My city of Sydney

My city of Sydney
I miss the warmth of you
Miss the heart of your people
That little church steeple
In Woolloomooloo...
- XL Capris, 1979

I was reassured to discover that Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Young was indeed rotund, red-faced and could feasibly have answered to the name of ‘Fat Albert’, though he looked a bit young to have fathered a current St George Illawarra starting hooker. We sat in the lobby of the Lismore cop shop – all the interview rooms were full, and in any case DSS Young was seemingly content to keep this off-the-record, which was also fairly reassuring – drinking appalling coffee and going over the details of the case. I kept my account as dispassionate as I could; my girlfriend and I stopped by Priddle’s house before going to dinner, we were supplied with drinks by himself which were apparently heavily spiked, I awoke sometime later to discover him attempting to sexually assault her while she was unconscious, once challenged he ran away.

Going back a step, what was your motivation in going to Priddle’s house?

Purely courtesy. He’d been producing our recording sessions for the album we were laying down.

No intention of challenging him?

None whatsoever. In fact, I’d wanted to blow the whole thing off but Rachel had thought it would be fine.

And your relationship with him at that stage was?

Not pleasant, but workable. Better than it’d been, in that the recording was finished. I was just glad to be getting away from him, McCarthy, the lot of them. I was planning to quit as soon as we’d wrapped the album anyway.

Did Priddle or McCarthy know this?

If they had, it was guesswork, I’d only told Rachel. I think we could all figure out it was nearer the end than the beginning.

Where was McCarthy during all of this?

I didn’t know, I’d not seen him since the drinks had been offered around. If he hadn’t been ‘in on’ this, presumably he was also debilitated somewhere in the building.

You think he was?

I have no idea. I wouldn’t like to even have a guess.

So Priddle fled, and you pursued him?

I wasn’t in a fit state to do anything. I was barely conscious. I just stumbled around the place, fell into a hall cupboard and found a cricket bat.

Not one you brought along with you?

Not something I tend to carry with me, mate. Priddle often spoke of how great a junior sportsman he’d been before his ankles went or his knees capsized or his arse exploded or whatever he was claiming had happened to him, but funnily enough he was truly rubbish whenever we played him at anything. Anyway he had an old bat gathering dust in there, and I decided to put it to better use smashing Priddle’s stuff. I did so for a time until he returned.

Where had he been?

Again, no idea, but he returned from the garage, presumably having been down there to grab something. He returned with what looked like a handgun, which I presumed to be a fake.

Why would you presume it was fake?

Because everything else about him was. I also figured if it was real he’d have used it after I started chasing him around the house with the bat.

Do you now believe it was a fake?

I don’t know. I had impaired judgement on the night and would have acted differently had I had full control of my faculties. Like not accepting the drink in the first place.

How did Priddle sustain his injuries?

From a few blows from the bat, but mostly from falling down the stairs trying to get away.

Falling? Not pushed?

Falling. When I reached him, he was unconscious; I attempted to rouse him by punching him repeatedly in the face, but was forced to desist by McCarthy with the gun. He claimed at that point he knew it to be real. At that point others arrived, including McCarthy’s girlfriend, along with Rachel who had regained consciousness. McCarthy’s girlfriend took Priddle, Rachel and McCarthy to various hospitals – different ones I assume – and I returned to the studio, where I was sleeping.

Why did you not accompany your girlfriend to the hospital?

It was made clear that I was not welcome to.

Why did you not report her sexual assault to the police?

I was asked not to, by her. I’m not proud of that.

Which also meant you couldn’t be prosecuted for the assault on Priddle?

I’d have happily gone down for that if Priddle went down for what he did, but we didn’t get to that, did we.

No. Priddle was dead within a week.

Indeed he was. And I was in northern Queensland. I don’t doubt that, Mr Young. Then why are we recapitulating the entire story when there’s nothing more to add beyond what was published in the paper?

“Because, Mr Young,” he replied flatly, “we both know there was no sexual assault. You beat a man half to death because you didn’t like the way he looked at your girlfriend, then had him killed when you didn't get the job done first time. You knew that as soon as you shopped him to us, he was as good as dead.”

You. Fucking. What.

“Can you prove any of that?” I asked him, just the coherent of livid. Don't swear at the copper. Don't swear at the copper. Fuck's sake, don't swear at the copper.

“No,” he conceded. He’d have to find Rachel, and she’d have to want to talk to him.

“Then have a nice day,” I told him, and left. Before I could tell him to go and fuck himself.

