The Brush-Off

by Shane Maloney

  Unless somebody saw me soon, I’d be spending the rest of my life on my knees before Wendy with gravel rash on my forehead. No, to do that I’d have to get down first. I didn’t even have a cigarette to console me. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to get my tentacle up to my beak to inhale. I decided I had better prospects at floor level, banging on one of the doors.

  To descend from my perch, I had to turn around, press my back to the wall, and execute a controlled slide. Controlled being the key word. Halfway down, the foot of one of the stilts caught in a snarl of chicken wire lying beside the work bench. Off balance, I pitched forward. Suddenly, I was standing upright, clear of the wall, with no way of maintaining my balance but by taking the next step. Then the next. Then the next.

  I was stilt-walking. Look Mum, no hands. No place to go, either. Arms helicoptering madly through the air, I tottered forward—towards the rim of the empty pool.

  Then Willy rose and swallowed me whole. One moment I was looking down at him from a great height. The next I was in his belly, staring up at a gaping hole in his back. There was a sharp but momentary pain in my left ear. Plunging over the edge, I had crashed straight through the whale’s thin fibreglass shell. Luckily, Oscar’s copious contents helped break my fall. I had landed on a pile of stuffed squid. I was winded, upside-down and my legs were twisted together, but otherwise I was intact. Willy, for his part, was now the only whale in captivity with a sunroof.

  All but hysterical with relief, I jettisoned my ludicrous padding and crawled out the whale’s backside. I could have been killed. I was lucky to be alive.

  I clambered out of the pool and put on my trousers and shoes. My hands were palpitating so wildly I could barely tie the laces. I breathed deeply to calm down and gave myself a quick once-over. No broken bones, but my explosion through Willy’s carapace had done something to my ear. It was bleeding profusely.

  I found a crumpled rag and clutched it to my earhole. Then I picked up the iron pipe and began bashing the fire door. I guess I must have lost it there for a while. I was stir crazy. Cabin fever had me in its grip. I may have even been howling. I wanted out and if need be I’d bludgeon my way through three inches of steel plate. I bashed until my arm went numb and bells rang in my brain.

  Eventually, worn out, I collapsed against the door. Through the metal, I heard the grind of a bolt being drawn. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ a woman’s voice was saying, irritably. ‘Take it easy.’

  The door swung backwards to reveal Salina Fleet.

  But not the Sal I’d been fumbling in the forget-me-nots. Nor the freaked-out Salina lit by the ambulance light at the moat. This Salina was very sober and very proper. A woman who had made up her mind about something. Gidget was gone. This Salina wore calf-length culottes, a fawn blouse and black button earrings, not a hair out of place. This Salina was so composed she could have read the Channel 10 news.

  She took a step backwards. In my panting, dishevelled state, I must have been quite a sight. And not a welcome one. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Snooping through your deceased boyfriend’s personal effects did not, somehow, seem like the appropriate answer. Already it was clear that what had occurred between us last night was ancient history, a dead letter. The fire was well and truly out. Our little nocturnal nature ramble was a temporary lapse to which neither of us would again refer. Nothing had happened. Nothing ever would.

  ‘The minister wants a report,’ I said, self-importantly. ‘On under-utilised Arts Ministry facilities.’ Hand pressed to ear, I must have looked like a harmonising Bee Gee. ‘I was sent on a tour of inspection. A tenant got hostile and locked me in. You didn’t see him, did you? A guy with an armful of violins.’

  Salina shook her head, and cocked it sideways in disbelief. To think, her eyes seemed to say, I nearly took this lunatic to bed.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. The pretence begun, I had no option but to continue. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She cast her gaze downwards and adopted a sombre tone. ‘Marcus’s studio is upstairs.’

  I nodded understandingly and stepped forward, moving us onward from the doorway. ‘He was the one at the exhibition last night, on the table, wasn’t he?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise, I mean…’

  She maintained her aloof solemnity. ‘No need to apologise. You weren’t to know.’

  ‘I mean I’m sorry about Marcus,’ I said, gently correcting her. As far as I knew, I didn’t have anything to apologise for.

