The Brush-Off mw-1 Read online

  ‘He was susceptible to women, Victor, and Fiona Lambert was scarcely a third of his age. Not that he had a lot to bequeath, just a few pictures and a growing reputation. But she made sure she milked that for all it was worth.’

  ‘The Black Widow.’

  Aubrey snorted derisively. ‘Don’t believe a word of it. She made that up herself. Shameless self-promotion. Victor died of liver disease, the result of poor personal hygiene and a surfeit of cheap wine.’

  I struggled to assimilate the significance of what Aubrey was telling me. The news that the CMA’s Szabo was not a Szabo at all was dynamite. It had the potential not merely to embarrass Fiona Lambert, the self-declared expert, but to expose to ridicule the competence of the government which had funded the purchase. ‘Legal proceedings are inevitable, I suppose,’ said the old man, wilting on his cane.

  ‘That’s not for me to say. May I suggest we keep this conversation confidential at this stage?’

  He nodded penitently, as though receiving conditional absolution. There were other questions I should have asked Aubrey while I had the chance. But his tale of Taylor and Szabo had pricked my parental conscience. Down below, Red and Tarquin were swinging off an overhanging branch into dangerously shallow water. So I thanked Aubrey for his candour, assured him of my discretion and left the shrivelled old bird standing there, Tiberius among his tomatoes.

  Shedding my clothes on the sandy bank, I hit the water running, scattering Red and Tarquin before me like startled cranes. Thigh-deep in mid-stream, I plunged to the bottom, luxuriating in the water’s cool embrace.

  Was it really possible to drown yourself in water this deep? Could any sense of grievance, any urge to self-dramatisation, be strong enough to overcome the body’s fundamental instinct for survival? I kicked forward, propelling myself along the dappled gravel, holding my breath by sheer force of will. Could anyone really master that reflexive lunge for air that was propelling me so inexorably upwards? I broke the surface, scattering water, gasping.

  No, Salina Fleet was wrong. Marcus Taylor hadn’t killed himself. His death was an accident. It just couldn’t have come at a better time, that’s all.

  Forty kilometres downstream, the Yarra berthed oil tankers and container carriers in the biggest port south of Singapore. Closer to its source, at the height of summer, it was little more than a series of shallow pools strung out along a narrow bed that meandered through the low hills.

  We went exploring. The banks rose steeply on either side, thick with pencil-straight stringybarks and scrubby undergrowth, punctured with granite outcrops. Giles Aubrey had no immediate neighbours and within minutes we might have been in some trackless wilderness. Here, in the eternal bush, man and boy could test their masculinity against the challenges of raw nature.

  ‘Ow,’ said Tarquin. ‘That tree scratched me.’

  Pushing on intrepidly, we clambered over boulders and along bridges of fallen tree-trunks. ‘But aren’t there snakes?’ insisted Tarquin.

  ‘Keep your eyes open,’ I said, drawing on my inherent knowledge of bushcraft. Pioneer blood flowed in my veins. My father’s grandmother had once run a pub in Ballarat. ‘Make plenty of noise as you go.’ The advice was superfluous. If Tarquin managed to get himself bitten, it would be nothing short of miraculous.

  ‘What do you do if one bites you?’ Red wanted to know.

  Snakes weren’t exactly my forte, not in the zoological sense anyway. But the habitat did seem custom-made- sun-warmed rocks, cracks and fissures everywhere, plentiful frogs and other creatures coming down to the water to drink. I owed it to the boys to pass on the time-honoured lore of the bush. ‘You have to get somebody to suck out the poison,’ I explained. ‘That’s the standard treatment. Except if you get bitten on the backside.’

  ‘What happens then?’ said Tarquin, apprehensively scrutinising the riverbank.

  ‘You put your head between your legs,’ said Red, racing me to the punch line. ‘And kiss your arse goodbye.’

  Where a massive red gum overhung the water, I lingered in the shade and smoked a cigarette while the boys scouted ahead. A crystal stream bubbled at my feet. Dragonflies flitted hither and thither. The scent of eucalyptus perfumed the air. Kookaburras carolled distantly. Luxuriating in the tranquillity of the bush, I banished all thoughts of work-of Agnelli, of the press and Marcus Taylor, of Spider and the duplicate Szabo. I let my eyes close.

  ‘Help!’ came a scream from around the bend. ‘Come quick.’ Red. Not mucking around either, by the sound of it. It was black, thick as my wrist, coiled at Tarquin’s feet. Red was circling at a distance, stick in hand, bellowing for help. Tarquin stood frozen with fear. He must nearly have stood on the thing. ‘Don’t move,’ I yelled. ‘If you die, your mother will kill me.’

