Peter Temple: Bad Debts

On Sunday I fiddled around, doing nothing, restless, vaguely sorry for myself. I spent an hour writing a letter to my daughter in Queensland. Claire was cooking on a fishing boat out of Port Douglas. In my mind, I saw her, a beautiful stick with wrists the size of some men’s knuckle-bones. She was circled by large males, blond men with permanent sunburn and the eyes of dead sharks. I thought about the first time I saw Claire’s mother, on Bells Beach. She had been surrounded by testosterone-crazed surfers, all lying belly down to hide their erections.

I reread Claire’s most recent letter. It made too many mentions of the boat’s skipper, a man called Eric. I ended my letter with some delicately phrased warnings about the distorting effects of propinquity on judgment. Still, at least Eric had a job.

I walked to the corner to post the letter. The sky was low, the colour of misery, wind whipping the naked trees. There was no-one in the park except a man and a small boy sitting at a table near the playground. The boy was eating something out of a styrofoam box, his eyes on the table. The man was smoking a cigarette. He put out a helpless hand and touched the boy’s hair.

I went home and the winking light on the answering machine caught my eye as I came in the door. I pressed the button and slumped on the couch.

Jack, Andrew. Thought you’d be back by now. Listen, I’ve pushed a little lease thing your way. Bloke called Andropolous. I just got his cousin off a couple of obtaining-by-deceptions. Andy’s all right. Cash in hand. Pause. By the way, Helen’s fucked off. Give me a ring when you get back. Cheers. Oh, my secretary says a guy called McKillop was around here today looking for you. Ex-client, I gather. See you.

The machine’s deep voice said: Thursday, July 23, 6.20 p.m. Andrew Greer, former law partner.

Jack. Mate, it’s Danny McKillop. Pause. Danny, y’know, the hit-and-run? In ’84? I’m out. You said ring you, like if there was something? I’m in a bit of strife, mate. You reckon you can give me a ring? It’s 9419 8432. Tonight if you can. Cheers.

The machine said: Thursday, July 23, 7.47 p.m.

I stopped the machine. Danny McKillop. Y’know, the hit-and-run? It meant nothing. A former client? A client who went to jail. Plenty of those around. I pressed the button again.

Jack, Laurie Baranek. Look, this agreement needs a bit extra, know what I mean? Can we stick in a coupla other penalties? I just want it so he understands he don’t deliver, he’s in big shit. Get my meaning? Ring me. Not at work, I’m on the mobile.

Friday, July 24, 2.28 p.m. Laurence Baranek, vegetable merchant and property speculator.

Jack, it’s Danny. McKillop. Get my message? Listen, ring any time, doesn’t matter what time. Pause. Jack, I’m in deep shit. Can you meet me in the carpark of the Hero of Trafalgar in Brunswick? It’s off Sydney Road. Seven o’clock tonight? I wouldn’t ask only I’m shitting myself, okay? Cheers.

The man said it was Saturday, 25 July, 3.46 p.m.

There were no more messages, just a lot of silences and disconnections. Danny McKillop? The name still meant nothing. I rang the number. No answer. I put on Mahler, made a beef stew, opened a bottle of wine, rang my sister and listened for half an hour. The day passed.

On Monday, Cameron Delray, the small man’s enigmatic footsoldier, picked me up at Taub’s Cabinetmaking in Fitzroy. It’s in Carrigan’s Lane, a grubby one-way that runs down to Smith Street, Collingwood. Cam blocked the street with his Kingswood. I was at the back of the shop making myself useful, ripping some ash for a bureau carcass. I switched off the machine with my knee and took off my helmet.

Cam gave me a nod and walked over to where Charlie Taub was fine-tuning some clamps on a George III writing table.

‘G’day, boss,’ Cam said. ‘How’s the apprentice coming on?’

‘Not bad,’ said Charlie, taking the long-dead cheroot out of his mouth and looking at it. ‘Five, six years, he’ll make a joint that fits. Then I’ll sell him the business and retire.’

I was taking off my leather apron. ‘Retire at ninety?’ I said. ‘Premature, that’s what they’ll say. Best work still ahead of him.’

Cam said, ‘Get along without the boy for a bit?’

‘I’ll try,’ Charlie said. ‘Fifty years on my own, if I’m ready yet I don’t know.’ He gave me his appraising look from under the exploding grey eyebrows. ‘I blame myself,’ he said. ‘Introducing you to Harry Strang.’

I said, ‘Don’t torture yourself, Charlie. People have introduced me to a lot worse than Harry Strang. By a factor of about three thousand.’

‘Horse business,’ Charlie said. ‘Never met a man it didn’t ruin.’

‘I should be so lucky to be ruined like Harry Strang,’ I said. ‘I’m scared Harry’ll die before he ruins me.’

‘Material possessions,’ Charlie said. He lit the cheroot with a kitchen match and coughed for a while, waving the smoke away with a hand the size of a tennis racquet. ‘Material possessions he’s got. Otherwise, a ruined man. Ruined.’

Cam’s Kingswood smelt faintly of expensive perfume. The radio was on. An ABC voice, rich with authority, was saying:

The Premier, Dr Marcia Saunders, today defended the six hundred million dollar Yarra Cove project.

Approving the project, which will transform a large section of the west bank of the Yarra, was one of the new government’s first acts.

Dr Saunders said she and her party had for years in opposition called for a number of large Melbourne developments to be given the go ahead.

The Premier’s voice, hoarse, slightly too loud, the voice of someone you interrupt at your peril, followed.

The previous government was so obsessed by its hatred of anyone who made a profit and created jobs that it allowed this State to stagnate. Well, the people of Victoria have had enough of social engineering. This government is trying to get this State moving again. We’re unashamedly pro-development and so are the people who voted us into office.

The announcer came back.

Opposition leader David Kerr said the Yarra Cove project had no merit whatsoever.

David Kerr’s gravelly voice said, This government would like to hand the whole State over to their pals the developers. Yarra Cove is bad enough, but it’s just the beginning…

‘Yarra Cove?’ said Cam. ‘What the hell is Yarra Cove?’

‘Sounds tropical,’ I said. ‘Topless girls in grass skirts swaying by the banks of the Yarra, that sort of thing.’

‘In this climate,’ Cam said, ‘they start topless, they’ll end titless.’

We were on Johnston Street. I closed my eyes as Cam aimed the Kingswood at a gap between two vehicles that had to grow about two metres before he reached it. It obviously grew. I opened my eyes. Cam punched over to 3MP Easy Music. They were playing ‘The Way We Were’, probably for the fifth time since breakfast. He screamed and punched over to a man talking about public transport.

Harry Strang lived in Parkville, in a huge Victorian house behind high red-brick walls. Cam spoke into the voicebox in the studded street door and the door unlocked itself. The house was fifty metres away, at the end of a stone path that wound through a two-gardener garden.

Lyn Strang let us in. Harry’s wife was in her forties, sexy in a bush-hospital nurse way: short hair, snub nose, legs-apart stance. She had a generous mouth, big knowing hands and broad calf muscles. Lyn had been married to a small-time country trainer called Ronnie Braudel. Ronnie lucked on to a horse called Fiery Continent, a little thing with no more breeding than the average can of dog food. But the horse was more than the sum of his parents. He was an equine freak, a once-in-a-lifetime horse.