The Gilded Madonna Read online

  I could have cried, but I didn’t. I knew Baxter stood for something else that Harry loved; there was no need to spell it out. I bowed my head and bit my lip until the moment had passed and then spoke quietly, from the bottom of my heart. “Thank you, Mary.”

  “No. Thank you, Clyde.”

  *****

  At the end of our meeting, our agenda complete, we signed off the minutes of the previous meeting, and Billy’s articled clerk—a young man whose name I could never remember—left us. I offered Mary a lift home, but she’d already arranged to have morning tea with some friends in the city before having her hair done at a salon in Double Bay.

  “Billy …” I said, after she’d gone.

  “Clyde?”

  “That doctor you saw after the war, the one who helped you with your anxiety, do you still have the phone number?”

  ‘Is it that bad, Clyde? You seemed to have been relatively calm of late.”

  “I had one of those dreams again, Billy. You’re the only one who knows. I never told Sam what they were about, but you were there.”

  He sighed and then stretched his head back, stroking the base of his throat with two fingers. “I’ve managed to block it out, Clyde. I was there for five days sorting out those who could be saved and those who couldn’t. I don’t know how you survived three years of it to be honest.”

  “You know I don’t like to talk about the war. None of us do. But I feel so angry of late, my emotions are running high, and I’ve found myself doing and saying things that seem to come out before I can stop them, losing my rag at the least provocation—”

  “It’s because you’re in love,” he said. The pain in his eyes as he spoke those words saddened me beyond description. He’d been in love with me himself since we’d first met in the desert campaign in North Africa, but although I’d loved him in my own way, I’d never fallen in love with him—there’s a huge difference.

  “Billy, you know I—”

  “Stop, Clyde. I only said it because it’s the truth. Your emotions are running high, and it’s allowed stronger stuff to re-emerge from that hole of despair we all carry around inside ourselves. I never saw anything as bad as when we liberated your camp at Macerata, apart from the movies of the Nazi death camps that is. I didn’t live through it for three years like you did. It’s bound to stick its ugly head up now your feelings are running free and bite you in the bum when you least expect it.”

  “I suppose …”

  He pulled his Rolodex across his desk and flipped through it. “I’m glad you asked me, Clyde. It shows you trust me.”

  “I was angry, Billy. The only trust issue I had was with Sam—”

  “Here, take this. It’s the only number I have. Tell the receptionist or the nurse that I gave it to you. There’s no pills or quack treatment to take away the past, Clyde. The doctor lets you talk, sits back and listens and then helps you understand why you feel the way you do.”

  “Thank you, I mean it.”

  “And by the way, Clyde. You know I’m always here for you, and I hope you’d be there for me too if I ever needed it. There are things I simply can’t talk about with Sam, and I’m sure it’s the same with Harry. Now, apart from needing someone to talk to about your feelings, there’s something else on your mind, isn’t there? I know you far too well.”

  I nearly didn’t speak, but then I saw the picture on his bookcase of him and me in Italy in our dress uniforms on the day I was to meet the King of Italy and to be presented with my minor commendation. We had history, Billy and me.

  “Remember that case three years ago? It was when Sam was laid up with a broken leg—it was the only investigation I’d ever done where I ran into brick walls no matter which way I turned. I remember moaning to you one night at that cheap Italian eatery down in Woolloomooloo about not feeling fit for a real detective to wipe his shoe on.”

  “The murders of those queer men?”

  “Yes, I called it the Silent Cop case.”

  “I remember. What about it?”

  “Well, it seems he’s turned up again. Killed a young army bloke in the men’s lavatory at the back of the grandstand in Coogee Oval, right opposite my house, late on Friday night or in the early hours of Saturday morning.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he said.

  “She had nothing to do with it, Billy. But I have this dreadful feeling we’re in for another string of murders.”

  *****

  I’d parked my car in the laneway off Phillip Street right next to the building in which Billy had his legal practice.

