So why ask? he said, pouring himself another glass.
I dunno. Worried, I guess.
Right.
People respect you. I know you don’t feel it.
Stop.
And they’re curious about what you’ll do next. Both sides.
What is this, a bloody reconnaissance mission?
Sit down, she said. And don’t be a wanker.
I mean, shit mate.
Let me rephrase —
Don’t bother.
Sit down. Please. You’re embarrassing me. Everyone.
Keely flopped back to the chair. Chugged his wine. Refilled. Went again. And Harriet sighed. The sound was so familiar he could have wept.
Sorry.
Me too.
But I mean it. A lot of people wish you well.
It was wasted. All that time.
The reef? The karri forests? Are you serious?
Fuck it, anyway.
Like I said, they wish you well. Wish you were well.
I’m fine, he lied.
So. The Mirador.
It’s just a little flat, he murmured, noticing they’d almost finished the bottle already.
But it’s okay?
Come and see, he said. If you’re that curious.
Doris says you won’t even let her up there.
No.
What’s that about?
I don’t even know anymore.
So why ask me?
I’m not planning to jump, if that’s what you mean.
What?
Lure you up and jump. It wasn’t on the agenda. I’m all out of romance.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Nothing. Sorry.
Jesus, Tom.
Well, don’t just sit there looking guilty and buying me lunch. Say something interesting. Spice up my sad little life.
Try not to be a shit, will you?
Keely shrugged hopelessly and downed the last of the wine. He badly wanted to leave. To take her with him.
We should have had children, she said. I concede that.
Stop it.
I know that’s what this is about. I know it’s why you went like that. We were stupid, both of us.
No, just me.
Well, you were stupid and I was cruel.
I was shooting for cruelly stupid. Fell short, as usual.
I’m a ruined person, she said dully. I know it sounds melodramatic, but it’s how I feel, even on a good day.
You’re still young. You’ll recover.
Not that sense of who I was. No. I don’t think so.
What do you mean? How can you say that?
You know damn well how I can say it, she said, staring him down like he was a vexatious litigant. There’s just part of me I don’t believe in anymore.
Keely blinked. In recognition. It smarted.
You know, she said, I was proud, in a way. Proud to be me. I don’t think I was conceited. I think I had good reason to be proud and so did you. We always did what we said, acted from principle. Couldn’t be bought, felt like we were authentic.
Oh, that old crap.
Yes, that old crap.
Harriet, you’re still the same person.
No. It’s as if one betrayal unlocks others.
People screw up, mate. It’s normal.
So banal, though. The office romance.
Yes, banal. That’s what I thought. How banal.
Bad faith. It bends you out of shape.
Faith of any sort, I’d have thought.
Jesus, we shouldn’t be talking like this.
Don’t mean to harp on a costly theme here but —
Tom, I don’t want to hear about your forgiveness.
But what about forgiving yourself? You’re a good person. Good people do stupid things. Your entire life isn’t defined by one mistake.
And you’re trying to tell me that?
What I did was not a mistake, he said. It wasn’t wrong.
Just weird wrong. Crazy wrong. As if you didn’t understand defamation.
I understood perfectly.
Well, it wasn’t much of a martrydom, was it?
I’ve loved every minute. Look at me. Rejuvenated.
Still, she said bitterly. You did get to retain your status as the moral cleanskin.
Yeah. Feels great.
And you’ve heard about the CCC, I gather.
Fuck the CCC, he said, feeling the penny drop.
What? she said in false protest. It’s Tiny Town. Everyone knows already. Something’s finally happening.
Keely looked at her. Wished he could tell her what was really happening. But he knew he wouldn’t. He was a coward.
Sorry, she said. Didn’t mean to bring it up. I’m just —
You don’t have to be sorry. None of it matters. I forgive you.
Tom, we’ve covered this, she said briskly. In several fora.
Fora.
Stop it.
Keely saw what this was doing to her. She’d put herself in the same room as him and he was doing this to her.
Okay, he said, assembling himself with some effort. Let’s just eat.
Don’t you dare jump out the fucking window.
Listen —
You don’t have the right to punish me. You have no right.
Harriet. I promise you, I promise.
She looked at him directly and her eyes shone with tears.
Really, he said. I don’t want to punish you. And I promise. A Keely never breaks a promise.
Isn’t that the whole trouble? she said with a smile rendered ugly by pain.
Love you, he murmured.
Please!
Sorry.
God, you’re a strange man.
So I gather.
And loving doesn’t help. Believe me.
But he couldn’t. The evidence supported what she said. But that was one shred of faith he wouldn’t let go of. Love had to help something, somewhere, otherwise he would just go ahead and launch himself off a balcony.
They ate for a while in wounded silence. Keely noted the air of covert surveillance from the counter and the kitchen door and it heartened him to think anyone harboured hopes for them, however fanciful.
Keely was as thirsty as a motherfucker but he didn’t dare order any more wine.
You ever think of going back to teaching?
I couldn’t do it, he said. Even I’m not that worthy.
So what will you do? You must be skint. You look it.
