The Courier's New Bicycle

by Kim Westwood

  That something is in her kitchen.

  The street hawker is lurching about, mumbling and gesticulating peculiarly. He has that pelvis-forward-shoulders-back walk I associate with madness, as if his internal gyro has been knocked out of whack. What he was trying to offload is sitting innocuously on the kitchen table.

  He’s watched by two people: one at the door and one leaning against the sink. Both are dressed in black, and could be scenery movers for a theatre company but for the subtle energy compressed in the workings of their bodies.

  The guard positioned by the door glances at us both as we walk in, but addresses Savannah. ‘We can’t get any sense out of him. He’s not just off his face, he’s off his rocker. It’ll take a month in detox to bring him down — if ever.’

  ‘Where did you pick him up?’ I ask her.

  ‘Outside La Petite Mort, shouting at the top of his lungs. Not hard to miss, and even easier to catch.’

  ‘Great sales technique.’

  ‘More like giving it away,’ she says. ‘But most people here have heard the news and would be too wary to buy. We think he was paid in pills first then set loose with his wares.’

  It makes no sense. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘You tell us.’

  The guy is tall as well as skinny. His arms dangle weirdly and his joints seem too loosely strung, as if on loan from someone else’s body.

  His mumbling gets louder. Biting dogs and ferocious angels have the monopoly of his mind — and someone with bleeding fingers. His jerky movements still momentarily. I check his hands. No blood.

  A chime dings softly in the kitchen. Savannah excuses herself and steps out.

  I sit at the table and reach for the polyshell. The wax medallion pressed into the midriff seam is unmistakeably EHg’s. Closer inspection reveals it to be a patch job, same as the last.

  The guy steers suddenly to the sink, shaking his hands over it vigorously, as if something’s clinging to them. I’m reminded of Lady Macbeth. If this is a guilty conscience, was it something he saw or something he did?

  I look questioningly at the guard closest.

  ‘No friggin idea,’ she answers.

  She leans across the metal draining board, stopping his hands with the strength of hers, and tries to persuade him to the table. His arms go, but his body refuses to leave the sink. He shrieks as she twists an arm behind him.

  Sat forcibly, he looks around, wild-eyed.

  ‘Feel free to ask,’ she says to me.

  I proffer a hand. ‘Salisbury Forth.’

  The whites of his eyes are glazed, red as maraschino cherries, his pupils tiny black pits. His gaze wanders off me to the door.

  His guard leans over and gives him a little shake. ‘Pay attention, mister.’

  I hold up the egg. ‘Can you tell me who gave this to you?’ I ask, and he recoils from the question as if it scalds him.

  ‘Bleeding fingers,’ he mutters, rocking in his chair. Madness defeats the best interrogation techniques.

  A woman’s anguished wail rises suddenly from another part of the bordello, stopping us all momentarily. Something — someone — has broken through the perfectly veneered world that is the Shangri-La.

  A door bangs. I force my attention back to the street seller and start again.

  ‘I’ll pay you for more,’ I say invitingly, but head tilted to his shoulder, he looks at me as if I’m the loony.

  When Savannah steps back into the room, her expression tells us nothing — her manner as seamless as ever. She, on the other hand, can see by our faces that the situation hasn’t changed.

  ‘I’ll make the call to the psych unit,’ she says to the guards. ‘As for this …’ She picks up the polyshell. ‘I’ll take it to Gail myself.’

  She draws me with her out along the corridor. I start to say something, but am signalled to silence by a brief finger to the lips. We’re passing the clients’ parlour.

  We enter the salon our first meeting was in. Savannah motions me to a chaise longue, then crosses to the cabinet of curiosities I’d tried not to stare at last time. Her being right by it, I do now.

  She lifts the latch and opens a latticed door to adjust something fallen off its stand. My imagination is already firing up, picturing how the various devices might strap to a body — or inside it. She catches me looking and a smile crinkles the corners of her mouth. Not for the first time I think that here is a woman who loves her work.

