An Iron Rose (13 page)

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Disgusting to take off your shoes in public, but I feel like I’ve got frostbite.’

‘I’d join you,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure my socks match.’

‘I changed mine at lunchtime,’ she said. ‘I had a gumboot full of liquid cow shit.’ She moved both sets of toes, waving at the fire.

We drank. I’d spoken to her on the phone. Allie knew her from working around the stables and that got me over the suspicion barrier.

‘She’s a real asset around here, Allie,’ she said. ‘District’s full of self-taught farriers.’ She had another large sip, put the glass on the floor beside the chair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the pain is receding. I’ll tell you straight away, I had very little to do with Ian in the last two years.’

‘Something involving Ian puzzles me,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine, man called Ned Lowey, not a patient of Ian’s, went to see him in Footscray. Now they’re both dead. Both hanged. Ned, then Ian. Two days in between them.’

She was silent. Then she said, ‘Well, that’s hard to explain.’

‘I’m not convinced Ned killed himself,’ I said. ‘Can I ask you whether you could see Ian killing himself?’

She considered the question, looking at me steadily, grey eyes calm under straight eyebrows. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I could.’

‘Why’s that?’

Sip of whisky, audible expulsion of breath, wry face. ‘It’s not easy to talk about this.’ She looked into my eyes. ‘Are you married?’

‘Not any more. Does that disqualify me?’

‘People who haven’t been married have trouble understanding how things can change over the years. I was married to Ian for nearly twenty years and I knew less about him at the end than I did at the beginning. Yes, he could kill himself.’

Now you wait.

‘If you ask around about Ian, you won’t hear anything but praise. Everywhere I went, people used to tell me how wonderful he was. It’s worse now that he’s dead. People stop me in the street, tell me how they could ring him in the middle of the night, never get a referral to a duty doctor, never get an answering machine. How he’d talk to them for twenty minutes, calm them down, cheer them up, make them feel better, traipse out at two am to comfort some child, reassure the parents, hold some old lady’s hand. And it’s all true. He did those things.’

‘Sounds like the old-fashioned doctor everyone misses,’ I said.

She smiled, without humour. ‘Oh, he was. Like his partner, Geoff Crewe, seventy-nine not out. And Ian wasn’t just a good doctor. He was wonderful company. Mimic anyone, not cruelly, sharp wit. He noticed things, told funny stories, good listener.’

She looked around the room, looked into her glass.

‘But,’ I said.

‘Yes. The But. That was Ian’s public face. Well, it was his private face too. In the beginning. There was an unhappiness in Ian and it got worse over the years. After about five years, it was like living with an actor who played the part of a normal human being in the outside world and then became this morose, depressed person at home. He’d come home full of jokes, talkative, and an hour or two later he’d be slumped in a chair, staring at the ceiling. Or in his study, head on his arms at the desk, or pacing around. He cried out in his sleep at night. Almost every night. I’d wake up and hear him walking around the house in the small hours. He used to love skiing, one thing that was constant. Went to Europe or Canada every year for three weeks. Then he just dropped it. Stopped. If he’d been drinking, he’d try to hurt himself, hitting walls, doors. He put his fist through a mirror once. Forty stitches. You couldn’t reason with him. All you could do was wait until the mood swung. It happened a few times a year when we were first married. I was in love. I sort of liked it. It made him a romantic figure. In the end, we didn’t speak ten words a day to each other. I stuck it out until our daughter left home and then I left him.’

‘Did he have treatment?’

‘Not while I was with him. I’d try to talk to him about it but he wouldn’t, he’d leave the house, drive off, God knows where. And I was always too scared to push it for fear he’d do something in front of Alice.’

‘He wasn’t like that when you met him?’

‘You had to live with him to see that side. People who’d known him for donkey’s years had no idea. I met him at Melbourne Uni. He was fun, very bright, near the top of his class. We went out a few times, but I didn’t impress his friends and he dropped me. Then I met him again here when I started practice.’

‘He was a local?’

‘Oh yes. Part of a little group from here at uni. Tony Crewe, Andrew Stephens, Rick Veene.’

