Fall

by Candice Fox

  George Hacker had created his own personal Best of Baywatch compilation out of female runners. It wasn’t right. But that didn’t mean I didn’t get it. It was only when I noticed Eden staring at me that I realised I was humming.

  ‘Is that the Baywatch theme song?’ she asked.

  ‘It is.’

  She gave me that look.

  ‘I note your revulsion. And yet,’ I raised a finger, ‘it would have been impossible for you to recognise my humming as the Baywatch theme song without you yourself having watched Baywatch enough times to recognise the tune.’

  ‘Can we do some police work?’

  ‘Am I wrong?’

  ‘Pull any and all images of suspicious characters,’ she told the tech nearest to us. ‘Email them straight through to me.’

  We left. I was disappointed. The day felt long already. We left five men sitting in a computer room watching some Redfern idiot’s softcore porn. There was nothing except the minor sparkle of hope that George Hacker, while he had been stalking Sydney’s parks fuelling nothing but his erotic interests, might have caught something on his camera that would assist us. My shoes smelled like fish-tank water, and they were my favourite pair and it was entirely my fault. I tried to fill my mind with glittering beaches and Pamela Anderson as we headed back out into the day.

  Ruben sat in the kitchen of the house near the park and read over his translations of the newspaper stories he’d found in the upstairs bedroom. Donato had been fairly uninterested in the stories Ruben pored over, texting beneath the table and sighing at the ceiling as the teacher took them through sentence structure and résumé writing in English. Donato put Ruben’s interest in the attic room and the strange dark presence in the house down to nothing but childish fantasy, a Scooby-Doo mystery. But Ruben felt in his gut, somehow, that he was very close to something he needed to unravel, something he had been charged to put to rest. His father believed in callings and life missions, small tests set by God or whatever was in charge up there, tests that if Ruben failed he would be presented with at the end, whenever that came. Ruben didn’t shy away from adventure. He let his curiosity lead him. It had taken him to wonderful and terrifying places.

  It had been some time since he’d heard any noise from the attic room. The television behind the door was silent, and when he looked up at the window facing out across the park from the street he saw that the curtain was drawn. He had a feeling that whoever was up there had sated whatever restless desire drove him or her, that the pacing and whispering he sometimes heard before had come to a peak. Something had happened, something had been tamed or driven away as tangibly as a vicious stray dog. Ruben also had the idea that whoever it was there left the attic when he wasn’t around. He found food missing from the meagre rations a mysterious someone stocked the kitchen with, and a white van parked at the garage at the back of the property showed signs of being driven – there were spider webs on everything else in the garage, and its tyres weren’t flat-bottomed the way his had been when he left his little Hyundai outside his girlfriend’s place to tour Germany the summer before. Whoever it was, it was the same person who left an envelope of cash under the coffee pot for him every Tuesday.

  Ruben hadn’t seen another staff member on the property, but he assumed someone other than the person in the attic trimmed the tiny garden beneath the sitting-room windows, kept the dust off the porch and the vines off the side of the house. He wondered sometimes about trying to track down the gardener. Ruben had even gone so far as to drive by on Thursdays and Fridays to see if he might catch the person in action so he could ask about the house’s owner. But he wasn’t sure he could make himself understood in English yet. His spoken English was pathetic.

  Donato told him he was becoming obsessed. Ruben doubted Donato had ever thought about anything long enough to become obsessed with it.

  Ruben put the articles in chronological order. He smoothed out the first, a page from the social section of a newspaper that mainly dealt with the married lives of American celebrities. There was a small column on the right side of one page devoted to Sydney socialites and their divorces, parties and drug habits. At the top of the column was a photograph of a broad-shouldered man with a beautiful but fierce-looking blonde woman on his arm, both dressed in party fineries: ‘Australia’s corporate elite gathered today to pay tribute to Michael Harper, celebrated CEO of Vota Media and chairman of TrueCare Research Foundation, who died last Sunday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. In attendance were members of Mr Harper’s favourite NRL team, the Manly Sea Eagles, as well as news identity Daniel Sutherland and Victoria’s Secret model Saskia Kehz. Harper is survived by his wife Joan and daughter Tara, who was unable to return from studies abroad to attend the ceremony. “It’ll be lonely in the house without him,” Mrs Harper commented, before a family representative asked the press for privacy.’

