Stiff

by Shane Maloney

  ‘Lovely,’ she whispered. ‘Beaut.’ She signed the page, handed it to Arthur, and sank backwards. Arthur nodded to us on the way out, far too emphatically.

  Wordlessly Agnelli and I parted and stood one on each side of the bed. Charlene took off her glasses and put them aside. She winced at the effort and tried to hide it. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered. Her voice was a tremulous echo of what it had been.

  The visitors’ chairs were made of tubular metal and plywood and had been painted cream sometime during the Battle of Balaclava. Mine shrieked when I dragged it across the floor. I cringed and sat down as quietly as I could.

  ‘It’s just a few tests,’ Charlene said. ‘Not the death of Napoleon.’ Paradoxically, her frailty made her seem all the more powerful. ‘Angelo told you?’ she said.

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Didn’t want you getting any wrong ideas.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Charlene?’ I said. ‘You look terrible.’ I thought I could tell her that because it was something she would already know.

  ‘Bit of a growth,’ she said. ‘An opportunity to reorder my priorities.’

  One of her hands lay on top of the bedclothes, like a chook’s claw with rings on. She let me pick it up. It was cool to touch. As she spoke, I rubbed it between my palms. It didn’t seem to get any warmer.

  ‘I’ve decided to retire,’ she said. ‘The Premier knows. One or two others. Now I’m telling you.’ To my eternal shame my first thought was of myself. Charlene read my mind. ‘It’s all been taken care of,’ she said. ‘Angelo.’

  Agnelli leaped up, strode to the foot of the bed and gripped the metal bed-end. Rehearsing, I realised as he spoke, his new role. ‘Charlene and the faction leaders have agreed that I should take on Melbourne Upper,’ he announced, pausing long enough for Charlene’s silence to constitute confirmation.

  I assumed she would have some pretty good motives for going along with this caper. She lay impassively, giving me no hint what they might be.

  ‘As you know,’ Agnelli went on, addressing the chart above Charlene’s head. ‘There are always those at the local level who find it difficult to reconcile these sorts of decisions with both traditional practices and their own personal agendas.’

  Charlene fidgeted impatiently under the sheets. ‘Cut the cackle, Angelo. You’re not in parliament yet,’ she said. She inclined her head in my direction and spoke so softly I had to bend closer to hear her. She did this, I realised, to stir Agnelli. ‘The truth is, Murray, this close to an election we can’t afford another factional brawl over preselection. Angelo is what you might call’—here she paused and made a minor show of looking for the right word—‘acceptable to both the left and the right.’

  ‘Acceptable?’ I said. ‘This is quite a surprise.’ Agnelli couldn’t conceal a look of triumph. ‘And it’s bound to be messy.’ Agnelli temporarily shelved his hubris. I went on. ‘Parachuting in some heavyweight with high-level connections and expecting the local branches to endorse him. It won’t go down very well.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Charlene ambiguously. ‘That’s why we want you to smooth over the transition. Help Angelo garner the support he’ll need in the electorate. That sort of thing.’

  Do Agnelli’s dirty work for him? Like buggery I would. ‘Ange has just finished telling me how little confidence he has in me,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, don’t be so thin-skinned,’ said Agnelli. ‘You think I’d want you if I didn’t think you could do the job?’

  ‘Aside from which,’ said Charlene, more to the point, ‘someone well regarded in the electorate will need to be right there beside you all the way through the process.’

  An immediate answer seemed to be required. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Perhaps Charlene took my silence for a rebuke. She pretended, at least I hope she was pretending, that is was a negotiating silence.

  ‘Angelo has agreed,’ she said, ‘that in return for my support, and as a personal favour to me, that he will retain you as his electoral officer for at least the next parliamentary term, whether or not we are in government. His agreement is a matter of record. Isn’t that right, Angelo?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said the fucking snake who little more than half an hour before had been trying to get me to jump out of his car.

