Red dust disturbed by the helicopter blades drifted over the emerald Bellaranga lawn and the passengers waited for it to settle before disembarking. There were only four, and Mac stepped out from the homestead to greet them as the last figure emerged.
‘G’day, g’day. Great to see you, Max. Henry, how are you? You look ready for anything. Jason, how’s the golf? That’s the one thing we can’t do for you in the Kimberley, but a little barramundi fishing, some great tucker, some amazing rock art, a bit of rough riding-it might do the trick, eh? Ah, and here’s the boss.’
The last greeting was directed at Jack in the slightly broader Australian accent that seemed to overwhelm any veneer of polish once Mac was in the bush. He was herding them about like a kelpie, pressing them to take a cold beer from the silver tray that the housekeeper had placed on the wicker table under the poinciana trees, telling them to forget their bags, that sunset would be upon them in an hour, that they could catch it by the billabong where he, Mac, on his own, no servants, would cook dinner over an open fire and they could sit together in the blackness and hear the thump of kangaroo tails on the hard ground. He appeared almost excited and nervous to have guests in this remote place, the opposite of the calm commander of the Honey Bear. It was always like this with visitors to Bellaranga, but now there were other reasons for his edginess. They were the black thoughts that woke him in the night when the homestead was empty and the only sounds were the rustles in the dry bush from nocturnal animals and his own feet on the old, wide floorboards as he paced about from room to room. The staff slept in another building a couple of miles away on the property. He’d always liked being completely alone at night up here, ‘sleeping like a baby’-but not anymore. The black dog was upon him, with sharp teeth. He’d always sneered at people who suffered from depression for no apparent reason, who couldn’t pull themselves together and just get on with life without running off to shrinks or counsellors or social workers or other charlatans. Just get on with it. He wasn’t one of those. He just got on with it. The problem at the moment was how to get on with it. What to get on with.
There was a tangle of strings knotted up in a ball inside his head and he couldn’t see which one to pull. You had to keep them loose. That was the secret of untying knots. His father had taught him that when they went fishing together. ‘You don’t pull, son. Never tighten. Loosen, loosen. Just tweak a little here, thread a little there. But always loosen, and the knots disappear.’
The biggest knot, the one that was causing him pain in the stomach or the chest so close to the heart he wondered in the night if he was having some sort of attack, if the indestructible, invincible Big Mac was somehow vulnerable like ordinary beings, this dark cloud was the tumbling share price of HOA. When people asked him about it he just shrugged and tossed off his standard line: ‘It’s only paper money. Markets go up, markets go down. We just get on and run the company for the shareholders.’
But what the market didn’t know, what no one knew except his bankers, was that he was a mortal being, that he was vulnerable, that his entire shareholding in HOA was subject to margin calls and all his other assets, at least according to his accountant who spoke an infuriating language Mac struggled to understand half the time, that these assets were so locked up in trusts and nominee companies and other complex corporate structures that they were difficult to access quickly. And it looked increasingly as if speed might be vital. He’d always relied in previous situations like this, and there had been some, close to the wire, kneeling over the edge, you had to look over the edge sometimes or you weren’t a real man, in those times he’d always just brought funds from Switzerland and held the dogs at bay. But now the authorities were all over that, too. Sniffer dogs they were, scenting every last dollar a man might have worked hard for, trying to grab it just because a bit of tax hadn’t been paid or some currency regulation hadn’t been complied with. And the problem now wasn’t just potential fines; there were criminal sanctions in place. Why they weren’t out catching the hooligans who broke into people’s houses or stole cars or dealt drugs instead of hounding honest citizens was beyond him. Not that they were hounding Mac, or even had a whiff of anything, but they would if he started shifting big lumps of cash around, his cash, the cash he needed to get the bank off his back. He either needed the cash or he needed the share price to rise, it was as simple as that.
And that’s why he woke in the night. And why sitting beside him on a dusty car seat was Maxwell Newsome, CEO of the biggest stockbroker trading in HOA shares, and sitting either side of Jack in the rear were Jason Little of Bankers Trust, who held virtually no shares, and Henry Hurst of UBS Warburg, who earned enormous fees from HOA for handling all its market placements.
A barbecue by the billabong. A Kimberley sunset. Steaks from his own beasts, killed on the old place, cooked by his own hand. The best wine. A gentle word here, a little excitement there. It wouldn’t be enough on its own, but it kept the knots loose. It helped you to discover which string to pull. It’d never failed him in the past.
