Work in Progress

by Paul Thomas

  I attempt a graceful shrug. ‘Well, when you put it like that …’

  ‘Let’s drink to it.’ He beckons a waiter and orders a bottle of Veuve Cliquot. ‘We mightn’t have been best buddies, Max, but you didn’t treat me like shit and I wouldn’t say that about everyone in your circle.’

  I squirm in my seat, discomforted by the prospect of self-pitying reminiscences courtesy of an elephantine memory that noted and filed every slight. I was hardly a Good Samaritan so there must have been times when I was as offhand as the worst of them.

  ‘I knew what they thought of me: who is this deadshit? He’s not one of us. Why doesn’t he take the hint instead of hanging around like a bad smell?’ I start to protest but he hushes me. ‘I’m not including you in that, Max. You never froze me out or used me as an audience or talked down to me. You thanked me when I bought you a drink and you returned the favour. Little things, Max; you probably weren’t even aware of them. Little things that meant a lot to someone who half the time was thinking, they’re right, I don’t belong here.’

  He shrugs as if he’s already regretting giving me this glimpse of himself from the time before we entered the Age of Money and those who grasped its mysteries became the new elite. (What about me: was I a Good Samaritan after all? Was I a better person than I am now?) But seeing he’s raised the subject, I ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask ever since I placed him.

  ‘Are you a different person now, Stanley, or were we too far up ourselves to see the real you?’

  ‘A bit of both, I suppose. There were times when I thought someone was talking shit on a subject I knew a bit about but I didn’t have the confidence to put my two cents’ worth in. I was always worried that it wouldn’t come out right and people wouldn’t laugh when they were meant to or wouldn’t think twice before they tried to put me down. Money gives you freedom but it also gives you confidence. Money’s how we keep the score in the game of life so if the arithmetic says you’re a winner, why not act like one?’

  Stanley offers to drop me home but I choose to walk, saying I could use the exercise.

  ‘Does walking count as exercise?’ he says. ‘Fuck me, I’ve got a roomful of exercise machines for muscles I never otherwise use and you’re telling me you just walk around the block?’

  ‘All by myself. You don’t even need a personal trainer.’

  ‘Speaking of which. You asked me what I’m doing with myself. Well, one thing I’m doing is making up for all the sex I missed out on. I was a complete suckback, sex-wise. I wasn’t cool or good-looking, I didn’t possess conventional panty-dampening skills like water-skiing or playing the guitar at parties and I couldn’t chat up a girl to save myself. My brain would only allow me to grunt at two-minute intervals or talk non-stop about exciting new developments in accountancy. As you can imagine, I shattered masturbation records that had stood for generations. But money fixes that like it fixes everything. My personal trainer is the proverbial gym-goddess. At our first session she looked me up and down like I was the most abject physical specimen she’d ever set eyes on.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I got her to make a house call. That’s all it took.’

  fifteen

  The exercise is a smokescreen: I want to walk because I want to think. As you know, I spend much of my working life staring out the window but, increasingly, my mind is as inactive as the rest of me during these glazed time-outs. Sometimes, though, walking seems to trigger sunbursts of mental energy. Who knows why? Maybe tiny shockwaves from my feet hitting the pavement swarm up my spine to stir my brain into action. Or maybe it’s just the fresh air.

  From the moment I recognised Stanley and placed him in that monument to himself he calls home, a thought has buzzed fitfully in my head, like a dying fly. This is that Stanley personifies the great historical shift of our times: the triumph of money.

  There are various ways of coming at this. You could, for instance, argue that when we stopped believing in God, and Marx couldn’t fill the void, we reverted to every man for himself. Without religion there is no morality, there’s only the law, and greed isn’t against the law. Okay, insider trading is illegal but how many bureaucrats does it take to catch a shadow?

