Black Teeth (30 page)

Now, as I listen to her scamper down the stairs and into the cold, setting out on her mission, all my confidence evaporates and I stumble to the window. It's as if I know what will happen.

Marnie comes up the driveway. She and Beth pass within a foot of each other and it's Marnie who turns and gives her a second look, watches her too-tight jeans waggle down to the street, open the door of the green Volvo, ease themselves inside. Marnie comes up
the steps, oblivious to how those jeans emerged from my flat, and I launch myself into that conversation while the Volvo motors away.

‘Marnie,' I say from the door.

‘Hi.' She tightens her scarf around her neck. Seeing me has made her want to choke herself.

‘How are you?'

‘Fine.'

She never asks me how I am. It's not that she doesn't care, she just goes taut at the start of conversations.

I'm like, ‘I'm sorry about the other night.'

‘That's okay. Look…' She shifts her weight, settles it into one sneaker. ‘I'm not happy about you, like, analysing my life. I should be able to tell you about my stuff when I'm ready.'

‘I know. I'm sorry.'

‘But I've been thinking, and if you want, I'll tell you about it. It's all come out since anyway.'

I have no idea what she's talking about.

She says, ‘He told me. My father, I mean. I made him tell me. That's what changed my mind.'

I rewind my brain to our last conversation. In the alley behind her work.

She says, ‘He said he did it for me. The dodgy deals. Wanted to leave me something. Like an inheritance, you know?'

I'm nodding along like I do know. Her parents, the embezzlers. I asked how she went from singing their innocence to abandoning them in a matter of hours.

‘It was like he was telling me it was my fault. Or I mean…'

I don't know if I can handle an information dump right now, so I try to tie the conversation off.

‘I'm sorry I crossed the line the way I did. I had no business digging into your life.'

She offers a modest smile, swings her purse from her shoulder and digs inside. The rustle of keys.

‘We're not having a lot of luck, are we?'

‘No. But that's my fault. My mind is really scattered at the moment.'

She lingers, perhaps hoping I'll ask her out again. Somewhere to make it up to her. Somewhere that isn't a pizza joint. When I don't, she pantomimes a glum shame-about-that face and makes for her door.

‘Look,' I say. ‘I've got the most intense workload right now. Let me get through this and then maybe we can hang out.'

‘Okay,' she says, pushing her apartment door open. ‘Good luck with all that work.'

I can't tell if that's sarcastic.

For the coming hours I'm at a loss. Even someone as talented as Beth isn't going to have Rudy eating out of her hand until at least midday, so I should do some work while I wait for the promised phone call. But I'd only flub it.

I could call Tyan and ask how he is. But he'll have the hangover of ten men for the next couple of days, which probably won't improve his disposition. Instead I eat toast and play around online, google Tyan's football team, the Hawthorn Hawks. Apparently they won some big game last season. What if I'd reconnected with Tyan a year ago? Would we have shared that moment? Did Tyan watch it on TV alone? Did he weep with happiness? Would we have wept together?

In the midst of these daydreams and my memories of Saturday, it occurs to me to check my Brett Sherez email address, the one I created for Tristan Whaley. I'm only killing time, so I'm surprised to find that Whaley
has
been in contact.

Attached is a plain text file: 20041105AlameinP001.rtf. I'm barely able to lay the mouse pointer over it to double-click. Outside it starts to rain. I start to read.

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file 20041105AlameinP001

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