by JR Carroll
There was a sadness in her voice, as if her life was nearly over, as if everything after age nine was loss, grief, pain.
‘So far,’ he said, and gave her waist a squeeze. She leaned against him as the croupier spun the wheel and tossed the little white ball.
33.
‘Stick with the nine?’
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘It’ll come up. You watch.’
It didn’t that time, or the time after that. But on the ninth occasion it did, and they won one hundred and seventy-five dollars.
‘We’re smokin’, Florence,’ he said. ‘We’re on fire. We’re killing them.’
‘Should we quit while we’re ahead?’ she said.
‘Quit? We’ve just started.’
‘I was only joking. Let’s get a drink.’
They bought beers at the bar and drank them standing while watching the punters. Occasionally Robert saw someone he thought he knew, or recognised, from somewhere in the past: men about his own age or slightly older, with the gloss of youth passing them by, leaving them with a thinning or greying thatch and a thickening jowl and midriff. Then he saw a retired government minister, a sheep grazier who had got into some strife involving callgirls – paid for by the public – at the tail end of his career. He was sanguine, looking more like a stockbroker than a farmer in a three-piece pinstripe suit. Clearly a vast amount of fine food and wine had passed through his gullet. Then Robert’s attention was taken by a handsome, red-haired man in a white linen jacket who materialised from the crowd and approached him with a puzzled grin on his face. It was a grin Robert knew well – from where?
‘Excuse me,’ the man said. ‘Aren’t you Robert Curlewis?’
I was. ‘I believe so,’ Robert said, straightening, narrowing his eyes, sifting through his brain for a name to go with the face – without success. Yet the face was so familiar, especially the magnificently flawed eyes, which consisted of splinters of different shades of blue radiating from the irises.
‘You may not remember me, but I remember you, very well. Victor Wineglass. From The Shop, old thing.’
Hell’s teeth, so it was. ‘Of course I remember. Forgive me. How are you, Victor,’ he said, and shook Victor’s outstretched hand.
Victor D. Wineglass. What did the ‘D’ stand for? Deitrich. In fact he had changed very little, if at all, since their undergraduate days – ‘The Shop’ being a reference to Melbourne University, which they had both attended. Victor was a year or so younger than Robert, and had been, at least nominally, an architecture student. Like Robert he was a track star, and the two athletes had competed keenly against each other on a number of occasions. They had also belonged to the same exclusive tennis club at Kooyong. Victor was gifted at any sport he played, but as a matter of principle he never trained or practised, or did any of the things the coaches recommended. ‘Don’t believe in it,’ he’d say. ‘Waste of valuable time.’ His custom was to turn up at the venue at the very last minute, or late – and still win, more often than not. Not for him the lecture room or the library, either – he much preferred pool halls, all-night card games and the smoke-filled dens of the gambling netherworld, and rarely made an appearance at the university until after lunch. Fridays saw him at Jimmy Watson’s wine bar in Carlton all afternoon, hanging out with his colourful and sometimes sinister-looking cronies. Where he met types like these was a mystery. He was from Adelaide, Robert remembered, from a wealthy, ruling class family who owned tracts of prime grape-growing land and who were in the wine wholesaling business, and who were supposed to be descendants of the first German settlers of Adelaide. From the way Victor lived, you would have thought they owned the entire Barossa Valley.
Victor Wineglass was less than an average student, in fact hardly one at all, and the rumour at the time was that he couldn’t get into Adelaide University on his merits and had been admitted to the faculty at Melbourne only because his father knew the dean, and was prepared to make a substantial donation towards the building redevelopment program. The old man was apparently determined that Victor would have a profession, but he was always going to be disappointed: Victor left after two years of little or no application, culminating in a minor scandal involving the loss of funds, some two thousand dollars, from the Archaeological Society, of which he had been honorary treasurer. It had always been a mystery to Robert why Victor, with his virtually unlimited wealth, should bother stealing such a paltry sum. Presumably he got some sort of satisfaction out of it. He wasn’t expelled, exactly, but encouraged to vacate the campus with a minimum of fuss at his earliest convenience. Had it not been for Robert’s intervention on Victor’s behalf, there would have been a police investigation and, probably, criminal charges. This would have brought unspeakable shame on the house of Wineglass.
