The Godson (36 page)

There was a race on at Mornington in ten minutes. Willets was the only Melbourne jockey at the meeting. What was a city hoop doing in the bush? And the horse's name was Cedar Rose. Cedar Rose? Cedar Glen? Yeah, why not? Norton had thirty on the nose.

When he walked back to the beer garden, Peregrine was gone. Les had a glance along the beach and thought he could see him walking towards the river mouth at the south end. He'll be all right, thought Les. I'll catch up with him in a few minutes. He went back to the TAB and studied the form while he waited for his race to come on.

Cedar Rose didn't look like losing and won by four lengths paying $9.60. Norton was now about three hundred in front for an initial outlay of forty dollars. You're a dead set genius,
you big, red-headed spunk, Les chuckled to himself. Now for the big one — a hundred each way. On what?

Norton was intently studying the race forms pinned to the wall when out the corner of his eye he noticed a young girl run up to the two clubbies patching the skis at the rear of the surf club and point excitedly towards the beach. The two clubbies exchanged a brief look, dropped what they were doing and sprinted towards the ocean. Wonder what that was all about? thought Norton. He went back to studying the form. But somehow the horses and jockeys didn't seem to be registering.

‘I wonder,' he said out loud. ‘I just fuckin' wonder.' Next thing Norton was also sprinting for the beach.

C
ALAMARI AND BREAM
fillets weren't the only thing Peregrine was full of as he strolled down to the beach. After six cold middies he was also full of Dutch courage and keen to do a bit of swimming. And why not? The sky was blue, the surf was gently rolling in, the board riders had gone and Peregrine had the beach to himself. With a towel around his waist he hiccupped his way into his English bathers and began breaststroking through the surf. When he got sick of breaststroking he switched to the Mediterranean crawl, a style perfected by about ten thousand Greeks and Italians who have been rescued off Bondi and Bronte. It works beautifully in the calm waters around Sicily or Skorpios, but in Australia, where almost every beach is treacherous with rips, undertows and collapsing sand-banks, it's about as much use as a Violet Crumble Bar in a knife fight.

Peregrine couldn't believe how well he was going, one arm after the other, kicking gently with his feet, till he turned around to swim in. Along with his swimming style, Peregrine's luck immediately took a turn for the worse. Every ten strokes he did towards the shore took him another ten metres out to sea. Then the first wave hit him and he swallowed his first mouthful of water. Then the six middies and the calamari started coming up. Then the panic set in.

Peregrine floundered and thrashed at the water before finally throwing his hands up in the air in desperation. ‘Help me!' he screamed. ‘Help! Oh God! Help me! Help!'

When Norton got to the park overlooking the beach the two clubbies were almost across the sand. He could see Peregrine
about two hundred metres offshore being tossed around in the white water like a piece of rag.

‘Shit!' he cursed, and started galloping down to the beach. By the time he had his T-shirt off and was at the water's edge the two clubbies had reached Peregrine, who was going down for the third time and firmly convinced he was about to die. There wasn't a happier pom on God's earth when he felt two strong pairs of hands take him under the shoulders and chin. Norton put his T-shirt back on. Oh well, he thought. They don't need me now — besides, that's what lifesavers aren't being paid for, anyway.

The two lifesavers expertly swam Peregrine out with the rip, followed it along and began bringing him in about fifty metres further down the beach. Norton could have applauded — volunteers or not, there was going to be a good drink in it for the two clubbies. They were going well until they reached shallow water where a freakish shorebreak hit Peregrine in the back. One of the clubbies lost his grip and as Peregrine got tossed over, he too was swept across a clump of jagged rocks. The other clubbie got Peregrine onto the beach; Les ran to assist and noticed the water around the one now limping from the rocks was stained red.

‘Shit!' said Norton.

The clubbie with Peregrine dragged him coughing and spluttering onto the wet sand; water was pouring out of his nose and mouth and he looked awful, but at least he was alive. Les went over to the other lifesaver who was sitting on his backside holding his leg; there was a bad gash running from his ankle up to his calf muscle and blood was oozing out over his hands.

‘Jesus! Are you all right, mate?' asked Les.

The lifesaver gritted his teeth. ‘Yeah, I think so,' was the stoic reply.