  When I was a child the worst name you could be called was ‘skite’. You don’t hear that word now because there’s no longer such a thing as skiting. What used to be skiting is now confidence, self-belief, being positive, feeling good about yourself, having attitude, and adopting this mindset is the key to everything we desire. The self-improvement gurus earn fortunes by pushing the line that every one of us has what it takes to be a glittering star. All we have to do is believe. Not in a Higher Being or Big Brother or a Little Red Book; in ourselves.

  When Marxism was revealed as the economic equivalent of the emperor with no clothes (nowadays the spectral, weed-eating North Koreans are history’s witnesses that the theory of permanent revolution delivers the reality of permanent famine) and social democracy ran out of steam, that only left man’s exploitation of man, AKA capitalism. Western governments loosened their grip on the economic levers and the dark, acquisitive side of human nature was back in business. We know the rest: the entrepreneur worship that ended in tears as it was bound to do, the weird-outs on Wall Street, the tidal movements of money — nine-figure sums vanishing into a decimal point. And while the emperors of the new age, the Murdochs and the Gates, colonised our consciousness, their shadowy courtiers made hay.

  Men like Stanley Muir.

  Back in the days of wage/price controls and import licences and devaluations, a man like Stanley stayed in Timaru and became a bank manager or loaded up his Humber and trundled the hundred flat, straight miles across the plains to try his luck in the Big Smoke. If things worked out for him in Christchurch he might have become a partner in a firm of accountants or kept the books for a sturdy family business.

  He would have made a placid home with his typing-pool bride and sent his sons to Boys’ High, Christ’s College being a bridge too far for someone with no ties to the ruddy-cheeked squattocracy and who couldn’t trace a convincing line back to the first four ships. He would have beavered his way to where all decent Kiwi folk aspired to be: deep in the pale, bland heart of the middle class.

  But in the age of money Stanley goes to Christchurch to catch a plane to the other side of the world and comes back twenty-five years later with more money than a bear can shit. And wealth on that scale makes an old school tie and a family tree and the very concept of respectability seem like the relics of a vanished civilisation, an Inca bracelet or an amphora unearthed in the excavation of a Roman emperor’s holiday villa.

  Stanley’s both more and less than a Kiwi made good in the big, wide world, those expatriate success stories that the media get off on and the rest of us can’t get away from: the scientist who beefed up the kill ratio on a generation of missiles; the executive sitting at Bill Gates’ right hand; the diva and the character actor and the ex-rock star’s ex-wife and the bloke who’s famous for carrying someone else’s golf bag.

  Stanley isn’t a celebrity or a role-model or a distinguished person or a human headline. He did his thing out of the spotlight, unnoticed and unacknowledged except for the odd mention in investors’ tip-sheets. Like one of those fabled Hollywood writers who are fabulously paid for scripts that never make it to the screen, there’s nothing to show for his career except the rewards. It’s the wealth that’s remarkable, rather than the achievement or the man himself.

  There will be no second act in Stanley’s life. Despite having money to burn and time on his hands, he won’t turn a hobby into a second career and produce a movie or set up a political party or go eccentrically green, buying an island to create a safe haven for some ugly little lizard that no one in the real world gives a shit about. He won’t become a visiting professor at a business school or seek a footnote in the history books by chairing weighty government commissions. He won’t become a patron of the arts. He won’t even buy a superyac
ht and keep trying to win the Sydney to Hobart.

  His role is to be a frontman for the new elite, a wised-up, filthy-rich hedonist inhabiting that plane where character, achievement, contribution, celebrity and even power don’t count for much because money has all those bases covered. Money doesn’t go in and out of fashion. It can’t be deconstructed, disgraced or thrown out of office.

  Stanley’s a man from nowhere living the dream of the scratch-card society: quick, effortless wealth that frees us from irksome routine and three o’clock in the morning anxiety. In his pure, narrow, mysterious talent and his unthinkable fortune, he personifies the triumph of money.

  He’s my Jay Gatsby.

  Here we are, a few days later, in another Ponsonby eatery, waiting for our steak frites. Stanley’s been an Aucklander for all of a month and he’s already fuming over the traffic. It took him that long to get to the airport, his little Argy almost missed her flight.