  There was another article, this one from a cheaply printed glossy magazine, the pages littered with yellow stars and collages of local celebrities pouring themselves out of limousines and cheering in the front rows of sporting events. A panel at the bottom of the page featured a shot of Joan Harper with her head in one hand, sitting with a girlfriend at a golden-lit restaurant.

  Celeb-watchers in Sydney are chomping at the bit to get a look inside the Casa De Harper after the death of globetrotting Vota Media CEO and all-round philanthropist Michael Harper, who passed away in November. Sources tell TheTalk that Harper’s daughter was conspicuously absent from his funeral, and it was not because the millionaire heiress was living it up in Amsterdam as some have suggested. A very public stoush at this year’s Melbourne Cup between Joan Harper and Marcey Sage, mother of prima ballerina assoluta-in-the-making Violet Sage, has bolstered claims all is not right with the mysterious Tara Harper. Oh my!

  ‘The Harper kid is a psycho. She was an ugly, violent kid in high school and she’s out of control now,’ says a source. ‘She’s basically a recluse. Mummy Harper keeps her locked away from prying eyes.’ Principal of the prestigious St Ellis High School in Mosman, Richard Morris, would not confirm or deny rumours Harper Junior had engaged in self-harm throughout her troubled childhood years, or if she had launched a Carrie-style attack on another student on the evening of their Year Twelve formal. Court documents are sealed, but whispers on the grapevine tell us that the Harpers settled out of court with a St Ellis student in 2003 after her daughter was involved in a ‘serious assault’! Meow!

  Is there any truth to these tall tales? It’s unlikely we’ll find out soon. Joanie Harper has cancelled upcoming social commitments and battened down the hatches at Harper Manor. If there’s more to know, TheTalk will know it first! Stay tuned!

  The final piece was a small news report wedged between two articles, one about the drowning of a young surf competitor and one, Ruben guessed, about the opening of a new hospital. There were no pictures to accompany the article. The headline read ‘New laws sought after high-profile surgery mishap’.

  The state government has called upon federal leaders to impose regulations to curb the growing number of young Australians seeking cheap cosmetic surgery overseas. The move comes as reports arise that Tara Harper, daughter of the late philanthropist and socialite Michael Harper, was medevaced to a hospital in Darwin last week suffering from a grievously botched surgical procedure in Bangkok.

  While details of the case are yet to emerge, police allege Harper, 29, travelled to Thailand to seek multiple elective surgeries and may have fallen victim to one of the many unqualified or under-qualified cost-effective surgeons operating in the foreign city. ‘They call Bangkok “The Butcher’s Shop” for a reason. Young people without the financial backing to seek the services of qualified dentists and plastic surgeons here in Australia go overseas thinking they’ve found the cheap way out,’ Deputy Police Commissioner Ryan Hennah commented. ‘It seems in this case, a great number of procedures were elected at once – a number and type our experts have told us would never have been approved here
. Ms Harper also had the misfortune of choosing a company with a terrible history of major surgery complications. She’s lucky to be alive, if you ask me.’

  In 2014, more than 700 young Australians travelled to South-East Asia to seek elective surgery and dental procedures. For those figures, it’s understood at least 25 per cent were for breast augmentation. Dr Elliot Taket of the University of New South Wales Medical Research Department revealed the growing popularity of surgical tourism. ‘You can get stuff done over there that you can’t get done here,’ he said. ‘These guys will go ahead and give you breast augmentation without taking the time to decide whether or not your body can support the size and weight you’re asking for. Their work is popular with models and porn stars who want to stand out in an already overcrowded industry. There are places you can go over there to get novelty work done that no one in this country would touch. Facial implants and bone grafts. You’d be surprised what people want. Most of my work here is spent dealing with the clean-up – the physical and psychological fallout from bad choices and bad practices.’

