Who Sings for Lu? (7 page)

That alarmed her. ‘I might not want it. Honestly. Think how far apart that would make me from my peers.’

‘You’ll change your mind in the next few years.’

‘Maybe I will. But right now the thought of getting money that I haven’t earned, from a father who brought us up to know there’s no free lunch — no free anything. Really, Dad.’

‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ He sounded lame.

‘I think Katie will change, too. She’ll grow into a real sweetie and be responsible.’

‘You really think so?’ They pulled up outside the campus. ‘I do worry about her.’

Anna got out, went round to her father’s side: he had the window down for her. ‘Then don’t worry. She’s a difficult kid. I wasn’t.
Vive la différence
. Thanks for lunch.’ She kissed him goodbye. ‘See you at breakfast.’

‘Do you want to catch a cab over?’

‘No. The train is quicker. I’ll walk up from Circular Quay. Bye.’

She watched the sleek black vehicle glide away, hoping she had it wrong that he had a mistress, would soon be in a lover’s arms.

Then the malevolent face of that young woman rose up like a forgotten film image.

The girl was very attractive, in a raw sort of way. Dark hair, couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes for what they were expressing, maybe green, wearing jeans and an everyday top — more a teeshirt — and Nike sneakers.

Was the look, as her father said, just envy? Anna shrugged it away: didn’t matter. Nor did her father’s possible infidelity. She had her own life, her own situation. But it would be no skin off his nose to book her a room at the hotel, even if it did cost five hundred a night, an exception to her rule of frugality if only to keep her father faithful. Poor Mum — poor
undynamic
Mum, always with her ship on the same even keel, never rocking or changing speed. Anna never wanted to be like her, much as she adored her. You had to have passion, moments of explosiveness even, of ranting about a piece of music that turned you on, expressing a passionate opinion on some moral or political issue. Sexually expressive — yes! One shot at this life and Anna was going to make the most of it.

A food-lover with, thank God, self-discipline, she thought of the chilli and garlic mud crab cooked by Tee, the fish-shop owner. She could presume she’d never see the malevolent woman again at the fish market, but if she did perhaps a word to her might be in order. She could ask what her problem was. No, that would be provocative. A woman to woman approach: might be she was depressed, had recently lost someone close, been dumped by a boyfriend she thought walked on water and Anna could tell her,
No man does. They all boil down to sex, even at my age I know that. ‘Look at the view.’ ‘Oh yes, that’s so nice.’ With his hand creeping up your leg. Men.

Wondering if the woman didn’t have one of those awful composite names like Shalia-Mae or, worse, Fantasia, like out of an escort girl ad.

Oh, forget about her, Anna. Got better things to think about.

Kept seeing that girl in her mind. So unfair that someone could get it all, life’s blessings and others not anything. Shifting the pity to the streeties under the overpass, in their nooks and crannies throughout Woolloomooloo: what did life give them? Oh, only alcoholism, weakness of character, fears they couldn’t overcome, not even basic qualities enough to make a living, something in their make-up they couldn’t fit anywhere. When a rich bitch Paris Sydney Hilton didn’t know she’d got the lot.

Lu for once feeling sorry for herself, her lot in life, even when she’d long accepted it. Uncle Rick, well, his turn was coming. She had in her mind a vague idea of revenge, this certainty that she had to get him back, just had to. Somehow. Some day.

She wondered what the girl’s name was. Thought of rich girls at her high school in Vaucluse: Sarah and Kate and Rachel, Becky for Rebecca, Virginia — now that was a lovely name — Emma, Rosie. Kept their names within this select few even if every one was so predictable. For the period she and Sarah were close, what with Sarah going on how ‘striking’ she was — well, a girl actually started to believe it.
I’m striking. Means I’m beautiful
. Till Rick’s next instalment on how ‘ugly’ she was.

Turning up at the rail overpass just on dusk, when the homeless had come out like tired old reptiles soaking up the last of the sun, curled up
in sleeping bags, under large cardboard cartons, old blankets, talking their own reptilian language, slugging back grog, pulling at cigarettes like hard tokes on a bong, with a strange defiance, as if the life and fight hadn’t gone out of them after all, in constant outbursts of swearing and adamant statements and animated gestures. A train thundering right over the top.

Lu and Jay over from buying ciggies at Nick’s Till Midnight.

‘Guys, this is an old mate back from Brizzie,’ Bron introduced. ‘Deano. Deano Clark.’ Of a wiry guy with tight curly hair, like a Dago’s, till Bronson said the surname. ‘Deano, this is Jay. And Lu.’