He shrugged.
Do you need money?
No, he lied.
Will you tell me if you do?
He smiled and she snorted a friendly surrender.
Your arse isn’t big, he said.
Don’t lie – you’re no good at it.
Get the bike, he said. Buy it now, while you’re thinking of it. You’ll have fun. I’ll ride it up the river to your place, save you the delivery.
No, she said. No visits. Besides, I drove. Maybe I’ll put it in the boot.
You can’t drive after this much wine.
Well, Jesus really wanted you for a sunbeam, didn’t he?
I’m only saying.
And you’re right, you scruffy prick. I’ll get a cab.
They finished lunch. Harriet did not buy a bike. As her taxi pulled away he walked up to the barber on the next block and ordered a haircut and full shave. He fell asleep in the chair and woke to the news that he owed seventy dollars, which meant taking the bike lock back across the street for a refund.
II
Keely lingered a while in front of Cash Converters, scooting the bike back and forth beneath him, wondering what his laptop would fetch. By his calculations, unless he quickly got cash work or hocked something, he was a fortnight from destitution. It wasn’t just Keely pride that kept him from the dole but the certain knowledge the perversities of Centrelink would crush him; he was neither fit nor mad enough to endure the welfare system. Even if he did sign up he’d starve by
the time the first cheque finally appeared. Unless he stood in the street for soup and sandwiches with all the other lost souls. He couldn’t touch his superannuation for another decade. He could sell the flat but it would take weeks or months to find a buyer and settle and in the meantime he’d have nothing. He had to cash up fast or come to terms with the idea of living with his mother like an addled invalid. Selling the dinghy would help. But even that’d take a week or two. The time for action was now.
He twisted the handlebars of his reeking bike. At the corner, tattooed thugs were sending their women into the loan joint, and pacing the kerb, flexing their roid-pecs.
He peered into the hock-shop. The store was the size of a big whitegoods franchise, the front window stacked with guitars, golf bags, chainsaws, the legacy of other reversals. What a display it was, this cargo cult. The entire window an altar to defeat. Which sounded a tad grandiose, but there it was. Blame the plonk.
Catching his reflection in the glass he was surprised by how old and dazed he looked. Surprised to be so surprised, truth be told; what did he expect from a seventy-dollar haircut and a shave – to suddenly look invigorated, to have excavated his inner George Clooney? When you felt as abstracted from yourself as he did these days, why not feel strange in your own face? How hard his chin felt, how creepy-smooth his cheeks. And there in the window, plain evidence of where his sorrowful beard had been. So much fresh white skin, he looked as two-toned as Roy Rene or Michael Jackson. High up on his face, where the sun had been, he was dark, especially around the eyes. A veritable boobook owl. Which struck him as funny. Maybe not funny enough to warrant laughter, but there he was anyway, causing passers-by to give him a wide berth on the pavement: a piebald cyclist, chemically augmented, kneading his own chops in a pawnbroker’s window, indulging himself in his very own Knut Hamsun moment, chortling like a loon.
He shouldn’t have been back in there, amidst the boxes of goon, the racks of gleaming bottles; he’d spent money he could not afford to be blowing and he’d regret it, regretted it already, but he wanted something decent, had a little glow on from lunch, and the front window of Cash Converters had kicked him off a bit and he couldn’t settle.
He bought a couple of bin-end McLaren Vales that were crazy cheap, telling himself he’d saved twenty bucks on them, his luck was turning.
Keely had only been in a few hours before, securing the ransom cans, but now the bloke in the bottlo didn’t recognize him without the beard. It was disconcerting at first, but then it struck him as possibly advantageous in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on just yet.
Stepping back onto the street he was nearly mown down by a cyclist whose expression morphed from irritation to delight in a heartbeat.
Tom!
Keely jerked upright, like a man accused. Just stood there hugging those costly bargains to his chest. The youth’s face was distantly familiar but Keely couldn’t place him. He had a downy soul-patch and girlish arms and his flash mountain bike was laden with wholesome produce.
Damien, said the boy brightly.
Ah, said Keely. The helmet and sunnies, I didn’t …
Wetlands campaign, said the kid. And the mallee fowl thing, remember?
Yeah, of course, he said. You did good work, mate.
He knew the kid now and it was true. He was good value. Environmental science graduate with a real bird bent. Especially good on habitat loss. A straight shooter.
Your ideas, Tom. Your vision.
Didn’t they hate us, though.
Truly. But like you said: if the suits don’t hate you, you’ve wasted your time.
Well, jury’s still out on that.
Wasn’t it Gandhi saying first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they negotiate?
Something like that. Then you win. Apparently.
You’ve had a few wins over the years, Tom. Shouldn’t forget that.
They let you win the odd skirmish, comrade. To make it look as if the game’s fair. But the dogs bark, circus rolls on.
The youth offered a noncommittal grimace.
Who you with now? Keely asked.
The kid laughed skittishly.
Government?
Ah no, said the boy.
