Matthew Flinders' Cat (20 page)

Suddenly Billy brought his right hand up to his mouth. Gripping between his teeth the edge of the sticking plaster holding the drip needle into the vein, he ripped it off, spitting it out on the bed. Then he did the same to the wing of the butterfly needle and pulled it from the vein, wincing at the sting as the needle withdrew. Somewhat to his surprise, no bleeding followed and all that was left was a small haematoma where the drip had been inserted.

He climbed from the bed and, stooping down, lifted the curtain surrounding his bed so that he could see under the bed opposite. To his joy, the Cuban boots had been placed back under the bed with the battered Akubra on top of them. He heard a cough followed by a groan from the bed above the boots. Wherever he’d been, Williams had returned.

Billy could hardly believe his luck and his hand trembled as he rummaged inside the briefcase to locate the roll of banknotes. He quickly shoved the money into his pyjama jacket and parted the curtains, taking the two steps required to reach the next bed. ‘Mr Williams, may I come in?’ he asked politely, his voice gravelly as if his throat contained phlegm.

No reply came from the other side of the curtain. Billy cleared his throat, which felt dry and raspy. ‘Hmmph! Mr Williams, may I see you, please?’ he tried again.

‘Who’s there?’ the voice on the other side of the curtain demanded.

‘It’s Billy, Billy O’Shannessy.’

‘Who? I don’t know no Billy!’ Williams started to cough but Billy couldn’t retreat now, he wasn’t going to let the Aborigine escape a third time.

‘From the pub, I was with Casper, Casper Friendly, the albino bloke, you may recall.’ There was silence from the other side of the curtain and after a few moments Billy said, ‘I have good news.’

‘Bugger off, yer mongrel, I got nothin’ ter say ter your sort!’ Williams started to cough again and Billy, taking his courage in his hands, parted the white curtain. Williams was in a paroxysm of coughing, holding his hands to his ribs. His head and one eye were heavily bandaged and so were both hands.

Billy reached for the glass of water at his bedside and held it up to his mouth, allowing the black man to swallow so that eventually his coughing ceased.

Williams lay back on his pillows, panting, though he kept one malevolent eye on Billy. After a while he said, ‘I thought I told yer ter bugger off! Don’tcha understan’ English?’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mr Williams, but you’ll want your money.’

The Aborigine misunderstood what Billy was saying. ‘You want me money? You want me fuckin’ money! You’ve took it all, you and yer mongrel mates! Yer beat and kicked the shit outta me and took me stash. Jesus Christ, then yer come here, tell me you want me money!’

Billy took the roll of notes from inside his pyjama jacket and held it out to Williams. ‘No, you don’t understand me, sir, I’m
returning
your money.’

Williams still appeared unable to comprehend, he looked at the roll of banknotes and back at Billy. After a while he said suspiciously, ‘What’s happenin’ here? What yer doin’? You from the police, crime squad?’

Billy laughed. ‘Yes, it’s my day off, I thought I’d spend it in the casualty ward.’ He opened the drawer of the metal bedside cabinet and put the money into it. ‘It’s yours, I brought it back, there’s nothing missing.’

Williams remained silent for some time, then said, ‘What happened, you in a fight?’

‘No, drunk, I fell and fractured my wrist, bumped my head.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ was all Williams said and he fell silent again.

‘Mind if I sit?’ Billy tapped the bandage on his head, ‘I’m feeling a little dizzy.’

‘Yeah, righto.’ The chair next to his bed held the black man’s moleskins and shirt so Billy now sat on the bed. Again there was silence between them. Billy was anxious to explain what had happened but his legal instinct told him to wait a little longer, that Williams was still angry and needed a bit more time to come to grips with the situation, which Billy now saw must seem somewhat bizarre from the black man’s point of view.

After a while Williams asked, ‘Why you do this, eh? Your mob break all me ribs, one eye’s gorn, you jump on me ’ands, break me fingers, me knee’s gorn, then yer brings me money back. You gorn crazy or somethin’?’

Billy started to tell Williams the story and when he’d completed it Williams was silent for some time. ‘Mr O’Shan ...?’

‘O’Shannessy, but, please, it’s Billy.’

‘Billy, yiz a good bloke.’ He shook his head slowly.

