He spoke to Mrs M and it was quite a few minutes before she buzzed him back. He showed me into the waiting room again and I settled down to watch a bearded man fuck a woman who had hair only on her head. He did it well in several positions. He appeared to enjoy it more than she did but he might just have been a better actor. It was pretty undemanding in that sense. Dialogue was minimal. Glen Withers and I used to watch porn from time to time for fun and this was fair average quality stuff. I usually responded but not as quickly or as strongly as this. I found myself getting uncomfortably hard.
Dr Pradesh returned and we went back into his surgery. Down came the strides and underpants and on went the rubber gloves. I was fully erect and he stood and looked at me.
‘That’s impressive, Mr Hardy.’
‘I’m very encouraged, Doctor.’
‘I imagine so. Well, I usually give patients a six month supply of the medication, but in your case I suspect your problem is basically psychological and I would be hopeful that a few successful episodes of intercourse would help considerably. Ah, you may adjust your clothing.’
‘Thanks, doctor,’ I said as I struggled to stuff myself back inside my pants, and they were by no means tight. ‘I’d say I feel better already.’
He smiled. ‘If you will wait a few minutes out at reception Mrs Merryweather will supply you. I’ll just check that the coast is clear.’
He established that and we shook hands.
‘Hurry home, Mr Hardy.’
‘I will, doctor. I will.’
Geoff gave me a nod as I re-joined him in the waiting room. Mrs Merryweather looked anxiously at her watch and I guessed that another patient was due to come out into public view. She got the buzz from inside, whipped away and returned with a cardboard container about half the size of a shoe box.
‘Your medication, Mr Hardy. Plus syringes, swabs and the injection device. With the consultation fee that comes to two hundred and eighty dollars. Part of the cost of the medication is reclaimable from your health fund.’
I wrote a cheque and took the box. She gave me a receipt and a motherly smile. I thanked her. ‘It seems to be a marvellous treatment.’
She said, ‘Oh, yes, oh, yes,’ and I’d have bet a thousand bucks that she and Mr Merryweather were satisfied customers.
We got outside and I drew in a deep breath. Geoff jiggled the car keys. ‘Want to drive?’
‘No. How’d you go?’
‘I think I can do it. I’ll have to get my laptop. Might have to talk to someone who’s cluey on this sort of thing.’
‘I thought you were cluey.’
‘Can always use help. Why’re you so shitty? Weird place, that. You can hear people moving around but you don’t see anyone. What did they do to you in there?’
‘Never mind. I need a drink. Several drinks.’
‘Why’re you walking funny?’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Son, I’ve got a hard-on that Gary Cooper would’ve been proud of.’
‘Who’s Gary Cooper?’
‘Just drive.’
14
Thirty years ago, Sydney University students lived in Glebe and Newtown in ratty terraces and crumbling squats. Gentrification forced them slowly west, to Annandale and Leichhardt and then further out towards Marrickville and even beyond. Geoffrey Samuels shared a house with three other students in Lewisham. It wasn’t a bad looking house but it was easy to see why it was a better proposition as a student rental than owner-occupied – there was a main road out front, a factory next door and the train line ran right past the back fence.
Being a polite young man, Geoffrey invited me in, but I’d seen all the student houses I ever wanted to see and opted to stay outside, saying I had phone calls to make. For a minute I thought he was going to ask me who to, which would have been difficult to answer because I was lying. In fact I wanted to get out of the car and stand somehow so that I didn’t feel I had a salami inside my pants. Maybe a few deep breaths of fresh air would help.
Geoff shrugged and bowled up to the house with his hair flying in the breeze, a quick spring taking him to the top of the front steps in one jump. That action reminded me of the Tadpole Creek protest and Tess’s account of Megan French as a springheel Jack. The thought sobered me after the farce of the clinic and I tried to focus back on what we were doing. I had no real reason to suspect that Talbot would harm Megan seriously, but he sounded unstable to start with and the pressure he must be under now wouldn’t help.
Geoff disappeared inside and after a few minutes a young woman came out, leaned in the open doorway and looked at me. She was large and overweight and if she stayed where she was Geoff would have trouble getting past her. Maybe that was her plan. I wondered what he’d told her about me that had excited her interest. I tried to look nonchalant as I mimed making a phone call. She looked disgusted and vanished.
Anti mobile phones, I thought. That’s okay, so am I.
Geoff came back carrying something not very heavy in a not very big case. He deposited it on the back seat carefully and got behind the wheel.
‘What did you tell your housemate about me?’ I asked. ‘She came out to get an eyeful.’
‘Oh, Jules. Yeah. I told her you were my uncle.’
‘Well, I am one. I’m an anti-godfather, too.’
He started the car and I was pleased to see that he didn’t rev it unnecessarily. ‘What’s that?’
‘A godfather who doesn’t believe in God. How long’s this going to take?’
‘All depends.’
Ask an ignorant question, get a non-informative answer.
Back at my place I left him in the spare room plugged in to the phone line I had installed upstairs when I’d toyed with the idea of getting on the e-mail and Internet myself. So far, I hadn’t done anything about it, but the day was coming. Down below I phoned Cyn, got her machine, and told her that Geoff and I were getting along okay but there were no further developments. It’s easier to lie to a machine than face-to-face with a person dying of cancer.
I itched to know how the police were doing in their hunt for Talbot, but since Glen Withers left me and Frank Parker retired, I’ve lost my access to information the police don’t necessarily want citizens to know about. It was time for me to set about cultivating another contact but it’s got harder to do. Friendship was always the best method and money came next. These days, both avenues have more or less closed down except in peripheral areas like motor registration and such because cops have become paranoid and suspicious. Understandably. The funny thing is that the ‘cop culture’ all the reformers wanted to crack open has just hardened under the pressure.
It’s much the same with the journalists. Back when they worked for owners, not corporations, and could smoke and drink in the office, they were willing to tell you things off the record in exchange for off-the-record information from you. Not any more; now the news is so processed and sanitised almost nothing gets out that could ruffle corporate feathers. The politicians take some heat occasionally, but the money men are safe. A journalist these days would rather find out that Princess Diana had had an ingrowing toenail than that the head of a multinational had embezzled a hundred million.
Well, with my computer expert working upstairs at least I was moving with the times. I took him a cup of coffee and inhaled a little of the marijuana smoke.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Getting there. The security’s not as good as it should be. She left the server software in a desk drawer, so
