Black Teeth (4 page)

Now, with his robes and his grave voice, knowing himself exactly how to act, Perry says, ‘Would you please state your full name and occupation for the court record?'

‘Jason John Ginaff. Researcher. Self-employed.'

‘And when you say researcher…what kind of research do you do?'

A week ago in his chambers, with what appeared to be a thousand copies of the same book lining his shelves, Perry laughed.

‘Just be yourself!'

But that, of course, was just another way of stating the problem.

So I demanded Perry tell me exactly what he was going to ask me today. Like, word-for-word. I've been practising my answers all week.

‘It's limited almost entirely to internet research. Clients engage me to collate what information exists online in relation to a particular subject. A company or a person. Most of the time it's a person.'

What's not helping is that the person on this particular occasion, he's right here in the room. The creepiness of researching the crap out of someone is only bearable so long as you don't then have to look at their real-life face. Knowing this, and uncomfortable as I am, my stupid eyes skip over for the splittest of seconds and there he is:
David Wallis Chapman, born five November 1959, plaintiff in the matter of
Chapman v Revue Technologies Pty Ltd
. Glaring back with all the butthurt he can muster.

Perry nods, making it clear he wasn't listening. He knows these lines as well as I do.

‘That's an unusual type of work. Would you give the court an example of the kind of research you're engaged to do?'

‘It's not that unusual.' To keep from glancing back at Chapman I peer up at the judge. If she looked carefully she'd see my eyes moving left to right, a side effect of memorising these words off a page. ‘Ninety per cent of it is vetting. Like, when a business is looking to fill a position and they've compiled a shortlist, I'll research the candidates. Prospective employers don't like surprises down the track.'

‘To put it simply, your job is cyber-vetting.'

I bite down on a smile, like I did in Perry's office the first time he said ‘cyber-vetting'.

‘That's correct.'

‘Mostly by way of standard internet search engines.'

‘Yes.'

Perry flinches. Something has occurred to him and, just like that, with no idea of the consequences, he's off-script.

‘When you say that your work typically involves vetting job applicants, to be clear, you were
not
engaged by Revue Technologies to vet Mister Chapman prior to his engagement as Senior Financial Consultant, is that correct?'

First comes a thud of blood against my ears and prickles along my hairline, the initial spark of the perspiration that's going to be a deluge because it always is. The blood floods behind my eyes and I'm effectively blind and there's pressure in my throat and I have to get my answer out before it reaches my larynx.

‘Um, no. Businesses don't often vet an external contract.'

Perry isn't even looking at me, just around at the room like he's bored.

‘In that case, when
was
your first contact with Revue Technologies?'

‘My…my first meeting…was on the seventh of April…' My voice falters and the sound of it prompts Perry to look at me and he sees
what's happening. I hear the judge's shoulders tighten. My shoes and socks are off now. I tell myself not to pass out.

‘The seventh of April,' Perry repeats. Slowly, like he's trying to remind
me
of
my
lines. ‘This year? Last year?'

‘This year,' I rasp.

‘Twenty twelve?'

‘Yeah…'

‘And who was that meeting with?'

Here comes the sweat. A grand torrent like all the taps have been turned on at once. This is despite how, outside, it's the coldest day in Melbourne since, like, ever.

‘Mister Singh. The Chief…' I take in a long breath. ‘…Chief Financial Officer.'

‘Was that after Revue Technologies had repudiated the contract with Mister Chapman?'

‘Yes…'

‘In fact, that was after Mister Chapman had been locked out of the seventh floor, wasn't it?'

‘Yes…'

‘Would you like a glass of water?'

‘I'm okay.'

I force a dumb smile while inside I'm hating him for abandoning what we'd arranged. Perry smiles back and I'm holding my breath. This is usually the point where I promise myself I'll never give evidence again. This is also the point where I pray to the God of Long Questions that he send down a doozy right this second.

‘Given your talent for cyber-vetting, is it fair to say that Revue Technologies would have saved themselves considerable grief if they'd come to you prior to contracting with Mister Chapman?'

Chapman's barrister stands up. God bless you, sir. He too is robed and self-important like a skeksi.

‘My friend knows full well that it is
not
fair to say—'

The judge: ‘We won't ask the witness to speculate, Mister Perry.'

I take the chance to suck in air.

‘The question is withdrawn, Your Honour.'

But remembering to breathe is only half the game; the other half
is remembering what breathing is. How much is too much? Too little? On my wrist is a lacker band I keep there for just this situation. It's a method I read about online: flicking it against your skin can keep you in the present, stop you goosing out. I'm flicking it hard now, sending a telegram in Morse code. So hard the tipstaff scowls, wondering what that noise is.

‘Mister Ginaff.' Somehow Perry has received my telepathic all-caps to slow down. ‘If you were not engaged to vet Mister Chapman prior to his engagement as financial consultant, what was it that Revue Technologies asked you to do?'

He's back to the script. The thumping in my brain tapers. I start to notice my surroundings again: the sparse public gallery, the mouth-pink walls, the array of flat-screen televisions that they use for, I don't know, watching the cricket.

‘Um…My job was to interrogate the claims…claims made by Mister Chapman at the time he came on as…financial consultant.'

‘Were you told
why
they wanted you to do that?'

I remember the answer to this one and the adrenaline is dropping off, leaving a familiar thrill in my blood. It's the same feeling I had after a big crying jag during my mother's illness. A hollowing out, like nothing even matters.

‘They said they were surprised at the poor standard of Mister Chapman's performance and this had led them to doubt the veracity of representations made by him at the time of contracting.'

‘All right,' says Perry. He nods, supportive. ‘This is still the conversation of the seventh of April, to which you've alluded?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you recall anything else from that conversation?'

