it would stick. I am
sure there are a few things more I could have drawn on
from the arsenal of the weak. Yet I continued to do nothing.
A total lack of courage. A complete weakness of will.
Every time you do anything at all it affects everything else.
The butterfly effect, I think it's called. If a butterfly could
do whatever it was it did, imagine what a splash one large
cop could make.
I kept thinking about what the judge said. About those
children not exactly walking in off the street asking to be
abused. What he'd said about not having to feed the sharks.
More and more I thought of the widow.

IN MY MAILBOX, a large brown envelope. In the envelope an
8 10 photograph. A flatfish expanse of greyish blueish
anywherish ocean. In the middle, a bunch of chrysanthemums.
I hate chrysanthemums. Marilyn had hated them
too. It is even possible she had disliked the bloody things
more than I did. But obviously this was something about
her this wretched dentist didn't know. I felt overwhelmingly,
childishly pleased.
I could imagine him, pothibly withpering some form of
prayer before dropping this pathetic bunch over the side
of a boat he'd hired for the occasion. He hadn't taken the
cellophane wrapper off. Marilyn would have hated that,
too. I remembered how indignant she had been at all those
cellophaned flowers piling up and looking like rubbish in
London when Princess Di had died. 'Why don't people at
least take the cellophane off?' she'd wailed, a question to
which there was and is no answer.
Feeling childishly pleased I knew something he didn't,
I turned the photo over and read a note from the dentist
telling me he'd attached a card to his bouquet saying it was
from him and all those who had loved her. For some reason
he thought I should be pleased to be included among the
nameless ones who had loved her. I stood clutching this
miserable photo, crumpling it in my hand. All the pleasure
I had taken in his mistaken choice of flower had gone away,
leaving nothing but despair behind, despair in face of the
certain knowledge Marilyn had loved this lisping dentist
more than she had loved me. Marilyn had fucked the fucking
dentist and on top of that she had wanted to marry him
as well. I cried. I cried and cried. Like a child, you might
say; a big, bruised, bitter and defeated child. I'd like to say
I felt better afterwards, but I didn't. Not better, but sorry.
Really and truly. I went outside and searched the car.
I found the spray can of sunshine yellow paint under the
passenger seat.
I shook the can hard. I shook it till it fizzed and then I
hit the button. Whoa. Yellow paint spewed forth in a very
satisfying splatter. I won't make the obvious point, but for
a moment there I understood the powerful sensation
young males must find in squirting their names all over
anything and everything, marking some small part of the
universe as their own. Not that I was signing my name.
What I was saying was sorry. I didn't say it very well at first,
but then I got the knack of it and managed a nice rolling
sort of script. SorRy. SORrY. sOrry. SORRY. SORRY.
SORRY ... sorry ... until I ran out of room to be sorry in
any more.

RHIANON HAD FLAGGED me down and chased me up the
street as though I was a taxi. I was on my way with Tyger
to the vet's where they were going to take his balls off.
I wasn't happy about it, but everyone said it had to be done
else he'd spend his life fighting and fucking and spraying
piss all over Mother's furniture.
'Hi,' said Rhianon.
'Yeah,' I said, which was churlish I admit, but I was distracted
by Tyger screaming in his cage on the back seat.
After all, why should I do this to him? No-one had done it
to me and, on the face of it, Tyger's predicted path in life
wasn't so very different from my own except of course that I
would never, ever, spray on one of Mother's pieces. 'Sorry,'
I said to him over my shoulder.
Having caught up with me, it seemed Rhianon didn't
have much to say. She wanted to know if I was all right.
I mean, I ask you, how all right could I be, driving round
in my mad car with a cat screaming on the back seat? I
didn't even bother with a reply. She stuck her head in at me.
'Sorry,' she said. 'Sorry's a good thing, sometimes.'
I really didn't want to go into it with her right then or
ever so I said nothing because it was too difficult to explain
I'd scribbled the word sorry all over my vehicle hoping the
man who'd been painting pigs on it would accept my apology
for stealing his fucking pizza and leave me alone.
Besides all that, I didn't want to give her the wrong idea
about me. I didn't want her to think I was a thief and a
racist. I hadn't known the man was an Aborigine. I didn't
know there were any round here. I didn't know, did I, that
a whole lot of them had rocked up here to attend a conference.
I just didn't know.
'You're still not walking straight,' said Rhianon, though
how she could tell when I was sitting down was something
else I didn't know and now Tyger was late for his
appointment.
'Why don't you come round to my place after work?
Have a cup of tea?'
'Thanks. I might do that.' I peered back at Tyger. He'd
suddenly gone quiet. He seemed to have fainted or something,
or perhaps he was hoping for a quick way out by
holding his breath, I really couldn't say. What he did was
open one golden eye and fix me sadly with it for a few beats
before closing it again. And then he sighed a great sigh.
'Gotta go,' I said to Rhianon, and I did. I went fast.
I went home. I dropped Tyger off. 'Don't think you've got
away with it,' I warned him, 'tomorrow is another day,' and
then I went to work.
I ASKED HIM, this YP which stands for young person or
young predator, depending on your point of view, I asked
him what he thought he was doing hanging round this
automatic teller machine eyeing the aged and the infirm as
they pressed in their pin numbers with their slow old paws,
pension day having rolled around yet again, as it does.
'What you want?' he wanted to know. 'I'm getting
bored of you and your mates always picking on me and my mates. Bored of it,' he repeated, which was a definite error
of judgment on his part and so was turning his back on me
and starting to slouch away. I caught him up. I repeated my
question.
'Nothing,' he said. 'Why you hassling me? I'm bored
of it.'
I stuffed him in the car, taking care to give his head a
bit of a bump on the door frame.
'Mine not to reason why,' muttered Steve as we tore off
to the station where I found a quiet spot and charged the lad
with mangling the English language. In my dreams, I did.
In real life I was feeling a bit unsure what fucking stupid
thing I'd done. Naturally this kid I'd nicked for doing nothing
which is not a crime though it possibly should be was
whingeing and wanting to know what for. He wanted his
ma too but he wasn't going to get her, at least not until we'd
got him exactly where we wanted him, which we did by
means of the traditional and effective part of a policeman's
armoury known as the lucky dip. Young people love a lucky
dip, or at least when I was a boy they did, so Steve went and
got our carefully prepared bag of tricks and, grinning away
like Santa on a good day, he put it down on the table in
front of our suspect in Interview Room number 3, which is
scarcely used due to the tape recorder being so unreliable
and likely to go dead at vital points of an interview. Steve
and I pulled up chairs and we waited, the three of us plus
one puzzled fly all alone in Interview Room number 3, just
hanging out like people waiting for something to happen,
for the party to begin. The boy looked at me. He looked at
Steve. He even looked at the bloody fly.
'Go on,' I said, 'help yourself Thus encouraged, and
with a miserable whimper, he leaned across and did so. He
felt about a bit. I could imagine the fragments of confusion
and fear streaking across his mind as his dumb fingers
sought the least harmful shape, the least dangerous texture,
so how he came up with something as nasty as a knife is
anyone's guess.
'Congratulations,' snarled Steve, diving for the door and
screaming for the custody officer, 'that'll be possession of an
offensive weapon, armed robbery, stealing from the old and
infirm. Charge the little fucker,' he instructed the CO.
'What's the charge?'
'Come on, mate, you'll think of something. For example,
you might find something useful about his person.'
Like an avuncular magician at a children's party, Steve
leaned over and plucked a small baggie of white powder
from the kid's shirt pocket. The boy started howling like a
deserted puppy.
'Just kidding,' said Steve, taking the baggie back.
The custody officer led the boy away. 'You're a pair of
bastards,' he informed us as he guided the boy out into the
bright white corridor. 'One of these days you are going to
go too fucking far. What's your name, son?'
'Jason.'
Well, this gave me pause, I must admit.
'What was that all about?' asked Steve. 'Bit of a fucking
time-waster wasn't it?' I didn't reply because I didn't have an
answer handy. I was thinking about the custody officer.
Thinking about what he'd said. Thinking it was true about
going too far. Except I had already gone.

