The Brush-Off mw-1 Page 7

  The hands of solicitous strangers dragged me to my feet. ‘Watch out!’ squealed someone. ‘Blood!’

  My new-found friends all jumped backwards as if jet-propelled. The offending bodily fluid was mine. The stem of a broken wineglass had nicked my forefinger. The cut was small and there wasn’t a lot of blood, but that wasn’t the point. Who knows what fatal contagion I may have been harbouring?

  Whipping a cocktail napkin from my pocket, I hermetically sealed the offending digit. The traumatised bystanders cast me nervously apologetic looks. Fiona Lambert arrived, the scandalised hostess. ‘How ghastly,’ she clucked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, bravely displaying my ruby-tinged bandage. ‘Who was that guy, anyway?’

  ‘Nobody important,’ sniffed Fiona, dismissively. ‘These would-be artists, they’re always complaining about something. Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Lloyd Eastlake closed from the other side, trapping me in a social pincer. ‘You okay?’

  Nothing was damaged but my prospects. Salina Fleet was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Eastlake keenly, clamping my biceps. He was quite shaken, a lot more disturbed by the amateur dramatics than I was. He scanned the room as though my inadvertent assailant might be about to launch another attack from the cover of the crowd. ‘People are going across to the Botanical,’ he said.

  I’d read about the Botanical Hotel. It was a chichi watering hole and noshery on Domain Road, not far away. Before Fiona Lambert could object, he clamped her arm, too, and marched us out the front door.

  Night had fallen over the parkland, filling it with the drone of cicadas and the heady fragrance of damp lawn. A straggling gaggle of exhibition-goers meandered through the trees ahead of us, blending into the twilight in the general direction of Domain Road. To my relief, I could make out the bird-like silhouette of Salina Fleet among them. The tormented artist was nowhere in sight. Perhaps my prospects were salvageable.

  Eastlake noticed the way I was gripping my forefinger in the roll of my fist. ‘Wounded in action,’ he said. ‘You need a Band-aid on that. Doesn’t he, Fiona?’

  A Band-aid would be useful, I admitted. The cut was small but it was bleeding profusely. I couldn’t walk around all night clutching a bloody cocktail napkin. ‘Fiona’s place is practically on the way,’ insisted Eastlake. ‘You’ve got a first-aid kit, haven’t you, Fiona?’

  Fiona looked like she’d prefer to save her medicaments for a worthier cause. ‘Only if it’s no trouble,’ I said.

  Domain Road delineated Melbourne’s social divide. It was the point where the public parkland ran out and the private money began. Marking the border were the playing fields of Melbourne Grammar, a school for children with problem parents. Beyond, were the high-rent suburbs of Toorak and South Yarra. Toffsville.

  We crossed the road and walked half a block, turning into the entrance of a pink stucco block of flats. A dog-faced dowager with a miniature schnauzer under her arm was coming out. Eastlake held the door open for her, and the old duck nodded regally but didn’t say thanks. It was that sort of a neighbourhood, I guessed.

  We climbed a flight of steps to the second floor, where two doors with little brass knockers faced each other across a small landing. One of them had a Chinese ceramic planter beside it, sprouting miniature bamboo. Fiona began to rummage in her handbag, searching for her keys. The bag was an elaborate leather thing with more pockets than a three-piece suit. After she’d been rummaging for what seemed like an eternity, Eastlake said something about dying of thirst, tilted the Chinese pot, slid a key from beneath it and unlocked the door.

  Irritation flickered briefly across Fiona Lambert’s face, whether at Eastlake’s presumption, his casual breach of her security, or merely at the time she’d wasted searching her bag, I couldn’t tell.

  Fiona’s domestic style was tastefully relaxed-what Vogue Living would describe as ‘a professional woman’s inner-city pied-a-terre’. The building dated from sometime in the forties and the best of the original features had been retained-the ornately stepped cornices, the matching plasterwork chevron in the centre of the ceiling, the onyx-tinted smoked-glass light-fitting, the severely square fireplace, the rugs-well-worn but far from threadbare, geometric patterns in black, turquoise and dusty ivory. Aztec jazz.

