The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy

by Robert Power

‘Not all that I myself have asked of you. So far, I think you will agree, I have asked nothing of you at all.’

  He pauses, stares at me and then continues.

  ‘You are too good a conduit, too delicious a courier. I need, I insist, that you continue. According to Dr Foster and other colleagues you have at least four more Asian trips planned this year. It’s too good an opportunity to turn down. There’s a bumper harvest and we must take advantage of it. Scale-up production all around and everyone benefits. This is so much more than a simple drug run. It is yin. It is yang.’

  The big man stares down at me. I am feeling more anxious and worried. The implications of his last comment disturb me.

  ‘What more is there?’ I plead, as once again I lift the case to emphasise my point.

  Ascavar turns a black-stoned ring on his finger and watches me. I look past him out to the terrace and the white light of the rising afternoon. From the zoo in the valley beyond a parrot screeches.

  ‘I’ll answer the questions for you, fill in some details. I do hope you will agree to cooperate with me in our joint venture.’

  Ascavar offers me an ingratiating smile that makes the hair on my neck stand on end.

  ‘But let me add some weight to your conscience. You have no option. You lack choice. As we are both aware, you are linked to your sister’s somewhat unfortunate circumstances.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say, sounding like a polite tourist looking for directions, ‘but … how does all this link up. Caitlin, you, her fate, my fate …’

  ‘All you need know is I am – how shall I put it – a major shareholder in Taneffe. All above board, registered through a holding company. Legal. Their assets and my assets are intertwined. Hey,’ he adds, as if it just occurs to him, ‘it is me who is funding your invention. We give and we take. One hand does this,’ he weighs the air, ‘the other does that.’

  I feel shaky. He notices.

  ‘You are not going to faint, are you?’

  I shake my head. My mind is all a quandary, a confusion of moral and meaning. Goals merging, fading in and out of focus. Sister, daughter, drugs, world health. What am I responsible for? Who do I put before others, put before myself? A sister? A daughter? How much needs to be my responsibility? And this devil man, with the heavy rings on his fingers, is an emissary, a dark messenger, in this unfathomable scheme of things.

  ‘Tell me some more,’ I say, a calmness in my voice, as if I’ve surrendered, given up trying to work it all out.

  He sits back and smiles.

  ‘My assistant, who you will meet in a short while, will fill you in on the details. I need not explain what is at stake here. Regarding your sister, you understand. Unless you wish me to go further?’

  ‘I understand you well,’ I answer.

  ‘What I say is what I mean. What I want of you is simple. You remain in my employ. For this year at least, while you are on your travels with Taneffe.’

  I force myself back into this space. Into this now. This particular moment in time.

  ‘As you can see, most things I have,’ he boasts, waving his hand in the air as if even the elements are part of his domain.

  I sense another monologue brewing. Here is a man who not only loves to command attention, but, as the Russians say, never uses one word when a thousand will do.

  ‘My football team is the champion of South America. The cellar in my country club is full of the rarest wines. If you had turned up at my door a year ago I would have asked you, I would have requested, an 1897 claret from a well-guarded cellar in a chateau not far from Orange. The year before that, I needed a certain central defender from an Argentinian soccer club. I have obsessions. Just now my obsession is with opium. A new interest in horticulture you might say. It is quite simple, I want, you get. You want your sister to live. I can make that happen. Or not. A simultaneous equation with a simple solution. Let’s say x is your consultancy services, y is your sister and the resolution is that we all become happy.’

  Aware of the cliché on the tip of my tongue, I feel impelled to state the obvious.

  ‘Why me?’

  A smile spreads across the plump face. Wads of fat bulge and crease around his eyes and mouth. Here is a question he has dealt with before. The footballer? The vintage wine? Here is a cue for erudition. An opportunity to hold court, to pass a few more moments of exquisite self-indulgence. Here is a man whose only means of communication is through the medium of a captive audience. Human or animal. He leans forward, his plump fingers gripping the arm rests, a final confidence.

  ‘Let’s just say I like the idea of a doctor, an educated man of letters, running my errands. I get whatever I want. If I want a million dollars, or a crate of Semtex, or the eyelash of a sperm whale, I order it, I get it. I am like the buyer at Harrods and you, the chosen, the hand-picked, are all my sales assistants.’

