by Zane Lovitt
We veer to the Myer department store where Rudy lingers, reading the store guide, a great stone tablet by the entrance. Beside it there’s an interactive version; he doesn’t want that one. I loiter outside, examine the store windows and their swanky knowing mannequins until Rudy finds what he’s looking for and he’s off. When I enter a blast of warm air greets me like a shot of nuke to the neck.
Through the make-up and perfume and the pancake faces of the women who work here I’m hoping Rudy won’t take the elevator: he’ll get a solid look at me if we’re its only occupants. But he rides the escalators and with each floor I’m noticing how everything is white and spacious like the whole place wants to be an Apple store. It’s different to the last time I came, with Mum about ten years ago, shopping for socks and boxer briefs. I didn’t want to be here, was a total shitlord and bitched all afternoon and Mum couldn’t wait to get me home. The memory is like an electrocution and I have
This tiny clump of card the doctor had handed me, it was old, like Mum had carried it around in her pocket for years. She was still asleep and the doctor walked off because he had other random bits of trash to give to visiting families. It was like a sheet of cotton in my hands as I unfolded it. This side of the card was blank, but I turned it over and recognised it, cut out from a birthday card I’d given her years before. Her fortieth birthday. The part she’d cut out is this, in my weird teenager writing:
My love for you is as deep as Ed Harris in The Abyss.
It made me squirm as I read it because it’s the kind of joke you write to your girlfriend, not your mother. But I was fourteen and we’d watched that movie together. I thought I was hilarious. And she’d cut it out and kept it, probably because she thought it was hilarious how I thought I was hilarious. I dropped it into her purse, there on the table beside her bed, and that’s when I saw that her eyes were open.
to concentrate to hijack my own thoughts, flick the band on my wrist and take off my jacket.
On the top level Rudy arrives at Video and Photography, but I hang back in Home Entertainment Systems and quickly lose sight of him; saunter, casual, to the rows of SLRs and handycams, don’t know where he is, can’t see another human being until the searching look on my face invites a uniformed stooge with a pink lanyard to ask if I need help. Derpily I decline, drift to the far side of the store and with no glimpse of Rudy I worry again that I’ve been sprung.
Then a figure passes behind me while I’m focussed on the GoPro accessories and by the hair standing up on my arms I know it’s him. I move on towards a great nest of futuristic cameras and circle around.
At the end of the row stands an enormous flat television showing nothing. But then he’s on it, his face the size of a weather balloon. Staring down at me like he can see me, like he’s God and this is Judgment Day.
I draw back, spooked, look away to the empty clerk’s desk and a hundred other screens featuring Rudy’s head. Over there, among the cameras on tripods, real-life Rudy is gazing deep into one of the lenses, unaware that it’s narrowcasting him all across the store and to this display as big as a billboard.
Without so much as changing my stance, I raise my phone and photograph the image. It’s crisp, as good as any I’d have taken if I’d stuck the camera in his face and bolted like a purse snatcher. Rudy’s flat nose, his rounded head and lightly freckled face give him the look of an unpeeled potato. What he wants with that camera is not clear—he seems to be picking something off the side of it, affording me a moment of appraisal. The small lips hang slightly ajar, green jacket done up to his chin like a Chinese communist, but it’s the depth of fear in those eyes that demonstrates, to anyone who cares to look, the instability of Rudy Alamein. Even here, where no one knows him, where he’s oblivious to me and the suspicions of Glen Tyan, where he’s entirely self-involved, Rudy’s eyeballs tingle and dart, under siege.
That face makes me want to leave.
And I’m right about to. My neurons have already ordered my feet to pivot, to carry me directly to the escalator and back to my car on Grand Street. But in that instant there’s a new figure on the giant TV. Rudy is at once startled, then grinning. They hug and release, reveal the smiling, loving face of someone who, just yesterday, promised me she’d steer clear of Rudy Alamein.
24
I’m in a florist taking pictures with my phone when a shop clerk appears beside me.
‘We’d prefer you didn’t photograph our arrangements.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’d just prefer you didn’t.’
‘Because it’s a secret? You don’t want people to know what flowers look like?’
I don’t say that last part but I think it as I leave the store and loiter at a food stand that spruiks the warming powers of soup. I pretend to be choosing between nutmeg-pumpkin and fennel-chickpea when in fact I’m watching Beth and Rudy, seated in a café at the exit onto Little Lonsdale. That’s what I was doing in the florist, monitoring them over my shoulder with my phone’s selfie lens, so I suppose I should be pleased the cover worked, that actually it looked like industrial espionage.
Beth and Rudy chat and drink juice and despite Rudy’s face being permanently terrified they seem to be getting along, not like boyfriend and girlfriend but affectionate and chemically conducive. It reminds me of Marnie, how she and I are sitting around, awaiting the inevitable. Maybe Rudy and Beth have the same dormancy to overcome.
I should call Marnie. We haven’t spoken since the pizza incident.
At last they stand, hug again, go their separate ways: Rudy past the florist, past me and back the way we came; Beth across Little Lonsdale and into Melbourne Central.
I stay with Beth.