And then there was Jack. God, he’d held such high hopes for that boy, built him up to the market as if he was a messiah. And they’d bought it for a while; everything was looking great. But now he always sounded like a bloody preacher. It seemed as if Renton Healey had successfully thrown him off the track he’d been on, but even so Mac was uneasy. Suddenly there were these strange items in the paper about Jack. Weird rumours about something to do with the Colonial Club were floating around the business world, suggestions he’d acted unethically in some property deal. It sounded like bullshit to Mac, but it was odd. Mac was the one who might have the real reason to shut him up, but he didn’t poison water. If you wanted to knife someone, you stabbed them in the stomach.
‘You see, just a few stones for the fireplace, a few sticks for the fire and away we go. Did you ever see a sunset like this? Now here’s the wine, but where’s the opener? Still in the truck, I’m afraid.’
Jack stepped forward. ‘I need the exercise after the flight.’ ‘Thanks, Jack. I don’t want to leave the fire at the critical moment. Much appreciated. It’s in the glove box.’
Jack wandered off with a torch, relieved to be walking the half-mile back to the vehicle alone. He always felt better when he saw Mac face to face. It reminded him why he’d taken this job in the first place, apart from the mental challenge. Mac might be a buccaneer, he might be larger than any life most people would want to live, maybe he did cut a few corners here and there, but Jack couldn’t believe he was fundamentally devious or dishonest.
He didn’t make your skin crawl like Laurence Treadmore or Renton Healey. Even if some of Jack’s concerns were proven, maybe Mac didn’t know about those practices. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to detail. Maybe the Pope was wrong and he should just sit down with Mac and ask him about all this.
When he reached the truck it was still light enough to see the eerie silhouettes of the rocky outcrops looming out of the dusk as scarlet splashes turned to magenta then grey then black in the night sky. The stars were suddenly bright in the clear air but there was no moon. He rummaged around in a glove box full of rags, repair bills, vehicle registration papers, rings full of keys. There was no bottle opener, but eventually he found a Swiss Army knife with a small corkscrew in its innards, and he stuffed the other contents back into the compartment. As he did so, the torch shone on the registration paper and a familiar name caught his eye. The truck was registered to a company: Beira Pty Ltd.
Mac and Maxwell Newsome stood by the fire away from the other two, beers in hand, gazing convivially into the flames, as men do and have done since fires were first lit. Things could be said by fires that might not be said elsewhere.
‘So, I know you love fishing, Max. Are you up for an early start?’
‘Absolutely, Mac. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I love it up here, you know that.’
Mac did know that. Maxwell Newsome saw himself as the financial market’s Ernest Hemingway, without the writing. He’d never read the stories, but he’d read everything there was to read about the man’s life and loved it all-the hunting, the African adventures, the drinking, the women-maybe not the end. Maxwell had a wardrobe full of khaki clothes with strange patches and pockets and zippers which detached parts of them. He could never look at these garments without wanting to fill them with bullets or compasses or folding knives, since he also had a drawer full of these. But he could never figure out which pocket was for what. And besides, he feared he might look faintly ridiculous. Indeed he was concerned there could be a touch of the ridiculous about him now as he stood, legs apart, in a pair of brand-new safari pants and a shirt with a leopard embroidered in green silk on the pocket. He’d shot a leopard. It wasn’t something he was proud of, not something he’d tell Mac, not even by the fire. Especially since he hadn’t killed it. The white hunter had told him, ‘Don’t shoot unless you’re sure you can kill. A wounded leopard is the most dangerous animal in Africa and I’ll have to hunt it.’ But his hands had been shaking more than he thought, even though they were in a hide with a kill placed in the fork of a nearby tree. The hunter had given him the option of ‘a real hunt’ or ‘the tourist method’, obviously trying to shame him into a hunt in the open on foot, but he’d come to kill an animal, not be killed, paid a great deal of money to kill a leopard, so he could say he’d killed a leopard. But he’d never been able to say that, not even that he’d shot at one, because of the shame, not of the poor shot, but of the fact that when the hunter had asked him to come with him to track and kill the wounded animal-the animal he’d wounded so he could tell people in the living rooms of the Darling Point harbourside mansions how he’d killed the leopard and hear their gasps at meeting not just a corporate killer, which he was, but a real killer, which he wanted to be-he’d told the hunter he’d stay in the hide. He’d never forget the look of distaste on the man’s face as he walked off into the shadowy light with a torch strapped to the barrel of his rifle.
