by Peter Temple
The Opposition leader standing on the back of a truck, hair pulled back, check shirt and denims, a sea of hats in front of her.
…Labor’s brought this great state to its knees. They talk about being the party of working people. Rubbish. Party of the merchant bankers and the consultants and the investment advisors and the branchstackers, that’s what they are. It’s time to chuck them out…
Cut to the anchor, who said:
… Melbourne will tonight hear details of what its proposers call ‘a public transport revolution’ when a consortium headed by businessman Max Hendry outlines its plans at a function for city councils. Among the guests will be the premier, the leader of the Opposition and…
Villani muted, looked at what the computer offered on the current cases. It offered nothing except the blindingly obvious. He logged out, went back to the files, worked at the paper, the never-diminishing, self-replenishing paper, took calls, hoping for a call from Barry withdrawing the invitation. Maybe he should quit the job, take a package, he had the years. He could join Bob, use mysterious Indonesian oils to patch up horses, go to the races, look after the trees.
They had to think about thinning or it would be impossible to walk in some parts of the forest. Dig another dam too, it would rain again, sooner or later.
At 6pm, Stephen Villani took the pins out of the new blue shirt, changed into the new suit, dark grey, put on the tie, red, and the shoes, black with toecaps. He sat for a moment, head back, eyes closed, felt the weight of the day begun far away in the high country, before dawn.
VILLANI TOOK a glass of white wine from a penguin boy’s tray, looked at the crowd, all suits, men and women, walked around the rim of the crowded room. It was in the sky, windows all around, it offered the city, the bay, the hinterland, the meek hills, all gauzed in smoke.
‘Something of a view, is it not, Stephen,’ said Commissioner Barry.
‘Don’t often get this high, sir,’ Villani said.
Barry was drinking champagne. He looked different, shorter, his dark hair gleamed, his cheekbones glowed, there was moisturiser involved. ‘Nice suit,’ he said. ‘Also tie and shirt.’
His eyes went down. ‘Ditto shoes. That’s the way, Stephen.’
Villani felt a flush, he willed it away. He would not forget this moment, he felt like a girl.
‘I’ve reassured my leaders on your handling of the media,’ Barry said. ‘A bit of paranoia at the political level. The problem is wanting always to be seen to be on top of the baddies. Now is that not a total misunderstanding of the world?’
‘Yes,’ said Villani. ‘Thanks for the invitation. Happy crowd here.’
‘Well, they would be, the oysters, the champers,’ said Barry.
Probably Laurie’s outfit, thought Villani, caterers to the big end of town, minimum hundred-and-fifty bucks a head, feeding the A-list on Cup Day was three hundred.
‘Good to see you out of your silo,’ said Barry. ‘Can’t have you buried like Singleton. Get some perspective. If you’re going up, you need to have a wide view.’
He winked. ‘Mind you, I say that to all the girls.’
Villani made a smile, looked away, into the eyes of a young woman.
‘The minister and the chief commissioner are here, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Would you care to follow me?’
‘Of course,’ said Barry. ‘Lead on, darling.’
She took their glasses, gave them to a waiter. Then, like a safari guide, she led them through the throng.
As they skirted groups, Villani saw faces he knew from television, the newspapers. He saw the premier, Kelvin Yeats, slick brown hair, yellow eyes, he was laughing, bright teeth, looking at a man in his sixties, tanned, close-cropped grey hair: Max Hendry. The premier’s plump, blinking wife was talking to Vicky Hendry, Max’s second, third or fourth wife, a looker, shortish fair hair. As they passed, she met Villani’s eyes, registered him.
Then came infrastructure minister Stuart Koenig talking to Tony Ruskin and Paul Keogh, radio bookends of the working day, some people’s working day, two self-appointed opinion-makers. Sucking up to them before an election would be a priority for both parties.
They came close to a buffed couple, slash-mouthed Opposition leader Karen Mellish, kite-tight face, and her husband, Keith, usually called a farmer, he would have soft Collins Street hands.
