The granite, p.1
The Granite, page 1
THE
GRANITE
The Granite © 2024 Rob Smith
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land
and pay respects to the Elders, past, present and future.
THE
GRANITE
ROBERT M. SMITH
While some of the peripheral characters and incidental events are based on real people and occurrences, the main storyline and central characters are entirely fictional. The locations where the novel is set are authentic, although some minor features of the gravelly, scrub-covered titular hill have been altered or enhanced to suit the plot.
To my parents who gave me
the most idyllic childhood.
Prologue
He looked down at the gun in his trembling hand. Was this really a solution, or just a way out for a coward? But what did it matter? Life without her by his side would be intolerable anyway. If he was going to do it, now was the time. There was nobody within miles to stop him or talk him out of it. He had made his decision in the lonely hours of the night before and it was time to get it over with.
The crack of the rifle echoed around the hills. Dogs barked in the distance. White cockatoos squawked hysterically as the large flock lifted from the crowns of trees nearby. High above, a wedged tailed eagle soared on the breeze, its wings extended and motionless as it rode the updrafts, totally oblivious to the denouement of a mortal existence far below.
Chapter 1
The altercation had started in the carpark a few minutes before Detective Inspector Bowker and his wife arrived. The balding, well-dressed elderly man in a sports jacket and red bow tie was now backed up against the bonnet of a late model Lexus, his walking stick on the ground beside him. Two middle-aged men in dirty jeans and singlets prevented the old man’s progress as they shouted in his face and prodded him back against the car. Both had a fishing rod in hand, one carried a tackle box and the other a metal esky. The taller and heavier of the two placed the rod and esky on the ground, opened the cooler’s lid and removed two cans of Victoria Bitter. He handed one to his offsider who dropped the tackle box, leant his fishing rod against the car and ripped the top off his beer. He took a long swig then poked the old man in the chest with his free hand. ‘You don’t remember us, do you Mr Rice?’
‘We were in your 3E history class,’ the other man said. ‘You remember 3E don’t you, Sir? Class for all the dumb-arse shits.’
‘I’ve taught thousands of students over the years,’ the old man said nervously. ‘I can’t possibly remember all who were in my classes.’ He stooped down, collected his walking stick and tried to push past them. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’ve a dinner to attend.’
The heavier man blocked his way. ‘Noel Sanderson. You remember that name? It should ring a bell, because you wrote me a fuckin’ reference.’
The old man shrugged tensely. ‘I’ve written hundreds of those. You can’t expect me to recall them all.’
‘Well I fuckin’ recall mine. I had a brickie’s apprenticeship lined up, and all the boss needed was a reference from the school. Well he received one, didn’t he?’ Sanderson said aggressively, before continuing in a mocking voice: ‘At school, Noel Sanderson is lazy and untrustworthy, but may improve in an employment situation.’ He feigned a laugh. ‘Well I didn’t get the chance, did I? The old brickie dropped me like a hot spud and employed that turd Billy Henderson instead. Now he’s got his own business, and I’m shovellin’ cow shit at the saleyards a couple of days a week if I’m lucky.’
The elderly teacher raised a palm and shook his head. ‘Look I’m sorry it didn’t all work out, but the staff were instructed to ensure references were honest, otherwise they would have been ignored by employers. That’s not fair on the good kids.’ He immediately regretted his choice of words.
Sanderson’s temper flared and he pushed the old man backwards across the car’s bonnet. ‘Not fair on the good kids eh? What about the others, eh Sir? They can all go and get fucked as far as you’re concerned, I bet. I’ve still got that reference at home, Mr Rice. Just to remind me how you fucked up my life. I’ve been inside a couple of times as well, and do you know what I dreamed about while I was in there? Finding you in a quiet spot on your own and then stuffing that reference down your fuckin’ throat until you choked to death on its lies.’
‘We’ve got company Sando,’ Sanderson’s offsider said urgently.
Sanderson felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around to see Bowker towering over him. He looked into the policeman’s eyes. ‘Who are you fuckhead? And keep your bloody hands off me,’ he said as he slapped Bowker’s arm away.
The policeman pulled his ID from his jacket pocket and displayed it in Sanderson’s face. ‘Detective Inspector Bowker. Now what’s going on here?’
Sanderson’s mate was first to speak. ‘Sando and I were walking down to the lake to catch a few reddies and have a quiet beer. We saw one of our old teachers here and thought we’d stop and say g’day. You know, renew old acquaintances.’
‘What’s your name?’ Bowker demanded.
‘Glen Brown.’ Brown pointed to his mate. ‘And this is Noel Sanderson. We were in Mr Rice’s class about twenty-five years ago.’
Bowker looked at Rice who was now standing up straight and adjusting his bow tie. There was a look of vague recognition on both men’s faces. ‘Were they making threats towards you,
Mr Rice?’
Rice was keen to put the whole incident behind him and not create more animosity with the ex-students who he knew had consumed a drink or five before the encounter. He told himself it was just the alcohol talking, so why add more fuel to their fire. ‘No. We were just discussing what they’ve been up to since they left school.’