I FELT I'd pushed the boundaries of the paint envelope about
as far as it could go in my lifetime and I was thoroughly
bored by it but yet here I was on the M4 Motorway just
before the Reservoir Road exit. I was part of a convoy
of vehicles headed for the twelve battlefields, the 60 acres of
jungle, swamps, creeks, bridges, bunkers and ten kilometres
of trenches that was Razorback Ridge. I was alone in my car.
None of the others wanted to be seen in it. No-one asked me
what it was I was sorry for, which was a relief. Steve and DC
Smythe headed up the convoy in Steve's 4 4. Steve had been
particularly insistent that he could give nobody other than
DC Scythe a lift because all their paintball equipment was
filling up the back. Steve and DC Scythe were the only members
of the party who had their own gear. The rest of us could
rent clothes and weapons when we got to Razorback Ridge.
We had to be there by 7.30 a.m. ready to go into action at
eight. We were booked in for an all-day session which
included anything up to 20 games and an all-you-can-eat
barbecue lunch featuring steaks, salad, cheese and bread rolls.
I was still last in line as we rattled down the hard rutted
track, past a 55-tonne Centurion Main Battle tank which
could have fallen from the sky into this particular middle of
nowhere.
Leaving my car in a sun-scorched paddock, I was last in
line again as we lined up on a gravelled area baking under a
tin roof to collect our battle packs. There were three to
choose from: the Predator (pump-action gun and 200 shots),
the Terminator (semi-automatic and 600 shots) and the
Rambo (semi-automatic and 1000 shots), but do you care?