She bought something in the camera store. In fact she bought a camera. Rudy just hovered, didn’t make eye contact with anyone until it came time to pay and he was insistent. There followed a classic nanna fight and she seemed genuinely annoyed, but he waved his credit card so fiercely at the cashier that the transaction was completed almost as an act of self-defence. Beth couldn’t hide her embarrassment, resolved it all with a kiss on his cheek and led him here to the café.
Now she leads me deeper into Melbourne Central, stopping to glance in the windows of these chic af clothing stores and I maintain a distance, make sure to keep my reflection out of those windows. Her transformation from yesterday was to be expected but it’s still compelling. That bedraggled hair is curly and expansive: Professor River Song’s only darker. Instead of a stained bathrobe she wears a blazer with green embroidery and a sort-of-elastic shirt beneath with horizontal stripes. According to the fashion police you’re not supposed to wear that kind of shirt if you’re large around the tummy but she flouts the rule so majestically that she proves what horseshit it is. All she has in common with yesterday are those glasses, a point of refinement on her rosy, peering face.
More escalators, down down to Melbourne Central station. She knows her way through the turnstiles, past the black and yellow posters that explain how to use escalators and then further underground to platform three, the Upfield line—she’s going home.
‘I’m surprised to see you.’
She turns and there I am, leaning against the glossy cream brick. A James Bond entrance I straightaway regret.
‘The last we spoke you said you wouldn’t be in contact with Rudy Alamein.’
It’s almost as if she doesn’t recognise me—the way she hesitates, freezes even, eyebrows questioning.
Then she comes to life, blinks quickly. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…’
Blink blink blink.
‘He called me and I just couldn’t turn him down…you know…’
‘Sure.’
She squirms against the shiny metal pipes that are meant to be seats. The big TV on the tunnel wall shows two young people kissing after sweetening their breath with something like a can of mace.
She says again: ‘I’m sorry,’ drenched in so much panic that I have to say: ‘Don’t worry about it.�
��
‘I didn’t know what to do…’
‘Why did he want to see you?’
‘Ummm…’ She seems to have forgotten. ‘He told me he wants to sell some furniture.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s broke, I think.’
‘No, I mean, why tell you?’
‘Oh!’ She cackles at the confusion, overdoes it because she’s nervous, even face-palms for what a dunce she is. ‘It’s my work. Antique furniture. At least, I’m still trying to get it off the ground. But it’s, you know…’
I wave at the yellow bag. ‘Is the camera for work?’
‘Yeah. It’s all about photos, right? The internet…’
‘Sure.’
‘So, like, what has this got to do with my car?’
It suddenly clicks who she reminds me of: the Road Runner. The old cartoon. The big eyes and gentle smile and total failure to judge the arseholes around her. The comparison generates so much compassion within me that I have to be honest.
‘Well…I didn’t exactly tell you the truth about that.’
All of a sudden her gentle smile is gone and I lurch into an excuse.
‘The car was, like, a half-truth. I don’t work for the council… It’s like…’ I shake off nervous Jason Ginaff, re-deploy cool Timothy Wentworth. ‘I have a client who believes that Rudy is dangerous, and that he, my client, is in some danger.’
‘Who?’ Her face fills with concern.
‘Not someone you know.’
She has to squeeze her eyelids shut to think.
‘But…why did you lie about it?’
‘I didn’t lie. I mean, I only lied about that. Everything else is true. You saw my card. I’m an investigator.’
‘Is this to do with Rudy’s father?’
Cool Timothy Wentworth goes rigid.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He died. Just recently. I thought—’
‘Has he mentioned anything about it to you?’
‘Anything about what?’
‘About his dad. About holding a grudge.’
‘No, he hasn’t mentioned…’
From the hollow end of the platform comes a rumble. The big TV reads Train now approaching and a speaker somewhere warns us to stand clear of the tracks. At first it seems like this is what Beth shakes her head at.
‘It’s got to be a mistake. Rudy isn’t dangerous.’
‘I can only tell you that there’s been some threatening behaviour.’
‘Not Rudy. He doesn’t do threatening behaviour.’ Her eyes urge me to agree. Warm air gusts from the tunnel and wind-machines her hair. ‘He’s totally harmless. He’s lovely.’
‘Are you two an item?’
She’s horrified.
‘No.’
‘Were you once?’
‘No…gosh…I don’t even know him that well.’
‘You said he was lovely.’
‘He is, but—’
‘Did he admit to taking your car?’
‘No…No, I didn’t mention it.’
‘Did you mention me? That we talked?’
‘No…None of that came up. He just wants help selling his pieces and I couldn’t turn him away—’
Through the tunnel comes the Upfield train. I have to shout above the noise.
‘I just think you should give me the benefit of the doubt. Until this is over.’ She seems touched. The train squeals and stops and there aren’t many people waiting to get on. Nobody gets off.
Beth sighs and yanks the door open.
‘Okay.’
Having boarded she’s several inches taller, looking down on me, endeared. ‘I’ll stay away from Rudy until I hear from you. How about that?’
