The Search (4 page)

“That's right.”

The detective pondered for a moment and then said,

“You had never heard of this man before?”

“No, never.”

And then it occurred to him that this man Douglas might not have given his correct name either. If his brother could change his name, why couldn't he? Perhaps if he rang the number he had been given there would be no answer. He remembered that Douglas had hesitated a little when he had been asked for his phone number. He himself should have verified the existence of the number before leaving Canberra but there were so many things he had done wrong, or had neglected doing. It had been very foolish of him not to have attempted some confirmation.

“It sounds strange,” said the detective at last.

“But there was another thing,” said Trevor. “He told me that my brother had been in trouble with the law.” For some reason he heard himself adding, “I find this very odd, too. I am over here from Scotland and lecturing in Canberra University.”

“I see,” said the detective making another note. Trevor felt calmer. It was as if now that he had placed his brother's fate in the hands of these official people he might in some way be relieved of responsibility.

The detective picked up the phone with his left hand, cradling it against his cheek while doodling on the note pad in front of him with his right hand.

“A Norman Grierson,” he said. “Do we have anything on him.” He gave the details he had received from Trevor and after a while put the phone down. He gazed mildly at Trevor and said,

“They'll ring back.”

Suddenly Trevor said, “He might be an alcoholic. Do many alcoholics go missing like this?”

“Some,” said the detective, and Trevor got the impression that he had asked a stupid question. As the two of them sat in silence like conspirators he imagined a computer racing through name after name in some room far from where he was waiting.

Eventually the phone broke the almost sleepy silence and the detective listened, beginning to doodle again.

“Uh huh. When was that? I see. Nothing else? Right.”

He put the phone down and said, “Yes, we do have something on him. Nothing big. He was arrested once for being drunk and disorderly. That was back in 'sixty-five.”

“What would have happened to him?” said Trevor urgently.

“He would have been fined. It was a minor offence. Do you know if he's been working?”

“My informant seemed to think he had been working at times.”

“Well, I'm afraid that's all we have,” said the detective.

“What about other states?” said Trevor. “What if he has moved and is no longer in Sydney.”

The detective looked at him in the same calm considering manner and picked up the phone again.

“About Grierson,” he said. “Anything on him in the other states?” Trevor imagined his brother lying drunk in some corner of Sydney even while he himself was talking to this tranquil, relaxed detective, and panic stricken, felt that every moment was crucial. Even computers might not be fast enough to save him.

The phone rang again and his stomach tightened.

“Uh huh,” said the detective. “Nothing?” He doodled. Trevor tried to see what the casual scrawls meant, as if they might tell him the secret, unconscious thoughts of the detective, but couldn't make any sense of them.

“I see,” said the detective and put the phone down.

He looked at Trevor and said, “Nothing. He doesn't appear in any other records.”

If that is the only entry they have on him, thought Trevor, it might mean he's dead after all. And again he was overwhelmed by a mounting wave of sorrow.

“I'm sorry,” said the detective, “that is all I can do at the moment. But of course we can continue our enquiries. Do you want us to do that?”

“Yes, please,” said Trevor. “I would like that. If you would be so kind.” He gave the detective his phone number and address in Canberra and then stood up.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for all your trouble.” But as he was thanking the detective he thought of himself as a traitor to his brother. Maybe Norman had been in fact beaten up in the cells and the police were concealing his dim, sordid death. To them, after all, he might have been just another drifter: how could they possibly see him as Trevor saw him? Maybe he had been dumped into a vagrant's grave with no flowers and no headstone.

And yet, like a servile peasant, he said, “Thank you” a third time. Had he not grown up in a society where good manners, even hypocrisy, were the rule? Was the society where people beat each other up and fought and starved the real one?

“If anything turns up I shall be in touch,” said the detective mildly. Trevor walked to the lift and took it to the ground floor, feeling desolated once more. His destiny seemed to be to rise and descend in lifts, anonymous, remote, enclosed. He despised himself for not remembering his brother's birthday and for not remembering him as clearly as he should have done. How could he exist in the world if he had no memory or observation? And yet he could remember quite clearly the date of birth of Robert Louis Stevenson, the date on which
Kidnapped
had been published, and for that matter the date of
The Master of Ballantrae
, that story about two brothers, one of whom had hated the other. Nevertheless he couldn't remember the colour of his own brother's eyes.

As he made his way along the street, among all the others embroiled in the concerns of the day, he felt detached from the world around him as if he were in free fall.

