The Boys from Binjiwunyawunya (47 page)

‘What?' said Norton, screwing up his face. ‘Middle Eastern appearance. Me a wog? They're kidding. I'm as Australian as a Holden with the boot full of meat pies. I've even got a photo of Dawn Fraser in my bedroom. Haven't these pricks in Melbourne ever seen anyone with a suntan before?' The next paragraphs weren't so amusing.

Fearing more attacks, police have trebled airport and railway surveillance.

‘Uh oh!' said Norton.

His eyes moved across to the travel bag under his bed. That means bomb squads with dogs and metal detectors. They'd pick that metal strongbox up in two seconds, take one look at my head, and bingo! Shit! This is going to be nice.

Suddenly Norton's appetite lost its edge. He quickly went through the story again, then looked at his watch. Just on nine. He left his food and switched on the TV. As soon as it focused Norton could see he was the main story on the mid-morning news. A teary-eyed priest or messiah or whatever he was, in a kaftan and beard, was standing in front of what was left of the Church of Scientific Achievement — a pile of smouldering, steaming ashes with a few beams and the remains of a chimney jutting forlornly up into the air. A microphone was shoved under his chin and he was telling a concerned TV journalist in a dark grey suit he couldn't understand why anyone would want to do something like this. Next were a couple of farmers with heads like Dorset Horn rams and talking as slow as they looked, half hinting to the same reporter that they'd been expecting something like this one day. The camera panned across to a bull-headed detective from the bomb squad standing beneath the row of pine trees holding the speaker leads. This was definitely the work of professional terrorists he said. Finally the camera shifted to Whittlesea, scanning up and down the dampened main street and across the war memorial and ending on the same TV journalist intoning:

‘The octopus of international terrorism has now spread its evil tentacles from the Middle East and Europe, to sleepy Whittlesea in Victoria.'

Of course the station couldn't waste too much time on unimportant news like a bombing. It was straight on to the football. And what was the main story, from an even more worried looking reporter:

‘Giant Essendon flanker Rick Bechara was badly injured in a brawl outside a city discoteque last night. Also badly hurt was Hawthorn full forward . . .'

That was enough for Norton. He almost stabbed his finger through the TV switching it off.

‘Holy bloody shit,' he bellowed as he started pacing around the room. ‘What have I done?'

Norton never intended to treat the church bombing as an insouciance. It just wasn't supposed to happen like that. He only meant to blow that pier away, that's all. And the fight
wasn't his fault either. Not really. Those two big bouncers shouldn't have chased him up the street. He was only defending himself. And how was he to know they were two local football heroes? The six words Norton was famous for were beginning to haunt him already: ‘Yeah, but it wasn't my fault.' He could see himself saying that in a courtroom just before some judge gave him five years in Pentridge. Ahh bugger it anyway he cursed to himself. I'm not going to let my breakfast go cold. But Norton was doing a lot of deep thinking along with the chewing. And the main subject was Melbourne ... and how to get out of the place.

He couldn't catch his plane. The airport would be the first place they'd be looking for him. The interstate train terminals would be watched too, so they were out. No good trying to hire a car. The people in the office would report him just on suspicion and you could bet it wouldn't be long before there'd be some kind of an identikit drawing of him on TV. And it wouldn't be selling St Kilda Kooler. Maybe it was a good thing he didn't get to see Pamela last night after all. Hitchhike? Out of the question. With cop cars everywhere on the road it would be more dangerous than catching his plane.

He chomped morosely into his breakfast. Things were looking as bleak as the weather over Port Phillip Bay, and he looked like being stuck in Melbourne. Melbourne a top town? Norton snorted to himself. Hah! Prick of a joint. They should have had the atomic bomb tests here instead of Maralinga. Then a thought struck him. What about the bus? Only brokies and backpackers doing it on the cheap ever catch the Uncle Gus. There'd be no metal detectors and not much chance of any cops being there either. He picked up his coffee and walked across to the phone.

The girl at Greyhound was very polite. Yes Mr Dudley, we can give you a seat on tonight's bus departing from Swanston Street at seven p.m. You have to pick up your ticket by four and be at the terminal with your bags by six forty-five. Thankyou Mr Dudley. No worries. Norton felt a little relieved after that. He rang the airport to cancel his flight and finished his breakfast.

