by Ron Elliott
‘Ah, no sir.’
‘No. He’s trying to push up his fire cover. An old property waiting to be “an insurance job”.’
‘Oh,’ says Sims battling to show intelligent interest.
Amis throws him a bone. ‘Who’s your IC?’
‘Ah, Mr Chang.’ Confusion. ‘Shouldn’t you know?’ forming somewhere in his brain, sluggishly.
Amis gets up. ‘I have to head back to Sydney, now. Take this to Chang. I want you to make sure this file is gone over with a fine toothcomb. You got that?’
‘Yes, Mr Hartley.’ Smiles. Maybe a feather. Maybe an inside track.
Amis up. Grabbing his bags, other fish to fry. ‘These files are a gift son. If people are going to give us their secrets, we don’t want to waste them.’ Pat on the shoulder.
***
Helen sat at the kitchen table working on the drawings for the old hotel, a CD of Amy Winehouse playing. She was obviously feeling maudlin. If she got onto Carol King, or a third glass of wine, she’d be singing out loud. She had waited for Daniel but had finally eaten her dinner.
The kids had not settled well. They’d both demanded to go out one more time to talk to Haggis before bed. Frances referred to the Grumpy Man and it had taken time to winkle out that she meant the slightly off-putting insurance salesman. Helen had explained about the formal tone of funerals, but Frances set her jaw in the way she had and that was that.
The doorbell chimed and it made her jump. It was late. Maybe it was Mr Hosey from next door, wondering about the fence.
It was Brian, in sports gear.
‘Hello. What are you doing here?’
Brian wandered into the house, looking into Daniel’s study and into the lounge room.
Helen shut the front door and followed Brian as he went into the kitchen. He had always made himself at home in the new house. She wondered if this was about the wedding.
Brian stood at the counter.
Helen said, ‘Tea?’
‘Daniel?’
‘Well, I won’t ask you the same thing.’ She put the kettle on.
Brian saw the drawings and went over to the table. ‘Rockingham?’
‘Oh, no. I’m fiddling with ideas for the hotel.’
Brian looked aghast. He said, ‘You’re not dumping Hearth & Home to get into the old hotel are you?’
‘What!’ She went to the drawings. ‘No. These aren’t for Daniel. They’re for me. A little hobby, like watercolours or studying literature at university.’
He didn’t smile, possibly didn’t get the joke. He lifted drawings, suspiciously.
Helen said, ‘Brian, are you on your way to or from a sport?’
‘Indoor cricket. Not going.’
‘Good.’ Helen headed to the lounge room, calling, ‘You can get sweaty and help me move these things.’
She had moved what she could to the walls but didn’t want to drag the sofas on the carpet. She went to an end of one of the three-seaters. One of the things she’d found out about men and boys, there was no difference, was that if you wanted them to talk about what was bothering them, you had to give them a physical activity.
Brian went to the other end of the couch.
‘To your left. Against the wall.’
They moved the couch.
Brian looked at the stick that the kids had labelled Xmas Tree. He said, ‘Nice Christmas twig.’
‘We’re going through a minimalist period.’
They moved the other couch and Brian sat on it, but still wasn’t ready to share.
She went to the cupboard. Someone had given Daniel a bottle of scotch for Christmas not knowing he never drank. She waved it and Brian nodded. She went to the kitchen for glasses and ice. Another thing she’d discovered about most men apart from Daniel was that liquor loosened lips. It occurred to her that she might already be tipsy.
She went back into the lounge room and gave Brian one of the drinks. She sat next to him and said, ‘So what makes you think Daniel would dump Hearth & Home – the most important thing in his whole life?’
‘No, you’re right. Pure panic. It’s this emergency meeting with Sheridan tomorrow.’
Helen nodded as though she knew things.
‘And with everything else that’s going on, and now him disappearing all day.’
Helen had not been able to get him either. She’d assumed he was with Brian. She felt she should make an excuse, but had too little to go on.
Brian said, ‘Helen, what’s this about an offensive? Who does he suspect? For that matter, what does he suspect?’
