Cairo (9 page)

‘Nick was nice.'

‘Nice? Who the hell wants to be nice, for God's sake?'

‘They're doing very well, as a matter of fact. They're going on
Countdown
later this year.'

‘Well, I doubt the Smiling Anarchists —'

‘Assassins.'

‘— will be remembered in one hundred years' time. You, on the other hand, will be known throughout the world. You'll thank me, you will. And our children and our grandchildren will be so proud.'

There was an awkward lull, in which I heard the growl and spit of one of the candles guttering in its candelabra stem. I detected a shift in the night air, before Sally reached over and grasped his hand. ‘I know that, Max. I do.'

After dessert and coffee, Max suggested we go on to a nearby cafe to play pool. Although it was approaching midnight, this sounded a splendid idea. I, for one, was eager for the party to continue, lest such a fragile balance of company and mood never again be achieved. It was, in any case, much too humid to sleep.

James, however, was reluctant. ‘I don't know, Max. I can't be bothered walking down there, to be honest.'

Max was appalled. ‘Oh, come on! It's only fifteen minutes at a brisk clip. It's closer than your place.'

‘Then I might sleep right here under the stars.'

‘But, James,' Sally interjected, ‘you know you're always welcome to sleep on our couch. It's comfortable.'

Max refused to be dissuaded from his quest. ‘Come on, James. The air will be good for us. It's a beautiful evening. A post-prandial
stroll, eh? Let's call Edward and Gertrude.'

‘Don't bother,' Sally said. ‘They're staying home to watch the space shuttle lifting off. You know what they're like. They've been waiting for days for this.'

I cleared my throat. ‘I have a car. Perhaps we could drive?'

All three of them looked at me as if I'd uttered something scandalous, and I feared I had undone my evening's efforts to ingratiate myself into their good books.

Max was the first to speak. ‘You can drive?'

‘Yes. I have my aunt's old Mercedes.' I'd had it serviced the week before.

Max slapped the table with his palm. ‘That settles it. Let's go. You have no excuse now, James.'

We lurched into action. Ignoring Max's protests to leave the tidying up for tomorrow, we set about clearing away some of the dishes, negotiating the ill-lit outside stairs with armloads bound for Max and Sally's cluttered kitchen.

Going up and down the stairs took some time, and after one such trip, while hunting around in their kitchen for a tea towel with which to dry my hands, I noticed large spots of what looked like blood on the wooden floor. I crouched to investigate. The stains were unmistakable. Now alert to their shape and hue, I saw that the sink and bench were also stained with droplets of fresh blood. On the fridge door, too, another smear.

As James had returned to the roof and I was alone, I followed the drops. The bloodstains formed an erratic trail that led from the kitchen, along the entrance hall, and continued through the lounge room, where they became difficult to see against the swirling Persian carpets.

I hesitated — perplexed, intrigued — at the short hall that led into the other part of the apartment, the portion that had been a separate abode. The hallway was dim. A door to one side was
presumably for the bathroom; and another at the end, closed, probably Max and Sally's bedroom. A hat stand tilted like a drunken scarecrow, laden with coats and scarves and hats. A stack of phone books, a telephone. The fan blew at my back, creaking with each slow oscillation.

Then the bedroom door opened, and Sally shuffled out towards me with one hand clasped to her face, shoulders hunched, as if in grief. She was unaware of my presence until she stopped to turn into the bathroom, whereupon she removed her hand, revealing the lower half of her face to be black with shining blood. Blood, too, on her dress. I gasped. Coolly, she glanced at me before entering the bathroom without a further gesture or word, closing the door hard behind her.

I stood there, struck dumb. A second later, Max came out of the bedroom. He was dishevelled and stared at me as if unable to recall who I was. Eventually, a dim light of recognition flickered in his eyes, and he approached, tucking in his shirt.

‘Ah. Sally has one of her blood noses and won't be able to come out with us, I'm afraid. But let's go, shall we?'

‘Is she alright?'

‘What? Yes. Perfectly. Gets them all the time. Now, where's that other man? Where's James?'