  ‘A world of untapped potential,’ she murmurs, and I get the feeling it’s not the objects in the cabinet she’s referring to.

  I blush.

  She closes the lattice and comes over to sit by me. ‘I’m worried for Gail’s safety,’ she confides.

  Hastily I regather my wits. ‘I agree this isn’t about selling; it’s to show us the stuff is out there doing damage. But that doesn’t mean the threat is aimed at Gail personally — more likely at EHg, and her by association.’

  Savannah shakes her head slowly. A bastion has been breached in the heart of transgressive territory. ‘That may be so,’ she says softly, ‘but I need you to find out who these people are.’

  She takes my hand in both of hers in a disconcertingly intimate gesture. I feel a strange mix of emotions as I look into hazel eyes flecked with gold, the fragments of colour being caught by the light.

  As alluring and formidable as she is, I feel ill-equipped to do what’s being asked. There’s a certain focused simplicity to being a bike courier — not to mention a rather reassuring anonymity. You make the drop swiftly, often under cover of night, and leave. Right now I feel like an L-plater shoved onto a racetrack mid-event and told to drive for my life. Except it isn’t my life. It’s Gail’s.

  ‘I want that too …’ I start to detail my unsuitability, but Savannah interrupts.

  ‘I know you’ll do whatever it takes.’

  The crimson door closes. I click on my bike lights and cycle distractedly down the Row. Two blocks along, I pass a prayer-shawled figure crouched, weeping, in a doorway. I stop and look back, wondering if there’s anything I can do; but they startle like a rabbit when I enquire, and are gone into the dark of a side alley before I can even turn my bike.

  19

  Inside Tallis’s light-filled office tiredness weights me to the chair, the strain of events beginning to show. My host observes me with a keen eye and waves away my apologies about not getting back here sooner.

  ‘Braheem seemed genuinely upset by what happened,’ I tell her. ‘I believe him when he says he’s spoken to no one about his sister being a surrogate.’

  The memory of the door closing across the landing niggles, but not enough to mention. Instead I say, ‘He’d really like to see her.’

  Tallis hands me a glass of water from a filter jug. ‘That won’t be a problem. The crusaders for the moral good keep a sharp eye on maternity ward admissions and discharges — it’s why we have a birthing centre in the Red Quarter and don’t use the hospital system unless absolutely necessary. Having lost the baby, Roshani’s no longer a target.’ She pours herself a glass. ‘She could spend some time with Braheem at the markets this morning. We’ll supply an escort, just in case.’

  She means someone from a Red Quarter protection team. I think of the CCTV at the Tea House. Better for Roshani to visit her brother out in the public eye than at that place with its invisible observers and creepy politics.

  Tallis looks enquiringly at me. ‘Would you like to go too?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I’m not due at the hospital until twelve thirty, and the market’s on my way. A darker thought worms in, unwanted: it might be me who needs the protection.

  Tallis, not privy to my morbid thoughts, looks pleased. ‘It’ll do Roshani a lot of good.’

  Roshani, Geeta. Two names for two places. At Braheem’s I’d realised the letters of their family name, Rani, were contained inside her alias.

  ‘What happens for her from here?’ I ask.

  ‘She’ll have ongoing
counselling and access to all the medicos she needs. When she’s ready, she’ll be helped to relocate outside the Red Quarter and find other work. Given what she’s been through, her surrogacy days are likely over.’

  This is my moment to bail out gracefully, but it seems so unsatisfactory to leave it there. Someone sicked the prayer group onto the poor woman.

  ‘Do you still think the leak might have come from inside the organisation?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She lowers her voice as if the walls have begun to listen in. ‘Those privy to her surrogacy agreement — the Red Quarter madam who negotiated it, and her medical and social supports — are all people I trust implicitly. Roshani is writing us a list of everyone she’s had dealings with since entering the program, and we’ll go through it name by name. The other surrogates have been told of the attack and questioned about her, no animosity there that we can detect.’ She sighs. ‘As far as their own safety goes, we don’t require them to stay exclusively in the Red Quarter before they’re showing. After that, any trips outside need our approval. But we’re not here to be the police; ultimately, all we can do is caution them to be extra vigilant when outside the precinct.’

