Lunch with the Generals

by Derek Hansen

  ‘I know it is a long shot,’ Eduardo said, ‘but do you think you can help?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ his doctor replied. ‘It’s really a question of researching back issues of every reputable medical journal to see if anyone has published a paper. Then scan all the current issues as they come out. I know some medical students who will be glad of the opportunity to earn some pocket money.’

  Eduardo went straight from the doctor’s surgery to his office at the Hot Ink Press. Between their new interests in Indonesia and Java Man, he had lost touch. Phil and Don both did a good job, but it never hurt to keep them on their toes. Moreover, he had been neglecting his contacts. He had clients to woo and friendships to reinforce.

  Anders had continued his inevitable rise. If it is true, as it is often said in the advertising business, that those with the most hot air go furthest, then Anders would go further than most. Probably to the top, for he had hot air to spare. Still, he was influential and Eduardo had been rather cavalier with their friendship.

  They resumed their partying. Indeed, Anders had never left off. But Eduardo could not help comparing the butterflies who were their prey with Annemieke. He found he no longer had much appetite for casual affairs. Daily Eduardo became more disgruntled. He wanted to see Annemieke again, but he couldn’t find any justification. Not one that wouldn’t risk exposing his motives.

  Each morning he rose early and went into his office. He reviewed the finances, workflow and projections with Don and Phil. The meetings became increasingly acrimonious and, inevitably, Eduardo and Phil would end up shouting at each other. Eduardo disputed decisions they had made in his absence, even though he had previously made it perfectly clear they had every right to make them. He nitpicked over detail and railed over the slackness he perceived to be creeping into their operation.

  Phil took the brunt of Eduardo’s ill humour because they shared the same expertise. He blamed Phil for the business they had lost, and for quotes they had failed to win. Don acted as peacemaker between the two, but it wasn’t long before his sense of justice was sufficiently aroused for him to take Eduardo aside, and tell him the facts of life.

  ‘It is the nature of our business to win and lose accounts,’ he said. ‘Every day we hold on to an account brings us closer to the day we lose it. Who gave me this wisdom? No clues, but he is an arrogant, insensitive Argentinian. Who is first in every morning and last out at night? No clues, but he has big feet and an even bigger heart. Who has kept our profit margins up despite the cost-cutting in the industry? Let me tell you, he’s the same bloke who wears his lunch on his tie and did more than either of us to ease the Burton Simmons people into our operation—and motivate them to work their butts off for us! You owe Phil an apology. God in heaven! How do you think we’ve been funding your Indonesian operations and the bloody take-over? The business has never run better. Of course there have been some slip-ups. But what do you expect? Phil’s had to do your job as well as his. You snap at him over minor issues when you should compliment him on the big picture. I don’t know who’s put the prickle up your arse, but if it’s a girl I hope you screw her or marry her or whatever it is you want to do to her, and do it soon.’

  Don’s face had flushed red with anger and his moustache bristled with indignation.

  ‘I’m sorry, Don.’ Eduardo looked down at his feet like a scolded child. ‘I accept that I have been unreasonable. I am, as you implied, distracted. Sometimes I behave like an arsehole.’

  ‘Sometimes you are an arsehole. Gold-plated.’

  ‘Grab Phil. Let me take you both to lunch so I can apologise.’

  Eduardo took them to lunch at the Malaya, where the forgiving Phil solved another of Eduardo’s problems.

  ‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’m going to book into six different restaurants on the same night, and have my favourite dish in each.’

  The potential of the idea hit Eduardo immediately.

  ‘That is a fantastic idea. Brilliant! May I borrow it?’

  ‘Feel free,’ said Phil, in a voice heavy with irony. ‘I have my dreams, and they stay dreams. You have my dreams and they become reality. I think I’ll get drunk.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Eduardo arranged everything for Saturday night. He spoke to all the restaurants, and arranged a table in each at staggered times. He paid in advance with a generous tip, though the restaurateurs he spoke to were intrigued by the idea and flattered to be involved. Each was determined to produce the finest dish. Eduardo was well known to them, and hadn’t he promised to write about the night, and run the story in his magazine, Fashion House?

