Peter Corris - Casino

There was something liberating and novel about being in another person’s house and not needing to snoop through their belongings to discover their secrets. She trusted me not to do that and I wouldn’t. I took another long look at the montage in a better light and all I could see were signs of good health and good fellowship. There were enough joints being smoked and cans being drunk from not to give it a God-bothering accent.

I was getting used to protecting my left arm, but the few times I tried to move it normally the pain shot through me and set up a throbbing ache. I took two tablets and poured a small measure of whisky into my cooling coffee. For medicinal purposes.

Her bathroom was about the size of a voting booth and I stood under the shower with hardly enough space to get the soap to the right spots. I washed my hair with her shampoo and dried myself off, performing both actions right-handed. I dragged a wide-toothed comb through my greying but thick hair, thought about using one of her disposable razors on my heavy beard, but decided against it. Clean was good enough; cleanshaven would be trying too hard.

I realised how incapacitating the injury to my shoulder was when I tried to get dressed. Like all right-handed men, I put my right arm into my shirt sleeve and take it from there. There was absolutely no prospect of dropping my left arm far and back enough to be able to bring it through the sleeve. The movement was hopelessly restricted, and any attempt to extend it sent shooting pains through the arm and shoulder. I swore and put the shirt on clumsily by slipping my left arm in first and shrugging into it. I felt like a child, just learning to dress himself, and my good mood evaporated.

I finished dressing, picked up my jacket from the couch and Vita’s key from the bench and went out into the yard behind the flat, slamming the door behind me. I was so preoccupied with the stiff shoulder that I forgot about Dylan and didn’t react in the normal wary fashion when he approached me.

The dog stood off and growled.

‘Don’t fuck with me,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood. Anyway, I’m the lady’s friend.’

He followed me to the gate and watched me unlock it. My having the key seemed to mollify him and he backed off. I went through the gate and was relieved to see the Falcon standing in the lane with all its bits and pieces apparently intact. The big question was-would I be able to drive it?

‘Shoulder cuff lesion,’ Dr Ian Sangster said. ‘Popularly known, although I shouldn’t say that because it’s bloody unpopular, as frozen shoulder.’

I said, ‘What’s the treatment?’ as I put my shirt back on by the left-arm first method which, for some reason, exasperated and annoyed me as much as the injury itself.

Ian lit a cigarette. He accepts all the scientific findings about smoking and disease but says smokers have to have some doctors they can go to without being lectured and he’s willing to make the sacrifice and assume the role. ‘Three ways you can go once it really freezes up on you, and this will, in my judgement. One, you can have an operation under general anaesthetic that turns the arm in the cuff, ignores the inflammation, breaks up the scar tissue and frees the joint. Two, you can spend a thousand dollars or so over the next year or so on physiotherapy, osteopathy and bloody acupuncture. Three, you can do a few stretching exercises, leave it alone and wait for the bugger to get better.’

‘Number one sounds quick, and I’ve got full medical cover.’

Ian, who has been my friend and patcher-upper for twenty years, butted his cigarette and looked at the clock. It was just past eleven, a fraction early for him to propose having a drink. We were in his Glebe Point Road rooms, immediately across the way from the pub, and lan’s patients were used to him ducking across the street. Often, they ducked across with him. He lit another cigarette, coughed and reconciled himself to being a physician for just a little longer. He is a tall, lean man whose bad habits so far have left no significant exterior mark.

‘Trouble with that is, the tissue damage done by the operation can be worse than the injury itself and you can be looking at an even longer recovery period.’

‘Shit, why is it done?’

Ian shrugged. ‘Makes money for orthopaedic surgeons and it’s the option often taken up by impatient bastards like you.’

‘OK, so you’re advising me to let it heal by itself and depriving your colleagues of custom. Sounds all right. What do I do-put it in a sling? It hurts like hell when I move it like this.’

‘I thought you were a tough guy. No, that’s the worst thing you can do. Keep it moving. Make it hurt. Your pain will be good for you.’

‘You’re a sadistic bastard, Ian.’

He snorted derisively as he ran my card through his stamping machine. Ian has long ago given up on receptionists, being unable to find one who would tolerate his erratic methods and eccentric patients. I moved to sign the slip, forgot about the arm and gasped as I put it in a painful position. ‘Bugger it. I won’t be playing tennis for a while.’

‘Your biggest problem will be in bed.’

‘Eh?’

‘Getting to sleep. You’ll find it hard to achieve a comfortable position and when you roll over onto it you’ll wake up. What about a drink?’

‘That’s terrific. I’m facing a year without sleep. Recommend alcohol, do you?’

‘Always. Shouldn’t worry a hero like you. If it gets too bad I’ll prescribe you some anti-inflammatories. Might help. By the way, Cliff, how’s Glen?’

Guilt hit me when I jockeyed the Falcon into my street and saw Glen’s red Nissan Pulsar parked outside my house. She’d left it at a garage for some repairs and made arrangements for it to be delivered back to me. The keys would be in my gas meter box and I was to drop a cheque Glen had left with me off at the garage with the amount entered. One of those little domestic things lovers do for each other whether co-habiting or not. Glen took good care of the car, much better care than I took of mine and the sight of it brought my feelings for her back with a rush.

I’d had a lot of trouble driving from Rozelle to lan’s surgery and then home. Each gear change was an agony and I’d annoyed many drivers by trying to negotiate in second. The driving had left me sweaty and irritated and a conscience didn’t help. I slammed into the house, kicking angrily at the pile of mail that had come through the slot and, consequently, losing balance and instinctively reaching out with my left hand to steady myself. The pain was like a pulled muscle, a sprain and a severe cramp all at once. The answering machine in the living room was winking and I gave it the finger as I went past. I blundered on through to the kitchen, hoping that there was something for the cat to eat because I knew it’d be in from its wandering life as soon as it heard movement in the house.

Sure enough, it jumped through a window and rubbed against my legs. It was in luck because there was a chicken carcass in the fridge-the detritus of a meal I’d long forgotten. I stripped off the meat and fat and put it on the plate for the cat who then thought of me as a king. Some king. My clothes were overdue for a wash and a good airing. I stripped off and shaved in the bathroom, accustoming myself to using the razor without employing my left hand to check for missed areas. As with the shirt problem, it was like learning to shave all over again. My face was puffy and bruised where Baldy had hit me.

As I shaved I thought of my paternal grandfather who I remembered as a big, but decaying old man with an Irish brogue. Hardy isn’t an Irish name, and the story in the family was that grandad had left his true name behind on some army muster or ship’s company list when he’d deserted or jumped ship. My sister, who’s interested in such things, is pursuing the matter. She was convinced about O’Halloran some time back, but that may have changed. The old boy died when I was about five, but I distinctly remember the pinned-up sleeve of his striped pyjama jacket. Having outlived his wife, a rare thing for a man then and now, he occupied a sleep-out behind the house of Aunt Grace, one of my father’s sisters in Drummoyne. He’d lost the arm in a south-coast coal mine, but I could recall him telling me that he suffered rheumatism and arthritis in it, just as in the heavily tattooed limb that remained. He was full of blarney as I later realised, but I experienced a surge of sympathy for him across the years-my left arm was useless, but it hurt like hell.