  I put down my drink and the light through the window catches in the glass, striking me as quite beautiful. It’s best not to look at what’s been sieved out by the filter. In the last few years, serious cracks have begun to show in the city’s infrastructure, prayer meetings no solution to aging utilities.

  I get to the piece of news I’ve not wanted to say, telling Tallis I’ll be uncontactable for a while. She gives me a candidly appraising look, but doesn’t push for an explanation.

  ‘Well then …’ She levers herself up out of her easychair. ‘Shall we go ask Roshani if she’d like to visit her brother?’

  Before we leave the room, she turns to me. ‘On behalf of the folk here, I want to say thanks again for everything you’ve done. If there are any changes to the situation, we’ll let Gail know.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that,’ I say, and exit her calm, sunny office with regret. Tallis Dankner is someone I’d be glad to have for a friend and confidante — especially now, as I prepare to walk alone into the tiger’s lair.

  Roshani leads the way through the market hangars past the lusty spruikers of the fruit and veg section then along the haberdashery and clothing rows, seemingly oblivious to the Red Quarter chaperone discreetly following. It gives me the chance to marvel at the improvement in her, a transformation from the stricken person I saw lying in a hospital bed.

  Braheem’s Lucky Charm jewellery collection is tucked between a stand of scarves and a stand of leather goods. The reunion is gratifying to witness. As brother and sister hug delightedly, I find myself thinking it might be the last heart-warming thing I’ll be seeing for a while.

  ‘Sam!’ Braheem clasps my hand.

  It takes me a moment to connect to the name I’d used in his visitors book.

  ‘Salisbury, actually. I just didn’t want to tell the Tea House.’

  He nods, unsurprised, then calls across to his scarf-selling neighbour. ‘Rashid! Can you watch the goods for half an hour?’

  Rashid, a portly man with a keffiyeh flung about his shoulders, good-naturedly assures Braheem that he’ll direct all potential customers to his own stall instead.

  I glance back along the aisle and see our chaperone inspecting a candle stand.

  We go to a café on the street opposite the market entrance. Friday trading in full swing, it’s crowded, but convivial. Braheem commandeers a table by the window then goes to place our orders at the counter. The mood is so happy and relaxed, I hate to spoil it, but I can’t help one question while his sister and I are face to face.

  ‘Geeta — is it okay to call you that now?’ I wait for her assent before continuing. ‘I’d like to ask you something I asked Braheem.’

  She stares a moment at her nails, then nods.

  ‘I’m trying to work out how someone might have got wind of your “condition”. Was there anyone outside — at the Tea House, for instance — who took a particular interest?’

  Her shoulders droop a little, but she recovers quickly. ‘Since the — since Sunday I’ve been over and over it. But I never confided in anyone except Braheem.’

  I see the raw hurt and am sorry to have raised it. ‘I’m not questioning your integrity or Braheem’s in any way,’ I say gently.

  She replies a little defensively. ‘We’re good at keeping secrets.’

  Braheem had said much the same thing at the Tea House. I wonder where this is going.

  She looks across the table at me, a challenge in her eyes. ‘Has he told you why our family emigrated to Australia?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Our parents came from the same district in Uttar Pradesh. Both families were scheduled caste, or Dalit. In India that means “untouchable”. For the kids of those families, life is hard and school is not a given. My father was one of the few to break the bonds of caste and get an education.’

  Braheem arrives with our coffees. I look up quickly. How will he feel about her telling me this?

  She smiles thanks at him and keeps talking.

