Cheaters

by JR Carroll

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. I’m not big on housework myself.’

  ‘No, really. Honest. I’d be so embarrassed. God knows what you might think of me.’

  That made her laugh explosively, then shake her head.

  ‘You don’t change, do you. All right. Is there a nice cafe or something nearby?’

  ‘Cafe? You bet. Just wait here until I go and get some shoes on.’

  Inside the place he covered his face at the spectacle: the wall heater torn away, the smashed TV, the missing cupboard doors, which he had stacked on the floor, the laminex breakfast bar, buckled and ripped in half. The fridge no longer functioned, although it vibrated a lot and made a good deal of noise. He tucked his shirt in, made an effort to brush his hair, found socks that might have been clean, a pair of reasonable runners. Checked his pockets for cash – some there, enough for coffee. Then he stood still and took stock.

  Patti. What was she doing here?

  How did she know where to find him?

  He thought of Victor, but Victor didn’t know Patti as far as he was aware. It looked as if he had reached that stage in life when the past was finding its way back to him, like a tide turning. It didn’t seem to matter how many years went by or what transpired in between times, you never strayed far from the people and the forces that made you. It was a depressing thought: you grew up believing the world was a vast ocean, but in the end you spent your days paddling around in the same little pool. He went out, locking the door behind him and hurrying down the stairs. Patti was standing there, languidly smoking as if she had all the time in the world.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Patti,’ he said, leading the way out. ‘We don’t get many tourists around here. Sure you’re not lost?’

  Patti did not reply, but looked down, smiling to herself, as they emerged from the driveway and headed for Bridge Road. Robert knew the coffee shop they were going to, and he was gratified when the woman who ran it greeted him as if he’d been there countless times instead of just the once.

  When they were sitting down, facing each other at the small table, Robert could detect a slight ageing in Patti’s skin. The pores were a little more pronounced and there were one or two creases around the eyes and mouth – and in her cleavage – but her eyes were bright and there was nothing to indicate that life after Robert had been anything but smooth and pleasant sailing. Patti was three years Robert’s junior, making her thirty-six, but going by appearances you would say they were moving in opposite directions along the age continuum. Putting her face alongside the one he remembered, he also detected a harder, more determined edge to it. When they were settled she took cigarettes from her bag and offered him one, which he accepted. While she lit it, he noticed pronounced nicotine stains on her fingers.

  The woman came, and they both ordered a cafe latte.

  ‘When I saw you at the hospital,’ she said, blowing out volumes of smoke with each word, ‘I got quite a shock.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I can assure you my view of it was much more shocking.’

  ‘What happened? Did you have an accident?’

  ‘I suppose you could call it an accident, yes. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  She knew better than to pursue the matter. ‘I’ve been thinking about you since. Wondering if you were all right.’

  ‘I’m doing all right. I’m fine, Patti. Just fine. Looks can be deceiving. What about you?’

  ‘I have a good life,’ she said. To Robert it seemed a strange way of putting it.

  ‘Patti,’ he said. ‘I’m curious. How did you find me?’

  She crushed out the cigarette, which was less than half-smoked. ‘I got the address from your father,’ she said.

  ‘From Atholl? You’re joking.’

  ‘No. I just called him on the phone. I’m not sure he remembered who I was, but he finished up telling me where you lived. He didn’t sound as if he was with it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Haven’t seen him in years. Last time I saw Atholl he wanted to brain me with a rather large and heavy vase.’

  She lit another cigarette. ‘You should make up with him, Robert. He’s just a lonely old man. You’re all he’s got.’

  Robert didn’t say anything. The coffees came. Robert lit one of his own cigarettes and tipped some sugar into the steaming glass.

  ‘So what are you up to?’ Patti said. ‘Are you working at all?’

  The ‘at all’ told Robert she knew very well what the answer would be. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have joined the ranks of the long-term unemployable, the oppressed and undeserving underclass. I am what is known as a professional dole bludger.’

  She didn’t seem to find that amusing, and spent the next few moments examining his face.

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, breathing out, and sipped her coffee.

  Robert said: ‘So. Catch-ups. Are you married with children?’

  Patti laughed. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘In a relationship, as they say?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘I felt sure you would have had an angora farm and a couple of little red-headed anklebiters running around in gumboots by now.’

  ‘No, I’ve passed that stage. I’m now at the point where I can’t see any reason for bringing children into the world. It seems … cruel.’

  ‘Stick around. You’ll change back. You’re still young enough. Women are having kids in their forties these days.’

  ‘Not me. No, sir. Absolutely no way.’

  That seemed final enough. ‘Well, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m a computer software consultant. I have my own business.’

  ‘Good for you, Patti! Making a big quid?’

  ‘Big enough. I choose my own hours. Go away whenever I like. Enjoy myself.’

  ‘Sounds like the good old days.’

  ‘No. I can assure you it’s nothing like the good old days.’

  ‘It wouldn’t want to be, would it.’

  She looked at him, making Robert feel compelled to speak on the subject.

  He said, ‘Speaking of the good old days, I ran into an old running mate from uni the other day. A rather flash chappie called Victor Wineglass. You’re my second visitor from the past – I wonder who the third will be?’