Introducing someone as a friend meant the dude was suitable to run with the tight little group. First thought Lu got: this guy was troubled, which might make him dangerous, not flash temper like Bron or a mean knife-hand like Jay when he had to. Just someone if you crossed him — no, hurt him — you’d regret it, the hurt he’d give back in double dosage. Something vulnerable about him too, and Bron had better understand the clan rule: no shit gets in. No infected beings. No virus. Vulnerable could mean infected.

Lu said, ‘Brisbane, eh? What were you doing up there?’

‘Hanging out, you know?’

‘No. Why I asked.’

‘Bit of this and that.’

‘How much this, how much that?’ Jay wanted to know.

‘Give the bloke a break,’ Bron defended. ‘He’s still swatting off the giant Queensland flies. Getting over one of them cane toads having a chunk of him while he slept.’

‘Didn’t know even their frogs had teeth,’ Jay said. ‘Or maybe he was in the outback?’

‘Mate, I’m no blackfella. Not that I got nothing against them,’ Deano said, and Lu saw those brows knit together. ‘But I wasn’t in the queue when Kevin Rudd said sorry.’

A bit of a wit mentioning the Prime Minister, his official apology to the Aboriginal people for the oppression and injustices they’d suffered. Said this Deano had a brain, to Lu it did.

‘Just ended up in Brizzie. Like, wandered up there. Left when I was fifteen, didn’t I.’

‘Now you’re back,’ said Lu. ‘’Bout six, seven years later.’ She figured his age similar to theirs. ‘To home round the corner, if you know Bron. Makes you a Cross boy, right?’

Bron shifted a bit uncomfortably at his pals giving Deano the once over.

‘Like I said, I been away, lost touch.’ Deano looked at Jay first then at Lu. ‘That’s all the Cross is now, a fuckin’ junkie graveyard.’

Which kind of relaxed them a bit, though he might have been coached by Bron on that.

‘Came into a bit of dough,’ Deano said. ‘Thought I might buy you guys a beer up at the Old Fitzroy, get to know you.’

Not so much the invitation put her back on her heels as realisation they never actually went to pubs. They bought from liquor stores and drank — well Lu not much — in one of the many abandoned buildings on their circuit, or in little spots round the hood where people left them alone, including the cops, as they weren’t into drugs or much more than petty crime, and Lu excluded from that, she had a job.

Yet Lu had once gone into the Old Fitzroy, saw the open door at the bottom of the three-level pub further up this same street, popped her head in. A kind voice said softly, ‘Hey. Come on in, no charge, it’s halfway through.’ What, a movie?

Groped her way to a seat in the tiny tiered black-painted gloom, hit by the most fragrant perfume and different ones, couldn’t see any faces, just a whole lot of shapes. And down there, on the stage, this lone woman under a spotlight with blackness all around. Sheez. What was this? A play? In Woollo? Though she had heard they had a theatre at the pub. Just hadn’t meant anything.

The woman’s voice like from a dream except she was real, nice looking, acting and yet she wasn’t. Her voice rang out, it went quiet, she sobbed, buried her face in her hands. Said something about ‘undue suffering’ in a voice that seemed to ring down from the ceiling, even from the heavens. Down on the stage a person and yet the way she was lit she seemed to define something else, something more.

She made this kind of speech, the actress, to a brother who was crippled and she wanting him to die to end his suffering; of love so great for him she wanted death for her own brother.

Seventeen Lu was then. Well hardened to life and yet there she was — thank God it was dark when she stumbled out — in such a state she could barely contain the sobbing from turning into hysterical. But that was then. And she’d never been back since.

‘What,’ she said now to Bron’s mate, ‘your old aunty died and left you a fortune?’ Close to sneering — no one was enticing her or Jay with free drinks. ‘’Spose you’re gonna tell us she lived in America?’

‘Nah. Stole it,’ Deano said. ‘Off a tourist lying drunk in the street. I think he was English. Knew he was gonna drop so followed him till he did. Nine hundred in his wallet. I owed people and pay rent at a big crash pad in the Cross. Got a couple hundie left over.’

‘The Cross,’ Lu said. ‘Like we said, your hood.’ The bloke might be a virus, start off nothing wrong then whammo. They’d all be sick. But he didn’t have sly eyes, he looked right at you.

They settled for six packs of ready-mixed bourbon and Coke, vodka and orange, for the hit better than beer for the guys, Lu indifferent; went up to an abandoned business premises behind William Street, got in by walking over some parked garbage skips and by a not very well secured rear door. Jay had candles; it was pitch black inside.

