Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

‘I could have won the English prize but my body got in the way.’

  ‘A likely story,’ says the man. ‘Rather I’d choose laboriously to bear a weight of woes and breathe the vital air, a slave to some poor hind that toils for bread, than reign the sceptred monarch.’

  ‘That’s right,’ pronounces Rawson, drinking again, acquiescing completely. ‘It’s better to be a surfer among the living.’ He looks at the lowball to monitor his volume, shocked to find it brimming again. Paradise! He has many times dreamt of such an article but in the event it unnerves. He takes in more—a vast Rawsonic guzzle—but the pudding is magic and tasteless still. ‘You know about books,’ he says to the black fedora. ‘Perhaps you know the one by Tarquin. A friend of what’s-her-name, the girl I came in with.’

  ‘Her lover, I think.’

  ‘You’re right,’ says Rawson, slamming the bar. ‘And if I catch him in the act I will abattoir his face.’

  ‘Ah, my reckless friend.’

  ‘No—I take it back. He’s just a kid, and she doesn’t belong to me. I don’t know what I was thinking / please forgive me.’

  ‘Done. Tell me about his book.’

  ‘It isn’t published, or written, but I cannot think that would stop a man like you.’

  ‘You’re right. It wouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s the one about the missing girl and the obsessed detective.’

  ‘Do you know what it’s called?’

  ‘I can guess. Writers are cunts.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Finding Grace, by Tarquin Something…I only want to know if the girl is dead or if it’s worse than that. Can you help?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s better than that. Perhaps she is safe and well and happy.’

  ‘I know you,’ says Rawson abruptly, eyes narrowing and sly.

  ‘Quite well, in fact. I’m glad Patrick found you.’

  ‘Right—so you still run the show. From down here, from the Orpheum.’

  ‘The Orpheum is upstairs,’ says the man. ‘This here is the Eurydice.’

  An enormous ruckus in the central passageway as a bloke gets out of order. A big bloke: first in build and bearing, smacking bodies aside like a breaker of worlds, his only helm a boyish mop of black and shaggy hair. Rawson looks over and sees the man is him, Rawson, doubled and running amok in the world. The face is a variegated mass of purples.

  ‘That’s me,’ says Rawson, the Rawson at the bar. ‘I’m him.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ says black fedora. The Rawson at the bar follows the distressed gaze of his twin and sees a girl—blonde, tanned, airbrushed—being ferried through the room by five or six men, their suits an olden shale grey. They have blindfolded her, spun her round like it’s a children’s party, have all themselves the same blank and nondescripting face. The Rawson at the bar thinks dimly of a pedo ring he smashed with his own bare and criminal hands. The blonde is familiar.

  What is she doing here? roars the anguished twin, restrained now by fifteen bodies, held back in order that he commit no nuisance. The Rawson at the bar determines to join his doppelganger, to aid in his endeavour: a city cannot stand against the two of them / it’s seven against Thebes. But black fedora touches his wrist and the will to movement dies. ‘Let him make a fuss,’ he ventures softly, perhaps with pleasure. ‘He has forgotten her name.’

  ‘I haven’t. I know her well.’

  ‘Truth?’

  ‘It’s, ah—’

  ‘Better hurry.’

  ‘It starts with K. Karen? All I can think of is Karen.’

  ‘Too late / she’s gone.’

  ‘To see the music?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why did they blindfold her?’

  The Rawson at the bar looks for his clone but the double has turned to air or blood earth. He abandons his drink and joins the slow parade of traffic to the next room along, finding it identical to the one just departed: same lighting, same furniture. His beautiful companion from earlier rejoins, her tresses still dark but her dress bleached of colour. She is unhappy: ‘You were drinking with that man as though he was your friend.’

  ‘What of it.’

  ‘Couldn’t you see how awful he was? He had no eyes, just stitched-up sockets.’

