Good Murder (6 page)

‘Rigged!’ some wag yelled, and there was general laughter in approval.

Hennessy took centre stage, and an air of expectancy gripped the first few rows. They were mainly children, and I could see them straining forward. Hennessy reached into his pocket and withdrew a fistful of coins. He scattered them at the foot of the stage, but almost before they had hit the ground the lights went down. There was a mad, hysterical scramble as boys scrabbled about in search of precious threepences and pennies. There was, too, the promise of at least one one-shilling piece. The screen flashed into life outlining the backs of boys still hunting on the floor, and the credits for
I Killed That Man
rolled. Ricardo Cortez was top-billed. The movie was garbage. Polly loved it.

Polly let me walk her home when the films were finished. It was late, and with clouds blocking the moon the streets were impenetrably dark and slightly menacing. By the time we’d turned into Richmond Street we were the only pedestrians on the footpath. A few bicycles slid by, but not a single car.

‘You look a bit like Ricardo Cortez,’ she said. I disguised the fact that I found this offensive — Cortez looked like a low-rent gigolo — by saying that I felt a bit guilty about leaving the rest of the company to help out with that night’s dinner at the George.

‘You’re the boss,’ she said, and yawned. ‘We’re here.’

We went in at the gate and she suddenly kissed me, tentatively at first and more deeply when she met with no resistance. I drew her tightly to me and let my hand stray across her breast. She pulled away.

‘I thought you were a gentleman,’ she said, in a poor imitation of Scarlet O’Hara. To show that she hadn’t really minded, she came back to my arms and drew my mouth down to hers again. I didn’t disrupt the moment by taking further liberties. I would leave that to her. Just as her hand was finding its way inside my shirt, a match sparked into flame on the steps behind us. There was a breeze, and the match flickered uncertainly before the tobacco caught. I was startled, and drew back from Polly’s embrace. The man on the steps sniffed, and I felt Polly’s hand, still resting on my chest, tense.

‘Who’s this one?’ he asked, and sniffed again.

‘None of your business,’ Polly said sourly.

She took my hand and pulled me towards the steps. The man didn’t move from his position halfway up, and we had to squeeze past him. On the verandah, Polly said to me, ‘Come inside and have a cup of tea.’

I was aware that this was an act of defiance directed at the figure on the steps, rather than the expression of a desire to get to know me better. I accepted nonetheless. I’d liked the touch of her hand on my bare skin.

We headed down a dark corridor with rooms on either side towards a dim, yellow light. A single lamp nudged shadows feebly out of corners. Under it, in an armchair worn with sitting, Polly’s mother sprawled. She was asleep. There was too much furniture in the room, and all of it had seen better days. Polly put her fingers to her lips and indicated that we should pass through into the kitchen. We’d taken a few steps when the front door slammed and Mrs Drummond’s eyes popped open. Before she had a chance to utter a sound, the man entered the room, bringing with him the smell of tobacco and beer. He was dressed in the uniform of the RAAF.

‘Fred Drummond,’ he said, smiling now, and pushed his hand towards me. I took it automatically.

‘William Power.’

He leaned towards my ear and whispered, ‘Have you fucked her yet?’

I was stunned by the casual obscenity, and unnerved by the impertinence.

‘What kind of a question is that?’

‘My kind,’ he said, and laughed.

Polly had heard what he’d whispered, but her only reaction was to look at him as if she might spit on him.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, and passed into the kitchen, abandoning me to her brother and her mother. Fortunately, Mrs Drummond had dropped back into a deep sleep.

‘What did you say your name was?’ Fred asked, and there was something aggressive in his tone, as if he was blaming me for having a name he couldn’t remember.

‘Will,’ I said, reluctant this time to offer him more.

‘Sit down,’ he said, only it sounded like ‘Siddown’. He wasn’t going to lavish the energy required to sound the ‘T’ on me.

I sat in an uncomfortable chair with arms that were greasy and with an antimacassar that was stained with hair oil. Fred sat opposite me. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and with his hands dangling between his legs. He had big hands. Ugly hands. I watched them twitch, and then moved my attention to his face. He was grinning at me stupidly. He looked about twenty-one, and was clean-shaven and well-groomed. His features were regular, and he might have been handsome except that the muscles in his face were slack. This made him look half-witted.

‘You’re in the RAAF,’ I said.

He looked at his sleeve in mock surprise. ‘Christ. I must be.’

I ploughed on, reluctantly.

‘What branch?’

‘Wireless air gunner,’ he said, reasonably. The rapid shifts in mood and tone were disturbing. ‘Just learnin’.’

His hands gripped an imaginary machine-gun and he directed his fire at me.

‘Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,’ he chattered and shook with the gun’s imagined recoil. Mrs Drummond snorted in her sleep, oblivious to the noise around her. Fred turned his weapon towards his mother.

‘Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,’ he chattered again.

Polly came in, carrying a teapot and two cups.

‘Where’s mine?’ he asked belligerently.

‘Fuck off, Fred,’ said Polly. I suddenly began to feel sick. I wasn’t shocked by Polly’s language but by the hatred in her voice. I felt claustrophobic, as if I had been drawn into a shrinking box where the air hummed with malice. I wanted to get out of there and never return. When Fred leapt suddenly to his feet my blood fizzed in a kind of panic. It seemed possible that terrible violence might erupt here, among the clutter and small-town banalities of ugly knick-knacks and badly composed family photographs. The air was electric. Nothing in fact happened at that point. Fred simply went into the kitchen and got himself a teacup.

