The night was chilly after Alice Springs. I unlocked the car, climbed into the back, took off the successful hat, and settled to wait for Jik’s return.
They were gone nearly two hours, during which time I grew stiffer and ever more uncomfortable and started swearing.
‘Sorry,’ Sarah said breathlessly, pulling open the car door and tumbling into the front seat.
‘We had the devil’s own job losing the little bugger,’ Jik said, getting in beside me in the back. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Cold, hungry, and cross.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He stuck like a bloody little leech. That boy from the Arts Centre.’
‘Yes, I saw him.’
‘We hopped into the Victoria Royal, meaning to go straight out again by the side door and grab another cab, and there he was following us in through the front. So we peeled off for a drink in the bar and he hovered around in the lobby looking at the bookstall.’
‘We thought it would be better not to let him know we’d spotted him, if we could,’ Sarah said. ‘So we did a re-think, went outside, called another taxi, and set off to The Naughty Ninety, which is about the only noisy big dine, dance and cabaret place in Melbourne.’
‘It was absolutely packed.’ Jik said. ‘It cost me ten dollars to get a table. Marvellous for us, though. All dark corners and psychedelic coloured lights. We ordered and paid for some drinks, and read the menu, and then got up and danced.’
‘He was still there, when we saw him last, standing in the queue for tables just inside the entrance door. We got out through an emergency exit down a passage past some cloakrooms. We’d dumped our bags there when we arrived, and simply collected them again on the way out.’
‘I don’t think he’ll know we ducked him on purpose,’ Jik said. ‘It’s a proper scrum there tonight.’
‘Great.’
With Jik’s efficient help I exchanged Tourist, Alice Style, for Racing Man, Melbourne Cup. He drove us all back to the Hilton, parked in its car park, and we walked into the front hall as if we’d never been away.
No one took any notice of us. The place was alive with pre-race excitement. People in evening dress flooding downstairs from the ballroom to stand in loud-talking groups before dispersing home. People returning from eating out, and calling for one more nightcap. Everyone discussing the chances of the next day’s race.
Jik collected our room keys from the long desk.
‘No messages,’ he said. ‘And they don’t seem to have missed us.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Todd,’ Sarah said. ‘Jik and I are going to have some food sent up. You’ll come as well?’
I nodded. We went up in the lift and along to their room, and ate a subdued supper out of collective tiredness.
“Night,’ I said eventually, getting up to go. ‘And thanks for everything.’
‘Thank us tomorrow,’ Sarah said.
The night passed. Well, it passed.
In the morning I did a spot of one-handed shaving and some highly selective washing, and Jik came up, as he’d insisted, to help with my tie. I opened the door to him in underpants and dressing gown and endured his comments when I took the latter off.
‘Jesus God Almighty, is there any bit of you neither blue nor patched?’
‘I could have landed face first.’
He stared at the thought. ‘Jesus.’
‘Help me rearrange these bandages,’ I said.
‘I’m not touching that lot.’
‘Oh come on, Jik. Unwrap the swaddling bands. I’m itching like hell underneath and I’ve forgotten what my left hand looks like.’
With a variety of blasphemous oaths he undid the expert handiwork of the Alice hospital. The outer bandages proved to be large strong pieces of linen, fastened with clips, and placed so as to support my left elbow and hold my whole arm statically in one position, with my hand across my chest and pointing up towards my right shoulder. Under the top layer there was a system of crepe bandages tying my arm in that position. Also a sort of tight cummerbund of adhesive strapping, presumably to deal with the broken ribs. Also, just below my shoulder blade, a large padded wound dressing, which, Jik kindly told me after a delicate inspection from one corner, covered a mucky looking bit of darning.
‘You damn near tore a whole flap of skin off. There are four lots of stitching. Looks like Clapham Junction.’
‘Fasten it up again.’
‘I have, mate, don’t you worry.’
There were three similar dressings, two on my left thigh and one, a bit smaller, just below my knee: all fastened both with adhesive strips and tapes with clips. We left them all untouched.
‘What the eye doesn’t see doesn’t scare the patient,’ Jik said. ‘What else do you want done?’
‘Untie my arm.’
‘You’ll fall apart.’
‘Risk it.’
He laughed and undid another series of clips and knots. I tentatively straightened my elbow. Nothing much happened except that the hovering ache and soreness stopped hovering and came down to earth.
‘That’s not so good,’ Jik observed.
‘It’s my muscles as much as anything. Protesting about being stuck in one position all that time.’
‘What now, then?’
From the bits and pieces we designed a new and simpler sling which gave my elbow good support but was less of a strait-jacket. I could get my hand out easily, and also my whole arm, if I wanted. When we’d finished, we had a small heap of bandages and clips left over.
‘That’s fine,’ I said.
We all met downstairs in the hall at ten-thirty.
Around us a buzzing atmosphere of anticipation pervaded the chattering throng of would-be winners, who were filling the morning with celebratory drinks. The hotel, I saw, had raised a veritable fountain of champagne at the entrance to the bar-lounge end of the lobby, and Jik, his eyes lighting up, decided it was too good to be missed.
‘Free booze,’ he said reverently, picking up a glass and holding it under the prodigal bubbly which flowed in delicate gold streams from a pressure-fed height. ‘Not bad, either,’ he added, tasting. He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Art. God rest his soul.’
‘Life’s short. Art’s long,’ I said.
‘I don’t like that,’ Sarah said, looking at me uneasily.
‘It was Alfred Munnings’s favourite saying. And don’t worry, love, he lived to be eighty plus.’
‘Let’s hope you do.’
I drank to it. She was wearing a cream dress with gold buttons; neat, tailored, a touch severe. An impression of the military for a day in the front line.
‘Don’t forget,’ I said. ‘If you think you see Wexford or Greene, make sure they see you.’
‘Give me another look at their faces,’ she said.
I pulled the small sketch book out of my pocket and handed it to her again, though she’d studied it on and off all the previous evening through supper.
‘As long as they look like this, maybe I’ll know them,’ she said, sighing. ‘Can I take it?’ She put the sketch book in her handbag.
Jik laughed. ‘Give Todd his due, he can catch a likeness. No imagination, of course. He can only paint what he sees.’ His voice as usual was full of disparagement.
Sarah said, ‘Don’t you mind the awful things Jik says of your work, Todd?’
I grinned. ‘I know exactly what he thinks of it.’
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ Jik said to his wife, ‘He was the star pupil of our year. The Art School lacked judgment, of course.’
‘You’re both crazy.’