The Tax Inspector

She watched the frightening fat drops run down the creases of his tanned and ruined face. They dropped like blobs of jelly and splashed into his Cabernet Sauvignon.

‘You wouldn’t stop me seeing our child?’

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘You’ll always be its father.’ She saw her whole adult life dissolving as she spoke. She saw what she was embarked on. Alistair could not leave his drunk, unhappy wife. He was not sufficiently strong, or cruel, and she was suddenly, as the Blue Swimmer Crabs were placed in front of her, not at all sure she wanted a child. She was cut through with fear. It pierced her like an iceberg.

Alistair did not see this fear, that she should not have a baby, that she was not suited. She never let anyone but Gia see it, but it was almost always there, and it had been present all that Monday at Catchprice Motors. At the birth class that evening there was no avoiding it. They rubbed her nose in ‘reality’ and would not let her look away.

She sat on a bean bag, surrounded by couples, and watched the videotape called ‘Belinda’s Labour’.

After thirty minutes of film time – thirty hours of real time – the baby’s head emerged. The husband’s mouth was open, staring at it. The midwife’s green-gloved hands delivered the baby. The wife saw the husband’s face and could only have read it as a banner headline shouting GRIEF. The baby was blue. Its head flopped, as if it were broken or rotten. There was a silence as if something unexpectedly, horribly wrong had happened. It was like a home movie of an assassination.

But this videotape had been selected to show the birth class. There could be nothing ‘unexpected’ in this respect. This birth happened over and over, like the hellish mechanical creatures in Disneyland who are condemned to repeat the same action eighty times a day. Someone had planned to show them this record of thirty hours of pain.

In a moment, of course, the class would criticize the husband. He was not supporting his wife. He was looking at the distressed baby. At that second, he thought the child was dead.

But all Maria could think was: I don’t want it.

She was angry and frightened, although none of the women in the room could have guessed these feelings. It was not, as they say, how she ‘presented’, which was strong and confident and often funny.

If Gia had been there, as she normally was, they would have stayed for herbal tea at the end. But Gia was not there, and although she could hardly be angry at Gia for this, it occurred to her now that Gia might, on the very night she went into labour, not be in her own bed when Maria rang for her.

Maria left the birth class without saying goodnight to anyone. The lifts were prone to jamming and there was a hand-written sign advising birth class members to use the stairs. The stairs were like Hong Kong: concrete, sweaty-smelling, guarded by heavy metal fire doors. Maria Takis clattered down them alone, like a victim in a movie.

Who will care for me?

The street was empty of people, lined with parked cars. There was a derelict man peeing in the middle of the vacant block which had once been the Crown Street Maternity Hospital. The destruction of this hospital felt both cruel and personal. She thought: I am becoming neurotic.

Her car was parked round the corner, not her car, the Tax Department’s car. She should not be driving it for private use. Once she would have thought this an important principle. Now she did not give a damn. She looked in the back seat before she unlocked the car, and then she turned on the light and looked again. Mrs Catchprice’s Japanese Bride sat propped up against a Sister Brown Baby Bath.

‘Dear God, please save me.’

15

The Blue Moon Brasserie was loud, full of clatter and shouting. Glasses broke, were swept up. The air was rich with olive oil and garlic. The Tax Inspector threaded her way through the chrome-legged chairs towards her table. She was wearing a red deco blouse and a black skirt with a red bandanna which sat above her bulging stomach. She wore a peasant print scarf around her head and silver bracelets and a necklace. In the privacy of her bedroom mirror, she had thought all of this looked fine, but now she saw how she was stared at, she felt she had made an error of judgement – she was a blimp with bangles.

The grey-aproned waiter was eighteen years old and had nicked himself shaving. He was new that day and had no idea that this pregnant woman’s emotional life was deeply enmeshed with the place he worked at. He sat her in the corner, next to the table where she had told Alistair that she was having a baby. All around her there were couples, lovers, husbands, wives. They touched each other’s sleeves, arms, hands, and were pleased with each other’s company. It was a perfectly ordinary table – square, varnished, wooden, as devoid of obvious history as a hotel bed. Then it had seen the death of an affair. Now it celebrated a birthday. Maria craned her neck towards the blackboard menu but she was really watching that table – a man with a thick neck and pouched, melancholy eyes took a small gold-wrapped box from his wife – whose face Maria could not see – and passed it to his daughter. The daugher was sixteen or so, very pretty with long dark hair.

‘Happy birthday, angel,’ her father said. He gave her a kiss and a crumpled rag of a smile. He rubbed at the table surface, dragging bread crumbs into his cupped hand.

‘I’ve been flirting with stockbrokers,’ said Gia Katalanis, sitting down opposite Maria.

Gia was crisp and yellow in a linen suit. She dumped her files and briefcase on the floor and papers from the files spilled out towards the wall. She looked down at the papers, wrinkled her nose and shrugged.

‘I’ve been flirting with stockbrokers,’ she said again, leaning forward and taking Maria’s hands. She was small and blonde with a dusting of golden hairs along her slim, tanned arms. She smelt of shampoo and red wine. She had straight hair she always cut in a neat fringe. She had fine features, a fine chin which clearly suggested both frailty and determination. ‘Well they think they are stockbrokers,’ she said, ‘but they are used car dealers in their secret hearts. One of them is from Hale & Hennesey. We hit them for three-forty thou in back taxes, plus the fines, and I think he fell in love with me.’ She laughed. ‘Ask me is he cute.’

‘Is he cute?’

‘He’s cute.’

A champagne cork popped at the next table and they both turned to watch the champagne being poured into the sixteen-year-old’s birthday glass, then laughed at their own Pavlovian response to the cork pop.

‘These days,’ Maria said, ‘when they drink champagne in movies, I always look at the label.’

‘Me too,’ Gia said. ‘Exactly.’ She lit a St Moritz and put lipstick on its gold filter tip. ‘Heidsieck,’ she said. ‘Krug, Taittinger, Bollinger, Moet, Piper-Heidsieck …’

‘Pol Roger …’

‘Veuve Clicquot.’

‘I used to think anything with bubbles was champagne,’ Maria said. ‘When I told my mother I had drunk champagne she said, “Po po anaxyi yineka” – no one will want to marry you now.’

‘Your mother always said that.’

‘She was right, poor Mama. This would kill her if she wasn’t dead, really. Even my father. I visit him at night and I always ring first and say, “Papa I’m going to come over.” I don’t want to shame him with someone …’

‘But, Maria, come on – the street knows …’

‘The street knows? Don’t be nice to me.’

‘O.K., all Newtown.’

‘Newtown? Mrs Hellos knows. She was in Balmain inspecting real estate. I always felt safe in Balmain …’

‘Oh God, Mrs Hellos. I saw her in D.J.’s with that buck-toothed nephew.’

‘Tassos.’

‘Tassos, that’s right. She said, poor Mr Takis, such a good man – first his wife, now his daughter. I said, but Mrs Hellos, Maria is not dead. No, said Mrs Hellos – so melodramatic, you know – no! So I said – Mrs Hellos, are you saying it is better that Maria is dead? I’m not saying nothing, said Mrs Hellos, I’m just thinking about Mr Takis and his kidneys.’

‘Oh God, Mrs Hellos. Oh shit,’ Maria said laughing. ‘Dear Gia, you always make me laugh. The birth class was so miserable without you.’