Where a massive red gum overhung the water, I lingered in the shade and smoked a cigarette while the boys scouted ahead. A crystal stream bubbled at my feet. Dragonflies flitted hither and thither. The scent of eucalyptus perfumed the air. Kookaburras carolled distantly. Luxuriating in the tranquillity of the bush, I banished all thoughts of work-of Agnelli, of the press and Marcus Taylor, of Spider and the duplicate Szabo. I let my eyes close.
‘Help!’ came a scream from around the bend. ‘Come quick.’ Red. Not mucking around either, by the sound of it. It was black, thick as my wrist, coiled at Tarquin’s feet. Red was circling at a distance, stick in hand, bellowing for help. Tarquin stood frozen with fear. He must nearly have stood on the thing. ‘Don’t move,’ I yelled. ‘If you die, your mother will kill me.’
Grabbing the stick from Red’s hand, I lunged forward and smashed downwards at the repulsive black spiral. At the same time, I shoved Tarquin out of harm’s way. The snake bucked under the blow, bounced upwards and revealed itself to be the inner tube of a bike tyre.
‘Tricked ya!’ Red and I cackled simultaneously, high-fiving each other in the time-honoured Australian tradition.
‘My ankle,’ writhed Tarquin, prostrate on the ground. ‘You’ve broken my ankle.’
It took me nearly an hour to carry him back downstream and up the hill to the car, slung over my shoulder fireman-style. His foot wrapped tight in my shirt, he whimpered right up to the moment I lowered him onto the back seat. ‘Can we have an ice-cream on the way home?’ he said.
‘Shuddup, Tark,’ said Red. But he didn’t mean it. I suspected he was in on it all along.
It was well past eight when we arrived back in town. A note from Faye instructed us to proceed to the Exhibition Gardens, five minutes away, where a picnic awaited us. While the boys rummaged for frisbees and skateboards, I nicked home, changed into shorts and a t-shirt and put a bottle of pinot vino in a plastic carry- bag.
The shadows were lengthening as we walked to the gardens. The doors and windows of the houses had been flung open to admit the buttery dusk. Cooking smells and guitar riffs emerged, and the old Italian and Greek remnants of the former demographic had come outside to hose down their footpaths and sit fanning themselves on their minuscule front porches. Arms for Afghanistan, said the fading grafitti. Legs for Tito.
Faye had not been the only one to think of dining alfresco that evening, and the lawns of the gardens were liberally peppered with picnickers and amorous couples. From the direction of the tennis courts came the pock- pocking of furry balls beating an intermittent rhythm to the chorus of innumerable cicadas.
Chloe appeared from between the trees to guide us to the others. She had a girl the same age with her, shy with big eyes. They led us towards a vast Moreton Bay fig, at the foot of which a blanket was spread. It was all very Dejeuner sur l’Herbe. Leo, tall and darkly bearded, lay propped on one elbow, plastic wineglass in hand. Faye was removing containers from a cooler and laying them out. Seated between them, knees drawn up, glancing over her shoulder to keep a weather eye on the girls, was a woman I didn’t know. She was not unlike the woman in Manet’s painting except, of course, that she was not nude. Her loose summery dress only hinted at what she might be like underneath. More your full-figured Gauguin sort of thing was my guess.
Apart from me and Leo, there was no other man in sight. Bloody Faye, I thought. Playing go-between again, setting me up.
‘Murray Whelan,’ beamed Faye, butter not melting in her mouth. ‘This is Claire Sutton.’
Claire Sutton had a mass of chestnut hair, pulled back into a bushy ponytail, and a high round forehead. We nodded perfunctorily. Lowering myself to the ground, I shot a sideways glower at Faye.
‘I’ve just been telling Claire that you work in the arts,’ she persisted. ‘Claire’s in the arts, too.’
‘Uh-huh.’ With Faye on the job, that could mean anything from riding bareback in a circus to running macrame classes. I passed my bottle of wine to Leo who, as usual, was handling the drinks. Faye’s spread of salads and cold-cuts was straight out of the culinary pages of the colour supplements, much of it mysteriously so.
The children rushed the food, Tarquin suddenly began hobbling again. ‘Guacamole?’ said Red. Sydney was doing wonders for his education.
‘Zhough,’ said Faye. ‘A Yemenite dip of coriander, cumin and garlic. What’s wrong this time, Tarquin? You put it on the chicken.’