  I lit a cigarette and leaned against the brickwork at the corner of the building, thinking about what both Mary and Billy had said. Why hadn’t Harry told me he’d already spoken to his parents about us going away for the new year? I knew he was probably keeping it for a surprise and then after one glass too many, I’d done what I always seemed to do—I’d spoken about things I’d been obsessing over, like an idiot, and probably hadn’t listened to him. It had ended up in a fight and he’d left angrily, leaving me wondering what I’d done. Of course, that was the way I operated. Good old “kick the door down and go in with guns blazing” Smith, as my father used to call me.

  I walked down to Martin Place and then used one of the telephone cubicles in the foyer of the Australia Hotel.

  “Hello, Tom, it’s me. What’s happening?”

  He informed me there’d been two walk-ins that morning, and he’d made up a list of possible investigations he thought he might be able to manage by himself—things I’d put on the back burner because I didn’t really like infidelity cases, or recovery of debts, that sort of thing. I told him I’d pick something up for lunch for us and I’d be in at around noon. “Is Harry there?” I asked, just before I was about to say goodbye.

  “Hang on, Clyde, I’ll patch you through.”

  “Harry Jones speaking.” I guess Tom had sensed there’d been some sort of atmosphere and hadn’t told Harry it was me on the phone.

  “I love you, Harry Jones,” I said.

  “What? I can’t hear you?”

  “I said I love you!” I shouted it so loudly that a woman who was walking past the booth turned to look at me. She smiled and moved on.

  “We need to talk, Clyde, and if you say sorry once more, I’ll hang up in your ear.”

  I chuckled. “Your mother told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “About being banished from home for three days a week.”

  “Oh that? Yes, I thought I might take a few train trips, maybe book in at the Hydro Majestic, spend some time by myself hiking in the bush …”

  I could hear the smile in his voice. “Just promise me something, Harry,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The moment I go to pour a third glass of wine without eating something, can you pick it up and pour it over my head?”

  “What, the glass, or the rest of the bottle?”

  “The wine. Break the bottle over my stupid noggin.”

  “You have way too many ghosts hiding under your bed, Clyde.” I heard movement at the end of the line. There was a long extension cord on his desk telephone. I knew he’d moved into the storeroom at the end of his office. “I love you even for those.”

  I felt something crack in my chest. It wasn’t the result of the surgery I’d had earlier in the year, it was my heart twitching at what he’d said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel I was good enough for someone like Harry, but it was moments like this I blessed the day I’d opened my front door and found him standing with his back to me and his hands in his trouser pockets. He’d turned around and had taken off his straw Stetson, holding out his hand. “Harry Jones,” he’d said. “You must be Clyde Smith. Sorry, was daydreaming.”

  “Harry, I’ve decided to see someone about those ghosts under my bed. Billy’s given me the number of the doctor who sorted out his inner demons after the war and I intend to get some help. I’d rather we didn’t go into it, because it’s going to tak
e me the most enormous amount of courage, and I think if I start to share my fears, I’ll chicken out.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Clyde. Okay, agreed, no talk of the head-shrinker.”

  I laughed. “I’m going to pick up lunch for we three. What do you fancy?”

  “Stones milk bar had a sign out on the street this morning when I got off the tram. Vienna schnitzel sandwiches for one and sixpence.”

  “The world’s coming to Coogee!” I said. “I’ll pick up a few for us, and I’ll see you around twelve.”

  “See you then, Clyde.”

  I sat with the phone off the hook after he’d hung up, just listening to nothing but the crackle of the line. I still believed he was too good for me, but I was determined to do something about it. I replaced the receiver and then retrieved the business card Billy had given me. I dialled the number he’d scrawled on the back.

  “Hello, Dr. De Natalis’s office.”

  “Good morning. My friend William Tancred suggested I should contact Dr. De Natalis. I’d like to make an appointment.”

  “I put you through. Dr. De Natalis is free at the moment.”

