by Peter Corris
A blonde woman in a pink, tight skirt that didn’t come down very far over her fat thighs, squeezed in beside me at the bar.
“Wanna go along?” She shot a furtive look at the barman who had his back to us and his hands full.
“Fair go, love. I just got here.”
Nothing showed in her face—not disappointment, annoyance, nothing. She nodded and moved to try further along. She watched the barman like a cat watches a bird, only moving when she judged the time to be right. She also had to watch out for other whores and pimps and predators. On the third try she scored; a tall, thin man with a prominent Adam’s apple drained his schooner and followed her wide, weaving bottom out of the bar.
If you think drinking in a place where you don’t want to be isn’t work, try it. I paced myself, ate chips, watched the pool games, and had a brief conversation with a man about horse racing. He told me it was all fixed; I bought him a beer and agreed. He bought me a beer and said it was all fixed.
A visit to the toilet depressed still further: the authenticity there was overwhelming—authentic old drains, authentic cracked bowls, authentic mould. The tiled floor was a Sargasso Sea of soggy cigarette-ends and discarded paper towels. A blood-encrusted sock was lying in a corner near the urinal and a trail of smeared, bloody footprints led to one of the cubicles.
The mirrors in places like that were not for the vain. I washed my hands in the thin trickle of rusty water, and looked up at a man with crinkly dark hair, a broken nose and deep grooves in his cheeks. He bared his teeth at me and said, “Cliff, you’re starting to look as if you belong in a place just like this.” I wanted to think of something smart to say to put him in his place but I couldn’t. It was a relief to leave him there and go back up to the better company in the bar.
I worked my way back to the bar and decided to stay for the length of one more drink. The beer came and I raised it unenthusiastically—the steak and pills had probably done their work, I didn’t feel drunk. I didn’t drink—five metres away Liam Catchpole, with his French cuffs turned back and his hair slicked down—was gently opening his hands to let four glasses down on to the top of a freshly wiped table.
6
I’d only met Catchpole once, and then only briefly. Since then he’d had his picture in the papers. I hadn’t. I knew him but there was no reason to think that he’d know me. Anonymity is an asset in my game, and I was careful to preserve it.
I took a quiet sip of the beer and surveyed Catchpole’s companions. Ray Guthrie wasn’t hard to spot although he’d put on weight since he stood, proud and free at the wheel of the Satisfaction, for the camera. He’d also grown a face-brutalising, droopy moustache. He looked prosperous in a blue silk shirt and his hair was expensively cut and styled. He was drinking beer, probably the source of the extra weight, and he’d lost his outdoors look.
The woman sitting next to him was Dottie Williams. I’d once seen a blurred newspaper photograph of her and it was enough to confirm the judgement. She had a mass of light red, curly hair, a soft round face and a double chin. She was wearing earrings that dangled near her shoulders and a frilly white blouse. The effect was supposed to be of soft femininity, but when she glanced across the bar I got a look at her blue eyes—they were as hard as hacksaw blades.
Williams kept her attention on Ray, leaning toward him, touching his arm. Like him she was drinking beer. Catchpole and the other man were drinking spirits. His back was turned to me; it was a very big back, wide at the shoulder and wide all the way down to a thick, spreading waistline. The dark hair had departed from the top of his head, leaving him with a fringe around a bald dome. The exposed skin was very dark, so was the flesh of his thick neck.
I began to move around the bar to get another angle on the group. Catchpole was doing the talking now: four heads leaned forward toward the centre of the table like footballers in a huddle. Catchpole shut up and drank—they all pulled back and relaxed. That’s when I took the first picture by cupping my chin in my hands and shooting through the opened fingers. I shifted the grip and took a few more so as not to end up with only arty finger close-ups.
