‘An act of God,’ said Cam. He was holding his flute to the light, studying the minute bubbles. ‘Whoever that is. There’ll be better days.’
‘Not today’s stuff,’ said Harry, still not looking at us. ‘That’s the business. The punt’s the punt, can’t cop it, drop it. The commissioner, that’s what makes me think it’s time to shut the shop.’
‘We’ll fix the Cynthia thing,’ said Cam. ‘We’re workin on that.’
I wanted to second Cam’s statements but I didn’t believe them and I couldn’t find a quick reassuring lie.
Harry picked up his glass, had a generous sip, shook his head, pretended to cheer up. ‘Got to be good for ya, don’t ya reckon?’ he said.
‘We’ll fix the Cynthia thing,’ repeated Cam.
Cynthia had been the commission agent for four big plunges, marshalling teams of old-age pensioners, young-age pensioners, the bored, a retired bank manager, two strippers gone to flab, an ageing hooker relishing undemanding vertical work.
The most recent plunge had been a simple matter involving a nightclub owner who believed, correctly, that a non-performing horse he secretly owned through his sister-in-law’s cousin would show unexpected ability in a feature race at Flemington.
Afterwards, Cynthia had collected the large sum her platoon of punters had taken off the bookies. She was in her old Mazda, driving to meet Cam, cruising down a narrow Yarraville street, when a four-wheel drive forced her to the kerb. Two men got out, asked for the money. She said she didn’t think that was on, and, in full view of an old man on sticks and a woman on a bicycle, one of the men punched her in the face six or seven times, held her by the hair, turned her head and broke her jaw and her nose and impacted her cheekbones. When they were gone, she got Cam on her mobile, speaking thickly through the blood and the crushed cartilage, then lost consciousness.
Cam more or less drove across country to reach her, ignoring traffic lights and stop signs and other vehicles, took her to Footscray General. The number the woman on the bicycle had written down belonged to a vehicle stolen less than an hour earlier. It was found in the city, in Latrobe Street, just after 6 p.m.
Cynthia now had less than forty per cent sight in one eye. We weren’t going to be able to fix Cynthia. And the Cynthia thing wasn’t any easier.
‘Can’t get over that,’ said Harry. ‘Not a thing used to happen. Bash a woman like that, bastards’d do anythin.’
I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about his women: his wife, thirty years his junior, the final fling, and his housekeeper of thirty-five years, a person who left England for him, left home and kin to look after a broken-bodied jockey. He was thinking about Lyn and Mrs Aldridge because he loved them and he was fearful for them. Not for himself, not for Harry Strang, the champion jockey of whom an English racing writer once wrote, ‘In his presence, agitated English horses become calm and calm English jockeys lose their composure.’
Cam knew too. He finished his glass, poured for us, for himself. ‘Just run-through boys,’ he said, his face expressionless. ‘Too clever for banks, too lazy for drugs. Somebody told em about Cyn, one of her troops would be right. We’ll get there, sort it out.’
We wouldn’t. Cam and I had already been over Cynthia’s troops. All we found was that one had gone to Queensland suddenly. So did we. We joined the woman at her ailing aunt’s bedside. She was so shocked and showed so little evidence of new-found riches that Cam slipped her two $100 notes when we left.
‘Won’t make any quick decision,’ said Harry. ‘Nothin comin up, sleep on it for a bit.’
We finished the bottle and didn’t move on to the customary second one. Harry came to the front gate with us, out in the blustery night, trees thrashing, held me back, fingers like a bulldog clip on my left bicep.
‘Two knocks in a row, Jack,’ he said, ‘you’ll be hurtin. Not a write-off, though. Get twenty-five, thirty cents in the dollar back, thereabouts.’
‘Can’t drop it, cop it,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that right?’
He squeezed my arm, more pain. ‘Remember the Bank of Strang, cash advances for the creditworthy. Also, a little legal matter, need some consultin. Next week suit?’
‘Day and night,’ I said.
‘Cam’ll make a time.’
He let go. We looked at each other. ‘Harry,’ I said, no mental activity preceding what followed, pure emotion. ‘Cynthia. We’ll take care of that.’
The front door of the house opened. Over Harry’s head, I saw Lyn Strang, short, strong, warm peach-coloured light on her hair and shoulders, a carpet of peach laid around her shadow on the broad verandah. ‘I wanted to say goodbye. I was upstairs,’ she said, something in her tone, not relief but something like that.
In the street, beyond the high red-brick wall, Cam started the transport we’d come in, a much-modified vehicle apparently known to some as an eight-bore streetslut. It made a feline noise, the sort of sound a prehistoric giant sabre-toothed tiger might have made.
I raised my hand at Lyn. She waved back.
‘We’ll fix it,’ I said to Harry, repeating the stupid, unfulfillable promise.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ Harry said, no confidence in his voice. ‘Pair of bright fellas like yerselves.’
Cam drove me to my place of residence, the old boot factory in North Fitzroy, early Saturday night traffic. Lots of taxis, sober people going out for a good time. He double-parked outside, turned down Bryan Ferry on the eight- bore’s many speakers.
‘The big man’s a worry,’ he said. He lit a Gitane with his Zippo, rolled down his window. ‘Seen it comin for a while.’
Cold air and the pungent Gallic smoke sent a tremor of craving through me. ‘There’s nowhere else to go on Cynthia,’ I said.
‘Cyril,’ said Cam. ‘Come at it from Cyril’s end.’
We dealt with Cynthia through Cyril Wootton, professional middleman, dead-end and cut-out, collector of non-enforceable debts, finder of witnesses, skips, shoot-throughs and no-shows, and my occasional employer.
‘Cyril’s deeply shonky,’ I said, ‘but this, no.’
Cam sighed smoke. ‘Can’t leave him out,’ he said. ‘Can’t leave anythin out.’ He turned his head and looked at me, black eyes saying something, wanting me to agree to the unsaid.
I opened the door. ‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow.’
‘Me too?’
‘No.’
I was getting out when Cam said, ‘Jack, this trot, it’ll end, don’t be shy.’
He too was offering to lend me money.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Could come to that.’
I watched him drive away, slowly in the quiet street, the deep, feral sound of eight cylinders entering the bloodstream, agitating it.
3
There wasn’t anything else to do but light the fire in a clean grate, prepared on a nervous race-day morning with scrunched paper, kindling, a few sticks of bonedry wood, cut and split and chopped and delivered by Harry Strang’s man in Avoca. He was the owner of a calm grey mare called Breckinridge, a horse now burdened only by the weight of children. It had been four lengths clear when it won the Ballarat Cup at 30-1, and from then on some people got their wood free and I got mine at a discount.
There was a time when I thought I’d never go back to the boot factory. Having your home blown up by people who want to kill you can have that effect. But when the time came to decide, I couldn’t let an explosion rob me of the place I’d shared with someone I loved beyond the telling of it. I packed my bags and left the converted stable I’d been living in, grown used to, and went back to where I’d kissed Isabel goodbye on the day a mad client of mine murdered her in a carpark. I walked up the stairs, unlocked the front door, went down the passage to the big, empty living room, looked around, opened a window, and I was home.
Ignite the fire, watch that Avoca kindling go up like a cypress hedge. Now, to the kitchen. What follows Bollinger and oysters in champagne batter? Perhaps a slice of sirloin, a thick slice, moist and ruddy in the centre,
