The First Year

by Genevieve Gannon

  Saskia looked at her hands in her lap. The skin was stained and tough. The half-healed blister on the tip of her finger was still tender. She pressed against it with her thumb, causing a painful throb.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘If she can’t leave her shop, maybe that’s where I should go.’

  ‘What, just turn up?’ Annie was alarmed.

  ‘It’s a shop, isn’t it? I believe it’s okay for people to walk into a shop.’

  ‘Yes, but . . . it’s Alicia Lomez.’

  Saskia straightened her back. ‘I’m allowed to go into her shop, and I’m even allowed to be wearing every piece of jewellery from my new collection when I do it.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘I might need an accomplice. Will you come?’

  ‘I would, but I’ve got appointments all afternoon.’

  ‘Maybe Randa will do it.’

  ‘Sas, I love your moxie but think carefully about this.’ Annie’s tone was doubtful. ‘Everyone is clamouring to get into Harem — even more so now that Alicia’s star is rising. You’ll only get one shot at impressing her. Don’t you want to do it under the most favourable conditions possible?’

  ‘I can’t just sit here and hope she’ll remember me,’ Saskia said as she wrapped her cuffs and packed them away. ‘If she really is being mobbed by every jeweller in Melbourne, I should do something that sets me apart.’

  *

  Randa met Saskia at a rug shop halfway between Harem and Annie’s studio.

  ‘I feel like a spy getting wired up for a sting,’ she said as they slid on the Little Hill rings and cuffs. ‘What’s a good code name for me? I like “The Russian”.’

  ‘Hmm, the Russian,’ Saskia repeated vaguely as she adjusted the cuff on Randa’s ear. ‘Thanks for doing this.’

  ‘Any excuse to get away from my thesis. Now, how’s this going to go? We’re just going to parade in there wearing your jewellery and hope she notices?’

  ‘I’ll introduce myself,’ Saskia said. ‘I’ll start by saying I’ve always admired her shop and hope that she notices my cuff.’

  ‘And if she doesn’t?’

  ‘Then I’ll mention I’m a designer, and if she still doesn’t bite, I’ll ask her if I could get her opinion on my work.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t work,’ said Randa, ‘I’ll pretend I’m the Queen of Brunei and have travelled to Harem in search of something unique, and beg you to sell me what you’re wearing.’

  Saskia laughed to disguise her nerves.

  ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  Customers moved through Harem quietly, speaking in hushed voices, as if it was a medieval library or somewhere sacred people might gather to pray. Above the front window was a panel of layered stained glass in reds, yellows and oranges that bathed the store a warm ochre light. It softened all the hard cabinet edges and made the precious metals glow. Saskia and Randa pretended to browse.

  Alicia was behind the counter, concentrating on a pendant chain that had lost its catch. Saskia approached the register, making as if to admire a tray of rings on display, before she veered left towards a low cabinet of steel bracelets and necklaces.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Randa whispered.

  Saskia bit her lip. ‘This is stupid. I don’t belong here.’

  ‘What? Of course you do. Your stuff is better than this.’ Randa pointed at some items made from glazed clay beads. ‘That’s kindergarten compared to what you’re producing.’

  Randa grabbed Saskia’s hand and pulled her towards the counter. ‘Excuse me,’ she addressed Alicia loudly.

  Saskia tugged on her sleeve. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she hissed.

  Randa ignored her. ‘Excuse me. I’ve seen something in your store that I absolutely must have, but can’t buy.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alicia looked up from her work. ‘I don’t quite understand. What is it you want?’

  ‘This astonishing ear cuff.’ Randa pointed to Saskia’s ear. ‘You have nothing like it.’

  *

  Alicia Lomez closed Harem twenty minutes early and met Saskia to examine her designs over a glass of red wine.

  ‘I’m in love with the thematic links in the range,’ Alicia said. ‘It gets me here.’ She thumped her chest with her fist. ‘That’s what great jewellery – great art – is about. It moves you.’

  She didn’t look like an entrepreneur. Her hair was cropped and spikey, and she wore a long shapeless maroon dress. Her face was dusted with freckles and she had the type of pointed, upturned nose that gave her a touch of the pixie.

