The Brush-Off (28 page)

The labour movement was not, however, entirely unmindful of its heritage. Bit by bit, as the dollars could be scrounged, the place was being restored to its vanished glory. Plasterers' scaffolding cluttered the stairwells and the smell of fresh paint hung in the air. An art exhibition was about to be staged. Somewhere. If only I could find it. The signs had petered out.

Reaching the top floor, we came face-to-face with a pair of knee-high white socks. They were attached to Bob Allroy, the Trades Hall's pot-bellied long-time caretaker. He was standing on a ladder, hanging a banner above a set of double doors. CUSS Art Exhibition, it read.

‘Here's the only man still alive who personally witnessed the murdered policeman's death agony,' I told the boys. By now they'd figured out that my impromptu guided tour was just a pretext and were looking decidedly cheesed-off.

Bob Allroy climbed down from the ladder, wheezing. He was one of life's casualties, never the same since a bag of wheat had fallen on him in a ship's hold in 1953. His entire life since had been more a gesture of working-class solidarity than an affirmation of his usefulness. ‘Oh, it's you,' he grunted, recalling my face but unable to summon up a name. He opened one of the doors and I helped him drag his ladder inside. ‘Unbelievable, eh?' he panted.

Sure was. The last time I'd seen this room it had been a maze of cheap chipboard and second-hand Axminster, a lost dogs' home for officials of the Society of Bricklayers and Tilers. Now it was a spacious reception room with buffed parquet flooring, hand-blocked wallpaper friezes and freshly antiqued skirting boards. Portable partitions had been erected at right angles to the walls to form a series of shallow alcoves and rows of paintings sat stacked against them, face to the wall, waiting to be hung.

‘Art exhibition,' explained Bob, not entirely approvingly. ‘The girlie from the cultural office is off sick, so guess who's been roped into doing all the work?'

Bob Allroy wouldn't work in an iron lung and we both knew it. ‘Doesn't officially open till tomorrer,' he warned, in case I was thinking of stealing a free look. I wasn't there for an unscheduled squiz, I reassured him, but to rustle up a bit of quick background for a speech I had to write.

Bob moved to one of the windows and licked his lips, his liver-spotted nose drawn like a lodestone to the revolving brewery sign atop the John Curtin Hotel, clearly visible across the road. The girlie from the arts office, he thought, would be back tomorrow. Better be, if everything was to be ready for the official opening. In the meantime, I'd better see Bernice Kaufman, next door in the admin office. She might know something about it.

This was a definite possibility. There was very little, by her own admission, that Bernice Kaufman didn't know all about. She hadn't been President of the Teachers' Federation for nothing. A couple of minutes with Bernice and, chances were, I'd know more than I'd ever need to about the CUSS Art Collection. More than enough to write Agnelli's speech. Not the jokes, though. I'd have to write the jokes myself.

Bob Allroy ascended his ladder and began screwing light globes into a reproduction etched-glass gas lamp hanging from the ceiling. ‘Don't you kids go nowhere near the art,' he warned. ‘That stuff 's worth a lot of money.'

Seconding that motion, I told Red and Tarquin to amuse themselves for a minute while I did something important. Then I scooted across to the Trades Hall Council, where Bernice Kaufman was holed-up behind a wall of paperwork in an office marked Assistant Secretary. She could spare me a couple of minutes, but only just. ‘I don't want to miss my ultrasound appointment,' she said.

You had to hand it to Bernice. In the time it took to say hello, she'd just happened to draw attention to the fact that she was pregnant. You get to be thirty-five, Bernice had discovered, and your superwoman rating starts to slip if your credentials don't include motherhood, preferably of the single variety. Being the hardest-nosed, most multi-faced Ms in town doesn't cut much ice unless you've also got cracked nipples and a teething ring in your briefcase. So Bernice had scared just enough body fluids out of an organiser from the Miscellaneous Workers' Union to secure herself membership of the pudding club. Not just an ordinary member, of course. Being knocked up would never be the same now that Bernice had a piece of the action.

