Mug Shots by Barry Oakley Page A

dead, it seems that the mystery of Terry’s death, and of the inadequacy of the inquest, will never be solved—despite the effort of Lorna Hannan (née Hogan), who unearthed much of the above material , and who loved him as a friend, as did I and many others. Maybe it’s better to have no closure. Then things remain open, and in that mystery Terry Mahony still lives.

Two boys
    As the grinding-wheel wore on—hitchhikes in the winter cold, the daily battle to maintain order and interest—I longed for escape, but not in the way of Jim Kennedy. Kennedy, porridge-pale and melancholy, taught at the high school with Kevin Keating, and it was Keating who broke the news to me.
    â€˜Jim Kennedy’s on a morals charge,’ he said, as we shared a late-afternoon bottle of beer. ‘The cops came and took him away. He’s just been released. I’ve invited him round.’
    â€˜A morals charge?’
    â€˜Two boys.’
    We sat down to eat our nightly grilled chops and three veg, listening for footsteps on the stairs. Soon we heard them, then the knock on the door.
    Jim Kennedy’s Celtic paleness had changed to grey, as if he’d suddenly turned sixty. No thanks, he wasn’t hungry. He sat in the single shabby armchair and stared ahead. The silence seemed unbreakable.
    â€˜What’ll you do?’ Kevin managed.
    â€˜Go. Tomorrow’s train. Go.’
    Two boys. With one he’d have a chance, but not with two.
    â€˜D’you have a drink?’
    â€˜That was our last beer. Sorry.’
    Kennedy got up and scanned the mantelpiece. There were bottles of various shapes, all empty. Except one: Dolly Varden Wine Cocktail, inherited from the previous tenant.
    â€˜You can’t drink that. No one can drink that.’
    â€˜Always a first.’
    He poured himself a glass. It was an unpleasant brownish colour, thick and syrupy.
    â€˜My hemlock,’ he said. He managed half a glass, then shook our hands and left.
    I had a period off the next day about the time the train was due, and walked up to the station. The Melbourne platform stretched into the distance and at the far end, past families, two old ladies and a porter having a smoke, under a turned-down hat, in a turned-up overcoat, was Kennedy, with a single case. Should I? Reluctantly I headed down the platform’s great length. Kennedy was looking straight ahead, at the large MARYBOROUGH sign across the tracks. When he registered—I was on gravel now—he picked up his case and walked straight past me, as if I wasn’t there.

Lovely girls—and literature
    At least he’d escaped. So had Desmond O’Grady the year before, by persuading a psychiatrist that Maryborough was bad for his mental health. I agreed with him, but no psychiatrist was going to free me from the three-year bondage to the Education Department (they’d paid my university fees).
    Worse—the town I was trapped in, one of a cluster of old goldrush settlements in Central Victoria—was disappearing before my eyes. The shire council had decided that the main street needed a makeover. The old shop verandahs that gave the place its character were removed, and Maryborough became soulless and suburban. In the fifties, to conserve was a word solely applied to jam.
    Then Kevin Keating announced he was moving out too—but only to Ararat, where he’d been transferred. In December, two of his ex-students, now at Bendigo Teachers’ College, came to say goodbye to him. They knocked on his door, and when it wasn’t answered went inside (he never locked his door—‘What can they pinch?’ he’d say). Kevin had been a creative teacher, and they showed they were too by decorating his room with palm leaves ripped from a tree outside my window, while I cowered inside, wondering what the landlady would think.
    When Kevin got home, he called me upstairs to meet Rosemary Temple (short and dark) and Carmel Hart