‘Tony Crewe—is that the MP?’

‘Yes. All rich kids. Except Ian. His father was a foundry worker. Left them when Ian was a baby. His mother was Tony’s father’s receptionist for about forty years. I think Geoff Crewe paid Ian’s way through St Malcolm’s and through uni. They ended up partners.’

‘And the group? Did Ian stay friends with the others?’

Irene had a sip of whisky, ran a hand through her hair. ‘It’s not clear to me that they ever were friends. Not friends as I understand friends. Mind you, I’m just a Colac girl. Ian was sort of…sort of in their thrall, do you know what I mean?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Andrew Stephens was a golden boy. Clever, rich, spoilt, got a sports car when he turned eighteen. Scary person, really. Completely reckless. His father was a Collins Street specialist, digestive complaints or something, friend of Geoff Crewe’s from Melbourne Uni. They were very close once, I gather. Andrew was sent to St Malcolm’s because Geoff’s boy went there. The Stephenses had a holiday place outside Daylesford called Belvedere. Huge stone house, like a sort of Bavarian hunting lodge. Andrew lives there now. With the gorillas. Sorry. Shouldn’t say that.’

‘Why not?’

She emptied her glass. ‘I’m going to risk another one. What about you?’

‘I’ll get them,’ I said.

She shook her head and went to the serving hatch. I was admiring her backside when she turned and caught me at it. We smiled.

‘The gorillas?’ I said when she came back with the drinks.

‘Doesn’t do to talk about valued clients. I’m due out there to look at a horse tomorrow. Still. Andrew’s got two large men with thick necks living on the property. We call them the gorillas.’

‘What do they do?’

‘Nothing as far as I can see. Well, except take turns to drive the girls around.’

‘His children?’

She laughed. ‘Right age. No. He doesn’t have children. Two marriages didn’t take. There’s always a new girl at Belvedere, two sometimes. Some of them look as if they should be at school. Primary school, my partner once said.’

‘What’s Andrew do for a living?’

‘It’s not entirely clear. Developer of some kind. They say he owns clubs in Melbourne. His father apparently left him a heap. He used to talk shares with Tony Crewe—shares and property and horses.’

‘So you’ve been with them?’

‘Oh yes. We’d go to dinner with Tony and current woman and Andrew and sometimes Rick Veene and his wife two or three times a year. I have to say I hated it. I think Ian did too. He turned into a kind of court jester when he was with Tony and Andrew and Rick. I once suggested we turn down a dinner invitation and Ian said, “You don’t say no to Tony and Andrew”. I said, “Why not?” and he said, “You wouldn’t understand. They’re not ordinary people”. Anyway, Andrew and Tony had some kind of falling out and the dinners stopped.’

‘Did Ian ever talk about Kinross Hall?’

‘No. Geoff Crewe was the place’s doctor for umpteen years and I think it sort of passed on to Ian. The director came with Tony Crewe to dinner a few times. Marcia Carrier. Very striking. Ian didn’t get on with her so he gave up the Kinross work.’ She swirled her drink around and finished it. ‘Night falls,’ she said. ‘None of this helps in finding out why your friend went to see Ian, does it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why did Ian give up his practice and move to Footscray?’

Irene shrugged. ‘No idea. Seems to have happened overnight. About a year ago, he phoned Alice, our daughter, and gave her a new phone number. She rang me.’

‘Thanks for taking the time,’ I said, getting up.

She gave me a steady look. ‘If you want to talk again, give me a ring.’

We went out to her car in the deepening dark. There was a house across the road and I could see into the kitchen. A man in overalls was staring into a fridge as if he had opened a door on hell. As she was getting in, I said, ‘Ian’s pethidine habit. How long did he have that?’

Irene closed the door and wound down the window. The light from the pub lit half her face. ‘What makes you think Ian had a pethidine habit?’

‘Heard it somewhere,’ I said.

She looked away, started the car. ‘News to me,’ she said. ‘Give me a ring. We’ll talk about it.’

