At the black and grey table, a shaven-headed man, scalp the colour of the underside of an old tortoise, said, ‘I can tell you guys worse.’
I couldn’t go without knowing worse, couldn’t move.
‘I had this partner,’ said the man, fat finger pushing at his round dark glasses, ‘he comes home, he’s faceless, right, he’s with this Arab taxi driver and he goes: “Meet Ahmed or whatever, he’s your co-driver for the night.”’
A thin woman with a beaky nose leaned forward, shook her head and made a contemptuous sound. ‘Worse? Jesus, grow up, I’ll give you worse.’
Conquering my desire to hear baldy’s poignant tale eclipsed by some other speakable act of sexual unmannerliness, I moved to join the three men at the end of the battered bar. They were not young, not shaven- headed, not in black or fashionable shades of grey. They were ancient and in colours from the chewing tobacco, snuff and washed-out old mauve cardigan end of the spectrum. Of depravity, they could know a great deal: more than 230 years of experience sat in this brown corner.
‘So, Jack,’ said Norm O’Neill, nodding at my reflection in the speckled mirror we faced, ‘deignin to grace us with your presence.’
I said, ‘I don’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Had to take a taxi,’ said Eric Tanner, the man next to him. ‘Bloody fortune. Extortionists.’
‘I was up north,’ I said.
It was expected that the Lark would convey the men to St Kilda games, with a stop on the way to place a few bets. Once it had been to Fitzroy games but we didn’t have Fitzroy any more, Fitzroy didn’t suit the national league’s plans, so they took the club around the back and drilled it between the eyes. Now we supported St Kilda, my idea, a misguided attempt to cheer up the lads, give them something new to argue about, something to do on weekends.
‘Up where?’ said Norm, as though I’d invented a new compass point. He adjusted the fit of the spectacles on his promethean nose.
‘Queensland,’ I said. ‘Went to see my daughter.’
The heads turned to me. ‘Daughter?’ said the wizened Wilbur Ong. ‘Since when’ve you had a daughter?’
‘A while,’ I said. ‘She’s twenty-one.’ Somehow the subject of my daughter hadn’t come up in years of talking football and horses.
‘Well, this is bloody news to me,’ said Norm, aggrieved. He stared at me. ‘Now you’ve got a girl. And the young fella playin for Fremantle that’s the bloody spit of Bill? Wouldn’t know anythin about that, would ya?’
‘Not a thing,’ I said. ‘I swear.’
Bill Irish, my father, dead these many years, was a Fitzroy Football Club hero of the late 1940s, a patron of this pub. He had undoubtedly at some time stood where I was standing, resting his stonemason’s boot on the same brass rail. And his father’s workman’s boot had probably been there before his. Daniel Irish was also a Fitzroy player, career cut off in its prime by a Collingwood hoon jumping on his arm accidentally. Twice. Given these male genes, old Fitzroy supporters didn’t understand why I hadn’t played football, didn’t understand and didn’t forgive.
‘Played shockin, your team,’ said Eric. ‘The fellas got problems findin the general direction of goal.’
‘Not to mention what bloody happens when they do,’ said Norm. ‘That bugger looks like he’s outta Pentridge on day release, he misses four, couldn’t reliably piss inta the sea.’
Wilbur nodded. ‘Dunno about this coach either. Five goals behind, he lets the flower girls give up, talks to em all kind and gentle. Decent coach’d give em the red-hot poker up the backside.’ He paused. ‘Disgrace, I reckon, this team of yours.’
The trio’s eyes were on me, unblinking bird eyes, the eyes of eagle fledglings, ruthless, demanding. Even in the closing stages, Julius Caesar faced a friendlier looking audience. Better looking too, I had no doubt.
‘So now it’s my team?’ I said. ‘Well, so be it. That’s that then. I’ll stick with my team. You lot can go back to not having a team. Or go for the Brisbane Lions. No, go for Collingwood, that’s a nice team, run by television money.’
The bird eyes all flicked away. Then Norm’s came back.
‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘Man’s entitled to give his team a bit of a buttocking.’
‘A man who’s got a team, yes. Men who don’t have a team can’t.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stan the publican gliding across from serving the shaven-headed man.
‘Jack, my boy.’ His smug mood was upon him.
‘Stanley. What’ve you done to your hair?’
Stan ran five pork sausages over his scalp. He’d had the sparse pubic springs shorn to a uniform height. ‘Today’s look,’ he said. ‘Got to keep up.’
‘Very fetching look,’ I said. ‘It was big in the Gulag archipelago.’
‘The what?’
‘Nothing. I see the clientele’s going upmarket.’
Stan gave his conspiratorial nod, leaned across the bar.
‘Drink vodka,’ he said, winked at me. ‘Stolly. They’re in new technology. The IT crowd.’
‘Who?’ said Norm O’Neill. ‘Eyeties? All in Carlton, the eyetalians. Accident of history. Coulda settled in Fitzroy. Makes you think, don’t it? We’da had Serge Silvagni, lotta grit that bloke, then his young fella, always rated that Steven high, I have.’
‘Barassi, he’s an eyetalian,’ said Wilbur Ong. ‘Go back a bit, them Barassis, though. Not convicts but a fair way back.’ He sighed. ‘We coulda had Barassi.’
‘Barassi come from Castlemaine,’ said Eric Tanner. ‘Jeez, there’s a lotta ignorance around here.’
Stan looked at the Youth Club and shook his head. ‘IT. Information technology. You blokes think the flush dunny’s new technology.’ He turned back to me, coughed a polite cough. ‘Word’s gettin around,’ he said. ‘These people, they’re on the cyberfrontier. On the other hand, they like a bit of tradition. Well, you want a bit of tradition, the Prince’s the place.’
‘Tradition?’ I said. ‘Really? Tradition of beer tasting like soap? Tradition of toasted cheese sandwiches that fight with your teeth? Tradition of needing gumboots to go to the toilet? That’s what they’re after, is it? Well, Stanley, you’re in the pound seats.’
Stan shrugged. ‘Jack, too critical, always bin your problem. Take the world as you find it, my old man always said.’
‘Morris never in his life said anything like that,’ I said. ‘Morris can’t stand the world as he finds it. And what’s this past tense? Either Morris is alive or he’s been phoning me every day from the afterlife.’
Stan’s father owned the Prince and five small commercial properties around the suburbs. I acted for him in his endlessly problematic dealings with his tenants and he sent me instructions daily from his retirement villa in Queensland.
‘On that subject,’ said Stan. He leaned his head closer. ‘Listen, Jack, the wife’s talkin to someone the other day, he reckons I could get power of attorney for the old bloke, no problem. Eighty-eight, infirm of mind, that sort of thing.’
‘Could we get a round here?’ I said. ‘The old technology crowd. Soapy beer will be fine.’
Stan didn’t move. ‘Course you’d still do the legal stuff, don’t worry about that.’
I put my face within five centimetres of his. ‘Stanley, when I detect any signs of mental infirmity in Morris, you’ll be the first to know. As things stand, the message is more likely to go in the other direction.’
Stan worked this out, sighed, went to get the beer. I settled down to a serious discussion with the repentant Youth Club of the Saints’ chances against West Coast on Friday night. Perfect hatred of the non-Victorians drove out any fears about the ability of our side to orientate themselves towards goal.
I drove home through a cold drizzle, the Lark’s erratic wipers smearing the lights. It was just after seven, the truce time, day people retreating, night people not ready to advance. At the Queen’s Parade lights, I punched the radio, got a boring man talking about tax reform, punched again, got a silly pair of teenagers talking about bad exam experiences, punched.
A voice said: Should the new government have scrapped its predecessor’s granting of a licence for a privately run ski resort and casino at Cannon Ridge? Let’s hear your views on 1300 3333, that’s 1300 3333. I’m Linda Hillier, talking with you on 3KB, Melbourne’s station for the new century.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard for a long time. Drivers behind me began to hoot. I came back to the present