What am I going to do next, he thought. Haven't I done enough? Is more expected of me? And he felt obscurely that he couldn't leave things as they were. It was as if the riddle of his brother's life and presumed death reared up in the forefront of his consciousness, demanding a solution: it was like seeing a question in the shape of a snake.

There must be some other place he could try. What did people do when they couldn't find relatives, had lost touch with them? Considering the problem he went into a café and ordered coffee. How clean and hygienic all the public places in Australia were. Napkins: beautiful coffee with lovely rich cream. But he didn't feel at all hungry and the euphoria of discovering that his brother wasn't dead had worn off. How huge and incalculable this city was. His brother could be anywhere in it, or he might be in some other town or city in some other state. Or perhaps he had never been in Sydney at all. Well, yes, he had, he had been, for there was that arrest for being drunk and disorderly. He wondered why his brother had come to the city at all. Might he not have been better off in the country?

On an impulse he rushed outside and found a public phone box and rang the number which Douglas had given him. The phone rang and rang but there was no answer. Had Douglas given him a wrong number? Or was he at work? But he had said that he was working on a book and if that was the case he should be at home.

As he came out of the phone box he saw an aborigine crossing the street against the
DON'T WALK
sign, swaying drunkenly. The aborigine was muttering to himself and glaring at the passers by. If it weren't for the colour, that could be my brother, thought Trevor. He too could be staggering along and cursing the universe. And again he had the feeling that his brother was in grave danger and only a quick intervention would save him.

The monotonous sun shone down on him and he felt sweaty again, his white shirt sticking to him, his arms itchy. He shouldn't have worn his jacket. He should have left it in his room but if he had done that he would have had no pocket in which to carry his wallet. And again if he had left it behind someone might have stolen it. He wondered as he walked along the street if the Australians recognized him for the foreigner he was, as he himself for instance could easily identify Americans in Glasgow with their white hats and white suits and cigars. There might even be a trembling uncertainty about the way in which he carried himself. In the whole city he didn't know a single soul.

And then as he was thinking this, he realized where he might go. The Salvation Army of course. He went up to two policemen who were at that very moment crossing the road and asked them where the Salvation Army offices were. One looked at the other and scratched his head, and finally both admitted that they didn't know.

At that very moment, by an enormous coincidence, Trevor saw the Salvation Army offices opposite him. He was back on Elizabeth Street and not far away from his hotel.

Five

A
S HE WALKED
to the Salvation Army office his mind gnawed at what the detective in the Missing Persons Bureau had told him. He had said that his brother had not been in trouble with the police in Sydney apart from the minor offence of drunkenness. In that case why had Douglas given him the impression that he had been an habitual criminal? He had for instance mentioned something about a brick, and breaking and entering. Either the police were lying or Douglas was lying. What did he in fact know about Douglas? Nothing much except that he was married and had a child — or so he thought he had said. He had also said that he had been in trouble with the police himself. But if he had a wife and child and was also, as he said, working on a book, why was there no answer from his phone? Surely there ought to be someone in the house, if not Douglas himself, then perhaps his wife. Perhaps he had given a wrong number and a wrong name. There was something odd about him, signified by his secret laughter, almost as if he was involved in a deep, enigmatic plot against Trevor, who had the distinct impression that Douglas hated him and people like him. Perhaps he despised teachers and lecturers and those whom he considered lived in an unreal world. He had certainly acted as if he despised Trevor's mentality. When listening to the local radio Trevor had detected a strong streak of radicalism, for many of the programmes were about the oppressed among whom were numbered women, the unemployed, the Irish. In ideology Douglas seemed to be on the same wavelength, except that there was a wayward, unpredictable vein of violence which Trevor sensed in him. Was Australia as classless a society as he had been told or were there strata of social differences even here? No, he felt that, though perhaps not as clearly defined as elsewhere, classes were fixed and present in this large, astonishing country.

Trevor remembered the taxi driver he had once driven with in Canberra when he was returning to the college late at night after seeing a play by Brecht. The man had told him that that very evening he had taken a woman and her child to a house of a friend of hers. It was in one of the poor areas of the city, the driver had told him, and the woman had said, on arriving at her destination, that she had no money but that she would borrow her fare from her friend. All the time she had been in the taxi the driver had been suspicious of her, for there had exuded from her a dreadful smell, as if of drugs, and the face of the child was covered in blotches and spots. After a while she had come back from the house saying that there was no one at home and confessing that she had no money. And then she had said, “I'll give you my ring. You keep it and when I have money I'll collect it.”

“I still have the ring in the office,” the taxi driver had told Trevor, “But she never came for it.” As he was being told the story Trevor saw sheet lightning illuminating the city and heard rumblings of thunder.

