Peter Temple - Shooting Star

It was her turn to wait. ‘So?’ she said.

‘She met someone she liked, a bloke with a normal job, likes to go to the movies, listen to music, read. He runs a paint shop in Doncaster, sells paint. Divorced. His wife went off with a house painter. Also a tax client of hers.’

‘And you hate the bastard.’

‘No. Well, I did for about five minutes after she told me. Four minutes. Three. Then the beeper went and I had to say, sorry, I’ve got to go to Werribee to talk some whacko out of murdering his whole family. That took most of the night and then we all had a few drinks, had a beer breakfast, and she’d gone when I got home.’

‘To the paint man?’

‘Yes. I see her sometimes. I’ve been to their house. They invited me before Christmas. To a barbecue, mostly accountants and house painters. She’s happy. He’s got time for her, talks to her like a friend, asks her what she thinks. You can see how they are together. No jagged edges.’

I finished the wine, got up and poured more into the glasses. ‘Walking away from me, I can’t fault that decision,’ I said. ‘The me I was then, anyway. I’m a different me now, a mellow and relaxed person in a stress-free occupation.’

That amused her. I was an admirer of her smile. And to provoke it was heaven.

We sat in silence for a while, looking at each other, smiling. Then we got on to other subjects, laughed, drank more wine, ate her delicious stew. It was after eleven when Corin said, ‘My bedtime. We who work with the earth go to bed early. And tomorrow we prune. Savagely.’

‘I’ll just sit here for a bit,’ I said. ‘I’m too mellow and relaxed to move. Is there a torch? I’ll put the generator off. I’ve done that.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ She found a torch, put it on the table, went to the bathroom, came back face shining. ‘When you get to the top of the ladder,’ she said, ‘there’s a landing. Your room’s straight ahead. Spartan. But you’d know about spartan.’

‘I’m trying to forget about spartan,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’

She touched my shoulder, her hand lingered for a moment, I could smell her perfume, then she left, walked up the ladder as if it were a staircase.

I drank a last glass of red wine, took the torch and went out to the generator. It shut down reluctantly, in the manner of diesel engines, thumped, thumped and gave a last few thumps, and all was still, black and still, no sound but the rushing sibilance of the creek. For a while, I stood outside the barn, in the dark, part of the quiet, listening.

Inside, the big room was warm, warmth that went up your cuffs, down your collar, the only light coming from the stove, a soft yellow light. I missed Corin, hated the idea that she’d left me, didn’t want to go to bed, poured another half-glass of wine, put a last log on, sat down by the fire, thought about how I didn’t want to go back to the city, ever.

I didn’t hear her over the crackling in the stove. She came on bare feet, down the ladder and across the space behind me, walked around in front of me, a tall woman in a white shift, pulled it over her head, warm light on her breasts, on her belly. She knelt astride me, took my head in both hands, kissed me, drew my head to her chest, buried my face in her warmth, in her skin, in the smell of her, took my hand and pressed it on her.

Later, lying in Corin’s bed, up in the old hayloft, still the lingering scent of dry hay, my head on her breasts, I said, ‘This is a bit of an adventure for me. Just being alone with an attractive woman. Well, any woman really.’

‘I feel betrayed. I was told that mediators took vows of abstinence. That’s why I felt so safe inviting you for the weekend.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Those are gladiators. It’s to save their strength for the combat.’

‘Oh shit,’ she said.

‘It’s all right. Mediators only proceed by consensus. They’re bound by the oath of consensus.’

‘That sounds like something from school history. In 1202, Magnus IV broke the Oath of Consensus and invaded Sangria.’

I kissed the soft skin under her chin. ‘Mountain stronghold of the Vodka Martini people. You’re right.’

The next day, we awoke in the same state of mind we’d gone to bed in, then we washed and ate. She taught me how to prune, and we pruned savagely. Light rain fell on us, stained our clothing. For lunch, we grilled venison sausages, dark tubes she’d brought, ate them with mustard on rolls. Back to work. I caught her eye from time to time, she looked at me, I couldn’t read her look. Could be interest, lust, regret, could be, Oh shit, what have I got myself into? Sex conquers nothing, explains nothing. She waited for me to finish my row.

‘So,’ she said. ‘See you next year.’

We showered, drank and ate, made love in her bed, went downstairs and ate some more, made love in front of the Ned Kelly, went up the ladder. I kissed her and held her and slept as if cleansed of everything that stained me.

In the city, outside my apartment block, a dirty rain falling, leaning in at her window, I said, ‘So, another toyboy dabbled with. Now it’s back to changing the face of the earth.’

She put her hand under my chin, kissed me on the mouth, a kiss to remember. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In one weekend, I’ve had the army and the police force. Know anyone who’s been in the air force and the navy?’

‘I’ll ask around,’ I said, ‘and call you.’

I watched her go, waved, felt a stabbbing sense of loss.

Orlovsky said, ‘I’ve gone back to that subscribers’ file, the one, you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Saw you on TV about fifty times and it made me think.’

‘What?’

‘The first time, I only pulled the current list, the paid-up people.’

‘So?’

‘I went back, found all the subscribers they’ve ever had. I’ve got other names now, subscribers who dropped off. There’s a definite civilian here, no public service, academic connection I can find.’

‘In Melbourne?’

‘Eltham, yeah.’

‘You at home?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘There’s something else. I’m coming over.’

Orlovsky lived in Elwood, in half of a house on a respectable middle-class street. Amid the Volvos, his vehicle stood out like a garbage scow in a pleasure-boat marina. As I walked up the path to the porch, he opened the front door. We went down the passage into a big north-facing room furnished with a trestle table holding an array of computing equipment, a desk chair, an old armchair covered with a sheet and a television set on a coffee table against the wall. Like the rest of the house, the room had an air of monastic tidiness.

‘This gets more professional-looking every time I come here,’ I said.

‘Strictly a recreational user.’ Orlovsky walked over to the table and pointed at a monitor. ‘This’s the baby,’ he said.

A name and address were highlighted on the screen:

Keith Guinane

7 Scobie’s Lane

ELTHAM 3095

VICTORIA

AUSTRALIA.

There was also an Internet address and what was probably a subscriber code number.

‘Subscriber in ’97, ’98,’ Orlovsky said. ‘No one’s heard of him.

I rang around.’

I sat down in the armchair. ‘This is going to be tricky,’ I said. ‘But first, we’ve got SeineNet sitting in a Carson computer. The bloke who gave it to me’s very nervous. Can you get rid of it without going back there?’

Orlovsky nodded, sat down at the keyboard and went to work. I went into the kitchen and tapped some water from the earthenware filter barrel, had a sip. It tasted worse than water from the tap.

‘Ready to destroy here,’ Orlovsky shouted from the back room. ‘No last requests? Never have the grunt to run this thing again.’