Peter Carey: Amnesia

And who would ever feel sorry for me? Had I not risked my family’s life?

But even then I was an optimist. Woody wanted me to call him and I knew exactly why. He had talked to Claire. He knew I was in the doghouse. Naturally he would find me a place to stay. I called immediately and he picked up.

“You’re in the shit.”

“I am.”

“Where are you now?”

“Where else? The B&B.”

“Fucking Bernie,” he laughed.

“I thought he was dead.”

“Yes mate.” His tone became weirdly serious and I thought, of course Woody would know Bernie Houghton, and probably Frank Nugan too. There were stranger friendships in this town. Shoot me for saying it, but Sydney, our dense dark city, is really very small.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said. I thought, thank God. I could not bear to go begging for a bed.

“You’re a mate,” I said.

“You’re going to have to get your arse down here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Melbourne.”

“Why Melbourne?”

“Jesus, don’t argue with me Feels. I’m about to save your life again. Why Melbourne? Jeez. Don’t be offensive.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

Of course Melbourne was where he owned most property, where he would most easily find an empty flat for me. I should be very, very grateful.

“You want this or not?”

“Yes, I want it.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow in my office. I’ll take you to lunch at Moroni’s like the old days.”

I could have charged the flight to our joint credit card, but truly, I had seen Claire’s face. It was Thursday night, late night shopping. I took a cab to the distinguished book dealer on Oxford Street where I offered my Manning Clarks. Each one was signed “To Felix with respect.” I argued that they were association copies.

“The association being?”

I was not one of Manning’s many worshippers, but I liked him and he was unfailingly amused by me. “He is Manning Clark,” I said. “I am Felix Moore.”

The bookseller showed no particular reaction, although he did spend an awfully long time staring at the spine of Volume I. He was a gentle, diplomatic young man. He did not call me a wanker or argue about the plunging value of my name. Rather, he indicated, quite correctly, that Vol. I was associated with red wine and biro and Vol. V was foxed. He offered two hundred in the manner of his caste, giving me my books back as if to say, don’t even try to haggle. Of course I took the money and it turned out just enough: $112 for the ticket, $60 for a shitty room I found nearby in Surry Hills.

Sad and sorry on my slippery motel sheets I called my wife.

To my delight she took my call.

“If you do this one more time,” she said, “I’ll have your phone cut off.”

BEFORE EXHAUSTING the last of the birdshit deposits which were the source of its fabulous wealth, before going into business as a detention facility for asylum seekers, the nation state of Nauru destroyed two landmark buildings in Collins Street and erected a 52-floor octagonal monument to its own ineptitude and corruption.

Who would want to have an office on this site? My mate of course.

“If I applied your standards, Feels, I’d be sleeping on the beach. Also,” he said, revealing his true Melbourne heart, “the last time I looked, you lived in Sydney.”

Woody had his office on the fiftieth floor and here he liked to swing back and forth in his fancy chair and gaze up at the violent scudding clouds and down on Parliament House and out to his developments at Docklands. He could see all the way south to St. Kilda and north-east to Collingwood and all that rising damp he had inherited when his father was shot to death.

That murder was not a subject I ever raised with Woody. His personal history resided in the world of “it is said.” It is said that he was a stellar student at Melbourne High. It is said he had wanted to be a literature professor. It is said he had no choice but to pick up his father’s revolver. It is said that he continued that habit long after he employed others to collect his rents. I know this last is true because he once persuaded me to go to the beautiful old Florentino restaurant to pick up “something” he had stupidly left behind. He didn’t say it was a pistol but I noted the blanched face of the unerringly polite Raymond Tsindos when he presented me with a shoebox marked “Mr. Townes.” Outside, on Bourke Street, by the window of that famous bookshop, I lifted the lid. I never told him what I saw.

It is not common for people in Melbourne to carry guns. Indeed it is a criminal offence. So it may seem odd that, rather than stain his good name, my friend’s idiosyncrasy brought a certain frisson to his reputation. Patron of the arts, collector of first editions, street fighter, champion of the left, also, of course, most of all, a property developer. In a different society Woody Townes would have been a player in nothing grander than a city council, but in our dry sclerophyll country his species nests very high indeed.

“I’m going to save your arse, young Felix.”

“That’s very noble of you, mate.”

He stared at me and I, like a drunk who realises he has caused offence, was confused and hurt and dared not look away. This was not Woody in the Wentworth but Woody in his office. My mate had scary moments.

“Thanks for this,” I said.

“Ah, comrade,” he sighed, “you know I am not noble.”

“In your fashion, mate.”

“You thought you were fucked,” he said. “You were up shit creek again.”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“Now you’re going to be top dog.”

Oh fuck, I thought, as I sat down opposite him, he is offering me one of his disgusting penthouses on the Yarra. It would be impossible to refuse.

“Just a place to stay till I get started.”

“But what would you possibly start on? Workwise.”

“Jeez. I’ve just arrived.”

“Maybe you’ll be working sooner than you think. You know who the Angel’s mother is?”

“Yes. And so do you.”

He raised his big eyebrows, grinning, withholding.

“You’ve been in touch with her,” I suggested.

“Mate, I’ve never stopped being in touch with Celine.”

The innuendo was not prettily expressed, but I wanted to believe what he was hinting at. “You got me a gig?”

“You write the bloody story, mate. Exclusive. Felix Moore. The defendant won’t talk to anyone but you.”

“Bullshit.”

“I bailed her. Five hundred k,” Woody said, as if he’d purchased a Dobell portrait. I did not judge him for his vulgarity. I admired him. Who else in Australia would have stepped up in his place? “While you were packing shit in the park in Sydney, I was on the phone. I bailed the bloody Angel before the US could touch her. What about that? She’s yours.” He was grinning at me like a wide-mouthed frog. I didn’t have to tell him I was already on her side.

“And she wants me to write her story? That’s what you’re saying.”

“Mate, she never heard of you.”

I didn’t believe him for a second, and in any case I did not care.

“No newspaper’s going to run this,” I said.

Wodonga threw his sandwich in the bin and I recalled I had heard his stomach had been stapled and that when you ate with him at Florentino he would vomit discreetly into his handkerchief. He sat more formally now, his awful elephantine hands clasped gently above his stomach.

“Book,” he said. “Big advance. You can lose your court appeal and pay your damages and still buy Claire a sexy nightie. The contract is being written now. But if you don’t want the job, just say so.”