No Neat Endings

by Dominic Carew

  The way it worked was, all the new files were divvyed up according to skillset and workload. Our old, existing files, we had to manage as before. This included Grisby’s, which Mayweather, Carmichael, Allens and I shared between us.

  I expected errors, naturally, maybe even unfiled returns, but what I encountered was the equivalent of a ten-car pile-up. Where did he learn to count? Honest. He’d been out to lunch that guy, for the last two years! I felt bad for him. How could someone go so off-piste, have ended up in a job so plainly unsuited?

  I spent the next quarter mopping up the mess. We all did. His reputation: cemented. And boy, did we have some laughs at his expense. Grisby the gumby, we called him. Al Grisby, Innumerate Accountant Extraordinaire, was another name doing the rounds. And some days we just called him the guy who couldn’t count. Even now, years later, with a practice of my own, I’ll share examples with my colleagues. I tell them this guy I knew, this guy I worked with, used to forget the CGT discount. Or wrongly apply the GST. He’d make the simplest maths look strained and awkward and, worse yet, leave his handwritten workings out on client letters, which were misspelled and grammatically flawed to boot. No one ever believes me. And I get why. To this day, I’m yet to come across another accountant like Grisby.

  Among my colleagues, when we sit around and talk like this, I sometimes almost tell them how he was funny too, how he did impressions, and how that day in the car park as I watched him walk off, the last time I’d ever see him, I felt more guilt than I’d ever felt, a stabbing pain almost, a hot sting. But I never do.

  Not long after he left, I went to his apartment. I didn’t plan to talk work or have a go at him about the shit show he’d left us. If I’m honest, I was hoping to just laugh. I had a feeling, though, even before I’d arrived, that he wasn’t there. I looked through the windows. The place was empty.

  Rumours started up that he went to work for another firm. A tiny one that did mum and pop returns, some small business, a bit of not-for-profit. A colleague, whose girlfriend knew a guy that knew a guy who worked there, told me that Grisby nearly sunk the operation. They fired him in his second month. After that, no one knew where he went. Someone said he ended up with five kids, living in a caravan on the Tweed, selling bibles. Someone else mentioned they thought they saw a guy that looked like Grisby in a gutter once, begging for change. It hurt me to hear this stuff. He didn’t belong in a serious job with lots of responsibility, but where, then, did he belong? What happens to guys like Grisby, I wonder.

  ‘Honey? What happens, you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. They get by. You shouldn’t beat yourself up.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Every time you go out with your team, you come home and talk about him.’

  She’s right, of course.

  ‘It’s been how many years?’

  ‘Seventeen in March.’

  ‘Seventeen years. He really made an impression on you.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I say.

  ‘It’s your kindness Dave. Your heart. It’s too big sometimes,’ and she leans over and kisses my cheek.

  I turn off the lamp beside our bed. Put my arm around my wife, content in my job and family, that I have it good, with two sweet children and the woman I love. And she loves me.

  I wonder, though, would she still? If I told her my little secret?

  He calls sometimes.

  Since that day in the car park, he’s called a dozen times, always in December, right before Christmas, from a pay phone, reverse charge. ‘Grisby,’ I say. ‘Dave,’ he says, waiting for me to say something else. I never do. I hear him sigh and then hang up.

  Always the same.

  ‘Honey?’ I say now, but she’s already down in the bliss of sleep.

  And I’m grateful, for my own small sake, that she is.

  Defect

  There was a tiny mark on Dad’s new shorts; so small, in fact, you could barely see it. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I should never have pointed it out and maybe he wouldn’t have flipped down at Rip Curl. But I did mention it. I said, ‘What’s that Dad?’

  ‘What son? What is it?’

  He was driving. He’d just bought the shorts and liked them so much that he’d put them on in the car park. And now he was driving. He never broke the law, my dad. He had a pious respect for rules and regulations and sub-rules and signs at roundabouts and in car parks and set-up instructions for electronic goods and washing instructions on clothes tags and he never sped. He kept constant watch of the speedometer.

  ‘Son?’

