by Peter Temple
Cam went in, walked around the horse, not close, approached it from the front, showed it his hand, rubbed at the base of a relaxed ear.
‘Looking good,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you heard more from Chink in three days than I heard in two years. Fed him what?’
‘Tea,’ Lorna said. ‘Drinks whisky in tea.’
‘Used to be the reverse,’ said Cam.
‘How long before we’ll know somethin?’ said Harry.
‘He’s keen enough,’ Lorna said. ‘You want to be careful, though, he’s been out so long. And the legs, who knows? I’d like to take him over a lot of ground.’
‘No hurry,’ said Harry. ‘We’ll do it right.’ He looked up at the girl on the horse. ‘Like the way you ride,’ he said. ‘Your mum probably had you up when you were little.’
Terry blushed, looked away. ‘That’s right,’ she said.
We walked back, turned right into the house, sat in a big room and had tea and biscuits. They talked bloodlines and distances and times, Harry gave the horse diet lecture. I looked out of a big window, watched the clouds scud, saw a hawk drop from the sky like the angel of death.
In the car, on the main road, Cam driving, I said, ‘I’m not suggesting that you’d need a reason to take your high-powered legal representative into the frozen wastes with you.’
Harry’s profile appeared around the headrest for an instant. ‘Get a bit of country air in the lungs, Jack,’ he said. ‘Livin in Fitzroy, thereabouts, all that factory smoke, tannin the hides, not healthy.’
‘Getting worse all the time,’ I said. ‘Now it’s also pollution from Cohibas and the PNG Gold. Plus the crack smoke, that can be really bad in the early evening.’
‘Lunch,’ said Cam. ‘There’s a place up the track here does a good steak roll. Local beef.’
‘Get there,’ said Harry. ‘Step on it.’
‘Shame to eat them,’ I said. ‘They’re so nice.’
‘Jack, listen,’ said Harry, ‘this horse, I want to set up a little arrangement, five shares, that’s us three, the lovely wife, Mrs A. Arrange that, can you?’
‘I can arrange that,’ I said, ‘but why?’
‘Bit of fun. Nothin down, nothin to pay. Win anythin, we take off expenses incurred, split the balance five ways. Cam’ll cook the books.’
‘What exactly do you have in mind for this horse?’ I said.
‘Early days. Get him up and runnin, that’s the first thing. Do the arrangement thing then?’
‘What happens if he doesn’t win anything?’
A hand came up, wagged. ‘That’s a little punt I’m havin,’ Harry said. ‘No burden on the rest of you. Where’s this food place? Gettin the weak feelin.’
‘Hang on,’ said Cam. ‘Want to keep you goin till you make us rich.’
I was at Taub’s most days through the heart of winter, getting there early, putting on the radio, firing up the stove, making tea, drinking a mug sitting in the sagging armchair with my back to the light from the dusty high windows.
Charlie grew to expect to find me there, the place warming up. He complained when I wasn’t. One day, he showed me his drawings of a bookcase, a huge break-fronted thing, two metres tall, as wide, twelve drawers, four glazed doors. The drawing was done in an old business ledger, in pencil, hand-drawn lines ruler-straight, isometric views, oblique views, all elevations, annotated with measurements.
I flipped back through the pages: dozens of pieces of furniture drawn in the same detail.
‘You’ve never told me about this book,’ I said. ‘You give me drawings on bits of paper torn off the edge of the Age.’
Charlie was sunk in his chair, drinking two-teabag tea out of a mug made for him by one of his grandchildren. It was a misshapen vessel that spilled liquid if filled beyond a certain level.
‘That’s all you need,’ he said. ‘What, a child doesn’t know the alphabet, you give him that Chomsky?’
‘What Chomsky?’ I said.
He waved the mug. ‘An idiot,’ he said.
‘Right, that Chomsky. Why are you showing this to me?’
‘Make it,’ he said. ‘Swietenia mahagoni. Get it down.’ He pointed skywards, at the Bank, the priceless collection of wood in the rafters at the back of the building.
‘Make it?’
‘They say I should drink green tea,’ said Charlie, looking into the horrible mug. ‘The girls. So tell me. Green tea.’
‘Forget green tea,’ I said. ‘They’re selfish, they want you to live forever. What do you mean, make it?’