  Member for Windsor Rooney Dennis will address the Senate this week with proposed restrictions on travel for surgical purposes.

  As the sun began to set, Ruben took his articles up the stairs and crept to the door of the attic room. All was silent within. Holding his breath, he closed his eyes and knocked on the door three times, the third soft enough not to be heard – his courage already failing him. No answer came from within, not a whisper or a footstep. Ruben slid silently down against the door and kneeled beside it, looked at the crumpled and sun-dried papers in his hands. Somehow he felt sad for whatever being was beyond the door, its part in the terrible history he held in his fingers. After some moments, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Are you Tara Harper?’ he asked. There was a moment of silence, and then a terrible thundering on the door, so sudden and so loud Ruben fell back against the stair banister, his heart in his throat. The person behind the door was bashing on it, kicking on it, and when the noise diminished, he heard a low whisper on the other side of the wood.

  ‘Stay away.’

  Ruben struggled to breathe.

  He ran down the stairs and out of the house.

  There were two things Ian Buvette didn’t see a lot of in or anywhere near Skytree Industries – swearing and beautiful women. But one average Thursday night, with Kent Street crowded with late-night shoppers on their way to cool their heels down by the harbour, Ian stepped out of his office building, letting the door close behind him, and found a beautiful young woman standing on the street swearing. Ian hitched his shoulder bag and paused, watching her rummage through her expensive little briefcase-style leather handbag, then stare up mournfully at the windows above him, her hands falling dejectedly at her sides. Ian was puzzled. He even turned and looked at the windows himself.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. She seemed to consider her predicament for a moment, find that it was in fact even worse than she’d realised, and then seethed again. ‘Shit!’

  The woman stepped into the light of the sign beneath the windows, a gigantic ‘103’, for 103 Kent Street. She was a strange-looking woman, now that Ian could see her clearly. Smooth, caramel-skinned – Vietnamese, he guessed – but with hair cropped short, almost buzz-cut, and peroxide blonde. Heavy-framed red glasses rimmed her eyes. The dress was expensive looking, although Ian didn’t know anything much about fashion. His mother had dressed him until he was twenty-five, and there was nothing so much as could be called ‘style’ going on upstairs at Skytree. Pear-shaped, middle-aged, single technology consultants – the entire staff of Skytree – stuck to grey trousers and business shirts. The woman set her bag down on the ground and started rummaging through it in the light of the sign. Ian swallowed twice before he spoke.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The girl looked up at him. From down there, she looked like a beautiful, helpless child.

  ‘Oh god, I’m sorry,’ she sighed, laughed. ‘I didn’t even see you. I’m just. Urgh, I can’t believe it. I’ve left my pass up there.’

  She gestured towards the windows. Ian looked up.

  ‘Up there?’

  ‘Wilkins and Co. Seventh floor.’

  ‘You work here?’ Ian hadn’t seen anyone exit the lifts at the Wilkins and Co law firm on the seventh floor who was under the age of seventy. Ever.

  ‘As of today, and maybe only for today.’ The girl gave another tired little sigh-laugh, an uneasy noise, like someone trying to find the humour in a cancer diagnosis. ‘I’ve left my pass and the new client reports I’m supposed to have done tonight up there on my desk. It’s alright. It’s fine. I’ll just … I can call security. Maybe.’

  The girl flipped out her phone. Ian felt his stomach shift.

  ‘Oh, um. I’m the last man out. They have private security here. First round isn’t until midnight. I know, because I’m always the last man out. And often it’s at midnight.’

  Ian thought that was a pretty good line, stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels to prove it. Made him sound like a hard worker – and knowledgeable, too, about the building and its security, the nuances of his workplace. Her new workplace.

  ‘Shit,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Shit.’

  ‘You couldn’t –’ She looked at him, pressed her painted lips together until they disappeared, a humble, inside-out smile. Ian felt himself smiling. He wasn’t a man who ever held power. So when the tiniest tastes and whispers of it nudged his life, he felt them as keenly as sexual release.

