But these women—how much older are they than me? Only ten years older, maybe nine. They allow the men to lower their hands and stroke a buttock quickly before returning to the waist. The men whisper into their ears and the women laugh. They call the women “girlie” and ask them their names—Nicola and Angela, Mandy, Caroline, Meg— but keep calling them girlie as if they weren’t listening to the answer. Some of these women are the same girlies as last weekend. Some Saturdays there are new Nicolas, Angelas, Mandys, Carolines, Megs sipping through straws such drinks that lemon peels stick out of in the shape of wings. They smirk at each other. Sometimes one will roll her eyes when the man she’s with isn’t looking. They take off their beekeeper hats with gauze veils by drawing out a long pin like string. Once the hat’s detached they place it on a stool behind them and shake their long hair down. The men inhale deeply and say, “I smell apples. You use apples for shampoo?”
The men forget to keep their voices low. Ears are flapping. My ears are flapping as I push past looking for Winks. They probably think I’m too young to understand. But I understand. I understand there’d be a scene if their wives knew what they were saying, I know that. Not the business talk so much—how they import kitchenware or diagnostic equipment for a living, or how they’re in the law and have been offered a position on the bench, following up with “asked to be a judge” when met with a blank look from their girlie— but where that kind of talk leads. It leads to money talk—how their turnover has reached two million a year, how money can buy racehorses, cars, holiday houses, but can’t buy happiness. How they and their wife don’t talk anymore. How they’ve become distant over the years, have grown apart, theirs is a marriage in name only. This is the kind of talk Winks scoffs at with a dismissive hand-wave as “piss-talk” and “the John Thomas talking” and “old men making fools of themselves”.
The men tell the girlies they’re going on a trip somewhere, to Hawaii, next month to chew over their lives. “Have you ever been to Hawaii?” they ask the girlies.
“No,” the girlies answer.
“Wonderful place. Sensational weather. The beach—you just do nothing all day.”
“Fingers crossed I’ll get there some time.”
“You should come along and keep me company.”
“How on earth can I afford Hawaii!”
“I tell you what. Albert McKenna—lovely fellow Albert— he’s got a good horse in the next race. Today’s the day its foot’s supposed to be on the till. How about I back it and if it wins then that’s your plane ticket to Hawaii?”
I can hear Winks’ raspy laughing. I stand on tip-toes. He’s over there, his slicked black hair with fifty-seven greys nodding and tossing back in good humour. He must be having a good day, a winning day. I shuffle sideways between hips and elbows. He’s drinking in a group of five: three women, a man I don’t know and him. The man I don’t know is leaning on the edge of a stool in a way that lets him cross one ankle against the other as he stands. The woman he’s with is seated on the stool. He speaks to her an inch away from her ear then cranes to the left at the end of each sentence to look her in the face and smile. She cradles her glass of champagne which has a strawberry floating in the fizz and smiles back at him. The other two women stand on either side of Winks. If this wasn’t Winks I’d swear they were girlies. They have those singlet dresses and hollows the girlies have. One of them is resting a hand on Winks’ shoulder and using her fingertips to comb her hair from her eyes. “Wow,” she responds to what he’s telling her. The other woman says “Fantastic” and touches his shirt cuff. He’s lying that he sold the Heritage Hotel for two million dollars.
“Two million dollars. I didn’t think there’d be two million dollars in the whole of New Zealand let alone for one little hotel,” the girlie who is leaning on his shoulder says.
“It wasn’t that little,” Winks laughs.
“Two million dollars. Gee. What’s it like to be a multimillionaire?”
“It’s no big deal,” he shrugs, beaming and swallowing his Adam’s apple. He’s peeping down her front and trying to disguise it from her by blinking quickly. She’s following his eye-line down to her breast ends, up, down, up. She clearly doesn’t mind him looking there. She breathes deeper to make her breasts puff out. She and the girlie on the other side of him nuzzle against his arms as a signal for him to put his arm around both of them, which he does. He begins to rub the hollows of their backs. Down, down, across the bum of the shoulder girlie. Back to the hollow, down to one buttock then across the other, then back up.