  ‘With respect …’ I hear myself say. What respect? My mind is confused.

  ‘Respect?’ he spits out the word, sandwiched between a laugh and a sneer. ‘I’ll tell you what respect means. Simple. I get my respect through fear. That, my academic friend, my professor, is my doctorate on respect. Do I pass? Am I a fellow of Oxford, of Cambridge, of Yale and Harvard? Can I wear the frock gown of ermine and silk, drink sherry on your lawns?’

  He runs his chubby fingers across the chubbier folds of his face.

  I am so weary of all this. The hot afternoon, the wood of the table, the sound of his voice. I look up. I meet his eyes. Ascavar falls silent for a moment. He looks to his guards and makes a slight beckoning movement.

  ‘Leave that here,’ he says to me, pointing to the case. ‘My secretary will tell you what is expected of you.’

  ‘Please, my sister. Is she … okay?’

  ‘I can assure you,’ he says, ‘she is safe and well.’

  ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘Of course you do. All in good time. Trust me,’ he says, glancing over my shoulder,

  I must trust that our nightmare will end. Trust that we will not become surplus to requirements and be disposed of. Trust is all I have left.

  One of the guards approaches to escort me out of the room. I look back and there is Ascavar, now standing, surveying his kingdom beyond the terrace. Very dramatic. Very Godfatherly. I think Ascavar may have watched one too many Mafia movies.

  Caitlin is delirious. She barely knows if she’s awake or asleep. Dreaming or thinking. Remembering or imagining. She has a raging temperature and her throat is agonisingly sore. Images sweep back and forth across her mind like scenes from an underwater world. In the cracks in the wall she imagines a young girl and a boy running towards the crescent moon. Each holds a bunch of flowers. Lilies, freesias. Both laugh, racing each other along the higgledy-piggledy maze leading to the night sky. ‘Quick,’ shouts Caitlin to the dark room, ‘run fast.’ There, sitting on the crest of the moon, is their mother. She wears a crisp white summer dress. Her hair flows in the breeze and her smile is as wide as the Milky Way. Caitlin reaches out with the tip of her finger, caressing the soft plaster. ‘Mother,’ she says, ‘some flowers for you.’ She sucks her thumb, pulls the coarse blanket tightly around herself. The image fades.

  ‘I tell you, I tell you, I tell you,’ she repeats to herself, ‘No man with Eyebrows. No man without Eyebrows. No click of a boiler. Tell them true, Anthony, hold me tight, for dear life. Tell them true.’ Then Caitlin turns to the wall and drifts into exhaustion, another day finished with.

  I am taken along the corridor and left in a small windowless room. As one door closes, another opens. It is the woman in the black dress from the alligator bar. But now she is in a midnight-blue trouser suit. Her hair is in a bun; she wears glasses. There is nothing in her demeanour to acknowledge our having met previously. She speaks like a sales rep from a travel agency.

  ‘I trust you had a good trip from Chicago,’ she says, sitting down at the desk separating us.

  She pulls a folder from a briefcase that looks as if it has been fashi
oned from something rare: an armadillo or other ancient creature. She places the folder on the small mahogany desk between us.

  ‘First, to erase any doubts in your mind, Mr Ascavar has instructed me to show you this short video.’

  With a press of the remote control a monitor in the corner of the room whirs to life. And there is Caitlin, standing chained and manacled. She looks distracted and distant. Slowly she raises her arms to show a newspaper. On the front page is a picture of myself in Chicago, shaking hands with a Democrat from the senate. It all seems a million years away. I gulp and cry dry tears. Caitlin, my darling. Her skin is like paste, like dust. She looks harrowed. Deep dark circles ring her eyes. Her hair is lank and dull. Her expression portrays death, tiredness of spirit. I want to hold her. Comfort her. Tell her that it will be alright, that I am here. In her eyes I see she knows I am fighting for her. She is still hoping. I can see, deep down, she still has a glimmer of light in her expression.

