An Iron Rose (6 page)

We arranged to meet at the pub after knock-off. Dennis brought the album. ‘Take it and copy what you want,’ he said.

‘I could give you some kind of security for it,’ I said.

‘Nah. What kind of bloke pinches old photos? Just bring it back.’

I bought him a beer and we talked about building. Then I drove home and rang Stan.

‘Research,’ I said. ‘Paid for by the hour. I’ve got photographs from the 1930s.’

‘No you haven’t, lad,’ he said. ‘Not yet. Not enough hours.’

Ten minutes into the last quarter, it began to rain, freezing rain, driven into our faces by a wind that had passed over pack ice in its time. We only needed a kick to win but nobody could hold the ball, let alone get a boot to it. We were sliding around, falling over, trying to recognise our own side under the mudpacks. Mick Doolan was shouting instructions from the sideline but no-one paid any attention. We were completely knackered. Finally, close to time, we had some luck: a big bloke came out of the mist and broke Scotty Ewan’s nose with a vicious swing of the elbow. Even in the rain, you could hear the cartilage crunch. Scotty was helped off, streaming blood, and we got a penalty.

‘Take the kick, Mac,’ said Billy Garrett, the captain. He would normally take the kick in situations like this, but since the chance of putting it through was nil, he thought it best that I lose the game for Brockley.

‘Privilege,’ I said, spitting out some mud. ‘Count on my vote for skipper next year. Skipper.’

I was right in front of goal but the wind was lifting my upper lip. I looked around the field. There were about twenty spectators left, some of them dogs sitting in old utes.

‘Slab says you can’t do it,’ said the player closest to me. He was just another anonymous mudman but I knew the voice.

‘Very supportive, Flannery,’ I said. ‘You’re on, you little prick.’

Squinting against the rain, I took my run-up into the gale, scared that I was going to slip before I could even make the kick.

But I didn’t. I managed to give the ball a reasonable punt before my left leg went out under me. I hit the ground with my left shoulder and slid towards goal.

And as I lay in the cold black mud, the wind paused for a second or two and the ball went straight between the uprights.

The final whistle went. Victory. Victory in round eight of the second division of the Brockley and District League. I got up. My shoulder felt dislocated. ‘That’ll be a slab of Boag, Flannery,’ I said. ‘You fucking traitor.’

‘Brought out yer best,’ Flannery said. ‘Psychology. Read about it.’

I said, ‘Read about it?
Psychology in Pictures.
I didn’t know they’d done that.’

We staggered off in the direction of the corrugated-iron changing room. On the way, Billy Garrett joined us. ‘Pisseasy kick,’ he said.

‘That’s why you didn’t want it, Billy,’ I said. ‘Not enough challenge.’

After we’d wiped off the worst of the mud and changed, we drove the hundred metres to the Heart of Oak. Mick Doolan had about twenty beers lined up.

‘Magnificent, me boyos,’ he said. ‘Out of the textbook. And good to see you followin instructions, Flannery. Hasn’t always bin the case.’

‘Instructions?’ Flannery said. ‘I didn’t hear any instructions.’

The outside door opened and the big bloke who’d broken Scotty Ewan’s nose came in. Behind him were four or five of the other larger members of the Millthorpe side, just in case. He came over to Mick.

‘Bloke of yours all right?’ he said. ‘Didn’t intend him no harm. Sort of run into me arm.’ He looked down at his right forearm as if inquiring something of it.

‘Perfectly all right,’ Mick said. ‘Hazard of the game. Nothin modern medical science can’t handle. Won’t be out for more than three or four. Shout you fellas a beer?’

‘Thanks, no,’ the man said. ‘Be gettin back. Just didn’t want to go short of sayin me regrets.’

‘You’re a gentleman, Chilla,’ Mick said. ‘There’s not many would take the trouble.’

After they’d left, Flannery said, ‘There’s not many would have the fuckin front to come around here afterwards. Might as well’ve hit Scotty with an axe handle.’

‘Think positively,’ Mick said. ‘Some good in the worst tragedy. Got the penalty. And we won.’