‘Fuckin’ oath, who’d a thought somethin’ like this could happen, hey? Blackfella, whitefella, blackfella gets drunk, loses his money, whitefella finds it, gives it back ter blackfella, it don’t happen like that, mate.’

‘Casper Friendly was trying to con you, Trevor, I felt guilty.’

‘Yeah, but I thought you was in on it, the two of yiz.’

‘I suppose I was in a way,’ Billy confessed. ‘May I suggest something?’

‘Yeah, go right ahead.’

Billy indicated the money in the drawer. ‘Don’t show it around like that, in a bundle, even an unbroken fifty can get your head kicked in around here.’

‘Yeah, mate, I was stupid. Blackfella come into the big city from the bush, needs ter show off, bloody stupid!’

Billy indicated the black man’s bandages. ‘Have you seen the police?’

Williams laughed and started to cough again, holding his sides and groaning in between bouts of coughing. Billy fed him more of the water. ‘Whaffor?’ he said gasping, ‘Nothin’ them bludgers can do.’

Billy smiled. ‘Yeah, damned silly question.’ He knew what Trevor Williams was really saying was that he was a black man who had been beaten up and supposedly robbed while he was drunk, which in police terms gave him a priority rating of zero.

‘Mr O’Shannessy, is that you? And what are we up to now?’ The Irish sister stood with her hands on her hips. ‘If I may be so bold, what have we done with our drip?’

Billy coughed. ‘I’m sorry, but I had some urgent business with Mr Williams, sister.’

‘Mr Williams is not to be disturbed, it’s pinned to his curtain, clear as daylight for those who care to look.’

‘Yes, well, I . . .’ Billy couldn’t think how to continue.

‘I didn’t see it, sister,’ he said lamely.

‘Don’t give him a hard time, nurse. He’s a good bloke!’ Trevor Williams said, ‘Salt o’ the earth!’

In his entire life Billy felt he had never received a more sincere compliment.

‘Come along now, Mr O’Shannessy, Mr Williams needs to rest. Doctor Goldstein says you’re to have a good night’s sleep and then you can go in the morning.’ Billy turned to face her. ‘No, thank you, sister, but I will be signing myself out.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr O’Shannessy.’

‘I am perfectly at liberty to go. With the greatest respect, I do know my legal rights, sister.’

‘Oh you do now, do you? Well, we’ll have to ask Dr Goldstein about that, won’t we? He’ll be none too pleased I can tell you that for sure.’ The sister turned to a nurse, ‘Page Dr Goldstein please, nurse.’

‘He’s only due in at ten o’clock, sister, he’s on the late-night shift in casualty.’

‘Then the doctor on duty!’ the sister snapped.

‘You may do as you wish, but nonetheless I shall be leaving,’ Billy said stubbornly. ‘There is no point in disturbing the doctor on duty, I won’t change my mind.’

The nurse hesitated and the sister held her hand up for her to remain, then she crossed her arms, ‘And where will you go then, your report says “no fixed address”?’

‘I shall sign myself in at Foster House ...the Salvation Army,’ Billy lied.

The Irish sister now changed tack. Smiling, she appealed to him, ‘Mr O’Shannessy, I can see that you’re an educated man, can you not understand that we are only thinking of you? That we want to do the best thing for you?’ In an attempt to disarm him further, she smiled again. ‘I’d be thinking a night’s rest will do you the world of good. Fresh as a daisy in the morning, ready to face the world, eh?’

Billy bowed his head slightly, acknowledging her efforts at reconciliation. ‘Thank you, madam, I am grateful for what you’ve done, I’m afraid I have no means of repaying you other than to remove myself as soon as possible.’

The sister’s expression changed and her lips drew tight, ‘Very well then, you’re an Irishman and I’m Irish myself and I know how stubborn you men can be.’

‘I’m Australian, madam,’ Billy corrected, ‘And we are known to be even more recalcitrant.’

The sister turned to the nurse. ‘Will you get Mr O’Shannessy’s discharge papers please, nurse?’

‘Too right, mate!’ Williams interjected, ‘If I could flamin’ walk I’d do the same myself, I got me that clossto . . .’

‘Claustrophobia,’ Billy said, without thinking.

‘Yeah, that!’ Williams replied, ‘White sheets, white curtains, white walls, white uniforms, white bedpan, white toilet roll, white people!’