It was half-eleven, too late for morning tea, too early for lunch, yet I found myself sitting at a table outside Caddies’ coffee shop sipping an over-roasted flat white that was as bitter as I was. At least I could throw yet more sugar at that problem to make it go away. This whole fucking shitfight was draining the life out of me. I’d have long since run up the white flag if not for remembering Tractor, and being reminded what (a) a fucking shifight and (b) having the life drained out of someone actually looked like. Teaspoons of concrete were on back-order.

It was still a good hour or so before I had to head off to Ballina for check-in. I’d kept the Domain real estate section from the mid-week SMH, and was irritatedly flicking through, my hopes of being able to buy somewhere in a likeable suburb for anything less than bank-heist money dimming with every listing. Maybe I was kidding myself with delusions of Sydney grandeur. Maybe it was the sort of city you could only live in – you could only afford to live in – when you were young and stupid and willing to sleep on futon mattresses stacked on top of milk crates in scabby overcrowded flats, living on Mi-Goreng noodles and Tasman Bitter.

“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded an impetuous voice. The chair opposite me howled in protest as it was scraped backwards and ruthlessly sat upon. I glanced over my paper impassively.

“Stalking you,” I replied. “You?”

“Looking for a fight,” Rebecca replied feistily. “Two screaming matches in twenty-four hours, I’m happy to make it three.”

“Collect the whole set,” I grunted. “Who've you been fighting? The Taliban?”

“Worse. The twins,” she said. “They were chuntering away like a pair of grumpy old men about how you’d done this and that and how terribly offended your mother was – like she even gives a shit anymore, Jesus, build a bridge and get over it – and I just lost it. I lost it with them, then I rang up Lena and I lost it with her… I’ve just been losing it all over the place basically. And now I find you, the cause of all the trouble in the world, parked in a café on my street.” By which she meant the street her dance/drama studio was based. This made it her street by definition. “It’s lucky you weren’t there last night.”

“Bit of aggro, you think?”

“More that you and your brother would have been sharing a bed. He’s been exiled to the spare room.”

I smiled a little at that. “Cheers, Beck.”

“What the hell makes you think it was for your benefit? It’s not all about you, you hero. He’s been completely obnoxious for weeks now, and this was just the final straw…” And out it all poured. She wasn’t happy. He wasn’t talking. She didn’t feel fulfilled. He didn’t like her spending so much time with work. She felt taken for granted. He’d just taken off up the coast for Schoolies instead. She couldn’t do anything right any more. He took his parents’ side in every argument. They never seemed to have sex any more… Too much information. About forty minutes worth, at least. They were in trouble, anyway. She was seriously considering pulling stumps on the whole thing. Seriously.

“Great,” I muttered. “Another thing I’ve managed to fuck up.”

“I just said, it’s not all about you, you hero…”

“Whose idea was dragging him up there for the Gasket show?”

“Marty’s, wasn’t it?”

“Look, you guys need to talk to each other about this stuff…”

“But that’s just it, he doesn’t bloody talk!”

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” I replied. “He’s not talking to me either. I’m no longer welcome.”

“Who said?”

“The older twin,” I replied.

“Pfffft,” she said, exasperated. “They’re bloody children, Josh and Claire are more mature than they are.” She looked concerned. “Where did you stay last night?”

“Duffer’s,” I replied.

“Oh God no. Next time you need to stay, tell me. There’s a bed in the sick room in the studio. Where are you staying tonight?”

“The salubrious penthouse apartment of Mr Super Dave Osborne,” I said with a grin. “Overlooking Cronulla Beach, Sin Citay.”

She looked impressed. First time in a long time a woman had been impressed by Super Dave, I suspected. “You’re flying out this afternoon?”

I nodded.

She looked a little guilty. “Me come too?” she asked, bottom lip out.

I laughed. “Oh that would really improve relations. He’d start talking then. Bellowing like a freshly gelded bull I’d expect.”

“I’m serious. I’ve been meaning to take the kids down to see my parents, they’re not as mobile as they used to be…”

“And because they get on with mine about as well as Bob Brown and Wilson Tuckey,” I added impishly, and got the expected dirty look. “They’ll be in school though, yeah?” Preschool, in Claire’s case.

“How long are you going for?” Beck replied, answering a question with a question.

“Back on Monday, a bit after four.”

“Yeah… too many days away to justify, I think.” She shrugged. “Guess they’ll have to stay at home…”

“Beck, you’re not serious. I’m getting stick for everything bar global warming and the wreck of the fucking Hindenburg, I’m not getting blamed for this as well…”

“It’s not all about you! Your rock star brother took off for longer than that and left me with the kids, it’s payback. He promised he’d make it up, he just didn’t realise how soon.”

