Good Murder Read online

  The circus people left their carriages and started the complicated business of unloading the animals. This would take some time. The good citizens of Maryborough stared at the circus folk with the same fascination they had lavished on the beasts. Here was a species that generated both curiosity and suspicion. All I saw was a group of absolutely filthy men and their equally squalid women. They looked like they shared the same straw as their exhibits and paid no attention at all to the crowd. There was one man — he was obviously the ringmaster, as indicated by his battered top hat — who put a crate on the ground and stood on it.

  ‘Ladies and gentleman,’ he said, in a voice that fell far short of Barnum and Bailey extravagance. ‘The unloading will take some time, but we will be parading the animals through the town to the showgrounds in two hours’ time. Tell your friends, and watch the spectacle pass by.’

  People drifted away. I would have liked to stay to see how they managed to persuade the elephant down from its cage, but Polly wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the mundane workings of the circus. She was there to enjoy the thrill that proximity to a tiger excited. I suspect the frisson produced by proximity to circus people was a drawcard, too. Gypsy lovers with burning eyes were thin on the ground in Maryborough. One of the rouseabouts brushed past us, and the overwhelming impression left by him was not of wild sex but of excrement. Whether it was his own or the elephant’s would be mere speculation.

  Polly didn’t want to go home, and from my short acquaintance with her mother I can’t say that I blamed her. We had a milkshake in King’s in Adelaide Street. I felt silly sitting there, slurping lime-flavoured milk like a teenager. Polly wanted to know about the acting profession. It was thrilling, she said (she really did use the word ‘thrilling’), to be talking to an actual actor. What was it like? Had I ever met Clark Gable? What was Claudette Colbert really like? And James Stewart? Was Cary Grant really that handsome in real life? Were the rumours about him and Randolph Scott true? She couldn’t wait to get home and put all this in her diary.

  ‘I put everything in my diary,’ she said.

  I had to admit that I had never met any of these people. She was surprised and a bit peeved, as if I had brought her to King’s under false pretences, even though it was she who had brought me. It was as if she thought the enterprise of acting dissolved geography and disrupted the laws of time and space to the extent that a conversation with Cary Grant in Hollywood in the morning might logically precede a milkshake with her in a café in Maryborough in the afternoon.

  ‘You look like someone in the movies,’ she said.

  ‘Boris Karloff?’ I raised an eyebrow to indicate the absurdity of the comparison.

  ‘No,’ she said, but not before giving it serious consideration. ‘But someone.’

  ‘Tyrone Power,’ I said and did not raise an eyebrow but brought them together to assist her in the identification. She mustn’t have heard me because, instead of answering, she said, ‘Let’s go to the pictures tonight.’

  I should have declined.

  Polly didn’t want me to walk her home. She said she was visiting someone first.

  ‘It wouldn’t be that Smelt fellow, I suppose,’ I said, unable to disguise the pointless, irrational, and ridiculous jealousy in my voice. As if that spotted oaf represented any kind of competition, however far he had managed to get with Polly. His bumbling country advances, and his doubtless rapid, brutal coupling, learned from observation of horses and dogs, were no match for a man with the poetry of Shakespeare at his disposal.

  ‘Jimmy?’ she said with reassuring dismissiveness. ‘Why would I be calling on him?’

  I didn’t press her further.

  When I returned to the George, I found Sergeant Peter Topaz at the bar, talking animatedly with Bill Henty. Henty was the only member of my troupe I didn’t trust. As an actor he was serviceable, useful because he was willing to slip into a dress if the part required it. This was something Adrian was reluctant to do, which surprised me. I had made the mistake of expressing this surprise soon after his arrival in the company.

