‘Er, yeah. Sure.’
‘You know what can happen to people who give evidence in court cases …?’
The two men kept walking with him, but fell silent, which was even more unnerving.
Jack’s heart was racing as he crossed Balmoral Avenue and walked towards his flat. Are they going to follow me upstairs? Bash me? What in the fuck is this all about?
The men turned away and walked back along the street. The one who’d done the talking called out: ‘Look after yourself, Jack. Make sure you keep your head down.’
Confusion and panic churning through him, Jack climbed the stairs quickly, in case they returned. His hand shook as he slipped the key into the lock. Once inside, he stood leaning on the kitchen bench and took several deep breaths, then dumped his laundry on the floor.
He cracked open a can of VB, and stretched back on the couch to mull over this unexpected intrusion. Who were these guys anyway? Why was it such a big deal?
His mind raced furiously as he tried to figure out what it might be about. What could he say about the accident that wasn’t obvious anyway? A bloke fell off a ladder and died. Did they think he was faking?
Eventually, his heart rate returned to normal. He lifted himself up on his elbow, stood up slowly, and walked across to the kitchen area to tackle dinner. There wasn’t much on offer. Heating up a pie would take a while, as he still lacked a microwave. He decided to make a toasted cheese sandwich, as he wasn’t that hungry anyway, and after one or two more beers he wouldn’t notice.
After tossing a couple of slices of bread into his antique toaster, he ambled across to switch on the TV.
He was just about to change the channel when he realised the news item was about the shambles at the estate: ‘… is a controversial developer with a history of occupational-health-and-safety problems. Last night a public meeting on the estate collapsed in disarray when an unknown person turned on the sprinkler system, drenching over 100 people at the meeting.’
Dempsey came on camera: ‘Getting the flats upgraded is great, but we’ve got to make sure there’s no net loss of public housing.’
Then the presenter reappeared: ‘A spokesman for the minister today denied that the recent change in the ratio of public to private apartments for the project gave Auspart an unfair advantage after the tender closed.’
Jack changed the channel and stared at the screen, deep in thought. The tinny clunk of the toaster reminded him he was in the middle of preparing dinner. He went back to the kitchen to slice up some cheese.
After a few false starts, he succeeded in lighting the griller in the ageing gas stove. Some of the jets near the front were blocked, so he pushed the slices of toast and cheese towards the back. He’d complained to the landlord about the stove a couple of times, but nothing had happened.
As he stepped over to the fridge to get another beer, he noticed something odd in the corner of the kitchen bench. There was a dark patch. He took a couple of steps closer, and, to his horror, discovered that it was moving.
‘Oh Jesus! You wouldn’t fucking believe …’
A vast throng of ants was scuttling back and forth across the laminex, feasting on scattered bread crumbs and sugar crystals. The luckier ones were crawling over a blob of raspberry jam.
Jack put his beer down and set about investigating where they were coming from. There was a tiny gap between the bench-top and the wall. A quick glance inside the cupboard confirmed his worst fears: they were everywhere. Inside the cupboard, a half-full packet of stale cornflakes and a plate of loose biscuits were crawling with ants.
He took a quick look under the sink, convinced he had some sort of insect-killing stuff down there somewhere, but there was nothing other than some dish-washing liquid and a few dirty dish-cloths.
‘I’ll show you, you bastards!’ he roared at the ants. He boiled the kettle and set about bombing them with boiling water, wiping up the carnage with a dish-cloth. At least he’d bought himself some time. He would have to buy some ant-killer potion tomorrow.
An uneasy night spent tossing and turning ensued, as the significance of the encounter that evening began to sink in. There was more to it than just some bloke falling off a ladder.
Chomping through soggy cornflakes as weak sunlight dribbled through his window, Jack resolved to do something about it. He could hardly spend the rest of his life worrying about being harassed every time he went down to the shops.