I was starting to wonder just how long it had been since Rebecca had actually done anything for herself. Over the last few years she’d gone away from home occasionally for drama trips and dance troupe tours, but that wasn’t anything other than work. “What about work?”

“Angie will be fine,” she replied.

“Angie Angie?”

“Is there any other kind?” she asked. “Yeah, Angie Mills. Or Angie Tucker, as she is now. Used to date Sam. Thought better of it. Got me my job with Mrs D when she headed off overseas. That Angie.”

“Thought you’d return the favour now you’re Reichfuhrer, yeah?”

“She’s good,” Beck offered. “Things have moved on in leaps and bounds since she joined. Or came back, or whatever. And she’ll be more than capable of steering the ship while I’m on a… fact-finding mission to, um, competitor organisations in Sydney.” She smiled that manic mulit-gigawatt smile which hadn’t been seen for some time. “Wait here. Don’t go anywhere. In fact… no. Follow me.”

In seconds we were rushing down the street towards the door that led to the stairwell that led to the upstairs headquarters of colour&movement Performing Arts Studio, formerly Daphne Dunleavy School Of Dance – Beck had changed the name and broadened the focus after she’d taken over the business on Mrs D’s retirement. The proprietor skipped up the steps two at a time and vaulted into her office to book flights. It weren’t as cheap today, let me tell you – yesterday’s specials had served their purpose – but Beck didn’t flinch. Well she did a little bit, booking a 2.30pm Jetstar return flight on Monday instead of the Virgin one as it landed about the same time (half an hour before) but was quite a bit cheaper if you didn’t check in any baggage.

“You? Without baggage?” I gasped theatrically. It’d be a first.

“You think we’ll have time to go back and grab anything?” she pointed out. “And anyway, it’s Sydney! Half the point of going is the shopping, having no changes of clothes is just extra motivation!”

“And how are you going to bring all that stuff back?”

“Luckily for me,” she said, “there’s some guy I know on the 3pm Virgin flight who’ll have room. He only ever travels with a toothbrush and a couple of pairs of nasty looking old boxers.”

“You’ve done my washing before haven’t you?”

She poked out her tongue, maturely I thought, and grabbed the cordless phone to go and tell hubby the good news: after his petulant performance the night before, he was Mr Mum for the next couple of days, and could like it or lump it. Judging by the raised voices, he was choosing option B, but given the flights were booked, he was fighting a losing battle – as I imagined he often was with her. Meanwhile, I found Angie who I’d not seen in years, who gave me a hug – cautiously – and we talked a bit about this and that, studiously avoiding the topic of her dead ex-boyfriend who used to play in my band.

“Right,” Beck pronounced, and clapped her hands. She did this so often I’d tried to convince her that every time she did it, a kitten died, but she wasn’t buying into it. She wasn’t a cat person anyway. “This is the story. Angie, you’re all right to look after the place for a few days?” Angie nodded positively. “Because I’m not going to Sydney with my brother-in-law here. I’m staying with my family in Sydney and catching up with friends and the fact that I’m on the same flight as him is completely irrelevant, yeah?”

Angie rolled her eyes, but nodded her assent with a sweet smile. Mr Tucker was a lucky fullah.

“Call or text if there’s any problems.” Beck and Angie gave each other a big hug – I suddenly realised that Angie was probably as aware of Beck’s marital difficulties as anyone – and, before I knew it, I was shouting farewells over my shoulder as Beck dragged me down the stairs and off to find where I’d parked the Boganmobile, as she called it.

And then ran back upstairs because she’d forgotten her handbag, with her phone in it.

Despite the wink-wink nudge-nudge connotations, she was true to her word; while I camped at Super Dave’s at Cronulla and went about my business from there, she stayed with her folks in Pymble, caught up with old friends in the area, and indulged in a little light retail therapy. We met up for lunch in town on the Sunday, but not for long as she had a shopping date at the QVB and I was off with Super Dave and the lads to a domestic Twenty20 game at the SCG, which was the drunken shambles you’d expect it to be, despite everyone being older and allegedly more mature than similar missions Back In The Day. In the process, I discovered VB Gold, and wished that I hadn't. Didn’t improve with repeated use either. Still, we smashed the fucking Vics, which was all that really mattered.

Beck and I didn’t actually get to compare notes until we met up at the airport on Monday – given we were both dependent on CityRail to get there, we’d both left ourselves plenty of leeway to get there on time, and having got there had a reasonable swag of time to kill over the meagre, gelatinous food-court offerings available for lunch.

“How’d you go?” she wanted to know.

