by Gary Kemble
Harry nodded. Impressed. ‘Well, it would certainly help.’
‘He’s big on heritage, apparently. Can you keep that under your hat?’
Technically, anything said before asking for confidentiality was fair game, but there was no story until it was confirmed.
‘Sure. I’ll put it in the vault. Fred said your daughter heard something about corruption, Swenson paying people off. Is that true?’
Bill nodded warily. ‘Can I stay off the record? I just don’t want to get sued.’
Harry hesitated. At uni he learnt to avoid letting people go off the record at all costs. You never knew what they were going to say, you never knew what axe they were trying to grind. And once someone was off the record, it was much harder to get them back on it, especially if they had something really worthwhile to say. Bill blundered on without waiting for a response.
‘My daughter Shelley works in the property industry, right? She says a lot of the developers reckon Swenson is on the nose.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Look at him. Twenty-odd years ago he was a builder, right? Then he moved into development, grew his business. Fair enough. But that Cherry Grove deal? Come on. There’s no way that area should have been allowed to be cleared for housing.
‘That gave him a massive boost, right? But there was a period, after 2001, or so my daughter says, where no-one could undercut him. The blokes Shelley talks to reckon he was either paying someone to give him insider knowledge on the rival tenders, or he was getting cash from somewhere to subsidise his business.
‘Now, I can’t verify that, otherwise I’d go on the record. But sometimes there’s just too much smoke for there not to be a fire. You know?’
A strong gust of wind swayed Harry off his feet, and he reached out to grab something to steady himself. Bill took his hand.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Look into my eyes.’
They were blue. Lines creasing the skin at the corners. The dizziness passed.
‘Sorry for bringing you up here,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘That’s okay. Really. I’m glad I saw it for myself.’
* * *
They walked back down to the park. It was darker under the boughs now, almost menacing. But at least it was cooler. Harry turned towards his street. Bill touched him on the arm.
‘I’m heading this way, finish my walk,’ he said.
‘Wasn’t that enough for you?’
He shrugged. ‘I like to do forty-five minutes a day, if I can.’
‘Okay. Well, it was nice to meet you,’ Harry said.
He gave Bill the spiel about how he couldn’t guarantee that the story would make it to the paper, and that he’d try to let him know if it did. And that if they were going to run the story, he might try to book a photographer to come and take some photos.
‘Thanks, Harry. Here,’ he said, handing Harry a business card: ‘Save the Tower’, followed by Bill’s phone, email and street address.
‘Thanks.’
Bill was about to turn away, then hesitated. ‘Oh, I meant to say. That symbol of yours, where did you find it?’
Harry shrugged, lied. ‘Saw it on the internet.’
Bill grunted. ‘I’m surprised you saw that symbol on the internet. It’s quite arcane.’
‘Well, you know, everything’s on the internet these days.’
‘So you just happened upon it on the internet, and sketched it, and asked Fred about it?’
Harry felt his face burning. ‘Yeah, why?’
‘Magic’s trendy these days, seems like everyone wants to go to Hogwarts or fuck a vampire. . .’
Harry jolted at the language.
‘. . . but some magic is real, and some magic is really evil. I’ve only seen symbols like that once before, after the war, and I don’t want to see them again.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Harry wondered if his hair fully covered it. Or if Bill had seen the tattoo already and was just testing him.
Bill slapped him on the arm and grinned. ‘Sorry. I’m a superstitious old prick at times.’
Harry wanted to know more, but Bill turned, striding towards Paddington.
‘See ya, Harry. Stay safe!’
CHAPTER 13
Harry walked through West End, dodging the itinerants begging for change outside cafes and the waiters delivering Saturday morning coffee. It was hard to believe it had been almost two weeks since the first tattoo. A week and a bit since the second. According to Tom, he wasn’t crazy. According to the scan, he wasn’t sick. It was something to cling to when he woke up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat, listening to the phantom scratching under the house.