  Eduardo booked a stretch limo, and picked up the Van der Meers promptly at seven. Pieter volunteered to sit with the driver, while Tom and Eduardo occupied the fold-down seats. Annemieke sat diagonally opposite him so that her best side was towards him. She wore a simple black dress, high at the neck and virtually absent at the back. She wore no jewellery apart from French jet drop earrings, studded with tiny rhinestones. If she wore make-up, it went unannounced. It appeared she had gone to no trouble at all, which guaranteed that she had gone to a great deal of trouble indeed.

  Eduardo was overwhelmed. He switched his charm onto automatic and talked non-stop in the hope that it wouldn’t show.

  They began with sushi made with toro, the prized, fatty, underbelly of tuna, before crossing the road to a second Japanese restaurant for California roll, and the tiny dim sim-like, gyoza. Eduardo summoned the limo with his portable phone, and they were off to a Vietnamese restaurant for warm pork julienne rolls, and cubed beef dipped in lemon juice and ground white pepper. At each stop, the manager made a point of having their photograph taken with himself in a prominent position.

  The next stop was Eduardo’s favourite Chinese restaurant, for lamb pancakes, followed by chilli lobster. In each case, Eduardo as host would allow his guests to take their seats first. Yet each time, they left a space for him with Lita on his right, and Annemieke on his left.

  Annemieke told him about her studies at the Conservatorium and he hung on every word. The boys took discreet notes for their restaurant-to-be, and their observations often reduced them to laughter. Conversation never flagged, for the limo came to collect them as soon as they had finished their plates. Eduardo’s favourite Malay restaurant was next, where the chef greeted them with a plate of fried anchovies, liberally dusted with chilli. Eduardo had prepared the Van der Meers for their final dish, a beef rendang so hot and fiery it could eat its way through armour plate in less than half an hour. But the chef had not prepared Eduardo for what he had done.

  He had gone beyond instruction, and produced his own mini rijstaffel, which included beef rendang, but five other dishes as well. Obviously, he had an eye on top billing when Eduardo published his story.

  The Van der Meers gasped at the quantity of food placed before them. Eduardo just laughed.

  ‘Eat what you can,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a little of each. But not so much that you spoil your appetite for dessert. Just enough so that we can show due appreciation for the effort my friend here has gone to.’

  The photographer appeared magically, to capture the smiling faces, the magnificent platter of food, and Eduardo with his arm around the chef. Jan had already eaten more than enough, but he could not resist the rijstaffel.

  ‘This takes me back to the Savoy Homann,’ he said. ‘Like this restaurant, they use chillies without fear. Lita and Annemieke are too timid. They never use enough chilli for my taste.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Annemieke. ‘I think our dishes are at least as hot as these. Taste.’ She reached across the table to offer her father a piece of beef which she had impaled on her fork. Jan opened his mouth and took the offering. He should have known better.

  He gasped, and gulped for air as the inside of his mouth ignited. His face flushed and tears came to his eyes.

  ‘What did you do to it?’ he gasped.

  ‘I didn’t think it was hot enough for you,’ said Annem
ieke innocently. ‘So I slipped in a couple of these.’ She pointed to a side dish of small, red cluster chillies.

  The boys howled with laughter, and Eduardo looked at Annemieke anew. He saw a young woman who could hold her own in this family of giants. He glimpsed the spark which her poise hid well but did not extinguish. It reminded him briefly of someone he’d known in his earlier life. If he had been attracted to Annemieke before, he was now irresistibly drawn.

  The last stop was the Regent Hotel for dessert, coffee and cognac. Annemieke radiated happiness and her happiness seemed to infect everyone, especially Jan.

  ‘I have never seen you so happy, Annemieke,’ he said. He turned to Eduardo. ‘It was so kind of you to also invite my children.’