“But what could I do?” said the taxi driver who was a large, calm man, “I have to earn my living.” At that time Trevor had thought little of the story but now it came back to him with guilt and fear: in a small anonymous office he saw a ring lying on a table. He also remembered the polite, studious audience which had listened attentively to Brecht's attack on the rich, the ironic paradoxical bleakness of the dialogue. He recognized some of the lecturers from the college among the audience but he didn't go and speak to them, though they had always been kind to him. Those who could afford the high price of the tickets were watching a play which wasn't addressed to them at all, but rather to those who couldn't pay, the oppressed, the unbeautiful, the unemployed.

On the contrary the beautiful and the rich with their brandy glasses made a golden circle of brilliance in his mind. Everywhere in the world there were the powerful ones who stood around in a ring drinking brandy and on the outside of this secret masonry were the unfortunate and the poor and the destitute. He wondered what was happening to him since he had arrived in Australia. Was he developing a social conscience? Curiously, in Glasgow, an infinitely more deprived city than any he had seen here, a social conscience hadn't troubled him. Did he have to come to a new place to see the distorted figures of the poor and the handicapped?

“Bobby Burns,” that other driver had said to him on learning that he was Scottish. “You come from the land of Bobby Burns, eh? There's a statue to him here. Bobby Burns, he was a great one for the sheilas, wasn't he?”

His brother's friends had not been his friends. Sometimes Norman brought them home and he couldn't find anything to say to them. All they seemed to be interested in was women and drink. But then there had been Sheila as well. Maybe he shouldn't have done that but he couldn't help himself: and now what was happening to his marriage? Had she not belonged to his brother's set as well? Had she not worked in the same factory as him? He had never even visited the factory and yet his brother had come to have a look at his own room in the university.

“I couldn't work here,” he had said. “I couldn't work in a place like this. Too quiet.”

Trevor stopped in front of the Salvation Army office.

Six

T
HE LADY IN
charge of the Missing Persons Bureau of the Salvation Army was called Mrs Tennant. She was plump, matronly, and efficient. In front of her on the desk Trevor noticed a bottle of pills.

“I'm just back at work after an illness,” she said. “Well, then,” she went on, her voice becoming more brisk, “you're looking for your brother. And you say he's not dead.” She studied the document that he had been given at the office of Births, Marriages and Deaths.

“According to this man — what was his name again … Douglas — your brother was in Sydney and as far as he knows may still be there. I hope you realize what you are letting yourself in for if you find him. You say you want him to come home but he may not want to. Again he may be a confirmed alcoholic. We had a lady from England who took her son home, paid a great deal of money for his ticket, and shortly afterwards he disappeared again. She doesn't know where he is. That's the sort of thing you have to take account of. Do you understand me? Now I've got some sources that I don't normally divulge.”

She spoke into the phone for a while. “This is a lady,” she said, putting her hand over the mouthpiece, “who does a lot of good work for me. If he's in Sydney she should know about it.”

She put the phone down.

“She should ring back in ten minutes or so. Of course there's Social Security if he's not working. There's the voting roll but if what you tell me is true he might not have registered, though voting is compulsory in Australia as you will no doubt know. When did you last see him?”

“When he left for Australia,” Trevor replied.

“And that was nearly twenty years ago, as far as I can gather.”

“Eighteen.”

“The other thing is that he might have left Sydney. A lot of them go to Queensland.”

“Queensland?”

“Yes.” She didn't elaborate why she thought he might have moved to Queensland.

“If he's working he's all right,” said Mrs Tennant. “Did he have a trade when he came out? What did he use to do?”

“He didn't have a trade. He was working in a factory. He used to make clocks.”

“I would imagine he would be depending on casual labour then. There's a high rate of unemployment in Australia at the moment. That's what a lot of people in Britain don't understand. They still think of Australia as a colony whose streets are paved with gold. Did you know there was a good deal of unemployment?”

“I saw some slogans students had written on walls in Canberra. And I've read the papers. I've gathered there's unemployment.”

“You say this fellow Douglas got out of the ‘system', as he called it. Your brother might have been fortunate enough to do the same: he might have come to his senses, broken the habit of drink. He might even have gone to another city to escape an environment that was harming him. Had you thought of that?”

“I understood there's a high rate of unemployment all over Australia,” said Trevor.

“There is.” And then she added inconsequentially. “I'm just back from England myself. I belong originally to Surrey. I go home every three years or so.”

