The Courier's New Bicycle

by Kim Westwood

  I can’t help thinking of the increased public bullying of transgressives here. Communally held prejudices are like monsters waiting to be given air: all they need is the imprimatur of authority — or its blind eye.

  Braheem sighs. ‘Our parents came here to get away from all that and give Geeta and me the chance for a different life: school, university, work, raising our own kids — girls too — in a society that values them. But right now …’

  I want to assure him things will change, must change. The problem is, I don’t feel the reassurance of those sentiments for myself.

  Perhaps he sees something of my own despair, and shifts the topic.

  ‘When can I see her?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ I promise. ‘What’s the best way to contact you?’

  ‘You could always drop by the markets.’

  He sketches the position of his stall in one of the market hangars on a scrap of paper and passes it to me. Then, hand on the doorknob, he struggles to say something else. I wait patiently, the door open a crack.

  ‘I’d have her stay with me …’ He opens his other hand in a gesture of helplessness. ‘But the Residents Committee has strict rules about long-stay visitors, and even here I can’t guarantee her safety.’

  ‘I understand,’ I say. ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it. She has a good support team right where she is.’

  As I leave the apartment, a door on the other side of the landing closes softly and my internal radar pings. Is it coincidence? A neighbour with nothing better to do? Or someone keeping an eye on Braheem Rani and his visitors?

  14

  Sometimes I push the gender envelope so Inez and I can smooch in public, and tonight — back from Braheem’s and needing the company of my girlfriend — I’m ready to hit the town.

  We get changed in my bedroom, horsing around with each other’s underwear, then each other. It’s too much for Nitro, who makes himself scarce. We collapse, laughing, on the bed, and I marvel how at ease we are together, and how quickly unafraid I’ve become of her seeing me with all my defences down. She leans over me suggestively and opens one hand to reveal the jet cufflinks I’ve been chasing.

  Despite my almost complete lack of class in the clothes department, occasionally I quite like wearing a suit. It’s the feeling of containment it imparts: a kind of camouflage. My ever-practical girlfriend, on the other hand, has decided to go high femme for the evening. I smile as she shimmies up and bumps her hip against me, that suggestive curve sheathed in something shiny.

  I place my hand on her other hip and slide the material up to reach the slim band of her knickers. Then, backing her up against me, I slip my fingers down inside the flare of one hipbone. I get to the plump edge of her mound and she twists towards me, capturing my hand between our bodies. We deep-kiss, pressed together.

  For an evening, we’ll ‘pass’; but that doesn’t mean our antennae won’t be up the whole time, gauging the reactions of the other participants in the glam parade and the varying safety of our surroundings. Maleness and femaleness are both performances that contain anxiety for me — but in different ways. Tonight, I pack my jocks and bind what little in the way of breasts I have to hide. It helps to have a strong jawline, and a stippled-in five o’clock shadow is less obvious at night, but it’s my voice that’s the giveaway — the timbre too light — so Inez will do most of the talking.

  The gusty winds from earlier have died down, leaving a sharp clarity to the air, the temporary reprieve bringing people onto the streets in droves.

  Call me a Luddite, but the city’s way more atmospheric now we have traffic restrictions and power outages. Trams slip quietly along the main thoroughfares, horse-drawn buggies clip-clopping beside, the drivers doing a booming business. Zipping past them and the sedate three-wheeler taxis is a near-silent miscellanea of bikes and scooters. It’s hard to imagine wanting the city back as it once was: noisy and impatient, the smog of exhaust inescapable.

  Arm in arm, we approach a group shawling up at the top of Little Beatitude Street. They take no notice of me, but Inez, une femme idéale, attracts both jealous and admiring glances. Another time, another costume, there’d be baleful stares and mutterings of perverts.

  Further down Little Beatitude, we step beneath the ornamental gateway that heralds Chinatown. Here every street and alley is lit by rows of lanterns, and the spruikers call us in to eating houses as we pass, each trying to outdo the other with promises, invitations.

  I love this place for its mosaic colour and rambunctious market style, everybody busy behind windows packed full of food. Buyers and sellers mingle, the runners with their carts of produce ferrying between restaurants and shops, while those in come-hither finery beckon from the warmly lit doorways of underground bars and gaming houses. In the once-bright city, these details were subsumed by an over-intensity of light. Now they are brought out, individual and distinct, like jewels.