  The temptation to tell Agnelli to shove it was strong. But Charlene had obviously gone to some pains to see me looked after in whatever deals Agnelli was busy cutting. And, truth be known, it was hardly an ideal time to be looking for a new job. The Family Court did not look kindly on the custody claims of unemployed fathers. Aide-de-camp to Agnelli wasn’t exactly the Ambassador to Ireland but it was a job. And a boy must have a job. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes, so I just nodded.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Charlene and squeezed my hand. ‘Forgive me?’

  I never found out what she meant by that. A hippo-faced specialist in a white coat barged through the door with a clutch of chinless interns in tow and turfed me and Agnelli out. That’s what you get for not going to the right schools.

  If she meant, did I forgive her for leg-roping me to Angelo Agnelli’s political fortunes, the answer was yes. The decision was mine and I’ve accepted responsibility for it.

  If she meant, did I forgive her for conniving with Agnelli to send me on a wild goose chase, the answer is I don’t know. I don’t know because I could never bring myself to ask the prick if Charlene was party to it, so I’ll never know if there was anything to forgive. Nor could I bring myself to enquire too fully into the intricacies of the deal that saw Agnelli become the party’s endorsed candidate for Melbourne Upper. The fact is some things just don’t bear too close examination. Sometimes it’s enough just to know that you’re still on the team. I held my hand out to Agnelli.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Comrade.’

  The rest is, as they say, ongoing context. Let me parameter the specifics for you.

  Charlene was out of hospital the next day just in time to usher the workplace insurance legislation safely into law and see the end of the spring session of parliament. Three days later she announced her resignation and a week after that writs were issued for a state election. While all this was happening, I was having a few sleepless nights waiting for the coppers to come knocking on my door. When they hadn’t turned up after a month, I knew they probably never would.

  We won the election, despite the best efforts of the Sun, with an increased majority. We even picked up a marginal gain in Melbourne Upper, but only at the booths in the heaviest Italian areas. Five months later Charlene was dead. We gave her a wonderful send-off and she’s buried out at Fawkner Cemetery. Eternally committed to the electorate is probably the way she’d put it. Keeping in touch with the grass roots.

  Going out there again, past those rows of tombs lined up like a miniature set from some sword and sandal epic, reminded me of those weirdos with the military salutes standing over Bayraktar’s coffin. By then I knew what had been going on, or thought I did. Coates and I had pieced the basics together, and I fleshed the rest out from incidental titbits that Agnelli picked up on the legal grapevine when the Anatolia Club gambling case came up.

  Appearances can be deceptive. At first sight the fact that the Anatolia Club looked so much like a small private casino blinded me to the fact that it essentially was just that. And as such had certain requirements in the way of personnel. That’s where Bayraktar came in, initially at least.

  The proprietors, including the two bozos I’d seen at the cemetery, had imported Bayraktar from Turkey to act as their debt collector. They were former military officers and Bayraktar had once been an NCO, so they might have known him from the army. Perhaps he’d merely been recommended by their crim colleagues in West Germany. In any case, he turned out to be a bit of a liability, inclined to shake down the clientele on his own account. Rather than grasp the nettle the way that Gardiner ultimately did, they suggested he find employment elsewhere. But they let hi
m keep his little flat out the back, a sort of implicit threat to any of their customers tempted to welsh on their commitments.

  Temporarily forced to work for a living, Bayraktar had fallen on his feet. First he was recruited by Gardiner to front the payroll scam. Then he began putting the squeeze on likely fellow employees. Eventually he worked out that Pacific Pastoral provided the ideal set-up for shifting drugs about the countryside. When Gardiner eventually got fed up with all these extracurricular antics and give him the big chill, the crew at the Anatolia Club were probably as relieved as anyone else.

  But he had been a fellow soldier, and honour required that his death not go uncommemorated. His former associates at the club signed for his body, chipped in for a medium-priced Martinelli walnut overcoat and stood in the rain at attention for two minutes. I can only hope someone does as much for me when the time comes.

