Black Teeth

by Zane Lovitt

  Barristers always ask you to speak directly to the judge, but I can’t ever seem to manage it. Something about it turns your evidence into a weird kind of performance. Mind you, I hate being here enough that it’s going to be a weird kind of performance anyway. Perry knows—I told him last week how uncomfortable I get in the witness box and he said there was nothing to be nervous about.

  I told him I would not be nervous. I told him I’d be taking a couple of beta-blockers to make sure I wasn’t nervous.

  He looked at me, perplexed. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘It’s court. I have to use my real name.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So…I guess I don’t know how to act.’

  Now, with his robes and his grave voice, knowing himself exactly how to act, Perry says, ‘Would you please state your full name and occupation for the court record?’

  ‘Jason John Ginaff. Researcher. Self-employed.’

  ‘And when you say researcher…what kind of research do you do?’

  A week ago in his chambers, with what appeared to be a thousand copies of the same book lining his shelves, Perry laughed.

  ‘Just be yourself!’

  But that, of course, was just another way of stating the problem.

  So I demanded Perry tell me exactly what he was going to ask me today. Like, word-for-word. I’ve been practising my answers all week.

  ‘It’s limited almost entirely to internet research. Clients engage me to collate what information exists online in relation to a particular subject. A company or a person. Most of the time it’s a person.’

  What’s not helping is that the person on this particular occasion, he’s right here in the room. The creepiness of researching the crap out of someone is only bearable so long as you don’t then have to look at their real-life face. Knowing this, and uncomfortable as I am, my stupid eyes skip over for the splittest of seconds and there he is: David Wallis Chapman, born five November 1959, plaintiff in the matter of Chapman v Revue Technologies Pty Ltd. Glaring back with all the butthurt he can muster.

  Perry nods, making it clear he wasn’t listening. He knows these lines as well as I do.

  ‘That’s an unusual type of work. Would you give the court an example of the kind of research you’re engaged to do?’

  ‘It’s not that unusual.’ To keep from glancing back at Chapman I peer up at the judge. If she looked carefully she’d see my eyes moving left to right, a side effect of memorising these words off a page. ‘Ninety per cent of it is vetting. Like, when a business is looking to fill a position and they’ve compiled a shortlist, I’ll research the candidates. Prospective employers don’t like surprises down the track.’

  ‘To put it simply, your job is cyber-vetting.’

  I bite down on a smile, like I did in Perry’s office the first time he said ‘cyber-vetting’.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Mostly by way of standard internet search engines.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Perry flinches. Something has occurred to him and, just like that, with no idea of the consequences, he’s off-script.

  ‘When you say that your work typically involves vetting job applicants, to be clear, you were not engaged by Revue Technologies to vet Mister Chapman prior to his engagement as Senior Financial Consultant, is that correct?’

  First comes a thud of blood against my ears and prickles along my hairline, the initial spark of the perspiration that’s going to be a deluge because it always is. The blood floods behind my eyes and I’m effectively blind and there’s pressure in my throat and I have to get my answer out before it reaches my larynx.

  ‘Um, no. Businesses don’t often vet an external contract.’

  Perry isn’t even looking at me, just around at the room like he’s bored.

  ‘In that case, when was your first contact with Revue Technologies?’

  ‘My…my first meeting…was on the seventh of April…’ My voice falters and the sound of it prompts Perry to look at me and he sees what’s happening. I hear the judge’s shoulders tighten. My shoes and socks are off now. I tell myself not to pass out.

  ‘The seventh of April,’ Perry repeats. Slowly, like he’s trying to remind me of my lines. ‘This year? Last year?’

  ‘This year,’ I rasp.

  ‘Twenty twelve?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘And who was that meeting with?’

  Here comes the sweat. A grand torrent like all the taps have been turned on at once. This is despite how, outside, it’s the coldest day in Melbourne since, like, ever.

