Shane Maloney - The Brush-Off

Fortunately, I’d been keeping count. It was my turn to hang up. The green had by now drained entirely from Agnelli’s gills. He looked like he might soon be sitting up in bed, sipping beef tea and receiving visitors. But I could see that he was still somewhat troubled.

‘Keogh’s a suck-arse little prick,’ I told him, hoping to allay any sense of responsibility he might have for the demise of the soon-to-be-ex finance committee chairperson.

But it wasn’t his conscience that was bothering Agnelli. That stunted faculty was already slouching back to its cryogenic cave. ‘Keogh might take the fall,’ he said. ‘But the party’s still down the tubes to the tune of $200,000.’

‘That’s quite some tune,’ I admitted. ‘Would it help if I hummed the first few bars?’

I picked the package off the floor beside my chair where I’d put it when I came in and spilled the contents onto Agnelli’s desk. Less reasonable expenses. A packet of fags, two tram tickets, last night’s lasagne and the dry-cleaning of a pair of strides.

Agnelli stared down at the small mountain of cash. ‘Fuck Jesus fuck.’ From Ange, that was high praise indeed. ‘You rob a bank or something?’ He must have been confusing me with Lloyd Eastlake.

‘An anonymous donation from an intimate acquaintance of a former party member,’ I explained. ‘A strong believer in discretion. You and I are going to be buying a lot of raffle tickets in the next few months.’

Angelo was deeply appreciative. The moolah vanished into his bottom drawer, the newspapers went into the waste basket and my appointment as his cultural counsellor was immediately confirmed.

‘I don’t think I’ve got the stamina,’ I said. ‘Not if yesterday was any indication of the pace.’ He really needed someone with the proper background for the job. ‘An Italian, perhaps,’ I suggested. Machiavelli. Houdini. Alfa Romeo.

But I did agree to stay in place on a temporary basis. ‘Only until I’ve had a chance to put some proposals in front of you regarding retrospective amendments to the National Gallery’s policy on the granting of maternity leave,’ I said. ‘After that, I’d like a chance to spread my wings in Water. If that’s okay with you.’

It was, and that’s where I’ve been ever since. The view from the office isn’t as good as the one at Arts. And the only openings I get invited to are new sluice gates. But it’s not as stressful here. And it’s getting to the point where I can stand up on the skis for nearly fifty metres at a stretch.

Now that the eighties have officially drawn to a close, there’s a lot of media rhubarb about what it all meant. Much breast-beating and decrying of all the glitz, the greed, the gullibility. Much calling on us to put the past behind us, tighten our belts and look grim reality square in the eye.

Myself, I don’t know that there’s all that much wisdom to be found in hindsight. Sure, we learn from our mistakes. But only from the ones we’ve already made, so the lessons have limited applicability. And whenever I hear that stuff about belt-tightening, I can’t help but think how much bigger some people’s belts are to begin with. And this is coming from a guy who knows a thing or two about cashed-up waistlines, remember. And about the mad glint in the eye of reality.

Max Karlin’s in the belt-tightening business these days. He’s living in Gdansk, advising the Polish government on the application of free-market principles to the footwear industry. Perhaps he can find a place in his operations for Duncan Keogh. At last report, Duncan had let his party membership lapse and was calling himself a freelance management consultant. Not getting a lot of what you might call work, from all accounts.

The Karlcraft Centre was completed only three months behind schedule, although not under that name. It’s now called Absolute Melbourne. Current ownership resides with a fluid consortium of Singaporean shipping magnates that Faye tells me are looking to unload it onto a Dutch insurance company as soon as the Foreign Investment Review Board rubber stamp gets back from having its worn-down lettering refurbished. For the opening ceremony, an ice-rink was installed in the Galleria and the Australian Opera performed Gotterdammerung in costumes designed by Ken Done.

The shops don’t seem to be doing much business, though. And there’s so much un-let office space upstairs that you could run a fifty-head dairy farm on some of the floors. Claire and I had a drink in there a couple of weeks ago, in the tapas bar on the second level, overlooking the mosaic floor. ‘How’s business?’ I asked the tapas barman.

‘Dropping off,’ he said.

The children’s wear boutique opening onto the horn of plenty was having a clearance sale. I bought Grace a pair of Osh-kosh overalls marked down from a hundred dollars to thirty-nine ninety-five. Still a bit rich, I know, but nothing’s too good for my Gracie.

Claire is back at the National Gallery. One of the recommendations of the Human Resources Policy Review Committee was that former employees whose termination was the result of discriminatory industrial relations practices be given hiring priority if positions became available due to natural wastage. When one of the conservatorial staff was pensioned off with prostate cancer induced by chronic cadmium yellow exposure from handling too many French Impressionists, Claire got his old job.

Not that she goes near the Monets. She’s in the Australian section. From what I can tell, she spends most of her time with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass, sticking ochre blobs back on Aboriginal dot paintings with Aquadhere general-purpose wood glue. But she feels her professional skills are much better employed than they were at Artemis Prints and Framing. Plus she doesn’t have to work Saturday mornings. She sold Artemis for the cost of the stock and cleared twenty grand on the outstanding mortgage, so the property boom was not without its upside, while it lasted. The place is now called Fred’s Head Shop and sells extra-width cigarette papers, blown-glass water-pipes and framed posters of Bob Marley. So some connection with the arts remains.

Speaking of art, the real authorship of Our Home remains a mystery. To me, at least. Very few other people know or care about its existence. The version with the bullet hole and the blood stains is in the vault at the new Police Museum, along with the bullet-riddled banister from the Trades Hall. The version which belonged to Max Karlin was eventually de-accessioned by the Centre for Modern Art. It now hangs in the collection of the Victa Motor Mower Company, although this is probably more because of its subject matter than its authorship. It was recently the subject of a doctoral dissertation published by the PIT Department of Cultural Studies entitled (Sub)liminal Penetration in the (Sub)urban Landscape.

Public interest in the works of Victor Szabo never scaled the heights Fiona Lambert hoped and the planned retrospective exhibition was cancelled due to lack of funding. The content of future exhibitions at the Centre for Modern Art will be determined by its interim curator, Janelle. It was Janelle who phoned Fiona Lambert that night at the flat. She rang to say that Fiona had left her keys behind, yet again. Fiona popped over and picked them up as soon as she’d brushed me and Lloyd off. Then she had an early night.

Fiona is now Assistant Curator of Naive Pottery at the Warracknabeal Regional Gallery. It’s a bit of a come-down, I suppose, and a fair way from the bright lights. But that’s probably the way she prefers it, given that she looks like she’s had a zipper installed in her forehead. She probably still thinks the cops pinched her dough.

Salina Fleet, on the other hand, has gone from strength to strength. The commission she was charging on Marcus Taylor’s knock-offs was more than enough to cover the cost of her relocation to New York, where she is now performance art commentator for Flashy ’n’ Trashy, a theoretical journal financed by the Sony Corporation. The name Fleet, it transpired, was a legacy from an early and soon discarded husband. Her maiden name was Fletcher. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.