I watched the cheerful Swedish tail-lights turn the corner where the ploughed paddock ran to the road and nothing interrupted the view. The line between night and day was the colour of shearers’ underwear. Far away, you could hear the groan of a Double-B full of doomed sheep changing gear on Coppin’s Hill. In the pub, a hand grenade of laughter went off.

The man across the road slammed the fridge door: hell contained. For the moment.

‘Well, get on with it. What d’you want to know about Ian Barbie?’

‘Why would he kill himself?’

Dr Geoffrey Crewe, age seventy-nine, gave me a sharp look from under eyebrows like grey fish lures. He was a big man, parts of whom had shrunk. Now the long face, long nose, long ears, long arms did not match the body. The body was dressed in corduroy trousers, what looked like an old cricket shirt, an older tweed jacket, and a greasy tweed hat. What had not shrunk was the value of his house. He lived across the road from the lake, redbrick double-storey facing south. I’d arrived as he was leaving on a walk. He set a brisk pace, even though his left leg buckled outward alarmingly when it met the ground. It occurred to me to ask him whether he fancied a game of football on Saturday. He could certainly outpace Flannery over a hundred metres.

‘Don’t know if there’s a sensible answer to the question,’ he said. ‘What’s it matter anyway? Made his choice. You make your choice. Serious choice, but just a choice.’

‘His wife says he was often depressed.’

He gave me a look that said he’d met smarter people.

‘Could be said about half the people in the line of work— more. Not shuffling bloody paper, y’know. Pain and suffering and bloody dying.’

A fat pink woman in a lime-green towelling tracksuit, large breasts swaying and bouncing out of control, lurched around a corner. ‘Gidday, Dr Crewe,’ she panted.

Dr Crewe touched a finger to the brim of his tweed hat. ‘Don’t know what they think they’re doing,’ he said. ‘Do herself a lot more good jumping up and down naked on that miserable bloody shopkeeper she’s married to.’

I rolled up my right sleeve. The day was clear, almost warm. I’d left my jacket in the car. ‘Didn’t surprise you?’

‘Too late for surprises. Precious bloody little surprises me. What’s that on your arm?’

I looked down. ‘Burn.’

‘Burn? What kind of work d’you do?’

‘Blacksmith.’

He nodded. ‘Reasonably honest trade.’ Pause. ‘This interest in Ian Barbie, say it again.’

I told him about Ned’s visit to Footscray.

‘Sure he went to see Ian?’

‘The receptionist remembered him. He didn’t have an appointment, said it was a private matter. She told Ian and he saw him after the next patient. He was with Ian for about ten minutes.’

Dr Crewe didn’t say anything for a while. Out on the calm water, a man in a single scull was sitting motionless, head bowed, shoulders slumped, could be dead. Then he moved, first stroke slow and smooth, instantly in his rhythm, powerful insect skimming the silver surface. At the end of each stroke, there was a pause, missed in the blink of an eye.

‘This Ned,’ he said. ‘Any drug problem there?’

‘No.’

We walked in silence for perhaps fifty paces. ‘Ian had a drug problem,’ I said.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at me. We passed a scowling group of seagulls on a jetty, identical commuters waiting in anger for an overdue train home.

‘I left the practice on my seventieth birthday,’ said Dr Crewe. ‘Nine years ago last month. Saddest day of my life. Second saddest. Nobody feels seventy, y’know. Not inside the heart. Always twenty-five inside.’

More silence. Two runners came from behind, short chunky men, hair cut to stubble, big hairy legs. Footballers. Then a tall blonde came into view, white singlet, tight black stretch shorts, hair pulled back. She was at full stride, moving fast, balanced, arms pumping. As the balls of her feet touched the ground, her long thigh muscles bunched above the knee. Her legs and torso were flushed pink, her head was back, mouth open, eyes slits.

We both turned to watch her go. Our eyes met.

‘Always twenty-five inside,’ he said. ‘And sometimes you feel you could be twenty-five outside too.’

‘Eighteen,’ I said. ‘Eighteen.’

He gave a snort and picked up the pace. We were going up an incline between two huge oaks when he said, ‘You don’t want to accept your friend’s suicide.’ A statement.