It was raining outside now, and cool. Melbourne's freakish spring weather was back to normal. But the rain suited Les; he didn't want to be walking around in public anyway. It would be stay in the motel watching TV till three, then a cab into town and just keep out of sight till the bus left. And that was exactly what Norton did.

By one o'clock Les was sick to the teeth of Aussie Rules and commentators in $500 suits pontificating on every aspect of the game, almost to the size of the players' turds first thing in the morning, as if the fate of the free world hinged on the result. The news updates were rehashes of the church bombing and the assault on the two footballers; at least there were no identikit drawings of him yet. The player with the moustache that Norton had booted in the face declined to be interviewed. The taller one looked very sad and forlorn propped up in his hospital bed with a drip running into his nose between two beautiful black eyes. It all happened so quickly, he said, he didn't get much of a chance to identify his attackers. Attackers snorted Norton. The fuckin' big sheila. There wasn't even an old movie to watch. It was either Australian Rules or hockey on the ABC. Norton watched the hockey with the sound turned down and listened to the radio. Outside, the rain came down in buckets.

Two forty-five eventually rolled around and the rain eased off. Norton rang for a cab, picked up his bags and went down to the foyer. There was only one black-uniformed girl there. Maybe Mrs Perry had kept away to avoid another one of Les's smart remarks, and Mr Perry may have possibly smelled a bit of a rat so he kept away too. Whatever the reason, it suited Norton. He gave the girl his key, she smiled in return and tried her best not to make out she was staring at Norton's charred face. A toot on the horn outside told him his taxi was waiting so he made a smart exit.

He propped outside the door of the bus terminal for a while before going inside. He couldn't see any police cars around and when he walked in, full of trepidation, he didn't notice anyone who looked like a cop either. After a couple of years in his profession Norton could smell a cop five miles away through a six-inch lead shield. The bus terminal was quite crowded though, with people either lying and sitting around half asleep, or watching a TV built into the wall between some drink machines and the washrooms. They were what Norton expected too—backpackers and people travelling on the cheap. He paid for his ticket, checked in his travel bag and with his overnight bag slung across his shoulder walked down to the city to kill four hours.

Even though the sun was now peeking through, it was still quite cool. The wide, neat streets, with names like Bourke, Flinders, King, Queen, were fairly crowded with window shoppers. There were a number of uniformed police carrying walkie-talkies strolling around but Les just turned his back
to them or blended in with the crowds. He was surprised to find a small hotel open near Chinatown and even more surprised to find the beer was pretty good and now on tap. He had six pots of Carlton Draught which gave him an appetite, so he had a feed of short soup and honeyed prawns in the restaurant next door. By then it was time to go.

No-one remotely resembling a cop was watching the queue boarding the double-decker bus and Norton, to his relief, boarded without incident. His seat was upstairs on the left, next to the window and one from the front. A young bloke in an old army jacket sat next to him; they nodded half a dozen words and Les settled back. Before long the bus started and they lurched off through the city, with the sun setting behind them, towards the outer suburbs. The skies suddenly blackened and it wasn't long before it was raining again.

Norton noticed there was no-one sitting on the front seat to his right, so he moved over there. This is all right he thought as he watched the rain spattering against the front window. The seats are comfortable and I've got two. There's no shortage of little pillows and blankets and rain always makes me sleep. There was a speaker tuned to some radio station above his head. And a bit of nice music on the trip too. Ripper.

If Norton thought the bus trip was going to be enjoyable, he was in for a rude shock. There was only one word to describe it. Ghastly. The top deck of the bus lurched from side to side like he was halfway up the mast of a windjammer going around Cape Horn. Every time the driver took a corner or hit the brakes he was flung against either the front or side window. By nine o'clock the radio had tuned to some country station and by eleven Norton was that sick of twanging guitars and cowboys singing through their noses and ads for water pumps and car yards he felt like ripping the speaker out of the roof. Mercifully, the driver switched it off at midnight. Still Les couldn't sleep. He couldn't get comfortable. He couldn't even stretch out. All he could do was rock from side to side and stare vacantly out the front window at the headlights of the oncoming traffic or the tail lights of the cars and trucks going past.

