The Beat (4 page)

“I want Ronnie,” he said.

“I want Ronnie, he would understand.”

When Gerry got to work on Monday, Sue was already ensconced at her desk. He noted she had signed on at eight. She was reading a magazine but slid it into her drawer when she saw him coming. He’d caught sight of it though, another copy of Bride. Sometimes he despaired of the girl. With this new affirmative action plan, in a few months his job could have been hers. It had taken him years to get there. Instead of taking advantage of the scheme, she had to be watched all the time. He just couldn’t get through to her. All her thoughts were on the wedding; she was too busy to think about her job. Her quotas were a mess and he always had to help her out at the end of the day. She was, of course, always happy to do overtime to catch up. With the cost of the wedding it was almost essential to her; but it shouldn’t be necessary, that was the point. Gerry always tried to be patient to preserve a good working relationship because in the past people had made it so hard for him when he first started. Seeing her today with the magazine was nearly too much. He suppressed the feeling of nausea that rose from his stomach. The prospect of confrontation on today of all days. He was apprehensive about the incident with the boy. He had scanned every paper in sight for some news. The late news Saturday had played it down. By this morning there had been an appeal to the public for information. Gerry was now worried precisely because he had that information. In addition there was his concern about Robert. Then this morning there was Sue calmly reading Bride for her own rosy future and placing him in a position of having to admonish her. It was all so petty in comparison. He wanted to point at the half-hidden magazine and shout like a small boy:

“I saw.” She would have been quite lost if he had. Instead he went for a more calm approach.

“Found the dress yet?” he asked, placing his bag on his desk. It sounded a little bitchy to him but she didn’s seem to notice. She smiled happily and replied, “No. It’s so hard. I know what I want but I can’t explain it to anyone.”

“It’s hard,” he said, nodding his understanding and sitting down. A pile of Friday’s chits and the chart sat there waiting for him. Bookings were getting dangerously full for the school-holiday period and it was about time to place a countdown on the agents. He’d do it himself. He always ended up taking so much on himself, trying to prove his worth. She was saying, “I want a tight bodice and a really full skirt.” She was dragging the magazine back out of her desk: “I’ll show you. It’s nice the way you’re interested, most men aren’t. Oh Steve is, but then it’s his wedding.” He tried to show his disinterest tactfully by organizing his desk to start work. When had he last been to a wedding? Weddings were just part of the world he was precluded from. Just a ritualistic handing over of a woman from one man to another.

“Who gives this woman?”

“I do.” It said it all. He’d have thought women would have wanted to reject it most.

“I like this, only I don’t like the neckline and I want real lace.” He glanced politely at the picture she held up.

“Fifties Edith Head,” he mumbled. She looked blank, then said, “It’s about $700”, as if that in some way justified the choice. “I’ll have it made. It’s better that way.”

“You’re going to spend $700 on a wedding dress?” he asked.

“They’re all about that price. It’s a very expensive business getting married.”

“So it would seem.” It really was time to get started on the work piled before them and he didn’t want to resort to upsetting her.

“Not being married you probably wouldn’t know,” she retorted. He wasn’t sure if the malice was intended. Sometimes he thought her brain quite dull, sometimes slyly percep-tive.

“You’ll get it all back in wedding presents,” he replied. “Now hadn’t we better start work, dear? I’ve still got to sort out that 7.45 you took on Thursday — such a pity we don’t go to Warrambool at that time.” She was quiet and he felt he had been lousy. It hadn’t been necessary to call her dear. It was just that her mind was never on her work these days. Some of her mistakes were awful to sort out. Pauline, from counter bookings, would hang, draw and quarter any of her crew that took such things. He started to work through the chits in silence. His mind flew back. They had released the boy’s name but nothing more. He was only a boy, twenty, the same age as Sue’s fiance in fact. In the darkness he had seemed older. He shut off and worked. Only the last minute telephone chits to do and he was up to date. Back with Friday night. A dark figure slumping helpless to the ground. He didn’t regret it. He felt no remorse. It was just having to keep quiet about it that played on his mind. Like everything else of his private life, at work it must remain private. Repressed into secrecy for twenty years now — or was it more? It was a way of life. His stomach wrenched in his desire to get out.