  He flicked his eyes from the road to the dash in three second intervals. Bird’s eyes, I’d always thought. Not a seagull’s or a magpie’s. A bird of prey. An eagle.

  ‘Son?’

  ‘There’s a mark,’ I said, nodding at his thighs.

  He looked down, just long enough to catch a glimpse of the S-shaped blemish. Then he looked back to the road. His tongue poked out of his mouth a bit. He frowned deeply. He looked at the speedometer. Then he looked down at the shorts for pretty much bang on three seconds. We stopped at a set of lights. He put the car in neutral, pulled the handbrake up and ran his finger over the mark. He licked his finger, ran it over the mark again, tried to scratch it out with his nails.

  ‘Defect,’ he said as he put the car in gear. We turned into Avalon. No point questioning his comment. He was an actuary. He saw life in black and white.

  I grabbed the handle above the door and gazed out the window. I thought about uni. Like, how good will it be when I finish uni? When I sit the last exam in my law degree. But before I got right into these thoughts, his tension brought me back to the car. This happened whenever he was anxious; I could feel it. I was sure he had a magnetic field around him. Occasionally I’d think him made of cogs and gears, like a clock, say: his head an intricate system of parts. And software! He was short and wiry and full of volatile energy. When he got mad, he swung his arms as he walked. He’d either pace back and forth, or make a beeline for the person who’d caused his angst. He was my dad. But sometimes he was Hitler.

  Nah.

  That’s not true.

  He was okay. Honest. It was all good. My law degree. Yeah. One more year of my law degree, and I was almost back there when the car took the wrong turn at Avalon Parade. We were headed to the shops again. I looked at Dad. He said, ‘Grab the receipt for the shorts out the bag, mate.’

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  ‘Bloody defect,’ he kept saying. His algebraic mind was thoroughly aghast at the scandal of it.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled into the shopping centre car park. Dad sat in silence for a minute, reading the receipt.

  ‘You better come with,’ he said. ‘I may need your expertise.’

  ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘I’m not a lawyer yet.’

  ‘You topped criminal law didn’t you?’

  ‘I topped public law. It’s got nothing to do with defective consumer goods.’

  Neither did crim for that matter, but I knew not to go into details. If you got Dad started, he’d never stop.

  ‘You better come then,’ he said. ‘I’m a member of the public and these shorts are buggered, son.’

  We both still had our seat belts on. The engine was off and the handbrake was fixed in its highest position. I had an urge to tell him to pull his head in but, at the same time, in the same moment of filial impatience, I couldn’t help but feel for him, sitting there transfixed by a smudge and frowning, so very hard.

  We made our way through the car park, down the shiny arcades of the shopping centre with their sugar smells, their echoes and light-hearted squeals that I supposed were the sounds of normal people getting on with being normal. Dad walked a few steps ahead, at pace. He was still in the shorts. In his outrage, I guessed, he’d forgotten to take them off.

  The shop assistant was young, about my age, blonde and pretty enough to make my cheeks go red. Dad stood next to me, eyeing her. He said, looking straight at her, ‘Tell her,
son.’

  I did as I was told. ‘Could we maybe speak to someone. About some shorts we bought today?’

  ‘Oh sure,’ she said, then she walked to the other side of the shop, to a guy in a baggy white T with tatts on his arms. Looking at the guy, I recalled a few weeks before, when a P-plate kid had rear-ended Dad’s car. He’d had tatts too. So awkward. Mainly because Dad wouldn’t stop staring at him. Even after the cops had come (Dad had insisted) and the tow truck driver had hoisted the kid’s Astra onto the truck, Dad kept staring him down from across the street. The kid knew it. And so did the tow truck driver, who asked: ‘What’s with your old boy then?’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘They call that a gimlet-stare. Know what a gimlet is?’ I didn’t know what a gimlet was until after. It was an accurate description.

  Dad wasn’t a violent man; he’d never for a moment threatened me or my sister, and he’d always adored our mother, in his own private way. But his world depended on rules. The conventions of his life all hung from their scaffolding. He couldn’t navigate without them and when someone broke them, or threatened to, his kinship, his belief in the decency of people, went to pieces.