  ‘Victor Wineglass? You’re kidding.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I see him at the casino now and then. He’s … sort of a friend of my father’s.’

  ‘Is he. You frequent the casino, do you?’

  ‘Oh, just for fun, to be social. I’m not a gambler.’ She averted his eyes and seemed to colour a little.

  So the casino is a pick-up joint as well as a clipjoint. ‘As a matter of fact that’s where I saw him too. And Brand, how is he? Still action man?’

  ‘Good God no. He’s far too old for that. These days he contents himself with girlfriends young enough to be his daughters. Or even younger. That’s about the extent of his physical activity, except for lifting his elbow.’

  ‘He has some constitution, that man. Must be the Swedish blood, do you think? The stuff he used to put away.’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to affect him, which probably means he’s a completely pickled alcoholic. His system is numbed out of existence.’

  ‘Well, at least that way he feels no pain.’

  ‘And you, Robert. Are you still drinking?’

  ‘Me? No. I’ve given up.’

  She looked dubious as she lit another cigarette and blew out smoke sideways. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since about … two days ago. But you’ve got to start sometime, right?’

  ‘Uh huh. What about … the other stuff.’

  ‘The unnameable? Yes, that too. I’ve decided to clean up my act. Enough is enough.’

  ‘Are you going to join a program?’

  ‘Christ, no. That’s for alcoholics and junkies. I’
m just giving up.’

  ‘Robert, you can’t do it on your own. You need a support base.’

  ‘Support base. Are you speaking from experience?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I dried out years ago. Even in the program, and seeing a shrink three times a week, it was fucking hard. I’d still die for a drink sometimes. So I smoke fifty a day instead, just to keep my mind off it.’

  ‘Strange. I’ve never thought of you as an alcoholic. You were just a wild gal who loved a good time.’

  ‘I’m a drunk, all right. That’s in the Swedish blood. Booze is a huge problem back there.’

  Robert wasn’t at all comfortable with the way the conversation was heading. Was Patti on a mission of mercy? Please, spare us. And yet, he mused, there was a time, not many years ago, when he would have done anything she’d asked, anything, to let him back in her life. Now she was looking for something in her bag.

  ‘I saw this magazine article,’ she said. ‘It’s about a new treatment for hard-drug addiction.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He decided to play it cool, let her make her spiel.

  ‘Don’t be cynical, Robert. This actually works. There’s this doctor in Sydney who cures people overnight. It’s all in the article.’ She produced the page, which looked as if it came from a women’s magazine.

  ‘Overnight,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Apparently he puts you to sleep, and while you’re sleeping he injects you with some new drug that flushes out your system. It works like a detox. And when you wake up in the morning you’re not addicted any more.’

  ‘Sounds the goods. But Patti, I couldn’t even afford the bus fare to Sydney, let alone some high-flying medico who probably wants ten grand an hour. Anyhow I have to say it sounds a lot like Disneyland to me.’

  ‘At least keep the article. Here.’

  She gave him the folded page, and he stuffed it in his pocket.

  ‘Is that why you came to see me, Patti?’ he said.

  ‘Partly. But it wasn’t the only reason.’

  He waited.

  She crushed out her cigarette and said: ‘I’ve been feeling this need to … I don’t know. Fix up one or two things.’

  ‘Unfinished business,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what the shrinks say?’

  ‘Yes, they do. It’s cost me enough to learn the jargon. Unfinished business, baggage, unpacking, closure. It’s all there, at a hundred bucks an hour. Rackets.’

  ‘Elaborate.’

  She quickly got another smoke started. ‘Most people have a racket going. It’s a game they play with themselves.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Mine? Getting involved with the wrong men, so I can claim to be hard done by. Play the eternal victim.’

  ‘It sounds to me like Brand has a lot to answer for.’

  That touched a nerve. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And what’s mine?’

  ‘Your racket? Yours is behaving like a mischievous child, so no-one can seriously take you to task. Your child is in the driver’s seat, mucking around with the gears but not getting anywhere. You’re still Marguerite’s golden-haired boy, her little Prince Charming. Milking the idea for all it’s worth.’

  ‘I guess I asked for that one, didn’t I?’

  ‘Married couples quite happily accommodate each other’s rackets, because that way it helps to keep their own intact.’

  ‘Makes sense. Quite logical, really. Okay, I’ve got the hang of it. So fire away, Patti. Let’s see if we can tie up a few loose ends for you.’

  ‘It’s not just for me,’ she said, a touch defensively.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Are you serious about giving up booze and drugs?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Can we order another coffee?’

  Patti ignited yet another cigarette and proceeded to tell him about some disturbing experiences she’d had of late: the respectable surgeon who had lost everything at the casino and shot himself in the toilet; the numerous suicides that apparently happened there and at the West Gate Bridge, and which, according to her source, went unreported; rich businessmen who had similarly gone under; her father’s story about the tourist in Macau. Gambling mania and greed gone mad. Then she told him about this clever young guy she knew named Danny Gold, who was just finishing his honours degree. This guy, she said, had some kind of roulette system worked out, and was making a nice pile of money. She had seen him win consistently in the Platinum Room. He wasn’t a wanker or a bullshit artist. He was a smooth operator: reserved, cool, very handsome – the kind of guy you couldn’t help noticing and admiring. And he was murdered for his money, it seemed – stabbed in Chinatown by a gang of hoods recently. Perhaps they had targeted him at the casino, and followed him. It was such a tragedy, such a cruel waste of a gifted young man.

