“I only eat ethical meat,” confided Crystal to her phone. Laura closed her guidebook and went away. A little later, Ravi discovered her pen on his desk. It was Will’s rostered day off, and Nadine was in a meeting. Ravi slid the Bic behind his MAD folder. When Crystal left her work station, he dropped the pen into his pack. His furtiveness was merely automatic; the theft of the Bic seemed no worse to him than destroying a plump orange bud, a natural if depraved action.
He had signed out for the day and was heading for the stairs when Paul Hinkel appeared at his elbow. Paul offered him a lift to St. Peters station—he always did, if they were leaving at the same time. Ravi thanked him, but explained that he had an appointment in the city.
They had reached the landing when Laura Fraser came into view below, her bag over her shoulder. She seemed to have paused on her way out to exchange a few words with the receptionist, but Ravi had the sense—an almost physical awareness—that the beam of her interest was in fact directed at him. At once he understood that Paul Hinkel and Laura Fraser were colluding in his disgrace. Laura would confront him with his theft while Paul prevented him from running away. He would see the contents of his backpack scattered, his guilt displayed before his colleagues streaming down the stairs.
Paul said, “You right, mate?”
Ravi muttered that he’d forgotten something and had to go back.
“See you tomorrow, then. Have a good one.”
Ravi went up the stairs as fast as he could, unshouldering his pack, dodging the downward flow. Passing a cluster of deserted work stations, he scrabbled for the Bic. His flight had carried him, instinctively, away from the e-zone. Hedged with room dividers, this unfamiliar part of the office had the look of a maze. At any moment, Laura Fraser’s rusty eyes might hook into his spine. It took only a couple of seconds to reach around a door into an empty office, place the pen on a desk and move away.
Angie Segal said, “I have to show you this.” She had attended a conference at which a Colombian lawyer delivered a talk, she told Ravi. “It was about the history of human rights abuses in his country. There was a period in Colombia when the military mutilated bodies before dumping them.” A stapled document came across the desk. “Page four.” Ravi glanced at the diagram—briefly. He had never thought of Angie Segal as a cruel person.
Her mobile was playing the little tune that signaled an incoming text. Angie crumpled a fluted paper cup that had held a chocolate: Ravi had stopped off to buy her the biggest and most expensive box he could find. She rose and came around to Ravi’s side of the desk. Her breath smelled of sugar. “What was done to your wife—I don’t want you to leave here thinking that the way she was killed was personal, that someone who knew about that prediction in her horoscope was behind it. Long before she was born, professional murderers were turning people into vases on the other side of the world. All kinds of knowledge travel. Security forces learn from each other.” Angie Segal squared her narrow shoulders: she was a child preparing to recite a lesson. “If you go back, I truly believe you’ll be at risk.”
Earlier she had said, “Going back frightens you. I can see it does.” That was true, so there was no answering it. Ravi knew that everything Angie said was said for the best—it wasn’t her fault that to him the best no longer meant a place where he would be safe. A grave, too, is free of danger. Like Freda, Angie had done whatever she could to help him, and he had behaved badly with both women. Ravi acknowledged it not as self-reproach but as proof that he couldn’t be helped.
He apologized again for wasting Angie’s time. “What about this?” she said. She might have been selecting a chocolate from the assortment, determined to come up with one he would enjoy. “Why don’t you stay long enough to get your residency? You could go home afterwards, see how you find things there, come back if you have concerns.” Ravi saw himself strapped to a seat inside a silver capsule, wafted back and forth across sunsets; a connoisseur of clouds, he belonged nowhere. The suggestion was rational, kind and made no sense. For a start, there was the cost. A child in his country could have told Angie Segal that.
She walked him to the lift. She placed her small, bitten hand in his and produced a last violet-stuck praline. “You might have children one day. The right to live here could be something they’d appreciate.” What Angie hadn’t understood was that some sweets are flavored with ashes.