I HAVEN'T MENTIONED this before, but before the business
of the judge's photographs I used to spend a lot of time on
the Internet. It had been Marilyn's idea to go on-line in the
first place. She loved it. I could hardly get a look in. But
after she'd gone it was different. At first I simply followed
where she had been, visiting her favourite web sites, sniffing
her trail through cyberspace. Marilyn had been keener
on matters medical than I had ever realised. Her major
interests were health, gardening with the emphasis on
permaculture, travel and news from anywhere and everywhere,
plus a ton of other bits and pieces. Marilyn had
been keen on tracking global weather patterns, on more or
less anything to do with space exploration, on undomestic
animals and all the things that threaten them. There were
a scattering of cultural sites and, puzzlingly enough, she
had access to several law libraries, for which I can offer no
explanation. Following her trail made me feel better, in a
way. It was almost as though I was close to her in my
empty house in Kelvin Road. Late at night I would peer
into the screen like a spiritualist conjuring spooks in a
crystal ball and, as with the spiritualist, the messages
received were not enlightening.
COME WITH ME. You can be on my team if you like as we
drag ourselves through the matted bush, the paint-spattered
foliage, the shattered, insulted, degraded 25 hectares of this
day. Let's explore the possibilities, the worlds within worlds
of 'Cambodia, 'Laos', 'Sniper' and 'Mayhem' and, after all
the excitement, perhaps you might want to buy a t-shirt which says, ACRES OF RUGGED TERRAIN, 10 MATES, 1200
ROUNDS OF PAINT, 108 HEARTBEATS PER MINUTE, NO WHISPERING,
NO WHINING, TWO FLAGS, ONE FOCUS--PAINTBALL', but if I were you I'd wait until the game was over before
deciding because it takes an extra large t-shirt to say all that
and a mighty big man to wear it, as the lady at reception told
me when I enquired as to what sizes they had. Small,
medium, large--forget it. This is giant land.
We are divided into two teams. It is only fitting we
serve under the most experienced among us and for reasons
that aren't clear to me I found myself under the command
of DC Scythe and not Steve.
Each team is distinguished by the colour of their face
masks. The aim is straightforward enough. Capture land and
shoot as many of the opposing team as you can. There is a
referee of sorts, a veteran of the game whose t-shirt declared
him to be the winner of the South Pacific Paintball
Championship 1993. He tried to tell us about strategy, teamwork,
but basically all us boys and girl were so fired up his
presence was as welcome as a pork chop in a synagogue as the
Commander would have said when he thought no-one was
listening and now we're off, swarming through the wasteland
of ankle-turning terrain awash with tractor tyres, rusted
skeletons of cars and broken down heavy machinery.
DC Smythe signals two groups of men to go forward in
a sort of pincer movement. She indicates, I think, I should
stay behind to provide covering fire. We are firing hundreds
of rounds of paint. It is not clear, at least to me, what our
objective is. It's hard to distinguish between the teams
through the dust and sweat behind the mask.
The firing stops and there is silence. I hear DC Smythe
call for reinforcements. None are forthcoming. I suppose I
might be a reinforcement but am not sure what to do. Then
I see her head pop up a few inches above a pile of tyres a
few metres ahead to my right and wham, she's hit from
somewhere off to the side, pink paint splattered across her
chest. As the rules dictate, she holds her gun above her
head, calls 'hit' and walks away from the field of battle to a
mesh enclosure where you leave your weapons at the door,
get rid of your mask and compare wounds.
Meanwhile, out on the battlefield, all is silence.
I crouch inside a rusted upside down Holden Torana
and, leaderless, consider my options. For all I knew, everyone
was dead. There was no sign of anyone on my team or
the other one either. Did this mean I was the winner? It
didn't seem likely.
I decided I'd wait a while, let my immediate future
unfold all by itself with no help from me. Until it did, I
thought I might have a cigarette. For the first time in a long
time I felt peaceful. For once, the chaos without matched
the chaos within. If I could just stay here inside this car
long enough, maybe I'd regain my balance. After a bit of
scrabbling about in my flak jacket I located cigarettes and
lighter. Cars, I thought. What a large part of my life they
had been. Various makes, certain models, colours. Take this
old Torana. I picked away at a small area of rust and yeah,
I was right, small flecks of fuchsia duco glittered on my
fingernails. Great. A fuchsia Torana. My sister had one,
I remember. This could have been the very one. Why not?
I was about to apply flame to the tip of my cigarette
when I spotted a sort of shiver in the weeds and knew my
paradise was lost. Someone was inching their way towards
me, wriggling along the ground the way they do in movies.
Oh, for fuck's sake please go away, I wanted to shout.
I'm happy in here. Go away.
I stuck my head up. The figure wriggled onward. He
hadn't seen me. I just had to keep him in the sites of my
Terminator automatic and, if he poked his head up for so
much as a second, I'd have him.
'Come on, bunny, come on,' I whispered.
I seem to have forgotten this business of teams. I was
just a man defending his territory. Up came the head.
I took a deep breath to steady my hand and wham, got
him. Steve. Rolling on his back in the weeds, screaming
with laughter, his head splattered with yellow paint. He
scrambled to his feet and ripped his mask off. Came
towards me with his hand stretched out.
'Well done, mate. You're the last man standing. Let's go
grab some lunch.'
We made our way back to the corrugated hut. Steve was
planning the afternoon's wars when he tripped on a tree
root and fell heavily to the ground. He lay there for a
moment. I bent over and offered him a hand.
'You right, mate?'
Steve, looking slightly puzzled, scrambled to his feet.
He said he was okay. He asked if I had some Panadol or
anything. He had this throbbing sort of headache which
had been getting worse all morning. I didn't, but when we
got back to the lunch hut DC Scythe, as girls can almost
always be counted on to do, had some type of painkiller in
her bag, which she gave him. Away from work it was finally
obvious those two were on together. Not that they were
exactly flaunting it, but I could tell. I was wondering how
Cheryl felt about it. Not much wondering involved. Most
of us would know how Cheryl felt about it. Maybe she
didn't know yet. I felt suddenly fond of Cheryl, which was
odd because I'd always found her irritating before.
Steve was digging into a bowl of potato salad when the
stroke struck. He fell across the table. He fell with the force
of a man going over a cliff. The referee and some others grabbed
him and rolled him onto his back. The table gave way.
Steve clawed at the air in a last effort to find something to
hang on to and, finding nothing, crashed to earth and died.

DO YOU KNOW anything about strokes? Most people I have
talked to seem to know quite a lot through either personal
experience or hearsay but I didn't.
Here's all I knew of strokes, something garnered from
boyhood. I made a point of looking it up so as to reproduce
it accurately. I'm glad I did. What a wonderful book Treasure Island is. The stroke thing is near the beginning,
when the 'brown old seaman, with the sabre cut' fights
Black Dog in the Admiral Benbow and falls to the floor.
Between us we raised his head. He was breathing very loud
and hard; but his eyes were closed, and his face was a horrible
colour ...It was a happy relief for us when the door opened
and Doctor Livesey came in.
'Oh, Doctor,' we cried, 'what shall we do? Where is he
wounded?'
'Wounded? A fiddlesticks end!' said the doctor. 'No more
wounded than you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned
him ... I must do my best to save the fellow's trebly worthless
life; and Jim here will get me a basin.'
A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened
his eyes and looked mistily about him.

AT FIRST ALL I could think of was whether or not my shooting
Steve in the head with a glob of yellow paint had caused
his stroke. There's no answer to that, I suppose. I just had
to live with the question. For a while at least. I didn't think
I'd keep nagging myself with it for the rest of my life. I had,
after all, just been obeying the rules Steve himself had been
following. The folk out at Heartbreak Ridge were very
efficient. Steve was out of there fast. 'All care but no responsibility'
was their take on things.