‘Bloody won a lot easier if you’d play Lew,’ Billy Garrett said. ‘Be the only bloke under thirty in the side.’

I said, ‘Also the only bloke who can run more than five metres without stopping for a cough and a puke.’

Mick took a deep drink, wiped the foam from his lips, shook his head. ‘Don’t understand, do ya lads? Young fella’s pure gold. Do ya put your young classical piano player in a woodchoppin competition? Do ya risk your young golf talent on a frozen paddick with grown men, violent spudgrubbers and the like? Bloody no, that’s the answer. Boy’s goin to be a champion.’

‘Speakin of champions,’ said Flannery. ‘Reckon I’m givin away this runnin around in the mud on Satdee arvos, big fellas tryin to bump into me. All me joints achin.’ He scratched his impossibly dense curly dog hair. ‘Could be me last season.’

Mick’s eyes narrowed. He rubbed his small nose. ‘Last season? That so? Well, Flanners me boyo, get to the Grand Final, I’ll point out a coupla fellas ya can take into retirement with ya.’

I took the next shout. Then Vinnie came in from fighting with the cook and sent the beers around. Flannery’s younger brother came in with the lovely and twice-widowed Yvonne and shouted the room. Things were good in trucking. Other rounds followed. In due course, Mick broke into ‘The Rose of Tralee’ and Flannery’s voice, shockingly deep from the compact frame, joined him. The air warmed, thickened, became a brew of beer fumes, breath, tobacco smoke, cooking smells from the kitchen. The windows cried tears of condensation and my shoulder was healed of all pain. It was after ten, whole body in neutral, when I decided against another drink. I was saying my farewells when Mick put his head close to me and said, ‘Moc, other day. That Ned thing we were discussin. Met the fella today, works on the gate at Kinross Hall. Says Ned was there a coupla days before. Before he—y’know.’

I wandered out into the drizzle, cold night, black as Guinness, smell of deep and wet potato fields. The dog appeared and we found our way across the road. I stopped for a leak beside the sign that said
Blacksmith, All Metalwork and Shoeing
. Flannery had done it for me in pokerwork and it wasn’t going to get him a place in the Skills Olympics. Down the muddy lane the two of us went home, both happy to have a home. Homes are not easy to come by.

The sign saying
Kinross Hall, Juvenile Training Centre
directed you down a country road. Five kilometres further, another sign pointed at a long avenue of poplars. At the end of it, huge spear-pointed cast-iron gates were set in a bluestone wall fully three metres high. Above them, an ornate wrought-iron arch held the words
Kinross Hall
, the two words separated by a beautiful wrought-iron rose. Through them you could see a gravel driveway flanked by bare elms. An arrow on the gate took the eye to a button on the right-hand pillar. A sign said: RING.

I got out of the vehicle, admired the craftsmanship of the iron rose on the arch, and pushed the button. After a few minutes, I rang again. Then a man in standard blue security guard uniform came walking down the drive—moon face, fat man’s walk, not in any hurry.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I’m trying to find about someone who was here about two weeks ago,’ I said.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at the Land Rover and looked back at me blankly.

‘Bloke called Ned Lowey,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I heard about him. He was here. Hold on, tell you when.’ He went off to my right, out of sight. When he came back, he had a black and red ledger, open. He riffed though it, then said, ‘Tuesday 9 July, nine twenty am.’

I said, ‘What was it about?’

Still expressionless, he said, ‘Wouldn’t know, mate. Had an appointment with the director at nine-thirty am.’

‘How do you get to see the director?’

‘Ask. Want me to?’

I nodded.

‘Name and purpose of visit.’

I gave him my name and said, ‘Inquiry about Ned Lowey’s visit.’

He wrote it in the book and went off again. He was away no more than two minutes. ‘Better put the dog in the cab,’ he said. ‘Park in front of the main building. Turn right as you go in the front door. Down the passage. There’s a sign says Director’s Office.’

I opened the passenger window and whistled. The dog jumped onto the cab roof. His back legs appeared, scrambled their way over the windowsill, and then the whole animal dropped into the cab. The guard shook his head and opened the gate.