He’d been trying to get hold of Bill, but every time he phoned, it rang out. Fred said he was busy with Save the Tower stuff. The general day-to-day routine helped sustain the illusion that everything was okay. He wrote up a rough draft of the water tower story, but was waiting for an update on the Andrew Cardinal angle. That would really make it something worth writing about and, if he could use his contacts through Ron Vessel to at least schedule the announcement just before the Chronicle went to press, then all the better. He had to admit, it would be one of the cuter stories of the campaign trail – a rugged army type teaming up with two World War II veterans to save a worn-out Brisbane icon.
But the nightmares were getting worse, no matter how many VBs he downed before bed. The first one, the one where he was buried, had initially just been a series of flashes and sensations. Now, it was in full HD. He could see the grains of dirt on the ground, the smudge of dust on the ant’s shiny body. He could smell the cigarette smoke so clearly he could almost name the brand. Thankfully, there was still no sensation when the cutting began.
The Fajar Baru nightmare was like being there. The feeling of the salt spray on his face, the rising fear when he saw the plume of fire and smoke on the horizon. The expressions of terror on the refugees’ faces as the RHIBs turned back to Christmas Island. He thought again about hypnotism, freeing the memories, and his stomach filled with butterflies.
If Bill couldn’t answer his questions, maybe Sian would.
***
Harry pushed through the door into West End Tattoo’s cool air-conditioning. The place was packed. A woman had to move her backpack to one side so he could open the door. The bench seats in front of and to the side of the counter were once again full of people waiting, going through their art folders or playing with their phones. It sounded as though every tattoo machine in the place was going full-bore.
Sian nodded to him, phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder, free hand scribbling in a dog-eared appointment book. While he was waiting, a woman with a zombie waitress on one arm was called upstairs. Harry took her empty seat, then picked up the tattoo magazine she’d been reading. Old-school sailor tattoos, hearts with names, symbols with meanings.
‘Harry,’ Sian called.
He jumped. Smiled awkwardly, then left the magazine open on a page of birds. Everything from swallows on a buttock to an emu on someone’s back.
‘Hi, Sian,’ Harry said as he went up to her.
‘So did you solve the mystery?’
‘Uh, bits of it. The symbol is from Afghanistan.’
‘Of course! I knew it was from that neck of the woods.’ Behind Harry the door opened, letting more light into the front office. The tattoos on Sian’s arms seemed to come alive.
‘But I still don’t know how I got it. And now there’s this. . .’ Harry turned and pulled his sleeve up, showing Sian the drowning man. The first tattoo was growing on Harry. This one wasn’t. Every time he saw it, he felt slightly nauseous. Sian sucked air through her teeth.
‘Nasty.’
‘I know.’
She raised a hand to the side of her face. She had the letters LOVE tattooed on her fingers.
‘Hang on. Looks familiar.’ Her brow creased. ‘But it can’t be. Where did you get this done?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Beats me. Just li
ke the first one – I don’t remember.’
‘Come with me.’
She led Harry through a beaded curtain, into the room behind the counter. The space was a mashup of hair salon, doctor’s surgery and motor workshop. Trays with tattoo machines, inks, sterile bandages and needles. Walls plastered with framed artwork, and more stuff on see-through paper, stuck to the wall with pieces of masking tape, alongside photos of children, presumably the tattooist’s kids.
Three chairs, like those you’d find in a barber shop, all occupied. A young guy was horizontal, sweating bullets as a woman tattooed some elaborate scrollwork across his chest. As far as Harry could tell, it was his first tattoo. There was an older guy, gold chain around his neck, maybe late fifties. His shirt hung over the chair as the tattooist worked on his heavily tanned arm. Harry couldn’t see what he was doing, but the artwork on that part of the studio wall was old-school stuff: hearts, swallows, scrolls and skulls.
At the back of the room, a guy with a trucker’s cap was getting some work done on a full sleeve of Japanese art. As he turned his arm, the samurai warrior down by his wrist seemed to draw his sword. The artist, long hair tied back, was in his forties. Both arms covered in tattoos. One arm with Maori designs, their edges ill-defined and spreading with age.