He raised the unholy grail, studied me over its rumpled rim. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I wait until you want to take responsibility, I have to live forever. Green tea. What is it?’
‘Hang on here,’ I said, alarmed now. ‘I can’t do this. Not the whole thing. No. I can do bits, yes.’
Charlie drank tea, lowered the container. ‘The glazing bars, that you can’t do. I’ll show you.’
I said, ‘As I see it, this job would need a router. I’ll buy a router.’
Charlie got himself upright, walked towards the back, towards the sink. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You think a person learns something, a little bit. But no. Everything wasted on them, all the time still a puppy dog.’
I said, ‘I suppose it could be done without a router. Improvisation. I could make do.’
‘They didn’t give me lunch,’ said Charlie. ‘The little one’s got a temperature.’
‘I can probably find something for you to eat,’ I said. ‘They do a decent porridge sandwich down the road. Porridge on TipTop white.’
It was going to be a clear morning. The daylight through the high windows was strengthening.
‘The drawings,’ said Charlie. ‘Can’t understand, ask me.’
‘I can understand,’ I said. ‘Pictures I can understand.’
‘So,’ he said. ‘Green tea.’
‘It’s just the raw material of tea,’ I said. ‘Until you make something nice out of it, it’s just a piece raw tea.’
And so it began, with Charlie standing on the ladder pointing out pieces of dusty grey timber. When we’d got them down, he said, ‘From Cuba. 1901.’
‘As old as the Commonwealth of Australia,’ I said. ‘The Boer War, death of Queen Victoria.’
‘Bruckner Symphony No. 6,’ said Charlie. ‘That was the year.’ He began to hum and conduct with both massive hands.
Weeks later, I was dry-fitting the many pieces of the front assembly on one of the low benches when Cam arrived to fetch me. He was in corduroys and a tweed jacket, smoking a Gitane. ‘Jesus, boss,’ he said to Charlie, ‘sure the boy knows which bit goes where?’
Charlie sucked on his dead cheroot, took it out and looked at it, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘With some people, you can only hope.’
In Elgin Street, on the way to Parkville in a refurbished Kingswood, soft Dolly Parton on eight speakers, I said, ‘What’s this about?’
‘Lost Legion,’ he said. ‘Looks like we’re goin racin. How you been?’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Did I ever say thanks for the Grange?’
‘Goin bad in the cupboard. You or the Salvos.’
‘Do they accept gifts of alcohol?’
‘Not any old piss. They’ll take the Grange. Saints in the deepest, I notice.’
‘I don’t want to notice. I have enough pain.’
Harry’s garden was a pleasing sight in any season. Now it was stark, bare of greenery except for the old box hedges. The oaks stood in their decaying leaves, sparrows jostled on the two feeder tables, the cold sky was reflected in the stone-rimmed oval pond.
Mrs Aldridge answered the knocker, took my overcoat. ‘Mr Strang’s in the viewing room,’ she said. ‘Watching cartoons.’
She led us to the small cinema, opened the door on near-dark and the smell of a Cuban cigar, it entered the head like a sweet poison.
‘Jack, Cam,’ said Harry. The screen went blank. We were behind him, he was in his seat, the middle armchair.
‘The Simpsons, that Homer. You watch that, Jack?’
‘On too early for me,’ I said.
‘That’s why the good Lord’s given us the VCR. Sit.’
I walked the three or four steps and sank into the chair beside him. Cam went to the bank of electronic equipment.
‘Never filled you in on this Legion,’ said Harry. ‘That’s remiss. Shareholder should know what’s goin on. Full disclosure. Now this nag, the breedin’s bugger-all to speak of, he comes a bit good at three. Six starts, clocks a win, second, two thirds.’
‘This is where?’ I said.
‘Over there in the west. It’s all sand and cowboys, all low grade, the ore’s all low grade, everythin’s a notch or two down from the rest of the world. Anyway, this Legion, nothin over 1600 metres, only win’s at 1400.’
‘Ready,’ said Cam.
‘These WA palookas, Jack,’ said Harry, waving his Havana, ‘these sandbiters, they give him a long holiday, then they put the little thing in a 2400. Why would you do that? First up and 800 extra? Only the good Lord knows. That or the pricks thought they were havin a laugh.’
