Work in Progress

by Paul Thomas

She looks at her watch. ‘You’ve got time to finish your pasta.’

  fourteen

  Sally drives towards the sea. We pass Felicity and Murray’s place, crossing into exclusivity, a real estate concept marked by sea air, tennis courts and surveillance cameras.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘Patience is a virtue we don’t all possess, as my mother often says.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking her.’

  ‘Hold your water,’ she says. ‘We’re almost there.’

  ‘So what does the great lover do for a crust? Clean swimming pools?’

  ‘Here we are.’

  She pulls up in front of a high, whitewashed wall, something you’d expect to see in the plush parts of Johannesburg or Buenos Aires, but not in egalitarian NZ where there’s no tradition of the mob and we like to know how often our neighbours change their tea-towels.

  ‘Is this his place?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  We squeeze through massive wooden gates. A drive of crushed white shells lined with mature palm trees leads to a whopping example of twenty-first century designer grandiosity, an archipelago of creamy stucco in a sea of glass. Imposing houses abound on this patch of the isthmus, where a million dollars buys a letterbox and a birdbath, but this makes most of them seem dourly understated. I remember a bus trip to the dusty edge of Cairo. We came around a corner expecting another tract of Third World urban sprawl and found ourselves in the shadow of the pyramids. This has to be the house Felicity was talking about; there can’t be two of them.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ says Sally, enjoying my reaction. ‘Could you be happy here?’

  ‘More to the point, could you?’

  Before she can reply, two men come out of the house. They observe us from the portico.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ barks the shorter one, ‘I haven’t finished unpacking and I’ve already got trespassers.’

  There’s an anxious tremor in Sally’s smile, as if things are not going entirely according to plan. I hope this giddy gesture isn’t going to backfire on her.

  Both men are of my era. The taller one looks enviably fit and has a sailor’s tan. He wears an open-necked white shirt outside his jeans and seems pleased to see us. His sidekick has on shin-length khaki trousers with pockets for every eventuality and a Hawaiian shirt decorated with near-naked hula girls. He could do with a shave but the hobo stubble may be intended to offset a dainty little teen princess mouth. His eyes are out of sight behind the sort of impenetrable dark glasses favoured by celebrities who like being recognised but not approached.

  The taller one extends a hand. ‘Hi there, I’m Gavin and you must be …’

  ‘Well, I’ll be fucked,’ says the other one. ‘Max Napier, as I live and breathe.’

  ‘You two know each other?’ says Gavin.

  ‘I know Max,’ says the other one, grinning like a lunatic, ‘but it doesn’t look like he remembers me. These arty-farty types, they’ve got so many big ideas clogging up their heads there’s no room for names and faces.’

  My brain churns but fails to spark, like a clapped-out engine on a cold morning. He watches me, chuckling, disinclined to let me off the hook.

  I play for time. ‘You looked a bit different then?’

  ‘We all did.’

  ‘All being …?’

  ‘You. Me. Other guys.’

  Here’s something. It’s not the answer but it’s a clue: London.

  ‘It was long ago and far away, right?’

  His head bobs. ‘Now we’re cooking. Dig for it, Max, it’s in there somewhere — unless you took too many drugs and fried that big brain.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Max’s brain,’ says Sally stoutly.

  He gives her a wink. ‘I hope not, darling, I really do.’

  Then suddenly it’s sitting there in the forefront of my mind, alongside this morning’s shopping list and the usual preoccupations. I feel as if I could pinpoint the exact spot on my forehead where the knowledge resides. He’s the guy in the photo who worked in the money markets and didn’t quite fit in, the guy who paid for Johnny’s body to be flown home. And his name is ….

  ‘Long time, no see, Stanley.’ Stanley’s grin goes supernova and he claps explosively. ‘Nice place you got here, even if it is a bit on the small side.’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ he says, ‘blame the architects.’ He turns to Gavin. ‘I fucking told you, Gav: my friends aren’t easily impressed.’

  ‘I don’t know what you and your friends plan to do in there, Stanley,’ says Gavin, ‘but if it can’t be done in seven hundred square metres you probably won’t get it past the city council.’