I make myself comfortable in the court's spongy office chair. The sweat's still coming but slowing. My body language is no longer signalling to the court that I'd rather be dead.

‘They told me there was a time factor. They suspected Mister Chapman would commence proceedings like these.'

‘So…' Perry actually hooks his thumbs into the collar of his robes. ‘You were commissioned to determine whether there had been any false or misleading statements made by Mister Chapman at the time
of his engagement as senior financial consultant. In broad compass, how does one go about that?'

‘Mostly I look at the documentation.'

‘By documentation, you mean…'

‘His résumé, primarily.'

‘Right. So your job was to scrutinise his CV.'

‘That's correct.'

‘I see. And when you're scrutinising a CV, and there is a time factor that you're very much aware of, where do you begin?'

‘It's different every time.'

‘How about in this case?'

‘In this case?'

‘Yes.'

‘In this case,' I say, ‘He'd misspelled Rhodes Scholar.'

4

I push out the revolving doors, welcome the cool air, but the wind goes straight for my ears like they're the most delicious part. Cold needles my face and I drive my hands into my pockets, remember what a dickhole I was for not bringing gloves or a beanie or a scarf. I feel the cold more than most people because, according to my mum, I am ‘traumatically skinny'. She used to say I look like someone starved Keira Knightley to death. Combine that with my stature

and my complexion—powdery, pimply, more than my share of eczema—and I look like the kind of stooge who
would
tell a group of norps what's what about computers then freeze to death simply by walking outdoors. I almost wish I needed glasses, just to round off the cliché.

Only a few steps from the courthouse someone calls my name.

‘
Jason.
'

It's Perry, beaming through his sharp white features. While the rest of us are Siberian exiles cowering against the day, scurrying to overcrowded cafés or enduring the wind for the sake of a sad cigarette, Perry is fluid, even bouncing.

‘We've adjourned until Monday. Apparently Chapman and his team are going into talks after lunch. I think they're going to settle.'

And I'm like, ‘Great.'

‘You got pretty nervous on the stand, didn't you.'

And he
fucking
smiles at me.

‘It's not nerves.' I peer down to Spencer Street for a tram. If we're adjourned then I can go home.

‘Didn't I say you needn't worry?'

‘No likelihood I'll be called back?'

‘I'll wager these proceedings are done. I'm surprised we've come this far. Poor old Chapman got his bubble burst with everything you had—'

He pulls from his robe a mobile phone, flashing silent yellow.

‘I've got to answer this. Look, Gary and the whole Revue cabal want to shout us out to lunch. I've suggested Nick's. You'll come, won't you?'

‘Umm…'

Perry answers the phone.

‘Hello, Sarah? Just a tick.' He lowers it to his chest. ‘Come on. This is all thanks to you, especially after such a wobbly start yesterday. They're only going to shine your shoes for an hour while we eat.'

I picture it: a well-heated hugbox of posh food and warm red wine, the flattery and the back-slapping and the pride at carrying out the most crushing own of my career. Admiring fathers huddled and smiling, jockeying to bask in my genius and me the vital centre of it all…

‘I can't. I've got a lunch meeting.'

In a flash his interest is gone. I am of no further use, and he and I will never meet again.

‘Right. See you.' He turns and brings the phone back to his ear.

Moments later I'm still longing for a tram and the black-clad Melbourne lawyers are still bustling to their lunch spots when I see the mother and her boy come through the doors. He's in his stroller now, blanketed in cotton; she moves as if obeying the instructions of some unseen hypnotist, tense with cold, wheeling the boy back to their ordinary life, partnerless and fatherless respectively.

I change trams at Swanston Street, take the 57 to Racecourse Road, get chips from the place near my flat, clutch them tight for their warmth and chew on a few as I hike up the driveway, bathe in the hikikomori relief of coming home for the last time today.

5

Marnie hears me as I approach, the way she always does. It's not like she sits and listens for me to come home, but I'm saying she might as well do that. The door to her flat swings open, the one across the stairs from mine, and she steps out with her tallness and her hair coloured deep red and the usual quizzical smile like it's weird how I even exist.

‘Hiya, Stevey.'

‘Hey, want a chip?'

Marnie waits tables for a living. At first I was only friends with Marnie because scorning your neighbour is like scorning your waiter: it's gruesome to imagine the ways they might exact their revenge. Also, I thought more eyes on my flat would be added security for the hardware I've got inside. But over time we've become friends. Even good friends. Whenever she says ‘Stevey' I feel a flutter in my stomach. And it's not even my real name.

Steven Jones is the name on my phone bill, but not the one on my lease. Which is different again from the one on my electricity account. I once considered telling her all about my John Doe life, how my work makes me security-conscious with a hint of paranoia, how my real name is Jason and I'd like to kiss her on the mouth. But the moment passed. And it would only have made her smile that baffled smile.

‘Where'd you get them?'

‘The Chippery.'

‘Ummm…' She considers it. ‘No, thanks. They use the wrong
potatoes for their chips. They should use colibans but they use desirees.'

Raindrops spatter on the exposed side of the gallery. Marnie doesn't seem to register the bergschrund misery out here; that long mop of hair might keep her neck warm but the rest of her is loosely draped in thin cotton pyjamas and she's barefoot. Then again, if today is like any other day then she's got the heating cranked up like a boss and it's the nuclear dawn inside her flat, so right now that long body must be revelling in this cool air, even when this cool air is a frigid Melbourne winter.

‘Hey, ummm…' she says, ‘I had something I wanted to ask you… Oh yeah, what are you doing for dinner?'

‘Nothing. You want to go out?'

‘Can't. I have to work.'

‘What about tomorrow?'