In order to regain his sense of control, away from these demeaning thoughts, he turned to Mac. ‘So, my friend, the market’s been a little unkind to you lately.’
Mac, who with a couple of beers under his belt and the thought of rare steak and Grange Hermitage in close proximity was just drifting into a state of semi-euphoria, jerked up as if slapped in the face. ‘Yeah, well, you know better than anyone, Max-markets come and go, we just run the company as best we can.’
‘Yes.’ Max Newsome swallowed a long draught of beer. ‘Still, I think there’s some work to be done, Mac. You don’t want things to drift too far off course, do you?’
Mac was locked in now, antennae picking up static all around. ‘No way, Max. But the business is in great shape, that’s what I don’t understand. What’s happening out there? Why aren’t people buying the stock? We’re doing as well as we ever were.’
He felt Max’s hand on his arm and was suddenly even more concerned. ‘You shouldn’t worry too much, Mac, there’s just a lot of confusion around. Some of it to do with your new CEO.’
Mac tried to read his expression in the flickering light but the long face was turned away from him. ‘Worried? I’m not worried by a few analysts who haven’t bought their first pair of long trousers yet. But what’s this about Jack? You don’t mean all that gossipy stuff in the press, surely?’
Max laughed. ‘No, the market doesn’t care who he sleeps with.
They’re probably all jealous, truth be told. Although that rumour about the club’s a bit odd, isn’t it? But no, it’s more that people don’t understand the HOA strategy anymore. You’re a growth stock, Mac, that’s always been your story. Not a defensive play like the banks. Growth. You’ve sold that very successfully and, for the most part, delivered. Now Jack’s sending out different signals.’
Mac knew it was true. Despite all his coaching and cajoling, he couldn’t convince Jack to stop talking about ‘profitable growth’, about insurance as a ‘concept of mutual protection’. All that stuff about making neighbourhoods safe and plotting flood areas and God knows what was fine on Sunday, in church, but it sank like a stone in the river of commerce. The market wanted growth, Max was right. And that’s what they’d get.
‘So a little good news wouldn’t go astray, Mac. You see what I mean. We’ve a lot of our clients’ money invested in HOA stock based on your growth story-I don’t have any reason to change that, do I? Not that you can give me any information that’s not generally available to the market. Nor do I want any. But a small dose of good news-that’s the tonic.’
Mac smiled. ‘You know the story, Max. No news is good news. If there was a problem I’d tell you. And, without breaking any goddamn stock exchange rules, I’d also tell you if there wasn’t good news coming.’
He felt the hand on his arm again. ‘Excellent. You always perform, Mac, that’s what we love. And the fishing and the fire and the excellent wine. Speaking of which, here comes your man with the opener. Maybe a quiet word, eh?’
It was exactly the sort of function Mac hated. Why in heaven’s name had he come? There were the flamingos tapping and preening all over the room in a display dance of social pretension that turned his stomach. And he was part of it, he’d joined in the polka without being dragged, which made it worse.
When Archie Speyne had ushered him into the partly finished gallery and directed his eyes upward with a dramatic flourish of his velvet-clad arm, Mac knew he was in for an evening of relentless agony. There, high on the rough plastered wall in discreetly stuck-on lettering, were the words THE BIDDULPH GALLERY. He was unable to stifle a groan, which clearly was not the reaction Archie was seeking.
‘But Mac, it would fit so well. A new home for our masterpieces and the Matisse we’re bidding for, if only, if only we can get it, and you, Mac, you, you’re the one, you’re the only one who fits it all so perfectly. Homes, Matisse-you see it, you must see it.’