  ‘I was just thinking of the odd Roman orgy,’ says Stanley. ‘You still on the orgy circuit, Max?’

  ‘I’m semi-retired,’ I say. ‘Cameo appearances only.’

  ‘One word,’ says Stanley. ‘Viagra.’

  Stanley, who’s obviously become a take-charge kind of guy, decides he and I will have a coffee while Gavin gives Sally the guided tour. The espresso machine is the houseguest’s department but she’s not around so we’ll have to go up the road. Everyone seems happy with this arrangement.

  Stanley stops at the gates. ‘Hey, Gav,’ he yells, ‘remind me again: how many bedrooms are there?’

  ‘Five,’ says Gavin with the patient smile of a man who’s well paid to put up with his client’s idiosyncrasies. ‘All with harbour views and ensuites.’

  ‘Right,’ says Stanley. ‘So if you and Sal get the urge to take a load off, maybe even kick off your shoes and stretch out, you’ll be spoilt for choice.’ He waits for a reaction, which isn’t forthcoming; Sally’s non-plussed while Gavin appears to be holding his breath. ‘What I mean is, you won’t have to use my bed because, you know, I’m a bit anal about that kind of thing. Not that I have any reason to believe your personal hygiene isn’t impeccable.’

  Sally blushes vividly. Gavin doesn’t like it but has to pretend otherwise. He forces a laugh. ‘Okay, Stanley. We’ll stay out of the wine cellar too.’

  Stanley gives them a wave. ‘Have fun, you crazy kids.’ I follow him through the gates. ‘One of these days,’ he says, ‘I’ll answer the doorbell and Gavin will be standing there with a gun.’

  ‘Given him a hard time, have you?’

  ‘He’d probably say I’ve made his life a fucking misery.’

  ‘Just for the hell of it?’

  ‘Partly that. Partly because he lets me. Mostly because he’s an architect.’

  We get into a Porsche SUV.

  ‘What have you got against architects?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ he asks. I shrug. ‘Let me ask you this: have you ever met an architect who doesn’t think he’s some sort of superior being? They’re a smug, preening bunch of supercilious fucks who, generally speaking, don’t even have the excuse of being gay. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is they think they’re fucking artists. He’s humping her, right?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’

  He laughs and starts the car. ‘Swore you to secrecy, did she? Lighten up, Max. That just means she doesn’t want you to tell her friends. She takes it for granted you’ll tell your friends.’

  ‘One of whom happens to be her husband.’

  ‘Not for long — her husband or your friend.’

  ‘You’re way ahead of me, Stanley.’

  ‘I’ve got very sensitive antennae, Max, and I’ve spent twenty-five years in an industry in which the aim of the game is to fuck other people up the ass without them being aware of it until it’s too late. Warn her, Max — assuming, of course, you give a fuck. Gavin’s a single guy; he’s got nothing to lose. And he’s got an image to live up to.’

  We’re driving west on Jervois Road. Up ahead a car pulls out of a park right outside a café.

  ‘Just like in the movies,’ I say.

  Stanley slots the Porsche into a tight space. ‘I’m lucky that way. Always have been.’

 
; We order. Stanley says, ‘Last thing I remember hearing about you, you’d dumped your wife and run off to Paris with a lady writer. It seemed like exactly the sort of thing a young artist should do.’

  ‘It didn’t last.’

  ‘Those things aren’t built to last, Max; that’s part of their charm. Then what?’

  ‘Well, after a while I got married again. That didn’t last either.’

  Our coffees arrive. Stanley decides he’s had worse. ‘Well, our generation might be good at a few things but staying married isn’t one of them. So where does that leave you: free as a bird?’

  I nod. ‘And you?’

  ‘Ditto. It’s a bit late for this old leopard to be changing his spots.’

  ‘You mentioned a houseguest.’

  ‘My little Argie-bargy. We have fun. Well, at least I do.’

  ‘Looking at your new pad, Stanley, I guess I’d be right in thinking you’ve done pretty well for yourself?’