Helen had assumed Brian knew what this was about.
Brian seemed to misinterpret her silence for reticence. He sat forward, imploring. ‘I know he saw the suppliers yesterday, but what’s he doing today? He didn’t go and see Sheridan did he? Tell me he didn’t do that?’
‘I think it might be time to make things clear, Brian. I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Not a single word.’
Brian blinked at her, his mouth hanging open.
It hurt, Brian’s assumption that Daniel would tell her, his incomprehension that Daniel hadn’t. Daniel told her nothing. Brian was still looking aghast. She smiled, hoping she seemed lighthearted, but looking at his face she suspected it came off as trying to seem brave which meant her smile made her look pathetic.
***
Daniel had no plan. He’d waited in his car for Blyte to appear. Lights went on and off in the house and finally stayed off. It was after midnight when he gave up. He supposed he could scrounge up another few hundred dollars and go back to D-fence with the name and address. It still didn’t answer who might be employing Blyte.
Daniel registered the YMCA Christmas tree stall after he’d driven past it on his way home and U-turned across the highway. It had been set up in the car park of a library. Sports fields lay empty behind. The trees were padlocked behind a temporary wire mesh fence, ready for the next day. It was long closed.
Daniel sat in the car park and gulped down the dregs of some Red Bull. He tossed the empty can into the back of his ute and grabbed a crow bar and wrenched open the lock.
***
Helen woke to scraping noises. She was on the couch in the lounge room. Haggis was scratching at the back fence. She heard it again but woke more fully. There was no Haggis. It was a day to the shower, then the wedding and Christmas. She had the start of a headache.
The lights were still on in the kitchen and she couldn’t see outside. She heard a thump at the back door.
‘Who’s there?’ she called.
There was a whooshing scrape and then a bump at the back door.
Helen looked to the rack of knives on the counter.
A key went into the back door.
‘Daniel?’
The door swung open and Daniel stumbled in backwards, dragging a large pine tree.
‘I got it,’ he said proudly, dragging it like a fish he’d hunted and brought back to the cave. He tugged it and hauled it two-handed through the doorway so the branches spread, knocking the kitchen table back, chairs clattering. Some of her sketches spilled from where Brian had left them. ‘I got it,’ he said again, dragging it towards the lounge room.
He left a trail of pine leaves in his wake. Helen managed to get past him before the tree reached the vase in the hall. She grabbed it up as the tree swept past, knocking over the stand.
Helen listened upstairs but the kids hadn’t stirred. The scraping stopped and Helen went in, still carrying the vase of gerberas.
Daniel stood panting as he looked at the Christmas tree covering the whole floor of the lounge. It must have been three or four metres tall.
‘The biggest one they had.’
His arms and face were covered in little red pricks from the pine needles. He had a huge bruise on his cheek. It was blue and puffy.
He saw her looking and said, ‘Oh. In the wars again. The good news is that my shoulder feels pretty good.’
Helen put t
he vase on the table and found her drink on the floor under pine branches. The ice had melted but it tasted sweet.
He looked at the couches and to her drink. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’ Brian had told her about the bank and the suppliers and the credit ratings and the burglary and she’d told Brian about the fence and the blue Land Cruiser.
He picked a sheet of paper from a branch of the tree. It was crushed and torn at the edge. ‘What’s this?’
One of her sketches. ‘Nothing. Embroidery. No, the first tree decoration.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
He looked over to the mantel where Brian’s glass was. His eyes kept darting around the room as though finally registering all the changes to the furniture.
‘Brian was here,’ she said.
He blinked as he looked down at the tree.
She wanted to go to him and hug him but the tree filled the floor between them. She stepped as far as she could though. ‘Dan, I had no idea about all you’ve been going through. It’s awful.’
‘Can we talk about it in the morning?’
‘It’s one a.m. or something so it is morning, technically.’
He looked at her, confused.
‘I’m sorry. That sounded bitchy. I waited up so we could talk.’