Archie Speyne had a curious habit of repeating phrases when he was excited. It was one of many curious habits, several of which were gossiped about in the bars of Oxford Street and Potts Points and none of which, other than the repetition of phrases, would be on show this evening. There was a touch of desperation in the air around Archie. He’d made promises he couldn’t keep and his whole career, his carefully manicured reputation as the darling of the art world, threatened to erupt over him in a flood of molten lava. He could end up like one of those frozen bodies in Pompeii, trapped in a river of disaster and found centuries later, fossilised, featuring on a little stand on the desk of some future director of this very museum. On the other hand, there were some things in Pompeii he wouldn’t mind being trapped with… Archie recovered to renew his assault on Mac, who had wandered out of the half-finished extension to where the drinks were being served. It wasn’t fair, not fair at all. When Archie had made the commitment for the works, when he’d assured the trustees he had the money, the money was there. Rudolph Steinmann had promised it, shaken hands on it, delighted to see THE STEINMANN GALLERY on the wall. It was only when the contract had been drawn up for the gift that things had come unstuck.
‘What is this, Mr Speyne? Twenty-five years? For twenty-five years you put my name on the gallery, then somebody else’s name? Is that what you say? You rub my family name away like so much chalk on a blackboard?’
Archie had grovelled and knelt and bent every which way, explained it was the policy of the museum never to grant naming rights in perpetuity, a policy of the trustees, not his policy, but the crotchety old bastard wouldn’t budge.
‘No. You want two million dollars of my money. I want immortality. That’s a bit longer than twenty-five years. You can’t deliver, someone else will.’
And they had, and the money was in their bank account, and the Steinmann name was on their wall. And Archie was up shit creek without a paddle. He hated crude expressions like that, but he was. So there. He hurried after Mac into the main gallery where one long table for twenty-five guests glittered with glass and silver and tiny candles placed next to tiny vases, each holding a single chrysanthemum placed precisely by Archie’s own hand. Attention to detail was everything, especially when you were asking people for money.
By the time the guests were seated, Archie had regained his composure, if he could be said to possess composure, and was ready to perform his much-loved party trick of introducing everyone at the table with a brief, flattering but amusing pastiche of their social significance.
‘Friends-because that’s what we all are, friends of this marvellous museum, friends of art, friends of our beautiful city and just wonderful friends, because we like you all, we don’t invite anyone to special functions like this that we don’t enjoy-we are gathered here for a very special purpose that I and Arnold Shaw from London will speak about a little later. But I feel I must pique your interest even at this early hour with a name.’ He paused and looked archly around as if an indiscretion of some bizarre nature was about to be revealed. ‘Matisse.’ Another coy pause was made available for the intaking of breath, which did not in fact come. ‘Yes, a name to conjure with. The painters’ painter. We’ve all seen the great works in the Centre Pompidou or the Tate. Can we ever expect to see one in our wonderful extension next door?’
An inappropriate thought-’not unless we can get a roof on’-passed fleetingly through Archie’s consciousness before he ploughed on. ‘We must enable our fellow citizens to view works like this, uplifting works, whenever they wish. And particularly those less fortunate persons in our community who cannot travel to Paris or London.’
There was general murmuring of approval at this. The concept of cold or hunger was difficult to grasp, but the inability to travel to Paris or London was real and terrible to contemplate.
‘We want these pictures of beauty and wonder on our own walls.’ He cast his hands around the walls in a circular motion. ‘Although there is one among us who already has that privilege, as I shall mention in a moment.’
There was a general exchange of inquiring looks at this remark. The burly figure at the head of the table stared mournfully down at the pink cloth and wondered how on earth he could extract himself from this torture. Bonny was spending the week at some sort of retreat to ‘find herself ‘ or something. God knows why. She was easy enough to find. He’d been on his own in the Kimberley for a while and he wanted company. He supposed he could have had dinner with Edith, which would have been novel, but she was always asking him how things were. ‘How are things, Mac?’ she would say in that earnest voice, as if the end of the world was nigh. Even when it wasn’t. Not that it was now. Anyway, maybe he should have had dinner with Edith.
At least he would’ve escaped this lot.
He felt a hand on his lap and turned in surprise to the woman next to him. He’d never met her before and peered at her place card, trying to make out her name in the gloom.
‘It’s Popsie, darling, just Popsie. Such a pleasure to be with the famous Mac Biddulph again. Unbelievable our paths have crossed so seldom.’
In truth their paths wouldn’t have crossed this starry evening had Popsie not carefully examined the table while drinks were being served and surreptitiously moved her name card from near the kitchen entrance to its present cosy and prominent position next to Mac.
She pouted at him in an unusual pursing of the lips that seemed to presage the application of lip gloss, but was merely the prelude to a whisper. ‘I hear you’re about to become a benefactor of this wonderful museum. What a marvellous man you are. How lucky we are to have people like you.’