‘So,’ Victor was saying. ‘What are you doing with yourself these days. Last I heard you were lecturing, I think.’
‘No longer, Victor,’ Robert said. ‘I am an ex-academic. As Basil Fawlty might say, an ex-parrot.’ He decided to let it go at that, and fortunately Victor appreciated the joke. Then he remembered Florence standing next to him, and introduced her to his erstwhile pal and rival. If Victor was aware that Robert had hit rock bottom, on the basis of his alcohol-affected appearance, the tremulous hand holding the beer glass and his general physical deterioration, it didn’t show – although he did arch an eyebrow just slightly at the sight of this … slatternly female with the beaten-up face that she had tried to disguise with make-up and the bargain basement attire. He obviously hadn’t realised they were together until that moment. Florence might have exuded a raw sexiness, despite the injuries, but she was patently trash. From Victor’s viewpoint she was the kind of person he might expect to see in the street with her hand out. But then, what the hell, Robert was known to fuck anything in a skirt. Bit of rough or cheap stuff never went astray.
‘What about you, Victor?’ Robert said, feeling the other man’s eyes on his features and anxious to divert attention from himself. ‘What are you up to these days?’
‘Well, I could lie and tell you I’m a business mogul on my day off. But the truth is I am unemployed, old son. Always have been, much to pater’s eternal chagrin. I can’t seem to settle into a respectable kind of life at all. Doesn’t suit.’
‘That makes two of us, then.’
‘It’s good to see that some things don’t change, Robert.’
‘Indeed, Victor.’ But can’t he see how much I have?
For a few minutes they revisited the past, throwing names at each other mostly. Their mutual acquaintances were all sportsmen, a few of whom had made the Commonwealth and Olympic games. Robert was surprised at how many of them he could remember, once they had begun. He was also quite shocked when Victor told him he had heard that one of the brightest stars, a good friend of Robert’s at the time, had apparently died of a drug overdose.
‘So … How are the tables treating you?’ Victor said, glancing expertly at his sleek timepiece.
‘We just had a win at roulette. Hardly the early retirement plan.’
Victor laughed. ‘I’m amazed I haven’t run into you before this. I’m here a lot, needless to say. It’s sort of my office.’
‘Well, there you have it. I’m not, I’m afraid. In fact this is my first time.’
‘Very wise. Look, Robert, I must fly.’ Robert smiled indulgently. It was a trademark expression of Victor’s. No matter where he was or what he was doing, there was always somewhere else he had to be, and urgently. He touched Robert’s arm. ‘But listen, I want you to do me a huge favour. Say you will.’
‘Anything, Victor. Of course.’ What does it matter? I’ll never see him again.
Victor slipped him a business card. ‘I want you to call me soon. Tomorrow. We’ll have lunch and a decent talk. My treat, and no arguments, all right?’
‘If you insist.’
‘I do.’ Retreating, he pointed a finger at Robert. ‘Call tomorrow.’
‘I will.’
; Victor was gone. Robert glanced at Florence, who had stood silently throughout the exchange, then at the card. It simply said: VICTOR D. WINEGLASS, and gave two phone numbers, one of them a mobile. Not much information there – typical Victor. Mystery man.
Robert had no intention of having lunch with Victor, even though he’d promised to. Why subject himself to the microscope. In any case, after they had tired of raking over the past, what was there to talk about? The present? Robert would very quickly find himself pinned to the wall. If Victor failed to notice Robert’s miserable state just then he would certainly witness it over a luncheon table, especially after a few wines. It was a puzzle – Victor was not blind, so why would he wish to spend time and money in a swanky restaurant with a loser? Perhaps he was trying to return a favour from all those years ago, but why bother. Good Christ, who cared about it now. Robert had forgotten the matter completely. He had forgotten Victor completely.
