The Songmaster (11 page)

She read through the police facts detailing events after Shirley Bisson had made her emotional phone call to the police.

Barwon had been taken to St Vincent’s Hospital and remained under police guard while his wound was cleaned and bandaged. At Rose
Bay Police Station, his wallet and jacket were temporarily taken from him while he was officially cautioned and interviewed on the ERISP electronic recording system. His version of the evening’s events was recorded on three audio tapes and a video tape. Barwon was given a copy of the audio tape with his personal effects and Susan later viewed the video tape at the station. Barwon had signed across the other sealed audio tapes which were locked away at the police station to be presented at court. He had been formally charged with break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence, and given a copy of the charge sheet and the police facts sheet from the computer. He was finger-printed and had washed the dark ink from his fingers with Solvol soap.

He’d then been granted conditional bail by the station sergeant and had to enter this agreement by signing his copy of the bail documents. The conditions were that he appear at the Waverley Local Court in two weeks’ time, and that he not approach, contact, harass or otherwise interfere with Mrs Bisson, and that he not go within two hundred metres of her home.

His effects were returned to him, Barwon had walked into the pre-dawn light, heading towards the city, until a cruising taxi had taken him back to Redfern.

Susan stretched to relieve the muscles that had tensed from the prolonged concentration at the
desk. She was returning the papers to a folder when the phone rang.

‘Susan? How are you? This is Andrew.’

‘Andrew?’ She was blank for a moment. She didn’t remember putting in a call to any Andrew. Then it hit her. ‘Andrew? Andrew Frazer?’

‘How many Andrews do you know?’ He chuckled, unconcerned at her lapse. ‘We met at Veronica’s last Saturday night.’

‘Of course. Please excuse me, my head’s in the middle of a case. I certainly remember. Where are you?’

‘Sounds uncomfortable. Having your head in a case.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction but Susan simply rolled her eyes and said nothing. ‘I’m still in Sydney. It’s Show time. That’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if you would like to come to the Royal Easter Show with me tomorrow. I’m hoping to buy two stud bulls. How long since you went to the Show?’

Susan rubbed her eyes. ‘I can’t remember. It’s that long ago.’

‘Too long then. This is the last year before it moves to Homebush. Can’t help feeling it won’t be the same if it’s not at the old showground. Come on, this is our last chance. It’ll be fun. Don’t tell me you work on weekends too.’ He almost sounded desperate for her to join him and in a way the idea appealed to her. The Show had not been part of her social agenda since schooldays.

‘Will there be fairy floss, dolls on sticks, ferris-wheel rides and can we watch the wood-chop competition?’

‘You’re a demanding woman,’ replied Andrew with pretend agony in his voice. ‘Yes, I promise you all of that, plus you can watch me buy a prize bull or two.’

‘How could a girl refuse an offer like that?’ said Susan, smiling to herself.

He collected her at her door and grinned as he swept his Akubra hat from his head. ‘Hey, you didn’t have to dress the part. Looks great though.’

‘I always wear casual clothes when I can,’ she said as she slung her sweater over her safari-style shirt. She wore R.M. Williams boots and an A-line moleskin skirt. ‘They’re comfortable. And I didn’t want to look like a city slicker.’ She was going to add no one would take him for one, either. He was all country boy in his wool tie with a small insignia on it, lightweight wool jacket, moleskin pants and highly polished riding boots. But she didn’t know whether such a remark might hurt his feelings. ‘You look pretty smart yourself. So how’s your week been?’

He helped her into the rented sedan and put his hat carefully upside down on the back seat so the brim didn’t go out of shape, then ran his fingers through his thick wavy hair. ‘Pretty good. Getting better though. So, what do you want to do first?’

‘I don’t want to miss your starring performance at the bull ring.’

‘The auction is after lunch. And the bulls are starring, not me.’ He gave her a playful dig in the ribs.