  Not that any of this came out at the inquest. No new evidence was presented to counter the original supposition that the fat boy had taken a heart turn in the midst of laying in his weekend supplies of scotch fillet. The coroner came down on the side of natural causes, and took the opportunity to comment broadly on the importance of maintaining safe work practices in the cool-storage industry. The Department of Labour responded with a press release pointing out that it was in the process of amending the regulations regarding mandatory aisle-widths and expected to gazette them in the not-too-distant future.

  The one minor hiccup in the coronial hearing was the unavoidable absence from the witness box of the man who had found the body. Herb Gardiner was, of course, the subject of his own inquest barely a week after Bayraktar’s. Based on the fact that he was wearing protective clothing, and on the testimony of the fireman who found the body, as well as medical evidence, it was concluded that Gardiner had been inside one of the freezers when the alarm went off. Making a late run for the exit, he had slipped on the wet floor, broken his neck, and been asphyxiated by the smoke as he lay unconscious.

  Frankly, that last bit was something of a surprise. I’d honestly thought he was already dead when I left him lying there. Misadventure, the coroner said. I couldn’t agree more. More proof, if any is needed, that you can’t help bad luck. The cause of the fire was attributed to a radiator accidentally left burning all night in the administration area. Speculation that arson was involved was dismissed by both the company and the police as groundless. The insurance was paid out in full.

  Herb Gardiner left an estate worth the best part of two million dollars, including a Broadbeach condominium, an Adelaide motel and part shares in a macadamia nut plantation. It just goes to show what hard work, a bit of thrift, and a remarkable fifteen-year winning streak on the horses can achieve. His punting record was all carefully documented in papers found in his bookcase—date, course, race, horse, dividend. In case the tax man ever asked, I guess.

  With no one to lay claim to the estate, it all went to the Public Trustees Office, which will meticulously administer it down to a zero sum over a period of 150 years.

  On the way back from Charlene’s funeral I drove past 636 Blyth Street. It had already changed hands twice since the Anatolia Club was shut down and was being refurbished as a Maltese wedding reception centre. For all I know that’s what it still is. I must check next time I’m out that way.

  That could be some time. These days Melbourne Upper is just one small part of the territory I cover in my capacity as adviser to the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, Angelo Agnelli, MLC. Fortunately, for me at least, Angelo is also Minister for Local Government, a demanding portfolio that leaves him with insufficient energy to do serious damage to the interests of those valued members of our community who derive from the more non-English-speaking parts of the planet. In fact Local Government is so unrewarding a portfolio that I’m beginning to think poor old Ange must have trodden on a few important toes on this way up the ladder. Mullane senior for one. Apparently Ange promised my job to young Gavin in return for the old man’s support on preselection. Right now Ange is off in the bush somewhere trying to convince some quasi-autonomous local instrumentality to voluntarily sacrifice itself on the altar of efficiency.

  As for me, I try to keep my head down and my tail up, but I’d be lying if I said I was overextended. Ethnic Affairs is mostly about trying to find ways to give a bit of a leg-up to government supporters with funny surnames. Speaking of which, I saw Ayisha Celik the other day at the Ethnic Communities Council Conference. If was the first time we’d spoken since the big event. Somebody started to introduce us. Ayisha cut in, laughing with her eyes, gorgeous as ever. ‘You seen a doctor yet?’

  ‘No need,’ I said, ‘now that the swelling’s gone down.’

  ‘Murray had a terrible rash last time I looked,’ she explained to our host.

  ‘I see,’ he said knowingly. ‘Like that, is it?’ It wasn’t, but she didn’t seem to mind if he thought so. Then we stood there silently rocking on our heels for a moment until the other guy got the idea and made himself scarce.

  ‘I dunno what happened between you and Memo Gezen. And I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘But whatever it was, it did the trick. He’s gone back to Turkey. Wife, kids, the works. Thanks.’

  I said it was no trouble and all for the best and she said congratulations on my new job. Then the coffee break ended and we had to rush off and chair our respective workshops. For a brief moment I considered pressing my suit with her, but in the end I decided against it. Keeping secrets is one thing that Ayisha is good at. Best not muddy the waters.