‘Perfect.’ I feel in my stomach this new certainty that I will speak to her again, step back to leave, remember myself and blurt, ‘Has Rudy mentioned anything to you about life insurance?’
She scowls. Then, questioning: ‘No?’
The doors beep and close. She raises a hand and waves and drifts away amid the chuffing of the train, baffled by this last query of mine. I wave too.
25
Glen Tyan’s house is a single-storey weatherboard on a cul-de-sac called Suttle Street, where Suttle Street meets Sereen Road. The irony of these names is not lost on me as I pull to the kerb.
Nothing unusual about the house at a glance. The front lawn is mowed and edged with rose bushes, thorned stems poking out through the picket fence like prisoners swiping through the bars of their jail. Left of the dwelling is a grass ribbon driveway that stretches the full length of the house, that culminates in a garage door and the spoke of a Hills Hoist just visible through the branches of a winter canopy. If that’s the backyard then Tyan’s property isn’t just a house but a full quarter-acre block, as are the other lots on Suttle Street that have so far avoided subdivision. Some have been converted into units—yuppie dog boxes all soulless newness—while other residents take no greater advantage of the spaciousness than to park their multiple haggard sedans on their front lawns.
I’m crossing Tyan’s lawn when here are the windows: massive, either side of the small verandah, allowing no amount of insight—the one-way glass Tyan mentioned. Maybe he really missed interrogation rooms after he retired. More likely he just doesn’t want people to see inside.
I watch my reflection mount the concrete porch and ring the bell. The door opens at once, but only a crack.
‘It’s me,’ I say, like it’s not obvious.
The door retreats further to reveal an empty hallway. Tyan has jammed himself between the door and the wall, so as not to show himself to the street.
‘Come on,’ he says.
With a single step inside the cigarette smoke hits me like a panic attack: all at once, all over and hot like the house is on fire. With the dust and the sheer lack of oxygen my eyes squeeze shut and I blink against the haze, cough, weak.
Tyan closes the door, pads on bare feet to the first doorway off the hall, wears beige shorts that are best described as skimpy, along with a faded-pink T-shirt that hangs loose and merciful over his belly. I follow into a space where the light filters orange through the strange front windows: a room held permanently in sunset. There’s a brightly burning gas heater and a small television and a wooden chair by the window that allows an expansive view of the street. On that chair is a threadbare cushion; surrounding it on the floor are three overflowing ashtrays and about seven used teacups, one of which has become a fourth ashtray.
I cough again, try to get as much of this air out of my lungs as I can. Then I say, ‘Here’s the photo.’
Tyan sits in the wooden chair at the window, doesn’t just glance outside but searches like someone out there called his name.
‘Right.’ He holds out his hand and I bring the print to him, careful not to convey the triumph I felt at the camera store. I know Tyan well enough now: any hint of self-congratulation will be instantly condemned.
Tyan squints into the picture. The way he does that implies he might need glasses but he’s not wearing any, not looking around to see where they are.
It’s not a flattering picture, even if you discount Rudy’s subphotogenic head. The concentration on his face is easily interpreted as anger, portrays him as a surly child who DID not WANT his photo taken.
‘Yeah, he looks like a crank,’ Tyan says, drops the print to the floor and turns his squint to the window.
‘We go to the police now, right?’
‘Yeah…’
‘Unless you prefer to stare out the window for the rest of your life.’
He ignores this, raises a finger and points.
‘That’s where he stopped. On the corner. The Volvo.’
I follow his finger to a red post box on the opposite kerb, marking the spot Sereen Road meets Suttle Street. It’s not a thoroughfare: a man in his car watching the house would have stood out like a flashing neon bulb.
Tyan doesn’t look at me as he speaks.
‘Di
d he see you take the picture?’
‘Rudy? No. But he met up with Beth Cannon.’
‘She saw you?’
‘Yeah. But don’t worry. I told her I was investigating what happened to her car. Like, for the local council.’
No point in telling him how honest I was at the train station.
‘Fuck me. She believed that?’
‘I hate to say it but I’m a good liar.’ While I’m full of myself, I’m like: ‘And I heard Rudy on the phone. He’s in the market for life insurance.’
This has the desired effect. Tyan’s head snaps around. ‘Hey?’
‘He asked for a quote on Prime Life, which I googled. It’s the name they give their product at Fortunate Australia.’
Tyan’s forehead shrinks into a stack of pancakes.
‘What’s he want life insurance for?’
‘Don’t know. Said he wanted the maximum benefit. Like, insisted on it. But I don’t know why he needs it. And he can hardly afford it.’
Tyan’s eyes go dark. He murmurs, ‘Life insurance…’
I can’t deny a real buzz at how grateful he seems. ‘Grateful’ in that he’s not interrupting me or telling me off. In my grand tradition of appearing not to care, I shrug. Even as my toes curl and my heart thumps.
‘He had a tattoo on his hand, also. Looks like he might have done it himself.’ I hold out the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. ‘Here. A black crown. Four points up and down…’
My finger draws the invisible picture. Tyan glares out from his rickety chair and his empty cups and his ashtrays.
‘On his right hand?’
I have to think.
‘Yeah.’
