Floodtide

by Judy Nunn

  'You have a life to live as well,' Olga said. 'Surely he must understand that.'

  'I'm not sure if he does really. Dad lives for his work. He always has.'

  'And he expects you to do the same?'

  'Possibly.' Allie considered the matter for a moment or so. 'Yes, probably deep down, he does,' she said. Then she smiled. 'But I don't mind. I only hope I can live up to his expectations. Dad's my inspiration.'

  In his daughter's eyes, Mike McAllister's pedestal remained firmly intact: unblemished and without the merest hint of even a hairline fracture.

  *

  Muzza enjoyed Pembo's party, although he hadn't expected to. He wheeled himself through the side gates of the Peppermint Grove house into the garden with its fairy lights and fountains, accepting a beer from the tray of one of the several waiters. A string quartet was playing and a food marquee had been erected, and he was reminded of Pembo's twenty-first birthday. Except he hadn't been in a wheelchair then, had he? And he hadn't had Olga by his side. He smiled up at her. There was not one shred of bitterness left in Murray Hatfield.

  He'd been reticent at first about accepting the invitation, but he'd knocked Pembo back so many times that he was starting to feel guilty. He was glad he'd come now. It was good to be together, he thought as he looked at the old gang. He'd taken himself off for 'a stroll around the garden' as he liked to put it, and he now sat quietly in a corner of the rockery watching the guests mingle. There must have been forty or so, and the numbers were burgeoning as yet more arrived. Many he knew, some from as far back as his uni days, and many he'd never seen before, but his eyes kept straying to the old gang.

  Spud, holding hands with his effervescent child bride – God, Cora must be over thirty by now, Muzza thought, but exotic, doll-like, she still looked nineteen. And Allie – well, of course Allie was the true beauty. He watched her throw back her head and heard her laugh that gutsy, un-inhibited laugh of hers. He'd like to paint Allie. She'd brought her boyfriend along – he'd chatted to Greg briefly, a nice young man, vaguely reminiscent, Muzza had thought, of a shorter, less handsome version of the young Mike McAllister. As the two of them shared whatever the joke had been with Gordy and Fleur, the Pemberton twins, he saw Greg put his arm around Allie, and his eyes darted to where Mike stood near the pool in conversation with Jo and Pembo and two other couples. Sure enough, Mike was glowering at his daughter's boyfriend. Muzza grinned. Poor old Mike, he thought. He didn't realise that Allie could have chosen a great deal worse. Greg was nowhere near as dangerous to women as Mike had been in his youth.

  'Are you hiding?'

  Olga had crept up behind him and he jumped, startled by her sudden appearance.

  She laughed. 'Come on,' she said, 'time to mingle.'

  'Rightio.'

  They joined Mike and Jo and Pembo.

  'There you are, Muz, I wondered where you'd got to.' Ian Pemberton greeted him heartily, then introduced Muzza and Olga to the university chancellor and the commodore of the Cockburn Yacht Club and their wives. He called over two waiters, drinks were topped up and canapés passed around, and they were all enjoying each other's company when Arlene suddenly swooped upon them.

  'Come along, everyone,' she said gaily with a clap of her hands, oblivious to the fact that she'd just ruined the commodore's punch line. 'Time to see the renovations.'

  Arlene had been marshalling people for the past hour and trooping them upstairs in groups to show off the new third floor they'd added to the house. 'Upstairs, please.' She attempted to shoo them all before her as if they were sheep, but no-one made a move. Then she noticed Muzza in his wheelchair. 'Oh,' she said, looking him up and down as if he were some terrible inconvenience.

  There was a moment's awkward silence which Arlene found annoying. Why were they staring at her as if she'd done something wrong? Even Ian seemed embarrassed. She couldn't help it if Muzza was a cripple.

  But Muz grinned his disarmingly baby-faced grin, quickly putting them all at ease.

  'For God's sake, don't mind me,' he said.

  'Of course we won't,' Olga chimed in. 'You stay down here and mingle, darling, we won't be long.' And she herself led the way to the house. Didn't Arlene realise, she thought, that the wheelchair was not a factor at all. It was Arlene's manner, or rather her lack of manners, which had created the moment.

  Ian, who was playing no part in his wife's guided tours, watched as they obediently trooped off. 'Sorry, Muz,' he said.

  'What for? Come on, let's have a beer with Spud.'

  Muzza spent a pleasant fifteen minutes with Spud and Cora and Ian while Olga and the others endured Arlene's mandatory guided tour with its running commentary.

  'There was a bit of a to-do with the neighbours when we put the plans in,' Arlene said as they trudged upstairs. A bit of a to-do, she thought, heavens above, they'd come out of the woodwork screaming. 'But fortunately Ian has friends in high places.' She led them through the sitting room and out onto the huge upper balcony. 'And it was certainly worth the fight,' she said triumphantly. 'Just look at that for a view.'

  Yes, Olga thought, at the expense of everyone else's.