  The camera zooms in. Her face moves in and out of focus. Her pallid features are pitted and rough. The only colour is in the small red patches of dry skin, raw and scratched. Abruptly the screen goes blank. The look in her eyes is scorched on my mind. I stare at the blank screen. I feel the soreness of her skin.

  ‘She needs cream for the eczema,’ I command. An anger and assertiveness in my voice. ‘Will you promise to get her cream?’

  The woman looks at me from over her designer glasses.

  ‘It can be arranged.’

  ‘No, to hell with “it can be arranged”. Tell that fat friend of yours if you don’t get Caitlin cream for her skin he can do his damned running around himself. He can count me out.’

  I can feel the dry tears rolling up inside me, gathering force.

  ‘Just get her the cream,’ I whisper, ‘just get her the cream.’

  ‘I will arrange for your sister to be given cream for her skin,’ says the woman in a calm, unabashed voice. She pours a tumbler of water for me from a jug on the table. I reach out and sip the cold water from the glass. She is clearly used to dealing with hysterical, aggressive outbursts.

  ‘Your itinerary,’ she says, looking up briefly to see if I am composed. When she is sure she has my attention, she places a closely typed sheet of paper in front of me. She continues as if the video was no more than an introductory sales pitch or a travelogue.

  ‘You travel the day after tomorrow. The aims of your mission are quite clear,’ she says without the slightest hint of irony in her voice. ‘Your goal is to utilise your WHO consultant status to deliver the packages that will be provided to you by our Taneffe colleagues. You will attend a seminar taking place in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’ll have the details ready soon. As on your last trip, packaging and shipping will not be your responsibility. Your role will be more managerial. You will have able and competent assistants and guides. Your pack contains all you need. Plus first-class plane tickets and a credit card with a generous limit. Any questions?’

  ‘And work?’ I ask, somehow in the midst of all this, aware that Blake is expecting me back after the Colombia meetings. Maybe more so now after the tragic business with Irene. ‘I’m expected back in London in a week’s time.’

  ‘Don’t worry, all that has been taken care of. All our partners have been informed of the slight change of plan. We have arranged a slot for you at the international seminar to give your visit credence.’

  ‘You seem to have all angles covered,’ I say.

  She smiles. Very straight teeth. Very white.

  ‘We try to cover all the eventualities,’ she says with pride. ‘To run a smooth operation. I will say goodbye. Someone will be along to escort you from the premises.’

  She stands, takes the cassette from the video player, clips shut her briefcase, then leaves the room. I am alone. So I am to turn around, retrace my journey. Back to South-East Asia. I stare at the blank screen of the TV, the memory of Caitlin’s face floating in and out of focus.

  ‘Merrily, merrily,’ comes her voice from the shadows, ‘life is butter dream.’

  14

  It ain’t no skipping

  Back in my hotel room I order a beer, a whiskey and a club sandwich, even though I have no intention of eating. When the waiter arrives a few minutes later I search for a banknote for a tip. As I shuffle through my assorted currencies a small card falls away from the bundle and floats to the floor. I pick it up. It is John’s number, the guy from the Aftercare Meeting who met me at Hande Street in London, after the debacle in Kilburn with the tulips and the daffodils. I remember the talk we had in the coffee bar and the shred of hope I’d felt that I could turn my life around after all. That it need not carry on being like this. I put the card down by the phone. I stare at the glass of whiskey, my hand shaking uncontrollably, my mind in a spin. I want to drink it and I don’t want to drink it. I take a deep breath and pick up the receiver, but it’s not John’s number I dial. This one is from memory, from instinct.

  I hold the headset close to my ear, so it almost sticks to my skin. Just in case I lose my nerve.

  ‘Tommo … is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me sure enough,’ comes the gentle voice of my uncle. He seems to sense the trouble in my hesitation. ‘Anthony, how are you?’

  ‘I’m in a mess, if I were to tell you the truth of it.’

  ‘What kind of mess?’

  ‘All sorts, Tommo. But mainly the drinking. I can’t stop and I can’t start.’

  ‘Is that the way it is?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s flattened me, Tommo. I’m lost.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says softly. ‘You’ll find yourself again. You know, I’ve been expecting this call for a while now.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes, you know it runs through our family like a plague. The Irish disease, we used to call it. Your dad, our dad, Aunt Ava, another cousin or two. I’ve seen it in you most of your adult life. Anthony, you won’t beat it on your own. You got to get some help.’