  ‘That I have, Max. If you’d said to me back in London that in twenty years’ time I’d be worth what I am now, I would’ve said you were blowing bubbles out your ass. It would’ve been inconceivable to me that I, Stanley Muir, born and bred in Timaru, bright but certainly no genius, diligent but no workaholic, ambitious but not driven, a brown-noser, sure, but only up to a point … The idea that someone from my background and with my limitations could become wealthy on that scale would’ve seemed the height of fantasy. And when I look back, three things occur to me. The first is that my self-assessment was pretty much on the mark. The second is that it wasn’t actually that hard. And third, getting rich is like most human endeavours: to achieve your goal, you need a few things to go your way and, as I said before, I was born lucky. Some people, they just seem to get one bad break after another. Not me; I’m a lucky son of a bitch.’

  ‘If it’s that easy,’ I say, ‘how come there aren’t lots of people as rich as you?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how many there are, especially in the States. I wouldn’t say it’s all that easy to get seriously rich in this country but over there … You a boxing fan, Max?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor me, particularly. But the guys I worked with in New York belonged to the work hard, play hard school. Every couple of months we’d charter a private jet and fly off to somewhere like Las Vegas for a wild weekend. You know, you hear a lot of shit about the real America. Most of the time they try to tell you the real America is a bunch of inbred retards out in the boondocks who really, truly believe there were such people as Adam and Eve. I wouldn’t know; I never went to those places. Personally, I’m not sure that’s any more typically American than a bunch of faggots in a Manhattan salon discussing ballet. But if I had to make the call, I’d say the real America is Vegas on fight night. Sex and money and violence; rich guys going nuts watching a couple of beasts from the projects beating each other’s brains out, then going up to their suites and getting a thousand-buck blowjob from a six-foot-tall showgirl with plastic tits. Anyway, that’s by the by. The point is, the ring announcements are made by this guy, he looks like a fucking tailor’s dummy, who’s got this line, “Let’s get ready to rumble.” Having made a meal of that, he tells you something about the fighters, you know, Calvin over there weighs two hundred and forty-five and comes out of Dogdick, Mississippi, as if you give a fuck, and at the end of the fight he tells you the result, which you can usually deduce from the fact that one guy’s in a coma. And that’s it; that’s his night’s work. Anyway, about fifteen years ago this tailor’s dummy slapped a trademark on “Let’s get ready to rumble” and according to what I read the other day he’s earned four hundred million US in the last seven years.’ Stanley stares at me as if he’s said something incredibly profound. ‘You see what I’m saying?’

  ‘America’s the land of opportunity?’

  ‘Well, that and the fact no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. During my working life the finance and investment industry has generated a truly staggering amount of wealth. By one means or another and with a fair amount of luck on my side I managed to scam a tiny fraction of it and, as a result, got rich beyond my wildest dreams. But in seven years this blow-dried prick’s earned more than twice as much as I made in my whole fucking career. And while I had a lot of luck and a lot of help, both in terms of benefiting from other people’s brilliant ideas and capitalising on other people’s idiotic decisions, I also had to work hours that no human being should have to work, under pressure that fucked up my sleep patterns for all time. All this asshole had to do was holler, “Let’s get ready to rumble.”’

  ‘How the fuck,’ I say, ‘do you earn that much money from one brainless catch-phrase?’

  Stanley shrugs. ‘Commercials, video games, dolls …’

  ‘Dolls?’

  ‘You bet. You pull a string or squeeze it and the fucking doll goes “Let’s get ready to rumble”. I dare say you can have it as the alarm that wakes you up in the morning or as the ring on your cellphone. For all I know you can have a microchip implanted in your wang so whenever you get a boner the object of your desire hears “Let’s get ready to rumble”. The point is, every time that brainless catch-phrase is uttered anywhere in America, and probably the world, the cash register goes bing! He has two ideas in his life: one, the brainless catch-phrase; two, slapping a trademark on the brainless catch-phrase. Hey presto, the cunt’s got more money than Ethiopia. That’s critical mass for you, Max; two hundred and seventy-five million Americans with disposable income. If you asked them what’s the meaning of life, most of them would say, “To shop, to spend money, to buy shit.” The rich people, by and large, are the ones who dream up new shit for them to spend their money on.’ He pauses. ‘How many words would you say you’ve written?’