From five metres, Villani saw the targets, two men drinking champagne: the police minister, Martin Orong, wolf-faced thirty-year-old, black hair, greasy skin, the latest model of outer-urban party branchstacker, and David Gillam, the chief commissioner.
As they approached, Gillam adjusted his uniform jacket. His features were a size or two too big for his face, as if they had grown ahead in the way of teenage boys’ feet.
Barry got there first, shook hands. ‘I’d like to introduce Inspector Stephen Villani, head of Homicide,’ he said.
Orong tried some pathetic muscle, Villani didn’t respond.
‘How’s this Oakleigh shit going?’ said Orong, squeaky voice.
‘We’ll get there, minister,’ said Villani.
‘Drugs. Give it to Crucible.’
Villani looked at Barry, at the chief commissioner, read nothing in their faces.
‘Homicide investigates suspicious deaths,’ he said. ‘I’m a traditionalist, minister.’
Gillam sucked his teeth. ‘Tradition, absolutely. Steve, the minister’s just been talking about balance. Informing the public, that’s a given. While not creating undue alarm. Right, minister?’
Orong looked at Barry, at Villani. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Had the premier on the subject this very day. Balance, that’s the theme tune.’
Orong made a beckoning gesture. Gillam and Barry bent towards him.
‘An example is Prosilio,’ he said, eyes on Villani, ‘where you don’t want some hooker bitch thing to tarnish a multi-million dollar project, flagship project, jewel in the crown for the precinct.’
Villani looked away, at the people intent on the expensive morsels, the French champagne. In the old days, Laurie brought experiments and leftovers home, they ate them at the kitchen table, drinking wine. It often led to sex.
‘Find the sluts dead every day, right, inspector?’ said Orong.
Villani paid attention.
‘Dogshit on the shoes of society. In fucking alleys.’
The beautiful child in the bathroom in the sky, her palms open, her neck broken, pulled back and back and back until the man behind her gained the satisfaction he sought.
Lizzie. She looked like Lizzie.
Who was seeing to Lizzie? Not her mother, her mother was feeding a film crew somewhere. Where? What had Corin said? He didn’t listen properly to family things.
‘Certainly find women dead in alleys, minister,’ said Villani.
‘Oh yes,’ said Barry.
‘Druggy sluts,’ said Orong. ‘Good riddance.’
‘Can I tempt you, gentlemen?’ said a girl penguin. She offered a silver tray of tiny puffed pastry balls on toothpicks. ‘Blue swimmer crab with foie gras en croute,’ she said. ‘But if you’ve got seafood issues, I’ll…’
The minister took two. Gillam and Barry did the same. Villani took one. They would be four dollars a pop.
Orong added champagne to the puff in his mouth, chewed, looked around. The penguin was close.
‘More, sir?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Orong.
He put his glass on her tray and popped puffs into his mouth—one, two, three, four, five, he collected toothpicks. Mouth full, he said, ‘So anyway, you’ve acted responsibly over the Prosilio matter. The premier’s pleased, I can tell you that.’
Without looking at the penguin, Orong held up his toothpicks, a delicate fence between thumb and forefinger. She took them impassively, surgically, put them on her salver.
‘French,’ he said, eyes on Villani. ‘Not the local muck. In a clean glass. And bring the steak thingies, the Wagyu.’
‘Sir,’ she said.<
br />
‘You following me, inspector?’ said Orong.
Villani knew why he was there, what was at stake for him, how he should behave in the presence of this shoddy little arsehole, a nothing, no talents, just a political creature who knew how to slime around, how to get the numbers, how to suck up to those who could advance him, screw those who couldn’t, how to claim credit, duck responsibility.
‘Closely, minister,’ he said. ‘Balance.’
‘Balance is the key,’ said Gillam.
‘Oh, definitely,’ said Barry. ‘Balance.’
‘That’s good,’ said Orong, wiped his lips. ‘The boss’s got a saying. Can’t lead unless you can follow. Can’t give orders unless you can take them.’