THE AREA COMMANDER asked me if I would write a poem
and read it at Steve's funeral and I'd agreed. So that piece of
rashness, or bravado, or whatever word I choose to use for
my stupidity in agreeing was what found me at 5 a.m. on
the morning of the funeral bathed in a sweat of failure.
Stuck. Tyger jumped up on the kitchen table where I had
set up shop with my pile of paper and my pen and gave the
latter a swipe with his paw which landed it under the
fridge. Later, lying on my stomach, groping in the slimy
crap which grew there to find what had proved to be the
only functioning pen in the house, I asked myself why I
had considered myself a poet. I had, I told myself, while
cleaning the crap from my pen, made a basic error. I hadn't
written poetry for years and this inactivity was what had
disqualified me from poet-hood, as it should. Poets write
poetry. Poets persist. Published or not, praised or not, writing
poems is what they do and I don't. Myself, I have
adopted Keats's point of view in the matter which is, if I
remember correctly, 'If poetry comes not as naturally as the
leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.'
Perhaps I could get Keats to write me a note to hand
the Area Commander to get me out of strife. Besides, I
consoled myself as I scribbled on the top sheet of paper to
see if the pen still worked, a funeral poem was a big ask,
though Keats was pretty good at them. There are so many
poems about death, so much written on the topic, so much competition.
The pen still worked. I wrote my name. I wrote both
my names. I wrote 'Tyger' next to it in curly script. I drew
a tombstone and wrote 'RIP STEVE 1964-2000' on it. Tears
threatened.
'Mate,' I said. 'I'm bloody sorry to be letting you
down.' Then it was as though Steve whispered in my ear,
because it was at that moment I had my brainwave.
If it was too risky to borrow a famously good poem--a
scheme I'd been toying with earlier in the night--why not
steal an anonymous bad one which wouldn't matter so
much. Also, I was 99.9 per cent less likely to be found out.
And where would I find my truly bad poem? Answer: on
the Internet. There's a world of bad poetry out there buried,
I have to admit, on the home pages of many members of
the punishing professions. By 6 a.m. I'd found it. By
6.30 a.m., having given the thing a bit of a polish, I was so
pleased with 'To a Fallen Comrade' you'd think I'd written
it myself. Now all I had to do was be at the church by
eleven.

DO YOU EVER ask yourself how many people would turn up
for your funeral?
There was a big turn-out for Steve. The force was well
represented. The Area Commander was there of course
and, even though Steve hadn't died while in the course of
duty, the AC had felt moved, as he put it, to speak with
those gathered about this bright and brave young man cut
down when his future had been so promising.

There were lots of people I didn't know gathered as
well. While various people said various things about Steve
the schoolboy, Steve the scrum half, Steve the raging lad, I
sat near the back of the church with Cheryl curled against
me sniffing like a damp hamster. This was a mistake.
I mean sitting near the back was a mistake because when it
came time to read my poem I had to walk the length of the
place, my shoes clanging like they were made of iron. There
was, I like to think, an air of of expectation as I arranged
my sheet of A4 paper on the lectern. I cleared my throat.
I began.

The policeman stood and faced his God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as brightly as his brass.

'Step forward now, policeman.
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?'

The policeman squared his shoulders,
'No, Lord, I guess I ain't,
Because those who carry badges
Can't always be a saint.

'I've had to work on Sundays
And sometimes work was rough.
And sometimes I've been violent
Because the streets are tough.

'But I never took a dollar
That wasn't mine to keep
Though I've worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

'I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here,
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
'If you've got a place here, Lord,
It needn't be too grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't--I'll understand.'

There was silence round the top mans throne
Where the saints have always trod,
As the policeman waited quietly
For the verdict of his God.

'Step forward now, policeman,
You've borne your burdens well.
Come walk your beat on heaven's streets.
You've done your time in hell.'