  The shop girl and guy came up to us, smiling. I explained the situation. The shorts were marked. We were hoping to exchange them. My tone was firm, but conciliatory. And yet, this would prove irrelevant.

  ‘You mean these shorts?’ the guy asked, bending down to inspect them.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘where’s the mark?’

  He followed my finger to the hairline squiggle where a sewing machine in Shenzhen must have lost its way. For a micro-second. With his hands on his knees, he looked up at Dad, clearly puzzled.

  ‘See what he means?’ Dad said.

  I wanted to run away. I wanted to cover my face with my forearms and bolt out of the shop, and I almost did, but the guy, seeming to twig all of a sudden, straightened up and said, ‘Sir, I’m afraid we can’t exchange these shorts, as they’ve already been worn.’

  Dad’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘It’s policy. Head office just introduced it.’

  ‘Head office? Why would they do that?’

  ‘To be honest,’ the guy said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘if you don’t know that, how can we trust you know the policy in the first place?’

  The guy and girl looked at each other. Then the guy did something that’d always irritated Dad. He shrugged. Yeah, he shrugged. So insolent. So common to youth (I’m paraphrasing Dad here) and I thought of another time, in Woolworths, when Dad discovered the out-of-date milk. I’d tried to block that one from memory, with no luck. Things got nasty. They started nasty, proceeded nastily, and ended with another creepy stare, full of brooding, it seemed, and, quite possibly, hatred.

  Now, Dad said: ‘I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t shrug your shoulders like that.’

  Again, the guy looked at the girl. And again, out of incredulity, or nerves, he shrugged.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Dad said, ‘you’re shrugging your shoulders?’

  ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘Calm down.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the Sale of Goods Act? What about stock management or customer care? Tell him, son.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t…’

  ‘Apologies aren’t going to cut it, I’m afraid. I’m invoking section 52.’ He pronounced the number with the full mechanics of his lips and tongue, applying emphasis to every syllable. I thought about Richie Benaud announcing a batting score. Dad pulled out his phone. And started dialling.

  That night at dinner, Dad ate his peas one by one and said not very much. Mum was angry as hell but didn’t say much either, which is how I knew she was angry. My sister excused herself with half a chop left on her plate to go and study. Mum, Dad and I sat on. After a while, she said, ‘You shouldn’t have fucking done that, Brian.’ She very rarely swore. It was like someone had just chucked a brick through a window. ‘I mean, the police?’

  ‘It was a matter of principle.’

  ‘You mean property. It was a matter of you.’

  ‘Nope, that’s not it.’

  ‘Ha!’

  She folded her arms, scowling at him. I could tell how bad she felt for the Rip Curl guy. If it were my son, her face said. The poor boy.

  ‘I suppose you’ll go to church tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ he said. ‘Of course I will.’ If he’d understood Mum’s point, he didn’t let on. He just ate his peas methodically, as usual, a trace of satisfaction on his face, calm cold air blowing out from his vents. He went to church every Sunday. I’d never known him to miss a mass. He always had the ribbon in his missal lined up for the next week’s readings. He followed every word.

  Mum laughed again. Another pointed note. Then she asked if the police had gotten anyone’s name. They hadn’t even brought out their notepads! They’d just stood around scratching their heads. One of them bought a pair of jeans, which Dad didn’t take kindly to. The cop stood there mute, jeans in hands, while Dad peppered him with sections of law, either inaccurate or long repealed. All the while, the Rip Curl guy kept trying to get his attention.

  ‘I’m talking to the policeman,’ Dad said. Then he carried on with the tirade. Section 28 capital A of the Fair Trading Act. Section 52 of the federal equivalent. Subordinate rules and delegated instruments. He looked around for me, but I’d slipped into the shirt aisle and was watching through gaps between shelves.

  ‘My son’s almost a lawyer,’ I heard him say. ‘He can tell you the exact provisions.’

  It went on like that, I thought it would never stop – a crowd had gathered in a circle – but finally, while Dad drew breath, the kid managed to speak.

