12

September 22, still two weeks to go.

I could hire a horse carriage like I did for our wedding. Have us clip-clop to Christo’s, the TV chef ’s cantina on High. You book weeks ahead there, pay a deposit and can’t cancel. The kudos of it would surely melt Emma. I dialled the number.

‘My name is Smith and I’m currently acting editor of pry. The news service. Yes, media. Yes, journalist, that’s right. I’d like to be put through to the manager, please.’

A few minutes of listening to cellos and he was on. He had an Irish not a French or Italian accent.

I said I wasn’t expecting an Irish experience. He said the food was not Irish so please don’t be concerned.

A table for two in a fortnight? That was simply not possible, he said. Which required my using my dissatisfied voice, a cross between disdain and husky threat-whispering—I am superior and you are vulnerable.

‘Pry would like to review Christo’s. We have deadlines in place. If you’re unreasonable to the press, what’s your food like? Does the same tone apply at your table service?’

A dissatisfied voice must verge on rudeness, a contest between your needs and the world’s. It doesn’t work unless you’re wearing a sheriff ’s badge. That’s what it feels like when you’re a dead-glitter journo—a sheriff with bluff and bluster instead of guns. If my Irish friend had a backbone and savvy he’d yell get fucked and slam down the phone.

But he didn’t. He ummed and he ahhed and took the reservation. I went silent to keep the rude pretension going. He might offer the dinner as a freebie. They sometimes do and they sometimes don’t. It depends on the desperation of the business. This business was booming. I was resigned to paying.

‘September the twenty-second at seven-thirty. We look forward to seeing you, Mr Smith. I apologise if I’ve not been sufficiently courteous.’

I let him off the hook. ‘And so do I.’

I wanted to spring this on Emma, surprise her that evening and couldn’t decide if taking flowers was excessively amorous: was it time to ignore the ‘slow process’ balance? Oh yes, it was time to assert my entitlement over Gordon’s. I rang her to say I must come round at once.

Flowers it would be, a bunch of mixed breeds from Petal Power, lying like a bushy baby along my arm when I let myself in. Emma took them in her own arms’ cradle. ‘Bringing flowers out of the blue. You must want something.’

‘I do want something. I admit it. There’s a little anniversary we’re due to celebrate.’

‘That’s ages away.’

‘Two weeks. That’s not ages.’

Emma did not breathe the flowers in deeply and cut and vase them at the sink. She was not emotional as I’d hoped she’d be. No yielding to affection, no tearful sentiment. The calendar was hanging there just above her on a picture hook. I could see no scribble of our wedding date. It was always marked there in her handwriting in red pen. This year, nothing. A blank square beneath 22.

‘I’ve booked a table at Christo’s.’

‘That’s extravagant.’

‘Certainly is. It’s what the occasion deserves. What do you say, Ollie?’ He had wandered into the room.

‘Am I going too?’

He was smiling so wide I hadn’t the heart to disappoint him.

‘Of course you are, son. Table for three instead of two. Mind you, it’s dependent on your mother. She doesn’t seem over the moon.’

Now Emma scissored a stem off and poked it into a fluted pink glass. I could tell she felt bullied. Her head was tipped forward. She was nodding yes but her eyes were closed. I told Ollie to write ‘Wedding Anniversary’ in the calendar’s blank square.

This was no time to reprimand him on his spelling: one n in anniversary.

‘It was just a thought, Emma. If you don’t want to go, I’ll cancel.’

I expected my own reprimand for acting the martyr. Playing on her feelings, using Ollie as helper. ‘Damn it, we’re family,’ I was bursting to say. ‘We cannot be pushed aside or superseded. You can’t say no to us over our anniversary and yes to Gordon over a ball.’

‘What if I did say cancel?’ she said.

‘What for?’ Ollie roared.

I told him, ‘Don’t raise your voice, not to your mother. If she’s not keen to join us we’ll go by ourselves. A very expensive father-and-son evening.’

Ollie had a scowl that was half his mum’s thinned mouth and half my eyes when I narrow them. And my trick of going silent and letting my blinkless glare curse you. He’d reached an age when he did the same, tearlessly, his fists clenching.

I spoke in a quiet growl. ‘Settle down, son. If your mother doesn’t want to go with us that’s her choice. I should have discussed it with her. It’s my fault.’

‘Callum, don’t do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘You know very well.’

She had her face to the window as if facing us would sap her power. I jerked my head for Ollie to go hug her. That was the way to get things, I winked to him. Gentle beseeching not scowling.

He did what he was told and she kissed his crown. That was a victory. I had to be careful not to smirk or say a word to unbalance it.

She said all right, she’d come. Said it to Ollie not to me, as if I didn’t speak English and he was her translator.

‘Tell your father the flowers are pretty but he best leave. I’ve got dinner to cook and you had better do your homework.’

‘I was planning to give him half an hour’s tutoring before I leave.’