  She was still gushing about Saskia’s jewellery. ‘It’s about connection. To the past, to another story. I think you should sell each piece with the story of the god or goddess that inspired it.’

  ‘Like the stories in your store?’

  Alicia swirled her hands around. ‘Yes, but no. Make it about the soul of the piece itself. People like to feel they own something one of a kind. I’d love to carry your stuff in my store.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I can help you get exposure,’ Alicia said. ‘People buy mass-produced accessories because they know where to get them, but many will gladly pay extra for something well-made and unique. It’s just a matter of making them aware of where to find it. That’s what I do. I want you to be a part of that, Saskia,’ she said, and held out her hand to seal the deal.

  *

  Saskia was light-headed from praise and wine as she hurried to the Pho house on Victoria Street where she was late for her anniversary dinner. She arrived to find a queue of people out the door. She rose up on her tiptoes to scan the waiting horde for Andy. When she didn’t see him, she joined the back of the line. It moved quickly, and when she got inside she flung her bag across a table of four so nobody else would sit down.

  At this busy Vietnamese joint, communal dining was unavoidable. Waiters and waitresses shooed customers out of their seats the moment they had swallowed their last morsel. The perpetual roar of dozens of conversations reverberated off the walls and the tile floor.

  ‘You ready?’ the waitress asked.

  Saskia knew she had better order something or risk getting bounced, so she asked for a plate of spring rolls and a bottle of Melbourne bitter.

  Andy was thirty-five minutes late, which was not unusual. But he hadn’t called, which was.

  She placed her hand in her bag, which held a slim cardboard box. Andy’s anniversary present — a blue silk tie. She’d found it in her favourite op shop. The Gianni Versace had been tangled in among the polyester Lowes and Target ties in a five-dollar box at the end of a rack of men’s pre-loved slacks. It was vintage. Classic. With a red stripe. A power tie from the 1980s. Very Wall Street. Very corner office. It was crumpled when Saskia found it, and the stitching was coming away at the end. She’d cleaned it, repaired it and ironed it. On the back of the tie, in red thread, Saskia had embroidered a message: Close to your heart. When Andy wore it, her words would lie against his breastbone.

  ‘Spring roll. Ready to order?’ The waitress was back with a plate of spring rolls.

  ‘Not quite yet.’

  The waitress pointedly looked towards the people bunched up inside the door waiting to be seated. Saskia called Andy but his phone rang out. She picked up one of the spring rolls and took a desultory bite. When the plate was empty she called again, and again got no response.

  A man leaned over the potted plants that divided the dining room from the entrance. ‘Excuse me, are these seats taken?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, they’re taken,’ Saskia said.

  ‘All of them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, all of them.’

  The bloom was starting to rub off her good mood. She had deliberately held back from calling Andy to share the Harem news with him because she wanted to see the look on his face when she told him that his faith in her was being rewarded. It was exactly a year to the day that they had sat here, smiling politely at each other on their first date. She shifted on her seat; the red, str
ingy lingerie she had worn to surprise Andy was riding up into unsexy places.

  She poured both herself and Andy a cup of tea from the pop-lid thermos. Then she poured two more and placed them in front of the empty chairs, so that nobody would invade their table.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have more people coming,’ she said, as a young couple in student union T-shirts started to home in on her spare seats.

  Andy was an hour late. He wasn’t answering his phone and Saskia couldn’t stand the heat any longer. Nor could she fend off the territorial wait staff or the ravenous people waiting to be seated.

  A trickle of sweat ran down her back. The air was dense and humid. Even the walls were sweating. She ordered takeaway, and while she was waiting she called Andy one more time. With a prickle of irritation, she collected her order and left the subterranean swamp that was the overcrowded Pho joint at the height of January.

  She was just walking in the front door of their flat when her phone rang.

  ‘Sas, have you left?’ She could hear the sounds of I Heart Pho in the background.

  ‘Andy, it was hot. And you were seventy minutes late.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. I got caught up. We were in an underground restaurant. No reception. I didn’t realise until we left.’