  Grabbing the stick from Red’s hand, I lunged forward and smashed downwards at the repulsive black spiral. At the same time, I shoved Tarquin out of harm’s way. The snake bucked under the blow, bounced upwards and revealed itself to be the inner tube of a bike tyre.

  ‘Tricked ya!’ Red and I cackled simultaneously, high-fiving each other in the time-honoured Australian tradition.

  ‘My ankle,’ writhed Tarquin, prostrate on the ground. ‘You’ve broken my ankle.’

  It took me nearly an hour to carry him back downstream and up the hill to the car, slung over my shoulder fireman-style. His foot wrapped tight in my shirt, he whimpered right up to the moment I lowered him onto the back seat. ‘Can we have an ice-cream on the way home?’ he said.

  ‘Shuddup, Tark,’ said Red. But he didn’t mean it. I suspected he was in on it all along.

  It was well past eight when we arrived back in town. A note from Faye instructed us to proceed to the Exhibition Gardens, five minutes away, where a picnic awaited us. While the boys rummaged for frisbees and skateboards, I nicked home, changed into shorts and a t-shirt and put a bottle of pinot vino in a plastic carry-bag.

  The shadows were lengthening as we walked to the gardens. The doors and windows of the houses had been flung open to admit the buttery dusk. Cooking smells and guitar riffs emerged, and the old Italian and Greek remnants of the former demographic had come outside to hose down their footpaths and sit fanning themselves on their minuscule front porches. Arms for Afghanistan, said the fading grafitti. Legs for Tito.

  Faye had not been the only one to think of dining alfresco that evening, and the lawns of the gardens were liberally peppered with picnickers and amorous couples. From the direction of the tennis courts came the pock-pocking of furry balls beating an intermittent rhythm to the chorus of innumerable cicadas.

  Chloe appeared from between the trees to guide us to the others. She had a girl the same age with her, shy with big eyes. They led us towards a vast Moreton Bay fig, at the foot of which a blanket was spread. It was all very Dejeuner sur l’Herbe. Leo, tall and darkly bearded, lay propped on one elbow, plastic wineglass in hand. Faye was removing containers from a cooler and laying them out. Seated between them, knees drawn up, glancing over her shoulder to keep a weather eye on the girls, was a woman I didn’t know. She was not unlike the woman in Manet’s painting except, of course, that she was not nude. Her loose summery dress only hinted at what she might be like underneath. More your full-figured Gauguin sort of thing was my guess.

  Apart from me and Leo, there was no other man in sight. Bloody Faye, I thought. Playing go-between again, setting me up.

  ‘Murray Whelan,’ beamed Faye, butter not melting in her mouth. ‘This is Claire Sutton.’

  Claire Sutton had a mass of chestnut hair, pulled back into a bushy ponytail, and a high round forehead. We nodded perfunctorily. Lowering myself to the ground, I shot a sideways glower at Faye.

  ‘I’ve just been telling Claire that you work in the arts,’ she persisted. ‘Claire’s in the arts, too.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ With Faye on the job, that could mean anything from riding bareback in a circus to running macrame classes. I passed my bottle of wine to Leo who, as usual, was handling t
he drinks. Faye’s spread of salads and cold-cuts was straight out of the culinary pages of the colour supplements, much of it mysteriously so.

  The children rushed the food, Tarquin suddenly began hobbling again. ‘Guacamole?’ said Red. Sydney was doing wonders for his education.

  ‘Zhough,’ said Faye. ‘A Yemenite dip of coriander, cumin and garlic. What’s wrong this time, Tarquin? You put it on the chicken.’

  ‘He made me go rock climbing.’ Tarquin jiggled up and down on one foot, dangling the other in front of his mother. Red piled a paper plate with everything in reach. Leo stood with the bottle squeezed between his thighs, straining at a corkscrew.

  ‘I’m not really in the arts.’ I met Claire eye-to-eye for the first time. She was, I saw, just as ambushed as me. ‘The politician I work for has just been given that portfolio.’

  The shy-eyed girl, obviously Claire’s daughter, climbed across her to reach for a bread roll. ‘Off you go and play, Gracie,’ she said. Claire had a wide mouth, a slightly turned-up nose and watchful brown eyes that hinted they might, if she so decided, laugh. ‘I used to be a conservator’-she flicked me a quick glance to see if I knew what that meant- ‘at the National Gallery. But now I’ve got a print and framing business.’ This was an exchange of credentials rather than conversation.