  'Well, you can't really see much at the moment,' Arlene added apologetically as they gazed across Freshwater Bay to the dots of lights on the other side of the river. 'But during the day it's absolutely magnificent.'

  They were shown the new master bedroom and its en suite with the latest in massive spa baths.

  'Fleur has the original master bedroom and en suite on the second floor now,' Arlene said with a proud mother's laugh. 'A sixteen-year-old girl needs her own bathroom, don't you agree?'

  No-one really did, but the chancellor's wife, a very polite woman, made some murmur as if she might.

  Arlene wasn't particularly satisfied with this group, they weren't as appreciative as the last, so she sped through the rest of the tour: her dressing room, her study and the library which housed her personal favourite artworks.

  'The top floor is very much my space,' she said as she led the way downstairs, eager to round up the next lot.

  'What was it like?' Muzza murmured when Olga had joined him and they'd left the others to have a quiet chat on their own.

  'Indulgent,' she said.

  'They've ruined the look of the place from the outside.' He gazed up at the bald silhouette of the upper floor. 'It was quite a gracious home, I remember. Oh well,' he shrugged, 'each to his own. Let's go and eat.'

  And they joined the commodore and the chancellor and their wives who'd headed for the buffet in the food marquee.

  The tone of the party changed an hour or so later with the arrival of the Premier and his entourage of around a dozen, including a very loud Laurie Connell. It was evident that all of them had had a few drinks. By now it was well after ten o'clock, but Arlene, who would have considered such tardiness in others unbelievably rude, was quick to accept their perfunctory apology. They'd had a business meeting and couldn't get away earlier, they said.

  'Of course,' she replied, 'I quite understand. How lovely to see you all.' Having the Premier at her soirees was always a coup, and she'd been worried for the past hour that Brian Burke and his friends weren't going to show up. 'Do help yourselves to the buffet, you must be starving.'

  They weren't – their business meeting had been conducted over dinner – but with drinks in hand, and a waiter standing by at the ready, they ensconced themselves in the pool area where they were quickly joined by others, including Spud and Pembo. This was the clique. This was where the hard-core drinking and the hard-core conversation would take place as the night wore on.

  The string quartet that had welcomed the guests' arrival had long been replaced by stereo music piped from the house through the garden's speakers, and Gordy had turned up the volume on Madonna. He, Fleur and several of the other younger guests were dancing to 'Papa Don't Preach' on the back verandah.

  Things were getting progressively noisier, and there was a minor exodus shortly after eleven. The commodore
and the chancellor and their wives departed, along with a number of others. Muzza and Olga also decided to leave, and they said their farewells to Mike and Jo before seeking out Arlene.

  'Yes, we're taking off too,' Mike said. He glanced towards the verandah where Allie and Greg, along with half a dozen others, were throwing themselves around to 'True Blue'. Gordy, who'd retained control of the music, was a Madonna freak. 'Allie's staying on for a while.'

  'Well, of course she is,' Jo said lightly to the others. 'It's a Saturday night, no uni tomorrow, and she's having a wonderful time.'

  Mike was impossible lately, she thought, as the four of them went off in search of their hostess. He'd actually expected Allie to come home with them.

  'No, Mike,' she'd said when he'd been about to interrupt the couple on the verandah. 'Allie arrived with her boyfriend and she'll leave with her boyfriend. Don't humiliate her, she's not a ten year old.'

  'Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm sorry,' he'd said brusquely, knowing she was right but irritated nonetheless.

  Jo was beginning to feel like the ham in the sandwich when it came to her husband and daughter. She was tired of the subterfuge; it was causing tension between her and Mike. She wished that Allie would admit to her affair, and that Mike would let his daughter grow up, but they both seemed reluctant to upset the status quo. They'd shared a world of their own, father and daughter, each idolising the other – in fact, she sometimes wondered just who was the greater hero to whom. But Allie was a woman now; times had changed.

  'Thank you so much for coming, the party wouldn't have been the same without you.' Arlene was vociferous in her farewell to them, ignoring the elderly couple who'd been waiting to say goodbye. 'Ian's closest and dearest friends, he would have been devastated if you hadn't been here.'

  Considering they'd seen neither hair nor hide of Ian since the arrival of the Premier's entourage, they doubted whether they would have been missed, but they all smiled and thanked her for a lovely night.

  Arlene brushed cheeks lightly with each and every one. 'And Muzza,' she said, clasping his hand with fervour as she bent down to him, 'it's so lovely to see you out and about.'

  'Thanks, Arlene, great party.'

  The four managed to contain themselves for the several seconds it took Arlene to direct her attention to the elderly couple still patiently waiting, but when Muzza looked up at Olga and crossed his eyes, her stifled snort of laughter got them all going.

  As they made their way along the path towards the side gate, Muzza and Mike cast a glance at the poolside area, prepared to give Pembo a wave, but there was no point. Amongst the plumes of spiralling cigar smoke, both Pembo and Spud were in deep debate with the company of twenty or so, most vying to be heard, the conversation already threatening to drown out Madonna.