The huddle again, and I moved to get a better view of the big, dark man. In profile he looked even more bulky; the depleted hair was carefully cut and his dark, fleshy face was shaved close. Everything about him—his business shirt with the gold cufflinks, the quiet tie with gold bar, the trousers so well cut that his pockets sat flat and his gut didn’t stretch the pleating, said cop.
The crowd in the bar had thinned out a bit; I wanted more pictures, but if he was a cop it wouldn’t be a good idea to be caught candid-cameraing him in the Noble Briton. He turned toward me and I took a chance; knuckling my eyes, I got one of him almost full-face. He had a meaty nose and a puffy, down-turned mouth. This guy had changed a lot, and all for the worse, since his mum had had him on her knee.
I tucked the camera away and backed off, leaving the next move to them. Their move was to have another round of drinks and do some more talking. Williams and Ray Guthrie stayed in eye contact; Catchpole and the man who I had privately dubbed “the cop,” talked intently, occasionally consulting the others. There was nodding and head shaking. I didn’t think they were discussing existentialism, and I would have loved to know what they were talking about, but there was no chance of that. Catchpole and “the cop” were evidently old hands at the discreet conversation. Liam would have picked up the elements in the slammer.
When they got ready to go it seemed to be at “the cop’s” say-so. I had my back turned as they went past me and I let them get well clear before I followed. Catchpole had on the white shoes which were his trade mark, and they twinkled in the multi-coloured lights from the shop windows as he trotted along. He was shorter than Dottie Williams, who was a head shorter herself than the other two men, even in her high heels. She was wide in the beam and wore a tight skirt with a split in the back; she and Guthrie fell back behind Catchpole and “the cop”. She tottered on her four inch heels, Ray steadied her and once she let her hand drift out and touch him on the buttocks.
The streets weren’t crowded and the road traffic was light; I was quiet enough in my Italian shoes with the rubber heels, but I kept well back and thought about crossing the road to tail less obviously. They were about fifty metres ahead when, abruptly, they turned a corner. I heard a car door slam and I increased my pace. I rounded the corner, hugging the building line: the two men waiting for me had arranged themselves across the footpath to block me. They were both big, one in shirtsleeves, the other wearing a jacket and tie.
“Stop right there, you!” The jacketless one held up his hand like a traffic cop.
I didn’t stop. I side-stepped and tried to get around them on the road. A car turned the corner then and crowded me back toward them. The man in the shirtsleeves told me to stop again; he wore a pistol in a hip holster and he had the cop’s voice as well as gestures. I had a pistol too, but if you’re smart you don’t duel with the police in the Cross after dark.
In fact, if you can, you run; which was what I did. They were both bulky and slow and the adrenaline rushing through me countered the alcohol, or perhaps blended with it and made me nimble. I feinted to one side, ducked under the swinging arm of the man in the jacket and got past. If they shoot, I’ll stop, I told myself as I ran down the steep road. They didn’t shoot and they didn’t shout a warning, which told me that their business wasn’t legitimate. The camera bounced in my pocket, the beer swilled in my belly and the gun stuck into my backbone. But I had my light shoes on and I felt I could run, because they were running after me.
The two of them clattered behind me and I heard one wasting his breath with a stream of obscenities as he ran. It was downhill and around the corner and into Elizabeth Bay Road. I had a discouraging flash of memory of the one time I’d run in the City to Surf race; I’d fallen twice and pulled up lame, but I kept going then, and now. Now seemed about a thousand times more important. I had good wind, the product of my year off ciga
rettes, and was fairly fit from regular tennis with Hilde; I felt I was gaining on them. But an uphill stretch would even us out—I never was any good on the hills.
The streets were empty of people and cars. A man sitting on a bus stop bench said something as I ran past but I didn’t catch it. It certainly wasn’t “I’ll take care of this.” I wanted there to be more people to cut down on the risk of shooting, but everyone was inside worshipping the VCR. All I could do was try not to run in a straight line.
