Eden (6 page)

We shared our impressions of that night, Laura emphasising the affection and sense of responsibility both she and Dollimore had felt for Carmichael, and how, when their paths had crossed in the carpark and they'd recognised one another, they'd admitted they were both afraid that he would die.

When Laura paused for breath, I asked who Carmichael's solicitor was, and she named a well-known firm.

After she'd brought the conversation to an end, I rang the solicitors, and asked to speak to the partner dealing with Eden Carmichael's estate. When she came on the line, I introduced myself, then asked about his will. She told me it was confidential in the kind of voice that suggested she'd be reluctant to divulge the time of day.

I managed to get in one more question.

‘Did he own his flat outright?'

‘Yes, he did.'

. . .

I checked my mail. A message from Lucy warned me not to get side-tracked into the shadows surrounding a drunken politician's ignominious end.

Four

I arrived early for Carmichael's funeral at the Norwood crematorium, which was just as well. By the time I got there, the small chapel was practically full. The West Australian cousin had complained in an interview that the police had held onto Carmichael's body for too long. Now he was being cremated on a hot, windy day.

Spotting a spare seat a few rows from the back, and making for it quickly, I did an inventory of who was there. I recognised the tall cousin at one end of the front row. A woman next to him, wearing a pale-grey suit, might have been his wife, or perhaps another cousin. Two adolescent children and three elderly couples made up all there seemed to be of family. Directly behind them were Carmichael's former colleagues in the Assembly, Ken Dollimore prominent among them. The Chief Minister was noticeably absent. Three female members of the Assembly sat side by side, with an air about them of getting through an ordeal together. I wondered what they'd thought of Carmichael. Everyone I'd talked to so far had agreed that Dollimore was the only MLA he'd been close to in the last few years.

There were no Federal politicians. I checked the backs of heads again, then scrutinised the rows behind me to make sure. If the circum­stances surrounding Carmichael's death hadn't kept away his immediate associates, they had discouraged those with national agendas.

The chapel was air-conditioned, but the heat outside was making itself felt. A woman at one end of the row in front of me shook out a bamboo fan and began waving it slowly in front of her heavily made-up face. A man padded his white handkerchief fussily into a square and mopped his brow. Extra chairs were lined up along the walls.

I found Laura Scott behind the politicians, in a short-sleeved black dress that set off her tan. Dark hair dove-tailed charmingly against her neck. Two rows back from her, Chris Laskaris took off the jacket of his suit and placed it across his knees, then lifted his head in Laura's direction.

Still mourners kept arriving. The small foyer was full. Others stood outside, along the chapel's glass wall, under dark-green awnings. Whoever had decided on the venue had seriously underestimated how many would turn up.

A woman three seats along from me said, ‘Look at that. She's got a hide, I must say.' She'd spoken in the kind of hissing undertone that carries well. Heads turned. Margot Lancaster had joined the congregation at the back.

If she'd heard the insult, then she gave no sign. She kept her head raised, eyes fixed on the coffin. Her skin was paler than the chapel walls, her lips the colour of deeply oxygenated blood. She was dressed entirely in black, her short hair once more resembling a helmet. Whatever else she might be, Margot was a woman who knew how to play a part, and face down the prurient and hostile glances she must have anticipated.

My legs were sweating. I had no one to impress, and was glad I'd had the sense not to get dressed up. Still, Ivan would have laughed if he could have seen me. He didn't understand my interest in Carmichael. In his last email, he'd said he didn't think the pittance Electronic Freedom was paying us was worth the effort.

The service began. The chaplain spoke. A hymn was sung. When Dollimore stood up to give the eulogy, I forgot about the heat.

He began when they were children, boys together, first at primary, then at high school. Chalk and cheese they'd been from the beginning, Carmichael the younger by a few years and always the rebellious one, desperate to buck the system one way or another, while Dollimore had been devout and law-abiding. As adults, they'd gone their different ways, then come together again as political opponents. Ed had done his best for self-government, giving years of his life in service to the Canberra community, both before and after his election to the Assembly. As everybody present knew, they'd had more than their share of teething troubles. It hadn't been an easy time. But Ed had stuck it out. And when his health began to fail—he hadn't given up then, either.