  “I—”

  “Giuseppina De Natalis speaking.”

  I was less astonished that the doctor was a woman than to hear her thick Italian accent.

  *****

  Clarrie’s son was where I expected him to be: in the wine bar at the bottom of Coogee Bay Road, drinking a long glass of port and lemon.

  The place stank of piss. Not because anyone had spilled their bladder on the floor, it was just the smell of old men who drank far too much fortified wine. There was something acrid about the smell. Nearly everyone, except Clarrie junior, had an enlarged, veiny, reddened nose. I’d been told it had nothing to do with alcoholism, but it seemed very common among those who were too fond of the grog. There were half-a-dozen men, either sitting at the bar or in the booths opposite it, not much unlike each other, smoking and staring into glasses of ruby port or deep-gold sweet sherry.

  “Can we go out the back please, Mr. S.? I don’t want these blokes thinking I’m working for you.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore, and if anyone asks why I’m here, tell them your dad’s gone home for a bit and I’ve come to give you my bets for Wednesday’s Goulburn Cup race at Randwick.” I handed him a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “The blasted bets, you dolt. Now go outside, I’ll come out in a moment.”

  “If you hear the sound of thumps from out the back, just ignore them,” I said to the bartender after the lad had closed the door into what passed for a courtyard. “Young Mister Toolidge might just get a slap around the chops.”

  “Right you are, Mr. Smith. Give him one or two for me,” the bar­tender said with a wry smile.

  Instead, I gave Clarrie’s son two quid and then offered him one of my smokes. “You left a message in my letter box at home this morning?”

  “Yeah. Followed your copper bloke after he knocked off work, but didn’t see much until Sunday. That old fella he lives with is a right prick, Mr. S.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They was in the backyard hanging out the washing—well the copper was. The old bloke was sitting on a bench with a bottle in his hand and seemed to be yelling at him and telling him how to peg the clothes. Made him take one or two down and then hang them back up again. That’s what it looked like anyway.”

  “Where did you see this from?”

  “There’s a block of flats two doors down the street. I went up the back steps and watched around the corner of the incinerator chimney. Anyways, after a bit, the copper drops a tea towel he was hanging out and the old fella jumps up as quick as you please and starts to lay into him with a long piece of galvanised pipe.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, right savage, too. Your sergeant fella, he was on the ground with his hands up and everything and the old geezer’s whacking into his back and kicking him in the arse. Then he grabs a handful of his hair at the back of his head and spits in his face.”

  “How long did this go on for?”

  “Bit longer than a minute I suppose.”

  “Just how far away were you again?”

  “Had me dad’s army binoculars, Mr. S. I’m not stupid.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Nope. The old fella—you said he was his grandfather?—grabs him by the scruff of the neck and boots his backside into the house.”

  “Jesus!”

  “There’s more though.”

  “Go on …”

  “I ran downstairs and then climbed over their fence—first thing I noticed about their house was all the blinds were drawn. I don’t know what the old man was doing to your mate, but the copper was screaming his head off. ‘No! no!’ over and over again, and sobbing and yelling in-between times. I could hear the whacks outside the window. Sounded like a razor strop … I’m not unfamiliar with that sound, Mr. S. But my dad never laid into me that hard ever—neither did I howl so much with the pain and the fear of being thrashed. Made me come over quite bad for a while.”

  *****

  The girl behind the counter at Stones milk bar was new, so was the chalkboard up high behind the counter. I knew where she was from before she even opened her mouth. All the sevens of the prices on the specials’ menu had a short line crossed through them in the continental way. But it was her tightly braided blonde hair that gave it away.

  When she took my order and then stuck her head into the kitchen, I couldn’t help but hear her soft, “Dreimal Wiener Schnitzel, Schatzi!”

  When she returned and saw the look on my face she asked if I was all right. I couldn’t look her in the eye, but nodded mutely and then sat down at a bench, trying to get hold of myself.

