Helga's Web (6 page)

“I won’t let him,” said Glenda. “He’s too old for that sort of thing anymore.”

She said it with affection and in her fluttery, high voice,

but Savanna knew that what she dictated, Gibson did without argument. The vulgar old bastard had more enemies than the Minister for Defence, treated everyone he met as someone to be exploited; but Glenda had defeated him years ago, he had succumbed to something that he recognized in no one else: love. She sat there on the edge of her chair, corsetted upright at great expense, her pale pink face bright with that impregnable blankness that Savanna found in women of no imagination. He looked across at Josie: she was even worse, but at least she didn’t try to run his life. He felt a sudden warmth of feeling for her. Not love: he could never remember feeling that for her. And, hard on the heels of the warmth of affection for Josie, was the cold stab of conscience that he didn’t feel, had never felt, anything more for her. He had never loved any woman but his first wife, Silver, and she had left him twenty-two years ago and was now the wife of another man. He looked back at Gibson, wondering what the bastards of the world did to merit happiness in their marriages.

“You should go out sometime,” he said, feeling malicious in his knowledge of what went on on at least one of Gibson’s trawlers. “J ust to keep up with things.”

“He’s too old,” Glenda repeated, hurting her husband as only a woman with too much love can; Gibson shook his head, trying to struggle out of the grave she was digging for him. “Anyhow, we’re going abroad again soon. We’re going to Rome again,” she said, and turned her face to Father Wrigley as if looking for a benediction.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Wrigley, chalking up indulgences for himself. He had been pressing this trip on Mrs. Gibson for months, hoping that she might suggest taking him with them as their personal chaplain; he had read, with an envy that had required an Act of Contrition, of those priests fortunate enough to be chaplain to the aristocrats of Europe. It would be difficult to see as an aristocrat the sinful old repro-

bate who would be paying for the trip, but perhaps a miracle would be worth praying for.

“Dunno why we’re going there again,” Gibson grumbled. “Last time we were there I got sick as a dog. Had some seafood stuff in a restaurant down the arse-end of the Colosseum.”

The arse-end of the Colosseum: so much for the antiquities of Europe with Grafter Gibson. Savanna smiled, holding out his glass to Wrigley for a refill; the priest leapt to it as if he were an altar boy. “Stick to steak, Les, wherever you go. Steak and beer, you can’t go wrong.”

“He’s poking fun at you, Les,” said Glenda. “Trying to make out you’re nothing but an Australian.”

But Gibson wasn’t offended. He winked at Savanna, realizing he had an ally against the priest. “I don’t find that such an insult. I been called a bloody lot worse. I bet Father Wrigley here’s called me a thing or two.”

“I pray for you all the time,” said the priest, pouring himself another drink. “Mrs. Gibson asked me to.”

“Father is going with us,” said Glenda, her smile expanding as she saw the priest’s face swell with delight. “It’s time we told you, Father. Les agreed to it this morning.”

“Our own bloody personal chaplain,” Gibson growled. “How’s that for buying your way into heaven?”

Savanna had felt Josie tense beside him and when he looked at her he could see the slight quivering round her mouth, as if she were about to burst into tears. You poor old cow, he thought. I can’t afford to take you to Surfer’s Paradise for even a week, and here’s this smarmy bastard being shouted a three months’ trip to Europe. Grafter doesn’t deserve to keep his money if he’s going to waste it like that.

He stared across the room at the photographs on the bookshelves, one of Josie taken fifteen years ago when she had had no weight problem and when she had still believed that happiness was one of nature’s gifts and didn’t have to be worked

at, and one of their daughter Margaret taken the day she had graduated, the day she had told him she no longer believed anything he would ever tell her. I had every opportunity for happiness, he thought, and IVe buggered it. And started to feel sorry for himself, something he would have despised in himself on any other day.