  ‘I’m at home eating cold Pho out of a container. I have some for you. But it sounds like you don’t need another meal.’ Her soup was tepid and the bok choi was starting to disintegrate.

  ‘I’ll be home soon,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain everything. I was in this meeting and then I got dragged to this restaurant and . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

  Saskia took one last mouthful of the anniversary broth then dumped the rest down the sink.

  Day 125, Friday, February 13

  Andy’s phone had been blowing up all afternoon. ‘Hello, Clarice. Yes, I’m working on it. Tell her I’m working on it. Well, she’ll be in breach of contract if she doesn’t come out. Make sure she understands that.’

  A YouTube star who’d recently been signed by a record label HM&L represented had discovered her viral hit had been used for a foot ointment radio ad, without permission. She’d locked herself in a dressing room at Channel Nine because her song was now associated with cracked feet. Network flacks had been calling Andy all afternoon to remind him the starlet was due on stage at 4 p.m. for a pre-record.

  Hugh stuck his head into Andy’s office. ‘How’s the newlywed? Getting any sleep?’

  ‘You know I’m not.’ Andy said, harried. He punched some keys on his computer, finishing a threatening email to the foot company’s ad agency. ‘You also know it has nothing to do with being a newlywed.’

  ‘I’ve got something that will cheer you up — a table tonight in the private dining room at The Den.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Andy didn’t shift his eyes from his computer screen. ‘I don’t know about tonight.’

  ‘Why? Celebrating your twelfth Tuesday as man and wife?’

  ‘It’s only been four months and I’ve been working long hours. We’re still adjusting. I missed our anniversary dinner.’

  ‘You’ve got to adjust to being a director too. Ando, I hate to say it, but we need to be out more. You need to be out more, wining and dining potential plaintiffs and those who need defending. Or you’ll be adjusting to unemployment.’

  Andy clenched his jaw but didn’t say anything. He’d been working harder than ever, but the list of new clients he’d brought in since taking up the associate director mantle wasn’t just thin, it was positively skeletal.

  ‘Adjusting to wine that comes in a box,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Adjusting to cornflakes for dinner four nights a week.’

  Andy was doing good work for the clients they had, but he wasn’t growing the business. The only glimmer of genuine new work for the firm was the business card of the flirtatious AdFit CEO Alexa Wroe. He’d left a message with her assistant, but when she’d texted — How about we discuss my needs over dinner tonight? — he’d faked a physiotherapy appointment and suggested another meeting time. But Alexa only seemed to have openings in the evening and he had no intention of sacrificing a night with Saskia to eat with Alexa.

  ‘You’re right, you’re right,’ he said to Hugh.

  ‘Yes!’ Hugh clapped his meaty hands together. ‘This is going to be great. Bose is coming too. We’re going to buy dinner for some top brass from Pendulum Publishing, see if we can’t take a little of the heavy lifting off their internal team.’

  Andy rubbed his chin. He didn’t like Alexander Bose — or Xander, as he insisted on being called. He was a preening, self-important former body sculptor who basted his skin in tanning lotion that he baked in under the humming bars of his own personal sun bed. But, he brought in more business than any other AD and he never would have invited Andy along. This was a gift from Hugh, pure and simple.

  ‘Why does Bose have to be involved?’

  ‘He worked on that porn-y book for Penguin last year. You know, the one about the princess being taken prisoner by the sadistic king that everybody pretended to hate, but somehow sold half a million copies in Australia alone.’

  Andy grunted.

  ‘Ando, these guys are reps for Pendulum Publishing. One of the biggest players in the game. They’ve only got one in-house lawyer. She’s swamped and there’s plenty of work to pick up. I got a tip from a guy I know from Monash. He put in a good word.’

  ‘Yeah, okay I’ll call Sas.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Hugh. As he left, Andy’s phone rang again.

  He picked it up, his blood pressure rising. ‘I said I’m dealing with it, Clarice!’

  *

  After Annie Spaghetti and her ukulele had been coaxed out of her dressing room for the pre-record, Andy picked up the phone and kicked off his new wing tips, which pinched. He wanted to get out of them and cook barefoot with Saskia. He opened the Pendulum Publishing webpage and scrolled through some of their titles. The imprint published a lot of B- and C-grade celebrity memoirs — fertile ground for copyright and intellectual property lawyers.