  Rawson pauses in the hall to think about this, his forehead knocking against a low and flickering bulb; the crowd flows without complaint around the static rock he is. When he looks to his left he sees the same bar yet again, himself doubled and propped, speaking to black fedora. Then he looks ahead and sees her surrounded by rock-spider faces, the men who apply the blindfold and spin her with parlour-game care, who lead her off in some anterior direction. A gust of winter marauds in his chest and Rawson becomes more fully and properly himself, roaring a challenge that prompts the persons nearest to animate and pin him back. I AM FELIX HOLT THE RADICAL he declares to the nearest pug-ugly, smashing the fellow in the face with a thousand-per-cent force. Nothing: the man wears it like an assault of thin air, shocking the bloke who threw it, a bloke accustomed to instant and spectacular results in such affairs. I AM THE RAWSON INCREMENTAL he says with a better sense of self-possession—and this time normal service is resumed. His new strike decks the contrary punter, probably kills him in all truth, and Rawson surges through the press, through bodies scattering before him like Martin Place pigeons until he reaches the girl / tears the cloth from her temple, crying her name EDWINA, EDWINA. She seems much younger than when she rode the wooden tram and he gathers her to him until she puts her arms around his neck, a daughterly action that causes other names to crystallise: the ZOE, the SASHA. These retain their quaking potency but it is ‘Edwina’ he whispers for dramatic effect, every figure in the Eurydice seeming to hear and recoil as though a plainchant of occult force has been unleashed. Her would-be abductors fall and Rawson tramples them down, smashes them decumbent, speaking her noun like a warrant that secures fresh progress again and again, upward and outward until open sky. Dawn will find them on a busker’s corner in a downpoured Taylor Square, Rawson playing on borrowed fiddle as the fey girl dances freely in the rain, his skills magisterial to begin with but worsening, coarsening with every moment of gathering light. Passing pedestrians toss gold into his open case and Edwina claps the charity but the coins spill forward without exception, rolling on precarious edges into flooded drains, rusted grates, heads and tails outward into oceans long ago.

  05

  The roof of the SFS is warped, undulating, a cake tin left too long in the oven. Through the floodlights a gauze of medicinal rain, a fine-mist downpour the Rabbitohs will like. Weather is said to equalise the contest.

  ‘What do you think?’ says Rawson.

  ‘I think you look terrible.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Comin off a largey. What do you think about the game.’

  Sutton shrugs. ‘We’re a chance.’

  ‘Dunno about that. Dogs got a fair old pack.’

  High in the stands. Altitude sickness. They like to be alone and these days it’s easy. The stadium holds forty-five thousand but the Bunnies would be pleased to get a third of that. Even a showcase fixture like this—selected by Nine for the Friday Night treatment—will only draw the diehards.

  ‘Wish your lot had taken Cement in the draft. What have you got up front apart from Spud?’

  ‘Hermansson’s good.’

  ‘Hermansson’s magnificent—if you feed him enough red meat.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  ‘Poor old Carroll. First twenty minutes, they’ll hit him with everything. Mongrels know they’ve got you beat if they take him out. You’re gonna lose him one day, y’hear.’

  It is always this way, Rawson speaking as though only Sutton supports South Sydney. As though he, Bobby Cobra, supports some other club entirely. It’s bullshit: after ’83 he came across to the myrtle and cardinal, and though his support is only implied it is often ferocious. When the action starts he grips the plastic seat and c
urses the adjectival ref, a habitual crueller of the men in red and green. The Big Ship will sweat on every bomb and forward pass, every glaring opportunity that is missed down the blind and when the ball finds touch he will yawn affecting boredom but then swear like a trooper when Souths contrive to botch the feed. And he will sigh at the half-time whistle in a lather of sweat, turning to the perfectly calm and quiet Sutton to remark that Your mob needs a rocket up their arse! I know that prick Mander really crucified you but I’d be ashamed to call meself a fan. Man alive, Jamie, I don’t know how you do it.

  ‘Maybon was bloody good last week. Bears tried to bomb him out of existence. A top win that was. You know—for your lot…Oh shit, here comes Sedaris. It must gut you like a fish, Jem, all your juniors runnin round for other people. I’m not even going to mention Jim Dymock’s name. No no no—I’m too sensitive to your feelings. I’m not even gonna say it out loud.’

  The Rabbitohs are game but overmatched. It is the story of their decade. Rawson lifts himself as the players stomp off for oranges and says, ‘I have to see a man about a dog.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘You already got one.’

  ‘Susan,’ says Sutton. ‘Olympic. House stuff to finalise.’