‘He made me go rock climbing.’ Tarquin jiggled up and down on one foot, dangling the other in front of his mother. Red piled a paper plate with everything in reach. Leo stood with the bottle squeezed between his thighs, straining at a corkscrew.
‘I’m not really in the arts.’ I met Claire eye-to-eye for the first time. She was, I saw, just as ambushed as me. ‘The politician I work for has just been given that portfolio.’
The shy-eyed girl, obviously Claire’s daughter, climbed across her to reach for a bread roll. ‘Off you go and play, Gracie,’ she said. Claire had a wide mouth, a slightly turned-up nose and watchful brown eyes that hinted they might, if she so decided, laugh. ‘I used to be a conservator’-she flicked me a quick glance to see if I knew what that meant- ‘at the National Gallery. But now I’ve got a print and framing business.’ This was an exchange of credentials rather than conversation.
‘Artemis, it’s called,’ enthused Faye. Tarquin limped off, ankle in remission, plate in hand. ‘In Smith Street. Try the tapenade.’
I’d driven past Artemis, on the way to Ethnic Affairs. Awning over the footpath. Window full of pre-Raphaelite maidens. The tapenade was black stuff that tasted like a cross between seaweed and Vegemite. I rolled it round on my tongue. ‘Artemis?’ The reference escaped me. Something literary, perhaps.
‘Amazonian moon goddess,’ said Faye. ‘A mixture of olive paste, capers and anchovies.’
‘Red or white?’ said Leo. ‘Capinata? Frittata? Aioli?’
Amazonian moon goddess? My heart sank.
‘It’s a joke!’ Claire rushed to her own defence, spilling crumbs into her abundant decolletage, brushing them away self-consciously as she spoke. ‘A pun. Arty Miss. My former husband’s idea of being smart. He registered the business in that name and it stuck, even if he didn’t.’
The deficiencies of ex-husbands were, in my book, a topic best avoided. ‘Guess what I had for lunch, Faye? Strawberry sandwiches. Went to this brunch at Max Karlin’s corporate HQ. His art collection is unbelievable. Must be worth millions.’
‘He might not have it for much longer,’ said Faye, unable to resist shop talk. ‘From what I hear, this Karlcraft Centre project of his has turned into a bottomless pit. He’s hocked to the eyeballs against the prospect of future commercial tenancies, but by the time the building is completed, there’ll be a glut of downtown office space. Unless he can get some long-term tenants locked in pronto, he risks going belly-up.’ Faye loved to talk like that. ‘Word is that his creditors are getting pretty jumpy. Try the mesclun, Claire. Chloe, Grace, come and get a drink.’
The mesclun was a mixture of nasturtiums, dandelions and marigolds. ‘Do I eat it?’ whispered Claire behind her hand, making common cause against our mutual tormentor. ‘Or put it in my hair?’
When I arrived, I’d wanted nothing so much as to succumb to the torpor of the evening. Now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was the wine. ‘You’ve excelled yourself, Faye,’ I said. ‘Who are his creditors?’
‘Various financial institutions. Guarantee Corp, Obelisk Trust. Walnut pesto?’
‘I’ve heard of Obelisk,’ I said, trying very hard to avoid looking down the front of Claire’s dress when she reached for the crudites. ‘What is it exactly?’
‘Dip your pita in it. It used to be the Building Unions Credit Co-operative. Then a guy called Lloyd Eastlake took it over, restructured it into a unit trust and changed the name to Obelisk. It’s what the Americans call a mutual fund. Manages a pool of funds on behalf of its investors. Unions mainly.’
‘Claire mounted our Jogjakarta trishaw-drivers, you know, Murray,’ said Leo.
Blow-ups of Faye’s arty holiday photos lined the Curnows’ hall, flatteringly framed. ‘The ones inside the front door?’ I said, admiringly. ‘You did that?’
‘Mounting street-vendors is my bread and butter.’ Claire permitted her eyes a small smile, beginning to relax.
Before I could ask her if she’d mind taking a look at my etchings, the kids swarmed over us, Indians storming the fort. We ate. Ravenous, nothing in me but a coffee and a berry sandwich, I fell on the food. Faye and Claire talked kindergarten politics.
When we’d eaten, Leo got out a bat and we played cricket with the kids, using the No Ball Games sign for stumps. Claire hit a six off my first ball. In time, the shadows meshed together and the night fell gently from the sky. We crept through the velvet darkness, feeding cautious possums pieces of leftover fruit.
