The Tax Inspector

me.’

‘The investigation,’ Mrs Catchprice said, ‘has been stopped.’

Sarkis did not know what investigation she was talking about but when he saw her speak he saw her power and thought he had created it.

‘Mrs Catchprice …’ the pregnant woman said. ‘How come you’re dressed up?’ Cathy asked.

‘How come you know?’

‘She doesn’t know,’ the pregnant woman said. ‘There’s nothing to know. Mrs Catchprice, Mrs McPherson, you can all calm down. The investigation has not been stopped. Once a Tax Office investigation starts, it has to go on until the end. Not even I could stop it.’

‘It’s been stopped all right,’ said Benny in a thin nasal voice that cut across the others’ like steel wire. He was trying to smile at the pregnant woman. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He used her first name, ‘Maria.’

Maria was pushing at the pressure points beside her eyes.

‘We like you,’ Benny said. He used her first name again. ‘We don’t blame you for what you did …’

‘Maria’ coloured and tapped on the table with her pencil.

Mrs Catchprice held the edge of the table with her hands. She seemed to spread herself physically. Sarkis thought of Bali, of Rangda the Witch. She had that sort of power. The whole room gave it to her and she threw it back at them. It was not the haircut. It was her.

‘Can I remind you all,’ Maria said, ‘that I’m the one who’s from the Tax Office.’

Mrs Catchprice gave her a smile so large you could think that all her teeth were made from carved and painted wood. ‘You’d better phone your office,’ she said. ‘Use the extension in the kitchen. It’s more private.’

The Tax Inspector hesitated, smiled wanly, then left the room. Mrs Catchprice turned to her daughter.

‘So now you can go, Cathy,’ Mrs Catchprice said. ‘You want to go square dancing, you go. I’m taking the business back for safekeeping.’

‘It’s not yours to take back.’

‘That’s irrelevant, Cathy,’ said Benny. ‘You get what you want. We get what we want.’

‘The business isn’t hers. It’s not her decision. She’s a minority shareholder.’

But Mrs Catchprice did not look like a minority of anything. Her jaw was set firmly. Her face was blotched with liver spots and one large red mark along her high forehead below her hairline. She looked scary.

The Tax Inspector, by contrast, looked white and waxy and depressed. She had not come all the way back into the room, but stood leaning against the door jamb with her hand held across her ballooning belly. Her hands were puffed up, ringless, naked.

‘I’ve been called back to the office,’ she said.

‘How lovely,’ said Mrs Catchprice. ‘You’ll be closer to the hospital. What hospital was it? I forget.’

‘George V,’ said Maria Takis. All the colour had gone from her wide mouth.

‘It’s a lovely hospital.’

‘My mother died there.’ The Tax Inspector clicked shut her briefcase.

‘Let me,’ Benny said. He took the briefcase from her, smiling charmingly. ‘I’d like to walk you to your car.’

49

At the bottom of the fire escape, Benny took the car keys from the Tax Inspector’s hand. She let him take her briefcase, imagining he would carry it to her car, but he immediately set off across the gravel towards the back of the yard where a faded red sign read LUBRITORIUM.

‘Wrong way,’ she said.

He turned, and his lower lip, in trying not to smile, made a little ‘v’ that was disturbingly familiar. ‘You can’t go,’ he said. He threw her car keys in the air and caught them. ‘It isn’t over yet.’

‘It’s over. Believe me.’ She did not know how the audit could possibly be over, and she was confused, and mostly bad-tempered that it was. It was not logical that she should feel this, but she felt it. She held out her hand for the keys.

Benny grinned, then frowned and held the keys behind his back. ‘I’ve got stuff I want to show you.’

‘Come on, I’ve got work to do.’ She was going to the Tax Office to shout at Sally Ho. That was her ‘work’.

Benny pouted and dangled the keys between his thumb and forefinger. She snatched them from him, irritated. The minute she had done it and she saw the hurt in his face, she was sorry.

‘You should be happy,’ she said. ‘Isn’t this what you wanted when you came to my house? Isn’t this exactly what you wanted to achieve?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sort of.’

She began to walk slowly, purposefully, towards her car. ‘So?’ she said.

He was close beside her – a little ahead. She could feel his eyes demanding a contact she did not have the energy to give him.

He said, ‘I thought we might be, sort of, friends.’

She began to laugh, and stopped herself, but when she looked up she saw it was not in time to stop her hurting him. By the time they reached the car he had a small red spot on each of his cheeks.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. He held out his hand for the keys and she gave them to him, in compensation for her laughter. He unlocked her door and held it open for her. She squeezed herself in behind the wheel. He passed her the briefcase. She held out her hand for the keys. He wagged his finger and danced round the minefield of puddles to the passenger side. She watched him, wearily, as he unlocked the passenger side door and got in. He locked the door behind him.

‘O.K.,’ she said. ‘But now I’ve got to go.’

She held out her hand for the keys. He placed them in her open palm. She inserted the keys in the ignition switch then turned it far enough to make the instrument lights, the three of them, shine red.

‘I came to talk to you last night,’ he said. ‘I thought we could, you know … I came by myself.’

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

She moved the gear stick into neutral.

‘I got the company books for you,’ he said. ‘I brought them to your house. I was going to leave them on the veranda, but you didn’t come home all night.’

She felt her hair prickle on the nape of her neck. ‘I was at my father’s,’ she said.

‘That’s who you had dinner with?’

‘Yes. It is absolutely who I had dinner with.’

‘But you went out to dinner with Uncle Jack.’

She turned to look at him. He was smirking.

‘You don’t want to waste your time with him,’ he said. ‘He’s a creep.’

‘Benny, what do you want from me? What is it?’

Benny shrugged and looked out of the window at a pair of men at A.S.P. Building Supplies loading roofing iron on to the roof-rack of an old Ford Falcon. ‘How old are you?’ he asked, still not looking at her.

Maria started the engine.

‘How old are you?’ He turned. He looked as if he was going to cry.

‘I’m thirty-four.’

‘I like you,’ he said. ‘I never liked anyone like that before.’

‘Benny, that’s enough.’

‘This is serious,’ he said.

‘Enough.’

But he was unbuttoning his shirt.

Maria turned off the engine and opened her door. ‘I’m going to get your father.’

‘My father is a joke,’ said Benny. He pulled down his jacket and his shirt to show her his upper arm. ‘Just look, that’s all. Please don’t turn away from me.’