  To these had been added a huge box-shaped sofa, heavily cushioned and covered in cream cotton duck, plain and inviting, a dining-table of honey-coloured wood with matching bentwood chairs, and a marble-topped coffee table piled with art books. The only lapse into period was a pair of low-slung tubular-steel armchairs, the kind that look like they’re too busy being design classics to offer much comfort.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ she said, her hospitality perfunctory at best. ‘I’ll get your Band-aid.’ Eastlake had charged ahead into the kitchen where he was making ice-cube and bottle-top noises. I crossed to the window. The view was of the darkening expanse of the park, and the lit-up towers of the city centre beyond. A tram clattered by, its wheels chanting a mantra. Location, location, location. Eastlake’s car stood at the far kerb, Spider beside it, his jaw working mechanically.

  Eastlake reappeared, bearing iced drinks. ‘Gin and tonic,’ he said. ‘Nature’s disinfectant.’ Fiona handed me a Band-aid. ‘Bathroom’s down there.’ It was perfectly preserved, all green and cream tiles and curved edges, the bathtub big enough to float the Queen Mary. I unwrapped my finger and found the bleeding already stopped.

  When I wandered back, Fiona was sprawled on the sofa, almost horizontal. A monochromatic odalisque, bare legs stretched out before her, feet on the coffee table. ‘What a week,’ she groaned. ‘Cheers.’ Ah, the gruelling lot of a gallery director.

  The heat of the day had permeated the flat, and an air of lassitude filled the room. We sipped without conversation. Lowering myself into the design-benchmark chair, I faced Fiona across the coffee table. The seat was very low and her toes nearly touched my knees. I couldn’t help but see her knickers. White cotton. She yawned and ran the bottom of her glass over her forehead. Maybe that’s how it works around here, I thought. Averting my eyes, I scanned the title on the spine of one of the art books. A Fierce Vision: The Genius of Victor Szabo 1911-77 by Fiona Lambert.

  On the wall behind her, lit to good effect, hung a large painting in an understated frame. A highly realistic bush scene, pared down to the most basic elements of sky, earth, trees. The work of someone who knew his subject and hated it with a vengeance. Above the mantelpiece hung a smaller painting, clearly by the same hand. A reclining nude.

  Lloyd and Fiona exchanged knowing glances, expecting me to say something. Let someone else make an idiot of themselves, I thought. Besides which, I’d already seen enough pictures that day to last me quite a while. Art would keep. My appetites at that point were more basic. ‘If I don’t eat soon,’ I said, sociably, ‘I won’t be answerable.’

  The phone rang. Fiona went into a little study opening off the living room. ‘Hello.’ She listened for a moment, then reached back with her foot and hooked the door shut. I stood up and sucked my piece of lemon, beginning to get impatient, not sure why we were still here. Pacing to the window, I saw Spider leaning against a tree, a mobile phone pressed to his ear. Wanker.

  Lined up on the mantelpiece was a row of framed photographs. Family snaps. Incidental mileposts in life’s little journey. Me, Mummy and Toby the pony. Provence on a hundred dollars a day. I took my drink over and picked one up, a five by eight colour print. This Fiona was a good ten years younger. A real little chubby-bubby. Her hair was longer, still brown, her dress a shapeless shift. She was smiling at the camera, close-lipped as though hiding braces. An old man had his arm around her shoulder. He was maybe sixty-five, barrel-chested, with a round face and a bare scalp, tufts of grey hair sticking out above his ears, grinning like a wicked old koala. The background was blurred, providing no clues to the setting.

  I held the frame up. ‘Her father?’


  Eastlake nearly choked on his G amp; T. ‘Christ no!’ he spluttered, glancing furtively back at the closed door of the study. ‘That’s Victor Szabo.’ He took the photograph out of my hand, regarded it with ill-concealed amazement and returned it to its place on the mantel. His eyes swivelled upwards, to the nude, and his mouth opened to say something. The study door opened and Fiona reappeared, frowning.

  ‘Bad news?’ said Eastlake, turning quickly to face her.

  She made a dismissive gesture and shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She yawned-it looked forced-and tugged off her earrings, plain pearl studs, one black, one white. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am, but I’m exhausted.’ She was trying hard to sound tired, but there was a tight brittleness in her voice. ‘Would you think I was terribly rude if I begged off dinner?’

