Demons (22 page)

Senior Constable Matthews went away, but he didn’t come back the next day, he came
back later that afternoon with another cop, a big guy called Stone. Cass came to
the door in her apron and pointed to where Dale was dragging another cow onto the
pile. The two cops picked their way across the paddock and asked him to turn off
the engine. I haven’t found the contract yet, said Dale. Matthews said this was not
surprising since according to his enquiries the house had never been for sale. Would
he like to explain? Dale put his arms on the steering wheel and rested his forehead
on them. Cass turned back inside.

Later that afternoon more cops in blue overalls and white masks set to work, dragging
the cows off the pile with the tractor and making another pile about twenty metres
away. The stench was awful. When they got to the cow on the bottom they saw how her
swollen stomach had been sewn up with bailing twine. They cut the twine and pulled.
Gus’s hog-tied body, stiff, bluish-white, slipped out from Bess’s belly onto the
mushy earth.

Ew! said Hannah. You’re kidding me? said Marshall. That’s fucked up, said Evan. Adam
smiled. I’m a happy ending kind of guy, said Evan, you know that. I’m sensitive—a
farmer getting hog-tied and hidden in a dead cow? I mean, come on, really.

So what happened, said Hannah, in the end? They were charged, said Adam, and jailed.
The farm was sold, replanted; it’s all vineyards now. That’s really sad, said Lauren.
Megan, who was sitting next to her, leaned over and touched her arm. It’s the deep,
deep yearning, isn’t it, said Lauren, we’ve all got it, the need to fill the vacuum,
with kids, a house, furniture, gadgets,
lifestyle
. But what happens when you take
all that away? It’s a dirty great gaping hole. And you’re in freefall. Everything
we do is part of this mad rush to fill the hole, plug it up, jump up and down on
it just to make sure. We can’t imagine what it would be like to have our lifestyles,
our houses, our kids taken away—or we can imagine, that’s the trouble, but we do
everything we can to
not
imagine. Or—and here’s the thing—because of the echo coming
up out of that black hole every time we shout down into it we
throw it all away
,
hurl it down there.

Adam looked at her. That’s funny, said Marshall. They all waited, not knowing what
to say. It’s like this story I heard. Can I tell it? He took the stick off Adam.

Are we doing two? asked Evan.

Once upon a time, said Marshall—
What?
said Evan, looking around—there was this ex-County
Court judge, an old soak, loaded to the gunwales with money, and this widow who lived
on a farm. She would have been eighty, at least. So one day, the story goes (Marshall
was already enjoying himself), the judge knocks on her door and offers to buy a portion
of the farm, specifically the paddock with the low hill over the back. The judge
has done some research and figured it might work for grapes. The old woman says sure,
she’s too old to do anything with it anyway. The judge plants a vineyard. Years
pass. The old woman gets older. The judge gets a viticulturist to look after his
vineyard and this viticulturist divides it into seven parts so when the first grapes
are picked and crushed he can compare the results. All the wines are good but one
batch in particular stands out. In fact, it’s spectacular—deep fruit, complex structure,
lingering finish—and it soon becomes known in all the top wine circles as an absolutely
stellar vintage. Even though the viticulturist is unsure exactly
why
this small patch
of dirt is producing such extraordinary wine, he now puts all his energies into
it and the wine becomes internationally famous. The widow is now very old, and she
can no longer go out on the evening strolls she used so much to enjoy but sits by
the window knitting or crocheting and thinking about the years gone by. (I’m enjoying
telling this.) The judge comes to visit. He’s brought his viticulturist with him.
The viticulturist asks the woman why this particular patch might produce grapes
of such superior quality? She seems reluctant to answer. The judge makes an offer—a
very generous offer—for the rest of the farm. The viticulturist has figured out through
the law of averages that there must be at least one more similarly stunning patch
of
terroir
somewhere there. The woman goes silent, then launches into a diatribe:
she has no time for the judge and his type, what would he know of the unspeakable
suffering she has had to endure trying to make a living out of this heartless land?
She raves on about her husband, her precious husband, and the cause of his death
and how every evening after, crippled as she is, she would walk to that spot in the
far paddock where their happy life came to an end. Barely four metres square. Yes,
that’s right, says the viticulturist. The size of an overturned tractor, says the
woman, and underneath it my husband’s mangled body. And there, says the woman, I
would piss. The viticulturist looks shocked. Like a man, says the woman, proudly,
spraying it all over the soil.