He pulled out his phone and dialled the number that John Franklin had given him. It was only 7.30, but he figured Franklin would be out and about. Everything in the construction industry seemed to start early, including union trouble-making.
As he expected, he got a voicemail message.
‘Er, hi John, Jack van Duyn. Listen, mate, something’s happened — I got hassled by two blokes telling me to shut up about the accident. Reckon I need some help …’
He’d only just reversed out of his parking spot when his phone rang. It was Franklin.
‘Jack, mate, what’s up?’
‘Last night, I got harassed by a couple of blokes as I was walking home. They made it pretty clear I should keep my mouth shut.’
‘They said it was about the accident?’
‘Yeah. Pretty clear what they were on about.’
‘Shit. Looks like this might get nasty. Stay cool, Jack. We’ll look after you, don’t worry. These guys are arseholes, but we’re used to that.’
‘So what should I do?’ Jack tried to keep the pleading tone in his voice under control.
‘Nothing for now — leave it with me.’ Franklin hung up.
The chat with Franklin had only made him feel even more on edge. Things were going to get nasty, it seemed, but he had no idea what that meant.
An extremely lean day in the cab followed, which didn’t help. Twice he copped $15 jobs after sitting at a rank for over an hour. He’d had worse days, but not very often.
He was in a foul mood when he arrived at basketball training that evening. For the hundredth time, he asked himself why he was still coaching a very ordinary under-12 side for no reward. Every now and then, one of the parents would call him to drive them somewhere, but that hardly counted. It was all a bit pointless, really.
As he stood chatting to the mother of a newish team member, he remembered that she was some kind of bureaucrat in the Housing Department. People like that lived in Brunswick these days.
Robyn Sturgess seemed like a nice enough woman, so Jack didn’t mind talking to her while his players did a routine session of shooting practice. The conversation drifted onto the subject of the Carlton estate.
‘I was at the meeting where the sprinklers went off. Turned into a giant schemozzle …’
‘Sounds like it.’ She looked amazed that he would involve himself in such things. Jack felt like he’d just confessed to being a nudist, or worse.
‘Yeah, just helping out. Friend of mine lives there — bit involved with the Tenants Association …’
‘I’d stay well away from it all if I were you, my friend. Looks like the whole thing’s going to get nasty.’
A few things I’m involved in seem to be getting nasty, Jack thought. In his experience, whenever anyone addressed him as ‘my friend’, it was usually to convey a warning. But what was he being warned about?
‘Shit’, was all Jack could reply. He drifted back into silence for a few moments, then walked back over to the boys to arrange a passing drill. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more about the developers.
‘Hey, Ben! That’s it! Protect the ball!’ he yelled at one of his players. ‘You’ll get crunched if you don’t watch it.’
6.
Jack couldn’t get the warning from Robyn Sturgess out of his mind. What was it about Auspart and the estate? He knew that all kinds of interesting things could be found on the internet, so while a pot of rice si
mmered on his stove, he turned his computer on and started searching for any mentions of the company.
Most of the items that surfaced sounded like the speech he’d heard at the meeting. There was plenty of blather, but not much enlightenment. He wandered over to the stove to check the rice, but it wasn’t quite ready, so he clicked on the second page of the Auspart items. Straightaway, something caught his eye: halfway down the page, he saw a headline that read, ‘Auspart rips off workers’.
Jack clicked on the heading, and an article from something called Rabblerouser appeared on his screen. It had been posted almost two years earlier, and it was an attack on Auspart’s treatment of workers. Apparently, the company’s main owner, a man called David Clarkson, had a lengthy history of non-payment of wages, tax evasion, and breaches of safety. Looks like that councillor bloke wrote this, Jack thought.
Scrolling down further, Jack came across a reproduction of a newspaper article from May 1994. Most of the text was too blurry to read, but the headline told the story: ‘Apprentice killed in gruesome fall’. A platform at a construction site had collapsed, and a young apprentice carpenter had impaled himself on a piece of thin pipe sticking up out of the ground. Jack could just make out references to the company’s boss, Clarkson, and to the likelihood of legal action.