“Dad,” I say through clenched teeth, pulling on his sleeve, pulling his hand away from the shoulder girlie’s hollow. “Dad. Come here,” I demand, barely audible, seething. He drops his hands to his sides and turns. “Oh,” he chuckles awkwardly. “How are you?” He explains to the girlies that I’m his son. I don’t look at him or them. I stare at the floor and step backward, turn and walk away a few strides and stop as a sign for Winks to follow. I stand still, fists clenched in my pockets. He pats me on the arm then puts his hands in his pockets too, leaning forward on his toes as if to speak confidentially. I glance at his face and see that there is a look in it I have never seen in Winks before. It’s a look I’m certain is fear. A red fear in his cheeks. A white fear in his wide-eyed eyes. His bottom lip trembles. He’s trying to hold open a smile that he does not mean. His breathing is quick and beery. “How you going?” he asks. “What can I do for you?”
I don’t reply. I refuse to look at him.
“What do you want?” No reply from me. “Say something.”
He lifts my chin on his fingertips but I keep my eyes focus ed anywhere but on him. I jerk my chin free of his touch.
“What’s this about?” he asks, frowning. No reply. “What’s all this silent treatment about?” He attempts to lift my chin again but I brace to keep my chin where it is. “What sort of antic is this?” he wants to know. “I hope you weren’t standing there checking on me, were you?” His voice has become lower, quieter, threatening. “Were you?”
I shake my head, No, and barely parting my lips say I wanted him to stop the whipping of the horses and the tying of their tongues down and kicking them with spurs.
Winks lets out a grunt through his nose. “Jesus son. Don’t you think you’re taking this religious stuff a bit bloody far?” He brushes my chin playfully with his knuckles. “Listen, old pal. I hope you don’t think I was slinging my hook here. Ay? Is that what this is about sour-puss? You think I was slinging my hook?” I remain clenched in silence. “Well you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. Too much imagination,” he says, tapping his finger on my crown. “I hope you’re not going to run off and say that to your mother, that I was slinging my hook. Ay?”
He tells me to listen carefully to him: they’re just a couple of girlies trying it on. He reckons I should be proud my old man can still pull the birds. It’s flattering. I wouldn’t begrudge my old man that, would I? He tells me to come on, take that scowl off my face. We men have got to look after each other, keep this sort of business to ourselves. He promises he’ll do what he can to raise the matter of the whipping and the tongues and spurs but I know he’s just saying that. He winks and says word is Alarm Bells is a cert in the next. Here’s a fiver. Go have a bet on Alarm Bells with Uncle Chicka. Buy a pie and a can of soft drink and have a bet. Alarm Bells, number six.
He makes me take a hand out of my pocket and tucks the money into my fist. He takes me by the arm and urges me to go on my way. He gives me a gentle push to make my legs work. I look over my shoulder at him and squeeze between drinkers. He smiles and salutes one finger onto his brow. He salutes again as I pause and watch him. The girlies stare at me, expressionless. They’re bored waiting for Winks to rejoin them, which he does now, reaching over to the bar for his beer. The shoulder girlie arches her hand to his shoulder. He peers to see where I am in the bar. He’s lost sight of me as I weave and bob. And now I’ve lost sight of him and am glad of that. I don
’t want to see again his hand in the girlies’ hollows and across their buttocks.
Will he be asking them to go to Hawaii? Will he be saying he and Heels don’t talk anymore? That would be the John Thomas talking, for they talk all right. They talk about how the hotel business is the only business they know. They talk about whether to buy a pub they’ve seen in Kirri-billi, such a classy area, such a classy clientele, not a hori in sight. But will my phone box problem come back to haunt them?
They argue my faults never came from their side of the family. They talk about how Sydney High School is a selective school. They wish I was smart enough to get into such a school when exams are held later in the year. Wouldn’t that be a coup. That would be a feather in their cap to have a son good enough for such a school. It would save them oodles of dollars. There is no indication I am in that league. That’s the big league. If I were a racehorse they’d judge me to be something of a plodder. Not a Group One contender at all. “He must take after your side of the family,” mutters Heels. Then she blames Heritage, its go-nowhere schools. Money will have to be put aside for one of those schools with grand English-sound ing names, for Kings or Knox. For Cranbrook or Shore.