  ‘I’m queer, not mentally ill,’ he said. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the great tradition of cross-dressing in the theatre. I didn’t discuss it further with him, but gave those roles to Bill Henty instead. Henty was blind in one eye. When you looked at him, it was clear that there was something peculiar about him. It took a moment to register that one eye was green and the other was brown. The green eye was blind, and he never explained how this came to be so. It didn’t affect him in any noticeable way, and he even drove the truck occasionally. He was no good to the army though. You need two eyes to shoot straight apparently. He was twenty-eight, with thinning, reddish blond hair and an unhealthy obsession with his body. He exercised excessively, seeming to spend every moment away from rehearsals doing press ups and sit ups, and he skipped with the ferocity of a prize fighter. We rubbed each other the wrong way.

  ‘You won’t run away from anything by running on the spot,’ I told him once.

  ‘You’re running to fat,’ was all he’d replied. This, I hasten to add, was not true. I knew the value of mens sana in corpore sano, but I didn’t confuse it with obsessiveness verging on insanity.

  ‘Is that right?’ I heard Topaz say as I entered the bar.

  ‘Too right,’ was Henty’s reply. I presumed they had been talking about me because Henty looked at me with just a flicker of sheepishness, as if he’d been caught out.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you hear, Sergeant’, I said.

  ‘I was just telling Sergeant Topaz here what a fine actor you are,’ Henty said as he rose from his stool. His smug satisfaction at his quick-wittedness filled me with annoyance. He left before I could counter it.

  ‘Sergeant Topaz,’ I said, feigning indifference to Henty’s witticism. ‘What can I do for you, or is this the pub where you drink while you’re on duty?’

  ‘Will,’ he said with studied patience, ‘a little pomposity goes a very long way.’ Topaz ran his fingers across his close-cropped scalp and scratched at his chest between the buttons of his shirt. ‘I’ve done you a favour, and I’d like a favour in return.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. Sergeant Topaz had a gift for catching me on the back foot. I was suspicious of him. Why would a local plod in a small town be interested in doling out favours to an acting troupe? I couldn’t guess at his motivation, unless of course it involved Annie Hudson. That would make perfect sense. Perhaps Topaz fantasised about stepping out with the girl who could provide him with a guarantee of both oral and genital hygiene.

  ‘I said I’d look into the hall rental for you, and I try to keep my word. I spoke to Wrighty, and he’s keen. In fact, he’s not going to charge you a cracker, just tickets to opening night for him and the missus, and one meal a week here. I suggested that, said you’d feel bad unless you could offer him something. I hope I wasn’t speaking out of turn.’

  With discounted accommodation and nothing to pay on the hall, we might break even on this part of the tour.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ I said, and I was happy with the way I uttered it. I think I managed to express gratitude with the hint of an apology for any earlier rudeness.

  ‘Call me Peter,’ he said, and held out his hand.

  ‘Peter.’ I shook it. ‘When can we have a look inside the hall?’

  ‘Monday. Two o’clock. Wrighty’ll be there to give you a key so that you can let yourselves in whenever it’s convenient. It’s no good on weekends, of course. Skating.’

  Topaz thwacked his hat against his thigh and began to head for the door.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ he said, and turned back towards me. ‘There’s a little favour you can do for me. I’ve been asked to emcee the Comfort Fund dance next Saturday night. I hate that sort of thing, standing up in front of people. I thought maybe you could do it instead. It’d
be a good way to get people to know you’re here.’

  ‘What’s involved?’ I asked, but I had already decided that I would accept even if it involved taking my clothes off and hanging from the rafters.

  ‘You know, jollying people along. It’s being advertised as a dance and jollification, so you’d be in charge of the jollification bit. There’ll be two orchestras, the Ambassadors and the Brown Out. Tell a few jokes between sets, let people know when supper is ready, that sort of thing. There might be a raffle, so you’ll run that, too. Try to keep everybody happy so that the air force blokes don’t start any fights.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  The relief on his face was touching. It is astonishing that the thought of public speaking can unman even the burliest of thief-takers.

  ‘Say hello to Miss Hudson for me, will you,’ he said before stepping into the street.

