14
The boys with the baseball bat walked across the slope towards the art gallery. Three of them peeled off to catch buses home, two made their way towards Manuka. One of these was Chad Shenstone, the other Julian Lett. Julian danced about like a monkey looking for a tree to climb. Chad was carrying the baseball bat. His street kid’s cherub face was vacant. He’d just swallowed a handful of Serepax.
As they were walking along Canberra Avenue a car stopped for them. It was a Volkswagen convertible and its driver was Steve Costello. His beefy arm was draped over the door and his neckless head constantly pumped back and forward to the music booming from the stereo. They got in and Steve drove to Manuka, then round and round the shopping centre which was busy with people buying stuff and sitting at the cafes. A lot of the cafes had gas heaters so people could sit out on the pavement, even though it was so cold. They were mostly people who wanted to smoke, rugged up warm. It was still light, in a grey livid sort of way, and there were the remnants of a thin sunset. Soon it would be dark.
Just think, we could be living in Bali, said Steve, banging the wheel with his sausagey fingers, and here we are, stuck in this hole.
Do people live there? I thought it was just for holidays.
Of course they do, shit-for-brains, said Steve. This year when we go I’m not coming back.
Your parents won’t like that. What about school?
Tough, said Steve. When did school ever get you a decent job? It wasn’t school that made my parents’ business. He drove in a casual manner, arm hanging over the door, finger on the steering wheel. The car belonged to his mother, and she wasn’t that keen on letting him drive it, but his father said it stood to reason, it was the logical car for the boy to use, she didn’t need it all the time, not like him, going to work, and Steve could do errands for her. Sometimes he dropped her off and picked her up, that way she could drink as many cocktails as she wanted, and she did quite enjoy being chauffeured around by her beautiful boy who did seem to drive quite carefully. She sat behind large sunglasses with her long blondestreaked hair whipping in the breeze and imagined people would think he was her lover.
Doing the circuit in Manuka Steve accelerated and braked abruptly, made the engine roar, and then sometimes the car couldn’t move because the circulation was held up by cars parking and by the crowds of people using the frequent humped-up pedestrian crossings. On one of these stops they saw Chad’s brother, Hamish, and his friend Oscar walking along the footpath. Chad gave a piercing whistle and the older boys came over to talk to them.
Hiya, Hamish, hi, Oscar.
What you boys up to?
Oh, just drivin’ round.
Just drivin’ round?
Yeah. Bit light yet.
Julian giggled. His face helped the monkey effect, being brown and a bit squashed up and inclined to crinkle up and show his teeth in meaningless grimaces.
Say, Ham. Wanna come poofter bashing with us? Down the toilets in the park?
Na. Not tonight. Got a few things on.
Bet this’s more fun.
Maybe.
The traffic moved, Steve accelerated three metres, then braked violently so they all flopped forward.
See ya.
Later, bud.
Awesome.
Steve gunned the engine and the car roared off, but very slowly, in its place in the line of cars. Hamish and Oscar sat at a cafe table and ordered coffees. They rolled cigarettes, skinny ones out of packets of natural tobacco, plus some of Hamish’s special herbal blend, as he liked to call it.
Not a great idea, said Oscar.
Nooo. But try telling them that.
Yeah. Oscar sighed. It’s too crude. You wish they could get their brains round something more than the disgusting gratification of their primitive urges to violence. They haven’t the foggiest notion of the idea of the universe, or their puny role in it. That’s where some inkling of philosophy, some notion …
Hamish said: Chad’s been putting in some time on the web.
Well, maybe there’s hope.
And Julian’s a bit of a nerd. He seems to have the odd clue.
Still, a baseball bat and a queer, time they grew out of that as the ne plus ultra of fun.
Raoul Garvan came and sat at the table with them.
Did I see you conversing with a heap of coprolite, he asked.
If you mean that shitty pile in the VW, yes you did.
They reckon they’re off poofter bashing in the toilets in the park.
