Mens Shed
There is a dead body in the Men’s shed. It’s tucked under one of the workbenches. You know the original members built those workbenches back in 88. I remember it was then because the World Expo was in Brisbane. None of us original members were carpenters but bloody hell those benches are solid. We might not have been qualified but we had the experience you see. Not like the wood ducks we get in here now days. I mean they are welcome and all and as my mum used to say, “Everybody brings something to the party.” But some of the new blokes, let’s put it this way, lack skills. I’m trying to keep things polite. Anyway those benches were built to last, built with hard earned expertise and plenty of free time.
Old Ted, he found the body. As one of the co-founders of the shed I guess he should get to be involved in any big news. Although I guess this is not what anyone, least of all Old Ted, had in mind when it comes to news. I mean having a bloody dead body lying in our men’s shed. I can imagine the whole town in unconscious unison saying out loud, “For Christ’s sake, what’s the world coming to?”
Old Ted, as opposed to young Ted, was in the shed early. Young Ted comes in after nine but now I think about it he probably won’t be in today. Today’s visiting day you see. His wife is in the nursing home in South Hammondville and that’s twenty kilometres away and the bus only goes once a day. Anyway, it’s not as if any of us are going to be allowed back in the shed any time soon. What with the police tape and the plain-clothes coppers around, it looks like one of those detective shows on TV.
Like I was saying, Old Ted comes in early because these days he has no wife you see. She wasn’t from here in the first place; he met her in Sydney at the Royal Show. I know because I was there. City girl at the show, country boy with his cows, him full of bullshit but underneath that blarney, country capability and common sense. Appeals to the right girl I reckon, particularly if she has half a brain herself.
I was there, couple of stalls further along. You know if she had wandered into the cattle pavilion through a different door she might have walked up to me instead of Ted. She would not have got past me, that’s for sure.
She was a looker, Lorraine was her name but it didn’t work out. Mind you it took twenty years for the marriage to go sour. Town thought she just got bored, turned narky. My Missus wasn’t a fan, always thought there was something off about Lorraine, too quiet she said. I wasn’t so sure; being married to Old Ted would have been no picnic. I saw him do something when we were teenagers. I never said anything because, well, he didn’t know I was looking and I wanted it to stay that way.
Either way I was envious of Old Ted laying his hands on the curves Lorraine had. Her figure stayed the same the whole time, no kids you see.
All of that was a long time ago. Anyhow Sydney is where she came from. Then one day Lorraine wasn’t here. Sydney is where she went back to or so Old Ted said. Not really my business.
He wasn’t much chop for a few months afterwards though. Had to get through the grief I guess. What’s that bullshit they go on with now? You have to have closure. Sounds like something you do with your friggin pants fly! He drank a lot of scotch, was always jumpy for a while but came good, pulled out of it. He has no children you see and his sister is way over in Albany WA. So Ted had to do all by himself. Funny watching him go through it. We have known each other for a long time and at the time I couldn’t help think whether some of it was maybe a put on. Laid it on a bit thick, looking for the sympathy vote. That is what I thought. I was going to tell him too except the missus told me to pull my head in.
Anyway he came good. Everyone reckons it is because Ted has the bloody shed. He carries on like he owns it or at least thought of it, which is bullshit because I did. I like the joint and enjoy the hours there; even the newer wood ducks are a solid bunch of blokes, if clueless. But I like home as well, Missus and I get along just fine, get out in the garden, go and see the grandkids but for Old Ted if there isn’t the shed there is just the TV, the footy and the Friday lunch specials for pensioners at the Bowls Club.
But Old Ted never comes in early on the mornings when it is raining. He hates getting out of bed when it is raining. Mind you, now days there is hardly any bloody rain so basically five mornings a week every week Old Ted is in early; sparrow’s fart or soon enough after. Half the time I reckon he is just showing off to the new blokes.
Thankfully it did rain a bit last night but it cleared before an old bastard like Ted started to stir so it didn’t stop him.
Apparently Old Ted unlocked the main door as usual and turned the lights on. I wonder if Old Ted listens to the hum of the fluros like I do, and whether he thinks that noise the lights make is the sound of some dangerous rays passing through your skin, into your brain and out the other side. Old Ted is not a man of great imagination and his hearing is worse than mine, so I doubt it. What he would have done is put the kettle on and made a cup of tea. Old Ted has never been one to let work get in the road of a cuppa. No doubt he wiped his endlessly runny nose on his sleeve more than once as well but I bet that won’t be in the witness statement, no bloody fear. Then he would have started working on his never-ending project.