  German immigrants were relatively new to the country. When I glanced at her again, I realised she was not much more than a teenager. I gave her a wan smile, and she tipped her head to one side, as if wondering whether she should speak. “You must be very hungry, for three sandwiches,” she said in thickly accented English.

  “They’re for three of us; one each. My two friends are at work and I’m taking back our lunch.”

  “Ah!” she said and then nodded. She went to the kitchen door and again spoke softly but not so softly that I couldn’t hear. “Machen Sie die ruhig groß, sie sind für drei hungrige Männer …”

  A tousled blonde head came into view and kissed her cheek. He smiled at me and then went back into the kitchen to make “extra big sandwiches that were for three hungry men”.

  After about five minutes, the young man brought our sandwiches from the kitchen, neatly wrapped in white butcher’s paper, and smiled at me again. Despite me not wanting to, I found it impossible not to see him dressed in Feldgrau, and my gaze instinctively flicked to his shoulder to check his insignia. Even after all these years, the sound of the German language scared me … no that’s not right, it terrified me.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Smith?” Ralph, the owner of the milk bar, had appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron.

  “You bet, thanks,” I said and then took the brown paper bag I’d been offered with our lunch in it. “Looking forward to eating these.” I smiled at them both. It was hard to ignore the pride on the young man’s face. Maybe he was proud of his sweetheart, or maybe I’d been the first to order schnitzel sandwiches today, I wasn’t sure. But his look was kind, nothing like anything I’d ever seen from the Germans who’d “looked after” me.

  “I hope you like them,” he said brightly and then held out his hand. “Gerd is my name, and this is my wife Liesl. I put some sliced tomato and … Was ist das englische Wort für Mayonnaise?” he asked, turning to his wife.

  “Mayonnaise,” I blurted out. “It’s the same.”

  I’d almost spoken in German. We’d learned enough to say simple things. We’d had to, the guards had spoken no Italian and had refused to speak in any other language to us but their own.r />
  “Ah,” the young man said, obviously unwilling to ask how I’d understood. There’d probably be no end of Australians who’d fought his parents’ generation in the last war. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and smiled. “I hope to see you again, Mr. Smith.”

  “I’m sure you will, Gerd, Liesl.”

  I handed over six shillings and then when she went to give me back the change, I shook my head and pointed to the Legacy tin on the counter.

  “I’m sorry, Clyde,” the owner said to me, accosting me outside on the street. “They weren’t to know.”

  “It’s eleven years since the war, Ralph. All of us need to grow up and try to get on with our lives. They must have been kids back then. Perhaps they had their arses handed to them on a plate by British and American bombers while crouching in a cellar somewhere? Maybe their parents were killed, or shot by Russians, or even our blokes.”

  “Jeez, I wish I could think like you, Clyde. I can’t even talk to Chinese people, just in case they turn out to be Japs.”

  I sniffed my lunch bag. “Well this smells terrific and if it tastes as good as it smells, tell them I’ll be back. We need to move on, my friend. I don’t know how the hell some of us will be able to, but we all need to try.”

  *****

  “It would explain why he’s the way he is,” Harry said, after I’d told him what Clarrie’s son had reported about Dioli and his grandfather.

  “It makes me feel like shit, to be honest, now I understand. I’d find it hard to believe a beating like that was a one-off thing. Those sorts of abusers go on forever. Dioli’s probably been pummelled since he was a kid. Why else would a grown man put up with it?”

  “Probably had the same in his orphanage, Clyde. I served with any number of blokes who were brought up on those homes. The stories they used to tell me. Staffed by sadists and child molesters mostly.”

  “Poor bastard. I’d probably be a cranky belligerent arsehole too …”

  “What makes you think you’re not?” he asked, kissing the side of my neck. Tom had gone to get milkshakes to go with our lunch—I’d been so shaken at meeting the two Germans at Stones milk bar, I’d completely forgotten to order something to drink to go with our food. It was only when I’d walked into my office that I’d realised my mistake.