  I met Polly at the Embassy Theatre. I’d wanted to pick her up and walk with her, but she’d refused the offer, saying that it wasn’t far and that she was used to walking places on her own at night. I was standing in the street outside the theatre peering into the darkness in the direction from which I expected her to come. There were people everywhere, but there were no lights, and the Maryborough night was deep. She saw me before I saw her. A man standing beside me lit a cigarette, and the flare from his match illuminated my face briefly. She tucked her arm through mine and said, ‘Don’t you just love the movies?’

  I wanted to say that my love of the movies didn’t really extend to the two pictures showing that night. I was about to endure Cowboy Serenade, a Gene Autry abomination, and something called I Killed That Man, starring the oily Ricardo Cortez.

  The films were appalling, but Polly was enthralled. I wasn’t expecting any intimate explorations under the cover of darkness, but if I had been I would have been disappointed. Polly was engrossed in what was happening on screen. At interval someone called Happy Jack Clark attempted to entertain the full house with tired music-hall jokes. In Maryborough, the movies meant a big night out, and in keeping with the grandeur of the occasion live entertainment and a raffle were de rigueur. This kind of evening seemed to be what most people in this town understood by theatre. The pool of available local talent was neither wide nor deep, as evidenced by Happy Jack Clark’s performance. I thought, as he plodded through his exhausted repertoire, that if I ever ended up doing that for a living, I would appreciate it if somebody shot me. After a few endless minutes he introduced the manager of the theatre, a man named Hennessy. Polly whispered to me, ‘He’s not married to the woman he lives with.’

  ‘How shocking,’ I said, simply because I thought that this was the reaction Polly was looking for. Hennessy was greeted with hoots and cheers, and bizarrely began throwing packets of biscuits into the audience. People leapt from their seats and squealed with delight when they grabbed one, no doubt crushing the contents into crumbs in the process. He then drew the winning ticket for that night’s raffle, and a severe-looking woman stepped up on stage to claim her prize.

  ‘Rigged!’ some wag yelled, and there was general laughter in approval.

  Hennessy took centre stage, and an air of expectancy gripped the first few rows. They were mainly children, and I could see them straining forward. Hennessy reached into his pocket and withdrew a fistful of coins. He scattered them at the foot of the stage, but almost before they had hit the ground the lights went down. There was a mad, hysterical scramble as boys scrabbled about in search of precious threepences and pennies. There was, too, the promise of at least one one-shilling piece. The screen flashed into life outlining the backs of boys still hunting on the floor, and the credits for I Killed That Man rolled. Ricardo Cortez was top-billed. The movie was garbage. Polly loved it.

  Polly let me walk her home when the films were finished. It was late, and with clouds blocking the moon the streets were impenetrably dark and slightly menacing. By the time we’d turned into Richmond Street we were the only pedestrians on the footpath. A few bicycles slid by, but not a single car.

  ‘You look a bit like Ricardo Cortez,’ she said. I disguised the fact that I found this offensive — Cortez looked like a low-rent gigolo — by saying that I felt a bit guilty about leaving the rest of the company to help out with that night’s dinner at the George.

  ‘You’re the boss,’ she said, and yawned. ‘We’re here.’

  We went in at the gate and she suddenly kissed me, tentatively at first and more deeply when she met with no resistance. I drew her tightly to me and let my hand stray across her breast. She pulled away.

  ‘I thought you were a gentleman,’ she said, in a poor imitation of Scarlet O’Hara. To show that she hadn’t really minded, she came back to my arms and drew my mouth down to hers again. I didn’t disrupt the moment by taking further liberties. I would leave that to her. Just as her hand was finding its way inside my shirt, a match sparked into flame on the steps behind us. There was a breeze, and the match flickered uncertainly before the tobacco caught. I was startled, and drew back from Polly’s embrace. The man on the steps sniffed, and I felt Polly’s hand, still resting on my chest, tense.