Under the scrutiny of fluttering candlelight, the newcomer fielded every question put in the air, took every nasty and unexpected tackle, even the big-hit questions, like a good rugby league player. Plied with his own purchased drink to see if he went on the turn when pissed. He hardly even slurred.

A few more bonding sessions like this and Deano the leano was in, one of the group, a mate.

Sure, he’d move in with Jay and Bron, no worries. Meant they could take the whole upstairs, Deano and Bron could share the main room, Jay move into the storage room. Not as if there were job hours to juggle the sleeping arrangement, all three drew the unemployment, and sometimes they slept wherever they ended up, in summer they did.

Big Sandy Tulloch was waiting at the hotel, his enormous bulk of too much good living, big frame on a French period sofa, when Riley knew it was used to sprawling out on a modern leather one. Tulloch had them all over his plush offices. In his splendid Vaucluse house.

He hefted his weight up at Riley walking in. ‘You’re late, old mate.’

Shoved out a giant paw that crushed — or tried to — Riley’s hand, but he knew Sandy’s tricks. Riley ready with his own powerful handshake as it would be from years working with difficult animals ten times stronger than a man, not to mention the endless physical work, from hand-driving post holes to helping heft the weight of a sick animal. He let Sandy grumble about not being able to smoke a cigar, the damn do-gooders spoiling all the doers’ lives. Riley detested smoking, if less so cigars as the aroma was rather pleasant.

‘What’s the grub like here?’

Of a five-star hotel? You want ‘grub’ go to a kebab shop.
‘Five star, Sandy,’ he said.

‘Didn’t ask about its astronomy. And I’ve seen better.’ Sandy looked around imperiously, the son of a very rich man who’d inherited his dad’s money — all those hundreds of millions.

‘So have I but it has the personal touch.’

‘So does everything if you throw money at it.’

‘I’m fine for lunch. Had prawns and fries with my daughter down at the fish market.’

‘You’ll eat a little something to keep me company. It’s been a whole three hours since I had a large cooked breakfast,’ Tulloch grinned. ‘Big man’s curse: I want it all.’ Gave Riley a strange look before saying, ‘Funny, when you can buy it all it’s just not the same.’

‘My grandfather used to say, always appreciate the simple things and consider the rest bollocks.’

‘You didn’t strike me as a man of simple tastes.’ The look sly and knowing this time. ‘Your daughter, the real knock-out? The kid who lives in Sydney? I thought I spotted her at traffic lights near here a few weeks ago.’

‘You probably did. She’s studying at the Conservatorium of Music right across the road. Good memory you have.’

‘Mate, my office is up the street and how would anyone forget her? She sat opposite me at dinner at your house last time, remember? Couldn’t take my eyes off her — all respect.’

‘She didn’t mind and I didn’t see anything untoward.’ Enough in his tone to ask the question: would you?

Sandy had flown up in his private chopper to express an interest in buying another large breeding property in the Widden Valley: Riley could manage it as an equity partner. But Riley declined, too busy with his own operation. He had bred lots of horses for Tulloch senior, quite a few pretty successful. Then Sandy had upped the ante on his father’s investment out of sheer passion for the game. Yet still only one big stakes win though a lot of victories at minor meetings.

The quiet opulence of Sir Stamford’s restaurant, draped with heavy curtains, crystal chandeliers, this was old-school five-star. No other diners, being a Sunday and near to two o’clock. Sandy picked up the wine list. So he was paying, therefore he was after something.

The bottle he ordered was three-hundred bucks, which meant Riley had to help do justice to the vintage, when he didn’t want to be too affected by alcohol, not just now. Both approved the Jim Barry Armagh, a 1991. Riley thought it so good he’d order a bottle tonight, room service. To follow the Cristal champagne.

‘Cheers.’ Riley clinked glasses.

‘To life.’ Sandy clinked glasses again. ‘May the rewards always go to the bold.’ With a look of course. Which Riley did not respond to.

‘I bet you’re a womaniser from way back, grandson of an old bog Irish horse trader.’ Tulloch’s leer more amusing than offensive.

Lifting eyebrows in feigned indignation, Riley said, ‘Where did you get that idea? And I had no idea you knew my grandfather.’

‘My father did. And I got it from observation, gained in turn from my dad. Tullochs can look around corners, behind and under things. Get me?’

‘Remind me what this meeting is about?’

That just got Sandy laughing, leaned back in his chair, luckily a sturdy antique style of hardwood. A bit of banter about men and their sex drive compared with a woman’s, then Sandy said, ‘You know how I love my race horses? Well, I love one more than any other.’