“I want Steve to wear a dinner suit.” She had stopped work. “It will look better with my dress. Chesters have some new double-breasted ones.” It was no good, the wedding must take sway. Involun-tarily he replied, “Don’t you think Steve is a bit short for a double-breaster?” He had stopped himself saying “thick”. Gerry thought of Steve as a stocky little guy, the sort who was only at home in the most casual clothes. She mused the idea; then: “But it will look so good against my dress.” He put down his pen. “You haven’t chosen your dress yet.” She fought back: “But I know what I want.” The same hint of malice was there.

“Let’s do some work, shall we?” he said. She slammed the magazine back into the drawer and noisily thumbed through Friday’s sheets.

“I started at eight,” she said, “so I’m leaving at four.” She continued to rattle her way through her papers. If only his problems had been dinner suits. He was dying for morning tea to see if anyone had a later edition of the paper. Bugger! They had overbooked the 10.30 for the eighth. Another series of phone calls he’d have to make, reeking of apologies and humiliation, all for someone else’s error. He looked over to Sue. She was obviously bogged down with her load. It was nearly nine and the rush would start soon.

“Give those to me,” he said, “I’ll clear them so you can be ready for the calls.”

“Thanks,” she said. He wasn’t that bad really. Just a bit of an old woman when it came to being up to date. Living alone often seemed to make men fussy, she thought. It must be not having a wife to look after you. Come ten o’clock, she declined going to tea before him. One of them had to stay and answer the phones. He guessed she had a series of private calls to make and wanted him out of the way to do so. It suited him fine. They all did that. So long as they kept up to date with the The tea room wasn’t too full. He helped himself to coffee from the urn and picked up a couple of spare papers left lying around. He always sat on his own, or with some of the older women. All the men ignored him. He scanned the paper. He was in luck. Just an appeal to the gay community for information, an assurance of confidentiality, etc. The other paper carried a photograph of Mrs Schultz and an appeal to go with it. In one breath she disowned her son from anything to do with queers. In the next she appealed to them for help. She went on to say no one who knew Kevin could accuse him of being “like that”, he was a “man’s man”. What an inaccurate phrase, Gerry thought. Surely he was a man’s man himself? The article ended with a demand that the police clean up the parks to avoid this kind of mistake happening again. The problem was not to control the marauding adoles-cents but preventing the perverts from meeting there. That would solve the problem. In its own way it was logical. You can’t go poofter-bashing with no poofters there to bash. It also recommended the closing down of certain pubs and late-night clubs that attracted this undesirable type, hence opening the possibility to further violence in the area. Gerry was gazing hard at Mrs Schulz and wondering if her son had been as ugly as his mother in both body and mind, when Pauline plumped down beside him. Plumped down she did, big loose mounds of thigh dropping over the small chair. She still wore the short skirts of her youth. On anyone else it would lead to them sitting cautiously, legs together; with Pauline it didn’t matter. The giant thighs met in a pool of flesh and indiscretion was impossible.

“How’s it going Gerry, love?” she asked. It was a bit how you might speak to your favourite puppy. He was an oddity to her eyes. He surreptitiously closed the paper and prepared for the description of the weekend which he knew was imminent. To begin, Pauline announced: “I think I’ll have to get married again, Gerry, I need the rest. Had a fantastic weekend.” Gerry remembered “fantastic” as a word from his own youth. Now everything was wonderful. Sue would have a wonderful dress and look wonderful on that wonderful special day.

“Sorry Pauline,” he replied, “I’ve told you before I won’t marry you.” She looked hard at him, then slapped her thighs laughing. To Gerry she was all thigh. It wobbled as she walked, revealed itself as she bent over and came in for a pounding when she laughed. Yet she was no threat and they got along well. Connie joined them, fruit cake already in her mouth.

“See in the paper about that pervert in the park.” The p’s made her spit fruit cake at everyone in general.

“It says in the paper he wasn’t a pervert,” Gerry replied quietly. But Connie wasn’t interested.

“Picture of his poor mother too. It must have broken her heart him turning out that way. If one of mine did …” She paused.

“You could share his dresses,” Pauline joined in. And again the thighs were punished for her laughter.