There was a small stunned silence. I was a bit stunned
myself. It was so incredibly bad, so ludicrously American.
I couldn't think what I'd been thinking of. I think I'd just
been relieved to find something about a dead policeman on
the home page of Chicago Highway Patrolman Chuck
Webster I could use and 'Hell,' as Chuck might well say,
'I didn't even write the damn thing out. All I did was download
the son of a bitch.' So there I am standing in church,
waiting for the first stone.
There was a sharply anguished sob from the back of
the church. Cheryl. People turned. People looked. People
began to cry. It took me a moment to understand they
weren't all weeping over the badness of the poem. They
were weeping because it was so ... so straightforwardly
sentimental. Soon there wasn't a dry eye in the house and I
had made those tears happen. Elation.
Tough luck, Chuck. This was me standing here wearing
the mantle of poet. There were more people gathered in
this church than had ever bought Portals of Distortion. I flew back to my pew radiant with triumph.
'Fuck off, Marilyn,' I muttered on my way down the
aisle just in case her sarcastic shade was present. 'You don't
understand.'
The service ended with a wobbly round or two of
'Amazing Grace'. While it was going on I hurried down the
side aisle to join the other pallbearers among whom was
DC Scythe, who gave me a watery smile.
'That was lovely, Marcus. Steve would have been so proud.'
All very well, but how did she know my name was
Marcus? Steve must have told her.
'He loved your little book of poems,' she said.
Really? Did he really? So that's how she knew. Steve had
got hold of a copy. Bought a copy, even. Read a copy, even.
'He was so proud to have a poet as a partner.'
And all the time I'd been suspicious of his occasional
references to my poetry. He hadn't been picking on me at
all. He was just interested.
The pallbearers were looking at me, waiting. The organ
was belting out something or other. DC Scythe touched my
arm lightly.
'He loved you, man,' she said, and heave-ho away we go.
It's a blur, this bit. Some people fell in behind us as we
passed. Others stared ahead, not wishing to see the man go.
As we passed Cheryl she took off her engagement ring, kissed
it and laid it on the coffin, on top of the New South Wales
Police flag.
Steve was loaded into the hearse. Everyone watched as
it drew away and Steve set off on his last earthly journey to
the Rookwood Crematorium. All alone. Shouldn't someone
have gone with him, like his mum, or me, or Cheryl? What
kind of partner had I been to him?
I watched as the crowd broke up. Most, including me,
were heading for the pub to give Steve a proper send-off.
The Area Commander was beaming up at me.
'Congratulations, Sergeant,' he said, 'on your wonderful
verse.'
'Constable,' I corrected automatically.
'Would you have any objection if I saw to its being
published in next month's NSW Police GazetteV
'None at all, sir.' I handed him my two pages of crumpled
doggerel. He smoothed them out, folded them neatly
in four and put them in his jacket.
'Good man,' he said. 'Make a change from "The
Newell: Highway of Hell" and all those sorts of things.'
'Excuse me, sir,' I said.
'Certainly, Sergeant. Certainly. Oh, and Sergeant ...'
The man paused. He had me by the arm so I couldn't get
away. 'I just want you to know you have my sincerest sympathy.
The loss of any colleague is a blow to all of us. To lose
a partner ... well, Sergeant ...' there was a short pause, as
though he was waiting for the correction I didn't make ...
'I've heard it compared to the loss of a spouse. And as I'm
sure you understand, it's inevitable word spreads in a close
knit community such as ours and I have heard of your
problems on the domestic front.' He moved yet closer. As
I understand it, we employ counsellors for this type of
thing. I've been told they are helpful,' he added in a tone
which indicated no such thing. 'Meanwhile, why not take
some leave? I've no doubt you have some owing and, if not, well I'm sure something could be arranged.' He let go my
arm. 'Good work, Sergeant,' he said, patting his pocket.
'Thank you, sir,' I said as he turned away. I watched
him walk to his car, stopping to commiserate with Steve's
mother, Cheryl and a couple of Steve's mates. I heard him
telling Cheryl what a good brave man her fiance had been.
DC Scythe came and stood beside me. We watched as
Cheryl gazed up at the big man, gulping like a grateful
guppy. I looked at the detective constable and she looked at
me. She laid a finger across her lips. Little tears gleamed on
her cheek and I got it. Cheryl didn't know. Steve hadn't told
her which, dead or not, was fucking typical of Steve. He was
probably waiting till he got to Wagga Wagga and was well
out of the firing range of Cheryl's mum to tell her it was over.
'You mustn't tell anyone,' whispered DC Scythe to me.
'We were, you know, we were ...' She was evidently having
trouble finding the words for what she and Steve had been
up to. 'He was going to tell her. He meant to, I'm sure. But
you know how difficult these things are. And now there's
no reason she should know, is there?'
Pretty noble stuff, I reckon. I found myself giving her a
hug which gave both of us a surprise.
One thing had been puzzling me during this whole
funeral thing. There was a different vicar, not the one we'd
spoken with about some nutter eating the Bible and shitting
it out on the front steps. I asked this new guy what had
happened. He flushed red. He drew me aside.
'It was him,' hissed the ring-in. He was doing it himself.
One of the members of the choir turned up early for
practice last Thursday night and there he was, squatting on
the front steps.' He shuddered. I shuddered. 'They took him
away,' he whispered. '"Burn out," they're calling it. A charitable
explanation, I must say. By the way, Sergeant, I greatly
enjoyed your poem. Something everyone here could relate
to, I think. The sense of a job well done. Very moving.'
It was time to go to the pub. I remember thinking when
Steve finally turned up he'd know where to find me and I
remember thinking I must be mad to think it.

I WAS FINE. I was flying, floating, buoyed by poetry. Away
with mewling Keats. Bits of Blake tumbled about my brain.
'Poetry fettered fetters the Human Race,' screamed he and
he was right. Free was how I felt. I'd unfettered the fetters all right.
So what my wife was dead. So what my partner was
dead. So what the world was full of abused and damaged
children. So what someone, most likely his mother, had
pinned up a photo of a bright and beamish Steve naked on
a bunny-rug aged six months which I found distressing,
especially the ribbon someone had drawn across his chest
saying 'COPS are TOPS', though everyone else seemed to like
it. What could I do about anything and had I seriously ever
thought I could? Was that why I joined the force? Sorry. The
service is what we call it now, a more user-friendly name it
is thought. To make a difference? Was that why I'd joined
whatever I'd joined was called? Marilyn had asked me this so
many times and I had never been able to answer. Why?
Why? Why? How could I tell her when I didn't know
myself? It occurred to me, as I downed my seventh whisky,
it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I had been born to
be a pig snuffling my way through rotting heaps of human
crap. A few drinks later I was alone at the bar making little
oinky noises to myself. It was round then they (and there
were several of them back there in charge of the bottles)
wouldn't give me another drink. I became aware of people
laughing, people having a good time, people drowning their
sorrows. But try as I might, my sorrows wouldn't drown. I'd flush them down with a drink, they'd disappear for a second
and then, like turds in a toilet not flushing properly, up
they'd bob again. You could say my sorrows sucked up the
booze and got bigger. And another thing: what was former
Chief Constable Cunt doing behind the bar? Who let him
in? The answer wasn't hard to come by. They'd sent for the
miserable proselytising plumber and put him in charge of
cutting off my booze supply. He was denying my right to
drown my sorrows and flush them away. I tried telling him
this. It seemed straightforward enough to me. In former
Chief Constable Cunt's opinion I'd had enough. I appealed
the decision. I explained my difficulty to those gathered.
CCC had the numbers though. They were squarely behind
him in this. I wasn't worried. Steve would be here any second
to sort it out. Steve wouldn't take any lip from you
know who. Steve wouldn't deny a mate a drink. Wham bam.
The wave hit. It swept me to the ground, it tossed me to the
four corners of the room. It tossed a lot of others round the
room too. I wanted my fetters back; I wanted to be fettered.
People, only vaguely known to me, all trying to cling on but
I couldn't let them cling on to me or I would drown, and so
I swept aside these hangers-on with their suggestions of
taking some time off, talking to a counsellor and on and on.
And behind this wave another wave. And behind these suggestions
more suggestions until I was swooshed out of there
like a pail of dirty water across the pavement and into the
gutter where, in the brief seconds before I passed out, I am
sorry to tell you I saw not a single star.

I SHOULDN'T HAVE gone to the widow's house, not in the
state I was in. My reasoning, insofar as I had any reason left,
was if I couldn't face her in any reasonable state I might as
well try doing it in an unreasonable one. What had I to
lose? Somehow I didn't think about what she might have to
lose. Or Sondra. I saw myself as a knight in shining armour
plus steed. A knight in shining armour plus steed can do a
lot of damage, especially in a small kitchen containing one
large, very large, fish tank, not to mention a mad yappy dog
dancing round under those four large hooves.