The conversation of the others spun on about the coming trip, meaningless words clouding the room, while Savanna sat back beside Josie, his eyes half-shut, and began to half-dream, a dream that after a while took on some of the chill of a nightmare as he realized what was taking shape, like a sudden tumor, in his mind. And all because a tight-fisted old scoundrel, instead of using some of his money where it would come in handy, was going to give a free trip abroad to an unctuous fat little priest whom probably the Vatican couldn’t stand. He stared glazedly across at Gibson and wondered how the old man would respond to the suggestion that Helga had frivolously made this morning. Twenty thousand dollars, Les. That’s all I want, and I shan’t say a word about the drugs your men are bringing in. Twenty thousand dollars, Les, and I might even join Wrigley in saying a prayer for you.

“We must be going,” said Glenda. “We’re putting Jack to sleep.”

She stood up, giving him no time to make a polite protest. Gibson also stood up, glad of the opportunity to be gone; he had never acquired a taste for the bon-bons of small talk. Father Wrigley rose more reluctantly, knowing he was soon going to be dismissed, dropped off at the presbytery to return to the company of the two older priests whose only talk was of cards, football and the Holy Father’s problems with the upstarts of the Church. Oh, wait till he told them tonight he was going off on leave to Rome!

He shook hands with his host, aware that Savanna hated him as much as if he were some fire-eating Redemptorist who had forced his way into the house on some evangelical mis-

sion. Why, and all he wanted was a little social ecumenism! “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Savanna.”

“You should come up here sometime before we go, Father,” said Glenda, acting like a Mother Superior. “Have a talk with Jack.”

“What about?” asked Savanna; and even Father Wrigley looked blank.

“The Church, of course,” said Glenda, and looked at Josie for support.

But Josie shook her head, and Father Wrigley looked relieved: he was not built for the role of evangelist. “Jack’s all right as he is.”

“Well—” said Glenda, making it apparent she thought otherwise. She put on her coat and gloves, straightened her hat, picked up her small elegant parasol. Christ, Savanna thought, she’s become a typical society matron, making every outing look like Ladies’ Day at the races.

“You should get Les to church more often,” said Josie, and Savanna loved her for the sweet delicate way she placed the barb. “Especially if he’s going to have a personal chaplain.”

Gibson winked at Josie, an evil grimace. “Your point, Josie. You two women can go off to Mass as much as you like. Me and Jack will say our prayers over a beer.”

“Would you care to have me join you?” said Wrigley brightly.

“You better stick to the women,” said Gibson, nodding at the Savannas and heading for the front door. “They’re the ones keep you fellers in business.”

Glenda straightened her hat again, as if it had been blown off center by her husband’s rudeness to the priest, salvaged a smile for the Church, kissed Josie affectionately, pecked at Savanna as if she would prefer to bite him, and followed her husband out to their car. Father Wrigley, hide as thick as the cover of a family Bible, shook hands again, complimented Savanna on his whisky and scuttled out to the Rolls before

Gibson gave the order to the chauffeur to drive away.

The Savannas stood side by side in their front doorway watching the big black car glide away. It turned the corner at the end of the street, the late sun catching it for a moment: the golden reflections seemed to take on an extra carat or two from their source. “I’d love a Rolls-Royce,” Josie sighed.

I couldn’t bite him for that much, Savanna thought; not that and the money we really need. He had looked up the price of the Rolls when Grafter had bought the latest Silver Shadow: twenty-four thousand dollars; that had been the day the bank had sent him a particularly sharp note about Olympus’ overdraft, and he had almost turned Communist on the spot. Yet, in a way, he didn’t begrudge Grafter the car nor the way the old bastard lived; he would live that way himself if he could afford it. He put his arm about Josie’s plump shoulders and squeezed her. “Would you settle for a vintage Savanna?”

He could feel her body stiffen. She and Glenda have been talking about me, he thought again; or she’s been listening and Glenda has been doing the talking. But he kept his arm round her, his fingers working gently on her bare shoulder. Across the street a woman hosing her garden watched them, her eyes sore with the effort to be discreet; here in Rose Bay there were still pretensions of gentility; you did not stare at your neighbours unless you were wearing dark glasses. Savanna did stare across at the woman, telling her silently: I’m trying to seduce my wife and I’m a bastard. Then he felt Josie relax and he felt even more of a bastard. But what else can I offer her but some love-making? She knows I don’t love her, but she’s willing to take the substitute. She looked up at him, her eyes going blank, and said, “Now?”