It was the usual mixture of rural showcase, trade fair and fun park. Sydneysiders loved their ‘Show’ at Easter time. It was an almost ritualistic tribute to the people and the land beyond the urban boundaries that the great mass of city people seldom saw and barely understood, but contributed so much to their prosperity, culture and identity. For the people from the bush and country it was a ritual too, a time to parade with pride their achievements, past and contemporary, and to share with one another the sense of being special that comes from participation in such great tribal gatherings.

So bushie, townie and city slicker alike revelled before the high altar of rural worship, the huge and spectacular regional displays of produce, arranged in an artistic interpretation of distinctly country themes.

They meandered through the old exhibition halls, the intricate and imaginative displays of fruit and vegetables piled high in the cavernous buildings that had seen generations come and go, when the men and women on the land epitomised the battlers against the odds of nature and the vagaries of the markets. With post-war
prosperity the woolgrowers and graziers had been considered the elite, envied by trapped city suburbanites. Then with further immigration came Alessi coffeemakers and sushi, and Australia’s multicultural cities celebrated while its country folk battled rising interest rates, increasing debt, vacillating markets and a disinterested bureaucracy.

Susan turned to Andrew. ‘I’m glad this is all here. Unchanged. I hope it goes on. Just like this. I can’t pickle or crochet, but I’m glad other women do it. I love home-made things.’

Andrew glanced at her, trying to imagine Susan in an apron chopping up pickle ingredients. The picture didn’t gel. Nor did the vision of her knitting by the fire. ‘You surprise me. I didn’t think this would be your scene. I thought you’d be seaweed, Thai food and gelatos. My mother makes our own sausages, bakes bread. You have to when you’re isolated. And your mother?’

‘She’s more seaweed and bocconcini. She writes crime novels. Thrillers, she calls them. Dad’s an academic, so he finds them a bit of a challenge, but really he gets mad because he never figures out “whodunnit”.’

‘Is that why you went into the law?’

Susan laughed. ‘I’ve never thought of that. No. My mother’s heroines run around the back alleys of Zagreb, following men in trench coats with secrets. I like the detail stuff. The nitty gritty of unravelling, then building a case based on precedents, facts and deductions.’

‘Umm. It doesn’t sound as exciting. I think your mum has the better deal.’

There were animals, demonstrations of products ranging from vegetable peelers to tractors, an art show, fashions, new developments in artificial insemination, equipment and inventions for man, beast and farm.

‘See anything you fancy?’ asked Andrew.

‘I love it all,’ she said with shining eyes. ‘It’s just as I remember when I was a little girl. I’m so glad. It even smells the same – a mix of rotting bananas, sawdust and manure.’

‘Showbags aren’t so good any more. Come on, let’s try the shooting gallery.’

They threw weighted bags at mechanical cruising ducks who refused to budge or buckle. Susan flipped coins into a wishing well but couldn’t land on any prize. Andrew winked and handed her his hat and paid for an air rifle. He fired at wooden birds on a wire flapping past a painted sky. He missed and looked at the sights of the gun, then closed an eye and judged the angle and fired, hitting two in a row. With a feigned smile the boy running the stand handed over a stuffed gingham cloth hen. Susan was delighted. ‘I love it! I’ve always wanted to keep chooks.’

‘Then, let’s get you some Easter eggs to go with that hen.’

‘Solid ones, please. Filled with pink and white marshmallow.’

He shook his head as she headed towards a
confectionery stand where a lady in a pink cap was spinning sugar into clouds of fairy floss on long sticks.

‘Now it’s time for business.’ He moved her towards the machinery displays. ‘Got to keep up with the latest,’ he explained, after spending what seemed an inordinate amount of time looking at pumps and tractors. ‘There’s no machinery showroom for thousands of kilometres where I come from.’ He looked at her from the cab of a tractor. ‘I hope you’re not bored.’

‘No. Just starving,’ said Susan clutching her stomach with both hands and grinning.

‘Right,’ said Andrew leaping from the machine. ‘To the members’ dining room and lunch.’

‘You’ve won me.’

He took her hand and smiled. ‘Easiest conquest I’ve ever made. Just on the promise of a lunch.’

She slapped his hand in mock reprimand. ‘Depends on the quality of the lunch.’