‘Ignore him,’ Polly said when he was out of the room. ‘He’s not the full quid.’

I didn’t recognise this Polly. Her face was distorted with the anger and revulsion this house aroused. I could taste her saliva in my mouth, and it was poison.

When Fred returned he took his seat and held out his cup, expecting Polly to pour tea into it. Polly stood, took the teapot by its handle and walked towards him. She tipped it as if to fill his cup, but at the last moment swung her arm back and, with the momentum gained, brought the teapot down hard on the side of his head. Its lid flew off, and tea sprayed over Fred and onto the furniture. There was a frozen moment when no one could assimilate what had happened. Fred’s hands flew to his face, and then he roared his rage and threw himself at Polly. They crashed to the floor, the thud of Polly’s head as it hit the floorboards competing with the clatter of toppling china figurines. Mrs Drummond woke and screamed incoherently, not looking at the scene before her, but lost somewhere between waking and sleeping, staring open-mouthed into the middle distance.

‘They’re here! They’re here! The papists have come!’ she screamed.

Fred’s hands were closed around Polly’s throat, and she was gurgling and kicking. I launched myself onto Fred’s back and dragged him off. He didn’t put up much resistance but sat with his legs splayed, feeling the side of his head. I think he was crying. Polly lay still for a few seconds but, like a thing possessed, she let out a yowl and attacked Fred with renewed ferocity. Her hand found his genitals and she squeezed so that he doubled over and made an unholy sound that was a mixture of pain and nausea. I attempted to wrench Polly’s grip away. With her free hand she raked her nails across my neck. I felt the warmth of flowing blood immediately. I staggered to my feet and backed out of the room. The last I saw of Polly Drummond was the flip flop of her bob as her head moved back and forth in rhythm to the tightening of her hold on her brother’s testicles. The scene before me in that dim, yellow light was like something out of Dante. Mrs Drummond screamed, Fred moaned, and Polly grunted with the effort. I hurried down the corridor and into Richmond Street. A light rain was falling. The cool drops stung my neck where Polly’s fingernails had ripped my flesh.

It was later that evening that Polly Drummond was murdered.

Chapter Three

at the wrong time

ANNIE HUDSON HAD READ
in
Modern Screen
that Joan Crawford never left the house without full make-up. She had, Miss Crawford said, a responsibility to her fans to look like a movie star at all times. Annie, hilariously, felt a similar responsibility, which is why, when we went to Wright’s Hall on Monday for the first time, she was wearing the kind of make-up you would apply if you were expecting a Klieg light to be turned on you. I can’t be sure, but I think Adrian had applied a hint of mascara as well. I don’t think Mr Wright had had much to do with theatre people, and we were a little overwhelming. The whole company came with me to the hall, except for Tibald, who was organising the kitchen to his satisfaction. After the first few successful dinners, and a growing profile in the town, he had begun to assert his right to be temperamental.

‘I can’t work without a proper
mise en place
,’ he snapped when I suggested that he come with us to Wright’s. ‘And I can’t organise my
mise
unless I’m left alone!’

It was obvious that Augie’s Tour d’Argent delusions were contagious.

The interior of the hall was bland and exhausted. Its windows were filthy — not that that mattered as they would be covered by our blacks. The floor was uneven, and badly rutted and dented with skate damage. There was a small room off to the side at the back. This would serve as our dressing-room and our off-stage space. We would erect a small stage and work without curtains in the authentic, Shakespearean way. I would instruct the company to refer to the audience as ‘groundlings’, to help them get in the mood. You would be surprised how details like that can affect performance and commitment. The hall wasn’t ideal and the acoustics were dreadful, but the price was right. I took the key from Mr Wright and shook his hand. He was to come that night to the George to seal the deal with Tibald’s three-course, war-time austerity miracle. When he had gone I turned to my company and said, ‘Our real work can now begin.’

‘Your neck’s bleeding’, said Annie, and her revulsion was a little overdone, considering that the ooze was the merest trickle.

Our first rehearsal went badly. I had hoped that, as professionals, they would have learned their lines. Adrian was word perfect, but he was the only one. Walter Sunder, whose age (he was sixty-five) was his only real asset, barely had a third of his part off. He was almost impossible to direct. He could never be heard from beyond the third row. Still, we needed someone to do the elderly parts, and with only minimal make-up available all he had to do was appear shirtless to provide an audience with a convincing demonstration that all flesh was indeed grass. In his case, rather dry and withered grass.

Kevin Skakel wasn’t much better. In fact, he was worse. When I pressed him to prove his claim that he had his part down, he took umbrage and limped to the back of the hall, his club foot hitting the boards just that bit harder than his good one. If he’d been able to act he’d have made a decent Richard the Third.

Annie, to give her credit, knew most of her lines, although in the brief run-through I did with her she was as animated as a table-ready flounder. I attempted to explain, yet again, my vision of the play to the company, and to convey roughly how I saw it being blocked out in this space. The men weren’t happy about the leather posing pouches I wanted them to wear. I thought the pouches were both dramatic and sensible. They certainly cut down on costuming costs.

‘I’m not serving somebody in the hotel one night and parading practically naked in front of them the next,’ said Bill Henty.

‘And putting them off their food for life,’ said Annie.

I stepped in to stop the argument descending into a slanging match, aware that there was no love lost between Bill and Annie. They were forever sniping at each other. I think perhaps Annie may have turned him down at some stage. I don’t inquire too closely into the private lives of the members of my company.