Steve Toltz - Quicksand

— Shut up a minute. Are you serious?

Pure gratitude blazed in her eyes. This was sexual good news.

— There’s just a little matter of sixty thousand dollars, I said.

Mimi broke into a horrified gawp. I made a vague gesture but it didn’t mean anything. Overconfident in my grand gesture, I had already agreed to pay sixty thousand for six months in a contract as airtight as a gym membership.

Over the next few days, Mimi set about on humbling outings, grovelling apoplectically, trying to borrow from her gambler father — an imposing man with a to-scale Easter Island head on his shoulders — from friends, old boyfriends, old bosses, acquaintances, successful artist friends, but either they were fiscally down on their luck or unwilling to make the loan. For my part, no matter how desperate I was I could not do for her what I could not do for myself, the one thing I could never do, had almost died not doing, the superhuman feat that so many subhumans and sub-par humans excel at: making money. I had spent my life trying to materialise it for Stella, for the baby, for my mother, for myself, and now, as if achieving even lower self-esteem were my ultimate goal, I was failing again.

By the end of the week, still nothing. Mimi rested her head on a mountain of soft cushions and I lay beside her, brainstorming. Outside, clouds like cement blocks set the moody greyness of the afternoon. We had naught to liquidate, nada to move. We couldn’t get high-paying salaries. Neither of us had any skills. We had nobody to borrow from, and begging drew in too little. There were no legitimate possibilities.

— We find an individual, she said, follow him home, force him at knifepoint to give us money.

— I’ve been robbed at knifepoint, I said. I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Besides, two losers with negligible street smarts should pursue only victimless crimes.

— So what then? Fraud? Mail fraud? Insurance fraud?

I slid off the bed and looked out the window at the heavy clouds sweeping across a skyful of pinks and purples and oranges, an embarrassment of colours. I was besieged by dumb ideas, one after the other — obscure hoaxes, elaborate cons. The early evening stars strode into view. In truth, I was afraid. In a perversely unjust universe, four decades without breaking a law means severe punishment awaits your first infringement. Mimi dried her eyes. I hadn’t even noticed she was crying; it was the quietest sob I’d ever seen.

— I have it! Maybe!

In saying this, I realise my dilemma, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. In order to present you with perhaps the single most likely of all of Mimi’s potential murderers, I have to admit to a wee crime.

Blackmail.

— Do we have any dirt on anybody? I asked.

— Not that I can think of.

— Think harder.

The darkness moved in but neither of us put on the light; the moon shone into the room and I could see us from its perspective — minuscule, alone.

— Wait. Didn’t you fuck Mr Morrell?

— How do you know that?

— Rumours.

We fell into silence. The wooden balcony railing glistened in the steady drizzle.

— I don’t want to blackmail Morrell. Not him.

— OK. I liked him too. We won’t then. Let’s think of something else.

A couple of minutes went by, then fifty more. I remembered that his wife had died of ovarian cancer, his lifelong failure to pursue his career in painting, how my friend Liam was obsessed with his bombastic diatribe on art. By midnight the creeping dread had settled in that I’d have to personally blackmail one of the nicest and saddest men either of us had ever known.

XVIII

Pressing the doorbell generated a baby’s piercing cry followed by a man’s voice shouting, Shut up! Morrell opened the door of his Waterloo-brick, two-bedroom terrace wearing a paisley shirt and rolled-up army pants; as usual, his skin looked carbonised and veiny, like a fried onion, making his whitened teeth even whiter.

— When I woke from a troubled sleep that Sunday morning, Morrell said, Aldo Francis Benjamin was standing on my doorstep with a curious expression on his face. Hope the doorbell didn’t disturb you. One of my students made it as part of a sound installation for her final-year project.

Morrell’s smile revealed abnormal affection for me in his eyes. Maybe he felt sorry for me. Why shouldn’t he? I did.

— I need to talk to you.

— That’s somewhat anachronistic, no? Oh well, I suppose you’d best come on in then.

Stepping inside, I was immediately hit by the low energy and ramshackle seediness of the place: sticky tape over the light switches, stained carpets, mismatched lampshades, and so many kitty litters you could taste the toxoplasmosis. Stuck up on the walls were not-good drawings, dire paintings and wonky sculptures that I realised were artworks dedicated to him by students. I told him I’d found Mimi Underwood.

— Did you indeed? Is photography still her passion?

When we were deciding who should do the hands-on blackmailing, Mimi had frozen up and shouted, I can’t go! I don’t ever want to see Angus again.

Morrell motioned for me to take a seat. I was thinking of the way she’d said his name, Angus, as I removed an aggravated ginger cat and lowered myself into a brown leather easychair; it groaned under my weight. I smiled toothily, belligerently, godlessly. Nothing felt right.

— What about that girl of yours, that singer?

— I can’t believe you remember her. She didn’t even go to our school.

— She sang a song for you, didn’t she? In protest. A song of love. I do remember that, of course. Wait. The girl she’d taken ketamine/And fingered Aldo Benjamin. Priceless!

— We’re divorced.

— Sorry. But. Well done also. You know what I mean. A middle-aged divorcee is radically less creepy than a middle-aged bachelor. God, I remember how deeply in love she was with you. What was her name?

— Stella.

— Stella. That’s right. In one’s youth, females fall in love with you for no reason whatsoever. It never happens again. After adolescence, they are scrupulous in needing reasons. Often, let’s be honest, financial.

— Speaking of which, we need money.

— You and Stella?

— Me and Mimi.

— You and Mimi? How do you mean? You’re a we?

— She won’t tell anyone that you had sex with her when she was a minor, if you pay up.

He took a sharp, emphatic breath. Sweat stained his shirt under the arms and across his chest.

— But Aldo, he said sadly.

I felt like an explorer in a new land coughing in the faces of the indigenous population. I was doing something irreparable to him. I could see it in his eyes. It was all happening in front of me. I tried an appeasing grin and his eyes widened, as if afraid to miss any thing. He was practically throbbing like an engine in his reclining armchair.

— Just ten thousand a month. For six months. Or sixty thousand all at once. Whichever is more convenient. And you won’t hear from us again.

I slowly rose to my feet. The cat scarcely looked at me.

— How much did you say you want?

I sat and repeated the whole thing. Morrell picked an ice cube out of his glass and threw it — it hit me on the cheek. The second bounced off my chin.

— Down they forgot as up they grew.

— What was that?

— E.E. Cummings, he said, and threw another ice cube, this one landing in my eye. I decided to sit it out and remained in the chair as he pelted ice cubes at my face and head.

— Do you remember the day we met? he asked.

— Was it in class?

— I think it was about the middle of the year. I was smoking a cigarette outside the staffroom when I heard the sound of coughing and turned to see you standing there. It must have been your first day after transferring from another school, because you were in a different uniform. You asked me if I would put out my cigarette. Of course, I could have simply refused or moved away, I was outside after all, and a bloody teacher besides. Nevertheless, I wearily extinguished it under my shoe and tossed the butt in the bin. You thanked me for putting it out, but not a moment later fetched a packet of cigarettes from your own pocket and lit one up yourself! I remember gazing at you in bewilderment before you turned to me and said, Sorry sir, I just don’t like your brand.