Opportunity

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  I left my car in the parking building and walked down to the Hilton. The cold rain was sheeting down, but the Hilton was the perfect place to be on such a melancholy afternoon. The building was at the end of the wharf and the windows looked out onto the harbour all tossed with foam and white- caps, and the container ships in the rain, and the ferries crossing the water. In the late afternoon the water took on a silvery sheen and the air just above it was a haggard yellow. The cold light on the water only made it seem cosier inside. People rushed in, folding their umbrellas and shaking off the water. Inside, in the crush and heat and chatter, there were tables loaded with books for sale, long queues for tickets and coffee, people filing into sessions or gathering for signings. I walked in and stood for a moment, feeling myself gently bumped and buffeted by the crowd. There was a smell of wet wool. I was nervous about my forthcoming session; this gave me a feeling of inertia, of uneasy, drowsy luxury. I could have sneaked off to one of the rooms upstairs and lain across the bed drinking, sprawled and stalled, while time went on somewhere else without me . . .

  I stood still, calming myself. I looked across the crowd. I saw a man standing against the high windows, the grey sea behind him. I wasn't sure until he moved and looked towards me. He was older and heavier, slightly stooped, but it was him. After all these years. The memory came rushing back. I remembered a scene long ago: a hotel room, the opened minibar, myself much younger — a beautiful, blonde younger self. The yellow light on the walls. The expensive linen. The rain drifting past the windows and outside the canyon made of city walls, the browns, the tans, the desolate spaces. Shirred water on a roof far below. No sound, the concrete silence. The bed where he lay, where he lounged and smiled. I saw him. And I saw him. Long ago, in the room of my nerves. And here, between the hotel pillars! And there, appearing again, and walking up the stairs now, a programme in his hand. Walking up the stairs to where a crowd was gathering: for An Hour With Celia Myers. The woman he . . . The woman whose marriage . . . Long ago, in the room where he lay, where he grinned and smoked and made a joke, I'd looked out at the darkening city and thought of my husband Joe, at home, not knowing. At home with our daughters.

  I followed him up the stairs. I looked at his back, his shoulders. Let's call him Martin. Long ago I fell in love with him, and went to bed with him, and Joe found out and left me. And then Martin told me: 'I don't love you. I love someone else. I love another woman.'

  Joe and I got back together after a while, but things were never the same. And now he's dead I look back and think about what our life would have been like. I know it would have been better if I'd never met Martin.

  He had joined the queue. He was going to my Hour With. It was impossible. I couldn't allow it. I would yank him out of the line. 'I'm not having you sitting there ruining my hour. Smirking. Making your smartarse jokes.' I moved towards him. I used to yearn to hurt him. I had such violent dreams. But I only did it on paper in the end. On paper, and in my head.

  'Celia! Celia!' Now here came Sarah, weaving though the crowd. 'Celia, I've been looking all over for you. Come this way. What can I get you? Water? Coffee?'

  She hustled me to the Green Room. I let her push me gently into a chair. I stared at the coffee she put in front of me. I thought about the affair, how it had felt back then. I had been happily married with two children. I met Martin at a party. He made me laugh. He sent me witty notes. Some of the things he wrote were quite beautiful. We started meeting secretly. I remembered the hotel room. My nerves. The rain drifting past the window, the yellow light inside. The joy and the fear. I was right up at the sharpest, sweetest peak of feeling. I'd been married for so long, a hard-working mother for so long, and then, suddenly, I was back in the time when feelings overwhelmed me, when everything was vivid.

  He felt none of those things — I know that now. He'd never been married. He didn't have the sense of 'coming alive again'. He was just doing the same jaded thing he'd always done: having a fling. After a while he told me he loved someone else. Just like that. He didn't mince words. I fled back to Joe. But Joe found out and he left me. I was distraught. I got Joe back, but the hurt didn't go away. There was a new distance between us.

  I researched Martin afterwards. He went for women who weren't available. A classic type. I raged at him. I had dreams in which I punched him until I was exhausted. In my dreams I scorned and sneered and jeered. I tied him up and tortured him. He hadn't loved me. He had hurt me and my family. He needed punishing for that.