  ‘Who’s this one?’ he asked, and sniffed again.

  ‘None of your business,’ Polly said sourly.

  She took my hand and pulled me towards the steps. The man didn’t move from his position halfway up, and we had to squeeze past him. On the verandah, Polly said to me, ‘Come inside and have a cup of tea.’

  I was aware that this was an act of defiance directed at the figure on the steps, rather than the expression of a desire to get to know me better. I accepted nonetheless. I’d liked the touch of her hand on my bare skin.

  We headed down a dark corridor with rooms on either side towards a dim, yellow light. A single lamp nudged shadows feebly out of corners. Under it, in an armchair worn with sitting, Polly’s mother sprawled. She was asleep. There was too much furniture in the room, and all of it had seen better days. Polly put her fingers to her lips and indicated that we should pass through into the kitchen. We’d taken a few steps when the front door slammed and Mrs Drummond’s eyes popped open. Before she had a chance to utter a sound, the man entered the room, bringing with him the smell of tobacco and beer. He was dressed in the uniform of the RAAF.

  ‘Fred Drummond,’ he said, smiling now, and pushed his hand towards me. I took it automatically.

  ‘William Power.’

  He leaned towards my ear and whispered, ‘Have you fucked her yet?’

  I was stunned by the casual obscenity, and unnerved by the impertinence.

  ‘What kind of a question is that?’

  ‘My kind,’ he said, and laughed.

  Polly had heard what he’d whispered, but her only reaction was to look at him as if she might spit on him.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, and passed into the kitchen, abandoning me to her brother and her mother. Fortunately, Mrs Drummond had dropped back into a deep sleep.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ Fred asked, and there was something aggressive in his tone, as if he was blaming me for having a name he couldn’t remember.

  ‘Will,’ I said, reluctant this time to offer him more.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, only it sounded like ‘Siddown’. He wasn’t going to lavish the energy required to sound the ‘T’ on me.

  I sat in an uncomfortable chair with arms that were greasy and with an antimacassar that was stained with hair oil. Fred sat opposite me. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and with his hands dangling between his legs. He had big hands. Ugly hands. I watched them twitch, and then moved my attention to his face. He was grinning at me stupidly. He looked about twenty-one, and was clean-shaven and well-groomed. His features were regular, and he might have been handsome except that the muscles in his face were slack. This made him look half-witted.
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br />   ‘You’re in the RAAF,’ I said.

  He looked at his sleeve in mock surprise. ‘Christ. I must be.’

  I ploughed on, reluctantly.

  ‘What branch?’

  ‘Wireless air gunner,’ he said, reasonably. The rapid shifts in mood and tone were disturbing. ‘Just learnin’.’

  His hands gripped an imaginary machine-gun and he directed his fire at me.

  ‘Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,’ he chattered and shook with the gun’s imagined recoil. Mrs Drummond snorted in her sleep, oblivious to the noise around her. Fred turned his weapon towards his mother.

  ‘Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,’ he chattered again.

  Polly came in, carrying a teapot and two cups.

  ‘Where’s mine?’ he asked belligerently.

  ‘Fuck off, Fred,’ said Polly. I suddenly began to feel sick. I wasn’t shocked by Polly’s language but by the hatred in her voice. I felt claustrophobic, as if I had been drawn into a shrinking box where the air hummed with malice. I wanted to get out of there and never return. When Fred leapt suddenly to his feet my blood fizzed in a kind of panic. It seemed possible that terrible violence might erupt here, among the clutter and small-town banalities of ugly knick-knacks and badly composed family photographs. The air was electric. Nothing in fact happened at that point. Fred simply went into the kitchen and got himself a teacup.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Polly said when he was out of the room. ‘He’s not the full quid.’

  I didn’t recognise this Polly. Her face was distorted with the anger and revulsion this house aroused. I could taste her saliva in my mouth, and it was poison.