Bowker looked directly into the old teacher’s eyes. ‘From the bit I heard, I have my doubts about that Mr Rice. And the way Mr Sanderson here had you pushed over the bonnet adds to those doubts.’ He paused for a moment contemplating the best course of action. ‘But if there’s no harm done, I’ll take you on your word.’ He turned to the fishermen. ‘I’m assuming you didn’t drive down here. I reckon you’d be well over the limit.’
Sanderson pointed to the south. ‘My place is just down there in Garden Street, so we walked. We’re not complete dumb shits.’
Bowker sent the pair on their way then addressed the ex-schoolteacher. ‘Let’s have your story again, but without the bullshit this time.’
Rice took a deep breath. ‘Sanderson was stirred up about a reference I wrote for him that he said cost him a job several decades ago. But you saw him. He was intoxicated, so I don’t want to make a big deal about what just happened. He was a bully boy at school but usually his threats came to nothing. I have to live in this town and although I’m probably unlikely to cross paths with him again, I don’t need to give him more ammunition to abuse me.’
‘Let sleeping dogs lie, you reckon?’
‘I think that’s best,’ Rice replied without conviction.
‘Sometimes sleeping dogs wake up and grab you by the throat.’ Bowker shrugged. ‘But if you don’t want to take it further, then that’s your decision I guess.’
The ex-teacher nodded but said nothing.
‘I think you might have taught me too,’ Bowker suggested. ‘A few years before those clowns were at school though. Your face and the Rice name bring back memories from somewhere.’
‘I do remember teaching a Bowker. An Alex Bowker, if I recall rightly.’
Bowker smiled. ‘Alex is my brother. Lives down in Bairnsdale now.’ He patted the car’s bonnet. ‘This your Lexus?’
Rice shook his head. ‘I wish.’
‘So which is your car?’
‘I own a small Corolla, but it’s parked in my carport. I’m planning to have a few drinks with my meal, so I’ll walk home. Not too far, even for a man with a dicky leg. My house backs onto the lake down near the railway bridge in Arundel Street. Fifteen-minute walk, tops.’ He shook hands with the policeman. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you inside. Many thanks for your help.’
Bowker watched Rice climb the steps of the glassed building one-by-one before collecting Rachael from thei
Bowker had little time for school reunions. They always seemed a disappointment. You attended in the hope of hearing about the great lives your classmates had gone on to live after such promising beginnings, or to see how the beautiful people had blossomed. While there were exceptions, the majority of your peers lived an uninspiring existence, often a stone’s throw from their place of birth. And the attractive faces from your school days had reached their zenith at an early age and time had taken its toll. The slim and athletic bodies you remembered from your youth had often gone to seed. The fit and lithe had become the fat and lazy. Worst still was the inevitable news concerning the demise of former friends, or their debilitating illnesses or their tragic personal histories.
The detective inspector had another reason to shun these alumni affairs. Bowker was somewhat of a nonentity at school. He grew up on a farm and spent most of his time there. With the exception of team sport, he had little social contact with his classmates. If it hadn’t been for a phone call from Ken Phillips, Bowker’s best friend at school, he would never have contemplated attending. But he finally relented, deciding to make a weekend of the trip to Benalla to show his wife Rachael his old stomping ground and the farm on which he had grown up.
The trip from Caulfield North to Benalla was an easy two-and-a-bit-hour journey via the Hume Freeway. Long gone were the mile-long truck convoys where overtaking on the old two-lane highway was nigh impossible, and the road toll on this main Melbourne to Sydney link was dominated by those who had tried and failed. Climbing the Great Divide to the improbably named “Pretty Sally” cutting occurred at a frustrating walking pace, and the descent was not for the faint-hearted, with many of the semitrailers leaving the summit in angel gear.
Benalla is now bypassed to the south and gone is the highway traffic up Bridge Street, the main commercial thoroughfare in the small rural city of around ten thousand residents. The town was established in the 1840’s at a crossing of the Broken River on the main Hume and Hovell exploration route and has a comfortable laid-back feel about it. This was to change in the next few hours.
The new football club function room housed the reunion dinner, an event aiming to attract ex-students from decades beginning with the 1960’s. The spacious second-storey and heavily glassed room overlooked the football ground to the west and afforded spectacular views of the adjacent Lake Benalla to the east. It was still daylight when the Bowkers climbed the steps, with the sun slipping slowly behind the heritage listed grandstand at the opposite end of the oval. The ornate superstructure of the old building cast elongated geometric patterns across the grass as though the oval had been marked out for a giants’ game of hopscotch. Bowker immediately recognised two of the organisers who manned the door welcoming each participant as they arrived. Neither remembered him and had to ask his name. Nothing had changed, the policeman thought. Once the paperwork was completed and the nametags and a folder of information collected, Bowker took Rachael by the hand and led her to a circular table where his old mate Ken Phillips was pointing to a pair of vacant seats.
Phillips stood up and shook Bowker’s hand and kissed Rachael lightly on the cheek. ‘We’re lucky, mate. Everyone on this table is from our year.’