  ‘Artemis, it’s called,’ enthused Faye. Tarquin limped off, ankle in remission, plate in hand. ‘In Smith Street. Try the tapenade.’

  I’d driven past Artemis, on the way to Ethnic Affairs. Awning over the footpath. Window full of pre-Raphaelite maidens. The tapenade was black stuff that tasted like a cross between seaweed and Vegemite. I rolled it round on my tongue. ‘Artemis?’ The reference escaped me. Something literary, perhaps.

  ‘Amazonian moon goddess,’ said Faye. ‘A mixture of olive paste, capers and anchovies.’

  ‘Red or white?’ said Leo. ‘Capinata? Frittata? Aioli?’

  Amazonian moon goddess? My heart sank.

  ‘It’s a joke!’ Claire rushed to her own defence, spilling crumbs into her abundant decolletage, brushing them away self-consciously as she spoke. ‘A pun. Arty Miss. My former husband’s idea of being smart. He registered the business in that name and it stuck, even if he didn’t.’

  The deficiencies of ex-husbands were, in my book, a topic best avoided. ‘Guess what I had for lunch, Faye? Strawberry sandwiches. Went to this brunch at Max Karlin’s corporate HQ. His art collection is unbelievable. Must be worth millions.’

  ‘He might not have it for much longer,’ said Faye, unable to resist shop talk. ‘From what I hear, this Karlcraft Centre project of his has turned into a bottomless pit. He’s hocked to the eyeballs against the prospect of future commercial tenancies, but by the time the building is completed, there’ll be a glut of downtown office space. Unless he can get some long-term tenants locked in pronto, he risks going belly-up.’ Faye loved to talk like that. ‘Word is that his creditors are getting pretty jumpy. Try the mesclun, Claire. Chloe, Grace, come and get a drink.’

  The mesclun was a mixture of nasturtiums, dandelions and marigolds. ‘Do I eat it?’ whispered Claire behind her hand, making common cause against our mutual tormentor. ‘Or put it in my hair?’

  When I arrived, I’d wanted nothing so much as to succumb to the torpor of the evening. Now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was the wine. ‘You’ve excelled yourself, Faye,’ I said. ‘Who are his creditors?’

  ‘Various financial institutions. Guarantee Corp, Obelisk Trust. Walnut pesto?’

  ‘I’ve heard of Obelisk,’ I said, trying very hard to avoid looking down the front of Claire’s dress when she reached for the crudites. ‘What is it exactly?’

  ‘Dip your pita in it. It used to be the Building Unions Credit Co-operative. Then a guy called Lloyd Eastlake took it over, restructured it into a unit trust and changed the name to Obelisk. It’s what the Americans call a mutual fund. Manages a pool of funds on behalf of its investors. Unions mainly.’

  ‘Claire mounted our Jogjakarta trishaw-drivers, you know, Murray,’ said Leo.

  Blow-ups of Faye’s arty holiday photos lined the Curnows’ hall, flatteringly framed. ‘The ones inside the front door?’ I said, admiringly. ‘You did that?’

  ‘Mounting street-vendors is my bread and butter.’ Claire permitted her eyes a small smile, beginning to relax.

  Before I could ask her if she’d mind taking a look at my etchings, the kids swarmed over us, Indians storming the fort. We ate. Ravenous, nothing in me but a coffee and a berry sandwich, I fell on the food. Faye and Claire talked kindergarten politics.

  When we’d eaten, Leo got out a bat and we played cricket with the kids, using the No Ball Games sign for stumps. Claire hit a six off my first ball. In time, the shadows meshed together and the night fell gently from the sky. We crept through the velvet darkness, feeding cautious possums pieces of leftover fruit.

  ‘Well?’ Faye hissed into my ear, behind a tree. ‘Thirty-three. Owns her own business. Not bad looking.’

  What did she expect me to do, jump the woman on the spot? ‘Where’s the father of the child?’

  ‘Left them a year ago. New cookie.’

  ‘Coffee?’ said Leo. ‘Sambuca? Port?’

  We walked back to Faye and Leo’s, slapping mosquitoes. I swung Grace up onto my hip. She took it as her due and twined her arms around my neck. Her sleepy head nestled in the crook of my shoulder. A daughter, I thought, would be nice. Eventually.

