‘Please bring coffee for three to seventeen eighteen at once...’
‘Electrician? All the electrics have fused in room seventeen eighteen, please come at once.’
‘... the water is overflowing in the bathroom, please send the plumber urgently.’
Who else was there? I ran my eye down the list of possible services. One wouldn’t be able to summon chiropodists, masseuses, secretaries, barbers or clothes-pressers in a hurry... but television, why not?
‘... Please would you see to the television in room seventeen eighteen. There is smoke coming from the back and it smells like burning...’
That should do it, I thought. I made one final call for myself, asking for a porter to collect my bags. Right on, they said. Ten dollar tip I said if the bags could be down in the hall within five minutes. No sweat, an Australian voice assured me happily. Coming right that second.
I left my door ajar for the porter and rode down two storeys in the lift to floor seventeen. The corridor outside Jik and Sarah’s room was still a broad empty expanse of no one doing anything in a hurry.
The ten minutes had gone.
I fretted.
The first to arrive was the waiter with the champagne, and he came not with a tray but a trolley, complete with ice buckets and spotless white cloths. It couldn’t possibly have been better.
As he slowed to a stop outside Jik’s door, two other figures turned into the corridor, hurrying, and behind them, distantly, came a cleaner slowly pushing another trolley of linen and buckets and brooms.
I said to the waiter, ‘Thank you so much for coming so quickly.’ I gave him a ten dollar note, which surprised him. ‘Please go and serve the champagne straight away.’
He grinned, and knocked on Jik’s door.
After a pause, Jik opened it. He looked tense and strained.
‘Your champagne, sir,’ said the waiter.
‘But I didn’t...’ Jik began. He caught sight of me suddenly, where I stood a little back from his door. I made waving-in motions with my hand, and a faint grin appeared to lighten the anxiety.
Jik retreated into the room followed by trolley and waiter.
At a rush, after that, came the electrician, the plumber and the television man. I gave them each ten dollars and thanked them for coming so promptly. ‘I had a winner,’ I said. They took the money with more grins and Jik opened the door to their knock.
‘Electrics... plumbing... television...’ His eyebrows rose. He looked across to me in rising comprehension. He flung wide his door and invited them in with all his heart.
‘Give them some champagne,’ I said.
‘God Almighty.’
After that, in quick succession, came the porter, the man with the coffee, and the nurse. I gave them all ten dollars from my mythical winnings and invited them to join the party. Finally came the cleaner, pushing her top-heavy-looking load. She took the ten dollars, congratulated me on my good fortune, and entered the crowded and noisy fray.
It was up to Jik, I thought. I couldn’t do any more.
He and Sarah suddenly popped out like the corks from the gold-topped bottles, and stood undecided in the corridor. I gripped Sarah’s wrist and tugged her towards me.
‘Push the cleaning trolley through the door, and turn it over,’ I said to Jik.
He wasted no time deliberating. The brooms crashed to the carpet inside the room, and Jik pulled the door shut after him.
Sarah and I were already running on our way to the lifts. She looked extremely pale and wild-eyed, and I knew that whatever had happened in their room had been almost too much for her.
Jik sprinted along after us. There were six lifts from the seventeenth floor, and one never had to wait more than a few seconds for one to arrive. The seconds this time seemed like hours but were actually very few indeed. The welcoming doors slid open, and we leapt inside and pushed the ‘doors closed’ button like maniacs.
The doors closed.
The lift descended, smooth and fast.
‘Where’s the car?’ I said.
‘Car park.’
‘Get it and come round to the side door.’
‘Right.’
‘Sarah...’
She stared at me in fright.
‘My satchel will be in the hall. Will you carry it for me?’
She looked vaguely at my one-armed state, my jacket swinging loosely over my left shoulder.
‘Sarah!’
‘Yes... all right.’
We erupted into the hall, which had filled with people returning from the Cup. Talkative groups mixed and mingled, and it was impossible to see easily from one side to the other. All to the good, I thought.
My suitcase and satchel stood waiting near the front entrance, guarded by a young man in porter’s uniform.
I parted with the ten dollars. ‘Thank you very much,’ I said.
‘No sweat,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Can I get you a taxi?’
I shook my head. I picked up the suitcase and Sarah the satchel and we headed out of the door.
Turned right. Hurried. Turned right again, round to the side where I’d told Jik we’d meet him.
‘He’s not here,’ Sarah said with rising panic.
‘He’ll come,’ I said encouragingly. ‘We’ll just go on walking to meet him.’
We walked. I kept looking back nervously for signs of pursuit, but there were none. Jik came round the corner on two wheels and tore millimetres off the tyres stopping beside us. Sarah scrambled into the front and I and my suitcase filled the back. Jik made a hair-raising U turn and took us away from the Hilton at an illegal speed.
‘Wowee,’ he said, laughing with released tension. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘The Marx brothers.’
He nodded. ‘Pure crazy comedy.’
‘Where are we going?’ Sarah said.
‘Have you noticed,’ Jik said, ‘How my wife always brings us back to basics?’
The city of Melbourne covered a great deal of land.
We drove randomly north and east through seemingly endless suburban developments of houses, shops, garages and light industry, all looking prosperous, haphazard, and, to my eyes, American.
‘Where are we?’ Jik said.
‘Somewhere called Box Hill,’ I said, reading it on shopfronts.
‘As good as anywhere.’
We drove a few miles further and stopped at a modern middle-rank motel which had bright coloured strings of triangular flags fluttering across the forecourt. A far cry from the Hilton, though the rooms we presently took were cleaner than nature intended.
There were plain divans, a square of thin carpet nailed at the edges, and a table lamp screwed to an immovable table. The looking glass was stuck flat to the wall and the swivelling arm chair was bolted to the floor. Apart from that, the curtains were bright and the hot tap ran hot in the shower.
‘They don’t mean you to pinch much,’ Jik said. ‘Let’s paint them a mural.’
‘No!’ Sarah said, horrorstruck.
‘There’s a great Australian saying,’ Jik said. ‘If it moves, shoot it, and if it grows, chop it down.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Sarah said.
‘Nothing. I just thought Todd might like to hear it.’
‘Give me strength.’
We were trying to, in our inconsequential way.
Jik sat in the arm chair in my room, swivelling. Sarah sat on one of the divans, I on the other. My suitcase and satchel stood side by side on the floor.
‘You do realise we skipped out of the Hilton without paying,’ Sarah said.
‘No we didn’t,’ Jik said. ‘According to our clothes, we are still resident. I’ll ring them up later.’
‘But Todd...’
‘I did pay,’ I said. ‘Before you got back.’
She looked slightly happier.
‘How did Greene find you?’ I said.
‘God knows,’ Jik said gloomily.