‘Put that cigarette out,' she barked. ‘Haven't you heard of passive smoking?'

There was, believe me, nothing passive about Bernice Kaufman. I dropped my fag and ground it mercilessly underfoot. The baby was not due for another five months.

When I explained what I wanted, Bernice didn't believe it. ‘I don't believe it,' she said. ‘Ministerial adviser for the Arts? Agnelli must be crazy. You're a cultural illiterate.'

‘That's why I've come to you, Bernice,' I said. ‘I'm after some on-the-job training.'

When I'd convinced her that I really did need background information for Agnelli's speech at the exhibition opening, she reached into a drawer of her filing cabinet and pulled out a thick folder. She was, it transpired, ex-officio company secretary of the Combined Unions Superannuation Scheme. ‘CUSS manages several million dollars of union members' money. And while the art collection is only a small percentage of our total assets—its current value is estimated at approximately half a million dollars—it is an important element in maintaining a broadly diversified portfolio. Frankly, the way the financial markets have been performing lately, art is probably our most effectively appreciating investment.'

My amusement must have been too apparent. Bernice changed tack, handing me a page from the file. ‘Here's the content guidelines, as laid down by the CUSS board of directors. Keep it. Feel free to quote.'

The emphasis of the collection, read the blurb, was on works that presented a positive view of working life and reflected the outlook and aspirations of ordinary working people. ‘Angelo's speech should point out that it includes works by some very prominent artists.'

It did, too. The one-page catalogue Bernice handed me was leavened with the sort of household names guaranteed to reassure the rank and file that its pension funds were not being squandered on the avant-garde.
Potoroo 2
by Clifton Pugh, I read.
Dry Gully
by Russell Drysdale.
Man in Singlet
by William Dobell.

‘Did a mob of you go round Sotheby's and Christies with a chequebook or what?'

I didn't take Bernice's withering glance of contempt personally. She thought everyone was an idiot. ‘The collection was initiated by the board of directors a little over a year ago, essentially as an investment vehicle. Since purchases of this nature are a specialised skill, we retain an expert consulting firm, Austral Fine Art, to advise us. Austral identifies suitable works for inclusion in the collection, buys and sells on our behalf, takes care of insurance and so on. Up until now, the works have all been held in storage. But a few months ago we decided to put them on show, so our members could better appreciate the investment we made on their behalf. In fact—and this is a point Angelo might also care to make—this is the only time the entire collection has ever been seen by the public.' She put her hands on the edge of the desk and wearily pulled herself upright, levering for two. ‘And now I really must go. Can't keep the doctor waiting.'

I walked her to the lift. A waddle was already in evidence. ‘So, you'll soon know if it's a boy or a girl—or would you prefer not to find out until the actual birth?'

Bernice might've been up the duff, but she hadn't lost her marbles. ‘Information is power, Murray,' she said. ‘Don't you know anything?'

Pocketing the pages of bumph she'd given me, I headed back to the exhibition room. Apart from Bob Allroy's ladder and toolbox abandoned in the middle of the floor and the unhung painting lining the walls, it was empty. An icy wave of panic gripped my innards. I should never have let the boys out of my sight. ‘Red!' I called. ‘Tarquin!' The sound echoed back at me from the deserted corridor.

Suddenly, arms spread wide like music-hall song-and-dance men, the boys sprang from behind the far partition. ‘Tricked ya!' they shrieked.

Even as the words left their lips, Tarquin tripped backwards over Bob Allroy's toolbox and slammed full pelt into the step-ladder. The flimsy aluminium tower skidded sideways, rocked on its legs and began to topple over. I rushed forward to arrest its fall and collided with Red. Tarquin, useful as ever, stood open-mouthed. For a moment time seemed to stand still.

The ladder didn't, though. With an almighty metallic clatter, it collided with the upper edge of one of the pictures leaning against the wall, smashing the frame into gilded kindling and squashing the canvas into a buckled heap. The result looked like a piano accordion that had been kicked to death by an electricity pylon.