She turned quickly and went inside. He stood at the front door, looking out across the shining scab of red-tiled roofs on the lower side of the street to the thin streak of water, a blue mote in the eye, that the estate agents called a harbour

view. He and Josie had moved here to Rose Bay when they had first married; she because, born and raised in Ashfield, a respectable lower middle class suburb, she hungered to move up to a higher scale of respectability; he because he had been born and raised in Rose Bay, anyway, and it was close to the city. They had paid five and a half thousand pounds for the house and he had not been too proud to finance it on a War Service loan. Today he could sell the house for fifty thousand dollars, or twenty-five thousand pounds, and wipe out all his debts with the sale. But they would be left with nothing to start all over again and he had no confidence in his powers of recovery. Unlike Grafter Gibson he had never really started at the bottom and at fifty-four he did not want to go looking for the experience of it. Beyond that there was another, more important reason why he would not sell the house. It was the one solid, constant thing in their marriage, Josie’s rock; she did not love it more than she did their daughter, but she depended on it more; it would always be there, but Margaret was already gone, was in England now and might never come back. If he took the house away from Josie, their marriage would be over. And he could not bring himself to do that to her.

He closed the front door, shutting out the scratched and dented Jaguar, the driveway that he couldn’t afford to have re-surfaced, the dusky sky whose serenity was a mockery. He would give Grafter a call in the next day or two, but first he would have to work out what to say. He had never spoken the commercial for blackmail.

“Hurry up, sweet— “

On his way to the bedroom he stopped by the phone, took it off its cradle and dialled two digits to break the dial tone. It had a habit of ringing at the worst possible moment. The Postmaster-General had caused more hernias than he knew of.

Monday, December 9

“I think you might’ve let your father off ,” said Brigid i\Ia- lone, doling out trifle in Irish-sized helpings. “Getting him mixed up with the police and things like that. There, Lisa. Is that too much?” She handed the plate to Lisa Pretorious, daring her to knock it back.

”I’m Dutch,” said Lisa.

“I know,” said Mrs. Malone, looking as if the knowledge gave her indigestion.

“We love big helpings. They never served me enough when

I was in London.”

“Not even at them big fancy dinners and things at the em- bassy houses and places like that?” Mrs. Malone shook her head in wonder at how the rich tried to economize.

“That wasn’t a bad picture of me in tonight’s Sun,” said Con Malone.

“It was a good one of Scobie, too,” said Lisa.

“Yeah, ” Con Malone said. “Pity they had to take us together, but.”

The visit had been awkward, but not quite as bad as Malone had expected. His father’s connection with the Opera House murder, slight though it was, had been enough to take the heat off Lisa, even if only occasionally. Brigid Malone, Irish as a peat-bog as she was, had missed out on one of her forebears’ talents: she could not wage war on more than one front. At last she had put aside her antagonism towards Lisa for another night and had concentrated on her son’s bad taste and lack of filial feeling in getting his father involved in police business.

But Malone knew how to handle that sort of situation and it had not worried him. He poured some more claret into his father’s glass and said, “I never talk business when I’m eating. Lisa says it’s bad for the digestion.”

“What do ambassadors and people like that talk about when they’re eating?” asked Mrs. Malone.

“About each other,” said Lisa. “Excepting the French. They only talk about themselves.”

In the house next door an argument suddenly started up, words booming and crackling beyond the thin kitchen wall like a distant barrage. Malone looked at Lisa and grinned. “There’s some diplomatic chitchat for you.”

A woman’s voice, strident as a cracked siren, yelled, “You drunken bastard! I dunno what I ever seen in you—” Her voice cut off sharply asyomething thudded against the wall with a metallic clunk.

“Something’s gunna cojfie right through the wall one night,” said Con Malone, sipping his claret, thinking maybe there was something to this business of gracious living or whatever they called it.

“Two or three times a week it happens,” said Mrs. Malone. “Next thing you’ll hear him clout her.”

On cue there was a scream from the woman. Lisa jumped and looked across at Malone. He shook his head. “If I went in there and interfered, they’d both go for me. That’s their own argument. They don’t want any outsider butting in.”