  Word is she’s on the shortlist for Co-ordinator of the Migrant Resource Centre. She’s got the advocacy routine down pat, and that degree in Public Administration she’s got should set her in good stead. So if anyone asks, I’ll tell them I can’t think of a better person for the job, even if she has got herself engaged to some Macedonian mother’s-boy from Pascoe Vale.

  Gezen’s not the only one to have moved. Red lives in Canberra most of the time now. Very good for kids it is. He can walk to school and Wendy even lets him ride his bike to the shops. The woman Wendy is living with has a girl two years older, so he’s not short of family life. He flies down one weekend a month, which is all I can afford at the moment, and as much as his social life permits. I get him on school holidays too, although last time he went to Samoa instead because Wendy was speaking at a conference there on Women and the Future of Work in the Pacific, and it was too good a chance to pass up.

  We’ll probably get round to formalising the divorce sometime soon. It’s not as if there’s any great reason to rush. Wendy eventually saw reason on splitting the cost of the roof job, even though it turned out that Ant had charged five hundred dollars above the going rate and was ripping the materials off as well. What decided her was the capital gain of twenty-five grand we made when we sold the old place. I put my half down as the deposit on a nice little fully-renovated zero-maintenance terrace in Fitzroy. It’s handy enough for me to be able to walk to work, which is just as well, as it’s murder trying to find a park around here.

  Of course it’s quieter here in Victoria Parade than it was out at the electorate office. We don’t get much passing trade. Just to get to see me, you have to sign in with the commissionaire in the foyer, take the lift eight floors and negotiate two secretaries and an administration officer. Not that I don’t make an effort to keep my finger on the pulse, mind you. It’s all No Smoking up here, so whenever I want a quick puff I have to pop down to street level and mingle with the other desperados. There’s always a little crowd steaming away in the foyer of the Resources and Technology Department next door, and it’s amazing what little titbits of info you can pick up. And sometimes this woman from Information and Publications on the fourth floor is there. Antoinette Aboud her name is. Lebanese, I guess. Fascinating people, the Lebanese. So much history, so little space.

  And you never know, do you? There’s this safe seat out Springvale way that might just possibly be on the market before the next election. It’s right acro
ss the other side of town and I’ll probably have to learn a word or two of Vietnamese, but at this stage I’m confident of enough factional support at the centre to warrant throwing my hat into the ring. Naturally the locals will have to be squared off. The electorate officer is apparently quite a handful. But I feel that I do have a certain amount of expertise in these matters. And expertise is the name of the game these days.

  Or maybe I’ll stick to my snug little office here on the top floor. I’ve got my own window now, and I can see right across the treetops of the Fitzroy Gardens, past the spire of the cathedral, to the city with all its cranes and new office towers. Almost every day there’s something brand new on the skyline. The way this city is going, by the end of the eighties the place will be unrecognisable. For the past few months one high-rise tower in particular has held my attention, a combination media centre and hotel being put up by a consortium headed by Lionel Merricks.

  These days Lionel is not nearly so critical of the government as he was in the first few days after the fire. Not after I found the opportunity for a conference with him. I rang for an appointment a couple of times, all very civilised, but never got past the ice queen. I supposed that Lionel wasn’t too keen to start taking my calls again. So I hung around outside the next meeting of the City Revitalisation Committee and caught him in the hallway during a coffee break. Rather than face a scene, he agreed to a private chinwag in the stairwell. He tried to browbeat his way out of it, of course. But I felt that this time I had the edge on him, what with my new suit, my face all healed up and a few well-researched facts up my sleeve.

  The folks at the Department of Agriculture had been particularly helpful. They explained just how much illicit money you can make if you’ve got a meat works, an export licence, a low-key, long-term approach, and a certain amount of contempt for the law. You just stick your boneless beef labels on something else. Donkey meat is a big-margin item. Kangaroo too. But they’re a bit risky. You can still make a pretty penny using lower grade beef.