The Tax Inspector

Gia took Maria’s hand. ‘Did they show one of those horror tapes again?’ Maria’s skin was so moist and supple and her fingers so long that it made her own hands seem dry and neurotic.

‘Uh-huh.’ There was a veiled, weary look around her eyes.

‘Are you mad at me?’

‘Of course not. Really. Not even a tiny bit.’

‘Oh Maria, I’m sorry. Did you have a shitty day as well?’

‘Well, I wasn’t flirting with stockbrokers.’

‘But I thought they finally sent you out to catch some rats?’

‘They sent me to Franklin. Can you believe that?’

‘Franklin. My God. Who’s in Franklin?’

‘No one’s in Franklin. It was some shitty little G.M. dealer.’

‘Maria, you’ve got to just tell them “no”.’

‘That’s what they want. They’re going to keep giving me these insulting little audits until I blow up. I’m like the emperor’s wife. They have to kill me too.’

‘The emperor’s ex-wife.’

‘I cooked dinners for the creeps when Alistair was director. They came to my house and drank my Heemskerk Cabernet. They were meant to be my friends. Billy Huxtable, Sally Ho. It was Sally who sent me to Franklin. I said, “What if I go into labour in Franklin?” She said, “There are very good medical facilities.” What a bitch! Plus, the clients – really – they were mice! They looked like they were Social Welfare clients, not ours. They were trying to commit her – this is an old woman, eighty-six – to a mental home when I arrived. Her children were trying to lock her up, and she seemed more sane than they did. If I hadn’t arrived she’d be locked up right now.’

‘Good for you, Maria.’

‘Well, maybe – I’m investigating her, and I’m sitting here, talking about champagne, surrounded by people drinking vintage Bollinger.’

‘Well, let’s go somewhere else. I don’t like all this either.’

Maria chose not to hear that. ‘It makes me feel sleazy,’ she said.

‘What? The clients or the restaurant?’

‘Both, together. The juxtaposition.’

‘Maria, you’re not sleazy. You’re the least sleazy person I know.’

‘I’m going to pull this investigation. I can stop it.’

‘You can’t stop it, and you’re being really dumb. Listen, my dear, you are the least sleazy person I know. You never spend more than twenty bucks here. You’ve got a village mentality. Remember when you told me Alex was wealthy … He had a new 1976 Holden and went to Surfers Paradise for his holidays. You know what you said to me … You said, “Typical Athens Greek.” And you wouldn’t go out with him.’

‘I was a little prig,’ Maria said. ‘All I’m thinking is how I can cancel the investigation.’

‘So you’re going to break into the computer, right?’ When she was anxious Gia had a tendency to shout.

‘Shush,’ said Maria. ‘I think that is what I am going to do. Yes.’

‘You don’t know how to.’

‘Shush, please, but yes I do. I’m not going to be made into a bully.’

Gia picked up Maria’s bread roll and began to tear it up. ‘O.K. Maria … O.K… . If you’re really upset by crooks drinking vintage Bollinger, we’ll just go somewhere else.’

Maria saw the stoop-shouldered man at the next table flinch as he heard himself labelled a crook. He looked up sharply.

Maria said, ‘All the poor guy is doing is giving his daughter a birthday party.’

Gia leaned across the table and spoke in her idea of a whisper. ‘That “poor guy” is Wally Fischer.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh. That’s right. Oh. We’re going to get him. He’s an inch away from jail. He can get away with dealing smack and organizing murder but he’s not going to get away with tax. He didn’t hear me.’

‘I thought he was an accountant being sweet to his wife and daughter,’ Maria whispered. ‘He heard us. He knows we’re talking about him now.’

‘This restaurant makes me sick,’ Gia said. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’

‘No,’ Maria said. ‘I like it here.’

Gia started giggling.

‘I do,’ Maria said.

‘I know you do.’

‘When the baby’s born I won’t be able to afford to come here, but it’s very cheap for the sort of place it is.’

‘I know,’ Gia said. ‘You can get focaccias for $7.50 and wine for $3 a glass and once you sat next to Joan Collins, right over there.’

‘Right,’ Maria said. ‘And you always give me the best scandal here.’

‘I’m less interesting elsewhere?’

‘There are artists and celebrities here. The atmosphere is good,’ Maria said. ‘It promotes gossip. It’s the only corner of my life where gossip is acceptable. It stops me being a total prig.’ She seemed to have abandoned her thoughts about breaking into her client’s tax file. ‘Also, I have a history here. Alistair and I used to sit there, it was our table.’

‘Don’t do this to yourself.’

‘He’s a part of me,’ Maria said. ‘Don’t make me pretend he isn’t.’

‘Maria, he’s a creep – he dumped you.’

‘He didn’t dump me. I dumped me. What did he do?’

‘Even now, you can’t see who he is.’

‘I know who he is,’ Maria said quietly. ‘Please. Gia, allow me to know him a little better than you.’

‘O.K.,’ said Gia, grinning like a cat. ‘So allow me to tell you where Paulo wants to kiss me.’

She was gifted with perfect recall. She recited a whole phone conversation with her ‘love interest’. He wanted to kiss her armpit. He had said to her, ‘Guess where I want to kiss you?’ She had guessed everywhere but arm pit. She had shocked him with her guesses. This sort of talk was making Maria look alive and happy again. The headscarf showed off her beautiful face, her dark olive skin and white, perfect teeth. She could have any man she liked, even now, this pregnant.

Gia spoke very quietly, so quietly no one could have heard them, but they laughed so much they could hardly see. Through her tear-streamed vision Maria saw Wally Fischer speaking to Tom, one of the owners of the Brasserie.

Tom was a small, solemn man of thirty who had made himself look forty with a belly and a pair of round, wire-framed glasses. He leaned across the table and put a hand on the back of their chairs.

‘Gia, Maria, I’m sorry … would you mind, you know, a little cleaner.’

‘All we’re doing is laughing,’ Gia said. ‘It’s not as if we’re murdering anyone.’

The words fell into the silence like stones into an aquarium. Maria could see Gia’s eyes widening as she heard what she had said. She looked at Maria and made a grimace, and up to Tom and shrugged, and across to Wally Fischer who had heard this very clearly – his thick neck was beginning to puff up and turn a deep plum colour.

Gia was pale. She sat with her palms flat on the table. She looked helplessly in Wally Fischer’s direction and smiled.

‘Hey,’ she said. Her voice was so loud and scratchy, Maria knew she was very frightened. ‘I’m sorry, really.’

Wally Fischer moved his chair back and stood up. You could feel his physical strength. He had bright, shining, freshly shaven cheeks and you could smell his talcum.

‘One,’ he said to Maria, ‘I don’t like my daughter having to listen to smut.’ He turned to Gia: ‘Number two: I like even less for her to hear people say untrue and insulting things about her father.’

‘All I …’ Gia began.

‘Sssh,’ said Wally Fischer. He was no longer plum-coloured. He was quite pale except for the red in his thick lips. ‘You’ve done enough hurt for one night.’ He blinked his heavy-lidded eyes once, and turned to take his daugher