  ‘Oh. Well good luck with that shit.’

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘I’ll meet you after. Come round to mine.’

  —

  The beauty of the code is that a calling exists for every animal. No one is denied a start except on grounds of cowardice—the calumnious charge of zero ticker. Rhinos smash on the halfway line while cheetahs stalk the limits. Then come jackals who are rich in cunning, who read the game as a series of dicey kills. They sniff for scraps and touch it last and pass if they fear tackle. In the process they link the elephant with lion, numbat with bilby. To run a rugby league team it takes all sorts.

  ‘I didn’t know Bercovitch was a Leb name.’

  Tony is leaning across his children, wiping sauce from someone’s face and settling a brewing dispute. He wears the startled expression of one who has forgotten they are due to meet. ‘Leb? My dad grew up in Pagewood.’

  ‘A very desirable address it is too.’

  ‘My grandmother’s still there. She doesn’t even know any Lebanese.’

  Rawson rolls his eyes and gives Tony’s guernsey the up and down. Surprising wear and tear: more than one outing to Belmore has the article enjoyed. It’s the first time he has ever seen Bercovitch in civvies and the effect is weird; he didn’t even know the bloke had kids. ‘Introduce me.’

  ‘This is Mark. Shake hands, Mark. This is Melanie. Say hello, Melanie.’

  The girl has no interest in the world of human affairs, either social or sporting—she is deep in conversation with her doll. But the boy stares open-mouthed at Rawson as though a story has come to life. A giant is attending the footy but he’s not a baddie; he smiles and waves, talks to Dad.

  ‘Mrs B not a football fan?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘Fair enough. Thanks for the meet.’

  ‘You’re the one who said it couldn’t wait.’

  ‘Vice never sleeps, Tone.’

  ‘Meaning what.’

  ‘I got problems. Can we go somewhere?’

  ‘What—with these two?’

  ‘Righto, settle down. I’ll give it to you in code.’ Rawson gazes into space for inspiration, into the half-time entertainment of his soul. Inexpensive vinyl in contrasting colours, stretched beyond limit across nubile skin. Big hair, too: the eighties didn’t end for those sheilas. ‘I’ve been spending some time with a certain cheerleader. Short skirt, getting her pompoms out.’

  Tony frowns. ‘Short. Meaning younger?’

  ‘Your wife’s not the only one playing bingo. The thing is, me and her got caught out in the middle of routine.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘By a snapper, mate, Super 8 with an axe to grind. He’s a villain, old collar, hates the ground I walk on.’

  ‘It’s not against the law to spend time with a cheerleader.’

  ‘It’s what we did after. More lines than Hamlet, all of it on film.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Da-aaad,’ says Mark.

  ‘Well, it’s your own grave,’ says Tony through gritted teeth. He won’t look at Rawson / looks only at his kids. ‘And you’ve dug it on your pat. Why should I lift a finger—’

  ‘The cheerleader. She’s a uniform.’

  Calamity: Melanie drops her hot dog onto the seat and Mark laughs and there is an outburst of anguish and tears. The small disaster further disrupts the father’s famous cool; Rawson marvels as Tony aggravates the situation by picking up the hot dog and giving it a brush, presenting it to the little girl anew. Mel isn’t having a bar of it—her wailing intensifies and it is clear that Chief Inspector Bercovitch is thoroughly out of his depth.

  ‘You’ve torn it this time,’ says the harried jack, blotting sauce from the daughter’s skirt. ‘It’s not enough to put yourself over some scumbag’s barrel—you have to drag some poor young kid down with you.’

  ‘It’s Kaz.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Karen Millar, mate. I’m in love with her.’ Rawson plants his face into his own shoulder to bury the shame, glimpses the horror that etches around Tony’s eyes. A whisper cuts through the fanfare of the listless halftime crowd: ‘Millar? But you hardly know her. Never even spotted in the same room.’

  ‘Six months, mate. We’ve been discreet.’

  ‘You. Slipping it to Karen?’

  ‘Code Tony, please.’

  ‘Oh, shove your code. It’s no wonder she requested you—you bloody put her up to it!’

  ‘Untrue. And unkind.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I’ll stick by her, Berc. I’ll wear the damage.’