I LIVE UNDERGROUND now, more or less, in the crawl space
come basement which is a feature--potential wine cellar,
extra storage--of the superior house design known as
Halcyon.
I came down here to get away from those who want to
help those things which cannot be helped. To escape those
who seek to forgive the unforgivable and to tell you I have
done bad things.

WHO WOULD HAVE thought the dog would have so much
blood in him?
I hadn't meant to shoot the creature but it just wouldn't
behave. It kept jumping and yapping while I was trying to
reason with Michelle. I shot it. A stupid move on my part.
Overkill. Now Sondra was awake and screaming in her bedroom
and, not surprisingly, no-one was interested in anything
I had to say anymore.
'Stay where you are, Sondra,' cried the widow. 'Everything's all right. Just don't come down.'
I looked at my watch. I'd been there half an hour. She
had been reluctant to let me in so I, having at that moment
regained my mastery of what was after all nothing more
than a simple and straightforward door, I saved her the
bother and did it all for myself.
I dragged her to the table and sat her down. I seized her
skinny wrist, hard, and held her there. All this she endured
in silence, silence until I produced my ace and slapped it
down on the table between us. Then she moaned. That's all.
A moan. Not much of a response, I feel. Not much. But
then why would she scream, yell, cry loudly to the heavens
for vengeance when it was all her fault anyway?
It was she, after all, who had exchanged her daughter
for a fish tank and God only knew what else. I was explaining
all this to her when the fucking dog went totally over
the top and I shot it.
Next thing I knew Sondra's in the kitchen and she's
scooped up the dog and was standing, staring at me,
speechless. Why are women so good at silence? I thought,
as I watched the widow and her daughter, as I watched the
widow turn the photograph face down upon the table.
I HAD ONCE accused Marilyn of murdering our unborn baby.
I remember her silence and her refusal to discuss the passing
of my last chance to be a good father to someone. Women,
it seems to me, know the devastating power of silence. After
the silence was over Marilyn had explained to me why she
wasn't prepared to give birth to the potentially damaged child
the amniocentesis had revealed just so I could satisfy my ego
by proving myself capable of being a good dad. She also said
how, in the nature of things, it would be her who ended up
taking 90 per cent of the responsibility for its care and she
simply wasn't prepared to do this.
'Down's syndrome children are meant to be so sweet,' I
tried again.
'Sweet?'
'Mmm. Yes. Sweet. Affectionate, you know?' A long
silence. I was beginning to think I had won the day.
Affectionate?'
'That's right.'
'You want sweet? You want affectionate? '
'It might be nice, yes.' But I was wavering. Maybe she
was right. Perhaps a little more was required.
'Marcus, if that's what you want, go to a pet shop.'

'GO BACK TO bed, Sondra, just for a little while. As soon as
he's gone I'll be in to see you.'
Gone? But I wasn't going anywhere. I wanted to confront
this woman with her guilt, I wanted her punished and I
wanted an admission and I wanted an arrest. I had headlines
dancing behind my eyes. LONE COP SMASHES PAEDOPHILE RING.
'Why are you doing this?' whispered the widow. 'You're
only making things worse.'
I told her that if she didn't confess things would get
worse still. If she didn't name names. I aimed my gun, my
state of the art Glock, slightly to the left of her right ear. A
curious effect of the aquarium's light shining behind the
widow's head made it seem those pretty fish were swimming
in one ear and out the other and so I chose my target, a
brightly coloured creature known, as I later found out, as
Rainford's butterfly fish.
'I saw you,' I said, 'in K-Mart one day buying Sondra
purple lipstick. This lipstick.' I flipped the photo over. She
wouldn't look.
'She liked it,' she said. 'That's all. She liked the colour
and I was surprised but she did. I bought it,' insisted the
widow fiercely, 'because I want her to be happy. I bought
it because I didn't want to make a fuss about everything
that had happened. Perhaps it was stupid. Perhaps I did the
wrong thing. I even took it as a healthy sign of... of
recovery'
What was the woman saying? What was she telling me?
What?
'It was Terry, don't you see? He wormed his way in here
pretending I was the one he wanted when all the time he
was lying in wait for her. It happens. It's not even all that
uncommon. Getting to the child through the stupid lonely
mother. But I didn't know. Or not for sure. Not even when
this,' indicating the fish tank behind her, 'turned up. A
present, he said. A present for a good girl as promised. And
she loves it. I can't bear the thing but she loves it more than
anything. Let me tell you something, you bastard. The
night you came, the night I asked you to take us to the
mine, it was because I wanted to dance on his grave.'
'Muuum!' From the doorway. Sondra, dead dog
clutched to her, crying, hiccupping. 'Muuum!' We both
jumped, the widow and I, so intent had we been on bringing
things to light.
Oh God, what had I done? Let sleeping dogs lie. Let
leaping dogs die. This and other doggerel as I jerked round
and in jerking the gun went off. No, the gun didn't go off,
I pulled the trigger. It was an accident in as much as pointing
a loaded gun and causing it to go off by jerking and/or
twitching could possibly be described as such. The bullet
clipped the edge of the aquarium and lodged in the wall
behind. Water, shards of glass and dozens of dying fish
rained down.
I am sorry, I am ashamed, to report I ran away. Having
destroyed the thing the child I had been trying to help
loved most in the world, running away was all I could think
of to do. I figured they were better off without me. It
seemed the least I could do.