He looked up when he saw Sian, put the machine down and flexed his gloved hand.
‘Yo, Mack,’ Sian said.
‘What’s up?’
‘Check this out.’
She gestured to Harry, who pulled his sleeve up again, feeling a little like a freak-show exhibit.
‘Holy crap!’ Mack said.
‘That’s what I said.’
The guy in the trucker cap peered over.
Mack looked up at Harry. ‘Where’d you get this done?’
Sian answered before Harry could. ‘He doesn’t remember.’
‘Bullshit,’ Mack said. ‘Firstly, you couldn’t have got this tattoo in one session. You’d get the lines done first, then go back and get the shading and colour.
‘Secondly, this looks like the work of a guy named Rabs. And you’d know if he did work on you. You’d certainly remember it.’
Harry stared at Mack blankly. Mack took another look at the tattoo.
‘Okay, where do I find this guy?’ Harry asked.
‘I don’t even know if he’s still alive. I went to work in London for a bit and when I came back, he was gone,’ Mack said.
‘He used to work at a place out at Stones Corner,’ Sian added. ‘A bikie-run joint. But he hasn’t done any work since.’
‘If I were you, I’d stay well clear. If he finds out someone’s stealing his work, he’s gonna want to know who it is. And if you can’t tell him. . .’ Mack snorted a laugh, shook his head. Picked up the machine, dabbed the needle into the ink and went back to work.
‘Seriously, dude,’ he said, ‘you do not want to piss Rabs off.’
***
Harry sat in The Three Monkeys cafe, phone pressed to his ear.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Dave asked. The line dropped out. Harry fancied he could hear water splashing in the background. The chink of glasses at a bar. That’s what people did in Fiji, right?
Harry turned the cup in his hands. He’d only taken a couple of sips, but the coffee was sliding around his stomach and he felt sick. He was tucked into a dimly lit nook of the Moroccan-themed cafe, away from the dusty heat of Boundary Road. A light sheathed in a brocade lampshade hung over his head. The wall beside him was papered with old posters for theatre productions and musicals that had toured Brisbane over the years. Many of them were autographed.
Harry shrugged. ‘The counsellor thinks I may have actually got the tattoos done and just not remembered it,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t explain what the tattoo guy – Mack – just told me, but what’s the alternative?’
He hoped Dave would say what he’d been thinking and save him the trouble.
‘So either you’re going sleepwalking and getting these tatts done somewhere, or someone is breaking in and tattooing you in your sleep. Drugging you. But why?’ Dave said.
‘And that doesn’t explain how I got a two-session tattoo in one night,’ Harry added. He screwed his eyes shut. He’d just have to say it. ‘There’s another alternative. . . Fuck, I wish I had a beer. . . The alternative is that the tattoos are just appearing. No-one is tattooing them. There’s something about the house. Some sort of, I don’t know, phantom radiation.’
The line crackled, seemed to go dead. ‘Hello? Dave?’
‘Yeah, I’m still here. I’m just thinking. Phantom radiation. Giving you tattoos. That sounds fucking crazy.’
Harry closed his eyes again, took a deep breath. ‘Yeah. You’re right. Of course it is. I dunno.’
‘Thanks, babe,’ Dave said. ‘Sorry, not you. Ellie just handed me a drink. . .’
‘I’m sorry, I should go. . .’
‘Nah, nah. It’s fine. Seriously. Harry, maybe you just need a break from your place.’ He sounded half-cut.
Harry had considered it, of course he had. But when he thought about it, he felt the same way he did when he thought about getting rid of the tattoos. It felt. . . wrong. That’s all. Just wrong.
‘Harry, you’re not saying anything. Get the fuck out of Dodge. Camp at my place until we get back. It’s no drama.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, maybe you’re right.’
‘Of course I am!’ Dave’s voice went quiet again. ‘Yeah. Sure, hon.’ And then: ‘Sorry, Harry, not you. There’s a key under the house, in the old dryer. Okay?’
