Peter Temple - Black Tide

My father would want me to help him.

The thought came to me unbidden and with it the cover of Linda’s left-behind book, The Mountain from Afar.

Oh God, men and their fathers.

Music. Like the mountain, from afar.

I got up and went to the window. In the closing day, the street gleamed wetly, its heavily cambered surface like the black cracked back of some ancient serpent rising between the buildings. The music was coming from Kelvin McCoy’s atelier. Classical music, Debussy, at a guess. The thought of McCoy finding inspiration for his greasetrap paintings in Debussy stopped me dead in my tracks.

I went across the street, stood at the door and listened, unashamed.

A woman’s voice over the music. Then McCoy’s ruined tones, saying loudly, ‘Relax, darling. It’s nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. I’m an artist, I work with naked women every day.’

Work? With naked women?

Indeed.

I stopped off at Taub’s to collect Charlie, got him out the door in twenty minutes. At the Prince, Norm O’Neill was reading the Herald Sun sports section.

‘Jack, Charlie,’ he said, waving the tabloid, ‘where’d ya reckon they get these footy writers? From the kinder? Bloody born yesterday. This clown here, knows nothin about the Sainters. All this dickhead knows, club coulda come down from Mars just last year.’

And to make an end is to make a beginning. Was that what T. S. Eliot said?

This thought in mind, I requested a round from the publican. Stan was looking a model of geniality, your plump old-fashioned landlord, dispenser of wisdom and good cheer. What drug could work the miracle of complete personality reversal?

‘Doubled the offer,’ he said, putting down my beer, leaning across the bar, not so much whispering as sniggering. ‘They want the old photos pretty bad.’

And then he winked, leered, took on a turbo-charged plump model of geniality look. A-Mr-Pickwick-on-human-growth-hormones look.

I put my face close to his. ‘Stanley, you’re not listening. The photographs aren’t just old photos. You’re trying to sell sacred objects. They’re worth more than your life. Much more. The people who’ll kill you don’t give a shit about life sentences. They could depart any second. You with me?’

Stan pulled back, still beaming like Mr Pickwick, Mr Pickwick turned compassionate outreach worker. ‘Jack,’ he said. The one word had an understanding and non-judgmental tone. ‘Jack, excuse me, you’re a nice bloke but you don’t understand the dynamics of change. Don’t mean to offend, you’re gettin a bit like the old farts. Livin in the past.’

He examined me benignly. ‘Not just the photos, Jack. The party don’t just want the photos. Thought you’d grasped that.’

I took a big drink of beer. ‘Tell me, Stan. Slowly.’

‘Want the freehold. Melbourne HQ of the Brisbane Lions. New name. Listen to this. The Lions’ Lair.’

‘Inspired.’ I drank more beer.

He gave me an encouraging look, the look Harry Strang had given McCurdie when the rustic trainer managed to pour his own tea.

‘My suggestion that,’ said Stan. ‘Shoulda seen the bloke’s face light up. Marketing magic. Total synergistic marketing. These kids can’t see the big picture. Takes years of interface with actual point-of-sale.’

‘Actual point-of-sale? Is that the same as pulling beer? Beer that tastes of soap.’

He ignored the question. ‘Me in charge, naturally. Pokies. Bistro. Big screen. Knock all the walls out down here. Arches. Then there’s the upstairs. Guess.’

‘Too hard. Haven’t had enough years of interface.’

‘Consider this. Two loft-style serviced apartments upstairs. How’s that for out-of-the-square thinking?’

I gave him the cross-examination stare. ‘Not so much out of the square, Stan,’ I said, ‘as out of your cotton-picking mind. Goodnight.’

I drained the glass, no heart for this discussion. Any discussion. Goodnight all. Went home.

Home felt a bit more homely when I’d cleaned out the grate and made a fire. I cheered up, put on music, Clementine Liprandi, voice like a faraway trumpet. In the freezer, four small Italian beef sausages from Smith Street’s finest butcher were huddled in an ice cave, joined like Siamese quads. Into the microwave to defrost. Sausages and mash. Potatoes in the basket, still firm of body. I peeled, quartered, immersed, went out to the car to get the case of Heathcote shiraz from the boot. Rain hung in the air, was the air, dampened the honking, humming, wailing night sounds of the city.

Glass in hand, I pressed for the messages. Rosa. Drew, missed by minutes. No Linda.

No Linda.

That’s the way it’s gonna be, liddle darlin, I said to myself, put on the television for the news. A female reporter with a startled look took us through a small hostage drama in North Balwyn. Generally, the police, endowed with a strong sense of theatre, like to shoot someone to end a hostage drama. However, the protagonist wimped out and was led away, alive, unperforated. On to a bus crash in Queensland, very few dead, allegations of sexual misconduct against two army officers, calls for the resignation of a football administrator, a hostile reception for the Prime Minister at a welfare conference.

I missed the sport while I was mashing. When I got back, ‘The 7.30 Report’ was on and Dermott O’Sullivan was interrogating the Federal Treasurer, David Maclay. The subject was Money, Power and Politics.

O’Sullivan: So Mr Maclay there’s no unhappiness in the party about the influence of people who hold no elected office?

Maclay: Absolutely not. Dermott, we’re a party of consultation and consensus. We listen to all our members and supporters. And we listen to all the voters of Australia. Always have, always will.

O’Sullivan: But some people get listened to more than others.

Maclay, shaking his head in sad disbelief: Dermott, seriously. Of course some opinions carry more weight than others! I don’t ask people in the supermarket queue how to manage interest rates. Does the ABC choose the people on its opinion programs at random from the phone book?

O’Sullivan, tilt of head, smile: And I’m sure you’re in the supermarket queue on a daily basis, Minister. But my point is that people in the party, elected people, have expressed concern that some unelected individuals seem to command huge power.

Maclay: Dermott, I’m really disappointed in you. Why don’t you just come out with it? If you want to play Follow-My-Leader, at least try to be the leader. You owe the idea that a great Australian achiever, and I’m referring to Steven Levesque, has some undue influence on government to your ill-informed commercial media colleague Ms Linda Hillier. People expect more from the ABC, Dermott.

Was there no escape from Steven Levesque? First Linda and now Dermott.

Maclay carried on: In my twenty-odd years in politics, Dermott, I’ve never heard of or felt the influence of Steven Levesque. If you know something I don’t know, please tell me.

O’Sullivan smiled, his wry smile this time: His companies are among the biggest donors to your party in all States, his former partner is the Attorney-General, the Premier of Victoria is said not to choose a tie without consulting him. And you know nothing of his influence, Mr Maclay?

Maclay: Dermott, whether you give the party five bob or fifty thousand dollars, you buy exactly the same amount of influence. Nil.

O’Sullivan: So the fact that Fincham Air last year won the coastal surveillance contracts for Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory owes nothing to Mr Levesque’s relationship with your party?

Maclay, frowning: What are you getting at, Dermott?

O’Sullivan: Fincham Air is partly owned by a company called CrossTrice Holdings. And one of CrossTrice’s directors is Lionel Carson, formerly a partner of Mr Levesque’s in TransQuik Australia.