I glanced at the clock. We all finished the champagne and put down the glasses.
‘Back a winner for me,’ I said to Sarah, kissing her cheek.
‘Your luck might run out.’
I grinned. ‘Back number eleven.’
Her eyes were dark with apprehension. Jik’s beard was at the bad-weather angle for possible storms ahead.
‘Off you go,’ I said cheerfully. ‘See you later.’
I watched them through the door and wished strongly that we were all three going for a simple day out to the Melbourne Cup. The effort ahead was something I would have been pleased to avoid. I wondered if others ever quaked before the task they’d set themselves, and wished they’d never thought of it. The beginning, I supposed, was the worst. Once you were in, you were committed. But before, when there was still time to turn back, to rethink, to cancel, the temptation to retreat was demoralising.
Why climb Everest if at its foot you could lie in the sun.
Sighing, I went to the cashier’s end of the reception desk and changed a good many travellers’ cheques into cash. Maisie’s generosity had been far-sighted. There would be little enough left by the time I got home.
Four hours to wait. I spent them upstairs in my room calming my nerves by drawing the view from the window. Black clouds still hung around the sky like cobwebs, especially in the direction of Flemington racecourse. I hoped it would stay dry for the Cup.
Half an hour before it was due to be run I left the Hilton on foot, walking unhurriedly along towards Swanston Street and the main area of shops. They were all shut, of course. Melbourne Cup day was a national public holiday. Everything stopped for the Cup.
I had taken my left arm out of its sling and threaded it gingerly through the sleeves of my shirt and jacket. A man with his jacket hunched over one shoulder was too memorable for sense. I found that by hooking my thumb into the waistband of my trousers I got quite good support.
Swanston Street was far from its usual bustling self. People still strode along with the breakneck speed which seemed to characterise all Melbourne pedestrians, but they strode in tens, not thousands. Trams ran up and down the central tracks with more vacant seats than passengers. Cars sped along with the drivers, eyes down, fiddling dangerously with radio dials. Fifteen minutes to the race which annually stopped Australia in its tracks.
Jik arrived exactly on time, driving up Swanston Street in the hired grey car and turning smoothly round the corner where I stood waiting. He stopped outside the Yarra River Fine Arts gallery, got out, opened the boot, and put on a brown coat-overall, of the sort worn by storemen.
I walked quietly along towards him. He brought out a small radio, switched it on, and stood it on top of the car. The commentator’s voice emerged tinnily, giving details of the runners currently walking round the parade ring at Flemington races.
‘Hello,’ he said unemotionally, when I reached him. ‘All set?’ I nodded, and walked to the door of the gallery. Pushed it. It was solidly shut. Jik dived again into the boot, which held further fruits of his second shopping expedition in Alice Springs.
‘Gloves,’ he said, handling me some, and putting some on himself. They were of white cotton, with ribbed wristbands, and looked a lot too new and clean. I wiped the backs of mine along the wings of Jik’s car, and he gave me a glance and did the same with his.
‘Handles and impact adhesive.’
He gave me the two handles to hold. They were simple chromium plated handles, with flattened pieces at each end, pierced by screw holes for fixing. Sturdy handles, big enough for gripping with the whole hand. I held one steady, bottom side up, while Jik covered the screw-plate areas at each end with adhesive. We couldn’t screw these handles where we wanted them. They had to be stuck.
‘Now the other. Can you hold it in your left hand?’
I nodded. Jik attended to it. One or two people passed, paying no attention. We were not supposed to park there, but no one told us to move.
We walked across the pavement to the gallery. Its frontage was not one unbroken line across its whole width, but was recessed at the right-hand end to form a doorway. Between the front-facing display window and the front-facing glass door, there was a joining window at right angles to the street.
To this sheet of glass we stuck the handles, or rather, Jik did, at just above waist height. He tested them after a minute, and he couldn’t pull them off. We returned to the car.
One or two more people passed, turning their heads to listen to the radio on the car roof, smiling in brotherhood at the universal national interest. The street was noticeably emptying as the crucial time drew near.
‘... Vinery carries the colours of Mr. Hudson Taylor of Adelaide and must be in with a good outside chance. Fourth in the Caulfield Cup and before that, second at Randwick against Brain-Teaser, who went on to beat Afternoon Tea...’
‘Stop listening to the damn race!’ Jik said sharply.
‘Sorry.’
‘Ready?’
‘Yes.’
We walked back to the entrance to the gallery, Jik carrying the sort of glass-cutter used by, among others, picture framers. Without casting a glance around for possible onlookers, he applied the diamond cutting edge to the matter in hand, using considerable strength as he pushed the professional tool round the outside of the pane. I stood behind him to block any passing curious glances.
‘Hold the right-hand handle.’ he said, as he started on the last of the four sides, the left-hand vertical.
I stepped past him and slotted my hand through the grip. None of the few people left in the street paid the slightest attention.
‘When it goes,’ Jik said, ‘for God’s sake don’t drop it.’
‘No.’
‘Put your knee against the glass. Gently, for God’s sake.’
I did what he said. He finished the fourth long cut.
‘Press smoothly.’
I did that. Jik’s knee, too, was firmly against the glass. With his left hand he gripped the chromium handle, and with the palm of his right he began jolting the top perimeter of the heavy pane.
Jik had cut a lot of glass in his time, even if not in exactly these circumstances. The big flat sheet cracked away evenly all round under our pressure and parted with hardly a splinter. The weight fell suddenly on to the handle I held in my right hand, and Jik steadied the now free sheet of glass with hands and knees and blasphemy.
‘Jesus, don’t let go.’
‘No.’
The heavy vibrations set up in the glass by the breaking process subsided, and Jik took over the right-hand handle from me. Without any seeming inconvenience he pivoted the sheet of glass so that it opened like a door. He stepped through the hole, lifted the glass up wholesale by the two handles, carried it several feet, and propped it against the wall to the right of the more conventional way in.
He came out, and we went over to the car. From there, barely ten feet away, one could not see that the gallery was not still securely shut. There were by now in any case very few to look.
‘... Most jockeys have now mounted and the horses will soon be going out onto the course...’
I picked up the radio. Jik exchanged the glass-cutter for a metal saw, a hammer and a chisel, and shut the boot, and we walked through the unorthodox entrance as if it was all in the day’s work. Often only the furtive manner gave away the crook. If you behaved as if you had every right to, it took longer for anyone to suspect.
It would really have been best had we next been able to open the real door, but a quick inspection proved it impossible. There were two useful locks, and no keys.
‘The stairs are at the back,’ I said.
‘Lead on.
We walked the length of the plushy green carpet and down the beckoning stairs. There was a bank of electric switches at the top: we pressed those lighting the basement and left the upstairs lot off.