  ‘I’ve got some help.’

  ‘Where you are?’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ve got some help where I am, wherever I am. There’s someone I can call.’

  ‘Will you promise to call them, then?’

  ‘I think I can.’

  ‘Thinking’s not enough. You must. It’s life or death and we want you alive. Lottie needs you alive, we all do. This is as big a challenge as your invention, your science. It’s my birthday next week. I’ll be eighty-five. If you tell me you’re dealing with this, it’ll be the best birthday present ever. You can be the one to break the chain. Can you give me that present?’

  ‘I can, I can,’ I say listening to my own echo, trying to convince myself. ‘There’s someone I can call who I know will help.’

  ‘That’s great. You know, a sports guy, a baseball player I think he was, once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Like when the straw man in the Wizard of Oz tries to tell Dorothy the way to the Emerald City. He’s at a crossroads and points in all four directions. But she follows her instincts. You’re at a fork, matey, and there’s only one right way to go. It ain’t no skipping, but there’s only one path to take. You know what it is. And I know you can take it.’

  ‘I can, I will, I’ll call,’ I say, entranced as ever by Tommo’s storytelling.

  ‘Then call them. Please. But it’s got to be for you. Not for me, not Lottie, but for you. You have to do it for yourself.’

  ‘For sure. I think I know that now.’

  ‘I love you, Anthony, always remember that.’

  ‘And I love you too.’

  ‘Okay, mate. I’ll get off the phone and you get on it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Tommo, happy birthday for next week.’

  Tommo puts the phone down, takes a breath and then walks slowly across to the hallway and pulls on his trusted old walking boots. The sound of the ocean greets him as he opens the door and makes his way across the dunes to the beach belo
w. He looks from right to left, from Barwon Heads to the lighthouse, and realizes the beach is deserted and he is alone. As he walks across the sands he looks back to see his footsteps, fresh and new. He moves on a little way and then notices a darkened shape at the edge of the water. It is early morning and dawn is breaking. Getting closer, he sees the body of a pied cormorant. He leans down and picks up the small dead bird.

  ‘How did you get here, little fellow?’ he says quietly, holding the limp body in his cupped hands. ‘No one around to look after you, eh?’

  Tommo kneels on the soft sand. He gently places the bird to one side and begins digging a small shallow grave, the grains of sand collecting under his fingernails. Reverently he places the baby cormorant in the hollow, sprinkling a shower of sand over it until it is covered up and laid to rest. He stands up, the small mound at his feet. He pauses for a second and then walks off towards the headland.

  ‘Sure enough, it ain’t no skipping,’ he says – it’s his favourite phrase, used for the second time this day, but to no one in particular – ‘but while you’ve got a breath, you’re still in with a chance.’

  Tommo walks and feels at peace. He knows that things have a habit of turning out one way or another and that fretting and fussing makes precious little difference in the long run. There’s a north-westerly bringing the fresh morning air across the Bass Strait from Tasmania and the Antarctic beyond. As often happens on his solitary walks, the years roll back and figures from the past whoop and splash before him in the dunes and on the crashing waves. He sees himself and his brother wrestling in the sand: Anthony’s father was always the stronger, more determined. And over there are Anthony and Caitlin chasing each other across the shallow estuary of Barwon River, stumbling and falling in the knee-deep lagoon of the low tide.

  As Tommo climbs the rickety wooden steps to Barwon Head he sees a young couple standing on the narrow bridge down below. During the last weeks a dolphin has taken up residence in the river and they are hoping for a sight of a fin, or even a leap in the air. Tommo huffs and puffs his way to the top, where the wide panorama of the Strait opens up before him as he catches his breath. The waves crash in and he breathes deep, all eighty-five years of him. His eyes water in the wind and he blinks to clear his vision. There, big on the horizon, the ferry makes its way out of the rip of Port Phillip Bay en route to Devonport. The big red-and-white vessel full of the hopes and lives of a thousand people. Each, like Tommo’s solitary figure on the cliff-tops, doing the best with what they’ve got.