The Tax Inspector

54

Frieda’s son was now a big man with whorls of tight hair across his chest like a black man. He had soft, teary eyes and his father’s lips. ‘What did he do to you?’ she asked him.

Mort had his big male hand around her arm, above the elbow. He had found her walking up the street towards the highway. He was propelling her back across a gravel car lot in Franklin. She lost one shoe. She kicked off the other. It fell between the treads down on to the gravel.

The annexe smelled like her father’s bedroom in Dorrigo.

In her living-room, he pulled out her chair for her and she sat in it. Her stockinged feet were wet. She looked at the room, surprised by its disrepair. He pulled out a dining chair and did not seem to know what to do with it.

‘Don’t panic, Mort,’ she said.

He said: ‘I’m really sorry you had to hear this smut.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He was a good man,’ Mort said, holding the back of the chair and lowering his big square stubborn head, his father’s head. ‘You can rely on that.’

‘She says he touched her bosom.’

He sat on the chair. He leaned across and took her hand. ‘He was widely liked. I could draw a map for you Mum, and show you where he was liked, all the way over to Warrakup, right over as far as Kiama even,’ he smiled. ‘I find old codgers who remember him. They hear my name and they say, “You Cacka’s son?” I met one old man last week in the Railway Hotel at Warrakup, a Mr Gross.’

‘Hector,’ she said, but she was not thinking about Hector.

‘His wife is called Maisie.’

‘Minnie. She had bandy legs.’

‘He said, “Your old man sold me a Holden and when I complained about the rattle he bought it back from me, cash, in the pub.” He said, “I respected him for that.”’

‘He always had cash. We did a lot of cash business at the auctions.’

‘Probably not a good idea to mention this with the Tax Office snooping around.’

‘What did he do to you?’

‘He didn’t do anything.’

‘He touched her bosom.’

‘So she says.’

‘He did something to you too. That’s what she was suggesting.’

‘Did WHAT?’ he bellowed. It made her jump, the sheer noise of it. That was like him – the father – great rushes of rage coming out of nowhere, not always, not even often, but when you got close to things he wouldn’t let you touch.

‘Don’t panic,’ she said.

He had his arms bent around his chest and his forehead lowered and his brows down and his eyes were brimming with enough hate – no other word for it – to burn you.

A moment later he put his hands on his knees and said, ‘Sorry.’

A moment more: ‘You like me to make a cup of tea?’

Frieda said, ‘She’s quite correct when she said I knew it was happening.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘I didn’t believe a man would do that, but I knew. I knew but I didn’t believe.’

‘He loved us,’ Mort said. ‘Whatever he was, he loved us. I know that. I rely on that, to look at him and know he loved us.’

‘It’s why she hates me, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not for us to judge him. What would they have done to him if it had all come out? How could they understand he loved us?’

‘It’s why you won’t sell cars.’

‘What?’ Mort screwed up his eyes and pushed his head at her. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Is that why you won’t sell cars … because you won’t do that for him? You’re angry with him still.’

‘For Chrissakes, he’s dead.’

‘But it’s what he always wanted for you. He always wanted you to be a salesman.’

‘You silly old woman …’ Mort yelled. ‘Someone takes that fucking workshop off my hands, someone hires a service manager and a foreman, I’ll sell cars like you never saw them sold.’

‘Do you think it’s going to rain?’ said Mrs Catchprice, looking up towards the ceiling.

‘Just lay off,’ he said.

‘I really think it’s going to rain.’

‘Get off my back, Frieda. I’ve got enough problems without this.’

‘Good for the gardens,’ she said.

They were both silent for a while then, although she could hear him breathing through his mouth. After a while she leaned over and patted his knee. ‘There’s a boy,’ she said.

Mort looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She took his hand and stroked it. ‘You know I never wanted this business for myself?’

‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘You knew?’

‘Jesus, Mum,’ he took his hand back, ‘you told me a hundred times. You wanted a flower farm.’ He stood up.

‘You think I’m a silly old woman.’

‘No I don’t.’ He sat down. He took her hand in his. ‘You know I don’t. It would have been a very profitable business. You would have been well situated here.’

‘But he still would have been who he was …’

‘By the railway,’ Mort said. ‘Right on the railway.’

‘He wanted the motor cars so much, I made sure he had them. He loved that first Holden as much as Dame Nellie herself. I must have loved him, don’t you think?’

‘Of course you did.’

‘I don’t know I did.’ She paused. ‘I thought he wasn’t very interested in s-e-x. I thought it was the music he had, instead. I couldn’t have loved a man who was doing that to my children. I never worried about him playing around. I saw his face listening to the opera. I can’t explain the feeling, but I thought – he isn’t going to play around. What did he actually do?’

‘It’s too late now, Mum.’ He took his hands back and held them on his knees and rocked a little.

‘I’m not dead yet,’ she said. ‘I have a right to know.’

Mort laughed and shook his head.

‘What’s so funny?’

He rubbed his hand across his face. ‘You’re incredible.’

‘I said I have a right.’

‘Oh no, you have no right.’ She had set him off again. He had his arms wrapped around his chest. His eyes were staring at her – hate again – a different person. ‘You have no damn right to anything. You are lucky I am still here. You are lucky I don’t hate you. You’re lucky to have anyone left who’ll tolerate you, so don’t say you didn’t love him, because that would just be … I couldn’t stand it.’

‘Tell me,’ Mrs Catchprice said. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘Jack pisses off. He doesn’t care. Cathy pisses off. She doesn’t care. I’m the one who’s stayed to look after you. So listen to me: don’t say you didn’t love him, because I couldn’t bear it.’

He was breathing hard. She was frightened of him.

‘You want to know what he did?’ he said at last.

Frieda thought it best to stay quiet.

‘DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE DID?’

He stood up. He had ‘Mort Catchprice’ embroidered in blue on his overall pocket.

‘I’ll tell you. I’m going to tell you. You’re old enough to know,’ he laughed, an ugly loose-mouthed laugh. ‘He had a book, a dictionary of angels, with pictures. Did he ever show it to you? Of course he bloody didn’t. He made me dress up like an angel and sing the “Jewel Song”. Is that enough?’

It was enough. She nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want to know what else he did. You wouldn’t want to even imagine it.’ He was crying. He was ruined, wrecked, a human being with nothing.

She had made this, invented it. She knew she was 100 per cent responsible.

‘What would that have done to you?’ he said. ‘What sort of person would you have become?’ He had tears running down his big squashed nose. He was all crumpled up like rubbish in the bin.

Frieda went to the kitchen to phone the Hare Krishna temple.