ONCE MAX HAD REASSURED JAMES AND ME AGAIN THAT THERE
was nothing wrong with Sally, we staggered downstairs to find the Mercedes and set off. The fact that I was, by this time, quite drunk was not considered an impediment to driving. Max and James were so awe-struck by my ability to manage a car that, after a few whispered concerns (‘What on earth is he doing now?'), each of them sat as riveted as they might have done upon witnessing the voodoo rituals of Caribbean savages.

As it turned out, the cafe in question was only a few blocks away, and it would have taken us less than ten minutes to walk there. El Nidos was a Spanish cafe on Johnston Street with plastic tables and lugubrious, unshaven bar staff who looked as though they had been on duty for some months without a break. Although it was late on a Sunday night, the place was buzzing with couples both young and old — Spaniards from the local nightclub as well as students eager to keep carousing after the pubs closed. At the front was a bar that served coffee and pastries, while the rear section was reserved for half-a-dozen pool tables of varying quality and size.

Mournful Spanish guitar music played in the background. James joined a table of older men playing a card game that involved
much gesticulating and slapping down of cards. Max bought me a specialty of the house — a Sol y Sombra, brandy and anise — which was mixed below the counter and served in short coffee tumblers.

Max and I played pool, forming a rather formidable duo that beat all comers. One of the benefits of growing up in a country town was the access it had afforded me to hotel bars equipped with pool tables. I was an accomplished player. Max flirted with a ridiculously gorgeous, black-eyed Spanish girl at a neighbouring table until her brother or boyfriend threatened him, a rebuff that Max accepted with good humour. We played pool for money and won twenty-five dollars, more than enough to cover our expenses for the night. It must have been two a.m. by the time we had seen off all competitors and sat down to divide the spoils. My lips were numb from the liquor, and I kneaded them with my fingers to coax some feeling back into them.

Max motioned for me to come closer. ‘You know that night?'

‘What night?'

‘Last week. When you overheard Edward and me talking outside your apartment.'

‘Oh. Yes.'

‘What else did we talk about aside from that painting? What did you hear?'

The swerve in conversation took me by surprise. Our table was littered with dirty glasses and cigarette ash. The only people left in El Nidos were a group of long-haired drinkers on the far side who, at that moment, burst into uproarious laughter. A pinball machine in the corner bleeped. With effort, I thought back to their conversation of the week before, of what Edward had said.
This isn't just some old Norman Lindsay painting of ladies with big tits sitting in a river. This is the towering genius of the century
.

It was late and I was drunk, but I was conscious of what to
reveal and what to keep hidden; secrets had value and it was wise not to spend them unnecessarily.

‘That's all you talked about, as far as I heard.'

‘You're a discreet chap?'

I shrugged. ‘I think so.'

‘I see.' Max slung back the last of his drink and crossed and re-crossed his legs. He patted his shirt pocket for cigarettes, extracted one with his teeth and shook out another for me.

When we had lit up, he beckoned me closer. ‘You're a good guy, Tom Button. Wise, et cetera. I knew as soon as I saw you that first time. In fact, I remember saying as much to Edward.' He sat back and drew on his cigarette, keeping his eyes sidelong on me, as if weighing up a serious matter.

Finally, he checked to see no one was in earshot and leaned across to me once more. ‘Tom.'

‘Yes.'

‘How would you like to make some money?' He brandished the twenty-five dollars we had won at pool. ‘Real money. Not like this.'

I nodded. Who wouldn't want to make some money? I had passed my probationary shift and had started working part-time at Restaurant Monet, but the job only paid eight dollars per hour — enough to support me, but not much else. If it weren't for the fact I was living rent-free, it was doubtful I could afford to live in the city at all.

‘Afterwards we're going to Paris. All of us. We've been planning it for ages. There's a place in the south of France called Saint something or other — mind you, they're all called Saint something or other. A house big enough for everyone. Sally and I. We'll take James, even though he's being difficult about the whole thing. You could come with us, write your great novel. There are markets and castles, fields of lavender. All those French milkmaids. We're
getting off this island. You can't make anything great in this country. Imagine it.
Koo Wee Rup Revisited, Breakfast at Dimmeys, The Wagga Symphony?
No one allows melancholy to take root here, and you cannot make great art without melancholy. It's as simple as that.

