She Walks the Line (3 page)

Suzie studied his face when he was thoughtful and knew that words were sometimes stuck. He licked his lips before speaking.

Maybe it's a moisture thing, she mused. ‘Spit it out, Martin. You're a hawk, boy, not a chicken.'

He laughed at her imitation of a favourite cartoon. He produced an old dog-eared medical photo in which she saw a twenty-year-old Martin on a hospital bed with a bandage around his groin.

‘Mate, I lost a testicle and part of the other at Da Nang. Can't have kids. Haven't tried to make love for years but it wasn't a problem once.'

‘So what are you trying to tell me, Martin? Maybe that you're not a complete man? Please don't hand me that crap.'

Martin persisted. He did not wish for her to be under any illusion. ‘But kids. You're young enough, you know.'

She jumped straight in with a matter-of-fact answer. ‘Listen to me, Martin. They're not on my radar. Kids are out with me. So what's your next line?'

His last words on the subject, which he had feared to raise for a long time, poured out in a rush. ‘I'm able to get it up. Viagra will help later, so the smart quacks say.'

Suzie finished his worries with the great big radiant toothy smile which surged all over her features. ‘So it's Viagra. So what?' She patted him on the shoulder and stared into his face but without speaking for the moment, sensing that Martin wanted to have the last word, which he did.

‘Hell, I am glad I met you. I love you but I was too scared to tell you. It's been a struggle.'

‘Me too. I love you heaps but let's not rush it for the moment, Martin. Is that OK with you?'

Martin started to giggle and knew then he ought to tell her something else. ‘Someone gave me a blow-up job which fits over in cases of emergency. It has a blow-up tube on the side which the partner can pump up.'

Suzie started to giggle and it was still in her voice when she asked another question. ‘What if I pump it and it keeps going up?'

‘I guess I'll have to scrape you off the ceiling.'

She started to laugh and Martin hushed her. ‘Watch out. Someone's coming. They're good at body language too, you know.'

5

Suzie

2008

I looked many times at the old photo of Martin's family in his flat, not far from where I live. It was either laid flat or stood up, depending on the mood he was in. His sister Jane, who beat him to Vietnam in 1966, was a MASH nurse in Saigon and later married a surgeon. She lives in Baltimore and still works. There has been sadness in her life – she lost her only child with meningitis at the age of eleven and nobody speaks about it.

I was staring at the separate photo of Jane, Martin and their mum Bea when I heard Martin walking towards me. He looked at the photo.

‘She looks sad in this shot, Martin. I guess it was after the loss.'

‘Yes. It was an unhappy time. She and Bill nearly parted but they're OK now. They ought to be after all of those years together.'

‘It's another reason why I don't ever want to have a child The loss of a child would be the greatest nightmare.'

We watched a re-run of the
West Wing
, which is a prerequisite for White House staffers.

Later there was a quiet moment until I spoke. ‘Would you like to talk about Bea? I know she died in 1990. I'll get us a drink.'

‘It might be a bit long-winded, you know.' He tapped his knee, concentrating on how he would start, and the easy drawl came out. ‘Mum went into dementia rapidly. It was a hit and miss affair with lapses of memory and haunting expressions. Words didn't connect, which was sad for her because her grammar and sentence
construction were very good. Shoes frozen to useless were found in the fridge and she'd gaze for hours at her wedding album. She lost her lifetime job as a waitress when she tipped a bowl of spaghetti over a grumpy customer. He sat looking like a sheepdog caught in the rain, his eyes bolting like a meerkat which had swallowed a golf ball. The staff were sad to see her go. She made an eloquent speech spliced with humour which had them rolling in the aisles.

‘Jane watched her closely from then on. She loved dancing and always trotted around to Fred and Ginger – without clothes when the rot set in but we didn't know that until she opened the door to the mailman and signed for the mail, with him standing there dumbstruck. She wished him goodbye and closed the door. We were in fits when he told us about it.

‘Jane caught her pushing a turd around the bath and talking to it at the same time so she found a respite home for her. She had a good nurse named Angela. She was only fifty-nine, which was too young.