I’d said too much. ‘But, you’re right, I best go. Tutoring can wait.’

I said to myself: Drive to your apartment, buy takeaway Indian, red wine. The television is for lonely watching. I could fill my void up with talent quests and cooking shows. My washed underwear needed taking down from the backs of the dining chairs.

Instead I swerved off the freeway, turned right to where plane trees form tunnels of darkness blue-blacker than the night. No stars or the moons of headlights. The ivy walls were higher there and a few mansion windows glowed misty with curtained lamps. The deeper you drove into the leaf shadow your eyes adjusted, noticed iron gates patrolled by stick-figure cameras. It was not a good idea to be slowing down like this in Toorak, like a thief casing front yards for a home invasion. I merely wanted a look at where he lived, admire his premises and put a price on it. And in admiring get angrier at myself for not being successful. I mean, I am successful but not in magnate terms. I’m middling, and this was ten-million-dollar territory. Twenty if your compound spreads across two lots. You parked in garages here instead of at curb sides, garages the size of suburban homes.

This was his street, Abernathy, if I remembered the title searches correctly. His was number seven to number nine. A twenty-million property, though his wall was brown brick with no creepers sculpted along it. If it were mine I’d pull the ugly thing down. I’d have a wrought-iron fence and an arty iron entrance. His garden was rose-cottage like an old person’s hobby farm. I’d have cherry trees and a Jap water feature. He had plenty of acreage for jacarandas and north-facing hibiscus. Why didn’t he paint the house render white and take those Juliet windows down? If he had no taste himself you’d think he’d purchase it.

I pulled over up the street where it curved left and the curb lighting was dapple-blotted by oak limbs. His neighbours had cameras but I saw none for him. The wooden front gate had a sliding bolt. I gave it a shake and no dog barked. I walked on as if strolling and then doubled back to slip the bolt across. If I could see him shuffling with a cup of cocoa, wearing old-codger slippers I’d be less obsessive, feel more of a man. If I observed a sorry stooped geriatric I believed I’d be less vindictive towards him. It was a health issue: I needed my lump of animosity removed.

In my experience, before trespassing you should always prepare excuses. You don’t say ‘I’m a journalist’ if the householder catches you. With police you do—they don’t arrest trespassing journos. A householder needs bullshit or else you spook them. I had one guy, a jewel thief, who would have socked me or worse. I said, ‘I’m a Mormon,’ and that fooled him. Even thieves ignore you when you’re snooping for stories if they think you’ve stopped by to convert them.

In Gordon’s case this was simply not possible—for all I knew he’d seen my mantelpiece photos. I decided to trespass like a common burglar and to run like the devil if I had to.

The house was Art Deco with a bastardised life. Porch tiles of modern slate slabs instead of inch-square ceramic. The old windows stained glass but double-glazed and with metal awnings. The high arches browed with rolled-up canvas blinds.

The driveway was pebbly and I kept to the side so as not to crunch my way to the bushes. Three rooms were lit up. One upstairs, two down. I settled among the lavenders for waiting. Come on, you silly old prick, I haven’t got all night! I wanted to trample his hollyhocks and rip out his daisies. My bladder was full enough to loosen my trousers and let a warm stream batter them. I strained the last drop out, every drip of revenge.

There he was in the upstairs room. I presumed it was him, elderly, defective. I thought defective out of malice not from obvious evidence. He walked like a normal man. He was not stooped as I’d hoped to see. Not pot-bellied or atrophy-skinny. He turned out the light and his silhouette levitated down the stairs.

I crouched closer to the window, knocked a watering can but he didn’t hear. I hadn’t seen a man wear a smoking jacket before, like an old movie actor, green braid lapels and a belt of gold rope. A black turtleneck rising to his jaw, concealing any jowls that might be hanging there. A man I would call an elegant gentleman if I had objectivity.

I hadn’t thrown a stone through a window since childhood. Even then it was a derelict house and probably haunted. I fingered about for some loose brick from the lavender border. I aimed at a spot between the widest strips of leadlight. I hated him more now for bringing out this delinquent impulse. I put the brick down and turned to go but caught my foot in a curl of plastic irrigation. Over I tipped—crash!—into the roses. Thorns and sticks scratching my face and arms. I yelled Fuck! and Fuck! again. My skin was skewered and there was no time to be careful. I jerked myself free and tugged a branch from my hair. The front-door light flicked on. I clenched my teeth, yanked my leg out of the razory wood. I stayed on hands and knees because the door was opening and I had crawling to do before I reached thick shrub cover. A garden lamp lit up as I scampered out the gate. I didn’t look back to see if Gordon was in pursuit. I got in my car but didn’t start the engine. I put the gear in neutral, used the incline of the street to drift away in silence with no headlights.

One time I drove like this for three streets before ignition. I’d followed the governor’s son and watched him smoke drugs. Hills are a blessing—you’re a ghost car in the darkness as good as your number plate missing.