Helga's Web (31 page)

“Hullo, Wally.” Les Gibson sat in a window seat looking out over the course. He was clutching a glass in one bony claw and looked like a man interested in neither Christmas nor charity.

“Hello, Les. You look like Scrooge. How did they get you to a thing like this?” Gibson was one man who would never be elected to membership and Helidon could only suppose he was here at the invitation of one of the charity women who was after a sizable donation.

“At the point of a gun,” said Gibson. “How’s the eye? Last time I saw you a voter had just clocked you.”

Helidon managed a smile, humoring the old bastard. He had not forgotten the insults Gibson had handed him at their last meeting, but in the political game you could only harbour grudges against opponents from other parties, never against an uncommitted voter. You never knew when you might need him. “With all your money, Les, what do you vote?”

“Communist. They’re the only ones who can afford to be honest—they’ll never get into power in this country, not with the millions of reactionaries we call the easy-going, democratic Aussie.” He looked around the big room at the easygoing, democratic reactionaries who remained oblivious of his contempt of them. “The voters are the same, Wally. Hypocrites, every bloody one of ‘em, all voting out of their pockets. The only honest voters today are the radical kids, the demonstrators.”

“They’d be pleased to have you as one of their backers. Why don’t you give them a million or two?”

“I wouldn’t back ‘em. I’d shoot the bloody lot of them. If ever they did get into power, I’d be one of the first for the chopping block. I admire ‘em, Wally, but I’m not bloody stupid. I admire tigers, too, but I wouldn’t want one as a pet.”

Helidon felt in a benevolent mood. After all, Christmas was the time to be charitable, even to old crooks like Grafter Gibson. And he had heard no more from Helga, so maybe she, too, had been touched by the Christmas spirit, and had decided to call it quits and leave hiMalone. He suddenly felt in the mood to enjoy the party and he said, “I think I envy you, Les, in a way. You’ve got enough money and you’re old enough to have all your worries behind you. You can say and do exactly what you like.”

Not quite, Wally, thought Gibson. But all he said was,

“The time to be honest is when you’re young, not when you’re old. The truth doesn’t improve with age.”

“I still envy you.”

“You could be the same as me if you wanted to give up politics. But if you did that, Wally, you’d die of anonymity. You wouldn’t be the first, but I think it’d be a terrible bloody death in your case.”

Helidon’s benevolent mood disappeared as quickly as the smile from his face. “Have you ever had a kind word to say to anyone, Les? Or vice versa?”

“Yes,” said Gibson, his mottled face screwed into a smile that could have been malicious or affectionate, depending upon who saw it. “Here she comes now.”

Glenda Gibson, rustling like old leaves in her yellow silk, came up to them. “Mr. Helidon, I’ve just been talking to your wife. She’s so pleased and so must you be!”

“Why?” Helidon was puzzled. Norma, still suffering from the reaction to her fight with Helga last Monday, had been in no humour for the party and had only come because she was chairwoman of the charity committee.

“What was in the papers this morning—that she’s been made president of the Blue and Red Ball.”

“That’s headline news?” Gibson asked drily. “When’s the inauguration? You gunna wear a top hat, Wally?”

Helidon kept his temper. “Don’t be too critical, Les. We may have over two and a half million people, but we’re still a small town. And the women do some good.”

“You’ll be saying the same for you politicians next.”

“Now that’s enough of that, Les,” said Glenda. “No matter what the size of a place is, little town or big city, there always has to be someone at the top.”

“Christ Almighty,” said Gibson, grinning lovingly at her, “you’re starting to sound as if you wished you’d be in the running.”

Glenda looked at Helidon. “Could you imagine me as a so-

ciety queen, Mr. Helidon, with him as my consort or whatever they call it?”

Helidon’s smile did not have to be forced this time. “An impossible picture, indeed, Mrs. Gibson.”

He moved away and Gibson looked after him. “When he was born I bet they squeezed him out of his mother like shaving cream out of a tube. He’s so bloody smooth.”

“Maybe he has to be, in his position. You shouldn’t be so critical, Les. He can’t afford to be as frank as you are.”

