‘Like me.’
‘Ah, you go back a way?’
‘I told you I thought it’d take a hundred no’s.’
‘Yeah. Well, he went to war when he probably didn’t have to…’
‘Like you.’
I realised two things then. One, that Trudi Bell was a very sharp woman who did her homework and remembered what she’d studied; two, that Peter January and I had more in common than I liked to admit. As Trudi told me more about him I felt the familiarity of it: working class background by a surf beach, public schools and an uneasy balance between sports and the books. We’d both studied law at university and then studied death-me in Malaya, January in Vietnam. But he’d gone on with the law and had risen meteorically while I’d…I tried to remember the term for it in one of the books Helen had left…plateaued, that was it, I’d plateaued early.
‘Are you listening?’ she said sharply.
‘Yeah, sure. Issues.’
‘He’s anti-nuclear, of course; anti-US bases…’
‘How’s he feel about smoking pot on the monorail?’
She grinned. ‘He’s against the monorail.’
The monorail was the big local issue-whether an above ground ‘people mover’ should run through the city to the Darling Harbour development. Most movers liked it, most people didn’t. I leaned forward and attempted my January imitation. “Trudi, Trudi, you’re avoiding the question.’
She laughed. ‘That came out more like Cary Grant.’
‘That’ll do,’ I said. ‘Okay, I’ve got what he’s against. I suppose we can throw in crime and corruption too. What about weekend trading?’
‘I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.’
‘I have trouble taking politicians seriously, it’s true. If January’s such a maverick how come he’s as high in the government councils as he is? What is he, a junior Minister?’
‘Without portfolio. It’s complicated. I think they needed someone to look like a genuine leftie somewhere along the line and Peter fitted the bill. They probably planned to dump him when things cooled off but he got attention, made these causes his…’
‘Turf?’
‘I was going to say fief.’
‘Ah, so your name is really Gertrude.’
‘No! I was never a Gertrude! Never! Stop joking.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t take the political game seriously but the death of that kid’s a different matter. And I don’t like bombing. Don’t like it at all, not in Sydney.’
‘I think I begin to see what you’re on about. You want to keep Sydney the way it was?’
‘Is, no, was. Shit, I don’t know. I’d like to catch the bomber and show everyone what a miserable human being he is…’
‘Or she. You should see the mail.’
‘Him or her. We need a good example to show bombing isn’t glamorous.’
‘Mm, I think Peter would agree with that.’
‘I don’t care whether he does or not. Now, we know what he’s anti. What’s he pro?’
There was a crash behind us in the corridor as a load of timber hit the ground. A bald head came around the scorched door jamb. ‘January?’
‘Right,’ Trudi said.
A stocky man in khaki shirt and pants came into the office and looked around. ‘Jeez, this is a mess. Is he here, Mr January?’
Trudi shook her head and the man looked disappointed. ‘Pity. I wanted to shake his hand. Seen his picture in the paper. Bloody hero, that man. Got any drop sheets?’
Gary had come back into the office with a sandwich bag in his hand. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Drop sheets to cover all this stuff while we work. You’ll get dust in everything, otherwise.’
‘We’ll move what matters into the passage.’
‘No way. We’ll be tripping all over…’
Trudi touched my arm. ‘Let’s leave them to it and get something to eat. We’ll eat in the park-Peter’s pro parks and sunshine.’
3
January’s office was on the corner of the main road and a broad, tree-lined street that looked as if it was just waking up from a 50 year sleep. The houses that had been green and fawn were becoming white and mission brown. The straggly oleanders in the front yards were being rooted out in favour of ground covers and slender-trunked gums. There was a parking problem-the street was crammed with cars even in the early afternoon and a couple sat out from the kerb in a highly illegal two-abreast. The terrace houses didn’t run to parkable driveways, otherwise the middle class wasn’t having too much trouble adapting.
Trudi and I blinked in the strong sunlight and we put on dark glasses simultaneously.
‘What about the pub?’ I said. The Duke of Wellington was right across the road. I knew it had a snack bar. Unfortunately, it also had pinball machines.
‘No,’ Trudi said firmly. ‘Along here you can get the best health food sandwiches in Sydney and the park’s just a bit further.’
‘Sounds like a mineral water situation.’
‘Right.’
The main road was busy and smelly with trucks and cars jostling for position on the bitumen and the pedestrians ducking between them from delis to bottle shops. I remembered this place in the early 60s; it had been a slummy four-ways with dusty shop windows and more chemists and butcher shops than the area needed. There were casualties after that and the shopfronts went blank until the revival started. Now there were restaurants of every ethnic flavour, a patisserie, trendy second-hand shops and a glossy supermarket that stocked 38 varieties of pasta. I’d counted.
Trudi steered me to the health food shop that was shady and cool despite the heat in the street. ‘Hi, Charles,’ she said, ‘ ‘lo Madga.’
Charles was a sour-looking type with a pale, blotched face and stringy hair. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans with muscles-the white apron didn’t diminish him a bit. He was scooping something white from a tin into a jar and just raised the scoop a little to acknowledge Trudi.
‘Prick,’ Trudi murmured. ‘Let’s have two big ones, Madga.’
After Charles, Madga was like a lantern in the dark. She was small with a huge mass of glossy black hair and eyes to match. Her teeth were startlingly white in her smooth, olive-skinned face. ‘With onion, Trudi?’ she said. Her voice and accent were soft.
‘What about onion, Cliff?’ Trudi said. ‘Peter comes in here a lot and politicians can’t eat onion. Did you know that?’
‘Onion,’ I said. ‘Lots of onion.’
We got the sandwiches, which were thick enough to stand on and look over heads at the football, and two bottles of mineral water. I pretended to stagger under the load. ‘How far to the park?’
‘Half a kilometre.’
Oh, Christ, I thought. Someone who really lives in the 80s. That set me speculating on her age as we walked along the footpath beside the trucks and cars to the park. She came about four inches above my shoulder in her low heel boots, call it five foot four, or whatever the hell that is in centimetres. She walked nicely with a bit of a roll to her strong body.
She had a bruise on the left side of her face which I took to be a result of the bomb. No make-up except around the eyes. Some good lines there suggesting experience and sense of humour. Thirty-five?
‘Thirty-eight,’ she said, ‘and we cross here.’
‘Eh?’
‘When men look at women that way they’re totting up years and wondering…well, that varies.’
‘You got me.’ We steered each other across the road, judging the speed of the on-coming Kombi van exactly right. ‘What varies?’
‘Smart men wonder if the woman has read a book in the last ten years and if she liked Manhattan; dumb ones wonder if her tits flop and how tight her cunt is.’
‘Uuhh,’ I cleared my throat against the fumes and the confusion. We went through an archway that celebrated the fallen into a decent-sized park that had too much grass and not enough trees but was otherwise okay.
‘Which are you?’ Trudi said.
‘Bit of both I suppose. Bench or grass?’
‘Bench.’
We sat on a bench close to a rose garden. The bushes were stubby and bare and I only knew it was a rose garden because a sign said so. We munched on the sandwiches, swigged the mineral water and didn’t speak for a full minute.