  Frankly, it suited me fine. Eastlake made some dissuading noises, thankfully to no avail, I expressed more gratitude for the first aid than was warranted and two minutes later we were back in the street. ‘Think I’ll give it a miss, too,’ said Eastlake, looking at his watch.

  The night was young and I was half-cut and fancy-free. A hundred metres up the road women with backsides by Henry Moore were entering the most fashionable wet-throat emporium in town. As soon as Eastlake began across the street towards the Mercedes, I hastened to join them.

  Shuffling down the footpath towards me was my nemesis, the flying cowboy. All the stuffing had gone out of him. He was lost in thought, mumbling to himself. ‘Jus you wait,’ he was saying, repeating it under his breath. As poignant a solitary drunk as ever I had seen. I gave him a wide berth and went into the pub.

  So much fashionable architecture had been inflicted on the Botanical Hotel that it could have passed for the engine room of an aircraft carrier, all distressed boiler-plate and industrial rubber. Business was booming. Salina Fleet was in the far corner of the bistro section, at a raucous table crowded with faces from the CMA back lawn. Down boy, I told myself. Read the mood. Take it slowly.

  I ordered a beer, examining myself in the bar mirror. Uglier men were stalking the earth. The barman was one of them. ‘Grolsch?’ he said. I thought he was clearing his throat. He handed me a tomato sauce bottle of pale brown liquid. Grolsch Premium Lager, read the label. Brewed in Holland. ‘That’ll be four eighty,’ he said.

  That explained the balance of payments deficit. Time was when you could get paralytic for four dollars eighty. On Australian beer, at that. I put my hand on my hip pocket and discovered my wallet was gone.

  There was a limited number of places I might have mislaid it. Mentally retracing my steps, I got as far back as that low-slung designer chair in Fiona Lambert’s apartment. I went back down the street, took the stairs two at a time, and rapped on Fiona’s little brass knocker. Five minutes, ten at the most, had elapsed since Eastlake and I had left, so it wasn’t like I’d be waking her up. There was no answer. I rapped again, the sound reverberating down the stairwell. Either Fiona Lambert was a very sound sleeper or there was no-one home. Somewhere inside, the phone began to bleat. When it finally rang out, I raised the edge of the Ming Dynasty shrub tub. The key was back in its hiding place. I let myself in.

  Streetlight lit the living room. The remains of our drinks sat on the coffee table condensing dribbles of water. My wallet was on the floor, just where I hoped it would be. As I bent to pick it up, my eye was caught by the picture hanging above the mantel, the nude. I stood and studied it.

  Its subject was the younger, plumper Fiona Lambert, the one in the photograph. The artist’s approach was clinical, lurid and without a shred of sentimentality. Superbly confident, the picture captured not just Fiona’s likeness but her narcissism as well. The pose was blush-makingly provocative, anatomically explicit. The artist just had to be bonking her teenage ears off.

  I did some quick mental arithmetic. At the time he painted the picture, Victor Szabo must have been at least sixty-five. The old goat.

  Five minutes later I was back at the Botanical with four dollars eighty worth of Dutch courage in my hand, making eye contact with Salina Fleet.

  She waved me over, making space at the table. ‘What did you say your name was, again?’ she demanded, her way of being smart. I didn’t doubt I was already tucked away in Sal’s mental Filofax, cross-referenced against future contingency. Everyone was talking at once, bellowing into the general din. Art scene party time. ‘Saw you at the CMA,’ she half-shouted. ‘Thought you were gone.’

  ‘So did I,’ I said. ‘When that guy landed on me.’

  She laughed and bit her lip at the same time, a cornered look in her eyes. I rapidly changed the subject to the only other thing I could think of. ‘Got sidetracked by Fiona Lambert.’

  She relaxed. ‘The Black Widow, we call her.’ I bent closer, the better to hear her, and the bare skin of our forearms touched. A little spark of static electricity shot between us. ‘Better watch yourself there.’

  ‘Why?’

  She was even tighter than me. Not that we were drunk. And so what if we were? The waiter came and stuck a menu in front of my face. It was the sort you read right to left. Everything on offer was either char-grilled, stir-fried, snow-pead, or came with sheep’s cheese. What I really wanted to taste was the waxy fruit of Salina’s apricot lips.