They may learn to chill out, one day, said Raoul.
It’s certainly not cool, bashing poofters in toilets, said Oscar.
Not nice for the poofters, either.
Young Chad can’t help it, said Hamish. He comes from a shocking family background.
He’s your brother, for fuck’s sake.
Chad and Hamish looked about as much alike as the Marx brothers, Chad a pretty Harpo with fair soft curls and Hamish a calmer Groucho with a number one haircut in a dark brush over his skull. Raoul’s hair was dark too, but long and floppy, he and Hamish were the ones who looked liked brothers, being slender and angular in their movements.
That’s how I know, said Hamish.
And it means bugger-all. You live in a large mansion in Red Hill and want for nothing. The butler wiping your bum.
It’s the mental cruelty. You know that’s the worst kind. Low self-esteem. Parents making money, paying no attention to their children. Chad’s a fucking mess. He needs help.
What about you?
Probably I do too. But at least I’m trying to get my fucking head together. Working through my problems. I’m becoming a vegetarian – and if you want mental cruelty, you should see the angst that’s causing. A big growing boy like you needs red meat, you’ll get sick, you’ll get feeble in the wits, you’ll fail your exams, don’t think we can support you all your life, a big hulking boy like you needs to take a bit of responsibility for himself.
Sounds familiar, said Raoul.
But I’m sticking to it. I reckon it’s having a purifying effect.
Getting rid of the toxins, said Raoul.
If you look at the people were vegetarian, said Oscar, you’ll see that they could think.
Who?
Well, um, Gandhi. George Bernard Shaw. Bertrand Russell, I think. Aristotle?
Hamish dug in his pocket and took out some pills that he passed around. They sat smoking and drinking coffee. It’s quite excellent, this coffee, said Oscar. I’m trying to cut down to three cups a day but it’s so excellent.
There were a lot of people walking past. It’s quite a passeggiata, said Oscar.
A tall thin boy waved at them, Hi, Damian, they said, but he didn’t stop.
Hamish leaned his head into the group. You know Damian’s been off heroin, he’s got himself on a methadone program, you know, the legal thing, you have to go to the hospital or somewhere and they give it to you in a little paper cup and watch you swallow it. No takeaways, you can’t even go on holiday. He was telling me that some of the people don’t swallow their dose, they hold it in their mouths and go outside and spit it out and people buy it from them, for injecting.
Eech, said Raoul. Injecting other people’s spit.
Dirty needles is one thing, but injecting spit, wonder what it does to you.
A neat subversion, said Oscar. My body and my blood I give to you … I’m thinking of writing a play, about drugs and sharing, this special form of communion that somehow has gone bad, not for us, I don’t mean, we can handle it, but for a lot of people. What sort of fucked up world is it when sharing is a dirty word?
They went home to Oscar’s place. His mother wouldn’t be back till late; she’d put her head in and see them at work over the computer, say a few words and go to bed.
Oscar was writing a piece about nitrousing out for the chat room they’d set up. But first they sniffed some of the gas out of soda siphon bulbs.
That’s wicked, breathed Raoul.
You can see the whole edifice of the argument, said Hamish, storey on storey, with the fastidious attention to detail of a Sullivan skyscraper, all cornices and pediments and strictly within the heritage of the Greeks and all the freedom that implies and yet with a modernity all its own.
It’s the detail, said Raoul. Being able to hold multiple factors in your mind at once, not to mention the visualisation of the abstract. You can even see the force of gravity.
They were at work when Laurel came home. The interplay of thought in the particular mental environment that such an altered state of consciousness can construct …
Night, Mum, said Oscar.
Goodnight, Mrs Luft, said Hamish and Raoul.
Such polite boys, thought Laurel. Why should that seem somehow sinister? Don’t stay up too late, guys, she said, you don’t want to be working too hard.
Though she wasn’t certain it was work they were doing.
