Chapter 28
March came to Sydney in an angry mood. The somnolent summer semester was rudely shoved aside as the Tasman Nimbus swept up the dust of dryness and made it mud. Proud autumn leaves were torn from their branches and were sullied and squashed on the earth. Beaches were lonely for their friends of summer as melancholy grey skies with great black bruises of storms hovered in an endless period of penance.
Frank took hold of the chair and wobbled it, testing it, like a cricketer with a bat. Milan became uneasy and his hands moved together, reaching out for each other like babes in the woods.
‘Oh Frank,’ Milan pouted like a starved gremlin, ‘you’ve been reading those dreaded American novels again.’
‘Now you’re patronising, Mil.’
The office flared as lightning brushed the building. Instead of sounds of thunder, they were embraced by shock waves. The air itself fractured into nothingness and for a moment they could not breathe. Milan’s eyes were pained as he quelled his urge to run. There was panic in his face as he fought for air. Then he gasped the first inrush of thinned air and he coughed in wretched relief.
Soon his eyes settled into place as Milan calmed himself.
Frank watched him do it. It was his office; it was his game plan and he had regained control. Outside, a grey smirk grew on a grey and tartan bubble of cloud.
‘Mr Krulis.’
Margaret’s pleasant voice called from the desk-console.
‘Yes, Margaret?’
Milan hid his relief beneath a coat of oily charm.
‘Maureen’s collapsed.’
Milan smiled coyly as he crossed the Persian carpet.
‘Have to supervise the troops, Frank. Make yourself at home. You know where the drinks are. Help yourself, my friend.’
The door closed behind Milan. Frank waited by the window, watching the world outside. Bored by journeys into his past he moved to the desk and studied the console. Expecting a rhapsody Frank pushed ‘PLAY’. In a few seconds a voice spoke:
‘You’ve been emptying your night soil again, Sylvester?’
[A group of men laughing]
‘Basil!’ [Another voice laughed, closer to the microphone] ‘He’s just prejudiced.’
‘Prejudiced? By God I am!’ [A different voice again, alcoholised and aggressive] ‘If you recall the message by His Honour last year you would have no alternative but to agree that it is now impossible to weed out the bad seeds from Southern Europe, let alone the myriad sub-cultures from the Arab world and the Dago Latins with their filthy ways.’
‘Fair go, Sylvester!’ [A different voice again] ‘Some of my slaves are Latins!’
‘Fair go?’ [This was Sylvester, the aggressive bloke] ‘Christ! What are you if not naïve? These mongrelised animals slid ashore when our nation was slack and too bloody lazy to bother about the consequences of buryin’ the White Australia policy. While we were gabblin’ among ourselves in typically internecine fashion the hordes have multiplied and now pose a dire threat to our very civilisation. Furthermore ... hang on, mate, I haven’t finished ... furthermore, it is no wonder our society is in a mess when even our own police force cannot rid us of commonplace dago hooliganism. Bloody Hell! In the middle of suburban stability the dages break out in warfare. Just imagine a mob of mafia morons burstin’ into one of your homes ... ’
[Cries of derision mixed with applause. A faint sound of a table being tapped]
‘ ... yes! Breakin’ into one of your homes and then gougin’ out the eyes of one of your daughters or your wife? Not on your sorry life, mate. This is exactly what His Honour was sayin’.
Then there was silence for two seconds then a cough then a rhapsody began, softer and clearer than the voices. Frank pressed ‘STOP’ and walked away from the desk. He sat on the low chair by the window and gazed outward. The harbour was no more; a mist had swallowed the day. ‘I heard the tape,’ he told Milan as the jaunty wizard returned to his desk, ‘nice bunch of guys.’
Milan now had charge of himself. His crisp voice produced a crackling sound, like corn flakes underfoot. ‘That nice bunch of guys, as you described, help me pay your salary, Frank. Have you heard of the Vaucluse Club?’
Frank shook his head slightly and remained fixed to the window images.
‘It doesn’t surprise me, Frank.’
Frank watched Milan’s image stretch out its hands in a concerted yawn, at the end of which it shrugged its body as if to ward off demons. Then it rubbed its hands together as if it were unconsciously erasing a lie. Frank said to the image, ‘They always argue like that?’ He wanted to prise open this can of worms.
‘Dissension is healthy, Frank.’ Milan kept his finger on the lid. ‘We all achieve our individual ambitions eventually. We roll off the success of others until it’s our turn.’
Rain began to fall heavily. The brandy was rich and smooth and was the Hunter’s finest. Milan’s staff had been sent home early and the front door of the office was locked. The tape in the console spun silently as Liszt dramatised the incessant beat of water on the window. Their shoes were off and their socked feet leaned toward the heater.
Spread on the rosewood table were the remains of fish and chips. Frank read a newspaper. The sun had not yet set; it wasn’t time for that. No daylight shone beyond the windows, just the glitter of the city under the opaque blackness of the storm.
‘You’ll be the fingertip of a very large and powerful financial institution.’ Milan abruptly cut into the lull.
‘A good line from a novel, Mil?’ asked Frank absently.
‘In the event of your being disrupted by government officials from whichever country you will be whisked out faster than the spurt from a young boy’s cock.’ Milan warned, ‘but we don’t envisage that, do we?’
‘What the fuck am I supposed to be doing over there?’
‘Well, being there is probably the most important item on your agenda. But don’t forget,’ and here Milan paused and searched the storm for his cue, ‘you are out of Sydney, and I breathe more easily.’
‘You never answer questions, Mil. Wha... ’
‘Frank! You will settle yourself and activate any instructions you receive from this office. And you will have Hans Dorfman ... ’
‘Hans?’
‘He’s the one who’s been in prison, Frank.’
‘I’m not complaining.’
‘Well then, ... there will be others you will meet once you’re established. Apart from these few points there’s little else I can tell you. It’s not as if we’ve had years to plan this. Mr Tseridis was a recent event in our lives and I’m afraid this is the best we can do.’
‘In the meanwhile I’ll be an expensive itinerant blowing your brass about the veld!’
‘Ah! Veld!’ Milan sniffed the air rather lewdly. ‘A wonderful application of the Dutch. Pictures of lissom females in the glow of an African sunset.’
‘Er, that’s svelte, Mil, not veld!’