The clubbie with Peregrine had him on his stomach pumping seawater, calamari and Tooheys New out of him. On the park in front of the hotel Norton could see a small crowd starting to gather. Shit! This is all I need, he thought. Lifesaver hero saves visiting member of the Royal Family. This could make the local paper. Les took off his good Hard Rock Cafe New Orleans T-shirt, ripped it in half and wrapped it around the lifesaver's leg.

‘Leave him,' he said to the one with Peregrine. ‘He'll be okay. I'll look after him. See to your mate.' He took two hundred
dollars from the pocket of his jeans. ‘Here, this'll pay for your doctor's bill.'

The clubbie took the money and looked at Les. ‘All right. Thanks mate.'

Norton wrapped one of Peregrine's arms around his shoulders and started half walking, half dragging him up the beach. He spotted his clothes laid out neatly on the sand, picked them up and draped the white cotton jacket over Peregrine's shoulders.

‘Come on, Dawn Fraser,' he said. ‘I think I'd better get you home.'

Peregrine lay on the front seat of the car and moaned, coughed, threw up and spluttered all the way to Yurriki. Worrying about whether he should get the ashen-faced Englishman to a doctor or not, Les was at Cedar Glen before he realised he'd forgotten the beer.

‘Shit!' he cursed, as he got out to open the front gate.

Well, I reckon it'll just be dinner for one tonight, thought Les, as he put some dry clothes on Peregrine and placed him in his bed. The Englishman moaned something, rolled his eyes and began heaving. He was still pretty sick, but it appeared to be shock as much as anything else. Les placed a bucket beside the bed and watched him for a while then went down to clean the vomit from the front seat of the car.

Norton couldn't help but feel more than a bit nervous now. It had been a bloody close shave. Christ! Imagine if he'd have drowned. Price would have hung me. That's after Eddie had finished with me. Eddie! Jesus! I've still got to ring him yet. No that's bloody it. I'm going to have to keep the stupid bastard on the farm and watch him twenty-four bloody hours a day. It's just too risky. Norton was still thinking that when he drove into Yurriki later on to ring Eddie and tell him Wednesday had been just another day on the farm.

I
T MIGHT HAVE
been eight o'clock on a balmy August night in the Tweed Valley, but outside Churchill Court in St. Albans Road, South Kensington, London not far from Kensington Gardens, it was around ten-thirty on a cool, misty, English morning. The apple-cheeked courier driver was almost finished his round. He was five doors down the street when a dark-haired young man got out of the blue Land Rover parked across the road, took a small metal object from his black leather jacket and opened Unit 15's letter box. He ignored the two
letters, but wrote down everything on the postcard, wiped it clean, replaced it, closed the letter box and strolled back to the car. He motioned to the driver and the Land Rover moved down to a phone-box on the corner. The young man in the leather jacket rattled some coins into the slot. It only took a few seconds to get through to Belfast.

P
EREGRINE WAS STILL
in bed sleeping soundly when Les went up for a cup of coffee around seven the following morning. He watched him snoring softly for a while, figured he looked all right and decided to leave him where he was and have a run. An hour or so later when a sweaty Les walked back into the kitchen Peregrine was sitting in his dressing gown sipping coffee, but looking quite green around the gills and very subdued.

‘Hello, mate,' smiled Norton. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘I'm… quite all right now, thanks Les,' said Peregrine quietly. ‘A little weak.'

‘Yeah, fair enough.'

Peregrine stared into his coffee and shook his head. ‘My God!' he said. ‘I can't ever remember being so frightened in my entire life. I honestly thought I was going to drown.'

‘Yeah, well what do you expect, you stupid prick? Fancy going swimming out there with a gut full of beer and food. You deserved to drown.'

Peregrine's cheeks coloured. ‘Well, I don't know about that.' He frowned up at Les from his cup of coffee. ‘Anyway, where were you?'

‘Where was I? In the TAB. And on a roll I might add. I should have won a bundle. Instead, your silly bloody caper cost me two hundred bucks and a bloody good T-shirt.'

‘What do you mean?' said Peregrine, screwing up his face.

‘The clubbie who cut his leg. I had to wrap my T-shirt around it, and I gave his mate two hundred bucks for his doctor's bill. Didn't you see any of that?'

