The Gilded Madonna Read online

  “Are we eating in or out?” Harry called from the bathroom. I was still supine on one of the twin beds in our room. He’d exhausted me. I wasn’t complaining, just feeling every day of my thirty-six years of age.

  “Jancsi gave me the address of a Hungarian restaurant down in Little Collins Street.”

  “What?”

  “I said—”

  “Can’t hear you!”

  It was another of his games. The shower stall in the bathroom was big enough for five, and he wanted me to join him, not lay flat out on my back on the bed like a lizard stretched in the afternoon sun.

  “I said, Jancsi—”

  “I heard you,” he said with a face-splitting grin as I opened the shower stall door. “I just got lonely.”

  I angled myself behind him and rested my head on his shoulder. “You get lonely after five minutes?”

  “Hungarian, huh?”

  “We did a lesson at my night class once, but I could never source the ingredients. It was very tasty.”

  “Would I like it?”

  “Harry Jones, you like anything that’s edible.”

  “True,” he said and then turned me in his arms. “You’re edible.”

  “Aren’t you full?”

  “You’re being dirty again, Smith.”

  “Who me?” I tried my hardest to sound innocent. I always failed.

  “Okay, scrub my back,” Harry said between kisses. “I’ll put in a reservation when I get out of the shower. What time?”

  “Say seven? I want to write an article about the water polo match and see if the Mirror will give it a page two.”

  “That newspaper sees you as their food and film reviewer, Clyde. Do you think a sports piece—”

  “It won’t be about the sports, Harry. I want to write about people, ordinary people, in whom violence is hovering just below the surface. I know it finished eleven years ago, but for men like you and me, the war still rages on inside. We saw it out there at the aquatic centre. All it takes is—”

  “A bit of a nudge in an excited, charged atmosphere and then—”

  “The fists start flying. That’s what I want to write about, Harry. Not the new post-catastrophe age we pretend to live in, but the legacy we who served, and those of us who lost loved ones, still carry with us, deep down inside.”

  “Crickey, Clyde. A lot of people won’t like to read about their buried demons. But I think you’re on the money; it needs to be said.”

  “I just write about stuff I feel.”

  “What are you doing down there, Clyde?”

  “Feeling stuff I’d like to write about.”

  “Is pornography your new calling?”

  “I didn’t bring a pornograph with me,” I mumbled into his mouth.

  He had the good humour to laugh, especially when I started to use both hands and the bar of soap.

  My article could wait. No doubt dinner at seven would be fine, but for the next few hours I knew I’d be at the mercy of what Harry Jones wanted me to do … again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “This is plush,” Harry said.

  “Too right,” I replied. “How much did this cost?”

  “I’m paying, Smith. It’s an early Christmas present.”

  The first-class compartment of the Melbourne to Sydney Daylight Express had been updated to nineteen-fifties modern. Air-conditioning, a lot of chrome, Australian native wood panelling, and an enormous picture window with a venetian blind. I’d read the old Spirit of Progress carriages had been kept after the steam train had been retired a few years ago, but were now drawn by a diesel engine. However, that particular service ran later in the day and didn’t pull into Sydney Central station until nearly midnight.

  We’d arrived at Spencer Street station at quarter past seven to find our luggage had already been delivered by the hotel. It felt faintly ridiculous being shown to our compartment by a liveried steward and then immediately asked if we’d like a pot of tea. This morning’s Melbourne newspapers were placed neatly on one of the bench seats.

  “When is the dining car open for breakfast?” Harry asked, even before removing his hat.

  I almost laughed. We’d had a continental breakfast delivered to the room before our taxi had arrived to bring us to the station. Harry had been in seventh heaven on our trip down from Sydney. He’d never done a long train journey on which there’d been a proper restaurant car with all the bells and whistles.

  “As soon as the train leaves the station, Mr. Jones,” the steward replied. “Your table number is the same as your compartment number. Just let the carriage attendant know when you’re making your way to the dining car so he can lock the door when you leave.”

  “Do you have any Sydney newspapers by chance?”

  “I have yesterday’s Telegraph, the Mirror and the Sydney Morning Herald.”

  “Do you think—”

  “We’re already prepared for you, Mr. Smith,” the man said, reaching into a pocket in the back of the compartment door. “The concierge at the Windsor telephoned the station earlier this morning to make sure these were here for you to read. I hope you don’t mind, but I had a quick peep at the Mirror myself. Your review of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was fascinating to read.”

  “Today’s Herald not here yet?”

  “It will be available when you transfer onto the NSW service at Albury/Wodonga, sir.”

  It was 1956 and travellers were still obliged to change trains as they crossed State borders. If felt vaguely ridiculous that every State not only had its own laws but still had its own rail gauge. I knew there were plans to run a unified rail link between capital cities, but even now, in the middle of our so-called post-war prosperity, the plans were still in the heads of engineers and the decisions to go ahead in the hands of Federal politicians—a guarantee that we wouldn’t see such an important thing come to pass for years.

  I glanced at my watch. Half past seven—fifteen minutes before the train was due to depart.

  “Hungry?”

