The Godson (28 page)

Les and Peregrine looked at Ronnie curiously. Then the little caretaker's expression altered and he abruptly changed the subject as if he regretted what he had just said.

‘Good weather up here for winter, ain't it fellahs?'

‘Yes, yes. Much better than back home,' agreed Peregrine.

‘Well, I reckon these steaks are about done,' said Norton, giving one of them a squeeze with the barbecue tongs.

‘Yeah. I'll say one thing for our butcher,' said Ronnie. ‘He sure sells grouse meat.'

‘Yeah. I reckon I can handle being barred from the local pub,' said Les. ‘But I sure hope the butcher hasn't brushed us.'

‘I was in town this morning,' chuckled Madden. ‘He looks okay. But his wife's got a black eye and three stitches in her cheekbone.'

‘That's what I mean,' said Les, motioning at Peregrine with his can of beer. ‘He gets a few drinks in him and throws punches all over the place.'

‘Yeah, I saw that too,' said Ronnie, breaking into one of his wheezy laughs.

‘Oh, for God's sake,' pleaded Peregrine. ‘Will you give me a break?'

Again the meat was cooked to perfection and so was the rice. The salad was crisp and Les had even managed to make a kind of garlic toast with the bread. They had an enjoyable
afternoon eating and talking with Ronnie polishing off cans of Fourex at the rate of five for Norton's two. Les switched the radio onto the football about the same time as Peregrine switched to champagne and orange. Ronnie didn't seem all that interested in the football and after thanking them both, he left around three-thirty. This left Peregrine and Les sitting in the sun getting drunker and drunker. By the time Balmain had gone down to Manly by two points the sun had started to go down behind the mountains. By six-thirty the air was once again thick with dew and the nightbirds had started calling to each other across the valley. Les switched the outside lights on and stoked up the fire.

‘Well, Sir Peregrine Normanhurst III,' he yawned, as he sat back down. ‘It looks like being a very quiet old Saturday night in Cedar Glen.'

‘Yes, it certainly does, old chap,' replied Peregrine, returning Norton's yawn. ‘And just quietly, that suits me. I'm almost too choofed to move.'

‘Yeah, me too.' Norton was surprised at just how tired he was. Normally at this time he'd be getting ready to go to work and finish around four. ‘I reckon I might even be in bed before nine.'

‘And I won't be far behind you. Curiously enough, I have absolutely no trouble sleeping up here.'

‘No. Me either.'

Then Peregrine's eyes lit up. ‘I know what I might do. I might go and feed Bunter.'

‘Who?'

‘Bunter. The owl. I'll give him one of those sausages.'

Norton had to laugh. ‘Go for your life. In fact I might join you.'

They were about to get up when something flashing in the half light about twenty metres out from the barbecue caught Norton's eye.

‘Hey, don't move, Peregrine,' said Norton urgently. ‘Stay where you are. And keep quiet.'

Keeping stock-still, Peregrine followed the direction of Norton's eyes. The two, small lights flashed again, then moved slightly. After a moment or two they could see what they were.

It was a feral cat, a big one. Even in the faint light Les and Peregrine could make out the length of its thick, greyblack body with its massive scarred head, the two glittering green, eyes watching them from the darkness, showing caution but absolutely no fear.

‘Jesus! Look at that,' said Norton quietly. ‘A bloody feral cat.'

‘A cat? Jiminy! It's as a big as a dog.'

‘Yeah. All that meat cooking's brought the bastard round.'

‘What a repulsive looking creature.'

Norton stared at the huge cat watching them from the darkness, and thought of the destruction they and wild dogs do to the environment and wished he had a gun. A gun? Shit! He had a gun, all right, that bloody thing Eddie gave him when they were leaving. He'd stowed it under his bed and forgotten about it.

‘Peregrine,' he whispered. ‘Stay here and keep an eye on that moggie. I'll be back in a second.'

As quietly as he could, considering his drunkenness, Les went to his room, got the blue overnight bag and placed it on the bed. The gun was wrapped in an old red towel along with two boxes of bullets and two fully-loaded magazines.