  ‘Do you have any idea,’ he says, squinting at me as if the choked motorways are somehow my fault, ‘what that would’ve meant?’

  ‘I wouldn’t even hazard a guess.’

  ‘Another fucking night of hysterics. They don’t believe in bottling it up, your Latins.’

  ‘How long has she gone for?’

  ‘She’s gone for good,’ he says. ‘Hence the hysterics.’

  ‘Past her use-by, eh?’

  ‘Jesus, Max, she’s only twenty-four; even by my exacting standards she’s got a few more miles on the clock. No, she made the fatal error of lobbying for us to go back to New York. I fucking told her Auckland wouldn’t be her cup of tea. Here’s this hot little wannabe, right? Where’s she going to feel more at home: here, where I’m her entire social circle, or there, where’s she’s in with the fucking in-crowd? I even offered her a more-than-generous kiss-off but she insisted on coming with me. So I spelt it out for her: any overt pining and her pert little ass would be in a sardine-class seat on an outbound 747 quicker than she could say Los Malvinas belong to Argentina. But did she fucking listen?’

  ‘That’s pretty bloody harsh, isn’t it? Maybe she didn’t quite get the message, English being her second language and all.’

  ‘She speaks English a damn sight better than most people in this town,’ he says, ‘and I was very clear. I didn’t say, “Don’t harp on about it”; I said, “Don’t go there, period.”’

  ‘You drew a line in the sand.’

  ‘Dead fucking right.’

  ‘And she crossed it so you had to act or join the swelling ranks of the chronically pussy-whipped?’

  ‘You may laugh,’ he says, ‘but that’s how it works: you’re either serious or full of shit. And I was serious and she obviously couldn’t get New York out of her system so we were on a collision course. That being the case …’ — he shrugs — ‘… why delay the inevitable?’

  ‘Well, you’d still have her pert little ass to go home to.’

  Stanley chuckles and pours the wine. He’s matching me glass for glass, which not many people can do — or want to do. ‘My personal trainer’s ass is, if anything, even perter so, regrettable as this development may be in some respects, it hasn’t left a void ass-wise.’

  ‘What about heart-wise?’

  He gives me a pitying look. ‘I can see I got here just in time. Rule number one, Max: men our age do not become emotionally involved with drop-dead gorgeous babes young enough to be our daughters. That way lies humiliation, poverty and despair. You feast on them, and the moment they start getting on your nerves you usher them off the premises and audition for a replacement.’

  ‘Which is where the pad and the Porsche and the platinum card come in handy?’

  ‘Look at me, Max. If I was a schoolteacher, how many gorgeous twenty-four-year-olds would give me the time of day? Fortunately for me, most gorgeous twenty-four-year-olds have the moral compass of a cash register.’

  ‘You believe every woman has her price?’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s a fact, like the sun rising in the east. Not only does every woman have her price, these days it’s a buyer’s market.’

  ‘Well, I beg to differ,’ I say. ‘I know at least one woman who’s not for sale.’

  ‘Who?’ Stanley points like a retriever. ‘Who is this paragon of virtue? I bet she’s just a figment of your perverse imagination.’

  I tell him about Brigit Cole.

  He cocks his head thoughtfully. ‘I have to confess, your fortyish, happily married mum is a niche I haven’t really explored. And why would I when the world’s full of gorgeous twenty-four-year-olds?’

  ‘Oh, so we’re just talking about eye candy, are we? Human blow-up dolls who’d go down on a complete stranger for a line of coke and a backstage pass? In your own words, Stanley, the moral compass of a cash register. I thought you were making a broad philosophical statement about the nature of women.’

  He smiles thinly. ‘Do my ears deceive me or did I just hear a gauntlet being thrown down? Okay, lead me to this saint and we’ll see what she’s made of.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s a close friend of mine, as is her husband. For that matter, I’m rather fond of their kids …’

  ‘So what? If she’s such a fucking saint, I’ll just be wasting my time, won’t I? Your turn to put up or shut up, my fine friend. If you’re not prepared to introduce us, then I can only assume that, deep down, you suspect she’s like all the rest. You’ve put her on a pedestal, haven’t you, Max, and now you’re scared I’ll expose you for the great romantic ninny you are.’

