Read Online Eden by Dorothy Johnston - Free Book Online Page B

repeated as often as the scene in front of me was repeated, glowing and then gone. I thought of bigger divisions, moral and political, how Eden Carmichael had moved across them, and how that movement might be felt in the air. Just then, Canberra seemed to be a city struggling to give itself some kind of independent life.
    But Carmichael was dead. He’d died dressed in a wig and women’s clothes, on a bed paid for by the half-hour. In his speech, Ken Dollimore had not once referred to the circumstances of his friend’s last hours. His words had run counter to the image I was sure had been prominent in the minds of every person in that chapel. Heart failure, Dollimore had said. An accident. A good man, a good Canberran, cut down in his prime.
    Deliberate actions might be dressed up to look like chance. I wished I knew more about Carmichael’s secret, or not so secret, life. It was curious that he’d avoided public condemnation for so long. He’d run the risk of scandal and ridicule for years, hanging onto the support of just enough voters to continue in office. Rather than change his lifestyle, he’d courted a second heart attack. I pictured his trousers with the fly undone, the way Chris Laskaris had described them just before his fall, then his blue dress, gorgeous in the last light, and the yellow, soft enhancement of his wig.
    . . .
    Too restless to spend the evening shut up in my house, I called on Gail Trembath, who’d just returned to work at The Canberra Times .
    She met me at the door to her flat with a complaint.
    â€˜I’d forgotten Canberra was so bloody hot .’
    â€˜You wish you’d never left the tropics?’
    â€˜Hell I do,’ Gail said, leading me down a short corridor to her living room, the floor of which was covered with boxes at various stages of unpacking. A desk lamp sat unplugged beside lengths of silk and embroidered tablecloths, which had to be for presents, since Gail would never use them. Her untidiness reassured me. In one respect, at least, she hadn’t changed.
    â€˜You should leave this town before it destroys your nasal passages.’ Gail made a complicated face, and moved a green case to one side with her foot. ‘In fact it probably already has.’
    â€˜Good to see you too,’ I said.
    â€˜I’m serious, Sandy. You’re wasting your life here.’
    â€˜Thanks for your concern.’
    I looked around the room. Gail’s new flat was much the same as the one she’d rented before leaving for Vietnam and Thailand. I wondered whether she’d spend as little time living in it as she had in the old one. Inside the case, still half wrapped in bubble plastic, was a small wooden statue of a phoenix standing on a turtle.
    Gail nodded at the shoulder bag that held my laptop. ‘Thinking of doing some work while you’re here?’
    â€˜I took it with me to the crematorium, then forgot I’d left it in my car.’
    â€˜Well, I suppose thieves are more active in my street than in other parts of town.’ Gail’s voice held more than an edge of sarcasm. ‘You know, Sandy,’ she went on, ‘ten years ago, I could have got by as a stringer in Bangkok. Now unless you’re working for Time or CNN—’
    There was a sadness in her unfinished sentence. Gail had grown the shell proper to her profession during the time I’d known her. It seemed to have become brittle, thin.
    â€˜Have you got anything to drink?’ I asked.
    She waved her arm towards an open doorway. I headed for the kitchen, knowing better than to expect her to wait on me.
    Her fridge was working, and even had some food in it—tomatoes, lettuce, a container of garlic dip. In the door compartment was a litre carton of milk and another of orange juice. I bent down and found what I was looking for on the bottom shelf.
    A drawer held a bottle opener. Glasses had already been deposited in an overhead