“Line them up and shoot them, that’s what I say.” Connie looked around for support. Pauline liked Gerry and had her own ideas about him. Must be hard for him to take it sitting there listening to Connie. Gerry who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’d been taking it for years.

“I think it’s alright when it’s just between boys, Connie. It’s just horseplay. I mean it’s not like it was anything real — like rape, I mean.”

“Shoot them.” Connie was adamant. Pauline gave Gerry a raise of her eyebrow to show her own opinion and then prepared to tell them about her weekend of conquests. Pauline knew and didn’t know about Gerry. She and Gerry never openly discussed it but she knew what the other men said behind his back. Why he was stuck in the rut of what they called “women’s work”. His promotion prospects were like her own or Connie’s, not like those of the accepted men who got on with their mates. Poor old Gerry. Not that Gerry didn’t work hard, she knew he did, but — well people didn’t take him seriously. They suspected he was a bit bent. It was Pauline’s own term for Gerry — bent, a bit off the straight and narrow.

“Shoot them all,” Connie was repeating to no one in particular.

“Where were you when the Führer called?” Gerry asked. It didn’t register at first. Then Connie gulped her fruit cake in indignation. Her reply was almost comic.

“What? I’ll have you know both my husband and father fought the Germans.” That’s right, women and children first, apart from when it came to waging war. That was Connie all over.

“Perhaps they didn’t know how to change sides,” he quipped. And he left the tea room. Why should he take shit from her anymore?

The rest of the morning passed quickly enough. Sue took her magazine to tea with her and came back with the dour advice from Connie that brides always lose weight before the wedding so you couldn’t get your dress made too much beforehand. Connie knew of one girl who had paid and extra $100 because the dress had to be altered the night before and all the beadwork redone. Of course, Connie would. Pauline had pointed out that many brides she knew put on weight drastically before the wedding — mainly in terms of a swelling stomach and milk-enlarged breasts. That wasn’t going to happen to Sue. Steve was prepared to wait. He was a gentleman. Gerry was wondering if anyone saw him slipping out of the park or his car idling away into the night. The evening stayed in his mind with a queer exhilaration. He had finally struck back. All through the morning this dull thought had been there. Now it found words. At last he had struck back. He could sit through all the wedding talk, Pauline’s talk of her conquests, Connie’s principle of the final solution; it all no longer mattered. His own life had always been shoved under the carpet at work. With whom could he share the stories of his infatuations, his loves, his fond memories? For years he had been relegated to some backseat position at work. The middle-aged single man, like a maiden aunt. No one knew of his desires to share his life, to own his own home, to have his own special memories, to celebrate his own special anniversaries. It was considered not nice to have aspirations outside of marriage. Could he tell them of his lover, their strivings and disappointments? Could he pull out a gay guide to the city and discuss his forthcoming weekend, or even discuss it in retrospect? Yet compromising himself so far, he had been overlooked time and time again for promotion. As Connie pointed out, they promote the married men first, it’s fairer. Could he then cry to the equal opportunity board? Not being one of the boys had had its consequences, but it was still legal to discriminate against him on terms of his “sexual tastes”. “Sexual taste”, such a distasteful word. It sounded as if he was obsessed with oral sex. He had been pushed back into mediocrity for all these years. At work he was a sexless freak. In society it was alright for him to be denied housing, a joint loan or even joint insurance with his lover. And here was Sue organiz-ing her wedding of the year. No wonder he was bitter. But he had hit back on Friday night. The thing that both exhilarated and petrified Gerry about Friday night was that he felt no guilt about the boy. Gerry was apprehensive that Robert would find out where he had been. Their relationship was too important for him to have put it at that kind of risk. Ten years they had been together. Had he put those ten years in jeopardy? He regretted being there but not what they had done. The realization made him feel light and crazy in the head. Sue’s phone rang. It was Steve. They always indulged in long personal calls during the day. She was uninhibited now about exchanging terms of affection and did it with a new bravado that he envied. Gerry thought that next time Robert phoned, he too should publicly indulge in all those terms of endearment that had only been whispered in the privacy of their home. But it was time to blot it out with work as he had done for years. Work killed injustice, for the moment at least.