  That item clicked with Robert, but he kept a straight, bland face. I think I read about it in the paper, he told her.

  Patti nodded and said how deeply she was affected by Danny’s murder, even though she only knew him casually, because he was right there on the brink of a wonderful life, and it was taken from him, for no good reason except that someone wanted his fucking money. She had seen him on the day of his murder. He was smiling, assured, confident – and totally unaware that this was his last day on earth as he left the Platinum Room. When you think about it like that, it hits you hard, she said. I saw him go, and the next thing he’s lying dead in the street.

  Robert said he understood. But what was she driving at? He didn’t ask – she would get to it in her own good time.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘there have been times when I have hated you so intensely I could feel it eating me: the hatred, I mean. I was extremely bitter. I used to look up the death columns hoping to find your name there, hoping and praying for revenge. I wanted to make you pay. You wrecked my dreams, my life; you smashed everything I valued. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. For a year all I wanted to do was kill myself. I used to have recurring nightmares in which you were always doing terrible things to me. I was consumed with anger and hatred: you have no idea. But … you grow tired of hating. It wears you down. It defeats you. It turns you inside out. It gives you cancer. There’s no point to it. The thing is, I realise now I was as much to blame for what happened as you were. It takes two to tango. I played along with you until it got too much, then I ran for cover. I was there for the good times, but not for the bad.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same,’ he said.

  ‘I mean it,’ she said, not smiling at his little joke.

  ‘Hang on,’ Robert said. ‘You would have been insane not to get out when you did. I was a fucking disaster waiting to happen. I would have pulled you into the sinkhole with me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘I was never put to the test.’

  ‘You couldn’t have stopped me,’ he said. ‘No-one could have. I didn’t care about anything except the next fix. I would have used you and used you until there was nothing left.’

  ‘The lies, the deceit, the treachery,’ she said, lowering her face.

  ‘Yes, yes and yes,’ he said. ‘And you didn’t know the half of it, Patti.’ Oh, shit. She’s crying.

  Almost, but not quite. There was liquid in her eyes, but she was containing it. She looked at him straight, openly showing him that he was still capable of causing her hurt, even now, after all those years and all that expensive treatment.

  ‘Patti,’ he said. ‘Why did you come to see me? Why dig all this up?’

  ‘Because …’ A shake of the head.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … I wanted to tell you that I don’t hate you any more, that I forgive us both. I wanted to clear it all up. I wanted to tell you it was my doing as much as yours. And I want you to stop suffering.’

  ‘You want peace of mind,’ he said.

  ‘Is that asking too much? Is that unreasonable, Robert?’

  ‘If I stop suffering, will that make you feel better?’

  ‘That sounds selfish,
doesn’t it. When you put it that way. But … yes.’

  He said, ‘We should meet for a coffee more often. Work through it all that way. It’s a lot cheaper than a hundred bucks an hour.’

  She burst out laughing and crying at the same time. Robert could see that, although she was beautiful, successful and had a good life, she was far from a contented camper. Maybe she was born that way, he thought. There was always something frenzied and manic about her, even during their good period.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s meet for coffee sometimes. I’ll give you my card.’ She fished for one in her YSL wallet and gave it to him. It said, MouseByte Pty Ltd, and under that, Patti Curlewis.

  ‘MouseByte,’ he said. ‘That’s cute. I’d give you mine,’ he said, pocketing the card, ‘but I’m all out. This has been one hell of a social season.’

  She smiled and put a hand over his. ‘You’re not too far gone to fix,’ she said.

  ‘You mean I haven’t got a nose like an over-ripe fig yet.’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘I don’t talk to myself. Not much, anyway. And only when I’m alone.’

  ‘That’s a good sign.’

  ‘I can still tie up my shoelaces.’

  ‘Even better.’

  They had one last cigarette, and Patti said, ‘I’ll do you a deal.’

  ‘Deal away,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll pay for you to go to Sydney and take this treatment, whatever it costs, if you’ll do two things in return: join AA, and go and make it up with your father.’

  ‘Christ. I don’t like the sound of that second one.’

  ‘Just make up your mind, then do it. Afterwards you’ll be glad you did, believe me.’

  ‘Even if he wants to smash me over the head with a vase, or a walking stick?’

  ‘Even then.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Patti.’

  ‘I’ve learned to assert myself.’

  ‘Oh, I see. In the corporate jungle, you mean.’

  ‘Best place to learn,’ she said. ‘Amongst the predators.’

  A pause, then he said: ‘You don’t have to pay for anything, Patti. It’s enough that we can meet like this.’

  ‘I’m afraid it isn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘Because you’ll go off the rails again.’