Trevor nearly made a remark about Mrs Thatcher but decided against it: for all he knew Mrs Tennant might be a Tory of unclouded blue though that was hardly likely. It occurred to him that, matronly as she appeared, she must be quite tough, and had certainly seen far more of life than he had.

The telephone rang and she picked it up. She listened carefully, now and again scribbling on a writing pad. When she had finished speaking she said to Trevor:

“She can't find any trace of him, and he does not seem to be in the Social Security records which might mean one of two things, either that he's moved to some other state or that he's working.”

Or, thought Trevor, that he's dead.

“You don't think there's any possibility he might be dead,” he said tentatively.

“Well, you do have that document which suggests that he isn't. All you can do is leave the case with us and we'll see if we can come up with anything. I would have thought there would have been some trace somewhere. Some of them come to us if they're derelict. You say that he's been in trouble with the police?”

“I was told that he had been once but only for a minor offence.”

“They usually tend to continue in that way which is why it surprises me that no one has heard of him since. However he may have managed to leave Sydney as your friend Douglas did. It would have been better for him to do so.”

“Is it a violent city?” asked Trevor, thinking of the police, the cell, the Pole.

“Not specially. It's a big city and there's naturally some violence. I wouldn't say the murder rate was high. But of course as in any big city you will find deprivation. Not everybody is affluent. It wouldn't compare with some other big cities for violence.”

She stood up and held her hand out. “Don't worry. If he can be found we will find him and after that we will see what can be done. I would advise you, when we do, not to give him any large sum of money. He would only drink it if what I suspect is true. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“In that case, go and God bless you. We will pray for him and hope for the best. Was he at all religious?”

“I don't think so. He didn't go to church.”

“I was afraid of that. Sometimes their early training helps in difficult situations.”

“Thank you at any rate for what you have done,” said Trevor. This woman was from choice immersing herself in the dark element and yet she looked sunny and calm and radiant as if deriving strength and light from the darkness into which she peered. He thought of all the forces in the world that were bent on alleviating the harm that might come to the strugglers in life, the irretrievably wounded ones, the headlong, careless youthful ones. With their trumpets and bugles and cornets and drums he imagined the Salvation Army marching into the slums, sustained by faith, eternally triumphant, an army of soldiers with ragged flags.

“Thank you again,” he said, and left the office. As he was descending the stairs he didn't know what he would do next, or where he should go. He thought that perhaps now he had done enough. Should he not leave it at that and return to Canberra where he felt at home? He had an intense desire akin to thirst on a hot day to go to a library and sit there and read book after book for hours. The desire was so strong that it felt like an addiction. On the other hand what a triumph it would be if he could find his brother and take him home with him from the terrors and darknesses of the big anonymous city. But he didn't know where to start and then as he stood once again on the street it occurred to him that he did know where to start. Douglas had mentioned some lodging house where derelicts stayed. What was it called again? He took out his address book, and studied it in the warm, bright sunlight. The Michael Tarrant Home. Why shouldn't he go there? Could he not find him there perhaps or if not him the Pole who had started him off on his odyssey? At the same time he was afraid of descending into those depths and for a moment felt dizzy. He was certainly an innocent abroad himself. Still, if he went back to Canberra now he would forever after wonder where his brother was and regret that he had not done more to find him. He almost heard his phantom voice in the dazzle of the day.

Without his knowing it he arrived opposite a bookshop which sold Greek books. He studied them through the window, but couldn't understand what the titles meant. This was all Greek to him, he considered wryly. In any case it was modern Greek, not the ancient Greek of Homer, not the musical phrases of Ulysses and the other heroes.

He took out his map and studied it. Yes, Douglas had given him the area the Home was in: it was near the docks. He began to walk towards them. If he had been on holiday in Sydney he would have gone to visit the Opera House which he had studied on a postcard once, scallop on scallop of it, a huge shell which would at times resonate with music. Perhaps he might even have sailed round the famous harbour. But he didn't have the leisure or the inclination to do that in his present state of mind, and he felt sorry for himself with his spotty, inflamed arms, and his confused feelings. He kept on walking, his feet sore from the stone of the pavements. Perhaps he should eat? But he didn't feel like eating. To eat was to remember his brother and others like him, and to imagine their hunger. The red lights glared continually ahead of him.
DON'T WALK
, they said,
DON'T WALK
.

It was like wandering through a waste land. Fragments of Eliot's poem returned to him, the incurable detritus of academe. “Phlebas the Phoenician drowned …” Curious how even now his literary training haunted him.

