Peter Carey: The Tax Inspector

‘No, seriously …’ he said.

‘Seriously!’

For a moment it looked as if Benny was going to mimic his brother’s outraged squeak, but then he seemed to change his mind. ‘No, seriously,’ he said, ‘I’ve got something great for you.’

There was a long silence.

‘An opportunity,’ said Benny.

Vish was breathing through his nose and shaking his head very slowly. He brought his hands up on the table and rubbed at the cuts on his knuckles. ‘Do you know what it takes for me to come out here? Do you know what it costs me?’ His eyes were so squinched up they were almost shut, with the result that his face appeared simultaneously puzzled and fatigued.

‘I got fired from my own business,’ Benny reminded him. ‘I need you more than ever in my life. Isn’t that enough of a reason to come?’

For a Hare Krishna the answer was no. Vish did not have the stamina to explain that again, nor did he want to hear what the ‘opportunity’ was.

‘Sure,’ he said.

Benny leaned across the dining-table to pat him on his shaven head. ‘I wanted my brother … he’s here. I needed a cocktail … she’s making it. Relax … calm down. You going to have a brandy cruster? A little Sense Grat-if-ication? Put a wig on.’

Benny’s eyes were like their father’s – the same store-house of energy. Humour and malice lay twisted together in the black centre of the pupil. ‘Put on your wig,’ he said. ‘God won’t see you if you have a wig on.’

‘Don’t be ignorant.’

‘Fuck yourself,’ Benny hissed.

Vish had a hold of his younger brother’s grimy little wrist before Benny knew what was happening. Benny was a sparrow. He had light, fine bones like chicken wings. He yelped, but he was not being held hard enough to really hurt him.

‘Please let me go,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have called me that. You know you shouldn’t call me that.’

‘You shouldn’t have said what you said.’

‘About the wig?’

Vish tightened his grip.

‘Let me go,’ Benny said. He bowed his head until the burning end of his cigarette was half an inch from Vish’s hand. He never could stand being held down. His chin quivered. The cigarette shook. ‘Let me go or I’ll burn your fucking hand.’

‘I came here to see you,’ Vish said, but he let go.

‘Oh sure,’ Benny said. ‘You thought I’d flipped out, right?’

‘I was worried about you.’

‘Sure,’ said Benny. ‘You’ve been worrying about me for years. Thanks. Your worry has really helped my life a lot.’

‘You want me here or not, Ben? Just say.’

Benny was messing with the butts in the yellow glass ashtray, pulling the skin off the cigarette and shredding the filter. ‘I’m not joining the Krishnas,’ he said. ‘Forget it.’

‘Listen Ben, you give this up, I’ll give up the temple. I’ll get a straight job. We’ll get a place together. We’ll get jobs.’

‘Get it into your head,’ Benny said. ‘We don’t need to get jobs. We’ve got jobs. We’ve got our own business. This is what you’ve got to understand.’

‘They fired you.’

‘They think they fired me.’ Benny had these eyes. When he smiled like this, the eyes looked scary – they danced, they dared you, they did not trust you. The eyes pushed you away and made you enemy. ‘They can’t fire me,’ he said.

‘Cathy fired you. That’s why I’m here. She fired you and you went down in a heap.’

Benny took out a fresh Marlboro and lit it. ‘The situation keeps changing,’ he said.

Vish groaned.

‘No, look,’ Benny said. ‘Think about it. This is the best thing that could have happened.’

‘Then why am I here? Why did I get this call from Gran?’

‘Just listen to me. Think about what I’m saying. Cathy fired me, but she’s a dead duck. She’s got an unemployed carpenter for a drummer and a lead guitarist with a fucked-up marriage and they’ve actually got a record on the Country charts. They’re charting! Nothing’s going to stop these guys going on the road. This is it for them. What I’m saying is, they’re entitled – it’s their name too and if she wants to keep it, she’ll have to leave the business and go on the road with them. She fired me but she doesn’t count.’

‘Benny, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Then listen to me. She always thought she was Big Mack, right? She thought the Mack was hers because McPherson is her name, but Mickey Wright got a lawyer and the lawyer says the name is for the whole band. She’s got to go on tour with them or they’ll go and tour without her. She’s got to go. She’s out of here. She doesn’t count. You leave the Krishnas, fine,’ Benny said. ‘But you stay here with me. We can run this show together. I can go through the details for you any time you like.’

‘Did you work this out before Gran phoned me?’

‘They feed you at the temple,’ Benny said. ‘I know – you’ve got no worries, well you’ve got no worries here. I’ll guarantee a living. Don’t shake your fucking head at me. You can make two hundred grand a year in this dump, really. You can walk on fucking water if you want. We can set this town on fire.’

The dog came and pushed his nose up between Benny’s legs. Benny kicked him away and he went back to the kitchen, slipping and scratching across the floor to where Gran Catchprice was hunched over her defective Semak Vitamiser.

‘This is our inheritance,’ Benny said. ‘I’m not walking away from that and neither are you.’

Vish shook his head and rearranged his yellow robe. In the kitchen his grandmother was turning the single switch of the blender on and off, on and off.

‘Did you talk to Him?’

‘Who’s Him?’

‘You know who I mean … our father.’

‘He’s irrelevant.’

‘Oh yes? Really?’

‘His only relevance is these.’ He held up a bottle of pills – Serepax prescribed for Mr Mort Catchprice.

‘Benny, Benny. I thought you quit that.’

‘Benny, Benny, I’m not selling them. I’m trading them.’

‘For what?’

‘Personal transformation,’ Benny said.

Vish sighed. ‘Benny, he’s not going to let you do any of this. What do you think you’re going to do?’

‘Tonight,’ Benny rattled the Serepax and pushed them down into the grubby depths of his jeans pocket, ‘I’m swapping these with Bridget Plodder for a haircut. Tomorrow, I’m personally moving some of that stock off the floor.’

‘You’re selling cars?’ Benny was coated with dirt. He had grimy wrists, dull hair, this film across his skin, but there was, once again, this luminous intensity in his eyes. ‘You don’t even have a driving licence.’

‘He can’t stop me,’ Benny said. ‘I’ve turned the tables. I’ve got him over a barrel.’

‘Stay away from him, Ben.’

‘Vish, you don’t even know who I am. I’ve changed.’

‘You’re sixteen. He can do what he likes with you.’

‘I’ve changed.’

For the second time that evening, Benny opened his mouth wide for Vish and pushed his face forward. Vish looked into his brother’s mouth. Whatever it was he was meant to see in there, he couldn’t see it.

4

At three-thirty on Monday morning Vish performed his ablutions, chanted japa , and made prasadum – a stack of lentil pancakes which he laid in front of the guru’s picture before beginning to eat.

At five-thirty Granny Catchprice had her Maxwell House standing up at the kitchen sink. She politely ate some of the cold pancakes her grandson offered her.

At six-thirty the pair of them, she in an aqua-coloured, quilted dressing-gown, he in his yellow dhoti and kurta, opened the heavy Cyclone gates to the car yard and locked the Yale padlock back on its bolt.