The Englishman shook his head. ‘I… don't remember much at all. I remember swimming out and getting into trouble. Being sick in the car. And vaguely you putting me to bed. I must have been in shock.' Peregrine shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why, what happened?'

Norton looked at Peregrine, shook his head, smiled and got a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. He explained everything that happened to Peregrine. By the end of the story
Peregrine's face was a mixture of disbelief and remorse.

‘And that chap cut his leg quite badly?'

‘Bloody oath,' nodded Les. ‘A good ten stitches, easy.'

‘Oh dear,' Peregrine had to look away. ‘I feel such a fool.'

‘You're bloody lucky those blokes were around, mate. Or you'd be dead. D-E-A-D. I wouldn't have got to you as quick as them.'

‘Good Lord.' Peregrine ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He looked quite grief stricken. ‘That's awful. The poor chap.'

‘Yeah.'

Norton couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Peregrine now. He was no doubt feeling quite bad about making a mug of himself and getting the lifesaver injured because of his foolishness. But he had obviously learnt a lesson. Why leave him wallowing in misery? Best to get him out of it.

‘Anyway, don't worry about it, mate. You're alive, and that's the main thing. You feel up to a bit of a walk?'

Peregrine thought for a moment. ‘Yes. Yes, that would be good.'

‘Okay.' Les dropped his empty drink bottle in the bin. ‘I'll see you downstairs.'

As well as being quite stiff during the walk Peregrine was very quiet as well, which was understandable. But Les could see he was doing a lot of thinking and more than likely a bit of soul-searching as well. It isn't often you brush death so closely and so unexpectedly as that. When they got back to the barbecue area he got a glass of water and turned to Norton.

‘Les,' he said firmly, ‘I insist that you take me back to Cabarita some time today. I wish to personally thank those two young fellows who rescued me.'

Les wasn't too keen and shook his head. ‘Ohh look, I wouldn't worry about it.'

‘No.' Peregrine shook his head defiantly. ‘I'm afraid I must insist. I wish to go to Murwillumbah first and do some business, which shouldn't take me more than twenty, thirty minutes. Then back to that beach. I'll see those two chaps for a moment or two. Then straight back home.'

Norton drummed his fingers on the fridge. He swore he'd keep Peregrine safely on the farm from now on. But they were out of steaks. And more importantly, still out of piss. What would it take? Two hours all up?

‘Yeah, all right,' he nodded slowly, trying to sound reluctant. ‘But straight in and straight back out. No mucking around.'

Peregrine seemed to brighten up a little. ‘Splendid.'

‘Okay. We'll have a bit of breakfast and get cleaned up.'

A
T ABOUT TEN-THIRTY
, the same time that Peregrine and Les were driving into Murwillumbah, Patrick, Brendan and Robert were sitting in their Stanmore unit wondering what their course of action was going to be that day. Calls to the British Embassy, to journalists, asking everywhere, other contacts, everything had struck out. Peregrine Normanhurst was nowhere to be found. The phone rang in the middle of their sometimes heated conversation. Patrick answered it. He paused, frowned into the receiver, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and turned earnestly to the others.

‘It's himself.'

Patrick listened intently for a few moments then reached for a notebook and biro. He wrote carefully, listened attentively, saying very few words before hanging up. He went through what he had just written and turned impassively to the others.

‘That was Liam. They've found out where the English bastard is.'

‘How?' asked Brendan.

‘The dopey bastard had a postcard couriered to that Wingate woman in London. Listen to this.
My dearest Stephanie. How goes it, old pip? I'm here in this godforsaken wilderness stuck in a town called Yurriki near Murwillumbah just underneath Mt. Warning. Can you believe these names? One almost needs an interpreter to understand these colonials. I'm on a property called Cedar Glen which is rather nice, but with an Australian which is rather boring. He's a complete wally. If I survive this I shall write shortly. Pray for me, old pip. Fondest regards, Peregrine
. Well, there it is, lads. We know where the sonofabitch is. Now all we have to do is find him.'

‘That shouldn't be too difficult,' said Robert, reaching for a map of New South Wales. He spread it out on the coffee table. ‘Murwillumbah, did you say Patrick? Was there anything else?'