In the street, sacred ibis were high-stepping through the day’s discards like aristocrats picking their way through filth. When Ravi had called Varunika, she listened to him in silence before saying, “I hope you’re not imagining I’ll cook and clean for you. I’m not coming back to be anyone’s servant.” But Priya, whose reaction to his news Ravi had dreaded, was elated. One of her stepsons had recently announced that he intended to immigrate to Malaysia. Priya, radiating maturity and kindly concern, would now be able to draw his wife aside and say, “You know I never interfere, Sharmala, but I wonder if you have considered every angle? You see, my brother…”
At Circular Quay, the deep blue evening was as large as temptation. Ravi went into the station and up the stairs; a train was just pulling out. What remained was the bridge, the ferries, the opera house: the harbor was a casket lidded with light. How could he have chosen history over that marvel? He asked Malini, Will you be waiting? How will I live? No one answered. Ravi dragged his gaze from the view and saw that he was alone on the marvelous platform. But overhead a promise appeared: quite soon now, the train that he needed would arrive.
Laura, 2004
ROBYN LOOKED UP AT Laura and said, “Two secs? Just have to finish off these cards.” There were dozens on her desk, sorted into piles marked Authors, Booksellers, Media, and so on. Produced by a famous aid organization, the midnight-blue cards showed a dove hovering over the word Peace. The 2003 card had featured a golden star and a scroll that wished Happy Christmas. An uprising spearheaded by HR had judged it inappropriate to a multi-ethnic, non-denominational workplace. There had been emails and meetings; the guilty one in Publicity had been identified and reduced to tears. More people than usual wound up not speaking to each other. That was why Peace reigned in 2004. Peace was up there with dolphins and Nelson Mandela, what was not to like?
Before reaching Robyn, the cards had already been signed by some of her colleagues. There were those who had chosen to scribble a brief message, but Robyn noticed that Quentin had just signed his name. Robyn didn’t offer a message either—who had the time? not a senior leader, that was for sure—but she followed her name with a big blue X. That was so her: distinctive, efficient, warm.
Laura examined a book called Managing Brand Me.
“Great, that’s out of the way.” Robyn put down her pen. She cast a cautious glance at the open door and lowered her voice. “Get this: Paul Hinkel’s going for CEO.”
Laura returned the book to its place. She was able to ask, with just the right amount of casual interest, whether Robyn was sure.
“He emailed me and Quentin. He thought it was”—Robyn’s fingers made scare quotes—“right to let us know. He thinks the experience of the interview will help him grow professionally.”
Laura observed that if Paul wanted to waste his time, why not? “From senior cartographer to CEO? I don’t think so.” She produced a little laugh marinated in scorn.
“Who knows how the mindset works around here?” Robyn said grimly, “Paul’s got all the right accessories. Wife, two kids, mortgage in the burbs.”
“One kid. He’s got one kid.”
“Well, he’s about to have another. Didn’t you know? Due any day.”
A cold part of Laura’s brain informed her that it was November. Nine from eleven made February. February was Bali. Bali had been budgeted for: seven nuits d’amour. No one had mentioned a baby.
“Anyway, let’s go eat. I’m starving,” said Robyn. And because Laura Fraser was just standing there looking vague, “You coming?”
Laura’s mind swooped slowly back into the office. It perched on Roby
n’s desk and looked around. It noted a blue felt-tip and a black one, a Wite-Out pen, three fluorescent markers, a stubby pencil, a green Derwent with a broken point and—
“Is that my pen?” asked Laura. She crossed to the desk. Her fingers closed around the plump plastic casing of a four-color Bic.
Robyn stared. A memory stirred: something to do with the Bic. But the sudden swerve of the conversation had confused her.
“Well, is it?” barked Laura. “It looks like my pen. You can’t get these from stationery. It’s mine, isn’t it?”