  As we make our way among the other walkers, I wonder which of my subtleties might be a tell to the observant eye. What I hope they see is a suited man whose particulars have been eclipsed by the gorgeous woman at his side.

  We steer left into a laneway. At the end, a single red-lit lantern on a metal chain is suspended from a hook embedded high up in the brick. Madam Lush herself shepherds us beneath her establishment’s carved oak lintel, down the wooden steps to fine Szechuan food and the best in bootleg wine.

  Two more hours and we’re strolling the city, our bellies full and guards lowered. The dark cloaks us protectively, a besotted couple taking a romantic turn. We enter a narrow walkway into a square. Too late I realise we’re in Lord Place.

  The Neighbourly Arms is busy, patrons spilling out into the square, the groups around the kegs raucous. We walk with tension now, gripping hands. Just past the tavern is a service alley lit by a bare bulb. Beneath it, a woman in a spangly dress is head thrown back in an ecstatic clinch. The reason is leaning against the wall, his face in shadow, his hand up her skirt.

  I do a double-take.

  ‘I think I just saw Marlene,’ I whisper to Inez, and can tell by her expression that she saw her too.

  Nobody we know goes by choice to the Neighbourly Arms. I drag back on her arm for another look.

  ‘Leave it,’ says Inez. ‘The company she chooses isn’t our concern.’

  There’s a heat behind her words that I don’t understand, but she’s right. Why should I be surprised if this is Marlene’s way of getting over Gail?

  Past midnight we arrive at the speakeasy and waggle fingers at the peephole, then sail in past a stolid Rosie to whom nothing is a surprise any more. Gabe, Marlene’s twice-weekly replacement, takes our coats. He’s polite to the point of disinterest, and I find myself missing Marlene’s acerbic remarks.

  Downstairs, the press of people at the bar fans out to the couches where reclining bodies sprawl amid the smoke and hubbub, while on the dance floor the fit and fearless are gyrating at the poles. On the far side of the room, every alcove has been taken. We find two stools one end of the bar. Trin, who spotted us coming in, takes our order.

  Inez leans against me. I can smell the vanilla scent in her hair and the honeys of her skin. It’s like swimming into softness. My finger ends tingle with the anticipation of later, laying her back and peeling off the shiny dress moulded so deliciously to her form, then parting her legs in search of other honey, diving into heat and darkness for the pearl between her lips.

  The sharp, interrupting smells of cigarettes and aftershave invade. I draw back from Inez to find Crusher standing bullishly between us.

  ‘Meg says to tell you you’re running out of time,’ she mutters in my ear.

  Silently I curse Meg for sending her minion to muscle in on Inez’s and my private space.

  I try to straighten on my stool. ‘Tell her I’m still thinking,’ I say, and am horrified to hear my words slur.

  As Crusher hefts, tanklike, back to Meg’s alcove to deliver my reply, anxiety begins to circulate it
s warning chemicals through me. I’d promised myself I’d deal with the situation calmly, a day at a time, but tonight I’m with Inez and less than sober. Unhappy thoughts filter like bitter grounds through my foggy brain. I’m playing to keep Meg’s offer on the table, but what will stalling buy me, apart from trouble?

  Inez jogs my elbow. ‘What was that all about?’ She gives me a comical, dishevelled look.

  ‘Meg’s made me an offer I’m not supposed to refuse.’

  That sobers her up instantly. ‘What kind of offer?’

  ‘To work for her. She thinks Gail’s going under.’

  ‘That’s outrageous! The gall of the woman — you’d never do that. And Gail is not going under just because she’s been targeted by a crank.’

  Inwardly I squirm. Not so outrageous. News of the bogus kit — and EHg’s adamant disassociation from it — has been the topic of the week in the speakeasy, but although Gail has plenty of supporters here, she’s in more trouble than Inez or anybody knows. Anybody except Mojo Meg and me.

  Suddenly I feel tired and a bit ill. The bubble of euphoria I’ve been floating in all evening has burst and I just want to leave. I ask Inez home with me, but she makes an excuse. The magic has been snuffed out for her too.