It was an odd-looking weapon, very similar to an American Colt .45 Automatic, only the barrel extended about seven centimetres out to the front, with a distinctive thread running around it like a drill bit. It wouldn't have weighed much more than a kilo and had a comfortable grip and easy balance in Norton's hand. He clicked a magazine up into the butt, thumbed the safety back and with the gun down by his side walked back out to the barbecue area.

‘I say,' said Peregrine. ‘What have you got there?'

‘It's a pistol Eddie gave me in Sydney. That cat still there?'

‘Yes. He hasn't moved.'

‘Good.'

Norton spotted the two lights still watching them, thumbed the safety forward and slowly brought the gun up. ‘Watch this, Peregrine. I'll put one right between its rotten fuckin' eyes.' Les gripped his right wrist with his left hand and carefully took aim. ‘Here, kitty kitty,' he whispered, as he curled his finger round the trigger. ‘Make my day.'

Les squeezed the trigger, expecting one bullet to hit the feral cat. Instead, there was a vibrating flash of orange flame and a hammering roar that echoed across the valley. Eight shells rattled onto the barbecue table and the cat disappeared in a crimson spray of blood, fur, bone splinters and entrails. After the roar of the pistol the silence seemed more pronounced, broken only by the frenzied screeching of the startled nightbirds.

‘I say,' said Peregrine. ‘Jolly good shot.'

‘Jolly good shot my arse!' exclaimed Norton, staring at the
pistol still smoking in his hand. ‘What sort of a fuckin' gun
is
this?'

What Les didn't know was that Eddie had given him a Robinson S.R. Model II Constant Reaction Machine Pistol. Built in Australia during World War II, it had a unique rotating barrel and a precompressed recoil spring giving it virtually no kick, which was why, even at 600 rpm Norton was able to ring eight bullets into the cat.

Les and Peregrine walked over to where the cat had been. All that remained was a bit of its head, a shoulder, part of the tail and a few patches of grey fur on the blood-splattered grass.

‘Bloody hell!' exclaimed Norton. ‘Poor old puss. He never had a fuckin' chance.'

‘Indeed no. What sort of gun did you say that was Les?'

‘I think Eddie called it a Robinson.'

‘Any bullets left?'

‘I think so.'

‘How about a shot?'

Les looked suspiciously at Peregrine. ‘Well… all right. But aim the bloody thing up in the air a bit.'

Les carefully handed Peregrine the Robinson. The Englishman held it out in front of him and squeezed the trigger. There was another burst of orange flame accompanied by a hammering bang; six more shells flew out of the side and the magazine ejected at his feet.

‘Jolly good!' said Peregrine. ‘There's no recoil at all.'

‘No, it's a ripper, isn't it?' Norton took back the weapon and picked up the magazine. ‘Anyway, Dirty Harry, I reckon that's enough fireworks for tonight. I'm gonna put this thing away. It's a bit dangerous to be playing around with it, in our condition.'

‘Yes, I agree.'

Les put the machine pistol back under his bed and they resumed their positions in the barbecue area over some bourbon and Coke, laughing drunkenly about some of the events so far. Peregrine decided it would be useless trying to feed Bunter now, after all that racket there would hardly be a bird left in the valley. But both agreed it was a good thing Les had nailed the feral cat. After their second bourbon both men were yawning like caverns; Les switched off the radio and the outside lights and they called it a night.

* * *

F
OR THE MIDDLE
of winter, Sunday was quite hot. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, the sou'wester had dropped off and even at six-thirty in the morning the sun was beating down into the valley. Yeah, well who needs an ozone layer anyway, thought Norton as he stood outside his bedroom. Peregrine was awake but not out of bed when Les went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. With a bit of pressure Norton was able to get the Englishman up and was even able to coerce him into getting some exercise before breakfast, guaranteeing Peregrine that if he sat around stuffing himself with steak, guzzling bottles of champagne and getting all sleep and no exercise, he'd leave Cedar Glen after two weeks looking like Meatloaf. The Englishman reluctantly agreed and by seven-thirty was in his fatigues and boots joining Les for a brisk walk around the property and a swim in the billabong at the front of the house. Norton even got him to do fifty sit-ups.

Relaxing in the barbecue area after another big feed, Peregrine had to admit that it was the best he'd felt in months. Les promised him that another week of this and he'd be able to beat any woman in the Tweed Valley under five feet two. They hung around reading and soaking up the sun for the rest of the morning, then at about twelve-thirty they slipped into their jeans and T-shirts and headed for the Yurriki Buttery Bazaar.

