Matthew Flinders' Cat (10 page)

Billy made his way over to the big old tree and dipped in under the low-hanging foliage to stand in the dark, moist-smelling shade. He waited until his eyes had adjusted before looking for Williams. The giant tree had enormous surface roots that acted as buttresses and could easily hide a man from view. Billy could hear the fruit bats squeaking in the branches overhead as he walked slowly around the tree, looking between the buttresses, certain that at any moment he would find the stockman. But there was no sign of Williams.

Billy searched the Gardens for another hour. He asked several gardeners but only one of them could remember seeing a black man in a red tartan shirt and that was earlier when Williams had first entered the Gardens. Billy crossed over to the Domain and asked a group of derelicts who had settled in to the late-afternoon’s drinking session under the trees. They all knew Billy and extended an invitation for him to join them. Alcoholics pride themselves on being social, almost a brotherhood, it is what separates them from the heroin addicts and they’ll happily share a bottle with a mate who happens to be skint. Most of them had been helped at one time or another by Billy. Then Billy saw Casper Friendly was among the group, but much to his relief he’d passed out on the grass. He lay on his stomach, his head cradled in his arms. Williams’ bottle of scotch had caught up with him.

Billy described Williams and several of them laughed and shook their heads. ‘Yer lookin’ for a fuckin’ boong, mate!’ called out one of them, a man named Lofty Mayne. ‘Whafuckinfor?’ This provoked more drunken laughter.

‘He needs a spot of help,’ Billy replied.

‘Ah, forget the bastard,’ Lofty said, ‘Here, Billy, have a drink, no good helpin’ them black bastards!’

Billy pointed to the unconscious Casper Friendly, ‘He’s an Aborigine.’

The men in the group all looked at the albino. ‘Who, Casper?’ Lofty said, turning back to Billy.

Billy nodded.

‘Nah, he got hisself scrubbed white, that’s different.’ This provoked a howl of laughter among the group, several of them reaching out and patting Lofty on the back.

‘Garn, ’ave a drink,’ Lofty said, pleased with himself.

‘No thanks, some other time,’ Billy began to walk away.

‘Hey, Billy, c’mere,’ Lofty shouted, beckoning Billy with a wave of his arm.

Billy stopped, ‘What?’ he said, turning.

‘That fuckin’ Abo yiz looking for,’ Lofty grinned, ‘I reckon he’s fell down some steps, them black bastards can’t hold their grog! Always fallin’ down steps. No fuckin’ steps in the desert when they go walkabout, see!’

Lofty’s attempt at a joke set off another gale of laughter among the drunks. ‘C’mere, siddown, ’ave a drink, whazzamatter?’ he repeated.

Billy was sorely tempted, but the presence of Casper Friendly and the possibility of him waking up and being curious as to why Billy was looking for Trevor Williams decided him against it. ‘Another time. Got to go, mate.’

‘Ah, fuck yiz!’ Lofty called after him. ‘Too good fer us, is yer? Fuck off then!’

As the day wore on, Billy’s paranoia increased and while he told himself that apart from the almost three glasses of scotch he’d consumed in the morning, his head was clear as a bell, the only problem was that he couldn’t get it to ring, to make any reasonable decisions.

He sat down on a bench outside the Art Gallery, both elbows resting on the briefcase on his lap, his hands cupped under his chin. He watched as several late-afternoon runners passed by on their way to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, doing the loop around the Gardens. A group of middle-aged Japanese tourists was coming out of the gallery in a neat formation, giggling and chatting loudly. Billy thought how nice it would be if he didn’t have to think any more and could simply follow the little Jap bloke holding the flag. He’d have a nice hotel to go to, with tucker laid on, a soft bed with clean sheets, and the bill paid in advance. He was exhausted, feeling a little dizzy, and realised that he couldn’t remember when last he’d eaten.

For the umpteenth time, he reviewed his options. Now it occurred to him that Williams himself might report the stolen money to the police when he sobered up in the morning, citing Casper or Billy as two people who’d seen the stash in his possession. The police would have no trouble picking Billy up and, of course, they’d find the money in his briefcase.