The aromatic cigar smoke was inducing a terrible craving in me. The denial of the pleasure of a good cigar. I needed to rethink that.
‘Go,’ said Harry.
We saw Lost Legion miss the start by about five lengths – horses leapt and then there was daylight and then he appeared.
‘Now note, Jack, the jock reckons he’s blown it,’ said Harry. ‘He’s buggered, he decides to take the animal on a little walk.’
We watched Lost Legion ambling along, getting further behind, for the first 350-odd metres. By then the field of twelve was strung out, at least twenty lengths from first tail to last nose.
‘Now the best you would think the fella would do is just catch up, show the stewards he’s tryin,’ said Harry. ‘Trainer’s not goin to thank him for thrashin the horse from there. But no, not this turkey, he gets the blood rush. Watch.’
Just before the 2000-metre mark, Lost Legion’s jockey was galvanised, suddenly took to the stick, manic riding. The horse responded as if a brake had been released. By the time he ran out of legs, Lost Legion was in front, fifty metres from the post. He finished fifth, lathered.
‘Now when you put the clock on the last two thou,’ said Harry, ‘bloody thing could near enough’ve won the ’79 Australian Cup from Dulcify. Tell him what happened after, Cam.’
‘They give him a rest,’ said Cam. ‘Come back in the autumn, somethin in him’s gone. He runs fourths and fifths. Give him another rest. In the spring, first up, he runs seventh. Second was worse. Sack the jock. He runs tenth, big field. Try someone else on him: six of eight, hangin in all the way. They try blinkers, he beats one home. Off to the paddock again, comes back, two stone motherless lasts. Vets can’t find anythin. This’s the last outin of his career.’
On the big screen, horses going into the starting gate somewhere.
‘Bunbury,’ said Cam. ‘Where that little Hobby jumps off the horse, he’s so keen not to win.’
The light was flashing. The gates opened and the field went away in its bumping, jostling urgency.
Except for Lost Legion. He would not leave the gate, stood head down and still. His small rider urged him repeatedly, gave up, climbed off, climbed out of the cramped stall, walked away, his head down, whipping himself with his stick – not hard, reflectively.
‘After that, he starts to act up till they can’t come near him,’ said Cam. ‘Breaks a stablehand’s leg, kicks a float to bits, bites someone. They give up, get rid of him.’
Harry switched the lights on from the console on the arm of his chair. ‘Let’s bite somethin ourselves, have a drop of the dark fluid,’ he said.
We returned to the study. Harry sat behind the desk made for him by Charlie Taub. Cam and I sat in the green leather armchairs beneath the cliffs of racing books. Mrs Aldridge came in with coffee in a silver pot and a choice of small steaming raisin scones and chocolate-dipped meringues.
‘One each for you, Mr Strang,’ she said, brisk English voice, pouring coffee.
‘I keep tellin you, Mrs A., I’ve given away the ridin,’ said Harry. His powerful hands were on the desk, I thought I saw twitching.
When she was gone, he put four of each on his plate.
I took my coffee and a scone, yellow Normandy butter leaking from the line of division. Blue Mountain and homemade scones with Normandy butter, this was what the gods on Mount Olympus commanded their Mrs Aldridges to feed them at mid-morning.
Harry’s jaw was moving, eyes thin with taste appreciation. ‘Lorna, she reckons he’s nearly ready. Down for a barrier trial next week. After that, it’s when we want to go.’
‘Go?’ I said. ‘As in unknown horse found in Gippsland with sores and wearing rotten old rug wins comeback race? Or what?’
‘That is pretty much the question,’ said Harry. ‘Cam?’
‘Well,’ Cam said. He pointed at the last meringue.
‘Go for your life, son,’ said Harry. ‘Could save mine accordin to what passes for wisdom around here.’
I saw the dark object disappear into Cam, ingested. He was a neat eater, like a fish.
‘Have a try or two in the country,’ Cam said. ‘Stay away from the books and get a proper look, don’t push him. We could take a long-term view.’
Harry drank from the white china cup, looking over our heads, his eyes on his Charlie Taub bookshelves, on his books. He was in some of them, just a mention, the horses were what mattered, you didn’t try to breed jockeys.