The sister ignored the black man’s protest. ‘Now, come along, Mr O’Shannessy, you’ll need to change and I have to take your temperature and blood pressure before you go.’ She seemed resigned to Billy’s leaving. ‘Dr Goldstein says you’re to stay away from the grog tonight, you’ve had medication, antibiotics, it’s very important!’ The sister guided Billy away from Williams’ bed and the curtains closed behind them. Williams called out suddenly, ‘Hey, Billy?’

‘What is it, Trevor?’ Billy called back, resisting the nursing sister tugging on his pyjama sleeve.

‘Can I talk to yiz sometime? It’s about me little singing daughter.’

It was almost ten-thirty when Billy entered the Flag Hotel the next morning. On pension day, his routine changed, though normally he’d still begin the day by visiting Con, after which he’d set off across mid-town to The Station, a drop-in centre run by the Department of Health.

Even though he told himself it didn’t matter about Con, that the very reason he was on the street was to avoid any emotional attachments, it nevertheless pained Billy to think that he’d lost his friend. If Ryan hadn’t appeared in his life and Con, for whatever reason, hadn’t decided to sever their relationship, Billy told himself, the fight would have been easier to take. After Charlie’s death, affection was to be avoided at any cost. The price he’d paid to make this possible was to isolate himself from his family and any other meaningful human contact. Con was an acquaintance, someone he’d helped in a small way and who’d returned the favour, an association conducted at arm’s length, no different to helping one of the derros. Now Billy wasn’t so sure. The coffee waiting for him of a morning and Con Poleondakis’s cheerful ebullience and accident-prone English had become a part of his life. The incident with Ryan and the loss of the cafe owner’s friendship now troubled Billy more than he cared to admit.

He left the bench under the ficus tree early so that he wouldn’t run into Sergeant Orr, and set out for Martin Place station to buy a cup of coffee. After this he would make his way to the drop-in centre, which opened at seven and where it was his custom twice a week to do his laundry, shave and shower. The centre was known officially as The Station, and it would take him no more than twenty minutes to cross George Street and walk up through Angel Place to where it was situated in Clarence Street.

In the underground at Martin Place he bumped into a derelict he knew slightly who put the hard word on him for a loan. Though Billy couldn’t recall his name, he knew him as a metho drinker whom he’d once helped with a family problem. ‘Mate, it’s pension day, I’m skint,’ Billy answered. ‘Buy you a cup of coffee if you like?’ Billy knew he had sufficient money to buy the alcoholic a bottle of white lightning but his deliberate mention of pension day was a gentle way of reminding him that he should wait until he collected his pension before he got back on the grog.

The alcoholic either wasn’t listening or was braindamaged. ‘Nah, yiz a bloody drongo! Won’t buy a mate a drink, yiz can get fucked!’

Billy started to walk away, then, remembering the man’s name, thought he might as well make sure he realised it was pension day. ‘Hey, George,’ he called out, ‘better stay off the sauce until the banks open.’ He smiled, ‘Mate, they won’t give you your cash if you’re blotto.’

‘Garn, bugger orf,’ the drunk shouted angrily, causing several early commuters to turn around.

Moving over to where he could get a takeaway coffee, Billy smiled ruefully. ‘Welcome to a beautiful new day, Billy O’Shannessy.’

The Station was a two-storey sandstone terrace house with a small verandah and a green wrought-iron fence. A homey little place on the corner of Clarence and Erskine Streets, it was perched on the corner like an oversight and surrounded by city skyscrapers. No doubt a hugely valuable piece of real estate, it seemed incongruous to Billy that the terrace house was given over to the day care of the city’s homeless.

Billy thought The Station one of the few social-welfare institutions that worked well, in fact he regarded it as an altogether admirable organisation. Though he was asked to sign himself in when he entered, he was not required to give his own name and the book was full of invented names. Smith, Jones and Brown were always prominent, with Ginger Meggs and Fatty Finn both popular choices, as well as an occasional Clark Gable or some other movie star. Once he’d seen Darth Vader, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Paradoxically, the only legitimate names in it were those of people who were illiterate. People who couldn’t read and write had nevertheless learned to write their signatures and they could be observed painstakingly labouring over the book, which appeared simply to be a head count of the drop-outs who dropped in so that the Salvos could receive their government subsidy.

