‘Don’t hurt him,’ Vish said. ‘He hasn’t done anything to you.’
‘Don’t side with him. That’s fucking typical. You don’t know what he’s done to me.’
‘You’re an accessory,’ Sarkis said to Vish, twisting his head upwards. ‘Why don’t you phone the cops, before you both get in a lot of trouble?’
‘Listen to him,’ said Benny. ‘He’s smart.’
‘You want me to call the cops?’
‘Don’t ask me. Ask him. I’d like to know myself.’
‘You want me to call the cops?’ Vish asked the man. He came closer to him so he could see the dried white stuff around his mouth and his slightly yellow blood-shot eyes.
The man was quiet for a moment. It looked as though he was trying to swallow. ‘Just let me go,’ he said. ‘I’m losing circulation.’
‘See,’ said Benny. ‘I’m just calming him down. He got excited.’
‘You’re right,’ Vish said. ‘You’re not an angel, you’re an insect. You’ll live and die an insect, a million times over. I’m sorry I ever listened to your stupid story. I’m really sorry I came back down here.’
Benny’s lips opened and he went soft around the chin. He stood up, but he put out his hand towards his brother as if he meant to stroke his sleeve. He took the fabric between thumb and forefinger and held it. ‘You give me dog shit to eat,’ he said softly, ‘I’ll still grow wings. It’s my nature. It’s who I am. I’ll tell you, Vishy, they burn us, they shoot us, they pour shit on us and lock us in boxes, but you cannot trap us in our pasts.’
Vish shook his head again.
‘We could be lying around lighting our farts, or doing Ice or M.D.A.’
‘Help me.’
‘One more peep out of you and you’re in deep shit,’ said Benny. To his brother he said: ‘I need you.’ He held out his hand.
‘I need you too,’ said Vish. He took the hand and held it.
Benny looked at him and blinked.
‘We’re brothers,’ Vish said. ‘It is an attachment, but I’ve got it. I put you here, that’s right. It’s my responsibility. So now,’ he grinned, putting his hand around his brother’s neck, ‘I’m going to get you out of here, tonight.’ He made a move on Benny, trying to get a half-nelson on him, but Benny slipped out and started shouting and flailing with his bony hands. Vish stepped backwards and fell off the plank, twisting his leg and falling backwards into the pool of water. A glass fell and shattered. As Vish rose, his yellow robes clinging wet against his barrel chest, Benny came at him with the power cord from the toaster, twirling it like a propeller. The plug smashed a light globe, and bounced against the back of Vish’s hand, and head. He retreated, holding his hand round an injured ear from which fat drops of blood fell, tracing a dripping line up the perforated metal steps to the world outside.
41
Maria waited for Gia in the Brasserie garden near the dripping ferns, sipping mint tea. There was an office love affair being conducted in the bar, and the waiters were eating at the long table by the kitchen, but apart from this the Brasserie was empty.
Maria had planned to tell Gia about Jack Catchprice but Gia was late, and by the time she had arrived, found a dry place to put her briefcase, and begun to deal with the Brasserie’s celebrated cocktail menu, it was after six- thirty.
‘What I am really looking for,’ Gia said, ‘is something very silly and alcoholic.’
‘The Hula-Hula,’ said Peter, taking his order pad out of his grey apron.
‘Does it have an umbrella?’ said Gia skittishly.
‘Trust me. It’s very kitsch. It’s exactly what you’re looking for.’
‘But it tastes nice?’
‘You want silly or you want nice?’
Gia considered.
‘What’s a Mai Tai again? I never had a Mai Tai.’
If you did not know her and saw her do this – run her newly painted fingernails down the cocktail list, fiddle with her gold choker chain – you would think she was vain and indulged, a political conservative from the Eastern suburbs. In fact she was a liberal who worried (excessively) about the waiters and their work and, in Peter’s case, his music as well. In a town where 10 per cent was meant to be the norm, Gia tipped an arithmetically difficult 12.5 per cent.
‘Have a glass of champagne,’ Peter said. ‘You love champagne.’
‘Maybe I should. Should I, Maria? It would have a certain symmetry.’
‘It would be bad luck,’ Maria said. ‘Have the Hula-Hula. Have anything. She has news to tell me,’ she told Peter. ‘She is withholding. She is driving me crazy.’
‘She’s the one who hoards her news,’ Gia said. ‘I’m normally the one who blurts it out. This is her own treatment. She has to wait for everything to be perfect.’
‘If you want perfect, have the Hula-Hula,’ said Peter. ‘If you don’t like it, I’ll drink it for you.’
‘I’ll have the Hula-Hula then.’
‘I’ll have a fresh squeezed orange juice,’ Maria said.
‘It doesn’t have coconut milk does it?’
‘No,’ said Peter. ‘It’s definitely Lo-Chol.’
‘Good,’ said Gia.
‘Tell me,’ said Maria. It was twenty minutes to seven.
Gia hunched down over the table. ‘Well …’ she said.
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Your fellow rang me first …’
‘Jack …’
‘Jack Catchprice. What he hoped was he could just get it stopped.’
‘He couldn’t?’
‘I’m sure he could have but the cop he had in mind just had a major heart attack, but he was really amazing. He was very sweet to me. He got someone else, I don’t know who it was, to talk to Fischer. This took like three hours. They were going back and forth until two-thirty.’
‘Back and forth about what?’
‘About calling it off. Anyway, at two-thirty this very prissy-sounding woman phoned me. I don’t know who she was. Like a real bitch of a private secretary. She gives me two phone numbers. One of them was for his car phone. That’s where I got him.’
‘It makes my flesh creep.’
‘It just rang, you know, like anyone’s phone and then this man answered and then I asked was that Mr Fischer and he said who wants to know and then I said my name, and he said, yes, it was him, and I said, I believe you know who I am.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said yes,’ Gia shivered. ‘It was so creepy and frightening. I can’t tell you how frightening it was. It sounds like nothing …’
‘No, no. I can imagine.’
‘Maria, you
Peter brought the drinks. Gia’s cocktail was full of fruit and had curling blue and green glass straws sticking out of it. It looked like something in an art gallery whose level of irony you might puzzle over. Gia put her lips to the blue glass straw and sucked.
‘So I said I just wanted to apologize for my behaviour at the Brasserie.’
‘But I thought that’s what you didn’t have to do. I thought that’s what he was fixing for you.’
‘Maria, I’ll kill you. The cop had a fucking heart attack. What else did you want him to do? He was sweet.’