Everything went quiet again.

You get it? said Marshall. The woman’s piss is what made that wine taste so good.
All the geniuses in the world couldn’t figure it out.

It’s late, said Megan.

Everything influences what you end up with in the glass, said Evan, animated again:
soil, climate, aspect. What affects the grape affects the wine. Well that may be
true, said Leon, but even on my worst days I wouldn’t drink something I knew had
traces of old woman piss in it. Me neither, said Hannah. I’m going to bed, said Megan.

Doesn’t matter, said Evan, waving an arm around: what’s important is the flavour,
the structure, the lingering on the tongue. It’s old woman’s piss! said Leon. Goodnight
everyone, said Megan.

A while ago, said Evan, oblivious, there was this shiraz from Rockbank—ever been
to Rockbank? I did a few jobs out that way once—which won this big wine competition.
Rockbank! Dead paddocks, a few rocks, you wouldn’t walk your dog there. Best shiraz
in the world!

Balzac was married in Berdichev
, said Adam.

But that’s it, though, isn’t it, said Marshall, on his own track, this notion of
perfection, that we all have to be perfect. Aren’t we all made of flesh, shitting,
bleeding, puking flesh? That’s the lie at the heart of it all, isn’t it? Did that
viticulturist tell his customers the main ingredient of his world-beating wine was
piss
. No, of course he didn’t. He put it in the cellar, made it scarce, then five
years later he released it at two hundred bucks a bottle.

The rain had stopped. Everything was quiet, save for the dripping in the pipes, out
of the gutters, off the leaves. Marshall’s car was still in the ditch, mud and bluemetal
around its wheels. Clouds ran past the moon and out over the sea. A few stars were
showing. The waves below curled and scurried, folding the moonlight in. Out at the
skyline a ship passed—it had come from the far side of the world.

For fuck’s sake, people, said Evan. Everyone’s out there jumping off balconies and
throwing themselves under trains, but we’re good, aren’t we? We’re good. We’ve had
a great day, a great night, we’ve got a great life. And I love you all. Which is
why, he said, reaching awkwardly under the couch, I am going to share this bottle
I found in the top cupboard and not keep it to myself!

He held a bottle of Cointreau aloft. Fuck, said Megan. She sat down again. Evan pulled
the cork out with a squeak, reached across and offered it to Marshall. The Honourable
Member, he said. Marshall drank, and handed it to Lauren. The bottle went round:
only Leon refused. It ended up back with Evan.

Greatest country on earth, he said, sticking the bottle between his legs. Twenty-one
years of growth.
Australians all own ostriches!
Twenty-one-fucking-years of growth.
What other good-rocking country on this big mother of an earth can boast
twenty-one
years of growth
? It’s true, said Marshall. I buy it yesterday, said Evan, I sell
it today. Tomorrow I’m rich. It’s true, said Marshall. I should be happy, said Evan.
That’s true too, said Marshall. So why aren’t I? Meg? Why aren’t I happy? Marshall
took the bottle back. Evan sang:
Twenty-one today! Twenty-one today!
He laughed at
his own joke.
Oh when the Saints! Go marching in! Oh when the Saints go marching
in!
My guitar never comes out of the spare room. I don’t go out eating, drinking,
socialising, or when I do it’s only because the money’s burning a hole in my pocket
and I need to prove that I can spend it on any damn fucking thing I like, throw it
all off the tallest building, watch it flutter onto the peasants below. Aria’s flown
the coop. She loves me, I know that, she’ll love me till I’m dead, but it was too
much, living with us, with Megan’s kids I mean, and all that competitive stuff going
on. Sam’s done well though, hasn’t he? Meg? Sam’s done well. But he’s a pretentious
arse. And now, today, this evening, my beloved Saints—excuse me, I’m going to cry—get
walloped. And the whole fuckin’ season’s down the chute. By whom you ask? By
whom
?
The Melbourne-fucking-Football-Club, that’s
whom
. The Melbourne-fucking-four-wheel-drive-Mercedes-club,
that’s
whoom
. A sixty-nine-point shellacking.