“Pretty well. Caught up with lots of people. They’re all the same rabble they always were. Drank a lot of beer and don’t remember paying for much of it. Saw a couple of bands play who could blow us off the stage, and some others who make me wonder why we ever retired.” I’d insisted on dragging Super Dave et al out to gigs on the Friday and Saturday night, to see what was doing. “Decided I can’t afford to live in Sydney, even if I could score a decent job…”

“Could have told you that eight years ago,” she reminded me.

“I wasn’t asking eight years ago,” I replied. “And I met up with the famous Zoe.”

“She’s not that famous that I’ve heard of her…”

“Matt’s ex,” I explained.

“The crazy psycho druggy one?”

“It’d appear so,” I said.

“Wow,” Beck said. “She wanted to meet you? Why? Was she all druggy and crazy and psycho?”

“You know, I’d expected so. I think I was expecting Amy Winehouse or something. Like she was going to lure me into a dark alley and steal my kidneys for smack money, or that she’d threaten to go to the press with all kinds of ludicrous allegations about Matt if the family didn’t pay her off. But she was just a quiet, pleasant, slightly plump Greek girl… with a PUN-ISH-ING born-again Christian deal going on…”

“Had to be,” Beck nodded with a grin. “Had to be. She’s cleaned up, found Jesus, wants forgiveness for her sins…”

“Christ, were you there or something? Bang-on. She’s been haunted by Matt’s death ever since, she descended into drugs – descended? Didn’t sound like there was far to fall – anyway she hit rock bottom, then found the strength to let the light and love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into her life, Amen, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition…”

“God we’re cynical,” she giggled. “Well, you are. I’m not the one shouting abuse at Creflo A. Dollar on the TV at five in the morning.”

“I only did that once,” I said, “and it had been a long night, and I was very, very, very drunk.” I smiled, more out of relief than anything. “It’s funny, you demonise these people for so long, with so little to go on as to what they were really like, and then you meet them and discover…”

“They’re punishing born-again Christians,” she finished.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “No, it sounds like she was all that – she was just as nasty a piece of work as it seemed. But it’s all OK now because she’s been forgiven by Jesus.”

“But not by you?”

“Didn’t think her performance deserved the closure, to be honest,” I admitted. “It’s a bit too bloody easy to use God as your cop-out for being a reprehensible scumbag all your fucking life. So that was my weekend, how about yours?”

“Similar, I guess. Shopping. Drinks. Socialising. Tearing Lena a new arsehole.”

“You what?”

“Usual story. Sunday night, no gigs to review, she’s in her crappy little apartment drinking red wine and feeling sorry for herself. Until I rocked up on her doorstep and told her what I thought of her interview style. That only a gutter-dwelling, socially inept fuckwit would use their oldest friends’ darkest, drunkest late-night confessions as material for a newspaper article, no matter how fucking massive a break it was supposed to be for her career.” I hadn’t heard Beck drop the F-bomb in years – just like I hadn’t seen her drink coffee in years, it was something which had been phased out with pregnancy and breastfeeding, but technically the murky brown stuff we were drinking in the airport food court only barely qualified as coffee. “Pretty much what I’d had to say to her on the phone, but she seemed to get the point this time. She stopped trying to claim ignorance of why anyone would have been offended, stopped trying to say she’d been trying to do you a favour, and admitted she’d been desperate to get that exclusive, so desperate she’d been willing to split her byline with a conniving bitch like Kas Casoli, so desperate she’d betrayed you and your family… Anyway I made her cry, which wasn’t as much fun as I thought it’d be. Wasn’t as difficult, either. That girl’s a mess. You think you have problems.”

“Yeah, but hers aren’t all in print for every fucker to read, are they?” I pointed out.

“They are, if you look hard enough,” she responded. “Had to share byline with News Limited contracted journalist to get what should have been a fairly publishable interview into the paper, had it not been mostly fiction. Has to drink several bottles of red wine with her interviewees in order to get them to spill their guts. Is still far too close to her subjects. And is still very screwed up about Sam McCarthy – if not still in love with him, then at the least, very confused.”

“Glad you think so too.”

“In fact, she went to pieces so much, she admitted why she’d written the article at all,” she continued pointedly. “She told me how you completely left her hanging the night of her sister’s wedding. All the details.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “Well, at least that didn’t get into the article as well. Former rocker can’t get it up after four bottles of shithouse red.”

“She didn’t mention that,” Beck replied, wincing slightly.

“Oh. She didn’t?”