‘They won’t sell, Sandy. I’ve put it to every syndicate member.’

‘Tell them to name their price.’ He took another healthy mouthful of wine, swirled it in his mouth, nodded and swallowed. The maitre d’ appeared from nowhere and topped Sandy’s glass up, Riley’s not requiring it.

‘You know how my old man made his fortune? He played hard and fair. Beat the unions by putting his workers on salary; worked their arses off but paid a fat bonus if the project reached or went beyond its profit target. When they brought it in under time he paid up to six months’ salary bonus. Ordinary folk will die for someone who treats them like that. And fuck the unions.’

Riley waiting for the point, and when it did not follow said, ‘Your father was a legend and I admired him.’

‘I notice you didn’t say liked.’ Tulloch junior grinned.

‘I don’t think he went out to be liked. Respected. Perhaps feared? This wine is superb.’

‘So is your stallion. My old dad didn’t give two shits about being loved or popular. I want some of him, Riles.’

Confirming to Riley that money alone was not enough to buy top winners and/or prestigious stud stallions. The syndicate he’d sold a third share to were people he had done business with over the years,
good men all, not friends as he didn’t allow others — men — to get too close. Their wealth or lack of it had nothing to do with Riley’s invitation. Respect did.

Still, over half a billion of wealth, inherited or no, makes for its own aura, so Riley was always going to hear the man out.

‘I’ll cut you in on a twenty-two-storey building I’m buying in Perth. Commercial property has plummeted along with the mining industry. But it always comes up. This building’s an absolute steal. Big law firm the anchor tenants. Lawyers never go out of business.’

Sandy’s pork belly arrived, and Riley’s braised duck.

‘I asked
sans
the potato, as I’ve had lunch,’ Riley pointed out. The waiter apologised, offered to take the plate away and rearrange the dish but Riley said no, not to worry about it.

‘What’s this “
sans
” business?’ Sandy looked almost aghast.

‘Something I picked up.’

‘
Sans
. That’s French, isn’t it? One race I hate: Frogs. Nation of socialists on a thirty-five-hour week. Can’t breathe without central government’s permission. Let the Krauts roll over them in two wars.’

Tulloch was not a man one easily warmed to. Big and gruff like his father was.

‘I like the French,’ Riley countered. ‘I have a couple of good clients who come out from Paris twice a year, won the Arc de Triomphe twice. They bring superb wines, and are good company. Cultured and yet the men are manly and there is none more feminine than a French woman.’

‘If you like them feminine,’ Sandy grunted with a mouthful of pork, noisy in the crunch of crackling. ‘Foreplay is the most overstated load of crap.’

‘Perpetuated by women journalists,’ Riley teased, ‘to convince men the rewards are there for those who are patient and considerate.’

‘Says the man who denied he was a player. I’ll pay you a cut,’ Sandy said.

‘I don’t operate like that. I don’t want reward for selling shares in Raimona. But, Sandy, I can’t get any shares.’

‘How about some of your own? Even you could always do with cash. Cash is king, as we all know. Name your price.’

Lifting his glass Riley said, ‘To your business determination, Sandy
Tulloch. But, sadly, my shares are locked in a family trust.’

‘Well, unlock it. I want to breed a whole lot of winners from your horse. I could take my mares to the biggest stud places of all, pay my three or four hundred grand a bonk. But it’s Raimona I want. He’s got something special. I’ve followed his progeny over the last few years and he is not getting his full credit.’

Now that touched a spot for Riley. He said, ‘Oh?’

‘I’ve studied every one of his progeny’s results the last four years.’ Sandy’s eyes narrowed. ‘And he is producing fewer and fewer
place-getters
and more winners in a graph line heading straight for the stars.’

Riley let out a sigh he didn’t know was there, from rather deep. He felt almost as if a long-due acknowledgement had come. Perhaps the wine, its outstanding quality, Sandy’s forceful personality and plain facts on his stud stallion. Touched wine glasses for the third time.

‘I got a call from the Kiwi merchant banker, Felt,’ Riley said. ‘You know him.’

‘I could buy the man ten times over. But everyone knows him. What, he’s seen what I have, wants in?’

‘I told him no chance. The man wants the Melbourne Cup.’

‘Who doesn’t?’ Sandy had almost finished the bottle. Nodded for another one. ‘This Perth building, we put up five mill each, borrow the balance, get two rent increases in six years, we’ve made twenty million. You can cash out when you want.’

‘Five mill cash about stops me. I like a buffer.’

‘You need to get richer. Buys another class of woman, for starters.’

‘You buy them?’