  Annemieke flushed with embarrassment. She excused herself and went with Lita to the ladies’ room. There is the problem, Eduardo thought to himself. He smiled at Jan, but his heart sank. He was Jan’s friend. That is how Jan saw him. That is how the family saw him. Yet he had a feeling that Annemieke saw things differently. Was she aware of his interest? He looked at Jan and the two boys as they chatted to each other. How would he ever get past their guard?

  Eduardo began to ring Jan at home under the pretext of learning more about doing business in Jakarta. Sometimes Annemieke would answer the phone and they’d chat. At times he would forget that he had rung to speak to Jan, and would hang up before being passed on. He gradually learned Annemieke’s routine. When she would be home, when she would be at the Conservatorium, and when she was the one most likely to answer the phone.

  One day he casually mentioned that they should have lunch together. He knew that she finished at the Conservatorium at noon on Wednesdays. He proposed that they meet at the southern entrance to the Queen Victoria Building at twelve-forty-five the following Wednesday. He said he would be in town that day. He made it sound like the most natural thing in the world, then held his breath for her reaction. She said she would look forward to it, then made her farewells.

  Eduardo hung up. He was surprised to find himself shaking with tension. She had accepted. Lunch was an appointment, he’d rationalised, dinner was a date. He judged that her guards would accept an appointment, where they might baulk at the other. Lunch was innocent. And, after all, was he not now a family friend?

  The next step was to make the appointments a regular event, so that Jan and the boys would come to realise the true basis of their friendship. By then, he judged, there would be an acceptance of the fact that Annemieke also had a claim on him, rather than the other way around. From that perspective Eduardo knew that Jan would have no option but to give his blessing. All he required was patience. And the willing complicity of the angel called Annemieke.

  Gancio brought them their coffee and free glasses of aged grappa. Three tables had ordered the spaghetti al limone and raved about it.

  ‘They only ordered it because they saw me bring it to you,’ Gancio complained. ‘People are like that when they think they’re missing out on something. It’s not a fair test!’

  ‘Tough luck, Gancio,’ said Neil. ‘It just goes to show we’re not all troglodytes.’

  ‘What are troglodytes?’

  ‘People who wouldn’t order spaghetti al limone. Cheers!’ Neil raised his glass at Gancio’s departing figure. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘we’ve had the horror story, the adventure story, and now we have the gluey romance. What have you got planned for the ending? Farce maybe?’

  ‘You are a cynic, Neil. Sometimes I wonder why we put up with you.’ Milos took a sip from his coffee. ‘I think the point Ramon is making is the one Lucio alluded to. There is much to like about Eduardo. Do you remember him saying that? Just as Eduardo set out to win over the Van der Meers, Ramon is trying to make us like Eduardo.’

  ‘Look what he did for Estelle. That was the act of a nice man, no? Look how he courts Annemieke. That is the act of a nice man. See how he gave up his womanising, his deflowering of rich virgins. He wants us to believe Eduardo has grown up and become a nice man. That’s his not-so-well-hidden agenda. I think he’s trying to tell us that Eduardo was a nice man all along and that fate and his youth were responsible for his earlier transgressions.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Milos. I know exactly what Ramon’s up to. I just don’t buy it.’

  ‘If you know what Ramon’s up to, why do you insist on revealing your thoughts? How can we trap him in this game he’s playing if you keep revealing your hand? He’ll just change his story, no?’

  ‘It’s a true story.’ Ramon laughed. ‘How can I change it? If I did it would no longer be true.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucio thoughtfully. ‘Neil can say what he likes because he won’t change anything. I believe Ramon’s story is true. The Kings Cross slasher is real. I’ve actually met a woman who was slashed by him. It was like Ramon said. She had this scar which ran right across here, across her breasts. She nearly died.’

  ‘Lucio, excuse me for prying but if you know that kind of detail you probably also know this woman in the biblical sense. I don’t want the grubby details, but doesn’t your wife ever wonder what you do when you don’t come home?’