“No,” she frowned, trying not to giggle. Ah well, if anyone was going to find out about that, I guess I was OK with it being Beck. As long as the information didn’t go any further along the familal grapevine. “It was the whole ‘taking your bat and ball and going home to sulk’ thing. She freaked out when you went missing, almost called police rescue.”

“Gary Sweet’s retired now I think.” I shook my head. “What’s the issue? I wandered down the hill and got the train home. I knew it’d be very bloody uncomfortable if I didn’t. Christ, Beck, she came out with all this stuff which I really wasn’t equipped to deal with at that stage of the night. Stuff I know she didn’t actually believe, like that she was in love with me.” Beck nodded gravely. I took that to mean she also didn’t buy into that. “And I… I guess I didn’t help by saying that I still saw her as belonging to McCarthy, dead or not.”

“You’re right, it didn’t help. Tell a liberated woman she belongs to anyone, and see how far you get.”

“Oh, I got all the way down the hill in time for the first train to Roma St,” I replied. “Feet hurt like a bastard though, stupid fucking formal shoes. Too drunk to care at the time, of course.”

“You’re mad,” she said. I took it as affectionate.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but not mad enough to end up in a relationship with Lena.”

She nodded. Her flight was boarding. “So, no Sydney? You hate my town and can’t face living here again, that’s the take-home message?”

“For me, yeah. Nice to visit, but forget living here. What about you?”

“For me… I don’t want to leave my husband after all,” she admitted. “Because he sends me photos of the kids wearing silly bubble-bath foam hats in the bath when I’m feeling alone and sad and feel like I’ve abandoned my family.” She slapped me on the shoulder as she turned to leave. “And because his brother makes an excellent baggage handler.”

“That’s what all the girls say,” I replied. “I’ll handle your baggage baby.” And narrowly evaded a slap. Which meant I was back in form, baby.

Obviously Virgin had a better pricing deal on their avgas than Deathstar, because while the pointy hats on my flight kicked the tyres and lit the fires a good half an hour behind Beck’s departure, they slam-dunked the bird onto the Ballina tarmac only fifteen minutes in arrears. Still had to wait longer than that for my baggage to come around on the carousel though. And by my baggage I mean several days’ worth of retail therapy on behalf of my travelling partner, who was yet to admit my status as such to her actual partner.

Jeff and the kids were waiting at the airport. Good, because it meant one less awkward trip to the farm to drop her off, as well as deleting a sixty kay side-trip from tonight’s drive home; not so much, as this was plenty awkward enough as it was. At Beck’s insistence we shook hands and mumbled apologies. Jeff was so thrilled to see her again – I wondered whether he knew how close he’d come not to – that he’d have agreed to anything. I was over it, and vaguely embarrassed I’d unloaded so much frustation on him; he hadn’t made my crappy life into a soap opera for the smug middle-class readers of Unky Rupert's faux-broadsheet weekend rag, after all.

“So you just happened to be down in Sydney at the same time, yeah?” Jeff inquired.

“Yup,” I said. “That’s about it.”

And rather sheepishly handed Beck my bag so she could rifle through it and retrieve her various purchases. Which, as contractually obliged, included a bunch of things for the kids, and even a gift for the potential future ex-husband – a retro Dr Who T-shirt from the ABC Shop in the QVB – to take some of the attention away from the millions of dollars she’d spent on herself. While she was casting my dirty laundry across the terminal (I was pretty used to it by now), Jeff piped up again:

“And you met this… Zoe, yeah? Matt’s ex?”

I nodded.

“You make much of her?”

“Troubled,” I said after some thought. “But not the way I was expecting.”

Zoe had said one other thing which I’d kinda glossed over, because I knew Jeff wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. She’d said the reason she couldn’t ever have a relationship with Matt was that Matt was gay. The reason I knew Jeff didn’t want to hear it was because I sure as fuck didn’t so I gave it the respect it deserved, and vetoed its right to be considered factual information.

I ended up making the side-trip to the farm anyway, because I ended up apologising to Mum, on Lena’s behalf as much as mine; sure, I was putting words in Lena’s mouth, but it was nothing she hadn’t done to me before in the national print media. And Beck had bought her a scarf which she’d been happy to pretend had been my purchase, if only to say thanks in a backhand sort of way for helping her patch things up with Jeff. Not that I did anything other than give her the idea of taking off for the weekend and acted as her sounding board – but I’ll take it. As I did the offer of the spare bed at Jeff Beck’s. It’s a long drive back to the ferry at the best of times – more so when you’ve had a couple of Jeff and the old man’s home brewskis and some of Beck’s spectacular pasta. Our family doesn’t stay mad at each other for very long. We’re crap at it anyway.