There was an old couple behind him who didn't seem to have any trouble getting to sleep, however. They snored blissfully on into the night, loud enough to wake the dead.
Every now and again one of them would drop a fart in their sleep that smelled like they'd been eating curried mongoose for the last two months. Norton could have quite cheerfully strangled both of them.

At twelve forty-five the driver woke anyone that was asleep to tell them they would soon be pulling into Albury for a thirty-minute meal break and to change drivers. Knowing he was getting off, the driver honked into the microphone like he was auctioning cars and let the passengers have about ten excrutiatingly corny one-liners. Most of the passengers stumbled out into the rain and cold to have a bit to eat and stretch their legs. The huge cafeteria was bright and modern and well staffed with neatly uniformed employees. The food, apart from the coffee, was atrocious. Almost inedible and a blatant rip-off. Two scrawny sausages, a couple of greasy fried eggs and a piece of tomato on a half-toasted slice of white bread was equivalent in price to a three-course meal in a top Sydney restaurant. They filed back onto the bus and Norton spent the next two hours trying to spit out the taste of his two bites off one sausage. They ground remorselessly into the black of the night.

Next stop Goulburn. Once again they shuffled out of the bus like zombies, into the cold. But not as many this time. Only those who, like Norton, were so numbed and uncomfortable they would have walked in front of a firing squad and dug their own graves just to stretch their legs and get a bit of fresh air. Les paid for a cup of coffee and stole two bottles of mineral water and that was it.

From then on it was bounce, bump and sway and try to get comfortable straight through to Sydney. About thirty kilometres west of Parramatta Norton was that tired he would have gone to sleep underneath a cow pissing. Out of sheer fatigue he slumped against the window and passed out. He'd blacked out for about half an hour when, like a burglar alarm going off, the speaker above his head roared into life tuned to 2WS. From then on it was Roy Orbison, Bobby Goldsboro and every schmaltzy record on the top forty that Norton despised all the way through the early morning crawl of traffic into Sydney. The weather had cleared and the sun was well and truly up, beating straight into the front window and making the bus like an oven. Les couldn't remember ever feeling so miserable in his life. He was dog tired but he couldn't sleep. His eyelids felt as if they were lined with coarse-grain sandpaper and his mouth, despite the two bottles of mineral
water, still tasted like the floor of a bat cave from the sausage at Albury.

After what seemed like an eternity they finally reached the terminal at Taylor Square, only to find another bus stalled in the dock. So for another twenty minutes they all sat in the hot bus like a lot of battery hens. Eventually everyone filed out and stood around in the exhaust fumes till their luggage was unloaded. As soon as he spotted his travel bag Norton snatched it up and stormed up to Oxford Street to catch a taxi. He had a ten minute wait and the driver could hardly speak a word of English and drove like Jack Brabham. Norton gobbed sourly out of the window. It was great to be back in Sydney.

When they pulled up in Cox Avenue, Norton's semi hadn't looked so good since the time he got back from Long Bay. His old Ford was still out the front and still in one piece; the aerial hadn't even been broken off. After paying the driver Les fumbled the key into the lock and almost fell through the front door when he got it open. He dumped his bags in his bedroom, took off his leather jacket, then shuffled into the kitchen and stood there yawning and blinking wearily around him. Somehow he just couldn't seem to get his brain into gear. Maybe a cup of tea might help. After switching on the kettle, he pulled up a chair and nearly nodded off while it was boiling.

The tea made Les feel a little better. At least it took that rotten taste out of his mouth. Soon he began to relax as he realised he was home and everything was sweet. Before long he was grinning over some of the weekend's events. Halfway through cup of tea number two Norton began thinking about the old strongbox. Shit. I don't really feel like opening that right now he muttered to himself. But underneath his backside was burning to find out what was inside it. He finished his cup, yawned, then shuffled into his bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed dragging his travel bag over in front of him. It felt like it weighed a ton and when he got the strongbox out it seemed as if it was made out of lead. The lock looked like you'd need a blowtorch or gelignite to get it open. It was an ancient, cast-iron Yale as big as a Leon Uris novel. The lock's massive bar and the keyhole were jammed solid in a mass of greenish blue corrosion, as were the sides of the strongbox.