In the back of his mind, however, was a nagging feeling that their accidental meeting was somehow meaningful. When the past returns, he believed, it always does so with a purpose – good or ill – which may not be clear at the time. As the afternoon wore on and he got a few more bevies into him he found himself putting together the chain of events that had led him to this point: picking up Florence in the pub, Florence robbing the murdered man, the visit from Larry, seeing Patti and Brand in the hospital, tossing Larry’s house, deciding to visit the casino for the first time ever. Running into Victor …
Shit. Events did not happen randomly, for no reason, like numbers turning up on a roulette wheel. Life wasn’t like that, a game of fucking roulette. Whether you realised it or not, there was a pattern associated with everything that happened to you, because your life had already been mapped out before you were born. Robert believed in karma. This was surely his future unfolding, like a hand of cards pressed close to the chest and revealed one by one. When the last card was tossed onto the table he would only have to glimpse it for a split second to understand everything. But what if he failed to glimpse it?
One thing he knew for sure: if he had lunch with Victor, it would be the end of him and Florence. Christ, they were never going to make a go of it anyway. Apart from both being piss-artists and willing victims of their own rackets, as the headshrinkers would put it, they had nothing in common. Perhaps, he thought, their lives were intended to momentarily intersect like lines on a graph before continuing on in their separate directions. By now the purpose for which they had met – whatever that might be, aside from Florence reactivating his sex drive – had already been served. Maybe she needed Robert at this time in her life to help her escape from Larry. Victor’s appearance seemed to force him to think these things against his wishes. It was all hitting him at once. He thought, I’m getting pissed. Why do I see things so lucidly? Why the fuck do I need to?
When they left the casino a couple of hours after running into Victor, Robert knew what had to happen. He had thought about little else in the intervening period. There was an empty silence hanging over them as they walked under the railway bridge and across Flinders Street, through the roaring, incessant traffic. When they were safely on the other side he stopped her, and she turned and faced him with a bleak, accepting expression that said it all. It was the look of an ill-treated child that knows it is about to be beaten yet again, without understanding why. It is just life. Robert sensed, however, that she knew it had to do with his seeing Victor. To her he must have represented a glamorous, unattainable world, one to which Robert properly belonged and in which the likes of Florence Buzza had no part. Sad, but so.
He gave her most of the money he had left and said, ‘Florence, listen to me. Don’t go back to Larry, whatever you do. Go and camp with your feral mates if you must, but stay away from that evil bastard. He’ll end up killing you.’
Florence swallowed, nodding. He took her in his arms and held her close, feeling her sobs and hearing her wet sniffles.
When they came apart she wiped her dirty and bruised face, smearing the caked-on make-up, exhaled a quivering breath and said, ‘And you promise to give up the smack. That stuff’s shit, Robert.’
He felt his eyes filling. ‘I will, Flo Jo. I already have. I’ve made that decision.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll have to go through shit to shake it off, but I’ll manage somehow.’
‘You have to be strong.’
‘Yes. And so do you.’
‘What about my things,’ she said.
‘Go and get what you can carry now. The rest whenever. I’ll look after it.’
They blinked and stared at each other through screens of misted vision for a minute longer, neither wanting to be the first to turn and walk away. Finally he grasped her hand, squeezed it, and backed off. Then he saw he was wearing the murdered man’s gold watch.
Removing it he handed it to Florence and said, ‘Here. Make sure you sell it to a second-hand watch dealer, not a pawn shop. Don’t take any less than five hundred for it, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well. Goodbye, Flo Jo.’
‘Goodbye, Robert. Take care of yourself.’
Smiling miserably they turned at the same moment and walked. Robert could hardly see. Then he thought of something and called back: ‘Flo Jo. Watch out for Larry. Take a good look around the flat before you go in. You can always come back later.’