“He’d never offend anyone, not even his missus, for fear she mightn’t vote for him. He spends his whole time pussyfooting around, never wanting to get out of step. He’s a dull bastard and there’s no getting away from it—if he just swore or got drunk, I’d think a bit more of him. Not much, but a bit. Have you had enough, hon? Let’s go home.”

“In a while. The Archbishop would like to meet you.”

“The Cardinal? I’ve met him.”

“No, the Anglican Archbishop.”

“Jesus, Glenda, isn’t one set of God-botherers enough for you?”

“Now don’t be like that, Les. You know what Father Wrig-ley says—we should all try to be ecumen-whatever-it-is.”

“If being ecumenical means being matey with Father Wrigley, I’d rather be a bigot.”

“I think I’d rather have him visit us than that Mr. Clixby or whatever-his-name was who came this evening. You do have some rough-looking men working for you.”

“He’s not working for me any more,” said Gibson, regretting the seven hundred dollars it had cost him but thinking how easily the girl had been got rid of. “You won’t be seeing him again, hon. Now where’s the bloody Archbishop?”

Walter Helidon, on the other side of the room, was just starting to feel the effects of his third martini. He looked about him, thinking: this is the cream of the city and, mock cream though I may be, they’re mixing me in with them. He

lifted another martini from a passing tray and toasted himself. He might never go any higher than this, but this was good enough. Helga had been wrong: you didn’t get this far if you were no more than a schoolboy. Merry Christmas, Walter.

“You look pleased with yourself/’ Norma Helidon, throat encircled by the repaired string of pearls, paused beside him. She flashed her smile at a gabble of young girls as they swooped by like predators on their way to take down the older men for as much as they could get in the name of charity; in the background their escorts waited with the smug satisfaction of young men who knew that what they would offer the young girls later in the night would be more welcome than a charity donation. “I wish I had your self-delusion.”

“I told you before we left—” He smiled at a woman, recognizing her as one who worked for him in his electorate; he and Norma stood side by side like a firing squad shooting smiles instead of bullets. “If Helga was going to get in touch with us again, she’d have done it by now.”

“Have you tried to get in touch with her?”

“Yes,” he admitted after a moment’s hesitation. “I rang her twice to try to tell her she could have the money. There was no answer. Personally, I think she’s had second thoughts about what she was up to, has got scared and done a bunk. After all—” He switched on another smile, this time at a couple whose respective ancestors had come out with the First Fleet: his as convicts, hers as army officers: both heritages were now respectable, though, in the new national spirit, his was the more to be envied. Convicts, so long as they were four generations removed, were now considered the best of stock. “We’re both a little more important than she thought. She may have got scared of our position.”

Norma, with some of the candour she had almost forgotten, changed her smile to a wry one. “You’re kidding. No girl

like her was ever a respecter of position—even if we had any. A new Premier, and you could be out of the Cabinet tomorrow. As for me—” The smile widened again in recognition of another passing couple, this time Louise County and her husband, a small thin man with the resigned look of one who had chosen to surrender in the battle of the sexes. Louise was said to have defeated him on their honeymoon twenty years ago and he had been walking wounded ever since. “Being chairwoman of a committee composed of a dozen women like Louise isn’t position. It’s just civilized masochism.” .

“What’s got into you? What’s happened to the social snob I was married to?”

“Listen to who’s talking. I lost my snobbery on the living room floor of your girl friend, along with my best string of pearls. I had to get down on my hands and knees to find out I’d also lost my pride.” She turned to him, the smile frozen on her face like a grimace of pain. “Let’s go home, Wally. I’m feeling terrible.”

They went out through the slowly swirling crowd that, its preoccupation with itself thickened now by drink and gossip, would not miss them. As they got into the car Norma slumped back in her seat, took off her pearls and put them in her handbag, and sighed quaveringly as if she were on the verge of tears. Helidon sat quietly beside her, something telling him that this was a crisis moment in their marriage, even more critical than when she had found out about Helga. Their life together from now on started here.

“Would you give up politics if I asked you to?” She did not look at him directly; there was more apprehension in her voice than threat. “Not right away, but as soon as you could.”

