Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘Men,’ Trudi said. ‘What’re you going to do about Helen? I can tell from your face that you haven’t heard from her.’

‘Looks like you’ve got the qualifications to write about men. No, I haven’t heard.’

She handed me an envelope. ‘From Peter to you. From some slush fund or other. See you, Cliff. We have to finish that ping pong game.’ She kissed my cheek and tugged at Gunther’s lead.

‘Aren’t you going to give me some advice? About Helen?’

Her back was to me. She raised her arm and wiggled her fingers, like Liza Minnelli at the end of Cabaret.

Inside the envelope was a six figure cheque and a note from January. It read: ‘Thanks anyway. Love to Helen.’

The next morning I made arrangements with my neighbour Harry Soames to feed the cat. Harry doesn’t like me but he likes cats. I put a message on the answering machine and I locked the house. It was a fine, warm day and I was noticing things I’d been looking through, like the banana tree leaning over the fence from Soames’ place. It had several bunches of bananas on it which Soames had wrapped in plastic. I liked that.

I banked the cheque, drew money out and filled the Falcon with petrol, water, oil and air at a Shell station.

‘Great day, mate,’ the attendant said. ‘Where you headed?’

‘North,’ I said. ‘Kempsey.’