‘I just need to sort it out. Come up with a plan.’
‘Maybe I can help.’
‘No, I’ll fix it.’
‘I’m worried.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Will you tell me what’s happening?’
She’d gone out of focus for him again, she could tell. He looked into the far distance and she couldn’t tell what he was seeing. He looked bewildered. Still without seeing her, he said, ‘It’s okay, Helen. All good. I need to do the tree.’
‘Well, messages. You’ve got a meeting with Sheridan tomorrow. You need to see one of the suppliers again. The dog is dead. And buried by a passing stranger. Samuel has passed his next level at swimming. Oh, and Brian wants me to convince you to stop being paranoid.’ She stopped herself from saying, I didn’t know Brian even knew about your father. Instead she said, ‘There. Do I do that as well as Chantel?’ She left the lounge room. She closed the back door and looked at the wreckage of the kitchen. Fuck it. She’d do it in the morning. Maybe she wouldn’t do it, ever. Maybe she’d go on holidays.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t come up and say sorry. He didn’t come up at all.
Daniel needed sleep but couldn’t go to bed because Helen would be waiting for him and he didn’t have any answers for her. He couldn’t say don’t worry anymore because he didn’t know what the problem was and so he couldn’t fix it. He needed sleep because he needed to meet with Sheridan in the morning. And find out which supplier had cold feet again. And to raise cash to find Amis Blyte.
He pushed the base of the tree’s stump into the tub he’d placed in the window a few days before. Weeks? He went to the other end and he tried to hoist up the tree. The needles stung. He had to close his eyes. He grabbed at the outer branches but they twisted and broke. He had to slide his hands deep into the thing to find stronger wood. He pushed, resting most of the thing on his good shoulder. It scraped and dug as he pushed it up. He got halfway when it spun and twisted off his shoulder bouncing off the couch and back onto the floor.
He stood panting. It had sounded like rice spilling. He wiped his face and found bits of blood on his hands. He bent and grabbed a branch and dragged at it but it simply slid towards his feet. He went to the thinner end again and pushed it up. He lifted and turned so his back was into the tree. He backed it up towards the corner and into the bay window. It started to slide. He turned with it and tried to catch it but his shoulder pulled again, hurt. A branch flicked his eyes. He wrestled. Pushed himself at it. His boot stepped onto one of the lower branches. It toppled at him. He slipped back and fell, the pine tree coming with him.
Daniel lay on the floor under the stupid Christmas tree. It wasn’t actually a tree, he thought. Not a baby pine tree like in the cartoons. It was more likely a branch of a larger tree. It wasn’t even that heavy. But unwieldy. He laughed, under the tree, vaguely aware of an ironic, symbolic thing here. It would not beat him. He sobbed. Twice, before he reminded himself it was only a Christmas tree that needed putting up.
Daniel opened his eyes. Frances was in her pyjamas holding her Banana doll. She was looking down at him through a tree, studying him from on high.
Daniel said, ‘What time is it?’
‘Christmas time.’
He smiled. Fair enough. He slithered out from under the tree. He hadn’t gotten it up.
Frances said, ‘Haggis got deaded.’
Daniel got up and patted her on the shoulder.
She said, ‘The Grumpy Man did it.’
Daniel looked at his watch. Sheridan. ‘Shit. The meeting!’
He had no time to shower, but changed into clean clothes. He grabbed his battery razor and his briefcase and headed for the door. ‘I’m off,’ he yelled to the laundry where the machine was on.
He threw his briefcase into the ute and zapped the roller door. He started the car and his razor at the same time, running it over his chin as he put the car in reverse. He headed out and looked in the rear-view mirror. Bike. He slammed on the brakes but heard the crunch.
A cry? Daniel turned the motor off and ran to the back of the ute, seeing the broken front wheel under and Sam laying on the grass. Sam turned, scared.
Daniel’s feet were stuck to the driveway.
Sam looked from the bike to his father.
‘For Christ’s sake, Sam. How many bloody times have I told you not to play in the driveway?’