  ‘When the affirmative action laws forced public universities to give some slots to so-called “backward class” applicants, he went to Delhi University to study medicine. There were massive protests at the time, and he had to claw his way past the kind of discrimination that would have been glad to see him fail. His eventual success meant our childhood in Delhi was privileged, because of his position at the Gene Research Institute. But we were still, and always would be, Dalit.’

  Braheem is silent, eyes on his sister.

  ‘My parents were afraid Braheem and I would always struggle because of the attitude to caste, so when Australia was looking for the kinds of skills our father had, we packed up and came here. Our parents wanted us to grow up in a place where Dalit had no meaning, but you soon come to realise that every culture has its own version of untouchable.’

  She looks away, suddenly embarrassed, and belatedly I realise she’s referring to people like me. Braheem shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

  I think back to my teens and early adulthood, and all the confusion I felt over who I was. Those who present as androgynously as I do are a walking, talking question mark for the community to feel perturbed about. Some even seem to think we’ve been designed deliberately to mock them.

  Briefly I flash to Inez. I’m untouchable to her too now. I let the pain trickle through me as I sip my coffee.

  ‘Your parents had no regrets about settling here?’ I ask.

  Braheem shakes his head. ‘They still missed home, which is why they took a trip back there with Geeta when we were in our teens. Our father died a few years ago of cancer, and our mother returned to India permanently last year.’

  Both parents gone, at least they still have each other. I can’t help a moment of envy over their close sibling relationship. Then the resemblance strikes me.

  ‘You two look remarkably alike …’

  ‘We’re twins, by IVF,’ Geeta replies. ‘Braheem is my older brother, but it’s only by a couple of minutes.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say, one more piece of the Rani family puzzle slotting into place.

  The coffee break over, I scribble my mobile number on a serviette. ‘In case you think of anything, or just want an ear to bend,’ I tell Geeta as she gets up.

  On an afterthought, I turn to Braheem. ‘Who lives in the apartment directly opposite you?’

  He looks surprised. ‘Marcus and Laura Nancarrow. Why?’

  ‘Just curious. Are the Nancarrows on the Residents Committee?’

  ‘Marcus is.’

  ‘And who deals with the CCTV footage?’

  ‘The committee shares the responsibility. The footage is downloaded to an old computer in the basement.’

  ‘Who looks at it?’

  He frowns. ‘I don’t honestly know. I don’t think anybody cares that much a
ny more.’

  I don’t want to alarm him, but maybe, just maybe, the Nancarrows do.

  I’m en route to the hospital when I get a call from Gail.

  ‘Bad news,’ she says. ‘Early this morning I took Savannah’s polyshells to Ethical Hormones to get the contents tested. The one she handed me several days ago is the usual execrable hormone-farm mix, but the one she delivered last night is a different story. The ampoules all contain the same combination that poisoned Albee: growth hormone laced with an OP, along with a raft of incidentals like floor scrapings and insect parts.’ She lets that sink in, then says bitterly, ‘Even without insect killer this stuff is toxic waste — not fit to be buried, let alone put in a body.’

  I feel ill. This means the EHg logo isn’t just being used to sell bogus kit, but bogus kit spiked with an organophosphate. Gail’s situation has just spiralled from a business-ruining scam to a life-endangering vendetta.

  20

  Inez and I are arguing across a candlelit table at the edge of the Glory Hole’s dance floor. I’ve told her I’m going to work for Meg. She hasn’t taken it well.

  Elsewhere in the room it’s still Happy Hour, the bar area already five deep, and the tables and alcoves filled with people arrived from work and ready to play. Miserably I press an index finger to a glob of leaked wax as some nameless house mix begins to drum out an insistent beat. This afternoon’s conversation with Gail ended with the news that the surveillance at Ferguson’s had netted nothing, the space unvisited by all but a family of brazen, scampering rats.

  Now I lean towards Inez, desperate for her to understand. ‘I know how it looks, but I’m asking you to believe me when I say it’s out of necessity, and I just can’t explain yet.’