If she knew what was happening in the Members Bar between Winks and the girlies, if I told her what was happening, there’d be talk all right. There’d be yelling-talk, I bet. There’d be sucking and scratching the air talk from her. Pleading and sorry talk from him. There’d be “I’m going for a walk around the block” talk from him while she cries until he closes the door behind him. She’d have a glass of wine and talk to herself bitterly about men then cry on cue the moment she hears his key in the lock, and keep crying into her hankie until he insists on taking her out to dinner and she says No a few times before saying Yes and going into the bathroom to re-do her face.
Their marriage might end if she knew what was happening in the Members Bar. He’d leave to wherever he’d leave to, and I’d stay with Heels and her hairspray and hatreds until a new man comes on the scene, a father who’s not my father, and me a son who is not his son.
I won’t tell her about the Members Bar. But this five dollars. I’ve been told to keep quiet for five dollars. I’m worth more than that little sum. I must give the money back to Winks. That will be his punishment: I will refuse to play the game and take part in any man-to-man understanding.
There he is, still rubbing the girlies’ hollows. He’s laughing into their ears and whispering. They flick back their hair to remove any obstruction to his laughing and whispering. “Dad.” I tug his sleeve. “Here’s your five dollars.” He drops his hands to his sides. That look is back on his face: the red fear, the white fear, the trying-to smile. I jam the money into his fingers and hurry away through the drinkers before he tries to charm me with his “You wouldn’t tell on your old man, would you? Come on, son. You wouldn’t deny your old man some fun.”
I sit on the very top seat of the Members grandstand, Ferris-wheel high. For three hours, four hours, I sit there until the insect people below begin to leave the course and the sky, swimming-pool blue all day, begins to dim for evening. The loudspeaker calls for me to make myself known to the nearest policeman because my parents are worried. It calls again and again but I’m making Winks wait. I’m letting him fret on what has become of me. Let him fret on what trouble I may cause him.
The whitecoat who mans the glass doors behind me taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’m me, the boy they’re calling for on the loudspeaker. He asks if I’m deaf or something and if I’m going to be a nice fellow and come with him to the police.
Yet there is no yelling talk or even any sorry talk between them. Winks grazes my chin gently with his knuckle. “I had a feeling you’d tell on me so I told your mother everything.”
Heels comes close and speaks stale wine into my face. “And so he should tell on you, shouldn’t you my little baby?” she pouts, pinching my chin and calling me her little baby again.
“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, love,” Winks says, kissing her temple.
“I’ll have to watch out for him, won’t I half-man?” she says to me with a faint burp. She topples slightly on her heels. She blows a jet of air out the corner of her mouth to try and get a loose hair strand out of her eyes. “You’re a better catch than I thought,” she smiles blearily to Winks. “I can attract glances too, you know.” She tugs on his tie and attempts a catwalk twirl but trips into his arms halfway through it. He hugs her with a tight jerk around her hips that tips her off balance. He pats her bottom. She lets out a yelp of pretend offence, so he pats her bottom again.
They walk hand in hand to the carpark in the centre of the course, him swinging his binoculars like a rubber walking-stick, her shoes spiking the ticker-tape of discarded betting slips. There’s Uncle Chicka bending down and shouting, his shirt melted on his skin with sweat. He has gathered a dozen punters in a circle around him to play two-up. He wears his doctor’s bag over his bull-nose belly, reaches into it for twenty-dollar notes. He smells them with a grand inhaling and slaps one down on the gravel like a challenge. Winks plays Snap with it with a twenty-dollar note of his own and yells out “Twenty the tails.” The circle-men free their arms from the arms of their wives or girlies and peel twenties and tens from their rolls, hold the money high in the air for all to see, then pat the money to the ground. Other men play Snap on it: “Fifty the heads,” they yell. “I’ll take you on.”
