Brother Fish (73 page)

Until now, Jimmy had never had anyone in his life to stick up for him or to love and fight for him – except perhaps for Frau Kraus, who had definitely loved him in her own loopy, gobbling-spider sort of way, and I think he'd understood that. But before her it had been the orphanage and afterwards the streets of the Bronx, the reformatory and then the army. There wasn't a hell of a lot of love to share around in that lot. He had a big swag to carry made up of the past, and I'm sure he felt he was being an unnecessary burden to us. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. But I'm buggered if I know how you tell a bloke you love him without making it sound like there's something else going on.

After we sent the package off it was only a question of waiting, which, of course, is always the worst part. We had one big problem – Jimmy's visitor's visa ran out in three weeks and the chance of anything happening in so short a time was pretty forlorn. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had pointed this out to Zara Holt in her slightly revised letter, which, by the way, had been written on the same notepaper as the draft, but with the embossed bit guillotined off. We'd applied for an extension, but of course if Canberra was going to give us the run-around, they weren't going to extend his visitor's visa for another three months.

Then Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan received a phone call from Lady Cross, who told her that Zara Holt had called and thought it best not to write to acknowledge receiving the package but that she had read it with great interest and felt she might be able to set things in motion.

‘What does that mean?' I asked, thinking it sounded like something you did on the dunny.

‘It's newspeak for “roger, out”,' Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan answered, surprising both of us by knowing a radio operator's term for ‘message received and understood'.

I don't know why I was surprised. I mean, I'd known her all my life, only to discover in the last couple of weeks that she'd been born in China, spoke Cantonese, German and French and was a countess – well, probably a countess, she still hadn't told me she definitely was. In fact, she hadn't brought up the subject and I hadn't been game to ask again. If I now suddenly discovered she'd been a secret agent during World War II, sending radio messages to the British about enemy submarines off the coast of China, I shouldn't be a bit surprised. Although, I reminded myself, she'd been on Queen Island during the war.

‘Mrs Holt is nothing if not careful, which, if she decides to get involved, is a good thing.' I sensed Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan was a little disappointed at Zara Holt's response. The fact that she hadn't acknowledged our submission in writing, but instead elected to convey a message on the telephone via the governor's wife, was worrying. It meant she was covering her tracks so there could be no evidence of her involvement if her husband didn't take the bait.

I suspected that half the fun in this women's game of ‘emotional exceptions' was the interplay in the correspondence passing between them. In those days everyone wrote letters to each other – apart from the back fence it was the major source of gossip in the world. Instead, the exclusive women's club was at work, with Zara Holt and Louise Cross playing the game while Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, not yet a club member, sat on the sidelines. I wondered if they'd feel the same if they knew she was a countess, which I was beginning to assume she must be more and more.

Then a good thing from a bad source happened. Jimmy received a letter from Mr Cuffe telling him that Canberra had approved a three-month extension of his visitor's visa. He was to go to the Immigration Office in Hobart with his passport so he could complete the formalities.

The time set for his appointment was mid-afternoon, so he'd have to stay in Hobart overnight. I was due to be demobbed in Launceston, so I decided to stay there while Jimmy did the two-day round trip back to Launceston. Wendy was taking time off and we were going to spend a couple of days at the Walsh family fishing shack.

We took the first plane out in the morning. My discharge from the army was not much more than a question of handing in my uniform and signing a few papers at the personnel depot. A bit of a let-down, really, although it's hard to imagine the army thanking you for being in the service – let alone thanking you for something as trivial as putting your life on the line. Wendy and I hoped to be cycling our way to the shack well before lunch. But when I got into the city and called her, she said there'd been a slight change of plan and that her mum and dad wanted to have lunch with us. Would I pick her up at the chemist, as she was doing a half-day because the temporary girl couldn't make it until the afternoon.

This was pretty unusual, as Dr Kalbfell always had his surgery open until after lunch so that people who wanted to see him could come during their lunch hour. He didn't close until three, and had his lunch then before his hospital round.

‘What's up?' I asked Wendy after I'd kissed her, and we were walking to the Kalbfell home up the hill. ‘What about the surgery?'

‘Dad's cancelled his lunchtime appointments to have lunch with us,' Wendy said.

‘How come?' I asked suspiciously.

Wendy stopped and turned to me, and with her head tilted towards her shoulder, squinting slightly into the sun, she said, ‘It's not him. It's Mum. Well no, it is him
and
Mum.'

‘What about?'

‘Us.'

‘Us? What does that mean?

‘The fishing shack.'

‘What, she doesn't want us to go?'

‘No – what it means.'

‘What it means? It means we're sleeping together. What does your mum think – we go down for the fishing?'

‘Don't be a smart-arse, Jacko! Sure, they know that. It's just . . .'

‘It's just
what
, Wendy?' I said, suddenly angry.

‘Jacko, I love you!' Wendy said, distressed.

‘But they don't think I'm good enough? Is that it? Well, they're damn right – I'm not.'

Wendy grabbed me and put her head on my chest. ‘Jacko, don't say that!' She looked up at me. ‘You do love me, don't you?'

I pushed her away. ‘Oh Jesus, Wendy, how can you even ask?'

She looked at me. ‘Jacko, my dad's going to ask you if you're serious about me.'

It was such a ridiculous understatement about how I felt that I was forced to laugh. ‘Serious? You mean so I'd give my life for you? Indubitably, my dear,' I said, using a Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan phrase, grinning.

Wendy laughed, her mood changing instantly. ‘Then I can have your medal?'

‘All of them – and the one I'm still gunna win rescuing you from the dragon.'

‘Jacko! My mum is
not
a dragon!'

I laughed. ‘You know that's not what I meant.'