The description of the accident made his stomach churn. It might have been fifteen years ago, but it was all very close to home. Jack did his best to put the article out of his mind, and returned to making dinner. The brutal reminder of his own recent encounter with building-site accidents was most unwelcome.
After knocking off his dinner of assorted leftovers and rice, Jack went downstairs to see Billy the Hippy. His neighbour was always good for some homely wisdom and entertainment. Billy was a proud relic of the 1970s who’d gone to seed physically, but retained a weird edge that Jack had never got around to probing. He’d worked out over the years that prying was not good for sustaining friendships, and he valued Billy’s companionship and wry humour.
The sight of the familiar unkempt grey hair, wrinkled and weather-beaten face, and stained teeth looking back at him through the doorway made Jack relax immediately.
‘Hi, man. What’s up?’
‘Up for a drink?’ Jack lifted the six-pack he was carrying, and jiggled it.
‘Hey, sure, why not. Yes or Tull?’
Jack stared back at him, having no idea what he was talking about.
‘Playing some music. Your choice, man. Yes, or Jethro Tull?’ Billy played with his greasy rat’s-tails as he waited for Jack to snap out of it.
‘Ah, get it. Sorry, mate — mind’s a bit frazzled. You got Aqualung, haven’t you?’
‘Of course. Good idea.’
They were halfway through ‘Mother Goose’ and onto their second can when Jack’s phone rang.
‘Hi, Jack, it’s Emily.’
He was immediately on alert.
‘Hi, Emily, How’re you going? What’s happening?’ He tried to sound casual and pleasant.
‘Not much. Just ringing to see if you’re free tomorrow night. We’ve got a bit of a working bee happening, for the day of action and all that. Would be good if you could lend a hand. Might need some serious physical strength.’
‘Not sure I’m much good for that these days’, Jack said, ‘but I’m happy to try. I’ve just been having a bit of a look at this Auspart bunch. Pretty ugly outfit, by the look of it. Bloke who owns it sounds like a real shark — there’s a story about a kid dying on a building site about fifteen years ago. Horrible stuff.’
‘That’s awful — it’s not surprising people don’t want them around. Thanks for helping out. We kick off about seven-thirty, I think. Listening to some Seventies music, by the sound of it?’
‘Yeah, just downstairs with my mate Billy. How’s the illness treating you?’
‘Not great today. Bit better now, though — I’ve only been out and about for the last few hours.’
Once the call ended, Billy was quick to drag him back to matters at hand.
‘Side two?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
As Ian Anderson’s bitter attacks on organised religion echoed around Billy’s lounge room, Jack tossed up whether to raise the accident with him. He didn’t get much of a chance, though, as Billy seemed determined to prattle on about the music they were listening to.
‘You know Tony Iommi, man? Black Sabbath?’
‘Yeah, had a beer with him last week.’ Jack smirked at his own joke.
‘Hysterical. He played with Tull for a while. Hated it. Said it was like a nine-to-five job. Anderson just another boss. Bad vibe all around.’
‘Hey, know anything about getting rid of ants, mate?’ Jack had forgotten about his insect problem, but spending several minutes examining an album cover with spiders on it had reminded him he needed to buy some ant-killer.
‘Sorry, man, not my thing. You know me, live and let live. Nothing against ants, you know. Amazing creatures, ants. Can lift ten times their own weight, have really complex societies …’
‘Yeah, yeah’, Jack cut into Billy’s ramblings. ‘I’ve got a million or so of them in my kitchen. Reckon they’ll stink the place out pretty soon. Need to get something to get rid of them. Haven’t you got them down here?’
‘Haven’t noticed any, but who knows? Few cupboards in the kitchen I haven’t looked in for a while.’
Jack could believe it. Whenever he started feeling guilty about his slothful domestic habits, he thought about Billy.