  ‘She’s not usually so trusting,’ said Claire.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust Murray as far as I could throw him,’ said Faye.

  Cleopatra was on television. We sprawled in the dark before the flickering set, draped with drowsy children. The girls, curled like kittens in their mothers’ laps, were soon rendered unconscious by Richard Burton’s narcotic vowels. Elizabeth Taylor, fabulously blowzy, seethed and ranted. Leo lay bean-bagged on the floor, Tarquin using his shins for a pillow. Red slumbered against my shoulder. ‘This film,’ observed Claire, ‘is longer than the Nile.’ She made, nevertheless, no move to leave.

  What were the poor people doing tonight, I mused. Max Karlin, for all his outward trappings, was teetering on the brink. Desperate to find those elusive big-ticket tenants, those precious million-dollar customers willing and able to sign on the line, ten floors for ten years. Multinationals. Public utilities. Government departments needing accommodation for hundreds of pen-pushers, sitting there at their desks sending out those millions of water bills.

  By the time the credits rolled, Claire and I were the only ones still awake. Perhaps all that on-screen sensuality had given me the wrong idea, but her posture seemed more than accidentally provocative. She lay draped languidly at the other end of the couch, errant corkscrews of hair framing her face. The fabric of her dress moulded to her body. She could not possibly have been unaware how wanton she looked.

  She wasn’t. From behind lowered lids, she was measuring my reaction. No longer concealing my interest, I ran my gaze lazily over her body. Then watched her reciprocate.

  Our eyes devoured each other. The time had come to act, to grasp the transient moment. Gingerly, I prised Red’s sleeping head from my lap. My hand edged towards Claire’s extended leg.

  Red’s eyes sprang open. ‘Tricked ya!’ he yawned. His arm flung out in a stretch and connected with my sore ear.

  ‘Ow,’ I said. Faye woke with a start, activating Chloe.

  ‘Huh? snuffled Leo, inadvertently letting Tarquin’s head fall to the floor. ‘Is it over?’

  ‘My ankle,’ groaned Tarquin. ‘You kicked my ankle.’

  Instantly, there was more barging around going on than Cleopatra ever dreamed of. ‘Is it time to go home yet, Mummy,’ pleaded Grace, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ sighed Claire. ‘I guess it is.’

  Sunday’s dawning came sticky with humidity, heavy with the prospect of rain. By dawning I don’t mean the sun’s rosy-fingered ascension. Nor do I mean the day’s first blossoming when I reached f
or my winsome sleep-mate while thrushes warbled outside my window. I mean eight, when I shucked off the sheets, checked that Red was still asleep in his room and padded to the corner for the papers. I’d slept as deeply as the heat allowed, but my choice of dreams could have been better. Again, I’d been visited by Noel Webb.

  Again, we were sitting in the wintry twilight on a park bench in the Oulton Reserve, Spider’s contempt ringing in my ears, the three Fletcher boys looming over us.

  The Fletchers were weedy runts but they’d been raised on a diet of belt buckles and brake fluid and they had us at unfavourable odds. They were sharpies, an amorphous tribe of terrifying reputation, precursors to the skinheads. In an era when every adolescent male in the world yearned for longer locks and tighter pants, the sharpies wore close-cropped hair and check trousers so perversely wide they flapped like flags. Rumoured to carry knives, they were less a gang than an attitude of casual violence looking for somewhere to happen. And now they had found me.

  The moment I most dreaded had arrived. And Noel Webb, my as-yet-unpaid protector, was edging away. Flanked by his twin brothers, Geordie, the seventeen-year-old, thrust his face into mine. ‘What are you looking at?’ he snarled. His denuded skull occupied my entire field of vision.

  A craven bleat issued from my mouth. ‘Nothing.’

  The twins snickered. ‘Nah-thing, nah-thing.’

  They acted like idiots, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. The kid their brother kicked to death wasn’t much older than me. Trying to fight back would only provoke them. Not that fighting back entered my mind. My guts had shrivelled into a queasy lump and my legs were jelly. The contraband booze beneath my coat was my only hope.

  But before I could get it out, offer it up in supplication, Geordie grabbed the crook of my elbow and jerked me upright. The twins closed from either side, pistoning their bony kneecaps into my thighs. ‘Ow,’ I said. Piss weak. A heel swung behind mine and swept my leg away. Wayne and Danny were pressed so close that I stumbled first against one then the other. Pinning my arms, they buffeted me sideways, setting me spinning like a top, biffing and slapping me as I turned, yelling encouragement to each other.