  ‘I hate to think.’

  ‘But I imagine you’d like to think you’ve come up with a line or two that bears comparison with “Let’s get ready to rumble”?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘And would I also be right in thinking you’re yet to chalk up your first million?’

  ‘Well, I’d need to consult my accountant … You keep mentioning luck: how did luck come into it?’

  ‘I was in the right place at the right time when the IT sector took off. I got in on the ground floor and I got out of the elevator before it ran out of juice and the law of gravity took over. The only reason I got out in time was that I ran into this guy who warned me what was going to happen. The difference between me and the people who lost their shirts was that I didn’t have a problem accepting the fact that this guy was brighter than me and knew a fucking sight more about the tech sector and Wall Street and the American economy than I did. And if this expert, as I perceived him to be but others thought was just a dipshit trying to make a name for himself, turned out to be right, I could come back from lunch one day and find myself in the same tax bracket as the shoeshine boys on Fifth Avenue.

  ‘I rang my broker and told him to sell everything as soon as the markets opened. Six weeks later the bubble burst. I know guys who were worth as much if not more than me who now can’t afford to live in Manhattan. I know of guys who cleaned out the family trust and fucked off without a trace, leaving their wives and kids to fend for themselves. There was one flame-out I heard of who actually whacked his parents to get his hands on their life savings. I, on the other hand, have more money than a bear can shit. Leaving aside what I’ve got parked in hedge funds and tied up in property, the interest I earn off what’s in the bank gives me an extremely healthy income by New Zealand standards.’

  Stanley leans back in his chair. I’m not the first person he’s given this speech to and I won’t be the last; I suspect he’ll never get tired of it.

  ‘There you have it, Max: How to Get Rich and Stay that Way, by Stanley P. Muir, B. Com. Twenty-five years at the cutting edge of market capitalism distilled into a ten-minute rant.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Have I missed somethin
g?’

  ‘Well, for instance, will I need a calculator?’

  Stanley chuckles. ‘It might come in handy. But like all tools, Max, it’s only as effective as the user.’

  ‘So what now? You can’t tell me you’ll be happy doing nothing for the rest of your life. How old are you, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Forty-eight. How old are you?’

  ‘I turn fifty on April the first. That’s right, Stanley; I was born on April Fools’ Day.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean what the fuck are you doing to mark the occasion?’

  ‘What is there to celebrate?’

  ‘Don’t be an asshole, Max. You’re sane, able-bodied, reasonably presentable. I’ve no doubt that if you really put your mind to it, you could get laid tonight. I assume you’re still writing?’ I nod. ‘Which is what you want to do? Shit, that’s all you’ve ever wanted to do, isn’t it?’

  I shrug. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, man, you’ve got every fucking reason to celebrate. Not that it matters, because as of this moment your opinion is irrelevant. Your fiftieth birthday party will be held at my place on the night of April the first. You provide a guestlist; I’ll do the rest.’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Stanley, but that’s the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.’

  He frowns. ‘What’s the right way to take it?’

  ‘Look, Stanley, an hour ago, by pure chance, we clapped eyes on each other for the first time in twenty-odd years. And even back then we weren’t exactly inseparable so why should you …’

  ‘With the greatest respect, Max,’ he says, and for the first time I sense that I’m meant to take him absolutely seriously, ‘my reasons — or lack of them — aren’t the issue. I’m offering to throw a party for your fiftieth. If you don’t like the idea, fine; if you don’t like me, fine. By all means, tell me to fuck off. But please, don’t give me this lame shit about us not being blood brothers.’

  I have the strong feeling that if I say thank you for the kind offer but I can’t in all conscience accept, he’ll take it in his stride but this will be the last I’ll ever see of him. I don’t want that to happen. I sense possibilities around Stanley Muir.