Florence nodded bleakly. Robert continued on his way. When he had turned the corner into Spencer Street he stopped, rested his head against a hotel wall and treated himself to a crying trip. At the end of it he raised his arms and split the air with a full-throated howl that was so heart-wrenching people hurrying by turned their heads. Some even paused, attracted by the curious spectacle of a man unravelling in public, as if he were a car smash, and a busload of tourists milling at the hotel stared at him as if he were a hump-backed freak or a green-headed alien with bug-eyes and feelers.
That night saw Robert in a dog of a pub that catered solely for stiffs, or drunks, on the northern fringe of the city. It was the kind of dive that was hosed out every morning. He had meant what he had told her about giving up heroin, but he had not said anything about booze. He was drunk; dead drunk, slumped on his arm at a table with pools of spilled beer soaking his sleeve and hair and his loose change. No-one cared in this establishment, where drinkers with cuts and scabs on their faces swayed at the bar and mumbled to themselves and sometimes tried to throw a punch at a moving shadow, spinning themselves off-balance and ending up on the floor and making out they’d been king hit.
Robert was so smashed he failed to respond when someone placed a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. He was practically in a coma. But the man persisted, shaking his shoulder and repeatedly speaking his name: ‘Robert. Wake up. Wake up, Robert. Robert.’
Eventually Robert lifted his wet face, presuming he was about to be thrown out. But how the fuck did they know his name in this joint? Had they gone through his pockets?
‘Wha”, he said. The man’s hand was still on his shoulder.
‘Time to go home, Robert,’ he said in a crisp, ringing voice.
‘Wassa time.’
‘Time to go home. But first, you need black coffee. Here. Drink it.’
Robert squinted at a white cup and saucer that had been placed in front of him. The aroma of strong, black coffee cut through his alcoholic haze and made him sit up, a little more alert.
‘Drink it, Robert,’ the man repeated.
Robert fumbled with the cup, nearly tipping it over, but managed to pick it up and sip the steaming brew. The stranger was still at his side. After a few sips Robert turned and looked up at him. The stranger was dressed all in black, wearing a black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat that obscured his face. Robert thought he was smiling at him under the brim.
‘Who are you?’ Robert said.
‘I’m your friend,’ the stranger said. ‘Drink your coffee, Robert.’
Robert finished the cup, and the
n the black-coated, black-hatted stranger produced another one, which Robert also drank. There seemed to be no-one else present except him and the stranger. There was no noise, and a sort of pearly mist around them. Peering through the mist Robert could see that indeed there was no-one else in the pub, not even a barman. There was just this silence, and this mist. And this stranger plying him with coffee.
After three cups Robert felt a good deal better.
‘Time to leave now, Robert,’ the stranger said.
Robert stood up awkwardly, but when he was on his feet everything seemed to be in order.
Together they moved towards the door, and as they approached it Robert said to the stranger, ‘What’s your name?’
The stranger pushed the door open and smiled at him through the obscurity under his hat.
‘My name is Robert,’ he said.
They went into the street. It was cold and late. There were cars parked in the street, but no traffic and no signs of life: it was the silent, dead time of night. A taxi was waiting, its motor running, outside the pub. It was a bright, spanking new yellow taxi that looked as if it had just rolled off the assembly line. Robert stood on the footpath, hunching and hugging himself.
‘Your taxi,’ the man said, and opened the back door for him.
Robert stepped towards the car. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said to the helpful stranger.
‘You will. Go home, Robert. Go home and sleep.’
Robert began climbing into the car, and then he remembered he had not thanked the stranger. He got back out and turned to where the stranger was.
There was no-one there.
He looked around the street, which was utterly deserted. The pub was shut and darkened. There was nobody, nothing except parked cars anywhere. Perhaps five seconds had elapsed since the strange man was at his side.
Robert thought: no-one can vanish in five seconds. But the man had. Where had he gone? Weird business. Puzzled, weirded-out, Robert got in the car. The driver sat quietly and patiently. Robert asked him: ‘Did you see where that man went?’