She patted his arm in a gesture that Mac found offensive. He turned away from her to listen briefly to Archie’s round of introductions-anything was better than this posturing pantomime beside him.
‘And now our dear friend Vera North who, with her dear late husband Alec, has helped the museum in so many ways and continues to do so. Where would the arts be in this great city without people of taste and sensibility like Vera? We can’t rely on governments, can we?’ As Archie’s eyes swept around the table for confirmation, they suddenly lighted on the Premier’s chief of staff. ‘Alone. We cannot and must not rely on governments alone. Because they have other important responsibilities, like hospitals and roads and other things.’ Archie sensed he was drifting slightly from his planned course. ‘And we’re incredibly grateful to this government for more than twenty million dollars in recurrent funding. But we must also help ourselves. From our positions of privilege, we must contribute where we can.’
Mac wondered exactly what privileged position Archie Speyne was referring to in his own case, unless it was the close proximity to the twenty million that allowed him to travel the world in modest style in the interests of art. But his mind was more occupied with how he could escape before Archie sprayed him with his own dose of flattery and cologne, and before the strange creature next to him devoured him with her extraordinary expanding mouth. All eyes were now on Archie as he was introducing, with urbane wit he felt, the chairman of a large concrete company who was fond of saying, ‘Half this country is covered in our product and the other half in red dust.’ Gently, unobtrusively, Mac eased his chair back and made his way to the rear exit of the gallery. Only a few noticed him leave as all waited their turn for attention. His rubber-soled shoes made no sound on the terrazzo floor. He always wore rubber, no point in slipping, and God was he glad of it now.
The cold night air was a blessed relief after the claustrophobic atmosphere of those cloying remarks and clinging people. Christ. He’d give anything to be out on the Honey Bear whacking golf balls into the river. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t mind having Archie Speyne’s head printed on them. He waved to his driver to wait for him and set off at a brisk pace towards Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. He’d have loved to see Archie’s face when his circus act finally reached Mac’s empty chair.
A disturbing thought flitted across his vision like a bat through the night sky. There were a lot of well-placed people at that table, apart from poseurs like Popsie whatever her name was, including the heads of three major banks. They wouldn’t think he’d slipped away to dodge making a donation, would they? That wouldn’t look so good. After all, he had accepted the damn invitation-if you’re not going to give, don’t go. And the only way to defend was to attack. He turned and hurried back to the museum, fumbling to find the cell phone in his pocket as he tapped Archie on the shoulder and drew him into a corner with the words, ‘Sorry, had to make an urgent call, but I’ve some news for you.’ He thought the poor little bastard would piss his pants when he told him, and watched with contempt as Archie almost ran to the table to tap his wineglass.
‘Friends, dear friends, I have the most exciting news. What a wonderful evening, made so special by one of those people who contribute so much to society in so many ways. Our godfather here, Mac Biddulph, has just allowed me to reveal the name of the exceptional space behind you that will, on completion, house so many of our treasures and hopefully, with your generous assistance, our new Matisse. I am proud to announce, following a wonderfully generous gift of two million dollars, that this new space will be named the Biddulph Gallery.’
As Popsie Trudeaux drove home in her Mercedes 55 AMG she had mixed feelings. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t driving home in a 55 AMG, although the car carried those numbers and letters on its rear. Actually it was a standard model costing about a hundred thousand dollars less. It hadn’t been easy acquiring those badges either. The dealer had been outraged when she’d offered to buy them. ‘We sell cars, madam, not badges.’ So she told him to fuck off and found someone who could get them for a couple of hundred, God knows where from. Just because Angus couldn’t even bring home the bacon like he used to didn’t mean the whole world needed to know. But that wasn’t the cause of her mixed feelings. She’d managed to seat herself next to Mac, which was a plus, but despite her ample charms being on full display and all kinds of electrical impulses being directed his way, there’d not been a flicker of response. It was enormously frustrating. To be so close to a man like that, so rich, so well known for screwing around, so much the star of the night, and not even to score a lunch date or a leg tremble. Nothing. She’d ring her doctor first thing in the morning.
Certainly more Botox was required, perhaps something more radical, although her tits were perfect. Maybe the bottom. He was probably a bum man, that was it. Although she’d been sitting down all night. Certainly a new wardrobe. Angus would just have to pull his weight for once.