  I’m placing out money on the bar for Trin when Crusher returns and slaps an envelope into my hand.

  ‘Down payment,’ she says. ‘Meg thought you could use a little encouragement.’

  She leaves, no chance for argument. I stare at the envelope.

  This is wrong, so wrong. Meg, the consummate tactician, has just corralled me into looking like I’m already a willing player, while I let it happen, too shocked to respond.

  Inez interrupts my stupor, her voice tight. ‘You’re not going to take it, are you?’

  ‘No!’ I exclaim. It comes out louder than I intended, and Trin looks over to see if we’re okay.

  ‘What are you doing, Sal? Making money deals with Meg is like playing poker with the Devil.’

  The worry is apparent in Inez’s voice; the uncertainty in her eyes hurts to see.

  We gather up our things. I motion It’s fine to Trin, who’s watching without seeming to. On our way out, I drop the envelope, unopened, on the table in Meg’s private alcove. Meg makes no move to retrieve it, her eyes like chips of resin fixed on mine.

  Inez pulls on my arm. ‘Let’s go,’ she says, low and angry.

  My gal leads me determinedly away, up the speakeasy stairs to collect our coats then out the peepholed door. But the damage has been done, the seeds of doubt sown. Meg knows it. We all know it.

  15

  My mobile buzzes under my pillow in some deep, dark hour of sleep. I’m pulled out of a bad dream, Inez inside the speakeasy shouting at me to leave. I squint at the little glowing screen, Albee’s home icon flashed up, and answer to a loud crash on the other end of the line then silence. The jag of fear that shivers through me chases away all grogginess.

  ‘Albee?’ Mobile pressed to my ear, I lurch out of bed past the half-hidden bundle that’s Nitro and grope for clothing, the light switch.

  I ask again, but there’s nothing more from the other end.

  My heart rate ratchets up.

  ‘I’ll be there soon,’ I promise into the phone. Please don’t let this be like before, is what I’m thinking. There were three of them with cricket bats last time. He was in hospital with multiple fractures for several weeks.

  I call triple-0 from the bathroom, giving the operator Albee’s address as I plug in for a quick subdermal of Courier’s Friend. Outside, I run with the bike into the back lane. Then I’m in the toe straps and sprinting. His place will take me twenty-five minutes at full tilt along the empty streets. With emergency services stretched so thin these days, it’s likely I’ll get there first.

  Twenty gut-twisting minutes later, I’m bumping across the footpath, the ambulance screaming up the road behind me. I wave them into the driveway. The stretcher is wheeled out, and the three of us converge at the side entrance. The security screen isn’t snibbed and the glass door behind it is ajar. Bad.

  I propel myself inside on shaky legs, the blood hammering in my ears. ‘Albee?’

  Neither sound nor movement in answer to my call. Double bad.

  Light filters through from the back. I lean the bike and lift a hinged section of the counter, then race with the ambulance officers down the aisle to the workshop.

  He’s sprawled on the ground near his workbench, the lamp above it still on, his phone a metre from his hand. He’s always said I’m ‘1’ on his speed dial.

  ‘Albee!’

  I go to crouch beside him, but one of the officers holds me back. ‘Don’t touch him, mate. Let us.’

  She speaks to her colleague. ‘Could be another one.’

  The stretcher is released to floor level. A rubber cover with lipped sides and handles goes on the trolley. Then, before my disbelieving eyes, they open a kitbag and begin to speed-change into protective clothing.

  ‘What’s your friend’s name?’ Ambo A asks, pulling on a bootied zip-up suit.

  I tell her, watching Albee helplessly from two metres away. His face is a sheen of sweat, his mouth slack and dribbling. I look for the rise and fall of his chest. Then I hear him wheeze.

  ‘Were you with him when he collapsed?’ Ambo B this time.

  ‘No,’ I answer. ‘He rang me. I got here when you did.’

  Ambo B puts on a double layer of rubber gloves. ‘What substances is he likely to have taken in the last twelve hours?’ He adjusts his googles and mask. ‘Was he suicidal?’

  Suicidal? I shrug uselessly.

  The forensically clad duo instruct me to stand well back as they move in on him.