In the old-fashioned, formal dining room Andrew introduced her to several hefty cattlemen. Susan smiled to herself as she remembered the parade of dogs where owners really did seem to resemble their pedigree pooches. These cattlemen looked like their stock – solid muscles, heavy shoulders and jowls, ruddy complexions, unfathomable eyes, deep voices, large feet. Andrew gave her a quizzical look as the men exchanged Show talk – whose bull had
won, which breeder had been placed where, who had Grand Champion of this and that, what had happened to certain characters and properties since the last Show.

‘Did you understand all that?’ he whispered as they moved away.

‘Not really. It’s another world for me.’

‘I’ve never been in a courtroom, so we’re even.’

‘You’d better hope you never will. Whereas I’d really like to see a property like yours.’

‘As I said, you have an open invitation to Yandoo. But surely you know people with properties closer to you. I’m on the other side of the country.’

‘I really do want to see the Kimberley. I’m quite curious about it for the first time in my life. I have a client now from over that way – and I met an interesting woman from there. Do you think I’m being told something?’

‘I don’t know about that. Who’s your client from the west, maybe I know them?’

She paused before answering, wondering if she should reveal the identity of her new client. ‘He’s an Aboriginal man. Nigel Barwon. I can’t go into any details.’

‘An Aborigine,’ said Andrew with surprise. ‘I thought your firm was one of those posh old-family concerns. Not the legal-aid type of place.’

‘This man is paying his way with his own money.’ She was annoyed.

Andrew heard the irritation in her voice. He recalled their heated exchange at the dinner. He had hoped Susan didn’t have the city-dwellers’ blinkered attitude that all Aborigines were wise storytellers unfairly pushed off their land.

Susan now wished she had kept her mouth shut. She saw a mini race debate looming. There was still unfinished business from the dinner party. ‘Let’s not spoil the day.’

He saw her tight expression and decided he didn’t want to get into an argument either.

Apart from the hiccup of differing opinion, it was a gem of a day. They laughed on rides and cheered on the wood choppers as men in sweat-stained singlets balanced on a timber plank, hacked through a log in seconds, muscles straining, honed axes flashing, chips of wood flying. Susan found the judging of the horses fascinating, if finer points eluded her.

At the main cattle auction, Andrew gave her a nudge as the stud bulls were led around the ring. ‘See that big Brahman . . . I’m going to bid for him and that Droughtmaster bull over there. So don’t scratch your ear and raise the bid.’

Susan was amazed at the almost incomprehensible chant of the auctioneer and the speed of the bidding. Cagey old-timers, lazily slumped, appeared disinterested until partly raising a rolled program or touching their hat to make a last-minute bid. Susan felt her stomach twitch with tension. Andrew stood with arms folded and appeared calm. When he started bidding for
the bull he wanted, excitement mingled with the tension and she gripped his elbow. When he won the bidding, she gave him an impulsive kiss on the cheek. Andrew looked pleased, although he said he’d gone a bit over his planned price. ‘They’ll improve the stock no end. Keep our artificial insemination program busy. We use the semen for our cows, too much hard work for one old bull,’ he grinned.

‘I’m sure he loves his work though,’ remarked Susan, but she couldn’t help thinking how technology aided mother nature these days, though so far it hadn’t done much for Veronica and Boris.

At sunset they drove across the Glebe Island Bridge and Susan led him to Balmain – café society, cappuccino land, food of many countries, trendies, yuppies, eccentrics. Yet with the familiarity of a community.

Andrew squeezed Susan’s hand. ‘Hey, this is neat. So what are we eating?’

‘Would Afghani food be a new sensation?’

‘It would. Will I like it?’

‘Won’t promise anything other than you’ll love it,’ she said.

And he did. The companionship was easy, and for Susan it was a nice feeling. He was a gentleman, there was no pressure. But there lingered a sense of unspoken attraction. It would wait. It had been a day of delights and a comfortable
evening. She kissed him thanks on the cheek, almost brotherly, an old friend’s kiss, and knew she’d see him again.