I risked a look back and saw that I had gained some more, almost enough to think about hiding. My heart was pumping and the breath was loose in my chest. I didn’t have much more left in me. I avoided the street that led down to the dead-end of the water, turned a corner and the street name jumped out at me—Billyard Avenue. The street where you live. I had the number in my head and I sprinted for it, trying to get there before they made the turn. The building was a huge, white pile in which one architectural style seemed to give way to another as it went up. The entrance was a deep portico, a lousy permanent hiding place, but adequate for temporary concealment. I gambled. I ducked in, checked her name on the tenant list and nearly fractured my finger ringing the bell.
Be home, lady, please, I thought.
“Yes.” Her voice on the intercom was deep, with no sound of sleep in it.
“Helen,” I croaked. “It’s Cliff Hardy—from the other night at Roberta’s. Let me in, please, urgent!”
“But …”
“Please, let me in!”
The buzzer sounded loud enough to wake the street; I said “sshh” to it, idiotically, and went through the door and flattened myself against the wall inside.
I waited for the running footsteps; they came and they turned into walking footsteps and lost any rhythm. My breath was a harsh pant, and my eyes suddenly started to stream from the effort I’d put in. The footsteps retreated. I eased off then, and put my hands on my hips to allow my chest to expand, the way runners do after a race. Running away from danger is hard work. Then I looked around.
There was a deep carpet under my feet and a chandelier overhead, two chandeliers. The moisture in my eyes was blurring everything, and my gasping breath was making the images jump. I was in a wide passage which led to a wide set of stairs. The stairs and balustrades were of old wood the colour of blood, highly buffed. The place smelt of wood polish, fresh paint, and money.
Helen Broadway appeared at the top of the last flight of stairs. She was wearing a cream-coloured garment somewhere between a nightdress and a dressing-gown. It came all the way down to her brown, bare feet.
“Don’t be frightened,” I said.
“You’re talking to yourself. I’m not frightened.”
She came down the stairs in two hops, lifting her legs and making the robe move with her—it was silk and it rustled. She looked good enough to make a full-length movie of, just her coming down the stairs.
“I love this city,” she said. “Always something happening. What’s happening now?”
“I’m running away from some men with guns.” I wheezed a bit as I spoke and my legs suddenly felt rubbery. “No, I’ve got that wrong. I was running, now I’m hiding.” She reached the bottom stair and came across to where I’d gone back against the wall for support. The silk rustled some more and her feet made no sound on the carpet. “How far did you run?”
“I don’t know. A mile?”
“You can’t be all that fit. You don’t jog? I thought a man in your line of work would jog?”
“No, I don’t jog. Men in my line of work mostly sit around and drink. That’s what I was doing before I started running.”
“We’d better call the police.”
That sent me back against the wall as I tried to laugh and wheeze at the same time. I bent over and convulsed for a bit, then straightened up. She looked at me coolly.
“Finished? Are you going to tell me about it?”
“Sorry. I phoned you yesterday, or was it today? I forget. You were out.”
“I do go out, yes.”
“I’m bloody glad you weren’t out just now.”
“What would’ve happened—if they’d caught you?”
“I hate to think.” Saying “think” made me do it, but slowly and out loud. “They’d be gone by now. They might get to my car, though.”
She moved back toward the stairs. “You’d better come up and do some more thinking in comfort.”
How many invitations was I likely to get to go upstairs with beautiful graziers’ wives wearing silk robes? This was my first. I followed her up with legs so shaky I had to think about each step as a separate enterprise. When we reached the top she turned and saw me patting the pocket of my shirt.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Camera. I was taking pictures earlier.”
That didn’t sit too well; she made a face. “It’s not some nasty divorce thing, is it? I thought that went out with Askin.”
I laughed. “No; it’s nasty, but nasty in a different way.”
She grunted and led me down a hallway to where a heavy, panelled door was standing open. She waved me in and shut the door behind us.
“Go right through; the grog is in the kitchen on the left.”