  “No, Harry. Just wondering how much time I had before you galloped down the corridor to the chaff bin.”

  He’d taken off his shoes and had his feet up on the seat next to me.

  “Chaff bin, Clyde?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know where you put it.”

  He wrinkled his nose at me and then glanced quickly into the corridor before running his stockinged foot over my calf and onwards up into my crotch for an instant. I smiled and ignored him, opening the Mirror to look for my review.

  “Wow!” I said. They’d printed not only my theatre review but also my cinema review of The Man Who Never Was. It was the first time they’d published two of my reviews in the same edition. If I knew the editor, I’d find a letter from him when I got home in which he’d be angling to pay me a discount fee.

  “It’s gruesome,” Harry said.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s gruesome?”

  “Those kids are still missing. Someone stole one of the mannequins from outside your old workplace.”

  I pulled down the top of the newspaper. The Sydney Morning Herald was the only newspaper in our town that still published in broadsheet format—the rest were tabloid—and it covered his face.

  “What?” he said.

  “What kids, what mannequin?”

  “Clyde, you need to read more than your own articles in the newspaper, you know—the Bishop kids.”

  “Has some new clue come to light? I thought those children had been missing for months now, and the police had done everything humanly possible to find them.”

  “They disappeared in late September. It’s not that long ago.”

  “Sorry. Yes, I remember reading about it when it happened, but it wasn’t long after we’d got back from Tasmania, Ray Wilson had arrived from Singapore at the same time, and we’d started working on the evidence for the Special Crown Prosecutor, and, as you’re so fond of telling me, I’m no longer with the police force, so—”

&
nbsp; “They dressed two mannequins in copies of the clothing the children were wearing when they left the house to go to the shops for their mother. It’s to jog people’s memories. Well, the model of the young boy was stolen from outside the police station.”

  “When was this?”

  “Day before yesterday, on Saturday. They put the mannequins outside on the street at nine in the morning and then a woman reported to the desk sergeant that she’d stopped to have a look at them on the way to the greengrocer, and when she’d passed by on her way home twenty minutes later, she noticed the boy’s statue had gone.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Yeah, why would someone only take one statue? I don’t get it, Clyde.”

  “No, that’s not what’s odd, Harry. Why would she report it missing? I mean, they could have been doing anything with it inside—adjusting a piece of clothing for example. Did they mention the woman’s name?”

  Harry shook his head at me over the top of the newspaper and at the same time gave me “that” look. The one I was now used to that said, “keep your nose out of this, Clyde, you’re not on the police force any longer”.

  I went back to reading my reviews, double-checking the copy editor hadn’t slashed and burned the best parts of my prose, but I couldn’t get the strangeness of the reported incident out of my mind. I’d bet a fiver the desk sergeant hadn’t bothered to ask the woman for her details. My old workplace had gone to pot since I’d left, and after that, more recently, when Sam Telford, my ex, had put in a transfer request and had gone to work at the station in Double Bay, no one seemed to be running the shop.

  I was about to ignore Harry’s unspoken reprimand when the station master blew his whistle right outside our window, his flag in the air. The train gave a small lurch and then we started to roll out of Spencer Street station.

  “Bye, bye, Melbourne,” Harry said. “Hope to see you again soon.”

  He peered out the window, waving to a small group of children who must have been on the platform to bid farewell to someone else on the train.

  “Now, breakfast, Clyde. You coming or what?”

  He was almost out the door before I could answer.

  *****

  I ran through my diary, checking I had my dates right for the movies, the plays, and the sporting events we’d seen while we’d been away.

  The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll—I’d missed seeing Ray Lawler’s play when it had opened in Sydney and I’d only read good things. But as an Australian man who’d grown up during the Depression and then who’d fought afterwards in the war, what I hadn’t been prepared for was how close to the bone it had been. The nostalgia had been bittersweet, and not in a good way. Harry and I, although we’d had completely different experiences during the war, had both felt the same. It was a cracker of a play about us, we Australian men of the same vintage as the protagonists in the story, and it hurt like buggery—but I’d loved the pain because of its truth.

  “Still gloating over your review?” Harry teased.

  “Nah, I was just checking my notes. The food at the Hungarian restaurant was better than what we made at night school. The fish soup, the … what’s this, Harry, I can’t read my own writing.”

  He smiled when I handed him my diary. I’d written “I love you” with my red pencil next to the name of the soup: Halász Leves.

  “I hope you can find the recipe. Mother would love it. There must be an Hungarian community in Sydney … we had so many refugees from eastern Europe after the war. Leave it with me, Clyde. I’ll put finding the paprika and some of that spicy sausage for the layered egg and potato dish on my list.”

  I held out my hand for my notebook, but he read out my phonetics for rakott krumpli in a way that sounded pretty spot on. He had a better ear for languages than he let on.

  “Did you know that one of the queens of Hungary was Italian?” I asked.

  “No I didn’t. That’s something else I’ll look up when I get home.”

  “I read somewhere she was responsible for all the tomato and paprika in Hungarian food. I tell you what, though, my friend, I’m going to miss all of those amazing Italian restaurants in Lygon Street. Just a tram ride from the hotel and the best authentic food I’ve had since I left to come home in forty-six.”