  An hour later Hugh stuck his head into Andy’s office again. ‘Ready, mate?’ He had changed his tie and combed his hair since the morning.

  ‘Sure, one second.’

  ‘Colbrook.’ Xander Bose strolled into Andy’s office, his hands in his pockets and his chest puffed out. With his wiry legs, he looked like a spatchcock covered in tandoori sauce. ‘Ready for a lesson in closing a deal?’

  Andy wanted to tell Bose he didn’t want lessons in being an obnoxious liar. Instead he grimaced as politely as he could. ‘Let’s get these publishers on our books,’ he said, and pulled his uncomfortable new shoes back on.

  The Den was hot from all the bodies crammed inside. Businessmen huddled over the blood-coloured tablecloths, drinking red wine and eating red meat. The carpet was a deep burgundy and the maroon wallpaper was paired with dark wood panelling. Hugh had booked a table in the executive dining room, which had a gaping iron fire place — unlit tonight. All together the effect was like that of visiting the lair from which Satan oversaw the workings of Hell. Out in the general dining room, the tables were too close together and the waiters had to move sideways to navigate them. Meals — all dark browns and reds — came perilously close to sliding off tilted plates. It was a boysy, smoky, loud restaurant where in-principal agreements were made and understandings were arrived at.

  Bose was holding court. The Pendulum Publishing team — two gentlemen in circular glasses and plaid suits and a woman in a red blazer — hung on his every word.

  ‘Take that Rod Cotton case. What was that, thirty thousand books pulped over four little words?’

  The Pendulum Publishing team exchanged glances.

  Eight months earlier a judge had ordered the company to destroy what was expected to be a bestselling tell-all true crime book over those four words. The publisher had signed a retired tabloid journo to pen the story of mu
rdered drug lord, Rod Cotton. It was the literary coup of the year and speculation about which underworld figures would agree to speak fanned the excitement months before the book was due to be released.

  About two-thirds through chapter six, Cotton, who at the time was estimated to control about fifteen per cent of Melbourne’s ecstasy market, had an argument with an associate, Michael Phelan, who was later found in a wheelie bin with five bullets in his chest.

  The problem was, the son of Melbourne’s Lord Mayor, Tanner Phelan, was also named Michael. He was notoriously reclusive and died the same year as Cotton’s Phelan. What Pendulum Publishing didn’t know, was that the Lord Mayor’s son was reclusive because he had cystic fibrosis, which is what killed him. Not gunshot wounds, like the Phelan in the book. The Michael ‘Micky’ Phelan in the thirty thousand copies of Cotton Pickin’ was incorrectly introduced with four fatal words: the Lord Mayor’s son.

  Tanner sued for two million, and every single book was destroyed the day before it was due to go on sale. The lavish launch party in The Old Melbourne Gaol was cancelled. The two hundred quails that had been ordered to feed the literati had died in vain.

  ‘What’s thirty thousand hardcover books worth to an operation like yours?’ Bose asked as half-chewed steak churned in his mouth. ‘Gotta be a lot. You see, I happened to know Michael Phelan had cystic fibrosis.’ Bose washed down the last of his steak with a gulp of wine. ‘I met him and his father at a benefit for the awful, awful disease in 2012. I’ll never forget that case. Taught me a thing about diligence.’

  Xander Bose talked about other book projects he had legalled. He seemed to swell as he listed his successes. Andy glared at him, a living, breathing lawyer joke. But Pendulum Publishing was lapping it up. One of the men had been holding a fork halfway between his mouth and plate for almost five full minutes, too awestruck by Bose to chew.

  ‘I’m generally considered an expert on defamation,’ Bose said. ‘That’s why they bought me over to HM&L. They needed to strengthen their team.’

  Andy ground his meal between his molars. He pictured Saskia at home, on the couch, indulging in one of the trashy TV shows she secretly liked, the ones that chronicled British tarts who fought each other over men with crooked teeth. He’d endure any manner of reality tosh to be with her now. He poured himself more wine as Bose recounted another victory.