  ‘My arse. You’re taking leave, pal—effective immediately.’

  ‘Hey? But I’d have to go through Bruce for that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Bruce hates my guts. He’ll hassle me for fifty pages of paperwork, then lose it in the pipeline.’

  ‘Stuff that, I’ll handle Bruce. On condition you stay away from her.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Does it sound like I’m asking. Read my lips: Millar is off limits until we clean this up…Now, about this old collar. Is it money?’

  ‘It’s spite.’

  ‘Well?’

  The look he gives Rawson is primate, the jutting jaw of a hungry baboon. The space between the men becomes a desert highway of dark communion, a flashing billboard that says just fucking take care of it. Rawson goes cold to the bone / he hadn’t understood what she meant to the bloke. ‘Right,’ he whispers. ‘I’ll sort it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘About the leave—what box you gonna tick?’

  ‘Does it matter.’

  ‘You can tell ’em me back is stuffed. You wouldn’t be fibbin.’ Rawson stands and offers his hand but the answering shake is directionless, limp. Tony looks anaemic in the floodlit glare / he looks like freshly scaled fish. ‘We have an agreement.’

  ‘That we do,’ says the Incremental, feeling the gravity and matching like for like. Then he beams like a lighthouse. Mark? Mel? I’ll see yas-both later. You behave for your dad now / You enjoy the second half.

  04

  Sutton walks into the Olympic. He orders a beer and a glass of the second-best white and he carries the drinks to a corner. He waits while she is casually late and then badly late and he does not touch his Tooheys.

  He is about to look for a phone when Arabella walks in. She is done up for a night on the lash, a local solicitor with a top-three firm who doesn’t look like it on weekends. Her hello is cool and distant and Sutton stands concerned.

  ‘She couldn’t make it,’ says Arabella. Her face gives sympathy a decent shake but sympathy isn’t her suit. She reaches into the Fendi on her hip and offers him an envelope.

  Sutton doesn’t take it. He thanks her with a wor
d and departs the premises feeling physically tired and emotionally nothing at all.

  —

  The European steel is dark but luminous. A passing pedestrian would not detect its occupants. Would not think to try. A pristine car appropriate to context, Elizabeth Bay on the cusp of weekend.

  Two men inside, white and fit. Nondescript: their suits are neat, hand-stitched, and cover tight black skivvies. One monitors the block through state-of-the-art binoculars made in a Germany that no longer exists. Both wear watches of a certain manufacture and, like them, the pieces are not identical but might as well be.

  Between them in the console is a computer that sees in the dark. The camera it wirelessly connects to. The only light radiates from the futuristic dash and the greenish glare of laptop. On screen they watch as a portly cat wanders by to saunter the lawn.

  It turns to pierce them as if it knows. A counter-surveillant with feline strut / with bright and demon eyes.

  —

  Sutton is the next thing they see on the scope. He arrives from an unanticipated angle and walks to the entrance, uses key to go inside. One watches through the nocs / the other watches on the screen.

  ‘The friend.’

  An accent colourless like ethanol. The speaker strikes a key and the computer view switches, becomes a hallway cast in sickly orange light. The man called Sutton enters from the stairwell and goes into the flat of the man called Rawson.

  Every eventuality has been planned for. They exit the car without hurry and everything they do is causal, casual. One walks to the opening boot and the other removes his jacket. The keys they carry are hours old, cut by locksmiths in a different city.

  —

  At the final siren he stalks the Moore Park Road, thinking to catch up with Sutton and Suze. Surely they’ve talked enough turkey to fill a half of footy. Particularly that flamin half / the torture went on forever. Rawson drifts like weather through Olympic rooms but comes up holding air.

  The Blue Mover doesn’t feel like drinking alone, surrounded by vanquished Bunnies; he opts for a place he can make a proper fist of it—really drink alone alone. A taxi to the Light Brigade where the staff are failed models, lasses who yet self-conduct like they are big in fucking Milan. The schooner is pricey but good for licking wounds, especially in the posterior bar where they keep a cosy TAB. He dumps an Incremental hundred on the favourite at Globe Derby, puts his pager on the table / keeps an ear out for the hum.