Black Teeth (3 page)

‘But…you loved him. You said…You said—'

‘I said I need to think about it. I'll call you Monday.'

Anthony stood, snapped the case shut and hauled it off the table, willing now to brush at the chewed fingernails adhering to its base.

‘I promise,' he said.

‘No.'

The tightness of Rudy's voice was obvious to Anthony, who moved purposefully to the kitchen entrance and into the hallway.

‘
No
,' he heard again, tighter.

Anthony's speed picked up past the stairwell.

‘I'll call you on Monday!'

Bounding footsteps. Rudy was agile, despite his flaccid frame and the need to hold up his pants. He slipped between Anthony and the wall and halted Anthony's march to the door.

‘
Please
,' he gripped the deadbolt. ‘My dad…I've done the waiting.'

‘I know, dude. I get it. Really. But—'

‘He
didn't
!' Rudy's mouth seemed to rupture with these words. ‘My dad
didn't do it.
They
told
me he didn't.'

This surprised the insurance man.

‘Someone told you that? Who?'

The outburst faltered.

‘A…A man.'

‘What man?'

‘A tall man.'

‘Who was he?'

Rudy's eyes rolled up like he was trying to find the information in his brain.

‘Lawyer.'

‘Your father's
lawyer
? Of course
he
said—'

‘
No
,' Rudy growled to shout him down. He took a threatening step forward, Anthony a flinching step back. ‘
Not
him. Someone else. Someone else came. He came here and told me.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't
know
. A
lawyer
. He got for me this…power…power…'

‘Power-of-attorney?'

‘Yeah. Power-of-attorney. I got the house. He didn't want me to pay him or
anything
. He
said
that dad didn't do it.'

‘How would he know?'

A choking sound. Rudy was trying to speak but couldn't.

‘Dude…' Anthony adopted a soothing tone, inhaled long and deep, hoped Rudy would do likewise. ‘Even if we signed the papers today, you'd have to wait until the policy is active.'

‘
When
? How long is that?'

Anthony looked at his watch, calculating…

‘A week.'

‘
A week?
'

‘It's a big policy. It takes time. I'll call you next—'

‘Let me do it now,' he said, that incessant blinking. ‘You can think about it or whatever, but let's get the papers done and like…done.'

‘Ummm…'

Rudy smelled weakness.

‘You
have
to. I can't wait
more
than a week.' He twisted his body like he needed permission to use the toilet. ‘You have to.'

‘All right.' Anthony raised his arms in surrender. ‘You want to do it, we can do it.'

The front room was still random unused tables and chairs, like an estate waiting to be executed. Half a dining table was buried beneath an upturned writing desk. Anthony placed his briefcase on the other half. Dust rose and dissipated.

Not daring to hesitate, Rudy dropped quickly into a settee that coughed up another cloud of dust. He swiped at the air, quizzically, but at the sight of the contract he sat on his hands.

Anthony reclined in a swivel chair, pulled a ballpoint from his pocket.

‘Is Rudy short for something?'

‘What?'

‘What's your full name?'

‘Rudyard. Rudyard Christopher Alamein.'

Anthony wrote this into the contract. It occurred to him that he should ask how to spell it, but before he could, Rudy said:

‘It really has to be a week? I've got to wait till Friday?'

‘Friday is the fastest it can be. That's with me pulling all the strings I can. But the good news is that in special circumstances I'm empowered to waive the initial premium. How does that sound?'

A petulant shrug. ‘Great.'

‘Rudy…' Anthony planted a fist on his knee and looked him in the eye. ‘You've waited eleven years. You're going to have to wait another seven days.'

They did the remaining work in silence, but for Anthony reading out questions from the application—‘Have you ever been diagnosed with a malignant growth?'—and Rudy's stilted responses, which were invariably ‘no', except where something needed explanation—‘What's a malignant growth?'—after which the answer was invariably ‘no'. He appeared to have no medical history whatsoever. By the time they were finished, night had fallen.

‘Geez,' said Rudy. ‘Lots of questions.'

‘It's a lot of money. You've got to do more than just raise your hand.'

‘I know…I know.'

He initialled each page without reading back, signed three times on the last, went on chewing his fingernails. Anthony signed too, above
Fortunate Australia representative
. Then he stood and filed the document gently into his briefcase.

‘I have to hurry back to the office, get this into the system.'

Disappointment tugged at Rudy's face.

‘All right…'

‘The sooner this gets done, the better for you.'

‘I know. I know.'

‘If there are any problems, I'll be in touch.'

It was disappointment, Anthony realised, at his departure. For all the impatient talk, Rudy didn't want his new friend to leave. He flicked the door lock with contempt, like it was the only thing in the world over which he held power and he had to make it count.

‘That's really nice of you,' he said, another tear in his eye. The streetlights caught it as the door opened.

‘It's the least I can do.'

‘Right. And, like, the least
I
can do is go ahead with…with…' He waved his tattooed hand. ‘On Friday. Like, as soon as this is ready. Friday night.'

‘Rudy, your dad knew you loved him. You don't need to hurt somebody to prove that.'

‘No,' he said, swaying. He seemed to be expecting this line of argument. ‘No. He didn't know it. I didn't say it. I mean…yes, I did say it. But that's not anything. You can't just say it. You have to do it.' ‘I'll call you.'