It took him some time to find the Home and then only after he had asked a number of people who looked at him in a suspicious manner. What was a well-dressed man like him doing searching for such a place? When he found it he rang the bell and a big man in shirt sleeves came to the door.

“I'm looking for someone, my brother in fact,” said Trevor. The man looked at him and said,

“What is his name?”

Trevor told him and the man said, “We get so many people moving through here. Transients. Come in. I have a book here but I can't recall such a name. Mine by the way is Mason. Mark Mason.”

“Trevor Grierson.”

“Well, Trevor, you know how it is here. We give them a bed and food.” He scratched his shiny bald head and said, “I can't remember that name. But maybe …”

He led Trevor into a room which looked like a barracks, or what he imagined a barracks might be like, and in which there was a number of beds, on one of which a man with a bearded, pale, gaunt face was sitting. His little eyes like those of a cornered rat darted at first from side to side and then finally fixed on Trevor steadily.

“This is Henry,” said Mason. “Henry Morton. Isn't that right, Henry? Henry's been here for some time.”

The small beady eyes turned from Mason to Trevor and seemed to be examining the latter closely. Trevor felt his skin begin to crawl and thought, “My brother might be like this now.” The pointed bluish nose was a signal of decay and alcoholism. It darted from side to side like a needle on a speedometer.

“I'll leave you with Henry,” said Mason, “I have a few things to do.” He looked large and harassed as if aware that only by luck had he himself avoided the condition of the inmates of his Home.

“There's a bell at the desk if you want to contact me. If anyone knows anything about your brother Henry here will know, won't you, Henry? He spoke as if he had been learning from a book how inmates were to be spoken to and treated. Henry stared at him blankly.

Trevor sat down on the edge of the bed which he felt must be a pullulating arena of fleas and lice. The walls looked old and discoloured and it seemed to Trevor they hadn't been painted for years. He felt for a moment dizzy and disoriented.

“I'm looking,” he began carefully, “for a brother of mine. His name is Norman, Norman Grierson. Has he been here at all?”

Henry was staring at him with quick, intelligent eyes, trying to document his clothes, his appearance, his air of prosperity, and perhaps his foreign innocence.

“Norman Grierson,” he mumbled, “Norman Grierson.”

“Yes, that's his name,” said Trevor impatiently.

Henry glanced down at Trevor's shoes and then at his face again. His Adam's apple moved like a squirrel that is rapidly ascending and descending a wrinkled tree. Trevor noticed that the area round his sockets was pink like the feet of a dove he had once seen in a park in Glasgow. There too the unshaven men sat on benches all day, or haunted the reading rooms in their long coats that trailed to the ground. They wore scarves even in summer.

“I have a mate,” said Henry at last. “He stays in a house near the docks. He knows your brother.”

“What?” said Trevor excitedly.

“I knew him,” said Henry. “I knew him myself. He spoke like you. He had the same voice.”

“Like me?” said Trevor eagerly. “Go on.”

“Yes, he used to work in Sydney. But I don't think he works now.” And again he glanced at Trevor like a bright-eyed bird. Then he leaned forward, and Trevor felt the stench from him.

“He didn't work. The cops were after him.”

“When? Where?” said Trevor.

“I can't remember,” said Henry. “He moved out of here a long time ago and went and stayed with this mate of mine. My mate has a house,” he said proudly.

“Why don't you stay with him then?” said Trevor.

“He doesn't want me. I stayed with him before and he put me out.”

Trevor sensed again the little intelligent eyes scurrying all over his body, and he shifted away till he was sitting precariously on the very edge of the bed.

“His name's Harrison,” said Henry and he gave Trevor the address.

“Do you know the Rocks?” he said. “Near there he stays.”

“Are you sure it's my brother you're talking about?” said Trevor, and Henry answered,

“Norman Grierson. That's what you said. We used to call him Norm.”

“Is he well?” asked Trevor. “Does he drink?”

“He's well,” said Henry with the same air of profound secrecy. “He's well.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Years and years,” said Henry vaguely. And then leaning forward so that Trevor was almost overwhelmed by the stale smell of drink that emanated from the rotten furnace of his mouth,

“Can you give me any money?” His voice assumed the singsong tone of a beggar's. “Any money, mate?”

“Do you know anything else about my brother?” Trevor asked brusquely.

“Your brother. No, I don't know anything else about him. He speaks like you.”

Trevor took a handful of coins from his pocket and handed them over. He said “Cheerio” to Morton and faced him as he backed away. He put his hand in his breast pocket to check that he still had his wallet and when he had left the room rang the bell at the desk. Mason came down a dark stair and asked him if he had discovered anything.