  I wrote a story about him. I invited him to a café and made him read it. A contemptible tear slid down his cheek. 'Look at you, playing at feeling,' I said. 'You crocodile. Go away and learn to be a human being.'

  The story was about a loveless playboy, a dishonourable man, good for nothing except suicide. I described his faithless ways, his self-pity. At the end I had him lying on a couch dying of booze, of lousiness . . .

  'Celia?' Sarah was leaning over me. 'Are you ready?'

  I never asked Joe what he thought of the story. If Martin had asked me to, would I have left Joe? If Joe had been a writer, what sort of story would he have written about me?

  Sarah was hovering. 'Celia. Can I get you . . . ?'

  'I'm just a bit faint.' I wiped my face. I was crying.

  'There's a huge crowd out there. They're even standing at the back.'

  I got up and gathered my notes. The chairperson was waiting at the door. She was flushed and nervous. She whispered a lot of instructions about the microphone. I nodded and smoothed my shirt. We went out onto the stage.

  Beyond the bright lights there was a collective rustle and sigh. I smiled into the hot dazzle. I could see rows and rows of heads. Impossible to see who any of them were. The chair was already up at the podium, introducing me. I sat down and set my expression: modest, polite.

  I couldn't keep my mind on the notes I'd prepared. Why had he come? Did he have some kind of feeling for me back then? Was he sorry?

  The introduction was winding down. I wanted to be in a room upstairs, lying across the bed, the mini-bar open, looking out at the drifting rain, crying for myself, for my poor lost Joe. One thing about Martin, standing in the queue: he was alone. Always alone.

  'Introducing Celia Myers!' Polite applause. And then the questions. Do you see yourself as. Are your stories a form of. Women see you as a.

  Some guardian angel took over. I felt as though I were listening to someone else. I answered all the questions. In front of me were hundreds of nodding heads.

  The chair announced that I would read. I rose and opened a book of short stories. I read a short funny one, then a more serious one. (More scattered clapping.) Then, my hands trembling, I opened an old collection. I read the story I'd written about Martin long ago. He was out there somewhere in the black spaces beyond the lights. Did he know I'd seen him outside? He would know now. He would guess. I was reading the story to him, no one else. It was a hate letter, a message of hate, directed only at him. I read in a clear, strong voice. I finished. I listened to the clapping. I thought, there is a circle, and love and hate are on it. At some point they are very close. And neither will change the immutable, the thing you send them towards.

  I felt rather light and dizzy. I didn't know whether I had been a disaster or a success. But afterwards they told me that, of all the events, my session had been the 'most consistent'. Whatever that means.

  I signed books in the foyer. There was a long line. (There were other authors there too.) I kept looking along it, but there was no Martin. It took more than an hour to get through the queue, and then Sarah and others took me for a drink at the bar. I looked around at the crowd. I signed some more books. I talked to a radio journalist who poked a big microphone at me. He asked me about new work. 'I'm writing a collection of stories,' I told him. 'One that contains all of my crimes.'

  I felt bad suddenly. I made an excuse and went outside. The rain was still pouring down. The sea was churned up, full of choppy waves. I looked along the wharf. An
d then I saw him, walking away. He was carrying an umbrella. There was a woman beside him, keeping step. He was holding the umbrella over her. I stood watching them until they went around the corner. I looked up into the white sky and let the rain fall on my face. I went back inside. In the toilets I faced the mirror. I pulled out some paper towels and wiped my eyes.

  I drove home. Ron Cassidy was under his veranda, taking a piece of engine apart. Blake squatted nearby, smoking and watching. A broken pipe spouted water into the grass behind them. They looked like creatures in a lush green habitat at the zoo. I thought of my idea: Ron teetering, falling, the spray of iron and pipe and nails. The thud as he hit the concrete. His body lying inert in the yard. The woman standing at the gate, then driving slowly away.