‘My money attracts them. Same thing. Nothing makes them hornier than being on a fuckin’ big yacht, drinking champers surrounded by all the trimmings. I can moor in the Med and not speak a word of the local lingo and still fuck to a standstill. And you’re talking a sexual appetite to match my appetite for food and good grog.’

‘Different strokes.’

‘Liar. That your mobile buzzing?’

‘Yes. It’s a text.’

‘They can be pretty unsociable, mobile phones. Rude, even. My
father died before they became all the rage, he’d have hated them.’

‘You don’t want me to read it?’

‘Mate, I have a Blackberry. I get emails and faxes on it.’

Snap. Riley pulled his Blackberry from his shirt pocket. ‘Couldn’t live without it. Nor can President Obama.’

‘Bullshit. We all could. Just got dependent. Go on, answer it. Bet it’s the girlfriend.’

Anna. Just telling a dad she loves him and sorry for making a fuss about staying at the hotel. Riley read it out to his lunch guest, by way of verification.
I do luv da Stmfd. 4 got 2 say Sir. Giv regds 2 Luciano,
her text finished. ‘He’s the concierge,’ Riley said.

Sandy’s eyebrows lifted. ‘I do live in this town.’

‘Sorry.’

Outside on Macquarie Street so Sandy could smoke a cigar, he waved away his driver in the black Bentley parked right out front. Riley preferred his Lexus at half the price.

‘What’s with the driver in uniform then?’ Riley thought he’d get one back.

‘Thought
sans
uniform he wouldn’t look the part.’ Tulloch quick as a flash.

Back inside Sandy got serious. ‘How many hectares is your stud farm? Eleven hundred? You need two-and-a-half, three thousand. Put you up there with the big boys, Coolmore —’

‘I know who they are, Sandy. But as I said, quite happy with what I’ve got.’

‘I’m offering fifteen million cash for a quarter share.’

Covering his shock Riley said calmly, ‘What if the industry suffered another equine flu outbreak?’

‘It’s called insurance. You can cover anything, even you not getting a hard-on tonight with your girlfriend. If you’re willing to pay the premium.’

‘And we agreed on how to prove it happened or not — if I had a girlfriend.’

‘I’d keep my interference to a minimum. And I don’t mean in your love life.’ No grin followed.

Riley did have to swallow, and it wasn’t wine.

He said, ‘Your offer is under serious consideration.’

‘That’s my boy. This wine is near as good as Grange.’

‘You think so?’

‘I have a couple hundred in my cellar to compare with.’

‘I have half a dozen. I concede.’

‘On both I hope. He deserves a higher service fee. Compared to Redoute’s Choice at three hundred thirty-five grand your rooter’s a steal.’

They chatted on through Sandy downing another bottle of wine, less the glass Riley had. Riley now got deadly serious. ‘Like a tiny version of you, Sandy, I inherited my start in this business. Grandad Sean willed only me of his numerous grandchildren two-hundred-and-fifty acres of struggling agistment operation, jumped his children’s generation. In other words, like a lawyer with a set ceiling for charging his time, it charged trainer fees, every mouthful of feed carefully measured or it cut into our slim margins. I was never going to break out.’

‘Till you got lucky.’

‘Till I made my own luck by taking on an uncontrollable beast even my best handler Straw could not break. Nor could the best breaker in the business, if it hadn’t been for my little Anna, arriving as she did and sticking her hand through a slat in Rai’s pen, and a miracle taking place.’ Then he’d not be sitting here, fighting emotion in recounting the tale.

Tulloch moved forward to show he was very interested, as Riley explained six-year-old Anna’s instant friendship with the volatile colt. ‘From then on we were able to get him used to being saddled, and soon Straw had him breaking speed records in our private runs.’ Riley sipped his wine. ‘I’m not an emotional man, Sandy. Except with my daughter Anna and our family cash cow — excuse the term — Rai. So your proposal is quite some decision to think about.’

‘Even though it will change your life?’

‘Raimona beat you to that. My beautiful first child before him.’

‘Where does your wife fit in all this? She get a say? Do you worship her like you do your child? … And you have another daughter.’

‘Does this probing style come with the quarter share?’

Sandy leaned back — in danger every time he did so, Riley thought,
of breaking the chair. ‘I’m an upfront man, Riley Chadwick.’

‘I know,’ Riley said. Thinking,
You’re also a scorpion, you sting because that is what you are
. He stood, waiting for Sandy to follow suit. ‘I enjoyed seeing you again,’ he said, meaning it. ‘And the tab is mine.’ Smiling, waving Sandy away, pulling out his wallet.