Dilemma. Jon Cleary
they were all ignoring him; or so it seemed. He looked back at her: ‘Norma, don’t start sounding like a fucking psychiatrist – You’re not going to one, are you?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She toyed with her drink, a vodka and tonic, her staple. She had been drinking more and eating less lately: she would have to watch herself. ‘I hear you lost your job. What happened?’
He had been hoping she would not bring that up. He looked at his own drink, a beer. ‘Business was down. They say the economy is growing, but that’s bullshit. Are you getting more customers?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of opening up another salon.’
‘I’ve been looking at going into the nursery business,’ he said tentatively.
She didn’t laugh, as he had been afraid she might. But she did say, ‘What are you gunna use for money?’
‘I’ve got a bit saved. And I think the bank’ll listen to me.’
‘You owe me three months on the mortgage, your share.’
Jesus, why did she always have to harp on about money? ‘I’ll cover that.’
‘How?’
‘Don’t worry – I told you I’d cover it!’ He was trying to hold on to his temper. Over at the bar Charlene was looking at him, talking all the while to the three or four men at the bar. She waved to him and he nodded back. ‘Let’s talk about us, hon – not money—’
Norma had looked back over her shoulder. ‘You still got a thing for her?’
‘Who?’
‘Charlene, the freewheeling bike.’
‘For Crissake, Norma – cut it out! I never had a thing for her – Jesus, it was just one night! You were away, I dunno where—’
‘I was up at Gosford, taking care of my mother who was sick with pneumonia—’ She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly exhausted by the argument. She stared at her glass, twirled it round again with those fingers that had been so clever at finding their way round his body. Then she said, her voice so low that he had to lean forward to hear her, ‘Go, Ron. It’s over. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.’
‘Hon—’
‘Please go. Don’t make a scene – just go.’
All at once in the huge room there was one of those silences that are magnified by the number of those present. Two hundred people had abruptly stopped talking; even Charlene, at the bar, who never stopped. The poker machines were motionless: no symbols fell, no bell rang. The garish lights, an electrician’s nightmare, seemed brighter, more eye-burning. Heads turned to see what had caused the silence; but there was nothing to be seen. It had just happened, like the closing of a book.
Ron stood up. There was an aridness in Norma’s voice that all of a sudden opened up a desert before him.
‘Goodbye,’ he said and walked the long walk to the wide front doors. Norma didn’t turn her head to watch him, which was a pity. He had never known the meaning of dignity, but tonight he accomplished it, even if he was unaware of it. His back was straight, his pace steady.
Come to think of it, Charlene would say later, he looked cold-blooded. Which would be damning, but was wrong.
3
He was a tall lean man with a bony face that stopped just short of being handsome. He had thick dark hair with already a touch of grey at the temples; he would be grey-haired by the time he was forty-five, thirteen years away. He moved with an unhurried easy grace, as if he knew he was destined for a long life and minutes and seconds saved did not matter. He wore a blue button-down shirt, a purple-and-green striped tie, a brown tweed jacket and grey slacks. He had a habit of standing with his right hand in his jacket pocket, rather like 1930s British actors in late-night movies. He was noticeable, though not by intent.
He was on his way back from Katoomba, where, due to the bungling of the locals, he had had to work longer than he had planned. He had come down from the Blue Mountains and was on the freeway heading for the city when his bladder began to assert itself. He was coming into the outskirts of the suburbs and began to look for a place to pull off the freeway. A curving exit opened up ahead and he took the Mitsubishi Magna up it and brought the car to a halt. He got out, relieved himself, felt the relief of a long piss, one of the unlisted small joys of life. He was about to get back into the car when he saw the big neon-lit building about a couple of hundred metres along the crossroad. All at once he felt thirsty and hungry. Later he would remember, with sour humour, that the whole tragic night had begun with an urge to piss.
He drove into the car park of the club; it looked large enough to take at least a thousand cars, but tonight there were less than two hundred. He knew of it, it was famous, the first of the clubs that had started back in the fifties. It had drawn the local residents together, given them a haven and distraction from the sterile suburbs in which they lived; it had provided what the urban planners had not thought of, a focus. It was wealthy, had voting power with the other clubs, and it spread money where it was needed in the district. A sign by the wide front doors told him: All Visitors Welcome.
He walked in, was overwhelmed by the size of the huge room. He was accustomed to smaller places, had grown up in a three-bedroom semi-detached in Collaroy and size, especially interiors, still impressed him. There were a fair number of people in the room, most of them lined up before the banks of poker machines that sat, with smug faces, like creatures from outer space waiting for the suckers to pay homage. One woman wore a long black glove on the hand that pumped her machine; he wondered if she drew it on like a surgeon about to operate. He was not a gambler, never had been, and he wondered what other strangers like himself, coming in, thought of the machines and their brazen look.
He walked up to the bar. ‘Can I get something to eat without going to the restaurant?’ He could see a restaurant up on a mezzanine floor. ‘A sandwich or something?’
The barmaid had the sort of smile that she gave to everyone, whether she was favouring them or disappointing them. ‘I can get you some sandwiches from the kitchen.’
‘Thanks. And a beer. You have a Heineken, by any chance?’ He had a pleasant voice, every word distinct.
‘We have everything. You name it, we’ve got it, definitely. You moved in around here or just visiting?’
‘Just visiting.’
‘I’m Charlene, the oldest inhabitant. I was a teenager when I started here.’
He hoped she wasn’t going to tell him her life’s history. She was in her mid-forties, he guessed, bright, bouncy and unembarrassed by her openness: you got what you saw. Her hair was a blonde dome, some hairdresser’s self-monument. One would not have been surprised to find an autograph on the wearer’s forehead. But she was efficient and he could see why she had lasted so long. Members, he was sure, would say she was a pillar of the club.
She brought him his beer and sandwiches. ‘It’s ham-and-avocado salad. Nice – I had one m’self for supper. You’ll have to take it to a table. We don’t allow ’em lining up here at the bar to eat. You know what men are like. Let ’em near a bar and they think it’s their mother’s tit, if you’ll forgive the expression.’
‘Of course.’ He couldn’t remember his mother’s tit, but was sure he hadn’t hung round it after he’d left babyhood. He had been one of five children and his mother, deserted by their father, had never had the time to coddle any of them.
He took his right hand out of his pocket to pick up the beer and the sandwiches and only then was it apparent why he kept the hand hidden. It was crippled, a twist of claws. He grasped the sandwich plate, took the beer in his left hand and went across to a table some distance from the bar. He sat down and only then noticed the woman three tables away from him. She looked at him without interest, then got up, went to the bar and brought back a drink. She was an attractive woman, everywhere but in