‘Jane said she used to have a lot of fun when Dad was still with us. He'd get on his high horse about something and jump about restlessly. Bea would watch and call out, “Left turn, Ben, now right turn, Ben, about turn, Ben,” and he would stop, realising how stupid he looked.

‘Anyway, Jane and Mum and I got on with our lives as best we could, with me back in the marines for a few more years, until the police contacted Jane saying they had found some old remains in the mountains. There was a tape in the rotten clothes and it was Dad signing off in his last moments. He'd been crushed by a giant boulder. We identified the remains and were sad at how Dad had come unglued before he left and after.

‘We made a choice to let Mum listen to the tape so we took it to Angela. Mum's ears pricked up. Our mum of old returned for a brief time. She recalled her feelings before the separation, feelings
which had been stuck in the archives of her mind. She remembered how she had focused on the care and protection of her family. Memories of her wedding and anniversaries came back to her.

‘She accepted that her health was failing but she revelled in the words on the tape, which brought her some long sought-after closure and peace. She vowed to make the best of the years she had left. And no one could ever prise the tape off her after that. It became her teddy bear and sat alongside her in her sleep. Angela's a medium and she was sure a male voice came through the teddy bear at times in the night. The tape went with her into her grave.' Martin paused.

I had held my breath right through the sad yet wonderful story. His eyes were glistening and I wondered whether it would be appropriate to ask a few questions.

‘When did she die, love?'

‘1990. She and Ben were buried in the same grave.'

‘Did you make a copy of the tape?'

Martin nodded.

‘Can I hear it now?'

The phone interrupted us. It was the White House. Some paperwork had to be fixed.

‘Some other time, mate. I don't feel up to it. Gotta rush out.'

We're no different to any other people on the planet and spoken words are easily forgotten. We should write them down or record them like Ben's tape. In his last moments he was obviously able to get the message out to his loved ones.

6

Suzie

2009

One of my better choices with regard to the band was to recruit a gifted keyboard player. She was Joan Oliver, my flatmate. Apart from her skills, which she also taught me, she shared my mother's name. She looked a bit like her too, with curls around her oval face. And best of all she sang like Joan Baez, one of my favourite folk singers. She wasn't liked in parts of the South 'cos she went on the marches and the freedom rides with Martin Luther King. I was aware of that on my tours in the early days and always careful with my speeches on stage.

However, Joan was unlucky in love because of the choices she made in men. Most of them were snorting cocaine every chance they got and spending Joan's money – she was wealthy thanks to her interest in real estate and accountancy. In time the gamblers got the flick.

She also hated smoking, because the smell of nicotine made her sick. It was that which eventually attracted her to another good old boy and former marine named Victor Marshall, who apparently had been wounded in 'Nam. He hated smoking. He was a Washington police detective around her age. Never married, no kids and quite wealthy, a bit of a surprise for a cop. And from Arkansas. I wondered whether Martin knew him but let it go. The less talk about us two the better.

I have an instinct about some people. I either like or dislike
them; there are no in-betweens. In Victor's case I disliked him intensely. He was fond of bragging about the Purple Heart he had been awarded in battle. Martin, my dad and my Uncle Adam rarely ever speak about their medals.

My affinity with some groups extends to cops. My cousin Rosemary was an Australian federal cop until she was wounded in Afghanistan. She came out a hero after saving a child's life on a dusty road. She almost lost a leg in the explosion. She's now invalided out and married to Westie, a war correspondent who was at the scene of her bravery and wrote about her. I have a copy of her letter with the newspaper cutting about the action she was in. She was given a medal and now illustrates children's books where she lives in Canberra. And then of course there's my brother Shane, who is a Victoria drug squad detective.

Marshall's traits were obvious. He was a sleaze, but Joan would hear nothing bad about him. From what I picked up, the sex was good so in that area I guessed they might make it. Her only child Annette lived with a healer in Brazil, which Joan did not approve of. Joan is agnostic. Not like me, who talks to God or whatever spirit comes through. My mum comes through at times. I've not seen her full-on but hope I will one day. She appears in dreams and frequently sends messages like ‘Watch Marshall'. However, I just turn over and go to sleep. How could I tell Joan about a message from beyond? She would just laugh.