  I didn't finish the story about Ron falling off the roof. I might go back to the idea one day. I might use it. I did write the story about Martin, though, and I did read it to him, only him, at the festival, while hundreds of people looked on. But I wrote it a long time ago, when I was young and raw. I wrote it before I lost my sense of who was good and who was bad, before I started feeling sorry for everyone, and living my life and recording it — and everyone else's — as truly as I can.

  pity

  I saw my client to the door. 'You'll be fine, Dee,' I said. 'Just tell them exactly what I told you to say.'

  I watered the plants and fed the birds. The hot sun shone through the windows and the room was full of yellow light. The birds cheeped and fluttered. In the street below, a woman was pushing a child in a pushchair. She wore a mini-skirt and her back was tattooed under her sleeveless shirt. I watched her. The canary made his cage swing. I whistled to him. He looked at me with one round, shiny, empty eye.

  I checked my diary. I had some time. No more clients, nothing until an appearance in the afternoon. I spent a lot of time in the local district court, dealing with remands and bail applications and defended hearings. Most of my clients were criminal, although I made money with a bit of conveyancing. I was ambitious. I'd done a rape trial and I'd acted in a major aggravated robbery case, with multiple defendants. What I wanted was a murder trial, or a serious drugs charge. Those were the big cases, the ones that got you noticed.

  My secretary, Sharon, had given me the canary for my birthday, and then a client had given me a couple of budgies. I had a parakeet for a while. It shat everywhere and climbed claw-over-beak up the curtain. Sharon thought it was hilarious but I soon put my foot down. It was too much of a distraction, not to mention the muck it left everywhere. Without my having much to do with it, the birds had become a trademark. I knew they made me seem friendly, quirky, eccentric. They suited my sunny office above the shopping centre, where people trudged in and out clutching summonses for shoplifting, assault, burglary, car conversion, disorderly behaviour.

  My client, Dee Myers, was good-looking, and I'd wanted her to like me. I'd gone into a spiel about the birds — a bit of patter I usually gave to put people at ease. When I'd finished she didn't coo or smile or get up and pretend to look into the cages. She just stared at me. There was an expression on her face. Boredom? Impatience? She was all angles — thin shoulders, a long straight nose, intense, direct eyes. I was disconcerted. I picked up the file and got down to business.

  Thinking about it now, I swung the canary cage. The bird clung to its perch, fluttering. Tiny shreds of birdseed hung from its rashy beak. I looked at it with dislike.

  I went down to the café, ordered a takeaway coffee and a muffin and leaned against the counter reading the newspaper. I walked slowly back, sipping my coffee, thinking out a letter I needed to write.

  Sharon was at the top of the stairs. With small shakes of her head she poked an afro comb into her frizzy hair. 'There's someone waiting for you. A Duane Mitchell?' We looked at each other and shrugged.

  He stood up when I came in. He was short — no more than five foot six. He was about thirty, with dark hair, pale grey eyes and a handsome, angular face. His hair was fashionably cut. His teeth were crooked. You could see a bit of gold when he talked.

  'Duane Mitchell,' he said in a deep, harsh voice. 'I haven't got an appointment.' He gave off a strong male smell of sweat and cigarettes. His shoulders were broad and his chest was strong, but the big torso was mounted on short legs.

  He made a chirping noise at the canary. 'I know a guy who can get you this stuff wholesale. Birdcages and that? This guy I know, imports exotic pets. If you want tropical fish. Axolotls.'

  'I've got too many pets already.'

  'Pets are good for you. I read that. They're good for your health.'

  'What can I do for you?' From his manner I was guessing some kind of fraud charge. Using a document for pecuniary advantage. Or a pyramid scam.

  He lowered his eyes, pompous. 'I've got some information that concerns you. It's about your wife.'

  'My wife and I are separated,' I said quickly. I picked a file up off the desk and opened it.

  'Yeah. She told me.'

  He looked at me with his pale eyes. He thought he had some kind of power over me, and he was enjoying it. He brushed a streak of ash off his black jacket. A thread hung from a frayed sleeve.