YOU WOULD THINK, wouldn't you, one dead dog and several
dead dozens of upmarket goldfish would be enough harm
done for one night? But it wasn't to be. When I got home
there was a patrol car outside and inside it was the Area
Commander and two men in grey suits who, though not in
uniform, were easy to pick as some kind of law enforcement.
'No peace for the wicked, eh Sergeant?' cackled the
Commander. For a spinning moment I thought he was on
to me, that he was about to arrest me for wickedness, and
about time too, but all he wanted to know was was it true
I knew old Clem Greer who lived out on the Old Box
Road. While he was asking and I was answering I kept
expecting him to notice the mess I was in; the water, the
bits of water weed clinging here and there. There was also
the uncomfortable fact that I had left my gun behind at the
widow's which meant there was a firearm unaccounted for
out there, a fact we usually take pretty seriously. I was
awaiting a severe reprimand but none came. Instead he
flung the door open and told me to get in.
'Good man, Sergeant,' he said. 'You're just the man we
need to sort this one out. Our siege negotiating team aren't
making any headway. What's needed here I think is a bit of
the personal touch. I want that poor lady out of there and
I want her out alive. Do I make myself clear?'
'Loud and clear, sir,' though in truth I had scarcely
taken it in. 'How long has the situation been in progress?'
'Eleven hours he's had the poor old Meals on Wheels
lady bailed up in there. He grabbed her at lunch time. Christ,
you'd think the old bugger would give it up, wouldn't you.
Apparently he's got no end of health problems. But they bred
them tough in those days didn't they, men?'
There was a lot of throat clearing and agreement in the
back seat. I wasn't sure who these guys were until the Area
Commander told me they were situational ethicists from
Utah who were here for a conference and had lucked out in
finding a real live situation to observe. As we drove back the
way I had just come, as we approached the widow's house
and passed it shrouded, I was relieved to see, in its habitual
darkness, the eldest of the two--Elmore, I believe-- explained their job to me. According to Elmore until recent
times, or reasonably recent anyway, societies had a fixed
code of ethics which meant people applied this blanket
moral code to everything and then acted accordingly when
different situations arose. Simple, really. Like the Ten
Commandments, I supposed. But now, not so simple. Now
the days of thou shalt not are over. Now we have what they
call situational ethics which means instead of a straightforward
application of a broadly agreed upon moral code to
situations that arise we now make up the ethics each time as
we go along. A tailor-made ethic, not the old one size fits all.
We were outside Clem's by the time Elmore had finished
explaining.
We pulled up next to several patrol cars, the Police
Rescue Unit, an ambulance and a fire truck. According to
the Area Commander a SWAT team was on its way. The
AC was very keen to have the matter cleared up by the time
they got here.
'He's got guns in there you know, sir. Quite a collection
in fact. He used to be president of the local Sports Shooters'
Association.'
'Go for it,' said the Area Commander, grabbing a loudhailer
from one of the negotiating team. 'I want that Meals
on Wheels lady out of there alive. Remember, Sergeant,
a-l-i-v-e.'
'Clem,' I roared. 'It's Constable Blainey here. I want to
come in and talk to you. You might be able to help me. I've
lost my gun, mate, and you know how bad a bloke feels
without his gun.'
Elmore's head was nodding. 'The useful use of a lie,' I
heard him whisper to his offsider who started nodding as
well. I didn't like to point out I was telling the truth, I had

indeed lost my gun. It is possible situational ethicists see
only what they want to see.
Either way, old Clem was not so easily impressed. I
wasn't getting any response from him and, not being in any
mood to stuff about, I chucked the loud-hailer aside,
stepped over the front border of white painted tyres stuck
in the ground and walked towards the house.
'We've got you covered, mate,' yelled someone as
though I gave a fuck. Anyway, Clem wouldn't shoot me. As
far as I know he'd never shot anyone in his life and I didn't
think he was likely to start with me.
'Go, dude,' called Elmore, which gave me the shits.
I didn't want anyone mistaking me for any kind of a hero
when the truth was I didn't care if I lived or if I died.

CLEM WAS IN his chair, a rifle across his lap. A small woman
in a mauve frock and veins to match sat in another. They
were both nodding off. I came in quietly; cleared my
throat. Clem's hands rattled on the rifle.
'What a fuss, dear,' said the lady. 'They've been ringing
on the phone and yelling at us through a microphone and
it's all sent his deaf aid wild so the poor boy couldn't hear a
thing. Can I go now, Clem? He looks a steady sort of man
if my judgment hasn't gone the way of your ears, Clem.'
'You two know each other then?'

'Yairs,' acknowledged Clem.
'Clem and me go back a long way.'
'We do. And now you'd better be off Clem laughed.
'That's what she always said to me. "Oh Clem," she'd say,
"I've no time for all that now. I'd better be off. The kids'll
be wondering what happened to their mum."'
'Well, it was true enough in them days.' She went to the
old man and kissed him. 'Come on, Clem. No hard feelings,
eh? I agreed to stay until this lot got sorted out. Good
luck, Clem. I'll be thinking of you. Could be we'll meet
again, darls, in a better place.'
Clem patted her with a twisted hand. Poor bugger, I
thought. I knew all about rheumatoid arthritis because my
mother had suffered with it for years.
'Bye,' he whispered. Pools gathered in his pale eyes and
dribbled down as she let herself out.
I stood by the window and watched as people surrounded
her offering blankets, cups of tea, counselling.
I heard her thin protest that all she wanted was to be off
home to the kiddies.
'Daft old bat,' I heard Clem say. 'Gets confused. Hasn't
had any kids to look after in years. But she's a good sort.'
I turned back into the room. He was on his feet with this
bloody great hunting rifle wavering round in the air.
'Put it down, Clem. Come on. You'll end up shooting
someone whether you mean to or not.'
'I'll mean it,' he said. 'I've thought this over a long time.
I want to die and you're going to do it for me.'
'I can't do that, Clem, and I'm sorry you asked me
because there's no way I can. So let's just get rid of the gun
and I'll let those people come in. Believe me, mate, they
only want to help.'
'Pig's bum, son. They want me in a home. My brother
does. Then he won't have to worry about me having a fall
or something. Do you remember my brother Perce, lives in
Queensland?'