  “The highlight for me, other than the oxtail stew you said was too rich for you at the hotel, was lunch nearly every day at Pellegrini’s in Bourke Street.”

  I smiled. He’d been so understanding. I’d been in my element, chatting with waiters and customers in Italian. I missed that regular connection with a country that, despite the terrible times I’d had in the P.O.W. camp, I’d adopted as my second home. He’d not protested once when I’d had long conversations in a language he didn’t understand. I’d apologised, but he’d said it was only fair. On our second day in Melbourne he’d taken me to catch up with friends of his from the war, when he’d been stationed just outside the city, trying to break the Japanese naval code. They’d shared jokes and stories I’d have loved to have known more about, but hadn’t wanted to intrude into their personal space or poke my nose into history they’d shared, and of course that might have caused some embarrassment and evasion as a large part of it was most likely still top secret.

  The dining car steward had been extremely attentive and the breakfast delicious. I’d really only gone to keep Harry company while he ate, but I’d changed my mind when a cart had arrived next to our table and a fully garbed chef had whipped up Harry’s scrambled eggs while we’d watched. I’d found myself saying “yes please” when the man had asked if I’d like the same. Even the coffee, although percolated, was very good.

  “Can I get you anything else, gentlemen?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Harry replied. “Is it all right to smoke? There are other diners still eating.”

  “Smoking in the dining car is perfectly acceptable,” the steward said as he cleared our table. “If you’d prefer to stretch your legs, there’s a lounge in the next car towards the engine.”

  Harry looked over his shoulder and enquired of the young lady sitting at the table behind us if she had any objections to him lighting up. I watched as they laughed and exchanged a few words. He had a way of engaging with strangers they always responded well to. I could see she was flirting, and her mother, sitting opposite, started to look impatient, so I tapped his shin with my shoe under the table.

  “What was that for?” he asked, leaning over the table as he lit his cigarette.

  “I think that young woman’s mother was about to box your ears.”

  “You’d have saved me though, wouldn’t you, Clyde?”

  We decided against the lounge car and headed back to our compartment, where we found a pair of blankets and a few pillows on the bench seat, right next to the door. On the top of the stack was a small card, on which was a printed message that stated if we wished to catch up on some sleep, we should press the buzzer and the carriage attendant would turn down the seats and make up beds.

  “What do you reckon, Clyde?”

  “I think I’ll pass. But I might pull the blinds and rest my head on your lap while I read for a while.”

  “I can take my pants off?”

  “While I’ve got my head in your lap?”

  He picked up his newspaper and winked.

  *****

  At precisely two minutes past nine o’clock in the evening, our stream­lined express train drew into the platform of Sydney’s Central Station.

  “Well, aren’t you getting up?” I asked Harry, who’d still not put his shoes back on.

  “I forgot to tell you when we changed trains at Albury, the carriage attendant told me we should wait for a few minutes before we got off and our baggage would be waiting outside the carriage door.”

  “How magic is that! Is it going to run down the platform and do cartwheels in anticipation of us getting off the train?”

  “Funny, Smith. A porter will bring it.”

  I smiled at his
ironic tone, and then retrieved his hat from the rack above our seats and threw it to him. He’d lost his new Stetson during the scuffle at the aquatic centre, and we’d made a trip to the famous Melbourne store in Flinders Station, the City Hatters. He’d left with three new hats, including a very spiffy new model from the USA, called the “Airflow”—woven straw with a very natty, folded-linen band.

  “I bet the line for the taxi will be enormous,” he said.

  “Nope, it won’t.”

  “Crystal ball gazing again is it, Clyde?”

  I chuckled. “Philip Mason is picking us up.”

  “Philip?”

  “Yes, you remember Philip, the guy you used to—”

  “I know very well who he is, and that’s enough out of you, Smith.”

  “I sent him a telegram this morning from the hotel, asking him to pick us up.”

  I knew Philip’s evening radio show finished at half past eight and his studio at 2GB was not far from the train station. Philip was one of a group of four guys Harry used to fool around with. They were all mates who’d served together in Singapore before it fell. Philip was also the lover of one of the junior detectives who’d worked under me when I was still in the force, a young Italian man, Vincenzo Paleotti, who’d become my friend. Although Philip was married, it was what we called a “lavender marriage”. His wife had a special lady friend who was a milliner in the city, and the cover of a marriage of convenience suited him and his spouse.

  I was only slightly surprised to find Vincenzo, or Junior T. as he was known in the force, waiting for us outside on the platform.

  “Hello, Vince,” Harry said. “Where’s Philip?”

  “I volunteered, Harry. Nice to see you both.” He shook Harry’s hand, but gave me an Italian hug, with kisses to both cheeks.

  *****

  I kissed Harry slowly outside his front door, my arms around him and my fingers interlaced, resting on the small of his back.

  “Do you remember this spot, Clyde?”

  “Uh huh,” I replied. “It’s right here behind the hedge in the shadows when you told me you’d wait for me.”