40

In the morning I am quite uncomfortable, in many parts.

In the daylight I see that I am in my own bed, but thrown damply across it with some of my clothes dropped in a pile nearby on the floor. My suit may never be suit-shaped again. It lies amorphously where it landed, with the smells of smoke and wet sheep now oozing out of it as it warms up in the sun.

When I lift the jacket, I notice it is on top of Purvis the Sock Friend, the long-forgotten, dazed-snake-faced companion I made for Greg. Fleas bale out of Purvis in large numbers. I realise while I am watching them that I’m scratching myself, and I think it’s more than the power of suggestion. I think the fleas now live in my bed.

I drink water, and as I have no food I drink more water. It sits in my stomach between the constipation and a big gas bubble, as though it’s there to stay. I put on loose fitting clothes and sun glasses and I go to Toowong. I have a list of tasks, but first I buy a burger. I drop my suit in to the dry cleaner’s, where it is treated with suspicion and they tell me they can make no promises. I return home with an abundance of food and several flea bombs.

I was planning to work at home, but the flea bombs say the house should be evacuated for at least two hours, and evacuated doesn’t sound like the sort of word a smart person would disregard. It’s also far too hot to work, so maybe I should go in to the office.

Just as I’m feeling that I’m backing myself into a corner and going in to the office is inevitable, Kevin Butt turns up looking very cheery and says, I’ve been booked for two gigs since they ran the story on us. Nursing homes. I’m back in the game. We’re famous, youngster.

He insists I go back to his place for lunch and a few beers. So soon I’m sitting in his kitchen and he’s talking repertoire and next door at number thirty-four the flea bombs hiss quietly away.

He has a lot of cold beer in his fridge, and all of it Fourex, for which he expresses a great enthusiasm. This obviously stays in his mind, as he whistles a medley of Fourex jingles through his teeth while he’s tossing the salad.

And as I take a mouthful of beer, I can’t help but wonder who came up with the idea of the Battle of El Alamein Fiftieth Anniversary stubby holder that it’s sitting in.

I ask him if he knew my grandfather.

No, before my time I’m afraid. I would have moved here maybe a couple of years after he passed away. I only know what I heard from Edna. Now there was a fine kind of a woman. So if I know only one thing about him I know he was a bloody lucky man. You would have known him though, wouldn’t you?

Yeah. I was about ten when he died. So I knew him, but I don’t know much about him. He was just my grandfather, you know?

Yeah. I only know what Edna would have told me, and I don’t think he told her everything. I think he kept the details of some things to himself. Well, France anyway, she said that. All I know is that the day he copped the gas at Bullecourt, he did something that got him mentioned in despatches as well. Buggered if I know what though. What would it have been?

I don’t know.

We drink more beer and we eat, and some time after two I go back to my flea-bombed house to work. I have a lie down instead.

I don’t sleep.

In the late afternoon I shower and put on work clothes. I pretend the day is beginning. I drive into town, taking with me a packet of Tim Tams and two bags of Freckles, as I will be too busy to go out for dinner and they go well with coffee.

Some time after eight the air-conditioning turns off and the office becomes progressively more stifling. I keep working, but it just gets worse, and there’s no way I can override the timer. So I start taking off my clothes. The shoes and socks and tie go first, but it’s not enough. Shortly after eleven I’ve lowered the pants and the airflow does improve things, but I keep them around my ankles in case anyone turns up and I have to move quickly. By midnight I realise no-one’s turning up and the pants are off, and then the shirt. Some time before one I’m totally naked and sitting on my shirt as the upholstery is more scratchy than I would have guessed.

And I’m cruising with this work. It’s making sense. I’m going to be okay. Maybe all I ever had to do was let my body breathe. It is strange though, when you’ve been sitting staring at the word processor and working intently on something and you happen to glance down. The genitalia someone has left in your lap always take you by surprise.

One more cup of coffee. I walk down the corridor and the air moves past my warm clammy body in a very soothing, pleasing way. I see my reflection in plate glass and I feel strangely liberated. Instead of making coffee I turn the Musak on and crank it up as loud as it’ll go, and I dance.

And I have just executed a neat leap over an occasional table when the lift door opens and Hillary steps out. I think it’s the volume of the Musak that startles her first, but I could be wrong.

It’s okay, I tell her, as she starts to lurch back towards the lift. I’m just working but the air-conditioning’s off. It got very warm.

Is anyone else here?

No. No-one. It’s nothing like that. I’m not like that. It’s just hot. I was starting to get some good work done.

You looked like you were dancing.

Yeah. I’d only just started with that though.

Well that’s fine then, isn’t it? If you’d only just started dancing. She laughs. It looks like nothing flaccid.

How big does it need to be for dancing? And what are you doing here anyway?

Dan’s got an ear infection. He’s not sleeping. It’s Peter’s night on, but there’s no sleep happening in that house. I thought I’d come in and do the work I was planning to come in and do tomorrow. You know, during daytime, outside office nude dancing hours.

I really don’t think you should hold this cynical view of office nude dancing unless you’ve tried it.

Some other time maybe.

This is when we both realise that we’re in the foyer at work, having a conversation in which everything’s normal except that I’m totally naked. And it all becomes more like the bad dream of an insecure child and a lot less liberating.

How are things with Peter? I ask her.

Okay. But said a little reluctantly.

So what does that mean? What does he know?

Nothing. He knows nothing. I don’t know what to do. Am I a bad person if I don’t tell him? Am I a fool if I do? I should. I should tell him, get it out in the open. ‘Girl from Ipanema’ blazes away at maximum volume. I should be honest with him. Life is just not that easy though. Can I say to myself this is a one-off thing, a once only error of judgement and it’ll hurt him more to know?

It’s a good theory, isn’t it?

It’s a great theory. She pauses. But anyway, I don’t know just yet. I don’t know how I sort it out with him. But how are you after last night? When I left you were standing up at the other end of the table announcing to everyone that you had the cutest arse in the world, but a cock like a pig’s tail.

And she’s not kidding. As soon as she says the words I recognise them as some part of last night. And it’s far too late to wish I’d heard them from someone else’s foolish mouth.

Cock like a pig’s tail. What does that even mean?

Who knows. You wouldn’t say. I don’t think anyone thought it was likely to be a good thing.

No. It doesn’t sound like a good thing.

But I didn’t feel it was my place to either confirm or deny.

The lift door opens again. Barry Greatorex emerges in a dinner suit, stands quite still and stares impassively at both of us, his eyes as lifeless as two currants thumbed into a big bun. ‘Girl from Ipanema’ slides into another variation. Is that a marimba? Barry reverses his step and the lift doors close and he is gone, like an Alfred Hitchcock effigy in a medieval clock, appearing once to mark the hour, and disappearing in identical retreat.

Some secret we’ve got, I say to Hillary, but she’s still staring at the doors in disbelief, as though she’s wondering what’s next.