Now Showing (41 page)

Silence.

Daniel added, ‘I'm a friend of his.'

‘He doesn't live here.'

It could be true. Daniel said, ‘You couldn't give me his address, could you?

Silence again from the lady in the house. Only the indistinct mumble and periodic ping of a television game show.

Daniel said, ‘An address.'

Silence.

‘Then I'll leave.'

She said, ‘Tell Amis the restraining order means he can't send other people either. Okay?'

Shit, thought Daniel. This guy was scary. He said, ‘He didn't send me. Mrs Blyte? My name's Daniel Longo. Has he said anything – about me?'

‘Tell Amis I didn't say anything.'

‘I don't know where he is, Mrs Blyte.' Daniel looked at the door. It was solid wood with a deadlock. The place was a fortress.

The voice came again, ‘I'm going to call the police now.'

Timing. Timing is always important. Timing and props. Bags with airline tags. Wait for the cleaners. Everyone gone home but one young conch working too hard.

Sims marched him to filing, Amis filling his head so he has no chance to think. ‘The beauty of insurance, son, is that the secrets must be told. Every one put down and kept on file, for only us to see. Financial. Accidents. Health. Family histories. Every asset and every liability must be written down in the file. Why?'

‘They have to,' Sims had said. Good dog.

Amis looks up from the files. He's Hartley, from Sydney. See the bags. ‘They have to write it down or we won't pay should the worst of the worst happen. They have to volunteer their secrets.'

Sims nods. He wants to finish his other work. He wants to go to the pub. Possibly a young wife.

Amis chooses to bore him an appropriate amount. ‘But you have to be able to read them, Sims, or there's really no point is there?'

‘Ah, no. Mr Hartley?'

Amis sighs. Long-suffering. Patient senior of the firm. ‘Look at the Longo file again. His father's death.'

Amis points.

Sims reads, ‘No suspicious circumstances.'

‘Which means?'

‘Suicide.'

‘Now down here buried in family medical history.'

Sims flails, but is a trier. ‘His father had nervous breakdowns?'

‘So this fellow Danilo's father was as mad as a cut snake and he offed himself, and we insure the son to the hilt. Does he sound like a particularly good risk to you, Sims?'

‘Ah, no sir.'

‘No. He's trying to push up his fire cover. An old property waiting to be “an insurance job”.'

‘Oh,' says Sims battling to show intelligent interest.

Amis throws him a bone. ‘Who's your IC?'

‘Ah, Mr Chang.' Confusion. ‘Shouldn't you know?' forming somewhere in his brain, sluggishly.

Amis gets up. ‘I have to head back to Sydney, now. Take this to Chang. I want
you
to make sure this file is gone over with a fine toothcomb. You got that?'

‘Yes, Mr Hartley.' Smiles. Maybe a feather. Maybe an inside track.

Amis up. Grabbing his bags, other fish to fry. ‘These files are a gift son. If people are going to give us their secrets, we don't want to waste them.' Pat on the shoulder.

Helen sat at the kitchen table working on the drawings for the old hotel, a CD of Amy Winehouse playing. She was obviously feeling maudlin. If she got onto Carol King, or a third glass of wine, she'd be singing out loud. She had waited for Daniel but had finally eaten her dinner.

The kids had not settled well. They'd both demanded to go out one more time to talk to Haggis before bed. Frances referred to the Grumpy Man and it had taken time to winkle out that she meant the slightly off-putting insurance salesman. Helen had explained about
the formal tone of funerals, but Frances set her jaw in the way she had and that was that.

The doorbell chimed and it made her jump. It was late. Maybe it was Mr Hosey from next door, wondering about the fence.

It was Brian, in sports gear.

‘Hello. What are you doing here?'

Brian wandered into the house, looking into Daniel's study and into the lounge room.

Helen shut the front door and followed Brian as he went into the kitchen. He had always made himself at home in the new house. She wondered if this was about the wedding.

Brian stood at the counter.

Helen said, ‘Tea?'

‘Daniel?'

‘Well, I won't ask you the same thing.' She put the kettle on.

Brian saw the drawings and went over to the table. ‘Rockingham?'

