tissue and frees the joint. Two, you can spend a thousand dollars or so over the next year or so on physiotherapy, osteopathy and bloody acupuncture. Three, you can do a few stretching exercises, leave it alone and wait for the bugger to get better.’
‘Number one sounds quick, and I’ve got full medical cover.’
Ian, who has been my friend and patcher-upper for twenty years, butted his cigarette and looked at the clock. It was just past eleven, a fraction early for him to propose having a drink. We were in his Glebe Point Road rooms, immediately across the way from the pub, and lan’s patients were used to him ducking across the street. Often, they ducked across with him. He lit another cigarette, coughed and reconciled himself to being a physician for just a little longer. He is a tall, lean man whose bad habits so far have left no significant exterior mark.
‘Trouble with that is, the tissue damage done by the operation can be worse than the injury itself and you can be looking at an even longer recovery period.’
‘Shit, why is it done?’
Ian shrugged. ‘Makes money for orthopaedic surgeons and it’s the option often taken up by impatient bastards like you.’
‘OK, so you’re advising me to let it heal by itself and depriving your colleagues of custom. Sounds all right. What do I do-put it in a sling? It hurts like hell when I move it like this.’
‘I thought you were a tough guy. No, that’s the worst thing you can do. Keep it moving. Make it hurt. Your pain will be good for you.’
‘You’re a sadistic bastard, Ian.’
He snorted derisively as he ran my card through his stamping machine. Ian has long ago given up on receptionists, being unable to find one who would tolerate his erratic methods and eccentric patients. I moved to sign the slip, forgot about the arm and gasped as I put it in a painful position. ‘Bugger it. I won’t be playing tennis for a while.’
‘Your biggest problem will be in bed.’
‘Eh?’
‘Getting to sleep. You’ll find it hard to achieve a comfortable position and when you roll over onto it you’ll wake up. What about a drink?’
‘That’s terrific. I’m facing a year without sleep. Recommend alcohol, do you?’
‘Always. Shouldn’t worry a hero like you. If it gets too bad I’ll prescribe you some anti-inflammatories. Might help. By the way, Cliff, how’s Glen?’
9
Guilt hit me when I jockeyed the Falcon into my street and saw Glen’s red Nissan Pulsar parked outside my house. She’d left it at a garage for some repairs and made arrangements for it to be delivered back to me. The keys would be in my gas meter box and I was to drop a cheque Glen had left with me off at the garage with the amount entered. One of those little domestic things lovers do for each other whether co-habiting or not. Glen took good care of the car, much better care than I took of mine and the sight of it brought my feelings for her back with a rush.
I’d had a lot of trouble driving from Rozelle to lan’s surgery and then home. Each gear change was an agony and I’d annoyed many drivers by trying to negotiate in second. The driving had left me sweaty and irritated and a conscience didn’t help. I slammed into the house, kicking angrily at the pile of mail that had come through the slot and, consequently, losing balance and instinctively reaching out with my left hand to steady myself. The pain was like a pulled muscle, a sprain and a severe cramp all at once. The answering machine in the living room was winking and I gave it the finger as I went past. I blundered on through to the kitchen, hoping that there was something for the cat to eat because I knew it’d be in from its wandering life as soon as it heard movement in the house.
Sure enough, it jumped through a window and rubbed against my legs. It was in luck because there was a chicken carcass in the fridge-the detritus of a meal I’d long forgotten. I stripped off the meat and fat and put it on the plate for the cat who then thought of me as a king. Some king. My clothes were overdue for a wash and a good airing. I stripped off and shaved in the bathroom, accustoming myself to using the razor without employing my left hand to check for missed areas. As with the shirt problem, it was like learning to shave all over again. My face was puffy and bruised where Baldy had hit me.
As I shaved I thought of my paternal grandfather who I remembered as a big, but decaying old man with an Irish brogue. Hardy isn’t an Irish name, and the story in the family was that grandad had left his true name behind on some army muster or ship’s company list when he’d deserted or jumped ship. My sister, who’s interested in such things, is pursuing the matter. She was convinced about O’Halloran some time back, but that may have changed. The old boy died when I was about five, but I distinctly remember the pinned-up sleeve of his striped pyjama jacket. Having outlived his wife, a rare thing for a man then and now, he occupied a sleep-out behind the house of Aunt Grace, one of my father’s sisters in Drummoyne. He’d lost the arm in a south-coast coal mine, but I could recall him telling me that he suffered rheumatism and arthritis in it, just as in the heavily tattooed limb that remained. He was full of blarney as I later realised, but I experienced a surge of sympathy for him across the years-my left arm was useless, but it hurt like hell.
Perhaps sensing my mood, the cat ate and left. I finished cleaning myself up and put on fresh clothes. I ate dry biscuits and cheese and drank white wine from a cask. The messages on my answering machine were routine-a man getting back to tell me that his wife had returned and that I needn’t bother looking for her, and one from the garage asking when I was going to pay the bill on the Pulsar. I’d never intended to look for the wife-the signs that she’d absented herself to throw a scare into him were as obvious as her motives. He was rich and she was poor; he was old and she was young. I hadn’t expected to make any money out of that one. The woman would probably do all right in the end. I took Glen’s cheque from between the leaves of the Macquarie Dictionary and looked at it sourly, telling myself that her signature was the bold flourish of someone who had money in the bank.
I was sinking into a torpor of self-pity and guilty rationalising. How was I to know who she was screwing when she was away on tour? What about those young constables she admired and those older officers who could be very useful to her career? What could I offer her except sex and some laughs and a slice of my seedy, underpaid, heavily mortgaged, over-regulated semi-professional life?
It was early afternoon; I had a slight buzz on from the wine and was beginning to think about another dose of pain-killers for the arm. Very positive stuff. Ian had told me about several exercises useful for frozen shoulders. I stood in a door frame and screamed as I tried to raise the left arm up to the lintel.
As I swore and raged there was a knock on the front door. I was just in the mood for a salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness. I tramped down the hall and jerked the door open ready to snarl.
A motorcycle courier stood on the step swinging his helmet from one hand. His machine was ticking in the street. ‘Mr Hardy?’
I nodded and he handed me a large envelope. ‘No signature needed. Have a nice day.’
I took the package and he was helmeted and astride his bike before I could think of a response. ‘I’ll try,’ I said as he gunned his motor and shot off down the street. I got Glen’s keys and the garage bill from the meter box and took the whole lot inside. The envelope was a big padded postbag, sealed by a strip of masking tape with my name and address printed in block capitals on the outside. No indication of where it had come from. I flexed it uninterestedly, thinking it was probably something from my accountant-some new superannuation plan or savings scheme I didn’t need. I dumped it on the kitchen bench and looked at the garage bill. Three hundred and fifty-two dollars and sixty-five cents for work on the electrical system and brakes.
‘Automobiles are the curse of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,’ I said aloud. I filled in the amount on Glen’s cheque and put it with the account.
My arm was hurting and I wondered if the effect of twenty-five years’ use of pain-killers was cumulative. I took a couple more with wine and used my Swiss army knife to slit open the envelope. I up-ended it. The files I’d found in Scott Galvani’s office and had taken from me a few hours later fell out.