  ‘Mister Singh. The Chief…’ I take in a long breath. ‘…Chief Financial Officer.’

  ‘Was that after Revue Technologies had repudiated the contract with Mister Chapman?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘In fact, that was after Mister Chapman had been locked out of the seventh floor, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  I force a dumb smile while inside I’m hating him for abandoning what we’d arranged. Perry smiles back and I’m holding my breath. This is usually the point where I promise myself I’ll never give evidence again. This is also the point where I pray to the God of Long Questions that he send down a doozy right this second.

  ‘Given your talent for cyber-vetting, is it fair to say that Revue Technologies would have saved themselves considerable grief if they’d come to you prior to contracting with Mister Chapman?’

  Chapman’s barrister stands up. God bless you, sir. He too is robed and self-important like a skeksi.

  ‘My friend knows full well that it is not fair to say—’

  The judge: ‘We won’t ask the witness to speculate, Mister Perry.’

  I take the chance to suck in air.

  ‘The question is withdrawn, Your Honour.’

  But remembering to breathe is only half the game; the other half is remembering what breathing is. How much is too much? Too little? On my wrist is a lacker band I keep there for just this situation. It’s a method I read about online: flicking it against your skin can keep you in the present, stop you goosing out. I’m flicking it hard now, sending a telegram in Morse code. So hard the tipstaff scowls, wondering what that noise is.

  ‘Mister Ginaff.’ Somehow Perry has received my telepathic all-caps to slow down. ‘If you were not engaged to vet Mister Chapman prior to his engagement as financial consultant, what was it that Revue Technologies asked you to do?’

  He’s back to the script. The thumping in my brain tapers. I start to notice my surroundings again: the sparse public gallery, the mouth-pink walls, the array of flat-screen televisions that they use for, I don’t know, watching the cricket.

  ‘Um…My job was to interrogate the claims…claims made by Mister Chapman at the time he came on as…financial consultant.’

  ‘Were you told why they wanted you to do that?’

  I remember the answer to this one and the adrenaline is dropping off, leaving a familiar thrill in my blood. It’s the same feeling I had after a big crying jag during my mother’s illness. A hollowing out, like nothing even matters.

  ‘They said they were surprised at the poor standard of Mister Chapman’s performance and this had led them to doubt the veracity of representations made by him at the time of contracting.’

  ‘All right,’ says Perry. He nods, supportive. ‘This is still the conversation of the seventh of April, to which you’ve alluded?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you recall anything else from that conversation?’

  I make myself comfortable in the court’s spongy office chair. The sweat’s still coming but slowing. My body language is no longer signalling to the court that I’d rather be dead.

  ‘They told me there was a time factor. They suspected Mister Chapman would commence proceedings like these.’

  ‘So…’ Perry actually hooks his thumbs into the collar of his robes. ‘You were com
missioned to determine whether there had been any false or misleading statements made by Mister Chapman at the time of his engagement as senior financial consultant. In broad compass, how does one go about that?’

  ‘Mostly I look at the documentation.’

  ‘By documentation, you mean…’

  ‘His résumé, primarily.’

  ‘Right. So your job was to scrutinise his CV.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘I see. And when you’re scrutinising a CV, and there is a time factor that you’re very much aware of, where do you begin?’

  ‘It’s different every time.’

  ‘How about in this case?’

  ‘In this case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In this case,’ I say, ‘He’d misspelled Rhodes Scholar.’

  4

  I push out the revolving doors, welcome the cool air, but the wind goes straight for my ears like they’re the most delicious part. Cold needles my face and I drive my hands into my pockets, remember what a dickhole I was for not bringing gloves or a beanie or a scarf. I feel the cold more than most people because, according to my mum, I am ‘traumatically skinny’. She used to say I look like someone starved Keira Knightley to death. Combine that with my stature

  A long walk down sterile corridors. Another Sunday visit to the familiar pastel walls and pungency of whatever chemicals they use to clean up after the dying. I’d received no warning that her left lung was giving out, that each breath was such an effort. I didn’t know this was the last time I’d ever take that long walk down sterile corridors.

  and my complexion—powdery, pimply, more than my share of eczema—and I look like the kind of stooge who would tell a group of norps what’s what about computers then freeze to death simply by walking outdoors. I almost wish I needed glasses, just to round off the cliché.