Villani thought of the people he’d taken orders from. Bob Villani’s army life, had he taken orders from dickheads and arselickers like this man? Did they have them? Was the army different? Was there another Bob Villani, a servile Bob?
‘Being looked after, minister, gentlemen?’ A big man with dense silver hair combed back, he tugged at his double cuffs, small ruby cufflinks.
Orong gleamed. ‘Clinton, yeah, very nice, great. Listen, you know Dave Gillam, Mike Barry…’
‘I certainly do,’ said the man. ‘But I don’t think I…’
‘Stephen Villani, head of Homicide,’ said Barry. ‘Meet Clinton Hulme.’
‘Steve, good to meet you,’ said Hulme, soft handshake. ‘I feel very safe here. So many policemen.’
‘Clinton’s CEO of Concordat Holdings,’ said Barry. ‘Max Hendry’s company. Our hosts.’
‘Just one of them, please,’ said Hulme. ‘This consortium’s so big only Max knows everyone.’
A soft drum roll, a plump man on the small stage, wired for sound, behind him his image on a huge screen. Villani knew he was once a television star, a game-show host perhaps. The amplified voice said, ‘Ladies and gentleman, good evening and welcome. I’m Kim Hogarth representing the AirLine Consortium.’
Through the crowd, Villani could see television crews, still photographers.
‘A great pleasure today to welcome so many people who serve our great city and our great state,’ the man said. ‘And at such a wonderful venue, the Hawksmoor Gallery at Persius.’
Applause, canned.
‘I’d like to offer a special, special welcome to the premier and his ministers and their partners, the leader of the Opposition and her colleagues and their partners,’ said Hogarth. ‘We appreciate them joining us. The AirLine project isn’t a secret. It’s been speculated about in the media for months. Tonight we put an end to that. We’ll spell out our dream.’
A long pause.
‘Of course, we all know that dreams don’t often come true. We give up because achieving them is just too hard, needs too much work, needs too much courage. And more boldness than we have.’
Triumphal symphonic music. On the giant screen, images of primitive machines and Saturn rockets lifting off, the Wright brothers and jet airliners taking off, three-masted sailing ships and supertankers, dusty paddocks and shimmering pictures of city skyscrapers, it went on.
Then the screen showed the city from a great height, zoomed in, cut to speeded-up helicopter-shot footage of gridlocked highways, bridges and city streets, of overcrowded railway platforms and rail carriages. Over the images, voices announced train delays and cancellations, warned of road blockages, diversions, malfunctioning traffic lights, sluggish flows, stoppages.
‘AirLine has a bold dream, a bold vision,’ said Hogarth. ‘It comes from a great citizen of Melbourne, a great Victorian, a great Australian.’
Soaring music.
Still and moving pictures of a man, from slim youth onwards, hair short, long, short, running, playing football, laying bricks, beside a light plane, at a drawing board, in a hardhat on building sites, leading in a winning horse at Flemington, walking bunch-muscled through the shallows after a Pier-to-Pub swim, talking and laughing with politicians, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, with artists, musicians, athletes, being hugged by Nelson Mandela.
It went on too long. It ended in silence with the man walking down a country road, fire-black tree skeletons and paddocks on both sides. An elderly couple came to meet him in front of a burnt down house and outbuildings. He put his arms around them and they stood, heads together, a tableau of sorrow and sympathy.
Silence.
Hogarth said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give you AirLine’s visionary, its founder and chairman, I give you Mr Max Hendry.’
Max Hendry was on the platform, moving easily.
‘That bloke in the pictures,’ he said. ‘Looks a bit like Harrison Ford. Anyone remember Harrison? Only taller. And a damn side handsomer.’
Long, loud applause, the sombre mood dissolved. Max Hendry made a palms-out gesture.
‘Guests, friends, it’s good to have you here,’ he said. ‘And enemies too. You are all welcome. My father used to say it’s hard to dislike a man who pours you a glass of the Grange.’
The crowd laughed, they liked him.
He waited, looked around the room. ‘I want to ask you a question,’ he said.