The kitchen was basically old style, but with enough new style in it to make it functional and comfortable. There were cork tiles on the floor and the room was big enough to hold a pine table, a two-door refrigerator and a dish washer easily. My legs weren’t good; I pulled out a bentwood chair from the table and sat down.
“D’you mind if I sit down?”
“No, you’re not going to faint, are you? I’ve never fainted myself and I don’t know whether I could cope. I can’t remember whether you put the head back or down between the knees. I’d probably break your neck.”
I grinned at her. “I’m not going to faint. Don’t think so, anyway.” I put my hands on the table; they weren’t shaking, I could take pride in that. “Did you say drink, Helen?”
“Yes.” She went to the cupboard above the bench to the left of the sink and opened it. It was high up, and she didn’t have to tip-toe. “Whisky, brandy, what?”
“Whisky would be good.”
She reached up for the bottle; the silk rode up over her hips, which were wide, and showed her ankles, which were slim. The bottle of Haig was two-thirds full; she put it on the table and got a couple of glasses from the draining rack.
“Water? Ice?”
I shook my head. She poured two drinks and I put some down my throat quickly, letting it burn. She sipped.
“So,” she said.
“Well, I’m glad I met you the other night; I’m glad you were home; I’m glad you let me in; I’m glad you didn’t have anyone with you. What were you doing—up this late?”
“Reading. I’m glad about all that, too.”
“I can’t say I’m glad I got chased down your street; but, you know …”
“Why did you go into that fit down there when I asked if I should call the police?”
“They were the police. I think.”
“Oh.”
I finished the whisky and she gave me some more.
“Are you going to smoke your Gitane now?” I asked.
“Why?”
“I thought you might blow some smoke in my face—even let me touch it, maybe.”
She laughed. “Is it really that bad?”
“Almost.”
“I’ve had it already, the Gitane.”
“Ah.”
“But I’ll have another just for you. It doesn’t do to stick too closely to your principles. Besides, I feel nervous.”
She went out of the room and came back with a soft leather bag with long drawstrings. She fished in it, pulled out the blue packet and lit up.
“Ah,” I said. “That’s better.”
That set her off laughing and coughing. She waved the hand with the cigarette in it helplessly, looking for somewhere to drop it. I got up and took the cigarette, then I
patted her on the back and she came out of the coughing fit, laughing softly. The patting turned into embracing; I put my arms around her and we kissed. Her body was big and strong, and we kissed hard. The kiss was short—we were both recovering from loss of breath.
We sat down at the table; I handed her back the cigarette and she butted it immediately. I leaned forward and put my hand under the loose sleeve of her nightgown. Her forearm was warm; I plucked at the dark hairs on it.
“That’s nice,” she said. “I liked you the minute I saw you.”
“Same here, me—you.”
She smiled and small wrinkles fanned out from the corners of her eyes; there were faint lines beside her mouth too. I found the lines much more attractive than smoothness. I touched her face.
“Want to go to bed?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You think that’s a bit quick? Should we discuss herpes?”
I said “No” and kissed her again. She leaned into it; either we were getting our breath back or getting better at it. The kiss lasted longer and meant more. We stood up and hugged. I felt her hip bones bite in just below mine.
“Not too quick?”
I shook my head and kissed her neck. She twisted free and pulled me by the hand.
“I told you my first six months were nearly up,” she said.
7
I wouldn’t say it was anything spectacular the first time. I tend to take my cue from my partners, and my last partner had been the passive, easily pleased type; Helen was energetic, so there were some adjustments to make. She had a queen-sized bed and we used the whole of it trying to find out what each other liked. That involved a good deal of laughing.
She had black satin sheets on the bed and, after the first session, I propped up above her on one elbow and arranged the edge of the sheet exactly halfway across her breasts which were flat as she lay on her back. I smoothed the sheet down around her body and sculptured her into a sort of mermaid shape. She smiled up at me.