Until the day I was woken up by a disturbing phone call from the local hospital. Joan had been bashed and wanted to see me. I scratched off a note to Martin and fled out the door.

Her face was puffed around the eyes and black bruises were showing up, yellowing at the edges almost while I watched.

‘Don't tell me, Joan. It was Victor.'

She nodded with a painful move of her head.

‘Why?'

‘We had a blow-up. He wanted access to my bank deposit box and I refused.' Joan groped in her handbag and produced a duplicate key, and asked that I keep it. She added, ‘My will is also in the bank box. You're written in it with my daughter Annette.'

‘Stop, stop. You're not dead. You're going too fast for me.'

She looked at my face just like Mum did and read my next response, just like Mum would do.

‘No. Not going to the cops. I just want him out. They wouldn't believe perfect Victor the non-smoker could be a crook.'

I was intrigued by the remark about him being a crook and she saw the question on my lips.

‘Yes. He's a big drug dealer. Can't stand druggies but doesn't mind fuelling them.'

‘How do you know he is?'

‘Phone calls all hours, creepy people banging on the door. And then I spotted a stack of coke in his car.'

She was exhausted by all of the emotion so I left her quiet and headed towards the cop shop.

‘Where is Victor Marshall?' I demanded from the young cop. I showed him my White House staffer's pass and he almost jumped to attention, calling me ‘Ma'am'.

‘Cut the crap. Get me Marshall now – right now.'

Victor came to the counter all silly smiles. ‘What's up, Suzie?'

But I wasn't in a smiling mood. I was in a rare rage at that point and would have hit him if he'd stepped too close. ‘Don't call me Suzie. Come outside.' Outside, I went on, ‘You're fucking lucky she won't press charges. Stay away or I'll get some high-powered people to fix your wagon.'

‘Oh, oh, I'm so scared of big White House staffer.' He turned away, walked back into the police station and lifted his middle finger at me.

I watched the arrogant walk and thoughts pounded in my head
like ‘Mate, you have no idea what I'll bring down on your head, you arsehole.'

*

Victor went back again and bashed her. She reported him to the police and told them the whole story. They found masses of drugs in his unit. He was arrested and charged. When I told Martin about Victor, he remembered him from 1968 but hadn't been aware of his police career.

We sat together in the court when Victor was sentenced to a long stretch. He was about to be propelled out to the cells by the guards when he looked up to where we sat and saw us three. It must have dawned on him that Martin and I worked together. He probably knew what Martin's secret role was. Probably made enquiries, unbeknown to Martin.

‘Fucking dogs,' he yelled when they carted him away. ‘I'll kill you' were the words on his lips as the cell door was slammed shut.

A man in a crumpled suit sitting in front of us turned round and studied our faces. I instantly felt the danger and the revolving gut. I scratched the top of my itching head and knew by the features of the man that he was a close relative. He turned out to be Mark Marshall, Victor's younger brother. A person of interest; a man with a mission.

Joan's breast cancer began that year during the terrible time.

7

Suzie

2014

My fortieth birthday has come and gone. It was a good show with Joan and my friends. I hoped Mum might show in spirit but I'm still waiting. Maybe she's gone on to some sort of parallel dimension.

Forty is dreaded by some, yet a milestone for others. It was a huge milestone for me after ten years on the White House staff and all the madness which went with it. My, where did it all go? I thought many times. So much has happened but it's nothing in comparison with the Earth, which was still able to circle the sun ten times, despite all the dire predictions from the many cranks I met on my tours.

I know there's an ending soon to this life of secrets, especially with Martin, and I duck about wearing out shoe leather, wasting petrol and pushing aside little hints from people who are suspicious, hoping for a little gossip to make their day happier (until the next breath of scandal). I've witnessed many so-called scandals which have ended in tears and walking away from a good career. Another president is looming on the horizon and may not appreciate what I did ten years ago.