‘Suppose I’d better buy something. Is it Ant-Rid, the stuff? Long time since I went out killing insects.’
‘Maybe you should get an ant-eater. Do it natural, like.’
‘Where in the fuck am I going to get an ant-eater?’
‘Who knows? The zoo? Bound to have some there …’
‘And what do I do when the ant-eater shits everywhere, and the agent chucks me out?’
‘Get hold of something that eats ant-eaters. An eagle? Gorilla, maybe?’
‘You’re hopeless, mate’, Jack laughed back at him. He would have to work on the problem some other time. Billy was obviously useless.
A bit of Iron Butterfly, Jimi Hendrix, and King Crimson later, and they ran out of beer. At a suitable pause in Billy’s ravings about Keith Tippett’s piano on ‘Cat Food’, Jack stood up, shook himself, and headed for the door.
‘Time to hit it, mate. Early start, as usual. Good to see you.’
‘Yeah, you too, man. Take it easy.’ Billy didn’t bother to get up from his faded, musty armchair as Jack ambled out. He was so engrossed in the music that he was only half-registering his friend’s departure.
Jack flopped down onto his sunken, unmade bed and propped up the pillows so he could enjoy a quick smoke and a bit of a read. He was in a better mood now: Billy was always good value for escaping from life’s problems. He hadn’t got around to asking him about the Worksafe stuff, but that didn’t matter much: at least he was feeling calmer about it all.
He stubbed out his cigarette, turned off his bedside lamp, and settled back into the familiar hollow in the middle of his sagging mattress. He was asleep within minutes.
The next day’s driving was much better than usual. The weather was improving, the passengers were reasonably well-behaved, and the traffic wasn’t too bad. An unusual combination.
After delivering the cab to Ajit and scoffing an early dinner, he set off for Carlton. Assuming there was no point arriving early to the working bee, he wandered down to the Dan O’Connell Hotel.
All was quiet, though, as he slipped through the door that separated the lounge from the public-bar area. There were only a dozen or so drinkers, as you would expect early on a weeknight.
Nursing a well-earned pot, Jack settled down at a small table on the far side of the lounge. He didn’t mind drinking alone. He had long go
t used to his single status, and wasn’t that worried about appearances. There was a fair chance someone he knew would turn up anyway.
Sure enough, just as he was considering getting up to buy another pot, a squat, neatly dressed older woman caught his eye as she walked towards the women’s toilets.
‘It’s Jack, isn’t it? Managed to dry off after the other night?’
‘Yeah, er … hi, Mary.’ Jack recognised the Tenants Association president, who seemed like a good stick. He didn’t often form favourable first impressions, but in Mary’s case he’d made an exception.
‘Thought I’d have a little night out. We don’t come here that often’ — she gestured towards a group of women sitting at the far end of the lounge — ‘but it’s always nice and quiet at this time.’
‘Yeah. Haven’t been here for a while myself. Just thought I’d grab a quickie before I head off to the working bee for you guys.’
‘Working bee?’
‘At the Tenants Association. For the day of action, or something. Emily asked me to come and help out.’
‘That’s funny. I think that’s on tomorrow, not tonight. Sure you’ve got the right day?’ Mary looked confused, as if she was too polite to point out that Jack didn’t know what day it was.
‘Emily definitely said tonight …’
‘Oh well, maybe they’re doing something without me. I’m only the president! Anyway, nice seeing you, Jack.’ Mary continued on her way to the Ladies’, her neat, well-presented appearance looking out of place in the dingy lounge.
Jack looked down at his trusty digital watch, a Victoria Market special that had never let him down in spite of its very low price. It was getting on towards a quarter to eight. He had a mystery to solve.
Fiddling around in his pocket until he was able to extract his phone from the mix of keys, tissues, and overdue bills, he dialled Emily’s number. After a few rings, the call went through to voicemail.
The only way to find out was to turn up at the Tenants Association, as he’d promised.
Comeback Page 5