The more Billy thought of the pickle he’d put himself in, the more he became convinced that unless he got to Williams first, the case against him was open and shut. No magistrate or judge would believe that he’d acted in good faith. If he’d had to handle a case like this when he’d been a practising barrister, he wouldn’t have given his client any chance of winning. He’d make him plead mitigating circumstances, an act committed while under the influence, citing the fact that his client had no previous record. The best he would have hoped for was a shorter sentence. Sitting on the bench outside the Art Gallery, the afternoon drawing to a close, Billy could hear the cell door at Long Bay clanging shut behind him.

He’d already thought about giving the money to Con for safekeeping but decided against doing so. Con was his friend, though it was a friendship that had never been truly tested. The cafe owner might well baulk at the idea and Billy wouldn’t blame him if he did. Even if he agreed to keep the money in safekeeping while Billy tried to find Williams, if things went wrong, and the lawyer in Billy told him that they invariably do, Con would be an accessory to the crime too. Furthermore, Billy would be totally discredited and no longer eligible as Con’s sponsor and character referee, a fact which might well prevent the owner of the New Hellas Cafe from bringing out his wife-to-be from Greece.

Billy had been among the homeless for four years and he’d always told himself that the decision to cut all his previous ties was in the interest of all concerned, that by leaving his wife and the daughter he loved he’d made it easier for them to get on with their lives without the daily reminder of the past that his presence brought them. He was not to be trusted and he was best being on his own, well away from anyone he could hurt. The loneliness that had followed had been of his own making, a punishment he repeatedly told himself he deserved. But now, for the first time, he realised that there wasn’t anyone whom he could trust and no one who would trust him. He had gone beyond aloneness and severed even the most tenuous connections of his life.

It was growing dark when Billy finally rose from the bench. Despite his state of anxiety he was hungry, which was probably the cause of his dizziness so he decided to make his way to the food van in Martin Place.

It was only an eight-minute walk from the Art Gallery to Martin Place and Billy arrived before the van had drawn up for the evening meal. A number of people had already gathered and were waiting in the fronts of shops and banks, most of them male. He recognised one or two faces but, apart from a brief nod, there was no contact, which was the accepted convention. The young blokes who came in for a free feed were usually pretty aggro and it wasn’t a good idea to look them in the eyes. Anonymity was the unspoken code among the homeless.

Billy found a seat and, placing his briefcase on his lap, kept his eyes on the ground. A young bloke came up to him and asked for a light.

‘Don’t smoke,’ Billy said, not looking up.

‘What’s with the handcuffs?’ the teenager asked, pointing to the briefcase.

Billy put his finger up to his lips. ‘Shush!’ He looked left, then right, and in a loud whisper said, ‘Blueprints, mate. Atomic bomb.’ Tucking his head into his shoulder, he repeated the look to each side. ‘You haven’t seen any Chinese, have you?’ He lowered his voice even further, ‘They want them urgent, they’re going to blow up the White House.’ Billy pulled the briefcase tightly to his chest, a look of alarm on his face. ‘You won’t tell them, will ya?’

The young bloke turned his head to one side and, pursing his lips, made as if to spit at the ground near his feet. ‘Fuckin’ schizo!’ he said, moving away.

The food van had arrived and people were starting to walk up towards it. The Just Enough Faith van was one of several around the city, most of which were run by religious organisations, although not this one.

Just Enough Faith was run personally by Jeff Gambin and his wife Alina, who came about as close to being modern-day saints as was possible in today’s iconoclastic world. They financed the van and bought and prepared its daily fare from their own resources and, in addition, worked to rehabilitate and help the homeless and the destitute. No one needing food or help was ever turned away and they would feed around six hundred people a night. When asked what sort of people came to the van they would tell how their youngest client was just four months old and their oldest ninety-five. The food dispensed free from the van was well prepared with a wide choice and was generally regarded as better than that placed on most tables at home. Not all homeless people were alcoholics and food was an important factor in their lives and so the vans, just like restaurants, were given a rating: Just Enough Faith being the best and the so-called restaurant for the homeless, Our Lady of Snows, near Central Station, regularly voted the worst. Billy not only used Just Enough Faith because of its convenience and the quality of its food, but because Martin Place was well lit and therefore less dangerous.