“It’s my pen,” said Robyn. Because all at once, she was totally pissed off. First Cliff Ferrier, then Paul Hinkel and now, unbelievably, Laura Fraser. Walking in here and claiming she owned stuff. Robyn’s hand shot out, grabbed the Bic and returned it to her desk.
The two women glared at each other.
Robyn recovered first. One of the things Robyn Orr was famous for was her cool. Breathe out, she commanded herself silently. In a light voice, she suggested, “Lunch?”
On the way to it, they were rather subdued. Robyn was thinking, A pen! But it was the kind of thing that excited editors, they got off on fancy pens and making fancy marks on paper with them.
Laura was remembering Paul Hinkel’s malodorous declarations of love. No wonder he had been afraid: one of the people he had run from hadn’t yet been born. What the unborn had in common with the dead was that there was no calculating what they were owed. The budget could never be balanced, but anyone who lost track of the numbers was a fool.
Laura, 2004
PAIN AND ROSALBA HAD pincered Carlo into agreeing, finally, to a hip replacement. December came, and a last feast. Carlo busied himself with fresh linguine ai frutti di mare, stuffed peppers, parmigiana di melanzane, giant grilled prawns. Laura filled glasses with prosecco and all the vases with purloined gardenias, grandifloras of course. These days, it was with something approaching joy that she observed the slow deaths, by strangulation or thirst, of the plants on the roof. Only the gray olive, raised to adversity, squeezed out grim leaves. Everything up here would die one day anyway: why not now? What were pomegranate and oleander, bougainvillea and jasmine if not decorative deceit? They deluded like bells, frankincense, silver candlesticks, a patient, painted statue in a niche. So what if their high priestess neglected to polish? Their god had absconded first. Never again would paint-dazzled Drummond call down the stairs for Carlo and beer. It was a kindness, really, to stamp out the garden’s promise of renewal. Growth was a falsehood, it embroidered the plain truth of ending with leaves. That morning, with the harbor winking like a con artist, Laura had pushed a stolen pink frangipani into her hair. Her laptop came to life on the kitchen table, and Carlo sat before it, ready for enchantment. Quite calmly, Laura noted the date in a corner of her screen: Rafael Hinkel had completed his first week in the world.
After lunch, Carlo joined Caruso in a duet: O dolce Napoli, o suol beato. There were Camels and babàs; the liquid in the shot glasses was sticky and foully green. They were knocking it back when Carlo said, “Why you sad?” Laura opened her mouth to deny, but Santa Chiara fixed her with a cold blue plaster stare. So Laura said that she had decided not to come back to McMahons Point after her holiday. “I’m going to look for somewhere closer to work, I’ve been thinking maybe Surry Hills.”
By Christmas, Carlo would have his artificial hip and be in rehab; after that, he would recuperate in Haberfield until Rosalba could be persuaded to let him go. Alice Merton had already agreed to water upstairs and down while Laura was on holiday; it would fall to her to expose the dereliction on the roof. If Carlo forgave, Rosalba would not. There would be no coming back for Laura, no more nightingale above the harbor, no more garlic and lilies and rosy afternoons. In the bay window, dolce Napoli, supine in a sea-blue shirt, was blowing a smoke ring. On the mantel, the peacock feathers were all eyes. Oh God, how could I have ruined his garden? thought Laura. This had become a recurrent theme. But the anguish that bit at intervals, sharpening its teeth on the presence of Carlo, was velvet-mouthed as soon as she stepped onto the roof. There she only surveyed, justified, conjured fresh deceits. The two states of mind flourished in her like plants that grow peaceably side by side and have no bearing on each other; her ongoing inertia fed both. The house was her accomplice, with its discrete geographies of downstairs and roof.
Guilt rushed to assure Carlo that she wasn’t deserting him. “You won’t need me next year. Your new hip will have you powering up those stairs.”
All he offered was an equable “Sì, certo.”
“You don’t mind that I’m going?” She was just a tad piqued.
