36

When Denise let him in, the hallway of Stanton’s place felt cold, so the sacrifice of the old tree the year before had been for nothing. Denise looked creased and pretty, so much a sister to the widow at Dyson Engineering that Delaney suppressed the memory and turned on the jovial uncle act. He carried under his arm a carton of Resch’s Pilsener and a bag of small Violet Crumble bars for the Stanton girls. A man so burdened (he meant to convey to Stanton) did not come to your house to do you in, betray your secrets. He was cementing loyalties. By all the rules of mateship, that was visible. “Where’s your old man?” asked Delaney, putting his lips to Denise’s cheek and finding it very cold.

“Shaving,” she said.

“I didn’t think he worked tonight.”

“He says he might have to go out.” She believed it with all the glands of her belief, the terrifying trust of women burned for a moment in her.

“Well,” he said, “they’d be a bit short-staffed now.”

She led him into the living room, where all the heat of the house was localized. The warm Stanton girls were in their dressing gowns, ready for the night which pressed against the window beyond the television set. Remarkably they were playing a game—a board and plastic markers and dice lay on the floor. Into the midst of it all Delaney irresponsibly dropped the bag of goodies.

“Have to ask your mother,” he said, too late.

“I’ve got to watch the little one,” said Denise. “Confectionery sets her off.”

It was the older one, the one whose attention could be taken only by serious wonders like television and Violet Crumble bars, who tore the bag open with a dark ferocity that reminded Delaney of her father.

“Glad you came around,” whispered Denise. “He’s not happy with that Kabbel crowd.”

Stanton appeared in the doorway. He looked pink-faced from the razor. “Well,” said Stanton. “It’s the Governor bloody General. And I see he brought his own bloody beer.”

“Which I can’t drink much of. Playing in reserves tomorrow.”

“Jesus.” Stanton was distracted from fear of what Delaney knew to an honest envy of Delaney’s match fees. Denise rushed in with best wishes. It was a little like the poor praying for the economic health of IBM or Mitsubishi.

Denise stayed with the children and let the men go out to have serious professional talks in the kitchen. Stanton drank his beer gratefully, for the glow, even though the weather was too cold for it. It stuck like porridge in Delaney’s gullet. Gagging, forcing the words up past the gaseous liquor, Delaney expressed his regret over the Dyson Engineering fiasco.

“What a thing for mates to fall out over,” said Stanton, and made a speech Delaney had heard from him in the past. “Look, Delaney, I could live happily with just enough cock to knock out a few kids and keep your missus happy. They say that’s what it’s all for, but then they give you twenty times more than you need. It’s like driving a fucking sports car in a twenty-five-kilometer zone. Got me beat!”

Delaney suggested he might find Doig understanding to talk to, but Stanton laughed that off. It struck Delaney that Stanton didn’t like his sins understood or lessened. If you fornicated you had to break and enter an engineering plant to find the right place for it, the right level of daring. Maybe that’s what made for the thrill of the fornication motel in North Parramatta. To face the brunette in the front office and tell her you wanted a temporary occupancy was a kind of adventure.

“I suppose you want to know how Danielle is?” asked Stanton.

“No. I wanted to tell you Kabbel’s selling out.”

Delaney could see by Stanton’s bewilderment that Kabbel had not yet told him. Despite himself, he was pleased to kick off the friendship again with such a painful favor. “He says your job’s safe—that’s one of the conditions of sale. But maybe you should start looking around anyhow.”

“Oh yes. Maybe they need a new heart surgeon at Saint Vincent’s.”

“Rudi’s a man of his word, in his own way.”

“But he’s out of it, you know, off the air, and I wondered why. Out of the office all the time except when he turns up with heavies from other companies. Bloke from TNT there the other night.” Stanton ground his forehead into the pad of his hand. “And bloody stupid Stanton still doesn’t twig, just happy to be working twenty hours overtime a week!”

“Rudi’s buying land. He’s selling Uncle so that he can afford a pastoral bloody kingdom.”

Stanton shivered—the beer and the cold were adequate but not likely explanations. “I don’t think I’m on his mind much,” he said. “I’m not much on any of their bloody minds. Warwick runs the rosters now, but he’s no company. You know, I said the other night they’d have to find two new men—Scott hasn’t come back from the bush—and the bugger looked right through me. Danielle’s okay, from some flu she caught, but she’s not too lively at the moment. They really choked that off, didn’t they. You and Danielle. Strangled that one at birth. Never bloody mind.” He dropped his voice. “You know I got so desperate the other night that I fell back on poor old Bernadette—Danielle was still in bed sick. Took Bernadette out to the old shed that used to be the control room when bloody Rudi started the business. Poor bitch kept saying, ‘Brian, what if there’s an alarm while we’re in here?’ Promised her I wouldn’t be that long, and she said, ‘But I might be.’ The old Bernadette! Must have it off among the filing cabinets at work.”

Delaney was somehow shocked by the idea of Stanton making what hay he could in the shadow of Danielle’s illness. All sexual pride suddenly drained, however, from Stanton’s face. “Lot of good all that’s going to do me.”

“Danielle better now?”

“She’s all right. Compared to the others. Jesus, Rudi had a fit just after you left.”

Delaney laughed. “Upset, was he?”

“No, a fit. A fair dinkum … you know … fit. What do you call it? Paroxysm.” Stanton explained how, at the start of a shift, Rudi Kabbel had appeared from the hallway whimpering and biting his lips, and a stream of urine falling crookedly down the legs of his deep blue pants. His hands were raised in front of his face and were trembling very fast, which made Stanton think of epilepsy. He whimpered like a child. Danielle ran from the arms cabinet and dragged him roughly from the room by the hand. Later she came back and told an amazed Stanton that it was Rudi’s childhood. He’d suffered awfully, she said.

This news aroused in Delaney a vague and painful urge to rescue Danielle from her father. But before he could ask too many questions about this incident, about Rudi’s trembling and his unleashed bladder, Stanton reverted to the sale of Uncle. “You can’t tell me that if one of those big companies want to buy without any encumbrances that Rudi will hold out for poor bloody Stanton.”

Delaney couldn’t tell him that.

“This time I’m going to apply for my own gun license. I’ll rob banks.”

Delaney smiled and patted Stanton’s arm. His friend had said that before, but apart from his innocent intrusion into Dyson, society remained safe from him.