The Station was especially popular among those alcoholics who stayed at the ‘Starlight Hotel’. In other words, those who, like Billy, slept rough. For a single payment of five dollars, a steel locker could be hired with a stout padlock to store possessions for as long as its recipient wished. Two free phone calls were permitted per day and the place could be used as a permanent address for the homeless. The staff were generally helpful and would happily take messages. Showers and laundry facilities were available and equipped the same as any family bathroom or laundry. There was a recreational room furnished with brown tables and vinyl-covered chairs with the usual TV channels as well as Foxtel.

There were few rules to observe, though the ones that existed were strictly kept, no fighting, no drinking, no violence, and there were designated smoking areas. Billy found the latter rather amusing as The Station’s clients were mostly alcoholics and he was a very rare example of a derro who didn’t smoke. None of them was likely to make old bones so that death by passive smoke inhalation was hardly an issue.

The centre also required that the torso be covered by some sort of shirt. Curiously enough, this had nothing to do with decorum but had been brought about because of the television. Intimidation was strictly forbidden and anyone who threw his weight around was banned from the centre, so some of the derelicts wishing to change a channel habitually removed their shirts and paraded around the room, flexing their muscles and showing their mostly prison-acquired tattoos while loudly proclaiming the channel number they preferred to watch. This was meant to frighten the more timid guests, usually among the mentally retarded, who preferred cartoons and were apt to spend endless hours staring at the television set though not necessarily watching it.

Billy had long since observed that it was one of life’s truisms that no matter how desperate the situation a collective mob finds itself in, a pecking order of some sort always exists. Billy signed in and went over to the receptionist, a young lady in her early twenties named Sally Blue. He greeted her politely, asked for a towel and extended his left arm so that she could drape it over his plaster cast. ‘Oh, you poor old thing, Billy,’ she cried, observing his arm. ‘Had an accident, have you?’

‘Entirely my own fault, my dear,’ Billy grinned, ‘but thank you for asking.’ He always thought her name particularly pretty, speculating that her parents couldn’t possibly have known she’d keep her violet-coloured eyes when they’d named her. The name suited her well, Sally Blue was blonde, attractive and very popular among the homeless.

‘The usual?’ Sally asked. Billy nodded and, as well as the towel, she draped an old dressing-gown over his arm. The dressing-gown wasn’t standard issue and Sally had brought it from home, claiming her father had received a new one for Christmas. Billy carried no spare clothes other than the plastic raincoat he kept in his briefcase, so he needed this dressing-gown in order to launder the clothes he was wearing. She automatically reached for a sachet of instant coffee and a small packet of biscuits, then laughed. ‘Don’t suppose you can carry these?’

‘Thank you, I’ll get them later,’ Billy replied and turned towards the shower block.

‘Wait on!’ Sally suddenly cried, ‘You’ll get your plaster wet.’ She rose and walked down a small hallway, up a set of stairs to the kitchen and came back with a roll of gladwrap. Removing the towel and gown, she made Billy hold out his arm while she waterproofed his plaster cast, sealing each end with a rubber band. ‘There’s a go,’ she said.

Billy washed his clothes and waited in his dressing-gown while they dried. The gown was old and somewhat threadbare, but he thought of it as a small luxury, something he’d enjoyed in his past that he didn’t need to forget. Cosy in the dressing-gown and enjoying the fuggy solitude of the laundry, he decided to wash his runners as well. He put an extra portion of soap powder into the washing machine to compensate for the fact that they were in a mess but hadn’t thought about how much louder they’d sound in the big drier. Now he watched embarrassed as they bumped and thumped, making a fearful racket for the better part of an hour.

With his shoes clean but still somewhat damp, he went upstairs to breakfast, where he had a mug of tea and asked the kitchen attendant if she’d wrap the four slices of bread which served as the regular breakfast. It wasn’t an unusual request and she added two more slices. ‘Butter, jam, peanut butter?’ she asked pleasantly.

Billy shook his head, ‘No, just the bread, thank you, Monica.’ Billy’s legal training made him good with names and he constantly surprised staff with his memory. Billy knew he was popular at The Station, the reason being the simple courtesies he affected without thinking. Most alcoholics have poor memories and are, for the most part, untrained in the social niceties. Besides, they usually feel they have very little to be thankful for, particularly in the morning when they invariably suffer from a hangover. His mannerisms would have gone largely unnoticed in polite society but here they were remarked upon and, because of them, he was afforded a number of small privileges, the dressing-gown being one such, the extra slices of bread another. Billy wondered what the kitchen attendant would think if he explained the true purpose of the bread.

