A Different Turf

The young cop shook his head as he wound up the blue-and-white tape: the gift tape, as Malone thought of it, that wrapped up a death. ‘Hear no evil, see no evil … You don’t get much co-operation, not in this street.’

After a few more minutes with the young officer and his colleague, a senior-constable, Malone and Kagal walked back up and in through the gates of the barracks.

‘We’ll be a few minutes,’ Malone told the sentry. ‘We want to compare notes.’

He and Kagal got into the car and wound down the windows. Malone sat gazing out at the scene before him. He had played in a charity cricket match here on the parade lawn years ago; before the game, because he was history-minded, he had looked up the story of the barracks. It was built in the eighteen forties by convict gangs and some of the first senior officers who came to occupy it had fought at Waterloo. Though it was named after the new Queen, the style was Regency; it was built in time to escape the heavy fashion of later years. He sat in the car and looked across the wide parade ground at the main building, the length of two football fields. This morning, a Sunday rest day, the barracks looked deserted. It was peaceful, no suggestion of what it was designed for, the training and accommodation of soldiers. The high stone walls even closed out the sound of traffic in busy Oxford Street A boy had died and a man had been almost kicked to death not a hundred yards from where he and Kagal now sat; but this, built for the military, was an oasis of peace.

‘What notes have we to compare?’ said Kagal, breaking the silence. He had sat quiet, knowing Malone had something on his mind.

Malone turned to him. ‘John, I’ve got to ask you this. You are a – a close friend of Bob Anders, right?’

‘Yes.’ Malone could almost see the young man close up, tighten.

‘I have to ask you this, too. Are you homosexual?’

Kagal looked at him sideways. ‘Does it matter?’

‘On this case, yes, I think it does.’

Kagal didn’t answer at once. He looked across the parade ground at some movement on the far side. A small detachment of soldiers was falling in; it was time for changing of the guard. A shout floated towards them, as unintelligible as all military commands, like an animal bark. The detachment began to march along the far side of the ground.

At last he turned back to Malone. ‘I’m half-and-half. Bisexual – double-gaited, if you want to call it that. Fluid is the in-word.’ He was silent a moment, then went on, ‘Okay, so I guess you can call me gay. I don’t like to be called homosexual.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just don’t, that’s all.’

‘I don’t like to use the term “gay”. You – you people took away a word that used to be one of the – well, one of the most evocative in the language. Nobody talks about Gay Paree any more or having a gay time, things like that What bloke would sing a song like A Bachelor Gay Am I these days?’

Kagal gave a small smile, though he was not relaxed. ‘I know quite a few guys who would.’

Malone didn’t return the smile; he, too, was uptight. ‘That’s why straights don’t use the word any more for fear of being misunderstood.’

‘That’s your – their problem, isn’t it?’

‘Have you ever researched the origin of gay as a slang word? I have. We’re taught as detectives to do research, right? The original slang use of gay was coined in the sixteenth century in London – maybe earlier. It meant the cheapest sort of whore you could buy in the alleys off the Strand, the up-against-the-wall knee-tremblers. An English poet and playwright named Christopher Marlowe—’

‘I’ve read Marlowe.’

Which was more than Malone had ever done; it had been enough while at school to plough through Shakespeare. ‘He used to use the gays, the women hookers. Whores were called gays up till about the end of the last century.’

‘You’re sure Marlowe didn’t use the word the way we do? The first speech in one of his plays, Edward the Second, is about as close as you can get to a male love song.’

Malone didn’t answer; his education went only so far.

‘You seem pretty interested, doing all that research.’

‘It was just curiosity. I’m not a closet queer.’

‘Is that the sort of word you’d prefer? Queer, fag, pansy? Maybe I can give you a lesson in etymology. You call yourself a heterosexual?’

Malone nodded.

‘That word was coined in the eighteen nineties – about the same time, I guess, that the word “gay” stopped meaning a whore. Heterosexuality was used to denote sexual perversion – “hetero” means “other” or “different”. How does that strike you? It was meant to describe someone like me, a double-gaiter. It was not until the nineteen fifties or sixties that the meaning was changed. And it was gays who gave it the meaning that’s acceptable to you now.’

It was no longer a dialogue between a senior and a junior officer. The guard detachment was now closer, the sergeant in charge barking to the rhythm of the marching. Behind the police car the sentry had come to attention, then dropped stiffly into the at-ease stance.

‘Righto, I don’t like fag or queer, either. I just wish you had chosen another word but “gay”. It’s a cruel thought, but I’ve sometimes wondered if a man dying of AIDS still feels gay – in the original meaning.’

Kagal’s face had stiffened, but he said nothing. The guard detachment was close now; it went by with a thump-thump of boots, came to a stamping halt. The two detectives sat in silence while the guard was changed; then the detachment moved on, the sergeant’s bark dying away as it moved on down the long parade ground. The defence forces were currently debating whether personnel suffering from HIV-infection should be allowed to stay in the army.

‘In your language—’ Kagal was now distinctly, if coldly, hostile. ‘In your language, are you homophobic?’

‘No, I’m not. People’s sexuality is their own business. Except for paedophiles and fellers who bugger sheep.’

‘Like New Zealanders?’

‘So you’re racist, too? Or nationality-biassed, whatever they call it.’

‘It’s a joke, for Crissakes!’ Kagal was angry; then he struggled to relax. It suddenly occurred to Malone that this conversation was as awkward for the younger man as it was for himself. ‘Look, the Kiwis say the same thing about us, only we have more sheep, more opportunity, they say. It was an Aussie joke originally, that you only got virgin wool from the sheep that could run faster than the shepherd.’

Malone laughed, not at the old joke but as a release. ‘There’s the one about the bachelor farmer counting his sheep as they go into the pen – sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine – hullo, darling – seventy-one, seventy-two …’

The time-worn jokes seemed to oil the tension. They sat in silence for a while, men Malone said, ‘I’m anti some of the things you get up to—’

‘You don’t know what I get up to.’ The tension crept back in.

‘Right. Gays then, full gays.’

‘The Mardi Gras – I know you’re against that’

‘Yes. I think it’s a grown-up version of the game that five-year-olds play – you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. But my two daughters think it’s just a load of fun.’

‘And your boy – Tom?’

‘He’s like me.’

‘Is he going to grow up to be a poofter-basher?’

‘You think I might encourage him to?’

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

There was another long awkward silence; then Malone said, ‘John, I’m dead against poofter-bashing, gay-bashing, whatever you want to call it.’ He was walking on eggshells; or anyway on words that kept tripping him up. ‘But cops my age, we carry a lot of baggage – prejudice, if you like. Though I hope I’d never be like that old bloke in the hospital corridor this morning.’

He paused and after a long moment Kagal said, ‘Go on.’

Jesus, he thought, this is like confession used to be when I was at school. But all he said was, ‘Righto, let’s get back to Bob Anders. Are you and he—?’