  ‘Thank you.’ She spoke formally, bowing her head slightly. Rehearsing, I realised, the role of the grieving widow graciously accepting condolences.

  ‘It was on the radio. You were mentioned, too.’

  ‘Ah.’ This information did not entirely displease her. ‘So soon?’

  She turned and began back up the stairs, as if trying to put an interruption behind her. She was carrying a folio case, the sort art students and advertising types use. Evidently she had just arrived at the YMCA and my banging had distracted her from her objective. When we reached the ground floor corridor, she stopped at the open door, anticipating my departure. Up in the harsher light, there was a fragility to her. She’d probably got even less sleep than me. The strain was showing. I reached over and touched her arm. ‘You okay?’

  She jerked away, then softened. ‘I’m fine. Really I am.’ She squeezed out a pained little smile.

  I didn’t want her thinking I was coming on to her. We stood uncomfortably in the doorway, each waiting for the other to move. I could feel her impatience growing. ‘Here to collect some personal things, are you?’ I asked.

  She nodded, relieved at the explanation. At the same time, she shrugged the fact into wounded insignificance, as though I was trampling on a small private grief.

  It was 10.30. That gave me just enough time to get to Parliament House to meet Agnelli. But not with a bloodied rag gripped to my auditory apparatus. I needed water and a mirror and the only place I knew for sure I’d find them was Marcus Taylor’s room. ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ I said. ‘The artists’ studios are on the third floor, aren’t they?’ I started up the stairs. ‘According to the board at the front door.’

  Helping myself to the dead boyfriend’s personal facilities was not, I knew, the most sensitive move possible. On the other hand, all this holier-than-thou stuff was beginning to rankle. I’d be buggered if I was going to be made to feel like the guilty party here.

  ‘No. Don’t.’ Salina dashed after me. ‘I’ll be okay, really,’ she protested.

  The door of Marcus Taylor’s bedroom sat open to the corridor. ‘This it?’ I said. I headed directly for the small enamel basin. Drying blood caked my ear but a little water confirmed that the damage was only skin deep. My eyes were sinkholes and I had the complexion of a piece of candied pineapple.

  Over my shoulder in the mirror, I saw Salina come in and glance around anxiously. As far as I could see, there was no evidence of feminine habitation in the place. For rough-and-ready accommodation, the joint had a certain masculine sufficiency. But I couldn’t imagine a woman here. A forest floor was one thing, but this was the pits.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ I said. The tin cabinet behind the mirror held shaving gear, out-of-date antibiotics, Dettol, cotton-wool, a roll of adhesive bandage. Salina laid the folio case flat on the futon bed. ‘Just a few private effects, is it?’

  For some reason, she resented this remark. ‘Now that Marcus is dead,’ she said, defensively, ‘people will be curious about his work. The least I can do is see that it is presented to the world in a favourable light.’

  Without turning, I held my hands up in a placatory gesture. ‘Hey,’ I agreed. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’ The sharp bite of antiseptic brought tears to my eyes.

  Suddenly, all of Salina’s freshly cultivated reserve was gone. She slumped down on the edge of the bed and began tearing the wrapper off a pack of cigarettes. ‘I should have seen it coming,’ she said, her voice thick with self-recrim
ination. ‘Marcus was so depressed and moody lately, drinking a lot, complaining that everyone was against him. I did what I could, even used my influence to get him a grant, but it didn’t make any difference. You saw what he was like last night. I told him I was sick of his self-indulgence. Now I keep thinking that’s what pushed him over the edge. It’s all my fault.’

  Black smudges ringed her eyes. Exhaustion and rattiness engulfed both of us. She lit a cigarette, sucked at it hungrily, openly trawling for sympathy. Considering what had almost happened between us, I owed her that much.

  Tearing the adhesive tape with my teeth, I patched my ear as best I could. Then, compelled by a weariness as irresistible as gravity, I sank down on the other side of the bed. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it was an accident. He was pretty drunk. He could have fallen in. Perhaps he didn’t mean to kill himself.’