‘Oh, no. I'm fiddling with ideas for the hotel.'

Brian looked aghast. He said, ‘You're not dumping Hearth & Home to get into the old hotel are you?'

‘What!' She went to the drawings. ‘No. These aren't for Daniel. They're for me. A little hobby, like watercolours or studying literature at university.'

He didn't smile, possibly didn't get the joke. He lifted drawings, suspiciously.

Helen said, ‘Brian, are you on your way to or from a sport?'

‘Indoor cricket. Not going.'

‘Good.' Helen headed to the lounge room, calling, ‘You can get sweaty and help me move these things.'

She had moved what she could to the walls but didn't want to drag the sofas on the carpet. She went to an end of one of the three-seaters. One of the things she'd found out about men and boys, there was no difference, was that if you wanted them to talk about what was bothering them, you had to give them a physical activity.

Brian went to the other end of the couch.

‘To your left. Against the wall.'

They moved the couch.

Brian looked at the stick that the kids had labelled
Xmas Tree.
He said, ‘Nice Christmas twig.'

‘We're going through a minimalist period.'

They moved the other couch and Brian sat on it, but still wasn't ready to share.

She went to the cupboard. Someone had given Daniel a bottle of scotch for Christmas not knowing he never drank. She waved it and Brian nodded. She went to the kitchen for glasses and ice. Another thing she'd discovered about most men apart from Daniel was that liquor loosened lips. It occurred to her that she might already be tipsy.

She went back into the lounge room and gave Brian one of the drinks. She sat next to him and said, ‘So what makes you think Daniel would dump Hearth & Home – the most important thing in his whole life?'

‘No, you're right. Pure panic. It's this emergency meeting with Sheridan tomorrow.'

Helen nodded as though she knew things.

‘And with everything else that's going on, and now him disappearing all day.'

Helen had not been able to get him either. She'd assumed he was with Brian. She felt she should make an excuse, but had too little to go on.

Brian said, ‘Helen, what's this about an offensive? Who does he suspect? For that matter, what does he suspect?'

Helen had assumed Brian knew what this was about.

Brian seemed to misinterpret her silence for reticence. He sat forward, imploring. ‘I know he saw the suppliers yesterday, but what's he doing today? He didn't go and see Sheridan did he? Tell me he didn't do that?'

‘I think it might be time to make things clear, Brian. I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Not a single word.'

Brian blinked at her, his mouth hanging open.

It hurt, Brian's assumption that Daniel would tell her, his incomprehension that Daniel hadn't. Daniel told her nothing. Brian was still looking aghast. She smiled, hoping she seemed lighthearted, but looking at his face she suspected it came off as trying to seem brave which meant her smile made her look pathetic.

Daniel had no plan. He'd waited in his car for Blyte to appear. Lights went on and off in the house and finally stayed off. It was after midnight when he gave up. He supposed he could scrounge up another few hundred dollars and go back to D-fence with the name and address. It still didn't answer who might be employing Blyte.

Daniel registered the YMCA Christmas tree stall after he'd driven past it on his way home and U-turned across the highway. It had been set up in the car park of a library. Sports fields lay empty behind. The trees were padlocked behind a temporary wire mesh fence, ready for the next day. It was long closed.

Daniel sat in the car park and gulped down the dregs of some Red Bull. He tossed the empty can into the back of his ute and grabbed a crow bar and wrenched open the lock.

Helen woke to scraping noises. She was on the couch in the lounge room. Haggis was scratching at the back fence. She heard it again but woke more fully. There was no Haggis. It was a day to the shower, then the wedding and Christmas. She had the start of a headache.

The lights were still on in the kitchen and she couldn't see outside. She heard a thump at the back door.

‘Who's there?' she called.

There was a whooshing scrape and then a bump at the back door.

Helen looked to the rack of knives on the counter.

A key went into the back door.

‘Daniel?'

The door swung open and Daniel stumbled in backwards, dragging a large pine tree.

‘I got it,' he said proudly, dragging it like a fish he'd hunted and brought back to the cave. He tugged it and hauled it two-handed through the doorway so the branches spread, knocking the kitchen table back, chairs clattering. Some of her sketches spilled from where Brian had left them. ‘I got it,' he said again, dragging it towards the lounge room.