There were quite a number of cars parked in the streets around town when they got there so Les guessed that the Bazaar must be quite an event on the Yurriki social calendar. They found a spot behind the school, crossed the street and under a huge banner strung between two trees, saying ‘Yurriki Buttery Bazaar This Sunday' they propped in front of the old butter factory to get their bearings. After a quick exchange of bemused looks Peregrine threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes in mock terror.

‘My God, Spock,' he said. ‘Scotty's beamed us back to I960.'

Norton returned Peregrine's look of horror. ‘You're not wrong, captain,' he replied.

The bazaar consisted of rows and rows of stalls on either side of a dusty gravel path running around the old butter factory. There were crowds of people walking around and most of them were hippies or alternative lifestyle people of some description and they all looked like they'd come out of a time warp. The men nearly all had beards and long hair either plaited or growing anywhere. They wore batik sarongs, multi-coloured baggy pants and shirts, hats with feathers or flowers in them, sling bags over their shoulders, scarves round their waists. There were
little vests with mirrors on the front, and even a number of flared jeans. They wore earrings and all sorts of things hanging around their necks; most were barefoot although there was the occasional capitalist who could afford a pair of tai-chi slippers.

The women, a lot of whom were carrying kids in backpacks, had hair much like the men: long or plaited, tumbling out from under men's hats or from gypsy scarves tied in the corners or under their chins. They wore patchwork tops, Tibetan tops, Arab tops and multi-coloured ones that could have been made out of anything. There were long dresses, short dresses, red stockings, blue stockings; some were barefoot, others had on moccasins or old granny boots to go with their granny glasses. A lot had flowers in their hair or coloured feathers dangling from pierced ears. One girl walked past in a Levis jacket that was more patches than material, with
Good News
—
Not All Of Us Are Under Control
stitched onto the back next to a peace symbol. Another went by in a green fez, another in an orange sombrero.

‘Well, what do you reckon, Peregrine?' laughed Norton.

The Englishman shook his head. ‘I wonder what happened to the local dry-cleaner. I'll bet he starved to death.'

‘Yeah. I reckon some of those shirts haven't seen an ironing board since the battle of Hastings. Anyway, let's have a look around.'

They followed the path through the people and checked out the stalls, which were mainly food, old and new clothing, second hand junk or cheap jewellery. The stall-keepers ran from Hari Krishnas to freaks to people who wouldn't have looked out of place in the Queensland National party. There was an Atomic Coffee Stand, another selling tempura, one selling Granny's Homemade Ice Cream. The junk was anything from old sewingmachines to axe-heads, even empty jars and biscuit tins. Les ran his hand through a box of records and shook his head. Music From Big Pink. Richie Havens Stonehenge. The James Gang. Chain. Iron Butterfly. In Sydney you couldn't have given the stuff away, let alone sold it. Someone was selling ducks and drakes in a cage, another was flogging bulk raw muesli next to a stall selling macrobiotic jams, pickles and sauces. A bloke who looked like John Belushi was playing a guitar, with his wife on drums and their two kids both singing excruciatingly out of tune. Round the corner some other bloke with a beard was wailing into Bob Dylan on a guitar at the side of the butter factory. Behind the stalls was a blow-up castle
for the kids to play on. The whole atmosphere was friendly and laid-back and most of the people there seemed to know each other. Their clothes may have been a bit scruffy, but the people themselves were clean and so were the kids. It was obvious they were nearly all just battlers or ‘alternates' with no desire to live in the cities, doing their best to turn a dollar. And even if they were living in the past a little they added a bit of colour to the surroundings and certainly weren't doing anybody any harm, except maybe avaricious property developers, saw-mill owners and redneck members of The National Party who like to get drunk and go out shooting small animals.

At a small caravan, run by a Muslim couple dressed in light blue, Les and Peregrine stopped for a cup of coffee. The coffee was thick, strong and tasty. Les went for a piece of carrot and walnut cake. Peregrine opted for the chocolate wholemeal with coconut and date. Like the coffee, the cake was excellent too. The Muslim and his wife were friendly people and gave them a brochure on Islam to read while they enjoyed their snack.