The three of them were sitting on the same cafe terrace in Manuka several evenings later when a girl wrapped in a thick long grey cardigan sat at their table. She spoke to them in a soft voice, almost inaudible. They looked at her, not saying anything. She spoke again, pulling up the sleeves of her cardigan. What she was saying looked urgent. The young men glanced at one another, then said something, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the underground carpark. The girl gave a small smile, and went off.
That was how Gwyneth found someone to sell her some of the tablets she needed. She used the money she stole from the restaurant. There was a computer to do up the bills, but there was also money in a drawer. Gwyneth had found it, late one night; she crept in, just to look, the restaurant was empty except for man and a woman doing some strange dance outside on the terrace. She didn’t take all the money, just as much as she thought she’d need and a bit extra.
15
Flora said, Do you like picnics?
Jerome said yes, though in truth he hardly knew. He never went on them. But a Flora picnic, like any Flora food event, would be a wonderful thing, not to be missed. And anyway it would be with Flora, so it had to be a pleasure.
We’ll go into the country, she said. I’ll bring food.
They went to Paddy’s River, to a sunny hollow on the bank of the creek. They had to go early, said Flora, because in winter the sun suddenly sank behind the mountains and it was straightaway gloomy and cold.
She brought a cane basket. In it were two large white linen napkins, two long-stemmed wine glasses, two faïence plates, two horn-handled knives, three pears, a piece of Parmesan cheese in a blue china jar with a cork lid, a chunk of sourdough bread, a small flask of olive oil, and a ten-year-old bottle of pinot noir from Martinborough in New Zealand. She’d brought a thin old kelim rug to sit on, with cushions to match, in faded pinks and khaki greens.
You pulled off a piece of bread, dipped it in oil, chipped off some Parmesan, sliced a pear, and ate these things and drank the wine. It was an amazing picnic indeed, but not the amazing opulence and variety and feasting Jerome had expected. Luxurious, of course, but also strict and plain. Jerome had noticed before how little Flora ate. A piece of cheese, a morsel of bread, a couple of slices of pear, her share of the wine. Jerome ate more, on this occasion, but not a great deal. There was something in the austerity of the food, and at the same time the glamour of it, that demanded attention be paid. You couldn’t gobble up a picnic like this, lie back and sigh and snooze in the sun; it required a measured response. Everything had to be tasted and savoured, along with the utensils, the satiny polish of the linen napkins, the crystal ping of the glasses, the faïence plates with their rather worn paintings of pheasants and garlands of flowers.
You should do picnics, he said. Flora’s Takeaways. This is exquisite.
It’s not everybody who could appreciate it, she said.
And of course she was right. Jerome was not sure he was all that good himself. He’d have liked more to eat. One of Kate’s religieuses, perhaps, only not miniature, with their two fat rounds of choux pastry filled with cream custard and coated with coffee icing. He wondered if the nuns were as plump as the cakes named after them.
But the whole thing was charming, with the river running over and around its stones and that marvellous quiet noise that only nature can manage. The sun-warmed hollow, the cushions to recline on, another glass of the pinot noir. And talking.
Jerome loved the murmuring of their voices. The way talking to Flora was like his own thinking, natural, revealing, a game and full of learning too because it made him think about the ideas he talked about. At the same time as it was edgy and self-critical.
Do you ever worry about your clients, he asked.
Worry?
Well … their crassness.
Blokes in suits with plenty of money and smug about what it can buy them? Women ditto? Oh yes. I’ve thought about them, and … well, you’ll probably think this is a bit grand of me, but, you know, art has its price, and I need people who can afford to pay it. I’m not exactly saying that the end justifies the means, not if it’s immoral, or wicked, or cruel. But it’s like Michelangelo, he was paid by that pope …
Julius.
Julius who probably wasn’t a good man or at all nice, popes weren’t in those days, and certainly into self-aggrandisement in a big way. But he was where the money came from, and artists need money. And what about the Medicis? I bet they had a lot in common, except maybe scale, with my customers. And possibly more actual literal murders.