‘Is there anyone here, and that includes you Mr Premier and your ministers, who can say with hand on heart that this city’s public transport isn’t woefully inadequate?’
Murmurings.
‘No takers?’ said Hendry. ‘Of course not. Woefully inadequate is being polite. It’s a disgrace. That’s why our consortium wants to give this city at least one system that is super-fast, safe, and comfortable. A great system for a great city. It looks like this.’
The screen showed an elevated train bulleting along above a highway, passing another going the other way. Then a map of the city with bold lines along the arteries, all meeting in the heart of the city.
‘It’s not another toll road. It’s not another train. It operates in the air, in useless space above the highways. In the airspace. We call it Project AirLine.’
More applause.
‘We have no small ambition,’ he said. ‘We want to build the most advanced transport system in the world. Passive magnetic levitation, suspended pods, lightweight advanced metals, cuttingedge engineering. But we need the state government to help us. We need all the councils on all the routes to come to the party.’
Applause.
‘We can have the Monash line operating in around twenty months from the go-ahead,’ said Hendry. ‘Imagine fifteen minutes from the outer suburbs to the heart of the city. Then we’ll do the western feeder. Melton, Caroline Springs, ten minutes. And that’s just the beginning.’
Longer applause, Max Hendry nodding, camera flashes winking.
‘Two other things,’ said Max Hendry. ‘I like the idea of fear-free mass transport. Very much. Some people here know my wife’s nephew was beaten to death near a station a few years ago. He was much loved.’
The respectful silence, the wait.
‘Makes you think, that kind of violence, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘It plagues our city.’
On the big screen, a panning camera was on the premier, no expression, hands steepled under his bottom lip, bovine Robbie Cowper, the planning minister. It moved to Orong, to Gillam, to Barry. Villani saw himself. Then it came to a nodding Paul Keogh.
‘So this will be the world’s safest public transport,’ said Hendry. ‘I give my solemn word.’
He was on the screen now, five metres high, he pulled loose his tie, a man coming into the pub, friends waiting. He smiled. It was a good smile, all the better for being so long awaited.
‘The second thing,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you a commercial-inconfidence secret.’
The wait.
‘We’re greedy bastards. We hope to make some money out of this. Of course, greedy bastards have built a lot of the world. Some things greed builds outlive the greedy bastards who built them.’
More applause.
‘So our message for the state government and the councils is this. Forget abou
t more freeways. They solve nothing and make many things worse. Forget about more tunnels. All they do is take the problems underground for a while.’
Pause.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, this project is about actually doing something to stop this city choking to death. In the major corridors, we can take at least twenty per cent of passenger vehicles off the roads. We can cut greenhouse emissions dramatically. It’s the greenest thing any level of government could do. It’s a gift to the present and the future.’
Applause, flashbulbs popping. Hendry took breath.
‘What will it cost? Frankly, we don’t know precisely yet. Big bikkies. Our people are working flat out on costs. Do we seek a public-private partnership? Absolutely not. Do we have merchantbank robbers involved? Bugger them. So do we want government contributions? Bloody right we do. Contributions from government at all levels, from the federal government down.’
Louder, longer clapping.
‘So, you may ask, why make this announcement now? Because we’ve done our private talking. We’ve talked our heads off and we’ve had nothing more than polite expressions of interest. Now we want to go to the people.’
Thunderous applause.
‘This huge project ramifies in all directions. It’s political at every level. So, as we approach the state election and with a federal election less than a year away, we’d like this city’s people to tell their representatives, local, state and federal, that they want the cleanest, greenest, fastest, safest transport option in the world.’
Someone handed Hendry a glass of water. He held it up.
‘What’s this liquid? Desalinated water? Never touch it.’
Laughter.
‘Mr Premier, leader of the Opposition, members of parliament, mayors, councillors, I want to urge you to think about this chance to do something important for your city, your state, and, in a small way, for your country and the planet.’
A camera was on the impassive premier, they cut to Karen Mellish. She wasn’t giving away anything either.