After the incident with the teenager, Billy’s knees were shaking so violently that he dared not rise. He sat a while longer until his beating heart had slowed and most of the street people had been served. The ruse he’d used with the young bloke always worked, because, apart from the drunks, the addicts, pensioners and street kids, the square on any given evening would contain its fair share of schizophrenics and mentally disturbed who’d been freed from government institutions and allowed to re-enter the community to swell the ranks of the hopeless and homeless.

People moved quietly up to the queue, where the unspoken aggression in the air seemed to dissipate. There was no pecking order as might be expected, with young blokes asserting themselves and pushing to the front. It was first come, first served, everyone acting decorously, choosing their meal in an undertone and then finding a quiet place to eat it. Food remained the only sacred factor in their lives.

‘Good evening,’ Jeff Gambin called to Billy. ‘How are you tonight, Billy? Nice of you to drop by.’ Gambin, a Tibetan, was educated in India and later at Cambridge and, recognising Billy for a cultured man, always treated him like a gentleman.

‘Good evening, Mr Gambin,’ Billy answered, for although Jeff Gambin regarded him as a familiar, he was careful not to take the compliment for granted.

‘Nice pot of Irish stew going. You always seem to enjoy it?’

‘Yes, thank you, that will do nicely,’ Billy replied, not really fussed about what to eat.

‘We’re moving, Billy, been kicked out of Martin Place,’ Jeff Gambin said, handing Billy a brimming plate.

‘Oh, kicked out, why is that?’

‘The Olympics, can’t have people like us messing up the centre of the city.’

‘But the Olympics are in four years!’ Billy exclaimed.

‘Get us used to going elsewhere,’ Jeff Gambin shrugged. ‘Get us all accustomed to going elsewhere, somewhere out of sight.’ He always included himself and his wife when he referred to the homeless. ‘Have they told you where?’

‘St Mary’s Cathedral,’ Gambin grinned. ‘In the shadow of the mother church, overseas visitors will now see us as God’s benign hand at work, not a bad piece of art direction, eh?’

Billy, shaking his head, thanked him and took a small serving of stew and a couple of slices of bread over to a bench where he ate in a distracted manner, hardly tasting the dish. Then he completed the first meal he’d eaten in two days with a cup of hot, sweet, milky tea laced with the usual six sachets of sugar. Considerably strengthened in both body and mind, he told himself that a glass of scotch had been well and truly earned. Just the one glass, mind, to calm his nerves. There was a pub at the bottom of William Street he sometimes used and he set off in that direction, crossing the lights at the museum.

At ten o’clock closing time, the publican threw him out. As he made his way haltingly up College Street and into Macquarie Street towards his arboreal sleeping quarters, he talked aloud to himself, stopping frequently and looking about him, his eyes clearly not focused. ‘Done my best, looked for the bugger everywhere, didn’t I? Best intentions. Done all I could. Bastard wandered off, wasn’t my fault. Done my best.’ He stopped unsteadily in front of Parliament House, head back and to one side, squinting at the policeman standing at the gate. ‘Even-ing, offica.’

‘Better get your head down, mate,’ the policeman replied in a friendly enough voice. ‘Want me to call Mission Beat?’

‘No, saulright!’ Billy called, moving away. ‘Nearly there! Thank you. Thank you very . . . much oblige, offica.’

Billy soon forgot the policeman and continued mumbling on about Williams. ‘He had no right. Disappear. Do this to me. Make me responsible. Not fair, not bloody fair. Can’t help his girlie, can I? Oops! Wash your step, Billy! Abo bastard! Bugger all of ’em. Pestilence on all of you bastards! Shit, I’m pissed! Billy O’Shan . . . nessy, you’re drunk as a skunk. Pissed as a newt. In . . . in ...e...briated. Oh shit, I ...I wanna go home!’

He reached the side of the library. Too drunk to think, he decided to take a shortcut to his bench through a bed of wild iris lining the pavement. The plants fell over the edge, concealing the low wall that edged the flower bed and Billy, failing to allow for it, went flying through the air to land most fortuitously in the centre of a large stand of the irises, missing the edge of the paving by centimetres.