Short sight, said Jerome. The Medicis. That’s what made them patrons of the arts. They were gouty too. They didn’t have the eyesight or the physique for hunting and battle. Didn’t like being on horses so acquired paintings to look at instead.
Flora laughed. Well, the Medicis. Being venal and vain, the getters and keepers of this world. And if I see myself as an artist, an artist–craftsperson, well, I need their money or I can’t keep on doing what I do. I’d love to have the place full of beautiful sensitive poets, but their art mostly doesn’t allow them to afford my art.
Very elegant reasoning.
You think it’s some sort of justification? A rationalisation? Filthy compromise? My customers aren’t so evil, you know. They’re rich. You’re rich …
Yes, but …
… being rich doesn’t make you an insensitive lout. Of course it might, or it might not save you from being one. But those people, Hugh, Terry, Marilyn, who come back week after week, they know what I do, they pay attention, maybe not as much as I’d like but that’s the cry of every artist.
Clay Brent?
I hate to say it, since his taste in most things is so loathsome it’d be better to be hated by him, but I think he probably knows what I’m up to.
Like Nazis liking Mozart.
Nazi might be a bit strong. Mozart’s okay. Bach might be better.
Jerome laughed. Flora’s voice was perfectly straight, but he knew this was a joke. Partly a joke.
Clay Brent, Brent Clay. He’s such a creep, he said. Archetypal slime. Practically primeval.
Maybe I should stop taking his money.
I suppose it’s as good as anyone else’s.
I’m not sure. I think it’s pretty dirty money.
I’m sure by the time it gets into your hands it’s nicely laundered.
I think dirty money is probably like Lady Macbeth’s hands. No way in the world can it ever be clean again.
Jerome made himself shudder, as though the slime was creeping over him. Flora burrowed her body closer. He said: What’s his sexual preference, do you know? I’ve never seen him with a woman, I mean not one who might be a lover, and somehow he doesn’t seem, well, I was going to say nice enough, or even charming enough, to be gay.
Children, said Flora.
How do you know, breathed Jerome.
I don’t, but I bet. That business. Travelations. Sex tours of brothels. Plenty of kids there if you want them.
Jerome’s brain provided him with an image of Brent’s over-
scented naked bulk looming above some delicate child, his yellow corkscrew curls jiggling. How could such obscene flesh have any congress with smallness, unformedness, without damaging the spirit as well as the body? He shuddered, and shook his head to shake the picture out.
Flora said: He told me about the newest, the most select, the most expensive of his tours. You’ll love this, Flora, he yapped, you being into food and all. You get a lovely young girl, a virgin, not too young, eighteen, nineteen – oh nothing sleazy, mind, no penetration, nothing crude – plus the most delicious high-class expensive food you can find, and you spread the girl naked on the table on a satin cloth and arrange the food all over her, the best delicacies, well, you can imagine, he says – you know how he leers – the most delicate bits in the most delicate parts, it’s a treat for a party of six, or four is even better, but of course more expensive per head, men, naturally, who sit around her and pick the food off with chopsticks, all very fastidious, very nicely done. A proper work of art.
I said, Yuk, and he looked surprised. They wash her first, he said, it’s a sort of ritual cleansing, with special lotions that don’t alter the flavours of the food, they take their food very seriously the Japanese, as you’d appreciate, Flora.
Flora’s voice had taken on the unctuous timbre of Clay Brent’s, his oily come-close-and-hear-my-secrets tone.
Maybe I should start refusing to serve him, she said.
Well …
Except, how can I? I’m a public restaurant. I do have my obligations. Though I do say we’re full, sometimes. So sorry, Clay, we’re booked out. And we’re not.
Flora was silent for a while. You know, she said, people who are into one kind of porn are likely to be into more than one. What do you reckon?
Sounds likely.
What’s the bet he likes it on his computer, too?
Pictures of children?
The Point Page 11