  She tried without success to make her bottom lip quiver. ‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly. ‘It was definitely suicide. The police showed me a note he left, asked me to identify the handwriting. It was definitely his. His style, too. That litany of complaints. I told them I thought he was probably a manic depressive. He certainly had a tendency to self-dramatisation. That’s why I didn’t take any particular notice last night. More of the usual crap, I thought. Told him I’d had enough, it was over between us.’

  I helped myself to one of her cigarettes, drawing sustenance from it, oblivious to the vile taste. A scarifying sunlight poured in the window, the window at which Taylor must have conceived his own death, his artistic auto-da-fé. It was a strange feeling, sitting there amid the scant domesticity of a dead man I had never really met.

  ‘He was illegitimate, you know,’ Salina blurted, offering the fact as if in mitigation. ‘A lot of unresolved emotional trauma bubbling away. And his work. He felt the rejection of his work deeply.’

  She was veering dangerously close to the maudlin. I sensed that, now the facade was down, she’d keep talking until she got it all out. Not that I was insensitive or anything, but my time was not entirely my own. If I didn’t start disengaging, I’d be there all day.

  ‘Forget the souvenirs.’ A few scraps of paper weren’t worth the aggravation. What she needed was to go home and sleep. ‘Come back another time.’ Grinding my fag underfoot, I hauled myself into the vertical and held out my hand.

  Salina remained where she was. She shook her head. ‘You’ve been sweet,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone.’

  I’m not an entirely insensitive person. I nodded and turned to leave, stepping towards the curtain covering the hole into the studio. ‘I’ll go this way.’

  Sal was on her feet in a flash, interposing herself between me and the curtain. ‘I feel so bad,’ she said. ‘About last night.’

  She stood very close and put her hand on my arm. Sliding it downwards, she found my hand and squeezed it. Then her head was against my chest, looking upwards into my eyes. Her body moulded itself to mine. She sighed deeply.

  Her change of mood was abrupt and disconcerting. But, like I said, I’m not an entirely insensitive guy. I put my arms around her.

  Her hand snaked up my back. She stood on tiptoes and pressed the back of my head down towards her closing eyes and opening lips. I kissed her. Compassionately at first. Then, at her insistence, the other way.

  Then she peeped and I could see it in her eyes. It wasn’t me that Salina desired. Nor was it my pity. She wanted my complicity. Complicity in what, I couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, I didn’t want any part of it. I prefer to save my cynicism for politics.

  Putting my hands gently on her shoulders, I prised my face free. Salina stared up, not comprehending. ‘It’s okay,’ she reassured me. ‘My relationship with Marcus was all but over anyway. We weren’t even sleeping together. Hadn’t been for months.’

  The last thing I wanted was the sordid details. I took a step backwards. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, sweeping the curtain aside. ‘Make sure you get everything before you go.’

  I don’t know why I said it. Taylor’s lonely death, his relationship with Salina, had nothing to do with me. But my remark wasn’t just sanctimonious. It was superfluous. There was nothing for her to get. The paintings that were strewn about Taylor’s studio in such ill-ordered profusion just an hour before were gone, stripped off their stretchers or roughly cut from their frames. The easel in the middle of the room was empty, the suburban dream house vanished. While I’d been downstairs impersonating a seafood dinner, someone had cleaned the place out.

  Salina stared at the looted room. On her face was the same appalled expression with which she had responded to Taylor’s drunken speech at the Centre for Modern Art.

  I didn’t have the time, the energy or the inclination to keep up with Salina Fleet’s emotional gymnastics. Stepping around the discarded struts of timber and upended jars of brushes, I continued into the hallway and down the stairs.

  Marcus Taylor’s work, it seemed, was finally in demand. Suicide was beginning to look like the smartest career move he ever made.

  ‘It’s about time!’

  Agnelli cleared a pile of briefing papers off the back seat of the Fairlane and made room for me. We were due to meet at eleven. It was 11.09. Under the circumstances, I thought I’d done well.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, as I finished giving Alan the address of Karlin’s brunch and slid into the back seat. ‘What happened to your ear? You look like Vincent bloody Van Gogh.’ I wasn’t going to begin to answer a remark like that.