“Go the tails,” Heels barracks, handing me twenty dollars to bet for her so she doesn’t have to bend down and get unsteady. Uncle Chicka nods, acknowledging the bet as I Snap it into place in the dust. “How you going, Digger?” he says as he nods. He calls everyone Digger, even the women. “Man your position, Digger,” he winks to me and makes a clicking with his tongue. “Go on look-out for coppers.” I wink back, not sure if he really expects me to go on look-out, or if he’s playing up to the crowd to sharpen their thrill of doing something illegal like playing two-up. I expect it’s the latter and place my hand above my eyes like a visor, pretending to scour the landscape. “That’s the boy,” he belly-laughs. Other bellies and women’s breasts, including Heels’, join in.
“Oh he’s a good lookout all right,” she announces to everyone. “He’s been keeping an eye on his old man all day. I’ve had a full report thank you very much.”
Uncle Chicka places a twenty-cent coin with a yellow cross on it on his index finger, another crossed coin on his middle fingertip and calls out Come in spinner. He flicks the coins heavenward as if giving the world the fingers sign. The coins spin and tinkle across the pebbles. “Tails!”
THERE’S NO SUCH THING as punishment if you believe in God. There is forgiveness, a clean slate granted by God for repenting sins and believing in him. Yet Winks has not repented and his rubbing the girlies’ hollows has brought no punishment, no yelling-talk, no tears. Instead, all Heels goes on about is a new car. We’ve bought a new car, a maroon car, just like the Heritage Mercedes we used to have. When I see it I’m under orders to remark to her and Winks that “Oh yes, it looks exactly like the Mercedes,” because that’s how she is going to consider it, a bit of a Mercedes called a Torana. Who wants a real Mercedes anyway when they cost such a fortune and the money is better spent in the business department at the moment, and the apartment department? Not to mention the right sort of school for his nibs.
And look over there at the man they call Perce Galea. There’s no sign of repentance in him, and him an owner of Sydney’s illegal gambling dens, a briber of politicians and police so the papers hint and my uncles say, though my uncles mean it as flattery.
Saturday. Dawn. I’ve driven with Winks in the Torana- Mercedes to Randwick trackwork. Me to be near God’s athletes as they gallop invisibly out there in the half-dark past the blank, empty grandstands. Him to stand, hand on hips, with other men and their hands on hips, sportscoats parted as if presenting their stomachs like a badge for important, private speaking. In the centre of the course, the place wh
ere cars park on race-day and Uncle Chicka flicks his crossed coins, there’s a tin shed where trainers and owners lean out the windows and squint through binoculars into the grey-black morning. A caravan of horses circles the shed until the riders peel them off in ones, twos and threes and Tommy Smith orders them to “do three in thirty-six” or “six half pace, three evens” in the boy-jockey voice of an old racing man. He tilts from side to side, bandy-legged, when he walks and wears a suit, tie and panama hat because this racecourse is his office, he says. How else would you turn up for work in the morning in an office! For other trainers in their gumboots and jumpers and windcheaters this must be their farm, he cackles.
The word goes round: Perce Galea is coming. Here comes Perce Galea. Here’s Mr Galea, the sportsjacket men say. “Good morning, Mr Galea,” I say in the round of shaking hands. His black porkpie hat is tipped to one side on his head, his brown long-coat and suit coat are unbuttoned and billowing like a cloak. His tanned face is glittery with grey morning-stubble. This time of day, morning, is his evening. His dens are closed for this, his night. He’s on his way home to bed but first he wants to pat his racehorse, to shake hands with the sportjackets, to part his coats and point his belly and ask, “What’s the fucking story? Bit of a nip in the air.” He says fuck and cunt two or three times a sentence and says them loudly and nobody hushes him. Winks says, “He never swears in front of women. He’s a thorough gentleman in that regard.”
I take every opportunity to stand next to Mr Galea, to think “I’m standing next to a crime boss, I’m an important person now, someone not to be trifled with.” He tells me to piss off with a jerk of his head and a half-whistle, he wants to talk business with the sportsjackets. I don’t go away so he gives me five dollars and says, Scram. When I refuse to accept the five dollars he gives a half-whistle to Winks to come here and explain what the fuck’s wrong with his son who doesn’t accept five fucking dollars.
Hoi Polloi Page 9