‘Wow,' said Tarquin.

‘Shuddup.' I fell to my knees beside the catastrophe. ‘Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup.' My heart was so firmly lodged in my mouth that further conversation was impossible.

The picture's frame was utterly demolished, the joints burst asunder, the side panels reduced to four separate pieces of ornately useless timber moulding. The internal framing was a flattened rhomboid from which the canvas dangled in crumpled folds.

Sweaty-handed, I smoothed the tangled mass into the rough approximation of its original rectangular shape. What I saw filled me with a mixture of unspeakable dismay and utter relief.

The mangled picture was a small oil painting. It depicted a solitary stick-figure stockman. He was perched on a gnarled tree-stump beside the mouldering bones of a bullock. His drought-ravaged gaze extended across a blasted landscape towards a featureless horizon. There was no signature. There was no need.

Nobody else did red dirt and rust-rotted corrugated iron like this. Nobody else would dare. It was the trademark, instantly recognisable, of an artist whose rangy bushmen and desiccated verandas had once adorned the walls of every pub and primary school from Hobart to Humpty Doo.

‘
Dry Gully
,' I groaned. ‘By Sir Russell Fucking Drysdale.'

Red and Tarquin meekly dragged the ladder upright, more abashed by my obviously panic-stricken state than by the damage their game had inflicted. ‘Doesn't look too bad,' offered Red lamely.

‘Shuddup,' I informed him.

But my boy was a smart lad and there was truth in his statement. The canvas sagged and buckled over its skewiff skeleton, but the actual paintwork appeared to have survived intact. Apart from some very minute cracks, arguably ancient, there was no visible evidence to suggest that the phlegmatic boundary rider had been struck from a great height by a plummeting pile of scrap metal.

And, in light of the fact that the actual art part was still intact, the destruction of the frame suddenly seemed less disastrous. It was just a few pieces of gilded timber, after all. If I acted quickly, it might just be possible to reassemble the whole thing into some passable semblance of its previous condition before Bob Allroy returned. Particularly since Bob's toolbox was sitting conveniently to hand on the parquet floor.

‘Quick,' I ordered the boys. ‘Watch the door.' Then, grabbing a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, I bundled up the buggered item, sprinted down the hall to the Gents and locked myself in a vacant stall.

In less time than it took to wedge the ruptured joints of the frame back into place, the futility of my task was obvious. Even in ideal working conditions and with the right tools, the job would have been beyond me. With the timber of the internal stretcher snapped clear through, it was impossible to get any tension in the canvas. The more I fiddled, the more hopeless it became. On top of which, barely a minute had gone by before Red came knocking on the cubicle door. ‘Dad! Dad!' he hissed. ‘He's back.' There was no option but to face the music.

Holding the picture before me like an icon at a Russian funeral, I advanced down the corridor towards the scene of the crime, its perpetrators in single, guilty file behind me. As we neared the exhibition room, Bob Allroy stepped out the door and pulled it shut. Without so much as a glance our way, he turned on his heels and scurried down the stairs.

‘Can't we just leave it here?' said Red, trying the locked door of the exhibition room. ‘And run.'

We could. But Bernice knew that I'd been there. And, faced with a demolished painting, Bob Allroy would soon remember that the only other people to visit the unopened exhibition were that guy who used to work downstairs for the MEU and his two kids.

The time was precisely 12.30. Through a window at the top of the stairs I watched Bob cross the street and enter the John Curtin Hotel.

The days when the industrial arm of the labour movement bent its collective elbow in the front bar of the John Curtin Hotel were long gone. But tradition died hard in some men and Bob was one of them. At least an hour would pass before he completed his liquid lunch and returned for his ladder and toolbox.

‘Who's Sir Russell Fucking Drysdale?' said Tarquin.

‘Shuddup,' I suggested. ‘And follow me.'

Scooping up the bits and pieces of
Dry Gully
, I sped nonchalantly down the stairs. The undercroft was deserted.