  And Agnelli didn’t really want to discuss my aural health. His own welfare was preying on his mind. Ministerial impatience suffused the car’s interior like oxygen in a bell jar. ‘Those journos have been on the blower again. Now they’re talking about allegations of corruption in the arts bureaucracy.’

  We glided out the back gate of Parliament House and Alan turned the Fairlane towards West Melbourne. ‘Those with their hands on the levers of power are the most corrupt of all,’ I quoted.

  ‘Who?’ said Agnelli. ‘What?’

  ‘I think I’ve got it right.’ I fished my scrawled copy of Taylor’s note from my pocket.

  Agnelli seized it, avid for the worst. A policy crisis, accusations of pork barrelling, being caught misleading parliament, these he could take in his stride. They were but grist to the mill of everyday politics. But a suicide note, a city landmark, a potential media feeding-frenzy—this was a volatile combination. Agnelli’s most defensive political instincts were aroused. His lips moved as he read.

  ‘This is the sort of story the press are going to milk for every possible angle,’ I said. ‘They’re just rattling your cage, trying for a reaction, hoping to drum up a political angle where there isn’t one.’

  Agnelli corrugated his brow and peered down at the note as though he’d been dealt a very bad hand in Scrabble. ‘This is garbage. Who is this guy anyway?’

  ‘An unemployed artist,’ I said. ‘Possible psychiatric history.’ Salina called him a manic depressive. I should have pressed her for details. ‘We’ll know for sure in a couple of days. The guy was broke, depressed about his work and shit-faced drunk. There’s even a school of thought that the whole thing was an accident and the note just a circumstantial furphy. But given the location and the fact that he was a painter, a certain degree of media interest is inevitable. My bet is they’ll swarm in the direction of the most obvious cliché—anguished artist dies of broken heart, his talent unrecognised in life.’ Particularly with the nudge in that direction that Salina Fleet was already giving them. ‘The whole thing will have blown over by this time next week.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Agnelli’s brow unfurrowed slightly. ‘But keep a close eye on it anyway. This sort of drivel is tabloid heaven.’

  ‘If absolutely necessary,’ I tossed in the clincher, ‘we can discreetly let it be known that shortly before his death Taylor was allocated a small but generous Arts Ministry grant.’

  A foxy light came into Agnel
li’s eyes. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’

  The idea that I was being devious was doing wonders for Agnelli’s morale. ‘And to think I had reservations about offering you this job,’ he muttered.

  While I pondered that point, he moved on to the topic of our imminent destination. ‘So what about this Max Karlin? The Jew from Central Casting, eh?’ Two years in Ethnic Affairs had done nothing for Angelo’s rougher edges.

  ‘I met him briefly last night,’ I said. ‘Quite the philanthropist apparently.’ This was intended as a fairly obvious prompt for Agnelli to come clean about his self-appointed fund-raising role. It didn’t work. He kept his cards pressed silently to his chest. ‘I told him how delighted you’d be to meet such a prominent contributor to the public good,’ I tried.

  ‘And so I will be.’ Agnelli remained impenetrably bland. ‘Better give me my starting orders.’

  Madness, I told myself, sheer insanity. Here I was, stage-managing an encounter between a minister in an increasingly fragile government, a man to whom I owed my employment and my loyalty, and a wealthy businessman about whom I knew next to nothing. All with no better objective than having my fears confirmed that Agnelli was planning a new career as a bag-man.

  ‘Essentially this is just a low-key meet-and-mingle,’ I told him. ‘Karlin is something of an art collector and the Centre for Modern Art has recently copped a fairly decent Arts Ministry grant to buy one of his pictures. Lloyd Eastlake, who chairs the CMA, is keen to see that the government gets its share of the credit. Understandably so, since he was also on the Arts Ministry committee that recommended the purchase.’

  Eastlake’s name was another obvious cue, a little reminder to Agnelli that he had not yet told me about the threesome in his office the previous afternoon. If Angelo wanted to limit my role to strictly arts matters, that was his prerogative. He was the minister. He was perfectly entitled to make all the unwise decisions he liked. But the least he could do was take me into his confidence.