Peter Carey - The Tax Inspector

‘Hey,’ she said. Her voice was so loud and scratchy, Maria knew she was very frightened. ‘I’m sorry, really.’

Wally Fischer moved his chair back and stood up. You could feel his physical strength. He had bright, shining, freshly shaven cheeks and you could smell his talcum.

‘One,’ he said to Maria, ‘I don’t like my daughter having to listen to smut.’ He turned to Gia: ‘Number two: I like even less for her to hear people say untrue and insulting things about her father.’

‘All I …’ Gia began.

‘Sssh,’ said Wally Fischer. He was no longer plum-coloured. He was quite pale except for the red in his thick lips. ‘You’ve done enough hurt for one night.’ He blinked his heavy-lidded eyes once, and turned to take his daugher by the arm.

‘Sheet,’ said Gia as they walked out of the door. She leaned across to the abandoned table and retrieved the Bollinger from the bucket.

‘Gia, don’t.’ Maria looked down, ashamed.

Gia was pale and nervous, but she was already holding her trophy high and pouring Wally Fischer’s Bollinger into her empty water glass. ‘Have some. Don’t be such a goody-goody.’ Maria looked up to see Wally Fischer looking in the window from the street. He made a pistol with his finger and pointed it at Gia. Gia did not see him but she looked pale and sick anyway, and there seemed no point in making her more distressed. ‘Have some,’ she said to Maria.

Maria took the champagne, not to drink, as an act of solidarity. It frothed up and spilled on to the wooden table. Gia drank without waiting for the froth to settle. Her hand shook.

‘You all right?’ Maria asked.

‘Yeah, I’m O.K. But I don’t want to come here any more.’

Maria took her hand. Gia shut it into a fist, self-conscious about her bitten nails.

‘We don’t have to come here,’ said Maria.

‘It stinks,’ Gia said. ‘I can smell the dirty money at the door.’ Gia pushed away the champagne. ‘I don’t even like the taste of this.’

‘It isn’t the restaurant that’s the problem. It’s us.’

‘For instance?’

‘We keep doing things we don’t believe in. I didn’t join the department to be an anal authoritarian. I’m not going to bankrupt these poor people out at Franklin.’ Maria soaked up the spilled champagne with a paper napkin. ‘I’m going to pull their file,’ she said.

‘Maria, what’s happened to you?’

‘Nothing’s happened.’

‘You’ve had a character transplant.’ Gia took back the champagne and drank it.

Maria smiled. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘A complete character transplant.’

‘Goody two-shoes?’ Maria asked, her eyebrows arched.

‘That was a long time ago I said that …’

‘Fourteen years …’

‘I was angry with you. You made me feel bad about cheating on my car mileage. But there are people in the department who would drop dead if they thought you were going to pull a file.’

‘And you?’

‘I think it’s very therapeutic, Maria. I think it’s exactly what you should do.’ Gia reached over and emptied the last of Wally Fischer’s champagne into her glass. ‘You know the computer codes? That’s the important thing. You’ll need old Maxy’s access code.’

Maria smiled.

‘And you need a corrupt ASO 7 to open doors for you at night?’

‘Just lend me the keys.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Gia, draining the champagne and standing a little unsteadily. ‘You think I’d miss this?’

‘It’s an offence under the Crimes Act.’

‘Come on,’ Gia said, making scribbling Amex signs at Tom. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. All we’re going to do is work late at the office.’

16

Sarkis Alaverdian was depressed and unemployed, and when he came to sit on his back step, he saw Mrs Catchprice standing at the bottom of the back yard, below the culvert under the Sydney Road. He saw a still, pink figure, like a ghost. It just stood there, looking back at him.

Sarkis stood directly under the light of the back porch. He was not tall, but he was broad. He had a weight-lifter’s build, although when he walked he did not walk like a gym-ape, but lightly, more like a tennis-player. He had not had a pay cheque in ten weeks but he wore, even at home, at night, a black rayon shirt with featured mother-of-pearl buttons on the collar points. He wore grey cotton trousers shot with a slight iridescence, and soft grey slip-ons from the Gucci shop. He had curly black hair, not tight, not short, but tidy just the same. He had a broad strong nose, and a small tuft of hair, a little squiff on his lower lip.

He was twenty years old and he had been forced to come and stand out here while his mother made love with the Ariel Taxi driver. He was ashamed, not ashamed of his mother, but ashamed on her behalf, not that she would make love, not exactly, although a little bit. He had known something like this would happen when they moved from Chatswood. When she wanted to be away from Armenians, he had both sympathized with her and suspected her. He had readied himself for it and prepared himself so he would behave correctly, but he could not have imagined this taxi-driver. It was the taxi-driver who made him feel ashamed.

The taxi-driver was ‘out of area’. He was not even meant to drive in Franklin, but he came down here and cruised around, mostly up at Emerald and Sapphire where the women were abandoned and lonely and often just getting used to the idea that they would now be poor for ever. Before Sarkis lost his job, he had been in this particular taxi a number of times. He had once taken it from Cabramatta Leagues Club to Franklin. The taxi-driver did not recognize Sarkis, but Sarkis recognized him.

Sarkis liked women. He liked their skin, their smells, and he liked the things they talked about. When you are a hairdresser you talk with women all day long. At apprentice school they will call this ‘chatter’, but ultimately it is more important than finger-waving or working on plastic models with wobbly heads, both of which are things that are very important in apprentice school but don’t exist in salon life. If you have talent and you can chatter, you will end up being a Mr Simon or Mr Claude, i.e. you will own your own salon and you can have the pleasure of hiring and firing the ones who topped the class at tech.

The tragedy was that it was chatter that ruined him. He had put Mrs Gladd in the No. 2 cubicle with her dryer on extra low. This was at half-past four. He did this so he could talk with this little blonde – Leone – who had almost perfect hair – naturally blonde, and so dense and strong you could do almost anything you liked with it. He was giving her his ‘Sculptured’ look. It was a dumb word, but reassuring. It was a tangled, curled sort of look, that looked like you just got out of bed until you noticed just how ‘deliberate’ it was. He talked her into it because it was going to suit her, but also because it was the sort of job you could pick and fuss over, and he was picking and fussing while he talk-talk-talked and he knew how nice it felt to have someone doing this, all these little pick-pick-cut-snips to your hair, and he had checked Mrs Gladd at ten to five and then gone back to pick-pick-cut-snip. Leone was getting this honey glaze around her eyes. He talked to her about skiing. He worked out she went with her girlfriend. He talked on and on. When he asked her to the Foresters for a drink he was holding up the mirror for her and she just nodded.

She was beautiful.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’d love to.’

He had made her incredible, like a film star, and he had (fuck it) forgotten, completely, that Mrs Gladd was still under the slow dryer. He went off to the Foresters and locked her in. The cleaners found her at half-past ten – pissed off beyond belief.