‘You know, in 1942 Shostakovich composed his seventh symphony; the
Leningrad
, as it's now known. This was during the war and three members of the orchestra who were meant to play died of
starvation
before the premiere.' He shook his head in disgust. ‘All the good people leave. This country is large and spectacular, but it's completely and utterly dumb. Beaches and bimbos. Here they worship cricket players and jockeys. And criminals. Which is often the same thing.'

Although I had no idea what he was talking about, it sounded glorious. I thought of David Blake back in Dunley and felt victorious, the sweetness only dampened by the fact that he was unaware of what I was doing. If only he could see me now.

Just then, James leaned across the table between Max and me. ‘I think that's enough,' he said.

To whom James had addressed this warning (for it did sound like a warning) was unclear, but Max sat back and scowled up at him. His eyes contracted into surly slits. ‘
Que?
'

‘I think we should leave now,' James said.

‘Been propositioning the wrong man out the back again, James? These Spaniards, you know …'

James flinched before composing himself. He played with the sleeves of his black velvet jacket, tugging them over his wrists in a manner I soon learned was habitual.

‘Come now, James. I've been telling Tom here about the delights of Paris.'

James opened his mouth to speak, before glancing at me and reconsidering. ‘It's late, Max.'

‘Run along, then.'

Again James paused, evidently reluctant to leave us alone, before addressing me. ‘Bye, Tom. It was nice to meet you.' And then, to Max: ‘Be sensible, won't you? No need to involve young Tom here in all of your mad schemes.'

We watched him leave. A waiter drifted past us like a sad-mouthed groper, stopping long enough to clear our table. We lapsed into scrutiny of the last of the pool players.

Max stood and brushed crumbs from his trousers. ‘OK. Let's press on. I think breakfast will soon be in order, eh?'

Following Max's instructions, I drove back along Smith Street, several blocks away. He gripped my arm. ‘Slowly, slowly. You're a very good driver, yes. Really very good. Here. Stop! OK. Keep the car idling. You can be my getaway driver.'

Max leaped from the car and riffled among delivery boxes in the doorway of a health-food store. He returned a minute later with a cardboard box of fruit. I checked the rear-view mirror as we pulled out again, half expecting to see some irate store owner pursuing us, but there was no one else about at that time of the morning.

This process was repeated two more times in the neighbourhood — we stopped outside a milk bar for some newspapers, and next I waited in the car while Max dashed into Chalky's, the all-night liquor store on Lygon Street, and re-emerged with a bottle of vodka and three packets of salt and vinegar chips under his coat. It made me uneasy. Like any bored small-town boy, I had indulged in a spot of petty crime — letting down car tyres, carving my name into the back of bus seats, swiping Choo Choo Bars from the local shop — but I was basically very law-abiding.

‘It's terribly bad form to show up at someone's place empty-handed,' Max said, as if attempting to appease my unspoken
misgivings. ‘Hence the little … heists. Keep going this way. Turn right here, please.'

He declined to reveal where we were going but directed me to the adjacent suburb of Carlton. We cruised along ever narrower, ever darker streets and alleyways until we pulled up in an empty lot hemmed in by abandoned warehouses. Weeds sprouted through fissures in the concrete. The ground sparkled with broken glass. I cut the engine.

‘Here we are. There's some people I want you to meet,' Max said. ‘Edward Degraves is a well-known painter around town. His work sells, whenever he can get organised to have a show.'

Still pondering the thefts, I didn't bother to mention that I had already met Edward.

‘Did you steal all that stuff?' I asked. My question sounded more prim than I had intended.

He punched the car lighter. ‘Well, yes,
technically
, I suppose I did steal this stuff. But try to think of it more like the redistribution of goods. How else are we to have breakfast? You know, I've been learning French lately. They have a word,
magouiller
. It means circumventing the law but not breaking it. Smart people, you know.'