‘Feel myself movin away from the long-term view these days,’ he said. ‘But I can hear sense. Jack?’
‘What about the other shareholders?’ I said. ‘Don’t they get a say?’
‘Got the proxies,’ said Harry. ‘More or less. Yes or no?’
I said, ‘What does saying yes entail?’
‘Go for a win first up. Bugger the long-term view.’
Rain smudges on the tall window behind Harry. We’d probably passed the day’s top temperature.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve had it with the long term. I’m a short-term man now.’
‘Go it is,’ said Harry. ‘Cam, tell Lorna we’re lookin for the right race. It’ll be soon.’
Breakfast at Enzio’s, just coffee and sourdough toast with Vegemite. When she brought the ingredients, Carmel said, ‘I should have mentioned before, the boy wonder’s gone.’
‘Better offer?’ I said.
‘Bruno decked him. The boy told the silent one to get away from the machine so that he could, I quote, make myself a fucking decent cup of coffee.’
‘An inflammatory speech.’
‘On the floor and out the door. Whingeing all the way. We had to ring Enzio. He’s doing the whole day now.’
When she brought the coffee, Carmel said, ‘He wants me to be the manager, sort of. He says he’s not having any more little pricks in his kitchen. What would your view be of that?’
‘I applaud the absence of little pricks everywhere.’
‘No, me and the manager thing.’
‘You’d be the public face of Enzio’s?’
She shrugged, the bird shoulders. ‘I’d be clean-shaven, that might be a plus. Perhaps my body language would be seen as less threatening. And no cigarette stub behind the ear.’
‘I like the smoking-ear look,’ I said, ‘but for what it’s worth I think you’d be an ornament to the position.’
‘Thank you. I’ll give it some thought.’
She was leaving when I said, ‘Ahem, we won’t be going down the skinny soy decaf latte and organic prunes poached in goat’s milk route, will we?’
Over her shoulder, Carmel said, ‘I’m too young to die violently.’
I had just started my coffee, when Sophie Longmore came in, a short camel jacket over jeans, carrying a bag like a slim briefcase. She looked around, I looked away but I could see her coming.
‘The man from across the road suggested you m
ight be here,’ she said. ‘He came out while I was knocking at your door.’
That would be McCoy, ever eager to make the acquaintance of attractive women.
‘I’m just leaving,’ I said.
She sat down, bag on the other chair.
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry. Are you angry with us, Jack?’
I didn’t want to have this discussion. ‘I’m just finished with you,’ I said. ‘Also, I don’t like being asked whether I’m angry. It’s either unnecessary or it’s provocative.’
Head down. ‘I’m doing this badly.’
Carmel arrived.
Sophie said, ‘Could I have a short black?’
I drank half of my thimble. ‘Well, I have to be somewhere else. Goodbye.’
She put a hand on my elbow. ‘I came to say how sorry I am about everything. About what happened to you and about the other day. That’s all.’
I shrugged.
‘I wasn’t sure what you were saying and my father jumped to a conclusion,’ she said.
‘It didn’t take him long either.’
She moved her shoulders. ‘Jack, he’s nearly eighty, it’s his first instinct, he thinks the whole world’s trying to take his money away from him. Sometimes he’s right too.’
There was a silence. It occurred to me that it had been possible to misunderstand what I’d said.
‘I found that my hospital bill had been paid and some money paid into my bank,’ I said. ‘If it was your father, I wanted to give it back.’
‘That’s what I thought you were saying,’ she said. ‘He’ll want to apologise to you himself. I wanted to come after you but I was too ashamed by what he’d said.’
She had the Longmore frankness. There wasn’t any rage to maintain. ‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘I should have been unambiguous.’
Sophie’s coffee arrived.
‘She was the last person who’d have a gas accident,’ she said. ‘You do know that?’
‘I’m ignorant about gas accidents,’ I said. ‘They said it wasn’t unusual.’
Two homicide cops had taken a statement from me when it was deemed that I was out of danger. Then two fire people came, a severe-looking woman in her forties and a younger man with thick glasses. They had my statement to homicide. The woman had questions about the position of the gas cylinders, about what Sarah had done in the seconds before, what I’d smelled, the number of explosions.