With a final clap on Rudy's shoulder, Anthony moved directly across the untended garden to the gate and the footpath and kept walking, felt Rudy's gaze on him as he reached his car. When the motor turned over he looked and Rudy was there on his porch.

He followed Grand Street to Kings Way, past the casino and over the river and through the west end of the CBD, peak hour easing its chokehold. At Flagstaff Gardens he turned right, saying back to himself some of the things he'd said to Rudy. What Rudy had said there at the end.

Then he realised that he'd pulled over. He was in Carlton. Anthony stared through the windscreen, through the early evening air and the brittle city wind to a dying tree near the intersection, just twenty metres ahead. The engine was running. It was a quiet street, idyllic at any time of year. There were no moving cars or headlights that Anthony could see. But he wasn't looking.

He took off both gloves and gazed at the marking on his hand, thoughts of Rudy Alamein washing over him.

There was the black ink in the pores of his skin. Two or three skinny blond hairs poking through. He licked his finger and rubbed.

It didn't give way at first, then it did: the teeth swirled into a storm cloud, then a deep green bruise, then black clots of skin that rolled across his webbing. Then nothing.

Anthony didn't stop until all the black was gone. As much a memory as anything Rudy Alamein had said.

2

Something happens first.

This is in the pimped and plushy halls of the County Court, epic and glassy so you at least feel like you can breathe. Half the stooges that come here are verging on a meltdown, so all this light and space is meant to keep you based, keep you breathing. Meltdowns can wait for the tram ride home.

The actual courts have been running for an hour so the morning bottleneck is done, leaving only the whir of the escalator and the occasional dork like me waiting for my cue. I'm sat on a bench of chairs all attached and facing the court doors and I'm on my phone, trolling random e-celebs for keks and such, when I see them. Way down the way, a man and a woman and a child and the child is not quite a baby now. They're waiting too, outside their respective court, but they're not waiting like I'm waiting. They don't have the vibe of people who sometimes give evidence for a living. Everything about Dad, the red in his eyes, how he's dressed, everything, the hair on his face, it all scans like he's here for sentencing. That his right to just
walk around
like the rest of us is about to be abruptly, absolutely withdrawn. Or maybe I've reverse-engineered that, the obviousness of that, because of what happens.

The boy is trying to stand up. Dad's got him by the hands, is gently raising him off the carpet and this kid seems to understand what he's supposed to do, seems to be right there mentally, but his fat fleshy legs aren't voting with the majority. They don't take weight like they're supposed to, instead squish into the floor and this
frustrated boy, sitting there on his nappied arse, he starts to cry. Dad smiles and Mum strokes his head.

How I know it's a little boy is: I just know.

I go back to noodling on my phone but when I glance up Mum and Dad are speaking with sad faces and the little stooge is pushing himself off the ground with his hands. Mum and Dad aren't even looking when he swings back, stands awkwardly like a drunk gymnast. Without thinking I yell, ‘Oi!' They don't hear, but then the kid wails with his own surprise, prompts both adults to whirl around and see him take three tiny steps, teetering all the way, then collapse four victorious inches back down to the carpet.

What happens next is, Dad makes a sound like I've never heard before. Something wholly new, a musical note undiscovered until now. He reaches with his giant hands and clutches the boy and pulls him into a hug, tight and strong and he might be hurting him but of course he isn't. Big dad tears on a hairy face are all I can see and those teeth and then Mum's crying too and that's when I stop watching because I can't anymore, just stare at the ground and listen to that man cry and thank god a greybeard in a green uniform comes out of the court and calls my name, loud and roaring like I'm not right there in front of him.

‘
Jason Ginaff.
'

3

It's not paranoia—everybody stares at you when you enter a courtroom. The judge and her associate, throbbing with objectivity; the barrister who called you as a witness, standing now at the bar table and smiling his thin lips, no longer the laconic chadwick you met last week, now a man
appearing
; the instructing solicitor who wordlessly communicates his support; the opposing nest of hostiles who wordlessly communicate their whatever; and a plaintiff who deep down knows all the things you've come to say, seated right there in the first row of the gallery, ring binders piled either side of him like a fort he's built against the truth.

If this was a jury trial there'd be six randoms on the far side of the room, staring harder than anyone because that's kind of what the judge would have told them to do. So at least they're not here doing that.

We reach the witness box and the tipstaff blurts fast, words he's blurted a thousand times before. I've been in enough courts to know there's a script taped to the wall of the box, one that only he can see, but this craggy old Anzac doesn't need it.

‘Would you like to swear on the bible or make an affirmation?'

‘An affirmation.'

‘Do you solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?'

‘I do.'

He turns away and sits at his station beneath the judge. She smiles, reassuring.

‘You may sit or stand, Mister Ginaff. Whichever you prefer.'

I sit. Perry clears his throat, shuffles at the lectern, reads from his notes there and says, ‘If you would, Mister Ginaff, please direct your answers to Her Honour.'

Barristers always ask you to speak directly to the judge, but I can't ever seem to manage it. Something about it turns your evidence into a weird kind of performance. Mind you, I hate being here enough that it's going to be a weird kind of performance anyway. Perry knows—I told him last week how uncomfortable I get in the witness box and he said there was nothing to be nervous about.

I told him I would not be nervous. I told him I'd be taking a couple of beta-blockers to make sure I wasn't nervous.

He looked at me, perplexed. ‘So what's the problem?'

‘It's court. I have to use my real name.'

‘So?'

‘So…I guess I don't know how to act.'