No inmates were to be seen, only a man on a ride-on mower in the distance. The main building was stone, someone’s house once, a mixture of castle and Gothic cathedral with a hint of French chateau, set in immaculate parkland. It could have been an expensive country hotel but it had the feeling of all places of involuntary residence: the silence, the smell of disinfectant, the disciplined look of everything, the little extra chill in the air.

The secretary was a pale, thin woman in her thirties with very little make-up. Her bare and unwelcoming office was cold and she had her jacket on.

‘Please take a seat,’ she said. She tugged an earlobe. Blunt nails. ‘Dr Carrier will see you shortly.’

It was a ten-minute wait in an upright chair, probably an instructional technique. The secretary pecked at the computer. There wasn’t anything to read, nothing on the walls to look at. I thought about Ned. Had the director kept him sitting here, too? On this very chair? Finally, the secretary received some kind of a signal.

‘Please go through,’ she said.

The director’s office was everything the secretary’s wasn’t, a comfortable sitting room rather than a place of business. A fire burned in a cast-iron grate under a wooden mantelpiece, there were paintings and photographs on the walls and chintz armchairs on either side of a deep window.

A woman sat behind an elegant writing table. She was in her mid-forties, tall, and groomed for Olympic dressage: black suit with white silk cravat, dark hair pulled back severely, discreet make-up.

‘Mr Faraday,’ she said. She came around the table and put out her right hand. ‘Marcia Carrier. Let’s sit somewhere comfortable.’ There was an air of confidence about her. You could imagine her talking to prime ministers as an equal.

We shook hands and sat down in the armchairs. She had long, slim legs.

‘I understand it’s to do with Mr Lowey,’ she said. ‘What a shock. A terrible thing. Are you family?’

‘Just a friend,’ I said. ‘I wonder if you can tell me why he came to see you?’

She smiled, put her head on one side in a puzzled way. ‘Why he came to see me? Is this somehow connected with what happened?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It was about work,’ she said.

I waited.

‘He’d done some work for us before. A long time ago. I confess I didn’t remember him. He was inquiring about the prospect of future work.’

‘You hire the casual workers yourself?’

‘Oh no.’ She shook her head. ‘Our maintenance person does that. But Mr Lowey asked to see me.’ She smiled, an engaging smile. ‘I try to see anyone who wants to see me.’

‘So he was looking for work?’

‘Basically.’

‘He did quite a lot of work here in 1985. Can you tell me why you didn’t use him again?’

She shrugged, puzzled frown. ‘I really can’t say. Lots of people work here. The maintenance person may have had some reason. Then again, we didn’t use many outside contractors from ’86 to ’91. Budget cuts every year.’

I looked out of the window. You could see bare trees, gunmetal clouds boiling in the west. ‘Did you know that he went to the police about something to do with this place?’ I said.

Her eyes widened. ‘No.’ She appeared genuinely surprised. ‘You mean in 1985 or now?’

‘In 1985.’

‘Do you know what about?’

I shook my head.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he certainly didn’t mention anything a few weeks ago. I can’t imagine what it could have been.’

‘You had no inquiries from the police in 1985?’

‘The local police? I’d have to check the records. I can’t recall having anything to do with them.’

‘There wasn’t anyone missing?’

‘Missing?’

I said, ‘I presume some of your charges do a runner occasionally.’

She laughed. It brought her face alive. She was very attractive. ‘They do from time to time, and we notify the Department of Community Services and they handle the business of looking for them. They generally find them in a few days, back in their old haunts.’

‘And you didn’t have one like that in late ’85?’

She clasped her hands. ‘Mr Faraday, I’m happy to answer your questions but I’m not sure what this is about.’

I wasn’t sure either but I said, ‘I had the vague thought that Ned’s death might be connected with something that happened here in 1985.’

She was looking at me in a way that said she had grave doubts about my grip on reality. ‘I’ll find out,’ she said. ‘It’ll take a few minutes. Can I offer you coffee? Tea?’