Leaving the dining room, Billy went through to the recreational room to watch the nine o’clock news and, shortly after this, took his leave. He stopped to say goodbye to Sally, who had her head down writing. She looked up and smiled, her smile was likely to be the nicest thing to happen to him for the remainder of the day.

‘I hope you have a very pleasant day, Sally Blue,’ Billy said. He always called her by both names just to hear the sound of it. It was like some tiny flower you might find tucked into a crack on a lichen-covered boulder. Sally Blue flashed him another brilliant smile and Billy turned towards the door. Despite the inconvenience of the damp runners, he was shaved, showered and happy that this part of the day had turned out well.

Sally jumped up from behind the desk, ‘Oh, Billy, I nearly forgot, you must let me sign your arm,’ she called, ‘It’s good luck to be first.’

It should have been easy, a simple explanation that he’d promised the first signature to someone else. But now she was advancing on him, her pen held at the ready, her face showing her delight. Billy tried to say something but found he was struck dumb, saw his left arm going up and Sally Blue accepting it, stooping over it, her blonde hair falling over one eye and touching his elbow, holding the cast steady in her left hand while she wrote her name across the plaster. ‘Oh, this is so nice. You see, I need all the luck I can get, there’s a job in a computer company I’ve applied for and they said they’d received fifty-two applications.’ She looked up at him with her lovely, smiling blue eyes and said, ‘God bless you, Billy, I know you’ll bring me luck.’ Her expression grew serious for a moment, ‘You will tell me if you’d like to see someone, won’t you?’ She was referring to a drug and alcohol counsellor and the detox and rehabilitation programs available. It was not the first time she had asked but it was always said with such ingenuousness that he found it impossible to take offence.

Billy found his voice at last, ‘Yes, thank you, Sally, I will,’ he said, barely above a whisper.

Outside on the pavement Billy couldn’t believe what he’d done. He’d broken his promise to Ryan and betrayed the boy’s faith in him. He felt simply dreadful, ‘How could I ever have done such a thing?’ he asked aloud, shaking his head in dismay. It was Charlie all over again. He looked down at the plaster cast. Sally Blue had scrawled her name in a large bold signature down the centre. The Pentel pen she’d used appeared to have soaked into the slightly porous plaster to become indelible. There was simply no chance of his erasing it without Ryan noticing it immediately. Billy tried to tell himself it was a tiny thing, he’d explain it to Ryan, who would understand, but he knew it wasn’t so, that the past was coming back to haunt him and he could find no reason why the boy should trust him ever again.

Billy was close to first in line when the bank opened and it immediately upset him to see that the teller had changed. The young bloke behind the counter, who looked hardly old enough to have broken out of his teens, glanced at him for scarcely a moment and then looked away again.

‘Good morning,’ Billy said, ‘Miss Partridge not in today?’

The young man grunted. ‘Gone upstairs.’

‘A promotion, is it? Please give her my regards.’

‘Yeah,’ he muttered, still not looking up.

Why was it, Billy wondered, that young men so often lacked the fundamental courtesies that seemed to come naturally to young women of the same age? It was something he’d heard called ‘attitude’. There was probably a new equal-opportunity law which allowed pipsqueaks like this to be rude with impunity. He wanted to shout at the little bastard, get rid of his self-loathing by transferring his anger to someone else. The young bloke counting out the banknotes pushed them across the counter to Billy without a word.

‘I asked you to give Ms Partridge my regards!’ Billy repeated, ‘My name is O’Shannessy.’

‘Yeah, righto,’ the teller said, looking over Billy’s shoulder to the next customer in line, ‘I heard you the first time.’

Billy shook his head, his chest felt constricted and his stomach churned. ‘What is it with you?’ he shouted angrily. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? I’m cleanly dressed, am I not! And freshly shaved. My hair is combed. I have shoes on my feet. I asked you politely to pass on a message. For God’s sake, I’m a customer!’ Billy turned around, pointing to the people standing in line behind him. ‘I have two ears, a mouth, two eyes and a nose just like them. Quite remarkable, isn’t it? Because I’m on a disability pension you think you can treat me like a piece of dirt. Well, you can’t. I demand to see the manager! How dare you treat me like this.’