Bowker scanned the mélange of faces looking up in his direction. He recognised each one after a few moments, desperately combing his memory and making adjustments for the ravages of time. ‘G’day everybody,’ he said with a cursory wave. ‘Long time no see.’ The blank faces told him they had no idea who he was. He pointed to his own chest. ‘Greg Bowker. And this is my wife Rachael.’ The Bowkers sat down and dragged in their chairs.
‘Did you come to the school part way through sixth form,’ said a prune-faced woman who Bowker remembered was the centre of a schoolboy crush. Dodged a bullet there, he thought to himself.
Phillips laughed out loud. ‘He started with us in first form. Don’t you remember? He was in our form all the way through.’
One by one, Bowker perused the wrinkled faces of his former classmates, then glanced at Rachael with a smile. Rachael was three years younger than her husband but looked twenty-five years junior to the women at the table. She was tall and slim and had maintained a high level of fitness after a lifetime in sport and dance. She had an attractive face and deep green eyes. Her hair was cut short and had retained its natural colour, something Bowker felt was unique among the women surrounding him. She wore a long flowing pleated skirt made of a light material that elegantly swung back and forth as she walked. Completing her look was a silk sleeveless blouse and strappy medium-heeled shoes.
‘I brought the class photo from Form 5,’ a woman opposite said as she removed a black and white picture from her handbag. She placed it on the table and ran an index finger across the smiling faces. ‘I can’t see you in it, Greg. Perhaps you were away when they took the photo.’
Bowker reached a hand across the table. ‘I’ll take a look and see if I can spot my boof head.’ The woman handed him the photo and he scanned the boys in the back row of the group. He smiled and pointed to a tall lad in the centre with arms folded and trying desperately to push out his biceps. He kept his finger on his younger face as he passed the picture back to its owner. ‘That’s me. Dead centre of the back row.’
The woman looked with a strained face before diving into her leather bag and retrieving a pair of glasses she had probably hoped she wouldn’t have to wear. She viewed the face closely then looked up at Bowker. ‘I can honestly say I have no recollection of you being in our form.’ She turned the photograph over and read the names on the back. ‘Yep. That’s you alright. “Gregory Bowker”.’ She passed the picture to others on the table and the shaking of heads confirmed that Bowker’s anonymity was unanimous.
‘I could have named just about everyone in this photo, but I wouldn’t have put a name to that face in a million years. Sorry Greg,’ another mutton-dressed-up-as-lamb frump said.
Phillips smiled. ‘I remember you Greg. So at least that’s one out of thirty.’
Bowker shrugged. ‘I suppose when you were a kid who never got into much trouble at school and spent most of your time on the farm mucking around with horses there’s not too much to remember.’ Rachael put her hand on his thigh and squeezed it gently under the table.
A small, fat and unfit looking man who Bowker recognised as a bully from his teenage years looked up when there was mention of horses in the policeman’s youth. He held up a chubby index finger. ‘I remember you now. You were tied up with that business out in the bush. It was all over the Ensign at the time. That was you, wasn’t it?’
Bowker leant back in his chair and nodded.
Chapter 2
It was another magical northeast Victorian spring day. The sky was cobalt blue with the occasional puffy cumulus cloud casting a moving shadow across the rolling green paddocks. It was the type of day Greg Bowker loved lying on his back in the green grass staring up at the passing clouds, watching faces and animals form and disappear in the constantly morphing white billow above him. His imagination transported him to a myriad of transmuting mystical places projected against the sky, all this to a soundscape of whistling birds harvesting the blossoms of surrounding trees and of buzzing bees working the yellow cape weed flowers around where he lay.
Today’s adventure for the two boys was a horse ride up to The Granite where they planned to have lunch and shoot a few rabbits for tomorrow night’s tea. Hazel Bowker wandered across the mostly bare ground that was laughingly called the back lawn to the netting fence where her sons had tethered their horses under the massive elm trees. The dappled grey, the taller of the two mares, was what Greg termed a total head-case. Contessa, or Connie as he called her, was prone to bolting after the slightest fright. To combat this potentially dangerous reaction, Greg’s father acquired a special bit from a rodeo bronc-riding friend that stopped the mare in her tracks before she hit top speed. The downside was her immediate reaction to being restrained. A wild and petulant bucking display. But Greg preferred this to bolting. The only downside to sitting atop a bucking horse was the potential to find yourself hitting terra firma with a severe jolt. But so far, Greg had never been thrown from any horse so the thought of the mare dislodging him never crossed his mind. A bolting horse was an equine of a completely different colour, so to speak. Staying aboard wasn’t the worry, it was the unpredictability of what lay in the minutes ahead. Would you cross a country intersection in a full stretch gallop with a truck or car crossing your path? Were the gates you had to pass through only partially open? If a gate was closed, would the horse’s perception of its jumping ability bear any resemblance to reality. Greg’s younger brother Alexander had no such issues. His coffee-coloured mare, Chiko, with the taffy mane and tail was a pillar of virtue compared with her dappled grey psychopathic companion. Chiko was a class act, both in looks and temperament.
