Peter Carey - The Tax Inspector

As he stirred and stretched, the angel turned towards him and was recognized. Then all the heavy weight of the past and present flooded back into his limbs.

He quickly saw that the tattooed wings were not the only thing his son had done to himself – he had also used a depilatory to remove any trace of body hair. His chest, his legs, his penis all had that shiny slippery look of a child just out of the bath.

It was the lack of hair that woke him properly. He understood its intention perfectly and as the blood engorged his own penis, he picked up the blue water jug beside his bed and threw it at the creature. The water spilled yet stayed suspended in mid-air like a great crystal tongue-lick – dripping diamonds suspended above the angel’s dazzling white head.

The angel stepped, slowly, to one side and the jug hit the soft plaster wall and its handle penetrated the plasterboard. It did not bounce or break, but stuck there, like a trophy.

Benny gave his father a rather bruised and blaming smile. ‘You’re so predictable,’ he said.

The crystal transformed itself into water and fell – splat – on to the floor. The alarm clock began to ring.

‘Please,’ Mort said. ‘Please don’t do this.’ But even as he did say, ‘please don’t’, the other cunning part of his brain was saying, please, yes, one more helping.

‘Well sure,’ Benny sat down in the rocking-chair beside the bed and began rubbing his hands along his long shiny thighs. ‘We’ve got some dirty habits.’

His father sat up in bed with the sheet gathered around his hairy midriff. ‘Not any more we don’t.’

‘You know I could have you put in jail,’ Benny said. ‘I wish I’d known that before. Did you see that on ‘Hinch at Seven’ last week? They take you to the Haversham clinic and they put you in a chair and they strap this thing around your dick and show you pictures of men doing it to little boys. You get a hard-on, you’re done. They call you a rock spider and chuck away the key.’

Mort threw the alarm clock. He was not play-acting. It was a heavy silver clock from Bangkok Duty-Free and it hit the boy on the chest so hard it made him rock back in the chair. The confidence left his eyes and was replaced by a baleful, burning look.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to do something if you hurt me.’

Mort was already sorry, sorry because he had been brutal, sorry because he was now even more vulnerable. He could see a large red half moon showing on the boy’s chest. Anybody could examine it and see what he had done. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry isn’t enough,’ Benny said, rubbing at the mark. ‘You’re always sorry.’

Mort knew he had to get out of there before something bad happened. He slipped out of bed with his back to Benny. He bent down by the muslin curtains looking for his underpants.

‘Christ,’ said Benny. ‘Look at the boner.’

Mort tripped and staggered with his toes caught in his underpants. ‘God help me, shut up.’

Benny was standing, grinning. ‘You can’t say shut up to me now. I’m an angel. You like it?’ He stood and turned and wiggled his butt a little.

‘You’ll never get them off,’ Mort said. He did not ask how much the tattoos cost. ‘Where did you get the money, are you thieving again?’

Benny said: ‘It’s the hair, isn’t it? That’s what you get off on.’

Mort was trying to find the shirt and trousers he had dropped on the floor at bedtime. They were tangled with a towel and dressing-gown.

‘It’s the hair got you stiff again? You stopped liking me when you got that stuff stuck between your teeth.’

Mort sat on the bed. ‘I’m not listening to this shit. We’re beyond all this now. We left it behind.’

‘Oh, I’m a bad boy.’ Benny made his eyes go wide. ‘I made it up. It never happened.’

Mort zipped the trousers and pulled a T-shirt over his head. When his face emerged he felt all his weakness showing. ‘What do you want?’

‘Who was it who made me like this?’

‘It’s finished. We’ve got to get over it.’

‘It’s not over,’ said Benny taking down his shirt from the coat hanger behind the door. ‘It’s never over. I think about it every day.’

‘It’s over for me. Benny, I’ve changed. I swear.’

‘I’ve changed too,’ Benny said. ‘I’m an angel.’

‘I’m not buying you a motor bike, forget it.’

‘You don’t listen. I didn’t say Hell’s Angel. I said, angel!’

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Means I say to one man go and he goeth, say to another man come and he cometh.’

‘That’s the centurion.’

‘I don’t give a fuck what you call it,’ said Benny.

‘Don’t talk to me like that.’

‘I am talking to you like this. I want you to go to the Tax woman and show her your life.’

‘Look,’ said Mort. He sat down on the bed. ‘My father did it to me. His father did it to him. You think I like being like this?’

‘Just listen to me. Listen to what I say. She’s a nice lady. Talk to her. That’s all you’ve got to do. Tell her about Cacka’s philosophy. Just make her responsible for you. She can’t destroy us if she thinks we’re decent people.’

‘Benny, don’t be simple.’

‘Listen, I know who she is. I’m going out with her.’

‘You’re what?’

‘I’m going out with her. Believe me. She’s a human. She responds.’

He unbuttoned his slippery cool white shirt and returned it to the coat hanger. He hung the hanger behind the door again. He slipped off his underpants and ran his hands down his flawless hairless chest and between his thighs. ‘You can’t help yourself can you, Kissy? You’re responding. You know I think you’re shit, but you don’t care.’

‘I am shit,’ Mort said.

‘You are shit.’ He hooked his finger into the top of Mort’s underpants and tugged at the elastic. ‘I went to her house last night. She’s pregnant. Her tits are full of milk.’ He let the elastic go and lay on the bed on his stomach. ‘When I came back here I took the books off Granny’s desk.’ He rolled on his back, smiling. ‘I wrapped them in a plastic bag and buried them.’

‘You really think that’s smart?’ Mort said, but he had already stopped caring if it was smart or not.

‘You want to argue with me, or you want to have some fun?’

‘Benny, what’s happened to you?’

‘I’m an angel,’ Benny said.

‘What does that mean?’ Mort put out a finger to feel the boy’s smooth thigh.

‘It means I am in control. It means everyone does what I say.’

33

He would ‘show his life’, sure, silly as this was. He would be a monkey for his son. You know what was weird? What was weird was he was finally an inch away from happiness.

Show his life? Bare his arse? Sure, but not like the little blackmailer imagined.

He would talk to her, sure he would. What’s more: he was busting to do it. He had the day’s job sheets spread out across his desk, but he could not concentrate on them. They had finally become irrelevant.

He knew nothing about tax. He could not even read the balance sheets he signed each year, but he knew enough, by Christ he did, to show his life to the Tax Inspector. He would embrace her. He would draw her towards him like a dagger, have her drive some official stake into the business, right into its rubbery, resisting heart.

Howie and Cathy were always full of blame, always had been. They could blame him for not selling. They could blame him for fuck-ups in the workshop. They presumably blamed him for Benny turning out a poof, and Johnny going to the cults, but they could not blame him for the tax investigation. They were the ones – Mr and Mrs Rock ’n’ Roll – who played funny buggers with the tax.