  Only a few steps from the courthouse someone calls my name.

  ‘Jason.’

  It’s Perry, beaming through his sharp white features. While the rest of us are Siberian exiles cowering against the day, scurrying to overcrowded cafés or enduring the wind for the sake of a sad cigarette, Perry is fluid, even bouncing.

  ‘We’ve adjourned until Monday. Apparently Chapman and his team are going into talks after lunch. I think they’re going to settle.’

  And I’m like, ‘Great.’

  ‘You got pretty nervous on the stand, didn’t you.’

  And he fucking smiles at me.

  ‘It’s not nerves.’ I peer down to Spencer Street for a tram. If we’re adjourned then I can go home.

  ‘Didn’t I say you needn’t worry?’

  ‘No likelihood I’ll be called back?’

  ‘I’ll wager these proceedings are done. I’m surprised we’ve come this far. Poor old Chapman got his bubble burst with everything you had—’

  He pulls from his robe a mobile phone, flashing silent yellow.

  ‘I’ve got to answer this. Look, Gary and the whole Revue cabal want to shout us out to lunch. I’ve suggested Nick’s. You’ll come, won’t you?’

  ‘Umm…’

  Perry answers the phone.

  ‘Hello, Sarah? Just a tick.’ He lowers it to his chest. ‘Come on. This is all thanks to you, especially after such a wobbly start yesterday. They’re only going to shine your shoes for an hour while we eat.’

  I picture it: a well-heated hugbox of posh food and warm red wine, the flattery and the back-slapping and the pride at carrying out the most crushing own of my career. Admiring fathers huddled and smiling, jockeying to bask in my genius and me the vital centre of it all…

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got a lunch meeting.’

  In a flash his interest is gone. I am of no further use, and he and I will never meet again.

  ‘Right. See you.’ He turns and brings the phone back to his ear.

  Moments later I’m still longing for a tram and the black-clad Melbourne lawyers are still bustling to their lunch spots when I see the mother and her boy come through the doors. He’s in his stroller now, blanketed in cotton; she moves as if obeying the instructions of some unseen hypnotist, tense with cold, wheeling the boy back to their ordinary life, partnerless and fatherless respectively.

  I change trams at Swanston Street, take the 57 to Racecourse Road, get chips from the place near my flat, clutch them tight for their warmth and chew on a few as I hike up the driveway, bathe in the hikikomori relief of coming home for the last time today.

  5

  Marnie hears me as I approach, the way she always does. It’s not like she sits and listens for me to come home, but I’m saying she might as well do that. The door to her flat swings open, the one across the stairs from mine, and she steps out with her tallness and her hair coloured deep red and the usual quizzical smile like it’s weird how I even exist.

  ‘Hiya, Stevey.’

  ‘Hey, want a chip?’

  Marnie waits tables for a living. At first I was only friends with Marnie because scorning your neighbour is like scorning your waiter: it’s gruesome to imagine the ways they might exact their revenge. Also, I thought more eyes on my flat would be added security for the hardware I’ve got inside. But over time we’ve become friends. Even good friends. Whenever she says ‘Stevey’ I feel a flutter in my stomach. And it’s not even my real name.

  Steven Jones is the name on my phone bill, but not the one on my lease. Which is different again from the one on my electricity account. I once considered telling her all about my John Doe life, how my work makes me security-conscious with a hint of paranoia, how my real name is Jason and I’d like to kiss her on the mouth. But the moment passed. And it would only have made her smile that baffled smile.