‘I’m sorry.’
Daniel stepped towards him, his anger rising with the relief.
Helen ran from the back, reaching Sam first. She dived down to him, hugging him up to her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I was fixing it.’ He started crying.
The two of them were locked together in a hug, Sam bawling.
Daniel said, ‘I didn’t see him.’
Frances was at the back gate but wouldn’t leave the backyard. She just looked.
Hosey from next door was craning around the gap in the fence.
Daniel grabbed the bike and dragged it from under the ute. ‘I’ve got this meeting, but I’ll come straight back, okay. I’ll fix this.’
Helen turned and looked at him. She wasn’t angry. It was another thing. Her look was strange.
Daniel said, ‘I’ll come straight back from the meeting and I’ll explain everything, Helen. That’s a promise. Okay. I’ll sort the bike out, matey. I ... That’s a promise.’
The look Helen had was spooky. Daniel didn’t know what it meant.
‘The meeting,’ said Daniel and he got into his car.
***
The meeting was on an office floor Sheridan had hired for their visit. By the time Daniel found his way to the conference room, Brian had clearly been at it for a while. Charts were on boards and papers were spread before Osaka, McClusky, Johnson and a woman in a power suit.
They looked up at him, annoyance and smiles turning into narrowed eyes that Daniel tried to avoid. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I...’
‘I’ve explained you were needed on site, Daniel,’ Brian said, curtly.
Daniel settled in one of the high-backed leather chairs and concentrated on not rolling the thing back and forwards.
Brian said, ‘Well, gentlemen, I hope that brings you up to date. The city site is virtually complete. Rockingham to get fully under way on January second.’
Silence. Daniel thought the information was to catch him up. They’d moved up the Rockingham date by a week. He nodded again. Still the silence. Everyone was looking at him. He felt his chin, where he’d missed a bit during his driving shave. Little scabs from the Christmas tree. Maybe he should explain the humour of it all. Instead, he nodded again.
<
br /> Brian said, ‘Any questions?’
McClusky looked to Osaka who nodded and McClusky said, ‘Is Hearth & Home filing for bankruptcy?’
‘That’s a damn lie,’ said Daniel. He was standing. Brian was tugging at his arm. Daniel shook him off. ‘We are not bankrupt. Nor have we ever been. The bank has it wrong.’
Daniel turned to get Brian’s support but he was looking at the table. He looked back to Osaka, who wasn’t looking back either. He turned to McClusky. ‘Who told you that?’
They didn’t say anything.
Daniel said, ‘Was it Amis Blyte? See, I know the name. I’m on the trail of whoever is setting us up and I’ll put a stop to it. And that’s a promise.’
Brian started gathering up his papers.
‘Did he phone you? All I need is a contact number. Anything you can give me.’
McClusky turned to look at Osaka. He would not look at Daniel. He looked sad.
Daniel said, ‘It’s not true,’ perhaps too quietly.
Only Johnson stayed for a handshake. The others left with curt nods.
In the underground car park Daniel tried to hit Brian with ideas but he didn’t respond. ‘I’ll go see the bank, Brian. I’ll go over Bradley’s head. Threaten to sue the bastards if they don’t reverse their decision. I’ll get them to put out something to Osaka. Big apology, so we don’t even miss a beat. You don’t think it was Osaka that sent Blyte?’
‘So we can’t finish their hotels for them and cost them thousands of dollars?’
‘I’ll go back up and offer the old hotel. See if that was it?’
‘It’s over, Daniel.’
Daniel staggered before following Brian to his car. ‘You can’t give up like that, mate. We have to save the business.’
‘It’s gone. I have a wedding tomorrow. Then it’s Christmas Eve and then Christmas. On Boxing Day I’ll beg Rosemarie to let me watch the cricket even though I will technically be on my honeymoon. When I come back, I’ll get a job.’
‘You can’t quit.’
‘It’s quit, Daniel. The bank. The economy. Sheridan. And you.’
‘You shouldn’t have worried Helen with all this.’