Keely didn’t need to be told what that meant. He’d had his wild years, this kid, his Gandhi-quoting period. If the iron giants hadn’t bought him it could only be oil and gas. These days they were co-opting them as undergrads, paying their tuition. Miners employed more ecologists, marine scientists and geology graduates than six governments. In order to smooth the way, before they literally scraped the place bare. All that harmless data owned and warehoused. It was brilliant.
Still, he said. Look at you, buying organic. Like a trouper.
It’s only for a while, said the boy, stung.
Keely saw young Damien eye the brown bags cradled in his arm. Here was his old boss, ravaged and unsteady outside the roughest liquor store in town. Quite a picture. But the youth, plainly the better man, was charitable enough to refrain from comment. Keely felt like a shit.
He offered up a lame smile.
I know, I know, said the kid. A while’s all we get.
You gotta stop quoting me, Keely replied, straining to relent, to show remorse.
Listen, I’m sorry to hear what happened.
Keely shrugged, graciously as he could.
You were right, you know. It’s all coming out.
We’ll see.
They were nuts to let you go.
I was probably nuts when they did.
Well, good luck to you anyway.
Maybe you could put in a good word at Woodside.
Mate, said the kid, missing the joke entirely, they’d snap you up.
He gave the boy the bravest smile he could manage and watched him wheel his righteous vegetables through the canyon of junk shops and manicure joints until he was gone at the corner. It was Wednesday – a day off, no doubt. He imagined the neat little cottage Damien was headed for, the sleek girl coming home to him tonight, the couscous he’d have waiting on the scrubbed-pine table. It was beautiful.
Enough to make you want to drink yourself a new arsehole.
* * *
He’d hardly made a dent on the second bottle when Kai appeared at the door, toting his schoolbag. For a moment the kid rocked on his heels as if he’d peered into the wrong flat. The look of alarm on his face was unmistakeable.
It’s me, said Keely. I shaved my beard off, that’s all.
But the kid was gone, his footfalls chiming in the rails of the gallery.
What was that about? said Gemma, suddenly filling the doorway. Christ, look at you.
He doesn’t approve.
Of what – the haircut, or the fact you’re pissed as a squirrel?
Why should he object?
You’re a bloody idiot.
What, leaving the door open to the likes of you? Obviously an error of judgement. For which I need not seek forgiveness. But which I seek all the same.
Get stuffed. The five-dollar words, they don’t make you sound any smarter.
Duly noted.
Christ, what a disappointment you are.
Refresh my memory, Gem. Did we get married at some juncture?
Juncture.
Is there some claim you have, something I signed that gives you the right to stand in my door and wave the nana finger at me? Maybe I nodded off during the ceremony.
Go fuck yourself.
I suspect. This evening. It may come to that. But I am. You might say. A dab hand already.
What is it with you?
I had my bike stolen.
Don’t you dare come over tonight.
Here, he said, reefing her key from around his neck so hard he feared he might have sliced his own ears off. Gemma didn’t even flinch as it bounced off the insect screen.
Pissweak, she muttered, giving him a parting stare he felt in the pit of his guts.
Correct, he said to the empty doorway once she wa
s safely gone. He thought of the last great stand of tuart trees bulldozed and trucked away. Ripped earth as far as the eye could see, and homeless birds, black and wheeling. Cheap work. A Chinese construction deal cost millions in bribes. But here you could buy a new suburb for seventy thousand bucks. Small beans. Price of a Prado for a western-suburbs soccer mum. While she’s waiting on the Audi. Small fucking beans. And still too big for the likes of him.
* * *
A few hours later she was there again in the doorway. Kitted out for work, bearing a foil-covered plate.
And another thing, he said, trying to be funny.
I’m off, she said. Chrissake eat something.
Is this the heart of gold shining through?
Be buggered, she spat. I need you tomorrow. Whatever’s left of you.
Well, you’re not fussy, I’ll give you that. Couldn’t you find some poor prick in the street? Offer him an inducement?
Just shut up before I clout you.
Your sister did once. More than once, actually.
And that’s not all, I bet.
Nothing else. She never offered me anything but a thick ear.
And I’ll bet she had her reasons.
Doubtless she did.
Fuckin slag.
Fair go, he said blearily. She was just a girl. Tryna find her way.
Lookin out for herself. Never bothered much to protect me.
There was nothing Keely could say to this. It felt dangerous to proceed. He was too far gone. And the smell of food was making him queasy.
Kai alright?
He’s fine.
Done his homework?
He’s six.
Oh. Right.
In her pale-blue smock, her hair scraped back in a ponytail, Gemma looked like a faded, beaten-down schoolgirl. Sensible shoes, support hose. He was a little bit in love with her.
I didn’t mean to scare him, he said abjectly.
You won’t forget tomorrow?
All yours.
Two o’clock, orright?
Right you are.
Your teeth are all black.
I’ll brush before two.
What happened to you, Tommy?
My wife had an abortion.
What?
I couldn’t handle it.
Well, shit.
And it wasn’t my baby anyway.
You kicked her out?
No, he said with a laugh that burnt like acid reflux. She asked me to leave.
What the fuck?