Peter Carey - Bliss

'What shit?' Harry wondered about the pearl perch.

'What shit? You name it. But listen, you know George Bizneris from Shell he has it. You know Betty Glover, she has it. You know, ' and he started counting off names on his fin-gers, 'David McNamara, his wife too, the man who runs the news kiosk downstairs, my own father, and that man there, sit-ting in the comer with the woman with red hair, he says three children at his daughter's school have it. Three children, eh?'

Harry shook his head mournfully, wondering what it all meant.

'Ah,' Aldo stood up. 'I can't stay with you, Mr Joy, you're too depressing. Come and see me when you have a smoke.'

Harry had a weakness for Bisquit cognac and no matter who told him it was not a great cognac, nothing could diminish the pleasure it gave him. When, sitting by the window, he dropped his nose into the brandy balloon it was like the proboscis of some creature whose evolutionary success had been based on its ability to live on the fumes of volatile fluids. It did not matter what they had done to Aldo (there he goes, the dark little man, flitting across the restaurant with his hidden drugs) because Harry was warmed and soothed and Milanos still had its magic, even now, at three o'clock in the afternoon as they set up the tables for evening and one could imagine oneself the first guest rather than the last.

He felt at once brave and (was it possible?) contented. The second-rate table by the window had its advantages: he could watch the Captives limp and struggle along the crowded street below, observe the laughing face of the occasional Actor, and even (once only) the impassive masks of Those in Charge hiding behind the glossy windows of a Mercedes Benz.

On his white map of Hell he was pencilling in marks, crude, inexact, tentative at the moment, but surely even Livingstone must have become lost occasionally and needed some high ground to see the lay of the land.

And also, perhaps, a sanctuary like this where one could momentarily forget the tribulations and terrors of the unknown continent.

He heard coarse laughter. It came from the bar. It was not Milanos-type laughter. It was the laughter of street spruikers and early morning markets, not the laughter of crystal glasses and pink tablecloths.

He cocked his head on one side, watching carefully; Aldo pointed towards him. Then he led this other person (this wrong-laughter) towards him. It was a big red-faced sandy-haired man. He had huge bushy sandy eyebrows and large sandy-haired arms sticking out of a dirty yellow sleeveless sweater.

'Found you at last,' the stranger shouted to Harry when he was still only half-way across the restaurant. 'It's extraordinary.'

'This is wonderful,' Aldo said. They came and sat at his table without being asked and Harry had to put his notebook away again.

'This is Mr ...?' Aldo began.

'Mr…Billy, Billy de Vere,' said the sandy man holding out a hand which felt like it had been stored in a bag of unwashed potatoes.

'From the circus,' Aldo explained. 'Mr Joy.'

'Harry.'

'Pleased to meet you, Harry.' Billy de Vere placed a fistful of notes on the table. 'If you'll allow me,' he said, 'what will be your pleasure?'

'No, no,' AIdo said, 'this is on me,' and he waved a waiter over and whispered in his ear.

Harry sat motionless. His flicking eyes didn't miss a thing, not the nod to the waiter, the wink of Mr de Vere, the removal of the notes from the table, or the faint aroma, like wet dog, which came from the direction of the yellow sleeveless sweater.

'Alright, alright, Mr Joy, don't worry, cheer up,' Aldo said. 'Cheer up, cheer up, it's just an accident. A funny story…'

'What happened?' Harry asked thickly.

A bottle of Grande Armagnac was placed on the table and they all watched the waiter take his knife and break the green-wax seal on the cork and then pour the dark brown liquid into three brandy balloons. The bottle was left on the table.

'Drink first,' Mr de Vere said, clapping his hands together like a hungry man. 'Or you'll think I'm lying.'

Harry and Aldo shared a momentary comradeship, a shared astonishment as Mr de Vere downed his Armagnac in one fast disrespectful swallow.

'Good brandy,' he said, 'very smooth.'

Aldo giggled (out of character) and poured him some more.

'A drink for a man,' said Mr de Vere.

'This must be some story,' Harry said nervously.

'It is almost the same as the original story,' Mr de Vere said, placing his empty glass on the table with an appreciative sigh, in spite of which gentle compliment it was destined to remain unfilled for longer than he had hoped. 'It's like lightning hitting the same place twice.' He picked up his glass and looked at it. 'Which,' he said, his huge eyebrows rising, 'I've heard can actually happen, in spite of what they say.' He looked at Harry inquisitively as if he might prefer to discuss lightning for a while. 'This is almost the same as the original story,' he said.

'No,' Aldo said, 'certainly not. In the original story it was a red Volkswagen.' ·

'What story?' Harry said.

'No,' Billy de Vere said, 'it was a Fiat. I remember distinctly. A Bambino. A Fiat 500, the same as Mr Joy's.'

'I think you're mistaken, Mr de Vere. But, in any case…' Aldo relented and gave him a little more Grande Armagnac, 'in any case…close enough.'

'Life,' Billy de Vere raised his glass, 'imitating art. Or should I say,' he lowered his voice and winked, 'life imitating bullshit?'

'Do you know the story about the Elephant, Mr Joy?' Aldo said. 'Because very soon you are going to have to tell it to your insurance company.'

Aldo and Billy de Vere roared laughing.

'Go on…' Harry said, all the pleasure gone, only watch-fulness and suspicion left.

'It was trained to sit on red boxes.'

'Big red boxes.'

'Big for a box, small for a car. It's what you might call an apocryphal story.'

'It never really happened,' Billy de Vere said. 'This elephant was trained to sit on red boxes, see, and one day someone came and parked near her.'

'In a red Volkswagen,' Aldo said. 'Surely you've heard it?'

'Or Fiat.'

'And she sat on it.'

'An elephant sat on my car?' Harry said glumly. 'You're laughing because an elephant sat on my car.' He had never heard the story before. He was not interested in precedents. All he could see was that he had suffered an outlandish misfortune and that these people were sitting there laughing at him because of it. In Milanos!

'You've opened a bottle of Armagnac because my car has been ruined. What sort of place is this?' he said to Aldo.

'Look on the bright side,' Aldo told him darkly. 'You're not dying. You're drinking good Armagnac, and you are the first person whose car has really been sat on by an elephant. What a story. You like stories. Come on,' he gave Harry a little more Armagnac, 'drink up. Have fun.'

'Your insurance will pay,' Billy de Vere said. 'We have witnesses.'

'You are a ninny,' Aldo said, talking to Harry as he might talk to any customer who irritated him.

'A what?' said Harry, who had never been spoken to like this.'

'Ninny,' Aldo said, his eyes dark and dangerous.

Later Aldo was to regret this, to realize that he had gone too far, even for him, and that marihuana and Armagnac can be a tricky combination.

'A moony ninny,' he said, wilfully tormenting his best and oldest customer. 'A dill, a drongo, a silly-billy.'

It was to prey on Aldo's mind, and later, when he was dying, he tried to get a message to Harry Joy, but by then Harry Joy was nowhere to be found.

'A dingo,' he called after the departing figure in the white suit. 'A po-face,' he told Billy de Vere, 'a dim-wit, a 'poo-pant,' but by then he was laughing too much and further speech became impossible. Through a curtain of tears he watched Billy de Vere pour himself another Armagnac.