  ‘I couldn’t lend you my pass?’

  ‘You couldn’t, could you?’

  ‘Well,’ he smiled smugly, ‘I don’t know, lady. I’ve never seen you before.’

  ‘Oh please.’ She was really laughing now. He made her laugh. ‘Do I look like a thief?’

  ‘A cat burglar, maybe.’ Where was this incredible charm and wit coming from? This was not Ian. Pudgy, video game–obsessed, mother-worshipping Ian. Something about her inspired him. It was like he was role-playing on a stage he’d been performing on for years. He knew the lines already. They were just … natural.

  ‘I’ll be three minutes.’ She held up three perfectly manicured fingers. Her palm looked soft but firm, like satin over brick. ‘Three.’

  ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ Ian said. He had no idea where this confidence was coming from. She seemed to draw it out of him on a string. ‘You’re three minutes or less, or you have to buy me a drink down the road at the Stanton.’

  ‘The Stanton?’ She cringed. ‘I’ll have to rush then.’

  She swiped the pass out of his hands and beeped herself through the foyer doors with all the familiarity of someone who had worked at 103 Kent Street for a decade. Ian glanced at his watch once every five seconds, cold and uncertain somehow in the wake of her, the funny little firecracker who’d turned up in his life suddenly. His face felt hot, but a chill was growing in his spine. He hoped he wasn’t sweating through his shirt. At two minutes and fifty-one seconds, she burst through the doors to the elevator and ran across the dark foyer, pushing the large green exit button frantically.

  ‘Ha!’ she grinned. ‘Made it.’

  ‘Aww, too bad for me,’ Ian said, without an inch of false sentiment. The girl was laughing to herself, tucking a manila folder into her briefcase bag.

  ‘Maybe I’ll lock myself out tomorrow.’ The girl winked and Ian felt the gesture stab him right in the sternum. The sincerity in her words. The joke that Ian knew, somehow, felt deep in his heart, was not a joke. ‘See ya.’

  ‘See ya,’ Ian said.

  He stood in the street and watched her walking away. His heart aching, Ian turned towards the Stanton, glancing at his watch. There was no need to be disappointed, he told himself. A drink on the first night of meeting would have ruined it. Yes, they’d meet again. She’d deliberately lock herself out. It was perfect. A romantic little game he could think about all that night, all the next day. Who was she? He hadn’
t even caught her name. But wasn’t that perfect too? He’d try to guess it. Wonder at it. Try to fit different sounds to her face. Where had she come from? She’d just been there – perfect woman, perfect scenario, like a tailor-made dream. Cliché almost. A wonderful cliché. She needed the card that he possessed, and at the very moment he’d walked out the doors. Minutes earlier and she’d have caught someone else. Minutes later and he’d have been gone. It was a little Jane Austen, if he was honest with himself. It was very Jane Austen. Ian looked at the starless sky between the buildings above him, marvelled at the world and its symmetry.

  Hooky walked up the block to Town Hall, stood looking at the huge ornate building lit electric pink and yellow from floodlights in its filthy gardens. On the corner, a preacher asked crowds waiting at the huge intersection whether they were ready for God to return, because he was returning, and when he did he’d be merciless on the unprepared. A group of youths ebbed around her suddenly, then continued down George Street towards the cinema, slightly too loud and slightly too deliberate, carrying shopping bags. The lights changed and a hundred people flooded the great intersection, passed each other wordlessly like trained soldiers on the march, eyes averted.

  She counted off some minutes on her sensible little gold and leather-band watch, her ‘office girl’ watch, as she called it, and then walked back down the hill and turned right into the laneway behind Kent Street. She kept her head bowed against the security cameras hanging above the loading zone adjacent to the fire escape belonging to 103 Kent Street. It was not likely her presence would be noted and the cameras searched for images of her, as she intended to take nothing from the building that would arouse suspicion. But Hooky never shied away from extra precautions. The proactive con artist was the successful con artist. She opened the fire escape door she had left propped open when she dashed through the building with Ian’s swipe card, and entered the stairwell.