  ‘Where’d you get them?’

  ‘The Chippery.’

  ‘Ummm…’ She considers it. ‘No, thanks. They use the wrong potatoes for their chips. They should use colibans but they use desirees.’

  Raindrops spatter on the exposed side of the gallery. Marnie doesn’t seem to register the bergschrund misery out here; that long mop of hair might keep her neck warm but the rest of her is loosely draped in thin cotton pyjamas and she’s barefoot. Then again, if today is like any other day then she’s got the heating cranked up like a boss and it’s the nuclear dawn inside her flat, so right now that long body must be revelling in this cool air, even when this cool air is a frigid Melbourne winter.

  ‘Hey, ummm…’ she says, ‘I had something I wanted to ask you… Oh yeah, what are you doing for dinner?’

  ‘Nothing. You want to go out?’

  ‘Can’t. I have to work.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’

  ‘Working.’

  Her eyes fill with pity and I bite my lip. Always I’m making this mistake—thinking she wants me to ask her out but when I do she turns me down. At first it left me red-faced and sleepless, but I’ve gathered over time that she only wants me to work a little harder.

  ‘Um…Wednesday?’

  And she looks at the roof in hectic thought.

  ‘I think that’s okay. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Great.’

  She makes a face at the rain.

  ‘How rude is this?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m freezing. I’ve got to get inside.’

  ‘Fine then. See ya.’

  And bang, she’s gone. Like she can take a hint. I knew as I said the words that they would have that effect but they were out before I could stop. Now I’m the one filled with pity as I unlock my front door. Marnie’s had a lot of friends abandon her in her life and I suppose you can see why—she’s as defensive as the Battlestar Galactica and I’m just as bad. We’re two weirdos staring at the business end of our twenties and we communicate in tortured allusions: she sends up smoke signals, I answer in semaphore. And our respective hints that we want to be vulnerable, that we want more than to merely catch each other coming home to our separate flats, they’re like tiny planets in a big solar system: they only align every one hundred and fifty
-seven years.

  We’ll go out on Wednesday, to the pizza place across the street where no matter how often we go the owner never seems to recognise us. Where he puts too much garlic into everything and his two teenage kids don’t want to work there but they do. I’ll order the bolognese pizza because I love all that garlic and Marnie the capricciosa because she long ago dispensed with being dainty around me. Then we’ll come back to her place and talk and dance the Fear of Rejection until I realise it’s not going to happen tonight, and I’ll hug her and come home. And this is all to say: I’m looking forward to it.

  6

  I fasten my two deadlocks and the deadbolt and switch on the heater and hang up my coat which is damp from having borne the brunt of the outside world. Now it can bear the brunt of this miracle heating unit that gets up to speed in seconds and which prompted me to rent this flat a year ago, during the coldest month in Melbourne since they bothered keeping records. Of course, records topple so often now they can probably go back to not bothering.

  When the property agent demonstrated this wall-mounted godsend I thought the landlords had made a mistake. Who spends this kind of money on a rental? In her skirt and high heels, the agent seemed to have left home wholly unprepared for the bitterness outside, and while she claimed to be from Dunedin and therefore immune to the kind of cold you git un Milbun she was more than happy to hover and feel that giant engine summon heat from thin air and blast it in our faces like a merciful and life-affirming car exhaust.

  Which meant that, for five minutes, I had to make small talk as Robert Lavigne, trainee engineer at Jetstar Australia.

  There wasn’t much else to attract to me to this block, where all the common areas are outdoors, built of sparse concrete and decorated with little more than council bins. Where the body corporate exists in name only and the residents walk around with that look on their face like they know this is a halfway house for singles and migrants. After Mum died, I had the money for a classier flat. I had the money for a house. But I’m in this place with this heater and this heater makes this place a womb.

  The display comes to life at the first breeze of warmth like a chipmunk waking in the spring. It requests access to the server,