  'Yep,' Muzza grinned, 'the party sure wouldn't have been the same without us.'

  By three in the morning, the mob still gathered around the pool was decidedly drunk, with the exception of Spud. He was a little bleary, but comparatively sober, having stayed on beer while the others had got stuck into the cognac and port. Everyone was pouring their own now from the bottles Ian had ordered the waiters to leave on the tables when they'd knocked off an hour previously.

  Spud stubbed out his cigar in the overflowing ashtray. He'd leave soon, he decided, he'd had a good time and the evening had served its purpose. He and Pembo had had a very productive chat with Brian Burke, and another healthy injection of government funding had been promised to the McAllister Institute. But Pembo was now legless and the conversation had come full circle. They were all drunkenly back on the Cup and how the loss of it was bound to destroy some businesses. Well, fair enough, Spud supposed – it was a commiseration party after all – but the company had become boring, he thought, as he watched Laurie Connell holding the floor, the way Laurie always did.

  'It's a dog-eat-dog world,' Laurie was saying, enjoying the sound of his own voice. 'You've got to fight your way back when times get hard – you can't take things lying down. Those who go under just don't have the guts . . .'

  Laurie was a loudmouth in Spud's opinion.

  Spud Farrell didn't much like Laurie Connell, which was odd because they had a lot in common. Both were pugnacious, self-made men, highly successful entrepreneurs who employed aggressive business tactics, and both were devoted horse-racing enthusiasts. Some presumed there was an element of jealousy in Spud – Laurie's horses had met with far more success than his had. Indeed, little more than a month previously Connell's Rocket Racer had taken out the Perth Cup. Spud Farrell had been bridesmaid many times, but he'd never won the coveted Perth Cup. And he never would, Spud had decided, if it meant he had to employ Connell's methods. Rocket Racer had come in a full nine lengths ahead of the field and then galloped another whole lap before the jockey had been able to pull the animal up. It had collapsed and died several weeks later, but the whole business had never been investigated. Spud cared too much for his horses to do that to them. Sure, he bribed jockeys whenever he could, but he'd never doped a horse and he never would.

  'You need more than guts, Laurie.' Bram Midford had taken offence to Connell's comments and he interrupted, slurring his words but determined to make his point. He was sick of the man's empty bravura. Bram had put a lot of money into outlets reliant upon the tourist dollar, and the loss of the Cup could see them all go down the tube. 'You need more than guts in my fucking business. You need fucking tourists, mate! That's what you need!'

  'Well, I guess you'll have to weather the storm, won't you, Bram?' Laurie said condescendingly. 'You'll have to weather the storm and see it through, just like the rest of us.'

  Oh yeah, Spud thought, and exactly what storm will you be weathering, Laurie? Your bank'll be the first port of call for businesses needing to buy time.

  Laurie Connell was a smart bastard, Spud had to give him that much. Rothwells Merchant Bank was known in business circles as a lender of last resort, and as such Laurie was bound to make a tidy profit out of the tourism slump that threatened. Rothwells would fork money out hand over fist to desperate businesses 'weathering the storm' as Laurie so succinctly put it, and they'd quickly foreclose on those who couldn't pay back. That was the way Laurie worked. As a businessman, Spud had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that he admired Connell's tactics.

  'There may well be hard times ahead for all of us,' Laurie continued, still at his bravura best, still determined to maintain centre stage.

  But Spud had had enough of the bullshit. It was time to go. He stood.

  'Oh Laurie, you poor bugger,' he said with feeling. 'Face it, mate, things just couldn't get worse for you, could they?'

  Someone had to take the piss out of the bastard.

  Spud's irony proved incorrect, however. Things did get worse for Laurie. They got a whole lot worse for everyone, but particularly for Laurie Connell.

  The brief slump in tourism following the loss of the America's Cup was a drop in the ocean compared with the economic chaos wrought by the stock market crash in October of that year. Many major businesses based in Perth found themselves in difficulties, and many would ultimately face bankruptcy, but Rothwells Merchant Bank was the most instantly affected. There was an immediate run on the bank by local investors and Rothwells was forced to close its doors. Laurie Connell was the first of the major players to go under – or so it appeared at the time.

  Spud Farrell and Ian Pemberton wasted no sympathy on Connell; they had their own problems to worry about. Excalibur Holdings was in dire trouble and possibly beyond rescue, but of far greater consequence, the entire Farrell Corporation threatened to topple like a house of cards. Ian, as always, was in a frenzy of panic.

  'Jesus, Pembo, give it a rest.' Spud, feeling the strain himself, found Ian's hysteria intensely annoying. 'If we go down the tube you're hardly likely to lose the roof over your head, are you? Neither of us is going to end up broke, for Christ's sake.'

  For tax reasons, Ian had transferred much of his property to
his wife, including the Peppermint Grove house, and he'd set up offshore trust accounts in his children's names. Spud, too, had transferred a great deal of his personal wealth to Cora, also in the form of offshore trusts. When they'd married, he'd insisted she take out Australian citizenship for the very purpose.