  ‘It’s none of your business, Neil, but you are implying something I find offensive. I am not a man who cheats and lies to his wife. As a matter of fact we are very good friends and we love each other. But we are no longer intimate—for reasons that would make a story every bit as long and as involving as Ramon’s. Perhaps one day I will tell it. But my wife does not insist that I share her celibacy nor does she want me to discuss my other women with her. She just asks me to be discreet. Besides, I am not young and fit and handsome like you, Neil. I’m not tall and distinguished like Ramon nor a rich sugar daddy like Milos. The opportunities for a short, fat, bald Italian are more limited. No, don’t laugh.’

  But of course they laughed and teased Lucio mercilessly. They’d inadvertently opened a wound and now had to pretend they hadn’t. Lucio’s admission had embarrassed them all.

  ‘How did we get on to this?’ asked Neil finally.

  ‘We were discussing truth,’ said Milos. ‘Perhaps we’ve had enough truth for one day.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want me to continue with my story?’

  ‘Nice one, Ramon, you never miss a beat.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Neil.’

  Chapter Thirty-six

  It began raining mid-morning on the day Eduardo was to meet Annemieke. Eduardo cursed his luck. He had neither raincoat nor umbrella. He’d chosen to wear his new Zegna double-breasted suit with the once-more fashionable button fly, and he took the prospect of it getting wet as a personal afront. All morning he hovered around his window checking the sky, hoping for the wind to change direction and blow the clouds away.

  Phil and Don kept well away from him. They could see the mood he was in and knew there was more to it than a drop of rain. The fact is Eduardo was nervous. He’d slept badly and his unwelcome night visitor had come to torment him. He awoke with a feeling of dread and foreboding. The day hadn’t improved.

  His taxi was late arriving, as the city traffic bogged down in the rain. He realised with dismay that Annemieke would arrive before him. Unforgivable.

  ‘Can’t we go any faster?’ he asked the driver.

  ‘Sure, mate. No worries. We could both get out and walk.’

  The taxi crept along Parramatta Road, into Broadway and down George Street. He was already ten minutes late. One hundred metres short of the rendezvous, the traffic ground to a halt as cars heading north towards the harbour bridge blocked the intersection. Eduardo watched the traffic lights change from red to green and back again without a single vehicle budging. He realised the hopelessness of his situation. He checked the sky. It still looked threatening but the rain had eased. He decided to walk the rest of the way. He paid off the cabbie and got out.

  Almost immediately, it began to rain again. He wanted to run to save his suit but his pride would not allow him such an undignified arrival. He
walked faster. It rained harder. The traffic still hadn’t moved, but even so, the pedestrian lights were in his favour. He saw Annemieke across Druitt Street and waved. She waved back.

  The intersection of Druitt and George is one of the few where pedestrians are able to cross diagonally. Eduardo was slow to spot the young woman racing towards him from his right. Her umbrella had blown inside out, and she held it horizontally as she tried to control it. Eduardo propped to let her pass in front of him.

  As the young woman raced past the handle of her umbrella caught in his fly. He felt himself tugged forward and almost overbalanced. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of fly buttons hitting asphalt. Even above the noise of car engines and horns, he heard them hit the road, spin and roll. He closed his eyes in disbelief. He stood frozen and humiliated. Anger and embarrassment fought for ascendancy. The woman stopped, mortified.

  ‘Go away!’ Eduardo’s brain screamed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, and unthinkingly peered at his fly as she tried to unhook the handle of her umbrella.

  ‘Allow me,’ said Eduardo through gritted teeth. He could hear other pedestrians laughing. He could see them pointing. He handed the umbrella back, and began to move away.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ the young woman screamed. And to Eduardo’s horror she began picking up the wayward buttons, one by one, as taxis honked, onlookers whistled, and the traffic lights turned green.

  ‘Here,’ she said as she tipped the buttons into Eduardo’s open palm. ‘I’m so sorry. I really am.’ She turned and fled.

  Eduardo also wanted to turn and run. But Annemieke had seen him. Clutching his buttons in his hand, he moved zombie-like to the curb. The rain intensified. It was the last straw. With no dignity left to lose, he sprinted for cover. Annemieke was smiling. Or was she laughing at him?

  ‘You saw what happened?’

  Annemieke’s smile widened, and she nodded in sympathy.