He said warily, “You’re asking a lot.”

“I know. But I’m trying to save our marriage.”

“We’re all righk darl-”

She was massaging her throat, as if she had just removed

a rope from it instead of the string of pearls. “We don’t have a marriage, Wally. Even Miss Brand told me that.”

“I thought we weren’t going to mention her again?”

“I’m not throwing her up at you. I’m trying to be dispassionate about her—” She stopped, as if she found being dispassionate was not an easy emotion. “But she told the truth. We don’t have a marriage. We have a—a social arrangement.”

“There are plenty worse marriages than ours.”

“A man’s answer.” She turned round to him, gaining more confidence. “Wally, I mean it. Our marriage isn’t going to last the way it’s going. Oh, we might stay together for convenience’s sake. There are a lot of our friends who have marriages like that. But—” She faltered, then went on: “I want something more than that to look forward to. I think I’ve just discovered I was’ happier as the dull woman I was ten years ago. At least then we were in love.”

“I love you now,” he said and meant it.

“You probably do. And I love you. I really do, darling. But—” She regarded him thoughtfully. “How long will it last if we go on living separate lives? That’s what we’re doing, you know. We sleep in the same room, but not in the same beds—”

“Whose fault was that?”

She waited a moment before she admitted, “Yes, it was my idea. And I’m sorry now.”

“We can buy a double bed tomorrow.”

“All right, we’ll do that. But that’s not going to be the solution. We have to start living together all day. Even when we’re apart. Does that make sense to you?”

He nodded slowly, still unsure of her. She was asking him to give up all he had worked for over the past ten years, the life that for him was the only life worth living. He loved politics, got almost a sensual as well as an intellectual pleasure out of them. He had reconciled himself to the recognition that he would never be Premier, the ultimate satisfaction (he

had no interest at all in Federal politics and never even thought of being Prime Minister); he had achieved a complacency of mind that, with parallel smugness, he knew very few men managed. He had at least another fifteen years, probably more, of public life to be enjoyed: neither the voters nor the Party would ever ask him to do what Norma was asking. He would agree with her for the time being, but he would try to change her mind in the weeks ahead. They could still have the life she wanted if she gave up her charity committees.

“What would we do?”

“We could go abroad. Travel—take our time—”

“It makes very good sense, indeed.”

She smiled, relaxing. She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. “We’ll be happy, darling, I promise you. But while we’re making a new start—”

“Yes?”

“Give up saying indeed. I’m not one of your voters, dar-ling.”

He smiled, loving her now as much as when their marriage had begun. “I’ll watch it. Let’s go home and vote for each other in bed.”

An hour and a half later she got out of bed and reached for her dressing gown. “Don’t put it on,” he said. “You used to walk around naked when we first got married.”

The shadow of Helga passed between them, but they looked at each other frankly as if neither of them had seen it. He wants me to act like his whore did, Norma thought. What was the perfect wife supposed to be: a servant in the kitchen, a lady in the drawing room and a whore in the bedroom? But she said nothing of that, only looked at herself in the big wall-mirror. “I looked better in those days.”

You look all right now,” he said, shutting out the image of Helga, being doggedly faithful and loving. “You look— womanly.”

She came back, leaned across to him as he sat up in bed and kissed him. “Was it really good?”

“We haven’t lost the knack. All we needed was to forget everything but ourselves. I’m just glad Rosa has gone.”

“I forgot everything, everything but what we were doing. But if you asked me to remember—” She smiled, kissed him again. “We don’t need to remember it. It’ll happen again. Often.”

Then the phone rang. He picked it up automatically: it could be the Premier, his own secretary, a voter, anyone: even Helga. It was a voice he had never heard before, a rough voice full of gravelly menace: “Mr. Helidon? I think you and me might get together.”

“Who’s this?”

“My name don’t matter right now. But I got a diary here that’s got your name in it, you know what I mean? It was given to me by a girl named Helga, an old friend of yours. You remember her?”

He looked at his wife. He had been about to pull her back into the bed with him when the phone had rung; but now all the sex ran out of him. He put his hand over the phone. “Don’t get cold. Put your gown on.”