He left a trail of pine leaves in his wake. Helen managed to get past
him before the tree reached the vase in the hall. She grabbed it up as the tree swept past, knocking over the stand.

Helen listened upstairs but the kids hadn't stirred. The scraping stopped and Helen went in, still carrying the vase of gerberas.

Daniel stood panting as he looked at the Christmas tree covering the whole floor of the lounge. It must have been three or four metres tall.

‘The biggest one they had.'

His arms and face were covered in little red pricks from the pine needles. He had a huge bruise on his cheek. It was blue and puffy.

He saw her looking and said, ‘Oh. In the wars again. The good news is that my shoulder feels pretty good.'

Helen put the vase on the table and found her drink on the floor under pine branches. The ice had melted but it tasted sweet.

He looked at the couches and to her drink. ‘What's going on?'

‘Exactly,' she said. ‘What's going on?' Brian had told her about the bank and the suppliers and the credit ratings and the burglary and she'd told Brian about the fence and the blue Land Cruiser.

He picked a sheet of paper from a branch of the tree. It was crushed and torn at the edge. ‘What's this?'

One of her sketches. ‘Nothing. Embroidery. No, the first tree decoration.'

‘Have you been drinking?'

He looked over to the mantel where Brian's glass was. His eyes kept darting around the room as though finally registering all the changes to the furniture.

‘Brian was here,' she said.

He blinked as he looked down at the tree.

She wanted to go to him and hug him but the tree filled the floor between them. She stepped as far as she could though. ‘Dan, I had no idea about all you've been going through. It's awful.'

‘Can we talk about it in the morning?'

‘It's one a.m. or something so it is morning, technically.'

He looked at her, confused.

‘I'm sorry. That sounded bitchy. I waited up so we could talk.'

‘I just need to sort it out. Come up with a plan.'

‘Maybe I can help.'

‘No, I'll fix it.'

‘I'm worried.'

‘Don't.'

‘Will you tell me what's happening?'

She'd gone out of focus for him again, she could tell. He looked into the far distance and she couldn't tell what he was seeing. He looked bewildered. Still without seeing her, he said, ‘It's okay, Helen. All good. I need to do the tree.'

‘Well, messages. You've got a meeting with Sheridan tomorrow. You need to see one of the suppliers again. The dog is dead. And buried by a passing stranger. Samuel has passed his next level at swimming. Oh, and Brian wants me to convince you to stop being paranoid.' She stopped herself from saying, I didn't know Brian even knew about your father. Instead she said, ‘There. Do I do that as well as Chantel?' She left the lounge room. She closed the back door and looked at the wreckage of the kitchen. Fuck it. She'd do it in the morning. Maybe she wouldn't do it, ever. Maybe she'd go on holidays.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't come up and say sorry. He didn't come up at all.

Daniel needed sleep but couldn't go to bed because Helen would be waiting for him and he didn't have any answers for her. He couldn't say don't worry anymore because he didn't know what the problem was and so he couldn't fix it. He needed sleep because he needed to meet with Sheridan in the morning. And find out which supplier had cold feet again. And to raise cash to find Amis Blyte.

He pushed the base of the tree's stump into the tub he'd placed in the window a few days before. Weeks? He went to the other end and he tried to hoist up the tree. The needles stung. He had to close his eyes. He grabbed at the outer branches but they twisted and broke. He had to slide his hands deep into the thing to find stronger wood. He pushed, resting most of the thing on his good shoulder. It scraped and dug as he pushed it up. He got halfway when it spun and twisted off his shoulder bouncing off the couch and back onto the floor.

He stood panting. It had sounded like rice spilling. He wiped his face and found bits of blood on his hands. He bent and grabbed a branch and dragged at it but it simply slid towards his feet. He went to the thinner end again and pushed it up. He lifted and turned so his back was into the tree. He backed it up towards the corner and into the bay window. It started to slide. He turned with it and tried to catch it but his shoulder pulled again, hurt. A branch flicked his eyes. He wrestled. Pushed himself at it. His boot stepped onto one of the lower branches. It toppled at him. He slipped back and fell, the pine tree coming with him.