  I shake my head. ‘I just happen to think it’s not the sort of thing you do to your friends.’

  ‘What sort of thing is it?’

  ‘Make them a pawn in your private games.’

  ‘Well, that’s a pity,’ he says. ‘Challenges bring out the best in me.’

  ‘You want a challenge? Swim Cook Strait — you could do with a cold bath.’

  A cutie-pie waitress brings our meals. Her jeans are so low-slung that it’s hard to conceive how they can accommodate underwear or even pubic hair but maybe I’m just behind the times.

  Stanley appraises her with a carnivore grin. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

  She’s used to feeling the hot breath of middle-aged men who lose their bearings and their dignity after bolting a few drinks. ‘That depends,’ she says. ‘How personal is personal?’

  ‘Let’s say personal but not intimate.’

  She nods warily. ‘If I take offence, you won’t go running to the manager?’

  ‘Shit, no,’ says Stanley. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘And if he does,’ I say, ‘I’ll back you up.’

  That earns me a blank stare; she’s not interested in me or my support. ‘Okay.’

  ‘In terms of a steady but not serious relationship,’ says Stanley, ‘i.e. you’re more than just fuck-buddies but you don’t expect it to last till Christmas, if you had a choice between a young, good-looking guy without a brass razoo or a chap our age who’s nothing special looks-wise but is absolutely loaded and keen to show you a good time, who would you choose?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ she says with a cool smile. ‘I wouldn’t touch either of them with a barge-pole.’ She waits for Stanley’s frown. ‘I’m a dyke.’

  Stanley and I have a routine. I won’t hear from him for a few days, then he’ll ring to say he’s been looking at property in Wanaka or watching cricket in Adelaide or cruising the Whitsundays. He certainly gets around but one thing he doesn’t do is visit; other people have to come to him. That’s what the overpowering house with the four guest bedrooms with harbour views is for — to rub it in.

  I’ll go around for dinner, which he orders in from a restaurant. At first I offered to pay my way but he told me not to be so fucking stupid so now I don’t bother. The booze, needless to say, is exquisite. The house wine is an Italian red, Brunello di Montalcino, which starts at around seventy bucks a throw. La
ter on he brings out the sort of cognac that duty-free shops keep under lock and key.

  He likes the sound of his own voice but that suits me. This is, after all, research; this is the writer at work. By and large, his world view is what you’d expect from someone for whom the American Way delivered in spades. I can only take so much of it but it makes a change from the Land Rover liberal consensus with its faux-worldly conspiracy theories that never have to be substantiated because to challenge them is to expose yourself as unspeakable or naïve to the point of fuckwittedness. Many’s the time Alan Cole has dropped his head and wearily dragged his fingers through his hair, groaning something like, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Max, it’s about oil. You must be the only person I know who doesn’t get that.’

  I haven’t mentioned Project Gatsby. I’m thinking of a father and son tale, father being a career teacher and pillar of the community, son a buccaneering tycoon of the devil-take-the-hindmost persuasion. Both will be fleshed out and equipped with a full set of idiosyncrasies, contradictions and sexual tics courtesy of their real-life models. Then it’s just a matter of shoe-horning them into a narrative in which the son and his ilk hack away at the father’s generation’s legacy until all that’s left are the empty churches.

  Now if I can just shake off this paralysing first-draft funk.

  Sally rings in distress. Gavin has ended the affair.

  With some style. He went back to her place for one last romp then took the high road out of there, saying he didn’t want a marriage break-up and a divided family on his conscience. He had to be ‘upfront’, he said: for him it was just a passing fling. When Sally was unavailable due to wife/mother commitments he didn’t curl up with a good book, he kept his hand in with other women who meant as much — or as little — to him as she did.