When Dollimore got onto God, my attention began to wander. I supposed it was his day as well as Carmichael's. He was making it his, in any case. As an orator, he wiped the floor with the chaplain, and he knew it. He let his bass voice reverberate just long enough to give each word the right amount of weight. His eyes sought out, and gathered in, now this row, now another. He must have noticed Margot at the back, standing straight and tall. His voice didn't falter at the sight of her, or change its tone. He was too good a performer for that. And his message was not hell and damnation, but forgiveness. He pitied people who ­condemned themselves to living in a world bereft of faith.

A prayer, another hymn, a few words from the cousin, who wisely kept them short, then condolence messages, including one from the Chief Minister. A Bach concerto accompanied the mechanics of the floor opening up, the coffin disappearing into a human fire.

The moment I stepped outside, I noticed a change in the air. Thunderclouds massed over low hills the other side of Mitchell. The sun shining through them was a rich, pregnant yellow. I looked round for Margot, but she'd already gone, probably to avoid the TV cameras. Local politicians emerged in a clump, then quickly made for their cars, all except for Dollimore.

I realised with a start how close the crematorium was to Margot's club. I pictured her driving with the windows down, letting in thick, sweet air that carried the smell of rain, returning to her club to change. Or perhaps she'd keep her suit on all evening, greet prospective clients in her widow's black.

I spotted Chris Laskaris, jacket slung gracefully over one shoulder, looking down admiringly at Laura Scott. He hadn't wasted time. She seemed suitably impressed.

Dollimore was shaking hands with everyone, towering above them, eclipsing the poor show made by Carmichael's relatives. A journalist stood at his elbow writing in a notebook, and two photographers were busy taking shots.

As I watched, Dollimore lifted his prophet's head and gazed solemnly past them, into the intense colours of the approaching storm. It occurred to me that, retirement plans aside, he possessed the kind of energy that strengthened with age, a resilience that derived, at least in part, from his ability to turn any situation to his own advantage; a swell that ran beneath the wave's head, fluid, willed, long-lasting.

. . .

It began to bucket down as I was driving home, a true summer storm. I let Fred in—he was frightened of the thunder—and made myself a kind of high tea to compensate for not having been invited to the wake. I sat with my bare feet on Fred's back, staring out the window. A branch broke off the crab-apple tree and landed on the porch. I wondered if it was raining at the coast. I wondered if Brook's partner, Sophie, had arrived yet. After Brook had gone off in a huff, I wasn't surprised to learn that Sophie had adjusted her holiday plans to fit in a trip to the coast as well. She was visiting her daughter, but due back any day.

From Brook's point of view, it didn't matter that taking Peter to Tasmania had been Derek's idea. Brook hated being reminded that his role as my children's uncle was voluntary, and that biological parents could usurp it any time they chose. Before Ivan left for Moscow, they'd argued over the wisdom of his taking Katya. Brook was worried about Katya getting sick. Ivan, usually patient, had told him that she was
his
daughter. She was going with him and that was that.

I looked forward to catching up with Brook at the weekend, talking things over—already hearing his dry, laconic voice, his way of cutting through the outer layers of a problem. Brook's bone-marrow transplant had been a success, surpassing the doctors' expectations, but no one who was close to him could forget that a recurrence of leukemia might be just around the corner.

. . .

By dusk, the sky was almost clear. I took Fred for a walk across the road. A last storm cloud rolled its golden underbelly over the O'Connor ridge. The sodden grass, the dark grey and yellow of the cloud, seemed like a fanfare that had missed its cue.

Gold spread through the cloud, touching the spears of poplars that lined Sullivan's Creek, vertical to its high horizontal, the last light massy, indiscriminate and yet precise. I thought of the divisions, within and through my city, small ones, cracks in pavements and in people's minds, that were familiar, nondescript, repeated as often as the scene in front of me was repeated, glowing and then gone. I thought of bigger divisions, moral and political, how Eden Carmichael had moved across them, and how that movement might be felt in the air. Just then, Canberra seemed to be a city struggling to give itself some kind of independent life.

But Carmichael was dead. He'd died dressed in a wig and women's clothes, on a bed paid for by the half-hour. In his speech, Ken Dollimore had not once referred to the circumstances of his friend's last hours. His words had run counter to the image I was sure had been prominent in the minds of every person in that chapel. Heart failure, Dollimore had said. An accident. A good man, a good Canberran, cut down in his prime.