  ‘Go on,’ I urged. ‘Tell me.’ Keep her talking until we found some common ground, that was the strategy. ‘Why do you call Fiona Lambert the Black Widow?’

  A thin-lipped, imperious-beaked bloke was squeezed in on the other side of Salina. I’d met him at the CMA but his name escaped me. When he heard Fiona Lambert’s name, he pricked up his ears and leaned over. ‘They call her that,’ he whispered in an accent that sounded like it came from the same place as my beer, ‘because of the rumour that Victor Szabo died, shall we say, on the job with her.’

  He had a bracket like a Borgia pontiff in a Titian portrait. To hear him properly, I had to lean even closer to Salina, so I kept up the questions. ‘They were lovers, were they?’

  ‘She modelled for him, slept with him, buried him, wrote the book on him, is curating his retrospective,’ said Salina with what sounded suspiciously like envy. ‘She practically invented him.’

  ‘And now he’s about to be the next big thing, eh?’ I said.

  ‘Bigger than Sir Ned Kelly himself, if the Black Widow has anything to do with it,’ confirmed the Pope’s nose.

  By that stage, I could’ve eaten a nun’s bum through a cane chair. We moved on to the Koonunga Hill cabernet shiraz. Food arrived, cross-hatched from the grill, and I sawed into my fillet of salmon.

  ‘A brutal deconstruction of mordant reality,’ declaimed Salina.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ I chewed.

  ‘A sundering of the constituent components of antipodean materiality.’ She sucked in her cheeks and tried to look severe and authoritative.

  ‘Eh?’ I popped a french fry into my mouth.

  ‘The insertion into a distinctively Australian sensibility of the universalising impulse of an internationalist form.’

  At last I got it. She was doing a Fiona Lambert impression. Quoting, I took it, catchphrases from her book on Victor Szabo.

  ‘An unflinching critic of the mundane,’ piped up the schnoz, getting in on the act.

  ‘ A Fierce Vision,’ we all chortled in chorus.

  Holding it up with the best of them, I was. Who’d’ve known that three hours ago I’d never heard of this Szabo bloke. This art business was turning out to be a piece of piss. While we ate, Sal and the other guy kept up a running patter about Szabo. He was quite a mystery man from what I could glean-a refugee from Europe, a misanthropic recluse who had done most of his work in the fifties and sixties while holed up in rustic squalor. ‘A total output of what, fifty or sixty paintings,’ Sal said at one point. ‘Not exactly prolific.’

  ‘Forty known paintings,’ the accent corrected her. ‘Now that he’s getting better appreciated, who knows how many more will emerge?’

  The conversation
soon meandered elsewhere, and I was happy to go with it. I would have been happy to go anywhere, given the encouragement I was receiving under the table. At the salad, Salina’s hand brushed on my knee. By the tiramisu, it was lodged between my thighs.

  When the liqueurs and coffee arrived, I knew I was going places. ‘Have you ever been exploring?’ she asked, dipping her forefinger in Sambuca and offering me a taste. ‘In the Botanic Gardens at night?’

  It would have been churlish to refuse. What I didn’t realise- could not possibly have realised-was that the expedition that followed would lead me much further than over an iron railing and into a thicket of Rhododendron oreotrophes. Further than an exploratory probe in the depths of the fern forest. Further even than the searing flare of an emergency light beside the moat of the National Gallery.

  And, before it was over, more than one body would be wheeled into the back of an ambulance.

  But right then, in the dead of the night, the itch of crushed leaves still on my skin, all I could see was Salina Fleet’s contorted face.

  ‘Bastard!’ She said it again.

  Not an accusation this time. Not thrown in my face, but muttered under her breath. Her eyes followed the movement of the gurney into the back of the ambulance, the trail of water across the pavement left by the lifeless black legs. Her head shook with the movement of it, emphatic in denial. Despite the heat, she was trembling.

  Abruptly, slow motion became fast forward. The flashing light went off. Doors slammed. The ambulance began to draw away. I moved towards Salina, wanting nothing except to comfort and to calm. The policeman blocked my path with a hand to my chest. He gestured towards the rear of the departing vehicle. ‘Friend of his, are you?’

  Salina was moving out of reach, being led towards the police car. She wasn’t looking back. The air was humid, cloying. I shook my head. ‘Not really.’