He’s right though, isn’t he? said Marshall. We do live in the best country on earth.
No-one answered that. But the trouble is, he said, pushing on, it’s hard convincing
people, isn’t it? Everyone’s so bloody negative. They can’t see what they’ve got
’cause they think they’re entitled to more. It’s an entitlement problem, do you see?
We’ve got this, so why can’t we have that? And this and this and this?

Wait, said Adam. I was just saying, said Marshall. You brought your phone? Evan shrugged,
flipped, flopped. You checked the footy scores? I don’t believe this, said Megan.
How? said Hannah. When I got the wine from Marshall’s car, said Evan. You’ve got
a lovely girl there, Marsh.

What? said Marshall. You broke the pact, said Megan. Oh Jesus, said Evan. No, you
lied. A white lie, he said, completely white. You agreed with the rules, said Megan.
I don’t follow, said Marshall. He checked the scores, said Hannah, on Tilly’s phone.
Evan held his head in his hands. Oh man, he said.

Does it matter? said Lauren. What? said Megan. I just mean, said Lauren, there are
lies and lies. I agree we should lighten up, said Marshall. There are big lies and
little lies, she continued, good lies and bad lies, real lies and white lies, I don’t
think we should belt Evan up for using Tilly’s phone. Megan was about to speak—
a
weekend away
,
rediscover the
real, drop down into some substance
—but she stopped
herself, and sat back. You’re right, she said. Evan looked at her. A light blinked
on the horizon. Something crackled in the air.

Truth or Dare, said Marshall. What? said Evan. Come on, or just Truth. He was on
the edge of the couch. That’s stupid, said Lauren. We each tell a truth, said Marshall,
the way we told a story. Could be good, said Megan. I’m into it, said Hannah. Adam?
said Marshall. Adam shrugged. Lee? Leon nodded. I’m in, said Evan. Lauren looked
at her fingers, fiddled with her rings.

All right, said Marshall, rearranging his politician’s demeanour: we’ve told our
stories, now we tell our truths.

Do we need a stick? said Evan. Marsh? Do you reckon we need a stick?

I made that whole story up, said Megan, about Abbie, and the road trip. She waved
one hand over her eye, as if at a mosquito, then fixed on the painting like there
was something in it yet to find. I worked it all out beforehand, so I could make
it sound true. What? said Evan. His head was wobbling on his shoulders. When I was
young, said Hannah, I guess about fifteen or sixteen, I used a shampoo bottle to,
you know, and the top came off. My mother had to take me to the hospital. We were,
like, half an hour waiting, at least, and then another hour on the trolley. I felt
so embarrassed. All I could think of was what I would say when the doctor came and
asked me what had happened.

Lauren? said Adam. I probably shouldn’t have said that, said Hannah. Or didn’t you
even go to the Territory? said Evan, relentlessly, to Megan. I can tell you honestly,
said Marshall, with my hand on my heart, that I always believed that what I was doing
was for the best. Lee? said Lauren.

Leon hesitated.

Just before I retired, he said—his voice rang clear, he was the only one sober—I
worked on this story about corruption in government. An open and shut case. A syndicate
of brothel owners had been backhanding cash to this politician for years to get smooth
passage on their permits. Then someone from inside started leaking. I met this woman,
secretly, and she handed over a disk. We ran the story, named names. You might have
read about it. The government got their attack dogs onto me, said it was a beat-up,
denied everything and demanded I reveal my sources. I refused, but they wouldn’t
let up. They threatened me with proceedings. So one day my editor drags me into his
office and tells me how things are getting difficult for him and that I might need
to hang this public servant source of mine out to dry. It’s just a few brothel permits,
he says, it’s not like it’s a case of national security or anything. But I held out,
held out longer than I should have. In the end my editor got on my back. Forget about
the old code of ethics, Leon, he said, times have changed. If you don’t name this
woman, someone on a blog somewhere will. You’re holding out for something but, mate,
I’m sorry, it’s already gone. He was very convincing, so I folded. I named my source.

A seabird squawked somewhere high above the house.

They found her two days later—a lovely woman, a husband, three kids—curled up in
an old tree stump in the bush near Belgrave, an empty pill bottle in her lap. My
boss felt bad, naturally. He offered me paid leave, a generous package. I mean, the
paper had gone to shit anyway, everything was online, lead articles about paedophiles
and gangsters and features on the history of the bra. The world had become nothing
more than a tits-and-arse dance of tabloid revelation. What did I and my little secret
matter?