  'Are you a friend of my wife?'

  'I met her in a bar.' His smile was insinuating. He seemed to probe me with it, to dig for signs of weakness.

  I was about ready to throw him out. He realised I was getting angry, stopped smiling. 'I'm a personal trainer. But I have a bit to do with the fashion industry. We'd done a show.' He named some fashion designer. 'I went to a bar afterwards with a couple of the models.' He paused, winked. I looked away. 'I saw this beautiful lady at the bar, all by herself, and I offered to buy her a drink. She accepted. Then she buys me one. She tells me she doesn't go out much but she'd went out with her "book group", right,' — he put two fingers up, scratching quotation marks in the air — 'and the last ones had just gone home and she was waiting for a taxi.

  'Anyway she was a cheap drunk. One drink and she was away. It turned into a bit of a party. We got on well, chatting about this and that. By the end we were both a bit smashed and she starts telling me about her life. As you do. She told me a whole lot about her ex. Which was you.'

  'Really.' I looked at my watch. I felt cornered and he knew it.

  His voice altered. 'She told me about your divorce.' His tone went higher — there was something challenging, goading. I saw how aggressive, how ready he was.

  'What do you want?' I said.

  'The reason I've come to see you is that your wife said something. She said it more than once. Come to think of it, after we'd had a few, it was the only thing she wanted to talk about.'

  I thought about telling him to leave. What would that involve? A scuffle? Punches thrown? I looked at him with disgust. 'So what was it?'

  He looked down, fiddled with his hands, pursed his lips. He sighed and said in a voice that was light, scandalised, 'She said she wanted to have you killed.'

  I laughed. I threw down my pen. 'Right.'

  He screwed himself around in his chair, rolling his shoulders, gearing himself up. He put his hands out, steadying something — himself — a small gesture, melodramatic, but it worked. I felt the adrenalin surge. I swallowed.

  'Now. She wasn't just going off. I thought she was at first, but she was serious. She talked about things you'd done to her. She said you'd hurt her. She said you'd mess up your kid, too — that you'd turn the kid into someone like you. You'd corrupt him, she said. She wanted to find someone who would get rid of you for money. She'd read an article in a magazine, about how you could hire people, through the gangs.'

  We stared at each other. There was something very bad in his face. He was hard, coiled, malevolent. He was angry that I'd laughed.

  'You think she was serious?'

  'Oh, I know she was,' he said in a lilting voice.

  There was a silence.

  'Because she asked me to do it.'

  He made a quick movement. My throat closed. A second of fea
r: I thought we were going to fight and I pushed my chair back. But he was a salesman. He wanted to create an effect. He was selling me the idea, drawing me in. Now there was a little smile on his face.

  I was furious, but I stayed sitting. 'I don't believe you,' I said.

  He eyed me. He could see how rattled I was. He waited. I tried to gather my thoughts. Was it possible? It was true that relations between Carita and me were very bad.

  'Let's think about this,' I said. I raised my eyes. Duane Mitchell was watching. 'What do you want?'

  He knew he'd scored. He couldn't have imagined it would be so easy. I saw in his eyes some predatory calculation going on. He also looked disconcerted and conscientious, as though the situation were almost too rich, too testing for him to handle.

  'I want you to know I turned her down.' He coughed. 'But that's not to say she hasn't gone somewhere else. She was pretty set on it.'

  I pressed my fingers against my temples. 'I hope you tried to talk her out of it?'

  'Mate, she wasn't going to listen. There was something in her eyes. Crazy. Freaked me out, you know?'

  'How did you know where to find me?'

  'She told me your name. I know your reputation. I've seen you at the court.'

  'Really.'

  'I've had a few run-ins. Traffic and that. Couple of minor things.'

  'You'd better leave,' I said. I couldn't think with him sitting there.

  He didn't move.

  'I'm expecting someone,' I said loudly. He stood up. He was trying to decide what to say. He didn't want to disconnect so soon. Having unloaded his information he wanted to make sure he profited from it.

  'Thought you'd be grateful for the warning,' he said.