‘Yeah. Okay.’
‘I’ll see you when I get back, all right?’
‘Yeah, sure Dave. And sorry again.’
‘Forget about it, Harry. I meant what I said at the wedding. Don’t do anything stupid. You’ll get through this.’
‘Thanks.’
The line went dead. Before Harry’s phone was even on the table, he knew he wasn’t going to leave his place. He couldn’t.
‘Maybe the loneliness is getting to me,’ he mumbled.
He wondered what Christine was doing. Short skirt. Crazy glasses. Wished he was a few years younger.
Harry glanced up at the TV bolted onto the wall. Andrew Cardinal was grinning, waving to fans at a rally in Sydney. He’d really got them fired up. There were placards, custom t-shirts; people had even made Andrew Cardinal masks to wear, which was a bit creepy. It vaguely reminded Harry of John Hewson back in the early ’90s. Except Cardinal had real substance. Vessel was in the background, still grinning like a moron.
Harry’s phone rang. He picked it up, half expecting to see Fred’s name on the screen, but it wasn’t. It was Bill.
‘Turn on your TV,’ he said.
‘There’s a TV here.’ Harry’s eyes glanced up to the TV again. The footage they were showing before must’ve been file footage from earlier in the week, because now Cardinal was standing in front of the Paddington water tower. The camera was low, trying to catch the top of the water tower as well as frame the politician.
The volume was down. Harry got up, still holding the phone to his ear, and tried to turn up the volume.
‘I can’t hear what he’s saying.’
‘Never mind.’
Next minute, he saw Bill standing in the shot, in the media scrum, holding his phone out to catch Cardinal’s speech.
‘I’m here today at the Paddington water tower to announce a new initiative by a Cardinal Labor government,’ he said.
‘If elected, my government will move to protect areas of cultural significance. For too long, the Federal Government has stood by and let these gems disappear. And once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
‘Under the current government. . .’
He lapsed into some statistics about how heritage listing had faltered under the government, and Labor’s statistics under Keating. The press pack could barely contain itself. There was already a heritage system in place, as well as state and local building codes. Cardi
nal was suggesting his government would streamline that process, and take control away from local governments, until the heritage minister gave projects his seal of approval.
Harry stared, mouth agape. It was bizarre that Cardinal would risk his substantial lead in the polls by pissing off local and state governments, not to mention a stack of influential and rich property developers.
Cardinal held his hands out to calm the reporters. ‘Hang on, hang on. I’ll answer your questions, but first I’ve got something to say. Where are Bill and Fred?’
The volume dropped as Bill held the phone by his side. Journalists in shot swung their heads around. Eventually Fred edged into shot. He looked extremely uncomfortable. Harry held a finger over his ear, blocking the piped music coming through the cafe.
‘Bill and Fred here are heroes of the Australian suburbs. They are taking on these developers because they want to save our architectural heritage for future generations. They understand that we can’t truly move forward without understanding our past.
‘As part of their campaign to save the tower, they’ve been asking for people to share their stories. And I’ve got a story for them. When I was a kid, we used to drive past the tower, along Latrobe Terrace down there, on our monthly trek to the grandparents’.
‘As a five or six-year-old, that was a huge journey, all the way from the southside. But I didn’t care. Because I wanted to see the spaceship. Yep, for some reason I’d decided the Paddington water tower was a spaceship. . .’
He paused for the laughter to die down.
‘I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I found out it was a boring old water tower. . .’
More laughter.
‘But by then my obsession with space travel was well and truly established. I was going to be an astronaut, and then when I got older and realised my maths and physics grades weren’t quite up to scratch, I settled on the military.
‘So you could say that if it wasn’t for that water tower, I never would have joined the army. And if it wasn’t for the army, I don’t know if I’d be doing what I’m doing now.
‘Point is, we all have connections with our geography. With the buildings that we grew up with. The places that are part of us.’