The Other Side of Sorrow Read Online Free PDF

a quick check of an old
Gregory’s
confirmed it—the place was a bit of a wasteland. Homebush Bay was muddy and mangrove-ringed; there was a brickworks, an abattoir and a huge rubbish dump in the middle of some secondary-growth bushland. The Flemington saleyards were nearby and it was said that escaped pigs from the saleyards had gone feral on the dump and in the bush and were a risk to life and limb. For many years the pub on Parramatta Road, adjacent to the saleyards, was known as the Sheep Shit Inn.
    George Avenue was a short street running uphill. From the top there would once have been a view across the bush towards the dam and what lay beyond, now the view was of hundreds of hectares of development for the Olympic Games. Brand new roads with pristine kerb and guttering gleaming in the rain; towering steel and cement structures resembling, at distance, the Pompidou Centre; massive earthmoving equipment reshaping the terrain; kilometres of orange tape and temporary barriers; vast tracts of bare earth and not a blade of grass in sight. Here and there the past had been preserved. The dam still existed and what looked like the brickworks. Some trees remained, but there was nowhere for a feral pig to hide. Despite the heavy rain the work was still going on. Bulldozers and backhoes were moving and cranes were swinging their loads.
    I turned my attention to the undistinguished block of cream-brick flats at number 12. A three-storey 1950s job and showing its age, with rust stains around the drainpipes and moss in the mortar. These days we forget that most people didn’t have cars in the ’50s and blocks of flats like these made little provision for them. It looked as if there was space for three or four cars at most, the rest would have to park in the street. I wasn’t surprised that the psychedelic van wasn’t in evidence—enquiries are rarely that easy. There were twelve letter boxes and the junk mail sticking out of number 3 wasn’t a promising sign.
    Security was non-existent—the ’50s again—and I walked in the front door, located unit 3 at the back and knocked loudly. Nothing. I pressed my ear to the door but got none of the noises of occupation—voices, radio, TV, vacuum cleaner—just the silence that means empty. The lock was pickable but it was a bit early in the proceedings for that. I knocked at number 4 opposite. No response. Likewise at number 2, but the door of number 1 swung open so quickly that I guessed the occupant had been waiting for me. A looker-outer of windows, an ear to the ground type. That could be good.
    She was somewhere between middle-aged and older and trying hard to stay on the right side of the divide. She was medium tall, heavily built but holding it well, with considerable undergarment help, in a short, tight skirt and snug-fitting, ribbed, rollneck sweater. She was expertly made up, her hair was attractively arranged and the way she leaned against the door jamb suggested that standing in doorways wasn’t new to her.
    â€˜I thought you might be here for me,’ she said. ‘But even the shy ones don’t knock on all the other doors first.’
    Her broad smile invited me to smile in turn. ‘Not today, I’m afraid. I’d like to talk to you, though.’
    â€˜Cop?’
    I shook my head and showed her my licence.
    â€˜Cop,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘Well, I guess my 3.30’s not coming. I can spare you some time. We can see how we go. Come in, Clifford.’
    I winced at the name, but it was encouraging that she was a quick study. Stepping into her flat from the shabby passage was like moving from economy up to business class. The room was tastefully and unfussily furnished with just enough touches—velvet cushions, Balinese-looking wall hangings, a waft of incense—to suggest that things could get interesting further inside.
    She pointed to a chair but I shook my head and stood