I said I did. I asked him again to put down his rifle
before he did himself damage.
'No way,' said Clem. 'If you don't get this thing off me
I'm going to have to shoot you, or try to anyway.'
'Put it down, Clem.'
'Make me.'
I stepped towards him. The rifle was between us. I
knew what he wanted. It was in his eyes. I'd seen this
before, every policeman has though it's not much discussed.
Suicide by means of a policeman.
I looked at Clem. Clem looked at me. I felt like asking
Elmore and his main man inside to decide the ethics of the
situation.
'I know what you're asking me, Clem.'
Christ, I thought. Who here wants to die most? Him or
me? Two blokes struggling over a gun. It had its funny side.
And then Clem took over. He managed to point the barrel
up under his chin. I tried to grab it. It went off, taking most
of Clem's head with it. They were all through the door in
seconds. They stared at these two men covered in blood.
I think they thought I was hit. The paramedics swarmed
round and wouldn't let me go before they had worked out
none of the blood was mine and I could go outside. I sat on
one of Clem's tyres, lit a cigarette and then I lit another and
smoked them both at once. The Area Commander came
and sat there too.
'Used to smoke. Gave it up.' He risked a pat on my
blood-stained shoulder. 'Don't hold yourself to blame. No
one could have done better. Hostage rescued, brilliant
work. I'm nominating you for an outstanding bravery
medal.' Some woman was hovering nearby. 'I'll leave you in
Caroline's capable hands. Why not take time off, take a
spot of stress leave?' He walked away still talking.
They were carrying Clem out of the house in a large
plastic bag. I started to cry.
I started to run.
'Stop. I'm a grief counsellor,' cried Caroline. 'Take my
card at least. It may prove useful.' But I was on my way
home, on my way to my cramped damp perfectly suitable
hiding place beneath my house.

NO-ONE MISSED ME, not for a few days at least. Then they
worked out I was missing. They somehow seemed to know
I was on the premises somewhere.
I would hear them moving about above my head.
Various people called out to me. The more they called the
more determined I became to stay where I was, in my tiny
hideyhole guarded by my mum's furniture.
I recognised a few of the voices employed to lure me
out. There was the Area Commander pacing about bellowing
and threatening me with promotion.
DC Scythe turned up a couple of times. She wanted me
to come out and be a hero.
Then there was Rhianon. She had contacted the station
when she'd heard I was missing. She came round one night
alone. I think it was night. I heard her soft footfalls above
my head. I heard a sort of soft plumping sound as she lay
down on the floor above my head. I heard her soft voice.
'Listen, man, I know you're here somewhere. They're
saying you're dead but I know you're nearby. I'm not trying
to tell you what to do. I just wanted to let you know I'm
your friend and wherever you are I know you'll be walking
straight from now on,' and she was gone.
'Well, Tyger, what do you think of that?' But Tyger wasn't
saying much these days. He was too hungry. I was hungry
too, but I knew what I was doing. I'd brought sandwiches,
and a six pack of mineral water which I worked out would
last me until I had got all this written down. I hadn't thought
about Tyger. He wasn't supposed to be here. But he was and
he saved my life. I only hope he wasn't expecting gratitude
because he didn't get any. He did get a new home though.
I did make sure of that. I left him on Rhianon's doorstep in
the early morning of the day I made my escape.

I DON'T THINK I've told you what my plan had been down
in the basement. I had set up Steve's Excalibur, primed it
ready to fire. I had attached one end of a rope to the trigger
and, when the time came, I intended tying the other
end of the rope to my big toe and giving it a good tug and
there you are. Or there I would have been. But it would
never have worked. It was a hopeless idea from the start.
When I crept from my house with my limp cat tucked
under my arm, when I got in my yet more vandalised, yet
more sorry car which nonetheless still started, all I wanted
was one last word with the widow.
Heart thumping, I drove by. Would I dare to have
knocked on the door? Would I? I'll never know. They were
gone. FOR SALE said the sign, hanging crooked and unconfident
on the fence.
I didn't get out. I didn't even slow down. And then I
heard the siren, saw the lights flashing. I pulled over. The
young officer came cautiously along the side of the car.
His partner stayed with the patrol car. I could hear him,
babbling into his radio.
'Steve,' I said.
But it wasn't and it never would be again, world without
end, amen.

THEY WERE VERY nice to me in the clinic. When I was well
enough to notice I recognised a couple of other customers.
One of the blokes from the men's group, I can't
remember his name but he was the one who put the salt
in the baby's milk.
I saw the vicar who ate the Bible, too. I only saw him
at a distance though. They had him in this special ward
they keep for the truly barking.
I was making progress, they said. I could leave very
soon. This was not necessarily welcome news. I was thinking
it over, on my bed, in my room staring at the ceiling,
when Janice walked in with a bunch of roses.
I stared at her face all frightened behind the flowers.
I was a bit nervous myself, feeling after all this drama what
few social skills I once possessed had dropped out long ago.
But this was not the case. Janice went in search of a vase
while I went in search of my wits and after that it was all
smooth sailing.
MOST MORNINGS I have coffee with John D. Harrington. US Army WW II, Jan 12 1911-Mar 19 1976,
whose grave lies under the pink frangipani tree outside this
pretty cafe which, before she grew too old and her niece
took it over, was run by his widow.
It is the custom on this island that the dead be buried
on family land and as I sit here I naturally think of Marilyn
infinitely alone in the ocean. Of her bones are coral made.
I hope they are. I hope some part of her remains; that sea
nymphs hourly ring her knell. Ding dong.
Sometimes the widow joins me and other
days she doesn't because she feels just too old and tired to
get up from her bed. It is through her the island has gradually
revealed itself to me.
John Harringron and I have something in
common. It is not, as Marilyn would once have suggested,
the shared pursuit of punishing professions which binds us.
What we hold in common is the fact that, for our own reasons,
we neither of us were able to go home again.
I don't know what his reasons were. I barely understand
my own. Treasure Island I feel sure, has had a lot to do with it.
Janice spends part of the year here with me. She doesn't
like the rainy season. She doesn't like the heat. I like it all.
I like the way I will never dig too far beneath the surface of
this place. I can do no good here and, more importantly,
I can do no harm. Sitting out here on the wharf at dawn
when the sea and sky melt together I feel I have become a
decent human being. I feel I could become, at last, in part,
a poet.


The End.