  ‘We apologise. Okay? We value your custom. In recognition of your choosing to shop with us…Sir. We’re going to give you a new pair of shorts. Keep them,’– he eyed Dad’s legs –‘if you want.’

  I looked at Dad. His narrow gaze had relaxed a bit. But he didn’t smile.

  We left the shop as if nothing had happened. Dad said ‘seeya’ to everyone. Nodding and waving. All the way out to the car. In the carpark, he took the marked shorts off, folded them up and placed them on the back seat. Then he put on the unblemished shorts.

  That night in my room, as I was reading through some law stuff, I caught through the walls of the house Dad’s whistle. I heard his hand against the bannister as he climbed the stairs, whistling still. His mind running smoothly. Like all was good. Like all the little bits of code, the organising principles that made up his world, were in their place.

  He came to my door. ‘Sorry about today.’

  ‘That’s alright.’

  ‘It was a matter of principle, you know. Ya can’t let people get away with that stuff. Remember the out-of-date milk?’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘There are rules for reasons.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Exactly right. Glad you understand.’

  I went to church the next day with him. He wore the shorts. The blemished ones! By accident, I assumed. Very much naively.

  But look. That’s another story.

  Exit Ghost

  I don’t think I ever knew anyone, up until then or in all the years since, to work as hard as this one guy did at Beck & Walters. I’d always been focused, rolling in before six some days just to get ahead of it – as if getting ahead were even possible at all. I’d come from a family who’d worked hard too. My uncle, a partner at Dibbs Ferguson. My dad, the MD at Zing.com, which listed for two point five. I knew how it felt to lose control of your vision, have your eyes shudder inside their sockets after months of sleepless work. I had three degrees, one of which I’d earned at night. And still, this Gareth guy. I’d never seen anything like it.

  What he was, see, the thing about Gareth was, ah God, there’s no easy way to put this. I shared an office with him. Everyone at Beck & Walters shared an office. It was supposed to promote collegiality and more or less it d
id. It would’ve been great for my development had the unthinkable not gone ahead and happened before my eyes. He’d been working on the Flynn merger, a cool five bill worth of ready-to-move synergies, leading the charge like no other associate ever had or ever will again. Most days he billed a good twenty hours and still managed a forty minute run at lunch. Where he slept I don’t know, but there was no way he went home. He lived over an hour from work and taking into account transit, dinner, his runs, there wasn’t enough space in the day for him to get there and back and fill those time sheets.

  It was two p.m. He’d just returned from the showers. His hair was perfectly combed and the knot in his tie proud as Beck & Walters itself. Nothing unusual struck me, other than the matter of his stamina; that struck me every day. He had a conference call. After it, he stood up, hands on hips and looked about his desk, as if for a lost pen. He eyed me over the top of my screen. Something like a reflection of all the city buildings hurried through his gaze, raced through the crystal puddles of his gaze like a life played out in a time lapse video. He leaned forward then, almost canted, and for a moment he was going to say something, tell me a secret he’d been holding onto, but he just straightened up a bit and made a chuckling sound.

  At first he bounced right off it – as a bird does – but on his second go the glass shattered into a million pieces. Outside, great spires of our world continued in their reaching. The last thing I saw was his tie, a ghostly purple tongue lashing the void behind him.

  Interlude

  The sound at first, I thought, was outside my head. I’d not been sleeping much, since Til left, and my head was full of noises. Voices mainly. My own, Til’s. Arguments about money, on repeat. The sound was different. A scratching sound. Picking, almost. I’d get out of bed in the dark and stand on the floor, my head cocked. It was coming from inside the room. Then it was coming from down in the courtyard where one of the junkies was no doubt biting his nails, picking his skin, his scalp, anything that would yield to his dirty fingers. I’d go to the window, look down, see no one, just the empty plastic chairs around the tipping table, eerie in the pale street light. Step back from the window. Turn around, lie down and rub my eyes. See tiny coloured dots moving. Feel sick. Taste bile at the back of my throat.