Deliberate actions might be dressed up to look like chance. I wished I knew more about Carmichael's secret, or not so secret, life. It was curious that he'd avoided public condemnation for so long. He'd run the risk of scandal and ridicule for years, hanging onto the support of just enough voters to continue in office. Rather than change his lifestyle, he'd courted a second heart attack. I pictured his trousers with the fly undone, the way Chris Laskaris had described them just before his fall, then his blue dress, gorgeous in the last light, and the yellow, soft enhancement of his wig.

. . .

Too restless to spend the evening shut up in my house, I called on Gail Trembath, who'd just returned to work at
The Canberra Times
.

She met me at the door to her flat with a complaint.

‘I'd forgotten Canberra was so bloody
hot
.'

‘You wish you'd never left the tropics?'

‘Hell I do,' Gail said, leading me down a short corridor to her living room, the floor of which was covered with boxes at various stages of unpacking. A desk lamp sat unplugged beside lengths of silk and embroidered tablecloths, which had to be for presents, since Gail would never use them. Her untidiness reassured me. In one respect, at least, she hadn't changed.

‘You should leave this town before it destroys your nasal passages.' Gail made a complicated face, and moved a green case to one side with her foot. ‘In fact it probably already has.'

‘Good to see you too,' I said.

‘I'm serious, Sandy. You're wasting your life here.'

‘Thanks for your concern.'

I looked around the room. Gail's new flat was much the same as the one she'd rented before leaving for Vietnam and Thailand. I wondered whether she'd spend as little time living in it as she had in the old one. Inside the case, still half wrapped in bubble plastic, was a small wooden statue of a phoenix standing on a turtle.

Gail nodded at the shoulder bag that held my laptop. ‘Thinking of doing some work while you're here?'

‘I took it with me to the crematorium, then forgot I'd left it in my car.'

‘Well, I suppose thieves are more active in my street than in other parts of town.' Gail's voice held more than an edge of sarcasm. ‘You know, Sandy,' she went on, ‘ten years ago, I could have got by as a stringer in Bangkok. Now unless you're working for
Time
or CNN—'

There was a sadness in her unfinished sentence. Gail had grown the shell proper to her profession during the time I'd known her. It seemed to have become brittle, thin.

‘Have you got anything to drink?' I asked.

She waved her arm towards an open doorway. I headed for the kitchen, knowing better than to expect her to wait on me.

Her fridge was working, and even had some food in it—tomatoes, lettuce, a container of garlic dip. In the door compartment was a litre carton of milk and another of orange juice. I bent down and found what I was looking for on the bottom shelf.

A drawer held a bottle opener. Glasses had already been deposited in an overhead cupboard. I filled two with beer, handed Gail hers, then raised mine towards it.

‘Welcome home.'

Gail made another face. I waited for her to explain what was upsetting her, then said, ‘I missed you at Eden Carmichael's funeral.'

‘What?'

‘Your colleagues were there, sucking up to Ken Dollimore. Margot Lancaster turned up too.'

‘What's she like?'

‘What she'd
like
is a chance to show she runs a decent business.'

Gail frowned, but looked interested.

‘Would you do an interview with her?'

‘Why me?'

‘You're sympathetic. You know how to listen.'

‘Yeah?'

‘And a good journalist.'

Gail laughed, and said, ‘What makes you think she'd talk to me?'

‘I'll recommend you. How much did Bob Halford pay for the photo of Carmichael?'

‘What makes you think he paid for it?'

Gail put down her glass and began unpacking a box of assorted crockery.

It wasn't all that comfortable standing in the kitchen, but there were no chairs, or furniture of any kind, apart from bookshelves, in the living room. Here at least I had a bench to prop against.

‘If I had a hot picture to sell,' I said, ‘I'd at least offer it to
The Australian
or
The Sydney Morning Herald
.'

Gail pulled out pieces of broken plate and tossed them into a bin. When she didn't answer, I continued, ‘I'm assuming the seller had a personal motive. Revenge comes to mind. Humiliation on home ground. But that's too vague. Something more precise. A personal relationship with Halford maybe. A favour being returned?'

I'd rung the editors of both
The Herald
and
The Australian
and asked them if they'd been offered any pictures of Carmichael in his dress and wig. Both said they hadn't, which was what I'd expected.