  Ambo A leans over. ‘Albee, can you hear me?’

  She’s insistent, trying to draw him back to consciousness. He responds with guttural noises and muscle twitching.

  The two begin a series of monotone checks and responses, working in swift coordination. One pushes something into Albee’s mouth while the other lifts a watery eyelid then takes hold of a wrist. A blood-pressure cuff goes on his upper arm, a sensor clipped to the end of a finger. A mask goes over his face and his chin is tilted sharply up. Attached to the mask is a PVC bag with an inflatable reservoir and a line to a small oxygen tank hooked onto the trolley. As Ambo A begins to squeeze the bag, Ambo B presses something that looks like an adrenaline pen into one limp forearm and watches for a response on the portable monitor.

  ‘Let’s get those fluids in.’

  I stare at Albee’s lower half. His feet are bare and the bottom of his shirt is buttoned up wrong. I notice his jeans’ fly is undone. In an impulse of decorum, I want to zip it up. As one of the paramedics shifts, I get a partial view of my friend’s face. His eyes flutter briefly, and I think he’s trying to speak. My joy turns to terror when out comes a horrible gurgling sound.

  ‘Here we go,’ warns Ambo A, ripping away the mask and airway protector. Rolled swiftly onto his side, Albee throws up on the floor.

  Ambo B gets a plastic tub from the kitbag and shakes a white powder onto the vomit. I look at the container. Sodium bicarbonate.

  He turns to me. ‘A cup of warm water,’ he commands.

  I find a cup in the kitchenette, fill it, and return to the workshop. Ambo B is sopping up the powder-covered mess with paper towel. He takes the cup, adds a scoop of bicarb and pours the solution on the floor, sopping it up with more paper towel. Then the cup, the sodden wad and one layer of gloves go in a sharps bin.

  Agonised, I hover at the edge of the workshop. It reeks of vomit and something else my panicked brain won’t put a name to yet.

  Ambo B has taken over squeezing the bag. Ambo A tightens a tourniquet on Albee’s upper arm and taps for a vein inside his elbow. The intravenous line is attached, then something syringed in.

  ‘Two of atropine,’ says Ambo A, and a wave of terror brings spots dancing in my vision. I lean heavily against metal shelving. The thought of losing
my long-time friend is unbearable.

  Now they’re opening Albee’s shirt. I crane around them. The white scars across his chest are revealed, one below each nipple. I panic that they’ll suspend their ministrations — some have before with him, realising what it is they see — but they’re attaching little pads, the leads connected to a machine on the trolley.

  Both pairs of eyes are on the machine as it begins to blip. It’s mighty slow. Surely that’s not his heartbeat?

  They do a speed-search across his abdomen then his arms, moving onto his feet and calves. I panic some more when they take scissors to his jeans, cutting them from hip to trouser end. The fabric cleaves apart, revealing Albee’s pale skin covered only by boxer shorts. They check the fronts of both thighs before rolling him onto one hip and lifting away the waistband to peer at a buttock cheek. It’s while repeating the procedure on the other side that they pause.

  ‘There,’ says Ambo A at a purplish mark inside a sizeable swelling on Albee’s right cheek. ‘Delivered IM, like the others.’

  ‘Delivered what?’ I squeak.

  ‘Intramuscularly.’

  ‘Third one in as many days,’ says Ambo B.

  ‘Third what?’ I plead as they readjust Albee’s shorts.

  Ambo A looks back at me. ‘OP poisoning — organophosphate. Whatever your friend thought he was injecting, it was laced with a pesticide.’

  I’m horrified. My eyes smart with tears.

  Ambo B breaks open another ampoule and syringes it into the IV line.

  ‘What’s that?’ Fear beats in my throat like a trapped bird.

  ‘Atropine. It’s an antidote.’

  I try to process what I’ve just been told: Albee injected a pesticide into himself, and so did two others the same way before him. It seems completely impossible. In the thirteen years I’ve known him, he’s tried a variety of anti-oestrogens then straight testosterone, and for the last few years he’s bought EHg product exclusively from Gail. Any little extras, such as new recipes of Courier’s Friend, he gets from me. Using another company’s product is just something he’d never do.