“You no happy, no good you stay.” He remarked, “Long time, you no happy.”
“Work gets me down,” said Laura eventually. “It’s nothing to do with you or this house, you know I love it here.”
“Sì, certo.” The terminal droop was Rosalba’s best. Carlo Ferri was vain, sentimental, pig-headed, capable of cruelty, but he was never ironic. In a preposterous future, Laura knelt before him on a roof crying, I’m sorry, Carlo, I’m sorry.
She ate the last babà, swallowing misery.
Wiping her fingers on her skirt, she rose to find their record. “No,” he said. “Is not necessary. Is okay—you go.”
“But I would like to. Please.”
It was true. She wanted to. She undressed slowly, slowly displayed her luxuriant flesh. The afternoon thickened, the record stuck, Carlo gasped, it was all as usual. But: You go. You go. This time, Laura hadn’t mistaken his meaning. No one was asking her to stay.
Ravi, 2004
THE CHRISTMAS PARTY, HELD by tradition on the second Friday in December, was raging through the office. Even the Ramsays were present, fresh from their yoga break on Mustique. He loomed in silent gravitas over the turbulence; at six foot four, Alan Ramsay was used to flying above the weather. She, clad briefly in silver, spoke only to senior leaders but showed her tiny teeth to all. The back of her skull was as square and flat as any Balkan war criminal’s, but the back of Jelena Ramsay’s head was the last place anyone looked. The photograph taken when she was crowned Miss Croatia Underwear had been widely circulated at Ramsay. At seasons of workplace angst, when pay wasn’t reviewed, say, the unkind drove pins into her paper eyes. Others, no less savage but more technologically proficient, turned to Photoshop for relief.
Jelena Ramsay was never in Ravi’s vicinity. A crowd always swirled between them, so he glimpsed her, like a goddess, in distant flashes. Laura Fraser, on the other hand, came and went like the music pumping out from Sales. Ravi had spotted her there earlier on, in the space that had been cleared for dancing; she was gyrating with Robyn Orr. Laura’s white arms rose and fell—they were contained in black netting. It gave her the look of something dragged from the sea.
Materializing afresh beside Ravi, she shrieked her plans for Sri Lanka into his ear. She was doing everything he had suggested, going from Colombo to the south coast, where she promised to visit Nimal’s Internet cafe, then traveling to an ancient capital and a fortress carved from rock. Crystal Bowles, slithering past in an emerald-green caftan with a drink to match, flicked her hair and her eyes; Ravi wondered if he would have the nerve to ask her to dance. Laura bellowed of frescos and ayurvedic massage. Ravi had no interest in her holiday beyond a vague native pride in her choice of destination, but she continued to shout at him. Then there was a lull in the music, and she muttered, “Your hometown—it’s near the airport, isn’t it?” She had yet to finalize her bookings, she said, and could easily alter her plans. “We could meet up. If you’d like to, of course.”
Ravi answered at once that the beaches in the south were far superior to those on the west coast.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Laura. “To tell the truth, I don’t care where I go.”
Pride gave way in Ravi to an equally vague rage. He had a vision of a horde. It ate, loved, frolicked, trampled unthinkingly; at its head strode Laura Fraser. He saw the rooms o
f childhood forced open, despoiled, laid bare to the light. She loomed over him, sly and suggestive, and—I’d like to kill you, he thought.
She was saying hastily that of course a visit wouldn’t be convenient. “How silly of me. It’ll be Christmas, you’ll be busy with your family, you must be longing to see them.”
Laura ended on a screech because the music had started up again. To hear her more clearly, Ravi looked into her face. Having imagined her triumphant, he now saw that the multitude she led was in flight. Pray for them, child, commanded Brother Ignatius. Going here and there, far from home. Like many another victor troubled by instant capitulation, Ravi felt he had behaved badly. The red ring spluttered on Laura Fraser’s finger. Netted in black, she was a tower besieged.
Questions of Travel Page 40