Old Ted’s project started as a stool but then around grand final time last year it was going to be a seat and then a padded bench around Easter and now it could be a table. With the amount of time he has spent on it he could have produced a dining table and eight bloody chairs. Actually anyone with a bit of drive could have built the dining room as well. Not that it matters because apparently keeping busy is the number one goal and producing fine furniture is just one possible if not very likely outcome. That is what Old Ted always says when the local newspaper or the ABC radio asks him about the men’s shed. It’s funny the first time you hear it. I would give a bloody better answer by now or at least a different one. First time the ABC rang up I was in hospital with my prostate operation, so I wasn’t available was I? So Ted took the call and now they seem to have him as the contact forever. Like they say, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.”
I can just picture the whole thing; you know how us oldies love routine. Old Ted would have been standing at the workbench slurping his weak tea, sneaking out the odd fart and after a while he would start to wonder why he was feeling cold. Then the silly bastard would have forgotten and ten minutes later he’d wonder again why he was feeling chilly. I can picture him in my mind clear as bloody day. He would have straightened up, scratched his bony arse, looked around and finally seen the broken window near the saw bench. Then ever so slowly he would have shuffled over for a better look and messed up the foot prints in the damp sawdust, still wet from the rain that had followed the intruder or intruders in.
At that point Old Ted would have frozen and peered forward. Silly bugger would have looked like a heron fishing for tadpoles. They used to do that in the creek that used to run out the back. Suddenly scared, he would have combed his receding greasy hair back with a hand made of arthritic joints, sun spotted skin and finger nails like old ivory. He would have seen something dark and bulky under the bench, right near the very bench where he had been working.
****
Old Ted is outside now sitting on a chair in the sun. Old Ted, still shivering with shock, is sipping an instant coffee with four sugars from a dirty mug his niece gave him in 1992.
I can imagine him thinking about how all that time that he had been in the shed, a body had been in there with him. He must have had a closer look but I am not sure how close. The body is in a dirty blue sleeping bag with a beanie in Tiger’s colours pulled low down over its head. When I saw it you could not see much, everything was all pulled up and tucked in but there was some neck showing. It could have been Bob Hawke or Hazel Hawke for all you can tell.
Anyhow it was about this time that I walked in. I guess he didn’t hear me come up the two or three steps that led into the shed so when I yelled out a “Good Morning”, to compensate for his deafness you see, he literally jumped off the ground and screamed. I thought I had given him a heart attack.
Wouldn’t have minded if I had, Old Ted can be a right dickhead.
When he had calmed down I had a look. I couldn’t help pointing out that there was something a bit strange, the bundle did look awfully small, the bit of neck skin looked funny and there was no smell. Old Ted jumped a bit at that and then got a bit wobbly on his feet so I sat him down outside. I told him I was off to the police station two blocks away to grab Ray before he set up the morning speed trap where the highway exit merges on to the old road.
At that stage I was not sure whether Old Ted had worked out who was in the sleeping bag but that didn’t matter. Sooner or later, it was all going to be the same. I bunged on a bit of a limp just for fun as I hurried down the street to the cop shop and the hardest bloody part was getting the smile off my face as I shuffled down the footpath.
I have another look at Old Ted. He is leaning forward looking at the toes of his cheap Target runners. Apparently they are the same runners that prisoners wear in jail; his nephew’s ten year old had gleefully informed him of that at Christmas. I smile to myself. I reckon the old bugger has worked out whose body it is now. Hidden so well for all these years. I bet his old man sphincter is all a quiver.
Old Ted leans back on the bench again, leaning forward must be making his head spin and not for the first time this morning I bet he is wishing for a good nip of Scotch to go with his coffee. Just like the one he had when he moved his wife on. I bet he thought that was one of the great days of his life.
His mind must be whirring. I reckon his brain would be revving hard but like a car stuck in the mud the wheels are spinning with no result.
I laugh to myself.
He has to be thinking, “Why is Lorraine’s body under the bench in the Men’s shed?
And who found it…?”