She was suddenly serious again. ‘My dad's going to sound pretty pompous.'

‘Wendy, your dad
is
pompous. Most doctors are.'

‘So my mother is a dragon and my dad is pompous. What does that make me?'

‘A vessel full of fire and passion but with an added tincture of rectitude.'

‘Jacko, that doesn't sound like you,' she said, though I could see she was pleased by the compliment.

‘It's the other me, the Jack McKenzie Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan swept from the library floor at the age of eight.'

‘Yes, I've glimpsed him from time to time. Not a bad sort of chap – quite bright, really,' Wendy said, putting on a posh voice and sending me up.

All the same, I was pretty nervous as we approached the house. I'm not sure ‘pompous' was the right word to describe Dr Kalbfell. He was a doctor, and in those days doctors sat at the right hand of God.

Mrs Kalbfell met us at the door even though Wendy obviously had her own key. The door probably wasn't locked anyway, but she must have been keeping an eye out for us because the front door swung open as we came up the garden path. You could see where Wendy got her looks – the doctor's wife was still a good-looking lady. She smiled a little nervously as we approached. ‘Hello, Jacko,' she said, before turning to Wendy. ‘Hello, darling. I'm so glad you could both come to lunch.' She extended her hand to me. We hadn't quite reached the peck-on-the-cheek stage in our relationship.

‘Hello, Mrs Kalbfell, thank you for inviting me,' I replied, taking her hand and shaking it lightly.

Wendy kissed her mum, and Mrs Kalbfell then said, ‘Daddy is in his study. Perhaps you'd like to show Jacko through, darling.' It was all very civilised, but I sensed it wasn't all sweetness and light in the Kalbfell home.

Wendy gave me a sympathetic look, took my hand and led me down the hall, stopping at a door at the very end. ‘Hello, Daddy. I've brought Jacko,' she called out, opening the study door about eight inches.

‘Come in!' Dr Kalbfell called. ‘I'll see you at lunch, Wendy.' He sounded friendly enough.

Wendy gave me another quick look, then kissed me on the cheek and whispered, ‘Good luck.' I entered the study – a reasonable-sized room with a door that led into the surgery that had been built as an extension onto the back of the house. The door to the surgery was open and the two rooms seemed to have spilled over into each other so that the desk in the study and the one in the surgery were both covered in the usual doctor's paraphernalia. There were two leather armchairs in the study and an identical third one in front of his desk in the surgery. The big differences between the two rooms were the basin, the screen that I imagined concealed the doctor's couch in the surgery, and the pictures on the wall. Scottish hunting scenes graced the walls of the study – a perfectly rendered painting of a male or cock pheasant, another of three stags on a hill, one of a gillie knee-deep in grey-green gorse holding up a brace of what were presumably grouse, and lastly a print of a grey hare at full stretch. Hanging in the surgery were two long medical charts showing a male and a female body, the skin missing so you could see all the details – veins and arteries, muscles, heart and intestines. They created the effect of a cold, comfortless and impersonal room. On the wall behind the desk were the two small framed certificates doctors always display to show they're legit. Oh yes, and the carpet on the polished wooden floor in the study was sort of Persian-looking, though at the time I wouldn't have known if it was the real thing, while the surgery floor was covered in blocks of dark-green Feltex.

Dr Kalbfell opened one of the drawers in the study desk and took out a bottle of Scotch and two cutglass whisky glasses. ‘A tot?' he asked, and without waiting for a reply he filled a glass almost to halfway and handed it to me.

‘I really shouldn't, doctor. I'm cycling down to the Walsh fishing shack with Wendy this afternoon.'

‘Doctor's orders!' he said, filling his own glass almost to the top. ‘Cheers,' he said, bringing it to his lips rather too quickly and taking a generous swig, then putting it on the desk with a sigh.
This bloke's a drinker – the way he took the first gulp, you can tell every time
. ‘The fishing shack. Peter Walsh.' Picking both statements out of the air like that gave neither of them any meaning. Mr Walsh had told me how close the two families had become. I began to wonder.

‘Yeah, he's a great bloke,' I said, taking a tiny sip of the Scotch, which wasn't my choice of drink and tasted smoky and harsh.

The doctor took another gulp and plonked his now nearly-empty glass down again.
Pushing it down like that he must be nervous.
‘Look, old man, let's cut right to the chase. The fishing shack – Wendy used to go there with young Harry Walsh. They were
engaged
, you know.'

‘Yes, I know.' He was repeating stuff he must have known I knew – in fact, did know I knew.

‘Well, dammit man, do you think that's right?'

Shit, what's going on here!
‘Right? I don't understand, doctor. Mr Walsh gave us the keys. Bluey Walsh is dead. Is this about a suitable time of mourning?'

‘You're fucking my daughter in that place!' The word sounded obscene and inappropriate. He drained what was left in his glass and then began to pour a second drink.

With my colouring you blush easily, and I could feel my face burning. ‘
Sleeping
with Wendy or
where
I'm sleeping with her, doctor? Which is the problem?' His attack had come so quickly and out of the blue that I was grappling for words. Wendy had warned he was going to ask me what my intentions were. He certainly wasn't beating about the bush.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, now you mention it, her mother and I don't care for either notion.' He held the bottle poised, pointing at me. ‘For godsake, you're not even engaged!'

Here it was at last. ‘Oh, is that all! Providing Wendy agrees, we can rectify that,' I said, relieved.

‘No, no, that's
not
what I mean.' he said quickly. ‘We don't want that to happen.'

‘You and your wife, or Wendy?' I replied, suddenly angry.

At the sound of my voice his own became somewhat mollified. ‘Dammit, man, you have no prospects whatsoever.'